All through the night Margaret Lee sat by her niece's bed-side,

praying for strength for her darling, and watching the fitful

slumbers and soothing the sad awakenings. And in the silent

watches of the night arose the long-buried ghost of her own

life's happiness, and kept guard beside her. There was an episode

in the sad story she told her niece that was never

mentioned--that she had not allowed herself to think of for many

a long year; but to-night memory will not be silenced, and she

brings up, once more, the pleasant days when young Tremaine

whispered into her ear the same story which Paul told Florence,

and the fearful crushing of all her hopes of happiness, when her

father forbade her ever to see or speak to him again, his anger

was so great against him for having assisted Paul. Margaret

submitted quietly, as such natures do; but she never cared for

anything afterward beyond doing her strict duty--cheerfully and

heartily; but never joyously. Perhaps the old man repented when

it was too late; for in two years after, they heard Tremaine was

married, and he was

very tender to her then.

{221}

On his death-bed he drew her to him, and, asking her forgiveness

if he had made her suffer, blessed her for the fondest love and

gentlest tending that ever parent had from child. In that hour

Margaret felt repaid for all that had gone before. So, through

the long watches of the night, came up the memories of the long

ago, and Margaret lived over again the dead joys and sorrows.

Toward morning Florence slept quietly, and her watcher threw

herself on the bed beside her, and soon fell into a deep sleep.

When she awoke, the sun had risen, and on glancing at Florence,

she found her lying quietly awake.

"Aunt Margaret," said the young girl, "that--that--letter. I know

what he wrote, and it is not necessary to tell him, is it?"

"Only under certain circumstances, my darling; your own heart

will tell you what."

"Oh! yes, auntie; but that can never be. I can tell him that, and

nothing more."

"My poor, dear child, have you not faith enough? do you not think

his love for you is strong enough to live through this trial?"

"Yes, oh! yes! But would it be right to inflict the trial on him?

I think not; I think the burden is mine alone, and I alone must

bear it!"

"God grant you strength to do so, my precious one! If I could

have spared you the suffering, how gladly would I have done it!"

"I know that, auntie, dear. Do you think I do not feel and

appreciate the years of care and tender love I have had from you

and Uncle Harry? I was as happy as any one could be

before--before--and I can and will be happy with you still."

"God bless you, dearest!" was Margaret's answer, as she pressed a

kiss on her forehead and left the room.

As soon as she was alone, Florence turned the key in her door;

then, throwing a dressing-gown around her, fell on her knees

before a beautiful engraving of the Mater Dolorosa, which hung

over a _prie-dieu_ at the side of her bed. Long she knelt

there, her golden hair falling in dishevelled masses over her

shoulders, and nearly touching the floor as she knelt. At first

there was no sound, but presently her slight frame was convulsed

with suppressed weeping that soon found voice in sobs. At last

she rose, and began to dress, ever and anon pressing her hands to

her head or heart to still their aching. When she was ready to go

downstairs, she again knelt before the picture, and prayed for

strength to bear her cross, so that not even the shadow of it

should fall on those whose tenderness and love had been her

shield in the years that had gone.

And then she went down and greeted her uncle with a brave attempt

at her usual manner; she neglected nothing that she had been

accustomed to do, none of the little services she had been in the

habit of rendering; and, but for the sadness that no strength of

will could drive from her face, and the silence of the bird-like

voice that before made music through the house the whole day

long, a casual observer would not have guessed at the sufferings

of the previous night.

On going into the parlor, she saw the letters where she had

dropped them the night before, and the sight of them sent a cold

thrill of pain to her heart; but she picked them up and put them

in her pocket. After going through the house as usual, she locked

herself up in her room once more, to read the letters. Arthur

Hinsdale's to herself was, as she anticipated, a declaration of

affection; that to her uncle, written the day after, expressed a

hope that he would support his cause if it needed it.

{222}

And how were they to be answered? Florence paused long in painful

thought on the subject, but felt too utterly miserable to come to

any conclusion. So the day passed sadly, and so the night and the

next day. On the third day Florence felt that some answer must be

given and written before another night went by, and set herself

to her painful task. Having completed it, she brought the letter

down with her into the parlor, and sat down to some pretence of

employment that kept her hands busy, though her mind was far off.

Presently she heard the galloping of a horse in the lane, and in

a few moments a knock at the front-door. The blinds were down

over the front windows, so she had not seen any one pass, and,

rising, she tried to make her escape before the visitor was

admitted. But she was too late. As she opened the parlor door,

the front-door was opened from without by her uncle, and she

stood face to face with Arthur Hinsdale. The hearty greeting he

had met with from Mr. Lee had reassured the young man, and he was

not prepared for the frightened look and deadly pallor that

overspread Florence's face when she saw him. She stepped back

into the parlor, and held out her hand with a desperate attempt

to smile. Arthur took the hand and pressed it to his lips. Mr.

Lee had closed the parlor door, and she was alone with him. With

a desperate effort she commanded her voice enough to make some

commonplace remark about his journey, signing him to a chair,

while she seated herself.

"I ventured to come, although I had received no answer to my

letter. Did you receive it?"

Florence inclined her head.

"Then you knew the reason of my coming?"

Again Florence bowed, but could not speak.

"Miss Athern, was not my letter plain enough--do you not believe

me? I do not understand your silence."

"Your--your letter was fully understood, Mr. Hinsdale, and I

thank--"

"You thank me, Florence!"

Then in earnest language he told her how he loved her, and how

his fear that his letter had not reached her had brought him

there, preferring the pain of a double refusal to the doubt in

which he must have awaited her reply by post. To all this

Florence listened with head bent down and hands clasped; and when

he paused for a reply, she pointed to the letter lying on the

table. He took it up and walked to the window; a painful silence

followed, broken only by the rustling of the paper in his hands.

When he had finished reading, he came to her side, and leaning

over her said:

"Am I to receive this as your answer?"

"Yes!" said Florence in a whisper.

