Page:TheYoungMansGuide.djvu/176

 receives its  sanction  from  the  Church,  which is the  pillar  of  the  State  and  of  its  ordinances. He, therefore,  who  heeds  not  the  Church,  shakes also the  principal  supports  of  every  well-ordered constitution. He who  incites  the  citizen  to  unbelief, and  in  this  manner  to  disobey  his  spiritual mother the  Church,  inclines  him  to  become  a traitor  to  the  law  and  to  his  native  land.

And this  is  what  we  especially  experience  in the  present  day. While the  Church  preaches obedience, the  godless  world,  which  is  separated from her,  proclaims  treachery  against  the  ruler, the laws,  and  one's  native  land;  and  wherever the Church  is  ignored,  obedience  to  law  and authority is  ignored  likewise. The Catholic Church will  always  oppose  anarchy  and  every kind of  socialism  which  ignores  God  and  which is inimical  to  the  eternal  interests  of  man.

2. It  behooves  you,  my  friend,  to  be  ever  on your  guard  that  you  may  not  be  entangled  in the  net  of  the  degenerate  spirit  of  the  world.

The Church  itself  cheerfully  serves  the  lawful secular authority  in  upholding  law  and  order in the  State. The best  safeguard  of  your  interests, both  temporal  and  eternal,  is  obedience  to the  Church.

Let your  obedience  to  the  Church  be  as  a sharp  sword  that  will  cut  to  pieces  every  net which is  attempted  to  be  drawn  around  you  by the  false  principles  and  specious  sophistry  of the  spirit  of  evil  as  manifested  in  modernism, rationalism, naturalism,  and. godless socialism.

Keep perpetually  engraven  on  the  tablets  of your  memory  the  words  of  the  apostles :

In the  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans (xiii. i,  2,  4,  5)  we  read:  "Let  every  soul  be subject  to  higher  powers;  for  there  is  no  power