The first and the incomparable characteristic of Christianity, is the extent, I should rather say the immensity, of her moral ambition. The moral system established by Christ has often been contrasted with the reforms aimed at by great men whose endeavour it also was to fix moral laws for man's conduct, and to secure their empire over him. Jesus has been compared to Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates, Cakia-mouni, Mahomet. The comparison is singularly inappropriate and superficial. The wisest, the most illustrious, of these moral reformers, even the most powerful, understood and accomplished at best but a very limited and incomplete work; sometimes they only sought to place in a clear light the rational principles of morality; sometimes they gave to their disciples, addressing themselves to these alone, rules for conduct in conformity with rational principles of morality; they taught a doctrine or established rules for discipline; they founded schools or sects. The Christian work was something quite different. Jesus was not a philosopher who entered into discussions with his disciples, and instructed them in moral science; nor a chief who grouped around him a certain number of adepts, and subjected them to certain special rules which distinguish, nay sever, them from the mass of mankind: Jesus expounds no doctrine, sets up no system of discipline, and organises no particular society: he penetrates to the bottom of the human soul, of every soul; he lays bare the moral disease of humanity, and of every man; and he commands his disciples with authority to apply the cure, first to themselves, and then to all men:—"Save your soul, for what would it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?" "Go and preach to all nations."
What philosopher, what reformer, ever conceived an idea so ambitious, so vast? ever undertook to solve so completely, so universally, the moral problem of man's nature and man's destiny?
And this was no chimerical ambition; the mission of Christ has been pursued, and is still being pursued in the world, its onward movement often crossed, interrupted, altered, never hopelessly arrested. And during the first three centuries of Christianity, it was in the name and solely with the arms of Faith and of Liberty, that she commenced her enterprise of vanquishing man and the world. And in these days, after the lapse of nineteen centuries, in spite of the intermixture of error, of crime, and evil, it is with the same arms, and with them alone, that Christianity, in the name of Faith and of Liberty, and exposed to fresh and violent attacks, resumes in the moral world the same task, and promises herself fresh success.
Without attempting, indeed, to sound them to their depths, let me at least indicate the causes of this indomitable vitality of the Christian Religion, and show why the hope is well founded which she entertains in the midst of her trials.
Of the moral philosophers, almost all are either bitter censors, cold observers, or flatterers of human nature. Some of them proclaim that man is naturally good, and that his vices are solely due to the bad institutions of society. Some, again, regard self-interest and self-esteem as the only springs of human actions. Others describe the errors and foibles of man with a careful sagacity, and yet a sagacity that does not indispose them to jeer and mock at them, as if they were actors in a drama, both amused themselves and amusing the spectators. How different the regard and the sentiment of Jesus when contemplating man: how serious that regard! how profound, how pregnant with effect that sentiment! No illusion, no indifference with respect to the nature of man; full, he knows it to be, of evil and at the same time of good; inclined to revolt against the moral law, at the same time that it is not incapable of obeying it; he sees in man the original sin, source of the troubles and of the perils of his soul: he does not regard the evil as incurable; he contemplates it with an emotion at once severe and tender, and he attacks it with a resolution superior to every discouragement, and prepared for every sacrifice. Why should I not simply employ Christian terms, the most genuine of any, as well as the most impressive? Jesus lays bare the sin without reserve, and without reserve devotes himself to the sinner's salvation. What philosopher ever comprehended man so well, and loved him so well, even whilst judging him so freely and so austerely?
Jesus does not occupy himself less with man's futurity than with man's nature. At the same time that he lays down, in all its rigour, the principle of the moral law, the pure accomplishment of duty, he forgets not that man has need of happiness, and thirsts after happiness, after a happiness pure and lasting; he opens to virtue the prospect of its attainment, he holds out a hope, foreign to all worldly objects, hope of an ideal happiness inaccessible to the curiosity of man's mind, but apt to satisfy the aspirations of his soul, and not, as it were, a conquest to be effected by merit, nor the acquittal of a debt, but a recompense to be accorded to the virtuous efforts of man by the equitable benevolence of God. The Christian Religion, at the same time that it compels man during this life to constant and laborious exertion, has in store for him, if only he labour in accordance to the law, "the kingdom of God" and "the promises of eternal life."
Thus, Jesus knows human nature entirely, and satisfies it; he keeps simultaneously in view man's duties and his necessities, his weaknesses and his merits. He does not allow the curtain to fall upon the rude scenes of life, and the sad spectacles of the world, without any dénouement. He has a prospect, and a futurity, and a satisfaction for man, superior to his trials, and superior to his disappointments. In what manner does Jesus attain this result? How does he touch all the chords of man's soul, and respond to all its appeals? By the intimate union of morality with religion, of the moral law with moral responsibility: sole view, complete at once and definitive, of the nature and destiny of humanity; sole efficacious solution of the problems which weigh upon the thought and life of man!