The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1869-10-24

teal bearing upon the general conduct OF man
kind. Not being thoroughly in earnest them
selves in any belief except that which springs
from the innate rectitude of the human soul
looking upon the real imitation of Christ IN
love of poverty, humiliation, lowliness, and
what we may call the gentler and profounder
virtues, as uniting the bold, brave English
gentleman, and beautiful only as read of in the
life of one who had to die that the people
the tone of mind to sympathize with, the earn
estness with which the thoughtful Catholic
phere in Catholic education. They know not
the vast machinery of the Church as manifest
ed in the practical influences of Catholic
schools. They know nothing OF grace except
to scott at it, or to pity those who believe in it
as Catholics believe. They cannot seriously
take in the full force of the Confessional, the
power of the Body of Christ taken in commu-
MON, the influence of pure, gentle saints, who
shed the light of heavenly protection on the
Young; they cannot understand the Mass, the
influence of the Blessed Virgin in preserving
they treat at all, the greatest and most pene-
trating realities of life as unrealities; and
when we talk of them, and talk earnestly too,
they half misbelieye MS, or certainly are not
impressed, as they would be could these reaii-
tics assert themselves to their understandings
with all the undisguise of their genuine power
What is it that Catholics believe to be the
most important of all truths2 Whatis it that
Catholics consider as the most important of all
practices They hold that the one great act of
faith of the human mind is to believe IN Christ
as He is taught by the full teaching of His in
fallible Church. They believe that the one
paramount practice of their lives-to which
we may say there is no second IN the ordinary
acceptation of the words to initiate Him.
They hold moreover, that to believe in Christ
they must believe something definite; and that
to initiate him means to tend, at least; towards
being like him. That there is an lnseparable
connection between belief and practice-be-
tween the doctrine which is taught as Christ's
and the true imitation of Christ-is too self
evident to require development.
has IN tnr-n Cath
lies, in this measure, possessed by it.. AS
the master-passion of the society we have been
ina ginning is love of war and imitation of Alex
ander, so the. one object of Catholics Is love of
Christianity and imitation fof Christ. Chill
dren are sent to school to learn mathematics,
and the rest but the ono grand object, after
all, is to learn to love Christianity, that is, the
teaching and morality of Christ, and to initiate
our Lord, not only by courage, love of truth
and frankness, but by humility, modification,
reimbursement sorrow for sin, distrust OF sell,
nodesty, purity of thought, gentleness, and all
the virtues that spring, not from the regenerate
heart of man, but out of the side of the pierced
Saviour. They go to school TO learn secular
science, indeed, and to be taught the various
branches <of knowledge, but to learn these
things in the unity of one master principle, and
through that very knowledge to be rooted all
the more deeply and firmly in the first prlucl-
pies of the Catholic truth just as the society
of which we spoke would be pervaded with
the one leading motive of war and CON
quest, and just as all their other occupa-.
lions would be biased by their leading
and their whole system of
education, the view they would take of the va
rious sciences would be colored by, and receive
a unity of expression from, that which was
in their minds. So, too, with Cath
Ollie education. 1t is this atmosphere that
melts down crudities, harmonizes discords, ex-
plains enigmas, and reduces or elevates, as the
case may be- the whole rationale of school life
into one homogeneous influence, in which all
parts are equally colored by Christianity, and
act as witnesses of the truths of the natural or
Srr1F al
the establishing of the Church of God. Just
as a man runs through process of reasoning
like lightning, accurately, yet has not Analysed
the process, so through living in Catholic at
mosphere man is naturalized in the whole
range of Catholic thought, and he instructive
ly shrinks from the approach of error, and
feels at once, if he cannot understand, how he
isif temnted to feJefft or naFmony with
the whole tenor of his previous intellectual
life. It stands to reason that it is the unanalysed
influence of the whole. school-each boy ana
man in which has one master conviction in his
mind, and one great endeavor-that tells in
the long run upon the character of youth
the Mass, with their weekly OF monthly con-
LESSONS, their frequent commuEions, their
their spiritual readings, their pri-
vate prayers, all intensely convinced that the
truths of Christianity as Taught by the Church
are paramount, and the imi tation of Christ the
one object of life, will create what we call
8 Catholic atmosphere" most wholesome, most
necessary, in these days, which powerfully
though silently, mouIds the mind of youth into
the stature of aChristian man. 1t is like the
sunshine, it pervades the whole being and
draws out the fulness of the character
in all its -ssEaametEys and fFefH the sources
of all its power. Books ard instrue.
fstft-4esse+4s a+ft-sern+ofrs rrrtcfr
But the pressure of the concentrated energies
of @ hundred SOULS directed intensely on one
object, and towards one belief, does work
which no words are strong enough to achieve,
and no books have ever been able to rival.
Words may sonnd for moment in. the ear, and
thrill in the heart, till other words displace
Them books may be read, and affect the intel
igence |; but the living influence of all that
TUTds amt books nave ever accomplished, NUT
5iplied from an hundred centuries, trauscentls
I'll other pressure on the faculties of man.
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