St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-07-25

y,
and to make reservation with God is to
deny Him. If Christ be not sufficient, then
seek some other master, or if the world have
better gifts then serve the world, but if you
go to Him you must go as He comes to man ,
-emptied of himself-SemetipSuna eri'ld'tiut.
Or is it to be thought that He will ask less
OF us than the most enlightened reason de-
mands OF those who are capable OF receiving
Its lessons! Whoever has the power to make
men less unhappy knows that II is his duty
TO cherish the gift, and to shun the personal
loves which dry the source OF large-hearted
charity, for to console men and to lift them
to higher life is nobler and more urgent
task than to multiply their number, which
seems already too great Plato makes Soc
rates say that the children of the noble are
seldom noble. Let him then who has great
mind or great heart seek to influence
multitudes, for at home his
example VIII neither be I'M
derstood nor followed He who has nor wife
nor children nor other bond of personal al
lection, is exposed indeed, to see the foun-
tain of love within himself run dry, which is
the greatest of misfortunes, but if without
narrowing his soul, he succeed in keeping Il
warm and tender heart, he will be the friend
Of God and of men. How high and benef
cent may he not make his life? What worthy
and holy cause is there which he shall not
make his own? What purest delight which
he may not feel2
And first of all, he knows that the good
OF life lies not in what we possess, or in what
we enjoy, but In what we love. The King
dom Of God is within, and better is it to dwell
there for single day than to abide for
a thousand years in the prison house of the
senses. When the mind has once learned
to be at home among the high thoughts and
divine images, that fill the literatures Of the
historic nations, it has found a kingdom for
Itself, and is forever lifted above mere money
making and the gross pleasure of sen sation.
When we know the better, we are self-con-
iemned, if We choose the worse.
If the intellectual life Gre
ates ideals which belong to the
suprasensible world, and which can not be
measured by external standards of value,
then surely the religious life, wherein not
one faculty alone, but all the faculties of the
soul reach out towards God, must still more
completely sever US from aims and ends
which are less than divine. And if delight
and satisfaction of very high order may be
found by those, who in the midst of poverty
and obscurity, dwell alone with their own
thoughts, enklndled by the thoughts of the
greatest minds who have lived,
80 that they not only do not crave
wealth, or the applause Of the
crowd, or animal qualification, but turn from
all this, as an obstacle and a hindrance to
Joys that arc puTer and more lasting,s then
doubtless they who feel Gods presence and
are uplifted by faith into world that abides
forever, will find in their souls love enough
to make life fair and good, and in their voy
age towards eternity will look upon the sights
and shows Of earth, as an exile, whose steps
are homeward bent, looks upon the scenes of
strange lands. Through all the words of our
blessed Lord there runs, like a soft under
tone, the thought that they who believe in
God aud in Him, have now
eternal life. Even here they are com
forted, they find peace, and their sor-
rows are illumined by hope and TRANSPORTED
by the flame of love. AS he who sins, sins
against himself, SO he who loves God and
His Christ is his own best friend and this is
tue though for him there should be no other
life. Gladly will believe that real Christian
faith is the germ Of Immortality, for l know
it is the root whence springs the fairest flower
and fruit Of mans earthly existence.
What fatality, for three hundred years
now, has driven all who think of Christ into
the arid waste Of controversy where there is
no refreshment for the soul?
"This is eternal life, to know God and Him
whom He has sent"
Why should / take much trouble to learn
whether Catholics in past ages have been
guilty of this or that crime, or have
practiced this or that virtues The important
thing is not to know this, but now, to-day,
in my own life, to do righteousness and
shun evil. Or what avails it to know that in
other times and places Catholics have loved
learning and cultivated science!
What God and the church demand of me
Is that |, according to the measure of my
ability, get the best possible culture of mind.
Aud why should l care to dwell upon the
Fact that Archbishop Langton led on the
oarons, who wrenched from kingly hands the
charter of the peoples liberties, when, if /
am true bishop, / myself should stand in
the front ranks of all who contend for JUS
tice for humanity, for temperance, for the
rights OF the weak and poor, who do battle
for God and man.
We praise the dead for what they have
done, and the living for what they do, and
since the church never dies, her proper glory
is not in past triumphs, but in pres
cnt struggles The hearts of men are never
stirred to heroic action by the contemplation
of what is gone, however glorious it may
have been. As we do not find it hard to
hate the sin whichothers commit, so we easily
feel disesteem for the virtues Of al age other
than our own
Only the nObest natures in the presence of
the old remembers the qualities which once
made them fountainhead of life and of Joy
and such natures alone are grateful for
blessings which have ceased to be. When
Bossuet carried to his Cathedral of Meaux
the remnant of voice soon to be hushed in
H.. Ilol 8
their Office to assist at the service, were un-
able to conceal their impotence whenever
they saw him enter the pulpit, and yet he,
of all orators, sacred or profane, had the
sublimest genius, and like an eagle, with
his eye upon the sun, scared through the
blue heavens, above heights to which others
hardly climb. This is the common course
of human ingratitude. When the fire which
has warmed us is but heap of ashes, we
turn away, and when they who have served
us are weary and Old, we leave them to the
mercy OF God.
Let us not imagine then that men will
love the church for what she has been
Though her course through the ages be filed
with all the splendor that marks the passage
of the sun across the heavens, yet If she
sink beneath the horizon men will forget
the light OF God, and walk beneath their gas
jets till they fall asleep. Nor shall we here
win followers by pointing to what the church
has done in Europe.
1t is human not to feel gratitude for ben
efts which others receive. In new world
we crave for new life, and in the midst of
the OVERLOOKING blessings of a material civil
lizution, we yearn Tor spiritual ideals, for a
religious faith which shall lift us above our
physical environment and maintain the SOW
areiprtv Of tho snu1 \Ep Catholics IN,
deed, the heirs of all the Christian glo-
rlcs, but II weak minds and feeble hearts in
hcrta great name, its weight Expresses