The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-03-05

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human system in it's tendence to throw on
disease; and this is true. But it must be
remembered that the human frame never
RECEIVERS after the material destruction of .
vital organ, or 40 rarely that no one expects
it, and the spiritual nature hardly ever re-
forms voluntarily and permanently from
vices which have become habitual. As q
general thing the drunkard, the debauchee,
the thief and the murderer, having once
become defiant of the voice of conscience,
grow more hardened with age and die as
they live.
This is the law of nature. The law of
grace is different; it reforms what has be-
come deformed and re-creates what has
been virtually destroyed. Nature cannot
resume it's own lost vitality, but grace can
restore it through a miraculous interven-
| ton. Nature cannot re-enter the womb
and be born again, but by grace the moral
nature is born again. The reform of one
! confirmed in vice is always as great mir
acle as the restoration of Lazarus to life.
Now, where is this miracle going to come
from in the case of the American Divorce dis
easel Who is going to say abe thou made
whole"7 How can the Times so conf
life, not of one man. but of a whole COM
munity7 The history of the world does
not justify such an anticipation, for it
shows that nations, like men, may make
spasmodic efforts to reform, but in a short
time relapse SO that their last state is
worse than their first. Indiana may become
perfectly orthodox on the divorce question
for while, just like an old topper who
joins the temperance society, but her re-
solves will prove just as transitory as his
ar. when not sustained by something more
than mere human resolution. Illinois or
Maine will not catch the reform mania at
the same time with Indiana, perhaps, so
that they will secure the harvest of
customers who buy license for legal
adultery. Then pious Indiana, disguised
at the unfair competition will come out
with larger inducements than ever.
When q pagan nation, like the United
States of America, commences to grow no.
torious for it's vices, it's progress in that
road may be intermittent, but it is certain.
In vain may we expect reform in public
morals as regards corruption in Office,
bribery of legislators, judges and govern
ors, pecu1ation of bank officers, dishonesty
of bankrnpts, etc. Onward is the watch
word of social corruption. Men and wo-
men grow more avaricious and more prodi
n with experience, until the natural term
4Ewickedness ia met, not Aperhaps in for
eign conquest, as with Babylon, Athens
and Rome, but in revolution and anarchy,
which equally amount to national annihila-
ton.
We say that no men or communities but
such as are Catholic can, by voluntary eff
fort, arrest themselves in the downward
tendency and avert the final ruin which a
career of vice engenders. Catholics may
become as bad or worse than any others, but
the difference between them and Protes-
tants or Pagans% consists in this, that the
former are often reclaimed by the grace of
God and become good again, while the Lat
ter do not, except by some accident which
places the evil beyond their reach. Thus
the Roman Empire and the whole world
had gone to final and irrevocable ruin,
when Catholicity appeared and ultimately
succeeded in dragging civilization from
the depths in which it had been engulfed.
Thus, too, Protestant civilization every
where is rushing leadlong into vicious ex-
cess, which must reduce it to barbarism I'M
less Catholicity should get strong enough in
the meantime to rescue it from it's own evil
habits.
The Times may rest assured, however,
that sentimental philosophy and cold
reasoning will never save America from
the flood of bad passions which has broken
loose upon it. Give the Church a chance
and she will save it, as she has in all ages
rescued, and been the only power that ever
could rescue, nations from the clutches of
the Prince of Darkness.
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