Counsels to
People with Moral Problems.
“Your past life had been presented
before me as one who had no internal strength to resist evil if it put on
an inviting aspect. You have obtained the confidence of women in you as a
man of piety and righteousness, then you have taken advantage of this confidence
to take liberties with them—kissing them, and going just as far with
them in seductive, lustful practices as they would allow you to go, not only
with Sister X but with others. And I am pained to the heart when I consider
that you have tainted and polluted more than one or two or three or four with
your insinuations and your fawning and caressing which have led souls to dissipation
and vice. And you a watchman, you a shepherd! …
You have made evil and lustful practices appear harmless, and some have
been led away with their own lust and enticed because they had not moral courage
to rebuke you, a minister, for your iniquitous practices. There have been
not a few who have sacrificed conscience, peace of mind, and the favor of
God, because a man whom the people have set as a watchman on the walls of
Zion has been their tempter—a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And these who had been uncorrupted fall into the snare [which] Satan, through
the bad shepherd, has set for them under different pretenses and excuses.
You have hid your evil heart of deadly opposition to purity and holiness.
The fly enticed into the spider’s web, the fish which is lured on by
the bait on the hook, has been ensnared and taken.
Erroneous Approach to Marriage Counseling.
You have by your course of action debased sacred things to the level of the
common. Many have come near being ruined who have, as it were, been plucked
as a brand from the burning; but the performance of yours to break down the
barriers which preserve the sanctity of the family relation between husband
and wife, the arranged plans to make the wife communicate to you the secrets
of her married life, induce those who are yielding in disposition, who have
become captivated with you, to open their heart to you as to a Catholic confessor;
and you encourage in them the thought that they have made a mistake in the
married life.
In every family there are at times misunderstandings. There are thoughts
and feelings expressed that Satan takes advantage of, but if both husband
and wife will resist the devil and humble their hearts before God, then the
difficulties soon will be healed without leaving ugly scars. But you have
done a work to encourage alienation in the place of healing the difficulties;
and peace of mind, harmony, and the usefulness not only of women but of men
has been destroyed, and the seeds of licentious practices that you have sown
have produced a bitter, bitter harvest. The wanderings from God in this way
are common, but the fact is, so few return.
Sacred Interwoven With the Impure.
The coy, complying disposition of women or girls to the advances and familiarity
of men, married men, leads them to be easily entrapped. The man who should
watch for souls in order to save them, watches for opportunities and occasions
to ruin them. There are so many who have little fixedness of principle, who
come into contact with the men who preach the truth; and some of these educate
and refine iniquity before them, clothing it in angel robes, and as their
own hearts are not garrisoned with fixed, unswerving principles, the work
of ruin is speedily accomplished.
The sacred is brought down and so interwoven with lust and impure, unholy
practices that the victim is confused, and the soul temple becomes a sink
of iniquity. At first the unsuspecting only listen; they receive the liberties
of preference shown them; then the education goes on until ‘as an ox
goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks’
(Prov. 7:22), they follow in the steps of the tempter and go fully as far
as he would lead them.”
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