New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-04-04
THE CATHOLIC STAND POINT
VIM. Sheran Of st. Paul Takes Exception
to an Article in the Review.

|
to an Article in the Review.
The following is in continuation of the
article published last week.
We reach the same conclusion by an
other train of thought. Why do crimi-
nails voluntarily give themselves up, men
who have escaped the law and who know
by such surrendery and confession, that
death is inevitable? You cannot explain
it by an appeal to nature. for self pre-
servatao~ IS the first Ian of aaoture You
cannot deny that such cases exist; for
they are known to everybody. You can
not ascribe it to principle which is the
result of environment; for mans envir-
onment induces the very opposite prime
ible-''be criminal if you will, only do
not be caught" You must ascribe it to
Moral Governor, personal God who
stlrs remorse IN the guilty soul. How?
We may name this faculty as we choose
but we know it to be a sense of right
and wrong, a moral standard deep in our
souls; inseparable Judgment is pro-
nouaced on every act. This Sill Small
Voice is heard above the clamor of sud
den passion Or habitual vice. 1. is a
changeless arbiter and before it's tribunal
cay after day, year after year, come all
our acts to be forever approved or to be
branded forever as Infamous Rv com
mon consent this arbiter is called Con-
science. To deny it's existence would be
like denying the intellectual or any
other faculty. Conscience is fact, the
strongest proof of a personal God. A
personal God acting through conscience
on the soul, gives man standard for right
! and wrong. Otherwise where will YOU
find standard? Among men? But one
man will say-this is right; another will
say OF the same thing-it is wrong. $50
many heads, so many opinions' is an old
| proverb. And if there was not Supreme
| Arbiter, immoral acts and customs would
| often pass for moral ones. Hence moral
lty has its rooJ in the fundamental truth
OF religion the existence of personal
God. The seal Of an approving con-
science cannot be had for an immoral
act any more than the seal of our Gov
ernment for a counterft document.
Many a criminal has tried to win the ap-
p1oval of Conscience, but after years of
inward suffering and remorse he has
either died of grief or voluntarily given
himself up. Conscience is in man every
where. 1t is not the product of culture
for it is found IN the savage; nor is it the
product of savagery for it is found among
the cultured. You cannot educate it out
of him. It's dictates are substantially
the same in all nations and ages; for all
extant codes of morality are substanti-
ally alike. St. Paul has interpreted it
Alright; it is the law of personal God
written in the heart From Conscience,
therefore, we argue a supreme Moral
Governor or as William Mallock, great
non-christian thinker of our times puts
1t: 'from his first assent to his own
moral nature man must rise to O. thrisqn
and may rise to the recognition of II
| c1'atrch q V1ssl6le embodiment of that NOR
1t nature of has-tbeaa has nature a0iW be
redeemed from its sceak1aess and from
its httleness; for God Himself viU be his
6rothersG1ad his tather."
Therefore the existence OF Conscience
and those unrewarded acts and unpun-
| lshed crlmes-unreWarded and unpun
lshed so far as natural law is concerned.
yet crying out to Eternal Justice for
satisfaction = point Enthusiastically to
Personal Ruler. Once in the history of
a pagan people the Moral Governor was,
so, to speak, removed; for the people
iost 1alth IN the gods and became skeptl-
cal. The moral structure at once rotted
everything became venal and Jurgurtha
after buying his freedom from the de-
praved Roman senate exclaimed: ga city
for sale! and soon to perish if it can
find porchaser." Once like condi-
ton prevailed in France. The principles
Of Voltaire were carried out and Reason
and Nature were substituted for a Pers-
onal God. The French Capital ran with
blood. immortality was practiced open
y IN the streets. Vice. pplanted virtue.
LaWlessness took the place of order. All
the demoniac passions of man were let
loose and Anarchy, sheathing her dagger
IN the heart Of sociery. drew over the "
ing victim her dark and bloodstained
pail. Such is the price paid for parting