◆ SpookStack

Visit from the “+ By FULTON J. SHEEN: NCE UPON A TIME, there was a ie Great Jailer’ has, become brain- Great Jailer who was invited to washed. ‘visit a people who boasted they were _ not captive or imprisoned. What made his visit so unique was that this Great Jailer had millions and millions of people in his prison; . some of them he put to death before they even got to jail and others who tried to break out of their jail were driven back with tanks. The problem that faced the free people when the Great Jailer came to their free. country was: “What should I think?” “How should I act?” 1. Do not think you will make the . Great Jailer anxious to throw away the keys of his prison simply because he sees that you have longer automo- biles, better hair-dos, more electric gadgets, more rooms in your apart- ment, richer food at your table and the greatest per capita income in the world. Remember that the Great Jailer is already a trich man—richer than any- , one in America; he owns all the lumber, all the steel, all the railroads, all the autos, all the housing in his own land, The Great Jailer who became rich through “confiscation,” does not envy your national wealth; he envies your ° personal wealth. Personal. wealth is the economic guarantee of your free- dom. He knows that your right to cali property your own is because you al- ready have a soul which you can call . your own. os This is a great*challenge to the Great Jailer, If the Great Jailer be- lieved in the Spirit, he would rejoice in your well-being, because the spirit- ual man rejoices in the property of others. But being a materialist, the Great Jailer envies your freedom; it embarrasses him before other nations of the world. - 2..As your economic prosperity and. _ freedom will never change him, so neither will a visit to you change his philosophy of life. Remember that the Great Jailer is himself a prisoner. He is the prisoner of a collectivity from which he cannot escape. The leopard , cannot change his spots, nor the Ethi- “~opian his skin, In brainwashing others, 538 SEP 23 1959’? The touch of Christ's Ups did not: make Judas less the traitor. The Great Jailer’s life is not his own; it belongs to the ant hill; the moment he changes ‘his mind: or heart, he will suffer the lguidation he has ministered unto others for changing their hearts. There are some who will not believe, though one rise daily from the dead. - His basic philosophy is that freedom is nét inthe person, but in the Party; it is the Party which decides who shall live and ‘not live. It is, therefore, not @ person who ds visiting you; it is a Philosophy; it is a Party; it is the Great Jaildom. » 3. Think not that because the Great Jailer comes, not with the prison keys <= rattling from his hammer and sickle, © that he has nothing to do with bars and cells. In all human relations with the Great Jailer, remember the pris- “ oners! Prisoners who are so thin they stand like poles in their imprisonment. Look then at the Great Jailer as if *.. he were transparent; see through him to the millions who weep tears at the \ sight of a free man from a free country; see through the Jailer to the hands lifted saying: “Betray us not. The world Those who should be in prison are the gaolers. Now is verie fied the words of Innocence behind bars: ‘I was in prison and you visited Me’.” Finally, do not insult or injure or be unkind in word or deed to the Great Jailer. Freemen must not lower - themselves to the level of those who would destroy freedom. There must be moments of silence before the Great . Jailer as Christ was silent before the Jailer Herod because he sent John to his death; but there should be moments of speech, warm and sincere, as the Great Jailer is shown not just our reqctors, but our churches and our is upside down! (438 Take him to a synagogue, to a 149 sep 2h. 195 9 1955 Protestant church and to a Catholic church during services, that he may see that we are great, not because we —_— challenge God and seek to destroy Him — ‘as is'done in his Jaildom, but because we love and worship Him Who has endowed us with, as our Constitution says, “unalienable rights” and among Uberty and the pursult ye 4! YP f BouR Wah AmeR can Q-o-S7 which are “life, Gootre Matthey ETET"EGRice,