sin upon earth, how should he have known that for counterpoise were required the cradle of Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary? My brethren, God knoweth whereof we are made. From this principle and the considerations deduced from it, I would wish to prove to you that the religion which has been given us by that God who knoweth whereof we are made, must be suitable to our nature. If, then, Christianity be divine, if it be not an invention of human genius, but a gift of grace: if it be not a mere progression of our wisdom, but a direct revelation, Christianity must of necessity be appropriate to our faculties, an intimate and simple connection must exist between the truths of the Gospel and the attributes of man. This is what I wish to study with you to-day. Man being gifted with reason, imagination, conscience, and sensibility, I wish to show you how perfectly in harmony Christianity is with these elements of our soul, and we will afterwards examine what use man should make of a religion which was formed expressly for himself. I. Man is a reasonable being. He feels himself created for knowledge, and he accepts ignorance only against his will. He rushes towards light wherever he perceives it glimmering; and if he allow himself too often to be led astray by deceptive rays, these errors even are a proof that he values and instinctively seeks light. The sphere of his reason is bounded, it is true; whatever object it propose to itself in its reflections, calculations, or experience, towards whatever point of the intellectual compass it be directed, it will soon be repelled by its own barrier and must confess itself unable to pass or overcome it; it vaguely feels that more brilliant lights await it in another phase of existence, and thence the ingenious temerity, thence the ardour which carries man towards unattainable knowledge: thence that curious disproportion between our means of learning and our ambition for knowledge. There is nothing in heaven, or on earth, in life, and in death, in God and in man, there is nothing that our reason does not seek to penetrate. To such a point is man a reasonable being; he wishes to be so indeed more than he can be; he wishes at all risks to acquire knowledge, and knowledge often of whatever kind. God knoweth whereof we are made, and the religion he has given us is a science. In whatever aspect you may consider Christianity, you will find in it all the characteristics composing a positive science, all the elements which oblige the human mind to reflect and study. Considered as a history, Christianity dates from the very cradle of mankind, and descends to us from generation to generation; the first sinner heard the first promise of salvation; from age to age age the light of Him who was able to say I am the light of the world, seems to be dawning in the horizon; the patriarchs are his precursors; the prophets his witnesses; the old covenant is but the preparation of his coming. From that time forward, from the foot of his cross and the brink of his grave, the Church gains ground unceasingly, and the Gospel is so thoroughly entwined in the fate of nations, that since the foundation of Christianity it is no longer possible to write a page of history without its being mentioned. Considered as a philosophy, Christianity furnishes a solution to the greatest problems which have occupied the human mind. Christianity gives a divine answer to every human inquiry; and alone, of all the systems of religion which have made mankind progress and reflect, Christianity is complete, and leaves nothing beyond the pale of the faith it instils. From the Infinity of God to the nature of man, from eternity down to your own existence which endures but for a moment, from sovereign happiness down to your happiness and to your tears, from divine perfection to the very least of your virtues, all finds an explanation in Christianity. Revelation, which contains all this, is an inexhaustible mine of which no eye has yet seen all the treasures. Faith, seconded even by the most humble, by the most sublime genius, may always find something fresh to study; and St. Paul, doubtless, was right when he said to the Corinthians that among them he determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ and him crucified; but this indeed is knowing all. Man is a reasonable being, and his religion is a science. II. Man is never satisfied with reality, or with what he is; he occupies his mind with possibilities, or with what he may be. Man, gifted with reason, is gifted also with imagination; this is not a distinct faculty, if you will: it is but the action of his intellect. It signifies little if you admit that such an exercise of the mind be general, and that all men, though doubtless in very various degrees, be gifted with imagination. Who has not allowed himself to be cradled by the dreams of his fancy? Who is there, who, when looking into himself, has not been moved in counting over the treasures of affection, happiness, and hope he bears within him? Who has not quitted in idea the narrow miserable fate allotted to him, and basked in the sunshine of his own imagination? Who has not pictured to himself this world of weariness and deception, calumny and misfortune, of mourning and separation, this world in which evil is paramount, changed into another world without misery, without lassitude, or affliction, or graves? Whether confused or distinct, studied or spontaneous, whether rare or frequent, these pictures-do not doubt it-offer themselves to every mind. There is something in our soul soul and much in our life which prevents us from being satisfied with this life, and which renders us all in turn painters and poets, to picture and promise to ourselves more elevated, more brilliant destinies which shall suit us better. This power of the soul it is which lends to the fine arts, to eloquence, to poetry all their charm. When a man of genius makes you feel the influence of art, when an eloquent expression enchants and excites you, when some holy and pure poetry touches your heart, consider well; the impression you receive ever consists in being transported for a time out of the present and actual world into an imaginary world, into a time of being which is not or is no longer; and you receive this impression solely because your imagination responds to that of the painter, the orator, or the poet; your imagination follows his, and you are carried away into the regions of fantasy. But God knoweth whereof we are made, and the religion he has given us is in itself poetry. What, my brethren, is more poetical than Christianity? What is there which so well harmonizes with that innate sentiment of the beautiful we all possess? And what influence is equal to that of faith for the cultivation and encouragement of this feeling? I spoke of art: Christianity has inspired the arts for centuries, and they have not yet exhausted it; that they have often badly interpreted it is not the fault of