People know what the good life of the whole of humankind consists in and how it can be attained; and if they know it, then, sooner or later, they will attain this life.
Jesus had foreseen the end of the old society, whose moral foundations had already been shaken. He foretells his disciples that the Temple, a material symbol of people’s established order of life, must be destroyed, to be replaced by a more perfect establishment. And to this prophecy, which was soon to come true, he adds a prophecy of similar events to occur at later times, presenting these events in the same familiar forms in which the end of the world was presented to his contemporaries.
We are now living in the time of his prophecy. Everything has been shaken from one end of the earth to the other. In every institution, in every system upon which the social life of nations rests, there is nothing firm. Everyone senses that everything is soon going to collapse, that in this temple there will not be a stone left unturned. But just as the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, from which the living God had retired, had prepared the construction of a new city and a new temple, into which the people of every tribe and every nation would flow of their own free will, so will a new city and a new temple rise up from the ruins of the temples and cities of the present, a temple that is destined to become a universal and common home for the human race, which is still divided by doctrines that are hostile to one another, which make strangers of brothers and which sow godless hatred and abominable wars between them. When the hour comes, of which God alone knows, the hour of the unification of nations in one temple and one city, then the reign of Christ will truly come, the final implementation of his divine work. After all, he came to teach people only one thing, which is that they should unite in the law of love. The birth of this holy society may be painful, but so what? You should not be afraid of the final battle between good and evil, which is about to erupt: your duty is to fight. Every one of you is a warrior of God. But, in our time of insanity and senseless pride, beware of false Christs and false prophets. Christ is not in a desert. He is not in hidden places and certainly not in any of those gatherings of the people who, by separating themselves from others, think that they alone are destined for salvation, and who use this very thing to deny Christ, who had destroyed all barriers between people and promised eternal peace and joy to everyone that would fulfill this double love of his in his deeds by loving God most of all and his neighbor as himself. Where this love is, there Christ is also. Do not look for him elsewhere: you will only find a false shadow.
— Lamennais
Those on a mountaintop see the sunrise before those who inhabit the plains. It is the same with those on spiritual heights: they see the divine sunrise before those who lead corporeal lives. But, with time, the sun rises to the point where it becomes visible to all.
— From “The World’s Advance Thought”
Can we really not hope that a day will come when people will realize that it is just as easy to live for others as they have often found it easy to die for them? Elevation and enlightenment of people’s souls is all that is needed to make a human being’s life a noble and beautiful service to his brothers, with whom God has united him.
— Browne
My imagination refuses to paint a picture of that blissful time when the meek shall inherit the earth. But this day will inexorably come, and the hopes of the poor are not in vain. Not by force, not by authority, but by his spirit will he summon the meek to his court and teach them his ways.
— John Ruskin
Mighty powers are at work in the world. Who can stay them? God’s word has gone forth, and “it cannot return to him void.” A new comprehension of the Christian spirit—a new reverence for humanity, a new feeling of brotherhood, and of all men’s relation to the common Father—this is among the signs of our times. We see it; do we not feel it? Before this, all oppressions are to fall. Society, silently pervaded by this, is to change its aspect of universal warfare for peace. The power of selfishness, all-grasping and seemingly invincible, is to yield to this diviner energy… “On earth peace,” will not always sound as fiction.
— Channing
As soon as an ideal higher than the one before it is placed before humankind, all former ideals fade away like the stars before the sun, for the human being cannot but recognize a higher ideal, just as he cannot but see the sun.
