er is identical in both cases alike, and it is
this--that the only explanation of the phenomena of the Gospels and of
Church history is that the Life which produces them is both Human and
Divine.

I

PEACE AND WAR

_Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the
children of God._--MATT. V. 9.

_Do not think that I am come to send peace on earth; I
came not to send peace but the sword._--MATT. X. 34.

We have considered how the key to the Paradoxes of the Gospel and the
key to the Paradoxes of Catholicism is one and the same--that the Life
that produces them is at once Divine and Human. Let us go on to consider
how this resolves those of Catholicism, especially those charged against
us by our adversaries.

For we live in a day when Catholicism is no longer considered by
intelligent men to be too evidently absurd to be argued with. Definite
reasons are given by those who stand outside our borders for the
attitude they maintain; definite accusations are made which must either
be allowed or refuted.

Now those who stand without the walls of the City of Peace know nothing,
it is true, of the life that its citizens lead within, nothing of the
harmony and consolation that Catholicism alone can give. Yet of certain
points, it may be, in the large outlines of that city against the sky,
of the place it occupies in the world, of its wide effect upon human
life in general, it may very well be that these detached observers may
know more than the devout who dwell at peace within. Let us, then,
consider their reflections not necessarily as wholly false; it may be
that they have caught glimpses which we have missed and relations which
either we take too much for granted or have failed altogether to see. It
may be that these accusations will turn out to be our credentials in
disguise.

I. Every world-religion, we are told, worthy of the name has as its
principal object and its chief claim to consideration its establishing
or its fostering of peace among men. Supremely this was so in the first
days of Christianity. It was this that its great prophet predicted of
its work when its Divine Founder should come on earth. Nature shall
recover its lost harmony and the dissensions of men shall cease when He,
the Prince of Peace, shall approach. The very beasts shall lie down
together in amity, _the lion and the lamb_ and _the leopard and the
kid_. Further, it was the Message of Peace that the angels proclaimed
ov