Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/47

All in her is spiritual, supernatural, and miraculous. She is spiritual, because her sway is over the mind, and her weapons of defense and of victory are spiritual; she is supernatural, because she disposes everything with regard to a supernatural end, and because it is her mission to make men holy, and supernaturally sanctify them; she is miraculous, because all the great mysteries were ordained for her institution, and because her existence, her duration, her conquests are a perpetual miracle. The Father sent his Son upon the earth, the Son sent his apostles to the world, and the Holy Ghost to his apostles; so that in the fullness as in the beginning of time, in the institution of the Church as in the creation of the universe, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost assisted. Twelve sinners proclaim mysterious truths, which convulse the earth and enkindle in her veins a hitherto unknown fire. A mighty whirlwind envelops nations, carries away the people, subverts empires, and confounds races. Mankind sweat blood under the pressure of a divine force. But out of all this distress, this confusion of races, of nations, of people—out of these devouring tempests, and of this fire which consumes the earth—the world comes forth radiant and renovated, reposing at the feet of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The gates of this mystical city of God lead in every direction, to signify her universal mission. "Unam omnium Rempublicam agnoscimus mundum," says Tertullian. For her there exists neither barbarian nor Greek, neither Jew nor Gentile. In her dwell the Scythian and the Roman, the Persian and the Macedonian, those who come from the east and the west, the north and the south. Her holy mission is to teach