Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/481



CHRIST OUR REDEEMER. 475

not shall he condemned} How little that kind of virtue which despises faith avails in the end, and what sort of fruit it brings forth, we see only too plainly.

Why is it that with so much zeal displayed for estab- lishing and augmenting the commonwealth, nations still have to labor and yet in so many and such important matters fare worse and worse every day? They say indeed that ci\al society is self-dependent, that it can go on happily ^jvithout the protection of Christian institutions, that by its own unaided energies it can reach its goal. Hence they prefer to have public affairs conducted on a secular basis, so that in civil discipline and public life there are always fewer and fewer traces discernible of the old religious spirit. They do not see what they are doing. Take away the supremacy of God, who judges right and wrong; and law necessarily loses its paramount authority, while at the same time justice is undermined, these two being the strongest and most essential bonds of social union. In the same way, when the hope and expectation of immortality are gone, it is only human to seek greedily after perishable things, and every one will try, in proportion to his power, to clutch a larger share of them. Hence spring, jealousies, envies, hatreds; the most iniquitous plots to overthrow all power and mad schemes of universal ruin are formed. There is no peace abroad, nor security at home, and social life is made hideous by crime.

In such strife of passions, in such impending perils, we must either look for utter ruin, or some effective remedy must be found -without delay. To restrain e^dl-doers, to soften the manners of our populations, to deter them from committing crimes by legislative intervention, is right and necessary; but that is by no means all. The healing of the nations goes deeper; a mightier influence must be invoked than hmnan endeavor, one that may touch the conscience and reawaken the sense of duty,

1 Mark xvi. 16.