Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/117

God again contend with the sons of men. Here, the divine city is built, and there, the city of the world. The one worships Providence, and the other liberty; and liberty and Providence, God and man, renew the gigantic contest, whose great vicissitudes form the perpetual subject of history. The people of God are everywhere conquered, until even his incommunicable and holy name falls into profound oblivion; and men, in the frenzy of their victory, unite to erect a tower which shall touch the clouds. Fire from heaven descends upon this tower erected by pride, and God in his wrath confounds the languages of the nations, who disperse throughout the circumference of the earth, increase and multiply, and fill with inhabitants every zone and country. Then arise great and populous cities, gigantic empires full of pride and pomp, and brutal and ferocious hordes wander in insolent idleness through immense forests and incommensurable deserts. The world is consumed by discord and stupefied with the frightful din of war. Empires fall upon empires, cities upon cities, nations upon nations, races upon races, until the earth becomes one scene of universal calamity and conflagration. The abomination of desolation is spread over the world. Where then is God? Why does he thus abandon the world, and permit human liberty everywhere to triumph? Why does he allow such universal rebellion and tumult, the erection of idols, and this great ravage and accumulated ruin?

One day God called unto him a just man, and said to him, I will make thy posterity as numerous as the sand on the sea-shore and as the stars of heaven; and out of this favored race shall be born the Saviour of mankind. I myself will conduct this people by my provi-