The moral order and Mary, the Mother of Jesus


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“The Moral Order"

and

"Mary, the Mother of Jesus"

by

Rev. George Johnson, Ph. D.,

Associate Professor of Education,

Catholic University of America.

Six addresses delivered in the Catholic Radio Hour,
Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic
Men with the co-operation of the National

Broadcasting Company and its Asso-
ciated Stations.

1. The Spirituality of the Soul. II. The
Immortality of the Soul. III. Mary,
the Mother of Jesus. IV. The Freedom
of the Will. V. The Voice of Con-

science. VI. The WiU of God.

©
National Council of Catholic Men
Sponsor of the Catholic Radio Hour

1314 Massachusetts Avenue
Washington, D. C.

m





“The Moral Order”

and

“Mary, the Mother of Jesus”

by

Rev. George Johnson, Ph. D.,

Associate Professor of Education,

Catholic University of America.

Six addresses delivered in the Catholic Radio Hour,

Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic

Men with the co-operation of the National
Broadcasting Company and its Asso-

ciated Stations.

1. The Spirituality of the Soul. II. The
Immortality of the Soul. III. Mary,
the Mother of Jesus. IV. The Freedom
of the Will. V. The Voice of Con-

science. VI. The Will of God.

National Council of Catholic Men
Sponsor of the Catholic Radio Hour

1314 Massachusetts Avenue
Washington, D. C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor
Huntington, Indiana



Imprimatur:

+ JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D. D.,
Bishop of Fort Wayne

EASTER, 1930

OeeeMRted



THE APOSTLES OF THE GENTILES

Whose powerful intercession we humbly invoked when thi
mission was entrusted to our feeble talents



AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

Last spring when the sermons contained in this pamphlet
were delivered over the radio during the “Catholic Hour,” a
number of those who listened were kind enough to write for
copies of them. The National Council of Catholic Men, eager
to meet these requests, now makes the complete series on
“The Moral Order” available in the present form.

The teachings of the Catholic Church concerning the
nature of man and his moral responsibility are founded on
the bed-rock of experience and sound reason. They are vin-
dicated by the findings of sound experimental psychology.
Social philosophy neglects them at its peril. They reflect the
wisdom of the ages, which is not to be flouted at the behest
of the folly of the moment.

Knowing ourselves, we arise to a better knowledge of God.
Our nature bears witness to His infinite Perfection. Truth
dissipates the murky vapor of error in which pride and self-
love thrive, and begets humility. In the degree that we are
humble we are profitable unto the glory of God and the
service of our fellow man.

Perhaps this little book may serve in some small way to
awaken interest in the noble teachings of the Catholic Church
concerning the moral order. Perhaps it may help some
Catholics here and there to know better the gift of God that
has been entrusted to them, the while it reveals to such of
those who are not of the Faith, who may chance to read its
pages, the premises upon which Catholic moral teaching is

predicated.



The Spirituality of the Soul
(Address delivered by Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D., in the

Catholic Hour, April 27, 1930)

<<T am delighted with the law of God according to
A

the inward man,” writes St. Paul in his Epistle
to the Romans. “But I see another law in my mem-
bers, fighting against the law of my mind and cap-
tivating me in the law of sin that is in my members.
Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from
this body of death.” These words of the great Apos-
tle of the Gentiles echo a cry that has been wrung
from human hearts since the beginning of time.
There is a dualism about us, the effects of which we
are constantly experiencing. Something in us strives
for noble things, is delighted with truth and good-
ness and beauty, reaches out to the stars and causes
us to feel a kinship with the divine. Yet all of the
while, we are conscious of another force that drags
us down, responds to the lure of things that are

crass and ignoble, involves us in the delights of the
senses, and makes us aware of a kinship with the
brute. There is the law of the mind and the law in
the members. Which is the index of our true nature ?
To which do we owe primary obedience? What are
we, after all?

Are we just animals, albeit of a higher develop-
ment? Is this consciousness of being somewhat dif-
ferent but a delusion and a snare? Must futility in-
evitably crown our efforts to emancipate ourselves
from what St. Paul calls “the body of this death?”
“The death of man and of beasts is one,” muses the
writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes, “and the condi-
tion of them both is equal. As man dieth, so they also
die; all things breathe alike and man has nothing
more than the beast. All things go to one place—of



‘THE MORAL ORDER” AND

earth they were made and unto earth they return
together. Who knoweth if the spirit of the children
of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the
beasts descend downward?”

‘‘Who knoweth?—We know,” answer certain voic-
es in our midst. We have learned the secret from ex-
perimental science. Henceforward there need be no
mystery about the nature of man. We have built un-
to ourselves laboratories and equipped them with
instruments like unto those which have revealed so
much to the chemist and the physicist. We have ap-
proached the problem as scientists and not as poets
or philosophers or theologians. We have refused to
consider any evidence that could not be submitted
to objective test. We have not been interested in
what a man thinks, but in how he behaves. We have
reached the conclusion that a human being can be
fully defined in terms of his nervous system, that

man’s mind is quite as clearly of animal extraction
as his body, that the difference between man and
beast is merely one of degree. The concept of a soul
may be an attractive bit of poetry, but scientifically
it is untenable. There is no deliverance from the
body of this death.
Yet somehow, the thinking world remains uncon-

vinced. It regards the dogmatism of the psycholo-
gist, whose phychology knows no soul, with a certain
degree of amusement. It wonders how much science
there is to psychology after all. For a true scientist
respects all the facts. Granted that the psychologi-

cal laboratory has made a number of discoveries
that have proven valuable to the educator and the

sociologist, discoveries that throw light on the na-

ture of the learning process, the mental activities

involved in achieving skill in reading, writing and



MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS 1

arithmetic, the range of differences in intelligence,
the relation of certain types of motive to conduct, it

has yielded nothing but theory on the fundamental
problem of the nature of the human mind. For it
has not faced the fact that men are aware of some-
thing within themselves that transcends their ner-

vous systems. This awareness is a fact, whether or
not it can be measured and weighed. No explana-
tion of human nature is scientific which gives the
lie to the testimony of universal common sense.

Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, summed up
this universal common sense when he defined man
as a rational animal. The animal part of man, he
did not deny. He saw the close resemblance between
the human body and the body of the brute. He ob-
served how much alike they are in structure and
function. He noted how the same laws seem to gov-
ern both in such matters as birth and death, nutri-
tion and procreation, sensitiveness to physical satis-
faction and annoyance, instinct and habit. He felt
that he had plenty of justification for calling man an
animal. Yet he could not let the matter rest there.
For much as he resembles others animals, there is
something about man which renders him quite
unique in the animal world, something which sets
him apart from the brute with whom he has so much
in common, and creates a difference far more signi-
ficant than the likeness. Man can think and man can
will, which is to say he can perform actions which
are beyond the range of mere animal powers. If he
is an animal, he is a rational animal, an animal that

can reason, and the ability to reason indicates that

there is something about him that is not entirely
physical. This something, the philosopher calls the

soul.



8 “THE MORAL ORDER1 ' AND

Really one does not have to be a profound scholar
to appreciate the truth of this argument. It but re-
flects the consciousness of mankind and is substan-
tiated by the daily experience of each and every one
of us. Its very obviousness has brought it into dis-

repute with certain thinkers. They would dignify
their own learning by simulating a contempt for the
thinking of the man on the street.

Let us examine the evidence for the existence of
the soul as it presents itself to the average human
being. Take an ordinary commonplace word like
home. Perhaps it immediately suggests to us an-

other word—house. We remember when we built
our house. There were the years when it was no
more than a nebulous plan in our minds. We be-
came interested in houses, walked about studying
them, revelled in pictures of them, observed different

types and styles
;
our eye never filled with the seeing

of them. We would sit alone in the evening, thinking
of what we had seen, recalling the houses we had
admired. From one house we would take one feature,
from another, another. We liked that roof, that
porch, that type of window, that floor plan. In im-

agination, the house of our dreams gradually took

form. We saw it as we would have it look. It was of
such an architecture, such a size, such a color, such

an orientation. In fancy, we even furnished it

—

chairs like those we saw last week, a table like that

one in the window, a dining room arranged like the

picture in the magazine, and so on down to the last

detail.

The moment came when we were ready to make

our dream a reality. There were architects and con-

tractors to deal with, the slow process of building,

and finally the glad moment of completion. And now



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 9

the house is ours. We have moved into it, we have
lived in it, we call it home.

But when we say “home” do we mean “house?”
Has the word no further connotation than the build-
ing that is the result of much seeing and much men-
tal picturing? The house, whether I look at it with
my eyes, or conjure it up in my imagination, is a
definite, specific thing, of such a height, and color,
and length, and breadth. Home is something beyond
this. If I ask you what you mean by home, you can-
not answer by describing your house. Home is in-
different to houses. Home is not the house, but what
the house stands for.

And what does it stand for? It stands for the right
to own property which is yours according to the
natural law. It stands for the privacy and the se-
curity to which you are entitled as a free-born
American citizen, and hence you say that your home
is your castle. It stands for the institution of the

family, upon which the social order is based. It
stands for the bonds of affection, love and justice

that identify the interests of father and mother and

children. It stands for the progress of the nation, in

that it is a place where the young are prepared for

the obligations of adult living. It stands for the

glory of God, for all of these purposes are dictated

by His Holy Will and His Providence watches over

it.

Now none of this is apparent in your house as
you look at it or picture it in your mind, yet it is all

involved in the notion of home. It is not born of

seeing and imaging. The thing we see, the thing
we imagine, is but the cue that occasions an inward
process that we call thinking to take place as a re-



10 'THE MORAL ORDER" AND

suit of which we have not a mental image of a spe-
cific object, but an idea, which, while it includes the
specific object, transcends it. Where the mental im-
age is concrete, it is abstract ; where the mental im-
age is particular, it is general. Natural law, free-

dom, social order, love, justice, progress, Divine Pro-
vidence—these are ideas, not objects like the house
that can be photographed by the camera of the eye
or painted by the artistry of the imagination. The
fact that they are in our mind, is evidence of the

presence of some power, higher than the body, great-
er than sense : a power that thinks, and we call this
power the soul.

