Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion [1908]

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion


ELEVENTH OBJECTION. THERE ARE MANY LEARNED MEN AND PEOPLE OF MIND WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN RELIGION.

Answer. What is to be concluded from this, except that it is not enough to have profane learning or to possess talent, in order to be a Christian, and to receive from God the gift of faith; but that something more is required; namely, a pure and upright heart, humble, well-regulated, willing to make those sacrifices that the knowledge of truth imposes.

Now, this is just what is wanting among those learned men (and they are few) who are irreligious.

1st. Either they are indifferent and ignorant in matters of religion; absorbed in their mathematical, astronomical, physical studies, they think neither of God nor of their soul; and hence it is not surprising that they know nothing of religion. In what concerns religion they are ignorant, and their judgment on it is worth no more than that of a hodcarrier about music and painting.
There are some learned men who are more ignorant of religion than a child of ten years old, who is assiduous in learning his catechism.

2d. Or else, what happens oftener, they are haughty spirits who presume to judge God, to argue with Him as an equal, and to measure His word by the dimensions of their feeble reason. Pride is the profoundest in its malice of all the vices. Therefore, they are justly rejected as presumptuous minds, and deprived of that light which is given only to simple and humble hearts. God does not love proud rebels.

3d. Or else, what happens still oftener, and is generally accompanied by the other two vices, these learned men cherish some bad passions of which they will not rid themselves, and which they know to be incompatible with the Christian religion.
Moreover, if one will only weigh the number and value of the witnesses, the difficulty entirely disappears.

One may affirm that, for the last eighteen hundred years, among the eminent men of each century there has not been more than one in twenty who was a freethinker.

And in this trivial number one may also affirm that the majority were not steadily incredulous, but before their death took refuge in the arms of that religion which they had so often blasphemed. Such were, among others, some of the leaders of the Voltarian school of the eighteenth century, Montesquieu, Buffon, la Harpe, etc.

Voltaire himself, when illness overtook him in Paris, sent for the rector of St. Sulpice about a month before his death. The danger passed, and with the danger the fear of God, which it had inspired. But a second crisis came on: all the impious companions of the sick man hastened to his side. His physician, an eye-witness of the scene, attests that Voltaire again called for the assistance of religion, but this time in vain; the priest was not allowed to approach the dying man, who expired a prey to the most horrible despair!

D'Alembert also was anxious to confess his sins; and he was prevented, just as his master had been, by the philosophers surrounding his bedside. "If we had not been there," one of them afterwards said, "he would have played the coward just like the others!"
What moral value have these men? And what does their irreligion prove, above all if you oppose to them the enlightened faith of the most learned men, the great geniuses, the men most worthy of our veneration that have ever appeared on earth?

Their faith required of these great men, as it does of all men, disagreeable restraints and imperative duties. The evidence of the truth of Christianity alone could have compelled them to give in their adhesion to its teachings.

Not to speak of those admirable doctors of the Church, called Fathers, and who were almost the only philosophers and savants of the first fifteen centuries, such as St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Thomas of Aquinas (the most extraordinary man who has ever existed, perhaps), how many illustrious names may not religion count among her children?

Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Descartes, Pascal, Malebranche, d'Aguesseau, Lamoignon, Mathew Mole, Cujas, Domat, de Maistre, de Bonald, etc., among the great philosophers, jurisconsults, and erudite of the world.

Bossuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, among great orators.

Corneille, Racine, Dante, Tasso, Boileau, Chateaubriand, etc., among men of letters and poets.

And our military glories, are they not for the most part blended with religion? Was not Charlemagne a Christian? Godfrey of Bouillon, Tancred, Bayard, du Guesclin, Joan of Arc, Crillon, Vauban, Villars, Catinat, etc., did they not bend before religion their illustrious brows, bound with the laurels of a thousand victories? Henry IV., Louis XIV., were Christians. Turenne was a Christian, he had received the Holy Communion the very day of his death. The Great Condé was a Christian. And above all these, St. Louis, that real hero, that prince so perfect and so amiable, the glory alike of France and of the Church.

All know the sentiments of the great Napoleon touching Christianity. In the intoxication of power and ambition, he neglected the practical duties of religion, I admit; but he always preserved his belief in it and respect for it: "I am a Christian, a Roman Catholic," he said; "so is my son. I would be much grieved if my grandson should not be the same." . . . "The greatest service I have ever rendered to France," he also added, "is the re-establishment of the Catholic religion." "Without religion, to what would men come? They would cut one another's throats for the prettiest woman, or for the largest pear!" When he found himself alone, at St. Helena, he began to reflect on the faith of his childhood, and in his profound genius Napoleon found the Catholic faith to be both real and holy. He asked of religion its last consolations.

He sent for a Catholic priest to come to St. Helena, and attended the Mass which was celebrated in his apartments. He desired that on abstinence days no flesh-meat should be served at his table. He surprised the companions of his exile by the force with which he set forth, in conversation, the fundamental doctrines of Catholicism.

When near to death he sent away the physicians, begged to see the Abbé Vignali, his chaplain, and said to him: "I believe in God; I was born in the Catholic religion; and I wish to fulfill the duties which it imposes, and to receive the last aid that it affords us."
And the emperor confessed, received the Holy Viaticum and Extreme Unction. "I am happy to have fulfilled my duties," he said to General Montholon. "I wish you, at your death, the same happiness, general. I never practiced them when on the throne, because power dazzles the mind. But I have always had faith; the sound of church-bells is agreeable to my ears, and the sight of a priest affects me. I wanted to make a mystery of all this, but that is a weakness. I desire to render glory to God!"

He then gave orders himself that an altar should be erected in the next room, so that there might be an Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and the Forty Hours devotion.

Thus died Napoleon, as a Christian.

We should not be afraid of deceiving ourselves in following the example of all those great men, the number of whom, and their religious knowledge, but above all their moral worth, prevails far over those few men who have chosen to despise Christianity.
Pride, the passion for profane knowledge which absorbed them entirely, and other passions yet more degrading and headstrong, are more than sufficient reasons to explain their unbelief; while the truth of religion alone has been powerful enough to bow the necks of the others under the sacred yoke of Catholicism!

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion


TWELFTH OBJECTION. PRIESTS MAKE A TRADE OF RELIGION, THEY DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT THEY PREACH.

Answer. What do you venture to assert? The priests of Jesus Christ are impostors! Pray, how do you know that? How can you read their hearts, and pronounce whether they believe or do not believe in the sacred origin of their priesthood? It is the accuser's business to prove what he advances. I defy you to prove this accusation.

You will, perhaps, cite, by way of proof, the name of some bad priest.

I must then remind you that the exception proves the rule. A wicked, unbelieving priest would not be so much the subject of comment if the great majority were not so holy, pure and venerable.

A spot of ink is seen with extraordinary distinctness on a pure white robe; it would be hardly perceptible if the robe were black or soiled.

So it is with the Catholic priesthood, to whom impiety thus pays an involuntary homage.

