But the old worn-out thunder of the
Vatican, which lately made a feeble noise in America, has rolled
through France with the same assertion, 'Discussion cannot be
tolerated'; and what has been the result? Simply this,--that all the
intellectual force of the country is arrayed against priestcraft;--
and the spirit of an insolent, witty, domineering atheism and
materialism rules us all. Even young children can be found by the
score who laugh at the very idea of a God, and who fling a jeer at
the story of the Crucifixion of Christ,--while vice and crime are
tolerated and often excused. Moral restraint is being less and less
enforced, and the clamouring for sensual indulgence has become so
incessant that the desire of the whole country, if put into one
line, might be summed up in the impotent cry of the Persian
voluptuary Omar Khayyam to his god, 'Reconcile the law to my
desires'. This is as though a gnat should seek to build a cathedral,
and ask for the laws of architecture to be altered in order to suit
his gnat-like capacity. The Law is the Law; and if broken, brings
punishment. The Law makes for good,--and if we pull back for evil,
destroys us in its outward course. Vice breeds corruption in body
and in soul; and history furnishes us with more than sufficient
examples of that festering disease.
Pages:
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303