By Henry Aloysius Barry
Open your ears ye nations and bear witness if ye be of the true Christ, showing His spirit. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. The calf and bear shall feed, their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk." (v. 6, 7, 8.)
Whence this glorious transformation, this perfect harmony, this peace and justice? The prophet replies: "They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill, in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord." (v. 9.)—The old familiar word, knowledge! knowledge! Isaias says that the root of Jesse—not the sapless root but, Jesus imbued with His Own Spirit, "shall set up a standard unto nations." (v. 12.) In many countries the standard is furled and the cross is replaced with symbols that extol the supremacy of brutish strength and omniverous ambition,—aye, 'tis true, they say they are christians, but they hardly worship the sepulchral Christ; they are a thousand leagues from the Resurrected Messiah, with the blood rushing through His body and the glow of the Spirit making radiant His countenance. "A little child shall lead them,"—the voice of christian authority, not the dead cold type, but the living voice of the vicegerent of Christ, stirring the blood, extending a hand to lead the nations, and they hurl it rudely aside, therefore the spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost is not, for the most part, in the nations of the earth. I repeat, is it not the people with constitutional means of protesting who tolerate such godless powers? Is the Holy Ghost in those nations who fail to rise in their might protesting against the christless spirit of rulers? As we have had previous occasion to remark, it is curious logic, and yet it impresses many, when it is reckoned out how many people are not of the true faith, that the conclusion is thence drawn that the Church is defective. Again it is often asked by sneerers, why, in view of Christianity, men and nations are not better. Alas, what better witness that men have renounced the true Church than the world's wickedness, the world's greed, which so far defies bounds as to endure political charlatans leading their fellowmen into the horrors of war and chuckling at the success of their fiendish ability to influence rulers and shape the bloody policy of nations. Love, justice, godliness and the whole catalogue of virtues, taught by our Lord, show, like a thermometer, the temperature of the Holy Ghost in our lives. "When these virtues which Jesus Christ has taught the world fail to display themselves in nations or individuals, the
signs of the living, risen Christ are absent from our lives, and as we shall have known but the outward Christ, the dead Nazarene, as it were, and have not risen and walked with Him and sown with Him by the in-breathing of the Holy Ghost in our mortal days, we cannot hope to pluck the fruitage of the spirit that blossoms forever in the eternal Paradise. The Holy Father, Leo XIII, assures us of the lack of inwardness in religious life of the world to-day, that is to say, the want of the Holy Ghost. Christ is banished when we fling aside the principle of internal love and righteousness: "We have too much evidence of the value and results of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it, that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress and that the evil is daily on the increase? Surely the nations must suffer from strife, anarchy and nihilism. "Once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be eagerly sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share. Once remove all impediments and allow the christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away, and mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realize that they must observe justice and charity; the latter, self restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved." The voice of the Pontiff goes out also to christians, "who, whilst professing the christian name, live strangers to the faith and love of Christ."— Ah, the dead Christ, as it were, without, so to speak, a soul, Christ without His Spirit; this cannot be. The true Christ is never divorced from His Spirit. The true christian acts by the inward prompting, is ever guided by the faith-illumined senses, is ever urged on in the life battle and the painful, bleeding foot-faring by the heart-pumping of the grace current by the engine of love. The true Christ is the risen one, breathing forth the spirit, spreading about the gleams of light, the fragrance of virtue and the sunny glow of His Spirit. It means, then, eternal life, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son to me. May, then, the grace of the Holy Ghost daily deluge our hearts and senses in the surf of its luminance. May those tongues of fire that illumine, but burn not, play about our lives and emblazon our path to eternal love and light and the avoidance of those fiery floods that burn but ne'er illume, for I know that "no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost." (I Cor. xii, 3.) Steeped in regret for the incivilities of the past, O, August Third Person, my heart shall open to Thy sway, and, as the buds and flowerets open their pretty lips to the kiss of the morning sun, and, in return grow radiant with the sparkle of orient pearls, so shall my life be beauty-clad, "for now my love is changed; which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, bears no impression of the thing it was." The world will say: "His words are bonds; His oaths are oracles; His love sincere; His thoughts immaculate; His tears pure messengers sent from His heart; His Heart is as far from fraud as heaven from earth." O world, O demons, O flesh and blood, begone! —"hinder not my course, I'll be as patient as a gentle stream and make a pastime of each weary step, till the last step has brought me to my love. And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil, a blessed soul doth in Elysium."
By REV. HENRY A. BARRY, D. D.
