Socrates, Penelope And Catherine Ii

From the Chicago Tnbune. It ia one of the curiosities of modern civüizaiion that a special EccJesiastical Court has been convened in the city of Chicago, in the United States of America, in the year 1874, to try and determine the question, among others, whether, under the economy of God, either Penelope, Sócrates, or Catherine II. has been admitted to Hoaven, and whether the man who suggests that Penelope and Sócrates have possibly fared equally well with the Rusian Empress ought not to be regardöd and treated as a heretic Let us iirst inquire who were the persons whose possi ble doom is now to be passed upon. Waviug all doubts, we will consider Penelope as an historical person. As auch she is known as the wife of the wise and warlike Ulysses. Though notas intellectually gitted as her husband, she possessed virtues that have rendered her name illustrious as the chaste wife, the careful, prudent mother, the skiüfui regent of her husband's kingdom, aud as the uuquestioning believer in predestination. To her the gods Süemed always just, and she accepted without a murmur the decrees of fate - which even the gods could not reverse nor evade. Her husband was absent 20 years ; she was young aud queenly ; a Queen, and possessed of wealth ; she had innumerable suitors, and though for 10 years it was uncertain whether her husband was living or dead, she neither sought a divorce, had a lover, nor consented to marry any of her importúnate suitors. Surrounded by crime and corruption, and with the vicioug examples of all her contemporaries before her, she remained to the last the pure and devoted wife, the illustrious Queen, and exeinplary inother. The next in the list of those whose eternal fate is to be discuseed by the Chicago Presbytery is Sócrates, the philosopher who wrote nothing, but whose fame has mantled all ages that have cgine af ter him. Sócrates was not a Christian, - could not have been, - having lived ne&r ly 500 years betore Christ. He was not a Jew, and knew nothing of tha Hebrew scnptures. He was a Greek, and has been described thua ; " With naturally iinpetuous appetites, ot an irascible tem per, he has yet been called the most illustrious example in history of the moral cousuieuce, and the oreator of moral science." He taught all the virtues and practiced them. He mairied, aud cheer tully endured his wife's violent temper as a course of self discipline. He was a patriot, a soldier, and acholar, and applied his love ot country and his wisdom to benefit maukind. Finally, alter a long lite of usetulness he was accused of heresy, was convicted, and was put to duath tor refusing to recant. Wuen his last hour arrived he seemed to have had his Chicago trial in his prophetic mind, for, in dismissing the friends around him, he said : ' It is now time that we part, I to die, you to live ; but which has the better destiuy is unknown to all except the gods." His last conversation with his triends was full of faith iii the Deity and in the immortality of the soul. The Chicago heretic now on trial, in one of his seruious, ia illustrating a certain point, thus spoke : '■ There is no doubt the notorious Catherine II. held more truth and better truth than was known to all classic Greece, held to a belief in a Savior of whose glory that gifted soul knew naught ; yet such is the grandeur of soul above niiud, that I doubt not that Queen Penelope, of the dark land, and the doubting Sócrates have received at Heaven s gale a sweeter welcome than greeted the ear of Russia's brilhant, but false-lived Queen." Now, who was Catherine 'i She was the daughter of a Germán prince, and was at an early day betrothed to a son of a branch of the house ot Holstein. In the revolutions and changes in the throne of Russia the unmamed Empress Elizabeth selected this boy as her heir. Catherine, at the age of 14, accompanied her intended husband to Russia. They had both been Lutherans, but readily renounced that faith and accepted the doctrines of the Greek Church. As girl. and subsequently as wife, she lived in a court where the external formsof religión were strictly observed, but where neither private religión, virtue, nor common decency was practiced. Religión was a thin veil, too thin to hide the hideous social depravities bekind. Catherine, first a spectator, became a participant in this, and for 40 years, as wife and widow, she lived a Ufe of crime aud debauchery which far transcended that of any of her predecessors. She was false to her husband, and then deposed and murdered him. For 40 years she was the reproach of Christianity and of civilization - a moral monster beyond comparison. The Ecclesiastical Court, which is now convened in Chicago, is asked to punish as heresy the intiination that Catherine, who is assumed to have had faith in Christ, fared no better after her misdeeds than Sócrates oí Penelope. Or, to put the heresy inore distinctly, it is sought to punish tho suggestion that Sócrates and Ppnelope, who never heard of Christ, were admitted to Heaven on an equality with Catheriue II. who had heard of Him, and who had, duriug 40 years of absolute power, vioiated every chapter of the Gospels. It has been tho custom of mankind to hold up the chaste Penelope as an example to wouiankind. Her virtues and her truth have been sung in every written language, and during all ages she has been considered as a model for all generations. Now, we are to have it determined ex cathedra that Penelope is not in Heaven, but it is, with Sócrates, ainoug tne damued, while Catherine, who served the devil as perhaps no other woman did, cheated him of his lawful prey by a profession of faith, and is now among the eleot in the New Jerusalem. The prosecutor may not go so tar aa to affirm that Catherine is actually saved, but he ia bound to maintain that sho is as well off in the other world as Sócrates and Punelope. Yet to niako out a real caso of heresy ït is necessary to assume that Catherine is in Heaven, and to do this it must be adimtted that in renouncing the Lutheran Evangelical church and faith, and accepting all the esstntial doctrines of the Papal church (under a different name) she had not lost her election in tho kin. dom of God. She was a rigid disciplinarían. She compelled her people to attend mass, to go to confessiou, to believe in tiansubstantiation, to recognize her as the head of the church, generally tu believe all the the doctrines of the Catholic church. The followers of Calvin in the Pw %g.,, Presbytery can only maintain that Catherine II. is in Heaven by allowïng that she went through the portals of the Cathohc church, and that she did this afterhaving abandoned Evagelicanism and this they must do ia order to establish the heresy that good Socratos and virtnous Penelope never met as warm a weloomein Heaven as did the dissolute Russian Empresa. Heresy is an awful thing and the spirit of inquisition is as justiable now as it ever was. We uiay not buru, hang, quarter, bury alive, or otherwise kill, the body of heretics, as was once the fashion, but the truth of rehgion, the cause of Christ, demaud now as they always have, that an examplè should be made of the man who will dare to teil the children of this day that Socorates and Penelope, a pair of heathen are probably among the elect on an equality with Catherine II