The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-12-15
nCNIL |zATIOb AND
THE CHURCH. !"
Father Ferguson Lectures
in Metropolitan
Hall.
Successful Entertainment Held
Successful Entertainment Held
Under the Auspices of
the Y. M. |.
The Lecturer Recounts the History
of Catholicism anG Its Many
Triumphs Over Persecution.

lecture is the fourth OF the I. M. l. bureau
series, and was the principal though. not
the only feature of an attractive entertain
ment given under the auspices OF San
Francisco Council No. Z.
The genial chairman of the evening. b.
J. Gallagher, stated that these lectures
were the outcome of the efforts of an
earnest member at the last meeting OF the
Grand Council. At this meeting their re-
spected and well-beloved friend, the Rev.
Father Yorke loud applauseJ proposed
the establishment of a lecture bureau Tor
the purpose of spreading Catholic truths
to the greatest extent possible, and OF ac-
quainting not only Protestant friends put
even themselves with some of those
truths. This idea was subsequently re-
allied and the present was the fourth OF
the series of lectures delivered under the
auspices of the institute. The officers,
he added, felt confident that ere long these
lectures would become a positive neces-
sity and great educational factor.
Then followed the appended programme,
of which the contributions by the Sacred
Heart College Orchestra, under the leader
ship of Professor Karl Schernstein, and
the graceful fancy dancing of the little
Misses Gertie and May O'Connor and their
brother Charles O'Connor, lwere enthusiast
tically received:
''King Cotton March" (sousa), Sacred Heart
College Orchestra; "Old Homestead Gavotte''
u. Zimmerman), Sacred Heart College Orenes-
ira; vocal solo, Miss Lulu Hilderbrandt; fancy
dancing, the Misses May and Gertie OCCnnor;
grand selections, Campaign Melodies, Sacred
Heart College Orchestra; hornPipe and High
land fling, Master Charles O'Connor: comic
song, Richard l. Whelan; Heather Rose Ca
price," selected, Sacred Heart College Orches-
ira
Rev. Father Ferguson on rising could
not proceed for quite an interval, owing to
the applause. Ladies and gentlemen"
he said. lone of the most successful bust
ness men in this country, in reply to the
question how he succeeded in doing SO
many difficult things, stated: can wait
longer than any one else in the country
except the Roman Catholic church.
Loud applause He had the capacity
for biding his time, and understood that
everything comes to him who waits. He
discovered one reason why the Roman
Catholic church is Successful. She waits.
She has passed triumphantly through per-
secutions in almost every age of her ex-
istence, as impervous to them and to all
human vicissitudes as the pyramids which
stand amid the eternal sands of Egypt.
Kingdoms rise and fall, come and go; her
enemies disappear, but the church waits
on, and will continue to do SO until her
Founder comes again TO judge the quick
and the dead. If she were asked to prove
her truth by miracle she might say that
her existence amid such ng-continued
prosecutions was miracle enough. Elk
anime history and we find that at the time
the apostles began their mission the world
was politically organized into the Roman
empire, which as the consolidation of GEN.
turtles was then in the spIendor of its
meridian glory"
The speaker devoted many words of
eloquent description to the imperial city,
which, he said, was crowded with poets,
philosophers, painters, sculptors, as we'll
as with the ablest statesmen and the
bravest generals of that age. Into that
city poor fisherman walked one day. and
began to teach the new religion. at its
very inception the religion encountered
fierce opposition; might tried to overcome
right. Peter was crucitied and Paul be-
headed. The Christians retired to the
catacombs and for 300 years the persecu-
ton ragged against The NaZarenes.
The lecturer described the devilish tor
lures to which the early martyrs were sub
jected, until in the reign of Diocletian 1T
was thought that the church had been
forever permanently crushed and monu-
m ent was erected in the streets OF Rome
to celebrate her extinction. But the
Christians waited and ultimately the gods
of the Pantheon fell broken from their
affairs. The edicts of that mother church
were issued from that very city which had
witnessed her bitter persecution, out into
the universal world. But new trials
awaited her and had yet to be overcome.
Among these he spoke of the Arian heresy
of the fourth century and the terrific bar
barian inundations from the north and
east, before which the Roman legions
broke and melted away. The continent
was wasted from the Euphraues to the At
lantic; churches and monasteries, cities
and towns, institutions of learning, the
very arts of life, such as agriculture, en-
cheering and architecture, persisted.
The only ark of safety then was found
in the Catholic church, which alone es-
caped destruction. She linked the old
and new civilizations. If there had been
no Leo to check the ''Scourge of God,' as
Attila was called, Imagination could not
picture the desolation which would have
obliterated every vestige of human genius.
The lecturer traced also, the rise and de-
cline of the Mohammedan power and its
defeat at the hands of Charles Martel and
John Sobieski, both soldiers of the
church.
Of the reformation he said in part: sit
robbed the church of nearly half Northern
Europe, of half Germany and Great
Britain, where Catholicism was well-nigh
extirpated. Ireland alone remained faith
full and loyal to Rome. But again she
waited, and we have seen how she has
again reconquered the countries from
which she was temporarily driven.'
In this connection he quoted the ia nous
testimony of Lord MacauIay, of Matthew
Arnold and of Lecky to the wonderful de-
velopment of the church and the unmis-
taxable evidences of her perm anancy,
when. as the frst-named said in an im-
mortal passage contained in his essay on
'Ranke's History of the Popes," some
travellers from New Zealand shall take his
stand upon a broken arch of London
bridge and sketch the ruins of st. Paul's.
Whether we accept Samuel Johnson 5 def
milton of civilization as an increasing pro-
vision for the poor, or Ruskin's dictum
that art is its chief characteristic, the
Roman Catholic church must be accepted
as pre-eminent above all other factors
contributing thereto. Rome is the OBJ
jectiye point of all artists, and in music,
sculpture, painting, in all the refinements
of life that church has left masterpieces
for all time unapproachable for beauty,
sublimity and grandeur.
She established the earliest hospit ais
universities, such as Cambridge, Oxford,
Glasgow, Louvaln, Leipsic, Vienna, and
preserved the Greek and Latin classics for