The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-07-19

| HiollSned Dy the Uncle. DICK favor
ably inclined to the parable of the
unjust stewart saw his supreme hap
piness in the works of the flesh max
ing heaven it's joys and eternal bliss
subservient to the Joys and happiness
of this life. Christ. in his humanity
was his highest conception of the
Christian religion. A popular doctrine
but one which the uncle unmasks
Continuing in the same line the uncle
shows what his error leads to ulti-
mately. He aDpeals to facts which
stand in condemnation against Dick,
who commences the present thesis by
defending human Hatur6 againGt the
charge of universal denravity.
CONVERSATION ".
AT the bottom of what you say, my
dear uncle. is the assumption that
mans nature is corrupt, and that his
natural inclinations are to evil This
is the grare error of the religious
world. 1t was invented by the priests
as the foundation of their doctrine of
REDEMPTION and eXDiation. and / may
add of their power and influence. If
it were once admitted that nature is
good and that all it's instincts and
tendencies whole are Dure and holy,
| there would be no place left for a
priesthood; the whole fabric of super
WOulQ 1dll. anu man would nave
free scope to DISPLAY his divine and
deathless energies. Just see what he
has done since Luther struck down the
pope, Deseartes demolished the school
men. and Voltaire exploded the Bible.
| The mind of man has taken a sudden
| bound, and displayed a might and q
majesty never before dreamed of. New
arts and sciences have sprung up, as
If by magic. The heavens have been
| mapped; the globe had been explored,
| the earth forced to disclose her Sc
crets; the minutest particle of mat
| ter has been analized; mind has be-
come omnipotent over matter: and
man. by his inventions, has annihilat-
ed time and distance, made the winds
his servants and the lightnings his
messengers. Commerce spreads her
| white sails over every ocean. manu-
facturers flourish. science multiplies
mans productive power a million fold
| wealth unfoldS her exhauStleSS treas
ures. and luxury finds its way, even
into the cottage of the humblest peas
! ant
Bravo. Bravissimo my dear Dick.
Nevertheless. let us leave these mar
wells of which YOU boast tia we are at
| leisure to consider them. and have
| found some criterion by which we can
| determine their true value. 1 agree
with you, that, if we reject the doe
| trine of the fall, and assert the purity
and sanctity of all our natural prop
| ensitles, instincts, and tendencies,
| there is no place for a priesthood, and
| the whole fabric of the Christian
church falls to the ground. All that
| is plain enough to everyone with half
an eye. But if the saoerdotal doc
| trine be an error. and nature as pure,
e..
you pretend. there are certain facts
which. perhaps. YOU would find it not
easy to explain. How indeed, would
you explain the existence of that doc
| trine itself?'
1T was invented by the priests and
| taught as the means of maintaining
their existence and power"
But priests could not invent it be-
fore they existed. and according to you
there were priests to invent it, when.
till its invention, there We're and could
be none"
Pardon me, my dear uncle; I did
not use the word priest in its strict
and proper sense. l know a priest is
one who offers sacrifices, who really
or sYmbolically makes an atonement or
expiation by the victim he offers upon
the altar, and therefor presupposes
that man has fallen and can be re-
stored only by sacrifice. But we Pro-
testants sometimes use the word to
designate SIMPLY a public teacher. for
in the strict sense we admit no priests.
There may have been public preachers
at very remote period of the worlds
history. and among them there may
have been ambitious and designing
men. who naturally study to- magnify
their office. and to extend and console
1ot 70 hair These
cisely priests before inventing the doc
trine, but they became priests on its
invention
But if human nature be pure and
holy in all its instincts and tenden-
cies. how do you explain the existance
of those ambitious and designing pub
lie teachers?~ The world, in point of
fact, is verv much depraved, and men
are very corrupt. as you and your par
tv not only concede, but stoutly main
tain; for you demand everywhere what
you call moral, political, and social re-
forms You complain, in season and
out of season, of tyranny and oppres-
sion, of wrongs and outrages, and that
nothing in the worll has hitherto gone
right. Everything you see is out of
joint: every individual YOU meet, you
regard as needing to be reformed. Your
whole movement proceeds on the as
sumption of the general prevalence OF
evil and of evil so deep, so aggraVat-
ed, as to excuse, nay, to demand, the
application of the most violent renle-
dies. How, with such a human nature
as you assert. do you explain this ter
rible fact?"
'Tt is all the work of crafty priests
and ambitious and selfish rulers, who
have made it their business TO keep
nature in chains, to repress its native
energies, and restrain its pure and no.
BILE operations"
but that, my dear Dick, only re-
moves the difficulty a step further
back it by no means solves it. These
crafty priests, and these ambitious and
selfish rulers, with such wicked prin-
ciples as you ascribe to them, whence
came they? When originated their
craft, their ambition, and their selfish
ness? On your own principles, they
are the spontaneous products of hui
man nature. Yet prior to them nature,
according to you, must have been free,
her operations unimpeded, and her
energies unrepressed. Nature was
then left to herself, and had free and
full scope to display her divine in
stincts and her noble energies. But
if nature left free spontaneously pro-
duces crafty priests, ambitious and
selfish rulers, tyrants, and aristocrats,
how can you maintain that all her
propensities, instincts, and tendencies
are pure and holy. and that all that
we need in order to create and secure
q paradise on earth is to emancipate
human nature from all restraints, and
leave it to its own spontaneous and
unimpeded operations? 1t is very
easy to ascribe existing evils to bad
to falsely organized So
ciety, to superstition, to the craft of
priests or the wickedness of rulers:
but always does the same question re-
cur-Whence these bad governments, |
this falsely organized society, this SUI
+bic Of tI,;e