That there are bad priests is not a strange thing. Remember there was a Judas among the twelve Apostles! Just as the Apostles, the first priests, the first Bishops of the Church, thrust out the traitor from among them, and were not responsible for his crime, so the Church condemns, with even more energy and horror than you yourselves express, those traitorous priests who desert their sublime duties! She first endeavors to bring them back into the right way by gentleness and pardon; priests, as well as other men, have a right to mercy; but the irreclaimable, those who persevere in the bad road, she cuts off from her communion, and strikes them with her anathemas.

Priests are impostors! And what interest have they then in hearing your confessions, reproving you for your vices, preaching to you, catechising your children, feeding the poor, giving to this one good advice; to that one, consolation; to another, bread?
Would it be possible to curtail by a farthing their slender revenues, and the still more slender nature of their occasional fees, if they kept silence about the irregularities and excesses of their parishioners, if they admitted any or every person to the sacraments, without giving themselves the trouble of examining the state of their conscience, or if they were to abridge their catechising, etc.? What worldly interest have they then in fulfilling well their ministry?

No, no; the priest is not what the impious proclaim him to be, and it is because they are aware of this that these people detest the priest so cordially. They see in him the representative of the God Who condemns their vices, the envoy of Jesus Christ, whom they blaspheme, and Who will judge them. They see in him the personification of that law of God which they unceasingly violate; and it is because they do not wish to acknowledge the Master that they do not wish to recognize His minister.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion


THIRTEENTH OBJECTION. PRIESTS ARE DRONES IN THE HIVE! OF WHAT USE ARE THEY?

Answer. They are of use in saving souls! Certainly, here is an employment which is at least as good as many others.
The mechanic works upon matter; the priest works on the soul. As much as the soul is higher than matter, so much is the priest's work higher than all the labors of the earth.

The priest continues the great labor of the salvation of mankind. Jesus Christ, his God and his Model, began it; His priests continue it through all ages.

After His example, the priest goes about doing good. He is a man who belongs to all; his heart, his time, his health, his diligence, his purse, his life, belong to all; above all, to the lowly ones of the earth, to children, to the poor, the neglected, those who weep, and who are friendless. He expects nothing in exchange for this devotedness; most frequently, indeed, he receives only insults, abominable calumnies and ill treatment. True disciple of his Divine Master, he replies only by continuing to do good. What a life! What superhuman abnegation!

In public calamities, civil wars, contagious diseases, in times of cholera, when the Protestant ministers and philanthropists think of personal preservation, the priest is to be seen exposing his life and health to relieve and save his brethren; such was Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris, on the barricades; such were Belzunce and St. Charles Borromeo, in the time of the plague at Marseilles and Milan; such, during the cholera in 1832 and 1849, all the clergy of Paris and so many other towns, who made themselves the public servants of the whole people.

This, then, is the use of the priests! I should like to know if those who attack them are of more use.

The ungrateful wretches! They are never weary of loading with insults him whom they summon to their bedside in time of sorrow or privation, who has blessed them in their earlier years, and who never ceases to pray for them.

All the miseries of our country arise from our not practicing what the priests teach. And unfortunate France, torn with civil discords and political commotions, may apply to herself the language addressed to the chaplain of one of the Paris prisons by a poor convict, who had returned to God with all his heart. The priest had given him a little Christian's manual. "Ah, father!" he said one day, showing the little book, "if I had known the contents of this, and had practiced these maxims all my life, I should not have done what I have now done, nor should I have been where I now am!"

If France had always known, and if she now knew what priests really do teach, and if she had always practiced those doctrines, and continued doing so, she would not have been tossed about by three or four revolutions in the space of fifty years, and be reduced to ask herself in the present day, Am I about to perish entirely? Can I still hope to be saved from destruction?

She may hope to be saved, if she will again be truly Catholic! She may hope to be saved if she will but take heed to the ministers of Him who saves the world.

The priesthood is then the safety of France! For without religion society would be destroyed.

Her children, then, owe honor, veneration, gratitude, more than ever to the priestly character. Those who repulse the idea have not the intelligence of our age or country.

Away with these worn-out prejudices, then. Away with these coarse and injurious epithets, with which the blind impiety of Voltaire and his followers have so long assailed the Catholic priesthood!

Let us respect our Priests. If we see imperfections, even vices occasionally, among them, let us remember that we must ascribe to the man all that belongs to frailty.

Let us endeavor, in those cases, not to look at the man, to see nothing but the priest; as a priest, he is always worthy of respect, and his ministry is always a holy one; for he is the perpetuator of the office of Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, through successive ages, and it is of him that the Saviour has said, "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Him that sent you!"

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion

FOURTEENTH OBJECTION. THERE ARE CERTAINLY SOME BAD PRIESTS - HOW CAN THEY BE THE MINISTERS OF GOD?

Answer. Because, in becoming bad men, they do not cease to be Priests.

Do you cease to be a Christian, because you commit a sin? Does a judge cease to be a judge, do his decisions cease to have a binding force because his own integrity is not above reproach? Does a father cease to be a father because he fails in his duties? Does a captain lose the right to command his men because he himself commits a breach of discipline?

If it is so in human affairs, where public trusts may, in the strictest sense, be taken away from those who are not worthy of them, how much more stable, more inalienable yet, should not be, in spiritual things, that sacred character of the priesthood on which rests the security of men's consciences, and the whole life of the faithful! 

If our Priests ceased to be Priests by the sole fact of committing some grievous sin, we should never know if we really received the holy things from their hands; for God alone knows and searches men's consciences.

It is for us that they are priests; and for us that they remain so, even when they forget their greatness.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


FIFTEENTH OBJECTION. PRIESTS OUGHT TO MARRY. CELIBACY IS CONTRARY TO NATURE.

Answer. Not contrary to nature, but above nature; which is quite different.

Therefore, the chastity of the priest is not natural, but supernatural; it comes from the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the sacrament of holy orders, gives to His ministers a divine character and a supernatural virtue which raises them above other men. God is single and alone; so should His priests be.

"The Great Spirit has no wife," said an Indian chief to an American captain, who proposed to send some Protestant missionaries among them; "His priests should be like Him; since yours are married, we will have nothing to say to them. They resemble ourselves, and would be of no use to us."

Jesus Christ, God made man, preserved perfect continence. His envoy should follow the same path. The disciple is perfect when he resembles his Master.

It is chastity which surrounds the Priest with his divine halo. It is that which invests him with such a moral power, that he has the right of attacking the vices of his brethren, of counselling not only good, but perfection; of consoling penitents, of penetrating secrets so hidden, that the daughter dares not tell them to her mother, the wife to her husband, the brother to his brother.

Marry the Priest; the wonder-worker vanishes, the man alone remains!

The apologists for the marriage of Priests know this well. They desire only one thing: to humanise the Priest, that is to say, to unpriest him.

They see that these men, so uncompromising toward what is wrong, would become the most accommodating in the world, if one could only give them wives and children. Occupied with their own concerns, they would not have much time to occupy themselves with the things which concern God, or attend to the state of their parishioners' consciences.

And, then, heavenly things would be treated of quite freely in the family. To obtain the good will of the parish-priest, his lady would be flattered, one would sigh at the feet of the eldest daughter of his reverence, and admire before their papa the talent, the good looks of the whole saintly progeny, even though they were more stupid than blocks and uglier than scarecrows. The husband-papa-confessor would not hold out against that, and would grant everything that was asked of him.

