The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-11-10
THE EVIL or SIN AS DETERMINED
BY RIGHT. REASON.

| AS long as there rs a God In
heaven, to whom man on earth
owes fealty and submission, all
earthly things must necessarily be
used as determined by Gods sovereign
and holy will. They are His by right
of creation and absolute ownership,
and He alone can assign them their
destiny. 1t is true, He made man the
ruler of the earth and all that is con-
tanned therein, but only with the un-
derstanding that man observe the
conditions on which his right to rule
depends. Mans first inquiry must al
ways be: What is Gods will concern
ing the use of my own faculties and
the gifts of nature placed at my dis
posal? In the abstract he knows that
God created all for His own glory,
and in the concrete he must render
God this tribute of glory in his every
action. He may not think as he
pleases, nor will as he pleases, nor
make his own pleasures the standard
of right and wrong in the enjoyment
of wealth and honor and worldly
power. Ruler though he be in refer
ence to the material creation, he is
still but an underling as regards the
use of his ruling power. By reason
of his finite nature he must needs ac-
knowledge God as his Overload, and
to Him he is ultimately accountable
for his temporal administration.
Now, in sin, this God-appointed
order is fundamentally subyerted.
AS the sinner, practically at least,
makes himself the source of author
ity, so does he also in consequence
make his own personal advantage the
end of all things. He plans and
schemes and labors and tolls, not to
promote the interests of his Creator,
but solely to make all creation sub
servient to his own whims and fan
cies. His thoughts are concentrated
upon himself, and the forces of his
will ever revert to his own selfish
ends. Whatever power he may have
he directs to his own personal ag-
grandizement, and the means given to
him for the service of God he mis-
uses in pandering to his perverse ap-
petite. He acts precisely as a fraudu-
lent administrator does, who, instead
of making the estate bear revenue for
the lawful heirs, embezzles whatever
comes within his reach. He is a dis
honest servant, who wastes and
squanders his Masters goods, and as
far as in him lies, puts himself into
his Masters place. 1t is from this
sinful abuse of Gods gifts that the
lamentable economic conditions of
modern society flow as their prime
source. Whence comes that constant
friction between capital and labor
that amounts almost to state of
petty warfare? 1t is the necessary
outcome of mans usurpation of his
Creators rights in the disposition OF
worldly goods. He arrogates to him
self an absolute ownership, with
recognized powers to use and abuse
as his own fancy may dictate, and
then by a most logical inference he
judges that he should surround him
self with as much creature comfort as
possible, if not by fair means, then by
foul.
Hence there is in sin threefold
evil: the rising up of the creature
against the Creator; the supplanting
of the Creator by the creature; the
abuse of creatures for selfish ends
The first is rebellion; the second is
treason; the third is robbery. And
this three-headed monster is merely q
human weakness; merely necessary
occurrence in the full and free expan
sion of mans appetitive faculties.
Rep. B. Often, S. IT.