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 Jesus Christ. God. God and man. Conferen 
 
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 3 1924 029 375 122 
 
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JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 GOD. 
 GOD AND MAN. 
 
JESUS CHRIST 
 
 GOD 
 
 GOD AND MAN 
 
 Cornell Catholic 
 Union Librai y 
 
 y 
 
 CONFERENCES DELIVERED AT NOTRE DAME IN PARIS 
 
 REV. PERK* EACORDAIRE, 
 
 OF THE ORDER OF FRIAR-PREACHERS. 
 
 Translated from the French, with the Authors permission, by a 
 Tertiary of the same Order. 
 
 NEW EDITION, IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 2 & 3, BIBLE HOUSE. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The subject of the following Conferences is daily attracting 
 increased attention in England — so justly famed for her 
 religious feeling and strong sense, yet so distracted by 
 divisions which contradict the authority, the object, and 
 the work of Jesus Christ. Many minds that know not 
 the repose of divine faith, are — timidly perhaps, but 
 anxiously — watching this great question ; requiring, not 
 only to believe, but also, and rightly, to know why they 
 should believe. 
 
 Humbly desiring to discharge a part of the deep debt 
 of gratitude which he owes to the author of these cele- 
 brated discourses, the translator respectfully offers them 
 to his well-beloved country, as a guide in her present 
 religious confusion and a support in her manifest and 
 perplexing doubts, hoping and believing that they will 
 be to others what they have been to him, namely, heralds 
 of that "glorious liberty" which is the ever-blessed fruit 
 of Catholic Christianity. 
 
DECLARATION. 
 
 Although I have constantly taught under the authority 
 and in the presence of the Archbishops of Paris, and my 
 doctrine has never been criticised or called in question 
 by them ; although that same doctrine, published by the 
 press, has excited neither reproach nor discussion : yet, 
 lest in treating so many theological questions some in- 
 voluntary error may have escaped me, and this I must 
 and do readily presume from my weakness, I declare 
 that I submit my Conferences to the Catholic Church, 
 whose son I am, and in particular to the Holy Roman 
 Church, the mother and mistress of all Churches, wherein 
 resides the plenitude of the authority founded upon earth 
 by our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 I also declare again that I do not acknowledge the pre- 
 tended reproductions of my Conferences which have been 
 made by various periodicals, whatever be their form or 
 name. I once more protest against that violation of 
 literary rights, whose result is to place under the name 
 
viii DECLARATION. 
 
 of a preacher discourses imperfectly reported amidst an 
 immense auditory, and not less imperfectly corrected by 
 the authors of such speculation. Should the doctrine 
 contained in these publications be attacked, I decline the 
 responsibility thereof as of a work which is not mine, and 
 for which I can be held responsible only by a violation 
 of all right and equity. 
 
 FR. HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE, 
 
 Prov. des Fr. Pricheicrs. 
 
 Nancy, at the Convent of Notre-Dame-et-Chene. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Jesus Christ : 
 
 The Inner Life of Jesus Christ ..... 
 The Public Power of Jesus Christ .... 
 The Foundation of the Reign of Jesus Christ 
 The Perpetuity and Progress of the Reign of Jesus Christ 
 The Pre-existence of Jesus Christ .... 
 
 TAGE 
 
 3 
 
 24 
 
 SS 
 76 
 
 The Efforts of Rationalism to Destroy the Life of Jesus 
 
 Christ .......... 96 
 
 The Efforts of Rationalism to Pervert the Life of Jesus 
 
 Christ 116 
 
 The Efforts of Rationalism to Explain the Life of Jesus 
 
 Christ . . . . . . . . . .134 
 
 God: 
 
 The Existence of God . 
 
 The Inner Life of God 
 
 The Creation of the World by God 
 
 The General Plan of Creation 
 
 Man as an Intelligent Being 
 
 Man as a Moral Being 
 
 Man as a Social Being 
 
 The Double Work of Man . 
 
 153 
 168 
 .85 
 
 204 
 221 
 242 
 2,62 
 2S0 
 
x CONTENTS. 
 
 God and Man : 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Supernatural Intercourse between God and Man . . 297 
 
 Two Objections against the Supernatural Intercourse between 
 
 God and Man 316 
 
 The Need of Supernatural Intercourse between God and 
 
 Man 337 
 
 Prophecy 353 
 
 Mystery as the Object of Prophecy 371 
 
 The Human Act corresponding to Prophecy . . . 386 
 
 Sacrament ......... 404 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 THE INNER LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord* — Gentlemen, 
 
 In demonstrating the divinity of Christianity we have 
 not taken our starting-point in the profound depths of meta- 
 physics or in the distant regions of history, but in a living, 
 palpable phenomenon, which has been for ages before the 
 world ; we have analyzed this phenomenon, we have shown 
 you that under the intellectual, moral, and social points of 
 view, the Catholic Church is a phenomenon unique here 
 below, and therefore divine. For whatsoever is human is 
 multiple, since whatsoever men have been able to accomplish 
 in a given time and place, other men are able to accomplish in 
 other times and places. We have then changed the ordinary 
 tactics — instead of starting from the basis, we have started from 
 the summit, instead of digging about the foundations of the 
 pyramid, we have examined its apex and its crown, beginning 
 by that which is most visible, to return afterwards to that 
 which is most hidden, and which bears the whole mass. A 
 writer of our times has said : Christianity is the greatest event 
 which has passed in the world. We have said otherwise, and 
 perhaps better : " Christianity is the greatest phenomenon 
 which has been naturalized in the world, the greatest intel- 
 lectual phenomenon, the greatest moral phenomenon, the 
 greatest social phenomenon," something unique, in a word, 
 and yet once more consequently divine. 
 
 * Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 But what is the primary cause of this phenomenon ? Every 
 phenomenon has a cause. After having examined its visible 
 side, we should evidently examine that which has produced 
 the spectacle, that which explains and supports it. Who, 
 then, has made the Catholic Church? Who has founded 
 that society which rules minds by certainty, regulates souls 
 by the highest virtues, blesses the human race by the new 
 elements it has given to civilization ? Who has formed, under 
 a hierarchy spiritual and unarmed, that body wherein con- 
 viction, holiness, unity, universality, stability, and life, form a 
 tissue of superhuman and incontestable beauty? Who has 
 designed and produced it ? Is it time, or chance ? Is it the 
 work of many, or of one alone ? It is but one, yes, one alone, 
 a man, that is to say, nothing; the word of a man, which 
 is but a passing breath. Behold the artist ! God has so willed 
 it, then, that the foundation of this great work should be 
 something resembling ourselves, and that man, so weak, so 
 vain, should, like Atlas, bear heaven and earth upon his 
 shoulders. Who is this man ? What name does he bear on 
 the tongues and in the memorials of the human race ? I have 
 no need to tell you : his name speaks and resounds of itself. 
 Every man knows it from love or hatred, and in naming 
 Jesus Christ I am but the remote echo of all ages and all 
 minds. Jesus Christ, then ! Jesus Christ ! He is the artist ! 
 It is He who founded that Church whose ineffable architecture 
 we have contemplated together : I speak of the Church under 
 her present form, for the Church has existed upon earth from 
 the day when God first spake to man, and when man first 
 responded from his heart to God. 
 
 The artist found, gentlemen, it is needful to study his 
 history, that we may be able to judge whether the workman 
 answers to the work, and whether, after having seen that the 
 work is divine in itself, its divinity will receive confirmation 
 from the life of him who produced it. In order to do this 
 we must first learn where to seek for the elements of that life. 
 This difficulty is not great. Like every man who appears at 
 an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his 
 works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the Church 
 and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless 
 memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other 
 history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples 
 and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives 
 
JESUS CHRIST. S 
 
 of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I 
 open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the 
 same composure. We will afterwards examine whether I have 
 erred in admitting this preliminary authenticity ; I assume it 
 now, being in possession of it, subject to my returning to it 
 by retracing our steps at a future period, in order to verify the 
 documents and base them upon a degree of certainty worthy 
 of the sacred object of our investigation. I take the Gospel, 
 then, provisionally, for my historical title. You are free to 
 make what reserve you please as to its authenticity and 
 veracity; it is a right which I do not dispute, as I know you 
 will also be just enough to respect in the Gospel, at least 
 provisionally, the faith of twenty centuries, and the natural 
 weight of that which forms so conspicuous a part of the world's 
 history. 
 
 Lord Jesus, for ten years I have spoken of Thy Church to 
 this auditory, yet it is indeed of Thee that I have always 
 spoken ; but now, and more directly, I come to Thyself, to 
 those divine features, which are the daily object of my con- 
 templation, to Thy sacred feet, which I have so often kissed, 
 to Thy divine hands, which have so often blessed me, to Thy 
 forehead, crowned with glory and with thorns, to that life 
 whose sweetness I have respired from my birth, which my 
 youth disregarded, which my manhood regained, which my 
 riper age adores and proclaims to every creature. O Father ! 
 O Master ! O Friend ! O Jesus ! second me now more than 
 ever, since, being closer to Thee, it is meet that my hearers 
 should perceive it, and that the words which fall from my lips 
 should manifest the nearness of Thy adorable presence ! 
 
 There are two lives — the outer life and the inner life. The 
 outer life would be nothing without the inner life. The inner 
 life is the support of the other, and therefore, desiring to study 
 the life of Jesus Christ, I must begin by examining His inner 
 life. But what is this inner life ? It is the converse between 
 ourselves and ourselves. Every man converses with himself, 
 every man speaks to himself, and that converse with himself is 
 his inner life, as that which, from all eternity, God makes with 
 Himself in the mystery of His three divine persons is His 
 inner life. Every man, every intelligent being, holds this 
 inner converse with himself, which forms his real life. The 
 rest is but a semblance, when it is not the produce of that 
 inner life. The inner life is the whole man, and forms all the 
 
6 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 worth of man. One is clothed in purple, and yet he is worth- 
 less, because his converse with himself is that of a worthless- 
 being; and another passes along our streets barefoot and in 
 rags, who is a great man, because his inner converse is that of 
 a hero or a saint. On the day of judgment we shall see this- 
 changing being within and without, and the mysterious colloquy 
 of each man being known, his history will then begin. Now, 
 we proceed as best we can from the outer to the inner life ; for, 
 if this gift of judging the inner by the outer life had not been 
 granted to us, if our outer life were any other thing than a 
 permanent transpiration of our inner life, we should be but 
 spectres to each other, we should pass by without knowing one 
 another, as maskers who pass each other in the night. Happily, 
 and thanks to God, there are orifices through which our inner 
 life constantly escapes, and the soul, like the blood, hath its 
 pores. The mouth is the chief and foremost of these channels 
 which leads the soul out of its invisible sanctuary; it is by 
 speech that man communicates the secret converse which is 
 his real life. And although every man thus speaks from within 
 to without, there are men in whom this manifestation of 
 themselves is more especially called for, more needful, more 
 authentic. They are those who come before the world with 
 doctrines destined by them to become laws. For the first 
 question put to them is : Who are you ? What say you of 
 yourselves ? As the priests of Jerusalem sent men to ask John 
 the Baptist in the desert : Tu quis es ? Quid dicis de 
 Teipso ? * First of all, since you are not a man like other 
 men, tell us what you are, what you affirm of yourself : Quii> 
 dicis de Teipso? 
 
 And it is not a slight thing, gentlemen, to force a man to- 
 say what he is, or what he believes himself to be ; for that 
 supreme word of man, that single expression which he utters of 
 and upon himself is decisive. It lays down the basis upon 
 which all judgment of him is to be formed. From that 
 moment all the acts of his life must correspond to the answer 
 given by him to the question : Quid dicis de Teipso ? And 
 therefore Jesus Christ, appearing amongst men to brino- them 
 new laws, a new order of things, had to submit to thatneces- 
 sity of declaring what He was, and therewith to undergo the 
 unfailing test to which it subjected Him. It was to His friends- 
 
 * St. John i. 22. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 7 
 
 and disciples that He had first to declare Himself, by telling 
 them what He thought of Himself. What said He to them ? 
 
 One day, at Cassarea Philippi, He asked His disciples : 
 " Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am ? And they 
 said, Some say John the Baptist ; others, Elias ; others, Jeremias, 
 or one of the prophets. Jesus saith to them : But whom say 
 ye that I am ? Simon Peter answered, and said : Thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus Christ, so far from 
 rejecting these words as blasphemous, accepted them as 
 expressing a truth which filled Him with delight, and He said 
 to Peter : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and 
 blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father which is in 
 Heaven." And He then added, as a reward for the faith of 
 His disciple : "And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and 
 upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." * 
 
 Jesus Christ then presented Himself to His disciples as the 
 Son of God — not as the Son of God in the sense in which we 
 are all sons of God, but as the Son of God in its true and 
 proper sense : had it been otherwise, He would not in so marked 
 a manner have manifested to His apostle the joy He felt at his 
 confession. Moreover, on other occasions He spake, if pos- 
 sible, more clearly to them. Philip said to Him : "Lord, show 
 us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus Christ grew 
 indignant at his demand, and said to him : " So long a time 
 have I been with you, and you have not known me ? Philip, 
 he that seeth me, seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, 
 Show us the Father ? Believe you not that I am in the Father, 
 and the Father in Me ?"+ And, at another time, manifesting 
 His divine filiation yet more clearly, He said to one of His 
 disciples who still wavered : " God so loved the world as to 
 give His only-begotten Son. . . . He that believeth in Him is 
 not judged ; but he that doth not believe is already judged, 
 because he believeth not in the name of the only-begotten Son 
 of God." % Jesus Christ stood forth then as the Son of God 
 without equal or rival, and in so strict a sense, that He was in 
 His Father and His Father in Him, and that to see Him was to 
 see His Father. 
 
 So much for friends and disciples. But, besides friends and 
 disciples, there is another tribunal before which every new 
 
 * St. Matt. xvi. 13-18. t St. John xiv. 8-10. 
 
 J St. John iii. 16, 18. 
 
8 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 doctrine must appear, namely, the tribunal of the people. After 
 having spoken in secret to the chosen ones, it becomes needful 
 to quit the chamber, to appear in public, to speak to mankind 
 of all ages and conditions, to those who have not leaned upon 
 the bosom of the Master, who have not received the education 
 of friendship, who know not what is required of them, who 
 oppose to the word of doctrine a host of passions blended 
 with as many prejudices. Jesus Christ did this ; He heard the 
 murmurs of the crowd around Him, and was undaunted before 
 the account which He had to give them of Himself. " How 
 long," cried they to Him, " dost Thou hold us in suspense ? If 
 Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus Christ answered 
 them : " I speak to you, and you believe not ; the works that I 
 do in the name of My Father, they give testimony of Me.* I 
 and the Father are one." t At that saying, which expressed 
 all, the Jews took up stones to stone Him, and Jesus said to 
 them : " Many good works I have showed you from My 
 Father; for which of these works do you stone Me?" The 
 Jews answered Him : " For a good work we stone Thee not, but 
 for blasphemy ; and because that Thou, being a man, makest 
 Thyself God." J The language which Jesus Christ held towards 
 the people in order to make known to them the origin and 
 mission of their new spiritual Master, was, then, language free 
 from all constraint and obscurity. He fearlessly uttered to 
 them that terrible phrase : " I and my Father are one " — Ego 
 et Pater unum sumus. 
 
 But above the people — that confused mass whose voice is 
 at the same time the voice of God and the voice of nothing- 
 ness ; above the people — who form at the same time the 
 highest and the lowest authority — rises, with calm vigilance 
 and self-respect, the highest representation of right and truth. 
 Every nation possesses a supreme magistracy which concen- 
 trates in itself the glory and enlightenment of the country, and 
 before it every doctrine claiming to rule, either by doing 
 apparent or real violence to received traditions, must at last 
 appear. Jesus Christ could not escape from this general law 
 of the human order. He is called before the council of the 
 elders, the priests, and the princes of Judasa. After hearing 
 evidence more or less inconsistent, the high priest at length 
 resolves to place the question in its true light ; he stands up 
 
 * St. John x. 24, 25. t Jbid. 30. + Ibid. 32, 33. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 9 
 
 and addresses this solemn charge to the accused : " I adjure 
 Thee by the living God that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, 
 the Son of God." * Jesus Christ calmly replies in two words : 
 Ego sum — " I am ! " And He immediately adds, in order to 
 confirm His avowal by the majesty of His language : "I am ; 
 and you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of 
 the power of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven." t 
 Then the high priest rends his garments. " What need we any 
 further witnesses?" he exclaims. "You have heard the blas- 
 phemy ! What think you ? " J And they all condemn him, 
 as guilty, to death. He is then brought before the Roman 
 governor, who, not finding good reasons for His condemnation, 
 wishes to release Him ; but the princes of the people persist : 
 " We have a law," say they, " and by that law He ought to die, 
 because He made Himself the Son of God." § Pilate so fully 
 comprehends this, that his Roman, and therefore religious, ear 
 is all attention ; he draws Jesus Christ aside, and timorously 
 asks Him whence He is : Unde es tu ? || Jesus Christ is 
 silent; He confirms by His silence all that He is accused of 
 having said of Himself, and what, in fact, He has said. The 
 people who witness His crucifixion understand His condemna- 
 tion in the sense in which it was pronounced ; they insult Him 
 even in death by these expressive derisions : " Vah, Thou that 
 destroyest the temple, and in three days dost rebuild it, save 
 Thy own self; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the 
 cross." 11 And, when darkness covers the earth, when the 
 rocks are broken in pieces, when the veil of the temple is rent 
 in twain, and all Nature proclaims to mankind that a great 
 event is in action, the lookers-on and the Roman centurion 
 strike their breasts, saying: "Indeed, this was the Son of 
 God ! " ** And the apostle St. John concludes his gospel in 
 these words : " These things are written that you may believe 
 that Jesus Christ was the Son of God." ft 
 
 Thus, before His friends, before the people, before the 
 magistracy, in His life, in His death, Jesus Christ every- 
 where declares that He is the Son of God, the only Son, a 
 Son equal with His Father, one with His Father, being in His 
 Father, and His Father in Him. This is the testimony which 
 He renders of Himself, His answer to that imperious question : 
 
 * St. Matt. xxvi. 63. t St. Mark iv. 62. J St. Mark xiv. 63, 64. 
 § St. John xix. 7 || St. John xix. 9. IT St. Matt, xxvii. 40. 
 
 ** St. Matt, xxvii. 54. ft St. John xx. 31. 
 
io THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 Quid dicis de Teipso ? And what an answer, gentlemen t 
 What ! a man, a creature of flesh and blood, who has before 
 him, not only the weaknesses of life, but those also of death ; a 
 man ! and he dares to call Himself God ! It is the first time 
 in all history. No historical personage, before or since, has 
 set himself up as God. Idolatry had numberless gods ; but it 
 had a supreme God, to whom none other was equal; and 
 when the most shameful flattery decreed apotheosis to emperors- 
 convicted of every crime by their lives and of complete nothing- 
 ness by their death, none saw in the incense offered to their 
 ashes anything but a poetical figure, a last act of adulation 
 rendered by bondage to tyranny. Mahomet, come to replace 
 the reign of idols, did not call himself God, but a simple envoy 
 of God ; and if we would go back beyond idolatry in search 
 of the arrogant impostures, we shall find even in the heart of 
 India nothing but narrations without consistency, ages without 
 date, a shapeless abyss in which our vision will be totally 
 unable to discover any authentic mortal bold enough to declare 
 that he was God, formally and distinctly, by those two ineffable 
 words : Ego sum. Man is not capable of uttering so bold a 
 falsehood, the improbability is too striking. 
 
 It is also and too manifestly useless, for what would it 
 profit ? What end could it serve a man to call himself God ? 
 Would he establish laws, found an empire ? It is a human 
 ambition ; and I can well understand why he would not call 
 himself a philosopher, since any one versed in history knows 
 that whoever sets himself up as a philosopher is sure to remain 
 alone upon his pedestal. A man, then, having great ambition 
 would never advance such pretensions. God is the corner- 
 stone of every lasting edifice. His name, even when invoked 
 by imposture, serves as a solid cement ; and it was natural that 
 before and after others Jesus Christ should call Himself the 
 envoy of God. Men have often accepted that idea; they 
 readily believe in the intervention of the Divinity in human 
 affairs, and their faith, thus deceived in its application, is never 
 deceived as to the reality of a Providence eternally watchful 
 over their condition. Jesus Christ, in calling Himself the Man 
 of God, would have proclaimed something probable and ser- 
 viceable ; but the very title of God, the apotheosis of Himself 
 by Himself, added nothing but difficulties to His enterprise. 
 Thenceforth it became necessary that in all His actions he 
 should sustain the part of the Infinite, that even in His death 
 
JESUS CHRIST. it 
 
 He should maintain proofs of His divine nature, and that His 
 tomb, as well as eternity, should bear witness of Him. "Was 
 this humanly possible ? 
 
 Add thereto a third consideration relative to the state of 
 religious belief among the Jews. That people had in their 
 law only one explicit dogma — all the others, although they 
 possessed them in their traditions, were, so to say, veiled and 
 obscure. The unity of God, graven at the head of the tables 
 of Sinai, was their chief dogma ; the one that recalled and 
 included all the others, such as the creation, the fall of man, 
 the immortality of the soul. To attack this, even remotely,, 
 was to attack Moses, Sinai, all the treasured memorials of the 
 children of Israel, all their customs, every object of their 
 veneration. Now the name of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, 
 even without destroying the divine unity, did not enter 
 naturally into the ears of this people, accustomed by their 
 lawgiver and their prophets to know only the God who had 
 brought them out of the land of Egypt, and who had so often 
 said to them : " I am the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have no 
 other gods before me." * 
 
 If, then, Jesus Christ falsely called Himself God, He 
 needlessly created for Himself unaccountable difficulties. 
 
 But let us pass on from these preliminary reflections, and 
 see what account we have to render of the life we are contem- 
 plating. Whatever motives Jesus Christ might have had 
 against calling Himself God, He did call Himself God ; such is- 
 the fact. Before we examine whether what He said was true, 
 an intervening question arises : we have to learn whether in 
 calling Himself God He believed what He said; Between the 
 affirmation and the reality, between saying, I am God and 
 being God, stands the question of good faith and sincerity. 
 Did Jesus Christ believe in His divinity? Was He convinced 
 of the truth of that vital dogma which He laid down as the 
 basis of His teaching and for which He died ? Was He 
 sincere, or — pardon the expression — was He an impostor ? 
 We cannot advance a step further in His life before we solve 
 this doubt. All mankind, without distinction of time, place,. 
 nations, laws, or religions, is divided into two ranks, the rank 
 of impostors and that of sincere men : in these each individual 
 marks his own place. The impostors have too often led the 
 
 * Exodus xx. 2, 3. 
 
12 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 sincere, but their reign sooner or later betrays itself; and 
 sincerity in regard to man is a requirement which honours him ; 
 to error, an aroma which renders it less bitter ; to truth, a 
 crown which is the first object of our search. Let us then first 
 of all learn whether Jesus Christ wears this crown ; whether He 
 is anointed with this aroma; whether He possesses this honour, 
 without which there is no honour. What think you ? Must 
 we place Him with the impostors or with the sincere ? Was 
 He of those who have covered their ambition with the veil of 
 hypocritical sanctity, or of those who have preferred the honour 
 of irreproachable language even to success, and who have 
 chosen for their device the motto of the Maccabees: Moriamur 
 in simplicitate nostra ? — Let us die in our simplicity. 
 
 This is the great question. 
 
 It is answered by the character of the man, and hence I 
 may conclude that the cause is judged in favour of Jesus 
 Christ ; for no more venerable form has dawned upon the 
 horizon of history. The simple course of time has placed Him 
 above all, leaving nothing visible that can approach it. By the 
 consent of all, even of those who do not believe in Him, Jesus 
 Christ is a good man, a sage, an elect, an incomparable per- 
 sonage. He has done such great, such holy things, that even 
 His enemies pay constant homage to His work and to His 
 person. 
 
 It is true that in the last century there was a man who 
 chose for his motto — designating Jesus Christ — the words : 
 icrasez Pinfame! — Crush the wretch ! But this phrase, gentle- 
 men, had not strength enough to pass the bounds of the 
 century in which it was uttered ; it halted trembling on the 
 frontiers of our own ; and since then no human voice, even 
 among those which are not respected, has dared to repeat that 
 signal of impious revolt. It has fallen back upon the tomb of 
 him who first uttered it, and there, after having been judged by 
 the posterity which has already followed, it awaits the still 
 more stern judgment of posterity yet to come. 
 
 I may, then, stop here, since nothing is higher than a 
 universal judgment, and since all demonstration appears weak 
 before a conclusion which forms part of the common sense of 
 mankind. But I wish to afford you the gratification of 
 analysing the character of Christ, and of examining by what 
 harmony of moral beauties that physiognomy infinitely sur- 
 passes the most illustrious forms which time has produced. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 13 
 
 The human character is composed of three elements, 
 namely, the intelligence — the seat of its thoughts ; the heart — • 
 the seat of its feelings ; the will — the seat of its resolutions. 
 It is the fusion of these three elements which, by its measure, 
 determines every moral type and fixes its value. We have no 
 need to seek elsewhere the secret of that perfection which we 
 find in the hero of the Gospel. Doubtless, for those who 
 believe Him to be God, His divinity supports and shines 
 through the whole visible tissue ; but without changing any- 
 thing of the nature of the soul any more than of the body. 
 Jesus Christ has nothing in Himself to constitute His 
 physiognomy but thoughts, feelings, and resolutions ; but the 
 harmony and blending of these form that peculiar charm 
 which it is now our purpose to examine. 
 
 I shall not mislead you, gentlemen, in saying of His in- 
 telligence, that in character and sign it possesses that which 
 we call the sublime. The sublime is elevation, profundity, 
 and simplicity, blended together in a single trait. When the 
 aged Horatius was told that his son had fled from the combat 
 which decided the supremacy between Alba and Rome, and, 
 seeing his indignation, they asked him what his son should 
 have done against three, the old man replied : " He should 
 have died ! " This is a sublime exclamation ; it is the cry of 
 duty springing at once from a great soul, and bearing us in a 
 moment above all the weaknesses which plead within us 
 against self-sacrifice. Nothing is more simple, but nothing is 
 higher or more profound. God has given to man the faculty 
 of reaching the sublime in his actions and in his writings ; 
 but these occasions are rare and fugitive. The greatest men 
 have been sublime four or five times in their lives ; such was 
 Ca;sar saying to a boatman who brought him through a 
 tempest : " What fearest thou ? Thou carriest Caesar ! " 
 Simplicity is too often wanting to the greatest actions, or, 
 when they are simple, they do not raise us sufficiently out of 
 ourselves, or they are not profound enough to give us 
 sufficient food for thought. It is the same with our writings. 
 It is not rare to find in them harmony, grace, beauty, and, 
 as it were, a flowing stream which bears us along between 
 sweet and flowery banks. We are thus carried on through 
 whole pages. Suddenly, and as by chance, a powerful 
 emotion seizes upon us, and seems to pierce even to our soul. 
 The sublime has appeared. But it is only an apparition ; 
 
i 4 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 and this is why it draws us out of our natural state, by 
 producing within us a sudden and passing shock. 
 
 It is not so in regard to Jesus Christ. His actions and 
 His language are stamped with a continuous elevation, pro- 
 fundity, and simplicity, so that the sublime is, as it were, 
 naturalized in them, and no longer excites our wonder ; never- 
 theless, its empire over the soul is undiminished. For this 
 reason, after so many famous masterpieces of literature, the 
 Gospel has remained a unique book in the world, a book 
 acknowledged to be above all imitation. " Blessed are the poor 
 inspirit,"* said Jesus Christ. What can be more simple? 
 And yet how suddenly it bears us away from earth ! The 
 angel who seized Habakkuk and carried him from his fields to 
 Babylon was not more rapid. Three simple words suffice to 
 change all our notions of beatitude, of the value of earthly 
 things, of the object and end of life — to bear us above worldly 
 cupidity, and cause us to hover joyfully, like the eagle, above 
 the kingdoms of the world. " Blessed are the poor in spririt ! " 
 These words will resound throughout the world; the soul, 
 having once heard them, will constantly recall them, and never 
 fail to find hidden in them a powerful hand, ready to its 
 rescue. Meditation, in sounding their depths, will open 
 treasures of profundity, a new social economy destined to 
 change the relations of men with each other, ennoble labour 
 and suffering, abolish slavery, and make a beneficial and holy 
 profession even of poverty. Such is the Gospel — that is to 
 say, Jesus Christ, from beginning to end ; and that sovereign 
 intelligence cannot be better defined than by saying that it 
 had received from God the gift of continuous sublimity. 
 
 Great minds generally exhaust their whole power in their 
 thoughts, and are unable to impart more than a feeble and 
 secondary action to their hearts. This is especially remark- 
 able in founders of empires and doctrines — cold, haughty 
 men, masters of themselves, looking down upon mankind and 
 urging them to and fro in their hidden designs, as the wind 
 waves a field of corn, ripe and ready for the sickle. The con- 
 ception of their plans absorbs them ; success corrupts them by 
 flattering their pride : reverse sours them, and all things 
 combine to make them scornful of mankind, which is for them 
 •only a pedestal, erect or overthrown. Even if they do not fall 
 
 * St. Matt. v. 3. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 15 
 
 so low in the degradation of the heart, they are not permitted 
 to raise their faculty of loving as high as their faculty of thought. 
 The piercing glance of the eagle is not naturally given to the 
 eye of the dove. These distinctions are perceptible even in 
 authors. Racine — pardon these comparisons — is tender ; 
 Corneille is much less so, because his genius draws nearer to 
 the sublime. We feel in him something heroic and austere, 
 like those Romans of whom he said : 
 
 Et je rends grace au ciel de n'etre pas Romain 
 Pour conserver encor quelque chose d'humain. 
 
 Now, Jesus Christ, under this head, is an ever-memorable 
 exception, and far above successful imitation, even by those 
 who adopt Him as the Master of their souls. He carried the 
 power of loving even to tenderness, and to a kind of tender- 
 ness so new that it was needful to create a name for it, and 
 that it should form a distinct species in the analysis of human 
 feelings — I mean the evangelic unction. Jesus Christ was 
 tender towards all men ; it was He who said of them : 
 " Whatsoever you shall do to the least of these my brethren, 
 you will have done it unto me;"* an expression which intro- 
 duced Christian fraternity into the world, and which still daily 
 engenders love. He was tender towards sinners ; He sat at 
 meat with them, and, when doctrinal pride reproached Him for 
 it, He replied : " I am not come for those that are in health, 
 but for those that are sick." t Perceiving a publican who has 
 climbed up into a tree to see Him pass by, He says to Him, 
 " Zacchaeus, make haste and come down ; for this day I must 
 abide in thy house." J A sinful woman approaches Him, and 
 ventures even to anoint His feet with ointment, to the great 
 scandal of a large assembly ; He reassures her by that immortal 
 allocution : " Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, because 
 she has loved much."§ They bring before Him a woman 
 taken in adultery, in order to force a judgment from Him, 
 which by its very leniency may compromise Him ; He answers : 
 " He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone 
 at her." || He was tender towards His ungrateful and parricidal 
 country ; and, beholding its walls from afar, He wept, saying : 
 " Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! thou that killest the prophets, and 
 
 * St. Matt. xxv. 40. + St. Matt. ix. 12. 
 
 X St. Luke xix. 5. § St. Luke vii. 47. || St. John viii. 7. 
 
16 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
 gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her 
 chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not ! " * He was 
 so tender towards His friends as to wash their feet, and to 
 permit a very young man to lean upon His breast on one of the 
 most solemn occasions of His life. Even at His crucifixion he 
 was tender towards His executioners, and, lifting up His soul to 
 His Father for them, He said : " Father, forgive them ; for they 
 know not what they do." t No earthly life shows such a 
 blending of light and love. Every word of Jesus Christ is an 
 expression of tenderness and a sublime revelation ; at the same 
 moment when He opens the Infinite to us by His look, He folds 
 us in His arms and presses us upon His bosom. We soar away 
 in thought, and are retained by love. 
 
 And it must not be forgotten that the tenderness of Jesus 
 Christ, although boundless, is of spotless virginity. It is 
 difficult for those who have received a soul apt for love to hold 
 that precious gift within chaste limits ; it is the object of a 
 supreme struggle, in which one may be sometimes tempted to 
 regret the gift, or to desire more liberty in its use. Jesus 
 Christ seems to know nothing of this ; He bears His love in a 
 vase so pure that the shadow even of doubt does not approach 
 His heart, and posterity, which, for eighteen centuries, has 
 sought for faults in Him, has never dared to utter a word of 
 suspicion against His virtue. The character of His tenderness 
 is that of ineffable chastity. 
 
 There remains yet one thing, gentlemen, to complete our 
 estimation of the character of Jesus Christ, and to enable us 
 to judge by His character, of His sincerity. A sublime intelli- 
 gence, a tender heart, do not suffice to form a will capable of 
 great resolutions. The will is a distinct world, where, not- 
 withstanding our views and our feelings, the helm is too often 
 guided by a feeble hand. The character of Jesus Christ on 
 this head is that of absolute certainty of Himself. None ever 
 ventured upon a more difficult design ; He claimed to be 
 acknowledged as God, loved as God, served as God, adored as 
 God; it would seem that the will should sometimes have 
 yielded under so heavy a load, and that at least Jesus Christ 
 should have employed all the human means capable of in- 
 suring the success of such gigantic ambition. It is not so, 
 
 * St. Matt, xxiii. 37. t St. Luke xxiii. 34. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 17 
 
 gentlemen ; Jesus Christ despised all human means, or rather 
 He abstained from employing any. 
 
 Politics rank among the highest of these. It is the art of 
 seizing the tendency of minds at a given moment, of bringing 
 together opinions and interests which seek to be satisfied, of 
 anticipating the will of a people before they have a clear 
 consciousness of it themselves ; of assuming, by the help of 
 circumstances, the post of their natural representative, and of 
 placing them upon a course in which we shall be borne along 
 with them for half a century. Such is the art of politics — an 
 illustrious art, which may be used for good or evil, and which 
 is the source of prosperous and lamentable vicissitudes among 
 nations. Jesus Christ was admirably placed for becoming the 
 instrument of a revolution favourable to His religious designs. 
 The people from whom He had sprung had lost, under the 
 Roman yoke, the remains of their ancient nationality ; hatred 
 of Rome was then at its height among them, and, in the 
 deserts and mountains of Judaea, bands of liberators were daily 
 formed under the command of some patriot, distinguished for 
 his boldness or some other characteristic. These movements 
 were seconded by celebrated prophecies, which had long 
 announced a chief and a saviour to the Jewish people. The 
 relation of these ideas and interests to the new kingdom, the 
 coming of which Jesus Christ proclaimed, was evident. Never- 
 theless, so far from conniving at and employing them, He 
 trampled them under foot. In order to prove Him, He is 
 asked whether it is needful to pay tribute to Cassar ; He calls 
 for a piece of money, and, on being told whose image and 
 superscription it bears, He calmly replies : " Render then to 
 Cassar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's." * 
 He goes still further. He announces the temporal ruin of His 
 nation, He speaks against the temple — the object of religious 
 and patriotic veneration among the Jews — and He openly 
 predicts that there shall not remain of it one stone upon 
 another; therefore this charge was numbered amongst the 
 accusations brought against him before the supreme magistracy. 
 
 His doctrine, so favourable to the people and to the poor, 
 was of a nature to obtain great popularity for Him : this is a 
 powerful mainspring for revolutions. In fact, He gained such 
 an ascendency over the people that they wished to elect Him 
 
 * St. Matt. xxii. 21. 
 
18 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 King of Israel ; but He fled in order to avoid that honour, and 
 broke with His own hands an instrument which great men 
 would commonly have valued as a gift and a sign from Heaven. 
 Next to the art of politics comes power, one of its 
 adjuncts, but which may be considered without reference to 
 the causes that generally communicate it. Jesus Christ had 
 nothing so much at heart as to prevent His disciples from 
 trusting to power and from exercising it. He sends them 
 forth, He says, like lambs ; He announces to them all kinds of 
 troubles, without giving them any other help than patience, 
 meekness, and humility. If, unmindful of His lessons, they 
 would call down fire from heaven, he reproaches them with 
 not yet knowing " of what spirit they are." * At the moment 
 of His arrest, when He might have defended Himself, and an 
 apostle drew the sword, Jesus Christ says to him : " Put up 
 thy sword again into its sheath ; for they who draw the sword 
 shall perish by the sword." t Whilst the authors of other 
 doctrines seek a sanction from victory — rashly forgetting that 
 victory is variable and conscience immutable — Jesus Christ 
 chooses the Cross for His standard, and protests against all 
 triumph of power by the triumph of His crucifixion. 
 
 He also despises science and philosophy — those nobler 
 and truer means of imparting conviction. He surrounds 
 Himself with fishermen instead of savants, and, avoiding even 
 the appearance of a scientific and philosophical organization of 
 His doctrine, He teaches it by parables and detached sentences. 
 He leaves to His disciples and to His Church the future 
 charge of blending reasoning with them, and of ranging the 
 whole in order. 
 
 In fine, the most ordinary skill seems to be unknown to 
 Him ; He makes of His death — of the time when He should 
 have received therefrom so terrible a check to His divinity, 
 and when He would no longer be present to sustain His 
 followers — He makes, I say, of His death a snare for the 
 faith of His disciples, in promising them to rise from the dead, 
 and in leaving the confirmation of His whole life to that test, 
 which, if He were not God, could result only in a base fraud, 
 or a flagrant contradiction. 
 
 I know no other human means, gentlemen, of founding 
 anything here below, than those I have just cited, namely, 
 
 * St. Luke ix. 55. + St. John xviii. 11. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 19 
 
 politics, power, science, philosophy, skill. Jesus Christ 
 abstained from employing any of these, and yet, confidence in 
 Himself, absolute certainty of Himself, never failed Him for a 
 single hour or a single moment. This very forbearing to 
 employ any human means proves to the highest evidence His 
 inflexible resolution, and the omnipotent energy of His will. 
 Nevertheless, nothing can be accomplished without means, 
 without instruments. What means, then, what instruments 
 did Jesus Christ employ ? Ah i gentlemen, what means ? 
 Do you not see what means ? It was Himself, His inner force, 
 the converse which He held with Himself, the sure posses- 
 sion of His essence. Men tremble because they see them- 
 selves. Jesus Christ did not tremble because He saw 
 Himself. He knew that His very word was " the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life ; " * He gave it to all who came, 
 as the husbandman sows corn ; the husbandman has no 
 more need of politics, power, science, philosophy, or skill ; 
 he has the corn, the earth, and the heavens; he opens 
 his hand and casts forth life. And whilst human politics 
 pursue their course, whilst power struggles with power, whilst 
 science exhausts science, the philosophy of to-day buries the 
 philosophy of yesterday, and the skilful are taken in their own 
 nets ; the wheat fallen from the hand of God into the hand of 
 man, and from the hand of man into the bosom of the earth, 
 vegetates, grows up, and ripens ; it is gathered in, eaten, and 
 mankind lives ! So did Jesus Christ ; so does everyone who 
 believes that he holds the truth from God : he first lives by it, 
 then he sows it, and the world— "which is the field "t — the 
 world lives by it in its due time. 
 
 We have then before us, gentlemen, the character of Jesus 
 Christ, as the Gospel shows it to us. With regard to His 
 intelligence — continuous sublimity ; with regard to His heart 
 — chaste and ineffable tenderness ; with regard to His will — 
 absolute certainty of Himself. Now this character is incom- 
 patible with the ignoble vice which I no longer dare even to 
 name, so far is it already removed from your thoughts. Jesus 
 Christ was sincere because He was a sublime intelligence ; He 
 was sincere because His heart was open to men as a sanctuary 
 of tenderness and chastity ; He was sincere because He pos- 
 sessed absolute certainty of Himself, because He had faith in 
 
 * St. John xiv. 6. t St. Matt. xiii. 38. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 His doctrine, because He believed in Himself. Jesus Christ, 
 like the Gospel— which is no other than Himself— Jesus Christ 
 was sincerity itself, and the invincible charm which is felt in 
 contemplating and in listening to Him comes from the inmost 
 brightness of His physiognomy, by which He is seen from 
 without wholly as He is. 
 
 Granted, say you, Jesus Christ was sincere. What then? 
 So many others have also been sincere ! Reflect a moment, 
 gentlemen ; remember that Jesus Christ, being sincere, believed 
 what He said. Now, He said that He was God ; He declared 
 this to His disciples, to His friends, to the people, to the 
 supreme magistracy of His country ; He was condemned, and 
 He died for that affirmation ; therefore He believed that He 
 was God. But He could not believe this if He were not God, 
 because it is impossible to be deceived in such a matter as 
 that of consciousness of one's own personality, without being 
 mad. Now, Jesus Christ was not a madman, and He was 
 sincere : then He was God. Here, by an exception which 
 belongs to the very nature of the subject, the question of 
 sincerity blends with the question of reality. And this is no 
 new discovery, no vain idea of my mind. Through ages past, 
 gentlemen, the Gospel, in proving to the minds of its attentive 
 readers the sincerity of its hero, convinced them of His 
 divinity without any other argument. Whilst the Catholic 
 Church, the daughter and spouse of Jesus Christ, demonstrates 
 the divinity of her founder by the divinity of her own charac- 
 teristics, the Gospel, in another manner, proves to the children 
 of the Church the divinity of Him who founded it. And 
 this impression is common to different ages — to the three 
 ages of man — so natural is it, and so based upon truth. 
 
 At the age of twelve, in the first bloom of life, we heard 
 the Gospel read, we heard of Jesus Christ ; His works appeared 
 to us most simple, gentle, and loving ; we believed in them 
 in the simplicity, the gentleness, the love of our young souls. 
 But that first impression too often fades and vanishes ; reason 
 grows strong with its real rights ; outward prejudices penetrate 
 within us ; inward passions are drawn forth by the sun of our 
 ripening years, and Jesus Christ falls gradually from the altar 
 whereupon our first adorations had placed Him. This time 
 has its day. Years pass over our bondage, up to the time 
 when reason, become more personal and more powerful makes 
 us ashamed of our faith in lessons without authority, and when 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 21 
 
 our very passions, enlightened by their domination, incite us 
 by lassitude to instincts of governance, of duty, and of greater 
 self-respect. This time is hallowed amongst all others; it is 
 the time when we enter into order by liberty itself, by that 
 divine liberty of youth which Providence has prepared for us, 
 and which no law can snatch from us. If the Gospel then fall 
 into our hands, and we read it a second time, Jesus Christ often 
 touches us again, and with a mastery which we no longer 
 contest, because we yield it to Him of ourselves at an age when 
 nothing any longer pleads against Him but passions judged and 
 ignorance overcome. It is the second reading of the Gospel, 
 gentlemen, that we are now accomplishing together. 
 
 There is a third, less fortunate than the two former, because 
 it is more tardy ; but it brings to Jesus Christ the homage of 
 man in his maturity, and has produced avowals worthy of 
 eternal remembrance. Whilst the eighteenth century heaped 
 insult upon the Son of God, in the very midst of that school 
 which attacked him, there was a man who believed no more 
 than the rest, a man as celebrated as the rest — the most 
 celebrated amongst them, with one exception — and who above 
 them all was privileged with sincere impulsions. God so willed 
 it that His name might not be left without a witness even 
 amongst those who laboured to destroy His reign. That man, 
 then at the height of his glory, acquainted by his studies with 
 past ages, and by his life with the age of which he was an 
 ornament, had to speak of Jesus Christ in a profession of faith 
 in which he desired to sum up all the doubts and convictions 
 which his meditations on religious matters had left in his mind. 
 After having treated of God in a worthy, although in a con- 
 fused manner, he came to the Gospel and Jesus Christ. 
 There, that soul, floating between error and truth, suddenly 
 lost its hesitation, and with a hand firm as a martyr's, forgetting 
 his age and his works, the philosopher wrote the page of a 
 theologian — a page which was to become the counterpoise of 
 the blasphemy : Ecrasez Vinfame ! It concluded by these 
 words, which will resound throughout Christendom until the 
 last coming of Christ : " If the life and death of Socrates be 
 those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus Christ are those of 
 a God."* 
 
 It might well have been thought that the force of that con- 
 
 * Rousseau, *' Emile." 
 
22 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 fession would never have been surpassed, whether in regard to 
 the genius of the man who wrote it, the authority of his 
 unbelief, the glory of his name, and the circumstances con- 
 nected with the age which received it ; but it would have been 
 an error. Another man, another expression, another glory, 
 another phase of unbelief, another age, another avowal met, 
 were greater altogether, if not in each separate part, than 
 those you have just heard. Our age commenced by a man 
 who outstripped all his contemporaries, and whom we, who have 
 followed, have not equalled. A conqueror, a soldier, a founder 
 of empire, his name and his ideas are still everywhere present. 
 After having unconsciously accomplished the work of God, he 
 disappeared, that work being done, and waned like, a setting 
 sun in the deep waters of the ocean. There, upon a barren 
 rock, he loved to recall the events of his own life ; and, from 
 himself, going back to others who had lived before him, and to 
 whom he had a right to compare himself, he could not fail to 
 perceive a form greater than his own upon that illustrious stage 
 whereon he took his place. He often contemplated it ; mis- 
 fortune opens the soul to illuminations which in prosperity are 
 unseen. That form constantly rose before him — he was 
 compelled to judge it. One evening in the course of that long 
 exile which expiated past faults and lighted up the road to the 
 future, the fallen conqueror asked one of the few companions 
 of his capitivity if he could tell him what Jesus Christ really 
 was. The soldier begged to be excused; he 'had been too 
 busy during his sojourn in the world to think about that 
 question. " What ! " sorrowfully replied the inquirer, " you 
 have been baptized in the Catholic Church, and you cannot 
 tell me, even here upon this rock which consumes us, what 
 Jesus Christ was ! Well, then, I will tell you ; " and, opening 
 the Gospel, not with his hands, but from a heart filled by it, 
 he compared Jesus Christ with himself and all the great 
 characters of history ; he developed the different characteristics 
 which distinguished Jesus Christ from all mankind ; and after 
 uttering a torrent of eloquence which no father of the Church 
 would have disclaimed, he ended with these words : " In fine 
 I know men, and I say that Jesus Christ was not a man ■ " ' 
 These words, gentlemen, sum up all I would say to you on 
 the inner life of Jesus Christ, and express the conclusion 
 which, sooner or later, every man arrives at who reads the 
 Gospel with just attention. You who are yet young have life 
 
JESUS CHRIST, 23 
 
 before you ; you will see learned men, sages, princes, and 
 their ministers ; you will witness elevations and ruins ; sons 
 of time, time will initiate you into the hidden things of man ; 
 and when you have learned them, when you know the measure 
 of what is human, some day, perhaps, returning from those 
 heights for which you hoped, you will say also, " I know men, 
 and I say that Jesus Christ was not a man ! " 
 
 The day too will come, when upon the tomb of her great 
 captain, France will grave these words, and they will shine 
 there with more immortal lustre than the sun of the Pyramids 
 and Austerlitz ! 
 
THE 
 
 PUBLIC POWER OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 Jesus Christ declared that He was God, and by His 
 character He proved the sincerity of that declaration ; there- 
 fore He was God. But is this all the proof of His divinity ? 
 Doubtless the first manifestation of beings endowed with in- 
 telligence is their word, the affirmation which they give of 
 themselves ; doubtless the expression of what they are by their 
 moral physiognomy, or character, is the second and natural 
 manifestation of the same beings : but is this all ? Is there 
 nothing beyond this? And even should this demonstration 
 suffice as to the ordinary relations between men, will it be 
 sufficient when it is a question of intercourse between God and 
 men? Evidently not. For it requires a certain amount of 
 penetration, and time also, in order to judge a character ; a 
 moral physiognomy is not fully disclosed in a single day, and 
 when God appears, gentlemen, when He deigns to come to 
 us, it is manifest that, at the first glance, there should be in 
 His appearance something exclusive of doubt, or discussion, 
 or time, or even science, something recognisable immediately 
 by all; something, in a word, manifesting openly the public 
 power of God, and infallibly revealing His presence and action. 
 Even as there is a certain expression of the majesty of tem- 
 poral sovereignty, there should be for God an eminent and 
 adequate means, by which, as soon as He appears, every 
 intelligent being, not in mad revolt against Him, should bend 
 before Him and exclaim : It is God ! What is this mode of 
 manifestation, which I have called the public power of God ? 
 In what does it consist ? Did Jesus Christ possess it ? What 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 25, 
 
 objections does it raise, and how are they answered ? Such, 
 gentlemen, is the vast field we are about to traverse to-day. 
 
 No being can manifest itself save by the elements contained 
 within itself, and which constitute its nature. Now all beings, 
 of what kind soever, contain but three elements, namely, sub- 
 stance, force, and law ; substance, which is their centre of 
 being ; force, which is their action ; law, which is the measure 
 of their action. If we cast a glance upon the lowest in the 
 scale of beings, upon that which approaches nearest to nothing- 
 ness, we shall find in it these three elements. Thus the atom, 
 has a substance, something which adheres, which holds its 
 place, something which we cannot analyse, but which we have 
 called by a mysterious name, signifying that which is under 
 and sustains what is above. The atom possesses a resisting 
 force : in order to displace it, a movement, however slight it 
 may be, is required ; and without that movement it remains 
 stationary. It possesses a cohesive force by which its parts 
 hold together, a force of affinity by which it attracts other atoms 
 to itself ; for it is its vocation, as it is yours, to increase. It 
 possesses a force of passibility by which it receives light, heat, 
 and all the fluids of which its obscure, yet mysterious and pro- 
 found life, has need. In fine, its substance and its force are 
 regulated by a law ; it is not alone in the world, it is connected 
 with other beings, it is subject to other influences, as its own 
 influence is exercised ; its action is measured, as the action of 
 others upon itself is measured. Substance, force, law ; all 
 these are in an atom, and all these are in God, who is the 
 Father of the atom. God is the fulness of substance, the 
 fulness of force, the fulness of law ; He is infinite substance, 
 absolute force, eternal law. He is yet more : He is the centre 
 of all substances, their creator and preserver ; the centre of 
 all forces, their beginning and their end ; the centre of all 
 laws, their principle, their sanction, and their majesty. 
 
 As beings are thus formed, from the atom even to God, 
 every being is able to manifest itself in a threefold manner, 
 namely, by its substance, by its force, or by its law. By its 
 substance : thus bodies appear to us ; by its force, : thus the 
 soul reveals itself to us ; by its law : thus the heavenly bodies, 
 even when invisible, are anticipated by the astronomer through 
 the general movement that governs them, withholding or 
 bearing them away from our view. And consequently God 
 may manifest Himself as substance, as force, and as law; as 
 
26 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 the centre of all substances, of all forces, and of all laws. 
 For if an atom possesses the magnificent power of disclosing 
 itself, if from its very dust and nothingness it imposes itself 
 upon our vision, enters our academies, provokes discussion, 
 exhausts our learning for ages, how much more should God 
 possess the right and power to disclose Himself ! A being that 
 ■does not do this, is not. For the vocation of every being, 
 without exception, is to appear, to take a field of action and to 
 act in it ; and as there is no action without manifestation, to 
 appear is to live. And as God is life, His sole work is evidently 
 His appearing, radiating, conquering ; in a word, being in all 
 what He is, namely, the King of substances, the King of forces, 
 the King of laws. 
 
 It is true He now hides His substance from us men, and we 
 may exclaim with the prophet : " Verily, Thou art a hidden 
 God ! " * But if He withholds from us that direct vision of 
 Himself, it is not from weakness or from envy, it is from respect 
 for our liberty and for the very intercourse which He would 
 hold with us. Had we at once seen His substance, the over- 
 whelming splendour of that manifestation would have taken 
 from our soul all its freedom of action ; we should have adored 
 God in spite of ourselves, whilst the adoration which God 
 claims from us, and which He has a right to claim, is an 
 adoration of choice and love, springing from our soul and 
 reaching to his own. It was needful, then, that God should 
 manifest Himself without dazzling our vision and making us 
 the slaves of His beauty ; it was needful that we should see 
 Him without seeing Him, that we should be sure of His 
 presence without being oppressed by it ; and this is why He 
 has hidden His substance from us whilst He leaves to us His 
 light, as the sun sometimes gathers clouds to lessen his 
 splendour, remaining still visible in the midst of heaven. 
 
 If the manifestation of God by His substance would have 
 been too powerful for our liberty, there was another reason 
 against His manifesting Himself only by His law. The law of 
 God is truth, that is to say, the sum of all necessary and 
 possible relations, of all uncreated and creatable relations. In 
 revealing truth, God indeed reveals Himself to us, but under 
 a form which permits us easily to disregard Him, because we 
 ■detach truth from the living source which bears it, and because 
 
 * Isaiah xlv. 15. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 27 
 
 ■we make of it, so to say, a creation, an idol of our own mind ; 
 or, being unable in certain cases to hail it as the offspring of 
 our own intelligence, we rid ourselves of it as a stranger who 
 offends and contradicts us. Doubtless, God is able to raise 
 truth to the state of prophecy, by announcing beforehand 
 relations that will result in the course of ages between events 
 and empires whose names do not yet exist ; but prophecy needs 
 time for its fulfilment and confirmation ; up to the latest 
 moment it remains suspended in history as a dream unworthy 
 of our attention, and, were it to apply to events too near at 
 hand, it would lose force, wanting anteriority. Therefore, even 
 in the prophetic state, truth would be insufficient as the in- 
 stantaneous sign of the divine presence. So that, whilst the 
 manifestation of God by His substance would be too powerful, 
 that which He gives to us by His law, or truth, is too feeble to 
 produce immediate conviction. 
 
 Force then remains to God, as a means of revealing him- 
 self with a degree of splendour which brings neither too much 
 nor too little light. 
 
 But God possesses force itself, and can exercise it in three 
 different orders : in the physical order, which includes all the 
 kingdoms of nature ; in the moral order, which includes what- 
 ever relates to the soul ; in the social order, which comprises 
 the soul and the body ranged under the laws of unity. Now 
 God, by Jesus Christ, has visibly applied His force to the two 
 last orders, that is to say, to the soul and to society, as we 
 have shown in our preceding conferences in treating of the 
 virtues reserved to the action of Catholic doctrine, and of 
 the social effects produced by that same doctrine, the offspring 
 of Jesus Christ. This sign, however, was insufficient to form 
 at once a halo of divinity for Jesus Christ, when on His first 
 appearing among men, He had to present His credentials to 
 them in the name of the Father, of whom He called Himself 
 the august and only Son. The conversion of the soul, its 
 exaltation to the highest virtues, needs time, and the co- 
 operation of man himself; the foundation of a visible society, 
 endowed with privileges of unity, universality, stability, holi- 
 ness, needs yet more time, and the co-operation of an in- 
 numerable multitude of men spread over the field of ages and 
 space. God does not create a society in a day, He does not 
 even so convert a soul ; and when perchance He works this last 
 prodigy, He who has been its object, and who has the most 
 
28 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 steadfast consciousness thereof, does not suddenly become a 
 burning and a shining light, enlightening the world with the 
 splendour of His virtue. Men hide the mystery of God, and 
 keep it long from the eyes of the world ; like St. Paul, they 
 withdraw into the desert, and that desert— were it even the 
 busy throng — remains long in presence of a transfigured soul 
 before recognizing in it the divine sign. 
 
 What remains then to God, gentlemen, as His eminent mode 
 of appearing, His own and inimitable sign, the public expression 
 of His physiognomy in space and time ? There remains to Him 
 His physical force, or, in other words, His sovereignty oyer 
 nature, a sovereignty which, in the matter and order forming 
 its field of action, meets with no liberty to respect, no co- 
 operation to solicit or wait for, but simply an immense energy, 
 whose instantaneous submission announces the Master of 
 heaven and earth to every man who is not afraid to encounter 
 God. The proper character of this sovereign act is that it 
 requires from the beholder neither study, nor science, nor any 
 preparation requiring time or distinction, but sincerity only. 
 It is so foreign to all human action that, at least, it confounds, 
 even when it does not produce conviction, so that the rebel 
 has no resource but silence against the upright man who 
 exclaims : Digitus Dei est hic ! * Therefore, human tongues, 
 the mysterious organs of truth, have given a singular name to 
 the act by which God exercises his sovereignty over nature, 
 and instantaneously manifests His presence to men : they have 
 called it a miracle, that is, the marvellous in the highest degree, 
 the act which constitutes the public power of God. 
 
 But does Jesus Christ bear upon His brow this sign of abso- 
 lute force ? Did he work miracles ? Did He exercise the 
 public power of God ? 
 
 One day John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask him : 
 "Art Thou He that should come, or look we for another?" 
 Jesus Christ answers them : " Go, and tell John what you have 
 heard and seen ; the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are 
 cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, to the poor the 
 Gospel is preached." f That is to say, Jesus Christ, the man 
 whom we have acknowledged as the most admirable character 
 shown in history, was not afraid to give as proof of His mission 
 and divinity, a whole series of miraculous acts wrought by Him- 
 
 * Exodus viii. 19. + St. Luke vii. 20-22. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 29 
 
 self. And indeed, .the Gospel, from beginning to end, is a 
 series of simple sayings, which pierce to the very centre of the 
 soul, and of prodigious sayings, which agitate nature even to 
 its foundations. Vainly have men endeavoured to separate 
 these, and see two works in one single work; the Gospel 
 Tesists that analysis which pretends to extract from it the 
 moral substance and put aside the miraculous substance, to 
 take from the worker of miracles the support of the sage, and 
 from the sage the support of the worker of miracles. Both of 
 these remain firmly united against the wily efforts of Unbelief; 
 the doctrine supports the miracle, the miracle justifies the 
 doctrine, and the Gospel circulates in the world with an in- 
 vincible character of unity, which permits and obtains for 
 Jesus Christ only absolute hatred or complete adoration. 
 
 This unity is of itself a demonstration for all who reflect 
 seriously. Nevertheless, Unbelief, amazed at its powerlessness 
 to divide Jesus Christ, falls back upon itself, and anxiously 
 exclaims : Is it then really true that Jesus Christ gave sight to 
 the blind, made the lame to walk, cleansed the lepers, gave 
 hearing to the deaf, and life to the dead ? Is it true that He 
 acted as the Master of nature, and that daily, before the eyes of 
 the people, in the light of heaven,'His creating hand proved that 
 a divine virtue dwelt in Him ? Is there not a horrible falsehood 
 engrafted upon the sincerity of that life ? 
 
 Gentlemen, the Gospel is from a period in history : it is 
 a history. The miracles of Jesus Christ were wrought in the 
 public squares, before multitudes of all conditions, before 
 numerous and bitter enemies. They formed the basis of a 
 teaching which divided a whole country, and which soon 
 divided the universe. If, notwithstanding the character of 
 truth which distinguishes the Gospel from all other books, you 
 suspect its testimony as the work of those who believed in 
 Jesus Christ, you cannot, by a contrary reason, suspect the 
 recitals and impressions of those who did not believe in the 
 new Master, and who everywhere persecuted His disciples, His 
 doctrines, and even His name. A public discussion was raised, 
 a man called himself God ; He died for having done so ; His 
 nation, divided upon His tomb, appealed from that blood, 
 and from His nation men appealed to that blood shed, which 
 on all sides found adorers. Now publicity is a power which 
 forces the enemies of a cause to pronounce openly, and in 
 spite of themselves to concur in the authentic formation of a 
 
30 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 history which they detest and would fain utterly destroy. It 
 is in vain ; publicity forces them, they are compelled to speak, 
 and even in calumniating they are compelled to speak enough 
 of truth to save it for ever from perishing. This it is, gentle- 
 men, that saves history. Nothing in the world is more hated 
 and more feared ; the oppressors of nations and the oppressors 
 of God labour at nothing more vigorously than in endeavour- 
 ing to prevent the existence of history ; they silence the four 
 winds of heaven against it ; they shut up their victim within 
 the narrow and deep walls of their dungeons ; they surround 
 it with cannon, lances, and all the instruments of menace and 
 fear ; but publicity is stronger than any empire ; it bears along 
 even those who hold it in execration ; it constrains them to 
 speak ; the cannon turn, the lances fall, and history passes on ! 
 
 So, gentlemen, has the history of the miracles of Jesus 
 Christ advanced ? It has advanced by His very enemies ; by 
 the Pharisees, who crucified Him, by the Pagan rationalists, 
 who crucify His memory. The deicidal Jews, in the face of 
 publicity filling the whole world, could not avoid expressing 
 their sentiments and opinions upon the miraculous life of 
 Christ ; they were compelled to pronounce an affirmation or a 
 denial, and a denial they dared not pronounce, because no one 
 in the world can impose absolute falsehood in regard to public 
 facts after the world has spoken. Absolute falsehood is no 
 more possible in the order of history than is absolute error in 
 the order of speculation. The Jews have perverted the miracles 
 of Jesus Christ ; they have not denied them ; they have written 
 that Jesus Christ assumed in the temple the incommunicable 
 name of God, and that by that sovereign name He commanded 
 nature. This explanation is deposited in the most grave 
 monuments of their tradition, and this is all they have been 
 able to do against the accusing memory of Jesus Christ, against 
 the blood which the whole universe reproached, and still 
 reproaches, them for shedding. But what more could they 
 do ? Publicity is master of men who have seen ; it becomes 
 changed into tradition upon their tomb, and pursues them from 
 age to age, from justice to justice, even to their latest posterity. 
 
 The Pagan rationalists came in their turn to deal with the 
 history of Jesus Christ. Doubtless they had taken no part in 
 His crucifixion, and it was not His blood that alarmed them ■ 
 but, with His blood, Jesus Christ had shed upon the world a 
 truth which condemned to nothingness the wisdom of the wise • 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 31 
 
 could the wise of this world forgive Him ? They also then 
 had to give a critical text of His life, and, in order to depreciate 
 it, they had to employ all the resources which the traditions 
 and discussions of their times afforded them. What have they 
 said of the miracles of Jesus Christ? What have Celsus, 
 Porphyrius, Julian — names for ever illustrious, because from 
 the earliest Christian ages they have been the heralds of the 
 Son of God in the incomparable offices of enmity — what have 
 they said of Him ? Have they denied that Jesus Christ wrought 
 miraculous works in support of His doctrine ? No more than 
 the Jews ; they have simply made a skilful magician of Him. 
 Why a magician, and not a sage ? What need was there of so 
 strange an expression ? It is because history was there. It 
 was possible to pervert the miraculous works of Jesus Christ ; 
 it was not possible to be silent in regard to them. 
 
 It is then clear, gentlemen, by the very testimony of the 
 enemies of Jesus Christ, that His preaching was accompanied 
 by superhuman prodigies. But we must not separate these 
 exterior incentives to faith, strong as they are, from the inti- 
 mate character of the Gospel and Jesus Christ. In an edifice 
 all is bound together from the base to the summit. If Jesus 
 Christ was sincere, as we have shown, if His nature was 
 stamped with the character of divine superiority, His sincerity 
 and His superiority call for confidence in His miracles, as well 
 as in the affirmations which he made of Himself. If Jesus 
 Christ did not speak falsely in declaring that He was God, by 
 a stronger reason He did not lie in acting as God. For it is 
 more shameful, more contrary to sincerity, to perform impos- 
 tures, that is to say — pardon the expression, but by its force, 
 that very expression shows the scorn in which mankind holds 
 imposture — it is more shameful to be a juggler than a knave. 
 The knave deceives only by his speech, the juggler adds 
 thereto miserable manipulations in order to dazzle the eyes of 
 ignorant spectators. It is a lie heaped upon a lie, an indignity 
 upon an indignity. And this is why human tongues — so skilful 
 in expressing scorn — have created that odious name of juggler, 
 to mark all who dare to employ illusion in aid of imposture. 
 
 The superiority of Jesus Christ is no less favourable to the 
 reality of His miracles than His sincerity. No grave and 
 learned man will ever employ juggles to support a doctrinal 
 teaching. For what is jugglery ? It is the use of a power 
 unknown to the science of the times in which it is practised. 
 
32 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 But science will not be slow to arrive at it; absent for a 
 moment, it is inevitable in the course of mankind ; a day- 
 comes when it rises radiant, and, casting back its investigating 
 lustre upon the past, it judges, weighs, verifies all, and, whilst 
 it brings to the true works of genius or of the Divinity their 
 final consecration, it reduces to dust the puerile practices 
 which had imposed upon the faith of untaught generations. 
 Therefore nothing great in the world has ever been founded 
 upon impostures of this kind ; every work possessing any force 
 or dignity, even if not altogether free from falsehood, has 
 gathered its meed of stability from something ancient and 
 true. Mahomet is a memorable example of this. Author of 
 a religious revolution in a country unenlightened by science, 
 he employed every human means to insure success, but he 
 did not employ jugglery, because it is not a human means. I 
 have recently read through the Koran. Every twenty pages 
 Mahomet touches the question of miracles ; he objects, or he 
 is reproached with not performing them ; never does he once 
 venture to_ say that he had performed or ever would perform 
 them ; he constantly eludes the question. He invokes Abra- 
 ham, Moses, all the patriarchs ; an event in his life when God 
 protected him; a victory which had crowned his arms and 
 justified his doctrine ; he loudly affirms that God is God, and 
 that Mahomet is His prophet ; this is all. And this scorn of 
 miserable imposture, this respect for general ideas in regard to 
 Providence and traditional memorials, is not an insignificant 
 mark of his skill, and even of his genius. 
 
 And we are to believe that Jesus Christ, the author of the 
 Gospel, stooped to the most unworthy imitations of the 
 omnipotence of God, that He passed the time of His public 
 mission in deceiving the eyes of His contemporaries by 
 phantoms as despicable as they are powerless ! We are to 
 believe that such miserable trickery could have obtained the 
 greatest success of faith which the human race has ever 
 wrought ! It is not possible. Common sense, as well as 
 history, condemns such a supposition. The public life of 
 Jesus Christ answers to His inner life, and His inner life con- 
 firms His public life. He declared Himself to be God He 
 was believed to be God, He acted as God, and precisel'y be- 
 cause that position is one of marvellous strength, men have been 
 forced to try their greatest efforts against it ; history and common 
 sense speaking too loudly in favour of- Jesus Christ it was 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 33 
 
 needful to have recourse to metaphysics and physics in order 
 to snatch from His hands at least the sceptre of miracles. 
 Let us see whether they have succeeded. 
 
 Two things are advanced against Him. First, Jesus Christ 
 wrought no miracles, because it is impossible. Secondly, His 
 working miracles is of no importance, since everybody can 
 work them, everybody has wrought them, everybody works them. 
 
 First, Jesus Christ wrought no miracles because it is im- 
 possible. And why ? Because nature is subject to general 
 laws, which make of its body a perfect and harmonious unity 
 where each part answers to all, so that if one single point were 
 violated the whole would at once perish. Order, even when it 
 comes from God, is not an arbitrary thing able to destroy or 
 change itself at will ; order necessarily excludes disorder, and 
 no greater disorder can be conceived in nature than that 
 sovereign action which would possess the faculty of destroying 
 its laws and its constitution. Miracles are impossible under 
 these two heads ; impossible as disorder, impossible because a 
 partial violation of nature would be its total destruction. 
 
 That is to say, gentlemen, that it is impossible for God to 
 manifest Himself by the single act which publicly and instan- 
 taneously announces His presence, by the act of sovereignty. 
 Whilst the lowest in the scale of being has the right to appear 
 in the bosom of nature by the exercise of its proper force; 
 whilst the grain of sand, called into the crucible of the chemist, 
 answers to His interrogations by characteristic signs which 
 range it in the registers of science, to God alone it should be 
 denied to manifest His force in the personal measure that 
 distinguishes Him and makes Him a separate being ! Not 
 only should God not have manifested Himself, but it must be 
 for ever impossible for Him to manifest Himself, in virtue even 
 of the order of which He is the Creator. To act, is to live ; to 
 appear, is to live ; to communicate, is to live ; but God can no 
 longer act, appear, communicate Himself; that is denied to 
 Him. Banished to the profound depths of His silent and 
 obscure eternity, if we interrogate Him, if we supplicate Him, 
 if we cry to Him, He can only say to us — supposing, however, 
 that He is able to answer us : "What would you have? I 
 have made laws ! Ask of the sun and the stars, ask of the sea 
 and the sand upon its shores ; as for Me, My condition is fixed ; 
 I am nothing but repose, and the contemplative Servant of the 
 works of My hands ! " 
 
 D 
 
34 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 Ah ! gentlemen, it is not thus that the whole human race 
 has hitherto understood God. Men have understood Him as 
 a free and sovereign being ; and, even if they have not always 
 had a correct knowledge of His nature, they have at least never 
 refused to Him power and goodness. In all times and places, 
 sure of these two attributes of their heavenly Father, they have 
 offered up their ever fervent prayer to Him ; they have asked 
 all from Him, and daily, upon their bended knees, they ask 
 Him to enlighten their minds, to give them uprightness of 
 heart, health of body, to preserve them from scourges, to give 
 them victory in war, prosperity in peace, the satisfaction 'of 
 every want in every state and condition. 
 
 There is perhaps some poor woman here who hardly 
 understands what I say. This morning she knelt by the bed- 
 side of her sick child ; and, forsaken by all, without bread for 
 the day, she clasped her hands and called to Him who ripens 
 the corn and creates charity. " O Lord," said she, " come to 
 my help ; O Lord, make haste to help me ! " And even whilst 
 I speak, numberless voices are lifted up towards God from all 
 parts of the earth to ask from Him things in which nature alone 
 can do nothing, and in which those souls are persuaded that 
 God can do all. Who then is deceived here ? Is it the 
 metaphysician, or the human race? And how has nature 
 taught us to despise nature in order to trust in God ? For it 
 is not science that teaches us to pray, we pray in spite of 
 science ; and as there is nothing here below but science, 
 nature, and God ; if we pray in spite of science, it must be 
 nature or God that teaches us to pray, and to believe with all 
 our heart in the miracles of divine power and goodness. After 
 this, whether nature become disorganised or not, or even if it 
 must perish whenever the finger of God touches it, it is 
 assuredly the very least concern to us. Nevertheless, out of 
 respect for certain minds, I will show that miracles do no 
 violence to the natural order. 
 
 Nature, as I have already said, possesses three elements ; 
 namely, substances, forces, and laws. Substances are essentially 
 variable ; they change their form, their weight, combining and 
 separating at each moment. Forces bear the same character ; 
 they increase and diminish, cohere, accumulate, or separate! 
 They have nothing immutable but the mathematical laws,' 
 which at the same time govern forces and substances, and 
 whence the order of the universe proceeds. The mobility of 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 35 
 
 forces and substances spreads movement and life in nature ; 
 the immutability of mathematical laws maintains there an 
 ■order which never fails. Without the first of these all would 
 be lifeless ; without the second all would be chaos. This 
 established, what does God do when He works a miracle? 
 Does He touch the principle of universal order, which is the 
 mathematical law? By no means. The mathematical law 
 appertains to the region of ideas — that is to say, to the region 
 of the eternal and the absolute ; God can do nothing here, for 
 it is Himself. But He acts upon substances and upon forces 
 — upon substances which are created, upon forces which have 
 their root in His supreme will. Like ourselves, who, being 
 subject to the general combinations of nature, nevertheless draw 
 from our interior vitality movements which are in appearance 
 contrary to the laws of weight, God acts upon the universe as 
 we act upon our bodies. He applies somewhere the force 
 needful to produce there an unusual movement: it is a miracle, 
 because God alone, in the infinite fount of His will — which is 
 the centre of all created and possible forces- — is able to draw 
 forth sufficient elements to act suddenly to this degree. If it 
 please Him to stop the sun — to use a common expression — 
 He opposes to its projective force, a force which counter- 
 balances it, and which, by virtue even of the mathematical 
 law, produces repose. It is not more difficult for Him to stop 
 the whole movement of the universe. 
 
 It is the same with all other miracles ; it is a question of 
 force, the use of which, so far from doing violence to the 
 physical order — which indeed would be of little moment — 
 returns to it of its own accord, and, moreover, maintains upon 
 earth the moral and religious order, without which the physical 
 order would not exist. 
 
 This objection answered, gentlemen, let us proceed to ex- 
 amine the second. We are told that miracles prove nothing, 
 because all doctrines have miracles in their favour, and because, 
 by the help of a certain occult science, it is easy to perform 
 them. 
 
 I boldly deny that any historical doctrine, that is, any 
 doctrine founded in the full light of history by men authen- 
 tically known, possesses miraculous works for its basis. At 
 the present time, we have no example of it ; no one, before our 
 •eyes, among so many instructors of the human race whom we 
 see around us, has as yet dared to promise us the exercise of 
 
 D 2 
 
56 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 a power superior to the ordinary power which we dispose of. 
 No one of our contemporaries has appeared in public giving 
 sight to the blind and raising the dead to life. Extravagance 
 has reached ideas and style only ; it has not gone beyond. 
 Returning from the present age back to Jesus Christ, we find 
 no one, amongst the innumerable multitude of celebrated 
 heresiarchs, who has been able to boast that he could com- 
 mand nature, and place the inspirations of his rebellious pride 
 under the protection of miracles. Mahomet, at the same time 
 heretic and unbeliever, did not attempt it any more than the 
 others : this I have already said, and the Koran will more fully 
 prove it to any one who will take the pains to read that 
 plagiarism of the Bible made by a student of rhetoric at Mecca. 
 Beyond Jesus Christ, in the ages claimed by history, what 
 remains, if we put aside Moses and the prophets — that is, the 
 very ancestors of Jesus Christ? Shall we notice certain 
 strange facts connected with Greece and Rome? Shall 
 we speak of that augur, who, says Livy, cut a stone with a 
 razor ; or of that vestal who drew along a vessel by her 
 girdle, or even of the blind man cured by Vespasian? 
 These facts, whatever they may be, are isolated and belong 
 to no doctrine ; they have provoked no discussion in 
 the world, and have established nothing; they are not 
 doctrinal facts. Now we are treating of miracles which have 
 founded religious doctrines— the only miracles worthy of con- 
 sideration ; for it is evident that if God manifests himself by 
 acts of sovereignty, it must be for some great cause, worthy of 
 himself and worthy of us, that is to say, for a cause which 
 affects the eternal destinies of the whole human race. This 
 places out of the question altogether all isolated facts, such as 
 those related in the life of Apollonius of Thyana. 
 
 This personage is of the first century of the Christian era, 
 and his life was written at a much later period by an Alex- 
 andrian philosopher called Philostratus, who designed to make 
 of it a rival to the Gospel, and of Apollonius himself the 
 counterpart of Jesus Christ. A most singular physiognomy 
 is here presented to us, but that is all. What has Apollonius 
 of Thyana accomplished in regard to doctrine ? Where are 
 his writings, his social works, the traces of his passage upon 
 earth ? He died on the morrow of his life. Instead of certain 
 equivocal facts, had he removed mountains during his life, it 
 
TESUS CHRIST. 37 
 
 would but have been a literary curiosity, an accident, a man, 
 nothing. 
 
 "Where then shall we look for doctrines founded in the 
 light of history upon miraculous events ? Where in the his- 
 torical world is there another omnipotence than that of Jesus 
 Christ ? Where do we find other miracles than His and those 
 of the saints who have chosen Him for their Master, and who 
 have derived from Him the power to continue what He had 
 begun ? Nothing appears upon the horizon ; Jesus Christ 
 alone remains, and His enemies, eternally attacking Him, are 
 able to bring against Him nothing but doubts, and not a single 
 fact equal or even analogous to Him. 
 
 But do there not at least exist in nature certain occult 
 forces which have since been made known to us, and 
 which Jesus Christ might have employed ? I will name, 
 gentlemen, the occult forces alluded to, and I will do so 
 without any hesitation ; they are called magnetic forces. 
 And I might easily disembarrass myself of them, since 
 science does not yet recognise them, and even proscribes 
 them. Nevertheless I choose rather to obey my conscience 
 than science. You invoke then the magnetic forces ; 
 I believe in them sincerely, firmly; I believe that their 
 effects have been proved, although in a manner which is as 
 yet incomplete, and probably will ever remain so, by instructed, 
 sincere, and even by Christian men ; I believe that these effects, 
 in the great generality of cases, are purely natural ; I believe 
 that their secret has never been lost to the world, that it has 
 been transmitted from age to age, that it has occasioned a 
 multitude of mysterious actions whose trace is easily distin- 
 guished, and that it has now only left the shade of hidden trans- 
 missions because this age has borne upon its brow the sign of 
 publicity. I believe all this. Yes, gentlemen, by a divine 
 preparation against the pride of materialism, by an insult to 
 science, which dates from a more remote epoch than we can 
 reach, God has willed that there should be irregular forces in 
 nature not reducible to precise formulae, almost beyond the 
 reach of scientific verification. He has so willed it, in order to 
 prove to men who slumber in the darkness of the senses, that 
 even independently of religion, there remained within us rays 
 of a higher order, fearful gleams cast upon the invisible world, 
 a kind of crater by which our soul, freed for a moment from 
 
3 8 THE PUBLIC POWER OF 
 
 the terrible bonds of the body, flies away into spaces which it 
 cannot fathom, from whence it brings back no remembrance, 
 but which give it a sufficient warning that the present order 
 hides a future order before which ours is but nothingness. 
 
 All this I believe is true; but it is also true that these 
 obscure forces are confined within limits which show no 
 sovereignty over the natural order. Plunged into a factitious 
 sleep man sees through opaque bodies at certain distances ; he 
 names remedies for soothing and even for healing the diseases 
 of the body ; he seems to know things that he knew not, and 
 that he forgets on the instant of his waking ; by his will he 
 exercises great empire over those with whom he is in magnetic 
 communication ; all this is difficult, painful, mixed up with 
 uncertainty and prostration. It is a phenomenon of vision 
 much more than of operation, a phenomenon which belongs to 
 the prophetic and not to the miraculous order. A sudden cure, 
 an evident act of sovereignty, has nowhere been witnessed. 
 Even in the prophetic order, nothing is more pitiful. 
 
 It would seem that this extraordinary vision should at least 
 reveal to us something of that future which may be called the 
 present future. It does nothing of this. What has magnetism 
 foretold during the last fifty years ? Let it tell us, not what 
 will happen in a thousand years, not what will happen 
 the day after to-morrow even, but what will happen to-morrow 
 morning. All those who dispose of our destinies are living; 
 they speak, they write, they alarm our ' susceptibility ; but 
 let them show us the certain result of their action in a single 
 public manner. Alas ! magnetism, which was to change the 
 world, has not even been able to become an agent of police ; 
 it strikes the imagination as much by its sterility as by its 
 singularity. It is not a principle ; it is a ruin. Thus, on the 
 desolate banks of the Euphrates, in the place where Babylon 
 once stood, and where that famous tower was begun which, to 
 speak like Bossuet, was to bear even to heaven the testimony 
 of the antique power of man, the traveller finds ruins blasted 
 by the thunderbolt, and almost superhuman in their magnitude. 
 He stoops, and eagerly gathers up a fragment of brick; he 
 discovers characters upon it which belong, doubtless, to the 
 primitive writing of the human race ; but vain are his efforts to 
 decipher them ; the sacred fragment falls back again from his 
 hands upon the colossus calcined by fire : it is nothing now 
 but a broken tile, which even curiosity despises. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 39 
 
 I look around, gentlemen. I see nothing more : Jesus 
 Christ is alone. 
 
 Perhaps, however, you may yet say to me : If Jesus Christ 
 wrought miracles during His life, and even in the early days of 
 the Church, why does He do so no longer ? Why ? Alas ! gentle- 
 men, He works miracles every d;y, but yju do not see them. 
 He works them with less profusion, because the moral and social 
 miracle, the miracle which needed time, is wrought, and before 
 your eyes. When Jesus Christ laid the foundations of His 
 Church, it was needful for Him to obtain faith in a work then 
 commencing ; now it is formed, although not yet finished : you 
 behold it, you touch it, you compare it, you measure it, you 
 judge whether it is a human work. Why should God be 
 prodigal of miracles to those who do not see the miracle ? 
 Why, for instance, should I lead you to the mountains of the 
 Tyrol, to see prodigies which a hundred thousand of your con- 
 temporaries ha\e witnessed there during the last fifteen years ? 
 Why should I pick up a stone in the quarry when the Church 
 is built ? The monument of God is standing ; every power has 
 touched it, every science has scrutinized it, every blasphemy 
 has cursed it ; examine it well, it is there before you. Between 
 earth and heaven, as says the Comte de Maistre, it has been 
 suspended these eighteen centuries ; if you do not see it, what 
 would you see ? In a celebrated parable Jesus Christ speaks 
 of a certain rich man who said to Abraham : " Send someone 
 from the dead to my brethren." And Abraham answers : " If 
 they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they 
 believe, though one rose from the dead."* The Church is 
 Moses, the Church is all the prophets, the Church is the living 
 miracle : he who sees not the living, how should he see the 
 dead? 
 
 * St. Luke xvi. 31. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN 
 OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 We have seen that in His public as well as in His inner life, 
 Jesus Christ lived as God. But to live is only the first act of 
 life, the second act of life is that of outliving ourselves. For 
 all life has an object, and it is the accomplishment of that 
 object which judges the life. Consequently, it is not enough 
 for me to have proved to you even with the highest evidence 
 that the inner life of Jesus Christ, and His public life possessed 
 a divine character ; for if that life has not attained its object, if 
 it has left no traces, whatever else we may think of it, it has 
 been vain. It is needful then that Jesus Christ, after having 
 lived as God, should have perpetuated himself as God ; if He 
 has not done this, all the conclusion we should be able to draw 
 from that disproportion between His life and the effects of 
 His life, would be that He was the most magnificent and the 
 most inexplicable nothing that the world has ever seen. But 
 what had Jesus Christ to do in order to perpetuate Himself as 
 God ? He had to fulfil the object of His life, such as He had 
 publicly announced and represented it, which was to found 
 here below the kingdom of God. "After John was put in 
 prison," says the evangelist St. Mark, "Jesus came into 
 Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and 
 saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at 
 hand : repent ye, and believe the gospel" * And sending forth 
 His disciples to take their part in the apostolate, He thus set 
 forth their mission : " Into whatsoever city ye enter, and they 
 
 * St. Mark i. 14, 15. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 41 
 
 receive you, eat such things as are set before you : and heal 
 the sick that are therein, and say unto them : The kingdom of 
 God is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city ye 
 shall enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the 
 streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, 
 which cleaveth to us, do we wipe off against you : yet know 
 this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." * 
 And what was this kingdom of God preached by Jesus Christ, 
 as being the object of His coming upon earth ? It was 
 Himself, inasmuch as that He was to be recognised as God, 
 loved as God, adored as God, the founder and chief of a 
 universal society, of which His divinity was to be the corner- 
 stone through faith, love, and adoration. I ask you, gentlemen, 
 is this work accomplished ? Has Jesus Christ, living and dead, 
 founded here below a kingdom of which He is the God ? Has 
 He founded the kingdom of souls? Is He amongst us the 
 one and only King of souls ? I no longer need to demonstrate 
 this ; during ten years I have shown its marvels to you ; and 
 had I not done so, this spiritual kingdom is before your eyes, 
 many among you are its members and its subjects ; it is a 
 thing that speaks of itself and is above all demonstration. 
 Yes, there exists in the world — in this world of mire and 
 change — a kingdom of souls wherein God is worshipped in 
 spirit and in truth, where men wrestle with flesh and blood, 
 and pride ; where nothing resembles what is elsewhere to be 
 found, and of which Jesus Christ is the author, the chief, the 
 king, the God. And as the angel of the Apocalypse, on 
 beholding the last triumph of that dominion, proclaimed its 
 glory beforehand by that unparalleled expression uttered before 
 astonished worlds: Factum est — "It is done!"f so, henceforth, 
 as a disciple of Jesus Christ, a son of this kingdom, an adorer 
 of the King of souls, I say also to you : Factum est — " It 
 is done ! " 
 
 The fact is then no longer in question between us ; it is 
 proved, it is palpable, it is here before us, and I may thus 
 conclude : " After having lived as God, Jesus Christ has 
 perpetuated Himself as God." But it may not be unprofitable 
 to show you how greatly this work surpasses all created power ; 
 and I will endeavour to do this by exposing to you the double 
 difficulty which Jesus Christ had to overcome. I will call one 
 
 * St. Luke x. 8-11. t Apocalypse xi. 15, 
 
42 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 of these the inner difficulty, and the other the public difficulty; 
 their explanation will occupy the hour which God now permits 
 me to devote to you. 
 
 The first condition of the kingdom of souls and of its- 
 establishment was that of obtaining faith in its founder, that 
 is to say, that Jesus Christ should become for an innumerable 
 multitude of men the rule of all their thoughts, and that, 
 renouncing themselves in regard to their most necessary and 
 most profound attribute— which is their own judgment— they 
 should accept that of Jesus Christ as their own, even to the 
 point of being able to say with St. Paul: "I live; yet not I,. 
 but Christ liveth in me." * Not, gentlemen, that Jesus Christ 
 required from us the sacrifice of our reason in order to 
 establish His reign by faith ; for He is Himself reason, and it 
 is He who gives us ours by a reflection of His own, as it is 
 expressly written in the Gospel of St. John. But He had to 
 require from us the sacrifice of our own judgment, which is a 
 very different thing from the sacrifice of our reason. In fact, 
 reason does not exist in us in its pure state; were it so, 
 enlightened as we should be by a single and an undivided light,, 
 we should advance in the most perfect unanimity. Instead 
 of this, although participating in reason, one. and universal, 
 without which we should not be intelligent beings, we mix up 
 with it weaknesses, obscurities, habits, resolutions, numberless 
 mysterious circumvallations which bar up its great outlets, 
 lessen its light, and make of our reason that limited and 
 personal thing which we call private judgment. It is this 
 judgment, the result of our servitude and liberty, which divides 
 men in the house of their common mother, and hinders them 
 from founding here below, by themselves, the holy republic of 
 truth. We cleave, in fact, to our own judgment in a twofold 
 manner, because it is based upon reason, and nothing is more 
 just than to hold to reason ; and we cleave to it still more, 
 perhaps, by that individuality which distinguishes us, and 
 which is made up of the innumerable impressions which the 
 ebb and flow of the intelligence have deposited in us from 
 the day when we first exercised that admirable faculty of seeing, 
 hearing, judging, reasoning, and feeling. Now, by the faith- 
 in Jesus Christ, necessary to the constitution of the kingdom 
 of souls, we must abdicate that personal judgment which is so- 
 
 * Gal. ii. 20. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 43. 
 
 natural and so dear to us ; we must found our reason in the 
 superior reason of Christ, we must break in pieces the personal 
 mould — more or less false and narrow — which makes us what 
 we are, and enter into the wide and deep mould whence the 
 Gospel has come, and which is the very mind of Jesus Christ. 
 
 This sacrifice, gentlemen, is infinitely painful to us, because, 
 in order to tear us from ourselves, it touches the root of our 
 spiritual being. It is still more painful under another head. 
 Not only do we cleave to ourselves as nature and liberty have 
 made us, but we strive also to impose ourselves upon others, 
 to become their models, their masters, and to create a kingdom 
 of minds in order to govern them. In whatever degree man 
 may have received from Heaven an elevated mind, this is his 
 propensity ; in the mental order, as in all the orders of action, 
 the will of man is to reign. If he be favoured by what is 
 called birth, or fortune, or power, his will is to be supreme in 
 them ■ in fine, if he be gifted in the intellectual order, he 
 thirsts to govern minds. This last royalty is the most courted 
 of all, and its most absolute sovereigns are not satisfied if they 
 do not bring all minds into subjection to their own. When, 
 therefore, Jesus Christ requires from us the sacrifice of our 
 judgment to His supreme reason, He requires from us the 
 abdication of the royalty which we have most at heart ; He 
 enters into a conspiracy, the object of which is to humble 
 us before the most rightful throne to which we could aspire : 
 for what sovereignty is more lawful than the sovereignty of 
 the mind — that gift which does not come to us from chance or 
 election, or the efforts of others, but from our own selves, from 
 what is sown in us by nature and cultivated by us ? And in 
 proportion as we possess this, whether by science or philosophy, 
 so are we the more incensed against that usurper called Christ, 
 who pretends to nothing less than to set up His mind in the 
 place of our own, than to cause us to think His thoughts and 
 speak His words. This, gentlemen, is the secret of that 
 aversion which so many learned men and philosophers feel 
 towards Jesus Christ ; they are men who will not submit to be 
 dethroned, and, naturally, they are in the right. 
 
 Nevertheless, it has been necessary that, for eighteen 
 centuries, all of us, whoever we may be, who are the children 
 of Christ, should consent to be dethroned, to become little, to 
 be taught, not only during our childhood, but throughout our 
 lived, and, laden with years and honours, having governed 
 
44 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 men otherwise than by the mind, in our last moments, when 
 about to appear before God, we have again been required to 
 abdicate that reign of the judgment, so dear to pride, in order 
 to repose in Jesus Christ as little children, and charge Him to 
 bear us in His blessed hands to the throne of that pure and 
 eternal reason, who is God His Father. 
 
 None other upon earth, gentlemen, none other, has ob- 
 tained that supreme dictatorship of the understanding. 
 Tyrants have oppressed human thought by hindering its 
 manifestation, they have never governed it ; it eludes all the 
 devices of the most subtle rule. Sages have formed schools, 
 but ephemeral schools, whose laws have been disowned even 
 by their disciples. Should we wonder thereat? The disciple 
 of the sage is a man like himself; he idolises the idea of the mas- 
 ter until the day comes when his own idea, ripe for an act of 
 legitimate ingratitude, enables him to attain to the honours of 
 teaching, and mark his place in the history of the unstable 
 dynasties of human knowledge. The religious sects, although 
 standing upon more solid ground, have, however, met with no 
 better success. Heresy leaves us our own judgment, Pro- 
 testantism leaves us our own judgment ; all these doctrines, so 
 far from enchaining faith, have had for object its emancipation. 
 Even Mahometanism, like idolatry beforehand, was unable to 
 constitute a doctrinal authority, and consequently it leaves its 
 followers to the chance of their personal direction. All, save 
 Christ, either leave to us or restore to us our judgment, and 
 here lies the eternal charm of error. What do we now hear 
 around us? What does the present age, uncertain of its 
 course, and almost alike incapable of boldness in evil and 
 in good, demand of Christ with supplication? Is it not 
 to slacken the bonds of His rule, to retrench certain articles of 
 the ancient Christian constitution, to revise the primitive pact 
 of the Gospel, to sign, in fine, a compromise between time 
 and eternity? But Christ smiles at those frail desires which. 
 do not spring from entire obedience to His adorable reason ; 
 between Him and ourselves, nothing can exist but Himself 
 or ourselves, the abdication of our own judgment, or the reign 
 of our own judgment : between these we have to choose. 
 
 It is not even enough for Jesus Christ to set up His 
 judgment in place of our own; as King of our minds, He 
 is as yet only at the beginning of His ambition ; He requires 
 more than our minds; He requires our hearts; He requires 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 45 
 
 affection. And what affection, great God? A love which is 
 the fulness of human love, and before which all history of love 
 is as nothing. And that you may judge of what a prodigy 
 this is, let us examine closely the difficulty which we ourselves 
 find in exciting love during our lives. 
 
 Hardly has the flower of sentiment germinated within 
 us before we seek in the companions of our youth sympathies 
 which seize upon our hearts, and draw them forth from their 
 dear and lonely solitude. Thence, in the history of all 
 generous lives, come those youthful times, those early re- 
 membrances, which none other will ever efface, and 'which, 
 even in extreme old age, leave in our souls a perfume of 
 the past. Yet, notwithstanding the strength of these young 
 ties, the simple course of time suspends their progress : 
 our eyes, in growing stronger, become less sensible to the 
 beauties of our age, something no longer of childhood delivers 
 us from that first charm, which perhaps none will ever equal, 
 but which no longer suffices for us. Affection cools into grave 
 and virile confidence, and our soul, having mounted a step 
 upon the cycle of life, needs a new attraction, which, in filling 
 it, brings it into subjection. Shall I pronounce its name? 
 And why not? There are two things before which, by the 
 help of God, I will never shrink, namely, duty and necessity. 
 It is needful in my discourse that I should pronounce the 
 name, too much profaned, of the second sentiment of man ; 
 I name it then, and I say, that man rising from youth to 
 manhood, needs an attraction capable at the same time of 
 satisfying his youth and his strength, his need of renovation 
 and of future. God has prepared for him love ; which, if 
 it be true, that is to say pure, should complete the education 
 of his life and render him worthy of having a posterity. 
 But, O weakness of our nature ! the cares of manhood soon 
 furrow our brow, and its wrinkles stamp upon it a worthy 
 testimony to thought ; what more do we need ? Henceforth, 
 incapable of obtaining the interchange of an infatuation 
 already appeased for us, and which no longer possesses 
 illusions enough for its own nourishment, we rest in an 
 attachment more calm, more serene, still possessing its charm, 
 but which no longer merits to be compared to the ardour 
 of that passion which I have just called by its proper name. 
 
 All the resources of the soul are not, however, yet exhausted : 
 as the offspring of eternal love, the genius of its source inspires 
 
46 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 it even unto the end. With the first shadows of age the senti- 
 ment of paternity descends into our heart, and takes possession 
 of the void left there by its former affections. It is not a state 
 of decadence — beware of thinking so ; after the regard of God 
 upon the world, nothing is more beautiful than the regard of 
 the aged upon the young, so pure is it, so tender, so dis- 
 interested, and it marks in our life the very point of perfection 
 and of the highest likeness to God. The body declines with 
 ■age, the mind perhaps also, but not the soul whereby we love. 
 Paternity is as superior to love as love itself is superior to 
 affection. Paternity is the crown of life. It would be full and 
 stainless love, if from the child to the father there were the 
 same equal return as from friend to friend, from the wife to the 
 husband. But it is not so. When we were children we were 
 loved more than we loved, and, having grown old, we also love 
 more than we are loved. We must not complain of it. Your 
 •children take the very road upon which you have passed before 
 them, the road of affection, the road of love — eager courses 
 which do not permit them to reward that grey-haired passion 
 which we call paternity. It is the honour of man to find again 
 in his children the ingratitude which he showed to his fathers, 
 and thus to end, like God, by a disinterested sentiment. 
 
 But it is nevertheless true that, although pursuing love all 
 our lives, we never obtain it save in an imperfect manner, and 
 ■which wounds our hearts. And even had we obtained it during 
 life, what would remain of it to us after death ? I know that 
 fond prayers may follow us beyond this world, that our names 
 may still be pronounced in pious remembrance; but soon 
 heaven and earth will have advanced another step ; then comes 
 -oblivion, silence dwells upon us, the ethereal breeze of love 
 passes over our tomb no more. It is gone, it is gone for ever ; 
 and such is the history of man in regard to love. 
 
 I am wrong, gentlemen; there is a Man whose tomb is 
 guarded by love, there is a Man whose sepulchre is not only 
 glorious, as a prophet declared, but whose sepulchre is 
 loved. There is a Man whose ashes, after eighteen centuries, 
 have not grown cold ; who daily lives again in the thoughts of 
 an innumerable multitude of men ; who is visited in His cradle 
 by shepherds and by kings, who vie with each other in bringing 
 to Him gold and frankincense and myrrh. There is a Man 
 whose steps are unweariedly retrodden by a large portion of 
 .mankind, and who, although no longer present, is followed by 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 47 
 
 that throng in all the. scenes of His bygone pilgrimage, upon the 
 knees of His mother, by the borders of the lakes, to the tops of 
 the mountains, in the byways of the valleys, under the shade of 
 the olive-trees, in the still solitude of the deserts. There is a 
 Man, dead and buried, whose sleep and whose awaking have 
 ever eager watchers, whose every word still vibrates and pro- 
 duces more than love, produces virtues fructifying in love. 
 There is a Man, who eighteen centuries ago was nailed to a 
 gibbet, and whom millions of adorers daily detach from this 
 throne of His suffering, and, kneeling before Him, prostrating 
 themselves as low as they can without shame, there, upon the 
 earth, they kiss His bleeding feet with unspeakable ardour. 
 There is a Man, who was scourged, killed, crucified, whom an 
 ineffable passion raises from death and infamy, and exalts to 
 the glory of love unfailing which finds in Him peace, honour, 
 joy, and even ecstasy. There is a Man, pursued in His sufferings 
 and in His tomb by undying hatred, and who, demanding 
 apostles and martyrs from all posterity, finds apostles and 
 martyrs in all generations. There is a Man, in fine, and one 
 only, who has founded His love upon earth, and that Man is 
 thyself, O Jesus ! who hast been pleased to baptize me, to 
 anoint me, to consecrate me in Thy love, and whose name 
 alone now opens my very heart, and draws from it those accents 
 which overpower me and raise me above myself. 
 
 But among great men who are loved ? Among warriors ? 
 Is it Alexander ? Caesar ? Charlemagne ? Among sages ? 
 Aristotle ? Plato ? Who is loved among great men ? Who ? 
 Name me even one ; name me a single man who has died and 
 left love upon his tomb. Mahomet is venerated by Mussul- 
 mans ; he is not loved. No feeling of love has ever touched the 
 heart of a Mussulman repeating his maxim : " God is God, 
 and Mahomet is His prophet." One Man alone has gathered 
 from all ages a love which never fails ; Jesus Christ is the 
 sovereign Lord of hearts as He is of minds, and by a grace con- 
 firmatory of that which belongs only to Him, He has given to 
 His saints also the privilege of producing in men a pious and 
 faithful remembrance. 
 
 Yet even this is not all ; the kingdom of souls is not yet 
 established. Jesus Christ, being God, should not be satisfied 
 with steadfast faith and immortal love ; He must exact adoration. 
 Adoration is the annihilation of one's self before a superior 
 being ; and this sentiment, gentlemen, is not a stranger to us. 
 
4» THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 It lies, like all the others, in the very depth of our nature, and 
 plays a more important part there than you are perhaps aware 
 of. Let us not disguise this truth from ourselves ; all of us, 
 more or less, desire to be adored. It is this innate thirst for 
 adoration which has produced every tyranny. You sometimes 
 wonder that a prince should weave together numberless 
 intrigues in order to emancipate himself from human and 
 divine laws ; that he should add violence to cunning, shed 
 streams of blood and march onward to the execration of man- 
 kind ; you ask yourselves why he does this. Ah ! gentlemen, 
 for the very natural object of being adored, of seeing every 
 thought subject to his own, every will in conformity to his will, 
 every right, every duty emanating from him, and even the 
 bodies of men bent like slaves before his mortal body. Such 
 is the depth of our heart, as was Satan's. But by a counter- 
 poise due to that frightful malady of pride, we can only desire 
 adoration for ourselves by abhorring the adoration of others. 
 Thence springs the execration that follows despotism. Man- 
 kind, abased by a power despising all law, concentrates its 
 secret indignation within itself, awaits the inevitable day of the 
 despot's weakness, and, when that day comes, it turns upon and 
 tramples under foot the vile creature who had disdained it even 
 to demanding incense from it. A great orator once said to a 
 celebrated tribune : " There is but one step from the Capitol to 
 the Tarpeian rock." I shall say with as much truth, although 
 in less grand expressions : There is but one step from the altar 
 to the common sewer. Whosoever has been adored will sooner 
 or later be hurled by the hand of the people from the lofty 
 summit of divine majesty usurped, to the execration of eternal 
 opprobrium. Such do we find history — that power charged with 
 the promulgation of the judgments of God upon theprideof man. 
 In spite of history, however, Jesus Christ is adored. A 
 man, mortal and dead, He has obtained adoration which still 
 endures, and of which the world offers no other example. 
 What emperor has held His temples and His statues ? What 
 has become of all that population of gods created by adulation ? 
 Their dust even no longer exists, and the surviving remembrance 
 of them serves but to excite our wonder at the extravagance 
 of men and the justice of God. Jesus Christ alone remains, 
 standing upon His altars, not in a corner of the world, but 
 over the whole earth, and among nations celebrated by the 
 cultivation of the mind. The greatest monuments of art shelter 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 49 
 
 His sacred images ; the most magnificent ceremonies assemble 
 the people under the influence of His name ; poetry, music, 
 painting, sculpture, exhaust their resources to proclaim His 
 glory and to offer Him incense worthy of the adoration which 
 ages have consecrated to Him. And yet, upon what throne do 
 they adore Him ? Upon a cross ! Upon a cross ? They adore 
 Him under the mean appearances of bread and wine ! Here, 
 thought becomes altogether confounded. It would seem that 
 this man has taken delight in abusing His strange power, and 
 in insulting mankind by prostrating them in wonder before the 
 most vain shadows. Having by His crucifixion descended 
 lower than death He made even of ignominy the throne of 
 His divinity; and, not satisfied with this triumph, He willed 
 that we should acknowledge His supreme essence and His 
 eternal life by an adoration which is a startling contradiction 
 to our senses ! Can such success in such daring be in any way 
 understood ? 
 
 It is true many have endeavoured to overthrow His altars ; 
 but their powerlessness has but served to confirm His glory. 
 At each outrage He has seemed to grow greater; genius 
 has protected Him against genius, science against science, 
 empire against empire ; whatever arms have been uplifted 
 against Him He has made His own ; and when apparently 
 vanquished, the world has still beheld Him calm, serene, 
 Master, adored ! 
 
 Thus has He founded the kingdom of souls by a faith 
 which costs us the sacrifice of our own judgment, by a love 
 which exceeds all love, by an adoration which we have given 
 to Him alone ; a triple mystery of a force which reveals His 
 divinity to us, and which will yet more clearly reveal it when 
 we shall have taken account of the public difficulty that stood 
 in the way of the establishment of this supernatural kingdom. 
 
 The place was filled, gentlemen, when Jesus Christ came 
 into the world ; the place was filled because it is never void. 
 Even had He pretended to establish between Himself and 
 us secret relations only, a kind of obscure worship, this design 
 would sooner or later have encountered fears and jealousies, 
 manifested by public opposition. But Jesus Christ was far 
 from desiring to hide His reign ; He had said : " That which you 
 hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops ; " * and He 
 
 » St. Matt. x. 27. 
 
50 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 Himself, the enemy of all mysterious initiation, had constantly 
 spoken and acted before the eyes of the multitude and the 
 authorities. He willed a visible reign, a social constitution 
 of His doctrine, a recognised priesthood, temples, laws, rights > 
 and consequently it was inevitable that He should find in 
 His way the religious and political establishment which preceded 
 Him. That establishment had two names ; it was called idolatry, 
 and the Roman Empire. Idolatry was the worship that as- 
 sembled the universe under one and the same religious form ; 
 the Roman Empire was the power that governed all known 
 mankind, or nearly so. The one and the other were incom- 
 patible with the establishment of the reign of Jesus Christ, and 
 that reign could only begin by abolishing idolatry as a false 
 religion, and by modifying the Roman Empire so as to fit 
 it for the laws promulgated by the Gospel. 
 
 You have, perhaps, hitherto considered idolatry as a 
 religious organization easy to overthrow ; you have greatly 
 deceived yourselves. Of all the forms of worship that have 
 taken possession of man, none, save Christianity, has possessed 
 more extent and solidity than idolatry. This is because it fully 
 satisfied the three great passions of man. What are these three 
 passions ? The first, and perhaps it will surprise you, the first 
 is the religious passion, the want of intercourse with God. Yes, 
 gentlemen, the religious passion precedes all others, even the pas- 
 sion of sensuality. For sensuality touches only the senses which 
 are fragile, which soon become exhausted, which tire of them- 
 selves ; while the religious want, a sort of divine hunger, has 
 its source in the most profound depths of our being, and 
 gathers nourishment there from all those miseries which excite 
 in us a continuous distaste for the present life. Even pride 
 comes but after it ; however active it may be, it is subject here 
 below to too many humiliations not to second and bear before 
 itself in our soul a better and a gentler sentiment, that which 
 draws us near to God, and causes us to seek our own dignity 
 in his greatness. Religion is the first and oldest friend of 
 man ; even when he wounds it, he still respects and cultivates- 
 secret intimacies with it. Let not the state of our country, 
 gentlemen, deceive us on this point; do not think because 
 there are some millions of men around us who are besotted 
 in practical atheism, that this is the natural condition of 
 the human race. It is the result of extraordinary circumstances 
 and notwithstanding the irreligion of some of her children' 
 
JESUS CHRIST. Si 
 
 this same France has never for a single day ceased to bear 
 in her glorious womb a multitude of souls who serve God 
 ardently, and honour their faith by works known throughout 
 the world. 
 
 Now, idolatry, in spite of its slight doctrinal character, gave 
 satisfaction to the religious want ; it had temples, altars, a 
 priesthood, sacrifices, prayers, public and pompous ceremonies, 
 a very great station in the world, and the shreds of its mythology 
 still contained sufficient remembrance of God to keep the soul 
 from fasting and without food. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten that idolatry, in giving satis- 
 faction to the elevated inclinations of our nature, did not 
 disdain the most abject, and abundantly dispensed sacred 
 nourishment to them. A most profound and subtle art had 
 blended together God and matter, religion and sensuality, 
 causing grave thoughts and shameful solicitations to descend 
 from the same altars. The idolater had all in his gods ; what- 
 ever he willed, heaven obeyed his desires. What a master- 
 piece, had heaven in its turn been obeyed ! In addition, the 
 third passion of man, the pride of domination, found also in 
 this worship, which was erudite by its very degradation, an 
 ample satisfaction. Idolatry was not distinct from the empire ; 
 the prince, the senate, or the people, conferred the sacerdotal 
 magistracy, named the pontiffs, regulated the ceremonies, took 
 pleasure in covering the robe of their consuls with the mantle 
 of their gods. Religion was country also. The fasces and 
 the altars were seen advancing together before the republic : 
 the fasces, the symbol of its justice and power ; the altars, the 
 symbol of that mysterious alliance which united the destinies 
 of the State to the very destinies of the gods. 
 
 No, you will never adequately represent to yourselves the 
 force of that institution. Ah ! if a pagan ceremony were to 
 rise up again before you ; if you could see all Rome mounting 
 to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, that concourse of people, 
 those legions, that senate, all those patriotic memorials mount- 
 ing with them, and all together bearing to the gods the new 
 victory of Rome ! If you could hear the silence and the 
 sound of unanimity, that hum of all the passions convinced of 
 their rights and satisfied with their triumph, pride as well as 
 sensuality, sensuality as well as religion, the elevated and the 
 abject, heaven and earth, all at once, all in a single day and in 
 a single action : if you had seen and heard this, you, perhaps, 
 
 £ 2 
 
52 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 yielding to that total intoxication of the human faculties, would 
 for a moment have bowed the head, and adored in the hands 
 of Rome the antique gods of the world ! 
 
