Chapter XVIII: Part II: Le Parti (2)

I would fain hope, my brethren, that the two last _conférences_ have contributed, in some degree, to revivify in believing hearts both the energy of faith and the enthusiasm of virtue; that they have cast doubts in doubting hearts, upon the very uncertainty which creates doubt; that they have shed around hearts petrified, so to speak, in the darkness of fleshly bondage, some rays of the twilight which is the forerunner of the full light of God’s grace, and which manifests itself in such hearts through this question, solemnly and shrinkingly put: After all, might I not be in error? Might there not be, despite all, another life, a real responsibility, a moral law, supernatural duties, a judgment, a judge, a God, and this God the God of Christianity?

No matter to what level the Sun of Truth may have attained on the horizon of your inner life, you will allow me, nevertheless, to retrace, in a few short words, the doctrinal substance of the two previous discourses [_conférences_].

Man, such as we see him, is a fallen being; he is born with the taint of original sin, and if to this, which is the form of evil, he adds--and it is practically inevitable that he should--his own individual sins, which are evil’s natural outgrowth, he does but widen, at each moment of his existence, the abyss that parted him from God since the very hour of his birth, and which, thus ceaselessly widened, becomes such, at last, that nothing short of a miracle will suffice to bridge it over. Death then, suddenly intervening, cuts short all things here below, and hurls the man whose whole life has been spent without God into the chasm of the unknown. From a phase of being where all is transient, he is hurried to another where all is abiding, and from that instant the separation from God in which he has lived, and which before was transient in its turn, becomes abiding, and from temporal changes to eternal. Such are the conclusions of reason, which, leaning upon faith, point out to us in this eternal separation the fitting seal of an eternal woe.

It would not enter into my design toward the hearers which Providence, having gathered together before me, seems to have specially predestined to hear the words of eternal life from my unworthy lips--it would not, I say, enter into my design to show them these dark spiritual perspectives, without pointing out at the same time some vista of supernatural light, some promise and way of salvation, some hopes of life, nay, even life itself. No! God forbid that I should become as the treacherous guide who draws the lost wayfarer to the very edge of the precipice, and there leaves him to himself and to the terrors of the ravenous depths below. Yet, mark it well!--the mystery of life leads towards death, through paths that skirt a giddy abyss where no man’s self-possession is proof against danger; but there is, nevertheless, an infallible road that leads to life through and in spite of the manacles of death. It is called by a name with which my lips cannot become familiar, as with a common word indifferently bandied about in careless conversation--a name which I confess myself unable even to pronounce without feeling my whole being tremble with love and bow down in worship; a name which, when spoken from this pulpit for the first time, only a few days ago, produced an impression, or rather a mysterious shock, that neither you nor I have yet forgotten--the name of _Jesus Christ_.

It is of him I come to speak to you to-day. My Father! my Friend! my Master! abide with me, and, in order that I may be worthy to speak of thee, speak thou thyself through these my lips!

Among all questions put by man to his own intellect, whether they be historical, scientific, philosophical, social, or religious, there is none of more gigantic importance than this: Who and what is Jesus Christ? He and his works have been for two thousand years the most notable reality of the universe; they have been inextricably mingled with the course of history, with the family and state relations of man to man, with literature, with poetry, with politics; they have been the unseen link that binds together all social problems; they have been the mainspring of those mysteries that are convulsing the present century, and which are fraught to some minds with terror and threatenings, while to others they suggest hope and salvation. They have been, without the slightest exaggeration, all things to all men, and it follows, therefore, that according to the bent of man’s judgment on Jesus Christ and his works, so will man’s whole nature lean, his intellect with his thoughts, his heart with its feelings, his life with its acts and its shortcomings, his soul with its eternal aspirations.

This is indeed, and beyond all contradiction, the main question of life--that question which, solve it which way you will, cannot fail to produce two radically different types of men, and to open up before us two paths, as far apart from each other through the coming eternity as they are widely separated in the realms of time.

But why do I insist upon the awful importance of this problem? Do you not understand it yourselves? Nay, do you not even bear witness to it by your presence here at this moment? Why are you gathered here--men of the most varied, perhaps the most contradictory, beliefs? Why are you crowded around this pulpit in anxious silence, breathless and motionless, perhaps vaguely troubled in mind? Why but because there is not one amongst you to whom the sacred name of Jesus is wholly indifferent or wholly meaningless! If to some this holy name is the constant object of their highest adoration and of their tenderest, I would fain say the most impassioned, love, to others it is the object of their most agonizing doubts, the spiritual sphinx whose riddle baffles and tortures all ages. And further yet, while this name is to some the synonym of a smothered curse or of a hatred as open as it is relentless, it contains for all men a question of vital importance, I might even say a question of life and death. My brethren, it is of _him_, who is both so marvellously loved and so marvellously hated, of him whose figure meets us at every turn of the past or the present, of him whom the future cannot uncrown, that I purpose speaking to you to-day.

