The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-04-03
Papal Infallibility--No. 3.

brought to o close we will begin this,
though our readers, to whom, thank God'
we owe nothing but good will, may deem
some other arrangement of our ideas more
appropriate. Variety of races does not, as
certain obsolete politicians would fam have
US believe, imply diversity of origin; it is
simply the result of the loss of ideal unity.
The organic principle being once ellml-
nated-just as when the keystone of an
arch is once removed, the whole social
edifice falls to pieces-the human species
was resolved into isolated fragments; each
several one of which, living by itself, re-
ceived from climate, country, domestic,
social, and sundry other conditions to
which it happened to be subject, peculiar
and characteristic stamp, which it bears to
this day. Each ono of those generic varie-
ties was subdivided, as history shows us,
into special varieties, which in their turn
broke out into varieties still more centri-
fugal, until almost every lineament, by
which the original unity of our race could
be recognized, was effaced. Yet as variety
is inconceivable without unity, these CEN
trifugal fractions must have a centre from
which they diverge; as in arithmetic, frac-
tons presuppose whole numbers, and num-
bers imply unity: and they bear to this
centre the same relation that is borne by
more proximate varieties to the original
unity of the race. Whose, therefore, would
from difference of mien, shape, proportion,
or even color, conclude to diversity of
origin or stock, should likewise assert for
e 81 p,s1x f,,of To
lose time in descending the narrowing
scale) different origin. Nor does any
organic peculiarity-such as the pigment
of the African or, as some maintain, OF the
Indiau-affect the position here taken.
History, monumental, if not written, as
cribes to the Chamitic branch of the human
family the earliest civilization on either
shore of the Mediterranean, and the sweet
ness OF the tongues spoken even to this
day in central Africa would of itself be a
sufficient confirmation of this historical
truth. Our American Indians are evidently
of Semitic origin. This even their Ian
guage, though broken up into multitude
of dialects, proclaims; and it is admitted
that the Semitic civilization is the earliest
on record. This matter we commend, how
ever, to our learned Academy of Sciences.
The truth is, that after the loss of ideal
unity, diversity obtained as well in the
ply steal AS in the moral condition of man
whence diversity of races, which is, in
other words, the performance of variety
| over the organic and original unity of the
species. II the members OF the human
e. l. ~, ~,
local influences would have been resisted,
and the moral bond of intellect and heart
would have kept united those whom geo.
graphical position isolated from each other.
In proportion as civilization advances, ex-
perience shows that all lines of demarca-
ton between classes disappear. When
the great schism is abolished, and mankind
is reconstructed in its primordial unity, a
harmonious variety of shape and form, the
expression of humanity's most perfect type,
will represent once more in the features of
brother peoples the unity of their common
father and the identity of their celestial
origin.
The unity of mankind being broken up,
and the perfection of nature vitiated in its
uOUleSt NoTh, t IleTCNul COunSel lnterVene0
in the destinies of men, and restored the
primitive harmony in the intellectual and
moral creation. Even if religion did not
tell us SO, the contrary would still be in
credible. The mere continuance of man on
| earth, and the conservation of organic
life, sufficiently demonstrate that the pos
sibility of attaining its end is not yet
wrupg from our species. Everything
proves that our earthly existence is an
arena of trial, and that this world cannot
be the ultimate theatre of rewards and
punishments. If it was, with the shortness
and uncertainty of our days, and the many
evils which overshadow them, whereby is
blended with the chequered fortunes of
human life more of misery than of happi-
ness-why, we should necessarily conclude
that we are already damned, and that the
earth we inhabit, in spite of all the foot
prints of divine mercy which have left their
impress upon its surface, is our hell.
This monstrous supposition is consonant
neither with the free will with. which we
are endowed, nor with the moral law which
directs all our free operations neither is it
consOnant with the nature of this fleeing
life nor the mixture of good or evil of
which it is composed: it is alike repugnant