The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-05

tie and Cicero lament the absurdities that corrupted the Divine sense from the gross fetichism of the savage to the learned religions Of the Nile. of the courtly halls of Athens and of Rome and tell us that only a God, Divine flight could teach the truth Even | then that divine light was appearing on the horizon as reflected in the universal expectation that awaited the Redeemer and when anon It flooded
 with radiant beauty despairing world disease and death to an inhaling them. it purified a noxious, presidential at
 mosphere. 1t destroyed the darkness of infidelity, 1t exposed the sham and mockery of deceitful sects and irrelig- ious cults. Then 1t was that idols groaned and fell, that they were smash
 ed into thousand scattered frag- ments. Temples of degrading beauty were abandoned. shrines of calculating quacks were pointed out with holy horror, groves of lascivious mirth no longer echoed the sensual shout of agonizing fate. Men turned to truth, they closed their hearts and minds to dol-worship.
 And now a parallel More favored
 
 within the pale of Christianity. We enjoy its countless blessings. its civil- izing influence, its enlightenment. We bask in its sunshine, we reflect its lustre. We did not witness its dawn. but we rejoice in It's monday splendor.
 Are our hearts receptive? Does It's warm sunshine purify the pestiferous breath of siokening evils7 Does 1t help us to take cognizance of our infidelity,
 ~t.A~ f-. n< rsrN Ia fall in conquered attitudes?
 "weil may ministers of the Gospel lament the blindness of an idolatrous age. for aIasl nowadays men will not receive the light of truth; less respon- sive than the idolaters of two thousand years ago, they are unwise in the midst of wisdom; the advent of the Savior in the music of a sweet and merciful love awakens in their hearts no vibrat- ing unison; they are lost to every sem timent of tenderness; they are cauter-
 ized. But if mercy and love be not
 sufficient. let us be appalled, by fear, let the terrors of the second advent ac- complish what the sweetness of the first could not, and let at least their con- sideration destroy the idols, for we. too, are blind idolaters, the Jupiters and the Venuses which intellect and will, the self-constituted arbiters of our des- tiny, have enthroned within us with all l the pomp and ceremony of sacrifice. Many an idol today, like the yelled Prophet of Khorassan, hideous in TO- ality. rears a diabolical front within our souls, and with devilish mockery sioatingly surveys the ruin of eternal happiness, Those idols are the pas-
 sions and pride of sensual weak-mind- edness. One man panders to his filthy self, another to his boasted intellect, or
 social caste. and both cannot be Cath olics because Catholicfty restraints and humbles They cannot. as you have 1 heard. because they will not, and they I will not because they idolize their pas sions and their pride"
 | Then Father Eaton spoke of his | church and its teaching. repelling criti- cism of those who said 1t was unpro- | gressive.
 | Closing, he said:
 1 ''The idols of passion and pride are enslaving the world today, my breth- | ren: they number more ardent worship pers than ever did zeus or Venus. and
 if the influence of the little babe of Bethlehem In His first advent be not a | sufficient means of governing the pro- cliyities- of wayward man, let at least | the influence of His awful majesty in ! His second advent wield a salutary | mower OCT the mind and matter. We shall then wither away in fear and trembling before the all-piercing gaze of an exacting Savior; we shall cry in vain for mercy, for mercy will be no more we shall not be asked if we have offered incense to the idols of passion and pride, of obstlnacy and seif-indui- gence, to the gog and magog of socf- ety, but if we have kept Gods law. tf we have obeyed His church, if we have been regular in our attendance at mass and at our duties of confession and communion. if we have preserved our souls in the purity of rejuvenated inno- cense.
 "Sinlessness alone will be the assur- ance of our happiness, and eternal life will be the guerdon of our integrity.
 If in sin, therefore, we must confess
 to those to whom 1t has been said.
 Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall re-
 tain. they are retained thereby casting aside the works of darkness and put ting on the armour of light which teachers where.
 .. beneath the moon.
 In earth or ocean, lies the boon.
 The charm that can restore so soon
 A fo alr