Every cause which has produced an effect may be considered either in this effect or in itself. Hence, there exist two methods of demonstration: the one beginning from the consideration of the effect, and tracing it up to the cause; the other starting from the study of the cause, and deducing its legitimate effect. We are now about to apply to the great cause and the great effect before us this twofold species of demonstration--this extrinsic and intrinsic touchstone used by our intellect in acquiring its noble treasure of proved facts and tried certainties in the domain of philosophy, metaphysics, history, natural sciences, and, in fact, of every branch of human knowledge. This cause is Christ, this effect Christianity, of which he is the founder; and, since it is natural to the human mind to consider first that which falls more immediately under its own observation, I shall begin by investigating the effect, namely, Christianity. This done, I shall appeal simply to your reason to connect the effect with its cause, and to discern through the beautiful proportions of the Christian system the inimitable stamp of its divine founder.

I.

Every doctrine which has become a fact, every fact which has won for itself a place in history, may be looked at in three ways: first, with regard to its extent in material space; secondly, as to its duration in time; thirdly, as to the depth to which it has reached in human nature. This division is no invention of mine; it is the same pointed out by the Apostle St. Paul when he wrote to the Ephesians, and endeavored to explain to them the length and breadth, the depth and divinity, of the Christian faith: _Ut possitis comprehendere cum omnibus sanctis quæ sit latitudo et longitudo, et sublimitas et profundum_ (Eph. iii. 18).

Now, as to its extent in material space, or, in other words, its territorial sway:

Open the map of the world, and scan the globe with attentive eye: a strange phenomenon will strike you. You will hardly discover one corner of earth where Christianity--and I use the word in this instance in its widest acceptation, excluding neither heresy nor schism, which, though unhappily rebellious, are nevertheless, in a certain sense, real members of the Christian household--where Christianity, therefore, has not penetrated, either in undisputed and irrevocable sway, as in Europe and America, or as a peaceful conqueror, sealing its hardly-won victories not in the blood of its enemies, but in its own. Following closely in the wake of new discoveries, it is for ever landing on new shores, making a home for itself among new populations, and winning new worshippers to bend beneath the ancient sway of the never-aging cross.

You might rise in contradiction to my statement, and remind me that the hour has not yet struck that will allow us, the soldiers of Jesus Christ, to intone the triumphant hosanna of final victory, since to this day there are many lands, many island-studded archipelagoes, many vast and populous continents, beyond the pale of our peaceful conquest, and since, after all, the standard of the cross is not yet securely reared in every clime.

I admit it; but what does this prove? That our task is not yet done? But who denies that? It is not done because time--which is our only limit--is likewise unended, nay, is perhaps only just beginning! For time is the array of all ages, and God alone, who created them, has reckoned their mysterious number. Yes, we confess it, our work is not done, and therefore we are ceaselessly and everywhere laboring; and therefore I myself, a humble but zealous worker, am laboring here at this moment. Those alone who will see the end of time will see the task completed. That which we have done during the twenty centuries that lie behind us is only an earnest of what we will do in future ages, God’s holy grace concurring.

What, my brethren! When we had no ships but frail canoes, and no compass but our untutored eyes; when we had no roads but eternal snows, virgin forests, and trackless deserts, vying with the wild beasts of the wilderness in barring our further progress; when we had no support but barefooted poverty and a pilgrim’s staff; no provision save precarious charity, and no guide save faith, hope undying, and--God; even then we succeeded in crossing rivers and seas, deserts and forests, mountain gorges and Alpine snows, that we might carry to the very confines of the world our living faith and the Word of our God. This ineffable Word has reached further than Alexander, who stopped at the Indus; further than Crassus, whom the Euphrates arrested; further even than Varus, who was stayed by the mighty Rhine--further than all conquerors, and further than all conquests. And can we believe that we have now set our foot on the fated threshold where the angel of evil would be permitted to say to the angel of virtue, as erst the latter was commanded to say it to his fallen brother, to Attila and the barbarian hordes, at the very gates of the Eternal City: “Usque huc venies, sed non ultra”--“Thus far shalt thou come, and no further”? Do not believe it, my brethren; for, on the contrary, it is but now that God’s reign is beginning, and as I believe, so I prophesy to you, with an irresistible and invincible conviction.

Forward, then, O human enterprise! Cleave the mountains, cut through the isthmuses, drain the morasses, and fill up the lakes; cast bridges over the waters, carry roads over the trackless country, build you mighty vessels, throw electric wires in the air, and gird the world with an iron girdle! Let your treaties of commerce and navigation be signed, and embassies sent to nations and kings whose names till yesterday were unknown in the civilized tongues of Europe! Know you what you are doing in thus knitting humanity together, and in connecting, with an energy unexampled in the whole history of the past, the orient and the occident, the pole and the equator? In one mighty embrace their hands are clasped, and they offer to each other, if we may so word it, that gigantic kiss of peace which, day by day, re-echoes more loudly in both hemispheres.

In all this, you are doing under the hand of God that which the war-steed does under the hand that guides him and the spur that urges him on. For, like unto the steed, who hardly knows whence he came, far less where his rapid steps are leading him and what is the burden that he bears--like unto him, thou Christ-blaspheming or God-forgetting age, thou boundest forward with maddening strength, carrying on thy broad shoulders with proud recklessness the rider whom thou scarcely knowest to the goal thou wottest not of. Every invention, every development of thy industry, far from cursing it, I bless it from the depths of my heart! Go forward and prosper! In a hundred years, thanks to thee, Truth will be sovereign of the world!

