As to the selection of these pictures I must own myself

greatly perplexed, and must beg to submit to you very humbly

my difficulties, and not only my difficulties, but also my

distress, and, to say the truth, my indignation. I have before

my eyes at this moment four or five hundred pictures which

have been sold to me as “pious,” but which I consider as in

reality among the most detestable and irreverent of any kind of

merchandise. A great political journal the other day gave to

one of its leaders the title of _L’Ecœurement_.[170] I cannot

give a title to my letter, but, were it possible to do so, I

should choose this one in preference to any other. I am in the

unfortunate state of a man who has swallowed several kilograms

of adulterated honey. I am suffering from an indigestion of

sugar; and what sugar! Whilst in the act of buying these

little horrors, I beheld numberless purchasers succeed each

other with feverish eagerness in the shops, which I will not

specify. Yes, I had the pain of meeting there with Christian

Brothers and with Sisters of Charity, who made me sigh by their

simple avidity and ingenuous delight at the sight of these

frightful little black or rose-colored prints. They bought them

by hundreds, by thousands, by ten thousands; for schools, for

orphanages, for missions. Ah! my dear friend, how many souls

are going to be well treacled in our hapless world! It is the

triumph of confectionery. “Why are you choosing such machines

as these?” I asked of the good Brother Theodore, whom, to my

great astonishment, I found among the purchasers; “they are

disagreeable.” “Agreed.” “They are stupid.” “I know it.” “They

are dear.” “My purse is only too well aware of the fact.” “Then

why do you buy them?” “Because I find that these only are

acceptable.” And thereupon the worthy man told me that he had

the other day distributed among his children pictures taken

from the fine head of our Saviour attributed to Morales--a

_chef-d’œuvre_. The children, however, perceiving that there

was no gilding upon them, had thrown them aside, gaping.

Decidedly, the evil is greater than I had supposed, and it is

time to consider what is to be done.

In spite of all this, I have bought your provision of pictures;

but do not be uneasy--I am keeping them myself, and will

proceed to describe them to you. I do not wish that the taste

of your beloved poor should be vitiated by the sight of these

mawkish designs; but I will take upon myself to analyze them

for your benefit, and then see if you are not very soon as

indignant as myself.

In the first place we have the “symbolical” pictures, and these

are the most numerous of all. I do not want to say too much

against them. You know in what high estimation I hold true

symbolism, and we have many a time exchanged our thoughts on

this admirable form of the activity of the human mind. A symbol

is a comparison between things belonging to the physical and

things belonging to the immaterial world. Now, these two worlds

are in perfect harmony with each other. To each phenomenon of

the moral order there corresponds exactly a phenomenon of the

visible order. If we compare these two facts with each other,

we have a symbol. There is a life, a breath, a whiteness,

which are material. Figurative language is nothing else than a

vast and wonderful symbolism, and you remember the marvellous

things written on this subject by the lamented M. Landriot.

In the supernatural order it is the same, and all Christian

generations have made use of symbolism to express the most

sacred objects of their adoration. There has been the symbolism

of the Catacombs; there has been also that of the Middle Ages.

The two, although not resembling, nevertheless complete, each

other, and eloquently attest the fact that the Christian race

has never been without the use of symbols.

Thus it is not symbolism which I condemn, but this particular

symbolism of which I am about to speak, and which is so

odiously silly. I write to you with the proofs before me. I am

not inventing, but, mirror-wise, merely reflecting. I am not

an author, but a photographer.

Firstly, here we have a ladder, which represents “the way of

the soul towards God.” This is very well, although moderately

ideal; but then who is mounting this ladder? You would never

guess. It is a dove! Yes; the poor bird is painfully climbing

up the rounds as if she were a hen getting back to roost,

and apparently forgetting that she owns a pair of wings. But

we shall find this dove elsewhere; for our pictures are full

of the species, and are in fact a very plentifully-stocked

dove-cote. I perceive down there another animal; it is a

roe with her fawn, and with amazement I read this legend:

“The fecundity of the breast of the roe is the image of the

abundance and sweetness of grace.” Why was the roe selected,

and why roe’s milk? Strange! But here again we have a singular

collection. On a heart crowned with roses is placed a

candlestick (a candlestick on a heart!), and this candelabrum,

price twenty-nine sous, is surmounted by a lighted candle,

around which angels are pressing. This, we are told underneath,

is “good example.” Does it mean that we are to set one for the

blessed angels to follow? Next, what do I see here? A guitar;

and this at the foot of the cross. Let us see what can be the

reason of this mysterious assemblage; the text furnishes it:

_Je me délasserai à l’abri de la Croix_--“I will refresh myself

in the shelter of the cross”--from whence it follows that one

can play the guitar upon Golgotha. Touching emblem! And what do

you say of this other, in which our Saviour Jesus, the Word,

and, as Bossuet says, the Reason and Interior Discourse of

the Eternal Father, is represented as occupied in killing I

know not what little insects on the leaves of a rose-bush? “The

divine Gardener destroys the caterpillars which make havoc in

his garden,” says the legend. I imagine nothing, but merely

transcribe, and for my part would gladly turn insecticide to

this collection of _imagerie_.

This hand issuing out of a cloud I recognize as the hand of my

Lord God, the Creator and Father of all, who is at the same

time their comforter, their stay, and their life. I admit

this symbol, which is ancient and truly Christian; but this

divine hand, which the Middle Ages would most carefully have

guarded against charging with any kind of burden; this hand,

which represents Eternal Justice and Eternal Goodness--can

you imagine what it is here made to hold? [Not even the fiery

bolt which the heathen of old times represented in the grasp

of their Jupiter Tonans, but] a horrible and stupid little

watering-pot, from the spout of which trickles a driblet

of water upon the cup of a lily. Further on I see the said

watering-pot is replaced by a sort of jug, which the Eternal

is emptying upon souls in the shape of doves; and this, the

legend kindly informs me, is “the heavenly dew.” Heavenly

dew trickling out of a jug! And there are individuals who

can imagine and depict a thing like this when the beneficent

Creator daily causes to descend from his beautiful sky those

milliards of little pearly drops which sparkle in the morning

sunshine on the fair mantle of our earth! Water, it must be

owned, is scarcely a successful subject under any form with our

picture-factors. Here is a poor and miserably-painted thread

lifting itself up above a basin, while I am informed underneath

that “the jet of water is the image of the soul lifting itself

towards God by meditation.”

I also need to be enlightened as to how “a river turned aside

from its course is an image of the good use and of the abuse

of grace.” It is obscure, but still it does not vulgarize and

debase a beautiful and Scriptural image, like the next I will

mention, in which, over the motto, “Care of the lamp: image of

the cultivation of grace in our hearts,” we have a servant-maid

taking her great oily scissors and cutting the wick, of which

she scatters the blackened fragments no matter where.

The quantity of ribbon and string used up by these

symbol-manufacturers is something incalculable. Here lines of

string unite all the hearts of the faithful (doves again!)

to the heart of Our Blessed Lady; there Mary herself, the

Immaculate One and our own incomparable Mother, from the height

of heaven holds in leash, by an interminable length of string,

a certain little dove, around the neck of which there hangs a

scapular. This, we are told, means that “Mary is the directress

of the obedient soul.” Elsewhere the string is replaced by

pretty rose-colored or pale-blue ribbons, which have doubtless

a delicious effect to those who can appreciate it. Here is a

young girl walking along cheerfully enough, notwithstanding

that her heart is tied by one of these elegant ribbons to

that of the Blessed Mother of God, apparently without causing

her the slightest inconvenience. Her situation, however, is,

I think, less painful than that of this other young person,

who is occupied in carving her own heart into a shape

resembling that of Mary. Another young female has hoisted this

much-tormented organ (her own) on an easel, and is painting

it after the same pattern. But let us hasten out of this

atelier to breathe the open air among these trees. Alas! we

there find, under the form and features of an effeminate child

of eight years old, “the divine Gardener putting a prop to a

sapling tree,” or “grafting on the wild stock the germ of good

fruits.” This is all pretty well; but what can be said of this

ciborium which has been energetically stuck into a lily, with

the legend, “I seek a pure heart”? These gentlemen, indeed,

treat you to the Most Holy Eucharist with a free-and-easyness

that is by no means fitting or reverent. It is forbidden to the

hands of laics to touch the Sacred Vessels, and it is only just

that the same prohibition should apply to picture-makers. They

are entreated not to handle thus lightly and irreverently that

which is the object of our faith, our hope, and our love.

Hitherto I have refrained from touching upon that very delicate

subject which it is nevertheless necessary that I should

approach--namely, the representation of the Sacred Heart. And

here I feel myself at ease, having beforehand submitted to all

the decisions of the church, and having for long past made it

my great aim to be penetrated with her spirit. Like yourself,

I have a real devotion to the Sacred Heart, nor do I wish to

conceal it. When any devotion takes so wide a development in

the Holy Church, it is because it is willed by God, who watches

unceasingly over her destinies and the forms of worship which

she renders to him. All Catholics are agreed upon this point.

It is true that certain among them regard the Sacred Heart

as the symbol of Divine Love, and that others consider it

under the aspect of a very adorable part of the Body of the

God-Man, and, if I may so express it, as a kind of centralized

Eucharist. Well, I hold that to be accurate one ought to admit

and harmonize the two systems, and therefore I do so. You

are aware that it is my belief that physiology does not yet

sufficiently understand the mechanism of our material heart,

and I await discoveries on that subject which shall establish

the fact of its necessity to our life. The other day, at

Baillère’s, I remained a long time carefully examining a fine

engraving representing the circulation of the blood through the

veins and arteries, and I especially contemplated the heart

the source and receptacle of this double movement, and said

to myself, “The worship of the Sacred Heart will be one day

justified by physiology.” But why do I say this, when it is so

already? Behold me, then, on my knees before the Sacred Heart

of my God, in which I behold at the same time an admirable

symbol and a yet more admirable reality. But is this a reason

for representing the Sacred Heart in a manner alike ridiculous

and odious? I will not here enter upon the question as to

whether it is allowable to represent the Sacred Heart of Jesus

otherwise than in his Sacred Breast, and I only seek to know

in order to accept unhesitatingly whatever with regard to this

may be the thought of the church. But that which to my mind is

utterly revolting is the sight of the profanations of which

these fortieth-rate picture-manufacturers are guilty. What

right have they, and how do they dare, to represent hundreds

of consecrated Hosts issuing from the Sacred Heart, and a

dove pecking at them as they are dropping down? What right

have they to make the Heart of our Lord God a pigeon-house, a

roosting-place for these everlasting doves, or into a vase out

of which they are drinking? What right have they to insert a

little heart (ours) into the Divine Heart of Jesus? What right

have they to represent to us [a Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus on

a small scale] three hearts, the one piled upon the other,

and cascades of blood pouring from the topmost, which is that

of Our Lord; upon the second, which is that of his Blessed

Mother; and thence upon the third, which is our own? What right

have they to make the Sacred Heart shed showers of roses, or

to give its form to their “mystic garden”? Lastly, what right

have they to lodge it in the middle of a full-blown flower, and

make the latter address to it the scented question, “What would

you desire me to do in order that I may be agreeable to you?”

Ye well-meaning picture-makers! beware of asking me the same

question; for both you and I very well know what would be the

answer.