Let us return once more to this house of yours
which you call home. What do you demand of it?
Warmth as against the icy blasts of winter, coolness
as against the burning heat of the summer suns? A
place to sleep and take your rest, a place to refresh
your body with food and drink? Is this everything?

Then why those pictures on the wall? Why those
evidences of care in the matching of colors and the
arrangement of furniture? Why the books on the
table and on the shelves yonder in the corner? Why
the radio tuned in this moment on a religious dis-
course? Are not these all evidences that you cannot
live by bread alone? You feel a craving for happi-
ness that cannot be satisfied by ministrations to the
body. There is a joy in the possession of truth, that

riches cannot purchase, a satisfaction in goodness

that makes a palace out of a hovel, a delight in
beauty that transcends the senses.

The supreme human joys are not those of the
body. Noble literature, elevating music, lofty conver-

sation—in comparison with these what price eating,
drinking, and sleeping? Such delights do not pall on



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 11

the taste, nor do they need the constant seasoning

of change and novelty.

But the greatest of all joys are those which are
found in religion, in the contemplation of the good-
ness of God. Ever and anon, even in the midst of
familiar things, there comes over us a mysterious
homesickness for something outside of ourselves, a
yearning to fly away and be at rest in the arms of an
Eternal Love. We may be kneeling in church; or
walking along the highway in the springtime, or
seated at home in our favorite chair. We have been
much preoccupied with everyday affairs, careful
and troubled about many things. Suddenly every-
thing seems tawdry and meaningless. We feel a
great hunger for something higher, for some truer
reality. It is the law of the mind demanding its just
dues, protesting against the tyranny of the law in

the members and reminding us that if we have a
body, we also have a soul.

It seems strange that men who pride themselves
on their humanitaria'nism, who seem so eager to
make a heaven out of earth, should be so intent on
robbing man of his soul—the one thing that makes
him human and renders him capable of enjoying
even an earthly heaven. Of course the soul is not de-
stroyed by a denial of its existence. A theory cannot
eliminate a fact, even though the fact has been de-

monstrated in a laboratory and the theory calls it-

self scientific. But what can, and inevitably must,
happen is this: Men will become so 'intent on the
physical that they will lose all sense of spiritual

values. Because they are constantly told that they

are beasts, they may decide to live like beasts. The
best things in modern civilization we have inherited
from ancestors who were spiritually minded. How



12 THE MORAL ORDER” AND

long will they survive in the hands of a progeny
that sums itself up in terms of its neurones? Take
the soul out of the counsels of men, and what re-
mains of religion, justice, charity, culture, courage
and high resolve? If the idea is but a phantasm, why
are not ideals fantastical?

But of course you cannot take the soul out of the
counsels of men. Its insistences are too real. Human
beings grow weary of bread and circuses, of ma-
chines, and business, and bodily comfort. There are
signs all around us of an incipient revolt against
the mechanism of our times. We are sickening of a
realistic literature that has been beating a mono-
tonous tom-tom in a vain attempt to exercise our
souls. We are restive under the standardization that
scientific processes have imposed upon us. We are
weary of statistics and efficiency. Newspapers are
affording more and more space to religious affairs.
Magazines are opening their pages to religious dis-

cussion. The radio recognizes a national religious in-
terest. Note how the ordinary commercial programs
observe musically such great feasts as Christmas

and Easter. These things would not be if men were
ready to admit that they are but animals of a more
intricate development.

What is man? The penny catechism gives me the
answer. “Man is a creature composed of body and
soul and made to the image and likeness of God”.
When I ask, “Is this likeness in the body or the
soul?” I am told that it is chiefly in the soul. “But
how is the soul like to God”? “The soul is like to
God because it is a spirit that will never die, and
has understanding and free will”. “What does it
profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer
the loss of his own soul”? Our Blessed Saviour asks



"MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS 13

us. “Or what exchange shall a man give for his
soul”?

Shall we exchange the image of God, for the im-
age of the beast? Shall we sell ourselves into the
bondage of the senses and confess that we are the
slaves of the physical? Or in the full consciousness
of the liberty that is ours as the sons of God, shall

we not rise up in revolt against the flesh that in all
things it may be made subject to the spirit? “Walk
in the spirit and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the
flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and
the spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary

one to another so that you do not the things that
you would. But if you are led by the spirit, you are
not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are fornication, uncleanliness, im-
modesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, con-

tentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions,

sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings and
such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have fore-
told to you, that they who do such things, shall not
obtain the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the
spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity,

goodness, longanmiity, mildness, faith, modesty, con-

tinency, chastity. Against such there is no law. And
they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh,

with the vices and concupiscences.”



14 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

The Immortality of the Soul
(Address delivered by Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D., in the

Catholic Hour, May 4, 1930)

JN every city, village, and hamlet, there is a hal-
lowed spot we cherish with loving care. Yet we

are inclined to avoid it except when duty com-
mands, to pass it by hurriedly, with gaze averted.
I speak of the cemetery. Bound up with our deep-
est affections it is at the same time suggestive of
our most hidden fears. Wd love it for what it en-
shrines and hate it for what it foretells. It reminds
us of those we love to remember, but at the same
time it makes us conscious of something we would
fain forget.

In fancy let us visit the cemetery. Entering its
gates we stroll along its gravelled walks, admiring
its well-kept lawns, its trimmed hedges, the noble
trees that shelter it in their shade. Everywhere
graves, some covered with flowers to reveal a recent
grief, others eloquent of the shortness of the

memory of man. Monuments and markers abound
—love’s defiance of death’s rapacity. Let us see
what some of them have to tell us of those whose
names they would immortalize.
Here is one, just a headstone to mark the spot

where lies all that is mortal of a little tot who tar-
ried in our midst but five short years. Just a few
months of delightful babyhood and growth in won-
dering awareness of the world about him—just a
few years of beautiful childhood crowded with
eager curiosities—and then the end. The end of
the hopes and dreams of father and mother who
pictured for him a future rich with all that their
love and sacrifice could buy, the end of prattle and



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 1ft

play and happy laughter, the end of ceaseless ques
tioning and toddling forays of discovery. Five
short years, and life is over ere it has begun.

Yonder stone marks the last resting place of a
woman forty years of age. Death came to her as
an angel of mercy. All the days of her life she
had suffered, bedridden most of the time and need-
ing the constant ministrations of others. She had
never known the delights of a stroll in the woods
on a summer’s morning, she had never danced and
played in the company of happy companions, she
had never felt the thrill that is born of accomplish-
ment of worth-while tasks. All her life long, a
burden to others and a burden to herself. Pain,
sleepless nights, helplessness. And then at too
long last, the merciful deliverance of death.

A chaste and simple shaft rises at the head of
the grave of one we know as a scholar and a writer.
The long years of his life were devoted to study and
his fine mind left to posterity an heritage of noble
books. Even when his bodily strength began to
fail, his mind was active and he worked feverishly
to complete his life work. But in vain. Fourscore
years was too short a time to accomplish what he
had set out to do and death wrote a finis to his
work before he had a chance to complete what he
felt was but the first chapter.
Here is the section which we call the potter’s

field, set aside by our common charity for life’s
derelicts. A new grave received but yesterday the
mortal remains of a homeless wayfarer who knew
no next of kin. There was a day of hopeful youth
and high resolve, a time when it seemed there might
be some realization of the fond hopes that lived in
a mother’s heart as it yearned over a new-born



16 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

babe. But the external handicaps were too great
and the internal urge was too weak and life de-
feated him. Alv/ays the same thought, things will
be better tomorrow, or next week, or next year

—

never quite quenched are the ambitions that flamed
in youth, never quite stilled is the small voice whis-

pering of what might have been. Finally death inter-
venes and a nameless grave seals his defeat.

But what glorious monument is this that rears
itself aloft in a majesty of sculpture and design?
We approach and learn that here rests a man of
wealth, a man of deeds, a man whose name was
honorable in the marts of commerce and the as-
semblies of statesmen. He labored hard and
amassed a fortune the while he achieved an
enviable place in the regard of his fellow-men. He
thought of others as well as of himself. Human
welfare was his watchword and the possession of
the comforts of life made him eager to share them
with those less fortunate in the fray. They told
him that he owed it to himself to retire and to enjoy
the fruits of his arduous labors. But he had work
to do. He saw new ways in which his business
might be increased and expanded. He envisaged
social reforms that might be effected by more en-
lightened legislation. He was impatient for greater
accomplishment. But death thought otherwise and
struck him down in the midst of uncompleted tasks.
We honor him for what he had done; his dying
thought was of what he had failed to do.

Let us rest a while here on this bench and ponder

the significance of these graves. With all their
difference they seem to preach a common truth.
The baby hesitating on life’s threshold, the invalid
constrained to a life of helplessness, the scholar



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 11

whose wisdom seemed to him but ignorance, the
pauper never quite able to transform a wish into a
deed, the stateman and business executive con-
temptuous of the hills he had climbed because of
the vision of mountains yet unsealed—what is their
verdict concerning life? And all these other count-
less dead that sleep in their graves, mothers who
sacrificed all for children who disappointed their
hopes, young men and young women who died at
the outset of their careers, physicians who felt they
were just beginning to know something about medi-
cine, lawyers to whom increasing knowledge of the
law brought a sense of being the merest tyros,
teachers eager to be taught—what have they to tell
us about life and death? In every case, I fancy the
answer would be, there is too much of death and
too little of life; death comes too soon, life is too
short. In the surprise of death, they said: “Can
this be all ? You say it is finished, though I feel it
is not yet begun. Is this the end of my existence?
Then must I say, life has not been worth the living,
for whatever joys and consolations, victories and
honors it may haVe brought me, its termination
finds my deepest desires, my fondest ambitions, my
noblest yearnings, thwarted.”

