originally the business manager of a circus. His advertisements, his
posters, his hand-bills, in his old occupation, were prepared with all
the gorgeous imagery of the East. He did not forget his old tactics in
his new profession. Immediately on his arrival in Frogtown he grappled
the newspapers. He begged, bullied, or badgered the editors until they
noticed him. He set the Christian Juveniles and the kindred societies to
work, with whom, of course, there was no difficulty. In a couple of days
he succeeded in drawing around him the clergymen of every denomination,
except the Episcopalian and Unitarian. Some of these, however, went much
against their will. The Episcopalian minister--a gentle, amiable man--was
very loath at first; but the pressure brought to bear upon him was too
strong. He finally succumbed and joined in what was called a Union
Christian Meeting of all the Protestant congregations. This important
point achieved, Mr. Notext had three of the “best workers” in each
congregation selected. These he sent among the people to raise the sinews
of war, without which no campaign, whether sacred or profane, can be
conducted to a successful issue. Mr. Notext’s terms were reasonable--only
three hundred dollars a week and found. A man must live; and when a man
works hard--as Mr. Notext undoubtedly did--he must live well, or he
cannot stand the strain on his physical and mental strength. Then, there
were blank weeks when he had no revival in hand, and probably a hotel
bill to pay. Taking these things into consideration, any reasonable
person will allow that three hundred dollars a week and found was not an
exorbitant price.
Mr. Notext had a large tent which the profane said had been formerly
used in his old business. It was pitched in a vacant lot within the city
limits, and could accommodate about fifteen hundred persons. Mr. Notext
prevailed on the clergymen who united with him to close their churches
on the first Sunday of his revival. On the previous Friday he gathered
around him a number of male and female enthusiasts. Accompanied by these
people, organized in squads and led by the regular revival practitioners
who did what is profanely termed the “side-show” business in all Mr.
Notext’s tours, he sang hymns in front of every drinking-saloon in the
town. The instrumental accompaniment to the singing was furnished by a
melodeon, which was carried about in a one-horse cart.
On Sunday the union meetings began, and, notwithstanding a heavy
rain, the tent was full. A large platform had been erected inside,
and near the door was a table on which were exposed for sale a great
variety of contributions to religious literature, all by one author,
who had evidently tried every string of the religious lyre. There were
collections of hymns by the Rev. Mr. Notext; tracts by the Rev. Mr.
Notext; sermons by the Rev. Mr. Notext; tales for the young by the Rev.
Mr. Notext; appeals to the old by the Rev. Mr. Notext; reasons for the
middle-aged by the Rev. Mr. Notext, etc., etc. There were photographs, in
every style, of the Rev. Mr. Notext, as well as likenesses of remarkable
converts who had been remarkable rascals until they “got religion”
through the efforts of the Rev. Mr. Notext.
On the platform were seated the shepherds of most of the flocks in
Frogtown. Some among them, it is true, did not seem quite at home in that
situation, but they had to be there. In the centre of the platform was an
organ, which furnished the instrumental music. On each side of the organ
seats were arranged for a volunteer choir. Fully half those present were
children.
The Rev. Eliphalet Notext was introduced to the audience by the minister
of the Methodist church. The revivalist was a stout, fair-haired,
fresh-colored, rather pleasant-looking man, inclined to corpulency,
evidently not an ascetic, and gifted with no inconsiderable share of
physical energy and magnetism.
“I wish all persons who can sing to come on the platform and occupy the
seats to the right and left of the organ,” he began.
No movement was made in response to this call. It was repeated with a
better result. A dozen young ladies summoned up enough courage to mount
the platform.
“This will never do!” cried Mr. Notext. “I want every person present who
can sing right here on this stand. We can’t get along without music and
plenty of it.”
“Brethren,” he continued, turning toward the clergymen on the platform,
“you know the singers in your congregations; go among them and send them
up here. Everybody must put his shoulder to the wheel in the great work
of bringing souls to Jesus.”
The brethren meekly did as they were bid. They soon succeeded in filling
the seats reserved for the singers. These numbered about one hundred.
“That’s more like it,” said Mr. Notext approvingly. “Now, my friends, we
will begin by singing a hymn. I want everybody to join in.” (A nod to the
organist, who began to play.)
The singing was rather timid at first, but, led by Mr. Notext, the
singers rapidly gained confidence, and soon rolled forth in full chorus.
Having fairly launched them, their leader, after the first verse, left
them to take care of themselves. The singing was really good. The rich
volume of harmony drowned the commonplace melody and the vulgar words.
Thus Brother Notext was successful in the production of his first effect.
It was evident that he depended much on the singing. There is nothing
like a grand mass of choral music to excite the sensibilities. After two
or three hymns, the revivalist had his audience in a highly emotional
condition. “I want all the children together in front!” shouted Mr.
Notext. “_Ad_ults [the accent on the first syllable] will retire to the
back seats. Don’t stop the music! Keep up the singing! Go on! go on!”
Then he ran to the organ, whispered something to the organist, and led
off with
“Oh! you must be a lover of the Lord,
Or you won’t go to heaven when you die,”
leaving the singers to sing it out for themselves after the first two or
three lines.
It took some time to get all the children to the front. If the music
flagged, Mr. Notext shouted to the singers to “keep it up.” From time to
time he would rush to the organ, pick up a hymn-book in a frantic manner,
and lead off with a new hymn, waving his hands in cadence, but, with a
due regard for his lungs, not singing a note more than was absolutely
necessary to start the other singers afresh.
The fathers and mothers of the little ones, softened by the music, looked
with moistened eyes on their children as the latter took their seats. The
American people are very fond of children when they are old enough to
walk and talk and be interesting. Mr. Notext was alive to this fact. Even
the worst criminal or the most cynical man of the world cannot help being
touched while music charms his ears and his eyes look on the beautiful
spectacle of childish innocence. Mr. Notext evidently knew the more
amiable weaknesses of human nature. He appealed to the senses and the
affections, and won over the fathers and mothers through the children.
“Now, my little friends,” said Mr. Notext, “I wish you all to keep
perfectly silent while I am talking to you. This first meeting is
especially for you.”
There was considerable buzzing among the little ones.
“I must have silence, if I am to do anything with these children,” said
Mr. Notext rather testily, and in a tone which showed that he would not
scruple to apply the birch to his little friends if they did not keep
quiet. “The slightest noise distracts their attention. There are some
boys to the right there who are still talking! I wish some one would stop
them.”
A softly-stepping gentleman with long hair and green goggles went to the
designated group, remonstrated with, and finally succeeded in silencing,
them. Then Mr. Notext began his sermon to the children. He told the
story of the Passion in a manner which, though it inexpressibly shocked
Christians of the old-fashioned kind who happened to be present, was
exceedingly dramatic--“realistic” in the highest degree, to borrow a
word from the modern play-bill. Suddenly he broke off and said rather
excitedly:
“There is a boy on the fourth bench who persists in talking. I must have
absolute silence, or I cannot hold the attention of these children.
The slightest noise distracts them and takes their minds away from the
picture I am endeavoring to present to them. It is that red-haired boy!
Will somebody please to take him away?” Several pious gentlemen bore
down on the poor little red-haired urchin, and all chance of “getting
religion” was taken away from him for the nonce by his summary removal.
When silence was restored, Mr. Notext resumed the story. When describing
how the divine Victim was buffeted and spat upon, he administered to
himself sounding slaps on the face, now with the left hand, now with the
right. He placed an imaginary crown of thorns on his head, pressed the
sharp points into his forehead, and, passing the open fingers of both
hands over his closed eyes and down his face, traced the streams of blood
trickling from the cruel wounds. Tears already rolled down the cheeks of
the little ones. When he reached the nailing to the cross, he produced a
large spike, exhibited it to the children, and went through the semblance
of driving it into his flesh. An outburst of sobs interrupted him. Some
of the children screamed in very terror. The desired effect was produced.
Many fathers and mothers, touched by the emotion and terror of their
children, wept in sympathy with them.
“Now the music!” shouted Mr. Notext, stamping with impatience, as if he
wanted a tardy patient to swallow a Sedlitz-powder in the proper moment
of effervescence. “Now the music!” And he led off with
“Oh! you must be a lover of the Lord,
Or you won’t go to heaven when you die!”
He shouted to the “workers” to go among the people and ask them to “come
to Jesus.” A crowd of “workers,” some professional, some enthusiastic
volunteers, broke loose upon the audience. They seized people by the
hands. They embraced them. They inquired: “How do you feel now? Do you
not feel that Jesus is calling you?” They begged them to come to Jesus at
once. They asked them if they were “Ker-istians.”
One of the workers met two gentlemen who entered together and were
evidently present through curiosity. Of the first, who seemed to be a
cool, keen, self-poised business man, the worker asked the stereotyped
question:
“Are you a Ker-istian?”
“Of course, of course,” said the self-possessed business man.
The worker passed on, perfectly satisfied with the off-hand declaration.
He repeated the question to the gentleman’s companion, who, possessed of
less assurance, hesitated and humbly replied:
“I trust so.”
The worker immediately grappled the sensitive gentleman, much to his
mortification, and it was some time before he succeeded in effecting
his escape, regretting, doubtless, that he had not made as prompt and
satisfactory a profession of faith as that of his companion.
The “inquiry meeting,” as the exercises toward the close were named, was
continued until late in the afternoon. When the children were dismissed,
they were instructed to beg their parents to come to Jesus--to entreat
them, with tears if necessary, until they consented. A Presbyterian
gentleman of the old school, describing his sensations after the meeting
was over, said:
“I cannot deny that I was affected. I felt tears coming to my eyes--why,
I could not tell. The effect, however, was entirely physical. My reason
had nothing to do with it. It condemned the whole thing as merely
calculated to get up an unhealthy excitement, which, even if not
injurious, would be fleeting in its effect. I noticed some nervous women
almost worked up into spasms. As to the children, they were goaded into
a state of nervousness and terror which was pitiable to see. I can only
compare my own condition to that of a man who had drunk freely. While
the effect lasted I was capable of making a fool of myself, being all
the while aware that I was doing so. Sunlight and air have dispelled the
intoxication, and now nothing remains but nausea.
“I am disgusted with such claptrap, and ashamed of myself for having been
affected by it, however temporarily and slightly.”
The progress made on the first Sunday of the revival was duly chronicled
in the newspapers of the day following. It was announced that hundreds of
children had been awakened to a sense of their sinful condition. A little
girl--four years old--had recognized that she was thoroughly steeped
in sin. She had had no idea of the condition of her soul until she was
roused to it by Mr. Notext’s preaching. She was now perfectly happy. She
had experienced religion. She knew she was forgiven. She had gone to
Jesus, and Jesus had come to her. She had sought Mr. Notext’s lodgings,
leading her father with one hand and her mother with the other.
Charley Biggs--the well-known drunken alderman--was among the converted.
He had “got religion,” and was resolved henceforth to touch the
time-honored toddy nevermore.
A belated “local” of one of the newspapers, while returning to his
lodgings on the previous evening, had his coat-tail pulled, much to his
surprise, by a little girl about six years old.
“Please, sir,” she asked, “do you know Jesus?”
The “local” was struck dumb.
“O sir!” she continued, “won’t you please come to Jesus?”
This was enough. The hard heart-of the “local” was touched. He sobbed, he
wept, he cried aloud. He fell upon his knees. The little girl fell on
hers. They sang:
“Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus just now,” etc.
When the “local” rose, after the conclusion of the singing, he took
the little girl’s hand and went whither she led him. He, too, had “got
religion”--somewhat as one gets a _coup de soleil_ or a stroke of
paralysis.
