ASSOCIATION OF PRAYERS

AGAINST BLASPHEMY.

CONSIDERATIONS ON BLASPHEMY.

By Blasphemy we mean every word, every writing, and every exterior manifestation contrary to the respect which the Holy Name of God merits, whether by pronouncing that Adorable Name with disdain, or by joining expressions unworthy of His supreme greatness; or by attacking the existence or essence of the Divine Nature, or lastly, by denying one of His perfections. Again, we place in the category of Blasphemy, insulting words applied to the Blessed Virgin or the Saints; for we honour God in honouring them, because the honour we give them belongs to God, who by His grace has been the author of their sanctity, so also the insult which is used towards them belongs to God, and is a real genuine Blasphemy. The same line of argument is also applicable to all words spoken against religion.

Hence it is easy to understand how common Blasphemy is.

1. We blaspheme when we pronounce the Holy Name of God with anger, fully as insultingas that workman, that day-labourer, who on the slightest obstacle being offered, sometimes even without reason, soil their lips with words which

christian ears cannot hear without being grievously hurt.

2. Blasphemy is not always used under the form of an imprecation or a gross insult; there is yet another way of insulting the Divine Majesty more grievously. We even now-a-days find some who say with those of whom the Psalmist spoke, "Non est Deus," or if there are but few who boldly say so, there are many who deny the divine essence. Some, falling back into the idolatry of ancient days, look on the sun as God, and acknowledge him as the sovereign master of the world; others (and these especially are the majority,) guided by the false philosophers of the present age, pretend that God is nature, the entire world; others see in the gospels, and the facts related in holy writ, only allegories similar to the fables of pagan mythology. These are also true Blaspheniers.

3. We may here also rank a third class of Blasphemers; the crowd of libertines and sinners of all sorts, who insult God by denying His perfection. We hear them at divers times exclaiming: God is not good, God is not just; they deny His providence, and are like those of whom the Prophet speaks, "Non videbit Dominus nec intelliget Deus Jacob."

4. Lastly, we Blaspheme and in a manner not less culpable, when even without anger, we speak disdainfully of God, the saints, the sacraments, and all that relates to the worship of God. This is the last species of blasphemers, among whom, alas! are numbered the majority of the young men of our day, who, forgetting the principles of the faith, with which they were imbued in their infancy, or not having received a christian education, make a boast of treating all that is most sacred with complete disdain.

Are not these four kinds of Blasphemy, alas! spread every where? Let us count, if we can,

those which we daily hear; let us, at the same time, remember that like sins are committed in a thousand other places. How many Blasphemies, during one day alone, are uttered in the parish which we inhabit? how many in France, (may we not say England also?) where this melancholy habit reigns? Oh, my God! what multitude of iniquities! and is the homage of angels sufficient to compensate for so many outrages?

The principal obstacle to the majority of men, even Christians, of not being sufficiently cast down by the existence of so great an evil, is that they have never well weighed the malice of Blasphemy. They look on it as in the light of a minor fault, of little or no consequence; and yet it is one of the greatest of sins. There are without doubt many degrees of culpability in the way in which we commit this sin; ignorance or inadvertence may diminish or excuse its maliciousness; but considered in itself, Blasphemy is the most enormous of all crimes.

It is so great an evil, that we find a difficulty in defining or comprehending it, since it is necessarily proportionate to the grandeur and majesty of God whom it insults, and whom we cannot define or comprehend. "It is," says S. Thomas, "the sin peculiar to the damned, who, in their agony, curse the power and justice of God, as those sinners of whom mention is made in the Apocalypse, Estuaverunt homines estú magno et blasphemaverunt Nomen Domini habentis potestatem super has plagas."

Every other sin, says the same S. Thomas, in another place, is almost nothing when compared to Blasphemy; and murder, the most enormous of all crimes against our neighbour, is its inferior in malice; for Blasphemy, in ipsâ naturá, tends to offend God, while murder attacks but the creature; and although the actual result of murder is a greater evil than Blasphemy, since the one

puts an end to the life of man, and the other does not even affect the impassible nature of God; nevertheless, as to the sin in re ipsâ, murder is less grave. In order to judge of the gravity of a crime, the perverseness of the intention, rather than the exterior act, should be considered; now, in the Blasphemer we find the intention, at least implicit, of directly offending God, of dishonouring the Divine Majesty as far as in him lies, of annihilating it in some manner, which is doubtless a greater evil than the simple intention of killing a man. Therefore we may justly conclude that Blasphemy is a greater sin than murder. Blasphemy is, moreover, opposed to the principal christian virtues, i. e. Faith, Hope, and Charity.

It is opposed to faith, at least to the external profession which is made of faith, since it often utters error. It is ordinarily the mark of a faith which is extinct. Tertullian tells us, that in his time Blasphemers daily passed over to paganism or heresy, Ethnici et hæretici quotidie ex blasphemiâ emergunt," and according to St. Chrysostom, he who belches forth horrid blasphemies against God, must no longer be regarded as a sheep of the flock of the Lord: he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Oh! doubtless, he has no longer faith, or at least he has all but lost it, he who indifferently, or with gaiety of heart, dares deny any of the perfections of God, or contumeliously utter that venerable Name, and play, in short, with that Name so terrible.

And, en passant, let us here remark that Blasphemy, proceeding from the mouth of a christian, contains malice of a peculiar nature, because that christian is acquainted with religion, the greatness of God, as well as the crime which he commits. The Jews committed a great sin when blaspheming against the Saviour, they treated Him as a seditious person, as an imposter, as one

worthy of death; but they knew not what they did, and yet it was a mortal sin, and seems so in the eyes of men; the christian, on the contrary, who blasphemes, advisedly and willingly insults Him whom he knows to be his God; he insults Him not in His human nature, in which He came among men to submit to misery, but he insults God, surrounded by the splendour of the saints; he seems, like Lucifer, the first Blasphemer, to wish to ascend to heaven to attack the throne of His glory; In cœlum conscendam.

Blasphemy is also opposed to hope as it is to faith. It very often springs from despair, or rather, to speak more intelligibly, despair is itself a Blasphemy, for the soul who despairs of her salvation, seems to disavow and deny the goodness and mercy of God.

Let us to this add that Blasphemy leads to despair, and that it has been observed that those who are guilty of it, often die without even so much as a wish to return to God. It is not that the grace of conversion has been refused them; there are several who, knowing how to profit by it, re-enter sincerely the way of salvation; but it is that a blasphemer is generally too proud to ask pardon from God. "This sin is so great," says S. Augustine, "that it prevents the soul humiliating itself before God by prayer."

Blasphemy is, lastly, opposed to charity, because it contains in itself an hatred to God. It is a sin of pure malice. Let a man endeavour to show that he stands on a higher pedestal than others, giving himself up to the dreams of his ambition, it is clearly seen that he is under the guidance of vanity; the voluptuous yields to the attraction of pleasure; he who commits injustice is carried away by the love of money; thus it is with a thousand other sins; we there see passions soliciting and enticing the heart, which allows itself to become a willing captive to the charms