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THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

by

Fulton J. Sheen, Ph. D., LL. D., Agrege en Philosophie,

University of Louvain, Belgium; Catholic University

of America.

Fifteen addresses delivered in the Catholic Hour, sponsored by the
• National Council of Catholic Men, with the co-operation

of the National Broadcasting Company and its
Associated Stations

(On Sundays from January 1 to April 16, 1933)*

I. Homeless at Home.

II. The Interior Sinai.

III. The Emergence of Morals.

IV. The Penalty of Neglect.

V. Dying to Live.

VI. Roses in God’s Garden.

VII. The Bond Until Death.

VIII. Cords of Adam.

IX. The Fruit of Love.

X. The Death of Life.

XI. The Great Assize.

XII. Purifying Flames.

XIII. Hell.

XIV. The Paradox of Salvation.

XV. The Joy of Defeat.

*N. B.—“The Seven Last Words”, delivered on Palm Sunday, April
9, 1933, is published separately.

COPYRIGHTED 193-3

National Council of Catholic Men
Sponsor of the Catholic Hour

1314 Massachusetts Avenue

Washington, D. C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor

Huntington. Indiana



Imprimatur:

i^.JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D. D.,

Bishop of Fort Wayne

DeaddWsd



AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

These sermons, originally delivered over the Catholic

Hour, sought to illumine souls concerning the moral life. Now

they are set down in printed form in order that they may

continue that same apostolic mission. The ear has heard,

and now the eye can see. It remains for the heart and soul

to embrace.

The author will* not feel that his work has enjoyed any

success, even though its reception be great or its praise high,

unless at least a single soul who may have chanced to read
it, is lifted up to a better living of that life which is Divine,

a better understanding of that Truth which is the Word, and

a deeper love of that Love which is the Spirit of God. In a

world that is constantly looking for new faiths, new religions,
and new creeds, there can be nothing more new or novel than
to begin to practise and live the Truths of Christianity.

FULTON J. SHEEN.



Child of God and Mother of God

Holy Virgin Immaculate Sinless Refuge of Sinners

I give Thee Thine own giving
Loving thoughts of one who would love more
Deign them to accept and offer to our King.



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 5

THE HOMELESS AT HOME
Address delivered on January 1, 1933.

Every artist has the feeling of being at home in

his studio, every patriot at home in his own country,

and every man at home in his house. One should

therefore expect that the Creator would be at home

in His own creation and that God should be at home

in the world He had made. And yet the most start-

ling fact of human history is that when God came

to earth He was homeless at home. ^‘He came unto

His own and His own received Him not.” Ere yet

the great portals of the flesh swung open, Mary and

Joseph sought in vain for a place where might be

born the One to Whom the heavens and the earth
belonged. And so when human history shall have

written its last word in the scrolls of time, the sad-

dest line of all will be:
—

‘There was no room in

the inn.”

There was room in the inn for those who bore

on their breasts the screaming eagles of Rome ; there

was room for the daughters of the rich merchants

of the East; there was room for all clothed in fine

purple and soft garments
;
there was room for every-

one—except the foster Father and the Mother of
the One Who was to bring redemption to the world.

And so away from the inn, and out to the stable

they had to go, to a crude cave in which shepherds

drove their flocks in storms. In that little haven,



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

with manger beasts as companions, and at a central

point between the three great civilizations of Mem-

phis, Athens and Rome something happened—^the
only thing in the world that ever happened and

mattered. That which happened was nothing less

than Heaven being found on the earth as the Cry of

a God cried out in the cry of a Child.

A startling paradox indeed: when God came to

earth there was no room in the inn, but there was

room in a stable. What lesson is hidden behind the

inn and the stable ? What is an inn, but the gather-

ing place of public opinion, the focal point of the

world’s moods, the residence of the worldly, the ral-

lying place of the fashionable, and those who count

in the management of the world’s affairs? What is

a stable, but the place of outcasts, the refuge of

beasts, and the shelter of the valueless, and there-

fore the symbol of those who in the eyes of public

opinion do not count, and hence may be ignored as

of no great value or moment? Anyone in the world

would have expected to have found Divinity in an

inn, but no one would have expected to have found

It in a stable. Divinity, therefore, is always where

you least expect to find it.

If in those days the stars of the heavens by some

magic touch had folded themselves together as silver

words, and announced the birth of the Expected of

the Nations, where would the world have gone in

search of Him ? The world would have searched for

the Babe in some palace by the Tiber, or in some

gilded house of Athens, or in some inn of a great

city where gathered the rich, mighty and powerful

ones of earth. They would not have been the least

surprised to have found the new born King of Kings

stretched out in a cradle of gold and surrounded by



7THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

kings and philosophers paying to Him their tribute

and obeisance. But they would have been surprised

to have discovered Him in a manger laid on coarse

straw and warmed by the breath of oxen, as if in

atonement for the coldness of the hearts of men.

No one would have expected that the One Whose

fingers could stop the turning of Arcturus would be

smaller than the head of an ox; that He Who could

hurl the ball of fire into the heavens would one day

be warmed by the breath of beasts ; or that He Who

could make a canopy of stars would be shielded from

a stormy sky by the roof of a stable ; or that He Who

made the earth as His future home would be home-

less at home. No one, I say, would have expected to

find Divinity in such a condition ; but that is because

Divinity is always where you least expect to find it.

I wonder if that is not the reason why the mod-

ern world misses the discovery of Divinity. There

is no doubt that it is seeking Divinity if for no other

reason than because it feels its own insufficiency and

craves a God Who will bring pardon for its sins and

healing oil for its wounds. It seeks a Divinity Who

will deliver it from the terrible restlessness and

emptiness of life. But where does it seek that Di-

vinity? It seeks it in the inns where gather the

publicized, the propagandized, the popular and the

modern.

The modern world looks for Divinity and the

solution of its ills in the superman of H. G. Wells, in

the humanism of Irving Babbitt, in the sexualism

of Sigmund Freud, in the cynicism of Bertrand

Russell, in the naturalism of modern religion, in the

book of the month, in the re-interpreted Christ, in

the new morals, in the new psychology, in the new

science—but in none of these inns is Divinity to be



8 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

found. As it was not in the inn in the first century,

so it shall not be found in the inn of the twentieth

century, for what is true of the first day is true of

our own : Divinity is always where you least expect

to find it.

Suppose now that it was suggested to the mod-

ern world that the Divinity it seeks is to be found

in the Church
;
suppose that it was hinted to all who

are seeking for Divinity that the truth it craves is

to be found only in the Vicar of Christ, who, as an-

other Peter, articulates the mind of Christ
;
that the

Divine Life for which it yearns is to be found only

in the seven branch fountain of the Sacraments;

that the pardon it begs, drops from an uplifted hand

in the confessional; that only in the Church’s atti-

tude toward marriage can our national fabric be

preserved; and only in the Church’s morality can

personal virtue be regained
;
suppose, I say, that the

modern world today was told that Bethlehem contin-

ued to our own day; that by some great miracle of

God’s love the stable is now the tabernacle
;
the man-

ger is now the ciborium
;
the straw is now the Altar

flowers
;
the swaddling bands are now the white spe-

cies of bread, and that the Body and Blood, Soul

and Divinity of Christ is living amongst us in that

tabernacle just as really and truly as in the crib

—

Suppose, I say, that such a startling declaration was

made to our day and age—and such a statement is
just as true as it is startling—^what would be the an-
swer of the modern world? It would say: 'That is

absurd. The Church is antiquated, unmodern, be-

hind the times
;
it is ignored by all the great Univer-

ties of our land; its dogmas are myths; its moral,

passe; its belief in the Real Presence of Christ on

the Altar, impossible. Why should Our Lord ever



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 9

live under the species of bread? Why should truth

be sought in that which the world ignores? No one

today ever thinks of going to the Church in search of

Divinity.” But that is just exactly what the world

thought in the first century: No one ever thought

of going to a stable in search of the Truth and Life

of the Son of God. But that is most likely where

it is to be found, for Divinity is always where you

least expect to find it.

The world has always missed Divinity either

because it has sought it in the wrong places, or be-

cause it has ignored the wrong things. It has sought

Divinity in power, in popularity, in progress, in

science
;
it has ignored the possibility of ever finding

it in simplicity, in the unexpected, in defeat and in

frailty. And yet the sign of Divinity will always

be the sign of seeming weakness: “This will be

to you a sign : A Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,
lying in a manger.” The world has always sought

Divinity in the power of a Babel, but never in the

weakness of a Bethlehem; it has searched for it in

the inns of popular opinion, but never in the stable

of the ignored
;
it has looked for it in the cradles of

gold but never in the cribs of straw. Always in

power, but never in weakness. But Divinity came

to earthly life in the form of a helpless Babe, and

left it in the form of a helpless Man. If God, there-

fore, is to be found by us. He must be sought in

weakness and defeat, but a weakness under which

there is power, and a defeat after which there is

victory.

God will be found only by those who sing the

Hymn of the Conquered and search the forgotten
stables and scan the ignoble crosses. I would have

you remember this great lesson of the Incarnation



10 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

as I unfold the great Drama of Christian Morality.

I shall declare unto you such old themes as God as

the ground of morality, the necessity of mortifica-

tion, the beauty of a retired life, the sanctity of mar-

riage, the fact of sin, the need of Redemption, future

judgment, the existence of hell, the joy of defeat—all
the pillars of the Christian moral edifice—but now
so long forgotten as to be new

;
all homeless truths,

for the inns of the modern world ignore them; all

homeless truths because there are few who take them

to heart, all homeless maxims because welcomed only

by those whom the world ignores, all homeless gifts

like the Babe of Bethlehem. The world certainly

does not expect to find Divinity in such a homeless

moral—but Divinity is always where you least ex-
pect to find it, and only where He was homeless, are

you and I at home.

—

This world is wild as an old wive’s tale.

And strange the plain things are.
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war.

But our rest is as far as the fire drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clash and thunder unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening,
Home shall all men come.
To an older place than Eden

And a taller town than Rome.

To the end of the way of the wandering star.
To the things that cannot be and that are,

,

To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home.



THE HYMN OP THE CONQUERED 11

THE INTERIOR SINAI

Address delivered on January 8, 1933.

Modern science has explored the whole surface

of the earth, made the sea reveal the secrets of its

depths, the sun tell the story of its wanderings, and

the stars the mystery of their light—^but all this
exploration is external. Modern man has done little

yet to explore that region which is nearest to him,

and yet most unknown, namely, the depths of his

own conscience. To such an exploration I would

invite you.

What is conscience? Conscience is an interior

government, exercising the same functions as all

human government, namely, legislative, executive

and judicial. It has its Congress, its President, and

its Supreme Court, it makes laws, it witnesses our

actions in relation to the laws, and finally it judges

us.

First of all, conscience legislates. One needs only

to live to know that there is in each of us an interior

Sinai, from which is promulgated amid the thunder

and lightning of daily life, a law telling us to do good

and avoid evil. That interior voice fills us with a

sense of responsibility, reminding us, not that we

must do certain things, but that we ought to do cer-

tain things, for the diiference between a machine and

a man is the difference between rmist and ought.

Without even being consulted, conscience plays its



12 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

legislative role, pronouncing some actions to be in

themselves evil and unjust, and others in themselves

moral and good. Hence when citizens fail to see a

relationship existing between a human law and the

law of their own conscience, they feel they are free

to disobey, and their justifying cry is, ‘‘My con-

science tells me it is wrong.”

Secondly, conscience not only is legislative, in

the sense that it lays down a law, but it is also execu-

tive, in the sense that it witnesses the application

of the law to actions. An imperfect, but helpful,

analogy is to be found in our own government. Con-

gress passes a law, then the President witnesses and

approves it, thus applying the law to the lives of citi-

zens. In like manner, conscience executes laws in the

sense that it witnesses the fidelity of our actions to

the law. Aided by memory, it tells us the value of

our actions, tells us if we were total masters of our-

selves, how much passion, environment, force and

fury infiuence us; whether our consequences were

foreseen or unforeseen; shows us, as in a mirror,

the footsteps of all our actions; points its finger at

the vestiges of our decisions
;
comes to us as a true

witness and says : “I was there, I saw you do it. You

had such and such an intention.” In the administra-

tion of human justice the law can call together only

those witnesses who have known me externally, but

conscience as a witness summons not only those who

saw me, but summons me who knows myself. And

whether I like it or not, I cannot lie to what it wit-

nesses against me.

Finally, conscience not only lays down laws, not

only witnesses my obedience or disobedience to them
but it also judges me accordingly. The breast of
every man bears a silent court of justice. Con-



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 13

science is the judge, sitting in judgment, handing

down decisions with such authority as to admit of

no appeal, for no one can appeal a judgment which

he brings against himself. That is why there gather

about the bar of conscience all the feelings and emo-

tions associated with right and wrong, namely, joy

and sorrow, peace and remorse, self-approval and

fear, praise and blame. If I do wrong it fills me with

a sense of guilt against which there is no escape,

for if the inmost sanctuary of my being is assaulted

by the stern voice of this judge, I am driven out of

myself by myself. Whence, then, can I fiy but to

myself with the sickening sense of guilt, remorse

and disgrace, which is the very hell of the soul. If,

on the contrary, conscience approves my action, then

there settles upon me, like the quiet of an evening

dew, the joy which is a stranger to the passing plea-

sures of sense. The world may call me guilty, its

courts may judge me criminal, its irons may weight

down my fiesh and bones like deep sea anchors, but

my soul builds a paradise within, against the raging

opposition without, and fioods it with an interior

peace which the world cannot give and which the

insults of the world cannot take from me.

“He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit in the center, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts

Benighted walks under mid-day sun

—

Himself in his own dungeon.”

Thus it is that by turning the searchlight into

the hidden recesses, I find that my conscience reveals
itself as making laws, witnessing my obedience to
them, and finally as passing on them judgments of

praise and blame, innocence and guilt. Manifestly,

this triple role, upon the model of which all human



14 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

government is based, must have a reason for its

order. But where seek it? If a normal intelligence,

looking out upon the order of the heavens and the

marvelous harmony of its brotherhood of orbs, pas-

sing by one another without a hitch or a halt,

reasons back to a Mind behind the universe, why

too should not one by looking into the world of con-

science with its laws and commands, its interlacings

of counsels and precepts, reason back to some great

Moral Governor as its source, which we call God?

Since the external nature of the heavens is orderly

and harmonious, I cannot suppose that the moral

law within my breast is disorderly and chaotic. If

there could never be a universe without a Mind, how

could there ever be a law without a Lawmaker ?

First of all, what is the source of the legislative

role of my conscience which bids me to do good and

avoid evil, but which does not make things right or

wrong anymore than the eye makes color red or

white? It merely lays down the law, thus betraying

that it is an intermediary between someone else and

me. This law is certainly not of my own making,

nor does it come from society.

It does not come from myself, for no one can be

his own legislator and a superior to himself. Furth-

ermore, if the law of conscience were of my own
making, I could unmake it, but I cannot do this, for

it comes to me in defiance of my own will. When my

will is set against hearing it, or even obeying it, it

comes as a delegate with absolute right to rule over

me. This means that I did not make it, but that I

am only free to obey it or to disobey it.

Neither does it come from society, for society is

merely the interpreter of the law of conscience and

not its author. Human laws may sanction it and



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 15

elaborate it, but they do not create it. The approval

or disapproval of society did not make the right and

wrong of my conscience, because sometimes con-

science bids us to flaunt the laws of society, when

they are inimical to the laws of God, as was the case

with the martyrs who died for the faith. Further-

more, every decent man and woman on the face of

the earth knows full well there are certain things

which should not be done, if he or she were the only

person on earth, and that right is right if nobody is

right, and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong.

If, therefore, the voice of that interior Sinai of

conscience is neither from me nor from society, and

if it is universal in its whisperings and articula-

tions, so that no moral creature can wholly shake it

off, it must be that behind this law there! is a Law-

maker, and behind this voice there is a Person, and

behind this command a Power, which we call God

Who has sealed upon every man coming into the
world the light which slays darkness and illumines

souls in the paths which lead to the land of peace

and the homeland of the children of liberty.

Secondly, what is the source of the executive

power of my conscience? I realize that my con-
science is a witness in a court-room, something, when

I am guilty, which comes to me with a “tnousand
several tongues and every tongue brings in a differ-

ent tale and every tale condemns me as a villain.”

Who is this witness within me who takes the
stand and turns state's evidence against me? Who
is this witness who cannot be bought by gold, nor

crushed by threats, nor won by praise? Who is this
great executive who accepts no excuse, but signs the

law made by conscience and applies its action ? Who



16 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

is this witness who is always upholding the cause of

truth and righteousness?

In vain do I say that it comes from society, for

conscience sometimes denies the testimony of society

and calls me vicious when society calls me virtuous.

In vain do I say that it comes from myself, for if it

did, then I could make it testify in my own defence,

as some alienists who witness to the truth of the

side which hires them. Since, therefore, my con-

science witnesses constantly to truth and righteous-

ness, and since this fidelity is not of my own making

nor the making of society, it must therefore be that

behind this Truth and Righteousness there is a Piety

and a Holiness; and since Piety and Holiness can

belong only to a Person, I must conclude that such

a Holy Person Who witnesses my actions is in some

way the same God as the Power Who laid down the

law of my conscience and now urges me to be faith-

ful unto it even for eternity.

Thirdly, the sentiments of praise and blame

which follov’ upon the judgment of conscience are

meaningless unless my actions are an offense against

a personal being. If men thought that they were

responsible for their evil thoughts and words and

actions to no one higher than themselves or their

fellows, it is inconceivable that the consciousness of

guilt and the fear of punishment would have been

what both heart and experience testify them to be.

Prayers and penances, sacrifices and atonements

would never have prevailed so widely if there were

no underlying sense of the existence of One before

Whom we are responsible and Whose wrath must be
turned aside. Were there no God to fear, the crim-

inal would never be so alive to his guilt and so

haunted and appalled by the fear of a judgment and



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 17

a justice more terrible than that of men. As Cardi-

nal Newman has put it: ‘‘Inanimate things cannot

stir our affections; these are correlative with per-

sons. If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are

ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the voice

of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom

we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed,

whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong,we

feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which

overwhelms us on hurting a mother; if, on doing

right, we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the

same soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on

our receiving praise from a father, we certainly

have within us the image of some person, to whom

our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find

our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom

we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we are

troubled and waste away. ... If the cause of these

emotions does not belong to this visible world, the

Object to which his perception is directed must be

Supernatural and Divine; and thus the phenomena

of conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress the im-

agination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a

Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive.”

