The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-09-06
IS THIS CHARITY
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and temples of marble and gold; its
100000 people worshipped 10000
gods; but had no asylum for the poor.
The poor were outcasts. Even Plato,
the divine Plato" of the Greeks,
would have expelled the poor from
his model republic. There was little
compassion then for the sick and the
ailing. Even under the Mosaic law
the leper had to cry out from afar
''unclean. unclean!" When, in the
third century of our era, plague
broke out in the great metropolis OF
Alexandria, the sick and the dying
were abandoned by their nearest rel
atiVes or cast out in the street where
their bodies were left unburied, until
the Christians came and gave decent
burial to the bodies Of their pagan
prosecutors as we'll as to those OF
their fellOW-believers. Once prison
ers, even prisoners of war-were made
slaves and gladiators, compelled to
butcher one another for the amuse-
ment of their highly cultivated cap
tors. Yes, and their blood, while still
warm, served as a dainty drink for
the titled ladies attending the show
That was in the days of woman's deg
radiation. The wife and the mother
was little better than the white slave
of today-how could she be when
Plato the wise and the good had ad-
vocated community Of wives in order
that the children might be more ex-
cluSiVely the property of the state?
And as for the children-those limo
cent messengers from heaven into a
sin-scarred world-even the wisest
philosophers and ablest statesmen de-
Tended and decreed infanticide.
Pagan Attitude.
To summarize in word, then, the
prevailing attitude of civilized man
in pagan times toward the weak and
the unfit: the poor were oppressed,
the laborer enSlaved, the sick aban-
doned, prisoners tortured, women de-
L dOSu, NllIId1 SII VI dCI GU. III ulI
these actions public opinion saw moth
ing to condemn, public decency felt
not the outrageous iniquity of it all.
But there came change. 1t began
in Bethlehem, the cradle of Christian
charity. There a child was given to
us and that Infant consecrated child
hood forever There stood a mother
who was a virgin; and that virgin
mother threw the holy mantle of pur-
ity and reverence about womanhood
The mother became queen of the
home; the home itself became the
sanctuary Of innocence; and virginity
became consecrated by the example
of countless army Of nunS-thOSe
ChaSte brides of Christ who begin on
earth to follow the Lamb whitherso-
ever He goeth. In Nazareth a Car
penter toiled to earn a frugal living
for Himself and His Mother, and in
doing SO He consecrated the sweat
of the toiler for all time. In Pilates
judgment hall there stood a prisoner,
meek and lowly; but a King who has
EuSIC GU IuC VI loOlSio iii ouSl1OuI
all ages. Beneath the cross on Cal
vary beside the Virgin Mother, stood
Magdalen once the reprobate. And
Magdalen has made sacred to the
Christian heart even the poor outcast,
friendless and penniless. Thus it is
that the child, and the woman and the
family, the prisoner and the laborer,
the poor, the sick and the wayward-
all have received a sacred character
from Christ All have become objects
of Christian compassion and sympathy
and love.
Why? o whyi but from the per-
sonal love for Christ Himself. Christ
has stamped His own beloved image
in special way upon the needy and
the poor and the suffering.
Amen, say to you as long as you
did it to one of these, my least breth-
rem, you did it to me-" There is the
root of Christian charity The Chris
tan heart sees in every child the
Babe of Bethlehem, in every laborer
the Carpenter of Nazareth, in every
beggar the wanderer of Galilee who
had not wherein to lay His head.
A Beautiful Example.
A beautiful illustration of this spirit
is found in the life of that tender
saint of the poor, 1.-THE dear st. Eliza
BETH of Thuringia. The daughter of
a king and the wife of prince, she
still found delight in living with the
poor. Not content with lavish gener-
osity in distributing her own dowry
and all that her generous husband
would give her, she visited the sick
poor in their homes, tended them with
her own hands, nursed them with an
affectionate humility and tender
sweetness that made her presence be-
loved on all sides But her conduct
was a mystery to the courtiers around
her; even her virtuous husband, pious
though he was, could not understand
her passion for the poor.
Elizabeth had a special love for
lepers. That loathsome disease that
frightened and Disguised all others
|seemed to win her particular care