OCR Text |
Show pDENCYOf THE AGE ge of Progress and Enlightenment Reason and Faith The Reformation Private Judgment Its Tendency Luther and Calvin The Result of the Reformation Infidelity and Socialism in Germany, Italy, France, Spain and America True Science The Old Ways of Faith. A; Si. Mary's Cathedral last Sunday Rev. Tim-' Tim-' j.-iiv Brennan preached at the High Mass on inlidel-j;v. inlidel-j;v. t n k i i iir for his text : And when He is come, he will eonviuee the T ,,.,! ..!' -in. because they believed not in Me." s,. .1.,! .ii. XVI. (i. Tin- age in which we live is an age of progress ,i i, nuinv respects an age of enlightenment. In ni(. mait'T of earthly comforts, in seienec. naviga-.;. naviga-.;. Wa'-like accout rements, and those other hun-..,l hun-..,l (,ne things. we are far ahead of the days ,',' la ray. Fulton, Daguerre ami Galvani. Chil-: Chil-: ':!V'i oi ill.'" mt ure. we are never at rest, and those ,!isi-oerie, great and brilliant as they were, ;)iv oi.tirely forgotten in this our day of push and ' Yes. surely we live in an age of progress, ' xl human beings as we are we know it and boast '. and if we for the moment forget we are nil --'i ' i s i i : i pt-ople. to whom the steam shoveling1 of vc-'-v heaveu would be nothing new. the cultured ,.i;(!..r ii! 1 he Senate and the empty haranguer at .;Vo- corner, the educated journalist, and tin; ,ni;.jMM'rs of the lesser and more glaring sheets, do :,,t niil io at onee remind us. Si. Paul in the olden ,i;,v. iii-pired by the Holy Ghost, wroie those three in the Corinthians knowledge puffeth up. jj.,,v ir.ie they are today after a lapse of twenty ri'Murie and those supplementary Avords of his ii",nk ili'-m noi to the men of this, our time, for in ; ,cir self-glorification, their inflated science, they viil n-l 1m'm1 them. "If any man thinketh thai he f!l(,w,.th anything he hath not yet known as he ,,-.i-ht 'to kiiow." St. Paul belonged to a by-gone ;tL-i-. St. Paul is dead as far as modern un-Christian M-i.'iiiits. jurists. Harvard professors and such like ;,;e (..liccrncjl. and that other men who belonged to n v.orhl different from St. Paul's the Pagan world. Ins words are read, and our world may pct-admire pct-admire the modesty of Socrates, who wrote tii.ii,. !,ui our world heeds not the. lesson they runy. The shades of night were falling for Somites, So-mites, and to his world he gave these lines "This ono thing do I know, that 1 know nothing." Progress confined within its proper limits, r-iuly b.'Ioved brethren, is a thing to be applauded, .ml every good and true man welcomes it. but when I' ymi find progress bringing, as it were. Heaven and things of !d to earth, or progress on the other l;;nd blotting out God from His universe and those truth which are from eternity unto eternity then tliis aspect of progress is to be condemned, and this i precisely what this progressive age of ours is Irving to do. The man in the street, ihe man who tiiiderstands not the meaning of the word philosophy, philos-ophy, the man who toils for his wife ami little ones the glory of the sunrise to the shades of the sutisct. the man who leavens his lot of toil with the dew- of his simple 1'aith in heaven, ear. see if he but stops to think the truth of my statement. There is in this our nge of progress a tendency to bring liinv.!! 10 earth, to estimate God and religion ac-'"I'iii.g ac-'"I'iii.g to the low standard of earthly knowledge :i -1 thi tendency of our age leads but to one end rationalism and infidelity. li'ligion treats of God and the eternal truths. J; lung- before men's minds the nature of the i I'nimty. and those revelations which He has made ."v,i in time to His creatures, and no human ie.-i.-li.T, no human science can estimate these things anght. No. dearly beloved brethren, in dealing ":'h the truths of religion we must have God as ""i1 I'li.-her or som,.one commissioned to speak in lb i.auie. ;t;id to attempt to fathom religion by hiiJiian rearming alone is as foolish a procedure as '" ' ; 'h-avor to rival the rays of the sun by the light ;i 'ingle candle. In this our advanced day. philosophers and "'":-:-t- ami the so-called learned reject God and :; His truths because they fji not in narrow confines (,; '; mian reason. With them human science, hu- iii;.n progress is everything, religion nothing, and . heca-isf. ;, aiu His truths cannot be measured v:':i mathematical precision they are to be east "-m'1. Putted up with the pride of their little in- i f -1 -. i hey reason from earth to heaven, and seek !" )'' themselves on a level with the Eternal Him-':" Him-':" n' every act echoing the words which onee ;'irv' from the lips of Lucifer, "I will ascend into i. and I will make by throne alxtve the stars '' '-oil. I WJ' ascend above the clouds, and I will '"' the Most High." Ihe Tower of Babel arose on the plains of ,!'-''". t was the aim of its builders that its "iirdauon should be earth, its apex heaven, but the 'ii'iM-, sH.(,-.i was confounded and the lower 'VNu only in history, an evidence of the littleness j ' and the extent of human folly. Our ad- :i ' ' eg- no doubt smiles at the madness of the r'"' lhihvhminns. but stay, they are no better for inflated philosophy, their windy spirit is a ,1"", !1i: P.ahcJ. a jumble of theories and eontradic-' eontradic-' io out there into the world and what will " ' imd aiuongsl your men of science and pholos-''l'1' pholos-''l'1' rs and Harvard 'professors. You will find - ""'I'm. rationalism, socialism, materialism, mes-'"''Mi. mes-'"''Mi. pantheism and every form of ism except I'lstianisin with the word absurdity written across 1,1,1 oi. and to these already exiting absurdities ' u oik ;m, a,j,e,l every day, and this is happen-'I'-' in oi-r enlightened twentieth century. The pride ;! '"tie intellects, the entire absence of faith which' " 'li.-imls the submission of our reasoning faculty to mv;i,e revelation gave us an Arms, Xestorius Pela-'-'"her. Calvin, Voltaire and those other i',',"";'!r. ,IIls,able religion and scoffing irrelig-. irrelig-. ' l'rotestant reformation with its ugly "I'lreii. private jmlgment and individual reason, -jc driven men from the "old and the sure paths Ja"h" ijit,, t lie dark ways of doubt, jarring Continued on Fage 5. TENDENCY OF THE AGE. 