Christianity is the greatest geographical and territorial fact under the sun. It is so beyond all controversary, and if this fact, which I simply call a miracle, seems to you natural and easy of accomplishment, I only ask you this: try to spread and propagate over the universe, not a whole complicated system of metaphysics, but one single doctrine, whose mortal opponents, in the first instance, shall number every human passion which repulses it as treason against nature, and every heathen government which denounces it as treason against authority. But I will not ask even so much. Endeavor to persuade, not even one single nation, one city, one family, but _one man_, of the truth of a doctrine at once repulsive to his passions and hostile to his interests. I speak to you as a man whose life is devoted to this sublime and laborious mission of persuasion. And knowing as I do its wonderful consolations as well as the superhuman and apparently fruitless labor it often imposes, I tell you, my brethren, what you yourselves will tell me when the school of reality shall have taught it to you, that Christianity as it exists, spread over the whole earth by the godlike contagion of faith, is simply a fact so overwhelming that the language of men holds but one word fit to express its being--that one word, _miracle_.

There is, however, one thing more marvellous yet than mere propagation: it is duration, and a duration ever true to itself.

Condense the mystery of life into one short formula, capable at once of holding and adequately expressing it, and you will find none more comprehensive than this--_motion and change_. From the mass of inanimate being which, in the bowels of the earth and in the bosom of eternal night, is causing, by its agglomerations, its cohesions, and its fusions, a species of constant internal agitation, of blind and feverish restlessness as old as creation itself, up to the most dazzling pinnacles of life, where man figures under every name and in every relation conceivable among mortals, there exists the same law, there reigns the same spirit. In its name, by its authority, we see in private life one day swallowed up by the next, dethroned by its breathless and equally ephemeral successor, doomed beforehand to annihilation, while on the stage of public life events crowd each other out of time and of the memory of man, empires fall, dynasties grow up under the double shield of God’s grace and man’s enthusiasm, frontiers are widened and narrowed, whole nations migrate and spread, and even language itself, though but an outward sign of immaterial substances and metaphysical proportions in no way themselves subject to change, puts on divers forms, as if carried away by an irresistible impulse in the whirl of this universal frenzy. Yes, my brethren, motion is everywhere, and, in order that even death should not be permitted to fling its defiance permanently to life, this law penetrates even to the night and silence of the tomb, pierces the coffin, and installs between its four wooden walls the same unceasing restlessness which torments the great world. Worms, created to prey on man, riot with breathless agitation over the human corpse, and proclaim, by their ghastly activity in the abode of final destruction and in the very bosom of the crowning dread of earth, that life triumphs yet over death, and that the universal law of motion reigns in undisputed sway over that kingdom of darkness that owns no other created sovereignty.

And what is the result of this ceaseless motion? Nothing less than ceaseless change. Motion is a change of relations with the world and with one’s self. There is no motion but causes change, no change but presupposes motion. These terms are convertible, and so it is that I justify what I told you a few moments ago--that the concise formula of life is _motion and change_. It follows from this demonstration that nothing is so difficult of attainment as duration, and duration true to itself, which is to the sovereign law of _motion and change_ a permanent defiance and a marvellous contradiction.

Let us seek in the vast sepulchre of Time, where during so many ages countless men and things, countless doctrines and institutions, have lost themselves, and in which even the shattered wrecks of once noble ruins, spectres of the past and often unconscious prophets of the future, have been swallowed up--let us seek one man or one created thing that has not succumbed to this pitiless law. Let us seek diligently in the manuscripts of old, in the caverns of forgotten magic, in the tombs of buried sages! Or stay, my brethren, and seek not! For, like unto the alchemist of mediæval ages, we should seek and not find, for that which we seek is not.

But if you would see this tremendous miracle of a duration as invulnerable as it is abiding, lifting up its solitary existence in the midst of universal change and motion, do not gaze afar, but turn your eyes to that tabernacle crowned with the cross, the standard and badge of _Catholic_ Christianity. This, and this alone, abides where all else has been swept away by the ruthless and untiring breath which devours all that is, and ravenously awaits all that, as yet, is not. Christianity, and it alone, has lived true to itself, while all else around it was changing. Like unto God, the impassible and unchangeable, Christianity stands unmoved amidst the countless ruins with which you--men--strew the world. Christianity, with its old principles and its youthful aspect, leans on the rock of its own eternity, and gives the lie to the universal law with unassailable and ineffable calm. Yes, it defies you! It sees you pass, as the shore looks on the lapsing river, as the cliff looks on the ocean, as heaven looks upon earth, and as _God_ looks on _man_.

