The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-08-02

4
Jack; "the gospel of our lord and sa-
vior Jesus Christ is a gospel of love-
Uncle Jack, returning to love and mar
riage, said there were fewer mis-
marriages under. the custom where
parents made matches than under the
| modern custom where marriages are
| the result of the caprice or fancy of
inexperienced youth. Now the girl"
said Uncle Jack, lis hardly in her teens
before her head is filed with thoughts
of love and marriage, and she is on the
alert to see who will love her or whom
she will love- All this grows out of
! your low and sensual view of love- of
your making it an affection of the SEN
sitive nature instead of the rational,
and supposing that it does in no sense
! depend on reason and will to love
wherever it is our duty to love" Uncle
| Jack begins the argument this week by
further elucidation of this false notion
| Of loye.-Ed. l. NJ. CT
CONVERSATION IV.-Continued.
You do not know, my dear boy, how
much misery results from this false
notion of love. You know the popular
literature of our age. 1t breeds the
| tome of unsatisfied love, of strong, ar
! dent affections, which nothing can
! meet or satisfy-a longing after some
thing is not possessed, which cannot be
| obtained. The heart is empty The de-
| nights of home and of domestic affec-
lions praised, are chanted in all tones,
| but are not realized. The husband
flnds it impossible to be satisfied with
| the wife of his bosom, and seeks to
| Wit II
wife is unfaithful in turn. or pines
away in secret with an untold affection
of an unsatisfied love. All your novel
lists touch upon the married life only
| when 1t is criminal or misera BILE, and
in general drop the curtain as soon as
| the marriage ceremony is over, as if
| conscious that the love which they
have traced thus far will not survive
the honeymoon. The reason of all this
is plain. The affections of the sensi-
tive nature cannot be satisfied, and the
object they crave, however worthy. is
loathed as soon as possessed. They are
morbid and capricious. You do not feel
this truth yet, because you are young,
and are just now engrossed with a pas
sion for world reform. The gloss of
novelty has not worn off. and YOUR
emotions are still fresh. You have not
yet learned to eXclaim from the bitter
ness OF your own experience, Van itas
Yanltatum, ct omnia vanitas VANITY
OF vanities, and all is vanity. Yet
you find no satisfaction: YOU find no
repose; and you are hurried on. not so
much by any real regard for the good
OF mankind, as by your own interior
and unexplained uneaSiness: YOU are
moved by a craving for something
you have not, for you know not what.
and to be bettertthan you are You
plunge into the work of political and
social revolution as a dissipation. You
Will soon grow weary of it, Then YOU
will seek to fill the void in your heart
with woman's love, run a career of de-
bauchery, and end by attempting to
drown your misery in the wine cup.
Or If you recover, you will turn Nam
mon, and die a miser; for avarice is
the only passion that is sure to retain
its power to the last"
"A sad picture, my dear uncle. and
not very complimentary
nevertheless, you need not doubt
its fidelity. 1 have lived longer than
you, and have had some experience.
You will not believe me now, but here
after, If God in his mercy touches your
heart, you will see and own the truth
of what l say. Our age is a senti-
mental age, and every sentimental age
runs the career I have described. SEN
timent distinguished from duty, and
placed above it, or regarded as a high
er principle of action, always runs into
vice, and becomes the parent of a
whole family of the most. degrading
and loathsome vices. Your error lies
not in demanding love, but in demand
ing sensitive instead of rational love-
Love, as an affection of the rational
soul, an intelligent and voluntary af-
lection, is something noble, something
worthy to be lauded. Love in this
sense is under our control, and in this
senes we can love whenever it is our
duty to love, and refrain from loving
where and what we ought not to love.
This love, the true Eros of the Greeks
as distinguished from the Anteros, is
always one with duty, or rather is the
full and perfect discharge of duty. 1t
surpasses by far in sweetness and
generosity your sensitive love- What
you call love, the love that laughs at
duty as something dry and cold, is
selfish, heartless and cruel, for it seeks
always its own qualification, and never
anything else. But rational love, op-
Grating from sense of duty, has in
itself no faint of selfishness; it gives
itself up entirely to it's object Your
sort of love seeks to unite the object
to itself; this seeks to unite itself to its
object All love is unitive, but only ra-
tional love seeks union by giving itself
to the object, and making itself one
with it. Sensitive love pursues its OBJ
ject, not for the sake of the object, but
for itself; rational love seeks to pos
sess the object for the objects sake,
not for it's own. The one will sacrifice
itself for the object, the other will sac
rifice the object for itself. What else
is it to act from a sense of duty than
to act from this love. which is the sac
rifice of our own will, or, what is the
same thing, the unification of our will
with the divine will, of which law is
the expression? Understand this, and
you will see at once that duty and love
coincide, are in fact one and the same:
for to love nationally is to love what
we ought to love, and because we
ought to love it, and is the fulfllment
of duty There is nothing dry, cold or
forbidding in this, and it calls for and
gives free scope to all the sweetest,
purest, strongest, warmest and most
generous affections of our nature.
Compared with the ages of faith and
duty, our ages are dry, cold and heart
less. We have nothing of that tender
sensibility, nothing of those warm,
gushing feelings, fresh from the heart,
of that generous love of husband and
wife, of parents and children or that
disinterested devotion to the welfare
of interests of our neighbors that we
find in the old Christian romances. We
have nothing of that simplicity, that
freshness of feeling, that light hearted
ness, that sunshine of the soul, that
perpetual youth which characterized
the Christian populations of the mid
die ages. Our hearts are dark and