"
"Stay there," he replied; "they have always all that is
necessary for observing the commandments, or at least for asking it of
God."
"I understand you," said I; "they have all that is necessary for
praying to God to assist them, without requiring any new grace from
God to enable them to pray."
"You have it now," he rejoined.
"But is it not necessary that they have an efficacious grace, in
order to pray to God?"
"No," said he; "not according to M. le Moine."
To lose no time, I went to the Jacobins, and requested an
interview with some whom I knew to be New Thomists, and I begged
them to tell me what proximate power was. "Is it not," said I, "that
power to which nothing is wanting in order to act?"
"No," said they.
"Indeed! fathers," said I; "if anything is wanting to that
power, do you call it proximate? Would you say, for instance, that a
man in the night-time, and without any light, had the proximate
power of seeing?"
"Yes, indeed, he would have it, in our opinion, if he is not
blind."
"I grant that," said I; "but M. le Moine understands it in a
different manner."
"Very true," they replied; "but so it is that we understand it."
"I have no objections to that," I said; "for I never quarrel about
a name, provided I am apprised of the sense in which it is understood.
But I perceive from this that, when you speak of the righteous
having always the proximate power of praying to God, you understand
that they require another supply for praying, without which they
will never pray.
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