New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-03-28

HOLE NUMBER SD
what becomes OF the gratuit-
Gus statement that ssall ereeds through
the ages grow like SNOWFALL rolling
down hill'.
stThe Bible must be read; and inter-
preted, subject to the rules Of any other
book The Bible has an historical and
aspect. As an historical record.
it should be read and interpreted in the
manner your correspondent indicates.
As religious work, containing the sub
ject-matter of faith and morals, it was
inspired by the Holy Spirit and must be
read and interpreted by Him. That
others have tried toread faith and morals
out of it and signally failed gives US the
thousand divisions and subdivisions of
christians outside the catholic fold. That
others have read its historical part as
divinely inspired gives us those irration-
al theories and cowardly subterfuges
made by self-appointed Interpreters.
The catholic believes that the bible con-.
tains the subject-marter of faith and
morals not because he finds it there
but because aa t,sfalldble Autbority tells
him 1t is there: as regards the historical
I'M formation the church leaves him e,stir-
ly free and therefore Imay hold with
your correspondent that some accounts
in the Bible are aNegortcal and that 9th
ers are. lateral. Take a parallel case.
Washington was a truthful man; his
word was kept with utmost faith. Yet
am therefore held to believe the hatchet
story2 Not at all. Washington's truth
fulness is not lesseaed one whit, whether
the hatchet story stands or falls. So
with the garden-tale told by Moses; its
underlying truth that the first parents
were tempted to sin by the Evil Spirit,
and actually sinned, is not lsssened by
the Mosaic illustration.
"Whether we believe in personal God
or nature with all It's laws and forces the
moral order does not suffer-" Is your
correspondent not aware that the moral
order has province seperate and dis
tinct from natural laws and forces7 The
distinction is sharp; in one we have
matter inert, fixed changeless laws and
blind forces; IN the other we have Soul,
free will with laws arbitrary
in their nature and in their application.
laws are retIibutive owing to
the indestructibility of matter and the
of energy. Moral laws are
re'ributive owing to some authoritative
personality indicating them whenever
they are broken. Let us look at this
point closely for it is the most import
ant raised by your correspondent. If
the laws and forces of nature punish the
crimes committed in the moral order then
our courts of justice are not needed.
Why does man punish his fellew man if
he is assured that nature will do the
works The reason is, man may be-
come an ethical bankrupt and still not
infringe on natures laws. He may be
a liar, thief, murderer. an aduIterer,~
forsicator and nature will insist only on
a good sanitary condition. In fact if
one half the race killed the other half
tomorrow Nature would ask only for
quick burial. The underlying truth is
this: A free agent like man endowed with
intelligence must be governed by be-
ing endowed with free-will and intelli-
gence. Man recognizes this fact by
courts of justice. The Judge
must have intelligence in order to know
the law; he must have free-will in order
to give reward or punishment for its OBJ
servance or Infringement. Otherwise
how could fixed, determined laws, such
as all physical laws are, acting only un-
der Certain conditions deal with free
agent whose mode of acting is determined
from within. Morality IS never applied
to inertia, gravitation or any ather natur-
al law-1t would be nonsense. Take an
A man is killed by falling
stone and murderer. Both kill yet no
one thinks of calling the stone to account
10 the law of gravitaion which it obeyed
N falling; whereas the murderer is hung
because he could have chosen not to kill
his free s0iU made the moral guilt. It
his will were not free he would not be NOR
lily responsible. So much clear, and the
necessity forapersonal judge, shown let
is see if there be not personal Judge,
! Moral Governor, beyond and above all
human courts. As there are acts against
morals which natural laws cannot reach
and which, if they be reacbe1 at all,
must be deaf with In courts of Justice,
80 there are acts against morals, which,
# they be punished at all, must be pun
ished by Moral Governor whether in
this life or in the one to come. Every
49,