It is strange, is it not? It takes our breath away. But this is not all: it is scarcely the beginning. Listen! To bespread over the whole earth is much; to live where all decays is more; to abide ever true to one’s self when all things change is more still. My opponents, however--I will not say my enemies, for, thank God, I know of none--are perhaps saying to themselves at this moment: “But are there not other forms of religion bearing much the same marks, at least in a certain degree? Islamism holds a considerable territorial sway. The Buddhism of India has surely been in a certain sense true to itself from time immemorial.” I do not deny it, for truth needs no dissimulation. And it is precisely on this account, and because error has been permitted to bear in some respects a certain likeness to truth, that it was imperative, for the sake of those men of good-will whom this likeness might have deceived, that truth should possess, besides those notes which she shares with error, other marks so utterly inimitable that on their appearance there could not be but instant recognition of that truth whose counterfeits are as legion, but whose equal does not exist.

The touchstone by which to gauge the worth of any doctrine is neither this doctrine’s extent in space nor its duration in time, nor even its impassibility amid universal transmutations; that is much, but it is not all. What is of more importance than the limits of its influence or the length of its spiritual reign, is _the work it has done_. There is its secret proof, there its most personal revelation. It can give but what it has, and it can have but what it _is_; it can produce outwardly but what it inwardly possesses; if it be falsehood, then falsehood; if it be error, then error; if it be evil, then evil; if it be a half-truth, then half-truth; if it be human and natural virtue, then human and natural virtue; but if it be God, then _God himself_.

Christianity, considered from this point of view, to which we can give but a passing glance, will vindicate itself in our eyes as standing unrivalled on earth, even as God is unrivalled in heaven.

To make my meaning clear, let me present to your minds one preliminary observation.

Man often lives amid the wonders of creation without feeling the slightest curiosity in their regard, and this because a sublime spectacle, from being too constantly before his sight, becomes only a familiar part of the daily monotony of his life. We might almost say of him that, to the abiding miracle of the material universe, he opposes the miracle of abiding indifference. Now, the visible creation contains another, both visible and invisible, and which, though far more wonderful than the material one, yet draws from you, on account of its abidingness, only the careless notice of indifference. Inhabitants of a Christian land, members perhaps of a Christian family, citizens of a Christian community, children, in a word, of Christian civilization, you are living in the midst of a world of miracles which has lost the power to interest you because it fails to surprise you. It is my mission to-day to rouse you from this indifference, to dispel this mist, to show you things as they are.

Look at any Christian country, any Christian or civilized nation of to-day; the country which harbors us at present, if you will. Who were here eighteen, fifteen, fourteen centuries ago? Not even barbarians; savages! Who was it that came and saved you from yourselves? Who was it that drew you from the materialism in which you were plunged in the person of your forefathers, and in which numberless tribes are grovelling still to this day--nations whom Christ has not yet gathered in, and who horrify the sight of the boldest explorers? Who was it that drew you from your forests, built your cities, founded your families, traced your boundaries, inspired your laws, reared your churches, anointed your kings, and created those two centres of light around which for eighteen hundred years your history has grouped itself, and your private sympathies, your public enthusiasm, has revolved--the altar and the throne, fatherland and God? Who has reclaimed your fields, and made fruitful by the labor of the plough the glorious conquests of the sword? Who has preserved in the silence and solitude of the cloisters the scattered remnants of classical learning, and through the Scriptures and traditions has kept alive the plenitude of sacred lore? Who was it that created that incomparable marvel, of which I would fain speak with tears, rather than with words--the Christian _Family_?--the father, the patriarch, priest, and pontiff of home; the mother, the apostle of God; the Christian virgin, that holy wonder which earth proudly points out to heaven, as if defying even heaven’s angels to surpass it? Who is it that has created virtues without number within sacrifices without name, putting by the side of every woe the voluntary service which will minister to it, giving to every misfortune some heart that will beat for it, and to the most neglected grave a mourner to weep over it? Who is it that has freed the slaves of man to create the slaves of God--those slaves who can say with the humble exultation of a supernatural sacrifice, in the words of the Jew of Tarsus, now become the great Apostle St. Paul: “Ego vinctus pro Christo”--“I, the slave of Christ.” Who is it that has created the ideal of duty and honor which inspired the troubadour and the knight--the ideal of fidelity to the pledged word, of horror at injustice, of the sacred hatred of evil? Who is it that has given you all the goods man prizes, and which you enjoy in ungrateful forgetfulness, while cursing those who accumulated them for you during centuries of untold and weary toil, and even him who won them for your sake on the cross, in a sea of tears and of blood? Who gave you the great gift which this age counts as the kingliest boon of all--the gift whose magical name we fear, not because our lips were the first to pronounce and to honor it here below: _freedom_--the deliverer from sin and death, from the passions of hell, and from the hell of human passions? Who made you what you are, or what you ought to be--beings regenerated, civilized, free, glorious, sacred--in a word, _Christians_?

Who, my brethren? Jesus Christ, he who is there present in his tabernacle, he who listens to me, who sees you, and who will judge one day between my word and your souls, between me and you.

And henceforward, when a blasphemy against his Godhead seeks passage on your lips, be it in mockery or in malediction, remember the Caribbean savage and the Red Indian, think of what he is and of what you are, and do not forget that, were it not for Christ, you would be even as that poor savage. If your soul is not yet open to the fulness of faith, at least let it hold its peace if it respects itself.