The truth is that these clumsy persons manage to spoil

everything they touch, and they have dishonored the symbolism

of the dove, as they have compromised the representations of

the Sacred Heart. The dove is undoubtedly one of the most

ancient and evangelical of all the Christian symbols; but a

certain discretion is nevertheless necessary in the employment

of this emblem of the Holy Spirit of God. This discretion

never failed our forefathers, who scarcely ever depicted the

dove, except only in the scene of Our Lord’s baptism and in

representations of the Blessed Trinity. In the latter the

Eternal Father, vested in pontifical or imperial robes, holds

between his arms the cross, whereon hangs his Son, while the

Holy Dove passes from the Father to the Son as the eternal love

which unites them. This is well, simple, and even fine. But

there is a vast difference between this and the present abuse

and vulgarization of the dove as an emblem, where it is made

use of to represent the faithful soul. No, truly, one is weary

of all this. Do you see this flight of young pigeons hovering

about with hearts in their beaks? The beaks are very small and

the hearts very large, but you are intended to understand by

this that “fervent souls rise rapidly to great perfection.”

These other doves, lower down, give themselves less trouble and

fatigue; they are quietly pecking into a heart, and I read this

legend: “The heart of Love is inexhaustible; let us go to it in

all our wants.” The pigeon that I see a little farther off is

not without his difficulties; he is carrying a stout stick in

his delicate beak, and--would you believe it?--the explanation

of this remarkable symbol is, “Thy rod and thy staff have

comforted me.” Here again are carrier-pigeons, bringing us in

their beaks nicely-folded letters in charming envelopes. One of

these birds [who possibly may belong to the variety knows as

tumbler pigeons] has evidently fallen into the water; for he is

shown to us standing to recover himself on what appears to be a

heap of mud in the middle of the ocean, with the motto, “Saved!

he is saved!” Next I come upon a party of doves again--always

doves!--whose occupation is certainly no sinecure. Oars have

been fitted to their feeble claws, and these hapless creatures

are rowing. Here is another unfortunate pigeon. She is in

prison with a thick chain fastened to her left foot, and we are

told that she is “reposing on the damp straw of the dungeon.”

Further on appears another of this luckless species, on its

back with its claws in the air. It is dead. So much the better.

It is not I who will encourage it to be so unwise as to return

to life. True, in default of doves, other symbols will not

be found lacking. Here are some of the tender kind--little

souvenirs to be exchanged between friend and friend, wherein

one finds I know not what indescribable conglomerations of

religious sentiment and natural friendship. Flowers, on all

sides flowers: forget-me-nots, pansies, lilies, and underneath

all the treasures of literature: “It is a friend who offers

you these”; “Near or far away, yours ever”; “These will pass;

friendship will remain.” “C’est la fleur de Marie Que je vous

ai choisie.” (N.B.--This last is in verse.)

I know not, my dear friend, whether you feel with me on this

point. While persuading myself that all these playfulnesses are

very innocent, I yet find in them a certain something which

strikes me as interloping, and I do not like mixtures.

We have also the politico-religious pictures. Heaven forbid

that I should speak evil of the _fleurs-de-lys_ which embalmed

with their perfume all the dear Middle Ages to which I have

devoted so much of my life; but we have in these pictures of

which I am speaking mixtures which are, to my mind, detestable,

and I cannot endure this pretty little boat, of which the sails

are covered with _fleurs-de-lys_, its mast is the Pontifical

Cross, and its pilot the Sacred Heart. Is another allusion to

legitimacy intended in this cross surrounded with flowers and

bearing the legend, “My Beloved delights himself among the

lilies”? I cannot tell; but if we let each political party

have free access to our religious picture-stores, we shall see

strange things, and then _Gare aux abeilles!_--“Beware of the

bees.”

One characteristic common to all these wretched picturelings is

their insipidity and petty childishness. They are a literature

of nurses and nursery-maids. The designers must surely belong

to the female portion of humanity; for one is conscious

everywhere of the invisible hand of woman. One is unwilling

to conceive it possible that any one with a beard on the chin

could bring himself to invent similar meagrenesses. These

persons are afraid of man, and have wisely adopted the plan of

never painting him, and of making everybody under the age of

ten years. Never have they had any clear or serious idea of the

Word, the God made man--of him, the mighty and terrible One,

who pronounced anathema on the Pharisees and the sellers in the

Temple. They can but represent a little Jesus in wax, or sugar,

or treacle; and alarmed at the loftiness of Divinity, and being

incapable of hewing his human form in marble, they have kneaded

it in gingerbread.

And yet our greatest present want is manliness. Truly, truly,

in France we have well-nigh no more men! Let us, then, have no

more of these childishnesses, but let us behold in the divine

splendor and perfect manhood of the Word made flesh the eternal

type of regenerated humanity.

SUMMER STORMS.

Summer storms are fleeting things,

Coming soon, and quickly o’er;

Yet their wrath a shadow brings

Where but sunshine dwelt before.

On the grass the pearl-drops lie

Fresh and lovely day appears;

Yet the rainbow’s arch on high

Is but seen through falling tears.

For, though clouds have passed away,

Though the sky be bright again,

Earth still feels the transient sway

Of the heavy summer rain.

Broken flow’rs and scattered leaves

Tell the short-lived tempest’s power;

Something still in nature grieves

At the fierce and sudden shower.

There are in the human breast

Passions wild and deep and strong,

Bearing in their course unblest

Brightest hopes of life along.

O’er the harp of many strings

Often comes a wailing strain,

When the hand of anger flings

Discord ’mid its soft refrain.

Tears may pass, and smiles again

Wreathe the lip and light the brow;

But, like flowers ’neath summer’s rain,

Some bright hope lies crushed and low.

Some heart-idol shattered lies

In the temple’s inner shrine:

Ne’er unveiled to human eyes,

Sacred kept like things divine.

Speak not harshly to the loved

In your holy household band;

Days will come when where they moved

Many a vacant chair will stand.

To the erring--oh, be kind!

Balm give to the weary heart;

Soft words heal the wounded mind,

Bid the tempter’s spell depart.

Let not passion’s storm arise,

Though it pass like summer showers;

Clouds will dim the soul’s pure skies,

Hope will weep o’er broken flowers.

Speak, then, gently; tones of strife

Lightly breathed have lasting power;

Memories that embitter life

Often rise from one rash hour.

THE KING OF METALS

FROM THE FRENCH.

There once lived a widow named Mary Jane, who had a beautiful daughter

called Flora. The widow was a sensible, humble woman; the daughter,

on the contrary, was very haughty. Many young persons desired her in

marriage, but she found none to please her; the greater the number of

her suitors, the more disdainful she became. One night the mother awoke,

and, being unable to compose herself again to sleep, she began to say her

rosary for Flora, whose pride gave her a great deal of disquietude. Flora

was asleep near her, and she smiled in her sleep.

The next day Mary Jane inquired:

“What beautiful dream had you that caused you to smile in your sleep?”

“I dreamed that a great lord conducted me to church in a copper coach,

and gave me a ring composed of precious stones that shone like stars; and

when I entered the church, the people in the church looked only at the

Mother of God and at me.”

“Ah! what a proud dream,” cried the widow, humbly drooping her head.

Flora began to sing. That same day a young peasant of good reputation

asked her to marry him. This offer her mother approved, but Flora said to

him:

“Even were you to seek me in a coach of copper, and wed me with a ring

brilliant as the stars, I would not accept you.”

The following night Mary Jane, being wakeful, began to pray, and, looking

at Flora, saw her smile.

“What dream did you have last night?” she asked Flora.

“I dreamed that a great lord came for me in a coach of silver, gave me a

coronet of gold, and when I entered the church those present were more

occupied in looking at me than at the Mother of God.”

“O poor child!” exclaimed the widow, “what an impious dream. Pray, pray

earnestly that you may be preserved from temptation.”

Flora abruptly left her mother, that she might not hear her remonstrances.

That day a young gentleman came to ask her in marriage. Her mother

regarded this proposal as a great honor, but Flora said to this new

aspirant:

“Were you to seek me in a coach of silver and offer me a coronet of gold,

I would not wed you.”

“Unfortunate girl!” cried Mary Jane, “renounce your pride. Pride leads to

destruction.”

Flora laughed.

The third night the watchful mother saw an extraordinary expression on

her child’s countenance, and she prayed fervently for her.

In the morning Flora told her of her dream.

“I dreamed,” she said, “that a great lord came to seek me in a coach of

gold, gave me a robe of gold, and when I entered the church all there

assembled looked only at me.”

The poor widow wept bitterly. The girl left her to escape seeing her

distress.

That day in the court-yard of the house there stood three equipages,

one of copper, the other of silver, and the third of gold. The first

was drawn by two horses, the second by four, the third by eight. From

the first two descended pages clothed in red, with green caps; from the

third descended a nobleman whose garments were of gold. He asked to marry

Flora. She immediately accepted him, and ran to her chamber to decorate

herself with the golden robe which he presented to her.

The good Mary Jane was sorrowful and anxious, but Flora’s countenance

was radiant with delight. She left her home without asking the maternal

benediction, and entered the church with a haughty air. Her mother

remained on the threshold praying and weeping.

After the ceremony, Flora entered the golden equipage with her husband,

and they departed, followed by the two other equipages.

They drove a long, a very long distance. At last they arrived at a rock

where there was a large entrance like the gate of a city. They entered

through this door, which soon closed with a terrible noise, and they were

in midnight darkness. Flora was trembling with fear, but her husband said:

“Reassure yourself; you will soon see the light.” In truth, from every

side appeared little creatures in red clothes and green caps--the dwarfs

who dwell in the cavities of the mountains. They carried flaming torches,

and advanced to meet their master, the King of Metals.

They ranged themselves around, and escorted him through long valleys and

subterranean forests. But--a very singular thing--all the trees of these

forests were of lead.

At last the cortége reached a magnificent prairie or meadow; in the

midst of this meadow was a château of gold studded with diamonds. “This,”

said the King of Metals, “is your domain.” Flora was much fatigued and

very hungry. The dwarfs prepared dinner, and her husband led her to a

table of gold. But all the meats and all the food presented to her were

of this metal. Flora, not being able to partake of this food, was reduced

to ask humbly for a piece of bread. The waiters brought her bread of

copper, of silver, and of gold. She could not bite either of them. “I

cannot give you,” her husband said, “the bread that you wish; here we

have no other kind of bread.”

The young woman wept, and the king said to her:

“Your tears cannot change your fate. This is the destiny you have

yourself chosen.”

The miserable Flora was compelled to remain in this subterranean abode,

suffering with hunger, through her passion for wealth. Only once a year,

at Easter, she is allowed to ascend for three days to the upper earth,

and then she goes from village to village, begging from door to door a

morsel of bread.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE CHURCH IN VIEW OF RECENT DIFFICULTIES AND

CONTROVERSIES, AND THE PRESENT NEEDS OF THE AGE. London: Basil

Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1875. New York: THE CATHOLIC

WORLD, April, 1875.

(From _Le Contemporain_.)

I. _Renewed Working of the Holy Spirit in the World._--We are, in a

religious, social, and political point of view, in times of transition

which we are not able to understand, for the same reason that no one

can follow the movements of the battle-field who is in the midst of the

engagement.

