She looked so beautiful in her pink cashmere drapery, breaking into the
brown old wainscoted room like a sunbeam, that even my step‐mother was
surprised into an involuntary tribute of admiration; and when my wife,
coming up to her in that pretty, kitten‐like way that was so bewitching,
stooped down to be kissed, my step‐mother responded quite warmly, and
actually put up her hand to caress the sunny face after she had kissed it.
I felt so proud of my lovely Isabel, and so grateful to my step‐mother for
this unfeigned recognition of her loveliness, that I was seized with a
strong impulse to embrace them both on the spot. I restrained it, however,
and we sat down to breakfast; my wife, as mistress of the house, presiding
over the cups and saucers.
“Clide,” began my step‐mother (she prefaced every remark by my Christian
name), as soon as Isabel had provided us respectively with tea and coffee,
“what are we going to do to make Mrs. de Winton welcome amongst us? Now,
don’t answer me with your usual lazy outcry about fuss. My dear,” she
said, turning to Isabel, “you will have a great deal to do in the way of
reforming him; and if you succeed, it will be little short of a miracle.”
“Isabel will find out my vices soon enough, without your enlightening her
beforehand,” I protested. “It’s not fair to take away a man’s character
without giving him a chance of redeeming it.”
“Then begin and redeem it in time,” said my step‐mother. “Here is a good
opportunity. Have some people down from London to put the house in order,
and then give a series of proper entertainments to introduce your wife to
her new family and friends.”
“Oh! please ...” cried Isabel, pursing up her rosebud of a mouth, and
joining her hands with a delicious little pantomime of fright.
“What! are you as silly as himself? Or has he spoilt you already?”
“I was ready spoilt for him, dear Mrs. de Winton. I hate being introduced;
and as to refurnishing anything, I wouldn’t have it for the world. I adore
old furniture!” declared Isabel.
“Old furniture is one thing, and shabby furniture is another,” observed my
step‐mother, resuming the chronic rigidity of manner which Isabel’s beauty
and sweetness had thawed for a moment. “If Clide had done me the honor of
confiding his intentions to me in time, I certainly would have taken upon
myself to make the house decently clean to receive you. I had for some
time past urged on him the necessity of getting new carpets and curtains;
it was not surprising he shrank from the annoyance of a few days’
hammering merely to make it habitable for _me_, but I fancied for his wife
he might have undergone as much.”
“I shall be delighted to hear the hammers going for a month, if Isabel
likes it,” I replied evasively.
“But I don’t like it; I hate it, Clide!” exclaimed my wife passionately.
“Well, then, you sha’n’t have it, my darling,” I said. My step‐mother sat
back in her chair and washed her hands. She said nothing, but this was
sufficiently suggestive.
“Have you announced your marriage to Sir Simon Harness?” she resumed after
a pause.
“Not yet. I mean to write to him to‐day.”
“Who is Sir Simon Harness?” inquired Isabel.
“He was my father’s particular friend and the trustee during my minority,”
I explained.
“You had better ask him to come down here for a few days to make your
wife’s acquaintance,” suggested Mrs. de Winton.
“No, he sha’n’t!” broke in the angel in pink. “I don’t want to make his
acquaintance. He’s a mean, disagreeable old man. Trustees always are. I
hate them!”
I thought this charmingly innocent and childlike, though, it must be
confessed, she put more vehemence into her manner than the case warranted;
but remembering the type of trustee on which she had built her opinion of
the class, I could not resent her prejudice against my old friends. My
step‐mother took a less indulgent view of the _sortie_. Seeing me cast a
smile of tender indulgence on the culprit, she looked at me very sternly.
“Do you mean to requite years of faithful kindness and interest in your
concerns by such a gross breach of respect and common courtesy as not to
invite Sir Simon Harness to your house on such an occasion as this?” she
demanded.
“Isabel is mistress of her own house. I cannot insist upon her receiving
any one against her will,” I replied; “but when I have explained to her
what kind of man Sir Simon is, I think she will consent to make his
acquaintance.”
Isabel peeped at me from behind the urn, and made a face indicative of
anything but consent.
Luckily, my step‐mother did not see the little by‐play, and, taking her
silence for acquiescence, she said, addressing me:
“And Admiral de Winton—of course you mean to ask him down?”
“Is that another trustee?” asked Isabel.
“Not exactly, though he often acted with Sir Simon in my affairs, being
next of kin,” I said. “He was my father’s executor.”
“Executor! Why, that’s worse than a trustee! I won’t have him come here,
Clide! You’re going to fill the house with horrid old men who will worry
me to death. I know they will. But I won’t submit to it!”
She pushed away her cup with a sudden gesture that made the china rattle,
and, flushing up scarlet, walked away from the table, and flung herself
into a chair near the fire. If she had flung the tea‐pot at my head, I
could not have been more taken aback. It was impossible to deny that the
burst of temper was very becoming to her complexion, but ... I was
conscious of a very distinct sense of disappointment. Yes, disappointment;
there was no other word for it. As to my step‐mother, she looked from me
to my wife, and from my wife to me. Isabel, meantime, sat trembling and
excited, her eyes sparkling, her face glowing like an angry rose.
“Dearest....” I began, “really....”
“Oh! don’t,” she shrieked, and burst into a torrent of tears.
Mrs. de Winton, prompted either by delicacy or by disgust, got up and left
the room, leaving me to conjure as best I could the storm that had
suddenly broken out in my conjugal paradise. I was utterly at a loss to
understand Isabel. She said she was inconsolable at having vexed me, but
to all my entreaties and arguments would answer nothing except that she
was frightened at strangers, and above all at horrid old men; and that if
I loved her, I was not to introduce her to anybody, but to let us live all
our lives alone in the dear old Moat. She wanted no society but mine, and
surely, if I loved her, I ought not to want any but hers! This was
irresistible logic to my heart; but my reason, being less infatuated,
perversely refused to abide by it. There was no use at this crisis in
broaching prudential arrangements as an excuse for inviting down my two
friends. Such an insinuation would only have added fuel to the fire. Yet
the new aspect in which my heiress‐wife was revealing herself made it
clear that some such measures as my step‐mother had suggested were
absolutely necessary to protect Isabel against her own folly and
deplorable ignorance of life.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The storm of sobs and tears subsided by degrees. Isabel declared she was
ready to make any sacrifice of her own feelings to mine; that if I liked
to invite all the trustees in Lincoln’s Inn and Chancery Lane down to the
Moat, she would do her best to receive them properly, so that I should not
be ashamed of my wife; but of course there was an end to her happiness.
Arcadia was gone. All her dreams of romantic bliss had vanished into thin
air. She was after all to be nothing more than a humdrum wife with a house
to look after and guests to entertain.
“O Clide, Clide! is this what you promised me?” she cried, her voice still
broken with sobs. “Is this my dream? or was it only a dream, nothing but
the baseless fabric of a vision?”
She clasped her hands, and, throwing back her head, fixed her eyes on the
ceiling, as if the vision were disappearing in that direction, and she
were straining for a last glimpse of it.
