Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/573



REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 567

portion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the states and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is incarnate. It identifies itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the mystical body of Jesus Christ and which has for its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Sa\aour, the daughter and the heiress of His redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of its blood, and strong in the divine assistance and of that immortality which have been promised it, it makes no terms with error, but remains faithful to the commands which it has re- ceived to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the utter- most limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispen- ser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and redeemer of souls, but it is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In apply- ing the doctrine of its divine Founder, it maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and pri\dleges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself de- mands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emanci- pated from faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Nor does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere