[Introd, p, xxxiii]

[…] ATHEISM, said Leibnitz, will be the latest heresy : and in fact the indifference which follows in its train is not a doctrine, since the really indifferent deny nothing, and affirm nothing ; it is not even a doubt, for doubt a state of suspense between contrary probabilities, presupposes a previous examination ; it is a systematic ignorance, a voluntary sleep of the soul, which wears out its vigour by resisting its own thoughts and struggling against importunate recollections ; a general sluggishness of the moral faculties, an absolute privation of ideas upon that which it is most important to man to know. Such is, as much so at least as speech can describe, that which offers nought but what is vague, undecided, and negative ; such is the hideous and barren monster which is called indifference. All the theories of philosophy, all the doctrines of impiety have melted away and disap­peared in this devouring system, true tomb of the in­telligence, into which it descends alone, abandoned equally by truth and error; an empty sepulchre, in which not even bones are to be seen.

   From this fatal disposition, which has become almost universal, a new kind of persecution and trials, has grown up under the name of tolerance, the last no doubt, which Christianity has to undergo.' In vain does a hypocritical philosophy give out far and wide the alluring words of moderation, indulgence, mutual support and peace ; the perfidious sweetness of its speech ill disguises the bitterness of the feelings fostered in its heart. Do what it will, its inveterate hatred of all religious principle penetrates through these feigned demonstrations of general benevolence and mildness. Strange moderation indeed, and still more strange tolerance ! We have sometimes heard it said that wisdom at times advises the temporary toleration of certain errors ; but to tolerate the truth, what else is this than an insolent and sacrilegious pre­tension, a seditious protest against the sovereignty which belongs to it in the moral world, an implicit avowal of inability to destroy it ? Before this age of enlightenment, who ever heard talk of tolerating the immortality of the soul, a future state, the chastisement of crime, and the recompenses of virtue, of tolerating God ! To what too does this tolerance reduce itself in reality ? Contemplate the state of Religion : it is no longer proscribed, but it is enslaved ; its ministers are no longer massacred, but they are degraded, so as the better to fetter their office. Degradation is the weapon with which it is attacked. Contempt, outra­geous disdain, and the still more bitter insult of an offen­sive protection, are heaped upon it. A few pieces of money, which the avarice which gives, envies of the misery which receives, derisive honours, checks with­out number, oppressive laws, continual disappoint­ments, and imprisonment ; those are the magnificent gifts which most governments bestow upon religion without wearying. Taught by a terrible experience, they no longer dare try to do without it entirely, but a feeling stronger than the voice of experience induces them to demolish with one hand what they build up with the other.

[…]

p.. 283 […] Jesus Christ despising all the vain props of human opinions, descends into the depths of our nature, in order to lay there the foundations of perpetual religion. He preserves the truth in the thoughts of men, as the thoughts themselves are preserved, by the words handed down : and to ensure their transmission, he unites by external and in­dissoluble bonds those whom he has united internally by the same faith ; he constitutes them as a society, under a govern­ment of which he is the head ; in a word, he founds his Church. Sent by his Father, he in his turn sends pastors, whom he invests with his authority. ` Go ye therefore and teach all nations ; and lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world.' And as he said of himself: He that sent me is true ; and 1 speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him) These pastors also will say : He that halh sent us is true ; and we speak to the world those things which we have heard of him. Simple witnesses, they testify to what they have heard from their master, and their testimony is only that of Jesus Christ, who has promised to be with them alway, without any interruption ; as the testimony of Jesus Christ is but that of God Who sent him, and Who said of him : This is My beloved Son; hear him.² This is why Jesus Christ adds : He that heareth you heareth me ; and he that despiseth you despiseth me ; and he that despiseth me despiseth Him that sent me.$ To enter into the society of God, or according to the expression of the Gospel, to become His son, it is then necessary to receive the truth from the teaching of the Church, as it received it from Jesus Christ, as Jesus Christ received it from his Father : it must be received with faith, fide, because for us here below that is the sole means of possessing it, and the slightest doubt would be an offence against the infinite authority which attests it. Come out of that position, make reason intervene to judge whether it should admit or reject the dogmas which God reveals to us, and immediately the immense and magnificent edifice of religion, transferred to this fragile basis, falls away on all sides, and crushes under its ruins the presumptuous reason which had imagined itself capable of sustaining it.

