Sermon IV. Giving Testimony.

"You shall give testimony of me." —John xv., 27. (From the Gospel for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost.)

These words were spoken by our Lord to his disciples, before his departure from this world. He had chosen them from the beginning, and imparted to them a full knowledge of the truth, that they might bear testimony to it. "All things whatsoever I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."—"I have chosen you, and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain." [Footnote 22]

The disciples did give testimony. They labored in season and out of season in spreading the truths which they had learned from the lips of our Saviour. "Their sound went over all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." [Footnote 23]

Their testimony was not only in sound and words: their lives testified to the truth which they preached. They suffered persecution, poverty, imprisonment, and sealed their testimony to the truth with their blood, by willingly laying down their lives for it. These disciples were true to Christ. Their testimony was faithful, loyal, heroic. We, too, are disciples of Christ, and have our testimony to give; and I propose to show in the first place, what are our obligations to give this testimony of Christ; and in the second place, who are those who fail in their obligations to give this testimony.

What are our obligations to give testimony of Christ? There are many Christians who seem to think that they are at liberty to choose what course of life they please, that they can live as they like; that whether they attend to their religious duties or neglect them, whether they are patterns of Christian virtue or scandals to their faith, is nobody's business.

This opinion is false, most false, because all Christians are under a lasting obligation to Christ to lead a Christian life.

Christ is our Lord and Master, and as such has a complete right of control over all our actions. There can be no dispute about this. "You call me Master and Lord." says he; "You say well, for so I am." [Footnote 24]

Christ is not only our Master and Lord, but also our Creator, "for by Him all things were made that are made." His dominion over us is therefore absolute and supreme. In His presence we are simply subjects, and have only duties to fulfil.

Christ as Man has the full right of purchase over us. He can claim of us all our actions, for he redeemed us from the captivity and slavery of sin. "Knowing that you were not redeemed," says the Apostle Peter to the faithful, "with corruptible gold or silver from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ." [Footnote 25]

Can any one who listens to these words be so destitute of intelligence and faith as to entertain the idea, for a moment, that God created us and became man and died for us, only to leave us at liberty to live as we please, and to sin as much and as often as we like? No; says the Apostle Paul, "Christ died for all." And why? Listen, faithless Christian: "That they also who live may not live to themselves, but to Him who died for them, and rose again." [Footnote 26]

What is it to live to Christ? To live to Christ is, to live to please Him; it is to follow in His footsteps and copy in our lives His virtues. This is made clear from what the same Apostle says in another place, on the same subject: "Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people, acceptable, pursuing good works." [Footnote 27]

A Christian, then, is one who lives to Christ by keeping free from all iniquity and pursuing good works. This is the testimony that Christ requires of us, and which we are bound to give by every sacred obligation which binds us to Him as our Creator and Redeemer.

Another reason why we are under obligation to give testimony of Christ by leading an exemplary life, is that Christ came into the world not only to be our Redeemer, but also our Model. Hear him: "You call me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am, … and if I, then, being your Lord and Master have given you an example, as I have done to you, so you do also." [Footnote 28]

For is there any one so uninstructed as not to know that it was wholly unnecessary for Jesus Christ to practise on his own account, humiliations, poverty, obedience, self-denial, meekness, and embrace the sufferings and bitter death of the cross. He practised these virtues in order to induce us to practise them, for these were due to us as punishment for our sins, and necessary for us as preservatives against our vices. God became man to teach men by example how they ought to live. "Christ suffered for us," says the apostle St. Peter, "leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps." [Footnote 29]

He then is false and faithless to his obligations, who claims the name of a Christian, and does not follow in Christ's footsteps. No Christian, then, has the right to live as he likes, but is bound to live as Christ likes.

The Holy Church too, has a right to exact from us the obligation to lead an exemplary life. For as in a flock of pigeons, on seeing one fly all the others follow, so it is in the society of the Church, the good example of one member encourages and edifies the whole body. That you may understand the watchfulness and jealousy of our Lord over his flock, listen to his own language: "He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea. … Woe to that man by whom scandal cometh." [Footnote 30]

The Church has not only the right to claim from us to follow in Christ's footsteps for the sake of believers, but also for the unbeliever. According to the words of Christ: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven." [Footnote 31]

It is more by the testimony of a good example than by miracles, that unbelievers are brought to the light of truth. This is illustrated by the example of the martyr St. Lucien. It is related of him by Surius, that he led many unbelievers to the knowledge of the truth and to embrace the Catholic faith, by the modesty of his life and his exemplary conduct. So powerful was the influence of his example, that the Emperor Maximilian, when seated upon his throne and about to condemn him to death, commanded that he should be kept out of his view, behind a veil, lest even the mere sight of the saint should change him into a Christian. Is it not then with good reason St. John Chrysostom says: "There would be no heathens were we such Christians as we ought to be. … Paul was but a man, yet how many did he draw after him! If we were all such as he, how many worlds might we have drawn to us!" [Footnote 32]

How was it St. Paul attracted so many to Christ? He tells us himself, in these words: "Give no offence to the Jews, nor to the gentiles, nor to the church of God; as I also please all men in all things, not seeking that which is profitable to myself, but to many; that they may be saved." [Footnote 33]

It is clear, then, beyond all dispute, that every one who claims the name of a Christian is bound by a lasting and sacred obligation to give testimony to Christ by following in his footsteps, and consequently those who fail are guilty of robbing their Lord and Master of his rights, and are no true Catholics, but traitors to the faith.

