ideas and images that each nation could best understand. It did not come to change the outward part of man, the material world; it taught him to despise this outward part, and was only concerned with his inner self. We read in a very ancient apocryphal book, " Let not the strong man boast of his strength, nor the rich man of his riches; but let him who will be glorified glorify himself in the Lord."[1] Strength, riches, worldly power, and the way of ambition—all these have no meaning for our law. No civilization whatever has excited its envy or contempt; and because of this rare impartiality, and the consequences that were to flow from it, the law could rightly call itself "Catholic," or universal. It does not belong exclusively to any civilization. It did not come to bless any one form of earthly existence; it rejects none, and would purify all.
The canonical books, the writings of the Fathers, the stories of the missionaries of all ages, are filled with proofs of this indifference to the outward forms of social life, and to social life itself. Provided that a man believes, and that none of his daily actions tend to transgress the ordinances of religion, nothing else matters. Of what importance is the shape of a Christian's house, the cut and material of his clothes, his system of government, the measure of tyranny or liberty in his public institutions? He may be a fisherman, a hunter, a ploughman, a sailor, a soldier — whatever you like. In all these different employments is there anything to prevent a man—to whatever nation he belong, English, Turkish, Siberian, American, Hottentot—from receiving the light of the Christian faith? Absolutely nothing; and when this result is attained, the rest counts for very little. The savage Galla can remain a Galla, and yet become as staunch a believer, as pure a " vessel of election," as the holiest prelate in Europe. It is here that Christianity shows its striking superiority to other religions, in its peculiar quality of grace. We must not take this away, in deference to a favourite idea of modern Europe, that something of material utility must be found everywhere, even in the holiest things.
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- ↑ Apocryphal Gospels: "The Story of Joseph the Carpenter," chap. i.
