is not rational, philosophic, nor eternal; its efficacy lies in the
unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts
more devotion in proportion as it demands more faith,--that is to say,
as it becomes more incredible to the profane mind. The philosopher
aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. It
is mystery, on the other hand, which the religious instinct demands and
pursues: it is mystery which constitutes the essence of worship, the
power of proselytism. When the cross became the "foolishness" of the
cross, it took possession of the masses. And in our own day, those who
wish to get rid of the supernatural, to enlighten religion, to economize
faith, find themselves deserted, like poets who should declaim against
poetry, or women who should decry love. Faith consists in the acceptance
of the incomprehensible, and even in the pursuit of the impossible, and
is self-intoxicated with its own sacrifices, its own repeated
extravagances.

It is the forgetfulness of this psychological law which stultifies the
so-called liberal Christianity. It is the realization of it which
constitutes the strength of Catholicism.

Apparently, no positive religion can survive the supernatural element
which is the reason for its existence. Natural religion seems to be the
tomb of all historic cults. All concrete religions die eventually in the
pure air of philosophy. So long then as the life of nations is in need
of religion as a motive and sanction of morality, as food for faith,
hope, and charity, so long will the masses turn away from pure reason
and naked truth, so long will they adore mystery, so long--and rightly
so--will they rest in faith, the only region where the ideal presents
itself to them in an attractive form.