To judge from appearances, especially those which are nearest at hand, we

are on the brink of an abyss. The Catholic religion, openly persecuted

in Germany, prostrated now for several years in Italy and Spain by the

suppression of the religious congregations, attacked in all countries,

abandoned by all sovereigns, appears, humanly speaking, to be on the

brink of destruction. There are not wanting prophets who predict the

collapse of Christianity and the end of the world. There are, however,

manly souls who do not allow themselves to be discouraged, and who see

grounds for hope in the very events which fill ordinary hearts with

terror and consternation.

Of this number is an American religious, Father Hecker, who has

just issued a pamphlet in English, wherein, without concealing the

difficulties of the present, he avows his expectation of the approaching

triumph of religion.

His motives are drawn from the deep faith he professes in the action of

the Holy Spirit in the church, outside of which he does not see any real

Christianity. It is the Holy Spirit whom we must first invoke; it is

the Holy Spirit of whom we have need, and who will cure all our ills by

sending us his gifts.

“The age,” he says, “is superficial; it needs the gift of wisdom, which

enables the soul to contemplate truth in its ultimate causes. The age

is materialistic; it needs the gift of intelligence, by the light of

which the intellect penetrates into the essence of things. The age is

captured by a false and one-sided science; it needs the gift of science,

by the light of which is seen each order of truth in its true relations

to other orders and in a divine unity. The age is in disorder, and is

ignorant of the ways to true progress; it needs the gift of counsel,

which teaches how to choose the proper means to attain an object. The age

is impious; it needs the gift of piety, which leads the soul to look up

to God as the heavenly Father, and to adore him with feelings of filial

affection and love. The age is sensual and effeminate; it needs the gift

of force, which imparts to the will the strength to endure the greatest

burdens, and to prosecute the greatest enterprises with ease and heroism.

The age has lost and almost forgotten God; it needs the gift of fear to

bring the soul again to God, and make it feel conscious of its great

responsibility and of its destiny.”

The men to whom these gifts have been accorded are those of whose

services our age has need. A single man with these gifts could do more

than ten thousand who possessed them not. It is to such men, if they

correspond with the graces which have been heaped upon them, that our age

will owe its universal restoration and its universal progress. This being

admitted, since, on the other hand, it is of faith that the Holy Spirit

does not allow the church to err, ought we not now to expect that he will

direct her on to a new path?

Since the XVIth century, the errors of Protestantism, and the attacks

upon the Catholic religion of which it gave the signal, have compelled

the church to change, to a certain extent, the normal orbit of her

movement. Now that she has completed in this direction her line of

defence,[171] it is to be expected that she will resume her primitive

career, and enter on a new phase, by devoting herself to more vigorous

action. It is impossible to dispute the fresh strength which the

definition lately promulgated by the Council of the Vatican has bestowed

upon the church. It is the axis on which now revolves the church’s

career--the renewal of religion in souls, and the entire restoration of

society.

Do we not see an extraordinary divine working in those numerous

pilgrimages to authorized sanctuaries, in those multiplied novenas, and

those new associations of prayer? And do they not give evidence of the

increasing influence of the Holy Spirit on souls?

What matter persecutions? It is they which purify what remains of the too

human in the church. It is by the cross we come to the light--_Per crucem

ad lucem_.

A little farther on the author explains in what the twofold action of the

Holy Spirit consists.

He acts at one and the same time in an intimate manner upon hearts, and

in a manner quite external on the church herself.

An indefinite field of action conceded to the sentiments of the heart,

without a sufficient knowledge of the end and object of the church,

would open the way for illusions, for heresies of every kind, and would

invite an individual mysticism which would be merely one of the forms of

Protestantism.

On the other hand, the exclusive point of view of the external authority

of the church, without a corresponding comprehension of the nature of

the operations of the Holy Spirit within the heart of every one of the

faithful, would make the practice of religion a pure formalism, and would

render obedience servile, and the action of the church sterile.

Moreover, the action of the Holy Spirit made visible in the authority of

the church, and of the Holy Spirit dwelling invisibly in the heart, form

an inseparable synthesis; and he who has not a clear conception of this

double action of the Holy Spirit runs the risk of losing himself in one

or other of the extremes which would involve the destruction and end of

the church.

In the external authority of the church the Holy Spirit acts as the

infallible interpreter and the criterion of the divine revelation. He

acts in the heart as giving divine life and sanctification.

The Holy Spirit, who, by means of the teachings of the church,

communicates divine truth, is the same Spirit which teaches the heart to

receive rightly the divine truth which he deigns to teach. The measure

of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our obedience to

the authority of the church; and the measure of our obedience to the

authority of the church is the measure of our love for the Holy Spirit.

Whence the saying of S. Augustine: _Quantum quisque amat ecclesiam Dei,

tantum habet Spiritum Sanctum_.

It is remarkable that no pope has done so much for the despised rights of

human reason as Pope Pius IX.; that no council has done better service

to science than that of the Vatican, none has better regulated its

relations to the faith; that none has better defined in their fundamental

principles the relations of the natural and the supernatural; and the

work of the pontiff and of the council is not yet finished.

Every apology for Christianity must henceforth make great account of the

intrinsic proofs of religion, without which people of the world would be

more and more drawn to see the church only on her human side.

The Holy Spirit, by means of the sacraments, consummates the union of

the soul of the believer with God. It is this end which true religion

should pursue. The placing in relief the internal life, and the

constitution of the church, and the intelligible side of the mysteries

of the church--in short, the intrinsic reasons of the truths of the

divine revelation combined with the external motive of credibility--will

complete the demonstration of Christianity. Such an exposition of

Christianity, founded on the union of these two categories of proofs,

will have the effect of producing a more enlightened and intense

conviction of religion in the souls of the faithful, and of stimulating

them to more energetic action; and it will have, as its last result,

the opening of the door to their wandering brethren, and gathering them

back into the bosom of the church. With the vigorous co-operation of the

faithful, the ever-augmenting action of the Holy Spirit will raise the

human personality to such an intensity of strength and greatness that

there will result from it a new era for the church and for society--an

admirable era, which it would be difficult to describe in human

expressions, without having recourse to the prophetic language of the

inspired Scriptures.

II. _The Mission of Races._--In pursuing his study upon the action of the

Holy Spirit in the world, the author says that a wider and more explicit

exposition of the dogmatic and moral verities of the church, with a view

to the characteristic gifts of every race, is the means to employ in

order to realize the hopes he has conceived.

God is the author of the different races of men. For known reasons of

his providence, he has impressed on them certain characteristic traits,

and has assigned to them from the beginning the places which they should

occupy in his church.

In a matter in which delicate susceptibilities have to be carefully

handled, it is important not to exaggerate the special gifts of every

race, and, on the other hand, not to depreciate them or exaggerate their

vices.

It would, however, be a serious error, in speaking of the providential

mission of the races, to suppose that they were destined to mark with

their imprint religion, Christianity, or the church. It is, on the

contrary, God who makes the gifts and qualities with which he has endowed

them co-operate in the expression and development of the truths which he

created for them.

Nevertheless, no one can deny the mission of the Latin and Celtic races

throughout the greater part of the history of Christianity. The first

fact which manifested their mission and established the influence they

were to exercise was the establishment of the chair of S. Peter at

Rome, the centre of the Latin race. To Rome appertained the idea of the

administrative and governmental organization of the whole world. Rome was

regarded as the geographical centre of the world.

The Greeks having abandoned the church for schism, and the Saxons having

revolted against her by heresy in the XVIth century, the predominance

which the Latin race, united later on to the Celtic race, assumed in her

bosom, became more and more marked.

This absence of the Greeks and of a considerable part of the

Saxons--nations whose prejudices and tendencies are in many respects

similar--left the ground more free for the church to complete her action,

whether by her ordinary or normal development, or by the way of councils,

as that of Trent and that of the Vatican.

That which characterizes the Latin and Celtic races, according to our

author, is their hierarchical, traditional, and emotional tendencies.

He means, doubtless, by this latter expression, that those races are very

susceptible to sensible impressions--to those which come from without.

As to the hierarchical sentiment of the Celtic and Latin races, it

appears to us that for upwards of a century it has been much weakened, if

it be not completely extinct.

In the following passage the author is not afraid to say of the Saxon

race:

“It is precisely the importance given to the external

constitution and to the accessories of the church which

excited the antipathies of the Saxons, which culminated in

the so-called Reformation. For the Saxon races and the mixed

Saxons, the English and their descendants, predominate in the

rational element, in an energetic individuality, and in great

practical activity in the material order.”

One might have feared, perhaps, a kind of hardihood arising from a

certain national partiality in regard to which the author would find it

difficult to defend himself against his _half-brethren_ of Germany, if he

had not added:

“One of the chief defects of the Saxon mind lay in not fully

understanding the constitution of the church, or sufficiently

appreciating the essential necessity of her external

organization. Hence their misinterpretation of the providential

action of the Latin-Celts, and their charges against the

church of formalism, superstition, and popery. They wrongfully

identified the excesses of those races with the church of God.

They failed to take into sufficient consideration the great

and constant efforts the church had made in her national and

general councils to correct the abuses and extirpate the vices

which formed the staple of their complaints.

“Conscious, also, of a certain feeling of repression of their

natural instincts, while this work of the Latin-Celts was

being perfected, they at the same time felt a great aversion

to the increase of externals in outward worship, and to the

minute regulations in discipline, as well as to the growth of

papal authority and the outward grandeur of the papal court.

The Saxon leaders in heresy of the XVIth century, as well as

those of our own day, cunningly taking advantage of those

antipathies, united with selfish political considerations,

succeeded in making a large number believe that the question

in controversy was not what it really was--a question; namely,

between Christianity and infidelity--but a question between

Romanism and Germanism!

“It is easy to foresee the result of such a false issue; for it

is impossible, humanly speaking, that a religion can maintain

itself among a people when once they are led to believe it

wrongs their natural instincts, is hostile to their national

development, or is unsympathetic with their genius.

“With misunderstandings, weaknesses, and jealousies on both

sides, these, with various other causes, led thousands and

millions of Saxons and Anglo-Saxons to resistance, hatred,

and, finally, open revolt against the authority of the church.

“The same causes which mainly produced the religious rebellion

of the XVIth century are still at work among the Saxons, and

are the exciting motives of their present persecutions against

the church.

“Looking through the distorted medium of their Saxon

prejudices, grown stronger with time, and freshly stimulated by

the recent definition of Papal Infallibility, they have worked

themselves into the belief--seeing the church only on the

outside, as they do--that she is purely a human institution,

grown slowly, by the controlling action of the Latin-Celtic

instincts, through centuries, to the present formidable

proportions. The doctrines, the sacraments, the devotions,

the worship of the Catholic Church, are, for the most part,

from their stand-point, corruptions of Christianity, having

their source in the characteristics of the Latin-Celtic races.