I was so spell‐bound by the extraordinary beauty that borrowed a new charm
from her emotions and from the despairing tenderness of her voice and
manner that I entirely lost sight of every other point in the picture. In
fact, I lost my head. I was after all no more than a man, and the wisest
of us is but a fool in the hands of a woman. What could I do but what I
did do? Fall upon my knees and swear that she should have Arcadia back
again, adjure her to build up a new vision, and, if she loved me, never to
talk about baseless fabrics and such like again; and as to her sinking
down into a humdrum wife, it was preposterous nonsense. She could never be
anything but an archangel to me, and that.... But why do I bear witness in
this wanton way to my own folly? We made up our quarrel, as all such
quarrels are intended to be made up. Isabel went to her room, and I went
round to the stables. I had no fancy for meeting my step‐mother just now,
and I had a vague sense of something having gone wrong with me which a
gallop over the downs would set right.
It was a cold February morning—bitterly cold, but bright and bracing, just
the sort of day to enjoy a ride across country; so as soon as I was out of
the park I set spurs to my horse and galloped away, taking flying leaps
over everything, hurdle, and ditch, and brook, as if the hounds were
ahead, and my life staked on being in at the death. After five miles of
this going‐in‐for‐the‐Derby pace I drew rein at the foot of a hill, and
walked my horse to the top. The hard riding had made him so hot that his
flanks smoked like a steam‐engine, and sent up clouds of vapor that
enveloped me in a tepid bath; but I did not feel that the violent exercise
had produced any effect on myself. I was not clear as to the nature of the
effect I had expected, and still less could I analyze the cause that
demanded it. Something was wrong somewhere. I looked about me vacantly,
persistently, as men do when they feel they ought to look within
themselves for the object of their search, and dare not.
I cast my eyes to the sky. It was as blue as liquid sapphire, and as
cloudless. But it said nothing to me. The river winding round the foot of
the wooded hill was ice‐bound and silent as death. The trees stood up
naked and grim against the blue, like skeleton giants, and whispered
nothing. There was no rustle of leafy tongues. They were dead and gone
down into the dumb sod. There was no ripple of tiny cascades; no buzzing
of insects holding council in the grass that grew high and free on the
hill‐side; no song amongst the birds. Nothing spoke to me. Everything was
dumb. Everything was cold. Everything was a disappointment. I began to
whistle. The sound of my own voice echoed merrily through the wood, but it
woke no responsive note from linnet or blackbird or robin. Silence
everywhere.
“What can it mean?” I said aloud, the apostrophe not being addressed to
the birds that could sing, and would not sing, but to my own perplexity
concerning the scene at the breakfast‐table. There was something out of
all reason in the passionate energy Isabel had displayed. Excuse it as my
heart and my vanity would on the ground of a jealous love that shrank from
any intrusion on our solitude capable of distracting my thoughts from her,
which she chiefly urged as her motive of dislike to my two friends’ visit,
I could not see it in a satisfactory light. Again, it was simply
preposterous that a girl of one‐and‐twenty, who had seen even as little of
the world as Isabel had, could be so morbidly shy as to cry herself into
hysterics at the mere idea of being introduced to two old gentlemen in her
own house. There was some motive in the background which it behooved me
for my own peace of mind to discover.
Removed from the magnetic influence of her beauty, and her distress, and
her pretty, endearing ways, I was able to look back dispassionately at the
morning’s entertainment; and the more I looked at it, the less I liked it.
The undisciplined outburst of temper which revealed to me the painful fact
that Socrates was henceforth to be my model, and patience under an
inevitable evil the sustained effort of my life, was in itself no small
matter for regret. But this, though the most tangible of my cares, was not
the one that chiefly possessed me. No; I could have signed away every
penny of my wife’s fortune on the spot to feel sure that it had been a
genuine outbreak of mere temper; but it was borne in on me, not by
circumstantial, but by strong internal evidence that she was actuated by
_fear_. Fear of whom? Of what? What could her young life have done, or
suffered, or known, that she should be afraid? Her uncle had been very
tyrannical, and was now very much incensed with her on account of her
marriage. But she had nothing to fear from him now. He might storm and
fume, but she was out of his reach; he could not hurt her. Besides, she
had not hinted at any fear of malice or vengeance on his part as a reason
for shunning the society or acquaintance of other men. Who or what was she
afraid of? “She hated fuss, and I promised her this and that and the
other.”
Nonsense! Two old friends of my father’s sleeping a night or two in the
house did not constitute a fuss. “She hated trustees; they were
always....” Stop! No; I’m a fool and a brute to wrong the child by such a
thought. Besides, I never hinted, even indirectly, at anything like
inquiries and settlements. I avoided the subject scrupulously. No; there
could be nothing in that.
The fact is, the dear child is in love with me, and wants to play at Romeo
and Juliet for the rest of her life; and here am I, like a born idiot,
making a mountain out of a mole‐hill, instead of blessing my stars for my
luck. This, by a natural train of thought, led me to picture her standing
on the balcony by moonlight, and myself in the garden below looking up and
worshipping.
“What a distracting Juliet she would have made!” I exclaimed aloud,
carried away by my imagination. Then—I can’t for the life of me tell
why—but I remembered how she had looked a while ago with her hands clasped
and her head thrown back, and how she had suddenly checked her passionate
complaint to assume the rapt attitude, the _pose_ of picturesque despair,
and how very melodramatic the effect had been. If it had not been the
purest nature, it would have been the most finished piece of acting that
ever drew down the house to a Siddons or a Kemble. But it _was_ pure
nature. Then why do I start, and why does my heart begin to thump against
my coat in this inexplicable way? Pshaw! Because I am a fool. I set spurs
to my horse, and galloped home, whistling defiantly all the way.
My wife was watching for me, Juliet fashion, from the window of her turret
chamber, and, as soon as she caught sight of my horse entering the park,
flew down to meet me in the hall.
“Why did you stay away so long, Clide? Mrs. de Winton ‘sent me her
compliments to know if I wouldn’t like to go and see the dairy’; but I
didn’t like. I was afraid it was just an excuse to get me all to herself
and scold me. I knew I was naughty this morning, and you may scold me as
much as you like; but I won’t be scolded by anybody else.” And nestling up
to me in her childlike way, Isabel laid her cheek on my shoulder, and
looked up at me with two eyes that would have melted a judge and won from
any twelve men in England an unhesitating verdict of—innocent as a babe
unborn. Linking her arm in mine, and whispering all the way as if we were
a pair of lovers stealing a clandestine interview, she carried me off to
her boudoir. Then, when we were safe in the room, she turned the key in
the door, and began to skip and dance about like an emancipated kitten,
giving me chase round the room, clapping hands and laughing and singing in
frantic merriment. We kept up this impromptu game of puss‐in‐the‐corner
till she was fairly tired out and allowed herself to be taken prisoner and
held in durance vile on my knee, while she panted for breath, and shook
back her hair, that had slipped from its imprisoning pins, and fell in
long, black ripples down her shoulders. Thinking the moment opportune,
“Now, my darling,” I said, “let us have a quiet little talk together. How
are we to make it straight with the dowager? It won’t do to have her
suspect my dear little dove of not being as good and as sweet‐tempered as
I know her to be, and I’m afraid that silly pout at breakfast has put you
in a false light with her.”