 However, they were not to be adored, they were to be 
 destroyed; such was the order of Jesus Christ. They were to 
 be destroyed throughout the world, since the whole world was 
 subject to idolatry. And what was to replace it? A Man, 
 humbled even to the punishment of slaves ; a Man, come 
 from a country upon which the Romans showered floods o) 
 ridicule with oppression ; a Jew, and a Jew crucified ! This 
 is what the fishermen of Judasa brought to Rome, to the 
 Capitol, to replace the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus ! Judge, 
 then ! Here was ignominy instead of greatness, penance and 
 mortification instead of sensuality. Penance and mortification; 
 what words ! After eighteen centuries of naturalization, I 
 hardly dare to pronounce them before you, without disguising 
 them to your ears, which have nevertheless been nourished by 
 the language of the Gospel ; and it was necessary to reveal 
 these to the Romans ! It was necessary to say to them : We 
 bring you a religion all pure and holy, founded upon the im- 
 molation of the body by chastity, and not only by chastity, 
 which is only a simple retrenchment, but by the direct hatred 
 of the senses. We come, with the scourge in our hands, to 
 teach you to treat your body as a slave, because it is the slave 
 of the most vile inclinations, and because you can only deliver 
 your souls from it by keeping it in the respect and chastise- 
 ment of obedience. It was necessary to say these things to a 
 people puffed up by seven centuries of arrogance and domina- 
 tion, plunged in sensuality as well as in pride, and accustomed 
 to find in their gods, which were to be destroyed, the justifica- 
 tion of their pompous ignominy. But Jesus Christ had so 
 ordered it ; all that was said, believed, adopted, and the reign 
 of idols fell before the reign of the cross, in spite of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 The Roman Empire and idolatry were as one ; but it was 
 not less inimical to the Christian establishment on another 
 hand. That empire had been founded slowly by the prudence 
 and stability of its councils, the courage of its armies, the 
 abnegation of its chiefs, until, having become master of the 
 world, it bent under the very weight of its greatness, and lost 
 in corruption all the public liberties which had formed its 
 glory and its welfare. Nothing of this remained when Jesus 
 
JESUS CHRIST. S3 
 
 Christ came into the world, save a few already dishonoured 
 symbols ; and when He died, the empire had passed from 
 Augustus to Tiberius by a decadence which foreshadowed 
 Nero. The orators' tribune was mute, the people consoled 
 themselves for the loss of the Forum with a crust of bread 
 thrown to them ; the senate, mangled and decimated in its last 
 illustrious men, opposed to despotism only the promptitude of 
 an obedience which sometimes even wearied the insolent 
 caprice of the master. A single man was all, and that man 
 could hurl with impunity any defiance to servitude. One day, 
 it pleased him to assemble the senate, that is to say, the relics 
 of all the great Roman families, the descendants of those 
 conscript fathers who had borne war and liberty so proudly 
 within the folds of their toga? ; it pleased him to call them 
 together to deliberate about the composition of a fish sauce ! 
 I thank you, gentlemen, for refraining from laughter; this is 
 the greatest insult which has ever been offered to human 
 nature in the person of the greatest political body it has ever 
 produced. God permitted it, gentlemen, in order to teach us 
 how low man falls by the corruption of riches and apostasy 
 from liberty, that guardian of all rights and of all duties. Such, 
 then, was Rome when Jesus Christ sent His disciples to con- 
 vert her to Himself, and such was with Rome the whole universe. 
 Mistress of the world, after having enchained nations to her 
 greatness, she held them enchained to her humiliations ; and 
 for the first time in the history of the human race liberty had 
 no longer an asylum upon earth. 
 
 I say, for the first time. Until then, by a providence worthy 
 of all our thanksgivings, God had so provided that there was 
 always some free land where virtue and truth could defend 
 themselves against the designs of the stronger. Whilst the East 
 was fertile in tyrannies, Egypt possessed institutions worthy of 
 esteem, and judged her kings after their death; Greece defended 
 her tribune against the ambition of the kings of Persia ; Rome 
 protected her citizens by laws which surrounded their lives 
 with many sacred ramparts. If from ancient we pass to modern 
 times, we shall find there the same care of Providence in not 
 permitting despotism to reign everywhere at the same time. 
 The present world is divided into three zones, the zone of un- 
 limited tyranny which has nothing to envy from the most cruel 
 histories of the past, an intermediate zone where some action 
 is still permitted to thought and to faith; and, in fine, that 
 
54 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 generous western zone of which we form a part, those great 
 kingdoms of France, England, the United States of America, 
 Spain, where rights and duties have guarantees ; where men 
 speak, write, discuss ; where, whilst power oppresses the 
 majesty of God and man in distant regions, we defend it 
 before the world, and we defend it without glory, because 
 nothing in that office menaces either our heads or our honour! 
 
 A unique moment arrived when, with a map of the world 
 open before you, you would have sought in vain for a mountain 
 or a desert to shelter the heart of Cato of Utica, and when 
 Cato of Utica thought it necessary to ask from Death that 
 liberty which no spot upon earth could any longer give to him. 
 At that unique and terrible moment, Jesus Christ sent His 
 apostles to announce the Gospel to every creature, and to 
 found in their faith, love, and adoration, the kingdom of souls 
 and of truth. 
 
 Let us see what this kingdom was to the Roman Empire. 
 
 First, it was the liberty of the soul. Jesus Christ claimed 
 the soul ; He claimed that it should be free to know Him, to 
 love Him, to adore Him, to pray to Him, to unite with Him. 
 He did not admit that any other than Himself had right over 
 the soul, and above all the right of hindering the soul from 
 communicating with them. Yet much more : Jesus Christ 
 claimed the public union of souls in His service ; He knew 
 nothing of secrecy; He demanded a patent and social worship. 
 The liberty of the soul implied the right to found material and 
 spiritual churches, to assemble, to pray together, to hear in 
 common the Word of God, that substantial food of the soul 
 which is its daily bread, and of which it can be deprived only 
 by an act of sacrilegious homicide. The liberty of the soul im- 
 plied the right of practising together all the ceremonies of 
 public worship, of receiving the sacrament of eternal life, of 
 living together by the Gospel and Jesus Christ. None upon 
 earth possessed any longer the government of sacred things 
 but the anointed of the Lord — the elect souls — initiated into 
 a larger faith and love, tested by the successors of the apostles, 
 sanctified by ordination. All the rest, princes and peoples^ 
 were excluded from the administration of the body and blood 
 of Jesus Christ, that divine centre of the kingdom of souls, 
 and which it was not meet to deliver to dogs, according to the 
 forcible expression of the most gentle Gospel. 
 
 But as the soul is the basis of man, by creating the liberty 
 
JESUS CHRIST. * 55 
 
 of the soul, Jesus Christ, at the same time, created the liberty 
 of man. The Gospel, as the regulator of the rights and duties 
 ■of all, rose to the power of a universal charter, which became 
 the measure of all legitimate authority, and which, in hallowing 
 it, preserved it from the excesses into which human power had 
 •everywhere fallen. On this account, the kingdom of souls was 
 .absolutely the very opposite of the Roman Empire, and it was 
 impossible to imagine a more complete antagonism. The 
 Eoman Empire was universal servitude ; the kingdom of souls, 
 universal liberty. Between them it was a question of being or 
 not being. The struggle was inevitable ; it was to be a deadly 
 ■struggle. 
 
 Now, what force did the kingdom of souls dispose of 
 against that empire covered with legions ? None. The 
 Forum ? It was no more. The senate ? It was no more. 
 The people ? They were no more. Eloquence ? It was 
 no more. Thought ? It was no more. Was it at least per- 
 mitted to the first Christians whom the Gospel had raised 
 up in the world to gather one against a hundred thousand 
 for the combat ? No, that was not permitted to them. 
 What then was their strength ? The same that Jesus Christ 
 had before them. They had to confess His name and then 
 to die, to die to-day, to-morrow, the day after, to die one 
 ■ after another, that is to say, to vanquish servitude by the 
 peaceful exercise of the liberty of the soul ; to vanquish force, 
 not by force, but by virtue. It had been said to them : If 
 for three centuries you can boldly say : " I believe in God 
 the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in 
 Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, who was born of the 
 Virgin Mary, was dead, and is risen again ; " if for three 
 centuries you can say this openly, and die daily after having 
 declared it, in three centuries you shall be masters, that is to 
 say, free. 
 
 And this was done. 
 
 And this was done in spite of the fury of the Roman 
 Empire converting the universe into a headsman, and losing 
 its terrified reason in the emptiness of its cruelties. I will say 
 no more of the martyrs ; they conquered, as the whole world 
 knows. And this kingdom of souls, founded by their blood ; 
 ■this kingdom of souls, which was to destroy idolatry, and 
 which has destroyed it, which was to overthrow the Roman 
 Empire, and which has overthrown it in all that was false 
 
56 THE FOUNDATION OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 and unjust in it; where did this kingdom of souls set 
 up its capital? In Rome! The seat of virtue was placed 
 in the seat of power; the seat of liberty in the seat of 
 bondage ; in the seat of shameful idols the seat of the cross 
 of Jesus Christ; in the seat whence the orders of Nero 
 issued to the world, the seat of the disarmed and aged 
 pastor, who, in the name of Jesus Christ, whose vicar he 
 is, spreads throughout the world purity, peace, and blessing. 
 
 triumph of faith and love ! O spectacle which enraptures 
 man above himself by showing him what he can do for good 
 with the help of God ! My own eyes have seen that land, 
 the liberator of souls, that soil formed of the ashes and blood 
 of martyrs ; and why should I not recur to remembrances 
 which will confirm my words in reinvigorating my life ? 
 
 One day, then, my heart all trembling with emotion, I 
 entered by the Flaminian Gate that famous city which had 
 conquered the world by her arms, and governed it by her laws. 
 
 1 hurried to the Capitol ; but the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus 
 no longer crowned its heroic summit. I descended to the 
 Forum ; the orator's tribune was broken down, and the voice 
 of herdsmen had succeeded to the voices of Cicero and Hor- 
 tensius. I mounted the steep paths of the Palatine ; the 
 Caesars were gone, and they had not even left a praetorian at 
 the entry to ask the name of the inquisitive stranger. Whilst 
 I was pondering those mighty ruins, through the azure of the 
 Italian sky, I perceived in the distance a temple whose dome 
 appeared to cover all the present grandeurs of that city upon 
 whose dust I trod. I advanced towards it, and there, upon a 
 vast and magnificent space, I found Europe assembled in the 
 persons of her ambassadors, her poets, her artists, her pilgrims 
 — a throng diverse in origin, but united, it seemed, in common 
 and earnest expectation. I also waited, when in the distance 
 before me an old man advanced, borne in a chair above the 
 crowd, bareheaded and holding in his two hands, under the 
 form of mysterious bread, that Man of Judasa aforetime 
 crucified. Every head bent before Him, tears flowed in silent 
 adoration, and upon no visage did I see the protestation of 
 doubt, or the shadow of a feeling which was not, at least, 
 respectful. "Whilst I also adored my Master and my Kin"-, 
 the immortal King of souls, sharing in the triumph, without 
 seeking to express it even to myself, the obelisk of granite 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 57 
 
 standing in our midst sang for us all, silent and enraptured, 
 the hymn of God victorious : Christus vincit, Christus 
 regnat, Christus imperat, Christus ab omni malo plebem 
 suam liberat ! And, lest an enemy should have been found 
 in that multitude, it answered itself by another celebrated 
 hymn, which warned us to fly from the lion of Judah if we 
 would not adore him in his victory. After many years, which 
 have already whitened my brow, I repeat to you those threats 
 and those songs of joy; happy are you if you do not fly, but 
 if, drawing nearer, you repeat with us all, children of Christ and 
 members of His kingdom : Christus vincit, Christus regnat, 
 Christus imperat, Christus ab omni malo plebem suam 
 liberat 1 
 
THE PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF 
 THE REIGN OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 According to His design and according to His declara- 
 tion, Jesus Christ established upon earth the kingdom of God, 
 the kingdom of souls ; He established it, notwithstanding 
 the difficulty of reigning over men by faith, love and adoration, 
 and notwithstanding the public difficulty which the state of 
 political and religious society then presented to him. But, 
 gentlemen, to enable us to affirm that Jesus Christ has outlived 
 Himself as God, is it enough that His work is stamped with a 
 character which can be only divine ? No ; for although His 
 success was prodigious, regarding it at the point where we left 
 it, namely, at the accession of Constantine, yet it is the lot of 
 every power that makes its appearance here below to have its 
 struggle and its triumph — a struggle and a triumph, I grant, 
 not all of the same measure, but which have, at least, this in 
 common, that they appear, contend, and reach a favourable 
 moment, which will be called success. What is more difficult 
 .and more necessary for the confirmation of victory is to resist 
 victory itself. A celebrated diplomatist has said : " Time is 
 the great enemy." Has Jesus Christ then overcome the great 
 enemy ? After idolatry, after the Roman Empire, has He over- 
 come that other power, which is but eternity disguised, the 
 power of time? At the end of a more or less prosperous 
 career, has He not, like all the rest, felt that icy hand which, 
 sooner or later, dishonours the greatest events, and hurls the 
 most stable dynasties from their throne ? Is He not visibly 
 struck by that slowly advancing thunderbolt which spares 
 
JESUS CHRIST. S9 
 
 nothing ? Such is the question which now claims our attention. 
 In a word, I am about to lay before you the balance-sheet of 
 Jesus Christ, and I invite you to examine it. 
 
 Why is time the great enemy ? Because, gentlemen, it is 
 endowed with a double power, the power of destroying and of 
 building up. What was it that overthrew those primitive 
 empires of Assyria and Chaldsea? It was time. What over- 
 threw that empire of Cyrus, vainly raised up again by 
 Alexander ? It was time. What overthrew that empire, in- 
 creased by the ruins of all the others, and which we should 
 rather call the world than an empire, the Roman world ? It 
 was time. What overthrew all those republics of the Middle 
 Ages whose vestiges, surviving in marbles and paintings, we so 
 much admire? It was time. And, on another hand, what 
 has built up those new kingdoms whose sons we are, the king- 
 doms of the Franks, the Germans, the Anglo-Saxons, and the 
 rest? It is the same hand, skilful in creating after having 
 destroyed, and which, from the very dust where it has revelled 
 with so much pride, draws forth substance, order, and solidity. 
 Time destroys with one hand and rebuilds with the other, 
 enemy alike to both, since the edifice it raises up does but 
 sink deeper the edifice it overthrows, for, with time, to found 
 is also to destroy. 
 
 Nevertheless, gentlemen, let us not halt at those splendid 
 images, which only reveal to us the inimical power of time by 
 outward appearances. Let us endeavour to unveil its secret by 
 analysis, in order that, having learned, whence time derives its 
 double power of destruction and edification, we may consider 
 whether Jesus Christ has not been subject to the exercise of 
 that formidable action, and why He alone has been able to 
 escape from it, should we at length prove that He has escaped 
 from it 
 
 The action of time results from five causes, the first of 
 which is novelty. Time is always young, and yet it ages all 
 things. Each of its steps is the advance of dawn, but it leaves 
 darkness and night behind. Restless child of eternity, it 
 borrows unfading youth there, but has no power to com- 
 municate it, save but for a moment, to the things measured by 
 its course. It passes, it sheds life ; but that life of to-day soon 
 becomes that of yesterday, of the day before, of bygone times, 
 sl remembrance, a relic of the past, and yet time is not 
 impoverished; it is ever fertile and young, causing the new 
 
60 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 to follow the old. Now, the new possesses a charm which 
 seduces the mind as well as the senses, and which enables 
 doctrines bearing its impress easily to prevail against doctrines 
 become superannuated by the simple fact of their duration. 
 Remark what happens around us. As soon as a man is able 
 to give a new form to ideas, and appropriate them to the 
 course of time, he inevitably has disciples. Why? Because 
 he has said something which had not been said before, or 
 had been forgotten. We have the passion for novelty in ideas 
 as in all the rest, and it is not difficult to understand why it is 
 so. Predestinated as we are to enjoy the infinite, the infinite 
 is our want, and we pursue it everywhere. Now, novelty is 
 the only thing here below which gives us some sensation of 
 the infinite. As soon as we have considered an object, we 
 say : It is enough. Who will turn the page ? Novelty turns 
 it, and in turning it, disguises its feebleness to our intelligence 
 by a false gleam of progress, which enchants us. 
 
 Above all others, gentlemen, Jesus Christ had to fear this 
 inclination of our souls, which arms time with a power so 
 dangerous to doctrinal sterility. However merciful the Gospel 
 may be, it was not to bend to the inconstancy of our mind ; 
 "heaven and earth shall pass away," said Jesus Christ, "but 
 my words shall not pass away."* It was to traverse all ages, 
 losing daily the force of its novelty without losing any of its 
 precept, or rather, like God, "who," said Saint Augustin, "is 
 beauty ever ancient and ever new," the evangelic word was to 
 infuse into its progressive antiquity a youthfulness which 
 should charm the heart of all new generations. 
 
 This first advantage obtained over time, a second remained 
 to be gained. The second power of time is in experience, 
 that is to say, in the revelation that results from the applica- 
 tion of doctrines to the positive life of mankind. Every 
 doctrine is a body of laws, which is of value only in so much 
 as it is considered to contain true relations of beings ; it is like 
 the creation of a world. As long as that creation remains in 
 the mind in the state of pure conception, we may be deceived 
 as to its real merits, because it is difficult to judge a great 
 assemblage of ideas ; but it is no longer so when, entering into 
 the domain of reality, they are required to found or to main- 
 tain a positive order; experience infallibly manifests their 
 
 * St. Matt. xxiv. 35. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 61 
 
 weakness or their falsity; for a false or powerless law is 
 incapable of establishing durable relations, and as a house 
 based upon false mathematical principles falls to the ground, 
 so no order whatever could subsist based upon ideas wanting 
 the equilibrium of truth. 
 
 Now, who had ever more reason to fear this terrible test of 
 experience than Jesus Christ? For, with the Gospel, he had 
 not placed in the world a society confined within the narrow 
 limits of a race and a country, but a universal society, wherein 
 every soul wheresoever born, could claim the rights of citizen- 
 ship ; and consequently, if the Gospel were false, its ruin 
 should have been as great as the universe, and as rapid as 
 time, acting at once upon numberless places and minds. 
 
 The third power of time is in corruption. Everything, 
 having reached a certain point of prosperity, decays, because 
 as soon as man is master he wills to enjoy, and because the 
 inevitable result of enjoyment is that decomposition of the 
 soul and body which we call corruption. The history of all 
 successes is the history of Hannibal at Capua. Men grow 
 listless and forgetful, they think themselves secure, they become 
 intoxicated with success ; the slow poison of ease relaxes all 
 the springs of their activity ; and the being who is nothing 
 save by activity, falls little by little into the shame of slumbering 
 effeminacy. Nimrod begins, Sardanapalus ends. It is the 
 high road of great fortunes ; labour and virtue form thern, 
 enjoyments annihilate even their last traces. Religion, even 
 more than any other empire, is subject to this great law, and 
 above all the Church, or the religion of Jesus Christ, was 
 firmly chained to it. For the blood of the cross had given her 
 life ; having sprung from the crucifixion of a God, she could 
 not fail, in the days of her prosperity, to remember the cruel 
 humiliations of her cradle. And, on another hand, the tempt- 
 ations which her triumph prepared for her were far to surpass 
 any temptations until then known. She was to see the kings 
 of the earth at her feet, to issue orders from one end of the 
 world to the other, to behold ages bending before her teaching 
 and her action, to cover the earth with sumptuous monuments, 
 and see it become a tributary to all the wants of unlimited 
 power and glory; and under the weight of such success, 
 reaching even to heaven, to preserve upon her brow, as in her 
 heart, the sign of penance and humility. Or, if in one of the 
 long days of her life she was about to yield, and to feel the 
 
62 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 attack of corruption, from that very corruption she was to 
 resuscitate her life, not another life — as we see in nature — but 
 her own life ; and, like the eagle of Scripture, recovering the 
 charm of her youth, soar aloft with outstretched wings, 
 invigorated and renewed by her very poverty and by the 
 shedding of her own blood. 
 
 The fourth power of time is chance, that is to say, certain 
 conjunctures which do not blend with anything that genius is 
 able to combine and foresee, and which suddenly overthrow 
 the most ably concerted designs. History is full of these. 
 Human prudence makes shipwreck upon shoals imperceptible 
 to the keenest eye. It is the grain of sand of which Pascal 
 speaks, which one morning threw Cromwell into disorder, and 
 destroyed plans destined to change the face of Europe. 
 
 You sometimes wonder, perhaps, at a certain equilibrium 
 visible in the world, and which keeps the strong from destroy- 
 ing the weak at will. Why have those great empires not yet 
 crushed the small neighbouring States ? It is because those 
 great empires have Cromwell's grain of sand against them. 
 At the very moment when their combinations are ready to 
 succeed and bring about the destruction of all rights upon 
 earth, the obscure son of some peasant, in the corner of a hut, 
 sharpens his knife on a broken millstone ; at the noise of war 
 he dons his cap, slips his knife into his girdle, and goes out to 
 see something of what is passing between Providence and the 
 kings of the earth. The smoke of powder opens his eyes ; the 
 sight of blood elates him ; God makes him the instrument of a 
 brilliant action ; behold him a great captain ; empires recede 
 a step before him : that knife, that peasant, is chance. 
 
 Judge now how much of this Jesus Christ has had to en- 
 counter in the course of a reign of eighteen hundred years. 
 Consult simply the history of the papacy, and see what a 
 slender thread has held the destinies of that throne, always 
 surrounded by enemies, yet always enduring. It has constantly 
 had to contend against the most skilful combinations ; but 
 what is still more terrible is that conspiracy of chance, that 
 enemy which might at any time have destroyed it, and which, 
 strange to say, has always respected it. 
 
 The fifth power of time is war. No earthly power can 
 avoid combat ; it necessarily has enemies, not only on account 
 of its faults and abuses, but by the simple fact of its existence. 
 To exist is to combat, because to exist is to take from the 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 63 
 
 common seat of life a part of the substance destined for all ; 
 and if this be true of the most feeble being, how much more 
 so must it be of an assemblage of beings raised to the state of 
 power! Therefore Jesus Christ declared "that He came not 
 to send peace, but war,"* a terrible war, and upon a scale so- 
 vast as to astound our imagination. For it is the war of the 
 spirit against the flesh and of the flesh against the spirit, that is 
 to say, of the two elements which constitute man, neither of 
 which can ever completely vanquish the other. When the 
 body is victorious, the soul struggles against it, and when the 
 soul is the stronger, the body watches for the moment when its 
 yoke may be broken. But this internal struggle does not cease 
 here, it necessarily produces a war as general as it is deeply 
 seated. Souls unite with souls and bodies with bodies ; it is 
 the union of bodies against the union of souls which forms the 
 great war of mankind. Jesus Christ at the head of one army, 
 and Satan at the head of the other ; the army of the passions, 
 pride, sensuality, hatred, on one side ; the army of the spirit, 
 humility, chastity, obedience, mortification, charity, on the 
 other. All these are in action in the formidable regions of the 
 finite and the infinite, in the depths of God, of the soul, and of 
 the senses, amidst a thousand secondary causes which add to 
 the gloom and the chances of the struggle ; and if Jesus Christ 
 be God, He must in the end be victorious, His form remaining 
 unchangeable, although continually insulted, upon the vener- 
 able summit of time and things. 
 
 Has it been so, gentlemen ? Can we testify of Jesus Christ 
 that He has been more powerful than novelty, than experience, 
 than corruption, than chance, than war, than all these causes 
 banded together against Him during a course of eighteen 
 centuries ? Can we do this ? 
 
 Yes, gentlemen, I can do this ; I can even show you three 
 degrees in this triumph of Jesus Christ over time. For, in the 
 first place, He lives, His work is before you ; although it has 
 undergone more or less of attack in that long pilgrimage under 
 the rebel hand of time, it is nevertheless still before you. It 
 remains surrounded by sufficient glory to attract all eyes, and 
 to be still the object of veneration to which there is no rival, as 
 nothing is comparable to the hatred of the enemies who have 
 not accepted in its temporal duration the proof of its origin in 
 
 * St. Matt, x., 34. 
 
64 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 the very bosom of eternity. But this is not all. Not only is 
 Jesus Christ living in His Church and His Church in Him, but, 
 since the Christian era, no religious establishment has been 
 founded in the world of which Jesus Christ has not been the 
 basis and the bond of union. 
 
 The first in the order of time is Islamism. Now, the basis 
 of Islamism, as Grotius long ago remarked, is entirely biblical. 
 It is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob ; it is Moses, Mount Sinai, the 
 Jewish people in the most memorable events of its history ; it 
 is Jesus Christ Himself, come after the prophets, and greater 
 than they. At each page of the Koran, Mahomet inscribes a 
 recital drawn from Christian antiquities or makes some allusion 
 to them. Why is this ? Why is it that, aspiring to the honour 
 of founding a religion, Mahomet did not base it entirely upon 
 himself ! Why, gentlemen? Because he could not. Man can no 
 more build in the air in the order of spirits than in the order of 
 bodies; he must however find a basis. Now, according to the ex- 
 pression of Fontenelle, "the Christian religion is the only religion 
 which possesses proofs," and wherever it has appeared with the 
 authority of its history, error must take its support and be 
 grafted into that mighty trunk which alone throws out its roots 
 in antiquity. Mahomet lived in an age and in a land already 
 impregnated with the sap of Christianity; he touched Abyssinia, 
 a great seat of Christendom, Egypt, a metropolitan church, 
 Judsea, where all the great Christian mysteries were accom- 
 plished ; the blood of his people remounted with omnipotent 
 celebrity to the blood of Abraham; he could only, in such 
 conditions, found a heresy, or, if you prefer it, establish him- 
 self upon Jesus Christ by an infidelity which still rendered 
 immense homage to Him. This is why Mussulmans have always 
 permitted Christians to live in their territory, and adore Jesus 
 Christ, not from toleration resulting from fear, but from respect 
 for the common traditions of the two religions and the formal 
 recommendations of the Koran. There has been a struggle 
 for supremacy between Mussulmans and Christians ; but there 
 has been no persecution, properly so called, of Christians by 
 Mussulmans. Ishmael reclaimed only his right of primogeni- 
 ture over Isaac. And this, gentlemen, explains to you the 
 strange spectacle which Constantinople now presents to us, 
 where, although the penalty of death is decreed against any 
 Christian who should convert a Mussulman, Christians of every 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 65 
 
 communion have nevertheless full liberty to exercise their 
 worship, even publicly. 
 
 After Islamism came the Greek schism. Now the Greek 
 schism is the whole Catholic Church save two points — the 
 supremacy of the sovereign Pontiff, and the procession of the 
 Holy Ghost. All the rest, dogmas, morals, sacraments, hier- 
 archy, customs, have been preserved by the descendants of 
 Photius. They have rejected the vicar of Jesus Christ, but 
 they have not rejected Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the object 
 of their faith, their love, and their adoration, the corner-stone 
 of their religious edifice. 
 
 It is the same, although in a minor degree, with Protest- 
 antism. Protestantism has denied the Church, but not Jesus 
 Christ. Jesus Christ remains the Doctor and King of souls, and 
 even for a great number of Protestants He is still the only Son 
 of God, worthy as such of supreme adoration. 
 
 No other religious establishment has been raised up in the 
 world since the Christian era. Brahminism and Buddhism 
 were anterior to Jesus Christ ; and if some movement was 
 visible in the last of these at a nearer epoch, it was owing to 
 the intercourse between Christians and the distant regions of 
 India and Tartary. Thus, in the mountains of Thibet, since 
 our celebrated embassies of the Middle Ages, a puerile 
 imitation of the papacy has been witnessed. Jesus Christ no 
 sooner dawned upon the world than His light caused the 
 clouds of false religions to recede ; many have entirely 
 disappeared, and none has been formed but upon His name 
 and history. He has become the trunk of error as well as 
 of truth, and whoever totally denies Him, opens an abyss for 
 himself where nothing but death will ever fructify. His tomb 
 is now the centre of the religious world ; Mussulmans, Greeks, 
 Protestants, Catholics, guard it. All, gathered together from 
 the four winds of heaven, agree to venerate the inanimate 
 stone upon which the mangled body of Christ for three days 
 and nights reposed. A hundred battles have been fought 
 around it; the destinies of the world have a score of times 
 changed their aspect there; but defeat or victory has ever 
 borne to it the homage of nations, and so many struggles have 
 but served to glorify that fragile tomb where all come to 
 prostrate themselves. If Catholics alone had guarded it, it 
 would have been an ordinary protection, like all the rest that 
 
66 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 is measured by the sword ; it was more fitting to the designs 
 of God that Jerusalem "should be trodden under foot of 
 nations," * as the Gospel had foretold, and that the Holy- 
 Sepulchre, held up by a thousand hands, should appear 
 amidst all' the events as the indicative sign that no religious 
 establishment is thenceforth possible save on condition of 
 participating in Christ by something at least of His blood, His 
 doctrine, and His memory. 
 
 Time, gentlemen, will bring you new proofs of this. You 
 will see the fading away of the miserable vestiges of religions 
 without foundation, as the civilization advances of which 
 Jesus Christ is the Creator and the Head. Fable cannot keep 
 ground against history, antiquity empty against antiquity filled, 
 the vague against the certain, death against life. Jesus Christ 
 pursues his course even by the very unfaithfulness which pride 
 brings to Him ; He makes use of schisms and heresies as of 
 tainted water which still contains Him for a multitude of souls 
 armed against poison by the simplicity of ignorance and good 
 faith. But at the same time — and this is His third triumph 
 over time — He maintains incorruptible and above all His true 
 Church, the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. He insures 
 to her even a numerical superiority ; for Islamism counts but 
 a hundred millions of followers, the Greek schjsm, sixty 
 millions, Protestantism a like number, whilst the Catholic 
 Church holds a hundred and sixty millions of souls subject to 
 her government. Hierarchical superiority; for neither Is- 
 lamism, nor the Greek schism, nor Protestantism has been 
 able to create a papacy. Superiority of independence ; for no 
 spiritual community has been able to preserve inviolable the 
 sanctuary of the soul, save the Catholic Church, which, by 
 constantly giving her inexhaustible blood for that cause, has 
 kept her teaching and her action free from the yoke, and has 
 merited the honour of being here below the bulwark of right 
 and the virgin soil of holy liberty. 
 
 I shall not enlarge further, gentlemen, upon the marks of 
 the true Church of Jesus Christ. I have already done this, 
 and I hastily refer to it now only to demonstrate the sovereign 
 providence by which Jesus Christ has maintained them on the 
 brow of His Church against all the efforts of time. 
 
 Thus then a threefold perpetuity is acquired for Jesus Christ 
 
 * Isaiah v. 5. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 67 
 
 from the scrutiny to which we have subjected Him : perpetuity 
 of life ; perpetuity of exclusive irradiation of life ; perpetuity of 
 superiority in life. 
 
 But you may reply : This is not questioned. Jesus Christ 
 has lived ; He has infused His life into all religious establish- 
 ments which have come after Him, and He has even maintained 
 His Church above all the rest. Yet do you not now perceive 
 signs of decadency in His work ? Have not a multitude of 
 souls emancipated themselves from His rule ? And when signs 
 ■of decrepitude begin to appear, may we not foresee a near and 
 an inevitable dissolution ? 
 
 This may be your idea, gentlemen ; mine is that Jesus 
 Christ is at the apogee of His glory and power ; and this, with 
 the help of God, I shall now proceed to show you. 
 
 Three things constitute power, and the progress of these 
 three things constitutes the progress of power, namely, the 
 territorial state, the numerical state, and the moral state. 
 Now, I affirm that, under this threefold relation, Jesus Christ 
 has never attained a higher point than that at which we at 
 present contemplate him. 
 
 In the first place, what was the territorial state of Jesus 
 Christ under Constantine ? It was nearly included even in 
 the boundaries of the empire, between the Rhine, the 
 Euphrates, and the Atlas. If it passed beyond, that addition 
 was compensated for by the many parts of the empire of 
 which the Gospel held but an imperfect and uncertain 
 possession. But what do you now see? It is true Jesus 
 Christ has lost some of his former territories, now occupied by 
 Mussulmans ; although it must be remarked that Christians 
 exist upon the whole surface of the Islamic soil, and that 
 Islamism itself recognises Jesus Christ and His ancestors. 
 
 But turn your eyes to the west, to the east, to the north, 
 to the south, and in every direction of the globe you will find 
 the conquering steps of the Saviour. He has crossed the 
 Rhine; He has subjected Germany, Poland,' All the Russias, 
 the three kingdoms of Great Britain, and has borne even to 
 the pole, across the mountains and ices of Sweden, the sun 
 of His dominion. The Atlantic Ocean opened before Him ; 
 He has passed the Cape of Good Hope, has joined to the 
 sceptre of his children that famous peninsula of India, which 
 from antiquity was looked upon as the reservoir of all the 
 treasures of nature. He has founded establishments along 
 
 f 2 
 
68 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 the coast of Africa, and rejoined by the Red Sea His old 
 possessions of Abyssinia. He has made the tour of the two 
 Americas, and from one pole to the other, ranging them under 
 His laws, He has raised up together republics, missions, and 
 bishoprics. He has retaken Spain from Mahomet, and every- 
 where shaken the territory of Islam. But yesterday, again, 
 when the chief of the house of Bourbon was descending from 
 the throne and about to carry His noble old age into exile, we 
 saw Jesus Christ, by the arm of the old Frank king who thus 
 wrote his testament among us, conquer two kingdoms from 
 infidelity, the kingdoms of Greece and Algeria. Still more 
 recently, China has opened to Him her ports, which had so 
 long been shut ; New Holland becomes peopled under the 
 shadow of His cross ; the islands of Oceania transform their 
 savage inhabitants into humble and meek adorers of His 
 Gospel. There are no longer any seas, or solitudes, or 
 mountains, or inaccessible places where Jesus Christ does not 
 hoist the bold standards of His children blended with His 
 own. 
 
 Return now back to Constantine ; weigh the Christian 
 world of that epoch with the Christian world of the present 
 time, and judge of the territorial progress which Jesus Christ 
 has made. 
 
 It is the same with the numerical state. I said just now 
 that the Catholic Church counts a hundred and sixty millions 
 of children, the Greek schism sixty millions, Protestantism 
 sixty millions more. This is a total of two hundred and eighty 
 millions of men who acknowledge Jesus Christ for their 
 Saviour and their spiritual head. Doubtless, there are some 
 among these who do not bear His yoke from clear and positive 
 conviction ; but the Christian's life must be judged as a whole, 
 and especially at the hour of death. Among the many who 
 think themselves unbelievers there are few who resist Christ 
 to the last, and who do not ask Him to forgive their errors 
 much more than their apostasy. Their soul, moreover, was 
 formed by the Gospel, and it is still their nourishment even 
 when they think they despise it. The numerical state of Jesus 
 Christ was never more flourishing, and it daily tends to in- 
 crease by the development of Christian populations. Whilst 
 the Mahometan races become impoverished and the remains 
 of the idolatrous nations vegetate in their immobility, the 
 Christian blood, blessed by God, prospers beyond measure, 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 69 
 
 and continual emigrations carry its superabundance into 
 distant lands, and with it the precious seeds of faith. 
 
 If you perceive a disproportion between the territory and 
 the population of Jesus Christ, it is easy to be explained. 
 The power of Christians grows yet faster than their blood ; 
 they conquer and govern space with a handful of men, and 
 their genius fills it long before their posterity. I do not think 
 this observation is prejudicial to Jesus Christ. But there is 
 another which you certainly expect from me, and which I also 
 expect from you. Whatever may be the state, say you, of the 
 territorial and numerical progress of Jesus Christ — a phenome- 
 non which may be explained by the ascendency of the Christian 
 races — you cannot deny the invasion and progress of unbelief 
 in the very midst of Christianity. If Jesus Christ has over- 
 thrown the religions which were before His own, unbelief, more 
 powerful than He, overthrows in its turn the work which He 
 had built up, and overthrows it with still more terrible effects, 
 since it is doubt and negation which take the place of faith. 
 Like those lands exhausted by a substance that has devoured 
 all their sap, and which can no longer produce anything, the 
 land over which Christ has passed is a land cursed ; it no 
 longer produces anything but doubt and negation. Thus we 
 advance to a state worse than any of which mankind has been 
 the witness and the victim. Like that conqueror who caused 
 Jerusalem to be razed and salt to be cast upon its ruins, Christ 
 has exhausted the convictions of the human race, and cast 
 upon its intelligence the salt of absolute unbelief. Woe to us, 
 doubtless, woe to us who can no longer believe ! But to 
 whom do we owe that incapacity, if not to the tyranny of 
 Christ, who has not been powerful enough to bend for ever 
 our minds to His dogmas, and who is powerful enough to keep 
 us from ever holding any other faith than His own ? 
 
 I grant, gentlemen, that after seventeen centuries during which 
 Jesus Christ was not denied, He was at length denied in the 
 last century; He is denied even now. But so far from that 
 accident menacing the work of Christ, it derives a glory there- 
 from, which it will be easy for you to recognise and appreciate. 
 Three countries formed the seat of the total revolt against 
 Jesus Christ — England, France, and Germany. As to England, 
 unbelief has long ago ceased to possess any power or renown 
 there. If your ears are attentive to the echoes of the British 
 Parliament, that highest of all expression of national opinions, 
 
70 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 you will not have heard, since the birth of the present century, 
 a single word of insult or menace to Christ. England has 
 emancipated Catholics ; she has recalled to the tribune of her 
 Parliament the proscribed voices of the defenders of the 
 papacy ; she has opened her fields to the labour of monks, 
 and her schools to the learning of the Roman clergy. The old 
 walls of Oxford have heard the most celebrated doctors of 
 Anglicanism speaking of Jesus Christ like the Ancient Church, 
 they have witnessed the retreat of many who have passed from 
 the rostrum to the humble cell, there to recite the office after 
 the manner of the religious orders, and to pray at the foot of a 
 crucifix for the return of their soul and of their country to the 
 old faith of the Anglo-Saxons. Catholic churches, and even 
 cathedrals, have risen up full of splendour from the land of 
 proscription, and Jesus Christ has marched triumphantly with 
 His bishops and priests in the very places where stones and 
 the sword had pursued Him. In fine, England is won back 
 from unbelief, she who was the first to shelter it under the 
 protection of her nobles and her men of genius. 
 
 If we turn next to France, doubtless we shall not find 
 there in the same fulness the signs of a return to faith. Yet 
 none of you, knowing the history of the past and the present, 
 would compare the two positions. In the last century, 
 unbelief was absolute mistress of minds, alone it guided the 
 pen and spoke with eloquence ; its books were public events ; 
 its great men ranked with the old families of the monarchy, 
 and held familiar intercourse with all the kings of Europe ; a 
 flagrant and an overwhelming conspiracy hurled to heaven 
 every insult against Jesus Christ. Is it so now, gentlemen ? 
 Has not Jesus Christ His writers, His orators, His party, His 
 youth, His glory, among us ? And if unbelief still exists, do 
 we not well know how to make it bend before us, and how to 
 march on in the strength of our souls, against its now decrepit 
 successes and its ill-judged expectations ? We do, gentlemen ; 
 the watchword of the faith in all its most militant action comes 
 from France ; our missionaries, our sisters of charity, our 
 brothers of the Christian schools, bear it to the ends of the 
 world, and whoever loves Jesus Christ upon earth keeps his 
 hand upon our heart to feel there the pulsations of faith, and 
 to thank the God who strikes and who heals. 
 
 I shall say nothing of Germany ; she remains, doubtless, 
 although with certain modifications, the seat of the war against 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 71 
 
 Jesus Christ Our unbelievers go there to seek the arms 
 which the genius of France refuses to them yet more and 
 more ; but the fall is great, and the thunder that comes from 
 the clouds of the Rhine is not destined to produce such 
 effects as that double voice of England and France, whose 
 future alliance in favour of the Church and Jesus Christ the 
 great Comte de Maistre has long ago foretold. 
 
 However, gentlemen, let us not be content with proving by 
 facts the progressive decrease of the forces of unbelief; let us 
 endeavour to trace its causes in order to draw conclusions 
 which may embrace the future as well as the past. 
 
 God, then, seeing the darkness of men's minds, has caused 
 three suns to rise slowly upon the horizon of the Church : the 
 sun of history, the sun of science, and the sun of liberty. 
 History was ill-understood ; great research, aided by great 
 social revolutions, has enlightened its sombre mysteries, and 
 Jesus Christ, calumniated in the works of His Church,, has 
 retaken in the realities of the world a place which men willed 
 to dishonour. Whilst history returned to him by the labours 
 of Protestants and unbelievers, as much as by those of 
 Catholics, science did not serve Him with a lesser return of 
 justice and fidelity. Did it dig in the bowels of the earth, it 
 found again there the first page of Moses ; did it descend to 
 the foundations of the temples and monuments of Egypt, it 
 found there the points of junction between Egyptian history 
 and the history of the people of God ; did it succeed in 
 deciphering the language of hieroglyphics, those signs, recalled 
 to the vigour of their expression, bore testimony to the newness 
 of the world, compromised by the calculations of astronomy ; 
 did it discover and bring to light ruins and inscriptions, those 
 ruins and those inscriptions spoke for us ; nature interrogated 
 in every sense, gave back a Christian note from all its pores, as 
 if it had been created or charmed by Jesus Christ. 
 
 Liberty also has rendered us signal services. It has loosened 
 the bonds with which unbelief had bound the Church by the 
 hand of kings, and permitted Jesus Christ to resume the 
 sceptre of speech, too long enfeebled from respect which was 
 no longer merited. 
 
 Unbelief has, however, received a heavier blow than all 
 these. For the causes I have just enumerated act only in the 
 higher ranks of the world ; they do not strike at the heart of 
 the human race, and that central shock is necessary to all 
 
72 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 extended action. The centre of the world, the heart of the 
 human race, is the people. The people then should have had 
 a sign against unbelief, and that sign was given to them in 
 order that nothing might be wanting to the causes of salvation 
 which God prepares for us. What sign then was given to the 
 people? What sign, gentlemen? It is this : the soul and the 
 body of the people have gained nothing from unbelief, and 
 they know it. The people had a God in heaven ; when the 
 earth, so sparing towards them, overtasked their strength, they 
 clasped their hands, and in looking upwards and in appealing 
 to God from their very wretchedness, they felt dignity and 
 consolation reaching to them. The people had a God, not only 
 in heaven, but nearer to them, a God who had become man 
 and was poor, who was born in a stable, whose body had been 
 laid upon straw, and who had suffered in this life more than 
 they. The people had a God, not in heaven only, not only in 
 the flesh and in poverty, but they had a God upon the same 
 cross which they themselves bear, and when they beheld 
 themselves with their two arms extended in their suffering, 
 they found on their right hand their God who was crucified for 
 them, and who bore them company. The people had a God, 
 not only in heaven, not only in their flesh, in their poverty, 
 and in their own cross, but they had a God living in the 
 Church to teach, to protect, and to console them ; they 
 had a God living in their priest to receive the oppressive 
 secrets of their hearts ; they had a God living in the sister of 
 charity to bind up their wounded limbs when they could no 
 longer serve them, and to honour their souls in the miseries of 
 their bodies. The people had a God in heaven and upon 
 earth ; you have taken away from them the God of heaven, and 
 you have not preserved for them the God of earth. What 
 then did you give them in His stead ? What other God have 
 you made for them ? Ah ! I am wrong, for God you have 
 given them doubt, and for goddess negation ! You said to 
 them : " Perhaps ! " And finding that too much, you spoke 
 again with authority, and said : " No ! " Why should they 
 complain ? There is no longer any God, or Christ, or Gospel, 
 or Church ; but you remain to them, and with you the worms 
 which brought them into the world, and the worms which will 
 prey upon their dead bodies. Is not this enough to satisfy a 
 soul ? 
 
 Perhaps, unable to bear the sight of that merciless spoliation 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 73 
 
 wrought by your hands, you will turn to the bodies of the 
 people and boast of what they owe to you, for the temporal 
 well-being which you have procured for them in exchange for 
 what they have lost. Ah ! I expected as much from you ! The 
 bodies of the people ! But listen to the sounds which rise 
 from Manchester, Birmingham, Flanders, the cry, not of 
 poverty and want — they are the words and things of bygone 
 times — but the cry of pauperism : that is to say, the cry of 
 distress having reached the state of system and power, and 
 rising by an unexpected malediction, from the very develop- 
 ment of wealth itself. The political economy of unbelief has 
 "been destroyed by facts upon every seat of human enterprise 
 and activity ; it still struggles against these results, as terrible as 
 they were unlooked for ; but it is the hydra of Lerne against 
 the arm of Hercules : the blow which it has received is a mortal 
 blow because it has been dealt by the hand of the people ! 
 
 In a word, the bodies and the souls of the people have 
 gained nothing from unbelief; and the people know it. 
 
 But if you have done nothing as yet for the souls 
 and bodies of the people, perhaps it is to come, perhaps 
 you will some day set up a doctrine in the place of the 
 doctrine of Christ ? I must deprive you of that last hope ; 
 and without even trusting to the nothingness of your past 
 efforts, I must show you that it is impossible for you to 
 found a doctrine. In fact, unbelief rests upon two general 
 principles, of which this is the first: man should not believe in 
 man, because one man is as good as another, and his most 
 precious treasure is the independence of his mind. Your 
 second principle is : Man should not believe in God, because 
 God does not speak to man. But if man ought neither to 
 believe in God nor in man, in whom then should he believe ? 
 Your answer is : In himself, and in himself alone. Now 
 wherever men believe only in themselves, there are no 
 disciples ; where there are no disciples, there is no master ; 
 where there is no master, there is no unity ; where there is no 
 unity, there is no doctrine. You would not then found a 
 doctrine, even had you a thousand years multiplied by another 
 thousand before you. If you quit the principles of unbelief, 
 at that very moment you fall back upon Jesus Christ, the only 
 possible Master for whosoever acknowledges an authority, 
 ■ because without Him there is nothing which holds together 
 upon any foundation. 
 
74 PERPETUITY AND PROGRESS OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 But after all let us admit that you may found a doctrine. 
 Even should you succeed it would not be sufficient to dethrone 
 Jesus Christ ; your doctrine must be more perfect than that of 
 Jesus Christ. Now listen to what I have just experienced. 
 Three months ago I read for your sake the author who in this 
 age seems to have had the distinction of writing against Jesus 
 Christ with the greatest boldness, if not with the greatest 
 ability : I mean Dr. Strauss. After having, with heated forehead, 
 waded through four large volumes of transcendental weariness, 
 as the Germans say, I reached, at length, the last chapter, 
 entitled Conclusion. There Dr. Strauss, starting from the idea 
 that Jesus Christ is completely vanquished, asks himself 
 whether some man, capable of equalling and even of surpassing 
 Jesus Christ, will not appear upon the empty stage of mankind. 
 That question asked, a kind of tardy and eloquent justice 
 seizes upon the author, and, in a page which I read again more 
 than once, the only one in which the soul makes itself felt, he 
 declares that it is not probable that any man will ever be able 
 to equal Jesus Christ, but he is absolutely certain that no man 
 will ever surpass Him. 
 
 Such is the conclusion. 
 
 To sum up, gentlemen, I find in Jesus Christ a threefold 
 perpetuity : perpetuity in His life, perpetuity in the exclusive 
 irradiation of His life, perpetuity in the superiority of His life. 
 I also find in Him a threefold progress : progress in the 
 territorial state, progress in the numerical state, progress in the 
 moral state. Jesus Christ has, then, overcome time ; he has 
 overcome the great enemy, and, beholding Him upon the 
 summit of ages in all the serenity of His imperturbable youth, I 
 remember what Saint Paul said of Him in another sense : 
 " Christ, risen from the dead, dieth no more."* Once He 
 descended into the tomb ; but the human race, for whom He 
 died, bent towards Him, and, raising Him up with a love which 
 has never grown cold, bears Him in its hands, risen again to 
 life. Behold Him, gentlemen, examine Him well, He lives ! 
 Look again, He dieth no more, He is young, He is King, He 
 is God ! He lived as God, He has outlived Himself as God ;. 
 to-morrow I will show you that He pre-existed as God. 
 Nothing will then be wanting to that threefold act of life, 
 living, surviving, pre-existing ; nothing will be found in Him. 
 
 * Rom. vi. 9. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. ' 75. 
 
 whicli is not stamped with the seal of divinity, and which 
 hinders me from proclaiming with the sovereignty of certainty 
 that other expression of Saint Paul: "Jesus Christ was. 
 yesterday, He is to-day, and the same for ever ! "* 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 8. 
 
 >|,f' 
 
THE 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 All life is not yet comprised in living and in outliving 
 that life ; the third act of life, which is the first in the order of 
 time, is that of pre-existence. Every being, save God, pre- 
 exists in its germ, and man in particular pre-exists in his 
 ancestors. No one appears here below whose reign has not 
 been prepared long beforehand ; and the more important the 
 destiny designed for him by Providence, the more important 
 also is the preparatory action of his ancestors. Jesus Christ, 
 as man, should therefore have pre-existed after the manner of 
 men ; and, inasmuch as He was greater than all men by His 
 destiny, He should also have pre-existed in a manner peculiar 
 to Himself alone. I remark then, in the first place, that alone 
 amongst all the great names, He possesses an authentic 
 genealogy which remounts from Him even to the father of the 
 human race, and that He is thus, undoubtedly, the first 
 gentleman in the world. It is but little, I grant, and therefore 
 His pre-existence should not be limited to this alone. 
 
 Ancestry, we have said, is proportionate to posterity. 
 Whosoever has no ancestry, will have no posterity ; and this 
 explains to you the weakness of doctrines which unceasingly 
 appear and disappear before you. They begin in the man who 
 advances them, and, beginning with him, they die with him. 
 As soon as a man without antecedents in his teaching, a man, 
 the last who has sprung up in this world, dares to bring to 
 mankind doctrines which he calls new, that single word is the 
 foreboding of his powerlessness and the expression of his 
 condemnation. For if the doctrines claimed by him as his 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 77 
 
 own possessed any importance, they would inevitably have 
 pre-existed him, he would at most be but their renovator ; to 
 say that an important thing begins in one's self, is to take 
 nothingness for starting-point, for horizon, and for end. 
 
 But if ancestry be proportionate to posterity, it follows 
 that Jesus Christ must have pre-existed in His ancestors with 
 incomparable greatness. And, to speak more precisely, since 
 Jesus Christ has had for His posterity the most important social 
 and religious work of the times which have followed Him, He 
 should also have had for His ancestry the most important social 
 and religious work of the times which preceded Him. The 
 Catholic Church being the fruit of His coming, we must find 
 before His coming something that worthily prepares the Catholic 
 Church, and that comprises Jesus Christ between a past and a 
 future — doubtless not of equal proportions, but so balanced 
 that that which preceded Him was beyond all comparison with 
 the rest, as well as that which followed Him. The Jewish 
 people, gentlemen, fulfil these conditions. The Jewish people 
 was the most important social and religious work of the times 
 preceding Jesus Christ, as the Catholic Church is the most 
 important social and religious work of later times ; and, as 
 Jesus Christ is the soul of the Catholic Church, in which His 
 life is perpetuated, so He was the soul of the Jewish people in 
 whom He pre-existed. I must explain this double proposition 
 to you, and so succeed in surrounding the sacred head of 
 Christ with all the promulgator)' rays of His divinity. 
 
 That the Jewish people was the greatest social and religious 
 work of antiquity, I shall not, I think, have much difficulty in 
 proving. Let us begin by its superiority in the social point of 
 view. Legislation is the highest element of the life of a people, 
 and, in legislation, the first point to consider is the constitution 
 of the law itself. Now the Hebrew law possesses two characters 
 which belong to it alone, and which place it beyond all com- 
 parison ; they are universality and immutability. It has for its 
 basis something universal, namely, the general relations of man 
 with God and with mankind. The tables of Sinai, which form 
 its prologue and its fundamental page, exist even now as the 
 most memorable expression of all the great duties ; and the 
 Catholic Church, even after the promulgation of the Gospel, 
 has not been able to substitute in place of the Decalogue 
 anything which she has judged worthy to set it aside. Those 
 ten decrees form the basis of Christian morals, as they formed 
 
73 THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 the basis of Hebrew morals. In the second place, the Jewish 
 law, although including the whole political, civil, criminal, 
 commercial, judicial, and even ceremonial order — things essen- 
 tially variable in their nature — was endowed with an immuta- 
 bility of which there is no other example in any legislation 
 whatsoever. In Moses the legislative power of the Hebrews 
 began and ended. Whilst every human society has in its 
 centre a permanent legislative power which retrenches, adds, 
 corrects, according to times and necessities, and an exceptional 
 legislative power, which goes so far as to reform even the 
 constitution itself, affected by the change of habits and customs, 
 the Jewish people, from Moses, remained contented in regard 
 to law, with a simple regulating faculty. The hand that had 
 graven the tables of Sinai and penned that vast legislation 
 comprised in the Pentateuch was strong enough permanently 
 to consolidate a whole nation, how long soever it might endure ; 
 and three thousand years passed over his work have never 
 once borne to it the slightest contradiction. Above all others, 
 gentlemen, after the last fifty years of our history, we can 
 appreciate the superhuman genius of such a foundation. 
 
 The constitution of authority in legislature follows in 
 importance the constitution of law ; for authority is the living 
 guardian of the dead text of law. Now, what was the constitu- 
 tion of authority among the Hebrews ? It has been often said, 
 if I mistake not, that it was theocratic-; this is an error. From 
 the earliest times, Moses and Aaron divided the power; one 
 was the military and civil chief, the other the religious chief, 
 and that distinction between the temporal and spiritual order 
 — deeply traced by the double memorial of the legislator and 
 the pontiff — continues throughout the whole history of the 
 Jewish people, notwithstanding the accidental gathering of the 
 whole authority in one and the same hand. If the pontificate 
 and the supreme judicature blend together in Samuel, they 
 become separated in the times of David and the kings ; if they 
 are found united after the captivity, they separated again before 
 Jesus Christ. The Hebraic community, like the Catholic 
 community, was based upon the distinction between the 
 spiritual and the temporal powers, a distinction without which 
 a nation would neither be able to preserve truth nor liberty. 
 Truth, because being of a higher order, it could not keep its 
 place under a sceptre transmitted by purely human means ; 
 liberty, because all the social and regular "forces, being con- 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 79 
 
 centred under the sceptre of one single mind and one single 
 action, it becomes impossible for any one to defend his feeble 
 personality against the omnipotent personality of the State. 
 The people, crushed under the weight of such a formidable 
 unity, would doubtless writhe like the giant under the weight 
 of Etna ; but their force, not being united under a stable and 
 recognized organization, their efforts would result only in futile 
 shocks, by which, if they succeeded in overthrowing the order 
 that weighed upon them, their very victory would still cost 
 them their liberty; for to destroy order is also to destroy 
 liberty. By the division of power into two branches, not 
 opposed to each other — not even rivals, so much do their 
 attributes differ — opinion obtains a pacific support against 
 force, right against oppression, and society, notwithstanding its 
 vicissitudes, being united without violence, duly performs its 
 office for time and for eternity. 
 
 However, this admirable order has nowhere been able to 
 establish itself, save among the Jewish people and in nations 
 entirely Christian, that is to say, Catholic. Everywhere else, 
 the State has not failed to absorb the whole of human nature 
 in its rapacious unity. And this, gentlemen, should not excite 
 our wonder : the spiritual power, being by its very essence a 
 disarmed power, God alone is able to communicate to it the 
 inner force which it needs peacefully to resist the temporal 
 power. Where God is not, intrigue, baseness, fear, soon bend 
 mind to matter ; and the spiritual order, should it still exist, 
 remains but a miserable phantom, to which the State leaves a 
 reed for sceptre, contempt for protection, and a little gold for 
 pay. Inasmuch, then, as the Jewish people, as well as the 
 Catholic nations, possessed the prerogative of a true spiritual 
 power, it is stamped with a character of, pre-eminence, which no 
 other people can dispute with it in the times anterior to 
 Christ. 
 
 The constitution of family was not less remarkable in the 
 Jewish people than the constitution of law and authority. The 
 individuals whose union forms families, and whom we may 
 call domestic individuals, namely, the father, the mother, the 
 child, and the servant, stood there in relations full of order 
 and equity. Moses, it is true, did not formally substitute the 
 unity of the conjugal tie in place of Eastern polygamy; but he 
 instilled the practice of it by establishing the faculty of repu- 
 diation for certain cases, by forbidding the future kings of 
 
So THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 Israel to have a great number of wives, like the princes of the 
 East, and in supposing but once only in his whole legislation 
 that a man may have two wives. Thus, save a few examples 
 noticed in the course of Scripture, the Hebraic family 
 appears to us, under this head, in a state analogous to that of 
 the Christian family. The unity of marriage was a custom 
 among them. The authority of the father over the child was 
 great, without extending to that right over life and death 
 which too often made an executioner's office of paternity 
 among the ancients. The servant belonged to the family by 
 virtue of a voluntary agreement ; no Hebrew could be the 
 slave of another Hebrew ; and even engagements for perpetual 
 service were permitted by law only after the trial of seven 
 years. The stranger alone, by right of conquest, was liable to- 
 slavery, properly so called ; and even this bondage, kept 
 within certain limits, was far from producing that contempt 
 and that abuse of man which we remark among the peoples 
 anterior to Jesus Christ. All the Jewish families were ranged 
 in twelve tribes, corresponding to the twelve patriarchs, sons 
 of Jacob, and forming of the nation twelve great families, 
 united in the bond of the same blood, and so much the more 
 strongly, as it flowed from the same father by twelve perfectly 
 recognizable sources. Nothing in antiquity is comparable to 
 this constitution of the Hebraic family. 
 
 It is the same in regard to the bases upon which the system 
 of proprietorship rested among them. Houses and lands 
 could only be alienated for a lapse of forty-nine years. After 
 that they returned to their former possessor, or to his heirs. 
 The object of this singular arrangement was to prevent the 
 ruin of families and the too great inequality of fortunes, with- 
 out hindering, however, the necessary movement of commerce 
 and industry. The rich man bought of the unfortunate or 
 erring man the whole or a part of his patrimony, and enjoyed 
 possession of it for half a century ; but the son or grandson 
 of the despoiled proprietor cherished in his heart the hope of 
 returning again to the roof of his ancestors. By a second 
 and no less remarkable regulation, the fields could not be 
 cultivated more than six years in seven ; they rested the 
 seventh year, and all the fruit which they bore naturally in a 
 land covered with vines and olive trees belonged to the poor, 
 as their share in the common patrimony of Israel. 
 
 Such was, in the most fundamental matters, that celebrated 
 
JESUS CHRIST. ' Sj 
 
 legislation of Moses, the invulnerable stability of which time 
 has respected, and which has placed that great man at the 
 head of all those who have had the rare distinction of giving 
 laws to nations. 
 
 But legislation is only the first element of the life of a 
 people ; art is the second. Legislation classes a people in the 
 order of acts, art determines its rank in the order of ideas and 
 of their expression. The greater the idea the greater is the 
 visible monument it raises up, and which causes it to subsist 
 even after it has perished in the mind that conceived it. Now 
 the monument of Hebraic ideas is a book which forms part of 
 the Book of books, a book which forms the preface to the 
 Gospel, and which in that illustrious vicinity obtains respect 
 as the finished pedestal of a faultless statue. As history, the 
 Hebrew Bible precedes all histories by its antiquity, continuity, 
 and authenticity ; alone it mounts to the cradle of the human 
 race, and lays down the first stone of the whole edifice of the 
 past. As a juridical compilation, it is without equal in any of 
 the collections containing the laws of great communities. As 
 moral philosophy, it opposes its books of wisdom to all the 
 maxims of the most renowned sages, and a presence of God is 
 felt in them which elevates the soul above the natural reach of 
 reason. As poesy, it contains the hymns of David and the 
 Prophets, repeated after two or three thousand years by all the 
 echoes of the Christian world, and become creators of a 
 language which has passed into all human tongues for lauding 
 and blessing God. Other peoples have had historians, juris- 
 consults, sages, poets, but which are their own, and form, as 
 it were, a separate glory ; the Jewish people has been the 
 historian, the jurisconsult, the -:age, the poet of mankind. 
 
 Its territory also answered to that great place which we 
 behold it occupying. For the support and nourishment of its 
 body, it had received a land equally illustrious with its legis- 
 lation and its art. Cast a glance upon a map of the world, and 
 you will quickly perceive there a point which forms the centre 
 of Asia, Africa, and Europe ; which, washed by the waves of 
 the Mediterranean, touches by them those healthy and genial 
 climates where in the plenitude of human activity the hardy 
 race of Japhet exercises its energy ; whilst on another hand, 
 the river Euphrates and the Gulf of the Red Sea open to its 
 inhabitants the routes of the Indian Ocean, permitting them to 
 seek under the equatorial zones those fabulous riches which 
 
82 THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 Solomon explored, which Alexander desired to see, which the 
 Romans coveted, which the Middle Ages discovered anew, 
 which the British power now guards with such supreme jealousy. 
 In close vicinity also to that favoured point of the globe, you 
 will perceive Memphis, the Nile, the Pyramids, and those 
 sublime deserts which to the present time have rebelled against 
 the most courageous curiosity; so that its boundaries, having 
 gates open to all, had them also closed against all. There, as- 
 at an inevitable rendezvous indicated by nature and God, all 
 the conquerors have appeared. The primitive monarchies of 
 Assur and Chaldasa unceasingly sent there their generals. 
 Alexander was halted there before Tyre, and went to read in 
 Jerusalem the history of his triumphs written beforehand like 
 those of Cyrus ; his successors contested desperately for this 
 remnant of his crown ; the Romans took possession of it ; all 
 the chivalry of the Middle Ages pressed there during two 
 hundred years ; Napoleon caused a gleam of his sword to 
 shine upon its sands ; in fine, but yesterday the last thunder of 
 European cannon awakened the old echoes of that proud 
 land ; and the discerning finger of those who observe the future 
 points to it as the future battle-ground for the combats reserved 
 to our descendants. You have named Syria, gentlemen, and 
 with it the territory given to the Jewish people as the temporal 
 complement of those magnificent graces which they had 
 received in the mental order. 
 
 Nevertheless, gentlemen, a people is not yet fully known 
 when we know its territory, its art, and its legislation; it is 
 necessary also to know its history. The history of a people is 
 the course of its acts for the preservation of its laws, ideas, 
 customs, territory — all, in fine, that constitutes its proper life 
 and civilization. The more magnificent its endowments, the 
 more is it accountable towards God and man for the devoted- 
 ness shown by it in defence of the gifts which are not only its. 
 personal patrimony, but which form part of the general dotation 
 of mankind, and enter into the plans by which Providence 
 conducts all things to their end. And, according as a people 
 acquits itself well or ill of this great task, it marks in history its 
 degree of shame or renown. What, gentlemen, has formed 
 the dignity of our history ? It is that having received from God 
 a territory which is the heart of Europe, we have held it under 
 faithful guardianship for fourteen hundred years, permitting 
 none but ourselves to settle between the Alps and the Pyrenees ; 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 83 
 
 it is that having among all the barbarous nations received the 
 firstfruits of the Catholic faith, we have preserved it to the end, 
 neither permitting this, the elder kingdom of Christendom, to 
 be entirely corrupted by heresy nor overcome by doubt ; it is 
 that having received, in fine, the most ancient, and the most 
 free monarchy of Europe, we have preserved in a happy 
 balance, although it has been often troubled, the double spirit 
 of authority and liberty, being equally incapable of supporting 
 anarchy or absolute power. We have, in a word, preserved in 
 the body of Europe a land of faith, order, and liberty. 
 
 The Jewish people had yet greater duties, and a more 
 perilous position irhposed upon it. Feeble in number, and 
 cast upon a part of the world which by its position tempted all 
 the neighbouring empires, it had to protect against them, with 
 its independence, laws and traditions upon which the destinies 
 of the world depended. No people entrusted with a more pre- 
 cious charge, in more favourable conditions, has shown such 
 remarkable and persevering magnanimity in defending it. Not 
 to see this would be an act of blindness, not to acknowledge 
 it an act of ingratitude. Nineveh, Babylon, Memphis, by 
 turns, and sometimes together, conspired for the destruction 
 of that handful of Israelites ; innumerable armies, led by 
 powerful kings, invaded their territory, and laid siege to their 
 capital ; often victorious, they often purchased their glory at 
 the cost of cruel reverses. Ten of their tribes, carried into 
 captivity, have disappeared from history ; the two others after- 
 wards followed the same road of exile from whence nations 
 never return. But seventy years of adversity far from their 
 country did not weary the hearts of the captives ; by science 
 and beauty they penetrated into the palace of kings, and 
 governed their conquerors. Cyrus delivers them, Alexander 
 visits them, and when, in the heart of Asia, a new and a more 
 terrible persecution brings into their temple the desolation of 
 impiety, they raise up in their midst to save their country and 
 religion, that race of the Maccabees whose name has become 
 for peoples oppressed by stronger than themselves the very 
 name of courage and right. And this heroic spectacle, 
 gentlemen, lasted fifteen hundred years ! For fifteen hundred 
 consecutive years Israel held her place against the great 
 empires of the world; and when at length Rome had sur- 
 mounted all and subjected all, when the whole earth had kept 
 silence before her for more than a century, Israel still struggled 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 in the mountains and valleys of Judaea for the remnants of 
 her liberty. Rome was forced to send her legions and her 
 captains against such memorable perseverance, and Jerusalem, 
 yet once more besieged, sent up to heaven, in an implacable 
 defence, the last generous cry which the Romans were destined 
 to hear. 
 
 Was it ended, gentlemen ? Did not this people, without 
 territory and without princes, wander to die in obscurity upon 
 the vast surface over which the still timid will of their con- 
 querors had scattered it ? For any other, indeed, the hour of 
 death would have come. But the Israelites remembered the 
 days of their captivity, when they hung their harps upon the 
 willows of Babylon, because they could not sing the songs of 
 Sion in a strange land; as they had then carried their laws 
 and traditions with them to be their eternal principle of life, 
 they again bore them over the whole earth. They demanded 
 their subsistence from labour, their dignity from the memorials 
 of their ancestors, their consolation from the God who had 
 brought them out of Egypt by Moses, out of Chaldam by 
 Cyrus, and who was able, when He willed, to bring them back 
 again to that Jerusalem already raised from its ruins, and 
 become the object of the combats of all Christendom. This 
 people, whom their founder called a hard people, and who in 
 fact opposed to adversity a soul of granite, this people still 
 lives — lives everywhere. Disinherited from their country, the 
 children of Israel have sought in commerce that movable 
 wealth which may be hidden more quickly than persecution 
 advances ; and we now see kings tributaries to their activity, 
 unblushingly recurring to the venerated purse of some Hebrew 
 for the accomplishment of their designs and the aggrandisement 
 of their glory. Yet once more, Israel lives ; she has lived for 
 seventeen centuries without chief, without temple, without 
 territory, often persecuted, but preserving, as in Jerusalem, her 
 antique and immovable ideas, and having in addition that 
 unique glory of subsisting from an inner force sustained by 
 nothing from without, and which nourishes itself at the 
 mysterious altar of a superhuman past. Do you not see that 
 she defies you? That alone among nations she counts four 
 thousand years of duration ? That nothing prognosticates the 
 end of such a scandal against the nature of things ? Dig out 
 her tomb if you can ; set your surest seal upon it ; place your 
 guards around it : she will but laugh at you and rise again, 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 85 
 
 proving to you yet once more that she lives of a spirit which 
 you have not, and that matter can do naught against spirit. 
 
 I have the right to conclude, gentlemen, that the Jewish 
 people, under the social point of view, is the most important 
 monument of the times anterior to Christ. It is not less so 
 under the religious point of view ; and here I shall need but 
 very short observations. 
 
 For, remark that whilst all nations were plunged in the 
 darkness of idolatry, Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Egyptians, 
 that little people adored one only God ; and antiquity spake 
 with wonder of the empty temple of Jerusalem, because it did 
 not see God represented there by any image capable of im- 
 pressing the senses — not that such representation is an evil in 
 itself, as long as it does not touch the true character of the 
 Divinity ; but the Hebrews had such a horror of idols that they 
 preferred, according to the order of their legislator, to leave 
 God in their temple in His total invisibility rather than expose 
 their faith to the impressive charm of some striking representa- 
 tion. For idolatry not only attacked them from without, it 
 seized upon their heart, and they often fell before it. But, 
 notwithstanding this double temptation, they never failed to 
 return to that God of their fathers of whom they were the sole 
 adorers. 
 
 By the dogma of creation they had an idea of Him which 
 always completely separated them from idolaters. These 
 rendered no account to themselves of the existence of the 
 universe, or if they sought to penetrate its secret, they willingly 
 believed it to be contemporary with their gods, giving to them 
 at most some secondary action upon universal substance. The 
 Jews had quite another doctrine, expressed from the first sign 
 of their sacred Scriptures by that astounding phrase : " In the 
 beginning God created the heavens and the earth."* Had 
 they possessed but that single doctrinal expression, they would 
 have been richer in knowledge of God than all the schools and 
 all the religions of antiquity. In a word, the Jewish people 
 was the only people before Jesus Christ which had a clear 
 notion of the Divinity, and which rendered to Him a worship 
 free from the puerile dreams of the imagination and the taint 
 of shameless sensuality. I may then conclude that in the 
 religious, as in the social point of view, the Hebrew nation was 
 
 * Gen. L I. 
 
86 THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 the most important monument of the times anterior to Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 I add that Jesus Christ was the soul of that nation, and 
 pre-existed in it by a life which we are about to verify. 
 
 I ought to have grown weary, gentlemen, of pointing out to 
 you the peculiarities of the Jews. There is one, however, 
 which surpasses all the rest, and of which I have as yet said 
 nothing. I mean the Messianic idea which circulated in their 
 veins as their purest blood, and without which it is impossible 
 to explain either their faith or their destinies. The Messianic 
 idea is composed of four elements. Under its influence, the 
 Jews believed, in the first place, that the one God and Creator 
 adored by them would some day become the God of the 
 whole earth. In addition, they believed that that revolution 
 would be brought about by a single man, called the Messiah, 
 the Holy One, the Just, the Saviour, the Desired of nations. 
 They believed that this Man would be a Jew of the tribe of 
 Judah, and of the house of David. They believed, in fine, 
 that this predestinated Man would suffer and die in order to 
 accomplish the work of transformation with which Providence 
 had charged Him. 
 
 That such was their faith it is easy for us to learn even of 
 themselves, since they still live, and since, notwithstanding four 
 thousand years of expectation which, in their eyes, has not 
 been realised, they have never ceased to render unshaken 
 testimony to the hopes of their ancestors. But, gentlemen, 
 let us not be content with their present testimony ; let us 
 open the monuments of their history, and follow the progress 
 of the Messianic idea through the principal phases that mark 
 the development of the nation itself, such as its birth, its 
 formation into a people, the point of its maturity, its decadence, 
 its captivity, and its restoration at the foot of the second 
 temple, raised up by Zorababel. 
 
 Behold us in the fields of Chaldxa with Abraham ! We are 
 about to hear the first words, which formed, as it were, the 
 seed of the Hebrew race. Observe, gentlemen, that we are not 
 now examining whether these words are true, whether they 
 were from God ; we have now simply to show the idea which 
 the Jewish people had of themselves, and of their mission 
 here below. Whether they deceived themselves in this idea is 
 another question, to be judged afterwards. 
 
 God, then, according to the Hebrew monuments, says to 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 87 
 
 Abraham : " Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, 
 and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which 
 I will show thee ; and I will make of thee a great nation, and 
 I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be 
 blessed. I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them 
 that curse thee, and in thee shall all the kindred of the earth 
 be blessed." * Thus at the same moment, and in an inseparable 
 manner, two thousand years before Jesus Christ, the Jewish 
 people appeared in the world, and therewith the Messianic 
 idea — the idea that Israel was the depositary of a blessing 
 which was to spread over the whole universe. 
 
 Abraham goes forth from Chaldasa, and settles in the land 
 promised to his posterity. He waits there even to an advanced 
 old age for the son to whom he is to transmit the Messianic 
 heritage ; that son is given to him ; and when the child has 
 attained all the graces of youth, God calls upon the patriarch to 
 offer him in sacrifice upon a mysterious mountain. With 
 unshaken faith in the wisdom and goodness of God, the old 
 man raises his hand upon his only and well-beloved son, and 
 he hears that second declaration, stronger and more distinct 
 than the first : " By my own self have I sworn, saith the Lord, 
 because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy 
 only-begotten son for my sake : I will bless thee, and I will 
 multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that 
 is by the sea-shore ; thy seed shall possess the gates of their 
 enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be 
 blessed." t An oath is added to the force of the promise ; and 
 it is more clearly indicated that the Messianic benediction 
 should spread over the whole human race, not by Abraham 
 himself, but by his posterity. 
 
 Isaac, the son of Abraham, hears the same promise and the 
 same prophecy ; they are repeated to Jacob, the son of Isaac. 
 The three first Hebrew generations, thus confirmed in the hope 
 of the Messiah, spread out in twelve patriarchs, father of 
 twelve tribes ; and Jacob, about to die, assembles them around 
 his bed to close the first Messianic age by a solemn prophecy, 
 which sums up the preceding ones, giving, at the same time, 
 additional precision to them. Surrounded, then, by his twelve 
 children, he announces to each of them, by some characteristic 
 traits, what will be his lot in the future. Having arrived at 
 
 * Gen. xii. 1-3. t Gen. xxii. 16-18. 
 
SS THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 Judah, he says these memorable words to him : " Judah, thee 
 shall thy brethren praise : thy hands shall be on the necks of 
 thy enemies ; the sons of thy father shall bow down to thee. 
 Judah is a lion's whelp : to the prey, my son, thou art gone up : 
 resting thou hast couched as a lion, and as a lioness : who 
 shall rouse him ? The sceptre shall not be taken away from 
 Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be 
 sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations."* Thus, at 
 the moment when the patriarchal inheritance becomes sub- 
 divided into twelve branches, the branch from which the 
 Messiah is to be born is designated ; it is to be that of Judah ; 
 and the day predestined for the appearance of the Messiah is 
 marked by a sign which posterity will easily recognise. 
 
 The blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is henceforth 
 fertile ; it multiplies in a land which has given it hospitality ; 
 and having soon become an object of fear and jealousy, it 
 passes from exile to bondage, in order to serve in tribulation 
 an apprenticeship necessary to its high destinies. Its enemies 
 think to destroy, they do but strengthen it. The Israelites are 
 a people. Moses brings them out of Egypt, and leads them 
 across the desert to the foot of Sinai, from whence come the 
 laws which are to govern them. Follow, gentlemen, follow 
 that marvellous march of so great a people ; the eyes of your 
 childhood formerly gazed upon its wonders, look at them 
 again with the thought of riper years. From encampment to 
 encampment the children of Israel arrived before Jordan, to 
 the frontiers of that territory inhabited by their first ancestors, 
 and the possession of which is promised to their posterity. 
 There they meet a whole people in arms awaiting those 
 adventurers who despoiled Egypt, and whose march has 
 resounded from the desert even to the hills of Judaea. Moab 
 has ranged her battalions, she has raised her altars, convoked 
 her chiefs ; the children of Israel are afoot, with their wives, 
 their children, their soldiers, their Levites, bearing, hidden 
 under the skins of animals, the tabernacle of the God who has 
 just spoken to them from Sinai. A man of the East advances 
 between the two peoples. " Balak," says he, " Balak, king of 
 the Moabites, hath brought me from Aram, from the mountains 
 of the east : Come, said he, and curse Jacob ; make haste and 
 detest Israel. How shall I curse him whom God hath not 
 
 * Gen. xlix. S-lo. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 89 
 
 cursed ? By what means shall I detest him whom the Lord 
 detesteth not ? I shall see him from the top of the rocks, and 
 shall consider him from the hills. This people shall dwell 
 alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who 
 can count the dust of Jacob, and know the number of the 
 stock of Israel ? " * These unexpected blessings alarmed 
 Moab; the prophet is implored to change his language; if he 
 will not curse, they pray him at least not to bless. Thrice 
 Balaam opens his mouth ; thrice he blesses the conquering 
 people before him ; and at last the Messianic prophecy escapes 
 from him as in spite of himself: "'I shall see him, but not 
 now : I shall behold him, but not near. A star shall rise out 
 of Jacob, and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel, and shall 
 strike the chiefs of Moab, and shall waste the children of 
 Seth. . . . Alas ! who shall live when God shall do these 
 things ? They shall come in galleys from Italy, they shall 
 overcome the Assyrians, and shall waste the Hebrews, and at 
 last they themselves also shall perish." t 
 
 Observe again, gentlemen, that we are not now examining 
 whether Balaam was or was not a prophet, but simply showing 
 the course of the Messianic idea in the historical life of the 
 Jewish people. You see this idea taking here a new develop- 
 ment ; it is no longer a patriarch of Israel who announces the 
 coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of His reign over 
 all the children of Seth, that is to say, of Adam, but a stranger. 
 And he marks the circumstances of His coming with most 
 strange perspicacity, since he even designates the domination 
 of the Romans over the East and over the Jewish people as 
 the precursory sign of the Messiah's appearance. 
 
 David and Solomon mark the highest point of the Hebrew 
 monarchy, and with them commence the national and religious 
 hymns known by the name of psalms. Sung in the temple 
 of Jerusalem on the great feast days, they publicly expressed 
 the inner feeling, the hopes and desires of the whole nation. 
 Now it is easy to recognise here the Messianic idea disclosing 
 itself on all occasions in the soul of poet and people. On 
 reading them you will remark passages such as this : " All the 
 ends of the earth shall remember and shall be converted to the 
 Lord : and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in His 
 sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's ; and he shall have 
 
 * Numb, xxiii. 7-10. + Ibid. xxiv. 17, 23, 24. 
 
 C" 1 " '-.uJOi'' 
 
^gc THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 dominion over the nations. All the fat ones of the earth have 
 ■eaten, and have adored : all they that go down to the earth 
 shall fall before him." * 
 
 Later also, at the approach of the decadence and captivity 
 — seven hundred years, however, before Jesus Christ — the 
 Messianic idea assumed in Isaiah a clearness and an abundance 
 of expression which it is impossible to render to you, since I 
 should weary you by the number and length of the passages I 
 should have to cite. It is he who sees the Messiah springing 
 from thevace of Jesse, the father of David, and who at the 
 same time describes, as if from Calvary or the Vatican, the 
 glory of the sufferings and triumphs of Jesus Christ. " Arise, 
 arise, put on thy strength, O Sion ; put on the garments of thy 
 glory, O Jerusalem, the city of the Holy One : for henceforth 
 the uncircumcised and unclean shall no more pass through 
 thee."t "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him 
 that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace : of him 
 that showeth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to 
 Sion : Thy God shall reign ! " J " The Lord hath prepared His 
 holy arm in the sight of all the Gentiles, and all the ends of 
 the earth shall see the salvation of our God."§ "Behold my 
 servant shall understand, he shall be exalted and extolled, and 
 he shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at 
 thee so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form 
 among the sons of men. He shall sprinkle many nations. 
 Kings shall shut their mouth at him : for they to whom it was not 
 told of him have seen, and they that heard not have beheld." || 
 And immediately after, Isaiah begins the description of the 
 sufferings and ignominies of Calvary, which he completes in 
 twelve consecutive verses. Then he continues, resuming his 
 hymns of triumph : " He that hath made thee shall rule over 
 thee, the Lord of hosts is his name ; and thy Redeemer, the 
 Holy One of Israel, shall be called the God of all the 
 earth." U 
 
 But it is at Babylon, during the captivity, six hundred years 
 before Jesus Christ, that the Messianic idea becomes invested 
 with a form which attains to mathematical clearness and 
 precision. Must I recall to you the prophecy of Daniel? 
 Listen then to it : " Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy 
 people, and upon the holy city, that transgression may be 
 
 * Ps. xxi. 28-30. + Is. Hi. 1. J Ibid. 7. § Ibid. 10. 
 
 || Is. Hi. 13-15. IT Ibid. liv. 5. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. gt 
 
 finished, and sin may have an end, and everlasting justice may 
 be brought, and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled, and the 
 Saint of saints be anointed. Know thou therefore and take 
 notice that from the going forth of the word to build up 
 Jerusalem again unto Christ the Prince, there shall be seven 
 weeks and sixty-two weeks : and the street shall be built again, 
 and the walls in the straitness of times. And after sixty-two 
 weeks Christ shall be slain : and the people that shall deny 
 him shall not be his. And a people with their leader that 
 ■shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary : and the 
 end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the 
 appointed desolation. And he shall confirm the covenant 
 with many, in one week : and in the half of the week the 
 victim and the sacrifice shall fail : and there shall be in the 
 temple the abomination of desolation : and the desolation 
 ■shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end."* 
 
 I do not stop, gentlemen, to examine the striking features 
 of this discourse, which resembles less a vision of the future 
 than a narration of the past. The course of my subject bears 
 me on and brings me to the foot of the second temple, to hear, 
 five hundred years before Jesus Christ, those last words of the 
 prophet Aggeus : " Yet one little while, and I will move the 
 heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and I 
 will move all nations ; and the Desired of all nations shall 
 ■come ; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of 
 Hosts. . . . Great shall be the glory of this last house more 
 than of the first, and in this place will I give peace. "t 
 
 What continuity, gentlemen, through so many eventful 
 centuries ! What fidelity to one and the same idea from so 
 many men separated by ages ! But the Messianic idea was 
 not even confined to the special tradition of the Jewish 
 people ; it passed over Jordan, the Euphrates, the Indus, the 
 Mediterranean, all the oceans, and, borne upon the invisible 
 wings of Providence, it penetrated all the most diverse and 
 most distant nations, to create among them a uniform hope 
 and a universal remembrance. Confucius, at the eastern 
 extremity of Asia, spoke of a saint who, he said, was the true 
 -saint, and who would appear in the West. Virgil, translating 
 into verse the oracles of the Cuma?an Sibyl, announced to the 
 Augustan Age the coming of a mysterious child, a son of 
 
 * Dan. ix. 24-27. t Aggeus ii. 7-10. 
 
92 THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 Jupiter, destined to banish from the world the vestiges of 
 iniquity, and to commence an order of things as great as new. 
 Tacitus, on the reign of Vespasian, thus expresses himself: 
 " It was a widely-spread belief that, according to ancient sacer- 
 dotal writings, at that very epoch, the East should prevail, and 
 that men come from Judaea should seize the government of 
 things." The rationalists of the eighteenth century, constrained 
 by evidence, have often avowed that unanimity of the 
 Messianic expectation. Voltaire said : " From time imme- 
 morial it was a maxim among the Indians and the Chinese 
 that the sage would come from the West; Europe, on the 
 contrary, declared that the sage would come from the East."* 
 Volney said : " The sacred and mythological traditions of 
 former times had spread throughout Asia the belief in a great 
 mediator who was to come, a final judge, a future saviour, 
 king, God, conqueror, and legislator, who would bring back 
 again the golden age upon earth, and deliver men from the 
 empire of evil."t Boulanger, under a still more general form, 
 confessed that all nations held " an expectation of that 
 nature ; " and he adds this astounding phrase : that the East 
 may be said to be " the pole of the hope of all nations. "J It is 
 the very saying of Jacob on his death-bed. 
 
 It is then certain, gentlemen, that the Messianic idea was 
 the life of the Jewish people during the course of the two 
 thousand years which preceded Jesus Christ ; and that idea 
 was held among all the nations of the earth with such 
 unanimity, that it is not even possible to account for it by the 
 communications of the Hebrews with the Gentiles, but it is 
 necessary to suppose a diffusion of that idea even anterior to 
 Abraham. And that Messianic idea, so extraordinary in its 
 universality, its progress, its perseverance, and its precision, is it 
 at length fulfilled ? Yes, it is fulfilled ; the one God, creator 
 of the Hebraic Bible, has become the God of nearly all the 
 earth ; and the very nations that have not yet accepted Him 
 render homage to Him by a certain number of adorers whom 
 Providence elects from their midst. And who has accomplished 
 this incredible revolution? One single Man, Christ. And 
 whence came this Man, Christ ? He was a Jew, of the tribe of 
 Judah, of the house of David. And how has He accomplished 
 
 * " Additions k l'Histoire Generale,"page 15. 
 
 t "Les Ruines," page 228. 
 
 X " Recherches sur l'Origine du Despotisme Oriental," section x. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 93 
 
 this prodigious social and religious revolution ? By suffering 
 and dying, as David, Isaiah, Daniel, had foretold. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, what think you of it ? Here are two 
 parallel and corresponding facts, both certain, both of 
 colossal proportion, one which lasted two thousand years 
 before Jesus Christ, the other which has lasted eighteen 
 hundred years since Jesus Christ ; one which announces a 
 great revolution, and a revolution impossible to foresee, the 
 other which is its accomplishment, both having Jesus Christ 
 for principle, for end, and for bond of union. Yet once more, 
 what think you of it ? Are you bold enough to deny it? 
 But what would you deny ? The existence of the Messianic 
 idea ? It is in the Jewish people, still living, in all the 
 continuous monuments of its history, in the universal traditions 
 of the human race, in the most positive avowals of the most 
 profound unbelief. Would you deny the anteriority of the 
 prophetic details ? The Jews, who crucified Jesus Christ, and 
 who have a national and traditional interest in depriving Him 
 of the proofs of His divinity, declare to you that their Scriptures 
 were formerly what they are now, and for additional certainty, 
 two hundred and fifty years before Jesus Christ, under Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus, king of Egypt, all the Old Testament, translated 
 into Greek, fell into the possession of the Greek world, the 
 Roman world, and the whole civilised world. Would you 
 turn to the other pole of the question, and deny the accom- 
 plishment of the Messianic idea ? The Catholic Church, the 
 offspring of that idea, is before your eyes — she has baptized 
 you. Would you stand upon the point of junction of those 
 two formidable events ? Would you deny that Jesus Christ 
 has verified the Messianic idea in His person, that He was a 
 Jew, of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David, and the 
 founder of the Catholic Church upon the double ruin of the 
 synagogue and idolatry ? The two interested parties — and 
 they are irreconcilable enemies — confess all this. The Jew 
 affirms it, and the Christian affirms it. Would you say that 
 this juncture of colossal events at the precise point of Jesus 
 Christ is the result of chance ? Were it even so, chance is but 
 a brief and fortuitous accident — its definition excludes the 
 idea of continuity ; there is no chance of two thousand years' 
 duration and of eighteen centuries added thereto. In fine, 
 would you say that it is the result of a long conspiracy, by 
 which the ambitious and theological Jewish people sought to 
 
94 THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF 
 
 create for itself a great existence ? What ! a conspiracy lasting 
 two thousand years founded upon a chief whom sixty 
 generations had to wait for, and whom it was necessary to 
 create after having so patiently waited for him ! Alas ! it is 
 no easy matter to conspire in favour of a living man ; wha\ 
 must it be to conspire in favour of a man who does not exist, 
 and who, it is supposed, will be born at an indefinite epoch ? 
 And remark that when that Man came, the Jews crucified Him 
 • — doubtless because His crucifixion formed part of the con- 
 spiracy. Observe also that they denied Him after as well as 
 before the crucifixion — doubtless in order to secure the final 
 success of the conspiracy and all the success of ambition and 
 theology which they expected therefrom ! 
 
 Gentlemen, when God works there is nothing to be done 
 against Him. The proportions of the work of Christ in the 
 times which preceded Him are yet more striking than all the 
 divine proportions of His life and His after-life. For, in fine, 
 when a man lives, He is a power. He has an action; it is 
 possible to conceive that certain circumstances may have 
 favoured a man of rare genius, and have given him great 
 ascendency over his contemporaries. Even after death there 
 remain friends, disciples, the remembrance of an existence 
 which was real, and consequently a surviving means of action. 
 But what are we able to do upon that which precedes us, upon 
 the past ? Who among us, however eminent he may be, is 
 able to make an ancestor for himself? Who among us, 
 desiring to found a doctrine, is able to create for himself an 
 avant-garde of generations already faithful to a teaching which 
 had not yet been heard? Who among us will present his 
 doctrinal ancestry to the world, if he be not truly the son of a 
 doctrine anterior to himself ? Ah ! the past is a land closed 
 against us ; the past is not even a place wherein God can act, 
 unless He act there beforehand, and by wa)' of preparation. 
 Had Jesus Christ been like one of us, fallen without a 
 providential pre-existence between the past and the future, He 
 would in win have demanded from history accomplished and 
 closed a pedestal which would bear Him back twenty centuries 
 beyond His cradle. Instead of this, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 
 David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, a whole people, the 
 human race itself, came to meet and salute Him in the arms of 
 the aged Simeon, exclaiming in the name of all the past, of 
 which he is the last representative : " Now lettest thou thy 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 95, 
 
 servant depart, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace. 
 Because mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast 
 prepared before the face of all people : a light to lighten the 
 Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."* 
 
 We have reached the summit, gentlemen; Jesus Christ 
 appears before us as the moving principle of the past as well 
 as of the future, the soul of the times which preceded Him as 
 well as of the times which follow Him. He appears before us 
 in His ancestry, upheld by the Jewish people, the most 
 important social and religious monument of ancient times ; 
 and in His posterity, upheld by the Catholic Church, the 
 greatest social and religious work of modern times. He 
 appears before us, holding in His left hand the Old Testament, 
 the greatest book of the times which preceded him, and in 
 His right hand the Gospel, the greatest book of the times 
 which come after Him. And yet, so preceded and so followed, 
 He is still greater in Himself than His ancestors and His posterity, 
 than the patriarchs and the prophets, than the apostles and 
 the martyrs. Supported by all that is most illustrious before 
 and after Him, His personal physiognomy still stands out from 
 this sublime scene, and, by outshining that which seemed 
 above all, reveals to us the God who has neither model nor 
 equal. Therefore, in presence of this triple sign of divinity — 
 before, during, and after — in ancestry, in posterity, and even 
 during life, let us stand up, gentlemen, let us all stand up 
 together, whoever we may be, believers and unbelievers. Let 
 us stand up, believers, with feelings of respect, admiration, 
 faith, love, for a God who has revealed himself to us with so 
 much evidence, and who has chosen us among men to be the 
 depositaries of that splendid manifestation of his truth ! And 
 you who do not believe, stand up also, but with fear and 
 trembling, as men who are but as nothing with their power 
 and their reasoning, before facts which fill all ages, and which, 
 are in themselves so full of the power and majesty of God ! 
 
 * St. Luke ii. 29-32. 
 
THE EFFORTS OF RATIONALISM 
 
 TO DESTROY THE 
 
 LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 Jesus Christ lived as God, He has outlived Himself as 
 God, He pre-existed as God ; He pre-existed in the Jewish 
 people, He has expressed His life in the Gospel, He has 
 out-lived that life in the Church ; and it is this triple circle of 
 His manifestation that has rendered His divinity triumphant 
 here below. As soon as the human race possessed full con- 
 sciousness of this, it became, so to say, overwhelmed by such 
 a demonstration, and from Theodosius to Louis XIV. — for the 
 space of thirteen hundred years — discussion seemed impossible 
 against Christ — in this sense at least, that all yielded to Him, 
 or accepted Him as their foundation. But, this time 
 having passed, rationalism, which had been dethroned 
 by Jesus Christ, attempted to claim again the empire 
 it had lost ; it thought that, as ages had covered all 
 that formidable edifice with their billows, some chances were 
 possible in favour of doubt and negation, and that the 
 eighteenth century of the Christian era could be called upon 
 to render willing reprisals and new judgments against a doctrine 
 grown old by time. Rationalism thus found itself again in 
 presence of Jesus Christ, standing Himself between the Catholic 
 Church and the Jewish people, as between the right and left 
 wings of truth; and a triple war was planned, in order to 
 overthrow the work whose building up was in past times 
 accomplished in spite of the powerless efforts which were now 
 to be renewed. The Jewish people was described as a vile, an 
 ignoble, an odious race, unworthy of any credit or respect; 
 
TESUS CHRIST. 97 
 
 the Catholic Church as an instrument of misery for the people, 
 of bondage for the intelligence, of subjection for nations and 
 kings. I have defended the Church before you, gentlemen, for 
 many long years ; yesterday, I restored the true physiognomy 
 of the Jewish people ; I shall not return to either of these 
 during these discussions. Jesus Christ calls me to-day into the 
 very heart of the combat of which He is the object and the 
 chief. The Jewish people was composed of men, and so is 
 also the Catholic Church ; and, however great men may be, 
 they are not altogether exempt, even when bearing in their 
 hearts the Spirit of God, from some failing and some infirmity ; 
 it is not so with Christ. Miraculous in His perfection, He 
 does not suffer, as the Gospel shows Him, any human doubt ; 
 and if He really stands upon that faultless pedestal, it is vain for 
 rationalism to fulminate, on the right hand and on the left, its 
 powerless thunder against Him. Christ, impassible in the- 
 centre of Catholic truth, shelters all under His impregnable 
 divinity. It was, then, necessary to destroy Jesus Christ, either 
 by annihilating His life, by perverting it, or at least by ex- 
 plaining it away. This has been attempted, gentlemen; and 
 the exposition of this triple effort will terminate our conferences 
 for this year. Let us commence with the most decisive of the 
 three — that which had for its object the annihilation of the life 
 of Christ. 
 
 Is Christ a chimera or a reality ? Does He belong to fable 
 or to history? This is the question. It may astonish you, 
 gentlemen, and yet it is serious ; for clever men have boldly 
 denied the existence of Jesus Christ ; and others, without 
 venturing to this extreme audacity, have sought at least to 
 weaken the certainty of His life, and artfully to lessen its 
 historical splendour. It becomes necessary, then, to place, or 
 rather to maintain, Jesus Christ in history ; and to this end we 
 must first of all learn the nature and the laws of history ; for as 
 long as we are unacquainted with them, it will be impossible 
 for us to decide whether Jesus Christ is or is not an historical 
 personage. I proceed, then, to treat of history ; we shall 
 afterwards see whether Christ is present in it or absent from it. 
 
 Man lives in time, that is to say, in a singular element, 
 which causes him at the same time to live and to die ; he 
 advances between a past which is no more and a future yet to 
 come ; and if he did not possess the faculty of concentrating 
 in himself these three states of his existence, he would be but 
 
 H 
 
98 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 incessantly coming into the world without ever attaining to 
 the possession of life. For hardly would he have made a step 
 in advance before forgetfulness would have obliterated its 
 traces, and thus he would be constantly before himself like a 
 vapour rising from the earth and vanishing away. Against this 
 terrible power of time, God has given him memory, by which 
 man lives in the past as well as in the present; so that 
 resuscitating his ancient days at pleasure, he beholds himself 
 in the plenitude of his personality, like an edifice whose stones 
 have been placed successively, but which the eye surveys and 
 perceives entire. Now the memory that suffices for the life of 
 a single man is not sufficient for mankind ; whilst man is one, 
 with a memory subsisting as long as himself, mankind is 
 multiple, and its memory expires with each generation, or at 
 most but little of it is transmitted to the future generation. 
 The father tells the son what he has seen, the son relates it to 
 the grandson, but at each stage remembrance grows more 
 obscure, and little by little the light of that tradition brightens 
 only the distant heights of the most important events. It ends, 
 however, by becoming defaced ; its lines grow confused to the 
 eyes of a posterity continually retreating before them ; and if 
 God did not intervene to bring help to the human race losing 
 all traces of itself, we should be living in an eternal state of 
 infancy, between a past about which we are untaught and a 
 future entirely unknown to us. Experience, the source of all 
 progress, would constantly be wanting. Neither truth nor 
 error, neither good nor evil would be known, save by a puerile 
 combat recommencing always at the same point — a spectacle 
 unworthy of man, unworthy of God — where truth and good, 
 having no adequate field of action, would never be able to 
 display their characters of stability and immortality. God, 
 who, by memory, had provided for the progressive identity of 
 man, should evidently have provided also for the continuous 
 perpetuity of the human race by a memory conformable to 
 the destinies of this vast body, that is to say, by a united, a 
 universal, a certain memory, capable of giving to mankind 
 complete consciousness of its works from the beginning to the 
 end. In so speaking, gentlemen, I have defined history. 
 
 History is the life of mankind present to itself, as our life is 
 present to us ; history is the memory of the world. But what 
 difficulties lie in the way of its formation ! God lights a torch 
 in our intelligence which enlightens our past, because He is our 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 99 
 
 intelligence itself, one and indivisible ; but how is the human 
 race, multiple and divided, to be endowed with a similar light? 
 How is an immortal memory to be given to the human race 
 which dies daily ? An immutable memory to that which is but 
 change? A certain memory to that which doubts so easily 
 about all that it does not see ? God provided for this in giving 
 us writing. By means of writing, a thing once said may be 
 always heard, a spectacle once witnessed may be always 
 visible ; writing seizes the passing wave and renders it eternal. 
 This is already immortality and immutability ; but it is not yet 
 certainty. For the false can be written as well as the true. A 
 thing may indeed be written, but who will guarantee its truth 
 to us ? A man two thousand years ago writes a book, wherein 
 he relates things which he says he witnessed : who will prove 
 to us that he speaks the truth, and that a fable has not reached 
 us under the seeming garb of history ? Evidently, writing 
 alone does not answer to this question ; history begins with it, 
 but it is not history in all its elements. History, if there be any, 
 should command our minds with the same authority as the other 
 powers which have received a mission to govern them. As 
 there is a moral force in the world which does not permit us to 
 say it is lawful for the child to kill his father, a mathematical 
 force which does not permit us to build a house upon a plan 
 without equilibrium, so also there should exist in the world a 
 historical force which would not permit us to say to history : 
 Thou hast spoken falsely. If this force exist not, there is no 
 history. 
 
 What are, then, the conditions of history ; or rather, what 
 are the conditions of an historical writing ? For writing is the 
 fundamental, persisting, substantial element of history. With- 
 out writing, there remains to us nothing but tradition more or 
 less confused ; but as writing may deceive, it is needful that we 
 should know the conditions which elevate writing to the state 
 of historical writing, that is to say, to the state of authentic, 
 certain, infallible, true writing. These conditions are three in 
 number. 
 
 In the first place, writing must be public. All that is secret 
 is without authority ; every mysterious document is valueless 
 because it has not been verified. Nothing of this is powerful 
 but by public verification. The people form the only notary 
 capable of certifying their own history, because they form the 
 assemblage of all ages, of all ideas, of all interests, and because 
 
 H 3 
 
ioo RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OK 
 
 a popular conspiracy formed to lie to posterity is even im- 
 possible to conceive. A man fabricates error ; a people has 
 too many diverse ideas and passions to be able to combine 
 together to deceive future generations. Moreover, a people 
 never stands alone ; it exists among contemporary peoples 
 whose history is blended with its own : and even were it capable 
 of unanimous falsification, it would inevitably call forth the 
 protestation of the very age under whose eyes it would have 
 inaugurated its conspiracy. 
 
 The second condition of writing, in order for it to attain to 
 the state of history, is that it must bear upon public events. 
 Every fact that is not public does not belong to the domain of 
 history, for the reason I have just given; for who has witnessed 
 a fact that is not public ? A single man, three men if you will, 
 but history cannot be based upon the testimony either of a 
 single man, or of three men ; this is not history, it is only 
 memory. Memory bears upon private facts, whilst history 
 bears upon public events. For example, that Louis XIV. 
 conquered Flanders, Alsace, Lorraine, that he joined these 
 provinces to the kingdom of France, first by force of arms,, 
 then by treaties, is history ; these are events which interested 
 France and all the nations of Europe, and which had a hundred 
 millions of men for spectators. But that Louis XIV. in his. 
 chamber at Versailles said something in presence of M. le Due 
 de Saint Simon, which is related in the works of that talented 
 person, is nothing more than memory. Doubtless this secondary 
 element enters largely into the formation of the annals of the 
 human race, because we should not be satisfied with recitals 
 wherein only the main features of historical architecture would 
 be visible ; we are attracted more even by the private details 
 than by the general movements of the world ; they approach 
 nearer to our personal existence, and cause the most eminent 
 personages of past times to descend even to us. Moreover, 
 although destitute of the solemn certainty of history, they are 
 not always without a grave sanction, although of an inferior 
 order ; private acts become interwoven with public acts ; 
 numerous concurring witnesses establish each other's state- 
 ments ; and the whole advances in a manner not too unequal. 
 Nevertheless, as soon as absolute historical certainty is aspired 
 to, it is necessary to separate the two elements, and to give to 
 the former, by that separation, all its force, and all its lustre. 
 
 The third condition necessary to raise writing to the state 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 101 
 
 of history, is that the events should blend together and form 
 a public and general web. Nothing is isolated in the events 
 of this world ; they are connected with each other by a chain 
 of succession similar to that which unites ideas in the logical 
 tissue of a discourse. History should reproduce that con- 
 tinuous generation in such a manner that all the facts it 
 relates should enter naturally into the course of things of 
 which the progressive whole constitutes the life of the human 
 race. A solitary fact is not an historical fact ; it has no real 
 place, it floats in air. Still much less should we give this 
 name to a fact which cannot take its place in the general web 
 cf history without deranging its whole economy ; this is the 
 infallible sign of imposture. The force of history, like the 
 force of every other real order, is in its completeness and unity. 
 When a man stands alone, he is nothing ; when a fact stands 
 alone, it is nothing. But let a man enter into association with 
 others, they form a family, a people, the whole human race. 
 And, in like manner, when a fact enters into historical 
 association with others, and not with others only, but with all 
 the rest, let it become necessary to the general web of history, 
 so that history cannot be constructed without that fact, then it 
 possesses not only the force of an historical fact, but the force 
 of all history ; we must accept it or deny the entire life of the 
 human race. 
 
 The three elements of history are, then, public writing, 
 public events, public web of events ; and when these three 
 elements are united, I affirm that history exists, and that it 
 cannot be resisted without resisting the very force of common 
 sense. In effect, gentlemen, for history to be false in this case 
 see what must be possible : that a man, no matter who, 
 relating in public events of a public nature, those events 
 supposed to be false must be received as true, and, notwith- 
 standing their falsity, be interwoven in the general web of 
 history. Now this is altogether impossible, and nothing is 
 more easy than to prove it to you. Allow me only one 
 supposition. I suppose that to-morrow morning it may please 
 me to publish a work the substance of which I thus sum up. 
 On the ist of January, 1847, France declared war against the 
 three great Continental Powers of Europe. The object of this 
 war was to re-establish the rights of nations and faith in 
 treaties compromised by acts of violence. The hostile armies 
 met on the plains of Mayence. France had six hundred 
 
102 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 thousand men under arms, the enemy had a million. The 
 battle lasted ten consecutive days ; on the morning of the 
 tenth day the French were victorious. The plenipotentiaries 
 of Europe assembled at Mayence, and signed a treaty which 
 put an end to the war by a new partition of the European 
 continent. 
 
 I ask you, gentlemen, do you believe that this political 
 romance would have any chance of imposing upon posterity ? 
 Is it not manifest that France would treat it with the deepest 
 scorn? If France accepted it, is it not manifest that the 
 whole of Europe would hold it up to public derision ? And if, 
 by an act of universal folly, France and Europe consented to 
 invest it with an absurd authority, is it not manifest that it 
 would be found impossible to introduce it into the web of 
 history, since the state of all contemporary affairs, and, 
 consequently, of all future affairs, would be in contradiction 
 with that pretended war and that fictitious treaty ? To sustain 
 falsehood, perpetual falsehood is necessary; and the con- 
 spiracy of a single moment against truth would require a 
 conspiracy continued to the end of the world. The im- 
 possibility of such a concurrence and of such perseverance in 
 a universal imposture is not only a moral impossibility, but a 
 metaphysical and an absolute impossibility. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, to whatever epoch in the history of 
 mankind we may turn, that impossibility would be the same. 
 In all times and places, public writing describing public events 
 which naturally arrange themselves in the general course of 
 history would be authentic and true, because in all times and 
 places it would have been impossible under such circumstances 
 to deceive the human race in regard to its own life, or to 
 persuade it to deceive itself without object and against all 
 reason. And— mark it well, gentlemen — history once existing, 
 time has not the privilege of lessening its force ; so far from 
 lessening, it confirms it. I say, first, that it does not lessen its 
 force ; and as proof I propose this to you : Think of Caesar, 
 then think of Louis XIV., and ask yourselves whether the 
 historical certainty of Louis XIV. and the historical certainty 
 of Caesar differ in the slightest degree in your mind. 
 Evidently, they do not differ ; and yet seventeen centuries 
 separate Louis XIV. from Caesar. But those seventeen 
 centuries vanish from your thought by the electrical glance 
 which suddenly carries it from the one to the other, and causes it 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 103 
 
 to perceive not only that the historical basis of Qesar is the same 
 as the historical basis of Louis XIV., but also that in doubting 
 in regard to the first it would be needful to doubt the second, 
 since without Cassar history would lose all its connection, and 
 therewith the principal cause of its reality. I say still more, I 
 say that time confirms, instead of lessening, the certainty of 
 history. And why so ? Because time at every step unfolds the 
 historical canvas, and because each point of history entering 
 into participation with the united force of the whole, the more 
 that force increases by the repercussion of events upon each 
 other, the more each particular point becomes settled, sus- 
 tained, and extended. Thus, Moses has been consolidated by 
 Jesus Christ ; for although Moses wrote publicly on public 
 events, the web of history was short in his time, and wanted 
 breadth ; and when Jesus Christ took His place there, His 
 presence lighted up the Mosaic past, as the Christian future 
 had in its turn to reflect back again even to Jesus Christ. 
 Whence it follows that we do not advance a step in the 
 present time without again bearing to Moses the glory of a 
 new confirmation, because in all that we do he supports us, 
 and we in our turn explain all that he has done. The thread 
 of history unceasingly goes and returns from the past to the 
 future, from the future to the past ; and that which we see 
 with our- eyes will be more clear to our posterity than it is to 
 us, because upon the canvas which represents us they will 
 complete designs which have not yet left the hands of the 
 workmen. Like a building that covers its foundations, so is 
 history ; as land that grows firm by being trodden upon, so 
 also is history under the footsteps of generations. In a word, 
 Time, which seemed the greatest enemy of history, as soon as 
 history is founded, protects and consolidates it. 
 
 But does history exist ? Is all that we have just said 
 anything but a magnificent speculation? Does the human 
 race know its own life ? Is there in the world a history of the 
 world ? This, gentlemen, is to ask if there exist public writings 
 containing a long web of public events ; now these writings 
 and this web of events are before your eyes. Mankind learns 
 its primitive life by certain fundamental traditions collected in 
 due time, and confirmed by their universality ; it learns its 
 subsequent life from Moses by an unbroken history which 
 advanced in constant development. From Moses to Herodotus 
 is the dawn of history ; from Herodotus to Tacitus its morn- 
 
104 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 ing ■ Tacitus is its noon, and that noonday still lasts. It is 
 even become more striking for the last three centuries, through 
 a celebrated invention which has greatly increased the 
 publicity and immortality of writing. As God had given 
 writing to our fathers when tradition was in danger of growing 
 obscure, he gave printing to them when writing itself was also 
 menaced with becoming forgotten and confused from the 
 superabundance of documents. Printing saved history fifteen 
 hundred years after Jesus Christ, as writing saved tradition 
 fifteen hundred years before Him. 
 