With this obligation to listen to the Church, and the order of spiritual society resting upon its testimony, upon that of Jesus Christ, and that of God, there exists three corresponding degrees of disorder, or three great crimes against truth : for truth may be attacked by denying either the witnessing of the Church, or that of Jesus Christ, or the declaration even of God : denials which constitute the three general systems of error, exposed and combated in the commencement of this work.

The first which is heresy, consists, according to the sense of the word itself, in choosing from amongst revealed truths those with which reason is the best satisfied, rejecting the others, either as useless, or as doubtful, or as decided errors. But from the moment men refuse to listen to the Church upon one point, there are no longer any motives for listening to it upon any other : whoever rejects a part rejects the whole. It matters not what is believed, faith is from that moment extinguished ; for, instead of subjecting one's judgment to the law of truth, the truth is subjected to the private judg­ment. By that, all the relations between the spiritual society are upset ; reason which should obey, is made to be the power which commands ; an attempt is made to substitute the certainty of proof for the certainty of declaration ; and thus by transforming religion into a simple opinion, the foundation is destroyed even of those truths which are re­tained ; which makes the apostle say : ` Whoever offends in one point of the law, he is guilty of all :' l a principle equally true whether it be applied to morals or to doctrine.

Heresy, then, overturns the whole scheme of mediation. Refusing to believe on the testimony of the envoys of Jesus Christ ; the heretic denies their authority, their mission. He makes himself a judge of the means which the Mediator had to choose for speaking to him, and by an inevitable con­sequence judge of his word. By placing himself above the Church, he sets himself above its Head, above the man-God. And as in reality, all that he knows of him, he can only have learned it from the Church, from its written monuments and its traditions ; by ceasing to believe the Church, he soon, if he is consistent, arrives at not believing the Mediator himself, at denying his authority, his mission, his existence ; and this is the second general system of error or deism.

In the same way that the heretic, rejecting the intervention of the teaching pastoral body, desires to put himself in im­mediate relation with the Mediator ; the deist, rejecting the intervention of the incarnate Word, desires to put himself in direct relation with God ; such is the essential character of his doctrine. He denies the witness of the Mediator by whom only we know God, as the heretic denies the witness of the Church by which alone we know the Mediator. ` Thus disorder goes on increasing in the thoughts of man, and the unfaithful image of the Deity, ceasing to reflect His perfections, becomes more and, more disfigured. For to pretend to know God otherwise than by His word, is to desire to know Him as He does not know Himself ; it is by separating Him from His substantive<sup>-</sup> wisdom, to mutilate His essence, and to bring to Him our obscure reason, in order to lighten up portions of His being. Moreover, from that moment He becomes to us as one immense doubt. Impenetrable mysteries surround Him, it is not known what He is, or whether He exists. ` It is not,' says Rousseau, ' a small matter to know at length that He exists ; and when we have arrived at that, when we ask ourselves, what is He ? where is He ? our mind becomes con­fused, and wanders, and we no longer know what to think."

But in order still better to understand what a pitch of mad­ness it is to pretend to reach to God, and to know Him by the reason alone, let it be observed that we do not know any spiritual beings in this manner. How do we assure ourselves of the existence of the soul in other men, unless it be by the communication of thought ? and the thought of another person would it not be totally unknown to us, if it were not revealed to us by speech ? Without this revelation our soul, eternally solitary, would live in absolute ignorance of beings similar to itself. Now, if man must of necessity speak to man in order to become known to him, how could man know God if God did not speak to him ? Seeking, therefore, in vain for the Infinite Being within the limits of his reason, which is in­capable of alone producing this immense idea, the deist ends by denying God, whom he does not comprehend : and this is the third general system of error or atheism.

Until this, man preserved some feeble points of resemblance to his Author : atheism completes their obliteration. All the foundations of certainty, shaken at once, fall down. A pro­found night covers the understanding ; reason, tottering in the gloom, does not know what course to take, and plunges into absolute scepticism. In losing God, man loses all the truths. Such is the extreme pitch of disorder in an intelligent being.

Let us tremble at the sight of this disorder : it is more fear­ful than would be the chaos of nature, if the light of day being extinguished, it were of a sudden plunged into impenetrable obscurity.

