Old Christianity vs

New Paganism

REV. BERNARD J. OTTEN, S. J.
Professor of Philosophy in St. Louis University

ST. LOUIS, MO., 1910

Published by B. Herder

17 South Broadway

FREIBURG (BADEN)
GERMANY

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Atais7ji

Old Christianity vs.

New Paganism

BY

REV. BERNARD J. OTTEN, S. J.

Professor of Philosophy in St. Louis University

ST. LOUIS, MO., 1910

Published by B. Herder

17 South Broadway

FREIBURG (BADEN) I LONDON, W. C.
GERMANY

| 68, GREATRUSSELL STR.



NIHIL OBSTAT

Sept. 27th, 1910

R.
J.

Meyer, S.J.

NIHIL OBSTAT

Sti. Ludovici, die 28. Septembris, 1910

F. G Holweck,

Censor Librorum .

IMPRIMATUR

Sti. Ludovici, die 30. Septembris, 1910

^JOANNES J. GLENNON,

A rchiepiscopns Sti. Ludovici.

>

Copyright, 1910, by Joseph Gummersbach

DeacfdRtod



CONTENTS

* PAGE

God With Us 13

Man as God Made Him 37

Man as He Made Himself 59

Genesis of the World’s Shame 81

The Evil of Sin and Its Divine Remedy . . 109

The Mystery of the Atonement 131

The Work of the Atonement 156

The Cross and the Crown 181



I



PREFACE

“ There is a scholarly repudiation of all

solemn authority. The decalogue is no more

sacred than a syllabus. Everything is sub-

jected to searching analysis. The past has lost

its grip on the professor. The ancient

prophet is less potent than the new political

economy. Nothing is accepted on the ipse

dixit of tradition. Olympus and Mount Sinai

are twin peaks beautiful, but not made sacred

by mythology. From the college standpoint

there are no God-established covenants.

What happens at the primaries is more to the

point than what took place in Palestine. Time

is a laboratory wherein reactions are eternally

producing new phases of civilization having

changing forms and hues.”

This paragraph, we are assured by its au-

thor, Harold Bolce, faithfully sums up the re-

sults of his protracted study and personal in-

vestigation of the religious attitude of most of

our secular universities. “ From Boston to

5



6 Preface

Berkely,” he says, “ I found the universities

curiously alive and alert. The professors be-

lieve that they are in the forefront of prog-

ress. Whether the subject be a god or a gas,

a matter of morals or volcanic mud, a syllo-

gism or a star, the professor approaches it im-

personally, critically determined to know the

truth. A government is great, but so is a
gnat— either may afflict the land. There is
nothing ex cathedra in the professor’s cur-

riculum, save as he expresses it himself.”

Not a few thoughtful persons, presumably

conversant with university teaching, have ex-

pressed their doubts whether Mr. Bolce’s por-

trayal of existing conditions is altogether relia-

ble. They are of opinion that he has over-

emphasized certain radical tendencies, or that

he has unconsciously attributed to the many

what are in reality but the views of a few.

For the honor and well-being of this fair

country one would gladly believe that these

men were right, but the mass of evidence,

and that the very best kind of evidence, too,

which Mr. Bolce advances to prove the truth

of his assertions, is so overwhelming that it

can hardly fail to carry conviction to every

thoughtful mind. There seems to be nothing



Preface 7

for it but to admit, however reluctantly one

may do so, that the secular institutions of

higher education in this Christian country

have completely broken with the religious be-

liefs of the Christian past.

What will be the practical consequences of

this lamentable condition of things, no one can

fail to see. In a country where believers and

unbelievers come in daily contact, and where

the ties of friendship and family bind together

in closest union persons of divergent religious

views, there is always more or less danger

that many will lose their hold on the faith of

their fathers
;
but when in addition to this

young men and young women are systematic-

ally taught that the belief of their childhood

years was merely a fantastic dream, and that

the most sacred doctrines of their Church are

but the idle speculations of an uncritical age,

the result in most instances can be nothing less

than a total loss of supernatural faith. As

a necessary consequence, the yearly output of

these same educational institutions goes al-

most entirely to swell the ranks of unbelievers,

and before many more generations have gone

to their graves, the vast majority of our edu-

cated men and women will be as thoroughly



8 Preface

pagan as were the Greeks and Romans in the

days of old. In the first ages of Christianity,

pagan tyrants used every form of physical tor-

ture to rob the people of their new-born faith,

but they failed ignominiously
;
now our state-

supported universities labor for the attainment

of the same end by employing the less bar-

barous but more fatal means of intellectual

perversion, and they are apt to succeed even

beyond the measure of their own expectation.

Christ has assured us that the powers of hell

shall never prevail against His Church, and as

far as the Church herself is concerned that

assurance admits of no doubt; but the powers

of hell have never before made a more suc-

cessful onslaught than they are now doing

through the agency of our secular universities.

The Church will indeed weather the storm,

yet meanwhile millions of immortal souls are

sinking to the very depths of infidelity to rise

no more.

They tell us that a faith which cannot with-

stand the attacks of its enemies is not worth

having— that its very surrender is proof posi-
tive of its unreasonableness, but surely such a

statement cannot be based upon the serious

conviction of any thoughtful man. Faith like



Preface 9

health is a perishable gift, and the possibility

of its being lost is no more an argument

against its intrinsic value than a similar pos-

sibility is in the case of health. Both require

a prudent care in safeguarding them against

dangers, and where such care is wanting, the

result must prove disastrous. It is true

enough that faith must ultimately rest upon

so solid a basis that nothing can shake it, and

so it does
;
but from this it does not follow that

the young, whose religious knowledge is not

rarely of a somewhat elementary kind, should

be in a position to answer the thousand and

one difficulties that are flung at them by men

whom they are taught to regard as responsible

teachers
;
nor does it follow that these difficul-

ties, remaining for the time being unanswered,

should not gradually obscure in their untrained

minds the reasons for the faith that is in them.

If all those who enter our secular universities

were trained theologians, little harm would

come from the infidel dogmatism with which

university professors are pleased to crowd

their lectures— nay, it is more than likely
that many of these same professors would

soon turn pupils and learn again the lesson

which first they learnt at their mother’s knee.



io Preface

But taking things as they are, the necessary

result of all this infidel dogmatizing can be

none other than the loss of faith in those who

are unfortunately subjected to its demoraliz-

ing influence.

Reflections of this kind suggested to the

writer of the following pages the advisability

of subjecting the pronunciamentos of these pro-

fessors to a searching analysis, and to show up

their inconsistencies and gratuitous assump-

tions in the most convincing manner, so that

the unwary might be put on their guard and be

enabled to ward off the dangers that are be-

coming more proximate with each passing

hour. He carefully gathered the various as-

sertions made by the different professors,

classified them according to their contents, and

then worked out the respective answers along

historical and theological lines, as called for

by the nature of the subject under considera-

tion. But before he had proceeded very far,

it became quite evident that such a method

would mean the writing of a large book, which

more than likely would not be read by the

very persons for whom it was intended. He

therefore concluded that it would be more ad-

visable to take up only one or another of the



Preface ii

more important assertions and show how

completely these professors misunderstand

the very teaching which they labor to prove

untenable, and this done, to present in clear

and definite terms the Church’s doctrine con-

cerning some other fundamental points,

which these same professors claim to be es-

pecially repugnant to the enlightened spirit of

the present age.

The assertion thus chosen, and investigated

in the opening chapter of this little treatise,

forms the foundation-stone of the so-called

New Religion, of which Dr. Eliot has made

himself the high priest. Its sum and substance

is the relation of God to the world wherein we

live. The Old Religion, we are told, has out-

lived its usefulness, because the twentieth cen-

tury needs a God who is indwelling in the

world and in man, and such a God Christianity

has failed to supply. How unwarrantable this

assertion is, we shall see in the proper place.

The other points touch the origin of man,

the fact and consequences of his fall, the na-

ture of sin, man’s redemption through Christ,

and the presence of evil in a world made by

a good God. In the discussion of these sev-

eral points, controversy was allowed to enter



12 Preface

only in so far as the practical application of

the doctrines in question absolutely required.

The reason for this limitation of controversial

treatment must be looked for in the fact that

truth is her own best advocate. In matters of

this kind, it is of greater advantage to the

reader to find the truth clearly expressed than

to witness the discomfiture of an adversary.

It is possible that the reader will be some-

what disappointed in not finding any reference

to the much discussed question of Christ’s di-

vinity, especially as our university professors

pride themselves on having at last succeeded

in reducing the Nazarene to the common level

of human beings. The author’s only excuse

is that he has treated this subject very fully

in another pamphlet, entitled : “ What think

you of Christ ? ” He might indeed have in-

serted a chapter on that subject in the present

treatise, but as that would not admit of as full

a treatment as the importance of the matter

requires, he thought it best to refer the reader

to the previous publication.



CHAPTER I

GOD WITH US

Through the narrow and crooked streets of

ancient Athens, there strolled one day, nearly

two thousand years ago, a stranger, who, with-

out much apparent reason, seemed to draw

upon himself the eyes of every passer-by. He

was low of stature and mean of aspect. His

garments were travel-stained, and upon his

pale features lay the shadows of great suffer-

ings. Yet there was an air of peace about

him that marked him out as belonging to an-

other world
;
whilst in his eyes, there was a

look of such intense longing, that those, upon

whom it fell, stopped involuntarily and won-

dered what might be his quest. He wandered

up and down, taking note of everything— the
people and their ways, public buildings and

monuments, and above all of the many altars

and temples of worship. That man was Saul

13



14 Christianity vs. Paganism

of Tarsus, whom the Lord Jesus had changed

into Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles.

When he had thus surveyed the city and

studied its inhabitants, he directed his steps

towards the market place. There certain phi-

losophers began to dispute with him, and when

they heard him announce a new doctrine, they

took him to the Areopagus, or meeting place

of the city’s council, saying: “ May we know

what this new doctrine is which thou speakest

of? But Paul, standing in the midst of the

Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I per-

ceive that in all things you are too supersti-

tious. For passing by, and seeing your idols,

I found an altar also, on which was written

:

To the unknown God. What therefore you

worship, without knowing it, that I preach to

you : God, who made the world, and all things

therein
;
He, being Lord of heaven and earth,

dwelleth not in temples made with hands

;

neither is He served with men’s hands, as

though He needed anything; seeing it is He

who giveth to all life, and breath, and all

things : and hath made of one, all mankind,

to dwell upon the whole face of the earth.

. . . That they should seek God, if happily

they may feel after Him or find Him, although



God With Us 15

He be not far from every one of us : for in

Him we live, and move, and are
;
as some also

of your own poets said: For we are also His

offspring.” Acts xvii, 19-28.

In these few terse and striking sentences,

the Apostle placed before the Athenians five of

the most fundamental doctrines of Christian-

ity -— the existence of a personal God, the
creation of the world by God’s almighty

power, the common origin of all mankind, the

duty of worshipping God in spirit and in

truth, and the all-pervading presence of God

in the world which He created. Every one

of these doctrines differentiates Christianity

from the various religious systems which St.

Paul found flourishing in pagan Greece, and

every one of them deserves to be emphasized

in our own day, when pagan ideals are again

placed in the forefront of religious innova-

tions. It is, however, only of the last, namely,

of the indwelling of the Creator in His own

creation, that I wish to make some remarks

in the present chapter. The reason for this

choice of subject lies mainly in the fact, un-

fortunately too much noised abroad to be

passed over in silence, that just now men in

high stations, men whose position of public



i6 Christianity vs. Paganism

trust and educational responsibility would

seem to entitle them to a hearing, openly

charge Christianity with having banished God

from the world which He was supposed to

have called into being; with having made of

Him a sort of landlord who dwells in foreign

parts, and who visits His mundane domains

only for the purpose of receiving a passing act

of homage from His tenants— a God there-
fore, “ who once set the universe a-going, and

then withdrew, leaving it to be operated by

physical laws, which He made His vicegerents

or substitutes.” And hence, these men con-

tend, there is need of a new religion,
“
the

God of which shall pervade the universe, just

as the spirit of man pervades his body, and

acts, consciously or unconsciously, in every

atom of it.” “ The twentieth century,” they

will have it,
“

will accept literally and explic-

itly St. Paul’s statement, ‘ in Him we live, and

move, and have our being,’ and God is that

vital atmosphere or incessant inspiration.”

Cf. Eliot: “ The Religions of the Future,” p.

8, et passim .— Cosmopolitan: 1909.
In view of this terrible indictment of Chris-

tianity, and the alleged need of a new religion,

it seems timely to offer a clear statement of the



God With Us i 7

Church’s doctrine concerning the point at is-

sue, so that it may appear to evidence whether

these self-constituted critics of Christianity

rest their charges upon an objective condition

of things, or draw them wholly and entirely

from their own exuberant imagination

:

whether they are the profound philosophers

they claim to be, or are but idle babblers, who

presume to criticise a religious system of

which they have not yet learnt the first ele-

ments. This we propose to do in the present

chapter.

The Church’s doctrine bearing upon God’s

presence in the world, and upon His operation

in the same, may, for clearness’ sake, be re-

duced to four heads, which we shall briefly

consider in their natural order of sequence.

First of all, the Church teaches us that God

is present in the world by reason of His im-

mensity— an attribute of His infinitely perfect
nature, whereby He is and must be without

any change on His part intimately present to

all that exists in the universe of created

beings. These beings are the creation of God,

and God is indwelling in His creation. He

is indeed a pure spirit, and as such He has

no extension, yet this notwithstanding He fills



i8 Christianity vs. Paganism

with the fullness of His infinite being the uni-

verse that to human reckoning is all but in-

finite in extent. This the Psalmist strikingly

indicated, when he said: “Whither shall I

go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee

from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou

art there: if I descend into hell, thou art

present. If I take my wings early in the

morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of

the sea : even there also shall thy hand lead

me : and thy right hand shall hold me.” Ps.

cxxxviii, 7 sqq. This again we learnt as little

children at our mother’s knee, who taught us

the simple Catechism lesson that God is

omnipresent
;
that He fills every void of space

and all things contained therein
;
that He is

in our bodies and in our souls, in our minds

and in our hearts; that His voice is heard in

the roarings of the winter’s storm and in the

whisperings of the summer’s breeze
;
that His

eyes shine upon us in the light of the day and

His arms enfold us in the darkness of the

night. We learnt even then that we are the

offspring of God and that He as our Father

hides us in the folds of His bosom
;
that His

presence to us and our presence to Him is of



God With Us 19

so close and intimate a nature that it falls

short only of identification.

Furthermore, as according to the teaching

of our holy faith, God is thus everywhere

present with us, so is He also according to

that same teaching everywhere working with

us. God’s presence is not passive, but active.

Holy Scripture tells us indeed that on the sev-

enth day God rested from all His works which

He had done; but that rest was only relative,

not absolute. The work of creation was fin-

ished— from that He rested; but the work of
conservation and concurrence, which had only

just begun, was to continue for all eternity.

His almighty power called all beings into ex-

istence
;
His almighty power preserves and

sustains them all. Were He but for a mo-

ment to withdraw His sustaining hand, they

would all sink back into that nothingness out

of which they were taken. He gave all cre-

ated beings their powers and their faculties,

and He concurs with them in their every ac-

tion. Without His active assistance not a

deed is done, not a word is spoken. He is

exerting His all-pervading activity everywhere

and at all times. He is busy in field and for-



20 Christianity vs. Paganism

est, on land and in the sea, on earth and in

the sky. It is He that causes the sun to give

out its light and warmth and the clouds to

pour upon the earth their refreshing showers.

He is working in the sprouting seed, in the

blowing flower, and in the ripening fruit. He

thinks in our minds, loves in our hearts, ac-

complishes in our members. He is co-operat-

ing in every single action of His creatures,

even in their sins in as far as they are phys-

ical realities, although not in as much as they

are morally bad. He is in very truth, accord-

ing to Catholic teaching, pervading the uni-

verse, as really as the spirit of man pervades

his body, and He acts, not unconsciously, but

consciously, in every atom of it. We as

Christians and as Catholics accept literally

and explicitly St. Paul’s statement, “ in Him

we live, and move, and have our being.” He

is more than a vital atmosphere, more than

an incessant inspiration.

And as God is thus working with us, so is

He also working for us. He created the

world for man, and in that world He con-

stantly works for man’s advantage. With

God we labor and toil, but God alone gives

the increase. With God we plant and sow,



God With Us 21

but God alone causes the seed to sprout, the

crops to grow, and the harvest to ripen for

the reaper. When we rest from toil and close

our eyes in refreshing sleep, He still continues

His never-ending work, even as a mother goes

about her household duties, whilst her babe

sleeps peacefully in the cradle. It is in this

that He exerts His active providence, without

which all our labors would come to naught.

It is this that gives meaning and force to our

Blessed Saviour’s touching words :
“
Be not

solicitous for your life, what you shall eat;

nor for your body, what you shall put on.

The life is more than the meat, and the body

is more than the raiment. Consider the

ravens, for they sow not, neither do they

reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn,

and God feedeth them. How much are you

more valuable than they ? And which of you,

by taking thought, can add to his stature one

cubit? If then ye be not able to do so much

as the least thing, why are you solicitous for

the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow:

they labor not, neither do they spin. But I

say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory

Was clothed like one of these. Now if God

clothe in this manner the grass that is to-day



22 Christianity vs. Paganism

in the field, and to-morrow is cast in the oven

;

how much more you, O ye of little faith?

. . . Seek ye first the kingdom of God and

his justice, and all these things shall be added

unto you.” Matth. vi, 25 sqq. That is God’s

providence, as our Blessed Lord conceived it

•— a providence ever active, ever interested in
the world’s well-being. We' must work in-

deed for our temporal welfare, even as we

labor for our soul’s salvation
;
but God works

with us and for us— His blessing gives the
increase to all our undertakings.

So much for the natural order of things,

in which, according to the teaching of Chris-

tianity, God is so intimately and actively pres-

ent to the world that no presence more inti-

mate or more active can be conceived, except

that of essential identity, in which, however,

God would cease to be God. But coexisting

with the order of nature, and elevating the

same to a higher sphere of being, there is ac-

cording to Christian teaching the order of

grace, which brings man into so close and so

mysterious a relationship to his God, that he is

called and is in very truth the child of God.

Of this our religious censors do not seem to

have so much as heard, although it has been a



God With Us 23

fundamental doctrine of Christianity from its

very birth. Did not Christ say: “If any

one love me, he will keep my word, and my

Father will love him, and we will come to

him, and will make our abode with him ” ?

John xiv, 23. Did not St. Peter tell the first

Christians that God had given them most

great and precious gifts, that by them they

might become partakers of the divine nature?

II Pet. i, 4. Did not St. John assure his fol-

lowers in words that have ever since been

echoed by the Church of Christ : “ Behold

what manner of charity the Father hath be-

stowed upon us, that we should be called and

be the sons of God” ? I John iii, 1. And

what does all this mean but a union between

God and man, which is so close and real that

if, to make an impossible supposition, God

should cease to be present everywhere else by

reason of His immensity, He would still with

all His infinite perfections abide in the souls

of the just. He dwells there as a God in His

temple, as a Friend in the house of His friend,

as a Father who enfolds in His arms the child

of His love.

And here again He is present, not merely

in a passive state, but He is exerting Himself



24 Christianity vs. Paganism

actively for man’s interests. He is working

most effectually for man’s eternal salvation.

He is pouring the light of His grace into

man’s intellect, and the strength of His grace

into man’s will, and thus enables him to lead

a life that is becoming a child of God. He

encourages him in his difficulties, bears him

up in his trials, consoles him in his sufferings,

and never ceases from His loving care until

that happy moment when He can say : “ Well

done, good and faithful servant
;
because thou

hast been faithful over a few things, I will

place thee over many things
;
enter thou into

the joy of the Lord.” Matth. xxxv, 21. It

was of this that our Blessed Lord spoke, when

He said to His Apostles : “Abide in me, and

I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of

itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither

can you, unless you abide in me. I am the

vine
;
you the branches : he that abideth in me,

and I in him, the same beareth much fruit:

for without me you can do nothing.” John

xv, 3 sqq.

This then is the second mode of God’s pres-

ence in the world— His indwelling in the
souls of the just through sanctifying grace

:

this His second sphere of divine operation—



God With Us 25

the perfecting of His adopted children for

their eternal happiness in heaven. The third

mode of that same divine presence, as taught

by the Christian Church, is realized in the In-

carnation, which has brought God into our

midst as the Son of man. For Christ “ being

in the form of God,” says St. Paul, “ took upon

Himself the form of a servant, and in habit

was found as a man.” Philip, ii, 7. This is

the culmination of God's love for the world

which He called into being— He Himself
took up His visible abode therein, and in His

own divine person walked the way of human

sorrows.
.

This is the central fact of the

world's history, as it is the source and foun-

dation of the Christian religion. From this

mystery of God's love all lines of human prog-

ress radiate; to this mystery of God's wisdom

all lines of human aspiration converge. All

that was best and highest in the thoughts and

endeavors of primitive peoples was inspired

and sustained by the hope of the Saviour’s

coming; all that is noblest and divinest in the

recorded achievements of subsequent ages

drew from Him its life and inspiration. In

Him human nature was elevated to a substan-

tial participation of the divine— was so in-



26 Christianity vs. Paganism

timately united to the Godhead that it shared

the infinite holiness of the Most High; that its

actions were the actions of God expressed in

human terms. True God as well as true man,

He took His stand between the Creator and

the creature, gathering up in His own being

the perfections of the one and the weaknesses

of the other. He brought heaven down to

earth, lifted earth up to heaven, and filled

both with the brightness of His incarnate

glory. He introduced into the world a divine

element, that imparts life and light to the in-

dividual and to society alike. “ The purest

among the strong, and the strongest among

the pure,” as a modern writer expresses it,

“ the God-Man has with His wounded hands

lifted empires from their hinges, and changed

the stream of ages.” He is the truth, the

way, and the life— the truth that all must
know, the way that all must follow, the life

that all must attain.

Absolutely speaking there was no need of

God’s coming into our midst
;
there was no

need of His emptying Himself and hiding the

brightness of His eternal glory under the som-

bre vesture of our mortal nature : but of all

the means which He might have used to re-



God With Us 27

store fallen man, there was none other as

worthy of Himself and as beneficial to us.

It was an act of surpassing goodness and love

that moved Him in the beginning to create

man to His own image and likeness
;

it was an

act of greater goodness and love that inspired

Him after the fall to take upon Himself the

likeness of man. In the first instance He

caused the light of His infinite perfection to

be reflected in the soul of a finite being; in

the second, He took that finite being and made

it the bearer of His own divinity. Through

this substantial communication of His per-

sonal perfection to human nature, He became

man’s brother and companion, a sharer in his

sorrows and a partaker of his joys. He met

man, so to speak, on equal terms, bearing the

same burdens, bound to the performance of

the same duties, subject to the same laws. He

passed through all the varied phases of hu-

man life, sin alone excepted. He might have

commanded as God, yet He preferred to obey

as man, that so He might lead man to an

eternal union with his God.