The opposition dailies mildly called attention to the purely emotional
character of the effects produced. They expressed their fears that the
moral and physical result of factitious excitement on minds of tender
years might be the reverse of healthy. The next day the melodeon was
carted about again and the singing continued on the sidewalks and in
front of the drinking-saloons. Mr. Notext’s machinery was in full blast.
The meeting on the second evening was devoted principally to grown
people. The tent was full. The choir was strengthened by additional
voices, and the music was good of its kind.
After half a dozen hymns had been sung, Mr. Notext began his sermon--by
courtesy so-called. He first spoke of the number of persons he had
converted at home and abroad. For he had been “abroad,” as he took care
to let his audience know. He had been the guest and the favored companion
of the Duchess of Skippington, of the Earl of Whitefriars, of Lord This
and Lady That, and the Countess of Thingumy. In Scotland and in Ireland
immense crowds followed him and “got religion.” He converted three
thousand people in a single town in Ireland. Since the meeting on the
previous day, many children, and many adults as well, had visited him at
his lodgings. Some who came to the tent “to make fun” went away full of
religion. He would now let a dear little friend of his tell his own story
in his own way.
A red-haired youngster, about thirteen, was introduced to the audience as
the nephew of a prominent and well-known official in a neighboring town.
(It was afterwards stated, by the way, that the official in question had
not a nephew in the world. No doubt the youngster imposed on Mr. Notext.)
If ever there were a thoroughly “bad boy,” this youngster was one, or--as
may be very possible--his face belied him atrociously. Mr. Notext placed
his arm dramatically--affectionately, rather--around the young rogue’s
neck, and led him to the front of the platform. The boy looked at the
audience with a leer, half-impudent, half-jocular, and then gave his
experiences glibly in a very harsh treble:
“When first I heard that Rev. Mr. Notext was going to get up a revival, I
joked about it with other boys, and said he couldn’t convert me; and the
night of the first meeting I said to the other boys--who were bad boys,
too--for us to go along and make fun. And so we did. And I came to laugh
at Mr. Notext and to make fun. And somehow--I don’t know how it was--I
got religion, and I was converted; and now I am very happy, and I love
Mr. Notext, and I am going with him to Smithersville when he gets through
here. And I am very happy since I was converted and became a good boy.”
(Sensation among the audience, and music by the choir in response to Mr.
Notext’s call.)
Another juvenile convert was brought forward. He repeated substantially
the same story as his predecessor, though more diffidently. (More music
by the choir.)
Mr. Notext now told the affecting story of “little Jimmy.” Little Jimmy
was a native of Hindostan. He lived in some town ending in _an_. There
was in that town a missionary school. Jimmy’s master was a very bad
man--cruel, tyrannical. He forbade Jimmy to go to the mission-school.
But Jimmy went, nevertheless, whenever he could. The master was a true
believer in the national religion of Hindostan. He believed that Jimmy
would go to perdition if he left his ancestral faith to embrace the
national religion--or rather the governmental religion--of Great Britain.
Jimmy would return from his visits to the mission-school in a very happy
mood, singing as he went:
“Yes, I love Jesus,
Yes, I love Jesus,
I know, I know I do,” etc.
Mr. Notext gave an operatic rendering of the scene of Jimmy going home
singing the above words. One day the master heard Jimmy, and was roused
to a state of fury. He forbade the boy to sing the song. But Jimmy would
sing it (Mr. Notext did not say whether Jimmy sang the hymn in English
or Hindostanee). Then the brutal master took an enormous cowhide--or
the Hindostanee punitive equivalent thereto--and belabored poor Jimmy.
But Jimmy continued to sing, though the tears rolled down his cheeks
from pain. And the master flogged; and Jimmy sang. And still the master
flogged and flogged. And still Jimmy sang and sang and sang. It was like
the famous fight in Arkansas, wherein the combatants “fit and fit and
fit.” But there must be an end of everything--even of an Arkansas fight.
The struggle lasted for hours. Exhausted nature finally gave way, and
poor little Jimmy died under the lash, singing with his last breath:
“Yes, I love Jesus,
Yes, I love Jesus,
I know, I know I do.”
“Now, my friends,” said Mr. Notext, “I want you all to stand up for Jesus
and sing poor little Jimmy’s song.” And Mr. Notext led off. The choir
followed his example; but the audience remained seated.
“I want to know,” said Mr. Notext rather testily, “how many Christians
there are in this assembly. I want every one of them to stand up!”
Several persons now stood up, and gradually the action began to spread,
like yawning in a lecture-room. There were still many, however, who
had not hearkened to Mr. Notext’s summons to stand up. He called
attention to them, and bade some of the brethren go to them and talk
them into an erect position. Some of the recalcitrants, evidently to
avoid importunity, stood up. The rest also stood up, and hurriedly left
the tent, followed by an angry scowl from Mr. Notext. After a little
hesitation, he said: “We will now once more sing little Jimmy’s hymn.”
And when the hymn was sung, the meeting dispersed.
Next morning the friendly newspapers chronicled the wonderful success
of Mr. Notext’s efforts. The number of converts was miraculously large.
Two thousand persons had stood up for Jesus. The meetings were continued
during the week. The _modus operandi_ was about the same. Mr. Notext
repeated himself so often that interest began to languish and his _coups
de théâtre_ to grow flat and stale. When he was at a loss for words to
continue one of his disjointed discourses, he took refuge in music and
hymns.
“Brethren, let us sing:
“Come to Jesus!
Come to Jesus!
Come to Jesus just now,” etc.
When his vulgar and often unintentionally blasphemous exhortations
failed to hold the attention of his hearers, and Morpheus was making
fight against him in sundry corners of the tent, he would suddenly call
in his loudest tones on all present to stand up for Jesus. In cases of
very marked inattention, he would summon his hearers, and particularly
the children, to write down their names for Jesus in a large book kept
for that purpose by the great revivalist. This stroke generally roused
the audience pretty thoroughly. But when the children had written their
names in the book three or four times, they began to grow tired of the
practice, thinking that, if these writing lessons were continued, they
might as well be at school.
In the beginning of the second week there were unmistakable signs of
impending collapse. The revival received a momentary impulse, however,
from the opposition of another “Reverend Doctor,” who challenged Mr.
Notext to controversy. This aroused the natural desire to witness a
“fight” which lives in the human heart. But the desire was not gratified,
owing to Mr. Notext’s refusal to accept the challenge. His failure to
exhibit a proper polemical pugnacity was a very great detriment to him.
Indeed, the end of the second week showed a marked falling off in the
number of persons present at the nightly meetings. Then the sinews of
war began to fail. The weekly wage of the great revivalist could not
be raised, though he thrice sent back “the best workers” in all the
congregations to make additional efforts to raise the stipulated sum.
The Rev. Dr. Notext did not tarry very much longer in Frogtown. He
had barely turned his back upon the little town before every trace of
the “great tidal wave of the revival” (as the journals called it) had
disappeared. The youthful converts had gone back to their peg tops, their
kites, and their china alleys, and Alderman Charley Biggs was again
taking his whiskey-toddies in the time-honored way.
THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE.
The President’s message, so far as it deals with the school question and
the taxation of church property, is the sequel to the speech which he
delivered at Des Moines. The article on that oration which appeared in
our last number was, to some extent, an exposition of our views on the
school question.
We are sure that those views, when carefully examined, will be
found to contain the only solution in harmony with the spirit of
free institutions. We are willing to submit to the fairness of our
fellow-citizens, and to wait until time and thought have matured their
judgment on the following questions:
1. Who has a right to direct the education of children--their parents or
the government?
2. Whether, in a republic whose form of government depends more than
any other upon the virtue of its citizens, it is better to have moral
instruction given in abundance, or to have this species of instruction
restricted to the narrowest limits?
3. Whether it is the design of a free government to legislate for all, or
whether public institutions--the common schools, for instance--are to be
directed only for the benefit of certain classes?
4. Whether moneys raised by taxation for the common good should not be so
applied as to satisfy the conscientious demands of all citizens?
5. Whether taxation otherwise directed than for the good of all is not a
violation of the maxim, “Taxation without representation is tyranny”?
6. Whether Catholics have or have not shown zeal for education, both
primary and scientific?
7. Whether they have or have not shed their blood in defence of the
nation, or furnished any of its great leaders in peace and war?
8. Whether any instance can be shown in which they have entered or
inhabited any country on equal terms with Protestants and infidels, and
have abused their power to hamper or persecute their fellow-citizens?
9. Whether, in paying their taxes and supporting their own schools to
the best of their power, peacefully discussing the question of public
welfare and their own rights, Catholics are acting as loyal citizens or
as factious disturbers of good-will and kindly feeling among neighbors?
10. Finally, whether, in consideration of the foregoing, our views are
not entitled to respectful consideration?
We have no doubt whatever that when the thoughtful and just men of our
day and race have duly pondered upon these subjects, we shall fully agree
with their deliberate reply.
At no time in the history of our country will it be found that Catholics
have introduced religion into the arena of political discussion, and any
attempt to do so will meet with failure. In this they are in perfect
accord with the principles underlying our institutions and the genuine
spirit of this country. If, at this moment, the rancor of ancient bigotry
and fanaticism or modern hatred of Christianity has attempted to awaken a
political conflict on religious grounds, while it refuses to admit a calm
consideration of Catholic claims, we appeal from Philip drunk to Philip
sober.
In the meantime, we shall assume, that there are those who wish to hear
more with regard to our principles and convictions. We shall endeavor to
remove all obscurity on the questions now under discussion, and to reply
to whatever reasonable objections may be made against our principles.
With regard to the taxation of church property, we await the action of
the political world. Some politicians, whose “vaulting ambition” is of
that kind which “o’erleaps itself,” would introduce this question into
political discussion in order to draw off the attention of the American
people from the real, present issues in their politics. We ask for no
innovations; but if such be made, let there be no discrimination. We
stand before the law as do all other religious denominations. “Let us
have peace” were the memorable words spoken at a memorable time by a man
who to a large extent held the future of this country in his hands. Those
words held, and hold still, the germs of the wisest policy. We repeat
them now, and add, if we cannot have peace, let us at least have fair
play. If the projectors and advocates of this innovation suppose that, in
the event of its being carried out, they will thereby worst the Catholic
Church, their action in the end will be found to resemble that of the man
who cut off his nose to spite his neighbor.
Since these words were written, four letters have appeared in the New
York _Times_ under the heading, “Should Church Property be Taxed?” and
over the signature of George H. Andrews. The writer is not a Catholic.
His clear, concise reasons against the taxation of church property, as
recommended by the President in his message, will have the more weight
with non-Catholic readers on that account. It is singular, yet natural,
to see how his argument strengthens our own position on the question in
a number of ways, particularly as regards the suicidal policy of many
who, through hatred or fear of the Catholic Church, may be induced to
commit themselves to a measure which would prove an irreparable mischief
to their own church or churches. Passing by the many able and suggestive
points in Mr. Andrews’ letters, we take just such as more immediately
bear on the thoughts thrown out by ourselves.
By the census of 1870 the value of all kinds of church property in the
United States belonging to the leading denominations was placed as
follows:
Methodist, $69,854,121
Roman Catholic, 60,935,556
Presbyterian, 53,265,256
Baptist, 41,608,198
Episcopalian, 36,514,549
Congregational, 25,069,698
Reformed, 16,134,470
Lutheran, 14,917,747
Unitarian, 6,282,675
Universalist, 5,692,325
Others, 24,000,000
-------------
$354,324,595
“From these it appears,” says Mr. Andrews, “that the relative proportion
of each denomination to the whole is substantially as follows:
“Methodist, one-fifth of the aggregate; Roman Catholic, one-sixth
of the aggregate; Presbyterian, one-seventh of the aggregate;
Baptist, one-ninth of the aggregate; Episcopalian, one-tenth of the
aggregate; Congregational, one-fourteenth of the aggregate; Reformed,
one-twenty-second of the aggregate; Lutheran, one-twenty-third of the
aggregate; Unitarian, one-fifty-ninth of the aggregate; Universalist,
one-sixtieth of the aggregate.”