 Such being the case, gentlemen, and history having existed 
 for thirty centuries, it remains to be seen whether Jesus Christ 
 does or does not form a part of history. I affirm that He is in 
 history, and that none other in the world holds in it a place 
 more important or more certain than His own. 
 
 What have I to do, gentlemen, in order to prove this? 
 Evidently three things : I have to show that the life of Jesus 
 Christ is contained in a public writing ; that it is a tissue of 
 public events ; and that it enters naturally into the public web 
 of history. 
 
 Now the life of Jesus Christ is contained in the Gospels, and 
 the Gospels form a public writing ; this is my first proposition. 
 But you at once ask me where I find the proof that the Gospels 
 form a public writing. Is it not, say you, in the Gospels them- 
 selves ? And do you not thus prove the question by another 
 question? Gentlemen, if the Gospels commenced or formed 
 the whole of history it would, perhaps, be difficult to reply to 
 you ; but you have not, I think, so soon forgotten that history 
 existed before Jesus Christ ; and God, who willed to give us 
 the certainty of the existence and works of His Son, had 
 apparently prepared the ground upon which we were one day 
 to meet Him. That ground is history ; and at the time in which 
 the life of Jesus Christ is placed, that is to say, about the time 
 of Augustus, history held a position in the world which did not 
 depend upon us. It is not Catholics who make history ; it is 
 made without us and against us. It was in the hands of our 
 enemies, and if we then began the history of the Church, that 
 of the world continued its course upon a plan which was not 
 ours, and in which no power was reserved to us. Now this is 
 the history that I invoke to establish the publicity of the 
 Gospels ; and first of all I rest upon an observation which I 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 105 
 
 consider fundamental; the Gospels, I say, were public writings, 
 because they belonged to a public doctrinal society. 
 
 That the first Christians formed a doctrinal society is clear 
 of itself ; that that society was public is also beyond doubt ; 
 nevertheless, it is necessary to establish this in the most positive 
 manner, for it is the groundwork of the whole matter. It can 
 indeed be conceived that a few men, secretly united, and 
 preaching a secret doctrine, may have been able secretly to 
 prepare a mysterious book, which had not been subject to any 
 investigation, and which was spread from hand to hand, gaining 
 authority with time. But if the Christian community was from 
 the very first public ; if, from the morrow of the death of Christ, 
 His Apostles appeared in the public places of Judsea, and soon 
 after in the public places of the Roman empire, provoking, not 
 an occult war, but a visible and notorious struggle ; if they said 
 boldly to the Jews : " Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of 
 God among you, by miracles and wonders and signs, which 
 God did by Him in the midst of you, as you also know ; this 
 same being delivered up, by the determinate counsel and fore- 
 knowledge of God, you, by the hands of wicked men, have 
 crucified and slain. Whom God hath raised up ; " * if, being 
 ■dragged before all the tribunals of the empire, when asked who 
 they were, they answered : We are Christians, that is to say, 
 the children of Christ, who has been put to death, but whom 
 the arm of God — more powerful than all the conspiracies of 
 men — has raised from His tomb, and elevated to be for ever 
 the head and chief of all nations. If they said this, if it be 
 certain that they said this — certain, not only from our writings, 
 but from writings derived from strangers, from our enemies, by 
 a multitude of documents — I shall have the right to conclude 
 that the Christian society, at its beginning, was a public society, 
 and that, differing from so many things formed in secret — 
 because they have no faith in their strength and legitimacy — 
 the Catholic Church began in publicity, as she has continued 
 in publicity. 
 
 Let us come to the proof, and hear Tacitus, the most 
 celebrated of historians — Tacitus, charged by God to grave in 
 history the certificate of the birth and death of His only Son 
 Jesus Christ. Twenty-seven years after that great drama of 
 
 * Acts ii. 22-24. 
 
io6 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 Calvary, Nero was pleased to burn Rome ; and to hide the 
 horror of that abominable action, he caused to be seized, says 
 Tacitus, an immense multitude of men — ingens multitudo. 
 Who were those men ? Tacitus defines them : they were 
 men whom the common people called Christians — quos vulgus- 
 Christianos appellabat. Remark this word vulgus ; twentyi 
 seven years after the death of Christ the name of His disciples 
 was common in Rome, the capital of the world. But what 
 were Christians ? Tacitus tells us : the author of this name 
 was Christ — auctor nominis hujus Christus. You hear, 
 gentlemen, you hear ; and the date of this text, which has- 
 never been contested by anyone, is authentic ; it is marked by 
 the burning of Rome, in the year 64 of the Christian era, that 
 is to say, twenty-seven years after the death of Jesus Christ. 
 But is this all ? No ; you will hear more, you will hear the 
 Apostles' Creed, written by the pen and with the ink of Tacitus. 
 The historian had to say who Christ was ; he continues, then : 
 They derived their navie and origin from Christ, who, in the- 
 reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the 
 procurator Pontius Pilate — auctor nominis hujus Christus, 
 
 QUI, TlBERIO IMPERITANTE, PER PROCURATOREM PONTIUM 
 
 Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Once more, is it Tacitus 
 who speaks, or is it the Apostles' Creed ? The Apostles' 
 Creed says : Qui passus est sub Pontio Pilato ; Tacitus 
 says : Qui per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio- 
 affectus erat. It is indeed Tacitus — a stranger, a Pagan,, 
 a man who, in writing these things in indestructible memorials, 
 did not even know what he said. And what said he of 
 the Christians, of that immense multitude whom the common 
 people called Christians ? He said this of them, in the 
 same text : For a while this dire superstition was checked; 
 but it again burst forth, and not only spread itself over Judma, 
 the first seat of this evil, but even in Rome — repressaque 
 in pr^esens exitialis superstitio rursus erumpebat, non 
 
 MODO PER JUD^EAM ORIGINEM HUJUS MALI, SED PER UrBEM 
 
 etiam. What a text, gentlemen ! what precision ! what matter 
 in two lines ! Twenty-seven years, then, after the death of 
 Christ, the Christians formed an immense multitude in Rome, 
 they were commonly known by their true name ; even before- 
 this epoch they had already been repressed by public authority,, 
 but that repression did not hinder them from spreading such 
 power, that Tacitus calls it an irruption ; they appeared before 
 
JESUS CHRIST. tof 
 
 the tribunals, and there bore testimony to their faith; for 
 Tacitus adds that they were seized by their own avowal — ■ 
 primo correpti qui fatebantur. They were odious to all — 
 invisos : and their morals differed so much from general morals 
 that, according to the remark of the historian, they were less 
 convicted of the crime of revolt than of hatred of the human kind 
 
 HAUD PERINDE IN CRIMINE INCENDII, QUAM ODIO HUMANI 
 
 generis convicti sunt.* And Tacitus knew all this ; he 
 knew the life of Jesus Christ ; he knew Pontius Pilate ; the 
 drama of Calvary was present to him. 
 
 Would you have another proof of the public life of 
 Christians from the very origin of Christianity ? God and 
 history will not refuse it to you. In the year 98 of the 
 Christian era — sixty-one years after the death of Jesus Christ — 
 Trajan mounts the throne ; and history brings us a letter of 
 one of his proconsuls on the subject of the Christians, the 
 proconsul of Bithynia and Pontus, Pliny the Younger, a 
 celebrated man. For observe, gentlemen, when God wills to 
 write history, he is not unskilful in choosing his historians. 
 We have just heard Tacitus; let us now hear Pliny the 
 Younger, in an official letter to Trajan. He writes to the 
 emperor to consult him about the measures to be taken against 
 Christians ; for, says he, " I have never had to deal with cases 
 of this kind, and I know not what it is the custom to pursue 
 and punish in them, or in what degree. I have no little 
 difficulty in ascertaining whether it is needful to take account 
 of difference of age or to be indifferent to it ; whether pardon- 
 is to be granted on repentance, or whether it is useless to cease 
 to be a Christian after having once professed Christianity ; 
 whether it is the name which is to be pursued, even when 
 exempt from crime, or the crime attached to the name." 
 What questions, gentlemen, for an able and good man ! A 
 name criminal ! Crimes attached to a name ! But what 
 could he do ? Pliny found in his way customs already 
 inveterate against a society of men in open struggle with the 
 Roman empire ; and we perceive, even in the absurd things 
 which he says, a desire to be as lenient as possible without 
 offending the emperor. His letter ends with the remark, 
 " that a great number of persons of every age, rank, and sex, 
 were compromised, and that others would be ; that not only 
 
 * Annals, Book 15. 
 
io8 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 the cities, but the towns and villages, were overrun with that 
 contagious superstition; that, in fine, the deserted temples, 
 and the sacred ceremonies which had for a long time been 
 interrupted, began to revive, in consequence of the measures 
 taken against the Christians." 
 
 This picture, gentlemen, joined to that of Tacitus, leaves 
 no doubt upon the capital point before us, namely, that from 
 the origin of Christianity, the Christians lived in a publicly- 
 constituted society. And, moreover, the very result obtained 
 by them in the short space of three' centuries is a super- 
 abundant proof of it. At the end of three centuries, the 
 Christians were masters of the Roman empire ; they bore to 
 the throne the first Caesar who embraced their faith, and, not 
 content with this prodigy of their power, they said to 
 Constantine : " Withdraw to the Bosphorus, for here, in Rome, 
 the chair of St. Peter, the fisherman of Galilee, must be placed." 
 And Constantine, from instinctive obedience to that un- 
 expressed command of Providence, withdrew, and so bore, 
 even to the borders of the Euxine, a proof, still subsisting, of 
 the social mission of Jesus Christ. Now, gentlemen, no secret 
 society has ever been capable of such success. All that 
 begins in secret is accomplished in secret. When men speak 
 to you of a secret society, it is as if they told you that nothing 
 had formed an association. Doubtless these secret conspiracies 
 may work secretly, shake the foundations of states, prepare 
 the day of ruins ; but they never attain to a regulated and 
 public life. All that begins in darkness is struck with in- 
 capacity to live in open air and in open day. Therefore 
 the attainment of empire by the Christian society, under 
 Constantine, is of itself a sufficient proof that the Christian 
 work was a constantly public work. 
 
 But if the first Christians formed a public society, and at 
 the same time a doctrinal society, it necessarily follows that 
 their writings were public. Endeavour to conceive a public 
 doctrinal society which hides its writings ; you will never 
 succeed. For how would it be public, if it did not boldly 
 proclaim what it believed, and how would it proclaim what it 
 believed, if it secreted its writings, and those even which 
 formed the foundation of its faith? Although the Gospels 
 may not have been written on the very instant after the death 
 and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they were published over the 
 whole world by the preaching of the Apostles, and when they 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 109 
 
 appeared successively, the young and living tradition became 
 blended with them in one and the same authenticity. A 
 contest of nearly three hundred years began upon the very 
 text of the Gospels between Catholics on one hand and 
 heretics and philosophers on the other. This contest has left 
 very numerous monuments. We see, then, Celsus and 
 Porphyry following step by step upon the Gospels, the life of 
 the Saviour. They do not dispute their publicity or their 
 authenticity. Heretics do something more. Not only do 
 they discuss upon the text consecrated by the adhesion of the 
 Church, but they fabricate for themselves apocryphal Gospels 
 to oppose them to the approved Gospels, so true is it that the 
 whole discussion bore upon those fundamental texts. They 
 were simple enough to make for themselves an arm against us 
 of apocryphal Gospels, that is to say, to invoke against Jesus 
 Christ books wherein the principal mysteries of His life and 
 death were recognised, and where the very alteration of certain 
 passages served but to prove so much the more the truth of 
 the whole. It is very natural that great publicity should call 
 forth counterfeits ; this is even the greatest sign of success. 
 Every idea, every style, every fashion that succeeds, raises up 
 a cloud of imitators or speculators. But what is that to the 
 man or to the thing which is the object of such effort? At 
 least, it is not publicity which suffers from it ; now, the 
 publicity of the life of Jesus Christ by the Gospels and the 
 primitive Christian books is precisely the point that I desire 
 to establish, and I do not think you will require more from 
 me. 
 
 The life of Jesus Christ was, from the first, surrounded by 
 immense publicity. His disciples, from the first, formed a 
 public society ; their profession of faith, their writings filled all 
 the tribunals and all the schools of the earth ; and finally, in 
 three centuries, the emperor was publicly Christian, and the 
 vicar of Jesus Christ was publicly seated in Rome. All this is 
 as certain in profane history as in Christian history. This 
 first point is gained. 
 
 As to the events which compose the very life of Jesus 
 Christ, their nature is also that of manifest and striking 
 publicity. What was in question? Was it a philosopher 
 teaching certain disciples under a porch or in a garden ? Was 
 it but a Socrates, however celebrated he may be ? No ; it 
 was a question of a Man, the founder of a new religion, a 
 
no RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 thing that touched all — traditions, laws, customs, sentiments, 
 even the most sacred interests ; it was of a Man the founder of 
 an exclusive religion, and who designed nothing less than the 
 overthrow of all existing religious and sacerdotal bodies ; it 
 was of a Man working, it was said, in public unheard-of 
 miracles, and accompanied everywhere by an innumerable 
 multitude, attracted by His works and His doctrine; it was of 
 a Man called before the supreme tribunal of His country, 
 condemned, put to death, and afterwards, it was said, raised 
 again from the dead, and who sent His disciples to the moral 
 conquest, of the world ; it was of a Man having succeeded in 
 raising up an unshaken faith in the hearts of a multitude of 
 men of all nations, and become, by His name alone, the 
 rallying-point of a new society. If ever there were public 
 events, assuredly they were these. 
 
 And these events, which contradicted all the past life of the 
 human race — which must, consequently, if they were false, have 
 been rejected from the general web of history by an invincible 
 impossibility of ever forming a part therein — have they or have 
 they not taken their place in that rigorous chain of the human 
 life during three thousand years ? They have done more than 
 this, gentlemen ; without them history is an incomprehensible 
 enigma. What, indeed, is the principal question of history, 
 from Moses to Pius IX., those two extreme terms of the world's 
 annals ? Is it the rise and fall of the empires of Assyria, the 
 Trojan war, the conquests of Alexander, the fortunes of the 
 Romans, the rise of modern nations, the discovery of America, 
 the progress of science and history in modern times ? No ; 
 none of these questions, however vast they may be, is the 
 principal question of history, the one that embraces the totality 
 of the three thousand years that live in the memory of mankind. 
 The principal question, because it contains all the past, the 
 present, and the future, is this : the world having lived in 
 idolatry in the times before Augustus, how has it become 
 Christian since His time ? These are the two sides that divide 
 all history, the side of antiquity, and the side of later ages ; the 
 one idolater, plunged into the most licentious materialism ; the 
 other Christian, purified at the sources of a complete spiritu- 
 ality. In the ancient world the flesh publicly prevailed over 
 the spirit ; in the present, the spirit publicly prevails over the 
 flesh. What has caused this ? Who has produced a change so 
 great and so general in extent between the two periods of man- 
 
JESUS CHRIST. in 
 
 Tdnd ? Who has so greatly modified the human form and the 
 •course of history ? Your fathers adored idols ; you, their 
 posterity, descended from them by a corrupted blood, you 
 adore Jesus Christ. Your fathers were materialists even in 
 their worship ; you are spiritualists even in your passions. 
 Your fathers denied all that you believe; you deny all that they 
 believed. Again I ask what is the reason of this ? There are 
 no events without causes in history, any more than there is 
 movement without a motive power in mathematics. What is 
 this historical cause which converted the idolatrous world into 
 the Christian world, which gave Charlemagne as a successor to 
 Nero ? You are compelled to know or at least to seek it. We 
 Catholics say that this prodigious change corresponds to the 
 appearance upon earth of a Man who called Himself the Son of 
 God, sent to take away the sins of the world — who preached 
 humility, purity, penance, gentleness, peace ; who lived piously 
 among the poor and the lowly ; who died on a cross, with His 
 arms extended over us to bless us ; who left us His teaching 
 and His example in the Gospel ; and who, having thus touched 
 the souls of many, subdued their pride and corrected their 
 senses, has left in them a tranquil joy so marvellous that its 
 perfume has spread to the ends of the world, and has won even 
 sensuality. We say this. Yes, a man, a single man, has 
 founded the empire of Christians upon the ruins of the idola- 
 trous empire ; and we do not marvel thereat, because we have 
 remarked in history that all good as well as evil invariably 
 springs from a single principle, from a man, the depositary of 
 the hidden force of the demon, or of the invisible force of 
 God. We say this, and we base our declaration upon un- 
 interrupted monuments which begin with Moses and reach to 
 us ; we appeal also to a publicity of thirty-two consecutive 
 centuries ; we join together the Jewish people, Jesus Christ, the 
 Catholic Church, or rather we do not join these, they appear 
 before us closely linked together in a course of things sustained 
 the one by the other ; we appeal, in fine, to the whole web of 
 history, and in the name of that immense monument which it 
 is absolutely necessary to admit and to explain, we say to you: 
 Jesus Christ is the supreme expression of history, He is its key 
 and its revelation. Not only does He form a part of history, 
 He has taken His place in it in the midst of all its events, with- 
 out difficulty and without effort, but history is not possible 
 ■without Him. Endeavour, in following the line of these monu- 
 
H2 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 merits, to pass from the ancient to the new world, and to 
 explain to yourselves how, without Jesus Christ, the Pope has 
 replaced the Cassars at the Vatican. Is it possible to do this ? 
 And if a gleam of good faith remain in the depths of your 
 soul, will you not be compelled to say with us : Yes, it is in 
 Christ on Calvary, in that blood which was shed, that the 
 renovation of the human race began ? 
 
 Therefore, gentlemen, before our epoch, none dared to 
 deny the historical reality of Jesus Christ, not one. Before 
 you, long before you, Jesus Christ had enemies; for before you 
 pride existed, and pride is the chief enemy of Jesus Christ. 
 Before you Jesus Christ had enemies; for before you sensuality 
 existed, and sensuality is the second enemy of Jesus Christ. 
 Before you Jesus Christ had enemies ; for before you egotism 
 existed, and egotism is the third enemy of Jesus Christ. And 
 yet, when He appeared for the first time, when He came with 
 His cross to sap your pride, to insult your senses, to drag down 
 your egotism to the very dust, what was said to Him ? Pride, 
 sensuality, egotism, had then as now able men in their service 
 — Celsus, Porphyry, all the Alexandrian school, and the lovers 
 of this life, and the throng of courtiers, ever ready to find in 
 truth a secret enemy to power. What said they of Christ ? 
 They pursued Him by putting His followers to death ; by 
 deriding His life ; by disputing His dogmas ; by oppression 
 called to the help of a cause which betrayed liberty ; but their 
 books, subsisting in a thousand remains by the aid of printing 
 — which I just now called the salvation of history — their books 
 confirm Him ; not one of them has denied the reality of the 
 life of Jesus Christ. You alone, coming eighteen centuries 
 after, and thinking that time, which confirms history, is its. 
 destroyer, you have dared to battle against the very light of the 
 sun, hoping that every negation is at least a shadow, and that 
 human folly, seeking a refuge against the severity of Jesus 
 Christ, would accept of any arm as a defence, and of any 
 shield as a protection. You have deceived yourselves. History 
 subsists in spite of negation, as the heart of man subsists in spite 
 of the debauchery of the senses ; and Jesus Christ remains, 
 under the shelter of unexampled publicity, and of a necessity 
 to which there is no counterpoise, upon the summit of history. 
 
 Nevertheless, as a last hope you say to me : If it were a 
 question of human events only, such as those of which the- 
 ordinary annals of nations are composed, it is manifest that the 
 
JESUS CHRIST. ii3 
 
 life of Jesus Christ contained in the Gospels would be beyond 
 all discussion. But in that life it is a question of events which 
 bear no comparison with those we habitually witness. It is a 
 question of a God who made Himself Man, who died and rose 
 again ; how is it possible for us to admit such strange things 
 upon a mass of human evidence ? For in fine, public writings, 
 public events, the public and general web of history, all this 
 assemblage of proofs is purely human ; and it is upon this 
 mortal foundation that you base a history where all is super- 
 human. The base must evidently sink under such a weight. 
 
 Gentlemen, I do not undervalue the force of that objection. 
 Yes ; I understand that when it is a question of the history of 
 a God it needs another pen than that which traces the history 
 of the greatest man in the world ; this is true. But I also 
 believe that God has solved this objection by creating for His 
 only Son, Jesus Christ, a history which is not human, that 
 is to say, which, in its proportions, is so much above the 
 nothingness of man, that the ordinary power of history would 
 evidently not have sufficed for it. Where indeed will you find 
 such connection as that of the Jewish people, Jesus Christ, 
 and the Catholic Church ? Where is there anything to be 
 compared to it ? And, moreover — without returning to what 
 has already been said — where, amongst all the histories known 
 to you, do you find any which for three centuries had 
 witnesses who gave to it the testimony of their blood? 
 Where are the witnesses who have given their lives in favour 
 of the authenticity of the greatest men or the greatest events ? 
 Who died to certify the history of Alexander ? Who died to 
 certify the history of Cassar? Who? No one. No one in 
 the world has ever shed his blood to add another degree of 
 evidence to the historical certainty of anything whatever. 
 Men leave history to take its course. But to form it with their 
 blood, to cement historical testimony with human blood for 
 three centuries, is what has never been witnessed, save on the 
 part of Christians for Jesus Christ. We were interrogated 
 during three centuries, and asked to declare who we were ; we 
 answered : Christians. They then said to us : Blaspheme the 
 name of Christ ; and we replied : We are Christians. They 
 put us to death for this in frightful tortures ; and in the hands 
 of our executioners our last sigh exhaled, as a balm for the 
 dying and a testimony for the living to all eternity, the name 
 of Jesus Christ. We did not die for opinions, but for realities 
 
H4 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE LIFE OF 
 
 — the very name of martyrs proves it ; and Pascal has well 
 said : " I believe in witnesses who give the testimony of their 
 blood." And although there may be presumption in attempt- 
 ing to speak better than Pascal, I shall however say some- 
 thing better : I believe in the human race dying for its 
 faith. 
 
 Shall I give you another sign which shows the elevation of 
 Jesus Christ, in history, above all history ? Tell me which 
 amongst the ancient peoples of the world, the most celebrated 
 in your eyes, has left guardians upon its tomb to protect its 
 history? Where are the survivors of the Assyrians, the 
 Medes, the Greeks, the Romans ? Where are they ? What 
 defunct people renders testimony to its life ? One alone, the 
 Jewish people, at the same time dead and living, a relic of the 
 ancient world in the new, and a self-accusing witness in favour 
 of Christ — by the Jews crucified. God has preserved them for 
 us as an irreproachable witness ; I produce them, they are 
 there. Behold them ! The blood is in their hands. And we 
 also, Catholics, we the Church, we are by their side, we speak 
 with them and as loudly as they. As a living and a universal 
 society we bear, in the wounds of our martyrs, the blood shed 
 by us to render testimony to the history of Jesus Christ ; and 
 on their side, as a society, living also, universal also, the 
 Jewish people bear blood which is not their own, but which is- 
 not less eloquent than ours. There are two witnesses here, 
 and two streams of blood. Behold them ! Look on the 
 right hand and on the left of Christ, behold the people who 
 crucified him 1 Behold the people who sprang from his cross ! 
 They both speak the same thing to you, both, during eighteen 
 centuries, suffer a martyrdom which is not the same, but 
 which has the same source, both are enemies — they meet but 
 in one single thing, Jesus Christ ! Ah ! you would defy God ! 
 Learn that when man defies God, his Providence inevitably 
 prepares an answer for him ; and you have just heard, on the 
 subject of Jesus Christ, the answer He has given to you. 
 
 I conclude, gentlemen. To deny the historical reality of 
 the life of Jesus Christ is an act of folly, an act of desperation. 
 And you wonder perhaps why this has been done, directly or 
 indirectly, with or without precaution. It is, because the 
 historical reality of Jesus Christ once admitted, or taken for 
 granted, the sentiment of His divinity begins to shine in the 
 mind> and it is difficult not to yield more or less. It was 
 
JESUS CHRIST. lit 
 
 necessary to gather clouds around an existence so remarkable, 
 connected, moreover with so many things which are remark- 
 able also. Were the result of negation only to call forth proof 
 of the fact, it would already have provoked discussion, and 
 discussion is of value on unattackable ground ; its prestige 
 seems to be thereby lessened. It is better, in fine, to attempt 
 something than to remain inactive. Then, hatred blinds, it 
 renders the vision insensible to the clearest evidence ; 
 and, in this sense, it was fitting that the historical reality of 
 Jesus Christ should be attacked, as a proof of the intellectual 
 diminution of those who become His enemies. Truth gains by 
 the attacks of the mind as by those of the body ; and, tranquil 
 in the inacessible eyrie where God has placed her, sure of 
 herself, however she may be attacked, she can say to man, 
 imitating a celebrated line : 
 
 Contest, if thou canst; and if thou dar'st, consent 1 
 
 f 2 
 
THE EFFORTS OF RATIONALISM 
 
 TO PERVERT 
 
 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 In our last conference I proved to you the historical reality 
 of Jesus Christ. But what is it to have proved to you the 
 historical reality of Jesus Christ ? Does it mean that a Man 
 called Jesus Christ undoubtedly lived at a certain epoch ? If we 
 have proved but this we shall have proved nothing, for a name 
 is nothing. To prove the historical reality of a personage is to 
 prove the reality of the living type which constitutes that 
 personage. Thus, when I name Cresar, I do not name an 
 indifferent person, I name the Roman who, before Augustus, 
 conquered and governed the Gauls, who, recalled by the 
 Senate, passed the Rubicon, assumed the dictatorship, and at 
 last fell under the daggers of a band of conspirators. So also, 
 when I name Jesus Christ, I name Him who, in the time of 
 Tiberius, preached a religious doctrine in JudEea, supported 
 His preaching by acts, about which you reserve your judg- 
 ment, but which were at least extraordinary, who was sur- 
 rounded by disciples, and, after a condemnation followed by 
 His death, was presented to the whole world as living, and 
 who, in fine, founded that hierarchy, that dogma, that worship, 
 that Catholic Church, which we see still living before our eyes. 
 And to have proved the historical reality of Jesus Christ is to 
 have proved the reality of this type whose leading features I 
 have just traced. I have done more, gentlemen ; I have at 
 the same time proved the authenticity of the Gospels. For a 
 book is authentic when it is historical; and I have shown 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 117 
 
 that the Gospels possess all the characters of history, that is to 
 say, that they were public writings, containing public events 
 adapted to the general and public web of the annals of the 
 human race. This is its great authenticity. There is another, 
 secondary and of little importance, which consists in knowing 
 the precise date of a book and the exact name of its author. 
 I place it below the former, because a book may have a 
 certain date and a certain author, without possessing any 
 historical value, whilst an historical book bears with itself the 
 date and the course of things authentically promulgated by 
 invincible publicity. The Gospels are authentic in both ways ; 
 but as the first and great authenticity is of itself sufficient, I 
 have confined myself chiefly to establishing it. 
 
 Perhaps in listening to me, gentlemen, you have asked 
 yourselves whom I was addressing, why I took so much pains 
 about a thing which did not seem to be contested. In this 
 you would have deceived yourselves. Not only in a cele- 
 brated work on the " Origin of all Religions " has Dupuis 
 denied the historical reality of Jesus Christ, but so also in 
 some degree does every unbeliever, endeavouring to raise up 
 clouds between his mind and that formidable figure of the 
 Son of God manifest in the flesh. Hence it is that you hear 
 it so blandly and so falsely repeated that no contemporary 
 testimony, out of the Christian school, attests the presence of 
 Jesus Christ upon the stage of history. Hence it is that the 
 famous text of Flavius Josephus on the life and death of 
 Christ has been made the object of so much suspicion. There 
 are no unbelievers whom the historical certainty of the early 
 times of Christianity does not disturb and importune, and who 
 do not set a high value upon the slightest doubt in regard to 
 it. It was necessary then to take away this consolation from 
 them — the more so, gentlemen, as in demonstrating to you 
 the divinity of Jesus Christ I had previously supposed the 
 authenticity of His person and history, and because if I had 
 not retraced my steps in order definitely to establish this, the 
 whole edifice of my demonstration would have rested upon a 
 gratuitous hypothesis. Let us to-day complete the substi- 
 tution of the reality for the hypothesis by treating of another 
 effort of rationalism, no longer to destroy the life of Jesus 
 Christ, but to pervert it. For, after having said or suggested 
 that the life of Christ was a fable, rationalism itself perceived 
 that it was too much to ask of human credulity : it feared the 
 
Ii8 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 all-powerful light of common sense ; and at the beginning of 
 this century, not in England, not in France, but in Germany, 
 a new system has been developed. The life of Christ, they 
 say, is not a fable, but a myth. What is a myth ? Is the life 
 of Christ a myth? Such is, gentlemen, the object of this 
 conference and of your attention. 
 
 Let us first clearly understand the causes which have kept 
 rationalism from sanctioning, by its adhesion, the historical 
 reality of Jesus Christ. Assuredly there remain many questions 
 to solve, even when it is admitted that Jesus Christ lived, that 
 His history is authentic, that publicity sheds the clearest light 
 upon the origins of Christianity and Christendom. _ Yet, 
 gentlemen, when we have advanced thus far, we immediately 
 find ourselves before a very simple dilemma : either Jesus 
 Christ and His apostles were sincere, or they were impostors. 
 To say they were sincere is in the main to admit the divinity 
 of their work ; for, the reality of the life of Christ being 
 established on the one hand, and the sincerity of their work 
 being admitted on the other, we cannot, before the nature and 
 the course of events which form its tissue, avoid this con- 
 clusion : Jesus Christ is God. If, on the contrary, it is 
 affirmed that Jesus Christ and His apostles were impostors, the 
 position is one which the mind will hardly accept. And why ? 
 Because all that belongs to Jesus Christ, all the apostles, all 
 the martyrs, manifest the sincerity of man in its highest 
 degree ; because God has placed in the person of Jesus Christ, 
 in the life of His apostles, in the death of His martyrs, a 
 character of truthfulness, which leaves no room for the 
 supposition that all that beautiful history, for three whole 
 centuries, is nothing but a mass of imposture steeped in blood. 
 Moreover, Christianity is now sincere ; it is impossible to 
 accuse of falsehood the multitude of civilised men who believe 
 in Jesus Christ, who profess to have the daily demonstration 
 of His divinity, who say that, even independently of the 
 Gospel history, the action alone of Christ, upon them manifests 
 its all-powerful reality; and it is the thesis of a celebrated 
 German, who, having made the historical void around him, 
 and inwardly verifying to his mind the influence of the Saviour 
 of men, said to Germany : But I who live, who feel, who 
 think, I live with Jesus Christ, I feel with Jesus Christ, I think 
 with Jesus Christ ; He raises me above myself, He purifies 
 me, He gives me that which nothing in this world has ever 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 119 
 
 given me ; He is then more than myself, more than the world, 
 more than the soul, He is God. Yes, we are sincere ; and if all 
 Christians do not prove their sincerity by their virtues, many 
 of them at least render to Jesus Christ this testimony of their 
 faith. Will you dare to charge them with hypocrisy ? Will 
 you dare to insult the hearts and actions of so great a number 
 of men bound to you by so many ties ? Hypocrites ! And 
 why? With what object? What pleasure is there in being 
 chaste from hypocrisy ? What a strange design, and what a 
 strange salary for such a sacrifice ! We are then sincere, and 
 we are able to say of Jesus Christ, the spouse of our souls, 
 that which Pauline said of Polyeuctes, and with the same 
 feeling : 
 
 My spouse in dying has left me his light, /o-u,... 
 
 I see, I know, I believe ! 
 
 But if Christianity is now sincere, how is it possible that, from 
 the highest of all imposture, namely, that of assuming the 
 name of God, this torrent, this sea of sincerity, should have 
 spread its bays and horizons even to us, to the very centre of 
 ■existing mankind? An impure cause cannot produce a pure 
 effect ; and if Christianity is now sincere, it was so yesterday, 
 the day before, in the days of its youth ; it was so in Jesus 
 Christ, in the first heart whence it issued to fire our own and 
 render it true. Or, if you deny the consequence under that 
 form, recognise at least in Jesus Christ, in His apostles and 
 martyrs, signs of sincerity still greater even than those of 
 Christianity in the present time, and learn why unbelief needs 
 to reject from history the primitive times of Christianity — 
 fearing lest, having once given admission to them, they would 
 too readily attain the crown of incontestable divinity. Yes, 
 our ancestors, the unbelievers of France, showed the necessary 
 boldness ; they placed the question in its true light, and who- 
 soever does not follow them, at all risk and peril, is a coward 
 or an infant in the order of negation. Our fathers, here as 
 elsewhere, advanced straight to the heart of things ; with the 
 native intrepidity of their minds, they comprehended that it 
 •was needful to deny all or to admit all. I laud them for it; 
 for, after all, when men love error it is better to steer in it like 
 Columbus than like those timid barks which fear to brave the 
 ocean, and break up on the very edge of the shore. By 
 advancing boldly, the end is sooner reached, and the very 
 
120 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 mind which pursued error has thus greater chances of entering 
 in full sail into the harbour of truth. 
 
 German genius is not, it seems, endowed with this advantage 
 of brightness and rapidity. It is this genius which has created 
 the theory of the myth around which it has hovered for fifty 
 years. But what is a myth ? Sweep away the vaulted roof of 
 this cathedral, and gaze upon that other vault of which Pascal 
 said : " The eternal silence of that unknown space terrifies me." 
 Beyond the luminaries which your eye easily discovers there as 
 it were on the extreme frontier of space, you will still perceive 
 an array of unknown stars. Are they the result of vision 
 deceived by distance ? Have they a total subsistence ? Or 
 rather is the cause of their apparition at the same time an 
 optical illusion and a certain reality ? So will it be if, instead 
 of exploring the profound regions of the firmament, you cast a 
 prying glance upon the frontiers of antiquity. You will find 
 there recitals which will trouble your mind, uncertain whether 
 to reject or to admit them. I take Prometheus, for example. 
 You all know the story of Prometheus — that daring man who 
 stole fire from heaven, and whom Jupiter, in punishment for so 
 great a sacrilege, caused to be chained to a rock, where his 
 liver is devoured by a vulture. Antiquity was full of this story, 
 upon which ^ischylus formed one of the most remarkable 
 tragedies of the Greek stage. What in fact was Prometheus ? 
 Was it a pure fable? It is very difficult to think so, gentle- 
 men ; man always founds the objects of his belief upon some 
 reality, and when these objects have a universal character it is 
 not logical to treat them with absolute disdain. But, on 
 another hand, would you range the story of Prometheus in 
 history? This is equally impossible. How can we admit 
 that a man stole fire from heaven, that God chained him to a 
 rock, and that his liver, never diminishing, was ever preyed 
 upon there by an insatiable vulture ? We are here evidently 
 between fable and history. An event relative to the religious 
 destinies of the human race occurred in the depths of primordial 
 ages ; the people carried its remembrances in their emigrations; 
 but as the shadow of the past deepened upon the world, the 
 true physiognomy of that antique tragedy lost its clearness ; 
 imagination came to the help of memory, and Prometheus 
 chained to his rock became the popular expression of a great 
 crime followed by a great expiation. This is a myth. A myth is 
 a fact transfigured by an idea ; and the frontiers of antiquity — I 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 121 
 
 repeat the expression — appear to us as itwere guarded by a legion 
 of myths, which are all adulterated expressions of certain truths. 
 
 Such being the case, says Dr. Strauss — one of the most 
 celebrated masters of the mythic school — why should not 
 Jesus Christ be a myth ? Why should not the Gospels be a 
 collection of myths, that is to say, of real facts transfigured by 
 ideas ? Let us see if this be not possible ; and, in the second 
 place, if it be not real. 
 
 That it is possible, in the first place, analogy leaves us 
 hardly room for doubt. Is there a religion, whether idolatry, 
 or Brahminism, or Buddhism, which subsists otherwise than by 
 a vast assemblage of facts and ideas adulterated the one by the 
 other ? If you deny this, Christians, you will inflict a heavy 
 blow upon yourselves. For you would thereby affirm that man- 
 kind is so wanting in common sense as to be capable of adoring 
 for centuries fables devoid of every kind of foundation, tradi- 
 tional or ideal. Evidently you cannot deny it ; you must 
 admit, under pain ot wounding your own selves, that wherever 
 men have bent the knee with some universality and perpetuity 
 they have had before them facts incrusted in conceptions. But 
 if this be the general phenomenon, why may not Christianity 
 have been produced under the empire of the same law ? 
 Doubtless Christians adore realities ; Jesus Christ is a reality ; 
 but with the course of time and the fascination of a pre- 
 conceived idea, as in all occasions of like nature, the prim- 
 ordial fact, although certain, has undergone modifications in 
 the idea of its adorers which take it from pure history and 
 range it in the category of myths. That Jesus Christ has not 
 undergone so complete a transformation as the more distant 
 events of remote antiquity, may be readily granted ; but the 
 degree of more or less is a secondary question only ; and it 
 nevertheless remains that the person of Christ and the Christian 
 event are comprised in the general law which links to the myth 
 all known religions. 
 
 So much the less is this to be doubted, as the publication 
 of the Gospels is not contemporary with Jesus Christ. From 
 the very avowal of Christians, many years of tradition and 
 preaching preceded the era of the evangelical writings ; and, if 
 we come to exact criticism, we shall not be able to place the 
 assured reign of the New Testament before the middle of the 
 second century. What a space left to the imagination and to 
 faith for transforming Jesus Christ ! 
 
122 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 It is especially worthy of remark that this transformation 
 was so much the more easy, as the Messianic idea pre-existed 
 Jesus Christ. Long before He appeared that idea flowed in the 
 veins of the Jewish people ; a vast number of men, attentive to 
 the voice of the prophets, looked for the Messiah who was to 
 come ; and after Christ had attributed this mission to Himself 
 it was natural that all its features should be applied to Him. 
 The Messianic idea was the mould in which, for three centuries, 
 the myth of Jesus Christ was formed. Jesus Christ had, so to 
 say, but to leave things to their own course, and when He 
 •died His life entered of itself, like matter in fusion, into the 
 mould of the Messianic idea, whence at length it came forth 
 such as it now is before the astonished eyes of generations. 
 
 Analogy, the time, the preconceived idea of the Messiah, 
 all these circumstances lead to the conclusion that Christianity 
 may have been found, like all the religions of antiquity, by the 
 principle of mythical transfiguration. But a closer examination 
 will lead us far beyond that conclusion, and cause us to 
 perceive in the New Testament all the characters of an 
 accomplished myth. 
 
 In the first place, the life of Jesus Christ, as related in the 
 Gospels, is stamped with a character of continuous marvel. 
 From the angel who announced His conception in the womb 
 of the Virgin Mary, up to His resurrection and ascension, not 
 a single event in the whole of that existence is conformable 
 with the course of nature. Every word develops a prodigy, 
 every step is a miracle, and the miracle seems constantly 
 struggling to surpass itself and to confound the last hopes of 
 reason. Now, the marvellous is precisely the inseparable 
 companion of the myth, and its seat is the same. Where, in 
 fact, do we find the marvellous? Is it before our eyes — near 
 to us, in the modern world? Never. All that we see is 
 simple and natural ; general laws, whence proceeds a constant 
 order, governing the world which is before us ; God does not 
 act in it by any sudden and capricious intervention, but he 
 leaves to secondary causes their indissoluble succession. Where 
 then do we find the marvellous ? There — even where we 
 find the myth — in antiquity. Antiquity is the seat of the 
 one and the other; and the myth itself is revealed to us 
 only by the presence of the marvellous. For if nothing were 
 marvellous in antiquity, all would be history. But what then 
 is it that distinguishes the marvellous in regard to Jesus Christ 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 123 
 
 from the marvellous elsewhere? In Himself, nothing; as to 
 place, nothing still, since that place is antiquity. Why, then, 
 may we ask, do you divide antiquity in twain, and call one false 
 and the other true ? Why reject in the myth that which was 
 marvellous before Jesus Christ, and raise to the rank of history 
 the marvellous which is contemporary with Him ? Reason 
 seizes no motive for this distinction, if it be not that you call 
 the time of Jesus Christ an historical period, in opposition to 
 •other epochs which you call fabulous. But the marvellous is 
 the very character that distinguishes fabulous from historical 
 ages ; for, without this, where would be the principle of their 
 distinction ? 
 
 In the second place, it is manifest, on the first reading 
 of the Gospels, that they present no chronological suite, 
 nothing which announces history, but that they are simple 
 materials collected in minds at hazard, without the slightest 
 attempt having been made to give them any appearance of 
 harmony. All is in confusion and contradiction there. Dr. 
 Strauss has had but to read and let his pen run freely, to 
 form four volumes of the inconceivable blunders of which 
 they are full. And we must not blame the evangelists for 
 this ; it is the very proof of their sincerity. They took the 
 myth as they found it, vague, indefinite, contradictory — like 
 all that comes from the gloomy confluence of facts and ideas. 
 More than a century had passed over the life of Jesus Christ ; 
 shreds of that life had been carried from the East to the West, 
 under the impression of sentiments and ideas of diverse origins; 
 and, although the type possessed some unity because of the 
 Messianic form which was the primitive starting-point, it was 
 nevertheless impossible for the final elaboration of so many 
 elements not to bear visible marks of disagreement and variety. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, is the reasoning of the mythic school. I 
 believe I have not hidden any of its force from you ; I do not 
 like to depreciate the enemies of truth. Why should I ? Were 
 I to succeed for a moment in abusing your penetration and 
 memory, on returning to your homes a glance at the work of 
 Dr. Strauss would reveal to you my want of sincerity, and 
 the cause I defend, for the half-hour it may have gained, would 
 have lost a century in your minds. No, gentlemen, it is less 
 than a duty, it is a pleasure to be sincere when we have truth 
 on our side ; and if the arguments of the mythic school have 
 wanted force in passing by my mouth, it is because, after three 
 
i2 4 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 months devoted to the study of them, it is not possible for me 
 to impart to them more attractiveness and more authority. Do- 
 not, however, deceive yourselves ; the work is as skilful as it 
 could be. You perceive that the historical reality of Jesus 
 Christ is no longer denied ; they no longer rush to their de- 
 struction against the very constitution of history ; and yet Jesus 
 Christ, although remaining as a reality, is disarmed of the power 
 of that position. On another hand, it is no longer necessary to 
 combat the impression of sincerity which results from His life 
 and that of His disciples. That sincerity is admitted. Jesus 
 Christ believed in Himself, and men believed in Him. They 
 believed in Him before Caesar, they believe in Him before 
 incredulity. Your fathers gave their blood for realities and 
 ideas ; you do the same. Only you do not properly under- 
 stand them ; and it is permitted, it is honourable, it is glorious, 
 to live and die for things which we do not properly understand. 
 
 Gentlemen, I believe this exposition is sufficient. I will 
 now meet this great engine of Germanic warfare. 
 
 Shall I deny the existence of myths ? No, gentlemen ; the 
 myth appears to me historically as of all things in the world 
 the most veritable. I admit that man, left to tradition during 
 a long course of ages, ends by no longer clearly perceiving the 
 limit and the primitive text of events. Like a picture before 
 which the spectator constantly retreats, the human race 
 retreats before the past ; and however attentively it may be 
 watched, at length it becomes obscure. The imagination, 
 however, dwelling upon this now distant scene, adds new 
 features to it, the idea governs the fact, and something is 
 produced which is neither history nor fable, but that which we 
 call a myth. Mythology is the assemblage of all the creations 
 of the human mind between the gloom and the light of 
 antiquity. For, remark where is the theatre of myths. It is 
 antiquity, or rather it is tradition abandoned alone to the 
 course of mankind, which bears it along in advancing and 
 pressing onward. The seat of the myth is in pure tradition. 
 But wherever writing appears, wherever there is a fixed recital, 
 wherever the indelible record is placed before the eyes of 
 generations, at that moment the mythic power of man vanishes. 
 For then the reality remains before him in its true proportions, 
 it remains in command of his imagination, and a thousand 
 years can do no more against it than a single day. Never, 
 since the time of Herodotus and Tacitus, has anyone shown you 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 125 
 
 myths in history. Has Charlemagne become a myth after a 
 thousand years ? Clovis after thirteen hundred years ? 
 Augustus, Caesar, in retreating into the past, have they 
 assumed any mythical appearance ? No ; the most distant 
 point where the modern historian seeks to discover the myth 
 is,- for example, the beginning of Rome, Romulus and Remus. 
 And why ? Because although they approached writing, 
 although it existed before them in other countries, it had not 
 yet received the guardianship of Roman history. But, as soon 
 as writing exists, as soon as it seizes the general web of history, 
 the mythical mould is from that moment broken. 
 
 Now, Jesus Christ does not belong to the reign of tradition, 
 but to the reign of writing. He was born at a period when 
 writing was fully established, in a land where it was impossible 
 for the myth to take root and grow. Providence had foreseen 
 all and prepared all beforehand ; and if you have sometimes 
 wondered why Jesus Christ came so late, you now see a reason 
 for it. He came so late not to be in antiquity, to have his 
 place in the centre of writing ; for He does not stand first 
 there ; He was careful to provide against being so placed ; 
 fifteen hundred years preceded Him, and if you count only 
 from Herodotus, five hundred years preceded Him. Therefore 
 He is modern, and even should the world last for numberless 
 ages, as by means of writing all is present, since at a glance and 
 with the rapidity of lightning we survey the whole chain of 
 history, Jesus Christ is ever new, standing in the full reality of 
 the events which compose the known and certain life of the 
 human race. 
 
 I might stop here, gentlemen ; for you see clearly that the 
 mythic engine is overthrown, since the fundamental condition 
 of the myth, which is the absence of writing, is wanting in 
 regard to Jesus Christ. Dr. Strauss himself expressly admits 
 that the myth is not possible with writing, therefore he 
 endeavours to strip Jesus Christ of the scriptural character by 
 placing at as remote a period as possible the publication of the 
 Gospels. We shall soon see the weakness of that resource, if 
 you will permit me to follow step by step the trace of his 
 reasoning. 
 
 Analogy, says he, is against Jesus Christ, since the myth is 
 the basis of all known religions. This I deny. The myth is 
 the basis of all the religions of antiquity, save the Mosaic, 
 because all those religions plunged their roots in a tradition of 
 
126 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 which writing had not fixed the shadows, and so rendered 
 deflections impossible. But writing having appeared, even the 
 false religions, such as that of Mahomet, have taken an 
 historical consistency which manifestly separates them from 
 the priesthoods and corrupted dogmas of antiquity. The 
 difference is clear. This is why we Christians, and you who 
 fight against Christianity, never think of combating Mahomet 
 by making a myth of his person, and of the Koran a mythical 
 compilation. The force of writing, under the empire of 
 which he lived, interdicts to us even the thought of such 
 chimerical temerity. We are constrained to avow that he is a 
 real personage, that he wrote or dictated the Koran, organised 
 Islamism ; and our sole resource against his pretensions in 
 regard to us is to treat him as an impostor, to say boldly 
 to him : Thou hast lied ! But here the difficulty is greater, 
 the success much more costly; and this is why rationalism 
 disputes with so much art the powerful reality of Christ. 
 However this may be, the analogy which is invoked to spread 
 over Him the clouds of the myth is an analogy without founda- 
 tion. A great line of demarcation separates into two hemi- 
 spheres all known religions — the mythic hemisphere and the 
 real hemisphere ; the former contains all the religions formed 
 in primitive times under the empire of floating traditions, the 
 latter contains the true or false religions which writing has 
 enchained in a settled history and dogma. To reject the 
 former, it suffices to oppose to them their mythical nature ; to 
 reject the latter, it is necessary to enter into the discussion of 
 their historical, intellectual, moral, and social value. 
 
 It 'is true that the scriptural character of Jesus Christ is 
 contested, but how? Because, say they, it is impossible to 
 prove that the promulgation of the Gospels took place before 
 the year 150 of the Christian era, whence it follows that the 
 type of Christ floated, during more than a century, at the 
 mercy of tradition. Suppose, gentlemen, that I admit this ; 
 suppose that I admit that our Gospels did not appear before 
 the year 150. Bear in mind that before 150 writing existed 
 elsewhere than in the Christian school ; it existed among the 
 Jews, the Greeks, the Romans; over the whole space upon 
 which the question of Christianity was disputed ; history was 
 founded by the publicity and immutability of the monuments. 
 Before 150, Jesus Christ, dead and risen again, was announced 
 in all the synagogues that covered the surface of the Roman 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 127 
 
 world, and even beyond it ; He was publicly announced in the 
 palace of the Cccsars, and in the praetorium of all the pro- 
 consuls. Before 150, I have ciled Tacitus and Pliny the 
 Younger, who attest that it was so. That preaching, those 
 testimonies, those discussions, that struggle, that blood, all 
 was public, was written ; it was not a dead tradition left to 
 the chances of time and imagination during a thousand years 
 of indifference and peace. At the same moment men gave 
 their teaching and their life ; and three communities together, 
 supremely interested in what was passing — the Christian 
 community, the Jewish, and the Roman — met upon the battle- 
 field, the traditional limit of which you circumscribe within the 
 period of little more than a century. What ! those Jews to 
 whom it was said : You have killed ' Jesus Christ ; those 
 princes and those presidents whose orders were trampled 
 under foot in the name of Jesus Christ; not one of them 
 perceived that it was all only a myth in the state of formation ? 
 No ; all was steeped in blood, and consequently in reality ; 
 all was in discussion, and consequently in the strength and 
 glory of publicity, which is the foundation of all history. It 
 matters little then what date the Gospels bear, for history 
 supports the Gospels. If they did not appear before a hundred 
 and twenty years after Jesus Christ, they existed before they 
 appeared, they lived in the mouth of the apostles, in the 
 blood of the martyrs, in the hatred of the world, in the breasts 
 of millions of men who confessed Jesus Christ dead and risen 
 again ! What a pitiable resource, gentlemen, what weakness ! 
 To compare a religion whose origin is so public and militant, 
 and whose tradition could have preceded writing only a 
 hundred and twenty years, to those religions without history, 
 plunged for two thousand years in the still waters of a tradition 
 which was confided to no one, and for which no one ever gave 
 a drop of his blood ! 
 
 I hardly need to tell you, gentlemen, that we do not accept 
 the date which they attempt to assign to the promulgation of 
 the Gospels. The Gospels are public writings, containing 
 public facts which enter into the public web of history ; they 
 bear the names of three apostles, and of a celebrated disciple, 
 who were public men in a public society ; now, it is impossible 
 that such an attribution, under such circumstances, should be 
 contrary to truth. The mathematical laws of publicity do not 
 permit it. The Gospels are apostles ; they possess the value 
 
128 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 of their testimony, and the date of their life, that is to say, the 
 date of a contemporary life, and the value of a contemporary 
 testimony. This detail of authenticity blends itself with the 
 general authenticity of the Christian origin, and it is not 
 separable therefrom. Judge yet once more of the relation 
 existing between such monuments and the obscure myths 
 emerging from the silent and dark abyss of remote antiquity. 
 
 In vain, in order to place Jesus Christ in a more remote 
 period than His time, have they had recourse to the Messianic 
 idea which prepared His coming. In the first place, the 
 Messianic idea was not a myth ; it appertained to a scriptural 
 people, a people who wrote and who were written about ; and the 
 Messianic idea itself was a part of their writing. The idea and 
 the fact were fixed. But even had Messianism primitively been 
 a myth, it could no longer preserve that character in its appli- 
 cation to Jesus Christ. For that application to Jesus Christ 
 was modern ; it took place at a scriptural and public epoch, 
 and, consequently, whatever it may have been in the past, the 
 myth disappeared in the broad day of Jesus Christ and of His 
 age. The real question extinguished the chimerical question. 
 
 There remain, gentlemen, the mythic characters which 
 they pretend to discover in the very history of Jesus Christ. 
 The first of these characters is the marvellous. The marvellous, 
 say they, is the mythic character, properly so called ; wherever 
 it shows itself history disappears ; for a miracle being impossible 
 in itself, every narration containing it would evidently not be 
 historical. Therefore, says Dr. Strauss, I overthrow your dog- 
 matism by this single expression : The Gospel is a tissue of 
 miracles ; now miracles are impossible, their history is then im- 
 possible also, and consequently that history does not exist. It 
 can be but a myth. 
 
 Whether a miracle be impossible or not, is a metaphysical 
 question of which I have already treated, and to which I shall 
 not return. But, at least, it is a question. You rationalists do 
 not admit the possibility of the sovereign action of God in this 
 world; we Christians admit that possibility. Now, we are 
 men like yourselves, intelligent beings like yourselves; if you 
 are numerous, we are more so than you ; if you are learned, we 
 are as learned as you. And whilst you deny the possibility of 
 a miracle, we daily ask God to perform miracles, being fully 
 persuaded that He thus manifests His power and goodness 
 towards us, even in the present day. We go further, we do 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 129 
 
 not comprehend the idea of God without the idea of a 
 sovereignty able to manifest itself by the omnipotence of its 
 action; so that, for us, the negation of the possibility of the 
 miracle is the negation of the very idea of God. God, accord- 
 ing to us, is miraculous in His nature ; and if history ceases by 
 miracles, we think that God ceases without them. You see 
 that an abyss separates these two sentiments. What follows ? 
 It follows that the possibility of miracles is a question ; and 
 consequently to determine the reality of history by the presence 
 or absence of miracles, is but to decide one question by another 
 question — a mode of proceeding which is contrary to the rules 
 of logic and common sense. What ! documents are authentic, 
 they are linked together and form a visible and continuous 
 order, they blend with the whole course of the public life of 
 mankind, they are irrefragable, certain, sacred, it is an act of 
 folly to assail them ; but the finger of God is seen in them, 
 that power which created the world — and that is enough, 
 history has disappeared ! You will not ask me, gentlemen, 
 even supposing that miracles may be problematical in them- 
 selves, to deny the certain because of the uncertain. We 
 Christians admit the uncertain on the faith of the certain : each 
 has his own logic. 
 
 Nevertheless, say they, the marvellous is the only character 
 that distinguishes fable from history. It is not so, gentlemen, 
 the line of demarcation between history and fable lies else- 
 where; it lies in the difference between things without con- 
 tinuity and without any public monuments, and things which 
 possess continuity, and are firmly based on all sides upon 
 publicity. I have already said this ; I shall not repeat it. 
 
 Is Dr. Strauss more fortunate in that which forms the basis 
 of his work — the exposure of innumerable mistakes and con- 
 tradictions of our evangelists ? I think not. I have read his 
 work with attention and labour, and I did so in this manner. 
 After having studied a paragraph — always a very long one — 
 and there are a hundred and forty-nine of them, filling four 
 volumes, I closed the book in order to recover a little from 
 fatigue and from a kind of involuntary terror caused by the 
 abundance of erudition. Then opening the Gospel — which I 
 kissed respectfully — I read the texts under discussion, to see if 
 by the simple aid of ordinary literature, and without the help 
 of any commentators, I could not succeed in unravelling the 
 difficulty. With the exception of three or four passages, I have 
 
130 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 never required more than ten minutes to dissipate the charm. 
 of vain knowledge, and to smile within myself at the powerless- 
 ness to which God has condemned error. I cannot, gentlemen, 
 pass in review before you all that legion of texts distorted by 
 rationalism ; I will limit myself to two examples taken at hazard. 
 
 Saint Luke, having to narrate the birth of Jesus Christ at 
 Bethlehem, away from the country of His parents,, writes in 
 these terms : "And it came to pass that in those days there 
 went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world 
 should be enrolled ; this enrolling was first made by Cyrinus 
 the governor of Syria." Upon this Dr. Strauss, after having first 
 shown very learnedly that the enrolling was not possible, opens 
 the " Judaical Antiquities " of Flavius Josephus, and shows by 
 a formal text that Cyrinus did not govern Syria until ten years 
 after the birth of Jesus Christ. Judge what a triumph this 
 was ! Now; how was this difficulty to be solved ? You think,, 
 perhaps, that we shall have to change a word or a letter ? No ; 
 it is less than that. You all knovv the value of an accent in the 
 Greek language ; change then an accent, and see what will be 
 the meaning of the evangelist : " And it came to pass that in 
 those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that 
 the whole world should be enrolled ; this is the same first 
 enrolling which was made by Cyrinus the governor of Syria." 
 That is to say, that the order having been given to number the 
 Roman Empire, and the execution of that order having been 
 commenced, it was not, however, accomplished until ten years- 
 after, under Cyrinus the governor of Syria. And if the sacred 
 historian makes mention of the name of Cyrinus, it is precisely 
 to give an authentic character to his declaration; for had he 
 been content with saying i " There went out a decree from 
 Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled," it 
 might have been said that the enrolling did not take place at 
 the time of the birth of Christ. He anticipated the objection 
 then by saying : " This is the same first enrolling which was 
 made by Cyrinus the governor of Syria." 
 
 Here is another example: It is said, in regard to the 
 resurrection of our Lord, that the holy women went to the 
 tomb, according to St. Mark, the sun being then risen, and 
 according to St. John, when it was yet dark. Dr. Strauss 
 notices this contradiction amongst a great number which he 
 pretends to discover in the event of the resurrection — and he 
 does not fail to turn them to account. But how shall we solve 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 131 
 
 this terrible difficulty ? It suffices to comprehend that when a 
 distance is to be reached early in the morning it is possible to 
 start before sunrise, and to arrive at daybreak. 
 
 I assure you, gentlemen, that, save a very few passages, 
 nothing has caused me any greater trouble. So that after the 
 work had often left my hands from weariness, my hands fell 
 from me again when I thought that this was learning, German 
 learning — that learning in whose name they pompously defy 
 Catholic preachers and writers, saying to us : You speak of 
 Christ and the Gospel — you cite them ; but you are behind 
 your age, Germany has now destroyed Christ and the Gospel ; 
 she has examined them by the light of criticism, and all that is 
 nothing but a shadow, a dream, a myth ! 
 
 Let us leave this triumph to pride ; and with our sounder 
 sense let us seek why the history of Jesus Christ lends itself to 
 the attacks which I have just pointed out to you. Had 
 Providence so willed it, Jesus Christ would have had but one 
 single historian, conducting from one end to the other the 
 thread of His life with a chronological clearness which would 
 have given to each part its true place, and have raised the 
 whole above any possible discussion. But Providence did not 
 so will it. Providence desired that the Gospel should be the 
 work of several men differing in age, in genius, in style, and in 
 judgment, and not one of whom should collect under his pen 
 all the materials of the life of Christ, but only simple fragments, 
 the very choice of which was arbitrary. The idea of God in 
 this was to make of the biography of His Son a miracle of 
 intimate truth which the most vulgar eye might discern, and 
 which was to be found in no other life of any man whatever. 
 Indeed, from the first glance, the multiplicity of the Gospels is 
 striking, not only from the title-page, which bears different 
 names, but from the reflection of their personal nature in each 
 of the Gospels. We see and feel that St. Matthew, St. Mark, 
 St. Luke, St. John, are different souls, and that each traces in 
 his own manner the likeness of his beloved Master, without 
 taking the least account of what his neighbour is doing, or 
 even of what the continuity of chronology requires. Thence 
 an arbitrary choice of fragments, a default of connection, 
 apparent contradictions, details omitted by one and related by 
 another, a multitude of varieties of which men render no 
 account to themselves. This is true. And yet in these four 
 evangelists there is the same portraiture of Christ, the same 
 
 k 2 
 
132 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO PERVERT THE LIFE OF 
 
 sublimity, the same tenderness, the same force, the same 
 language, the same accent, the same supreme singularity of 
 physiognomy. Open St. Matthew the publican, or St. John 
 the young man, chaste and contemplative; choose whatever 
 passage you will in the one or in the other, different alike in 
 matter and expression, and speak it before a thousand men 
 assembled together, all will raise their heads ; they recognise 
 Jesus Christ. And the more the exterior disagreement of the 
 Gospel is shown, the more that intimate agreement whence the 
 moral unity of Christ springs will become a proof of their 
 fidelity. If they unanimously represent so well the inimitable 
 features of Christ, it is because He was before their eyes ; they 
 saw Him such as He was and such as they were not able to 
 forget Him. They saw Him with their senses, with their 
 hearts, with the exactitude of a love which was to give its 
 blood ; they are at the same time witnesses, painters, and 
 martyrs. That sitting of God before man has been witnessed 
 only once, and this is why there is but one Gospel, although 
 there were four evangelists. 
 
 And what soul is insensible to this ? What soul will not 
 one day forget science at the feet of Jesus Christ, represented 
 by His apostles ? To close this subject, listen to the words of 
 a Frenchman, which will console you for the frenzies of that 
 learning which the Gospel has not disarmed. They are those 
 of a man whose judgment upon Jesus Christ I have already 
 cited to you, and they express in clear and forcible language 
 the impression which the reading of the Gospel leaves in the 
 mind of the profane as well as in that of the Christian : " Shall 
 we say that the Gospel history is a pure invention ? My friend, 
 men do not invent in this way, and the acts of Socrates, whicl; 
 no one doubts, are less fully proved than those of Jesus Christ. 
 In truth, it is to push aside the difficulty without destroying it ; 
 it would be much more inconceivable that several men together 
 should have fabricated that book than that only one should 
 have furnished the subjects of it. The Jewish authors would 
 never have acquired that tone or that morality ; and the Gospel 
 possesses characters of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly 
 inimitable, that the inventor of it would be more marvellous 
 than the hero ! " 
 
 This is French language and French genius; and there- 
 fore you should not be surprised at returning to Christ after 
 having quitted Him. The lucidity of our national intelligence 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 133 
 
 sustains within you the light of grace, and causes you like 
 giants to cross those thorny abysses of science, but of a science 
 which braves the soul. Be faithful to this double gift which 
 bears you towards God ; judge of the power of Jesus Christ 
 by the efforts, so contradictory and so vain, of his adversaries ; 
 and permit me to recall to you in terminating this discourse a 
 celebrated trait which paints that power, and the eloquent 
 prophecy which fifteen centuries have confirmed. 
 
 When the Emperor Julian attacked Christianity by that 
 stratagem of war and violence which bears his name, and, 
 absent from the empire, had gone to seek in battles the con- 
 secration of a power and popularity which he thought would 
 achieve the ruin of Jesus Christ, one of his familiars, the 
 rhetor Libanius, on meeting a Christian, asked him derisively 
 and with all the insolence of assured success, what the Galilean 
 was doing ; the Christian answered : He is making a coffin. 
 Some time afterwards Libanius pronounced the funeral oration 
 of Julian over his mutilated body and his vanished power. 
 What the Galilean was then doing, gentlemen, he does always, 
 whatever may be the arm and the pride men may oppose to His 
 cross. It would require much time to deduce all the famous 
 examples of this ; but we possess some which touch us closely, 
 and by which Jesus Christ, at the extremity of ages, has 
 confirmed to us the nothingness of His enemies. Thus, when 
 Voltaire rubbed his hands with joy, towards the close of his 
 life, saying to his followers : " In twenty years, God will see 
 fine sport ; " the Galilean prepared a coffin : it was that of the 
 French monarchy. Thus, when a power of another order, but 
 sprung, in some degree, from the same, held the Sovereign 
 Pontiff in a captivity which threatened the fall at least of the 
 temporal power of the vicar of Jesus Christ, the Galilean 
 prepared a coffin : it was that of Saint Helena. And now, on 
 seeing Germany agitated by the convulsions of unregulated 
 science, of which you have just witnessed so lamentable a 
 production, we may say with as much certainty as hope : The 
 Galilean prepares a coffin, and it is that of rationalism. And 
 you all, sons of this age, ill-instructed by the miseries of past 
 errors, and who seek out of Jesus Christ the way, the truth, 
 and the life, the Galilean prepares a coffin for you ; and it is 
 that of all your most cherished conceptions. And so it will 
 ever be, the Galilean ever working but two things, living of 
 Himself, or either by blood, oblivion, or shame, entombing all 
 that is not of Him. 
 
THE EFFORTS OF RATIONALISM 
 
 TO EXPLAIN 
 
 THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 Rationalism has then made but vain efforts to destroy 
 and to pervert the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not 
 dethroned; the power of history protects and upholds Him 
 against all these attacks. Therefore rationalism has been 
 forced to attempt a last and supreme effort to explain at least 
 that life which it was unable either to destroy or to dishonour. 
 We Catholics explain the life of Christ, we explain the success 
 He has obtained — the greatest of all success, that of producing 
 in minds the rational certainty of faith ; in the soul, holiness 
 by humility, chastity, and charity ; in the world, a spiritual 
 community, one, universal, and perpetual — we explain it by 
 that single expression : Jesus Christ is the Son of God. But 
 if it be not so explained ; if it be supposed that Christ is but 
 a man, it is nevertheless necessary to give a reason for that 
 greatest success ever obtained, which is His own. Now, as 
 after the power of God there remains only the power of man, 
 if Jesus Christ did not act by the power of God, He acted by 
 the power of man. But the power of man in its results being 
 manifestly inferior to that which Jesus Christ has accomplished, 
 it follows that we must seek in man a certain root of power 
 which, in rare cases, may suddenly appear and explain what 
 Christ was, and what he has accomplished. That is to say, 
 that Jesus Christ, not being the Son of God, nor, as He 
 Himself said, the Son of man, He is the Son of mankind, the 
 illustrious production of that silent and progressive action 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 135 
 
 ■which is the life of mankind, and which, on certain solemn 
 occasions, buds forth, so to say, blossoms, produces an 
 extraordinary being, and surrounds him with a halo which all 
 who come after Him will confirm, up to the time when m n- 
 kind, ever pregnant with the future, feels that it is imperfectly 
 represented by the heroic and sovereign being it has produced, 
 and at length salutes Him with a last mark of respect, brings 
 Him down to the level of earthly things, and says to Him : 
 Adieu. 
 
 I shall devote our last conference of this year to the 
 refutation of this system. This done, all that belongs to he 
 constitution and character, alike of the Church and of Christ, 
 having been manifested to you in our teaching, it will only 
 remain for us to enter upon the doctrine itself of the Church 
 and of Christ, in order to present it to you in all the fulness 
 of its harmony ; after which we shall have but to repose, you, 
 gentlemen, from your attention, and I from the happiness of 
 having taught you so long. 
 
 Three things have to be explained in the life and success 
 of Jesus Christ : His doctrine, which appears to surpass all 
 others; the faith which the world has given to that doctrine; 
 and, thirdly, the union of that doctrine and faith in a body 
 hierarchically constituted, which is the Church. This triple 
 phenomenon, it is said, is easily explained by the general 
 state of doctrines, minds, and nations, at the time when Jesus 
 Christ appeared. First, by the general state of doctrines. 
 That of Jesus Christ is ordinarily considered to be a new 
 doctrine, unknown, creative, as something which had neither 
 root nor model in the past ; this, as rationalism says, is a very 
 palpable error. The human race has never been without 
 doctrine ; it is a necessary part of its life. That some simpleton, 
 satisfied in the debauch of pride and of the senses, may pass 
 through the world without troubling himself about doctrine, as 
 a grain of dust carried along by the unstable wind passes and 
 disappears, no one will deny. But mankind has other desires 
 and other destinies. Mankind requires to know, to seek, to 
 render account to itself of itself and of the universe, to possess 
 a faith ; and never, in reality, has it lived without that 
 spiritual element. As men dig the earth that bears them, as 
 they scan the sky that covers them, so they unceasingly labour 
 upon the fertile soil of doctrines in order to draw from them 
 an aliment which they deem divine. This working is not less 
 
136 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO EXPLAIN THE LIFE OF 
 
 active in itself than that which is external and scientific, and 
 they form together a tissue of unwearied action. Now there 
 were three principal theatres of this action before Jesus Christ, 
 the East, the West, and Judsea, which was the connecting link 
 between the two others. 
 
 The East preserved doctrine under this form : that man 
 had fallen, that he needed an expiation to return to a better 
 condition — an expiation which, from cycle to cycle, favoured 
 mysterious incarnations of God. The Eastern incarnation, its 
 expiation, its metempsychosis or trial — nothing is more famous 
 than these in the history of doctrines ; and it will suffice to 
 place these terms before your minds for you to perceive in a 
 single moment, on penetrating to the heart of Judasa, this 
 order of ideas still existing. In the West, a work of another 
 nature had been accomplished. Under the reign of free dis- 
 cussion, it more effectually stripped itself of past myths; it 
 sought wisdom, founded less upon tradition than upon the 
 decisions of pure reason ; and Plato was the most memorable 
 instrument of these explorations of the human mind. He 
 comprehended that God was in communication with man, not 
 only by corrupted or lost traditions, but by the perpetual 
 effusion of his Verb or Word within us, the Divine Word, the 
 eternal Logos, absolute reason — of which our reason and our 
 word are the transparent image, so that in contemplating his 
 own ideas, man beheld, as in a mirror, the very ideas that 
 are in God, and form there the first Word. And this theory of 
 the manifestation of God by His Word, of which the word of 
 man is but the diminutive and the reflection, had become the 
 most elevated point of the doctrines of Greece and of the West. 
 The Jewish people, on their part, had maintained, with extra- 
 ordinary fidelity, the dogma of the unity of God, that of the 
 creation, and in addition a certain hope of the fundamental 
 unity of man, which should eventually be restored as it existed 
 in the original family. 
 
 This was evidently the general state of doctrines at the 
 time of Christ, and these doctrines, long isolated, each in its 
 place, had at length met together after the conquests of 
 Alexander and the invasions of Rome reaching to Asia. The 
 East, the West, Judsea, and with them the Brahmins, the 
 prophets, the sibyls, the sages, all the documents, and all the 
 efforts of the past, had, as it were, met together by common 
 accord before the throne of Augustus, on the day when he 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 137 
 
 closed upon the world the prophetic gates of the temple of 
 war. At that moment Jesus Christ was born. Endowed with 
 a genius answering to the marvellous circumstances of His age, 
 He saw with a sure glance the confluence of doctrines; in that 
 confluence He unravelled more than one fortuitous junction, He 
 discovered there the germs of deeply-seated unity, and imagined 
 that by giving satisfaction to all, by engrafting the East upon 
 the West, the West and the East upon the Hebraic trunk, He 
 should attain to a doctrine which would at least captivate a 
 great multitude of minds in the divers parts of the world. He 
 laid down as a foundation the Eastern dogma of the fall, and 
 declared that He Himself, the last incarnation, superior to all 
 that had preceded Him, had come definitively to expiate the 
 fault of the human race, and to restore to men with their 
 native purity all their birthrights. Next, as the Eastern incar- 
 nation was dishonoured by too many fabulous elements, He 
 based the idea of His own incarnation upon that Word of Plato, 
 who had detached the communication between God and man 
 from the traditional myth, in order to reduce it to a permanent 
 communication of ideas in the very seat of the understanding. 
 He declared that He was the Word of God, the reason of God, 
 the one who, by His nature, enlightened every man coming into 
 the world; and who, by the effective presence of His personality, 
 by the exterior lights of His teaching, brought to the mind a 
 more complete vision of truth. The Divine Word was thence- 
 forth in presence of the human word ; the image had but to 
 look upon the model, the consequence had but to consult the 
 principle, and from that confronting of within to without, of 
 light to light, the supreme enlightenment of the human race 
 would come. Plato thus became allied to the Brahmins of 
 India, the West to the East ; and, in fine, to give satisfaction 
 to the Hebraic ideas, Jesus Christ not only proclaimed Himself 
 the Messiah, He also accepted the dogmas of the unity of God 
 and of the creation, which were inscribed in the first pages of 
 the Bible, and which were the special patrimony of the Hebrew 
 people. 
 
 Such was, gentlemen, according to rationalism, the theme 
 of Jesus Christ, the mode of the formation of His doctrine, and 
 of the efficient cause of His doctrinal success. He was not 
 creator, but electric; His success was not a success of creation, 
 but of fusion. Before seeking to discover how far this is con- 
 firmed by comparing the Christian doctrines with the doctrines 
 
138 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO EXPLAIN THE LIFE OF 
 
 of antiquity, let us first see how Jesus Christ declared Himself. 
 Did He declare Himself as a creator ? Did He say : I am the 
 inventor of truth ? No, gentlemen ; He said : " I am the 
 truth." * He said : "lam not come to destroy the law, but 
 to fulfil it ; " t which means : I am the truth of all times and 
 places ; I am that truth which was in the bosom of the Father ; 
 which appeared to the first man in the innocence of the ter- 
 restrial paradise ; which the patriarchs, his successors, knew ; 
 which Noah, on quitting the ark, received and promulgated 
 afresh ; which Abraham, in the fields of Chaldaea and Syria, 
 saw and heard ; which Moses, at the foot of Sinai, received, 
 graven by the hand of God. I am that truth which is the first 
 and the last, and which no man has ever been able totally to 
 set aside. Behold, gentlemen, what Jesus Christ said of Him- 
 self, and what the Church still says of Him daily. He did not 
 seek, nor do we seek for Him, a success of creation ; we have 
 never pretended that Christianity commenced with the appear- 
 ance of Christ under Augustus. To have given it a character 
 of novelty would have been to ruin Christianity. From the 
 first day of the world, from the first word of God, from the first 
 divine ray which shone in our soul, it was Christ who acted, 
 who spake, and who revealed Himself; and that revelation 
 spread over the whole earth with the dispersion of the primordial 
 branches of the human race. 
 
 However, by the side of this phenomenon of the primitive 
 and universal propagation of Christianity, we must remark 
 that there grew up another of a very different character : I 
 mean the progressive adulteration and corruption of Chris- 
 tianity by forgetfulness, reasoning, and unbelief. So that Jesus 
 Christ, although not new, brought into the world something 
 which the world no longer knew save by ill-defined hopes and 
 disfigured recollections. And, to begin by the East : it is true, 
 the East had preserved the idea of the fall, of expiation, of the 
 divine intervention for the restoration of man — no one will 
 contest it ; but the East had stifled that idea between two absurdi- 
 ties, uamely, pantheism and metempsychosis ; the one and the 
 other affirming that the purification of man had for object and 
 for effect the return of man to the very substance of the 
 Divinity, from whence He had sprung, and that after cycles of 
 trials, more or less prolonged, the final state of mankind 
 
 * St. John xvi. 6. t St. Matt. v. 17. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 139 
 
 vrould be that of the external and absolute repose of complete 
 ■deification. Now, did Jesus Christ admit this doctrine ? Did 
 He compromise with the East in regard to pantheism or 
 metempsychosis ? Xo, He taught the very opposite ; He said 
 to us : You are but nothingness which has responded to the 
 creating power of God; and your destiny, although great, is 
 not to attain to God by confounding your substance with Him, 
 but by simple vision. You will one day see Him, if you have 
 believed in Him ; you will possess Him present, if you have 
 loved Him absent ; but your nature and your personality will 
 subsist before Him. Pantheism bears you alike too high and 
 too low — too high in promising you that you are one in 
 substance with God ; too low in taking from you your proper 
 nature and youi principle of distinction. Your place and 
 truth are not there. God and man are for ever two ; two in 
 their essence ; two in their personality ; two in their love, for 
 God made man from love ; and if man correspond to that love 
 which sought him the first, that same love will eternally reward 
 him. If, on the contrary, man be unfaithful and ungrateful, 
 that love will reject him eternally. 
 
 I ask you, gentlemen, was this the Eastern dogma, or was 
 it not rather its destruction ? 
 
 And as to the West, they speak of Plato. But, in the first 
 place, was Plato the whole West ? Did he resume the West in 
 himself? Did not Aristotle, Epicurus Zeno, Pyrrho, exist by 
 the same title, and did not their doctrines share with those of 
 the Academy the empire of minds ? You say that Plato was 
 the highest expression of Western wisdom ; let us not contest 
 it, and in seeing what he thought, let us see what Jesus Christ 
 owed to him. In the metaphysical order, Plato believed in 
 the eternity of matter and of chaos, placing the world in 
 presence of God as a substance inferior, but parallel and 
 uncreated; in the moral order, he denied the existence of 
 freewill, and affirmed in proper terms that no one was 
 ■voluntarily bad, because the principle of all evil is an in- 
 •deliberate error of the mind. Dualism and fatalism, such is 
 that Plato so much admired — whom I have lauded myself, 
 whom I shall still praise, a man admirable indeed, who, being 
 plunged like all the others in the faint and almost extinguished 
 light of antiquity, caught here and there glimpses of the 
 shadow of truth, and made plaintive cries to it, as if he had 
 beheld it ; but being unable to seize it, had thrown again over 
 
140 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO EXPLAIN THE LIFE OF 
 
 his desires and his regrets that royal vestment which has 
 become the charm of his thoughts, the beauty of his discourse, 
 and the majesty of his renown. No sage ever equalled him in 
 the invocation of truth, none foresaw its future more clearly, 
 none ever tinged the twilight of error with a halo more 
 gorgeous or better formed to solace the soul for wedding but a 
 dream. But to make him an ancestor of Jesus Christ, and the 
 tie by which the Gospel attached the West to itself, is to* 
 expect too much from his glory. Jesus Christ denied the 
 Platonic dualism and fatalism, as He also denied the pantheism 
 and metempsychosis of India ; and if He called Himself the 
 Word, the Son of God, that expression sprang from a mystery 
 which, to Plato, was unknown — the mystery of a triple 
 personality in the substance, one and indivisible, of God. 
 
 The Jews, in their turn, although possessors of primitive 
 Christianity and the expectation of the Messiah, had corrupted 
 this deposit in their ideas, by making of Christian truth — which 
 is the patrimony of all — their own special heritage, by sub- 
 stituting the idea of the law for the idea of faith — Moses for 
 Christ, the personal for the universal. This is what St. Paul 
 reproaches them with in the Epistle to the Romans, where he 
 takes so much pains to explain to them the inferiority of the 
 law to faith ; how Christ was the principle of salvation from 
 the time of Abraham, and how the works of the law, understood 
 and performed without Jesus Christ, were a cause of death. 
 The Jews rebelled against that forcible teaching ; already 
 steeped in the liberating blood, and even in communion with 
 it, they persisted in venerating the idol which raised their 
 national pride to the rank of a duty and a virtue, and persuaded 
 themselves that Judaism was to subjugate the universe. In 
 the Christian sense, this was true ; in the sense in which they 
 held it, it was false. Jesus Christ had then to combat Judaea as 
 well as the East and the West. And if you would see yet 
 more clearly that Christian doctrine was not a success of 
 fusion, but a success of contradiction — of contradiction to the 
 East, to the West, to the Hebrew people — you have but to 
 study pantheism as the East has preserved it, Judaism as the 
 remnant of Israel still understands it, and Platonism as it has 
 been resuscitated before our eyes. 
 
 Pantheism lives in India. India is now, as in past times, 
 its land of predilection, it lives there under the same forms and 
 in the same doctrines as in the time of Jesus Christ. Now, no 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 141 
 
 country, no system, has offered more resistance to the Christian 
 apostolate. For three centuries the great Indian peninsula 
 has been open to us ; many European nations have together 
 and successively governed it. England is now its mistress ; 
 we hold it by our missionaries as by our arms under the grasp 
 of our domination, and nowhere, not even in that China which 
 is closed to us, has the action of Jesus Christ been less 
 rewarded with success. Brahminism has resisted example as 
 well as discussion ; it has been like granite against truth, like 
 a thing incompatible with another thing, and which rejects it 
 so much the more as it approaches nearer. Many reasons 
 have been given for this, such as the rule of caste, and the 
 aversion resulting therefrom for our principles of equality. It 
 may be also that on account of the many traditions it has 
 preserved on the fall and reparation, Brahminism has been 
 less sensible to the mystery of redemption by the blood of 
 Jesus Christ, as we see men in whom the possession of a 
 certain measure of truth serves as an obstacle to the acquisition 
 of the rest. The honest man is often in this state, gentlemen, 
 when he has the misfortune not to be a Christian ; his probity 
 keeps him from God, whilst the unworthy sinner, looking upon 
 himself, sees nothing within that raises an illusion for him. 
 This is why Jesus Christ said : " Those women whom you call 
 lost will go into the kingdom of heaven before you."* They 
 are, in fact, nearer to good by being far from it ; they 
 touch the feet of Jesus Christ by humiliation; and when we 
 are at the feet of Jesus Christ we are very near to His heart. 
 So perhaps is it with nations that have lost all truth ; they feel 
 the need of regaining it, whilst those who still preserve 
 vestiges of truth, grow proud with the little they have, scorning 
 to desire and seek that which they have not. Be that as it 
 may, Indian pantheism has not changed ; it is now what it was 
 in the Augustan Age ; and whatever may have been the cause 
 of its insensibility towards Jesus Christ, it no less proves to us 
 how chimerical is the idea of that fusion of doctrines by which 
 it is desired to explain the formation of the Christian dogma. 
 
 The spectacle of Judaism as it lives before us leads us to 
 the same conclusion. And as to Platonism, God has permitted 
 it to resuscitate in our time, so that on witnessing it in action 
 we may be able to judge of its doctrinal sympathy for Jesus 
 
 * St. Matt. xxi. 31. 
 
142 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO KXH.AIN THE LIFE OF 
 
 Christ. You all know to what school I allude ; you know how 
 that school has restored Platonic dualism to honour, by 
 rejecting from its philosophy the fundamental dogma of the 
 creation of the world by God, and you know also how it treats 
 the rest of Christianity. In contemporary literature we have no- 
 more avowed enemies than the friends of Plato. Whether then 
 we regard pantheism, Judaism, or Platonism — all three sub- 
 sisting before us as in the time of Jesus Christ — it is easy for us 
 to judge that Christianity was not the result of a fusion between 
 the doctrines of the ancient world, but a work of renovation 
 and of contradiction. The Cospel has renewed all, because all 
 had been forgotten; it has contradicted all, because all hail 
 been denied or disfigured ; it has had all doctrines for 
 adversaries, because it has disavowed and rejected all. And 
 as it was aforetime, so it is now. The dogmatic intolerance of 
 which it is accused defines its nature and proves its originality. 
 
 But the success of Jesus Christ was not only realised in the 
 powerful and aboriginal formation of His doctrine ; it was also 
 a success of faith. A doctrine is as nothing as long as it has 
 not taken possession of minds by faith, which gives it life and 
 action. How did the ancient world believe in Jesus Christ? 
 How did the men of the East and the West, the learned or the 
 unlearned, and, in fine, the great nations, abdicate the teaching 
 they had received from the past, in order to become the dis- 
 ciples of a Jew crucified in Jerusalem? Rationalism explains 
 it thus : At the epoch of Augustus the human mind was weary. 
 On the one hand, it no longer accepted idolatry, which was the 
 popular form of ancient doctrines; and on the other, philosophy 
 having founded nothing, a double lassitude of the intelligence 
 ensued— lassitude as to public religion, and lassitude as to 
 the powerless efforts of philosophy. Men wandered in the 
 void and at hazard, invoking a new faith. Jesus Christ came ; 
 He inaugurated before the world, fatigued and ready to receive 
 it, an affirmation which did but slight violence to general 
 opinion ; He was listened to, men wanted to believe, and they 
 believed in Him. 
 
 For my part, gentlemen, I have no belief in this genesis of 
 the Christian faith. When an epoch has lost faith it is not so 
 easy to give it back again; and we have some proof of this 
 before our eyes. Rationalism, in such times, invades all hearts; 
 and rationalism is never convinced of its impotency, or weary 
 of itself. If four or live centuries of useless efforts before 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 143 
 
 Jesus Christ had discouraged it, it should now, when it counts 
 eighteen centuries more of vain endeavours, be on the eve of 
 abdicating its pretensions. Does it, I ask you, even dream of 
 so doing ? Do we not see it more affirmative, more arrogant, 
 more sure of itself than ever ? So will it be a thousand years 
 hence. A thousand years hence our posterity will see masters- 
 who will ascend the rostrum and say to them with imperturb- 
 able self-possession : Gentlemen, we are about to create 
 philosophy, or at least, if we have not that honour, we touch 
 the fortunate epoch which will place the crowning stone upon 
 its edifice. Such is rationalism. No experience has wearied 
 or will ever weary it of itself; it rises anew from its ashes, or 
 rather, it neither lives nor dies, but is a credulous infant who 
 aspires to maturity without ever once leaving its cradle. Let 
 us not wonder thereat : it takes its starting-point in a principle 
 which excludes life, because it excludes faith; and yet faith 
 will destroy it. It has but the choice of death ; and it naturally 
 prefers that which leaves to it the appearance of being some- 
 thing, were it but a doubt and a negation. Rationalism is 
 incorrigible, because to correct itself it must cease to exist. 
 
 To admit, then, that the general state of minds, in the 
 Augustan Age, was a state of void and lassitude, is by no means- 
 to explain the propagation of the Christian faith then accom- 
 plished with so much power and rapidity. But I do not admit 
 that such was, under Augustus, the general state of minds. 
 Doubtless idolatry had become an object of contempt to a 
 great number of enlightened men, but the people did not 
 despise it. The popular mind sympathised with idolatry, which 
 more than ever included all the recollections which the multi- 
 tude adored, and all the spectacles they needed. The political 
 spirit favoured that tendency ; it supported idolatry as a State 
 necessity. And when Jesus Christ came to ask from Rome 
 that right of citizenship which she had refused to none of the 
 gods she had vanquished, it was easy to see what was the state 
 of the popular and political spirit upon this head. Do we not 
 know what answer she gave to Him ? Do we not know who 
 replied to the martyrs of Christ, in the amphitheatres, by 
 insults and cries of death ? Whilst the emperors and the pro- 
 consuls gave sentence against them in the name of the political 
 spirit, the people issued theirs also in the form and power 
 peculiar to them. The empire shed the blood, the people 
 called for it ; and, after having obtained it, they threw it at the 
 
144 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO EXPLAIN THE LIFE OF 
 
 face of Christ. And, behind the empire and the people, 
 rationalism, forming the rearguard of idolatry, eagerly fed its 
 pen from the sources of error. Those Platonists, so puffed up 
 with their spiritualism, were seen tearing up the Gospel page 
 by page, perverting its meaning, and launching forth their 
 maledictions against it; they were seen parading their affection 
 for Jupiter and all the old gods, writing genealogies for them, 
 consecrating a new philosophy, bearing offerings to them ; 
 nothing was left untried — neither science, nor sarcasm, nor 
 energy — nothing that could be turned into an outrage or an 
 argument against Christianity. Is this what they call the lassi- 
 tude of minds? Is this the tacit conjuration of the times in 
 favour of Christ ? Ah ! when at length He had won the faith 
 of the world, and when the successors of His apostles appeared 
 at Nicaea, their mutilated visages showed whether they came 
 from peace or war, whether they had been favoured or perse- 
 cuted, whether the popular spirit, the political spirit, the 
 rationalist spirit, had or had not been their servitors, and what 
 was the real value of those systems invented after the fact, by 
 which the life of the patient is explained by the tyrant who 
 caused His death. Julian, at least, said what was true : "Galilean, 
 thou hast conquered ! " 
 
 Here we find again in regard to the formation of the 
 Christian dogma, not the principle of fusion, but the principle 
 of contradiction. Jesus Christ contradicted all minds as He 
 contradicted all doctrines, He conquered all minds as He 
 conquered all doctrines : such is the truth. 
 
 It was not, however, enough for Him to found a doctrine 
 and obtain faith ; it was not enough to found a doctrine in 
 contradicting all other doctrines, to found a spirit of faith in 
 contradicting every other spirit. He had in addition to found 
 a Church, that is to say, a society of men living by that doctrine 
 and faith. Rationalism, in order to explain His success, in- 
 vokes here the general state of nations. It says that in the 
 time of Augustus a double want was felt, namely, a want of 
 liberty and unity. The nations one after another had borne 
 the yoke of the Romans ; and, stripped of their independence, 
 victims of the increasing rapacity of the proconsuls, they marked 
 the progress of Roman corruption, watching, like all who are 
 in bondage, for that hour of weakness which inevitably follows 
 prosperity when it is without limit or counterpoise. That hour 
 advanced rapidly; Jesus Christ came also, at the same time, at 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 145 
 
 the precise moment. And what brought He ? The elevation 
 of the lowly, in the idea of a common origin and a holy 
 brotherhood; strength to the weak, to women, to children, in 
 the idea of a new domestic right ; help to oppressed peoples, 
 in the idea of a universal republic founded by God Himself 
 and governed by Him. What could be more attractive, more 
 sure of success ? When then Jesus Christ appeared, and when 
 from the heart of Judaea the very air had borne even to the 
 ends of the world His emancipating word, with what a thrill of 
 sacred hope must the world have stood up and watched ! What 
 wonder if women, children, those who toiled, the slaves, the 
 poor, the despised of every kind and of every country, went 
 forth to meet Him, cast their garments under His feet, cut 
 down branches from the trees and strewed them in His way, 
 not once only, when He entered into Jerusalem on the eve of 
 His death, but even after His death, unwilling to believe He 
 was dead, and crying to His disciples as to Him : " Hosanna 
 to the Son of David ! Blessed is He that cometh in the name 
 of the Lord." * That hosanna was the cry of deliverance, the 
 response to Him who had heard the groanings of men ; and 
 from wheresoever He came, whatsoever name He took, what- 
 soever His race or His design, Man or God, it was impossible 
 for Him not to be accepted as He presented Himself. What 
 matters it to the prisoner, set free, whence liberty comes to 
 him ? To the miserable, to the oppressed, whence the deliverer 
 comes ? 
 
 Who saves his country is inspired from Heaven ! 
 
 I grant, gentlemen, that these ideas are full of charm ; it 
 touches us to think that when nations are slaves and corrupted, 
 they aspire to their emancipation. But, alas ! history pro- 
 nounces another judgment than the heart of man. We learn 
 from history that nations fallen into servitude do not desire 
 liberty. As the apostate from truth inveighs against truth, so 
 the apostate from liberty, the nation which has lost it by its 
 fault — and it is always lost by its own fault, by taking the heart 
 of a slave — that nation no longer aspires to regain it. It suffers, 
 it is degraded ; but to feel its misfortune and to reconquer the 
 treasure it has lost requires the heart of a free man ; that heart 
 it has no longer. It loves the wages of servitude, and dreads 
 
 * St. Matt. xxi. 9. 
 
146 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO EXPLAIN THE LIFE OF 
 
 the duties of liberty, especially of that which it has lost, and 
 which is to be purchased at such a price. It would have to 
 despise even its very life, to be ready to throw it to the winds, 
 so that some slight lesson might be learned from its death, and 
 that its last sigh, even remotely, might serve to bring about 
 deliverance and honour. The enslaved nation knows not this 
 heroism, and perhaps despises it. You have proofs of this, 
 gentlemen, elsewhere even than in history ; and passing over 
 the continent of Europe, I will take you at once to the shores 
 of Africa. Observe the negro there. You send your squadrons 
 to protect his liberty against the conspiracy of the slave-dealer ; 
 doubtless you do well ; it is perhaps a duty, it is certainly an 
 honour. But are you simple enough to believe that you will 
 prevent this traffic ? Wherever man wills to sell himself, he 
 finds buyers ; wherever hearts of slaves meet together, they 
 form masters, even when they do not find them already pre- 
 pared. As long as the negro will sell the flesh and blood of 
 his countryman, all the squadrons of the civilized world will 
 not lift him from the consequences of that horrible baseness of 
 heart ; and it is the same, more or less, with all nations bent 
 under the yoke of servitude and corruption. They seek no 
 deliverance, but the price only of their soul and body ; and 
 they are sufficiently recompensed for the abjection of slavery 
 by the abjection of vice. This was the state of the Roman 
 world. Jesus Christ, it is true, brought them liberty, but with 
 virtue and by virtue. The cost was too great for them ; they 
 did not accept it. Even after the Church was founded, the 
 empire continued in decadence ; it fell from Diocletian to the 
 eunuchs of Constantinople ; and when the West, renewed by 
 the barbarians, willed to go to its help, even to the very centre 
 of the East, when it armed all its chivalry to save it, that 
 wretched people extended to the Latin hand only a hand 
 incapable of sincerity. They treasonably rejected the blood 
 given to it, fearing the too near approach of men who knew 
 how to wield the sword and to devote themselves. 
 
 Jesus Christ may well found a Church, but not regenerate 
 an empire. He formed free souls in forming pious souls, whom 
 He drew to Himself from the midst of the general corruption ; 
 but the nations did not answer to His call, as nations, in order 
 to manifest that His work was not the result of political cir- 
 cumstances in which the course of things had led mankind. 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 147 
 
 He had against Him the passion of servitude, instead of having 
 in His favour the want of emancipation. And such is still the 
 state of His Church here below. Although favourable to all 
 the legitimate rights which together form the honour and 
 liberty of nations, she unceasingly raises up against herself 
 the instincts of servitude under the very name of liberty. 
 They ask license from her, and propose to her oppression : 
 it is the cry of nature in all times. In refusing both of 
 these, now as heretofore, she doubtless responds to the real 
 wants of mankind ; but she responds to them after the manner 
 of God, by a force which imposes itself and by a blessing whose 
 glory none but the benefactor can claim. 
 
 It is the same in regard to unity. I do not deny that the 
 Eoman empire, by subjecting many diverse peoples under a 
 common administration, had spread in minds the idea of a 
 vast social organization. But that idea, in the degree in which 
 it existed, did not pass over the very limited circle of a purely 
 political domination. They did not perceive, even in the 
 depths of that unity, the idea that the human race was a single 
 being or a single body. By unity, they understood that one 
 single nation became master of the others; one Caesar, the 
 Cassar of the world ; but of the spiritual unity of souls by faith, 
 hope, and charity, under a single visible chief, the representa- 
 tive and vicar of God, they had not even the most confused 
 notion. As soon as the universal Church had advanced a step 
 in the world, and had thus revealed this secret of her destiny, 
 it gave rise only to an immense fear, the enduring repercussion 
 of which she still feels. The passion of nationality is as strong 
 now against the Church as it was eighteen centuries ago ; and 
 those even who aspire to the social unity of the human race 
 cannot endure the idea of the Christian republic, other than as 
 a figure or a pattern which they use to represent their own 
 conception. What philosopher or what statesman dreams of 
 unity in the Christian sense, save to fear and detest it ? You 
 see, gentlemen, that in examining facts, not only ancient but 
 present, we arrive at the same conclusion, namely, that the 
 principle of the success of Jesus Christ, whether in regard to 
 the formation of His doctrine, or to the propagation of His 
 faith or the establishment of His Church, was not a principle 
 of fusion, but a principle of contradiction. As He had con- 
 tradicted all doctrines by His own, all minds by His own, 
 
 l 2 
 
148 RATIONALISTIC EFFORTS TO EXPLAIN' THE LIFE OF 
 
 He has contradicted all nations by His Church, that is to say, 
 He has braved and still braves, in the perpetuity of His work, 
 all the combined forces of mankind. 
 
 Let us go further, gentlemen, and seek the supreme cause 
 of that contradiction. Let us seek why Jesus Christ contradicts 
 all and is contradicted by all — too often even by those who 
 possess His faith, who belong to His Church, who eat His flesh 
 and drink His blood. The cause of this is not in the region 
 of the mind ; rationalism deceives itself in seeking there the 
 explanation of the Christian mystery. Jesus Christ advances 
 beyond the intelligence, He reaches even the soul, which is 
 the centre of all, and demands from it the sacrifice of its most 
 cherished inclinations, in order to convert it from evil to good, 
 from pride to humility, from sensuality to charity, from enjoy- 
 ment to mortification, from egotism to charity, from corruption 
 to holiness. And man opposes thereto an'obstinate resistance ; 
 he arms against Jesus Christ his reason, his heart, the world, 
 the human race, heaven and earth ; and even when vanquished 
 by the sense of his misery and by the tested gentleness of the 
 yoke of the Gospel, he does not cease to feel within himself, 
 even to his last moment, a possibility and a secret desire to 
 revolt. Here the whole secret lies. And if you would under- 
 stand how difficult is the triumph of Jesus Christ, I propose to 
 you, not the conversion of the world, but of one single man. 
 I ask you, princes of nations — you who command by intelli- 
 gence, wealth, or power — I ask you to make a man humble 
 and chaste, a penitent, a soul who judges his pride and his 
 senses, who despises himself, who hates himself, who struggles 
 against himself, and either as proof or as the means of his con- 
 version, humbly avows the errors of his life. I ask but this 
 from you. Can you accomplish it ? Have you ever done so ? 
 Ah ! if a king, radiant in the majesty of the throne, were to 
 call you into his cabinet, and press you to confess your faults 
 at his feet, you would say to him : Sire, I would rather confess 
 them to the man who makes shoes for my feet ! If the most 
 famous philosopher of his age were to use all his eloquence to 
 persuade you to kneel and confess your sins to him, you would 
 not deign even to turn away from laughing in his face. Pardon 
 these expressions, gentlemen, they would be ill-placed on other 
 occasions ; here, they are but just and grave. And yet, what 
 kings, philosophers, and nations are unable to obtain, a poor 
 priest, a man unknown, the most obscure among men, daily 
 
JESUS CHRIST. 149 
 
 accomplishes in the name of Jesus Christ. He sees souls 
 touched by their misery, coming to seek Him who knows them 
 not, and avow to Him in all sincerity the degradation of their 
 passions. It is the door by which men enter into Jesus Christ, 
 by which they repose in Him, by which the Church herself 
 enters ; for the Church is but the world penitent ; and that 
 single word reveals to you the whole miracle of her foundation 
 and perpetuity, as it will also explain to you the force of active 
 and passive contradiction which is in Jesus Christ. Jesus 
 Christ contradicts all doctrines, because His doctrine is holy 
 and the world is corrupt ; He contradicts every spirit, because 
 His spirit is holy and the world is corrupt ; He contradicts all 
 nations, because His Church is holy and the world is corrupt ; 
 and for the same reason the world contradicts the doctrines, 
 the spirit, and the Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It was then with justice, in a certain sense, that in the first 
 proceedings directed against Christians, by the orders of Nero, 
 they were convicted, according to Tacitus, of " hatred against 
 the human race." They hated, in fact, all that the world 
 esteemed ; they pursued all its ideas and all its affections, in 
 order to destroy them utterly; and although they did this from 
 love for the world, the world was not bound to understand and 
 thank them for it. Even charity, so new was it, clothed herself 
 in hostile colours, and the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross 
 — that masterpiece of love — appeared rather like an insult than 
 devotedness. All was contradiction, because all was God ; 
 and in order to prove that nothing of this was of man, Jesus 
 Christ was for ever to be recognised by this sign, according as 
 it was said of Him at the moment of His first appearing among 
 men : " This Child is set up for a sign which shall be contra- 
 dicted." * And He Himself, recalling the prophecies, said to 
 His enemies : " The stone which the builders rejected has 
 become the corner-stone ; the Lord hath done this, and it is 
 wonderful in our eyes." f The prophecy is still accomplished 
 daily; princes, nations, savants, sages, the skilful, the builders, 
 in fine, reject the stone ; they declare it to be unfit or worn 
 out by time ; they will accept it no longer ; and yet it is still 
 "the corner-stone, and it is wonderful in our eyes." It sup- 
 ports all, although it is rejected by all ; it possesses the double 
 character of necessity and impossibility. Recognise here, 
 
 * St. Luke ii. 34. t St. Matt. xxi. 42. 
 
ISO JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 gentlemen, a struggle between two unequal wills — the will of 
 man which revolts, and the will of God which causes itself to 
 be obeyed by man, in man, and in spite of man. And you 
 Christians, sons of this work wherein God gives you so 
 favoured a place, learn the need of constant suffering, of not 
 triumphing by triumph, that Jesus Christ may not be accused 
 of owing something to man, but of triumphing upon the cross, 
 so that your victory may be of God, and that you may be able, 
 now and henceforth, to repeat those words which, after so 
 many other signs witnessed by you, express the highest sign of 
 the Divinity of Jesus Christ: "The stone which the builders 
 rejected has become the corner-stone; the Lord hath done 
 this, and it is wonderful in our eyes ! " 
 
 K 
 
GOD. 
 
GOD. 
 
 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 My Lord,* — Gentlemen, 
 
 We have proved the divinity of Christian doctrine in a 
 twofold manner ; by its results, in showing that it produces 
 that marvel the Church, to which nothing is comparable, and 
 which evidently surpasses all human power ; and also by 
 showing that her founder is Jesus Christ, the envoy of God 
 and the Son of God. The effects and source of this doctrine 
 being divine, it is manifestly stamped with the seal of divinity, 
 or, in other words, it is divine. It would seem then that our 
 task is ended, and that having crowned the doctrine whose 
 minister we are with the most sacred and certain of all cha- 
 racters, we have but two things to demand from you, or rather 
 to impose upon you, namely, silence and adoration. 
 
 But the human mind is so formed, it has been so steeped 
 in light, that even if it saw the very hand of God bearing doc- 
 trine to it, it would not be willing to receive that doctrine 
 without receiving therewith the right and power to sound its 
 depths. The road of authority is doubtless a just, a natural 
 road, and necessary for our present state ; but it does not 
 suffice for us. For our present state includes the foretaste of 
 the future promised to us, and in regard to that future, nothing 
 will fully satisfy us but light seen by us in the very essence of 
 God himself. We do not desire henceforth to behold that 
 light in its infinite fulness ; we understand that limits have 
 
 * Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris. 
 
154 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 been placed to our mental vision and to our horizon : but how 
 feeble soever that vision may be, it is that of an intelligent 
 being ; how limited soever its horizon, it is an horizon traced 
 by the hand of God. Our mind seeks light, and our horizon 
 receives its rays. As soon then as a doctrine is proposed to 
 us, from whatever hand it may come, we thirst to fathom it, to 
 scrutinise it from within, to assure ourselves, in fine, that it 
 possesses other marks of its truth than merely outward signs, 
 however great they may be. I cannot escape from this law of 
 our being, nor do I desire so to do. I respect it in you as in 
 myself; I recognise therein our origin and our predestination. 
 After having led you then for so many years through the 
 externals of Christianity, I must now, under the eye of God,. 
 pass the threshold of the temple, and, without fear as without 
 presumption, contemplate doctrine itself, the daughter of God 
 and the mother of your soul. 
 
 I do not promise to show you its absolute superiority ; this 
 can be done only by leaving the present world and reaching 
 the bright shores of the infinite. But I promise you that in 
 comparing it with all the doctrines that have endeavoured to 
 explain the mysteries of the world, you shall easily discover in 
 it an unquestionable and a divine superiority. I promise you 
 that a light shall shine from it, which, without always attaining 
 to evidence itself, will form at least a glorious dawn of evi- 
 dence, and perhaps even at times a blending, as it were, of 
 the reason of man with the reason of God. Your soul elevated 
 by veiled truths, will see them gradually growing clearer in the 
 dawn of contemplation ; in that holy exercise it will become 
 accustomed to flights before unknown to it, and at length 
 wonder at the sublime simplicity of the greatest mysteries. 
 
 But where shall we find a basis in order to found doctrine 
 and appropriate it to ourselves ? Where shall we find terms 
 of comparison and means of verification ? We shall not need 
 to seek far. God has placed near to us the instruments 
 destined by His Providence to lead us toward Himself. He 
 has given them to us in nature and in intelligence, in con- 
 science and in society. This is the quadruple and unique 
 palace which he has built for us ; quadruple in the diversity of 
 its construction, unique in the relations which they hold to 
 one another, and in our indivisible abode therein. As God is 
 whole and ever present to every part of the universe, man is 
 
GOD. 155, 
 
 whole and always present to nature, to his intelligence, to his 
 conscience, to society ; he draws from them a life which con- 
 stantly receives light from their reverberation, and which 
 never leaves him in the solitary gloom of himself. Nature 
 speaks to his intelligence, his intelligence responds to nature, 
 both meet in his conscience, and society places the seal of 
 experience to the revelations of all the three. Such is our life, 
 and there all doctrine finds its verification. A doctrine con- 
 trary either to nature, intelligence, conscience, or society, is a 
 false doctrine, because it destroys our life ; a doctrine in 
 harmony with these is a true doctrine, because it strengthens 
 and enlarges our life, and because our life, taken in its totality, 
 is heaven and earth, matter and spirit, time and space, man 
 and mankind, whatever comes from God and bears with it a 
 demonstration of Him and of ourselves. 
 
 It behoves me then to show you the conformity of Catholic 
 doctrine with nature, intelligence, conscience, and society ; 
 and to draw from that comparison, unceasingly rising before 
 you, rays of light which will lead us to the depths of the 
 invisible and the immensity of the supernatural. This will 
 form the last part of our conferences, and although it must 
 necessarily employ several years, I cannot divest myself of a 
 feeling of sadness in thinking that the day draws nearer when 
 I must separate from you, and when I shall see no longer, 
 save from a distance in the feebleness of remembrance, those 
 great assemblies in which God was with us. Nevertheless 
 some consolation is blended with the feeling of our coming 
 separation ; the consolation of the man who reaches his end, 
 who has finished a career, and who foresees the hour when he 
 will be able to say with Paul : " I have fought the good fight, 
 I have finished my course."* Share with me this sadness and 
 this joy; for our conferences belong to you as much as to me ; 
 they form a monument which has risen up from your hearts 
 and from mine as from a single principle ; and some day, if it 
 please God to grant us the repose of old age, we shall each; 
 alike be able to say, on recalling the times which we loved : I 
 formed part of those conferences of Notre Dame which held 
 our youth captive under the word of God. 
 
 * 2 Tim. iv. 7. 
 
« 56 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 My Lord : 
 
 The Church and the country thank you together for the 
 example you have given to us in these days of great and 
 memorable emotion.* You have called us into this cathedral 
 on the morrow of a revolution in which all seemed to have 
 been lost ; we have responded to your call ; we are here 
 peaceably assembled under these antique vaults ; we learn 
 from them to fear nothing either for religion or for country ; 
 both will continue their career under the hand of God who 
 protects them ; both render thanks to you for having believed 
 in this indissoluble alliance, and for having discerned in pass- 
 ing things those which remain firm and become strengthened 
 even by the changeableness of events. 
 
 Doctrine is the science of destinies. We live, but why do 
 we live ? We live, but how do we live ? We, and all that is 
 passing around us, move by a motion which never ceases. The 
 heavens move onwards, the earth is borne along, the waves 
 follow each other on the old shores of the sea ; the plant 
 springs up, the tree waxes great, the dust drifts along, and the 
 mind of man, yet more restless than all else in nature, knows 
 no repose. Whence and why is this ? All motion supposes a 
 starting-point, a term to which it tends, and a road by which it 
 passes. What is then our starting-point ? What our end ? 
 What our road ? Doctrine must answer us ; doctrine must 
 show us our beginning, our end, our means ; and, with them, 
 the secret of our destinies. All science does not reach so 
 far. The lower sciences teach us the law of particular move- 
 ments ; they tell us how bodies attract and repel each other ; 
 what orbit they describe in the undefined spaces of the uni- 
 verse ; how they become decomposed and reconstituted, and 
 numberless secrets of that restless and unremitting life which 
 they lead in the fertile bosom of nature : but they do not make 
 known to us the general law of motion, the first principle of 
 things, their final end, their common means. This is the 
 privilege of doctrine, a privilege as far above all the sciences 
 as the universal is above the individual. 
 