“Thwarted.” The feeling of humanity since the
beginning of time, at the approach of death. Our
hearts and minds are too big for this life. Let it
yield its utmost, our answer will be, “Vanity of
vanities and all is vanity.” Our mind is hungry for
truth. Before baby lips can form words, baby eyes
are eloquent with the query, “What is it?” The more
we learn, the more we want to know. Knowledge
whets the appetite for more knowledge. We learn
what things are, only to become curious about why



18 THE MORAL ORDER” AND

they are. We sense an infinity behind the finite,
and are loth to admit that the unknown is unknow-
able. Yet even a long lifetime of thought and
study leaves us dissatisfied and death comes to
thwart us in our search for truth.

“Thwarted.” These restless hearts of ours are
hungry with a love that naught earthly can satisfy.
A broken heart is all we get in return for even the
noblest human love. It is not only that people dis-
appoint us, betray us, tire of us, grow out of us.
Even if these things would never happen, people
die. To love requires a world of courage ; it is fear
of a torn and bleeding heart that accounts for
selfish mothers, self-centered fathers, calculating

wives and husbands, thoughtless friends, The void
in the heart cannot be filled with things and per-
sons. The hunger is too deep. There is always
something else, something beyond, something that
is not bound up in space and time, something that is
stronger than death. As St. Augustine puts ft,
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, 0 God, and the
heart of man is restless until it rests in Thee.”

This life is not long enough for a creature pos-
sessed of a spiritual soul. Time is all too short. The
business of keeping the body alive and well absorbs
a very large portion of the years that are allotted

to us here below. Specialization becomes more and
more necessary as life becomes more and more com:
plex. The field of individual human endeavor nar-
rows constantly. There is so much of life and our
share of it is so little. Comedians yearn to act in
tragedy, mechanics would be poets, statesmen
would be craftsmen. How often do we not hear
men telling what they would do, had they their
lives to live over again! Subtract what a man is



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 19

from what he would be—the remainder is a strong
indication that there must be something after
death.

How alive, how active, how vital, is the spirit in
a dying body! We know of old men and old women,
physically enfeebled by the passing years, whose
minds are strong, alert, capable of deep and sus-
tained thinking. We encounter invalids, weakened
and painwracked by long years of continuous ill-
ness, who give evidence of intellectual power of the
highest order. Who can assist at the death bed of
a normal human being and feel that the person-
ality struggling in the final agony has been blotted
out when the last breath is drawn?

Man’s soul is a spirit and as such is not subject
to material decay and decomposition. Only things
that have parts, fall apart. The functions of think-
ing and willing that the soul exercises, transcend
the body and are not derived from it. The soul is
not dependent on the body for existence. If so all
of its activities would be limited by the needs of the
body. The very fact that it can and does concern
itself with things that have nothing to do with

physical needs and appetites, argues that when the
body returns to the earth from whence it came,
the soul ascends upward to the God who gave it.

But they tell us that notion of individual im-
mortality is a relic of less enlightened generations.

It is true, they say, that men have always cherished
the desire to live beyond the grave and have re-
coiled with horror from the thought of personal an-
nihilation. But this desire for immorality can be
satisfied, and this horror of death can be removed,
if we think of immortality in terms of society and
the race. They assure us we are gradually ap-



20 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

proaching a degree of civilization, when individuals
will think not of themselves but of the group and
will find consolation in the thought that though
they may die, the group will live, and they will
achieve continued existence in the grateful memory
of generations yet unborn. The man who is con-
scious that he has made a definite contribution to
the progress of humanity needs not the supersti-
tion of life after death to bear him up.

One often wonders whether men who advanct
this theory really believe it themselves or whethei

they are not just whistling in the dark to allay
their personal fears of death. To begin with it is
based on a conception of the relation between the
individual and group which is false. It takes it for
granted that the group is more important than the
individual and that the individual exists for the
group. Hence they claim that the deep-seated
desires of the individual are illusory and vain,
whilst what they call the progress of society as a
whole is all that matters.

Such is not the normal sentiment of the indi-
vidual. Each and every one of us is conscious that
he has a personality that is sacred, a personality

that he instinctively defends and cherishes. We
are not just blind and meaningless atoms in a

larger whole; on the contrary the larger whole

which is society is itself meaningless without us.

In the mutual relation between the individual and

the group, it is the individual that is most im-

portant. Society is the means whereby the indi-
vidual is sustained and developed.

How carefully nature cherishes individuality in
lower creation! Each rose on the bush, each hid-

den violet in the dell, is a perfect thing in its class,



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 21

having everything that is necessary to make it a
rose or a violet. What a perfect thing is an indi-
vidual butterfly or honey bee. Now the perfection
of the human individual would seem to demand the
satisfaction of that desire that is closest to his

heart, the desire to survive the death of the body,

the desire for immortality. Will the hope that
society will survive effectually still that longing?

Social minded though we may become, can we ever
lose our sense of personal identity to the extent

that we would gladly perish all in all, secure in the
conviction that we shall live in posterity?

What of the countless millions who live today,
the countless millions who have lived ere now, hid-
den lives, defeated lives, lives of poverty, sickness,
slavery,—what sense of immortality in society
could they have? Men who hew wood and draw
water, men who are fated to perform the humblest
and least honorable tasks in life—in every age such
as these have found consolation in the dream of
better things in another life as the reward of duty
well done and burdens patiently borne. Is their
desire for continued existence to be assuaged by the
assurance that society will be healthier for the

sewers they are killing themselves to dig, warmer
for the coal they are shortening their lives to mine,

closer to one another for the ships they are burning

themselves up to stoke? No theory of man’s destiny
is worthy of consideration that stops short of all
mankind.

But it is time that we betake ourselves home-
ward. We rise up from the bench and wend our
way toward the cemetery gate. Before us rises up
a noble cross, beautiful in the gathering twilight.

Once there were three crosses and on them three



22 “THE MORAL ORDER" AND

men were dying. The sufferer on the right turned
to the Sufferer in the center and said, “Lord, re-
member me when thou shalt come into thy king-
dom.” He was a thief, who spoke thus, a common
felon receiving just punishment for his misdeeds.
But dying, behold he desires to live. Perhaps there
flashes before his mind’s eye the vision of happier

days, a mother’s face and the memory of her beau-
tiful influence. The something good that is in the
worst of men, the something good that had been
throttled these many years by sin and crime, as-
serts itself. “Remember me.”

“This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”
For the good thief, the promise of heaven. For
you and me, Divine assurance is Divine. The testi-
mony of an empty Tomb, for the third day He rose
again.

We are leaving the cemetery. We recall that He
said to His disciples, “A little while and you shall
see me and again a little while and you shall not
see me, for I go to the Father.” A little while. A
little while and we too shall be brought into these
sacred precincts. A very little while, to satisfy all
the yearnings of these hearts of ours, even though

it be as much as four score years and ten. But the
while our bodies are being consigned to the earth

our souls will have winged their way to the Father
in Whose House there are many mansions where
for all eternity ours will be the fulness of joy.

A little while. They await us on the other side
of the grave—those we have loved and lost. There
life has been changed, not taken away. The abode
of this earthly sojourn having been dissolved, they

have found an eternal dwelling prepared in heaven.

Only a little while and we shall find them and pos-



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 23

sess them once again in that moment of everlasting
bliss which is God. “I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me although he be dead
shall live; and everyone that liveth and believeth in
me, shall live forever.” —



u 'The Moral order*’ and

Mary, the Mother of Jesus
(Address delivered by Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D., in the

Catholic Hour, on “Mothers’ Day,” May 11, 1930)*

F) eep in the heart of the nation there stirred a noble
impulse and Mothers’ Day was born. It takes

its place in our calendar on the second Sunday of
May, to reveal something of the characteristic ideal-
ism of the American people. Production, distribu-
tion, consumption, manufacture, commerce, bank-
ing—frequently it is charged that these define our
national spirit, that we are materialists cold, cal-
culating, ruthless. But whatever we may seem to be,
the observance of a day like this indicates what we
really are. With all our grown up manners we are
children at heart and of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven. And today, leaving our machines and our
balance sheets, our exports and our imports, our
law courts and our market places, we have come
home, in reality or in dream to Mother.

In her presence we rediscover our better selves.
Once again we are boys and girls seeing life
through the pure eyes of childhood, challenging it

with the uncompromising heart of youth. Not so
long ago we were babies in her arms. As her gentle
song lulled us to sleep, she thought of the years

unborn and of the place in life she would have us

take. That vision guided her and strengthened her

throughout the days of our childhood, made every
sacrifice a thing of joy, touched with golden mean-

ing every trivial task, sustained her courage in every

darkling hour. Back in her arms today, we recap-

*Dr. Johnson’s series of addresses on The Moral Order
was interrupted on Mothers’ Day, May 11, that this tribute
might be paid to Our Blessed Lady.



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS’’ 25

ture that vision with her, and know that in her hopes
and not in our attainments we must seek our true
potentialities.

What a glorious title is motherhood! Not every
woman who has borne children is worthy of it, for it
is the crown of a spiritual not a physical victory.
She bears it justly who is selfless, who has lost her
life and found it in her children, who to them is the
embodiment of the true, the good and the beautiful
whose self-discipline renders convincing the disci-
pline she exacts, who, whatever her social status,
whatever her educational and economic opportuni-
ties, is remembered by her children as a saint. Today
we think proudly of this poor, stupid humanity of
ours, because it has produced countless mothers like

unto this, and thereby shown us how very little
we fall short of the angels when we are at our best.

Short of the angels? There is one whose mother-
hood inspires us to call her—Queen of the Angels.
The mother, she of Jesus Christ. Instinctively the
Catholic heart turns to her today ; for, in her Divine

motherhood, all human motherhood is blessed.
In the words of Cardinal Newman “the glories

of Mary are for the sake of her Son,” and Her Son
is the Son of God. In Jesus Christ there are two na-
tures, one human, one Divine. He 'is true God and
true man.

He is God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trin-
ity
—“God from God, Light from Light, True God

from True God, begotten not made, of the same sub-
stance as the Father, by Whom all things were
made.”

