Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/62

There exists the same difference between the Catholic Church and the other societies spread throughout the world, as between natural and supernatural conceptions, and as between the human and the divine.

The pagan world considered society and the city as identical. For the Roman, society was Rome; and for the Athenian, it was Athens. Outside of Athens and of Rome were only a barbarous and rude people, who were coarse and unpolished, and unsocial by nature. Christianity not only revealed human society to man, but also another society, much higher and more excellent, whose immensity has neither bounds nor limits, whose citizens are the saints who triumph in heaven, the just who suffer in purgatory, and the Christians who combat on the earth.

If we carefully investigate the records of history, and meditate upon them, we shall discover with amazement that this gigantic conception cannot be explained by anything we find there recorded. It made its appearance alone, unexpectedly, and without antecedents. It came as a supernatural revelation, communicated to man supernaturally. The world received it at once, and without having perceived its coming; when it was seen, it was already come, when it was recognized at a glance, and as by inspiration. Who but God, who is love, could