The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-01-25

SOuAL oil " DO OuI 1O0O
for the excellent knowledge of Jesus
Christ my Lord !. :. / press towards
the mark, to the prize of the supernal
vocation of God in Christ Jesus. -
(Phil. III, 8, 14.)
The world of spirit and the world
each other. They stand forth in crea-
ton as distant as heaven and earth,
as angel and man, as God and mat
ter. Material nature arrayed in all
the palpable panoply of sensual low
Illness appeals TO the baser metal
which is in man. She beckons him on
through the dim medium of the senses
and oft with the strength that is born
of sinew and muscle leads him to
glory and renown. The prizes she
has to offer before his astounded gaze
are all that appeal to the eye, the
ear, the sensual appetites, or to the
transient delectation of an alloyed
and ephemeral indulgence. 1t is just
that these sthings should be so, for is
not material Nature circumscribed in
her limitations, dulled in her aspira-
tons, and hampered in their ultimate
and lasting attainment? She is of the
earth, earthly, and her gaze is ever
downward.
The world of the spirit, on the other
hand, is as vast and as free as crea-
ton in all it's expansiveness. Unfet-
tered by Time or Space or the re-
striction of matter the Spirit scars
aloft until it is lost in blaze of efful-
gence in the empurpled depths of the
empyrean. The individual oft times
feels the chatting of the spirit and the
body, it is true; the soul will oft cry
out that it desires to be dissolved and
to be with it's Savior; at times, indeed,
the soul will suffer, actually suffer, in
it's prison of clay; but all the dross
and all the weightiness of corporal
nature can never hold down the spirit
that lives within. The spirit yearns
to be free, and though it drag with it
the carcass of earthly formation, the
supernal vision of the Godhead is ever
before it, and it rises and scars and
climbs aloft until, in the words of the
Florentine, "It hovers the brink OF
dread inf1nitude."
From time to time Almighty God
raises up a spirit endowed with al
the. prerogatives of a noble and re
splendent nature. 1t may be that q
great work is to be accomplished
Perchance the special glory of Goo
Himself is to be wrought out of seem
ingly impossible elements. Nay, il
not rarely happens that apparently
irreconcilable factors are so brought
together that only the Omnipotence
and the Omniscience of God Himself
could effect the union. In this case
we have that greatest of all pheno
mena, miracle of grace in the in
dividual.
The working of divine grace il
often unintelligibile. 1t obeys not the
laws of lesser nature; it works along
ostensibly contradictory lines; it dis
proves the mathematical theory Of
parallel lines, when these lines-ot
wickedness and enthusiastically de
meet, and are Immediately by mir
aculous Intervention welded and riv
cited together until they are trans
formed into one great electric cable
typifying sanctity and love.
Such a miracle of grace is to bt
found in the life of the intrepid lead
er of the Gentiles, the immortal Paul
the Apostle. His memorable words
"By His grace l am what am" sun
up the elements of his success as
leader, and the substance of hi
greatness as a man and an Apostle
The Time of St. Paul.
The human epoch which beheld thu
. unfolding of the vast genius of thi
+ remarkable man was one of the mos
! revolutionizing periods in the histor,
of the race. Centuries upon centu1
: les had rolled along the uneven teno
, of their way into the vastnesses o
; eternity. From the very dawn of tn
material creation the world, urged o.
, by the initial impulse of creativ
power, had fastened onward toward
the goal of human destiny. Nation
\ had risen from their lowly obscurity
!, had waxed strong and threatening
y had assailed their weaker neighbors
o and had finally triumphed over tn
o inferiority of their antagonists. AS
h syrian and Mede, Babylonian an
9 Chaldean, Greek and Macedonian
each had in it's turn pre-empted tn
f right to universal sway and sue
rainty. The g1ories of the past ha
been dimmed and belittled by the oil
: fuscations of the Roman eclipse
;. Rome, the paragon of nations, tn
n conqueror of peoples, the ruthles
. tyrant that brooded within tn
shadow of the Seven Hills, Rome ha
brought the earth to her feet, an
humanity lay painting and tremblin
before the dread genius that ha
sprung from the brain of the mythics
Romulus. Matter had triumphed
4 might had had its day; prowess i
war, and cunning in the legislativ
chamber had proven the undoing {
once powerful kingdoms, and all tn
. earth lay still, save for the groaning
e of the miserable captives who feebl
struck at the chains that Rome ha
rivetted to their very lives.
From the despised hamlet of hate
Galilee the erstwhile hunted Naza1