The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-07-16
THE OVERSIGHT OF OUR REDEEMER.

Reverting to our article last week on mark
Twain and Luke Thu" we are brought face to
face, by the doctrines of Mark Twains "Secret
Book" with the effects of infdelty ON the morals
of nation, community. Webster defines
"immorality" to be a free act contrary to the
"Divine Law" and morality to be "a free act in
conformity with the Divine Law" The opinions
advanced by Mark Twain in his Secret Book"
when followed to their logical end, are subversive
of all morality The book teaches, not indeed by
direct statement, but by plain inference, that lying
adultery and injustice cannot be morally bad, being
mechanical acts, but that they are considered bad
only in the estimation of the ignorant, and that
such ignorant notions will soon be dspelled by the
enlightened rays of progressive civilization.
The pretension that virtue and vice are products,
like sugar and vitriol, that crime is the direct,
natural and unavoidable result of the passions
which trouble us, is revolving in the extreme, and
an insult to our free will. This contention is not
far away from the atrocious declaration of Won
Hartman, who teaches in page $50 of "The Phi
losophy of the Unknown" that at is important to
make the beast-life known to the young, that they
may be refreshed and repose in it, for beasts are
happier than men," Were men and women to live
up to the teachings of Mark Twain and Won Hart
man, crime would reign with impunity, and the
midnight robber the blood-stained assassin, and
the unfaithful wife might all say, owe could not
help it." In fact their actions might be cata-
logued with the cardinal virtues If the instruction
of young boys and girls were based on such doc
triDes they would learn that "a lie is not immoral"
that the command, "Thou shalt not steal" was
made by the strong to rule the weak; in fact they
would learn, like the boy of the Spartan school,
that the disgrace was not in stealing but in being
caught.
The beast men of today and the intellectual
advocates of the oral of utility" cannot lay claim
priority of originality for their views as their
theories WERE hundred years ago, anticipated
and reduced to practice by Bolingbroke, by Mira
beau, who prematurely died of his sexual excesses
and by Robespierre and his crowd, who worshipped
a fallen their only god, and raised on
the high altar of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris.
harlot for the alteration of the mad men of the
Revolution.
The promoters of the doctrines of advanced
thought" the who arrogate to themselves the
title Of Higher Critics." who are simon-pure in
fdels and deniers of Christ come in the fesh,"
would have believe that civilization has
hopelcssIy failed, and that to inaugurate system
superior to anything now existing, that has
existed in past ages, we have but to place the in
struction and training Of the children of the re-
public in their loving and tender care.
The modesty of the request and the remedial
action proposed by these enemies of Christianity
commend themselves to fools. And right here we
are eye to eye with the supreme danger, for, if,
as Barnum reported have said, "a sucker Chat
is, fooD is born every minute" the majority is
with the "men of advanced thought" Sir Robert
Walpole who, in 1877, was premier of England,
anticipated by many years the epigram of the
'great American Snowman" as the following after
dinner conversation between Sir Robert and his
son Horace will prove:
II have often wondered, SIR" said Horace Wal
POLE catching his father in an unusually commu-
NEGATIVE mood, "what can induce you to take into
your most intimate councils that Lord Sundon. All
the world sets him down for an ass, and upon my
word I do not think the world is far wrong"
my dear Horace" spoke back Sir Robert, "the
world is perfectly right; nevertheless, the man
whom you very justly call an is Of more use to