But I must be satisfied with placing these arguments before you; and I am the more readily contented with this sketch, because I know that it is not requisite to say everything, in order to be understood. I am convinced that I have said enough to make it clear, both to your reason and to your conscience, that instruction must be Christian, or it will become antichristian; that science is necessarily either for or against the holy faith; and that its pretended neutrality is only an unmeaning word. Hence it follows that the organization of public instruction on the basis of a deceitful neutrality is in reality the affirmation of antichristianity in the state. [Footnote 159]
[Footnote 159: In Belgium, there is a society which bears the title of The League of Instruction. This society is free to organize antichristianity in its schools, but always defraying its own expenses, and at its own risk and peril. This society has become dissatisfied, because its members know that they cannot gain the confidence of the people; hence they have sought to remove the obstacles by imploring the protection of the state.]
II.
It remains for us to see that, when science declares against the Christian faith, it really denies its own principle, that is to say, reason. And why? Because it is reason which invokes the light of faith, and it is reason which recognizes it. It is reason which invokes the light of faith. For what is reason? Reason is that one of our powers which reaches after truth; it is that faculty which is ever forcing us to search out the "why" of things. It has even the same name as its object, for the reason and the "why" of anything are one. Again, we only act reasonably when we know why we are acting. Even in our most insignificant actions, we always propose to ourselves an intention, an end which determines them. In order, therefore, to live reasonably, we must know why. It is necessary to know the why, or the end, of life, so that the first words of our catechism answer the first question of reason. Why are you in the world? Is it only to go to the cemetery? Has man been placed upon the earth only that he may be thrown into a grave? Humanity will never accept this doctrine. The generations of the human race kneel at the tombs of their ancestors and protest against this monstrosity—the miserable and absurd system of those who clamorously desire a liberty of the human mind, which can only terminate in corruption and worms. The human conscience and human reason unite in declaring that life is only a journey, that its end is beyond the tomb, and that to die is to attain it. But what do we attain? Where do we arrive? Here reason searches, and trembles while she seeks. She looks, and feels that she is powerless to penetrate single-handed into the abyss of the future life. The learned and the ignorant are equally baffled, and can only say, "It is necessary to return to the other world, in order to know what really is done there." The gospel tells us the same; no one has penetrated the heavens except he who came from them: "No one has ascended into heaven, except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven."
Let us try then, brethren, to discover what reason asks, and justly asks. It asks the "why" of life; it does not care to exist without knowing "why" and knowing it with certainty. It can obtain certitude in many other spheres of thought; but it wishes to be assured upon this far more than upon any other question. Let us, then, state how reason has certitude in some other matters, and how it wishes and can attain it in this.
We know the things of the exterior world with certainty, and reason tells as to admit that which is well attested by the senses. We know the things of the interior world, of that world which is within our own breasts, because reason tells us to admit what is revealed by our self-consciousness. We know the great mass of truths of the intellectual world with certainty, for our reason tells us that we must acknowledge the truths proclaimed by evidence. We know that which is passing upon the earth in the present day. We know events which occur in distant quarters of the world, and we know the facts which are separated from us by long intervals of time, because our reason tells us that history and the testimony of mankind are reliable grounds of certitude.
But that which we wish to know more than all these things is the end of our own existence; and we wish to know this precisely, because we are reasonable beings. Our reason longs to know more of the meaning of our creation; it desires to know what is true in regard to our end, because this truth must be divine and eternal. But to be certain of divine truth, must not reason be willing to obey the voice of God? To be certain of eternal truth, must we not accept the testimony of eternity? The testimony of God was implored in every age, and from this it comes that faith, which is the acceptance by human reason of God's revelation, is a constant, perpetual, universal fact, even as the fact of reason itself. It is ridiculous to urge against the truth of revelation the various religions which claim to be revealed; for the counterfeits of revelation do not prove more against it than the perversion of reason proves against reason. The wanderings of reason do not compel us to deny the truth of human reason, so neither do the misrepresentations and counterfeits of revelation force us to deny its truth. We have seen, therefore, what reason requires; let us see how it recognizes revelation when it meets with it.
There is a certain manner of speaking indifferently of all religions which is used as a cloak to hide the desire to confound them. This is common in the world of letters among men of scanty science. But serious science, like a sincere conscience, discovers divine revelation, in spite of its human alterations, by certain signs and characteristic marks which are unmistakable. These signs have been multiplied by Providence with love; but I wish to insist here upon that token which has not only followed past ages in their course, but has, if I may so speak, grown with their growth: that grand characteristic which reveals the author of nature, and which assures us of the giver of revelation, is unity. The unity of nature reveals God as the creator, the harmony of the heavens and of the earth recount the glory of their author: "The heavens explain the glory of God." It is the chant of the unity of space. But the unity of time is not less splendid than the unity of worlds; it is the harmony of centuries in Jesus Christ, who has revealed God as the author of revelation. Nature and revelation are, then, the two great works in which God is revealed by the same sign—queenly and all-powerful unity! The unity of time in Jesus Christ, and in him alone, is a fact without a parallel; more easy for us to rejoice in than to depict. Yet here is the master-stroke of a great pencil: "These are great facts, clearer than the light of the sun itself, which make us know that our religion is as old as the world, and demonstrate that he only could be its author who, holding all things in his hand, has been able to begin and continue that which holds all centuries in its embrace. To be expected, to come, to be adored by a posterity which will last through every age, is the character of him whom we adore, Jesus Christ, yesterday, to-day, and to endless ages, the same." This, then, is the manifest sign of divine revelation, the unity of time in Jesus Christ.
St. Augustine spoke of this sign, considering it, however, under only one of its aspects, when he answered those persons who envied the good fortune of those who conversed with the risen Christ: "The apostles saw one thing, but they believed another; and because they saw, they believed that which they did not see. They saw Jesus Christ risen, the head of the Church, but they did not yet see this body, this Universal Church, which Jesus Christ announced to them," this marvellous and almost incredible Catholicity, extending over every country, with its unbloody sacrifice of the great invisible Victim, with the manifestation of conscience and remission of sins, with its perpetuity to the end of time, with its centre of unity established by these words: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The apostles saw none of these things, and how could they believe in such apparently incredible promises? But they were in the presence of the risen Christ; they had seen him dead and crucified, they saw him living and glorious, and it is from his mouth that they received the promise of that which they did not see. "They have seen the head," says St. Augustine, "and they have believed in the body; we see the body, and we believe in the head. We are like them, because we see, and therefore we believe that which we do not see."
It is necessary for us to recall here what St. Thomas Aquinas says upon this point: "No one believes, unless he sees what is necessary to be believed." It is because we are reasonable that we are believers. It is also because we are believers, we are Christians; and it is as Christians and children of Catholicity that we love with the same affection faith and science, the plenitude of science, the liberty and progress of science. The plenitude of science, for, without its harmony with the sphere of faith and the truths which surround our faith, science must always be incomplete.