The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-09-14

can people, who love strongly and tenderiy,
are beginning to see, more and more, that
between the lawlessness of the border ma
tions aud tho rites and intelligence of Ma
homedanism-that between the strange
practices of this sect and that, all flowing
in npon, and intended ultimately to destroy
them, there is only one great bulwark to
defend them-only one capable of standing
only one power that can exercise that
demon that would destroy society, and
that one power is the Holy Roman Catholic
Church. Though America to-day groans
her philosophers, her writer's and her Press,
over the awful corruption of official life,
and tue dishonesty which they publicly
proclaim ia found in every order of COM
mercial, social, and political life. Nothing
impressed me more than this-the univer-
in America. Thus we read that o man alb
seconded having mado his pile for they
have their special names by which to desig-
nate those operations. Another man alb
seconded having executed tremendous
"job," aud taken O couple of million of
brought to bay until he is made to disgorge
sums of almost fabulous extent, eight, ten,
or twelve millions of dollars and now
some great company is burst up, " to use
another American phrase, through the dis
! honesty and fraudulent conduct of two or
three of its head men; and so on. Men
! see all tliese facts. Over and over again /
have preached and lectured and spoken to
American audiences on this great trath:
| Gentlemen" have said, there is only
one religion that can save you; that is the
religion that begins by making men honest,
| through sacramentaf grace; and if they are
not honest, it is the only one that knows
how to punish the thief by making him
make restitution. Prevent man from
stealing if you can but if you cannot, the
| Ii
is, to take him by the throat and say,
6 Make restitution of all you have, or down
to hell you co. The Catholic Church alone
can say this" Here it is that the true,
shrewd mind Of America sees the immense
advantage Catholicity offers over those
humbug, the religion that is fer ever cry
ing, Lord, Lord! THAT invokes the
Holy Name with bfasphemous familiarity,
is constantly spouting texts from the Old
Testament, and is always parading before
you the sayings OF thls prophet, or OF that
! law eiver; that is ever hattering men, and
laying the tlattering JUNCTION to their souls
that they have found the true way to hap
piness when they learn to believe and
&c lean upon the Lord" Well, my friend
the Commissioners, Or my friend the road
contractor may " lean upon the Lord" but
you may be sure he will bring an addition
to his own weight in the shape of a bag
containing a couple of million dollars.
My friends, one word and have done. I
believe can afford to wait, for believe if
God gives me the ordinary term of human
life shall live to behold Catholic America
"a great nation clothed in all the grandeur
and strength and pride of the Holy Church
of God. It is said that when the Son of
God was on the cross His dying face was
turned towards the West. I know not if
the circumstance be so /; but it seems as if
it were. The tide of Saactity and Divine
hills that Witnessed His Crucifxion. The
approaching tide of barbarism, Malone
danism and Infdelity swept in, and every
vestise of the Church of God was obliter-
ated there. We have seen that tide sweep
| ing on from Jerusalem to Ephesus, from
Ephesus to Constantinople, proceeding
westward still, westward still; finding it's
strength in Rome, and from Rome the tide
of .sanctity retained by her, still swept
ACKNOWLEDGMENT still, until in the far
distant Western Isle, the leland of Saints,
Of Monks and of Apostles, the glory of
! Christendom, the grandeur of Catholic
sanctity burst out even upon Christian
nations as a still brighter light, and oil the
world praised God in Ireland. The surg
ing waves of infdelity are to day flashing
with angry roar the very foundations of
the Seven Hills of Rome; but westward
increasing in the light of Divine Faith;
and to day the whole world gazes upon the
portent of American Catholicity, and glo1i
| fes God, through the means Of Faith, for
| that which no human reason can account
| for or understand. 1 met old priests in
America-old men who in their first days of
missionary priesthood were obliged to lie
down in the snow, and we're forced to camp
out in winter, on their way of hundred or
! two hundred miles from one station to an
other to say Mass. There may be American
priests here, some who like myself have
heard such words as these made use of by
Father Abraham, the grand old Kentucky
Patriarch. Gather" he said, 81 am ut
terly astonished; am amazed; I can fiud
no reason on earth for it; must cast my
eyes to Heaven" Surely, if there be such
things as these-if the spirit of light and
grace be there, and if it's nature and ten
| dency be to grow and increase-may l not
promise myself to behold ere my eyes arc
closed in death, this glorious sight and
magnificent of the Catholic Church in
America. Oh, in that day, when the great
flag of freedom-the flag unstained by
blood shed in persecution or injustice-the
flag first uprearcd by Irish hands in the
| DAYS of the first Revolution, aud borne