Curse upon me a sinner! cries
on every hand and in every tongue the conscience of the human
race. V{ae} nobis quia peccavimus! Religion, in giving this
idea concrete and dramatic form, has indeed gone back of history
and beyond the limits of the world for that which is essential
and immanent in our soul; this, on its part, was but an
intellectual mirage; it was not mistaken as to the essentiality
and permanence of the fact. Now, it is this fact for which we
have to account, and it is also from this point of view that we
are to interpret the dogma of original sin.
All peoples have had their expiatory customs, their penitential
sacrifices, their repressive and penal institutions, born of the
horror and regret of sin. Catholicism, which built a theory
wherever social spontaneity had expressed an idea or deposited a
hope, converted into a sacrament the at once symbolic and
effective ceremony by which the sinner expressed his repentance,
asked pardon of God and men for his fault, and prepared himself
for a better life.
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