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CHRISTIANITY 



belong to the province of apologetics. This word 

 salvation, if we take it in all its fullness, comes 

 before us as its principal and even sole subject. 

 ' The son of man,' says Jesus, ' is come to seek and 

 to save that which was lost' (Luke, xix. 10). 

 This one word contains within itself the whole 

 gospel, and alone explains to us why it has been 

 specially called good news. This is its true sig- 

 nificance, if we leave aside entirely its theological 

 development. Humanity is not in its normal con- 

 dition ; it is lost by its o'.vn fault through having 

 broken by voluntary revolt the bond which at the 

 beginning united it to God as made in his own 

 image, and which was intended ever to become closer 

 through the voluntary obedience it was invited to 

 offer in the mysterious probation of its free-will. 

 Incapable of rising again of itself, it must needs be 

 sought out by compassionate love like a wandering 

 and lost sheep, for the sake of being lifted up 

 and brought back to God. This is what the Son 

 of Man has done in agreement with the offended 

 Father, who has had compassion upon him. Al- 

 though by a saving act of his own good pleasure 

 God has pardoned the sinner, he has not abrogated 

 the laws of moral order. These laws demand no 

 vengeance unworthy of God, but merely a repara- 

 tion a retractation of sin involved in an essen- 

 tially moral expiation. Such an expiation can 

 consist only in a perfect obedience, complete 

 even to the length of accepting in a voluntary 

 sacrifice the consequences or the original revolt. 

 This is what the Son of Man, who was also the Son 

 of God, has willed and has accomplished. He has 

 died for the sins of the world, and risen again for 

 its justification ; and the cross on which he has 

 accomplished this reparative work rises before us 

 for ever as the symbol of a reconciliation, which 

 each man in his turn must appropriate to himself 

 by an act of faith uniting him to the sacred 

 sufferer. 



Christianity is thus pre-eminently the religion 

 of redemption and of the redeemer. It has intro- 

 duced into the world the grand reparative influence 

 of a victorious love, inaugurating in Jesus him- 

 self an unceasing struggle ; for that reparative 

 influence must struggle constantly against the 

 powers of evil, which are not magically suppressed. 

 But this reparative work cannot consist alone 

 in the salvation of individual souls ; to be worthy 

 of God it must strive to restore all that the 

 original fall has blighted or destroyed to make 

 the fallen creature realise all his * lofty destiny 

 that is to say, to reconstitute in man all the 

 greatness kept in store for him, and to give 

 him up without reserve to God, making the re- 

 generating spirit penetrate into every sphere of 

 his activity as into all his faculties. Hence the 

 wide mission of Christianity to purify and raise 

 everything that is human in the most diverse 

 spheres of society, from the institutions which 

 regulate the relations of men to each other 

 to the highest culture of the intellect. This 

 restoration of man after the divine type is the 

 continuation and application of the redemptive 

 work of Christ, which, after having had for its 

 first intent to form in the Church a society of 

 believing souls, pardoned and saved, called to 

 work directly for the salvation of all that is 

 lost, next radiates outwards into all the depart- 

 ments of human activity. It is in this enlarged 

 sense that we must understand the kingdom of 

 God which the Saviour came to found upon our 

 sinful world, and of which the progress goes on 

 only at the price of an incessant struggle, which 

 will continue to the end of time. But this general 

 advance of the kingdom of God in its widely 

 human extension is always proportionate to its in- 

 ternal development within his Church, which keeps 



and cherishes the central hearth of the divine life,, 

 whence emanate all light and heat. 



We know in a general manner what the vast 

 influence of Christianity has been in the world for 

 eighteen centuries. We may say that the cross of 

 Calvary has divided history; we find its luminous 

 track marked everywhere. It has renewed society 

 in the very depths of universal decline without ever 

 neglecting its first task, which is to lead the souls 

 of sinners to Christ. Spiritual conquests count 

 upon no more than this. But these victorious 

 struggles have not been pursued without many 

 dangers, no little resistance and as much dark 

 uncertainty, which have sometimes had the effect 

 of altering Christianity for a time, at least in its 

 historical realisations, for its high ideal has never 

 ceased to soar with serene radiance in the eternal 

 gospel. It may be put under a bushel, but it has 

 never been possible to extinguish it or to change 

 its form. It is this inherent recuperative power 

 that admits of the renewal and elevation again 

 of Christianity, however much it may have been 

 debased. To illustrate the difficulties and the 

 opposition which Christianity encountered upon its 

 way, we must first carry ourselves back to the con- 

 dition of the world at the time of its first appear- 

 ance, and understand the spiritual influence 01 the 

 great religions it found at that time before it. 

 There is no better means of establishing its origin- 

 ality and recognising all the gains it has brought 

 to humanity, than to bring into the light its true 

 relation to the religions of the past. These reli- 

 gions fall into two types of very different nature 

 and very unequal value : Judaism, and its antag- 

 onist, Paganism, comprising a considerable number 

 of particular religions presenting one common char- 

 acter in spite of well-marked differences. 



The assertion is often made in our day that 

 Christianity was at first a mere development of 

 Judaism, and that it was by combining with 

 elements borrowed from the religions and the 

 philosophies of the ancient pagan world that it 

 assumed its final form. But this explanation will 

 not stand an impartial examination of the actual 

 facts. Undoubtedly there exists a real relation 

 between the new religion and those which preceded 

 it. For how could it be otherwise, since on its 

 own showing it came to accomplish that which 

 had been asked for, expected, and longed for by the 

 human soul under every sky, as well as positively 

 promised on the soil of Judaja by direct revelations. 

 If Christianity were only a religious doctrine, its 

 originality might be disputed by adducing the 

 basis of belief which it has in common with the 

 anterior religions, although here too it manifests 

 a splendid superiority. But as has been shown, 

 it is more than a body of doctrine it is an 

 immense work of reparation effected by its founder. 

 In that respect it cannot be compared in anything 

 with what has preceded it, and there will always 

 be between it and the noblest intuitions of the 

 philosophy of a Socrates or a Plato, or the sub- 

 limest oracles of an Isaiah or a Jeremiah, that 

 insuperable distance which divides a hope and a 

 desire from its effective realisation. If we con- 

 sider somewhat more closely its relations to the 

 religions which preceded it, stripping it in this 

 manner of that which constitutes its essential 

 originality, we find at once that that relation 

 assumes a quite peculiar character when the 

 religion of the Old Testament is concerned. Here 

 there is direct preparation under the form of a 

 series of positive revelations. It was necessary in 

 the first place that the cradle of the Messiah should 

 be deposited upon consecrated soil consecrated 

 indeed, although darkened under the veil of idolatry ; 

 next, that there should be found there a chosen 

 people to represent man in the expectation of, 



