The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-10-02
SCRATCHING FOR POPULARITY.

Was there ever time since Apostolic days wher
men, presumably learned permitted themselves to be
carried away by an unreasonable desire for popular
ity, like unto the days we are now living in9 De
nominational preachers, university professors and
magazine swashbuckers are diseased with microbes
of popularity and are delving into Hindu, Chinese
Persian and Arabic literature with the hope of find
Ing something and startling It is an age of
religious iconocasm, when all that our fathers
taught u.s. all that the prophets revealed to us and
all the religious traditions of the past, ruth
essy laid upon the dissecting table of irreverence
and subjected to the knife of rationalis and desm
The methods of dissection contradict all estab-
shed rules of surgery and violate the first laws of
even independent anatomy It is confidently asserted
by many in high places of authority that we may re-
tain our faith in Christianity though we no longer
believe the ancient documents embodying the un-
DERIVING facts of our belief In the same breath We
are told to believe in Christ but to discredit al
most everything He is reported to have said or
which is said about Him in the Sacred Scriptures
10 normally rational men it would seem impos-
sible to dispute the claim that Christianity is re-
veaed and historical religion For the Protestant
or the unbeever the underlying facts are contained
in book which their fathers worshiped. as the
equatorial negro his fetish and which book thew
called, the Word of God, the Good Book or the BIZ
ble The Bible is largely history. The Christ of
the Bible and the Christ whom Catholics adore as
the Son of God, is not the product of the magma
ton OF our times, but sacred person who lived in
Palestine nineteen hundred years ago. and the rec
ords of whose life all written in the first CEN
tury OF our era. They were written by men who al
tered the course of human events for all time who
surrendered their lives in proof of the sincerity If
their faith IN the Resurrection and God-head of
Jesus Christ, and who bequeathed to future gen
erations legacy of good works and heroism m
paralleled in the annals of history
There not in existence ten authentic COW
fences recording the life and speecb If onr rir;,o
Lord which were not recorded by his contemporaries
and incorporated by them in their own writinos-;n
he New Testament
me only portrait which we have of our Blessed
was painted by those who had looked
ipon him IN hfe listened to His words broke
'read with Him, saw Him call the dead from their
raves and companioned for forty days with Him
I1er lie had risen from the tomb. That which thew
lad seen and heard they have declared INTO no
hey were not in search of popularity, and we will
ccept their word rather than give heed To the mon
'ho are today denying Christ "come in the Aesbn
nd trying to be somebodies.
for us to permit these modern crit;oo ~
ated with their own Importance, to erase the Amos.
'hc records and substitute for them their oa,n
plnlons and the verbal vaporngs of nrord ,ro,,-
'llty, would be absurd and suicidal a. for tho
lsto hans of the Vatican gallery of art 70 auo,,
mouse painter to remove the matchless ps;nt;ng.
haphael and hang up his own daubs. Their ~.
cks on the Bible and revealed doctrines have ~.
zen the attraction Of novelty to recommend then,
ne pagan philosophers of the fourth cen+,,-r
axi1nus, CELSIUS and Porphyrius, the French and
errnan ratlonalists of the eighteenth century and
e English and Scotch scofers of later date bovo
hausted the resources of free thought and of
rVerted ingenuity in their attack on Chr;st;sn;+v
sisus' with the efrontery of Luoifer and the az.
city OF Martin Luther, wrote an infamous bool
alnst the personality and divinity of orr Re-.
emer, marshaling, in his audacious !. a+tool -,
IT sfianity, all the arguments and sopb;sms NOW,
avn upon BY modern free-thinkers. Reed;no +ha
PRODUCTION of his "Fair Statement" one uo,ld
NIX ne was listening to Professor Eliot or David
arr Jordan Occurring to humanity at large ar :
po''nd as philosopher" writes CELSIUS no to,o r
n out of their errors" etc. 1.-THE religion - :