Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/493



CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY. 487

clared that He would take special account of the charity men exercised towards each other. And in that discourse there is one thing that especially excites our surprise, viz.: that Christ omits those works of mercy which comfort the soul and refers only to external works which, although done in behalf of men, He regards as being done to Himself. For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; naked and you covered Me; sick and you visited Me; I was in -prison and you came to Me}

To the teachings which enjoin the twofold charity of spiritual and corporal works, Christ adds His own example so that no one may fail to recognize the importance which He attaches to it. In the present instance we recall the sweet words that came from His paternal heart: 7 have pity on the multitude,^ as well as the desire He had to assist them even if it were necessary to invoke His miraculous power. Of His tender compassion we have the proclamation made in Holy Writ, viz.: that He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil .^ This law of charity which He imposed upon His apostles, they in the most holy and zealous way put into practice; and after them those who embraced Christianity originated that wonderful variety of institutions for aleviating all the miseries by which mankind is afflicted. And these institutions carried on and continually increased their powers of relief and were the especial glories of Christianity and of the civilization of which it was the source, so that right-minded men never fail to admire those foundations, aware as they are of the proneness of men to concern themselves about their own and neglect the needs of others.

Nor are we to eliminate from the list of good works the giving of money for charity, in pursuance of what Christ has said: But yet that which remaineth, give alms*

'Matt. XXV. 35. ^ Acts x. 38.

2 Mark vii. 2. *Luke xi. 41.