The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-05-14
PHASES OF CHARITY

suits, the remedy is more learning;
| if all that we have spent fails to re-
form, the remedy is to spend more.
The onslaught on the public treas
ury is determined, ceaseless and ever
increasing in power. What is the in
| different individuals. 1t may be phil
| anthropy, or humanitarianism; it may
| be generous salary with fine resi-
dence and social influence; it may be
professional zeal akin to religion.
The modern man can make religion
of almost anything. A man who was
selling rat poison once enthusiastical-
| ly asserted to the writer that "he
would rather be rat-eXterminatOr
than preacher of the gospel"
There are millions of people who have
hygiene on the brain who would say
that he was right.
No doubt when Catholics become
part of this State machine they would
like to bring better influences to bear.
But they are generally careful to miti-
gate their zeal lest they lose their
positions. 1t remains to be seen
whether the Catholic woman office
holder will be an Improvement on the
Catholic man. We have no desire to
record failures. 1t is possible that
applied scientific charity turns out
good citizens. But as half our people
do not worship God, and most of them
hold that they may marry and divorce
as they please, and are still good
citizens good citizenship in this
sense is not very high. standard.
Christian charity is in source, in
means and in motive entirely differ
ent from purely scientific charity. Its
source and handspring is Christ Jesus.
He is the model of men and He went
about doing good. Lest His Eenefi-
cence might be thought not precep-
tive but merely exemplary, He laid
down the law that what we do to the
poor we do to Him and what we neg
lect to do for the poor we neglect to
do for Him. Still we must take heed
that Christ's great work was in the
interest not of mans temporal, but
of his eternal welfare. He came to
save sinners whether rich or poor, to
illtsif.ne ths lea14f1d as Well as the
ignorant with the truth for which He
died. He taught us to know God
transcendently beyond the fictions of
science Whoever, therefore, has the
spirit of Christ will be studious to
win men to right-thinking and right
,, living as we'll as to better way of
existing.
By it's very nature the spiritual end
is infinitely above the temporal. To
provide a Christian School, therefore,
| is loftier charity than to provide a
Christian almshouse. In the order of
proceeding to work, however, we
must take heed We read that our
Lord began to do and to teach. If
| this method-of work before teach
ing-was the proper one for Him, it
is much more the proper method now
lest we give the impression that we
| have less sympathy for the temporal
| ills of our fellow-man than those who
care nothing for his soul or deny that
| he has a soul at all. Christian char
| ity, therefore, originates in the over
| flowing Christ-spirit of beneficence to
men and aims at their spiritual and
| temporal well-being.
Christian Charity Not New.
Christian charity is not a modern
| discovery, but is contemporary with
Christianity itself. Nearly all forms
of present-day charity have their
counterpart in the past, and there
were forms such as the burial Cat
great risk of the martyrs, the re-
.demption of captives, the granting of
dowries to poor maideps, ETC., which
have no counterpart in the present.
One of the arguments used by pro-
fessor of the University of Minnesota,
to justify the confiscation of the
Church's goods in France, was that
all charities were in the hands of the
Church. He seemed to think that it
was just grievance against the
Church that while kings and mobiles
J with their colossal frivolities had
q ruined the country. the Church had
Continued on page 3D.