The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-03-30

them" The practice of necromancy and spiritisn
were the curse of the gentle nations who abar,-
| doned themselves to the worship of demons and to
! the fnghttul Impurities and denominations which
| brought down upon them the vengeance of God and
racial ann1hllation The worship of Priapus in the
days OF Asa, the Indaean and the divine rites paid
! the Phallus by the Apostate Jews, and so merci-
lessly reprobated by Ezekiel the prophet of God,
what were they but the dedication of lust and the
alteration of the god of sexual sin. There is not
III all history sacred profane anything to be
compared to the awful indictment framed by Eze-
klel, IN his sixteenth and seventeenth chapters
against the apostate Jews who consorted with the
ldolatraus Ammonites and Moabites the worship
ers of devils "who brought shameful denominations
to their sons and daughters" All through the OLD
and New Iestaments there runs as distinctly Wis
| ible as a black thread running through cloth of
white silk, the malign influence, not of disembodied
souls but of spirits lost in hopeless dispair There
is no fact of history more strongly attested than
this.
The historic church of God-the Bride of Christ
teaches now and always has taught the existence
of devil, of lost spirits, their unquenchabe he
tired for the human and their sinister nfu-
ence upon souls who abandon themselves to COM
munication with them. If this be not so. what is
the meaning of the exorcisus of baptism of the az
peals to God in her missals, rituals and PRAYER
books to protect us from the influence and ermity
of Satan and the angelic spirits who fell with him.
To this end she directs her priests all over the
world, after they have offered up the sacrifice of
the mass-the clean oblation-to repeat this lua.
gestive ard doctrinal prayer
May God rebuke Satan, we humbly pray and
do thu, oh Michael Prince of the Heavenly Host,
by the power of God, drive back into hell Satan
ard all the evil spirits who wander through the
world seeking the ruin of souls"
All the ribald laughter of scofers all the plaus.
ability of sceptics all the sophsms of Rationalists
and incredulity of those "wise in their own
thoughts" canont alter facts. The existence of
evil spirits and their war on the souls of men are
not alone facts of all history sacred and profane
they are facts in the life and experience of the hui
race.
Nor do we believe with some learned theologians
that this diabolic enemity and maevoent operation
on human souls are less now than before the Re
demption. That the manifestations of the spirits
are less visiby pronounced than in former times
is potent to every diligent student of dabolic
agency but that their hatred for the souls of men
and their evil influence upon those whose lives are
corrupt, is weakened and weakening, we are not,
from what we have seen and read, disposed to adj
NIT. The monstrous crimes which today disgrace
race, TIE unnatural self murder, the unnatural
lusts the lawessness that is the contempt for law
human and divine and the atrocous obstruction of
infant and adult life belong not to human nature
and only be referred to agencies outside of hui
man existence and with which human nature ought
to have nothing in common.
The Church of God warns her children to have
nothing to do with spiritism, with planchette, with
ouidige or with anything or person mediatly or
Immediately associated with diabolsln and the spr-
It's of evil. She has behind her the experience of
two thousand years. and when she speaks she speaks
as one having knowledge and authority.