Thus an examination of my conscience and its

triple role forces me to conclude that just as the

eye corresponds to things visible, the ear to things

audible, reason to things intelligible, so too the law

of my conscience must correspond to a Power which

legislates, the witness of my conscience must cor-

respond to a Righteousness which executes, and the

praise and blame of my conscience to a Justice which

judges, and since Power, Righteousness and Justice

correspond to the essential attributes of a Person,

I must conclude that that Personal Power is Intelli-



18 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

gent in order to make laws; that that Personal

Righteousness is All Knowing in order to have a

perfect insight into moral character; and that that

Personal Justice is Supreme in order to pass sen-

tences after His judgments. And that Wise Power,

All Knowing Righteousness, and Supreme Justice,

before Whom I kneel in sorrow even when I have not
broken a single law of the land, and confess with

deep anguish of soul, “Against Thee have I sinned”

;

that Power Who calls me away from the sin which

corrodes even when it does not glare, and under-

mines even when it does not crush
;
that Righteous-

ness Who has implanted a Spiritual law of gravita-

tion within me to draw me away from the earth,

beyond the stars to Himself as the Source of Life

and Truth and Love; that Justice Who has implant-

ed in me a spark which the wings of angels fan into

a flame of everlasting happiness—is the Power, the
Righteousness and the Justice which is God for

Whbm oUr hearts are restless until they end their
quest in Him; for

“There is a quest that calls me
In nights when I am lone.

The need to ride where the ways divide
The unknown from the known.

I mount what thought is near me
And soon I reach the place.

The tenuous rim where the Seen grows dim

And the Sightless hides its face.

“I have ridden the wind,

I have ridden the sea,

I have ridden the moon and stars,
I have set my feet in the stirrup seat
Of a comet coursing Mars.

And everywhere.
Thro’ earth and air

My thought speeds, lightning-shod,
It comes to a place where checking pace

It cries, ‘Beyond lies God.’
”



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 19

THE EMERGENCE OF MORALS
Address delivered on January 15, 1933.

If God is Power, Love and Justice, then why did

He create this kind of world? If He is powerful,

why does He permit evil? If He is Love, why does

He tolerate hate? If He is Justice, why does He

allow unrighteousness? These questions have, I

suppose, been asked by everyone whose eyes have

ever seen and whose minds have ever known the ter-

rible contrast between the sin of the world and the

goodness of God.

In order to answer correectly the question why

God made this kind of world, it is important first of

all to remember that this is not the only kind of world

that God could have made. He might have created

ten thousand other kinds of worlds, in which there

never would have been struggle, pain or sacrifice.

But this is the best possible kind that God could have

made for the purpose He had in mind. An artist is

to be judged not so much by the masterpiece he pro-

duces, as by the purpose he had in mind in creating

the masterpiece. An architect is not to be judged
a poor architect because he designs a bird house in-

stead of a cathedral, for his intention may have been
only to construct a haven for the winged creatures

of God instead of a dwelling for God Himself. In

like manner, God must not be judged only by this

particular kind of world which He created, but also
by the intention and will He had in making it.



20 THE HYMN OP THE CONQUERED

This brings us to the other question : What pur-

pose did God have in mind in making this kind of

world? The answer, very simply, is that God in-

tended to construct a moral universe. He willed

from all eternity to build a stage on which charac-

ters would emerge. He might, of course, have made

a world without morality, without virtue, without

character—a world in which each and everyone of
us would sprout virtues as an acorn sprouts an oak,

or a world in which each of us would become saints

with the same inexorable necessity that the chariot

of the sun mounts the morning sky, or the rain falls

to embrace the earth. God might have made us all

like so many sticks and stones, in which we would

be guided by the same necessity that fire is hot and

ice is cold. God might have done this, I say, but He

did not. And He did not because He willed a moral

universe in order that, by the right use of the gift

of freedom, characters might emerge. What does

God care for things, piled into the infinity of space,

even though they be diamonds, for if all the orbits

of heaven were so many jewels glittering like the

sun, what would their external but necessarily un-

disturbed balance mean to Him in comparison with

a single character, which could weave the skeins of

an apparently wrecked and ruined life into the beau-

tiful tapestry of saintliness and holiness? The choice

before God in creating the world lay between creat-

ing a purely mechanical universe, peopled by mere

automata, or creating a world of pure spiritual be-

ings, for whom the choice of good and evil was, at

any rate, a possibility.

Suppose, now, it be granted that God chose to

make a moral universe, or one in which characters

would emerge. What condition would have to be



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED ^

fulfilled in order to make morality possible? If God

chose to make a moral universe, then He had to make

man free, that is, endow him with the power to say

“yes” and “no”, and to be captain and master of
his

own fate and destiny. Morality implies responsi-

bility and duty, but these can exist only on condition

of freedom. Stones have no morals, because they

are not free. We do not praise iron because it be-

becomes heated by fire, nor do we condemn ice be-

cause it is melted by heat. Praise and blame can

be bestowed only on those who are masters of their

own will. It is only the man who has the possibility

of saying “no” who can have so much charm in his

heart when he says “yes”. Take this quality of

freedom away from a man, and it is no more possible

for him to be virtuous than it is for the blade of

grass which we tread beneath our feet. Take free-

dom away from life and there would be no more

reason to honor the fortitude of the martyrs who

offered their bodies as incense in testimony of their

faith, than to honor the flames which kindled their

faggots. Take away liberty and where would be the

concern in how children will mould their lives and

write their eternal destiny in the invisible ink of

their free choice. Take away freedom which gives

life the interest of an everlasting plot, and with how

little care would we watch the curtain rise, and with

what feeble regret would we watch the drop scene

fall.

Is it any impeachment of God that He chose

not to reign over an empire of chemicals? If there-

fore God has deliberately chosen a kind of empire

not to be ruled by force but by freedom, and if we

find His subjects able to act against His will, as

stars and atoms cannot, does this not prove that



22 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

He has possibly given to them the chance of break-

ing allegiance, in order that there may be meaning

and glory in that allegiance when they freely choose

to give it?

We have said that God chose to make a moral

universe, and secondly, that He could make a moral

universe only on condition that He made man free.

This being so, we have an answer to the question,

why does God permit evil? The possibility of evil

is in some way bound up with the freedom of man.

Since man was free to love, he was free to hate;

since he was free to obey, he was free to rebel;

since he was free enough to be praised for goodness,

he was free enough to be blamed for his badness.

Virtue, in this present concrete order, is possible

only in those spheres in which it is possible to be

vicious; sacrifice is possible only in those levels in

which it is possible to be selfish
;
redemption is possi-

ble only in those realms where it is possible to be en-

slaved. The world has no heroes except in those

battles where every hero might have been a cow-

ard
;
the nation has no patriots except in those causes

where each patriot might have been a traitor; the

Church has no saints except in those hearts in which

each heart might have been a devil. Triumphal

arches are reared only to men who succeeded, but

who might have failed in the trying
;
niches are filled

only by the statues of those who might have trans-

gressed, but did not
;
monuments are erected only to

the memory of those who might have turned back,

and yet pushed on.

Take the danger and doubt away from life, and

where would be the heroism and faith? Let there

be no sorrow by night, no malady by day, and where

would be kindness and sacrifice? No watchful love



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 23

hovers over the invulnerable; no crown of merit

ever rests suspended over those who do not fight;

they might all go forth to battle and enterprise alone,

and be forgotten, followed by no musing fancy that

is flushed with their triumph, or anguished with

their fall. A world without contingency could have
no hero or no saint. There is no epic of the certain-

ties, and no lyric without the suspense of sorrow

and the sigh of fear, and there can be no morality

in the present order without the possibility of evil,

and no saints without the possibility of each one

becoming a Judas.

If, then,' the possibility of evil is in some way in-

volved in human freedom, one can immediately see

the absurdity of condemning God for allowing evil to

continue. How many there are who say, “If I were

God, I would immediately destroy all injustices and

evils.” To ask this, however, is to ask that God

contradict Himself
:
you ask that God should create

a thing free to choose between good and evil, and

yet oblige that thing to choose good. To ask that

God should create a man free to choose between

justice and injustice, and yet oblige him always to

choose justice and never be unjust, is to ask an ab-

surdity. Just as it is impossible in the very nature

of things for God to create me and not to create me,
to make me exist and not exist at the same time, so
it is impossible in the nature of things for God to
make me free and yet to make me a slave. God can-
not do anything which would contradict His nature,

not in the sense that He is bound by anything out-
side Himself, but because His nature is Justice itself.

And so those who would blame God for allowing
man freedom to go on hindering and thwarting His
work, are like those who, seeing the blots and



24 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

smudges and misspellings and grammatical errors

in a student’s notebook, would condemn the teacher

for not snatching away the book and doing the copy

himself. Just as the object of the teacher is sound

education and not the production of a neat and well-

written copy book, so the object of God is the devel-

opment of souls and not the production of biological

entities, however perfect they may be. There too,

is the answer to those who ask: “If God knew that

I would sin why did He make me?” Very simply,

insofar as I am a sinful being, God did not make me.

I made myself. I am a self-creating being. God

gave me power, but I am free to decide the manner

of man I shall be. Hence my success or failure is
in my own hands and I am responsible for the re-
sult.

If, then, the universe is moral, it follows that the

supreme choice which lies before us is that of obey-

ing the law of God, or rebelling against it. If you

choose to rebel against that law as though you were

your own, and as if Christ had never bought you

with His blood, then you must remain eternally in

the congregation of the dead. Not for you will be

the glory of consecrated knowledge
;
not for you the

rich blessings of Him Who turns a soul from the

error of its ways; not for you the steady love of

good, though it be persecuted, or the steady scorn

of evil, even though it be enthroned
;
but for you the

frivolous insipidity of unreverent amusements—^the
dull and discontented mind, ignoble when with an-

other, wretched when alone. Great deeds will be

done, but you will not be at their doing; high

thoughts will be uttered, but they shall awaken no

echo in the seared conscience and sodden heart. Be-

yond you shall sweep the God-like procession of the



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 25

nobly virtuous and the greatly wise, but you shall

not be found among their ranks. If you choose to

offend God, successful you may be, honored you may

be, rich you may be, praised by the world you may

be, “broad-minded” and “progressive” you may be,

alive to public opinion and to the new morals of the

day you may be, but you will never know how much

you have failed, as Barabbas never knew how much

he failed the day of his success. But you will be

dead ! dead to the life of Christ ! dead to the love of

God ! dead to the ageless peacefulness of eternity

!

If, on the contrary, you obey the laws of God and

live as if you were really destined for a life beyond

the grave the battle, in which the love of God gains

mastery over the love of self, may be fierce, and for

the short time of our bodily life every tree may be

a cross, every bush may be a crown of thorns, and

every friend may be a Judas. Poor you may be on

this earth, with no more comfort than a Carpenter

once had at Nazareth; sorrowful you may be as

each day brings to you a new cup of passion, filled

with the bitterness of Gethsemane
;
solitary you may

be with not even a Veronica to wipe away the salt

of righteous tears
;
scorned and ridiculed you may be

by a world of darkness that comprehends not the

light; thirsty you may be as your soul, in the fire

of its crucifixion, cries out for the cool draughts of

a Divine Refreshment
;
a failure you may be, an un-

worldly dreamer, a fool, but in all the world's burnt

wilderness your food shall be the Manna from the

Paradise of God, and your drink the Fountain of

Everlasting Life. But alive you shall be, alive to

Christ ! alive to the spirit ! alive to life ! alive to God

!

And if God is your life, then who can take it from

you?



26 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

THE PENALTY OF NEGLECT
Address delivered on January 22, 1933.

Since God chose to make a moral universe in

which, by the right of the gift of freedom, charac-

ters might emerge, then this world is a battleground

of the forces of good and evil. This being so, it is

important to ask ourselves if we may be distinterest-

ed in that struggle. There are two answers to this

question: one, the answer of the world; the other,

the answer of Our Blessed Lord. The answer of the

world is summed up in one word
—

‘"indifference”

;

the answer of Our Blessed Lord in the words, “The

Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the vio-

lent bear it away.” I shall suggest today why the

indifference of the modern world is wrong, and next

Sunday I shall suggest why the violence of Our

Blessed Lord is right.

In religious matters, the modern world believes

in indifference. Very simply, this means it has no

great loves and no great hates
;
no causes worth liv-

ing for and no causes worth dying for. It counts its

virtues by the vices from which it abstains, asks

that religion be easy and pleasant, sneers the term

“mystic” at those who are spiritually inclined, dis-

likes enthusiasm and loves benevolence, makes ele-

gance the test of virtue and hygiene the test of

morality, believes that one may be too religious but

never too refined. It holds that no one ever loses his



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 27

soul, except for some great and foul crime such as

murder. Briefly, the indifference of the world in-

cludes no true fear of God, no fervent zeal for His

honor, no deep hatred of sin, and no great concern

for eternal salvation. Such indifference has always

been in the world, and Our Blessed Lord has warned

that it shall be in it unto the end : ‘'And as it came

to pass in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the

days of the Son of man. They did eat and drink, they

married wives, and were given in marriage, until

the day that Noe entered into the ark: and the flood

came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it came to

pass, in the days of Lot : they did eat and drink, they

bought and sold, they planted and built. And in the

day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained Are and

brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of

man shall be revealed.

It is important to remember that such indiffer-

ence to our souls and the conflict of good and evil is

wholly wrong. As a matter of fact, we lose our souls

by the very process of not resisting the forces which

pull us down. This is true in the natural order as

well as in the spiritual. What is life, for example,

but the sum of those forces which resist death?

What is the biological principle of reversion to

type but a proof of how we may lose ourselves by

neglect? Suppose a bird fancier, through industry

and skillful mating, has brought a flock of pigeons

to a high degree of perfection as regards color and

form. Suppose, furthermore, they were brought to

a desert isle, and there abandoned. After many years

the bird fancier returns for his pigeons. He would

discover that they had lost the improvement which

was due to his skill and knowledge, and that their



28 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

highly developed colors had changed to a dull gray

slate.

What is true of the animal order, as regards

reversion to type, is true also of man. Man, too,

degenerates by the mere fact that he neglects.

Though there is within him a spiritual principle

which, like a flame, mounts upward to the heavens

heavenly with God, there is also within him some-

thing which drags him down to the earth earthly

with the beasts. Hence man is always conscious of

being a dual being: of wanting the better but of

sometimes choosing the worse. This force of degen-

eration within him, the consequence of original sin,

if it be not resisted by nature and grace, will even-

tually end in his reversion to the type Adam, or sin.

Hence the degeneration of the moral and intellectual

faculties of man follows like an inexorable law upon

his neglect to combat the forces which make for

spiritual death.

To illustrate this principle, suppose a man had

fallen from the eightieth floor of the Empire State

Building. In his rapid descent he would still be alive

as he passed the twenty-fifth floor, and yet no one

who saw him falling at that point would be sufficient-

ly an optimist to believe that he would escape, death,

simply because the principle of death is already in

him. The man had neglected to take the precautions

which would prevent the principle of death from

working itself out in his life, and because he neg-

lected, he must succumb. Or, suppose a man had

taken poison. As it begins to eat its way through the

gates and alleys of his body an antidote is brought

him. In order that the poison work out its law of

death, it is not necessary that the sick man violently

cast the antidote out of the window, or with a bias-



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 29

phemy against the one who brought it, throw it on

the floor. It merely suffices that he neglect to take

the remedy. So it is with the moral life of man. He

loses his soul not only by committing grave sins, but

also by neglecting to respond to the grace which

prevents sin and brings everlasting union with God.

What is it that dries up the wells of repentance

but the neglect of meditating on the heinousness of

sin ? What makes devotion well-nigh impossible, but

the neglect of prayer ? What makes God seem so far

away and so unreal, but the neglect of living in His

Holy Presence? What is it that drags a soul down

to hell but the neglect to lift itself up to heaven?

Let a man be solely at ease in himself, satisfled with

what he is, consenting to the customs of the world,

drawing in the unwholesome breath of reflned evil

and letting his moral inclinations run their natural

course without check or stay, and he will most surely

tide onward, with an easy and gentle motion, down

the broad current of eternal death, for in the langu-

age of Paul, “How shall we escape, if we neglect
...?»»

Even in this life there is a terrible penalty for

neglect. That penalty is the warping and the atro-

phying and the dulling of those faculties which were

meant to feed on the things of God. God gave us a

mind to know Him, a will to love Him, and a body to

serve Him. If these energies of body and soul are

neglected, by not lifting them up in adoration of the

Father from Whom all gifts come, nature takes a
terrible revenge. Something happens to us that

happens to the lower animals, namely, we lose the

.

use of those faculties and also the high objects to-

ward which they should have been directed. There

is some scientiflc warrant for the belief that the



30 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

mole was not always blind. It chose, however, to

spend its life underground and not to use its faculty

of vision. Nature, as if sitting in judgment, prac-

tically said to the mole: “If you will not use the

eyes which I have given you, then I shall strike you

blind.”

And so, the penalty of neglect is the surrender

of even the gifts which we have. It is this lesson

which Our Blessed Lord revealed in the Parable of

the Talents. “And to one he gave five talents, and

to another two, and to another one. . .” He that re-

ceived the five talents gained another five. In like

manner, he that received the two gained another

two. “But he that had received the one, going his

way digged into the earth, and hid his lord’s money.”

But when the reckoning day came, he who had re-

ceived the five talents and he who had received the

two talents, through their work having earned an-

other five and another two, were admitted into the

joy of the Lord. But he who had done nothing

with the gift which had been given him, but

merely hid it in the earth, had to suffer the penalty

of the forfeiture of the talent, for the Lord said:

“Take ye away therefore the talent from him. . . .”

The deprivation was the natural consequence

of his sloth. As the arm of a man, which is never

called into exercise, loses its strength by

degrees, and its muscles and its sinews disappear,

even so the powers which God gave us, when un-

exercised, fail and fade from us. “For to everyone

that hath shall be given, and he shall abound: but

from him that hath not, that also which he seemeth

to have shall be taken away.”

Our land is full of a great many men and

women who have neglected their talents, whose



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 31

spiritual faculties have dried up, through sheer

indifference, and who now no more think of God

than they think of the political situation in Tim-

buctoo. The eternal aspirations of their souls are

crushed, each inlet to Heaven is barricaded, every

talent is squandered, every faculty of the Divine so

bent on things of earth as to lose all relish for those

of spirit. Daily and hourly they lose their sensi-

tivity as regards the great realm of the soul. Just

as the deaf are dead to the harmonies of life, such

as the sigh of a waterfall and the rhythm of poetry

;

just as the blind are dead to the beauties of nature,

such as the colors of a rainbow and the smile of a

child; so too these atrophied souls are dead to the

sweet whisperings of the Holy Spirit and blind to

the dazzling vision of Jesus in the monstrance. It

was of such souls who neglected hearing the word

of God and seeing the vision of His Son, Our Blessed

Lord spoke, when He said : “. . . seeing they see not,

and hearing they hear not, neither do they under-

stand.’"

