144 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



We talk of a sin, and of sins. The word of God an- 

 swers back to us and speaks of the sin, the one sin, the 

 sin of the world. "Behold the Laml) of God, that 

 takcth away the sin of the world!"*' Our foults are 

 not sejiarable and independent ; there is not one of them 

 but has somcwliat to do — is, somehow, mysteriously im- 

 plicated — witli tlie transgressions of the race; just as, in 

 its turn, the collective weight of human guilt lies on 

 each several conscience, and oppresses and burdens it 

 from the cradle upwards. Doubtless conscience is an 

 individual matter. It bears its own personal responsi- 

 bility. As the prophet says, "The righteousness of the 

 righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the 

 wicked shall be upon him."t But face to face ^\\t\\ this 

 individual conscience, there appears a universal — if I 

 may use the word — a humanitarian conscience. Over 

 against the responsil)ility proper to each, is set the re- 

 sponsibility common to all. Our moral nature is full of 

 these antinomies which distract it without destroying it, 

 because they are harmonized in a higher unity. It re- 

 sponds at once to the God of Ezekiel, who declares that 

 the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the 

 father the iniquity of the son ',X and to the God of Moses, 

 who glories in visiting the sins of the fathers upon their 

 children to the third and fourth generation.§ 



Solidarity — the universal community of interests ! It 

 is the great law which positive science establishes cvery- 

 wliere in nature, — which a generous statesmanship de- 

 mands everywhere in society. AVhy might it not be, 

 under forms more mysterious, but not less real, the law 

 of the moral and religious world? 



In this way, Avithout having recourse to any narrow 

 or obsolete ideas, we explain the great Bible doctrine of 



• John, i. 29. t Ezckicl, xviii. 20. % U)id. § Nnrabcrs, xiv. 18. 



