The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-05-29


Before England was born into the
FAMILY Of nations Ireland was an au-
tohomy recognized as such by contem-
porary races. When Ilbion was inhab-
lted by barbarous and savage people
ireland was in the height of prosper
lty When the Anglo-Saxons We're tear
ing each other to pieces Ireland was
possessed of a settled government and
was administered by wise laws, so an
Client that no one knows precisely the
period Of their PRONUNCIATION.
When England was remarkable for
/ It's ignorance and brutality Ireland was
| celebrated for her culture and civiliza-
ton. When st. Augustine was preach
ing to the heather, when Ethelbert was
| receiving baptism, when Alfred was
Wanderer. Ireland was sending forth
her missionaries all over the world,
spreading everywhere the gospel and
civilization. When the foundations of
the Universities of Cambridge and OK
ford were laid the colleges of Ireland
had long been flourishing seats of learn
ing, lmparting to all who came to her
schools knowledge and truth. Ireland
can assert, what no other existing
kingdom can say, that her history is
lost in the mazes of antiquity, and that
her era of barbarism belongs to pre-
! historic times
About the eighth century the troubles
Of Ireland began by the invasion of
the Danes, and the subsequent wars
that ragged within the island. Taking
advantage of this stage of things, the
Norman English invaded under Henry
II, and annexed it as part of his do
minions. 1t would appear that after
so much early prosperity Ireland was
to enter the school of suffering, in or
der that by severe trials she might be-
come again the great witness for Truth
when darkness should once more cover
the earth.
The dark hour is approaching, the
twilight of civilization is long passed
and the midnight of Satanic barbarism
is at hand under the evil influence of
which many shall fall to rise no more
The boosted civilization of this latter
half of the nineteenth century is a de-
fusion; it is barbarism yelled by a cloud
illuminated by a light, the source of
which is neither in heaven nor in the
church.
When men care no longer for truth
for its own sake, than shadow has
fallen upon the soul. When people in
high places regard the truth and I'M
truth as a matter of indifference, dark
ness has enveloped-the soul, so that
it can no longer distinguish between
right and wrong. When skeptfcism and
infidelity have taken hold of the mind,
then indeed has the light become dark
ness. And when Indifference to the die
tates of the moral law, when impurity
and sensuality are openly tolerated by
society. then the conscience has become |
scared: and when murder-brutal muir
der and Acknowledgement dishonesty
in business and the first principles of |
socialism and communism prevail, then |
the era of barbarism has indeed COM |
menced.
Let England look to herself and re-
form her ways before ii is too late. The |
cloud is upon her now; it is even ready |
to burst and to pour down upon her
calamities too appalling for adequate
expression. 1 am not prophesying-I
am stating that which every thinker
knows but does not dare plainly to ex-
press. In England faith is gone, NOR
atty at a very low point and crime in
the ascendant. OF all the nations con-
the British Empire there is
one, and only one, wherein the lumin-
airy of faith and truth, notwithstanding
all the sufferings inflicted upon that
poor oppressed land, still shines re-
5plendent and wherein the silver light of
and domestic purity still gilt
-ers with unsullied excellence and
glory.
In Ireland you see a people true to
heir faith. holy in their lives and vir-
uous in their conduct From whence
hese fruits? From the Catholic
church to which, notwithstanding the
ron policy of prosecuting England, she
has remained true and faithful even
into death. Ireland, renowned in her
uries of suffering, has without doubt
| splendid future. She has not de-
aged by time nor has she been demon
llized by suffering; she is like the
hurch still young and vigorous, pos
essing within her a soul which no
human power can break. Even now she
las a vast moral empire, for her people
re spreading everywhere, carrying with
hem their religion, their morality and
heir virtues. :
She is furnishing witnesses of the
ruth of God in every city of England
nd Scotland and in the great cities of
american and Australian civilization,
nd even on the Continent she is not
When the aristocracy
f Europe is contaminated the children
f st. Patrick will be lights shining in
ark places cheering the faithful rem
lie
,ayfarer and benighted traveller who
ad for a long time lost themselves in
he labyrinths Of doubt and unbelief,
truggling in the mide of abomination :
nd wickedness.
It seems, then, that in these last days
reland and the Irish are the people
specially chosen by God to fight the
God fight Of faith against the internal
overs of hell: and let them take cour- Z
ge with the thought that their fidelity :
} the faith is a pledge of their future
lory and that their patience in the
,hool of suffering, through which they :
ave now nearly passed. has been their :
arthly purgatory to fit them for the :
ork for which Ireland seems destined l
Y Almighty God. :
Fast Becoming Heathens. r