The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-12-01
KinQ-Killinq.

] SOu9ClcuC0 III COubTOlIlUR tu0W
The law may make men cautious as t.
how they commit murder, by pnniship
it with death, but can never make mel
avoid the offense through horror of th,
crime itself. Bold and formidable
men will despise q danger which stand
in the way of their will, il they d,
not believe their object to be wrong
They will find way to defy the obstacle
| and crafty their wish. But let them fee
that the law is RIGHT, that what they
| want is not only unlawful but 10, ,ong, an6
the tide is turned. "Conscience makes
| cowsrds of us ALL" and many who would
brave a great punishment shrink from the
responsibility of q great wrong.
The conscience has many grades of cen.
sitiveness. Some men will commit for
gerry and peculation and fraud Of any
kind, and yet would shrink in horror from
bloodshed. Their conscience is alive
to the wickedness of murder, but callous
to the other crimes. Such men will freely
risk the peniten tiary in their practise of
fraud, while they would never consent to
commit murder, even though certain of
escaping all punishment. How impotent
is the law to check theft among negroes
who have but little moral eense of it's
cfiminality and among many white popu-
lations, too, where social degradation has
equally blunted the moral sense! Deprive
men of the moral sense altogether. that is,
Of the power of conscience, and every man
would have to be watched all the time.
The laws would not find agents enough
for their enforcement and would fall into
disuse.
Apart from that consideration everyone
must have remarked the immense class of
iumoralities not taken cognizsnce of at all
by the law. There is absolute liberty, 80
far as legal punishment is concerned, for
thousands of evil actions. In every
direction there may be excesses which are
not against any statute-excesses of ILL
temper, of harsh Judgment, of drinking and
eating, of idleness and dissipation, of ex-
trsvagance aud parsimony. If the evil
ipclinstions of men in such matters were |
not checked, human Intercourse would !
become intolerable and there would be an |
end to society. The law does not even
undertake to coptrol these things, for the
simple reason that 1t Is impotel. to reach.
them, and recognizes it's impotence. Here
then, again, it is the moral sense alone,
that is, conscience, which saves society.
How singular, then, that governments
should make war on the instrumen entality |
which God has ordained for enlightening
and stimulating the conscieuces of men
10 In IN nj oil;
in the Church of Christ teaches
men an abhorrence of wrong doing, with
out which, Rs we have seen, the Jaws of
men, even where they apply, would be
dead letter. And set, In ito blind into'er-
aDce, its inso.ent ambition for erpremacy, !
human government invades this sacred |
domain of conscience, attacks, cripples,
banishes it's divine guide, and still hopes
to maintain order and control society.
Vain folly Futile hope! Religious
morality partly destroyed and legal ,
morality substituted for it, We see the
fruits Of the change in the reckless politi-
cal fanaticism which is overepreading
Europe in the shape of organized assassin
alton. In one days dispatches of the
week just ended we found that a number
of Russian students had been arrested in
Germany as Socialists, and at the request
Of their own government, that political
arrests were being made il BArceloha and
SarsgossA, and that three hundred persons
at Rome were either arrested or expelled
on the occasion of the entry of the King
snd Queen. The next day we cav that
dynamite had really been put on the rails
In front Of the train which carried the
royal party to Rome, and that the police
had seized placards threatening death to
all who should join in an ovation to the
king. Fret it is Wilhelm, of Germany,
that is the assaesin's mark, then A'phonso
of Spain, then Humbert of Italy, and the
next-who among royal personages can
say that ID will not be his torn2
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