Ah! if charity had had the power to create happiness among men,
it would have proved it long ago; and socialism, instead of
seeking the organization of labor, would have had but to say:
"Take care, you are lacking in charity."
But, alas! charity in man is stunted, sly, sluggish, and
lukewarm; in order to act, it needs elixirs and aromas. That is
why I have clung to the triple dogma of prevarication, damnation,
and redemption,--that is, perfectibility through justice.
Liberty here below is always in need of assistance, and the
Catholic theory of celestial favors comes to complete this too
real demonstration of the miseries of our nature.
Grace, say the theologians, is, in the order of salvation, every
help or means which can conduct us to eternal life. That is to
say, man perfects himself, civilizes himself, humanizes himself
only by the incessant aid of experience, by industry, science,
and art, by pleasure and pain, in a word, by all bodily and
mental exercises.
There is an HABITUAL grace, called also JUSTIFYING and
SANCTIFYING, which is conceived as a quality residing in the
soul, containing the innate virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit,
and inseparable from charity.
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