This union of the human and the divine in

the person of the Saviour; this outpouring

of God’s mercy upon fallen man, is a funda-



28 Christianity vs. Paganism

mental doctrine of the Christian religion, and

is it possible to excogitate any other doctrine

that would be more in accord with the mani-

fold needs of human nature, even in this our

twentieth century? Do what you may, you

cannot escape the fact that in his inmost being

man feels the consciousness of guilt
;
he knows

that in many things he has gone astray from

his God, who must be his all in all, and in

consequence his whole being cries out for a

reconciliation. Yet mere reconciliation does

not satisfy the cravings of his heart. He is

like a child that has been frightened in the

dark; it does not venture out again save in

the arms of its mother. So man discomfited

by sin, looks for a protector and guide in life’s

inevitable struggles
;
«he must have a leader in

his conflict with evil, and a model in his striv-

ings after perfection. He needs not only

power to act, but also perseverance to accom-

plish. He craves for sympathy, fellow-feel-

ing, inspiration, and these he finds in the hu-

man heart of his God. The crib, the cross,

and the open sepulchre, these are for him

sources of inspiration that will never fail.

They place before him under three most im-

pressive aspects that sympathetic love of the



God With Us 29

God-Man, which in the days of old led cap-

tive the hearts of men and made them cry out

in transports of joy: Hosanna to the Son of

David
;
blessed be he who cometh in the name

of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest! With

these before him, he finds courage to say with

David’s friend :
“
Wherever my Lord the

King shall be, be it in life or be it in death,

there I His servant will also be.” With these

before him, he fears neither poverty nor suf-

ferings nor death itself, for he knows and

feels that he is upheld by the wounded hands

of his God, who from the crib to the cross

walked the way of human sorrows and

through His triumphant resurrection robbed

the tomb of all its terrors.

It was this personal presence of the God-

Man, and His active participation in human

affairs, that gave the Christian religion in the

days of old its vitality and its boundless power

over the hearts of men. The appearance of

the Son of God in human form, it has been

well said, was like a flash of lightning, which

laid open to the eyes of a startled world the

bosom of God’s infinite love. It revealed to

sinful man an ideal of human perfection un-

heard of since time began, and created an all-



30 Christianity vs. Paganism

absorbing desire to imitate Him in every de-

tail of His human life. This visible presence

was indeed withdrawn after the work of re-

demption had been accomplished, but the same

God-Man according to the teaching of our

holy faith, will abide in the world till the very

end of time. The same human sympathy

that caused the living Christ to gather about

Him the poor and the forsaken, the afflicted

and the suffering, moved Him to establish

His sacramental presence on every Christian

altar, and there to abide forever as a Father

in the midst of His children. And this is

the fourth mode of God’s presence in the

world which He called into being— His sac-
ramental presence under the appearance of

bread and wine.

Though unseen of our bodily eyes, Christ

is with us in as real and personal a manner

as He was with the Jews of old; He is with

us for the same purpose, namely, to do good

to all. You gather in His temple of worship

to testify your belief in His personal presence

and to pay Him the tribute of your homage.

Do you realize what this presence implies ?

Have you ever brought home to yourselves in

a practical way the full import of the God-



God With Us 3i

Man’s sacramental presence in your midst ?

It almost sounds like irreverence, and yet

the statement is literally true that your God

has taken lodgings in your community and

that He is in a true sense of the word

your next-door neighbor. For what are our

churches but the houses of our God? There

He dwells as really and personally as we

dwell in our own houses. When at the last

supper Christ said to His disciples, “I will

not leave you orphans,” He meant not only

that He would send them the Paraclete, the

Spirit of truth and love, but also that He

Himself would abide with them in person,

although they should no longer be able to dis-

cern Him with their bodily eyes. He made

then and there provision that the ineffable

mystery of the Incarnation, wherein the

Eternal Word was united to human nature,

should be extended and completed in another

union, through which the Incarnate God

would become in a manner one with His wor-

shipers on earth.

Nor is the God-Man present on our altars

in a merely passive way; on the contrary, He

takes a most active interest in all that con-

cerns the welfare of His followers. His



32 Christianity vs. Paganism

sacramental presence is not only a call for

worship, but also an offer of assistance. As

in the long ago, His apostles gathered around

Him as the source of all their strength and

guidance and aspiration, so in like manner

may all His followers do until the very end

of time. His voice still appeals to wounded

human hearts as it did in the days of old,

when He said, “ Come to Me all you

that labor and are heavily burdened, I will

refresh you.” His eyes rest upon us with

the same tenderness as they rested upon His

apostles at the last supper. His heart still

throbs with the same love that made Him

lay down His life for the salvation of the

world. He knew that we would yearn to

have Him in our midst; to be able to gather

around Him even as children gather about

their mother, to tell her of their sorrows, to

share with her their disappointments, and to

be cheered by a glance from her eyes and a

word from her lips. Even so would He be

with us, to console, to strengthen, to cheer us

on, until the sorrows of earth should merge

into the joys of heaven.

Nay, more. He would not only abide with

us on our altars, but He would come into our



God With Us 33

very hearts. The same love that resulted in

the substantial union of His divine person-

ality with our human nature, tended to an-

other union of which each individual human

soul should be the immediate object. As

through love of us He graciously conde-

scended to take up His abode on our altars,

so through that same love would He deign

to come into our hearts and abide there as

the life of our lives, as the soul of our souls.

He has prepared for us a banquet wherein He

establishes between Himself and us a union

so close and intimate that it makes us in a

manner one with Himself. Even as a mother

nourishes the child of her womb with her

own substance, so does Christ nourish us with

His own flesh and blood, so that we may

know and feel and realize that His love for

us is all and more than a mother’s love can

ever be. Through the words of consecration

He, the God-Man, is mystically slain and be-

comes for our sakes a victim of love, and we

in Holy Communion partake of that victim

and identify ourselves with the same in a

union that passes all understanding. He is

in us and we in Him
;
His heart beats on our

hearts
;
His soul compenetrates and trans-



34 Christianity vs. Paganism

forms our souls
;
so that, as the Apostle words

it, it is now no longer we that live, but Christ

liveth in us.

And now, if all this be true— if according
to the most certain and explicit teaching of

our holy religion, God our Creator is in-

dwelling in all His creatures; if He is work-

ing with them and for them by day and by

night; if for man’s sake He himself became

man and walked the way of human sorrow

;

if for our consolation and assistance He

dwells even now in our churches as in His

own house; nay, if for the nourishment of our

souls He, as the living God-Man, comes into

our very hearts and welds our being to His

own in a union so close that we are in a man-

ner identified with Him and He with us—
if all this be true according to the teaching

of our holy faith and the practical belief of

Christians, how dare any man insult us with

the statement that we Christians have exiled

God from the lives of individuals and from

the life of society? How dare men of public

trust and educational responsibility, whose

very position in an intelligent community de-

mands of them that they be both honest and

well informed, come forward with the decla-



God With Us 35

ration that Christianity is a failure, or must

in the end prove to have been a failure, be-

cause it has made of God a sort of landlord

who lives in foreign parts and cares not what

becomes of the tenants that farm His do-

mains, so long as they yield Him the yearly

revenue of homage and worship? How dare

they attempt to drag the God of Christianity

from His throne, when that throne is set up

in our very hearts? How dare they charge

Him with neglect of His creatures when He

bound these creatures to Himself in a per-

sonal union, and for their sake poured out

the very last drop of His blood? Nay, when

He day by day nourishes these same creatures

with His own substance, with His own flesh

and blood, as truly as a mother nourishes her

babe with her own milk? Yes, how dare

they make such statements, and then still ex-

pect that we should consider them neither

grossly ignorant nor criminally dishonest?

Were they simply to dissent from us in

doctrine, we should have no fault to find

;

because on points of doctrine honorable and

well-informed men may differ, even though

one side or the other must needs be in error.

But when they will not take the trouble to



36 Christianity vs. Paganism

inform themselves of the most elementary

teaching of Christianity, and then proclaim

to. the world that the teaching of Christianity

falls short of the requirements of the twen-

tieth century, it is time that they be put in

the pillory of public contempt. For they abuse

the trust which a Christian community has

placed in them, and they prostitute the influ-

ence of their position to work their country’s

rum.



CHAPTER II

MAN AS GOD MADE HIM

“ Of all the difficult problems that vex the

mind of man, there is certainly none the pres-

ence of which is so wide and deeply felt as

that of the existence of evil.” Evil seems

present everywhere and at all times. It con-

fronts us in every shape and form
;

it gains

an entrance into our very beings— into our
souls and bodies, into our hearts and minds.

Scarcely has the babe been born into the

world, when physical pain forces from its

lips the cry of distress and draws from its

eyes the tear of sorrow. Scarcely has the

growing child unfolded its intellect to the

discernment of right and wrong, when moral

evil lays hold of the soul and burns into its

very substance the consciousness of guilt.

Want and sickness, temptation and sin cling

to us through all life’s devious ways and in

one form or another are our constant com-

37



38 Christianity vs. Paganism

panions from the cradle to the grave. There

is, indeed, found in men’s lives much that is

good and high and noble
;
there are virtues

that bear upon them the stamp of the heroic,

but the good ever finds its counterpart in

what is bad, the high in what is low, the

noble in what is mean, and all too often the

most heroic of men’s virtues are over-

shadowed by the most groveling of vices.

Life has its pleasures, its joys, its comforts;

yet they are all so bound up with disappoint-

ments, sorrows and vexations that there is

no enjoying the one without tasting a con-

siderable portion of the other. No matter

who we may be or what station in life we

may occupy, the chalice of suffering will

sooner or later be put to our lips, and drink

it we must. Wheresoever beats a human heart,

there sorrow dwells side by side with joy;

there good and evil forever mingle, even as

the lights and shadows of an April day.

This universal law of suffering, which

forces itself upon our notice at every step,

has puzzled the worldly wise of all genera-

tions. Nay, numberless men and women are

daily going astray from their God because

of the sorrows that fall like a blight upon



God-Made Man 39

their hearts and homes. What, they ask

despairingly, is the meaning of it all ? Is man

but the sport of some evil genius, who baits

his appetite with the vision of bliss, only to

make him feel the more keenly the pangs of

disappointment? Is he the victim of a blind

and cruel fate— of some juggernaut that
crushes its devotees under the wheels of its

progress? Is man’s life but a riddle which

no philosophy can solve?

These are strange questions, yet these ques-

tions are dinned into our ears in season and

qut of season— they are the harvest sprung
from the seed of unbelief, which men of

materialistic bias, whose one-sided education

has hopelessly warped their minds, have scat-

tered broadcast over the land. Matters have

come to such a pass that one is involuntarily

reminded of the prophecy of St. Paul

:

“ There shall be a time when they will not

endure sound doctrine
;
but according to their

own desires they will heap to themselves

teachers, having itching ears : and will in-

deed turn away their hearing from the truth,

but will be turned unto fables.” II Tim. iv,

2 sqq. Men will no longer endure the God

of truth
;
they banish Him from their minds



40 Christianity vs. Paganism

and hearts
;
they set up in His place a sphinx

that will answer no questions, and having

accomplished all this to their own satisfac-

tion, they tell us that man’s life is and ever

must remain a riddle. Or, worse still, as

some of them will have it, man is but a wheel

in the vast and intricate mechanism of nature,

and his failures and successes are governed

by nature’s inexorable laws, to which for his

greater weal or woe he must needs submit.

A strange philosophy this, a philosophy that
sets nature at war with herself and makes

her devour the children of her own womb
t

Yet strange though it be, it has become the

fashion of the hour, and whatever fashion

dictates, that, in certain quarters at least,

may not be gainsaid by reason.

And what then is the meaning of it all?

If man is not the powerless victim of a blind

and irresistible fate, whence the sorrows and

sufferings that overwhelm him on his way

through life? Whence the moral blight that

falls upon his soul at reason’s earliest dawn?

The answer to this question prepares the way

for a consideration of the great Atonement,

which the God-Man wrought for us upon the

cross; and this answer we shall endeavor to



God-Made Man 4i

work out in the present and the following

chapter.

To place this whole matter in its proper

perspective, we must first make some reflec-

tions on man's origin as it is known to us

from revelation. I say, as it is known to us

from revelation
;
because reason alone can-

not dispel the darkness that necessarily hangs

about the first beginning of things. It points

out clearly enough, as I have shown at some

length in another place, that the human race

owes its origin to a creative act of a personal

God
;

but what was the extent of God’s

bounty in man’s regard, reason alone can-

not show. For this we must look to another

source of information
;
to a source that con-

tains God’s own word
;
for in the very nature

of things He is the only one from whom

such information can come. Such a source

is the Bible. Of course, the men who cause

all this disturbance will not accept the Bible

as an authority in regard to the point at issue

;

but neither will they accept any other author-

ity that does not fit in with their preconceived

notion of things. On this head we need not

take them very seriously
;
especially as they

are forced to content themselves with mere



42 Christianity vs. Paganism

denials, without being able to put forward

arguments that will bear critical examination.

Thus far the Bible has stood every test and

challenge, and we may safely trust Provi-

dence for its doing so in the time to come.

Now, one of the very first points to which

the Bible directs our attention, and upon

which it places a special emphasis, is the fact

that in the beginning man was made right —
that he is not the chance product of blind

fate, but the divinely conceived and lovingly

perfected handiwork of an all-wise Creator.

It teaches not only that man was made for

happiness, but also that happiness was the

dowry which he received from the hands of

his Maker. It emphasizes the fact that in

the beginning man was not an incongruous

compound of warring elements, but the har-

monious result of perfectly adjusted constit-

uents
;
that he was not in conflict with antag-

onistic forces of nature, but the undisputed

lord of all visible creation. God said : “ Let

us make man to our image and likeness: and

let him have dominion over the fishes of the

sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts,

and the whole earth, and every creeping crea-

ture that moveth upon the earth.” . Gen. i,



God-Made Man 43

26. “And the Lord God formed man of the

slime of the earth : and breathed into his face

the breath of life, and man became a living

soul.” Gen. ii, 7. “ And the Lord God

planted a paradise of pleasure from the be-

ginning: wherein He placed man whom He

had formed.” Gen. ii, 8.

Such is the sublimely simple account which

the Bible gives of man's origin
;

such the

happy destiny appointed him by his Creator.

Think for a moment what this means ! “ God

made man to His own image and likeness.”

Natural theology teaches us, and, indeed,

proves to evidence, that God is a spirit
;

all-

wise, all-holy, all-perfect. That He is self-

existent, without beginning and without end.

That He contains within Himself all physical

and moral perfection, and that His very being

is synonymous with perfect and unending hap-

piness. And man was made to His image

and likeness, somewhat after the fashion that

a child is made to the image and likeness of

its parents. Man therefore shares in a finite

degree the infinite perfections of God. Man

is godlike ! Finite indeed by nature, yet in

essence fashioned after the Infinite. Unlike

God, man has a beginning, but like God, he



44 Christianity vs. Paganism

shall not have an end. He is dowered with

immortality even as the God who made

him. His body shall indeed some day sink

into the grave and return to the dust

out of which it was taken; but his soul

shall pass beyond the darkness of the tomb

and return to the God by whom it was

given. The earth itself, the star-strewn

firmament— all shall pass away; but man’s
soul shall not pass away. As long as God is

God, so long shall the soul subsist in all the

youth and vigor and vitality with which it

was dowered at the moment of its creation.

Why? Because it is immortal— the inde-
structible image of the self-existent and eter-

nal God.

And the soul is intelligent, even as the God

to whose image it was made. Possessed of a

spiritual soul, man mirrors forth the wisdom

of his Creator in every act of his intellec-

tual faculties. His intellect transcends the

limitations of the material order and reaches

upward to the mysteries of the spirit world.

It was made to know and to understand and

to body forth the shapes of things unseen. It

discerns truth and falsehood, right and wrong,

and if true to itself, it sets forth in finite



God-Made Man 45

'terms the infinite judgments of an all-true

God. After its own limited fashion, it shares

even in God’s creative power. It is the in-

ventor of all the sciences, the creator of all

the arts. All that is beautiful in architecture,

in sculpture, in music, in painting, is the crea-

tion of man’s intellect. It descends into the

depths of the earth . and brings to light its

hidden treasures; it soars aloft to the heav-

enly bodies and reveals the mysteries of

starry space— nay, it goes beyond the
bounds of space and time to the very throne

of the eternal and the infinite. It is the

finite reflection of God’s infinite intelligence

;

the created image of God’s increate wisdom.

Nor is man’s soul dowered only with an in-

tellect to know, but also with a will to ac-

complish. Man has not only the ability to

discern right and wrong, but also the power

to choose the one and to eschew the other.

He is possessed of a will that is as free in

its actions as it is dominating in its force.

Fetters may weigh down man’s body
;
prison

bars may confine his limbs
;

yet his will no

power on earth can bend. It is free, subject

indeed- to law, but unamenable to physical

force It was made to love the good, even



46 Christianity vs. Paganism

as the intellect was made to know the truth,

and in its possession alone can it find enjoy-

ment and peace. It soars aloft on the wings

of thought; it reaches out to all that the in-

tellect can grasp, and rests satisfied only when

it leans upon the bosom of infinite love. It

is a reflex of God’s own omnipotent will,

limited indeed in being and in power, yet un-

shackled in freedom and unbending in force.

This is man as God made him in the natural

order— not the final resultant of nature’s con-
spiring forces, but the foreordained ruler of

God’s visible creation. The world was made

for him, and not he for the world. He claims

kinship indeed with the earth; for the dust

thereof supplied a vesture for his soul
;
but

his lineage is divine, because his soul is the

breath of his God. That soul is the founda-

tion of man’s true greatness; that his patent

of nobility. It is a spirit of beauty
;
a spirit

like unto the spirit of God. No human eye

ever saw its beauteous lustre
;
no mind of

man ever conceived the perfection of its be-

ing— God alone conceived and made it
;
He

made it to His own image and likeness.

Nothingness was its beginning; but nothing-

ness shall not be its end. Of the body it was



God-Made Man 47

said : “ Dust thou art and unto dust thou

shalt return
;

” but in reference to the soul

:

“ Thou wast made a little less than the

angels.” The body may be wasted by dis-

ease
;

it may be disfigured by an accident

;

it may become an object of disgust in squalor of

poverty; yet there always remains enshrined

within it that beautiful soul compared with

which all the manifold beauties of the ma-

terial world are as nothing. It is the out-

pouring of God’s bounteous love; the mirror

that reflects the Creator’s infinite perfections.

Surely the Creator did not dole out His

gifts with a niggardly hand when He crowned

His creative work with the production of man.

He made him a “ dim miniature of great-

ness infinite.” Compare this origin of man

and his God-given dowry, as revealed

to us in the pages of the Bible, with that

which our materialistic friends have to offer

as the result of their excogitations. As they

profess to understand the matter, man began

his career as a mineral substance aeons and

aeons ago
;
how, they cannot tell. Then by

some mysterious transformation, the very

nature of which is shrouded in Egyptian

darkness, he somehow evolved into a speck



48 Christianity vs. Paganism

of protoplasm, devoid indeed of sense and rea-

son, yet endowed with the principle of life.

Whence that principle of life may have come,

they know not; yet it must have come from

somewhere, because man is living to-day and

therefore he must at some time and some-

how have begun to live. Next that speck of

living protoplasm by some occult process

evolved into a cell
;
that cell gave rise to other

cells, and thus after the lapse of many ages,

no one can tell when and how, potential man

appeared upon the scene as a full-grown veg-

etable, covering the naked earth with a man-

tle of softest green. Soon one or another

of the many vegetable forms, apparently

more venturesome than its fellows, took a

notion to leap the chasm that separates the

vegetable from the animal world, and after

due measure of time the future lord of the

universe floated as a jelly-fish in the briny

depths of the ocean or crawled as a wriggling

worm upon its rock-bound coast. Thus hap-

pily started on his upward journey, it was

only a matter of some few hundred million

years and of some few hundred thousand

metamorphic leaps to land him as a chattering

monkey upon the topmost rung of the evolu-



God-Made Man 49

tionary ladder. Of course, he was still a

monkey, but the difference between monkey

and man, as these high priests of modern

materialism tell us in all seriousness, is only

a difference in degree, not in kind. Man's

body is indeed a vision of beauty
;
the mon-

key's a horror of ugliness; man expresses

ideas and judgments in articulate speech;

monkeys can but indicate their subjective ex-

periences by discordant sounds— the differ-
ence between the two seems to be unbridge-

able; but be that as it may, man, as they

will have it, can only be a higher develop-

ment of some monkey form, possessed

neither of a spiritual soul nor of a free will,

and fated to return entirely to the mineral

world, out of which he somehow found his

way to his present condition of complex or-

ganization. Such is the origin and destiny of

man according to these apostles of material-

ism. How does this compare with the sub-

limely simple account of the Bible that God

made man to His own image and likeness?

As I take it, there is no need of indicating

the result of such a comparison.

Hence, if God had left man in the condi-

tion in which He created him, His work would



50 Christianity vs. Paganism

have been sufficient in itself to shadow forth

the infinite goodness of His being. He

showed himself so lavish of His gifts that

even selfish man could find no cause for com-

plaint. But He did not leave man in that

condition
;
He bestowed upon him something

immeasurably greater than the dignity which

resulted from his natural likeness to the God-

head. Magnificently endowed though he be

with gifts of soul and body, man is by nature

and in virtue of God's creative act but a serv-

ant. His very origin places between him

and his Creator an infinite gulf of separation.

It must be so in the very nature of things.

For all that man is and all that he possesses

he has received from his Maker’s bounty. Of

himself he is nothing and he can have noth-

ing. He is in every respect the dependent of

his Creator, and as such his condition is by

its very nature one of servitude. God might

have left him in that condition, but He did

not. He was not looking merely for serv-

ants who would call Him Master. He is a

God of love, and love alone was the motive

of His creative act. Of this love He wished

to give a further proof -— a proof so strik-
ing that man's heart should leap up to Him



God-Made Man Si

spontaneously and utterly forgetful of human

nothingness should cry out: Abba, Father!

He the God of infinite perfections, who

fills the heavens with His glory and the earth

with the greatness of His power, would take

the servant, whom He had drawn out of noth-

ingness, and make him His own child. He

was not satisfied with bestowing His gifts

upon man by making him the ruler of the

earth and of all things contained therein
;
no,

He wished to make him a sharer in His own

divine nature, and thus give him a right and

title to heaven. This He did by adding to

man's natural perfections the divine gift of

sanctifying grace— a gift so exalted that its
mere possession raises man above his natural

station and makes him in a manner divine.

By the reception of this gift, man entered

into God’s own family circle, taking his place

side by side with the Heir of the house and

sharing with Him, although in a subordinate

degree, all family rights and prerogatives. He

became God’s adopted child, with acknowl-

edged rights to a child’s love and heritage.

It is to this gift that St. Peter refers, when

he says : “ God hath given us most great

and precious gifts, that by these we may be



52 Christianity vs. Paganism

made partakers of the divine nature ;
99

it was

this that St. John had in mind when he so

boldly stated:
a We are called and are the

children of God
;

” we are the children of

God; not indeed by generation, but by adop-

tion, yet having a full share in all the rights

and prerogatives of divine sonship.

In what this divine gift of sanctifying grace

precisely consists, we need not investigate for

the present, as we are just now concerned

only with facts, not with their explanation.