'V- Continued from Page 1. creeds and infidelity. Yes, dearly beloved, private reason set itself up as the sole judge in matters of religion, it gave us as its watchword the greatness, the liberty of the human mind, which bows not nor can ever bow to any authority in heaven or on earth. The principles sown by Luther and Calvin, Voltaire and Rousseau and the rest took up and today to-day outside the Catholic church you have doubt, chaos and a striving to blot out God from His earth and heaven. Look to Germany and the leader of Socialist thought, backed up by a host of infidel followers, fol-lowers, openly declares that "religion is an absurd popular sentiment" "a fantastic degradation of human nature." "The abolition of religion is a necessary condition for true happiness." So speaks Karl Marx, the leader of these infidel forces in Germany, that wage war upon the Christ and His Church. Turn to Italy and the aim, the thought of those in that land who have cast off God is expressed ex-pressed in a declaration of a late Socialist congress con-gress "We shall have the delight of assisting at the agony of the priests prostrated in the guter of the street. They shall pine away of hunger, slowly, fearfully before our eyes. This shall be our revenge, re-venge, and for the relish of such a revenge, accompanied ac-companied by a bottle of Bordeaux we will willingly willing-ly sell our place in heaven. What say we ? Heaven ! VYe want it not. What we wish for is hell hell, with all the delights that go before it, and we leave heaven to the God of the Papist." And France, eldest daughter of the Church, the land of Clovis Charlemagne, and the saintly Louis. You today have cast off the Christ, you today deny your sons and daughters the right to know and worship God. From the past you will not read the lesson writ in the blood and tears of thy children, and writ, too, in the strong hand of Jesus Christ, "The nation that knoweth not God shall perish." Yes, , take to , your heart Voltaire, Rousseau, . Rohespierre and Briand, they will teach you freedom of thought and freedom of act as far as God and morality are concerned, con-cerned, but they will give you death. Infidelity in England is well represented in Blatchford and Bernard Shaw. The former says "I cannot believe be-lieve in the existence of Jesus Christ." "There is no such thing as sin and freewill is a myth. " " Car-lyle Car-lyle is more moral than Jeremith, Ruskin is superior super-ior to Isaiah, Ingersoll the Atheist, is a nobler moralist and a better man than Moses." Bernard Shaw writes these words, "The social system based on religion and a common belief in the Divine order has broken down. The Bible must go. Till you get rid of the Bible, religion in this country will be impossible." I come to the infidel part of America, and I pass over the conglomeration of sects that place the human on the throne of God. I pass over the empty mutterings of Harvard professors and self-constituted self-constituted ministers of the Gospel. I pass over these and I come to one incident which happened lately. Ferrer, the Barcelona murderer and anarchist, was placed against a dead wall and the rifles of the soldiers did the rest. Why was he placed there! Why such an end? I will tell you. While lmng he taught those principles to 50,000 anarchists and infidels in Barcelona. I hope I do not insult your ears in the telling of them: "There is neither God nor soul, comrades, let us be men, let us blot out of life the infamous upper and middle classes, let us pull everything to ruin. If amongst politicians any making appeal to your humanity kill them. Abolish all law. Demolish all churches. Free love and free conscience are to be allowed and honored. The national flag is nothing more than a piece of calico fastened to a stick" Such were lerrer s principles, the bullets of the soldiers was his end, and yet with a savage outburst of rage the infidel and anarchist of Germany, France, Spain, London, Italy and America proclaimed him a martyr. Ah, well, men robbed of Christ the Saviour, will follow Bakmin, the Nihilist. Ours is an advanced age, an age of' science and enlightenment, but our advanced age should know what the past has told and the future heralds: "Science is an acid which corrodes and consumes everything but the pure gold of truth. The Catholic Church is the mother -of all true science. She welcomes all true enlightenment. In the past her sons and daughters have shone in both these spheres, and in this our day they more than hold their own, but Avhile soaring to the heights in those two domains they have ever before their minds these thoughts : Without God there is no moral law, and without with-out a moral law there is no moral right, and without moral right there is nothing left but the grasp of the strong hand, the age of slavery. The soil of the earth may team with golden corn, the bosom of the earth may give forth the gold and silver and precious stones. Man may understand the laws that rule the sun and moon and stars. He may thrive in all knowledge, and all science until his mind is filled with intellectual food. The bread of corn feeds the body. The bread of knowledge feeds the mind, but fceyond the bread of body and mind there is still wanting another bread the bread of soul, which is God. God and His Word alone can turn man's mind and power to noble service, noble aim. Old Athens and old Rome were prosperous, were learned, but old Rome and old Athens knew not God, and their power brought contemptible slavery, their learning moral degradation. No country is good nor endowed with the principle of stability without God. Yes, yes, the nation that will endure is composed of men and women that look up to the stars of God for light and guidance, and follow the justice of God all their days and ways. "Not by bread alone doth man (the nation) live, but by every word that eometh from the mouth of God. |