"A final and decisive answer?"

"Yes!"

"Then pardon me. Miss Athern, that I allowed my heart to read

your conduct as I hoped it was meant, not as you really meant it.

I gave you credit for a nobler heart than you possess. Let me

tell you the truth, though what I say seems a reproach, that

offer would never have been made had I not felt assured, by your

treatment of me, that it would be accepted."

Florence started, and the eloquent blood rushed to her very

temples.

"Mr. Hinsdale, you have no right to speak thus to me!"

She attempted to draw her hands from his grasp, but could not.

"No right!--well, perhaps I have not. Forgive me, Florence, and

only remember that I love you."

{223}

He still held her hands and tried to look into her face, but she

bent her head away from him.

"I love you, Florence, and I feel that I am entitled to a little

more consideration than that letter shows, Florence, will you be

my wife?"

A low but distinct "No," was the answer.

"Do you mean you do not love me?"

She made no answer, and he dropped or rather flung her hands from

him and started to his feet.

"Strange, unfeeling! O fool, fool that I was! to build my

happiness on such a crumbling base; to be caught in the net of a

false woman's beauty, the smiles of a vain coquette!"

"Arthur, Arthur! you will break my heart!"

She had risen and was standing with one hand resting on the back

of a chair, the other pressed to her head. He made a motion to

approach her, but she put out her hand with a sign to stop him.

"Now listen to me. I am no false woman, no vain coquette. Until

the night I received your letter, I knew no reason why I should

not--not--" She hesitated a moment. "I knew no reason why I

should not have answered it according to the dictates of my

heart; but that night a story of a life was told me that--that

changed my whole existence. It is a heavy burden to bear."

"But not, dearest, if I can help you bear it." He would have

taken her hand, but she drew back from him, "You cannot, no one

can--O God! help me, my heart is broken!" She threw her arms up

over her head, and would have fallen had he not caught her. She

had not fainted, though for a moment she thought death had come

to her relief; and almost in a moment released herself from his

arms, and said sadly: "I hoped to have spared us both this

misery; but it was God's will that we should not escape it. For

myself, a little more does not matter; but for you--O Arthur!

forgive me the pain I have made you suffer, and remember my own

cross is as heavy as I can bear. Good-by!" She held out her

hand--"good-by! You cannot return home to-day, it is too late; but

you must excuse me, I will send uncle."

"Florence! I am not going to remain if this is your answer. Do

you think I could break bread or sleep under your roof after what

has passed? Heavens! do you think I'm a stick or a stone?"

"As you will!" she said wearily, "I cannot help it!"

"Then I will take my leave." He was going; but as he laid his

hand on the door-knob, he glanced at her, and the expression of

heart-broken misery in the sweet face overcame his injured

feelings, and he turned and took her hand. "Forgive me, Florence;

I have been rude and unfeeling--selfish in my great

disappointment. Forgive me, darling; remember my love is strong

enough to bear the heaviest burden _you_ could lay upon it,

if your own strength fails, Good-by and God bless you." He raised

her hand to his lips, and in another moment was gone.

Every day Florence strove manfully with her trouble, and every

night her prayers were said before the _Mater Dolorosa_, for

strength to bear with silent patience the sorrow her loving

friends could not cure. But her face grew pale and wan, her form

more slight and delicate, till her aunt, in alarm, proposed a

change of scene. It was in the early spring, and Margaret Lee

proposed a tour through the eastern cities; but Florence begged

so hard not to be taken to New York or Philadelphia that the idea

was given up.

{224}

At last they determined to go direct to Boston, and sail thence

for Liverpool. This plan was carried out in June, leaving the

farm in charge of the overseer, and the house to Tamar.

To a mind like Florence's, imbued with a loving reverence for all

connected with the church, filled with a love for the beautiful

and grand, and a heart ready to receive their impressions; with

an intellect of no common order, and a quick appreciation of the

good and noble, a tour through Europe, particularly Spain,

France, and Italy, had many charms, and could not but awake an

interest that surprised herself. When they settled at Rome for

the winter, they had the satisfaction of a decided change for the

better in Florence's appearance.

But she had not forgotten; she was only glad that returning

strength of body enabled her to hide more effectually the anguish

and heart-sick yearning that sometimes seemed unbearable. Several

letters came from Arthur Hinsdale during the first year; but

Florence returned the same answer to all; and at last the young

man desisted. Three years were passed in idling from one point of

interest to another, when the tocsin of civil war in the United

States waked up the nations, and called the country's loyal

children from far and wide to her assistance.

Once more the scene is laid at "The Solitude;" but this time the

earth is not clothed in winter's snowy mantle. Hid in the wealth

of foliage the trees are wearing, the birds are singing their

vesper hymns, the sun is just sinking behind the woods, and

throws his last rays over a group seated on the grass near the

slope into the ravine.

Henry Lee is there, and Margaret and Annie and her children; but

Mr. Mohun is down in Tennessee with Rosecrans, and the wife's

brow wears an expression of anxiety, as she watches her children,

that was a stranger to it when we last saw her. Florence, too, is

there, looking very well, people say; but there is an indefinable

change that those nearest her feel, though they cannot say where

or in what it lies. One or two young ladies are added to the

group, and a young gentleman, whose shoulder-straps show his rank

as second lieutenant, while the foot still bound up and the

crutches lying near, show cause for his presence on the scene. He

is William Mohun, a younger brother of Annie's husband, and was

wounded in the siege of Vicksburg. What he is saying now must be

listened to.

"I wish you knew our colonel, Mr. Lee; for a braver, nobler,

kinder-hearted man never lived. He led a charge at Vicksburg, and

exposed himself unsparingly; indeed, he seemed to court death;

yet when he could help a wounded man, he was as gentle as a

woman. O Miss Florence! a friend of yours is the regimental

surgeon--Arthur Hinsdale, don't you remember him?"

"Oh! yes," replied Florence, with wonderful self-command.

