I was struck, in spite of their diversity, by the substantially analogous character of these two documents, and I cite them here because I would set in a clear light the great fact which each reveals, that a general and contemporaneous work is now being prosecuted in order to maintain and reestablish the harmony between the Christianity of former ages and the spirit of the present century, a work of which the mission is to solve, as far as the solution can rest with man, the question whether our epoch is Christian.
"Religion," says the Archbishop of Paris, "is a fact that was contemporary with primitive man—a fact present in all ages, ever paramount, ever visible, although not everywhere to the same degree. Never was there wanting in the world a voice to remind man of the truths of Religion, whether it proceeded from the tent of the Patriarch, the synagogue of the Jew, or the church of the Catholic; whether it was heard in the whisperings of a simple and upright conscience, or emanated from legislators or prophet raised up by Heaven, or was the voice of God himself incarnate, constituting Himself the preceptor and the model of His creatures, humanity was never so imperfect as that these lofty lessons did not draw forth from the generously faithful responses more or less unanimous.
"Heathen nations—their history proves it—have preserved something of these hopes and of the religious dogmas connected with them. The grandsons of Noah, in dispersing in the plains of Sennaar, convey to the four quarters of the earth the traditions which they received from their grandsire, and which are the common patrimony of the human race. Doubtless these traditions are gradually altered and deformed by the vain intermixtures of fables, which owe their origin to the dreamers of the far East and to the poets of Greece and of Rome; but in the eyes of the multitude, and particularly of those who are its superiors and its governors, the grand features of the truth are readily distinguishable. Thus, the existence of God and the action of Providence, the distinction of good and of evil, the original fall of man and the necessity for an atonement, the immortality of the soul, the rewards and punishments of another life; all these doctrines, more or less disfigured, it is true, live in the depths of the conscience of the people. Even Pagans have their souls by nature Christian, which testify in favour of justice and virtue; and if Pagans are to be condemned, says St. Paul, it is not for having ignored God, but for having neglected to serve Him and to glorify Him.
"At an era nearer to ourselves, three centuries ago, a sorrowful work was accomplished. Theological disputes led to religious wars, and by a tearing asunder of ties which it is impossible too much to deplore, Europe divided itself into Catholics and Protestants. But in spite of this fatal resolution it remained Christian, although not in the same degree. Their political charters and institutions, their civil laws and social habits, breathe all of Christianity; and the character of their baptism remains stamped upon their foreheads, which it for ever ennobles.
"And now this fact, which is the common work of so many generations, made up of beliefs expressed in every kind of manner and sometimes practised even to heroism, written in books sacred and profane, engraved on marble and on brass, in institutions and in laws, in the mind and in the heart of nations—this fact, what is its moral value, and what its bearing? Are we to be told that it is purely natural—the spontaneous production of our habits, the simple result of our instincts—and, so to say, an irrepressible necessity of mankind? Even in this case it is divine, as divine as our nature itself, which was directly created by God; and so we must recognise and respect Religion as a thing true, necessary and divine. It is reason, it is common sense which tells us this.
"But there is more than that, my very dear brethren. This fact, as it presents itself, so general and so constant, is not merely the common work of the races of mankind. Our nature, left to its own resources and its proper energy, is incapable of producing it and of continuing it with a brilliancy that so endures, and with a force which renews itself every day. It is also, it is more especially the providential and prodigious effect of a cause to which all of us are subject, men and nations, and which here shows itself that it is so by giving to its effects a supernatural character. … Supernatural means were necessary, that is to say, a continual action of God always in relation to the varying exigencies of each different age, and the constant requirements of humanity, in order that the person of the Revealer having disappeared, and His direct action being no longer visible, His teachings, His spirit, and His institutions should be maintained in the world in a manner authentic, infallible, and triumphant. In a single word, there was necessary a perpetual assistance of God, accrediting the mission of His envoys by extraordinary facts—facts of a superhuman power, miraculously protecting their work against the consequences of the weaknesses of some and of the perversity of others, intervening with supernatural éclat to enable the mission to develop itself amongst nations incessantly, to act more and more efficaciously upon them in spite of their shortcomings and their revolts, and to aid them and to support them in their religious and predestined course.
"This paramount action, this divine action, is manifested in the highest degree in Religion. After the miracles and the prophecies of ancient times, after the Jewish nation, whose history is a prophecy and one unceasing miracle, Christianity appears with signs so supernatural that it is impossible for us to deceive ourselves. Miraculous agency appears at every turn. The Saviour, and what he affirms concerning himself, His discourses, His character and His actions, the difficulties of His undertaking, the marvels of wisdom and sanctity which He accomplished; finally, the survival and the development of His work through centuries; everything here forces us to recur to the fact of the direct intervention of God—sole possible means of finding a satisfactory explanation of such grand results."