Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

402 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMsively to the State. But when V the rule of celibacygrew up as a qualification for all spiritual governmentin the Church, it was a free choice of those who embracedthe highest function which can fall to man.It was an imitation of their Lord, in which the voluntarysacrifice of a natural good was accepted by thosewho made it for the attainment of a supernaturalgood. Plato trampled down the instincts of naturefor the sake of a temporal good ; the Christian clergywere content to follow Christ. They would thusbecome not founders of an earthly home, but co-builders in an eternal house, without father, withoutmother, without genealogy, in the earthly order, if bobe that in the spiritual they might be likened to theSon of God. Indeed this great institution of Christiancelibacy affords perhaps as good an instance as can befound to show the coincidence in the Christian societyof the highest good of the Individual with the highestgood of the Body. Plato, in enjoining celibacy on his" Watchers," had a real and excellent object in view,their complete devotion to their work, without the interruptionof family cares. For this end he simplysacrificed them to the commonwealth. But all the greatworks of Christian charity in their heroic degree dependfor their fulfilment on freedom from the bonds ofdomestic life. How did the Church reach this end ? Byher counsels of perfection she set the virginal or thecelibate life before her children as a reward in itself, ascarrying higher privileges and a more perfect imitationof the Master for those to whom it was given. She proposedit to them as a choice leading to an infinite recom-pense, beginning in this life,completed in thelife to come,and she reached her end without sacrificing the individualto the commonweal. For the choice exalted