ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF POPE LEO XIH. 147
should be so organized and governed as to furnish the best and most suitable means for attaining what is aimed at, that is to say, for helping each individual member to better his condition to the utmost in body, mind, and property. It is clear that they must pay special and principal attention to piety and morality, and that their internal discipline must be directed precisely by these considerations; otherwise they entirely lose their special character, and come to be very little better than those Societies which take no account of Religion at all. What advantage can it be to a Workman to obtain by means of a Society all that he requires, and to endanger his soul for want of spiritual food? What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?* This, as Our Lord teaches, is the note or char- acter that distinguishes the Christian from the heathen. After all these things do the heathens seek. . . . Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.\ Let our associations, then, look first and before all to God; let religious instruction have therein a foremost place, each one being carefully taught what is his duty to God, what to believe, what to hope for, and how to work out his salvation; and let all be warned and fortified with especial solicitude against wrong opinions and false teaching. Let the working-man be urged and led to the worship of God, to the earnest practice of religion, and, among other things, to the sanctification of Sundays and festivals. Let him learn to reverence and love Holy Church, the common Mother of us all; and so to obey the precepts and to frequent the Sacraments of the Church, those Sacra- ments being the means ordained by God for obtaining forgiveness of sin and for leading a holy life.
- St. Matthew xvi. 26. t St. Matthew vi. 32, 33.
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