The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-04-11

and their place will know them no
more. They are the lost legion. And
SO with time and place and circum-
stance will defections ever continue
in variable and fluctuating degree.
That is the law of evil. But against
inevitable loss there is the promise of
overmastering gain and final triumphs.
The first loss recorded was that of
the rich young man who left Our Lord
sorrowing, and walked with Him no
more. The next to turn their backs
on Him were the materialists of those
days, who rejected "a hard saying"
One disciple complained of bad man.
! agement, and for thirty pieces of sill
yer sold his Master and went out and
hanged himself The apostles could
not keep the society without loss.
Simon Magus joined the spiritualists,
and ST. Paul had to contend with dis
sensions, defections, and Leakage" in
the infant Church.
Whole nations have fallen away at
various periods of her history. But
the question of losses under present
discussion refers to preventible causes
and implies reproach, and it is liable
to be obscured by misconception and
misunderstanding. Let us distinguish.
The Church is Holy because she offers
the infallible means to holiness to all
who will use them, and has in fact
raised uncounted millions to the high
est powers of holiness.
But the Church is pre-eminently the
Church of sinners, the Lord and Mas
ter is the Savior of sinners, the Sacra-
ments instituted by Him are meant
for sinners, the doors are. never closed
to sinners, who may fall seven times
and seventy-seven, and fall again even
to the last breath of life, and the
Church follows them to that dread
passage, yea, accompanies them be-
yond the veil The Church is the
refuge of sinners. They may lapse
and lapse, and lapse again, and with
sorrow rise again and again thou
sand times The sinner may be rich
or poor, but however far and however
long he may stray from duty, his sub
conscious will is hoping to return and
say, Father, 1 have sinned." That is
not leakage
Which then are the OBJECTIONS from
the faith which in the Church may be
set down as loss, preventible or inev-
table, against the gain in the Great
Account? First, when men make open
profession of schism and heresy, and
join some other communion, as when
priests apostatise; that may be writ
ten down as loss. 1t is grievous loss,
and grievously will they answer for it..
But even in these cases, which are
very few, we cannot but doubt their
sincerity, or regard their act as other
wise than temporary. Rationalism,
like a wave, has swept many young
people off their feet, but it is doubtful
whether the will has not been father
to the thought, and moral defect has
not preceded intellectual doubt. The
modernistic tendencies of thought,
which have Slapped the foundations of
every professedly Christian commun-
ity outside the Church, have filtered
through many minds in the Church,
and have prepared them for detection.
Many a woman has been lost to the
faith through feminism. But these
quasiintellectual reasons for revolt
account for few losses compared with
the breaking down of conventions, the
rejection of Journalism and external
ceremony, which expresses itself alike
in religion, art, literature and man.
ners, and the high-pitched craving for
sensuous excitement. The breaking up
of home life, the scattering of young
people in great cities, the attractions
of pleasure, the fever of unrest, and
the absence of normal associations
and Catholic society have much to
answer for in the breeding of indiffer-
ence, the multiplication of undesira-
BILE marriages, and the subsequent
loss of both parents and children to
the faith. The most pressing part of
the problem of loss is that of the
children who have left school-how to
save them from communicating influ-
ences between the ages of fourteen
and twenty, and prevent that deplora-
BILE loss to the Church.
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