Christianity in its breadth, its length, and its depth is the principal fact of the world. No sincere and deep intellect, when glancing at this comprehensive whole, can contemplate it without developing in itself a spontaneous doubt, without saying to itself, if it be unhappily far from belief, “Might this not be really the work of God?” But if the simple consideration of the effect, that is, of Christianity, can create this inevitable doubt, what shall we say of the cause which has produced it, and of the relations of the one to the other? What, indeed, save this, that, face to face with this cause, doubt is turned into certainty, and man is irresistibly impelled to cry out, in the full conviction of his soul, that _Jesus Christ is God indeed_.

II.

What, then, is the cause which has effected this mighty reality, as great as earth, as old as time, as marvellous as heaven, and whose name among us is Christianity? Nineteen hundred years ago, a little Child was borne in an obscure village of a poor country. His parents were poor and of no account; he himself lived a poor man, unknown and unnoticed, save in one or two instances plying during thirty years a lowly trade in a forgotten corner of the world. Of a sudden, however, he breaks silence: he preaches, all untaught as he seemed, a doctrine which earth had never before heard, and confirming it by signs earth had never before seen. Public attention is arrested: he becomes the hero of the hour, and parties spring up for and against him. Two years and a half go by in uneasy peace, but a day comes when his enemies get the upper hand, and denounce him to the civil tribunals of the country, whose cowardly justice, while declaring him to be innocent, yet allows popular prejudice and the threat of imperial displeasure to wrest from it an unwilling condemnation. The innovator is nailed to a gibbet, and his brief history, hardly three years old, seems for ever ended, and ended in what manner? By a sentence of capital punishment, and a memory left stained with ignominy by the hand of the public executioner.

Here, then, is the cause we seek: A Jew! a poor, unknown, untaught Jew! a Jew condemned to a shameful death by the justice of his country, and executed on the public road among other malefactors; a Jew, and, if we dare to say the word, a _felon_!

Listen and weigh well that which you shall hear. You have seen the cause, you have seen the effect. Between the two rises the great question. How could such a cause produce such an effect? This we purpose to examine in a few words:

There are three explanations from which your choice may be made, and which pretend to connect a cause so radically powerless with an effect so immeasurably disproportionate. They are these: Either mankind has believed for two thousand years and actually believes in Christianity without sufficient reason, without adequate proof. In that case, humanity is mad, and for twenty centuries has been so, and I myself, who am speaking to you, am out of my senses.

Or else mankind believes with fully adequate proof, perfectly calculated to convince it, and yet what it believes is false. In that case, God has deceived us during twenty, forty, sixty centuries, since the beginning of the world. In that case, Providence is a mockery, and its sway over the universe has been from the very first hour of creation but one long mystification, one scornful derision of our human reason. Or again, if you cannot believe either that mankind has mistaken God, or that God has deceived mankind, there is but one hypothesis left, namely, that Jesus Christ is God!

In order that you may choose more deliberately between these three possibilities, it will be necessary to afford them fuller development. The first of these compels you to infer that mankind for the last two thousand years has been bereft of reason, and that at the present moment a considerable portion of it, myself included, is in a hopeless state of insanity.

This may seem to you an exaggerated proposition, got up simply to prop the weakness of an untenable argument, but it is nothing if not an absolute truth, most easy of demonstration. Let us suppose that to-morrow, the 18th of December of the year of grace 1865, there shall enter into this great capital, through one of its numerous gates and towards the dusk of evening, a poor and ragged beggar, the dust of his journey still upon him, and his ignorance of the language of the country painfully conspicuous. Let us suppose this man presenting himself before the populace, the magistracy, the priesthood, the army, and before the Emperor himself, and speaking to him thus: “Sire, a few years ago, your majesty was pleased to order the public execution, in a remote province of the Empire, of a Jew. This Jew was the Messiah, the Saviour, God himself! Therefore, O Cæsar! come down from your throne, bend your knee, be baptized, and confess your sins; for, mark it well, this crucified Jew is none other than your God.” What would you say, my brethren, to the man who should speak thus to-day? You would fitly account him a madman, and madder yet the people and the priesthood, the army and the monarch, who should believe in his wild words.

Well, then, this strange tale is a true one, it is a historical fact. One day, many ages ago, an old Jew, baptized by the name of Peter, entered, a beggar, ragged, and dust-begrimed, through one of the gates of the greatest capital of the mightiest empire of the world--ancient Rome.