Open your ears ye nations and bear witness if ye be of the true Christ, showing His spirit. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. The calf and bear shall feed, their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk." (v. 6, 7, 8.)
Whence this glorious transformation, this perfect harmony, this peace and justice? The prophet replies: "They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill, in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord." (v. 9.)—The old familiar word, knowledge! knowledge! Isaias says that the root of Jesse—not the sapless root but, Jesus imbued with His Own Spirit, "shall set up a standard unto nations." (v. 12.) In many countries the standard is furled and the cross is replaced with symbols that extol the supremacy of brutish strength and omniverous ambition,—aye, 'tis true, they say they are christians, but they hardly worship the sepulchral Christ; they are a thousand leagues from the Resurrected Messiah, with the blood rushing through His body and the glow of the Spirit making radiant His countenance. "A little child shall lead them,"—the voice of christian authority, not the dead cold type, but the living voice of the vicegerent of Christ, stirring the blood, extending a hand to lead the nations, and they hurl it rudely aside, therefore the spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost is not, for the most part, in the nations of the earth. I repeat, is it not the people with constitutional means of protesting who tolerate such godless powers? Is the Holy Ghost in those nations who fail to rise in their might protesting against the christless spirit of rulers? As we have had previous occasion to remark, it is curious logic, and yet it impresses many, when it is reckoned out how many people are not of the true faith, that the conclusion is thence drawn that the Church is defective. Again it is often asked by sneerers, why, in view of Christianity, men and nations are not better. Alas, what better witness that men have renounced the true Church than the world's wickedness, the world's greed, which so far defies bounds as to endure political charlatans leading their fellowmen into the horrors of war and chuckling at the success of their fiendish ability to influence rulers and shape the bloody policy of nations. Love, justice, godliness and the whole catalogue of virtues, taught by our Lord, show, like a thermometer, the temperature of the Holy Ghost in our lives. "When these virtues which Jesus Christ has taught the world fail to display themselves in nations or individuals, the
signs of the living, risen Christ are absent from our lives, and as we shall have known but the outward Christ, the dead Nazarene, as it were, and have not risen and walked with Him and sown with Him by the in-breathing of the Holy Ghost in our mortal days, we cannot hope to pluck the fruitage of the spirit that blossoms forever in the eternal Paradise. The Holy Father, Leo XIII, assures us of the lack of inwardness in religious life of the world to-day, that is to say, the want of the Holy Ghost. Christ is banished when we fling aside the principle of internal love and righteousness: "We have too much evidence of the value and results of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it, that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress and that the evil is daily on the increase? Surely the nations must suffer from strife, anarchy and nihilism. "Once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be eagerly sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share. Once remove all impediments and allow the christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away, and mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realize that they must observe justice and charity; the latter, self restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved." The voice of the Pontiff goes out also to christians, "who, whilst professing the christian name, live strangers to the faith and love of Christ."— Ah, the dead Christ, as it were, without, so to speak, a soul, Christ without His Spirit; this cannot be. The true Christ is never divorced from His Spirit. The true christian acts by the inward prompting, is ever guided by the faith-illumined senses, is ever urged on in the life battle and the painful, bleeding foot-faring by the heart-pumping of the grace current by the engine of love. The true Christ is the risen one, breathing forth the spirit, spreading about the gleams of light, the fragrance of virtue and the sunny glow of His Spirit. It means, then, eternal life, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son to me. May, then, the grace of the Holy Ghost daily deluge our hearts and senses in the surf of its luminance. May those tongues of fire that illumine, but burn not, play about our lives and emblazon our path to eternal love and light and the avoidance of those fiery floods that burn but ne'er illume, for I know that "no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost." (I Cor. xii, 3.) Steeped in regret for the incivilities of the past, O, August Third Person, my heart shall open to Thy sway, and, as the buds and flowerets open their pretty lips to the kiss of the morning sun, and, in return grow radiant with the sparkle of orient pearls, so shall my life be beauty-clad, "for now my love is changed; which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, bears no impression of the thing it was." The world will say: "His words are bonds; His oaths are oracles; His love sincere; His thoughts immaculate; His tears pure messengers sent from His heart; His Heart is as far from fraud as heaven from earth." O world, O demons, O flesh and blood, begone! —"hinder not my course, I'll be as patient as a gentle stream and make a pastime of each weary step, till the last step has brought me to my love. And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil, a blessed soul doth in Elysium."
By REV. HENRY A. BARRY, D. D.
