4

•'y

;s

j

I*'

"^3



PROPHETS AND KINGS

GREAT SCENES; GREAT LINES

By

Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P.,

Editor of The Catholic World

Nine addresses delivered in the nationwide Catholic Hour

(produced by the National Council of Catholic Men, in

cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company),

on Sundays from November 5 to December 31, 1939

Page

Moses and Pharaoh 5

The People to Samuel 14

Nathan to David 24

Daniel to Baltassar 35

Mathathias to the Envoys of King Antiochus 46

John the Baptist to Herod - 57

Peter to the High Priest 65

The Word Was Made Flesh 73

Jesus to Pilate 79

National Council of Catholic Men

Producers of the Catholic Hour

1312 Massachusetts Ave., N. W.

Washington, D. C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor

Huntington, Indiana



Imprimatur:

Hh JOHN FRANCIS NOLL. D. D.

Bishop of Fort Wayne



DEDICATION

This series of talks is respectfully dedicated to those

hearers who have always known but were happy to have
their attention called once more to the fact that the Sacred
Scriptures are an unrivalled source of dramatic and poetic
inspiration as well as of Divine Truth.



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/prophetskingsgreOOgill



MOSES AND PHARAOH

"Let my People Go!" (Exodus 5:1)

Address delivered on November 5, 1939

Those who listened to the Catholic Hour at

this season a year ago will perhaps remember that

the underlying idea of the discourses delivered at

that time was that truth is often more dramatic than

fiction, and that playwrights and novelists are blind

to great themes in sacred and semi-sacred literature.

This year I propose a cognate theme: that in the

Bible are such soul-stirring scenes and such magnifi-

cent lines as are to be found in no other literary

records, imaginative or factual.

Also I have it in mind to show that events which

took place two or three thousand years ago are para-

doxically as up to the moment as what you have

read in the newspaper this morning. The totalitar-

ian state was not born when the Weimar Republic

died or when II Duce marched on Rome in 1922.

Totalitarian tyranny existed on the Nile when the

Pyramids were built 5,000 years ago.

One more point I hope to illustrate in this dis-

course and those that are to follow: that when of

old a King afflicted the people, a prophet was sent

from God to confront him, rebuke him and to

be perhaps a martyr in the cause of the people. “It

is expedient that one man should die for the people,”

said Caiphas. To speak and if need be to die for

the people is the vocation of a prophet of old and of

the priest today.

One of the earliest recorded instances of this

three-cornered conflict of king, people, prophet, is



6 PROPHETS AND KINGS

that of Pharaoh, the people of Israel, and Moses. To

appreciate that dramatic incident we must have the

setting.

It was a dazzling civilization, that of the Phar-

aohs. Thanks to the preservative power of the sun

and the sands of Egypt, a few fragments of its

beauty and grandeur remain, and even the frag-

ments are so magnificent as to seem incredible. At

the pyramids, the tombs of the kings, the colossi and

the temples at Thebes, the sun blazes so fiercely that

we might imagine we were seeing a mirage on

the desert. In the museum at Cairo, when we are

shown the jewels, the furniture, the chariots, the

upholstery, the fine fabrics, the designs, engravings,

paintings buried with Tutankhamen, 3,300 years

ago, we might be tempted to think ourselves victims

of a hoax, that these things must be modern. But

the pyramids, the tombs, the temples, are no mirage.

The Great Pyramid of Gizeh covers thirteen acres,

contains 2,300,000 blocks of limestone, each one

weighing two and a half tons. It is 600 feet high

and measures 750 feet at every one of the four

sides of its base. There it has been since 2900 B. C.

The Great Temple at Karnak is a quarter of a mile

long, with the greatest colonnaded hall ever built in

ancient or modern times, with carved columns 68

feet high crowned with capitals wide enough to sup-

port one hundred standing men.

Besides the temples and the palaces, there re-

mains the ground plan of gardens as spacious and

beautiful as those of Versailles in the days of Louis

XIV, of Schonbrunn at Vienna in the heydey of the

Hapsburgs, or at Kioto where the Emperor who

calls himself God takes the air of an afternoon.

Clustered thickly about the Great Pyramid are



MOSES AND PHARAOH 7

tombs of massive cut stone carved and painted from

floor to ceiling with scenes of ancient Egyptian life.

Jewelers, cabinet makers, merchants, are represent-

ed displaying their wares to a rich man. The actual

wares, jewels and objects of art, are to be seen in the

museum of Cairo, together with chairs and couches

“overlaid with gold and silver, inlaid with ebony

and ivory, upholstered with soft leather cushions,”*

royal linens so fine that a microscope must be used

to distinguish them from silk, softer and of a more

delicate weave than the best product of the modern

machine loom, fabrics finer than those beautiful

specimens exhibited by France and Belgium and

Italy at the recent World’s Fair in New York. There

too you may see a bowl of diorite, a stone hard as

steel, ground so thin as to be translucent. And this,

remember, was 3,000 years ago when your ances-

tors and mine were little better than cave men.

Over this magnificent Empire ruled the

Pharaohs who were supposed to be sons of the gods

with no blood but the divine in their veins. Phar-

aoh was regarded as an object of religious awe. His

rule was absolute. He was master of life and death,

his decisions were subject to no revision. His sub-

jects accepted his edicts as unquestioningly as the

dictates of Ammon Ra the Sun God, or of Osiris and
Isis, god and goddess of the earth, children of Seb

the god of the sky. The commands of such a king

were to them like the law that makes the sun rise

and set or the Nile to overflow.

Now we read in the Book of Genesis that a young
Hebrew, Joseph, found favor with the Pharaoh of

his day, and that the King said to him : “Thou shalt

^Breasted. Ancient Times. P. 65.



8 PROPHETS AND KINGS

be over my house, and at the commandment of thy

mouth all the people shall obey; only in the kingly

throne will I be above thee. . . . Behold, I have

appointed thee over the whole land of Egypt. And

he took his ring from his own hand, and gave it into

his hand: and put upon him a robe of silk, and put

a chain of gold around his neck. And he made him

go up into his second chariot, the crier proclaiming

that all should bow their knee before him, and that

they should know he was made governor over the

whole land of Egypt. And the king said to Joseph

:

I am Pharaoh; without thy commandment no man

shall move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”

But an absolute monarch may be fickle. His

mood may change like the wind; blowing a zephyr

today and a hurricane tomorrow. Also a kind mon-

arch may be succeeded by a cruel monarch. About

1500 B. C. there came to the throne of the Pharaohs

Thutmose III, a kind of ancient Napoleon with a

mania for conquest. He spent 20 years at war con-

quering and crushing the cities and kingdoms of

Asia adjacent to Africa. The inevitable occurred:

troubles abroad and dissension at home. The con-

quered nations revolted. There was disloyalty

among the priests and treason among the soldiers.

Into a situation of that kind stepped Rameses II, the

Pharaoh with whom Moses had to deal. Perhaps

because of natural disposition, perhaps because of

his troubles, he oppressed the peoples under him,

and he was especially ruthless with the Hebrews.

The Book of Exodus says he “hated the children of

Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them: And

made their life bitter with hard works in

clay, and brick, and with all manner of service,

wherewith they were over-charged in the works of



MOSES AND PHARAOH 9

the earth,” and that finally he commanded all male

children born to the Hebrews to be cast into the

river. Now it happened that a man of the house of

Levi had a son by a wife of his own kindred. She

concealed the babe for a time but finally made a

basket of bulrushes, daubed it with slime and pitch,

placed him therein and laid him in the hedges by

the river’s brim.

But the story is too familiar to need retelling.

The daughter of Pharaoh rescued the child, adopted

him as her son and called him Moses. He grew up,

educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. In

spite of the phrase, “Meek as Moses,” he had a

fiery temper. Seeing an Egyptian striking a He-

brew, he killed the Egyptian and fied into the land

of Madian where he married.

From that point the drama develops swiftly

and tragically. Living in outward peace and quiet,

he cannot but hear in his soul the groanings of his

brethren left behind in Egypt. One day on the

Mountain of Horeb the Lord appears to him in a

flame of fire out of the midst of a bush : a fire that

burned but did not consume. He hears the voice

of the Lord, “Moses, Moses. And he answered. Here

I am.” The Lord warns him, “Come not nigh hith-

er, put off the shoes from thy feet: for the place

whereon thou standest is holy ground ... I am the

God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of

Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses “hid his

face for he durst not look at God.” He is told to

go back into Egypt to confront the Pharaoh and

bring forth the children of Israel out of Eg3q)t.

Now there is a scene for a Shakespeare or a

Sophocles: a foundling, a fugitive from Egyptian

justice, a hired shepherd in a foreign land, com-



10 PROPHETS AND KINGS

manded to walk defenseless into the court of an

Oriental despot whose person was sacrosanct, whose

court was guarded, double and treble guarded

against intrusion, a king cruel and rapacious who,

with a word, the lifting of an eyebrow, the move-

ment of a finger, could condemn even a Grand Vizier

to torture and death.

Moses protests to God that even his own people

will not understand : “They will not believe me, nor

hear my voice, but they will say : The Lord hath not

appeared to thee.” God makes naught of the pro-

testations, but bestows upon His hesitant instru-

ment the power of miracles. Moses assembles the

ancients of the Hebrews and the people and persuad-

es them that his message is of God. He goes in to

Pharaoh and declares: “Thus saith the Lord God

of Israel: Let my people go . . .” The King re-
plies: “Who is the Lord, that I should hear his

voice, and let Israel go? I know not the Lord,

neither will I let Israel go.” But Moses with in-

creasing insistence cries : “Let my people go.”
My friends it is a pity that this magnificently

dramatic scene has been presented to the present

generation of Americans as if it were no more than a

folk legend of the colored people. “Green Pastures”

contrived somehow to be reverent and to produce a

spiritual effect, but it was after all a crude burles-

que. But I can imagine what Shakespeare, or Rac-

ine, or preferably Corneille, the great French mas-

ter of dramatic eloquence and majesty, might have

made of that scene, and how tremendous it could be
in the hands of an Edwin Booth, a Lawrence Bar-

rett, or an Alexander Salvini.

If some modern playwright has the courage to

venture it, I would suggest that he indicate in his



MOSES AND PHARAOH 11

lines and in the development of the plot the fact that

here, 3,500 years ago, was a champion of an oppress-

ed people demanding what we call nowadays social

justice, from an autocrat who had no more concept

of that virtue than of Democracy or Political equal-

ity or of the inalienable rights of the poor and the

helpless.

In the sphere of oratory we have Cicero in a

terrifying denunciation of Catiline, Demosthenes

whipping the Athenians into wild resentment against

Philip of Macedon; in drama the mad King Lear

apostrophizing the heavens, Macbeth the murderer

challenging and defying Macduff. We have Mark
Antony’s harangue to the Roman mob over the

dead body of Caesar; and the thunderous outbursts

of Othello and Coriolanus. But why has no drama-

tist of the first rank exercised his talent upon the

superb scene of the shepherd from the land of

Madianites standing before the greatest of

all kings of the earth, the most high and mighty po-

tentate, Pharaoh the absolute, Pharaoh the Sun-God

on Earth, and demanding of this fabulously power-

ful pseudo-god, “Let my people go!”

James Henry Breasted to whom we are indebt-

ed for a vivid presentation of the history of the

Pharaohs, says that when we travel southward from

the Delta of the Nile “we read the monuments along

the great river like a vast historical volume whose

pages will tell us age after age the fascinating story

of ancient man and all that he achieved here so many

thousands of years ago.” “Such,” he says, “are the

thoughts which occupy the mind of the well-inform-

ed traveller.” But with all due respect to the illus-

trious scholar, may I say that such were not my
thoughts when I saw the ruins of the ancient glory



12 PROPHETS AND KINGS

of Egypt. What I felt in Greece and Egypt and

Syria and Palestine I wrote down and beg to quote

:

“Those temples and statues had been erected by

helots, slaves, of whom there were perhaps 200,000

in Greece. Today the guide calls the roll of the men

of genius who made Athens the wonder of the world

:

Pericles, Phidias, Praxiteles, Themistocles, and all

the other familiar names. But no mention is made

of the drachmas extracted from the poor, or of the

sweat and blood that went into the building of those

superb monuments to false gods. So at Baalbek, so

at Heliopolis, so at the Pyramids, so at Thebes, and

Karnak, and at the tombs of the kings, so in Rome

at the Forum and the Colosseum. No one seems to

think of the slaves, who were whipped and driven

and beaten and murdered in the building of the

great monuments to human genius—and human
vanity.”

St. Paul in Athens, I am sure, was less impress-

ed by the magnificent architecture of the Parthenon

and the beauty of the sculptures of Phidias and

Praxiteles than horrified by the superstition, the

slave labor, and the tyrannical oppression of the

human soul even in glorious Greece. But Moses,

more than a thousand years earlier, had anticipated

the horror and the indignation of St. Paul.

That is what was in my mind as I looked at
the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and at the lavish display

of gold, precious stones, exquisitely fashioned ob-

jects of art and craft, that remain to testify to the

magnificence of the Pharaohs. There is blood on

every one of the millions of limestone blocks in

the Pyramids
;
blood on those stupendous columns of

the temple of Karnak; blood on the walls of the

palaces of the kings, blood in the soil of the gardens



MOSES AND PHARAOH 13

of the Grand Vizier; the blood of the people who

were whipped with scourges or bastinadoed. Not all

the beauty and the glory and the majesty of art and

architecture and sculpture can atone for the oppres-

sion of the people by the Pharaohs and the Ptole-

mies, by Pericles, Caesar, Napoleon, and by dicta-

tors who in our own day care not how much misery

is caused by their mad passion to build monuments

—architectural monuments or political monuments
—

^to their own vanity and to what they call the

“glory” of their nation.

When Moses stood before the mighty Pharaoh

and made the demand “Let my people go!”, he

meant not merely that the Israelites should be set

free to go “out of the land of Egypt, out of the

house of bondage,” but that God’s poor people 3,000

years ago, today, and always, should be allowed to

go out from under the hand of tyranny, free from

the oppression, injustice, physical and mental cruel-

ty, laid upon them by kings, dictators, generals who

seem so absorbed in plans for the aggrandizement

of nations that they are blind to justice and mercy

and right.

I think it therefore not fantastic or even un-

duly imaginative to hold that Moses was the first

great prophet of God to champion the people when

he spoke to that Egyptian potentate the words that

have come down to us for 3,000 years, and that may

well serve as an everlasting paradigm for those who

fight the battles of the people against the tyrants,

“Let my people go!”



THE PEOPLE TO SAMUEL

"Make Us a King, to Judge Us, as All

Nations Have" (I Kings 8:5)

Address delivered on November 12. 1939

In ancient times and medieval, in fact as late

as the American and French Revolutions, the peoples

of the world in general held a superstitious rever-

ence for the person of a king. It didn’t seem to

matter much what kind of king he was, good or bad,

kind or cruel, wise or foolish; once he was king,

nobles, courtiers, ministers of state, “lords and

ladies of high degree,” prostrated themselves before

him. As for the common people, they thought them-

selves privileged if they could so much as catch a

glimpse of their king as he rode out in state or show-

ed himself momentarily on a high balcony to ack-

nowledge the cheers of the rabble. He might tax

them near to starvation in order to assure luxury

in food and drink to the royal table : he might main-

tain a dozen superb palaces and move from one to

the other whenever he felt ennui, while the poor

people had to be content year in and year out with

their one same stinking hovel. Perhaps they whim-

pered a little, secretly, but in their hearts they were

proud to know that their king lived magnificently

and kept a more extravagant court than any rival

monarch.

I say it didn’t matter whether he was good or

bad, wise or foolish. Nor did they ask whether he

had come to the throne by lawful succession or by

usurpation and assassination, whether he was a

mighty warrior like Richard the Lion-Hearted or a



THE PEOPLE TO SAMUEL 15

lily-livered coward like Charles of Orleans who had

to be shamed into a show of courage by the peasant

girl Joan of Arc; he might be a superb specimen of

physical strength like Charlemagne or a spindle-

shanked, knock-kneed, chicken-breasted caricature

of a human being, like the king in Carlyle’s Sartor

Resartus; he might be as wise as Haroun-al-Raschid

of the Arabian Nights or as stupid as Louis XVI,

who didn’t know enough to run away on time; he

might be a saint like Louis IV of France or a beast

and a bluebeard like Henry VIII of England; an

atheist like Frederick the Great or as superstitious as

Louis XI
;
a scholar and a philosopher like Justinian,

a doddering imbecile like George III, or quite

mad like Rudolf of Hapsburg. Nothing mat-

tered. As king he was idolized by princes and

people. They kowtowed to him, heads of the oldest

and proudest families waited upon him, basked in

his smile or trembled at his frown, kissed his hand,

the hem of his garment, the earth his royal foot

had touched; went forth to battle for him, bled and

died for him; died happy with his name on their

lips even though it were the name of a coward, a

roue, an ingrate. In a word, kings have received

through the centuries such devotion as few men haye

given to God.