Who will conceive the misfortune of a creature without re­ligion, without ;God ? But above all, who will conceive its crime? Sectarians, deists, atheists, do not say: How could we be guilty in being mistaken, whilst seeking sincerely that which is true ? for that itself is to accuse God, it is to suppose in Him contradictory wills, that is to say, that whilst com­manding men to believe the truth, He refuses them the means of knowing it. Neither ignorance nor error is a crime in itself, as the one or the other may be involuntary. No one, therefore, is guilty exactly, because he is ignorant or is mistaken ; and it is for that, it is because man is naturally ignorant, and is mis­led with such a deplorable facility, that God has not willed that the knowledge of the necessary truths should depend up­on his reason, but upon his will. He has arranged and dis­posed everything so that they should be attested to him in all times by the testimony of an infinite authority. From that moment then the will, by rejecting them without excuse, be­comes guilty of an infinite crime, of which unbounded pride is the principle.

Calvin, on what ground do you deny the real presence which the whole Church believes and attests ?—On the ground of my reason, which could not comprehend this mystery.—So then, the testimony of the apostles and their successors, with whom Jesus Christ promised to be always even to the end of the world, must give way to your individual reason ; and it must be that the Church, that Church which St Paul calls the ground of the truth,ll has been false, because you do not understand !

Rousseau, on what ground do you deny revelation, and the Mediator ? you who have said : ' The acts of Socrates, which no one doubts, are less well attested than those of Jesus  Christ.''—On the ground of my reason, which cannot under­stand the necessity of revelation, nor of the dogmas revealed

by the Mediator. ²—So then, the testimony of so many millions of Christians, who have believed upon evidence of fact, even the testimony of the Son of Mary, whose life and death were those of a God,' must give way to your individual reason : and it must be that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, has been false,' because you do not understand !

Diderot, on what ground do you deny the existence of God, which is testified to by the universal tradition of the human race ?—On the ground of my reason, which is unable to com­prehend God. So then, the unanimous testimony of nations, attesting from age to age a fact primitively revealed, must give way to your individual reason ; and it must needs be that the whole human race, that God even, has been false, because you do not understand !

Pride then, an unlimited pride, which no excess can terrify, that is the crime of the atheist, the crime of the deist and the sectarian. Implicitly at least, they all three deny the declara­tions of God, and proclaim themselves greater, more perfect than Him, by setting themselves up as judges of His word : a real idolatry of human reason, of which we 'have seen the latest development and public avowal in the worship of the goddess of reason.

As soon as rule is disregarded, that extremity must be reached; there is no means of halting on the way : the prin­ciple hurries along the mind, and the more it possesses of vigour and rectitude, the more it goes astray. It is one of the wonders of Christianity that it not only offers us the truth, but that it ensures to us its possession, and that it defends the truth in man against man himself. That alone would prove the divinity of the Christian religion ; for man has no means of resisting himself: that which remedies the feebleness of nature, is evidently above nature.

But God has not drawn nigh to man by such admirable ways in order to leave him free to go far from Him. If His gifts are bestowed without repenting, it is that, whether received or rejected, He can derive glory from them, either by crowning them by a last gift, that of perfect beatitude, or by rejecting on His part those who have rejected them. The reward of having loved the light here below will be to possess it for eternity at its source : In lumine tuo videbimus lumen.' But those who hate it, and who take pleasure in the darkness of their own intellect; oh God ! what dost Thou reserve for them, except that dreadful darkness of which it is written : There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 2

In the second place, religion puts order into the affections of man ; it rules his love, as it rules his understanding, by teaching him to proportion it to the degree of perfection of beings ; and man becoming thus, in a new aspect, the image of God, completes the perfection of that wonderful resem­blance, with reference to which the Almighty designed to create him.

