ny, of a
compensation for the present life. Those who do not accept the
definition of man as a compound of two substances, and who regard the
Deistical dogma of the immortality of the soul as in contradiction
with physiology, love to fall back upon the hope of a final
reparation, which under an unknown form shall satisfy the wants of the
heart of man. Who knows if the highest term of progress after millions
of ages may not evoke the absolute conscience of the universe, and in
this conscience the awakening of all that has lived? A sleep of a
million of years is not longer than the sleep of an hour. St. Paul, on
this hypothesis, was right in saying, _In ictu oculi!_[1] It is
certain that moral and virtuous humanity will have its reward, that
one day the ideas of the poor but honest man will judge the world, and
that on that day the ideal figure of Jesus will be the confusion of
the frivolous who have not believed in virtue, and of the selfish who
have not been able to attain to it. The favorite phrase of Jesus
continues, therefore, full of an eternal beauty. A kind of exalted
divination seems to have maintained it in a vague sublimity, embracing
at the same time various orders of truths.

[Footnote 1: 1 _Cor._ xv. 52.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS.

That Jesus was never entirely absorbed in his apocalyptic ideas is
proved, moreover, by the fact that at the very time he was most
preoccupied with them, he laid with rare forethought the foundation of
a church destined to endure. It is scarcely possible to doubt that he
himself chose from among his disciples those who were pre-eminently
called the "apostles," or the "twelve," since on the day after his
death we find them forming a distinct body, and filling up by election
the vacancies that had arisen in their midst.[1] They were the two
sons of Jonas; the two sons of Zebedee; James, son of Cleophas;
Philip; Nathaniel bar-Tolmai; Thomas; Levi, or Matthew, the son of
Alphaeus; Simon Zelotes; Thaddeus or Lebbaeus; and Judas of Kerioth.[2]
It is probable that the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel had had
some share in the choice of this number.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 5; Gal. i. 10.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 2 and following; Mark iii. 16, and following;
Luke vi. 14, and following; _Acts_ i. 13; Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist.
Eccl._, iii. 39.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30.]

The "twelve," at all events, fo