 Now of these three terms which comprise the system of 
 destinies, the one which doctrine should first reveal to us is 
 doubtless the principle of things; for it is easy to conceive 
 that upon the principle depends the end, that from the end 
 
 * The Revolution of 1848. 
 
GOD. 157 
 
 and the principle proceeds the means. The principle of 
 beings evidently includes the reason of the end assigned to 
 them, as their principle and their end determine the means by 
 which they are to attain and fulfil their vocation. 
 
 I ask then this supreme question, I ask it with you and 
 with all time : What is the principle of things ? Catholic 
 doctrine answers us in these three first words of its Creed : 
 Credo in Deum, Patrem Omnipotentem — / believe in God, 
 the Father Almighty. 
 
 Hear its own explanation of this answer. 
 
 There is a primordial being : by that alone that it is 
 primordial, it has no beginning, it is eternal, that is to say, 
 infinite in duration ; being infinite in duration, it is so also in its 
 perfection ; for if anything were wanting to its perfection, it 
 would not be total being, it would be limited in its existence ; 
 it would not exist of itself, it would not be primordial. There 
 is then a being, infinite in duration and perfection. Now the 
 state of perfection involves the personal state, that is to say, 
 the state of a being possessing consciousness and intelligence 
 of itself, rendering an account to itself of what it is, dis- 
 tinguishing from itself that which is not itself, removing from 
 itself that which is against itself; in a word, of a being who 
 thinks, who wills, who acts, who is free, who is sovereign. The 
 primordial being is then " an infinite spirit in a state of per- 
 sonality." Such is Catholic doctrine on the principle of things, 
 the doctrine contained in that short phrase : Credo in Deum 
 — J believe in God. 
 
 Let us now hear the contrary doctrine, for there is a con- 
 trary doctrine ; and you will never find Christianity announcing 
 a dogma without at once meeting with a negation, a negation 
 intended to combat it, but which must serve to prove it. For 
 error is the counterproof of truth, as shadows are the counter- 
 proofs of light. Do not wonder then at so prompt an 
 opposition to so manifest a dogma; invite it rather, and 
 listen to the first expression of rationalism against the first 
 expression of Christianity : Credo in naturam, matrem 
 omnipotentem — / believe in nature, the mother almighty. 
 
 You hear then that rationalism, like Christianity, admits 
 the existence of a principle of things ; but for rationalism, nature 
 is the primordial, necessary, eternal, sovereign being. Now, 
 nature is not unknown to us, and it is evident to us that nature 
 is in the state of impersonality ; that is to say, nature has no 
 
TS8 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 consciousness of what it is, it does not possess that intellectual 
 unity by which each of its members should live of the uni- 
 versal life, and the universe of the life of the least blade of 
 grass comprised in its immensity. We are, so to say, immersed 
 in nature, we draw from nature the aliment of our existence : 
 but so far from forming there one single life by common 
 knowledge, we know nothing even of the beings nearest to 
 us. We pass each other by as strangers, and the universe 
 answers to our laborious investigations only by the mute 
 spectacle of its inanimate splendour. Nature is derived of 
 personality, and this is why Rationalism, which declares that 
 nature is self-existent, defines the principle of things as "an 
 infinite force in a state of impersonality." 
 
 Such are the two doctrines. 
 
 And observe that the human mind could not conceive 
 •a third doctrine upon the principle of things. For either 
 nature exists of itself and suffices to itself, or we must seek its 
 cause and support above itself, not in an analogous nature 
 subject to the same infirmity, but in a superior being answering 
 in its essence to the idea and function of a principle. It is 
 the one or the other. If we choose nature, as nature wants 
 personality, we must say that the principle of things is " an 
 infinite force in the state of impersonality. If we reject nature, 
 we must say that the principle of things is a supernatural 
 being, the logical conception of which necessarily leads to the 
 conclusion that the principle of things is "an infinite spirit 
 in the state of personality." Therefore human reason, in 
 regard to the first question concerning the mystery of des- 
 tinies, the question of principle, is inevitably condemned to 
 one or the other of these professions of faith : " I believe in 
 God ; — I believe in nature." 
 
 This is the reason why there are but two fundamental 
 doctrines in the world : theism and pantheism. The first 
 of these builds upon the idea of God, the second upon the fact 
 of nature ; one starts from the invisible and the infinite, the 
 other from the visible and the indefinite. Whoever is not 
 a theist is logically a pantheist, and whoever is not a pantheist 
 is necessarily a theist. Every man chooses between these 
 two doctrines, and the life of mankind cleaves to one or the 
 other, as to the tree of life and the tree of death. Pantheism 
 has perhaps been brought before you as a rare discovery 
 ■of modern times, as a treasure slowly drawn forth from the 
 
GOD. 
 
 159 
 
 fields of contemplation by the labour of sages : the fact is, 
 it is as old as corrupted mankind, and the mind of a child 
 is able to conceive that there is a God, or if there is not, that 
 nature is itself its principle and its god. 
 
 It is a gift of truth, that upon a question so capital as that 
 of the principle of things, you should have but to choose 
 between two doctrines, and that on the rejection of one of 
 these, the other becomes invested with the infallible character 
 of logical necessity. 
 
 What do you now expect from me ? You think perhaps 
 that I am about to demonstrate to you the existence of God ? 
 I assure you I have no such intention, not because the thing 
 is impossible, but because this is not the question before us. 
 The existence of God is not a dogma overthrown, which it is 
 needful to raise up again from the dust ; it is a dogma standing 
 erect, which holds its place between the Church, whose divine 
 authority I have shown you, and Jesus Christ, whose personal 
 divinity I have proved to you. God has been the basis of all 
 that we have yet seen. He has revealed Himself to us as all 
 beings reveal themselves, namely, by His action. If God had 
 not acted upon earth, and if He did not still act here day by 
 day, no one would believe in Him, whatever demonstration 
 metaphysics and eloquence might make of Him. Mankind 
 believes in God because it sees Him act. We have not, then, 
 to demonstrate God, but to examine the idea of God, and to 
 place it before our minds in all the splendour that we can draw 
 from it. 
 
 Let us even put aside those positive proofs of God ; let us 
 forget His works in the world, and suppose that we have before 
 us the bare question of His existence. The necessity of a 
 direct demonstration of Him would not even then follow. For 
 our mind carries in itself the certainty that a principle of things 
 exists, and, in addition, that this principle is either God or 
 nature. Nothing remains, then, but to choose between them, 
 and a matter of choice is quite another thing than a position 
 in which reasoning has all to create. I have to oppose theism 
 to pantheism, this is my task ; I have to seek which of these is 
 in harmony with nature, intelligence, conscience,' and society ; 
 such is the strength of my position. 
 
 Before entering upon this comparison, or rather on entering 
 upon it, I will make one observation. It is that God is here 
 below the most popular of all beings, whilst pantheism is a 
 
160 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 purely scientific system. In the open fields, resting upon his 
 implement of toil, the labourer lifts up his eyes towards heaven, 
 and he names God to his children by an impulse as simple as 
 his own soul. The poor call upon Him, the dying invoke His 
 name, the wicked fear Him, the good bless Him, kings give 
 Him their crown to wear, armies place Him at the head of 
 their battalions, victory renders thanksgivings to Him, defeat 
 seeks help from Him, nations arm themselves with Him against 
 their tyrants ; there is neither place, nor time, nor circum- 
 stance, nor sentiment, in which God does not appear and is 
 not named. Even love itself, so sure of its own charm, so 
 confident in its own immortality, dares not to ignore Him, and 
 comes before His altars to beg from Him the confirmation of 
 the promises to which it has so often sworn. Anger feels that 
 it has not reached its last expression until it has cursed that 
 adorable name ; and even blasphemy is the homage of faith 
 that reveals itself in its own forgetfulness. What shall I say of 
 perjury ? A man possesses a secret upon which his fortune 
 or his honour depends : he alone upon earth knows it, he 
 alone is his own judge. But truth has an eternal accomplice 
 in God ; it calls God to its help, it places the heart of man to- 
 struggle against an oath, and even he who may be capable of 
 violating its majesty would not do so without an inward 
 shudder, as before the most cowardly and the basest of actions. 
 And yet what is there contained in those words of an oath ? 
 Only a name, indeed, but it is the name of God. It is the 
 name which all nations have adored, to which they have built 
 temples, consecrated priests, offered prayers ; it is the highest 
 name, the most holy, the most efficient, the most popular name 
 which the lips of men have received the grace to utter. 
 
 Is it so with pantheism ? Where shall we look for it ? Come 
 with me, let us knock at yonder door ; it is illustrious, and 
 more than one celebrity has already been there. We are in the 
 presence of a sage. Let us beg of Him to explain to us the 
 mystery of our destinies, for He has sounded it. What says 
 He to us? That there is in the world only one single 
 substance. Why? Because substance is that which is in 
 itself, and that which is in itself is necessarily unique, in- 
 finite, eternal, God. Behold then the whole explanation 
 of our life based upon a metaphysical definition. I do not 
 now examine whether it be true or false, whether the con- 
 clusions drawn from it are legitimate, whether it is easy other- 
 
GOD. 161 
 
 wise to define substance, and so to overthrow the whole structure 
 of this doctrine. I simply defy mankind to understand it ; even 
 you, who from your childhood have been initiated to specula- 
 tions of words and ideas, you would not seize its tissue without 
 great difficulty were I to expose it to you. Many of you, 
 perhaps, would not succeed so far ; for nothing is more rare 
 than metaphysical sagacity, than that vision which dispels 
 before it all realities and penetrates with a fixed regard the 
 world of abstractions. You would soon feel the swelling veins 
 of your brow, a kind of dimness would seize even upon the 
 most hidden recesses of your thoughts, and all would disappear 
 before you, the real and the ideal, in painful obscurity. And 
 we are to believe that truth lies hidden in such subtle and 
 inaccessible depths ! That there it awaits the human race to 
 declare to it its destiny ! Can you believe it ? For my part, I 
 do not believe it. I believe in the God of the poor and the 
 simple-minded ; I believe in the God who is known in the lowly 
 cottage, whom infancy hears, whose name is dear to misfortune, 
 who has found ways to reach to all, how humble soever they 
 may be, and who has no enemies but the pride of knowledge 
 and the corruption of the heart. I believe in this God. I 
 believe in Him because I am a man, and, in repeating with all 
 nations and all ages the first article of the Church's Creed, I 
 do but proclaim myself a man and take my rank in the natural 
 community of souls. 
 
 Need I avow it ?— Since I have been charged with the work 
 of preaching the Divine Word, this is the first time that I have 
 approached this question of the existence of God — if indeed it 
 can be called a question ! Hitherto I have disdained it as 
 unnecessary. I have thought it needless to prove to a son the 
 existence of his father, and that he who did not know him was 
 unworthy of such knowledge. But the course of ideas constrains 
 me to touch upon this subject. Nevertheless, in making this 
 concession to logical order, I could not allow you to think that 
 I purposed to satisfy a want of your hearts, or of the people and 
 the age in which we live. God be thanked, we believe in Him, 
 and were I to doubt of your faith in Him, you would rise and 
 cast me out from amongst you ; the doors of this cathedral 
 would open before me of themselves, and the people would 
 need but a look in order to confound me. That same people 
 who in the intoxication of victory, after having overthrown 
 many generations of kings, bore off in their submissive hands, 
 
 M 
 
^2 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 and as the associate of their triumph, the image of the Son of 
 God made man. (Applause.) 
 
 Gentlemen, let us not .applaud the word of God; let us 
 love it, believe in it, practise it ; this is the only applause that 
 mounts to heaven and is worthy of it. 
 
 I might here close this discourse, since you happily show 
 me that it is needless. Allow me, however, before doing so, 
 to seek why the idea of God is popular, and whether that 
 popularity is but a vain Jllusion of mankind. 
 
 We have said that we possess four means of verifying doc- 
 trines ; namely : nature, intelligence, conscience, and society. 
 If the idea of God be legitimate, it should derive strength from 
 these four sources of light, whilst pantheism should necessarily 
 find its condemnation in them. 
 
 Nature is a grand spectacle which easily exhausts our vision 
 and our imagination ; but does it bear the stamp of a being 
 without cause, of a being existing of itself? Can nature say 
 like God, through Moses : Ego sum qui sum — I am who am ? 
 Infinity is the first mark of the being without cause ; does 
 nature bear this sign ? Let us examine it. All that we see 
 there is limited, all is form and movement, form determined, 
 movement calculated ; all falls under the straitened empire 
 of measure, even the distances which remain unknown to our 
 instruments, but are by no means unknown to our conceptions. 
 We feel the limit even where our eye does not perceive it ; it is 
 enough for us to seize it at one point, to determine it every- 
 where. The infinite is indivisible, and were but one single 
 atom of the universe submitted to our feeble hands, we should 
 know that nature is finite, and that its immensity is but the 
 splendid veil of its poverty. 
 
 If nature existed of itself, it would moreover possess the 
 character of absolute liberty, or sovereignty : for, what can a 
 being be said to depend upon which has no cause ? But do 
 we find this in the operations that manifest the life of nature to 
 us? The universe is a serf; it revolves in a circle wherein 
 nothing spontaneous appears ; the stone remains where our 
 hand places it, and the planet describes an orbit where we 
 always find it. Those worlds, so prodigious by their mass and 
 their motion, have never revealed to the observer anything but 
 a silent and blind mechanism, a slavish force, a helpless power- 
 lessness to deviate from their law. And man himself — man in 
 whom alone upon earth appears that liberty whose traces we 
 
GOD. 163 
 
 vainly seek for in all the rest — is he a sovereign ? Is he born 
 at his own time ? Does he die when it pleases him? Can he 
 free himself from that which limits and embitters his existence? 
 Like nature, of which he forms a part, he has his greatness, but 
 it is a greatness which so much the more betrays his infirmity. 
 He is like those kings who followed their victor to the Capitol, 
 and whose abasement was but increased by the remnants of 
 their majesty. The spectacle of the universe then awakens 
 two sentiments, namely, wonder and pity. And these, strength- 
 ened by one another, together lead us to see the emptiness of 
 nature, and to seek its author. Such is the language of worlds, 
 their eternal eloquence, the cry of their conscience, if we may 
 give such a name to the force that constrains them to speak for 
 a greater than they, and to repeat to all the echoes of time and 
 space the hymn of the creature to the Creator : Non nobis, 
 
 DOMINE, NON NOBIS, SED NOMINI TDO GLORIAM Not VtltO US, 
 
 Lord, not unto us, hut to thy name be the glory ! Yes, sacred 
 worlds that roll above us, brilliant and joyous stars that pursue 
 your course under the hand of the Most High, happy islands 
 whose shores are traced out in the ocean of heaven, yes, you 
 have never lied to man ! 
 
 It matters little whether pantheism does or does not endea- 
 vour to pervert the meaning of the spectacle of nature. . It is 
 of importance for us to know, however, that man, taken in 
 general, the man of mankind, sees at a glance that the universe 
 does not exist of itself. Metaphysics will never destroy that 
 deep impression made upon mankind by the spectacle of things 
 which forms the scene upon which we live. A child perceives 
 the incapacity of the heavens and the earth ; he sees, he feels, 
 he touches it ; he will always return to it as to an invincible 
 sentiment forming a part of his being. In vain will you tell 
 him that he is God, it is enough for him to have had but a 
 fever to know that you are laughing at him. 
 
 In contemplating nature, man sees realities; in contem- 
 plating his intelligence, he sees truths. Realities are finite like 
 the nature that contains them ; truths are infinite, eternal, 
 absolute, that is to say, greater than the intelligence in which 
 we find them. Nature shows us geometrical figures ; the intel- 
 ligence reveals to us the mathematical law itself, the general 
 and abstract law of all bodies. It does more, it reveals to 
 us the metaphysical law, that is to say, the law of all beings 
 ■of what kind soever, the law which is as applicable to spirits 
 
 m 2 
 
164 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 as to bodies. At this height, and in this horizon, the universe 
 disappears from our mental vision, or, at least, we no longer 
 perceive it save as the reflection of a higher world, as the 
 shadow of a boundless light ; the real becomes absorbed in the 
 true, which is its root, really becomes measured by truth. 
 
 But where is truth? Where its dwelling-place, its seat, 
 its living essence ? Is it a pure abstraction of our mind ? Is 
 it nothing but the universe magnified by a dream ? If it 
 were so, our intelligence itself would be but a dream ; truth, 
 which appears to us as the principle of all things, would be only 
 the exaggeration, and, as it were, the extravagance of sensible 
 reality. 
 
 Shall we say that truth has its seat in our own mind ? But 
 our mind is limited, truth has no limits ; our mind had a 
 beginning, truth is eternal ; our mind is susceptible of more or 
 less, truth is absolute. To say that our mind is the seat of 
 truth, is to say in obscure terms that our mind is truth itself, 
 living truth : who is so mad as to believe this ? Besides the 
 contradiction existing between the nature of our mind and the 
 nature of truth, do we not see the minds which form mankind 
 engaged in a perpetual war of affirmations and negations ? 
 Truth would then be battling with itself? It would affirm and 
 deny at the same time, although remaining absolute. It is the 
 very height of folly ! 
 
 If truth be not a vain name, it is in the universe only in the 
 state of expression, and in our mind only in the state of 
 apparition; it is in the universe as the artist is in his work, 
 it is in our mind as the sun is in our eyes. But beyond the 
 universe and our mind, it subsists of itself, it is a real, an 
 infinite, an eternal, an absolute essence, existing of itself, pos- 
 sessing consciousness and intelligence of itself; for how could 
 it be that truth should not understand itself, since it is the 
 source of all understanding ? Now, so to speak of truth is to 
 define God ; God is the proper name of truth, as truth is the 
 abstract name of God. 
 
 There is then a God, if truth exists. Would you say that 
 there is no truth ? It is for you to choose. I do not deny your 
 liberty. 
 
 Perhaps you will still better understand the force of this 
 conclusion by applying it to the order of conscience. Even 
 as truth is the object and life of the mind, justice is the object and 
 life of conscience. Conscience sees and approves a rule of the 
 
GOD. 1 65 
 
 rights and duties between beings endowed with liberty. That 
 rule is justice. But where is justice? Is it a simple result of 
 human will? In that case justice would be but a convention, a 
 fragile law called into life to-day and which may fall to-morrow. 
 Is it an order founded on the very nature of man ? But that 
 nature is variable, corruptible, subject to passions that lead it 
 astray. What is order for one would be disorder for another. 
 If then justice be a reality, it must be an eternal and absolute 
 law, regulating the relations of free volitions, as mathematics 
 are an eternal and absolute law regulating the relations of 
 material beings, and metaphysics an eternal and absolute law 
 regulating the relations of intelligent beings with all beings, 
 either existing or possible. Beyond this notion, justice is but 
 a name which arms the strong against the weak, the prosper- 
 ous against the needy. Now, this notion necessarily calls 
 forth the notion of God, since an eternal and absolute law could 
 only be a reality in the person of a being subsisting of himself, 
 possessing a will active and just, able to promulgate an order, 
 to maintain it, to reward obedience and punish rebellion. 
 
 Truth is the first name of God; justice is the second. 
 
 Now it is easy to conceive that there may be men for whom 
 truth and justice are nothing but philosophical speculations, 
 men who shut themselves up in the proud solitude of their own 
 thoughts, and build up in them their own glory upon systems 
 that bear their names. But it is not so with poor and suffering 
 mankind : it needs truth for its nourishment, justice for its 
 defence, and it knows that the real name of both is the name 
 of God, and that the real strength of both is the power of God. 
 The poor and the afflicted have never been deceived herein. 
 When they are oppressed, they lift up their hands towards God, 
 they write his name upon their banners, they pronounce to the 
 oppressor that last and solemn expression of the soul that 
 believes and hopes : I cite you before the tribunal of God ! 
 
 The time of that tribunal comes sooner or later, its temporal 
 and visible, as well as its eternal time. Kings even here below 
 are cited before it, and nations also. It is the permanent 
 tribunal set up in the midst of error and wickedness, and which 
 saves the world. In vain would pride destroy it ; the people 
 saved by it save it in their turn. If there were none but sages 
 among us, the idea of God might perish here, for a man alone 
 is always powerful against God ; but happily nations are feeble 
 against him, because they cannot do without justice and truth. 
 
166 THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 They protect him against the learned chimeras of false wisdom ; 
 they preserve his memory with a faithfulness which does not 
 always preserve the perfect idea of him, but which at leasi has 
 never yet permitted the sun and history to see a nation of 
 atheists. Notwithstanding all that men have done, God 
 remains as the corner-stone of human society ; no legislator has 
 dared to banish Him, no age has ignored Him, no language has 
 effaced His name. Upon earth as in heaven, He is because He is. 
 
 But if God has on his side nature, intelligence, conscience, 
 and society, what remains there to pantheism ? Where is it to 
 find its basis ? It seeks its basis in the obscurities of abstruse 
 metaphysics ; withdrawing from all realities, from every feeling 
 and every want, in order to form a labyrinth from whence 
 thought can find no exit. It loses itself the clue, and, shut up 
 in the subtle prison which it has made, takes refuge in the 
 sneer of self-deceived pride, and calling to its help, from the 
 corrupted depths of ages, the prying spirits of subtle doctrines, 
 it hurls against God and mankind the anathema of scorn. 
 God passes by without hearing and mankind without answering. 
 Let us do likewise, let us pass by also. 
 
 We have a threefold intuition of God : a negative intuition 
 in nature ; a direct intuition in the ideas of truth and justice ; 
 a practical intuition in human society. Nature, in manifesting 
 characteristics to us incompatible with a being existing of itself, 
 causes us to mount to its source ; the ideas of truth and justice 
 name God to us, without whom they would be nothing ; human 
 society, which cannot do without Him, proves to us His 
 existence by its need of Him. But besides these continuous 
 and inadmissible revelations, there are others which Divine 
 Providence scatters from time to time on the road of nations. 
 He strikes with His thunders and rends the veils, He gives so 
 full and deep a consciousness of His presence that none can 
 be deceived, and causes a whole nation to utter from its inmost 
 heart that unanimous and involuntary cry : It is the hand of 
 God ! We are witnessing one of those times when God unveils 
 Himself ; but yesterday He passed through our gates and the 
 whole world beheld Him. Shall I then remain silent before 
 Him ? Shall I hold upon my trembling lips the prayer of a 
 man who, once in his life, has seen his God before him ? 
 
 O God, who has just dealt these terrible blows ; O God,, 
 the judge of kings and arbiter of the world, look down in 
 mercy upon this old Frank nation, the elder Son of Thy right 
 
GOD. 167 
 
 hand and of Thy Church. Remember its past services, Thy 
 first blessings ; renew with it that ancient alliance which made 
 it Thy people ; touch its heart which was so full of Thee, and 
 which now again, in the flush of a victory wherein it spared 
 nothing royal, yielded to Thee the empire which it yields to 
 none other. O God, just and holy, by the cross of Thy Son 
 which their hands bore from the profaned palace of kings to 
 the spotless palace of Thy spouse, watch over us, protect us, 
 enlighten us, prove once more to the world that a people that 
 respects Thee is a people saved ! 
 
THE INNER LIFE OF GOD. 
 
 My Lord, — Gentlemen, 
 
 God exists, but what does He? What is His action? 
 What is His life ? This question at once rises in our thoughts. 
 As soon as the mind has recognised the existence of a being, 
 it asks how that being lives ; and still more so in regard to 
 God, who, as the principle of beings, excites within us a thirst 
 for knowledge of Him, so much the more ardent and just as 
 His action is the model of all action, and His life the pattern 
 of all life. What then is the life of God? How does He 
 employ His eternity ? This is doubtless a bold question. 
 Nevertheless it is a question which men ask and which they 
 desire to solve. But how is it to be solved ? How are we to 
 penetrate the Divine Essence in order to catch a glimpse of the 
 incomprehensible movement of an eternal, infinite, absolute, 
 and immutable spirit? 
 
 Three doctrines come before us. One of these affirms that 
 God is condemned by the sovereign majesty of His nature to 
 isolation dreadful to imagine ; that, alone in Himself, He con- 
 templates Himself seeing only Himself, and loves Himself with 
 a love which has no other object than Himself; that in this 
 contemplation and this love, eternally solitary, the nature and 
 perfection of His life consist. 
 
 According to the second doctrine, the universe shows us 
 the life of God, or rather it is itself the life of God. We behold 
 in it His permanent action, the scene upon which His power is 
 cxcicised, and in which all His attributes are reflected. God 
 is not out of the universe any more than the universe is out of 
 God. God is the principle, the universe is the consequence, 
 but a necessary consequence, without which the principle would 
 be inert, unfruitful, impossible to conceive. 
 
GOD. 169 
 
 Catholic doctrine condemns these two systems. It does 
 not admit that God is a solitary being eternally employed in a 
 sterile contemplation of Himself ; nor does it admit that the 
 universe, although it is the work of God, is His proper and 
 personal life. It soars above those feeble ideas, and, bearing 
 us with the word of God beyond all the conceptions of the 
 human mind, it teaches us that the divine life consists in the 
 co-etemal union of three equal persons, in whom plurality 
 destroys solitude, and unity division ; whose thought corre- 
 sponds, whose love is mutual, and who, in that marvellous 
 communion, identical in substance, distinct in personality, form 
 together an ineffable association of light and love. Such is the 
 essence of God, and such is His life, both powerfully expressed 
 in those words of the Apostle St. John : Tres sunt qui tes- 
 timonium dant in ccelo : Pater, Yereum, et Sptritus 
 sanctus — There are three zc'ic give testimony in heaven : the 
 Father, the Word, the Holy Ghost. And these thru are one* 
 
 Here, and very soon after having promised you light, it 
 would seem that I am leading you into a maze of darkness ; 
 for, can anything be conceived more formidable to the mind 
 than the terms by which I have just expressed, according to 
 the Scriptures and the Church, the relations that constitute the 
 inner life of God ? Do not, however, yield to this first im- 
 pression ; trust rather to my promises, since they are those of 
 the Gospel, wherein it is written : Ego sum Lux Mundi — 
 I am the Light cf the World. And again : Qui sequitur Me 
 
 NON AMBUXAT IN TENEERI3, SET) HABEBIT LUMEN V1T.E — He 
 
 that follciidh me uaJketh not in darkness, but shall have the 
 light of li/e.f Yes, be confident, count upon God, who has 
 proposed nothing to you unnecessary to be believed, and who 
 has hidden marvellous treasures in the most obscure mysteries, 
 as He has hidden the fires of the diamond in the depths of 
 the earth. Follow me, let us pass the pillars of Hercules, and, 
 leaving truth to fill our sails, let us fearlessly advance even to 
 the transatlantic regions of light 
 
 We would understand something of the divine life : the 
 first question, therefore, we have to ask is : What is life ? For, 
 as long as we do not know what life is in itself, it is clear that 
 we shall not be able to form any idea of the life of God. 
 What, then, is life ? In order to comprehend this, we must learn 
 
 * 1 John v. 7. + St. John viii, 12. 
 
170 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 what being is ; for life is evidently a certain state of being. We 
 thus arrive at that first and supreme question : What is being ? 
 And we shall solve it by seeking for what is permanent and 
 common in the infinitely varied beings which surround us. 
 Now, in all of these, whatsoever their name, their form, their 
 degree of perfection or inferiority, we find a mysterious force 
 which is the principle of their substance and organization, and 
 which we call activity. Every being, even the most inert in. 
 appearance, is active ; it condenses, it resists foreign efforts, it 
 attracts and incorporates to itself elements which obey it. A 
 grain of sand is in contest and in harmony with the whole 
 universe, and maintains itself by that force which is the very 
 seat of its being, and without which it would become lost in 
 the absolute incapacity of nothingness. Activity, being the 
 permanent and common characteristic of all that is, it follows 
 that being and activity are one and the same thing, and that 
 we are warranted in making this definition : Being is activity. 
 St. Thomas of Aquinas gave us an example when, having to 
 define God, who is being in its total reality, he said : " God is 
 a pure act." 
 
 But activity supposes action, and action is life. Life is to 
 being what action is to activity. To live, is to act. It is true 
 that spontaneous, and, above all, free action, being perfect 
 action, the birth or apparition of life is generally marked at the 
 point where that kind of action is manifested. Thus we say 
 that the stone is, that the plant grows, that the animal lives ; 
 but these different expressions mark only the gradations of 
 activity, whose presence, how feeble soever it may be, every- 
 where constitutes the living being. 
 
 We know what life is. Let us advance another step, let us 
 learn what are its general laws, and then apply them to God. 
 
 The first general law of life is: The action of a being is equal 
 to its activity. In fact the action of a being can be limited 
 only by a foreign force, or by its own will. Now a foreign 
 force checks it only at the point where its own energy ceases, 
 and as to its own will, should it possess any, that necessarily 
 bears it as far as it can reach by its own nature. An action 
 superior to its activity is impossible to it ; an action inferior is 
 insufficient ; an action equal to its activity is the only action 
 that places it in harmony with itself and with the rest of the- ' 
 universe. Therefore whether you consider the general move- 
 ment of worlds or the tendency of each being in particular,. 
 
GOD. 17* 
 
 you will find them all acting according to the measure of their 
 forces, and placing limits to their ambition only because they 
 exist to their faculties. All, and man among the rest, advance 
 as far as they can ; all, having reached the point which exhausts 
 and stops them, write like the poet, proudly accusing their own 
 powerlessness : 
 
 SlSTIMCS HIC TANDEM NOBIS UBI DEFUIT ORBIS. 
 
 This first general law being recognised, I at once draw some 
 conclusions from it touching the life of God ; for as the action 
 of a being is equal to its activity, and as God is infinite activity, 
 it follows that in God there is infinite action, or, to speak still 
 more clearly, that infinite action constitutes in God the very 
 life of God. But what is an action? Nature and mankind 
 are composed only of a tissue of actions ; we do nothing else 
 from the moment of our birth to our death. Nevertheless, do 
 you know clearly what an action is ? Have you ever weighed 
 the sense of that word which comprises all that passes in 
 heaven and upon earth ? An action is a movement ; it is im- 
 possible for us to conceive its nature under a more clear and 
 general form. The body moves when it acts, thought moves 
 when it works, the heart moves when it conceives affections ; 
 from wheresoever the action comes, the tongue has but one 
 term for expressing it, and the understanding but one idea for 
 conceiving it. All is in movement in the universe because all 
 therein is action, and all therein is action, because, from the 
 atom to the planet, from the dust even to intelligence, all is 
 activity. But movement supposes an object, an end to which 
 the being aspires. I move, I run, I risk my life : Why ? 
 What do I seek? Apparently I seek something wanting to 
 me and which I desire ; for if nothing were wanting to me, 
 my movement would have no cause, repose would be my 
 natural state, immobility my happiness. Since I move, it is to 
 act : to act is at the same time the motive and the end of 
 movement, and consequently action is a productive movement. 
 
 Do not grow weary of following me ; it is true I am lead- 
 ing you by ways whose outlets perhaps you do not yet see ; 
 you are passengers in the ship of Columbus, you seek in vain 
 the star that announces the port to you ; but take courage, you 
 will soon hail the shore, it is already near. 
 
 Action is a productive movement, as I have just shown, 
 
172 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 and, as action is the consequence of activity, it follows that 
 production is the final end of activity ; that is to say of being, 
 since being and activity are one and the same thing. But in 
 what proportion does being produce? Evidently in propor- 
 tion to its activity ; since, according to the first general law of 
 life, the action of a being is equal to its activity. Therefore, 
 to live is to act ; to act is to produce ; to produce is to draw 
 forth from self something equal to itself. Doubtless we can 
 conceive a production inferior to the being from whence it 
 emanates ; but that production, were it to take place, would not 
 be the principal act of such life, it would but be accessory and 
 accidental thereto. Every being tends to produce in the 
 plenitude of its faculties, because it tends to live in the pleni- 
 tude of its life, and it attains that natural term of its ambition 
 only by drawing from itself something equal to itself. It is 
 easy to prove this by observation, after having established it 
 by reasoning. In what, for instance, consists the painful 
 labour of the artist ? The artist has had in his soul a vision 
 of the Beautiful and the True ; the horizon has opened before 
 him, and in the luminous distance of the infinite he has seized 
 an idea which has become his own, and which torments him 
 day and night. What would he do, and what is it that troubles 
 him ? He would produce what he has seen or heard ; he 
 thirsts to make a piece of canvas, a stone, or words, express 
 his thought as it is in himself, with the same clearness, the 
 same force, the same poesy, the same tone. As long as he 
 does not obtain that desired equality between his conception 
 and his style, he is troubled and desponding, for he remains 
 beneath himself, and sheds burning tears over the inefficacy of 
 his genius, which is as a reproach and as death to him. 
 " From him to whom much is given," says the Gospel, " will 
 much be required." Such is the law of production, in the 
 order of nature and art, as in the order of virtue. 
 
 But in order for life to produce something equal to itself, 
 it must produce life ; in order for the living being to produce 
 something equal to itself, it must produce a being like itself, 
 or, in other words, it must be fruitful. Fecundity is the 
 extreme and complete term of production, which is itself the 
 necessary term of activity. Thus we learn and lay down that 
 second general law of life : " The activity of a being is resumed 
 in its fecundity." 
 
 Here the spectacle of the world around us is so striking 
 
GOD. 173 
 
 that it is almost needless to invoke it. Where in nature can 
 we find any being so abject and disinherited as not to have 
 received from God the grace to produce a being like itself, to 
 see itself in another emanating from itself? The plant ceases 
 not to sow in the earth the germ that multiplies it ; the tree 
 sheds around it and confides to the winds of heaven the 
 mysterious seeds that assure to it a numerous offspring ; the 
 animal gathers its little ones to its unfailing breasts ; and last 
 of all, man, spirit and matter, combines in his fragile life the 
 double fecundity of the senses and thought. He bequeaths 
 himself as a whole to a posterity which perpetuates him by the 
 soul as much as by the body, a father twice blessed and doubly 
 immortal. Shall I dare to advance further, and, passing from 
 man to the opposite frontiers of life, show you the prodigy of 
 fecundity even in those beings to whom science refuses organi- 
 zation, and which, notwithstanding their apparent insignificance, 
 still find in themselves the power to seduce nature and be per- 
 petuated in its bosom by alliances that manifest their vital 
 energy? In vain, from one pole to the other, from man to 
 the worm of the earth, I seek sterility. I find it only in one 
 place and in one thing, in death. So that we may say with 
 rigorous exactness, that life is fecundity, and that the fecundity 
 is equal to the life. 
 
 Let us now lift up our eyes, for we can do so ; let us turn 
 them towards God. If what we have said be true, God, being 
 infinite activity, is also, and even thereby, infinite fecundity. 
 For, if He were active without being fruitful, if He were infi- 
 nitely active without being infinitely fruitful, one of two things 
 would follow, either His action would be unproductive, or 
 He would produce only outside of Himself in the region of 
 the temporary and the finite. To say that the action of God 
 is unproductive is to say that He acts without cause, and 
 that His life is consumed in the powerlessness of eternal 
 sterility ; to say that His action is only productive outside of 
 Himself, is to say that His life is not His own, which is 
 absurd, or that the universe is His life, which brings us to 
 pantheism. We must then conclude that the life of God is 
 exercised within Himself by an infinite and a sovereign 
 fecundity. Do not seek beforehand how this adorable 
 mystery is accomplished ; do not hurry your curiosity beyond 
 the light and the abyss. Be masters of yourselves, examine 
 the point you are investigating, hear the sounds that you hear, 
 
174 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 and no more. The infinite, in heaven, is seen at a glance ; 
 here upon earth it is difficult for us to lift even a little of the 
 veil that hides it from us. 
 
 I ask you now but one thing, I ask you if yoa can form 
 any idea of being without the idea of activity ; any idea of 
 activity without the idea of production ; any idea of production 
 without the idea of fecundity? I ask yoa if your mind con- 
 sents to pronounce this judgment: God is infinite activity 
 which ends in infinite sterility. You may say : He sees and 
 loves Himself, is this nothing? Yes, but His regard and His 
 love are sterile ; does that satisfy you ? What ! Your regard 
 and your love are fruitful ; they produce a living being like 
 yourself, equal to you, in whom you see and love yourself; 
 and God, the principle and pattern of all things, does not 
 possess, under an infinite and a supernatural form, the mystery 
 which you possess under a finite and natural form ! His 
 outer activity is great enough to give life to the universe, 
 whilst his inner and personal activity is to produce nothing 
 but the silence of unmeasured solitude ! Is fecundity then a 
 calamity, and sterility a state of perfection ? If it be a state 
 of perfection, do you not see that God contains them all in a 
 supereminent degree ? We must then conclude with St. 
 Thomas of Aquinas, in his marvellous treatise on the divine 
 persons : " The consequence of all action being something 
 which proceeds from that action, even as there is an outer 
 procession that follows the outer action, there is also an inner 
 procession that follows the inner action . . . and thus the 
 Catholic faith establishes a procession in God."* 
 
 Let us still advance and ask why fecundity is the sum or 
 term of the activity of beings ? Why beings tend to produce 
 other beings like themselves, and, in fact, do produce them? 
 The reason of this is contained in the very idea of activity and 
 action. For an action is a movement ; a movement supposes 
 a starting-point, which is the acting being; a point to be 
 attained, which is the desired being ; and a relation between 
 the principle and the end of movement, between the acting 
 being and the desired being. Without that relation there 
 would be no cause of movement, and consequently no more 
 action, no more activity, no life, no being, nothing. Relation 
 is the very essence of life, and we have but to examine our 
 
 * Question 27, art. I. 
 
GOD. 175 
 
 own life to find abundant proof of it. • What do we from the 
 first of our days even to the last ? We hold relations with 
 God, with nature, with men, with books, with the dead, and 
 with the living. The very time that measures our age is a 
 relation, and our mind would lose itself in vainly endeavouring 
 to imagine life otherwise than as an indivisible tissue of 
 numberless relations. 
 
 What, then, is a relation ? It is more than needful for us 
 to know, since this is the last link of our whole being. A 
 relation consists in the bringing together of two distinct terms. 
 The perfect conjunction of these terms is unity, their perfect 
 distinction is plurality, and consequently their perfect relation 
 is unity in plurality. Survey the whole web of your relations, 
 you will find nothing else there. The life of your intelligence 
 is unity of mind in plurality of thoughts ; the life of your body 
 is unity of action in plurality of members ; your life as a family 
 is unity of affection and interests in plurality of persons ; your 
 life as citizens is unity of origin, duties, and rights, in plurality 
 of families ; your Catholic life is unity of faith and love in 
 plurality of souls tending towards God ; and so is it with all 
 the rest. What am I now doing? Why are my words addressed 
 to you? What is there between them and this auditory? 
 Nothing, if it be not that my soul seeks yours to lead it to 
 the seat of a light which, without destroying the distinction 
 between your personality and mine, would, nevertheless, bring 
 us together in the present unity of the same hope and in the 
 future unity of the same beatitude. 
 
 Now this marvel of unity in plurality could be produced 
 only by the likeness of beings, and "the likeness of beings 
 supposes their equality of nature by their community of origin. 
 Fecundity, which produces beings like their authors and like 
 each other, is then the natural principle of unity in plurality ; 
 that is to say, of the relations which form the life of beings by 
 the continuous totality of their acts. It is true that we hold 
 relations with beings to whom we are neither drawn by a 
 similar origin nor by an exact likeness ; but these relations are 
 also feeble and distant, and the degree of likeness is always 
 marked by the degree of kindred which measures the strength 
 and intimacy of the relations. Thus members of the same 
 family are nearer to each other than fellow-citizens ; nations of 
 the same race are more closely united than nations of different 
 races ; and all created beings derive from God, their common 
 
176 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 Father, the reason of likenesses and relations, more or less 
 direct, which bind them together in the vast unity of nature. 
 
 We are then entitled to lay down this third general law oi 
 life : " The end of fecundity is to produce relations between 
 beings, that is to say, to give an object to and a reason foi 
 their activity." 
 
 Already you cease to wonder at those prodigious words by 
 which the Apostle St. John defined the divine life for us : 
 " There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, 
 the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." * 
 You see that the mystery of life is a mystery of relations, that 
 is to say, a mystery that involves these two terms — unity in 
 plurality, plurality in unity. Before we arrive at a still more 
 formal conclusion, let us halt for a moment to consider the 
 effect of relations in beings. 
 
 Life is not the only phenomenon they offer to us. Above 
 the movement that mingles and bears them onward, we find a 
 charm which we call beauty. Beauty is the result of order ; 
 wheresoever order ceases, beauty vanishes. But what is order, 
 if not the unity which shines in a multitude of beings, and 
 which, notwithstanding their distinctions and their variety, 
 brings them together again in the splendour of a single act ? 
 
 Goodness is the sister of beauty. It is the gift which 
 beings reciprocally make of their advantages, and consequently 
 it is also the effect of relations. In order to give and to receive, 
 it is necessary at least to be two. 
 
 Thus life, beauty, and goodness, have one and the same 
 principle, which is unity in plurality ; and to refuse this double 
 character to God is at once to refuse life, beauty, and good- 
 ness to Him. Would you do this? Even should you not 
 understand how one and the same being could realize in 
 Himself one and many, unity and plurality, would that feeble- 
 ness of your intelligence destroy the chain of the reasonings 
 and observations which have initiated us into the most pro- 
 found secrets of the nature of things ? But let us meet the 
 difficulty face to face. 
 
 God is one : His substance is indivisible because it is 
 infinite ; this is beyond doubt for faith as for reason. God 
 cannot then be many by the division of His substance. But if 
 he is not many by the division of His substance, how can He 
 
 * i John v. 7. 
 
GOD. 177 
 
 be many? How can a being who is one and indivisible at the 
 same time be many ? Gentlemen, I require but one word, 
 and I ask you in return : Why should God need to be many ? 
 Is it not in order to possess relations in Himself, those 
 relations without which we can neither conceive activity, nor 
 life, nor being ? Let the substance of God, then, remain what 
 it is and what it should be — the seat of unity ; and let it 
 produce in itself, without being divided, terms of relation, that 
 is to say, terms which are the seat of plurality in relation to 
 unity. For these two things, one and many, are alike necessary 
 in order to form relations ; and if the substance of God were 
 divisible, unity being wanting thereto, relations would be 
 wanting also. 
 
 I divine your thoughts. You would tell me that you do 
 not even understand the expressions which I employ, and 
 that there is manifest contradiction between the idea of a 
 unique substance and the idea of several terms of relation to 
 be contained therein without dividing it. I will show you that it 
 is not so, and had you but the intelligence of a child, it would 
 suffice to enable you to follow me and to render justice to truth. 
 
 I stretch forth my hand. Where is it ? In space ! What 
 is space ? Philosophers have disputed about its nature : some 
 have thought that it is an exceedingly delicate and subtle 
 substance; others that it is something void, a simple possibility 
 of receiving bodies. Whatever it may be, whether substance 
 or not, space is manifestly a capacity constituted by three 
 terms of relation, length, breadth, and height ; three terms 
 perfectly distinct, equal, inseparable save by an abstraction 
 of the mind, and yet in their evident distinction forming 
 together but one single and indivisible extent, which is space. 
 I say that length, breadth, and height are terms of relation, 
 that is to say, terms which relate to each other, since the 
 sense of length is determined by the sense of breadth, and so 
 on. I say that these terms of relation are distinct from each 
 other ; for it is manifest that length is not breadth, and that 
 breadth is not height. I say, in fine, that these three terms, 
 notwithstanding their real distinction, form but one single and 
 indivisible extent. This, moreover, is perfectly clear to the 
 senses and to the mind. There is then neither obscurity nor 
 contradiction in this proposition : God is a unique substance, 
 containing in His indivisible essence terms of relation really 
 distinct in themselves. 
 
178 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 Shall I give a more positive example than that of space ? 
 For, notwithstanding the reality of space, you may perhaps- 
 accuse it of being a kind of abstraction. Take then the first 
 body you meet with. Every body, whatever it may be, a 
 stone or a diamond, is comprised under the three forms of 
 length, breadth, and height. Prisoner of extent, it bears it in 
 its simple and triple form, and becomes wholly incorporated in 
 it by a reciprocal penetration which makes of both one single 
 thing. Body is space, and space is body. Length, breadth, 
 and height are body, inasmuch as it is high. Divide the body 
 as you will, change its inmost matter at pleasure, the same 
 phenomenon of unity in plurality will always subsist ; so that 
 there is nothing in nature, space and body, that which 
 contains and that which is contained, which does not fall 
 under this definition as simple as it is marvellous — a unique 
 substance in three terms of relation really distinct from each, 
 other. 
 
 The universe speaks then like St. John. Not only does it 
 contain nothing contradictory to the logical rectitude of the 
 expressions which represent the mystery of the divine life ; 
 not only do these expressions take in it the character of a 
 general and algebraic formula of beings ; but the force of 
 analogy leads us also to apply this formula to the very principle 
 of beings, to that being who should have placed in his works a 
 copy only or a reflection of his own nature. 
 
 As soon, however, as we apply expressions or laws of 
 the visible order to God, their proportions at once become 
 changed, because they pass from the region of the finite to 
 that of the infinite. You must not wonder then, if Catholic 
 doctrine teaches you that terms of relation take, in God, the 
 form of personality. Let us clearly understand this word. 
 Every being, by that alone that it is itself and not another, 
 possesses what we call individuality. As long as it subsists, it 
 belongs to itself; it may increase or decrease, lose or gain; it 
 may communicate to others something of itself, but not itself. 
 It is itself as long as it is ; none other is or will ever be so,, 
 save itself. Such is the nature and force of individuality. 
 Suppose now that the individual being possesses consciousness- 
 and knowledge of its individuality, and it sees itself living and 
 distinct from all that is not itself, it would be a person. 
 Personality is no other thing than individuality having con- 
 sciousness and knowledge of itself. Individuality is the 
 
GOD. 179 
 
 characteristic of bodies : personality is the characteristic of 
 spirits. Now God is an infinite spirit ; all that which con- 
 stitutes Him, substance and terms of relation, is spirit. Conse- 
 quently each term of the divine relations possesses consciousness 
 and knowledge of itself, sees itself distinct from the others as 
 term of relation, one with them as substance : its distinction 
 marks its relative individuality ; consciousness and knowledge 
 of its individuality make it a person. Imagine space become 
 a spiritual being, you will have before you an analogous 
 phenomenon. Length, breadth, and height would possess 
 consciousness and knowledge of their relative individuality, 
 consciousness and knowledge of their absolute unity in space; 
 they would be one by substance, many by distinction raised to 
 the state of personality. 
 
 It remains for us to consider how many persons there are 
 in God, how and in what order they are manifested in Him. 
 
 Up to this point we have only employed analogies drawn 
 from external nature, but now, having to consider the number 
 and genesis of the divine persons, we must seek in more 
 distant regions a light approaching nearer to the light of God. 
 
 Our horizon and light are not limited to external nature. 
 We come in contact therewith by our body ; but it is out of us, 
 even of our body, and in addition, it is but dust and ashes ; 
 and if we possess something of God, it is but a vestige and not 
 an image of Him. Let us leave the dust and limit, and enter 
 into ourselves : Are we not spirits ? Yes, I am a spirit ! In 
 this material sepulchre which I inhabit as a traveller, a light 
 has been kindled, an immaterial and a pure light enlightening 
 my life, which is my true life, which descends from eternity, 
 and leads me thitherward as to my origin and nature. Why 
 do I speak of time and space ? Who shall stay me in these 
 abject comparisons? Ah ! I feel that you are ready to upbraid 
 me. You wonder that I imprison my soul and your own 
 in these inanities of the universe, where I see shadows only, 
 and touch but the dead ; from whence I have drawn only 
 faint and defaced -images of truth. You impatiently expect 
 me to open to you the arena of a higher vision ; I feel that it 
 is there before us. I see that which is unseen, I hear that 
 which is not heard, I read that which has neither form nor 
 colour. Truth has still a veil, but it is its personality ; it still 
 has secrets, but they are the last. Nature, withdraw ; and let 
 us behold God in ths spirit ! 
 
 n 2 
 
1S0 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 The mind lives, like God, of an immaterial life, and 
 consequently it knows that life in which the senses have no 
 part, and which is that of God. What, then, does the mind 
 when, shut up within itself, imposing silence on all the rest, it 
 lives of its own life ? What does it, gentlemen ? Two things 
 only — two inexhaustible acts, which are constantly renewed, 
 which never tire, and whose progress forms its whole labour 
 and delight — it thinks and it loves. First it thinks, that is 
 to say, it sees and combines objects divested of matter, form, 
 extent, and horizon ; a kind of universe before which the one 
 that we inhabit by the senses is but a close and dreary 
 dungeon. It dilates in that boundless sea of ideas. It calls 
 into life, to form its own life, nameless and endless worlds 
 which obey it with the quickness of lightning. It may be 
 ignorant of their value and disdain them ; pure contemplation 
 will be so much the more burdensome to it as it exercises 
 it the less and enchains its faculties to the abasements of 
 the body. But I speak not of these treasons of the mind 
 against itself; I speak of the mind as it is of its own nature, as 
 it lives when it wills to live at the height where God has 
 placed it. It thinks, then ; this is its first act. 
 
 But thought; is it the mind itself, or something distinct 
 from it? It is not the mind itself, for thought comes and 
 goes, whilst the mind always remains. I forget on the 
 morrow the ideas of the eve ; I call them up and dismiss 
 them; sometimes they beset me in spite of myself; my 
 thought and my mind are two. I speak to myself in the 
 solitude of my understanding ; I interrogate myself. I answer 
 to myself, my inner life is but a continual and mysterious 
 colloquy. And yet I am one. My thought, although distinct 
 from my mind, is not separate therefrom ; when it is present, 
 my mind sees it in itself; when it is absent, it seeks it in itself. 
 I am at the same time one and two. My intellectual life is a 
 life of relation ; I find again therein what I have seen in 
 external nature, namely, unity and plurality — unity resulting 
 from the very substance of the mind, plurality resulting from 
 its action. What, indeed, would the action of the mind be if 
 it were unfruitful? What would be its reason, its end, its 
 object? The mind, like the whole of nature, but in a much 
 higher manner, is then prolific. Whilst bodies divide in order 
 to multiply, the mind, created in the likeness of God, remains 
 inaccessible to all division. It engenders its thought without 
 
GOD. 1S1 
 
 emitting any of its incorruptible substance ; multiplies it without 
 losing anything of the perfection of unity. 
 
 You see that in rising from the outer to the inner life — from 
 the life of the body to that of the mind — we find again the 
 same law ; but we find it, as was inevitable, with an increase of 
 light and precision. Bodies, notwithstanding their marvellous 
 revelations, kept us too far from God ; the mind has borne us 
 even to the sanctuary of His essence and His life. Let us 
 enter, or at least, if we are forbidden to pass certain limits, let 
 us approach as near as divine goodness will permit us. 
 
 God is a spirit ; His first act, then, is to think. But His 
 thought could not be like ours, multiple, unceasingly appearing 
 but to vanish, and vanishing but to appear again. Ours is 
 multiple, because, since we are finite, we can but represent to 
 ourselves one by one the objects susceptible of being known 
 to us ; it is liable to perish, since in the crowding on of our 
 ideas one upon the another, the second dethrones the first, 
 and the third overthrows the second. On the contrary, in 
 God, whose activity is infinite, the mind at once engenders a 
 thought equal to itself, which fully represents it, and which 
 needs no second expression, because the first has exhausted 
 the abyss of things to know, that is to say, the abyss of the 
 infinite. That unique andabsolute thought, the first-born and the 
 last of the mind of God, remains eternally in His presence as 
 an exact representation of Himself, or, to speak the language 
 of the sacred books, as " His image, the brightness of his 
 glory, and the figure of his substance."* It is His word, His 
 utterance, His inner word, as our thought is also our utterance 
 and our word ; but differing from ours inasmuch as it is a 
 perfect word which speaks all to God in a single expression, 
 which speaks it always without repetition, and which St. John 
 heard in heaven when he thus opened his sublime Gospel : 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
 God, and the Word was God."t 
 
 And even as in man the thought is distinct from the mind 
 without being separated therefrom, so, in God, the thought is 
 distinct without being separated from the divine mind which 
 produces it. "The Word is consubstantial with the Father," 
 according to the expression of the council of Nice, which is but 
 the forcible expression of truth. But here, as in the rest, 
 
 * Cor. iv. 4. Heb. i. 3. John i. 1. 
 
182 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 there exists a great difference between God and man. In man 
 the thought is distinct from the mind by an imperfect dis- 
 tinction, because it is finite ; in God, the thought is distinct 
 from the mind by a perfect distinction, because it is infinite : 
 that is to say, that in man the thought does not attain to 
 becoming a person, whilst in God it does attain thereto. The 
 mystery of unity in plurality is not totally accomplished in our 
 intelligence, and this is why we cannot live of ourselves alone. 
 We seek from without the aliment of our life : we need a 
 foreign support, a thought other than ours, and yet nearly 
 allied to it. In God plurality is absolute as well as unity, and 
 therefore His life passes entirely within Himself, in the 
 ineffable colloquy between a divine person and a divine 
 person, between a father without generation and a son 
 eternally engendered. God thinks, and He sees Himself in 
 His thought as in another so akin to Him as to be but one with 
 Him in substance ; He is Father, since He has produced in 
 His own likeness a term of relation really and personally 
 distinct from Him ; He is one and two in all the force which 
 the infinite gives to unity and duality ; in contemplating His 
 thought, in beholding His image, in hearing His word, He is 
 able to utter in the ecstasy of the highest, the most real 
 paternity : " Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee."* 
 To-day ! In this day which has neither past, nor present, nor 
 future ; in this day which is eternity, that is to say, the in- 
 divisible duration of unchanging being. To-day ! For God 
 thinks to-day ; He engenders His Son to-day, He sees Him 
 to-day, He hears Him to-day, He lives to-day in that ineffable 
 act which has neither beginning nor end. 
 
 But is this all the life of God? Is the generation of His 
 Son His sole act, and does it consummate with its fecundity 
 all its beatitude ? No, gentlemen ; for, in ourselves, the 
 generation of thought is not the term where our life ends. 
 When we have thought, a second act appears : we love. 
 Thought is a movement which brings its objects into ourselves ; 
 love is a movement which draws us out of ourselves towards 
 that object in order to unite it to us and ourselves to it, and 
 thus to accomplish in its fulness the mystery of relations, that 
 is to say, the mystery of unity in plurality. Love is at the 
 
 * Psalm ii. 7. 
 
GOD. 183 
 
 same time distinct from the mind, and distinct from the 
 thought ; distinct from the mind in which it is engendered and 
 in which it dies ; distinct from the thought by its very 
 definition, since it is a movement of drawing together, whilst 
 the thought is a simple perception. And yet it proceeds from 
 the one and from the other, and forms but one with both. It 
 proceeds from the mind, whose act it is, and from the thought, 
 without which the mind would not see the object which it 
 should love ; and it remains one with the thought and the 
 mind in the same fount of life where we again find all the 
 three, always inseparable, and always distinct. 
 
 In God, it is the same. From the coeternal regard inter- 
 changed between the Father and the Son, springs a third term 
 of relation, proceeding from the one and the other, really 
 distinct from them, raised by the force of the infinite to 
 personality, and which is the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the 
 holy, the unfathomable and stainless movement of divine love. 
 As the Son exhausts knowledge, the Holy Ghost exhausts love 
 in God, and by Him the cycle of divine fecundity and life 
 closes. What more could be possible to God ? As a perfect 
 spirit He thinks and He loves ; He produces a thought equal 
 to Himself, and with His thought a love equal to both. What 
 more could He desire or produce ? And what more could you 
 desire if, like Him, you possessed unbounded thought and 
 unbounded love in the unity of your substance ? But, poor as 
 we are, thought and love are in our souls only a perception 
 and a possession of a foreign object ; we are obliged to leave 
 ourselves in order to seek our life, to appease our thirst for 
 knowledge, our hunger for love. And instead of turning to 
 the only source of truth and charity, which is God, we wed 
 ourselves to nature, which is but a shadow ; to the life of time, 
 which is but death. Or, returning to ourselves in a hopeless 
 •effort, we ask from our own powerlessness the accomplishment 
 of the one and triple mystery which is divine felicity ; we 
 endeavour to satisfy ourselves in the pride of a solitary thought, 
 in the delight of personal love, and, like dust which consumes 
 itself, we waste away in a withering grasp of egotism which 
 would be infinite if nothingness could be infinite. 
 
 Oh ! lift up your eyes to heaven ! There is life because 
 there is true fecundity. It is there that the spectacle of the 
 laws of nature, and the study of the laws of your own minds, 
 
184 THE INNER LIFE OF 
 
 lead you. All teaches you that being and activity are one 
 and the same thing, that activity is expressed by action, and 
 that action is necessarily productive or fruitful ; that the end 
 of fecundity is to establish relations between similar beings ; 
 that relation is unity in plurality, from whence results life, 
 beauty, and goodness. And that thus, God, the infinite being, 
 the pre-eminently good, beautiful, and living being, is infallibly 
 the most magnificent totality of relations, perfect unity and 
 perfect plurality, the unity of substance in the plurality of 
 persons ; a primordial mind, a thought equal to the mind that 
 engenders it, a love equal to the mind and the thought whence 
 it proceeds ; all the three, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, ancient as 
 eternity, great as infinity, one in beatitude as in the substance 
 from whence they derive their identical divinity. Behold God ! 
 Behold God, the cause and pattern of all beings ! Nothing 
 exists here below which is not a vestige or an image of Him, 
 according to the degree of its perfection. Space reveals Him 
 in its single and triple plenitude ; bodies proclaim Him in the 
 three dimensions which constitute their solidity; the mind 
 shows us a nearer vision of Him in the production of the two 
 highest things of this world, if indeed they are of this world, 
 namely, thought and love; in fine, the very tissue of the 
 universe which is everywhere but relations, is before us, as it 
 were, a picture which the divine light passes over, penetrates, 
 and so gives to us above the visible heaven a glimpse of the 
 invisible heaven of the Trinity. 
 
 All laws take their source in this seat of primordial relations. 
 If human society would aspire to perfection, it has no other 
 model to study and to imitate. It will find there the first 
 social constitution in the first community ; equality of nature 
 between the persons who compose it ; order in their equality, 
 since the Father is the principle of the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son ; unity, the cause 
 of plurality ; thought, receiving from above its being and its 
 light; love, terminating and crowning all the relations. These 
 laws are full of beauty, and if legislators could realise them 
 upon earth, they would produce a work whose privilege and 
 secret have until now belonged to the Catholic Church alone. 
 
 Let us halt here. I have not demonstrated the mystery of 
 the Holy Trinity to you, but I have placed it in perspective, 
 where pride will not mistake it without insulting itself. Let us 
 
GOD. CS 
 
 forgive that satisfaction to pride if it be jealous of claiming it. 
 For yourselves, inspired by humbler and higher wisdom, give 
 thanks to God, who, in revealing to us the mystery of His life, 
 has not overwhelmed our intelligence by a sterile light, but has 
 given to us the key of nature and of our own mind. 
 
THE 
 
 CREATION OF THE WORLD BY GOD. 
 
 My Lord, — Gentlemen, 
 
 We have penetrated even to the inner life of God ; we 
 know what He is, and what is His life. The course of ideas 
 would lead us now to seek what is His character; but two 
 words will suffice for us on this head. The character of God 
 is perfection ; whatever is included in the idea of perfection — 
 immutability, wisdom, justice, goodness — must be attributed 
 to God in an infinite degree, and forms His metaphysical and 
 moral character. The difficulties which may spring from these 
 divers attributes will naturally be solved when we come to 
 treat of the relations between God and created beings. We 
 pass over them then at a bound, and find ourselves logically in 
 presence of this question : God being the admitted principle 
 •of things, how have they emanated from Him? By what 
 process, and above all, from what motives ? 
 
 Here we begin to touch more directly the secret of our 
 destinies ; for they unquestionably take their source in the 
 process by which we have sprung from the bosom of our 
 cause, and yet much more in the motives that led the self- 
 existing being to produce something which was not himself. 
 What then is this process ? What are these motives ? 
 
 Before I answer, I beg your particular attention to the state 
 ■of the question. We are not now inquiring whether the 
 world is or is not a work : that question is judged. Who- 
 soever is not a pantheist is compelled to admit that the world 
 has a cause, that it is the work of a superior intelligence and 
 power ; now we have discarded pantheism, we have recognised 
 
GOD. • 187 
 
 God in the very infirmity of nature, and therefore we say of 
 Him with the people and the poet : 
 
 " The Eternal is His name, the world is His work." 
 
 It is worthy of attention that the philosophers of antiquity 
 •who believed in the eternity of matter, such as Plato, could 
 not however help recognising in the totality of visible things 
 the character of a studied work, and they called God the great 
 Architect of the universe. In fact the universe bears the 
 visible sign of its personal powerlessness, if I may so speak ; 
 and those even who do not reach the idea of its creation, see 
 in it the hand of the artist who formed and constructed it. 
 They see it made, although they do not see it created, other- 
 wise the idea of God would have no reason in their minds. 
 The production of the world is a dogma which logically 
 precedes the dogma of the existence of God. We say : The 
 world is produced, therefore God is ; and not : God is, there- 
 fore the world is produced. It is the reasoning of the ancient 
 theist philosophers as well as of the Christian philosophers, 
 only it was less complete in the former than in the latter. 
 Aristotle, for instance, after having admitted the eternity of 
 matter, could no longer mount to a supreme cause, save by 
 ■discovering something in nature whose presence could not be 
 explained without a higher principle. Such to him was the 
 movement of bodies. The analysis of this phenomenon led 
 him to see the necessity of a first motor, and he wrote this 
 proposition, which is almost divine in its depth and originality: 
 *' There is something immovable which is the principle of 
 movement." 
 
 Once more, then, we are not inquiring whether the world 
 is produced, but how and why it has been produced. 
 
 Two systems have divided minds outside the pale of 
 ■Catholic doctrine. The first affirms that the world has been 
 produced by the co-operation of God and a certain inferior 
 substance coeternal with God. Picture to yourselves, on the 
 one hand, the absolute and perfect being : on the other, a vile, 
 shapeless, lifeless substance, unable of itself to rise from that 
 abject state, and yet uncreated like God, eternal like God, 
 self-existing like God — matter, in a word, and yet matter 
 .stripped of the glory in which we see it clothed ; that had 
 God left it there, it would be there still, a sort of empty 
 
iSS THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 - and eternal tomb, receiving neither life nor death. But God 
 beheld it, He was moved with pity at the infinite greatness of 
 its poverty. He spake a word, and the world, bursting the 
 inflexible bonds of its conception, appeared as our eyes now 
 admire it, ancient in itself, new in form, father and son at the 
 same time, son of one more perfect than itself, father of itself 
 by co-operation. 
 
 This ingenious poesy has not satisfied all minds. Many- 
 have refused to accept it. Before logic as well as in itself they 
 have seen the poverty of that singular substance, half God, 
 half nothingness — God in the eternity of its being, nothingness 
 in its powerlessness to give itself the mode of its existence — 
 and in order to explain the birth of the world they have 
 imagined the system of emanation. In this second order of 
 ideas God has drawn the substance of the universe from His 
 own substance, but without communicating to it His personality 
 or His divinity. 
 
 Catholic doctrine rejects this system as well as the other. 
 For either the divine substance is entire and indivisible in the 
 world, in which case the world is God ; or the divine substance 
 is but in part in the world by virtue of emanation, and then it 
 loses the absolute character without which the mind cannot 
 conceive it. 
 
 It is not necessary to make a great effort of thought in 
 order to seize the vice or rather the absurdity of these theories 
 on the origin of the world. We find here a striking example 
 of the strength and the weakness of the human mind. It has 
 seen clearly that visible nature is inexplicable without the inter- 
 vention of a higher nature ; but — I know not why — it has not 
 been able to determine the mode and measure of that inter- 
 vention. Struck by the poverty of the universe, it denied to 
 it self-existence in order to make it an emanation of the divinity; 
 then, not conceiving either that God could come forth from 
 Himself, or that His substance became impoverished by that 
 emission, it attributed to the world a fund of original vitality, 
 but poor and held within the most extreme limits of incapacity. 
 It is always the same contradiction. It would seem that only 
 a little logical vigour was needed in order to draw positive con- 
 clusions in the fulness of truth ; man was unequal to this. His 
 eye, wandering between two abysses, dared neither to accept 
 the one nor the other, and sought between them an imaginary 
 resting-place. 
 
GOD. ' 189 
 
 Open now the Bible and read its first phrase : " In the 
 beginning God created heaven and earth." What simplicity, 
 and what certainty ! Moses does not affirm even the existence 
 of God ; he names and defines by an action which at the same 
 time explains the universe. The universe is not eternal, nor is 
 it an emanation of the divine substance ; it was made in the 
 full meaning of the word, it was made by a pure act of will. 
 " God spake, and all was made," said David ; and this is the 
 idea which the human mind was unable to discover, even in 
 order to dispute it The human mind ignored it, although it 
 was the key of all, and, since it has been revealed, the human 
 mind has rejected it as an incomprehensible fiction. What, 
 says the mind, is it to make being by an act of the will ? How 
 can that magical operation be conceived? And what is an 
 idea that offers no seizable image to the understanding ? Man 
 acts, but always upon a substance pre-existing his action ; he 
 produces, but only simple modifications in the subject where 
 he exercises his power. Creation is an abyss in which he sees 
 nothing but a name and despair ; a name instead of an idea, 
 despair instead of a solution. 
 
 What think you ? Is it necessary for us to represent an 
 act to ourselves in order to have an idea of it? Is it not 
 enough that the force of logic constrains us to affirm its exist- 
 ence? I grant for the moment that reason in no way seizes 
 the creating act ; but it sees that the world is neither eternal, 
 nor has it emanated from the substance of God, and, driven 
 to the last extremity, concludes that it was made by means of 
 creation ; for what other issue remains to it ? Assuredly if the 
 mind sees anything here it sees but an impossibility, and there- 
 fore it takes the only road open to it, an obscure one however, 
 but enlightened at least by the light contained in every logical 
 necessity. Is it true moreover that the word creation represents 
 nothing to our understanding? Is it true that we cannot 
 conceive how the divine will is able to pronounce that sovereign 
 word : fiat ! I should wonder if it were so ; for, if we have 
 unravelled in our intelligence images which have led us even 
 to the sacred vestibule of the uncreated essence, why should 
 not the mystery of our personal will teach us something touch- 
 ing the mystery of the divine will? The will is the seat of 
 power ; by it man commands and is obeyed. Command ! 
 What a word ! Have you ever reflected upon it ? One man 
 utters a word: it is heard, and all is in motion. Another speaks: 
 
190 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 nothing is done. Both pretended to command, only one has. 
 succeeded. It is because one only uttered the word that con- 
 tains power, the word that expresses will. Many think they 
 express it, because they speak the word ; but few do so in 
 reality. It is the most rare expression in the world, although 
 it is the most often usurped ; and when a man possesses its- 
 terrible secret, were he the poorest and the last of all, be sure 
 that some day you will see him above you. Of such was- 
 Caesar. 
 
 Have you ever remarked the part which the will plays in 
 the occult sciences, and how no one becomes master of another 
 there save by the energy of a kind of imperative fluid? Virile 
 natures offer greater resistance to the perturbations of these 
 secret arts, and this is why the ancient oracles chose the feeble 
 mouth of the pythoness for their organ. Pardon this allusion 
 to questionable mysteries ; truth penetrates all, even those 
 things whose nature is veiled and uncertain. Thus the clouds 
 bear the sun in concealing it. 
 
 Be that as it may, none will dispute that the seat of power 
 is in the will. It is by the will that man wields empire over 
 his fellow-men, and by it also he moves his own body. There- 
 fore, when Catholic doctrine teaches us that the world has 
 sprung from an act of the divine will, it teaches us something 
 which is verified by our own experience of the seat where lies 
 the principle of our own force. In ourselves, as in God, the 
 will produces force ; but what is force ? I stand still ; suddenly 
 my arm is raised, my hand is outstretched, my head is erect, 
 my eye brightens : what has happened ? Has any foreign 
 power seized upon me and deprived me of my repose ? No ; 
 within myself, in a calm and immaterial chamber, an act has 
 been produced. I have said : Let my body move, and it has 
 moved. At the same time I have conveyed to my members, 
 and in an exact proportion, the quantity of force necessary to 
 their movement ; I have willed, and acted. Observe ! the 
 movement did not exist. It did not exist in my body, which 
 was still : it did not exist in my soul, which is of a spiritual 
 nature : I have produced it by a simple act of my will. I have 
 created it. The proposition of Aristotle is verified in myself: 
 " Immobility is the principle of movement." What is this but 
 a creation ? Say you that the motive power pre-existed in my 
 will ? Be it so ; but what is the motive power but the prin- 
 ciple that produces movement ? Catholic doctrine does not 
 
GOD. 191 
 
 teach that God creates without a creative power of which this 
 will is the se.it and the organ. The divine fiat, like the 
 human fiat, has an efficient cause, without which it would be 
 but an empty word, a fruitless desire. 
 
 Observe that the bodily movement is exterior to the soul 
 which produces it by an act of the inner will. Herein lies the 
 difference between generation and creation. When the mind 
 conceives a thought, it engenders, because the thought is of 
 the same nature as itself and dwells in itself; when the will 
 suseitates the movement of the body, it creates, because the 
 movement is not of the same nature as itself, and springs from 
 without. These two acts have nothing in common. The first is 
 the principle of the inner life ; the second of the outer life. The 
 first is the life of God and of our soul ; the second is the hie of 
 the world and of our body. All activity is reduced to these 
 two terms, to engender and to create, that is to say, to pro- 
 duce within and without No being exists without this double 
 faculty. Were the first wanting it would have no inner and 
 personal life ; were the second wanting it would have no outer 
 life. Generation concentrates, creation dilates ; they form 
 together the mystery of all life. 
 
 Judge now whether reason forms no idea of the creating- 
 act. It is true that in God that act assumes a strength which 
 surpasses our feeble powers. Whilst the movement created 
 by us decreases and soon dies, the things created by God 
 strengthen into a durable substance. This is the same dif- 
 ference which we have already remarked between the produc- 
 tion of the divine thought and the production of human 
 thought : the characteristic of the work of God is subsistency, 
 whilst whatsoever man does passes from being to nothingness 
 with lamentable speed. But this passing away of our works 
 does not destroy their reality, or their analogy with the works 
 of the infinite. We really engender like God, we really create 
 like Him j we in an incomplete and a relative manner, God in 
 a perfect and an absolute manner. And we understand the 
 two mvsteries of generation and creation, which form life, 
 because we are really, though imperfectly, generators and 
 creators. 
 
 This established, your place and your condition are hence- 
 forth known to you ; you are not sovereigns, you are servants. 
 Sovereignty is existence by itself; you do not possess it in any 
 degree. You have been made, you have been "made out of 
 
W THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 nothing,'' according to the energetic expression of the mother 
 of the Maccabees, and at the very most you can but pretend to 
 the title of children of God. This is the extreme term of your 
 ambition. If the divine goodness has shed in your soul and 
 upon your brow some traces of likeness to Himself, you are 
 His children, and He permits you, from your very dust, to 
 address to His throne the name of Father. This is your 
 highest glory. Pretend not then to sovereignty ; what is sove- 
 reignty in a being who lives by another ? And yet there are 
 men who would invest you with it. For this, rationalism 
 strains all its efforts to prove the eternity of the world, and to 
 seek for signs of indefectibility in ruin and death. For do you 
 think that the human mind would rush so eagerly upon these 
 questions if they did not involve consequences for the direc- 
 tion of the soul and life ? Be sure that all is there. To say 
 that the world is uncreated is to say that man is sovereign ; to 
 say that it is created is to say that man is a servant, or at most 
 a son. The first doctrine gives us the right to define our- 
 selves like God : " I am who am." * The second places in 
 our hearts the prayer of the Gospel : " Our Father who art in 
 heaven." 
 
 Between these we have to decide ; we must live here below 
 as God or as creature, in the modesty of obedience or in the 
 pride of sovereignty. Which will you choose ? Some sages 
 will tell you that you are great ; they take the sublime part of 
 your being, and would persuade you that there is nothing 
 above you. Others will place a low and dishonoured image 
 of yourselves before you ; in the lowest regions of your nature 
 they will discover secrets that will fill you with shame, and yet 
 it is still but to flatter your pride. Catholic doctrine alone 
 places you in your true position, without insult or adulation. 
 It sees your greatness and proves it to you ; it sees your 
 wretchedness and shows it to you ; it supports you against the 
 pride that inflates and against the pride that dishonours you ; 
 in fine, it reveals to you at the same time the knowledge of 
 your greatness and your wretchedness, in that single phrase 
 which it alone has pronounced : Man is a creature, but he is 
 the creature of God. 
 
 The creature of God ! Why ? What has moved that 
 inaccessible being to look beneath Himself and call forth that 
 
 * Exodus iii. 14. 
 
GOD. 
 
 r 93 
 
 which was not ? It concerns us to know, for it is evident that 
 the beginning and end of our destinies lie in the motive of our 
 creation. Lost as we were in the cold shadows of inexistence, 
 unable of ourselves to rise from the depths of that tomb, we 
 had no other hope, no other germ of life, than in the will of 
 God, and the will of God could only turn towards us, pity, and 
 call us, by virtue of a motive which determined it. No reason- 
 able being, in fact, acts without reason under pain of acting at 
 hazard, and of ignoring what he does by ignoring why he does 
 it. Therefore St. Thomas of Aquinas, seeking before us the 
 motive of creation, begins by laying down this maxim : " Every 
 being acts for an end ; " and he calls the end by the name of 
 final caicse, in order to show that, being the motive of the acts 
 of the will, it is really the principle of that which the will pro- 
 duces. God, in creating the world, was then moved by an 
 end, that is to say, by an object which He purposed to attain, 
 and which was the term of His thought, His will, and His 
 action. What was that end? If, in order to learn this, we 
 study the springs of our own determinations, we shall easily 
 find among them the motive of interest or of utility. We will 
 and we act because we have wants ; our movements are the 
 efforts of a being which does not live of itself, and which seeks 
 from without the support or the increase of its life. But God 
 has no wants; He lives of Himself, and in Himself; nothing is 
 wanting to the plenitude of His being and His felicity ; how 
 should He act from interest? How should He have created 
 man and the world to fill the void of His nature, or to add to 
 the infinite resources and delights not yet to be found therein ? 
 Evidently He possessed them all ; He had nothing to gain, 
 nothing to lose, in the creation of the universe. The out- 
 ward manifestation of His omnipotence was a supremely 
 disinterested act. 
 
 It is true — I have often heard, and you have heard it your- 
 selves — that " God created the world for His glory." But that 
 expression has two meanings, one which is exact, and which I 
 will soon explain to you ; the other, which is not admissible, 
 because it supposes that the divine will may be moved by the 
 reason of personal utility. Let us put aside, then, for an 
 instant, terms ill-defined, and continue to seek what was the 
 motive of God in calling the world into existence. 
 
 Man does not act from interest only : he is capable also of 
 acting from duty, that is to say, of sacrificing his own to the 
 
 o 
 
J94 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 common benefit, in the name of a supreme law regulating the 
 relations between beings, and imposing acts upon them which 
 turn to the benefit of others. This motive is infinitely more 
 noble than the first : it draws the soul from egotism, and, as a 
 moving principle, gives it an impulsion from above, which, 
 being no other thing than the view and the sentiment of 
 eternal justice, appears worthy to concentrate itself in God and 
 to have commanded His resolution when He created the world. 
 Nevertheless it is not so. God is justice itself. As soon as He 
 acts, He acts under the empire of that law of equity which is 
 comprised in His essence ; but before acting externally for the 
 first time, before founding the universe, He owed nothing to it. 
 He was free towards it in all the liberty which being possesses 
 before nothingness. He could communicate existence to it or 
 refuse it, according to His pleasure, without affecting any right, 
 without neglecting any duty. Man himself owes nothing to 
 nothingness, and in drawing forth another man from his generous 
 bosom, he performs an act of full and absolute sovereignty. 
 He is a father because he has so willed it, as God is a creator 
 because He has so willed it. 
 
 But did no motive then inspire the creative will ? It can- 
 not be so, and this we have already shown. The motive 
 exists ; let us not grow weary of seeking for it in the mystery 
 of our own deliberations. 
 
 Above duty, if it be possible, or at least in a place not less 
 elevated and sacred, lies another moving principle of our 
 actions : it is love. We advance, because we love ; we suffer, 
 we live, we die, because we love. Love guides our most ardent 
 designs, and if we sometimes feel ourselves able to do all 
 things, if, urging life and death before us with a force almost 
 sacrilegious, we sometimes think that already we possess the 
 energy of immortality, it is love assuredly, it is love that per- 
 suades us and bears us along. No courser is more rapid, none 
 will ever bound over more abysses with greater pleasure, none 
 will carry us farther, higher, or give us a stronger sensation of 
 a being about to create. Was it then love that moved the 
 divine will, and unceasingly urged Him to create ? Was it love 
 who was our first father ? But, alas ! love itself has a cause in 
 the beauty of its object, and what beauty could that dead and 
 icy shadow which preceded the universe have possessed before 
 God ? That shadow to which we can give a name only by 
 betraying truth ! What could nothingness have said to 
 
GOD. ' 19S 
 
 the heart of God ? How is it possible to love that which is 
 not ? Or even, how is it possible to love finite beauty when 
 in possession of perfect and immeasurable beauty ? Already 
 love had produced in God its ineffable fruit ; already the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost coeternally respired in the intimate 
 colloquy of their triple, and single, and infinite beauty. They 
 saw, they felt, they spake together their beatitude, and all three 
 immutable in one and the same rapture, they could neither 
 see, nor feel, nor hear anything which merited from them a 
 single sensation of their love. The mystery was fully accom- 
 plished — great God ! and what remained then to move Thy 
 heart, and cause Thee to see us from afar in that complete 
 inanity in which we did not even wait for Thee ? 
 
 Something remained, do not doubt, something more gene- 
 rous than interest, more elevated than duty, more powerful 
 than love. Sound the depths of your own hearts, and if you 
 find it difficult to understand me, if your own gifts are unknown 
 to you, hear Bossuet, who speaks of you : " When God," said 
 he, " made the heart of man, He first placed in it goodness." 
 This is divine language, and had Bossuet uttered but this 
 single phrase, I should call him a great man. Goodness ! 
 That is to say, that virtue which consults no interest, which 
 does not wait for the command of duty, which needs not to be 
 solicited by the attraction of the beautiful, but which leans so 
 much the more towards an object as that object is poorer, 
 more wretched, more abandoned, more worthy of pity ! It is 
 true, it is indeed true, man possesses that adorable faculty. I 
 appeal to yourselves as witnesses. It is not genius, or glory, 
 or love, that measures the elevation of his soul ; it is goodness. 
 It is goodness that gives to the human physiognomy its highest 
 and most invincible charm ; it is goodness that draws us 
 together; it is goodness that brings blessings to misfortune, 
 and that is everywhere, from earth to heaven, the great medi- 
 ator. See the poor cretin at the foot of the Alps : his eye has 
 no lustre, he neither smiles nor weeps, he knows not even his 
 own degradation, he seems as it were an effort of nature to 
 insult herself in dishonouring her noblest production. Do not 
 think that he has not found the way to some heart, and that 
 his abjection has snatched from him the friendship of the 
 universe. No, he is loved, he has a mother, he has brothers 
 and sisters, he has a place by the cottage hearth, the best and 
 most honoured place, because he is the most disinherited. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 The bosom that nourished him holds him still, and the super- 
 stition of love speaks of him only as a blessing sent from God. 
 Such is man ! 
 
 But can I say : Such is man, without saying also : Such is 
 God ? If God were not the primordial ocean of goodness, 
 and if in forming our heart He had not infused into it some- 
 thing of His own, from whence should we have obtained it ? 
 Yes, God is good. Yes, goodness is the attribute which in 
 Him concentrates all the other attributes, and it is not without 
 reason that antiquity graved upon the pediments of its temples 
 that famous inscription in which goodness preceded greatness. 
 But all perfection supposes an object to which it is applied. 
 An object, then, as vast and profound as divine goodness itself 
 was needful to it : God has found it. From the centre of His 
 fulness He beheld that being without beauty, form, life, or 
 name, that being without being which we call nothingness ; He 
 heard the cry of worlds that were not, the cry of immeasured 
 misery calling to unbounded goodness. Eternity moved and 
 said to time : Begin ! Time and the universe obeyed the will 
 of God, as the will of God had yielded, but freely, to the 
 inspiration of goodness. 
 
 I say freely, because all the divine perfections operate 
 within themselves in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and 
 because their outer action is thenceforth no longer necessary 
 to their dilation, but a spontaneous effect of the free will of 
 God. God was good before He created the world, and His 
 absolute goodness was infinitely exercised in the eternal com- 
 munication of the three uncreated persons. Therefore, when 
 He made the universe, He made it from a free impulsion of 
 His heart, and not from any necessity. He made it gratui- 
 tously, without the motive of interest, the constraint of duty, 
 or the inducement of merited love, in the sole object of 
 satisfying His goodness by communicating life. Therefore, 
 St. Thomas of Aquinas, in treating this question, says that 
 "God is the only perfectly liberal being, because He alone 
 acts not for His own benefit, but because of His goodness." * 
 
 This conclusion is of the highest importance for the whole 
 course of Christian dogma, and it is needful to solve the diffi- 
 culties which it presents, in the theological as well as in the 
 rational points of view. 
 
 * Summa, quest. 44, art. 4, 
 
GOD. 197 
 
 Theologically, a text of Scripture is opposed to us which 
 is thus written : Uxiversa propter semetipsum operatus 
 est Domixus — T : :i Lord hath made all things for himself* 
 These words possess a character of precision and clearness 
 which would seem to overshadow all the ideas we have been 
 placing before you. It is, however, easy to explain them. 
 God could not, more than any other being, draw from outside 
 of Himself the motives of His determinations. He finds them 
 in His nature, and in yielding to them, if I may so speak, it is 
 manifest that He acts for Himself, since He acts under the 
 impulsion of something which is Himself. But goodness 
 possesses that excellent and singular quality, that its object is 
 the good of others, and that in acting from goodness we never- 
 theless act for others and in a disinterested manner. Therefore 
 it is true to say that in creating the world from goodness, God 
 has created it for Himself, since His goodness is Himself; and 
 vet it is equally true to say that He created it freely, since 
 He intended the good of His creatures, and since that good 
 could not increase His own felicity. But even had it in- 
 creased His felicity, the motive of goodness would still remain 
 pure and irreproachable, for nothing is more perfect than to 
 find happiness in communicating our own happiness. That 
 egotism, it" such it be, is that of great souls, and although 
 the creature may be profitless to God, doubtless we must 
 believe that our love is not indifferent to Him, and that, with- 
 out increasing His happiness, it makes us dear and precious 
 in His sight 
 
 It would also be easy for me to explain that other ex- 
 pression to you: 'God created the world for His glory." 
 The inner glory of God is in His sovereign perfection; His 
 outer glory consists in being known and loved by free 
 intelligences; and it is beyond question that He has in fact 
 given being to those intelligences in order to be known and 
 loved by them. But why has He willed to call them to know 
 and to love Him ? Is it for their happiness or for His personal 
 benefit? from the motive of goodness or that of interest? Y\ e 
 have shown, with St. Thomas of Aquinas, that it was from the 
 motive of goodness, and the expression under our notice 
 decides notnir.r. since it does not even touch the question. It 
 suffices to cef.ne the word glory in order to be convinced 
 of this. 
 
 * Proverbs xvi. 4. 
 
198 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD V.Y 
 
 Let us now approach the objections of rationalism. 
 
 So far from admitting that the world is a work of divine 
 goodness, rationalism does not even see in it a work of justice. 
 Is it just, say they, to dispose of another's condition without 
 his sanction ? When, in the exercise of His incomprehensible 
 omnipotence, it pleased God to call intelligent beings into 
 life, beings capable of judging whether existence was a blessing 
 or a curse, had He the right to act without their consent ? 
 The Romans have written with as much eloquence as truth : 
 Nemini invito beneficium confertur — There is no benefit 
 ■without the will that accepts it. By what right have we been 
 drawn forth from nothingness to be thrown, without our con- 
 sent, into that gulf of misery called life ? What ! we reposed 
 peacefully in the eternity of our sleep, when suddenly an 
 invisible hand seized upon us, a strange voice called us ; it 
 said with power : Come forth, see, feel, think, love ! And, 
 obeying that merciless order in spite of ourselves, after having 
 spent hours or years amidst confused realities and vanished 
 illusions, suddenly, again that hand which had dragged us from 
 our first tomb, that hand rejects us ! And the same voice 
 which called us cries out to us : It is enough, lie down, close 
 thy eyes, quit this world, begone ! But if we were made for 
 ourselves, should we not have been consulted in order to learn 
 when, how, and under what conditions life was to be given to us > 
 This has not been thought of : life came to us as death comes, 
 with insult and scorn to us. Ah ! let vain theology speak as it 
 will, this is not the lamentation of the mind ; it is the groaning 
 of the soul, it is the sincerity of suffering and the accusation of 
 the universe. Leave us, at least, to weep over ourselves, 
 respect the desolation of ages, and do not add to the misery of 
 our destiny that other misery of desiring to understand it. 
 
 I should be silent before the sound of those accents which 
 have sometimes troubled you, and which perhaps still trouble 
 many wounded hearts in this assembly. I should be silent, or 
 rather I should lend my lips to the tremblings of complaint and 
 ingratitude if I took in this question the same starting-point as- 
 yourselves. Yes, if this life were the life, if this light were the 
 light, if this world were the world, yes, I should hide my fore- 
 head in my hands, and sink with you into an abyss of despair 
 wherein I would hear no word of consolation. But do you 
 believe this, and has Christianity so taught you? Do you 
 believe that this life is the life, that this light is the light, that 
 
GOD. 199 
 
 this world is the world ? Do you believe it ? and who has so 
 taught you? Yourselves, none but yourselves. Learn then 
 this from me : I do not believe you. I believe that this life is 
 a road, that this light is a shadow, that this world is a prelude. 
 I believe that life is God, that light is God, that the world 
 is God. And I belieye with all my soul, at the price of 
 my blood, if needful, that God has created us to live by Him, 
 to be enlightened by Him, to find in Him the substance of 
 which all that we see is but an incapable and a painful image. 
 This is my faith, it is this faith which I proclaim to you ; and 
 in order to dispute it you must deal with it such as it is, and 
 not such as you take it in the injustice or discouragement of 
 your own minds. 
 
 Yes, we all suffer : woe to him who denies it ! But we 
 suffer from the road and not from life. Life is abundance, 
 peace, joy, fulness; when we love God we receive certain 
 hallowed foretastes, certain yet imperfect delights, which suffice 
 to make us forget the present world, or at least courageously to 
 accept its passing trials. Is it meet, indeed, for a traveller 
 awaited by unerring love, to complain of the road, to curse the 
 dust he treads upon, and the sun that lights up his way ? For 
 my part, born to sorrow like the rest, charged with the two 
 wounds of my forefathers — anguish of soul and infirmity of 
 body — I bless God who has made me and who waits for me, 
 I ask not to be consulted by Him about my condition ; between 
 the nothingness from whence He called me and the eternity 
 He has promised me the choice is doubtful only to parricidal 
 folly, and God should have counted upon my virtue as He 
 counted upon His goodness. Eternal justice could not suppose ■ 
 the refusal of eternal beatitude : it was entitled to expect from 
 us gratitude, love, and the acceptation of a trial without which 
 love could not have been shown, and at least in ingratitude 
 itself, silence and just remorse. 
 
 Nevertheless you continue, and you recall to me a thought 
 which for a long time troubled the adolescence of my reason. 
 If all of us, such as we are, intelligent and free creatures, 
 attained the life of eternity, it is certain that the sufferings of 
 the present life would vanish from our minds, not being 
 "worthy," as St. Paul says, "to be compared with the glory to 
 come, that shall be revealed to us."* But it is not so. Catholic 
 
 * Rom. viii. 18. 
 
200 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 doctrine teaches that a portion of created intelligent beings do 
 not attain to the reign of God, and thus that creation, instead 
 of turning to their happiness, turns finally to their eternal woe. 
 By their own fault, it is true, but what does that signify ? God 
 knew it, God had foreseen it. Was it an act of goodness to 
 place beings in the world whom infallible foreknowledge beheld, 
 whether or not from their own fault, excluded from the benefit 
 of their primitive vocation, and hurled into a depth of ruin 
 equal to the good prepared for them? If God, in creation, had 
 intended to act only in virtue of His sovereignty, by an act of 
 power and choice, it might perhaps be conceived that He had 
 not looked to the result, and that the final misery of a part of 
 His creatures, caused by their prevarication, might have appeared 
 to 'Him as an accident incapable of disarming the right and effi- 
 cacy of His will. But you tell us that the supreme fiat was 
 pronounced from goodness, from the desire to communicate 
 life and glory to possible beings whom God perceived in the 
 horizon of His thought. Are this end and motive compatible 
 with the eternal fall of the lost intelligences? Doubtless we 
 admit that Catholic doctrine does not teach as an article of 
 faith that it is the smaller number of mankind who are saved. 
 Much less does it teach that in the totality of intelligent 
 hierarchies it is the lesser number who maintain their titles 
 before the justice of God. But what of this ? Were there but 
 one man, but one single intelligence disinherited from the true 
 life and for ever reprobated, it would be enough to accuse 
 divine goodness, or at least not to attribute to it the creation 
 of the universe. Seek then another motive for the omnipotence 
 of God ; say that He has done what He willed to do because 
 He willed it; that He was Master, that crime and ingratitude 
 could not deprive him of His sovereign rights. You may 
 perhaps be listened to, but do not talk of the goodness of God 
 in presence of that terrible image of eternal damnation : let us 
 tremble before His justice, and be silent before His impenetrable 
 majesty. 
 
 I shall not be silent, for what you have just said suffices to 
 answer you. You admit that the creative power enters into the 
 attributes which constitute the divine essence ; it is impossible 
 for God to be stripped of it by the disobedience of His 
 creature. To say, in fact, that God has no right to create a 
 being who might misuse His gifts, is to say that the wicked are 
 able to destroy God by hindering the exercise of one of His 
 
GOD. 201 
 
 essential attributes. What could be more vain or more unreason- 
 able ? Now, this admitted, the difficulty vanishes. In fact, 
 even when God acts from goodness, He acts in the indivisible 
 totality of His essence ; He acts with His power, His wisdom, 
 His justice, and all the inalienable totality of His perfections. 
 Goodness moves Him, but goodness which abdicates nothing 
 of the rest of His divinity. Goodness could not hinder Him 
 from being wise, just, powerful, supreme, and if by His fore- 
 knowledge He perceive a creature so ungrateful as to turn His 
 gifts against Himself, He will not withdraw the blessing from 
 him, since He would then take from Himself the power to 
 create under just conditions; this He should not do, this He 
 could not do without ceasing to exist. You will say, perhaps : 
 One thing is power in itself, another is the exercise of power ; 
 God could not lose power, but He is free not to exercise it. 
 Assuredly; but you must understand that whosoever is free 
 not to exercise a power, is free also to exercise it, under pain 
 of not possessing it. If then you grant that God is free, all His 
 attributes considered, to create a being who may abuse the 
 blessing of life, why should you wonder that in fact He has 
 exercised that liberty which belongs to Him and which you 
 attribute to Him? 
 
 You still say, however this may be, metaphysically, the 
 heart naturally rejects such a conclusion. Where is the father 
 who would place a son in the world if he foresaw that life 
 would even by his fault be a fatal gift to him ? And is not 
 God our father? Ought He not to feel more tenderness 
 towards us than is felt by a mortal man ? 
 
 Here the comparison wants force, because it is wanting in 
 justice. God has not created isolated individuals, or even 
 worlds ; He has created one unique world in which all beings 
 are linked together by relations of mutual dependence and 
 service, and not one of these can be withdrawn without 
 entailing the suffering of all the others. In the human race 
 especially, each man contains a posterity in himself whose 
 term is not assignable, and which makes of its generations 
 one united assemblage in which no single member can lose 
 his place without drawing after him the multitude of his 
 descendants. To. suppress a single man is to suppress a 
 race; to suppress a wicked man is to suppress a people of 
 just men who may spring from him. For good and evil are 
 entwined together in the changeable course of mankind ; 
 
202 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY 
 
 a virtuous son succeeds to a bad father, and the ancestor but 
 too often contemplates in his distant progeny crimes which 
 to him were unknown. Now, the glance of God perceiving 
 at once all the successions of life, all the regenerations of 
 good in evil and of evil in good, no destiny appeared solitary 
 to Him ; so that in cutting it off from the anticipated book 
 of life, He would but cut off a course unworthy to be con- 
 tinued. In His sight Adam, a prevaricator, included the whole 
 posterity of the saints. To refuse being to him because of 
 his crime, even had that crime never obtained pardon, would 
 have been to destroy in him all the merits of the human race. 
 How could the goodness of God have required such a 
 sacrifice ? How could it have required that the wicked should 
 have been preferred to the just, that life should be withdrawn 
 from those who would make good use of it, because of those 
 who would have turned it into a curse instead of a blessing? 
 
 I know God, I love Him, I hope in Him, I bless Him in life 
 and death : why should the fault of one of my ancestors, 
 eternally foreseen by divine goodness, have intercepted my 
 birth, and not have permitted me for a single day to respire 
 in the mystery of liberty from whence my beatitude might 
 result ? Why should I have been condemned to nothingness 
 because one of my forefathers would have abused his existence ? 
 Where in this would have been justice, wisdom, or goodness ? 
 
 God had not to choose between creating or not creating a 
 wicked man, but between creating or not creating generations 
 of good and evil together ; and as all presented this mixture 
 to His prophetic glance, He had to choose between creating 
 the universe or not creating anything. The question is very 
 different, and assuredly the most tender father would not 
 choose to die without posterity, if God, revealing to him their 
 future, were to show to him, in the transformations of his^ 
 race, the inevitable alternatives of glory and shame, of happi- 
 ness and misery. What would it be if, instead of a single 
 generation, it were a question of all human generations ? 
 What would it be if to you were given the choice of destroy- 
 ing or creating the universe ? For such is the question which 
 was weighed in the counsels of God- 
 
 God has judged it, and heaven and earth proclaim how. 
 
 You may, however, judge it otherwise; you may complain 
 of life and not consider it so great a gift. But learn that the 
 life of which you complain is not that which God prepared for 
 
GOD. 205 
 
 you, it is that which you have made for yourselves. You have 
 cut off God from it, and you wonder that nothing remains. 
 You have produced the void in your soul, and you wonder 
 that the infinite is wanting to you. You have run after every 
 vanity, and you wonder that nothing is left to you but doubts, 
 darkness, bitterness, affliction. Ah ! return, return to life, 
 regain your rights in creation by the courage of faith, the holi- 
 ness of hope, the divinity of love, and then, having returned 
 to your place and your glory in the universal harmonics, you 
 will repeat with all the worlds the testimony which God bore 
 to Himself after He had finished His work : " God saw all the. 
 things that he had made, and they were very good." * 
 
 * Genesis L 
 
THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 My Lord,— Gentlemen, 
 
 In our last conference we sought to discover by what 
 process or from what motive the world came forth from the 
 hands of God ; we have seen that it was by means of creation 
 and from the motive of goodness. Goodness is, in fact, the 
 characteristic under which the human race has always pre- 
 ferred to conceive God, as it is also that of the men who have, 
 in the highest degree, attracted the love and veneration of 
 ages. Whosoever has not been distinguished by this august 
 sign has not reached the fulness of glory, and neither the fame 
 of brilliant conceptions, nor the success of arms, nor scorn of 
 life, has sufficed without goodness to uphold the remem- 
 brance even of Alexander or Marcus Aurelius. That of God, 
 more especially, rests upon the same basis, and nothing is 
 more natural to us than to repeat with David : " The Lord is 
 sweet to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works."* 
 
 God, then, having made the world from goodness, that is 
 to say, in the design of communicating to it His properties, 
 which are none other than perfection and beatitude, we must 
 now learn the plan followed by Him in the realisation of that 
 generous purpose. Now every plan is composed of two neces- 
 sary elements ; of the materials which served to found it and 
 the ordinance to be given thereto. I have, then, to-day, to 
 treat of the materials of creation and their general ordinance. 
 
 According to Catholic doctrine, God employed in His 
 work, which is the universe, two perfectly dissimilar materials, 
 namely, matter and spirit. 
 
 In the first place, what is matter? If I tell you that it is 
 
 * Psalm cxliv. 9. 
 
GOD. 205 
 
 something possessing weight, you will oppose to me the 
 imponderable fluids. If I say that it is something possessing 
 e.\tent, you will reply: Many philosophers consider that it 
 may be reduced to atoms, that is to say, to points indivisible 
 and consequently unextended. If I say that it is something pos- 
 sessing colour, you will object that it may easily be conceived 
 as colourless. So is it also in regard to taste and sound. But 
 this work of spoliation, by which we successively deprive 
 matter of its apparent attributes, has nevertheless a limit 
 where the critical effort of our minds must halt. Whatever 
 we may do, there will always remain to it the permanent 
 susceptibility of receiving form and movement. I say of 
 receiving them, for we see clearly that it possesses neither 
 thought, nor will, nor liberty, no personal activity or com- 
 mand. It is at the same time active and inert : active, since 
 it is a force ; inert, because it does not act spontaneously, but 
 under the empire of an irresistible necessity. 
 
 Spirit, on the contrary, has neither form nor movement of 
 translation from one place to another ; it does not fall under 
 the investigation of our senses. It thinks, it wills, it is free ; 
 no necessity acts upon it. In vain is it commanded, if it does 
 not command of itself, and all the assaults of power are as 
 nothing against a single soul that respects itself. 
 
 Such are the materials of the world. Catholic doctrine 
 knows none other ; the senses and reason reveal to us only 
 these. Shall we here also find rationalism in our way ? Yes, 
 we shall find it; and again I remind you that Catholic doc- 
 trine will never establish a single dogma without finding that 
 rationalism sets up a negation against it. It is so now and 
 always. It is the nature of error to create resources against 
 all truth, otherwise the liberty of our intelligence would be but 
 a chimera. 
 
 If anything is clearly proved it is certainly the coexistence 
 in the world of matter and spirit. What is more manifest ? 
 Matter is the object of our senses ; they see, they handle, they 
 feel it, they make use of it as they please, according to 
 invariable laws discovered by science and verified by expe- 
 rience. No effort of the will is capable of destroying the 
 impression produced in the whole human race by the constant 
 spectacle of the universe. Spirit is not less evident and elo- 
 quent to us, it is even more so. For, spirit is ourselves. We 
 have no need to place ourselves in communication with it as 
 
206 THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 with an object foreign to us ; it is intimately present to us ; 
 each of its acts reveals it to us in its special faculties, in its 
 empire over matter and ideas, in its spontaneity and its liberty. 
 Yet, who would believe it ? two contradictory doctrines have 
 appeared in the history of human reason ; one which denies 
 the existence of matter, another which denies the existence of 
 spirit. Idealism maintains that all, in nature, is immaterial ; 
 materialism affirms that all is body. 
 
 And truly, if ever error could be a noble and a sacred 
 thing, we should be entitled to say so of idealism, which pre- 
 tends to deny the existence only of the inferior part of 
 creation, and fails to understand what relations a substance 
 deprived of all intelligence and sentiment can hold with God. 
 Why, in fact, did Mallebranche, that illustrious Christian 
 philosopher, say that, without the authority of faith, he should 
 not believe in the existence of matter, if it were not because he 
 could not explain to himself the object of God in creating it? 
 And have we not ourselves shown that the object of God in 
 creation was to communicate His perfection and beatitude to 
 beings the issue of His omnipotent goodness ? Now, in what 
 manner does matter, incapable of knowing and loving, respond 
 to that view of the Creator ? How is it able to reach even the 
 frontier of the divine order, where all is knowledge, love, 
 comprehension ? We can conceive the motive and work of 
 God in creating spirits, images of His own nature, endowed 
 with the privilege of scrutinising the invisible world, presumptive 
 inhabitants of eternal glory, vessels of voluntary praise, humble 
 yet possible companions of the most holy Trinity. But who 
 •will ever conceive the office of matter in relation to God, and 
 even in relation to created spirits ? If not eternal, why should 
 it have been created for a day? If it is to outlive time, what 
 will be its part in eternity, that is to say, in the pure reign of 
 God? 
 
 Some ancient sages, endeavouring to penetrate this mystery, 
 had thought that the function of material substance was the 
 limitation of spirits, which, from their nature, as they believed, 
 had no barriers between them and the infinite. But sound 
 theology rejects that interpretation. Created spirits have their 
 measure in the divine will that produces them ; since they are 
 created they are limited, seeing that uncreated existence enters 
 into the notion of the infinite. Let us suppose, however, that 
 the immaterial and intelligent being meets with no limit in its 
 
GOD. 207 
 
 personal essence, you cannot suppose that God would impose 
 a limit upon it from jealousy — from fear lest it should become 
 equal to Himself — and therefore imprison it in the sepulchre 
 of a body ! Can you suppose that men are but gods enslaved 
 to a sensible organisation ? Ah ! had God been able to create 
 infinite spirits, be sure He would have created them. He 
 desired nothing more than to extend the orbit of creation ; and 
 you will soon learn that matter itself, so far from having 
 become an instrument of restriction in His hands, has been 
 one of the resources employed by His wisdom to enlarge the 
 field of the universe. 
 
 Matter, like spirit, has been called to enjoy divine per- 
 fection and beatitude, and the more incapable it was of this 
 the more God has willed to make naught of such difficulty, 
 reserving to Himself the glory, if I may so speak, of stamping 
 the seal of His power and mercy upon a substance in which 
 nothingness appeared to dispute the empire with Him. How- 
 ever inert matter may be, however dumb, deaf, blind, insensible, 
 it is indifferent thereto : listen to the Apostle St. Paul taking 
 up its cause and speaking to you of its destiny : " All flesh," 
 he says, " is not the same flesh. . . . there are bodies celestial 
 and bodies terrestrial ; but one is the glory of the celestial and 
 another the terrestrial. . . . The body is sown in corruption, 
 it shall rise in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonour, it shall 
 rise in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power ; it 
 is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body." * You 
 hear that St. Paul is not troubled about the meanness of our 
 dust : he does not believe in its final wretchedness ; he beholds 
 it so transfigured as to become spiritual, and if you would hear 
 him again foretelling its future, listen once more : " For the 
 expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the 
 sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, 
 not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in 
 hope : because the creature also itself shall be delivered from 
 the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the 
 children of God." t What language ! What splendour ! What 
 promises ! Thus the most vile matter is in labour for its 
 future greatness, as well as man himself; it awaits the final 
 revelation, which will distinguish the children of God and 
 mark out a place for them in the ages which have neither 
 
 * I Cor. xv. 39, 40, 42-44. t Rom. viii. 19-22. 
 
208 THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 shadow nor turning ; it will take part in the deliverance of 
 spirits, and their beatitude will, in a certain degree, depend 
 upon its own, since its own will serve to the liberty of their 
 glory. What singular expressions, gentlemen, and how truly 
 may the substance honoured by such prophecies hold in 
 contempt the premature insults of ignorance and error ! 
 
 The king of Macedonia once said : " If I were not 
 Alexander, I would be Diogenes ! " Let me say : " If I were 
 not spirit, I would be matter ! " For I should still be the 
 work of God, the fruit of His thought and of His goodness. 
 His eye would still be upon me, and, united in human nature 
 to an immortal soul, after having served it here below in its 
 need I should one day serve it in its felicity, which I should 
 share. 
 
 In proceeding to expose to you the general ordinance of 
 the world, I shall, however, hope to show you the part which 
 matter fills there, and consequently enable you more clearly to 
 see the reason of its existence and its creation. 
 
 The other rationalist camp denies the reality of spirit. It 
 aspires to convince us that there is nothing in the world but 
 the palpable, divisible, and miserable substance which falls 
 under the investigation of our outer senses, and if it acknow- 
 ledges the phenomena of thought and will, it attributes them 
 to the very organism of the living body. You perceive that 
 this doctrine is very different from the other. The first, 
 although false, tended to the elevation of man ; this tends to 
 his abasement. The first induced us lowly to estimate the 
 inferior part of our being ; this tends to degrade, to immolate 
 its superior part. What can have led sages — this is the name 
 they bear — what can have led them to this parricidal act ? 
 The natural tendency of beings is to grow great; all, even 
 those who obey only instinct, have a tendency towards pride. 
 How is it that man, the visible masterpiece of creation, has 
 employed his thought, which raises him above all the others, 
 to destroy the very basis of his greatness, and to descend by 
 his own choice from the rank of immortal intelligences ? I 
 know not whether there are any materialists in this assembly,, 
 and you know with what pious respect I am accustomed to 
 treat, not error, but individuals. On this occasion, however, I 
 cannot curb the liberty of my ministration, and I shall fear- 
 lessly say that materialism is a doctrine against nature, an 
 abject doctrine, whose origin can only be explained by the 
 
GOD. 209 
 
 corruption of the human heart. We are too manifestly spirits, 
 there are not reasons enough against the dignity of our being 
 to lead us to depreciate our own selves, if passions of a lower 
 and dastardly order did not rise up within us against ourselves, 
 in order to dethrone, with our spiritual essence, our ideas of 
 truth, justice, order, responsibility — illustrious and incorrup- 
 tible guests whose presence wearies vice and excites revolt. 
 Vice knows no peace and wills to possess it. The soul opposes 
 to it remorse, that last crown of corrupted man, that domestic 
 and sacred voice which invites us to good, that good genius of 
 the republic which inhabits ruins, and which appeared again to 
 Brutus, in the fields of Pharsala, on the eve of the day when 
 Rome was to fall. Oh! — pardon my doubts! — But if you 
 were not pure, if remorse troubled you with its stern voice, in 
 mercy and love for yourselves, do not drive it from you : as 
 long as it is the companion of your soul you will not have lost 
 the remains of your greatness and your hope; remorse precedes 
 virtue as the dawn precedes the day, and vice should respect it 
 out of respect for itself. 
 
 But when vice has no longer the instinct of its rehabilita- 
 tion, remorse becomes its chief and last enemy, and spares 
 nothing in order to extirpate its very roots, which is our mind 
 itself. Materialism is the result of that exterminating war of 
 evil against good ; it is no other thing than the supreme effort 
 to stifle remorse. And this is why I call it an abject and an 
 unnatural doctrine. If this should seem rash, I offer no excuse 
 for it What ! You attack my very essence, you reject me to 
 the limits of mere animality, you treat me as the equal of a 
 dog ! What do I say ? — you dare to write that " Man is a 
 digestive tube pierced at both ends." . . . Ah ! gentlemen, do 
 not laugh ; it would grieve me bitterly to have excited your 
 laughter; hear, hear these things with the silence of scorn. 
 What! men dare to write that "man is a digestive tube pierced 
 at both ends," and, armed in all the greatness of truth against 
 imposture, shall I not turn back in scorn and trample under 
 foot that most vile doctrine ? 
 