If, then, the penalty for neglect and indifference

is so terrible, should we not gird up the energy of

our moral nature for a struggle? The most watch-

ful must feel as one who cannot neglect for an hour,

even as the Apostles in the garden; the most aspir-

ing must feel as one who aims his shaft from a

strained and slackened bow; the most hopeful of

eternal life as one who must enter the narrow gate

and travel the straight road. Salvation is not the by-

play of idle hours ! When the mind is wearied of
ever toiling and is cloyed with the oppressive cus-

toms of the world, it must goad itself to remember

that redemption is not for those who bury their
talents in napkins. Across the centuries there



32 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUEREt)

comes the cry for strong men who will enter into

the struggle, take up their crosses, and persevere to

the end. From out high heaven, in thoughts of sweet

inspiration and actual grace, there comes the chal-

lenge to develop and perfect the faculties God has

given us, lest by our neglect and our abuse we lose

their use. Hands must not be neglected, but trained

to break the bread for the poor who come in the

name of Christ ; feet must not be neglected, but bid-

den zealously, like the Man of Nazareth, to go about
doing good; eyes must not be neglected by turning

them outward to the beauties of nature, but inward

to the soul where resides the beauty of the daughter

of the king; ears must not be neglected but attuned

to the delicate whisperings of the Trinity, taking up

Its abode in the soul and making of the body a verit-

able temple of God
;
hands must not be dulled, fumbl-

ing with the treasures which rust consumes and

moths eat and thieves break in and steal, but quick-

ened to enjoy, like the Canaanite woman, the touch

of the hem of the garment of God
; taste must not be

neglected by eating only the meat which perishes,

but refined to enjoy the Bread of Life and the Wine

which germinates virgins; the sense of smell must

not be neglected by dulling itself with the perfumes

of Arabia, but by absorbing the odor of sanctity

which emanates from every soul which has touched

the rod and root of Jesse; and finally, the heart must

not be neglected by loving only the embrace of that

which time steals away, but by loving that “Love we

fall just short of in all love and the Beauty which

leaves all other beauty pain. . . In a word, every

fiber, every muscle, every sense, every faculty must

be used to win the eternal crown, for may it not be

that all our indifference to the gifts and the graces



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 38

of God in this day and age is more crucifying to Our

Lord than the cruel intolerance which nailed Him

on a Cross?

“When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drave great nails through hands and feet, and made a

Calvary;

They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His
wounds and deep,

For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was
cheap.

“When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him
by.

They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give

Him pain.
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the

rain.

“Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what
they do,’

And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through
and through;

The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul
to see.

And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.”



34 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

DYING TO LIVE
Address delivered on January 29, 1933.

It is one of the curious anomalies of present day

civilization that when man achieves greatest control

over nature, he has the least control over himself.

The great boast of our age is our domination of the

universe: we have harnessed the waterfalls, made

the wind a slave to carry us on wings of steel, and

squeezed from the earth the secret of its age. Yet,

despite this mastery of nature, there perhaps never

was a time when man was less a master of himself.

He is equipped like a veritable giant to control the

forces of nature, but is as weak as a pigmy to con-

trol the forces of his passions and inclinations.

If, indeed, this life is a vale of character mak-

ing, and if it involves conflict with those forces and

powers which would drag us away from our ideals,

then it behooves us to realize that the truest con-

quest is self-conquest, that true progress may more

properly consist in mastering our rampant impulses

and selflsh desires, than in mastering the winds and

seas. But this conquest of self cannot be attained

except by a struggle which in Christian language

is mortiflcation. Mortification means dying to live

for the love of God.

First of all, it means dying to live. It is a law

of nature and grace that a higher life is purchased

only by dying to a lower one, or that we live to the

life of the spirit and the Kingdom of God only by



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 35

dying to this world, with its flesh and its concupi-

scence. Let me first of all recall the tremendous

emphasis which Our Blessed Lord placed upon this

aspect of mortification—^words which we but rarely
hear in these milk and water Christianities of our

day. “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless the grain

of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth

alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,”

“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the

gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruc-

tion, and many there are who go in thereat. How

narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that lead-

eth to life, and few there are that find it! ... If

any man will come after Me, let him deny himself,

and take up his cross, and follow Me. . . If any man

come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother,

and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,

yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
. . . And if thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off

;
it

is better for thee to enter into life, maimed, than

having two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable

fire : where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not

extinguished. And if thy foot scandalize thee, cut

it off. It is better for thee to enter lame into life

everlasting, than having two feet, to be cast into

the hell of unquenchable fire: where their worm
dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. And if
thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out. It is better for

thee with one eye to enter the kingdom of God, than

having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire : where

their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished..

. . . The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and

the violent bear it away. . . . For whosoever will

save his life, shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose

his life for My sake. . . , shall save it.”



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

These warnings sound strange to our lives,

moulded so often on the assumption that this life is

the only one we can be sure of, and hence, while we

have it, we should eat, drink and be merry, for to-

morrow we die. They sometimes are dismissed with

a shrug of the shoulders, as if such suggestions be-

longed to the past and should have no part in our

modern life of ease and luxury. I would therefore

,

suggest that the law of mortification, which consists

of dying to live, is one of the fundamental laws of

life and one which cannot be ignored by anyone who

knows the meaning and purpose of life. As the

poet has put it

:

“For birth hath in itself the germ of death.
But death hath in itself the germ of birth.

It is the falling acorn buds' the tree,

The falling rain that bears the greenery.

The fern-plants moulder when the ferns arise,
For there is nothing lives but something dies.

And there is nothing dies but something lives
Till skies be fugitives,

Till time, the hidden root of change, updries,

Are Birth and Death inseparable on earth;

For they are twain, yet one, and Death is Birth.”

Glance over the various levels of creation, the

chemical, the plant, the animal, the human order, and

see how well verified is the law that a higher life

is purchased only by death to a lower life.

Note that if the sunshine and the rain and the

chemicals of the earth are ever to enjoy communion

with plant life, so much as to be one with its organ-

ism and enjoy the thrill of living, they must sur-

render their form of existence in the lower order.

If the grass of the field is to enjoy communion with

the life of the animal and be so much with it that it

can see, taste, touch and smell with the animal, it



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 37

must die to its lower life; this means that as grass

it must be torn up from the soil by the very roots

and ground between the jaws of death. For death

is the condition of birth. If the sunshine and the

rain, if the plants and the flowers, if the animals

and the birds, if the great expanse of living things

are ever to enjoy communion with a higher life of

man, so much so' as to become a part of his life as

a thinking and loving being, they too must surrend-

er their lower lives and existences and pass through

the Calvary and the Gethsemane of death.

In like manner, if a man is ever to enter into the

higher life of Christ—and man has no right to say
there is no higher life than his own any more than

a rose has a right to say there is no higher life than

it—if he is ever to enjoy communion with Him, so
as to have the blood of God running in his veins and

the spirit of God throbbing in his soul, he must die

to the lower life of the flesh. Aye, he must be born

again, for unless a man is born to that life of God

by a death to the lower life of nature, he cannot

enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And hence the law

of Calvary is the law of every Christian: unless

there is the Cross there will never be the resur-

rection, unless there is the defeat of Calvary there

will never be the victory of Easter, unless there are

the nails there will never be the glorious wounds,

unless there is the garment of scorn, there will never

be the robes blazing like the sun, unless there is the

crown of thorns there will never be the halo of light,

unless there is the descent into the grave there will

never be the Ascension, for the law laid down at

the beginning of time which shall be effective until

time shall be no more, is that no one shall be crown-

ed unless he has struggled and overcome, and no one



38 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

shall enjoy the life of God until he has died to his

selfish self. But in this surrender of the lower life,

let it not be thought that mortification is a sign of

weakness
;
rather it is a sign of power : it is the will

controlling itself, submitting itself to defeat at its

own hands, in order to win its finest victory; it is

the making of the dead self a stepping stone to bet-

ter things and the conquest of self the condition of

the victory which brings everlasting peace and joy

with God.

Wrongly indeed do we think that Our Blessed

Lord might have saved us in some less costly way

than in emptying His Precious Blood from the chalice

of His Body. Oh, if He were only a teacher of human-

itarian ethics, if He were only a moral reformer,

then it might have sufficed for Him to show His

inimitable tenderness. His heavenly purity and His

melting kindness
;
then He might have sat like some

Greek teachers before Him in some market place or

on some porch, where the great minds of the world

might have sought out His wisdom and His counsel.

But if He was to be more than a teacher, if He was

to be the High Priest Who would not make a new

world but invigorate an old one, if He was to force

the human conscience to stand face to face with the

sternest sides of truth ere He disclosed His Divine

Remedy, then, unless the existing conditions of hu-

man life were to be altered. He had to die to the

ignominy of a Good Friday to live to the life of an

Eternal Easter. Since the servant is not above the

Master, how can we expect to avoid the law of

Christ?

“Could we but crush that ever-craving lust
For bliss, which kills all bliss; and lose our life.
Our barren unit life, to find again



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 39

A thousand lives in those for whom we die;
So were we men and women, and should hold
Our rightful place in God’s great universe,
Wherein, in heaven and earth, by will and nature,

Nought lives for self. All, all, from crown to footstool

The lamb, before the world’s foundation slain.

The angels, ministers to God’s elect;

The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers;

The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves.
Flee the decay of stagnant self-content;

The oak, ennobled by the shipwright’s axe;

The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower;
The flower which breeds a thousand velvet worms.

Bom only to be prey to every bird

—

All spend themselves on others; and shall man,

Whose twofold being is the mystic knot
Which couples earth and heaven—doubly bound,
As being both worm and angel, to that service
By which both worms and angels hold their lives

—

Shall he, whose very breath is debt on debt.

Refuse, forsooth, to see what God has made him?

No, let him show himself the creature’s lord

By free-will gift of that self-sacriflce
Which they, perforce, by nature’s law must suffer;

Take up his cross, and follow Christ the Lord.”

But mortification means not only dying to live.

Its fullest meaning embraces also its inspiration,

which is love, for the difference between pain and

sacrifice is love. Love is the soul of sacrifice. Every-

thing in nature testifies to this : the deer that fights

for its fawn, the bird that toils for its nestlings,

the spider that would die rather than drop its bag

of eggs—all these know that love is not worth
calling love unless it can dare and suffer for the one

it loves. That, too, is why I believe that we always
speak of arrows and darts of love—something that
wounds. The day man forgets that love is identical
with sacrifice, that day he will ask how a God of
love could demand mortification and self-denial. As
a matter of fact, the most intense human sufferings
and the bitterest arrows of outrageous fortunes be-

come softened and sometimes sweetened when they



40 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

are borne in love for another. A mother keeps vigil
over the bedside of her fever-stricken child : neigh-

bors call it sacrifice, but she calls it love; the hero

rushes into lapping tongues of fire to rescue his

friend : onlookers call it sacrifice, but he calls it love

;

the lover gives to his beloved a ring, not of tin or

strav^, but of diamonds and platinum : acquaintances

call it sacrifice, but he calls it love. And finally. Our

Blessed Lord empties Himself of His heavenly glory,

puts on the cloak of mortality, and goes down to the

horrible red death of a crucifixion : we call it sacri-

fice, but He calls it love : “Greater love than this no

man hath, that a man lay down his life for his

friends.''

Hence, whenever and wherever there is an in-

tense and passionate love of Christ and Him Cruci-

fied, sacrifice involved in crushing anything which

keeps one away from Him is not felt pain but the

sweetest kind of love, for what is pain but sacrifice

without love. The saint does not view sacrifice as an

executioner with a sword who will take away his

life, but as a yoke that is sweet and a burden that is

light. The devout do not hate life because life hates

them or because they have drunk of its dregs and

found them bitter, but because they love God more

and in loving God more they dislike anything which

would tear Him away. Oh, could the world but real-

ize that the love of Christ Crucified so possesses

thousands and tens of thousands of souls that they

would rather lose all the world and the riches thereof

than one second of intimacy with Him at the foot of

the Cross. Could it but sense the passionless passion

and wild tranquility with which such souls each

morning rush to the Communion rail to enjoy inti-

mate union with their changeless and understanding



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 41

Friend, Jesus in the Eucharist. Could it but dimly

guess how these Christ loving hearts rejoice in

carrying a Cross in order that by sharing in His

death they might also share in His resurrection!

Sacrifice for them is not a loss, but an exchange ; not

a suffering, but a dedication; not. a foregoing of the

enjoyable, but a conversion of passing pleasures into

an eternal and unchangeable joy. Sacrifice for them

is not pain, but love. Their only pain, in fact, is

their inability to do more for their Beloved. Like

ships which never know the full joy and the great

glory for which they were made until they are un-

moored from port and given over to the high seas

and strong winds, so neither do souls know the full

joy of their life until they too are unmoored from

the port of all worldly attachments and following

the words of Our Blessed Lord ‘‘launch out into the

deep.’’ Like coals, conscious of their own blackness,

they cast themselves into the fire of sacrifice, there

to become Christ-like in fiaming brilliance. Like the

logs of the forest, once in the consuming fire of the

love of the Cross, these souls sing their song, for

the log sings its song only in the fires which con-

sume. Possessed with the desire to be like their

Christ, none of them will come down from the Cal-

vary of this world with hands unscarred and white.

Like other Sauls made Pauls by their intense love

of the Saviour, there fioats up like burning incense

from their fiery hearts the words : “Who then shall

separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribula-

tions? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or

danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? I am sure

that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi-

palities, nor power, nor things present, nor things

to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any



42 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

other creature shall be able to separate us from the

love of God, which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord.”

The world which begins with pleasure instead of

ending with it perhaps can never understand why

such an intense love of Our Blessed Lord should ever

make souls want to die to live, and still be happy in

their death. But then, neither can the world ever

understand why the only recorded time that Our

Blessed Lord ever sang was when He went out in

the black, cruel night—to His Death

!



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 43

ROSES IN GOD’S GARDEN

Address delivered on February 5, 1933.

One cannot be indifferent in a moral universe

which involves the conflict of virtue and vice but

must exercise that violence which alone can bear

away the kingdom of heaven. This violence in

Christian language is mortification, the sole inspir-

ation of which is the love of God. There are many

ways to attain this love, among which two deserve

special mention: one is to seek the Divine love

through the Divine and that is the way of the re-

ligious life; the other is to seek the divine through

the human and that is the way of matrimony. Here
I am presently concerned with the first way of those
chosen souls who like moths leap into the flame,

there to be consumed by love and yet live in it.

In order that we might understand it aright,

two very important points must be borne in mind.

The first is that everyone in the world is in pursuit

not of the lovely which belongs to earth but of love

which belongs to God. And secondly, that the re-

ligious does it directly through purity; so that the

religious life may be defined as the pursuit of the

love of God through purity.

Firstly, every human heart in the world is on

the quest of the love of God even when it seems to

be loving the lovely. The first look that man be-

stowed on the visible universe at the beginning of

time was the sad look of Genesis; Adam found no



44 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

one like unto himself, and when God gave him a

companion like unto himself to people his solitude,

console his loneliness and share his embrace, he

found neither in her nor in all created nature the

satisfaction of his souFs desires and the full enjoy-

ment of his ecstatic energies. From that day on to

this all love seeks something beyond the material ob-

ject that it loves. Hence, there is something eternal

involved in the quest for love, for no man could ever

love anything unless he thought it eternal. The real

object of love is not flesh and blood, but the ideal

which flesh and blood evokes, for every human heart

seeks to eternalize and inflnitize the object of its

love. That is why in human love the chase has

sometimes the charm which the capture has not
;
that

is w^hy so often the possession of an earthly love

falls short of that for which we crave. That is why

it may correctly be said that love is blind; for it is

blind to defects, blind to evil, blind to limitations,

blind to death. That, too, is why all the poetry of

love is a cry and a moan, and the more pure it is, the

more it pleads; the more elevated it is above the

earth, the more it laments. If a cry of joy interrupts

this pleading, it is to celebrate the ravishing of an

hour, and then to fall back into the immensity of

desire. That is why our nature is fortifled by the

imagination which puts before us the thought of

the beautiful, so that when earthly beauty has faded

from our eyes, we might revive the ideal more beau-

tifully still in our imagination. The heart of man
then is not to blame if he fills the earth with his

chant of sorrow, for the real object of his love is

not the lovely which is of the kingdom of time, but

the Loveliness which is the heart of the pure and

infinite God.



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 45

It is from this flaming heart of God that the

sparks of our own poor hearts have been kindled.

This brings us to the essence of the religious life

which is not the indirect quest of the Divine through

the human, but the direct pursuit of the Divine

through purity. Oh! how little our modern world,

intoxicated by the wild jargon of sex, has under-

stood the soulful meaning of purity!

Pure love is a kind of holy of holies of which

the sacristan is purity. There are those who mock

at purity as something negative, or as a suppression

of a vital urge, or as a thing cold, inert and dead.

Purity is not something negative but something

positive. Just as mercy does not mean not being

cruel, or sparing people punishment, but rather

something plain and positive, so too purity does not

mean merely abstention from sexual wrong, it

means participation in the sublime, something flam-

ing and burning—like the Little Flower. Purity is
not a prudish or an hysterical disgust

;
but a rever-

ence for God and His creation, which consents to

nothing incompatible with the light of holiness

which shines upon us from the countenance of

Jesus. It is something which lives in the sight of

God’s ineffable purity and which sets the heart on

fire and opens the eyes to the vision of that which

only the clean of heart may see, and that vision is

so clean that it does not deny the existence of sex,

but remains untainted by its intoxicating breath. Its

prototype is the purest of the pure, theVirgin Mother,

who knew all and yet knew purity more; for when

the angel Gabriel announced to her that she was to

be the Mother of God, she replied : “How shall this

be, seeing I know not man?” Purity is not absten-



46 THE HYMN OP THE CONQUERED

tion from passion but the passionless passion which

makes of a Magdalene a saint and of an Augustine

a priest and a saint. It is something that revels in

the preciousness of the unopened bud, and to those

modern minds who would make it something frozen

and sterile, there should be the memory that at the

heart of love’s reddest rose may reign the whitest

purity. From every pure heart there goes to God

the prayer:

“Do Thou with Thy protecting hand
Shelter the flame Thy breath has fanned;

Let my heart’s reddest glow
Be, but as sun-flushed snow.

“And if they say that snow is cold,

0, Chastity, must they be told

The hand that’s chafed with snow
Takes a redoubled glow?

“That extreme cold like heat doth sear?
0 to this heart of love draw near.

And feel how scorching rise
Its white-cold purities!”