In Rome, he actually preached the unheard-of sermon I have just quoted, and which, repeated in that form to-day, would cause only a burst of derision. Why did Rome not mock him? Why did the priesthood not hoot him? Why did Cæsar not scorn him? Why, on the contrary, did this beggar, with his rough staff and scrip, with his barbarous Latin sounding harshly on the ears of those who could yet remember the voice of Cicero on the rostrum--why did he shake the foundations of the mightiest empire of the world, and why, instead of provoking laughter, did the people pale and tremble before him in the Forum, the magistrates quail beneath their robes of office, the priesthood shrink affrighted to their doomed temples, and Nero, the emperor, forget to trust in his blood-stained purple? Why does the deserted Palatine look to-day upon the opposite hill of the Vatican, and behold there a dome whose summit may well be said to seek to scale the heavens--a dome that crowns a tomb, that of the beggar Peter, a tomb which, though but the fane of the dead, is nevertheless the centre of Europe and the world? For this tomb bears a throne at once the most ancient and the most sacred in Europe, the only one which represents an empire whose boundaries are the boundaries of the universe. And why all this? Only because Peter proved by signs and wonders, by _miracles_ wrought both in life and in death, that he spoke indeed in the name of him whom heaven and earth obeyed, because he was their Maker. Because he wrought these signs, his word was believed. And I am free to confess that, had the men of his time believed in him without such an irrefragable proof of his mission, they would have been madmen indeed, and we, who are now the heirs of their faith, would have been only the successors to their folly. For two thousand years, I repeat it, the history of mankind would have been a long dream of insanity, an act of stupendous folly, and, as a climax to this incalculable confusion, there would have sprung from this folly the most incomprehensible of contradictions--wisdom and glory, light and virtue, civilization and progress--in a word, that great wonder which holds all lesser marvels within itself, namely, Christianity.

If I mistake not, your common sense has already set aside this hypothesis as untenable. We admit it, you may say to me; to make mankind believe in the--humanly speaking--unbelievable, there must have been proofs capable of proving and making certain, so to speak, the very impossible itself. We must admit it, unless we accuse the whole world of madness. But if Peter and the apostles, and all the preachers of the Gospel, confirmed their teaching by signs that were accounted miracles, might this not be explained by a chain of fortuitious coincidences, happy accidents, seeming miracles, which are every day elucidated by the progress of investigation until they utterly disappear in the full light of science? A discussion of the nature and essence of the Gospel miracles would be utterly out of place at this moment. I will therefore confine myself to this: if the miracles which, among outward causes, are the principal explanation of the world’s conversion to Christianity, are false, then it is no longer mankind unconsciously duped and led away, but Heaven itself, the deceiver and seducer, whom we must indignantly accuse.

There is no alternative, my brethren: either madness on the part of earth, or crime on the part of heaven. Either man is bereft of reason, or God is no longer just. Either man unknowingly deceives himself, or God wilfully deceives him. Choose ye, therefore!

But in choosing, remember that he who accuses God of having deceived the world, or even of having permitted what is called chance to have so deceived it, blasphemes as much against mankind as against God, and commits such treason against humanity as can never be forgiven by it. To accuse God of having allowed evil to triumph in the plausible likeness of good, and to become, behind this mask, the goal, the light, the glory, the life, the very God of mankind, involves nothing less than the negation of Providence, and the abandonment of the world to the blind god of chance, the savage god of fate, the shadowy god of nothingness. Such an accusation confuses all creation, darkens the sun of understanding, casts history back into chaos, the human intellect into doubt, the human heart into despair. If Providence has betrayed mankind from its cradle, why should it not have betrayed me, individually, from my birth? At the slightest hint of such a doubt, what a fearful horizon looms up before me!

I have believed in him who has numbered every hair of my head; and I have been deceived.

I have believed in the prayer of the poor who ask for daily bread, and in the answer of him who gives it, and in whose sight even the sparrow is not forgotten; and I have been deceived! I have believed in the eloquence of tears shed at the feet and the heart of God; in the blessings of mothers registered in heaven; in the fruitfulness of suffering; in the merit of unknown virtue, and of virtue unknown to itself; in defeats that are glorious and success that is shameful; I have believed in all that showed forth God in man, and man in God! But--grief unspeakable!--I have been deceived, since there is no Providence, since for ages and ages an odious and inexplicable chance has ruled humanity, and forced it, humbled, mystified, levelled with the brute, miserably plunged in a stupid and inconceivable idolatry, to bend the knee to the very dust--before what? before whom? Before a man, a Jew--before a scourged and crucified Jew, whom it hearkens to as an oracle, invokes as a master, and worships as a god.

I have reached a limit beyond which I cannot go, and I stop a moment to ask you: Have we not seen enough of these impossibilities jostling one another, enough of absurdities crowding on our bewildered sight, and, as Scripture words it, of deep calling unto deep?

And yet, if you tear from the brow of Jesus Christ the crowning glory of the Godhead, you will be compelled to admit a thousand times more than this, and not only to admit it, but even to believe it fitting and most rational. You are therefore forced to choose between the human madness that believed in and deified an impostor, the guilty and merciless fraud practised by a God whose seal was thus solemnly set to the most appalling scandal ever witnessed by mankind, or the crowning dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ, a dogma which alone reconciles and explains all mysteries. When you recross the threshold of this church, you must go forth believers, either in a miracle of folly, a miracle of treachery, or a miracle of mercy and love. Mankind must appear before you either as a regenerated, a deceived, or an idolatrous creation.

