BE ALONE.

A MAN may come to discover that the state in which he finds himself
placed, is not the one for which he was evidently intended by the
Maker. We do not all receive the same gifts because our callings are
different; each of us is endowed in accordance and in harmony with the
ends of the Creator in making us. Some men should marry, others may
not; but the state of celibacy is for the few, and not for the many,
these few depending solely on an abundant grace of God.

Again, one may become alive to the fact that to remain in an abnormal
position means to seriously jeopardize his soul's salvation; celibacy
may, as for many it does, spell out for him, clearly and plainly,
eternal damnation. It is to no purpose here to examine the causes of,
and reasons for, such a condition of affairs. We take the fact as it
stands, plain and evident, a stern, hard fact that will not be downed,
because it is supported by the living proof of habit and conduct;
living and continuing to live a celibate, taking him as he is and as
there is every token of his remaining without any reasonable ground for
expecting a change, this man is doomed to perdition. His passions have
made him their slave; he cannot, it is morally impossible for him to do
so, remain continent.

Suppose again that the Almighty has created the state of wedlock for
just such emergencies, whereby a man may find a remedy for his
weaknesses, an outlet for his passions, a regulator of his life here
below and a security against damnation hereafter; and this is precisely
the case, for the ends of marriage are not only to perpetuate the
species, but also to furnish a remedy for natural concupiscence and to
raise a barrier against the flood of impurity.

Now, the case being as stated, need a Catholic, young or--a no longer
young--man look long or strive hard to find his path of duty already
clearly traced? And in making this application we refer to man, not to
woman, for reasons that are obvious; we refer, again, to those among
men whose spiritual sense is not yet wholly dead, who have not entirely
lost all respect for virtue in itself: who still claim to have an
immortal soul and hope to save it; but who have been caught in the
maelstrom of vice and whose passions and lusts have outgrown in
strength the ordinary resisting powers of natural virtue and religion
incomplete and half-hearted. These can appreciate their position; it
would be well for them to do so; the faculty