Of these three layered foundations the most ancient and deepest was the work of the clergy. For twelve hundred years and more they had labored upon it, both as architects and workmen, at first alone and then almost alone.—In the beginning, during the first four centuries, they constituted religion and the church. Let us ponder over these two words; in order to weigh them well. On the one hand, in a society founded on conquest, hard and cold like a machine of brass, forced by its very structure to destroy among its subjects all courage to act and all desire to live, they had proclaimed the "glad tidings," held forth the "kingdom of God," preached loving resignation in the hands of a Heavenly Father, inspired patience, gentleness, humility, self-abnegation, and charity, and opened the only issues by which Man stifling in the Roman 'ergastulum' could again breathe and see daylight: and here we have religion.