And here is the case in a nutshell: “To me it seems obvious,” comments
Mr. Andrews, on reviewing his figures, “that the expectation is that
those who belong or are allied to other sects will, from dislike to or
fear of the Roman Catholic Church, impose a burden upon it, even if in
doing so they are obliged to assume an equal burden themselves; or, in
other words, that the owners of $294,000,000 of church property will
subject it to taxation in order to impose a similar tax upon the owners
of $60,000,000 of church property. So that the adherents of every other
sect, at variance among themselves about sundry matters of doctrine and
practice, essential and non-essential, can be brought to act in concert,
and to give effect to a common spirit of hostility to Roman Catholic
doctrine, to Roman Catholic exclusiveness, Roman Catholic aggression, and
Roman Catholic influence, by placing a tax upon Roman Catholic Church
property--in effect, arousing a spirit of persecution, qualified by the
condition imposed by the Constitution, that the would-be persecutor must
share in the penalty he may succeed in imposing upon the object of his
dislike.” Which is precisely what we have characterized as “cutting off
one’s nose to spite a neighbor.”
May we presume to ask whether the taxation of church property will reduce
the expenses of the general government, render its officials more honest,
and purify our legislative halls? These are the duties of the hour. Here
are the issues of our politics. But a profound silence regarding them
reigns in the official utterance. Are the projectors of the new policy
afraid to face them? Does their conscience make cowards of them? Or is it
that they are playing the part of the cuttle-fish?
Up to this period the state and all religious denominations have advanced
peaceably to prosperity, and there have been no real grounds of complaint
on any side. At least we have heard of none publicly. What, then, has
brought about this sudden change? Who has called for it? Why should
it be sprung upon us at this moment? No danger threatens from this
quarter. There is not visible on our political horizon even the “cloud
no bigger than a man’s hand.” Catholics, when only a handful, never
dreamed of objecting to the exemption from taxation of the property of
other religious denominations, or to the aid which their benevolent
institutions received. Can it be the rapid development of Catholicity
here which has prompted the proposed innovation? Are these exemptions,
which have been handed down from the time of our fathers, to be altered
because Catholicity has had her share in the common progress? Let truth
and error grapple on a fair and open field. Is there fear that truth will
be worsted in the struggle?
If the exemption of church property from taxation be so great an evil
and danger to the country, those whom Americans generally are content to
regard as their great statesmen must have been very short-sighted men
after all to pass by, one after another, so glaring an evil. For the
growth of church property is not a thing of to-day. In his message the
President says that he believes that “in 1850 the church property of the
United States which paid no tax, municipal or State, amounted to about
eighty-three million dollars. In 1860 the amount had doubled. In 1875 it
is about one thousand million dollars.”
Mr. Andrews questions the estimate for 1875 on the ground that it is too
high. But let that pass. The following table, given by Mr. Andrews, shows
the increase in value, according to the census, of the property of the
ten principal churches for the last twenty years:
1850 1860 1870
Methodist, $14,825,670 $33,683,371 $69,854,121
Roman Catholic, 9,256,753 26,744,119 60,985,556
Presbyterian, 14,543,780 24,227,359 53,265,256
Baptist, 11,620,855 19,789,378 41,608,198
Episcopalian, 11,375,610 21,665,698 36,514,549
Congregational, 8,001,995 13,327,511 25,069,698
Reformed, 4,116,280 4,453,820 16,134,470
Lutheran, 2,909,711 5,385,179 14,917,747
Unitarian, 3,280,822 4,338,316 6,282,675
Universalist, 1,718,316 2,856,095 5,692,325
------------- ------------- -------------
$81,649,797 $156,470,846 $330,324,595
The gradation, it will be seen, has been pretty steady, and is
comparatively no more marked in 1870 than it was in 1860, or than it was,
probably, in 1850. In that year, however, the Catholics were led by four
religious bodies, and almost equalled by one. Ten years later they stood
second, and after another ten years second still. Surrounded as they are
by jealous foes, they offer fair game, therefore, to men in search of
political prey. All was right so long as the others reaped an advantage
over Catholics; but the moment there appears any prospect of Catholics
reaping an advantage equally with the rest, the cry is: The country is in
danger, and can only be saved by taxing church property. Who so blind as
not to see through this flimsy pretext?
Not Mr. Andrews certainly, and no words of ours could be more forcible
than his. “Discarding all circumlocution,” he writes, “it is as well to
get down at once to the bottom fact, which is that whatever euphemistic
phrases may be resorted to, a desire to obstruct the growth and
circumscribe the influence of the Roman Catholic Church gives whatever
vitality it may possess to the proposition to tax church property.”
But supposing this change to be made, is it to be imagined for a moment
that the progress of the church will be stopped by it? That is futile.
If, though so few in numbers and at a great disadvantage, the church was
able to raise herself to her present position; if, when the exemptions
were all in favor of other denominations, Catholics were able to make
so great a progress, is it to be supposed that by these changes, and
by placing other denominations on an equality with Catholics, the
advancement of the Catholic Church is to be retarded?
We have been trained in the stern school of poverty. We are accustomed to
sacrifice. Our clergy do not receive high salaries. The personal expenses
of his Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop are much less than those of
many a clerical family in New York City. Wherever we have arms to work
with, the church of God shall not lack all that is necessary to give it
dignity, even if we have to pay taxes for it besides. In Ireland the
priests and people have shared their crust in the midst of the famine,
and in fear of death, until within a few years. In Germany we are now
about to part with our property, under the wicked injustice of the state,
rather than submit to its interference in the affairs of conscience. Is
any person foolish enough to imagine that a few dollars, more or less,
of taxation is going to dishearten or frighten us? If you want to make
our people more liberal, if you want to see grand Catholic churches and
the cross overtopping roof and spire in every city, just put us on our
mettle. Persecution is our legacy. Martyrdom is our life. The cross on
our brows is no empty symbol. These are our feelings. We have no alarm
whatever.
These proposed innovations are only the entrance of a wedge that, driven
home, will disturb the foundations of our government; will create
religious strife, and blast the hopes of freedom, not only in this
country, but all the world over. They count, however, without their
host who think that the American people are prepared to enter on such
a career; and the politicians who hope to ride into power by awakening
the spirit of fanaticism and religious bigotry among us, if their names
be held in memory at all, will at no remote period be pointed out with
the finger of scorn and contumely as the disturbers of that peace and
harmony which ought always to reign in a just people, and which it is the
true policy of all government and the duty of all citizens to foster and
maintain. We say nothing at the present regarding the unconstitutionality
of these proposed innovations, and of the secret banding together of men
to carry them out.
A NIGHT AT THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF SAINT-GENEST.
It is near midnight. I am alone in my cell, awaiting the mysterious guide
who brought me hither, and who will return to call me for the office of
Matins.
I listen to every sound, seeking to understand its language. During the
first hour I still heard steps from time to time in the distance; then
I half opened my door and looked outside. At the end of the cloister a
white figure appeared, carrying a small light in its hand. It approached
at a slow pace, stopped near a pillar, and disappeared under the arches.
Sometimes I have seen other shadows pass along, and have heard a few
low-spoken words, … bells which answered each other; then, little by
little, everything is extinguished and silent.… There is not another
sound, another breath; … but still I listen, and cannot cease to listen.
Is it indeed myself who am in this monastery? Was I, only to-day, yet in
the midst of the living? Can one single day comprise so many things? This
which is just ending has been so full, so strange, that I cannot well
recount all that has happened in it.
And yet it was but this morning that I was at Aix, in the midst of light
and noise and gayety.… The children were gambolling around me! All at
once some one said: “Suppose we go to the Grande Chartreuse!” It was said
just as one would say anything else. We set out, as if for an ordinary
excursion, a party of pleasure. Mme. B---- had provisions in readiness,
which were increased by the additions of other members of the party, and
we start in the midst of lively speeches and merriment.
So long as we proceed along the valley this is all very well. The road
rises and descends, running through the vineyards, skirting the rocks,
while the warm breath of the south gently moves the surrounding verdure.
Then, after piercing the flank of the mountain, it slopes down toward the
plains of Dauphine, discovering a horizon all bathed in light.
It is after passing Saint Laurent, at the foot of the _Desert_, and in
perceiving the entrance of the gorge, that one begins to understand
something more; … it is then that jesting is silenced and gayety grows
grave.
Then, on arriving at the Guiers-Mort, we become altogether dumb. Already
we had ceased to laugh; we now ceased to speak, but regarded with a
sort of stupefaction this road without issue, which seemed to end in
chaos. The mountains rose defiantly before us, overlapping and mingling
with each other, and here and there barring the way with huge masses of
precipitous rock; the gigantic trees seem to rise to the clouds, and
torrents from unknown heights fall as if from heaven, while the rocks
crowd upon, before, around, and seem to say, “No farther shall you
go.” As we come to a turn, it seems as if all progress were indeed at
an end; two immense blocks fallen across each other completely close
the horizon.… We approach them, however, and it opens again, the rocks
forming a sort of Titanic vaulted roof overhead, and falling again in
the form of three bridges, one above the other, the horses continuing to
climb a road which the eye cannot take in.
And whilst one is lost in these abysses, what a perfect dream of splendor
begins to break overhead! Meadows of the most exquisite green seem as if
suspended far above us, silvery rocks jutting out from among their black
firs, gigantic oaks grasping the heights of the precipices, their crowns
of verdure glittering in the wind.… It is a fantastic apparition. One
has visions in one’s childhood of unknown regions, of enchanted forests
guarded by genii, but one never thought to contemplate these marvels in
reality.
Then, all at once, the mountains separate, the torrents disappear, and in
the midst of a gorge rise battlements and spires.… It is the monastery.
There it stands, guarded by these lofty sentinels, in this sombre
amphitheatre, which would be desolation itself if God had not scattered
there all the magical beauties of his creation.
There is not a village, not a cottage, not a wayfarer--nothing; there is
La Chartreuse. No solitude can be compared to that!
On the summit of St. Bernard and of the Simplon monasteries destined
for the relief of travellers present themselves to the passage of the
nations. In the sandy deserts the most isolated convents find themselves
in the road of the caravans; but here this road conducts to nothing--it
is a silent gorge; it is the Valley of Contemplation; it is the greatest
solitude that one can imagine.
And when from those heights one has seen the gradual approach of night;
seen these masses of rock and of verdure enfolded in the vast shadows;
and, at the summons of the monastery bell, has seen the last of the white
robes descend from the mountain, he feels that it is one of those moments
in a life which will never be forgotten. Then, after having stayed awhile
to contemplate this scene, I rose and came to knock at this door, which
has been to so many others as the gate of the tomb.… A Carthusian monk
brought me to my cell, went his way in silence, and since then I have
been left to my reflections.
There are, then, men who in the morning were in their homes, in the midst
of their friends, in life, and stir, and the noise of the outer world.…
They have climbed this mountain, they have sought this _Desert_, have
knocked at this gate; it has closed upon them, … and for ever.
They have, as I, sat down at this table; they have gazed at the walls of
their cell, and have said to themselves: “Behold henceforth my horizon.”
Then they have heard the sound of these bells, the echo of these
litanies, and they have said to themselves: “We shall henceforth hear no
other voice.”
You see, one reads these things in the works of poets, one sees them
represented in the drama; but one must find one’s self actually in a real
cell, and one must sleep there, to conceive anything of the reality of a
monastic life.
