The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1904-01-02

unit What constitutes the s.fan1ily Christian
| civilization answers-Marriage But marriage III
! the Christian sense must be holy, one and lhds-
soluble. In all heather nations 1t lacked these
three elements and after the great gentle apostasS
in proportion as the human reeeded from the
order established by the Creator did society be-
come corrupt through the extinction of the family.
The modern world, at home and abroad, with all
its progress in the material world, no longer views
marriage as sacrament and indissoluble. De
prived of It's sacramental character, and reduced
{ to mere civil contract which may be broken Tor
the most trivial cause we see society gradually de-
scending to the same level in which it was before
the dawn of Christianity Our nation has long
since emerged from the sprngtime period OF It's
national existence. The thick foliage OF It's sum-
mcrs power and greatness may be witnessed III dis
tant lands under the protection and guidance
of the stars and stripes. But does the nation, IN
its manhood greatness and power, preserve its love-
respect and veneration for the family? On all
sides we hear the lementable dirge of the decay
Of the family. The frequency of divorce has rem
deretl the home insecure and reduced the family
almost to zero. The tendency of young America,
when reaching the summer sunshine OF manhood,
Is not TO be restrained by any home influence Their
liberty must not be curtailed by the four walls OF
a house nor the mutual love of two be set up as
the standard of family life. Hence the abandon
ment of the natural law applied to the seasons,
and which the Creator also intended for society.
In the summertime of life nowhere do we find the
thick foliage of large family, who, with their
smiling faces make home happy and cement the
If Ibair
presses the normal order of ali the Creators
works. but that is substituted for the worship OF
Mainmon: then the first link i'll the chain, namely,
the family which is essential to solidify and per-
petuate society, is missing. Wise men see this,
statesmen realize it, and in the heydey of
tional existence instead of listening to the sweet
music of love- peace and harmony, we hear the dis
cordant notes of discomfort and dissatisfaction ev-
erywhere. Without religious influence, law and or
der are mere words, and be preserved only
through fear. The natural man who discards the
supernatural cannot, like the brute creation, live
the natural life, but must fall below it. The gent
lies after they apostatized substituted for the wor-
ship of God the worship of the devil Hence the
Scriptures tell us truly that all the gods of the
heather are devils Social corruption and de-
generacy followed them in their downward course,
and though civilized and enjoying plethoric
wealth, their final dissolution came. We are told I:
history repeats itself and whilst gaze from the
high eminence We have reached in 1904 back to
ancient Rome, the fate of that empire, once in
vincible, is all object lesson.
Nicholas f. Cooke, N. D., Ii. d. a professor
and practitioner in the Hahneman Medical college
and hospital in Chicago, in work entitled Satan
in Society," says in his opening chapter; Some
United States senator uttered language concerning
the immoralities and crimes of the American peo-
pie to which the world listened with establishment.
a general afectation of incredibly, disposition
to ridicule the speeches and to anathematize the
speaker We're widely used to weaken the force and
TO neutralize the benefits of the expose so boldly
proclaimed. but the conscience of the nation had
been awakened the ball had been set in notion
Almost at The same moment the author of this
book had conceived the idea of exposing the vices
OF the age and the consequent dangers which men
ace the nation" The author has done so and the
result is appalling He is not like those who have
eyes and see not lie sees in our modern society
a reproduction of ancient Greek and Roman pagan
ISnl ancient pagan clVlliZ3I1On ndtl deScendeQS
lower in the scale of the moral degradation of the
family, but the tendency is in that direction and
every year brings US closer to- that inevitable goal
The author gives detailed account of pagan ma
tons in their treatment of the fewl: born babe
and after deploring the abeminable practices of
sacrificing the child, he says, Though the crime
Of abortion was known and practiced among all
people of antiquity, observe that the more com
monty recognized mode of REFRESHING TOO rapid
increase of population by infanticide pure and
simple; and, for ourselves, we must admit that i'll
comparison with the ANCIENT nations, our model re-
public suffers in this respect. Even the outright
murder of the newly-born infant seems to us less
deous crime than its destruction whilst vet in the
womb. but the destruction by exposure is incom-
parably less criminal for it gives the child GER
tain chance of being rescued while the ante-natal
murder does not give the infant even the benefit
of the doubt.
More varied than the golden hues of autumn
are the changes which the autumnal life of our ma
tional existence may bring forth. Already we see
how the prevalence of divorce affects the family
and reacts the children who are fast losing their
love and reverence for their parents The tendency