s have passed away, and this has endured, for which
all things are.

Men have in the first age of the world been carried away into every kind
of debauchery, and yet there were saints, as Enoch, Lamech, and others,
who waited patiently for the Christ promised from the beginning of the
world. Noah saw the wickedness of men at its height; and he was held
worthy to save the world in his person, by the hope of the Messiah of
whom he was the type. Abraham was surrounded by idolaters, when God made
known to him the mystery of the Messiah, whom he welcomed from
afar.[219] In the time of Isaac and Jacob abomination was spread over
all the earth; but these saints lived in faith; and Jacob, dying and
blessing his children, cried in a transport which made him break off his
discourse, "I await, O my God, the Saviour whom Thou hast promised.
_Salutare taum expectabo, Domine._"[220] The Egyptians were infected
both with idolatry and magic; the very people of God were led astray by
their example. Yet Moses and others believed Him whom they saw not, and
worshipped Him, looking to the eternal gifts which He was preparing for
them.

The Greeks and Latins then set up false deities; the poets made a
hundred different theologies, while the philosophers separated into a
thousand different sects; and yet in the heart of Judaea there were
always chosen men who foretold the coming of this Messiah, which was
known to them alone.

He came at length in the fullness of time, and time has since witnessed
the birth of so many schisms and heresies, so many political
revolutions, so many changes in all things; yet this Church, which
worships Him who has always been worshipped, has endured
uninterruptedly. It is a wonderful, incomparable, and altogether divine
fact that this religion, which has always endured, has always been
attacked. It has been a thousand times on the eve of universal
destruction, and every time it has been in that state, God has restored
it by extraordinary acts of His power. This is astonishing, as also that
it has preserved itself without yielding to the will of tyrants. For it
is not strange that a State endures, when its laws are sometimes made
to give way to necessity, but that.... (See the passage indicated in
Montaigne.)

613

States would perish if they did not often make their laws give way to
necessity. But religion has never suffered this, or practised it.
Indeed, there must be these compromises, or miracles. It i