L. THE benefits which the Eternal Wisdom had determined to confer upon
mankind through revelation, depended, however, on a condition without
which, they could never have been realized. It was necessary that men,
on their part, should be inclined to receive the bidding addressed to
them, that they should direct their attention to the truths to be
gradually promulgated to them for their own advantage; in short, that
they should feel disposed to correspond to the Divine intentions. It was
no part of the plan of the Divine wisdom that men should be in any way
constrained, for that would have been depriving them of the precious
gift of free will, and destroying their essence. But this very liberty,
of action granted to man, rendered the realization of the Divine thought
doubtful; and it might have happened that a generation, sinking itself
into complete corruption, would have lost every trace of the truths
already revealed; and thence a necessity would have arisen for one or
more repetitions of the communication, with equal uncertainty of
permanent success.
LI. To avoid such a danger, it pleased the Divine Mercy to found upon
earth a permanent institution of an exceptional, wonderful, almost
preternatural character, through which the preservation of the principal
doctrines, that form the substance of revealed religion, could be
insured to mankind. As seeds of rare and precious plants are preserved
with care, that the species may not perish, so the Ruler of Providence
designed to establish among us a repository wherein to keep the germs of
all that which concerns man's spiritual life; and He so ordained that
they should be there jealously guarded, and with particular diligence
cultivated, in order to bring about their slow and gradual, but sure
propagation among all the individuals of the human family. This
provision is a most luminous proof of the unbounded love and mercy of
the Divine Artificer towards the rational creature, to whom a powerful
assistance is thus offered to attain his noble destination, without in
the least impairing his liberty of action.
LII. Such a provision consists in God having chosen a small portion of
mankind to be a medium for, and co-operator in, the grand work, and
having entrusted to it the special important mission of perpetually
preserving within its pale, the principal dogmas of revealed religion;
of keeping always alive on earth the remembrance of that relation which
was established from the beginning of creation between the Creator and
the human family; and, in short, of contributing with all its might to
the practical realization of the Divine idea. The chosen few had
consequently to propose to themselves, as the goal of their career, the
defence of the sacred deposit entrusted to them from all attacks that
might be directed by malice, ignorance or superstition; they had to
promote the propagation of the notions of monotheism; of the divine
origin of man, and of the duties incumbent upon him to practice justice,
charity, rectitude, and piety; they had to protest incessantly against
polytheism, and against all and every idolatrous and superstitious
creed, as adverse and injurious to the development of the principles of
revealed religion; they had to confirm these theories by making
themselves the exemplars of a religious life, and by bearing witness to
them, when necessary, by their own martyrdom; they had thus to become
the effectual instruments to the gradual diffusion throughout the world
of those elements of truth, of virtue and happiness, calculated to bring
forth the ultimate and universal perfection of mankind.
LIII. In order that the individuals charged with such a grand mission
should be competent effectually to fulfil it, it was necessary that they
should themselves have been always free from the pernicious influence of
the errors and corruption, which had already spread almost throughout
the world; it was necessary that their minds should have remained
unpolluted by the notions of the extravagant and degrading idolatries,
which were in practice among almost all the ancient nations; and that
their hearts should have remained untouched by the contagion of
universal depravity. The soil to which any seed, however good, is to be
committed, would never respond to the expectations of the husbandman, if
it were not cleared from weeds and thistles. Those individuals had,
therefore, to be drawn aside from the general society of men; and from
their infancy educated and prepared, so as to receive within their
virgin souls the seeds that were afterwards to produce in them, and
through them, the spiritual regeneration of all mankind. But here
another difficulty presented itself; who would have undertaken the
charge of watching over those individuals from their infancy, and
keeping them in such an isolation, as to make them inaccessible to the
general depravity? It was, then, necessary to begin by a single
individual, whose descendants should receive from that stock the
education capable of fitting them for their future mission.
LIV. The providential measure once decreed, of selecting an individual
as guardian of the revealed truths, and making him the father of a
posterity, whose duty was to preserve them and to make them fructify, it
remained only to determine the selection of the person. And here it is
obvious that not a capricious hazard, not an indulgent predilection, but
only a strict justice and wise impartiality could determine the
important choice. Whoever would have aspired to such a glory--and
everybody could have aspired to it--by no other means could he have
attained it than his own merits. Such a man must have, of his own accord
and spontaneously, withdrawn himself from the general current of
depravity; opposed, by his own impulse, the absurd ravings of his
contemporaries; displayed a lively attachment to virtue, and a steady
abhorrence of evil; cultivated, above all, justice, charity, and
righteousness, in his every action; that man must have thrown off the
subjection of the senses, and all cupidity of earthly things, and,
almost assuming a second nature, have soared towards the eternal Source
of truth, the Creator of the universe, offering as a sacrifice to Him
his own dearest personal interests, and, if required, his life itself.