As God there is no beginning or limit to his ex-
istence. “Before Abraham was made, I am.”



26 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

But in the fulness of time He took a human na-
ture. God became man. His humanity is not a shadow
or a semblance, but is true and real. Jesus Christ
has a human body and a human soul like all of us.
The soul is the result of a direct creative act of God.
The body was formed and developed in the womb of
his mother.

The two natures in Jesus Christ, the human na-
ture and the Divine nature, do not constituteadouble
personality. There are not two persons in Christ
but the two natures are united in one Person and
that Person is Divine. Hence whatever Jesus says
is the word of God. Whatever He does is the act
of God. Whatever belongs to Him belongs to Him as
God. And the mother from whom he received his
human body is justly called the Mother of God.
Mother of God—behold a title which sets her

above every creature and gives her the right to hon-

or and reverence second only to that due her Divine

Son. No created being that ever existed was chosen
for a more exalted office. Her position in the Divine
plan is utterly unique. Of course, we do not wor-
ship her as we worship God ; that were idolatry. The
noblest of creatures, she is none the less a creature.

But above all angels and saints we enthrone her,
before all of whom in the eternal designs of God,
she was preferred.

Upon her Divine maternity, hinges every dogma
of the Church which concerns Mary. There is, for

instance, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. We be-
lieve that the human generation of Christ was mir-
aculous, that His Mother was a virgin.

For proof of this we turn to the Bible. The fol-
lowing instance is related in the first chapter of

Saint Luke’s Gospel; “And in the sixth month the



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 27

Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of
Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a

man whose name was Joseph, of the House of
David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the
angel being come in said to her: Hail, full grace, the
Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women,
Who having heard was troubled at his saying, and
thought with herself what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel said to her : Fear not,
Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold
thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a
son and thou shalt call His Name Jesus. He shall
be great and shall be called the son of the Most
High

;
and the Lord God shall give to Him the throne

of David, His father; and He shall reign in the
House of Jacob forever and of His kingdom there
shall be no end. And Mary said to the angel: How
shall this be done, for I know not man? And the
angel answering said to her: ‘The Holy Ghost shall

come upon thee, and the power of the Most High
shall overshadow thee, and therefore also the Holy
that shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son
of God,’ And Mary said, ‘Behold the handmaid of
the Lord

;
be it done to me according to thy word’.”

Again we read in the first chapter of Saint Mat-
thew’s Gospel: “Now the generation of Christ was
this wise. When as His Mother Mary was espoused
to Joseph, before they came together she was found
with child of the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph,
her husband, being a just man, and not willing
publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away
privately. But while he thought on these things, be-
hold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his
sleep, saying: Joseph, Son of David, fear not to take
unto thyself Mary, thy wife, for that which is con-



28 THE MORAL ORDER” AND

ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall
bring forth a son and thou shalt call His Name
Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.
Now all of this was done that it might be fulfilled
which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Be-
hold, a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a
son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which
being interpreted, is God with us.”
What could be plainer evidence than these two

texts of the Revealed Word that Jesus Christ had
no earthly Father, but was born of a Virgin? The
fact is predicated upon His Divinity. He is the true
Son of God, and His generation was effected
through the overshadowing power of the Most
High. Mary’s virginity, before, during, and after
the birth of Christ, is a dogma of, the Catholic
Church. She is Mary, ever Virgin.
The doctrine of the Virgin Birth is frequently

confused with the Immaculate Conception, which
is, however, something quite different. The Immac-
ulate Conception has nothing to do with the genera-

tion of Christ, nor does it mean that Mary, like her
Divine Son, was born of a virgin mother. Her gener-
ation was not miraculous; she had a father and a
mother like all other human beings. The difference,
here, is not in the natural, but in the supernatural

order.

The Catholic Church teaches us that we come into
this world bearing on our souls the guilt of original

sin, the sin of our first parents. As a result of this
sin the human race was deprived of the supernat-
ural gifts with which God had endowed it in the
beginning. “Let us make man according to our im-
age and likeness.” When God created man He des-
tined him for something higher than merely natural



“MARY, THE MOTHER OP JESUS” 29

happiness. Over and above the powers that were
rightly theirs as human beings, powers which were
necessary if they were to survive in nature, our first
parents possessed capacities to which they had no
right, which were given to them out of the free
bounty of the Creator. In virtue of these capacities,
they were raised up above the natural order and
made in very truth children of God. “Ye are gods
and sons of the Most High.” To the intellect was
given the power to penetrate into the secrets of the
Divine Mind; the will was strengthened with the
might of Divine grace. The reward of faithfulness
would be intimate union with God for all eternity.

All of this our first parents forfeited for them-
selves and their descendants by their refusal to obey
the law of God. As a consequence, every human being
comes into the world, just a human being and noth-
ing more, a child of nature, the light of his intelli-

gence obscured by the gloom of ignorance, his will
weakened by the assaults of the flesh. He is guilty of
original sin, from which he must be cleansed
through the merits of the Saviour, ere he can attain

the noble dignity that was his in the beginning.

Now, the Blessed Virgin, in view of the fact that
she was to be the mother of the Son of God, was
from the first instant of her conception preserved
from Original Sin and its consequences. She was im-
maculately conceived, redeemed, through the fore-

seen merits of her Divine Son. The fitness of this is
apparent. It is utterly repugnant to think of the

human nature that was assumed by the Second Per-
son of the Blessed Trinity being subjected in the

slightest degree to the dominion of evil. It is un-

thinkable that the holiness of God should thus be
defiled.



30 ‘THE MORAL ORDER” AND

The words addressed to Mary by the Angel Ga-
briel bear witness to this truth. “Full of grace,” he
calls her, and tells her that she is “Blessed among
women.” She has “found favor with God”. Titles of
honor, these, that could not be hers for purely natur-

al reasons.

We turn back to the beginning of the Bible, to the
third chapter of the book of Genesis, where we read
these words which God spoke to the evil spirit after
He had cursed him for tempting Adam and Eve to
sin: “I will put enmities between thee and the
woman, between thy seed and her seed. She shall
crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her
heel.”

Herein is implied the promise of a Redeemer,

who would vanquish sin and evil. Through a woman
sin came into the world

;
through a woman its pow-

er will be destroyed. Mary is the second Eve whose
Son has satisfied the Divine Justice and restored to
us our birthright. And the first fruit of His Re-
demption was his own mother. The serpent’s head
was crushed when she was immaculately conceived.

Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God—what a rav-
ishing vision these words conjure up in the mind of
the believer! Virgin and Mother, the two noblest
titles to which womanhood could aspire, yet either
to be achieved ordinarily at the expense of the oth-

er. In Mary both are combined, for, by the over-
shadowing power of the Holy Spirit, she conceived
the Only Begotten Son of God, and, her virginity
untouched, she brought forth unto the world, the

Light eternal. Meanwhile, throughout her whole

earthly existence, she was stranger to the slightest
defilement of sin. Mother inviolate—Virgin most re-
nowned.



31“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS”

The Blessed Virgin is not just a bit of poetry in
Catholic life, a bit of sentimentality having no prac-
tical significance. Devotion to Our Blessed Lady is
responsible, as no other factor, for the chivalry that
has raised up woman to the high estate which is
hers in Christian civilization. It has sanctified mar-
ried life, the while it has recruited the hosts of those
who, clad in the white garments of virginity, fol-
low the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. It has helped
to actualize the ideal of chastity, that noblest victory
of the spirit over the flesh. It has inspired the brush
of the painter and guided the hand of the sculptor.
Music is richer for it and literature is its debtor.
The world over Our Lady, Notre Dame, is glorified
by great cathedrals, symphonies in stone, perennial-
ly hymning her praise. “Henceforth all generations
shall call me blessed.”
And she belongs to us, to you and to me. She stood

at the foot of the cross beside John, His beloved
disciple. The dying Jesus spoke to her, “Woman,
behold thy Son.” And to John, He said, “Behold
thy Mother.”

“Behold thy Mother.” In John, all followers of
Jesus Christ were represented, and through him all
received the Saviour’s death-bed legacy, His Moth-
er. Are we not all one with Christ, members of His
Body? He is the First Born among many brethren.
His Father in heaven is our Father. What more
logical than that Mary, His earthly Mother, should
be our mother. She exercises over us a mother’s
watchful care. We are inexpressibly dear to her,
because we are dear to Him. She sees in us His
image, as we strive to become conformable to Him
in faith and in love. She loves us. Hence can St. Ber-
nard confidently exclaim—“Never was it known



32 THE MORAL ORDER” AND

that anyone who fled to thy protection, or asked thy
intercession, was left unaided.”

Mother’s Day. Its vesper hour has arrived. As the
soft tones of the Angelus ring out, let us betake our-
selves to the Mother of Jesus. She has experienced
as no other the joys of motherhood; she has felt as
no other its bitter crucifixion. She knows that
mothers always lose, that the best they can expect
for themselves, after all their sacrifices and labors
and yearnings, is what she received, the dead body
of her Son. Of course our mothers appreciate the
gifts we brought them today, the letters we wrote,
the flowers with which we honored them. But above
all things they need our prayers. And so for our
mothers, whether they are with us or have gone on
before, whether we are close to them, or far from
home, let us pray to the Mother of God: “Hail
Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee, blessed
art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of
thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray
for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.”



'MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS' 33

The Freedom of the Will
(Address delivered by Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D., in the

Catholic Hour, May 18, 1930)

YW henever man attempts to emancipate himself
from the service of God, he ends up in slavery.

He begins by denying the existence of a Creator
upon whom he depends; in the name of humanity,
he scoffs at Divinity. The denial of God forces him
to deny his own soul: he triumphantly descends to
the level of the beast. Next he defines himself in
terms of his physical nature, and proclaims that his
conduct is inexorably determined by the needs of
his body. Having refused to reign in the service of
God, nothing is left for him but to serve in the
reign of the flesh.

