But if the beatification of the world is not a work of nature but a work of art, then it involves an artist.

And here again my contemplation was cloven by the ancient voice which said, "I could have told you all this a long time ago.

If there is any certain progress it can only be my kind of progress, the progress towards a complete city of virtues and dominations where righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other.
An impersonal force might be leading you to a wilderness of perfect flatness or a peak of perfect height.

But only a personal God can possibly be leading you (if, indeed, you are being led) to a city with just streets and architectural proportions, a city in which each of you can contribute exactly the right amount of your own colour to the many-coloured coat of Joseph." Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in with the exact answer that I required.

I had said, "The ideal must be fixed," and the Church had answered, "Mine is literally fixed, for it existed before anything else." I said secondly, "It must be artistically combined, like a picture"; and the Church answered, "Mine is quite literally a picture, for I know who painted it." Then I went on to the third thing, which, as it seemed to me, was needed for an Utopia or goal of progress.