After this statement of the morality which passes current with this age of high-pressure progress, let us examine what the teaching of the Church is regarding Religion in Society. This section of our article is, properly speaking, the pivot upon which the whole discussion turns. Hence we must endeavour to render it clear and plain to the mind of every Catholic reader.

Man is a being fashioned in all his parts, and placed upon earth, by the hand of God. God created by a direct act of his power the soul of man, indirectly, according to the order of his wise Providence, the body of man. The part of man which makes him like unto his Creator is his soul. Now in his soul he has that power which is called will, or free-will. This free-will is the link which connects man with the moral order established by God.

This will is like a point upon which the law of God rests, as an ivory ball upon a smoothly polished marble table, which it touches only in one point. But as in this instance the whole weight of the ball rests upon the whole of the table, though touching it only at one point, so the whole weight of God's moral law rests upon the whole man, in every place and at every time, upon all his actions and relations. The reason of this is because man as an intelligent being, a free agent, a responsible person, is governed only by this will, which is sometimes called the monarch of the soul. But this monarch of the soul is governed by the moral law of God made known to the intellect. To be brief, God rules the will, the will rules the whole human being. All the rules laid down for man's will by his God, and made known to him through reason, or conscience, or revelation, are united and organized under the term Religion. Whenever an act is produced by the will of man, it is either according to the order required by religion, or it is not. If it is, that act is a virtuous act; if it is not, that act is not a virtuous act, but a vicious one. Virtue means the good use of freewill, vice the bad use of free-will. So that, in conclusion, you may search from Adam's first breath until the day of judgment, and you will find no act of human will indifferent in the face of religion, no act upon which it does not pass judg ment, and register as a loss or a gain. Were an illustration desired to explain this universal influence of religion upon man and society, the world might be compared to a vast garden filled with every variety of flowers and plants, and religion to the light which illumines and vivifies them. Were the compari

son to be carried out more fully, we might remember how God first created the light, and then organized it in the resplendent orb of day, which he placed as its centre and source, and to which he attached all its rays. In like manner he has centred and organized in a common focus and source, in his Holy Church, all the precepts of religion, its duties, its teachings, its moral and intellectual bearings upon man and society. From this glorious centre emanate the streams and floods of rich noonday light, which convey heat, color, and life to the gorgeous rose of the garden, the unspotted chalice of the virgin lily, and even cheer with a ray of comfort the modest violet in the bosom of the distant valley. This Church, appointed to be the inseparable companion and the faithful guardian of man, is a mother to him in his childhood, a teacher to him in youth, in manhood a friend, a guide in old age, until, when his tottering footsteps grow feebler and heavier as he approaches the end of his career, his eyes are closed, and he is wrapped in the mortuary shroud by the same fond parental hand which had rocked the cradle of his infancy. These principles, which are to be found in the catechism learned by every Catholic child, furnish a satisfactory answer to the questions proposed in the beginning of our article. They follow naturally from the maxim that God is the master of all. They merely assert that he is our master everywhere, that the Ten Commandments were made for the rich as well as for the poor, for the sage as well as for the ploughman, for the homestead as well as for the church, for the night as well as for the day, for the public as well as for the private individual, for old age as well as for youth.

Still, even such plain truths as these sound rather jarringly upon the ear of one reared under the tuition of this "enlightened nineteenth century." Many there are, who, without denying their truth, would laugh at one who were to utter them in a place of every-day resort. He would even be told, most probably, that he has no right to mix up religion and politics; that spiritual matters are one thing, and temporal matters another; that these things may do well enough for the pulpit, but that it is not good manners to speak of them among gentlemen and ladies. That the Church, or religion, which is the same thing, wants us to be good, of course, and to say our prayers once in a while, but that she does not want us to be bigoted, superstitious, unenlightened. Are not expressions similar to these used every day by people who pretend to be devoted to the faith, ready even to die for it?

But what in common honesty is the meaning of the assertion, that we must not mix up politics and religion, spirituals and temporals, civil matters and Church matters? It either means that the sacred practices of religious worship must not be confused with secular pursuits, or that such pursuits are not subject to the control of the religious principle. If the first, let it go for what it is worth. For it amounts merely to saying that it is not the most appropriate time for a man to say his beads when he is taking his dinner, or that he ought not to read the newspaper in church, or that his children cannot say their prayers and study their catechism while they are playing at leap-frog, or singing Ethiopian melodies. If it mean the second, then it amounts to the exclusion of the Church and of God from every thing except religious worship, and is the fundamental principle of practical infidelity.

