Albuquerque weekly citizen. (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1891-19??, 1903-02-28
FATHER BARRY.

The Catholic mission was opened
yesterday by Father Barry at the I'M
maculate Conception church The In
element weather, to which our Aibu-
querque people seem TO be so sensi.
tive, did not keep them from attending
the first exercises held yesterday.
At 3 O'Clock after the holy sacrifice
OF the mass offered by the pastor and
the distribution of ashes, the reverend
missionary preached to large congre-
CATION. explaining the nature. purpose
and meaning OF a Catholic mission.
In the afternoon at $3.50 o'clock, he
conducted the station of the cross,
after which he preached short dis
course TO the children.
Last night at q: 30 o'clock. after the
citation OF the rosary, Rev. Father
Barry preached his first lecture on the
Immortality OF the soul the destiny of
man. the object OF life. Father Barry
proved himself an orator of uncom-
mon ability. He mastered his subject.
He can reason. convince and move as
very fow men can do. He kept his
audience spellbound for at least one
hour and BALI lie said in part
There are certain great questions
which in our best moments sound
forth from the depths OF our nature
and demand an answer What am L?
Whence have ! come? whittier am
going? What is before me? What Is
expected OF me? What have | to ex-
pect? What is the way? What the
means TO attain III" These, the
preacher said, are the questions which
in n thousand tones sing out in the
minds and hearts of men And once
they have been heard they keep echo.
ing on through all life. haunting us
whenever a lull in the busy hum
around us permits us to listen; and
they viii not he still until they are an.
swered and reason is satisfied.
Thus II Is with u.s." he said. Thus
1t has been. as history shows, with all
the generations before us. These ques-
tons and the attempts to answer them
constitute the meaning of all the sys.
tens of philosophy that ever existed.
Back at the very dawn of history
We hold our Ayran ancestors, pre-
eminently the thinkers of their day,
wrestling with these great problems of
the soul, seeking their solution with
an earnestness perhaps never equelied
in later times. Their intellect recog-
nized the iniinite-the eternal. as the
beginning and end of all things. and
! their hearts yearned for nearness TO
Him, union with Him. absorption In
Him. To Fin their philosophic
thought, and their poetic fancy, were
entirely consecrated.
Ages later on we behold the Greeks
occupying without dispute the domain
of intellectual supremacy. Sage after
sage discourses to multitudes of en-
thuslastic disciples on the nature, the
origin, the destiny of all things. They
are aided In their efforts to fathom
coded them, in Chaldea. in Persia. in
India, in China, in Egypt.
"All through the course of modern
history we find the same stream OF
anxious thought running almost un.
interruptedly
From these facts Il follows with in
exorable logic, that since the human
mind so universally and so imperious.
ly demands an answer to these prob.
lens. an answer there must be within
its reach. The universally OF law,
the general harmony and fitness OF
things, forbids us to suppose that man
is the one exception whose being is
a contradiction: His whole nature
cries out that II is not self.sufficing,
and that the things around II are pow.
erless TO Ill the abyss of It's cravings
and its aspirations. Whenever Il is
not consciously thoughtless or foolish
II reaches outward and upward by the
very necessity Of Its being and de-
mands the why aud the wherefor OF
Its own existence and the existence OF
the things that fall under its observa.
ton.
In vain man appeals to science for
an answer to these problems. II can
not answer even the simple question,
What Is life?' II tells US that at some
ptiiOd al sht itAott iOub 06ot tutit
were atoms; these atoms grouped
themselves into molecules; these mol.
ecules united to form bodies: the
bodies gave themselves an organiZa.
tion; and this organization became
life. At first there was only the vege.
table life which constitutes the plant.
but little by little this life developed
itself into the sensitive life--the life
OF taste, touch, smell sight and hear
ing. Finally, by the force OF exercise
the life OF sense became the life of In
telligence and free will. In other
words, the stone converts itself into
a plant the plant becomes an animal.
the animal makes Itself into a mani
Nonsense. how could the simple ma
terial disposition of the elements OF a
body give to itself that interior and
spontaneous movement called life.
which Il had not? Again, how could
life, reduced to simple internal! move
I