Isabel said nothing for a moment, but went on shaking her curls.
“Do you wish me to go and beg her pardon?” she said at last. “I will, if
you like, Clide.”
“My angel! no. I doubt the wisdom of that,” I replied, laughing at the
_naïveté_ of the proposal. “It would be better if we took some more
practical means of pacifying her. Suppose we give in about asking down
these two old friends of mine?”
“Very well. I will do anything you like, Clide,” she answered
indifferently, rolling a curl on her two fingers, and not looking up at
me.
“The admiral is the jolliest old tar in the world,” I continued, “and will
never talk a word of politics or business, or anything you don’t care
about; and as to Sir Simon, my only fear is that you will fall in love
with him, and some fine morning elope after him, or with him if he stays
long enough. He’s the most unmerciful lady‐killer in the three kingdoms.”
“Is he?”
This was said in a sort of absent way, as if she had been only listening
with one ear to what I was saying; all her thoughts were intent on the
curling operation, that was again recommenced and completed for the tenth
time.
“Then shall I tell Mrs. de Winton that we will ask them both for
Wednesday—till Saturday, say? If you like them, it s very easy to renew
the invitation.”
“Of course,” assented Isabel, and began a fresh curl.
“How proud I shall be introducing my wife!” I said, pushing back the heavy
veil of hair that partly hid her face from me.
She shook it down again, not roughly, but there was a touch of impatience
in the movement that surprised me. I thought it best, however, not to seem
to notice it. Suddenly she started from my knee, flew to the piano—I had
ordered a Cottage Pleyel for her private use—and broke out into a gush of
song that made the air literally thrill with melody. Passionate, tender,
angry, and entreating by turns, her voice poured out the florid Italian
music with the full‐throated carol of a thrush. Singing was as natural to
her as speaking. In fact, she appeared to find it an easier medium of
emotion, whether of pain or pleasure, than speech; and when she was
excited, her first impulse was to break out in thrills and cadences just
as a bird might do. Once started, she could go on for ever. I sat a full
hour this morning listening to her running through a _repertoire_ of
varied power and beauty. Schubert, Rossini, Beethoven, Verdi—she was at
home in every school, and her rich soprano voice adapted itself to each as
if that one had been her sole and special study. But while I sat there
drinking in the intense delight, my mind divided between it and the beauty
of her face, some sudden expression of the latter every now and then
startled me. The wonderful mobility of her features reflected every
changing emotion of the music with a responsive fidelity which it is
impossible to describe. I suppose it was the absence of the artistic
instinct in me, combined with a total ignorance of the emotional law of
music, that made this appear to me unnatural, and filled me with a sudden
and painful misgiving as to the genuine truthfulness of Isabel’s nature.
Was it possible to feign so perfectly, and to be at the same time
thoroughly truthful?
But I was cut short in my perplexing reflections by the luncheon‐bell,
that sounded a vigorous carillon at the foot of the stairs leading up to
my wife’s boudoir. She shut the piano quickly, and, passing her arm
through mine, marshalled me down to the dining‐room, humming the “Valse de
Venzano” all the way.
I observed casually during lunch that we had fixed on Wednesday to have
Sir Simon and the admiral down to the Moat. Mrs. de Winton slowly elevated
her eyebrows, but gave no articulate indication of surprise.
I did not look at Isabel while I made this announcement, but when, a
moment after, I stole a glance at her, she was as pale as the table‐cloth.
Instantaneously I grew a shade paler. I felt I did. My heart stood still.
What in the name of wonder was behind this dislike of hers to see these
two men? There was a mystery somewhere. She was afraid of somebody or
something. At any and every cost I must find it out.
To Be Continued.
Religion And State In Our Republic.
The great questions which concern the relation of the state to the church
have already been partially treated of in this magazine. The vast
importance of the subject, however, demands that we should return to it
once more, and will serve as a sufficient excuse if we even repeat many
things which have already been said in previous articles. The relation
which the state ought to have to the church according to sound principles
of philosophy, the relation which it is intended to have according to the
principles of the Constitution of this republic, the relation which it
ought to have according to the principles of the canon law and theology of
the Catholic Church, and the bearing of these various questions severally
toward each other, both in their theoretical and practical import, make up
together a complex topic which is under a perpetual and ardent discussion,
and which is felt by all parties to involve momentous issues. We have no
unwillingness to express fully and unreservedly all our convictions and
opinions upon any of the several parts of this question. It is undoubtedly
much desired by many who are hostile to the Catholic religion or
suspicious of it, on account of its bearing upon the science of politics,
that competent persons should make such full explanations of the real and
genuine principles by which all sound and thoroughly‐instructed Catholics
of the present time in our own country, as well as elsewhere, are and will
be guided. We see no reason why their desire should not be gratified, but,
on the contrary, every motive and reason worthy of having any weight with
a sincere and courageous advocate of the Catholic cause, why the
discussion should be brought as speedily and directly as possible upon the
merits of the case fully exposed.
The leaders of the Catholic body, and, in due measure, the great body
itself, are credited by many persons with certain views and intentions
concerning the institutions, laws, and political destinies of this
republic which necessarily cause them to regard the increase of our
numbers and the extension of our influence in the nation with alarm. Such
persons would like to know what we would really undertake to do with this
republic, if we had the power to do what we pleased. We are willing to let
them know precisely what our opinion about the matter is, and to use our
best endeavors to explain what those principles of the Catholic Church are
which must form the conviction of every one of her devoted and instructed
members upon the right and just method of applying the divine law to the
various conditions in which a state may exist; from that in which the
church is at her lowest point of depression, to that in which she is at
the summit of her influence. In our own case, as citizens of the United
States, the manner in which Catholic principles require us to act, as
voters, judges, legislators, with that degree of influence we now have,
and in which the same principles would require us to act if we were equal
or superior in number and influence to non‐Catholics, if we were in the
majority, or if we were practically the whole people, is a topic upon
which we think it desirable that all should be enlightened, as well those
who are members of the church as those who are aliens from her fold.
Stated in an abstract form, the question is, What is the ideal Christian
state when actualized in its perfection, and what is the difference
between that state and the one which is the best practically in our real
circumstances?
In discussing this theme we must beg the indulgence of our readers if we
begin at a considerable apparent distance from the practical point we
intend to come at eventually. We have to lay down some general principles
about government, and to make some explanations about the American
Constitution, before we can grapple with the main difficulty. In our
opinion, many maxims usually taken for granted by speakers, writers, and
by their blind followers, in treating of political constitutions, and
specially of our own, are sheer assumptions which will not bear
examination. Such are, that in general, the spiritual and temporal orders
are in their nature and ought to be kept separate from each other, and are
really separated in our own political constitution. Those sophistical
maxims have been combated by Dr. Brownson so frequently and victoriously
that we can scarcely hope to produce any new arguments or more lucid
expositions to convince those whom he has not been able to satisfy.
