red years for liberty
of conscience, Christianity, in spite of its failures, still reaps the
results of its glorious origin. To renew itself, it has but to return
to the Gospel. The kingdom of God, as we conceive it, differs notably
from the supernatural apparition which the first Christians hoped to
see appear in the clouds. But the sentiment introduced by Jesus into
the world is indeed ours. His perfect idealism is the highest rule of
the unblemished and virtuous life. He has created the heaven of pure
souls, where is found what we ask for in vain on earth, the perfect
nobility of the children of God, absolute purity, the total removal of
the stains of the world; in fine, liberty, which society excludes as
an impossibility, and which exists in all its amplitude only in the
domain of thought. The great Master of those who take refuge in this
ideal kingdom of God is still Jesus. He was the first to proclaim the
royalty of the mind; the first to say, at least by his actions, "My
kingdom is not of this world." The foundation of true religion is
indeed his work: after him, all that remains is to develop it and
render it fruitful.

"Christianity" has thus become almost a synonym of "religion." All
that is done outside of this great and good Christian tradition is
barren. Jesus gave religion to humanity, as Socrates gave it
philosophy, and Aristotle science. There was philosophy before
Socrates and science before Aristotle. Since Socrates and since
Aristotle, philosophy and science have made immense progress; but all
has been built upon the foundation which they laid. In the same way,
before Jesus, religious thought had passed through many revolutions;
since Jesus, it has made great conquests: but no one has improved, and
no one will improve upon the essential principle Jesus has created; he
has fixed forever the idea of pure worship. The religion of Jesus in
this sense is not limited. The Church has had its epochs and its
phases; it has shut itself up in creeds which are, or will be but
temporary: but Jesus has founded the absolute religion, excluding
nothing, and determining nothing unless it be the spirit. His creeds
are not fixed dogmas, but images susceptible of indefinite
interpretations. We should seek in vain for a theological proposition
in the Gospel. All confessions of faith are travesties of the idea of
Jesus, just as the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, in proclaiming
Aristotle the sole master of a completed s