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Show SCANDAL LOOMING. A marriage will take place before long in the fashionable West End ; a well known young man, a member of one of our most respectable and wealthy Catholic families, will be united in marriage to a non-Catholic lady before a Protestant minister. It seems it was originally intended to have the cere--mony performed by a priest; but the mother of the young lady interposed her veto and the arrangements arrange-ments had to be changed or the marriage called off. It seems the young man has preferred the girl to his religion and his family and has consented to be married by a minister. The Catholics who were to have stood up with the young couple at once sent in their resignation. - This is a tragical proceeding. Why did the prospective mother-in-law object to the ceremony taking place before a priest? The daughter would not have lost either standing or credit or respectability respect-ability by the Catholic ceremony. It is not considered consid-ered a breach of church discipline or a departure from the strictest religious propriety for a Protestant Protes-tant to be married by a minister other than one belonging to her particular denomination. Marriage is not a sacrament in the eyes of Protestants, and any marriage that the state recognizes is good enough for them. It is not so with Catholics, who regard marriage mar-riage as a sacrament, like baptism or holy communion. com-munion. The Catholie youngj man, by consenting to be married by a Protestant minister, excommunicates excommu-nicates himself from his church, scandalizes the whole Catholic public, disgraces and afflicts his family and commits an act of public apostasy. He completely unmans himself. To humor the whim of the. girl's mother, he walks on the heart of his own mother and sets at naught her tears and despair. The families will never know each other more, and the young couple will .begin life, not with the blessing, but Under the curse of God. What a world of sorrow a woman's whim can bring upon two happy homes! How can the young man prove a good husband, after he has trampled on his manhood, denied his faith and made shipwreck of every family feeling for a girl who,' to humor her mother, spares not his soul, and plunges his family fam-ily into a lifelong sorrow? The present infatuation will pass away, but the sin, and stain, and shame, will remain to poison every wellspring of his wedded wed-ded joy. The young man in his recreancy will summon up excuses whose value he alone will pass upon. He will say: My father was a Protestant, and I shall be satisfied if I become as good and honorable honor-able man as he is. That is an unfortunate comparison. com-parison. His father is, indeed, an honorable man. He" married a Catholic wife and promised to respect re-spect her religion and bring up the children in her faith. 'He kept his promise like an honorable man, and the young apostate had the advantage of the best Catholic education. His father never aposta-sized. aposta-sized. never denied his God, never surrendered his manhood. He is a man of conscience and spirit, and enjoys the fullest respect of Protestants and Catholics. But has the poor Catholic mother no claim upon his consideration? The young lady would not hurt her mother's feelings in the slightest slight-est way; he would for her sake break his mother's heart. If there must needs be sacrifice in the mixed marriage, is that a fair allotment? Such apostate marriages turn out disastrously. Priests keep an eye on these renegades, and they can tell what becomes of them. They always end, in the divorce court, where suicide does not make such recourse unnecessary. One good thing about them is, they are seldom fruitful. God strikes with sterility the accursed tree. The young couple go out upon the world, she a siren who has lured her husband upon the rocks of excommunication; he a man marked like Cain with the brand of his church's anathema; both disappearing under a gathering cloud of a world's contempt, and facing a dark night of despair, with no star of hope to light their path, vouchsafed . a sight of their own damnation only when the lightnings of God's anger an-ger ever and anon flash athwart their way. That foolish mother wants a man for her daughter; daugh-ter; but before he can get her he is required to part company with his honor, his manhood, and every honorable instinct and feeling that a true man holds dear. She is the soul of this bridal between be-tween caprice and cowardice, and the ministering spirit at a banquet of blood in which two souls are immolated and one disgraced and damned. West-. ern Watchman. |