The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-03-31
HERALD SUNDAY. 81 s72-QUADRUPLE SHEET

leaders and masters whose name stands al
clearly out from the centuries as that of Pete
or Paul, or Augustine or Loyola. The worl
he did was necessary. The Catholic may re-
| greet that he accomplished secession and
founded the Protestant Church, but the Catho-
lie should remember that it was this work,
this mutiny, this war upon the sacred
traditions of Rome, that rescued that
Church and purified It. The Catholic
will think with pride and thankful
ness Of Loyola, but without Luther there
would never have been Loyola. We cannot
overlook or disparage or seek to destroy by
invective and criticism the meaning of man
like Luther. He may have abandoned the sac
raments and amended the creeds, but he gave
Christianity new life, an earnestness and a
purifying influence which is felt to-day, and
which is seen in the closer alliance between
religion and thought. Reason and faith are
walking hand in hand, because when we think
we do not necessarily cease to believe.
Here in America, where thought runs riot
and abandons itself to the most grotesque and
appalling conceptions, where faith is by no
means dominant trait of the national char
acter, and where II has often been felt that we
were drifting into an Arctic sea Of material
ism and humiliation, we feel that we are be-
coming more and more religious, and give in
creased respect to the forms and ceremonies
of religion. We feel that these church
festivals, whether ordained by Rome
or the prelacy or our dear old Puritan
fathers-whether we call them Christmas,
Epiphany, Thanksgiving or Easter-carry
and cherish. The Lenten season was never
more generally observed than it has been this
year. Seven years ago a President of the
United States met his death in theatre on
Good Friday night A public man could not
now attend q theatre on Good Friday night
without making painful and grievous i'm
preston. So We might multiply illustrations
to show the drift of our national conscience.
May 1t not be possible that great religious
influence is underlying these movements, and
that we are now undergoing reformation in
morals and faith like what was seen in Europe
under Luther? Those who come after us,
when they tell of Tammany and its fall, of
Fisk and his career Of a day, and how he
passed away like an exhalation; of the over
throw of Erie of the domestic Christian ex-
ample of the President and his sternness in
furnishing crime and misdemeanor; Of the
downfall of slavery and the salvation of the
Union, of the steady progress of society
toward economy and probity and courtesy,
and of the mighty influence exercised by
America upon the world by reason of these
trials and triumphs, will speak Of it as
truly reformation. They will devoutly
see Gods direct intervention, the NOV
ing of his very finger. And it may
we trust, be written that America, after
her foibles and wickedness, gradually re-
turned to higher and purer life; that religion
and charity and love held greater influence,
and that the reformation of the nineteenth
century was happier and more peaceful
turtles before. Friends, is this dream-a
fanciful prophecy? 1t will not be so if upon
this Easter morning we each and all Of us
accept the holy lessons of the day and the
divine example of the Saviour whom we
honor, and resolve 80 to accept them that our
life and conversation will be worthy of the
pure and gracious men who founded the Chris
tian Church.