Here again Christianity rises above human doctrines, as much as divine wisdom is above our wisdom. What depth indeed in this precept apparently so simple ! ` Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul: and with all thy strength : this is the first and great command­ment. The second is like unto it : Thou shalt love thy neigh­bour as thyself.' <sup>a</sup> Man, like to God, must be loved with a love similar to that which we owe to God, but not with an equal love : the same distance must subsist between these two loves as between the image and its model. One word suffices to Jesus Christ to warn us of it, by reminding us of our origin, the greatness of which is the very motive of our dependence. ` On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' ⁴ That is to say, that they embrace at once present society, and the eternal society, of which the Mediator, announced by the prophets, came to open to us the entrance. Infinitely perfect, and supremely to be loved, God loves Himself with an infinite love : it is the law of order that must regulate man.' All limited love is unworthy of Him. He is pre-eminently the  good, the unmeasured good, the sole good, and consequently the sole end to which should tend all our desires, all our affections. We must love Him more than all things, more than ourselves, both by reason of our imperfection, and because not being our own good, an enlightened love of ourselves must strive towards God, and dwell there, .in the very interest of our own well-being. We must love ourselves in Him, as He loves Himself in us ; we must love nothing but for Him, and we must love Him as He loves Himself. Profound mystery ! for where will man, so poor and feeble, find the infinite love which he owes to God ? How will he acquit himself of this immense debt ? Sinking nature feels only its powerlessness. Yet take courage, oh man ! that which for you is impossible is easy for God.² Were you not by nature equally incapable of knowing Him ? He has sent to you His Son, and you know Him fully by faith. That divine Son united to his Father will send the Spirit which unites them, to help your infirmity' ; and in the same way that you know God by His Word, you will love Him through His love. This substantial love, uniting itself to you, will render your love divine, will invest it with the character of infinity, which alone can render it worthy of God. You will thus enter into the immortal society of the true worshippers who worship the Father in spirit and in truth j⁴ that is to say, by His Word, which is truth ^b and by His Spirit, which is love : for the truth has been ejected by Jesus,⁶ and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.⁷

The second commandment is like the first : Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. All men, equal by nature, or equally perfect, have a right to an equal love. The preference which one of them might give himself over the others, not being founded upon any natural superiority, would be a violation of order. That is the principle of that sublime sentiment which is named humanity, a sentiment born of Christianity, and which extends to the whole human race, the love which each man has for himself.

It is not the case that religion destroys family affection, or the noble love of country ; on the contrary, it transforms the natural inclination into a duty ; it strengthens it by regulating it, and prevents it from degenerating into an exclusive and disastrous passion, by making it subordinate to this great general law : the preference of all to the few, of country to family, of the human race to country, of eternal society to present society.

Order,' says Bossuet, ' is perfect, if God is loved more than oneself, if oneself is loved on account of God, one's neighbour not on one's own account, but like oneself for God. Every virtue lies in that.' t

Love without rule is selfishness, an absolute preference of oneself to one's fellow creatures and to God. Love regulated only by the laws of actual society, is humanity, or the equal love of all men, by reason of their equality by nature. Love regulated by the laws of eternal society, is charity ; an entirely divine sentiment, since it is but the love itself of God for man. For, God so loved man that He gave His only Son, that man might gain everlasting life  Man must therefore love man, so as to sacrifice everything, even life itself, to obtain for him immortal life.

And as this is only the possession of God, or of the Supreme good, man must not love anything, nor love himself, except with a view to this final object. Everything that turns him aside from this is an evil, and he ought to hate it ; everything which relates only to a temporary existence is not a real good, and unbending order forbids his attaching his heart to it. The time is short, says the apostle, and nature repeats this to us every day ; every day death, with its iron hand, engraves this great lesson upon thousands of tombs : ' The time is short : it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none ; and they that weep, as though they wept not ; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ; and they that buy, as though they possessed not ; and they that use this world, as not abusing it : for the fashion of this world passeth away.' t Woe to him who lets his love wander away and grovel in this perishing world ! for when it shall just now have passed away, what will there be left to that wretched soul other than an infinite waste, and in an eternal separation from God, an eternal impossibility of love ?

The same principle which puts disorder into our intellects, also puts disorder in our hearts. Pride or the unruliness of reason, by which we raise ourselves above everything, pro­duces concupiscence, or the unruliness of love, by which we love ourselves above all things ; in the first place, more than our fellow creatures, and afterwards, more than God. Strange excess ! But it is so. Man arrives at the point of offering to himself an exclusive worship of love, as well as an exclusive worship of admiration. Enchanted with his own excellence, he loves himself without measure or rule ; and from that moment, judging of good and evil by their relation to his corrupt nature, he calls good all that flatters his pride and his senses, and evil all that wounds them. Fame, riches, pleasures, even the most disgraceful ones, that is what this immortal creature will seek for as its object ; and, the eye fixed on a vile metal, or the ear eagerly open to a vain noise of reputation, it will declare to itself that there is more per­fection, or more real good in that intoxicating sound, or in that coveted piece of gold, than in the Creator of the worlds, and the eternal source of all good. And God would be in­different to such an outrage! He, whom order requires to will to be loved as He loves Himself, would accept either the ragments of love which the satiated passions abandon with disdain, or indifference, or hatred ! No : this would be to de­ceive oneself too grossly. Whoever despises the supreme good, must expect only supreme evil. No mercy for this crime which implies every crime. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him : for he can still return to the truth through love ; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, who obstinately hardens himself against love itself, that one is without resource, without hope ; for who could bring him back, if he has at once resisted both the light of truth and the inspirations of love? God Himself can do no more for him ; he has exhausted the power, as well as the mercy of the Infinite Being ; and his sin, implying a total opposition of the will to order, shall not be forgiven him neither in this world, neither in the world to come.'

