Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/174



168 THE RIGHT ORDERING OF Cf^RISTIAN LIFE.

Poisonous doctrines have corrupted both public and pri- vate life; rationalism, materialism, and atheism have begotten socialism, communism, and njhilism â€” fatal and pestilential evils, which naturally, and almost necessarily, flow forth from such principles. In good sooth, if the Catholic religion may be rejected with imjjunity, whose divine origin is made clear by such unmistakable signs, why should not all other forms of religion be rejected, when it is clear that they have not the same evidence of truth? If the soul is by nature one with the body, and if therefore no hope of a happy eternity remains when the body dies, what reason is there why man shou)d endure toil and suffering here in the endeavor to subject the appe- tites to right reason? The highest good of man will con- sist in enjoying the comforts and pleasures of life, and since there is absolutely no one who does not by an in- stinct and impulse of nature strive after happiness, every man will naturally lay hands on all he can in the hope of living happily on the spoils of others. Nor will there be any power mighty enough to bridle passions when fullj set astir; for if the supreme and eternal law, which commands what is right and forbids what is wrong, be rejected, it follows that the power of law is thwarted, and that all authority is loosened. Hence the bonds of civil society will be utterly shattered, when every man is driven by insatiable greed to a perpetual struggle, some striving to keep what they possess, others to obtain what they covet. Such is more or less the spirit and tone of our age.

There is, nevertheless, some consolation for us, even while looking at existing evils, and we may lift up our heart in good hope. For God created all things that they might be: and He made the nations of the earth for health} But as all this world cannot be upheld save by the will and providence of Him who called it out of nothing, so also can men be healed only by the power of Him by whose good-

Â» Wisd. i. 14.