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Show LAY CATHOLICS. (Northwestern Chronicle.) . Last Sunday evening Arc'h.bishop Ireland Ire-land delivered an important address before a representative body of the St. Vincent de Paul workers of St. Paul. His earnest appeal for ' lay action, which stirred the faith and aroused the enthusiasm of the audience at Cretin Hall, would have been recognized by Catholics the world over as a bugle call to the duty o the hoiif. "Unselfish cooperation co-operation In spreading religion," might be taken as the text of his impressive discourse. The Archbishop urged laymen lay-men to show more intelligent zeal and more disinterested activity in the welfare wel-fare of Catholicity. He reaffirmed the gospel of lay action which he has been preaching for many years, and which no doubt, with other great movements, the future will associate with his name. He declared that the chief enemies of Catholic progress today are intellectual torpidity and religious sloth: and that the best forces available must be concentrated con-centrated for the overthrow of these !foes. In view of these words, cine can readily understand why the Archbishop of St. Paul," in season and out, of season, sea-son, insists that the Catholic, youth shall receive the advantages of a. hisrh- er education: why he urges laymen to I form and support Catholic truth soc-ie- j ties; why, on diocesan visitations, he establishes or reinvigorates in every j parish a library for the people: and. finally, why he gives his best thought and the place of preference among his duties to the educational establishments under 'his care. He has made provision. for the formation of an efficient priest- hood. The work to which he now addresses ad-dresses his efforts is the development of a laity as intelligent as any citizens of the American republic. If the Catholic religion is to prosper as it should, to follow up the other main f point of the -Archbishop's address, the I Catholic laity should be not only com- peter.it advocates of the truth, but also t luminous exemplars of the gospel of un- f pelf.shness. Such, in fact, is the real spirit of Christianity. These who make t of religion a mere performance of ex- ;; terraal riteu, or reduce rt to nothing' ! more than a personal matter between themselves and God, mistake thf ob- l vious and essential meaning of Christ's teachings. Christ not only warned hi follower?! against making the meat more than the life and the raiment more than the body; but he said gol- emnly, according to St. John's account: "He that loveth his life shall lose It. j and he that hateth hi life in this world I keepeth it unto life eternal." What a terrible arraignment of the spiritual misersi who seek to garner great richer ; for their own enjoyment in the life to come, and who really seem to revel in the thought that their less selfish .neighbora will then be at a decided and : uncomfortable disadvantage! The accumulation ac-cumulation of spiritual favors and he development of personal sanctification cannot be neglected: but this work must not be permitted to shut out of . view the needs of the rest of the human hu-man family. The gospel of selfishness is not the gofpel of Christ. They who persist in following such fa!-se views .will discover that they have bt-en deceiving de-ceiving themselves: for only they who give up all that is meart by life will really find rt here and hereafter. |