Now, it was perhaps for this reason that God

had willed that His own people should have no king.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob were not kings. Moses was

no king. He led the people out from under the rod

of that most absolute king, the Pharaoh, and made

neither himself nor any other man king. For 400

years after the Israelites came into their own land,

they had no king. The Jewish state was not a king-

dom, not an empire, nor yet a democracy or an



16 PROPHETS AND KINGS

aristocracy. It was a theocracy. “We have no king

but God,” the Jews explained to the Egyptians, the

Assyrians, the Philistines, and all other peoples

with whom they came into contact. It was later,

much later, that they were to utter the blasphemy,

“We have no king but Caesar”; and that ignoble

protestation was, in the judgment of every faithful

Jew then and now, a sign that the lowest possible

depth of national degeneracy had been reached.

“No king but Caesar!” from the lips of a people

whose peculiar glory it had been to have no king

but God.

But in the course of time the inevitable happen-

ed. Driven by the irrational impulse to have a man

of flesh and blood upon whom to lavish their adula-

tion, the people of Israel sent a delegation of the

Elders to Samuel, the last of the Judges, first of

the Prophets. And they said to him, “Make us a

king ... as all nations have.” In Samuel’s ears

the demand sounded sacrilegious. This was apos-

tasy. He reasoned with them, expostulated, warned,

wept, uttered dire prophecies. But like all the wil-

ful, who have no argument but reiteration, they in-

sisted “Make us a king. All nations have a king.

Make us a king!” Samuel prayed to the Lord and

the Lord said to him, “They have not rejected thee,

but me, that I should not reign over them. Now

therefore hearken to their voice” (I Kings 8:7, 9).

So Samuel agreed that they should have a king

;

but being honest and wise, he warned them : “This

will be the right of the king that shall reign over

you: He will take your sons, and put them in his

chariots, and will make them his horsemen, and

his running footmen to run before his chariots.

And he will appoint of them to be his tribunes, and



THE PEOPLE TO SAMUEL 17

centurions, and to plough his fields, and to reap his

corn, and to make him arms and chariots. Your

daughters also he will take to make him ointments,

and to be his cooks, and bakers. And he will take

your fields, and your vineyards, and your best olive-

yards, and give them to his servants. Moreover he

will take the tenth of your corn, and of the revenues

of your vineyards, to give his eunuchs and servants.

Your servants also and handmaids, and your good-

liest young men, and your asses he will take away,

and put them to his work. Your flocks also he will

tithe, and you shall be his servants. And you shall

cry out in that day from the face of the king, whom

you have chosen to yourselves: and the Lord will

not hear you in that day, because you desired unto

yourselves a king” (I Kings 8:11-18).

But the people, stiffnecked then as in later days

when Jesus was to apply the term to them, only

cried the more, “Nay: but there shall be a king over

us” (I Kings 8:19).

They got their king, and with him they got

what Samuel had prophesied—and more. First,
they had Saul who commenced well enough, but

couldn’t stand the demoralizing effect of too much

power. His head turned by victories in battle, he

came to consider himself above and beyond obed-

ience to God, like other kings, ancient and modern,

who think themselves like Nietzsche’s superman

“beyond good and evil.”

God, however, had not abdicated. “I will give

thee a king in my wrath,” He said, “and will take
him away in my indignation” {Osee 13:11). Sam-

uel confronted Saul, rebuked him, and went in

search of a king after God’s own heart. David is

discovered, secretly anointed by Samuel; he joins the



18 PROPHETS AND KINGS

army of Saul against the Philistines, engages Goli-

ath in single combat, kills the braggart giant, hears

the ecstatic cry of the people: “Saul has slain his

thousands, and David his ten thousands” (I Kings

21 :11 ).

Saul becomes jealous, morose, vindictive, in-

sane. He hurls a javelin at David in the attempt

to transfix him to the wall. David escapes the king,

flees the court, is befriended and protected by the

magnanimous Jonathan, the king’s son. The king,

now mad with rage, orders the soldiers to kill David,

and attempts to murder his own son Jonathan. The

Jews had a king, a mad king, a murderer king, but a

king. David, now a fugitive, is “hunted like a part-

ridge in the mountains.” Outcast from both Jews and

Philistines, he becomes a desperado, and gathers all

malcontents into a band of outlaws at the Cave of

Adullam. He attains the throne. Giant-killer, hero,

harpist, poet, forever famous as the composer of

the most soulful poetry ever written, the Psalms,

he none the less succumbs to the temptation of kings.

He becomes a merciless slaughterer. Conquering Ra-

bath, he takes that king’s crown, “the weight of

which was a talent of gold” (II Kings 12:30), and

has it placed upon his own head. As for the people,

“he sawed them, and drove over them chariots armed

with iron: and divided them with knives, and made

them pass through brickkilns: so did he to all the

cities of the children of Ammon” (II Kings 12:31).

The white-haired boy, youngest son of Benjamin, has

come a long way since the days of the pebble and

the sling shot.

Likewise he becomes an adulterer and a murd-

erer. After the assassination of Uriah and his mar-

riage to Bethsabee, a son is born of the union

—



THE PEOPLE TO SAMUEL 19

Solomon. He succeeds to the throne of his father,

and proceeds to live in such magnificence as to out-

rival the kings of Egypt and Babylon. Such splen-

dor as that of the court of Solomon astonished visit-

ing royalty, the King of Tyre and the Queen of Saba.

They had heard rumors of the more than Oriental

opulence and magnificence of the court at Jerusalem,

but when they came they exclaimed, “We were not

told the half of it.”

Now this was what the people wanted, a king

who could dazzle the heathen monarchs with pomp

and splendor. For the details of that splendor you

must read half a dozen chapters in the Third Book

of Kings: the bare recitation of Solomon’s possess-

ions and his achievements would take twenty or

thirty minutes of the rapidest possible speech.

But again the inevitable happened: the great

king went after strange women. He married heath-

ens, the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabites, Edomites,

Hittites. In all he took to himself 700 wives and

300 concubines. With the women came their gods.

Idolatry was established; the abomination of desola-

tion was found on the Mount of Sion a thousand

years before Pompey brought in the Roman eagles.

Solomon’s magnificent expenditures were not

made without the usual cruelty and rapacity. When

he died the people came to Roboam his son

and said, “Thy father laid a grievous yoke upon

us: now therefore do thou take off a little. ... of

his most heavy yoke . . . and we will serve thee.”

But Roboam after teasing them with a three days’

delay, gave his verdict, “My father beat you with

whips, but I will beat you with scorpions” (III Kings

12:14).

So once again the people of God had a king, a



20 PROPHETS AND KINGS

magnificent king, but an oppressor of the people, a

bloodsucker, a wise man turned fool (the worst kind

of fool, an old fool), a renegade, a worshipper of

Baal and Astaroth and of a dozen other obscene gods

and goddesses.

Some historians call Solomon the Louis XIV of

ancient times. Perhaps he was. At least he could

say with Louis, “after me the deluge.” When Solo-

mon died the kingdom was split in twain. Rivals

for both thrones abounded and there occurred the

usual intrigues, treacheries, assassinations, civil

wars and all the other tragic and sordid accompani-

ments and consequences of the rule of kings. In the

end the Jews, disunited, disorganized, demoralized,

were conquered, led away into captivity, oppressed,

impoverished, slaughtered, dispersed amongst the

Gentiles, and so they have remained to this day.

What would have been the fulfillment of their

vocation as the people of God had they kept God

for their ruler, we can only surmise. But it is safe

to say that if they had held fast to God and been

content with God, the history of the world would

have been happier. Kings have been responsible

for most of the woes of their peoples. When I say

kings, I mean leaders with autocratic power, by

whatever name they may be called. Pharaohs, Ptole-

mies, Grand Moguls, Khedives, Shahs, Caesars, Em-

perors, Kaisers, Czars, Duces, Fuehrers, men with

a mania for rule, intoxicated with power, mad with

ambition
;
conquerors, reaching out always for more

worlds to conquer, deluding themselves and their

people with the insane fancy, a thousand times prov-

ed false, that more land, more wealth, more power,

more possessions, in a word, more magnificence,

brings happiness.



THE PEOPLE TO SAMUEL 21

Truly it is a wonder that any intelligent people

after fifty centuries of history should still be deceiv-

ed with the everlasting hallucinations that breed in

the brains of kings, generals, conquerors, premiers,

politicians and other megalomaniacs. It is said of one

dynasty, the Bourbons, that they “forgot nothing

and learned nothing.” It would seem that people who

place a man over them, give him autocratic power,

and then follow him blindly, are stupider than the

Bourbons: such people forget everything and learn

nothing. It is for that reason that we still have wars

as they had as far back as the record runs, on the

stone tablets of Egypt or on the bricks of Babylonia.

It is a commonplace utterance that “the people

don’t want war.” We don’t want war : the French
people, the English people, the Italian people, the

German people, the Russian people, don’t want war.

Well then, who does want war? Some king, or in

these days some one with another and more decep-

tive title who possesses the power once held by kings.

He wants war. The calamity is that the people who

don’t want war, seem to want him. Like the Israelites

of 3,000 years ago, they say “make us a king . . .

to go out before us, and fight our battles for us . . .

as all nations have” (I Kings 8:6, 20).

Think not I have in mind only the most obvious

present instance of war-mad leaders. These are not

the first and only men who, because of a delusion of

grandeur, led their people to war against their will.

If they are mad, Bismarck was mad, and Wil-

helm I and Napoleon and Disraeli and Queen Victor-

ia, Queen Elizabeth, the war lords of the Orient and

all other “Empire makers,” who not content with a

small people and a small nation go wild with imper-

ialistic ambitions. Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great,



22 PROPHETS AND KINGS

Mark Antony, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Thutmose

III, they are all of the same breed, all stricken with

the same insanity, the same mania for expansion,

expansion, ever wider expansion, unmindful of the

fable of the frog who blew himself up so big that

he burst. Rome that was a little city gobbled up

alien lands and alien people. Then the alien lands

and alien peoples gobbled up Rome. There is the

history of the world in a sentence.

The people as the people are not crazy for

empire. But it is a laurel upon the brow of Caesar

if he comes back from the wars and makes a present

of Gaul and Spain and Britain to the Senate. It is

a feather in the cap of Disraeli, a ribbon for his

neck and a medal on his chest when he proudly

throws India into the lap of Victoria, tickling her

vanity with the salutation “Empress.”

Now it was the first item in the program of the

founding fathers of America to get rid of a king, and

with the king, all kingly mania for extravagance,

ostentation, conquest, empire, and as a means to

the fulfillment of these lunatic ambitions, war.

It may seem harking pretty far back to Samuel

and Saul and Solomon to find a warning for Amer-

ica. But that wonderful old Bible is a universal and

timeless revelation. The history of men and the

world is in that Book. Yes and of kings and wars.

He who runs may read, but he who sits down and

quietly refiects may read better.

Always therefore and especially in the present

hectic condition of the world, we should sit down

quietly with the Bible and permit the Divine Reve-

lation to sink into our souls as a preliminary to the

formation of a judgment as to what we shall think

and what we shall do in regard to peace and war.



THE PEOPLE TO SAMUEL 28

In particular I suggest a re-reading of the four

Books of the Kings of Israel in which are incor-

porated “The Books of the Ways of the Kings of

Israel,” and then by way of contrast the Four Gos-

pels of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.



NATHAN TO DAVID

"Thou Art the Man" (II Kings, 12:7)

Address delivered on November 19, 1939

The institution of kingship has, historically,

rested upon many fictions. The Pharaohs of Egypt

and other ancient Oriental kings claimed to be sons

of the gods. As such they were held to be in the strict

sense of the word “Divine.” Among savage tribes the

king as god was supposed to be invulnerable. If an

archer shot an arrow at the heart of a king, the

arrow would be miraculously diverted in mid-air.

If a warrior poised a battle axe to cleave the skull

of a king, the warrior’s arm would be paralyzed;

the axe would fall harmless to the ground. Do I say

savages held that superstition? Napoleon Bona-

parte believed it. “There’s such divinity doth hedge

a king that treason can but peep to what it would,”

says the king in Hamlet when Laertes with sword

unsheathed comes rushing at him. Kipling’s Tommy

Atkins in The Man Who Would Be King was “do-

ing fine” at the job until one of the women of the

tribe bit him, and the blood flowed. As late as the

seventeenth century, kings were supposed to share

in the prerogatives of the Deity, and to possess

miraculous powers. King James of England defend-

ed the doctrine of the divine right of kings against

St. Robert Bellarmine, and a hundred years later so

intelligent a man as Doctor Johnson believed that

the king’s touch could cure scrofula.

But worst of all the fictions invented to bolster

up the thrones of kings was the axiom that “the

king can do no wrong.” Modern experts in constitu-



NATHAN TO DAVID 25

tional law explain that axiom as being true only in a

very much modified sense, but in ancient times it

was taken literally. Only a generation or two

ago Nietzsche said that a king, if he were ruthless

enough, was beyond good or evil. Even to this very

moment you may find persons who hold to a double

standard of morals; a lenient one for kings and a

strict one for common clay. In the statute books of

all countries ruled by royalty, irreverence to the

king, lese majeste, is considered a kind of political

sacrilege.

There is, I believe, only one people of ancient

times who recognized that kings are essentially no

better than other men, and only one ancient docu-

ment in which the sins and crimes of kings are hon-

estly revealed and vigorously castigated. That peo-

ple was the Jews : that document, the Bible. In the

Book of Wisdom we read the words spoken by Solo-

mon to disabuse the people of the idea that a king

is a supernatural being.

“I myself also am a mortal man, like all others,

and of the race of him, that was first made of the

earth, and in the womb of my mother I was fash-

ioned to be flesh ... I was compacted in blood, of

the seed of man . . . And being born I drew in the

common air, and fell upon the earth . . . and the flrst

voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.

I was nursed in swaddling clothes, and with great

cares. For none of the kings had any other begin-

ning of birth. For all men have one entrance into

life, and the like going out” (Wisdom 7 :l-6).

Being a man born of woman the king is not

above right and wrong: “Hear therefore, ye kings,”

says the writer of Wisdom, “and understand ; learn.



26 PROPHETS AND KINGS

ye that are judges of the ends of the earth. Give ear,

you that rule the people . . . Power is given you by

the Lord, and strength by the most High, who will

examine your works, and search out your thoughts

:

Because being ministers of his kingdom, you have

not judged rightly, nor kept the law of justice, nor

walked according to the will of God. Horribly and

speedily will he appear to you: for a most severe

judgment shall be for them that bear rule. For to

him that is little, mercy is granted : but the mighty

shall be mightily tormented. For God will not ex-

cept any man’s person, neither will he stand in awe

of any man’s greatness: for he made the little and

the great, and he hath equally care of all. But a

greater punishment is ready for the more mighty.

To you, therefore, 0 kings, are these my words, that

you may learn wisdom, and not fall from it” (Wis-

dom 6:2-10).

These admonitions were not empty words. If

a king of Judah or of Israel sinned, he was openly

rebuked by the prophets, sometimes deposed, pun-

ished and humiliated before the people. Whereas on

the royal tombs in Egypt we find inscriptions that

have perpetuated for thirty centuries the sickening

self-praise of the Pharaohs, in the Bible we find such

forthright condemnation of royal sin and vice as

this:

“When Solomon was now old, his heart was

turned away by women to follow strange gods. . . .

But Solomon worshipped Astarthe the goddess of

the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammon-

ites. And Solomon did that which was not pleasing

before the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord.

. . . And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because



NATHAN TO DAVID 27

his mind was turned away from the Lord the God

of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had

commanded him concerning this thing, that he

should not follow strange gods : but he kept not the

things which the Lord commanded him. The Lord

therefore said to Solomon : “Because thou hast done

this, and hast not kept my covenant, and my pre-

cepts, which I have commanded thee, I will divide

and rend thy kingdom, and will give it to thy ser-

vant” {lllKiTtgs 11:4-11).

The Sacred Scripture speaks of King David, Solo-

mon’s father, as a man after God’s own heart. But

that same Scripture with relentless honesty does not

hestitate to expose the sins of that “man of God,” as

we shall presently see.