“As they liked not to have God in their know-
ledge,” says St. Paul of the Romans, “God delivered
them up to a reprobate sense.” These words apply
with particular significance to those who deny the
freedom of the human will. Surely, it is a reprobate
sense that causes a man to stop his ears against
the voice of his own consciousness, to scoff at the
testimony of universal experience, and deny that
there is in human beings any power of self-deter-
mination, any faculty of free choice. What profit
is there in such a denial? Will men be better, finer,
nobler, for being convinced that they are but ma-
chines operated by the force of circumstances, pup-
pets manipulated by fate? What value can he set on
heroic achievement, for whom heroism is merely a
by-product of the thyroid gland?

But, they say, this sense of being free, of being

able to make our own choice and decisions, is a
trick of the fancy. We imagine we are determining



34 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

our own actions, when as a matter of fact they
are being determined for us by factors of which we
are unconscious. There are hidden depths in our
minds that have never been sounded. In these
depths, the course of our life is charted. Freedom
of the will is an illusion.

Very well, but if freedom of the will is an illu-
sion, then morality is an illusion. There is no vali-
dity in the distinction between virtue and vice. You
cannot say that one man is good, another bad. All
punitive laws should be erased from the statutes.
A man should not be blamed for committing mur-
der, nor arrested for speeding. Burglary is a natur-
al urge and embezzlement a species of self-expres-
sion. Saint and sinner are alike accidents of cir-
cumstance.

If freedom of the will is an illusion, all sense of
responsibility is an illusion. Why should I be held
accountable for any trust when I have no way of
assuring myself that the ideals that guide me to-
day will be operative next week? You give me your
word, but how can I trust it, if it expresses nothing
more than present condition of your internal or-
gans? Your dinner tonight may change your whole
sense of values. How can a public officer solemnly
swear to uphold the Constitution and laws of the
nation if his actions are not subject to his own
control ?

If freedom of the will is an illusion, character

is an illusion. We pay homage to the man whose
conduct is dictated by principle, whose impulses
are kept in leash. For the sake of an ideal, he is
ready to go into bondage and death, and considers

any sacrifice that the truth, as he sees it, may pre-
vail. We cannot honor enough, the men whose un-



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 35

answering love of country emboldened them to face
unflinchingly every danger and peril and to immo-
late the interests of self on the altar of patriotism.

All of which is evidently a great mistake, if there

is no freedom of personal choice and preference. If
George Washington had no free will, if he could
not help being a patriot, then at the side of every

memorial we have erected to him we should raise
one to Benedict Arnold, who, by the same token,
could not help being a traitor.

If freedom of the will is an illusion, education
is an illusion. We think of education as the process
whereby individual self-control and self-direction
is developed. We think of it as the discipline of the
powers of the mind, in the light of the best ideals
of the race. We talk about education for freedom,
for responsibility, for self-determination, and we
organize our schools and our curricula so as best to
achieve these ends. But if there is no freedom, no
responsibility, no self-determination, this is all a

sad mistake. We might better scrap all our peda-
gogy, revise our philosophy of education, close our

teachers’ colleges, and betake ourselves to the ani-
mal trainer. He can teach us the science and art of
educating beings that have no free will.

But, of course, Freedom of the will is not an illu-
sion, but a very stubborn fact. The true prophets
of human progress have always taken it for grant-
ed. The hard won victories of the race proclaim its
reality. Our vocabulary is rich with words that
would be meaningless without it—words like cour-
age, resolution, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, sac-

rifice, remorse, fortitude. If the will is not free, the

word love should be expunged from every diction-
ary.



36 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

In the interests of clarity, let me explain to you
what I mean by freedom of the will. To begin with,
I do not mean absence of physical restraint.
The lion that roams the jungle is quite untrammel-
led in his movements, yet he does not possess free
will. On the other hand, a man may be loaded with
chains and walled up in the narrowest of dungeons,
without losing one whit of his liberty of choice.

Neither do I mean by freedom of the will, per-
sonal independence of authority, emancipation from
the restraints of law and order. Our problem is not
one of liberty in the social or the political sense.

Finally, I do not claim that every action we per-
form is the result of a free choice of the will. Bod-
ily functions like respiration and digestion are not
subject to our conscious direction. Moreover, much
of our activity is born of unthinking impulse, or is

in line with our disposition and established habits.
A situation arises and we react to it more or less
automatically, without thought or deliberation. Of-

ten, too, our behaviour is suggested by the example

of those around us. For many of the things we do
we can allege no better explanation than the fact
that we see other people doing them. Unconscious
imitation plays a very large role in our lives.

But ever and anon, we do something not at the
dictation of our nervous system, not as the result

of impulse or according to the pattern of habit, not

through the force of suggestion, but because we de-
liberately make up our minds to do it and not to do
something else. Two alternative lines of action lie
before us. Both are promising in some respects, not
so promising in others. We would like to have our
cake and we would like to eat it; not being able to
do both, we must make a choice. We are aware of

}



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 37

an inward sense of conflict in our desires. We think,
we ponder, we deliberate, and finally we choose the
course that seems wiser. Perhaps the event proves
that the choice was not wise, and then we exper-
ience regret, or perhaps remorse. We know we have
only ourselves to blame. On the other hand, if we
have chosen the better part, the result is satisfac-

tion, a sense of having done well, the elation of vic-

tory. Experiences of this kind—and who is stranger
to them?—prove that we possess a mental endow-
ment in virtue of which we can perform an action,
or abstain from it, can perform one action rather*
than another, when all the conditions requisite for
the performance of such an action are given. In

other words, experiences of this kind prove that the

will of man is free.
A concrete example might make the matter clear-

er. The summer is at hand and you are thinking of
your vacation. There is a certain outing you have
been dreaming of for a long time. It promises rest
and change, interesting things to see and to do. It
would cost you in the neighborhood of one hundred
dollars and you have that amount of money in the
bank.

But the trouble is that you have been saving this
money, a little here, a little there, to pay a debt that
is long past due. Your creditor has been very pa-
tient, and you feel that in all fairness you should
settle with him. Perhaps he needs the money and
your tardiness has put him to considerable incon-
venience. At any rate, it is a just debt and must
be paid sooner or later.

You find yourself faced with the necessity of mak-
ing a decision as between two plans of action, both
of which are attractive, either of which you are



38 “THE MORAL ORDER” AND

enable of carrying through. You begin to weigh
one against the other. Shall I pay the debt, or shall
I take the vacation? If I pay the debt, I shall win
peace of mind. This obligation has been weighing
upon me. It has been more or less of an embarass-
ment; find myself avoiding the man to whom I am
beholden. The spectre of my debt haunts me and
touches with unpleasantness each otherwise plea-
sant moment.

On the other hand, the prospect of an outing is
inviting. He waited this long, he should not mind
waiting a while longer. I will return with renewed
vigor and be ready to work harder and make great-
er sacrifices. I can save another hundred dollars in
a much shorter time.

But still, the thought of my indebtedness might
spoil the vacation. He may make things a bit diffi-
cult for me, when he sees me squandering money
that belongs to him on mere luxury. Besides, it is
not quite honest. I would have the sense of being to

some extent a thief.
And thus you argue with yourself, putting the

case for the vacation against the case for paying

your debt. Gradually you become convinced that you
owe it to yourself, to your own integrity and sense
of honor, to use the money for its original purpose.
You will postpone the outing until some future time
when you can afford it. You dismiss the case for
the vacation from your mind, guide your thoughts
away from it, refuse to pay attention any longer to
its importunings. You concentrate on the reasons
why you should pay the debt and you decide to send
a check at once.

This is a typical instance of the exercise of free

will. Our consciousness presents us with a choice



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 39

between two motives. We deliberate within our-
selves, knowing that we are free to decide one way
or the other. We make our choice and accept its
consequences. We did not act on impulse, we were
not constrained by anything or anyone. The decision
is our own, freely and deliberately made, and we
are responsible for it.

However, one can be free without being absolute-

ly free. There are degrees of responsibility. For all
the ridiculous vaporings of its popularizing camp
followers, there is much of fundamental soundness
in the science known as mental hygiene. The world
if full of sham psychiatrists, but there is such a
thing as genuine psychiatry. There are hidden ten-
dencies in all of us, unconscious motives, which af-
fect our behaviour, even though they do not control
it. Some of these tendencies we inherit, others are
due to the environment in which we were reared, to
the education we received, particularly in early
childhood. They interfere with straight thinking,
generate points of view that are more emotional
than intelligent, weaken the power of the will. They
limit our freedom.

We are fully responsible for an action only when
it has been performed with sufficient reflection and
full consent of the will. A man whose mind is
shrouded in ignorance and error, who is highly emo-
tional, whose will is hesitant, unsteady, lacking in
energy, is not accountable for his shortcomings, in

the same degree as a man whose mind is clear and
well-formed, whose feelings are disciplined, whose
will is strong and masterful. But he is accountable,
and deserving of praise or blame, reward or punish-
ment, to the extent that he knew what he was doing
and freely chose to do it. The final verdict rests with



40 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

God, Who alone can scrutinize the hearts and reins
of men.
When we are tempted to condemn the conduct

of our fellow-man, it is good to recall the prayer of
our Crucified Saviour, “Father, forgive them for
they know not what they do.” To understand all, is
to forgive all. We can hate and detest sin, and at
the same time love the sinner. For what do we know
of the’ hidden conflicts, the crooked twists in the

mind, the obsessing fears in the heart, the inherited

weaknesses in the will, that handicap him in his
struggle against temptation?