The papal authority, to their sight, is nothing else than the

concentration of the sacerdotal tendencies of these races,

carried to their culminating point by the recent Vatican

definition, which was due, in the main, to the efforts and the

influence exerted by the Jesuits. This despotic ecclesiastical

authority, which commands a superstitious reverence and servile

submission to all its decrees, teaches doctrines inimical to

the autonomy of the German Empire, and has fourteen millions

or more of its subjects under its sway, ready at any moment

to obey, at all hazards, its decisions. What is to hinder

this Ultramontane power from issuing a decree, in a critical

moment, which will disturb the peace and involve, perhaps, the

overthrow of that empire, the fruit of so great sacrifices,

and the realization of the ardent aspirations of the Germanic

races? Is it not a dictate of self-preservation and political

prudence to remove so dangerous an element, and that at all

costs, from the state? Is it not a duty to free so many

millions of our German brethren from this superstitious yoke

and slavish subjection? Has not divine Providence bestowed the

empire of Europe upon the Saxons, and placed us Prussians at

its head, in order to accomplish, with all the means at our

disposal, this great work? Is not this a duty which we owe to

ourselves, to our brother Germans, and, above all, to God? This

supreme effort is our divine mission!”

It would be impossible to enter into the idea of the Bismarckian policy

in a manner more ingenious, more exact, and more striking.

It is by presenting to Germany this monstrous counterfeit of the church

that they have succeeded in provoking its hatred of her, and the new

empire proposes to be itself the resolution of a problem which can be

only formulated thus: “Either adapt Latin Christianity, the Romish

Church, to the Germanic type of character and to the exigences of

the empire, or we will employ all the forces and all the means at

our disposal to stamp out Catholicity within our dominions, and to

exterminate its existence as far as our authority and influence extend.”

This war against the Catholic religion is formidable, and ought not to

leave us without alarm and without terror.

Truth is powerful, it is said, and it will prevail. But truth has no

power of itself, in so far as it is an abstraction. It has none, except

on the condition of coming forth and showing itself living in minds and

hearts.

What is to be done, then?

No thought can be entertained for a moment of modifying Catholic dogmas,

of altering the constitution of the church, or of entering, to ever so

small an extent, on the path of concessions. What is needed is to present

religious truth to minds in such a manner as that they shall be able to

see that it is divine. It is to prove to them that our religion alone

is in harmony with the profoundest instincts of their hearts, and can

alone realize their secret aspirations, which Protestantism has no power

to satisfy. For that, the Holy Spirit must be invoked in order that he

may develop the interior life of the church, and that this development

may be rendered visible to the persecutors themselves, who hitherto see

nothing in her but what is terrestrial and human. Already a certain

ideal conception of Christianity exists amongst non-Catholics of England

and of the United States, and puts them in the way of a more complete

conversion. As to the Saxons, who, in these days, precipitate themselves

upon an opposite course, we should try to enlighten their blindness.

Already we have seen the persecutors, whether Roman or German, become

themselves Christian in their turn. We shall see the Germans of our days

exhibiting the same spectacle. It is a great race, that German race. Now,

“the church is a divine queen, and her aim has always been to win to her

bosom the imperial races. She has never failed to do it, too.”

Already we can perceive a very marked return movement amongst the

demi-Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons. It is a great sign of the times.

At different epochs there have been movements of this kind in England.

But none exhibited features so serious as that of which we are witnesses

in these days. Conversions to the church multiply without number, above

all amongst the most intelligent and influential classes of the nation;

and that in spite of the violent cry of alarm raised by Lord John

Russell, and in spite of the attacks of the ex-minister Gladstone, who

has the reputation of being the most eloquent man in England.

The gravitation towards the Catholic Church exhibits itself in a manner

still more general and more clear in the bosom of the United States.

The Catholics in that country amounted to scarcely a few hundreds at the

commencement of this century. They form now a sixth of the population of

the United States. They number about 7,000,000. And the Catholic is the

only religion which makes any real progress.

It is, then, true “that the Catholic religion flourishes and prospers

wherever human nature has its due liberty. Let them but give to the

church rights only equal to those of other confessions, and freedom of

action, and we should see her regain Europe, and, with Europe, the world.”

Now, might we not conclude that these two demi-Saxon nations, England

and the United States, are predestined by Providence to lead the Saxons

themselves in a vast movement of return towards the Catholic Church?

Before concluding, the author returns to the Latin and Celtic nations,

and directs towards them a sorrowful glance.

As for France, he regrets that a violent reaction against the abuses of

the ancient régime, of which he gives a somewhat exaggerated picture, has

brought about an irreligious revolution and a political situation which

oscillates ceaselessly between anarchy and despotism, and despotism and

anarchy. He deplores still more that the progressive movement has been

diverted from its course in Spain and in Italy by the evil principles

imported from France.

“At this moment,” says the author, “Christianity is in danger, on the one

hand, of being exterminated by the persecution of the Saxon races; on the

other, of being betrayed by the apostasy of the Celto-Latins. This is the

great tribulation of the church at the present time. Between these two

perils she labors painfully.”

According to human probabilities, the divine bark should be on the point

of perishing. But perish it cannot. God cannot abandon the earth to the

spirit of evil. “Jesus Christ came to establish the kingdom of God on the

earth, as a means of conducting men to the kingdom of God in heaven.”

It is thus, in his last chapter, our author surveys the future:

“During the last three centuries, from the nature of the work

the church had to do, the weight of her influence had to be

mainly exerted on the side of restraining human activity.

Her present and future influence, due to the completion

of her external organization, will be exerted on the side

of soliciting increased action. The first was necessarily

repressive and unpopular; the second will be, on the contrary,

expansive and popular. The one excited antagonism; the other

will attract sympathy and cheerful co-operation. The former

restraint was exercised, not against human activity, but

against the exaggeration of that activity. The future will be

the solicitation of the same activity towards its elevation and

divine expansion, enhancing its fruitfulness and glory.

“These different races of Europe and the United States,

constituting the body of the most civilized nations of the

world, united in an intelligent appreciation of the divine

character of the church, with their varied capacities and the

great agencies at their disposal, would be the providential

means of rapidly spreading the light of faith over the whole

world, and of constituting a more Christian state of society.

“In this way would be reached a more perfect realization of

the prediction of the prophets, of the promises and prayers of

Christ, and of the true aspiration of all noble souls.

“This is what the age is calling for, if rightly understood, in

its countless theories and projects of reform.”

The zealous religious who is the author of this important manifesto

traversed the seas in order to submit it to the Holy Father. [A mistake.

Father Hecker went to Europe for other reasons, and took advantage of

the opportunity to submit his pamphlet to the examination of the Roman

censors and other eminent theologians.] If we are well informed, the

Roman Curia found in it neither error nor rashness.[172] It is a complete

plan of action proposed to the apostolate of the church for the future.

The old era would close, a new one would open.

On this ground all ancient differences should disappear. Bitter and

useless recriminations would be laid aside. All would be moving towards

the same future, in accord not only as to the end, but as to the means.

(From _Le Monde_.)

The _Culturkampf_ advances daily. Its war-cry in precipitating itself

upon the church, bent upon her destruction, is: “The doctrine of

infallibility has made spiritual slaves of Catholics, who are thus a

hindrance to civilization.” In presence of so furious an attack, every

voice which suggests means of safety deserves our best attention.

Of this kind is a pamphlet published lately in London, and which has been

already translated into French, German, and Italian, and of which the

journals of different countries, of the most opposite views, have given

very favorable opinions.

The lamented M. Ravelet would, had he been spared, have introduced it

to the readers of the _Monde_; for he had met its author at Rome, and

knew how to appreciate the breadth of his views. Father Hecker, its

author, the founder of the Paulists of New York, is celebrated in his

country for a style of polemics admirably adapted to the genius of his

fellow-countrymen. Does he understand Europe, to which he has made

prolonged visits, equally well? On that point our readers will soon be

able to judge.

How is it that the Catholic religion, which reckons more adherents

than any other Christian religion, does not succeed in making itself

respected? Evidently because many Catholics are not on a level with the

faith which they profess. “We want heroes,” said J. de Maistre at the

beginning of our century. At this moment is not the demand the same?

There is no lack of religious practices; a number of exterior acts of

exterior piety are performed; but the interior life of souls is not

exalted; they seem to be afflicted with a kind of spiritual dyspepsia.

The crises which threaten terrify them, instead of inflaming beforehand

their courage and their confidence in God. It is in the sources of

religion itself we shall find energy; it is to them we must betake

ourselves to reinvigorate our strength, in the direct action of God

upon our consciences, and in the operation of the Holy Spirit upon our

souls. From this source issues the true religious life, and our external

practices are availing only so far as they are inspired by this internal

principle, itself inspired by the Spirit of God. Herein are the primal

verities of Christianity. At every epoch of decadence the voices of

saints remind the world of them; the spirit of the church inclines us to

them; but, distracted by external agitations, we forget to correspond

with its suggestions. We do not possess enough of God! Here is our

weakness. A little more of divinity within us! Lo, the remedy!

Father Hecker has well written upon the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and

upon the men our age wants. Intelligences illuminated from on high,

wills divinely strengthened--is not that what is wanted to maintain the

struggle? Is he not right when he asserts that one soul adorned with

these gifts would do more to promote the kingdom of God than a thousand

deprived of them?

This urgent call to a more intensely spiritual life will touch Christian

hearts. But the pamphlet foresees an objection. Does not this development

of our faculties and of our initiative under the divine influence expose

us to some of the dangers of Protestantism? Do we not run the risk of the

appearance of strong individualities who, filled with their own ideas,

will think themselves more enlightened than the church, and so be seduced

into disobeying her authority?

This eternal question of the relation of liberty to authority! Catholics

say to Protestants: “Liberty without the control of the divine authority

of the church leads insensibly to the destruction of Christianity.”

Protestants reply: “Authority amongst you has stifled liberty. You have

preserved the letter of the dogmas; but spiritual life perishes under

your formalism.” We are not estimating the weight of these reproaches; we

merely state the danger. The solution of the religious problem consists

in avoiding either extreme.

No Catholic is at liberty to doubt that the Holy Spirit acts directly in

the soul of every Christian, and at the same time acts in another way,

indirect, but no less precious, by means of the authority of the church.

Cardinal Manning has written two treatises on this subject, one on the

external, the other on the internal, working of the Holy Spirit. It is

these two workings which Father Hecker endeavors to connect in a lofty

synthesis, and this is the main object of his work.

The first step of the synthesis is the statement that it is one and the

same spirit which works, whether by external authority or by the interior

impulse of the soul, and that these two workings, issuing from a common

principle, must agree in their exercise and blend in their final result.

The liberty of the soul should not dispute the authority of the church,

because that authority is divine; the church, on the other hand, cannot

oppress the liberty of the soul, because that liberty is also divine.

The second step is to prove that the interior action of the Holy Spirit

in the soul alone accomplishes our inward sanctification and our union

with God. The authority of the church, and, generally, the external

observances of religion, having only for their aim to second this

interior action, authority and external practices occupy only a secondary

and subordinate place in the Catholic system, contrary to the notion of

Protestants, who accuse us of sacrificing Jesus Christ to the church,

and of limiting Christianity to her external action. The completion of

the synthesis is in the following: The individual has not received for

his interior life the promise of infallibility; it is to Peter and his

successors--that is to say, to the church--that Jesus Christ has conceded

this privilege. The Christian thus cannot be sure of possessing the Holy

Spirit, excepting in so far as he is in union with the infallible church,

and that union is the certain sign that the union of the two workings of

the Holy Spirit is realized in him.

