Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/308

only love. But this love is in itself all-powerful, most wise, good, just, and merciful.

It was love which supplicated the mercy of God to give hope to corrupt and fallen man, through that divine promise of a future Redeemer, who should come into the world to take upon himself and conquer sin. It was love that promised this Redeemer in paradise, and which sent him upon earth; it was love that came. It was love that assumed human flesh, and lived the life of mortal man, and died the death of the cross, and rose again in his body and in his glory. It is in love and through love that we sinners are all saved.

The most glorious mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God is the only title of nobility which mankind can claim. I am not surprised at the contempt which modern rationalists show for man; on the contrary, if there is anything which I cannot understand or conceive, it is the circumspect prudence and timid reserve which they exhibit in this matter. When I consider man, despoiled by his own fault of that primal state of original justice and sanctifying grace in which God placed him; and when I reflect upon his very imperfect and contradictory organization; and when I consider the blindness of his understanding, the weakness of his will, the shameful desires of his flesh, the ardor of his concupiscence, and the perversity of his inclinations, I cannot imagine or comprehend the moderation of their expressions of disdain. If God had not assumed human nature, and in assuming it elevated it to himself, and imparted to it a luminous trace of the divine nobleness, it must be confessed that words could not express the extreme degradation of man. As to myself, I can say that if my God had not embraced human nature in the