"He, too," continued the young man, "deserves the thanks of the

nation; for I never saw such devotion to the wounded and dying.

Poor Warrington! hope he is not seriously wounded, for he will be

a great loss to us; and I hope Hinsdale is with him, for then I

know he will be well cared for."

"See, is there any mention of Joe's regiment. Will?" asked his

sister-in-law; and the young man referred to the paper in whose

columns he had seen the wounding of his colonel--Warrington.

Florence rose quietly and went into the house; the old

Newfoundland, who had been lying beside her, got up and walked at

her side in stately satisfaction, ever and anon thrusting his

cold nose into her hand in token of sympathy.

{225}

When Florence returned, there were traces of tears in her eyes;

but her face wore an expression of loving gratification her aunt

understood well.

A month and more has passed, and October began to touch, with her

changing pencil, the trees and shrubs. The air was hazy and

balmy, and the sun still warm; so the family at "The Solitude"

spent many of their evenings in the open air. William Mohun was

gone back to duty, and the young lady friends were again at home.

Florence and her two aunts were busy over comforts for the

soldiers, to help them through the weary winter with the thought

that loving hearts at home had not forgotten them. One evening

Florence had been down to the spring, and, lured by the lovely

evening, seated herself in the summer-house on the knoll above

it, with a book. She did not hear a carriage which approached the

house from the direction of Hamilton, nor did she see the two

gentlemen who alighted from it. Mr. Lee received Arthur Hinsdale

and his companion with cordial welcome, though surprised at the

sudden arrival, and wondering at Arthur's eager, excited manner.

He greeted Henry and Margaret warmly, but asked instantly for

Florence. They told him where she was, and the young man, instead

of crossing the bridge, which would have apprised her of his

coming, passed with a swift foot down the lane, and, springing

over the fence among the cherry-trees, down the slope, across the

path, was in the summer-house almost before Florence saw him.

"Florence, my darling, our trial is at an end. My precious one, I

know your secret now. Cruel! that you doubted me. Could you not

feel that nothing could change my love?"

He had taken her hands in his, and held them, looking down into

her sweet face while he spoke, Florence looked at him in

bewilderment; then, with a sobbing, convulsive movement of her

lips, almost fainted.

Meanwhile the gentleman, whom Arthur had introduced as Colonel

Warrington, followed Henry and Margaret into the parlor by the

door that opened at the end of the house toward the gate. When

they entered and Margaret turned to offer him a chair, she saw he

was deadly pale, and was glancing round the room as if it

recalled something painful. At the same moment a veil dropped

from Margaret's eyes. She walked up to him, and, laying her hand

on his arm, said, "Paul Athern, in heaven's name speak."

"Paul Athern?" said Henry Lee, with a start of surprise.

"Yes," replied the colonel sadly, "I am Paul Athern. God bless

you for the care you have taken of my darling. I can see her now

without fear. Henry Lee, I can offer you my hand, and you, an

honest man, can take it without hesitation."

Henry Lee grasped the hand extended to him warmly, saying, "I

never thought anything else, Athern, after the interview we had;

but I rejoice that you are relieved from your painful situation

and are living to enjoy the change. We began to fear you had

died. Tell us all about it; for Florence and Arthur will not join

us yet."

Then Paul Athern told how he had gone from "The Solitude" to New

Orleans with a firm purpose to win fortune and a fame that would

enable him to present himself before Florence in his true

relationship. He worked hard and steadily, and gained the

confidence of his employers to such an extent that they took him

into partnership, and then he came to Ohio to see his child.

{226}

But the stain was not removed from his name, and he shrank from

the meeting at the last, as much as at first he had longed for

it. He rode out to "The Solitude" on Christmas eve, and took a

peep at the family group through the window, and had gone again

without the consolation of hearing Florence speak. He told them

how, in looking in at the window the second time, he feared Tamar

had seen him, and he had hurried out to his horse and ridden away

quickly. So he went back with only the crumb of comfort that

stolen look afforded to his starving heart. When the war broke

out, he withdrew from business with a comfortable fortune, and

returned to C----, raised a company for the ---- regiment, and

rose to the rank of colonel. During his stay in C----, the family

were still in Europe; but he came out to "The Solitude," and had

a long talk with Tamar. Then came the wound that had prostrated

him and put him into Arthur Hinsdale's hands; during the ravings

of the fever he had mentioned names and revealed enough to arouse

Arthur's interest and curiosity. As soon as he was well enough,

the young man asked for an explanation, first telling why he

asked it. Paul told him all, and his story only bound the young

surgeon more closely to him. The colonel then paid a glowing

tribute to the kindness and care he had received from Arthur, and

to his general interest in and treatment of the wounded men. He

watched till Paul was well enough to travel, and then obtaining a

leave of absence for both from the commanding general, started

home. At first Paul refused to accompany Arthur; but one day a

wounded officer was brought in and laid on the bed next to the

one occupied by him. Arthur made a sign to Paul to help him to

remove the man's clothes; he stooped over him to unbutton his

coat, when the man opened his eyes, and, after looking round with

a startled gaze, fixed them on Paul with a frightened stare. Paul

looked and recognized the man who had blighted his whole

existence. A fierce struggle arose in his breast, and his fingers

ceased their work, while he turned away with a look of disgust

and dislike. Arthur looked up at him with surprise, and just then

the man made a desperate effort and put out his hand, saying

faintly:

"Athern, forgive--here--I have it--all here."

And his hand fluttered toward his heart, then fell, and his eyes

sought Paul's with agonized entreaty. It was a hard struggle; but

the better angel conquered, and Paul took the hand and said:

"I do forgive you, Brooks, as I hope to be forgiven."