We have no doubt that this theory is one of the most remarkable

theological and philosophical conceptions of our age. Father Hecker is no

innovator, but he seizes scattered ideas and gathers them into a sheaf of

luminous rays; and this operation, which seems so simple, is the result

of thirty years’ laborious meditation. One must read the pamphlet itself

to appreciate its worth. The more we are versed in the problems which

agitate contemporary religious thought, the better we shall understand

the importance of what it inculcates.

We shall briefly dispose of the application the author makes of his

synthesis. One most ingenious one is that Protestantism, by denying the

authority of the church, obliges her to put forth all her strength in

its defence.

If Luther had attacked liberty, the church would have taken another

attitude, and would have defended with no less energy the free and direct

action of the Holy Spirit in souls. It is this necessary defence of

divine authority which gave birth to the Jesuit order, and which explains

the special spirit which animates that society. If, however, the defence

of assailed authority has been, for three centuries, the principal

preoccupation of the church, she has not on that account neglected the

interior life of souls. It is sufficient to name the spirituality, so

deep and so intense, of S. Philip Neri, S. Francis of Sales, S. John of

the Cross, and S. Teresa. Moreover, does not the support of authority

contribute to the free life of souls by maintaining the infallible

criterion for testing, in cases of doubt, the true inspirations of the

Holy Spirit?

The church, in these days, resembles a nation which marches to its

frontiers to repel the invasion of the foreigner and protect its national

life; its victory secured, it recalls its forces to the centre, to

continue with security and ardor the development of that same life.

According to Father Hecker, the church was in the last extremity of

peril. He sees in the proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope the

completion of the development of authority provoked by the Reformation,

and believes that nothing now remains but its application.

If, since the XVIth century, external action has predominated in the

church, without, however, ever becoming exclusive, so now the internal

working will predominate, always leaving to the external its legitimate

share. Only, this new phase will be, in a way, more normal than the

preceding, because, in religion as in man, the internal infinitely

surpasses the external, without, however, annihilating it, as does

Protestantism. This internal is the essence of Christianity; it is the

kingdom of heaven within us, and whose frontiers it is our duty to

extend. It is the treasure, the hidden pearl, the grain of mustard-seed,

of the Gospel. It is to this interior of the soul that our Lord addressed

the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. The external church--the

priesthood, the worship, the sacraments--are only means divinely

instituted to help the weakness of man to rise to the worship in spirit

and in truth announced by our Saviour to the Samaritan woman. And the

time has come for a fuller expansion of this internal life, for the more

general development of the spirit of S. Francis of Sales and of the other

saints of whom we spoke above.

As to those outside the church, they will never believe in this

evolution, because they suppose that the doctrine of infallibility has

condemned us to a kind of petrifaction. But if they study the actual

situation, events will undeceive them from this present moment.

The persecutions which deprive the church of her temporalities, of her

exterior worship, of her religious edifices, which go the length even of

depriving the faithful of their priests and bishops, which suppress as

far as they can the external part of Catholicity, do they not reveal the

power of its interior?

In the parts of Switzerland and Germany where the populations are robbed

of their clergy and worship, do we not see faith developing in sacrifice,

and piety becoming more serious and fervent in the privation of all

external aid? This example is an additional proof of the opportuneness

of Father Hecker’s pamphlet. If God wills that the persecution should

increase, we must be prepared to do without the external means which he

himself has instituted, and which he accords to us in ordinary times. For

we must not forget that no human power can separate us from God, and that

so long as this union exists religion remains entire as to its substance.

The merit of the Christian is in the intention which inspires his acts.

Religion exists only in the idea which clothes its rites; the sacraments,

the channels of grace, are only effective in us as they are preceded by

the dispositions of our soul. For a religion not to degenerate, it must

perpetually renew the internal life, in order to resist the encroachments

of routine.

Here the author asks what is the polemic best suited to help the people

of these times to escape from their unbelief, which often proceeds from

regarding the church as having fallen into formalism and into a debasing

authoritativism. He believes they might be undeceived by disclosing

to them the inner life of religion and the internal proofs of her

divinity--an idea he shares with the most illustrious writers of our

age. Lacordaire wrote to Mme. Swetchine that he had reversed the point

of view of the controversy in scrutinizing matters from within, which

manifested truth under a new aspect.

Father Hecker quotes in this sense the striking words of Schlegel: “We

shall soon see, I think, an exposition of Christianity appear which will

bring about union among all Christians, and convert the unbelieving

themselves.” Ranke said with no less decision: “This reconciliation

of faith and science will be more important, as regards its spiritual

results, than was the discovery, three centuries ago, of a new

hemisphere, than that of the true system of the universe, or than that of

any other discovery of science, be it what it may.”

The pamphlet ends with a philosophy of race. And here the author, whilst

acknowledging his fear of wounding susceptibilities, expresses the hope

that none of his views will be exaggerated. He inquires what natural

elements the several races have offered to the church in the successive

phases of her history; and, starting from the principle that God has

endowed the races with different aptitudes, he examines in what way those

aptitudes may co-operate in the terrestrial execution of the designs of

Providence. The Latin-Celtic races, who almost alone remained faithful

to the church in the XVIth century, have for authority and external

observances tastes which coincide with the more special development of

the church since that epoch.

On the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon races have subjective and metaphysical

instincts which, in a natural point of view, should attract them to the

church in the new phase on which she is entering. Father Hecker has been

accused with some asperity of predicting that the direction of the church

and of the world will pass into the hands of the Saxon races, whose

conversion, sooner or later, he anticipates. But he does not in any sense

condemn the Latin races to inferiority. He merely gives it as his opinion

that the Latin races can only issue from the present crisis by the

development of that interior life of independent reason and deliberate

volition which constitutes the force of the Saxon races. God has not

given the church to the Latin races. He has not created for nothing the

Saxon, Sclavonic, and other races which cover the surface of the globe.

They have their predestined place in the assembly of all the children of

God, and are called to serve the church according to their providential

aptitudes.

Father Hecker and Dr. Newman are not the only ones who think that the

absence of the Saxon races has been, for some centuries, very prejudicial

to the church. J. de Maistre, whose bias cannot be suspected, expressed

himself even more explicitly to that effect. The Latin genius, under the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been and will continue to be of the

utmost value to the church. Under the divine influence, the Saxon genius

will, in its way, effect equally precious conquests.

In conclusion, we summarize thus the ideas of Father Hecker:

1. We have need of a spiritual awakening.

2. The definition of infallibility has lent such strength to the church

that henceforth personality may become as powerful as possible without

the risk, as in the XVIth century, of injuring unity.

3. This definition having completed the external system of Catholicity,

the initiative of the church proceeds logically to concentrate itself on

the aggrandizement of the interior life, which is the essence of religion.

4. This is proved by the persecutions, which augment and strengthen the

religious life of Catholics.

5. The result of these persecutions will be to unveil to Protestants and

unbelievers the interior view of Catholicity, and to prepare the way for

religious unity.

6. This unity will be effected when Protestants and unbelievers see

that Catholicity, far from being opposed to the aspirations of their

nature, understands them and satisfies them better than Protestantism and

free-thinking.

7. This expansion of Catholicity advances slowly, because it meets few

souls great enough to admit of the full development of its working, and

of showing what it is capable of producing in them.

8. The way to multiply these souls is to place ourselves more and more

under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Whatever opinion may be formed of certain details, on the whole, this

work manifests a high grade of philosophical thought and theological

insight. But to appreciate it fully it must be read and studied.

Exceptions have been taken to it, on the ground that one meets nothing in

it but theories, without any practical conclusion. Yet what can be more

practical than the exhortation which confronts us on every page, to seek

in all our religious acts, in sacraments, worship, and discipline, the

divine intention involved therein? What more practical than to urge us to

develop all the forces of our nature under the divine influence, and to

tell us that the more conscientious, reasonable, and manly we are, the

more completely men we are, so much the more favorable ground will the

church find within us for her working?

Far from urging any abrupt change, Father Hecker recommends that

everything should be done with prudence, consideration being had for

the manners of every country. He is persuaded that, by placing more

confidence in the divine work in souls, they will become insensibly

stronger, and will increase thus indefinitely the force and energy of

the whole body of the church. Such a future will present us with the

spectacle of the conversion of peoples who at present are bitterly

hostile to her--a future which we shall purchase at the cost of many

sacrifices. But our trials will be full of consolations if we feel

that they are preparing a more general and abundant effusion of divine

illumination upon the earth. _Per crucem ad lucem._

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF LAMB, HAZLITT, AND OTHERS. The

Bric-à-Brac Series. Edited by R. H. Stoddard. New York:

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

This volume is a compendium of one of those books of memoirs or

personal recollections bequeathed to us by the survivors of the

English Renaissance of the beginning of the century--_My Friends and

Acquaintances_, by P. G. Patmore. This the editor has supplemented, in

the case of Hazlitt, by some letters and reminiscences culled from the

_Memoirs_ published by his grandson, W. Carew Hazlitt. These works,

it might be fairly supposed, would be of themselves light enough

for the most jaded and flippant appetite. However, the aid of the

“editor” is called in--heaven forgive the man who first applied that

title, honored by a Scaliger and a Bentley, to the modern compiler of

scandal!--the most entertaining and doubtfully moral tidbits are picked

out; and the result is the class of books before us, which is doing

for the national intellect what pastry has done for its stomach. The

mutual courtesies--honorable enough when rightly understood--existing

between publishers and the periodical press make honest criticism seem

ungracious; and thus the public judgment is left uninstructed by silence,

or its frivolous tastes are confirmed by careless approval.

The motives impelling the awful scissors of the “editor” not only deprive

the original works which fall under them of the modicum of value they may

possess, but affirmatively they do worse. They give an absolutely false

impression of the persons represented. Thus, in the case before us the

character and genius of Lamb are as ridiculously overrated as his true

merits are obscured; and the same may be said with even more justice

of the portrait given of Hazlitt. Singularly enough, though the editor

derives all he knows, or at least all he presents to the reader, from Mr.

Patmore and Mr. Carew Hazlitt, he speaks in the most contemptuous terms

of both. One he pronounces “not a man of note,” and the other he terms,

with a delightful unconsciousness of self-irony, “a bumptious bookmaker,

profusely addicted to scissors and paste”; and both he bids, at parting,

to “make room for their betters.” If such be the character of Mr. Patmore

and Mr. Hazlitt, what opinion, we may ask, is the reader called upon to

entertain of the “editor” who is an accident of their existence? Nor

is it in relation only to the authors after whom he gleans that the

“editor” shows bad taste and self-sufficiency. The immortal author of the

_Dunciad_, speaking of a kindred race of authors, tells us,

“Glory and gain the industrious tribe provoke,

And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.”

“The ricketty little papist, Pope,” is the witticism the editor levels at

the brightest and most graceful poet of his age--a master and maker of

our English tongue, and a scourge of just such dunces as himself.

Of the writers whose habits and personal characteristics are treated

of in this volume we have little or no room to speak, nor does the

work before us afford any sufficient basis to go upon. Lamb occupies

a niche in the popular pantheon, as an essayist, higher than posterity

will adjudge him. His essays are pleasing and witty, and the style is

marvellously pure; but they want solidity; they are idealistic, humorous,

subjective; they fail to present that faithful transcript of manners, or

to teach in sober tones those lessons of morality, which make the older

essayists enduring. Lamb’s other works are already forgotten. He was an

amiable man in the midst of unhappy surroundings, and his unassuming

manners have enshrined his name with affection in the works of his

contemporaries.