Nor is this biblical frankness to be found only

in the Old Testament. The Gospels record the weak-

nesses, the sins, the cowardice, and the treachery of

the Apostles of Jesus Christ, yes even of the prince

of the Apostles, the first pope, Simon Peter.

I have often wondered whether certain pietistic

writers of church history, of saints’ lives, and of

ecclesiastical chronicles have ever read the Bible;

and if they have, why they follow so different ,a

method from that of those who wrote under the

Divine Inspiration. Too many writers, and be it

added speakers, seem to have a phobia in regard to

unpleasant truth. If they meet an unedifying fact,

they shy away from it with the nervousness of a

skittish horse. The four Evangelists are not so

timorous.

Nor do they make use of the coward’s device of

vagueness and anonymity. Reading the 23rd chap-

ter of St. Matthew, we can almost see our Sav-



28 PROPHETS AND KINGS

ior pointing the finger at certain persons in the

crowd and hear Him saying, “Hypocrites! I mean

you, you that wear the broad badges of piety,

you that accept the salutes of the people in the mar-

ket place; you with the long fringes on your gar-

ments; you with sanctimonious words upon your

lips, you Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, dignitaries

in Church and State, you whited sepulchres!” In

these less robust days it would be considered not nice

of a preacher of the Word of God to hurl such vitu-

peration full in the face of men in authority. It isn’t

done. It simply isn’t done.

As for the sins of the Apostles: if the Gospel

story had been committed to the pen of one of our

modern hush-hush school of pietistic writers, I doubt

if we would ever have heard of the story of Judas,

apostate suicide apostle, and I am quite sure we

would not have known that St. Peter in a miserable

funk cursed and swore that he had never known

Jesus Christ. As for Mary Magdalene: her name

and her shame would be discreetly omitted. Indeed

some overly timid censors if they had their way

would probably delete *the names of Pontius Pilate

and King Herod, on the theory that since those

functionaries represented the State, it might be sub-

versive of the established order to speak disparag-

ingly of them. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

would be censored and expurgated until all the color

and life and truth were gone out of them. To such

censors our Savior, I think, would say “Why are ye

fearful, 0 ye of little faith?” What God has per-

mitted to happen shall not man be permitted to

know? Nothing is more disedifying or scandalous

than fear of the truth. Suppression of truth is often



NATHAN TO DAVID 29

equivalent to a lie, and ‘the use of roundabout phrase-

ology is a mark of mental and moral cowardice.

Be that as it may, the Bible—thank God—has
not yet been bowdlerized. If it had been, we should

have lost one of the finest stories of all time, the

story of the crime of King David, his rebuke by the

prophet Nathan, his repentance, and the consequent

outpouring of his heart in the moving eloquence of

the penitential psalms.

We have in an earlier discourse spoken of the

character of David as king. But as man, poet, saint,

sinner, his personality is best revealed in that in-

comparable masterpiece of spiritual literature, the

Psalms. If, as Buffon said, the style is the man, with

more reason we may say that the book is the man.

And says Rowland Prothero :*

“The Book of Psalms contains the whole music

of the heart of man, swept by the hand of his Maker.

In it are gathered the lyrical burst of his tenderness,

the moan of his penitence, the pathos of his sorrow,

the triumph of his victory, the despair of his defeat,

the firmness of his confidence, the rapture of his as-

sured hope. In it is presented the anatomy of all

parts of the human soul
;
in it are collected ‘sunrise

and sunset, birth and death, promise and fulfillment

—the whole drama of humanity.’
“In the Psalms is painted, for all time, in fresh

unfading colors, the picture of the moral warfare of

man, often baffled yet never wholly defeated, strug-

gling upwards to all that is best and highest in his

nature, always aware how short of the aim falls the

attempt, how great is the gulf that severs the y/ish

from its fulfillment . . .”

The Psalms in Human Life.



30 PROPHETS AND KINGS

As in the Psalms all phases and moods of the

inner life are recorded, so in the character of David

all human characteristics are to be found : “passion,

tenderness, generosity, fierceness; he is at once sol-

dier, shepherd, poet, king, romantic friend, chival-

rous leader, devoted father,”* man of God and man

>f flesh and blood.

Now though it seem to some a scandal to admit

that such a man became guilty of adultery and mur-

der the writer of the Books of Kings felt no scruple

about revealing the ugly fact, and the Holy Spirit

God inspired him to tell the whole truth about it.

David, having won many battles and established

his kingdom, relaxes, abandons his early austerity,

pampers his flesh with luxuries, and the inevitable

occurs. Off guard, his mind and imagination on the

loose, he falls victim to passion, commits adultery

with the wife of a friend, Urias the Hethite. The vic-

timized husband becomes suspicious, returns from

the field of battle, camps upon the doorstep of the

royal palace, refuses to enter his own home and

meet the wife who had been debauched by the king.

David resorts to a ruse that has been used, I suppose,

a thousand times by murderers who have not the

courage to kill an innocent man with their own

hands : he sends Urias back to battle bearing a letter

to Joab the general with the command, “Set ye

Urias in the front of the battle, where the fight is

strongest : and leave ye him, that he may be wound-

od and die” (II Kings 11:15). Adultery, cowardice,

treachery, murder on the soul of the man after God’s

own heart

!

But, as St. Paul was to say later, “Be not de-

*Smith,Bible Dictionary: S. V. David.



NATHAN TO DAVID 31

ceived, God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7). Nor is He a

respecter of persons. He sends Nathan the pro-

phet to the king. If Nathan, like Moses before him

and Jeremias and Isaias after him, feared to con-

front the mighty one, God answered his protesta-

tions as He did those of Jeremias when that hesitant

messenger cried “Ah, Ah, Ah, Lord God: behold, I

cannot speak, for I am a child.” “Say not: I am a

child,” answers the Lord, “for thou shalt go to all

that I shall send thee : and whatsoever I shall com-

mand thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid at [his]

presence: for I am with thee . . . saith the Lord”

(Jeremias 1:6-8).

When Nathan was come to David he spoke to

him in a parable : “There were two men in one city,

the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had

exceeding many sheep and oxen. But the poor man

had nothing at all but one little ewe lamb, which

he had bought and nourished up, and which had

grown up in his house together with his children,

eating of his bread, and drinking of his cup, and

sleeping in his bosom: and it was unto him as a

daughter. And when a certain stranger was come

to the rich man, he spared to take of his own sheep

and oxen, to make a feast for that stranger, who

was come to him, but took the poor man’s ewe, and

dressed it for the man that was come to him.

“And David’s anger being exceedingly kindled

against that man, he said to Nathan: As the Lord

liveth, the man that hath done this is a child of

death . . . And Nathan said to David: Thou art the

man” (II Kings 12:1-7).

David is stricken silent, but the relentless pro-

phet continues, rehearses in detail tbe sins of the



32 PROPHETS AND KINGS

King, and declares in the name of God that the King

who had sinned secretly should be punished “in the

sight of all Israel, and in the sight of the sun” (II

Kings 12:12).

And David said to Nathan, “I have sinned

against the Lord” (II Kings 12:13).

Not only the people of Israel know that story.

It has become the common heritage of Jews, Mo-

hammedans, Christians, believers and unbelievers,

the devout and the scoffers; to the impenitent and

the reprobate it is one more cause for mockery, but

an encouragement to uncounted souls in the last

thirty centuries who have, like David, felt the sting

of the flesh or even the impulse to kill, while in

the depth of their souls they cherish the fear and

the love of God. It is a bewildering psychological

mystery, the coexistence of the beast, the lecherous

and murderous beast, and the angel at the same time

in the same man. Those who do not know what is

in man deny its possibility; those who are ashamed

to admit what baseness a man, even a good holy man

can do, would be in favor of suppressing all

evidence of the simultaneous presence of the divine

and the diabolic in the soul. But God Himself has

not seen flt to sacrifice truth and fact in the interest

of prudery and timidity. As always, God knows

best: the David-Nathan incident has been for all

these centuries an answer to those who complain

that sin in high places, always goes unrebuked
;
and

it has been also a comfort and a consolation to those

who like St. Paul have to confess that in them “the

flesh lusteth against the spirit : and the spirit against

the flesh” {Gal. 5:17). Sometimes they feel a dejec-

tion that casts them down as it were into the pit with



NATHAN TO DAVID 33

the damned, and again a mystic exaltation that bears

them aloft almost to the realms of the blessed. But

in sorrow and joy, in the depths of grief and on

the golden peaks of exultation, they find their mood

in the Psalms of David, and express themselves in

his words. They cry now De Profundis and again

Jubilate and Gaudete. They pray, “Rebuke me not,

0 Lord, in thy indignation; nor chastise me in thy

wrath. For thy arrows are fastened in me : and thy

hand hath been strong upon me. There is no health

in my flesh, because of thy wrath : there is no peace

for my bones, because of my sins. For my iniquities

are gone over my head: and as a heavy burden are

become heavy upon me. My sores are putrified and

corrupted, because of my foolishness. I am become

miserable, and am bowed down even to the end: I

walked sorrowful all the day long. For my loins are

filled with illusions; and there is no health in my

flesh. I am afflicted and humbled exceedingly: . . .

Lord, all my desire is before thee, and my groaning

is not hidden from thee” {Psalm 37 :2-10).

The Lord hears them; and they cry: “Shout

with joy to God, all the earth, sing ye a psalm to his

name . . . Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to

thee : let it sing a psalm to thy name ... 0 bless our

God, ye Gentiles: and make the voice of his praise

to be heard. Who hath set my soul to live . . . Come

and hear, all ye that fear God, and I v/ill tell you

what great things he hath done for my soul . . .

Therefore hath God heard me, and hath attended to

the voice of my supplication. Blessed be God, who

hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy
from me” {Psalm 65:1-20).

And so, as an evidence that kings and other



34 PROPHETS AND KINGS

powerful persons are to be rebuked by prophets and

priests of God: as well as for the inspiration our

own soul may obtain from this story of sin and re-

pentance, this drama at once sordid and beautiful,

let us be thankful that we have not been deprived of

the incident of the rebuke administered to David by

Nathan the man sent by God.



DANIEL TO BALTASSAR

'The Writing I Will Read to Thee, O King!"

(Daniel 5:17)

Address delivered on November 26, 1939

Those who are disheartened by the outbreak of

the present war, while the ghastly memory of the

world war is still vivid, have probably asked in des-

paration: “How long has this hideous custom of

war-making been going on?” The answer may

be given in the classic phrase of Blackstone,

“It is a custom whereof the memory of man

runneth not to the contrary.” Three thousand years

before Christ men were fighting in the valley be-

tween the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris just as

now thy are fighting in no-man’s land (call it rather,

dead man’s land) between the Siegfried and the

Maginot lines. Some of the earliest known inscrip-

tions on tablets of clay record that a Semitic chief-

tain named Sargon, in Mesopotamia, 2700 B. C.

(some say 3800 B. C.) organized a body of archers

and entered upon a career of foreign conquest. He

pressed on north as far as the Taurus mountains on

the edge of Asia Minor, and perhaps as far west as

Cyprus. Four times he invaded Syria and Palestine

;

subdued those and other western countries and uni-

ted them with Babylonia into a single empire. So

there was at least one Alexander, Caesar, Napo-

leon thousands of years before those of whom

we read in the usual text books of history. From the

earliest days there always has been some megalo-

maniac whose own country seemed too small for

him. He weeps for more worlds to conquer, keeps



36 PROPHETS AND KINGS

his own people and others in a state of turmoil and,

in defiance of the curse of God on Cain, commits

multiple murders.

After two or three thousand years more of

wars, rebellions, intrigues, political assassinations in

Mesopotamia, the cradle land of the race, we come

to an Assyrian king called Tiglath-Pileser III who

built up an irresistible fighting machine, maintained

a professional army that sallied forth from the capi-

tal every year in the spring as soon as the mud dried

on the roads. His grandiose plan was to reduce the

whole civilized world to a single empire. He terror-

ized the Medes, the Armenians, the Hethites, and the

Phoenicians, and made himself ruler of Babylon.

His successors held precariously what he had gained,

though they lasted individually only a year or two

as a rule (in one year there were three of them)

;

and then came a general who seized the throne,

called himself Sargon II, defeated his enemies at

home and abroad and became emperor of Assyria

and Babylonia combined. By a coincidence, this ex-

pansion of a little town to a great empire in the

East was happening at the same time that a little

village named Rome commenced to expand into a

vast empire of the west.

Be it noted as a commentary upon the folly of

war and the madness of warriors that in Asia as in

Europe the process of building up an empire always

ruined the conquerors. As one authority on the

subject says, “the long struggle left Assyria, the

conquering nation, maimed and exhausted. It had

been drained of both wealth and fighting population

;

the devastated provinces could yield nothing with

which to supply the needs of the imperial exchequer.



DANIEL TO BALTASSAR 37

and it was difficult to find sufficient troops even to

garrison the conquered populations.”*

Change the names of the kings and of the coun-

tries and you might think that the tale concerned

not Mesopotamia of 3,600 years ago but Central

Europe of 1939. Wouldn’t you imagine that present-

day conquerors would read a little ancient history?

Not if you know the psychology of conquerors.

These war-makers who think themselves wise

and great and powerful are really, as the

Apocalypse says, “wretched, and miserable, and

poor, and blind, and naked” (Apocalypse 3:17), and,

let us add, ignorant. To drop the archaic phrase-

ology and put the truth in the vernacular, war

makers and warmongers are “simps” and “saps,”

like all other criminals.

Assyria conquers Babylonia, Nineveh and

Egypt: Egypt turns the tables and conquers the

conqueror; Babylonia rises, smites the Assyrian,

Nineveh is annexed by Babylonia, and Babylon is

again the center of the civilized world of the East.

The greatest and the most magnificent of the

kings of the new regime at Babylon was Nabuch-

odonosor. Had he learned wisdom and humility

from the vicissitudes we have been recounting? Non-

sense ! Kings and conquerors do not learn. Wisdom,

humility, common sense are repugnant to them.

Nabuchodonosor became the most extreme megalo-

maniac of them all. His madness is told in the Book

of Daniel with authentic Oriental phrasing. It

reads

:

“King Nabuchodonosor made a statue of gold,

of sixty cubits high, and six cubits broad, and he

* Morris Jastrow in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.



38 PROPHETS AND KINGS

set it up in the plain of Dura of the province of

Babylon. Then Nabuchodonosor the king sent to

call together the nobles, the magistrates, and the

judges, the captains, the rulers, and governors, and

all the chief men of the provinces, to come to the

dedication of the statue which king Nabuchodonosor

had set up. Then the nobles, the magistrates, and

the judges, the captains, and rulers, and the great

men that were placed in authority, and all the

princes of the provinces, were gathered together to

come to the dedication of the statue, which king

Nabuchodonosor had set up. And they stood before

the statue which king Nabuchodonosor had set up.

Then a herald cried with a strong voice : To you it is

commanded, 0 nations, tribes, and languages : That

in the hour that you shall hear the sound of the

trumpet, and of the flute, and of the harp, of the

sackbut, and of the psaltery, and of the symphony,

and of all kind of music
;
ye fall down and adore the

golden statue which king Nabuchodonosor hath set

up. But if any man shall not fall down and adore,

he shall the same hour be cast into a furnace of

burning Are. Upon this, therefore, ... all the

nations, tribes, and languages fell down and adored

the golden statue which king Nabuchodonosor had

setup” {Daniel

The sequence every Bible reader knows. “The

Hebrew children” as they are called, that is to say,

three young men of the Israelites who had been led

captive into Babylon, refuse to bend the knee either

to the golden statue or to the king. They are thrown

into the fiery furnace but are miraculously saved

from harm. They sing in the flames a canticle of

sorrow and of joy: of sorrow for their sins and

the sins of their people; blending into a paean of



DANIEL TO BALTASSAR 39

praise to God from all His creatures. That long can-

ticle is eloquent and beautiful beyond almost any

other similar poetry in any literature. The first

part is in fact a resume of the spiritual history of

the Jewish people. It runs:

“Blessed art thou, 0 Lord, the God of our

Fathers, and thy name is worthy of praise, and glor-

ious for ever . . . For thou hast executed true judg-

ments in all the things that thou hast brought upon

us, and upon Jerusalem the holy city of our fathers

:

for according to truth and judgment, thou hast

brought all these things upon us for our sins. For

we have sinned, and committed iniquity, departing

from thee: and we have trespassed in all things:

and we have not hearkened to thy commandments,

nor have we observed nor done as thou hadst com-

manded us, that it might go well with us. Where-

fore all that thou hast brought upon us, and every

thing that thou hast done to us, thou hast done in

true judgment: and thou hast delivered us into the

hands of our enemies that are unjust, and most

wicked, and prevaricators, and to a king unjust,

and most wicked beyond all that are upon the earth

. . . For we, 0 Lord, are diminished more than any

nation, and are brought low in all the earth this day

for our sins. Neither is there at this time prince, or

leader, or prophet, or holocaust, or sacrifice, or obla-

tion, or incense, or place of firstfruits before thee.