What will be your choice? Would to God that at the solemn moment of your decision I might come to each one of you, and on my knees beseech you, through the merits of that Precious Blood which, if you will not let it be your salvation, will most assuredly be your eternal condemnation, and the sign that will doom you to doubt in life, to agony in death, to despair in eternity--beseech you, I repeat it ere you have raised your voice in final decision, to free your soul from the interests that bind it, the human respect that fetters it, the sophisms that lead it astray--in a word, from all the passions of flesh and blood whose watchword is eternal hatred to the truth of God.

Then, and only then, in that freedom from all bondage, in the silence of your inmost hearts, make the choice that will lead you to life or to death.

But what words are these, my brethren? There will be no need of choosing then: the choice will be already made; for, as the sun swiftly reaches the last recess of the deepest cavern the moment the obstacle is removed which has hitherto resisted its light, so does Jesus Christ, the sun of the mind, the incarnate truth, flood with his radiance every soul whose own obstinate efforts do not close it against this blessed transfiguration. Open wide your hearts, my brethren, to this God of love and truth, who has vouchsafed to show himself to you in the brightness of such light and the majesty of such conviction.

And thou, Lord Jesus, who art the truth “_that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world_” (St. John i.), let it not come to pass that one soul out of this great assemblage should return this day from the foot of this pulpit to the common turmoil of the world without bearing within itself the ineffable wound of a dawning conviction. And if, O Lord! thou requirest unto this end the sacrifice of a human life, let this day be my last on earth, and this hour the last hour of my mortal pilgrimage.

AFFIRMATIONS.

“It is the child’s spirit that is to be loved and sympathized with, not his body; the body must be pampered as little as possible.”

“Principle must unite with purpose before it becomes practical.”

“Human nature must do as nature does--cling to the sustainer, and then it will be always producing new fruits.”

“We are none the better for reflecting upon our own ideas of heat, but if we would cease reflecting and let the heat warm us, the heat would itself realize what our reflected reflections never can.”

“There is a communion with God, with saints, and also with angels, and then with each other, but this is not in space and time, or with the space and time man.”

“That which Love requires for the everlasting food, the man of this world expends in heaping up rubbish.”

FLEURANGE.

BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’S STORY.”

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION.

PART FIRST.

THE OLD MANSION.

XII.

Clement remained a moment thoughtful and undecided. Before obeying his mother’s injunction, he felt the need of collecting his thoughts and regaining his self-control. Whatever strength of mind he might manifest, he was very young to experience such painful emotions as he had endured the past day. He crossed the passage of the stairs that led to Fleurange’s room, then passed on and went directly into the garden. Hitherto he had only thought of his parents. At least, he felt all that morning that, as soon as his father and mother knew everything, a great weight would be removed from his mind which would enable him to breathe quite freely. But the terrible revelation was made, and yet he was not relieved. He was still agitated, painfully agitated. Having passed the whole evening shut up in Wilhelm’s office, reckoning up the sad accounts, he felt the need of fresh air. It was the end of June. The weather was cloudy, and somewhat showery. He walked swiftly to the end of the garden, then returned slowly towards the house, and was about to go in search of the children and his cousin when he heard his name called close behind him:

“Clement!”

“Is it you, Gabrielle, here all alone?”

Fleurange was sitting on an obscure bench against the side of the house.

“Yes, I have been here an hour. You are going to tell me everything that has occurred, are you not, Clement? Remain here awhile and tell me. Do not conceal things from me any longer.”

“I do not intend to, Gabrielle, but do not detain me now. Come in, dear cousin. When the children are asleep, I will return and tell you.”

“The children are asleep, Clement, and have been for a long time. It is nearly ten o’clock. Poor little things, do you think they could keep awake till this time? After dinner I took them to the further end of the garden, that their lively prattle might not disturb the house. By eight o’clock they were tired out. I made them go up-stairs, and as soon as they fell asleep I came down to wait for you.”

Had her account been still longer, Clement would not have thought of interrupting her. He made no reply for a while, but at length said:

“Thank you, Gabrielle. You are--” He stopped. He felt an iron grasp at his throat, and feared he should sob like a child if he attempted to speak. With all his manly energy and precocious gravity, Clement’s young heart was passionately tender. And yet he had not been wanting in firmness throughout the day. Why, then, did it seem to abandon him so suddenly now? How happened it that, after considering, without shrinking, all the consequences of the resolution he was the first to make and propose--after manifesting no hesitation at the sight of his parents, and his brother and sister, he now felt terrified and almost overwhelmed at the thought of the sacrifice that had been made, and the great change about to occur in their lives? He hardly knew why himself, for he had not examined very minutely what was passing in his dreams. Clement was naturally inclined to reverie. He cared but little for the amusements of his age. His mind sought relaxation in secretly brooding over the inspirations of poetry. His friends knew he had a good memory and was familiar with a great number of poems, but they did not suspect he had a deep vein of poetry in his nature which ranked next to the influences of religion. This interior life was so completely veiled that the very eye of his mother scarcely penetrated it. Clement’s aptitude for history and the sciences, his turn for practical studies and a practical life, his skill in a thousand things of a material nature, served to conceal still more the other qualities of his mind. They depended on him to train a horse, settle an account, give a lesson in mathematics or history, plan an excursion, or make arrangements for a journey; but the idea of his wandering in imaginary or poetic regions, absorbed and lost in such waking dreams as are expressed in German by the word _Schwärmen_, and silently passing a part of his life in an interior world to which he never alluded, was little imagined, even by those who knew him best. And perhaps he himself, as we have said, had never thoroughly analyzed his own nature, for until to-day the actual and the imaginary had never come in conflict. But now all at once he felt there was in his ideal world a sanctuary, a palace, a throne, he must resign himself to see crumble away like the rest, and the courage he manifested at the material loss of wealth to its fullest extent seemed to forsake him now in view of the imaginary ruin of this enchanted domain!