Who are they who fail to give this testimony of Christ? I will tell you.

You will find many who were born of Catholic parents, were baptized in the faith when young, and yet never acknowledging the faith of their fathers, and of their baptism. They are not open apostates, they neither attack their faith, nor defend it when attacked. You might know them for years and not dream that they were Catholics. It is hard to tell what they really are. They are not Protestants, nor Jews, nor Turks, for these have religious convictions, and do not deny them, but the men I speak of either have no religious convictions, or want the manliness to acknowledge them. They do not like to be known as Catholics, and yet they identify themselves publicly with free-masons, odd-fellows, and similar secret societies.

Another class consists of those who confess themselves Catholics, but never, or very rarely, enter the Church. They take offence at the slightest irregularity, whether it be in the priesthood, or the preaching, or in the manner of conducting public worship; and under some such pretext they excuse their grievous neglect of worship, and their profound indifference to all the sacred duties of religion. These claim the name of Catholic, and their conduct is that of an infidel.

A third class is composed of those who now and then on occasion of a jubilee or a mission, or some similar event, come to Church, and perhaps receive the holy sacraments. Their religion is like a fire in the straw, it soon dies out. Talk to these men of their business, and they will tell you that a man who does not watch and pay constant attention to it, will soon find himself bankrupt. Speak to them of the affairs of the nation, and they will tell you that the country is going to ruin, because its citizens neglect to attend political meetings and fail to approach the polls at election times. On business, or politics, on almost every thing but their religion, they reason correctly, and act like sensible men; on their duties to God and the affairs of their soul they appear to be as destitute of reason as they are of loyalty. Money is their God, and their religion is politics.

The fourth class is made up of the rank and file of sinners—cursors, drunkards, and the army of grog-shop keepers. These latter, under the pretext of making a living, spread more misery, wretchedness, and crime among our people, than all the plagues of Egypt brought upon the inhabitants of that land. The source of nine-tenths of the scandal to our holy religion is in the grog-shops; and to make the scandal of their vile and unlawful traffic more conspicuous, they congregate by preference in the neighborhood of a Church, justifying the well-known proverb:

"Where God erects a house of prayer, Satan must have a chapel there."

The grog-shop keepers are the worst enemies of our holy religion in this country, for they not only occasion the destruction of a vast number of Catholics, but by the disgust which their bad example creates, they offer the greatest hindrances to the conversion of non-catholics.

These are some out of the great number of those who fail to give testimony of Christ; for we have not the time to enumerate all. Now, what is very strange, and yet characteristic of all these, they appear to live as though they were unconscious of their obligations, and of the guilt which they incur. They seem to think that if they are allowed to assume the name of a Christian or Catholic, they are safe. Well then, asks one, why not exclude them from the Church altogether, so that the whole world can see what they are? This is the way we do away with unprofitable subjects in other institutions. Take, for example, a railroad corporation. Sometimes a company of this kind starts with great prospects. The number who travel on the road is prodigious. The stockholders congratulate themselves on a heavy dividend; when to their wonder, on reckoning up their accounts, they find the company running fast into bankruptcy. Investigations are made, and it is discovered that a large number of the passengers have been paying no fare, riding as "dead-heads." These being struck off, the corporation begins to prosper again. Not so with the holy Church. She is in this respect unlike all other institutions. She is likened by her Founder to a field of wheat, in which the enemy had sown cockle. And when one of the servants said to the master: "Wilt thou that we go to gather it up? and he said, no; lest while you gather up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Let both grow until the harvest; and in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn; but gather the wheat into my barn." [Footnote 34]

The time to cut off the faithless children, the "dead-heads" of the Church, is not now, but "in the harvest time," the day of general reckoning, when our Lord shall appear in power and majesty to judge the world. Then he will say to these: "I am your Lord and Master, why have you not obeyed me?" He will show them his wounds, and say: "Behold the price I paid to redeem you from sin! What right had you to refuse my service? I came upon earth to give an example that you might follow my steps, and you turned your back upon me! You were a scandal to the Church, and a stumbling-block in the way of others. You refused to give testimony to my mercy, now you shall give testimony to my sovereign justice. Gather up this cockle, these faithless, false, treacherous disciples," he will say to his servants, "and let their portion be in the pool which burns with fire and brimstone." [Footnote 35]

Could but our voice reach the ears, and our entreaties penetrate the hearts of these guilty Catholics, we would lift it up and cry out to them: Do penance speedily! Repair by a good example the evil which your bad example has caused to your neighbor. Strive to gain more souls to Christ than your wicked life has lost to him heretofore. Let your good works shine out the more, so that like the servant of the eleventh hour, you may obtain the full wages of eternal life.

As for you, dearest brethren, who have manfully withstood until now all temptations to be disloyal to your faith, whose lives, full of good works, have borne noble testimony to Christ, lift up your eyes and hearts to heaven at this season of our Lord's ascension. "I go," he says, "to prepare a place for you. I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you may be also." [Footnote 36]