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Show WILL THE REPUBLIC LAST? Last February an auction of white men on " Lincoln's birthday was the spectacle that drew thousands of persons to the Parkside Presbyterian a church. Xew York. The sale was conducted by Rev. T. Loughlin and was in reality an object les-pon les-pon of the conditions prevailing among working men and served 1o get jobs for a number of men. i The auction was precisely similar to those public ; I sales of negroes, which were of daily happenings in ' ! the south before the civil war. But the sale was more than an object lesson, it was a proclamation of the terrible maxim which a great Latin poet ' j has -put into the mouth of Caesar that: j '"The human race exists only for the good of ; ! a few men." s ! In the sense attributed to it by the poet this 'i ' maxim presents a revelling aspect; but from an- l : other point of view it is quite just. Every where I a very small number have ruled the great masses of men; for without an hereditary aristocracy, an Aristocracy of intellect or of wealth, more or less I powerful, government is impossible. The sale last February of human i'Wh and blood was a mock 'I ' sale in that the service of (he human chattel on ' ihe block were auctioned, and not the bodies and ' fouls of the men themselves. But coming events east their shadows before and we verily believe that ' if it were not for the presence of the Catholic church in Europe and America the race would return re-turn to white slavery. And why not; one of the most profound philosophers of antiquity, Aris-i Aris-i totle went so far as to say that ''there were men who were born slaves." The ground htftands on is founded on all history, the politics of experience, and on the nature of man which created and is creating history. Whoever has studied intimately human nature ? must know that man. in general, if left to himself , is too weak and wicked to be free. With all the "i restraining- influence of public opinion, of fear j of the law mid with the lingering dread in their i hearts that ihere may be a (Jod. "who will reward the good and punish the wicked" men and women I are today in our country immeasurably more sin- ful than were their fathers and mothers. This is not open to argument; we cannot argue with facts. ; Whoever understands man's nature in the raw, will also understand that, wherever civil liberty ' hsll belong to all alike, there will no longer be any means, without, extraordinary aid. of govorn- ' ' ii:g men as national bodies. Ilenec slarerv was j --"-- -. ' constantly the natural state of a very great portion of mankind, until the establishment of the Catholic, Cath-olic, church; and, as the good sense of man in ' general perceived the necessity of this order of i things, it was never opposed either by laws or ar-j ar-j gument. The world until the founding of the Catholic Cath-olic church was always covered with slaves even the Jews had their -slaves and the sages never blamed the custom. This proposition cannot be shaken., The Catholic church alone abolished slavery, slowly and gently it is true, for all great legitimate undertakings, of whatever kind they may be arc always imperceptibly carried on. Do away with the Catholic church and slavery must return to the race so surely as the laws of nature are inexorable in their operations. It might take many hundreds of years or thousands, but it would come. All governments require, as an indispensable indispensa-ble minister, either slavery wuieh diminishes the number of independent and acting evils in the state or a Divine power, such as the Catholic church, which by a sort of spiritual graft, holds in check the asperity of those wills and makes them obedient to the law of the whip or the voice of the Crucified. , The menacing peril to our community today is from a lawless spirit of insubordination, disorder and mental and spiritual disorganization. Reverice for parental and constituted authority author-ity and willing obedience to law are grudgingly yielded if yielded at all. Our country, now if ever, stands in peculiar need of that contribution to the permanency of our institutions which the Catholic church alone can furnish. She alone, if any power on earth may do it, can keep under control, or neutralize the baneful influence of the reckless apostles of self-will. By Divine authority she teaches, from the cradle cra-dle of the child to the winding sheet of the dead, submission to authority and control, and that is the first stride toward that habit of self-control in the individual which is an indispensable condition of self-government in any community. |