The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-06-21

! tim of the Ds-r doctrine of rebellion in
| Rhode Island. He lectured at first
| against the Darrites but in applying
his own principles he was inconsistent.
In the following controversy between
! the uncle and nephew, it is the appli-
! cation of principles to the living ac-
Qualities of life, or the inconsistency
between some persons beliefs and their
principles. He commences with the
Dorr controversy.
The two parties adopted the same
principles. and one of the most dis
tinguished lawyers in the state. and
who had signalized himself in defense
of the constituted authorities, boldly
maintained against me the popular
right of revolution, and that the ques-
ton between the government party and
the Dorr party was not one of rim
ciple, but simply d question of eXpe-
diency The constitution of this cCm-
monwealth in the preamble to is bill
| of rights defines the state to be a
voluntary association, and asserts the
right of revolution in the brcadest
terms; thus denying all government in
the very instrument in which il CON
stitutes it, and settles its powers. The
majority of our people are Prutes tants,
AMI rotestantiSm is based on The sup
posed right of rebellion ana revolution,
or the denial of all authority. l can
not therefore cast all the blame ON
you. young men. Nay, have a re-
| spect for YOU which / have not for
the real old fogies who oppose you,
for you have the merit of being faith
full to their principles, which they have
not"
But it strikes me, Uncle Jack, that
You are hardly consistent with your
self when you say my views are en-
braced by only a minority of even
our own age. 1t would seem from
what you have last said that the great
majority embrace them
THE majority embrace your prom
Uses, minority only accept your CON
illusions; not indeed because your con-
illusions are not warranted by their
premises, but because their practical
| good sense is stronger than their theo-
retical or speculative sense. 1t is never
more than a small minority of mankind
that have the courage to be consist
ent. l have been myself censured by
even my Catholic brethren as more
Catholic than Catholicity,' simply be-
cause | love consistency and venture to
| draw from the premises which every
Catholic admits, and must admit, their
| strictly logical conclusions. To be more
Catholic than Catholicity is not to be
| Catholic at all, but a hereto or an
infide, and yet these good people who
! denounce me as being ultra Catholic do
not pretend, and dare not pretend, that,
on the points even on which they rep
resent me as ultra, / am a heterodox,
The meaning of their denunciation is.
that ] push Catholic principle further
than they find it convenient to go with
me. The sin which they would lay to
| my charge is not. a sin of heresy, ma
! tarial or formal9 but a sin of impru-
| dence; and they, in order to guard
against my assumed imprudence, not
infreuuently fall into real heresy of
doctrine. The spirit of compromise, of
/ obtaining a settlement of difficulties by
splitting the difference, as We see in
our high church Episeopalians, who try
to find a via media between Catholic
truth and Protestant faisehood, is a
very prevalent spirit, and has done and
does no little mischief
You forget, uncle, that 1 am a Prot
estant, as you yourself were at my
age"
81 am not likely to forget it, since
I pray day and night for your CONVEX
sion. Yet Protestant as you are, you
may find young Catholics enough who
| go with YOU heart and soul six days
| out of seven Some of the most are
rabid Jacobins in the country, and who
push the democratic doctrines of our
countrymen to the most dangerous ex-
| tremes. were brought up Catholics. The
| founders of Professionalism had all been
Catholics-Luthel,. Calvin, Zwingli, Me
lanchthon, Bacon, Henry VIII and ms
| Elizabeth and her secretary, Cecil.
! There are a large. number Who viii be
damned as Catholics, as we'll as Prot
estants and infidels. Voltaire was
reared a Catholic, and so were D'Alen-
bert. Diderot, Condorcet and the ma
iority of the French philosophers of the
! last century Joseph ii of Germany,
and. il / am not mistaken, his minister,
Kaunitz. were nominally Catholics.
! Comparatively few men, l tell you,
Dick. have the courage to be consistent,
and the majority seek by one set of
principles to serve God and save their
+ souls. and by another to serve Mann
mon and make sure of the world.
Professionalism is essentially anarch-
ical. at war with all authority and all
vested rights, and yet there are Pro-
testants who, in practice, are stanch
upholders of authority. and able de-
tenders of liberty in its truest and
broadest sense. The church is conser-
yative, every consistent son of the
church must be conservative. and yet
there are Catholic radicals as well as
! Protestant radicals.
How do you account for this fact,
uncle?"
II account for it, in the first place,
from the fact that the flesh, with its
concupiscence, remains in all men after
baptism. and, therefore, in Catholics as
we'll as in others; and the flesh seeks
naturally the world, with its yanities
and pride. and to seek reason, to seek
! always Cod the right, the truth, de-
/ mands self denial a warfare against
I the flesh. a strong and continued effort,
| which few have e>resolution to make.
! 7 account for it. in the second place,
| nv the prevalence of false notions in
all modern communities, which supply
a set of false premises and dangerous
maxims to both young and old. Pro-
! testantism grew out of the heather
! doctrines in regard to the natural rela :
tons of the spiritual and the temporal
orders. or the Manicheism propagated
and transmitted by various heretical
! sects. and the civil authorities and
| their supporters. Professionalism gave
birth to the Baconian philosophy in
England, and to the cartesian philos-
ophy in France. These two philoso-
plies have passed into general litera-
! ture. and given Professionalism premi-
! ses to the great body of the young in
; all countries. whether Catholic or Pro-
testants. All general literature has be-
| come pagan, and, therefore, Protestant.
Protestant philosophy has permeated
the whole modern world, and hence,
save in what is expressly of dogma and
ritual the whole thought of our times
! has become uncatholic. Uncatholic
premises in relation to society to poll
/ ties to earthly felicity, are the first
premises adopted by our educated
youth, and from these they are diff
| fused to frightful extent even among