Volume 5 — Translated from Paris l'Union. Christianity And Social Happiness.

It is the fate of illustrious men to reproduce the tendencies of the age in which they live—whether for good or evil. Thus, the study of characters, that the engraver of fame has impressed on the memory of humanity, leads frequently to a knowledge of the age to which they belonged, and from this knowledge much that is useful can be elicited.

A man has lived among us, whose noble character, generous aspirations, illusions even, or exaggerations, are reflected in his contemporaries. Lacordaire is France of the nineteenth century, and the thought that germinated in the soul of the celebrated Dominican, and until his time awaited its development, borne down by the weight of intellectual ruin which the school of Voltaire had amassed, this thought harmonizes so well with the genius of the day, and with its research, that it seems impossible not to recognize the ray of light destined to dissipate for ever the shadows of doubt and unbelief, which lead astray and weaken the life of our generation.

"I have attained to my catholic belief," writes Lacordaire, "through my social beliefs, and today nothing appears plainer to me than such a consequence. Society is necessary, therefore the Christian religion is divine; for it is the means of leading society to perfection by accepting man with all his weaknesses, and social order with its every condition."

Such words cannot be too deeply considered; and the truths that they express are in such close affinity with the tendencies of our time that it is easy and profitable to meditate upon them. We wish for the happiness of the masses, social prosperity, and the advancement of civilization; therefore, we wish for Christianity. Humanity is called upon to peaceably develop its strength, while releasing itself from the bonds of the monster called pauperism, with whom physical misery is only the clothing of moral. Therefore humanity is called upon to germinate in a reviving sun all Christian teachings.

Do you wish for facts? You are children of an age that acts only by experience. Well, then, light the torch of history, and, throwing its rays over the annals of the world, read the observations spread before your eyes, and compare the actual state of an ancient and modern people. In instructing and bringing man to a sense of his greatness and duty, who has raised and elevated social relations? Who has broken the chains of pagan slavery? Who has sown the seed of all intellectual and moral virtue in those vast regions that barbarian night had enveloped? Who, then, has given servants to weakness, to suffering, to the disinherited by fortune, to all those that grief had touched with an unpitying hand? Who has founded large schools, asylums of science and art; great centres from which have parted in radiating those who, by gigantic works, accomplished under the observation of astonished generations, have merited the appellation of the Cultivators of Europe? Who has done all these things, if not the church, that is to say, Christianity teaching, directing, and moralizing humanity?

Christianity, then, not only elevates man to a moral grandeur unknown to pagan nations, but through its influence society exists in a material prosperity to which Greece and Rome never attained. Profane history shows us a few privileged ones, satiated, we may say, with riches, but beneath and around them, we see only a servile mass vegetating in degrading misery. What a difference, say we, with a modern wise economist, M. Perin, professor in the university or Louvain—what a difference in the riches of the sun between the Roman empire in its happiest time and contemporary Europe! What difference in products, in the multiplicity and rapidity of communication, in the cheapness of transportation, and in the extent of relations which to-day embrace the entire world!

What a difference, again, in the financial resources of states, in their armies, in their material. What a difference and what superiority on the side of modern nations, not only in that which constitutes their individual happiness, but in that which makes the material power of nations and their true force. What superiority especially in the mass of wealth destined for the consumption of a people. Time, since the thirteenth century, has rolled on in the full power of Christian civilization, and has evidenced a period of prosperity which has had no equal in history. These are the facts. But science does not stop at facts. Its mission is to investigate by labor of which it only has the secret and the glorious trouble, the why as well as the end of things.

Science is the knowledge of objects of observation studied by their causes: cognitio rerum per causas. We ask of it, therefore, the reason of the marvellous power we have just proved in Christianity; and in order not to extend our investigations, we will content ourselves by seeking with it how material prosperity and the wealth of nations come from a religion which preaches the doctrine of renunciation.

The reason of the prosperity of nations truly Christian is, it seems to us, evident. We find them practising generally the virtues of which Christianity is the apostle and propagator. Economists will tell, you without capital, that is to say, without expenditure with the view of reproduction, there can be no social riches. But is this expenditure compatible with vice, that never has enough to satisfy its brutal appetites?