Such is in brief the religious life of consecrated

souls : the pursuit of God through purity. Although

many minds are willing to concede that the real

goal of the human heart is God, they are not willing

to admit that one should seek it directly, and hence

they raise a mild protest against the young man

and woman who leave the lights and glamours of

the world in the full bloom and blossom of life, for

the shades and shadows of the Cross where saints

are made. They can understand why a human heart

should weave the tendrils of its affection around a

passing love, but they cannot understand why those

tendrils should be rooted in a love that is eternal.

They can understand why youth should love the love-

ly, but they cannot understand why it should love



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 47

Love. They quickly comprehend why affection

should be directed toward an object which age cor-

rodes and death separates, but they cannot grasp

the meaning of an affection which death makes

more intimate and present. They can understand

why the human heart should love the spark, but they

cannot understand why it should love the Flame!

But, why should there not be hearts in the world

like Saint Agnes who could say before her martyr-

dom when an earthly love was presented to her:

“The kingdom of the world and every ornament

thereof have I scorned for the love of Jesus Christ,

my Lord, Whom I have seen and loved, in Whom

I have believed and Who is my love’s choice 1” Why
should there not be young men and women who

would put their whole selves at the disposal of God,

for the value of every gift is enhanced if it exists

solely for the one to whom it is given, fulfills no other

purpose and remains unshared? Why should there

not be hearts so much in love with God that they

should build walls around themselves, not to keep

themselves in, but to keep the world out? Why

should there not be Jameses and Johns and Marys

and Magdalens at the foot of the Crucifix of the

twentieth century as well as at the foot of the Cross

of the first? Why should there not be hearts whose

first love is their last love, which is the love of God ?

Why should there not be roses in God’s garden?
In an earthly garden is an earthly rose which has its

own father and mother, brothers and sisters, hopes

and aspirations for the future, its own joys and

sorrows, its own laughter when there is sunshine,

and its own tears when there is dew. Out into the

garden comes a human hand that plucks the rose
and destroys its life. The rose has a life and a right



48 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

to live that life, and yet no injustice is done nor mur-

der committed, for the hand of man is above the

rose in dignity and worth and may use the rose for

his own sweet purposes.

In the human family is a human rose with its

own real father and mother, brothers and sisters,

hopes and aspirations for the future, its own real

laughter and its own real tears. From out the high

heavens there comes the Hand of the. Everlasting

Gardener Who plucks up the human rose and de-

stroys its life, insofar as its human environment is

concerned, for that young man or woman has a hu-

man life and the right to live it. But there is no

injustice done nor murder committed, for as the

hand of man is above the earthly rose, so the Hand

of God is above the human soul, and may use it to

His own sweet purposes—and God’s purposes are
always sweet.

But it may be asked, what benefit accrues to the

poor rose which is plucked from the earthly garden ?

It is put into a crystal vase, refreshing waters are

poured on it from day to day; it is touched by hu-

man hands, it may even be pressed to human lips,

and like another John may be privileged to taber-
nacle its crimson head upon the breast of the Eu-

charistic Emmanuel. Its earthly life is shortened,

yes. But what a beautiful life it now begins to

lead with man

!

In like manner, when God plucks the young hu-

man heart from the garden of the human family,
it is placed in the crystal vase of His Church, re-

freshing waters of sanctifying grace are poured on

it from day to day, it is touched by the hands of the
Saints and the Mother of God, and is pressed in daily



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 49

communion to the Heart of Christ. Its human life

is shortened, yes. But what a beautiful life it now

begins to lead with God!

Such is the story of Love under the high patron-

age of the pure Mother Immaculate, the starry

treachery of whose eyes '‘tempts us back to Para-

dise.^’



50 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

THE BOND UNTIL DEATH
Address delivered on February 12, 1933.

The birth to the higher life of God is achieved

only by discipline. Individual discipline at its high-

est peak is the religious life. Social discipline in

its most general form is matrimony—though there
are few who think of it as such. It is a discipline

because it demands of both husband and wife loy-

alty, fidelity and sacrifice, through sickness and

health, joy and sorrow, poverty and affluence until

death do them part. Everyone knows that the

Church takes most seriously the words of Our

Blessed Lord, '‘What therefore God hath joined to-

gether, let no man put asunder but there are few

who know why she is so insistent on the sanctity of

the marriage bond. She has two reasons for such

emphasis—one drawn from the natural order and
the other from the supernatural order.

In the natural order, love is permanent and

abiding. In the language of love there are only two

thoughts
:
you alone, and always. _ In the hierogly-

phics of love there is only one symbol: two hearts

cut and interlocked in something stable and perma-

nent, like an oak tree. In the history of love there

is but one supreme devotion: the love of offspring.

It is a well-known observable fact that higher ani-

mals require a much longer parental care than lower

animals: the lower animals may therefore desert

their offspring immediately after birth. But with

a human father and mother, the situation is quite

different. The child has to be cared for not only



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 51

physically, but mentally as well. The more things

there are for the child to learn, the longer the child

must remain at the natural school for learning them,

and the longer his teachers must postpone the disso-

lution of their partnership.

In vain does one say that the function of teach-

ing can be fulfilled adequately by the state, for the

state cannot be the nurse in every nursery, nor the

government the governess in every playroom. There

is only one place where the human tradition can be

developed, and that is the home: there are only

two persons who can love those whom the state does

not tliink worth loving, and they are the father and

mother. The moment we realize the child can at-

tain the full development of heart and mind and

soul only through the ministrations of those who

love like parents, and not through those who only

superintend like the state, the more we see why the

relation between the sexes must remain normally

static and permanent.

Even when the education of the child has been

completed and it grows into its own separate life,

there develops in it a high sense of honor toward

those who brought it into being. Every reasonable

man and woman realizes how much they cost their

parents in terms of care and sacrifice. Some, per-

haps, never realize this completely until they them-

selves have children. But in varying degrees all

feel the need of “going back home’' to pay loving

tribute to a kind father and loving mother. The

parents, too, in their old age, look to their children

whom the mother nourished with her substance,
and the father with his labor, and whose successive

birthdays mark not only the milestones of years,
but the increase of love for their own flesh and



52 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

blood. Thus the sense of honor in children which

makes them conscious of the debt of love to their

parents, and the need of sympathy in parents which

makes them crave the tribute of their children’s af-

fection, equally suggest that only a union that death

alone can break can fully respond to the needs of

the human heart.

Such is the natural reason for the prominence of

marriage. In the supernatural order the Church,

after the manner of Our Blessed Lord, takes hold

of this permanent character of love in the order of

nature, and elevates the promise ‘T do” to the digni-

ty of a Sacrament. The love which is always ex-

pressing itself in terms of the eternal, and articu-

lating itself in such phrases as “till the sands of the

desert grow cold,” the Church seizes and refines by

finding a symbol of love more abiding still than even

the sands of the desert. She goes to the most per-

sonal, permanent and unbreakable union of love the

world has ever known, namely, the love of Christ for

human nature, and during the solemnity of the

Nuptial Mass reminds the young couple that they

are to love one another with the same indissoluble

love with which Our Blessed Lord loved the human

nature which He took from the womb of the Blessed

Mother. That love which desires to express itself in

terms of the permanent the Church models on the

great prototype of the marriage of God and man in

the Incarnation of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus

Christ. When God veiled the awful terror of His

glory, descended into the fiesh-girt Paradise of

Mary, and assumed human nature, He assumed it

not for an earthly life stretching from crib to cross,

but permanently and eternally through the risen



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 53

life of Easter Sunday and the glorious ascension to

the right hand of the Father.

Now, since Christian marriage of flesh and flesh

is modeled upon the permanent marriage of God

and man, the Church says that it, too, must take on

for life the character of permanence and indissolu-

bility. As the womb of the Blessed Mother was the

anvil of flesh upon which the Divine and human

nature of Christ were united under the Pentecostal

flame of the Holy Spirit in the unity of the Person,

so too the nuptial altar becomes the new anvil where-

on two loving hearts are fused and joined by a

flame of the Sacramental Spirit in the unity of the

flesh. Certainly this ideal of permanence is alone

enough to transmute mere physical desire into

something nobler than a Freudian urge, elevate the

permanency which natural love demands into an

indissoluble bond which Divine Love solicits, and

thrill young hearts to speak the words of Tobias:

^‘For we are the children of saints, and we must not

be joined together like heathens that know not God.”

Having reminded the young couple that their

unity is modeled upon the inseparable union of God

and man, the Church goes on to inquire what guar-

antees they will give that their love will be as per-

manent as their model, Jesus Christ. They may

answer, “We will give our word.” But the Church

responds, “Nations have broken their word, human

lovers have broken their vows before. Can you not

give a better bond than this, that your love for one

another will endure until death?” Then there comes

from them the answer which the Church demands

from every loving pair at its altar: “We Will give

the bond of our eternal salvation. We will seal it
with our belief that the promise we make to one



54 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

another is a promise made to God, Himself, and if

we are disloyal one to another, we shall forfeit the

most precious thing in all the world, namely, our

immortal souls.” When this bail of eternal salva-

tion has been given, the Church seals it, not with

a paper seal, but with the red seal of the precious

Body and Blood of Our Lord and Saviour in the

Communion of the Nuptial Mass. With their love

thus bonded at the foot of the Cross, and the bail of

their eternal salvation given in guarantee that in

sickness and in health, in riches and poverty they

will love until death, the Church pronounces them

man and wife. As the priest sees them turn from the

altar, united soul with soul and sealed with the blood

of Christ, ere yet they are united body with body,

he cannot help but think that such human love at

such a peak is God on a pilgrimage to earth. They,

too, realize as they go into their common life that

it is not love which makes them marry, but consent.

Love makes them want to marry, but it is their vow

one to another, sealed with a seal of their eternal

salvation, which makes them man and wife.

In the eyes of the Church, therefore, marriage

is a permanent union patterned upon the abiding

love of Christ for His Church, and not a terminable

pact of selfish passion which endures only as long

as the passion endures. By upholding such an ideal,

by asking such a guarantee, and by teaching the

sacredness of a vow, the Church makes marriage

serious. It practically tells the young couple the

same thing the sign over the cashier’s desk tells the

customer: “Count your change. No mistakes recti-

fied after leaving the window.” No one in all the

world loves lovers as much as the Church—but only
the lovers who mean what they say. Hence, the



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 55

Church refuses to permit anyone to loosen the bond

which has kept millions normal, and therefore will

not allow any man or woman, who gets himself or

herself into a hole, to burrow like a mole and under-

mine the whole mountain of society. She believes

that if people cannot mind their own business,

which is the business of loyalty, then she will not

free them to mind someone else’s business, or some-

one else’s babies. To her the hilarity associated

with divorce is like the hilarity of grave diggers in a

city swept by pestilence; she is opposed to divorce

not because she is unmodern but because marriage

makes people two in one flesh, and they can no more

be severed during the incarnate life of tKeir mutual

love than a head can be severed from a body. She

knows full well that if a man will not be a patriot
in his own country he will not be a patriot in anoth-

er
;
and that if he will not continue to love the first

woman whom he has chosen above all women in

the world, then he must be suspected of telling the

second the same vain promises. She asserts against

the world that no rascal shall be regarded as re-

spectful at that moment when he breaks from a

loving wife and chooses another woman. She is

willing to permit a woman to be released from a
drunken husband, but she says that the woman must
be content with that release, be satisfied with that

experience, and not seek another while he lives. In

other words, the Church will assent to a separation •

of man and woman when conditions become intoler-
able. She believes in a release of this kind, but not
when release is spelled with a hyphen.

There is a word that means little to nations that
repudiate their bonds; there is a word that means
nothing to men andwomenwho repudiate their vows;



56 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

but that same word means everything to those who

unite themselves in a bond under Our Blessed Lord

Who came to be the truth of the world, and that is

the word : '‘Honor.” To those who still believe in it,

each day brings not the burden of a forced union

but the accord of heart and heart, and soul and soul.

Just as two pieces of iron are fused into one by

flame and fire, so too are the minds and hearts of

husband and wife fused into one by the purging of

mutual sacrifice and tribulation which brings them

unto God. Succeeding years find them not as two

hearts with tangled and toneless strings, but an in-

strument so delicately attuned that love’s skillful

fingers need but brush over them to bring out their

hidden beauties. The new vision of the flame of

love comes to them, because they were faithful to

its spark, and they see that

“Not in marriage is the fulfillment of love, though
its earthly and temporal fulfillment may be therein;
for how can love, which is the desire of soul for soul,
attain satisfaction in the conjunction of body with body?

Poor indeed, if this were all the promise which love

unfolded to us—the encountering light of two flames
from within their close-shut lanterns. Therefore, sings

Dante, and sing all noble poets after him, that love in

this world is a pilgrim and a wanderer, journeying to

the New Jerusalem; not here is the consummation of its
yearnings, in that mere knocking at the gates of union

which we christen marriage, but beyond the pillars of

death and the corridors of the grave, in the union of

spirit to spirit within the containing Spirit of God.”

— (Francis Thompson.)



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 57

CORDS OF ADAM

Address delivered on February 19, 1933.

Marriage is meant to be a bond breakable only by

death, because love, by its nature, cannot be meas-

ured either by space or time. Yet despite the ideal

of marriage, the hard actualities of life make it end

sometimes in dismal ruin and failure. A moment

comes when the bonds, once meant to be as firm as

steel, now seem as frail as a silken cord, and affec-

tion, which once was delicate, now begins to take

things for granted. It is at this stage that love

needs a tonic, and loyalty needs re-enforcement.

Something must be done to keep husband and wife

together in order to fulfill their mutual social mis-

sion. The Church teaches that this tonic and re-en-

forcement is supplied by three things: first, by

greater emphasis on love and less on sex; secondly,

by loyalty to a vow
;
and thirdly, by love of children.

We are now living in what might be called the

era of carnality. The Victorian pretended sex did

not exist; our age says that it is the only thing

which exists. This one organic reaction has been

so insanely magnified, boomed, popularized, vulgar-

ized and propagandized, that it is no longer kept in

its own place, like enjoying a meal, or laughing at a

joke. Undoubtedly, sex has its particular part to

play in life, but it is beautiful only when it is part

of the whole, that is, part of that human nature

given to us by Almighty God, which is not only bio-

logical, but also intellectual, moral and religious. Its



58 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

isolation from, the whole nature of man, and its con-

sequent exaggeration has resulted in a wild orgy of

frenzied filth, which has destroyed the sense of chiv-

alry in men and the sense of delicacy in women.

The Church has been dealing with marriage for

twenty centuries, and yet nowhere in her marriage

ceremony does she speak of sex—but she does speak

of love. There is an important difference between

the two.

Sex is like a lightning flash between two drifting

clouds, a momentary brilliance followed by the

dread rumblings of thunder. Love is less like a

spark than a light, which goes out from the great

white throne of God, permeating, infusing and in-

dwelling in hearts and attuning them to the vibra-

tions of the Great Heart of God. Sex is a mutual

conflict in which two hearts pursuing, fall satiated

and cry out at the goal, “Enough!” But love has
|

no such word as “enough,” but only the word “al-
]

ways.” Sex takes life and ends in mutual slaugh-

ter
;
love, craving to give life, discovers itself in the

other and thus becomes immortal. Sex is the blind

wolf that lives by hunting, and after its feast of

blood it wearies of the chase and sleeps; love gives

its flesh and blood and lives in what it feeds—its
eucharist of love. Sex is a wild boar wallowing

among the lilies and yet always thirsty, for in vain

do hands think to snare the music who break the

lute
;
love is as the flight of a bird suffering the loss

of earth to purchase those higher and more rarified

levels where the spiritmoves with the glorious liberty

of the sons of God. Sex belongs to the animal
;
love

belongs to God. Hence if any of the depersonalized

and unsouled men and women of our day would re-

cover the happiness of their married life they must



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 59

seek it not in sex which is selfishness, but in love

which reached its highest peak and its sublimest

expression in the sacrifice of the Cross where a God-

man gave his life that we might live it in abundance.

The second remedy for the tedium of marriage is

loyalty to a vow, even from the psychological point

of view. A marriage vow is the one thing which

keeps couples together during the period of disil-

lusionment, and thus enables them to recover their

happiness. It is a psychological fact that great

pleasures are purchased only by surviving a moment

of tedium and great joys can be kept only on condi-

tion of enduring a moment of pain. It is only after

the shock of the first cold plunge that we can enjoy

the swim
;
it is only after long, weary hours of prac-

tice that we can enjoy rendering a sonata of Chopin

;

it is only after surviving the exercises of Latin

grammar that we can enjoy the wisdom of Thomas

Aquinas; it is only after the exhaustion of the first

mile’s walk that we get our “second wind,” and

enjoy the thrill of exercise.

In like manner, it is only after the disillusion-

ment which follows the first quarrel, or the irritation

of the first extended visit of an unwelcome relative,

that the couple get their second wind and begin to

enjoy their union and their togetherness. It is only

after the pain of the novitiate of self-wounding

falls, which seem to be the dark night of the soul,

that they discover the joy in lifting up one another

to God; it is only after the tedium of killing their

individual selfishness in mutual concession that they

come to the pleasure of communion one with anoth-
er

;
it is only from the ashes of self-love that they,

Phoenix-like, rise to that permanent pleasure of mu-
tual love which we call Christian marriage.



60 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

Having survived the Good Friday of disillusion-

ment, thanks to their loyalty to a vow, the couple

enter into the Easter of peace and joy. The rivers

of rapture deepen and broaden in the blended chan-

nel of love, and their mutual current flows on strong-

er, with the eddies of passion in the shallows. Then

the insatiate rock and strain of physical emotion re-

laxes, and they begin to taste without fever the

beautiful happiness of being together. Love, then,

becomes more conscious of its Messiahship, busies it-

self more with the Father’s business, and the couple’s

final reward for being faithful to the vow, for sur-

viving the moment of monotony, is the pleasure of
married life and the gift of a child from heaven,

\

which makes them an earthly trinity, and proclaims '

that God has not yet despaired of men.

The third way to avoid the tedium of marriage is

by making it fruitful. The love of husband for wife

and wife for husband has its seasons of transports

and ecstasies, but it also has its winter of disillusion-

ment. The husband, after a few years of married*

life, makes the startling discovery that the wife is

no longer a daughter of the gods, and the wife in

her turn soon realizes that he is no longer her strong

Apollo. The day soon comes when under the magic

but corroding touch of time, she loses the rose in her

cheeks, which not even art can restore, and he for-

feits the strong resolve to sacrifice all for his be-

loved, now even forgetting to send flowers on her

birthday. Her childish prattle, which once made

him laugh, now begins to get on his nerves, and his

repetition of old wise-cracks becomes as intolerable

to her as his habit of spilling ashes on the carpet.

