The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-02-17


degradation
Whatever may have been the consti-
tutional rights OF Mr. Roberts of Utah,
think that his exclusion from the
house OF representatives was a most
righteous act. Had he taken his seat in
congress as legislator of our country,
his presence there would have been an
insult to Our common Christianity, an
insult to every Christian woman in the
land. 1t would be construed as a quasi
apology or sanction of polygamy and
would be fatal step toward womans
moral degradation. These words of
poet illustrate the subject very WE'LL
"Vice is monster OF. so frightful mien,
AS to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then en-
brace"
There is a higher law" than that
which lifts a congressman into his seat
i'll the halls of national legislation. 1t
is the law which declares that woman
shall not be dragged down from the
lofty pedestal on which Christ has
placed her.
The church has always maintained the
unity and indissolubility OF marriage
She has invariably held that man can
have but one wife and woman but one
husband and that the death of one
alone can permit the other to enter into
second nuptials. She has upheld this
law against the encroachment OF tenn
poral sovereigns and the violence of hui
man passions.
Innocent Ill, in the thirteenth CEN
fury, compelled Phillip Augustus of
France to take back his lawful wife,
whom he had repudiatcd, and to dismiss
Agnes, whom he had married The
pope refused to grant Henry VIII. OF
England divorce when he wished to
marry Anne Boleyn, but the king easily
obtained it from Cranmcr, the reformed
archbishop of Canterbury. In the be-
ginning of the present century the most
powerful monarch of Europe-Na-
poleon-tried to force the pope to grant
a divorce to his brother, Jerome, who
had been married to Miss Patterson OF
this city by Archbishop Carroll
Mothers and wives, what all immense
amount of gratitude you owe to the
Christian religion of to-day. You are
regarded as the equal and helpmates OF
your husbands, and not as their slaves,
like Asiatic women. If you are the
mistress of your households and not
tenants at the will Of your husbands,
like the wives of pagan Greece and
Rome; if you are the honored queens
OF the domestic kingdom and not con-
fronted by usurping wives like Mormon
and Mohammedan women, you are in
debted for these blessings to the reli-
gion OF Christ, and especially to the
sovereign pontiffs, who have upheld
your rights against the entertainments
of monarchs and the passions Of r1en.
If women have been elevated and en-
nobled by the gospel she has not been
rngrateful. She deserves eternal graf
itude for the blessed influence she has
exerted in the family and in society.
Not to speak of the grand army of con-
secrated virgins who devote their lives
to the sacred cause of education, of
charity and religion, how many thou
sands of homes there are from which
God withholds Ills avenging hand on
account of some righteous mother, just
as Christ showed mercy to the young
grief and sobbings of his mother, the
widow of Main? How many brothers,
buried in life of sin, have been raised
to life OF grace by the intercession of
a pious sister, as Lazarus was raised
from the grave at the entreaties OF
Mary and Martha.
Mothers and daughters, you have a
sacred mission. You cannot be apos-
ties i'll the strict sense of the word; you
cannot preach the word OF God, for
women are commanded by the apostle
to be silent in the church; you cannot
be priests, but you are chosen to offer
up in the sanctuary of your homes and
in the altar of your hearts the sacrifice
of praise, thanksgiving and duplication
to God. Christian women, let the hus-
band and son on returning home after
buffeting with the waves of the world
find there haven of rest Do not
pour into the bleeding wounds of the
heart the gall of bitter words, but rather
the oil of gladness and consolation. Be
fond of your homes. Be attached to
your homes. Make them comfortable.
Let peace and order, tranquility and
temperance abound there. Let the an
gel with the flaming sword protect and
preside over your homes, repelling from
them all unhallowed thoughts. For
what is home from which chastity has
fled but deserted temple from which
the spirit OF God has departed.
In a recent address on the Anglo
Boer war, ex-Judge Thomas A. Moran,
of Chicago, spoke as follows: "Never
before have we neglected to extend our
sympathy to struggling republics. To-
day we stand dumb while the greatest
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