To awake here in the morning; to rise and eat, alone, the food which
comes to you through a little wicket, like that of a prisoner; to meet,
when one traverses the cloister, other shadows who salute you in silence;
to go from the church to the cell, from the cell to the church, and to
say to one’s self that it is always and always to be the same!
Always!… All through life; or rather, there is no more life, no more
space, no more time. It is the beginning of eternity. One is on the
threshold of the infinite, and it seems as if all this nature had only
been created to give these men a beginning of eternal repose.
Always alone! The thought crushes one. No more to receive anything from
without; to nourish one’s self with spiritualities alone; to meditate,
contemplate, and pray. To pray always: … to pray for those who never pray
themselves; to pray for those who have shattered your life, and who, may
be, have led you hither; … to pray for those who have despoiled your
monastery and outraged your habit--even for the impious ones who come to
insult you in your very hospitality! And for all this one thing alone
suffices: faith.
A bell has rung; it is the hour of Matins. Some one knocks at my door. I
open, and they conduct me to the little stall reserved for travellers.
At first the obscurity is so great that it is difficult to distinguish
anything. The church is empty, and none of the tapers are lighted. Then
a door opens in the distance, and the monks enter in procession, each
holding a long dark-lantern, of which the slanting gleams dimly lessen
the darkness of the chapel. They repair to their stalls, and the Office
begins.
It consists principally of a monotonous psalmody of an implacable rhythm,
of which one scarcely perceives the first murmurs, and which seems as if
it would never end. I gaze at these tall white figures, these motionless
heads.… What has been the drama of life to each one? What changes,
without and within, have led them there? What have they suffered? And do
they suffer still? What has the rule of their order done for them?--and
still the psalmody goes on.
At times they rise, uttering what seems to be a sort of lamentation; then
they fall prostrate, with their arms stretched out before them; all the
lights disappear; there is nothing but darkness and silence; it seems as
if man himself were extinguished. After which the lights reappear, the
psalmody recommences, and thus it continues.
* * * * *
When the rising sun shone upon the summits of the rocks, I rose from my
pallet, exclaiming: “The light at last! Hail to the light!” I open my
window and look out.… There is no other place like this; such as it was
in the night, such is it in the day. In vain may the sun mount above the
horizon to bring warmth into this gorge--the monastery remains cold and,
as it were, insensible; in vain his rays dart upon the walls, glitter on
the spires, and set the rocks on fire.… There are living men, but one
does not see them, one does not hear them; only a wagon drawn by oxen
crosses the meadow, followed by a monk, and some beggars are approaching
the monastery gate.
Then, without guide or direction, I plunge into the forest in search of
the Chapel of S. Bruno. This forest is of incomparable beauty; neither
Switzerland nor the Pyrenees contain anything like it. Prodigious trees
rise to an immense height, wrapping their gigantic roots about the
rocks. In the midst of the waters which murmur on every side unknown
vegetations luxuriate, sheltering at their feet a world of ferns, tall
grass, and mosses, every dewy feather and spray being hung, as it were,
with precious stones, upon which the sun darts here and there rays of
gold and touches of fire. There is here a wild enchantment which neither
pen nor pencil ever can depict; and in the midst of these marvels rises,
from a rock, the Chapel of S. Bruno. There it was that the visions
appeared to him, and there he caused a spring of water to flow forth;
but to me the most wonderful of all the miracles of his legend was
that of his getting there at all--the fact of his reaching the foot of
this desert, hatchet in hand, cutting down the trees which barred his
entrance, wrestling with wild animals, the masters of this forest, and
having no other pathway than the torrent’s bed; ever mounting upwards,
in spite of the streams, in spite of the rocks, in spite of everything;
never finding himself lost enough, but ever struggling higher and higher
still. The miracle is, too, that of his having fixed himself at last upon
that spot, and to have called companions around him, who constructed each
his little hermitage about his own; that of having, in God’s name, taken
possession of these inaccessible mountains, all of which are surmounted
by a cross, and to have founded an order which spread itself over the
whole Christian world, and which is still existing.
But the hour of departure has arrived. At the moment of quitting this
solitude we again reflect. France and Italy lie spread out beneath our
feet; … that is to say, passions, hatred, strife.… Why should we descend
again? Why resume the burden of ambitions, rivalries, the harness of
social conventionalities? To what purpose is it, since the end at last
must come alike to all?
We look around, we reflect, and then, after having well meditated, we all
descend.
At the foot of the desert we find again huts, then cottages, by and by a
village. With movement and life we find our speech again, and with speech
discussion. Overwhelmed until then by the wild beauty of all around us
and by the majesty of its silence, the sceptics only now recommence the
criticisms which were cut short the evening before: “What services do
these monks render to mankind? To what purpose do they bury themselves
upon those heights, when there is so much to be done below?”
I answer nothing. These are difficult questions. Later we shall know
which has chosen the better part, those who act or those who pray; only
I remember that whilst thirty thousand Israelites were fighting in the
plain, Moses, alone on the mountain, with his arms stretched out towards
heaven, implored the God of armies. When his arms fell through weariness,
the Amalekites prevailed; and when he raised them, Israel was victorious;
and seeing this, he caused his arms to be supported, until the enemies of
Israel were overcome.
While we are debating we cross Saint Laurent, Les Echelles, and the
Valley du Guiers. Here is Chambéry _en fête_, with its flags, its
concourse of _francs-tireurs_, and bands of music; but although we have
returned to outer life, we have brought away with us something of the
solitude we have left, where it seems as if the earth ended.
Believe me, reader, and do not forget my words when you visit these
lands. The sight of La Grande Chartreuse is one of the most powerful
emotions here below. To whatever religion you may belong, if your soul
can be moved by the thought of the life to come, you will preserve an
imperishable remembrance of a night spent in this monastery, and will
feel that you are not altogether the same man that you were when you
entered its walls.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
LES ETATS-UNIS CONTEMPORAINS, OU LES MŒURS, LES INSTITUTIONS ET
LES IDEES DEPUIS LA GUERRE DE LA SECESSION. Par Claudio Jannet.
Ouvrage précédé d’une Lettre de M. Le Play. Paris: E. Plon.
1876.
The author of this volume has read carefully and seriously a large number
of works, by different American, French, and English writers, devoted
to an explanation of the institutions of the United States, and to the
history and social condition of the country. He shows also a remarkable
acquaintance with the magazines and newspapers of the United States, so
far as they bear on the subjects of which he treats. His book, indeed,
must have cost him years of assiduous labor.
M. Jannet gives a just and impartial exposition of the laws and political
principles of our country, as also of its present social condition.
Rarely, if ever, has a foreigner displayed so conscientious a study of
all that goes to make up American civilization. He professes to have
entered upon his study and his work without any preconceived theory--a
profession not unusual with authors, and for the most part, probably,
honestly made. It is one thing, however, to profess, another thing to
adhere to the profession. Were it possible for authors to adhere strictly
to the profession made by M. Jannet, literature and all of which it
treats would certainly not suffer therefrom: But he who imagines he has
attained to so just and fair a position is the least free from illusion.
The position is simply unattainable, and M. Jannet is scarcely to be
blamed if he has not quite reached his ideal.
Two classes of authors have written about the United States. The one
sees almost everything in _couleur de rose_, the other in a sombre hue.
M. Jannet belongs to the latter class. Throughout his volume he fastens
upon every symptom that threatens the existence or the welfare of the
republic. As an enumeration of these symptoms it is exact, and its
perusal would do no harm to our spread-eagle orators.
M. Jannet has evidently aimed at counterbalancing the influence of
writers, French writers particularly, who have exaggerated the good
side of American political society. He seems fearful lest their tone of
thought should have too great a preponderance in France, and influence
its present transition-state too powerfully in the direction of the
United States. Whether or not this was called for is not a question
for us to consider. The book, regarded as an impartial exposition of
the present condition of the United States, resembles the picture of
an artist, the background of which is painted with a Preraphaelite
exactness, while the foreground is left unfinished, and the whole work,
consequently, incomplete. Had the obvious purpose of the book been
proclaimed at the beginning, we should have read it with a more favorable
eye.
In his last chapter, however, M. Jannet holds out some hope for the
future of the American Republic. In our present commercial depression,
in the recent success of the Democratic party, in the number of families
who have preserved the primitive virtues and customs of our forefathers,
and in the progress of Catholicity he sees a ground for this hope,
and concludes his work by saying: “Men are everywhere prosperous or
unfortunate, according as they observe or despise the divine law. All
their free will consists in choosing between these two terms of the
problem of life, and all the efforts of the spirit of innovation only
break against, without ever being able to destroy, the eternal bounds
set by God to the ambitious feebleness of the creature. Therein lies the
lesson that the young republic of the New World sends from beyond the
ocean and across the mirage of its rapid prosperity to the old nations
of Europe, too inclined to believe in the sophisms of the great modern
error, and to mistrust their own traditions.”
M. Jannet’s work is worthy of a more extended notice, which will be given
it at a later date. The book may be ordered directly from the publisher
in France.
THE PUBLIC LIFE OF OUR LORD. II. Preaching of the Beatitudes.
By H. J. Coleridge, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New
York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is a new volume in the series which is intended, when complete, to
include the entire life of Jesus Christ. We have already commended the
preceding volume, and can only, at present, renew the expression of our
concurrence in the unanimous verdict of competent judges, which awards a
very high meed of praise to Father Coleridge’s work, so far as it is as
yet given to the public.
It is likely to become extensive when fully completed, since the present
volume is filled up with the author’s introductory remarks on the
missionary life of Our Lord, and the exposition of one portion of the
Sermon on the Mount--to wit, the Beatitudes. It is a work which is,
strictly speaking, _sui generis_ in our language, and indeed in all
modern literature, and one hard to describe in such a way as to give
an accurate notion of its quality and scope to a person who has not
read some portion of its contents. The author has drawn from the most
various and from the purest sources, and has himself meditated in a very
attentive and minute manner upon the rich materials furnished him by the
sacred lore of his studies. He proceeds leisurely, quietly, carefully,
like the patient illuminator of a manuscript text, filling his pages with
large and small figures, all elaborately finished. The present volume
gives us a sketch of Galilee, the scene of the preaching and miracles of
our divine Redeemer during his first year of public ministry, which makes
at once the idea of that ministry, of its extraordinary laboriousness,
its extent, and the multitude of wonderful works comprehended within its
brief period, ten times more vivid than it can be made by a mere perusal
of the Gospel narrative. In this respect it is especially interesting and
instructive for those who are themselves engaged in missionary labors. We
have a picture placed before our minds of the real nature of Our Lord’s
public life and ministry, and grouped around it are other pictures, as
illustrations, from the lives of the great missionary saints. When the
author approaches to his principal theme in this volume--the Sermon on
the Mount--he makes the whole scene and all its circumstances appear
before us like a fine dioramic view. He is not, however, of that
meretricious school to which Renan and Beecher have given a false and
momentary _éclat_, as unworthy of the divine subject as the homage of
another class of witnesses on whom Our Lord frequently imposed silence.
The poetic, literary, and picturesque charms of Father Coleridge’s style
are subservient to his theological, doctrinal, and moral exposition of
sacred truths. It is the pure doctrine of the Scriptures, and of the
fathers, doctors, and saints of the church, which we are invited and
allured to drink from the ornamented chalice.
THE HOLY WAYS OF THE CROSS; OR, A SHORT TREATISE ON THE VARIOUS
TRIALS AND AFFLICTIONS, INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR, TO WHICH THE
SPIRITUAL LIFE IS SUBJECT, AND THE MEANS OF MAKING A GOOD USE
THEREOF. Translated from the French of Henri-Marie Boudon,
Archdeacon of Evreux. By Edward Healy Thompson, M.A. London:
Burns, Oates & Co. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic
Publication Society.)