Her mother, who once seemed sweet during the days

of courtship, now overstays her visit, and his elder



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 61

sister, who once seemed so jovial, is now a bore at

the evening bridge table. She, who was once a joy

to behold, is now commonplace, and he, who once

was her pride, is now the routine companion of the

breakfast table.

It is at this time, when beauty and strength have

fled, that modern marriages flounder and are brok-

en on the rocks of misunderstanding. But it should

not be so. Her beauty and his strength were not

meant to be permanent possessions. Beauty and

strength serve only the function of allurement.

When beauty has allured, it passes away with pa-

thetic dispatch; when strength has allured, it takes

wing and flies. It is not in the nature of these things

to continue.

But what can atone for their disappearance?

What can save the couple from the prolonged tedium

of their union ? At this time, when defects begin

to appear, when others seem younger and fairer,

stronger and sturdier, when love has lost its delica-

cy and the touch of the hand no longer thrills, then

there is nothing to counteract love’s sad satiety, to

crush mutual repulsion, to obliterate disillusionment,

to draw husband and wife out of themselves and

make them rejoice in their mutual creation as a

pair of baby arms which, encircling them, with

greater force than chains, makes them prisoners of

love.

As the daughters are born, she begins to live

again for him, and all her beauty is seen blooming

once more in the second springtime of the little
girls, who are nothing less than children of the
gods

;
as the sons are born, he begips to live again for

her, and all his strength and courage is seen flower-
ing in the little boys who are nothing less than



62 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

young Apollos. All that was fair and then grew old

is young again; all that was strong and then grew

weak is strong again. Childish prattle no longer

gets on his nerves, and though little Johnny would

divest himself of the same wise-crack daily, she in-

sists on having it repeated for each new visitor. His

mother now is not quite the crank she thought she

was, as she nurses the sick baby, and his sister is

not the bore she thought, as she supplies the play-

things. The breakfast table now becomes peopled

with happy faces, even though they sometimes do

smile through tears and make human rainbows.

When Mary and John make their First Communion,

hands clasp which had almost forgotten to clasp,

and when Johnny serves his first Mass, lips meet

which had not met since the scene over the visit of

the mother-in-law; and when Joe learns to say the

“Hail Mary,” a new purpose of life possesses both

:

hopes for the future are reborn ; the patter of little

feet is like the song of birds announcing the spring-

time; affection becomes fresh; the allurements of

beauty and strength return; and each new child

which is born becomes another bead in the great

rosary of love, uniting them in the imprisoning

arms of God’s little ones.

Eyes once bent earthward, after the manner of

the beast which has missed its proper luminary, be-

come, after the arrival of little children, eyes that

look back to a home of long, long ago, in the little

mountain town of Nazareth. There, under a flick-

ering lamp, they see the strong and reverend stew-

ardship of Blessed Joseph, the selfless love of the

sweetest of all mothers, Mary, and the loving sub-

ject obedience of the Child, Who makes earth an
outpost of heaven. There the father learns that true



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 63

greatness depends, not in earthly success and gar-

nered wealth, for Joseph, the guardian of Him to

Whom the earth and its fulness belonged, stood at a

bench and handled the tools of a carpenter. There

children learn lessons of obedience from the Divine

Child Whom the winds and seas obeyed, and yet Who

was subject for thirty years to a village tradesman

and a Virgin. There the mother learns that men

are prepared for great missions by noble women,

and that of all women there is no model like the wo-

man who was pure enough and beautiful enough to

be the Mother of God, and from her, as the Mother

of true Motherhood, there comes to parents these

sweet reminders:

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you

cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows

are sent forth.

The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift

and far.

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also
the bow that is stable.”*

* Of Children, by Kahil Gibran.



64 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

THE FRUIT OF LOVE

Address delivered on February 26, 1933.

Love seeks not only permanence, which accounts

for the unbreakable bond of marriage, but also fruit-

fulness, which is the bearing of children. Married

life should have a harvest, for all love should bear

fruit. In order to understand the reasons for the

fruitfulness of marriage one must understand the

meaning of love. Love may be defined as mutual

self-giving and self-outpouring which ends in self-

recovery. First of all, love means mutual self-giving

and self-outpouring because love implies two per-

sons who give themselves one to another. This is

merely another way of saying that all love is sacri-

fice. Hence, the greatest joy in love is to throw one-

self on the altar of the one loved
;
its sweetest feast

is its own hunger and the wine of its own tears
;
its

richest banquet is to gird its loins and to serve; its

greatest jealousy is to be outdone by its cherished

rival of the least advantage in self-giving, for with-

out some spice of martyrdom love's tastes are taste-

less, and without the arrow that wounds, its quivers

are barren and vain.

Because love is a mutual self-emptying, husband

and wife vie with one another in the sacrifice of self.

The woman sacrifices the irreparable which God has
given her, that which makes her a virgin, that too

which possibly is the hidden reason for her power

to love but only once. The man, in his turn, sacrifices

the liberty and freedom of his youth, the power to



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 65

devote himself entirely to that love which he finds at

the beginning of the journey of life. These two cups,

one filled with beauty and innocence, the other with

devotion and courage, flow one into another, as two

rivers which run their course to the great ocean of

the absorbing Love which is God.

But love is not only mutual self-giving, for if it

were but this there would be only surrender. Love

fs not only mutual self-outpouring, for if it were

but this, it would be barren as a desert and would

fructify nothing. That which is surrendered but

can never be recovered is the source of the tearful

agony of loss. If love were only dual selfishness,

with perpetual change and barter, like commerce

between two shipwrecked sailors on a desert isle,

it would yield no profit to either, but only be the

enkindling of a flame in which each would be con-

sumed.

Hence, love in addition to being a giving or an

outpouring, must also be a recovery. The escape

from mere mutuality, which is death, is in a reci-

procity which vies to give all, but is ever defeated

by receiving. In other words, love must increase

and multiply; it must recover itself in a harvest;

it must, like the love of earth and tree, be fruitful

unto new love. Something must result from love,

for all love seeks to externalize itself as a gift and

thus reproduce itself. That is why all love tends

towards an incarnation. The husband and wife must

have some reward and recovery for this sacrifice.

But how can their mutual self-outpouring end in

self-recovery except by their two hearts conspiring

against their individual impotence by filling up each

at the store of the other their lacking measures, and

thus building up not the mere sum of themselves, but



66 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

that new life which is a child and which gives to

the winter of their marriage the springtime of fruit.

Of what great love is this a reflection? Where

is the model of the love that is mutual self-outpour-

ing which ends in self-recovery? In this, as in all

things, the Church finds the prototype of such a defi-

nition of love in that which is perfect love, namely,

God. The young couples who come to our altars for

the nuptial Mass are told this, for in the solemn

moment of that ceremony their marriage is blessed

in the name of the Trinity—Father, Son and Holy
Ghost—by which blessing their young hearts are
lifted up beyond the straggling rays of love in their

own hearts to heaven itself, and the great Fire of

the Triune Love of God. There is the prototype of

all earthly love. In that never ebbing tide of love,

there is first of all mutual self-giving in which the

Father eternally begets a Son Who is His splendor,

the glory of His substance, and the image of His in-

finite majesty. And the Son gives the whole self to

the Father by praise and love in a Word Which is

Divine. But the love of Father for Son, and Son for

Father, is not mere barren self-giving, for if it were

only this it would end in exhaustion. The Father

loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and that

mutual love for one another is so intense, so spirit-

ual, so unworldly, so above earthly words, canticles,

and embraces, that it can express itself only by that

which signifies the fulness of love, and the recovery

of self-giving, namely, a sigh! That is why that

personal love of Father for Son is called the Holy

Spirit, the Spirit of Love in which the mutual out-

pouring of Father and Son recovers itself in the

Holy Ghost, thus perfecting the cycle of the God-

head in an act of bliss unending.



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 67

There is the source of the definition of love as

mutual self-outpouring which ends in self-recovery

!

There is the inspiration of married love which seeks

not only to exchange love for love, but also to reap

interest in that exchange, and to gather the harvest

of a new life wherever the seed of a new life is sown.

There in the very heart of the Loving Trinity Itself

is heard the call to every husband and wife to maLe

of themselves an earthly trinity, by recovering their

mutual love in the bond of children, which complete

their cycle in a bliss of the earth earthly. Herein,

too, is to be found the reason why the Church must

always be opposed to any artificial attempts to re-

strict, limit or prevent the fruit of love, even though

they are heralded in the name of modern science and

modern religion. The Church knows full well that

such science is not real science, but only that poor

travesty which knows enough to fumble forbidden

levers with its baby fingers. Such religion is not real

religion but only an imitation whose power for mis-

chief is quite out of all proportion with its love of

God.

As war is not for the sport and loot of the pri-

vate soldiers, and a plaything for their own selfish

ambitions, so the gift of love is not for the pleasures

of the organism. Husband and wife are sent out like

the disciples of old, two by two, not to sit down to

eat and drink, but to be fruitful apostles of love and

to. strive by their mutual loves to reinforce the ranks

of life and love. Love has been given to them as a

loan of Divine Life, and it must be paid back into

the bank of Life with life, and not with death. The

Divine fire of passion which fused man and maid
was not given to scorch the flesh but to solder life,
for “lust without life shall die^^ but “life without



68 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

lust shall live” To rob love of its fruit is to end love

and ruin marriage. Just as the earth which receives

into its womb the grain which is destined to clothe it

with golden harvest must not be recreant to its gift

of fostering life and kill the seed in its traitor-heart,

so neither shall the love of husband and wife play

traitor to all nature and all love by burying the

talent of their fruitfulness in the napkin of their

own voluntary barren selfishness.

Shall we not say in justice, then, that the man

and woman who take the gift of love into their

hearts, and then turn it against producing life, for

the selfishness of their own pleasure, are betraying

life and love’s great trust, stealing heaven’s fire,

and enkindling the flame which consumes them and

leaves naught but their dust behind? Why, even

though such a couple did not believe in God, even

though they believed only in love, their own hearts

of hearts should tell them that love was meant to be

recovered in life, and that to be unfaithful to that

gift of love, and refuse to increase life, is to live in

a world in which artists are always picking up

brushes but never finishing a picture
;
always lifting

chisels but never producing a statue
;
always touch-

ing bow to string, but never emitting a harmony
;
al-

ways having the springtime but never the harvest.

But this means putting an end to a springtime for

want of a harvest, filling the world with cages with-

out birds, hives without bees, homes without chil-

dren
;
it means filling the world with barren fig trees

which draw upon themselves the terrible curse of

God. To such men and women who spend their lives

and leave nothing behind, who die little by little

without passing on the torch of life, there must



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 69

sometimes come the whisperings of a conscience

which says

:

“Your cruelest pain is when you think of all
The hoarded treasures of your body spent,

And no new life to show. O then you feel
How people lift their hands against themselves,
And taste the bitterest punishment
Of those whom pleasure isolates. Sometimes

When darkness, silence and the sleeping world
Give vision scope, you lie awake and see

The pale, sad faces of the little ones

Who should have been your children, as they press
Their cheeks against your windows, looking in

With piteous wonder, homeless, famished babes,

Denied your wombs and bosoms.”*

How different is the conscience of those who obey

the laws of love, which are the laws of God, and who

therefore in their mutual self-giving recover their

better selves in the youth and beauty of their off-

spring. How much the happiness of their lives belie

those who say that in bringing children into the

world a woman imitates the beasts of the field. No!

rather does she imitate the very God who made her I

Fecundity is of the spirit, more than of the flesh.

Generation belonged to God eternities before it was

given to the flesh : “Shall not I that make others bring

forth children Myself bring forth, saith the Lord:

Shall I that give generation to others Myself be

barren?”

From all eternity God the Father generated a

Son, the image of His glory, and from that day with-

out beginning or end the Heavenly Father, in the

ecstasy of the first and real paternity, has said to

His Son : “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten
Thee.” This power of generating, God has com-

municated to mothers in order that they might pro-

long in time the power of God in eternity. The Di-

* John Davidson.



70 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

vine Life by which God the Father draws from His

eternal bosom in the agelessness of eternity a Son

in His own image and likeness, God Himself com-

municates to mothers that they may bring forth, in

the flux and flow of time. His other children or

adopted sons who would be privileged to cry up to

Him the sweetest of all prayers : “Our Father Who

art in heaven/^

It is, therefore, a noble vocation to be a mother

and, lest mothers should lose sight of that great

calling, they are bidden to look back upon that in-

comparable woman, Mary, who brought forth in

Bethlehem the Eternal Word, Our Lord and Saviour,

Jesus Christ. In her and by her all women have re-

ceived the mission to elevate, purify and console

man, and add her increment to the eternal harvest

of souls. As she brought forth the cornerstone of

the great spiritual ediflce which is the Church, so

every mother under her inspiration is to bring forth

those living, eligible stones hewed from the great

quarry of humanity to be shaped and cut by disci-

pline and self-restraint to fit that great Cornerstone,

which is Christ. As Mary brought forth from the

virgin womb of her flesh the great Captain of salva-

tion so every Christian mother is to bring forth not

only from the womb of her flesh, but from the womb

of the baptismal fount, valiant soldiers of that great

King and Captain, Christ. Under the sweet guar-
j

dianship of that most beautiful of all mothers,

every earthly mother is called like her to rock another

cradle of the Holy Child, to bring forth a child des-

tined to be a ruler of Israel, a child of Mary, a

brother of Christ, a son of the Heavenly Father,

and an heir of heaven—and what is heaven but a
nursery—for only children shall enter there.



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 71

Every mother under the vocation of God and the

inspiration of the Blessed Mother therefore has a

vision of heaven, and there sees that whenever God

gives to her a child He forges for it on the eternal

anvil of heaven, a golden crown of everlasting peace

and joy. Her purpose and mission in life is to rear

the child as a potential nobleman of the Kingdom of

God, and then to give it back again to the Heavenly

Father whence it came in order that it might re-

cover the crown that- God made for it, for, after all,

what is love but a mutual self-giving which ends in

self-recovery, and what recovery is there in all time

and space that is comparable to the recovery which

is the discovery of God

!



72 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

THE DEATH OF LIFE
Address delivered on March 5, 1933.

The gravest danger facing modern society, one

which has brought the ruin of older civilizations and

is destined to effect the collapse of our own unless

we prevent it is the loss of the sense of sin. Re-

morse is almost an unknown passion and penitent

shame is but rarely felt. The burden of guilt does

not rest on even a criminal’s heart and even good

men look on deeds of infamy and acts of gross in-

justice and are not shocked. This is not because

they are innocent, but because no sense of sin pos-

sesses their souls. There is a general denial that

anything is wrong or that anything is right, and

a general affimation that what the older theological

generation called '‘sin” is only a psychic evil or a fall

in the evolutionary process. Two principles inspire

much of the personal and social dealings of many a

citizen in our land, namely, “What can I get out of

it?” and “Can I get away with it?” Evil is con-

fused with good, and good is confused with evil.

Revolting books against virtue are termed “courag-

eous”; and those against God are called “progres-

sive and epoch-making.” It has always been the

characteristic of a generation in decay to paint the

gates of hell with the gold of paradise. In a word,

much of the so-called wisdom of our day is made up

of that which once nailed Our Blessed Lord to the

Cross.

It would be well for our generation to remember

that the fires of Sinai still burn in the history of



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 73

men and nations, that its dread thunders still roll

across the centuries, and that the Cross which once

was raised in defiance of sin will not be taken down

until sin is vanquished and the Gross itself becomes

the badge of eternal glory and triumph. And in

order that our day may know that sin is not just an

arbitrary tag tacked onto human actions by the

Church, or that it is not a mere fall in the evolu-

tionary process it might be profitable to inquire into

the nature of sin by asking what nature thinks of

sin, what conscience thinks of sin, and what God

thinks of sin. Nature tells us that sin is death;

conscience tells us that sin is guilt ; and God tells us

that sin is an offence against His Divine Love.

Nature says that sin is death, a definition which

Sacred Scripture confirms: ‘‘The wages of sin is

death.’' Death in the natural order is the domina-

tion of a lower order over a higher order, for the

universe is made up of various levels or hierarchies

one subordinated to the other, such as the chemical,

the vegetative, the animal, the human and the Di-

vine. If, for example, a rose is placed in a room

filled with poisonous gas, it will die just as soon as

the lower order, namely the chemical, gains mastery

over the higher order, which is that of life. The

human body often dies through a slow wearing away

and oxidation of its organism. At that precise

point where there is a balance of forces in favor of

the chemical process of oxidation as against the vital

process death ensues. Now man has not only a body
but also a soul. As the life of the body is the soul,

so the life of the soul is God. Wheuy therefore, the
body dominates the soul, the laws of the world dom-

inate the laws of Christ, the flesh dominates the

spirit, and the things of time dominate the things



74 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

of eternity, there is a domination of a lower order

over a higher order, and that domination or death we

call sin. Sin then is a death in the strict sense of

the term, namely the death of the life of God in the

soul. In this sense it is the crucifixion over again,

for as often as we sin we crucify Christ again in our

hearts. Every soul is therefore a potential Calvary

and every sin an actual cross.

‘T saw the Son of God go by

Crowned with a crown of thorns.

‘Was it not finished Lord’ said I.

‘And all the anguish borne’?

“He turned on me His awful eyes,
‘Hast thou not understood?

Lo, every soul is a Calvary

And every sin a rood!’ ”

Nature tells us that sin is death, but conscience

tells us that it is guilt, and that as such it is totally

different from anything in the animal order and

therefore something which is not a mere episode in

the passage of nature and a thing which can be left

behind, dead and done for. Nothingi is more typical

of the sense of human guilt than its power of assert-

ing itself with unbated poignancy in spite of the

lapse of time. Society may forgive the transgressor

but he does not forgive himself; his friends may

cease to blame him, but he does not cease to blame

himself
;
others may forget it, but he does not forget.

He knows he cannot forgive himself, but that he

must be forgiven
;
and his horror crammed memory

cries out

:

“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow.
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 76

Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weights upon the heart?”

How explain this sense of guilt and this indellible

remorse except in reference to a Person Who has

claims of love upon us? How explain this pain of

the soul except as a deordination against the God of

Justice and Love? If a magnetic needle were en-

dowed with feeling and it pointed south instead of

north, it would be in “pain” because not pointing in

the direction of its true nature. If a bone becomes

dislocated the whole body suffers, because the bone

is not where it ought to be. In like manner if the

heart and mind and soul of man, by a free act of

choice turns not to the God of Love and Mercy, but

away from Him to the things of self, he too suffers

pain and remorse because he is not where he ought

to be—in the arms of God.
Since past guilt endures in us as living past, and

not as a dead past like the facts of history, it must

be something over which we have the power to make

or unmake. The real reason why the guilt endures

is not that it may crush us beneath its weight, but

that we might carry it up the hill of Calvary to the

foot of the Cross, there to ask the loving Saviour to

detach His arm from the Cross and lift it over our

souls in forgiving pardon and absolution. And so

it is that from Genesis to the Apocalypse there is

heard, like the wail of the wind and the sob of the

sea, a cry on the air of stricken humanity, confes-

sing to its God Whose property is always to have

mercy and to spare : “I have sinned before my Fath-

er Who is in Heaven.”

