The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-04-24

a AIOm byron, InuSI over IOnuly turu, unO
: any attack on Rome he will Indignantly
repel. Rome is our universal orphanage
At the present hour it is the cynosure OF
the worlds eyes; for the world, with all its
. evil passions and tendencies, still knows
instinctively that out of Rome only car
come its salvation. The argument con-
, tinued through the preceding articles, on
which this conclusion is based, may be de-
rided by many: it can be successfully re-
futed by none. The truth is something SC
beautiful and precious that it deserves to
be professed and indicated, even at the
risk of little ridicule from the vulgar
: Derision, insult and vituperation, The off
spring of levity or ignorance, of prejudice
or malignancy-perhaps of all combined
may enjoy temporary success, but they
cannot long prevail against truth and logic.
The Catholic Church, therefore, is the
society which preserves and propagates
Ideal Truth, and this two-follf Office ex-
plains all her other properties and preroga-
tives. Charged with the preservation and
diffusion of truth, she partakes at once of
rest and motion, but in different manner
AS regards her Office of conservator, her
nature corresponds to that of truth itself;
and as truth is eternal, and independent of
the fluctuations of time, she enjoys it's ex-
emption from vicissitude, and it's majestic
lmmobiiity. Herein her strength and
beauty consist. Nothing can be imagined
more wonderful than this grand commu-
nifty: it is perpetual, since without inter-
ruption of any kind it goes back to the
ICvIn <Nfn 4 t.
that, like truth itself it can never change;
it is immovable, as it excludes every idea
of progress and retrogression-it may he
termed the firmly set pivot on which re-
wolves the worlds civilization. The pro-
gress and variety of human fortunes and
events require an immovable starting point
by which their development may be direct
ed and their advancement ascertained
and without this central pivot to swing
from in it's evoluticns, variety degenerates
into chaos and progress is but another
word for fatal plunge down a precipice.
Far from retarding civil progress, the i'm
mobility of the Church is necessary to pro-
mote it; for in the spiritual, as well az in |
the physical order, the principle of motion
can be found only in rest. Civilization
needs an eternal and immutable standard
to regulate it's march, and this standard
resides in Ideal Truth and in the society
which is at once its custodian and it,; inter
prefer, and which could not fulfil the duties
OF this sublime office without partaking of
the lmmutability of the trntl it is it's mis-
sion to promulgate. This immobility the
Church does partake yet there is no iudi-
viduality but can find its fitting place
already prepared in the grand mosaic of
the variety she informs: Interchangeable "a
well as immovable herself no social com.
motion can yet find her resourceless tn
meet its exigencies; revolution even in ;ts
WIDEST phrensy has never exhibited itself
IN phase that the Catholic Church, with {
OUT turning once on her eternal hinges. did
not meet with bold and impenetrable &
front. Whose, therefore, would repudiate ,
'nis mother, and pretend to do without her, 7
signs by his very schism the sentence OF : :
MS own doom. If Ideal Truth had persisted. Z
or could perish, in the custody of the !
Church divinely organized for it's preserva-
ton, it were no longer possible to bring if q
BACK to life. Man may explain, unfold the q
. o>N WV AStAAhcU, uc CANNOT recover 1t
when lost: he can possess it, not as pri .
rate Invention, but as an external doctrine. t
ience tie temerity of those who rebel q
'Sainst the Church is punished with q fear
III retri bntIon-Witli the loss of thexyerv O
reasure they presume by their innovations E
o discover. The heresiarch, the one with G
whom detection orig inates, desires to find c.
he lost treasure of eternal truth. and
taiiy loses it i'll the hopeless search. Hence
hat perpetual variation of individuals and
ects-that utter disintegration of religions d
ociety-which render their history so pain IL
III and deplorable; but is the inevitable =,
onsequencc of their having denied the a,
rimltlve truth, and rebelled against the OF
1stltutlons by which it is represented. III
rotestantism, alas for the last three con- ~
nrles, has, by it's example, read no other sc
'sson to mankind. At its very birth, it w
nnounced the speedy dissolution of the 81 81
athollc Church: now it is itself on the "a
We of perishing. Nay, if a sect's life con- 81
SITS In its members believing something, 81
their having some common faith: lone d,
go Professionalism departed this life. There hi
not rite it has not altered there ia not if
Precept it has not misunderstood there GO