Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/51

gate. If this uncertainty exists in all men, collectively or individually, all their affirmations and negations must be a contradiction in terms, because they are necessarily uncertain; and if all their affirmations and negations are uncertain, discussion becomes absurd and inconceivable.

Catholicism alone, as on all other points, has given a satisfactory and legitimate solution of this fearful problem. Catholicism teaches the following doctrine: Man comes from God, and sin from man; ignorance and error, as well as sorrow and death, come from sin; fallibility comes from ignorance, and from fallibility results the absurdity of discussion. But it adds, man was redeemed; which does not mean that by the act of redemption, and without any effort on his part, he was delivered from the slavery of sin; but it signifies, that through the redemption he acquired the power to break these chains, and, ennobled and restored, to convert ignorance, error, sorrow, and death into means of sanctification by the proper use of his regained liberty. For this end, God instituted his Church, immortal, impeccable, and infallible. The Church represents human nature without sin, such as it came from the hands of God, full of original justice and of sanctifying grace; and this is the reason why she is infallible, and not subject to death. God has established his Church upon the earth, in order that man, aided by grace, which is granted to all, may make himself worthy of having the blood, which was shed for him on Calvary, applied to him, by a free submission to its divine inspirations. By faith he will be enabled to vanquish ignorance, by patience he will overcome sorrow, and resignation will conquer death; while death,