A PASSAGE FROM BALMEZ.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 8, 21 June 1873, Page 11

A PASSAGE FROM BALMEZ.

"It is certain that society cannot continue its career without the aid and influence of moral means ; these means cannot suffice, shut up within the narrow circle in which they are confined. Consequently, it is indispensable to encourage the development of institutions adapted to exercise moral influence in a practical and effic.icnus manner. Books are not enough ; the extension of instruction is but an inefficient nieaus, which may even become fatal, unless based upon solid religious ideas. The propagation of a vague religious feeling, undefined, without rules, without dogmas or worship, will only serve to propagate gross superstitions among the masses, and to form a religion of poetry and romance among the cultivated classes ; they are yam remedies, which do not stop the progress of the disease ; aud by augmenting the delirium of the patient, precipitate his death. " The education, the instruction, the improvement of the moral condition of the people, —these words, which are in the mouth of all the world, prove how keenly and generally the wound in the social body is felt, and how urgent is the necessity for the timely application of a remedy in order to prevent incalculable evils. This is the reason why projects of beneficence ferment in so many minds j why it is attempted, under so .many different forms, to establish schools for children and adults, and other similar institutions ; but all will be useless, unless the work be confided to Christian charily. Let us profit by the knowledge acquired by experience in this matter ; let us take advantage of administrative improvements, the better to attain our end ; let the establishments be accommodated to present wants and exigencies ; let charity never embarrass the action of power, and power on its side vever oppose the action of charity ; all this will be well ; but nothing, of all this is inconsistent with a system in which the Catholic religion will recover the influence which belongs to her ; it is of her it may be said with perfect truth that she makes herself all to all, to gain the whole world.

"The little minds which do not carry their views beyond a limited horizon ; bad hearts which nourish only hatred, and delight only in exciting rancour and in calling forth the evil passions ; the fanatics of a mechanical civilisation, who Bee no other agent than steam, no other power than gold, no other object than production, no other end than pleasure j all these men, assuredly, will attach but little importance to the observations which [ have made; for them the moral development of individuals aud society is of little importance ; they do not even perceive what passes under their eyes ; for them history is mute, experience barren, aud the future a mere nothing. Happily there are a great number of men who believe that their minds are nobler than metal, more powerful than steam, and too grand and too sublime to be satisfied with momentary pie -sure. " Man in their eyes is not a being who lives by chance, given up to the current of time and the mercy of circumstances, a being who id not called upon to think of the destinies which attend him, or to prepare for them by making a worthy use of the moral and intellectual qualifications wherewith the Author of nature has favoured hisu. If the physical world be subject to the laws of the Creator, the moral world is not less so ; if matter can be used in a thousand ways for the profit of man, the mind created in the image and likeness if God, is also endowed with valuable powers. A vast sphere opens before him ; he feels himself called to work.for the goo I of humanity, without confining himself to combinations and modifications of matter, like an instrument or a slave of the material element, whereof the empire and control have been granted to him by God. Let fuith in anotner life, and charity, which have come down from God, fertilise these noble feelings, and enlighten and direct these sublime., thoughts • you will then clearly see that matter has no claim to be the ruler of the world ; aud that the King of the creation has not yet abdicated His rights. But if you attempt to build on any other foundation than that whi«h has been established by God, do not indulge flattorin* hopes — your edifice will be like the house built upon sand ; the rain came, the wind blew, and the ediCce was overturned with violence."