A smile passed over the man's face; he moved his head slightly

and was dead. In his breast-pocket were two packages, one

addressed to Paul's father, the other to an influential gentleman

in Philadelphia. The latter was mailed duly, and the former,

Paul, his father being dead, opened. It contained a full

acknowledgment of having committed the forgery for which Paul

suffered, and an explanation of how it was managed. This

determined him at once to return to his wife's family. Meantime

the same story had been told in different words in the

summer-house down by the spring, and it took so long in the

telling that it was almost dark when Margaret, going to call her

niece, saw them rise and approach the house, Florence, with a

bright look of happiness her face had not worn for years, leaning

on Arthur's arm. She hastened with trembling footsteps to the

parlor, at the door of which Arthur left her, and in another

moment she was clasped in her father's arms.

{227}

A gay wedding-party is assembled, when the spring once more puts

on her robes of ferial green, in the parlor of "The Solitude."

All brides look lovely, they say; but certainly May never smiled

on a lovelier one than Florence Athern. Arthur Hinsdale certainly

seemed to think so, for he looked at her with reverence mingled

with his deep love, as though she were a spirit dropped from the

skies. The venerable and dearly loved and honored archbishop is

there, and has blessed the new ties; and the bride was given away

by that tall, handsome man in brigadier-general's uniform, with

one arm in a sling yet, at whose side is the noble form of Henry

Lee, while Margaret moves about through the company with her

usual quiet grace, and Tamar's face is filled with satisfaction

at her young mistress' joy, as she looks in at the door.

---------

Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.

A brother asked Abbot Antony to pray for him. The old man

responded: "Neither I can pity thee nor can God, unless thou

shalt have been anxious about thyself, and prayed to God."

Abbot Antony again said: "God doth not allow wars to arise in

this generation, because he knoweth they are weak and unable to

bear them."

Abbot Agathi said: "If a man of wrathful spirit should raise the

dead to life, he would not be pleasing to God because of his

wrath."

Abbot Pastor said: "Teach thy heart, to observe what thy tongue

teacheth others." Again, he said: "Men wish to appear adepts in

speaking; but in carrying out those things of which they speak,

they are found wanting."

Abbot Macarius said: "If we remember the evils done to us by men,

we shall deprive our soul of the power to remember God; but if we

call to mind those evils which the demons raise against us, we

shall be invulnerable."

Abbot Pastor said of Abbot John the Small that, having prayed to

God, all his passions had been taken away, and, thus made proof,

he came to a certain old man and said: "Behold a man freed from

passion, and compelled to battle with no temptations." And the

old man replied: "Go, pray the Lord that he command thee to be

tempted, for the soul grows perfect by temptation." And when

temptations came back upon him, he no longer prayed to be freed

from them, but said, "Lord, give me patience to bear with these

temptations."

Abbot Daniel used to say: "The stronger the body the weaker the

soul; and the weaker the body the stronger the soul."

----------

{228}

Popular Education. [Footnote 51]

[Footnote 51: _Report of the Rev. James Fraser.

Blackwood's Magazine_, Jan. 1868.]

At no period of the world's history have nations and their

governments seemed to be in such a feverish state of uncertainty

and apprehension. From all quarters of Christendom we hear the

cry of change. The last vestiges of the ancient order are

disappearing. The rule of caste is everywhere confronted by

self-asserting populations, who are no longer willing to bear the

patient yoke of servitude, even though consecrated by the

traditions of centuries. Russia has abolished her serfdom, so

long and so deeply rooted in her soil; and the more advanced

nations of Europe, whilst yet retaining their accustomed forms of

government, are heaving with the volcanic fires of revolution. We

speak not of violent revolution, mainly; but of that other more

radical and enduring change, which is the inevitable result of

the wonderful mechanical inventions of this age. It is simply

impossible in the dread presence of steam and the electric cable,

for nations to continue to be what the Greek republics and the

Roman empire were, or what mediaeval Europe was, centuries ago.

The Christian world is now, for all great practical purposes, one

nation. Even that "_despotism tempered by assassination_" is

not now the thing that Talleyrand described in his witty

aphorism; for the Czar himself bows to the censure of the world.

Napoleon prosecutes the Parisian editors, and sends them to

prison; but it avails nothing toward the suppression of the power

of opinion. He, to-day, has greater fear of the sentiment of

France, than ever his terrible uncle felt for the combined armies

of Europe. In England, the House of Peers has become a gloomy

pageant, and the Commons, under the new Reform Bill, will

henceforth represent, not the gentry, nor even the moneyed lords

of the loom, but the toiling millions of Great Britain. In a

word, power is passing from the few to the many, from the

hereditary rulers to the multitude. We have nothing to do, in

this article, with the merits of this vast revolution, as to the

manner of change, its good or evil, its probable success or

failure. We accept it as a fact, and propose to deal with it as

such. It is very possible that all this would have occurred if

America had never been discovered; but it is absolutely certain

that the achievements of Christopher Columbus and George

Washington have been the chief, immediate causes of its rapid

consummation. When a Bourbon king, to gratify the traditional

policy and animosities of his house, sent his fleets and armies

to help the glorious work of building up the independence of this

people, little did either he or his enraged and maniac foe, King

George, imagine what the end of it all would be! Little did they

dream that this land would, in ninety years, contain thirty

millions of men of European blood, and that the whole European

population would learn new principles, catch new inspirations,

and be filled with new longings, new hopes, and stern resolves by

intercourse with this young republic. Those pampered kings could

not foresee the advent of steam-ships and the telegraph!

{229}

They could not foretell the power of emigration--how it would

people a continent, build up its commerce, fortify it with the

materials for armies and navies, ready to be called into

existence more magically than the palace of Aladdin, and, above

and beyond all, how its sweeping currents of democratic ideas

would rush back upon the father-lands everywhere, washing away

the old dikes of royalty and caste, and floating the populations

over the battlements of feudal castles, musket in hand, and with

loud cries for "change;" that is, for the all-essential change

which shall see that governments be henceforth established and

conducted for the benefit for the governed, and not that the

governed shall be held, as they have been for many thousand years

heretofore, as the property of the ruler, existing solely for his

glory and profit. Europe sends her millions hither, and they in

turn send back by every ship to those they left behind, the

wonderful record of what they see here; and these inspiring

testimonies are read at the firesides of ten thousand hamlets by

kindred men whose awakening intelligence and energies are

stirring the foundations of European society and shaking all

thrones to inevitable ruin, unless they speedily plant themselves

on more solid ground than the _divine right of kings_. It is

now very certain that no government anywhere can be said to rest

on a sure basis, unless it stand upon the love and confidence of

the people. Any other basis is the lawful prey of time and

fortune, and will go with the opportunity that may arise for its

destruction.

