Excerpt from A Catholic Atlas, or Digest of Catholic Theology: Comprehending Fundamentals of Religion, Summary of Catholic Doctrine, Means of Grace, Perfection With Its Rules and Counsels, Worship and Its Laws

Dear Reader: -

Thou wilt find somewhat in this book that will disagree with thee. And in what it disagrees with thee thou wilt find thy most advantage. If it be not writ by the Spirit mayest thou be enlightened to the answering thereof to thy profit. What cometh of the Spirit will profit if thou hast that "gracious humility which hath ever been the crown and glory of a Christianly disposed mind."

There be many books of human making the author has consulted in forming this, but that whereby he has most profited is the Holy Scriptures, interpreted by the common consciousness of Apostolic Christendom and made vital by meditation and prayer. For all lovers of Jesus agree in this that the doctrine of the cross is best learnt in the companionship of those most closely united to Him and at the foot of the cross.

The dispositions of our time have engendered much disputation, and more indifference, along with widespread rejection of the Christian faith, which is a suggestive and peace-composing sign as betokening that the reign of evil is coming to an end, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

The three principal forms of assault wear the livery and mask of science, of higher criticism, and of modern thought, yet the truths for which two stand make them rather champions of the faith than its opponents.

As the discovery of the Copernican system was found not to contradict the Scriptures, so the discoveries of to-day in geology and of the process of evolution do not contradict them. As it was not declared in Scripture that the world was made in six days, for the sun and moon did not appear till the fourth, the word written in the rocks docs not contradict that written in Genesis. The evolutionary process in the formation of the universe only implies method and the intelligence of the immanent Energy in directing it. The reign of law requires a lawgiver, whose laws, being of His own making, are His and not He their servant. They are but like the keys of an instrument on which the Divine Hand, bringing out new harmonies, plays. In the presence of the new knowledge that all matter is but the expression of electricity and any so-called element is changeable into another, the objections to certain miracles in the New Testament practically cease.

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