![]() For no one can maintain that the Apostles were living in better times than ours, that they found minds more readily disposed towards the Gospel or that they met with less opposition to the law of God.Ĥ. ![]() Has the Word of God then ceased to be what it was described by the Apostle, living and effectual and more piercing than any two-edged sword? Has long-continued use blunted the edge of that sword? If that weapon does not everywhere produce its effect, the blame certainly must be laid on those ministers of the Gospel who do not handle it as they should. The causes of these evils are varied and manifold: no one, however, will gainsay the deplorable fact that the ministers of the Word do not apply thereto an adequate remedy. If on the other hand We examine the state of public and private morals, the constitutions and laws of nations, We shall find that there is a general disregard and forgetfulness of the supernatural, a gradual falling away from the strict standard of Christian virtue, and that men are slipping back more and more into the shameful practices of paganism.ģ. For if We look around us and count those who are engaged in preaching the Word of God, We shall find them more numerous perhaps than they have ever been before. Here then, Venerable Brethren, is a burden added to the other misfortunes of these times, with which, more than any one else, We are tried. That preaching, therefore, must form the object of Our special care and attention, particularly so, if in any way, it may have lost perhaps some of its original perfection or its efficacy may have been impaired.Ģ. "Faith then cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." Wherefore since by God's good pleasure, things are preserved through the same causes by which they were brought into being, it is evident that the preaching of the wisdom taught us by the Christian religion is the means Divinely employed to continue the work of eternal salvation, and that it must with just reason be looked upon as a matter of the greatest and most momentous concern. For if the religion of Christ has withdrawn the minds of men from errors of every kind to the truth, and won their hearts from the degradation of vice to the excellence and beauty of every virtue, assuredly it has done so by means of that very preaching. ![]() "It pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believed." He chose therefore His Apostles, and after infusing into their minds by the power of the Holy Ghost, the gifts in harmony with their high calling, "Go ye into the world," He told them, "and preach the Gospel." Their preaching renewed the face of the earth. To attain this end He used no other means than the voice of His heralds whose work it was to announce to all mankind what they had to believe and do in order to be saved. It was the desire of Jesus Christ once He had wrought the Redemption of the human race by His death on the altar of the Cross, to lead men to obey His commands and thus win eternal life. Venerable Brethren, Health and the Apostolic Benediction. IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE. TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
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