The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-11-23
my friend Ella Wheeler Wilcox's little

800 -
my friend Ella Wheeler Wilcox's little
verse:
$50 many gods, SO many creeds-
So many ways that wind and wind;
When all our sad world needs
Is just the art of being kind"
Tell your sweetheart to plead with
her parents. Perhaps if they give a
little thought to the matter they will
see that before the great events of to-
day, yesterdays prejudices are going
down."
Besides printing excellent recipes
for "scalloped Goldfish" and chow to
can pumpkins" The Evening Journal
recently gave the above advice.
We shall presuppose the different
religion is the Catholic religion be-
cause Miss Fairfax makes the general
statement: Religion has never
seemed to me to be real barrier.
Again we wish to throw the Catho,
lie hat into the ring because we find
that this Church says:
Religion has ever and always
seemed to me to be real barrier, .
| which is exactly the contrary of what
our lovelorn's advisorette has said
But these are not mighty opposites,
| for though the Church is in business
nineteen hundred years, Miss Fairfax
is but of yesterday, or perhaps OF
| Vassar, where there is no apostolic
| tradition, and so the parallel fails at
the first crack of the pistol.
The first thing which mademoiselle
| with the accent on fair" and whose
name we are sorry is not Annabel
Lee (for thus we might have it out,
| Il and my Annabel Lee"0, the first
| thing which Miss Fairfax hath for
| gotten is that Christian matrimony is
a Sacrament, something sacred, some
| thing spiritual, and that this being
| the case it has been entrusted to the
care of the Church and subject to he1
| laws from the beginning. st. Angus
tine, fifteen hundred years ago, ranked
| matrimony with the sacrament OF
baptism. Spiritual authority has the
prescription and God=given right tC
| legislate concerning this Sacrament
| The Church has prohibited mixed
marriages. This prohibition can be
traced back to the Council of Chalce
don which was held in A. d. 451. This
| same prohibition has been renewed
time and again and in fact has not
| ceased unto this day, and why?
Because mixed marriages interfere
with the chief purpose of Christian
matrimony. Now Miss FairfaX's ides
of chief purposes is thus framed
| ''Congenialty, ideals shared, love anC
comradeship are SO vital that a differ
! ence in creed never makes them lose
their value" Then with stolen depth
bomb she explodes away all objection
which the rock ofIages has pointed ou
| and which centuries of observation
have proven to make mixed mar
riages" undesirable, and so ''just the
| art of being kind win settle every
mixed marriage difficulty" .,a
| Oh, yes, but the chief purposes O.
| matrimony are not few synonymous
| abstract terms The chief purpose:
are permanency and love, and withou
the help and grace of the sacramen
| he or she by "just the art of being
1 kind" will soon have other "sou
! mates" as thousands of divorces an
nually prove. The Church says mar
! riage must be an aid to salvation fol
| the Catholic, but mixed marriages
| more often ruin faith. The Church
| has American statistics which Prov
| that sixty per cent of the children o
mixed marriages are lost to the faith
i. e., they are neither Protestant no
/ Catholic.
This Miss Fairfax calls prejudice
| going down. but the Catholic Churcl
calls this a disaster, an avalanch,
from Christianity to a state of hea
thenism 1t was Abraham who mad
his steward swear: Swear by thu
I Lord that thou take not a wife 70
my son from the daughters of tn
Canaanites among whom / dwell
st. Paul, in his second letter to thu
| Corinthians, forbids marriage witt
4 people not Of the Church st. Angus
tine says: These miserable peopl
Il have their food at home in common
but the table of Christ they canno
have in common" 3 But today the
cannot even have their food at HON
in common for we know the dispute
that happen on Fridays when tn
Protestant party wants his steak an,
ridicules his Catholic better half, vel
flying the words of st. Ambrose
How can there be accord of Chart
: when there is discord of faith?''
Req. John WhelGn.