Lastly, religion puts order into the actions of men, and for that it prescribes certain external Fluties, and interdicts con­trary actions. Now, man is in relation with his fellow creatures, and with God, Order in the acts which relate to God is called worship. Order in the actions which relate to our fellow creatures is called morality or virtue.

Actions are determined by love ; love is determined by the knowledge of good or of truth. That is why, among sectarians, morality and worship assume a vague character like their beliefs, and like them tend to becoming abolished ; they are indifferent in the eyes of the deist, who, not knowing what he believes, allows of believing nothing, consequently of loving nothing ; and they become for the atheist, who only believes in himself, and loves only himself, the hideous morality of self-interest, and the monstrous worship of pride and pleasure.

Man, composed of two substances, owes to God the homage of his whole being ; or to speak the profoundly philosophical language of the Catechism, he must know, love, and serve God ; know Him with his mind, love Him with his heart, and serve Him with his senses. The necessity of an external worship is then deduced from the nature of man, an intelligent and physical being. A purely spiritual worship is the worship of pure spirits ; it is the worship of the angels ; but it is not that of man, who by effect of the intimate union of soul and body, cannot enter into the society, either of God or of his fellow-men, except by the help of his organs. ' The worship, it is said, which God requires, is that of the heart.' ¹ What hinders it from being said also, ` the virtues which God exacts, are those of the heart,' and from concluding thence, that by loving one's neighbour, justice is fully accomplished ? What a pitiable thing ! as if love did not necessarily manifest itself by external acts. Whoever loves man, serves man, and who­ever loves God serves Him in the same manner. Worship is in action, like virtue ; and in the same way that each one ought in political society, to contribute by his action to the maintenance of order, from which the happiness of men re­sults, each one must also contribute by his action in religious society, to the maintenance of order, from which results the glory of God : and as external worship is a relation which derives from the nature of man, public worship is a relation which derives from the nature of society.

Ignorance, however, will smile at the very name of worship ; it does not see that it is that which preserves belief, and nurtures love. Wearisome and puerile practices, fantastic ceremonies, that is all that it discovers in this sublime manifestation of faith. Philosopher, laugh, if you will, at our genuflections and gestures; ' but after having had your laugh, tell us what would have become of the human race had it not knelt before the cross ? Compare with your internal worship, which consists in accustoming oneself to sublime contemplations,³ the Christian worship, which consists in accustoming oneself to sublime sacrifices of self ; reckon the virtues which have been brought forth by your solitary addresses to the Eternal,' and those which spring every day from a single look at the image of His Son.

But religion commands us to look at still higher considera­tions. It is not even sufficient to admire that wondrous unity o design, that intimate correspondence which binds together dogmas and worship, as strictly as the human soul is bound to the body ; so that the truth being given us by external means, or by speech, grace or love is also given us by external means, or by the sacraments : It is to be under­stood besides that worship, in its magnificent generality, is but the outward realisation of infinite truth and infinite love, the mutual gift and effective sacrifice of God to man, and of man to God, or the consummation of their society. And, indeed, I see upon our altars infinite truth really present in the person of the incarnate Word, but hidden under the appearance of bread, symbol of the life which it communi­cates to us, as the Word itself was hidden under the veil of human nature ; I see it, this Word made flesh, giving itself to man whom he bought with his blood, and feeding him at the same time with his body immolated for him, with his truth, with his love, with his whole divinity, in order to render man divine, and to prepare him for a union, not a more real one, but more intimate, more delicious, and more durable. Thus the infinite love of God is manifested by infinite action, and religion would be to me more incompre­hensible without this mystery, than this mystery is incompre­hensible to me.

