The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1897-04-25
EVIL FOR GOOD.

Every falsehood is but the corrup-
ton of some truth. The greater the
falsehood, indeed. the greater the truth.
The bigger the lie. the more truth I,
needs to keep it living. 1t is an argu-
ment for positive teaching that we md
here. Denial of a falsehood may also
be a denial of the truth which is in
the falsehood.
But We let thas thought pass. The
other one is uppermost.-that it is the
best things which, changed in their
proper nature, become the worst The
holiest truth. distored, becomes th,.
most deUeitful. devilish lie. The great
est and grandest truths, which this met
amorphosis OF the pit upon them. are
the les that lead souls to ruin. The
catholic truth of the perfect human
ity OF our Lord. which has flashed in
glory and famed in hope through the
Church Of God since the beginning,
becomes caricatured into the Socin.an
denial of christ's divinity, which takes
away mans Lord, and leaves the world
darkened of It's deliverer.
1t has been 50 with every faIsehood
from the first. Some holy and price
less truth has ben twisted out of its
proper place, turned loose and wild.
and armed against its fellow truths.
and has faced astonished men as
hideous lie henceforward.
1t is not in the the matter of doc
trinal truth only that men are ruined
and the world driven wild by heavenly
things, turned evf by truths converted
into lies, by angels turned to demons.
The experience runs through our earth
iy life. The fan of the lost angels is
typical Of perpetual truth.
Our vices live next door to our viz
tues. Beside all human good, all finite
good. stands evil The cancature OF
that good and wearing it's very Inca
ments. distorted inde=d, but in ttel
shadows Of this world the distinctions
are half the time invisible. The de-
mon in the dusk Of life passes for an |
angel, the shadow of whose face he
borrows.
Men perish by the best that is in
them. That is the pity of it, The best,
fallen, becomes the worst. The high
est archangel has fallen the lowest,
for he had the farthest to fan. Men
are seduced by evil always in the guise
of good. No soul chooses the EVIL for
itself. Whatever man follows he fol-
lows as good, and the temptation al
ways comes to him on some good side.
The hatred, scorn, and wrath against
wrong and wrong-doing, which is one
of the divine lineaments stamped on
becomes revenge, malice and
hate. Generosity, arge-heartedness,
warm social feeling. become prodigali-
ty, gluttOny, drunkenness and r.otous
living. Frugality and economy become
and miserliness. The whole
iesire to grow upward, and not down.
ward, to walk the white heights Of l!fe
lmOng the best, turns into a wretched
ambition which sneaks toward it's end
)y the dirtiest paths. There is not a
pobe gift that adorns humanity that
has not its hideous double" hideous-
y like 1t, hideously unlike it, and in
he blindness that falls on an abused
conscience, a man loses the power 20
and follows the double" !"
70 imperceptibly does the change take
,lace, 50 gradually does the virtue
hange into the vice, the good thing
nto the misleading and evil thing,
hat a man goes far often, before his
yes are open. If they are ever opened
It all.
1t Is the most awful mystery of hu-
nan nature this. that IT touches hell
nd heaven all its days. that they both !