Of God and His Creatures

In other words, man lives under a supernatural providence; or, as St Augustine was fond of repeating to his people at Hippo: "Not for this world are you a Christian." Not that the interests of this world are to be disregarded, but they are to be kept subordinate. A momentous utterance, indicative of the whole policy of the Christian Church, and of the Church's abiding quarrel with secularism, utilitarianism, greed of markets, and other aberrations from the eternal goal, and even from the true notion of happiness on earth, as that consists in content of mind and heart and social charity; in lieu of which we have taken in exchange our ever growing armaments, our thousands of unemployed, the degradation of our poor, our inanities and frivolities, our mental unrest and unsatisfied soul-hunger.


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