en
thoroughly perverted, no contact would have been possible. We would not
have had the capacity to receive from God that great gift which was the
only mode of repairing the fall of beings created in his image and
formed to possess him.[118]

This being the condition of man, M. de Pressense maintains that the
result of this divine teaching was to convince him of his weakness and
evoke the desire of salvation. Therefore Christianity comes in to supply
a felt want of human nature. Here is the first point of contact between
conscience and revelation. The Cross is not simply a testimony to the
Father's love, like the flowers at our feet, or the starry sky above our
head. It is the altar of the great sacrifice which restores man to God
and God to man. Christ is for us a Saviour as well as a Revealer.[119]
There is one perfection which can be perceived by neither the eye of the
body nor by that of the soul, unless it be revealed by a supernatural
fact. We mean the mercy of God. Pardon does not consist in the pure and
simple abrogation of condemnation; nor can it restore guilty humanity to
communion with God while the state of revolt lasts. Humanity can only be
saved by returning to God, and it will not return to God until the
divine law has been perfectly filled by it. Christ alone is capable of
completely carrying out the divine law. The obedience must go as far as
sacrifice, for the fall of man demands it. By coming here, Christ took
upon himself the wrath of God. He who was without sin was treated like a
sinner. He suffered and died, but his sufferings and death rose to the
height of a free sacrifice of love and obedience. Condemnation, thus
accepted, is no longer condemnation. It is an act of union with God, _un
acte reparateur_,--a redemption.

The Bible, according to M. de Pressense, is not a metaphysical
geometry, but a description of the struggle of Divine love with human
liberty. This great Bible history, if we consider it at the time when
the Redeemer accomplished our salvation, stands before us as the most
striking consecration of the moral idea. Redemption is the painfully
reestablished agreement between the human and the divine will by a
mysterious sacrifice. It is the most perfect reciprocal penetration of
the divine and human by means of liberty. If the moral idea be
consecrated by Christ, it will lead to the Gospel. No one will become a
Christian unless he has determined to listen to his conscience, and
neve