And again:
“The clement wisdom of Jesus has not been left to the mercy of sophists, nor to the resources of reason, nor to lowliness or feebleness of faith. It has foreseen the weakness of the mind of man, and has prepared a succor always victorious. It is not necessary to ransack the libraries, to collect together so many dead languages, so much history, so much physics, so much philosophy, to know with certainty him who came to save the little ones and the ignorant. The bread of life is as easy to find as the material bread, on the same conditions. A simple, faithful Christian or member of the Church of God, a man of the world, provided he may have studied a few books and heard some instruction, can render an account of his faith far better than the ‘savants,’ the pretended unbelievers, are in a condition to give an account of their incredulity. The Gospel is sufficient for that.
“The Gospel contains motives conclusive of the faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true man—motives, reasons, which the Saviour himself has put forth. We can paralyze, by the contents of the Gospel, the sophistry of the infidel, without being shocked by its contact. What does it matter that the sophist should amass notes against the sincerity of the Evangelists, if we have clear proof that he of whom the Evangelists speak is God? On bended knees, before the Real Presence, one is not tempted to withdraw from its contemplation in order to consider or view more closely this vile apparition of blasphemy. We are by no means bound to extract from it open avowals of repentance.”
Then he gives the reason for this sufficiency of the Gospel:
“There are different degrees in the region of the mind; discussion belongs to the inferior degrees. In discussing, man is pitted against man; the reason of the one seems as good as that of the other. In expounding, we place God against man.
“This exposition of the truth must get the preference when God is absolutely and personally in the case. From the apex of those lofty heights the voice of man properly avoids discussing with nothingness, lest weak human reason might be inclined to believe that nothingness could reply; that the beauty of truth might appear alone in the presence of the absolute deformity of falsehood.”
And again:
“Among infidels ignorance of the Gospel is generally complete; among a great many Christians it is hardly less so. They know the Gospel by heart, and they do not understand it. They have not read it with care, with order, such as it has been delivered. They do not know how to explain it or meditate on it as they ought. Whosoever sees in the Gospel only the letter, does not understand even the letter; and whosoever seeks for morality only in its pages, does not find the morality they contain.”
Lastly, he dismisses Renan’s Life in the following masterly words: