That human nature is good and that men are brethren, said Dr.
Brownson, was the thesis of Christ, taught throughout His life,
sealed by His death. The Name which is above all names became thus in
a new sense a watchword, and the Gospels a treasury for that social
apostolate to which Isaac Hecker had already devoted himself with an
earnestness which for some years made it seem religion enough for him.

So it has seemed before his time and since to many a benevolent
dreamer. Though the rites of the humanitarian cult differ with its
different priests, its creed retains everywhere and always its narrow
identity. But that all men are good, or would be so save for the
unequal pressure of social conditions on them, is a conclusion which
does not follow from the single premise that human nature, inasmuch
as it is a nature and from the hand of God, is essentially good. The
world is flooded, just at present, with schemes for insuring the
perfection and happiness of men by removing so far as possible all
restraints upon their natural freedom; and whether this is to be
accomplished with Tolstoï, by reducing wants to a minimum and
abolishing money; or by establishing clubs for the promotion of
culture and organizing a social army which shall destroy poverty by
making money plenty, appears a mere matter of detail--at all events
to dreamers and to novelists. But to men who are in hard earnest with
themselves, men who "have not taken their souls in vain nor sworn
deceitfully," either to their neighbor or about him, certain other
truths concerning human nature besides that of its essential goodness
are sure to make themselves evident, soon or late. And among these is
that of its radical insufficiency to its own needs. It is a rational
nature, and it seeks the Supreme Reason, if only for its own
self-explication. It is a nature which, wherever found, is found in
the attitude of adoration, and neither in the individual man nor in