Cross is The Holy Spirit. And the Spirit by which the Lord Jesus Christ
made all worlds is The Holy Spirit. But the spirit by which He
sacrificed Himself on the Cross is the spirit of self-sacrifice. And
therefore the spirit by which He made the world is the spirit of self-
sacrifice likewise; and self-sacrifice is the law and rule on which the
universe is founded. At least, that is the true Catholic faith, as far
as my poor intellect can conceive it; and in that faith I will live and
die.

There are those who, now-a-days, will laugh at such a notion, and
say--Self-sacrifice? It is not self-sacrifice which keeps the world
going among men, or animals, or even the plants under our feet: but
selfishness. Competition, they say, is the law of the universe.
Everything has to take care of itself, fight for itself, compete freely
and pitilessly with everything round it, till the weak are killed off,
and only the strong survive; and so, out of the free play of the self-
interest of each, you get the greatest possible happiness of the greatest
possible number.

Do we indeed? I should have thought that unbridled selfishness, and the
internecine struggle of opposing interests, had already reduced many
nations, and seemed likely to reduce all mankind, if it went on, to that
state of the greatest possible misery of the greatest number, from which
our blessed Lord, as in this very week, died to deliver us. At all
events, if that is to be the condition of man, and of society, then man
is not made in the likeness of God, and has no need to be led by the
Spirit of God. For what the likeness of God and the Spirit of God are,
Passion-week tells us--namely, Love which knows no self-interest; Love
which cares not for itself; Love which throws its own life away, that it
may save those who have hated it, rebelled against it, put it to a