What was the world when science came? What was it in the days of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler? What-was it when printing was invented? What was it when the Western World was found? Would it not be much easier to prove that science is of divine origin?
Science does not persecute. It does not shed blood—it fills the world with light. It cares nothing for heresy; it develops the mind, and enables man to answer his own prayers.
Cardinal Manning takes the ground that Jehovah practically abandoned the children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every abomination. He claims that Christianity came "in the fullness of time," and it is then admitted that "what the fullness of time may mean is one of the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know." Having declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to know, the Cardinal explains it: "One motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far to seek—it gave time, full and ample, for the utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and will of man are capable."
Is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being "gave time full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of falsehood and evil"? Why should an infinitely wise God desire this development and consolidation? What would be thought of a father who should refuse to teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into every possible excess, to the end that he might "develop all the falsehood and evil of which his intellect and will were capable"? If a supernatural religion is a necessity, and if without it all men simply develop and consolidate falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural religion given to the first man? The Catholic Church, if this be true, should have been founded in the Garden of Eden.
Was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural religion—a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish? Was there "husbandry in heaven"?
But the Cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but declaring, that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so equitable, as that of Rome.
Is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached their highest development was, after all, so wise, so just and so equitable?
Was not the civil law far better than the Mosaic—more philosophical, nearer just?
The civil law was produced without the assistance of God.
According to the Cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant Mosaic code came from the lips of infinite wisdom and compassion.