charmed and satisfied the human conscience); in the second place, to
believe it no longer in an absolute manner, for absolute faith is
incompatible with sincere history. But love is possible without faith.
To abstain from attaching one's self to any of the forms which
captivate the adoration of men, is not to deprive ourselves of the
enjoyment of that which is good and beautiful in them. No transitory
appearance exhausts the Divinity; God was revealed before Jesus--God
will reveal Himself after him. Profoundly unequal, and so much the
more Divine, as they are grander and more spontaneous, the
manifestations of God hidden in the depths of the human conscience are
all of the same order. Jesus cannot belong solely to those who call
themselves his disciples. He is the common honor of all who share a
common humanity. His glory does not consist in being relegated out of
history; we render him a truer worship in showing that all history is
incomprehensible without him.




LIFE OF JESUS




CHAPTER I.

PLACE OF JESUS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.


The great event of the History of the world is the revolution by which