The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-04-30

1t is proverbial in the communities where
| these pastors olive, that they take unto them
| selves more rich wives III proportion to their
number than men who belong to any other
profession. 1t is hard to restrain a
smile when wealthy pastor of this class tells
his hearers that in order to follow the Lord
ones riches must be given to the poor in other
words, he does not mean what he says.
Again
Rich men who are kno wn to give are much
| beset for money by clergymen, both in the
| pulpit and out of it, in the name of the Lord,
and it is to be feared thai the sums thus obtain
! ed are ofteu used for purposes which are not
sanctioned by Him whose name is Invoked
| for them. To know
that many people in the most populous
quarters of the cities are offerings for
| the want of food and medical treatment, and
in the face Of this knowledge to give a hand
| some sum TO a fashionable clergyman to build
! an ostentatious and costly church, indicates
singular idea of Christian duty.
The writer then alludes in caustic
manner to the enormous salaries paid to
| come fashionable pastors for very inferior
I spiritual wares, and to the gallantries
practiced by the same gentlemen towards
the fairer portion of their flocks. A together
be is dissatisfied with the reform atory
power of Christianity as exhibited in
America.
most exclusively Protestantism during
those years when our present patona
character was forming, and to itsinfuence
we attribute the money worshiping devel-
opments in that character. I Protestan-
tism is essentially worldly II It boasts of
it's riches, its ten po:al power, it's secular
splendor as exemplifed in certain great
int
of exultation over the material wealth of
Great Britain, the vast political empire
which that nation has established, the apex
of worldly greatness to which she has
struggled since adopting it's principles.
These worldly aims and achievements are
clearly and constantly pressed as most
desirable, as even an unsnswerable proof
anity be expected to counterfeit the love of
richest
The construction of magnificent tenn
pies to God cannot be per sc classed
among the proofs of ecclesiastical worship
of wealth. The Temple Of Solomon has
never been equalled in splendor, and was
the work of inspired zeal. Of course it is
all question of motive if the promoter of
these grand editces is moved by true zeal
for the glory of God, his work is another
Temple of Solomon if by spirit of vain
glory and pride, it is, so far as he can make
it, monument to Mammon.
The writer in the GALAXY, though doubt,
less Protestant, does not seem to take an
orthodox Protestant view of the godliness
of the Dollar. To love tbyself as thy
neighbor, he says, is above nature, but it is
fully within human strength to respect the
rights of others, and the probabilities in
caee of 80 doing are against getting rich.
He evidently does not find wealth to be a
presumption of piety, Tor poverty proof
of ungodlness.
Neither does money afford, properly
speaking, presumption of happiness. 1t
does not even constitute real wealth.
Wealth is of no moment except as a means
of enjoyment, and he is, therefore, really
the wealthiest who controls the greatest
means of enjoyment. A man condemned to
live in a desert, though surrounded with
gold and diamonds, would not be rich. He
who spends his hundred thousand a year,
uul hlusI WI INC d SIdN Z udS duu ulRuL "
make it, is but slave after all. Such a
one has no time to enjoy himself, no time
to cultivate his tastes, his powers of enjoy
ment. Money is but one element of wealth,
there are two other elements, the capacity
and the leisure to enjoy the uses of the
money. If a man has not these, the money is
not really his; he is but it's keeper. The
Italian lazzarone is of en- richer man than
the shoddy aristocrat, tortured under the
exigences of his new found state like an In
dian in dandy's full rig.
Philosophically speaking, we ought to
learn to reduce the dollar to its proper rank
as one of the factors in the sum of temporal
enjoyments in this life. The chief ofthose
factors is the culture necessary to enjoy.
The material resources are generally
amply at command, if people would be sat
isfed with what God gives them and
would devote some of their time to being