Suffice it, therefore, to state in a general way,

that it is a created quality which of its own

nature permanently inheres in the soul, and

makes that soul holy and pleasing in the sight

of God. Although finite in itself, it is never-

theless in some manner a link between the

finite and the infinite. It places in the soul a

supernatural likeness to the Godhead, some-

what after the manner that human generation

produces in the child a natural likeness to its

parents. It lifts up human nature to a divine

plane of being and imparts to the soul a

beauty and perfection, of which the beauties

and perfections of nature do not even afford

us an inadequate concept. Nor does it

merely beautify our souls and make them god-



God-Made Man 53

like in appearance
;

it elevates them to a di-

vine sphere of activity, enabling us to per-

form actions that will lead us to the eternal

possession of God’s very being. By reason

of his natural intellect, man can sound, if not

fathom, the mysteries of nature
;
by reason

of faith, which springs from sanctifying

grace as a flower springs from its stem, man

reaches up to the very mysteries of nature’s

God. By a right use of his natural will, man

can practice the most heroic of human vir-

tues; aided by grace, he can perform actions

that bear upon them the impress of the di-

vine. By sanctifying grace, he becomes a

new man
;
not indeed essentially changed, for

he always remains truly and merely human,

but he receives within himself a supernatural

likeness to the Godhead, which obliterates the

marks of his servitude and adorns him with

the countersign of divine adoption. For we

are called, and are in very truth, the sons of

God.

This is man as God made him— by nature
a little less than the angels, by grace their

equal in station and dignity. And what was

the God-appointed destiny of this creature of

God’s love? Onq which of its very nature



54 Christianity vs. Paganism

is but another proof of the Creator’s bound-

less goodness. Even whilst still living here

on earth man was to rule, not to serve. He

was indeed required to obey his Maker, but

his was to be the obedience of a child, not of

a slave. “ The Lord God had planted a par-

adise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein

he placed man whom He had formed.” In

that paradise man was happy and without

any experience of sorrow. For him each

fleeting moment brought new blessings; each

stirring leaf revealed new beauties
;
each open-

ing flower showed forth new glories of God’s

beautiful creation. There was peace and

harmony in nature, and peace and har-

mony in the human heart. It was a life

of pure enjoyment, though not a life of idle-

ness
;
for the Lord God

“
put man into the

paradise of pleasure to dress it and to keep

it.” In that happy existence sickness and

death were things unknown, whilst tempta-

tion and sin had no power over man’s free

will, except in so far as he freely chose to

submit himself to their dominating force.

By nature man was indeed mortal
;

his

body by reason of its material condition lay

open to the noxious influences of earth and



God-Made Man 55

sky
;
hence in the ordinary and natural course

of events, he should have been subject to sick-

ness and suffering and final dissolution; but

by the act of divine adoption, God elevated

man’s entire nature to a higher plane of be-

ing— He bestowed upon his body qualities
and perfections that placed him beyond the

reach of sickness and death. He had cre-

ated the earth for man’s service and enjoy-

ment, and all things contained therein were

made to conspire in promoting his bodily well-

being. It is true, man’s earthly existence was

destined to be only of a finite duration; it

was to have its allotted span of time and

then come to an end
;
but that end was not to

be brought about by death and dissolution—
it was to be simply a transference from para-

dise to heaven. God would take him body

and soul and place him in His eternal home.

For death and its painful concomitants are

not spoken of in Holy Scripture, as existing

realities, until after paradise had been closed

by sin.

Again, by nature man’s soul was subject to

the influence of passion
;

in a certain sense

there had been implanted in his compound

being the concupiscence of the eyes, the



56 Christianity vs. Paganism

concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride

of life. These are dispositions that be-

long necessarily to human nature
;

but by

a gratuitous gift God had made them so per-

fectly subject to man’s free will that they

would help him indeed in the practice of vir-

tue, but could not tempt him to sin. In us

there is a constant struggle between the flesh

and the spirit, between our leanings to virtue

and our inclinations to vice
;
in our first par-

ents, as long as they remained in the state of

original justice this struggle was entirely

wanting. They could indeed sin, because they

were free
;
but their sin could not be the out-

come of passion
;

it must result from a de-

liberate choice of their unhampered free will.

Suggestions to evil might come from without,

as in fact they did
;
but they could not come

from within. God had bestowed upon them

the preternatural gift of integrity, which gave

them an undisputed mastery over their own

hearts. They had been appointed rulers not

only in the physical but also in the moral

order.

Still more exalted was the destiny that

awaited man after his life of earthly enjoy-

ment had run its course. Then he was to



God-Made Man 57

enter into the inheritance to which he had

received a right and title in virtue of his di-

vine adoption :— he was to enter heaven, there
to see God face to face, to possess Him as

his very own, and in that possession to re-

ceive a measure of happiness which no mind

of man has power to conceive nor human

tongue has words to tell. He was to be happy

with God’s own happiness and that for all

eternity. It was to this happiness that the

apostle ultimately referred, when he said:

“ Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither

hath it entered into the heart of man, what

things God hath prepared for them that love

Him.” I Cor. ii, 9.

Such was man’s God-appointed destiny for

time and for eternity. Is there in it even a

suggestion of evil, even a shadow of sorrow?

If this world is a vale of tears, it was not God

who made it such
;
for He “ had planted a

paradise of pleasure from the beginning:

wherein He placed man whom He had

formed.” If man is inclined to evil from

his youth, it was not God who made him

such
;

for He “ made man right,” creating

him “to His own image and likeness.” If

man is so immersed in things of sense that



58 Christianity vs. Paganism

he seems unable to reach a state of spiritual

happiness, it was not God who made him

such; for He adopted man as His own child,

lifted him into a sphere of divine activity,

and gave him a right and title to heaven.

Hence if there is evil in the world, that evil

must have its source outside of God
;

for

God is goodness infinite and all His works

are good. Whence that evil comes, and who

is responsible for its universal domination, we

shall endeavor to show in the next chapter,

which will have for its subject, “Man as He

Made Himself.”



CHAPTER III

MAN AS HE MADE HIMSELF

From what was said in the preceding chap-

ter, it appears to evidence that God in cre-

ating man acted truly a father’s "part. No

human father ever gave his children such a

fair start in life as God gave our first parents.

In their own persons richly dowered with

every gift of the natural and supernatural

order, they were placed as rulers over a

world that was subject to them even as

they were subject to their Creator. Their

life on earth was to be one neither of

constant labor and toil nor of listless idleness,

but it was to afford such healthful exercise to

all their faculties that they would thence de-

rive the highest degree of reasonable enjoy-

ment. They were to live in a paradise of

pleasure and keep it. Their earthly existence,

therefore, resembled that of a wealthy lord,

who has laid out on his vast estates an exten-

59



6o Christianity vs. Paganism

sive garden, wherein he works more for rec-

reation and pleasure than for the increase of

his revenues. Their bodies were by reason

of a preternatural gift so constituted that they

would forever remain immune from the rav-

ages of sickness and the decrepitude of old

age. The faculties of their souls and the

senses of their bodies were by reason of a sim-

ilar gift so nicely balanced that there could

be no conflict between the inclinations and

tendencies of their lower and higher nature.

They were masters of themselves and masters

of the world which they had been appointed

to rule. God’s servants by nature, they had

been made His children by adoption, and as

such they held hereditary rights to all His pos-

sessions; so that when their life of enjoyment

here on earth should come to an end, they

would forthwith begin an existence of eter-

nal happiness in heaven. And what they

themselves thus actually possessed, that also

every one of their descendants would possess

in ages to come, provided they, as the an-

cestors of the human race, would remain true

to themselves and faithful to the Author of

their being. Could even our self-constituted



Man-Made Man 6i

critics of God and His ways have asked for

more?

Such, then, was man as God made him.

Such were the conditions of human existence

for which God Himself was directly respon-

sible. If in subsequent ages men did not re-

main what our first parents were in paradise
;

if the conditions of their existence in time and

eternity were changed for the worse, that

change must not be laid to the charge of God,

but of man himself. Man as we know him from

the records of history and from our own daily

experience; man subject to sickness and suf-

ferings and misery and death
;
man prone to

evil from his youth
;
man at war with himself

and with his fellow-man, is not man as God

made him, but as he made himself by a per-

verse act of his free will. He had it in his

power to perfect his being by a right use of

his God-given faculties, and this right use of

his faculties would have been in itself a source

of increased happiness; but against his Mak-

er’s express prohibition and against his own

better judgment, he abused his freedom, and

thus brought about the unhappy condition of

things for which he now presumes to blame



62 Christianity vs. Paganism

his Creator. “ Man when he was in honor

did not understand; he hath been compared

to senseless beasts, and made like to them.”

Perhaps you will say, “ Why did God
bestow upon man the perilous gift of free

will? Why did He not constitute human na-
ture in such wise as to make the avoidance of

evil a physical rather than a moral neces-

sity ?
” You might as well ask why did not

God make of man a stick or a stone or an

irresponsible brute, whose actions are neither

tainted by vice nor ennobled by virtue? It is

precisely in this freedom of will that his true

nobility consists. It is precisely this that

makes him a “ dim miniature of greatness in-

finite.” Without this freedom of action man

would not be a man, but only a reasoning ani-

mal, incapable alike of performing a virtu-

ous act and of reaping virtue’s sweet reward.

It is true, God could have made man free

and yet so dispose things as to keep sin for-

ever out of his life; but was there any need of

this? If He made it not only possible, but

easy for man to maintain his high estate, will

you blame Him for man’s failure to use the

means placed so abundantly at his disposal?

If a father supplies his son with all the luxu-



Man-Made Man 63

ries that wealth can buy, and at the same time

promises him all his possessions as the re-

ward of a life of ease, and yet that son freely

chooses to starve himself to death rather than

accept and use his father’s gifts, would you

accuse that father of a want of love or inter-

est in his son’s welfare? Would you not

rather call his son a fool, who showed to evi-

dence that he did not deserve to have such

a father? Well, how then can anyone pre-

sume to blame God for giving man a free

will, when the abuse of that free will is en-

tirely the result of man’s own folly? It is

but right that we should be just to God as

well as to men.

Now, as a free agent, man must have his

trial. He must give evidence of his voluntary

subjection to His Maker’s inalienable author-

ity as dictated by right reason. In virtue of

the creative act man was God’s servant
;

in

virtue of the divine adoption he was God’s

own child; in either case he owned God obe-

dience, and of this obedience he must give

proof by executing a divine command upon

the fulfillment of which his future happiness

was to depend. As long as the execution of

the commandment placed upon him by his



64 Christianity vs. Paganism

Maker was within his reach, he could have

no cause for complaint, because neither mas-

ter nor father is ever reasonably blamed for

exacting a like obedience. As a matter of

fact, in the case of our first parents God was

satisfied with their submission in a matter

that was almost trivial in its nature. Aside

from the observance of the moral law, to

which they were bound even as we are, God

only required of them that, in the abundance

of the blessings with which they were sur-

rounded, they should, out of obedience to

Him, abstain from eating of the fruit of one

tree in paradise. j‘ Of every tree of para-

dise thou shalt eat; but of the tree of knowl-

edge of good and evil thou shalt not eat.

For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it,

thou shalt die the death.” Gen. ii, 16, 17.

An easier commandment He could not well

have given them, and the little good will that

sufficed for its execution shows how anxious

God was that man should stand his trial, and

thus secure for himself and his descendants

a life of unending happiness.

It is not to our purpose to enter into any

speculation concerning the exact significance of

this commandment
;
whether its wording is to



Man-Made Man 65

be taken literally or whether there is under-

lying it a figurative sense. The Catholic

Church has thus far not definitely decided the

point at issue, although the literal meaning

has been generally accepted by theologians and

commentators, and in consequence must be

accepted by the faithful until an authorita-

tive declaration shall justify another interpre-

tation. But whatever be the precise meaning

of the commandment in question, its purport

is quite plain— it was meant to try man's
fidelity to his Maker, and that in a matter

which made man's trial most easy. Yet easy

though the trial was, Adam and Eve failed

to stand it —- of their own free will, with no
interior temptation to drag them down, with

no passions to blind their understanding and

to weaken their will
;
at the mere suggestion

of the evil spirit they transgressed the law

of their Creator, disobeyed the command of

their father, and thereby forfeited both their

own and their children’s happiness for time

and for eternity.

With that act of disobedience, evil made its

entrance into the world and all but wrecked

God's beautiful creation. The fault lay not

with God, because He had forewarned and



66 Christianity vs. Paganism

forearmed man in every possible way
;

it was

entirely man's own doing, the outcome of his

vaulting ambition to be like God. How ap-

plicable are here the words of Holy Scripture

spoken on another occasion : “ And man

when he was in honor did not understand.”

He possessed all that his heart could reason-

ably desire
;

yet at the tempter's suggestion

he stretched out his hand to that which in the

very nature of things could never be his.

The fatal temptation, “ You' shall be as gods,”

was the most colossal lie ever spoken, and

wiien man gave ear to it he placed himself in

direct opposition to God's eternal truth. God

had said : “ What day soever thou shalt eat

of the fruit of this tree, thou shalt die the

death” (Gen. ii, 17) ; that is, thou shalt die

the death of the soul by losing sanctifying

grace, the rights of divine sonship and the

title to heaven, and thou shalt die the death

of the body by becoming subject to sickness

and sufferings, which according to nature’s

laws must finally end in dissolution. In op-

position to this the devil said: “If you eat

of the fruit of this tree, you shall be as gods,

knowing good and evil ” (Gen. iii, 5) ; that is,

you shall become omniscient even as the God



Man-Made Man 67

to whom you owe your being. It meant for

man a choice between the eternal truth of God

and the palpable falsehood of the devil
;
'a

choice between good and evil, between life

and death— man made his choice
;
he was

untrue to himself, unfaithful to his God, and

in consequence became subject to evil in all

its different forms.

It was then that man’s life of woe began.

A traitor to his God, he forfeited all the
rights and prerogatives of divine sonship

;
he

was deprived of every supernatural gift and

reduced to the condition of servitude, which

was naturally his by reason of his origin. Be-

fore his fall into sin his abode had been a

paradise of pleasure, the keeping of which

was but a matter of healthful recreation
;
now

he was exiled to a world that brought forth

thorns and thistles, and from which he could

wring the means of subsistence only by much

labor and toil. Before he had been immune

from sickness and sufferings and bodily death

;

now he must submit to the inexorable laws of

his compound being, which of its own nature

is constantly exposed to injuries from with-

out and to slow but certain dissolution from

within. In his fall he had turned against his



68 Christianity vs. Paganism

own Creator, and now all creation turned

against him, making his life a constant war-

fare until all should end in death. Nay, his

own being became the scene of strife and con-

tention. The perfect harmony, established in

the human heart as in all visible creation by

the Author of nature, gave place to a discord

that was most painful in its every manifesta-

tion. By his act of deliberate disobedience

man changed paradise into a desert accursed

of its Maker, and branded with the stigma of

treason his own fair spirit, which had been

fashioned after God’s image and likeness.

God had made man right, but man undid the

work of God, and universal disorder was the

necessary result.

Holy Scripture records these terrible conse-

quences of that first sin in the form of a sen-

tence, which the Creator passed upon His dis-

obedient creatures. To the woman He said:
“

I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy concep-

tions
;
in sorrow shalt thou bring forth chil-

dren and thou shalt be under thy husband’s

power, and he shall have dominion over thee.”

And to Adam He said : “ Thou hast heark-

ened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten

of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that



Man-Made Man 69

thou shouldst not eat, cursed be the earth

in thy work
;
with labor and toil shalt thou

eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns

and thistles shall it bring forth to thee
;
and

thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the

sweat of thy face shalt thou e'at bread till

thou return to the earth, out of which thou

wast taken; for dust thou art, and into dust

thou shalt return.” Gen. iii, 16-19.

Now that Adam and Eve should be thus

punished for their willful transgression of

God’s law, cannot appear strange to anyone

who admits the necessity of due subordination

of human beings to a higher authority. That

subordination presupposes the binding force of

laws, and where such laws exist, there must

necessarily be attached to them a sanction that

makes them effective in their operation. Now

a sanction is of its very nature a punishment

inflicted upon the transgressor. It is so in the

case of human laws, and it cannot be other-

wise when there is a question of divine laws.

When in human society a man is convicted of

a crime, he is made to suffer the penalty of

the law and where the punishment inflicted is

in proportion to the crime committed, every

reasonable person will say that it is just. No



7o Christianity vs. Paganism

right minded person blames the government

for attaining traitors, hanging murderers, or

imprisoning thieves and robbers. Common

sense makes it quite plain even to the dullest

that this is as it ought to be. Who then will

blame God for punishing Adam and Eve as

He did? There was certainly due proportion

between their sin and its punishment as in-

flicted by God. God had without any claim

on their part made them His adopted children,

and when they proved unfaithful, He justly

cancelled that adoption. He had through an

entirely gratuitous act of love made their

earthly life a continuous round of pleasure;

consequently when through a deliberate act of

disobedience they forfeited their rights of di-

vine sonship, He was certainly within His

rights in condemning them to a life of labor

and toil, which is naturally the lot of servants.

He had without any obligation on His part

preserved them from sickness and suffering

and death, and hence when they withdrew

from His obedience, He was in nowise bound

to interfere with nature's laws, to which man’s

compound being is subject by reason of its in-

trinsic constitution. The one and only reason

why there might possibly seem to be undue



Man-Made Man 7i

severity in His action would arise from the

fact that He threatened eternal punishment;

but as through an act of mercy He made it

possible for His disobedient creatures to es-

cape that, this apparent severity need not be

considered on the present occasion. Hence as

far as Adam and Eve alone were involved in

the misfortune that resulted from their fall, no

right-minded person can with any show of

reason find fault with God for acting as He

did. Human justice would have been far

more severe under a similar condition of

things.

Nor is it precisely in this that God’s critics

find cause for blame. What they principally

presume to censure is that the whole human

race should have been involved in this primal

misfortune. That Adam and Eve were justly

punished for their misdeed, they are more or

less willing to admit; but that all future gen-

erations should be accounted guilty of sin and

be made to bear sin’s terrible retribution, goes

entirely beyond their comprehension. How is

it possible, they ask indignantly, that a child

should inherit the sin of its parents, and that

the innocent should be made to suffer with the

guilty? Two human beings sin, and count-



72 Christianity vs. Paganism

less multitudes, who bore no part in that sin-

ful act, are condemned to suffer sin’s awful

punishment. Again, the sinful act was only

of a few moments’ duration, and its punish-

ment has lasted for thousands of years, and in

one form or another will continue for all

eternity. Does such a condition of things

point to a good and loving God? To a Cre-

ator who has at heart the best interests of His

creatures? Does it not rather indicate that

such a God is devoid even of that sense of

common justice and equity, which the modern

world has accustomed itself to look for in

man? Thus argue God’s critics, and thus un-

fortunately sometimes even Christians and

Catholics presume to argue, when life’s many

trials hedge them in and the darkness of great

sorrows gather about them in their ceaseless

struggles? They have tried their best to keep

sin out of their lives, and still they are made

to bear sin’s heavy burden. What is, what

can be the meaning of it all ?

That there is something appalling in this

reaching out of evil to every human being, no

one can deny. That there hangs over it a cer-

tain mystery, we all may readily grant. But

that there is in it even a shadow of injustice



Man-Made Man 73

on God’s part, or that it argues in Him a want

of love and interest in His reasonable crea-

tures, no well instructed person should have

the hardihood to assert. In a certain sense we

all sutler for the sin of our first parents
;
in a

certain sense that sin has been imputed to us

all and has been made our very own, yet only

in such wise that no right of ours has been

violated and that no attribute of God has been

in the least obscured. Complaint of the one

and the other has its source in false subjective

views concerning this matter, not in the objec-

tive reality of things. That such is really the

case, an impartial examination of the point at

issue will make sufficiently clear.

First, then, what did we lose through our

first parents’ sin? We lost the divine adop-
tion as children of God and all implied rights

and prerogatives for time and for .eternity.

All this, but nothing more. Only the trans-

mission of these supernatural gifts had been

made dependent upon Adam’s fidelity, and

only these were lost to the human race

through Adam’s sin. Man’s natural gifts,

that is, those to which he had a certain

right by reason of his nature, all remained

to him after the fall as well as the oppor-



74 Christianity vs. Paganism

tunit'y and means to use them to his own ad-

vantage. He still retained his intellect and his

free will, his memory and all his bodily senses

:

— every perfection, in fact, that was requisite
to make him naturally speaking a perfect man.

The earth was still his and all the creatures

that lived therein, although instead of simply

reaping the harvest, he must now also sow the

seed. If it so pleased him, he could still lead

a life of reasonable enjoyment, although to

do so, he must be willing to labor and toil. He

was indeed no longer immune from sickness

and suffering, yet with ordinary care and pru-

dent foresight they would be of rare occur-

rence and then only such as are necessarily in-

cident to mortal nature. Death would at some

time put an end to his earthly existence, but it

had no power to annihilate his soul
;
for that

was still immortal. His greatness, if you will,

was but a shadow of its former self
;
yet it

comprised all the elements of greatness to

which he could naturally lay claim. Com-

pared to what he had been as God had made

him, he was indeed but a wreck— a disman-
tled hull set adrift on a sea of trouble; but

viewed in reference to his own natural per-

fections, he was wholly untouched by sin’s



Man-Made Man ' 75

deadly work and remained fully equipped to

outride life’s many storms. He was despoiled

of all that had been bestowed upon him in con-

sequence of God’s gratuitous adoption
;
he re-

tained whatever had been his through the act

of creation.

Secondly, what positive harm came to us

from Adam’s sin? Did we inherit the guilt of

that sin, although we bore no personal part in

its actual commission? In one sense we did,

and in another sense we did not. The sinful

act which Adam committed, in so far as it was

a personal act, remained entirely his own
;
that

he could not transmit to his descendants, and

in that sense we did not inherit Adam’s sin.

But from that same sinful act there resulted

a state of fallen nature— of a nature that had
been despoiled of sanctifying grace by the

free act of a human will and that in conse-

quence was displeasing to God— this we in-
herited even as it was in Adam himself after

the sinful act had ceased to exist. Hence we

inherited Adam’s sin only in so far as we were

born deprived of sanctifying grace; in so far

as our common nature was by Adam’s trans-

gression despoiled of the countersign of divine

adoption. It is in this privation of sanctify-



76 Christianity vs. Paganism

ing grace, which according to God’s merciful

designs should have adorned each human soul

at the moment of its union with the body, that

original or inherited sin essentially consists.

In itself it is simply the state of fallen nature,

not a condition of personal iniquity, such as

would result from an abuse of our own indi-

vidual free wills. It is in us indeed from the

very first moment of our existence, because our

nature is derived from the fallen Adam, who

in the supernatural as well as in the natural

order had been constituted the head of the

human race; but it is not imputed to us as a

personal act, for which we are responsible

in the same sense that we are responsible for

our own actual sins. It is indeed a true sin,

because through it our nature is at variance

with God’s all-holy will; but it is not a per-

sonal sin, for which God calls us to account

precisely as if we ourselves had committed the

sinful act.

But, you will object, are we not punished for

this sin? Are not those who die in original

sin lost for all eternity? Yes, they are lost

for all eternity, but only in this sense, that

they are excluded from the happiness of

heaven; not that they are condemned to the



Man-Made Man 77

torments of hell. It is true, the loss of heaven

is an incalculable misfortune, but it is a mis-

fortune in the same sense that original sin is

a moral evil. It presupposes the gratuitous

elevation of human nature to the supernatural

state, and in consequence it is a punishment

only where the rights of that state have been

forfeited by sin. Had not God originally

adopted us as His own children, no one could

ever have entered heaven, whether the ances-

tors of our race committed sin or not. Man’s

title to heaven was an entirely free gift of

God, and its continuation must necessarily de-

pend upon conditions placed by God Him-

self. As He was under no obligation to adopt

us as His children, so was He under no obli-

gation to admit us to our inheritance, when the

right of that adoption had been forfeited by

sin, although that sin was no personal act of

our own. If you will, this withholding of

our inheritance is a punishment, but only in

reference to rights that resulted from God’s

gratuitous adoption— it leaves all our nat-
ural rights untouched.

