The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-07-26
unele Jack and
Bis nepDew. BBy ye S%ss51s 81


boosted nineteenth century"
mo matter, if it is old, if it be true
Undoubtedly the advanced spirits of
past ages, indeed of every age, have had
gIimpses, as it were, a presentiment of
1t; but never was it generally embraced
or recognized as the authentic gospel
of the age, before our times
BE it so. It gives loose reins to all
unlawful passions. The ministers of
this gospel, I take it, are your modern
novelists, who celebrate fornication and
adultery. Old-fashioned, lawful love,
the love of the husband for his lawful
wife, or of the wife for the lawful hus-
band, is too insipid for the taste of
these modern evangeIists. Duty is hum
drum, what is lawful is cold and re
pulsive. Love, to be interesting, must
be unlawful. must be forbidden,
on the principle that forbidden
fruit is sweetest and is pure and beau
tiful only as it is a violation of duty.
Has not Gee Sand proved this? Has
not Bulwer pl red it? Have not count
less hosts of German and French senti-
mentalists proved it? How compla-
Gently they dwell on an unlawful pas
sion, and follow it through all its wind
lngs, and how eloquently they extol
its depth, its purity its sanctity? There
tSNOSSACAA
your modern popular literature is
written in the true spirit of your Cos
pei of love. That your gospel of love
is very generally embraced, and faith
fully observed, may be safely concluded
from the waning intellect of the age,
the superficial character of it's produc-
lions, and the general relaxation of
morals. Your own party proves its
prevalence in their war against all eS-
tablished authority, in their lack of
common understanding, their ceaseless
agitation. their violence, their worship
Of the dagger.
But, my poor boy, why do you suf-
fer yourself to be the dupe of Words
God is Love, the gospel of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ is a gospel of
love, and loYe-charity-is the bond of
perfection, the origin, life and end of
creation What Christian knows not
that? But the love of which the Chris
tan gospel speaks is not the burning
passion nor the watery sentimentality
of your novelists and the reformists.
1t is the love of the heart, not of the
senses; the free, voluntary exercise of
the rational nature, not the morbid
cravings of the sensitive soul. It is
the highest and purest exercise of the
rational soul, and is on the part of
true moral conformity to the law of
God. The distinction you seek to set
up between love and duty is founded
upon the ambiguity of the word love
sometimes used to express blind pas
sion with which one is carried away,
or a simple affection of concupiscence,
and sometimes an affection of the ra-
tional soul, reason and will, and, there
fore, free, voluntary affection. In
the former sense it is irrational, invol-
untary, and therefore not moral. 1t
is by resolving love into this affection
of the inferior soul, making it an at
lection of the sensitive nature, as dis
tinguished from the rational, that your
popular authors are led to their i'm
moral doctrine that love cannot be con-
trolled-that it submits to no law but
the necessity of nature, and regards
no considerations of duty; that we love
where we must, and that we cannot
help loving where we do, or bring our
selves to love where we do not. Cou-
ping with this the evident sanctity OF
love, in the other sense OF the WORD,
they lay down the doctrine that even
the most irregular and licentiouS love,
if strong, if intense, is pure and holy.
The wife is not censurable for not low
ing her husband or for seeking to I'LL
up the void in her heart by loving an
other-perhaps another Woman's hus-
band Hence the whole force of mod
ern literature is directed against the
cruelty of those laws which seek to
control the affections and of those par
ents who interfere with the affections
of their children, arrange their mar
riage, or cross them in their love az
fairs. The custom still prevalent in
some countries, for parents to select
wife for a son, or a husband Tor
daughter, is condemned as absurd and
a treason to love. Parents may I'M
doubtedly abuse their power in this
respect, as they may every other, and
the abuse is always to be condemned;
but there can be little doubt that there
were fewer mismatches and more do|
nestle love and happiness under the
old custom than there are under our
modern custom, which leaves the most
important affairs of life to be settled
by the inexperience, the fancy, the
caprice, or the excited passions or
youth. incapable of making wise or
prudent choice. Then youth grew up
pure and innocent, and their hearts re-
tanned their virginity, and their inn
agination it's chastity. Now the girl
is hardly in her teens before her head
is filled with thoughts of love and mar
riage, and she is on the alert to see
who will love her or whom she viii
love. All this grows out of yo-- low
and sensual view of love, OF --o'lr max
ing it an affection of the sensitive ma
ture instead of the rational, and sup
posing that it does in no sense depend
on reason and will to love wherever it