The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-05-30

truth of his divine mission, his own
resurrection from the dead-miracles
so plainly supernatural that the divine
element in them is undeniable- mir
acles authenticated by history, accord
ing to it's most severe canons, written
down by eye witnesses and contem-
poraries, given out to the whole world,
Jew and Gentle, as the compelling ar
gument for belief, for obedience even
unto death, an argument which won to
His allegiance rich and poor, lettered
and unlettered, prince and peasant, I'M
til the world, Jewish, Grecian and Ro-
man, united in forming new world
of thought and moral action, Chris
tendon. And throughout Christ's liv-
ing and preaching, throughout His
miracles and the claims based upon
them, throughout the whole preaching
of His immediate apostles and their
successors, rang out, in tones too clear
and too loud to be mistaken, the car
dinal doctrine that Christ was divine,
the very Son of God, God, who became
man to save and defy the human race
The solemn fact persists that, dur
ing nineteen hundred years, ever since
His voice was first heard in Galilee,
Christ has lived and reigned in the
world of men, and there, today, as
yesterday, lives and reigns. He has
lived and reigned by the heavenly
graces poured through the power of
His name upon the moral and religious
world, lifting humanity, so far as hui
mainly accepted Him, to heights to
which heretofore it had never scared,
to which, Of it's own self, it never could
hope to soar. Look out upon the
world of men, as it has been, as it is,
and will you not declare that wherever
the sun of Heaven has shed the bright
est light, Christ was present, that
where darkness prevailed, Christ was
absent, that just as in proportion to
the degree in which Christ was pres
ent and was accepted by souls the d.
vine effulgence was the more radiant,
humanity was the more God-like. The
highest civilization has ever been the
Christian-all the higher as it was the
more Christian. The social organism
that rose the nearest to the ideal in
purity of morals, in justice and in
charity, was that in which the re-
ligion of Christ penetrated deeply into
the souls of its members; and the
more Christian these were the more
nearly perfect was the whole organ
ism. Question your own selves: Is 1t
not the fact that just SO far as you
identify yourselves with Christ in
mind, in heart and in works, you rise
in righteousness and moral grandeur,
that just so far as you incline to the
base and the sinful, you are going
away from Christ and from His King
dom? Is it not the fact that, thrown
back upon yourselves, you feel within
you the weakness of humanity, that
the moment you cast your soul into
the arms of the invisible, but
everything Christ, you inhale the
breathings of new life, in which
there is strength heretofore unknown,
peace and joy, heretofore untasted,
undreamt Of? And throughout this
reign Of Christ, yesterday and today,
there runs, as its very web and wool,
the teaching that Christ is divine, that
He is the Son Of God, very God, so
that, if He is not really divine, it must
be said that the best in the history
and life of humanity is an illusion and
the Creator has allowed that the high
est moral triumphs Of humanity be
born of a deception and to have en-
HANGED this deception by their own
brightness and grandeur.
state facts, solemn and indubitable.
Before those facts we fearlessly bid
unbelief FURNISH up its mightiest
armor and hurl against God and His
Christ its most venomous shafts. No
alarm comes to our Christian faith.
With what does unbelief busy itself, in
its war upon Christ and His Church?
With details and incidents in the story
of revelation, which never disturb the
main facts, which in the light of those
facts lose their significance, or easily