Woe to the Priest, and woe to us, if a woman — a wife — touch, in this manner, the spring of his power! For, forthwith, "a virtue is gone out of him;" the vivifying virtue which resuscitates souls; the powerful virtue which sustains and encourages them in the ways of God; above all, the virtue of virtues in the priest, that which makes him the arbiter between the heart of God and the heart of man, the virtue of charity!

Yes; charity — that apostolic charity which embraces all men alike, poor and rich, bad and good, strangers and neighbors — it is Virginity which kindles it and keeps it alive.

Continence must first have consecrated without reserve to the service of God that sacerdotal body which charity daily immolates for the relief and salvation of its neighbor.

He may be humane, he may be compassionate, but never will he be a martyr whose heart is occupied with the love of a woman.
He may be touched by the sorrows of widows and orphans, but never will he devote himself to them, who feels that he owes his first affections and his first savings to the support, the education and the future of his own children.

The morsel of bread which he would, perhaps, take from his own mouth to sustain the starving creature at his door, he would not like to snatch from the hands of his son.

The life which, in times of public disease and contagion, he would sacrifice to the salvation of his fellow-men, he owes and will preserve for his family. What are the most generous of resolutions before the tears of a beloved wife and the caresses of a child?

Marriage is the solemn murder of the Priest. If we desire that our Priests should help us to salvation, let us leave them alone with Jesus Christ. Besides, are they so desirous of marrying? Not the least in the world, I assure you.

Since when have people been obliged to marry against their wills?

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


SIXTEENTH OBJECTION. I BELIEVE ONLY WHAT I UNDERSTAND. CAN ANY REASONABLE MAN BELIEVE ALL THE MYSTERIES OF RELIGION?

Answer. Then don't believe any thing, nothing in the world, not even that you live, that you see, that you speak, that you hear, etc., etc., for I defy you to understand any of these phenomena.

What, in fact, is life? what is language? what is sound? what are noises, color, smell, etc.?

What is the wind? where does it begin? where and why and how does it stop? What is cold, or heat? what is electricity?

What is sleep? How comes it, that when I am asleep, my ears remaining open the same as when I am awake, I hear nothing? Why, and how do I awake from sleep? and what is the process?

What are fatigue, sorrow, pleasure? etc. etc.

What is matter, that indescribable something, which takes all forms, all colors, etc.?

Who understands what it is?

How is it, that with my eyes, which are merely two little balls, quite black in the inside, I can see all surrounding objects, even millions of miles off (the stars, for instance)?

How is it that my soul would separate from my body if I did not, regularly, cause to enter into that body, by my food, certain morsels of dead animals, of plants, of vegetables, etc.?

All is mystery* in me; even down to the most vulgar things, to the purely animal functions.

What learned man has ever comprehended the why and wherefore of the wonders of nature? Who has ever comprehended a single one of them?

What mysteries!

And I wish to comprehend Him who has made all these beings which I cannot comprehend! I do not comprehend the creature, and yet I want to comprehend the Creator! I do not comprehend the finite, and I would comprehend the infinite! I do not comprehend even an acorn, a fly, a pebble, and I want to comprehend God and all His precepts!

But it is absurd! There is nothing else to answer.

The mysteries of religion are like the sun. Impenetrable in themselves, they enlighten and vivify those who walk with simplicity in their radiance: they only blind the audacious eyes which would fathom their splendor.

Mysteries are above reason, and not contrary to reason; in which there is a great difference. Reason does not perceive, of her unaided strength, the truth which they express; neither does she perceive the impossibility of that truth.

No, faith is not opposed to reason. Far from that, she is her sister and her helper. It is a more brilliant light which comes to add itself to a light already shining.

Faith is to reason what the telescope is to the naked eye. The eye, with the aid of the telescope, sees what it could not perceive alone. It penetrates into regions which are inaccessible without that aid. Will you say that the telescope is opposed to the eyesight?

Such then is faith. It does but regulate and extend reason. Faith leaves to reason its free exercise in all that comes within its range; and when its natural powers have reached their limits, faith comes to its aid, raises it higher, and causes it to penetrate into new supernatural divine truths, even into the secrets of God.

I believe the mysteries of religion, then, as I believe the mysteries of nature, because I know that they exist.

I know that the mysteries of nature exist, because they are attested by the most unexceptionable witnesses; namely, all my senses and common sense.

I know that the mysteries of religion exist, because they also are attested by the most unexceptionable witnesses, Jesus Christ and His Church.* My reason serves me to examine and to weigh the value of their testimony. But when by the touch of philosophy, of criticism, and of good sense, I have examined the facts which prove to me the truth, divinity, and infallibility of these testimonies, my reason has finished its work; faith must take its place, reason has conducted me up to truth. Truth speaks, and I have only to listen, to open my heart, to believe, to adore.

My faith in the Christian mysteries is then supremely reasonable. It proves a solid and logical mind. My reason has said to me: "These witnesses can neither deceive you nor themselves. They bring you the truth from heaven!" I should not be true to my reason were I not to believe their word.

It is a pitiful weakness of mind to wish to believe only what one comprehends.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


SEVENTEENTH OBJECTION. I WOULD WILLINGLY HAVE FAITH, BUT I CANNOT.

Answer. That is a pure illusion, which will not excuse you at the tribunal of the awful Judge, who has declared to us, that "he who believes in Him has eternal life, and he who believes not in Him is already condemned."

You cannot believe? And what means have you taken to arrive at faith? He who desires the end desires the means also; he who neglects the means shows evidently that he is not very anxious about the end.

Now, that is your case, if you have not faith. Either you have not adopted the means of obtaining it, or you have not adopted them thoroughly, which comes to nearly the same thing.

1st. Have you prayed? It is the first condition of all God's gifts, consequently of faith, which is the most precious of them all, and the fundamental condition. Have you asked of God this grace of faith? How have you asked for it? Have you not asked indifferently, without feeling deeply interested in it; once only, perhaps, and without perseverance? Had you while praying, have you at this present moment, a deep, a sincere, a lively desire to believe and to be a Christian? There are some who ask for virtues, and who are very much afraid of obtaining them.

2d. Have you studied religion with a sincere love of the truth? Have I not seen skeptics studying religion in Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.? As well might you try to learn the manners and customs of the United States from the Chinese. Have you sought out a well-informed priest, or, at least, a Christian of enlightened belief, to whom to expose your difficulties, and have them solved? Pride is at hand, and often hinders this.

3d. Are you resolved, if God were to give you faith, to live according to its holy and rigid maxims, to combat your passions, to labor for your sanctification, to make to God the sacrifices which He shall demand of you?

Here, with the most part of unbelievers, is the true reason of their incredulity. It is in the main the heart, it is passion rather than reason, which rejects faith as too difficult, too wearisome. "Light has come into the world," said Jesus Christ, "and men have preferred darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The heart gets the better of the head. Then all arguments are useless, truth is not to be listened to. "None are so deaf as those who will not hear," says the proverb.

