The Newtown bee., 1905-03-31

The first essential condition of the spiritual life is freedom. Mechanical eligion-cOnventiOna machine relig- ion is a failure. FOrmalism is d life less, automatic performance of the outward show of piety. There must be liberty of expression, or our thoughts and feelings are repressed, l disappointed and deadened. The nat ural tendency of the world is to go in | the ruts of common custom, and to keep in the same grooves, and to be- come hardened and fixed and stereo- typed in all the habits and practices of life.
 Then, once established in our modes of living, thinking, and feeling, we are apt to grow more and more con- ventional, legal, exacting, opinionated, and prejudiced against any new thing, in religion as in anything else. As an illustration of this, it is said that no physician who was then forty years old would ever admit that Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was really the discovery of sci entific fact.
 St Paul warns the Christian breth- ren against this legalism of the Scribes and Pharisees, and against all mere Journalism when he says:->''The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" The true Catholic church brings us out of bondage into the liberty of the spir- it of Christ. We are not enslaved by any elaborate system of doctrines, but are simply taught the few essential facts of the Gospel as they are grouped together in the Catechism. We are not bound to believe a long series of dOgmatic statements that we may be made members of the Church; we are adopted into the family of God be- cause that is already our home with our parents and sponsors, or because we are orphans and wanderers and need the Shepherds care. We are not proselyteS to system of theology, but we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who loves us and gave Him. self to save us from sin and eternal death.
 The true Church of Christ makes it's children free. Free from the power of sin and evil, by the Fellowship of the love of all that is good; free from er- TOT and waywardness, by the liberty of the truth; free from the letter and bondage of the law, by the Spirit of God ruling in our hearts. We instruct our children, that they may have the knowledge of the truth, and we warn them against that which is false and evil; but we wish them to grow up in the freedom of their own souls, that they may value their own proper, in- dfvidual life and character, according to the gift of God that is in them.
 Jesus has the most sacred regard for the freedom of the will. What He seeks is the hearts free choice of good. Forced obedience is not obedience, but slavish submission which cannot honor God. Faith in God which does not lead to love, and the joy of fellowship is not real belief; it may be only the servile assent of fear. Whoever is willing to do right will be guided into the way of truth. If we do not mean to do right we shall find suggestions of evil and inducements to do wrong at every step.
 Growth in the moral and spiritual life comes by our own exercise and ef- fort very much as it does in the physi. cal life. We must feed ourselves and use our powers; we must be true tC God and fill up the measnre of our op- portunities with good and true en- deavors. It is not only what is done