 I ought to say no more on this subject ; I ought not to 
 give so much honour to materialism as to ask it to explain 
 itself. We will do so, however, with your permission. We will 
 ask these proud gladiators of matter what they have seen in 
 man to lead them to contest his intelligent and free nature. 
 Do they deny the phenomena of thought ? Are they blind to 
 
 p 
 
2io THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 those of the will? No, they admit them; they admit that 
 something extraordinary takes place within us which resembles 
 nothing that falls under the investigation of the senses. But 
 they consider that earth, having attained to a certain degree of 
 perfection, is susceptible of producing sentiment, thought, and 
 will, as it produces roots, flowers, and fruit. Nature, they say, 
 is in a progressive labour which is nowhere interrupted, and 
 which at each degree is manifested by a more perfect produc- 
 tion. Man is the term of that fertile progression ; he unites in 
 himself all the anterior progressions, and his brain, the master- 
 piece of the wisest organisation, causes thought to emerge from 
 it as naturally as the tree puts forth its buds. 
 
 How is it that this ingenious picture, for I will not call it 
 analysis, has excited only coldness and incredulity in nearly the 
 whole of mankind ? How is it that the spiritualist philosophy 
 has always obtained the glory of moving the heart of the people 
 as well as that of the thinker ; whilst materialism, a doctrine of 
 decadency, seduces only a few souls in declining nations ? 
 Because spirit affirms itself with a presence so vigorous that 
 reasoning and analysis perish before the splendour of that 
 affirmation. How should it be otherwise ? My spiritual being 
 is myself : I feel the truth of it. I feel the distinction between 
 my soul and my body with such force that my whole life 
 appears to me to be but a confronting of the one with the 
 other, and that each instant brings to me a conviction of their 
 duality as strong as the certainty of their union. I see that I 
 am two and one with a clearness which nothing diminishes, 
 because nothing combats against the real presence of things. 
 And what indeed is said against it ? They oppose to it a pro- 
 gression of matter ; but a progression is but the development 
 of a germ which never changes its nature in that develop- 
 ment. Elevate a force, according to the mathematical expres- 
 sion, to the second, the third, the tenth power ; you will never 
 gather in the force doubled, tripled, decupled, anything but 
 the primitive element contained therein. In order that matter, 
 transfigured in its form, may produce sentiment, thought, and 
 will, the smallest material particle must be a being exer- 
 cising feeling, thought, and volition, but in an inferior degree, 
 susceptible of increase or of perfection as it is seen in the 
 infancy of man compared with his maturity. Now, is it so ? 
 Does materialism even pretend that it is so? It does not 
 laeljeve that a grain of dust includes in miniature the in- 
 
GOD. 211 
 
 tellectual functions of man, as a drop of water includes the 
 properties of the ocean. Common sense too strongly rejects 
 such folly, consequently matter elevated by organisation to 
 whatever point you will, to the hundredth or the thousandth 
 power, will never produce anything but the development of 
 what it is, that is to say, more perfect forms, more compli- 
 cated movements, sculpture and architecture more worthy of 
 admiration. 
 
 Men wonder — and it is another objection against spiri- 
 tualism — at the reciprocal influence which the soul and the 
 body exercise over each other. Why not, if they are really 
 united? This union may appear strange, inexplicable, but 
 what of that? It is a feet The feet once proved by the 
 certainty which we have of our double nature, spiritual and 
 material in one sole personality, it is very natural that there 
 should be an action of one upon the other, without which there 
 would be no communication between them ; and if there were 
 no communication between them, they would be separated 
 instead of being united. 
 
 Thus even as exterior objects, acting upon the brain by the 
 intermediary of the senses, convey to the soul impressions 
 from without, the soul in its turn conveys to the brain, and by 
 it to the rest of the sensible organisation, the rebound of its 
 intimate and immaterial life. Thence arise those inveterate 
 habits which take their source at the same time in the two parts 
 of our being, both being in some manner bent thereto by the 
 repetition of the acts, and become the slaves of our depraved 
 wills after having been at first only their instruments. It is 
 this which has given birth to that new science of phrenology, 
 which abuses phenomena of the correspondence of the soul 
 with the body and the . body with the soul, in order to attack 
 the free-will of man. I do not examine whether aptitudes and 
 passions have really a representative sign in the exterior enve- 
 lope of the brain; let us suppose it AYhat does it prove 
 against human liberty? It is manifest that the soul and the 
 body are in unceasing communication, and that every act — 
 even an inward act — of vice or virtue, resounds somewhere in 
 our mortal envelope and marks out traces of happiness> or 
 misery. These subtle traces, in their tarn, react upon the 
 profound seat of our internal activity, and solicit there the 
 return of the same movements, that is to say, of the same 
 thoughts and the same desires. Catholic doctrine consents to 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 this ; it does more than consent : it is the basis of its spiritual 
 therapeutics, or, if you prefer it, of the medicinal treatment 
 which it applies to the maladies of our soul. This is why the 
 Gospel commands Christians to chastise their bodies in order 
 to liberate and purify their hearts. This is why the Church 
 imposes abstinences and fasts ; this is why she commands 
 labour, and why, after the example of Jesus Christ, her founder, 
 she blesses those who weep and suffer ; because, besides the 
 benefit of an accepted expiation, there is in the afflictions of 
 the body the infallible efficacy of reforming the senses. How- 
 ever ancient, however powerful, may be the traces of sin in the 
 mysterious recesses of the body, the soul, aided by grace, 
 fortified by penance, is able slowly to efface them, and to 
 substitute the restoring vestiges of virtue. Thence, even in 
 physiognomy, spring those singular illuminations which pene- 
 trate through the obscure traces of vice. The soul, after having 
 ennobled the subterranean regions which crime had polluted, 
 reaches the brow of man, and sheds upon it those serene and 
 holy rays which soften the regard even of those who know not 
 God. The gloomy shadows of sin fly away before the creative 
 glory of virtue, and that which still remains of them in the 
 premature sinking of the body is only a sign of mortality 
 vanquished by the eternal beauty of Christ. 
 
 O visages of the saints ! gentle yet firm lips accustomed to 
 name the name of God and kiss the cross of His Son ; regards 
 full of kindness and love which perceived a brother in the most 
 poor and lowly among creatures ; hair silvered by meditation 
 on eternity, sacred rays of the soul resplendent in old age and 
 in death : happy are those who have beheld them ! more happy 
 those who have understood them and received from their 
 transfigured glebe lessons of wisdom and immortality ! 
 
 But what am I doing? — Am I pretending to demonstrate 
 to you the existence of spirit, the reality of matter? God 
 forbid ! I do not stand before you as a philosopher, supported 
 by his reason alone, and trusting only to the discoveries of his 
 own sagacity. I stand here as the envoy of God, as one who 
 bears His word to you, as one armed with the tradition and 
 authority of the Church, and after having established the titles 
 of my mission, I promised you only that rationalism should 
 never oppose to a single Christian dogma negations more 
 probable than the affirmations of faith. Once more I have 
 kept my promise. For I ask, between the faith that affirms the 
 
GOD. 213 
 
 presence in the world of two constitutive elements, matter and 
 spirit, and the rationalism that denies the one or the other, 
 where, even humanly speaking, lies the greater probability of 
 truth? I do not say the certainty, because having found cer- 
 tainty in the order of the divine teachings, it is unnecessary 
 for me again to seek it even there, where, in so many ways, I 
 should be sure to find it. Against rationalism the semblance 
 of truth will suffice for me, and I believe I possess it, and 
 much more, in that question of the double nature of things. 
 Let us hasten now to see the ordinance which God has given 
 them ; we shall gather here some rays of light upon the 
 motives that induced the Creator not to content Himself, in the 
 structure of the world, with only one order of materials. 
 
 We have said that God, in drawing beings forth from 
 nothingness, proposed to communicate to them His perfection 
 and beatitude. Now the divine perfection is of three kinds ; 
 it is metaphysical, intellectual, and moral, and consequently it 
 should be reflected under this triple aspect in the production 
 and disposition of the universe. Let us commence by the 
 metaphysical aspect, which is naturally the first. 
 
 God is infinite, He is one, He is many ; it is the reunion of 
 these three terms that constitutes His metaphysical perfection. 
 He is great in the depths of His essence, by infinity, unity, and 
 plurality ; and this also should be the fount of the grandeur of 
 the universe. But even thereby, the creating thought appears 
 at the very first to meet with an insurmountable obstacle ; for, 
 the infinite is incommunicable in its nature. As soon as a 
 thing is created, however vast it may be, it does not exist of 
 itself, and therefore the radical attribute of the infinite is 
 wanting to it. Nevertheless, the world — the work of the in- 
 finite in person, the manifestation of his glory — could not be 
 wanting in extent, representative of uncreated immensity. It 
 needed a projection which manifested its origin, and by which 
 every eye on beholding it revolving in the majesty of its 
 orbit might recognise the hand that had launched it forth upon 
 a course and in a space worthy of it. God provided for this. 
 He devised — if I may be permitted to animate the divine 
 action by these human expressions — He devised, between the 
 infinite and the finite, something intermediary, which here 
 below we call the indefinite. I will explain these terms if you 
 will allow me. The infinite is that which has neither beginning 
 nor end ; the finite is that which has a beginning and an end • 
 
214 THE OKNHRAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 the indefinite is that which expands between two terms in- 
 finitely distant, in such a manner as continually to draw nearer 
 to them. God then resolved to construct the world upon the 
 projection of the indefinite, and thus to impart to His work a 
 figurative character of His unlimited essence. 
 
 Nothing opposed this design. Between God, who was 
 about to create, and the nothingness whence being was about 
 to emerge ; between God, who is all, and nothingness, which is 
 nothing, there existed of itself an infinite distance. It sufficed 
 to fill it by a progressive creation, which, starting from a 
 unique centre, should tend at the same time, and upon two 
 different roads, towards the two extremities of things ; towards 
 nothingness by a graduated diminution, towards God by a 
 constant ascension. But this plan supposed the existence of 
 two quite dissimilar elements ; one susceptible of constant 
 diminution in descending towards the negative pole of creation, 
 another capable of constantly perfecting itself in mounting 
 towards the positive or divine pole. You anticipate me, you 
 name matter and spirit : spirit, which is indivisible ; matter, 
 unceasingly divided: spirit, the element of the infinitely great; 
 matter, the spirit of the infinitely little : both, in their diverse 
 natures, sufficient to fill by their calculated elevation and 
 degradation the infinite space which separates the supremely 
 imperfect from the supremely perfect. It is St. Augustine who 
 has revealed to us in a single phrase this beautiful law of the 
 genesis of things : listen to this great man : Duo fecisti, 
 
 DOMINE, UNUM PROPE NIHIL, SCILICET MATERIAM PRIMAM ; 
 ALTERUM PROPE TE, SCILICET ANGELUM TIlOU hast made two 
 
 things, O God; one near to nothingness, which is primary 
 ■matter; the other near to thyself, which is pure spirit. In virtue 
 of that conception, which was as it were the exordium of 
 the world, God created two lines or two series of beings ; 
 one series descending on the side of nothingness, the 
 other ascending towards Himself. The one is known to 
 you by your own senses and by the instruments with which 
 science has endowed the eye of man ; the other is revealed to 
 us by faith, and also by the inductions of analogy. For how 
 could we believe that creation stops at ourselves, and that 
 having by our bodies an inferior kindred which extends even 
 into the regions of the imperceptible, we should not have by 
 our spiritual essence a superior kindred which penetrates even 
 into the region of the substantial infinite ? Faith teaches us 
 
GOD. 215 
 
 this, reason confirms it to us, the order of the universe abso 
 lutely requires it. 
 
 Launched from earth to heaven upon that infinite projec- 
 tion, the world, as far as it was possible, had a relation of 
 greatness with God ; and by the innumerable multiplication of 
 beings appertaining to each series, and to each degree of these 
 series, it possessed also the divine character of plurality. But 
 unity, the third term of the metaphysical perfection of God, 
 was still wanting to it. There were two worlds, the world ot 
 matter and the world of spirit ; the terrestrial and the celestial 
 worlds : a supreme unfitness which deprived creation of all har- 
 mony and all possibility of being the mirror of its author. But 
 how was this to be remedied? How were two orders so dis- 
 tinct, so radically separated as the material order and the 
 spiritual order, to be really united ? 
 
 God withdrew within Himself ; He took counsel as it were, 
 according to the beautiful indication of Scripture, and in pre- 
 sence of all that was accomplished, before the attentive heavens 
 and trembling earth He pronounced the last creating word ; He 
 said : Faciamus hominem— Let us make man ! Man obeyed 
 that voice which should never more cease to give him life and 
 light. A being appeared participating in matter by which he 
 became united to the inferior world, and in spirit by which he 
 became united to the superior world ; at the same time body 
 and soul, the body acting with the soul and the soul with the 
 body ; not as being two, but as one only ; not as brother and 
 sister, but as one single personal being called by the same 
 name, man. In man the mystery of universal unity was solved; 
 placed in the lowest rank of the ascending line of beings, and 
 •on the first step of the descending line, concentrating in his 
 personality all the gifts of the mind and all the forces of matter, 
 communicating by his wants with the arctic and antarctic poles 
 of things, the real centre of the creation — he, by his presence, 
 stamps upon it the seal of its unity, and with unity the seal of 
 perfection. Behold man ; behold his place and his glory ; 
 behold why all the great religious scenes have been enacted 
 upon the earth which he inhabits and in the very bosom of 
 mankind. Rationalism is greatly troubled about the importance 
 which man attributes to himself; it has not disdained to call 
 astronomy to its aid in order to deprive us of the eminent posi- 
 tion to which Providence has raised us, and, comparing the 
 insignificance of our race and the inferiority of our planet with 
 
»«6 THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 all the suns fixed in space, it is pleased to make of us pigmies, 
 not to say the abortions of the universe. Let us leave to 
 rationalism these pitiable gratifications of apostasy; and, as we 
 are not afraid of being kings because we are not alarmed by 
 the duties of the throne, let us learn to measure greatness by 
 the essence and functions of beings, and not by their size or 
 material rapidity of motion. The earth, it is true, is not the 
 astronomical centre of the world; it suffices for it to bear man- 
 kind — the real centre of creation. 
 
 It is thus that God has communicated to His work the 
 metaphysical perfection with which He is endowed. As to 
 'ntellectual perfection, the second term of His total perfection, 
 it was naturally to be found in man and in the spirits superior 
 to man, since all of them, by their very essence, are capable of 
 knowing. Matter alone, relegated to the frontiers of nothing- 
 ness, seemed shut out for ever from the glorious privilege of 
 thought. For God Himself cannot accomplish that which 
 includes an express contradiction, and matter, an inert and 
 divisible substance, rejects, with all the force of an absolute 
 incompatibility, the idea of activity indivisible as thought, free 
 as the will. But God, without performing an impossibility, 
 performed a miracle. He willed then to spiritualise matter, 
 according to the expression of St. Paul, by giving it a share in 
 the most elevated functions of the human soul, and this is the 
 secret which was faintly perceived by Aristotle, when he said : 
 " There is nothing in the intelligence which was not before in 
 the senses." Not that the soul does not receive, prior to all 
 intercourse between itself and nature, a direct illumination from 
 God, an illumination which is to its inner vision what light is to 
 the outer eye ; but, notwithstanding that divine communication, 
 thought does not take its form, and, so to say, its outline, until 
 the senses, by means of images and language, have brought to 
 the soul, in its inmost sanctuary, the tribute of their exploration 
 in the visible world. Man thinks only by means of the totality 
 of his being, as he lives only by means of the totality of his 
 being. All idealist or materialist systems are false, because 
 they divide man by making him a simple intelligence or 
 only a body. Man, in all his operations, is neither a body 
 nor a spirit ; he is man, that is to say, that marvellous unity 
 resulting from two substances intimately interwoven, the 
 material substance and the immaterial substance. Everything 
 that separates these destroys man. 
 
GOD. 217 
 
 Thus matter is raised to an incomprehensible state of 
 dignity. Contemplate that unnamed dust at your feet, which 
 is the last degree of abasement that being reaches before 
 your eyes. Contemplate it. You bore it along but just now 
 without deigning to notice it ; a puff of air will cast it into a 
 field ; darkness and light embody it in the frail tissue of a 
 plant. It is already wheat. The same chance that cast it 
 under your feet brings it upon your table in its new form. 
 You recognise it no longer, and yet it will soon become 
 a part of yourself. See, it flows in your veins ; it penetrates 
 the tissues of your body ; it mounts even to the supreme seat 
 of your exterior activity, to that calm and elevated throne, 
 where, under the protection of a powerful shield, the purest 
 elements of life are silently elaborated. There it encounters 
 the reciprocal action of the soul and the body ; it comes 
 between them ; it knocks at the august portal of your intelli- 
 gence : it helps you to think, to will ; it is yourself, and 
 yet is the grain of dust under your feet. 
 
 I was then justified in calling St. Paul to bear witness to 
 the grandeur of the world even in its lowest element. 
 What if I were to advance yet further — if I pronounced to 
 you that famous phrase : " The Word was made flesh " ? If I 
 showed you dust in its eternal wedlock with God? But let 
 us not rob the future to serve the present ; let us leave a 
 shadow upon the Thabor of truth, and terminate this discourse 
 by showing you how God has communicated His moral per- 
 fection to the world. 
 
 The moral perfection of God is resumed in two words : 
 justice and goodness. In order for the world to receive its 
 communication, it was not enough that man and the superior 
 spirits were endowed with the double faculty of knowing and 
 willing, of knowing good and realising it — another gift was 
 needed, that of choosing between good and evil. For, 
 without that free choice, what, in them, would justice or 
 goodness have been ? A necessary perfection stripped of all 
 personal merit, which would have made of their life a 
 succession of acts irresistibly ordered and accomplished. 
 Now in God, whose total perfection was to be reproduced, 
 that fatality does not exist. God is a free being. Naturally 
 held in the immutable order of His essence, He acts with- 
 out in full liberty ; He creates or He does not create, He 
 gives in the time and measure determined by His sove- 
 
 ,-W- ''-uOii' 
 
2i! THE GENERAL PLAN OF CREATION. 
 
 reign will ; and even wnen He remains within His necessary 
 operations, such as the relations of the three divine persons, 
 He is subject to nothing exterior to Himself. He is neither 
 commanded nor necessitated. If, on the contrary, man and 
 pure spirits had no choice between God and themselves, 
 between the infinite and the finite, their personality would 
 exist only as an absolute dependence upon the divine person- 
 ality ; they would be others and not themselves. They would 
 not give themselves from justice or goodness, but from sub- 
 jection to an empire foreign to their own deliberation. They 
 would be deprived of moral perfection, because they would 
 possess a morality totally inamissible, and consequently im- 
 personal. 
 
 In God, it is true, morality is inamissible, but it is so with- 
 out being impersonal, because it is not the action of another 
 that subjugates the divine will, whilst in the creature deprived 
 of free will it would be the infinite who oppressed the finite. 
 The human will would become absorbed in the divine will. 
 
 It is needless to add that matter itself, raised to the state of 
 humanity, shares, by its association with the soul, the honours 
 of free will, and that it thus enters into participation of the rights 
 and perils of the moral order. You will have already drawn 
 this conclusion if my words have but thrown a little light upon 
 the ways of divine wisdom in communicating to the world its 
 triple and adorable perfection. 
 
 The consequence of perfection is beatitude. God is in- 
 finitely happy, because He is infinitely perfect. Having then 
 called the world to enjoy His perfection, He should also have 
 called it to enjoy His beatitude ; and as beatitude terminates 
 all in God, it is also necessarily the final term of creation for 
 every being who has not been unworthy of his destiny. Here 
 I touch the Gordian knot of truth, and I venture to believe 
 that you have severed it yourselves. You will not ask me why 
 God has not given beatitude without conditions of merit ; if I 
 am not deceived, you know the reason. If, indeed, God had 
 willed to communicate to the world all His properties, He 
 should have communicated them in the order in which He 
 Himself possesses them, and in the only order in which it was 
 possible for Him to communicate them all. Now, the divine 
 properties are simply perfection and beatitude; perfection, the 
 ■cause of beatitude ; and beatitude, the effect of perfection. If 
 •God had changed the order, in plunging us by the sole act of 
 
GOD. 2:9 
 
 our birth into the possession of Himself, whence His felicity- 
 springs, He would have deprived us of the first of His pro- 
 perties, which is perfection. For, as we have seen, free will is 
 a necessary element thereof, which the direct and beatific 
 vision of God would not have permitted us to possess, even for 
 a single instant. Lost at the moment of our birth in the abyss 
 of an infinite attraction, we should have offered to divine 
 goodness no representation of His own liberty, no virtue, no 
 merit, no return worthy of His gratuitous and liberal dispen- 
 sation towards us. God owed it then to us and to Himself to 
 retard our beatitude in favour of our perfection. But to retard 
 it was to hide Himself for a time from created beings, to clothe 
 Himself before them in the veil of finite things, in order that, 
 •choice being possible to them, trial should be also possible 
 with choice, and that from trial there should spring up within 
 them justice worthy of praise, goodness worthy of love. 
 
 Thus the world was given possession of a sovereignty which 
 placed it with glory in presence of God. Thus, having God 
 for principle and end, it should gravitate towards Him by a 
 voluntary and grateful perfection, even to the day when, the 
 entire orbit of its trial being achieved, it will repose in the 
 bosom of God Himself in a degree of beatitude equal to its 
 fidelity. 
 
 I have traced for you the whole plan of Creation. I have 
 shown you the materials employed therein, the ordinance they 
 received, the reasons of that ordinance, and already knowing 
 your beginning, you have learned to know your end. Your 
 end and your beginning do not differ ; God is your father, and 
 God is also your end. He is the Alpha and the Omega of 
 your destiny; you cannot look lower without losing yourselves, 
 rise less high without perishing. In vain, being ungrateful, 
 will you appeal to His goodness against His justice. I have 
 just destroyed that hope by showing you in goodness itself the 
 root of your duties. It is doubtless goodness that said : "Come, 
 ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for 
 you from the foundation of the world."* But it is also 
 goodness that said : " Be you therefore perfect, as also your 
 heavenly Father is perfect"! For the natural movement of 
 goodness is to communicate its properties, and God having 
 •only His perfection and His beatitude, the effect of the divine 
 
 * Matt. xxv. 34. + Matt. v. 48. 
 
220 GOD. 
 
 goodness is to communicate both to you in the same order in- 
 which they are in Himself. If you refuse perfection because 
 it exacts sacrifice from you, at the same time you refuse 
 beatitude,, which is its consequence. That order does not 
 depend upon God ; it is His proper and rigorous nature ; the 
 very nature of goodness of which justice is but the sanction. 
 
MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 My Lord, — Gentlemen, 
 
 We already know the two terms of the mystery of des- 
 tinies ; we know what is our principle and our end. But that 
 knowledge, all-important though it be, is far from being sufficient 
 for us. It is a great thing to be assured that God is the source 
 from whence we spring, that our end is to attain to His per- 
 fection and beatitude ; it remains, however, for us to be directed 
 upon that perilous road of which God occupies the two extreme 
 points ; for if we are unacquainted with its secrets, we are in 
 danger of going astray in our very way, and of descending 
 towards death instead of advancing towards Him from whom 
 proceeds all life, all perfection, all felicity. Where is then the 
 .road which we ought to follow ? Is it traced out ? Is it known 
 with certainty ? 
 
 You cannot doubt about it ; God, who has revealed to us 
 our principle and our end, must also have revealed to us the 
 means of proceeding from one to the other, otherwise the object 
 He had in view, which was to satisfy His goodness by com- 
 municating Himself to His creatures, would not have been 
 realised. Here we quit the universe in order to concentrate 
 our attention upon man in particular ; for it is man who first 
 interests us, and moreover, in seeking the paths which God has 
 opened to us that we may mount towards Him, we unceasingly 
 encounter the rest of creation either disputing the passage with 
 us or opening it before us ; and the theology of man, in virtue 
 of the unity that co-ordains and combines every part of the 
 divine work, will constantly blend with the theology of the 
 universe. But man himself, within his proper nature, is an 
 infinitely complex being. By his thought, he belongs to the 
 intellectual order ; by his will, to the moral order ; by his 
 
222 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 union with his fellow-creatures, to the social order ; by his 
 body, to the physical order ; by his entire soul, to the religious 
 order : and, under all these relations, he has received means of 
 attaining his end, which is perfection and beatitude. It is- 
 needful then, in order completely to unfold his destiny, to 
 study man himself, and successively as an intelligent, moral, 
 social, physical, religious being ; and under these divers aspects 
 to take account of the roads which eternal wisdom has prepared 
 for him, and in which he must walk in order to avoid perishing. 
 The course will be long ; it will embrace not only the remaining 
 conferences of this year, but all those which will follow even 
 to the last day in which God may permit me to instruct you. 
 In a word, the principle and the end of man being known to- 
 us, nothing remains in the development of doctrine but to 
 expose to you, in all their historical and dogmatic course, the 
 means given to man to attain his end. 
 
 I enter at once upon this subject, and man as an intelligent 
 being will form my exordium. Intelligence is the faculty of 
 knowing. To know, is to see that which is ; and to see that 
 which is, is to possess truth ; for truth is no other thing than 
 that which is, inasmuch as it is perceived by the mind. Whence 
 it results that truth is the object of the intelligence, and that 
 the function of the intelligence is to seek, to penetrate, to 
 retain truth ; to live by truth, and for truth ; this is its perfection, 
 and its beatitude. In the first place, it is its perfection ; for 
 the mind out of truth is in the state of ignorance or error ; it 
 sees not or sees badly, and in either case it is deprived of its 
 object and function. It is like an eye which looks without 
 seeing, or which sees that which has no reality ; an organ 
 useless and dead in the first case, a false and dangerous 
 instrument in the second. 
 
 But if truth be the perfection of the intelligence, it may be 
 said without further proof that it is also its beatitude. For the 
 one is the inevitable consequence of the other. As soon as a 
 faculty is united to its object, as soon as it accomplishes its 
 mission, it attains a state of repose because it attains its object; 
 a glorious repose, because it is legitimate ; full of joy, because 
 it has been produced by God according to the pattern of His 
 own operations, wherein all ends in transport. Therefore, in 
 receiving the light of truth, the intelligence reposes, rejoices, 
 exults ; in fine, is happy according to the nature of the vision 
 that enlightens and fills it. Daily we experience this beatifi- 
 
GOD. 223 
 
 cation of the understanding. Even in the lowest regions of 
 nature there is no being or phenomenon, how imperceptible 
 soever it may be, how indifferent soever it may appear, the 
 discovery of which does not cause us a kind of magic transport. 
 You all know the history of that great geometrician who, after 
 having long battled with a problem that arrested his genius, all 
 at once penetrated its secret whilst he was in a bath. For- 
 getting himself, he rose, and, the folly of enthusiasm depriving 
 him even of the consciousness of his nudity, he ran through 
 the streets of Syracuse, exclaiming : " I have found it ! I have 
 found it ! " This is the living image of those holy nuptials 
 between the mind and intelligible light, when man has shown 
 himself worthy of that immaterial alliance by a life which 
 lessens the subjection of his double nature to the inferior order. 
 Those blissful joys depend together upon the greatness of the 
 mind and the greatness of the ideas that inundate it; they 
 blend with the shores of the intelligence and the luminous 
 course which flows between them. 
 
 Sometimes the mind is great without the light being also 
 great ; then come those times of mysterious sadness whose 
 traces you may have observed on the generous brows of many 
 of your contemporaries. Victims of doubt, they have drunk 
 from the cup of knowledge without drinking from the cup of 
 truth. They have studied past ages, interrogated the seas, 
 followed the orbit of the heavenly bodies, nothing has escaped 
 the perspicacity of their meditations, and yet a veil has remained 
 before them which hinders them from thoroughly fathoming 
 what they see, and from taking account of the illuminations of 
 their own life. Light itself is darkness to them ; each new dis- 
 covery opens to them a new abyss ; and like the labourer 
 ploughing in the fields of Thebes or Babylon, who constantly 
 strikes against unaccountable ruins, these mighty investigators 
 of worlds, at each furrow which they trace in the immensity of 
 things, raise up, even from the very bosom of science, great 
 and painful obscurities. They have neither the peace of 
 ignorance nor the peace of error ; they see too much not to 
 know, too little to understand, and however great may be the 
 crime that hides truth from them, they have at least the honour 
 of being unhappy because they do not possess it. 
 
 But after these long torments of doubt, if the veil be at last 
 drawn aside, then the intelligence receives one of those vibra- 
 tions whose voluptuous pain no tongue can describe. Then 
 
224 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 Augustine rises, and, for the first time, finding even friendship 
 irksome, he withdraws to give current to his feelings in a 
 torrent of solitary tears. He, who was lost in the vain love of 
 glory and creatures, sees all the charms that deceived his youth 
 vanish in a moment. Truth enraptures him ; the azure plains 
 of Lombardy, the hopes of renown, the most tender profes- 
 sions of erring hearts, have no longer any power to move him ; 
 he departs, leading his aged mother by the hand, and already 
 from the port of Ostia he sees the obscure solitude which he 
 thinks will hide him for ever from the admiration of the world 
 as from the dreams of his past life. Tears of great men, heroic 
 sacrifices, virtues born in a single hour, and which ages cannot 
 destroy, you teach us the price of truth ! You prove that it is 
 indeed the perfection and beatitude of the intelligence ! 
 
 Therefore one of the most formidable crimes is that of 
 betraying and labouring against truth ; for it is to betray our 
 highest good, to strike us at the very height from whence our 
 glory and felicity descend. What is man without intelligence, 
 and what is intelligence without truth ? If you deprive man 
 of intelligence, he is nothing more than the dethroned king of 
 the animal world ; if, leaving intelligence to him, you withhold 
 from him the gift of truth, you dig out for him an abyss as 
 deep as the infinite ; you prepare for him a torment of hunger 
 never to be appeased, an aspiration which can never attain to 
 anything but grasping shadows in an immense and deceptive 
 void. What can be more terrible than this condition ? What 
 more criminal than to be its willing instrument ? Therefore, 
 falsehood has ever been abhorred by the human race ; and, 
 even in things where its insignificance would seem excusable, 
 it brings infallible scorn upon the lips which give it utterance. 
 We do not forgive the man who, knowing truth, willingly sub- 
 stitutes for it the adulterous language of error. How much 
 less will God and mankind pardon those who designedly stand 
 up against the most holy doctrines that ages have bequeathed 
 to us, and who, despairing of conquering them by calm discus- 
 sion, arm themselves against them with all the resources of 
 violence and cunning ! This has too often been witnessed, and 
 we must never lose an opportunity of protesting against those 
 pusillanimous conspiracies of might ; the powers instituted for 
 the conservation of all rights and possessions have been seen 
 to declare open war against the highest of all rights, the right 
 to know ; against the richest of all possessions, namely, truth. 
 
GOD. 225 
 
 Jealous of its power, which, indeed, is the greatest known in 
 the world, they strive to dethrone it, in order to set up in its 
 place and to their own profit the reign of interests and passions. 
 Anything suits them better than truth ; they accept, protect, 
 give liberty to everything but truth. They pursue truth so 
 exclusively, with so much art and perseverance, that they make 
 it known by that same sign, and their very persecution becomes 
 a mark of certainty which presents it to the legitimate adorations 
 of the whole earth. 
 
 But do not wonder if truth some day or other takes 
 vengeance upon its oppressors. As men are not able to ruin 
 authority without striking at the root of the human under- 
 standing, sooner or later a kind of frenzy urges them beyond 
 all fear and respect, and drives them with open arms against 
 that which is. This is the time of reprisals, the time foretold 
 by St. Paul when he wrote thus to the Romans : " The wrath 
 of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
 injustice of those men who detain the truth of God in in- 
 justice."* Then kings grow pale and kingdoms are troubled; 
 night gathers in Babylon; Baltazzar sees the hand that con- 
 demns him, and the sword of Cyrus waits not for to-morrow. 
 I am not reciting history ; no, it is not history. Look around 
 you ; we are in Babylon, we sit at the feast of Baltazzar ! f 
 
 Must I ask your indulgence if I have allowed myself to 
 yield to the emotions of a time so fertile in great lessons ? 
 Have I betrayed the interests of truth by showing you, in 
 the catastrophes of our age, the avenging part which truth 
 plays therein ? If it be so, may you and truth forgive me, and 
 let us remount together to the peaceful regions where nothing 
 earthly disturbs the contemplation of causes and laws. 
 
 I have just proved that truth is the perfection and beatitude 
 of the intelligence ; and, since God in creating us has willed to 
 communicate to us perfection and beatitude, I draw therefrom 
 this consequence, that He has communicated truth to us. And 
 it is, in fact, what Catholic doctrine teaches. If we listen to it, 
 it teaches that God in sending us into the world did not 
 abandon our mind to the hazard of its own discoveries, but 
 enlightened it from the beginning with such knowledge that 
 truth really existed therein. What was that primitive knowledge 
 which, without being infinite, was nevertheless truth? That 
 
 * Rom. i. 18. + a.d. 1848. 
 
226 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 question leads us back to the definition which I gave you on 
 commencing this conference. Truth, I said, is that which is, 
 inasmuch as it is perceived by the mind. We halted there 
 without advancing that other question, which we can no longer 
 avoid. What, then, is that which is ? Do we understand by this 
 the heavens, the earth, and the seas ? Is this that which is ? 
 What? the heavens, the earth, the seas, mankind even, all that 
 we see, is stamped with such a character of limit and change 
 that we find there nothing of the grandeur contained in that , 
 powerful word — being : human tongues have exhausted their 
 energies to express the nothingness of visible things, and how- 
 ever pride may desire to magnify the theatre upon which it 
 acts, all that it can add to the universe is to discover in 
 it a ray of being, and consequently a ray of truth. Where 
 then is being? Where is that which is? Ah, already I per- 
 ceive, and even know it. Being is absolute, eternal and infinite 
 unity, plurality without division, the ocean without shores, the 
 centre without circumference, the plenitude that contains itself, 
 the form without figure ; the whole, in fine, without which all 
 that is, is but an act and a gift. But in so speaking whom have 
 I named ? I have named Him who has said of Himself, Ego 
 sum qui sum — / am who am* I have named Him who said 
 also, Ego sum Veritas — I am the truth.\ I have named God. 
 Behold being, and behold truth. God alone is truth, because 
 He alone is being ; He does not possess truth as something 
 foreign to Himself, but He is substantial and personal truth, 
 because He is being, possessing Himself; because He is at the 
 same time, and by the same act, the eye that sees, the object 
 seen, and vision. Whoever knows Him knows all ; whoever 
 knows Him not knows nothing. What know you indeed out of 
 Him ? The phenomena of the world, their laws, the com- 
 position and decomposition of bodies, the science of dust. 
 You do not even reach so far; for, to attain to this, you must 
 at least penetrate the last reason of an atom, and where will 
 you find it if you ignore God, the principle and the end of all ? 
 From thence come those lamentations of the greatest minds 
 about the poverty of science, lamentations so eloquently 
 expressed by Solomon, one among them, when he said : " I 
 have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold 
 all is vanity and vexation of spirit." % It is, in fact, because 
 
 * Exodus iii. 14. t John xiv. 6. 
 
 X Ecclesiastes i. 14. 
 
GOD. 227 
 
 truth is not under the sun, it is above ; it is in God, without 
 whom man knows nothing, neither earth, nor heaven, nor 
 present, nor future, nor man, nor even his own heart. And 
 the more he learns without God and out of God, the more he 
 enlarges, with the circle of his investigations, that of his doubts 
 and torments. On the other hand, the man to whom God is 
 revealed finds himself at the same moment in the centre and 
 ■at the circumference of things ; he sees their initial germ, their 
 development, their term, their reason ; if he knows nothing of 
 the detail, he measures the whole, and his mind peacefully 
 reposes in the double joy of knowledge and certainty. In a 
 word, God, being truth, is the proper object of our intelligence, 
 He is its perfection and beatitude ; and when I said to you but 
 now, that from the first He had given to us the gift of truth, I 
 said that from the first He had revealed Himself to us. 
 
 I find a beautiful confirmation of this in the first page of 
 the Gospel of St. John — " There was," says the Evangelist, " a 
 man sent from God, whose name was John. . . . He was not 
 the light, but was sent to give testimony of the light. That 
 was the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh 
 into this world." If indeed there exist a supreme light, mother 
 •of all minds, its first act, when they come into the world, should 
 be to enlighten them, and it can enlighten them only by making 
 known to them their principle, which is God ; their end, which 
 is God ; truth, which is God. If it failed to do this, what means 
 ■would they have of accomplishing their destiny by tending to- 
 wards their end ? They would have none. And thus truth is not 
 only due to them by right of the perfection and beatitude of the 
 intelligence, it is due to them also as the first and necessary 
 means, without which, being ignorant even of the object of 
 their life, it would be impossible for them to advance towards 
 that object, still more impossible to attain it. It is then with 
 justice that Catholic doctrine makes truth — that is to say, the 
 knowledge of God — one of the primitive gifts of man, the 
 starting-point, and I shall add, the milestone of his destiny. 
 
 To this, what does rationalism oppose ? You shall hear. 
 
 Eighteen hundred years ago a Roman proconsul called a 
 prisoner before him, and after having attentively examined him 
 as a man whose appearance was remarkable, he spoke to him 
 these few words: "Thou art the King of the Jews?" The 
 accused replied : " My kingdom is not of this world. If my 
 kingdom were of this world my servants would certainly strive 
 
 q' 2 
 
228 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 that I should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now my- 
 kingdom is not from hence." The proconsul continued : 
 "Art thou a king, then?" The accused answered: "Thou 
 sayest that I am a king. For this end was I born, and for 
 this cause came I into the world, that I should give testimony 
 to truth." The proconsul stood up and said : " What is truth ?" * 
 This terrible question is the same that rationalism even now 
 addresses to us whenever we speak of the basis of all faith and 
 knowledge. Like the Roman, it asks : What is truth ? And 
 it must ask this question under pain of not protesting against 
 the very foundation of the whole religious edifice, which is the 
 idea of truth in itself. Now how could rationalism avoid 
 protesting up to this point? How could it permit truth to 
 affirm itself without being contradicted ? How could it refrain' 
 from digging out under truth an abyss as deep as itself, and 
 from making of the intelligence a faculty without certainty and 
 without any other object than that of an incomprehensible 
 enigma ? It would be too weak on the part of rationalism, or 
 too disinterested. It has not committed this fault, it has 
 advanced straight to the question that precedes all others, and 
 whilst the universe proclaims the works of truth, ages repeat 
 its name, minds contemplate it, and its action is perpetuated 
 by evidence and faith through the whole course of human 
 generations, rationalism, opposing to that triumph the imper- 
 turbation of some of its sages, has boldly and fearlessly asked : 
 What is truth ? It has not denied ; for to deny boldly is also- 
 to affirm. It has not said : There is nothing ; but, Is there 
 anything? It has not said : I know not; but, What do I know? 
 In a word, it has raised up against absolute truth the icy arm 
 of absolute scepticism. 
 
 Must we listen ? Must we do so much honour to the reason 
 which abdicates its throne, as to listen and reply ? Yes, let 
 us listen ; let us learn how far intelligence afraid of God is 
 able to annihilate itself from fear of adoring Him. Scepticism 
 reasons thus : Man sees in his mind something which he calls- 
 ideas, some, secondary and deduced, others, primordial with- 
 out a generating principle, and which constitute the inscrutable 
 foundation of his reason. All the ulterior conclusions of the 
 understanding flow from this primary source, wherein analysis 
 readily discerns the notions of being, unity, the infinite, the 
 
 * John xviii. 33, 36-38. 
 
GOD. 22g 
 
 absolute, order, justice, which together take the august name 
 •of truth, or a still more august name, that of God. This is 
 the fact. But because the mind possesses such ideas, does it 
 follow that out of itself there are realities which correspond to 
 them ? It is not the mind itself which is being, unity, the 
 infinite, the absolute, order, justice ; nor does the mind 
 directly perceive these. It sees but their shadow, if we may 
 so speak, and the very word idea, in its origin, means only 
 an image. But who can assure us that the image is exact, or 
 even that it is produced by a real object? How can the 
 intelligence, which is limited, be the mirror of the infinite ? 
 How, being contingent, relative, fallible, can it be the mirror 
 of the necessary, the eternal, the just, the perfect? What 
 proof have we that the ideal vision does not deceive us, and 
 that it is any other thing than the permanent dream of a pass- 
 ing being ? We believe that it is not so, but we believe this 
 without demonstrating it, and we vainly endeavour to establish 
 that demonstration ; for every demonstration supposes prin- 
 ciples upon which it is based, and these very principles of the 
 understanding we have now to verify. Man encounters there 
 an invincible obstacle ; he may be able to ascend the Nile of 
 his thoughts even to the elements which begin its course ; 
 beyond this, he becomes lost in a contemplation which renders 
 to him but the sterile repetition of the ideas which he employs 
 to enable him to advance farther. The mind becomes an 
 echo which answers to itself, and its voice appearing to it to 
 come from a greater distance adds only an illusion to its 
 powerlessness. 
 
 I do not think that scepticism has said anything stronger 
 than what you have just heard; it has perhaps said this in a 
 more scientific manner, that is to say, in a more obscure 
 manner, but not with more energy and sincerity. And I 
 confess in the first place that it is impossible to demonstrate 
 the primary ideas which form, as it were, the intimate substance 
 of our reason. If they could be demonstrated, they would not 
 be primitive ; others would be so, and the same difficulties 
 would arise in regard to them. We demonstrate only that 
 which is a consequence, and not that which is a principle. 
 Now our intelligence, being the faculty of a finite being, can 
 be enlightened only by a transmitted light, a light which begins 
 at a certain point and ends at another, a light which has a 
 piinciple and an end. As principle, light is an axiom; as end, 
 
230 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 it is a mystery. Both of these, the axiom and the mystery, are 
 indemonstrable, but the axiom is so on account of its clearness,, 
 the mystery on account of its obscurity. As the obscurity of 
 the mystery is insurmountable, the clearness of the axiom is. 
 irresistible, and thus the understanding, at the two extremes of 
 the horizon which it embraces, encounters a limit where its 
 power is broken, or where its liberty ceases. It is powerless 
 against the splendour of primary truths, and against the obscu- 
 rity of final truths; it is exhausted before the former, and 
 yields inevitably to the latter. This is why absolute scepticism 
 is an effort against nature, which terminates only in self-decep- 
 tion, and in placing the actions of the man in perpetual 
 contradiction with the reasonings of the sage. "If," said 
 Pascal, " there is an impossibility of proving, which is invin- 
 cible to all dogmatism, there is an impossibility of doubting, 
 which is invincible to all pyrrhonism." We make no higher 
 pretensions. For, what is certainty, but the impossibility of 
 doubting ? What is rational certainty, but the rapture caused 
 by evidence which captivates the mind? Scepticism, it is 
 true, stands up against the evidence of primordial ideas; it 
 accuses this evidence of being purely subjective, that is to say,, 
 speaking so as to be understood, not attaining to a vision of 
 the object which the ideas represent. But what matters it, if 
 that evidence assures us naturally and invincibly of the reality 
 of the things which the ideas represent ? There is none but God,, 
 who — as being, unity, the infinite, the absolute, order, justice — 
 confounds in His vision the subject and the object, the subject 
 seeing and the object seen. For us who possess truth without 
 being truth, we have no other natural means of beholding 
 it and of being sure of its presence, than the light by which 
 it appears to us, an intervening light which identifies itself 
 with our minds, and which, seizing it as a part of itself, leaves- 
 it no other room for doubt than the resource of an act of 
 suicide, so much the more powerless as it is never accomplished.. 
 Indeed it may be said that there is nothing to reply to 
 absolute scepticism ; because there is nothing to reply to those 
 who make objects of doubt of their ideas, their words, their 
 very doubts. To reply, is to suppose a reality, were it only 
 that of the objection. Now, as the sceptic destroys all reality, 
 his objection becomes lost with him in the void which he 
 hollows out for himself. It suffices to be silent before a 
 shadow ; to live before a dead body. So much the more as 
 
GOD. 231 
 
 scepticism is but the malady of a small number of depraved 
 minds, who, notwithstanding all the energy of their pride and 
 all the glory of their aberrations, have never been able to 
 escape from the chastisement of solitude. The generality of 
 intelligent men have constantly disdained their sophisms, and 
 believed with incorruptible faith in the reality of truth. What 
 need you more ? Error is something only by the adhesion of 
 men ; wherever mankind is not in a certain measure, nothing 
 is left to error but a little noise in an empty tomb. It is a 
 phantom which hopes to scare us, but the laugh of God and 
 man render justice to it. This suffices for God and mankind; 
 it is sufficient also for me. 
 
 If, however, absolute scepticism is but an unimportant 
 chimera, it is not so of another kind of scepticism, which, 
 attacking truth from a lower point, and not contesting its 
 principal basis, produces a serious state of mind which it is 
 necessary for us to notice. Absolute scepticism places in 
 doubt the primitive notions that form the basis of human 
 reason, and consequently the very idea of God ; relative or 
 imperfect scepticism gives its adhesion to these ideas, but 
 refuses its faith to certain consequences which flow from them, 
 and which embrace the nature of the divine acts. Absolute 
 scepticism is atheism under a negative form ; imperfect scep- 
 ticism implies only an ignorance of the attributes and opera- 
 tions of God. It believes that God exists, but it does not 
 take account of what He is, of what He does, or of what He 
 wills to do. This is vulgar unbelief, and this very expression 
 teaches us that it is no longer a question of a rare and 
 chimerical condition, but a condition too real, in which man, 
 so far from abdicating his intelligence, derives from it, on the 
 contrary, forces for resisting truth, that is to say, God. Now 
 God, we have said, manifests Himself to man from his cradle, 
 not in an incomplete manner, but to the full extent required 
 by the need in which we starid of knowing our principle, our 
 end, and the means of attaining it. How, then, should a 
 certain portion of mankind be ignorant of God, or are they in 
 a state of doubt with regard to Him which hinders them from 
 appreciating and accomplishing their true destinies ? Is it the 
 fault of man or the fault of God ? It is needful for us to know 
 this, in order that obscurities may not be left in your minds, 
 which would be so much the more grievous, as it is now our 
 object and yours that you may be instructed in the intellectual 
 
232 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 ways which God has opened to us that we may ascend towards 
 Him. 
 
 I repeat, then : Is that imperfect scepticism — such as I 
 have defined it, and in which so many reasonable beings pine 
 - — the work of God or the work of man ? Has God been 
 sparing of light, or is it man who has retreated from it ? In order 
 to solve this question, we must seek to learn by what means and 
 in what measure God primitively communicated truth to the 
 human race. 
 
 Doubtless God could have shown Himself to us face to 
 face, in all the brightness of His essence, and, in this case, 
 scepticism would never have appeared upon earth. Every 
 veil being withdrawn, truth, which is but the divine nature, 
 would have taken irrevocable possession of our intelligence. 
 Intelligible light, instead of appearing to us between the axiom 
 and the mystery, that is to say, with a principle and an end, 
 would have risen for us in all the ineffable plenitude of its own 
 immensity. Evidence would have been ecstasy, certainty 
 would have taken the character of immutability, truth would 
 have become the eternal life of our minds. But that state, so 
 far from being our original state in the divine plan, was pre- 
 cisely the supreme term to which we were called. I have 
 already told you for what reason. I have shown you, in 
 exposing to you the general ordinance of the universe, that 
 God, moved by His goodness, willed to communicate to us His 
 perfection and beatitude, and that beatitude, given without 
 the previous condition of free will, would have deprived us of 
 the merit and glory of perfection. From whence it follows 
 that a state of trial should precede the final state of beatifica- 
 tion, and that state of trial, founded upon free will, necessarily 
 included the possibility of believing or not believing, of 
 admitting or rejecting truth, that is to say, the liberty of the 
 understanding. Now, the liberty of the understanding was 
 incompatible with a direct vision of the divine essence, and 
 consequently it was needful that God should veil Himself 
 from our sight, and be for us at the same time a hidden God 
 and a God known, hidden without envy, known freely. 
 
 But how are we to see that which is unseen ? How are we 
 to know that which does not fall directly under the eye of the 
 mind ? If this difficulty could not be solved, the plan of God 
 in creation would be impossible to realise. Can it therefore be 
 solved ? God possessed in His double nature the pattern of a 
 
GOD. 2J3 
 
 double vision, the intuitive vision and the ideal vision. Present 
 to Himself by the intuitive vision, He discovered by the ideal 
 vision the things which He should one day create. These 
 things evidently formed no part of His essence under their 
 positive and realised form ; He did not then behold them in 
 Himself under that substantial form ; nor did He behold them 
 out of Himself before communicating to them the being which 
 was wanting to them. Where then, and how, did He behold 
 them, if not, as I have just said, by way of image, of repre- 
 sentation, under that intelligible and mysterious form which we 
 call an idea ? St. Thomas of Aquinas proposes this question : 
 " Are there ideas in God ? " And he answers: "Yes; for as 
 the world was not made by chance, but by the action of the 
 divine intelligence, there must have pre-existed in the divine 
 intelligence a form or likeness of the world, and that form or like- 
 ness is the idea itself."* Now, if God beheld the sensible world 
 by the ideal vision, why did not man see the divine world by the 
 same kind of vision ? Why, without discovering the very sub- 
 stance of being, unity, the infinite, the absolute, order, justice 
 — all of which things are God under different aspects and under 
 different names — did he not receive the idea of Him in his 
 mind, and with the idea a distinct knowledge of Him, worthy 
 of being called truth ? Can we say that we do not understand 
 what is being, unity, the infinite, the absolute, order, justice ? 
 And if we do understand this, if this is the very torch that 
 enlightens all the rest, what is within our soul and what is 
 without, can we accuse God of not having enlightened us, of 
 not having cast before our life the pale and uncertain light of 
 visible things ? Yes, whilst hiding Himself from us, that is to 
 say, whilst leaving a veil upon the substantial fount of His 
 being, God has fully given Himself to us, by the exact impres- 
 sion of His likeness in the living flesh of our understanding. 
 He has traced out in it luminous furrows, and with a generous 
 hand has sown that incorruptible germ of truth which teaching, 
 reflection, experience, and even the course of our years, un- 
 ceasingly develop, so far as to cause us to attain, save by our 
 own fault, to divine maturity ; to that glorious moment when 
 the image of God, fully formed within us, bursts the envelope 
 which covers it, and rejoins in immortality the ineffable type 
 which was its father, and which recognises its son. 
 
 * Summa, first part, quest. 15, art. I. 
 
234 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 It is not then the want of light that precipitates a part of 
 mankind into scepticism and keeps them away from truth, it is 
 the abuse of their free will. The darkness wherein they lose 
 God, is voluntary darkness ; God shows Himself, and they fly 
 from Him ; God is the object present to their intelligence, and 
 they choose to make of their intelligence a sepulchre or a 
 chaos, rather than adore the star that shines upon it. They 
 abandon that inner light, the only true light, to pursue the 
 obscure and powerless attractions of the material universe 
 from which they expect the joy of apostasy in the pride of 
 false science. And yet the universe, all limited as it is, all 
 pale and silent as it rises before our minds, is itself full of 
 God. If it be not His likeness, it contains at least a vestige, a 
 lineament of Him ; from the hyssop to the cedar, from the dew 
 of morning to the evening star, all nature is a reflection of the 
 divine power, beauty, and goodness. God, who in the body 
 of man has associated matter with the most subtle operations 
 of the mind, has willed, in the body of the world, to associate 
 it with the revelation which His mind perpetually makes to our 
 own. To each ray of ideal light there corresponds a ray of 
 sensible light ; to each vision of the uncreated world, a vision 
 of the created ; to each voice of the one, the voice of the 
 other. But man separates what God has united ; enlightened 
 by a double light, because of his double substance, he does- 
 not perceive that both meet in a single fount, as our double 
 substance terminates in one single personality, and, dividing 
 truth by a divorce which destroys it, he opposes the revelation 
 from without to the revelation from within, nature to God, 
 matter to spirit. Or at least he disdains the superior light, as 
 a sort of vague apparition in a badly defined horizon, whilst 
 he cleaves to the inferior light as to the only one which pos- 
 sesses a precise and positive character. From that moment, 
 all that relates to God, His attributes, His acts, becomes 
 obscured in that adulterous understanding ; even if he does 
 not descend to absolute scepticism, he clearly distinguishes 
 only that which strikes the senses, and the true, in his eyes,, 
 is that alone which bears the stamp of a palpable and vulgar 
 reality. 
 
 Are there then really more obscurities in the mind than in 
 the body? Does the sensible world possess more clearness 
 than the intelligible world ? Is earth instead of heaven the 
 great illuminator of man, and has God erred in the construe- 
 
GOD. 235 
 
 tion of our being so far as to have sacrificed the part which 
 tends towards Him to that which tends towards nothingness? 
 
 You do not think so : Catholic doctrine affirms the contrary 
 for us, and the most simple observation of the exercise of our 
 faculties will show us that Catholic doctrine is in the right. 
 Even natural science — that is to say, that which occupies itself 
 only with the visible order — would be unable to subsist with- 
 out employing notions which it draws from the invisible or 
 metaphysical order. Despoil man of these fertile principles, 
 take from him the ideas of being, unity, extent, force, relation, 
 what would the universe be for him ? Precisely what it would 
 be for an animal — a spectacle. He would behold it without 
 thinking about anything but beholding it ; so far from pene- 
 trating its laws, he would not even have a confused presenti- 
 ment of what a law is. A purely instinctive being, rendering 
 to the world nothing superior to the world, he would stand 
 mute before it, and his hand, which now leads the distant 
 stars, would never beforehand have traced out for them the 
 inevitable course which they unconsciously follow. It is the 
 mind that sheds light upon the obscurity of nature ; it is the 
 mind that discovers the connection and the cause of pheno- 
 mena ; it is the mind that measures, calculates, analyses, 
 defines, dictates orders to matter ; in fine, that unravels in that 
 labyrinth the thread left there by God, and by which He still 
 holds it suspended to the will that created it. But the mind 
 without the idea is but an unlighted torch, and the idea with- 
 out a germ sown from above, greater and clearer than all the 
 worlds, is itself but the powerless reflection of nature upon a 
 faculty which, possessing nothing, has nothing to respond 
 thereto. In vain materialism tells us that sensation becomes 
 an idea on falling into the intelligence ; it is as if it said that 
 limit on entering into void becomes infinite. Sensation, 
 because of the intimate union between the soul and the body, 
 may awaken the intelligible grain that reposes in the depths of 
 the mind ; it may draw it forth from a kind of solitary abstrac- 
 tion, which is not in relation with the constitution of a being 
 at the same time spiritual and material ; but it is impossible 
 for it to give to the mind what it does not possess, or to receive 
 from the mind that which itself had not. Two lights become 
 strengthened by uniting ; a ray of light does not become the 
 sun by passing through darkness. 
 
 It is then by an abuse even of the forces of the intelligible 
 
236 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 and divine order, that man withdraws from the exalted regions 
 of the mind to bury himself in the science of terrestrial pheno- 
 mena. He draws from his intelligence treasures of knowledge 
 , and harmony; he scatters them with profusion upon the world; 
 next, beholding it reinvested with that sublime beauty which 
 he has made for it, he believes that it is the world which has 
 enlightened him, that in it alone is full certainty, that it alone 
 merits the honour of assiduous cultivation, and, banishing 
 God to an inaccessible throne, he is not slow to lose sight of 
 Him, to forget Him, to misunderstand Him, to have no other 
 notion left of Him than a notion vague and profitless. Thus is 
 imperfect scepticism formed from the voluntary predominance 
 of the material order over the ideal order. 
 
 But there is another cause of this, about which I must not 
 be silent, and the exposition of which will fully make known to 
 you the means which God has employed to initiate our intelli- 
 gence to the perfection and beatitude of truth. 
 
 In depositing within us the ideal or intelligible seed, in 
 placing us by our senses in relation with the phenomena and 
 laws of the universe, God enlightened us by a double revelation, 
 the one interior, the other exterior. This was a great gift ; but 
 it was not to communicate Himself to us personally, inasmuch 
 as He is truth ; had He remained there and given us nothing 
 more, we should have known Him only by means of nature 
 and ideas, that is to say, indirectly. He willed to advance 
 further, and, without however revealing to us His essence, to 
 establish personal relations between our minds and His own. 
 He spoke to us then. It is a fundamental point of ( 'atholic 
 doctrine that a word of God was, from the very first, shed upon 
 mankind, and that it has never ceased to exist and to spread 
 in the world, either adulterated or in a pure state, as an im- 
 mortal echo of truth ; an echo often weakened, often corrupted, 
 but rising again from its ruins through all generations, and 
 recalling to us, with the eloquence of perpetuity, the existence 
 of God, His nature, His acts ; that He is the principle, the end, 
 the means, the key of our destinies. Traditions, common to 
 all nations and all ages, continually attest that oral revelation 
 primitively made to the human race ; human language itself, 
 '.onstantly transmitted by hereditary succession, and neither 
 historically nor logically permitting the possibility of an origin 
 by way of invention to be even perceived, bore testimony also 
 to the reality of an anterior and a divine language, from whence 
 
GOD. 237 
 
 our own issued. In the forests man has been found lowered 
 to the rank of animals, from a precocious abandonment which 
 had deprived him of all teaching. Language from his lips was 
 nothing more than a vague, an inarticulate sound, a barbarous 
 cry indicating the presence of sensations and incapable of 
 transmitting ideas. All these facts confirm the page of Scripture 
 which shows God speaking with man ; and by the effusion of 
 oral light achieving that which the gift of intelligible and 
 sensible light had commenced within him. But it was reserved 
 for our epoch to acquire from that truth a demonstration as- 
 marvellous as it was unlooked for. 
 
 Towards the end of the last century, a French priest, 
 touched by the misfortunes of those poor creatures who are 
 born deprived of speech because deprived of hearing — a cir- 
 cumstance which again bears witness to the close connection 
 between the mystery of language and the mystery of a previous 
 instruction — a priest, I say, touched by the condition of the 
 deaf and dumb, devoted his life to leading them out of their 
 sad solitude, by seeking an expression of thought which might 
 reach their own and succeed in drawing from their bosoms, so 
 long closed, the secret of their inner state. He attained this 
 object. Charity, more ingenious than misfortune, had the 
 happiness of opening the issues which nature held closed, 
 and of pouring into these obscure and captive souls the in- 
 effable, although imperfect, light of speech. The benefit was 
 great, the recompense was still greater. As soon as these un- 
 known intelligences were penetrated, investigation discovered 
 in them nothing resembling an idea. I do not speak only 
 of a moral and religious idea, but of a metaphysical idea. 
 Nothing was found there but an image of what falls under the 
 investigation of the senses, there was nothing of what falls 
 from a higher region into the mind. Sensation was caught here 
 in the very fact of powerlessness. What do I say, sensation ? — 
 the intelligence itself, although endowed with the ideal seeds 
 of truth, although assisted by the revelation of the sensible 
 world, the intelligence appeared in the deaf and dumb in a 
 state of sterility. Men already ripe in years, born in our 
 civilisation, who had never quitted it, who had been present at 
 all the scenes of family and public life, who had seen our 
 temples, our priests, our ceremonies, those men being inter- 
 rogated on the intimate working of their convictions, knew 
 nothing of God, nothing of the soul, nothing of the moral law. 
 
238 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 nothing of the metaphysical order, nothing of any one of the 
 ..general principles of the human mind. They were in a purely 
 instinctive state. The experiment has been repeated a hundred 
 times, and a hundred times it has produced the same results ; 
 and hardly do we perceive, in the multitude of documents 
 published up to this time, a doubt or a difference of opinion 
 on so capital a fact, which is the greatest psychological dis- 
 covery the history of philosophy can boast of. Has thought 
 then received in language an auxiliary so indispensable that, 
 without its help, man was condemned to incapability of emerg- 
 ing from the reign of sensations ? Was language, for all the 
 operations of the intelligence, the point or means of junction 
 between the soul and the body? Did our double nature 
 require that sort of incarnation of what is most immaterial in 
 the world, or had God willed to make us comprehend the 
 dependency of our mind by rendering it incapable of becoming 
 fertile without the exterior action of oral instruction ? 
 
 Whatever may be the explanation of this, it has always 
 been found certain that man does not speak before he has 
 heard language, and that he thinks only after the ideas contained 
 in language have awakened the intelligible germ deposited in 
 the depths of his understanding. If he did not possess this 
 intelligible germ, language, in passing through the organs of 
 his hearing, would vainly solicit his intelligence; he would hear 
 it only as a sound, and not as a living expression of truth. 
 But truth pre-exists in him in the same manner as the tree 
 pre-exists in its seed and as the consequence pre-exists in its 
 principle. Just as after-teaching causes to bud forth within 
 each of us an innumerable multitude of deductions included 
 in primary ideas, but of which our mind had no consciousness, 
 so initial teaching causes the primary ideas themselves to 
 appear to our inner vision. You find it natural that language 
 should reveal to you mathematics, although you possess them 
 entire in the primordial notions of unity, number, extent, 
 weight : why does it appear strange to you that language 
 should cause you also to perceive notions of unity, number, 
 extent, weight, which are the base of mathematics ? One of 
 these phenomena is not more remarkable than the other; 
 perhaps even it is more easy to understand the integral and 
 profound sleep of a faculty which nothing analogous to it had 
 yet disturbed, than to understand why that faculty, once called 
 into exercise, halts in its way, and waits for language to mani- 
 
GOD. 239 
 
 fest to it the simple consequences of what it clearly sees. The 
 fact, however, remains incontestable, and that language is 
 always the primitive and necessary motor of our ideas, as the 
 sun, in agitating by his action the vast extent of air, produces 
 there the brilliant scintillation which gives light to our eyes. 
 
 Thence it follows that Catholic doctrine is true when it 
 exhibits to us God teaching the first man, whether in causing 
 ■the truth of his intelligence to emerge by the percussion of the 
 verb, or in announcing mysteries to him which surpassed the 
 forces of the purely ideal order, as we shall by-and-by perceive. 
 In fact, since man thinks and speaks only after having heard 
 others speak, and since, on another hand, human generations 
 take their beginning in God, their Creator, it follows that the 
 first movement of language and thought remounts to the hour 
 of creation, and was given to man, who possessed nothing, by 
 Him who possessed all, and who willed to communicate all to 
 him. This movement once impressed, intellectual life began 
 for the human race, and has never since ceased. The divine 
 word, immortalised upon the lips of man, has spread like an 
 inexhaustible stream divided into a thousand branches through 
 the vicissitudes of nations, and preserving its force as well as 
 its unity in the infinite mixture of idioms and dialects, it per- 
 petuates in the very seat of error the generating ideas which 
 constitute the popular fund of reason and religion. If human 
 liberty vitiates its teaching, it is but in a limited manner ; its 
 efforts do not attain so far as to reach the lowest depths of 
 truth. Language, by that alone that it is pronounced, bears in 
 its essence a light which seizes the soul and renders it an 
 accomplice, if not in all, at least in the fundamental principles 
 without which man altogether disappears. Therefore, God, by 
 the effusion of His word continued in our own, does not cease 
 to promulgate the gospel of reason, and every man, whatever 
 he may do, is the organ and missionary of that gospel. God 
 speaks in us in spite of us ; the mouth that blasphemes still 
 contains truth ; the apostate who renounces Him still makes 
 an act of faith, the sceptic who mocks at all employs words 
 that affirm all. 
 
 However, if absolute scepticism is powerless against the 
 revelation of language, it is not the same with imperfect or 
 vulgar scepticism, which does not disavow human reason, but 
 •contests only certain applications of it relative to the superior 
 order which does not fall under the investigation of our senses. 
 
240 MAN AS AN INTELLIGENT BEING. 
 
 This kind of scepticism rejects in particular all personal rela- 
 tion between God and us by means of language ; and maintains 
 that our ideas spring of themselves from the living sources of 
 the understanding, and in supposing that language may be 
 necessary to their intimate emission, does not recognise in that 
 marvellous functionary any traditional and divine character. 
 God has not spoken to man ; man has spoken of himself. He 
 is the son of his own works, and all that he possesses of truth 
 he owes to the success of his own investigations. 
 
 I have refuted this system, which is the corner-stone of 
 rationalism, and which explains to you the blindness wherein 
 so many creatures destined to know and love God live far from 
 Him. God has given light to us under three forms, which are 
 perfected by each other — the intelligible form; the sensible 
 form; the oral or traditional form. Now rationalism admits 
 only the two former, and rejects with tradition the invincible 
 certainty found in the dogmas affirmed by God. It opens to 
 its adepts the field of unlimited speculation, to which the best 
 disposed bring but an imperfect intelligence, obscured by 
 prejudices of birth .and education, still more dangerously 
 vitiated by the domination of the senses over the mind. But 
 were all these obstacles surmountable, there would still remain 
 the greatest of all, namely, the order established by God in the 
 communication of truth which He has made to man. If man 
 were a pure spirit, he would see truth in intelligible light, 
 without the help of any sensible element. If, being unity 
 composed of body and soul, he had not been destined to hold 
 personal relations with God, he would probably have seen 
 truth in the combination of intelligible and sensible light, 
 independently of all oral tradition. But he is at the same time 
 spirit and matter, and in addition he is called to live in society 
 with God ; and this is why truth has been communicated to 
 him under a mode which is triple and single, corresponding to 
 his nature and vocation. Would he think as an angel thinks ?' 
 He cannot ; some exterior image always intervenes in his most 
 subtle operations. Would he think as an animal? He is 
 equally unable ; the height of his speculations elevates him 
 even in the act by which he degrades himself, and even in 
 concluding that he is only matter he proves that he is spirit. 
 In fine, would he think like a being separated from God, inde- 
 pendent of all personal relation with Him, supported by his 
 reason alone ? Doubtless he can do this, but only by losing 
 
GOD. 241 
 
 at the same moment the equilibrium of his intelligence; ha 
 seeks, he hesitates, he deceives himself, and even when he 
 touches truth, the clouds that cover it and the horizon that 
 limits it take from him the hope of lifting by himself alone the 
 immense weight of earth and heaven. The history of the 
 human mind offers on every page superabundant proof of this. 
 Two systems of philosophy dispute for empire — religious and 
 traditional philosophy, and rationalist or critical philosophy. 
 The first, even when it is mixed up with errors, settles minds 
 and founds nations ; the second, even when it affirms a portion 
 of truth, destroys what the other builds up. 
 
 In a word, God, who is truth, has made Himself known to 
 us by three revelations which are but one, by ideas, by the 
 universe, and by language. Whoever breaks the bond that 
 unites these, confuses and divides the light that lightens every 
 man coming into the world ; he condemns himself to a state of 
 ignorance which knowledge does but increase ; he will live at 
 hazard like a being without principle or end, because he will 
 voluntarily have abdicated, with truth, that is to say, with the 
 knowledge of God, the highest means given to us to accom- 
 plish our destiny — which is to tend towards God, and, by 
 imitating Him, to obtain the perfection of His nature and the 
 beatitude of His eternal life. 
 
MAN AS A MORAL BEING, 
 
 My Lord, — Gentlemen, 
 
 Man is not simply an intelligence, he is not simply a 
 contemplative being. If God had given him only the activity 
 of contemplation, his life would have been limited to a simple 
 and perpetual vision, to an impassible adoration of truth. 
 But man is also an affective and an operative being ; he is 
 endowed with a second faculty, which is the consequence of 
 the first, and has two acts, one expressed by the words : I 
 love; the other by: I command. This faculty is the will. 
 We have then to learn what God did for the will when He 
 created man, and what means He has communicated to us, in 
 and by the will, for attaining our end, which is perfection and 
 beatitude. 
 
 But before entering upon this grave subject, gentlemen, I 
 have two requests to address to you. I pray you first, never to> 
 applaud me, whatever may be the sentiment that moves your 
 hearts. Not that I do not comprehend the involuntary move- 
 ment which, even at the feet of the altars, causes an assembly 
 to stand up, so to say, in unanimous witness of its sympathy 
 and its faith. But although on certain occasions these accla- 
 mations might appear excusable, so much do they spring with 
 piety from the souls of an auditory, nevertheless I conjure you 
 to respect the constant tradition of Christendom, which is to 
 respond to the word of God only by the silence of love and the 
 immobility of respect. You owe this to God; you owe it also 
 perhaps to him who speaks to you in His name. Although he 
 may not have been tempted into pride by your applause, he 
 may be suspected of not being insensible to it ; it may be 
 supposed, that, instead of giving freely to you that which he 
 has freely received, he comes to seek its price in the glory of 
 
GOD. 243 
 
 popularity, a recompense sometimes honourable, but always 
 fragile, and still more fragile, more vain, between those who 
 receive and him who gives the lessons of eternity. 
 
 The second request I would address to you is in favour of 
 a nation to which on more than one occasion, and even from 
 this place, I have already proved my respectful attachment. 
 Yesterday, three noble sons of Poland visited me ; they told 
 me that four thousand of their companions, after fifteen years 
 of exile, were about to approach their country, with the consent 
 of France, which opens to them her gates, and of Germany, 
 which permits them to pass through her territory. They asked 
 me, after having obtained permission from the chief of this 
 diocese, here present, to beg of you in their name, a last proof 
 of your pious fraternity ; for, if time has respected their glory 
 and not lessened their courage, it has left them those precious 
 remains, and nothing more. I bent before their desire as 
 before their misfortune ; I present them to you together. You 
 will not give them alms ; for although that word is dear to your 
 Christian hearts, there are times when the heroism of mis- 
 fortune constrains you to seek a higher title. You will not pay 
 them tribute ; although that word supposes a debt, and a debt 
 of an important character, yet it does not sufficiently express 
 the unction of Christian language. Therefore, borrowing a 
 celebrated expression of the Middle Ages, I ask you to give 
 them a viaticum, that is to say, the travelling pay given in those 
 times to the members of religious orders and to the knights 
 who went to combat in the Holy Land for the emancipation 
 of Christendom. You will give a viaticum to those sons of 
 another hallowed land, to those soldiers of another generous 
 cause ; you will give them the triple viaticum of honour, exile, 
 and hope. 
 
 This said, this double satisfaction proposed to your heart 
 and to my own, I enter at once upon the subject which claims 
 your attention. 
 
 As truth is the object of the intelligence, good is the object 
 of the will. But what is good ? What distinction is there 
 between the good and the true ? Is it not the same thing 
 under two different names ? I grant that the good and the 
 true have the same root, the same substantial support, since 
 the true is being, and the good is also being. But as the 
 unity of the divine essence does not exclude the triplicity of 
 persons, the unity of being does not hinder it from possessing 
 
 r 2 
 
244 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 many aspects. In the first place, it is light ; and under that 
 form reveals itself to the intelligence, and is called truth. 
 Next it is order, harmony, beauty ; and under that form it seizes 
 the will, and is called good. Our nature thus corresponds to 
 its own. Inasmuch as it is light, we respond to it by a faculty 
 destined to know the true ; inasmuch as it is order, harmony, 
 beauty, we respond to it by a faculty destined to reproduce 
 good in loving and practising it. And as truth is the perfection 
 and beatitude of the intelligence, good is the perfection and 
 beatitude of the will. 
 
 In the first place, it is its perfection ; for outside of good 
 all is evil, that is to say, disorder, confusion, deformity : and 
 evidently the will which loves and produces disorder, confusion, 
 deformity, is in a false or an unjust state, as, on the other 
 hand, the will which loves and produces good, that is to say, 
 order, harmony, beauty, is in a state of justice or perfection. 
 
 I add that good is also the beatitude of the will : for thereby 
 and therein it produces the most powerful sentiment of man, 
 that sentiment which moves and fills from its very depths the 
 vast solitude of his soul. No doubt the joy of truth known is 
 great ; there is in the regard that encounters the splendour of 
 the true a motionless thrill, almost ecstatic ; but if it reach to 
 ecstasy, to tears, be sure that the intelligence has not alone 
 been touched, the vision has penetrated still further, man has 
 received the supreme shock from on high, the touch of love 
 which terminates all in itself as in God. In the intuition of 
 truth, man did not emerge from himself, he regarded the light 
 present to his mind, and entered into enjoyment of it as an 
 element or a part of his proper personality. By the impulsion 
 of love, he emerges from his own personality or his life; he 
 seeks a foreign object, he attaches himself to it, he embraces 
 it, he longs to be transformed and absorbed into another than 
 himself. This rapture from self to self, which may be called 
 an attempt at suicide, gives him a bound of unspeakable 
 happiness, and the abandonment of his being becomes its 
 plenitude. This is love. But what has caused him to love ? 
 What has been powerful enough to take possession of that 
 being, and so to subject him as even to make him feel that 
 death in another is the best and highest life? A power, gentle- 
 men, has wrought this miracle, the power of good. Behind the 
 light where being appears to him, or in that very light, man 
 has seen order, harmony, beauty, and this spectacle drawing 
 
GOD. 245 
 
 him from the sterile contemplation of his own excellence, he 
 feels that he is led to divest himself of himself in order to live 
 in the object of his vision. 
 
 Nothing is more familiar to us than this movement ; of all 
 those of our nature it is the most universal, the most common, 
 and that which we most willingly push to extravagance. Our 
 life is passed in undergoing or regulating it. Every being possess- 
 ing a certain amount of good, that is to say, endowed with 
 order, harmony, and beauty in a certain measure, there is not 
 one which is not capable of exciting within us some impression 
 of love. But from man to man especially that impression 
 appears and increases. Man is here below the masterpiece of 
 good. He draws to his noble form the charm of the two worlds 
 to which he belongs, the world of bodies and the world of 
 spirits. Superior in the ordering of his features even to the 
 imagination, which has never been able to conceive anything 
 more perfect, he also calls to them from the depths of his soul 
 the reflection of thought and the expression of virtue. If he 
 open his eyes, a spirit looks at you ; if his lips are left silent, 
 the grace of the heart animates in closing them ; if serenity 
 brighten his forehead, the peace of an upright conscience sheds 
 upon it light and repose ; every bend of his body, every move- 
 ment of his life contains under a single expression of beauty 
 the double empire of visible and ideal good. Thence come 
 those attachments which make of human life a long course of 
 sacrifices rewarded by the happiness of loving and being loved. 
 We do not seek elsewhere the secret of being happy ; we know 
 that it is there, and even when we abuse it by culpable passions, 
 in the very crime we still bear witness to that law of our nature. 
 Should man refuse us the love which we need, rather than 
 renounce that precious treasure, we shall seek it from beings 
 placed beneath us, but distantly preserving in their instinct 
 some likeness capable of beguiling our heart. The poor man 
 who has no other friend, makes one of some creature more 
 neglected than himself; he warms in his bosom that obscure 
 and faithful animal which a Christian writer has so well called 
 the poor man's dog. He smiles upon him with that ineffable 
 look of the forsaken ; he confides to him those unknown tears 
 which no tenderness wipes away; he shares his daily crust 
 with him, and that sacrifice made by hunger to friendship causes 
 him even in his poverty to enjoy the great happiness of riches, 
 the happiness of giving. 
 
246 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 Nor is this the last effort made by man to give and receive 
 love. The prisoner goes beyond the poor. Separated from 
 nature and mankind by inexorable barriers, he perceives in the 
 chinks of his dungeon some lowly insect, the imperceptible 
 companion of his captivity. He draws near to it with the 
 trembling emotion of hope and the delicacy of respect ; he 
 watches the mystery of its existence, marks its tastes, spends 
 long days in teaching it not to fear him, in leading it from 
 timidity to confidence, in order at last to obtain from it some 
 reciprocal sign which will lessen the solitude of his heart and 
 widen his prison walls. The dog consoles the poor, the spider 
 melts the prisoner ; man, the child of good, carries everywhere 
 with him a love of it which turns into a resource and a joy 
 even the very horrors of isolation. 
 
 Need I say more ? Have not your souls passed beyond 
 my words, and do you not see that good, real or apparent, 
 disposes of our will and is its beatitude ? 
 
 But what, then, is good ? It is true I have already told 
 you ; I have said that good is the order, harmony, beauty, 
 which the intelligence discovers in the light where being 
 appears to it. Nevertheless, this definition, all exact though it 
 be, is not the term where your minds halt. You desire a more 
 profound explanation, you ask me where order, harmony, 
 beauty, are to be found? 
 
 Where ? Doubtless everywhere in nature, everywhere 
 before your eyes. There is not a leaf of the tree, not a blade 
 of grass, not a cloud skimming the heavens, which is not order, 
 harmony, beauty ; but not all order, all harmony, all beauty, 
 not all good. Every being, even the one perverted by his fault, 
 contains a portion of good, which is perceptible and excites our 
 sympathy ; it does not contain the totality of good. That is 
 order, which includes in its essence the rule from whence all 
 the relations of beings proceed; that is harmony, which has 
 weighed the worlds, and has traced out for them in space roads 
 in which they never wander ; that is beauty, which has made 
 man, and stamped upon his visage so much grace and majesty ; 
 that is good, from whence all good comes, and which has shed 
 it so profusely in the universe, without being able to give it all, 
 because it could not give the infinite. Order, harmony, beauty, 
 good, in one word, is God. As He is being and truth, He is 
 also good. Inasmuch as He is being, He has communicated 
 to us existence ; inasmuch as He is truth, He enlightens our 
 
GOD. 247 
 
 ■understanding ; inasmuch as He is good, He inspires us with 
 the love, which, according to the language of the Gospel, is all 
 the law and all justice. Tor we can receive nothing greater, 
 give nothing greater, than love ; it is the supreme credit or 
 debt, and whoever is quit towards it, is quit towards all. Now 
 the first to whom we are accountable for it, the first who has a 
 right to this highest treasure of our soul, is God, since God is 
 the only good, and since good alone is the cause of love. 
 
 Whoever has not loved God is certain not to love good. 
 He may, I grant, love particular things which are good, his 
 family, his friends, his country, honour, and even duty, if we 
 take duty in the narrow sense which governs the relations of 
 men among themselves : he will not love the universal and 
 absolute good from whence proceed all the other phases of 
 good to which he has devoted his heart. And this is why he 
 will not attain to the perfection and beatitude of the will, 
 which, being in the love of good, can be found only in the love 
 of God. 
 
 You see that in the mystery of love as well as in the 
 mystery of truth, we arrive at the same conclusion, namely, 
 that in God alone lies our perfection and our beatitude. And 
 it is impossible that you should wonder at this, since we have 
 established, as the foundation of doctrine, and as the knot of 
 our destinies, that God is at the same time our principle and 
 our end. Being our principle, He is the principle of each of 
 our faculties ; being our end, He is also the end of each of our 
 faculties. And that end identifying itself with the divine 
 perfection and beatitude, it is necessary for each of our 
 faculties, by the way proper to it, to draw from God the life 
 ■which renders it perfect and happy. Nevertheless, the 
 developments through which I have led you are not sterile 
 repetitions of the points of doctrine which we have before 
 advanced and demonstrated ; for, besides causing you to see 
 their application to each of the springs of human activity, they 
 verify those doctrines superabundantly by the analysis of our 
 acts and of their objects. What joy do we not feel, in simply 
 defining the intelligence and the will, on meeting God at the 
 term of their operations ! What ecstasy to be unable to name 
 either truth or good, without naming God Himself ! And, in 
 addition, those investigations lead us straight to the means 
 which we must have received for attaining our end. Already, 
 in the last conference, we have proved that the first of these 
 
24S MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 means is the knowledge of God ; we are now prepared to 
 conclude that the love of God is the second. 
 
 In fact, that love being the perfection and beatitude of our 
 will, and God having designed to communicate the one and 
 the other to us, as we have seen, it follows that, according to- 
 the order of His design, He should create us in a state of love 
 with Him ; of initial love, it is true, subject to the trial of our 
 free will, but preparing us and leading us, save prevarication on 
 our part, to the final and beatific union of consummated 
 charity. This is what Catholic doctrine teaches us, when it 
 represents to us thefiist man being bora in original charity 
 or justice. Remark, I pray you, that beautiful alliance of 
 expression; in Christian language, charity is the synonym of 
 justice, and justice is the synonym of charity. I have just 
 told you for what reason. Without that divine justice of love, 
 man is separated from God, even in knowing Him ; and, 
 being separated from Him, he can but descend towards misery 
 and death, by the road directly opposed to that into which the 
 order of his creation calls him. According to that order, he 
 has received God for his end, truth for his guide, charity for his 
 motor. If he wander, it is not in default of means, but of will. 
 
 Here we again encounter the intervention of free will in 
 our destinies, and, if its presence disturb you, I might limit 
 myself to repeating that without free will the gifts of God 
 would remain in us as we received them, with a character of 
 fatality which would make of our perfection a work unworthy 
 of God or of us. But this explanation, all sufficient though 
 it be, calls for developments which would have been premature 
 when we exposed to you the general plan of creation, and 
 which are no longer so when we touch, in the question of the 
 will, the foundations of the moral order. The will is the seat 
 of free choice as well as of love ; we love by the same organ 
 which gives us the empire of our acts, and which, with that 
 empire, imposes our personal responsibility. And these three 
 things blended together, free will, love, and responsibility, are 
 those which indivisibly constitute the moral order. Free will 
 presents the choice, love chooses, man responds. Why is it 
 so? Is it arbitrary wisdom that has enchained these three 
 elements of our activity ? Or is there some profound reason 
 for this which it is our duty to penetrate, in order to illuminate 
 with a final trait the mystery of God in the creation of this, 
 world ? 
 
GOD. 2491 
 
 You think I shall adopt the last conclusion ; I do adopt it, 
 and I ask that question which includes all the rest in itself : 
 Is there any essential relation between love and free will which 
 makes the one the condition of the other ? To know this, it 
 is necessary for us thoroughly to scrutinise love. It plays also 
 so important a part in our souls and in Christianity, that we 
 shall not regret the thoughtful regard which we shall have 
 thrown upon its essence. 
 
 Nothing is more simple, more single, than love ; and yet 
 it includes three acts in the unity of its movement. In the 
 first place, it is an act of preference. Man, however great his 
 heart may be, cannot cleave alike to all; surrounded by objects 
 which, in divers degrees, bear the stamp of good, he feels 
 degrees in the attraction which inclines him towards them, sym- 
 pathetic degrees, whose order does not solely depend upon the 
 comparative goodness of the beings, but also upon their secret 
 resemblances to ourselves. Often even we do not take account 
 of the motives of our preference ; what is certain is that we have 
 preferences, and that love begins in us by that first movement, 
 which is choice. What is also certain is that choice, in him 
 who is its author, as in him who is its term, gives the impulsion 
 to the elevated joys of love. We are happy in choosing, happy 
 also in being chosen. Two beings meet in the immensity of 
 time and space, through the numberless chances of creation ; 
 they meet as if they had given rendezvous to each other from 
 all eternity ; they are united by a reciprocal preference which 
 honours both, and flatters in their pride that which is pure and 
 venerable. Nothing surpasses the original charm of that 
 instant which remains the first in our memory, as it was the 
 first in our heart. After years had weakened other impressions, 
 that still subsists in its serene youth, and carries us back to 
 those happy days when we felt the glory of choosing and of 
 being chosen. But what would choice be without free will ? 
 What would it be without the faculty of preferring what pleases 
 us ? Doubtless the motives of preference exist in the perfec- 
 tion of the being who is its object ; but they exist also and 
 equally in the will which makes the choice. It may despise, 
 it may reject an excellence towards which it feels no sympathy, 
 for another with which it corresponds, and herein consists the 
 value of its act, a sovereign act which confers honour and pro- 
 duces joy only because it is sovereign. 
 
 Love, however, does not stop at the act of choice, it exacts 
 
-25° MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 devotedness to the being chosen. To choose is to prefer one 
 being to all others ; to be devoted is to prefer that being to 
 ourselves. Devotedness is the immolation of self to the object 
 loved. Whoever does not reach this point does not love. In 
 fact, preference alone implies only an inclination of the soul 
 which seeks to dilate in that which has caused it, an inclination 
 honourable and precious, doubtless, but which, thus limited, 
 Tesults only in seeking itself in another. If many affections 
 stop at this point it is because many affections are but disguised 
 egotism ; we feel an attraction, we yield to it, we think that we 
 love, we have perhaps the glimmerings of real love ; but when 
 the hour for devotedness comes, the dread of sacrifice shows 
 us the vanity of the sentiment which preoccupied without pos- 
 sessing us. We see frequent and lamentable examples of this 
 in the passions which have for their principle the fugitive 
 beauty of the body. Nothing intelligible and immortal inter- 
 vening between the souls which yield to these sad seductions, 
 their charm soon disappears in the very ardour which produced 
 them, and they leave in the heart nothing but the devastations 
 of egotism increased by deceptive enjoyments. Virtue alone 
 produces love, because virtue alone produces devotedness. We 
 -see proof of this in all the affections in which virtue mingles 
 the divine balm of its presence. It is virtue that inspires the 
 mother bent night and day over the cradle of a child ; it is 
 virtue that inspires the breast of the soldier, and leads him on 
 to death for the cause of his country ; it is virtue that fortifies 
 the martyr against the threats of tyrants, and causes him to 
 recline in the tortures prepared for him as in the nuptial and 
 joyful couch of truth. These are the signs by which the world, 
 all corrupt though it be, recognises and admires love, and if 
 love cannot always manifest itself by heroic sacrifices, it con- 
 stantly shows by lesser immolations that it bears with it the 
 germ which renders it as " strong as death,"* to use an expres- 
 sion of Solomon. 
 
 But devotedness is not possible without free will. To 
 devote ourselves, we have said, is to prefer another to our- 
 selves, is to give ourselves to another to be his own. Now, 
 how can we give ourselves if we are hot free ? How can we 
 prefer another to ourselves, if we cannot dispose of ourselves ? 
 A being, deprived of free will, is under the fatal ascendency of 
 
 * Canticle of Canticles, viii. 6. 
 
GOD. 231 
 
 •a foreign domination ; he thinks, he moves only by the thought 
 and will which hold him captive, by that inner captivity in 
 which nothing remains to the proper action of his personality. 
 Does such a being, thus despoiled of himself, preserve trie 
 right to give himself? He may die, but heS dies as the stone 
 falls, the slave of death and not of love. Even then, as free 
 will is the condition of love, inasmuch as love is a sentiment 
 ■of preference, it is also its condition, inasmuch as love is the 
 impulsion of devotedness. 
 
 There remains a third act which crowns the marvellous 
 drama of which our will is the theatre and the author. After 
 we have chosen the object of our preference, after we have 
 given ourselves to that object by sacrifice, all is not achieved. 
 That object must prefer us, must give itself to us, and from 
 that reciprocal choice and devotedness results a fusion of the 
 two beings in the same thoughts, the same desires, the same 
 wills — a fusion so ardent and so intimate that it would attain 
 even to consummating them in one unique substance, if that 
 power of joining substantial unity to personal plurality were not 
 the exclusive privilege of the most holy and indivisible Trinity. 
 At least we feel as it were the foreshadowing of this, and the 
 limit where, with the power of union, the power of created love 
 expires, is most painful to us. Union is the term of love, the 
 term where it has nothing more to produce but the persever- 
 ance of its acts and the immortality of its happiness. But 
 union, as well as preference and devotedness, needs free will ; 
 for to unite it is necessary to be two, and we are two only on 
 condition of preserving on either part the plenitude of our 
 .personality, and this we cannot do without free will. The soul 
 in which free will does not exist, or has never existed, which 
 has never been capable of emitting a thought or an act of 
 volition of its own, that soul is absorbed in another ; it is 
 annihilated, by its powerlessness to be the equal of a free soul, 
 and to give to it, in reciprocal love, the preference, devotedness, 
 -and union which it receives. 
 
 I know not if it be an illusion, but it seems to me that 
 nothing is more clear than this essential relation between free 
 will and love ; and consequently nothing is more clear also 
 than the reasons whence divine wisdom has drawn the reso- 
 lution of placing us in the world with the perilous gift of liberty. 
 God had no need of us ; He has freely chosen to communicate 
 His blessings to us and unite us to Himself; He has also freely 
 
252 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 loved us. Now, in its nature, love exacts love ; it is impossible 
 to prefer without willing to be preferred, to devote ourselves 
 without willing that our devotedness should be returned, and, 
 as to union, it could hardly be conceived without the idea of 
 reciprocity. Reciprocity is the law of love ; it is the law of 
 love between two equal beings ; how much more so must it be 
 between two beings of whom one is the Creator and the other 
 the creature ; of whom one has given all, and the other has 
 received all ! God had an infinite right to be loved by man, 
 because He had loved him with an eternal and infinite love, and 
 consequently He should place man in the only condition in 
 which He could render him preference for preference, devoted- 
 ness for devotedness, union for union, that is to say, in the 
 glory and trial of free will. It was the right of God ; but, 
 strange to say, it was also the right of man, or at least his 
 honour, since, without that gift of free will, man would neither 
 have been able to choose nor to devote himself, nor, con- 
 sequently, to love in the true and generous sense of the word. 
 
 Ask, then, no longer why man is free ; why he is not bora 
 in a state of perfection and beatitude without peril of failure. 
 He is free, because he should love ; he is free, because he 
 should choose the object of his love ; he is free, because he 
 should devote himself to the object of his choice ; he is free, 
 because in the union which terminates love he should bring 
 the stainless dowry of an entire personality ; he is free, in fine, 
 because God has freely loved him, and has willed to receive 
 from him the equitable recompense of full reciprocity. 
 
 I do not, however, disguise to myself the difficulty which 
 rises in your minds ; it is grave, and I will endeavour to be its 
 exact interpreter. 
 
 According to Catholic doctrine, the trial of free will ceases 
 with the present life of man ; once disappeared from this 
 world and called before the supreme judge, man passes into a 
 state of happy or miserable consummation which leaves him 
 neither the honour, nor the danger, nor the resource of choice. 
 If, then, free will be essential to the reality of love, it follows 
 that the saints, in the beatitude of eternity, love God only 
 under the form of incomplete and impersonal affection, which 
 it is absurd to suppose. 
 
 Doubtless it is absurd to suppose, and I shall neither 
 suppose nor say this. When the saints enter into heaven, 
 vanquishers of death and life, they do not enter there deprived 
 
GOD. 253 
 
 of their anterior existence, as beings without past, without 
 future, without acquired habits ; on the contrary, they enter 
 into full possession of a personality laboriously perfected, with 
 all their soul and all their works, according to that beautiful 
 prophecy of the apostle St. John, who, by the Spirit of God, 
 beholding the last days of the world, heard from on high a 
 voice which said : " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord 
 .... for their works follow them."* Their works follow them 
 because they are living like them and in them, living in the 
 love which was their fruit, and which mounts with the saints 
 to heaven, not to lose there its primitive character of choice 
 and devotedness, but to preserve it there for ever in the 
 immutability of beatific vision. The saints have not another 
 heart in heaven than that which they had on earth ; the very 
 ■object of their pilgrimage was to form in them, by means of 
 trial, a love which should merit to please God and subsist 
 eternally before Him. So far from that love changing its 
 nature, it is its nature itself, it is its degree acquired in the free 
 -exercise of the will which determines the measure of beatitude 
 in each elect of grace and judgment. According as man 
 brings to God more ardent affection, he derives deeper ecstasy, 
 more perfect felicity from the vision of the divine essence. It 
 is the movement of his heart, as death has seized it, which 
 regulates his place at the seat of life, and it is the unalterable 
 perseverance of that movement, caused by the view of God, 
 which alone distinguishes the love of time from the love of 
 eternity. God recognises in His saints the apostles, the martyrs, 
 the virgins, the doctors, the hermits, the hospitallers, who have 
 before confessed and served Him in the tribulations of the 
 world ; the saints in their turn recognise in God the being to 
 whom they gave their undivided love in the time of their 
 suffering and their liberty. Nothing is foreign to them in the 
 sentiments which they feel, nothing is new to them in their 
 heart. They love Him whom they had chosen; they enjoy Him 
 to whom they had given themselves ; they ardently embrace 
 Him whom they already possessed ; their love expands in the 
 certainty and joy of an inamissible union ; but it is not 
 separated from the stalk that bore it. God gathers, but does 
 -not detach it ; He crowns, but does not change it. 
 
 It is thus that the trial of free will ceases, and that, not- 
 
 * Apocalypse xiv. 13. 
 
254 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 withstanding, love subsists entire in the soul where God rewards 
 it. But up to this point there is a struggle in the heart of man 
 between good and evil, between his tendency towards God by 
 charity, and towards himself by the egotism of the passions. 
 The outer world arms itself to overcome him by all the beauties 
 which it has received in another design ; it opposes the visible 
 charm to the eternal order which should obtain all our regards 
 and regulate all our acts. Balanced as we are between these 
 two attractions, we need strength to keep us attached to the 
 polar star of real good, and that strength we call by a still more 
 illustrious name than that of love — we call it virtue. Love 
 without virtue is but weakness and disorder; by virtue, it 
 becomes the accomplishment of all duties, the bond that 
 unites us first to God, next to all the creatures of God; it 
 becomes justice and charity, two things which form but one, 
 and which were given to us on the day of our creation, to be, 
 after truth, the second means of responding to our destiny and 
 attaining our end. 
 
 I should have nothing more to say to you if, now as always, 
 we had not to seek in rationalism for the counterproof of the 
 doctrine I have just exposed to you. This doctrine attests 
 that there exists an infinite difference between good and evil, 
 since good is God, inasmuch as He is order, and evil is oppo- 
 sition to order, that is to say, to God ; it attests that good is 
 the object of the will, its perfection, its beatitude, and that the 
 will corresponds thereto by love, the disinterested fruit of free 
 will and virtue ; it affirms, in fine, that man, being free to love 
 or to hate, to do or not to do good, is responsible for his 
 actions before the supreme justice of God. Is this also the 
 doctrine of rationalism ? In affirming the contrary, I have no 
 need to tell you that I take the word rationalism in its general 
 acceptation, and not as representing this or that class of philo- 
 sophers. Rationalism has but one principle, which is the suffi- 
 ciency of reason alone to explain the mystery of destinies, 
 but it has a thousand heads which contradict each other, and 
 which consequently never bear together the responsibility 
 of the same errors. This diversity discharges such philo- 
 sopher from such condemnable system ; it does not discharge 
 rationalism, whose starting-point is the cause of all the dogmas 
 that deceive thought by corrupting truth. 
 
 I wished to give you this explanation at the moment when 
 rationalism is about to appear to you in its most odious form. 
 
GOD. 255. 
 
 Already you have seen it denying the existence of God, the 
 creation of the world by God, the primitive intercourse be- 
 tween God and man, and placing in doubt even the very 
 notion of truth. After such ruins, could it respect the dis- 
 tinction between good and evil ? That distinction is but a. 
 consequence of the idea of God ; this overthrown, the moral 
 order disappears of itself. However, it is one thing to attack 
 moral order in its source, another to attack it in front and. 
 directly. Were there nothing of God there, or were He a God 
 indifferent to the acts ot man, the soul might still endeavour 
 to take refuge in itself, and by its own strength create for 
 itself sacred duties. Notwithstanding the profundity of 
 negations upon which it rests, it might choose not to deny 
 itself, but by a generous contradiction, acknowledge laws and 
 impose duties upon itself. However feeble that barrier may 
 be, it is a vestige of conscience, an honour for man, a safe- 
 guard for society. What a crime, then, is it to dispute our 
 possession of it, and pursue the idea of good even to th& 
 ruins amongst which we have formed this last and miserable 
 refuge ! Rationalism has not been ashamed to do this ; after 
 having attacked moral order in its principle, which is God, it 
 has seized upon our soul as upon the remains of a prey, and 
 defying us in this our supreme refuge, it contests the reality of 
 love and the reality of free will. 
 
 Ingenuous that I was, I spoke to you but just now of 
 sympathetic attractions, of disinterested preferences, of volun- 
 tary sacrifices. I represented to you the ascendency of 
 good over the heart of man ; I deceived you, if we must 
 believe rationalism, I deceived you cruelly, and myself with 
 you. Would you know the truth ? Man acts only from one 
 single motive, his own interest ; he calls good that which is 
 useful to him, evil that which lessens the value of the things 
 and enjoyments of which he is in possession. Duty, if he 
 observe it, is but a means of preserving his rights ; love, if he 
 feel it, is but a sentiment of pleasure. Egotism is at the 
 fount of every human act, under whatever appearance or what- 
 ever name it may be hidden ; and those grand expressions of 
 devotedness, abnegation, immolation of self, serve but to dis- 
 guise our true inclinations under a show which flatters our 
 pride. The mother loves and seeks herself in her child ; the 
 soldier idolises himself in the glory of his captain or his 
 country ; death even is atoned for by the admiration which 
 
256 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 •causes us to live again, as we believe, in posterity. Assuredly, 
 if we may hope to find in man a pure sentiment of personal 
 interest, we should seek for it in the soul of the Christian, 
 since Christianity reposes upon the mystery of a God who 
 gratuitously died for us. And yet to what does the Christian 
 devote his life 1 To labour for his salvation, that is to say, to 
 avoid hell and obtain paradise. His most heroic works are 
 but a bargain which he makes with God. He knows that they 
 are all registered, that not one falls to the ground, and that he 
 will one day find again the smallest particle in an increase of 
 felicity. Is this forgetfulness of self? Is this that charity 
 come down from heaven, immolated on a cross, and raised 
 again from the tomb to live in the heart of generations ? Alas ! 
 it would be better to confess our indelible egotism, and to 
 recognise with the sincerity of true philosophy that every 
 being, whatever it may be, acts and lives but for itself. 
 
 We are asked for an avowal ; let us begin by making it. 
 Yes, it is impossible for any being endowed with intelligence 
 and will to separate himself completely from his acts. I think, 
 I will, I love ; in whatever way I take it, it is I, myself, who 
 thinks, who wills, who loves, and it is not in my power to 
 take that I from myself. Whether I perform a good or a bad 
 action, I am present in it, and have the enjoyment of it. Yet 
 more, I should not perform it if I had no enjoyment in it. 
 For every action supposes an end, and the last end of man 
 being beatitude, for which God has expressly created him, it 
 is absolutely chimerical to imagine that he acts without having 
 before him the thought and motive of his happiness. And 
 let me ask you, was there no difference between Nero and 
 Titus ; between Nero killing his mother, and Titus contributing 
 to the happiness of the human race ? Is there no difference 
 between the soldier who turns his back in a battle, and the 
 soldier who dies with his face towards the enemy and his 
 country in his heart ? Leonidas at Thermopylae, Demosthenes 
 at Chseronea, are they the same ? You may say so, but I 
 defy you to think so. You will not even say so before an 
 assembly of men who honour you by listening to your words ; 
 even if your conscience lie to itself, it would not be bold 
 enough to lie in the face of mankind. If there is one indi- 
 vidual here who confounds in the same estimation and the 
 same contempt crime and virtue, let him stand up ! let him 
 speak ! And yet it is most true : Titus, like Nero, sought his 
 
GOD. 257 
 
 happiness ; there was no difference between them on this 
 head ; and if egotism consists in willing to be happy, Titus was 
 an egotist by the same title as Nero. 
 
 But does egotism consist in willing to be happy ? This is 
 precisely the question. It would be very strange if happiness 
 and immorality should be one and the same thing. Happiness 
 is the vocation of man ; it is the natural and predestinate 
 patrimony of all intelligent beings. Whoever among them 
 comes into the world comes into it to be happy. It is his 
 right : what do I say ? It is his duty. For his duty is to obey 
 God, and God has pointed out to him two equal and parallel 
 orders in calling him into life ; the order of perfection and the 
 order of beatitude. But, remark attentively what I have said ; 
 happiness is the patrimony of all, of all without exception ; it is 
 the natal land and the future country of all those who have not 
 voluntarily repudiated it. And from this a great consequence 
 follows, it is that no one should attribute to himself the happi- 
 ness of others, and that all being children of the same father, 
 inheritors of the same kingdom, we are commanded to live 
 together in the divine fraternity of one and the same beatitude. 
 He who usurps the part of another, who would be happy at the 
 expense of his brethren, who, by cunning or violence, divides 
 the spotless and seamless garment of felicity, is guilty of a 
 crime which includes all other crimes ; he is guilty of egotism, 
 and since the beginning of the world he has borne a name and 
 a mark — the name of Cain, and the mark of reprobation. He, 
 on the contrary, who desires to be happy with all, who takes 
 from another no part of his patrimonial right to happiness, who 
 gives even of his own, he also, since the beginning of the world, 
 has borne a name and a mark — the name of Abel, and the 
 mark of charity. Charity does not consist in being unhappy 
 any more than egotism consists in being happy ; it consists in 
 not troubling the good of others, and in communicating to 
 them our own ; a communication which, so far from im- 
 poverishing, enriches at the same time the receiver and the 
 giver. Good has received from God that admirable elasticity, 
 that the sharing it multiplies without lessening it, and that 
 falling from the right hand, it returns to the left, like the ocean 
 which receives all the waters of the earth, because it renders 
 them all back again to the heavens. 
 
 This explanation, you will say, justifies the intimate senti- 
 ment of mankind, which has always placed an infinite difference 
 
 s 
 
258 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 between good and evil, which has execrated Nero and idolised 
 Titus ; but, in granting that personal happiness is the necessary 
 end of all the acts of man, do you not destroy the very notion 
 of love and devotedness ? How can there be any sacrifice, any 
 preference of others to ourselves, where we seek ourselves ? 
 
 I have not said that personal happiness was the necessary 
 end of all the acts of man ; for that word personal excludes 
 from the happiness of each the happiness of all, and I have 
 declared, on the contrary, that happiness is a universal and 
 indivisible patrimony, which no one could appropriate exclu- 
 sively to himself without being guilty of the crime of egotism. 
 Learn, then, that duty, love, devotedness, consist in making of 
 our happiness the happiness of others, and of the happiness of 
 others our own happiness, whilst egotism consists in deriving 
 happiness from the misfortunes of others. Nero wished the 
 Roman people had but one head, that he might take it off at a 
 single blow : this is egotism. Titus considered that day to be 
 lost in which he failed to render someone happy : this is love. 
 " To love," Leibnitz has said, " is to place our happiness 
 in the happiness of another." That sublime definition needs 
 no commentary : it is understood or not understood. He 
 who has loved understands it ; he who has not loved will 
 never understand it. He who has loved knows that a 
 shadow in the heart of his choice would darken his own; 
 he knows that nothing would be a sacrifice, prayers, tears, 
 watchings, toil, privations, that would bring one smile upon 
 the sorrowing lips ; he knows that he was dead to redeem 
 a compromised life ; he knows that he was happy in another, 
 happy in another's graces, happy in another's virtues, happy 
 in another's glory, happy in that other's happiness, and that, 
 had his blood been needed to increase that other's happi- 
 ness, become his own, he would have given it, even to the last 
 drop, with the sole regret of being able to die but once. He 
 who has loved knows this. He who has not loved is ignorant 
 of it ; I pity him, and I do not reply to him. 
 
 I pity him, because he has known nothing either of human 
 or of divine life ; I do not reply to him, because the testimony 
 of a dead man proves nothing against the living. What is it to 
 us, Christians, if we must appeal to ourselves ? what is it to be 
 accused of indifference towards God by a man who has never 
 loved God ? Does he know what passes within us ? Can he 
 even conjecture it? He thinks that, with our eyes fixed upon 
 
GOD. 259 
 
 heaven and hell, with our works in one hand, the scales in the 
 other, we make a bargain with God for the price of our ab- 
 negation ! He knows not that fear and hope are but the 
 preliminaries of Christian initiation, and that in virtue of the 
 first commandment, which includes all the others, according 
 to the words even of Jesus Christ, the Christian ought to love 
 God with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his strength, 
 above all things, under the penalty, adds St. Paul, of " being 
 nothing." * He knows not that beyond the threshold of faith 
 the soul is touched by the invisible beauty of a love which the 
 most heroic affections of this world will never equal, either in 
 endurance, depth, or sacrifice ; and that that love drawing us 
 into the abyss of charity where God Himself respires, we draw 
 therefrom the desire to associate all creatures in the perfection 
 and felicity of which we have a foretaste, and of which we 
 await the ulterior revelation. Who can deny this enlargement 
 of the heart of man in Christianity ? Who can deny it, save 
 those who have never known what it is, and who, abased in 
 the narrow passions of the senses, where all is egotism, measure 
 by their own souls the soul of the Christian and the soul of 
 man ? 
 
 I am ashamed to prove to you the reality of love and 
 devotedness, but rationalism compels me. It compels me 
 also to say a few words to you on free will, which is, with 
 disinterestedness, the principal condition of the moral order. 
 As the moral order is destroyed if man acts only with a view 
 to his interest, it is likewise destroyed if man be not master of 
 his acts. Therefore, rationalism has not assailed our liberty 
 with less ardour than our generosity ; it needs our servitude as 
 much as our egotism ; our egotism to confound good with evil, 
 our servitude to take from us the responsibility either of good 
 or evil. 
 
 Are we free ? Your conscience and mine answer : Yes. 
 Rationalism says : No. And does rationalism give any proof 
 of this ? None. It asks us, on the contrary, to prove that we 
 are free, and if we oppose to it the testimony of o ur intimate 
 conviction, which knows apparently what it judges, that 
 is condemned as blind and insufficient. It fears that our 
 intimate conviction may be the victim of a superior power, 
 which, unknown to it, makes it the instrument of its irresistible 
 
 * I Corinthians xiii. 2. 
 
 S 3 
 
260 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 will. For us who believe in God, who, bending the knee 
 before His adorable supremacy, have acknowledged Him as the 
 Father, the Master, the principle, and the end of things, we do 
 not entertain the strange doubts of rationalism in regard to 
 what passes within us. Offspring of unequalled goodness and 
 immeasurable wisdom, we do not imagine that God tortures 
 His omnipotence to deceive the heart of His work, and give to 
 it in servitude the illusion of liberty. We trust in the divine 
 sincerity, and we do not seek whether it be in His power, even 
 if He so willed, to lead us to so contradictory an impression on 
 the subject of ourselves and our own acts. Truths, like errors, 
 link together. God, once rejected or placed in doubt, I per- 
 mit rationalism to mistrust the human conscience ; the edifice 
 being destroyed at its base, how can any detached part be 
 sustained, and moreover, what interest would exist for so 
 doing? What is man if God is not? What are good and 
 evil ? What the past and the future ? It is needless for us to 
 trouble ourselves about a dream in a night passed in sound 
 sleep. But if God is, if the name that sustains all is written in 
 the vault of our intelligence as in the vault of heaven, then I 
 will no longer even listen to the rationalism which suggests 
 mistrust to me on the subject of that liberty whose real presence 
 I feel in myself. I take account of myself and of all things 
 with me. My conscience is a sanctuary which gives me 
 oracles ; my life is a power which answers for itself ; the 
 divine solidity descends into all my being ; and doubt, to my 
 mind, is nothing but blasphemy and folly. I am free ; I pass 
 from good to evil, from evil to good. Suspended between 
 these two terms which infinity separates, a voluntary captive or 
 a culpable rebel, at each moment I choose and decide my 
 condition. I choose to love myself, or to love God above all 
 things ; I withdraw, I return, I obey, or I resist remorse ; and 
 even in crime, I feel my greatness by my sovereignty. I 
 need but a tear to remount to heaven, but a look to fall back 
 into the gulf. This struggle is great, this responsibility is 
 terrible ; but woe and scorn to him who descends from the 
 throne from fear of the duties that sit there with him ! 
 