Hazlitt’s was not a character to be admired, nor in many ways even to be

respected. He was devoured with vanity and grosser passions. His work was

task-work, and therefore not high. ’Tis true Horace tells us,

“… paupertas impulit audar

Ut versus facerem.”

--poverty has often been the sting which urged genius to its grandest

efforts. But Hazlitt, though undoubtedly a man of genius, was not gifted

with that genius of the first order, which abstracts itself wholly from

the miserable circumstances about it. The great body of his work is

criticism, brilliant, entertaining, even instructive at the moment in

which it was produced, but substantially only the fashion of a day.

Of the poet Campbell and Lady Blessington it would be an impertinence to

say anything on the slight foundation this volume gives us.

The editor of the “Bric-à-Brac” Series has placed on the cover of each

volume this motto:

“Infinite riches in a little room.”

We will suggest one that will take up even less room:

“Stultitiam patiuntur opes.”

THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF THE STATES, AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By P. Cudmore, Esq.,

Counsellor-at-Law, Author of the _Irish Republic_, etc., etc.

New York: P. Cudmore. 1875.

The author of this work informs us in the preface that his object

has been to condense into one volume the colonial, general, and

constitutional history of the United States. This volume professes to be

a digest of the writings and speeches of the fathers of the Constitution

of the United States, the statutes of the several States, the statutes of

the United States, of the writings and speeches of eminent American and

foreign jurists, the journals and annals of Congress, the _Congressional

Globe_, the general history of the United States, the decisions

of the Supreme Courts of the several States, the opinions of the

attorneys-general of the United States, and the decisions of the Supreme

Court of the United States; of extracts from De Tocqueville, the Madison

Papers, the _Federalist_, Elliott’s _Debates_, the writings of Jefferson,

Adams, Hamilton, and Vattel, and of extracts from Jefferson and other

eminent authors on parliamentary law. The platforms of political parties

are also given. This list is copied _verbatim_ from the author. It will

be seen, therefore, that Mr. Cudmore has set himself no contemptible

task to accomplish, and, as he has executed it in a thin octavo of 254

pages, it may reasonably be conjectured that he possesses a talent

for condensation that Montesquieu might have envied. Mr. Vallandigham

finds a powerful advocate in this author, and his philippics against

Mr. Stanton are proportionately severe. Mr. Cudmore has a fondness for

notes of exclamation; and such is the ardor of constitutionalism with

which he pursues this latter-day “tyrant of the blackest dye” (we quote

Mr. Cudmore) that it often takes three notes of admiration to express

his just abhorrence of his measures. The bulk of the work is taken up

by a civil and military history of the late conflict, and the disputes

that preceded it. If we might venture a hint to Mr. Cudmore, we would

say that his tone is a little too warm for this miserably phlegmatic

age, which affects a fondness for impartiality in great constitutional

writers. The fact is, the questions which the author discusses with the

greatest spirit are dead issues. They still preserve a faint vitality

for the philosopher and speculative statesman, but they have sunk out of

sight for the practical politician and man of to-day. The _vis major_ has

decided them. We might as usefully begin to agitate for a re-enactment of

the Agrarian Laws. Mr. Cudmore’s Chapters IV. and V., containing a digest

of State and Federal law, show much meritorious industry. The history of

land-grants, the homestead law, and the laws pertaining to aliens and

naturalization, will be found useful.

THE YOUNG CATHOLIC’S ILLUSTRATED TABLE-BOOK AND FIRST LESSONS

IN NUMBERS. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9

Warren St. 1875.

This is a very simple and attractive little book, designed to make

the beginning of arithmetic, which certainly is rather a dry study in

itself, interesting and capable of fixing the attention of the very young

children for whose use the work is intended. We do not remember having

seen any prettier or more practical little text-book for beginners, and

cannot recommend it too highly. It is also very nicely illustrated.

SADLIER’S EXCELSIOR GEOGRAPHY, Nos. 1, 2, 3. New York: Wm. H.

Sadlier. 1875.

As a first attempt in this country to prepare a series of geographies

adapted to Catholic schools this is deserving of great praise. The type

is clear, the maps and illustrations, and the mechanical execution

generally, are excellent. It is based, to some extent, on a geographical

course originally known as Monteith’s, and adapted by the insertion

of additional matter interesting to Catholics. What we should have

preferred, and hope eventually to see, is a series of geographies and

histories entirely original, and written from the Catholic point of view,

and pervaded by the Catholic tone which we find in this.

SEVENOAKS: A Story of To-day. By J. G. Holland, author of

_Arthur Bonnicastle_. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

It gives us great pleasure to express, with slight qualifications, our

entire approval of this work, so far as its moral purport is concerned.

Its plot and incidents are all within the range of ordinary life and

experience, and therefore not calculated to foster in the youthful reader

extravagant anticipations in regard to his own future. There are many

good hits at the weaknesses and inconsistencies of human nature, and

faithful pictures of the vices and miseries to which an unscrupulous

ambition leads. Selfishness and injustice prosper for a time, but

eventually reap their reward; while integrity and true manliness, even in

the rude and uncultivated, are recognized and appreciated.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR 1876. New York: The

Catholic Publication Society.

“Almanac,” when applied to this publication, seems to us a misnomer.

The popular notion of an almanac is a thin, badly-printed pamphlet,

containing incomprehensible astrological tables, delusive prophecies

as to the weather, tradesmen’s advertisements, and a padding of stale

jokes or impracticable recipes gathered from country newspapers; whereas

the _Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac_ is an annual of 144 pages,

containing each year enough solid, well-digested information to furnish

forth an ordinary volume of three hundred pages, to say nothing of the

many fine engravings--and this, too, at a price which should extend its

circulation to equal that of the once-famous _Moore’s Almanac_ (published

in England about the beginning of the XVIIIth century), which is said at

one time to have sold annually more than four hundred thousand copies.

The several volumes of the _Family Almanac_ form a valuable manual for

Catholics, containing, as they do, articles of great interest to the

literary student, the antiquarian, and the archæologist. Much of the

information could be gathered only from exceedingly well-furnished

libraries; some of it appears here for the first time in print.

In the _Almanac_ for 1876, among other good things, we find an extended

and very interesting biographical sketch of His Eminence Cardinal

McCloskey; also, biographical sketches of Cardinals Wiseman and Altieri,

of Bishops Bruté and Baraga, of Rev. Father Nerinckx and the Cura

Hidalgo--the Washington of the Mexican revolution--and of Eugene O’Curry,

the eminent Irish scholar--all of these being illustrated with portraits.

The approaching centenary has not been forgotten, for in “Centennial

Memorials” is shown the part--a glorious one, which received the public

endorsement of the “Father of his Country,” as will be seen by perusal

of the article--taken by Catholics of Irish origin in the Revolutionary

struggle. In the same article are numerous statistics showing the

temporal growth of our country during the century just closing; the

article closes with an account of the wonderful growth of the Catholic

Church during the same period--the whole being valuable for future

reference. “About the Bible” and “The Bible in the Middle Ages” contain

information of interest to every Christian, and which is to be got

elsewhere only by much reading; the latter article also contains an ample

refutation of the old slander that the Catholic Church of the middle

ages kept the Scriptures from the laity. Besides the foregoing, there is

much curious and entertaining prose and verse, and several pictures of

churches and other edifices (among them one of old S. Augustine’s Church,

Philadelphia, destroyed in the riots of 1844, and toward the building of

which, in 1796, Washington contributed $150; Stephen Girard, $40; George

Meade, father of Gen. Meade, $50; and Commodore Barry, $150), a complete

and authentic list of the Roman pontiffs translated from the Italian,

the American hierarchy, and the usual astronomical and church calendars,

postal guide, etc.

MADAME RÉCAMIER AND HER FRIENDS. From the French of Madame

Lenormant. By the translator of Madame Récamier’s _Memoirs_.

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1875.

This volume will doubtless be welcome to those already familiar with the

_Memoirs_ previously published. The work is largely made up of letters

which are of no particular interest, except so far as they throw light

on the character of the writers. Endowed by nature with extraordinary

beauty, and possessing that knowledge of public events and skill in their

interpretation which seems a special gift of Frenchwomen, Mme. Récamier

became the centre of an admiring group of statesmen and _littérateurs_

who sought the benefit of her intuitive wisdom.

A very strong testimony to Mme. Récamier’s many virtues is found in the

warm friendship which existed between herself and other ladies holding

a similar position in French society; in the loving devotion of the

child of her adoption, who subsequently became her biographer; and--in

the fear and jealousy of the First Napoleon, who paid her the compliment

of a temporary exile. The personal attention she gave to her adopted

daughter’s education is worthy of imitation.

WAYSIDE PENCILLINGS, WITH GLIMPSES OF SACRED SHRINES. By the

Rev. James J. Moriarty, A.M. Albany: Van Benthuysen Printing

House. 1875.

Father Moriarty’s work has one merit on which editors place a high

value--brevity. A book of travels is not properly a history or topography

of the countries visited, and a bird’s-eye view of the most salient

features is all that we can reasonably ask at the traveller’s hand.

The interlarded extracts with which some authors swell their volumes

are often wearisome reading. In the above work the reverend traveller

narrates all the important incidents of his journey, with descriptions of

the various shrines on his route, in so picturesque a manner, and in so

few words, that the reader will have no difficulty in laying up in his

memory many pleasant subjects for reflection.

EIGHT COUSINS; OR, THE AUNT-HILL. By Louisa M. Alcott. Boston:

Roberts Brothers. 1875.

An entertaining volume for youthful readers, and one which conveys many

useful lessons. The same charming freshness which won for _Little Women_

its wide reputation will render this volume a favorite, notwithstanding

its defects--one of which is a spirit of self-assertion in the heroine

which is only too true to nature in the average American girl. However

reluctant we may be to acknowledge the fact, we cannot fail to see

that our so-called progress has had a tendency to weaken veneration

for age and respect for authority. Miss Alcott shows her sympathy with

this fault by sometimes placing age in a ludicrous light before her

juvenile readers. The young people of this generation do not need any

encouragement in the belief that age does not always bring wisdom, and we

the more regret this mistake in a book otherwise commendable. Destroy

the confidence and veneration with which childhood looks up to those

placed over it, and you rob parents of that which constitutes a great

charm in their offspring, and go far to break down the chief bulwark of

society--the family.

MANUAL OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY. A Collection of Prayers

compiled for the use of the Society of Sisters of Charity in

the Diocese of Louisville, Kentucky. Adapted to general use.

Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.

This is a new volume added to the already large devotional literature of

the church. As its title imports, it was prepared especially with a view

to the wants of the daughters of St. Vincent, though adapted to those of

other religious, and of persons in the world. As it bears the imprimatur

of the Archbishop of Baltimore, and has the approval of the Bishop

of Louisville, and, in addition, has had the benefit of Mr. Murphy’s

careful _proofreading_--a matter the importance of which can scarcely be

over-estimated in devotional works--we deem further comment unnecessary.

We would, however, suggest whether the use of a somewhat thinner paper

would not make a better proportioned volume.

MISCELLANEA: Comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays on

Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects. By M. J.

Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Sixth Edition, revised

and greatly enlarged. 1875.

The publishers have added to the value of this edition by incorporating

in it a number of papers not contained in previous editions, and which

had received the author’s last corrections. Few writers of the present

century in the English language have done more to popularize Catholic

themes and relieve Protestants from the misconceptions which they had

previously entertained regarding the history and doctrines of the church,

than the late Archbishop of Baltimore. Those who have not previously

possessed themselves of his admirable works have a new motive in the

improvements now made.

A FULL COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN EXPLANATION OF THE CATECHISM.

By Rev. J. Perry. St. Louis: P. Fox. 1875.

The present edition of Perry’s _Instructions_ differs from the original

one in the addition of questions, thus making it a text-book for advanced

classes, whereas its use was heretofore limited in a great measure to

teachers. The editor (Rev. E. M. Hennessey) has also incorporated an

explanation of the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and Papal

Infallibility.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From P. Donahoe, Boston: Theologia Moralis Novissimi Ecclesiæ

Doctoris, S. Alphonsi, in Compendium Redacta et Usui

Venerabilis Cleri Americani Accommodata, Auctore A. Konings,

C.SS.R. Pars Tertia: Continens tractatus de Sacramentis, de

Censuris, de Irregularitatibus, et de Indulgentiis. 8vo, paper,

pp. x., 433.

From P. O’Shea, New York: Lives of the Saints, with a practical

Instruction on the Life of each Saint for every day in the

year. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. Part iv., 8vo, pp. 127,

flexible cloth.--Life and Letters of Paul Seigneret, Seminarist

of S. Sulpice, translated from the French by N. R. 12mo, pp.

311.

From the Author: The Sunday Laws: A Discussion of Church and

State, etc. By S. B. McCracken. 8vo, pp. 8, paper.

From P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia: Life of S. Benedict,

surnamed “The Moor.” The Son of a Slave. From the French of M.

Allebert. 18mo, pp. 213.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXII., No. 130.--JANUARY, 1876.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T.

HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH AT DES MOINES.

The utterances of any person occupying so lofty a station as that of

President of the United States demand attention and respect, by reason

of the source from whence they emanate. The deliberate judgments of

such a man as President Grant have in themselves a special claim to

the consideration of his fellow-citizens. He has had opportunities to

study the length and breadth of the land. His private convictions have

matured amidst the most varied experience of all classes and sections of

our people--first in a profession affording ample leisure and abundant

means of observation from an independent stand-point, and afterwards

in commercial life, which placed him in the midst of daily events, no

longer as a theorist, but as one actively concerned in their course and

development. His position in military affairs has been that of one of the

most celebrated commanders of the age, and his political career has been

that of an independent statesman, always wielding supreme influence, and

quite beyond the need of vulgar trickery, in order to maintain its power.

Having almost completed an illustrious public life, he is now able to

express the results of his observations, and no one can lightly question

the validity of his conclusions. The country is prepared to receive

anything he may have to say to it, with solicitous, intelligent, and

earnest consideration.

Those who may differ from him in political convictions, or who may retain

a partiality for some of his less successful competitors for the highest

prize of military glory, and even those who go so far as to question his

greatness--all must admit that he is a true American, formed and moulded

by the events in which he has moved, and truly representing the country

and the times.

We are disposed, therefore, to attach the fullest importance to his

words, whether spoken officially or from the convictions of his heart,

and to ponder them respectfully and thoughtfully.

On the 29th of September last His Excellency attended, at Des Moines,

the capital city of Iowa, a convention of the “Army of the Tennessee,”

one of those military organizations composed of veterans of the late war.

The nature of these and kindred associations is not political. Their aim

is to keep up a brotherly spirit among those who formerly stood shoulder

to shoulder on the battle-field. Nevertheless, the gallant men, who thus

risked life and limb for the integrity of the national government, are

supposed to retain their patriotism, and to look with pride and zeal

upon the continuance and healthy growth of those institutions, which are

vitally connected with the nation’s greatness.

In the midst of such an assembly, composed of men of all creeds, our

chief magistrate felt called upon to utter a prophetic warning, which has

excited much comment at home, and has been extensively published abroad.

We print his speech, delivered at the evening session of the “Army of the

Tennessee,” as currently reported in the daily press. President Grant,

being called for, came forward and said:

“COMRADES: It always affords me much gratification to meet

my comrades in arms of ten and fourteen years ago, and to

tell over again from memory the trials and hardships of

those days--of hardships imposed for the preservation and

perpetuation of our free institutions. We believed then, and

we believe now, that we have a government worth fighting for,

and, if need be, dying for. How many of our comrades paid the

latter price for our preserved Union! Let their heroism and

sacrifice be ever green in our memory. Let not the result

of their sacrifices be destroyed. The Union and the free

institutions for which they died should be held more dear for

their sacrifices. We will not deny to any of those who fought

against us any privilege under the government which we claim

for ourselves. On the contrary, we welcome all such who come

forward in good faith to help build up the waste places, and to

perpetuate our institutions against all enemies, as brothers

in full interest with us in a common heritage; but we are not

prepared to apologize for the part we took in the war.

“It is to be hoped that like trials will never again befall

our country. In this sentiment no class of people can more

heartily join than the soldier who submitted to the dangers,

trials, and hardships of the camp and the battle-field,

on whichever side he fought. No class of people are more

interested in guarding against a recurrence of those days. Let

us, then, begin by guarding against every enemy threatening

the prosperity of free republican institutions. I do not

bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan

politics; but it is a fair subject for the soldiers, in their

deliberations, to consider what maybe necessary to secure the

prize for which they battled. In a republic like ours, where

the citizen is the sovereign and the official the servant,

where no power is exercised except by the will of the people,

it is important that the sovereign, the people, should foster

intelligence--that intelligence which is to preserve us as a

free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near

future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing

line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and

intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and

ignorance on the other.

“Now, the centennial year of our national existence, I

believe, is a good time to begin the work of strengthening

the foundations of the structure commenced by our patriotic

forefathers one hundred years ago at Lexington. Let us all

labor to add all needful guarantees for the security of free

thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, unfettered

religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all

men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion. Encourage

free schools, and resolve that not one dollar appropriated

for their support shall be appropriated to the support of any

sectarian schools. Resolve that neither the State nor nation,

nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other

than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the

land the opportunity of a good common-school education, unmixed

with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter

of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private

school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the

church and the state for ever separate. With these safeguards,

I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee

will not have been fought in vain.”

Taking all things into consideration, the speech is fully equal to any

written production of the President. It is direct. It is plain. It is

manly and vigorous, and far superior to any other oration which we

have heard of from the same distinguished quarter. Beyond all things

it expresses, better than many imagine, the common sentiments of the

American people.

We have not been surprised at the general applause with which it has been

greeted; and we think that all our readers will agree in the judgments

which we are about to express with regard to it.

An impression has been spread abroad that the views of President Grant

are hostile to the Catholic Church, and that the speech was fulminated by

his zeal against it. It has been averred that he was talked into making

a public manifestation of his feelings by the mayor of the city of Des

Moines, who called his attention to the political campaign in Ohio,

where Catholics were vainly struggling for equal rights in the matter

of the public schools. His Excellency is said to have been strongly

moved, and hastened home from his ride, in order to prepare his speech

for the evening. We have no means of definitely ascertaining the motives

of the President’s speech. If he meant to hurl a thunderbolt at us, we

honor him for using language, in the main, so just and courteous. But if

his friends have sought to make use of him to stir up feeling against

us, they must be sadly disappointed at his words; for, if they now

repeat them too freely, for the purpose of injuring us, they will find

themselves “hoist by” their “own petard.”

Trying as hard as we can to lash ourselves into fury; trying to fancy

ourselves insulted, by representing to ourselves that the head of this

nation has gone out of his way and abased his dignity, in order to cast

an aspersion at a large and respectable class of the community, we are

forced to give it up, and to lay down our pen; for we find nothing in the

oration with which we are in the least disposed to take issue. On the

contrary, we are prepared to join our tribute to the burst of applause

which echoes through the land. We are convinced that, if it meets with

the attention which it merits, the country at large, and Catholics in

particular, will treasure the “Des Moines speech” among the “Sayings

of the Fathers.” Like Washington’s Farewell, and Webster’s mighty

peroration, and Lincoln’s noble and pathetic Inaugural, it will pass from

the vulgar atmosphere of party strife into the pure and serene empyrean

of immortality.

We have given the speech at length. We now propose to explain our

decision with regard to it, and to examine at greater length those

portions of it which seem to us most true, most wise, and most remarkable.

“ENCOURAGE FREE SCHOOLS,” the President says, “AND RESOLVE THAT NOT ONE

DOLLAR APPROPRIATED FOR THEIR SUPPORT SHALL BE APPROPRIATED FOR THE

SUPPORT OF ANY SECTARIAN SCHOOLS.”

Do we hear aright? Does the President of the United States maintain the

proposition which has brought us so much contempt and derision?

WHAT IS A FREE SCHOOL? A free school is one in which every scholar

can obtain an education without violating the honest convictions of

conscience, or--to use the words of the President--a free school is

one where education can be obtained “unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or

atheistical dogmas.”

ARE OUR SO-CALLED COMMON SCHOOLS FREE? Let us glance at the general

history of the controversy concerning them. As soon as the public

schools had ceased to be purely charitable institutions, a new policy

was inaugurated by our people. The government assumed that it was bound

to ensure an intelligent use of the franchise, by encouraging the mental

activity of its citizens. To this all Catholics agreed, and still agree.

But our Protestant fellow-citizens, rightly desiring that some religious

instruction should be given their children, wrongly insisted upon having

the Bible read in the schools. The government might have permitted such

a custom to continue, when no protest was made against it. But it soon

became evident that the schools were essentially Protestant institutions,

and served as an instrument to prevent the growth of “Popery.” This was

no secret. It was openly preached.

About this time Catholics began to see what everybody else was rejoicing

over, and were, naturally, alarmed. They had assisted to found and build

up the republic, or they had immigrated under the assurance of equal

rights. To find it proclaimed a Protestant country was news to them.

They insisted that the Government was bound to deny this imputation, and

they registered an universal protest against the design of the falsely

so-called “common” schools.

We have demanded either that we be relieved from taxation for these

sectarian schools, or that such arrangement be devised as shall render

them equally desirable for Catholics and non-Catholics.

We were not called upon to explain why we so earnestly desired this. It

was nobody’s business but our own. The public schools are not held to

be eleemosynary institutions. They are ostensibly for the benefit of

all. And even if they were places for the confinement of criminals, or

almshouses, both criminals and paupers have consciences, however dull or

uninformed. What, then, is the objection to our having a right to direct

the policy on which public institutions are to be conducted? None. But if

we were to have taken such a position as this, we should, at once, have

been indicted, for an insidious and damnable conspiracy.

Therefore we have openly stated the grounds of our convictions, relying

on the inherent force of truth to secure our rights. We regard morality

as inseparable from religion. In this we merely echo the sentiments

of the greatest American statesmen, and notably, of the Father of

our republic. We say that, if we are to pay for the education of our

children, we should like to have the worth of our money. What fairer

demand can a Yankee make? We ask nothing to which every citizen has

not a right. We have never met a fair reply to our demands, or a fair

discussion of their merits. First we were greeted with silent scorn.

