The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-09-21

been tremendous.
Today, to stay away from church is
rather the fashion, the up-to-date
style. We need not travel far to
meet the men, who would blush be-
fore their comrades, if reminded that
they had been in church, there, on
bended knee, with down-cast head,
adoring the eternal and almighty God.
So far, women and children are more
guiltless than men in this regard.
But, in the course of time, the exam
pie set by men prevails: gradually, in
silent tribute to their superior thought,
women and children conform to the
mental and social practices of men.
Where today it may be said-Men do
not go to church-tomorrow it will be
said-none there are, or few, of men,
women or children who still go to
church.
AS things are moving, the question
is surely the issue of the day: whittier
the drift of men and women-whither
the drift of society and of country?
The Evil Is Indifference Toward God.
l take the evil as it is: God is not
denied: He is forgotten, left aside,
exiled, so far as men may exile Him,
from the world of human thought and
action.
No, God is not denied. Cold, repul-
sive atheism is not the vice of the
people of America. Questioned, they
are loyal to the deep and persistent
music of the human soul, the persist
ent vibration within it of echoings
of the voice of Being higher than
itself, whom it instinctly recognizes
as author and master, from whom
alone, it confesses, come relief to it's
needs, quietude to it's aspirations.
Questioned, they are loyal to the
ceaseless proclamation of reason and
judgment, that to all transient things
there is cause, absolute and ever
lasting, in whom reside in degree
supereminent all truth, all beauty, all
goodness, scintillating in the works
of His power and love-loyal to the
ceaseless proclamation THAT the i'm
visible things of Him, from the crea-
ton of the world, are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that
are made" that the life of things
visible, the sublime order of movement
and action within them, bespeak a
creator all-powerful, mover and or
dainer all-wise, allperfect-an ever
living and ever-acting personality,
God infinite and eternal.
God is not denied. Atheism is not
the evil of America. The evil is the
| forgetfulness of God, as if we would
confine Him to the far-away regions
of eternity, as if we would forbid Him
all contact with, all immission into
the affairs of revolving time, where
man lives and moves, where man, the
creature, fain would arrogate to him.
self the authority and the indepen.
dence of the Creator. The evil is the
cauterization within us of the sense
of our dependency on God, of the
sense of our need of God.
Duty of Divine Worship.
Men do not go to church: they have
lost the idea, the sentiment of divine
worship. Yet, divine worship is mans
first and supreme duty. Justice and
gratitude demand that we make acts
of worship before the eternal and al
mighty God.
To God, the First Cause, we owe
what we are, what we have. "The
heavens show forth the glory of God,
and the armament declareth the work
of His hands," Cali things were made
by Him, and without Him was made
nothing that was made" Amid what
was made is man-the masterpiece,
fashioned little less than the angels,
crowned with glory and honor, Gods
own image and likeness, set over
other works of divine power as mon.
arch and chief-benefciary. Yet know
ing all this, every chord of his being
throbbing with life and motion re
ceived from the author of all life and
motion, all things else at his service
from the blade of grass in the field,
the rose-bush in the garden, to the
mighty armies of suns and stars ar
rayed in majesty through the meas.
ureless armament, narrating, in the
laws by which they are governed, the
comeliness of which they are adorned
that they are the outpourings of di
vine love and wisdom-knowing all
this, man refuses to speak to God a
word of alteration in acknowledgment
of his dependency, of Gods sovereign
| ty, refuses to send towards God a
chant Of praise, signal of love and
gratitude! That man could be silent
before the majesty of the Most High
is the mystery of blindness of eye
and of hardness of heart: yet this the
blindness, this the hardness of heart
of men, whose ears are deaf to the
appeal Come, let us praise the Lord
with joy: let us joyfully sing to God
our Saviour For in His
hands are all the ends of earth, and
the heights of the mountains are