 Must I, in concluding, enlighten that other difficulty which 
 rationalism opposes to the reality of free will, and which it 
 draws no longer from the vanity of our conscience, but from 
 the very attributes of God ? I will do so rapidly, fearing to 
 
GOD. 261 
 
 weary your attention, and hoping to abuse it but little. Truth 
 is brief, because it is clear. 
 
 Catholic doctrine ranges amongst the divine attributes, 
 that of foreknowledge, that is to say, the anticipated and infal- 
 lible knowledge of the future, even of the future which depends 
 upon our free will. Now, how can God foresee this last kind 
 of future, if it be not because He is Master of our acts and 
 directs them at pleasure ? How does He know infallibly what 
 I shall do to-morrow if not because He has decreed it, and 
 because He possesses in His omnipotence the certainty of our 
 determinations ? 
 
 I shall have replied to this if I show, in the nature of God 
 and in the nature of man, a means of foreseeing the effects of 
 free causes which in no way destroys their liberty. 
 
 Now it is manifest that no reasonable being acts without 
 motives, that is to say, without something that determines his 
 actions. Hence these avowals constantly made by us : " Here 
 is a reason, an interest, a circumstance, which decides me ; in 
 other terms, which persuades me to act." And when we 
 examine the motives whose efficacious impression draws man 
 from repose or uncertainty, we find that there are but two : the 
 motives of duty and passion. Man decides either by a view of 
 what is true, good, suitable ; or by the inducement of a personal 
 satisfaction independent of any idea of order. The question 
 simply is to know who will decide him to the one or the other 
 motive. If he were not free, the stronger attraction of his 
 nature would decide him, as the greater weight brings down 
 one of the scales of the balance. But man is free ; between 
 two attractions equal or unequal in themselves, it is he who 
 pronounces sovereignly. Nevertheless he pronounces by virtue 
 of a motive which persuades him, and not without cause, or 
 arbitrarily. He knows what he does and why he acts ; he 
 knows even why he is persuaded to act. Persuasion reaches 
 him not only from without, it comes to him especially from 
 within, from the intimate state of his will, from his tastes, his 
 virtues — the fruit of free will, free will itself in activity, 
 such as it is formed, such as it wills to be, such as it pre- 
 sents itself to the outer attractions which come to solicit 
 him for good and evil. It is the state of volition, the seat of 
 free will, that decides the choice of man between the two 
 motives of duty and passion. Suppose that state known, you 
 
262 MAN AS A MORAL BEING. 
 
 would know what man would do in a given case, and in all the 
 cases where the knowledge of the soul would for you have 
 preceded its actions. Such is the basis of human, as well as of 
 divine, knowledge. Have you never confided your fortune or 
 your honour to the word of a man ? You have done so ; or, if 
 you have never had occasion, you name within yourselves 
 those to whom you would voluntarily give a high mark of your 
 esteem. Whence comes that assurance ? How are you certain 
 that you will not expose your life to treason ? You are sure of 
 it, because you know the soul to whom you abandon your 
 own ; that knowledge is sufficient for you to see that in no 
 case, under whatever peril or temptation, will your fortune or 
 your honour be basely sacrificed. 
 
 They may be, however ; the heart to which you give your 
 faith is fallible, it is subject to unforeseen assaults ; it matters 
 not, you sleep peacefully, and no one accuses you of impru- 
 dence or credulity. If it happen that you are deceived, what 
 will you say? You will say, " I was mistaken in that man, I 
 thought him incapable of a bad action." Such is the chance 
 which you would run, the chance of being mistaken ; because, 
 being a finite intelligence, you cannot read directly in the soul 
 of another, nor even in the depths of your own. Whence it 
 results that you possess only a moral certainty of your judg- 
 ments, and of your foresight only an assurance of the same 
 degree. 
 
 It is not the same with God. " God," to use the expres- 
 sion of St. Paul, " penetrates even to the division of the soul 
 and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow of our being, 
 and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."* 
 We are eternally naked before Him. He sees with infinite 
 precision the state of our will, and, knowing in the same light 
 all the outward circumstances to which we are exposed, He 
 possesses an infallible certainty of the choice we shall make 
 between good and evil, between the motives of duty and 
 passion. From that moment, He knows our history, which is 
 but a struggle more or less prolonged between the two opposite 
 attractions, one which bears us towards our real end, another 
 which turns us aside towards a base or false end. And that 
 anticipated knowledge of ourselves being in no way the cause 
 of our acts, no more obstructs our liberty than if it did not 
 exist. 
 
 * Hebrews iv. 12. 
 
GOD. 263 
 
 The error in this matter is in supposing free will to be a 
 kind of abstract power, independent in its proper state, having 
 no other movement than unlimited caprice. If it were so, man 
 himself would not be capable of foreseeing his own actions an 
 instant beforehand. His sovereignty would be but a state of 
 permanent unreason. He would choose between good and 
 evil without knowing why, and passing at hazard from crime to 
 virtue, because of his liberty, we should find in him nothing 
 more than an unregulated automaton. Such is neither man 
 nor free will ; I have shown you this, and I have but to leave 
 your conscience to choose between the ethics of Christianity 
 and the ethics of rationalism. 
 
 Christianity leads to charity and liberty ; rationalism to 
 egotism and fatality. If in the preceding questions, which 
 appeal only to reason, some slight cloud still obscured your 
 need of light, that cloud has vanished. The abyss of error 
 has enlightened the abyss of truth. As the speculative dogmas 
 of the existence of God, the Trinity, creation, the substantial 
 diversity of matter and spirit, the vocation of man to perfection 
 and beatitude, lead to the practical dogma of the distinction 
 of good and evil ; so the speculative dogmas of pantheism, 
 dualism, materialism, scepticism, lead to the practical dogma 
 of the confusion of good and evil, the supreme term which 
 discerns all, and where darkness becomes light. 
 
MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 My Lord, — Gentlemen, 
 
 When God had made man, and when, after having 
 animated him with the breath of life, He also shed in his soul 
 light and justice — the light of truth and the justice of charity, 
 He halted, if I may so speak, to contemplate His work, and 
 seeing the eyes of man opening, his ears hearing, his lips 
 trembling with the first vibration of speech, that clay, in fine, 
 which He had touched with His mighty hand, become a 
 sensible and a reasonable creature, He remained thoughtful, 
 as if something were wanting to the masterpiece He had just 
 produced. In fact, the mystery of our creation was not accom- 
 plished ; God withdrew a second time within Himself to stamp 
 our nature with the seal of a higher perfection, and beforehand 
 He declared His design by saying : " Non est bonum esse 
 hominum SOLUM " — // is not good for man to be alone* 
 
 Why was it not good for man to be alone? In what 
 manner was he to cease to be alone ? This is the object which 
 I now propose to your meditations, and in which you will see 
 that society is the third primitive gift with which God has 
 endowed us, the third means given to help us in the fulfilment 
 of our destiny. 
 
 No being is alone. Whether we look above or below us, 
 in God or in nature, we see plurality and association on every 
 hand. God, who is one, is not solitary ; He includes three 
 persons in the unity of His substance, and the inferior world, 
 divided into an innumerable multitude of different groups, 
 presents none of which the condition and law of the creature 
 is solitude. At each degree of existence we find number and 
 
 * Genesis ii. iS. 
 
GOD. 265 
 
 union, that is to say, society. Number without union would 
 still be only isolation ; but when beings, distinct by individu- 
 ality, alike by nature, approach and give each other their life, 
 blend together reciprocally, act upon each other by mutual 
 relations, then there is society, and such is the state of all 
 creatures inferior to man ; such is the state, under a more 
 perfect mode, of the divine persons in heaven. Endeavour to 
 imagine an absolutely solitary being, that is to say a being who 
 has no resemblance or relations to anything, you will but create 
 an abstract phantom in your imagination, a sort of God — 
 nothing, because it would be at the same time infinite and 
 void, infinite from want of bounds, void from want of activity. 
 Isolation is the negation of life, since life is a spontaneous 
 movement, and since movement supposes relations ; still much 
 more is it the negation of order, harmony, and beauty, all per- 
 fection and all beatitude, since none of those things can be 
 conceived without the double idea of plurality and unity. 
 Plurality without unity is positive disorder; unity without 
 plurality is negative disorder. In the first case, the bond is 
 wanting to the beings ; in the second, the beings are wanting 
 to the bond. Now, wherever there is disorder, it is evident 
 that harmony, beauty, perfection, and beatitude vanish at the 
 same time. It was then with justice that God, regarding man 
 in the solitude of his creation, pronounced the words : "It is 
 not good for man to be alone." 
 
 It is true that, by his intermediary position between the 
 superior and inferior worlds, man — body and spirit — found 
 himself in relation with nature and God ; but that double 
 relation did not the less leave him alone of his species, alone 
 in the rank he occupied, a sort of stylite lost between earth 
 and heaven. Even had nature sufficed for the wants of his 
 body and God for the wants of his spirit, man, deprived of 
 relations with beings of the same form and degree, would not 
 have sufficed for the greatness of the position which he was 
 charged to occupy. His history would have been too short, 
 his perils too limited, his virtues too restrained ; as he had a 
 world above and below himself, it was needful that he should 
 become a world, and that in this manner all the parts of 
 creation, although unequal in themselves by their place and 
 their essence, should answer to each other in a certain propor- 
 tion of immensity. Man was to extend without being divided, 
 to increase in number in order to increase in union, and to 
 
256 MAN AS A SOCIAL EEING. 
 
 become, in the majesty of number and the harmony of union, 
 a theatre of virtues such as the perfection of the universe and 
 his own perfection required. Circumscribed in isolation, God 
 alone would have been the object of his duties ; member of a 
 body composed of beings like himself, his offices embrace, 
 with God, the whole of mankind. The law of love, the sum 
 of all justice, no longer radiated only from the creature to the 
 Creator ; it animated with its life all the orbs of creation. 
 
 This great work is before your eyes ; for sixty centuries 
 human society has covered the field of history with its 
 institutions. Stronger than time, it has resisted all disasters, 
 and has constantly recovered its youth in the ruins under 
 which degenerate nations have buried themselves. It is 
 human society which has led our infancy through the hazards 
 of the primitive emigrations, which divided the earth for us,. 
 and, after having dispersed us upon all the habitable shores, 
 drew us together in spite of the jealousy of the deserts and 
 the tempests of the ocean. It is human society which has 
 built celebrated cities, encouraged arts, founded sciences, 
 propagated letters, raised the mind of man to perfection, and 
 given to his heart the glory of all virtues with the occasion of 
 all sacrifices. In fine, human society is the permanent mode 
 of our terrestrial life ; and if, in the depths of forests or on the 
 rocky shores of distant isles, the traveller discovers groups of 
 people deprived of all civilisation, he still finds among them 
 some rudiments of the social state, certain vestiges or outlines 
 of relations which show how incapable man is to live alone. 
 
 And yet, who would believe it ? the dogma of society has 
 not been subject to fewer attacks than the rest. As sages have 
 been found to deny God, creation, the distinction of matter 
 and spirit, truth, the difference between good and evil, there 
 have also been found men who maintain that society is a 
 purely human institution, and, yet much more, that it is an 
 institution against nature. They have endeavoured to per- 
 suade us that society is the source of all our evils, and that 
 with our civilisation our decadency began. Who among us, in 
 the time of his youth, has not imagined himself wandering 
 freely in the solitudes of the New World, having no roof but the 
 heavens, no drink but the water of unknown streams, no food 
 but the spontaneous fruit of the earth and the game which fell 
 by his hand, no law but his will, no pleasure but the continual 
 feeling of his independence and the chances of a life without 
 
GOD. 26? 
 
 limits on a soil without possessors ? These were our dreams. 
 Our heart, recognising itself, thrilled when our eyes fell upon 
 that passage in a celebrated book, where the man of civilisation 
 says to the man of the desert : " Chactas, return into thy 
 forests ; take up again that holy independence of nature which 
 Lopez will no longer deprive thee of; were I younger, I would 
 follow thee." On reading these words it seemed that we heard 
 them ourselves ; our oppressed soul soared with them into ideal 
 regions, and returned but with pain to the monotonous burden 
 of reality. 
 
 Were we then in the true ? Was that movement of our 
 soul out of society an aspiration towards the primitive state 
 which God had made for us, or a revolt against the order 
 established by Providence in our favour ? It was a revolt, a 
 bound of egotism impatient of the limits which universal 
 communion with our fellow-creatures imposes upon us, an 
 attempt to subject the universe to our individuality alone. 
 Whilst, in the plan of divine goodness, happiness is the right 
 and patrimony of all, we sought to leave mankind in order to 
 withdraw from sharing its blessings and evils, and rid ourselves 
 of the duties which inevitably result from a great assemblage 
 of relations. We hate dependence and labour in society. 
 Dependence first : for society exists only by unity; unity is 
 formed by ties ; those ties, when intelligent beings are con- 
 cerned, change into obligatory laws for the conscience, and are 
 maintained by the double authority of public power and 
 opinion. This is a yoke accepted by the virtue which does 
 not separate its condition from the condition of others, but 
 which weighs upon the egotism that lives only for itself; and 
 therefore, as solitude is destructive of all laws because it 
 destroys all relations, egotism seeks solitude in order to escape 
 from dependence. In no less a degree it hates labour, another 
 consequence of civilisation. A few men scattered over an 
 immense territory live at little cost. Nature, abandoned to 
 herself, supplies their wants, and isolation lessening in them the 
 attraction which reproduces life, their number increases so 
 slowly that it does not disturb their indolence. The man of 
 society, on the contrary, has a paternity as prolific as his heart ; 
 he sees, under the blessing of God, the family changing into a 
 tribe, the tribe into a community, the community into a nation ; 
 the tents are sheltered under walls ; territories are defined by 
 boundaries ; nature fails before the increase of mankind. Art 
 
268 MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 must supply its want of space and vigour. Assiduous labour 
 must second the inventions of art. Numberless employments 
 solicit the arms of men, and the arms of men in their turn 
 solicit employment. Our veins are filled with the fruit of our 
 toil. Each drop of our blood is purchased from the land at 
 the price of a virtue. 
 
 This is more than enough to alarm egotism, and persuade 
 it that social order is but an imposture in a state of martyrdom. 
 I do not refute it, I simply explain to you how it is that the 
 Christian dogma of society has contradictors and enemies. 
 Dependence, labour, are hard words, I cannot deny it ; and 
 ■whoever does not accept them is necessarily in revolt against 
 the reality of human things. 
 
 But a few days ago you engraved upon the monuments of 
 your capital that memorable inscription : Liberty, equality, 
 fraternity. It is, in fact, a part of the primitive charter which 
 has united men together and founded the human race ; but it 
 is not the whole of it. It is the charter of rights, not that of 
 duties. Now man, living in society, can no more deprive 
 himself of duties than of rights. If liberty is necessary, that 
 he may remain a moral creature, that he may not be over- 
 whelmed in the pressure of an exaggerated and unjust domi- 
 nation, obedience is also necessary, to enable him to keep his 
 place, by the help of a common and sacred law, in the living 
 home which a nation makes for him. If equality is necessary, 
 that he may not decline from the rank in which God has placed 
 him by a common origin with all his fellow-creatures, hierarchy 
 is also necessary that he may not, in default of a chief and a 
 ■commanding authority, fall into the powerlessness of individual 
 dissolution. If fraternity is necessary in order that confidence 
 and love might widen the narrow ties of social order, that 
 mankind might remain one great family sprung from one 
 common father, veneration is also necessary, to acknowledge 
 and strengthen the authority of age, the magistracy of virtue, 
 the power of laws, in those who possess this character whether 
 as legislators or as sovereigns. Write then, if you would found 
 durable institutions, write above the word liberty, obedience ; 
 above equality, hierarchy ; above fraternity, veneration ; above 
 the august symbol of rights, the divine symbol of duties. I 
 have said this to you elsewhere ; right is the selfish side of 
 justice ; duty is its generous and devoted side. Appeal from 
 it to devotedness, that devotedness may respond to you, and 
 
GOD. 269. 
 
 that your work may triumph over the ardent passions, which, 
 since the origin of society, have never ceased to conspire for 
 its ruin. 
 
 Human society is not only hated for itself, on account of 
 the duties that it imposes, it is also hated for another reason 
 which it is important for you to learn. God, who was the 
 founder of society, is its preserver. He maintains it by the 
 power of His name, which is perpetuated under the guardian- 
 ship of dogmatic traditions and religious observances. No 
 nation has been able to exist without that venerated name, no 
 community has been built up without that corner-stone of the 
 temple. And vainly will the impious hope to abolish the 
 memory of God until that society be abolished which is its 
 depository, and which lives upon this hereditary treasure of 
 mankind. Human society and religious society are two sisters 
 born on the same day of the divine word, the one having 
 regard to time, the other to eternity ; distinct in their domain 
 and end, but indissolubly united in the heart of man, sustaining 
 one another, falling together, rising again together, braving 
 together by their common immortality the hatred that pursues 
 both of them. Do not lose this point of view, if you would 
 take account of the leaven of anarchy which rouses the heart 
 of man against society. Society is no other thing than order, 
 and order has in God its invulnerable root. Whoever does not 
 love God has by that alone a permanent cause of aversion 
 towards the social state, which could not do without God. 
 
 Thence it comes that anti-religious epochs infallibly produce 
 anti-social theories. You witnessed this in the last century. 
 Whilst the doctors of a superficial generation held up to 
 ridicule Jesus Christ, the Bible, and the Church, others, with 
 a pen no less bold, wrote against human society. The savage 
 state was exalted as the primitive state of man, and incom- 
 parably the best ; the effeminate gentlemen of the Trianon 
 were invited to return to that state with bows and arrows in 
 their hands. It was demonstrated that society was at least 
 formed by a voluntary contract, and, with a gravity but too 
 formidable, they sought the clauses of that fabulous contract. 
 
 Is it necessary for me to prove to you that social order 
 is neither an institution against nature, nor a facultative 
 institution ? We are far removed from the time when men 
 discussed these questions, puerile in themselves, but which 
 were rendered important by the decadency of the monarchy 
 
270 MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 under which they were treated. Now that this monarchy has 
 disappeared in a tempest, and the epoch of reconstruction has 
 succeeded to that of ruins, intelligent minds are interested 
 much more about the economical problems of social life than 
 about the circumstances of its origin and the primary causes of 
 its establishment. Therefore I shall confine myself to the few 
 words which are necessary rationally to confirm the dogma of 
 society such as Catholic doctrine professes it. 
 
 A thing is natural when it is in conformity with the real 
 constitution of a being. Now the social state is evidently in 
 conformity with the constitution of man, since everywhere and 
 always he has lived in society. It is true that some oppose to 
 us the savage tribes of America, and of many islands scattered 
 in the ocean ; but those very tribes, although deprived of 
 civilisation, live nevertheless in the unformed rudiments of 
 community. They are branches accidentally detached from 
 the great human trunk, and which deprived of the sap of 
 traditions, withdrawn from the law of oral instruction, vegetate 
 on the extreme confines of sociability without having burst the 
 last link that holds them thereto. If truth and charity should 
 seek them at the ends of the world ; if the words of the gospel, 
 borne by the clouds of heaven, should fall upon the uncultivated 
 glebe of their souls, you will see them extending their hands to 
 the apostolate, covering their nakedness, plunging the plough 
 into their forests, assembling round the wood and sign of a 
 cross, and bowing their heads before the invisible presence of 
 God, of whom they know nothing save a remembrance as un- 
 certain as their life. You are not ignorant that Oceania now 
 witnesses the accomplishment of these marvels, and those 
 fortunate islands send back even to our old continents the 
 virginal balm of a civilisation which finds again a cradle in the 
 ruins of the desert. 
 
 I do not mean to say that the savage passes easily, or that 
 he always advances, to the state of social perfection ; no, 
 gentlemen, this is a difficult work which requires time, a com- 
 bination of favourable circumstances, and which, on this 
 account, is rarely crowned with success. An entire population 
 is not drawn in a single day out of the torpor of an inveterate 
 state of indolence and free indulgence of the passions. It is 
 enough that it has been done, or even that it has been begun, for 
 the savage state to cease to be an objection against the social 
 temperament of man. The Iroquois, or the Huron, is not 
 
GOD. 271 
 
 civilised, but he is fit for civilisation, and if he does not become 
 civilised alone, by the aid of his proper forces, it is for the same 
 reason that the deaf are dumb. No one is an initiator to him- 
 self; every man or every tribe having left society, which is the • 
 great and universal initiator, can return to it only by means of 
 a legislator bringing from the common centre, truth, justice, 
 order, and devotedness. We need not travel to the Pacific 
 Ocean to find the savage ; whoever rejects the social tradition, 
 by ungoverned passions, is a voluntary savage ; so much the 
 more degraded as he touches the source of truth and goodness. 
 You have met with those beings fallen by their fault below 
 civilisation, and assuredly you have drawn no conclusions from 
 their moral misery against the dignity of our nature and against 
 its sociability. The exception has never destroyed a rule, and 
 here there is not even an exception. The savage is to the civilised 
 man what an abortion is to a plant which has received a regular 
 development ; by its very deformity it bears witness in favour 
 of the normal type to the plenitude of which it has not 
 attained. 
 
 Man lives then socially by virtue of his native constitution; 
 he is naturally sociable, and consequently naturally social. It 
 is not a facultative contract which has placed him in society ; 
 he is born in society. And if it happen that he leaves it by a 
 lamentable accident which separates him from the common 
 stock, it is impossible for him to return to it of himself under 
 the form of a contract or a deliberation. He vegetates in that 
 state until the civilised man touches his hand, and raises him 
 by the fraternal sovereignty of language to the rank of an in- 
 telligent being enlightened by God. For it is God who first 
 initiated the human race to the social life, and who, after 
 having with truth and love deposited in mankind the germ of 
 mutual attraction, gave to it the first impulsion. Truth and 
 love are the basis of social order ; wherever souls meet, having 
 received these gifts, the principle of society meets in, and tends 
 to unite, them. But this principle may be deadened or degraded, 
 and this is why it exacts, all pre-existing though it may be, an 
 initiatory intervention, to rouse it if it be deadened, to purify it 
 if it be degraded. So that these two things are equally true, 
 namely, that society is natural to man, and that it is neverthe- 
 less of divine institution. . It is natural to man ; because man, 
 an intelligent and a moral being, has received in his creation 
 the intelligible germ of truth and love : it is of divine institution ; 
 
272 MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 because it is God who first placed man in active possession, 
 of truth and love, and who, the first also, gave him the 
 opportunity of applying truth in relations of like to like, of 
 equal to equal. 
 
 It is time for us to arrive at that supreme moment of the 
 drama of creation, and see human society unfolding under the 
 blessed hand to whom we owe all. 
 
 When God had uttered that beautiful expression : " It is 
 not good for man to be alone," the Scriptures tell us that He 
 caused a deep and mysterious sleep to fall upon Adam, our 
 first father. It would seem that God, so to say, feared to be 
 troubled by the look of man during the sublime work He was 
 about to perform ; He willed that no other thought than His own- 
 should intervene in the act which was about to give plurality 
 to man without destroying his unity. For such was the work 
 which His sovereign power purposed to accomplish. Taking 
 the eternal order of the divine society as the pattern of human 
 society, He designed that there should not only be moral unity 
 in the relations between man and man ; but that those relations 
 should take their source in one substantial unity, imitating as 
 much as possible the tie that unites the three uncreated persons 
 in an ineffable perfection. Mankind was to be one by nature,, 
 by origin, by blood ; and, by means of that triple unity, to form 
 but one single soul and one single body of all its members. 
 This plan was in conformity with the general end of God, 
 which was to create us in His image and after His likeness, in 
 order to communicate to us all His blessings ; it was worthy of 
 His wisdom as well as of His goodness; and when I think that 
 vulgar impiety has been able to laugh at the magnificent act 
 which realised it, I am overwhelmed with pity for the abase- 
 ment to which the intelligence falls that misunderstands the 
 intelligence of God. 
 
 Man was, then, at the feet of his Creator and Father, over- 
 come by the inertness of a superhuman sleep, knowing nothing 
 of what was intended for him, and God looked thoughtfully 
 upon him. Was it necessary to divide that beautiful creature 
 in order to multiply him ? Was it necessary to create by his 
 side an image of himself, without other community than like- 
 ness, and cause the human race to spring from one primitive 
 being associated with a second ? It would have destroyed 
 unity in the very root from whence it should blossom. There 
 would have been two bloods, and only one was required. It. 
 
GOD. 273 
 
 was needful that all mankind should come from one single I 
 man, in order that living plurality should spring from living 
 unity, and that man, multiplied without division, should recog- 
 nise in his fellow-creature, emanated from himself, " the bone 
 of his bones and the flesh of his flesh."* With this thought 
 God bends towards man and is about to touch him : but where 
 will He touch him ? The brow of man, where, with his intelli- 
 gence, reposes the eminent seat of his beauty, naturally presents 
 itself to the creating hand, and seems to invite the new bene- 
 diction about to descend upon us. God did not touch it. 
 However beautiful the faculty of intelligence may be, it is not 
 the term of our perfection. Calm as light, and cold also, it 
 was not from the point which corresponds to him in the outer 
 architecture of man that God was to draw forth the miracle of 
 our consubstantial plurality. He knew a better part, He placed 
 His hand upon it. He placed it upon the bosom of man ; 
 there, where the heart by its movement marks the course of 
 life ; there, where all the holy affections have their echo and 
 rebound. God listened for a moment to that heart so pure 
 which He had just created, and by a thought of His omnipo- 
 tence removing a part of the natural shield that covered it, He 
 formed woman of the flesh of man, and her soul of the same 
 breath which had made the soul of Adam. 
 . Man saw his fellow-creature. He saw himself in another 
 with his majesty, his strength, his gentleness ; and with an 
 additional grace, a delicate tint that manifested a dissemblance 
 only to produce a more perfect fusion between the two parts of 
 himself. First regard of man upon his fellow-creature, what 
 was it ? First nuptial moment of mankind, who shall reveal it ? 
 We will not endeavour to paint it, we will not lessen by vain 
 poesy the solemnity of that wedlock whose consecrator was 
 God ; but imitating the austere simplicity of Scripture, we will 
 repeat what it says to us. 
 
 After, then, God had led to man his companion, according 
 to the expression of the sacred pages, He pronounced over them 
 in these terms the blessing of inexhaustible fecundity: "Increase 
 and multiply, and fill the earth."f And with these words, 
 efficacious like all the words of God, man received the gift of 
 producing and perpetuating the miracle of the diffusion of his 
 being, in offshoots personally distinct from himself, but one 
 
 * Genesis ii. 23. + Genesis i. 28. 
 
274 MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 with him in form and blood. Mankind was founded, and the 
 man in whom it had just become being, the man king, hus- 
 band, father, bearing in himself the innumerable posterity of 
 his sons, sang the hymn of the first nuptials, the song of the 
 first love, the law of the first family, the prophecy of all 
 generations. Listen, gentlemen, listen to our forefather speak- 
 ing to his race in the name of God ; listen to those first words 
 of man which have traversed ages and taught the human race. 
 " This," said he, " is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; 
 she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man; 
 wherefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave 
 to his wife ; and they shall be two in one flesh."* Such is the 
 law of family, society, civilisation ; such is the oracle which 
 will for ever regulate the condition of mankind. Every legis- 
 lator who may despise its commandment will but found bar- 
 barism ; no nation that withdraws from it will ever attain to- 
 the era of justice and holy morality. It is upon the constitu- 
 tion of family that the progress or decadency of society will in 
 all ages depend ; and the constitution of family, signed by 
 man and God, is written in the charter which has just been 
 proclaimed to you. Woman is not to be the slave of man ;. 
 she must be his sister, bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh. 
 Wherever she may be degraded from this rank, man himself 
 will be degraded ; he will never know the pure joys of true 
 love. Subjected to the domination of the senses, woman 
 would be nothing to him but an instrument of sensuality ; she 
 would not speak to him of God with the authority of tender- 
 ness ; she would not soften his heart by the constant charm of 
 her own ; she would not adorn his life by the innate delicacy 
 of her voice and gesture. The domestic threshold, as the 
 symbol of servitude, instead of recalling to man the holy and 
 happy hours of his terrestrial passage, would recall to him 
 only the inconstancy of his pleasures, the tyranny of his- 
 passions. 
 
 But woman is not only to be the sister of man by virtue of 
 community of origin, she is to be his wife ; in the virginity of 
 her body and her soul she is to bring to him an inestimable 
 gift, a gift which man will not be able to receive from another 
 until death shall have broken the oath which purchased it. 
 "She shall be called woman," said Adam ; " therefore a man. 
 
 * Genesis ii. 23, 24. 
 
GOD. 275 
 
 shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his 
 wife ■ and they shall be two in one flesh." They shall be two, 
 and not more than two ; they shall be two even to being but 
 one 'flesh; and as death dissolves the unity of the flesh, death 
 alone also shall destroy the unity of marriage, the source of 
 life. Should the frailty of the human heart forget that order, 
 should it profane marriage by daring to elevate adultery to the 
 sanctity of marriage, woman would no longer exist either as 
 wife or as mother. The infant born of her by an imperfect 
 union would recognise in her only a dishonoured victim, and 
 in his own days nothing but the fruit of selfish paternity. 
 
 Therefore, fraternal alliance between man and woman, 
 exclusive and indissoluble alliance, in which, however, man 
 exercises the chief authority, because he is the trunk whence 
 his companion was taken, and because she was given to him 
 by God, according to the language of Scripture, as "a help like 
 unto himself."* Such is the regular constitution of family, 
 without which there is but oppression of the woman and 
 child, weakening of the sense of moral obligation, sensuality 
 instead of love, selfishness instead of devotedness, and in fine, 
 barbarism or decadency, according to the age of the nations 
 which have been led to despise the fundamental laws of society. 
 Society is but the development of family ; if man leave his 
 family corrupted, he will enter corrupted into the community. 
 If the community would destroy family in order to regenerate 
 itself, it would substitute an order factitious and against 
 nature for the order established by God, and fall into the 
 double abyss of unmeasured tyranny and licentious dissolu- 
 tion. It would be the high road to death. 
 
 Society being but the development of family, the general 
 laws that regulate family regulate society also. As at the 
 domestic hearth woman is the sister of man, the citizen at the 
 forum is the brother of his fellow-citizen ; as man is only the 
 husband of one wife, the citizen belongs only to one nation ; 
 as, in fine, the wife and child owe obedience and respect to 
 the father, the citizen owes obedience and respect to the 
 magistrate. If from the community we survey the human 
 race, we shall recognise there, notwithstanding the difference 
 of language, customs, and physiognomy, the dispersed council 
 of a single race, the branching out of a single stem, and 
 
 * Genesis ii. 1 8. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 shall say to each man : Thou art my brother ; to each 
 nation : Thou art my sister ; to all, whatever may be their 
 colour, their history, or their name : This is bone of my 
 bones, and flesh of my flesh. It is true we shall no longer 
 find in the human race the unity of one single father, common 
 obedience, unanimous respect ; that order has been destroyed. 
 The fields of Babylon saw the branches of man breaking off 
 with great noise, and heard our forefathers utter in confused 
 language the adieu of a separation which still exists. But the 
 hour of the unity prepared and begun by Christ seems to draw 
 near ; the mountains bend, the seas diminish, the Christian 
 family, with the vicar of God at its head, urges on, and, by its 
 superiority henceforth assumed, enlightens the nations which 
 have not yet adored the regenerating language of the gospel. 
 The desire for peace keeps the sword in its sheath ; fraternal 
 language is exchanged from one end of the world to the 
 other ; the negro sits down with the white man in the great 
 assemblies of nations ; everything forebodes to attentive minds 
 an era of reconciliation and the age in which, without destroy- 
 ing the variety or liberty of nations, the antique prophecy will 
 be accomplished which announces to us, " one single shepherd 
 for one single fold." * 
 
 I halt before this glorious hope which should console all 
 who are concerned about the future of the human race. How 
 is it that here also I find rationalism as the adversary of the 
 truths which so greatly interest the dignity and happiness of 
 man ? Not content with having presented the social state as a 
 state against nature, rationalism has attacked its constitution 
 under three important relations : it has denied the unity of the 
 human race, the unity of marriage, and its indissolubility. I 
 shall not notice the last two errors, having had occasion to 
 touch upon them in the conference in which we treated " of 
 the influence of Catholic society upon natural society in regard 
 to family;" and I shall limit myself to confirming, in a few 
 words, the substantial unity which makes of the human race a 
 family issued from a single love, and from one and the same 
 blood. 
 
 It seems that in the age we live in, an age wherein ideas 
 of equality and fraternity generally predominate, if there is a 
 dogma which should escape from negation, it is the dogma 
 
 * St. John x. 16. 
 
GOD. 277 
 
 that gathers into unity all the nations that form mankind. 
 But rationalism thought to seize Christian truth here in the 
 very fact against the documents of science, and could not lose 
 the opportunity of compromising it in those minds which 
 attach more weight to the appearance of things than to the 
 evidence of their laws. It endeavours then to establish the 
 absolute diversity of the human races by the comparative study 
 of the profound dissimilarities that mark their most important 
 branches. These dissimilarities cannot be denied ; the igno- 
 rant discover them as well as the learned. The Malay, the 
 Mongol, the negro, have characteristic features which do not 
 permit us to confound them either among themselves or with 
 the European. This is true. The whole question is whether 
 the difference is substantial, or only an accident, whether it 
 constitutes a separate nature having an origin of its own ; or 
 whether it is but a shade caused in a primitive uniform type 
 by the circumstances of time, place, customs, and even by 
 fortuitous events whose effect and impress are afterwards 
 perpetuated. 
 
 It is incontestable that sensible varieties appear in beings 
 of the same kind and of the same progeny ; it is the result of 
 two forces which keep life in a just equilibrium, namely : 
 spontaneity and immutability. Without spontaneity, that is 
 to say, without a proper and original movement, beings would 
 remain in the monotonous mould of barren uniformity ; with- 
 out immutability, they would lose the type of their true 
 organisation under the force of their individual action. They 
 are, then, at the same time free and restrained ; they become 
 modified without losing their nature. Such is the case of 
 those changes of physiognomy which have no name when they 
 are not perpetuated ; and which are called varieties when they 
 are powerful enough to be transmitted and maintained. For, 
 as the primitive form of the living being resists all mutations, 
 the secondary or acquired form may also share this privilege 
 when the causes that produced it are inveterate, and have 
 passed, so to say, to the very roots of life. The father or 
 mother, and sometimes both together, communicate to their 
 children the features and expression which they themselves 
 received from their authors. If this hereditary vestige promptly 
 disappears in families of little distinction, it acquires an obstinate 
 persistence in the more strongly marked races, which guard 
 their blood with more watchful care. It is above all remarkable 
 
278 MAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. 
 
 in the particular physiognomy of each nation, whatever ap- 
 proximation of climate or customs may exist between them. 
 The Frenchman, the Englishman, the German, the Italian, the 
 Spaniard, who touch each other on a soil limited in extent, 
 who drink the same waters, and are invigorated by the same 
 sun, who adore the same God, who have been mingled by an 
 uninterrupted communion of from twelve to fourteen centuries, 
 have a type of face personal to each, and by which they are 
 instantly recognised by the least attentive observer. If it be 
 so among nations subject to the influence of common elements, 
 what must it be of those separated by distance, light, heat, 
 food, religion, customs, all those material and spiritual causes, 
 in fine, which act upon life and produce profound modi- 
 fications ? And if the dissimilarity of two European nations 
 does not manifest the diversity of their primitive origin, how 
 should the dissimilarity between the negro and the white man 
 manifest anything but the diversity of their religious, political, 
 and natural history ? That which makes man is an intelligent 
 soul united to a body endowed with certain proportions. Now 
 has not the negro the same soul as the white man, and has he 
 not the same body ? Who will say that the soul of the negro 
 is not human, and that his body is not human ? And if the 
 soul of the negro be human, if his body be human, is he not a 
 man ? And if he be a man, why should he not have had the 
 same father as yourselves ? 
 
 A physiological law, promulgated by the illustrious Cuvier, 
 has also decided the question. It is known to science that all 
 living beings which unite together, and whose posterity remains 
 indefinitely prolific, belong to the same nature and remount to 
 a primordially unique stem. In order to maintain the great 
 lines of creation, God has not willed that beings of diverse 
 origin and kind should be able, by means of capricious alliances, 
 to confound all bloods. Should this irregular event happen, 
 it may obtain from deceived fecundity a first result; but it 
 never advances beyond this ; order immediately reassumes its 
 empire, and sterility punishes the fruit of a connection reproved 
 by the will of the Creator. Now this anathema does not reach 
 the union of the negro and the white man; their oaths received 
 at the feet of the same altars, under the invocation of the same 
 God, obtain in an indefinite posterity the glory of an act legiti- 
 mate and holy. Much more, the two bloods recognise each 
 other; the purer elevates to its splendour the one that had 
 
GOD. 279 
 
 ■contracted an adulteration; from degree to degree, from alliance 
 to alliance, all disparity vanishes, and the sons of Adam find 
 themselves again, as sixty centuries ago, in the fraternal features 
 of their common father. 
 
 Away, then, with those shameful attempts of fratricidal 
 science. Let us no longer listen to the voices which do not 
 respect the inviolable unity of the human race ! Rather, 
 Christians, let us hail from afar, and on every hand, let us hail 
 our brethren dispersed by the tempest on such diverse shores. 
 Let us, who have better preserved the primitive tint of our 
 creation, who have received with a softer influence of natural 
 light a better share of uncreated light; let us, the elder sons of 
 truth and civilisation, hail our brethren whom we have preceded 
 only to lead, whom we have surpassed only that they may one 
 <Iay equal us. Let us hail in them our past and our future 
 unity, the unity which they had in Adam and that which we 
 wait for in God. Let us stretch out our hands to the Malay 
 and the Mongol ; to the negro, the poor, and the leper. All 
 together, uniting our blessings and our misfortunes in one 
 immense and sincere act of brotherhood, let us draw near to 
 God, our first Father. Let us draw near to God who made us 
 from the same clay, who vivified us with the same breath, who 
 has penetrated us with the same spirit, who has given us the 
 same word, who has said to all of us : " Increase and multiply, 
 and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over it." He alone 
 can bless us; He alone can open to us a veritable era of liberty, 
 equality, and fraternity. Without Him you will write those 
 sublime words in vain upon your public monuments. Thirty 
 centuries ago, they were written on the tables of Sinai by a 
 more powerful hand than yours, and yet the tables of Sinai fell 
 from the hands that carried them, and were broken in pieces 
 at the foot of the mountain. It was because their laws were 
 written in stone, and not in the heart of man. Write not then 
 yours upon stone, write them with the finger of God in your 
 own hearts, that they may speak therefrom to the hearts of all, 
 and so insure a durable immortality. 
 
THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 My Lord, — Gentlemen, 
 
 It remained for me to treat of the condition in which God 
 created man as a physical being, and afterwards as a religious 
 being. Under the first head, God endowed him with immor- 
 tality ; under the second, He prepared him for sharing the 
 divine life itself by a gift which Catholic doctrine calls grace, 
 that is to say, the gift par excellence. This should then be the 
 present object of your attention. But having at a future period 
 to treat before you of the mystery of the resurrection of the 
 body, I reserve for that period all that concerns the exterior 
 immortality of man ; and as to his vocation to sharing the 
 divine life by the effusion of grace, it is too vast a subject to 
 be dealt with on the day which will close our conferences for 
 this year. I reserve it also, then, and I am consequently led 
 to the expression which in the Scriptures closes the account of 
 creation. That expression is singular ; it is as follows : " On the 
 seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and 
 he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had 
 done : and he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : 
 because in it he had rested from all his work which God 
 created and made."* 
 
 By this you see that the world was not the work of a 
 moment, but that God produced it in a progressive order dis- 
 tributed in six epochs, which the Scriptures call days. I shall 
 not stop to expose or to justify that order, which is already 
 known to you. Science has taken this upon itself during half 
 a century ; each of its discoveries comes unawares to prove 
 the profundity of Biblical cosmogony; and at length the bowels 
 
 * Genesis ii. 2, 3. 
 
GOD. 2Sj 
 
 of the earth, brought to light by tardy investigations, have 
 revealed, in the state of their different strata, the reality of the- 
 successive formation which is the basis of the account in< 
 Genesis. It was necessary to acknowledge either that Moses 
 was inspired by God, or that, fifteen centuries before the 
 Christian era, he possessed a science which was not to be dis- 
 closed until three thousand years later. I would willingly treat 
 of this magnificent triumph of our faith, if the nature of my 
 labours permitted me to add thereto the weight of a personal 
 authority, and if it were not more fitting that whatever concerns 
 scientific developments should rather be treated in a book than 
 from a Christian pulpit. I confine myself then to this incon- 
 testable fact, that the Christian cosmogony is henceforth assured 
 of the respect of all who do not despise the testimony of the 
 most authentic realities. But this testimony, which suffices to 
 confound the reproaches of the mind, does not suffice to satisfy 
 its desire to know. It still asks why God created the world 
 gradually, why He in a manner diminished His power to restrain 
 His action. It is easy to conceive that time may be necessary 
 to a finite cause ; it is not easy to conceive its utility to a 
 cause which can do all things of itself. How is it that God 
 abased Himself to the measure of a common workman ? How 
 is it that He began, quitted, and returned to His work ? How 
 is it that He rested from it ? All these ideas are strange, and 
 in seeing them united to the first act which has revealed God 
 to us, to the act of creation, the intelligence vacillates and 
 remains under the weight of unappeasable wonder. 
 
 I dare to say that your instinct deceives you, and that 
 there is nothing greater in God than His abasement. Yes, God 
 abased Himself in creation, as we shall see Him at a later period 
 abasing Himself in the incarnation and in the redemption ; 
 He abased Himself because He laboured for us and not for Him- 
 self, because strength and greatness are communicated only by 
 descending. Yes, God had no need of time as an auxiliary to 
 His eternity : no motive drawn from Himself induced Him to 
 divide the formation of the earth into six periods, and to await 
 the help of ages for that which depended upon an act of His. 
 sovereign thought. But if it were the same for Him to act sud- 
 denly or slowly, it was not so for man. Destined, in ouu 
 passage upon earth, to a work which ends only with itself and 
 us, it is important forms to know the general law of labour ; and 
 God, in establishing outside of Himself the operation whence 
 
2S2 THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 all ulterior operation was to flow, willed that His manner of 
 proceeding should for ever contain and reveal the rule of our 
 own activity. That rule indeed has never been effaced from 
 the memory of the human race. It has outlived the wreck of 
 the most sacred traditions, and its vestiges are found in the 
 division of time observed by most of the ancient and modern 
 nations. But in order to comprehend in what it consisted, 
 what was its object and its importance, it is necessary to take 
 account of the labour even of man. 
 
 This word labour seems to awaken an idea incompatible 
 with the primitive state in which God placed us ; a state of 
 perfection and happiness which I have represented to you, and 
 which bears the image of perfect repose. Does not labour 
 imply fatigue ? Is not a chastisement imposed upon man in 
 consequence of a prevarication which caused him to fall from 
 the prerogatives of his primitive state ? And moreover, before 
 that catastrophe had impaired the harmony of our faculties and 
 drawn down the divine malediction upon earth, what would 
 have been the object of labour to us, either of body or mind? 
 These reflections so much the more prove to me the necessity 
 of exactly defining the labour required of man in the design of 
 his creation. 
 
 To labour is to act. We may act with pain ; but pain is 
 not a part of the essence of labour. Its essence is summed 
 up in that energetic and glorious word : to act. Now, you do 
 not suppose that God. who made all things, has destined man 
 to eternal idleness. The most insignificant being, in coming 
 into the world, brings into it a mission corresponding to the 
 end for which it was created, a mission or a function which it 
 accomplishes by labour. The very worm of the earth does 
 something, it performs its task, it co-operates for an end ; it 
 belongs to the sacred band of useful creatures. How should 
 man, raised so high by his faculties and by the place which he 
 occupies in the universe, have received no other function than 
 that of sterile idleness ? It could not so be, and it was not 
 the language of idle repose that God addressed to man when 
 at the hour of his birth He said to him : "Increase and multiply, 
 and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the 
 sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move 
 •upon the earth."* It was not a lesson of idleness that God 
 
 * Genesis i. 28. 
 
GOD. 283 
 
 gave him in bringing before him — according to the history of 
 Genesis — "all the animals of creation, that he might give them 
 a name which should explain their nature and remain to them 
 for ever."* In fine, when He led him to a dwelling-place, 
 called by Scripture the Paradise of Pleasure, it was not to 
 slumber there in the sleep of inaction ; for it is said God 
 placed him there to dress it and to keep it — ut operaretur et 
 custodiret iLLUM.f Do not then unite in your minds the 
 idea of perfection and happiness, or even the idea of repose, 
 with that of inactivity or idleness. God was infinite activity 
 before He assumed, in the creation and government of the 
 world, a work worthy of all His attributes ; by an eternal action 
 He produced in Himself the Word which ever speaks to Him, 
 the Holy Ghost which responds to both ; by a fecundity as 
 ancient as Himself He diffused between three the unity of an 
 essence whose inner movement is perfection, beatitude, and 
 repose. So far from the idea of action — which is that of labour 
 — being incompatible with the notion of a happy and perfect 
 state, it is the necessary element which constitutes all that we 
 know of that state ; for, to think is to act, to will is to act, to 
 love is to act, and apparently none of these acts will be rejected 
 from the definition of happiness and perfection. 
 
 Placed in the centre of created things, belonging by his 
 soul to the higher world of spirits, by his body to the lower 
 ■world of nature, having the earth for passage and God for end, 
 man was indebted by a double labour to a double function. 
 His first function was to tend towards God, who had given him 
 truth that he might know Him, charity that he might love Him, 
 the participation of His own life as perspective and term ; but 
 with all these gifts the gift also of liberty, which raising him 
 to the glory of a person master of himself, permitted him to 
 repudiate his legitimate end, and opened before him the 
 honourable but perilous career of virtue. This was the first 
 work, the great work of man. However pure he might have 
 been in his soul and body, he was free ; he could withdraw 
 from God and perish. Prayer, reflection, vigilance, perpetual 
 •care of his heart, were necessary for him to prevent his falling 
 from the virginal splendour in which God created him. 
 
 Our present state includes other difficulties, which leave us 
 xio doubt as to the importance of the spiritual work imposed 
 
 * Genesis ii. 19. t Genesis ii. 15. 
 
234 THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 upon the human race. The abuse of liberty has covered every 
 part of our being with ruins ; our intelligence is darkened , 
 our love has grown cold ; the struggle between good and evil 
 has assumed a character of alarming depth, with the develop- 
 ment of generations. God, without disappearing from our 
 midst, has found amongst us enemies conspiring against the 
 remembrance of Him, and employing all the resources of the 
 mind and the passions to destroy that remembrance. There 
 is no tradition which has not been denied, no duty which has- 
 not been outraged, no divine institution which has not been 
 subjected to the violent attacks of mad impiety ; and if God 
 has remained visible during the whole course of ages, if He 
 still reigns over the posterity of His first creature, it is but at 
 the price of a combat rife in tears and blood. You are 
 engaged in this divine war, you form part of it, and, victors or 
 vanquished, I have nothing to teach you on the painful price 
 of truth. 
 
 Even had we but the work of the soul; if man could extend 
 towards God a look free from all other care, a hand free from 
 all other burden ! But it is not so. From the first, a function 
 and a labour of a different order have been confided to us. 
 God, because He would not leave us without occupation for the 
 forces of the body by which we hold to the inferior world, 
 called us to share His temporal government. He gave us the 
 earth to guard and fertilise, not at first at the price of our toil, 
 but by an administration which partook of the nature of empire 
 and added to our other prerogatives the glory of useful com- 
 mand. In exchange for a royal and blessed culture, the 
 obedient earth rendered back to us a substance necessary to 
 sustain our immortality during its earthly existence. " Behold," 
 said God to us, "I have given you every herb bearing seed upon 
 the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their 
 own kind, to be your meat."* This reciprocal intercourse 
 between nature and man possessed nothing primitively which 
 was an obstacle to the relation between our soul and God. 
 The soul rather found therein a spiritual aliment, a source of 
 joy which sprang forth without effort and reached even to its 
 author. But that state did not last, and you know what 
 temporal labour has become for the posterity of Adam. A 
 curse has fallen upon it ; the earth, which yielded to our 
 
 * Genesis i. 29. 
 
GOD. 285 
 
 ■desires, refuses to us all that we do not pay it for beforehand 
 in toil and fatigue : it doles out its gifts to us with avarice that 
 nothing can move, with uncertainty that nothing can disarm. 
 Nearly the whole of the human race, with brow bent towards 
 it, implores it with assiduous devotedness, and gathers for 
 recompense only the bitter bread of hard poverty. Now, 
 poverty of the body easily entails that of the soul : it has 
 created modes of servitude which draw all the human faculties 
 together in their many folds, and by pressing upon their action, 
 plunges them into a state approaching to death. Man descends 
 towards the instinct of the animal ; absorbed in his material 
 wants, he forgets his origin and his end ; he throws to the 
 winds the divine life whose germ is within him, and his only 
 care is to force the earth to render to him the blessings of 
 ■eternity. 
 
 We can only accuse ourselves ; God is not responsible for 
 our faults and our blindness. He foresaw them, doubtless ; 
 and I have told you why, notwithstanding that prevision, He 
 did not refuse us the blessing of liberty. But, since He foresaw 
 them, His wisdom and His goodness commanded Him to come 
 to our help, and, by a primitive, fundamental, and imprescrip- 
 tible law to regulate the relation between temporal and spiritual 
 labour, both necessary to mankind, the one as the principle of 
 its divine life, the other as the principle of its terrestrial life ; 
 both of which should be reciprocally limited in an equitable 
 proportion. Now, who should have discovered this, and who 
 should have established that proportion, if God had not done 
 it? Who should have had wisdom to determine the time 
 which man owed to his soul, and that which he owed to his 
 body ? Who should have possessed the authority necessary, in 
 so difficult a matter, to obtain the sanction of universal respect? 
 Who should have saved man from the tyranny of his own 
 cupidity, and from the tyranny, not less to be feared, of one 
 stronger than himself? In the question of labour lies the 
 root of all servitude ; it is the question of labour which has 
 made masters and servants, conquering and conquered nations, 
 oppressors of every kind and oppressed of every name. Labour 
 being no other thing than human activity, everything necessarily 
 has relation to it, and according as it is well or ill distributed, 
 society is well or ill organised, happy or miserable, moral or 
 immoral. We have now before us a proof of this which the 
 most blind are obliged to comprehend. What has agitated 
 
286 THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 the world during the last twenty years ? What is the cry of 
 the civil wars which we now witness ? Is it not : " Organisa- 
 tion of labour"? Is it not also: "Live by labour, or die 
 fighting"? And, if we examine the chain of historical revolu- 
 tions, shall we ever find for them, whatever may be their name, 
 another primary cause than the question of labour? The 
 migrations of nations, the invasion of the barbarians, the 
 servile wars, the troubles of the forum, all the great human 
 agitations, hang directly or indirectly upon that terrible question, 
 which rises again from its own ashes with obstinate immortality. 
 It is the axis upon which the destinies of the world turn. 
 
 And, consequently, the first religious and civil law is the law 
 of labour. Now who should, who could, lay it down ? Who,, 
 save He who owes nothing to anyone, but who, having from 
 love made Himself the Father of minds, willed to be the light 
 whence they should derive their direction? Who, save He 
 who has created the soul and the body of man, who knows 
 their wants, who has measured their powers, and who alone 
 possesses the secret of limits, because He has none ? It was 
 just that, in the act of creation, God should promulgate all the 
 bases of the physical, moral, and religious orders, and that He 
 should promulgate them by acts sufficiently powerful for the 
 remembrance of them to bear their commandment even to the 
 last generations. Language alone would not have sufficed; 
 God was not content to proclaim His laws by language alone, 
 at the origin of things any more than on Sinai and Calvary. 
 He has constantly graven them in acts whose eloquence is 
 more enduring than brass. The cross of Calvary, the tables 
 of Sinai, the waves of the deluge, the days of creation, are the 
 four great monuments of divine legislation ; imperishable 
 monuments, which, after so many ages, exist in all the vigour 
 of the first day. The cross of Calvary covers the five divisions 
 of the world ; the tables of Sinai are read in all the places 
 crowned by the cross ; the waves of the deluge have left their 
 traces from the Alps to the Caucasus, from the Caucasus to 
 the Himalayas, from the Himalayas to the summit of the 
 Andes ; and the days of the creation, religiously preserved in 
 the strata of the globe, in the furrows of our ploughs, revive 
 that magnificent law of labour which has preceded all others, 
 and which we must now more clearly define to you. 
 
 You have already heard the terms of this law : " God," it 
 is said, "ended on the seventh day the work which he had 
 
GOD. 287 
 
 made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work 
 which he had done, and he blessed the seventh day and 
 sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which 
 God created and made." Such is the proportion of temporal 
 to spiritual labour, of the labour of the body to the labour 
 of the soul, according as God determined it by the sovereign 
 example of His own work. And, indeed, if the question had 
 depended upon man, we may be sure that it would not have 
 been solved in this manner. Knowing the law, are we even 
 capable of explaining it to ourselves ? Why should the number 
 seven express the totality of the two kinds of labour ? Why 
 should spiritual labour amount only to a seventh part of 
 temporal labour ? Why should the one occupy six consecutive 
 days, and not a longer or a shorter time? Is there nothing 
 in the powers of the body and the soul that leads us to this 
 proportion of six to one ? Or is it nature that reveals it to 
 us by the general harmony of its laws? No, gentlemen^ 
 neither do the phenomena of nature, nor the necessities of 
 the body, nor the wants' of the soul, give us the elements of 
 such an induction. When the rationalist dictators of the 
 French Revolution, from hatred of all traditional and sacred 
 origins, resolved to efface the ancient period of seven days 
 from the calendar of a great people, they knew not where to 
 take the basis of a new calculation, save in the convenience 
 of a system of numeration. They decreed that the week 
 should be ten days, in order to introduce the uniformity of 
 the decimal mode into labour, as into weights and measures. 
 The French citizen was to labour for nine days and rest on 
 the tenth, simply because a like division had been established 
 in things of number, and because it is easier to compute figures 
 by this mode than by any other. No one troubled himself 
 to learn whether the body of man would bear such an increase 
 of labour ; and, had they done this, it is manifest that every 
 precise limit would have been the result of an arbitrary choice, 
 and not the fruit of experience or reasoning. 
 
 The number seven, chosen by God, has no relation to any 
 mathematical fitness. Nor is it justified by the degree of the 
 bodily forces ; for it is not easy to see, for instance, that man 
 would not have been able to labour for seven days and to rest on 
 the eighth. It is a number taken from a higher region than 
 physical order; and so it should be, since it was a matter of regu- 
 lating the relations of two kinds of labour, one material and the 
 
288 THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 ■other spiritual. Evidently, between two kinds of things so com- 
 pletely diverse, the mediator could come only from a point which 
 governed both, that is to say, the soul and the body. Now, 
 God alone governs all the beings which compose the hierarchy 
 of the universe ; He alone, in His universal and creating essence, 
 possesses the pattern of their own, the reason of their existence, 
 the law of their relations, the principle of their harmony. It 
 is then in Himself, in the higher and mysterious mathematics of 
 His own nature, that God has chosen the number suitable as 
 the rule of our double activity. This number does not appear 
 in the work of cosmogony only, it plays an important part in 
 all the rest of the divine operations, as the Scriptures show us. 
 We see it shining in the seven weeks of years of the Hebrew 
 jubilee, in the seven branches of the candlestick of Jerusalem, 
 in the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, in the seven sacraments 
 of the Church, in the seven seals of the Apocalypse, and in a 
 multitude of occurrences which it would require too much 
 time to enumerate. In almost every page of the sacred books 
 its importance is manifested by the use which God has directly 
 or indirectly made of it. 
 
 In short, to the eyes of pure reason the number seven is an 
 arbitrary number ; to the eyes of reason enlightened by faith 
 it is a divine number ; to the eyes of history it is a traditional 
 number ; to the eyes of experience it is a number which has 
 reconciled the wants and duties of the body with the wants 
 and duties of the soul. Six days of temporal labour have 
 sufficed for man in all times and under all climates to gain his 
 subsistence without weakening his strength, to fertilise the earth 
 without compromising his health or his happiness ; the seventh 
 day, consecrated to repose in the worship of God, has also 
 sufficed for him to refresh his soul, to preserve truth, to 
 rekindle his love, and, in fine, to advance peacefully and 
 joyously towards the august end of a creature blessed by God. 
 Whatever metaphysical judgment you may pronounce upon 
 this memorable division of temporal and spiritual labour, there 
 are two things which you cannot deny, namely, its universality 
 and its efficacy; so much the more remarkable, as we do not see 
 any rational cause for it, whilst we are forced to conclude that 
 that cause exists. Would you destroy the balance of human 
 activity, engender the degradation of souls, the oppression of 
 the weak, the cupidity of all, and the misery of the greater 
 number ? Would you do this ? It is easy ; touch the law of 
 
GOD. 289 
 
 labour as it was promulgated by the work of creation ; increase 
 temporal labour ; lessen, by violence or artifice, spiritual 
 labour; abandon man to the inspirations of his covetousness 
 and the will of his masters ; do this, and you will be sure to 
 gather its fruit in a generation which will satisfy you, if you 
 like the moral and physical degradation of mankind. 
 
 I say the physical as well as the moral degradation ; for 
 the observance of the seventh day was not established simply 
 with a view to religious sanctification, but also and directly 
 with a view to terrestrial preservation. This is why Scripture 
 employs two remarkable expressions at the same time ; it says 
 that God "rested" on the seventh day,and thatHe "sanctified" it. 
 And as the object of God was to trace the rule of our activity 
 by His example, it follows that He recommended two things to 
 us at the same time, repose and the sanctification of the seventh 
 day. And if you doubt this, if you do not think that God has 
 so great a regard for the equitable well-being of the body of 
 man, hear it again proclaimed by Moses, at the foot of Sinai, 
 in the great law of the Sabbath : " Six days shalt thou labour, 
 and shalt do all thy works ; the seventh day is the day of the 
 sabbath, that is, the rest of the Lord thy God ; thou shalt not 
 do any work therein, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor 
 thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy ox, nor thy ass, 
 nor any of thy beasts, nor the stranger that is within thy 
 gates."* This is the law. Now listen to the reason which God 
 immediately gives for it : "that," He says, "thy man-servant 
 and thy maid-servant may rest even as thyself. "f And going 
 still further, He said on another occasion to all the assembled 
 people : " Six days thou shalt work ; the seventh day thou 
 shalt cease, that thy ox and thy ass may rest, and the son of 
 thine handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed." J Here 
 God stipulates in favour of the animals who share the labour 
 of man ; He associates them in the benefit of His merciful 
 providence, and since they are fatigued with the reasonable 
 creature, He wills that the repose of the reasonable creature 
 should extend even to them. You recognise here the heart of 
 God, and if your intelligence still doubted of the temporarily 
 philanthropic sense attached by Scripture to the law of the 
 seventh day, there remains no longer any excuse for you before 
 texts which from their clearness defy interpretation. Listen 
 
 * Deuteronomy v. 13, 14. t Ibid. 
 
 1 Exodus xxiii. 12. 
 
290 THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 again, however. After God had recommended to His people 
 the observance of the seventh day in favour of the poorest and 
 most laborious, He terminates by this solemn adjuration: 
 "Remember that thou also didst serve in Egypt, and the Lord 
 thy God brought thee out from thence with a strong hand and 
 a stretched-out arm : therefore he hath commanded thee that 
 thou shouldst observe the sabbath day."* Thus it is in remem- 
 brance of the bondage in Egypt, and in recalling it to them, 
 that God imposes upon the posterity of Jacob the charter of 
 rest from labour, that is to say, the first and fundamental 
 charter of all liberty. For what is the liberty of a man attached 
 to the glebe of unremitting labour ? What is the liberty of a 
 body never uplifted towards the vault of heaven, and the 
 liberty of a soul never raised towards the light of God ? 
 
 It is to you, gentleman, to all generations of masters, that 
 these formidable words are addressed, which, three thousand 
 years ago, resounded in the deserts of the Red Sea: "Remember 
 that thou also didst serve in Egypt !" All of us, in our fore- 
 fathers, have served ; all of us, in our posterity, shall serve in 
 Egypt. In vain do we wear the signs of emancipation, and 
 ask from the future the fidelity which it refuses to kings; 
 we are of a blood which servile labour has formed, which 
 servile labour will form again. See in your hands the trace of 
 earth ; we come from the earth, and to it we shall return. 
 There is no exception for any one of us, for the child of the 
 palace any more than for the child of the cottage. Sooner or 
 later the long hand of misfortune will again seize upon us and 
 bring us back to the obscure labour which was our cradle. 
 And if it was so in the ages of stability, how much more now 
 when every corner-stone has been destroyed, and we build in 
 the tempests of equality the shifting edifice of our destinies ! 
 Hearken then to the words which remind you of the bondage 
 of Egypt, respect in your brethren living in service the service 
 which was your own, and which will return to you again. 
 Take not away from them the day of relaxation which was 
 prepared for them from the beginning as the liberty of their 
 souls and bodies, and with a degree of munificence of which 
 you do not perhaps form an idea. 
 
 For remark that God has not made of the seventh day a 
 private institution, a day to take at hazard by each of us in any 
 
 * Deuteronomy v. 15. 
 
GOD. 291 
 
 particular course of occupied days. No, He has made of it the 
 great social institution ; He has convoked the human race on 
 the same day and at the same hour in the whole course of 
 -ages, inviting it to repose, to rejoice, and be exalted in Him. 
 In a word, He has founded a periodical and perpetual festival 
 for mankind. For man needs festivals. Withheld far from 
 the permanent city which is the term of his pilgrimage, and 
 bearing in his heart the sadness of this trial of absence, he 
 needs, by certain emotions, to leave the monotonous shadow 
 of his life. Like Saul, he needs to hear the sound of the 
 harp, or like David, to dance to music, before the ark of 
 God. But who will give these festivals to the poor of 
 this world? Who will give them palaces, statues, paintings, 
 voices, and lights? Who will give them emotions worlhy of 
 them, and that rare joy in which the conscience is enraptured 
 as well as the heart ? The people are poor and without art ; 
 they posess nothing great but themselves and God who protects 
 them. The people and God come together and form the 
 festival of mankind. For sixty centuries these two have been 
 faithful to this meeting, and enjoy together without interruptions 
 that festival which costs nothing to the people but their 
 assembling, to God but looking down upon them. 
 
 The legislators of nations have recognised this popular 
 want of common and public enjoyments ; they have sought to 
 satisfy it by religious pomps, by spectacles, triumphs, games, 
 and combats. But instead of instructing and elevating man, 
 nothing has helped more to degrade him ; the most shameful 
 passions came there to seek gratification and applause. 
 Sensuality and blood met together there before the sacred 
 images of country; and publicity, the mother of modesty, is 
 there for the multitude only an additional debauch. This is 
 because, in fact, the pleasures of the crowd turn easily towards 
 all the vices. A celebrated politician has said: "Whoever 
 assembles the people makes them factious." It may with no 
 less truth be said : Whoever amuses the people corrupts them. 
 In modern times rationalist legislators have been seen 
 endeavouring to create festivals in order to replace that of the 
 seventh day which they had abolished. They have only 
 succeeded in inventing imitations of antiquity with the addition 
 ■of ridicule and without the people. Public common sense 
 was too just and too profound, under the inspiration of 
 Christianity, to enjoy these puerile renovations. It then 
 
 u 2 
 
2Q2 THE DOUBLE WORK OF MAN. 
 
 became necessary, in the great occasions of civil life, to limit 
 them to vulgar amusements, and God alone remained to give 
 to the human race grave solemnities which draw men together, 
 move, ameliorate, and bring them repose. 
 
 Is there any one among you who has not been touched by 
 the spectacle which a Christian population presents on the 
 day consecrated to God ? The public places covered with a 
 multitude of beings dressed in their best apparel ; all ages 
 appearing there with their hopes and fears, each tempered 
 by a sentiment higher than life. The eyes that meet each 
 other are animated by fraternal joy; the servant is nearer 
 to his master ; the poor less removed from the rich ; all 
 by the community of the same duty accomplished and the 
 same grace received, feel more fully that they are sons of 
 the same Father who is in heaven. The silence of servile 
 labour is compensated for by the joyous and musical sound of 
 the bells, which make known to thousands of men that they 
 are free, and prepare them to endure for God the days when 
 they will not be free. No austerity clouds their features ; the 
 idea of observance is moderated by that of repose, and the 
 idea of repose is embellished by the image of a festival. 
 Incense burns in the temple ; lights shine upon the altars ; 
 music fills the vaults and speaks to all hearts ; the priest 
 goes from the people to God and from God to the people ; 
 earth mounts upwards and heaven descends. Who does not 
 leave the temple more calm? Who will not return to it 
 better ? Oh ! for my part, gentlemen, this day has never 
 passed without having moved me ; and even here, in this 
 capital, where so many souls do not respect it, I never witness 
 its popular effect without lifting my heart towards God in 
 an aspiration of gratitude and love. 
 
 Such is then the sense, such is the result of that great law 
 of labour which God willed to promulgate and to hallow in 
 the very act of creation. After having interpreted it to you, 
 can I withhold a painful sensation which oppresses me ? Can 
 I refrain from complaining that there is a Christian people 
 which despises this law, and that people is our own? Is 
 it really France that, in this point, neglects the most sacred oi 
 duties between man and man? Is it France that tears in 
 twain the fundamental pact of mankind, that delivers over to 
 the rich the body and soul of the poor to use at their pleasure, 
 that tramples under foot the day of liberty, equality, fraternity, 
 
GOD. 393 
 
 the sublime day of the people and of God ? I ask you, is it 
 really France ? Do not excuse her by saying that she grants to 
 each the free exercise of his own worship, and that no one, 
 against his consent, is constrained to work on the seventh day. 
 For it is but to add to the reality of servitude the hypocrisy of 
 freedom. Ask the workman whether he is free to abandon his 
 labour on the dawn of the day that commands him to rest. 
 Ask the young man who consumes his life in a daily lucre of 
 which he does not profit, if he is free to breathe only once in 
 the week the air of heaven and the still purer air of truth. Ask 
 those withered creatures who people the manufacturing cities 
 if they are free, to save their souls in comforting their bodies. 
 Ask the innumerable victims of personal cupidity and of the 
 cupidity of a master, if they are free to become better, and if 
 the gulf of toil without physical or moral reparation does not 
 swallow them up alive. Ask those even who repose, but who 
 repose in the degradation of unregulated passions, ask them 
 what becomes of the people in that rest which is not given 
 and protected by God. No, gentlemen, liberty of conscience 
 here is only a veil that covers oppression ; it covers with a 
 golden mantle the cowardly shoulders of the most vile of all 
 tyranny, the tyranny that abuses the toil of man by cupidity 
 and impiety. If liberty of conscience were a reality here, 
 doubtless Protestant England would have perceived it ; doubt- 
 less the democracy of the United States of America would 
 have learned it : and where in the world has the right of the 
 seventh day been more respected ? Learn then, those who 
 know it not ; learn, enemies of God and of the human race, 
 whatever name they bear, that between the strong and the 
 weak, between the rich and the poor, between the master and 
 the servant, it is liberty that oppresses, and law that gives 
 freedom. Right is the sword of the powerful, duty is the 
 shield of the weak. 
 
 It is high time for us to remove from France this lament- 
 able error, which has lasted but too long. The tempests also 
 warn us that it is not good to violate commandments which 
 were promulgated with the creation, renewed in the thunders 
 of Sinai, and reinvigorated by the blood of Calvary. Whoso- 
 ever is against God is against mankind, and if a few unhappy 
 men, armed with what they call reason, fear not to make these 
 two enemies, we may trust to the vengeance of the future 
 alone — that future which is already the present, and which 
 
294 GOD. 
 
 warns us all to think of our faults and generously to combat 
 them by a salutary reparation. France will do this ! _ Yes, 
 Lord, France will do this ! We see its foreshadowing in the 
 respect she pays to Thee in the midst of the ruins she has so 
 suddenly made. She will listen to the forewarnings of 
 experience, she will rise again towards Thee by the difficulties 
 which surround her, she will recognise the principle of her 
 salvation in that beautiful saying which Thou hast pronounced 
 to all nations of the earth by Jesus Christ Thine only Son : 
 "Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all other 
 things shall be added to you."* Hearken, O God, to that 
 voice which speaks to Thee from France ; and when another 
 year fallen from Thy eternity upon our short life shall bring us 
 again together in this temple, grant that we may find here 
 more steadfast, stronger, and more glorious than ever, our 
 country and truth ! 
 
 * Matt. vi. 33. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 
 
, 6 ■- 
 
 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE 
 BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 
 
 My Lord,* — Gentlemen, 
 
 We will begin by establishing the point we have reached 
 in expounding the mystery of destinies, as it is professed by 
 Catholic doctrine. According to that doctrine, there exists 
 an infinite, eternal Being, subsisting of Himself, who is one 
 without being alone ; for He finds in His own essence relations 
 whence, with the necessary movement of His life, results the 
 absolute plenitude of His perfection and His happiness. A 
 Being unique and complete, God suffices to Himself. No 
 necessity, no utility called Him out of Himself; He saw in His 
 intelligence the inexhaustible image of a multitude of beings 
 variously limited ; He felt His power to cause them to pass 
 from the possible to the real state ; but being perfect and 
 happy in the inner development of His triple personality, He 
 was free not to exercise His power, and, in the depth of His mind, 
 to leave in repose the eternal spectacle of the worlds which 
 were not. Goodness alone incited Him gratuitously to com- 
 municate life ; and therefore, on the day when it pleased Him, 
 or rather in that indivisible day which has no distinct move- 
 ments save for the passing beings who behold it, God created 
 the universe. He created it so as to realise the indefinite 
 perspective of the possible, as He beheld it in His intelligence, 
 
 * Monseigneur Sibour, Archbishop of Paris. 
 
298 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 and man, who in his double nature drew together all its- 
 elements and all its features, was placed in the centre of that 
 work, as its connecting link, and its most complete represen- 
 tation. God is thus the principle of things. But by the 
 same reason which determined Him to be the principle of 
 things, He is also their end — that is to say, their term or object. 
 For, having created from goodness, He willed to communicate 
 His own perfection and beatitude to His creatures, and this 
 can be accomplished only by the intimate union of their life 
 with His own. Whence it follows that the general law of all 
 created beings is to aspire towards God — minds, by a free and 
 direct effort ; bodies, by their association with minds in the 
 person of man. And in order for that ascension of the finite 
 towards the infinite to be possible, on the very day of their 
 creation, God, the author of intelligent beings, gave to them 
 truth and love — truth, to know Him ; love, to love Him — and 
 the Father of beings became altogether and at the same 
 moment their principle, their means, and their end. 
 
 Such is the first plan of Catholic doctrine, and the first 
 plan of our destinies. 
 
 But is this all ? Has God, in order to attract us towards 
 Him, limited Himself to spreading out before us the spectacle 
 of nature, and to lighting up in our intelligence the sun of 
 reason ? Is all other communication between Himself and us 
 — communication more direct, nearer, more profound— im- 
 possible ? Have we nothing more to hope for or pretend to, 
 until the day when the mystery of our creation will be con- 
 summated in eternity ? Rationalism affirms this ; it declares 
 — and this it is which separates it from us in the very fount of 
 its essence — that there is no communication between God and 
 ourselves, save by the intermediary of reason, that every other 
 mode is chimerical, all other intercourse an imposture or an 
 illusion. Catholic doctrine does not accept this decision — it 
 believes, it teaches that nature and reason form but the peri- 
 style of truth, the first torch of the temple, and that man, 
 with this help alone, however great he may be, is an incomplete 
 being, who would be incapable of attaining the term of his. 
 destinies — that is to say, God. Behold the formidable question 
 now before us. All that I said to you last year of the Christian 
 dogmas contains in itself only a spiritualist philosophy ; there 
 are sages who bend with respect before that portion of religious 
 truth, and if we did not advance further, we should remain 
 
GOD AND MAN. 299. 
 
 within the limits of human wisdom. Catholic doctrine does 
 not permit us to do this ; it constrains us to pass these narrow 
 limits, and to show you that beyond and besides the creating 
 act to which we owe the elements of life, knowledge, and 
 love, which are within us, there exists in regard to us an action 
 of God more penetrating and more profound. What is that 
 action ? Does it exist in reality ? This is what we must now 
 endeavour to learn. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 You are the third Archbishop of Paris before whom I 
 have here announced the word of God. Your two last pre- 
 decessors were both struck by the thunderbolt; they both 
 prematurely carried to God the account full and yet incom- 
 plete of their episcopacy. One of them saw his palace razed 
 to the ground by the hands of the multitude, and, after having 
 responded to that act of violence by ten years of good deeds, 
 he died without having obtained from the justice of men the 
 reparation due to his piety, his courage, and his goodness. 
 The other offered himself as a holocaust ; he fell in disarming 
 civil war, and the people, moved by that victim who had become 
 their peacemaker, brought him back into this temple, and 
 made here for him a sepulchre greater than his throne, and a.. 
 resurrection as glorious as his death. God has chosen you, 
 my lord, to succeed these two men, and to continue the history 
 of the See of St. Denis ; He has considered you worthy to 
 occupy a place which henceforth can only be filled by the 
 charity that makes the martyr, and the greatness of soul that 
 makes the citizen. I wish you happier days than theirs, a glory 
 less agitated, and an end less precocious— not that I doubt of 
 your heart, should God call you to equal them in the peril and 
 honour of tribulations, but because it belongs only to God to 
 desire for men, and send to them, tribulations as great as then- 
 virtues. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 I shall not render an account to you of my public acts 
 in the memorable year which has just closed upon us. Time 
 perhaps has taken upon itself to explain and ratify them — I 
 shall not say more to you than time. My mission is not to 
 speak to you of myself, but to speak to you of God, and of 
 
300 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 yourselves in your relations with God. This is the mountain 
 upon which I have placed my life, and upon which I would 
 place yours. Let us ascend it together, and from this height, 
 which surveys time and the passions of men, let us proclaim 
 to earth the only truths which are able to save it 
 
 Since God is the end of man, since He has created us to be 
 perfect and happy in Him, it is manifest that if the designs of 
 the creation have not here below been entirely frustrated, there 
 should be found men who tend to their end in seeking and 
 loving God. And nevertheless, because of human liberty, 
 there should also be found other men who neglect God, their 
 principle and their end, and yield to the seduction of created 
 things. Such, indeed, is the spectacle which the history 
 of the world unceasingly presents to us. At whatever 
 epoch it is consulted or regarded it will be found struggling 
 with the two great parties which contend for the government 
 of minds — the party of God and that of man — the party 
 of saints and that of sages. Now, if it be true that we 
 have no other means for arriving at our divine end than 
 nature and reason, it is manifest that the party of God should 
 take its basis in the sole resources of the natural order. 
 And yet it is not so. The party of God exists, it has always 
 existed, it is endowed with a force which none other has been 
 able to destroy — neither ages, nor kings, nor sages. Ages have 
 come with the empire and stratagems of duration ; the party of 
 God has seen them pass away, and made use of them but to 
 outlive them. Kings have held in their hands all the power of 
 man ; the party of God has blessed or cursed their passage, 
 and in the one, as in the other case, has covered their head 
 with earth and remained living. Sages have written books, 
 and made names for themselves ; the party of God has taken 
 possession of their books, and now that their renown is but a 
 fruitless remembrance, it still uses their ashes to insure its im- 
 mortality. And whence, amidst general decay, does this 
 persevering and victorious party derive its imperturbable life ? 
 I have said that it is not from nature and reason. Doubtless 
 it acknowledges their rights, it employs them to its own profit, 
 but as principles which have no elevation corresponding to the 
 greatness of our destinies, and which form but the dawn of a 
 more perfect day. Its force, it declares, is in a doctrine which 
 does not come from nature, and which disconcerts reason. It 
 is there, from that mysterious fount, that the party of God 
 
GOD AND MAN. 301 
 
 derives the light which guides it, the virtue which purifies it, 
 the courage which raises it above the persecutions of time. 
 This it does not hide, it is its glory and its boast. 
 
 If we now, on the contrary, consider the other party — the 
 party of man — and seek to know the basis of its convictions 
 and its acts, it is no more hidden from us than the other ; it 
 boldly declares to us that there is no other science than that 
 of nature, no other truth than that of which reason is the 
 principle, the seat, and the demonstration. That if beyond 
 the universe there exists an invisible Being, freed from the 
 limits in which all beings are retained, the party of man 
 pretends to have no idea of Him save by the inner revelation 
 of the mind, or by the conclusion to be drawn from the 
 phenomena of the world. But whether it admit or reject the 
 existence of that superior Being, the party of man holds no 
 real intercourse with Him. Those among the sages who, like 
 Plato, have left a religious memory, were all penetrated with 
 serious respect for the vestiges of a tradition whose history they 
 ignored. They avowed the infirmity of human thought left to 
 its own resources, and endeavoured to raise themselves towards 
 God by the irrational effort of prayer. They belonged to the 
 party of saints by desire, to the party of sages by ignorance. 
 
 Behold the fact ! Wherever God is adored, He is adored in 
 virtue of a supernatural doctrine ; wherever He is despised, He 
 is despised in the name of nature and reason. However 
 strange the result may be, it is not possible to deny it. Turn 
 your eyes whither you will, enter into whatever temple you 
 please, you will find there on the very threshold Prophecy 
 and Sacrament ; prophecy — a word of God containing truths 
 inaccessible to reason ; sacrament — an act endowed by God 
 with an efficacy superior to all the forces of nature. And you 
 will see that whoever despises these two things infallibly bends 
 towards earth, knowing nothing of God but His name, and 
 holding with Him no other relations than ingratitude and 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 Again, behold the fact ! But what must we conclude 
 therefrom ? We must conclude that the intercourse between 
 man and God is not founded upon the purely natural order, 
 but upon an order more intimate and more profound, which 
 places human personality and the divine personality in direct 
 contact. If you refuse to draw this conclusion, you are free to 
 do so, but learn that you thereby destroy all intercourse 
 
J02 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 between man and God, since in reality there exists none other 
 upon earth. Perhaps you will say it is of little importance to 
 you, and that your opinion is precisely that this intercourse is 
 no other thing than an imposture or an illusion. 
 
 Here the question changes its face. It is no longer a 
 question of knowing what is really in mankind the mode of its 
 religious acts, but what is the logical value of those acts, as the 
 human race performs them. I say the human race, and I 
 ought first to establish this in order to give a basis to my 
 -argument. Is mankind religious ? Is mankind religious under 
 the supernatural form ? 
 
 It seems impossible to pretend that mankind is religious, 
 since I have myself confessed that it is divided into two parties 
 — the party of God and the party of man — the party of faith 
 and that of unbelief. But it is easy to see that this division, 
 all real though it be, does not destroy the universality and 
 perpetuity of religious worship among men, and therefore does 
 not deprive us of the right of affirming that mankind is religious. 
 In fact, whilst no people appears in history without the sign 
 and palladium of a positive faith, without temple, altar, priest- 
 hood — that is to say, without a constituted religion — unbelief 
 appears only under an individual form, sometimes proscribed, 
 sometimes tolerated, seldom powerful, and never becoming 
 established as the public and social expression of a nation. 
 Far from obtaining a character of universality, unbelief does 
 not even acquire the honour of nationality ; it leagues man to 
 man, like a venom which inoculates itself, and which, were it 
 ■even to become a plague, would still remain, in regard to its 
 expansion, in the state of accident and scourge. There are 
 considerable portions of mankind which have never known 
 it; such is the East. There, under a glowing sky, man 
 more naturally raises his eyes towards the invisible sphere 
 inhabited by God ; he believes, he prays, he adores, he 
 contemplates, so to say, without thinking of what^he does ; and 
 doubt or unbelief, if they enter into his mind, leave there 
 rather the trace of a dream than of a temptation. 
 
 It is the same with epochs as with nations. Epochs, taken 
 in their suite, are religious. If certain periods form exceptions 
 — that is to say, present a greater number of individual apos- 
 tasies — they are periods of decadency which, in performing 
 their painful and corrupt cycle, soon bring back from the depths 
 •of eternity, with younger days, more respected faiths. And as 
 
GOD AND MAN. 303 
 
 there are races to whom irreligion is unknown, there are also 
 epochs in which this mystery of iniquity has not even a name. 
 Such were the first centuries of the Roman Republic ; such 
 was that memorable epoch when Christianity, having accom- 
 plished the baptism of Europe, held its ardent nations under 
 the sceptre of a still unanimous faith. 
 
 Whether, then, we consider mankind in the numerous 
 nations which form its total body, or whether we regard it in 
 its secular development, incredulity shows itself only in the 
 state of protestation, with the weakness of isolation even in 
 number ; with the powerlessness of attaining perpetuity even 
 in duration ; and, in his heart and his history, man remains in 
 the eyes of all, a religious being. 
 
 But under what form is he a religious being? Nothing 
 assuredly is more varied than the spectacle of the religions 
 which fill the earth. They differ in doctrine, in morals, in 
 ceremonies, in priesthoods, in their aversions, and it seems 
 impossible in whatever light we may regard them, to bring 
 them together into one common architecture. And yet there 
 is not one among them which, in regard to form, has not the 
 same starting-point and the same constitution. All require 
 their proselytes to bend with the respect and obedience of 
 faith before a sacred dogma — that is to say, before a doctrine 
 •descended from God by an inspired or a prophetic revelation. 
 Whilst science starts from the observation of nature, and 
 philosophy from the investigation of reason, in all times and 
 places religion invokes prophecy — that is to say, the word of 
 God, communicated first to an envoy, next transmitted by 
 tradition to the lips of the priest, who delivers it as he received 
 it, as an inviolable heritage from on high. The man of 
 science, the philosopher, and the priest, are the organs of 
 a threefold teaching, whose lights might aid one another by 
 mutual reflection, but which have all their own principle and 
 their incommunicable character. None will ever be deceived 
 in this. The man of science verifies, the philosopher reasons, 
 the priest affirms in the name of God. And thus the very 
 definition of these three kinds of men shows to us, that all 
 ■worship is founded upon a prophecy, whether the author were 
 really inspired by God, or whether he may have usurped, by 
 a culpable imitation, the title and the power of prophecy. 
 We shall soon see the means of discerning the true or the 
 false in a matter where imposture has such grave consequences ; 
 
304 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 but here the imposture itself proves the truth which I wish 
 to establish. For, I ask, why invent falsehood in the name 
 of God, if the name of God, called in testimony of the dogma, 
 were not necessary to the life of all religion ? 
 
 Thus as each nation preserves the memory of the legislator 
 or conqueror who was its founder, each worship, true or false, 
 has consecrated the history of the prophet who brought to it 
 from heaven the word of God. Christians name Jesus Christ ; 
 the Jews, Moses ; the Persians, Zoroaster ; the Hindoos, 
 Buddha ; the Mussulmans, Mahomet ; and if there are forms 
 of worship which do not personally know their divine founder, 
 that ignorance arises because they are, like the polytheism of 
 the Greeks and the Romans, only a confused corruption of 
 anterior systems. 
 
 See, then, that all religions — that is to say, mankind itself 
 inasmuch as it is religious — confess that the intercourse between 
 man and God reposes upon truths of another order than that 
 of reason, upon a light different and more elevated than that 
 which naturally enlightens created intelligences. This is not 
 all ; by the side of prophecy, that universal and perpetual 
 torch by which faith is enlightened, sacrament, another 
 institution reputed divine, imposes and manifests itself — an 
 institution whose object is the purification, the elevation, the 
 sanctification of the soul ; its union with God, by a virtue 
 which surpasses and astonishes the powers of nature. You 
 who listen to me are the children of sacrament. Almost as 
 soon as you drew the breath of life, before your eyes were- 
 opened to the light, before you thought, desired, or demanded 
 anything, those who loved you, being full of anxious solicitude 
 for you, took, you from the first watchings of a mother, to bear 
 you to the vast and solemn shade of a mysterious place. A 
 man appeared, he poured water upon your head, and pro- 
 nounced a few words ; he commanded the evil spirit to go 
 out of you ; he entered into your soul to eradicate evil there- 
 from and sow the seeds of good ; he gave you his faith and 
 that of your fathers, an infinite hope, a love which the united 
 beauty of all creatures would not have been capable of impart- 
 ing to you ; he drew you from the limits of nature and the 
 obscurities of reason ; he made you living members of an 
 invisible community ; sons and co-heirs of God, worthy of 
 hearing and repeating His name, of contemplating His works, 
 of finding them too limited for you, and of aspiring, in fine,. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 305 
 
 to His eternity as to your natural and true country. All this 
 was done for you without your concurrence. Your friends 
 were in haste, they feared lest a single day might deprive you 
 of the benefit of that incomprehensible action, and had it been 
 necessary to choose between your present death and your 
 future life, those who loved you most, and who loved you the 
 first — your mother even — would not have hesitated to lose you 
 in your birth, provided you bore away with you the sign of the 
 cross in the symbol of water. You may now despise these 
 gifts ; but whatever your will may be, you have received them ; 
 whatever you may do, they exist ; and the faith of three 
 hundred millions of souls, based upon the faith of a hundred 
 generations, affirms to you, that the consecration of your 
 baptism is of an immortality against which no revolt has an)' 
 power or effect. 
 
 I pass over the other sacraments of Christianity ; you all 
 know them, and none of you doubt that they are an essential 
 part of the religion of Christ — the means which it offers to 
 raise us from earth to heaven. But is it the same in other 
 religions? Is sacrament everywhere the inviolable mode of 
 communication between man and God? Yes, amongst all: 
 from the sacred forests of Scandinavia to the grotesque pagodas 
 of China ; from the stone of the Druids to the altar of Greece ; 
 from the most modern periods to the most remote ages — in 
 all times and places, worship is sacramental as dogma is 
 prophetic. Sacrifices, lustral waters, expiations, initiations, 
 bloody or joyous rites — these have formed the life of all 
 liturgies and the function of all priesthoods. One single 
 worship, that of Mahomet, has appeared sparing in this regard, 
 because it is scarcely anything but a form of deism clothed in 
 revelation, and yet Mahomet preserved the vestige of sacrifice 
 when he made prayer the practical foundation of his religious 
 edifice. Now, prayer itself is a sacrament, when it is supposed 
 to possess a power of impetration which evidently surpasses 
 the character of a natural act. 
 
 Instead, then, of supposing that morals should be the 
 sole and true means of uniting us to God, if we consult only 
 the light of reason, we see that, in order to obtain that supreme 
 object, all religions present to us strange operations whose 
 virtue lies solely in the will which institutes them ; and as 
 reason is subordinate to faith in the mental order, morals are \ 
 subordinate to sacrament in the order of the will. Not that 
 
 x 
 
306 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 faith should destroy reason, or sacrament morals, but on the 
 contrary faith is given to increase reason, and sacrament to 
 perfect morals. Now, the more extraordinary this result is, 
 the more its universality and its perpetuity, so far from 
 inspiring us with sterile astonishment, merit' from us profitable 
 and respectful consideration. 
 
 Therefore I beg you to remark that prophecy and sacra- 
 ment are not secret works, hidden in the depths of sanctuaries 
 and revealed only to the initiated, but they both stand forth 
 with the boldness of faith, and are both public like religion. _ 
 
 Now, publicity is not a slight thing, and above all, publicity 
 which is universal and perpetual. Better than in any other 
 age, you are now able to judge how formidable is its trial,. 
 since we are surrounded by the ruins which it produces daily,, 
 and by which it replies to the audacity of those who affront it 
 with so much the less reflection, as there has never been in. 
 the world less of self-distrust and more facility for speaking 
 boldly and without restraint, than now. Formerly, when a 
 man, endowed with the highest intellectual gifts— Pythagoras,, 
 for instance — believed that he had received from heaven an 
 idea useful to the happiness of human beings, he was somewhat 
 alarmed : for a long time he carefully considered it within 
 himself, then, uncertain of his own genius, he sent from 
 sanctuary to sanctuary to interrogate the sacerdotal orders, 
 famous by their tradition, the sciences, "silvered by age,"' 
 according to the expression of Plato, and, after years nourished 
 with those divine intercourses, he hardly felt entitled to open 
 his lips and teach in his turn. He did not dare to deliver to 
 the world the fruit of his long meditations, but only to a few 
 disciples, proving himself with them in abstinences, fastings, 
 and all the austerities of a life of seclusion from men. There- 
 fore glory, at least, rewarded this respect for truth j the name 
 of Pythagoras lived, if his doctrine did not survive. It is far 
 otherwise in our age — the youngest of our contemporaries is 
 not afraid, as soon as he discovers an idea in his mind, to 
 deliver it to the wind of publicity ; he speaks, he writes, he 
 prints, he is dissatisfied if in eight days his idea has not made 
 the tour of Europe. Publicity obeys him ; it bears from the 
 West to the East the light sheet which an intrepid conscience 
 has confided to it, but on the morrow it brings back, even 
 more quickly, silence and forgetfulness. Mystery would have 
 protected it, publicity destroys it. It is true that publicity is 
 
GOD AND MAN. 307 
 
 the high-road of great men ; but it does not suffice to follow a 
 high-road, it must be followed to the end, and nothing is more 
 difficult or more rare, to judge by the spectacle which we 
 witness. Our age is the age of high-roads, but they are 
 short. 
 
 It is in fact, because publicity involves an immense con- 
 fronting of the idea with all minds, rights, interests, institutions, 
 acquired truths, settled customs — with all that passes in space 
 and time. It is a contest of the new against the old — of 
 progress against stability, and reciprocally of the old against 
 the new, of stability against progress ; a terrible and a daily 
 struggle wherein it is impossible for that which is vain long to 
 resist. This is why, even now, error seeks its empire in the 
 shade of secrecy. You think, perhaps, that the peril of the 
 nineteenth century is in unbridled publicity, and it is true that 
 this publicity occasions many evils, but they are not com- 
 parable to those formed in the invisible conspiracies of thought. 
 Day is but the reflex of night, publicity is but the echo of 
 silence. Before the thunder escapes from the mouth of the 
 volcano, it has furrowed underground the courses whence it 
 derives its energy. If Europe trembles, it is not because it 
 speaks, but because it has long been silent in the gloom of 
 secret societies. Now is the hour of judgment, for it is the 
 hour of publicity. Doctrines must appear before the tribunal 
 of the human mind and of historical experience ; they must 
 cast away the charm of the unknown and the evils of hypocrisy ; 
 they must answer every question, satisfy every want, be in 
 open struggle with the inconstancy of mankind. Therefore, 
 young as you are, of how many of them have you not already 
 seen the end? How many more will die before your own 
 mortality will snatch you away from this scene of powerlessness 
 and change? This is painful to witness, but at least we 
 learn therefrom the vanity of error before the test of discussion 
 and duration. 
 
 Admire, then, with me, in the sacramental and prophetic 
 institution, a publicity of sixty centuries. The temples were 
 open, the smoke of sacrifice rose freely towards heaven, the 
 blood and the water flowed upon the brow of the faithful in 
 face of the unbeliever, the world beheld and still beholds. 
 Nothing was hidden, nothing is now hidden from it. See, 
 there is the baptismal font ; there, the spot where faith kneels, 
 avowing and repairing its faults ; ,there, the tabernacle in 
 
 x 2 
 
3o» THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 which, under the appearance of bread, the living flesh of a 
 God reposes : and you hear the word which reveals and 
 animates all these things, it does not flee from you, it stands 
 before you, urges you, commands you in the name of God. 
 You may laugh, it is permitted to you, or you may smite your 
 breast, for you are able to do so. But whether you respond 
 by insult or adoration, prophecy subsists, sacrament perseveres; 
 to-morrow you may die, and to-morrow they will seal your 
 tomb. Is it not needful for you to think of it ? Is it not 
 needful for you to know whence that strange institution derives 
 a duration equal to its publicity— duration throughout all ages 
 before publicity throughout all times ? 
 
 And yet publicity is not the last character by which we 
 may judge of the part which prophecy and sacrament play in 
 mankind. If mankind has destinies which have God for their 
 end, it has also those which have nature for their horizon ; if, 
 by its relation with God, it forms a divine society, it forms, 
 during its sojourn here below, a purely human society. 
 Between these two societies, so different in their object, mode, 
 and end, it would seem that there should exist no point of 
 contact, or at least that the supernatural means of the one 
 should be foreign to the natural effects of the other. It is not 
 so. Prophecy and sacrament, which form the basis of religion, 
 form also the basis of civil society. Such has been the estima- 
 tion of all nations, since all have aggregated religion under one 
 form or another to their public acts, and have venerated in the 
 priesthood one of the principal instruments of the stability of 
 empires. The priest, the warrior, the magistrate, have always 
 been the three pillars of human society — the magistrate by 
 justice, the warrior by the sword, the priest by the prophecy 
 and sacrament, of which he is the living incarnation. Not 
 that many other offices do not contribute to the stability as 
 to the movement of social order ; all even, whatever they may 
 be, hold an honourable part there; but honour has its hier- 
 archy as well as all the rest, and it is assuredly remarkable, not 
 to say marvellous, that among so many human administrations, 
 whose utility and glory are not questioned, the supernatural 
 ministration of the priest should have obtained from nations so 
 exalted a place in the organization of their temporal life. 
 Even now, when for the first time, the idea of separating 
 divine and human things is introduced, it is not thereby 
 intended that religion should be banished from national affairs 
 
GOD AND MAN. 309 
 
 and interests, but only that it should act upon them by an 
 action more independent of their outward operations. In 
 this position it has lost nothing of its social influence, it is not 
 less the recognised soul of actual civilization, and perhaps 
 there has rarely been an epoch in which its necessity as a 
 principle of the human order was more powerfully felt. What 
 ruins surround us ? For sixty years what has not the hand of 
 France touched in order to destroy? What has it left 
 standing ? What is there which it has not at least wounded ? 
 Veneration has flown away from kings ; neither war nor 
 hereditary inheritance, nor the choice of revolutions, has been 
 able to create a monarchy for us ; we overthrow thrones with- 
 out having the faith of the republican ages ; we are wanting 
 even in respect for our own works, and we have no longer 
 strength save to disturb our ruins. I am wrong : something has 
 remained great and honoured in this shipwreck of all institu- 
 tions — the magistrate under his toga, the soldier under his 
 banner, the priest in his temple. These remain to us, and 
 because they remain, all is still saved. 
 
 What more is required in order to conclude with certainty 
 that prophecy and sacrament have penetrated even to the root 
 of the life of mankind, and thence that mankind is religious 
 under the supernatural form ? I do not think you can contest 
 the fact ; you can but reject its consequences, and those very 
 consequences I am about to establish. 
 
 Already more than once in the course of our conferences, 
 I have called your attention to the logical importance of 
 every establishment which bears in itself the characters of 
 universality, perpetuity, publicity, and organization. We shall 
 find these significative characters in the prophetic and 
 sacramental establishment, but with a new force which they 
 derive from the very essence of prophecy and sacrament. 
 For whilst the other institutions in which they are generally 
 found proceed from the wants and faculties of man — that is 
 to say, from the natural constitution of his being — here we 
 can no longer explain their presence by that motive, since 
 prophecy and sacrament belong to an order which confounds 
 rather than satisfies human nature. We willingly understand 
 that mankind may be religious; reason announces to us the 
 existence of a Supreme Cause, to which we owe all that we 
 are, from which alone we can hope for all that we need, and 
 religion, being no other thing than an intercourse of dependence, 
 
310 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 gratitude, and love, with that Supreme Cause, it is easy for an 
 upright heart to conceive its justice and to follow the inner 
 attraction to it. But outside of this circle, reason only meets 
 with abysses, or at least it discovers nothing in its own light 
 that opens to it another mode of knowing, loving, and adoring 
 God. Consequently it is not reason that urges mankind 
 towards that other mode ; it is not reason that opens before us 
 the obscure career wherein priesthoods have led all nations 
 and all times. Nothing is produced save by a principle of 
 impulsion, no impulsion .is given save in conformity with the 
 spirit whence it emanates. Reason might create a worship of 
 reason ; it could not create a worship of which it possessed no 
 element whatever. 
 
 But it is still more remarkable that in no age or place has 
 reason ever created a rational worship. In all times and places, 
 prophetic and sacramental worship has stifled rational worship 
 and hindered its production. If this worship has existed in 
 certain hearts, such as those of Pythagoras and Plato, it 
 remained there uncertain of itself, in the state of an aspiration 
 which vainly seeks to define itself — an incomplete and painful 
 state, which drew from the greatest of sages that confession so 
 often cited : " It is needful that a master should descend from 
 heaven to instruct us." 
 
 How then should reason, incapable of forming a worship 
 for itself, have led all mankind to a form of religion of which 
 it had neither consciousness nor intelligence ? And if reason 
 be not the author of that religious form, who then is its author ? 
 Who has been powerful enough to impose it upon the human 
 race? You will, perhaps, say — Man is made for God; he 
 feels it, he knows it; he is so straitened upon this earth, 
 which affords him but a poor and transitory shelter; by the 
 natural impulsion of all his faculties, he aspires towards the 
 infinite region, which is the term of his destiny. But he does 
 not clearly know that term where he is waited for, he has a 
 presentiment rather than knowledge of it; and, by the 
 combined effect of what he desires and what he ignores, in 
 order to attain to God, he creates for himself means which 
 reassure him in his faith and console him in his desire. He 
 believes that God speaks to him ; he supposes that certain acts 
 performed in His name receive in that sublime invocation an 
 efficacy which nature alone cannot impart to anything. 
 Prophecy is the dream of a truth, sacrament is the error of a 
 
GOD AND MAN. 311 
 
 tope. In the intercourse between a limited being and an 
 infinite being, the impossible becomes natural, and extra- 
 vagance seems to be an effort of reason. 
 
 Lucretius invoked fear as the creator of the gods and of 
 their worship ; you appeal to better sentiments in order to 
 explain this mystery ; and, indeed, if it were a question only 
 of individual or local practices, we might, perhaps, consider 
 positive religions as an aberration, more or less excusable, 
 of religious sentiments. But that aberration, whatever may 
 be the influence which caused it, and the names by which it 
 has been distinguished, could not become the law of mankind. 
 It is mankind that believes in prophecy and sacrament — 
 mankind, without exception, that has submitted to dogmas of 
 ■which the mind has no evidence, and to rights of which reason 
 •does not accept the concurrence ; it is mankind, in its eminent 
 nations as in its degenerate races, in its ages of civilization as 
 in its ages of barbarism, in its sages as well as in its simple- 
 hearted. It is impossible that all mankind has, in regard to 
 God, suffered so persisting an eclipse of its true and natural 
 light ; it is impossible that God should have permitted this. 
 Truth is the highest good we have received from His 
 equitable beneficence — it is in all things the principle of our 
 perfection and beatitude — we cannot lose it, without losing 
 the root of all the divine gifts. And you would say that it is 
 God Himself, His acts, His memory, His rights over us which 
 have become the corrupted source of a universal and inveterate 
 superstition ! — that mathematical truth shall have been pre- 
 served, and religious truth shall have disappeared from the 
 earth ! Doubtless, human liberty has produced errors of every 
 kind ; but, besides that they have never universally destroyed 
 anything necessary to the life of the human race, they still 
 preserve traces of truth. We recognise in them the source 
 from which the passions of men were turned aside, and its own 
 inability to create even an error. Error is but a deviation from 
 the truth, an adulteration of the natural order of things, which 
 -cannot be totally destroyed or changed, except by God. 
 
 Now a universal error is here supposed which, however, 
 would have had no root in the physical, intellectual, and 
 moral constitution of man. According to that constitution, as 
 rationalism supposes it, man includes no element superior to 
 reason— reason is the most elevated point of his being, the 
 principle and moderator of all his other powers ; beyond it he 
 
312 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 attains only to dreams, chimeras, and follies. Thence it is 
 manifest that whatever is not rational is repugnant to mankind ; 
 and, consequently, it is impossible to conceive where mankind 
 could have obtained the idea of holding relations with God 
 issuing from any other source than reason. 
 
 But, say you, although reason is truly the most elevated 
 point of human nature, yet it does not know God with sufficient 
 clearness to unite to Him by its own powers, and hence it 
 aspires to that union by means which are not its own, such as 
 prophecy and sacrament. 
 
 Pardon me for so speaking to you, but it is impossible to 
 concentrate in one single phrase more contradiction and 
 unreason. What ! reason has not in itself the means of uniting 
 to God, and yet it desires to be united to God ! But why does 
 reason desire this? What obliges, what urges reason so to 
 desire, since it does not possess the faculties which justify that 
 ambition? Either God has willed that man should hold 
 intercourse with Himself by the intermediary of reason, or He 
 has not willed it. In the first case, He has evidently given to 
 our intellectual movement a vibration powerful enough to raise 
 it even to Himself; in the other case, reason, not being at all 
 called to that high prerogative, would feel no more the need of 
 it than the duty of exercising it. You must choose, and 
 whichever you may choose, you will not explain how man, a 
 purely rational being, tends to God by a mode foreign to his 
 nature. 
 
 The vulgar among reasoners solve the difficulty by 
 supposing that the human race has been the victim of a certain 
 number of impostors, who from age to age, have abused its 
 good faith. Primarily, they think, man had for prophet only 
 his reason, for sacrament only his heart ; he spake to God, and 
 God talked with him in the sanctuary of the soul ; philosophy 
 and religion, being confounded together by their object and 
 method, were but one and the same institution. There was no 
 altar, nor worship, nor priesthood — there were only man and 
 God. But as there sprang up an ambitious man to found the 
 first throne, so there came another to found the first temple. A 
 second followed ; then a third, and soon the prophetic and 
 sacramental leprosy, consecrated under the name of revelation, 
 covered with its irremediable impurity the conscience of the 
 human race. Philosophy separated from religion, soma scattered 
 sages preserved in their hearts the pure light and holy liberty 
 
GOD AND MAN. 313 
 
 of the first ages of the world ; the rest, a vile herd of error, 
 became captive under the yoke of a superstition which nothing 
 could uproot, doubtless because it is supported by the habit, the 
 antiquity, the name of God, and also by the innate weakness- 
 of the greater number of minds. 
 
 I will not expose the injury which that doctrine does to 
 mankind ; you know that it is common in those who separate 
 from the multitude. Let us leave to pride the argument of 
 scorn, and accept the glory of a logic, calm and worthy of 
 truth. 
 
 That there have been false prophets is not doubtful, that 
 many have succeeded, history proves and Christianity admits. 
 But why have they succeeded ? Have they not succeeded 
 precisely because there are true prophets? Have they not 
 succeeded, because, even in corrupting religion, they have 
 accepted its dogmatic and practical basis, grafting into this 
 divine trunk foreign branches which thence derive their life ? 
 Have they not succeeded, because they found in the heart of 
 man, as God had made it, a ready accomplice ? Imposture, 
 like every other thing, needs a soil analogous to its grain ; it 
 germinates only in virtue of a fecundity which it receives from 
 the unique source of all fecundity — namely, nature. Suppose 
 an impostor, who recognised no received idea, no real sentiment, 
 no pre-existing force : do you think he would succeed in 
 deceiving a single man, a single hour ? And yet, to explain 
 by imposture the mystery which occupies our attention, it is 
 necessary that it should deceive all ages and all generations. 
 We possess the history of some of those extraordinary men 
 who have set up false religions in the world ; we know, very 
 near to us, Luther and Mahomet ; what were they, but 
 plagiarists and falsifiers ? Issued from a pre-existing religious 
 institution, they laid their rash hands upon it, and in order 
 to curtail it, they made use of the passions of their times. 
 They have degraded the temple, they have not built it. A 
 portion of mankind has believed them, because it believed 
 before — it believed them to be prophets, because it believed 
 in prophecies — it has received their sacraments, because it 
 had sacraments before. They have been causes of error only 
 by an effect of truth. 
 
 This is why the last rendezvous of the question is always 
 in nature itself; imposture having no hold elsewhere, it is 
 necessarily forced to seek its support therein, and in order 
 
314 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 so to do, it is needful that it should not contradict all the 
 ■elements of human nature. Now you have seen, and I must 
 again repeat it, if God has given nothing to man beyond his 
 body and his mind, if reason is the supreme term of our 
 faculties, it is clear that all which does not take its origin there 
 is for us unnatural, chimerical, and vain. Such is prophecy — 
 ■our adversaries avow it — such is sacrament. And therefore 
 they cannot be the fruit of imposture, above all, the universal 
 fruit of a continued imposture, since there would, in that case, 
 be an effect without a cause, an edifice without foundation. 
 It is not, then, by hazard that Catholic doctrine, after having 
 «hown us all that God has done for man in the sensible and 
 intelligible order, warns us that this is not the limit of the 
 divine action in regard to us, but that above those precious 
 and first gifts there is another which raises us higher and 
 places us in immediate communication with the Author of 
 our being, with the principle and end of our destinies. By 
 the creating act God raised us up before Himself as a living 
 and free personality ; by the act of revelation He entered into 
 communication with us, and we with Him : He delivered to 
 us the secrets'of His thought, the plans of His will, and in that 
 effusion at the same time exterior and interior — exterior by 
 the word, interior by light and unction — He created the 
 supernatural and religious order. And as the nature which 
 left His all-powerful hand perseveres in the conditions in which 
 He enchained it, so religion, no less faithful, perseveres under 
 the form which it received from Him. As it is folly to act 
 against nature, so it is equally vain to act against religion. 
 The one and the other remain as God has willed; what the 
 sun and moon are in the visible firmament, prophecy and 
 sacrament are in the firmament of truth. You will not make 
 the luminaries fall, and you will not silence the word of God. 
 And if, jealous of the divine work, you aspire to create some- 
 thing by yourselves, you will succeed only in producing 
 imitations, which, even in their powerlessness, will attest the 
 dogmas you fear, and add lustre to the glory you would destroy. 
 What has Luther done, but confirm the Church ? What has 
 Mahomet done, but increase the grandeur of Jesus Christ? 
 What have all the usurpers of the prophetic title done, but 
 maintain in shadows the remembrance and need of revelation? 
 And what do you, in denying revelation, but prove by your 
 
GOD AND MAN. 315 
 
 -example that religion is extinguished in every mind that denies 
 the reality of a supernatural order? 
 
