The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-09-06
ScrofuIa.

natlonal disease. That IS what 10 the mat
ter with the United States now. There il
q general faint in the moral constitution OF
the country. A man may have a scrofulous
sore on his arm and that is the spot
where the pain and itching will be, but
the faint IS throughout his whole system,
liable to break out in ulcers at any place.
The sore place in this country, just at this
time, is the South, and the disorder mani
tests itself there in the presence OF troops.
Our people are being governed in the
Mexican fashion, and, if things 60 on as
they have been going, anarchy will become
as prevalent here as in Mexico. Soldiers,
soldiers every where the government of
force every where consequent dissatis-
faction of the people, followed by murders,
reyolts, instruction, revolution, every
where.
The eruption is ia the Soath now ;
but let Grant, or another President,
try to rule the people of Massachu-
sets or California, or Illinois with
soldiers; let him impose on them a
fraudulent government by force, and dis
content will seize them Immediately. The
among the people because they have
themselves made those laws, will no
longer be found when the people feel
that they have not made them. Dis
satisfaction will be followed by violence,
outbreaks, murder and then, more soldiers.
That is what we call the Mexican style of
Government. 1t has commenced in this
yvban Will H.
has been introduced how far will it
spread7
But this is not itself the Scrofula of
which we speak; it is only the symptom
of it. The real faint is in the perverted
moral sense of the people at large it is
in the callous popular disregard Of justice.
No matter how grievous wrong is done,
how great usurpation is made, the people
are not much shocked, and care but little
about it, unless the shoe pinches their own
feet That noble indignation which, In a
free people worthy of freedom, would
speak in lion tones at any spectacle of
fellow freemen oppressed and ruined, is
silent throughout the dominant section os
this country in presence of white States
governed by barbarians and plundered by
thieves.
Instead of applying a searching remedy !
themselves instead of plying the unfor-
tunate communities where persecution and |
wrong have-driven few >anscrupulous |
men into crime, they and their President |
sternly, ruthlessly seize the opportunity to
food the country with soldiers and repress
in blood the misdoings to which their own
injustice gave rise.
Very well. We cannothelp it any more
than Sampson could help having his eyes
put out; but let them reflect how much
better it would have been for the enemies
OF Sampson if they had spared his eyes and
made friend of him. The spirit of dis.
among tue weak and of inso-
lent repression among those in power, will
not remain pent up in the South it will,
naless radical change be effected in the
morals of the people, spread through
put the country and pull down this
proud temple of republicanism. An
unjust people cannot be free, because they
themselves cherish and propagate the very
principle iDjustice-which is the only and
deadly foe of freed ON.
There lie one hope that real freedom can
be revived and perpetuated in this coun-
Try. Where moral decay once attacks a
people, they never recover from it by ma
ural means. 1t is only the supernatural
Touth and vigor of the Christian religion,
he Catholic Faith, which by being infused
nto the currents of it's life can stay the
march of decay and give renewal of :
trength and health. We speak not of the ,
mere presence of the Church, but of it's
Tital influence. There are countries where y.
the Church is nominally accepted but
where large bodies of the people are en-
irely alien to its influence, as in France,
II where large majorities of them know it
'nly in name and are ignorant of its doc
rines, as in Mexico. But the man that is {
ruly imbued with its spirit is freeman
It heart in any country. He hates