Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/318

could have taught men that beyond those rugged and gigantic mountains, whose foundations are planted in the abyss, and whose summits penetrate the heavens, there extended immense and smiling plains, where the air 1s mildly tempered, the sky pure, the waters limpid and refreshing, the breezes gentle, the fields verdant, the harmonies ineffable, and the freshness perpetual? There life is a true existence which never ends, pleasure a real and unceasing delight, and love a holy and inextinguishable affection. There is found unending repose without weariness, rest without fatigue; and there all the joys of possession are mingled In an unutterable manner with the allurements of hope.

The Son of God made man, and crucified for man, is not only the realization of all perfect things as represented in the symbols, and prefigured in the types, but he 1s also the emblem and universal symbol of all perfections. The Son of God made man is both the ideal and the reality, as he is at the same time both God and man. Natural reason tells us, and the experience of each day teaches us, that in no art, whatever it may be, can man arrive at that relative perfection which he is permitted to attain, unless he have placed before him a finished model of a still higher perfection. The people of Athens could never have acquired that admirable instinct which enabled them to discern at a single glance, in the works of genius, whatever was beautiful in literature or perfect in art, and in human actions whatever was great and heroic, if they had not had their perceptions cultivated by the forms of beauty with which they were rendered familiar—such as the statues of their wonderful artists, the verses of their sublime poets, and the illustrious actions of their great captains.