Fleurange, seeing her cousin made no reply, waited quietly awhile, but at length she said, somewhat impatiently:

“Come, Clement, I pray you, keep me no longer in suspense. What are you afraid of? Am I a child? Am I not older than you? And did I not learn long ago the sad meaning of sorrow, suffering, and trial? Speak to me freely, then, and without fear. Nothing frightens me.”

Fleurange’s earnestness roused her cousin, and restored his calmness and self-control. Without any further hesitation, he seated himself beside her, and related the greater part of what he had told his mother some hours before. She thus learned in her turn the extent of the disaster which had befallen them--that all due reparation would be made, that the honor of her uncle’s house and name might remain intact, though his brother, Ludwig Dornthal, would be ruined--for ever ruined.

“And your good father and mother have consented to this renunciation of their rights?”

“Yes, and without any hesitation.”

“O dear and noble soul!” cried Fleurange, clasping her hands in her transport. “And it was you who proposed it?”

“Yes.”

“O Clement, my dear Clement! truly, I love you as I never loved you before!”

“Gabrielle,” said Clement in a low and trembling voice, “do not say that.”

“Why not?” said Fleurange. “I think so, and it is the truth.”

“Because--because, if they are often to be blamed who are wanting in honor and duty, there is nothing particularly praiseworthy in those who are faithful.”

“Nevertheless, my dear cousin, if I love you better than before, you must not be displeased, but I will not say so again if it offends you.”

There was a moment’s silence. Fleurange was lost in profound reverie. She soon resumed, in a grave tone: “Now I understand the state of affairs, I see our life is to assume an entirely new aspect.”

“Yes, entirely,” said Clement, with a dull anguish.

“This dear Old Mansion,” continued Fleurange, “must it be left?”

“Yes,” said Clement; “it will have to be sold, with all it contains, for the produce of this sale is all my father will have to begin life anew with.”

“Sell the house!” replied Fleurange thoughtfully. “Yes, I see it must be so; and afterwards we shall be separated.”

“And why must that be so?” cried Clement with sudden impetuosity. But he presently resumed in a different tone: “However, it would be very selfish in us to wish to retain you, now we have no longer anything to share with you but our poverty.”

“Clement,” said Fleurange hastily, “that is truly a rude and unjust speech, which I hardly merit--” She stopped an instant, then went on in a tone of emotion: “What! when poverty, misery, and hunger--yes, Clement, hunger!--were staring me in the face, your father bethought himself of me, he invited me here, received me into his house, conferred on me--not a happiness I had already experienced, but one hitherto unknown: he became my father, when mine was no more, and gave me a mother, brothers, and sisters whom I had never possessed. Life, youth, and joy had been meaningless words to me. I only comprehended them after I came under his roof, and now--now,” said she in broken accents, no longer able to restrain her tears, “it is his son--Ludwig Dornthal’s son--who tells me it is to escape the misfortunes of his family that I wish to leave them!”

“Gabrielle! Gabrielle!” said Clement in an agitated manner, “forgive me--have some pity on me. Stop, I beseech you; you will drive me mad, if you utter such reproaches at this time.”

Fleurange by degrees grew calm, and, forcing a smile, while great tears stood in her eyes, she soon resumed: “Poor Clement! I am, then, neither allowed to praise you nor blame you, this evening. Well, let us lay aside what relates merely to ourselves, or at least speak of it in a different manner. What I meant just now was that we could no longer remain idle. We must aid our dear parents all we can,” she continued in a softened tone, “and labor for them--”

“Labor!” said Clement. “_I_ must unquestionably; that is a matter of course; but you, Gabrielle--you! There is no reason in what you say.”

“And I also,” said Fleurange calmly. “And that is a point to be considered. I must not only cease to be a burden to your parents, but I must aid them. How happy that will make me! I thank Heaven for the very thought that I may now be able to do something for them to whom I owe everything. This hope relieves my very sadness.”

She rose and held out her hand. “Good-night, cousin. To-morrow I will tell you what inspiration I have received from my good angel during the night.”

He silently pressed her hand, and allowed her to leave him without a word.

The night was cloudy. If Clement caught any glimpses of his cousin’s features during their conversation, it was because, seated beside her, and even favored by the obscurity, he ventured to look at her more closely than he would have done elsewhere. Now, the stars rose only to disappear beneath the sombre clouds. He was no longer afraid of being seen. He remained where Fleurange left him, and, burying his face in his hands, gave vent at last to the tears that for two hours had been suffocating him--tears of sorrow, regret, and affection, which he must shed to keep his young heart from breaking.