 The world has reached a remarkable epoch of its destiny. 
 For a century it has endeavoured to found all human things 
 upon nature and reason ; it believed itself capable of reigning 
 alone without the intervention of any mysterious idea, any 
 indefinite power. You have before you the result of this grand 
 attempt. Social discipline has fallen to pieces in your hands ; 
 the ingenious springs to which you purposed to subject it have 
 been found too feeble against resistance and aggressions. 
 What was generous in your plans of reform has had no better 
 -success than what was chimerical, and justice wonders that it 
 cannot give to your works either duration or majesty. Will 
 you linger much longer before you doubt of yourselves ? "Will 
 you not suspect that something is wanting to you, and, painfully 
 warned by the innate providence of things, will you not lift 
 your eyes towards the eternal pole where you haye left the 
 science of the past and the future ? It is high time : let us call 
 ■God to our help ; let us acknowledge that we have relations 
 with Him more profound than those of nature, and that to 
 renounce them, from weakness or pride, is to take from the 
 human race, with its highest duties, its highest virtues and its 
 most necessary faculties. 
 
TWO OBJECTIONS 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE 
 BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 After having established that the intercourse between 
 man and God is not based upon nature and reason, but upon 
 a higher order, which Catholic doctrine calls supernatural, the 
 course of ideas would lead us to seek why it is so, and what are 
 the motives which have determined God not to include in our 
 sensible and intelligible faculties all the means that we need 
 for entering into relations with Him. But rationalism does 
 not permit us to advance so rapidly. The question of the 
 supernatural order is too grave for rationalists to yield to the 
 demonstration which we have given without endeavouring at 
 least to weaken it. Let us then hear their objections. 
 
 It is true, they say, that if we look only to the surface of 
 things, prophecy and sacrament possess a character of uni- 
 versality and perpetuity by which they seem to advance side 
 by side with nature and reason ; but this is only an appearance 
 which vanishes at the first serious glance thrown upon that 
 illogical institution. In fact, before it could possess a real 
 universality, a real perpetuity, the subject or thought that 
 aspires to these great characters must be the same in all times 
 and places; without unity, universality and perpetuity are 
 impossible, since universality is but the expansion of unity in 
 space, and perpetuity is expansion in time. Thus nature is 
 really universal and perpetual, because her laws, in whatever 
 age or place they are consulted, give to all who interrogate 
 
GOD AND MAN. 317 
 
 them an answer that never varies. At the pole as at the 
 equator, under the instruments of Newton as under the eyes of 
 Aristotle, physical light falls upon and emerges again from an 
 object in forming a constant angle. It is the same with reason. 
 As the faculty of a free being, it does not follow the caprices 
 of the will, it approves or condemns according to rules which 
 do not bend. Speak to the Athenian of Pericles, to the Arab 
 of the desert, to the savage of unexplored forests, to the 
 ■child of barbarism, or the full-formed man of civilization, 
 all understand you, and even when they dispute their own 
 opinions among themselves, they invoke uniform principles to 
 maintain them, which are as clear and certain to the intelligence 
 •of the ignorant as to that of the learned. Is it so in regard to 
 the supernatural order? Or, rather, is there anything com- 
 parable to the chaos of superstitions of which it is composed ? 
 Open yonder Pantheon ; what see you there ? Gods insulting 
 one another ; dogmas contradicting one another ; religions 
 disavowing, priesthoods anathematising one another ; altars in 
 violent opposition; discord infinite as the sacred object which 
 those frightful controversies of powerlessness and pride pretend 
 to attain. Behold the supernatural ! Behold it as it appears in 
 history and before our eyes ! And this is called a divine thing, 
 an institution not only equal to nature and reason, but which, 
 superior to all created things, should serve as a law to the 
 conscience, a light to the mind, a crown to the universe ! For 
 us, whatever may be the cause of this terrible phenomenon, 
 we accuse it of being human ; it is human, because it is not 
 one. 
 
 If you reply that among all religions one only is the true 
 •one, of which the others are but impious or pitiful imitations, 
 the difficulty will, perhaps, lose its force on one side, but only 
 to regain it on the other, and with usury. For one single 
 religion being true, one alone is good for the soul, one alone 
 establishes an efficacious communication between God and 
 man. Thenceforth it is necessary to discern it among the 
 ■crowd of others, it is necessary to choose it without error. 
 And what a task is imposed upon the human race in a matter 
 where it is a question of finding or losing God ! Can it be 
 that to us feeble creatures, already wasted in the toils which 
 our transitory existence costs us, an enigma to solve should 
 have been given as the condition of our eternal life ? Is it 
 possible? Is it possible that eternity costs us anything but 
 
3i8 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 virtue, and that, sparing in regard to the infinite, God takes 
 cruel delight in becoming a sphinx to man? Ah ! if truth be 
 our nourishment, it should fall from heaven like rain, pass on 
 like the wind, swell its waves like the sea, grow like the harvest 
 in the days when man waits for that blessing upon his labour 
 which created the earth, and commanded it to serve us. 
 Every man is able to trace a furrow and cast seed into it : is 
 every man able to unravel the confusion of the innumerable- 
 religions that contend for the honour of coming from God and 
 of leading mankind to Him ? None will dare to advance such 
 a pretension; and, consequently we oppose to the super- 
 natural order, as a double accusation, first, its want of unity; 
 next, the impossibility of discerning the true among all the 
 positive religions, supposing even that one of them is true. 
 
 Such are the difficulties which arrest us, and which I must 
 solve before advancing another step. 
 
 It is certain that unity is an essential character of the works- 
 of God, not a dead unity which would exclude variety — that is to 
 say, harmony in number and extent — but a fertile unity, which, 
 coming from God Himself, brings back to Him, as to their source, 
 all irradiations of light and life. Unity is but order, and order 
 is evidently an attribute of God and of His works. 
 
 It is certain also that, considering the mass of religions, 
 although they all spring from the idea and fact of a super- 
 natural revelation, although they have among them the very 
 significative relationship of prayer, their dogmatic constitution: 
 nevertheless establishes a flagrant contradiction between the 
 greater number of them. Unity is at their base, it is not in 
 their architecture, and that diversity necessarily suggests in the 
 secondary origin of the greater number the presence of another 
 hand than the hand of God. 
 
 Whose is that hand ? "Who has touched the divine work 
 after God ? What power has suddenly appeared behind the 
 Creator, to introduce even into religion, which was the crowning 
 work of the universe, the seeds of discord and death ? That 
 power is yourselves. God did not place you among His works 
 to remain there in the inertness of captive contemplation, but 
 to be there the free co-operators of His thought and His glory ; 
 He did not create you to adore Him in a servile manner, but to 
 love Him so much the more as you are able to hate Him, 
 to serve Him so much the better as you are able to rebel against 
 Him, to be so much the more efficacious instruments of His 
 
GOD AND MAN. 319 
 
 name as you are able to dishonour it. This is why wherever 
 God is in this world there are you also ; wherever He works 
 you work also, whether in the sense of His designs, or in 
 a contrary sense. And it is not upon a part of His work only 
 that this power has been given to you ; you possess it upon the 
 whole, in the natural as well as in the supernatural order,, 
 against nature and reason as against prophecy and sacrament. 
 You are able to deny all ; you are able to deny God as well as 
 Jesus Christ, society as well as the Church, mathematical truth 
 as well as revealed truth, visible good as well as invisible good, 
 time as well as eternity. Nothing escapes from your empire, 
 because, on the one hand, your liberty has no limits, and, on 
 another, since all is linked together in the world, the blow 
 which you give to one point is necessarily felt in all the spheres- 
 of creation and of the infinite. Nature, reason, and religion 
 are three progressive laws whose light is reciprocal, and whose 
 force is in common — the intelligence divides them only by a 
 schism which wounds all the three, and pride obtains great 
 success only in ruins which form a tomb alike for both. The 
 will of pride is not to obey, and it obeys as long as a law exists,, 
 whatever may be its origin, its form, or its name. Thence it 
 comes that pride rests only in its absolute sovereignty, and 
 that, measuring its force by the greatness of its desire, it has- 
 not despaired of attaining to the two sovereign acts which 
 belong only to God — the acts of destroying and creating, of 
 destroying the world as God had made it, in order to create a 
 world as man wills it to be. 
 
 You think that I exaggerate, and that if man has really 
 attacked religion, because it is but a supposed part of the divine 
 work, he has at least always respected nature and reason, which 
 are that work itself in all its certainty and its sincerity. You 
 have said this in opposing the constant uniformity of the 
 natural order to the contradictory variety of the religious order ; 
 but, I ask, does not the sound of the world reach you? Do 
 you not hear from this very place the secular clamour of its 
 divisions? It is only at the portals of the temple that the 
 combat is engaged between man against man and man against 
 God ? Stand upon the forum of nations, enter their academies, 
 open their laboratories of science — -wherever you meet with the 
 human mind, you find war, doctrines against doctrines, politics 
 against politics, history against history, facts against facts, 
 affirmations against negations. Can you question this ? And 
 
320 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 thenceforth in what is the natural order more united than the 
 supernatural order? In what does it escape more from the 
 attacks of our liberty ? Religious contradiction even holds a 
 rational contradiction; for the dogma which I accept and which 
 you reject, I accept with my reason, and with yours you reject 
 it. We differ in regard to faith only because we differ rationally. 
 Say you that if we differ about consequences, we recognise 
 the same principles, and that in them the immutable unity of 
 reason survives and consists ? But by the same title religion 
 may pretend to unity and immutability ; it also claims principles 
 upon which all forms agree, such as the existence of a Supreme 
 Being, His action upon man, His positive intercourse with us 
 by revelation, ceremonies, laws, rewards and punishments. 
 Where begins the contest if it is not in the dogmatical 
 development of these common principles ? 
 
 There is then parity between the two orders, and if your 
 accusation concludes to the prejudice of the one, it concludes 
 no less to the prejudice of the other. Therefore learn that the 
 same thing you say against religion, scepticism has said against 
 reason — even as you deny supernatural unity, because of the 
 divergence of religions, scepticism denies rational unity, because 
 of the .multitude of opinions and practices which divides sages 
 no less than nations. Pascal scornfully remarked it : " Truth 
 on this side of the Pyrenees, error beyond them ! " Survey 
 then the whole abyss ; see what in the hands of man that 
 reason becomes which you do not doubt of, and if you refuse 
 to believe in the avowals of philosophy, believe at least in what 
 is passing around you. What truth is not denied? What 
 instinct of nature is not outraged ? What human institution, 
 how familiar soever it may be to us either by tradition or by 
 the heart, is not treated as an enemy? You wonder that 
 Christ found contradictors and judges eighteen hundred 
 years ago. Lift up your eyes, behold reason itself before the 
 tribunal of Caiaphas and the Romans ! 
 
 Be not alarmed, however, and in learning what man may 
 do against the work of God, learn also what he cannot do. 
 Yes, there is a great power in man, for God is with him; 
 there is a great power in man, for Satan is with him ; there is 
 a great power in man, for man is with himself : but with God 
 on his right hand, Satan on his left, and himself between, man 
 is neither capable of destroying nor of creating an atom. An 
 atom suffices eternally to arrest all his power : how much more 
 
GOD AND MAN. 321 
 
 the universe ! Sixty centuries in the service of our liberty 
 have not given us the glory of making or destroying a grain of 
 dust ; how much more will nature, reason, and religion resist 
 us ! Be not alarmed then ; neither you who doubt, nor you 
 who believe, be not alarmed. God is in all that is, He main ■ 
 tains all that He has once willed ; and our liberty, however 
 important, is but the rock upon which the ocean breaks, 
 remaining still the ocean. Therefore, being a child of truth 
 in this most troubled age, I hear the tempest unmoved; I 
 receive light from the flash that falls upon the temple, and 
 with my head resting upon the threshold of the parvis, I repose 
 in the divine slumber of infallible faith. 
 
 Powerlessness to destroy, powerlessness to create, such is 
 in man the limit of pride, such is the law which protects all 
 that is — nature, reason, religion — against the attempts of 
 liberty. And yet it is very essential that liberty, even in its 
 abuse, should be a fertile power ; for were it otherwise, it 
 would be but a mainspring poised in the void, a responsible 
 name of an imaginary activity. God, in assuring His own 
 empire, that the world might not become the toy of unbridled 
 disorder, should have left such an effect to our action that 
 even in its errors it should not be the vain effort of an abortive 
 being. What is then the part of God, and what the part of 
 man ? God, as we have seen, has reserved to Himself the 
 substance of things; He has willed that man should never 
 attain to it ; for if the substance of things had been given to us, 
 God would have remained only as the tranquil spectator of 
 the ruins of the universe. But if substance escapes from us, 
 what remains to us ? If we cannot destroy a grain of dust in 
 nature, a principle in the intelligence, an element in the 
 supernatural order, what can we do in reality? In order to 
 understand this, we must remark that all substance has a 
 mode of being, and that the substance remaining invariable, 
 the mode is subject to change. It is then the mode which our 
 liberty seizes. The mode is the figure of things ; being 
 powerless against things, we have the resource of disfiguring 
 them. We disfigure nature, reason, religion. 
 
 You have received from the Creator a visage in which 
 power and goodness shine. Your lips become animated with 
 a smile whose grace outlives their motion ; your eyes flash 
 forth a light which springs from the fount of a living intelligence, 
 but which, tempered by modesty, excites respect without 
 
322 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 fear; your brow, pure and calm, crowns with its serenity the 
 living charm of your features, and wherever the regard of 
 a soul lights upon you, that soul knows and loves your own. 
 O youth, these are great gifts ! But a single hour is sufficient 
 to tarnish them, a single crime is sufficient to dishonour them. 
 Nature, whose masterpiece you are, will not resist the blows 
 you inflict upon it in the secret of your conscience, beauty 
 departs from you in proportion as God leaves your heart, and 
 soon that head, the object of admiration and love, remains 
 but the ignoble crown of a reprobate or a debauchee. You 
 will not have destroyed in yourself the natural image of God,, 
 you will have disfigured it. 
 
 So also you may lay waste the earth, burn the forests,, 
 disperse the sources of rivers, infect the air, doom admirable 
 portions of our common heritage to solitude and sterility, and 
 you have done this but too often ! The hands of barbarians 
 withered Latium ; the tyranny of the sons of Mahomet, touch- 
 ing the soil of Greece and Syria, dried up sources which were 
 deemed inexhaustible, and destroyed charms which were 
 believed to be under the eternal protection of the purest light 
 that has ever shone upon creation. But how cruel soever 
 those injuries may be, the earth subsists and nourishes man. 
 Better generations may succeed those hordes which have not 
 respected the common mother of the human race ; they may 
 rouse the fields of Attica and the hills of Messina from their 
 involuntary sleep ; shade, invited by cultivation, may descend 
 again from heaven upon the deserts of Rome ; life, which had 
 but turned aside, may shoot forth on every hand, and the very 
 ruins become witnesses to our inability to deal the blow that 
 causes death. 
 
 So it is with errors and crimes against reason. A century 
 dawns, it is bold in the things of the intelligence, it agitates 
 ideas as the traveller, at the close of a long day, shakes the 
 dust and weariness from his feet ; it takes pleasure in doubting, 
 pride in contradicting; it strikes the pillars which aforetime 
 supported the structure of science and wisdom ; tradition loses 
 its influence upon it, conscience becomes but a mute or a 
 suspicious oracle. A moment arrives when astonished minds 
 ask if truth is not a dream and good an imposture. But in the 
 very midst of this orgie of scepticism, reason is attacked only 
 by reason ; it triumphs even in the very wound which it inflicts- 
 upon itself. Negation affirms that the intelligence lives and 
 
GOD AND MAN. 323 
 
 sees, as the eye, closing before the sun, attests the presence and 
 the power of his rays. It is needful to live, and notwithstand- 
 ing the universal delirium, the course of human things follows 
 its ancient ways ; mankind marches before Phyrrho who denies 
 motion. Mankind believes, hopes, combines its thoughts and 
 its actions. Then, time sounds an hour ; a new age opens 
 which raises up truth again, as the freshness of morning raises 
 up in the fields the grass which had drooped at evening. The 
 altars of doubt are overthrown ; the negations but yesterday 
 idolized are scattered to the winds ; those who despised are 
 despised ; they are forgotten who forgot ; a period is marked in 
 history, and the future mounts to the horizon of eternity. There 
 was a deformation of the human mind, but no destruction. 
 
 Do you any longer wonder that religion, struggling with the 
 liberty of man, should be subject to the same injuries and the 
 same vicissitudes ? Why should religion be more fortunate 
 than nature and reason ? Why, in drawing nearer to heaven, 
 should our ambition for sovereignty lose the energy which 
 permits it to violate the inferior sanctuaries ? Whatever shores 
 we may touch, higher or lower, we bear with us, as an inde- 
 fectible attribute, the power of good and evil. And that very 
 power increases in proportion as we rise in the hierarchy of 
 things ; it is greater against reason than against nature, greater 
 against religion than against reason. This is because we can 
 raise ourselves only by drawing near to the infinite, and because 
 the infinite, by its disproportion to our personal limits, necessarily 
 offers a greater obstacle to revolt and error. Who does not 
 conceive how easy it is to substitute chimerical imitations for 
 religious dogmas ? Man has done this ; he has done this from 
 impatience under too heavy a yoke ; from weariness of antiquity, 
 from forgetfulness of tradition ; from aversion towards a negli- 
 gent or corrupt priesthood ; from obedience to the ascendency 
 of famous sectaries. But whatever may have been the motive 
 of his separation, under whatever point of heaven and in what- 
 ever time it may have begun, never has man, living in the state 
 of a people — that is to say, in the natural state — been able to 
 abrogate religion or change its essential characters. He has 
 always believed in the positive communication between the 
 human race and God, by means of the word direct from God. 
 The perverted religions prove this no less eloquently than the 
 Christian religion. What was a temple, but an oracle in the 
 minds of the Pagan nations ? What an idol, but marble and 
 
 Y 2 
 
32+ GOD AND MAN. 
 
 gold speaking in the name of God ? What a priest, but a body 
 and soul inspired by the breath of God ? What are they now in 
 every part of the earth — priest, temple, idol — but an incarna- 
 tion, more or less living and near, of the Divinity ? The unity 
 of the idea outlives the multiplicity of form; moreover, when 
 that form is studied, there is found, in the variety of the signs, 
 the mutilated remains of an identical tradition. 
 
 To faith in prophecies all religions have joined faith in 
 sacraments ; all, we have said, and proved it, called sacrifices, 
 ceremonies, and prayer, to the help of the soul striving to tend 
 towards God. Homer immolates victims with the liturgy of 
 Leviticus ; Delphos commands expiations in the same language 
 which Benares speaks ; the Etruscan augury blesses the Roman 
 hills as the Druid consecrated the forests of Gaul ; and above 
 all those living rites of invincible custom, the sacrament of 
 prayer rises towards God to demand miracles of Him in the 
 name of all grief that hopes, and of all weakness that believes. 
 Doubtless prayer has not always known God under the same 
 name ; it has not everywhere known His true and eternal 
 history : but the want was everywhere the same, the aspiration 
 similar, and when the heart was sincere, prayer did not fail 
 to be efficacious. The suppliant charged with grief, on bending 
 the knee before a deceptive statue, forgot the fable that educa- 
 tion had graven in his mind ; he remembered the unknown 
 God whom Athens revered at the foot of the Parthenon, and 
 that God who seeks uprightness and knows misfortune, heard 
 the cry of faith in the lamentations of a humbled heart. The 
 darkness of idolatry became enlightened ; truth descended with 
 grace, and the soul of man met the Spirit of God through the 
 illusions of error. 
 
 Acknowledge then that you have no more destroyed religion 
 than you have destroyed reason and nature ; you have no more 
 changed its essence than you have changed the essence of logic 
 and chemistry. You have disfigured all, and God has saved 
 all. Nature has resisted your mutilations ; reason, your systems ; 
 religion, your unbelief; and all these, being universal and per- 
 petual, attest so much the more the power which founded them, 
 as that power has respected yours in permitting you not to 
 respect its own. Tell me, what has withheld you ? Why is it 
 that so much life remains amidst so many ruins ? You desired, 
 you still desire, to destroy religion, in which you see only a 
 chaos of baseless ideas and practices ; why is religion still 
 
GOD AND MAN. 325 
 
 standing ? You would exercise the sovereign act of destroy- 
 ing, in order to arrive at the sovereign act of creating, and, 
 indeed, there is a greatness in that ambition which would 
 entitle it to praise, if nothing could be great against justice and 
 truth ; why have you neither destroyed nor created religion ? 
 Look at Luther . . . Luther is an old shadow, but since we 
 are permitted to evoke shadow, let me evoke him and call him 
 to account for the mystery which holds my mind and yours in 
 suspense. Well, Luther ; since thou despisest the Church, since 
 thou hast resolved to extirpate from Europe the faith which was 
 once thine own, why dost thou not strike the only blow that 
 touches the root of the question ? Why not overthrow the 
 architect with the edifice ? Why not deny Jesus Christ ? 
 
 Ah ! why ? Luther did not himself know. He obeyed faith 
 at the same time as revolt, and was illogical in the one as in 
 the other — he was the formidable expression of great weakness 
 in great power. His conscience responded to the conscience 
 of his time, as the conscience of his time to that of all ages. It 
 included with an element of protestation an imperious want of 
 belief, and the success of Luther, like all the other heresiarchs, 
 was, that he struck at the very heart of his epoch, by taking 
 from its faith all that it could lose, and leaving to it all that it 
 wished to keep. Had he denied Jesus Christ, he would have 
 been a Voltaire without ancestors — that is to say, a madman ; 
 and Voltaire himself, preceded by two centuries of Pro- 
 testantism, could only attain to the position of a sage — that is 
 to say, a chief of a school and not a chief of the people. 
 
 This example includes all the others. It initiates us into 
 the secret of religious revolutions, which are so much the more 
 sure of success as they swerve less from the primordial sacra- 
 mentary and prophetic basis ; so much the more decisive in 
 favour of the truth of religion as they preserve it in violating it. 
 For, in fine, if for sixty centuries the human race obeyed the 
 same dogma and the same liturgy, would you not recognise in 
 that tranquil unanimity the sign of a divine institution ? Now 
 the sign of unanimity combated, of unanimity contradicted and 
 persevering, notwithstanding such controversy, is manifestly 
 still more worthy to move an attentive mind. For the first 
 unanimity may be explained by the absence of examination 
 and the force of habit, whilst the second can only be explained 
 by a power superior to all the springs of human thought and 
 all the attacks of its liberty. To affirm in denying, to maintain 
 
3 2 6 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 in destroying, to consent in protesting, this is doubtless to rise 
 up against truth, but it is also to render to truth the highest of 
 all homage, since it is the homage of an enemy. 
 
 It remains to be seen whether God has not done still more 
 for the preservation of His religion upon earth, and whether 
 among all those who have adulterated its original purity, there 
 is not one which has preserved that purity unstained, and 
 which may be easy to recognise by inimitable characters of 
 grandeur and sincerity. I hope to show you this without 
 trouble as well as without delay. 
 
 Let us first of all banish from our minds the vain idea that 
 there are an infinite multitude of different religions here below. 
 It is not so. _ Nothing has been more sterile than the imagina- 
 tion of man in the matter of religions. As, in considering the 
 common features of beings, we collect them with a certain 
 number of primitive families, so also in comparing together the 
 religious branches which spread out in mankind, we find them 
 terminating in three principal trunks, the only ones really distinct 
 by their physiognomy and by an invisible and mutual repulsion 
 — I mean idolatry, Christianity, and Mahometism ; I do not 
 name _ Judaism, because before Jesus Christ it was but 
 Christianity awaiting its crown, and since Jesus Christ it is 
 but Christianity without its crown. There remain then the 
 Christian churches, which cleave to the trunk of the Gospel 
 and Christ; the idolatrous sects, neither of which excommuni- 
 cated the other, and whose symbols vied with one another in 
 mutual respect in the council of the Roman Pantheon — in 
 fine, the branches of Islamism, which all bend at the feet of 
 Mahomet and the Koran. Name me a religion, I will trace it 
 either to the idol, the cross, or the crescent ; but there is no 
 peace possible, there is no common ground, between the idol, 
 the cross, and the crescent — those memorable banners which 
 still divide the generations of men, and which bear in their 
 folds three theologies separated by a radically different con- 
 ception of the intercourse between man and God. In fact, in 
 this intercourse, which constitutes religion and supposes an 
 approaching of two beings so naturally removed from one 
 another, either the mind conceives an alliance between the 
 divine nature and human nature that attains even to con- 
 founding them — which is idolatry ; or it conceives that alliance 
 under a form that excludes compatibility between the two 
 natures — which is Mahometism ; or, in fine, it admits the 
 
GOD AND MAN. 325 
 
 •union of the two natures remaining distinct even in theii 
 intimacy — which is Christianity. Idolatry confounds man and 
 God ; Mahometism keeps them at a distance from each other ; 
 Christianity associates them : these three systems resume all 
 existing and all possible religions. 
 
 Antiquity in general was lost in idolatry, and even the 
 •superstitions which had not begun in idolatry ended by falling 
 upon it as upon an inevitable shoal. The reason of this is, in 
 fact, that it is difficult to halt just at the point of Theandry — a 
 name by which Christian theology expresses the participation 
 of God in man and of man in God. As soon as the intelligence 
 is no longer enlightened by the full light of religious truth, it 
 vacillates before that prodigious mystery, and according as it 
 yields more to reason or to remembrance, to the inspiration of 
 nature, or the impulsion of theological instinct, it remains behind 
 or runs beyond the true. Instinct, remembrance, and a confused 
 presentiment vanquished the intelligence in the intermediary 
 period of mankind — I mean in that comprised between the 
 •deluge and the coming of Christ. When Jesus Christ appeared, 
 that wonderful restitution of the eternal type of the alliance 
 between God and man struck the world with such a flash of 
 light, that the pagan theogony, notwithstanding its twenty 
 •centuries of empire, was no longer able to maintain the honour 
 of deceiving the human race. Error was obliged to take 
 refuge upon another basis, and to assume another form. Arius 
 prepared its edifice, Mahomet completed it — Arius denied the 
 divinity of Jesus Christ, Mahomet declared the union between 
 the divine and human natures in one single personality to be 
 impossible, impious, idolatrous ; and, separating, as far as 
 possible, the two terms of religious intercourse, he pronounced 
 the fundamental sentence of Islamism, or the new faith : "God 
 is God, and Mahomet is His Prophet." God is God— that is 
 to say, God can be only God ; Mahomet is His prophet — that 
 is to say, the divine action with regard to man is limited to 
 prophecy, and the action of man in regard to God is limited to 
 the faith which accepts prophecy by adoring and praying. No 
 other religion has appeared since Mahomet; none other will 
 appear in the future. For, below Mahomet there is but pure 
 rationalism; above him we necessarily find idolatry or 
 Christianity. 
 
 Christianity fills the middle place between Mahometism 
 and idolatry. It humanises God without causing Him to 
 
3 28 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 descend, it divinises man without changing his substance, 
 equally removed from the extravagance of pantheism, which 
 confounds all beings in a divine chaos, and the coldness of 
 theism, which relegates the creature to a hopeless distance from 
 the Creator. 
 
 Here, then, lies the choice ; here, the contest. For who- 
 ever would come out of practical atheism, there are in all 
 history but these three doors open; he must be an idolater, a 
 Christian, or a Mussulman; he must bend the knee before 
 an idol, bear the cross, or hoist the crescent — the one or the 
 other ; or remain indifferent among the spectators who hear 
 unmoved the name of God, and who regard the future without 
 preparing for it. 
 
 The choice being thus reduced to these, the only possible 
 terms, nothing is easier than to recognise where is the true 
 religion, the religion instituted by God and preserved in the 
 integrity of its dogmas, its morals, and its liturgy — that is to 
 say, in the integrity of prophecy and sacrament. It is said 
 that Tacitus abridged all, because he saw all. God is a still 
 greater abbreviator, because He labours in eternity for creatures 
 who have only time. You are in haste. God is so more than 
 you. You are eager to know truth — God is still more eager 
 to impart it to you. Listen then : you will need but a ray 
 of light and an instant of good-will. 
 
 Although idolatry and Mahometism start from absolutely 
 contradictory points, I place them upon the same line in the 
 discussion, because they bear upon their front the same 
 characters of shame and inanition. I do not say to you — 
 Mahomet has wrought no miracles, nor has idolatry; idolatry 
 has not prophesied, nor has Mahomet. This is the detail of 
 the question. It requires time to examine it, and we must 
 advance quickly. Now to him who wishes to advance quickly, 
 God has prepared a way which shortens all. He has placed 
 in religion, as in all other things, a physiognomy. Behold 
 a man whom you have never met ; his origin and his acts are 
 unknown to you — who is he ? What does he desire ? What 
 is the secret of his soul? You know nothing of it, and you 
 have neither opportunity nor leisure to learn. Brought to- 
 gether for a moment, which may never return, you need to 
 judge him by the light of a glance. You will judge him, in 
 fact, and if some experience has initiated you to the play 
 of the inner life upon the features which form the accent 
 
GOD AND MAN. 329 
 
 of the visage, you will not be deceived — above all, you will not 
 be deceived if great vices or great virtues have ploughed their 
 furrows in the moving flesh in which you study truth. 
 
 So is it with religion. Every religion has a soul which 
 is reflected in the body of its doctrines and its history; and, 
 consequently, every religion has a physiognomy. What is the 
 physiognomy of idolatry and of Mahometism ? Do you feel 
 in them the pulsation of anything divine ? Is your conscience 
 moved by them, and with your eye fixed upon Jupiter or 
 Mahomet, would you ask yourself that formidable question — 
 May not God be there ? No, gentlemen, no ; not one of you 
 has ever given to either of those religions the honour of a 
 doubt ; not one of you has ever interrogated himself in their 
 presence, and been tempted to exclaim — Perhaps ! The per- 
 haps comes to you from elsewhere ; it descends into your soul 
 from another region, and if there were here below only idolatry 
 and Islamism to represent God, you would not even give 
 yourselves the trouble to deny — you would pass them by 
 without hatred, without scorn, without pride, as you pass 
 before a heap of stones which has not even the architecture of 
 a ruin. 
 
 In the celebrated assembly which inaugurated the un- 
 achieved era of our revolutions, two men met together endowed 
 with unequal eloquence, who both sat for a long time on 
 the same side, and defended together the coming of the age 
 from which we have issued. But, at length, the hazards of 
 public life fell between them, and separated them ; the day 
 came when they were to ascend the tribune to combat there 
 before the eyes of a population awaiting this trial, and who 
 had prepared applause for the younger and feebler of the two* 
 He appeared first ; the popular movement, which he was sure 
 of, raised his language above itself, genuine enthusiasm 
 responded to him; he felt that he had nothing to fear, and 
 that, at least, he should share the honour of the rostrum with 
 the powerful enemy arrayed against him. This man ascended 
 calm and collected; received by unusual silence he measured 
 with his soul all the popularity which he had lost, and drawing 
 from that obstacle, new to him, a power of desperation, he 
 turned like a lion in the terrible lair of his eloquence. In- 
 voluntary bursts of applause taught him what he already knew — • 
 his triumph ; when, suddenly, he turned towards his adversary, 
 no longer as orator against orator, but like an eagle hovering 
 
33° GOD AND MAN. 
 
 over his prey, and hurled to him that sublime and crushing 
 apostrophe—" Barnave, there is no divinity in thee ! " 
 
 This expression of Mirabeau to Barnave is the expression 
 which ends the controversy with regard to Mahometism and 
 idolatry; or, rather, controversy is not even possible, and 
 from the first observation thrown upon those miserable cor- 
 ruptions of religious truth, the mind disdainfully turns, and 
 exclaims— There is no divinity in you ! Why ? How ? What 
 is it then that gives or takes away the divine physiognomy ? I 
 know not, perhaps. What I do know is, that there is a feature 
 of baseness which descends even to the face of the brute, as 
 there is a feature of greatness which rises even to a super- 
 human transformation. What I do know ... but listen a 
 moment. On a day known in history, a Roman proconsul 
 appeared upon a balcony ; by his side stood a criminal covered 
 with wounds, a reed was tied to His hands, His brow pierced 
 with a crown of thorns, His body muffled in a purple robe, 
 which added to His humiliations the injury of ironical majesty. 
 The proconsul turned timidly towards the multitude, and 
 said — Behold the Man ! The people replied by an acclamation 
 which called for His blood, and the Roman obeyed and 
 delivered Him up to them. But behind that infuriated man- 
 kind has stood up ; it has regarded the Man in its turn, the 
 Man condemned, scourged, crucified ; and striking its breast, 
 it has exclaimed — Behold God ! On another day Greece 
 assembled her artists to obtain from their genius an image 
 worthy of their adorations. Phidias was chosen. He took 
 his chisel — he cut out one of those famous marbles which 
 well-nigh breathed before the hand of the sculptor had touched 
 them, he gave to it light, thought, glory, repose, and when 
 Greece drew aside the veil which covered the Olympian 
 Jupiter, she cried with a serious and unanimous voice — 
 Behold God ! But mankind has risen behind that gifted 
 people; it has regarded the object of a memory which has 
 remained so great, and pitying Athens still more than its 
 statue, it has exclaimed — Behold man ! 
 
 Behold man ! All the arts of Attica, all the poetry of 
 Homer, all the grandeurs of Latium — nothing in twenty 
 •centuries of duration has been able to hide the ineffable misery 
 of idolatry ; and Islamism has conquered a half of the world 
 only to exhibit in it, under a form opposite but equally vain, 
 the powerlessness of all religions, save that which has made 
 •sages believe, and which makes the impious doubt. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 331 
 
 This striking absence of divinity, which is the prominent 
 feature of idolatry and Islamism, suffices to judge them. In 
 fact, it is easy to understand that man, whatever he may do, 
 will never be able to give to his works a really divine character. 
 The more he mounts beyond his sphere, in order to attain a 
 glory which surpasses him, the further he falls away from truth, 
 in which alone is the source of the beautiful. As conqueror, 
 legislator, philosopher — simple mortal, in fine — he has days in 
 his history worthy of admiration ; would he touch the holy 
 arch by uplifting himself in imposture, he loses the secret of 
 the grandeurs of this world and the elevations of the other. 
 He makes a parody of the name of God j and that name, to be 
 -avenged, needs but itself. Not only have the false religions 
 no divine physiognomy, but to this negative character they 
 infallibly join the sign of flagrant immorality. Lift your eyes 
 to the antique altars ! Dare I even ask you to lift your eyes 
 to these ? Notwithstanding the distance which veils them 
 from us, dare I counsel you a glance, however obscure, upon 
 their mysteries and their ceremonies ? I dare not — I dare not 
 paint to you what those Greeks adored — those Greeks so 
 delicate, our masters in the art of feeling and expressing the 
 beautiful. I dare not describe to you the pomps wherein they 
 exposed, in the name of God, their wives, their children, their 
 own heart. That which was their religion we cannot even 
 make a matter of discourse ; that which was sacred for them, 
 on passing from my lips to your ears, would be a sacrilege for 
 you and for me. They had raised up their gods in such sub- 
 lime infamy, that we cannot perceive them in it, were it but to 
 accuse them. All those gods, I admit, were not of equally 
 degraded mire ; some of them drew near to man by their 
 virtues. I believe even that a better image of the Divinity 
 rose up from the conscience before those idols, and inwardly 
 braved the public worship which was rendered to them ; but 
 this was the effect of antique truth — it was the groaning of 
 God in the presence of falsehood, and falsehood did not the 
 less subsist with the chastisement of its corruption. 
 
 Mahomet, I also admit, in his dogmatic and liturgical 
 exposition of God, has not incurred the immorality of idolatry. 
 His design, which was the reverse of the fables of polytheism, 
 did not permit it to him. But that even renders more striking 
 and more formidable against him the shameful materialism 
 which has resulted from his work, and whose germ, although 
 iperhaps dissimulated, is nevertheless visible in the Koran. 
 
332 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 Mahometan morals have not put to the blush the morals of 
 paganism ; and these in certain things — such as the unity and 
 indissolubility of marriage — have left far behind them the 
 habits of the children of Mahomet. Neither Islamism nor 
 idolatry has known and taught the spiritual life ; they have 
 not drawn the soul above the attractions of this earth, in order 
 to impart to it the joy of an immaterial aliment. Even in 
 revealing immortality to the soul they have left it a prey to the 
 passions, the torments, the virtues which death ends. 
 
 What other sign would you desire against those miserable 
 religions ? And yet there is another not less palpable, not less 
 striking; it is their logical incapacity. Men may be wrong 
 and yet discuss — it seems even that nothing is more easy, so 
 common are its examples — what then shall we say of a religion 
 which reasoning fails to defend ? And if you believe that 
 such an excess of powerlessness is not possible, take the 
 trouble to seek for the theological, historical, and polemical' 
 works of Mahometism and idolatry. Where are they ? In 
 India, as well as in Greece and Rome, idolatry has had poets 
 for theologians ; and when Christianity taught it what was a 
 religion that wrote and spoke, it had for defenders, philosophers 
 who overthrew its mythology in attempting to justify it. 
 Mahometism has in no greater degree dreamed of establishing 
 its divinity by discussion ; it has reigned where its scimitar 
 was master, it has perished where its scimitar has been broken. 
 Now, under our own eyes, it maintains the rest of its empire 
 only by a law which interdicts the conversion of its followers 
 under the penalty of death. Paganism, menaced by the 
 preaching of Christianity, did not act otherwise under the 
 Cresars of Rome ; it does not now act otherwise under the 
 despots of China and Japan. What is the cause of this, if it 
 be not logical incapacity, or, if you like it better, the incapa- 
 bility of reasoning? Pascal said, "It is easier to find monks 
 than reasons." The true version was, "It is easier to find 
 executioners than reasons." The history of Islamism proves it 
 to the envy of the history of paganism. We ought to find there, 
 by the disposition of God and the force of things, an incurable 
 imbecility; by the disposition of God, who willed not that religion 
 should be corrupted without preserving the cruel marks of its 
 adulteration ; by the force of things, which does not permit 
 that an error of such magnitude should anywhere find 
 foundations. The foundations of the true religion are an 
 
GOD AND MAN. 333 
 
 antiquity which mounts by certain monuments to be the very 
 origin of the world; an uninterrupted course of miraculous and 
 prophetic acts leave here and there their ineffaceable sign in 
 the history of nations ; a dogma serious and profound ; a 
 moral teaching which explains itself by revolutions in the 
 morals of the human race ; a priesthood worthy to speak of 
 Gpd to vice and virtue ; a providence which governs this 
 extraordinary whole, and, in fine, maintains it by a constant 
 prodigy ; a tissue wherein all blends together — wherein each 
 sustains the other in a duration of sixty centuries, notwith- 
 standing the magnitude of the obstacles and the weakness of 
 the means. How could a religion issued from man by an 
 accidental degradation, attribute to itself or preserve such 
 foundations ? We may give the appearance of truth to a 
 system of philosophy, because it is but a combination of ideas ; 
 but religion being an immense order of universal and perpetual 
 •acts, how should we create these facts if they do not exist, or 
 how should we call them to the help of error if they exist to 
 the profit of truth ? It would be more easy for man to create 
 the world than to create a religion with divine characters ; for 
 the world had but to vanquish nothingness, and that religion 
 •would have to vanquish the essence of things. 
 
 Such is the reason of the logical incapacity which you 
 remark in Islamism and in idolatry, and which would deprive 
 them of all power upon the mind, if the vileness of their 
 physiognomy and the spectacle of their immorality left them 
 any chance of seducing an intelligence free to judge them. 
 
 Of the three religions which divide the world, two are out 
 of the lists : Christianity alone is now before us. 
 
 Regard it, gentlemen, not to ask yourselves if it be true, 
 but if it resemble the two others. Does it resemble them ? Is 
 there here the same logical incapacity, the same immorality, 
 the same absence of the divine physiognomy ? You may well 
 combat it, you must combat it. For it teaches, it discusses, it 
 •writes, it has filled the earth with its language/and your libraries 
 with its works. Whatever you touch, you meet with it. It 
 opposes its sages to your sages, its scholars to your scholars, 
 its writers to your writers, its politicians to your politicians, its 
 men of genius to your men of genius ; during eighteen 
 centuries, preceded by traditions and works for four thousand 
 years, it follows your steps, never leaving one of your reproaches 
 .unanswered, any more than one of your wants unsuccoured. 
 
334 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 If you deny, it affirms : if you despise, it honours ; if yom 
 trample it under your feet, it rises up again ; if you believe it 
 dead, it comes back again to life. Is it wrong ? I cannot say. 
 Is it right ? I know not. What I see, what all the world sees,, 
 is that it reasons and keeps the human mind in suspense. 
 Sometimes the political authority has served it, sometimes it 
 has ignored it ; but in good as well as in bad fortune, under 
 persecution as under protection, it has done its work and held 
 on its way. None of the vicissitudes which it has witnessed have 
 astonished it — it has seen the science of the times which ended 
 with that of the times which began, and it will be accused of 
 all, save of having been wanting in greatness and power ot 
 mind. 
 
 As much as the other religions have been incapable, I do 
 not say of sanctifying, but of ameliorating public morals, so 
 much has this religion raised and divinised them. Who will 
 compare the life of the Christian nations with the life of the 
 nations governed by the law of idols, or by that of Mahomet ? 
 Ah ! doubtless I know the failing of Christendom, since I 
 know my own ; but notwithstanding the traces which flesh and 
 blood leave upon it, what purity in numbers of chosen souls ! 
 What respect for virtue in the conscience of all ! What a 
 struggle in those even who fall, and who with their eyes fixed 
 upon the model of all holiness, retain even in vice the hope 
 and desire to become better ! If the secret of this salutary 
 labour is not sufficiently known to you by your own experience,, 
 if the history of souls in Christianity has not been revealed to 
 you, judge at least from what you see; compare the pleasures, 
 the amusements, the spectacles of the heathens with ours; 
 place before your eyes our weaknesses and the abominations, 
 of the East. Christianity has not destroyed evil, since evil 
 forms a part of fallen human nature ; but it has dishonoured it 
 in opinion, driven it from the public places, pursued -it even to 
 its repairs, attenuated it in the life of the greater number, and 
 effaced it from the hearts of many. It is the only religion 
 which has wrought a moral revolution in the world ; all the 
 others have adored the evil inclinations of man, or ineffectually 
 proscribed them. And that moral revolution is not of an age 
 or a nation ; from the debaucheries of Augustus to the adulteries, 
 of Louis XIV., it has reigned over a multitude of nations which 
 daily feel the persevering benefit it confers upon them. There 
 is not a Christian mother who is not its instrument, and who 
 
GOD AND MAN. 335, 
 
 does not communicate a virtue of purification and honour to- 
 the souls whom she has received from God. Before the 
 Christian becomes corrupted he has passed by the joys of 
 purity, and he preserves in his bones a remembrance of it, 
 which all the profanations of vice are unable entirely to eradi- 
 cate. Vice is so incompatible with the Christian faith, that 
 that faith grows weak and languishes in those who will no 
 longer combat their passions, and under this head, unbelief is 
 one of the most glorious crowns of Christianity. Neither the 
 Mussulman nor the heathen need to apostatise in order to be 
 tranquil in the opprobium of their senses : the Christian alone 
 has a God who forces him to blush. 
 
 And yet this God became man, He bore a flesh like our 
 own ; He was similar in His body to the idols of nations, and 
 differing from all who had preceded Him, and from all who 
 should follow him, He has exercised upon earth a regenerating 
 power. In Him as in their source, in His form as in their 
 centre, are reflected all the characters which have made of 
 Christianity an incomparable monument. Lift up your eyes 
 now : behold Jesus Christ ! Who among you will blaspheme 
 against Him without a certain fear that he may err? On 
 emerging from infancy, perhaps, at the age when the eyes 
 measure nothing because they as yet have compared nothing, 
 you may pass before Him without halting or bowing your 
 head; but wait a little. The shadows of life will increase 
 behind you ; you will know man, and returning from man to< 
 Christ with regards more humble, because they will have seen 
 more, you will begin to discover in that physiognomy signs 
 which will trouble you. A day will come when you will say to 
 yourselves : Is God really there ? Whatever may be the 
 answer, your conscience will have asked the question. And 
 what a question ! What a man must he be who constrains, 
 another man to propose to himself the question of his divinity ! 
 And even should you not feel the presentiment of that doubt, 
 think that for eighteen centuries it moves and divides mankind. 
 Now more than ever it is the great question of the world. 
 Behind the political quarrels which resound so loudly, there is 
 another which is the true and the last — it is whether the 
 nations civilised by Christianity will abandon the principle 
 which has made them what they are, whether they will reach 
 the point of apostacy, and what will be their lot. To be of 
 not to be Christian, such is the enigma of the modern world. 
 
336 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 And however you may solve it in your minds, it exists, and I 
 leave it there. It exists, Jesus Christ reigns by that doubt 
 suspended over our destinies, as much as by the faith of those 
 who have given Him their whole soul. His divinity is the knot 
 of the future, as it was of the past, and were it but a ruin, it is 
 a ruin that bears all. We know what has become of the 
 nations which have been converted from paganism to the 
 gospel ; we are ignorant of what would become of the Christian 
 nations on the departure of the Gospel which has nourished and 
 formed them. For we see no doctrine ready to receive them, 
 but an abyss where matter would sit down alone upon the 
 vacant throne of God. 
 
 All these things, gentlemen, require but one look — they 
 are seen and felt as quickly as light is seen and warmth is felt. 
 As it is impossible to confound life with death, it is impossible 
 to confound Christianity with the false systems which have 
 corrupted its traditions. Far from being obscured by the 
 disfigurations which human liberty has formed, Christianity 
 draws from them proof that it is indestructible and inevitable, 
 and consequently divine. It remains so much the more great 
 as it is brought into comparison, so much the more alone as it 
 has rivals, so much the more easy to recognise as it ought to 
 be discerned. Were there a thousand luminaries in the 
 firmament of religion as in that of nature, the eye discerns 
 there only one sovereign luminary. He who denies the sun is 
 materially blind, he who denies Christianity is spiritually 
 biind. 
 
THE NEED OF 
 SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen. 
 
 We have made a great advance. We required to know 
 whether, in the intercourse between man and God, there 
 existed an order of relations superposed upon the order of 
 nature and reason. We have proved that such an order 
 existed, since mankind, in all times and places, acts as if it 
 were real. Afterwards, in replying to an objection drawn from 
 the want of unity which the supernatural order presents in the 
 mass of positive religions that divide the world, we have shown 
 that in fact it was adulterated by the free action of man — 
 which, however, is unable anywhere to destroy it — so that we 
 have here in favour of truth the testimony of error itself. For 
 error, notwithstanding its corrupting power, not only has not 
 destroyed the supernatural form of the religious establishment, 
 but it has in no greater degree attained to the point of giving 
 a specious character of divinity to false religions. Christianity 
 alone possesses a superhuman physiognomy which imposes 
 upon the mind examination and respect; alone it appears 
 between man and God as the possible expression of their 
 relations. 
 
 That done, gentlemen, the question of the supernatural 
 order is not exhausted; we have only considered its outer 
 
 z 
 
338 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 side, and rationalism calls us within. Rationalism asks what 
 is meant by an order superior to nature and reason — an order 
 which supposes that the intelligence is deprived of what is 
 needful in order to know, and the will of what is needful in 
 order to act. When Omar was consulted as to what was to be 
 done with the Alexandrian library, he replied : " Either the 
 books of the Alexandrian library say the same thing as the 
 Koran, in which case they should be burned as useless; or 
 they say what the Koran does not say, and in that case they 
 should be burned as dangerous." So also, either the super- 
 natural order blends with the light and activity of the natural 
 order, and then what ends does it serve ? — or it does not, and 
 then, being unintelligible to reason, irreconcilable with nature, 
 what further end does it serve ? What motive, moreover, could 
 have moved God to refuse to our inner organization the unity 
 which He has placed in all His works, and to form for us a 
 mind which, in order to fulfil its function, needs to be perfected 
 by something from without. 
 
 In a word, the very notion of the supernatural order is 
 disputed ; it is accused of introducing into the plan of creation 
 a motive, at the very least arbitrary and superfluous. Now in 
 the name of the Church I affirm that this motive is necessary 
 — absolutely necessary — supposing that God has willed to give 
 us full knowledge and full possession of Himself, as from the 
 beginning of things He has in fact willed and prepared. I 
 shall prove this for the one and the other elements of the 
 supernatural order — that is to say, for Prophecy, which is the 
 complement of our inner light ; and for Sacrament, which is 
 the complement of our free activity. 
 
 When we consider the intellectual labour accomplished by 
 man here below, we cannot refrain from a feeling of stupor 
 and wonder. Placed upon this earth, as upon an island whose 
 ocean is heaven, man has willed to know the route by which 
 he is to pass ; but innumerable barriers raised up around him 
 have opposed his design, and forbade him to take possession 
 of his empire and his exile. The sea opposed to him the 
 jealousy of its waves ; he looked upon the sea and passed over 
 it. The prow of his genius has touched the most inaccessible 
 shores ; he has explored and examined them, and after a few 
 centuries of daring, more stubborn even than tempests, peace- 
 fully ruling the waves, he travels where and when he wills 
 upon the subjected surface of their immensity. He sends his 
 
GOD AND MAN. 339 
 
 orders to all the shoals now become his ports ; by commerce 
 •which will never cease, he draws from them the luxury and 
 pride of his life, blending all climates, how distant soever 
 they may be, to make of them but one single servant 
 obeying his will at every point of the globe. 
 
 Another sea, greater and deeper still, a treasure of infinite 
 mysteries, spread out over his head its waves peopled with 
 stars. He, a simple shepherd then, wandering after his flocks 
 in the fields of Chaldaea, observed the heavens through the 
 pure nights of the East. Aided by silence, he named the 
 stars, learned their course, penetrated the secret of theii 
 obscurity, foretold their disappearance and their return ; and 
 all that luminous army, as if it had received its orders from 
 the eyes of man, has never failed to appear in an exact cycle 
 at the rendezvous where the observer waited for them. 
 Even the star which appears but once in many centuries has not 
 been able to hide its course from us ; called forth at an hour 
 fixed, it emerges from those unspeakable depths where no 
 vision follows it — it comes, it shines at the point marked for it 
 in our horizon, and, saluting with its light the intelligence 
 which had foretold its appearance, returns back to the solitudes 
 •where the Infinite alone never loses sight of it. 
 
 But between earth and heaven — between the abode of man 
 and the abode of the stars — a space intervenes different from 
 both, less subtile than the one, less dense than the other, 
 inhabited by winds and storms, and penetrating by its active 
 influence all the springs of our life. Man has recognised those 
 invisible companions of his being ; he has decomposed the air 
 which he breathes, and seized the gradations of the fluid which 
 gives him light ; the quickness of the one has no more escaped 
 him than the weight of the other. In vain the thunder — that 
 striking image of divine omnipotence — appeared to defy the 
 boldness of his investigations ; like a giant who has vanquished 
 all around him, and is indignant against every obstacle, he has 
 struggled hand to hand with this terrible array of the powers of 
 nature, and, more than ever master, he has treated the thunder- 
 bolt like a child in leading-strings, causing it to halt respect- 
 fully on the summits of palaces and temples, forcing it to 
 descend by inoffensive routes to the silent abyss of the earth. 
 Earth, sea, heaven and all its luminaries, air and all its wonders, 
 nothing within or without has been able to hide from the mind 
 of man ; observation revealed facts to him, and facts led him 
 
 z 2 
 
340 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 to causes and laws. And those particular sciences, rays diffused 
 from a common centre, drew together and became enlightened 
 in a more general science, which, in developing the abstract 
 mysteries of number, extent, and motion, unveiled before us 
 the eternal elements of all created things. 
 
 But is this all ? Has the king of the world stopped there ? 
 Beware of believing it. Had he not advanced further, he 
 would already have been poet, scholar, artist — already man, 
 but not divine man. Now he was divine, and all the visible 
 worlds did not possess in themselves the means of satisfying 
 his intelligence, and of giving repose to his heart. He mounted 
 higher ; he asked himself what there is beyond the stars, what 
 that orb is which moves all those orbs measured by his 
 compass, and he replied — the Infinite ! For the finite, not 
 containing itself, can be limited only by the infinite. But 
 what is the infinite? Is it an empty space unceasingly 
 enlarging before itself, a boundless abyss calling to itself, in 
 order to give them place, all real and all possible life with- 
 out being itself living? Man, who had surveyed the sea 
 and the heavens, fearlessly surveyed that other heaven and that 
 other sea ; whatever the nature of the intellectual space wherein 
 his thought dilated above all sensible things, he comprehended 
 that the principle of being, life, and movement, was not there. 
 He advanced beyond it ; he left the imaginary infinite, to con- 
 template face to face the real Infinite, and seeing, without fully 
 seeing it, defining, without fully defining it, he exclaimed with 
 a voice which was the first, and will be the last : 
 
 Beyond the heaven, the God of heaven dwells ! 
 
 Behold me, gentlemen, behold me trembling before the 
 greatness of man ! Just now he shook but the dust from his 
 feet, and see, he touches God ! 
 
 And yet is there not some trace of sadness in your soul ? 
 Is there in your intelligence nothing obscure and unknown ? 
 In the palmy days of Greece there once lived a sage who 
 served his country with his sword, whilst at the same time he 
 served it by lessons which merited the honour of preparing 
 human wisdom to bend before the Gospel of divine wisdom. 
 Socrates — for it was he — one morning went out of his tent, 
 sat down before it, and with his head resting upon his 
 hands remained thoughtful. The sun rose, the army was in 
 motion, the coursers passed by, all the noise of a camp 
 
GOD AND MAN.' 341 
 
 surrounded his reverie ; but he remained motionless, and, as 
 it were, enraptured out of himself, and it was evening before he 
 had power or thought to remember his head weighing upon his 
 knees. What was the subject of that great man's thoughts ? 
 What painful mystery was able to hide time from him and fill 
 up the space of so lengthened a meditation ? Alas ! gentle- 
 men, the same mystery that troubles you, and that brings you 
 here. Without wishing now to insult your reason after having 
 so highly exalted it, may I not ask with Socrates, What do 
 you know? May I not ask you, the children of sages, the 
 question which he addressed to the sages of his time? Have 
 the twenty centuries that have passed since Socrates changed 
 the condition of the human mind, and brought down upon 
 you the plenitude of light which was wanting to the master of 
 Plato ? A light, indeed, a great light has shone upon the 
 world since the mouth of Socrates was closed by a draught of 
 hemlock ; but it came from Calvary, and not from reason. 
 Those who have not received it in the obedience of faith, so 
 far from being enlightened by it, have seen the gloom and 
 uncertainty of their ideas increasing ; for a formidable question 
 for them has been added to all the questions that perplex our 
 understanding. I say to you then, without fear of contradict- 
 ing myself or of offending you, There is something which you 
 know not, when in order to know it you interrogate only your 
 own intelligence. Philosopher or peasant, transcribing with a 
 golden pen pages which will fill posterity with immortal 
 incense, or obscure labourer in a life without morrow, whoever 
 you may be, there is a thing which you know not. What you 
 know, I have declared ; what you know not is yourselves, your 
 soul, the reason of your soul, your destiny. You know all, 
 except the secret of your life. I do not yet seek the reason of 
 this, I expose the fact, Is your soul imperishable in its nature ? 
 Why is it united to a body ? Why does it withdraw from that 
 body at a certain moment ? Whither does it go on leaving its 
 prison of a day ? What is death ? What is that place to which 
 your fathers have gone, where they wait for you, that place 
 which calls you, which tells you by the voice of Bossuet, "that 
 the ranks are crowded there?" Do you knowwith any certainty? 
 Do you know better than Socrates, placed by injustice face to 
 face with the future, and drawing from his condemnation a 
 new assurance of our immortality ? 
 
 If I consult the history of human wisdom, I see it arriving 
 
342 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 at this mystery by all its roads, but by very different roads; 
 Plato affirms, Cicero doubts, Epicurus denies, and the human 
 mind constantly dilates in these three zones of thought. Would 
 it, after the ages of faith, restore in modern times the inde- 
 pendent philosophy ? Descartes begins by affirmation, Bayle 
 continues by doubt, Voltaire ends by negation. Less than two- 
 centuries are needed by philosophical activity to accomplish 
 that fatal cycle, the result of which is what you see, that is to 
 say, a society without certain belief, divided by a thousand 
 opinions, each of which claims to be true, each of which has. 
 its herald, its hopes, its reverses, and which, disputing in order 
 to build up, meet together but to destroy ! The Greeks pre- 
 sented its spectacle to the world, the Romans renewed it, and 
 we, two thousand years after the lesson of these ruins, choose 
 to receive from ourselves their formidable teaching. It is 
 before you, gentlemen ; examine it ; learn from it at least the 
 limit of your intelligence, and the need which you have of 
 another light than yours to know your own selves. 
 
 But whence comes to us this ignorance of our own 
 destinies? Whence comes it that, having penetrated so far 
 and mounted so high into the mysteries of nature, our sight 
 grows dim when we exercise it upon what is intimate and 
 personal to ourselves? It is not difficult to understand the 
 reason. All the phenomena of nature are facts present before 
 our eyes, and the mathematical laws which govern them, 
 besides that they are manifested in perceptible and limited 
 bodies, appertain to the invariable essence of things, which is 
 present to our mind and constitutes the intelligible light with 
 which it is enlightened. The Divine Being Himself reveals. 
 Himself to us by the universe, which, all great though it 
 be, constrains us to seek for it a cause, a cause which can 
 only be the Infinite in a state of personality, that is to say, 
 God. We thus hold the two ends of the chain, the finite and 
 the Infinite, the world and God. But when it is a question of 
 penetrating the secret of our destiny, all our natural means of 
 knowledge fail us. Our destiny is not a phenomenon present 
 to our observation ; it embraces a past invisible to us, a future 
 alike invisible. Nor is it a law belonging to the essence of 
 things, since we may be or not be — live for a day or a thousand 
 years. Our destiny is a revelation between two free beings, 
 one of whom is finite and the other infinite. It depends upon 
 the concurrence of two wills differently sovereign, one of which 
 
GOD AND MAN. 3 13 
 
 has given what it did not owe, the other is able to refuse what 
 it did not expect. 
 
 Now how are we reasonably to know the will of another ? 
 How is reason to attain to an inner and a necessary perception 
 of an act which may be or not be ? Doubtless God has in His 
 nature immutable rules of justice and goodness, whose re- 
 flection enlightens our conscience and places us on the road 
 of His operations. But neither justice nor goodness impose 
 upon Him, in regard to His gifts, a measure absolutely de- 
 termined. He was free to create or not to create, free to call us 
 into life sooner or later, free to unite Himself to us more 
 or less durably and intimately. Who would say, for example, 
 that the alliance of the divine nature with human nature by 
 the incarnation was metaphysically necessary ? Now if it were 
 not necessary, it was free ; and being free, how would the 
 intelligence have perceived it otherwise than under the form 
 of a simple possibility ? And it is the possibility even which 
 makes the mystery. Behold me, a living being, behold me in 
 presence of the eternity which my mind discovers all around 
 me as the natural horizon of my being : am I there for an 
 hour, for a century, for ever? Is eternity, which is my 
 principle, also my right and my object? If I saw clearly that 
 it is not, there would then be no mystery ; if I saw clearly that 
 it is, there would be no greater mystery ; but I hesitate before 
 the affirmation and the negation, because both are possible. 
 That which is necessary is visible, that which is possible is 
 but dimly perceptible. That which is necessary is like the 
 day, that which is possible is but as the night. Who is to 
 solve the doubt? Who will say to us of two contradictory 
 things equally realisable, This is realised, that is the real? 
 Reason cannot, for reason could do this only by changing that 
 which is possible into that which is necessary, which is absurd. 
 I declare that between what is necessary and what is possible, 
 stands the probable ; but the probable does not give certainty, 
 it inclines the mind without subjugating it. Socrates died 
 avenging himself towards his judges by the hope of immortality, 
 and the Phasdo is the imperishable memorial of that heroic 
 vengeance : but what sufficed for the remorse of his judges and 
 the greatness of his soul, did not suffice for the consolation of 
 his friends. Another death than that of a sage, another 
 language than that of a man, was to give to the human race the 
 certainty of its immortality. 
 
344 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 But immortality is not all ; many things therein still remain 
 obscure, and were it even assured, the mind would still ask, 
 What is immortality ? Shall we see God in it ? Shall we see 
 Him there face to face ? Will it be for our transformed vision 
 what the yesterday of nature is for our mortal vision ? The 
 abyss of the infinite is fathomless, and this is the second cause 
 of the powerlessness of reason to render an exact account 
 to itself of the last ends of man, as Christianity eloquently 
 calls the dogma of his destinies. 
 
 In every other science the question rises from the finite 
 to the finite. Even mathematics are but the general laws 
 of bodies, and if they are considered in an abstract manner, 
 inasmuch as they subject undetermined quantities to their 
 calculation, they attain to nothing beyond the indefinite — that 
 is to say, beyond a supposed progression constantly increasing 
 or decreasing, to which unity serves as a starting point. But 
 in the science of the last ends of man, the question rises from 
 nothingness to the infinite. It is a question of knowing whether 
 death brings us back again into existence, or leads us to 
 eternity ; whether we are a simple phenomenon measured 
 by time, or a luminary emanated from God to return to Him 
 again ; and what is the law of that curve which we describe 
 round the centre which is our principle and our end. Even, 
 putting aside the intention of God towards us, an intention 
 evidently not to be sounded by reason, as I have just shown, 
 there still remains the difficulty as to the infinite considered 
 in itself. St. Thomas of Aquinas has said, "Truth is the 
 equation between the intelligence and its object." Now how 
 can a finite intelligence be in equation with an object which is 
 not finite ? And if that equation be impossible, how should 
 we of ourselves possess truth in regard to God and to our 
 relations with Him? We are able to affirm that God is, 
 because our mind, superior to the universe, discovers therein 
 the need of a cause superior to it. We can also affirm that 
 that cause is infinite, because if it were not, it would be but 
 another universe, equally incapable as the first of subsisting of 
 itself. But our mind, although superior to the universe, is not 
 equal to God ; it floats between two extremes, surpassing the 
 one, surpassed by the other, and not even knowing entirely 
 that which is beneath its sphere ; because the total knowledge 
 of the phenomenon would require the total knowledge of the 
 cause, which is God. God, says the Scriptures, dwells in 
 
GOD AND MAN. 345 
 
 " inaccessible light ; " He is, at the same time, that which is 
 most clear, and that which is most impenetrable. Remove the 
 idea which we have of Him, all light disappears from our 
 understanding; truth becomes only a dream, aud justice a 
 name. But, also, would we penetrate the Divine Essence to its 
 very depths, our eyes grow dim, and we perceive in immeasur- 
 able distance only a sparkling that dazzles us, and veils light 
 from us by light itself. For example, would we study the 
 metaphysical nature of God, we ask, Is God a solitary being, 
 or does He possess relations in Himself? Whatever may be 
 the answer, it is a mystery. Would we study His moral nature, 
 we ask, What, in God, is the proportion of justice and good- 
 ness ? Whatever may be the reply, we must reply again by 
 another mystery. And, yet, if I ignore these things, can I 
 possibly know the law of my relations with God? Can I 
 know what I ought to fear, or what I ought to hope ? 
 
 Perhaps you will say to me, But why has God not given 
 us a more penetrating mind ? Ah ! gentlemen, whatever 
 penetration He might have given us, would it ever have 
 equalled the profundity of His essence, which is infinite. 
 Would it have answered to the definition of St. Thomas of 
 Aquinas, " Truth is an equation between the intelligence and 
 its object?" You have but two courses open to you, either to 
 deny that definition, or to maintain that God had power to 
 create spirits his equals — that is to say, God. In the first 
 case, it is to affirm that the effect might be greater than its 
 cause ; in the second, that that which exists by another, never- 
 theless exists of itself. Yield, therefore, to evidence, and no 
 longer contest against Christianity that great and powerful 
 truth, that no created intelligence is of itself capable of attain- 
 ing to a perfect knowledge of God, and, consequently, to a 
 certain knowledge of its destiny. History proves this to you, 
 and reasoning has just confirmed history by explaining it to you. 
 
 What, then, is wanting, in order that man may know him- 
 self and God ? A mediating light must interpose between 
 God and himself — a light which should aid his nature without 
 destroying it, which should draw him near to the Infinite with- 
 out being itself the Infinite. And if that mediation seems 
 impossible to you, give me your attention yet a moment longer. 
 
 You to whom I speak are a soul, and I who speak to you 
 am a soul also. Now do you know my soul, and do I know 
 yours ? The infinite is not between us, and yet, although by 
 
346 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 our bodies we touch each other, an abyss separates us. What 
 are you, and what am I ? What is the hidden motor of our 
 actions ? Whence do we tend by our weaknesses and by our 
 virtues ? What is our degree of power in good and in evil ? 
 I repeat, What are you and what am I ? You see plainly in 
 my actions, and I see in yours, a certain reflection of what 
 we are inwardly; physiognomy adds its revelation to that of 
 our works, but can you say that you know me as I know my- 
 self, and can I persuade myself that I see you as you see 
 yourself? The soul ignores the soul, inasmuch as their essence 
 is not seen by a direct vision. There is but one remedy for 
 this evil, namely, confidence or confession — that is to say, the 
 opening of the soul to the soul by means of sincere language. 
 Language is the mediating light between equal things which 
 are unseen ; by a stronger reason is it, also, between things 
 doubly separated by their invisibility and by their inequality. 
 Why should not God speak to man ? Why, seeing us incapable 
 of attaining to Him by the feebleness of our nature, should He 
 not condescend to unveil Himself to us in a confidence which 
 would reveal to us, with the mysteries of His being, the order 
 of His thoughts and designs ? I have proved to you that this 
 supernatural or prophetic revelation was necessary to the 
 intercourse between man and God, and I have. just shown 
 you the instrument of this revelation in language. I will 
 terminate this conference by proving also to you the necessity 
 of Sacrament, not to enlighten the mind, but to strengthen the 
 will — not to teach us our destiny, but to help us to fulfil it. 
 
 The mind is the remote principle of our actions, the will is- 
 their immediate principle ; the mind sees, the will commands, 
 man acts. What is it then to act ? To act is to produce 
 something. If you have produced nothing — if no result has. 
 been the fruit of your will, you have done nothing; it is the 
 expression consecrated by language itself. Therefore man 
 never moves but to produce, and each of his movements, even 
 when it is abortive, still produces something, were it only noise. 
 But why does he produce? Why is not man in a state of 
 repose? What does he seek in that incessant production 
 which is the effect of his activity? What he seeks is life. If 
 he breathes, it is to live ; if he digs the earth, it is to live ; if 
 he walks, it is to live ; if he sleeps, it is to live ; if he dies, it is 
 still to live. And he never rests, because life escapes from him- 
 in proportion as he produces it. He drinks it from a parsi- 
 
GOD AND MAN. 347- 
 
 monious cup, which contains and affords but one drop at a. 
 time. To halt is to die. But to die ! — did I not say just now 
 that to die was still to live ? Yes, in the truth of our destinies 
 death is the high-road of life, provided we have known the 
 secret of the course on which we act, which is to produce in 
 ourselves the very life of God — a life full, stable, each instant 
 of which includes eternity, and which has no more need to 
 produce itself because it is. This is the true and final object 
 of all our actions. I have demonstrated it to you in showing 
 you that God is our principle and our end. Whatever you 
 may do, if you do not this you will do nothing. If you do not 
 this you are but like the herdsman who sits down on the bank 
 of a flowing stream and beats the wave as it passes, pleased 
 with the noise which he himself causes. The present life, 
 when it is not the instrument of the eternal life, has no other 
 form, and is nothing more worth. In vain will you clothe it 
 with the consul's purple ; in vain will you call it glory, power, 
 immortality — illustrious names which elevate nothingness only 
 to exhibit it from a higher place and to a greater distance. 
 History is full of these extinguished beacons, famous mortals 
 who, because they conquered for a day the admiration of this 
 world, esteemed themselves great in life, and expected from 
 their tomb a persevering reign. Do this if you will. Build 
 up pyramids for yourselves in the devastated solitudes of 
 memory ; surround your death with moats and barriers against 
 time; eternity will permit you, as it permits the child who 
 totters in his first efforts to reach the arms of his nurse that he 
 may feel proud of being greater there than on his feet. 
 
 But if these puerilities wound you, if you are ashamed of 
 adding ridicule to nothingness, consider that it is a question of 
 producing in yourselves the life of God, and seek in your nature 
 if you can find there the instrument of such exalted ambition. 
 
 The life of God is infinite ; it consists in the perpetuity of 
 an indivisible moment in which God, one and many, beholds 
 Himself fully in His essence and loves Himself fully in His 
 persons. Now we are totally incapable of such life. Subject 
 as we are by our nature to succession and change, we cannot 
 aspire to the indefectible state of immutable duration ; neither 
 are we more able to behold the Divine Being face to face, nor 
 to love Him with that perfect love which, in Himself, results 
 from the direct vision of His ineffable beauty. If we behold 
 Him, it is through the obscurity of ideas; if we love Him, it is. 
 
348 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 as the invisible principle of the incomplete blessings by which 
 we are surrounded. But to behold Him in His substance, to 
 love Him with that regard which possesses the object loved, to 
 become blended so completely in Him as to feel only the steady 
 movement of His eternal life, is a prodigy so far beyond our 
 power to perform that faith alone gives us the certainty of its 
 future accomplishment. Reason laughs at that hope, so much 
 does it feel incapable of realising it. For reason, the most 
 glorious future of man is immortality ; that is to say, the attain- 
 ment by the soul of a duration which the senses could no longer 
 measure — a life the ideas of which alone would fill indefinite 
 space. Or, if reason pass beyond this, it casts to us the dreams 
 of pantheism, boasting that it creates God for us on condition 
 that we lose ourselves in the abstract immensity of being. 
 Christianity has marked our place between these excesses; 
 knowing that God is our end, it commands us to begin to live 
 imperfectly in Him, in order one day to live there in the 
 fulness of vision, which, without confounding us with the Divine 
 Essence, will give it to us as the present object of direct know- 
 ledge and of love in possession. 
 
 Now, whether in its initial or its final form, that divine life 
 — I have just shown it — surpasses the forces of all mortal 
 nature. As there is no natural equation possible between a 
 limited intelligence and a truth not limited, so also there can 
 exist no possible natural equation between the life of a finite 
 being and that of an infinite being. If, then, God calls us to 
 His eternity, if our destiny is to live by Him, in Him, and 
 with Him, he must necessarily communicate to our soul a 
 mediatorial element, by means of which it may be raised above 
 its own limits, and borne towards Him by a movement of a 
 supernatural or divine order. Our present life is the painful 
 crucible from whence our future life should flow ; if only matter 
 be found there, even were it the most precious, nothing but 
 mire will come from it; if spirit only be found there, even were 
 it the most penetrating, nothing would result but human ideas 
 and sentiments. Let God then intervene, let Him pour in the 
 gold of His eternity, or, to speak plainly, let Him attract us 
 towards Himself by a direct action upon our souls ; let Him 
 draw us without violence from the affections of nature, and 
 inspire us with such a love that the present life may appear to 
 us only as a burden, and this earth but a place of exile. 
 
 This love exists, you cannot deny it. David exhaled it 
 
GOD AND MAN. 349 
 
 in his Psalms, the martyrs embalmed their sufferings with it, 
 the saints have lauded and glorified it from generation to 
 generation : all, in different modes, have poured forth before 
 God the melancholy of souls oppressed by the workings of 
 superhuman love. "As the hart," said they, "panteth after 
 the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God ! 
 My soul had thirsted after the strong and living God, when 
 shall I come and appear before the face of God. My tears 
 have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me 
 daily : Where is thy God ? These things I remembered, and 
 I poured out my soul within me, for I shall go over to the 
 place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God, 
 with the voice of joy and praise, with the noise as of one 
 feasting. Why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou 
 trouble me ? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him 
 because he is the help of my countenance and my God."* 
 These accents are not of earth — they rise from hearts delivered 
 from time, and which began already really to inhabit the region 
 which gives a distaste for all the rest. But how did they reach 
 that region? Is it by the natural effect of intellectual con- 
 templation, or of a movement of enthusiasm ? Assuredly not ; 
 and never, either in Orpheus or Plato, or in any mind possess- 
 ing only the spirit of man, have such vibrations moved the 
 sanctuary of our sensibility. They proceed from an art 
 unknown to genius, from a tradition which reveals its secrets 
 only to saints. Interrogate the saints ; they are not jealous of 
 their gifts, freely they have received them, freely will they give 
 them to you. They will tell you whence they derive that 
 painful but hallowed life which draws them above the world. 
 Look yonder : under the shelter of a chiselled stone, under the 
 still more lowly symbol of bread kneaded by man, lives the 
 hidden virtue that gives holiness, and, with holiness, produces 
 and fertilises in the soul the germ of the divine life. What 
 Prophecy is for the intelligence, Sacrament is for the will. 
 Prophecy reveals to us the impenetrable mysteries of the 
 essence and mind of God ; Sacrament communicates to us the 
 spirit, the desire, and the hunger for God, the right to possess 
 Him by grace, since we cannot by nature, and even a real fore- 
 taste of that possession. 
 
 If the experience of the saints does not suffice for you, 
 
 * Psalm xlii. 
 
350 NEED OF SUPERNATURAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN 
 
 ■consult the opposite experience. You who have only the 
 heart wherewith to love God, as you have only reason where- 
 with to know Him, do you love God ? I do not ask you if you 
 love Him with tender and profound love, better than you love 
 your dearest friends, better than a mother loves her son, better 
 than all things and yourselves— not from the spectacle of 
 visible blessings of which He is the author, but from an antici- 
 pated contemplation of the personal beauty that is in Him. I 
 do not ask you whether you love Him so as to be able to 
 address to Him some of those accents which David has just 
 lent us. But do you love Him with the faintest and most 
 feeble love ? Are your thoughts always turned towards Him ? 
 Have you any secret pleasure in Him ? Does He form a part, 
 how small soever it may be, of the treasure of your heart ? I 
 venture to say, No, and that the falling leaf which the wind 
 bears along touches you more than the immensity of the 
 divine perfections. 
 
 Seneca has said, Amicitia pares invenit vel facit 
 
 Friendship finds or makes equals. Such is the reason of your 
 ■coldness towards God ; you know that He is infinite, and you 
 do not conceive what there can be between Himself and you. 
 He is in His place, and you are in yours ; you ask from Him 
 only forgetfulness, and you give to Him but the same thing 
 which you ask from Him. And never, by the sole effort of 
 nature, will you rise from that state of insensibility. Nature 
 will inspire you with ardent passions, or even with heroic 
 affections, but for the things that are felt and for beauties 
 seen ; nature will prostrate you before a little dust ; it will 
 make of that dust the soul of your existence, your life itself, 
 so that you would be ready to die, if in a last embrace, you lost 
 that precious gift of love to which you have a thousand times 
 vowed immortality. You would do even more, you would die 
 for a beloved object ; you would die joyfully, offering to that 
 object your last sigh as a holocaust of eternal adoration. All 
 this you are able to do, when God is not in question ; but if 
 God be in question, that great faculty of loving dies within you, 
 and your heart, so prompt for all the rest, refuses the Infinite. 
 If you loved noihing we should have but to pity you; being 
 loving by nature, and placing in it the felicity of your short 
 life, we must wonder to see you insensible to God, and 
 ■conclude therefrom that something is wanting to you in order 
 to attain that supreme affection. A sage has just told you 
 
GOD AND MAX. 351 
 
 what is wanting to you. As St Thomas of Aquinas has 
 denned truth — "an equation between the intelligence and its 
 object," Seneca, with a precision not less eloquent, has defined 
 love-— "a fusion which finds or makes equals." Now as no 
 equality exists between God and us, it is for Him to lean 
 towards His creature by a movement of grace, and divinely to 
 attract that creature to a life common with Himself. If we 
 consent, it is our merit and our salvation ; if we do not consent, 
 it is our fault as well as our ruin. 
 
 These truths which I endeavour to demonstrate to you, 
 •were one day announced by Saint Paul before a Roman pro- 
 consul and a king of the East, assembled more from curiositv 
 to hear him than from desire to know the ways of God. After 
 having related to them the madness of his youth against Jesus 
 Christ, and how He whom he had persecuted had appeared to 
 him at the gates of Damascus to confide to him the Gospel of 
 nations, he thus continued his discourse : " But being aided 
 by the help of God, I stand up unto this day witnessing both 
 to small and great, saying no other thing than those which the 
 prophets and Moses did say should come to pass, namely, that 
 Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should 
 rise from the dead, and should show light to the people and 
 to the Gentiles." Here the proconsul interrupted him, and 
 with a loud voice cried out to him, "Thou art mad, Paul!" 
 And Paul, unmoved, replied, " I am not mad, most excellent 
 Festus, but I speak words of truth and soberness, and the king 
 before whom I speak knoweth of these things, none of which 
 were hidden from him, or were done in a corner.'' Then 
 turning towards the king he said — "King Agrippa, believest 
 thou the prophets ? I know that thou believest!" And the 
 king answered, " Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a 
 Christian."'* Gentlemen, the same dialogue is now passing 
 between your soul and mine ; neither the truths nor the hearers 
 have changed. There are here many, like Festus, puffed up in 
 the pride of reason, to whom the history of their own weakness 
 is unknown, and who, having never felt any need of the help 
 of God, marvel that it is necessary to treat with Him oUier* 
 wise than as equal to equal. These say to me, '• Thou art 
 mad, Paul ! " But there are also those, who, like Agrippa, 
 more infatuated by their passions than by their knowledge, 
 
 *Acs xxvi. 2Z and foil. 
 
352 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 secretly warned of the misery of man, sometimes lift their eyes 
 towards the Omnipotent Goodness which has made them. 
 These say to me, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a 
 Christian." And I, making no distinction between either, 
 between those who are near and those who are further away- 
 confiding in Him who has died for us all, I say to all, imitating 
 the language of Saint Paul, " Would to God that you were as 
 I am ! " * Would to God that, recognising the powerlessness 
 of your nature abandoned to itself, you would sing in the peace of 
 the joy, the certainty of the children of God, that short and 
 consoling hymn, Credo — I believe ! 
 
 * Acts xxvi. 29. 
 
PROPHECY. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 The reality and necessity of a supernatural order, as a 
 means of communication between man and God, having been 
 demonstrated to you, it remains for us to penetrate the 
 intimate nature of that order. You have already seen that it 
 divides into two acts, one corresponding to our faculty of 
 knowing — namely, Prophecy; the other relative to our operative 
 faculty — namely, Sacrament. In causing you more deeply to 
 sound the mystery of these two acts I shall attain my object, 
 which is to lead you to a knowledge of the supernatural order, 
 as far as its profundity and the limits of our minds will permit. 
 I begin by Prophecy. 
 
 Prophecy is a word of God manifesting truths to man which 
 his reason alone would not have attained, and which, however, 
 are necessary for the accomplishment of his destiny. 
 
 That which predominates in this definition is language — 
 language is the first prophetic element. But what is language? 
 
 A man comes into the world. His eyes, his ears, his lips — 
 all his senses are closed. He has no idea of the nothingness 
 from whence he is emerging, or of the being to which he is 
 attaining — he is ignorant of himself, and of all the rest with 
 himself. Leave him as nature has just sketched him, leave him 
 there naked, dumb, dead rather than living ; he will live 
 perhaps, but he will live without knowing it, an unformed 
 guest of creation, a soul lost in powerlessness to find its own 
 life. His eyes will open, but no thought will be visible in them, 
 and his heart will beat, but no virtue will be felt therein. 
 Happily something watches over him. The providence of 
 language covers him with its fertile wings — language incessantly 
 bends over him, watches him, touches, turns him, strives by 
 
 2 A 
 
354 PROPHECY. 
 
 its vibration to awaken that sleeping soul. And at last, after 
 days which have been ages, on a sudden, from that dull and 
 insensible abyss, from that infant hardly able to express by a 
 smile that he understood the love which had placed him in the 
 world, language escapes and replies. The man then lives ; he 
 thinks, he loves, he names those whom he loves, he renders 
 back to them in language all the love he had received from 
 them. 
 
 But this is only the beginning of man. He, the predesti- 
 nated of the Infinite, as yet knows only the bosom of his 
 mother, his cradle, his chamber, a few pictures hanging on the 
 walls, the space which his eye discovers from a window — an 
 hour is for him history, a house the universe, a caress the last 
 end of things. He must leave this limited horizon and prepare 
 to mark his place in that restless society where all, having the 
 same rights in the same duties, will dispute with him the glory 
 of existence. Soon he will descend the staircase of the 
 paternal house, he will appear in public, his ears will hear the 
 painful din of clashing ambition and contending ideas, and 
 like a leaf fallen upon the waves of a stormy sea, he will, for 
 the first time, wonder at the cost of life, and the mysteries 
 which it contains. Who will explain them to him? Who, 
 rightly or otherwise, will teach him the science of man, that 
 science whose elements are the past, the present, the future, 
 earth and heaven, which by one of its poles touches nothingness, 
 and by the other the infinite ? It will still be language, no 
 longer the language of his father and his mother, but perilous 
 language, which will, perhaps, stifle within him the germs of 
 truth; which will, perhaps, develop them according to the 
 spirit of the masters who may direct his own. For he will 
 have masters ; -he cannot escape from that second reign which 
 language will exercise over him. Language launched him into 
 the world, language roused and gave the first course to his 
 ideas : whatever he may will, whatever he may do, for his 
 happiness or his misery, language will perform its work ; it will 
 make of him a vase of faith or of unbelief, a victim of pride 
 or of charity, a slave of the senses or of duty, and if he always 
 remains frc e against evil, he will, nevertheless, be free on 
 condition of calling to his aid the language of better teaching, 
 than that which had deceived him. 
 
 Such is the history of man ; listen now to that of the people. 
 A tribe is found slumbering in barbarism ; they know not even 
 
GOD AND MAN. 355 
 
 the first of arts, which is that of subjecting the earth to their 
 wants. Like the beasts, they live on prey. When they find it 
 they lie down and sleep before the fire that warms, or under the 
 tree that covers them, until hunger commands them again to 
 dispute with the forests, and with chance, their precarious 
 subsistence. They have no country. The very soil on which 
 they wander has received no consecration from their labour, no 
 limit from their power ; and although it may hold the bones of 
 their forefathers, they live there without past or future. If 
 attacked, they defend themselves, like wild beasts in their lairs, 
 but are unable, even of the staff with which they defend them- 
 selves, to form either a sword or a standard. Idea is wanting 
 to them, and with it, virtue, progress, history, stability. 
 
 But behold a change! This people settles; they build 
 tents, they dig out trenches, they place guards, they have some- 
 thing durable and holy to watch over. A temple offers to 
 them, under a sensible image, the God who made the world, 
 the Father of justice and the Indweller of souls. They adore 
 Him in spirit, they pray to Him with faith. The sun no longer 
 passes over their heads as a fire which becomes extinguished 
 in the evening and is lighted up afresh in the morning, but as 
 the grave measure of ages, bringing to each day its duty, to 
 each century its duration. They count his revolutions, and 
 distribute their own history in the cycle wherein all nations have 
 included their own. In fine, they live as a nation, they reveal 
 their presence by men of name — by acts of power. But what 
 has raised them from their former lethargy ? What has made 
 of that barbarous tribe a regular and civilized society ? What, 
 gentlemen ? The same power that made the man — the power 
 of language. Orpheus came down from the mountains of 
 Thracia, he sang, and Greece rose up full of life at the sound 
 of his lyre. A missionary appeared in the desert with a crucifix 
 instead of a harp ; he pronounced the name of God, and the 
 savages, simple even to nakedness, covered their nascent bash- 
 fulness with the leaves of the forest. Children smiled at the 
 man who spoke, and mothers believed in lips which brought 
 to their sons the blessing of the Great Spirit. 
 
 Shall we contemplate other scenes taken from more advanced 
 communities ? A people, after having long held with honour 
 the sceptre of their destiny, lost little by little the sentiment of 
 great things ; they no longer knew how to believe, to deliberate, 
 or to devote themselves ; they were seen bending over a counter, 
 
 2 a 2 
 
35* PROPHECY. 
 
 weighing coins in a balance, instead of weighing the destinies 
 of the world, having no longer any desire beyond the mono- 
 tonous and senseless clinking of money. With abasement of 
 character came servitude ; tyrants sported with that people and 
 imposed upon them laws worthy of their morals. Those tyrants 
 found accomplices even in the traditions of liberty, and the 
 forum, the tribune, the senate, were names with which they 
 covered the degradation of souls and the opprobrium of their 
 tyranny. But whilst this corruption and fear reigned over that 
 degenerate race ; whilst all was silent save falsehood, calumny, 
 delation, baseness of heart and mind, at a moment unlooked 
 for, that people awoke and looked around them : Domitian has 
 disappeared, Nerva has succeeded him. What was it that thus 
 suspended the course of ruins ? What power recalled, even 
 were it but for a day, honourable names and remembrances ? 
 Do not ask, gentlemen : language glided between the interstices 
 of tyranny ; here and there, as in a field harvested, it met with 
 souls who had remained true even in their generation, and 1 
 scattering by them the leaven of the antique power, it reani- 
 mated the senate, the people, the forum, the extinct gods, the 
 fallen majesty, and altogether resuscitating at the same time, 
 they gave to the living and the dead a sacred and a last 
 apparition of country. 
 
 Beyond a people there is only the human race, and perhaps 
 we shall find that the human race also has felt the magic 
 power of language. Perhaps also the human race, plunged in 
 corruption and servitude, may, once in the course of its long 
 history, have felt the divine shock of resurrection. If you have 
 forgotten it, recall to your minds what the world was at the 
 dawn of the times which we call our own. Endeavour in 
 thought to be present at one of those festivals to which it bore 
 at the same time its gods and its morals, its ideas and its joys. 
 Choose the circus or the amphitheatre, the games or the 
 mysteries — any scene whatever of antiquity. Such was the 
 world ! That world is no more. Chaste altars prepare genera- 
 tions laboriously to restore their senses to their proper functions, 
 and the cross, the sign of mortification and humility, instead 
 of presenting the slave as a source of amusement to cruel and 
 dissolute masters, advances before princes to teach them gentle- 
 ness, before the people to give them courage to sustain a grave 
 and impoverished existence. Bloodshed no longer excites 
 
GOD AND MAN. 357 
 
 applause, if it be not given in a great and voluntary sacrifice ; 
 the flesh, dishonoured by the shamelessness of the soul, is no 
 longer presented as an object of public adoration, and in the 
 very midst of great cities, spotless purity has built retreats 
 which are not even celebrated, so much is the heart of man 
 raised in the knowledge and sentiment of virtue. The eye no 
 longer sees traces of mutilations on the brow of the passers-by; 
 the ear is no longer shocked with the abject sounds of private 
 executions, and even public justice appears but rarely before 
 the respected gaze of citizens. A street is an asylum where 
 creatures meet who all bear in themselves the sign of their 
 rights, and the visible inequality of conditions in no way takes 
 from the poor their place and their dignity. What more shall 
 I say? The heart of man is still feeble and devoured by 
 passions, and yet mankind is transformed ; in the very depths 
 of its being it bears a germ of good against which no crime can 
 prevail, and which condemns to the scorn of all the same 
 things which in the ancient world usurped the homage of all. 
 What has accomplished this ? Yet once more, and I grow 
 weary of repeating it, it is language. A man came who called 
 himself God, and who said in the name of God : " Blessed are 
 the poor ! Blessed are they who weep ! Blessed are they who 
 hunger and thirst after justice ! Blessed are the clean of 
 heart ! Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' 
 sake ! " * He said that ; and language, which makes man, 
 which founds civilization, which emancipates nations, that same 
 language from the lips of Christ gave a new force, or rather a 
 new birth to mankind. 
 
 Hereby it is manifest that language is the highest power of 
 the world ; that it is the cause of all the revolutions, whether 
 good or evil, whose succession forms history, and consequently 
 you must not wonder to find it an element of supernatural 
 order, and that to prophecy is to speak. 
 
 I have said, moreover, that Prophecy is a word of God. 
 And here rationalism, which has up to this point consented 
 to my discourse, does not permit me to advance further. 
 Rationalism considers that the idea of God and that of 
 language are two incompatible ideas ; that as God is a purely 
 spiritual being and language a simple vibration of air caused 
 
 • St. Matt. f. 5 and foil. 
 
358 PROPHECY. 
 
 by the physical organs of the voice, we cannot, without de- 
 grading the Divine Majesty, attribute to it so insignificant an 
 operation. 
 
 Is it necessary for me to reply to this ? Is it necessary for 
 me to show you that they degrade the notion of language 
 m order to refuse it to God ? Do you imagine that air agitated, 
 no matter how, possesses the power of obtaining the prodigious 
 effects which I have described to you ? Doubtless, because of 
 our present state in which the soul is united to a body, language 
 also has a body ; it occasions an outer action which vibrates 
 the air. But this is only the phantom of language. Close 
 your eyes, collect yourself, shut up your soul within itself. Do 
 you not hear that it speaks to you ? Do you not hear that 
 without disturbing any physical organ it inwardly articulates 
 words, pronounces phrases, forms a discourse within you? Do 
 you not hear that it grows animated, ardent, eloquent, that it 
 persuades you, and that, nevertheless, all is still in the centre 
 and at the extremities of your body ? Outer language is but 
 the pale and dying expression of inner language, and inner 
 language is thought itself engendering in the depths of the 
 soul by an immaterial fecundity. Were it otherwise — if to 
 speak were but to vibrate the air — could you conceive that air 
 is the vehicle of ideas and sentiments, that it seizes upon your 
 intelligence in its impenetrable recesses, and withdraws it from 
 its proper conceptions ? Language is a spiritual power, united 
 in man to a sensible organ, and giving it impulsion, as the soul, 
 in the totality of its forces, gives impulsion to the whole body. 
 God, who is spirit, may then be language, He may speak to us 
 inwardly without the utterance of any voice heard by the 
 senses, and speak to us outwardly if it please Him to give His 
 communications a character of publicity and authenticity. It 
 is true that in Himself God is not united to a body, that there- 
 fore His language has not an organ naturally and personally 
 subject to Him • but all nature is more obedient towards Him 
 than our bodies are to us. Over nature He has the right of the 
 whole creative power, and it is as easy for Him to use it, as it 
 is for us to use the portion of organised matter subject to us. 
 
 As a spiritual power, then, language belongs to God. But 
 it belongs to Him still more manifestly under another point of 
 view. In fact, if, considered in its first root, language is no 
 other thing than thought making its appearance within and 
 before the soul ; if it is the intercourse of the soul with itself, 
 
GOD AND MAN. 359 
 
 it is also the faculty by which the soul enters into relations 
 with another soul, initiates that soul to its views, its tastes, its 
 desires, spreads out within it, if I may so speak, and receives 
 in its turn, by a systematic exchange, the plenitude of the 
 foreign soul. Language is the bond of spirits, not only of 
 spirits united to a body, but of pure spirits, and who are 
 reciprocally visible in the splendour of their essence ; for that 
 brightness in which they are does not deliver them over to the 
 mercy of one another. They have their closed sanctuary — 
 the free place where they think before themselves — and it 
 is by voluntary language, by language abstract and sublime, 
 that they communicate with each other in order to give them- 
 selves to one another in more abundant and more perfect 
 effusion. Language is, at the same time, the intercourse of 
 spirits with themselves and with other spirits ; it is an outer as 
 well as an inner faculty ; it is the highest means of initiation 
 and communion. Now, I ask, shall we refuse to God the 
 power of initiation and communion ? Shall we refuse to Him 
 who has established all the relations between beings — from the 
 grain of sand to the seraphim — shall we refuse to Him the 
 power of holding relations with intelligent beings, of com- 
 municating His thoughts and His will to them — in fact, of 
 speaking to them? "There is nothing in the world without 
 voice," * said the Apostle Saint Paul ; there is nothing without 
 voice, because there is nothing without communication, and 
 God alone is to be at the same time silence and isolation ! 
 God alone is to be silent, and to stand aloof in an exile 
 as immense as His nature ! No, gentlemen, my reason can 
 no more conceive this thing than my heart ; and with the joy 
 of evidence I repeat those words of the Book of Wisdom : 
 " The spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, and that 
 which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice." t 
 
 You hear ! " That which containeth all things." In fact, 
 God being the primordial type of beings, they possess nothing 
 which God does not possess more perfectly; and since language 
 is within us, it is necessary that it should be in God in an 
 ineffable and infinite manner. This is also what Catholic 
 doctrine teaches, and what the Apostle Saint John says to us 
 with such profound elevation at the commencement of his 
 Gospel : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiv. 10. + Ibid. i. 7. 
 
360 PROPHECY. 
 
 with God, and the Word was God."* As your language is the 
 fruit of your soul — the expression arid effusion of your soul — 
 there is alsp something in God which is the fruit, the expres- 
 sion, and the effusion of His soul, which is "God of God, Light 
 of Light," to use the expression of the Council of Nice. And 
 as all the force of your language is in your soul, all the force 
 of the divine language is also in the source from whence it 
 springs. Have you remarked that there are dead as well as 
 living words — words that fall upon the earth like a spent 
 arrow, and others that fall into the mind like a devouring 
 flame? And certainly you have not believed that the dif- 
 ference between them sprang from the air more or less agitated 
 by the mechanical force of the lungs. Their difference springs 
 from the soul, which is the principle of language. Dead words 
 are those which come from a dead soul ; living language is that 
 which comes from a living soul. When an orator, in a matter 
 capable of eloquence, speaks without moving you, when he 
 leaves you master of your resolutions, insensible to error or to 
 truth, be sure that a soul has not spoken to you. For it is im- 
 possible, if a soul had spoken to you, that your own could 
 remain a stranger to it ; it is impossible for a soul to receive 
 without emotion the expression of another soul. 
 
 And you would take from God that expression of the soul ! 
 From God, who is the soul eternally and infinitely living, who 
 is all life, all effusion ; you would take from Him that which 
 remains to us under the icy walls of the flesh ! Oh ! how God 
 abhors that prison wherein the unbeliever seeks to confine 
 Him ; and how eloquently He says to us in His Gospel : " Man 
 does not live by bread alone, but by every word which 
 proceedeth from the mouth of God."t 
 
 In fact, whilst the language of man, even the most en- 
 lightened and the most eloquent, contains of itself only verities 
 insufficient for the life of the human race, the Word of God 
 abundantly diffuses treasures of wisdom such as our own can 
 only acquire by accepting it. It is the mediating light by 
 which the infinite intelligence raises created intelligences 
 towards itself, and communicates to them ideas which, whilst 
 surpassing their nature, draw them nevertheless nearer to their 
 end. This operation includes nothing which is, not very con- 
 ceivable and very simple. All language is necessarily in equa- 
 
 * St. John i. I. t Matt. iv. 4. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 361 
 
 tion with the thought which it expresses ; as is the value of 
 the thought of a being, so is it also the value of his language. 
 Now, the thought of God is as great as Himself — that is to 
 say, without measure — and consequently His Word, whether 
 He retains it within Himself, or whether He produces it out- 
 wardly, necessarily contains truths which are inaccessible to 
 our minds by means of evidence and demonstration. But 
 things inevident and undemonstrable are not unintelligible ; 
 and when enounced by God, and affirmed by Him, they become 
 an incomparable seat of certainty and light for the intelligence 
 which receives them. The intelligence does not see the 
 infinite, but knows it. 
 
 This phenomenon, in due proportions, is presented to us 
 in the purely human order. What, indeed, is the action of 
 human language upon man in a state of infancy ? Does it 
 not act upon infancy as the Divine Word acts upon mankind 
 — that is to say, by way of affirmation and initiation? The 
 infant believes his father, who communicates to him in simple 
 but affirmative language truths which that feeble intelligence is 
 not yet capable of demonstrating, and which nevertheless 
 gradually draw him from the native ignorance in which he lies, 
 form his thought, elevate his heart, and make of him a being 
 moved by knowledge and love. 
 
 I will go further ; I will say that in all language which 
 teaches, there is a mystery of authority and initiation. I will say 
 that you, my contemporaries, whatever degree of maturity you 
 may have attained, are but men initiated in the language of the 
 nineteenth century. You think, perhaps, that you have formed 
 yourselves. You err ; the nineteenth century has formed you. 
 And what is the nineteenth century ? A spirit expressed by 
 language, which language becomes transformed into public 
 opinion, lives in the air which you inhabit, penetrates even to 
 your bones, and governs you without your knowledge, unless a 
 more powerful language has emancipated you from it by causing 
 you to respire other and higher truth. Whatever mental 
 power you may think you possess, whatever greatness of 
 character or genius nature may have endowed you with, not 
 one among you is of himself independent of his age — not one 
 among you, of his own power, speaks higher language than the 
 language of his time. Even when in advance of it, you are 
 but its echoes and its servants. So much does man need to 
 be instructed by a mind superior to his own. So much is 
 
362 PROPHECY. 
 
 it part of his destiny to hear, to receive, and to obey. Now to 
 whom, rather than to God, does he owe that obedience ? The 
 language of an age is doubtless an authority worthy of respect : 
 it is the result of a great movement of the human mind, caused 
 by a long course of events which have turned the scale of 
 things and ideas. But this is only a station in vicissitude. 
 The tempest of the future will soon bear the mobility of the 
 world on other anchors, and although there is a certain degree 
 of logic in that inconsistency, there is nothing even in all ages 
 taken together possessing a character worthy of our faith. 
 Nevertheless we give our faith to them because even the 
 natural order, although pressing upon us on all sides, is so 
 profoundly complicated that we require a master to teach 
 us the secret of a single day. 
 
 And God is not to teach us the secret of eternity? But 
 we oppose him in vain. There is in the world another teach- 
 ing than that of ages, another language that that of man. 
 This language changes and passes. Although so many 
 ingenious lips have been its eloquent organs, although writing 
 has lent its durability to the immortality of eloquence, the 
 human tongue has not been able to found the temple of truth. 
 The columns lie upon the ground, moved from age to age by 
 constructions upon which men have graven the prophecy of 
 their duration, and which turns to ruins under the hands of the 
 builders who come after. Man destroys man, and time reaps 
 time. One single edifice stands erect amidst the rubbish where 
 the contradictory works of the human mind are heaped together. 
 The inscription upon this edifice is " The Word of God." 
 It is that word which, after having created the world and man 
 has not abandoned them to the mercy of their own thoughts, 
 too feeble before such a work, but has taught them the 
 mystery of their principle and their end. It is that word 
 which, having once pronounced its secret, known to itself alone, 
 has never ceased to repeat it before heaven and earth, calling 
 ages and races by their proper names, creating prophets against 
 all forgetfulness, apostles against all falsehood, circulating in 
 the human mind as its very blood, often adulterated, never 
 destroyed, drawing forth light from error and life from death. 
 This word is Christianity,— the Church, — unity in stability, — 
 all that remains amidst all that passes away. Take it from the 
 world if you can, what would remain ? Time and man : time 
 which passes, and man who doubts. It is too little for a soul. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 363 
 
 I have analyzed prophecy, gentlemen, inasmuch as language 
 is its first element. My intention is to seek if it does not 
 contain another, and what is the nature of that second element. 
 Before doing this I will immediately examine with you the 
 mechanism of language, as being the prophetic root in which 
 •we may be able to discover what we do not yet know. 
 
 The effect of language is the enlightenment of the under- 
 standing and the direction of the will. How is this miraculous 
 phenomenon produced ? By what process does language 
 enlighten the mind and move the will ? We must first suppose 
 that it is addressed to an intelligent being, that is to say, to a 
 faculty capable of knowing, for if it were addressed to a being 
 -of what kind soever, which was incapable of knowing, it would 
 at most produce only a sensation. Thus the animal hears 
 language materially — some even faithfully reproduce it — but it 
 causes in them only instinctive movements connected with the 
 sensible order of which they form a part. This first condition 
 necessary to the efficacy of language being established, what 
 passes between the intelligence that speaks and the intelligence 
 that listens ? Evidently the first presents to the second an 
 intelligible object — that is to say, a truth. For every truth 
 however profound it may be, is intelligible, and may be 
 enounced by means of language, which is the mould and 
 representation of the true. I suppose, for instance, that you 
 are ignorant of mathematics, and that it is my mission 
 to teach them to you — here is a truth of that order which I 
 should have some day to present to you : If a square be 
 constructed upon the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, 
 the surface of that square would be equal to the surface of 
 the squares constructed upon the two other sides of the same 
 triangle. 
 
 This is a portion of elementary geometry which is incon- 
 testable and proved, yet those of you who have not studied the 
 elements of that science have not even understood me ; they 
 have felt the sensation of the words which I have pronounced, 
 and no more. Why is this ? Is it because this proposition is 
 not a truth? It is a truth. Is it because that truth is not 
 within the comprehension of the human intelligence ? It is 
 within the comprehension of the human intelligence, and even 
 within the power of a simple student of mathematics. Why 
 then do you not understand it ? Manifestly because, in order 
 for language to have its effect of illumination, it is not sufficient 
 
364 PROPHECY. 
 
 that it presents to the mind an intelligible object. It is also 
 necessary that the terms whose logical enchainment constitute? 
 language should possess their individual evidence in order that 
 the mind might seize their sense — that is to say — discover 
 under each sound the idea which it contains, and next, the 
 general idea which the discourse includes. This takes place 
 by definition. By means of definition, language enlightens 
 language by decomposing it into such simple elements, that 
 each word becomes a light, or, if you prefer, a ray of that total 
 light which becomes the evidence of the mind. 
 
 Let me give you proof of this by defining the proposition 
 which I have chosen as an example. 
 
 A triangle is a figure determined by three lines which meet 
 so as to produce three angles. When one of these angles is- 
 right — that is to say, formed by two lines which fall perpen- 
 dicularly upon one another — the triangle is called right-angled. 
 In this case, the side of the triangle opposed to the right angle 
 is the longest of the three, it being manifest that as the angles 
 increase the side corresponding to them increases in propor- 
 tion. This long side of a right-angled triangle is the hypo- 
 thenuse. If it be taken as the base of a square, and two others- 
 are constructed on the short sides of the same triangle, the 
 surface of the square of the hypothenuse will be equal to the 
 surface of the two other squares. 
 
 You now understand the proposition ; it is no longer for 
 you an enchainment of words, but of ideas, which by their con- 
 nection form a new idea. Language has become enlightened 
 by being defined. 
 
 But is this all ? Is the mystery of initiation accomplished ? 
 Has your understanding become enlightened ? Certainly not ; 
 you see clearly what the words would convey to you, but you 
 do not yet see that what they say to you is true. _ Nothing 
 convinces you that the square of the hypothenuse is, in fact, 
 equal in its surface to the squares of the other tvyo sides of the 
 right-angled triangle ; you possess neither the evidence nor the 
 certainty of it. It is for language to give you these, and it will 
 do so by demonstration— that is to say, by showing you that 
 that idea, which is new to you, is nevertheless contained in 
 other ideas which, by their invincible and primordial clearness 
 form the very foundation of your reason. Language will take 
 the obscure idea, will lead it step by step even to the intelligible 
 seat which is the centre and the torch of your soul, will present 
 
GOD AND MAN. 365 
 
 it there to the principle from whence it emanates, and give to 
 you in the sentiment of their unity that ray of light which is 
 evidence, that repose of the mind which is certainty. Or even, 
 •if demonstration be not possible, whether because the truth 
 proposed belongs to an order whose principle is not in the 
 human understanding, or because it belongs to the profundity 
 of a science which you have not the time or the will to acquire,- 
 then language, initiating you by a shorter road, presents a 
 •character of authority to you which will invest the idea with a 
 sufficient and legitimate sanction. 
 
 Such is the natural strategy of language. And yet, not- 
 withstanding that triple power of proposition, definition, and 
 demonstration, language is not certain of success. You are 
 able to resist it ; you are able to refuse your assent to it, to 
 brave its light ; and, intrenched in the fortress of your own 
 •convictions, not even to feel, to the distant remorse of your 
 conscience, that truth has spoken to you. You are feeble and 
 free ; feebleness and liberty protect you against the ascendency 
 of language. Feebleness veils from you the splendour of truth 
 •which it contains, liberty permits you to refuse to accept its 
 yoke. It is needful then to do more than propose truth to 
 you, more than define it, more than demonstrate it to you ; it 
 is needful to persuade you. Persuasion is the eternal glory of 
 language human and divine ; this is the victory, of which 
 Montaigne should have said, rather than of Marathon or of 
 Platsea, " that it is the most glorious which the sun has ever 
 ■seen," since it is the victory of thought over the two greatest 
 powers of the world, namely, feebleness and liberty. 
 
 But how and by what are we to persuade ? I will give you 
 an example. 
 
 In 1738, England was ruled by a ministry who desired 
 peace, and at any cost. Now, at that very time, an English 
 sailor was captured at sea, outraged and mutilated by the 
 Spaniards, and this event produced a great movement of 
 public indignation throughout England. Nevertheless the 
 ministry had resolved to preserve peace, and the British Parlia- 
 ment had formed the same determination. The sailor appeared 
 in the streets of London, he showed the wounds and injuries 
 which he had received, and so excited popular indignation, 
 that the parliament could not avoid seeing him, and listening 
 to his complaint. He appeared then in the House of Commons, 
 and after relating with calm and simple brevity the history of 
 
366 PROPHECY. 
 
 the assault of which he had been the victim, he ended with 
 these words — "When the Spaniards mutilated me in this way 
 they wanted to make me afraid of death, but I accepted death 
 as I had accepted outrage, recommending my soul to God, 
 and my revenge to my country." War was declared. That 
 unlettered man needed but a quarter of an hour to change the 
 councils of his country, to force the ministry to draw the 
 sword, the parliament to vote the subsidies, the nation to 
 applaud, and human blood to be shed in order to avenge his- 
 outrage. He had persuaded. 
 
 And daily you witness these triumphs of language ; or at 
 least, if they are more rare than I say, you witness them some- 
 times, were it only in remembrance, on recalling to mind the 
 famous exhibitions of eloquence. You hear Demosthenes 
 obtaining the condemnation of ^Eschines, Cicero drawing from 
 the hands of Caesar the condemnation of Ligarius, and you ask 
 in what consists that sovereign art without which reason and 
 justice are not sure of victory, by which error and passion 
 obtain it but too often. Yes, eloquent language is a domi- 
 nating power which commands obedience ; but what is elo- 
 quence ? What can it impart to language but light and truth ? 
 Is there anything in the world more persuasive than light, more 
 powerful than truth ? Yes, gentlemen, what is more powerful 
 than truth is the principle from whence it 'emanates ; what is 
 more persuasive than light is the centre from whence it springs ; 
 what is greater than language is the soul from whence it pro- 
 ceeds. Eloquence is the soul itself; eloquence is the soul 
 bursting all the bands of the flesh, quitting the bosom that bore 
 it, and casting itself headlong into the soul of another. Can 
 you then wonder that it commands, that it reigns? It is a 
 soul which has taken the place of your own. Is it not plain 
 that that soul which is within you, which is yourself, more 
 than yourself, says to you, Go ! and you go ; Come ! and you 
 come ; Bend the knee ! and you kneel? 
 