Sometimes, however, a sound from an unexpected quarter startles the
attention which has remained sluggishly insensible to a louder and more
continuous booming to which it has been accustomed for a long time. We
trust, therefore, that the authority of a great foreign writer, who is a
Protestant withal, and one of the most celebrated historians of the age,
will claim some little deference from those who may refuse it to any one
of ourselves. And we accordingly resort to Prof. Leo, of Halle, rather
than to any Catholic author, for an exposition of the general relation of
the state to the church, and of the particular form of that relationship
in the United States.
In the introduction to his great work, _Lehrbuch der Universalgeschichte_,
Leo develops with masterly force of reasoning the fundamental principle
upon which his entire work is constructed, and which is, in truth, the
architectonic law of the history of the human race. The history of mankind
is the evolution in successive and progressive stages of the grand plan of
God to conduct the human race to its prefixed supernatural end of
beatitude in God through the incarnation of the Word. The organization of
the various portions of the human race in distinct nations, with their
laws, political institutions, and governments, is subordinated to this
end, and therefore subordinated to that higher and more universal
organization in which all are included, and which dominates over all—the
church. The nations which have been broken off from the church which God
established from the foundation of the world for all mankind, have been
broken off through sin, revolt against God, defection from the movement of
the human race on the line marked out by the Creator towards its end and
destiny. Yet, even in this defection, they derive all their constitutive
and organic principles and forces from their previous union with the
divine society or church, and are formed by religious ideas which are
merely perverted, corrupted, travestied imitations of the revealed dogmas
which their forefathers had received. All true reform, restoration,
renovation, and improvement must be effected by a return to unity, a
reincorporation into the church, and a reflux of organic life from the
centre into the chilled and deadened members.
“No religion can unfold itself among men, extend itself, or
maintain its existence, without social relations existing between
men themselves. Every religion presupposes a state originating
together with itself or already previously formed; but it is
equally true that no state is conceivable without a religion, for
every state includes a system of moral conceptions, and is itself
a system and manifestation of moral conceptions; and a system of
moral conceptions without a religious force underlying it is
something unthinkable.”
Here we have the statement of the universal principle that the religious
and political orders, the spiritual and the temporal, or, otherwise,
church and state, are, like soul and body, though distinct, inseparable in
living, organized humanity. The author then goes on to prove the truth of
his assertion by the example of our own republic, apparently the most
notable exception to his rule, and an instance sufficient to disprove to
most men of modern habits of thought the universality of the rule as an
organic principle of society.
“In appearance, some particular religion may leave the state free
to shift for itself or make itself free from it, and some
particular state act in the same way toward religion; but this is
only in appearance, for when, for example, the North American
state proclaims that the religious confession is a matter of
indifference in respect to its existence, it proceeds on the
assumption that there could not be any religious confession,
except such an one as should _include in itself that which
constitutes its own proper religious force_. Just suppose that a
religion like that of the Assassins or Robber sects of the East
should make its appearance in North America, and you would
speedily see how the entire body politic would be violently
agitated by efforts to cast out this foreign religious force, and
to annihilate it within its own precinct. You would see then at
once that the North American state, in spite of all its contrary
assurances, has its own religion, and a state religion at that, as
the collision of some of the North American states with the
Mormons has already amply proved. This North American religion of
state only avoids assuming the name and aspect of a religion or an
ecclesiastical organization, and manifests itself rather
altogether in the ethical institutions of the state as they are
for the time being, and consequently permits a most extraordinary
variety of religious doctrines and churches to exist alongside of
the state, yet only under the tacit condition that they all
acknowledge that which is the religious force of the state as
their own. If, therefore, the North American state proclaims that
religion is an indifferent matter, it proceeds from an absurd
imagination that there cannot be any religion which does not
include in itself that particular religious force which its own
moral subsistence has need of. In point of fact, religion and the
state form _one_ ethical whole, precisely as in individual men the
soul remains an inseparable whole, although we separately consider
particular faces of its exterior surface as special
faculties—understanding, will, etc. Religion and state are one
single ethical whole, which, although divided into distinct
members, and apparently separated in these, must always be united
in one germinating point and a common vital root.”(151)
A singular corroboration of the doctrine of Leo in its application to the
United States is furnished by the following extract from the _New York
Herald_. If it seem to any one singular that we cite the _Herald_ on such
a question, it will cease to appear so when we explain our reason for
doing it. This well‐known paper is remarkable for a certain tact and
sagacity in divining and expressing the instinctive dictates of American
common‐sense upon questions which concern practical, temporal interests.
We cite it, therefore, in this instance, as a proof of the fact that the
public sensibility is stirred by any practical collision of a foreign and
hostile religious force with the latent religious force underlying our own
legislation, just as Leo says it must be. Theories and phrases are
disregarded; and the mouth‐piece of popular opinion strikes at once,
promptly and surely, upon the very head of the nail, and drives it home.
It is very singular to see, in the extract we are about to cite, how the
instinct of self‐interest and self‐preservation evolves by a short process
the same conclusion which the philosopher establishes as the result of
long study and thought. Here is the extract in full, with some passages
marked in italics by our own hand, to which we wish to call special
attention, as containing the nucleus of the whole matter, and agreeing
almost verbally with the language we have quoted from Dr. Leo:
“Brigham Young And Polygamy—Will The Prophet Take Sensible Advice?
“Judge Trumbull, United States senator from Illinois, has just had
a conversation with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, which, as
reported, is of more than ordinary significance and importance. It
seems that as the judge was taking leave of Young, the latter
remarked that on returning to Congress he (the judge) might hear
of some persons—obnoxious federal officials—being put out of the
Territory, and, if done, he might be sure it would be for just and
good reasons. Judge Trumbull replied by requesting Young, before
he took any step of that kind, to make known his grievances to
President Grant, remarking that the President was a just man,
intending to do justice to all, but that he would not permit a
violation of law to go unpunished, and adding that it would ‘not
be safe to molest public officers in the discharge of their
duties.’ The judge then asked Young if he promised obedience to
the Constitution and the laws of the Union. The latter replied
that he would adhere to the Union, but that there was ‘one
enactment of Congress which the Mormons would not obey,’ namely,
the one forbidding polygamy.
“Here, then, is the whole Mormon question in a nutshell—the
positive declaration on the part of the Mormon leader that federal
officers, sent to Utah, unless acceptable to himself, should be
banished the Territory, and that there was at least one law of
Congress he positively refuses to acknowledge or obey. Now, what
is the plain duty of the national government in the face of these
revolutionary averments? It is to see that the enactments of
Congress are enforced _without respect to persons or religions_,
and that the representatives of the federal government legally
appointed for that purpose shall be upheld and protected, if it be
necessary to employ the whole power of the nation. This Mormon
matter demands decisive action on the part of the administration.
President Grant has already declared his purpose of enforcing the
laws impartially, even the most obnoxious, and there is no good
reason why the Mormons should be exempted from the operations of
this policy. The fact is, Brigham Young and his satellites have
been treated with too much leniency and good‐nature by the United
States government ever since they settled upon the national
domain, and whatever they have done for the improvement of the
wilderness in which they settled they have done for their own
benefit, and have reaped the rewards of their industry and
frugality. Among the many other settlements that have sprung up in
the great West and grown into populous cities and States since the
Mormon hegira from Nauvoo, where can one be shown to have defied
the United States government, and to have treated its laws and its
public officials with the contempt and insolence the Mormons have?
