d not have had this care for the
amelioration of man, and would not have given utterance to the finest
moral teaching that humanity has received. Much vagueness no doubt
tinged his ideas, and it was rather a noble feeling than a fixed
design, that urged him to the sublime work which was realized by him,
though in a very different manner to what he imagined.

It was indeed the kingdom of God, or in other words, the kingdom of
the Spirit, which he founded; and if Jesus, from the bosom of his
Father, sees his work bear fruit in the world, he may indeed say with
truth, "This is what I have desired." That which Jesus founded, that
which will remain eternally his, allowing for the imperfections which
mix themselves with everything realized by humanity, is the doctrine
of the liberty of the soul. Greece had already had beautiful ideas on
this subject.[1] Various stoics had learned how to be free even under
a tyrant. But in general the ancient world had regarded liberty as
attached to certain political forms; freedom was personified in
Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus and Cassius. The true Christian
enjoys more real freedom; here below he is an exile; what matters it
to him who is the transitory governor of this earth, which is not his
home? Liberty for him is truth.[2] Jesus did not know history
sufficiently to understand that such a doctrine came most opportunely
at the moment when republican liberty ended, and when the small
municipal constitutions of antiquity were absorbed in the unity of the
Roman empire. But his admirable good sense, and the truly prophetic
instinct which he had of his mission, guided him with marvelous
certainty. By the sentence, "Render unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's," he created something
apart from politics, a refuge for souls in the midst of the empire of
brute force. Assuredly, such a doctrine had its dangers. To establish
as a principle that we must recognize the legitimacy of a power by the
inscription on its coins, to proclaim that the perfect man pays
tribute with scorn and without question, was to destroy republicanism
in the ancient form, and to favor all tyranny. Christianity, in this
sense, has contributed much to weaken the sense of duty of the
citizen, and to deliver the world into the absolute power of existing
circumstances. But in constituting an immense free association, which
during three hundred years was able to dispense with polit