Our neo-pagan world is learning by a cruel and sad experience that Religion is the foundation of morality, and morality that of true legality.  “For unless certain things antecedent to conscience be granted and firmly held, ‘conscience’ becomes synonymous with ‘sentiment.’”

Mr. Lloyd George himself, addressing a religious gathering in Wales on June 9, 1920, recognized Religion as the only bulwark able to resist the rising tide of anarchy.  “Bolshevism is spreading throughout the world,” said the British Premier, “and the churches can alone save the people from the disaster which will ensue, if this anarchy of will and aim continues to spread.”  The task of the churches, he continued, was greater than that which came within the compass of any political party.  Political parties might provide the lamps, lay the wires and turn the current on to certain machinery, but the churches must be the power stations.  If the generating stations were destroyed, whatever the arrangements and plans of the political parties might be, it would not be long before the light was cut off from the homes of the people.  The doctrines taught by the churches are the only security against the triumph of human selfishness, and human selfishness unchecked will destroy any plans, however perfect, which politicians may devise.

This period of history, to quote Gladstone, is “an agitated and expectant age.”  The world is travelling fast into a new era.  The modern social fabric, built on the shifting sands of selfishness and injustice is rocking on its foundations.  Amid accumulated ruins nations are searching for the basic principles of true Reconstruction.  This period of unrest is in itself a challenge to Christianity, to the Church.  But the vitalizing force of Christianity can solve these problems of a decrepit civilization just as it solved the problem of tottering Rome.  Problems therefore must be faced and solved.  Every Catholic has his place in this world-wide work.  If our religion does not make its influence felt in every phase of our life’s activities, it is—­as far as our life and its influence on others is concerned—­a gigantic fraud.  Bishop Kettler understood this pressing obligation when, breaking away from a too conservative programme of action, he was the first in the Church to give an impetus to the study of the modern social problem.  His policy and action were said to have prompted the celebrated letter of Leo III, Rerum Novarum.  The words of this great democratic Bishop still bear his timely message to Catholics of to-day, “To save the souls of countless workmen entrusted to her by Christ, the Church must enter the field of Social reform, armed with extraordinary remedies.  She must exert herself to the utmost to rescue the workmen from a situation which constitutes a real proximate occasion of sin for them, a situation which makes it morally impossible for them to fulfill their duties as Christians.”