The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-10-10
Conversations Of Our Club
BY OreSteS .H. RrcwflSot1.

and the speedy fall or ruin of our
young republic might be safely pre-
dicted did we not see transplante1
here, taking root, and springing up
with a fresh and vigorous growth. the
true Catholic priesthood, in living
union with it's chief
THE corruptions of the ancient
| priesthoods did not originate wholly in
| the priesthoods themselves, for the de-
| taching of the kingly from the priestIy
! functions, the first great act of Gentle
apostasy, was not their act, but the act
! of the NemYods,' said WinsIoW. land
their corruption which followed was
owing not to their power but to their
relative weakness before the growing.
power of the lay sovereign. The arts
they are said to have practiced. the
frauds they committed. and the tricks
they resorted to, originated not in their
possession of power, but in efforts to
retain their constantly declining intlu-
ence in face of the lay authority. which
labored to subject them to itself. and to
make them the instruments of its am
btion. as Napoleon 1 sought to subject
and use the papacy. Wherever they re-
tanned their independence of the lay
power the Gentle priests were, even
in the worst of times, the pars sanior
of the nation. and the least untitled to
be the depositary of power; and in no
instance l can find, in ancient or mod
ern times, has the nation gained in
real strength. virtue. or true glory by
the passage of power from true or false
priests to the lay chiefs of society"
This view Of ancient Gentle priest
hoods, that they had their origin in
the legitimate priesthood established by
God himself, and that they became
more and more corrupt as time went
on, is not in accordance with the doc
trine held by the scholars of France
and Germany" remarked De Bonnie
Vile These scholars suppose the low
est point in the Gentle religion was
their starting point, and that they were
gradually purified, enlightened and ele-
waited by the natural progress of the
human mind. till they rose to the sub
lime conceptions of Hebrew and Chris
tan monotheism.
That is because they suppose dark
ness is older than light, and error older
than truth" replied Father John: and
because they wish to be able to destroy
the authority of Christianity, by max
ing it appear that it has been attained
to in the natural religious progress of
the human mind. They assume, against
all history and all philosophy, that the
earliest religion of the human race was
the lowest and most disgusting form of
fetichism. They take the juggler or
medicine man of the North American
savages, as the incipient priest, instead
of taking him as the degenerate priest.
The medicine man of the savages is the
last faint "Reminiscences of the priest,
not the germ from which the priest is
developed. The savage IS not the primi-
tive state, but the deteriorated state of
the human race, the lowest state to
which the race ever falls. The Gentle
priesthoods in their origin and early
stages were comparatively pure and en-
lightened. They started with the pa
triarchal religion, as the patrimony Of
the human race, but, like impruieut
heirs they gradually squandered or lost
it in their wild and reckless specula-
tions.
THAT patrimony,'' said Winslow, Gin
cluded not only natural reason, but also
the primitive revelation made to our
first parents in the garden, which con-
tanned, in substance, st. Thomas tells
us, the whole revelation which God has
made to man."
There has never been, added DEF
enbach," bat one revelation from God
to man. We must not suppose that God
made no revelation to man till about
2, 200 years ago, or that he made reve-
lation only 10 the little Jewish people
enclosed with the narrow limits of
Palestine He made his revelation in
the beginning, to our first parents, ana
in making it to them, he made it to the
whole human race. The ancient pa
triarch and the modern Catholic belong
to one and the same religion; as be-
lieved the one so believes the other |
Faith never varies. The patriarchs be- |
ieved in Christ as we believe in Christ, |
only they believed in him as to coma,
and we in him as having come"
Ito be Continued)