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Show THE INTERMOUNTAIN CATHOLIC by the generous cooperation of ourlaity, have Raised all over our great continent magnificent temples to God, built universities, collegeand academies for the education of youth, and opened everywhere splendid homes, orphanages and hospitals, for the care of the help- less and the assuagement of physical pain. The growth and expansion of the Catholic Church in our country, the multiplication and structural splendor of her Churches, educational and charitable institutions, and the steady and irresistible increase of her membership excite the wonder, if not the admiration, of thoughtful minds outside the fold. There is a striking and dramatic scene in Athalia when the veil of the Temple is drawn apart by invisible hands, and the voluptuous and terrified. Athalia beholds her victim Joas whom she thought to be dead standing in his glory and his strength, surrpunded by and with swords and shields uplifted, impatient his warriors wearing their for the charge. Even so is the Catholic Church today revealed to the old men of our land, who, fifty years ago, thought her form was bent with age and her forehead wrinkled by time, her gait halting and feeble, her steps trembling with decrepitude and her garments moth-eateAs she was, to all appearances, entering upon her agony of death, it was safe to extend to her the charity of silencp and watch her staggering to her grave, old and unlamented. They said she dared not to trust herself to advancing civilization and free institutions, but must cling to the mouldering fashions of an age that was past, to sleep lor evermore with dynasties dethroned and sepulchred. But these old men this morning look, as did Athalia on Joas, with wonder and awe on the resurrection of the dead. The step with which she moves forward is elastic with triumph vera incessu patuit dea her face is radiant, her brow erect and starlit, her garments, as those of Shebas queen, fragrant with the odor of spices, and the old men look upon her with staring eyes, marvelling how, like the fabled phenix, she got back her youth. 0, beloved of God, in thy beauty and thy comeliness go forth, move forward prosperously and reign for all time intende, prospere, procede et regna. This providential Church has now survived for close on two thousand years, or nearly twice as long as the most venerable commonwealth in history. She appears to the world today in unimpaired vigor, with her constitution, laws and government unchanged. So far from betraying any signs of advancing age or decay, she is instinct with life and enthusiasm, displaying on the morning of the twentieth century the same missionary spirit and the same Apostolic zeal that possessed her when she carried the gospel into France in the fifth century and into England in the sixth. When our own magnificent Cathedral will open tomorrow, the splendor and glory of Catholic rite and ceremony will be seen in all its sacred impressiveness, the solemn music, in language and notes which have come down through the ages, will be heard, and the Adorable Sacrifice, at which the Apostles the companions of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ assisted, will be offered to God for the Living and the Dead. All will be displayed and enacted for the spiritual edification of those present; the hearts of our Catholic people will experience anew the sense of religious obligation and their souls will be filled with sentiments of zealous and ardent devotion. Here, too, for unnumbered years to come the majesty of God will be proclaimed His omnipotence, and His glory the solemn and tremendous sacrifice will be continued, the Sacraments administered and the impressive prayers recited by which the Divine Law is fenced around and the wisdom of the Church accredited. Henceforth this splendid fane will be for the Catholics of all Utah a citadel of their faith. Here the attributes of the Deity, their transcendent operations, the creation of man and his unhappy fall, the promise of a Redeemer, the law of Sinai, the Incarnation of Christ, His Crucifixion and Resurrection will be developed, expounded and insisted upon. We will all be led to a better understanding of the mysteries and merciful plan of Redemption the establishment of the Church the marks by which it is to be known the rewards of the good, the punishments of the wicked those supernatural aids extended by divine goodness to support our weakness the laws of God and of His Church in short the nature, the necessity and conditions of the intimate and spiritual intercourse which ought to exist between man and his Creator, God. The glorious Cathedral, to all outward seeming, is as imperishable as the granite rocks which support it, and, from its material the solidity of its structure is destined to last, like the Egyptian pyramids, till the end of time or the earth falls from under it. It is for us in this magnificent valley of Salt Lake the materialization of the vision of the prophet. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men; and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be with them. To His Eminence, the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, who is here to do honor to our own beloved Bishop and to grace by his presence tomorrows ceremony, the citizens of Salt Lake extend a most cordial greeting. To the patriarchal Primate of San Francisco, to the eloquent Archbishop of St. Louis, to all the visiting prelates and pastors, this, city waving for the time all denominational and political lines rises in its hospitality and bids you welcome. war-bonnet- s, n. |