This blindness is voluntary and culpable in its cause; this is why our Lord Jesus Christ declared that all unbelievers are judged beforehand; they have resisted truth.

Be of good faith then in your researches after religious truth; ask God for light with sincerity and perseverance, lay your doubts before some charitable and enlightened Priest; be disposed to live according to the faith as soon as the divine light shall illuminate your mind; and I affirm to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you will not fail soon to believe, and to become a good Catholic. "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


EIGHTEENTH OBJECTION. ALL RELIGIONS ARE GOOD.

Answer. All religions are good, in this sense that it is better to have some, of whatever kind it may be, than to have none at all; but not in the sense that it is quite unimportant whether you profess one or another.

You think, perhaps, provided a man is a worthy member of society, it signifies little whether he be Heathen, Jew, Turk, Christian, Protestant or Catholic; that all religious forms are human inventions, about which our good God must trouble Himself very little.

But tell me, whence have you obtained this notion? And who has revealed to you that all the forms of worship one sees in the world are equally pleasing to the Lord?

Because there are some false religions, does it follow that there is none which is true? If one is surrounded by deceivers, is it no longer possible to discern a real friend?

You have then discovered that God receives with the same love the Christian who adores Jesus Christ, and the Jew who only sees in Him a vile impostor? That it is good and lawful in heathen countries to adore, in the place of the one Supreme God, Jupiter, Mars, Venus? To render divine honors to the sacred crocodiles, and to the ox Apis, in Egypt? To sacrifice, among the Phoenicians, one's children to the god Moloch? In Gaul or Mexico, to immolate hundreds of human victims to the hideous idols there venerated? Elsewhere, to prostrate oneself before a trunk of a tree, before stones, plants, the remains of animals, masses of decay? To repeat from the bottom of the heart, at Constantinople, "God is God, and Mohammed is His prophet?" At Rome, in Paris, to abhor all these false gods, to despise this same Mohammed as an impostor?

It is quite impossible that you believe all this sincerely! That is what you say, however, "All religions are good."

Why not rather have the merit of frankness, and own that you do not wish the trouble of seeking for truth, that it is of little consequence to you, and that you look upon it as useless?

The search after religious truth useless? . . . Rash man! Suppose, in direct contradiction to your affirmation, which is supported by nothing, that God has imposed on man an order of determinate homage? Suppose, that among all religions, one, one only is the religion, religious and absolute truth, like all other truth, rejecting all mixture, excluding all which is not itself. To what are you, then, exposing yourself? Do you think that your indifference will excuse you before the tribunal of the sovereign Judge? And can you, without perfect madness, brave such a terrible prospect?

Just see the misery of man without a divine religion! See him with only the pale rays of his reason, abandoned to doubt, often even to the most inevitable, the most perilous ignorance with regard to the fundamental questions of his destinies, his duties, his happiness! From whence do I come? Who am I? Whither am I going? What is my last end? How am I to attain to it? What is there beyond this life? What is God? What does He desire of me, etc., etc.

Now what answer can reason, left to its unaided strength, give to these important problems? It stammers, it remains mute; it can offer only probable, possible solutions, a thousand times insufficient to enable us to surmount the violence of our passions, to sustain us in the rugged path of duty.

And you would be willing to think that the God of all wisdom, of all goodness, of all light, has thus abandoned His reasonable creature, man, the greatest work of His hands?

No, no. He has caused to shine before his eyes a heavenly light, which, corresponding to the imperious wants of his being, reveals to him, with a divine evidence, the nature, and the justice, and the goodness, and the designs of that God who is his first principle and his last end; a light which shows to him the road of good, and the road of evil, both lying open before him, the one leading to eternal joys, the other to eternal punishments; a light which, amidst the false gleamings wherewith human corruption has surrounded it, is distinguished by the sole splendor of its truth; a light which illumines, quickens, perfects all which it penetrates!
And this light is the Christian Revelation, Christianity, the only religion which has proofs, the only one which enlightens the reason, which sanctifies the heart, and, referring all our moral perfection to the knowledge and love of God, is worthy of God and of ourselves.

What human tongue could enumerate all the titles that Christianity has to our belief? Behold it, at the outset, ascend to the very cradle of the world by the prophecies which announce it, by the faith, the hope, and the love of the holy patriarchs, and by the ceremonies of the Mosaic and primitive worship which foreshadow it!

It has ever been, in fact, one sole and identical religion, though it has been developed in three successive phases.

1st. In the patriarchal religion, which lasted from Adam till the time of Moses;
2d. In the Jewish religion, which Moses promulgated, as sent from God, and which lasted till the Advent of Jesus Christ;
3d. In the Christian, or Catholic religion, taught by Jesus Christ Himself, and preached by His Apostles.

It developed itself, from its origin, gradually and majestically, like all the works of God — like man, who passes through the stages of childhood, of adolescence, before arriving at the perfection of his age; as the day passes through the stages of twilight, and dawn, before it shines in its midday splendor; as the flower, which is first a mere germ, next a closed bud, before it discovers the beauty of its unfolded petals.

And thus Christianity, and it alone, embraces humanity at large; it rules all things, the present time, and the ages past and present. It sets out from eternity to return again to the bosom of eternity. It proceeds from God only to repose eternally in God!

All in it is worthy of its author. All in it is truth and sanctity. And those who study it discover in it a marvellous harmony, a beauty, a grandeur, an evidence of truth; and these ever increasing and growing in proportion as they examine its dogmas.

It touches and purifies the heart, at the same time that it enlightens the mind. It fills the whole man.

• The sublime, superhuman and incomparable character of Jesus Christ, its founder;
  
• The divine perfection of His life;
  
• The sanctity of His law;
  
• The practical sublimity of the doctrine which He taught;
  
• His language, which is absurd, if it is not divine;
  
• The number and evidence of His miracles, recognized even by His most violent enemies;
  
• The power of His Cross;
  
• The events of His ineffable Passion, all foretold beforehand;
  
• His glorious Resurrection, announced at fourteen different times by Him to His disciples, and the unbelief even of His Apostles, whom actual evidence compelled to believe in the truth of the Resurrection of their Master;
  
• His ascension into heaven, in the sight of more than five hundred witnesses;
  
• The supernatural development of His Church, in spite of so many natural impossibilities, both physical and moral;
  
• The resplendent miracles which accompanied, all over the earth, the teachings of the apostles, ignorant and timid fishermen, changed suddenly into doctors and conquerors of the world;
  
• The superhuman strength of His nine millions of martyrs;
  
• The genius of the Fathers of the Church, crushing all errors, by the mere exposition of the Christian faith;
  
• The holy lives of true Christians, opposed to the corruption and natural weakness of men;
  
• The social transformation which Christianity has operated, and still in our day operates, in all the countries where it penetrates;
  
• Finally, its duration, the immutability of its dogmas, of its constitution, of its Catholic hierarchy; its indissoluble unity in the midst of the empires which are crumbling away, of societies which are daily changing; all show us that the finger of God is here, and that it is not in the power of man to conceive, to create, or to preserve a similar work.
  

There is then, you see, a true religion, one only, the Christian religion.

It alone is religion, that is to say, the sacred tie which attaches us to God, our Creator and Father.

