In Christianity, with its incarnational philosophy, its balanced cultivation of the active and the mystic life, its sacramental touch upon all common things, he sees the only perfect expression of this principle; the only power capable of embracing and spiritualizing the whole of the rich complex of existence. Determined to bring home to his fellow-countrymen, on the one hand, the concrete and objective nature of this Christian life, on the other, the simplicity of soul necessary to those who would understand it, he rejects all attempts at religious philosophizing or symbolic interpretation. His treatment of theology is characterized by a deliberate homely literalness, a naïve use of tradition, which was intensely exasperating to his agnostic and Modernist critics; and which may be found distasteful by some religious minds, unable to realize the intimate connection between gaiety and faith. To others it will seem that, alone amongst modern writers, he has recaptured the mediæval secret of familiarity combined with adoration: of a love, awe, and vision, a profound earnestness, which yet leave room for laughter. His picture of God is shamelessly anthropomorphic. (“Je suis honnête homme, dit Dieu; droit comme un Français.”) Yet it is full of grave beauty, of the sense of fatherhood, the mystical consciousness of the Divine desire. Revealed religion is God’s Word, and therefore means what it says. “Jésus n’est pas venu pour nous dire des amusettes,” says Madame Gervaise to Joan of Arc. The faith which Péguy wished to restore to France was not the religious rationalism of the modernist: still less the morbid, æsthetic fervour of Huysmans. It was the homely everyday faith of the past, the humble yet assured relation with the supernatural order, the courage and hope which is rooted in tradition and is wholly independent of intellectual subtleties. “La foi est toute naturelle, toute allante, tout simple, toute venante”—the great and simple affirmation. The perfect type of this faith is not the world-weary convert, but the healthy unselfconscious child; and the child, for Péguy, is the most holy and most significant figure in the human group. “C’est l’enfant qui est plein et l’homme qui est vide.” Only in the child and in those untarnished human beings who retain their childlike simplicity of heart do we see unspoilt humanity: only in the child do we see incarnate hope. “J’éclate tellement dans ma création,” says God, “et surtout dans les enfants.” “On envoie les enfants à l’école, dit Dieu. Je pense que c’est pour oublier le peu qu’ils savent. On ferait mieux d’envoyer les parents à l’école. C’est eux qui en ont besoin Mais naturellement il faudrait une école de moi Et non pas une école d’hommes.”