Page:What We Want.djvu/58

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gradual evolution of civilization, instead of being eclipsed and disappearing, rose to higher forms and attained to a reflex knowledge of itself, until it took concrete form in the Christian religion; and if it in turn, considered under the forms of Cathollcism, can show that it contains within itself energies which the human spirit will find it useful to assimilate, energies which will help that spirit forward along the path traced by high modern ideals; then alone will the student be able freely to accept the Catholic religion with its authority, its theology, its Sacraments, and its discipline.

For us, this necessity of submitting everything that is the object of our living and profound faith to the control of criticism on the same terms as all the beliefs and expressions of the religious life of various peoples involves an intense, a fatiguing, and even a painful labour. But nothing has prevented us from undertaking it. If we are truly convinced of