It is the only one which transmits to us true religious doctrine, that which God teaches us with regard to Himself, His nature, and works, with regard to ourselves, our eternal destinies, our moral duties.

All other pretended religions, which teach what Christianity rejects, and reject what Christianity teaches, Paganism, Judaism,* Mohammedanism, whatsoever they may be called, are then false, and, consequently, bad.

They are human inventions, while religion is a divine institution. They are only sacrilegious imitations of true religion, as false coin is the dishonest imitation of the genuine.

Would it not be preposterous to say, "All pieces of money are good," without distinguishing the real from the counterfeit?
It would be more preposterous still to repeat henceforth that phrase of which we have just been proving the folly, "All religions are good."

Either it is a piece of heinous impiety, or of prodigious absurdity; of impiety, if said from indifference; of folly, if from ignorance or heedlessness.

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


NINETEENTH OBJECTION. IS JESUS CHRIST ANYTHING MORE THAN A GREAT PHILOSOPHER, A GREAT BENEFACTOR OF MANKIND, A GREAT PROPHET? IS HE REALLY GOD?

Answer. Listen to His own reply.

"Yes, you have said it, I am God. What! so long a time have I been with you; and have you not known me? He that seeth me, seeth the Father also; I and my Father are one!!!"*

One would require a whole book to treat this question as it deserves. We have already touched upon it, in proving the divinity of the Christian religion. However, we must press it further, and develop a point on which our whole faith reposes.

Jesus Christ is the Hero of the Gospel.†

And first, mark the gigantic proportions of that figure, compared to all others, even to the greatest! All other men quite die; they make a noise during their passage, they disturb the world . . . and after them, what remains of it all? Their names, lauded or scorned at first, becoming indifferent after a time, are finally buried in the pages of some books. They no longer live on the earth.

Jesus Christ alone lives still, lives always, lives everywhere. He is present to the world. To-day, as much as 1900 years ago; in Paris, in London, in Rome, in St. Petersburg, in Asia, in America, everywhere, He is adored or hated; in all countries He is defended and attacked, received and rejected, as in the days of His mortal life. He is at the bottom of all those great movements which cause the world to shake; He is the chief question, the centre in which meet all the questions which touch the heart of humanity.

He lives, He speaks, He commands, He teaches, He forbids; He develops His all-powerful existence in Christianity, of which He is the principle, the soul, and the summary. The fate of the one is the fate of the other; for Christianity is the sequel of the life of Jesus Christ in the universe, throughout all the ages.

Then Jesus Christ is a universal, continuous, actual fact, acting these nineteen centuries past, written upon the human generations, upon all countries, upon all peoples of the world, in living characters. It is an exceptional life which penetrates the whole world. All passes away, all dies around him; He alone, HE ALONE lives and endures! "Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever!" (Heb. xiii. 8.)

He is, then, something more than a mere man, and the great Napoleon was right when he said, "I have had experience of men, and I tell you, that this one was more than a man."

2d. And, stranger still, and peculiar to Jesus Christ alone, the existence which has filled the universe since its first apparition on earth, filled with the same omnipotence the ages which preceded it, even up to the birth of the world. This same Jesus, for whom have lived, do live, and ever will live, the Christian generations, it is for Him that the generations of the ancient faithful, the disciples of Moses, the prophets, and the patriarchs have lived! It is in Him they have hoped; it is for Him that they have looked; it is He whom they have so loved! The sun, in his meridian, bathes in his rays all space, that which he has passed in his course, and that which he has yet to travel through; so Jesus Christ, the centre of humanity, enlightens, quickens all things, the past, the present, and the future.

3d. Jesus Christ, and He alone, is the type of perfection, the model after which the moral civilized world is formed, the mould into which humanity casts itself, as it were, to reform its vices. What else is virtue but the imitation of Jesus Christ?

There is nothing in common between Him and any other known type of perfection, whether Jewish, Greek, or Roman. He is Himself, He is alone, He is without a parallel, He is above all.

In human perfection, there is always competition, one man surpasses another, parallels may always exist. Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, is the exception. There is a solution of continuity between His perfection and that of human beings.

What name can be placed beside His? Whom would one venture to compare to Him? The saints, who are the heroes of virtue on earth, are but His pale copies.

None think, none have ever thought to equal Him; for they feel that it is no longer a question of possible rivalry. All is effaced in His light, as the factitious lights of the earth become pale when the sun bursts forth in all its splendor. He has also said this Himself, "I am the light of the world."

And this superhuman perfection is a phenomenon without antecedents, it is preceded by nothing, prepared by nothing. It arrives like the doctrine it teaches, all created. It participates in no theological or philosophical school; it is without a cause, producing or explaining it, unless it is the presence of Perfection itself, which is God. It gives light to all things, and receives light from nothing; it is the concentration of all light.

Another observation not less striking, and peculiar to Jesus alone: with Him, this truly divine perfection, which seems so much elevated above humanity, inaccessible to our weakness, is nevertheless the most practical, the most imitable, the most fruitful, the only one fruitful in imitators and disciples. It proposes itself for imitation to all men, to the child and the aged man, to the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich, to the beginner as much as to him who has long persevered. It seems made for each one in particular. It adapts itself to all, and reforms all; it is perfection for all!

Who does not discern here the stamp of Divinity? Can man do any thing of all this?


Finally, the last trait of the perfection of Jesus Christ; superhuman, like all the other traits, and, like all the others, peculiar to Him alone, His perfection is without excess.

Man always carries his good qualities to excess. Feeling himself weak, he prefers, from fear of failing, to exceed even in good. St. Vincent de Paul was humble, but he appears to carry to excess his low opinion of himself; St. Charles was austere, but his austerity appears alarming to us; St. Francis was poor, but his self-imposed privations are almost carried too far, etc.; human weakness pierces through the heroism of their virtues. In Jesus Christ, the good is perfectly true and genuine; nothing is extravagant; the perfection of the divine nature is made manifest, and blends itself with the real and virtuous emotions of human nature. In Him all the man appears. The God and the man are complete.

And on this account, this Model so perfect never causes any to despair; on the contrary, it is sweet, mild, and amiable; it is the reality of a virtue, both perfect and possible, proposed for imitation to mankind by a God-man, as truly man as He is God.

What a singular and marvellous fact? What a prodigy is Jesus Christ! . . . Who would not exclaim: "Behold the finger of God!"

4th. And His doctrine! And that word, which, during eighteen centuries that it has been meditated on, discussed, attacked, dissected by every variety of knowledge, by the most profound geniuses, has excited all kinds of hatred, been applied to communities, nations, individuals, has never been convicted of error! "It ever remains the light of the world;" and each attempt to destroy it does but verify what the Master predicted. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

Wherever this doctrine is known, it penetrates civilization, moral and intellectual life, progress, enlightenment; where it does not reign, and in proportion as it is less and less known, degradation, lethargy, barbarism, death, mark its absence.

It is this doctrine, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has founded our modern society; which has become the guide, the directing torch of human reason and philosophy; and whether voluntarily or involuntarily, it is with the very means that Jesus Christ has given them, that unbelieving Christians argue against Him.

