The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1915-10-09


love OF truth and honor compel a
guilty man to avow his secret crime
that he might vindicate the innocent
falsely accused? Such acts of pa
thence, justice and truth are not un-
common in the Christian dispensation;
but they would have been deemed |
prodigies of virtue in pagan times.
There are many that consider men
tai culture panacea for every moral
disorder. Let knowledge they say,
be diffused over the land. Social Or
der and morality will follow in its
track
"The experience of other nations, as
we'll as that of our own, shows it to
be very great illusion to suppose
that intellectual development is suffl-
cient of itself to make us virtuous
men, or that the moral status of
people is to be estimated by the wide.
spread diffusion of purely secular
knowledge.
when the Roman empire had
reached the highest degree of mental
culture 1t was sunk in the lowest
depths of vice and corruption. The
Persian empire, according to the testi-
mony of Plato, persisted on account of
the vicious education of the princes.
While their minds were filled with
knowledge they were guided by no
religious influences. The voice of con-
science was drowned amid the more
eager and captivating cries of pas
sion, and they grew up monsters of
lust, rapine and oppression, governed
by no law save the instincts of their
brutal nature.
1T does not appear that vice recedes
in the United States in proportion as
public education advances. Statistics,
I fear, would go far to prove the con-
trary to be the fact. The newspapers
published in our largest cities are
every day filled with startling accounts
Of deep-laid schemes Of burglary, bank
defalcations, premeditated murders
and acts of refined RIGHTEOUSNESS.
These enormities are perpetrated for
the most part not by unlettered Grim
inals but by individuals of consum-
mate address and skill; they betray a
we'll disciplined mind, uncontrolled
by morality and religion. How true
are the words of Kempis: Sublime
words make not man holy and just,
but virtuous life maketh him dear
to God.'
IF neither the vengeance of the
civil power nor the hope of emolu-
ments nor the esteem of our fellow
men, nor the natural love of justice
nor the influence of education and
culture, nor all these motives com.
bined, can suffice to maintain peace
and order in society, where shall we
find an adequate incentive to exact
of US q loyal obedience to the laws
of the country? This incentive is
found only in religious principles. Re-
ligion, maintain, is the only sure and
solid basis of society. Convince me
of the existence Of a divine legisla-
tor, the supreme source of all law,
by whom kings reign, and law-givers
decree just things convince me of the
truth of the apostolic declaration,
There is no power but from God, and
that those that are, are ordained of God,
and that, therefore, he who resisted
the power resisted the ordinance of
Cod; convince me that there is prov
idence who seeth my thoughts as we'll
as my actions, that there is an incor-
ruptible Judge, who cannot be bought
with brides or blinded by deceit, who
has no respect of persons, who will
render to every man according to his
works, who will punish transgressions
and reward virtue in life to come, con-
vince me that l am endowed with free
will and the power of observing or of
violating the laws of the country; and
then you place before me a monitor,
who impels me to virtue without re-
gard to earthly emolument or human
applause, and who restraints me from
vice without regard to civil penalties;
you set before my conscience living
witness, who pursues me in darkness
and in light, and in the sanctuary of
home, as well as in the arena of pub
lie life.
Religion teaches me that we are all
children of the same Father, brothers
and sisters of the same Redeemer, and
consequently members of the same
family. It teaches me the brotherhood
of humanity.
Religion, therefore, is the fostering
mother of charity, and charity is the
guardian of civility and good breed
ing, and good breeding is one of the
essential elements of the we'll being
of society. Worldly politeness. devoid
of religion, is cold, formal and heart
less; it soon degenerates into hollow
ceremony. Good breeding, inspired by
religion and charity, inculcates q con-
slant self-denial. It is sincere and un-
affected, it has the ring Of the gen.
uine coin, it passes current every
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