The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-09-07

porary philosopher, is easy to repose is
dificnlt. Man works without repose when
he labors relying only upon himself; he
works and reposes when he commences BY
repose we offer you ; it is supremely deli
cious, and the workman will be led to re-
pose, in working for others, like good
Claude des Huttes, the stone-cutter of st.
Point, the friend Of Lamartine, who, poor
as he was, worked gratuiteusly for those
retiring to rest: "I have earned a good
days wages; for the poor pay me in friend
ship, my heart pays me in conSentment,
and the good God will pay me in mercy"
O greatness Of the Christian workman!
We promise to labor as increasingly for
the amelioration of your material condition
as for the enlarge ment of Your understand
ing. Evil be to us if we did not think of
the lodging, warming, nourishment of the
workman's family !; If we would coniscats
science to our profit, and not extend to you
the treasure if we ceased for single in
slant to open Schools asylums,, circles,
conferences, institutions of peace and of
light. We do not recoil before progress
no light terrifies us. From texts Of the
Gospels, we have and ever will produce
new consequences, religious, philosophical,
and social and these conclusions const;-
tute progress incessant and ever new
our progress, the only true progress.
Finally, we promise to organize with
your aid the workingmen's associations.
Association only frightens us when it
leans towards despotism, and we wish
principally to give it a religious character.
The confraternity an old word, which is
ridiculed, but which in reality is a great
thing men reunited for one temporal aim
under the protection of God, their angel
guardians, and their celestial patrons free
men, discussing with all loyalty the inter-
ests of their trade, and knowing how to
govern themselves. You will invent moth
ing better, provided always that, in this
enlarged institution, the Catholic spirit is
harmoniously mingled with the positive
of crisis which cannot last long to our
mutual aid and cooperative societies
others will succeed more scientifically organ.
ICED, and, above all, more Christian. We
hope in this future, and believe it very
near it is the ideal for this world now,
is the great association of the happy
1t would seem impossible, in the face of
doctrines, that any misunderstanding could
exist between the church and the work.
man but Satan has not understood it in
this manner, and objections pour against
the church.
1t has been said repeatedly that the
church has done nothing for the workman.
1t is the conclnsion that Victor Hugo has
given to his Les Miserables, and this book
has singularly contributed to develop
hatred in the hearts of the people. Nu-
writer's, animated with the same
ardent hate, affirm daily that, to find socie-
ty well organized, We must 60 back to
antiquity, or take 1886 as the place of de-
partufe.
To refute these assertions, we will first
say that, in regard to antiquity, they for
get that it was devoured by the frightful
cancer of slavery !; among the greater, part
of the nations before Christ, the workmen
were for long time principally slaves.
spised, was performed by entire nations of
slaves, who were paid with lashes of the
whip. Thus were built many of the mag
nificent monuments of the Greeks, and,
above all, of the Romans-monuments
which they place so far above those of the
ber night in the Eternal City, contempla
ting with stupefaction the immense mass
of the Coliseum the gigantic shafts of the
columns which lay pell- nell at my feet
the colossal aqueducts defined against the
horizon-all the splendors which are still
grand even in their ruins. A priest who
accompanied me exclaimed, in astonished
"You must acknowledge that
the Christian races have never produced
such great works."
"'Tis true" replied, "and thank God
for it, for these monuments you behold
were chiefly constructed by the hands of
slaves, and we now only employ free work
men, whom we pay for their labor"
We do not sufficiently reflect on this |
Obelisks, immense pyramids, splendid por-
ticos, hippodromes where 80 much plebeian |
blood flowed theatres where modesty was |
brutalIy violated; temples where they |
adored so many passions, so many vices -;
tombs where 30 much vanity is revealed !; |
elegant houses, but where the wife and |
Child were 80 little valued astonishing |
of Incompatible art, admire |
you much less since 1 know by whose |
hands you we're raised. 1t is not thus
that they have built since the Advent of
Jesus Christ and the church.
There ia in history proposition of more
than mathematical clearness, which 1 de-
clare solemnly to be true it is that the
church destroyed slavery. 1t is the church |
that gradually transformed the slave into
the serf; that by degrees compelled society,
formed by her, to change the serf into tho
freeman. This is established by the re-
cords, century after century, year after
year, day after day. 1t is true, the church
lid not improvise in an hour this admira-
Die change, this marvellous progress it is |