Whoever, after reading the title of this book, thinks that a treatise of
this kind would be useful and helpful, and wishes to find such a book
as may really do the service promised by the title, will probably be
satisfied with the book itself. It is standard and approved, and has been
well translated by Mr. Thompson, whose preface contains some excellent
and timely remarks of his own.
THE STORY OF S. PETER. By W. D. S. London: Burns & Oates. 1875.
(New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This little book purports to be a simple sketch of the life of the
Prince of the Apostles. It will serve to recall the principal events in
his life, and therefore will possess a certain amount of interest for
Catholic readers. The binding, type, and paper are neat and elegant.
The object of the book is evidently pious, and therefore we shrink from
criticising it too minutely. The style also is pleasing and readable.
It is to be regretted, however, that the author did not take a little
more pains with his task. It is a good thing to have plenty of books
on Catholic subjects; and those who are gifted with power, and who can
command the leisure, are, to a certain extent, bound to write. But they
are also bound to study consistency and order, and, in sending forth
their productions, to show a proper respect for those who are expected to
buy them. Good-will does not excuse slovenliness, and we heartily wish
that “W. D. S.” had shown a deeper sense of this truth. The fact that a
book is small and easily read does not free the writer from a thorough
analysis of his subject and employment of all sources of information
regarding it. The present work is serviceable as an introduction to a
real treatise on the position and office of S. Peter. It is nothing more;
and we are sorry that it is not.
LEHRBUCH DES KATHOLISCHEN UND PROTESTANTISCHEN KIRCHENRECHTS.
Von Dr. Friedrich H. Vering. Herder, Freiburg. 1875.
A number of the most learned Catholic theologians of Germany have
combined together to prepare a complete theological library. The present
volume on canon law makes the fifth thus far issued. This library is one
which will be very valuable to German priests or those who read German.
The names of Hergenröther, Scheeben, and other writers of similar rank
who are contributors sufficiently guarantee its excellence.
ACTA ET DECRETA CONCILII VATICANI. Collectio Lacensis, tom.
iii. Herder, Freiburg. 1875.
These and other publications of the Herder publishing house are imported
by the enterprising firm of the Benzigers. The first is a convenient
and carefully edited text of the acts of the Vatican Council, to which
is appended a list of all the episcopal sees and prelatures called
_nullius_ in the entire Catholic Church. The second is one portion of the
magnificent collection of modern councils published at Maria-Laach, and
contains the acts of British and North American councils held during the
past century, or, to speak more precisely, from 1789 to 1869.
CALDERON’S GROESSTE DRAMEN RELIGIOESEN INHALTS. Uebersetzt von
Dr. F. Lorinser. 3d vol. Herder, Freiburg. 1875.
We cannot speak from personal knowledge of the merit of this translation.
Readers of German literature who cannot read Calderon in the original
will no doubt be pleased to find some of his great dramas in a German
dress, and be sufficiently interested in them to ascertain for themselves
how far the great poet has been successfully reproduced.
VOLKSTHUEMLICHES AUS SCHWABEN. Von Dr. Anton Birlinger. Herder,
Freiburg. 1861.
We have here in two volumes a miscellaneous collection of every kind of
_folk-lore_, in prose and verse, mostly very short pieces which must be
very amusing for children and others who like to entertain themselves
with curious odds and ends of this sort.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE EUCHARIST, AND OTHER DOCTRINES OF THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH EXPLAINED AND VINDICATED. By the Rev. Charles
B. Garside. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The
Catholic Publication Society.)
This is a very thoughtful and learned treatise on the Sacrifice of the
Mass, and, though not directly controversial, it is a very lucid and
satisfactory vindication of the Catholic doctrine on the Holy Eucharist
considered as a sacrifice.
The volume contains also essays on “Definitions of the Catholic faith,
Existence of the church in relation to Scripture, Tradition as a vehicle
of Christian doctrine, The Atonement and Purgatory,” and other subjects,
all of them well written, and some, such as the one on “Definitions of
the Catholic Faith,” occupied with discussion of questions which are
frequently talked of at the present, and upon which it is important to
have clear and accurate notions.
THE PERSECUTIONS OF ANNAM: A History of Christianity in Cochin
China and Tonking. By J. R. Shortland, M.A. London: Burns
& Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication
Society.)
We read an account a few days since of four hundred Catholic priests who
four years ago were transported from Poland to Siberia by the Russian
government; three hundred have died, and the others can survive but a
little while. It was only a paragraph in a newspaper. The martyrs die as
of old, and we scarcely hear of their sufferings. The missionary work
of the church, too, is almost forgotten by her children who are living
at ease and in comfort; and yet it is carried on in all quarters of the
globe. Our brothers, if we be worthy to call them by this name, are
toiling, suffering, dying for Christ and the souls of men in far-off
countries of which we seem not to care even to know anything. Here is a
book, most interesting and consoling, full of edifying facts and heroic
examples, written clearly and simply. It is a history of Christianity
in Cochin China and Tonking; and as these two countries form the Empire
of Annam, and the history of the church is always one of persecution,
of triumph through suffering, the book is entitled _The Persecutions of
Annam_. For centuries Europeans have been excluded from this country,
into the interior of which the only strangers who have penetrated have
been Catholic missionaries, and they have gone at the risk of their
lives. For two hundred and fifty years the apostles of the church
have been laboring in Annam, and whoever will read this book will be
struck with wonder at the work they have done and the sufferings they
have endured. Never anywhere have there been more barbarous or cruel
persecutions, and never have they been borne with more heroic fortitude
and simple trust in God.
And then what a wealth of instruction in the lives of these Annamite
converts! From 1615 down to our own day thousands and hundreds of
thousands have received the faith, and, rather than forfeit it, hundreds
and thousands have endured every torment, death itself. Their warm piety,
their intelligent faith, their dauntless courage, put us to shame.
The last persecution broke out in 1858, and raged until the Christians
were relieved by the arms of France, in consequence of which a treaty
of peace was signed in June, 1862, which was soon followed by a decree
granting religious worship; and we may hope that the soil which has drunk
the blood of so many martyrs will yet become the vineyard of Christ.
But we must refer our readers to the book itself, and close this brief
notice with the wish that some one of our Catholic houses in this country
may republish this most interesting chapter of Catholic history.
THE AMERICAN STATE AND AMERICAN STATESMEN. By William Giles
Dix. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 171. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1876.
It is refreshing in these days to meet with a non-Catholic writer like
Mr. Dix, who takes his stand on Christianity and the law of Christ as
the foundation of all right law and government. There is a class, and
a large class, of patriots among us who seem, unconsciously indeed, to
resent the idea that Almighty God had anything at all to do with the
growth and development of this country. To this class of men Mr. Dix’s
book will be a sharp reminder that there is a God above us who rules
all things, and that religion and governments did actually exist in the
world at large--and in the New World, for the matter of that--before
the _Mayflower_ touched these shores. The book deals with just what its
title indicates: the American state and American statesmen. Among the
statesmen dealt with are Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, and several of
the historic names that have lent a lustre to Congress. But the larger
and graver portion of the book deals with the constitution of the States
in themselves and their relation to the States as a whole or nation. Mr.
Dix is a strong and earnest advocate for his views; but his views in the
present matter are almost diametrically opposed to the general feeling of
Americans. “Are the United States a nation?” he boldly asks in the final
chapter of the book, and his answer is “yes” and “no.” In a word, he is
strongly in favor of the centralization of sovereignty as opposed to the
local independence of States. As long as federalism exists, says Mr. Dix,
practically, so long is the nation exposed to disorder and a renewal of
the civil war.
So important a question, it is needless to remark, is scarcely to be
settled in a book-notice; is, indeed, beyond books altogether. It is
a growth. The country and government alike are a growth, and a growth
that will not be forced. They are just entering on the hundredth year
of a life that has been seriously threatened, and, notwithstanding the
theatrical thunder which is being heard just now of politicians resolved
to make “a hit,” we cannot but look to the development of this growth
with hope and confidence. At the same time, it is the part of all who
are concerned to guard that growth well, to see that no weeds spring
up around it, to let in light and air and freedom, and to keep off all
noxious influences that would threaten the life of the parent stem. In
the desire to do this, such chapters as “Christianity the Inspirer of
Nations,” “Materialism the Curse of America,” and “America a Christian
Power,” which seem to us the strongest chapters in Mr. Dix’s book, will
be found full of eloquent suggestion and sound, even solemn, advice.
The book, as a whole, will be found a very interesting one. The writer
is a bold man, who certainly has the courage of his convictions, which
he never hesitates to express openly. The book overruns with apt
illustration and an extraordinary eloquence. Indeed, there is a fault
in parts of too great eloquence, compensated for over and over again by
passages full of terseness, purity, and strength.
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES BY CONSTABLE AND GILLIES. (Bric-à-Brac
Series.) Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York: Scribner,
Armstrong & Co. 1876.
This volume completes the first Bric-à-Brac Series. The publishers
announce an extensive sale--proof only of its being suited to certain
literary tastes. We have not been able to pronounce a very favorable
opinion upon the merits of the series. In turning over the leaves of a
college sheet the other day, we came upon an extract from the letter of
a young lady at one of our fashionable seminaries, in which, counselling
her sisters to high resolves and noble aims, she says: “Instead of
getting a new hat this term, let us buy a Bric-à-Brac.” We think this
is good evidence of the value of these volumes as literary works. They
are admirably suited for boarding-school misses. But what the authors
and scholars who are gossiped about would say at being brought down to
this level is another question. On the whole, we would advise this young
lady to buy a new hat instead. The hat will serve a useful if not a very
exalted purpose in covering her head; the “Bric-à-Brac” will fill it with
frivolous and untrustworthy chit-chat.
This volume treats, under distinct heads, of forty-six persons--including
a majority of the poets, novelists, historians, linguistic scholars, and
essayists of Scotland at the beginning of this century, with a sprinkling
of English and German _savants_, including Goethe--in a little over
three hundred small duodecimo pages. That is to say, it gives an average
of seven pages to each author. These seven pages are devoted almost
exclusively in each instance to trivial personal anecdotes. From this
simple inventory, therefore, it will be easy to form an accurate notion
of what the young lady gains mentally as an equivalent for the loss of
her new hat.
Considerable space is given, however, to one or two worthies. Of these,
William Godwin, the revolutionary propagandist, holds the first place,
and with him incidentally his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, the author
of the _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_. This precious pair are
handled with great tenderness and unction.
The rest of the volume is made up chiefly of reminiscences of the small
literary stars who twinkled round Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh at the
beginning of the century, and stole something from the reflection of his
brightness, but who are now for the most part forgotten.
IN DOORS AND OUT; OR, VIEWS FROM THE CHIMNEY CORNER. By Oliver
Optic. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1876.
Excellent stories, all of which might have been drawn from actual life,
are to be found in this volume. Like all of Oliver Optic’s books, it may
be safely placed in the hands of young people. Some of the sketches, such
as “Good-for-Nothings,” might be read with as much profit as amusement by
grown-up persons, especially those who are continually complaining about
servant-girls.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXII., No. 132.--MARCH, 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.
A SEQUEL OF THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY.
II
One of the most mischievous prejudices of our day is the popular theory
that the cure for all evils is to be sought in the intellectual education
of the masses. Those nations, we are told by every declaimer, in which
the education of the people is most universal, are the most moral, the
richest, the strongest, the freest, and their prosperity rests upon the
most solid and lasting foundation. Make ignorance a crime, teach all to
read and write, and war will smooth its rugged front, armies will be
disbanded, crime will disappear, and mankind will have found the secret
of uninterrupted progress, the final outcome of which will surpass even
our fondest dreams.