Now, if these be facts with which we have to deal, then a very

grave question meets us right here, and it is this: Can any such

solid foundation for government be found in a self-governing

community? In other words, can the people govern themselves for

their own weal, and maintain institutions _solely by the force

of their own will_, which shall accomplish the purposes of

good government, and for ever secure the approval of all wise and

virtuous citizens? If nay, then, royalty and aristocracy being

repudiated, whither shall we fly for refuge and hope? If yea,

then how is this most precious end to be attained? We Americans,

by birth and blood, and still more so by passionate love of

country, say most emphatically that we have never doubted that

the way to such a consummation is plain, if only the nation will

pursue it. It is nothing new; simply the old and trite aphorism,

that a free, self-governing nation can only be so upon the

conditions precedent of a clear intelligence and a

well-established virtue; the latter (if we may separate the two)

must always take precedence, and be regarded as the indispensable

prerequisite. It follows, therefore, that education without

morality would be at least futile. It is very certain that it

would be absolutely _fatal_; because the intelligent man of

vice is armed with keen weapons, which are greatly blunted by

ignorance, and are consequently then less dangerous to society.

Catiline, the polished patrician, was a greater object of alarm

to Cicero and the Roman senate than the rude assassins whom he

had hired to do his treason. Before and during the first French

revolution, France was ablaze with genius; but, like the high

intelligence of the "Archangel ruined," it brought death in its

fiery track. Education without morality is more terrible than the

sword in the hands of men or a nation. It is not the part of

patriotism to deny that we have seen some instances of this in

our own favored country, and that the tendency to that perilous

condition is very apparent even now.

{230}

This has resulted from the too prevalent idea, taught by the

infidel or indifferent press, and accepted by the unreflecting or

equally indifferent citizen, that morality can be maintained

without formal or doctrinal religion; that one morality is as

good as another; that Plato would answer as well as Christ; that

what even the pagans taught--to deal honestly by your neighbor

and perform the domestic and public duties of life with

reasonable decency--is quite sufficient; and that all else is

nothing more than priestly dogmatism and controversial jargon. So

that, indeed, the prevailing opinion of the country would almost

seem to be (if we judge it by the secular press and multitudes of

very honest and intelligent citizens) that America, as a

Christian democratic nation, may be satisfied to be as moral, and

consequently as grand and powerful, as was pagan Rome in the days

of her republican simplicity of manners. They forget or ignore

the history of the _Decline and Fall_, and fail to see in

that tremendous catastrophe of the most extraordinary people of

the ancient world, the logical development of the certain causes

of destruction which were inherent in the nation from the day

that Romulus slew his brother upon the wall of the rising city.

It cannot be that Christ came for a delusion and a snare, or even

as a simple fatuity. If his coming was necessary, then it was to

teach a new religion and a new morality; _the one inseparable

from the other_. If this be indisputable, then all education

which is not based expressly and clearly upon religion is

heathenish, and will prove destructive in the end. It will

destroy the very people whom it was expected to save. It will

consume them as a fire. Pride and lust of power will burn out the

public conscience. The nation will drip with the blood of

unjustifiable conquest, as did pagan Rome, or be given up to the

ferocious struggle for individual aggrandizement, as seen in

later revolutionary times. The father of our country fully

recognized these principles, and in the foregoing we have but

echoed his words of warning in his Farewell Address to the

American People:

"Of all dispositions and habits," he says, "which lead to

political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable

supports. A volume could not trace all their connection with

private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is

the security for property, for regulation, for life, if the

sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the

instruments in courts of justice? And let us with caution

indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without

religion."

To this it will be replied, by some well-meaning persons, "How

can we place education in the United States upon the basis of

doctrinal religion, when we have innumerable sects, none of which

absolutely agree?" And now we approach the marrow of the subject.

First, let us clear away one difficulty. Let it be very

distinctly comprehended that nowhere can the state find its

commission as exclusive educator of the people. That is a duty

and a privilege belonging, of original right, to the family; it

is domestical and not political, though it may be always, and is

most frequently, wise and politic that the state should lend

efficient aid to _assist_, but not _arbitrarily to

control_ the training of the free citizen's child. The parent

is placed over the child by the Creator, and is the natural

guardian, primarily responsible for the training which is to lead

through this valley of probation to the eternal home.