On the contrary, among the most loyal States in the Union, and
among those which sent into the field the greatest armies during
the struggle for our national existence, are States in which the
earlier pioneers had to undergo as many perils, hardships, and
privations in organizing their communities, in subduing the
forests and the savage, and in implanting the seeds of civil and
religious liberty and constitutional law, as ever the Mormons did
in erecting their Salt Lake empire, and in establishing in the
heart of the nation’s public domain _a religious organization the
corner‐stone of which is a dogma abhorrent to modern civilisation
and in violation of all the received rules of decent social and
domestic life and society_. Therefore the claims of these
impertinent and rebellious Mormon squatters for immunity from the
operations of the general laws of the country, on account of the
service they have rendered in improving a barren waste, but more
properly in making fortunes for themselves out of the Gentiles and
the government, are idle and ridiculous. Greater hardships and
more personal sacrifices, we repeat, have been undergone by
settlers in other tracts of territory, now become great and
prosperous States, respecting the laws and fighting for the
national flag, than ever these Mormon adventurers encountered from
the time when old Joe Smith went into the tablet business, after
the manner of Moses, and founded the Mormon sect, up to the moment
of the conversation Brigham Young held with Senator Trumbull, as
related above. They have no claims for political sympathy, for
immunity from legal responsibilities, nor for hardly the
consideration paid to other religious communities; for the odor of
their sanctity is foul, and _their moral practices are unlike
those of all modern Christians_. We say, therefore, to Brigham
Young and his deluded followers, that they had better accept the
sensible advice of Judge Trumbull, consult with President Grant
before they proceed to extremities, _accept the laws of Congress
in regard to polygamy, as well as in regard to everything else
they are required to, and either haul in their rebellious horns or
prepare to pack up their baggage for a tramp to some distant
country outside the boundaries of the United States_. _You must
obey the law, Prophet Brigham, or you must march. Uncle Sam has
stood your nonsense long enough. He will tolerate it no longer._”
What is it which is thus asserted by a paper always considered as
advocating the most extreme modern notions respecting religious liberty?
It is that there is something in our civilization, our received rules of
morality, our lawful principles and acts of administration, intolerant of
certain religious dogmas and tending to exclude them. This latent
something is what Leo calls our state religion, the religious basis of our
institutions and laws, of our whole political and social fabric.
The first point we wish to come at, in our evolution of the whole question
under discussion, is, what is this religious basis or fundamental
religious law, essentially and precisely? According to Leo and excellent
authors of our own, it is the moral law, so far as that law governs
political and social relations. Whatever is _contra bonos mores_ is
prohibited and excluded by it, and nothing more. But this is too general.
We are obliged to ask what moral law, what standard or criterion of good
or bad morals, is tacitly understood? To this we reply that, in our
opinion, it is the Christian law, as embodied in the common and statute
laws under which we have been living since the origin of our nation. If we
ask, further, what fixes and determines this Christian law—that is, what
criterion determines that which is really prescribed or forbidden by this
law—we can assign nothing more definite and precise than the common and
general conscience of the sovereign people, as this exercises its
controlling power through legislative and judicial enactments and
decisions. It is therefore not an unchangeable quantity, but variable and
varying in the different laws of the distinct States, and in the different
laws of separate epochs which are the result of the change for better or
worse which takes place in the moral sense of the community. We cannot
enumerate a definite number of moral canons forming our state religion in
every part of the country during every period of its history. But we can,
at any one time, designate a certain number of things required, permitted,
or forbidden by our state code of morals, without respect to the doctrines
of any particular religious body. Whatever religious doctrine professed by
any set of men contradicts any part of this code, although it may be
maintained and advocated theoretically with impunity so long as this can
be allowed without immediate danger of inciting to an open violation of
the laws, cannot be reduced to practice without bringing the offending
parties within the coercive jurisdiction of the courts of justice. A
Mahometan or a Mormon will be allowed to advocate in speech or writing the
claims of Mahomet or Joe Smith as the great prophet of God, and to defend
polygamy as a divine institution; but if he attempts to keep a harem, the
law will condemn the act, and will punish it, at least to a certain
extent, by inflicting legal disabilities on every one of his wives and
children who is not regarded as legitimate by the statutes of the State
where he lives. Any enthusiast may give himself out as an inspired
prophet; but if he is directed by his fancied revelations to kill some
one, to set up a kingdom for himself, or to undertake anything else
against the laws, the laws will avenge themselves without regard to his
liberty of conscience or his interior conviction that he is executing the
commands of God. A very piquant and characteristic expression of this
principle was once given by General Jackson. After the capture of the
Indian chief Black Hawk and his adviser, the Prophet, an interview took
place between the warlike president and these dusky potentates of the
forest. The president demanded of the chief an account of the reasons and
motives which had led him to make war on the United States. The
crestfallen warrior laid all the blame on the Prophet, who was in turn
subjected to the stern glance and imperious demand of the formidable old
general. Quailing and abject beneath the superior moral force of the great
white chief, the trembling Prophet excused himself by saying that he had
been deceived by what he thought was the voice of the Great Spirit, but
which was only the whispering of his own mind. Upon this the old general,
gathering up all the dignity and force of his character into his brow and
attitude, and raising his voice to a tone of thunder, turned upon the poor
Prophet, and anathematized him with this terrible dogmatic decree: “If you
ever again mistake the hallucinations of your disordered imagination for
the inspirations of the Divine Spirit, by the Eternal! I will send you
where it will be for ever impossible for you to repeat the mistake!” Our
chief magistrate spoke according to the written and unwritten law of our
constitutions and our traditions. There is a certain point beyond which
the practical carrying out of opinions or beliefs, whatever claim they may
make to be derived from a superhuman source, will be resisted by the
entire coercive and penal force of the law. There are and must be certain
inherent principles in our laws, whether these are vague or definite,
variable or fixed, which determine this point of physical resistance to
liberty of conscience or liberty of religion. These constitute our state
religion, which claims for itself a legal infallibility, as exacting and
unyielding as that of the Holy See, so far as outward submission and
obedience are concerned.
We come now at our immediate question, namely, the attitude of the
Catholic religion towards this state religion; and if we are able to
designate and define this accurately, we are able by logical consequence
to conclude precisely what degree of agreement or opposition is contained
in the essence of Catholic and of American principles respectively to each
other. We intend to meet this question fairly and squarely, without trying
to twist either the one or the other set of principles, or to invent a
medium of compromise between them. We take the Catholic principles as they
are authoritatively promulgated by the supreme authority in the church,
the Roman Pontiff, particularly as contained in the encyclical _Quanta
Cura_, with its appended Syllabus, and as they are taught and explained by
the most approved authors in canon law. These definitions and expositions
alone have authority in the church, and these alone have any weight or
significance in the minds of thinking men who are not members of the
church, but are more or less positively hostile to her extension in our
country. Private versions or modifications of Catholicity count for
nothing, for they are merely the theories of individuals, and will have no
influence over the real development of the church, in so far as they
disagree by excess or defect with her authoritative teaching. For
ourselves, we are purely and simply Catholic, and profess an unreserved
allegiance to the church which takes precedence of, and gives the rule to,
our allegiance to the state. If allegiance to the church demanded of us
opposition to political principles adopted by our civil government, or
disobedience to any laws which were impious and immoral, we should not
hesitate to obey the church and God. We should either keep silence and
avoid all discussion of the subject, or else speak out frankly in
condemnation of our laws and institutions, if we believed them to be anti‐
Christian or, which is the same thing, anti‐Catholic in their principles.