"Never man," said the Jews, "spake as did this man!" Open the gospel, in fact. What unheard-of power! What authority! What calmness! What celestial simplicity it manifests! . . . Jesus teaches what He sees, what He knows. He does not argue; He does not seek to prove, to convince; His word is sufficient for Him; He is sure, He affirms. None but God made man, and speaking to men, can use such language.

Furthermore, the word of Jesus Christ proves its own divine origin, for it unceasingly affirms His divinity.

He calls Himself God, the Son of God,* Christ, the Truth, the Life, the Saviour, the Messiah.

"If thou art the Christ," said the Jews to Him, "tell us." "I speak to you," He answered them, "and you do not believe Me. The miracles that I do in the name of My Father bear witness of Me. I and My Father are one." They desired to stone Him, instead of believing these words: "Why would you stone Me?" said Jesus to them.

"Because of Thy blasphemy, and because, being man, Thou makest Thyself God."

The woman of Samaria spoke to Him of Christ, the Redeemer, who should save mankind, and teach them all truth. "I am He," said He to her, "I who speak to thee."

Another time He is teaching the assembled crowd: "As the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom He will . . . that all men may honor the Son, as they honor the Father. He who honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father who hath sent Him." (John v. 21.)

"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all who believe in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life . . . God sent His Son into the world, that the world might be saved by Him."

"He who believes in Him shall not be condemned, but he who believes not is already judged, because he does not believe in the only begotten Son of God."

He has just healed the man born blind; the latter, driven from the synagogues by the Pharisees, because he declared that his benefactor was at least a prophet, finds Him, and throws himself at His feet. "Do you believe in the Son of God?" Jesus asks him. "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" "Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee." And the poor man answers, "I believe, Lord!" and, prostrating himself, he adores Him.

Is this enough, or will you hear more?

"Abraham, your father," said He to the Jews, "rejoiced to see my day, he saw it, and was glad."

The Jews answered, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?"*

Jesus said to them, "Before Abraham was, I am."

To the sister of Lazarus, who comes to beseech Him to raise her brother to life, He saith: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me shall live, even after death. And whosoever lives in Me and believes in Me, shall not die eternally. Do you believe?" "Yes, Lord," answers the faithful Martha; "I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, who art come into the world."

And a short time afterward, when He had come before the already putrid corpse of Lazarus, he adds these divine words, "My Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me, and I know that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the people who stand about have I said it: that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me."

And He cried aloud, "Lazarus, come forth!" And the dead arose, yet bound — face, hands and feet — with the cerements of the grave! . . .

One might cite the whole of the gospels. Read, above all, the ineffable discourse before the Last Supper (St. John, xiv. 6th and following verses), "I am," said He, "the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by Me. If you had known Me, you would, without doubt, have known My Father also. He that seeth Me seeth the Father also."

"Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do; that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If any one love Me, he will keep my word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him."

Even upon the cross, Jesus Christ affirms that He is God, and speaks as God. The good thief, crucified beside Him, enlightened by faith, exclaims: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." "This day," Jesus answers, "thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."

Finally — for I must limit myself — the unbelieving Thomas sees Him, and touches Him after the resurrection; convinced by this evidence, he falls at His feet, and exclaims, "My Lord and my God!" Far from blaming him for this expression, Jesus approves of it: "Because thou hast seen, Thomas," said He to him, "thou hast believed. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed!"

Mark what language! what a manner of acting! what omnipotence! How He causes Himself to be called God! How He has the tone and the accent of God! How He claims the right of divinity, faith, adoration, prayer, love, sacrifice!

Now, the inference to be drawn from all this is very simple, either Jesus Christ speaks the truth, or that which is not the truth. There is no medium here.

1st. If He speaks the truth, He is what He calls Himself, He is God. He is the eternal Son of the living God, blessed from all ages, and all His words, His actions, His miracles, His triumphs, are easily explained. Nothing is impossible to a God.

2d. If He does not speak the truth, He is either a madman or an impostor (a blasphemy I hardly dare write, though it be to confound it).

A madman, if He has not the conscious control of His own words and actions — a detestable impostor, if he utters falsehood with a knowledge of what he is doing.

Will you dare to say this? Jesus Christ, the perfection of wisdom, a madman!!! Jesus Christ, the most virtuous, the most holy of men, a liar, a sacrilegious impostor!!!

One must have lost his reason, and his moral sense, to put forth such insanity.

Then he is God.

Jesus Christ stands before human reason, as He stood before Caiaphas on the day of His Passion. "I adjure thee," said the high priest to Him, "in the name of the living God, to tell us if Thou art the Christ, the Son of God?" Jesus answered, "Thou hast said it. I am He."

Either one must believe or disbelieve this affirmation; there is no medium possible.

Either one must admit Jesus Christ in the most unqualified manner, or reject Him entirely. "Whoever is not for Him is against Him," whosoever does not adore Him, cannot, without being foolish and inconsistent, praise, admire, or laud Him as a wise or great Man, or as a Saint.

"But, perhaps," some one will say, "He only called Himself God to advance His doctrines with greater readiness?"
The difficulty remains entire; because no intention, however good, could possibly excuse such a huge and continuous imposture, and one would be obliged no less to conclude that the whole life of Jesus Christ, having been the affirmation of His divinity, was nothing but a tissue of madness and blasphemies.

But apart from this reason, the supposition is absolutely inadmissible. In fact:

Such a fiction, in the first place, would have destroyed His whole work, and annihilated all His doctrines. Jesus Christ has but one end in view, that of destroying idolatry, and re-establishing the universal reign of truth; by truth to restore virtue and holiness on earth; render to God that which belongs to God alone, the heart of man, his faith, his self-devotion, his love. With this thought, could He, unless He were really God, assume the divine title and claim its rights, without ruining fundamentally His whole design?
This pretended means, designed to support His doctrines, would precisely have been their greatest foe.

The impossible part, humanly speaking, of the preaching of Jesus Christ and of His apostles, was chiefly the inducing the nations to admit the divinity of that Jesus, poor, humiliated, a Man of sorrows, who died on a cross. Is it not this which is the most repugnant to reason in the Christian teaching? Is not this precisely the stumbling-block of the unbeliever? And is it such a means that Jesus Christ would have chosen to insure the adoption of His religion? But that would have been the height of folly! How strange a bait is that which terrifies a hundred times more than the hook itself!

The divinity of Jesus Christ once admitted, I conceive that it becomes a powerful means of inducing belief in His doctrines. But how could this hypothesis have been generally admitted? and how, without some evident and irresistible manifestation of divine omnipotence, could Jesus Christ have been regarded as God!

It would not require the period of two thousand years for the wise and learned ones of the world to expose and confound an impostor, and to impose perpetual silence on his followers. But no genius has ever brought forth any accepted proof that Jesus Christ was an Impostor.

Abraham Lincoln once very wisely said: "You can fool some people all the time, and you can fool all the people sometimes, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Even Josephus, the Jewish Historian, pays the following beautiful tribute to the divinity of Christ: "Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." — The Works of Flavius Josephus, page 364.

