Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/303

and draw near to that majestic height which governs and commands all the elevated mysteries of Catholicism. There, we behold in all his grandeur, merciful and at the same time terrible, formidable and most gentle, Him who was to come, and who came, and who by his coming drew all things unto him, and united all things with him in strongest and most loving bonds. He is the solution of all problems, the object of all prophecies, the reality of all types, the end of all dogmas, the confluence of the divine, universal, and human orders, the key of all mysteries, the explanation of all enigmas, the promised one of God, the desired of the patriarchs, the expected of nations, the father of the afflicted, he whom the choirs of nations and of angels reverence, the alpha and omega of all things.

Universal order consists in all things being harmoniously ordained with regard to that supreme end which God assigns to the universality of things; and this supreme end consists in the exterior manifestation of the divine perfections. All creatures proclaim the goodness, and magnificence, and omnipotence of God. The saints magnify his mercy, and the reprobate his justice. What creature among all the created celebrates his love in so exalted a manner as the lost do His justice, and the saved His mercy. Such being the case, is it not clearly manifest that there should arise from this universe, formed to proclaim the divine perfections, a common voice forever testifying to this crowning proof of the divine love and the divine perfections?

Human order consists in the union of man with God, and this union cannot take place in our actual condition and in our actual state of separation, without a gigantic effort to raise ourselves to God. But who can exact