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LETTERS. 255
with those “which have borne the burden and heat of the
day.” I confess that this complaint always troubles my
heart, because it appears to me to be so reasonable, but the
answer which they receive, to be less so.
Well now: either Christ is wrong, and all those are in the
wrong who, inspired by His spirit, have preached through
the world with words and deeds His helping and saving
gospel, or the matter has a much deeper meaning, and un-
der the seeming injustice a deeper justice is hidden. If it
is so, this justice must also develop itself to a higher good,
to a more perfect order, founded upon the highest justice.
And what we see now, can be compared to the pertur-
bations which Newton discovered with anxiety in the solar
system, but which was in reality only a transition to that
order, where every thing is again restored to its proper orbit
and place.
If we contemplate the nature of the world-evolution,
which Christianity has caused, we shall find that it consists
in a sinking down of the higher to the lower, which the
higher attracts, after having filled it with its power, its life,
— that it consists in the extension of the participation of
all mankind in all the gifts of heaven and of earth; the
participation of all in the same bread and the same wine.
Thus the phenomenon of the regeneration of the world
manifests itself, even in our days, in the stir of the political
life of the free, living nations, amongst which we with pride
can number our own. Here the question is of a deeper
justice than the outward, more common one; here the
question is of a justice founded upon a great love. This
love wishes, in the first instance, to neutralize every injus-
tice and ruggedness of chance, —to remedy all that pre-
vents mankind to stand one day before his Creator as one
perfect man, created after His image, and in whom all indi-
viduals are like brothers and sisters, like children of one
father. This love of mankind, inspired by a grand idea,
goes therefore forth upon its divine mission, often setting
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