That we may find thy mercy : nevertheless in a con-

trite heart and humble spirit let us be accepted”

{Daniel 3:26-39).

Thereupon follows the canticle of praise. It

would be a delight to repeat every word of it, but

we have time for only a few verses of this incompar-

able Benedicite:



40 PROPHETS AND KINGS

“Blessed art thou, O Lord the God of our fath-

ers : and worthy to be praised, and glorified, and ex-

alted above all for ever: and blessed is the holy

name of thy glory: and worthy to be praised, and

exalted above all in all ages. Blessed art thou in the

holy temple of thy glory: and exceedingly to be

praised, and exceeding glorious for ever. Blessed

art thou on the throne of thy kingdom, and exceed-

ingly to be praised, and exalted above all for ever.

Blessed art thou, that beholdest the depths, and sit-

test upon the cherubims; and worthy to be praised

and exalted above all for ever. Blessed art thou in

the firmament of heaven : and worthy of praise, and

glorious for ever.

“All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord:

praise and exalt him above all for ever. 0 ye angels

of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him

above all for ever. O ye heavens, bless the Lord,

praise and exalt him above all for ever. All ye

waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord:

praise and exalt him above all for ever” {Daniel

3 :52-60 ).

And so it continues—perhaps the most ecstatic
prayer ever composed by man even under divine in-

spiration.

Nabuchodonosor is converted by the miracle:

exalts the Hebrew children, and especially the chief

of them, Daniel. The king has a dream : none of his

own soothsayers can interpret it. He summons

Daniel. Daniel with the courage and honesty

of a phophet tells the king: “ . . . thou,

O king, who art grown great and become mighty:

for thy greatness hath grown, and hath reached to

heaven, and thy power unto the ends of the earth . . .

This is the interpretation of the sentence of the



DANIEL TO BALTASSAR 41

most High, which is come upon my lord the king.

They shalt cast thee out from among men, and thy

dwelling shall be with cattle and with wild beasts,

and thou shalt eat grass as an ox, and shalt be wet

with the dew of heaven ; and seven times shall pass

over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth

over the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomso-

ever he will” (Daniel 4:19-22).

Whereupon a miracle happens, a moral miracle

:

the potentate, the absolute monarch, accepts the

prophecy and spares the prophet. And, says the

Scripture with sententious brevity : “All those

things came upon king Nabuchodonosor” (Daniel

4:25).

The king, repentant and chastened, resumes the

throne. He dies: Babylon, exhausted with incessant

warfare and with repeated orgies of drunkenness

and lechery, is in decline. As always when States

decay, the ruler and the people are unaware of im-

pending disaster. They think themselves still in

their age of gold
;
they are blind to the fact that the

political and social structure has been undermined

by war and immorality. “The people sat down to

eat and drink, and rose up to play” (I Cor. 10:7).

“In the days of Noe,” says our Savior, “ . . . 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 ... in the days of Lot: they did eat

and drink, they bought and sold, they planted and

built. And ... it rained fire and brimstone from

heaven, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26-29).

Likewise in Babylon in the day of Baltassar,

doom came unexpected.



42 PROPHETS AND KINGS

And now conies the scene that might well tempt

but would surely baffle the most masterly play-

wright of classic or Elizabethan times, or of our

own. The Bible tells it as mere narrative, with

utter simplicity: but any one who cannot feel the

throb of emotion in the lines must be curiously in-

sensitive.

“Baltassar [successor to Nabuchodonosor] the

king made a great feast for a thousand of his

nobles: and every one drank according to his age.

And being now drunk he commanded that they

should bring the vessels of gold and silver which

Nabuchodosonor his father had brought away out

of the temple, that was in Jerusalem, that the king

and his nobles, and his wives and his concubines,

might drink in them. Then were the golden and

silver vessels brought, which he had brought away

out of the temple that was in Jerusalem: and the

king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines,

drank in them. They drank wine, and praised their

gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, and of

wood, and of stone. In the same hour there appear-

ed fingers, as it were of the hand of a man, writing

over against the candlestick upon the surface of the

wall of the king’s palace: and the king beheld the

joints of the hand that wrote” {Daniel 5 : 1-6).

The king is dismayed and bewildered. The

pagan sooth-sayers confess themselves helpless.

Daniel is summoned. The king says, “Shew me the

interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with

purple, and shalt have a chain of gold about thy

neck, and shalt be the third prince in my kingdom.

To which Daniel made answer, and said before the

king: Thy rewards be to thyself, and the gifts of

thy house give to another: but the writing I will



DANIEL TO BALTASSAR 43

read to thee, 0 king, and shew thee the interpreta-

tion thereof . . .

“Thou . . . hast lifted thyself up against the

Lord of heaven: and the vessels of his house have

been brought before thee : and thou, and thy nobles,

and thy wives, and thy concubines have drunk wine

in them: and thou hast praised the gods of silver,

and of gold, and of brass, of iron, and of wood, and

of stone, that neither see, nor hear, nor feel: but

the God who hath thy breath in his hand, and all

thy ways, thou hast not glorified. Wherefore he

hath sent the part of the hand which hath written

this that is set down. And this is the writing that

is written: MANE, THECEL, PHARES. And this

is the interpretation of the word. MANE : God hath
numbered thy kingdom, and hath finished it.

THECEL: thou art weighed in the balance, and art

found wanting. PHARES : thy kingdom is divided,
and is given to the Medes and Persians” {Daniel

5:23-28).

Once again the Sacred Scripture resorts to the

laconic: “The same night Baltassar the Chaldean

king was slain. And Darius the Mede succeeded to

the kingdom, being threescore and two years old”

{Daniel 5:30-31).

I confess that I feel in regard to these powerful

stories of the Old Testament almost precisely as I

do about the parables of our Savior in the New
Testament. The adage warns us not to paint the

lily or gild refined gold. It often seems a kind of un-

witting sacrilege when a preacher attempts with

heavy, plodding, uninspired commentary to eluci-

date what was written by men in a condition of soul

akin to ecstasy with inspiration from on high. Imag-

ine if you can a school boy or for that matter a



44 PROPHETS AND KINGS

school master rehashing Shakespeare’s “To Be or

Not to Be” or “All the World’s a Stage.” What we

need is not a dusty-minded pedagogue to expound

such passages but some intellectually competent and

vocally brilliant Edwin Booth to speak them.

Similarly, what we should like to have is a dra-

matic presentation of such a scene as that of the

fearless and (as the Holy Book tells us) handsome

young Daniel standing before the king in that ban-

quet hall, the king bleary-eyed with drink, but like

all the rest of the roisterers stricken cold sober by

the preternatural phenomenon of a hand writing

what must have seemed a cabalistic inscription on

the wall.

^The Moving Finger writes: and having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety or Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it”

says the Persian poet who, being a neighbor to

Babylon and of the race of king Darius, knew the

story of Daniel and Baltassar.

Baltassar had little piety and less wit; but,

like a good many other drunken fools he had tears

aplenty—too late. But his tears could no more wash
out the line that had been writ than Lady Mac-

beth’s curses could wash the blood spots off her mur-

derous hands.

But the leading part in this drama is carried

not by the king, but by the young Hebrew prophet,

prisoner, slave, member of a despised and conquer-

ed people standing boldly in the presence of the

Oriental tyrant, and with superb disdain for the

usual sycophancy that courtiers accord to kings, tell-

ing Baltassar: “You are weighed in the balance and



DANIEL TO BALTASSAR 45

found wanting. Thy kingdom shall be divided and

given to the Medes and Persians
!”

Would to God that some divinely authorized

prophet of today, if the race of prophets is not ex-

tinct, should stand before some of the present-day

tyrants, drunken as they are not with wine but with

blood, denounce them for their orgies and their sac-

rileges, declare their power broken, their kingdom

divided and given back to the people, who in turn

may bestow it this time upon some leader from

whose heart simplicity and sincerity and humanity

have not been banished.



MATHATH IAS TO THE ENVOYS OF
KING ANTIOCHUS

"Although All Nations Obey Kinq Antiochus

. . . I and My Sons . . . Will Obey the Law of
Our Fathers" (I Machabees 2:19-20)

Address delivered on December 3, 1939

It is a matter for comment and wonder that the

people of America, educated in the public schools,

know so much about the heroes of Greek and Roman

antiquity and so little about the heroes of the Bible.

What school boy or girl is there who cannot tell of

Leonidas, who with his three hundred Spartans

made the desperate but magnificent stand at the pass

of Thermopylae against a countless horde of Asia-

tics? What high school pupil is there who cannot

recite for you stanza after stanza of Macaulay’s

“Horatius at the Bridge” rolling the sonorous lines

glibly off his tongue:

‘‘I, with two more to help me,

Will hold the foe in play.

In yon strait path a thousand

May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?

‘‘Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the gate:

‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds.

For the ashes of his fathers.

And the temples of his Gods’?”

But how many of these same children know that in

the Bible are stories of valor even more splendid and

stirring than those of Greco-Roman history or myth-

ology?



MATHATHIAS TO ENVOYS OF KING ANTIOCHUS 47

Why do they know so much about Sparta and

Athens and so little about Jerusalem? In the last

generation or two there has been permitted to

spring up a generation of young Americans to

whom the Bible is a closed book, and the Biblical

heroes, if I may slightly alter a famous line of

Sir Walter Scott, are “unknown, unhonored, and

unsung.” Ask those youngsters about Julius Caesar

or Alexander the Great and you meet an enthusias-

tic response. They know much if not all about

Caesar, who in his day out-Hitlered Hitler; they

have a strange admiration for the exploits of Alex-

ander who drenched two continents in blood and

died in a drunken debauch. But if you speak the

names of Mathathias and Judas Machabeus you

will get in return only a blank stare of unrecogni-

tion. You might as well mention Hermes Trismeg-

istus or Apollonius of Tyana. Even the little ones

in the primary grades can recite the legendary story

of William Tell, but of the exploits of the Bible

heroes, not legend, or folklore, but actual history,

they have heard nothing.

But let us have the story of the Machabees and

see if it be not as dramatic as that of Leonidas or

Horatius or the mythical William Tell.

Now the king in this case—^wherever there has
been injustice and cruelty and persecution there was

always a king, just as today there is some absolute

ruler masquerading behind a more democratic

title—^the king in the case was Antiochus. I can
introduce him in no better way than by quoting the

picturesque wording of the first chapter of the First

Book of Machabees

:

“Now it came to pass, after that Alexander the
son of Philip the Macedonian, whq first reigned in



48 PROPHETS AND KINGS

Greece . . . had overthrown Darius king of the Per-

sians and Medes : he fought many battles, and took

the strong holds of all, and slew the kings of the

earth: and he went through even to the ends of the

earth, and took the spoils of many nations : and the

earth was quiet before him. And he gathered a

power, and a very strong army: and his heart was

exalted and lifted up. And he subdued countries of

nations, and princes: and they became tributaries

to him. And after these things, he fell down upon

his bed, and knew that he should die. And he call-

ed his servants the nobles that were brought up with

him from his youth: and he divided his kingdom

among them, while he was yet alive. And Alex-

ander reigned twelve years, and he died.

“And his servants made themselves kings every

one in his place : and they all put crowns upon them-

selves after his death, and their sons after them

many years, and evils were multiplied in the earth.

And there came out of them a wicked root, Anti-

ochus the Illustrious ...” (I Machabees 1:1-11).
“There came out of them,” says the Scripture,

condensing three or four generations of history. As

a matter of fact, there were several kings named

Antiochus. The one with whom the Machabees had

to contend was Antiochus IV. The founder of his

dynasty, Seleucus, had come into Asia with Alex-

ander the Great. The son of Seleucus called him-

self Antiochus Soter, the Savior, either because he

had saved Asia from the Gauls or because he was

supposed to be divine; perhaps for both reasons.

The next Antiochus called himself Antiochus Theos,

Antiochus the God, like the Roman emperors from

Julius Caesar down to the collapse of the Empire.

Antiochus IV, hard put to it to find a more grand-



MATHATHIAS TO ENVOYS OF KING ANTIOCHUS 49

lose title, decided upon Antiochus Epiphanes, that

is “Antiochus, God made Manifest,” or as we should

say “God Incarnate.” To his face the courtiers

called him Epiphanes : behind his back they twisted

the word into Epimanes, the madman. And with

reason. A capable, forceful warrior, he was by
an unusual freak of heredity also intellectually

brilliant, but in him as in some other men of genius

the border line between high mentality and insanity

was narrow and he often stepped over it. I find in

Will Durant’s new book The Life of Greece a graphic

description of this Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde king, this

crazy combination of philosopher and buffoon, gen-

tleman and beast, patron of civilization and agent of

demoralization.

“Antiochus IV was both the most interesting

and the most erratic of his line, a rare mixture of

intellect, insanity, and charm. He governed his

kingdom ably despite a thousand injustices and

absurdities. He allowed his delegates to abuse their

power, and gave his mistress authority over three

cities. He was generous and cruel without judg-

ment, often forgiving or condemning by whim, sur-

prising simple folk with costly gifts, and tossing

money with a child’s ecstacy among the crowds in

the street. He loved wine, women, and art: he

drank to excess, and left his royal seat, at banquets,

to dance naked with the entertainers, or to carouse

with wastrels; he was a Bohemian whose dream of

power had come true. He despised the solemnity

and trappings of the court, played practical jokes

upon his dignitaries, and disguised himself to know

the luxury of anonymity
;
it delighted him to mingle

with the people and overhear their comm.ents on the

King . . . The chief effect of his passion for things



50 PROPHETS AND KINGS

Roman was the introduction of gladiatorial games

in Antioch, his capital. The people resented the

brutal sport, but Antiochus won them over by lavish

and spectacular displays; when they became accus-

tomed to the butchery he considered their degenera-

tion a personal victory.”

But when in his madness he challenged not the

king of Egypt or of Assyria, or the people of An-

tioch, but the people of Israel, he blundered into

catastrophe. The Bible says

:

“He made war against Ptolemee king of Egypt,

but Ptolemee was afraid at his presence, and fled,

and many were wounded unto death. And he took

the strong cities in the land of Egypt . . . And after

Antiochus had ravaged Egypt in the hundred and

forty-third year, he returned and went up against

Israel. And he went up to Jerusalem with a great

multitude. And he proudly entered into the sanctu-

ary, and took away the golden altar, and the candle-

stick of light, and all the vessels thereof, and the

table of proposition, and the pouring vessels, and

the vials, and the little mortars of gold, and the veil,

and the crowns, and the golden ornament that was

before the temple: and he broke them all in pieces.

And he took the silver and gold, and the precious

vessels: and he took the hidden treasure which he

found : and when he had taken all away he departed

into his own country. And he made a great slaugh-

ter of men, and spoke very proudly . . . And after

two full years the king sent the chief collector of his

tributes to the cities of Juda, and he came to Jerusa-

lem with a great multitude. And he spoke to them

peaceable words in deceit: and they believed him.

And he fell upon the city suddenly, and struck it

with a great slaughter, and destroyed much people



MATHATHIAS TO ENVOYS OF KING ANTIOCHUS 61

in Israel. . . . And [his soldiers] shed innocent blood

around about the sanctuary, and defiled the holy

place. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled away

by reason of them, and the city was made the habi-

tation of strangers, and she became a stranger of

her own seed, and her children forsook her. Her

sanctuary was desolate like a wilderness, her festi-

val days were turned into mourning, her sabbaths

into reproach, her honours were brought to noth-

ing” {1 Machabees 1:19-41).

But of all the abominations introduced into

Jerusalem the worst was heathen worship, and with

it heathen vice glorified and deified as part of relig-

ion.

The temple dedicated by Solomon to the Only

True God, was polluted by Antiochus and rededicat-

ed to Zeus. The worship of Ishtar and Aphrodite

was introduced upon Mount Sion, and to the horror

of pious Israelites all manner of indecencies and

obscenities were done in the Holy Place.

Now there appears upon the scene Mathathias

the son of John, the Son of Simeon, a priest of the

sons of Joarib, and he abode in the mountain of

Modin outside but close by Jerusalem. He had five

sons, all of them like himself devoted to the purity

of the worship of God, all of them as indignant as

he at the sight of the profanities and the abomina-

tions perpetrated by the Gentiles and by certain

weak-kneed, renegade, apostate, cowardly Jews.

