The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-11-21
Liberal.

o certain amount of it for the convictions
of the families among which their papers
circulate. Christianity may be in their
opinion merely human invention com
bining q very fine system of morals with q
great deal of fable in the way of dogma,
but as Christian parents do not wish to
have such opinions propagated among their
children, those Journalists would show
much more discretion in keeping them for
their own ediacation than in paradiDg them
publicly through their writings.
We observe in last Tuesdays issue of q
city contemporary an article which, in cool
contempt for Christianity IS a system Of
| religion, would be hard to surpass. 1t was
entitled Converting the Brahmin." Our
| neighbor quotes from Max Muller the mar
rative of how one Col. or Lieut. MILFORD
believed the fables of the old Greeks and
Romans, and the equally fabulous stories
of the Old Testament, to be stolen from the
more ancient religion of Hindostan how
he rode his hobby around among the
Brahmins until they became perfectly
familiar with it how the promise of golden
reward spurred them on until finally they
specimens of the proof that he wanted, duly
translated from Sanscrit, and how the Ibfidel
3drams Of Europe went into ecstacies over
this historical confederation of their theo-
ries, until they found out the fraud.
Strange to say, our neighbor does not
draw from all this the very evident moral
of 1nfdel discontinue and stupidity, but
twists it into commentary on Christian
impertinence. Hear it:
Perhaps more melancholy comment upon
human vanity could not be made. With ira
ditions far moro ancient than our own, o per-
lection in many branches of manufactures we
have not yet acquired, a code of morals as pure
in theory as opr own, religious enth Qsiasts
strive to unsettle convictions which are GER
tainly as characteristic of the Orient as is our
own belief of the Occident. We forget that sys-
TENS still in vogue existed in the East when
we were in o state of barbarism and must have
been permitted by the Supreme Being ages
before we possessed history or the semblance
So far from turning the Brahmin from Bud
dha, the Christians uncomprehending enthu-
siasm has become the butt of his quiet sar-
casm, and in many instances the laughing
stock OF an unobtrusive and inoffeusive people.
First, then the Brahminical "traditions
are far more ancient than our own" that
is, than the Mosaic traditions. How libe-
rat! How heightened! Still we must re-
feet that it may be somewhat startling to
the innocent convictions of children who
have always been taught the contrary.
Secondly,-"a code of morals as pure in
theory as our own !" st. Paul says that the
heather are law unto themselves. God
has implanted in the hearts of all men a
natural sense of justice and morality, and
certain eminent men of the Pagan world
have written many things harmonizing
with that natural law. In so doing, they
were doubtless guided to great extent by
the light of tradition, so much tue more
vivid as the ages in which they lived we're
nearer the original revelation that God had
made to man.
But to Believe that these writings are
teachings of virtue found in Christianity,
is most singular delusion. The great
queen virtue of all-Charity, Christian
Cbarity-is wanting in every system Of
morality but the Christian. What philos
opher, Confucius, Buddha or Plato, teaches
man to love his neighbor as himself, to for
give all wrongs, and to turn the other cheek
when smittenR Yet love is the esseuce
of all joy, temporal and eternal it is the
whole of religion, as it ia the light of eter-
nifty. If a man loves his neighbor as him
self, he has every other virtue natural or
| supernatural. Is any such doctrine found
in any of those pure codes of morals vaun-
ted as on par with Christianity
But our controversial and very liberal
| neighbor, further shocks the little ones of it's
patrons families by eliminating that differ
ent religions are pretty much result or in
cident of climate. One religion suits in the
East, another in the West one is charac-
teristic of the people there, another of
the people here each is adapted to the
peculiarities of its own followers, and it is
| an impertinence in either to suppose that it
would do in the place of the other, or that
any one religion could harmonic with the
characteristics of all people. That is to
! say, there is no truth in the dogma of any