 In short, the mystery of language at the state of eloquence, 
 is the substitution of the soul that speaks for the soul that 
 listens ; or to speak with justice that leaves nothing incom- 
 plete, it is the fusion of the soul that speaks with the soul that 
 listens Eloquence has but one rival, and yet that rival is one 
 only because it is eloquent ; it is love. Love, like eloquence, 
 melts hearts, and their power, so dissimilar in appearance, has 
 the same cause and the same effect. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 367 
 
 Now, it is not sufficient, either for God or man, to propose 
 to define and to demonstrate truth. For God meets with the 
 same obstacles to His word as man to his own, and even 
 greater. Whilst human language is but the organ of thoughts 
 accessible to finite intelligences which have their root and 
 their proof in the natural orbit of reason, the Divine Word, 
 essentially revealing in its nature, bears with it truths of which 
 the universe forms hardly the shadow, of which reason is but 
 a reflection, and to which no measure is applicable but the 
 infinite. If then man is feeble before the things which he sees 
 and touches, if his own history is a labyrinth before him, and 
 his own mind an abyss, what will he become before the infinite 
 unveiled by a simple affirmation ? If he is free against man, 
 how much more free will he be against God, a being placed at 
 so great a distance from him, and so much the less violent in 
 His operations as He is absolute master of all ? Doubtless in 
 order to give credence to His word, God supports it by striking 
 signs ; but those very signs are subject to discussion, and 
 even if the mind, mute in their presence, knows not what 
 to oppose to the splendour of their testimony, it will always 
 find within itself, whether from the obscurity of the thing 
 revealed, or from the sole effort of liberty, a principle of 
 resistance and illusion. The Jews, for three years, saw 
 Jesus Christ acting among them as a supreme master of 
 nature ; for three years they brought to Him all the infirmities 
 of the body to be healed by a word from His mouth, or a 
 touch of His raiment; they witnessed the miracles of His 
 death after having been spectators of the miracles of His life ; 
 and yet, notwithstanding so many signs witnessed by them, 
 notwithstanding the anterior prophecies whose depositaries 
 they were, and whose accomplishment they looked for, a veil 
 remained before their eyes. They were not able to believe in 
 the humility of God; the thunderbolt would perhaps have 
 converted them, goodness made them blind and ungrateful. 
 God made Himself too little for them, and the terrible 
 majesties of Sinai hid from them the mercy that visited them. 
 It is the same with that multitude of souls who exhaust or 
 torture themselves into incredulity. The miracles of sixty 
 centuries pass before them as a chance without cause; they 
 admit that it is grand and wonderful, but without humbling 
 their hearts before the mystery that covers those marvels lost 
 to them. According to the expression of Scripture, " they see 
 
368 PROPHECY. 
 
 and they do not see, they hear and they do not hear:" * the 
 book of life is in their hands with the inimitable seal of the 
 Divine Omnipotence ; they see it, they touch it, they think of 
 it for an instant, and pass on. 
 
 And if here under the walls of Notre Dame, I were to raise 
 the dead in the name of Christ, do you suppose you would all 
 leave this place convinced and converted? No; I am sure 
 you would not, and the whole history of Christianity is an 
 undeniable proof of this. 
 
 It is not enough then for the word of God, in order to 
 become established in souls, to be authorised by certain 
 miracles it must also vanquish the resistance of man'to divine 
 truth ; it is necessary for it to move, to touch — in fine, to 
 persuade. The Spirit of God, the only Spirit capable of 
 containing the infinite, must descend by an immediate in- 
 fluence into the narrow vase of our heart, must incite^ it, 
 inspire it, produce in it, in a more powerful manner than 
 human eloquence, the assimilation of the inferior to the 
 superior soul. It is there whence springs all the intercourse 
 between God and man, and man and God. If the eternal 
 soul does not really approach the created soul here below, 
 religion is but a dream over which we ought to weep. We 
 should inscribe over the portals of its temples, as over the 
 portal of hell, " Whoever enters here must leave hope behind 
 him." It is the Spirit of God that gives life to the Divine 
 Word, as it is the spirit of man that gives life to human 
 language. Language separated from its spirit is nothing more 
 than a dead body in a tomb. Now God being always living 
 His word also exists always. Once sent from Him, wherever 
 it may go and in whatever form it may subsist, it is aided 
 by its Father who lives in it and it in Him. Whilst human 
 language perishes on the first furrow which time makes, and 
 gives to the ear of generations only an echo disdained by 
 those who think they still hear it, the Divine Word sows its 
 immortality in the ruins of the world. It is as fertile after 
 a thousand years as on the day when it was first enounced ; it 
 inspires the same faith, creates the same works, is recognised 
 by the same signs, and effaces them all by that of its own 
 
 life. 
 
 That life has a name celebrated in the history of the 
 
 * St. Luke viii. 8. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 369 
 
 relations between man and God; it is called grace— that is 
 to say, the unmerited gift, the highest of all gifts. And what 
 gift indeed can be greater than the Spirit of God Himself 
 placed in intimate contact with the spirit of man ! This is 
 the marvel which began with the world, and whose con- 
 summation by Christ the prophets announced from hour to 
 hour. David said, " Cast me not away from thy presence, and 
 take not thy Holy Spirit from me."* Solomon said, "And 
 who shall know thy thought, except thou give wisdom and 
 send thy Holy Spirit from above ! " t Isaiah said, " And the 
 Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him ; the spirit of wisdom 
 and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the 
 spirit of knowledge and of godliness." J Joel said in the name 
 of God, " I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh ; and your 
 sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall 
 dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions."! The 
 precursor said, " I indeed baptize you with water ; but there 
 shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes 
 I am not worthy to loose, he shall baptize you with the Holy 
 Spirit and with fire." || And Jesus Christ said, " When they 
 shall deliver you up for my sake, take no thought how or what 
 to speak ; for it shall be given to you in that hour what to 
 speak; for it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your 
 Father that speaketh in you." f He said also, " I will ask 
 the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he 
 may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of Truth whom the 
 world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth 
 him ; but you shall know him, because he shall abide with 
 you, and shall be in you." * * Not that Jesus Christ, the Son of . 
 God and Very God, did not communicate to His disciples the 
 grace and truth whose fulness He was ; but because, being the 
 eternal Verb, He was especially charged with the sowing of 
 the Word, which is the first prophetic element, whilst the 
 effusion of grace, the second element of prophecy, was reserved 
 in all its plenitude to the third person of the Holy Trinity, 
 coeternally issued from the Father and the Son, the fruit and 
 bond of their love, the last term of their divine fecundity, and 
 therefore charged with placing the final seal of life to the work 
 
 * Ps. li. II. t Wisd. ix. 17. 
 
 % Wisd. xi. 2. § Joel ii. 28. 
 
 I! St. Luke iii. 16. IT St. Matt. x. 19, 20. 
 
 ** St. John xiv. 16, 17. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 PROPHECY. 
 
 of God in time. It was fitting also that the two prophetic 
 elements, the word and grace, although inseparable from one 
 another, should, nevertheless, have had a distinct emission, so 
 that mankind, warned by the grandeur of that double accession, 
 should feel that it was not capable of communicating with 
 God, even by means of His Word, without the perpetual and 
 intimate assistance of the Divine Spirit. Such was the object, 
 and such is the sense of that great day in which the Paraclete 
 announced by Jesus Christ descended visibly upon the apostles, 
 and taking from them the remains of weakness and obscurity 
 which they had still in them, made of them those men whose 
 blood, after that of Christ, has founded upon earth the reign 
 of truth. 
 
 There are but few among you who have not known by 
 personal experience the reality of the prophetic mystery. You 
 have all received the seeds of that language, which resembles 
 none other ; all of you at some time or other, as children or as 
 young men, have felt in your souls an unction that filled them 
 with light, and brought to you in chaste tears the taste for 
 good, forgetfulness of the senses, the peace and presence of 
 God. On that day all was said to you. No man will ever give 
 you back its joy ; no love will ever bring you back its perfume, 
 but the love which was then given to you, and, which, being 
 the divine goodness itself, waits but for a regret and a desire 
 from you to love you again. May you draw from your heart 
 that desire and that regret, and, by a second experience of 
 grace, become again and for ever the children and the apostles 
 of that Word which alone never deceives ! 
 
MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF 
 PROPHECY. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 It results from our last conference, that the things revealed 
 by God through prophecy surpass the natural power of our 
 understanding, and are therefore for us beyond all demonstra- 
 tion and above all comprehension. Were they only undemon- 
 strable, the mind might perhaps accept this condition, since, 
 even in the natural order, there are truths which may be 
 attested but not demonstrated, such as the ancient events 
 which form history ; and since man obtains credence to his 
 testimony in regard to human things, it is not easy to under- 
 stand why it should be refused in regard to divine things. But 
 there is this difference, that the object of prophecy is incom- 
 prehensible as well as undemonstrable, and this is what 
 rationalism will not forgive. What ! (says rationalism) you 
 show forth prophecy as the light of the world, and yet you 
 yourselves confess that you do not comprehend it ! You call 
 your dogmas by the significant name of mysteries ; you seem 
 to make a boast of the obscurity that reigns in revelation. After ' 
 reading your books you exclaim, " O the depth of the riches of 
 the wisdom and of the knowledge of God ! How incompre- 
 hensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways !"* 
 Now, how can that which is mysterious, obscure, unsearchable, 
 incomprehensible, in fine, be the light of the world ? For us — 
 that is to say, for every man who does not renounce his reason 
 — mystery is at the same time useless and absurd ; useless, 
 
 * Rom. xi. 33. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
372 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 since its sense is not to be seized ; absurd, since wherever the 
 sense escapes nothing rational remains. 
 
 Such is the double difficulty which rises before us, and 
 which requires from me a double explanation. We are told 
 that mystery is useless — I shall prove its utility. They add 
 that it is absurd — I shall prove its reasonableness. 
 
 It is certain, and it would be a great illusion to wish to 
 hide it from you, that the Word of God reveals to us things 
 which surpass our reason ; and were it otherwise, God would 
 have no motive in speaking to us, since we should be able of 
 ourselves to discover the truths about which it may please 
 Him to communicate with us. But God is greater than we 
 are ; placed on the horizon of the infinite, which is His essence, 
 He sees what we do not see, and tells us what no one but 
 Himself can say to us. Why does He communicate this to 
 us? Being unable or unwilling to give us evidence of the 
 things which He reveals to us, why does He reveal them to us ? 
 Where lies the utility of such communication ? In proving to 
 you in a former conference the necessity of the supernatural 
 intercourse between man and God, I have already answered 
 this question. But I did so metaphysically ; and if you will 
 permit me we will to-day leave metaphysics aside. Utility is a 
 matter of fact. You deny the utility of the incomprehensible, 
 I maintain it. It matters little now about the exact definition 
 of those words — understand or not understand. To define 
 them would perhaps suffice to put an end to the question ; but 
 I shall not do so. I leave them in your minds as they are, and 
 starting from the vulgar idea that to be useful is to do good, I 
 ask, Does the incomprehensible do good to man ? If it does, 
 if history proves it perfectly, whatever reasoning you may 
 oppose to that result will fall powerless. In a question of 
 utility, the result decides all. It matters not whether we 
 explain to ourselves or do not explain the benefit ; it exists. 
 Is there anyone here who has ever despised a benefit because 
 he did not render account to himself of the process by which 
 his benefactor had served him ? 
 
 I renew, then, my question. I ask myself and you : Does 
 the incomprehensible do good to man ? 
 
 There are some among you who think they owe nothing to 
 this strange Benefactor. Disciples of reason, they think they 
 are formed by themselves, and that nothing but evidence has 
 entered into the structure of their minds. But even were this 
 
GOD AND MAN. 373 
 
 true, a man is not a man, and I speak of man. I speak of 
 you all, contemporaries of the nineteenth century, connected 
 by your fathers with the ages which have gone by ; belonging 
 altogether to a great historical movement, which has changed 
 the face of the world, and prepared for each of you another 
 destiny than that which the course of ancient civilisation would 
 have formed for him. This is the real man, the man whom I 
 interrogate, and not the ideal man who believes he has sepa- 
 rated himself from the paternity of his times. Now, what has 
 formed that real man ? What has formed modern mankind ? 
 Is it not Christianity ? And is there even one among you who 
 would deny the superiority of the Christian man over those 
 who have sprung from another generation? If you doubt 
 this, I would say to you, Compare yourselves with the most 
 illustrious and perfect specimens of mankind that the world 
 has produced before and since you have occupied your place 
 therein. Certainly that was a great race whose country was 
 Athens and Rome — a race fertile in legislators, in sages, in 
 heroes ; memorable in war by its conquests, in politics by its 
 institutions, in peace by its arts, and which, although ex- 
 tinguished for many centuries, draws us even now around its 
 ruins to give us lessons. But however marvellous its history, 
 which of you would consent to live again in that antiquity ? 
 Which of you would sacrifice the rights and duties of the 
 Christian man for all the glory of the Greek or the Roman ? 
 On reading the most glorious things which they have left to 
 us, we feel, from their gods to their virtues, that they were but 
 infant peoples, and that the very excellence of their literature, 
 so far from being a veil to their inferiority, is its striking and 
 immortal revelation. The masterpieces of those two languages 
 will live to the latest posterity as a testimony that habits of 
 barbarism may be joined to an exquisite cultivation of the 
 mind, and great feebleness of thought to marvellous science of 
 style. Therefore, when Christianity, born with the world but 
 unknown by it, rose up before that ingenious and powerful 
 society which had never known an equal upon earth, it had 
 but to speak and to die in order to ruin its civilisation. The 
 man of Greece and Rome cannot hold his place before the 
 Christian man. 
 
 And what, then, was the Christian man ? What did he 
 bring with him that was more powerful than Athens and 
 Rome ? — Athens, mistress in the science of speaking ; Rome, 
 
374 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 mistress in the art of fighting and governing. What did he 
 bring, gentlemen? One single thing— which contained all 
 the rest — the incomprehensible. He announced to the world 
 that the human race, defiled from the beginning, received and 
 transmitted with its blood the joint responsibility of an inex- 
 piable fault ; but that God, one in three persons, had sent His 
 Son upon earth to take our nature in the womb of a virgin, 
 and, by a voluntary sacrifice, to redeem us from sin and death. 
 He announced that this mystery was accomplished, that the 
 Son of God, come in the flesh, had appeared in Judaea, that 
 He had taught there, and that, having been put to death upon 
 a cross, buried in a sepulchre, He was raised again on the third 
 day, assuring by His death His triumph over sin, and by His 
 resurrection His triumph over death. Such was the Christian 
 dogma, and such also was the principle of the civilisation 
 which has made you what you are, by overthrowing all the 
 antique society. Either you must deny your superiority over 
 the ideas and the things of paganism, or recognise the utility 
 of the incomprehensible. 
 
 You may suppose that Christianity includes two distinct 
 elements — the one reasonable, which is the source of the good 
 wrought by it in the world ; the other mysterious, which is but 
 an envelope by which exalted truths and holy virtues have by 
 chance been covered. In fact, does not the Gospel naturally 
 explain itself? If it speaks of miracles and dogmas which 
 alarm reason, it speaks still more of a sage who teaches the 
 people simple and sublime morality, gentleness, modesty, 
 patience, disinterestedness, justice, and that which includes 
 all in a single precept — the sincere love of God and man. 
 Must we wonder that a code so perfect, emanated from a pure 
 soul which maintained even to death the lessons He had given,, 
 should at length have produced in the human race a salutary 
 and memorable effect? It is impossible to read the Gospel 
 without wishing at least to be better ; and this desire, become 
 that of a great number, has at length been realised in some, 
 who, from age to age, have adorned the world by their virtues. 
 The incomprehensible is here but an unimportant help ; it is 
 the fable that precedes or that clothes truth. I grant that 
 Christianity results entirely in the love of God and mankind ; 
 and here lies the secret of the prodigious change which it has 
 introduced and maintains among us. But this love, so long 
 despised upon earth, so difficult even now to know by proper 
 
GOD AND MAN. 375 
 
 experience, is that revolution itself in its last, its most profound 
 effect. The Gospel, you say, has caused you to love God and 
 man : it is so — I know it, I proclaim it — but how did it 
 produce this love for those who had not been loved for four 
 thousand years ? How has it drawn the human heart from the 
 egotism of its passions, and above all from the egotism of its 
 virtues? Is it because it has said, Love God, love mankind? 
 Alas ! if it had said but that, it would have exercised just the 
 power which so many dead philosophers exercise over us, who 
 honour us with their counsels. Men would have set up a 
 statue of Jesus Christ at the door of an academy ; they would 
 have preserved his portrait in the museums of civilized nations ; 
 and, since the invention of printing, they would have written 
 in all the languages of Europe that the Gospel is a great book ; 
 but the poor would neither have known the book nor the sage, 
 and the hearts of all would have continued to find enjoyment 
 in selfish sensuality and pride. 
 
 Would you learn how Jesus Christ has raised us towards 
 God, and inclined us towards man ? Leave the Church of 
 Notre Dame, and turn to your left. Upon a building there, 
 without architectural merit, you will read this inscription, 
 Hotel Dieu. Perhaps the inscription may have disappeared 
 from the stone. I know not ; but it subsists in the memory 
 and language of the people, and that is enough. Cross the 
 threshold, mount the staircase, raise your eyes to the image 
 above the door, you will read, L'Homme Dieu. Advance 
 still further, enter the cell of one of those voluntary servants 
 who devote their days to the infirmities of the poor. You are 
 young, attractive, rich ; she is clothed in beauty which comes 
 from virtue ; offer her your hand. She will answer you, To 
 me, L'Epouse de Dieu ! If these three incomprehensible 
 worlds — the House of God, the Man God, the Spouse of God 
 — do not yet enlighten you, ask that soul why she has quitted 
 the hopes of the world to consume herself in this hospital, 
 amongst misery which is not her own ; she will tell you its 
 secret. Of whom would you learn it if not of those who 
 possess the love whose cause you seek? She will tell you that 
 she loves God, because God loved her even to death ; that she 
 loves mankind, because God, in taking their nature upon Him, 
 and dying for them, has caused them to share in His adorable 
 goodness. If God is not man, if He did not die, be sure there 
 is no Spouse of God, or House of God ; the virtue of the 
 
376 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 Christian comes from the incomprehensible, as the flower from 
 the earth. The incomprehensible is the soul of the Christian ; 
 it is his light, his strength, his life, his breath. Say that this is 
 madness, if you will. I have not undertaken to prove that it is 
 not so, but that it serves you. For sixty years you have been 
 endeavouring to do without this madness, and to preserve the 
 benefits of Christianity whilst repudiating its dogmas : it is for 
 you to judge whether you have succeeded. 
 
 Man is a divine animal, and the incomprehensible is his 
 food. AVere this gift of heaven ever fully withdrawn from him, 
 you would behold a spectacle which I cannot describe, because 
 it has never been beheld. Even paganism, all divested as it 
 was, included the confused remains of the primordial incom- 
 prehensible, and these very remains formed its greatness in 
 certain nations, and in certain times. When Rome had 
 resolved to set up the centre and foundation of her future 
 power upon a solitary hill, she built there, at the same time, a 
 temple and a camp, leaving between the two an empty space, 
 which was, as it were, the seat upon which she held her place, 
 with one hand resting upon her arms, and the other upon 
 heaven. From that place she watched and governed the 
 world, deriving therefrom wisdom as invincible as her courage, 
 and when her victors brought to her the kings and the spoils of 
 nations, they mounted to that Capitol as the tutelary spot 
 where their victories had taken their birth in the will of the 
 gods that dwelt there. This religious character lasted as long 
 as the virtue and liberty of Rome. The sacred mysteries 
 presided over all; they were borne even before the enemy, 
 and those famous generals, who had received from fortune 
 and from their genius so many assurances of victory, dared not 
 trust to a battle without having consulted, through auguries, 
 the impenetrable counsel of the gods of the world and the 
 country. But when Cicero was able to declare that he could 
 not conceive how two augurs could look at one another with- 
 out laughing, Rome fell from the Capitol to the Palatinate, 
 from the temple of the gods to that of the Caesars ; and soon, 
 Tiberius, followed by Xero. heaped the scorn of his tyranny 
 upon the living and dead of the people-king. Laugh as you 
 please at the sacred chickens ; but learn at least that when they 
 were no more, there were no more Scipios. And you will find 
 the same spectacle, resulting from the same cause, everywhere 
 in the history of the world. Everywhere the decline of nations 
 
GOD AND MAN. 377 
 
 follows the decline of the incomprehensible, and the earth has 
 devoured all those who have no longer regarded heaven save 
 as the eye discovers it on the horizon. 
 
 I admire, then, the Egyptians, for having placed the 
 Sphinx at the entry of their temples. It is the old friend of 
 man, and his natural herald to the infinite. Despise it as 
 much as you will, appeal from it to pure reason, to the sacred 
 rights of the human intelligence ; for my part I shall hold to 
 the Sphinx, as long as I see it at the door of virtues that found, 
 and glories that have, a posterity. 
 
 Yet you will say, Why the Sphinx ? Why the incomprehen- 
 sible ? Here, gentlemen, you change the question ; you no 
 longer ask me to prove the utility of the incomprehensible, but 
 to give you the reason of its existence in the human race. 
 Now, I believe I have given you this in the Conference where 
 I recently treated of the need of supernatural intercourse 
 between man and God, arid I shall succeed perhaps in en- 
 lightening you in regard to it by what I am about to say on 
 the subject of the reasonableness of the things whose certainty 
 we possess without understanding them. 
 
 Nothing absurd can be useful, and above all useful to all 
 mankind ; it suffices that the incomprehensible does good to 
 men for us to conclude from it that it is essentially rational. 
 Therefore, whoever says of Christianity that it is the benefactor 
 of the world, says at the same time that the incomprehensible, 
 so far from contradicting reason, is its last and most magni- 
 ficent effort. I feel, nevertheless, that this proof, all-sufficient 
 though it may be, does not respond to the want which you 
 feel of fathoming so grave a subject. I will then take a more 
 direct path, and show you that in every rational thing there 
 enters an incomprehensible element, as in every incompre- 
 hensible thing there is a rational element. It will then be no 
 longer permitted to you to think that reason and mystery 
 mutually reject each other, since the one is never without the 
 other, and as the shadow accompanies light in nature, so 
 it is also in the infinite depths where our intelligence combats 
 truth. 
 
 I affirm in the first place that into every rational thing 
 there enters an incomprehensible element. Nothing is more 
 within the comprehension of reason than the bodies that 
 people space, and especially the bodies that form the globe 
 which we inhabit j reason sees, touches, weighs, measures, con- 
 
378 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 fronts, analyses them, makes of them whatever it wills. And 
 yet what do men call that which in bodies is subject to the 
 investigations of reason ? They call it a phenomenon— that is 
 to say, something that appears. A forcible and sincere avowal, 
 which proves that reason does not see all the body, and that if 
 a part of it unveils to its curiosity, something also still remains- 
 hidden. Do you doubt this ? Consider that other expression 
 by which science designates the body itself, an expression much 
 more formidable and despairing, and which is to the pheno- 
 menon what night is to day. It calls a body a substance — 
 that is to say, what is under; that something which is under 
 what appears. And what, indeed, is a body in itself? When 
 you have proved its colour, its weight, the mode of aggregation 
 of its parts, the action which it exercises on other bodies, do 
 you know what it is? Modern chemistry and, before it, 
 alchemy, have doubtless endeavoured to pursue substance to- 
 its last depths, and draw from it the secret of its composition. 
 They have even succeeded to a degree almost prodigious, and 
 which has opened to us mysteries long hidden by nature from 
 our investigations. Nevertheless the shadow has but retreated 
 without disappearing, and the place which it has yielded to 
 light has not lessened for us the abyss of the unknown. We 
 know that bodies, forced by analysis, resolve into a certain 
 number of substances which we call elements ; but what the 
 element is we know not. Matter takes refuge therein as in a 
 fortress, where it braves the pride of our experiments and the 
 dictation of our will. 
 
 It is the same with the vegetable and animal germ as with 
 the universal element, but with a circumstance which it is well 
 to notice. Science has power over the universal element, in 
 the sense that it is able to make it again constitute a body 
 properly so called ; but when analysis has decomposed the 
 germs of the animal and vegetable order, it is powerless to- 
 recall the principle of life which was contained therein. Under 
 its instruments only inanimate refuse remains. It sees, it 
 touches, the mysterious dust from whence the mighty oak of 
 the forest, or the agile inhabitant of their hidden paths, should 
 spring ; but that dust is henceforth dead. Why dead ? Whence 
 is it that the sepulchre being broken, the living being has dis- 
 appeared ? What is life ? Life is in a germ ; it will remain 
 there for ages, solitary and silent, without becoming lost and 
 without acting ; but let analysis touch it, and life disappears, 
 
 **»*' 
 
GOD AND MAN. 379 
 
 as if jealous nature determined to become more incompte- 
 hensible in proportion as its work became more perfect. 
 
 In man you will find too undeniable a proof of this. Man 
 is a body, and he includes in his body all the unknowns of 
 the material world, all the things that are visible but unex- 
 plained. But conjointly with this first mystery, in the complex 
 tissue of a sole personality, he holds a second abyss more 
 terrible than the first — the abyss of his thought. Man thinks, 
 he wills, he is free, he governs himself, all things of which no 
 trace is seen in the body, and all things which escape from the 
 most ingenious researches of scientific analysis. Never has 
 science been able to attract thought into its crucible, never 
 has it been able to subject it to any instrumented power. The 
 spiritualist affirms that it is not the fruit of the body, but of 
 another substance which he calls spirit, and which, deprived 
 of form, extent, colour, weight — of whatever is known to us by 
 the senses — constitutes a reality of which nothing visible could 
 give us the faintest and most distant representation. Therefore 
 but just now, the lowest of beings — the universal element — 
 although remaining under our eyes, escaped in its essence 
 from the efforts of our investigation ; a little higher, in the 
 animal and vegetable germ, life retreated before our researches, 
 and did not even leave us the consolation of catching a glimpse 
 of the source from whence its activity springs ; now behold 
 spirit, which never, under any form, by any image, has per- 
 mitted us to approach it, although it is ourselves. The 
 materialist, it is true, denies spirit, and maintains that thought 
 is a simple effect of the body attained to a certain state of 
 perfection : but is this clearer ? Do we thereby learn any 
 more clearly how matter, which does not think at all of itself^ 
 derives in a certain organisation the faculty of thinking ? 
 
 However it may be, we think, and in the personal mystery 
 of our thoughts there arises another still higher, which we call 
 the Eternal, the Infinite, the Principle — God. As nature is the 
 natural horizon of our physical vision, God is the necessary 
 horizon of our intellectual vision. We cannot open our eyelids 
 without seeing the indefinite space wherein bodies move, and 
 we cannot awaken our thought without disclosing the first 
 cause that contains in itself all the possible and all the real. 
 The infidel may refuse it the name of God ; he may endeavour 
 to confound the cause with the effect by transporting to the 
 visible world the idea which we have of being subsisting of 
 
380 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 itself: but that despairing effort in no way lessens the depths 
 of the mystery which dwells in thought, and, whatever thought 
 may do, eternity is before it. However, gentlemen, I never 
 address atheism ; that forlorn hope of the last follies of the 
 heart has too few representatives to render it needful to speak 
 to it in a great assembly of men ; your number alone tells me 
 that you believe in God, and therefore it is my right as well as 
 my duty to oppose to your ambition to understand all, the 
 incomprehensible light of His nature and of His name. What 
 intelligence placed before this last abyss can say, I have 
 fathomed it ? What soul, how vast soever it may be, does not 
 halt, sad and pensive, before that short word, God ? An atom 
 confounds us — and behold us in the presence of the Infinite ! 
 Can you represent the Infinite to yourselves ? Can you conceive 
 a substance without beginning in its duration — without limits 
 in its being — filling all with its presence and its action, although 
 concentrated in an indivisible unity which has no place but in 
 itself? The day would run its course before I could even 
 name all the mysteries contained in this supreme mystery ; in 
 which, however, all life takes its birth with all light. For, such 
 is our condition, we meet with darkness in the very things from 
 which we desire light. From earth to spirit, from spirit to God, 
 in the three spheres of our speculation and our activity, a 
 sparing as well as a prodigal hand has wisely mingled the 
 shadow that blinds us with the splendour that enchants us. In 
 vain will reason grow indignant at this adulterous wedlock ; it 
 must accept the incomprehensible as the shore that contains 
 evidence ; or, renouncing truth, address to it, in scepticism, an 
 irrevocable adieu. 
 
 Scepticism, gentlemen, is but the despair of a mind great 
 enough to know that it does not see the " whole of anything," 
 according to the expression of Pascal, but too feeble to respect 
 in mystery the inevitable limit imposed upon the created spirit. 
 Whilst the vulgar rationalist, inebriated by his own ideas, 
 thinks he comprehends all that he thinks, the sceptic, with as 
 much pride and more penetration, discerns the weak side of 
 human science, and conceives a gloomy distaste for truth. 
 Surveying with his melancholy regard the progressive enchain- 
 ment of things, and halting at God, he asks himself, Do 1 
 comprehend God ? No ; remove Him then ! But do I com. 
 prehend myself, my mind ? No ; away then with the mind ; 
 But matter, at least ! Doubtless, I see matter. I make expert 
 
GOD AND MAN. 381 
 
 ments upon it; and, yet, do I know what it is? Can I say 
 that I comprehend it ? Away with matter ! Thus from one 
 degree to another, from one kind of despair to another, 
 reason " vanishes " within itself, according to the energetic 
 expression of St. Paul, and upon the uncertain ruins of 
 all reality, it exclaims with lamentable despair, What do I 
 know, and what am I ? Doubt, it is true, does not often 
 descend to that depth where nothing subsists in the mind ; but 
 wherever it may halt it is the destroyer of the soul, and whether 
 higher or lower, it has but one and the same cause, which is 
 the refusal to consent to the incomprehensible as a necessity 
 and an element of reason. For my part, if I were in this state, 
 if I recognised the sign of truth only in an absolute light, I 
 declare to you, I should not believe in matter any more than 
 in spirit ; any more in spirit than in God ; I should be to my- 
 self a painful enigma, a puff of air in the desert, a lamentation 
 in a sepulchre, the plaything of an existence without principle^ 
 or end ; I should advance in my days at the hazard of each 
 sun, between the sadness of yesterday and the joy of to-morrow, 
 expecting nothing more from life, nothing more from death. 
 But, thanks to God, I adore in evidence the shadow that limits 
 it ; I know that truth, the single and sacred object of my 
 entire soul, is as great as the infinite, and that the infinite, 
 being only comprehensible to its equal — that is to say, to itself, 
 it is natural that I should not see anything entirely, but in a 
 measure sufficient to know without sufficing to exhaust. 
 
 And as in every rational thing an incomprehensible 
 element is found, in every incomprehensible thing a rational 
 element is also found — that is to say, the idea. The idea is 
 all that which the mind sees ; and the mind, seeing nothing 
 but by its primitive light, which is reason ; it follows that every 
 idea, how problematic soever it may be, is a rational element. 
 Now Christianity, whose dogmas we confess to be incom- 
 prehensible, bears evidently in its very dogma the treasure of 
 the idea ; and, if you doubt this, I will give you but one proof 
 of it, namely, that it speaks. Christianity speaks, it has spoken 
 dogmatically for eighteen centuries ; therefore, however incom- 
 prehensible its dogma may be, its dogma is an idea, and 
 consequently something rational. 
 
 Does this reasoning astonish you, gentlemen ? Have you 
 never reflected upon what it is to speak ? To speak is to 
 enchain words together, and words being only ideas living 
 
382 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 Tinder an expression, to speak is to enchain ideas. Whoever 
 speaks gives proof that he sees something in his mind, and 
 transmits to the mind that listens to him the whole, or part, of 
 the light by which he is enlightened. Were it otherwise, 
 language would be but a continuation of sounds falling into 
 the ear, and not into the intelligence ; it would be noise, and 
 yet noise without signification. But, you ask me, does not the 
 absurd also speak ? And, since it speaks, is it not a light, an 
 idea, a rational element ? Doubtless it is all that, and if it 
 were not, it would be impossible to speak and to be under- 
 stood. The absurd is the evidence of the false, and the false 
 being only a truth which is abused, it is truth hidden in the 
 false which consents to be enounced. An absolute error, 
 representing nothing to the mind, would call forth no expres- 
 sion in the thought ; it would be pure nothingness. The glory 
 of truth is to live even in error, and to enlighten the language 
 which expresses it, so that the absurd becomes manifest to the 
 eyes of the understanding. So far, then, from there being no 
 idea or rational substance in the absurd, it is found there in 
 so elevated a degree that all at once exclaim, That is not 
 common sense. The absurd is the second revelation of the 
 true, more powerful perhaps than the direct revelation, and 
 that is the reason why mathematics employ so often that form 
 of reasoning which is called demonstration ad absurdum. 
 
 I return, then, to my declaration: Christianity speaks, it 
 has spoken dogmatically for eighteen centuries; and, there- 
 fore, however incomprehensible its dogma may be, its dogma 
 is necessarily an idea — that is to say — something rational. 
 This is true, perhaps you will say, but it is something rational 
 ■ad absurdum; for since the absurd speaks as much as the in- 
 comprehensible, what hinders it from confounding the incom- 
 prehensible with itself? What hinders it, is that the one is 
 not the other, that the absurd is the evidence of the false, 
 whilst the incomprehensible fails, at the same time, in the 
 evidence of the false and of the true. The incomprehensible 
 is something which reason does not explain, nothing more. 
 Would you deny its existence ? Would you deny that particular 
 state of the human mind ? But I have shown you that the 
 incomprehensible follows us even into the objects of science ; 
 I have presented it to you as the necessary term of our highest 
 light. If the incomprehensible became confounded in its 
 nature with the absurd, there would be no shadows, since the 
 
GOD AND MAN. 383 
 
 absurd is as clear as a demonstration. It being then proved 
 that the incomprehensible is a distinct category of the human 
 mind, a separate condition, if you like it better, where the 
 understanding has neither the evidence of the false nor the 
 evidence of the true, there remains this difficulty : that to 
 understand not is to see nothing. What have I to do against 
 this difficulty ? Must I show you that the incomprehensible is 
 not the exclusion of all idea ; and, consequently, of all rational 
 vision ? On this account I have said : Christianity is incom- 
 prehensible in its dogma ; and, yet, dogmatic Christianity is an 
 idea ; it is an idea, since it speaks. Your reply to that is, The 
 absurd speaks also. Yes, but it speaks with the character of the 
 absurd — that is to say— with the absence of decisive clearness, 
 ■whether for the false or the true. 
 
 If, however, the example of Christianity should embarrass 
 you, from the notion which you may entertain that its doctrine 
 manifestly bears the sign of the absurd, I shall withdraw it from 
 a discussion into which it does not necessarily enter, and ask 
 you, Do you comprehend eternity, the infinite God? Do you 
 comprehend a Being who exists of Himself, who is because He 
 is, without beginning and without end ? Do you comprehend 
 the union in one single person of two substances as opposed 
 to each other as body and spirit? Do you understand the 
 action of body upon spirit, and of spirit upon body ? Assuredly 
 no. These mysteries then which are so profound, so im- 
 penetrable — do they, or do they not, present any idea to your 
 understanding? If you answer me, yes — and you cannot 
 reply in any other manner — I conclude therefrom, that the 
 incomprehensible, notwithstanding its obscurity, does not bear 
 with itself the exclusion of every rational element, and this is 
 what I had to prove. Now remark attentively, it is now a 
 ■question between us only of the general essence of the incom- 
 prehensible. You have said that the incomprehensible con- 
 sidered in itself, in its very nature, is an absurdity; and, I, 
 following you step by step, have had to prove to you that it is 
 not so, and that to propose to man the contemplation of a 
 mystery, so far from dishonouring his intelligence, is to elevate 
 him to regions whose natural and sublime guest he is. For, I 
 have said, reason itself includes an incomprehensible element, 
 and the incomprehensible in its turn contains a rational 
 element; evidence, in mounting towards the higher pole of 
 things, to which it is the great road, meets obscurity there ; and 
 
384 MYSTERY AS THE OBJECT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 mystery, in descending from heaven, bears to us a light worthy 
 of its proper name, which is revelation. 
 
 Hereby you see that the difference between the natural and 
 the supernatural order does not consist in the idea that all is 
 comprehensible in the first, whilst all is comprehensible in the 
 second, but in this, that the truths of the latter are not 
 susceptible of a direct demonstration, whilst the truths of the 
 former flow as a consequence from the luminous germ which is 
 our reason. Thus God, although inscrutable in His essence, is 
 a dogma of nature, because we draw conclusions in regard to 
 Him by the very light which is within us ; but the unity of God 
 in three distinct persons is a dogma of revelation, because it is 
 impossible for us to deduce it from any rational principle. 
 
 At the very last, you will perhaps think that there is more 
 obscurity in the supernatural incomprehensible than in the 
 natural incomprehensible. Now, I can but repeat to you those 
 words of Jesus Christ, " I am the light of the world : he that 
 followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light 
 of life."* And those other words, "lam come a light into 
 the world : that whoever believeth in me may not remain in 
 darkness. "f And those of the Apostle St. Paul to the 
 Christians of Ephesus, "You were heretofore darkness, but 
 now are ye light in the Lord ; walk then as children of the 
 light." % Everywhere in Scripture the natural order compared 
 to the supernatural order is called darkness ; and the super- 
 natural order, light, life, the way, the truth. It is because, 
 however far and however high the most pure reason may reach,, 
 it knows God only by imperfect notions derived from the 
 spectacle of finite things, or from the contemplation of itself. 
 Now, God is all. Whoever knows Him not, knows nothing - r 
 whoever knows Him imperfectly, knows imperfectly ; whoever 
 knows but little of Him, knows but little. And since reason 
 approaches Him but imperfectly, as is too manifest, it is just 
 to say that it is but a faint dawn of a bright day, an enigmatical 
 and painful mirror of truth. But if God, touched by our 
 natural ignorance, brings to us a knowledge of Himself ; if He 
 reveals to us what He is, what He sees, what He feels, what 
 He wills ; if He opens to us the depths of His eternity, His. 
 action upon time, the motives and plans of His Providence ; 
 then doubtless our inner vision will discern, but with difficulty* 
 
 * St. John viii. 12. 
 t St. John xii. 46. X Ephes. v. 8. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 385 
 
 the infinite lines of such revelation ; it will remain under the 
 celestial horizon as it is under created immensity. And yet 
 who will say that he does not know more ? Who will not call 
 his former state darkness, and his new state light ? I grant 
 that the shadow increases with the light, but that is the law of 
 all science and of all light. Is there a man of science who 
 does not discover more abysses in proportion as he penetrates 
 further into nature ? Is there a sun whose light, falling upon 
 a body, does not draw a shadow from it so much the deeper as 
 its rays are the more ardent ? If the finite, itself, on becoming 
 revealed to our vision, becomes so much the more mysterious 
 as it is more visible, what must it be with the infinite ? 
 
 Accept, gentlemen, with a firm mind, that condition of 
 things, that necessity of the incomprehensible which pursues 
 us everywhere. March on, like Israel, under the guidance of 
 that column, half cloud, half fire, the only one that still 
 enlightens and guides the human race. Watch the cloud, in 
 order to learn in it the limits of your nature ; watch the light, 
 in order to learn there the greatness of your destiny. Should 
 the one afflict you, take comfort in the other ; should the 
 West trouble you, turn to the East ; and, in fine, lifting your 
 eyes yet higher, wait in patience and faith for the pure day 
 which is promised to us, and which will dawn from eternity 
 for every soul worthy to behold it ; for although the incompre- 
 hensible cannot even then disappear, since it belongs to the 
 nature of the infinite considered by the finite, nevertheless the 
 vision of God in His very substance will impart to us a posses- 
 sion of Him which will transform the mystery into the joy 
 of ever knowing and ever exhausting our knowledge. 
 
 2 c 
 
THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING 
 TO PROPHECY. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 Having explained the nature of prophecy, and solved the 
 difficulties relative to its object, we must now consider the act 
 by which man, prophetically taught by God, corresponds to 
 that revelation ; for as prophecy has no other object than to 
 establish a supernatural intercourse between God and man, it is 
 not sufficient that God acts on his side — it is necessary that 
 man should respond to Him by a positive act. What is that 
 act ? What is the act by which man responds to God, inasmuch 
 as God enlightens him prophetically — that is to say, manifests 
 to him, by means of language, truths that surpass the power of 
 his rational understanding? This act, gentlemen, could not 
 be an act of knowledge, for knowledge supposes demonstration, 
 and God, in prophecy, does not demonstrate, he affirms with 
 authority. He affirms, and man believes. Faith is the answer 
 which prophecy solicits ; not blind faith, but faith based upon 
 the divine characters that surround and penetrate the revealing 
 testimony. 
 
 In our two last conferences of the year 1836 — a year 
 already so distant from us — I treated the question of Faith. 
 It comes before us again, brought back by the inflexible 
 enchainment of things, and I shall reject it so much the less 
 as I must now consider it under a new aspect. It was neces- 
 sary then more especially to study its nature ; to-day, supposing 
 that nature known, I will reply to two difficulties, and thereby 
 explain to you what faith is. 
 
 We are told, in the first place, that the act of faith, by which 
 man corresponds with the Divine Word, is an act which has no- 
 
GOD AND MAN. 387 
 
 parallel in the natural order, where all takes place by way of 
 knowledge and demonstration ; and that therefore, under this 
 head, there is an anomaly which destroys the synthesis between 
 the two orders— the natural and the supernatural. Although 
 the necessity of a constant synthesis, or similitude, between the 
 two orders is not clearly manifest, I shall nevertheless prove 
 that it exists in the case in question. 
 
 We are told, in the second place, that the act of faith, being 
 irrational in its nature, since it is not the consequence of a 
 demonstration, man is not able to produce it at will, by a simple 
 application of his intelligence and liberty ; but that it is the 
 fruit of chance, custom, certain inclinations of the soul, and 
 that therefore it cannot be an absolute duty upon which our 
 intercourse with God depends. I shall prove, against this 
 objection, that the act of faith is a regular power of man, and 
 that, revelation being known to him, unbelief is a free refusal 
 on his part, consequently a culpable refusal, and one that severs 
 his relations with divine light and love. 
 
 Let us begin with the first difficulty — that of the synthesis 
 between the natural and supernatural orders in regard to 
 faith. 
 
 You have already seen that it is not the prophetic reve- 
 lation alone that brings into our intelligence the element of 
 the incomprehensible ; reason itself is subjected thereto, and its 
 most sensible rays merge on all sides into profound mysteries. 
 At the same time that nature displays its phenomena, that 
 science demonstrates, and the mind is satisfied by evidence, 
 the incomprehensible appears and exacts from us an act of 
 faith. I say an act of faith ; for, in what manner soever the 
 incomprehensible may be presented to us. even when a direct 
 demonstration is given to us of its existence, it brings to our 
 need of knowledge a limit which supposes on our part that 
 submissive acceptation whose proper name is faith. Doubtless 
 it is not faith of the same order as that which adheres to 
 revealed dogmas guaranteed by the word of God ; but it is a 
 real faith given to the testimony of nature upon realities which 
 it does not explain to us, and which are enveloped in shadows 
 inaccessible to all the efforts of our penetration. Therefore as 
 the word of God makes unbelievers, so also do nature and 
 science. Scepticism is no other thing than a revolt of reason 
 against obscurities wherein it becomes lost as soon as it wills 
 to penetrate the depths of truth j and this is why science as 
 
 2 c 3 
 
388 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 well as religion requires from its sectaries that humility which 
 is a great part of common sense. The true sage, initiated to 
 the secret of his weakness by the marvels which he has inter- 
 rogated, bends before Him who created the universe, and who 
 alone knows the secret of all its forces. He avows that he 
 knows nothing, not in an absolute sense, like the sceptic, but 
 in the sense which implies a voluntary abasement of the mind 
 of man before the Spirit of God, and that voluntary abasement 
 is faith itself. 
 
 In fact, knowledge, however imperfect it may be, is not the 
 general state of mankind ; it is the privilege of a very small 
 number of men scattered here and there. The multitude, sub- 
 jected to labour which leaves them no leisure to cultivate their 
 minds, are ignorant of the demonstration of the things which 
 they employ and of the rules which they apply to their lives. 
 Whether error or truth govern them, they are governed by 
 persuasion and by authority — that is to say, by faith. They 
 go whither they are impelled by the privileged battalion of the 
 princes of the intelligence, itself impelled by an unknown 
 ascendency which has its source in anterior ages, and in the 
 logical current of all accomplished events. The revolutions of 
 the human mind have no other cause, no other law ; they never 
 operate by way of demonstration, any more than battles are 
 gained by the knowledge of the soldier. The soldier is ignorant 
 of what he does and why he does it ; immovable under fire, 
 or marching towards the enemy, he gives and receives death 
 by orders whose principle he does not know, whose result is a 
 mystery to the very last moment. He obeys in perils an in- 
 visible thought in which he has faith, and that faith is half of 
 his strength. An army that doubts is a lost army ; an army 
 that believes commands defeat and draws therefrom its safety. 
 So it is with the battles of the intelligence, with those great 
 movements of opinion that lead nations to new destinies — the 
 throng follow chiefs who persuade them ; they obey, believing 
 that they command. You have proof of this in the history of 
 which you form a part. Sons of an epoch fertile in vicissitudes, 
 you witness a social revolution which shakes Europe in its 
 very foundations. How many minds, think you, are there in 
 Europe capable of rendering an exact and scientific account 
 of it? A party was formed, which for sixty years directed 
 opinion and dispersed popularity as a sovereign; this party 
 was supported by most of the seats of science and learning; 
 
GOD AND MAN. 389 
 
 its organs were a multitude of journals which bore its ideas to 
 the extremities of the world ; its subjects were governments 
 and laws ; all bent before it, and at length it felt sure of having 
 founded an eternal empire by free discussion. But yesterday 
 it still reigned; to-day it is hardly defended. Publicity, 
 learning, science, liberty, its own strength and its own work, 
 have turned against it, and see, it gathers around its ruins for 
 its protection the ruins which it had caused, and which it 
 proudly called the relics of the past. How has this power 
 been brought to an end ? By the same power which established 
 it — by faith. A new language has risen up from the general 
 lassitude of minds ; it has boldly anathematised the language 
 which preceded it, and which, although so long master, was 
 found feeble in persuasion and authority. Doubtless there is 
 a cause for this, and a logical cause, but the multitude who 
 are led by it do not discern it. The multitude changed faith 
 in changing their chiefs. And never upon this earth is the 
 language that persuades and commands silent for a single day. 
 It perishes upon the lips of one but to be reproduced upon the 
 lips of another, and should the people cease to understand it, 
 having no longer either faith or knowledge, there would remain 
 to them of the human intelligence only the faculty of deeper 
 degradation. 
 
 But reassure yourselves, whatever is needful to mankind, 
 happen what may, will not be wanting to it. Knowledge will 
 be subject to eclipses among men because it is the light of a 
 small number ; authority will outlive all its catastrophes, and 
 if, after having been the organ of the opinion which it enounced, 
 you lose that authority, no matter from what cause, learn that 
 another will take up the sceptre as it falls from your hands, and 
 that an interregnum of faith is no more possible here below 
 than an interregnum of life. 
 
 How should mankind know its own history if faith from 
 man to man could be subject to any real interruption ? History 
 is not of itself visible on the horizon of posterity ; as soon as 
 the actors and spectators of an age have passed away to the 
 tomb, they disappear also to the generations that take their 
 place, and the course of ages, following its rapid flow, rejects 
 them more and more to the obscure solitude where death hides 
 them. What has caused them to live again in spite of time ? 
 What is it that keeps the buried form of the ancestor standing 
 erect before his most distant descendants ? It is faith alone — 
 
390 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 the faith of the man living in the man dead, the testimony of 
 the man who has seen passing from memory to memory to him 
 who has not seen. Try whether any demonstration, beyond 
 human authority, will bring before your eyes Sesostris or 
 Cyrus, Babylon or Memphis, or any other vanished object of 
 antiquity. The instrument that follows the heavenly bodies 
 in the immeasurable heights of the firmament, can discover 
 nothing in the narrow orbit of the tomb ; and the arithmetic 
 that subjects numbers can neither count, range, nor sum up 
 the dead. Eternity alone sees them in their order and in their 
 secrets and history, that pale copy of eternity, presents a repre- 
 sentation of them to every man who believes in man. If you 
 do not believe in this, mankind loses all traces of itself for 
 you, and its generations are nothing but a fall of leaves be- 
 tween two summers ignoring one another. If you do believe 
 it, no longer blame' religion because it asks from you for God 
 that faith which you have in man ; confess that it is very simple 
 to know God by faith, since mankind has no other knowledge 
 of itself. 
 
 You have seen the past ; let us look now at the present. 
 We are to-day upon earth a thousand millions of men spread 
 over four or five continents and in a hundred nations. How 
 do we know one another ? How many have we seen of those 
 beings, our fellow-creatures, who breathe the same air, who 
 tread the same earth, who live in the same times, who form 
 together, and in the same labour, the life of one single body? 
 We have seen one or two thousand of them at most, and even 
 of that number, so limited, how few could we name ? All the 
 rest escape us, save by relations which books and travellers 
 bring to us — that is to say, by our faith in the recitals which 
 they bring to us. 
 
 Let us go further ; let us leave our absent contemporaries, 
 and speak only of those who live with us, whom we meet in 
 our public streets, and even, if you will, only of those who are 
 here in Notre Dame, within the walls of this great cathedral of 
 Paris. Assembled together in one place we see each other — 
 it should be easy for us to know one another by direct know- 
 ledge, in which faith would have no part. And yet, is it so ? 
 What are you, and what am I ? What are your sentiments, 
 and what are my own ? I shall vainly strain the powers of my 
 mind in order to penetrate at a glance, and by a clear view, 
 the folds of your being ; the gleams that come from them 
 
GOD AND MAN. 39 r 
 
 suffice only to attract or to repulse me instinctively, but not to 
 give me the knowledge of your heart. Man is a soul, and the 
 soul ignores the soul until a word spoken in the ear, in the 
 outpourings of friendship or religion, has revealed its mystery 
 and merited to hear the response, " I believe you." Faith is 
 the knot of our personal relations ; an untiring and a cherished 
 mediator, it passes from friend to friend, from husband to 
 wife, from the child to the mother, from the right that com- 
 mands to the liberty that obeys ; and in the most solemn acts 
 of empires, as in the most tender effusions of love, man 
 expresses himself fully by these same words, " I believe you ; I 
 trust in you." It is never sold, it is given, because it is so 
 priceless that whoever sells it is incapable of holding it. And 
 upon those simple words, " I trust you," man risks his fortune, 
 his life, his family, his honour. He believes or he is believed, 
 and it is enough. Better would it be for him to lose all than 
 to betray that faith, so low, even among the vilest actions, does 
 the heart fall which is convicted of it. Even falsehood, 
 although it may not bear the character of a treasonable act 
 properly so called, but by that alone that it does not merit the 
 confidence which an honest man owes to the word of another 
 — falsehood excites scorn, and in the days of chivalry our 
 ancestors considered as the highest of all insult those words, 
 " Thou hast lied ! " In fact, when a man has been guilty of 
 falsehood, his word exists no longer, because he merits no 
 faith, and, having no word, what remains to him of a soul ? 
 
 But who would believe it, gentlemen, the most material 
 thing in the world, that which seems to be entirely subjected 
 to the laws of arithmetic, money itself, is an object of faith 
 among men. It passes from hand to hand, it multiplies in a 
 fertile circulation only by the effect of credit, and every event 
 that lessens confidence in the future lessens at the same time 
 the value of money. But just now it solicited the hand to 
 take it ; under the form and upon the faith of a scrap of paper 
 it passed from one nation to another, everywhere accepted 
 under that ideal form which gave to it a value far beyond its 
 real quantity ; and suddenly that paper falls, money is hidden, 
 manufactories stop their works, commerce fails, labour becomes 
 scarce — a kind of universal failing holds society in suspense, 
 and seems to paralyse it. What powerful blow has it then 
 received? I have already told you: there has been a with- 
 drawal of faith. That nation has ceased to believe in itself; 
 
392 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 its moral resources are not equal to its perils; and whilst 
 Rome sold the field upon which Hannibal encamped, because 
 Rome had faith in his virtue, this people, measuring its fate by 
 its corruption, has given itself over to the chastisement of fear. 
 It has hidden its gold as the ancients, in the catastrophes of 
 their country, hid their gods. Remove fear, and money, 
 appearing again and circulating, will stimulate labour, enter- 
 prise, commerce — wealth, in fine, which, as you see, is a 
 daughter of faith. 
 
 I have said enough to show that faith plays an important 
 part in the human as well as in the divine order, and that, 
 therefore, there is no antithesis, but synthesis, between the 
 two orders under this head. However, it will not be unprofit- 
 able for us, before leaving this part of our subject, to ask the 
 reason of this ; for, if we have understood that faith is neces- 
 sary in the relations between man and God, we do not see 
 clearly why it is necessary in the relations between man and 
 man. 
 
 Let us learn, then, that the life of the intelligence proceeds 
 from two poles — the one immutable and absolute, which is the 
 pole of truth ; the other movable, which is the pole of liberty. 
 Without the first, minds detached from any fixed point would 
 wander at hazard in the night of doubt and ignorance ; without 
 the second, being deprived of their own movement, they would 
 be nothing but the obedient satellites of a fatal mechanism. 
 Their life is then at the same time a work of truth and of 
 liberty. As a work of truth, it is an object of knowledge ; as a 
 work of liberty, it is an object of faith. For as the ancients 
 said, Fluxi non est scientia — There is no science of that which 
 passes. Now, nothing is more unstable, more rapid, more 
 unforeseen than liberty, and this is why it is so difficult to know 
 ourselves, all-present though we may be to our own hearts. 
 What shall I do to-morrow ? Where will the inconstancy of 
 my will lead me ? To what temptations shall I be subject ? 
 Shall I yield to them, or shall I not yield ? I may perhaps 
 suppose, but I cannot be absolutely sure. A book which may 
 fall into my hands, a word which I may hear, an insult which I 
 may receive, a leaf which the wind may carry beneath my feet 
 — I know not what, in fine — all and nothing may be capable 
 of changing my sentiments and of inspiring my will with 
 unlooked-for resolutions. You ask me to give you the know- 
 
GOD AND MAN. 393 
 
 ledge of myself, and I do not even possess it. I myself am 
 ignorant of it. I am to myself an object of faith ! 
 
 It is liberty, gentlemen, that brings into human things the 
 element of faith, and makes it the only means by which we 
 reciprocally know ourselves. If we were not free, science 
 would dispose of us as it disposes of the rest of nature ; it 
 would weigh a man in the same manner as it weighs a little 
 earth, and, all the laws of mankind being reduced to numbers, 
 we should require for our rules only an academy of mathe- 
 maticians. Such is also the final dream of materialism in 
 regard to us. Persuaded that there is nothing in man but 
 organised matter, it seeks the supreme combination which, 
 keeping the passions in an equilibrium, would produce a purely 
 scientific order wherein crime and virtue would hold neither 
 place nor name. Make all men equals, for example, by 
 mathematical equality ; make so many figures of them ; dis- 
 tribute to them in the same measure the objects which flatter 
 the senses and satisfy pride ; what would they need in order to 
 be equally and supremely happy ? Nothing, doubtless, if they 
 were but bodies ; but if by chance a soul lives in them, and in 
 that soul the liberty of volition, be sure that the heavens, the 
 earth, and the sea, given in pasture to each of them, would not 
 satiate the reciprocal jealousy of their felicity. A moment 
 suffices for passion to devour worlds ; and if liberty is not the 
 infinite by substance, it is the infinite by desire. This is why 
 there are no mathematics of liberty, and those who seek its 
 equation in matter are like that child whom St. Augustine saw 
 upon the African shore endeavouring to empty the sea with a 
 shell which its waves had thrown up. These great calculators are 
 the worst of men for the government of man : they are amazed 
 at the resistance made against their genius, never suspecting 
 that liberty is greater than any empire, stronger than any 
 Caesar, deeper than any abyss, and that faith alone commands 
 it, because faith is itself an act of liberty. 
 
 Therefore, by the same reason that we are free beings, we 
 are beings of faith, and we must say in the natural order what 
 Jesus Christ said in a higher order, " Blessed are they that 
 have not seen, and yet have believed."* That is to say, blessed 
 are they that have no need of demonstration, because demon- 
 
 * St John xx. 29. 
 
394 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 stration is attained only by a few minds in things of secondary 
 degree ; whilst faith, altogether popular and sublime, passes 
 from the soul of all to the soul of all, in things which, taking 
 their root in liberty, are the foundation of human life ! 
 
 I repeat that faith is the correlative of liberty, as science is 
 the correlative of necessity ; and to ask why we ought to believe, 
 is to ask why we are free. From thence follows a consequence 
 upon which I cannot be silent, and which will fitly explain to 
 you the important part which faith fills in the purely natural 
 order. 
 
 Science relates to necessity — that is to say, to what is immut- 
 able in itself; it suffices to have intelligence to be learned, it is 
 not the same in order to be a believer. Faith is an act of 
 confidence, and consequently an affair of the heart. It sup- 
 poses in him who grants it the same uprightness as in him who 
 inspires it, and no ungrateful man, no impostor, no egotist, nor 
 any of those whom the Scripture energetically calls " the 
 children of unbelief,"* were ever capable of it. To confide is 
 to give oneself ; none give themselves but the magnanimous, 
 or, at least, the generous — not that faith excludes prudence, 
 and that it is needful to give ourselves up to the first word that 
 falls from unknown lips, but because, after prudence is supposed 
 to be satisfied, another effort is still necessary to draw from us 
 that difficult word — I believe. 
 
 Alexander, the King of Macedonia, was on the banks of 
 the Cydnus. He was there attacked by a malady which 
 threatened to save Persia, and his physician, whom he tenderly 
 loved, was to prepare for him a decisive draught. But, in the 
 evening, a letter, written by a known hand, warned the invalid 
 to beware of his friend as a traitor who had sold his life. 
 Alexander kept silence. On the morrow, when the cup was 
 brought to him, he drew from his bed the accusing letter, gave 
 it to his physician, took the cup, and swallowed its contents at 
 a draught. All antiquity has lauded this act of Alexander, and 
 his most celebrated victories — Granicus, Issus, Arbela — have 
 not encircled his head with more admiration. Upon this a 
 •celebrated writer, whom I shall not name, asks what is there 
 so worthy of admiration in this act so highly vaunted ; for, in 
 fine, Alexander was the chief of a numerous army engaged in 
 an enemy's country, the master of a rising kingdom, the man 
 
 * Eph. ii. 2. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 395 
 
 of Greece who was charged with its vengeances and its designs ; 
 he should, on every account, have respected his life, upon 
 which depended the fate of so many others ; and what merit 
 was there in exposing it without defence to the chances of 
 poison? But the writer whom I have quoted, after having 
 made these remarks, goes on to say : " What is there so 
 worthy of admiration in that action of Alexander? Unhappy 
 men, could you understand it if it be needful to tell you? 
 What is so worthy of admiration is, that Alexander believed in 
 virtue — that he believed in it fully, at the peril of his life ! " 
 
 This is a magnificent explanation of the faith of a noble 
 heart, and it is also the explanation of all faith, whether 
 exercised towards man or towards God. Whoever makes an 
 act of faith, whether he knows it or not, drinks the cup of 
 Alexander ; " he believes fully, at the peril of his life ;" he enters 
 into that lineage of Abraham, who is called "the father of all 
 those that believe," * because when he was old — wasted in age, 
 but not in heart — he raised his obedient knife upon his only 
 son, who was all his love and his race, hoping against hope in 
 that declaration which had promised him a posterity. And if 
 there be a creature who, in opposition to these great examples, 
 has never drawn from his soul an act of faith, you may fear- 
 lessly accuse that creature of having dishonoured in himself the 
 work of God. For faith is not only a virtue — that is to say, a 
 generous and an efficacious effort towards good — it is the sacred 
 portico through which all virtues pass — the sanguinary pro- 
 drome where the sacrifices commence and where the victims 
 justly immolated return to the sanctuary of God. There is no 
 act of devotedness, no act of love, no honourable or holy act 
 which was not at first an act of faith, and this is the reason why 
 the Scriptures so often declare that by faith man is justified 
 and saved. The Jews imagined that the principle of salvation 
 was the observance of the law in view of the recompenses of 
 God; St. Paul unceasingly tells them that their works are 
 powerless if they are not vivified by a higher element. " It is 
 one God," he exclaims, " that justifieth circumcision by faith, and 
 uncircumcision through faith." t What are works, in fact, if they 
 are performed under the impulsion of a purely scientific view ? 
 A simple calculation of interest, or of good government of our- 
 selves and others. Men are just, sober, careful, industrious, 
 
 * Rom. iv. II. t Rom. iii. 30. 
 
396 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 faithful keepers of their word, because this is an order whose 
 exact observance produces more than it costs ; but place these 
 well-regulated minds before the cup of Alexander — that is to 
 say, before a sacrifice which may be avoided without loss, 
 before a virtue which has no visible reward — you will then 
 learn the void in the heart where faith is wanting. I do not 
 even mean divine faith, but that vague, unnamed, indescribable 
 faith, which is the basis of all that is great. Therefore, when 
 St. Paul pronounced that sovereign sentence, " Without faith it 
 is impossible to please God,"* we may add — and men. 
 
 Thence comes the weakness of society in the present time. 
 Never has science thrown upon things a more living and a 
 more complete illumination than now ; nor has the social tie 
 ever been so easy to burst in the hands of those who, turn by 
 turn, endeavour to bind society together. It is because science 
 is not the principle of the human order — it is only one of its 
 glorious ornaments — and where it oppresses instead of sustain- 
 ing faith, it is but the parricidal instrument of ruin wherein man 
 will learn too late that it is necessary to believe in order to live 
 a single day, even were it not necessary to believe in order to 
 live eternally. Human faith is the life of the natural man as 
 divine faith is the life of the man supernaturalised, and those 
 two men forming but one, divine faith maintains human faith 
 as human faith supports divine faith, were it but in proving the 
 synthesis which exists between the two orders whose distinct, 
 but harmonious, elements compose our destiny. 
 
 This first difficulty solved, I am urged to notice a con- 
 siderable difference between the faith that serves as a means 
 of intercourse between men among themselves, and the faith 
 that serves as a means of intercourse with God. In the former, 
 they say, it is easy to see when and in what degree confidence 
 should be given to purely human testimony, relating to things 
 and ideas not removed from the sphere in which we are ; in 
 the latter, on the contrary, every thing surpasses our faculties 
 — divine revelation itself — in its exterior signs, as well as the 
 mysteries contained therein. We believe in man voluntarily 
 and naturally, because man is ourselves ; we believe in God 
 by chance and with difficulty, because God is not ourselves. 
 How, then, should we make of that faith the chosen instru- 
 ment of our relations with the invisible world ? Is it our fault 
 
 * Heb. xi. 6. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 397 
 
 it does not subjugate our heart ? You tell us that it is a work 
 of persuasion : persuade us, then ! Behold us at the foot of 
 your pulpit ; we listen to you; what hinders you from persuading 
 us ? Just now, in an apostrophe which you thought eloquent, 
 you told us that, when language lost its authority in the world, 
 it infallibly found a successor which took possession of its 
 vacant throne. This is what happens to the teaching whose 
 organ you are; but why impute it to us? Is it needful to 
 condemn or pity us if human teaching has been substituted 
 for divine teaching, if we are born in an age wherein man 
 is stronger than God, wherein men listen to sages rather 
 than to theologians? It is possible that our generation 
 may be decried; but it is not the author of its darkness, 
 it is its victim. Our fathers prepared the cup from which 
 we drink : they mixed with it so much art and power 
 that our lips are naturally inebriated therewith, and that our 
 birth and error form but a single act in one and the same day. 
 Instead of condemning us, let God, then, come to our help ; 
 let Him speak, let Him give grace to His word ; and if it be 
 true that His Son, heretofore visible among us, did raise the 
 dead, ah ! let Him, then, raise up the whole human race ; this 
 is the real corpse. You have said that eloquence is the substi- 
 tution of the soul that speaks for the soul that listens : let God, 
 then, be eloquent ! Is it too much to ask of Him for the 
 salvation of the world ? And if He will not — if He does not 
 do this — if incredulity remains our natural state, whilst faith is 
 but exceptional, why should He complain ? Is it because we 
 are such as He has created us ? 
 
 Gentlemen, your objection" supposes that divine or religious 
 faith is an accident of the human mind, and already many 
 times, in the course of these conferences, I have proved to 
 you that it was the universal, perpetual, and public state of 
 mankind. I proved it to you again this very year, at the 
 beginning of our quadragesimal reunion, and without returning 
 to that historical demonstration, I will limit myself to one 
 remark — it is, that there have been in the world only two 
 epochs where incredulity has had any hope of domination : the 
 Augustan Age and our own : the Augustan Age, which saw the 
 Roman Republic perish, and our own, which has as yet pro- 
 duced only tempests — two epochs in six thousand years, both 
 marked by the signs and the effects of decline. Not that I 
 would prophesy your ruin ; even in the Augustan Age it was 
 
398 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 not ruin : the unbelief of the ancient world was the happy 
 forerunner of a new world, the Christian world. So will it be 
 with you. Your bark quivers and sinks, but the wave that 
 draws it into the abyss will lift it towards heaven, and your 
 posterity, guided to the haven, will admire in your history and 
 in its own a new proof that unbelief, so far from being a station 
 of mankind, is hardly a danger for it. Already certain fore- 
 shadowings of the future justify this presentiment, and even if 
 my hope be not a proof for you, it will always remain that the 
 only epoch of incredulity of which we know the integral 
 development was followed by the exaltation of Christianity — 
 that is to say, of the greatest and most memorable expansion 
 of faith which has ever taken place in the human race. This 
 suffices to give me the right to conclude that divine or religious- 
 faith is not an accident of our mind, but its general and true 
 condition, and that man believes in God as spontaneously as 
 he believes in man. I do not say that he so believes without 
 an effort, and even without a struggle. Nothing is more natural 
 to man than to live, and yet life is not a thing that does not 
 cost any effort. Life is a labour and a struggle ; how much 
 more should faith be so, since faith, in its very definition, bears 
 the idea of a virtue, and since all virtue is a laborious effort, 
 because of the passions which are opposed to its reign over 
 the soul. 
 
 Do not wonder, then, that it requires some care to believe, 
 as well as to be just, true, chaste, an honest man, and wonder 
 even that so little is needed, faith being not only a human but 
 a divine virtue, and the gate of all the virtues that lead to God. 
 You do not believe, and you conclude that faith is impossible > 
 for my part, I conclude that you do not do what is necessary 
 in order to believe, and I shall prove this, to you in a few- 
 word?. 
 
 The first cause of unbelief is voluntary ignorance. Faith- 
 cannot be acquired any more than knowledge without a certain 
 application of the mind. As soon as the mind does not apply 
 itself, it is inert, it ceases to be a power, it is in regard to the 
 object from which it turns away as if it were not. What are 
 mathematics for a mind which has never reflected on the laws- 
 of number, extent, and motion ? What is philosophy for a man 
 who has never asked himself what are being, idea, the absolute, 
 the relative, cause and effect ? And, by the same reason, 
 
GOD AND MAN. 399. ■ 
 
 what is faith for a soul which has never seriously thought on 
 the necessary relations between the creature and God ? 
 
 Gentlemen, be true to yourselves ; at what age and after 
 what studies have you decided that religion is an error ? At 
 the age of forty ? No, you decided it in the flower of your 
 age, at the moment when, rising from infancy, reasoning and 
 passion made their joyous appearance together on the agitated 
 surface of your being. Simple and subject up to that time, 
 pious adorers of the thoughts of your mother, you had inter- 
 rogated nothing, contested nothing— you lived upon a faith as 
 pure as your heart. But hardly had that double puberty of 
 man made known its living sting to your senses and your 
 mind, than, without giving yourselves time to ripen your power, 
 impatient of the mysteries of nature and the mysteries of God, 
 you were seized with shame at believing at the same time as 
 you lost that other shame which is the divine guardian of 
 innocence. As yet incapable of a virile act, you nevertheless 
 pronounced sovereignly upon man and upon God ; you doubted, 
 denied, apostatized, despised your fathers, accused your masters, 
 traduced before your tribunal the virtues and the sufferings of 
 ages — made, in fine, of your soul a desert of pride. Then, 
 that ruin accomplished, you chose for your object one of the 
 ambitions of man — the glory of arms, letters, or of something 
 less elevated, as the case may be, and all the effort of your 
 faculties is employed towards the idolatry of your future. You 
 have learned nothing more than to be one day the actual hero 
 of your dreams. You have sacrificed your days and nights to- 
 that egotistical image, reserving no hidden, no unknown part 
 of them, save only for that other egotism of man, sensuality. 
 And never, during that double and sad dream, has religion 
 appeared to you other than as a futile recollection of your early 
 years, a weakness or hypocrisy of humanity. You have not 
 deigned to give to it an hour, a thought, a desire; and if, 
 perchance, attracted by a celebrated name, you have passed 
 the threshold of a book or a temple, you have done so in the 
 haughtiness of a mind which had judged and which did not 
 intend to change its sentence. O confidence of youth in 
 error ! O security of souls who have as yet seen nothing of 
 life but its dawn ! Oh ! how good God has been not to call 
 us at that hour of ignorance and enchantment ! For, already 
 the greater number among you are not in the state of simple 
 
400 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 certainty; time has brought back to you doubt and obscure 
 presentiments of truth. You understand that your unbelief is 
 the result of a puerile act of weakness, and that for your honour 
 and your repose it needs a ratification. 
 
 It is this second work, this work of return and examina- 
 tion, that founds faith in man and maintains it in mankind. 
 Faith, doubtless, is also a gift of infancy ; it throws out iti 
 roots in the soul entering into existence, but it is the tard; 
 action of life that brings it to its maturity. When man has 
 seen man during a long series of years, when he has known 
 his weakness and misery by experience which leaves him n 
 more doubt, and already the mighty form of death bring' 
 nearer to him the last of the prophecies, then his loo* 
 becomes naturally more profound. He discerns better the 
 divine trace, because he knows better what man cannot do, 
 and the lassitude of present things creates for him also a taste 
 for things unseen. Therefore a writer, whose name I cannot 
 now remember, has well said : " At twenty, men believe 
 religion to be false ; at forty, they begin to suspect that it may 
 be true ; at fifty, they desire that it may be true ; at sixty, they 
 no longer doubt its truth." Light advances step by step with 
 life, and death, by disabusing us of all things, completes that 
 continued revelation whose first words we heard from the lips 
 of our mother. The infant and woman are the vanguard of 
 God ; the full man is His apostle and martyr; you, young men, 
 are but deserters for a day from Him. 
 
 I know that voluntary ignorance does not of itself explain 
 the painful phenomenon of unbelief, and that there are men 
 versed in religious things who do not attain to the happiness 
 of faith. Such examples are rare, but I have met with them. 
 They are victims of a passion which is the most obstinate of 
 all, the pride of knowledge. The pride of knowledge is that 
 infatuation of a mind intoxicated with itself, which sees itself 
 in what it knows, like Narcissus in the lake, and which, con- 
 sidering every limit as an insult to its capacity, presumes to 
 treat with God as between equal and equal. Such a man no 
 longer studies from a love of truth, but against it ; he rejoices 
 in gathering clouds around it, in finding a grain of sand which 
 may be made a blasphemy, and which he may hurl against 
 Heaven. Does he watch the firmament, it is but to draw 
 forth from it the secret of the eternity of the world ; does he 
 descend into the bowels of the earth, it is but to seek for arms 
 
GOD AND MAN. 401 
 
 against a great biblical fact ; does he interrogate the necropolis 
 of Egypt or the ruins of Babylon, it is but to endeavour to find 
 there a voice that denies something of the most ancient tra- 
 ditions. His knowledge is but a stubborn duel between himself 
 and God. 
 
 Who could remain true under the influence of such a 
 passion ? Who would accept it as a judge ? Faith, we have 
 said, is an act of confidence ; it supposes the sincerity of an 
 upright and a loving heart. Now, the men of whom I speak 
 would not even believe in mathematical demonstrations if their 
 object and end were the truths of their religious order. Like 
 Jean Jacques, they would rather declare themselves to be mad 
 than say they were convinced. And indeed this is not an 
 imaginary picture. Consult the recollections of your own 
 conscience. Have you never felt a thrill of joy on discover- 
 ing something in history or in nature that appeared to you to 
 be stamped with an anti-Christian sign ? Have you never 
 clapped your hands on hearing it said, Here is an argument 
 against Jesus Christ ? " Ask, and it shall be given to you ; 
 seek, and you shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened to 
 you."* Such is the first condition for arriving at faith. The 
 sun halts in vain in the height of the firmament, if his light is 
 but a reason for us to refuse to acknowledge his presence. 
 
 In fine, a third cause of unbelief is the depravity of morals. 
 I will not say that all the weaknesses of our frail flesh are 
 obstacles to faith, since faith is itself the principle of chastity, 
 and since Jesus Christ pronounced against the Pharisees that 
 divine saying, " The women whom you call lost shall go into 
 the kingdom of God before you."f There is a form of vice 
 which is humble, which knows itself, which despises itself, 
 which beats its breast. I will not say that it is agreeable to 
 God, but God is able to heal it, as he healed Magdalene. 
 On the other hand, there is a vice poisoned with pride, 
 which raises its head, which laughs and mocks. This vice 
 God hates ; it is an almost invincible obstacle to faith, 
 because it is the re-union of two kinds of perversity, which 
 naturally exclude one another, and whose meeting takes from 
 the soul the last resources of good. Pride alone of itself is 
 so insupportable to God, that He prefers humble vice to 
 haughty virtue. How, then, must He regard proud vice? 
 
 * St Matt vii. 7. + Ibid- xxi. 31. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 THE HUMAN ACT CORRESPONDING TO PROPHECY. 
 
 Now, nothing is less rare than that lamentable disposition of 
 the heart ; slaves as they are to the most vile inclinations 
 and the most shameful practices, they plume themselves in 
 the pride of a pure conscience ; they appeal from it to their 
 honour, their probity, their genius, and cover with the name 
 of amiable weaknesses the prostitution of all the senses to 
 voluptuousness. They employ half a century in perverting 
 the ignorance of youth and the beauty of virtue around them, 
 and, after having driven to shame a number of souls, whose 
 ruin they do not even deign to respect in their memory, 
 instead of saying to God with St. Peter, " Depart from me ; 
 for I am a sinful man, O Lord," * they complain of the little 
 light which God has thrown upon His works, and impute to 
 him their misfortune of not knowing and serving Him. Do 
 you believe, gentlemen, that miracles are due to such com- 
 plainings, and that God is at fault for not answering them 
 otherwise than by silence and coldness ? Oh, yes, " the 
 women whom you call lost will go into the kingdom of God 
 before you/' because nearly all of them have been victims 
 before having been mercenaries, and because from the depth 
 of their abasement they sometimes raise towards God that 
 plaintive and humble look which is more than remorse, if it 
 be not yet virtue. God will hear them ; He hears the faintest 
 sigh that is sincere, and He perfects every tear which has begun 
 to form for time. But He despises the pride of ignorance, the 
 pride of knowledge, and the pride of vice ; He will await them 
 on the day when, in presence of the assembled universe, 
 angels will sing again the hymn of God made man, " Glory 
 to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good 
 will." t 
 
 Gentlemen, I shall not conclude without casting a thought 
 upon the great week whose doleful events we are about to 
 celebrate. It was the week of our salvation, and it is so 
 now. From that cross which the Church has just covered 
 with a veil, not to hide it from us, but to make its mourning 
 more apparent and more bitter to us, for nearly _ twenty 
 centuries justice and love have appealed to you. Listen to 
 them now, and do not disdain such great patience in so much 
 light. You, to whom age gives warning of serious things, 
 listen to the counsel of time, which for you joins to the voice 
 
 * St. Luke v. 3. t I bid - "• *4» 
 
GOD AND MAN. 4°3 
 
 of God. You, to whom youth promises long hours of grace, 
 listen to what is most touching for you in the-cruel appeal of the 
 Passion. It is written that after the arrest of the Saviour, when 
 all His disciples had left Him, a young man was seen following 
 Him having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. The 
 guards seized upon him in order to take him, but, casting off 
 the linen cloth, he fled from them naked. That young man 
 was yourselves ; it was the youth which should one day spring 
 from Christianity no longer dishonoured by hopeless vices, 
 but subject to seductions and returns to good, preserving in 
 evil the search after good, incapable of persecuting the Just 
 and following Him at a distance in the shadow of the world 
 with sympathetic presentiments. Such were you on the eve 
 of the Passion ; in that young man " your precursor, such are 
 you now. You are naked, you are wrapped in the linen sheet 
 of death and sin, and whilst here you listen uncertain to the 
 spotless word of truth, perhaps Providence will touch you 
 with that blessed hand which has made and which seeks man. 
 Ah ! I conjure you not to fly from Him ; leave Him your 
 Jinen garment by giving Him your hearts. 
 
SACRAMENT. 
 
 My Lord — Gentlemen, 
 
 Prophecy does not suffice for the supernatural inter- 
 course between man and God. Prophecy enlightens the intelli- 
 gence by elevating it to ideas which the spectacle of finite things 
 would not inspire ; but the intelligence is only a part of man, 
 and in order to be moved, it depends upon a faculty which 
 rouses it and is the mainspring of all our actions, although it 
 is subject in its turn to the influence of the doctrines deposited 
 in the understanding — I mean the will. The will is the 
 principle of free activity. If it were to halt in the orbit of 
 nature whilst the intelligence mounts higher, there would be 
 discord in the tendencies of our being, and the work of divine 
 communion would not be accomplished. It is needful that 
 the will should receive a supernatural impulsion at the same 
 time as the intelligence receives an illumination of the same 
 order, and that thus all our faculties should advance together 
 to the conquest and full possession of the infinite. This is 
 why the Spirit of God, which is called the " Spirit of truth," * 
 is also called the " Spirit of power," t and Jesus Christ, in 
 promising this Spirit to His apostles, announced it to them 
 under that double form — the one of light, the other of power, 
 or virtue. And unquestionably, in the prophetic action, this 
 double effusion is produced. Illuminative grace includes also 
 an attractive grace, but which, although sufficient to aid the 
 will, is not sufficient to found in it the constant reign of divine 
 justice, life, and love. As Jesus Christ, after having revealed 
 to His apostles the mystery of the Gospel and after having 
 begun in them the work of regeneration, fulfilled it by the gift 
 
 * St. John xiv. 17. t Acts i. 8. 
 
GOD AND MAN. 405 
 
 of the Holy Spirit which was to confirm them by His 
 omnipotent power, so every soul already prepared by the 
 hearing of the word of God, should resort to Sacrament in 
 order to, derive from it the vivifying virtue which exalts the 
 will, and establishes it in the plenitude of the rights and 
 functions of the supernatural order. 
 
 What, then, is Sacrament ? If I limited myself to showing 
 you what it is in the religious sense, perhaps you would not 
 understand me; but I am sure that in considering it in a 
 higher manner — that is to say, in its metaphysical and absolute 
 nature — you will be constrained to respect it, if even you are 
 not yet induced to practise it. 
 
 I propose, then, again this question, and I ask in an 
 abstract and general sense, What is Sacrament ? 
 
 Sacrament thus considered is no other thing than an 
 instrument — that is to say, an organism which contains a force. 
 The idea of force is the parent idea of sacrament, and it is 
 consequently impossible for us to reason about it if we do not 
 know beforehand what force is. When we were treating of 
 Prophecy, the fundamental question was, What is truth ? 
 When Sacrament is under discussion, the fundamental question 
 is, What is force ? 
 
 It seems, gentlemen, easy to answer this question ; for ever 
 since we have been in the world, and at each moment of our 
 lives, we have performed, and we still perform, only acts of force 
 or weakness ; and weakness itself is but a force inferior to what 
 is required for the object to which we apply it. If you walk, 
 it is a display of force ; if you sit, it is the display of another 
 force ; if you stand up, it is still force. And so it is with all 
 our outward actions, with all those that are performed by the 
 organs of the body. The movements of the sou], whatever 
 they may be, depend upon the same principle, and follow the 
 same law. Are you bold in danger ? It is force. Are you 
 above the seductions of the world and the senses ? It is force. 
 Are you firm in your resolutions ? It is force. Are you cast 
 down by grief or fear ? It is force that grows less in you, and 
 if you did not retain it by an effort against your impressions, 
 life would slowly and painfully escape from you. Life is but a 
 tissue of actions which proceed from a force more or less 
 energetic, more or less imperfect, whose seat is at the same 
 time the soul and the body. 
 
 If from man you pass to nations, you will find there no 
 
4°6 SACRAMENT. ' 
 
 other spectacle. Nations begin by an act of energy, they live' 
 upon a principle which formed them, and they expire from 
 physical and moral exhaustion. Their history lasts as long as 
 their power, and their power as long as that force lasts which 
 collects all the others in its essence and in its name — virtue. 
 
 The universe, in its turn, says the same thing to us as man 
 and nations. All those immense orbs which compose its 
 architecture obey two forces — one of projection, which impels- 
 them in a right line ; the other of attraction, which calls them 
 to repose in a fixed centre — and, dividing between these two 
 contrary impulses, they describe that constant and glorious 
 curve which unceasingly dispenses to us light, heat, time, 
 space, and harmony. 
 
 All is then force in heaven and upon earth, because all is- 
 action, and science, of whatever nature it may be, to whatever 
 object it may be applied, is employed solely in calculating, 
 forces, some physical, others moral, mathematical, metaphysical 
 or abstract, and, in fine, beyond all things and all number, the 
 most elevated speculation encounters, under the name of God, 
 the supreme, eternal, infinite, immutable force, from whence 
 flows, in each being, by measured participation, the germ of 
 activity. Consequently nothing should be more familiar and 
 more known to us than force. And yet, precisely because 
 force is a primary element of our thoughts, I can only imper- 
 fectly define it to you, less by its essence than by its effects. 
 I shall say, then, that it is the energy of a being, holding, 
 existence in itself by means of an effort of concentration, or 
 diffusing it without by means of a movement of dilation. 
 Every act of force reduces itself to this. Either we restrain 
 ourselves within ourselves, in order to concentrate our life, 
 and give to ourselves the highest possible sensation of it, or 
 we diffuse our life, in order to communicate it to others, and 
 according to the degree of that double tension, we produce, to- 
 a greater or less degree, the incomprehensible phenomenon 
 which we call force. The hand contracted to refuse is the 
 symbol of the force of concentration; the hand open to consent 
 is the symbol of the force of expansion ; and if you recall to 
 mind the acts perpetually renewed which form the life of man 
 and nature, you will find nothing in them which does not 
 conclude in that alternative movement which our heart un- 
 ceasingly manifests physically and morally. 
 
 The force of concentration at its height, is- eternity. He 
 
GOD AND MAN. 407 
 
 alone possesses it who, in an unique, indivisible, and absolute 
 moment, feels in Himself and for ever the infinite sensation of 
 being, and is able to say, I am who am* The force of expan- 
 sion at its height, is creation. He alone possesses it who, 
 sufficing to Himself in the plenitude of existence, is able to 
 call into life, without losing anything of his own, who and 
 what He will — bodies, spirits, worlds — and this always in untold 
 £ges and unbounded space. Such is God. 
 
 Now God, in giving us being, has given us force, without 
 which no being could comprehend itself, and he has given it 
 to us in its double element — one by which we have duration, 
 another which enables us to multiply ourselves ; one by which 
 we tend to the act eternity, the other by which we tend to the 
 act of creation. But between God and ourselves, under this 
 relation, there is a great and capital difference. God possesses 
 of Himself the force of concentration and expansion, whilst 
 we have it only as a loan, by means of the instruments which 
 Divine Providence has prepared for us. Therefore, living 
 beings as you are, you would make vain efforts to live by the 
 sole aliment of your substance, and the sole command of your 
 wants. Were you like Ugolino, shut up in a tower, with your 
 children at your feet crying to you in all the tortures of inanition 
 — you men, you fathers — it would be impossible for you to 
 draw forth from the most energetic action of your soul any- 
 thing but despair or resignation. You would be compelled to 
 fall powerless upon the bodies of your children who had fallen 
 from the same cause. Doubtless the force of your will would 
 more or less retard that catastrophe of hunger. The soul 
 sustains the body combating against affliction and death, and 
 martyrs have been seen in whom the divine assistance seemed 
 to delight in braving tyrants, and in surpassing the genius of 
 cruel inflictions by the patient courage of faith. But that 
 exaltation of virility, whilst being the triumph of virtue, does 
 but lead it gloriously to the tomb ; it must succumb in the 
 material order, and bear witness that no creature possesses of 
 itself the right or power of immortality. Life is in us on 
 condition of our maintaining it by something other than 
 ourselves — that is to say, by means of the instruments to 
 which God has communicated force to retain and sustain our 
 own. If nature did not bear us like a mother in her bosom, 
 
 * Exodus iii. 14.. 
 
4oS SACRAMENT. 
 
 if nature did not, with inexhaustible fecundity, prepare for us 
 the milk of the plant and the blood of the animal, our life 
 would not even be a dream. We subsist by the invisible force 
 contained in a visible organism, and Sacrament, or the instru- 
 ment, being no other thing, we must conclude that we subsist 
 by the natural and daily use of Sacraments. 
 
 So it is in regard to the force of expansion. If you would 
 act outwardly upon the being the least capable of resisting, 
 you cannot do so directly by a simple act of the will. In vain 
 would you command a grain of sand to move out of your 
 way. God moves the universe without even speaking to it ; 
 as for you, an atom braves your commands. You call to it, 
 you command it to be gone. It is silent, and it despises your 
 orders. If you would remove it, your hand must bend even 
 to the earth, and cast from you the insolent dust which scorned 
 the desire and power of man. But the body is a limited instru- 
 ment, a slight increase of resistance, and the force which your 
 body contains no longer suffices to maintain your empire ; 
 you must seek help for it, and add to its action the foreign 
 action of the lever. The lever itself must increase in propor- 
 tion to the weight which it is required to lift, and with that 
 material aid resting on a fulcrum, you build your palaces, your 
 temples, your tombs, and all those monuments conceived by 
 your genius, but executed by your hands aided by a mean 
 organism. You might even, said Archimedes, displace all the 
 worlds with the lever, by giving it sufficient length and finding 
 for it a fulcrum capable of bearing its weight and the effort of 
 its movement. 
 
 Glory to you, gentlemen, but glory to you because you 
 know how to employ instruments capable of raising even to 
 heaven the ambition of your works ! 'Without their help, you 
 would know nothing of the firmament but its appearances, of 
 the earth but its surface, of history but a vague and limited 
 remembrance, of yourselves but the narrow limit of your 
 faculties. The instrument is your whole force, without as 
 well as within, in the order of expansion as in the order of 
 concentration. But the instrument and Sacrament being the 
 same thing, what shall we say, but that man is nothing save by 
 Sacrament — that Sacrament is his life, his power, his sovereignty, 
 his immortality? I say this after having proved it, and that 
 you may not be left in wonder thereat, I desire to learn why it 
 is so, and to show it to you. 
 
GOD AND MAX. 
 
 4 cg 
 
 Why, then, does our force come to us from without ? Why 
 does it come to us from a source inferior to us ? — or, at least, 
 why can we only sustain and develop that which is our own by 
 the help of something foreign to us, and which is contained 
 in the lowest regions of nature? Why, gentlemen? Is it 
 so difficult to understand? If we possessed the force of 
 concentration and expansion of ourselves, as that double force 
 is the essence of life, we should have life in us and by us ; we 
 should be to ourselves our subsistence and our reason of being, 
 we should be God ; or, at least, not having consciousness of 
 the silent and insensible action by which God would inwardly 
 infuse life to us, we should easily believe that we possessed it 
 of ourselves, and that, instead of rising in humble gratitude 
 towards the Author of that magnificent gift, we should halt at 
 ourselves as before our principle and our end. Our greatness 
 would deceive us, and nature being under our feet only an 
 observant and a passive slave, we should draw from it the 
 idea that it is not distinct from man, and by a pantheism which 
 would justify its obedience, we should adore in nature the 
 reverberation of our sovereign majesty. God was too just ; 
 he was too much a father to deliver us to such easy risings of 
 pride ; he made us first among visible beings, but in warning 
 us of our dependence towards Him by the state of dependence 
 in which we are towards the whole of creation. We command 
 only on condition of obeying ; we live only by soliciting life ; 
 we act only by the help of the dust which soils our feet. God, 
 in giving us a soul greater than heaven and earth, has not 
 permitted it of itself alone to vivify the glebe of the body 
 which it inhabits, and to communicate to it an action equal 
 to its volitions. He has placed an intermediary between us 
 and force ; He has hidden it in the bosom of nature, under 
 forms which we accept without understanding them, and the 
 employment of which necessarily but partially humbles our 
 pride, because we have the glory of discovering them, and 
 because we believe that we make them our servitors by proving 
 the law by which we depend upon them. But since you 
 despise the supernatural Sacrament, leam at least the value of 
 the natural Sacrament You, the kings of the world — you can 
 live only by eating ; only by sitting at a table, and devouring 
 blood, flesh, herbs, which you dispute with the beasts of the 
 field ; only by bearing within you an inexplicable transmutation 
 of inanimate matter into the glorious and living substance of 
 
410 SACRAMENT. 
 
 man. You, the kings of the world, for whom this earth is to» 
 limited — you cannot lay two stones one upon another save by 
 the help of an instrumentation which subjects your genius to 
 a piece of dead wood. For what is a lever ? A lever is a pole. 
 Yes, proud men, mathematicians, savants, artists, to found this- 
 temple in which I speak to you, you require a pole ! Your 
 thought conceived it, but it was a pole placed across another 
 pole that built it. 
 
 And yet, where is the scholar in philosophy whom the idea 
 of Sacrament has not revolted ? What young mind, exercising- 
 in mathematics by calculating forces, has not laughed at the 
 idea of Sacrament ? He who daily employ s it with imperturbable 
 faith, who advances surrounded by instruments, who counts, 
 weighs, measures, observes by instruments — he who stands- 
 wondering before a machine, and who never contemplates a 
 collection of them in the museums of science without a feeling 
 of pride — he, that same man, passing before a church, cannot 
 suppress a smile at the thought that there are reasonable beings 
 availing themselves of something which they call Sacraments. 
 Ah.! yes, gentlemen, the Christian lives by Sacraments as you 
 live by them — religion has its Sacraments as science has its 
 Sacraments, and, before complaining of this, it would have been 
 but just to learn whether such is not the universal mode of 
 life ; for it is hard to live by the very thing which we despise 
 the most. 
 
 Had God created man only for time and space, he would 
 have given to him only the force corresponding to time and 
 space, and the only instruments known to us would have been 
 natural instruments. But such was not the vocation of man. 
 God having placed him in the world from a motive of good- 
 ness, willed to communicate to him His perfection and His- 
 beatitude — at first indirectly, under a finite, representative, 
 and enigmatical form, which constitutes the order of nature ; 
 next directly, by a higher effusion of light and love, we should 
 prepare man, by means of his free co-operation, to see and 
 possess fully the Author of all good. In a word mighty and 
 wonderful, but a word taken from Scripture, and brought even 
 to us by Christian tradition, the final end of man is his deifica- 
 tion — that is to say, so intimate a union with God that, with- 
 out destroying our personality, it should make us partakers of 
 the divine life and the divine nature. This is what the Apostle- 
 St Peter wrote ' in these terms to the faithful of his times : 
 
GOD AND MAN. 41 1 
 
 " Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them 
 that have obtained equal faith with us in the justice of our 
 God and Saviour Jesus Christ : Grace to you, and peace be 
 accomplished in the knowledge of God, and of Christ Jesus 
 our Lord, . . . by whom he hath given us the most great 
 and precious promises : that by these you may be made par- 
 takers of the divine nature."t And St. Paul, writing to the 
 Hebrews, said to them : " For we are made partakers of 
 Christ : yet so if we hold the beginning of our substance firm 
 unto the end."* And at every page of the Gospel eternal life 
 — that is to say, the life of God — is promised to us as the 
 reward of our works performed in the faith and fulfilment of 
 the divine plan in regard to us. Now, the life of God, con- 
 sisting in an infinite force of concentration, which is eternity, 
 and in an infinite force of expansion, which is creative charity, 
 it is this double infinite force which should be initially com- 
 municated to us in order that we may respond, even here 
 below, to the marvellous vocation of omnipotent goodness. I 
 have not now to discuss that vocation. I have already done 
 so, and if I had not it is unimportant. Is there any soul here 
 who accepts time and space as his destiny ? Do we not all, 
 believers and unbelievers, hold the faith that space is not our 
 horizon, that time is not our measure, that we pass beyond 
 and higher, and that the present life is but the painful portico 
 of a greater future ? Yes, save the atheist — and ought I even 
 to except him ? — save the atheist, there is no man who does 
 not feel a germ of divinity. Therefore, we are all able to die 
 for our ideas and our affections, for truth and justice, because, 
 all feeble as we are, we feel on certain occasions so vivid an 
 impression of the God obscure who is within us, that death 
 appears to us as a fiction, and the duty of dying an immortality. 
 Ah ! I thank God, that in this great mystery of our union 
 with Him, there is dissent among us only as to the mode and 
 the degree ! I thank Him, I bless Him for this ; I feel happy 
 and full of joy to find one point in hope and in the infinite, 
 where, whoever we may be — ancients or moderns, pagans, 
 Mussulmans, heretics, unbelievers — we meet, and for once 
 understand each other ! Hail, promised land of man, duration 
 which will no longer be a beginning and an end, incompre- 
 hensible substance which will bear us without increasing or 
 
 * 2 St. Pet. i. I, and foil. t Heb. iii. 14. 
 
412 SACRAMENT. 
 
 lessening, air, light, "heat, respiration of our soul — hail ! We 
 do not all understand thee in the same manner, we do not all 
 possess the same certainty of thee, but we all possess, even in 
 the despair of suicide, thy inexplicable augury : and if thou 
 art, if thy dawn seen from so far deceives not the heart of 
 man, what canst thou be but God ? What other land, what 
 other heaven, what other ocean but God, could bring to our 
 weary minds a better vision than the vision of the present ? 
 Yes, even here below, for all of us, God is our perspective, He 
 is our aliment ; even when we have driven Him from us, He 
 still dwells in us plaintive and consoling, like those unknown 
 winds which pass in the evening over the desolate summit of 
 the high mountains, and gently agitate some solitary plant 
 which the pious hand of the traveller has never touched. 
 
 God is our future, or we have no future ; we shall fall into 
 His life, or we shall fall into death— the one or the other. 
 Immortality without intimate union with God is the abstract 
 dream of beatification, or the adulterous dream of infinite 
 materialism. I do not believe that your hope has fallen so 
 low, and consequently you must eternally enjoy God if you are 
 not to perish eternally. 
 
 To enjoy God, to be in God and with God, plunged into 
 his bosom as we are in nature, such is the vocation of man, 
 and that vocation cannot have been given without a corre- 
 sponding force to prepare us, in this world, for our final state. 
 As beings destined to a transformation in the infinite, we 
 should somewhere derive the efficacious germs of that divine 
 change. As nature pours out its treasures for us to maintain 
 our terrestrial life, God necessarily pours out also His own to 
 elevate us to His life, and, according to the general law of 
 the communication of forces, it is by an instrument that 
 supernatural energy is presented to, and incorporates itself 
 in, us. 
 
 Jesus Christ, having sat down by a well in the land of 
 Samaria, saw a woman come there who began to draw up 
 water, and He said to her : " Woman, give me to drink. . . . 
 Then the Samaritan woman said to him : How dost thou, being 
 a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman ? . . . 
 Jesus answered and said to her : If thou didst know the gift of 
 God, and who he is that saith to thee : Give me to drink, thou 
 perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given 
 thee living water." That woman, full of the obscurities of 
 
GOD AND MAN. 413 
 
 man, and who represents so well to us the poverty of our 
 reasonings, replied to her interlocutor : "Sir, thou hast nothing 
 to draw with, and the well is deep ; from whence then hast thou 
 that living water ? " Jesus, not wearying of showing mercy, 
 which had been twice rejected, replied to her : " Whosoever 
 drinketh of this water shall thirst again : but he that shall drink 
 of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever ; but 
 the water that I will give him shall become in him a well of 
 water springing up into life everlasting."* Such is the dif- 
 ference between the Sacrament of nature and the Sacrament of 
 grace — in the one and in the other the force is contained in a 
 sensible element ; but the first communicates only a passing 
 life, the second gives a life that springs up into eternity, because 
 it nourishes the soul with God. 
 
 Nourishes the soul with God ! What an expression, you 
 will say, and what reality can it signify ? We can conceive 
 that a body may be nourished by another body, since both are 
 of the same nature and are composed of parts which may be 
 indefinitely divided ; but how can a simple substance, such 
 as the soul, be nourished by another substance still more 
 simple, such as the essence of God ? Doubtless a spirit 
 is not nourished like a body ; yet it is not in vain that 
 human tongues possess the tradition of those bold figures, 
 and transport to the spiritual life the operations of the animal 
 life. Being, in whatever rank of honour or inferiority God 
 may have established it, lives only by the forces received 
 from without, and the eminent act by which it receives and 
 assimilates these forces, is the very act of receiving nourish- 
 ment. Now the spirit receives and assimilates forces as well 
 as bodies, consequently it receives nourishment; and if the 
 forces which vivify or sustain it are given to it of God by an 
 immediate effusion, it is eloquently and truly said to nourish 
 itself with God. However, the expression is of little import- 
 ance, provided that the thing exists. God, in the supernatural 
 Sacrament, communicated to the soul a force of expansion 
 which bears it directly towards Himself, and a force of concen- 
 tration which attaches it intimately to Himself, and if you are 
 weary of expressions borrowed from the physical sciences, I 
 will say to you in the language of St. Paul : Caritas Dei 
 
 DIFFUSA EST IN COKDIBUS NOSTRIS PER SPIRITX/M SANCTUM QUI 
 * St. John iv. 7 and foil. 
 
414 SACRAMENT. 
 
 datus est noeis — The Charity of God is poured forth in our 
 hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us* Charity, that is to 
 say love, which does not come from flesh and blood but from 
 the beauty of God presented to the soul by faith — charity is 
 that force of expansion and concentration which united us 
 supernaturally to God. By charity, we raise ourselves above 
 the senses and above all the enchantments which the visible 
 world offers to us; by charity, having once seen the divine 
 personality in the figure of Christ, we find therein more plea- 
 sure, more peace, more joy, more delight than in any created 
 thing, and as the patriarchs under the nuptial tent forgot the 
 death of their mother, we forget ourselves and lose ourselves in 
 that superhuman love. We pass into God, and embracing Him 
 with all our strength in an inexplicable certainty of possessing 
 Him, we draw from Him a part of His life in abandoning to Him 
 all our own. 
 
 Who among you, having been loved, and supposing that we 
 are able to love God, does not understand what I mean ? Who 
 among you has not known that movement of the heart, which 
 pours out itself and finds itself again in another? Even inani- 
 mate creatures possess its instinctive secret ; they seek each 
 other, and unite by secret affinities, and those famous laws 
 which lead the celestial bodies are but the sensible revelation 
 of the forces which move us in God in the mystery of initial 
 and consummated beatification. 
 
 Perhaps you do not deny these forces, or that love in all 
 its degrees is their principle ; but you wonder that, in the 
 supernatural or religious order, they should be communicated 
 to us under a form humble, so little in relation with themselves, 
 as Sacrament. In the natural Sacrament or instrument, say 
 you, there is proportion between the cause and the effect. I 
 take a lever, I move a body, the effect is natural like its cause : 
 but what relation can be discovered between a few drops of 
 water poured upon the head of a man, and his transformation 
 in God by charity. 
 
 The objection supposes that in the natural Sacrament there 
 is proportion between the cause and the effect : I deny it. I 
 now maintain that between the lever and the body moved by 
 it, there exists no more relation than between the water which 
 baptizes and the soul which is purified by that water. What, 
 
 * Rom. v. 5. 
 
COD AND MAN. 415 
 
 indeed, is a lever ? I have already said it is a piece of dead 
 wood placed upon another piece of dead wood, which serves it 
 as a fulcrum. This definition is not scientific, but it cannot be 
 contested. Now, is it there, in this inert organism, where lies 
 the force that will lift the weight ? Not in the least degree. 
 The weight would remain eternally motionless if my arm did 
 not give an impulsion to the lever, and my arm itself would 
 remain still if my will did not command it to move and 
 strengthen it so much the more as the obstacle of the weight 
 is greater. Where, then, is the force ? It is not in the lever, 
 since it needs to be moved by the arm ; it is not in the arm, 
 since it needs to be moved by my will : it is in the will which 
 moves the lever by the arm — that is to say, in a faculty of the 
 soul, in the mind. Now, I ask you, what natural relation 
 is there between the mind and the movement of a body ? 
 
 The lever alone could do nothing, my arm alone could do 
 nothing ; they were both inactive, incapable, dead : an order 
 ■of my will weighing upon my arm, has weighed upon the lever, 
 which, in its turn, has given an irresistible impulsion to the 
 body. And you find that simple ! And you say that the 
 effect is of the same nature as the cause ! For my part, I say 
 that the cause is spiritual, the effect material, and that therefore 
 the proportion which you fondly assume, is as foreign to the 
 physical instrument as to the religious instrument. 
 
 But there is something more. It is true, my will moved 
 the arm, which moved the lever : yet it can do nothing without 
 the co-operation of the lever and the arm If my will, however 
 active it may be, had not these instruments at its service, it 
 would have endeavoured in vain to communicate a movement. 
 The force is in my will, and, nevertheless, the force can come 
 from it only by means of an instrument which has it not ; the 
 living and first cause depends in its action upon a cause inert 
 in itself. Withdraw the lever, withdraw the piece of dead wood 
 resting upon another piece of dead wood, let it refuse its help 
 to the will, the will would waste itself in powerless desires. 
 Spirit needs matter, as matter needs spirit : the miracle is 
 reciprocal — the effect becomes cause, and the cause becomes 
 effect. 
 
 You have not, however, yet exhausted that strange com- 
 plication of mysteries. If, whilst the will acts upon the 
 instrument, the instrument were to double its length, its force 
 at the same moment becomes doubled, without the soul making 
 
416 SACRAMENT. 
 
 any other effort, and so on indefinitely, even to the power of 
 raising worlds, according to the boast of Archimedes. The 
 instrument which is not the principle of force multiplies it 
 without measure : it receives the initiative of the mind, and 
 gives back to it in exchange an increase which exhausts all 
 calculation. Do you understand that force, springing from 
 the will, passes into a pole, and there increases simply because 
 the pole increases in length ? What relation is there between 
 the immobility of the soul and the progress of force — between 
 a principle which remains at the same point, and a consequence 
 unceasingly developed by the aid of something inert and 
 dead? 
 
 I leave you no's- free to declaim against the water of 
 baptism ; ask, as often as you please, how a little matter 
 applied to the brow of a man raises him from earth to God 
 If I know not, nature has prepared too many reprisals against 
 science for me to distrust myself on this head. But I am not 
 ignorant about it ; I comprehend that force is essentially 
 spiritual, that it resides in the omnipotent will of God, as in its 
 first principle, and that from thence it descends upon every 
 creature in order to communicate to it movement and life, 
 according to fixed laws, and in a measure whence universal 
 order results. I comprehend that the Spirit breathes where 
 it wills, and how it wills, and that it is not more difficult for it 
 to cause a saint to rise from a drop of water than a world 
 from a word. I comprehend that under that action of the 
 divine will, dust seeks dust, the plant rises from its germ, 
 the animal devours and assimilates its prey to itself, the soul 
 acts upon the body, the body upon the souL the planet upon 
 the planer, and that the entire universe in its most lo~ly atom, 
 responds by a force to every hand that touches it, and asks 
 help from it God is all in all things, even in tie liberty 
 which rejects Him, for that liberty is His work, and He maintains 
 it at the peril of the evil which it engenders in spire of Him. 
 Without liberty the world would be tut a mechanism : liberty, 
 a supreme power, gives to it in the being which possesses it 
 self-possession, government, responsibility, a real intercourse 
 with God — an intercourse of which Prophecy and Sacrament 
 are but the proof and the means. Prophecy reveals to the free 
 man direct truth in rettard to God, and inspires him with faith; 
 Sacrament pours into his soul the fermentation of charity, which 
 
GOD AND MAN. 417 
 
 no image drawn from creation would be capable of raising up 
 and maintaining therein. The one and the other, however 
 feeble they may be in appearance, form the foundation of the 
 divine life in the bosom of mankind, and for sixty centuries 
 they have there resisted the unanimous conjuration of created 
 forces. All has been tried against them, but all in vain. To 
 the demonstrations of science, the brilliant dreams of genius, 
 the sword of potentates, the judgments of the magistracy, the 
 revolts of opinion, the children of faith and charity have replied 
 in these short phrases : God has spoken to us ! God has 
 blessed us ! Death has found them firm upon these two 
 anchors, and their blood has been but another Prophecy and 
 Sacrament. The world mocked at the word and at water ; 
 they added their blood, and proved to the world that a fluid 
 shed was not so insignificant a thing. Language is air put in 
 motion ; but when the soul enters into it, it becomes eloquence, 
 justice, truth. What will it become when God enters into it ? 
 Water is hydrogen mixed with oxygen : but when the genius of 
 man penetrates it, it becomes vapour, celerity, commerce, 
 power, civilisation. What will it become when God touches 
 it ? Glory to God, who has remained so great in such feeble 
 means ! 
 
 Gentiemen, I have yet to show you how prophetic and 
 sacramental grace, how supernatural truth and charity were 
 given to the ancestor of all our race : but the order of our 
 conferences now arrests me for a year. We will resume them 
 next year by this question, and immediately after, having learned 
 the whole plan of man in regard to God, having scrutinised the 
 gifts which were granted to. him by the intermediary of nature, 
 and the highest and most direct gifts which he has received 
 from grace, we will halt before that splendid masterpiece 
 of divine goodness, no longer to study that divine goodness 
 in its gifts but in its acts. We shall see man struggling with 
 liberty — a depositary in liberty of his own destiny and of the 
 destiny of all his descendants — master to lose aU, master to 
 bless all ; in fine, conducting in his heart the pious and terrible 
 drama of our common destiny. There, under the virgin shades 
 of the primitive Eden, I give you rendezvous. There, in the 
 ignorance of evil, and in the all-youthful glory of God, we shall 
 find our first Father ; and we, His sons, who too fully prejudge 
 by our misfortunes the possible issue of so much innocence in 
 
 2 E 
 
4 l8 GOD AND MAN. 
 
 so much felicity, let us each return to our works, and may we, 
 in another year, be able to bring back into this place less of 
 remorse than remembrance, fewer faults than virtues, a soul 
 capable of understanding the fall of man, and worthy to 
 repair it ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. 
 

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