Mathathias cries out in his anguish

:

“Woe is me, wherefore was I born to see the

ruin of my people, and the ruin of the holy city, and
to dwell there, when it is given into the bands of the

enemies? The holy places are come into the hands

of strangers: her temple is become as a man with-



52 PROPHETS AND KINGS

out honour. The vessels of her glory are carried

away captive: her old men are murdered in the

streets, and her young men are fallen by the sword

of the enemies. What nation hath not inherited her

kingdom, and gotten of her spoils? . . . And be-

hold our sanctuary, and our beauty, and our glory

is laid waste, and the Gentiles have defiled them. To

what end then should we live any longer?” (I Mach-

abees 2:7-13).

He and his sons enter into a covenant, swear-

ing to die rather than take part in the general apos-

tasy. Antiochus hears of their rebellion, sends

his agents to compel them to sacrifice to Zeus.

The envoys approach Mathathias first with flattery

and then with threats. “Thou art a ruler, and an

honourable, and great man in this city, and adorned

with sons, and brethren. Therefore come thou first,

and obey the king’s commandment, as all nations

have done, and the men of Juda, and they that re-

main in Jerusalem: and thou, and thy sons, shall

be in the number of the king’s friends, and enriched

with gold, and silver, and many presents” (I Mach-

ahees 2:17-18).

But the heroic father of that heroic family is

not to be flattered and bribed into sacrilege. He

answers with a loud voice: “Although all nations

obey king Antiochus, ... I and my sons, and my

brethren will obey the law of our fathers” (I Mach-

ahees 2:19-20).

Perhaps I may be pardoned if I delay the action

of this superb drama just long enough to observe

that here we have a ringing manifesto that might

well be heard from the lips of men and of nations

in the present tragic circumstances. Christians

(and especially Catholics) are inheritors of the fun-



MATHATHIAS TO ENVOYS OF KING ANTIOCHUS 53

damental religious principles of the Jews. To deny

the continuity of our religion with that of the people

of Israel would be to surrender our claim to be the

True Religion. In our Bible, the Old Testament is

bound with the new (symbolic fact) ; in our public

and private worship the Psalms of David that were

used and still are used in the Hebrew liturgy are

recited and chanted together with the Creed and

the Pater Noster; in the breviary, a prayer of ap-

proximately an hour’s duration said every day by

priests and monks and cloistered nuns, there is actu-

ally more of the Old Testament than the New; and

at Holy Mass, the sacredest of all acts of worship,

the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are linked

with that of Jesus Christ. “I am not come to des-

troy, but to fulfil” the law of Moses, said our Savior.

These Old Testament heroes, then are our own.

And would to God that in every land, especially in

those countries now writhing under the heel of dic-

tators, there were another family of Machabees to

fling their challenge into the face of the mad rulers

who demand that all peoples shall bow the head,

bend the knee, prostrate themselves and offer in-

cense to the State as God. “I am the Lord thy God
. . . thou shalt not have strange gods before me,”

says Jehovah. “Hear, 0 Israel,” runs the liturgical

prayer of the Jews, “The Lord your God is One

God.” Not Zeus, not Jupiter, not Isis or Orinis, not

Baal and Astarthe, not Bacchus and Venus; not

Appollo or Aphrodite, not Antiochus Epiphanes,

false god, blasphemer, usurper of the prerogatives

of the Deity
;
not the State or a leader who considers

himself the incarnation of the soul of the State, not

—surely not—^the mummified cadaver of Lenin en-
shrined upon an altar in a temple in the Kremlin



54 PROPHETS AND KINGS

Square, shall take the place of the One True God.

“The gods of the Gentiles are demons” says David.

Yes and these gods of the neo-pagans are diobolical

imposters. When called upon to worship the statue

of the Roman Emperor, the martyrs spat in its face,

and so do we reject with scorn the suggestion that

we bend the knee to some Moloch or Beelzebub rep-

resenting the Totalitarian State. With Mathathias

we lift up our voice and cry aloud “Although all

nations obey king Antiochus—or any other pseudo-
god—^we will obey the law of our fathers.”

There you have the climax of the rebellion of

the Machabees. After that the action continues

—

terrific, magnificent, prolonged action—^but the
climax is what interests us and thrills us, even

more than the subsequent exploits of the Macha-

bees. They fled to the mountains, “lived after

the manner of beasts,” says the Bible, feeding on

herbs, and from their mountain fastnesses descend-

ed again and again swiftly upon cities, towns, vill-

ages, to destroy pagan altars and with the altars

such apostate Jews as had turned to the worship of

devils. Antiochus sends a well trained army of

Syrian Greeks to annihilate the Machabees. But

the annihiliation happens in reverse, the profession-

al warriors are swept away by the untrained insur-

gents. Antiochus then sends a larger force, and

with them a group of slave merchants, so sure were

they of bringing back the Machabees and their vol-

unteers in chains. But the second Greek army is

defeated like the first. Judas Machabeus, son and

successor to Mathathias, takes Jerusalem, routs

the heathen, tears down the altars of the obscene

deities, removes the abomination of desolation, clean-

ses the Holy Mount of all heathen pollution, and re-



MATHATHIAS TO ENVOYS OF KING ANTIOCHUS 55

consecrates the temple to the God of his fathers.

But here again we must fall back upon the narra-

tive of the Bible, simple, naive, eloquent:

“And it came to pass when the king heard these

words, that he was struck with fear, and exceedingly

moved : and he laid himself down upon his bed, and

fell sick for grief, because it had not fallen out to

him as he imagined. And he remained there many

days: for great grief came more and more upon

him, and he made account that he should die. And

he called for his friends, and said to them: Sleep

is gone from my eyes, and I am fallen away, and

my heart is cast down for anxiety. And I said in

my heart : Into how much tribulation am I come, and

into what floods of sorrow, wherein now I am: I

that was pleasant and beloved in my power! But

now I remember the evils that I have done in Jeru-

salem, from whence also I took away all the spoils

of gold, and of silver that were in it, and I sent to

destroy the inhabitants of Juda without cause. I

know therefore that for this cause these evils have

found me: and behold I perish with great grief in

a strange land” (I Machabees 6 :8-13).

His repentance comes too late. He dies. His

son, Antiochus V, is made king by Lysias the Gen-

eral, and then ensues a tremendous decisive battle.

You may And in the sixth chapter of the First Book

of Machabees, a description of it that surpasses in

vivid eloquence the account of the battles in Homer

between the Greeks and the Trojans, or in Julius

Caesar between the Gauls and the Roman legions.

But as I say, we are not now concerned so much

with battles and victories, but with the noble moral

courage of Mathathias and his sons who in an ap-

parently hopeless situation withstood a powerful



56 PROPHETS AND KINGS

tyrant, so powerful and so habitually triumphant

that he called himself God. And we venture to hope

that this example of ancient heroism will stir some

modern hero to arise and to fling into the teeth of

the mad leaders of our own day that stirring chall-

enge, “Although all nations obey [the tyrant] I and

my sons, and my brethren will obey the law of our

fathers.”



JOHN THE BAPTIST TO HEROD

"It is Not Lawful for Thee to Hove Her"

(Matthew 14:4)

Address delivered on December 10, 1939

There is probably not in all history or in any

literature a personal duel better known than that

between John the Baptist and King Herod. But it

was more than personal : it was a conflict not mere-

ly of two men but of two forces, one physical, the

other moral. In fact it was a visible embodiment

of the conflict between good and bad, a clash be-

tween heaven and hell fought on this earth. The

conflict of good and evil has been dramatized with

great skill by the Greeks, by Shakespeare, Goethe,

and a score more of master playwrights and poets.

The present war in Europe is said by some to be one

more instance of the ever-recurring duel between

good and bad, right and wrong. Perhaps it is, but

the issue is not and cannot be so clear-cut in inter-

national warfare as in a clash between two men, one

a saint and the other a kind of human devil.

Let us, therefore, look at the two chief actors

in this divine tragedy first as men and then as

symbols. Take first the king, Herod Antipas. Cer-

tain psychologists have a theory that a man inherits

characteristics from his grandfather even more than

from his father. If that be so, Herod Antipas got

off to a particularly bad start. His grandfather,

Herod the Great, was a more inhuman monster than

any other in history, or, for that matter, in Frank-

enstein fiction. As for present-day tyrants who

have developed the “purge,” the “pogrom,” and



58 PROPHETS AND KINGS

“liquidation,” I doubt if they out-Herod Herod. The

following are a few evidences of the homicidal mania

of this incredible ogre.

He killed Antigonus the high priest, uncle of

his wife, Mariamne.

He murdered in cold blood forty-five adherents

of Antigonus.

He killed his wife’s mother, Alexandra. Sens-

ing danger in mere proximity to the maniac, she

had schemed to be shipped in a coffin as though dead

to her friend Cleopatra, in Egypt. Herod discover-

ed the plot and killed her.

All in all, he had ten wives. How many of them

he killed we do not know, but probably more than

Henry VIII who after all had only six.

Being summoned to Rome at the instance of

Cleopatra to give an account of himself he left the

queen in charge of a court official with directions

that she be killed if he were convicted. Summoned

again, this time to Caesar Augustus, he gave the

same instructions. Both times he was acquitted of

crime—a commentary upon Roman justice—^but he
killed the queen nevertheless.

Next he murdered her son and his, Aristobulus,

and then Antipater, a son by another wife Doris.

Antipater had plotted with his uncle and aunt to

poison the monster king, but the plot was discover-

ed and instead of the son killing the father, the

father killed the son.

Next, he murdered the second husband of his

sister Salome.

Next: his son Alexander and three hundred

guardsmen who sympathized with Alexander.

Then, Cortobarus and the sons of Babas, the

last remnants of the great Machabee family.



JOHN THE BAPTIST TO HEROD 59

Add to all these domestic murders uncounted

thousands of others done for political advantage, or

from fear, or ambition, or from sheer bloodthirsti-

ness, and you may realize that Herod’s command that

all infants under two years of age in and near Beth-

lehem be killed, was only a minor episode, not even

mentioned by the historian of those days, Josephus.

Not only Herod I but the whole family, with

perhaps one exception—Philip—were a vile and ter-
rible brood. If you look at their genealogical tree

you will see “Antipater poisoned,” “Joseph execut-

ed,” “Phasael a suicide” another “Antipater execut-

ed,” “Alexander executed,” “Aristobulus executed”

and so on and so on.

I have hurriedly and imperfectly recapitulated

the family history of Herod Antipas so that we may

realize a little better the kind of man whom John

the Baptist was to confront and rebuke. To the

cruelty of his grandfather, Antipas added the mean-

er vices of the spy and the sleuth. One authority

calls him a “vicious sneak.” The gentle Jesus spoke

of him as “that fox.” Also he was superstitious like

all those who try to rid their souls of religion but to

their‘torture, cannot.

But the sin of Herod Antipas which concerns

us now was the divorcing of his wife, the daughter

of King Hareth of Arabia, and his marriage to

Herodias, who was also a grandchild of Herod the

Great. She had been married to Philip and with

him lived in Rome. Herod Antipas, coming to the

world’s capital on political business once and again,

engaged in an intrigue with Herodias, lured her

away from Philip and went through a form of mar-

riage with her. The union, doubly adulterous and



60 PROPHETS AND KINGS

incestuous, was disgusting in the eyes of the Jews

and even of the pagans. But no one in Rome or at

Jerusalem dared complain audibly. The amatory

adventures of kings are a matter of gossip but the

gossip takes place behind one’s hand or behind clos-

ed doors.

But there was one man within the ambit of the

Herods so close to God that he feared neither man

nor devil. John the Baptist was made of stern stuff.

Destined for martyrdom, like all the prophets before

him and like most of those who after him have dared

to tell kings the truth, he had from his earliest days

remained far from the corruption of the world. Like

his Master, he was driven by the Spirit of God into

the wilderness. There he lived a life of heroic self-

denial, sanctifying himself with prayer and fasting.

“No man can safely appear in public unless he loves

solitude : and no man is fit to speak unless he knows

how to be silent,” says the author of the Imitation

of Christ. John was to appear in public and he was

to speak. His appearance was to be brief; he was

to speak but little. But when he stepped into the

court of Herod and opened his mouth to say one

sentence, his whole life spoke with him. He spoke

as one having authority, for he had listened to* God

;

knew what to say and was not afraid to say it. To-

gether with the authority of God, he had prestige

with men. Let not that fact seem unique. The

people know a saint when they see one. Sometimes

they are tricked or browbeaten and frightened out

of their loyalty to a good and great man. But their

impulses are good and they have an instinct by

which they recognize sanctity. At least they can

see moral merit more quickly and surely than kings

and others whose self-importance blinds them. It



JOHN THE BAPTIST TO HEROD 61

might be interesting to delay upon that thesis. “0

Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” says our Savior,

. . thou hast hid these things from the wise and

prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones”

(Matt. 11:25). Also it would be interesting—at
least to me—to develop the idea that the people at
large cannot be long deceived by “those who come

to them in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly . . .

are ravening wolves” {Matt. 7 :15). But there isn’t

time : we must hurry on. Suffice it then to say that

the people who left their homes and their fields to go

into the wilderness and listen to John knew him to

be, as Our Lord said, “a prophet . . . and more than

a prophet” (Matt. 11:9).

Herod, blinded by his various passions and cor-

rupted by vice, caught only a slight glimpse of the

sanctity of the man from the desert. He knew

that the people idolized John, and he seems to have

had some lingering half-Jewish half-pagan con-

sciousness of the danger of doing harm to a holy

man. But his momentary glimpse of the power of

sanctity was blotted out by two things which he

imagined he had to take into consideration.

First: a tyrannical ruler must not permit a

popular movement to gather force : it may develop

into something political. “Something political” : all

that politicians know is politics. Their standard of

value is politics. They measure all things in heaven

and earth by politics. Is such and such a course of

action good politics? Or bad politics? Faith, love,

religion, idealism, the soul, the will of man, his

highest aspirations, the deep forces that dwell in

his soul and motivate his action, all these things

are hidden from their eyes. To them there is

only one element in human life, only one deter-



62 PROPHETS AND KINGS

minant of the fate of nations; politics, the great

god politics. So, as soon as the crowds followed

John the Baptist, Herod clapped him into jail.

“Political disturber” was the first and most absurd

item in the indictment of the holy man from beyond

the Jordan.

The second was even more serious. I have said

that the erotic escapades of kings are not a matter

to be spoken of in the streets. Walls, pavements,

doors and windows have ears. But if any man feels

that he must speak aloud any criticism of the admin-

istration of a tyrant, he had better confine his talk

to war or taxes, or foreign policy. He had better

not whisper a syllable: he had better not so much

as lift a critical eyebrow or wink a knowing eye if

some reckless chatterer mention the name of the

king’s latest “favorite.”

But a saint is a saint partly because he doesn’t

share the cowardly inhibitions of other men. A
saint does not flatter : he does not dissemble : he does

not pretend not to see. He can keep silence when

silence is called for, but when prompted by con-

science to speak, his tongue cannot be stilled unless

you pluck it out. The great American abolitionist,

William Lloyd Garrison, shouted at his critics who

bade him walk softly and be silent : “I am in earn-

est. I will not equivocate
;
I will not excuse. I will

not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard.” To

give that man credit, he was as good as his word,

he did what he said he would do, even though a mob

dragged him through the streets of Boston with a

rope around his neck, and all but lynched him. How-

ever, it must be admitted that such challenges do

savor of bombast. The noblest hero or the great-

est saint doesn’t vociferate as to what he will do in



JOHN THE BAPTIST TO HEROD 63

a crisis: he just does it when the crisis comes. So

with our Savior, so with St. John the Baptist.

Herod was on the throne; beside him was his

adulterous consort. John, the strange man in from

the wilderness, is apprehended and brought into

court. Standing in the presence of a king in whose

veins ran the tiger’s blood of the Herods; knowing

full well that one word of the truth would cost him

his life; with no theatricalism, no loud outcry, no

rodomontade, no self-consciousness of being a hero;

simply, definitely, he says, looking at Herod and

pointing to Herodias, “It is not lawful for thee to

have her” (Matt. 14:4).

It is not lawful: Non licet! That is the first

in a long line of non licets uttered by Christian

prophets, priests, martyrs straight into the teeth of

adulterous murderous sovereigns. There is a long

line of those non licets in the annals of our Church

;

many of them will leap to the mind of those who have

read history. One of them known especially to

Englishmen and Americans is that of St. Thomas

More, who said non licet to Henry VIII and in con-

sequence, like John the Baptist, had his head cut off.