And that brings us to what God thinks of sin. In

a great city of the East, famous for its history and

its splendors—it is evening. Sleep has come to the



76 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

eyes of men, except for a small group of the wicked

which, with a white-faced traitor in its midst, is

plotting against the Innocent. Outside the city runs

a brook called the Kedron, and beyond, on a sloping

hill, is a wood of small, stunted bushy trees, known

as the Garden of Gethsemane.

The figures of four men cross this brook, and

without a word, they sink into the enveloping dark-

ness. Just as soon as the familiar olive trees pre-

sent themselves to their gaze. One of the four sees

what the other three cannot see. Our Blessed Lord,

that One, sees there in the dark garden, the mighty

array, the tremendous array, of all the sins that
|

ever were committed, or that would be committed 1

down to the end of time—for His Father in Heaven
was about to lay upon Him the iniquities of us all.

’

No wonder, then, that He turns to His companions

saying: “Stay you here and watch with Me. . . .

My soul is sorrowful, even unto death.’"
Leaving them. He enters the gloomy place, sum-

moning all the courage of God, all the infinite re-

sources of His love, the great thought that if He

were about to be destroyed, humanity was about to

be saved. Fearlessly He moves into the depths of

Gethsemane. About as far from His companions

as a man could throw a stone, in the murky re-

cesses of that forest. He throws Himself upon the
ground and prays : “Oh, Father, if it be possible, let

this chalice pass from Me”; but immediately He
adds, “Yet, not My will but Thine be done.” Turn-
ing, for the Father’s will is indicated in a voice

from heaven. He bares His innocent breast. He puts
out His sinless hands, and allows an ocean wave of
sin to flow in upon Him and overwhelm Him. Then
^at mighty Soul lifts up Its hands, as if with more



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 77

than Samson’s strength It were to pull down the

heavens upon Him, draws down the storm of God’s

eternal justice, and lies crushed beneath it—a plain-
tive, human life, almost extinguished—but not ex-
tinguished because it was Divine Life as well as hu-

man. The fountains of His heart are moved and

drop by drop, through the burning pores of His skin,

beads of blood fall to the ground as a red rosary of

redemption—and one single drop would have been
enough to have redeemed ten thousand worlds!

From the north and the south, from the east and

the west, the gathering storm of sin rolls up, dis-

charging itself as a torrent upon Our Blessed

Lord. “Hopes blighted, vows broken, opportunities

lost, innocence betrayed, penitence relapsing, the

aged failing; the sophistry of misbelief, the wilful-

ness of doubt, the tyranny of passion, the canker of

remorse, the wasting force of care, the anguish of

shame, the agony of disappointment, the sickness of

despair. . .
”

Never was a curse or imprecation uttered, never

was a word impure or venomous spoken, never was

a blasphemous oath hurled against heaven, that does

not seem to stain His lips, for the sins of the world

are upon Him
;
never was an open act of evil nor a

secret deed of shame that does not seem to be thrust

into His hands, that He, as if the guilty One, might

bear its load of corruption, for the sins of the world

are upon Him
;
never was an inmost thought of evil,

a cherished foul desire, that does not attempt to

creep into His mind and heart, as though its sin and
corruption, too, were His—for the sins of the world
are upon Him.

The first sin of Adam and Eve down to the last
sin that will be committed at the crack of doom is



78 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

heaped upon Him ; Cain is there purple in the sheet

of his brother’s blood ; there too were the sins of the

sons and daughters of Israel rotting the earth with

the leprosy of their revolt
;
the lusts and wickedness

of men before the flood ; the impurities of Sodom and

Gomorrah
;

the pagan idolatries of the pagan

hordes who gathered around the altars of false gods

;

the world of the future is there with its sins—sins
that rent Christ’s Mystic Body—sins of brutish vice

;

sins of Christian people, whose crimes taught deeper

baseness to the heathen and lower coarseness to the

pagan; sins deadly in their malice, hideous in their

nature; sins that make the heart of Christ sick with

sorrow
;
sins too loathsome to be mentioned

;
sins too

terrible to be named
;
sins committed in the glare of

the noonday sun under the very eyes of God; sins

committed in the darkness of night, through which

it was hoped the eyes of God could not pierce; sins

committed in the country which made nature shud-

der; sins committed in the city in the city’s atmos-

phere of sin
;
sins of the old who should have passed

the age of sinning
;
sins of the young for whom the

heart of Christ is tenderly pierced; sins that de-

stroyed paradise; sins that ruined the earth; sins

that shut the gates of heaven
;
sins that broke down

the law; sins that trampled love; sins that had

brought men to hell; sins that now brought God to

earth; sins of those who say there is no God; sins

of war
;
sins of peace

;
sins of those who say there is

no sin . . . Sin . . . SIN

!



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 79

THE GREAT ASSIZE
Address delivered on March 12, 1933.

There comes a time in the life of every man

when at the supreme and tragic hour of death his

friends and relatives ask, "‘how much did he leave?’*

It is just at that split second God is asking, “how

much did he take with him?” It is only the latter

question that matters, for it is only our works that

follow us. The story of life is brief : “It is appointed

unto men once to die and after this the judgment”

for “the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His

Father with His angels, and then will He render to

every man according to his works.” In the general

forgetfulness of the Christian religion, which has

passed over our civilization like a foul miasma, this

great truth that a judgment follows death has been

ignored in the moral outlook of the universe. Our

souls can profit much from meditation upon it and

its two important features, namely, its necessity and

its nature.

All nature testifies to the necessity of judgment.

Everywhere below man nature reveals itself as

passing sentence on those who refuse to obey her

laws. We need only look around us in the hospitals,
prisons, and asylums to see that nature, like a judge

seated in judgment, is squaring her accounts with

those who violate her laws. If the body has abused

itself by excess, nature takes revenge and passes the

judgment of disease and infirmity. If a fragment of

a star breaks from its central core and swings out of



80 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

its orbit, nature passes the judgment that it shall

burn itself out in space.

Nature settles her account with natural things

here and now. But the moral side of the universe

has not made its lasting reckoning with every man

on this side of the grave : there is too much anguish-

ed innocence
;
too much unpunished wrong

;
too much

suffering of the good; too much prosperity of the

evil
;
too much pain for those who obey God's laws

;

too much pleasure for those who disobey them
;
too

much good repute for those who sin unseen; too

much scorn for those who pray unseen; too many

unsung saints, too many glorified sinners
;
too many

Pilates who act as righteous judges; too many

Christs who go down to crucifixion
;
too many proud

and vain souls who say, ‘‘I have sinned and nothing

has happened.”

But the reckoning day must come, and just as

once a year each business man must balance his ac-

counts, so too that important hour must come when

every soul must balance its accounts before God. For

life is like a cash register, in that every account,

every thought, every deed, like every sale, is regis-

tered and recorded. And when the business of life

is finally done, then God pulls from out the registry

of our souls that slip of our memory on which is

recorded our merits and demerits, our virtues and

our vices :—the basis of the judgment on which shall
be decided eternal life or eternal death. We may
falsify our accounts until that day of judgment, for

God permits the wheat and the cockle to grow unto

the harvest, but then, ‘‘in the time of the harvest, I

will say to the reapers : gather up first the cockle and

bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye

into my barn.”



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 81

But what is the nature of judgment? In answer

to this question we are more concerned with the

particular judgment at the moment of death, than

with the general judgment when all nations of the

earth stand before their God. Judgment is a recog-

nition both on the part of God and on the part of

the soul.

First of all, it is a recognition on the part of

God: Imagine two souls appearing before the sight

of God, one in the state of Grace, the other in the

state of sin. Grace is a participation in the nature

and life of God. Just as a man participates in the

nature and life of his parents by being born of his

parents, so too a man who is born of the Spirit of

God by Baptism participates in the nature of God

—

the life of God, as it were, flows through his veins,

imprinting an unseen but genuine likeness. When,

therefore, God looks upon a soul in the state of

Grace, He sees in it a likeness of His own nature.

Just as a father recognizes his own son because of

likeness of nature, so too Christ recognizes the soul

in the state of Grace in virtue of resemblance to

Him, and says to the soul : “Come ye blessed of My

Father: I am the natural Son, you are the adopted

son. Come into the Kingdom prepared for you from

all eternity.”

God looks into the other soul that is in the state

of sin and has not that likeness, and just as a father

knows his neighbor's son is not his own, so too God,

looking at the sinful soul and failing to see therein

the likeness of His own flesh and blood, does not

recognize it as his own kind, and says to it as He

said in the parable of the bridegroom “I know you

not”—and it is a terrible thing not to be known by
God.



82 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

Not only is sin a recognition from God's point of

view, but it is also a recognition from man's point of

view. Just suppose that while cleaning your car, or

your house, a very distinguished person was an-

nounced at your door. You would probably act dif-

ferently than if you were thoroughly clean, well

dressed and presentable. In such an unclean condi-

tion you would ask to be excused, saying you were

not fit to appear in the sight of such a person. When

a soul is before the sight of God, it acts in much the

same manner. Standing before the tremendous

majestic presence of Almighty God, it does not plead,

it does not argue, it does not entreat, it does not

demand a second hearing, it does not protest the

judgment, for it sees itself as it really is. In a cer-

tain sense, it judges itself, God merely sealing the

judgment. If it sees itself clean and alive with the

life of God, it runs to the embrace of Love, which

is Heaven, just as a bird released from its cage soars

into the skies. If it sees itself slightly stained and

the robes of its baptism remediably soiled, it protests

that it is not to enter into the sight of Purity, and

hence throws itself into the purifying fiames of

Purgatory. If it sees itself irremediably vitiated,

having no likeness whatever to the Purity and Holi-

ness of God ; if it has lost all affection for the things

of spirit, then it could no more endure the Presence

of God than a man who abhors beauty could endure

the pleasure of music, art and poetry. Why, heaven

would be hell to such a soul, for it would be as much

out of place in the holiness of heaven as a fish out of

water. Hence, recognizing its own unworthiness, its

own unholiness, its own ungodliness, its own distaste

for the Purity of God, it casts itself into Hell in the

same way that a stone, released from the hand, falls



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 83

to the ground. Only three states therefore are pos-

sible after the particular judgment: Heaven, Purga-

tory and Hell. Heaven is Love without Pain; Pur-

gatory is Pain with Love
;
Hell is Pain without Love.

Such is judgment ! And oh ! how much better the

present age would be if it lived in the habitual

temper of men who remembered that they had an

account to give! How much more justice would

reign in our economic and social life if all men walk-

ed in fear of the judgment that is to come! How

much happier life would be if each realized that

there are only two beings in all the world, our soul

and the God Who made it. Our emphasis on the

group and on the nation and on the masses has

made us oblivious to the great truth lying behind

the judgment—^that we are all individual souls re-
sponsible to God. We find ourselves talking of
society as if it were a permanent thing, forgetting

that it is really the passing of separate immortal

persons into an unseen state, that while some slip

away and others steal in, the flux and influx is the

going of individual personal existences, each of

which is worthy of redemption. We talk of masses
of human beings as of a counter which was cleared

from time to time, all the while forgetting the path-

etic truth that all is not over with those whom his-

tory describes.

I wonder if a general ever thinks of the value of

each soul and the responsibility it has to give when

he sends his army into a storm of steel and shell
;
I

wonder if the university professor realizes it, as he

poisons the souls of his students with his sophistry

and leaves not a hope behind
;
I wonder if we, as we

walk the streets, jostle the crowds, hustle into sub-

ways, mingle with mobs, push into theatres, are fully



84 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

conscious that the men and women who make up

these groups are endowed with immortal souls and

are responsible for each and every conscious act,

down even to the last? I wonder if we remember that

all that is past and done in human history has one

day to be revived into living and eternal interest at

the judgment seat of God? All those men and women

of
,

history who figure in the scrolls of time, whose

reality seems more like the characters of a story,

whose names we cover with praise or insult, whose

deeds we loathe or imitate, all those peacemakers and

mischief makers, saints and sinners, saviours and

betrayers of nations, lords and peasants; all the

Egyptians who mused before the silence of their

Sphinx and paid tribute to their dead before the

stony jute of the pyramids; all the great ones of the

earth whose names are carved in granite and all the

poor ones whose names are painted on wood; the

thief at the right hand and the thief at the left hand

;

Mary Magdalen and the Pharisees; Nero and Paul,

Alexander, Caesar, Bismarck, Napoleon, Washing-

ton, Lincoln—all these lived and they had their- lik-
ings and their hates, their loves and their hopes

;
they

gained what they thought was worthwhile, and en-

joyed what they thought was best, and what each

one did in his flesh is determining his present des-

tiny. The door of their opportunities is shut and

they have rendered an account of their steward-

ship, and like them, each one of us individually is

reserved for a day when we shall be judged not by

public opinion, but by the eternal Christ coming

with His Cross in the clouds of heaven to render to

every man according to his works.

We can therefore be sure of nothing while eter-

nity is in doubt, but while there is life, there is hope.



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 85

there is opportunity! While our days are with us,

there is heaven and happiness within our reach if

we be the faithful, virtuous and simple of heart, and

make friends with the Judge. The longest day has

its evening, and after the evening comes the dark-

ness of night. Christ crucified has no redemptive

relation with the dead : He has either redeemed them,

or they are beyond the reach of redemption. While

we yet have life, the pierced hands of Christ are out-

stretched to beckon us onward to drink the wine of

love from the great chalice of His Sacred Heart.

But when our soul has passed the gate of eternity,

those pierced hands, which all during life we saw

outstretched on the Cross, will detach themselves

and fold together in judgment. May we be caught

within the folded embrace as eternally captured cap-

tives of His Redemptive Love 1



86 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

PURIFYING FLAMES
Address delivered on March 19, 1933.

There is one word which to modern ears proba-

bly signifies the unreal, the fictional and even the

absurd in the Christian vision of life, and that is

the word ‘Turgatory.'' Although the Christian

world believed in it for sixteen centuries, for the last

three hundred years it has ceased to be a belief out-

side the Church, and has been regarded as a mere

product of the imagination, rather than as the fruit

of sound reason and inspiration. It is quite true to

say that the belief in Purgatory has declined in just

the proportion that the modern mind forgot the two

most important things in the world: the Purity of

God and the heinousness of sin. Once both of these

vital beliefs are admitted, the doctrine of Purgatory

is unescapable. For what is Purgatory but a place

or condition of temporal punishment for those who

depart this life in God’s grace, but are not entirely

free from venial faults or have not entirely paid

the satisfaction due to their transgressions? In

simpler language, love, without suffering is Heaven

;

suffering without love is Hell; and suffering with

love is Purgatory. Purgatory is that place in which

the love of God tempers the justice of God, and sec-

ondly, where the love of man tempers the injustice

of man.

First, Purgatory is where the Love of God tem-

pers the Justice of God. The necessity of Purgatory

is grounded upon the absolute purity of God. In the

Book of the Apocalypse we read of the great beauty



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 87

of His City, of the pure gold, with its walls of jasper

and its spotless light which is not of the sun nor

moon but the light of the Lamb slain from the be-

ginning of the world. We also learn of the condition
of entering into the gates of that Heavenly Jerusa-

lem : ‘‘There shall not enter into it anything defiled,

or that worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but

they that are written in the book of the life of the

Lamb.’' Justice demands that nothing unclean, but

only the pure of heart shall stand before the face

of a pure God. If there were no Purgatory then the

Justice of God would be too terrible for words, for

who are they who would dare assert themselves pure

enough and spotless enough to stand before the Im-

maculate Lamb of God ? The martyrs who sprinkled

the sands of the Coliseum with their blood in testi-

mony of their faith ? Most certainly ! The mission-

aries like Paul who spend themselves and are spent

for the spread of the Gospel ? Most assuredly ! The

cloistered saints who in the quiet calm of a volun-

tary Calvary become martyrs without recognition?

Most truly ! But these are glorious exceptions. How

many millions there are who die with their souls

stained with venial sin, who have known evil, and

by their strong resolve have drawn from it only to

carry with them the weakness of their past as a

leaden weight.

The day we were baptized, the Church laid upon

us a white garment with the injunction: “Receive

this white garment which mayest thou carry without

stain before the judgment seat of Our Lord Jesus

Christ that thou mayest have life everlasting.” How

many of us during life have kept that garment un-

spotted and unsoiled by sin so that we might enter

immediately upon death into the white robed army



88 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

of the King? How many souls departing this life
have the courage to say that they left it without any

undue attachment to creatures and that they were

never guilty of a wasted talent, a slight cupidity, an

uncharitable deed, a neglect of holy inspiration or

even an idle word for which every one of us must

render an account? How many souls there are gath-
ered in at the death-bed, like late season flowers,

that are absolved from sins, but not from the debt

of their sins ? Take any of our national heroes, whose

names we venerate and whose deeds we emulate.

Would any Englishman or American who knew

something of the Purity of God, as much as he loves

and respects the virtues of a Lord Nelson or a

George Washington, really believe that either of

them at death were free enough from slight faults

to enter immediately into the presence of God ? Why,

the very nationalism of a Nelson of a Washington,

which made them both heroes in war, might in a

way make them suspect of being unsuited the second

after death for that true internationalism of heaven,

where there is neither English nor American, Jew

nor Greek, Barbarian nor Free, but all one in Christ

Jesus Our Lord.

All these souls who die with some love of God

possessing them are beautiful souls, but if there be

no Purgatory, then because of their slight imper-

fections they must be rejected without pity by Di-

vine Justice. Take away Purgatory, and God could

not pardon so easily, for will an act of contrition at

the edge of the tomb atone for thirty years of

sinning? Take away Purgatory and the inflnite Jus-

tice of God would have to reject from heaven those

who resolve to pay their debts, but have not yet paid

the last farthing. And so, I say, Purgatory is where



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 89

the Love of God tempers the Justice of God, for there

God pardons because He has time to retouch these

souls with His Cross, to recut them with the chisel

of suffering, that they might fit into the great spirit-

ual edifice of the Heavenly Jerusalem, to plunge

them into that purifying plac^ where they might

wash their stained baptismal robes to be fit to enter

into the spotless purity of heaven ; to resurrect them

like the phoenix of old from the ashes of their own

sufferings so that, like wounded eagles healed by the

magic touch of God’s cleansing flames, they might

mount heavenward to the city of the pure where

Christ is King and Mary is Queen, for regardless of

how trivial the fault, God cannot pardon without

tears, and there are no tears in Heaven.