But even this sort of punishment, although

most just and reasonable, is too much for our

modern critics. According to their view of



78 Christianity vs. Paganism

the matter, God is not only to be blamed for

withholding what nature demands, but also for

not bestowing what nature has no right to ex-

pect. How very unreasonable they are, will

perhaps appear more clearly, if we take an il-

lustration from what happens or may happen

in human affairs. Let us suppose the case of

an immensely wealthy person, who has a serv-

ant whom he loves very dearly. Through an

act of purest love and goodness, he adopts that

servant as his own son, not only giving him a

father’s love and affection, but also making

him the heir of all his possessions, in such

wise that these possessions shall be transmit-

ted from generation to generation without re-

version of hereditary rights. However he

makes this inheritance dependent on a condi-

tion the fulfillment of which is entirely within

the power of the servant whom he freely

adopted as his son. He ordains that if this

adopted son remains faithful to him, he and

his descendants shall retain the full possession

of their inheritance; but if in years to come he

prove unfaithful, that inheritance shall be taken

from them, and they shall be reduced to the

same condition in which they were before that

servant’s adoption. Now after some time, this



Man-Made Man 79

adopted son does prove unfaithful
;
he attempts

his benefactor’s life, and is legally convicted

of the crime. In consequence of this, the

adoption is cancelled; the unfaithful servant

is punished as the law requires, and his chil-

dren are again reduced to the condition of

servitude in which they were before their

father’s adoption. No positive punishment is *

inflicted upon them on account of their father’s

crime. They share indeed in his shame and

must ever regret the loss of an inheritance, but

for the rest they are not affected by the sin of

their father. Is any injustice done them?

Have they reasonable cause for complaint ? Is

the master, who adopted their father, in any

way to be censured for his course of action?

You will say, no. He was entirely within his

right, and no charge of any kind can ’ be

brought against him. Well, then, how can

anyone blame God for the course of action He

adopted in regard to Adam’s descendants ? He

acted exactly as we supposed this human mas-

ter to act. If this latter did what was right, so

did God.

Here, however, we meet- with a difficulty,

which seems to bring us back to the point from

which we started. The world as we know it



8o Christianity vs. Paganism

appears to be steeped in evil. Both the phys-

ical and the moral order are so pervaded by it

that no human being can wholly escape its

deadly grasp. Whence did this evil come ? In

the preceding chapter it was pointed out that

this evil did not have its source in God. He

made man right, and he saw that all things

which He had called into being were good.

From what has been said in this present chap-

ter it appears to evidence that the sin of our

first parents was not productive of any change

in the purely natural order of things. Yet

somehow a most far-reaching change has been

wrought. What was the cause of that

change? Who must be held responsible for

it ? This we shall investigate in the next chap-

ter, the subject of which will be, The Genesis

of the World’s Shame.



CHAPTER IV

GENESIS OF THE WORLD’S SHAME

“ By one man,” writes St. Paul, “ sin en-

tered into this world, and by sin death
;
and

so death passed upon all men, in whom all have

sinned.” There is nothing sadder in the

world’s history than the fearful degradation

to which the human race was reduced during

the ages that followed Adam’s fall. To the

thoughtful mind there is something shocking

in the accumulation of evil, which we find re-

corded in the history of all primitive nations.

Those were days when moral darkness lay like

a heavy pall upon the face of the earth
;
days

when the evil one seemed to have built his

throne in the midst of God’s fair creation, and

established his reign of error and violence and

sin throughout every land. Sin, sin, every-

where the dread spectre of sin ! Everywhere

suffering and distress and injustice and blood-

shed! Truly, all flesh had corrupted its way,

81



82 Christianity vs. Paganism

and the ways of men were evil from their

youth.

In this sad condition of things a far-reach-

ing change was wrought by the advent of

God’s Eternal Word in human form, who in

His own divine person walked the way of hu-

man sorrows. He brought us the light of truth

and the strength of virtue, and taught us in

word and deed how to make our lives divine.

He took the sting out of our sufferings by

consecrating them in His own life of sorrow,

and thus making them for all men of good

will a source of truest blessing. And yet, al-

though a vast change for the better has thus

been effected, in its main features the world

is still what it has ever been : a vale of tears,

where sufferings and sin flit forever across

the vision of human happiness. It is even now

as it was in the days of the patient Job, who

summed up his life’s experience in the pithy

sentence : “ Man born of woman, living for

a short time, is filled with many miseries
;
who

cometh forth like a flower, and is destroyed,

and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth

in the same state.”

Now this prevalence of evil both in the

physical and in the moral order, say the ene-



The World’s Shame 83

mies of Christianity, must in the last instance

be laid to the charge of God Himself. For if

the teaching of Christianity concerning the

beginning of things has any foundation in fact,

God must either have created the world as we

now find it, or He must have made it what it

is by way of punishment for Adam’s sin; in

either case He is the responsible party, and to

Him, must be referred the genesis of the

world’s shame. How absolutely unfounded

this charge is, I think appears partly from

what was said in the chapter on “ Man as God

Made Him,” and partly from the arguments

advanced in the foregoing chapter on
“
Man

as He Made Himself ”
;
however, to make as-

surance doubly sure, it seems advisable to in-

vestigate this matter a little further, so as to

determine definitely where the responsibility

for the world’s shame must be placed. This

we shall endeavor to do in the present chap-

ter.

The fundamental error into which the ad-

versaries of the Christian religion usually fall,

and which makes it almost impossible for them

to see the reasonableness of the Catholic po-

sition in regard to the point at issue, lies mainly

in their false supposition that the human race



34 Christianity vs. Paganism

began its career in a state of barbarism and

then gradually fought its way to a more or less

perfect condition of civilization. They take

it for granted that in the beginning man was

little more than an animal, whose reason, if

he had any, was wholly undeveloped, and

whose instincts were all of a purely material

order. Now this assumption is not only

wholly gratuitous, but radically false. From

all we know of barbarous people, it appears

quite safe to state, that once a barbarian, al-

ways a barbarian, as far as individual initia-

tive is concerned. In theory it is indeed pos-

sible that a savage may become civilized

through his own efforts, but in practice this is

not the case. The beginnings of civilization

must come to barbarous nations from with-

out
;
they will not spring forth spontaneously

from within. How long have we not tried to

civilize our own Indians, and yet how little

has been effected. Now suppose that they had

been left entirely to themselves, would they

during the last three hundred years have ad-

vanced even one step towards civilization ?

They had been in possession of this fair land

for ages before a white man set foot on their

shores, yet when that inevitable moment finally



The World’s Shame 85

came, they were found to be still in as de-

graded a condition as human beings can well

be. If they began their career as savages,

they certainly remained such as long as they

were left to their own initiative
;
nor is there

any apparent reason for asserting that they

would not have continued as such till the end

of time. Suppose then that the entire human

race had started its career under similar condi-

tions, is there any likelihood, think you, that

even the most favored tribes of the great hu-

man family would ever have risen to the

heights of civilization, which we know that

many primitive peoples actually attained? It

is much more probable that we ourselves would

at the present time be ranging as savages

through the virgin forests, feeding upon nuts

and roots as did our supposed ancestors in

the prehistoric past.

Nor is this merely a matter of theory. His-

tory points with unerring finger to the same

conclusion.* Side by side with the lowest

forms of barbarism, there always existed in

one form or another varying degrees of civ-

ilization, even as is the case in our own day.

Thus, for instance, whilst the aborigines of

the North American forests led a mere ani-



86 Christianity vs. Paganism

mal existence, their neighbors on the Mexican

peninsula enjoyed most of the comforts of

civilized life; whilst the Teutonic tribes of

Northern Europe were mere savages, the in-

habitants of the South achieved their greatest

triumphs in literature and art
;
whilst nearly

the whole of Africa was the stronghold of the

lowest forms of savagery, Egypt was world-

renowned for the wisdom of her philosophers,

the cunning of her artists, and the power of

her rulers. The same contrast was observed

in Asiatic countries, where the civilization of

the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Chinese

had grown hoary with age, before the chosen

people of God had as yet set foot in the prom-

ised land. All the findings of modern

archaeologists point to this certain conclusion,

that the trend of the human race has not been

upwards, but downwards. Where at first

sight the contrary seems to be the case, there

a closer investigation shows that the uplifting

from barbaric conditions was effected by pow-

erful influences from without, not by a gradual

and spontaneous development from within.

Usually it was the influx of more civilized

people from the neighboring countries, who

supplanted the savage aborigines and then



The World’s Shame 87

built up their own empire. This we know

was the case on the entire American continent,

which now indeed ranks high in the scale of

civilization, not because the original inhabit-

ants have worked their way upwards, but be-

cause the people already civilized have driven

them from their forest fastnesses and have

changed their desert lands into homes of

plenty. In other cases it was brought about

by a moral uplifting, whose immediate cause

was of a supernatural character. It was thus

that Christianity by slow degrees transformed

the savage nations of Northern Europe and

made them the most highly civilized people on

the face of the earth. Man already more or

less civilized is indeed progressive; but if he

is once engulfed in barbarism, he has no power

of self-regeneration. If left to himself, he

will remain to the end what he was in the be-

ginning: potentially a civilized being, but ac-

tually a savage.

Again, it is precisely this downward trend

of the human race that we find clearly re-

corded in the traditions of all nations. Study

what historic records you will, the one point

that strikes you most forcibly in all of them

is the underlying firm conviction that in the



88 Christianity vs. Paganism

beginning mankind lived under much happier

conditions than was the case in later ages.

Thus, for instance, Plato calls the first period

of human existence the golden age
;
the Greek

and Latin poets have celebrated it as the reign

of Saturn, when men lived in peace and plenty

and when bloodshed and war were things un-

known. We learn from Plutarch the tradition

of the Persians, from Strabo that of the In-

dians, from the Kings, or sacred books of

China, that of the Chinese : all of which give

expression to the same idea. This universal

tradition of the nations is thus beautifully

summed up by the Latin poet Ovid

:

“ First rose the glories of the Age of Gold,

When faith and justice flourished uncom-

pelled
;

No threatening law on brazen tablets spelled.

Nor judge’s frown the timorous throngs

controlled

:

But each, in virtue sure, his blameless path

could hold.”

All this is in substantial accord with the

statements of Holy Scripture. Of our first

parents we find it recorded by the sacred



The World’s Shame 89

writer, that God “ gave them counsel, and a

tongue and eyes and ears, and a heart to de-

vise
;
and he filled them, with the knowledge

of understanding. He created in them the

science of the spirit, he filled their hearts with

wisdom, and showed them both good and evil.

He set his eyes upon their hearts to show

them the greatness of his works : that they

might praise the name which he hath sancti-

fied
;
and glory in his wondrous acts, that they

might declare the glorious things of his works.

Moreover he gave them instructions, and the

law of life for an inheritance.” (Eccli. xvii,

6 sqq.) Now these gifts our first parents did

not lose in their fall
;
they retained their knowl-

edge of God and of God’s works even after

they had committed sin. They were and re-

mained civilized in the best sense of the word,

and that civilization they imparted to their

children. They may not have been adepts in

scientific acquirements, but they had a very

thorough knowledge of the moral order of

things, and it is in this that civilization pri-

marily consists. Given a community whereof

every member has a true knowledge of God

and of the purpose of human existence, to-

gether with the means of attaining his God-



90 Christianity vs. Paganism

appointed end, and you have a society that is

more truly civilized than the most scientific

nation on the face of the earth, whose mem-

bers are ignorant of their God and forgetful

of their own eternal destiny. Neither learn-

ing nor refined manners are essential constitu-

ents of civilization, although they usually ac-

company it to a greater or less extent. True

civilization consists in a just appreciation of

things in reference to the end of man’s ex-

istence and in a proper regard for the rights

of God and the neighbor. And these we find

recorded as present in human society at its be-

ginning. The very first reference to the chil-

dren of Adam and Eve, which we find in the

sacred pages, represents them in the act of of-

fering sacrifice to the true God. Gen. iv, 3, 4.

Nor are other indications of civilized condi-

tions wanting. The same sacred writer speaks

of Adam’s immediate descendants as tillers of

the fields and owners of the flocks
;
as builders

of cities
;
as inventors of musical instruments,

and as artificers in every work in brass and

iron. Gen. iv, 20 sqq. Surely such occupa-

tions we do not look for in a people that is

held fast in barbarism. Wherever we find

conditions of this nature, we recognize at



The World’s Shame 9i

once that we are in the presence of true civ-

ilization, and that man is in a position to re-

main true to his God.

From all this, then, together with what

was said in the preceding chapter, we may

safely- conclude that the manifold evils both

in the moral and in the physical order, which

are recorded on the pages of history and

of which we ourselves have a daily experi-

ence, cannot be referred to God as their

Author, nor can they be laid to the charge

of Adam and Eve as their sole and principal

causes. They are not purely and simply a

punishment of original sin : a punishment

which is visited upon the children on account

of the sin of their parents. To this point

we may apply, at least in part, the words of

Holy Writ: “The soul that sinneth, the same

shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity

of the father, and the father shall not bear

the iniquity of the son: the justice of the

just shall be upon him, and the wickedness

of the wicked shall be upon him.” (Ezech.

xviii, 29.) It is true enough, God does at

times allow the innocent to suffer on account

of the wicked, but that is not by way of

punishment. We must always bear in mind



92 Christianity vs. Paganism

that God views time only in reference to

eternity, and frequently what appears to us

as the most terrible of misfortunes whilst we

are still tarrying here on earth, will one day

become manifest to us as the greatest of

blessings. Of this, however, we shall speak

in another chapter. For the present it will

be sufficient to have pointed out that the

world’s sin and shame and suffering must not

be laid to the charge of God— He made
man right and placed him in a garden of

pleasure. Nor, as we have seen, must they

be placed on the shoulders of our first par-

ents : they, if you will, prepared the way by

causing the loss of original justice; but the

responsibility for the actual existence of pres-

ent and past disorders must be placed some-

where else.

And who then must bear this terrible re-

sponsibility? Who, but the men and women

who made the world’s history? The men

and women who have done and are doing evil

in their day. It was in the past as it is in

the present : the world is what the men and

women who live therein choose to make it.

Were everyone, even now, after all the ruin

that has been wrought in the past, to follow



The World’s Shame 93

the dictate of conscience and use the moral

power for good which human nature assisted

by God’s grace most certainly possesses, sin

and crime would be practically unknown, and

ninety-nine per cent of all the world’s suffer-

ings would vanish on the instant. There

would be no such thing as want and poverty

and starvation
;

for God has provided so

abundantly for all the needs of His reason-

able creatures, that the world’s population

might be increased to ten times its present

number and yet all would have their fill.

Why, not one-half of the present yearly pro-

duce is employed for useful purposes. The

greater part is simply wasted, and that, too,

by men and women who have not so much as

turned their hand to earn their daily bread.

You complain of hard times, and in many

respects your complaint is just. Times are

hard enough, and there are places where pov-

erty is appalling. But who causes these hard

times? Who brings about this poverty?
God? Why, how can He, when He bids the

earth to bring forth such an abundance of

good things that if it were but rightly used

everyone could live in luxury. No, not God;

but men— men who grind and grasp and



94 Christianity vs. Paganism

suck the very life blood out of the hearts of

their fellow-men until they have amassed

wealth enough to buy an empire. Men who

spend a fortune just to satisfy the whim of a

moment, but who would not give the value

of a dollar to enable a poor man to make a

decent living. What the good God intended

for the common benefit of all, is by hook or

by crook brought into the possession of the

few, and then the story of Dives and Lazarus

is re-enacted upon the world’s stage until the

heart sickens at the mere sight of it.

Nor is the modern Dives the only one to

blame in this matter
;
there is many a modern

Lazarus who must shoulder his share of re-

sponsibility for the distress and misery that

make this world in very truth a vale of tears.

More than one-half of the very persons who

are actually starving could be living in rea-

sonable comfort if they would but use a little

thrift and foresight in providing for them-

selves and for those who depend on their ef-

forts. But men of this sort know not the

meaning of thrift and foresight, nor do they

care to consult their own best interests. When

they are young they spend their money as

they earn it
;
they lead lives that would shat-



The World’s Shame 95

ter the constitutions of giants, and then when

sickness or old age creeps in upon them they

are physical wrecks and penniless paupers.

And who is to blame for their misery? Who,

but their own folly?

Is this an unjust estimate of the present

condition of things? Is this a case of special

pleading, where a clever juggling with facts

and figures leads to a one-sided conclusion?

You may think so, but if you will investigate

the matter thoughtfully and dispassionately, I

am quite prepared to abide by the result of

your findings. Most of our young men have

splendid opportunities
;
as a general rule they

receive good wages or fair salaries
;
but in all

too many instances they live only for the day.

As they earn their money so they spend it,

and spend it not for any good purpose, but

most frequently to acquire habits that will be

a drag on them for the rest of their lives.

Hence when after a dissipated youth, they

finally assume the responsibility of husband

and father, they have made little or no pro-

vision for the future. Nay, not only that, but

the spendthrift habits which they have ac-

quired still cling to them, and so they live

from hand to mouth, driven each morning to



g6 Christianity vs. Paganism

work by the dire necessity of providing for

the day’s need. Then, when hard times set

in
;
when sickness visits the family, as it usually

does, they are reduced to abject poverty. Nor

are they likely to learn wisdom from their

self-caused misfortunes. Instead of repent-

ing of their folly and mending their ways,

they begin to complain of their hard lot and

not rarely call in question the providence of

God. The providence of God! Why, if God

would provide for such men, He would have

to work miracles every day and change the

very stones into bread.

And what is thus said of our young men

may also with proper modifications be applied

to many of our young women. Some of them

lack both industry and economy, and very

many are deficient in either the one or the

other. Not a few seem to forget that they

were intended to be useful as well as orna-

mental. Were St. Paul to honor them with

a visit, he would most likely tell them in

rather plain language : “If you will not

work, neither shall you eat.” Others again

do not lack industry, but they are woefully de-

ficient in economy. They may receive wages

or salaries that would be sufficient to keep a



The World’s Shame 97

large family, yet at the end of the year they

have nothing to show for it but a varied as-

sortment of fineries. Many more there are

who, though both industrious and economical,

yet fail to fit themselves for the duties that

are awaiting them in after life. The best

dowry which any girl can present to her hus-

band on her wedding day is her ability and

willingness to direct domestic affairs
;
to pre-

side as guardian angel over the hearthstone

after the manner of that valiant woman so

highly spoken of in Holy Writ. Yet how

many of our modern girls are fashioned after

that God-approved pattern? How many of

them, when they cross the threshold of their

new homes are justly conscious that they are

qualified to be its mistress ? During their

maidenhood they were so engrossed in amuse-

ments of all sorts that they never found time

to devote themselves to so uninteresting a

matter as housekeeping, and as a consequence,

when they are put into a home of their own,

they waste more than they use. If love were

not blind it would require heroic courage in a

young man to venture upon the turbulent sea

of matrimony with a companion of such sort.

Of course, I do not mean to say that this



98 Christianity vs. Paganism

condition of things is universal. I do not

mean to say that all our poor are in want and

distress through their own fault, or even

through the injustice of the rich. We have
many excellent young men and excellent young

women, and a considerable number of our

wealthy citizens are thoroughly good and char-

itable
;
but there are enough of the other sort,

both among the poor and the rich, to account

in large measure for the want and distress that

fill the homes of our poor. Correct these

abuses, and many others of a similar kind,

and there will be little reason to complain of

poverty. Some poverty indeed will remain,

but that will be a legitimate object of Chris-

tian charity, the dispensing of which is a

duty of all and a privilege of none. God has

made the human race one large family, and

He ordained that the different members thereof

assist one another according to their several

needs and means. The poor, says our blessed

Saviour, you have always with you : so in-

deed we have, but if we act as reason and faith

teaches us, the poor need never be in want.

If their poverty results from circumstances

over which' they have no control, it consti-

tutes for them a God-given title to a share in



The World’s Shame 99

the abundance of their more fortunate breth-

ren, and that title may not be ignored without

offending the common Father of us all.

Hence if there is much evil in the world that

results from want and poverty, that evil is of

man’s making, not of God’s.

And what is thus true of poverty, and the

evils resulting therefrom, is in a great meas-

ure also true of sickness and other physical

sufferings. Any experienced physician will

tell you that most of the ills the flesh is heir

to are simply the outcome of self-indulgence

or of want of care in our way of living. How

many physical wrecks are now tottering along

our streets who would be healthy and strong

had they exercised that prudent self-restraint

which right reason demands ! The festive

board, the poisoned cup, the forbidden haunts

of pleasure, send more patients to our hos-

pitals and lunatic asylums than any other

source of human sickness. Were everyone to

live as his own good sense dictates, most of

our physicians would have to close their of-

fices. It is true, indeed, that many ailments

come to us without any fault of ours. Some-

times they are congenital, sometimes they

result from accidents, sometimes from the con-



ioo Christianity vs. Paganism

ditions under which we are compelled to live

or work; but with all this the greater part

is in the last instance the outcome of our own

folly. And where this is not the case
;
where

we are the victims of circumstances over

which we have no control, can we justly blame

God for our sufferings? No, indeed! He

permits them indeed, but only with the in-

tention of making them a source of future

blessings. It may be that He sends us at

times sickness as a punishment for our own

personal sins; but if He does so, He only

intends to chastise the body in order to save

the soul, and for that we owe Him thanks.

Or He may allow sufferings to come upon us

when we have done no wrong of any kind,

but then it is only for a higher purpose, which

will make our very misfortunes so many bless-

ings in disguise. Of this, however, I shall

speak in another chapter, where we shall view

the sufferings of time as they must needs ap-

pear in the light of eternity.

So much for our physical evils. And what

of the evils that belong to the moral order?

Who is responsible for them? There is so

much sin and crime in the world that the

mere sight of it is sickening. It infests



The World's Shame ioi

the hovels of the poor and the palaces of the

rich. It blasts the lives of the young and

crushes the hearts of those hoary with age.

It sits enthroned in high places and flaunts

its shame in the very light of day. And who

is the cause of it all? Who, but the men and

women who prostitute their free will in com-

mitting the sinful act? Adam’s sin, if you

will, supplied the seed from which this evil

tree has sprung, but the tree is of men’s own

planting and to them belongs its deadly fruit.

In consequence of Adam’s sin we are deprived

of the preternatural gifts of original justice,

but not of the moral power to lead naturally

good lives. He transmitted to his descend-

ants a nature that was still free from vicious

inclinations. They inherited from him a will

that was naturally upright, and if that will

fell under the power of evil it was because they

freely allowed it to become the slave of pas-

sion. It is stated indeed in our catechism

that the consequences of original sin were a

blinding of the understanding and a weaken-

ing of the will, but that is said only in ref-

erence to the supernatural gifts, which made

sin all but impossible in the state of original

justice. If we regard merely the immediate



102 Christianity vs. Paganism

consequences of original sin, our wills are as

strong as was that of our first parents, if

they had not been gifted with integrity, and

similarly with regard to the understanding.

The main difference between us and them lies

in the fact that they had certain supernatural

gifts which we do not possess. Not that we

are altogether deprived of supernatural helps,

for the grace of God is always with us and

gives us power to overcome any and every

temptation
;
but we do not possess that ante-

cedent subordination of the passions to reason,

and that fullness of infused knowledge, which

was the special prerogative of the state of

original justice. It is only in this sense that

our understanding has been blinded and our

will weakened in consequence of original sin.