In the instance that now concerns us, it seems

to have been not so much the king but the queen who

became furious upon hearing the truth. “Hell hath

no fury like a woman scorned.” She waited for her

opportunity : it came with the fateful banquet.

Salome dances. The king, inflamed with wine and

with lust vows, “Whatsoever thou shalt ask I will

give thee, though it he the half of my kingdom”
{Mark 6:34). Then comes the whispered consulta-

tion of the girl with her mother and the ghoulish

demand : “the head of John the Baptist.” The king,

stupid, half drunken regrets his promise; supersti-



64 PROPHETS AND KINGS

tiously he fears to break his word. He nods to the

executioner; the headsman departs while the ban-

queters wait stricken sober and silent. The sword

wielder returns with his gory burden, the severed

head of the saint on a silver platter.

That scene has been written and painted and

enacted upon the stage, though it is quite too ghast-

ly for public presentation. But I do still think that

the high point, the supreme moment in this drama

of the prophet versus the king is when John, in

from the desert, up from the dungeon, standing

bare-footed, ragged, dirty on the polished marble

floor of the court, faces the king, indicates the queen,

and utters the momentous words “Non Licet”

:

“it

is not lawful for thee to have her.”

Oh for a saint and a prophet in our day : a John,

a Peter, a Paul, an Ambrose, a Boniface, a Hilde-

brand, a Thomas More: to come from the desert,

sanctified, with the authority of the Lord, to stand

in the presence of the modern tyrants who are now

variously afflicting the world, and to say to them,

one or all, in the hearing of the whole world. Non

licet.



PETER TO THE HIGH PRIEST

"We Ought to Obey God Rather Than Men"
(Acts 5:29)

Address delivered on December 17, 1939

The Catholic Church has never, for any long

period of time, been able to avoid conflict with great

political powers. Consequently hasty readers of his-

tory are inclined to think that there must be some-

thing perverse about the Church which prevents her

living in harmony with the State. More careful and

deliberate study will reveal the truth that in most

cases the State and not the Church has been per-

verse.

We need not go far back and unearth out of
medieval or ancient archives evidence that the

Church has generally if not always been on the de-

fensive. Before our eyes today we have a sample of

what has happened a hundred times in earlier

epochs. Could any impartial observer pretend to

believe that the Catholic Church in Austria or Ger-

many or Poland attacked Hitler? Yet Hitler perse-

cutes the Church, alleging of course that he does so

in defense of the Reich. Only the other day, we saw

in a Communist paper published in the United

States, the brazen headline, “Red Army Hurls Back

Invading Finnish Troops”? If a lie can be ludicrous,

that is a ludicrous lie. Yet some will accept it as

true. In the ancient fable the wolf claimed he had

been bitten by a lamb. Wolves always suffer from

the cruelty of blood-thirsty lambs. Pontius Pilate

and King Herod feared the gentle Jesus and fearing

Him, killed Him. Imagine if you can the inoffensive

Nazarene as a menace to the Roman Empire! St.

Peter the first pope, a fisherman, a peasant, was also



66 PROPHETS AND KINGS

crucified as a threat to the throne of Nero ! Now if

the pagans in ancient Rome could be made to believe

Christ a malefactor and St. Peter a conspirator; if

the pagans in modern Moscow can be made to be-

lieve that an empire of one hundred and fifty mil-

lions of peace-loving Bolsheviki were attacked by a

handful of merciless blood-thirsty Finns
;

if the

most militaristic nation on the globe, Nazi Germany,

accepts, as we are told it does, the preposterous

theory that the Pope with no arms but some six-

teenth century pikes in the hands of a comic opera

guard of a hundred Swiss endangers their existence

—if, I say, these lunatic fabrications can be accepted
as true, what difficulty can there be in accepting

the absurd idea that ancient and medieval popes

were a warlike lot who just couldn’t let kings and

emperors remain at peace? The late lamented G. K.

Chesterton said, “We sometimes hear the statement

that such and such things cannot be believed in these

our days. Nonsense! Anything can be believed in

any day.”

Now what in reality was the crime of St. Peter

the first pope and his successors against the State?

You may find it in the fifth chapter of the Acts of

the Apostles. Peter and his companion apostles had

been put in prison, but had been miraculously re-

leased. Instead of stealing away quietly from Jeru-

salem, they went out again in the streets and preach-

ed. Preached what? Sedition? Rebellion? Revolt?

Nothing so exciting, and yet something in a way far

more exciting: they preached that Jesus who had

been crucified was risen from the dead. So, the High

Priest and the Sadducees had them arrested and

brought before the Sanhedrin, the high court of

the Jews. And the high priest said, “Commanding



PETER TO THE HIGH PRIEST 67

we commanded you, that you should not teach in this

name; and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with

your doctrine, and you have a mind to bring the

blood of this man upon us. But Peter and the apos-

tles answering said : We ought to obey God, rather
than men” {Acts 6:28).

Simple enough; nothing spectacular; nothing

dramatic; no grandiloquent oratory. Peter was no

Demosthenes, fulminating against Philip; no Cicero

making the walls of the Roman Senate Chamber

vibrate with denunciations of Catiline: he was no

Patrick Henry flinging magnificent defiance in the

face of a king
;
no Robert Emmet, going to death in a

blaze of national glory. He was a simple fisherman

with none of the fire and fury of the orator, none of

the delusions of a demagogue; simply, quietly he

said “We must obey God, rather than men.”

I say there was no danger to the State in the

preaching of Peter. And in the usual sense of the

word “Danger,” “Menace.” “Threat,” there was

none. But in another sense that quiet utterance “We

must obey God rather than men,” is a live bomb.

Kingdoms, empires, whole civilizations have come

tumbling down at the promulgation of that prin-

ciple, as the walls of Jericho crumbled at the impact

of the blast from the trumpets of Joshua.

Here we come to a primary lesson to be learned

from the history of mankind : when a concrete real-

ity—an army, a government, an empire—comes into
conflict with a spiritual truth, the concrete reality,

the brute fact, though at first generally victorious,

invariably, inevitably succumbs. When tyrants com-

mand popes and bishops, priests and people, to do

this or that under penalty of extermination; and

popes and bishops, priests and people, answer “Non



68 PROPHETS AND KINGS

possumus”
—
“We cannot in conscience—the tyrants

look upon them as visionaries, dreamers, fanatics.

But eventually the moral principle conquers. The

swashbuckling murderers now rampant in Europe

and Asia will ultimately be overthrown
;
the Church

and religion will survive. When Hitler and Stalin

are through, Christ will again come into His own.

“How do we know?” Well, we need not the super-

natural powers of a prophet; we consult no horos-

cope
;
we gaze into no crystal globe

;
we do not pore

over a chart of the zodiac. All we need is plain his-

tory, in particular the history of the Catholic

Church. When the pessimist exclaimed petulantly to

the optimist in the midst of a long protracted storm,

“Will it ever clear up,” the optimist answered, “It

always did.” So, will the tyranny and savagery of

the totalitarian states play itself out? It always did.

Will peace and justice and truth and religion come

back? They always did. They always will.

Let us look briefly at the record. In the two

hundred and fifty years after St. Peter there were

thirty-three popes, most of whom were put to death.

Those that were not killed at the command of the

Caesars, had to hide away in the catacombs. When

Constantine came to the throne, pope, priests, and

people came up from under the ground. But they

did not thenceforth bask undisturbed in the sun-

shine of unbroken peace. They had to contend with

Christian emperors in place of pagan emperors.

Kings, emperors, rulers of old, like politicians in our

day, seeing the power of the Church, attempted to

use it for their own aggrandizement. They foment-

ed schisms and heresies. Time and again the em-

perors placed an Arian bishop or a Monophysite in

every city where a Catholic bishop had his see. “Di-



PETER TO THE HIGH PRIEST 69

vide and conquer” is very ancient strategy. The pope

naturally would support the Catholic bishop, the em-

peror the heretical bishop, and the emperor would

then penalize the pope for what he called political

interference.

In the ninth and tenth centuries the emperors

of the East, jealous of the domination of the West,

encouraged a schism that split the Church into two

parts, one at Rome, the other at Constantinople.

In the eleventh century the emperor, Henry IV, at-

tempted to play the role of head of the Church as

well as of the State, and a titanic conflict arose in

consequence between him and that other giant, Hil-

debrand, Pope Greogry VII. In the thirteenth cen-

tury again occurred a duel between Frederick II and

Gregory IX, at the commencement of the fourteenth

between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France. In

that same fateful century the attempts of the

French kings to subordinate the papacy to them-

selves brought about the so-called Babylonian Cap-

tivity at Avignon in southern France. For seventy

years the popes remained under the eye if not under

the thumb of the French kings. In the sixteenth

century Henry VIII in England chopped off the

heads of those who would not accept him as head of

the Church as well as of the State. In the seven-

teenth century under the most powerful of all

French kings, Louis XIV, there arose a quasi-heresy,

Gallicanism, fostered by the king.

Joseph II of Austria in the eighteenth century

claimed the right to censor and to veto communica-

tions between the pope and the Church. In the nine-

teenth century Napoleon Bonaparte tried to sub-

jugate Pope Pius VII. Persons still living can re-

member that Bismarck the Chancellor of “Blood and



70 PROPHETS AND KINGS

Iron” in the last quarter of the nineteenth century

fought with the weapons of diplomacy, politics, per-

secution against Pope Leo XIII, who had no arms

but pen and ink, prayer and the Grace of God.

Now it may be that Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin

combines in one person the forcefulness of Henry

IV, Frederick II, Philip IV, Louis XIV, Napoleon

Bonaparte and Bismarck; it may be that Hitler’s

Reich or Stalin’s so-called Union of Republics has

more stability than the Roman Empire—but even if
both these incredible suppositions are true, if Hitler

or Stalin turns out to be a superman
;
if they reveal

greater military genius than Napoleon, greater poli-

tical skill than Bismarck, more barbaric ruthless-

ness than Frederick and Henry; none the less the

Reich and Soviet Russia, both built on tyranny, will

ultimately ,fall, while the spiritual power of the

Church and of religion will be re-established and re-

inforced. To any one not acquainted with the his-

tory of the Church from Peter to Pius XII, this may

seem an empty boast. But no competent historian

would question it.

Edward Gibbon in his Memoirs tells that the

occasion of his decision to write his monumental

work. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

was his “musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol

while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in

the Temple of Jupiter.” Yes, the friars and the

monks have always sung amidst the ruins of pagan-

ism, and they will some day be singing not vespers

but a requiem over Hitler’s Reich, Stalin’s Soviets,

and all other heathenisms. The pope, retiring to

pray may seem to be waging but a pitiable conflict

against battleships, bombing planes, magnetic mines,

poison gas, flame-throwers, lying propaganda, and



PETER TO THE HIGH PRIEST 71

conscienceless diplomacy. But the “captains and the

kings depart” and the man on his knees in the Vati-

can remains. “All valiant dust that builds on dust”

crumbles; all the blusterers, swaggerers, murderers

come to the end of their bloody careers, but the

“pope does not die.” There is a story—perhaps only
a legend—^that when Napoleon, having Pope Pius
VII virtually in prison, came again and again to the

pope’s apartment, stormed, ranted, cursed, threaten-

ed, in the attempt to persuade the Pope to do what

the Pope’s conscience forbade, Pius VII, bent almost

double with age and infirmity, would look up from

time to time and say softly “What an actor, what an

actor !” And when Napoleon was beaten at Waterloo

in 1815 and even when he died at St. Helena in 1821,

the same feeble old Pope was still ruling the univer-

sal Church from the Vatican.

Hitler and Stalin would doubtless like to pre-

tend that the preternatural figure in the Vatican

creates no consternation in their soul. They may

say they have weapons unknown to Bonaparte, Bis-

marck, Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, Diocletian. Hitler’s

Shrechlichkeit may surpass all previous Shrechlich-

keit and Stalin be more ruthless than Herod the

Great. But wait ! Nazi-Bolshevik savagery will play

itself out, or be smashed. If you doubt that “con-

summation devoutly to be wished,” seal this state-

ment in a tube of steel, bury it where it will be found

after the devastation has passed
;
the statement that

when Hitler and Stalin have gone to join Nero and

Herod, the popes will still be carrying on
;
not brag-

ging, not blustering or threatening, but just carry-

ing on, possibly against new tyrants and new

tyrannies, but carrying on. For the conflict is not

really between man and man. Church and state, pope



72 PROPHETS AND KINGS

and tyrant. The fight is between God and man. God

fights in a leisurely way. God doesn’t hurry. God

uses His own means. But God always wins.

I say the tyrants might learn from the Napo-

leons and the Bismarcks and the Fredericks and the

Henrys and the Neros. They might also learn from

a gentle soul, a rabbi under the old law, preceptor

of St. Paul, who warned the Sanhedrin when they

were about to commit the crime that has been com-

mitted ever since, the crime of the slaughter of men

and women for being true to conscience. “Take heed

to yourselves what you intend to do . . . refrain

from these men and let them alone . . . lest perhaps

you be found even to fight against God” {Acts 5:35).

Tyrants, unfortunately for themselves and for the

rest of the world, don’t read the Acts of the Apos-

tles, or if they do, they take no more stock in it than

they do in the story of the man who rotted away at

St. Helena, or the man who stood in the snow at

Canossa, or the man who paid for his imperial am-

bition with his blood at the foot of Pompey’s statue

in the Roman Forum.

True, these modern tyrants may finally get to

the pope. They may mete out to him the fate they

inflicted upon thousands of priests and hundreds of

bishops in Spain, in Mexico, in Austria, in Poland,

in Russia. It will not matter. It wouldn’t be the

first time a pope perished after the manner of Peter,

after the manner of Jesus. One only thing matters,

obedience to God. So from the time of Peter to the

time of Pius XII, from the day of Nero to the day

of Hitler and Stalin, the vicar of Christ on earth

repeats that simple but magnificent principle, the

principle that saves a Church, a man or a nation

“We must obey God rather than men.”



THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH
(John 1 ;14)

Address delivered on December 24, 1939

There is in the heart of man an everlasting, in-

satiable hunger for God. In spite of all cynicism,

skepticism, pessimism; in spite of occasional mo-

mentary outbursts of atheism, here and there; in

spite of melancholy prophecies and fears that faith

may vanish from the earth, it remains incontestable

that he has felt a craving for the Infinite.

This craving that gnaws at the heart is not

always recognized for what it is. Some who know

not human nature—even their own human nature

—

imagine that they can satisfy the demands of the

spirit with goods of earth. Most of the sin and

misery of human kind is due to that mistake. St.

Augustine says “0 ye children of men, why do ye

still, still tread those steep and stony paths? Seek

what ye seek, but it is not where ye seek it.” And

again he says, in the most famous sentence that ever

fell from his incessantly productive pen, “Thou hast

made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are

restless until they find rest in Thee.” The whole his-

tory of man is in that sentence; all human hopes,

ambitions, joys, agonies are explained by the fact

that man persistently, generation after generation,

is seeking to satisfy his soul. If he finds what

he seeks, it is joy, heaven on earth. If he finds it

not, the world and all that it contains can give him

no lasting consolation. A well known woman poet
speaks of “striking” a chord of music that was “like

the sound of a great Amen.” She says. “It lay on

my fevered spirit with a touch of infinite calm: it



74 PROPHETS AND KINGS

quieted pain and sorrow, like love overcoming

strife ... it linked all perplexed meanings
into one perfect peace.” Obviously that chord of

music was God, or the sense and the realization

of possessing God. But it escaped her and she

laments “I have sought but I seek it vainly, that one

lost chord divine.”

All who have had the experience of glimpsing

and then losing God Whose Presence brings infinite

calm, quiets pain and sorrow, and bestows perfect

peace, cannot be happy until they find Him again.

In the Garden of Eden, man caught sight of his

Maker, walked with Him, talked with Him familiar-

ly; then—now here is the supreme disaster of all
time—man lost the sight and sound and touch of
God. and has sought Him ever after up and down

the ways of the world. The poet from whom I have

quoted those few lines goes on to say that perhaps

she shall never again lay hold upon God this side of

Eternity : “It may be that Death’s bright angel will

speak in that Chord again: it may be that only in

heaven I shall hear that grand Amen.”

But whether or not we can in this world set

eyes upon God, and as it were lay hands upon Him

and possess Him, we never cease to hope and to long

and to try. “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp,”

says another and greater poet. By a law of our being,

following an irresistible urge, we reach out to God,

though we may not in this life securely possess Him.

“As the hart panteth after the fountains of water;

so my soul panteth after thee, O God” (Psalms 41:

2), says the Psalmist. St. Bernard in a hymn famil-

iar to all devout Christians declares that the very

thought of God and the search for God fill the breast

with sweetness. “How kind Thou art to those who



THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH 75

seek; But what to those who find, Ah this, nor

tongue nor pen can show.”