{231}

Religious freedom, freedom of conscience, is not a right granted

by constitutions, but is the result of the relation of man as a

free, moral agent to the Creator who thought fit to make him the

master of his own destiny here and hereafter. To coerce the

conscience of the child by an educational system, actively or

passively, (for there may be effective coercion by negative

means,) is to violate the sacred rights of the parent, vested in

him by the divine appointment. There is not a religious man,

following any form of worship, professing to be a Christian and

an American, who can seriously deny this proposition, or who

would accept any other in a question involving his rights and

duties in regard to his own off-spring. No such man, we are sure,

would tolerate any assumption of the authority on the part of the

state to step between him and his child in the matter of

religious belief and instruction. No other form of tyranny would

arouse so quickly the indignant resistance of an American citizen

and father; and every upright man feels in his heart that what

would be so grievous to him should not be imposed upon any other

of his fellow-citizens, directly or indirectly. Actuated by such

views in the main, the state provides a system of public schools

from which, theoretical (and it may be practically in most

cases,) all forms of doctrinal religion are excluded, and

education is based upon a vague, undefined, generalized moral

teaching which very many eminent men of different religious

denominations have pronounced to be "godless," because the

doctrines of Christ (the foundation of his moral law) are not

taught in such schools according to any interpretation whatever,

for the plain reason that it could not be done without such

manifest injustice and wrong as we have already protested

against. To read the Bible, _without note or comment_, to

young children is, in reality, to lead them to the fountain of

living waters and forbid them to drink; whereas, "to expound the

word" is, at once, to violate the absolute neutrality which the

state is bound to maintain in the presence of conflicting

interpretations and dissenting consciences. Such is the precise

difficulty. Hence it is, that the Catholic Church has set its

face against the peril with which such a system of education

threatens its youth; and the Catholic pastors and their flocks,

though struggling with poverty, and harassed by ten thousand

pressing claims upon their charity, have strained every nerve to

establish parochial and other denominational schools where

secular education could be imparted without sacrificing religious

instruction.

There is no doubt but that there are many strong and marked

doctrinal differences between the various Protestant

denominations which have led some of their most eminent men to

argue against the possibility of a perfect or desirable system of

public schools upon the mixed or non-intervention basis.

Nevertheless, it is also true that in the fundamental point,

essentially characteristic of Protestantism, and in which it

especially differs from the Catholic Church (private

interpretation and the rejection of tradition) all Protestant

churches agree; and herein we find the reason why they can

conform to the necessities of such a public-school system as we

have described, with some degree of amalgamation; whereas their

Catholic fellow-citizens cannot avail themselves of the secular

advantages of such schools without a total sacrifice of religious

training.

{232}

We are told by the Rev. James Fraser, despatched on an official

mission for the purpose of reporting on the whole subject to the

commissioners appointed by her Majesty Queen Victoria, and who

visited the United States in 1865, that one of the

_influences_ adverse to the success of our American

common-school system is, "_the growing feeling that more

distinctly religious teaching is required, and that even the

interests of morality are imperfectly attended to;_" and

another "_influence_" is "_the very lukewarm support that

it receives from the clergy of any denomination, and the languid

way in which its claims on support and sympathy are rested on the

higher motives of Christian duty;_" from which, and other

causes, the Rev. Mr. Fraser reluctantly augurs misfortune to the

system itself in the future. There can be no doubt but that such

"lukewarmness" does exist, and that it is produced solely by the

"growing feeling that more distinctly religious teaching is

required." No accord of the Protestant sects upon what they call

"essentials," can permanently reconcile them to either a

doctrinal teaching at the public schools, in which it would be

impossible for them all to agree, or to the alternative necessity

of excluding from the schools all manner of "distinct religious

teaching," without which "even the interests of morality are

imperfectly attended to." Hence springs not only the

lukewarmness, but the affirmative opposition of distinguished

Protestant clergymen to the "godless system."

It is altogether erroneous, however, to suppose, and unjust to

charge, that Catholics are hostile to the continuance of the

present schools. FAR FROM IT. They rejoice to see their

Protestant fellow-citizens availing themselves freely of those

great opportunities to instruct the future self-governing

citizens of the young republic. They appreciate, nay, they insist

upon the absolute necessity of raising the standard of popular

intelligence, so as to insure the wisest possible administration

of public affairs through the agency of the elective franchise.

That their church is profoundly solicitous for the secular

education of her people is too manifest for dispute, since she

has, by the instrumentality of her various religious orders,

established universities, colleges, academies, and innumerable

preparatory schools in every great city, and throughout the rural

districts of the country, wherever it was possible to do so. A

glance at the Catholic Register or Directory, for 1868, will

satisfy the most sceptical upon that point. The Roman Catholic

Church has covered Europe with such institutions, grand in

design, and magnificent in endowment; and it is not her purpose

to permit her children in America to fall behind the age for the

want of similar advantages, if she can supply their necessities.

She is ever appealing to their public spirit, their patriotism,

their religious sentiment, to obtain the means to build and

conduct her educational establishments; and most nobly have they

ever responded; for it was by the steady contributions of the

poor mainly, that nearly all of those great works were begun and

perfected.

But we may well adopt the assertion of a writer in the last

January number of _Blackwood's Magazine_, that "_the fact

is palpable and every statesman, philosopher, and candid student

of the educational question confesses, that voluntary agencies

are wholly unable to undertake a task so gigantic,_" as that

of reaching the great mass of helpless ignorance existing even in

the most favored communities.

{233}

It is exactly here that government may legitimately step in with

its organized resources, but without wearing the pedagogue's cap.

The wisest governments of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, have

done this. They have abandoned the Lacedemonian usurpation of

domestic rights, reproduced by the first Napoleon, as he

expressed the policy in his curt style, "_My principal end in

the establishment of a teaching corps is to possess the means of

directing political and moral opinions._" A candid confession

for an autocrat. The nephew, who now reigns over France, has

learned by the experience of misfortune to be wiser and more

faithful to natural rights. In Catholic France education is

entirely free and without favoritism. The public educational fund

is equitably distributed to Catholic and Protestant, and each is

permitted to rear, under the supervision of their respective

clergy, as they may elect, the children of their own religious

household. Conscience is respected; and yet the youth of the

country are not deprived of instruction in the Christian faith at

the public schools. Protestant Prussia is as liberal and as wise

as France, and her system of public instruction is based upon the

necessity of religious teaching, and the right of the parent to

direct the child, and the just relation of the pastor to the

parent, and therefore the equity of a proper distribution of the

public-school fund. We have not the time, nor is it necessary to

go into the details; but it is sufficient to say that the

Prussian system concedes more to the Prussian Catholic than the

American Catholic has yet asked from an enlightened and

democratic American government; and yet, strange to say, the

American Catholic has been violently and persistently charged

with hostility to public education, and a conspiracy to destroy

republican institutions! Even England, iron-clad in her

prejudices, has adopted the principles of Prussia, niggardly as

her policy toward the public schools has always been. And what

shall we say of "benighted Austria," the land of popish

concordats! Let Mr. Kay, a recognized authority upon matters of

education, and a Protestant, answer this question.

