The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1872-06-30
Give God His Place /.

t--Not leAs. than scisnoo 10 art anti-reaiSioaes
Art too hasaacst issr yoeasios. Time WA
when che was tho handmade Of religion /;
but the handmade has described her Queen
and takeni servicew WITH vices For art now,
| ministess, in greet extent, TO- ssnauslism
and exerts her Influence against morality.
Once she wore q virgins veil aud haunted
the temples of God, asd worked and
walked amid holy pictsIes End saintlyr
statues or sang hymnisto ~ gkn; but the
virgins vein has been fana asids,-the first
love has been lost, and arr hAs espoused
herself to Passion. The worsaiper in the
temple Of truth at theshrine of Parity has
become castaway, and she, who once
charmed hearts to virtue, lares them now,
lasciviously, to vice.
Painting has lost its olden inspiration,-
has grown tired Of saint-pictures and
sacred themes and eorrupts the eye> and
souls Of men by visions Of the base and
infamous. Look at the illustrated news-
papers ;-no-do not look unless you wish
to sully your eight. Enter picture: gal
leries,-and note the dissertation Of that
noble art. The human face xnd form are
there but the divine expression 10 Como.
The sensual IL there-it may be half-veiled
to excite the: sensual. Men have forgotten
how to paint the holy things that lead to
God - because they ignore him.-Music,
tho most beautiful of the sisters of art
once gloried In singing altar-songs, but
now, alas is more frequently met, singing
the ribald songs Of the streets The notes
which filed mems souls with lofty thoughts
and pure, fill them now with sentiments
low and base.
Music, once, the Acolyte clothed in
Holy ootaves, kneeling at the shrines of
tho Divine, ministers now to the unholy
desires of human loves.
Music has lost its grandest key-the Key
of God.
she went to Calvary, to receive her conse-
Grafton aud to drink 10 highest inspira-
ton but she has gone down from the holy
mount to. walk the low valleys of passion.
God, with her, was once the great reality,
now only in pretty figures of speech.
Her voice, corrupts, not purifies. Vice, not
virtue, is too often dressed with her verses.
She gathers flowers of thought-but not to
wreath them around Religious brow. The
true divine affiatus has gone out of poetry.
Now and then from some singer comes
forth song to lift men up to holy heights,
but it's sound is. soon lost in the din of
the wild voices Of passion.
And the drama! What is it but very
revei Of human passionsf Does it not
pander to every vicious tastef Is it not
fearfully demoralizing in its character and
its tendency. Does it not put the laws of
Christian morality and common decency to
shame Does it not mock at every stand
ard of ethics7 Is not the theatre the
place of all places, without Ged7 The
atrical representations, SO alluriDg to the
young - 40 exciting to the senses,-- SO
| fascinating to the imagination-a,e they
not very mockery Of Gods lawsf Are
they not scenes of moral license to which
innocence is attracted only to be destroyed.
And the lower kind Of dramatic arts it
not very vision wherein sin appears
wearing every charm7
Aud yet thousands upon thousands
throng where all the laws of virtue are
violated. q
Religion, in vain appeals-protests, de-
nounces, still the evil work goes on,-and
souls are lost to every noble instinct.
Art, then, in ell her forms, must be re-
generated. She needs to be purified. She
must go back again, like Magdalen, fall
at the feet of outraged Religion, ask for
Igiveness and sin no more. She must walk
and work in the presence of God. She
must admit and faithfully observe his
laws She must discard the low, the base,
the sensual, the evil anamipister to the
high, the noble and the holy. Else-she
shall drag men down to moral ruin.
If science be materialistic, art is pagan.
Pagan art will paganize her votaries.
She has done much of the dire work
already-she is doing it still.
An art without God in it will create in
any people tastes without God in them.
And they who lose all taste for God-lose
| all.