Whatever other blinding and weakening there

has been must be attributed to men’s free in-

dulgence in their evil passions. Men and

women have led and are leading evil lives

because against their own better judgment,

and in spite of their power to resist the

promptings of their lower nature, they freely

allow themselves to be dragged down to a

state of moral degradation, where they almost

lose the very consciousness of sin. They



The World’s Shame 103

were pleased to sow the whirlwind, and now

they must be content to reap the storm.

Of course, here God’s self-appointed crit-

ics find matter for another complaint. Why,

they ask, did God implant in our nature those

strong passions that make sin almost a neces-

sity? Why did He not give us such a pow-

erful inclination towards good that the

commission of sin would become a moral im-

possibility? That question only shows how

little thought these men have given to the mat-

ter under consideration. It only shows how

consistent they are in judging of things con-

cerning which they have not even taken the

trouble to form a clear and correct idea. It

is true, God has planted certain passions in our

nature, but these passions in themselves are

neither evil nor the source of evil. They are

simply certain dispositions of our complex be-

ing, ultimately intended as helps to our will and

intellect in the attainment of their own proper

objects. As long as they are subject to reason

and directed towards the attainment of law-

ful ends, they are of the greatest help to us

and not rarely inspire deeds of heroic virtue.

As an instance, take that ineradicable inclina-

tion of the human heart, which finds expres-



104 Christianity vs. Paganism

sion in the various forms of love. If per-

verted to evil ends, it has power to change

earth into hell; but if guided by reason, it

fills the world with heroes and heaven with

saints. Who can count the heroic deeds to

which it has given rise since it first began to

throb in the human heart? What is it that

sustains the laborer day after day in

his toilsome task? It is love— love of wife
and child, who look to him for their sup-

port. What is it that prompts the mother

to watch whole nights at the bedside of her

sick child? It is the love of her little one,

whose life is dearer to her than her own.

What is it that nerves the arm of the patriot

whilst he fights his country’s battles? It is

the love of home and fireside
;

love of his

country that appeals to him in the hour of

her need. What is it that prompts the youth

and maiden, to whom life appeals in all its

young seductive force, to spurn the homage

of a flattering world and seek the silence of

the cloister, or to wear out their young lives

in the service of God’s sick and poor? It is

love— love of God and of the neighbor,
whom for God’s sake they hold dear as their

own souls. Oh, a thing divine is love ! Born



The World's Shame 105

of God, and godlike in its noble deeds of

virtue. Who would despoil the human heart

of a gift so divine? Yet love is but a passion,

and when indulged in without guidance of

discretion it will drag down man's soul to the

level of a brute.

And so it is with every other passion, be

its nature what it may. As given by God,

these passions perfect man in his being and in

his work. If they ever become to him a

hindrance and reproach, it is only because he

renounces the mastery of reason, and then

makes himself their willing slave. It is not

their innate strength and tendency that makes

them a fatal source of evil, but their indis-

creet indulgence against the warning voice of

conscience. If from early childhood we were

careful to direct them in their. proper course,

they would cause us little trouble in maturer

years. But careless of the morrow, we allow

negligence to creep in
;
dangerous tendencies

are encouraged rather than checked
;

evil

habits are formed, and thus in a few years

our nature is tainted with evil and brings forth

such a luxuriant growth of unruly passions

that its nobler qualities and higher aspirations

are completely overshadowed. Repeated in-



106 Christianity vs. Paganism

diligence causes them to strike their roots so

deep, and to twine around the will so close

that they become in a manner a second nature.

Then they assert their ascendency over our

higher being, lay our souls in bondage, and

rule us with a tyranny that is galling beyond

endurance— and then goaded by our
wounded pride we rise up and ask with

blasphemous effrontery : Why did God

make me thus ? Why did God make you

thus? Why, it is yourself who did that evil

deed. He made you right, but you undid His

work, and now you are what you made your-

self— a smoldering heap of ruins burnt out
by self-enkindled passions.

If you will, a certain allowance must be

made for inheritance and early surroundings.

A long line of vicious ancestors may engender

evil predispositions in their children. An irre-

ligious and criminal home atmosphere may

poison the minds and hearts of the young.

External influences for evil may place men

and women at a disadvantage in their strug-

gles to make their lives divine. All this may

diminish their accountability to God and place

a part of their responsibility upon the shoul-



The World's Shame 107

ders of their fellow-men
;
but after this allow-

ance has been made, if their lives are wrecked

for time and eternity, the wreckage has been

caused in the end by their own perverse will.

Even under the most unfavorable circum-

stances God’s help is still sufficient to keep sin

out of men’s lives, and if it does enter it must

necessarily enter through the open door of

their own free will. Hence look at the mat-

ter from what viewpoint you please, the gene-

sis of the world’s shame rests with the men

and women who do evil in their day.

And what are we to do under these circum-

stances ? Are we to sit down with folded

hands and bewail the world’s wickedness?

No, not sit down and wail, but be up and

doing. If our sins have been the cause of the

world’s ruin, let our virtue be the source of

its salvation. Fallen man can indeed not re-

deem himself, but our redemption has been

wrought by the Saviour’s death. From the

fountain of life that was opened on Calvary’s

heights there flow in upon our bruised hearts

streams of graces that will give us the strength

of giants. With the help of these graces we

can reform ourselves, and thus reform the



io8 Christianity vs. Paganism

world. The passions that have grown unruly

by reckless indulgence can be reduced to sub-

jection by prudent restraint. We can put of?

the old man of sin and put on Christ, and in

Him restore all things.



CHAPTER V

THE EVIL OF SIN AND ITS DIVINE REMEDY

• There is an old proverb which says that

familiarity breeds contempt. In its direct

and usual application it means, that the men

and women whom we admire as heroes and

heroines or as patterns of virtue, whilst we

view them as it were at a distance, are on

nearer acquaintance frequently found to be

made of very ordinary clay.
^

Constant asso-

ciation with them reveals to us their many

shortcomings, their human frailties and faults

and foibles, and so the greatness of their gen-

ius or the brightness of their virtue appears

more or less marred by the limitations and

imperfections which had altogether escaped

our notice in the more distant view. This is

quite a common experience, and its very com-

monness has given rise to the proverb which

109



no Christianity vs. Paganism

in one form or another has found a home in

every language.

There is another application of this same

proverb, which is not less true, although for

very different reasons and in an altogether op-

posite sense. It is its application to moral

evil, to sin in all its endless varieties and

widespread ramifications. When met with

at rare intervals, sin is apt to impress us as

a dreadful monster, as something that is al-

most satanic in its malice
;
but when we live

in daily contact with it, and especially when

it finds a home in our own hearts, it loses much

of its impressiveness, and thus familiarity with

it greeds contempt— not a contempt that leads
to its avoidance, but a contempt that makes

us draw nearer and causes us to look upon

it as something that is of little importance,

as something that has been much overrated

in its hideousness and malice. We persuade

ourselves that sin is after all something very

human
;
something which for one reason or

another must necessarily belong to the sum

total of human experiences, and that, there-

fore, it must be a weakness rather than a

crime. We have familiarized ourselves with

sin, and so we contemn it
;
not because of its



The Evil of Sin hi

meanness, but because of its insignificance.

I believe it is this principle, this law of

contradictories, as we may call it, that lies

at the root of the modern estimate of sin.

With the exception of the pagan past, when

the commission of sinful acts not rarely

formed a part of religious worship, there has

perhaps never been a time when the judg-

ments of men went so far astray in regard to

the real nature of sin as in these our days

of so-called intellectual enlightenment. Men

never will and never can altogether lose the

consciousness of guilt when they go against

the warning voice of conscience; they never

can wholly silence that voice as regards the

immorality of certain acts
;
but they succeed

only too well in transforming guilt into weak-

ness and interpreting the troublesome admo-

nitions of conscience as the regrettable after-

math of inherited prejudice. They will tell

you that “ sinful acts are but human weak-

nesses, which one may indeed regret, but is

unable to avoid ”
;
that

“
they are necessary

occurrences in the full and free expansion

of •men’s appetitive faculties”
;

“ intermediate

stages in the development of the race and

the individual, and as such they are evil only



1 12 Christianity vs. Paganism

in so far as they wantonly disregard the pre-

scriptive rights of other human beings.” That

they may be bad in themselves and an offense

against the Author of man’s being, these men

seem wholly unable to understand. Nay,

matters have come to such a pass that the

professors of some of our universities teach

openly that
“
there is nothing fundamentally

true or sacred ”
;

that “ no commandments

came from God,” and that “ society by its

approval can constitute any action right, or

by its censure decree it to be wrong.”

(Cf. Blasting the Rock of Ages: Cosmopol-

itan, 1909, pp. 674, spp.) For them the Dec-

alogue has ceased to exist, and sin is at most

an offense against the rules of social etiquette.

Let us hope that their practice is better than

their preaching, but even if so, God help the

nation whose young men and young women

are trained by such masters.

What, then, is sin? Unless we are will-

ing to put ourselves on record as outright ma-

terialists, who deny the existence of a personal

God and Creator, we must necessarily answer

this question in the words of the Catechism,

which are to the effect that sin is of its very

nature a willful transgression of a divine law,



The Evil of Sin ii3

the observance of which is fully within the

power of the transgressor, and is recognized

by him as a moral obligation. Hence three

conditions must occur in every sin. First,

there must be a law ultimately enacted by God

which forbids the sinful act. Secondly, the

person who sins must be aware of the exist-

ence of such a law and of its binding force.

Thirdly, he must freely transgress the law

when it is in his power to keep it. There is

indeed a wide difference between venial sin

and mortal sin, either on account of the grav-

ity of the matter in question or because of

the greater or less deliberation with which the

sin is committed
;
but this difference we may

pass by for the present, as it does not change

the fundamental nature of sin. So again is

there a difference between the laws -of which

the sinful act is a willful transgression; for

some of them come directly from God, as do

the commandments of the Decalogue
;
whilst

others come from God only indirectly, as,

for instance, the precepts of the Church. But

this again need not be considered in the pres-

ent discussion
;

because ultimately every

law derives its binding force from the

authority of God. Hence each and every sin



H4 Christianity vs. Paganism

that has ever been committed, or ever can be

committed, is a sin precisely because it is a

willful transgression of a divine law. The

sinful act derives its moral deformity wholly

and solely from its opposition to the infinitely

holy will of God. And therefore its intrinsic

malice must be measured by the unchangeable

standard of God's holiness, not by the fickle

fancies of human society.

Now, with these principles before us, what

judgment must we necessarily pass upon every

sin? Can we, without stultifying our com-

mon sense, call it a merely human weakness?

Something that one may regret, yet cannot

avoid? Surely men are not hung for a mere

weakness
;

they are not condemned to the

penitentiary for life for something they could

not help— yet the transgression of human
laws entails these punishments, and that, too,

with the full approval of all right-minded per-

sons. Why, at times men are so shocked at

the heinousness of certain crimes that they

will not wait for the slow operation of the

courts to mete out a just retribution to the

criminal, but will take the law into their own

hands and inflict the severest punishment

within their reach. The method of procedure



The Evil of Sin ii5

which they adopt is indeed wrong, but are they

wrong in their estimate of the deed commit-

ted by the criminal ? Whatever university

professors may say about human weaknesses

and about necessary occurrences in the full

and free expansion of man’s appetitive facul-

ties, common sense announces in no uncertain

terms that such deeds are intrinsically wrong,

and that the perpetrators thereof are justly

made to bear the penalties of human laws.

Now, if the transgression of human laws

cannot be put down as mere weakness, is there

any consistency in considering the matter in

that light when divine laws are transgressed,

as is the case in every sin? The greater the

majesty of the law the more serious must

necessarily be the offense committed against

that law. Now, the majesty of the law is in

proportion to the dignity of the lawgiver,

since the law is but an outward expression of

his will, and this dignity in the case of divine

laws is that of the infinitely holy and perfect

God. Consequently, whoever commits a sin,

by that very fact slights and spurns, not the

authority of man, but of God Himself. Hence

Holy Scripture, speaking of the sin of our

first parents, calls it an act of apostacy, a



n6 Christianity vs. Paganism

falling off from God, inspired by pride. Think

for a moment what this means. By the very

fact that man is a creature, he owes his God

an undivided allegiance, such as can never

obtain between man and man. All that he is

and all that he has he holds as a fief from

God his Maker, and right reason itself demands

that in recognition of this he yield an abso-

lute submission to the divine will. Yet in

every sinful act, at least when it is of a serious

nature, he withdraws from that allegiance and

refuses that submission and thereby raises the

standard of revolt against his God. And what

makes this all the more shocking is the fact

that he flings his defiance into the very face of

God. When human laws are transgressed,

no direct insult is offered to the lawgiver

;

because, although his authority is defied, it is

usually done in his absence and without any

reference to his personal dignity. Not so in

the transgression of divine laws; for we must

remember that whenever we sin, we sin neces-

sarily in the presence of God. He perceives

our every thought, hears our every word, sees

our every action. The moment our free will

opposes itself to the will of God, we are

in open rebellion against our sovereign Lord.



The Evil of Sin ii7

This aspect of the matter finds its full veri-

fication in every mortal sin, whatever may be

said about venial transgressions. For when

a man sins mortally he sins with his eyes

wide open and in a matter which he knows

to be of a serious nature. He rebels against

his God as truly as ever subject rebelled

against his sovereign. Like Lucifer of old,

he tells God to His face : I will not serve

Thee ! I know that Thou art my rightful sov-

ereign
;
for I know that Thou hast created me.

I know that all I have is Thy gift
;
I know that

I belong entirely to Thee
;

I know, too, that

Thy laws are just, that Thy commandments

are reasonable; for Thou art justice and wis-

dom itself
;

yet I will not serve Thee. Nay,

I will take Thy very gifts, the tokens of Thy

love and use them to offend Thee.

Such is the language of sin, at least where

the sin in question is mortal
;
and can such

sin be merely a human weakness? Perhaps

you will say that this is an exaggeration. That

human beings are not guilty of such language.

No, they are not as far as mere language

is concerned. The generality of men and wo-

men, although they may profess to be unbe-

lievers, would shrink from such open defiance



n8 Christianity vs. Paganism

of the Almighty, whom somehow they cannot

wholly eliminate from their inner conscious-

ness. But what language fails to formulate,

that is expressed in action, and actions, as

an old adage has it, speak louder than words.

Call sin by whatever name you please, you

can no more change its intrinsic malice than

you can wash away the leopard’s spots. It

is conceived in iniquity and born of evil, and

its issue is death.

The first constituent, therefore, of every sin

is a more or less complete turning away from

God. Where the sin is venial, this turning

away is only partial, or as theologians are

wont to express it, a loitering on man’s God-

ward journey; but where the sin is mortal,

there it is complete, and as long as the sinner

remains in his sin-stained condition, he lives

as*a rebel against his Maker. Correlative with

this turning away from God is man’s turning

to himself. In the same proportion that he

rejects the authority of his Maker, he asserts

his own. Acting in defiance of his Creator’s

law, he becomes a law unto himself, and if

his sinful acts are of frequent occurrence, he

may finally come to banish God entirely from

his life and from the world wherein his life



The Evil of Sin 119

is cast. It is to this that a sinful life usually

tends, and when this final term is reached, the

sinner has made himself his own master, his

own sovereign, his own God.

It is this self-apotheosis that has ever been

the bane of human society. It was so in the

days of old, and it is so in our own day. Pa-

ganism, with its hundreds of gods and god-

desses, what was it but a world wherein man

had made himself the supreme god? It is

true, he paid the tribute of worship to a whole

army of nominally higher beings, but these

beings were in reality only the offspring of

his own foolish fancy. He created his gods

to satisfy the cravings of his passions, and

in worshiping them he only worshiped him-

self. And practically the same is again be-

coming the fashion in our own times. What

are these men doing who are trying to replace

the God of heaven and earth by the dumb

forces of nature? They are simply asserting

their own divinity. Do they not tell us again

and again that nature is all, and that nature

has reached its highest development in man ?

Do they not point with pride to the fact that

they have harnessed nature’s forces and made

therp do their personal bidding? They pro-



120 Christianity vs. Paganism

claim to all the world that nature is their god

and they themselves are nature’s masters, and

that therefore they themselves are the bear-

ers of the supreme Godhead. It is precisely

this that is implied in their statements that sin

is but a human weakness, a necessary occur-

rence in the full and free expansion of man’s

appetitive faculties, an intermediate stage in

the development of the individual and of so-

ciety. In any other sense such statements

are simply unintelligible.

As a necessary sequel of this self-apotheo-

sis, follows the third constituent of sin,

namely, the abuse of creatures and the total

perversion of their God-appointed end. As

long as there is a God in heaven, to whom

man on earth owes fealty and submission, all

earthly things must necessarily be used as de-

termined by God's sovereign and holy will.

They are His by right of creation and abso-

lute ownership, and He alone cart. assign them

their destiny. It is true, He made man the

ruler of the earth and all that is contained

therein, but only with the understanding that

man observe the conditions on which his right

to rule depends. Man’s first inquiry must al-

ways be: What is God’s will concerning the



The Evil of Sin 121

use of my own faculties and the gifts of nature

placed at my disposal ? In the abstract he

knows that God created all for His own glory,

and in the concrete he must render God this

tribute of glory in his every action. He may

not think as he pleases, nor will as he pleases,

nor make his own pleasure the standard of

right and wrong in the enjoyment of wealth

and honor and worldly power. Ruler though

he be in reference to the material creation, he

is still but an underling as regards the use of

his ruling power. By reason of his finite na-

ture he must needs acknowledge God as his

Overlord, and to Him he is ultimately account-

able for his temporal administration.

Now, in sin, this God-appointed order is

fundamentally subverted. As the sinner, prac-

tically at least, makes himself the source of

authority, so does he also in consequence make

his own personal advantage the end of all

things. He plans and schemes, and labors and

toils, not to promote the interests of his Cre-

ator, but solely to make all creation subservi-

ent to his own whims and fancies. His

thoughts are concentrated upon himself, and

the forces of his will ever revert to his own

selfish ends, Whatever power he may have



122 Christianity vs. Paganism

he directs to his personal aggrandizement, and

the means given to him for the service of God

he misuses in pandering to his perverse appe-

tites. He acts precisely as a fraudulent ad-

ministrator does, who, instead of making the

estate bear revenue for the lawful heirs, em-

bezzles whatever comes within his reach. He is

a dishonest servant, who wastes and squanders

his Master’s goods, and as far as in him lies,

puts himself into his Master’s place. It is

from this sinful abuse of God’s gifts that the

lamentable economic conditions of modern so-

ciety flow as their prime source. Whence

comes that constant friction between capital

and labor that amounts almost to a state of

petty warfare? It is the necessary outcome

of man’s usurpation of his Creator’s rights in

the disposition of worldly goods. He arro-

gates to himself an absolute ownership, with

recognized powers to use and abuse as his

own fancy may dictate, and then by a most

logical inference he judges that he should sur-

round himself with as much creature com-

fort as possible, if not by fair means, then by

foul. It is not so much the necessaries of

life that men are now looking, for, as their

Creator intended; they hanker after luxuries



The Evil of Sin 123

that make them Sybarites in their indulgence

and earthy in their aspirations. This was at

the root of the sensual horrors of the old

paganism, and this is fast introducing similar

conditions in the new paganism of our own

day. Eat and drink and make merry; for

to-morrow we die.

Hence there is in sin a threefold evil

:

the rising up of the creature against the Cre-

ator; the supplanting of the Creator by the

creature
;

the abuse of creatures for selfish

ends. The first is rebellion
;
the second is

treason
;
the third is robbery. And this three-

headed monster is merely a human weakness

;

merely a necessary occurrence in the full and

free expansion of man’s appetitive faculties;

merely an intermediate stage in the develop-

ment of the individual and of society ! For

shame, ye men of academic lore ! Hath much

learning made you mad? To you, I fear, the

Apostle of the Gentiles would apply what

he once said of the philosophers of old

:

“ Professing themselves to be wise, they be-

came fools.”

To realize the awful meaning of sin and

the terrible havoc it wrought in God’s beau-

tiful creation, we must look at this matter not



124 Christianity vs. Paganism

through our own eyes, but through the eyes

of God. It was through the overflowing of

His boundless love that He called man into

being; that He prepared for him a dwelling

place fit for kings
;
that He conferred upon

him the rights of divine sonship
;
that He made

him heir to all His possessions. It was for

man that He bade the sun to rise, the rain

to fall, the earth to bring forth its verdure

and flowers and golden fruitage. It was man

whom He loved even as the apple of His eye,

and whose happiness He identified with His

own glory. Surely He had reason to look

for a return of love ! Surely He had a right

to expect a grateful acknowledgment of favors

so great ! Did a mother ever do for her child

what God did for His reasonable creatures?

And what was the recompense ? He was, so

to speak, turned out of His own home, driven

from His own possessions, robbed of the fruit

of His own labor, and that by the slave whom

he had pressed to His heart as the child of

His love. . Have you ever seen father or

mother driven from their home by the children

for whom they had labored and suffered until

their strength gave way, although their love

was not yet satisfied? Can you imagine the



The Evil of Sin 125

desolation of .their broken hearts, the disap-

pointment of their unrequited love, when the

sons and daughters whom they loved more

than life itself, and for whose sake they had

made a willing sacrifice of all that was most

dear to them, bade -them be gone from the

home which they had built, and which they had

sanctified by their prayers and labor and love ?

Such things happen at times in human society,

incredible though they may appear. They are

terrible manifestations of human ingratitude

;

yet they are not more terrible than what takes

place in every mortal sin. God, it is true,

cannot be deprived of His own essential hap-

piness; He cannot be reduced to want and

starvation
;
and yet, after our human way of

phrasing things, He can be sent forth as an

exile from the home which He had built for

Himself and for His children. It was this that

made Him cry out through Isaiah the prophet

:

“ Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth,
for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up

children and exalted them
;
but they have

despised me.” Yes, they have despised Him;

not once, not a thousand times, but continu-

ously, uninterruptedly; from the beginning of

the world even until now, and they will do sq



126 Christianity vs. Paganism

until He shall summon the nations before His

great white throne and render to everyone ac-.

cording to their works.

Now, if such be the nature of sin, and if

these sins have multiplied above the stars of

heaven and beyond the grains of sand by the

seashore, is there any possibility of finding a

remedy for an evil so boundless ? Can an ad-

equate reparation be made to the outraged

majesty of God? Is there any balm in Gil-

ead to heal the wounds of the bleeding human

heart ? Can the image of the Godhead, which

has been utterly disfigured in men’s immortal

souls, be restored to its original beauty and

perfection? If such remedy there be, it must

be divine
;
for divine was the work that has

been ruined, divine the person who has been

offended, divine is the work of reparation that

must be effected. Man can kill, but man can-

not restore life
;
he can drag himself down

below his natural dignity, but he cannot raise

himself above it; he can outrage the majesty

of his Maker, but he cannot repair that out-

rage. Left to his own resources, he must

remain in the abyss into which he has fallen;

he must continue forever such as he has made

himself by his sin— a rebel, a traitor, a rob-



The Evil of Sin 127

ber, an ingrate who has raised his hand against

his father.

It is this very inability on the part of man

to make reparation for the evil he has caused

by his sin, that appeals most strongly to God’s

boundless goodness and that forces Him in a

manner to complete the work of love which

He began in the creation and adoption of man.