No, no; I repeat it; in the presence of the superhuman character of Jesus Christ, in the presence of His words, His affirmations, His actions, and of His work, which is Christianity, there is for a reasonable and sincere man but one course to adopt; it is to fall at His feet, and adore the infinite love of a God, who has so loved the world that He has given to it His only Son, and to exclaim with St. Thomas in his regenerated faith, "My Lord and my God! Dominus meus et deus meus!"

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


TWENTIETH OBJECTION. IT IS BETTER TO BE A PROTESTANT THAN A CATHOLIC; ONE IS JUST AS MUCH A CHRISTIAN, AND IT IS NEARLY THE SAME THING.

Answer. Yes, nearly; just as it is nearly the same thing for one person to say that two and two make four, and for another to say two and two make five; but it is not quite the same thing, as you will see in the result of long banking accounts. As mathematical truths must be exact in principle, and cannot contradict each other, so religious truths, the teachings of divine faith, the conditions of gaining heaven, must be one in principle, and not contradictory. "One body and one Spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism." (Ephes. iv. 4.)

It is an easy matter for you to learn that there is and can be only one true religion. We have proved that this one true religion is the Catholic religion established by Jesus Christ.

Now, what the Catholic Church affirms, the Protestant denies.

The Catholic has, for his rule of faith, the infallible teaching of the Church. The Protestant rejects the Church, despises Her authority, and acknowledges only the Bible, which he interprets as he can, and as he likes.

The Catholic derives a Christian life from the seven Sacraments of the Church, and maintains it principally by means of the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. The Protestant does not recognize those sacraments; he has preserved only baptism, and even of that he has altered the notion.*

The Catholic adores, in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ, who is really present in it. The Protestant sees in it only an empty symbol, a fragment of bread.

The Catholic venerates, invokes, and loves the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, made man. The Protestant shows an invincible indifference to her, which is often pushed even to hatred and scorn.

The Catholic venerates, in the Pope, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the head of the faithful, their supreme pastor, and the infallible Doctor of the law of God. The Protestant sees in him only the Antichrist, the vicar of Satan, and the enemy of truth, etc., etc., etc.

Protestantism is to Catholicism what no is to yes, and that too in the fundamental points of religion. But for this discordance, however, they are precisely the same thing, are they?

"It is better," you said, "to be a Protestant than a Catholic." No. For that only is best, or, rather, that only is good, which is true. The rest is worth nothing.

Start, then, from this evident principle. There is no medium between truth and error. That which is not true is false, and that which is not false is true.

In religion, this principle is still more important than in any other matter. There is only one true religion; we have seen this, and it is the religion of Jesus Christ, which embraces all ages, all nations, all men, and which, for this reason, has always been called Catholic or universal.

The Protestant sects are not this one Catholic religion of Jesus Christ; the name itself shows it: protestant; consequently, theirs is not the true religion; it is an error, a protest, a corruption of Christianity. This of itself would be sufficient to condemn Protestantism. But let us examine still further.

Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, is the only Master of Christianity. No one has ever denied it. "I am the way, the truth and the life."

No man has then the right of teaching or preaching this religion, if he is not charged to do so by Jesus Christ. "How shall they preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. x. 15.)

Suppose I were to say to you: "My friend, you are a Christian. The Christian religion teaches you such and such doctrines, imposes upon you such and such duties! Well! I have come to reform all that. Instead of believing, as you have hitherto done, believe what I teach you; I release you from such and such of your duties which are irksome, I permit you to do what your religion forbids," etc.

You would certainly reply: "But who are you, to do that? My religion has but one master, Jesus Christ. Is it he who has sent you? When, and in what manner? Prove to me your divine mission."

Well, when M. Chatel, Michael Vintras, and Company, in our own times, and Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Henry VIII., three hundred years ago, set themselves up as Reformers of the Christian Religion, this objection, suggested by the most ordinary common sense, might have arrested them at the first step.

Many persons have addressed these questions to them; they have never been able to answer them; and the evil passions of humanity have alone caused their new religion to be received.

"The principles of the Reformation are things to be repented of with tears and ashes." This interesting statement comes not from a Catholic, but from a member of the Anglican Church — Lord Halifax.

It is, then, only those whom Jesus Christ has sent, who are entitled to teach His religion. But these envoys of heaven, these doctors, the only lawful doctors of religion, these lawful pastors of Christian nations, who are they? How can they be recognized? By means of two very simple observations.

The first is a great historical fact, so self-evident, that candid Protestants do not even think of denying it, it is this: that the Pope, the actual Bishop of Rome, is the Head of the Catholic Religion, and that he is descended by an uninterrupted succession of Pontiffs from the Apostle Saint Peter; that from all ages Catholic Bishops have been regarded as the successors of the Apostles.

The second, is the explanation of this fact by the mere reading of those passages in the Gospel where our Lord Jesus Christ gives to His Apostles, and to them alone, the sacred mission to preach His religion to all mankind, and chooses among the apostles themselves, Saint Peter, to be the Head of the whole Church, the bond of unity between the pastors and the faithful, the immutable foundation of the living edifice that He should raise up.

What, I ask, can be more clear, more solemn than this pastoral and doctrinal mission of the apostles? "Receive the Holy Ghost," said the Son of God to them; "as My Father has sent Me, so send I you. Go, teach all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Preach the Gospel to all men." "Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of all ages. He who hears you hears Me, and he who despises you despises Me."*

And do not these words also of the Lord to St. Peter, bear their evidence with them?

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."† By these words, according to the belief of all Christian ages, was St. Peter established by Jesus Christ as Head, immutable foundation-stone, infallible doctor, and pastor of His whole Church and of all His disciples.

It is hardly necessary to argue on these words, so clear and obvious is their meaning.

1. There is a Christian Church, since Jesus Christ said: My Church.

2. There is but one Church; for He does not say: My Churches, but My Church.

3. And among all those Churches which call themselves the one only Church, which is the true, the only true one? That founded on St. Peter, governed by St. Peter, taught by St. Peter, who still lives in his successor; and therefore, the Roman Catholic Church, of which the Pope, St. Peter's successor, is the Pontiff and the Head, is that Church.

What is simpler than this mode of reasoning? It once proved powerful enough to convince a Protestant, to whom I suggested it (and who became a Catholic that very day), it also effected the conversion of a Russian lady, a schismatic.

On the point of ascending to heaven, the Saviour insisted anew, and confirmed what he had given to St. Peter, saying to him: "Feed My lambs; feed My sheep." (St. John, last chapter.)

It is, then, to the Pope and the Bishops, the actual Pastors of the Catholic Church, who alone trace their origin in unbroken succession from St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and to the Apostles, that these great promises of Jesus Christ are addressed; it is to them alone that the mission of teaching, preaching, and preserving religion was given; it is they, and they alone, who are the legitimate pastors of Christian nations. With them, and with them alone, Jesus Christ will be to the end of all ages, to keep them free from all error in their teaching, and from all defect in the sanctification of souls.*

It is, then, by submitting to their authority, and in attending to their teaching, that I am certain of knowing and practicing the true Christian Religion.

