The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-01-13

'On9 L0fu, one IdlIn, one DdptSl1l,
one God and Father of ALL" afiirms
Gods purpose with all men, and de-
scribes a universal condition as yet far
from being realized. All men are made
! in the Divine Image, all are saved only
| by Jesus Christ, and His salvation is
to be obtained only in the one, true,
Catholic, Roman Church. "All power
is given to Me in Heaven and on earth;
going, therefore, teach all nations,
teaching them to- observe all things
] whatsoever [ have commanded you;
and behold l am with you all days.
even to the contamination of the
world" How universal are these words:
"All power, all truth, all men, all ages. :,
/ Where is there room here for racial or
: personal narrownesS? Here in America
the favorable conditions for making
/ converts are multiplied. The whole
nation is inclined to religion; the nom
+, Catholic people, although held to par
ticular modes of erroneous belief, are
yet mainly concerned about real re-
Iigious truths. Prejudice against the
! Church grows weaker and weaker. The
love of liberty and the passion for
4 knowledge open mems hearts to rea-
son and revelation. When these are
! proposed intelligently and in a kindly
! spirit, converts are made. The true re-
/ ligion could hardly desire a better field
! for its apostolate than our great Re-
public. There are literally tens of thou
SanGs of villages and towns scattered
over this entire country and in English-
I speaking. Canada, which will furnish
our missionaries with audiences of REL
1 ligious- minded, earnest nOn-Catholics.
/ At one of our missions the village mu-
sic teacher said that if the meetings
were kept up for another week there
would be a hundred cOnverts-a dream
to be sure, and founded on the emo
tional results of revival meetings. But
it is actual truth that a regular and
universal provision of lectures, with
renewals at intervals, change of topics
and of missionary literature, would in
course of years convert the majority
of the honest people of the United
States to the true religion.
Even at missions where the attend
ance of non-CathOlics was compare
lively small, it generally embraced the
leading men and women of the commu-
nifty. The more thoughtful, the more
religious, the more disputatious, the
sceptics the lawyers and doctors, the
politicians, the school teachers, the
journalists-these classes never failed
to be well represented. The whole
American nation is anxious about re
ligion. We have often known Protes-
tant men and women of responsibility
to come to the hall an hour before the
time of beginning so as to SEIZURE good
seats, and that in such bigoted regions
as Northern Ohio. the old Western Re-
serve. That is a section in which an
tagonism to the Church survives in
pristine vehemence. But so does re-
ligious earnestness, even among those
who are tending towards rationalism.
For a missionary opening the main
thing to be desired is fOndness for re-
ligiOus discussion, because that is sell
dom ASSOCIATED from sincerity of char
acter: and / am persuaded that Cathol-
lefty will win its way into the disputa-
tiouS minds of the New England race,
if we can manage to present it in ac-
cordance with their natural mental ten
denotes.
The country people of America have
many noble traits, are religious, patri-
otto, frank, and intelligent. They are
the truest Americans. Win them and
all is won. They will listen to us fur
thermOre. An audience of farmers can
be had without serious difficulty almost
anywhere. And it is much to be re-
GREETED that among the rural population
the Catholic religion is so weak. EX-
cept "a comparatively small number of
Catholic parishes, the entire American
farming population is Protestant, led
and misled, taught and deluded by the
Protestant ministry, or just left to
themselves.
If it be asked why systematic or
general missionary work was not long
since set on foot in this country, l an
swer that it was set on foot and kept
constantly going for that part of our
most spiritually necessitous,
the Indian tribes and the Negroes. Bet
ter priests or Sisters are not to be found
than those who now serve the poor
of the original native popula-
ton of the United States, and such has
always been the case since the discov-
cry of America. The Blacks have a
organized missionary es-
adjustment, priests, seminarieS, stu
dents, Sisters, all doing good work in
many places in the south, and rapidly
their influence and increas- |
ing the number of their devoted mis- |
sionaries, the main part of the work !
being done by the JosephiteS under the |
leadership of the Very Rev. John r. |
Slattery of Baltimore. So that the two !
classes of our separated brethren most |
IN need of spiritual help have, as was
right, received it first.
Meantime very many converts have !
been received among the millions of our !
white on-Catholics, as many as 100000 !
Turing the past two generations, ac-
cording to a very moderate computa-
ion It is true that only in recent |
years our preldteS and missionaries
nave organized the work and made it |
systematic. 1t was time to do SO, and
yet it was not easy to do it sooner.
How can you ask a guest, even a be-
owed one, to visit you when your home
s but half built, the furniture hardly
rot in and arranged, the family alb
;orbed in getting things in order? So
t was with our era of church build
ng or school building and debt paying,
low passing into an era of better es-
abliahed conditions. Our Lords house
md home, His beloved Church, is
eady for his guests; let us go out and
invite them to His heavenly banquet of
ruth and love, and let US go out even
nto the byways and hedges.
1t is a vast undertaking to convert
america. But we are equal to it, We
AVE the true faith and we can prove
t. We have the Holy Spirit to guide
IS. We have q splendid clergy, led
" noble Bishops and enrolled in many
lOrious religious orders. The Church
f Christ was made to do great things,
nd chiefly to save the nations of the
rorld.- And now we have begun to or
anize our home missions. The Cath
lie Missionary Union, whose president
) the Archbishop of New York. is a
of prelates and priests
hose purpose is to raise funds and
upport priests and distribute literature
1r the conversion of nom Catholics. Our
lain efforts are directed towards these
arts of the country when Catholics {
re fewest and Protestants have every
hing their own )way-the south
hough but a few years in existence
ur corporation now supports priests in '
'irginia, North Carolina, Alabama.
Mississippi and Texas, Jealous and sue
assful missionaries, whose sole occu
alton is making converts. Besides this. I '
very large amount of missionary lit
rary, books, pamphlets, leaflets, are t
ther given away or sold for a nomi- /
al price, and these are distributed al {
lost everywhere in America. l
Resides fhic mart IF fl,a, r