This fallacy, which has not even the merit of being plausible, is,
of course, made to do service in M. de Laveleye’s pamphlet on the
comparative bearing of Protestantism and Catholicism on the prosperity of
nations.
“It is now universally admitted,” he informs us (p. 22), “that the
diffusion of enlightenment is the first condition of progress.… The
general spread of education is also indispensable to the exercise of
constitutional liberty.… In short, education is the basis of national
liberty and prosperity.”
He then goes on to declare that in this matter of popular education
Protestant countries are far in advance of those that are Catholic;
that this is necessarily so, since “the Reformed religion rests on a
book--the Bible; the Protestant, therefore, must know how to read.
Catholic worship, on the contrary, rests upon sacraments and certain
practices--such as confession, Masses, sermons--which do not necessarily
involve reading. It is, therefore, unnecessary to know how to read;
indeed, it is dangerous, for it inevitably shakes the principle of
passive obedience on which the whole Catholic edifice reposes: reading is
the road that leads to heresy.”
We will first consider the theory, and then take up the facts.
“The diffusion of enlightenment is the first condition of progress.
Education is indispensable to the exercise of constitutional liberty.
Education is the basis of national liberty and prosperity.”
Enlightenment is, of course, of the mind, and means the development, more
or less perfect, of the intellectual faculties; and education, since it
is here considered as synonymous with enlightenment, must be taken in
this narrow sense.
Progress is material, moral, intellectual, social, political, artistic,
religious, scientific, literary, and indefinitely manifold. Now, it is
assumed that the diffusion of enlightenment is not merely promotive, but
that it is an essential condition of progress in its widest and fullest
meaning. This is the new faith--the goddess of culture, holding the torch
of science and leading mankind into the palace of pleasure, the only true
heaven.
By conduct, we have already said, both individuals and nations are saved
or perish; and we spoke of the civilized. Barbarous states are destroyed
by catastrophes--they die a violent death; but the civilized are wasted
by internal maladies--_suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit_. They grow and
they decay, they progress and they decline. At first poverty, virtue,
industry, faith, hopefulness, strong characters and heroic natures; at
last wealth, corruption, indolence, unbelief, despair, children too weak
even to admire the strength of their fathers, too base to believe that
they were noble. Public spirit dies out; patriotism is in the mouths
of politicians, but, like the augurs of Rome, they cannot speak the
word and look one another in the face. The country is to each one what
he can make out of it, and the bond of union is the desire of each
citizen to secure his own interests. The bondholders love their country,
and the _sans-culottes_ are disloyal; class rises against class, civil
discord unsettles everything, revolution succeeds revolution, and when
the barbarian comes he holds an inquest over the corpse. It generally
happens, too, that those civilizations which spring up quickest and
promise most fair are fated to die earliest; as precocious children
disappoint fond mothers. If the teaching of history is a trustworthy
guide, we are certainly safe in affirming that civilized states and
empires perish, not from lack of knowledge, but of virtue; not because
the people are ignorant, but because they are corrupt.
The assumption, however, is that men become immoral because they are
ignorant; that if they were enlightened, they would be virtuous.
“The superstition,” says Herbert Spencer (_Study of Sociology_, p. 121),
“that good behavior is to be forthwith produced by lessons learned out
of books, which was long ago statistically disproved, would, but for
preconceptions, be utterly dissipated by observing to what a slight
extent knowledge affects conduct; by observing that the dishonesty
implied in the adulterations of tradesmen and manufacturers, in
fraudulent bankruptcies, in bubble-companies, in ‘cooking’ of railway
accounts and financial prospectuses, differs only in form, and not in
amount, from the dishonesty of the uneducated; by observing how amazingly
little the teachings given to medical students affect their lives, and
how even the most experienced medical men have their prudence scarcely at
all increased by their information.”
It is not knowledge, but character, that is important; and character
is formed more by faith, by hope, by love, admiration, enthusiasm,
reverence, than by any patchwork of alphabetical and arithmetical
symbols. The young know but little; but they believe firmly, they hope
nobly, and love generously; and it is while knowledge is feeble and these
spontaneous acts of the soul are strong that character is moulded. The
curse of our age is that men will believe that, in education, to spell,
to read, to write, is what signifies, and they cast aside the eternal
faith, the infinite hope, the divine love, that more than all else make
us men.
“The true test of civilization,” says Emerson, “is not the census, nor
the size of cities, nor the crops--no, but the kind of man the country
turns out.” Is there some mystic virtue in printed words that to be
able to read them should make us men? And even in the most enlightened
countries what do the masses of men know? Next to nothing; and their
reading, for the most part, stupefies them. The newspaper, with its
murders, suicides, hangings, startling disclosures, defalcations,
embezzlements, burglaries, forgeries, adulteries, advertisements of
nostrums, quack medicines, and secrets of working death in the very
source of life, with all manner of hasty generalizations, crude theories,
and half-truths jumbled into intellectual _pot-pourris_; the circulating
library, with its stories, tales, romances of love, despair, death, of
harrowing accidents, of hair-breadth escapes, of successful crime, and
all the commonplaces of wild, reckless, and unnatural life--these are the
sources of their knowledge. Or, if they are ambitious, they read “How to
get on in the world,” “The art of making money,” “The secret of growing
rich,” “The road to wealth,” “Successful men,” “The millionaires of
America,” and the Mammon-worship, and the superstition of matter, and the
idolatry of success become their religion; their souls die within them,
and what wretched slaves they grow to be!
In the newspaper and circulating library God and man, heaven and
earth--all things--are discussed, flippantly, in snatches, generally;
all possible conflicting and contradictory views are taken; and these
ignorant masses, who, in the common schools, have been through the Fourth
Reader, and who know nothing, not even their own ignorance, are confused.
They doubt, they lose faith, and are enlightened by the discovery that
God, the soul, truth, justice, honor, are only nominal--they do not
concern positivists. Can anything be more pitiful than the state of these
poor wretches?--neither knowing nor believing; without knowledge, yet
having neither faith nor love. God pity them that they are communists,
internationalists, _solidaires_; for what else could they be? No
enthusiasm is possible for them but that of destruction.
Religion is the chief element in civilization, and consequently in
progress. For the masses of men, even though the whole energy of mankind
should spend itself upon some or any possible common-school system,
the eternal principles which mould character, support manhood, and
consecrate humanity will always remain of faith, and can never be held
scientifically. If it were possible that science should prove religion
false, it would none the less remain true, or there would be no truth.
What children know when they leave school is mechanical, external to
their minds, fitted on them like clothes on the body; and it is soon
worn threadbare, and hangs in shreds and patches. Take the first boy
whom you meet, fourteen or fifteen years old, fresh from the common
school, and his ignorance of all real knowledge will surprise you. What
he knows is little and of small value; what is of moment is whether he
believes firmly, hopes strongly, and loves truly. Not the diffusion of
enlightenment do we want so much, but the diffusion of character, of
honest faith, and manly courage.
Man is more than his knowledge. Simple faith is better than reading and
writing. And yet the educational quacks treat the child as though he were
mere mind, and his sole business to use it, and chiefly for low ends,
shrewdly and sharply, with a view to profit; as though life were a thing
of barter, and wisdom the art of making the most of it.
Poor child! who wouldst live by admiration, hope, and love, how they
dwarf thy being, stunt thy growth, and flatten all thy soaring thoughts
with their dull commonplaces--thrift, honesty is the best policy, time is
money, knowledge is wealth, and all the vocabulary of a shop-keeping and
trading philosophy. Poor child! who wouldst look out into the universe
as God’s great temple, and behold in all its glories the effulgence of
heaven; to whom morning, noon, and night, and change of season, golden
flood of day and star-lit gloom, all speak of some diviner life, how they
stun thy poetic soul, full of high dreams and noble purposes, with their
cold teaching that man lives on bread alone--put money in thy purse! And
when thou wouldst look back with awe and reverence to the sacred ages
past, to the heroes, sages, saints of the olden times, they come with
their gabble and tell thee there were no railroads and common schools in
those days.
Is it strange that this education should hurt the nation’s highest
interests by driving in crowds, like cattle to the shambles, our youths
from God and nature and tilling of the soil to town and city, or, worse,
into professions to which only their conceit or distaste for hard labor
calls them? What place for morality is there in this Poor Richard’s
Catechism--education of thrift and best policy? We grow in likeness to
what we love, not to what we know. With low aims and selfish loves only
narrow and imperfect characters are compatible.
Science, when cherished for itself--which it seldom is and in very
exceptional cases--refines and purifies its lovers, and chastens the
force of passion; though even here we must admit that the wisest of
mankind may be the meanest, morally the most unworthy. But for the great
mass of men, even of those who are called educated, the possession of
such knowledge as they have or can have has no necessary relation with
higher moral life. Their learning may refine, smooth over, or conceal
their sin; it will not destroy it. The furred gown and intertissued robe
hide the faults that peep through beggars’ rags, but they are there all
the same. There may be a substitution of pride for sensuality, or a
skilful blending or alternation of the finer with the coarser. Vice may
lose its grossness, but not its evil. And herein we detect the wretched
sophistry of criminal statistics, which deal, imperfectly and roughly
enough, with what is open, shocking, and repulsive. The hidden sins
that “like pitted speck in garnered fruit,” slowly eating to the core
of a people’s life, moulder all; the sapping of faith, the weakening of
character, the disbelief in goodness; the luxury, the indulgence, the
heartlessness and narrowness of the rich; the cunning devices through
which “the spirit of murder” works in the very means of life,
“While rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen”
--cannot be appreciated by the gross tests of numbers and averages. The
poor, by statistics as by the world, are handled without gloves. In the
large cities of civilized countries, both in ancient and in modern times,
we have unmistakable proof of what knowledge can do to form character
and produce even the social virtues. These populations have had the
advantage of the best schools in the most favorable circumstances, and
yet in character and morality they are far beneath the less educated
peasantry. Sensual indulgence, contempt of authority, hatred and jealousy
of those above them, make these the dangerous classes, eager for
socialistic reforms, radical upheavals of the whole existing order; and
were it not for the more religious tillers of the soil, chaos and misrule
would already prevail. In Greece and Rome it was in the cities that
civilization first perished, as it was there it began--began with men
who had great faith and strong character, but little knowledge; perished
among men who were learned and refined, but who in indulgence and debauch
had lost all strength and honesty of purpose.
In the last report of the Commissioner of Education some interesting
facts, bearing on the relation of ignorance to crime, are taken from the
Forty-fifth Annual Report of the inspector of the State penitentiary for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
“It is doubted if in any State, or indeed in any country,” says the
commissioner, “forty-four volumes containing the annual statistical
tables relating to the populations of a penal institution, covering
nearly half a century, can, on examination, be regarded as more complete.”
The number of prisoners received into the institution from 1850 to 1860
was 1,605, of whom 15 per cent. were illiterate, 15 per cent. were able
to read, and 70 per cent., or more than two-thirds, knew how to read
and write; from 1860 to 1870, 2,383 prisoners were received into the
penitentiary, and of these 17 per cent. were illiterate, 12 per cent.
could read, and about 71 per cent. could read and write.
Of the 627 convicts who were in the penitentiary during the year 1867, 62
per cent., or five-eighths of the whole number, had attended the public
schools of the State, 25 per cent., or two-eighths, had gone to private
institutions, and 12 per cent., or one-eighth, had never gone to school.
But, as we have said, statistics deal with crime, and chiefly with the
more open and discoverable sort, not with morality; whereas nations are
destroyed not so much by crime as by immorality.
