Will History judge?

"History," a skeptical author of our time has said, "is the judge of peoples, and her judgment, which continues throughout the ages, renders the Last Judgment pointless and superfluous."

Our reply will be that the judgment of history is not a public judgment, whereas evil is public and rises up with an arrogance that is a scandal to men and a constant outrage against God. The judgment of history remains incomplete, because every good or bad act is a mainspring of good or evil, a seed of life or death, all the fruits and results of which its author could neither feel nor foresee. That is why, if the universal judgment had not been foretold to us, it would be our duty to demand it, to insist on it as a necessary consequence, as the final enactment of that Divine Providence which guides the movement of history throughout the ages, and as a final measure to complete His work and place His seal on it.

This universal judgment is but the last scene of the universal drama: the general fulfillment of all the partial judgments emanating from God's justice. It is only on this understanding that history becomes clear and comprehensible, that we shall see it, not as the confused mind and eyes of man imagine it to be, but as it really is, like a book open to every eye.

Fr. Charles Arminjon, "The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life" p.9