On his side, man associated with the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ,', the man-pontiff, minister and image of God as Pontiff, realises outwardly infinite truth and love, by the production of the incarnate Word upon the altar, prodigious production, which makes men share in the divine power, and which the Church, in its wonderfully profound language, ex­presses by the absolute term of action, because, indeed, no other action can be compared to that infinite action which is exer­cised upon God Himself.

Man also realises infinite truth by the public profession of the faith ; and the infinite love which the Holy Spirit inspires into him, by public acts of adoration, obedience and annihila­tion ; by the entire sacrifice of his being, of his reason, through faith ; of his heart, by detaching himself from perishable goods ; of his senses, by the practices of mortification which the law enjoins or recommends. It is thus that he accom­plishes the precept, and that he loves God with all his mind, and with all his heart, and with all his strength; for his strength, or his senses only act in order to manifest his love. Now , ` the greatest effort of love is to give up life for that which is loved :' ¹ it is the last, the perfect sacrifice, and also the necessary means for arriving at a perfect union with God. That is what death is to the Christian, the last act of the infinite worship which he owes to the Supreme Being. Here again is to be observed the strict correspondence of the order of nature with supernatural order.'

Feeble minds, who come to shatter yourselves against the stones of the altar, comprehend now this word ; Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.³ Outward homage, prayer, all the acts of worship are in­separable from the worship of the spirit. Love necessarily manifests itself without ; and it is in vain that shaking o$ the yoke of God, and breaking the bonds of His society, you dare to say : Non serviam. In spite of yourselves, you must serve. You will serve your desires, your passions; ⁴ you will make gods of them ; 6 for whatever we prefer to God, is god for us : you will render to them the worship which you refuse to the Almighty. You will adore your own selves in your haughty reason, and in your insensate pride, in omni colle sublimi; you will prostrate yourselves before your vices ; you will erect as temples the obscure dens of prostitution, sub omni ligno fron­doso, to prosternaberis meretrix: ^s you will serve, but basely as a degraded people serves the tyrant which chance gives it, until, suddenly carried away by the impetuous torrent of justice, you will go again, and for ever, far from the eternal source of love, and of sovereign good, to serve, without hope, in the desolate regions of hate, and in the empire of sovereign evil.

From the precept of loving one's neighbour as oneself for the sake of God, flow all the laws of morality and of society. This single precept puts order into families, into the State, and amongst nations; for nations have amongst themselves the same relations, and are subject to the same duties as indi­viduals. The perfect observation of this commandment, would make of actual society a perfect reflection of the eternal society, of which we are one day to be members. Observe that the entire fulfilment of this precept is in fact but the entire sacrifice of oneself to others; a sacrifice which peculiarly constitutes virtue, as the sacrifice of others to oneself constitutes crime. Virtue itself is then a positive worship which man renders to God, in his image; and like Jesus Christ, come in his quality of king' not to be served but to serve,² Jesus Christ immolated since the origin of the world,³ is at once, in his eternal priesthood, both priest and victim• so each member of the body of which he is the head, or of the spiritual society which he has established, associated with his kingship in order to serve, and with his priesthood in order to immolate himself, is equally priest and victim : Vos regale sacerdotium.⁴ But if virtue is a real worship, crime is a real idolatry, or a sacrilegious adoration which man offers to himself, by immolating order to his passions, by declaring that they should be served by beings after the likeness of God : and in the same way that the greatest act of virtue, or the last effort of the love of others, is to sacrifice one's life for them, so the greatest crime, or the last excess of unruly love of self, is the sacrifice to oneself of the life of others ; and if it was not in vain that the incarnate Word willed that it should be said of him, There is the man, every murder is a deicide.

