The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-04-25
A MALIGNANT SOCIAL DISEA Sc.

We gave special prominence in our last weeks
edition to the substance of an editorial from the
Buffalo Union and Times entitled 1.-TWO Millions OF
Homes Without a Child" We do not believe that
the strenuous address of President Roosevelt on
Race Suicide, the multitudinous appeals of the
religious press the United States to the patriot
ism of the Az ~i" L citizen, and the condemnation
by the same SIS the frightful sin of proven
ton or prenatal murder have accomplished any
good If the people have lost all horror of sin, all
fear of God an6 the judgment to come all belief in
mans accountability for sins committed in the
fesh then there is nothing left to appeal to, and
the president and the clergy are addressing shad-
ows. An unbelieving people are not to be turned
aside from the qualification of their passions, from
the indulgence Of their carnal appettes from hav
ing good tine" by a rebuke from the presidential
chair appeal from salared ministers whose
faith they dscredit and whose sincerity they doubt
In the intellectual courts and in the higher So
cial circles of our country Christianity, as a spirit
ual influence and deterrent from sim has no place
Among the masses. outside the Catholic Church. re-
lgion as professed by the sects and denominations
is but tradition which exerts no restraining effect
on the conscience
Nor away from the Influence of the Catholic
religion, have any hope for the future. A state
of high material civilization, if properly balanced
by self-control and Christian self-dscpne may
lead to refinement and the development of our high
nature; but without these safeguards and the
fear Of God it sinks into selfndulgence and selfish
ness from which the descent of the next generation
is very easy into obtuseness and brutality The re-
volt of the sixteenth century known as the Refor
nation, was the protest of the animal against
the "crucifxion of the flesh" preached by our D- |
vine Lord and insisted upon by the Church He |
founded. The Protestant confederacy encouraged
selfindugence in things lawful, scorned, as super
stitious, all sef-inficted pain by fasting, confes-
sion, abstinence and their adjuncts and, now that
the hour of trial is at hand, It's undisciplined
hers unequal to the attack of their own pas
sons and the temptations of the flesh.
Even the innocency of the children of the days
q faith has yielded the precocity of the youth
If the present We have now to deal with young
people whose thoughts and temptations are distort-
d versions of those experienced by grown men and
women; precocous sceptics. who viii not believe a
Miraculous story; irreverent minds who think An
,els should have been shot and stuffed that their
precise characteristics might be preserved: abnor-
nal children who long for small devil as play
GLOW; morbid minds which prefer eternal sleep
o the weary length of eternity; hystercal boys and
iris who commit suicide when disappointed in love.
r their parents rebuke them children whose sins
re purposeless and apparently unconquerable; chill
ren with premature vices cares and pleasures and
icious children who crave excitement like old
bertnes.
Again. the rapid decline Of parental authority.
he unrestrained intercourse of the sexes the pro-
niscuous association of boys and girls, tend to
well the general mass of immortality out of which
bortion grows as surely as the pines on our noun
ain tops. Nor may dwell, except incidentally.
n The increasing number of disgraced and discred
ted doctors and professional abortionists ON
hose dreadful places to be found 81 all our large
ities and towns where operations are daily per-
ormed;-on the vile books and vile females which
each easier methods of destroying embryonic hui