Complete. Chapter xii., Book VI., of “The Genius of Christianity.”

IT is not without a certain degree of fear that we approach the conclusion of our work. The serious reflections which induced us to undertake it, the hazardous ambition which has led us to decide, as far as lay in our power, the question respecting Christianity,—all these considerations alarm us. It is difficult to discover how far it is pleasing to the Almighty that men should presume to take into their feeble hands the vindication of his eternity, should make themselves advocates of the Creator at the tribunal of the creature, and attempt to defend by human arguments those counsels which gave birth to the universe. Not without extreme diffidence, therefore, convinced as we are of the incompetency of our talents, do we here present the general recapitulation of this work.

  Every religion has its mysteries. All nature is a secret.

  The Christian mysteries are the most sublime that can be; they are the archetypes of the system of man and of the world.

  The sacraments are moral laws, and present pictures of a highly poetical character.

  Faith is a force; charity is a love; hope is complete happiness, or, as religion expresses it, a complete virtue.

  The laws of God constitute the most perfect code of natural justice.

  The fall of our first parents is a universal tradition.

  A new proof of it may be found in the constitution of the moral man, which is contrary to the general constitution of beings.

  The prohibition to touch the fruit of knowledge was a sublime command, and the only one worthy of the Almighty.

  All the arguments which pretend to demonstrate the antiquity of the earth may be contested.

  The doctrine of the existence of a God is demonstrated by the wonders of the universe. A design of Providence is evident in the instincts of animals and in the beauty of nature.

  Morality of itself proves the immortality of the soul. Man feels a desire of happiness, and is the only creature who cannot attain it; there is consequently a felicity beyond the present life; for we cannot wish for what does not exist.

  The system of atheism is founded solely on exceptions. It is not the body that acts upon the soul, but the soul that acts upon the body. Man is not subject to the general laws of matter; he diminishes where the animal increases.

  Atheism can benefit no class of people:—neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope; nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid; nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward; nor the woman, whose beauty and sensibility it mars; nor the mother who has a son to lose; nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion.

  The punishments and rewards which Christianity holds out in another life are consistent with reason and the nature of the soul.

  In literature, characters appear more interesting and the passions more energetic under the Christian dispensation than they were under polytheism. The latter exhibited no dramatic feature, no struggles between natural desire and virtue.

  Mythology contracted nature, and for this reason the Ancients had no descriptive poetry. Christianity restores to the wilderness both its pictures and its solitudes.

  The Christian marvelous may sustain a comparison with the marvelous of fable. The Ancients founded their poetry on Homer, while the Christians found theirs on the Bible; and the beauties of the Bible surpass the beauties of Homer.

  To Christianity the fine arts owe their revival and their perfection.

  In philosophy it is not hostile to any natural truth. If it has sometimes opposed the sciences, it followed the spirit of the age and the opinions of the greatest legislators of antiquity.

  In history we should have been inferior to the Ancients but for the new character of images, reflections, and thoughts, to which Christianity had given birth. Modern eloquence furnishes the same observation.

  The relics of the fine arts, the solitude of monasteries, the charms of ruins, the pleasing superstitions of the common people, the harmonies of the heart, religion, and the desert, lead to the examination of the Christian worship.

  This worship everywhere exhibits a union of pomp and majesty with a moral design and with a prayer either affecting or sublime. Religion gives life and animation to the sepulchre. From the laborer who reposes in a rural cemetery to the king who is interred at St. Denis, the grave of the Christian is full of poetry. Job and David, reclining upon the Christian tomb, sing in their turn the sleep of death by which man awakes to eternity.

  We have seen how much the world is indebted to the clergy and to the institutions and spirit of Christianity. If Schoonbeck, Bonnani, Giustiniani, and Hélyot, had followed a better order in their laborious researches, we might have presented here a complete catalogue of the services rendered by religion to humanity. We would have commenced with a list of all the calamities incident to the soul or the body of man, and mentioned under each affliction the Christian order devoted to its relief. It is no exaggeration to assert that, whatever distress or suffering we may think of, religion has, in all probability, anticipated us and provided a remedy for it. From as accurate a calculation as we were able to make, we have obtained the following results:—

  There are computed to be on the surface of Christian Europe about 4,300 towns and villages. Of these 4,300 towns and villages, 3,294 are of the first, second, third, and fourth ranks. Allowing one hospital to each of these 3,294 places (which is far below the truth), you will have 3,294 hospitals, almost all founded by the spirit of Christianity, endowed by the church, and attended by religious orders. Supposing that, upon an average, each of these hospitals contain one hundred beds, or, if you please, fifty beds for two patients each, you will find that religion, exclusive of the immense number of the poor which she supports, has afforded daily relief and subsistence for more than a thousand years to about 329,400 persons.

  On summing up the colleges and universities, we find nearly the same results; and we may safely assert that they afford instruction to at least three hundred thousand youths in the different states of Europe.

  In this statement we have not included either the Christian hospitals and colleges in the other three quarters of the globe, or the female youth educated by nuns.

  To these results must be added the catalogue of the celebrated men produced by the church, who form nearly two-thirds of the distinguished characters of modern times. We must repeat, as we have shown, that to the church we owe the revival of the arts and sciences and of letters; that to her are due most of the great modern discoveries, as gunpowder, clocks, the mariner’s compass, and, in government, the representative system; that agriculture and commerce, the laws and political science, are under innumerable obligations to her; that her missions introduced the arts and sciences among civilized nations, and laws among savage tribes; that her institution of chivalry powerfully contributed to save Europe from an invasion of new barbarians; that to her mankind is indebted for—

  The worship of one only God.

  The more firm establishment of the belief in the existence of that Supreme Being.

  A clearer idea of the immortality of the soul, and also of a future state of rewards and punishments.

  A more enlarged and active humanity.

  A perfect virtue, which alone is equivalent to all the others—Charity.

  A political law and the law of nations, unknown to the Ancients, and, above all, the abolition of slavery.

  Who is there but must be convinced of the beauty and the grandeur of Christianity? Who but must be overwhelmed with this stupendous mass of benefits?