The Irish standard., 1919-03-29

claim to be an exception to this rule?
Her present clever attempt to cloak
her imperialistic designs with the man.
tie of League of Nations deceives no
one who is conversant with her tradi-
tional policies.
Since, then, neither man nor nation
can serve two masters, it follows that
in proportion as the English people
devote themselves to Mammon they
withdraw from the service of God.
Some writer's hold that this nation
never did accept the teachings of
Christ with the wholehearted enthusi-
asm that distinguished the Irish The
history of the relations of England and
Rome furnishes a marked contrast to
those of Rome and Ireland. While
the Irish always accepted the teach
ings of the Church and her govern
ment with childlike docility, the Brit
ish early in their history began to
evince a pronounced spirit of opposi-
ton to Papal authority. Yelled at first
this spirit soon broke out into open
hostility. In time this engendered
heresy with its natural offspring, fin
al apostasy. The murder of St. Than
as Beckett for defending the rights
of the Holy See was followed by
the heresy of Wycliff, and this in turn
by the complete overthrow of the
Catholic religion under Henry VIII.
and Elizabeth. In the novels of Mon
signor Benson and other British Catho.
lie writer's there are glowing pages
descriptive of the fortitude and fidel-
ity of the English martyrs. Yet what
were these but mere handful COM
pared with the hundreds, nay thous-
ands, who bled for the Faith in Ire
land? We must never forget that the
acceptance or rejection of the Pro-
testant Reformation rested in the last
analysis with the English people them
selves. This nation" writes Mon
talembert, "owes nothing to her kings
who have been of Importance only by
her and for her. Upon herself alone
weighs the formidable responsibility of
her history" All attempts, therefore,
to fasten the guilt of their apostasy
solely on the heads of their rapacious
and tyrannical rulers are beside the
mark. Why under like conditions and
equal pressure from above did not
France apostatize? Why did the peo-
pie of Ireland resist the new religion
when apostasy meant escape from the
curse of Cromwell, the horrors Of the
Penal Laws, confiscation, poverty, ex-
lie, wounds and death? The truth lis
England as nation has never been
able to rise to the fulness of Catholic
truth and Catholic obedience. Stub
born and wilful her people chafed for
centuries under the mild yoke of the
Vicar of Christ; and when at last they
had thrown off his authority they re-
yealed their true nature by fashioning
to themselves church after their own
image and likeness, an, eliflce of lath
and plaster, capable of being set up
and pulled down at will, which they
named, appropriately enough, the
Church of England.
What have been the fruits of this
apostasy with its consequent hypo:
crisy? On the one hand vast influx
of wealth and power; on the other
gradual atrophying of the spiritual fac
ulty. While the body waxed gross the
soul slowly starved. 1t was this de-
cay of our spiritual nature that Mat
thew Arnold lamented in the England
of his day. He beheld his fellow-coun-
trymen plunging deeper and deeper
into the slough of materialism to the
utter destruction of all sense of beau
ty, all grace of life and manners. 1--WE
English people," he cries, have ad-
mirable political liberty, and we have
free trade. But in honest truth our
present state may without any great
injustice be summed up thus; We have
an upper class materialized, middle
class vulgarized, a lower class brutal
ized." How can such nation-whose
leaders are stepped in materialism,
whose middle class, the backbone Of
every great nation, are vulgar, and
whose lower class are bestial-how
can they understand Ireland, a coun.
try that in veal and woe has chung to
whatsoever things are true, whatso-
ever modest, whatsoever just, whatso-
ever holy, whatsoever lovely and Of
good fame" The Apostle st. Paul
teaches that spiritual things must be
measured by spiritual standards, and
that the materialist is Incapable Of
forming q just opinion OF, the man of
spiritual mind. "The sensual man." he,
says, "perceiveth not the things that
are Of the Spirit Of God; for it is fool
ishness to him and he cannot under
stand it because it is. spiritually ex-
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