Here indeed is religion; the hunger and thirst

for God, the quest for God, the hope of catching hold

of God and never losing Him,

Man lifts up his voice and cries: “O God when

I had no being at all, Thou didst create me, calling

me into life out of the abyss of nothingness: Thou

hast bestowed upon me the gift of intelligence, the

power to think and to reason, that I might not be

like the insensate beasts, but might know the world

about me, know myself, know Thee; Thou hast

given me power to discern good and evil: freedom

to choose the one and reject the other; Thou hast

placed me in control of my own destiny, and for all

these blessings I am profoundly grateful.

“But though Thou multiply Thy favors until

they surpass in number the sands of the sea,

or the stars of the sky; though Thou ransack Thy

heavenly treasure house and pour all Thy gifts into

this seemingly shallow heart of mine. Thou canst

not fill it. For my heart is in truth a bottomless
abyss; it remains empty, unless Thou fill it with

Thyself. 0 God, I cannot be content with created

gifts : I want Thee
!”

Think not that such a prayer as that can be

spoken only by a saint. All men have made that

prayer, not of course in those very words but each

in his own tongue and after his own fashion of

speech. That prayer—some such prayer—has come
up from the heart of mankind at all times, every-

where. The most important fact in human nature,

the fact beyond all doubt for those who know how

to read the heart is that man is forever unsatisfied

until he find and hold his God.



76 PROPHETS AND KINGS

This is what we mean when we say that man is

by nature religious. This is what an excellent writer

had in mind when he hit upon the expression “the

inveterate mysticism of the human heart.” Religion

may indeed sometimes be distorted and perverted,

like any other impulse or passion, just as the holiest

of passions, love, can be corrupted until it becomes

utterly vile. But religion, pure or debased, is essen-

tially the hunger and thirst for God, yea for the liv-

ing God, “a loud cry in the ears of God is the voice

of the creature to the Creator, Thou art all mine

and I am all Thine.” No philosopher, no poet, no

writer of history, no one who offers his fellows,

under the guise of fiction or of verse, truths too won-

derful or too terrible to be spoken plainly, no one

who speaks or writes, or paints or sings or prophe-

sies of man is wise, nor can his work be true unless

he knows and interprets the religious instinct and

impulse of man, the importunate craving of man

for God.

The most eloquent utterance of this heart-

hunger for the Divine is, as may be expected, in

the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the Psalms of

David and in the Prophecy of Isaias. “0 my God,
I shall cry by day . . . and by night.” “Drop down

dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain

the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a

saviour.” And that cry of longing and petition

brings forth from on high one of assurance “Be com-

forted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.”
And thereupon issues in the thirty-fifth chapter of

Isaias an inspired poem in which the wisdom and

the eloquence of God and man combine to express

in a superb prose passage, perhaps the most beau-



THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH 77

tiful ten verses in Scripture, the fact that God will

come and regenerate the earth:

“The land that was desolate . . . shall be glad,

and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall

flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and

blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the

glory of Libanus is given to it: the beauty of Car-

mel, and Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord,

and the beauty of our God. Strengthen ye the feeble

hands, and confirm the weak knees. Say to the

fainthearted: Take courage, and fear not: behold

your God will bring the revenge of recompense : God

himself will come and will save you.

“Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and

the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall

the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the

dumb shall be free: for waters are broken out in

the desert, and streams in the wilderness. And that

which was dry land, shall become a pool, and the

thirsty land springs of water. In the dens where

dragons dwelt before, shall rise up the verdure of

the reed and the bulrush. And a path and a way

shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way:

the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be

unto you a straight way, so that fools shall not err

therein. No lion shall be there, nor shall any mis-

chievous beast go up by it, nor be found there: but

they shall walk there that shall be delivered. And

the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and shall

come into Sion with praise, and everlasting joy shall

be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and glad-

ness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.”

Literal-minded persons may complain that no

such supernatural Utopia is now or ever has been

visible in this vale of tears. But obviously those



78 PROPHETS AND KINGS

ecstatic outbursts of the prophet are not to be

cramped into an iron form of exact literal interpre-

tation. Isaias is attempting to speak with the exub-

erance of poetic terminology, spiritual truths for

which there can be no adequate material express-

ion. There are such things as cannot be spoken in

cold prose. But the human heart understands what

the tongue cannot say.

However, not all the beauty and the glory of

Christmas must be concealed behind and beneath

poetic utterance. The Supreme Essential Truth,

the Coming of God in response to the cry of man,

is sober historical fact. “That which was from the

beginning” says John the Apostle, “which we have

heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we

have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of

the word of life . . . was manifested; and we have

seen and do bear witness, and declare unto you the

life eternal, which was with the Father . . . hath

appeared to us” (I St. John 1:1-2).

Never can this world be utterly desolate,

or human life wholly desperate. We have a joy
that no man can take from us. That has happened

which circumstances no matter how tragic, can

never obliterate. God Himself has come to save us

:

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,

(and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the

only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and

truth” {John 1:14). This is the essential, everlast-

ing Glory and Wonder and Beauty of Christmas,

God says to man “You have called for me and behold

I am come.”

May He indeed come not only into the world

but into the heart of every one of us and so make

our Christmas inexpressibly happy.



JESUS TO PILATE

"Thou Shouldst Not Hove Any Power . . .

Unless It Were Given Thee From Above"

(John 19:11)

Address delivered on December 31, 1939

Not once but several times in the course of this

series of talks and of the corresponding series a year

ago, I have remarked upon the fact that playwrights

have made so little use of the dramatic material to

be found in the Bible. This neglect of hidden treas-

ure is not only unfortunate but at first sight un-

accountable. It reminds me of an incident narrated

by a mining prospector whom I met on the boat that

plies beautiful Lake Tahoe on the borders of Califor-

nia and Nevada. He told of the discovery, or rather

the rediscovery, of a ledge in the mountain side that

contained a phenomenally rich vein of gold. It seems

that a friend of his, an old man who had fared well

at gold mining, lay on his deathbed. With almost

his last breath he whispered “John, mine that ledge,

mine that ledge.” The one who told the story heeded

what he thought the whim of a dying man, and was

rewarded by finding a fortune.

I do think that some one with a more acute

sense of dramatic than of monetary values might, if

only to satisfy his own soul, dig out of the Bible the

story of Moses and Pharaoh, or David and Saul, or

of the prophet Samuel, or of Judas Machabeus, or of

Daniel and Baltassar. But perhaps the dramatists

have reason to be timid about using the material of

Sacred Scripture. Vasari in his fascinating Lives of

the Painters tells that Leonardo da Vinci was balked

and baffled in his attempt to conceive and to paint



80 PROPHETS AND KINGS

the countenance of Christ. His one supreme attempt,

the face of Our Lord in “The Last Supper”, remains

unfinished. It may seem unwise, therefore, to ask

one less than a Shakespeare or a Leonardo to utilize

the Scriptures as dramatic or artistic material. And

it may be not only unwise but absurd for one of little

talent, or no talent at all, to attempt to do with cold

dead words what cannot be done with fiesh and blood

on the stage or with warm colors on canvas.

Yet it seems to be expected of quite ordinary

preachers that they shall do what men of genius

could not do. We, poor fools that we are, permit it

to be announced that we will treat such a subject as

the one that confronts us today, “Christ Before

Pilate.” Incompetents rush in where masters fear

to tread. But perhaps the faith we have in the Son

of God and the love we bear Him may be our excuse

for an otherwise sacrilegious temerity.

So let us see if we can visualize the scene that

took place on the first Good Friday when Jesus stood

on the pavement in front of the Pretorium, menaced

by the mob; and Pilate sat safe and secure on the

balcony of his palace.

Of the two—the Galilean peasant and the Im-
perial Delegate—^the latter held obviously the more
advantageous position. Like a viceroy of the British

Empire in India sitting in judgment upon an “Un-

touchable” coolie, sat Pontius Pilate to mete out

life or death to a friendless, helpless Galilean peas-

ant. If the people, as sometimes happens, had been

on the side of the prisoner, the contest might have

been fairer. But the people were against Jesus. No

one spoke for Him; no voice was heard to cry Parce,

to offset the multitudinous cries of Crucifige; no one

stood at His side; no one was interested in seeing



JESUS TO PILATE 81

that justice was done; there was no danger that

some powerful person would report an injustice to

Rome; so it didn’t matter to Pilate whether justice

were done or not. In the circumstances it would

have been folly to expect justice, just as it would be

folly to expect j ustice of a sheriff when a mob threat-

ens to lynch some poor victim in whom no one is in-

terested. Still there might have been some bystander

to ask if not justice at least mercy. There might

have been, but there was not: He “looked for one

that would grieve together with [Him,] but there

was none” (Psalms 68:21).

Lacking a champion, Jesus—so it seemed to His
judge—had not the spirit or even the shrewdness
to make out a case for Himself. He would not

argue. He would not even plead. He was unaccount-

ably mute. “Dost not thou hear?” said Pilate. “And

[Jesus] answered him to never a word ; so that the

governor wondered exceedingly” (Matt. 27:13-14).

“If only this poor peasant would say something,”

thought Pilate, “He might stumble upon a word that

would give me an excuse to release Him.” The

Roman could not himself devise an escape; and he

had no miraculous insight into the character of the

victim. Like others of his breed in all ages, he had

not even a natural understanding of spiritual things.

To him Jesus was only a misguided zealot, harmless

and helpless.

I say the conflict was unequal. All the advan-

tage was on one side and none on the other. But

—

now here is the point I would make—^the one who
was ill at ease, who squirmed and fidgeted and hesi-

tated, was not the helpless victim, but the judge. He

appeared on the balcony and disappeared, inter-

rogating the prisoner now in public and again pri-



82 PROPHETS AND KINGS

vately. Evidently he was uncertain of himself. He

asked questions, and receiving no answer seemed not

to realize that his official dignity had been affronted,

for he asked again and again. Once when Jesus

threw a question back upon him, “Sayest thou this

thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me?”

he showed petulancy: “Am I a Jew?” And yet once
again he returned to the primary question, “What

hast thou done” {John 18:34-35)? Forgetting that

he had publicly declared “I find no cause in him”

{John 18:28).

Surely it was a strange spectacle: the lordly

Roman groping around as it were in the dark, seek-

ing a loophole through which both he and his

strange prisoner might escape, and getting no

assistance from the prisoner, who seemed to look

upon the proceedings as if he were a mere spectator,

or even a stranger.

But let us have no misunderstanding about this

apparent apathy of Jesus. He was no dreamy ideal-

ist; He had not, like a visionary, hypnotized Him-

self. Nor was He by nature hard and insensitive.

Quite the contrary. None are so sensitive as the sin-

less. He was suffering acutely, not only physical

pain but such mental anguish as the phlegmatic can

never know. But with all His suffering and in the

midst of the furore. He remained Master of the sit-

uation. To the Roman this should have been signifi-

cant. Here before him was a man—a mere peasant,
he thought—who like a peasant might be expected
to cringe and cry and beg pity. But this Peasant had

the self-assurance of a stoic philosopher, of an aris-

tocrat, of a king, and, if Pilate could have seen it, of

Something yet more. If the Governor or the High

Priest or any one in the crowd had possessed insight.



JESUS TO PILATE 83

he would have said, like Marcellus in Hamlet, “We do

[Him] wrong, being so majestical, to offer [Him]

the show of violence.” But there was no one there

on that fateful day with even the dimmest vision

for spiritual reality—no one except the Prisoner.
Poor Pilate—it seems strange to say poor Pilate

rather than poor Jesus, but of the two Pilate was

the more to be pitied—became bewildered. Some-
thing was mysteriously awry and he couldn’t lay

hand on it. With the palace at his back, soldiers at

his side, the power and prestige of the Empire be-

hind whatever decision he might make, he had quite

lost his poise, while the poor, forlorn, half-naked,

blood-stained victim down there in the midst of the

murderous mob was perfectly in possession of Him-

self.

Drama? Drama so tense as to be insupportable.

Such drama that the dramatists have been afraid to

attempt it.

But let that pass. We are now no longer con-
cerned with the dramatic possibilities of that scene.

I have described it only because it forms a back-

ground to something more important, a profound

and far-reaching principle of political philosophy

which strange to say, came out of it.

In a final fit of impatience, Pilate said once more

to Jesus “Speakest thou not to me? knowest thou

not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have

power to release thee” {John 15-10) ? Any one with

even a moderately resourceful imagination can think

of half a dozen answers that our Savior might have

made. The most obvious might be “Power to cru-

cify Me? Power indeed but no Right. Power to re-

lease Me? Then reelase Me.” But oddly enough,

Jesus, as if He were sitting at ease in some academic



84 PROPHETS AND KINGS

circle discussing the basic philosophy of govern-

ment, uttered a fundamental principle of everlast-

ing application. “Thou shouldst not have any power

against me, unless it were given thee from above”

{John 19:11).

And there, if we will but recognize it, is an

axiom even more imperatively necessary in the cir-

cumstances of nations today than it was in Pales-

tine or at Rome nineteen centuries ago. In those

ancient times the Jews acknowledged Jehovah, and

the Romans Jupiter, as the source of right and jus-

tice; and Jews and pagans alike admitted in theory

that no action was moral unless it met the approval

of God or of the gods. But today certain nations are

running amuck politically and morally, because they

have rejected the fundamental and indispensable

truth that God exists or that God has a part or right

or concern in human affairs. International chaos

has come as the inevitable consequence of theologi-

cal nihilism. If there is no God, there is no Abso-

lute. If there is no Absolute, all is Relative. Justice

and Right are relative. Truth and Good and Honor

are relative. If there is no God, there is no fixed

standard. Truth is elastic. The true and the good

are like quicksilver which when you attempt to

clutch it, escapes your grasp. As for justice; if

there is no God, or if God has no concern with

man and the doings of man, then as Thomas Hobbes

said, “Justice is what the State says it is.”

In other words, if there is no God, man is his

own god, or since man is an impotent sort of god,

the most powerful entity that man knows, the State,

is God. “There is no God” is an unthinkable propo-

sition. There is always a God. “If there were no

God, we should have to invent one,” says Voltaire.



JESUS TO PILATE 85

That is precisely what men have done; they have

invented a god to take the place of the God they

deny. “I have examined many philosophical and

scientific systems, claiming to be godless,” said Clerk

Maxwell, a great scientist of a generation ago, “but

I have always found a God concealed somewhere.”

Today you may examine a great many philosophical,

economical, sociological theories, pretending to con-

tain no God, but if you have eyes to see you will find

a god concealed in every one of them.

For be it understood: God is not an old man

with a long white beard, holding a sceptre in His

hand, sitting on a throne in the clouds: God is the

Absolute, the Eternal, Alpha and Omega, the First

and the Last : God is the True and the Good and the

Beautiful. God is the Unchangeable. “Oh Thou that

changest not” is a description of God. If one says

there is no God, he obliterates the Absolute, the

Eternal, the True, the Good, the Beautiful. Nothing

is either first or last, nothing is fixed and certain, all

is Change.

Such a philosophy has been taught in the uni-

versities for many a year. But of late it has come

out of its academic seclusion and taken command of

politics, of national affairs and international rela-

tionships. So it has come to pass that in Hitler’s

Reich justice is what Hitler says it is. In Russia,

justice is what Stalin says it is. If nothing is per-

manent, justice and right change with the times;

they are different on different sides of a border line

:

indeed justice and right and good and bad and true

and false are what any powerful party in the State

or any superman declares them to be.

It is a delusion to imagine that the disturbances

that affect the world today are economic or financial



86 PROPHETS AND KINGS

or industrial. The root cause of all things good or

bad is theological. “It is surprising,” says Proud-

hon, “that at the base of politics we find always a

theology.” A good theology brings forth good fruit,
an evil theology brings forth evil fruit. The

theology at the base of politics is a bad theology, the

theology of atheism—^there is no God ; or of Deism

—

God is far away; or of Pantheism—everything is
god.

It is folly therefore to attempt to patch up a

badly damaged economic or social or political sys-

tem with economic or social or political m.easures. It

is like pouring sand into a foundation of sand that is

forever dribbling away. We must go down deeper
until we get to a foundation that is permanent, that

“changeth not,” that is the Alpha and Omega, the

first and the last, the Absolute. If we are to have a

solid foundation we must go down to bed-rock. God

is Bed-Rock.

