Page:Pastoral letter of the first National Council of the United States - held in Baltimore in May, 1852 (IA PastoralLetter1852).pdf/15

Rh vary from the course which you have hitherto pursued. After the example of the apostle, St. Paul, we cannot, however, deem it altogether unnecessary to exhort you ever to discharge your civil duties from the higher motives which religion suggests. Obey the public authorities, not only for wrath but also for conscience sake. Show your attachment to the institutions of our beloved country by prompt compliance with all their requirements, and by the cautious jealousy with which you guard against the least deviation from the rules which they prescribe for the maintenance of public order and private rights. Thus will you refute the idle babbling of foolish men, and will best approve yourselves worthy of the privileges you enjoy, and overcome, by the sure test of practical patriotism, all the prejudices which a misapprehension of your principles but too often produces.

We now address, in a particular manner, our venerable Brethren of the clergy, our fellow-laborers in the vineyard, the praise of whose labors is not with men but with God, and who await the coming of the Master of the vineyard, when the Shepherd and Bishop of souls shall bestow an eternal recompense on zeal and perseverance. Agreeably to the direction of the Holy Council of Trent, we have to exhort them, to endeavor, by the whole tenor of their lives, no less than by the exercise of the apostolic ministry, to guide the flock of Christ to safe and salutary pastures. To the ministers of the New Law the words spoken by God to the Levitical priesthood are more imperatively addressed: "Be ye holy; for I, the Lord, your God, am holy." Great as is the dignity of the priesthood, holy as are its functions, we must ever remember that we carry about this precious treasure in frail vessels; that we are surrounded with infirmity; and that to us especially is addressed the admonition: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." We are the light of the world; and to our actions, even more than to our words, do the faithful look up for the rule they are to follow, the example they are to imitate. We are the salt of the earth; and by the wholesome severity of Christian discipline, we are to preserve from the all pervading corruption