Virtue, then, is the source of social ease, and in it only the remedy for pauperism. "If you do not give a people virtue, the only serious guarantee of present expenditure and future capital, you can never entirely defend it against an invasion of misery. In vain you may accumulate well-being and ease around the domestic hearth; in vain make and increase capital from growing wealth, if you do not accumulate a capital conservative of all other, that of virtue." We are happy to quote these beautiful words, only a few days since fallen from the pulpit of Notre Dame.

Just now we pronounced the word renunciation. Well, it is necessary that all understand that Christian self-denial is a dispensing force, the results of which are incalculable. It elevates the poor man beyond discouragement, and preserves for him the energy with which he diminishes the privations of his family. To him it comes to destroy the individuality which absorbs the opulence of the rich. To him it leads the beneficent current of fortune, which flows from those who have toward those who have not. To him, at last, it brings riches in every way, since under its mild influence each one profits by its thousand sacrifices, although he individually may make none. Let us be permitted to borrow some lines from the beautiful book of M. Périn, De la Richesse dans les Sociétés Chrétiennes:

"Follow the course of ages," said this wise economist, "and you will ever find Christianity accomplish through the virtue of self-denial the work of each epoch, forcing humanity toward progress, and even saving it from the perils of success. Run through the society of to-day, and in every degree of civilization that a contemporary world presents us, in the same picture and at a single glance, and in the varied phases that pervade our different societies, you will find Christianity proportion its action to circumstances; you will find it endeavoring to impress all countries and races with the salutary impulse for progress by the power of self-denial, while it is ever the same in principle, and ever infinitely varied in its applications and fertile in its effects."

Self-denial! Yes, it is this which gives Christian souls that holy love of work which is the productive element of social riches. To make a sacrifice of one's repose to God, while bending under the yoke of painful labor, is the joy of the Scripture disciple. He wishes for such joy, he loves it, and it was to obtain it that the children of Saint Benedict have sown its seed in the uncultivated deserts of the old Europe or under the murderous sun of Africa.

At the time of its decay and corruption Rome, it is said, was at the same time lazy and servile. But, even in the days of its grandeur, can we believe that labor showed itself to the eyes of the Roman people transfigured by that aureole which gives it incomparable beauty, so grand that one loves it with a love which might seem folly if it were not supreme wisdom? Such a sentiment can only be born with the doctrine of renunciation and the thought of the Saviour. "To re-establish labor and the condition of the workman, it was necessary that Christ, making himself a laborer, should wield with his own royal and divine hands, in the workshop of Nazareth, the axe and the tools of the carpenter."

These words, which we borrow from a course of political economy, delivered with so much eloquence to the Faculté de Droit de Caen, by M. Alexandre Carel, finish by exemplifying how labor, and, by consequence, the wealth of society, owes so much to Christianity.

The limits of an article do not permit us to develop further the ideas necessary to understand all its power and truth. We can only resume them in saying:

To occupy one's self with social and political studies is to follow the impulse that our age impresses on intelligence. To find the condition necessary for the well-being of society, of which we form a part, would be from the point of view of contemporary aspirations one of the finest victories that the public mind could carry with it, one of the greatest satisfactions that the heart can obtain. Well! may our eyes open at last. Let us learn to see that, without neglecting secondary means, it is necessary, to attain the end desired, to christianize the people.

Christianity with its virtues, its doctrine of self-renunciation, its labor transfigured by freedom and love, behold the agent, and the only one capable of producing the prosperity with which we would wish to endow nations. Let us understand these things, and we shall march with success to the conquest of social happiness. But we shall do better still. Penetrating the harmonious connection that unites effects to causes, we shall ask of it the secret of the superhuman power that escapes from it by submission to the Scripture; and soon we can repeat again the conviction of Lacordaire: "Christianity is the means of leading society to its perfection, by accepting man with all his weaknesses, and social order with its even condition. Society is necessary; therefore the Christian religion is divine."