POWER OF RELIGION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 271, 12 August 1919, Page 3

POWER OF RELIGION

ANTIDOTE FOB AVORLD STEIFE.

In tlio course of an address at the opening of a now Catholic school on Sunday, Archbishop O'Shea said: "TIIO truth is that' most of HlO politicians, and nearly all the States of our time, are frankly pagan and materialistic in their public policy, at least in peace time. Paring the war they pretended to bo different. Then they believed in religion. Tb.sy lir.d it in the camps and on tlio baUkfU'l;!, and they paid public money for it, 'co, since they gave military rank and (salary to the chaplains and finaii-. eiai help to religion oven in other ways. But when there is no war it. is different. One is templed very much to quoto tho old saying: 'When the devil was sick, tho devil a saint would be. But when the. devii was well'—weßl, you-, know the rest.

"Commercialism and success in business is their god. They are calling out for more efficiency in our education, but it is not spiritual efficiency tlwit they aro asking for. It is not something that will make men moro virtuous and happier. It is not even something that will give each one a fairer share of tho world's goods, and enable tho masses to live in greater comfort. It is only something thnt will enable us as a nation to capture moro of the world's trado. and smash any rival who will dare to dispute our commercial supremacy. Of course, if this is tho ideal to bo aimed nt by each nation, then secular education is good enough for tho business, for its conception of man's purpose in life is ho higher than, say, that of the Japanese, which is a purely pagan and materialistic one. But wo Catholics will have none of it, for lve hold that man is (ho lord of creation, and that all tho products and resources of the earth, all trade, and all commerce, as well as all our institutions, are for him, and are merely means to enablo him to. reach his last end, which is happiness lioro and hereafter. And wo believo, too, that if thie spirit of commercialism is persisted in, it will continue to engender "rivalries and wars, and lead inevitably to tho destruction of our present civilisation. It would not bo tho first time that commercialism injured civilisation. AVholo civilisations have been destroyed anil wiped out even in historic times by tho samo canker. And what has happened before may certainly happen again. The power of wealth bring# with it a kind of mental obscurity, and men who make the pursuit of it their chief object in life are blind tn everything except their individual self-interest. A sort of golden fog prevents thorn from 6eeing the precipice to tho brink of which tho nation may be hurrying.

"Boligion ulono will bo able to sdts tlio world from ruin «uul civilisation from destruction, but you will Jievor bo able to Tcstoro God and Telifjion to their rightful place in the minds and hearts of mon without religious education. Thank God, Catholics are doing: their part, and will continue to do it on behalf of Christian education, and if tho Christians of othsn denominations won Id do likewise the world would all the sooner return to its faith of a few centuries afro, when things went better, and the youth of the country had not to wait for their first lesson of tho difference between moral right and moral wrong until they received it from the lips of our Supreme Court Judges. But, no matter what other people may do, we are determined to keep the flag of religions education aloft in this country, and moro and more schools like j;he ono wo have just opened will continue to dot the land, and the leaven of true education will be spread amongst the people for tho greater good, greater happin&ss, and true prosperity of this Dominion."