Truth alone is not sufficient to produce virtue

Conferences of the Rev. Père Lacordaire, p. 308-309

…truth alone is not sufficient to produce virtue… Every day men see and remain insensible. I go into the street; I meet a poor man who extends his hand to me; I see his misery plainly, but my heart may remain closed. I see plainly that the relation between that man and myself is a relation between poverty and riches, of one who asks from me, and whom I am able to pity and comfort; nevertheless I pass on, without blessing him with a look, or from my heart, or with my hand. I possess truth with regard to that poor man, but I have no charity. Who will impart charity to me? Evidently another power than that of truth, but a power, notwithstanding, which will be united to truth, as heat is united to light, —a power capable of moving me, of touching my heart, of enrapturing me.

Thus you may speak to me of country. Everybody knows what country is. But when an enemy is there, when it becomes a question of shedding one’s blood to defend it, and often blood which we believe to be shed in vain, because the weakness of the heart willingly represents the sacrifice to us as a thing which will not succeed; well! what would then be necessary to induce us to decide? We should need a sympathetic inspiration with regard to our country … to come and animate that cold heart, to draw from it the blood which it would preserve… A doctrine which does not contain any inspiration which is sympathetic with the heart of man, is then a doctrine sterile for virtue, whatever may be the amount of truth which it might otherwise contain…