The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-07-07
THE CULTIVATION OF CATHOLIC
CHARACTER.

There appears, to many people, no
cause why the Creator should not
have orchards of ripe fruit at their
back doors, SO that everybody, rich
and poor, might feel that all the fruit
they desired was there; and, without
any task of planting the, shoots, or
cultivating, or pruning, or spraying,
pick the fruit off the trees, and pre-
serve as much as they required. But
Divine Providence does not dispense
it's gifts in such a manner. Certain
fruits are adapted to certain soils and
climates. We may study and toll
long and raise no fruit of virtue; we
must study and toll laboriously to
raise any.
And it is almost the same with the
upbuilding of character. We must
say to ourselves: Am | willing to
study and toll as fruit-grower does?
Have chosen the proper soil for my
enterprise; and are my mules and
plows in good condition; my nursery
stock free from crown-gall, and aphis
and San Jose scale; and my laborers
skilled in their duties; and my spray
ing outfit in prime working order
And holding the metaphor to a
greater length, even at price of weari-
ness-for it is very fitting one-the
fruit we are laboring for being a
strong character, it's cultivation is it's
orchard, which we have to Watch and
care for in order that the fruit will
be in abundance and be sound And
the proper soil is our surroundings,
our habits, and our companions; our
skilled labOrers are our temporal and
spiritual advisers, and our own con-
science. 1t is useless to attempt to
acquire character without that proper
soil and those skilled laborers; even
with these we will have to be ever
watchful over ourselves, the places
we frequent, the friends we make,
and listen to the voice of God speak
ing through the voice of conscience
and from the mouth of our superiors,
before our life will be consonant with
all that is right and noble.
Any one who has visited limestone
caves has noticed the stalactite pill
lars, sometimes large and massive, by
which they were adorned and sup
ported. They are natures masonry
of solid rock, formed by her own
slow, silent, but mysterious process.
The little drop of water percolates
through the roof of the cave and
deposits it's sediment, and another
follows it, till the icicle of stone is
formed; and finally, reaching the rock
beneath, it becomes solid pillar, a
marble monument, which can only be
rent down by the most powerful
forces.
But is there not going forward
oftentimes in the caverns of the hui
man heart process as silent and eff.
fective, yet infinitely more moment
ous3 There In the darkness that
shrouds all from the view of the out
ward observer, each thought and feel.
ing, as light and inconsiderable per-
haps as the little drop of water, sinks
downward into the soul, and deposits
yet in a form almost imperceptible
what we may call it's sediment
And then another and another for
lows, till the traces of all combined
become more manifest, and at length
if these thoughts and feelings are
charged with the sediment of world
illness and worldly passion, they have
reared within the spirit permanent
and perhaps everlasting monuments
of their effects. All around the walls
of this spiritual cave stand in massive
proportions the pillars of sinful in
clinations and the props of iniquity
and only the convulsion like that
which rends the solid globe can rend
them from their place and shake their
hold.