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Show DOGMA. AND DEVOTION. In religion there must be dedication of the intellect as well as or tne neart to God. All the faculties bear their own debt to the Creator. It is the functions func-tions of the intellect to pursue truth, while it is the function of the will to pursue good; good, however, as presented pre-sented to the will by the intellect. This qualification explains, we may observe in passing, why, subject to the state of fallen humanity, a man pursues evil. He apprehends, in the blindness of senses, impaired by the original sin by man inherited, objects as good, which are only of a sensible nature. Nor in this is a man excusable, for life and death are before, him with a power to choose. Now, religion being a whole, ai partial dedication of the faculties to its behests will lead into error. To think of devoting one function of the intelligence intelli-gence to the purpose of religion, while the other functions are withheld from religious service, is folly and fruitful of evil. Dogma and devotion must go hand in hand. Sentiment has its own sphere; it must not be suffered to overrun its limits. When it does this It becomes the occasion of ruin. History His-tory furnishes many sad instances of this truth. It was strikingly exhibited in the. heretical sects of the thirteenth century. There we behold the Walj denses and the Cathari, more commonly common-ly called the Albigenes. Of these sects and more especially the Cathari, St. Bernard testifies: "Ifyou interrogate them, nothing can' be more Christian; as to their conversation, nothing can be less reprehensible, and what they speak they prove by deeds. As for the murals of the heretic, he cheats no ne, he strikes no one. His cheeks are pale with fasting: he eats not the bread of idleness; his hands, labor for his livelihood." live-lihood." This is but one of many testimonials tes-timonials to the chiira-cter of those medieval me-dieval sects. The tendency towards sentimeiualism in religion led them into asceticism, and their practices of devotion de-votion being unsupported by sound dogmatic principles, they were easily-led easily-led into such excesses that the impartial impar-tial historian, white deprecating the means taken to suj. press them, admits that the cause of orthodoxy was the cause of progress and civilization. This is. indeed, not a deep conception of the subject, nor does it reach the last analysis an-alysis of the mental problem here in- i volved. it states a fact But the reason rea-son why such heretical belies are involved in-volved in fatal error, is that, as we J began by saying in this review of the subject, the devotional altogether overlay over-lay the dogmatical side of religion. In : such 'cases there is am inherent weakness weak-ness in a religious siystem that portends por-tends dissolution. In the true church,, however, we haye both dogma and de- I votion as appropriate and perfecting j spheres for the due and useful development devel-opment of the faculties of the creature and the accomplishment of his end. j |