There is no act in life over which the principles of religion do not exercise their sway. In matters connected with God's worship, they exercise a direct and immediate sway. In matters appertaining to politics, education, business, and amusements, they exercise a sway which is indirect or mediate. In other words, they rule these avocations by maxims which are deductions from them, applications of them to matters somewhat remote from the centre and source from which they part. As there can be no effect without a cause, no series without a beginning, no conclusion without premises, so there can be no principle of honor, of justice, of common sense, or of cominon decency, if religion be taken away. All virtue depends upon religion as fully as religion itself depends upon the existence of God. Even the conscience of the savage and of the unbeliever, when in some particular instance it prompts him to abstain from all acts of revenge or injustice, gives to the existence of religion the testimony of a soul naturally Christian, as far as it is naturally candid and honest. All truth is one, and religion is God's truth, the order of truth and goodness, upon which all other orders of individual and social action, and in so far as they are not criminal even unconsciously, depend. The manner in which the order of religion governs us in matters not strictly religious is not, however, by interfering with us in their merely material elements. The Church does not, in civil and secular matters, exercise over us an importunate or tyrannical sway. She allows us, where we see no wrong, to go on freely and cheerfully, and according to the state of life in which Providence has placed us. But she requires of us

that our will in these things shall be guided by an honest intention. She teaches us that our whole life, and every most minute action of our life must ultimately be referred to the end for which we were created, the service of Him who created us. It is a property of the will of man, that it never acts without a motive, an intention, an end in view. The particular aim we have in each action refers to some other end to which it is subservient. Now the ultimate end of all our actions, and of all the motives from which we act in detail, must be the service of God, to whom we are indebted for the power of acting at all.

Religion, by keeping this ultimate end steadily before our eyes, sanctifies and exalts our merely secular pursuits. By this plea she holds us accountable even for an act in itself so insignificant as an idle word. This intention, either by immediately preceding our actions, or by a happy frame of soul possessing habits of faith and virtue, and dedicating them to God in a general way, renders our slightest exertions deserving of being registered and rewarded in heaven. Who has not heard of the widow's mite, and of the glass of water given for God's sake to a thirsty brother? These simple deeds gained the notice and commendation of Him who gives wisdom to little ones, and confounded the self-sufficient knowledge of the proud sages of the world. The standard by which the Christian is to measure the actions.of men is thus established. He is not to look, as the admirers of merely human heroism, at the greater or less degree of energy such actions call forth, or at the intrepidity with which they are performed, or at the success with which they are crowned, but at the greater or less relation they bear to the service of God and to life eternal.

By these remarks, likewise, it is sufficiently explained how Religion does not interfere with us in a way to embarrass us, confuse our actions, or deaden our efficiency, but only to exalt and to sanctify our pursuits. She is no tyrant, but a fond mother, no disorganizer, but the most angelic of harmonizers. An ingenious mind has illustrated this varied influence of religion by comparing the mere material actions we perform to the air breathed into a flute, and the influence of the principles of religion to the fingers of the artist, whose delicate touch harmonizes and modulates into notes of exquisite music the current of breath which of itself would only produce a monotonous or a disagreeable sound.

This simile illustrates at once the power which the religious

NEW SERIES.

VOL. IV. NO. I.

15

principle possesses, and the absence of suddenness and violence in its diffusion through the veins and arteries of society. The steady and healthy life which Religion imparts is thus distinguished from the workings of the various schemes and systems proposed in our day for the improvement of mankind, by men who, while refusing to submit to the guidance of her principles, would fain produce an equivalent to their admirable results. They begin their reforms at the pinnacle of the social pyramid, instead of toiling at its foundation. The object of their culture is not man, but the metaphysical person of society, in its complex and abstract acceptation. The "harmony," the "progress," the "reform," of which they speak as means, are in fact only the ends to be obtained. What man is to do to become possessed of these advantages, they themselves are unable to say. Socialism, associationism, Fourierism, even taken in a mild and modified sense, practically suppose man and society to be already what they would make them. We find this singular inconsistency confessed by the advocates of those systems which seem to be the most inoffensive. The state to which they would bring mankind must be the state he exists in before they can work upon him at all.

It is not our object to follow out the reflections suggested by these remarks, which we introduce only as an illustration of truth taken from the systems most opposed to truth. For let us be understood as giving no credit or countenance to these theories, however great may be our personal affection for many unfortunate individuals who devote talent and energy worthy of a better cause to dreams, not only unsubstantial and idle, but deeply and fatally pernicious. The Church does not appeal to mankind with vague cries of progress and reform, the only effect of which is to destroy without rebuilding, but her light and life, spreading through the whole social body, produce in reality the golden results which the most amiable of our visionary innovators can only see faintly traced in the mists of an unattainable distance. If there be such a thing as a follower of contemporary social philanthropy outside of the Church who is sincere, what an object of compassion he affords to the contemplation of a Catholic philosopher! He rises in the midst of his fellowblind-men to talk about what neither he nor they know the meaning of. He exerts the utmost of his ingenuity to prevent them, by his individual influence, from seeing the only light which can lead them safely on to better things. Even though he may not