On the other hand. Purgatory is a place not only

where the Love of God tempers the Justice of God,

but where the love of man may temper the injustice

of man. I believe that most men and women are

quite unconscious of the injustice, the ingratitude

and the thanklessness of their lives until the cold

hand of death is laid upon one that they love. It is

then, and only then, that they realize (and oh, with

what regret!) the haunting poverty of their love and

kindness. One of the reasons why the bitterest of

tears are shed over graves is because of words left

unsaid and deeds left undone. “The child never

knew how much I loved her.” “He never knew how

much he meant to me.” “I never knew how dear he

was until he was gone.” Such words are the poison-

ed arrows which cruel death shoots at our hearts

from the door of every sepulchre. Oh, then we real-

ize how differently we would have acted if only the

departed one could come back again. Tears are shed

in vain before eyes which cannot see; caresses are



90 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

offered without response to arms that cannot em-

brace
;
and sighs stir not a heart whose ear is deaf.

Oh, then the anguish for not offering the flowers be-

fore death had come and for not sprinkling the in-

cense while the beloved was still alive and for not

speaking the kind -s^^ords that now must die on the

very air they cleave. Oh, the sorrow at the thought

that we cannot atone for the stinted affection we

gave them, for the light answers we returned to

their pleading and for the lack of reverence we

showed to one who was perhaps the dearest thing

that God had ever given us to know. Alas, too late

!

It does little good to water last year’s crop, to snare

the bird that has flown, or to gather the rose that

has withered and died.

Purgatory is a place where the Love of God tem-

pers the Justice of God, but also where the love of

man tempers the injustice of man, for it enables

hearts who are left behind to break the barriers of

time and death, to convert unspoken words into

prayers, unburned incense into sacrifice, unoffered

flowers into alms, and undone acts of kindness into

help for eternal life. Take away Purgatory and how

bitter would be our grief for our unkindnesses and

how piercing our sorrow for our forgetfulness. Take

away Purgatory and how meaningless are our Mem-

orial and Armistice Days, when we venerate the

memory of our dead. Take away Purgatory and

how empty are -our wreaths, our bowed heads, our

moments of silence. But if there be a Purgatory,

then immediately the bowed head gives way to a

bent knee, the moment of silence to a moment of

prayer, and the fading wreath to the abiding offer-

ing of the sacrifice of that great Hero of Heroes,

Christ.



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 91

Purgatory, then, enables us to atone for our in-

gratitude because through our prayers, mortifica-

tions and sacrifices, it makes it possible to bring joy

and consolation to the ones we love. Love is stronger

than death and hence there should be love for those

who have gone before us. We are the offspring of
their life, the gathered fruit of their labor, the solici-

tude of their hearts. Shall death cut off our grati-

tude, shall the grave stop our love, shall the cold clod

prevent the atoning of our ingratitude? The Church

assures us that not being able to give more to them

in this world, since they are not of it, we can still

seek them out in the hands of Divine Justice and

give them the assurance of our love, and the pur-

chasing price of their redemption.

Just as the man who dies in debt has the male-

dictions of his creditors following him to the grave,

but may have his good name restored and revered

by the labor of his son who pays the last penny, so

too the soul of a friend who has gone to death owing

a debt of penance to God may have it remitted by us

who are left behind, by minting the gold of daily

actions into the spiritual coin which purchases re-

demption. Into the crucibles of God these departed

souls go like stained gold to have their dross burned

away by the flames of love. These souls, who have

not died in enmity with God, but have fallen wound-

ed on the battlefield of life fighting for the victory

of His cause, have not the strength to bind their own

wounds and heal their own scars : it remains for us

who are still strong and healthy, clad with the armor

of faith and the shield of salvation, to heal their

wounds and make them whole that they might join

the ranks of the victors and march in the procession

of the conquerors. We may be sure that if the penny



92 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

that gives bread to the hungry body delivers a soul to

the Table of Our Lord, it will never forget us when

it enters into the homeland of victory.

While yet confined to that prison of purifying

fire, they hear the voices of the angels and saints

who call them to their true fatherland, but they are

incapable of breaking their chains for their time of

merit is passed. Certainly God cannot be unmindful

of a wife who offers her merits to the captive soul

of a husband waiting for his deliverance. Surely the

mercy of God cannot be such that He should be deaf

to, the good works of a mother who offers them for

the liberation of her offspring who are yet stained

with the sins of the world. Surely God will not for-

bid such communication of the living with the dead,

since the great act of Redemption is founded on the

reversibility of merits. Responsive, then, will we be

to the plea not only of our relatives and friends but

of that great mass of unarmed warriors of the

Church Suffering who are yet wearing the ragged

remnants of sin, but who, in their anxiety of soul to

be clothed in the royal robes fit for entrance into the

Palace of the King, cry out to our responsive hearts

the plaintive and tender plea : “Have mercy on me,

have mercy on me, at least you, my friends, for the

hand of the Lord has touched me.''



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 93

HELL
Address delivered no March 26, 1933.

If there is any subject which is offensive to

modern sentimentalists it is the subject of hell.

Our generation clamors for what the poet has

called “a soft dean, who never mentions hell to

ears polite,'' and our unsouled age wants a Chris-

tianity watered so as to make the Gospel of Christ

nothing more than a gentle doctrine of good will,

a social program of economic betterment, and a

mild scheme of progressive idealism.

There are many reasons why the modern world

has ceased to believe in hell, among which we may

mention first a psychological reason. If a man has

led a very wicked life, he does not want to be dis-

turbed in his wrong doings by harsh words about

justice. His wish that there be no final punishment

for his crimes thus becomes father to the thought

that there is no such thing as hell. That is why

the v>^icked man denies hell, whereas the saint

never denies it but only fears it.

Another reason for the denial of hell is that

some minds confuse the crude imagery of poets

and painters with the reality of the moral order

behind the doctrine. Eternal realities are not al-

ways easy to portray in the symbols of time and

space, but that is no reason why they should be

denied by anyone, any more than the reality of

America should be denied because it is sometimes

symbolized by a woman bearing a flag of red, white

and blue.



94 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

A final reason is found in that the doctrine of
hell has been isolated from the organic whole of

Christian truths. Once it is separated from the

doctrines of sin, freedom, virtue, redemption and

justice, it becomes as absurd as an eye separated

from the body. The justice of this reasoning is

borne out in the fact that men become scandalized

about hell when they cease to be scandalized about

sin. The Church has never altered one single iota

the belief in an eternal hell as taught by her

Founder, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. In

adherence to His divine testimony, the Church

teaches firstly that hell is a demand of Justice, and

secondly, that hell is a demand of Love.

First of all, once it is recognized that the moral

order is grounded on justice, then retribution be-

yond the grave becomes a necessity. All peoples

have held it morally intolerable that by the mere

fact of dying, a murderer or an impenitent wrong-

doer should triumphantly escape justice. The same

fate cannot lie in store for the martyr and the per-

secutor, Nero and Paul, Judas and Christ. If

there is a supreme Good to which man can

attain only by courageous effort, it must fol-

low that the man who neglects to make that effort

imperils his felicity. Once it is granted that eter-

nal life is a thing which has to be won, then there

must always be the grim possibility that it may

also be lost.

Even the order of nature itself suggests retri-

bution for every violation of a law. There is a

physical law to the effect that for every action

there is a contrary and equal reaction. If, for ex-

ample, I stretch a rubber band three inches, it will

react with a force equal to three inches. If I



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 95

stretch it six inches, it will react with a force equal

to six inches. If I •'stretch it twelve inches, it will

react with a force equal to a foot. This physical

law has its counterpart in the moral order, in

which every sin necessarily implies punishment.

What is sin but an action against a certain order?

There are three orders against which a man may

sin: first, the order of individual conscience; sec-

ond, the order of the union of consciences, or the

state; and third, the source of both, or God. Now
if I sin or act against my conscience, there is a
necessary reaction in the form of remorse of con-

science which, in normal individuals, varies with

the gravity of the sin committed. Secondly, if I act

or sin against the union of consciences or the state,

there is a contrary and equal reaction which takes

the form of a fine, imprisonment, or death sentence

meted out by the state. It is worthy of note that

the punishment is never determined by the length

of time required to commit the crime, but rather

by the nature of the crime itself. It takes only a

second to commit murder, and yet the state will

take away life for such an offense. Finally, when-

ever I sin against God, and this I do when I rebel

either against the order of conscience or state, I

am acting contrary to One Who is infinite. For this

action, there is bound to be a reaction. The re-

action from the Infinite must, therefore, be infinite,

and an infinite reaction from God is an infinite

separation from God, and an infinite separation

from God is an eternal divorce from Life and

Truth and Love, and an eternal divorce from Life

and Truth and Love is—hell!
It should be evident, therefore, that eternal

punishment is not an arbitrary construction of



96 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

theologians, but is the very counterpart of sin. We
are too often wont to look upon hell as an after-

thought in the mind of God and regard it as re-

lated to sin in the same way that a spanking is
related to an act of disobedience on the part of a

child. This is not true. The punishment of spank-

ing is something which does not necessarily follow

upon an act of disobedience. It may be a conse-

quence, but it need not be. Rather it is true to say

that hell is related to a sinful and evil life in the

same way that blindness is related to the plucking

out of an eye, for the two are inseparable. One

necessarily follows the other. Life is a harvest

and we reap what we sow : if we sow in sin, we reap

corruption; but if we sow in the spirit, we reap

life everlasting.

The teaching of Our Blessed Lord bears out this

demand of justice, for His doctrine was not merely

an amiable gospel of indifference as His own life

was not one of sentimental good-naturedness. He

very distinctly taught that men might do things

which would prove their undoing. Never did He

give assurance that He would succeed with every-

one. The very fact that He poured out His Life’s

Blood to redeem us from sin could only mean that

sin might have such a terrible consequence as hell.

For, on the last day, the good shall be separated

from the bad, and the sheep from the goats. Then

“shall the King say to them that shall be on his

right hand : Come, ye blessed of my Father, pos-
sess you the kingdom prepared for you from the

foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and

you gave me to eat : I was thirsty, and you gave me

drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in. . .

Amen, I say t-o you, as long as you did it to one of



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED ^

these my least brethren, you did it to me. Then he

shall say to them also that shall be on his left

hand : Depart from me, you cursed, into everlast-

ing fire which was prepared for the devil and his

angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not

to eat : I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink.

I was a stranger, and you took me not in. . . As

long as you did it not to one of these least, neither

did you you do it to me. And these shall go into

everlasting punishment: but the just, into life ever-

lasting.” These are the words of the Son of God

Who is Truth Itself, and I cannot understand why

anyone, knowing and admitting this, should accept

His words concerning heaven, and deny His words

concerning hell. For if He is worthy of belief in

one instance. He must be worthy of belief in an-

other.

Not only is hell demanded by justice, but also

by love. The failure to look upon hell as involving

love makes men ask the question, “how can a God

of Love create a place of everlasting punishment?”

This is like asking why a God of Love should be

a God of Justice. It forgets that the sun which

warms so gently may also wither, and the rain

which nourishes so tenderly may also rot. Those

who cannot reconcile the God of Love with hell do

not know the meaning of love. There is nothing

sweeter than love; there is nothing more bitter

than love; there is nothing which so much unites

souls and so much separates them as love. Love

demands reciprocity; love seeks a lover; and when

love finds reciprocity, there is a fusion and a corn-

penetration and a union to a sublime and ecstatic

degree. And when it is a question of the love of

God and the love of the soul that is the happiness



98 THE HYMN OP THE CONQUERED

of heaven. But suppose that love does not find

reciprocity; or suppose that love does find it only

to be betrayed, spurned and rejected. Can love

still forgive? Love can forgive injuries, and be-

trayals and insults, and Divine Love can forgive

even to seventy times seven. But there is only one

thing in the world which human love cannot for-

give, and there is only one thing in eternity which

Divine Love cannot forgive, and that is the refusal

to love. When therefore the soul by a final free

act refuses to return human love for Divine Love,

then Divine Love abandons it to its own selfishness,

to its own solitariness, to its own loneliness. And

what punishment in all the world is comparable

to being abandoned, not by the lovely but by the

Love which is God?

Love, I say, forgives everything except one thing,

and that is the refusal to love. A human heart
pursues another and sues for its affection with all

the purity and high ardor of its being. It showers

the loved one with gifts, tokens of sacrifice, and all

the while remains most worthy of a responding

affection. But if, after a long and weary pursuit,

it has not only been spurned and rejected, and be-

trayed, that human heart turns away and bursting

with a pent-up emotion in obedience to the law of

love, cries out: “Love has done all that it can. I

can forgive anything except the refusal to love.’^

Something of this kind takes place in the spiri-

tual order. God is the Great Lover on the quest

of His spouse, which is the human soul. He show-

ers it with gifts, admits it into His royal family in

the Sacrament of Baptism, into His royal army in

the Sacrament of Confirmation, and invites it to

His royal table in the Sacrament of the Everlast-



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 99

ing Bread, and countless times during human life

whispers to it in health and sickness, in sorrow

and joy, to respond to His plaintive pleadings,

abandon a life of sin, and return love for love. If,

however, the human heart, after rejecting this love

many times only to be reloved again, after ignoring

the knock of Christ at the door of his soul only to

hear the knock again, finally, at the moment of

death completely spurns and rejects that divine

Goodness, then the God of Love, in obedience to

the law of love, cries out: ‘'Love has done all that

it can. I can forgive everything, except the, refusal

to love.” And it is a terrible thing to be through

with love, for once Divine Love departs at death,

it never returns:—that is why hell is eternal!

—

that is why hell is a place where there is no love!



100 . THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

THE PARADOX OF SALVATION
Address delivered on April 2, 1933.

One of the great tragedies of history is that He

Who carpentered the universe was carpentered to

a Cross. There is tragic irony in the fact that He

Who spent most of His life in handling wood and

nails and cross-beams met His end on a deathbed

made of those very things. One of our own Ameri-

can priest-poets has described in touching lan-

guage how the nails of the carpenter shop, became

the nails of the Carpenter^s Cross.

“Whenever the bright blue nails would drop
Down on the floor of His carpenter shop,

St. Joseph, prince of carpenter men.

Would stoop to gather them up again;
For he feared for two little sandals sweet;

And very easy to pierce they were
As they pattered over the lumber there

And rode on two little sacred feet.

“But alas, on a hill between earth and heaven

One day—two nails in a cross were driven.
And fastened it Arm to the sacred feet
Where once rode two little sandals sweet;

And Christ and His mother looked off in death
Afar—to the valley of Nazareth

Where the carpenter shop was spread with dust
And the little blue nails, all packed in rust,

Slept in a box on the window-sill.

And Joseph lay sleeping under the hill.”

—Leonard Feeney, S. J.

And what does the Carpenter do now that the

carpenters will no longer permit Him to carpen-

ter? He becomes a sower and fulfills the parable

which He once told : “And behold, the sower went

forth to sow.'' He Who had once sowed the blue



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 101

firmament with stars and the fields with wild-

flowers, now continues to sow, but with a seed of

a different kind. His feet are nailed, and yet not

even steel stills the progress of His sowing. His

feet are dug, and yet He casts the seed to the

winds, and the seed is His blood, each precious

drop of it a grain falling to the ground, each suffi-

cient to spring forth into life everlasting.

It is only the soil which differs. There was no

one on Calvary that day who did not carry away

in his heart the seed of life or death. There never

has been and there never will be a creature who,

when the last sheaf is bound and the last load gar-

nered, will not be found to have accepted or re-

fused that seed of life, and in doing so, to have

signed the warrant of his own destiny.

But the Sower went on sowing His seed, and as

He sowed “some fell by the wayside . . .and other

some fell upon stony ground, where they had not

much earth . . . and others fell among thorns:

and the thorns grew up and choked them.’^

It was everywhere the same seed which fell

with the same rich redness, the same beautiful

promise of life. It was the soil which was dif-

ferent. The seed was the redemptive blood of

Christ. The wayside soil was the self-wise group,

such as the judges who put Christ to death; men

who were walking the ways of men, rather than

the ways of God; men who followed the public

opinion of the streets, rather than the faith of the

hidden Christ. The stony ground was the ignorant

group, such as the executioners who put Him to
death : men with cold, rocky, unplowed, rough and
uncouth hearts. The thorny soil was the weak

group, such as the timid Apostles and disciples.



102 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

wha were off at the border of the crowd, fearful

of the thorns of human respect and the shame

which is the heritage of the Cross.

But as He sows, nature changes her complexion.

Now—a midnight sky at noon , . .flashes of light-
ning, like daggers of light . . . demoniac laughter

. . . the sob of a woman . . . the sound of a ham-

riier . . . the sigh of pain . . . blasphemies and

curses . . . the silver warbling of a distant bird

. . . the lengthening shadow of the Cross . . .

audible blood-dripping. He saw them as He

sowed. They had eyes—shifting, doubting, with

wicked light; eyes through which Hell itself was

looking. They had lips—fierce, fastened lips, open
lips, craters of hate, volcanoes of blasphemy. They

had hands—^hands that picked up stones, and now
hands that opened the granary of His precious

side. They had faces—^white faces, mad faces,
laughing faces, faces that flashed ferocity, faces

that came out of the lairs and dens of festering

ignorance and crime, faces jeering and roaring

about the Cross. And the words they hurled at the

Man on the Cross were words in which their con-
suming envy expressed their argument and their

triumph! ''Others He saved: Himself He cannot

save.’^

They can admit this now, seeing that He is not

saving Himself. They can now admit that He

saved the son of the widow of Naim; they can now

admit that He made the blind to see and the deaf

to hear, and even Lazarus to come from his grave;

they can now fully avow that He could save others,

because now Himself He cannot save. When He

should now put forth His power by coming down

from the Cross, by changing a crown of thorns



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 103

into flowers and nails into rosebuds, He does not.

It is only because He is weak. His impotence is

plain; His feebleness apparent. And as the great

flame of love burns Itself out, there echoes out over

the rocks of Calvary, out even over the hills of

Sion, the cry of their hate, the cry of their ap-

parent triumph, the cry of their flnal victory:

“Others He saved: Himself He cannot

Of course He cannot! No man can save him-

self who saves another. Sacrifice is not weakness,

but the obedience to a law, and the law is that if

any man will save others, in any salvation what-

soever, the mandate he must obey, the stern con-

dition he must fulfill, the lot he must accept, is

that he cannot save himself. Such is the paradox

of salvation!

