Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/139

general, and was felt both in the spiritual and in the material world. When the face of God, hitherto serene and placid, became clouded with wrath, then the seraphim veiled their brightness with their wings; the ground became covered with thorns and brambles; the trees became withered; vegetation lost its freshness; the harvests were parched; the grateful waters of the fountains became malignant; the earth was covered with gloomy, impenetrable, and frightful forests, and was intercepted with rugged mountains; and there was henceforth a torrid and a frigid zone, so that the earth was consumed with heat or chilled with frost; while impetuous whirlwinds arose, covering the whole horizon, until throughout the circumference of the world raged the wild fury of the hurricane.

Man was placed, as it were, in the center of this universal disorder, which he had caused, and which became his punishment. More profoundly and radically affected than any other portion of creation, he remained exposed, without any other aid than the divine clemency, to the violence of every physical and moral evil. His life was a constant temptation and contest, his wisdom was ignorance, his will was weakness, his flesh was corruption. Each of his actions was attended with remorse, each pleasure was succeeded by sorrow or bitter grief; his cares equaled his desires, his hopes were dispelled as illusions, and his illusions were equaled by his disappointments. The past and the future alike tormented him, and even his imagination could scarcely invest his nakedness and wretchedness with some glittering ornaments of gold and purple. Yearning after the good for which he was created, he pursued the evil path upon which he had entered; though feeling the need of a God, he fell into the unfathomable abyss of superstition.