Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-11-12
AN1MPREssIvE SERMON

At the last service yesterday in the
church of the Immaculate Conception.
after the reading -of the first gospel,
Father j. G. Byrne assembled the pulpit
and delivered an eloquent discourse of
which the following is brief abstract:
Amen, say toyou, that one of you is about
to betray me. (Math. zxxi:2l)
Nothing in the life of Christ
was more remarkable than
this, that he permitted himself to be be-
trayed by one of bis apostles especially in
view of the infinite wisdom of God, by
which he foreknew all things and of his
Infinite power by which he could have
changed the hardest heart. The reason,
however, of this divine permission is evil
dent If we reflect that that small body of
men represented the church of all sue
ceedlng ages. There was the first of the
popes, st. Peter; the greatest of theologi-
ans, st. John; the models of sacred writ
ers, the evangelists; the first
active laborers in the vineyard,
the other apostles, and finally
Judas, type and forerunner of all the trait
ors who have abandoned their mother
church, and, in fact, just as there has al
ways been in the church a multitude of
sacred doctors, of Interpreters and of &C.
tive laborers, so also there has been long
succession of traitors. Of these Christ
speaks when he says, There shall arise
false Christs and false teachers" Against
these St. Peter sounds warning when he
says, many unlearned and unstable, not
understanding the epistles of st. Paul had
wrested them to their own perdition. And
st. Paul himself is unceasing
in his admonitions to beware
of heresy and hsretics. But Christ's prom
Use to be with the church at all times is not
more truly verified than his warning of
the false prophets and false teachers who
would arise,-Nicholas, Novatus, Arius,
Pelagius, Eutyches, John, of CONSTANT
nople, Lergins, the Monothelite, Leo
Iconoclast, Photius, Anacletus, the anti
pope, Peter Waldo, Abelard, John Huss,
Wickleff, all of WHOM rose up against the
church of Rome, and, although
they made great many
followers in their time and
had the audacity to proclaim that they
were the true church, nevertheless to-day
they are forgotten and the church of Rome
remains.
God would not be infinitely good if he
could not draw good from evil, and he
himself signifies that the roofing oct of
heresy would be detrimental to the church.
Don't gather up the cookie" he says, "lest
you root up the wheat also with it, With
out the cruelty of the tyrant5 the mayrtrs
would not have obtained their crowns.
Without the dissemination of error the
true followers would not have had an op-
po-tunity to suffer for and defend the
truth. Where the hottest contests sprang
up between Catholics and their adversaries
there the studies of philosophy, of theology
and of languages were the most ardent
and most fruitful of good results If
there had been no heresies st. jerome, st.
Augustine and st. Thomas might have
edited the church by the sanctity
OF their lives, but they would
not have illustrated the church
by the wisdom of their writings. Hence,
by divine Gispensation, as long as there
Will be light and darkness, day and night.
there will be truth and error. ''Let them
both grow till the harvest" says the
Divine Master. One false doctrine sue
ceeds the other in rapid succession, for the
truth is one and error is manifold. The
oft-quOted traveller from New Zealand may
stand on broken arch of London bridge
and sketch the ruins of st. Paul's, but he
will only have to turn towards Tyburn or
Kensington to sketch the marble towers
and imposing structure OF another ediice
over whose portals will be written, hatred
and opposition to the Catholic church.
If error always will be with the church,
if persecution nerves the Catholic heart,
If nothing is so detrimental to the church
as lazy, peaceful tranquility, if we have
to rejoice and be exceeding glad when
men shall revlle US and persecute US and
say all manner Of evil against Us, what
are our sentiments on the 4OOth
anniversary OF the birth of Martin Luther,
who was hereto, prosecutor, a reviler
of the Catholic church! Are we sorrow
stricken at this event? No, but rather q
sense of noble prida should fill our hearts.
| -Four hundred years have nearly passed
years of fierce hate and hateful persecu-
| tion-years of great trial and undaunted
suffering for the church, aud to-day she can
look back and say triumphantly, O, man,
and work Of man, you have failed. You
created food but it struck against an
immoveable rock ard IVES hurled back in
| spray. Professionalism, divided and sub
| divided into iupumera6le sects, is fast tot
| tering into its natural grave, rationaiism.
II Luther were to return no would not be
able &c recognize his Lutherans, but the
! church OF Christ is always the same, nor
can he ever fiud her different, for God has
never abandoned her but remains with her
| forever.
Catholics and Protestants on
| account OF their different
creeds are forced to form Opposite opia-
| ions Of Luther. The Catholic reads scrip
ture with the light of preceding genera
tions and there finds that the successor of
! st. Peter must be the head of the church.
He reveres him therefore as the vicar of
Christ, the interpreter, under certain con-
ditions, of the Word of God by divine ap-
| pointment. Hence, to rise up against his
authority is the gravest act of disobedi-
ence; to revile his person becomes
blasphemy, not directly against
God, but indirectly through his vicar. To
assume his prerogative of interpreter of
the word of God is the height of presump-
ton and sin against the Holy Ghost, by
whom the Holy Father, when acting as SUI
preme teacher of the Catholic church, ia
infallibly guided, and these were the sins
of Luther.
Ths Protestant, on the other hand, be-
lieves, no matter how ridulous!y, that
the pope is sntichrist. He hates
the Catholic church whose teachings
have been represented to him in the most