Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/475



CHRIST OUR REDEEMER. 469

It is proper, therefore, not to look for an end of pain upon the earthy but to strengthen our inind to bear pain, which, in fact, educates us to the attainment of the greatest of all good things for which we hope. For it is not to wealth and luxur}^, nor to worldly honors and powers that Christ has promised eternal happiness in heaven, but to patient suffering and tears, to the desire of justice and to cleanness of heart.

Hence it is easy to see what ought ultimately to be expected from the error and pride of those who, despising the supremacy of the Redeemer, give man the highest place, and hold that human nature should bear rule every- where and in every case ; although they can neither attain such control, nor even define its nature The kingdom of Jesus Christ obtains its form and virtue from divine charity; holy and pure affection is its foundation and completion. The punctual observance of our duties necessarily follows, viz., not to wrong our neighbor, to esteem the earthly less than the heavenly, to set the love of God before all else. But the reign of man, either openly rejecting Christ or neglecting Him, consists entirely in the love of self ; charity there is none, and self-immolation is ignored. Rule, indeed, man may but in Jesus Christ, and only on the condition that first of all he serves God, and religiously finds in His law the rule and discipline of life.

By the law of Christ we mean not merely the natural precepts of morality, or what supernatural knowledge the ancient world acquired, all which Jesus Christ perfected and raised to the highest plane by His explanation, inter- pretation, and ratification; but we mean, besides, all the doctrine and in particular the institutions He has left us. Of these the Church is the chief. Indeed, what institu- tion of Christ is there that she does not fully embrace and include? By the ministry of the Church, so gloriously founded by Him, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father, and having on the one hand con-