And here take notice of the immense advantages of that clear, infallible, divine path of authority, in which the Catholic Church invites us to walk. How easy it is for a Catholic to know, with absolute certainty, what he ought to believe, what he ought to avoid, so as to be a good Christian! He has but to hearken to the priest, sent by his Bishop, who is in communion with the Pope, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, His visible substitute on earth, by whom He teaches, and by whom He decides in a sovereign manner what we must believe, do and avoid.

How beautiful and how simple is this! Remark, too, what perfect unity flows from this authority! Everywhere the same faith, the same doctrine; in Rome, in Paris, in China, in Asia, Africa, America, everywhere the same real religious teaching, that of the Vicar of Jesus Christ Himself! Everywhere the same Priesthood, of which the Pope is the visible, and Jesus Christ the invisible Head! Everywhere the same sacrifice, the same worship, the same sacraments, the same means of sanctification and of salvation.

This unity is so much the more beautiful and superhuman, that the Christian community governed by the Pope (and it alone) extends all over the earth.

There are Catholics everywhere. Their very name indicates this fact (it was the remark of St. Augustine, fifteen hundred years ago Catholic means universal. The Catholic Church embraces all ages, all countries, all nations. And the last judgment will be, as our Lord Jesus Christ declared, when the Catholic Church shall have preached the gospel to all the nations of the earth.*

Wherever the Catholic Church prevails, she shows forth Christian sanctity. She produces invariably, and in all places, the most sublime perfection in those who receive her teaching with docility. She is the mother of the saints. She has not ceased to give birth to them during nineteen centuries, nor to behold Jesus Christ, her God and Founder, confirming by miracles the sanctity of His servants.†

Protestantism, on the contrary (as the name alone causes us to anticipate), is a disorganization of all this order and harmony, under the pretext of reform. There is revolt in the very name.

Split into a thousand petty sects, who mutually anathematize each other, and who agree only in their common hatred to the ancient Church: Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Anabaptists, Pedobaptists, Moravians, Evangelicals, Anglicans, Quakers, Pietists, Methodists, Jumpers, Shakers, etc. (there are more than six hundred of these sects), Protestantism is nothing but religious anarchy.

It has attacked Christianity even in its essence and constitution. It has rejected the fundamental rule of faith, which is the infallible teaching and the divine authority of the Pope and the Bishops, the only lawful pastors and doctors. And thus, while talking loudly of faith, it has destroyed faith, that is to say the submission of the mind and heart to divine teaching. The Protestant, in fact, believes only his own interpretation of the Word of God; he makes himself the judge in controversies, in the stead of those whom Jesus Christ instituted as judges; he believes in his reason, not in the word of God, which he reads in the Bible; he has no real belief, he has only opinions, as liable to change as himself, and he no longer believes anything but his own opinions. Thus are there as many religions as there are heads among Protestants. And even every head may alter its religion every day. I know a very respectable Protestant family, consisting of four persons, where each one is of a different religion!!!

For this reason, Protestantism is tossed about with every wind of doctrine, changes every year, every day, the symbol of its faith. It rejects to-day what it taught yesterday; it has neither unity, antiquity, universality, nor stability.

I defy any Protestant to tell me plainly what is truth, and what the world ought to believe, under pain of being considered out of the road of Christian truth.

"You differ," said Tertullian once to Montan, "therefore you err."

Protestantism produces virtues, because it has preserved some vestiges of truth amidst the destruction it made; but these virtues bear the mark of this mixture of truth and error. They are almost always cold and proud, like those of the Pharisees. They exist, in spite of Protestantism. In reality they are Catholic, they belong to the Church. The more Protestants are Protestants, the less have they of real Christian virtues; the nearer they resemble us, the more real and living are their virtues. It has been said with justice of Protestant England, that of all the sects she was "the least deformed, because she was the least reformed."*

Protestantism rejects all that is consoling, tender, and affectionate in religion; the holy presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of His love for us; the tribunal of mercy and pardon, the love and invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that gentle mother of the Saviour whom He gave us for a Mother at the hour of His death; the invocation of the Saints, our elder brethren, our friends, already entered into that land, whither they call us, and where they await our coming, etc.

It has no religious worship, properly so-called, for one could not give that name to that which passes in the great bare room which they call their Church.

Have you ever been into one of these? One might fancy, at first, that these are assemblies filled with the spirit of religion. But only look closer; there is not the real Presence of God, there; His love, above all, is not felt. . . . One remembers that the Pharisees were more regular than the others in frequenting the synagogues!

The fundamental vice of Protestantism is revolt, pride.

It is, besides, sterile in saints. It has never produced one real sister of charity, that is to say, one humble and loving servant of God and of His poor. Its zeal is fanatical, its fervent adherents are visionaries, vague mystics, who believe themselves filled with the Holy Spirit, and to whom this supposed Spirit often reveals very strange things.

Its missionaries are Bible distributers. . . . Only compare them to the apostles, or to our Catholic missionaries, heirs of the zeal, charity, hardships, and sufferings of the apostles, as they are heirs of their faith! What a difference!

Its ministers preach without having a mission. They are gentlemen, dressed in black, and preaching a moral anodyne which may be thus summed up: "Read the Bible, and do as you think right, always provided you do not become Catholics."

What is their right to teach others? Some of them own that they are nothing but ordinary men, as all Christian men are priests, and according to some, all Christian women also. . . . By what authority do they come and interpret the Word of God to their brethren? Are they infallible? Since all Christian religion is comprised in the reading of the Bible, why do they mix up their human language in the matter?

These men with wives are no longer the men of God, the Church's bridegrooms, the men of devotion, sacrifice, charity, chastity, perfection. . . .

Thus — to sum up — opposed to the express words of Jesus Christ; opposed to the historical tradition of all past ages; opposed to the idea of fixity, unity, perfection, inseparable from the work of a God — the Protestant sects, born, even the oldest, about three hundred years back, the newest composed, altered, augmented, and restored under our own eyes, in this age — are not, and cannot be that one, holy, universal, community, or Church, of the disciples of Jesus Christ, established and constituted nineteen hundred years ago, by the apostles of that Divine Master.

I could yet add other proofs; I might show the absolute impossibility of proving the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of the Gospels, without the infallible authority of the Church; I might point out the absurdities which Protestants are obliged to accept when they are logical, and desire to remain true to their principles; the hidden, but consequent connection existing between Protestant principles and the anarchical doctrines of revolutionists, etc. What I have said, however, is quite sufficient.*

To be a Christian, then, it is not enough to believe that Jesus Christ is God, but we must also believe all that He has revealed to us.

Therefore, to be a Christian and a Catholic, is to be one and the same thing.

Therefore, out of the Catholic Church, there is no real Christianity, and as St. Cyprian, bishop and martyr, proclaimed seventeen hundred years ago: "None can have God for his Father, who will not have the Church for Mother."

Therefore, a Protestant who knows the true Church, the Roman Catholic Church, governed by the Pope, is obliged to return to it under pain of losing his own soul. In religion, more than in any thing else, we are bound to quit error as soon as we recognize it, and adhere to truth.

Therefore, finally, it is no more true to say, "I may be a Catholic, a Protestant, a Schismatic, without ceasing to be a Christian," than to say, "I may be a Turk, heathen, Jew, or Christian, without ceasing to belong to the true religion."*