The San Francisco call., 1899-03-16
CHARMED HIS
AUDITORS WITH
HIS ELOQUENCE
Father p. j. MaCCorry
Lectures.
GLORIFIES THE HOLY BOOK
A BRILLIANT DISCOURSE IN ITS
DEFENSE.
Undeterred by the Storm Large
Crowd Attends the Benefit for
Old st. Mary's
Church

Despite the storm last evening. the lee
ture deliverd by the Rev. P j. MacCorry,
c. S. P, in St. Mary's Church, drew
large attendance The hundreds who
braved the inclement weather were repaid
by listening to an eloquent sermon and
some grand music.
Preceding the lecture the following num-
bers were rendered: % Gloria from
Mozarts Twelfth Mass" by the choir;
(2) Ave Maria" (MascagnD, contralto
solo, Miss Josephine Murphy, with violin
obligato by Eugene E. Schmitz; 81
(Francis). trombone Alfred Roncovieri.
violin E. Schmitz.
AT the conclusion of the music Father
MacCorry discoursed for nearly an hour,
entertaining his listeners with his elo-
quence. The Armor of Gods Word"
was the subject of his address. 1t was a
logical defense of the Bible and was re-
plete with pathoS and humor and drew
tears and smiles from his auditors. In
part he said:
There is an nfnitude OF pathos in the his
tory of books. Like men and women. they live
and love and have their being. only to descend
like the waters into the earth and return no
more. Books, like men, get out of date. When
they were written they discussed issues that
were then being discussed They struck at
wrongs that have ceased to exist. They advo-
Gated principles which longer living
principies We're they books of history other
books have risen up to take their places the
subject matter better classified and more vivid
ly portrayed. Were they books of poetry, they
have long since gone up from the earth like
mists at sunrise. Were they books of morals
they have passed awav. for civilization will not
long content itself crouched at the feet of the
pagan morality.
Since the days of Pythagoras and Sappho and
Tully we have moved outward and upward and
on The pathos of Simonides, the sarcasm Of
Menander the wit of Aristophanes no
longer part of the lives live. Books are
therefore very human. They are born, they
are fondled, they grow to vigor, they have a
rnfdIife of strength and usefulness, their sun S
orb hon
age decrepftude imbeclity. They totter. they
fail they die back to the earth like the waters
that return more.
Many of our libraries are merely cemeteries
of dead books Every shelf vault, every cover
a casket Some of them live wild, tumultuous
lives and die wild. ignominious deaths. Some
were yirtuous and accomplished glorious mis-
sion Some were martyrs and went up in the
ashes Of prosecutions flames. Some. like the
literature of Alexandria. found their funeral
nvre in plundered cities. Some were neglected
and died abandoned foundlings at the door of
science Some expired in the authors studio.
some departed on the cylinders of the press.
Oh the vast cemetery OF our buried books.
think every night when the world sleeps. Poetry
and Prose Science and Religion, go out hand
and hand to that graveyard and consecrate its
myriad mounds with the sympathy OF their
tears. .
Or shall we rather say that the soul of all
good books still lives-impressed, epttomfzed
between the covers of one grand old book, the
Bible? That. after all, is the fountain head