Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Jun 1891 · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Jun 1891

Author

Morais, Sabato

Date Created

1 June 1891

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

10 pages on 4 sheets

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 10, Folder 9

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3639kq2q/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3639kq2q

Provenance

Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF9_19.xml

content

S. MORAIS,
546 N. FIFTH STREET,
PHILADELPHIA.

15
June/91
The encyclical letter
& the Decalogue

The head of the Catholic Church has issued his encyclical letter. Labor and capital, social duties and family ties, the education of the masses, and the authority of religion, are subject which, from what we can judge by an extract, the Pope discusses in all earnestnessness. A clear decided im--provement is that encyclical missive upon the public addresses of some of the predecessors at occupants of the throne in the Vatican. I can recall the utterances of Gregory XVI.,--the triple crown sovereign--who had filled to repletion with political prisoners the dungeons of his Roman provinces. He hurled curses at liberty, anathemas at the aspirations to liberty, invectives at Protestantism. I remember the words of Pius IX. the last, I hope, of Papal monarchs--when, after having loosened the chains of many who pined away in jail for daring to speak or write on freedom, and having raised the false expectations of a brighter era for the freedom loving, was seized with a dreading of Austria and Catholic potentates, and created a reaction that culminated in the abduction of Edgar Mortara. He also cast maledictions upon all who believe that the people have rights, and must assert them in spite of the assu--med divine rights of Kings.

Would either of those two Pontiffs have looked across the Atlantic, and with so much concern noticed America, the country that has cut asunder the bands, which fastened the State to the chariot-wheel of the Church, the country that has opened an asylum to all who rebel against priest--craft? It was reserved for Leo XIII, to proclaim----wonderful admission for a Pope--if true--to proclaim that self--government, as in our the great Republic of the North, is not synonymous with anarchy; that the efforts of the working classes to become independent do not tend to communism; that religion, to perform its mission, must seek the ele--vation of the lowly, and not cringe to the high; that it must not teach that the poor shall remain poor, to give the rich a chance to mount up to heaven on heaps of charity. At all events, whatever the causes may be which brought about a metamorphosis Leo XIII, if report is correct unlike his predecessors, has directed his mind to live questions which agitate the masses every-where, and he has looked for exponents of his views in the United States, in where Catholicism has increased amazingly. He has found Bishops and Arch--bishops and Cardinals, ready and able to represent the highest in their hierarchy, as a friend to progress within the line of morality.

But what is the foundation stone upon which the Pope has chosen to build his encyclical letter? None other than that which has been and will ever be the basis of human civilization, and without which decep--tion supplants truth, lawlessness runs riot. The Decalogue is the Alpha and the Omega--the beginning and the end--of the lesson--as I have read it--sent forth from the Vatican. Christianity may have arrogated to itself the a power, which is not conceded to fallible mortals. to It has tampered with doctrinal points in the heaven revealed ten commandments. To the Omnipotent, Christianity has joined a coexisting being; to God who suffers not the worship of images as derogatory to His spirituality, it has added figures and likenesses. It has moreover authorized the desecration of the day set apart to the Lord from the beginning of creation, and has hallowed another in its stead, which the policy of Constantine, in the fourth century of the vulgar era, originated. But Christianity that has transformed the Unity into a trinity, symbolized the latter given bodily forms for adoration, and abrogated the real Sabbath,

dared not lay its hand on the purely moral tenets which the Pope quotes. It could not construe duty to parents otherwise than it is in the imperishable documents received by Israel at this never to be for--gotten season. It could not say that murder is a virtue, that adultery is conducive to the health--ful permanence of communities, that to rob and to lie, and to covet and to envy are qualities exalting nations and individuals. Wishing to tell how society can alone move on progressively and blissfully, Leo XIII> must necessarily have pointed to that all-irradiating Sun that shone on the summit of Sinai Horeb. It is because men's visions will turn away from it, that so much that which lowers our nature character, so much that disgraces mankind, aye: so much that has brought scan--dal and suffering on the city of Philadelphia, is forced upon public attention. Breach of trust, forgery, perjury, are crimes, which a disregard of the Magna Carta given committed to our safe-keeping, too frequently oc--casions. We call national laws those which our reason accepts; well, be it so, but so strong are our passions for riches, for a luxurious living, for indulgence in carnal

appetites, that the voice of reason is often hushed, or we allow it to speak when too late, when its counsel cannot draw us out of the wreck and rain vortex into which we have voluntarily glided become got entangled. I grant that the beneficent Being, whom we call Providence, has implanted within our f breasts the seeds of goodness, I grant that they ought spontaneously to fructify. The Sages of Israel have acknowledged that that had not the Torah been promulgated at Horeb Sinai, a close observation of even the habits of some of the inferior animals, would have imparted to us the rules of life. But lessons on ethics, though agreeing with our nature, if wanting lacking the sanction of the Supremest authority, are insufficient to hold us in rectitude. We may assume morality, as an ex--pediency, we may put it on as a mask to hide the deformities of a cunning disposition, but sooner or later the falsity will stand revealed to our shame. Morality is the central pillar sustaining the social fabric, but it must have God as the Architect and the regulator watching overlooking that it does not fall into fragments. The very pinnacle of human morality is the Jewish idea, the constant thought of a

watchful God, who will not allow vice and crime to build up a tower defying the arrows of Divine displeasure. Not the fear of the courts, not the horror of the prison, but the certainty that we dare not trample on the moral tenets of the Decalogue with impunity, is the safest guard of society. I do not means as re--gards the promises of a hereafter, but here, in this transitory life; wrongs are avenged by the all-seeing God. A Marsh may pass off a long time for the honest--est man, a Bardsley may enjoy the fairest re--putation, but neither they a Kennedy may dupe unsuspecting multitudes; but neither they nor others who may make of the Church a wise folding cloak to cover their crooked deeds, will have an honored grave. Even royalty is not a screen against turpitudes. Witness the revelations which raise a blush upon the cheeks of those who still pay obeisance to high titles, and in whose sight positions accident-al to birth have a claim to popular reverence. Wit--ness Do you wonder that conformists and non-conformists

among the English feel outraged at the conduct of a Prince who carries wherever he goes, not the word of God, as a Jewish prince was enjoined, according to the sentence in Deuteronomy, but objects encouraging among the masses immoral extravagances, subter--fuge and chicanery? Infinite thanks to the modern Herculeses who try to clean the Angean stable--those are the avengers of who lift the moral from the filfth into which men in with the insignia of office have thrust it. The yare the avengers of the Din Divine commandments which teach, "fear not the presence of man, justice is the fiat of God."..."Pervert not justice judgment, respect no person, take no bribe." Israel can cite as re--presentatives defenders of incorruptibleness, a King Jehoshaphat who charged his officers to dread only the Great Master, at whose tribunal we must answer for our honest administration of justice; a Sage who, before sitting at court, felt as if a sword was suspended over his head, and prayed that he might return home as innocent as when he leftt it. May such be our Judges, our Governors, our Councilmen, vindicating the fair name of Philadelphia, and delivering

the simple hearted and poor from the fraudulent and dishonestly rich. And now let us pray that Popes and Potentates, monarchies and republics may raise as a standard of their guidance, the banner unfurled at Sinai, glorious in its origin, sublime in its teaching, full of promises divine for our happiness in this life, and our beatitude hereafter.

Identifier

p3639kq2q

identifier

SMBx10FF9_19