Now all this and much more is contained in the

one sentence spoken to the Roman governor by the

Nazarene Peasant on that fateful afternoon in Jeru-

salem. Many things were wrought that day on that

spot for our salvation. Not all of them have to do

immediately and exclusively with the life of the soul

of the individual man. Much that was said and done

on that occasion was for the salvation of society, of

civilization, of the world. Society, civilization, the

world, will never be saved unless rulers and people

return to a realization of the eternal truth in that

quiet sentence spoken by Jesus to Pilate, “Thou

shouldst not have any power. . . unless it were given

thee from above” {John 19:11).

Power is from God : it is holy : it must not be

abused. “Public office is a public trust,” said a wise



JESUS TO PILATE 87

statesman. Yes, and more: public office is a sacred

trust: a religious trust for the exercise of which

rulers will be held responsible on High. It is not for

them to declare what is justice, or what is truth, or

what is right. These things are forever fixed. They

are but the outward expression of the Nature of

the Absolute, the Eternal from whom power comes

to man.

Until we return to that theology we shall have

no peace or security. If we never return, we shall

never have peace or security. But we shall return.

“Heaven and earth shall pass,” says Jesus, “but my

words shall not pass” {Matt 24-35).



CARDINAL HAYES STATES PURPOSE
OF CATHOLIC HOUR

(Extract from his address at the inaugural program in the

studio of the National Broadcasting Company, New York

City, March 2, 1930.)

Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the

National Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all

who, by their financial support, have made it possible to use

this offer of the National Broadcasting Company. The heavy

expense of managing and financing a weekly program, its

musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent answering of

inquiries, must be met. . . .

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

countrymen. Surely, there is no true lover of our Country

who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less material,

and a more spiritual standard among our people.

With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympa-

thy for all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue.

So may it be fulfilled. This word of dedication voices, there-

fore, the hope that this radio hour may serve to make known,

to explain with the charity of Christ, our faith, which we

love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve to make

better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven: a strength, and a power divine

through Christ; pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating

our common every-day duties and joys, bringing not only

justice but gladness and peace to our searching and ques-

tioning hearts.



94 CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS

In 41 States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

D. of O.

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine
Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan
Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebras’ka

Nevada
New Mexico
New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Birmingham WBRC, 980 kc
Mobile WALA, 1380 kc
Phoenix KTAR. 620 kc
Tucson KVOA, 1260 kc
Little Rock KARK, 890 kc
Bakersfield KERN, 1370 kc
Fresno KMJ, 680 kc
Los Angeles KECA, 1430 kc
Sacramento KFBK, 1490 kc
San Francisco KPO, 680 kc
Stockton KWG, 1200 kc
Denver KOA, 830 kc
Pueblo KGHF, 1320 kc
Hartford WTIC, 1040 kc
Washington WRC, 950 kc
Jacksonville WJAX, 900 kc
Miami WIOD, 610 kc
Pensacola WCOA, 1340 kc
Tampa WFLA-WSUN, 620 kc
Lakeland WLAK, 1310 kc
Atlanta WSB, 740 kc
Boise KIDO, 1350 kc
Pocatello KSEI, 900 kc.
Chicago WMAQ-WCFT., 670 kc
Evansville WGBF, 630 kc
Fort Wayne WGL, 1370 kc
Terre Haute WBOW’, 1310 kc
Indianapolis WIRE, 1400 kc
Wichita KANS, 1210 kc
Louisville - WAVE, 940 kc
New Orleans WSMB, 1320 kc
Shreveport KTBS, 1450 kc
Portland WOSH, 940 kc
Baltimore WFBR, *1270 kc
Boston WBZ, 990 kc
Springfield WBZA, 990 kc

Detroit WWJ, 850 kc
Mankato KYSM, 1500 kc
Minneapolis-St. Paul KSTP, 1460 kc
St. Cloud .....KFAM, 1420 kc

Duluth-Superior WEBC, 1290 kc
Jackson WJDX, 1270 kc
Kansas’ City WDAF. 610 kc
Springfield KGBX, 1230 kc
Saint Louis - KSD, 550 kc
Billings KGHL, 780 kc
Butte KGIR, 1340 kc
Helena KPFA, 1210 kc
Omaha WOW, 590 kc
Reno KOH, 1380 kc
Albuquerque .?>. KOB, 1180 kc
Buffalo WBEN, 900 kc
New York WEAF, 660 kc
Schenectady WGY, 790 kc
Asheville WISE, 1370 kc
Charlotte WSOC, 1210 kc
Raleigh WPTF, 680 kc
Bismarck KFYR, 550 kc
Fargo WDAY, 940 kc
Cincinnati WSAI, 1330 kc
Cleveland WTAM, 1070 kc
Columbus WCOL 1210 kc
Oklahoma City WKY, 900 kc
Tulsa KVOO 1140 kc
Medford KMED, 1410 kc
Portland KEX, 1180 kc



94 CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS
In 41

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island
South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah
Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin

HAWAII
SHORT WAVE

States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

Allentown WSAN, 1440 kc
Altoona WFBG, 1310 kc
Erie WLEU, 1420 kc
Johnstown WJAC, 1310 kc
Philadelphia - KYW, 1020 kc
Pittsburgh WCAE, 1220 kc
Providence - WJAR, 890 kc
Charleston WTMA, 1210 kc
Columbia WIS, 560 kc
Florence WOLS, 1200 kc
Greenville WFBC, 1300 kc
Sioux Falls KSOO-KELO, 1110-1200 kc
Chattanooga WAPO, 1420 kc
Nashville WSM, 650 kc
Amarillo KGNC. 1410 kc
Beaumont KFDM, 560 kc
El Paso KTSM, 1310 kc
Fort Worth KGKO, 570 kc
Houston KPRC, 920 kc
San Antonio WOAI, 1190 kc
Salt Lake City KDYL. 1290 kc
Norfolk WTAR, 780 kc
Richmond WMBG, 1350 kc
Seattle KOMO, 920 kc
Spokane KHQ, 590 kc
Madist)n WIBA, 1280 kc
Honolulu KGU. 750 kc
Schenectady, N. Y. .... WGEO, 9.53 meg
(Revised as of January 6, 1940)



CATHOLIC HOUR RADIO ADDRESSES
IN PAMPHLET FORM

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR is the authorized publisher of all CATHOLIC
HOUR addresses in pamphlet form. The addresses published to date, all of
which are available, are listed below. Others will be published as they are

delivered.

Quantity Prices Do Not Include Carriage Charge
‘‘The Moral Order'' and “Mary, the Mother of Jesus," by Rev. Dr. Geo.

Johnson, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c

each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“A Triology on Prayer," by Rev. Thoma& F. Burke, O.S.P., 82 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.00 per 100.

“Four Religious Founders," by Rev. Dr. Francis J. Connell, C. SS. R.,

R’ev. Benedict Bradley, O.S.B., Rev. Thomas M. Schwertner, O.P., Rev.
Sigmund Cratz, O.M. Cap., and Rev. M. J. Ahern, S. J., 56 pages and
cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00

per 100.

“The Philosophy of Catholic Education," by Rev. Dr. Charles L. O’Don-

nell, C.S.C., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, lOc postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c

each. In quantities', $5.00 per 100.

“Christianity and the Modern Mind," by Rev. John A. McClorey, S.J.,

64 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Moral Law," by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 88 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“Christ and His Church," by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph M. Corrigan, 88

pages’ and cover. Single copy, 20c’ postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In
quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“The Marks of the Church,” by Rev. Dr. John K. Cartwright, 46 pages

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“The Organization and Government of the Church," by R«v. Dr. Fran-

cis’ J. Connell, C.SS.R., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 6
or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Moral Factors in Economic Life,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Francis J. Haas
and Rt. Rev. Msgr. John A. Ryan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c
postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Divine Helps for Man," by Rev. I>r. Edward J. Walsh, C.M., 104
pages and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In
quantities, $11.00 per 100.

“The Parables," by Rev. John A. McClorey, S.J., 128 pages and cover.
Single copy, 30c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c eac’h. In quantities, $12.00 per

100 .

“Christianity's Contribution to Civilization," by Rev. James’ M. Gillis,

C.S.P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid; 5 or more, 15c
each. In quantities, $10.00 per* 100.

“Manifestations of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 123

pages and cover. Single copy, 30c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In

quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Way of the Cross," by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 32 pages
and cover (prayer bookj size). Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 5c
each. In quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“Christ Today," by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius Smith, O.P., 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50

per 10ft.

“The Christian Jfamily," by Rev. Dr. Edward Lodge Curran, 68 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,
$7.00 per 100.

“The Dublin Eucharistic Congress," by His Eminence William Car-
dinal O’Connell. An address rebroadcast from Dublin, 12 pages and cover.
Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In quantities, $3.75 per 1.00.

“Rural Catholic Action," by R’ev. Dr. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., 24
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 5c each. In quan-
tities, $3.50 per 100.

“Religion and Human Nature,” by Rev. Dr. Joseph A. Daly, 40 Pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c pos’tpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$5.50 per 100.



^^The Church and Some Outstanding: Problems of the Day,” by Rev.
Jones I. Corrigan, S.J., 72 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid;
5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“Conflicting Standards,” by Rev. James' M. Gillis, C.S.P., 80 pag^
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,
$8.00 per 100.

“The Hymn of the Conquered,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen,
128 pages and cover. Single copy^, 30cf postpaid

;
5 or more, 20c each. In

quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Seven Last Words,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, (prayer
book size) 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c
each. In quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Church and the Child,” by Rev. Dr. Paul H. Furfey, 48 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50
per 100.

“Love's Veiled Victory and Love's Laws,” by Rev. Dr. George F.
Strohaver, S.J., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more
8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Religion and Liturgy,” by Rev. Dr. Francis A. Walsh, O.S.B., 32 pages

and cover. Single copy, 10c pos*tpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.00 per 100.

“The Lord's Prayer Today,” by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius Smith, O.P., 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-

tities, $6.00 per 100.

“God, Man and Redemption,” by Rev. Dr. Ignatius W. Cox, S.J., 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $6.00 per 100.

“This Mysterious Human Nature,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,
48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Eternal Galilean,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 160 pages
and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid ; 5 or more, 25c each. In quantities,

$16.00 per 100.

“The Queen of Seven Swords,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen

(prayer-book size), 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or

more, 5c each. In quantities’, $3.00 per 100.

“The Catholic Teaching on Our Industrial System,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.

John A. R'yan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more,

8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Happiness of Faith,” by Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J., 80 pages and

cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, lOfc. In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“The Salvation of Human Society,” by Rev. Peter J. Bergen, C.S.P., 48
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-

tities, $5.50 per 100.

“Catholic Education,” by Rev. I>r. George Johnson, 40 pages and

cover. Single copy, 10c pos-tpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“The Church and Her Missions,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. William Quinn, 32

pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

Quantities. $5.00 ner 100.

“The Church and the Depression,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,

80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c pos’tpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In

quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“The Fullness of Christ,'' by Rt. Rev. Msgr, Fulton J. Sheen, 176

pages and cover. Single copy, 45c postpaid ; 5 or more, 30c each. In

quantities, $16.50 per 100.

“The Church and Modern Thought,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,

80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In

quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“Misunderstood Truths,” by Mrst Rev. Duane G. Hunt, 48 pages and

cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“The Judgment of God and The Sense of Duty,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.
William J. Kerby, 16 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 6 or
more, 5c each. In quantities, $3.50 per 100.

“Christian Education," by Rev. Dr. James A. Reeves, 32 pages and

cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $3.50

per 100.

^‘Christian Education," by Rev. Dr. James A. Reeves, 32 pages and



cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more. Sc each. In quantities, $3.60

per 100.

“What Civilization Owes to the Church," by Rt. Rev. Msgr. William
Quinn, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each.

In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“If Not Christianity: What?'' by Rev. James M. Gillis’, C.S.P., 96
pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid; 5 or more, 15c each. In
quantities, $10.00 per 100,

“The Prodigal World,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 140 pages
and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid ; 5 or more, 25c each. In quanti-

ties, $16.00 per 100.

“The Coin of Our Tribute," by Very Rev. Thomas F. Conlon, O.P.,
40 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities’, .$5.50 per 100.

“Pope Pius XI," by His Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes. An ad-
dress in honor of the 79th birth of His Holiness, 16 pages and
4-color cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quanti-

ties, $5.50 per 100.

“Misunderstanding the Church," by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, 48
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities’, $5.50 per 100.

“The Poetry of Duty," by Rev. Alfred Duffy, C.P., 48 pages and cover.

Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Characteristic Christian Ideals," by Rev. Bonaventure McIntyre, O.

F.M., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.

In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Catholic Church and Youth,” by R?ev. John F, O’Hara, C.S.C.,

48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Spirit of the Missions,” by Ri;. Rev. Msgr. Thomas J. McDonnell,

32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Life of the Soul," by Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P., 96 pages

and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities,

$10.00 per 100.

“Our Wounded World," by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 112 pages,

and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In quanti-

ties, $11.50 per 100.

The first six addresses in this series published separately under
the title “Freedom and Democracy: a Study of Their Enemies,"

56 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each.
In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Banquet of Triumph*" by Very E?ev. J. J. McLarney, O. P., 32
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Society and the Social Encyclicals—America's Road Out," by Rev.
R. A. McGowan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more,
8c each. In quantities- $5.00 ner 100

“Pius XI, Father and Teacher of the Nations” (On His Eightieth
Birthday) by His Excellency, Most Reverend Amleto Giovanni Cicognani,

16 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In
quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Eastern Catholic Church," by Rev. John Kallok, 48 pages’ and
cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“Joy In Religion,” by Rev. John B. Delaunay, O.S.C., 40 pages and
cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50

per 100.

“The ‘Lost' Radiance of the Religion of Jesus," by Rev. Thomas A.
Carney, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities’, $5.50 per 100.

“Some Spiritual Problems of College Students," by Rev. Dr. Maurice
S. Sheehy, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more,
8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“God and Governments," by Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., 48 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“Saints vs. Kings," by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities,

$10.00 per 100.



“Justice and Charity,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen.

Part I—“The Social Problem and the Church/* 96 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each.

In quantities, $11.00 per 100.

Part II—“The Individual Problem and the Cross,” 80 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15cf postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each.

In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“In Defense of Chastity,*' by Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap., 72 pages

and cover, including study aids and bibliography. Single copy 15c postpaid

;

5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“The Appeal To Reason,** by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, D. D., LL. D.,

72 pages and cover. Single copy, 15ci postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In

quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“Practical Aspects of Catholic Education,** by Very Rev. Edward V.
Stanford, O.S. A., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more,

8c each ; in quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Mission of Youth in Contemporary Society,** by Rev. Dr. George

Johnson, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c

each ; in quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Holy Eucharist,** by Most Rev. Joseph F. Rummel, S. T. D., LL.
D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Cardinal Hayes—A Eulogy,** by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 16
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c, postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Rosary and the Rights of Man,*' by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney,
O. P., 56 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Human Life,** by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P. 96 pages* and cover.
Single copy, 20c postpaid : 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $10 per 100.

“Pius XI—A Eulogy,*’—By Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen. 24 pages
and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities,

$6.00 per hundred.

“Freedom,** by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen

Part I
—

“Social Freedom.’* 80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c

postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.00 per

100 .

Part II—“Personal Freedom.*’ 96 pages and cover. Single copy,
20c postpaid ; 5 or m?ore, 15c each. In quantities, $11.00

per 100.

“The Holy Ghost,’* by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney, O.P., S.T.D., 56

pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more 8c each. In quanti-

ties $5.00 per 100.

“Towards the Reconstruction of a Christian Social Order,” by Rev.

Dr. John P. Monaghan, Ph. D., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c

postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Marian Vignettes,” by Rev. J. R. Keane, O. S. M., 32 pages and

cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.00

per 100.

“The Peace of Christ,” by Very Rev. Martin J. O’Malley, C.M. 82
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-

tities, $5.00 per 100.

“God’s World of Tomorrow,” by R?ev. John J. Russell, D. D., 40 pages

and cover. Single copy, 10c' postpaid; 5 or more, 8e each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“The Catholic Tradition In Literature,” by Brother Leo, F.S.C., 40
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $5.50 per 100.

“What Catholics Do At Mass,” by Rev. Dr. William H. Russell, 72
pages and cover, including study club questions and suggestions, and brief
bibliography. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,

$8.00 per 100.

“Prophets and Kings: Great Scenes, Great Lines,” by R*ev. James M.
Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more,
15c each. In quantities, $10.00 per 100.

Complete list of 85 pamphlets to one address in U. S., $9.75, postpaid.

Price to Canada and Foreign Countries, $12.00.

Address: OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, Huntington, Indiana





1