He is ever mindful of the fact that the sin-

ner, though insubordinate and ungrateful, is

still His own child. He once loved him with

a father’s love, and that love cannot be torn

from His heart. Human fathers may banish

their disobedient children from their hearts

and homes, without leaving them any hope

of being allowed to return. Nay, even hu-

man mothers may so harden their hearts

against their own flesh and blood that they

will cast them off as if they were strangers

and suffer them to die in misery and sin—
but the good God, who raised man from his

lowly condition and made him His own child,

has not the heart to be angry with him for-

ever. I have loved thee, He says, with an

everlasting love, and therefore have I drawn

thee— drawn thee from thy own evil self
to My great heart of love. “ Can a woman



128 Christianity vs. Paganism

forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the

son of her womb? and if she should forget,

yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have

graven thee in my hands.” God hates sin—
hates it with all the power of His omnipotent

being
;
with a hatred that is infinite even as

the love of His own perfections; yet this

hatred of sin does not weaken His love for

the sinner. Nay, in a manner it intensifies

that love, not indeed of the sinner for what

he is by his own iniquitous deed, but for what

he has lost beyond all possibility of recovery

through his own power. It is a love that

melts into pity and compassion, even as does

the love of a mother for her sick child, whose

very helplessness makes her forget all else

except the little one’s misery and distress.

It is only when we take this view of the

matter that we can at all understand God’s

dealings with the sinful world. One of the

greatest mysteries that confronts us in God’s

government of the world is precisely His seem-

ing inexhaustible patience with sinful man.

There is not an hour of the day or night, or

rather not a single instant from the begin-

ning of the year to the year’s end, but some

human being is offending Him by mortal sin.



The Evil of Sin 129

Nay, many there are whose lives are one tis-

sue of sins the most abominable, and yet He

bears with it all and even continues to bestow

upon them His favors and blessings as if they

were His dutiful children. He maketh His

sun to shine upon the good and the bad, and

raineth upon the just and the unjust, as our

blessed Saviour so touchingly expresses it in

His sermon on the mount. It is a mystery of

patience that baffles human understanding.

And what is the ultimate reason underlying

this mystery? The love of a father’s heart,

which may be grieved unto death, yet delays

to strike the fatal blow that will cut off His

child from Him forever. As He Himself so

forcibly expresses it in the words of the in-

spired writer : “ I will not the death of the sin-

ner, but that he be converted and live.” The

day of reckoning must indeed come, and come

it will unless the sinner repent of his sin and

do penance
;
but meanwhile God waits and

waits, hoping it may be against hope, if per-

chance the son that was dead return to life,

and become once again the joy of His heart.

It is in this mercy alone that a remedy can

be found for human sins. If this mercy be

withheld, then the soul that sins must die.



130 Christianity vs. Paganism

In human nature there is no principle of self-

regeneration. Sinful man cannot repair the

ruin he has wrought. God Himself must

stoop down and gather up the dead from their

tombs and breathe anew into their face the

breath of life, that they may become once

again living souls. He alone can be the good

Samaritan who binds up the wounds of him

that fell among robbers, and nurses him back

to health and strength. How this was effected

in God’s own wise ways, we shall consider

in the next chapter, which will treat of the

Mystery of the Atonement.



CHAPTER VI

THE MYSTERY^ OF THE ATONEMENT

Sanctifying grace is the supernatural life

of the soul
;

its loss is the soul’s death in the

same order. Man may be in the full vigor

of his youth
;
he may be at the very height of

life’s enjoyment; yet if he has lost sanctifying

grace, his soul is as dead as his body will be

when it shall rot in the grave. As no cre-

ated power can restore life to the body from

which the soul has departed, so neither can

any power under God give life to the soul

that has been deprived of sanctifying grace.

Such a soul is not only lifeless, as are the

stones that lie scattered by the wayside, but

it is the dead remnant of a being that was

broken up by sin
;

it is a wreck strewn along

the highway of life. Possessed of sanctifying

grace, that soul was beautiful as the angels

of heaven, instinct with supernatural life and

pulsating with spiritual energy; despoiled of

I3i



132 Christianity vs. Paganism

that grace by the suicidal act of sin, it is re-

pulsive as the spirit of evil, paralyzed in every

fibre, and essentially incapable of all super-

natural merit. It is an eyesore on God’s beau-

tiful creation; a noxious weed that poisons the

pure air of theCreator’s garden of beauty. Like

the barren fig tree, it cumbers the ground, and

where its sad condition is self-caused, its in-

evitable destiny, if left to itself, will be to serve

as fuel for the fires of hell.

But that soul, as we saw in the preceding

chapter, is still dear to God. It is to Him

what the lifeless body of her dead child is to

the* sorrowing mother. Had she the power to

recall the spirit that has flown, she would not

rest until it were again united to that stiffened

form— until it should send the blood cours-
ing through the clogged veins, paint the

blanched cheeks with the flush of health, flash

from the glazed eyes in looks of love, and form

upon the drawn lips that sweetest of all names,

mother. For wise reasons God has withheld

such power from human mothers, but He

Himself possesses it in all its fullness. He is

life itself and the source of all life. He can

gather together the scattered atoms that once

formed a human body, and breathe again into



Mystery of Atonement 133

them the breath of life, so that the handful

of dust becomes once more the earthly vesture

of a living soul. He can take the soul that

is dead in sin, and infuse into it the principle

of supernatural life, so that it shall again be

endowed with the same youth and vigor and

beauty that were its crown and its glory before

the suicidal act of willful sin. And as He has

the power, so does He also have the will to

perform this miracle of mercy and love. I

will not the death of the sinner, He says, but

that he be converted and live. It was this

merciful love of the Heavenly Father, slighted

and scorned by the children of His adoption,

that gave 'hope to our first parents in Paradise

;

it was this love which devised a plan of repa-

ration so far-reaching and perfect, that the

fall itself has become a source of blessings.

This reparation is contained in the great

Atonement, the meaning and bearing of which

we shall consider in the present chapter.

The Atonement is a general term to desig-

nate the complexus of divine workings, wfyich

have for their object the raising up of man-

kind fallen through sin. In order to grasp its

real significance, and to appreciate the benefits

conferred through it upon our fallen race, we



134 Christianity vs. Paganism

must bear in mind two facts, which are not

rarely lost sight of even by those who give the

matter serious thought. The first fact is the

most certain truth, that God might have left

man in the state of misery in which he had

placed himself by his own willful sin. By

consenting to sin, man made his choice between

life and death, and that choice of its very na-

ture was irrevocable. There was no obliga-

tion on the part of God to give man a second

chance. If He did so, it was purely gratui-

tous— the prompting of His boundless good-
ness, not the dictate of His infinite justice.

The second fact, which is not less certain, is

this, that God might have restored man to his

original condition of justice without any atone-

ment whatever. For in sin, His own rights

alone were violated, and for this He might

have granted a free pardon. He could, with-

out His justice thereby suffering in the least,

have made the sacrifice of His honor and have

given man the benefit of His mercy. Again,

He might, if He had so chosen, have been

content with such reparation as man had it in

his power to make, although that reparation

would necessarily fall short of the demands

of infinite justice. Hence if He required an



Mystery of Atonement 135

atonement for man’s transgressions, and if He

chose one method of effecting it rather than

another, it was because He deemed it the most

apt to manifest at once His justice and His

mercy, and also the most likely to excite in

man the love of God and the fear of sin. He

chose a method that made of the atonement

a labor of love, and in that labor of love, which

placed upon infinite holiness the burden of sin,

He made less account of His rights than of our

needs; He satisfied the demands of justice, yet

so as to incline to mercy. It is in this mys-

tery of divine love that infinite justice and in-

finite mercy meet in the kiss of peace.

The Catholic doctrine of the Atonement,

which is in fact the burden of the whole New

Testament and which was clearly foreshad-

owed in the Old, is thus neatly expressed in

St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans : “ When we

were enemies, we were reconciled to God by

the death of His Son” (v, 10). Here three

facts are pointed out as entering into the fun-

damental concept of the Atonement. We
were the enemies of God, and as such we stood

in need of a reconciliation. God Himself, who

was the offended party, brought about that rec-

onciliation
;
and He brought it about by the



136 Christianity vs. Paganism

death of His own Son. It was not man who

took the first step, but God. It was not man

who paid the price of redemption, but God.

This fundamental idea of reconciliation to

God by the sacrifice of God’s own Son, the

Apostle develops more fully in his Letter to

the Colossians, where he says : “ In him

(Christ) it hath well pleased the Father that

all fullness should dwell, and through him to

reconcile all things unto himself, making peace

through the blood of his cross, both as to the

things on earth and the things that are in

heaven. And you, whereas you were some-

times alienated, and enemies in mind in evil

works, yet now he hath reconciled in the body

of his flesh through death to present you holy

and unspotted and blameless before him
”

(i, 19-23). . . . “ You, when you were

dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of

the flesh, he (the Father) hath quickened to-

gether with him (Christ), forgiving you all

offenses, blotting out the handwriting of the

decree that was against us, which was con-

trary to us. He hath taken the same out of

the way, fastening it to the cross ” (II, 13,

14).

Hence what we must first of all take note of



Mystery of Atonement 137

in this doctrine of the Atonement is the fact

that the Atonement wrought by Christ is es-

sentially an act of reconciliation. It is the

bringing together of two parties that were at

variance with one another, and hence it sup-

poses a state of enmity between God and man

as the result of man’s sin. This is precisely

what we would infer from the nature of sin,

as explained in the preceding chapter. As we

there saw, by sin man turns away from his

God, usurps God’s authority, and subverts the

order which God established in His own crea-

tion. His sinful act, as considered in its moral

tendency, not only attacks God’s possessions,

but His very person, since it is essentially op-

posed to His infinite holiness. On his part,

therefore, man is as truly God’s enemy through

sin as any nation is said to be the enemy of

the country which it attacks in warfare
;
as

truly as any son is the enemy of his father

whose life he attempts. It is very important

to bear this in mind in order to come to a clear

understanding of the nature of Christ’s Atone-

ment. It implies not merely forgiveness on

the part of God, but a change of heart on the

part of man. God’s enemy is made God’s

friend, not merely in name, but in deed; the



138 Christianity vs. Paganism /

heart that was centered upon self goes out to

its Maker
;
the will that asserted its independ-

ence submits to the will of its rightful Sover-

eign
;
the unfaithful servant who appropriated

what was not his own becomes duly de-

voted to his Master’s interests. The recon-

ciliation implied in the Atonement is, there-

fore, a new creation, which undoes the work

of sin even as sin undid the work of God.

How this interior change is actually effected in

each individual soul, we shall see on another

occasion, but for the present we must keep its

objective reality before our minds, else we fail

to grasp the real meaning of the Atonement.

Here the question necessarily suggests itself,

if the Atonement is essentially a reconciliation,

and if reconciliation presupposes a state of en-

mity between the parties to be reconciled, must

it be said that God was the enemy of sinful

man? Naturally speaking, this would appear

to be the case; because all unjust aggression

calls for just retribution, and therefore of its

very nature gives rise to the spirit of revenge

in the offended party. Moreover, Holy Scrip-

ture would seem to lend color to this view,

since it repeatedly speaks
^
of God’s anger

against .the sinful world
;

nay, St. Paul goes



Mystery of Atonement 139

so far as to say that we are all born children

of wrath. But, on the other hand, how is it

possible that God should be man’s enemy and

yet at the same time endeavor to bring about

a reconciliation by the sacrifice of His own

Son in behalf of sinful man? Here we seem

to be face to face with a mystery the full sig-

nificance of which goes beyond the reach of

shortsighted human reason. Man withdraws

from the obedience of his Creator, usurps the

authority of his Sovereign, abuses the gifts of

God, and yet that same Creator, that same

Sovereign, that same God, sacrifices His only

Son in order to save sinful man from the ter-

rible consequences of his iniquitous deeds—
how is it possible that Infinite Wisdom should

find such a course of action consistent with

Infinite Justice?

The real nature of this mystery we cannot

hope to understand until that happy day shall

come, when, leaning on the bosom of God’s in-

finite love, we shall read in the light of our

Father’s countenance the hidden counsels of

His heart
;
but meanwhile we may gather a

partial explanation of it all from the nature of

God’s anger, which is essentially different from

the anger, of human beings. God. is not angry



140 Christianity vs. Paganism

as we are angry
;
He is not actuated by passion

which looks for revenge. His anger is but an

expression of His perfect holiness, which is

outraged by sin. This outraged holiness of

God calls indeed for a righteous chastisement

of the sinner, but it is not forgetful of the

sinner’s needs and the sinner’s interests, and

hence it may assume the highest form of love,

which finds expression in self-sacrifice for the

very person by whom the outrage was com-

mitted. We have a distant analogy of this in

a mother’s love for her disobedient child. She

may be very much offended at the disrespect

of one from whom she has a right to expect

only love and appreciation
;
her heart may

bleed on account of the insults coming from

her own flesh and blood; yet deep down in

that same bruised and bleeding heart still throbs

a mother’s love, which would gladly sacrifice

life itself, if thereby she could save her mis-

guided child. She is but human
;
still her love is

in a manner divine— it rises above the little-
ness of passion and the meanness of revenge;

it grows in tenderness and intensity in the same

proportion as its object is reduced to greater

want and misery. Her anger is but the out-

come of her love, and as long as she remains



Mystery of Atonement 141

true to the promptings of her heart, that anger

will look only to the saving of her child. It is

somewhat after this manner that we must con-

ceive of God’s anger against sinful man
;

it is

not the flaring up of passion, not the desire of

revenge; but a manifestation of His holiness,

which finds expression in His hatred of sin and

in His pity for the sinner. Sinful man was

the enemy of God, but God was not the enemy

of sinful man
;
had He been, He would never

have sent His own Son to redeem the world

from sin. It was this that the Apostle had

in mind when he wrote to the Christians at

Rome : “ God commendeth his charity to-

wards us
;
because when as yet we were sin-

ners, according to the time, Christ died for

us (v, 8, 9).

This view of the Atonement, which makes

it from beginning to end a work of love rather

than of avenging justice, commends itself es-

pecially to our acceptance when the Atone-

ment is considered in regard to Christ by whom

it was accomplished. Through the Incarna-

tion Christ was constituted the moral head of

the human race, as Adam had been before the

fall. He became our representative before

God, and upon His shoulders was placed the



142 Christianity vs. Paganism

burden of our sins. “ Him who knew no sin

for us he (the Father) hath made sin, that we

might be made the justice of God in him,”

writes St. Paul to the Corinthians. God made

the sinless sin for us, that is, a sin-offering,

whereby our sins should be blotted out. Now

in the very nature of things it is inconceivable

that God should be angry with Christ
;

for

Christ Himself is God. Christ not only sat-

isfied for our sins, but together with the Father

and the Holy Spirit demanded that satisfac-

tion. Holy Scripture testifies indeed that

Christ our Lord was delivered up by the

Father, but it testifies not less clearly that He

was delivered up also by Himself. As a mod-

ern writer on the subject so well expresses it:

“ Sin is displeasing to the Father and to the

Son and to the Holy Spirit, and to the Father

and the Holy Spirit as much as to the Son

belongs the love which by the mystery of the re-

demption devised a way of bringing God’s ban-

ished children home. The Father sent the Son

in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by the Eter-

nal Spirit was He conceived in Mary’s womb

and offered on the cross. The justice which

required satisfaction and the mercy which pro-

vided it, are the justice and the mercy of the



Mystery of Atonement 143

Triune God. Hence the Atonement, although

offered through the Incarnate Word, is the

work of the whole Trinity, and the sacrifice of

the cross, like the sacrifice of the altar, is of-

fered to the Father and to the Son and to the

Holy Spirit.” God sacrificed His Son
;
but

not through anger. He placed upon His Son’s

shoulders the burden of the world’s sin
;
but

He did not withdraw from Him his heart’s af-

fection. The Atonement is indeed a mystery,

but it is a mystery of love. It is God’s own

inscrutable way of bringing His banished chil-

dren home.

The Atonement is, therefore, from beginning

to end, the work of God, the concrete expres-

sion of His compassionate love for our sinful

race
;

yet it is also in a true sense the work of

man, because it was effected by God through

human nature. God Himself became man so

as to enable human nature to blot out the dark

stain of guilt of which itself had been the will-

ful author. It is this intermingling of the hu-

man and the divine in this mystery of love

that makes it so irresistibly attractive to the

human heart— God Himself repairing the
damage caused by our sins, but in such wise

that we should share in that divine work. As



144 Christianity vs. Paganism

St. Paul so beautifully expresses it in his Epis-

tle to the Philippians: “ He emptied himself,

taking upon himself the form of a servant,

becoming obedient unto death, even to the

death of the cross.” Mark well what this im-

plies. Before any reconciliation whatever had

been effected, whilst man was still acting the

part of an enemy, God gave Himself entirely

to human nature, allowed Himself to be pos-

sessed by man, so that through His infinite

holiness human actions might have the efficacy

of satisfying the demands of eternal justice.

He gave to man the purchase money of re-

demption, and that purchase money was His

own divine personality. A right understand-
ing of this will save us from falling into the

fatal error of attributing our redemption to

human nature itself— an error unfortunately
all too common in these days of human self-

sufficiency. It was Christ's human nature,

they tell us, that became obedient, Christ’s hu-

man nature that suffered and died— not His
divinity, not His divine personality— and
therefore it was human nature itself that

wrought our redemption. This, our rational-

istic friends will have it, is a logical inference



Mystery of Atonement 145

from the Catholic doctrine that Christ was

true man.

Well, they may call this an inference, but

it is certainly not logical
;

it is as false as it is

fatal. It was indeed in the power of Christ’s

human nature to obey and to suffer, but neither

its obedience nor its sufferings could satisfy

for man’s sins except in so far as both the one

and the other proceeded from the human na-

ture of God. Catholics teach indeed that

Christ was true man, but also that His human

nature was linked in a personal union to the

Godhead— it was God’s own human nature.
All its dignity, all its power of satisfying for

sin, all its capability of meriting the graces of

salvation, had their source in this personal

union, and therefore all its redeeming power

was the result of God’s generosity, manifested

in making that nature His very own
;
so much

so that it is literally true to say, God became

obedient, God humbled Himself, God died

upon the cross. If He associated human na-

ture with Himself in the work of reconcilia-

tion, it was not because of any moral value

which that nature could give to His work, but

because it enabled Him to walk the way of



146 Christianity vs. Paganism

human sorrows and to bestow something upon

that nature, which without such a union it

would have been impossible to bestow. He

made that nature the bearer of His divinity,

and through that divinity the sharer in His

work of satisfying for man’s sins.

The intensity of God’s love, and its touching

tenderness, as it thus finds expression in the

work of the Atonement, can be understood

only if it be borne in mind what its accom-

plishment cost Him. When St. Peter told the

first Christians that they had been bought at a

great price, he expressed a truth that is some-

times but little appreciated. If we were told

that a human father had delivered his only son

to be put to death in order to save the life

of a condemned slave, we would without hesi-

tation form one of these two conclusions

:

Either that father did not love his son as he

ought to have loved him, or he loved his slave

inordinately. There would seem to be no

other reasonable explanation of so strange a

conduct. Yet this is precisely what God did.

Christ in His human nature is God’s own Son,

not by adoption, but by generation. That hu-

man nature was at the moment of its concep-

tion substantially united to the second person



Mystery of Atonement 147

of the Most Holy Trinity, owing to which

union there is in Christ only one person, and

that person is the natural Son of God. On

the other hand, sinful man, man deprived of

sanctifying grace, is but a slave -— he becomes
an adopted child only through sanctifying

grace, which would not have been his except

for the Atonement of Christ. Hence it is lit-

erally true to say that God gave up His own

Son to be crucified in order to give life to His

condemned slave. And did He not love that

Son? Why, He loved Him with all the in-

tensity of which His own infinite love is capa-

ble. Did He then love us inordinately? In

God there can be nothing inordinate. One at-

tribute of His infinitely perfect being cannot

come in conflict with another. He is as just

as He is merciful
;
as wise as He is generous.

He loved us indeed beyond our deserts, but

not beyond the limits of His wisdom and pru-

dence. How then can this action of God in our

behalf be explained? Why, my friends, it

cannot be explained. This is the heart and

core of the mystery of the Atonement. This

is the mystery of God’s love for man— that
He spared not even His own Son, but deliv-

ered Him up for us all. For God so loved



148 Christianity vs. Paganism

the world, as to give His only begotten Son

;

that whosoever believeth in Him, may not per-

ish, but have life everlasting.

There is nothing analogous to this in the

whole range of human experiences. We hear

sometimes of human mothers sacrificing their

lives for their own children
;
of friends dying

in the service of their friends; of soldiers

bravely facing death in the defense of their

country— of such sacrifices even human na-
ture is capable, heroic though they be

;
but in

all this there is nothing that can even be com-

pared to the sacrifice involved in the mystery

of the Atonement. In all these cases there

is simply a question of sacrificing a human life

for a human life; there is always a due pro-

portion between the end to be obtained and

the means employed
;
but in the Atonement

such proportion seems to be entirely wanting.

The life to be sacrificed is the life of God— a
human life, if you will, but truly the life of

God; the life to be saved is the life of a crea-

ture
;
the two are so far apart in their moral

valuers that the gulf between them is simply

impassable. And still God made that sacrifice

— made it wisely and prudently, with as much
justice as mercy; but how He did it, that is



Mystery of Atonement 149

His own secret— the secret of his Fatherly
love for the children of His adoption.

This fact, however, that Christ’s atoning

death for the sinful world implies a mystery

which passes man’s comprehension, must not

make us doubt its reality. For its objective

truth is established by arguments so incon-

trovertible, that man must deny the very ex-

istence of God before he can shake the founda-

tion upon which this doctrine is based. We
accept it, as we accept every other mystery of

our holy religion, on the authority of God’s

own word. This mystery of God’s love forms

the burden of the whole New Testament and

of a large portion of the Old, and for its ab-

solute certainty God has pledged the eternal

truth of His infinite being. Modern Ration-

alists endeavor indeed to reason it away, but

so do they try to reason away the existence

of a personal God. They afifect to see in this

doctrine of the Atonement not a miracle of

God’s boundless love, but only an evident proof

of His glaring injustice. For how, say they,

can God sacrifice an innocent being in order to

save the guilty? How can He punish His
own Son so that He may set free His guilty

slave? The whole proceeding is one glaring



150 Christianity vs. Paganism

contradiction, and to believe it one must first

surrender one’s reason.

To this eternal “ how ” of these skeptics it

would be quite sufficient to oppose the unde-

niable fact that God Himself has revealed the

truth in question. It was precisely this an-

swer that Christ gave the skeptics of His own

day, when they presumed to argue, “ how can

this man give us his flesh to eat?” He did

not enter into any discussion with them, as

to “ how ” He might accomplish what He then

and there promised, but merely pointed to His

own divine authority as the all-sufficient reason

for believing His word.
“
Amen, amen I say

unto you : Except you eat of the flesh of the

Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not

have life in you.” And so when the skeptics

of our day presume to argue, “ how can God

sacrifice His own Son in order to redeem sin-

ful man?” this same Eternal Truth answers

them :
“
Amen, amen I say unto you : Ex-

cept you believe in the Son of God dying for

the sins of the world, you shall not have life

in you
;
for he that believeth not, shall be con-

demned.” This answer would be all-sufficient

;

because when Eternal Wisdom deigns to speak,

short-sighted human reason must be silent. It



Mystery of Atonement i5i

is not for man to set limits to the power of his

God.