The thief is caught and sent to the penitentiary; but the trader
who adulterates or gives short measure, the banker who puts forth
a false or exaggerated statement, the merchant who fails with full
hands, the stock-gambler who robs thousands, Crédit-Mobilier men and
“ring” men generally who plunder scientifically, Congressmen who take
money for helping to swindle the government, getters-up of “bubble
companies”--salted diamond-fields and Emma Mines--compared with whom
pickpockets and burglars are respectable gentlemen--these know not of
penitentiaries; prisons were not built for such as they. The poor man
abandons his wife, without divorce marries another, and is very properly
sent to State prison. His rich and educated fellow-citizen gets a
divorce, or is a free-lover, or keeps a harem, and for him laws were not
made. Even that respectable old dame Society only gently shakes her head.
We must not expect too much of gentlemen, you know. The ignorant girl
falls, commits infanticide, and is incarcerated or hanged--heaven forbid
that we should attempt to tell what she would have done had she been
educated!--at any rate, she would not have gone to prison, though her
guilt would not have been less.
Has the very great diffusion of enlightenment among our people during
the hundred years that we have been an independent nation made them more
moral and more worthy?
“The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities,
nor the crops--no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”
The Yankee is smarter than the Puritan--is he as true a man? Is the
inventor of a sewing-machine or a patent bedstead as worthy as he who
believes in God and in liberty against the whole earth with all his
heart and soul, even though the heart be hard and the soul narrow? What
compensation is there in all our philanthropies, transcendentalisms,
sentimentalities, patent remedies for social evils, for the loss of the
strong convictions, reverent belief, and simple dignity of character
that made our fathers men? Do we believe in the goodness and honesty
of men as they did, or is it possible that we should? What can come of
beliefs in oversouls, whims, tendencies, abstractions, developments? If
we were shadows in a shadow-land, this might do.
Look at a famous trial where the very aroma and fine essence of our
civilization was gathered: What bright minds, keen intellects! Poetry,
eloquence, romance; the culture, the knowledge, the scientific theories,
of the age--all are there. And yet, when the veil is lifted, we simply
turn away heart sick and nauseated. Not a hundred statistical prison
reports would reveal the festering corruption and deep depravity, the
coarse vulgarity and utter heartlessness that is there, whatever the
truth may be, if in such surroundings it can be found at all.
In Laing’s _Notes of a Traveller_ (p. 221) we find a most striking
example of almost incredible corruption united with great intellectual
culture. “In this way,” he says, “we must account for the singular fact
that the only positively immoral religious sect of the present times in
the Christian world arose and has spread itself in the most educated
part of the most educated country in Europe--in and about Königsberg,
the capital of the province of Old Prussia. The Muckers are a sect
who combine lewdness with religion. The conventicles of this sect are
frequented by men and women in a state of nudity; and to excite the
animal passion, but to restrain its indulgence, is said to constitute
their religious exercise. Many of the highest nobility of the province,
and two of the established clergy of the city, besides citizens,
artificers, and ladies, old and young, belong to this sect; and two
young ladies are stated to have died from the consequences of excessive
libidinous excitement. It is no secret association of profligacy
shunning the light. It is a sect--according to the declarations of Von
Tippelskirch and of several persons of consideration in Königsberg who
had been followers of it themselves--existing very extensively under the
leadership of the established ministers of the Gospel, Ebel and Diestel,
of a Count von Kaniz, of a Lady von S----, and of other noble persons.…
The system and theory of this dreadful combination of vice with religion
are, of course, very properly suppressed.… The sect itself appears, by
Dr. Bretscheider’s account of it, to have been so generally diffused that
he says ‘it cannot be believed that the public functionaries were in
ignorance of its existence; but they were afraid to do their duty from
the influence of the many principal people who were involved in it.’”
But we are not the advocates of ignorance. We will praise with any man
the true worth and inestimable value of education. Even mere mental
training is, to our thinking, of rare price. Water is good, but without
bread it will not sustain life. Wine warms and gladdens the heart of man;
but if used without care, it maddens and drives to destruction. We are
crying out against the folly of the age which would make the school-room
its church, education its sacrament, and culture its religion. It is the
road to ruin. Culture is for the few; and what a trumpery patchwork of
frippery and finery and paste diamonds it must ever remain for the most
of these! For the millions it means the pagan debauch, the bacchanal
orgy, and mere animalism.
“The characters,” wrote Goethe--who was pagan of the pagans and
“decidirter Nicht-Christ”--“which we can truly respect have become
rarer. We can sincerely esteem only that which is not self-seeking.… I
must confess to have found through my whole life unselfish characters
of the kind of which I speak only there where I found a firmly-grounded
religious life; a creed, which had an unchangeable basis, resting upon
itself--not dependent upon the time, its spirit, or its science.”
This foundation of a positive religious faith is as indispensable to
national as to individual character, and without it the diffusion of
enlightenment cannot create a great or lasting civilization. Religion
ought to constitute the very essence of all primary education. It alone
can touch the heart, raise the mind, and evoke from their brutish apathy
the elements of humanity, especially the reason; and it is therefore the
one indispensable element in any right system of national education.
A population unable to read or write, but with a religious faith and
discipline, has before now constituted, and may again constitute, a great
nation; but a people without religious earnestness has no solid political
character. Religion is the widest and deepest of all the elements of
civilization; it reaches those whom nothing else can touch; but for the
masses of men there can be no religion without the authoritative teaching
of a church.
And now let us return to M. de Laveleye. “The general spread of
education,” he says (p. 23), “is indispensable to the exercise of
constitutional liberty.… Education is the basis of national liberty and
prosperity.”
In view of the facts that constitutional liberty has existed, and for
centuries, in states in which there was no “general spread of education,”
and that “the diffusion of enlightenment” is found in our own day to
co-exist with the most hateful despotisms, we might pass on, without
stopping to examine more closely these loose and popular phrases; but
since the fallacies which they contain form a part of the culture-creed
of modern paganism, and are accepted as indisputable truths by the
multitude, they have a claim upon our attention which their assertion by
Mr. Gladstone’s friend could not give them.
There is no necessary connection between popular education and civil
liberty, as there is none between the enlightenment and the morality of
a people. This is a subject full of import--one which, in this age and
country, ought to be discussed with perfect freedom and courage. Courage
indeed is needed precisely here; for to deny that there is a God, to
treat Christ as a myth or a common man, to declaim against religion as
superstition, to make the Bible a butt for witticisms and fine points,
to deny future life and the soul’s immortality, to denounce marriage, to
preach communism, and to ridicule whatever things mankind have hitherto
held sacred--this is not only tolerable, it is praiseworthy and runs
with the free thought of an enlightened and inquiring age. But to raise
a doubt as to the supreme and paramount value of intellectual training;
of its sovereign efficacy in the cure of human ills; of its inseparable
alliance with freedom, with progress, with man’s best interests, is
pernicious heresy, and ought not to be borne with patiently. In our
civilization, through the action of majorities, there is special
difficulty in such discussions, since with us nothing is true except what
is popular. Majorities rule, and are therefore right. With rare eloquence
we denounce tyrant kings and turn to lick the hands of the tyrant people.
Whoever questions the wisdom of the American people is not to be argued
with--he is to be pitied; and therefore both press and pulpit, though
they flaunt the banner of freedom, are the servants of the tyrant. To
have no principles, but to write and speak what will please the most and
offend the fewest--this is the philosophy of free speech. We therefore
have no independent, and consequently no great, thinkers. It is dangerous
not to think with majorities and parties; for those who attempt to break
their bonds generally succeed, like Emerson, only in becoming whimsical,
weak, and inconclusive. It is not surprising, then, that the Catholics,
because they do not accept as true or ultimate what is supposed to be the
final thought and definite will of American majorities on the subject of
education, should be denounced, threatened, and made a Trojan Horse of to
carry political adventurers into the White House.
Nevertheless, the observant are losing confidence in the theory, so
full of inspiration to demagogues and declaimers, that superstition
and despotism must be founded on ignorance. In Prussia at this moment
universal education co-exists with despotism. Where tyrannical
governments take control of education they easily make it their ally.
Let us hear what Laing says of the practical results of the Prussian
system of education, which it is so much the fashion to praise.
“If the ultimate object,” he says, “of all education and
knowledge be to raise man to the feeling of his own moral
worth, to a sense of his responsibility to his Creator and to
his conscience for every act, to the dignity of a reflecting,
self-guiding, virtuous, religious member of society, then
the Prussian educational system is a failure. It is only a
training from childhood in the conventional discipline and
submission of mind which the state exacts from its subjects.
It is not a training or education which has raised, but
which has lowered, the human character.… The social value or
importance of the Prussian arrangements for diffusing national
scholastic education has been evidently overrated; for now that
the whole system has been in the fullest operation in society
upon a whole generation, we see morals and religion in a more
unsatisfactory state in this very country than in almost any
other in the north of Europe; we see nowhere a people in a more
abject political and civil condition, or with less free agency
in their social economy. A national education which gives a
nation neither religion, nor morality, nor civil liberty,
nor political liberty is an education not worth having.… If
to read, write, cipher, and sing be education, the Prussian
subject is an educated man. If to reason, judge, and act as an
independent free agent, in the religious, moral, and social
relations of man to his Creator and to his fellow-men, be the
exercise of the mental powers which alone deserves the name
of education, then is the Prussian subject a mere drum boy
in education, in the cultivation and use of all that regards
the moral and intellectual endowments of man, compared to one
of the unlettered population of a free country. The dormant
state of the public mind on all affairs of public interest,
the acquiescence in a total want of political influence or
existence, the intellectual dependence upon the government
or its functionary in all the affairs of the community, the
abject submission to the want of freedom or free agency in
thoughts, words, or acts, the religious thraldom of the people
to forms which they despise, the want of influence of religious
and social principle in society, justify the conclusion that
the moral, religious, and social condition of the people was
never looked at or estimated by those writers who were so
enthusiastic in their praises of the national education of
Prussia.”
In spite of the continued progress of education, there is even less
liberty, religious, civil, and political, in Prussia to-day than when
these words were written, thirty years ago.
Nothing more dazzles the eyes of men than great military success; and
this, together with the habit which belongs to our race of applauding
whoever wins, has produced, especially in England and the United States,
where Bismarck is looked upon, ignorantly enough, as the champion of
Protestantism, a kind of blind admiration and awe for whatever is
Prussian. “Protestant Prussia,” boasts M. de Laveleye, “has defeated
two empires, each containing twice her own population, the one in seven
weeks, the other in seven months”; and in the new edition of Appleton’s
_Encyclopædia_ we are informed that these victories are attributed to
the superior education of her people. As well might the tyranny of the
government and the notorious unchastity and dishonesty of the Prussians
be ascribed to their superior education. Not to the general intelligence
of the people, but to the fact that the whole country has been turned
into a military camp, and that to the one purpose of war all interests
have been made subservient, must we seek for an explanation of the
victories of Sadowa and Sedan.
Who would pretend that the Spartans were in war superior to the
Athenians because they had a more perfect system of education and
were more intelligent or had a truer religion? Or who would think of
accounting in this way for the marvellous exploits of Attila with his
Huns, of Zingis Khan with his Moguls, of Tamerlane with his Tartars, of
Mahmood, Togrul-Beg, and Malek-Shah with their Turkish hordes?
In fact, it may be said, speaking largely and in general, that the
history of war is that of the triumph of strong and ignorant races over
those which have become cultivated, refined, and corrupt. The Romans
learned from their conquered slaves letters and the vices of a more
polished paganism. Barbarism is ever impending over the civilized world.
