The Building of a Nation

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 13, Issue 7, 13 February 1908, Page 33

The Building of a Nation

At the blessing and opening of the additions to St. Aloysius' College, Milson's Point, on Sunday, Tanuary 26, his Eminence Cardinal Moran alluded to the three great factors in the building of a State. These were religion, enlightenment, and patriotism, and to realise their fruits, he said, they must be imprinted on the hearts a-nd minds of the }OJth of Australia. He need rot dwell at length on t ,eS3 points. Without religion no State could exist, and they could not have true civilisation. Enlightenment trained the faculties ;.ncl enabled them to attrjin their true purpose. Their mind was like a garden which, left uncultivated, yielded weeds and biiars in abundance, but, if thuy wif-h.d for fruits it must have the pruning hanl of tho gardener. So it was with the enlightenment imparted by the college. It prepared the minds of the children and trained the faculties to attain their true purpose. So, too, without religion, they could not have true civilisation — it may be only a veneer and something like an apology. Patriotism, one of the Fathers of the Church stated, was not only a natural instinct, but it was implanted in the heart by Divine Pro. id. nee to counteract, correct and trample that selfishness tlhiat seemed so natural to man. Australian patriotism had a grand subject for itself. It was a grand country to love, fsrandf s rand resources to tote 'developed, and a co ntry pregnant with grand potentialities which destined for it a glorious future. The youth were trained in thoir college to love t' eir country, and to be leaders of nun to carry out the glorious future of Australia. Patriotism, howe 1 er, the Cardinal said, must be guided by enlightenment and sanctified by religion, and so the three would go together lehgion, enlightenment, and patriotism. '