However, the principal difficulty that is

brought against this mystery admits of quite

a reasonable solution, and so the very ground

is taken from under the feet of those who at-

tack the Catholic doctrine of the Atonement.

They say that God could not punish His in-

nocent Son to redeem guilty man. That state-

ment is quite true. God cannot punish except

where there is personal guilt. But who told

these critics of God’s inscrutable ways, that

Christ was punished for the sins of the world?

He bore indeed in his own flesh sin’s terrible

penalty; He was made the victim of that one

sin-offering which alone had power to blot

out sin’s guilt; but this was only in conse-

quence of His own free choice; there was no

compulsion on the part of God. His own hu-

man will, through a deliberate and free^action,

set aside joy and endured the cross, despising

the shame. The sufferings of Christ were not

a punishment inflicted by His angry Father;

they were .a free love-offering of His own to

the infinite majesty of the Triune God. It

was precisely this voluntary endurance of His

sufferings that gave to Christ’s sacrifice its



152 Christianity vs. Paganism

atoning value. It was not His life of poverty

and toil, not the mental anguish of His death-

agony in the garden, not the physical tortures

of the crucifixion, considered merely in them-

selves, that were acceptable in the sight of

God
;
but only the generous will and perfect

love which reached out to the extreme shame

and suffering in order to show forth in deed

what He felt in affection
;
these and these only,

as dignified by His divine personality, gave

moral value to Christ’s life of labor and to

His painful death. For wise reasons God de-

creed that the fallen race of man should not be

redeemed except by the sacrifice of a God-Man,

but that sacrifice was not to be consummated

except by the free will of the nature thus

chosen, and then only as an expression of self-

sacrificing love.

Of course, these men insist still further that

neither had Christ’s human nature the right to

sacrifice itself for the sinful race, nor had God

the right to accept that sacrifice. For, say

they, suppose that a father, whose son had

been condemned to death, were to offer him-

self to take his son’s place, would he have a

right to make that offer, or would the judge

have a right to accept it? Common sense



Mystery of Atonement 153

would answer, no, in both cases. Well, then,

is not this a parallel case? No, it is not. This

human father simply takes his life in his own

hands and disposes of it without reference

to God’s will
;
whereas Christ offered His life

only in so far as He was authorized by the

known will of God. Again no human judge

has absolute power over the lives of his fellow-

men, but can pass the sentence of death only

upon persons whose evil deeds have made them

guilty of death according to the laws of the

land. God, on the other hand, has absolute

power over the lives of all men
;
for as He

gave them life so can He deprive them of the

same; and therefore He could not only allow

Christ’s human nature to offer itself as an ex-

piatory victim for a fallen race, but He could

also accept that offer without doing violence

to His own infinite justice or to the rights of

His creatures. Any difficulty on this point

can arise only from an imperfect understand-

ing of God’s sovereign power.

Setting aside, therefore, as altogether with-

out foundation, these and similar objections

raised by human skepticism, we need but open

our eyes to the light of wisdom and love, which

radiates from this mystery, to give it our un-



154 Christianity vs. Paganism

hesitating assent and to find in it our sweetest

consolation. There is something ravishing in

the thought of God assuming our nature, of

God becoming our intimate associate, one

of our own family, our Elder Brother— bone
of our bone, blood of our blood, flesh of our

flesh
;
yet even this thought, with all the glori-

ous light of God’s infinite love gathered about

it as a source of endless wonder, almost fades

from view the moment we turn our hearts and

minds to the greater mystery of the Atone-

ment. For from this mystery we learn that

God not only became man, but a suffering man

— a man of sorrows and acquainted with in-
firmity, who gathered up into His own being

our distress and our humiliations, our sadness

and our disappointments, our trials and our

temptations, and bearing them all from the

crib to the cross, made amends in His sinless

flesh for our many offenses against His own

divine person. God born m a stable, God liv-
ing in want and misery, God dying on the

cross; and all for love of us; for love of us,

His enemies ! The thought is overwhelming

!

It is to this thought that the Church gives ex-

pression, when on Holy Saturday morning she

sings in her ritual service : “ O felix culpa,



Mystery of Atonement 155

quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemp-

torem ! ” O happy fall, which did deserve to

have so worthy and so great a Redeemer ! Sin

is the greatest of all evils, yet out of this evil

of evils God's love has found a way of draw-

ing the greatest of blessings. O felix culpa

!

O happy fall!



CHAPTER VII

WORK OF THE ATONEMENT

St.* Paul in his Epistle to the Romans

(v, 17-19), draws this comparison between

our fall in Adam and our redemption through

Christ: “If by one man’s offense death

reigned through one
;
much more they who

receive abundance of grace, and of the gift,

and of justice, shall reign in life through one,

Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offense of

one, unto all men to condemnation; so also

by the justice of one, unto all men to justifica-

tion of life. For as by the disobedience of

one man, many were made sinners
;
so also by

the obedience of one, many shall be made

just.” According to these statements of the

Apostle, which in one form or another are

also made by other sacred writers, Christ was

constituted the moral head of the human race

in a somewhat similar way as Adam had been

before the fall, but with entirely opposite re-

J 56



Work of Atonement 157

suits. Through Adam sin and death came into

the world; through Christ justification and

life. Adam ruined the race of which he was

the head by disobeying the laws of his Maker

;

Christ restored that same race to its lost dig-

nity by obeying the will of His Father. The

two occupied the same relative position in ref-

erence to the human race, in as much as its su-

pernatural state was made dependent upon

their actions
;
but the effects of their respective

moral headships ran contrariwise
;

for what

Adam had ruined, that Christ repaired.

From this juxtaposition of Christ and Adam,

as indicated by the sacred writers, we gain an

insight into the work that developed upon the

Redeemer of our fallen race. The lines along

which He was to direct that work had been

marked out by Adam’s sin and by the sins of

Adam’s descendants. As the Redeemer of

mankind, Christ was to undo the work of sin,

and to effect this He must meet sin in all its

devious ways; He must, so to speak, hunt it

down and destroy it, and then to prevent its

re-occurrence, He must establish in its place

sin’s divine counterpoise, virtue. Now in sin,
as we saw in a previous chapter, there is con-

tained a threefold disorder: First, it is an



158 Christianity vs. Paganism

open refusal of obedience to the Creator, and

therefore an act of rebellion
;
secondly, it is

an undue exaltation of the creature, and there-

fore constructive treason
;
thirdly, it is a per-

verse use of God’s gifts to man, and therefore

an act of robbery. Hence if Christ was to

undo the work of sin, He must overcome man’s

rebellion by His own absolute submission to

God’s will; He must blot out man’s treason

by His own perfect loyalty to God’s interests

;

He must counteract man’s selfishness by His

own unbounded generosity. Absolutely sub-

missive to God’s will, wholly devoted to God’s

interests, entirely forgetful of self, He must

renew all things in His own most perfect life,

and thus offer to God a new creation in place

of the one that had been ruined by man’s sin

— this was to be His life work; the accom-
plishment of this alone could justify His dy-

ing declaration, “ It is consummated !
”

And did Christ accomplish this work? Did

His dying exclamation proclaim to the ex-

pectant world that its regeneration had been

wrought? Or was it only significant of the

fact that the sufferer’s course had been run?

These questions we may answer in the Sav-

iour’s own words : “ Come and see ! ” Come



Work of Atonement 159

to the crib in the stable at Bethlehem

;

come to the little home at Nazareth; come to

the villages and cities of the Holy Land
;
come

to the blood-stained heights of Calvary, and

see how the one perfect man of all our sinful

race has served His God ! Upon His entrance

into the world He made a morning-offering,

which bound Him as a victim of love upon

the altar of sacrifice, and that morning-offer-

ing He reduced to act at every moment of His

earthly life, until the victim had been con-

sumed as a holocaust in the fire of divine char-

ity on the wood of the cross. He was human

in His life and human in His death, but the

manner in which He lived the one and sus-

tained the other was divine. He showed sin-

ful man what human nature is capable of when

it surrenders itself unconditionally into the

hands of its Maker. He had His human as-

pirations, His human longings, His human

preferences as we have
;
for although He was

True God, He was at the same time true man

:

but these aspirations, these longings, and these

preferences were made subservient in all things

and at all times to God’s holy will, and through

this He wrought the work which has renewed
the face of the earth.



i6o Christianity vs. Paganism

First, then, come and see how this second

Adam was submissive to the will of God His

Father. When the Apostle tells us that

Christ, “ being in the form of God, emptied

himself, taking the form of a servant/’ he

puts into words a thought that is simply appall-

ing in the reach of its consequences for the

God-Man. He means to emphasize that

Christ’s human life was hedged in with all the

restrictions that result from the operation of

laws both human and divine. God though He

was, and therefore naturally above every law,

He of His own free choice embraced all the

conditions of servitude that are incident to

the life of the lowest human being. He de-

liberately put aside all the prerogatives that

were His by reason of His divinity, and bore

the galling yoke of subjection as it should be

borne by mortal man. The Son of God is

made a servant, and as a servant He must be

submissive to His own creatures. When He

made His morning-offering in the words of

the prophet :
“
Sacrifice and obligation thou

wouldst not
;
but a body thou hast fitted to

me : holocausts for sin did not please thee.

Then said I : Behold I come : in the head of

the book it is written of me : that I should



Work of Atonement 161

do thy will, O God/’ He vowed submission

not only to His Father in heaven, but also to

His own creatures on earth
;

not only to

the will of His holy mother and of His fos-

ter father, but even to the laws of the inani-

mate nature in their inexorable operation

upon human beings. His oblation was abso-

lute and complete, and so was its actual ac-

complishment at every instant of His life.

This is the ultimate explanation of that

spectacle almost shocking in its apparent in-

consistency, of a God wrapped in swaddling

clothes, of a God cradled in a manger, of a

God helpless as any child of man. He came

unto His own and His own received Him

not
;
yet He spoke no word of complaint, but

only shed a tear of sorrow and uttered a

cry of distress as the world’s sufferings found

Him out even at the moment of His birth.

Like any other child, He was simply passive

in the hands of those to whose keeping He

had been entrusted. With them He shared

the cold and desolation of the stable; with

them He fled from His enemies into a strange

land
;
with them He lingered in exile, depend-

ing on them for His daily sustenance and for

the safety of His life. And all this time He



162 Christianity vs. Paganism

was fully conscious of His privations, of

His sufferings and humiliations
;

for He

had the full use of his reason even from

the first moment of His existence. In ap-

pearance but a child, He was in thought and

feeling a man. He was affected not only

externally by the hard conditions of His lot,

as is the case with other children whilst rea-

son is held in abeyance
;
but He experienced

all the interior anguish and distress which

makes pain and suffering really what they are,

and which a merciful Providence keeps out

of the life of early childhood. In this respect

the helplessness of His childhood years was

more like the decrepitude of old age, which

in addition to its physical sufferings feels

most keenly the humiliation of its dependent

condition.

And here the wonder is— the marvel and
the mystery of it all— that this anomalous
condition of things was entirely the result of

His own free choice. He had not only the

physical but the moral power to throw off

this heavy and awkward burden at any mo-

ment. One word from His lips, one act of

His human will, would have as effectively



Work of Atonement 163

changed that stable into a palace as it in

after years called Lazarus from the grave.

He could even then as easily have hurled

Herod from his throne and frustrated all

his evil designs as at the end of His life

He dashed to the ground the mob that had

come to take Him by force. He was free

not only to choose what manner of life He

would lead, but also to alter that choice at

any given instant according to His own good

pleasure. And yet He submitted to the con-

ditions of life as He found them. Why?

Because it was His Father’s will. God had

expressed His will that the redemption of

mankind should be wrought along the lines

of submission and self-denial, and this ex-

pression of the divine will, although it left

Him entirely free, He took for Himself as

a law to which He would yield an unquali-

fied and absolute obedience. By the diso-

bedience of the first Adam sin and death

had come into the world, by the obedience of

the second Adam should come justification

and life. Man by an abuse of his free will

had rebelled against his Maker, the God-Man

by an entire abnegation of His own will would



164 Christianity vs. Paganism

quell that rebellion. What had been the in-

strument of man’s ruin, that also should be

the instrument of his salvation.

Closely connected with this absolute sub-

mission to God’s will, and in fact flowing

from it as a necessary consequence, was that

unswerving loyalty to God’s interests which

constitutes the second feature of Christ’s work

of reparation. Man’s treasonable self-exalta-

tion had deprived God of the glory, which in

the very nature of things is His inalienable

property
;

Christ’s voluntary self-annihilation

gave back to God that glory in all its fullness.

The angel’s birthday anthem, “ Glory to God

in the highest,” was a prophecy that received

its fulfillment at every instant of the Saviour’s

earthly life. When in after years He said:
“

I seek not my own glory
;
there is one who

seeketh and findeth,” He only put into words

what He had expressed in deed ever since

His birth in the stable. Of all the striking

traits of His perfect character, none stand

out more prominently than that sublime for-

getfulness of His own interests, which made

His whole life one uninterrupted series of self-

effacements in the service of His Father.

Naturally entitled to all the distinctions that



Work of Atonement 165

may arise from wealth and social position

and moral power, He generously sacrificed

them all that thereby He might the better

promote the interests of God. To Him God

was all in all. His own humanity, consid-

ered without reference to God, was nothing.

Not that He failed to value the God-given

dignity of human nature— no, He loved His
human nature as only God can love it

;
He

valued its interests as no man has ever done

;

but that love and that appreciation was en-

tirely subordinated to His greater love and

higher appreciation of the Godhead. Love

and serve God for His own sake
;
but love

and serve man for the sake of God— that
was His rule of life from which He never

deviated by a hair’s breadth.

And did this constant effacement of self,

this invariable exaltation of God, cost Him

nothing? Why, it meant for Him the sac-

rifice of all that is naturally dear to men —
it meant the sacrifice of ease and comfort

and reputation and honor; it meant a life of

want and humiliation and apparent useless-

ness; it meant pain and sufifering and the

pangs 01 bitter disappointment. He had His

human longings, His human aspirations, His



166 Christianity vs. Paganism

human interests, even as we have. He

yearned for the consolation of human friend-

ship, for the sweetness of human love,

for the tenderness of human sympathy. The

most perfect of human beings, His heart

responded to all human affections with an

intensity that must ever remain unparalleled

among the sons of men. Yet that heart

throbbing with human affections, pulsating

with human love, was forever held in the iron

grasp of His indomitable will, which directed

its every movement along the lines marked

out by His father’s interests. Not as I will,

Father, but as Thou wilt— this was the soul
of His soul, the life of His life, the beginning

and the middle and the end of His every act

and aspiration.

Consider for a moment the concrete bear-

ing of all this in His life of labor and hu-

miliation. Have you ever been struck by the

apparent incongruity that stares us in the face,

when we read that the Son of God drove a

carpenter’s trade? That the very same per-

son, who by a mere act of His all-powerful

will called into being millions of worlds, and

even now guides them on their way through

space in a manner so harmonious that it



Work of Atonement 167

passes the understanding of man, should spend

His youth and early manhood years in so un-

profitable and lowly a task as patching sheds

and mending ploughs ? Does it not seem that

there was reason for the contempt that in-

spired the Jews to ask the question, “ Is not

this the carpenter's son?" Why, it is an

incongruity that is almost shocking! At the

age of twelve He excused His stay in Jeru-

salem by stating that He must be about His

Father’s business
;
why did He not continue

to be about His Father’s business? On that

occasion He took His place among the doc-

tors of the law, and spo’ke with such wisdom

and unction that all were astonished at His

questions and answers
;
and then for years

to come He must be shown how to handle

hammer and saw, and must humbly submit

to the censure of fault-finding employers? A
few years hence, He would by a mere bless-

ing of His sacred hands multiply five barley

loaves and a few fishes to such an extent that

five thousand men besides a vast multitude

of women and children should have their fill

— nay, that the very remnants which re-
mained after the meal should exceed in quan-

tity the food that had been there before the



i68 Christianity vs. Paganism

blessing; and now He labors and toils for a

mere pittance, so that He and those most

dear to Him must eat their bread in the

sweat of their brow? Whence this apparent

inconsistency? Why did He not by His om-

nipotent power supply His mother and His

foster-father with all the comforts of life,

and then go out into the world and teach

the nations that were dwelling in darkness

and in the shadow of death? Yes, why not?

Why not? Because He wished to be loyal

to His heavenly Father, who had ordained

that He should first teach by example and

then by word. He had been sent to sanctify

labor and to consecrate poverty, and to that

mission He would be faithful at all costs.

True, He might easily have made a name

for Himself as a great teacher, as a most

influential leader of men
;
He might have gone

to Alexandria, to Athens, to Rome, and by

the wisdom of His words and the force of

His character gathered around Him the first

nations of the world
;
He might have forced

them to worship at His feet; but that would

have been seeking His own glory, whereas

He had been sent to redeem the world by

seeking exclusively the glory of God. His



Work of Atonement 169

Father had mercifully decreed that He should

teach men and women the sacred duty of

earning their bread by honest labor
;
that He

should convince the proud and selfish human

heart that poverty may be a greater bless-

ing than wealth, and how could He have

done so more effectively than by sanctifying

the one and consecrating the other in His

own divine person? Joseph’s worship at

Nazareth afforded a better field for promot-

ing God’s glory than the Greek Areopagus

and the Roman Forum, and for that reason

He spent in it the greater part of His earthly

life. Man- had ruined* the world by stretching

out his hand to the glory of God; He must

redeem the world by sacrificing His own glory.

Man had usurped the authority of God and

thereby proved himself a traitor
;
He must

prove Himself loyal to that authority and

thereby blot out the dark stain of man’s

treason.

Again, this same unswerving fidelity to

the plan of redemption outlined by His Father,

the same unvarying loyalty to His Father’s

interests, marked every one of His actions,

when at the close of His hidden life in the

little town of Nazareth, He went forth into



170 Christianity vs. Paganism

the world to proclaim Himself openly as the

divinely promised Messiah. In that first great

battle with the powers of darkness, which

He fought in the loneliness of the desert

after His forty days’ fast/ He raised the

standard of loyal disinterestedness which was

never to be lowered until He had poured out

the last drop of His blood in the service of

His God. Tortured by the pangs of hun-

ger and conscious of His power to supply

all His wants by a mere act of His will, He

nevertheless met the tempter’s suggestion to

change the stones into bread with the sig-

nificant answer : “ Not in bread alone doth

man live, but in every word that proceedeth

from the mouth of God.” He might indeed

have wrought a miracle in His own behalf

as He so often did in behalf of others, but

such was not His Father’s will, and there-

fore He rejected the mere suggestion of it

with scorn. “All these will I give thee, if

falling down Thou wilt adore me,” again

suggested the tempter, pointing out to Him

the riches of the world and glory thereof,

but like a lightning flash came the crushing

answer, “ Begone, Satan : for it is written,

The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him



Work of Atonement 171

only shalt thou serve.” Neither present suf-

ferings nor future glory caused in Him so

much as a moment’s hesitation in following

the narrow path, whose final goal was the

full measure of God’s undivided glory. I

seek not my own glory
;
there is one who

seeketh and findeth.

It is this insistence upon procuring God’s

greater glory in all things that explains many

of our blessed Saviour’s actions, which oth-

erwise would seem to be little in harmony

with the scope of the great work He had

come to accomplish. Why, for instance, did

He by preference associate with the poor and

the forsaken, when He might so easily have

found recognition among the rich and pow-

erful and have thereby impressed the world

with a sense of His own personal importance ?

Why did He confine His public activity to
the narrow limits of His native land, when

He might without any difficulty have made

the whole world the beneficiary of His per-

sonal presence? Why did He allow His
saving mission to end in the darkness of

Calvary’s ninth hour, when He might have

set upon it the seal of divine approbation by

frustrating His enemies’ nefarious designs, as



172 Christianity vs. Paganism

He had so often done on occasions of minor

importance? Yes, why this constant throw-

ing away of opportunities which, humanly

speaking, alone were calculated to lead His

work to a successful issue? Why? Because

His mission was to redeem the world by

accomplishing His Father’s will in all things,

and to that mission He would be loyal even

though a senseless world should fling into

His face the charge of stupidity and impos-

ture. Sinful man had sought His own exal-

tation by usurping the place of God
;
He, the

Sinless One, would restore to God His right-

ful place by a deliberate and absolute disre-

gard of all His own personal interests.

As He thus by His perfect submission to

God’s will, and by His absolute loyalty to

God’s interests, repaired the damage done by

man’s open refusal of obedience and unjust

usurpation of authority, so did He also by a

most generous self-abnegation make all

amends for man’s selfish abuse of creatures.

Man sought creature comforts and worldly

enjoyments in defiance of God’s solemn pro-

hibition
;
He the God-Man set aside these

comforts and enjoyments when he might law-

fully have used them for His personal advan-



Work of Atonement 173

tage. Of this there is little need to speak,

as it is written in characters so large across

His whole life, from the crib to the cross,

that he who runs may read. It was not enough

for Him to be born in poverty, but He would

add to it the shame of utter abjection. Where

stood of old the palace of His royal ances-

tor, David, who sang of Him in sublimest

psalmody, there He, the noblest scion of that

noble race, chose a stable as His birthplace—
the very same stable, as a probable tradition

has it, in which David kept his horses. Nor

did this fill the measure of sorrows that hung

over His childhood years. At His birth there

was no room for Him in the inn
;
after His

birth there was no room for Him in His

native land. He must flee as an exile into a

strange country, and dwell there until they

who sought His life had been summoned to

appear before the judgment seat of God. And

then, when His boyhood glided into youth,

when His young life should have been sur-

rounded with all the comforts of a well-pro-

vided home, He must bend to the task of do-

ing His share in supporting the family as any

child of poverty. His hands grew callous

from hard labor, His youthful frame felt the



174 Christianity vs. Paganism

stress and strain of constant toil, His delicate

body tingled with the smart of exhaustion

and fatigue. How well the prophet had said

of Him : “ He shall spring up as a root out

of a thirsty ground.” He was in labor from

His youth, and in the sweat of His face did

He eat bread.

And this entire rejection of all creature

comfort, this complete denial of self, con-

tinued uninterruptedly till the very end of

His life. During His public career, when

He so compassionately alleviated the suffer-

ings and afflictions of others, when He sol-

aced the sorrowful, healed the sick, and fed

the hungry, He Himself lived in constant want

and privation, depending for His subsistence

upon the chance gifts of a few compassionate

souls. How pathetically He gave expression

to this when He said : “ The foxes have holes

and the birds of the air nests
;
but the Son of

man hath not where to lay His head.” And

how touching the picture which St. John has

bequeathed to posterity in his record of the

incident at the well of Jacob. Weary from

His journey across the country of the Samari-

tans, Jesus sat down by Jacob’s well, thirsty

and exhausted, humbly asking a drink of



Work of Atonement 175

water from the Samaritan outcast. Yet travel-

spent though He was, He would not refresh

Himself until He had led that poor outcast

back to the paths of virtue. It was but a

repetition of His daily experiences— utterly
forgetful of self, He was wholly intent upon

doing the work His Father had given Him

to do. No better summing up of His public

life could have been given than that which

the Evangelist puts into the terse statement,

“ He went about doing good to all.” Al-

ways. for others, always for God, never for

self.

