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Show A NATION WITHOUT KEVEKENCE. Probably the editor of the Western Watchman was thinking about Rev. Guusaulus of Chicago (who at Denver not long ago compared Roosevelt th Christ when the following was penned: "liu: horrible blasphemy recently uttered by one of our most prominent Protestant ministers, and which so shocked the whole land, has caused thinking think-ing people to inquire into the causes of the strange want of reverence for sacred persons and things noticeable among all classes of our non-Catholic citizens. It is said of the Japanese that they have Ho sense of religion, and are utterly devoid of reverence, as of fear; for religious reverence is only supernatural fear. Ave we becoming Japanese? Jap-anese? Hie first and quite adequate cause of the want of reverence for sacred persons and things among non-Catholics is the plain and palpable fact that non-Catholics have no sacred persons and things to reverence. They have no signs or symbols of re- "ligion. They have rejected even the Cross of Christ. I hey know no sacred persons, living or dead. They have no clergy in the Catholic sense: that is, men set apart by God to do Gods work in God's name and by God's authority. A minister is with them no more sacred than a layman; no more virtue is expected of him and no more reverences paid him. than his ae. character or talents command. They have no saints; and if they have scanty respect re-spect for the living they have none at all for the dead. Their churches are meeting houses; not more sacred than their own homes. They have no pictures pic-tures of the Saviour, his holy mother, the apostles or the saints and sages of the church; in fact, they w-ould regard even that measure of attention to the personages of the Gospel as bordering on superstition. su-perstition. They know little of the men and women who died for the faith in the early ages of tho j church; much less than they know of mythology and fables of the gods of Olympus. They do not give their children the names of saints, or sacred persons in the history of tho Christian religion. The result of all this is that these children are brought up entire strangers to their Christian heritage, heri-tage, and out of touch and sympathy with the I Christian past. They speak of our Lord as they would of Socrates or Plato; and of Peter. Paul, James and the other apostles; as of the shadowy heroes of pagan antiquity. "See, on the other hand, how the Church tries to develop the sense of reverence among her children. chil-dren. She places beforo their eyes evermore the sign of the cross, ihe symbol of their redemption. The crucifix is in the room in which they are born. It hangs on the wall -of their nursery. They can scarcely speak the sacred name before they are taught to make the sign of the cross. They are taught their prayers, which begin and end with the sign of the cross. They are taught to go on their knee3 when, speaking to God; and when pronouncing, pronounc-ing, the name of Jesus to bow their head. When they a ro old enough to be brought to church they are-brought to the holy water font, and made to bless themselves. Then they are taught to genuflect genu-flect before the Blessed Sacrament. Eefore tho altar burns the perpetual light, Above the tabeimaele rises the crucifix. On the side altars are the statues of the blessed mother, of St. Joseph and of the eaint$. When passing before them these children ! are taught to bow. When passing in front of a j whureh they are taught to uncover, out. of rcver- j ence for our Lord in the tabernacle. When they 1 meet a priest they are taught to salute him by taking off their hats. The name they bear is one once borne by tho' saint to whom they are dedi' cated. His life is inspiring to them, and Ins example exam-ple is inspiring. When the age of discretion is reached they are made to go to 'confession. Here they stand before God and have intimate personal dealings with him. How their young hearts beat j with reverential fear the first time they enter the ! confessional. And that sense of awe always accompanies ac-companies that act of self-accusation. . The oldest penitent in the world enters the confessional with awe. When the time comes to receive Holy Communion Com-munion how earefuLV are the children prepared to receive Jesus Christ, the second person of the adorable trinity, into their heart and souls! The oldest Catholic in the Avorld approaches the-holy-table bowed down under the weight in awe. There' is for him nothing so solemn on this earth as Iloly Communion. And this feeling of reverence grows with his years, and is taken up by the rising generation. gen-eration. Xo wonder Protestants feel in Catholic churches a sense of, awe that they do not experience experi-ence in their own. Xo wonder that the very atmosphere at-mosphere of a Catholic church works miracles of conversion.' But to the priest, the living representative repre-sentative of Jesus Christ, Catholics preserve a deep and lively' reverence. For them he is always "his reverence." Of all the signs and symbols of religion re-ligion he is tho most sacred. As in hearing and obeying him they hear and obey the masters; so in him they sec him who Avalked in Galilee. If there is one mark that distinguishes Catholics from all nominal Christians it is their deep and Universal reverence for the priest. The child is taught it bl the word and example of his parents; and during du-ring his after life personal intercourse with the priest ever tends to heighten his reverence for the priestly character. Before Catholics cease to reverence, rever-ence, love and respect their priests, they will have to have forgotten their own mothers. "All this the church does outside the Catholic school. . This last is but a training ground for reveranec. The Catholic child learns in his school many useful things; but before all else and above everything, else he learns to respect sacred persons and'thiugs. Protestantism is the greatest laicizing laiciz-ing agency in the world, and if it encumbers the earth another four hundred years there will be no Christian instinct left among Protestants. |