e there jealously guarded, and with particular diligence
cultivated, in order to bring about their slow and gradual, but sure
propagation among all the individuals of the human family. This
provision is a most luminous proof of the unbounded love and mercy of
the Divine Artificer towards the rational creature, to whom a powerful
assistance is thus offered to attain his noble destination, without in
the least impairing his liberty of action.

LII. Such a provision consists in God having chosen a small portion of
mankind to be a medium for, and co-operator in, the grand work, and
having entrusted to it the special important mission of perpetually
preserving within its pale, the principal dogmas of revealed religion;
of keeping always alive on earth the remembrance of that relation which
was established from the beginning of creation between the Creator and
the human family; and, in short, of contributing with all its might to
the practical realization of the Divine idea. The chosen few had
consequently to propose to themselves, as the goal of their career, the
defence of the sacred deposit entrusted to them from all attacks that
might be directed by malice, ignorance or superstition; they had to
promote the propagation of the notions of monotheism; of the divine
origin of man, and of the duties incumbent upon him to practice justice,
charity, rectitude, and piety; they had to protest incessantly against
polytheism, and against all and every idolatrous and superstitious
creed, as adverse and injurious to the development of the principles of
revealed religion; they had to confirm these theories by making
themselves the exemplars of a religious life, and by bearing witness to
them, when necessary, by their own martyrdom; they had thus to become
the effectual instruments to the gradual diffusion throughout the world
of those elements of truth, of virtue and happiness, calculated to bring
forth the ultimate and universal perfection of mankind.

LIII. In order that the individuals charged with such a grand mission
should be competent effectually to fulfil it, it was necessary that they
should themselves have been always free from the pernicious influence of
the errors and corruption, which had already spread almost throughout
the world; it was necessary that their minds should have remained
unpolluted by the notions of the extravagant and degrading idolatries,
which were in practice among almost all the ancient nations; and