We do not try and judge Catholic principles and laws by the criterion of
the American idea, as it is called, nor do we justify and vindicate these
principles on the ground that they are in harmony with, or reconcilable
to, the maxims and ideas upon which our political fabric is based. We aim
at making an exposition of the case as it really is; and if we take a view
of it favorable to our American political order, it is for the sake of
justifying that order, and proving both to our own adherents and to our
opponents that our duty to God does not require us to make war on it, so
that all the arguments and motives for creating a conflict on the
political arena may fall to the ground, and the battle‐field be restricted
to the fair, open ground of theological polemics.
What is it, then, which furnishes to a certain set of violent enemies of
the Catholic Church in this country a pretext for making the issue between
Catholic and Protestant principles a political one, and inclines a great
number of the mass of the people to believe or suspect that this pretext
is valid? The newspapers, publications, and speeches which have been
giving utterance to the sentiments of those who dread and oppose the
spread of our religion, ever since it began to show signs of vitality and
growth in this country, furnish the answer. The pretext is that all
Catholics who thoroughly understand and are loyal to the principles of
their religion wish to change or overthrow the republic, and substitute
for it a political order fundamentally different; and that, if they ever
become strong enough, they will do what they can to carry out their
design. Is there any truth in this pretext? We will express our own
convictions on the matter as fully and clearly as possible, and leave them
to exert what influence they may upon those really sincere and intelligent
persons who may honor us with their attention.
In the first place, as to the republican form and constitution of our
government. There is no doubt a difference of opinion among our clergy and
intelligent laymen in regard to the abstract question what form of
government is the most excellent and perfect. In regard to this subject,
it is a part of our American liberty that we should be free to form and
express our own opinions, and there is undoubtedly a diversity of opinions
regarding it among non‐Catholics, as well as among ourselves. It is
certain that many of our bishops, clergy, and educated laymen have a very
decided preference for the republican form of government, where it can be
established under conditions favorable to order, stability, and success.
And as to the mass of our people, they have suffered so much from tyranny
and oppression that they are inclined to go to the extreme left rather
than the extreme right in all questions of political authority and
liberty. If we look at the question closely, we shall see that the
difference of opinion which may exist in regard to the form of government
among those who hold to the divine institution of the state, and the
divine sanction to political authority and law, is really not concerning
essentials. S. Thomas teaches that the best form of government is one
which combines the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements in
just proportions. Bellarmine maintains that absolute monarchy is ideally
the most perfect form of government, but that, considering the actual
state of men, the mixed form is the best in practice. It is our opinion
that very few men among the leading classes in the Catholic Church could
be found, either in this country or in Europe, who would not agree with
the second member of Cardinal Bellarmine’s proposition. This is quite
enough for the justification of the governmental order established by our
constitutions and laws in our United States. We have the monarchical
principle in our president, and governors, and the mayors of cities. We
have the aristocratic in the legislators, judges, and magistrates. The
existence of the democratic element need not be proved. The difference
between our monarchy and aristocracy and those which are hereditary is
only that ours is elective, and the difference between them and certain
others which are elective is that our election is only for a certain term
and by a popular vote. The Pope is an elective monarch. The governing
aristocracy of Belgium is elective. The essential principle of the mixed
government is simply a stable and legitimate order, under which the
monarchy, aristocracy and democracy are created and sustained in the
regular exercise of certain functions of government. Catholics are
therefore bound by their own principles to recognize the political order
in the country as lawful, and to give it their allegiance. Moreover,
without any question, apart from singular and individual opinions which
Catholics as well as Protestants may entertain, the Catholics of this
country are agreed in the conviction that the republican institutions of
the United States are the best and the only possible ones for our own
country. They have no desire to subvert them, and there has never been any
conspiracy against them, except in the malicious or deluded brains of
fanatical anti‐Catholic writers and speakers and of the crowd which they
have duped. Genuine Catholics will never conspire against our government
and laws, but will always be true and loyal American citizens. If the
majority of the people or the whole people were to become Catholics, they
would not use their power to subvert our American institutions, or
substitute for them those of any European nation. On the contrary, nothing
could happen which would secure the perpetuity of the republic and promote
its political prosperity and glory with anything like the influence which
the Catholic religion would exercise in producing such desirable results.
The dangers we have to apprehend come from the sectarian divisions which
waste and neutralize the religious sentiment and force of the country,
from infidelity and radicalism, from vice and immorality, from secret
societies, from public and private corruption and profligacy, from
swindling and maladministration in high quarters, from principles akin to
those of the conspirators of Europe, from detestable books like _Lothair_,
atheistical magazines and unprincipled newspapers—evils for which the
Catholic Church alone can furnish a remedy.
Another part of the subject is worthy of much more serious consideration,
and requires far more elucidation in order to be presented in its true
light. This relates, not to the outward form of the government, but to its
inward spirit; to the scope and quality of the legislation, and not to the
manner of designating the legislators or judges. All forms of government
are lawful before the church, whether absolute monarchies or republics. It
is evident that a republic may be governed in perfect accordance with
Catholic principles, and that an empire may be governed in complete
discordance with the same. A sensible man would not, therefore, be likely
to consider the form of our government as the object which demands his
particular solicitude in view of the progress of the Catholic religion. He
would consider, rather, that the gist of the matter lay in the relation of
Catholic principles to that which we have called, after Leo, the state
religion. If we are correct in our preliminary statements, the Catholic
religion always tends to infuse itself into the state in which it exists,
and succeeds as soon as it has become the governing moral force which
constitutes the soul of the body politic. Now, what is the relation of the
Catholic religion to the actual state religion in our country, and, when
they come strongly in contact, what degree of struggle will ensue between
them, and what amount of change would be produced by the predominance of
the Catholic force?
In the first place, let us consider the case in reference to those things
which the Catholic conscience positively enjoins or positively prohibits.
In every case of this kind a Catholic must obey his conscience; and if he
is subject to a civil law which requires him to violate it, he must die
rather than submit. Formerly we have had to make this passive resistance
to laws existing in the American colonies; and in some cases—as, for
instance, in regard to certain oppressive laws passed in the State of
Missouri, it has been necessary to resist some state laws. On the whole,
however, we may say that our laws do not put the Catholic citizen into the
alternative of incurring a penalty from either the human or the divine
law. This part of the case can be therefore dismissed as not practical.
