Page 76 - 聖母軍團員手冊（英文版，2014年5月-2022年1月更新版）

Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 75

CHAPTER 12 THE EXTERNAL AIMS OF THE LEGION 75
that other things have been “added unto it.” For instance, the
Legion has a social value. This becomes a national asset to the
individual country, and represents spiritual gain to the souls
which it contains.
The successful working of the social machine demands, like
any other machine, the harmonious co-operation of its
component parts. Each part, that is the individual citizen,
must do exactly what it is intended to do, and with the least
possible amount of friction. If each does not render complete
service, then waste enters in to disturb that necessary balance,
to throw all the cogs out of alignment with each other. Repair
is impossible, as it is infinitely difficult to detect the degree or
the origin of the trouble; hence the remedy which must be
adopted is to employ more force or lubricate with more
money. This remedy still further impairs the idea of service or
spontaneous co-operation, so that there is progressive failure.
Communities have such vitality that they continue to
function even though half their parts are misfits. But they
work at a terrible price of poverty, frustration, and
unhappiness. Money and effort are poured out to drive parts
which should be moving effortlessly, or which indeed should
be sources of power. Result: problems, turmoil, crises.
Who can deny that this is what obtains even in the best
regulated states to-day? Selfishness is the rule of the
individual life. Hate turns the lives of many into purely
destructive forces, and each new day brings new and universal
demonstration of a vital truth which may effectively be stated
thus: “Men who deny God, who are traitors to God, will be
false to every person and to everything less than God, to all
things on earth and in heaven.” (Brian O’Higgins) The state is
only the sum of the individual lives, so what heights can it be
expected to reach? A danger and a pain to themselves, what
are the nations offering to the world at large but a bit of their
own turmoil?
But suppose that into the community there enters a force
which spreads like a contagion from one to another, and
which makes the ideas of self-sacrifice, mutual love, and
idealism pleasing to the individual! What a change is effected!
The grievous sores heal up, and life is lived on a different
level. Suppose a nation were to arise which built its life on
lofty standards, and held up to the world the example of a