The wild and rugged north is ever rushing down upon the soft and cultured
south: the Scythian upon the Mede, the Persian, and the Egyptian; the
Macedonian upon Greece, and then upon Asia and Africa; the Roman upon
Carthage, and in turn falling before the men of the North--Goth, Vandal,
Hun, Frank, and Gaul; the Mogul and the Tartar upon China and India;
the Turk upon Southern Europe, Asia, and Africa; and to-day, like black
clouds of destiny, the Russian hordes hang over the troubled governments
of more educated Europe. Look at Italy during the middle ages--the focus
of learning and the arts for all Christendom, and yet an easy prey for
every barbarous adventurer; and in England the Briton yields to the
Saxon, who in turn falls before the Norman. It would be truer to say
that Prussia owes her military successes to the ignorance of her people,
though they nearly all can read and write. Had she had to deal with
intelligent, enlightened, and thinking populations, she could not have
made the country a camp of soldiers.
The Prussian policy of “blood and iron” has been carried out, in defiance
of the wishes of the people as expressed through their representatives,
who were snubbed and scolded and sent back home as though they were a
pack of schoolboys; yet the people looked on in stolid indifference, and
allowed the tax to be levied after they had refused to grant it.
We will now follow M. de Laveleye a step farther.
“With regard to elementary instruction,” he says, “the Protestant states
are incomparably more advanced than the Catholic. England alone is no
more than on a level with the latter, probably because the Anglican
Church, of all the reformed forms of worship, has most in common with the
Church of Rome.”
If any one has good reason to praise education, and above all the
education of the people, certainly we Catholics have. The Catholic
Church created the people; she first preached the divine doctrine of the
brotherhood and equality of all men before God, which has wrought and
must continue to work upon society until all men shall be recognized
as equals by the law. She drew around woman her magic circle; from the
slave struck his fetters and bade him be a man; lifted to her bosom the
child; baptized all humanity into the inviolable sacredness of Christ’s
divinity; she appealed, and still appeals, from the tyranny of brute
force and success, in the name of the eternal liberties of the soul, to
God. Her martyrs were and are the martyrs of liberty; and if she were not
to-day, all men would accept accomplished facts and bow before whatever
succeeds.
The barbarians, who have developed into the civilized peoples of Europe,
despised learning as they contemned labor. War was their business. The
knight signed his name with his sword, in blood; the pen, like the
spade, was made for servile hands. To destroy this ignorant, idle life
of pillage and feud, the church organized an army, unlike any the world
had ever seen, unlike any it will ever see outside her pale--an army
of monks, who, with faith in Christ and the higher life, believed in
knowledge and in work. They became the cultivators of the mind and soil
of Europe.
“The praise,” says Hallam, speaking of the middle ages, “of having
originally established schools belongs to some bishops and abbots of the
VIth century.”
Ireland is converted and at once becomes a kind of university for all
Europe. In England the episcopal sees became centres of learning.
Wherever a cathedral was built a school with a library grew up under its
shadow. Pope Eugenius II., in a council held in Rome in 826, ordered that
schools should be established throughout Christendom at cathedral and
parochial churches and other suitable places. The Council of Mayence,
in 813, admonishes parents that they are in duty bound to send their
children to school. The Synod of Orleans, in 800, enjoins the erection in
towns and villages of schools for elementary instruction, and adds that
no remuneration shall be received except such as the parents voluntarily
offer. The Third General Council of Lateran, in 1179, commanded that in
all cathedral churches a fund should be set aside for the foundation and
support of schools for the poor. Free schools were thus first established
by the Catholic Church. The monasteries were the libraries where the arts
and letters of a civilization that had perished were carefully treasured
up for the rekindling of a brighter and better day.
As early as the XIIth century many of the universities of Europe were
fully organized. Italy took the lead, with universities at Rome Bologna,
Padua, Naples, Pavia, and Perugia--the sources
“Whence many rivulets have since been turned,
O’er the garden Catholic to lead
Their living waters, and have fed its plants.”
The schools founded at Oxford and Cambridge in the IXth and Xth centuries
had in the XIIth grown to be universities. At Oxford there were thirty
thousand, at Paris twenty-five thousand, and at Padua twenty thousand
students. Scattered over Europe at the time Luther raised his voice
against the church were sixty six universities.
“Time went on,” says Dr. Newman, speaking of the mediæval
universities; “a new state of things, intellectual and social,
came in; the church was girt with temporal power; the preachers
of S. Dominic were in the ascendant: now, at length, we may
ask with curious interest, did the church alter her ancient
rule of action, and proscribe intellectual activity? Just the
contrary; this is the very age of universities; it is the
classical period of the schoolmen; it is the splendid and
palmary instance of the wise policy and large liberality of
the church, as regards philosophical inquiry. If there ever
was a time when the intellect went wild, and had a licentious
revel, it was at the date I speak of. When was there ever a
more curious, more meddling, bolder, keener, more penetrating,
more rationalistic exercise of the reason than at that time?
What class of questions did that subtle metaphysical spirit not
scrutinize? What premise was allowed without examination? What
principle was not traced to its first origin, and exhibited
in its most naked shape?… Well, I repeat, here was something
which came somewhat nearer to theology than physical research
comes; Aristotle was a somewhat more serious foe then, beyond
all mistake, than Bacon has been since. Did the church take a
high hand with philosophy then? No, not though that philosophy
was metaphysical. It was a time when she had temporal power,
and could have exterminated the spirit of inquiry with fire and
sword; but she determined to put it down by _argument_; she
said: ‘Two can play at that, and my argument is the better.’
She sent her controversialists into the philosophical arena. It
was the Dominican and Franciscan doctors, the greatest of them
being S. Thomas, who in those mediæval universities fought the
battle of revelation with the weapons of heathenism.”[249]
To find fault with the church because popular education in the middle
ages was not organized and general as it has since become would be
as wise as to pick a quarrel with the ancient Greeks for not having
railroads, or with the Romans because they had no steamships. Reading and
writing were not taught then universally as they are now because it was
physically and morally impossible that they should have been. Without
steam and the printing-press, common-school systems would not now be
practicable, nor would the want of them be felt. We have great reason to
be thankful that the art of printing was invented and America discovered
before Luther burned the Pope’s bull, else we should be continually
bothered with refuting the cause-and-effect historians who would have
infallibly traced both these events to the Wittenberg conflagration.
All Europe was still Catholic when gunpowder drove old Father Schwarz’s
pestle through the ceiling, when Gutenberg made his printing-press, when
Columbus landed in the New World; and these are the forces which have
battered down the castles of feudalism, have brought knowledge within the
reach of all, and some measure of redress to the masses of the Old World,
by affording them the possibility and opportunity of liberty in the New.
These forces would have wrought to even better purpose had Protestantism
not broken the continuity and homogeneity of Christian civilization. The
Turk would not rest like a blight from heaven upon the fairest lands of
Europe and Asia, nor the darkness of heathenism upon India and China, had
the civilized nations remained of one faith; and thus, though our own
train might have rushed less rapidly down the ringing grooves of change,
the whole human race would have advanced to a level which there now seems
but little reason to hope it will ever reach.
But to come more nearly to M. de Laveleye’s assertion that the Protestant
states are incomparably more advanced than the Catholic, with the
exception of England, which in this matter is at least up to the standard
of Catholic countries. In the report of the Commissioner of Education for
1874 there is a statistical account of the state of education in foreign
countries which throws some light upon this subject.
The school attendance, compared with the population, is in Austria as
1 to 10; in Belgium, as 1 to 10½; in Ireland, as 1 to 16; in Catholic
Switzerland, as 1 to 16; in England, as 1 to 17. In Bavaria it is as 1
to 7, upon the authority of Kay, in his _Social Condition of the People
in England and Europe_. Catholic Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Ireland
have proportionately a larger school attendance than Protestant England.
England and Wales (report of 1874), with a population of 22,712,266,
had a school population of 5,374,700, of whom only about half were
registered, and not half of these attended with sufficient regularity to
bring grants to their schools. Ireland, with a population of 5,411,416,
had on register 1,006,511, or nearly half as many as England and Wales,
though her population is not a fourth of that of these two countries.
“The statistical fact,” says Laing, speaking of Rome as it was under the
popes, “that Rome has above a hundred schools more than Berlin, for a
population little more than half that of Berlin, puts to flight a world
of humbug about systems of national education carried on by governments
and their moral effects on society.… In Catholic Germany, in France,
Italy, and even Spain, the education of the common people in reading,
writing, arithmetic, music, manners, and morals, is at least as generally
diffused and as faithfully promoted by the clerical body as in Scotland.
It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the advance of the
people, that the popish (_sic_) priesthood of the present day seek to
keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the community in Catholic
lands; and they might, perhaps, retort on our Presbyterian clergy, and
ask if they, too, are in their countries at the head of the intellectual
movement of the age. Education is in reality not only not repressed, but
is encouraged, by the popish church, and is a mighty instrument in its
hands, and ably used.”[250]
Professor Huxley’s testimony is confirmatory of this admission of Laing.
“It was my fortune,” he says, “some time ago to pay a visit to one
of the most important of the institutions in which the clergy of the
Roman Catholic Church in these islands are trained; and it seemed to me
that the difference between these men and the comfortable champions of
Anglicanism and Dissent was comparable to the difference between our
gallant Volunteers and the trained veterans of Napoleon’s Old Guard. The
Catholic priest is trained to know his business and do it effectually.
The professors of the college in question, learned, zealous, and
determined men, permitted me to speak frankly with them. We talked like
outposts of opposed armies during a truce--as friendly enemies; and when
I ventured to point out the difficulties their students would have to
encounter from scientific thought, they replied: ‘Our church has lasted
many ages, and has passed safely through many storms. The present is but
a new gust of the old tempest; and we do not turn out our young men less
fitted to weather it than they have been in former times to cope with the
difficulties of those times.’”[251]
“It is a common remark,” says Kay, “of the operatives of Lancashire,
and one which is only too true: ‘Your church is a church for the rich,
but not for the poor. It was not intended for such people as we are.’
The Roman church is much wiser than the English in this respect.… It is
singular to observe how the priests of Romanist (_sic_) countries abroad
associate with the poor. I have often seen them riding with the peasants
in their carts along the roads, eating with them in their houses,
sitting with them in the village inns, mingling with them in their
village festivals, and yet always preserving their authority.”[252]
With us, too, the masses of the people are fast abandoning Protestantism.
There is no Catholic country in Europe in which the social condition of
the masses is so wretched as in England, the representative Protestant
country. For three hundred years, it may be said, the Catholic Church
had no existence there. The nation was exclusively under Protestant
influence; and yet the lower classes were suffered to remain in stolid
ignorance, until they became the most degraded population in Christendom.
“It has been calculated,” says Kay, writing in 1850, “that there are
at the present day, in England and Wales, nearly 8,000,000 persons who
cannot read and write.” That was more than half of the whole population
at that time. But this is not the worst. A population ignorant of
reading and writing may nevertheless, to a certain extent, be educated
through religious teaching and influence; but these unhappy creatures
were left, helpless and hopeless, to sink deeper and deeper beneath the
weight of their degradation, without being brought into contact with
any power that could refine or elevate them; and if their condition has
somewhat improved in the last quarter of a century, this is no more to
be attributed to Protestantism than the Catholic Emancipation Act or the
Atlantic cable.
THE SEVEN FRIDAYS IN LENT
First, thy most holy Passion, dearest Lord,
Doth set the keynote of our love and tears;
And then thy holy Crown of Thorns appears--
Strange diadem for thee, of lords the Lord!
The holy Lance and Nails we clasp and hoard:
What pierced thee sore heals sin-sick souls to-day;
Then thy Five Wounds we glorify for aye--
Hands, feet, and broken Heart, beloved, adored.
Now tears of bitter grief flow fast like rain:
Our Lord’s most Precious Blood for us flows fast.
Alas! what tears of ours, what love, what pain,
Can match that tide of blood and love and woe?
Mother, we turn to thy Seven Griefs at last;
Teach us to stand, with thee, the cross below.
ARE YOU MY WIFE?
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,”
ETC.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SEARCH NEARLY OVER.