In the second place, we have to consider those things which are the rights
and privileges of the Catholic conscience, but which do not concern its
indispensable obligations. In regard to these things, a Catholic must obey
the law, and he must refrain from all violent and seditious conduct. He
must submit to the abridgment of his rights and liberties so long as he
cannot obtain their free possession and use by lawful means. But, under
our free institutions, it is the right of the Catholic citizen, by
argument, influence, and voting, to secure as much as possible of his just
religious liberty without prejudice to the natural or civil rights of
others. Therefore, as a matter of course, whenever Catholics obtain
sufficient power to command a majority of votes, they will, if they act on
Catholic principles, demand and obtain all their rights and full equality
before the law with other citizens. For instance, in regard to schools,
prisons, hospitals, ships of war, fortresses, etc., they will secure the
complete right of Catholics in these places to practise their religion and
to be free from the interference of non‐Catholic religious teachers
appointed by the state.
But what would be the action of Catholics, if they should ever become the
majority, in regard to requiring or prohibiting by law those things in
which the Catholic conscience differs from the Protestant and non‐Catholic
standard of right and wrong? It is always necessary in such a case for all
parties to exercise the greatest forbearance, moderation, and fairness
toward one another, in order that these questions should have a peaceable
solution. Therefore those violent and fanatical or selfish demagogues,
both clerical and lay, who seek to exasperate the non‐Catholic citizens of
this country against their Catholic fellow‐citizens, are the most
dangerous enemies of the public peace. We appeal to all candid, impartial,
intelligent American citizens to say who are they who seek to fan the
embers of strife into a flame; are they Catholic leaders, or are they the
chiefs and orators of a violent, sectarian, anti‐Catholic party? Our
Catholic citizens, if fairly treated, will always respect the rights of
their fellow‐citizens. They will never take part in despoiling churches,
societies, colleges, or other institutions of their property or chartered
privileges, as radicals and infidels most assuredly will, so far as they
have any power. Catholics will not do anything of this sort, even in case
they should in certain States become an overwhelming majority. They will
never seek to tyrannize over their fellow‐citizens, to establish their
religion by force, or to compel any one to do those things which are
required only by the Catholic conscience. The difficulty lies chiefly in
respect to those laws which forbid certain things as contrary to the
divine law. The civil code consists chiefly of laws prohibiting crimes
against the moral law, and annexing penalties to the commission of them.
The law must therefore have some ethical standard of right and wrong, and
must be based on some interpretation of the divine law, or, in a Christian
state, of the Christian law. Now, if the interpretation of the Christian
law of morals held by one large portion of the community differs from that
of another large portion, what is to be done? This is the precise question
which we are seeking to answer in reference to the Catholic and non‐
Catholic portions of the community in any State where the former should be
in the preponderance. The case of divorce and marriage is one precisely in
point, and the most important and practical of all others which could be
mentioned. Let us suppose, then, that the reformation of the marriage code
were to come up before a legislature in which the majority were Catholics,
under the leadership of sound jurists who were also strictly conscientious
in fulfilling their duty of obedience to the church. Would they make the
canon law also civil law _in globo_, without regard to the opinions or
wishes of the minority? We think not. In our view of the case, the right
and the wise thing to do would be to bring the law back to the condition
in which it was during the earlier and better period of our existence as a
people, in so far as the assent of the whole people could be secured with
a moral unanimity. As for the rest, it would be altogether in accordance
with Catholic precedents and Catholic principles not to legislate at all,
but to leave the church and the other religious bodies to exert their
moral influence over their own members.(152)
If we suppose the entire people of the United States to become a Catholic
people, we must suppose, as a matter of course, that the entire law of the
Catholic Church, in so far as it is an ethical code, becomes _per se_ the
sovereign law of the collective people. This follows by a rigorous
deduction from the principles we have laid down respecting the religion of
the state. The religion of the state, as we have seen, is its body of
ethical principles. This body of principles came by tradition from the
Christian teaching which created European civilization. It is, in a vague
and general sense, the Christian law. It is good so far as it goes, and in
harmony with Catholic principles. But it is imperfect and liable to
change, for the want of a competent tribunal to pronounce upon its true,
genuine sense in disputed cases. This is seen in the instance of marriage,
there being in courts and legislatures no right or power to decide from
the New Testament or any other source what the divine or Christian law
really prescribes. Let the collective conscience of the country become
Catholic, and it at once, without changing the fundamental principle of
our organic law, obtains an infallible and supreme interpretation of that
law which raises it to the standard of ideal perfection. It becomes a
perfect Christian republic, passing under the control of a higher law in
all that is comprised within the sphere of ethical obligation, but
retaining political, civil, and individual liberty in all other respects,
guarded by more powerful sanctions than it ever before possessed.
Do our fellow‐citizens who are not Catholics think it possible that this
will ever take place? We suppose not. Nor have Catholics any certain
grounds for expecting it, whatever they may hope from the power and grace
of Almighty God. There is no reason, therefore, for making a controversy
about what the Catholic Church would do in the United States if the whole
people were her docile children. The question of real importance relates
to the action which Catholics ought to take, and probably will take, as
one factor of greater or less power in the political community. Our aim in
discussing topics of this kind is, first, to animate Catholics to a manly
and honorable determination to secure their own equal rights, and to obey
strictly their conscience in all their political and civil relations. It
is, in the next place, to persuade our fellow‐citizens that conscience and
obedience to the teaching of the Catholic Church do not require or permit
Catholics to make an aggressive party, to disturb the peace of the
commonwealth, to subvert our laws or liberties, or to invade the rights of
our fellow‐citizens, and seek the opportunity of establishing the
supremacy of the Catholic religion by violent and forcible means. We have
no expectation of convincing, conciliating, or silencing the greater
portion of our active opponents. We have not the slightest hope of seeing
them desist from their utterly unfair and fallacious method of conducting
the controversy between us. Their only chance of success lies in
sophistry, artifice, appeals to prejudice, ignorance, and passion, and the
evasion of all serious argument. We have, however, great hopes of gaining
more and more the hearing, the attention, and the confidence of that vast
body of thinking and reading Americans who, if not convinced of the divine
origin of the Catholic religion, are certainly devoid of all respect for
every form of fanatical sectarianism. They know well that these violent
parties, however loud in the assertion of liberal sentiments, are
invariably tyrannical when they have power; and we hope to convince them
that the Catholic Church, while condemning a false liberalism, is ever the
guardian angel of true right and liberty.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
All the foregoing portion of this article was written four years ago, and
has been waiting until the present moment for a suitable occasion of
publication. The controversy aroused by Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet in
November of the last year has furnished a better occasion than we could
have hoped for, and we have therefore offered this contribution to the
discussion now going on. The statements we have made in regard to the
essential relation between religion and the state with reference to our
own republic are equally applicable to the European nations. They cover
the whole ground of allegiance due from Catholics to an infallible
authority, in respect to the domain of political ethics. This infallible
authority is the proximate rule of faith in regard to what must be done or
omitted in order to obey the law of God. It is the higher law, the
objective rule, directing the subjective conscience, or practical judgment
respecting right or wrong, in the individual. It is of course, supreme;
for it is an unerring promulgation of the divine law. The definition of
the infallibility of the Pope has not made the slightest practical change
in respect to his authority of defining and proclaiming this infallible
Catholic rule of conscience. All Catholics, bishops included, even when
assembled in general council, were always required to assent to and obey
his judgments in matters of faith and morals, as final and without right
of appeal. The assent of the church could never be wanting, since it was
obligatory on every bishop, priest, and layman to give it at once, under
pain of excommunication. If some were illogical enough to maintain that
the infallibility of his judgments depended on this assent, the erroneous
opinion which they held did not subject them to excommunication as formal
heretics before the solemn definition of the Vatican Council had condemned
and anathematized their error as a heresy. Yet the Roman Pontiff always
exercised his infallible prerogative without hesitation, and was always
obeyed, except by heretics and rebels. In respect to the promulgation of
the divine law to the consciences of all men, the Pope has always been, by
divine right, just what he now is—the supreme teacher and judge of the
whole earth, as the Vicar of Christ. His power is spiritual, and its
executive is the conscience of each individual. Infallibility is obeyed
only by interior assent, which is a free act of volition not subject to
any coercive force. It is utterly silly, therefore, to say that this
submission is a surrender of freedom, or that obedience to a rule of
conscience subsisting in an infallible tribunal interferes with allegiance
to civil authority one whit more than obedience to any kind of rule
whatever. In fact, what Prince Bismarck denounces and wishes to crush is
the resistance of _subjective_ conscience to the absolute mandates of the
state, for which we have his own plain and express words. His doctrine is
the very quintessence of the basest and most degrading slavishness—the
slavishness of intelligence and conscience crouching abjectly before pure
physical force—_la force prime le droit_.
