The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1868-05-03

|
1 versaries and missionary meetings would
fain make us believe that they. posses . vi
tality prolific of good-that they are ac-
complishing grand results-it nevertheless
appears that occasionally the truth comes
| to the surface, and the canker that saps all
| soundness from thebody laid bare. The fol-
lowing we copy from the Asserioan Church
man, a Journal, it said of great circulation
among IN influential class of Protestants.
The remedy it proposes, is shallow-show-
ing the fundamental, error that underlies
the superstructure. They want faith, that
faith, without which all the external aids,
however magnificent, will prove nugatory.
1t is o fact of the gravest Importance to the
future Of this country that the bond of Q CON-
mon religion does not exist. The strongest of
all the ties Of social order has no place among
of the people into sects, but, what is far more
serious it is 80, at least, from the division into
social classes. No longer, among us, is Chris
tlanlty, even in the v8guest and widest mean
ing of the term, q common bond between rich
and poor. The census of our large cities be-
trays the fact that, in the heart of hch of
them, there is an enormous mass of practical
heathenism-a large population who at
tendants on no form of public worship what
ever-a class who are cut off from another
class, not only by the difference of wealth and
culture socially, but who do not come in con-
tact with it even in religion. 1t is possible, in
other countries, where there is o large and con-
trolling common faith, notwithstanding the
wide differences in all else, for q cobb1er and n
prince to kneel side by side, for q duchess and
o seamstress to bend together at the same COM
munion rail. The common faith, the large
chnrchly life, the parish church or the caths-
drai, open to AL, have brought the extremes of
the social scale together.
We have carried the distinctions of social life
into our religion. We have so managed it that,
IN the large cities at least religion is becoming
problem, daily growing harder of solution,
da1iy growing more pressing, that in our cities,
at least, and measurably over the whole coun-
tionalism of all bodies, the occupancy of y place
in any sort of Church" on equal grounds
with others, is becoming , . 1a.ury shose II
sinew OF the communicable working men and
women who earn daily bread by daily labor
are more and more shut ont. For while their
children may "attend Sunday SCHOOL, but the
parents have no place in the church. r., ..s.t
Free chapels, or free seats in churches, will
not solve the problem. They are well-meaning
American character will for ever forbid the re-
ception of alms-of religious privileges as an
aims quite as much as of anything else. The
remedy lies, it seems to us, in the CATHEDRAL
and in such churches as the cathedral will sug-
gest and produce. We want, in each large city,
one large church, large enough in some cases to
grandest church in the city, it's appointments
the most complete, its services the most inn
pressively conducted, its tspulpit the most pow
erfnl" We haze described cathedral The
cathedral is the future church of the people.
Its organization solves the question--never
solved yet among ns--of making the rich and
poor meet together with no throb of satisfied
pride on the rich mans part and no feeling of
humiliation, for aims received, on the part of
the poor man, who has just much right there
rs he. ----------