Page:Catholic Thoughts on the Bible and Theology.djvu/27



rulers, a certain modified idolatry was publicly tolerated, and that never until their captivity did they cease to conceive of the Unity of as only relating to the Lord their, or to believe in the real existence of other Gods for other nations, though inferior and subject to their own supreme.

And even the highest Revelation ever given on earth did not profess to undertake to promulgate all possible Truth and Duty, or to correct all the wrong opinions and practices which existed, or might exist, among mankind. There are several social evils, some individual sins, which are not rebuked even in the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour : and there are many private and public virtues which are not exhibited or enforced. Even the Christian teaching apparently proposed only to illuminate for all men their most important relations and duties by the enunciation of germinant Ideas and Principles, and then to allow a gradually clearer perception of these, and obedience to them, to work out the necessarily consequent Rules for the improvement of the moral and intellectual habits of the race.

But then if these things be admitted-if Revelation be thus Indirect and Progressive and Accommodative, and thus some portions of it may become superseded by others, or be only incidentally and inferentially instructive-let it be well understood that it by no means follows that any portion has become wholly useless or unprofitable. By no means: those portions which in their primary significance and direct obligation have become obsolete for us, do not lose all their worth. The use of them only changes, it does not cease. The spiritual mind which judges all things, even the deep things of, discerns and separates between the things which differ in excellence, and applies to new uses those things which have lost their old: it makes that which was once food for the understanding now food for the heart, and that which once was looked upon as the highest privilege which might be hoped for, material to enkindle thanksgiving that we have been so prodigally blessed as that we may consider it among the things which we have to leave behind in our striving after the prize of our high