ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF POPE LEO XIII. 127
supreme, and courageously to break down every barrier which stands in the way of a virtuous life.
29. On this subject We need only recall for one moment the examples written down in history. Of these things there cannot be the shadow of doubt ; for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by the teachings of Christianity; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to pass in the ages that have yet to be. Of this beneficent transformation Jesus Christ was at once the first cause and the final purpose ; as from Him all came, so to Him all was to be referred. For when, by the light of the Gospel message, the human race came to know the grand mystery of the Incarnation of the Word and the redemption of man, the life of Jesus Christ, God and Man, penetrated every race and nation, and impregnated them with His faith, His precepts, and His laws. And if Society is to be cured now, in no other way can it be cured but by a return to the Chris- tian life and Christian institutions. When a society is perishing, the true advice to give to those who would restore it is, to recall it to the principles from which it sprang ; for the purpose and perfection of an association is to aim at and to attain that for which it was formed ; and its operation should be put in motion and inspired by the end and object which originally gave it its being. So that to fall away from its primal constitution is disease ; to go back to it is recover} 7 . And this may be asserted with the utmost truth both of the State in general and of that body of its citizens by far the greater number who sustain life by labor.
30. Neither must it be supposed that the solicitude of the Church is so occupied with the spiritual concerns of
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