Legislative and governing authority in the church is something quite
distinct from infallibility. It proceeds from the power delegated by Jesus
Christ to his Vicar to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over all bishops
and all the members of their flocks, and in general over all the faithful.
No direct temporal jurisdiction is joined with it by divine right. The
direct temporal jurisdiction of the Pope in his kingdom is from human
right, and his ancient jurisdiction as suzerain over sovereign princes was
also a mere human right. The indirect jurisdiction which springs from the
divine right is only an application of spiritual jurisdiction, varying in
its exercise as the civil laws are more or less conformed to the divine
law, and depending on the concurrence of the civil power. Suppose, for
instance, that a bishop revolts against the Holy See. The Pope judges and
deposes him. This act deprives him of spiritual rights and privileges. If
he is to be violently expelled from his cathedral, his palace, and the
possession of his revenues, the civil magistrate must do this in virtue of
a civil law. If he were one of the prince‐bishops of a former age, and
were deprived of his principality, the civil law would deprive him. If he
married, and incurred temporal penalties thereby, it would be through the
civil law. The judgment which pronounces him guilty, deposed,
excommunicated, invalidly married, and therefore liable to all the
temporal penalties incurred under the civil code, is an act of spiritual
jurisdiction. The temporal effect of this judgment is indirect, varies
with the variation in civil jurisprudence, and depends on an executive
clothed with a direct temporal and civil authority.
Nothing is more certain than that the church has always recognized the
immediate derivation of the civil power in the state from God, its
distinction from the spiritual power, and its sovereign independence in
its own sphere of any direct temporal jurisdiction of the Pope. The
statements made above show how the immutable rights of the Pope as
Christ’s Vicar in respect to indirect jurisdiction in temporal matters
have a variable application in practice, according to the variation of
times, laws, and circumstances. It is futile, therefore, to attribute to
the Holy See or to Catholics in general, on account of the doctrine of
Papal infallibility and supremacy, the intention of striving after a
restoration of all that actual exercise of ecclesiastical power in
political affairs which was formerly wielded by popes and bishops. Much
more futile is it to suppose that a claim to revive ancient political
rights derived purely from human laws and voluntary concessions is always
kept in abeyance, and to be ever dreaded and guarded against by states.
Catholics ought to beware, nevertheless, of regarding the ancient
constitution of Western Christendom under the headship of the Pope as
something needing an apology, or as a state less perfect than the one
which has supplanted it. We do not share in or sympathize with this view
or with the political doctrines of those who hold it, however estimable
they may be, in the slightest degree. Although convinced that the mediæval
system has passed away for ever, and that the present and coming age needs
a régime suited to its real condition, and not to one which is ideal only,
we glory in the past which partly realized that Christian ideal.
France was _par excellence_ the Christian nation, as even Duruy, advocate
though he be of the principles of ’89, proclaims with a Frenchman’s just
pride in the _Gesta Dei per Francos_. Her golden age was the period
between Louis le Gros and Philippe le Bel. Her decadence and disasters
began with the contest of the latter sovereign and the infamous Nogaret,
precursor of the Cavours and Bismarcks, against Boniface VIII. Crecy,
Poitiers, and Agincourt, the dismemberment of France, the conquests of
Edward III. and Henry V., the apparition of Etienne Marcel, the father of
Parisian revolutionists and communists, were in logical sequence from
Philippe’s rebellion, and the logical antecedents of the modern French
Revolution and the disasters of 1870. In that olden time France was
rescued only by the miraculous mission of Joan of Arc, a kind of living
personification of the Catholic Church, in her three characters as virgin,
warrior, and victim. So, at a later period, S. Pius V., that pontiff whom
Lord Acton has so vilely calumniated, saved Europe from the Turkish
invasion to which the recreant sovereigns had exposed it by basely
abandoning the Crusades to despoil each other. It needs but small
knowledge of history to see through the sophisms of second‐class writers
like Buckle and Draper, who seek to despoil the Catholic Church of her
glory as the sole author and preserver of civilization in Western
Christendom. The history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to
this moment is only the record of an effort of the popes to lead the
nations in the path of true glory and happiness, and of the ever‐recurring
struggle of the civil power, of sophists, and of revolutionists to drag
them aside into the path of degradation and misery, for their own base and
selfish purposes. Faithless priests, unworthy heirs of noble names, men
who have perverted the highest gifts of nature and grace, have, during
this long, eventful course of time, been mixed up with the arrogant
tyrants, cunning politicians, bold blasphemers, shameless sensualists, and
their common herd of followers, in the war against the vicegerent of God
and the spouse of Christ. What is now, has been in the time past, and will
be until the curtain drops after the finished drama. There are similar
actors on both sides now, and a similar struggle, to those recorded in the
history of the past. We may expect a similar result. La Pucelle was
falsely accused, unjustly condemned, suffered death by fire, and
triumphed. The Catholic religion is La Pucelle. Abandoned, falsely
accused, doomed to the flames, by an ungrateful world, recreant or
cowardly adherents, and open enemies, it will be hailed in the age to come
by all mankind as the saviour of the world.
Release.
I sometimes wish that hour were come
When, lying patient on my bed,
My soul should view her future home
With eager, trembling wings outspread
And earnest faith; that age and pain
Should pass at death’s divine behest,
As the freed captive leaves his chain
When he has ceased to be the guest
Of prisons—on the dungeon floor
A burden dropped for evermore.
Eternal joy, eternal youth,
Await beyond that portal gray—
Which all must pass that hope for truth—
The lonely spirit freed from clay;
But suffering only bids us yearn
For that mysterious, strange release
Which through the grave, the funeral urn,
Brings such infinitude of peace.
Oh! in that dread, ecstatic hour
Uphold me, Saviour, with thy power.
The Veil Withdrawn.
Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Mme. Craven, Author Of “A
Sister’s Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.