Falling leaves cannot save themselves if they

are to enrich the soil; the falling acorn cannot

save itself if it is to bud a tree, a caterpillar must

forfeit its life if it is to become a butterfly; a plant

cannot save itself if it is to nourish an animal; an

animal cannot save itself if it is to become food for

man; a mother cannot save herself if she wishes

to save the life of her child ; the soldier cannot save

himself if he wishes to save his country; nor can

the shepherd save himself, if he would save his

sheep. Christ is the Good Shepherd, and hence

when Jesus would consummate the great salva-

tion, there was no other way to save humanity

than to lose Himself; no other way to save us

than to lay down His life for our salvation. For

to love is never to think of one’s self, but to give

one’s self for the one loved.

But the tragic part of it all was the perversity

on the part of human nature which Christ so ten-



104 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

derly loved, and for -which He was baptized with

the baptism of blood. I say the perversity of man-

kind, for He Who brought salvation to all nations
was put to death by His own people; He Who
taught love for enemies was killed by His friends;

He Who offered His life, was put to death; He

Who came to save others, was crucified by those

whom He saved; He Who called Himself the seed,

verified the law of the seed by making death the

condition of birth; He Who said He had life in

abundance was one day apparently to have none

of it; He Who told the parable of the Good Shep-

herd who did not flee when he saw the wolf com-

ing, now actually lays down His life for His sheep.

Others He saved : Himself He cannot

!

Could not Christ have saved us without the

shedding of His precious blood? Might He not

have sat, like the Greek teachers before Him, in

some porch or garden, where the enterprise and

intelligence of the world might have sought and

found the Wisdom that would save it? Might He

not, like another Gotama, have sat under a Bodhi

tree, and in a moment of illumination have become

the Buddha? Might He not, like another Solomon,

have installed Himself in a palace of luxury, where

refinement, power and ease would have brought all

the nations to His feet? If He had been only a

teacher of men, a world philosopher. He might

have done these things. But He had a deeper work

to do. He came not only to teach : He came also

to save. He had to force the human conscience to

stand face to face' with the sternest and most un-

welcome sides of truth, ere He disclosed His Divine

Remedy—and as long as the conditions of life were
to remain unchanged. He had to save others by



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 105

losing Himself. Others He saved : Himself He can-

not save!

But the servant is not above the Master. The

law’ of the life of Christ must be the law of the

life of Christians. If our soul is to be saved for

eternity, it must be lost to time
;
if it is to be saved

to the Father's Heavenly Mansion, it must be lost

to time's poor, dumb show; if it is to be saved for

the treasures that rust does not consume, it must

be lost to the riches of the world; if it is to be

saved for Heaven, it must be lost to earth, for all

this is but the continuation of that law of redemp-

tion that no one can save himself if he is saving

someone else.

To the early martyrs the world said: **You

^

cannot save your bodies if you hold that the love

of God is higher than the love of Caesar." Of

course they could not save their bodies
;

it was be-

cause they were saving their souls. To the clois-

tered orders of our day the world says : ‘‘You can-

not save yourself for the pleasures and luxuries

of the world if you follow the Christian law of

penance and sacrifice." Of course they cannot; it

is because they are saving the world. To all the

faithful following the morality of Christ, the

world will say: “You cannot save yourself for our

social life if you deny divorce." Of course they
cannot; it is because they are saving themselves

for eternal life. To the Church the world says:
“You cannot save yourself for the good opinion of
this age, for its easy morality and its broadmind-
edness, if you oppose it in the name of the un-
changing principles of Christ." Of course she can-
not save herself for this age : it is because she is



106 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

saving herself for an age when this age is dead

and gone.

The world with its sin, its tempting pleasures,

its forbidden fruit, says to me: ''You cannot save

yourself if you are fastened to that Cross and

nailed to that gibbet/’ I know I cannot save my-

self, but I do not want to save myself. I want to

be lost, lost on the Cross, lost in its salvation, lost

in its purifying blood, lost as a captive of its re-

deeming Love.

“I slipped His fingers, I escaped His feet,

I ran and hid, for Him I feared to meet.
One day I passed Him, fettered on a Tree,
He turned His Head, and looked, and beckoned me.

“Neither by speed, nor strength could He prevail.
Each hand and foot was pinioned by a nail.
He could not run or clasp me if He tried,
But with His eye. He bade me reach His side.

“For pity’s sake, thought I, I’ll set you free.

‘Nay—hold this cross,’ He said, ‘and follow Me.
This yoke is easy, this burden light,

Not hard or grievous if you wear it tight.’

“So did I follow Him Who could not move,
An uncaught captive in the hands of Love.”



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 107

THE JOY OF DEFEAT

Address delivered on April 16, 1933.

The time is sunset—^that dread day when at high
noon the sun hid its light at the passing of Light.

The holy Body which was purpled with blood from

the precious wardrobe of His side, was now at death,

laid in a stranger’s grave, as at birth it was cradled

in a stranger’s cave. The rocks, which but a few

hours before were shattered by the dripping of His

red blood, now have gained a seeming victory by

sealing in death the One Who said that from rocks
He could raise up children of Abraham.

In the last rays of that setting sun, which, like

a Eucharistic Host, was tabernacled in the flaming

monstrance of the west, picture three men, a He-

brew, a Latin and a Greek, passing before the grave

of the One Who went down to defeat and stumbling

upon the crude board nailed above the Cross that

very afternoon. Each dimly read in his own lan-

guage the inscription “Jesus of Nazareth, King of

the Jews.” The variety of languages, symbols of a

variety of nationalities, provokes them to discuss

what seems to them an important problem : namely,

what will be the most civilizing influence in the

world in fifty years?

The Hebrew says the most civilizing world in-

fluence in fifty years will be the Temple of Jerusa-

lem, from which will radiate under the inspiration

of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the religion which will

conquer the hearts of the gentile nations, and make



108 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

of the Holy City the Mecca of the world. The Ro-

man contends that within fifty years, the most po-

tent social factor will be the city of Rome, destined

to be eternal because founded by Romulus and

Remus, who in their infancy were nourished by

something non-human, namely a wolf which gave

them their extraordinary force and their might.

Finally, the Greek, disagreeing with both, argues

that in the specified time, the most important world

influence will be the wisdom of the Grecian philoso-

phers and their unknown god to whom a statue,
made by human hands, was erected in the market

place of the great Athens.

Not one of the three gave a thought to the Man

Who went down to the defeat of the Cross on that

Good Friday afternoon. For the Hebrew with his

1 we for religion, and the' Roman with his love for

kw, and the Greek with his love for philosophy,

there was not the faintest suggestion that He Who
called Himself the Way of religion, the Truth of

law, and the Light of philosophy, and Who was now

imprisoned by rock-ribbed earth, would ever again

stir the hearts and minds and souls of men. They

could not agree upon what would most influence the

world in the next generation, but they were all

agreed that He Whose blood dried upon the Cross

that afternoon would never influence it, or be an

inspiration of hearts, or the hope of sinners.

And yet, ere the sun had risen on that third day,

in that springtime when all dead things were coming

to life. He Who laid down His life, took it up again

and walked into the garden in the glory of the new

Easter morning. Ere yet the fishermen disciples had

gone back to their nets and their boats about the Sea



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 109

of Galilee, He Who had announced His own birth to

a Virgin, now told a penitent harlot to tell Peter

that the sign of Jonas had been fulfilled. Ere long

before nature could heal hideous scars on hands and

feet and side, nature was to have the only serious

wound she ever received, namely the empty tomb

as He was seen walking on the day of triumph with

five wounds gleaming as five great suns, as an eter-

nal proof that love is stronger than death.

Fifty years passed, and what happened? Within

that time the army of Titus struck the Temple of

Jerusalem and left not a stone on stone, while over

the empty tomb all the nations of the earth saw a

new spiritual edifice arise, whose cornerstone was

that which the builders rejected. Within fifty years,

Rome discovered the real reason for its immortality

;

it was not because Romulus and Remus, nourished by

the wolf had come to dwell there, but because the

spiritual Romulus and Remus, Peter and Paul,

nourished on the Bread descended from heaven, came

there to preach the eternal love of the risen Christ.

Within fifty years, the dominant spiritual force in

Greece was not the unknown god made by human
hands, but the God Whom St. Paul announced to the

Areopagites when, stretching forth his hands he said

:

‘T found an altar also, on which was written : ‘To the

Unknown God’. What therefore, you worship with-

out knowing it, that I preach to you: God, Who
made the world, and all things therein . . . for in

Him we live, and move, and are.” Fifty years passed

and Jerusalem would have been forgotten had not

Jesus died there; fifty years passed and Rome would

have perished had not a fisherman died there; fifty

years passed and Athens would have been forgotten



110 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

had not the risen Christ been preached there. Fifty

years passed and the three cultures in which He was

crucified now sang His name in praise; the Cross

which was the instrument of shame became the

badge of honor, as Calvary was renewed on Chris-

tian altars in the language of Hebrew, Latin and

Greek.

The world was wrong and Christ was right. He

Who had the power to lay down His life had the

power to take it up again; He Who willed to bf

born, willed to die; and He Who knew how to die
knew also how to be reborn, and to give to this

poor, tiny planet of ours, an honor and a glory which

flaming suns and jealous planets do not share—the
glory of one forsaken grave.

The great lesson of Easter Day is that a Victor

may be judged from a double point of view; that of

the world, and that of God. From the world’s point

of view, Christ failed on Good Friday; from God’s

point of view Christ had won. Those who put Him

to death gave Him the very chance He required;,

those who closed the door of the sepulchre gave Him

the very door which He desired to fling open
;
their

seeming triumph led to His greatest victory. The

foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weak

things of the world hath God chosen to confound the

strong. And so I say the great lesson of Easter

Day is that He Who goes down to defeat in the eyes
of the world is the victor in the eyes of God. Christ-

mas told the story that Divinity is always where

the world least expects to find it, for no one expected

to see Divinity wrapped in swaddling clothes and

laid in a manger. Easter repeats that Divinity is

always where the world least expects to find it, for



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 111

no one in the world expected that a defeated man

would be a Victor, that the rejected cornerstone

would be the head of the building; that the dead

would walk and that He Who was ignored in a tomb

would be our Resurrection and our Life—and so on
this Easter Day, I sing not the song of the Victors

but of those who go down to defeat :

—

I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fall in the Battle of

Life,

The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed

in the strife;

Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding
acclaim

Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wear the chap-

let of fame.

But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the
broken in heart,

Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and des-
perate part.

Whose youth bore no flower in its branches, whose hopes
burned in ashes away.

From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at,
who stood at the dying of day

With the wreck of their life all around them, unpitied, un-
heeded, alone.

With death swooping down o’er their failure, and all but
their faith overthrown.

While the voice of the world shouts its chorus—its paean for
those who have won

While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the

breeze and the sun

Glad banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet

Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the

field of defeat,

In the shadow, with those who are fallen, and wounded, and
dying, and there

Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted
brows, breathe a prayer.

Hold the hand^ that is helpless, and whisper, “They only the
victory win.

Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the
demon that tempts from within;

Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the
world holds on high;

Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight, if
need be, to die.”



/

112 THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED

Speak, History! Who are Life’s victors^' Unroll thy long an-

nals and say, i

Are they these whom the world called the victors, who won

the success of a day?

The martyrs or Nero? The Spartans, who fell at Thermopy-

lae’s tryst?

Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges or Socrates? Pilate

or Christ?

Unroll the scrolls of time and see how the lesson

of that first Easter is repeated as each new Easter

tells the story of the Great Captain, Who found His

way out of the grave and revealed that lasting vic-

tory must always mean defeat in the eyes of the

world. At least a dozen times in her life of twenty

centuries the world in the first flush of its momen-

tary triumph sealed the tomb of the Church, set her

watch and left her as a dead, breathless and defeated

thing, only to see her rising from the grave and

walking in the victory of her new Easter morn.

In the first few centuries thousands upon thous-

ands of Christians crimsoned the sands of the Coli-

seum with their blood in testimony of their faith. In

the eyes of the world Caesar was victor and the

martyrs were defeated. And yet in that very gener-

ation while pagan Rome, with her brazen and golden

trumpets, proclaimed to the four corners of the

earth her victory over the defeated Christ
—
“Where

there is Caesar, there is power”, there swept from

out the Catacombs and deserted places like their

leader from the grave the conquering army chant-

ing its song of victory: “Wherever there is Christ,

there is Life”. Who, today, knows the names of

Rome’s executioners? But who does not know the

names of Rome’s martyrs? Who today recalls with

pride the deeds of a Nero or a Diocletian, but who

does not venerate the heroism and sanctity of an



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 113

Agnes or a Cecilia? And so, on this Easter Day, I

sing not the song of the Victors but of those who

go down to defeat.

Come now closer to our own times to the last

quarter of the last century. During those days

France was celebrating its great victory over the

Church in a wave of anti-clericalism which made it

a shame and scandal to be a follower of Christ.

There was hardly a lip of the world which did not

pronounce in praise, and hardly an ear which did

not hear in joy the names of Jules Steeg, of Parlia-

ment, and Ferdinand Buisson, the Minister of

State, the two men most responsible for the seeming

victory over the Church. At that very time in a

little city a few hours outside of Paris, a young girl

hidden away in the shadow of the cloister was pour-

ing out her prayerful life for Christ and, like her

Master, going down to defeat in the eyes of the sin-

ful world. On this Easter Day, who in this country,

who, even in France, ever mentions the names or

remembers the deeds of a Steeg or a Buisson? But

who does not know of the Little Flower, Therese of

Lisieux? She who was defeated in the eyes of the

world is the victor in the eyes of God, and so on this

Easter Day I sing not the song of the victors, but

of those who go down to defeat.

Finally the Easter lesson comes to our own lives.

During the last four months I have been preaching

to you the Gospel of Defeat, for Christian morality

is unpopular in the world today. It has been sug-

gested that you go down to defeat in the eyes of the

world by accepting the voice of conscience rather

than public opinion; that you go down to defeat in

the sanctity of the marriage bond rather than win



114 THE HYMN OF THE CONQI^ERED

the passing victory of divorce; that you go down to

defeat in the fruit of love rather than win the pas-

sing victory of a barren union
;
that you go down to

defeat in the love of the cross rather than win the

passing victory of a world which crucifies—And
now it is suggested in conclusion that you go down to

defeat in the eyes of the world by giving to God

that which is wholly and totally yours. If you give

to God your energy, you give Him back His own

gift; if you give Him your talents, your joys and

your possessions, you return to Him that which He

placed in your hand not as an owner but as a mere

trustee. There is only one thing in the world which

you and I can call our own. There is only one thing

I can give to God which is mine as against His and

which not even He will take away, and that is my
own will with its power to choose the object of its

love. Hence the most perfect gift I can give to God

is the gift of my will. The giving of that gift to

God is the greatest defeat that one can suffer in the

eyes of the world, but it is the greatest victory we

can win in the eyes of God. In surrendering it we

seem to lose everything, yet defeat is the seed of

victory as the diamond is the child of night—^the
giving of our will is the recovery of all our will ever

sought—the Perfect Life, the Perfect Truth and the
Perfect Love which is God! And so on this Easter

Day I sing not the song of the Victor but of those

who go down to defeat.

With these words I conclude my series of broad-

casts, the sole aim and purpose of which was to

prove that victory with Christ on Easter is sweeter

than victory with the world on Good Friday. There

is only one touchstone of success in such broadcasts



THE HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 115

as these, and that is to bring souls nearer to God. If

therefore I have brought to thirsty lips a cup fash-

ioned of clay moistened with the tear drippings of

Calvary, or to any uneasy mind the knowledge that

earth is but the blossoming of a desire the fruit of

which is heaven
;
or to an aching heart the joy of

Eucharistic communion with the Master; if any

word of mine has encouraged a soul to dig where it

has fallen to find the pearl of God’s grace, or to

shoot its arrows above earthly targets to the hid

battlements of eternity, or to transform itself from a

creature into a child of God, as dirty water may be

transformed into white snowfiakes by the sunlight

or to remain pure in the world as the lily on the foul

pond
;
if I say I have lifted up just one single soul to

the embrace of Christ and His Cross, then I shall

feel that my labors have not been in vain. Of that
soul or souls I would ask that they write a word of

thanks to the sponsors of these programs and that

they say a prayer for me that I may practice what
I preach.

May the lesson of Easter and the victory of

Christ ring in your ears. What care we if the

road of this life be steep, if the poverty of Bethle-

hem, the loneliness of Galilee and the sorrow of the

Cross be ours? Marching under the leadership of

the Captain of the Five Scars, fortified by His Sac-

raments, strengthened by His infallible Truth, di-

vinized by His redemptive Love, we need never fear

the outcome of the battle of life; we need never

doubt the issue of the only struggle that matters.

Why, we have already won—only the news has not
yet leaked out!





CARDINAL HAYES STATES AIMS OF THE CATHOLIC

RADIO HOUR

(Extract from his address at the inaugural program in the

Studio of the National Broiadcasting 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 us, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue.

So may it be fulfilled. This work 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.





Hear and Help the Catholic Hour

Sponsored by the National Council of Catholic Men (With the

cooperation of the National Broadcasting Company and

its associated stations), 1314 Massachusetts Avenue,

N. W., Washington, D. C.

Your Contribution to the Continuance of These

Weekly Broadcasts of Catholic Truth is

Needed and Solicited.

The following Stations in the System of the National Broad-

casting Company present the Catholic Hour Every Sunday:

Asheville, N. C. WWNC
Atlanta, Ga.* WSB

Baltimore, Md. WFBR

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Davenport, Iowa woe

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Detroit, Mich. WWJ
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Houston, Tex. KPRC

Jackson, Miss. WJDX

Jacksonville, Fla. WJAX

Kansas City, Mo. WDAF

Los Angeles, Calif. KECA

Madison, Wis. WIBA

Except first Sunday of month

Memphis, Tenn. WMC
Miami, Fla. WIOD

Nashville, Tenn. WSM
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Omaha, Neb. WOW
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Schenectady, N. Y. WGY
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Spokane, Wash. KGA

Tampa, Fla.WFLA-WSUN

Tulsa, Okla. KVOO

Washington, D. C. WRC
Worcester, Mass. WTAG





CATHOLIC HOUR ADDRESSES
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“The Divine Romance,” by Rev. Dr. Fulton J. Sheen, 80 pages
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“The Philosophy of Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. Charles L.
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“Christianity and the Modern Mind,” by Rev. John A. Mc-
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.
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“Manifestations of Christ,” by Rev. Dr. Fulton J. Sheen, 128
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“The Way of the Cross,” by Rev. Dr. Fulton J. Sheen, 32 pages
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“Christ Today,” by Very Rev. Ignatius Smith, O. P., 48 pages
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