"The most interesting and satisfactory feature of the Austrian

system is the great liberality with which the government,

though so staunch an adherent and supporter of the Romanist

priesthood, has treated the religious parties who differ from

themselves in their religious dogma. It has been entirely owing

to this liberality that neither the great number of the sects

in Austria, nor the great differences of their religious

tenets, has hindered the work of the education of the poor

throughout the empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has been

demonstrated that such difficulties may be easily overcome,

when a government understands how to raise a nation in

civilization, and wishes earnestly to do so.

"In those parishes of the Austrian empire where there are any

dissenters from the Roman Church, the education of their

children is not directed by the priests, but is committed to

the care of the dissenting ministers. These latter are

empowered and required by government to provide for, to watch

over, and to educate the children of their own sects in the

same manner as the priests are required to do for the education

of their children."

He also says:

"And yet in these countries--Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhine

provinces, and the Catholic Swiss cantons--the difficulties

arising from religious differences have been overcome, and all

their children have been brought under the influence of

religious education without any religious party having been

offended." (_Kay_, vol. ii. p. 3.)

And bearing testimony to the earnest desire of the Catholic

Church to advance the education of her children everywhere, he

says:

{234}

"In Catholic Germany, in France, and even in Italy, 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 priesthood of the present day

seeks to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the

community in Catholic lands; and they might, perhaps, retort

upon 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 suppressed, but

is encouraged by the popish church and is a mighty instrument

in its hands and ably used. In every street in Rome, for

instance, there are at short distances public primary schools

for the education of the children of the lower and middle

classes of the neighborhood. Rome, with a population of 158,000

souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482 teachers, and

14,000 children attending them. Has Edinburgh so many schools

for the instruction of these classes? I doubt it. Berlin, with

a population about double that of Rome, has only 264 schools.

Rome has also her university, with an average number of 600

students, and the papal states, with a population of 2,500,000,

contains seven universities; Prussia, with a population of

14,000,000, has but seven."

If the church has been found in hostility to educational systems,

it has been when, as in Ireland, the schools have been made

_proselytizing agencies_ and _instruments of

oppression_; and if she has disfavored without opposing other

systems, as here, it was solely to preserve her _own people_

from the damaging effects of a purely secular education, and to

secure for them the higher advantages of a religious training. If

others find that the schools answer all their wants, she is well

pleased to see them derive every benefit therefrom which the best

administration of such a system can produce. But the Catholic

people say: If we who are counted by millions, and who are daily

adding to the wealth of the nation by our labor and enterprise,

are required to pay taxes for the support of the public schools

which we cannot use for the education of our children, ought we

not, at least, to receive an equitable proportion of the public

fund, to assist us in securing what every good citizen wishes to

see accomplished, the education of our youth? We are now

millions, and millions more are coming, by ship and steamer,

every day, almost every hour. We are a part of the nation,

children and citizens of the great republic. Shall we add to the

virtue and intelligence of the community, or to its ignorance and

vice? We are struggling with all our might, and devoting all our

means to reach the lowest stratum of our society, and lift it up

into the light and air of secular knowledge and spiritual grace.

Why should not the State of New York help in the good work?

The regulations of France, Prussia, Austria, England, and other

countries of Europe would assuredly afford to our legislators the

practical details of a good working system, which it is not our

province to suggest in form, uninvited. Let it be conceded,

however, that millions of men throughout this country should not

be taxed for establishments of which they cannot conscientiously

avail themselves, unless, at the same time, they are permitted to

participate, in a reasonable way, in the enormous funds derived

from those tax-rates. Let the schools, though denominational when

endowed by the state, be subject to state inspection so far as to

insure the full compliance with the requirements of the general

law as to the standard of education to be bestowed, but with no

further control over management or discipline.

{235}

In the European countries referred to, (it may be said here

generally,) each religious denomination when sufficiently

numerous in a district to justify it, is permitted to establish a

denominational school; receiving its share of the public fund,

and being subject to governmental inspection as to the proper

application of the money, and the faithful discharge of the

engagement to impart secular knowledge according to the fixed

educational standard. The selection of the school-books and the

religious training of the children are in such cases placed in

the charge of the clergy, or made subject to their revision.

Where the religious denomination has not sufficient numerical

strength to enable it to establish a separate school, its

children attend the other public school or schools, but are

carefully guarded against all attempts at proselytizing, and

their religious instruction is confided to their own ministers.

In no instance is the proper proportion of the school fund ever

refused to any denomination which has the number requisite under

the law for the establishment of a separate school. By these

means, perfect freedom of conscience is preserved, and public

harmony and good-will promoted; whilst at the same time, the

children of all churches are brought up in the wisdom of the

world without losing the fear of God. In this way, too, religious

freedom becomes a _practical thing_, and not a

constitutional platitude or an empty national boast. In this

serious matter, this great national concern, those European

monarchies have expelled sham altogether. Have we? Do we in the

United States, vaunting our hatred of "_church and state_,"

our devotion to entire freedom of conscience, our preeminent love

of "_fair play_," our respect for the _inviolable rights

of minorities_, do we imitate the liberal example of

monarchical Europe, Catholic and Protestant, when we tax our six

millions of Catholics for public schools, and then refuse them a

participation in the fund? What just man will say that such a

rule is right? What wise man will say that it is _politic_?

At least, let it not be said that in our great cities, where

there are tens of thousands of poor Catholic children, and in

those rural districts where the numbers are notoriously

sufficient to justify the establishment of one or more schools,

they shall be driven to seek an education under a system which

their parents cannot conscientiously sanction, or be left to the

chances of procuring the rudiments of learning from the

over-taxed and doubly-taxed resources of their co-religionists.