But in dealing with ourselves, there should be no
quarter. He is a weakling and a moral coward who
is constantly excusing to himself his delinquencies,

blaming them on his disposition, his ancestors, his
environment. Granted that we are at times surpris-
ed into performing unworthy actions, by motives of
which we were unconscious, our cue is not to sur-
render, but to fight. Our failure should be a trum-
pet call to battle. We search our souls, track the im-
pulse that betrayed us to its lair, see ourselves as

we really are, take humble inventory of our defi-
ciencies, and then in the light of a sobering know-
ledge of self, we take steps to strengthen ourselves
against the return of temptation. Power is made
perfect in infirmity; and, if we do our share, God
will not be wanting with His grace. “I can do all
things in Him that strengthens me.”
“You sh&ll know the truth, and the truth shall

make you free.” It is through Faith in Jesus Christ,
that we achieve the full liberty of the sons of God.
In His light we see Hie light and darkness is dis-
pelled from our minds. Cooperation with His grace

brings power and discipline to our wills. His spirit



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS 41

dwelling in our hearts casts out fear and strength-
ens us with might according to the inward man. In
his teachings we find the surest formula for man-
tal health. His word is like healing oil poured forth
on our troubled souls. May He teach us to love what
He commands and to desire what He promises, that
amid the uncertainties of this world, we may place
our affections where joys are real.

I



42 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

The Voice of Conscience
(Address delivered by Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D., in the

Catholic Hour, May 25, 1930)

science? Of its existence we are all aware. A
voice in the depths of our souls, it pronounces judg-

ment on our actions. Its approval brings us peace
and joy; when it condemns, we are filled with re-
gret and remorse. It is the tutor of our wills, direct-
ing them, guiding them, and helping them to bear
the tremendous responsibility of freedom. Because

of its insistence, “ought” becomes a more important
word than “can”. Whence does it come, this voice of
conscience, what does it express?

Is it the expression of my personal whims, the in-
dex of my selfish desires? Is it synonymous with
self? Evidently not, for it is constantly sitting in

judgment of self and contradicting its demands.
The aftermath of self-indulgence is misery, whereas
our happiest moments are those which follow in
the wake of some act of self-denial. The first lesson
that conscience teaches us is that we are not suffi-
cient unto ourselves, that we do not explain our own
existence, and that the cravings of self-love are not
the norm of our behaviour. It subjects the inward
urge to an outward law.
But perhaps conscience is just a canny instinct

that enables me to sense the personal advantage or
disadvantage that is inherent in some line of beha-
viour. It sounds a danger signal when I am about
to do something that will cause me pain ; it lends me
a sense of assurance when I am about to embark
on a course of action that will yield me pleasure. Its
function is utilitarian.

is this mysterious thing called con-



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 43

But this explanation does not fit the facts.
Following the dictates of my conscience, I find that
I must often immolate personal advantage on the
altar of impersonal principle. My reward is pain
rather than pleasure. So true is this, that the very

word conscience is closely associated in our minds
with such other words as courage, effort, sacrifice.
It suggests the difficult thing, the thing that is hard

tc do, and not the thing that pays.

Is conscience the reflex in my mind of public
opinion? Does it echo the voice of the multitude?

Once more the answer is No. The moral judgments
of the crowd may be wrong. He who dances to its
piping is usually a traitor to his nobler self. Human
respect belongs to the category of less worthy mo-
tives. People may acclaim me, they may celebrate
my conquests, and call me hero; but if I have won
my victory by devious methods, if I have achieved
eminence by trickery and deceit, if injustice has
been my staff, then the roar of the crowd will be
drowned out by the still, small voice, and the very
praise of men will torture me. The great moral
heroes of history were not conspicuously popular
wfith the multitude; there was a day when public
opinion expressed itself in the cry “Crucify Him”.
Someone suggests that the State is the explana-

tion of conscience. Conscience is the internal ex-

pression of public law and statute. How then ac-
count for the historical fact that men have shed
their life blood defending the rights of conscience

against the encroachments of the State? Conscience
exists prior to the law, sits in judgment on the law,
provides it with its only adequate sanction. Then too
the domain over which conscience holds sway is
much more extensive than that which the law en-



i4 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

visages. The state can only moderate my external ac-
tions, my public conduct. It cannot control my
thoughts and the concerns of my private life. But
nothing escapes the vigilance of conscience. It de-

mands of me an accounting for my most hidden
thoughts and desires, my most secret words and
deeds.

No, it is not self, not utility, not public opinion,

not the State, that speaks with the accents of con-

science. None of these factors can explain its auth-
ority. Its origin cannot be traced to anything creat-

ed. The voice of conscience is the voice of God!
Perhaps a bit of analysis will help us at this point.

What is it that conscience really does? It judges,
does it not, hands down a verdict concerning our
actions, insists that this is right, that is wrong?
Now in our minds we make judgments of many dif-
ferent kinds. We say that something is true or false,
ugly or beautiful. Sometimes the judgment is hard
to make and is forthcoming only after much thought1

and gtudy; at other times we pronounce it im-
mediately the evidence is presented to us. For in-
stance, it does not take any argument to convince a
normal man that he exists, that things equal to the
same thing are equal to each other, that rasping noi-
ses are unlovely, that harmony is beautiful. Certain
truths are self-evident, certain canons of beauty un-

impeachable.

In like manner, we make judgments in the field of
morals. Sometimes we hesitate about concluding that
something is bad or good, until we have had time to
examine the case and to ponder over its various as-

pects. But at other times we say at once, this is bad,
this is good. We do not have to think twice in order
to condemn obvious ingratitude, irreverence toward



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS" 45

parents, betrayal of confidence. Our intelligence
grasps immediately the immoral character of such
traits. We just know that they are wrong.

In a word, the mind that has the power to recog-
nize truth and error, that knows why one thing is
beautiful and another ugly, has also the faculty of
distinguishing between good and evil.

Now when the mind makes such a judgment, not
about anything in general, not about something that
has no particular relation to me, but about my own
conduct, I call it conscience. I am tempted to take an
unfair advantage of my neighbor in some business
transaction. Immediately there is born in me a con-
viction that this action is wrong. Something bids
me desist, warns me that I am making a mistake,
A voice whispers—“Thou shalt not.” If I hearken,
I experience a feeling of satisfaction, a sense of hav-

ing done well. If I persist in my course, I feel de-
graded, defeated, unhappy and become the prey of
regret and remorse. This is conscience. I define it as
a practical judgment of the mind concerning the
rectitude of some specific action of my own.

But, you object, a moment ago you said that con-
science is the voice of God, and now you say it is a
practical judgment of the mind. How do you square
these two statements? I answer, the contradiction
you note is only apparent. The judgment of the
mind is ultimately the expression of the will of God.
The truth of this statement is easily demonstrat-

ed. My conscience tells me, “You ought to do this

—

you ought not to do that.” That sense of “ought” is
inborn in all of us. Now when anyone tells me I
ought to do something, I immediately ask him,
why? And so I interrogate my conscience. Why
ought I do this; why ought I not do that? Whence



46 ‘THE MORAL ORDER” AND

comes this sense of ought? Not from the law sure-
ly, because the law does not cover matters of this
kind. Not from public opinion, because the judg-
ments of men do not bother me, and besides I can
do this without anyone being the wiser. I want to
do this thing to please myself, for my own gratifica-
tion, to satisfy my own desires. Am I not my own
master? Do I not exist fundamentally for myself?
And conscience answers: “You do not exist for

yourself, you cannot find within yourself the source
of happiness. As a matter of fact, you are constant-
ly avoiding your own company. You are ever striv-
ing to get away from yourself, either in imagina-
tion or reality. You cover your true self with the
mantle of fancy, take on elements from the environ-
ment in which you live, the books you read, the
plays you see. You assume postures that are bor-
rowed, play the mountebank to your own admiring
gaze. But let stern reality strip you of your preten-
sions, reveal you to your own consciousness as you
really are, and you will see the pitiable futility of
self. You will know how inadequate you are as an
explanation of your own existence; you will know
that you were made for a purpose outside of your-
self, and that you find yourself only in the degree in
which you lose yourself in that purpose.”

Conscience thus bears witness to us of a Creator

who fashioned us and formed us. To Him we be-
long. In His eternal design^ we discover the secret
of happiness. A shoe is meaningful when it clothes
a foot, as the cobbler intended it should. It is ridi-

culous as an ornament on the drawing room table.
We achieve our destiny by fulfilling the purpose of
our Maker, by living as He expects us to live, by
doing good and avoiding evil. Conscience can 'fight-



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 47

ly be called the Voice of God, because by reminding
us of what we ought to do, it reveals to us His Holy
Will.

We can see at once how vitally important it is for
us to safeguard the authority of this inward voice.
Conscience might be compared to the mechanism
that steers a ship: Let anything happen to it, and
moral shipwreck is inevitable. Or with St. Ber-
nard, we might call it the mirror of the soul: let
it be defective and it will show forth a distorted
image of self, like the mirrors that are sometimes

found in places of public amusement.

In the name of conscience we should be zealous
for the truth. My judgment as to whether my con-
duct in any given case is right or wrong, depends
upon what I know about right and wrong in general.
If I entertain false notions of morality, if my moral
sense has been corrupted by error, my conscience
will be obscured by ignorance and doubt, and will
lead me away from God, instead of towards Him. A
criminal whose childhood education was received at
the hands of a street gang has a conscience, a sense
of right and wrong; but his fundamental notions
of what is right and what is wrong are false. A
man whose mind has been fed on error, whose ideas
concerning God are wrong, who cherishes false no-
tions concerning the nature and destiny of man. who
has misread history, and misinterpreted his own ex-
perience, who has fashioned for himself as a con-
sequence a materialistic, self-centered philosophy

of life, will have a conscience that is dangerous for
all of us. When men boast that they have opinions
but no convictions, when they prefer a guess to an
established truth, when they prate of a new moral-
ity, you can be sure that error has dulled their sense



48 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

of responsibility and that conscience has lost its
sense of direction.

But wrong thinking is not the only enemy of
conscience

; wrong doing is equally pernicious.
Whilst conscience is essentially an intellectual acti-
vity, it has its emotional concomitants. If I obey its

dictates, I feel happy ; if I disobey them, I feel mis-
erable. I experience the pain of remorse, the torture

of self-condemnation. Now by continually and con-
sistently disobeying the voice of conscience, a man
can harden his heart and render it insensible to
these feelings. He knows he is doing wrong, but he
feels no compunction about it. Sin drugs his moral
impressibility. He is no longer sensitive to it. Thus
does conscience lose its sanction. It is a matter of

common experience that the punishment of sin is
more sin. Our propensity to form bad habits has
something to do with this, but the real explanation

is the hardness of heart, the callousness, that results

from every deliberate refusal to obey the whisper-
ings of conscience.

