The reason of the prosperity of nations truly Christian is, it seems to us, evident. We find them practising generally the virtues of which Christianity is the apostle and propagator. Economists will tell, you without capital, that is to say, without expenditure with the view of reproduction, there can be no social riches. But is this expenditure compatible with vice, that never has enough to satisfy its brutal appetites?
Virtue, then, is the source of social ease, and in it only the remedy for pauperism. "If you do not give a people virtue, the only serious guarantee of present expenditure and future capital, you can never entirely defend it against an invasion of misery. In vain you may accumulate well-being and ease around the domestic hearth; in vain make and increase capital from growing wealth, if you do not accumulate a capital conservative of all other, that of virtue." We are happy to quote these beautiful words, only a few days since fallen from the pulpit of Notre Dame.
Just now we pronounced the word renunciation. Well, it is necessary that all understand that Christian self-denial is a dispensing force, the results of which are incalculable. It elevates the poor man beyond discouragement, and preserves for him the energy with which he diminishes the privations of his family. To him it comes to destroy the individuality which absorbs the opulence of the rich. To him it leads the beneficent current of fortune, which flows from those who have toward those who have not. To him, at last, it brings riches in every way, since under its mild influence each one profits by its thousand sacrifices, although he individually may make none. Let us be permitted to borrow some lines from the beautiful book of M. Périn, De la Richesse dans les Sociétés Chrétiennes:
"Follow the course of ages," said this wise economist, "and you will ever find Christianity accomplish through the virtue of self-denial the work of each epoch, forcing humanity toward progress, and even saving it from the perils of success. Run through the society of to-day, and in every degree of civilization that a contemporary world presents us, in the same picture and at a single glance, and in the varied phases that pervade our different societies, you will find Christianity proportion its action to circumstances; you will find it endeavoring to impress all countries and races with the salutary impulse for progress by the power of self-denial, while it is ever the same in principle, and ever infinitely varied in its applications and fertile in its effects."
Self-denial! Yes, it is this which gives Christian souls that holy love of work which is the productive element of social riches. To make a sacrifice of one's repose to God, while bending under the yoke of painful labor, is the joy of the Scripture disciple. He wishes for such joy, he loves it, and it was to obtain it that the children of Saint Benedict have sown its seed in the uncultivated deserts of the old Europe or under the murderous sun of Africa.
At the time of its decay and corruption Rome, it is said, was at the same time lazy and servile. But, even in the days of its grandeur, can we believe that labor showed itself to the eyes of the Roman people transfigured by that aureole which gives it incomparable beauty, so grand that one loves it with a love which might seem folly if it were not supreme wisdom? Such a sentiment can only be born with the doctrine of renunciation and the thought of the Saviour. "To re-establish labor and the condition of the workman, it was necessary that Christ, making himself a laborer, should wield with his own royal and divine hands, in the workshop of Nazareth, the axe and the tools of the carpenter."
These words, which we borrow from a course of political economy, delivered with so much eloquence to the Faculté de Droit de Caen, by M. Alexandre Carel, finish by exemplifying how labor, and, by consequence, the wealth of society, owes so much to Christianity.
The limits of an article do not permit us to develop further the ideas necessary to understand all its power and truth. We can only resume them in saying:
To occupy one's self with social and political studies is to follow the impulse that our age impresses on intelligence. To find the condition necessary for the well-being of society, of which we form a part, would be from the point of view of contemporary aspirations one of the finest victories that the public mind could carry with it, one of the greatest satisfactions that the heart can obtain. Well! may our eyes open at last. Let us learn to see that, without neglecting secondary means, it is necessary, to attain the end desired, to christianize the people.