The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-11-23
NON CATHOLIC TRIBUTE
Boyd Winchester Praises the Catholic
Church for Her Work in America
Reviews Her Meaning, Purpose and
History-A BulWark Against Athe-
ism and Anarchy.

ism and Anarchy.
A noteworthy appreciation of the
Catholic Church, in which special
emphasis is laid upon her power and
influence in the United States, ap-
peared not long ago in the Courier
Journal of Louisville, Ky. It was
written by non-Catholic, Boyd Win
chester, and conveys good idea of
the manner in which the beneficient
work of the Catholic Church appeals
to fair-minded Americans who are
without her fold.
In the course of his review he de-
clared that the Catholic Church
stands alone, among Earring sects and
creeds, majestic, venerable and invul-
nerable, which time could not crumble
nor revolutions change.
with transcendent calm the Cath
olic Church requires of her clergy and
religious orders that they shall re-
nounce home, forsake their kindred,
labor without reward and die without
notice. The chosen idea of life in
Catholicism has always been asceti-
cism, the standard heroism. A good
priest or Sister of Charity is Injured
to self-denial and ready for self-sac-
minority which wins by suffering.
TThe Sisters of Charity bind them
selves to service by the triple VOWS,
for life, of poverty, chastity and obedi-
ence; they take needful food to the
cottage hearth, attend the dying bed
of the humblest and administer con-
ISOLATION in life's EXTREMIST hour.
Every one must respect and revere
the priesthood for their learning, their
talents, their piety and their untiring
labors in the diffusion of light, hope
and consolation; postponing all the
qualifications of worldly pride to the
severe but heaven-gaining glories of
their poverty. -4--4-
I'm them there remains the consol-
ing evidence that the simplicity of the
patriarch, the piety of the saints and
the patience of the martyrs have not
wholly vanished. Lamartine writes of
the priest as man of no family, but
who belongs to all classes, to the
lower on account of his poverty and
often by humble birth, and to the
highest classes by virtue of his cul-
ture and the exalted sentiments which
his religion inspires and commands
The Church, a Great Moral Power.
"Americanizing and Christianizing
of the millions who are coming to this
country from all parts of the world,
is one of the greatest problems to
which the Catholic Church has rem
dered signal service. For long years
she has been receiving, controlling,
and assimilating, one influx after an
other, of foreign people. Under her
fostering care come, it is estimated,
fully one-haf of the vast number of
immigrants daily arriving at our ports.
She has held them for religion, and
has held them for good citizenship.
No one can soberly reflect upon this
great labor of education and restraint
without being convinced that it has
been a potential force in our public
life. Nothing but venerable and uni
versal institution, which has weather
ed so many centuries, always the
same, could have taken her incoming
children and done for them what the
Catholic Church has accomplished.
under the same fostering care are
the great majority of our working
men and women, boys and girls, who
worship in any church,, for no matter
how prosperous some of her members
may be, this Church never desists
from serving the laborer, the poor and
the friendless. Respect for
authority, regard for personal and
proprietary rights and habitual sub
mission to law, inculcated in the
Church, school and home, among SO
many employers and employed, must
necessarily make for tranquility and
industrial peace. ..
But few who do not recognize the
Catholic Church as the greatest single
moral force in the world. 1t is the
religion of a puissant spiritual power,
which legislates, prohibits, and pun
ishes. 1t appeals to the imagination,
the senses and the heart, without too
great a strain on the reason, and sup
plies the invigorating atmosphere
which is necessary to strengthen char
acter and adapt it to the usages Of
our present existence.
There is no country where this
Church is not to be found, rewarding
the hospitality that receives her;
every field of the Old World finds
her defending the various flags of
every faith and upho1ding law and
order. Froude, the historian, says:
Free from all prejudices, in favor of
any nation or any political form of
government, she allies herself with all
the principles which successfully pre-
vail In the various organizations of
society, accepts them all; but her faith