Surely there is no human endowment to compare
with an enlightened, upright, sensitive conscience.
Without it great learning is futile, and tremendous
energy fatal. It is the pledge of a happy, hopeful

life. It insures clean living, order and harmony in
thought and deed. It develops that knowledge of God
which yields true knowledge of self. For conscience
tells me that God is holy, that in Him there is no
spot nor defilement. It tells me that being made ac-
cording to His image and likeness, I too have the
capacity for holiness, that I am destined to be god-
like. According to this standard, it judges my con-
duct, condemning what is wrong, praising what is
right. Under its tutelage I come to know myself and



“MARY, THE MOTHER OP JESUS” 49

discover every hidden weakness, every unsuspected
strength.

“Know thyself,” was the admonition of the an-
cient philosopher. Fundamental wisdom this, yet
how few of us are guided by it. We are astonished at
lack of self-knowledge in other people. How can he
be such a bore? Does he not realize that he is wear-
ing us to distraction ? How can she be so ridiculous ?
Does she not sense the fact that she is making her-
self a laughing-stock? Yet all the while others are
saying like things about us. They behold our mean-
ness, our pettiness, our vanity, our deceit, our ego-

tism, and they marvel at the smugness with which
we take ourselves for granted. They note the con-
trast between our pretensions and our actual worth

;

a contrast which escapes us because we are so busy
pretending. And thus it happens, that we go on from
year to year, living in a moral fool’s paradise, mak-
ing the same mistakes, nursing the same faults, de-
luded by vanity, advancing not one step in the direc-
tion of self-improvement.

All of which would be so different, did we but
hearken to conscience and scrutinize ourselves in

its light. It is our great means of achieving true
knowledge of self. It dissipates the murky vapors of
self-love and helps us to see ourselves as God sees
us. It stimulates that noblest appetite in our souls,

the appetite for goodness, the hunger and thirst
after justice. In revealing to us our shortcomings,

it does not discourage us, for at the same time it
makes us conscious of our perfectibility. Sinner that
you are, it whispers, coward, ingrate, sluggard,

braggart, you can, with the grace of God, be perfect

as your Heavenly Father is perfect.



50 ‘THE MORAL ORDER” AND

The Will of God
(Address delivered by Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D., in the

Catholic Hour, June 1, 1930)

fj appiness has been the goal of all human striving.
It has been the quest of the race from the begin-

ning until now. Our hearts are alive with desires.
We want health and wealth, the love and affection
of friends

; we need truth and beauty and goodness

;

we yearn for peace and security. But the common
denominator of all of these is happiness. We dream
of the moment when every hunger will be satisfied,
every thirst slaked, when joy will be all in all. Bliss
without alloy, felicity without worry, satisfaction

without care, gladness without vexation of spirit,

fruition without stint or limit, delight without dis-

content—happiness, the lode star of our souls.
But where shall we find happiness? Not in the

pleasures of the senses, surely, for who has not
known the spiritual nausea that results from cater-
ing to the body? Not in the enhancement of self, for
self is an empty, futile thing. Not in human beings,
for they are too intent on their own concerns to
yield us more than a hurried thought. With the best
will in the world, they can share with us but a frac-

tion of themselves. Conscience reveals to us the se-

cret of happiness, when it whispers to us, “Well
done, thou good and faithful servant.” Joy fills our
hearts, for we know that we are accomplishing the
will of God.

For we were made for God; we belong to Him.
“For my own sake I made thee and formed thee and
fashioned thee. For my own sake have I done it,
and my glory I shall give to no other.” It is to show
forth the invisible things of God that we exist; it



MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS' 51

is to fulfill His purposes that we were brought into
being. There is nothing about you that would de-
mand your existence. In yourself you are not neces-
sary to the scheme of things. It is easy to conceive

of someone else doing better the things that you are

doing, someone making better use of your oppor-
tunities, someone else laboring more productively
for the common good. Why, then, do you exist and
not another one for you? There is only one answer.
You exist because God wanted you, because from all
eternity He foresaw a person just like you and
through such a person decreed to accomplish certain

ends. He called you before the earth was made and
the mountains and the sea were formed. He has
something for you to do. If there is to be rhyme and
reason to your life, you must find out what this
something is.

Nor has He left you in the dark concerning His de-
signs. He has given you the light of reason, whereby
you can read His message as He has written it on
the face of creation. Everywhere you look you be-
hold the reign of law. Science is nothing more than
the attempt to ferret out and to codify the laws of
God that govern nature. The stars in the heavens
whirl through space along paths that He has mark-
ed out for them, governed by laws of energy, mo-
tion and attraction, that astronomy has scarce be-
gun to understand. Geology studies the laws that
have governed the development of the earth. Bot-

any addresses itself to the problem of plant life and
reveals to us the wisdom of God as it is seen in the
life history of the tree, the flower, the shrub, and
the waving grain. The animal world is the domain
of the biologist, and the mysteries of life become
less mysterious as his microscope discovers evidence



52 “THE MORAL ORDER” AND

of order and harmony. The psychologist searches
human consciousness and on the basis of his findings
formulates the laws that seem to govern the mind.
Chemistry and physicsraise their voices andjoin with
the rest in proclaiming that not blind chance or un-
disciplined force, but an all-wise Intelligence, dir-
ects the powers of creation.
“The heavens are telling the glory of God and

the firmament declares the work of His hands.”
“The invisible things of Him from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made.”
But reason tells you that as a human being you

are not like other creatures. You have being in com-
mon with the rock, vitality in common with the
plant, sensitivity in common with the animal. You
have a body which is subject to the physical laws
of development, growth, and decay. But you also
have a soul which is not subject to these laws. The
animal has instinct, but you have intelligence. The
animal is governed by its physical needs and impul-

ses, you have free will. The animal perishes with its
body; your soul survives the grave. Lower creation
obeys God blindly; what He expects of you is a
reasonable service, the service of a rational being.

Your intelligence convinces you of God’s right to
your fealty; it tells you specifically through con-

science what this fealty implies. But, for the rest,
you are left free to choose whether or not you will

serve, whether or not you will seek happiness in

the ways that God has marked out for you, or will
take your chance on finding it the service of self.

As a result of original sin, man became vain in
his thoughts and his foolish heart was darkened.
Knowing the justice of God through reason, lm did



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 53

not understand it. He changed the truth of God into
a lie and worshipped the creature rather than the
Creator. God had pity on his ignorance and from
the thundering summits of Sinai He proclaimed
anew His Law. Here was no abrogation of the law
of nature; here was no contradiction of the dic-
tates of reason. The law written on two tablets of
stone did not repeal the law that was written on
the fleshly tablets of the heart. It was not a substitu-
tion but a commentary and a clarification. Because
of sin, man had lost his sense of direction and his
powers of straight thinking. He needed a friendly
mentor and guide. He was prone to forget the pur-
pose of his existence. Revelation now comes to the
aid of reason and God sums up His Will in Ten
Commandments.

“If you will enter into life,” says the Saviour,
“keep the Commandments.” Submission to the law
of God does not fetter our souls; it frees them. It
liberates them from the thraldom of self-love and
slavery to creatures and endows them with the
freedom of the sons of God. It makes for life an
abundance of life, for that noble exercise of all
our vital powers that spells happiness.

There are the first three Commandments that
remind us of our obligation to adore God as our
Maker, to honor Him and pay Him reverence, to
consecrate one day of the week to His public wor-
ship. They forbid us to pay to creatures the honor
which is due to God alone. They condemn irreligion,
infidelity and superstitution, blasphemy and sacri-
lege. They frown on such Sabbath Day activities as
would reveal a contempt for God’s supreme domin-
ion over all things. Their life-giving purpose is to

keep us in contact with the Source of Life. They



54 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

make us conscious of the fact that in Him, “we live
and move and have our being,” that away from
Him is darkness and death. Without Him, we can
do nothing, but when He strengthens us we can do
all things. From the first three commandments we
learn the life-giving power of prayer.

“Honor thy father and thy mother.” This Com-
mandment takes us into the home and paints for us a
picture of the happiness which results when parents •
and children dwell together in the unity of affection.
It goes well with human beings when parental
authority is respectable and respected, when par-
ents rule wisely and sons and daughters are obed-
ient. The home is society’s fundamental unit; it
answers a basic human need. Within its sacred con-
fines are learned the lessons of love, with all that

love implies of loyalty, self-sacrifice, self-control,

generosity, cooperation, sympathy, and helpfulness.
It satisfies the hunger for companionship, the while

it nurtures respect for self. It is the nursery of pa-

triotism. It is life’s novitiate, and those who have
missed its joys are forever haunted by a sense of

thwarted incompleteness.

“Thou shalt not kill.” God is the giver of life and
He alone has the right to take it away. Human life
is sacred and woe to him that lays murderous hand
upon it. The Law of God forbids us to do anything
that would tend to destroy or shorten either our

own lives or the lives of others. It commands us to
use the proper means to preserve health and puts

the seal of its approval on every reasonable measure

that human authority devises for the improvement
of the physical well-being of the race. It recognizes

the intimate relation between the soul and the body



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 55

and suggests that the mind is sanest when the body
is most sound.

In the wonderful ways of God human beings have
been called to cooperate with Him in the work of
creation. Through them the stream of life is car-
ried forward and the race increases and multiplies.
They have been gifted with the sacred power of
sex. But let them use this power for their own sel-
fish purposes, let it become a means of sensual grati-
fication, an end in itself, and at once it is an agent
of death and destruction. Misused it tears down,
debilitates, weakens, enervates, kills. It muddles

the mind and saps the power of the will. “Thou
shalt not commit adultery”. “Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor’s wife.”

