It is clear, then, beyond all dispute, that every one who claims the name of a Christian is bound by a lasting and sacred obligation to give testimony to Christ by following in his footsteps, and consequently those who fail are guilty of robbing their Lord and Master of his rights, and are no true Catholics, but traitors to the faith.
Who are they who fail to give this testimony of Christ? I will tell you.
You will find many who were born of Catholic parents, were baptized in the faith when young, and yet never acknowledging the faith of their fathers, and of their baptism. They are not open apostates, they neither attack their faith, nor defend it when attacked. You might know them for years and not dream that they were Catholics. It is hard to tell what they really are. They are not Protestants, nor Jews, nor Turks, for these have religious convictions, and do not deny them, but the men I speak of either have no religious convictions, or want the manliness to acknowledge them. They do not like to be known as Catholics, and yet they identify themselves publicly with free-masons, odd-fellows, and similar secret societies.
Another class consists of those who confess themselves Catholics, but never, or very rarely, enter the Church. They take offence at the slightest irregularity, whether it be in the priesthood, or the preaching, or in the manner of conducting public worship; and under some such pretext they excuse their grievous neglect of worship, and their profound indifference to all the sacred duties of religion. These claim the name of Catholic, and their conduct is that of an infidel.
A third class is composed of those who now and then on occasion of a jubilee or a mission, or some similar event, come to Church, and perhaps receive the holy sacraments. Their religion is like a fire in the straw, it soon dies out. Talk to these men of their business, and they will tell you that a man who does not watch and pay constant attention to it, will soon find himself bankrupt. Speak to them of the affairs of the nation, and they will tell you that the country is going to ruin, because its citizens neglect to attend political meetings and fail to approach the polls at election times. On business, or politics, on almost every thing but their religion, they reason correctly, and act like sensible men; on their duties to God and the affairs of their soul they appear to be as destitute of reason as they are of loyalty. Money is their God, and their religion is politics.
The fourth class is made up of the rank and file of sinners—cursors, drunkards, and the army of grog-shop keepers. These latter, under the pretext of making a living, spread more misery, wretchedness, and crime among our people, than all the plagues of Egypt brought upon the inhabitants of that land. The source of nine-tenths of the scandal to our holy religion is in the grog-shops; and to make the scandal of their vile and unlawful traffic more conspicuous, they congregate by preference in the neighborhood of a Church, justifying the well-known proverb:
"Where God erects a house of prayer,
Satan must have a chapel there."