“There is time yet,” I said; “let us try.”
THE CHURCH.
It is of her womb that we are born; our nourishing is from her milk; our quickening from her breath.... She it is who keeps us for God, and appoints unto the kingdom the sons she has borne.... He who leaves the church of Christ attains not to Christ’s rewards. He is an alien, an outcast, an enemy. He can no longer have God for a father who has not the church for a mother. If any man was able to escape who remained without the ark of Noah, then will that man escape who is out of doors beyond the church. The Lord warns us, and says: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who gathereth not with me scattereth.” ... He who gathereth elsewhere but in the church, scatters the church of Christ.—St. Cyprian.
[THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY AS A BASIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.]
BY F. RAMIERE, S.J.
FROM THE ETUDES RELIGIEUSES.
CONCLUDED.
UTILITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE POET AND OF THE ORATOR.
The foregoing considerations have borne us up to those luminous heights where philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, separated in their lower regions, mingle and become one. Would to God that the poets frequented more assiduously these sublime regions! How their inspirations would gain in nobleness as well as in purity; how much ignominy would they spare themselves; how many scandals to society! We should not then see them separate beauty from truth, as they too often do, place all the perfection of art in an empty form, and make their independence consist in placing themselves under the hateful yoke of error and of vice.
Such is the ignoble theory which one is compelled to sustain if he deny that the study of philosophy is of the greatest utility for the poet. Unfortunately, this theory has found in our days only too many defenders. How much more numerous still are those who put it in practice!