A lie is an instrument that deals death, for it de-
prives our fellow-man of the truth to which he has a
right and thus unjustly limits the fullness of his
existence. Truth is always the harbinger of free-

dom, the messenger of life. God forbids me to bear
false witness against my neighbor, to use my pow-
er of speech to defraud him, to deprive him of his
good name, to interfere with his possibilities by rob-
bing him of his reputation. He bids me remember
that a good name is better than riches.
But riches, too, are necessary to some degree for

fullness of life. We need to possess things if we are
to survive in the struggle for existence. The right
to property is inherent in our nature. And so the
Commandment of God forbids us to steal. I dare not
take from my neighbor what belongs to him. Theft
is a crime, as are cheating, fraudulent business trans-

action, starvation wages, wasting time for which we
are paid, unreasonable profits, refusal to pay just

debts, failure to live up to such public obligations as



56 THE MORAL ORDER” AND

taxes. All of these are just so many different ways
and means of limiting the life of our fellow man.
“Thou shalt not steal, nor even covet thy neigh-
bor’s goods.”

In the Ten Commandments we find the secret of
happiness, because we find the secret of life. They
tell us how to live as God intended us to live, how
to achieve the destiny for which He created us.
They tell us nothing more than our own minds could
tell us, were they not shrouded in the ignorance of
original sin. There is nothing in them that contra-
dicts the legitimate demands of our nature; they
only condemn the unnatural yearnings that were
born of the Fall.

The perfection of the Ten Commandments is
found in the Law of Jesus Christ. “I am not come
to destroy the Law but to fulfill it.” The law sets us
free from the bondage of sin; Christ tells us how
to use this liberty. The Law forbids wrong-doing;
Christ counsels perfection in doing good. He re-
veals the beauty of detachment from riches and
promises the Kingdom of Heaven to those who are
poor in spirit. He bids us transmute the murderous
hatred that might tempt us to kill, into meekness

which shall possess the land. Not pleasure-seeking
but penance and self-discipline is the way to happi-
ness, for those who mourn shall be comforted. Not
those who covet what does not belong to them but
those who hunger and thirst after justice shall have
their fill. Blessed are the merciful for they shall ob-

tain mercy. Blessed are the clean of Heart, for they

shall see God. The peacemakers, who by obedience
and reverence at home and abroad make other people
happy, whose love is zealous for the well-being of

their fellow roan, shall be called the children of God.



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS” 57

If in the name of truth and justice, for the defense
of principles, you have been hated and hounded,
take heart, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. And
let those who in the name of Jesus Christ and for
His sake have been reviled and persecuted, defraud-
ed and derided, be glad and rejoice, for their reward
is very great in heaven.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He came
that we might have life and have it in abundance. By
example He shwoed us the way that we must travel,
by word He taught us the truth that we must know,
if we are to be completely, fully, perfectly alive in
Him. “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is per-
fect,” is the ideal He sets before us. Death to self,
life to Christ, is the formula for Christian living. “I

have crucified my flesh with its vices and concupi-
scences,” writes St. Paul, “And now I live, no not
I, but Christ lives in me.”

We hear more or less talk nowadays about the
New Morality. We are told that the Ten Command-
ments are outworn and that the Eight Beatitudes
are impracticable. Our whole concept of right and
wrong needs revision, so they say. The argument
seems to be based on the assumption that the Law
of God does not work. In spite of its plain language,
people insist on being disobedient, murderous, im-

moral, dishonest, irreligious,—particularly, immoral.
Hence they say, “Let us make a virtue out of neces-
sity. We will make the liar honest by welcoming the
lie into the company of noble deeds. We will make
the impure man pure by making impurity respect-
able. We will devise a moral order based on what
people want to do, regardless of what they ought to
do. We will still the voice of conscience by destroy-
ing conscience altogether.”



58 'THE MORAL ORDER” AND

All of which is predicted on the assumption that
the Will of God, as revealed in the Ten Command-
ments and in the teaching of Jesus Christ, has fail-
ed to direct men into the paths of happiness. Which
assumption is utterly gratuitous and contrary to all
the facts. Men have always found happiness in the
degree that their conduct approximated the stand-
ards set forth in the Revealed Word of God, for the
Revealed Word of God is in complete accord with
the vital needs of human nature. It is not the fact
that someone tells him that his deed is sinful that
makes the sinner miserable, as they would have us
believe: it is the realization that his conduct has

betrayed his better nature. The good man is happy
because he is living as he was made to live, and con-
sequently realizes that he is justifying his existence.

If you are looking for evidences of true happiness
read the lives of the saints. Their overmastering

ideal was perfect fulfillment of the Will of God. They
cherished a horror of even the slightest deliberate

fault, and sought to bring themselves into complete
conformity with the spirit of the Gospels. Often

they were poor and hungry and homeless. They
were ignored and scoffed at and mocked. The world
called them fools, for their lives showed forth Christ
Crucified and to the world this is always folly. Yet
they exercised a tremendous effect upon human
history. Dying, behold they lived and were sources
of life to others,—to the poor, the children, the op-
pressed, the ignorant, the sick. Sorrowful, they were
always rejoicing; needy they enriched many. Hav-
ing nothing, they possessed all things. Their joy

was complete and no man could take it away from
them.

The world has never been able to understand them,



“MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS 59

and it cannot understand them to day. Nor is this to
be wondered at —for,

The love of Jesus what it is,
None but His loved ones know.



CARDINAL HAYES STATES AIMS

OF THE CATHOLIC RADIO HOUR

(.Extract from his address at the inaugural program in the
Studio of the National Broadcasting Company, New York
City, March 2, 1930).

Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the
National Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all
who, by their financial support, have made it possible to use
this offer of the National Broadcasting Company. The heavy
expense of managing and financing a weekly program, its
musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent answering of

inquiries, must be met. That responsibility rests upon the
National Council of Catholic Men ....

This radio hour is for all the people of the United States.

To our fellow-citizens, in this word of dedication, we wish to
express a cordial greeting and, indeed, congratulations. For
this radio hour is one of service to America, which certainly

will listen in interestedly, and even sympathetically, I am
sure, to the voice of the ancient Church with its historic
background of all the centuries of the Christian era, and

with its own notable contribution to the discovery, explora-
tion, foundation and growth of our glorious Country. . . .

Thus to voice before a vast public the Catholic Church is
no light task. Our prayers will be with those who have that
task in hand. We feel certain that it will have both the
good will and the good wishes of the great majority of our
country-men. Surely, there is no true lover of our Country
who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less material,
and a more spiritual standard among our people.

With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympa-
thy for all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue.
So may it be fulfilled. This word of dedication voices, there-
fore, the hope that this radio hour may serve to make known,
to explain with the charity of Christ, our faith, which we
love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve to make
better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven: a strength, and a power divine
through Christ: pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating
our common every-day duties and joys, bringing not only
justice but gladness and peace to our searching and ques-
tioning hearts.



RADIO STATIONS BROADCASTING THE “CATHOLIC
HOUR”

Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic Men

(The National Broadcasting Company, through the coopera-
tion of its Associated Stations, furnishes, without charge,
the facilities by which this nation-wide weekly broadcast
is made possible).

New York WEAP New Orleans WSMB
Boston WEEI Jacksonville WJAX
Providence WJAR Miami WIOD
Worcester WTAG Richmond, Va. WRVA
Portland, Me. WCSH Clearwater, Fla. WFLA
Philadelphia* WFI St. Petersburg, Fla. WSUN
Philadelphia* WLIT Jackson, Miss. WJDX
Washington WRC Memphis WMC
Schnectady WGY Nashville WSM
Buffalo WBEN Fort Worth WBAP
Pittsburgh WCAE Houston KPRC
Detroit WWJ Oklahoma City WKY
Akron WFJC Tulsa KVOO
Cincinnati WSAI San Antonio WOAI
St. Louis KSD Phoenix, Ariz. KTAR
Chicago WENR Denver KOA
Davenport* woe Portland, Ore. KGW
Des Moines* WHO San Francisco KPO
Omaha WOW Oakland KGO
Kansas City WDAF Los Angeles KECA
Duluth-Superior WEBC Seattle KOMO
Minneapolis-St. Paul KSTP Spokane EHQ

These stations broadcast Catholic Hour alternate week*



OTHER RADIO TALKS PUBLISHED

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR is the authorized publisher of all
Catholic Hour Radio addresses in pamphlet form. The following
is a list of these pamphlets published up to date:

“The Divine Romance,” the seven lectures delivered by the
Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, Ph. D., D.D., LL. D., an 80-page pamphlet.
Single copy, price 20c postpaid. In quantities, $9.00 per 100.

“The Moral Order” and “Mary, the Mother of Jesus,” the
six addresses by the Rev. George Johnson, a 64-page pamphlet.
Single copy, price 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“A Trilogy on Prayer,” the three addresses by the Rev.
Thomas F. Burke, a 32-page pamphlet. Single copy, price 10c
postpaid. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Story of the Bible,” the five addresses by the Rev. Dr.
Francis L. Keenan, a 64-page pamphlet. Single copy, price 15c
postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Four Religious Founders,” a collection of the five addresses
by Rev. Dr. Francis J. Connell, C. SS. R., Rev. Benedict Bradley,
O. S. B., Rev. Thoma£ M. Schwertner, O. P., Rev. Sigmund
Cratz, O. M. Cap., and Rev. M. J. Ahern, S. J., a 56-page pamph-
let. Single copy, price 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Philosophy of Catholic Education,” the three addresses
by the Rev. Dr. Charles L. O’Donnell, a 32-page pamphlet. Sin-
gle copy, price 10 postpaid. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Christianity and the Modern Mind,” the six addresses by the
Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., a 64-page pamphlet. Single copy,
price 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Moral Law,” the eight addresses by the Rev. James M.
Gillis, C. S. P., editor of the Catholic World, an 88 page pamph-
let. Single copy, price 25c postpaid. In quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“Christ and His Church,” the eight addresses by the Rt. Rev.
Msgr. Joseph M. Corrigan, D.D., LL.D., an 88-page pamphlet.
Single copy, price 25c postpaid. In quantities, $9.50 per 100.





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