Apply these considerations in detail to either domestic or social duties, and you will conceive that, without religion, everything is disorder because all order is relative to God. Order in our thoughts is to know Him ; order in our affec­tions is to love Him ; order in our actions, to serve Him, either directly, by the exercise of the worship established by the Mediator in religious society ; or indirectly, by the exer­cise of moral virtues, or of the worship which we offer to His image in political society. For we owe nothing to man simply as man ; and God alone is the principle as well as the object of all the duties. This appears very clearly in the Gospel, when in announcing that dreadful day in which all the human race will appear before Him to receive its last sen­tence, the man-God promises to recompense works of love and to punish the contrary works, not precisely because any­one shall have served or have oppressed man, but because by serving or oppressing man, he shall have served or injured God : Quamdiu fecistis uni ex his fratribus nteis minimmis mihi fecistis. Quamdiu non fecistis uni de minoribus his nec mihifecistis.' Beyond that, I see neither crime nor virtue ; and nothing less than those words is necessary to explain to me those which follow : Come ye blessed of my Father... . Depart from me ye cursed ... and these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into life eternal.²

That is what religion is with regard to God, that is what it is with respect to man. Let us take care of being misled : it is not a system which is submitted to our judgment, but a law to which we must subject our hearts. Moreover the first voice heard at the apparition of the man-God imposes silence on human reason, by revealing the secret of the order which the Mediator comes to establish : Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.³ Let us listen atten­tively : glory to God : such is the principal object, the first cause of the incarnation ; for God acts only for Himself. If He sends His son into the world, it is to make His glory to shine forth, to manifest His being, to testify to the truth, to extend the reign of love : that is the mission of the Word made flesh. Now is it the reason that will be addressed ? no, but the will ; for it does not depend upon the reason to com­prehend, but it always_. depends upon the will to believe that which is attested by a sufficient authority'; it depends upon the will to love good, to obey the laws of order : Peace to men of good will.

Those will hearken to God in His envoy, and will glorify Him by their faith, by their love and their works, whose will will be good, or exempt from the corruption of pride, principle of all evil, and who will incline their hearts to believe, to love, to obey, instead of harassing their reason in order to com­prehend ; or rather, whose enlightened reason will understand that it is supremely reasonable to believe without comprehend­ing, whenever God speaks in order to reveal such high truths, which He alone is capable of fully comprehending. Peace to those men of good will; peace, that is to say, society, union with God, outside of which there is no peace for any intelligent being: peace on earth, through the inward enjoyment of order which religion establishes in their minds, affections, and actions. That which disturbs the peace of the understanding, is the strife of error against the truth, of error which springs from proud reason, against the truth which is known to us by the testimony of the Word : by forcing reason to submit, by giving faith to it as a rule, the will terminates this struggle. That which disturbs the peace of the heart, is the fight of the flesh against the spirit.' of the unruly love of ourselves against the love of God, which His Spirit excites within us : by giving way to its impression, by completing the sacrifice of our whole being to its Author, the will terminates this fight. That which troubles the peace of society, is the perpetual struggle of the interest of each with the interest of all : by subjecting the passions to duty, or to the law which bids us sacrifice ourselves for our brothers, the will puts an end to this struggle. There­fore, once more, Peace on earth to men of good will, and in heaven, the eternal fulness of glory : Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua.º

But for the men whose perverted will refuses to listen to the divine word, to love infinite good, to obey immutable order : war, eternal war, first of all with themselves : all their thoughts, in arms one against another, struggle, clash, and destroy each other to the very last : and their devastated intelligence, in its fearful solitude, resembles a sad and blood-stained city, where intestine fury has not left a living being. War in their hearts harassed by doubts, ravaged by desires, tortured by remorse. War in the family, in the State, a prey to dissensions, to anarchy, shaken and shattered by continual commotions. War between peoples who devour one another, as they eat up bread.' Lastly, war with God, separation from His society, mutual enmity, impious revolt of man against his Author, whom he will attempt to annihilate to put himself in His place ; war until the day marked out for the triumph of order, when the Eternal stretching out His arm, and seizing His feeble enemies, they will feel, in their profound consternation, the dreadful truth of this word, which must be fulfilled as well as many others : It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.'

We have shown that religion, if there do exist a true one, is of infinite importance to man, to society, even to God ; and by that we have destroyed one of the foundations of dogmatic indifference. To complete the overthrow of the basis upon which it rests, we will prove that there does indeed exist a true religion, that there is but one, that it is the sole means of salvation for all men, and also that all men may easily discern it from amongst the false religions. But first of all, it is fitting to seek how, in our present condition, we arrive at a certain knowledge of the truth. Let us try however to excite within ourselves the love of this holy truth ; for love alone gives a value to the truth. If any one by dint of labour were to succeed in discovering it, it would be, if it were not loved, only a barren philosophical opinion. Now no more than Pascal, `we do not consider that all philosophy is worth an hour of labour.' 3

THE END

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