The practical operation of the laws was found to force our children

into Protestant schools. We proclaimed claimed them to be Protestant

schools. It was unblushingly denied. We put the question to the test, by

endeavoring to stop the Protestant Bible from being read in them. There

was not enough power in our voice, nor enough fairness in our opponents,

to enforce even an appearance of consistency. The schools were pronounced

“un-sectarian,” a Protestant service was daily carried out, and we were

bidden to hold our tongues, and to be thankful. And, now, that we are not

willing, either to hold our peace, or to be grateful to those who deny us

our equal rights, a loud outcry is raised, and every manner of evil is

predicted, unless we are forcibly restrained. The party of malevolence

seeks to create an issue where none exists, and to force us into a

strife, in which it can avail itself of superior numbers to strike us a

cruel and unjust blow. Now, neither this design nor the clamor with which

it is urged, can be defended by any true or just plea. And we venture to

predict that there is too much intelligence and love of fair play in the

American people, to allow it to succeed in its sinister purpose.

What is our position once more? Here we stand, on the same basis with

all other American citizens. Is it not so? Where, then, is any legal

disability proved against us? We ask for nothing which we are not willing

to concede to all our fellow-citizens--viz., the natural right to have

their children brought up according to their parents’ conscientious

convictions. We want, and we will have, our children brought up

Catholics. It can be done in various ways. The state can pay the salaries

of our teachers, and the cost of our buildings, and other expenses,

securing proper guarantees that the money will be honestly laid out, and

the children receive their due amount of secular instruction. Again, the

state may pay a _pro rata_, and allow teachers to compete for scholars.

This is done in Protestant England and Prussia, as well as in Catholic

France and Austria, and is, obviously, most in harmony with democratic

principles. Other ways may be devised which will secure justice to all

parties. There is no practical difficulty, except in the smallest country

school districts. These are always settled by the citizens themselves.

Or, we can educate our children, without the state. The state may let us

alone, and may do away entirely with public education, except for those

who are utterly without means--in other words, change the common schools

into charitable institutions, and let parents provide. But this, we are

persuaded, is full of practical difficulties.

But the plan actually adopted has been to tax all alike for the common

good, and yet maintain a system, which perfectly suits Protestants,

but to which Catholics cannot honestly or conscientiously agree. OUR

SO-CALLED COMMON SCHOOLS ARE NOT FREE. Millions of the people rise up and

proclaim it. Let those who like them send their children to them. Let

those support them who like them by their “private contributions.” Then

all honor to President Grant when he says “that not one dollar should be

appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools.”

The President further says:

“RESOLVE THAT NEITHER STATE NOR NATION, NOR BOTH COMBINED,

SHALL SUPPORT INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING OTHER THAN THOSE

SUFFICIENT TO AFFORD EVERY CHILD GROWING UP IN THE LAND THE

OPPORTUNITY OF A GOOD COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION, UNMIXED WITH

SECTARIAN, PAGAN, OR ATHEISTICAL DOGMAS.”

Now, what is it that Catholics complain of, except that the state has

supported, and does support, “institutions of learning” mixed “with

sectarian, pagan, and atheistical dogmas”?

There is no doubt about this fact. Protestants insist upon having the

Bible read in the public schools, lest they become irreligious. Catholics

maintain that the version used is garbled, and that, even if it were not,

no one has a right to teach it, except those who have compiled it, and

are to-day the only responsible witnesses to its true meaning. The Jews

maintain that the New Testament part of it is not true. Infidels deny it

altogether. What right has any school board, or any other purely human

institution to decide this controversy; and what right has any man under

the Constitution to enforce his religious views or his denial of religion

upon others? It is an outrage. It is an inconsistency, which cannot be

stated in any terms without transparently manifesting its absurdity.

Under the Constitution, and according to the spirit of our government,

all men are equal. Under the present system of common schools, and,

according to the spirit of those who uphold them, men are not equal, and

there is no such thing as regard for conscience; but every majority has

a right to enforce upon any minority, no matter how large, its peculiar

ideas of instruction, involving, as this always does, the question of

religion itself. We have repeated our protest, until we are almost

sick and tired of hearing the outrage mentioned; we have never seen our

position manfully approached within beat of drum; and, yet, we have

constantly been forced to ask ourselves, “Will the American people never

see this? Can it be that our enemies are, as some of them hold themselves

to be, totally depraved?”

Some time ago, after considerable agitation, the Chicago School Board

prohibited the reading of the Sacred Scriptures in the public schools of

that city.

Undoubtedly the protest of Catholics had something to do with this. But

the action of the board was certainly based upon the idea, that the

reading of the Protestant Bible made the schools Protestant, “sectarian”

institutions, and therefore unjust towards all other religious bodies.

Let it be thoroughly understood, that we fully appreciate the desire of

our Protestant fellow-citizens, to hallow secular instruction. But the

reading of the Scriptures as a public ceremony is as distinctive to them,

as the celebration of Mass would be to Catholics. No one can evade the

argument which forces this conclusion. “Such schemes are glass; the very

sun shines through them.” And yet it is not a little remarkable, how

slowly the light breaks in upon the seat of the delusion.

It is a satisfaction, however, to note the few acknowledgments, tardy and

incomplete as they are, of the principle which we have always maintained.

Prof. Swing, alluding to the action of the Chicago School Board to which

we have referred, gives voice to the following observations of common

sense:

“The government has no more right to teach the Bible than it

has to teach the Koran. My idea is that the government did,

in its earlier life, run according to a sort of Christian

common law; but now the number of Jews, Catholics, and infidels

has become so greatly increased, the government has to base

itself squarely upon its constitutional idea that all men

are religiously equal. Even if the genius of the country

permitted the teaching of the Bible, I should doubt the

propriety of continuing the custom, because no valuable moral

results can ever come from reading a few verses hurriedly in a

school-house, and social strifes will be continually springing

up out of the practice.”

The government, then, according to the professor, has no rights in the

spiritual domain--a proposition which we have been condemned to universal

derision for maintaining, and yet one that is self-evident to any person

who will pause for a moment to consider our institutions.

An ardent advocate of what are called liberal principles, commenting

upon the position of Prof. Swing, very properly styles it the only

one defensible. The purpose of the Liberal League is, unquestionably,

to procure the complete secularization of our public schools, which

would, of course, be as unjust towards Catholic tax-payers as any other

system. This class is no less hostile to justice and true liberty than

any other set of meddlers. Nevertheless, it is not a little amusing

to see the unmistakable fear with which it regards the issue of the

present anti-Catholic policy. It waves, as its flag of hostility to the

Catholics, the threadbare pretext, that we are secretly opposed to all

education. It is not necessary for us to repeat the indignant denial and

protest, with which we have ever met this gratuitous calumny. We quote

from the Boston _Index_ of Oct. 28:

“The public-school system is to-day in the greatest danger,

not so much from the fact that it is openly attacked from

without by the Catholics, as from the fact that a great

inherent injustice to all non-Protestants is made part and

parcel of it by its distinctively Protestant character. What is

built on wrong is built on the sand; and our school system will

certainly fall in ruins by and by, unless it can be grounded on

equal justice to all.”

When the avowed heathen, who reap the fullest harvest, fear for the

destruction of our present unjust system of education, on the ground

that it is too iniquitous to last, is it not time, for people who call

themselves Christians, to give a moment’s heed to the petition, which we

have for years addressed to them, as most advantageous to all of us, and

as doing injustice to none?

It appears, however, that this idea has infiltrated into other minds.

_Zion’s Herald_, a Methodist journal, quoted by the liberal paper to

which we have referred, says:

“The state deals only with temporal affairs, and does not

attempt to usurp spiritual functions. Therefore the objects

and methods of public education are wholly secular, but by no

means necessarily, or at all, immoral or irreligious. On the

contrary, they are decidedly favorable to piety and morality.

But composed denominationally as the American people is, the

state ought not to impart religious education. The moment such

an attempt should be made, the community would be in conflict

as to what form it should take. It may be conceded, without

danger perhaps, that the state should not teach ethics, except

so far as the great fundamental principles of morals and

politics, as to which all Americans are agreed, are concerned.

_The religious education of children may and should be remitted

to the family, the Sabbath-school, and the church_--the natural

and divinely-appointed guardians of religion and ethics.”

In the face of this growing acknowledgment of the “sectarian” character

of our public schools, and knowing that they must give religious

instruction or else be “pagan and atheistical,” we are pleased to hear

the demand that “neither the State nor nation, nor both combined,” shall

support such schools.

The fact is, that a people cannot wholly escape from its national

traditions, without forgetting its language, or undergoing some violent

revolution. If our fellow-citizens will study the meaning of the terms

which they habitually use, they will not lose their traditions of freedom

and equal rights, nor will they throw themselves into a violent, perilous

departure from them. But we hasten to comment upon another sentence,

which is frequently quoted from the President’s oration:

“LEAVE THE MATTER OF RELIGION TO THE FAMILY ALTAR, THE CHURCH, AND THE

PRIVATE SCHOOL SUPPORTED BY PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS.”

Precisely so. If it must come to this; if no arrangement can be made, by

which religion and morality can be taught in the public schools, then,

leave the matter to the family altar and the church, and allow it to be

done by private contributions.

In other words, either furnish the people with that which you pretend to

tax them for--viz., a fair and equitable system of public schools--or

allow them to provide for themselves. But, whatever you do, keep your

hands off the sacredness of the “family altar.” Do not set foot into

the hallowed precincts of the domestic sanctuary. The family, though

subordinate, is not to be violated by the state. Parents have rights,

which no government can usurp. You have no more right to force the

education of their children out of their hands, than to define the number

of offspring by law. You have no more right to establish a system, to

which you will endeavor to secure their conformity by violent measures,

than you have to establish public wet-nurseries, or, require that voters

shall be brought up on government pap and be fed out of a government

spoon.

Keep from meddling with religion; you have no authority to teach it.

What a bitter rebuke these words of the President contain for that party,

small and contemptible in itself, but powerful by reason of the times,

which has ever sought to widen the gulf between us and our true-hearted

countrymen! It is not enough that we should be estranged by the

traditions of three hundred years. It is not enough to whisper into the

popular ear every stale and loathed calumny. It is not enough to bring

our holiest rites and beliefs into the obscene literature now circulating

amongst the depraved youth of our country. It is not enough to drown with

a thousand noisy, insolent tongues, every attempt we make at explanation.

It is not enough for this malignant, persecuting power to drop its poison

into every crevice of our social and religious system, from the parlor

to the sewer, from the temple to the lupanar; but the nation must be

organized against us. Our religion must, in some way or other, be dragged

into politics. For shame! we cry, with the President. In a country of

such varied religious beliefs as ours, there is but one way to order and

peace--“KEEP THE CHURCH AND THE STATE FOR EVER SEPARATE.”

To sum up: We agree with the President:

1st. No “sectarianism” in our common schools; and, therefore, “not one

dollar” to our present system of schools, because they are sectarian.

2d. “Not one dollar” to “pagan” schools, in which God is ignored.

3d. “Not one dollar” to “atheistical” schools, in which God is denied in

the name of “science falsely so-called.”

We now turn to consider the prophecy in which the President warns the

American people of its future dangers: