I Believe in God!

and this single truth will outweigh all the knowledge of the Atheist!

And yet it is, as it were, but the foundation whereon is built the magnificent system of Christian truths—the most important that man can know. Within the short space of the Creed, is found not the knowledge of "nature and man for its own sake," but the knowledge of a most wonderful mystery of the Divine Nature; and the knowledge of the origin and end of man, and of his relations with God! The child learns that God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and is yet but One! A mystery so sublime that without revelation, it would have never have entered into the heart of man to conceive it; so sublime, that even after revelation it passes all comprehension! He learns that man is not an ape, but an intellectual being into whom God Himself has breathed the breath of life. He learns the ingratitude, disobedience, and fall of the first man, and the sublime problem God set himself to solve. He would not pardon man without an infinite atonement. He alone was infinite, therefore He alone could make it. But man had offended, therefore He willed man should make it. And a Man did make it, but that Man was God! for God, being unable to suffer, or demand pardon in His Divine Nature, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary; that is, He assumed a human nature, a body and soul like ours, by the power and operation of the Holy Ghost, in the chaste womb of a Virgin, and was born Man of her; and He suffered in His human nature, real pain and real death upon the cross to redeem and save us; and, Master of life and death—free among the dead (Ps. xxxvii. 6.)—He rose again, by His own Divine power, from the dead, on the day He had Himself appointed; and thus, as by dying on the cross, He proved Himself a real mortal man, so by raising Himself from the dead, He proved Himself God!

Secularists may smile with lofty pity at the "ignorance and superstition" of us poor Catholics who believe these dogmas. A poet who could weave a fable half as beautiful as these mysteries, would concentrate on himself the gaze of all ages. But here the noblest intellects of Christianity bow down and worship, not the brilliancy of the poet's fancy, but the revealed beauty of supernatural truth. There is in fact no such thing as invention in either the material or the mental world. What is called so is in reality but a new combination of old facts. The machinist can but combine anew the inventions of other men, the painter can but reproduce the forms he sees, and if he could produce something entirely new, he would not be understood; the poet can depict the passions, faults, and virtues of the human heart, but he could no more invent the august mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation than a man can form a conception of his own soul, or paint an angel! Wonderful mystery! It is my soul that thinks and reasons, that animates my body, that is myself. Yet when I ask myself what it is—what I am—I know not, I cannot by any effort conceive. I have then, in this evident limit of my own powers, a proof that the sublime "dogmas" of Christianity never originated in the brain of man.

And these are the noble truths that adorn the intellect of the Christian. I am ashamed to have to confront them with the pitiful culture of the poor Secularist. We have seen that reading is more than the most he will be able to hold out to the entire page 11 people; but let us suppose, that instead of being unable to bring them all up, even to the very lowest step of secular culture, he could bring them up to the very highest, and lay before them all the treasures of the fine arts and poetry, how immeasurably superior is the poor starving Irish peasant, who cannot read the unblushing pages of a secular newspaper, but who can say his Creed!

Yes! Let us set aside the ideal philosopher, and compare those sad realities, the Irish landlord and the Irish tenant. The one sucks the blood of the poor and defenceless in order to squander it on "the higher—and on the lower,—enjoyments wealth affords." The other, without a hope—in this world,—gropes feebly through a life of black misery. No gallery of art, no theatre, no rich scents, no ravishing music for him. Without—a patch of land in which his labours and his hopes of food lie rotting; within—a starving family, the bare ground, or a little musty straw, and the dreadful odor of poverty. The one comes armed with the power which the law of a highly "civilised" land places at his disposal, and at his breath the wretched hovel which misery ^* called a home, and which was at least less wretched than the wet ditch, is torn to the ground! The wailings of helpless children, of a wife, of perhaps an aged mother resound in the poor man's ear, while the bitter blast and driving sleet beat fiercely against his naked bones. Yet he clutches his Crucifix to his breast, and in the contemplation of his Saviour's sufferings, he seeks for strength to keep down the despairing curse that rises to his lips.

And the black night descends on the luxurious Dives in some haunt of "pleasure," and on his poor victim coldly crouching beneath a bush.

Which of the two is the "fellow-citizen of the saints and the servant of God?" Oh God! thou knowest.

Oh sacred Sign of the Cross, thou shalt be my next proof of civilisation.

The Catholic Church commands the Catholic parent to anticipate the dawn of reason, by teaching the unconscious infant to make this Holy Sign, by forming its first faltering accents to prayer, and by watching for the moment when its little mind will have opened wide enough to write thereon the name of God, One and Three! And the young Christian learns to repeat this Holy Sign frequently—many times a day—particularly in all temptations and dangers, and before and after prayer, but always with great attention and devotion; and each time he does so in a proper spirit, the sublime truths of Christianity rise up before him, for the sign of the cross signifies and brings to his mind the principal mysteries of Religion—the Blessed Trinity, and the Incarnation and death of our Saviour. In making the sign of the cross, he invokes the three Divine persons, saying—"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And as Our Saviour suffered death in human flesh on a Cross, the sign of the Cross must naturally remind all true Christians of His Incarnation and Death.

Here, then, is the argument briefly.

We admire the noblest philosophers of paganism, if we can deduce from their writings the belief in only one God, and if they utter any sentiment worthy of a Christian; and here we find the very poorest Christian familiar,—observe—familiar with truths that soar beyond all imagination! And this sacred symbol, by which we at once profess and keep alive our Christian Faith, but which I should not be at all surprised to near ascribed to "ignorance and superstition," is an unmistakable proof of the anxiety of the Catholic Church to keep constantly present to our intellects the truths that civilise us, "that whether we eat or drink or do anything else, we may do all for the glory of God," being, as we are, "fellow-citizens of the Saints and servants of God."

There is just one thing which the poor Secularist in his extremity might urge. He might say that I have changed the question altogether. The question was: What is Civilisation? and while professing to discuss this, I am actually preaching Religion!

I have not changed the question, I have answered it. I have removed the obscurity which secularism has thrown over the meaning of this word. Instead of accepting the arbitrary and absurd solution, that it means "wealth, and the pleasures wealth affords," I have taken the common idea among all men of Civilisation—mental culture—and I have laid down the broad principle which no sane man can controvert, that Truth is the ornament of the soul, and that the higher the order of truth, the higher the culture. Whence it follows, naturally and inexorably, that Religion is the highest ornament of the soul of man—a conclusion which is in the closest concord with the universal notion of men, that our Civilisation is due to Christianity, and which explains fully the manner in which Christianity exercises its civilising influences. What is Christianity but the religion Christ taught? and what is Christian Civilisation, but the effects produced on society by this Religion?

Thus in the theory and practice of Catholic Theology you have a most magnificent system, exhibiting in all its parts the most perfect harmony, and according thoroughly with the fundamental notions of mankind, while in the secularist system all is confusion, falsehood, and impiety. It pretends to the very highest mental culture, yet rejects the highest order of truth.

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I said that Christian Civilisation contained all that is excellent from a worldly point of view. Our foes contend, on the contrary, that the Catholic Church is averse to scientific progress. I have to refute this calumny, and make good what I have said.

I commence by denying absolutely that there is any worldly knowledge, properly speaking, apart from Christianity;—any knowledge of "nature or man for its own sake." All knowledge is Truth, and the Catholic Church eagerly embraces every truth as a stepping stone from whence the soul may and should rise to the Author of all that is good and true! "God has given the world to the investigation of man" that "by the greatness of the beauty and of the creature, the Creator of them may be seen so as to be known thereby." ^* "For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made! His eternal power also, and Divinity." ^† Therefore the knowledge of the noble things God has made—the knowledge of nature and man,—is a noble Christian truth; but in Christianity it ranks after the knowledge of God, not before; and as the stream, if traced, leads to its source, so does the knowledge of the laws of nature and of the heart of man, his origin and destiny, lead us to the Eternal Source of Truth! To claim such knowledge as "worldly," is an impudent imposture, and to bid the human soul rest in it "for its own sake" is to prostitute it from its noble end, just as other sacred things may be prostituted. The smallest flower we heedlessly trample on is a minute picture of the Beauty and Power of God! Its delicate petals, its fragrance, its mysterious life! which we can so easily destroy, but which we can neither comprehend nor recall! yet how paltry the knowledge of the poor worldling who contents himself with this for its own sake! But how sublime the thought of him who looks forward to the day when all the secrets of nature will be unfolded to his gaze! the wonderful mystery of Creation, the laws that govern matter, the vast spectacle of God's Universe, no longer seen dimly, as a few bright dots in space, but seen in its surpassing immensity; all that is most minute and all that is most gigantic equally displayed; the laws of heat and light and vegetation; enormous globes circling swiftly through immeasurable space! We can conceive the soul standing, as it were, upon the heavenly threshold, viewing the glorious scene, and seeing as God Himself does that "it is good," and then turning with love to the Great Artificer, and losing itself for eternity in the contemplation of His Infinite Beauty!