absolutely new, but that it finds an echo in the depths of our soul.
When we meet with it, we seem to re-enter into the possession of our
patrimony. The Cross of Jesus Christ is without all contradiction the
most transcendent proof of the mercy of the Creator; but the Cross of
Jesus Christ rather warrants the Christian in believing in the Divine
love than gives him the idea of it. We must distinguish in the Gospel
between the universal religion which it has restored, and the act itself
of that restoration, which constitutes the Gospel in the special sense
of the word. Now what I am here maintaining is the fact of the existence
in modern society of the elements of the universal religion. I am far
from sharing in the illusions of my fellow-countryman Rousseau, when he
affirms that even if he had lived in a desert isle, and had never known
a fellow-man, he would nevertheless have been able to write the
_Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard_. I know very well that if I were
a Brahmin, born at the foot of the Himalayas, or a Chinese mandarin, I
should not be able to say all that I am saying respecting the goodness
of God. The light which we have received--I know whence it radiates;
but, by the help of that light, I seek its kindred rays everywhere, and
everywhere I find them in humanity.

Let us endeavor, then, according to our plan, to recognize in the
universe the marks of the Divine goodness. Let us first of all
interrogate the human soul, which is certainly one of the essential
elements of the world; and let us interrogate it with regard to the
great fact of religion.

The universal religion presents to observation two principal forms of
mental experience: the sense of the necessity for appeasing the Divine
justice, and the sense of the necessity for obtaining the help of God.