The San Francisco call., 1898-09-30
IT IS NOT MIND,
 BUT CHRISTIANITY
THE GREATEST FORGE IN MOD-
 ERIN CIVILIZATION.
Lecture by Father Ramm for the Benefit of the
 Sisters.

It Is not merely intellect, not the train ing of the mind for the acquisition of sal able knowledge, that has made the world what it is. The evolution of society has been due to religious forces and to the power of the church. This was the thought upon which Rev. Father Charles A. Ramm of St. Mary's Cathedral iec- tured last evening in the church which is his home His subject, as announced, was 'Srhe Voices of Modern frophets," and in exploiting his theme he took such writings as bear upon modern con- ditions and applied them to show that mind Is good. but faith is better; that knowledge and education may lead man as far wrong if he nave a tendency to- ward evil as they will toward good if he have care for his soul.
 The lecture was given for the benefit of the Sisters of the Holy Family, and they have for profits at least the seating capacity of the church, for there was hardly room for another on the floor of the big ediflce, and as Is the case with most of the Catholic charities, the num- Der of those who attended but poorly represented the amount of money re- ceived
 Father Ramm opened his address with brief comment upon the conditions of the world and particularly the Onlteo states to-day, and the grave questions confront ing the republic which are awaiting an answer Then he traced the evolution of the institutions of the present and the causes which have made them what they are and proceeded to show that the de- velopment of society was the result or the development of the individual; and the individual, he declared, was developed by religion, not intellect.
 Social progress, he said, Is not pri- marily intellectual, but moral and religi- ous; 1t Is the direct result Of Christianity: Christianity has taught the doctrines of the equality of man and the salvation of the soul and these have been the most powerful factors for advancement.
 He spoke of the attempt tp establish ndfaata
 rational religbond one which nSI re5ee1s but, he said, a rational religion is scientific impossbility. 4 man in des-- peration, deserted by everything and everyone, finds comfort, not in the con temptation of the reasonable, but in the supernatural; the supernatural is his last resort and no religion based on anything but the supernatural can be a comfort and a help to him; and this supernatural true one.
 Continuing on this line he claimed that the Catholic was the only sect that had adhered to the supernatural. The history of the Protestant creeds, he said, has been the gradual elimination of the supernatu- ral from the confessions of faith; the sub- stituting of reason for faith.
 Reason, the education of the intellect he said, is merely the acquisition of sal able knowledge. In itself 1t has no moral character. It may make a man deep but 1t does not change his tendencies. It will make good man better and an evil one worse It makes man not a Catholic or a Christian, but a gentleman-a thing good in it's way but not powerful enough to contend with the passions and pride of men. It Is the harmonious combination of the divine and the human within man that is his greatest power for progress and civilization