Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/250

 internal discipline must be guided very strictly by these weighty considerations; otherwise they would lose wholly their special character, and end by becoming little better than those societies which take no account whatever of religion. What advantage can it be to a workingman to obtain by means of a society all that he requires, and to endanger his soul for lack of spiritual food? What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? This, as Our Lord teaches, is the mark or character that distinguishes the Christian from the heathen. ''After all these things do the heathens seek. . . . Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you?'' Let our associations, then, look first and before all things to God; let religious instruction have therein the foremost place, each one being carefully taught what is his duty to God, what he has to believe, what to hope for, and how he is to work out his salvation; and let all be warned and strengthened with special care against wrong principles and false teaching. Let the workingman be urged and led to the worship of God, to the earnest practice of religion, and, among other things, to the keeping holy of Sundays and holydays. Let him learn to reverence and love Holy Church, the common Mother of us all; and hence to obey the precepts of the Church, and to frequent the sacraments, since they are the means ordained by God for obtaining forgiveness of sin and for leading a holy life,

The foundations of the organization being thus laid in religion, We next proceed to make clear the relations of the members one to another, in order that they may live together in concord and go forward prosperously and with good results. The offices and charges of the society should be apportioned for the good of the society itself, and in such mode that difference in degree or standing should not interfere with unanimity and good-will. Office