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Show THE POWER-OF FAITH. , The non-Catholic world that watched. " the sfvectacle of the death and funeral of Dr. Edward McGlynn must have been impressed with the fact that at his death bed and around his coffin were gathered mam, who. in the recent past, had been, widely separated by the bitter controversy of which the dead man had been the storm center. The battle had lasted for many weary I months. All who took part m it weire human and the human weakness frequently fre-quently overruled religious produence and charity and many things were eaid and written that shall never be forgotten and might far better have ' been left unrecorded. The dead man had received the severest sentence the Church can pronounce excommunication! excommunica-tion! Yet when he lay dying, two men hastened to give him a last blessing; one, the superior who had inflicted the punishment, the othr, the priast who had defended his friend in his trouble, and who himseuf, had received severe punlslhment from the same superior in consequence. The sermons prached over the remains were given by the two men who had stood opposed to each other in the ecclesiastical trial that had ended in his excommunication. In the audience, both within and without the sanctuary, were the partisans of ! the Archbishop and the dead priest. I Hindered as they had been for years. , j on the question of Dr. McGlynn's guilt , or innocence of the charge of insub- ordination, when the Papal Delegate j had decreed that the priest, who. for ' six sad years had been shut out from the sanctuary, should be restored to his- priestly duties, all acquiesced with out a word and the warmest friends of the departed said no more fervent prayers for the repose of his soul than ; were uttered by those who, years be-I be-I fore, had been his bitter opponents. The spectacle was not a unique one in the Catholic Church, but we ques-i ques-i tion whether one like it ever waa wit-! wit-! neeed In any other. It is not that Catholics Cath-olics are more magnanimous of forgiv- " lng, but is due solely to the power of that faith which teaches us that outside out-side the pale of the Church, there is no haven of rest to which we may turn and that submission to her divine is our only hope. The non-Catholic Christian abandons one form of religion reli-gion for another, or after being expelled ex-pelled from one denomination sedks admission ad-mission to and is received ,by another because the feeling is prevalent that differences of belief amount to little or nothing and that creeds are of no importance. Again the Catholic firmly firm-ly believes, in the force of the petition to forgive as we hope for forgiveness, and standing face to face with death his faith compels' him to subdue his angry feelings and school his turbulent soul into a saner and more Christian mood. It would be much better, of ' course, if the power of faith restrained our tongues and hands before religion had been scandalized by our exhibitions of perEocal feeling, but since to err is human, to forgive divine, we should thank God that in the midst of this self opinionated age of ours there still exists that divine power in Christ's Church to bring the highest as well as the lowest to cry peccavi. |