The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-04-18

amonC, or enrOllS nlmSelI un0er some
eminent preacher.
| Evils of the Personal Element.
In all cases the personal element is
always in the ascendant. The Way of
Salvation, instead of being defined
path, however rugged, which all men
of good will can follow, rather resem-
bles the face of a precipice which
none but the expert can scale. The
results are plain to see. Our nation
is drifting away from all religious OBJ
servance. OF those who frequent
places of worship, more and more are
becoming Indifferent to dogmatic
truth, as a thing unattainable, and are
lapsing into vague natural pietism.
Even those who still cling to the prac-
tees of revealed religion sometimes
are found to have cut away the doc
trinal supports upon which those prac-
tees have rested from the beginning
Plainly there is something amiss.
The root of the mischief is that ex-
aggerated estimate of the personal ele-
ment in religion, of which we have
been speaking, and a perverse depre-
citation of the value of external re-
| ligious practices. God forbid that we
should appear t. discourage personal
piety. All must accept st. Augustine's
well-known expression, that although
God has created us without our CO.
operation, He will not save us with
out orr cooperation. All must admit
likewise that religious practices with
out religious fervour are as dead as
the body without the soul. Yet it is
true, none the less, that by Gods spe-
cial appointment our spiritual life is
sustained, as our earthly life is sus-
tanned, not so much by our individual
efforts, as by process, with which
we are, indeed, required to cooperate,
but which is far more potent than any
isolated effort of our own.
The Mystical Body.
In several striking and familiar pas
sages, st. Paul does in fact urge the
truth that Christians are linked up,
not into any sort Of loose associa-
ton, but into a mystical body closely
analogous to the constitution and
functions Of the physical body. What
is this beautiful conception but that
familiar Catholic system in which cor
porate religious life steadies and re-
| inforces the Independent and irregu-
lar sallies of individual fervor? st.
Paul himself names "the unity of
faith" as the first and most striking
result of association in the Mystical
Body. So long as faith is merely the
pious adventure of individuals, more
or less enlightened, into the region of
the supernatural, unity of faith" is
impossible. But when faith is "The
Faith" when it is no private discov-
cry, but "the Truth once for all de-
livered to the saints" it is as easy
to secure united profession of the
same creed as to secure united owner
ship of the same property.
Membership in the Catholic Church,
the Pastoral concludes, is thus found
to be the master-key which lays open
the way of salvation. Salvation is not
meant to be the complicated puzzle
which the misguided ingenuity of man
has made it. God has provided fol-
the souls welfare as securely and as
simply as for the body's. Therefore
Christ's final word to His Apostles
was this GO We therefore and teach
all nations, baptising them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost. He
that believeth and is baptised shall be
saved. He that believeth not shall be
condemned" If there was any alter
. native, He would have revealed it. TIC
become and to remain faithful Cath
Ollie is the Alpha and Omega of the
Christian alphabet.