The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-03-05
REASON OF GODS
 EXISTANCE TOLD
 BY JESUIT PRIEST
Rev. c. A. Shyne of St. Louis University Breaches at
 St. Patrickss.

Last evening the Rev. c. A Shynes
 a Jesuit father of St. Louis University,
 began his lecture course at St. Pat
 ricks church by quoting this sentence
 from a book written by a blind man;
 Eff ever an age had need of under
 standing the reason of God, it IS our
 own"
 Upon this text he spoke for forty
 five minutes to a crowded church. He
 showed that the reason of Gods ex-
 istence was not necessary for saliva.
 ton, but in a concerted atmosphere
 buzzing with shallow ansl impatient
 thinkers the reason of Gods existence
 is much needed even by those who be- lieve in God.
 The urwary are apt. said he, to be
 misguided by the hippancy and shall Ilowness of half baked writers who have never been trained to think seri- cus1y or patiently or logically. Man lis spoken about as if he was all body and no soul, yet man is neither body nor soul: He is the union of both,
 he is composed of a, body that is nor tai and Of a soul that is simple, spir- itual and immortal. The body has in lit the germs of death, the soul has in | it no seeds of ruin or decay or death All this my reason teaches me l need no church, God to declare it to me My own faculties arrive at the conviction. Yet man is writ ten about in the daily papers as if his body were all important, his soul a neglig gfble quantity. You read about the dollars he made or stole; tho clubs hes belonged to the children he had 1 or their waywardness. the scandals that were in the family, but did you 1 ever read of the care he took of his immortal soul or of the efforts he put forth to keep it white? It is rarely referred to. It is ignored. Yet the whole man is, we are told, the noblest k r7xxfr, man we soon arrive at the reason of mans maker.
 Pnt all thought of revelation aside this evening; forget for a little while that a Saviour was born on a wisp of straw, that he lived here thirty three l jed and arose from the dead, that he founded a college to teach the world, that he ascended into heaven in the presence of i've hundred and that he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
 Let us turn our thoughts to man. He has structure-so has the mineral structure and growth; so has the plant structure and growth and life; so has the mere animal He is therefore a. compendium of the visible creation. He ican think a thing which neither plant nor animal can do.s He is the head of the grand series of organic nature.
 Thought is the crown of his being. He looks into himself and studies his own mental acts. He reflects upon his own reflections, upon his own thoughts, upon his judgment and therefore he l has within a. spiritual principle which iraust have come from spiritual cause. He is the only being on earth that
 makes progress because he is the only being that forms Judgments, draws conclusion from premises, compares propositions and sees how to advance and uses the fit means to advance. The most sagaeious animals are today as they were five thousand years ago.
 The dove builds her nest now as she did in the days of Noah.
 But man is not satisfied with ma teriaI things or mere material ad- vancement. His soul is immortal and things mortal can never satisfy the immortal The immortal hunger cam l in it the seeds of limitation or cor ruption The soul flies higher. It sees that all things here need never have been. A reason for their exis- terlce is not in them. They are conS tingent and no rational being can deny that the contingent can never exist unless necessary, self 1f-existent being brings it into existence There would not be a sufficient reason for one of us or for a single thing we see around us unless there exists an absolute. a nec- essary Being. Therefore, such a be- l ing must exist.
 The combined efforts of all the me- charics in the Locomobile shops could not make an automobile without the material. There wouldn't be a. sl1ff- cient reason for it's existence The
 machine is contingent that is, it may -....