and that this environment is as
much in the realm of Law as is the natural world itself. Prayer, for
example, elevates the soul, base thinking degrades it.

Now the laws of this environment were true even before Christ came.
David knew, at any rate, something of penitence and of the guilt of sin,
and Nathan knew something, at least, of the forgiveness of sins and of
their temporal punishment. Christ came, then, with this object amongst
others: that He might reveal the laws of Grace and convey to men's minds
some at least of the facts of the spiritual life amongst which they
lived. He came, moreover, partly to modify the workings of these laws,
to release some more fully, and to restrain others; in a word, to be the
Revealer of Truth and the Administrator of Grace.

He came then, to increase men's liberty by increasing their knowledge,
as, in another sphere, the scientist comes to us with the same purpose.
Here, for example, is the law that murder is a sin before God and brings
its consequences with it, a law stated briefly in the commandment _Thou
shall not kill_. But our Divine Lord revealed more of the workings of
this law than men had hitherto recognized. _I say unto you_, declared
Christ, _that whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer._ He revealed,
that is to say, the fact that this law runs even in the realm of
thought, that the hating spirit incurs the guilt and punishment of
murder, and not merely the murderous action. Were men less free when
they learned that fact? Not unless I am less free than I was before,
when I learn for the first time that lightning kills. Christ came, then,
to reveal the _Truth that makes us free_, and He does so by informing
our intellects and enabling us to _bring into captivity every
understanding to _His obedience_.

(ii) Turn now to the Catholic Church. Here is a Society whose function
it is to preserve and apply the teaching of Christ; to analyze it and to
state it in forms or systems which every generation can receive. For
this purpose, then, she draws up not merely a Creed--which is the
systematic statement of the Christian Revelation--but disciplinary rules
and regulations that will make this Creed and the life that is
conformable to it more easy of realization, and all this she does with
the express object of enabling the individual soul to respond to her
spiritual environment and to rise to the full exercise of her powers and
rights. As the scientist and the statesmen tak