Christianity; and the treasures of beauty it offers are so rich that even when_represented falsely, beauties are found unknown to paganism. I spoke to you of eloquence. Christianity has endowed the world with a new eloquence, as it has enriched it with a new architecture: and only when speaking of the Gospel has modern genius competed with that of antiquity, and cannot fear rivalry. I spoke to you of poetry my brethren, the only poem that can bear comparison with those bequeathed to us by antiquity, and which carries away the palm from those masterpieces-at all events as regards grandeur-is a biblical poem, a Christian poem. But why do I quote as examples these wonders of the human mind? The humblest Christian, with his Bible in his hand, is a poet, and has an inexhaustible treasure of poetry at his disposal, from the most touching passages to the most elevated and sublime, whether he weep with Joseph forgiving his brothers, or mingle with an angel-chorus when repeating the accents of a David, an Asaph, or an Isaiah. The humblest Christian, with the help of his faith, lays hold on the past, and pictures to himself the scenes of the Gospel; or, anticipating the future, imagines on earth and in heaven, and for the day even of his death, scenes whose grandeur and beauty make the finest efforts of art pale beside them; and when when these visions of the night have vanished, which took him so far away from the world and the present hour, it is sufficient that he be able to say with St. Paul, whether it was in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body.. My brethren, man is endowed with imagination, and his religion is essentially poetical. III. Man was not placed in this world merely for the exercise of his reason and the research of truth, for the cultivation of his imagination and the research of the beautiful; he must, above all, seek and practise good; in other words, man is a moral being. He is so manifestly this by force and nature, that a man devoid of conscience is no more to be found than a man without religion. In the midst of the prodigious diversity presented by human life on our globe, in every degree of barbarism or civilization, under the influence of every kind of worship, upon whatever basis he rest his right of property, whatever circle he have traced for his family, man ever feels his conscience alive to the inseparable notions of good and evil; in the abysses of his soul man ever hears a mighty voice declaring to him, Behold good, and behold evil; from the moment he puts foot on earth and begins to walk, man sees ever rising at his side and walking with him these two terrible companions of his journey, good and evil. And what indefatigable efforts has he not made to distinguish correctly the one from the other, and too often, alas! what mistaken efforts! How many masters have offered to teach him this great lesson, and give him a light to illumine his conscience which they pretended inextinguishable! How many laws has he not framed for himself as laws of conscience, without perceiving that, in promulgating them, he pursued a mistaken path, and was seeking in his blinded conscience the very light that was wanting to it! These powerless attempts which God has taken care should not lead to despair, and the corrective of which lies in the principle that of every one shall be asked according to that which has been given him, are striking proofs that man is naturally a conscientious being, since in the place of real virtues, when he is ignorant of them, he exacts from himself factitious virtues, with which he rests satisfied. . . God knoweth whereof we are made, and the religion he has given us is a moral system. The moral system given to the world by Christianity is distinguished by three special features, which must excite the admiration of every sincere believer and every serious mind. This morality is not a distinct article of the Christian religion, which may be detached from its precepts and separated from the whole; on the contrary, the morality of the Gospel is found throughout the Gospel; the notion of duty, the obligation of holiness, the search in search for improvement, stands out with such irresistible force in every word of the book, in every fact of history, in every point of doctrine, that Christian faith without Christian works is like what the body becomes without life, that is to say, a corpse; that is to say, nothing; faith without works is dead. Then again, this morality alone is all-sufficing, and teaches the obligations of man every relation of life, and in death as well as in life. In its law as well as in its dogma Christianity is a plenitude, and it is impossible, in spite of the inextricable confusion of man's destinies in this world, it is impossible that a man, whoever he may be, shall find opportunity to say, Here is a day in the midst of my days, and the Gospel does not teach me my duty for this day. Lastly, and this is the most curious feature of our law; Christianity does not lay hold of man by the holiness of his nature, by the purity of his creation, to impel him towards primitive perfection; it attaches itself, on the contrary, to the greatness of man's fall; it speaks to him of his weakness, in order to restore to him his strength; it points out to him the abyss in order to draw him back to heaven; it teaches him to despise himself, in order that he may end by loving himself; in a word, it begins by convincing man of sin, and reserves to itself to convince him later of regeneration. My brethren, the wisdom of God is visible here; the soil must be dressed before good seed can take root, it will then bring forth fruits of perfection and palms of immortality. Man is a conscientious being, and his religion is a system of morality. IV. Virtue would prove impracticable to man were he not endowed with sensibility, and virtue finds in love its most natural and elevated expression; man is a being of affection; man is created sensible, and in spite of the excesses of egotism and anger, which we remember with sadness, I do not fear to affirm, that a human life has never been spent without love; I do not fear to affirm that every heart of man has loved, that every eye has been moistened at some time or other with tears of emotion, affection, or pity. Destined by his Creator for domestic life and society, placed in this world in a state of existence, so planned that solitude becomes impossible, and that he must inevitably mix with his fellow creatures, it was necessary that man should bear within himself an instinct of love, and that his natural inclination should lead him to love. And, indeed, one of the most admirable points of harmony which our world presents to us is the secret and intimate connection of our most sacred duties and tenderest ties; a touching reciprocity exists between our conscience and our sensibility, an exchange of holiness and joy is established between them; our virtues become simple acts of affection, contributing to our |