This life of labor and toil, this life of con-

stant self-denial, all endured in reparation

for man's sin and for the increase of God’s

glory, one would think ought to have been suf-

ficient to satisfy eternal justice and to re-

deem a thousand worlds. Yes, so it was, as

far as its moral value was concerned. Why,

even one free act of the God-Man gives greater

glory to God than He was or ever could

be deprived of by the sins of men. And yet

all this was not sufficient to carry out the plan

of redemption as agreed to by the Saviour of

the world. God’s offended majesty called for

a satisfaction that involved the death of the



176 Christianity vs. Paganism

God-Man, and therefore the Saviour’s life of

sacrifice must end in the sacrifice of life itself.

There was need of an object lesson to bring

home to thoughtless men and women the grav-

ity of sin and the inexorable justice of God.

It is true, Christ’s thirty-three years of obedi-

ence and poverty and self-abnegation contain

that lesson in all its fullness
;
but it can be

read there only by those who think. It does

not force itself upon .those who have eyes

and see not, ears and hear not, as is the

case with the majority of men and women

who stand most in need of that all-important

lesson. Their vacant minds and shriveled

hearts can be roused to action only by a peal

of thunder that causes the very earth to reel

beneath their feet. Christ must take His

stand before the sensual world as a God in

misery, or His work of love would bear but

little fruit. It is to this that we must look

for the final explanation of those scenes of

blood, which ended in the slaying of God’s

own Son.

A God in misery ! What a terrible
thought ! And yet that thought expresses most

accurately the sum and substance of the

world’s one great tragedy. For Christ was



Work of Atonement 177

God, and Christ was reduced to a misery

which mind of man cannot conceive nor hu-

man tongue can tell. Cast but a glance at

Him as He lies there prostrate in the garden

on the eve of His death. It is close upon

nine o’clock in the everting; the turmoil of

the city is hushed, the quiet of the great Sab-

bath seems to rest upon the earth, and yet

upon that sacred silence ever and anon break

the sobs and groans of one whose mere pres-

ence was wont to bring peace to every troubled

heart. It is the strong one of Israel, the lion

of the tribe of Judah; it is the Christ before

whom the very demons trembled in craven

fear. When the wind and the waves roared

in wildest fury, He but spoke, and there was

a great calm
;
and now, when the peace of

God seems to have descended upon the trou-

bled earth, He, the Prince of Peace, is writh-

ing in a death agony. He is alone in His

sorrow— alone with sin and sin’s just judge.
His body trembles in uncontrollable fear;

every muscle is rigid in the throes of a death-

struggle. Upon His face, pale as death, gath-

ers in heavy drops a perspiration of blood,

and from His lips, drawn and parched and

blue, comes a sigh of unutterable sadness:



178 Christianity vs. Paganism

My soul is sorrowful, sorrowful even unto

death. O My Father, if it be possible, let

this chalice pass from Me; nevertheless not

as I will, but as Thou wilt. It is a sigh of un-

utterable sadness, a groan of boundless woe

— the sigh of a God-Man in His agony, the
groan of a God in misery. And why? Why?

Because He is clothed in the leprous garb of

the world’s sin —: of your sins and of my sins,
and for them He must satisfy the justice of

God in His own sinless flesh. Why? Be-

cause He has deliberately placed before His

human soul the awful scenes that will be

enacted on the morrow — the awful scenes
that will have their tragic end on the blood-

stained heights of Calvary. He is making

atonement for the vile lusts of sinful man;

He is offering satisfaction to the infinite jus-

tice of God.

And was that ordeal so terrible that the

God-Man should shrink from it in horror ? Oh,

there is no need of rehearsing those har-

rowing scenes. They have been familiar to

us from our childhood years, and will remain

engraven on our hearts until our dying day.

We need but call to mind how under the



Work of Atonement 179

mask of friendship His own disciple sold Him

for the contemptible price of a slave
;
how

His best friends surrendered Him into the

hands of His sworn enemies; how the prince

of the Apostles denied Him with an oath,

and we feel with shame and confusion that we

see before us a God in misery. We need

but think of the fearful- scourging at the pil-

lar, of the awful crowning with thorns, the

wearisome carrying of the cross, the ghastly

scenes on Calvary, and every fiber of our

being echoes that terrible cry : A God in
misery ! There is no need of human elo-

quence to set forth the significance of that

fearful tragedy enacted in Jerusalem on the

first Good Friday morning. Read but the

simple narrative of the four Evangelists,

there you will find the most eloquent sermon

that can ever be preached- on the consumma-

tion of the great sin-offering that reconciled

man to His Maker. Look at the crucifix,

listen to the voice of God’s grace speaking in

your hearts, and you will grasp more fully

the import of that sacred drama than you can

ever hope to do by listening to the most pow-

erful sermon preached by mortal man. Think



180 Christianity vs. Paganism

of your deeds of sin
;
think of your immor-

tal souls; think of the tortured Christ, and

with the grace of God you will understand

the meaning of the Saviour’s dying words,

“ It is consummated.”



CHAPTER VIII

THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

In a previous chapter an attempt was made

to trace the world’s sufferings to their true

source. A dispassionate investigation of facts
led to the rather startling conclusion that at

least nine-tenths of the world’s sorrows are

of man’s own making. Insatiable avarice on

the one hand and criminal thriftlessness on

the other have created conditions of poverty

that are simply appalling, whilst indiscreet

indulgence in life’s pleasures, together with

an unreasonable disregard of sanitary precau-

tions have given rise to bodily and mental dis-

eases that are truly shocking. This world is

in very truth a vale of tears, but these tears

for the most part only indicate the extent of

men’s folly. In spite of the fact that Para-

dise was closed by our first parents’ sin, the

sunshine of God’s love and goodness still

floods the earth with its light and warmth,

and where all is darkness and desolation there

181



i82 Christianity vs. Paganism

happiness and joy should even now reign su-

preme. Man was indeed born to weep, but that

is only because he freely chooses to sin. Elim-

inate sin from the lives of men and the bur-

den of the world’s sorrows will lose nearly all

its weight.

Yet whilst this is most certainly true, it

does not follow that there are not many and

great sufferings in the world, for which the

individuals who endure them are in no wise

responsible. It is indeed sometimes said that

there are no innocent sufferers in this world,

inasmuch as sin has a part in all of us
;

still

this is true only when innocence is taken in

an absolute sense, excluding not only all

deliberate offenses against the moral law, but

also every unconscious deviation from the

moral and physical arrangements under which

we live. When we take the term in its rela-

tive sense, that is, in reference to sufferings

that would seem to be the just retribution of

moral iniquity, it may well be said that the

world is full of innocent sufferers— of per-
sons who, humanly speaking, comply with all

or nearly all the conditions of a happy life,

and who nevertheless are made to feel sor-

row’s inevitable sting. It is the via dolorosa



Cross and Crown 183

of this class of persons that we must be able

to account for if we would effectually answer

the charges, which modern infidels advance

against the goodness of God. That the im-

provident should want bread, or that evil do-

ers should be made to bear the penalty of

their iniquitous deeds, gives them after all

little cause for complaint, because nature has

her own laws, and the transgression of these

laws carries with it nature’s slow but terri-

ble retribution. This must be admitted in any

and every system of religious belief and un-

belief. But that man should do good and yet

receive the recompense of evil, that he should

sow wheat and only reap cockle, admits, ac-

cording to their view of the matter, of but

one explanation, namely, that the good God,

whom Christianity has been preaching to the

world, is merely a fiction— the creation of
man’s innate longing for happiness. How,

say they, can there be a good God in heaven,

when on earth even they, who strive to render

Him faithful service, are forever wrapt in a

mantle of sorrows? Does a father give a

stone to his son who cries to him for bread?

Does a mother turn a deaf ear to her daugh-

ter who comes to her for help and sympathy ?



184 Christianity vs. Paganism

Can God be less sympathetic and loving than

the creatures of His hands? Surely there is

no kindly spirit watching over us, to whom

we may look up in our sorrows and cry,

“ Abba, Father!” If there were, He would

never allow the earth to be enshrouded by the

dark clouds of sorrow, but would pour into

every nook and cranny the gladsome sunshine

of His great love, and fill with peace and joy

the hearts that long for happiness.

Before answering the difficulties that arise

from these innocent human sufferings, it may

be well to premise that they must be reck-

oned with whether one admits the existence

of a personal God or not. It is indeed easy to

say that nature is all in all, and that these suf-

ferings are the necessary results of the oper-

ation of nature's inexorable laws, but this is

neither more nor less than to dispose of one

mystery by putting in its place another, and

that, too, a mystery which is of all others the

most impenetrable. If God cannot allow in-

nocent sufferings, then neither can nature

;

for nature as well as God must provide for her

own. Men may look upon the earth as the

father who begot them and upon the sea as

the mother who carried them in her womb,



Cross and Crown 185

yet if these alleged progenitors did not pro-

vide for their offspring a blissful existence,

the question must still be asked, “ Why did

they fail to make such provision ?” To say

that nature is at war with herself, and Cronos-

like, devours her owff offspring, is at best but

a makeshift that will not bear scientific inves-

tigation. Hence regard these so-called inno-

cent sufferings from what viewpoint you

please, make what suppositions you like, you

are forced in spite of yourselves to end with

the query,
“ Why do the guiltless suffer?”

The fact is that this question cannot be fully

answered by reason alone, but must in the

last instance be referred to faith, or rather to

reason enlightened by faith. Reason can

show, and does show, that there is a God who

made the world and all that is contained

therein
;
reason can show, and does show, that

this God is good and kind and merciful— that
He loves every creature, made by His hands

;

but reason alone cannot, with any degree of

satisfaction, give the final answer to the ques-

tion why even a single human being should

be subject to so much as a moment’s suffer-

ing, unless it be the outcome of a deliberate

abuse of man’s free will. A world in which



186 Christianity vs. Paganism

there are no innocent sufferings of any kind

is certainly possible, and if God is good and

loving, why should He not have provided such

a world? Or if He once did provide it, why

should He not have preserved it as such til!

the very end of time? These are questions

to which unaided human reason can find no

satisfactory answer. It is only when this pres-

ent life is viewed in its relation to eternity,

as known to us through the teaching of faith,

that a ray of light pierces through the dark-

ness of our minds and that these innocent

human sufferings appear in their true per-

spective— only then are we enabled To detect
the ultimate purpose which these sufferings

were meant to subserve.

The most fatal mistake of our modern in-

fidels, 'and for that matter also of many well-

meaning Christians, lies in the fact that they

regard life here on earth as having its own

distinct entity, separate and independent of

the life beyond the grave. To them if seems

that the ills of life must necessarily find their

compensation in earthly enjoyments. That

the sorrows of time may have been intended

to receive their recompense in eternity, they

either do not believe or entirely overlook.



Cross and Crown 187

Yet this is the most certain teaching of faith,

and in this alone can the difficulties that arise

from innocent human sufferings find a satis-

factory solution. Our existence in time is of

necessity a preparation for our existence in

eternity, and if it be overhung by the dark

clouds of suffering, it will be succeeded by a

glory that is all the brighter and by a happi-

ness that is all the greater. This is the seed

time, when we must till the fields of our hearts

and plant therein the seeds of virtue, which

usually best grows and blossoms and brings

forth fruit when it is watered with the tears

of many sorrows. The trials of life may in-

deed at times lead the human heart away from

its God, but that is the case only where an

evil will turns them from their God-appointed

end. In the plans of divine Providence they

were intended to draw us closer to the heart

of our suffering Saviour, and through Him to

lead us to the very throne of God. The life

of Christ our Redeemer, as set forth in the

preceding chapter, makes this clear beyond all

dispute. As Saviour of mankind, He died

indeed as a sin-offering upon the altar of the

cross, but this was not the sole object of His

saving mission. He came not only to blot out



i88 Christianity vs. Paganism

the guilt of sin, but also to teach us how to

bear sin’s punishment even where we our-

selves are not stained by its guilt. He wished

to live life for us and to show us by His own

living example how to make our lives divine.

He is at once our leader and our model
;
yet

He is a crucified leader, an immolated model.

He goes before us with a heavy cross

upon his shoulders, and what is more, He

plainly tells us that we cannot follow Him ex-

cept we also carry a cross upon our shoulders.

“ If any man will come after me,” He says,

“ let him deny himself and take up his cross

and follow me.”

Viewed in this light, our sufferings, how-

ever undeserved they may be, are in some sense

an integral part of the redemptive sufferings

of Christ. God permits them as He permit-

ted the persecutions and tortures of His own

well-beloved Son. They are our share in the

great work of the Atonement. Not as if

these sufferings had in themselves any redemp-

tive value, for our redemption was wrought

exclusively by the life and death of Christ;

but they make that redemption fruitful in our

own individual person, and in the persons of

those by whom they are generously endured.



Cross and Crown 189

It was in this sense that St. Paul wrote to the

Colossians: “ Who now rejoice in my suffer-

ings for you, and fill up those things that are

wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh,

for his body, which is the church/’ Christ

has indeed blotted out the “ handwriting of

the decree that stood against us ”

;

He has

merited all the graces necessary for our sal-

vation; but in the actual attainment of that

salvation we must bear an active part, and

this implies that our way to heaven lies along

the royal road of the cross— not that the cross
is intended for its own sake, but that it may

entitle us to receive a crown. No truer words

were ever spoken than those which our blessed

Saviour addressed to His disciples on the way

to Emmaus : “ Ought not Christ to have suf-

fered these things, and so to enter into his

glory?” And no truer inference was ever

drawn from these same words than this

:

“ Ought not we to suffer these things, that is,

life’s many sorrows, and so to enter into our

glory?” We are all on our way to heaven,
and the way to heaven lies across the hill of

crucifixion.

Of course, here it is usually objected, if

God restored man’s title to' heaven, why did



190 Christianity vs. Paganism

He not also reinstate him in that earthly bless-

edness which had been forfeited by sin? It

is all well enough to make present sufferings

an earnest of future glory, but that glory

could be obtained through a life of joy as well

as through a life of sorrow. If before the

fall Paradise was deemed to be a fit place of

preparation for heaven, why not also after

the fall? If the Redeemer opened the gates

of heaven, why did He allow the gates of

Paradise to remain shut? If He did what

was more, why did He not also do what was

less? Why? Well, first of all, He did not

see fit to do so. To this He was not con-

strained either by His love or by His good-

ness. Had he refused to redeem us, no one

could have blamed Him
;
nor, when He gra-

ciously offered Himself for our redemption

had anyone the right to dictate to Him how

far that redemption should extend. When a

son receives from his father a rich inheritance

and then squanders it by living riotously, can

he demand, or even expect, a second inherit-

ance, which, in all likelihood, he would squan-

der again as he had done the first? Love

and goodness and mercy of their very nature

incline a person to forgive and condone, but



Cross and Crown 191

they do not exclude certain well-defined limits,

suggested and enforced by prudence and jus-

tice. Hence when our blessed Saviour, al-

ways acting in accordance with the will of His

Father, did not see fit to remove the second-

ary consequences of sin, it is not for us to

complain, and much less to call in question

God’s goodness and love.

Furthermore, although God did not take

away, through His merciful redemption, the

sorrows and sufferings that are, in the last

instance, the heritage of sin, He nevertheless

changed them from a curse into a blessing,

and thereby gave additional proof of His fa-

therly affection. Because of the Incarnation

human sufferings are not merely a manifesta-

tion of God’s justice, but also a concrete ex-

pression of His mercy. He has poured the sun-

shine of joy over every tear of sorrow, and

breathed the consolation of hope into every

sigh of anguish. “ Blessed are they that

mourn,” says our compassionate Redeemer,

“ for they shall be comforted.” “ Blessed are

they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The

fact that God allows afflictions and trials to

come upon us is no sign whatever that His



ig2 Christianity vs. Paganism

love of us has grown cold. He loves us as

intensely in all our misery and wretchedness

as He loved our first parents in their blissful

existence in Paradise. This we find at times

hard to realize, yet it is most certainly true.

Can we ever doubt that He loved His own Son

more than He loved Adam and Eve in the

state of innocence? Yet He did not place

upon that Son’s shoulders a cross that crushed

Him beneath its heavy weight? And next to

His Only Begotten Son, did He not love the

Virgin Mother with an intensity and tenderness

that must ever remain unequaled? Yet how

truly she could say, “ All ye that pass by the

way, stay, and see if there be a sorrow like

unto my sorrow !
”

And therefore when our

good Father in heaven lays the cross of suf-

ferings upon our shoulders, why should we

think or say that we are no longer the ob-

jects of His tenderest love? Why should we

grieve and fret and grow discouraged? Should

we not rather, like the Apostle of old, count

it all joy? For as the sufferings of Christ

abound in us, so also by Christ doth our com-

fort abound. As it was through sufferings

that Christ and His Blessed Mother entered



Cross and Crown 193

into their glory, can we ever lose heart when

the same God of goodness and love invites us

to follow this hallowed road to unending hap-

piness ?

Nor must we lose sight of the important

fact, as consoling as it is true, that God’s help

accompanies every cross He sends. God is

faithful, says the Apostle, and will not allow

us to be tried above what we are able to bear.

Our crosses are at times very heavy, but

God’s help is always great in proportion.

Christ, our master and model, does not bid us

simply to take up our cross daily, but to take

it up and to follow Him. He goes ever be-

fore us, not merely pointing the way, but

compassionately allowing our crosses to lean

upon His own wounded shoulder, and thus

Himself bearing their greatest weight. It was

the realization of this important truth that

made the Apostle say so confidently : “ I can

do all things in him that strengtheneth me.” It

is the practical experience of this truth that

gives peace of heart and joy of spirit, even

in the midst of our intensest sufferings. The

more sorely* we are afflicted the more closely

are we drawn to the cross-laden Christ, and



194 Christianity vs. Paganism

the more forsaken we may seem to be, the

more abundant is the divine virtue that flows

in upon us from His wounded heart.

And this great love of our God, which has

thus found a way of changing our undeserved

sufferings into a source of truest blessings,

looks up to us even from those afflictions

that must needs be accounted sin’s just retri-

bution. Even there His justice is touched

with mercy, and the hand that strikes intends

but to heal. It may, indeed, well be that

God sends us sufferings because of our own

personal sins
;

it may well be that these suf-

ferings are a real punishment inflicted by an

infinitely just God; yet even in this case they

are primarily meant as blessings in disguise.

For if we are still in sin, they are intended to

lead us back to the path of virtue; or if we

have already repented of our past transgres-

sions, they enable us to render here on earth

the satisfaction which would otherwise have

been demanded of us after death. Nay, not

only this, but if we bear them patiently, as

with God’s grace we always can, they will

add to our future reward a sweetness and

joy that could not have sprung from any

other source. Well, therefore, may we say



Cross and Crown 195

that whenever the hand of the Lord touches

us, it is always filled with blessings— bless-
ings which we shall appreciate at their true

value only on that happy day, when our good

Father in heaven will press us to His great

heart of love, and whisper into our ears the

consoling words : “ Child, it was good for

you to suffer a little whilst on earth, that now

you may be happy with me forever in heaven.”

Possibly it may be objected that this way

of reconciling the fact of the world’s inno-

cent sufferings with our concept of a good

and loving God can be satisfactory only to

such as admit the Christian belief in a future

retribution, and that therefore it cannot serve

as an answer to those who reject that belief.

Well, it cannot serve as a direct answer, but

for all that it is an answer the weight of which

even ^unbelievers are forced to admit. It

shows that the Christian system is consistent

throughout, which cannot be said of any other

system, be it what it may. Rationalists may

disdain to examine the arguments which we

advance for our belief, but when it comes

to account for conditions of human exist-

ence, which every reasonable man must try to

account for, we need but follow up our sys-



196 Christianity vs. Paganism

tem to its logical conclusion in order to arrive

at a satisfactory solution, whereas they are

invariably driven from their position of sci-

entific cocksureness and are forced to end

with the lame reply that these conditions

are facts, and that is all that can be said

about them. They spare no effort to banish

God from the world wherein they live, but

somehow the result of their labor is most

disappointing; for a world without God is

from beginning to end the most impenetrable

of all mysteries. Neither its existence nor

its nature can be accounted for, and what is

worse still, it is a veritable hell for men to

live in. On the other hand, admit that this

world is the handiwork of a beneficent Cre-

ator, which was marred indeed by man’s sin,

yet is still the object of God’s tenderest love,

and both heart and mind at once agree that

all is well. There may be a mystery in it

all, but it is a mystery that rests upon a solid

foundation.

What we stand most in need of, therefore,

is the spirit of faith, which enables us to

view the world’s sorrows in their true rela-

tion to God, to ourselves, and to the life

beyond the grave. To the unbeliever, in-



Cross and Crown 197

deed, the universal law of suffering is a rid-

dle that sets all his philosophy at nought.

He can but look upon it as a hard fact, that

has its explanation, if it has one at all, in

blind and cruel fate, and his greatest heroism

does not go beyond a stoical submission to

that fate. That these sufferings may be made

a source of peace and joyous hope, he neither

understands nor believes. To him the trials

of life are an unmixed evil— an evil that
finds no compensation in future happiness.

Hence when escape from them becomes im-

possible, they bury him in the dismal depths

of hopeless despair. To the believing Chris-

tian, on the contrary, life’s many sorrows can

never become a source of lasting discour-

agement and real unhappiness. He under-

stands the nature and purpose of human

sufferings as no one else can, and in that un-

derstanding he finds his strength and comfort.

Be his sufferings what they may, he knows

that there is watching over him the best of

fathers, who has both the will and the power

to draw good out of every evil.

Hence the true philosophy of life does not

consist in a ceaseless struggle to avoid suf-

ferings
;
for in that struggle we must needs



198 Christianity vs. Paganism

meet our greatest disappointment : but it con-

sists in th€ courageous effort to bear these

sufferings in a truly Christian spirit, and to

make them the source of a happiness that

lies beyond the reach of earthly vicissitudes.

A truly happy life, as far as that is possible
here on earth, is not one that is free from

present sorrows
;
but one whose sorrows, great

and small, are the certain harbingers of com-

ing joy. It is the life of one who can say

in all confidence with the Apostle : “ I

reckon that the sufferings of the present time

are not worthy to be compared with the weight

of glory to come, that shall he revealed in us.”

It is the life of one who can count all his

sorrows joy, because, enlightened by faith,

he sees in them but so many stepping-stones

to a throne of glory, whose dazzling splendors

are never dimmed by the darkling clouds of

earthly sorrows.

Most of us take an altogether too gloomy

view of the trials of life. It is true enough,

here on earth every rose has its thorns and

every cup of joy its drop of gall; but it is

not less true that the thorns have lost their

sting in the Redeemer’s wounded brow, and

that the bitterness of gall has been sweet-



Cross and Crown 199

ened in its contact with the dying Saviour's

lips. We are now, indeed, sitting in the

shadow of the cross, but does not that cross

point to the glory of the risen Saviour? And

if we suffer with Christ, shall we not also be

glorified with Christ? The darkness of Cal-

vary may be thick upon us, but is there no

rift in that darkness to show us the glorified

heights of Tabor beyond? As the darkest

clouds have still their silver lining, so the

greatest sorrows never want their golden ray

of hope. Hope is a talisman that changes all

"to gold, and this talisman we must guard with

jealous care. Friends may prove unfaithful;

our nearest kin may abandon us
;
nay, God

Himself may at times seem to have forgotten

us
:

yet never must we cease to hope for

the dawn of a brighter day. “ My God, my

God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ” cried our

dying Saviour, whilst He hung upon the cross

;

yet even then was His Father preparing for

Him the glory of His triumphant resurrec-

tion
;
and so in our case, when all seems lost,

that loss itself foreshadows but a greater

gain.

I

THE END