Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

172 THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IN HISTORY.we may suppose, of this was the sight of heathenismbefore them with all its impurities and itsimpotence to produce good. So they were noteven tempted to that naturalism which is the besettingsin of our age and these countries. Itwould have seemed to them not only an ingratitudebut an absurdity to refer to the inborn forceof humanity a change equally of the intellect andof the will which they saw to belong only to thepower of Christ revealed in His Church. Wewill cite one such passage as a conclusion to thisdiscussion, and because it represents the wholetrain of thought which we have been drawingout. 41" Of this sacrament, this sacrifice, this priest "this God, before, having been made of a womanHe entered on His mission, all sacred and mystical,angelic and miraculous appearances to ourfathers, as well as their own deeds, were resemblances,in order that every creature might in amanner by its acts speak of that One destined tocome, in whom should be the salvation of all thatwere to be restored from death. For as we hadstarted away from the one true supreme God bythe injustice of impiety, and fallen out of harmonywith Him, and become unstable as water,and wasted ourselves on a multitude of vanities.rent in pieces, and hanging in tatters to everypiece, need was there that by the will and com-41 S. Aug. de Trin. iv. 11,12, m