Help the schools now actually existing, and which are filled to

overflowing with eager scholars; and assist those who are willing

to build up others; the cost is no greater; the educational

policy of the state is equally satisfied, whilst the morals of

the rising generation, purified by religious faith and

strengthened by religious practices, will give the republic

assurance of a glorious future.

We are satisfied that such a system would give us an enlightened

Christian people, and not merely a nation of intelligent men of

the world, as cold as they are polished, and as indifferent to

divine things as they are eager for the pleasures of sense and

the pride of life.

This would be a truly solid basis upon which to build and

perpetuate the empire of a self-governing nation. Without this,

our constitution is a rope of sand, our republicanism a delusion,

and our freedom a miserable snare to the down-trodden

nationalities all over the earth.

--------

{236}

All Souls' Day--1867.

Dying? along the trembling mountain flies

The fearful whisper fast from cot to cot;

Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers' eyes

Melt as their white lips stammer, "Not, oh! not

Him of all others? Nay,

Not him who from our hearths so oft drove death away?"

Well may those pale groups gather at each door.

Well may those tears that dread the worst be shed.

The hand that healed their ills will bless no more,

The life that served to lengthen theirs has fled;

And while they pray and weep,

Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep.

Ah! this is sudden! why, this very morn

He rode amongst us: sick men woke to hear

The step of his black pacer: the new-born

Smiled at him from their cradles; many a tear

On faces wan and dim.

He dried to-day: to-night those cheeks are wet for him.

For there he lies, together gently laid

The hands we were so proud of, his white hair

Making the silver halo that it made

In life around his brow; as if in prayer

The gentle face composed.

With nameless peace o'ershadowing the eyelids closed.

And as beside him through the night we hold

Our solitary watch, I had not started

To hear my name break from him, as of old,

Or see the tranquil lips a moment parted.

To speak the word unsaid,

The last supreme adieu that instant death forbade.

I dread the day-dawn, for his silent rest

Befits the night: I half believe him mine,

While in the tapers' shadowy light, his breast

Seems heaving, and, amid the pale moonshine

That wanders o'er the lawn.

Crouch the still hounds unknowing that their master's gone.

{237}

But when the morning at his window stands

In glory beckoning, and he answers not;

Not for the wringing of the widowed hands,

Or orphans wrestling with their bitter lot,

I feel, old friend, too well,

That naught can wake thee but the final miracle.

Was it but yesterday, that at my gate,

Beneath the over-arching oaks we met;

Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate,

A horseman every inch: I see him yet,

His morning mission done.

His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, one by one.

Mute are the mountains now! No more that cry

Of the full chase by all the breezes borne

Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply

Speeds the loud chorus! Nevermore the horn

Of our lost chief will shake

Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the startled brake!

Those summits were his refuge when the touch

Of gloom was on him, and the gathered care

Of long life, that braved and suffered much,

Drove him from beaten walks, to breathe the air

That, haunts gray Carrick's crest,

And spur from dawn to dusk till effort purchased rest.

But yet, in all these thirty years, how few

The days we saw not the familiar form

Amid the valleys passing, till it grew

Part of the landscape: through the sun or storm

With equal front he rode,

Punctual as planets moving in the paths of God.

I've seen him, when the frozen tempest beat,

Breast it as gayly as the birds that played

Upon the drifts: and through the deadly heat

That drove the fainting reapers to the shade.

Smiling he passed along.

Erect the good gray head, and on his lips a song.

I've known him too, by anguish chained abed,

Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan,

And meekly ride wherever pity led,

To heal a sorrow slighter than his own;

Or rich or poor the same--

It mattered not: let any sorrow call, he came.

{238}

Thy life was sacrifice, my own old friend,

Yet sacrifice that earned a sacred joy,

For in thy breast kept beating to the end,

The trust and honest gladness of a boy;

The seventy years that span

Thy course, leave thee as pure as when their date began.

Who could have dreamed the sharp, sad overthrow

Of such a life, so tender, strong, and brave?

My pulse seems answering thy finger now--

'Twas one step from the stirrup to the grave!

Oh! lift your load with care,

And gently to its rest the precious burden bear.

All Souls' Day! as they place him in the aisle.

The bells his youth obeyed for Mass are ringing;

And, as beneath the churchyard gate we file,

To latest rite his honored relics bringing.

You'd think the dead had all

Arrayed their little homes for some high festival.

As if for _him_ the flowering chaplets, strewn

Throughout God's acre, breathe a second spring;

To him the ivy on the sculptured stone

A welcome from the tomb seems whispering:

The buried wear their best.

As, in their midst, their old companion takes his rest.

Yes, he is yours, not ours: set down the bier:

To you we leave him with a ready trust:

Beneath this sod there's scarce a spirit here

That was not once his friend: Oh! guard his dust!

And if your ashes may

Thrill to old love, your graves are gladder than our hearths to-day.

----------

{239}

Is it Honest? [Footnote 52]

[Footnote 52: Sermons in answer to the Tract, _Is it

Honest?_ By Rev. L. W. Bacon. _The Brooklyn Times_,

March 9th, 17th, 24th, 1868.]

A brief tract, issued a short time since by The Catholic

Publication Society, seems to have produced an unusual commotion

among our non-Catholic brethren, and has called forth reply after

reply from the sectarian press and pulpit. The tract is very

brief, and consists only of a few pointed questions; but it has

kindled a great fire, and compelled Protestants to come forward

and attempt to defend their honesty, in uttering their false

charges and gross calumnies against Catholics and the church. It

has put them on their defence, made them feel that they, not the

church, are now on trial before the public. This is no little

gain, and they do not have so easy a time of it, in defending

their libels, as they had in forging and uttering them, when

Catholics had no organ through which they could speak, and were

so borne down by public clamor that their voice could not have

been heard in denial, even if they had raised it. Times have

changed since those sad days when it was only necessary to vent a

false charge against the church, to have it accredited and

insisted on by a fanatical multitude as undeniable truth, however

ridiculous or absurd it might be.

Since our sectarian opponents have been put upon their defence,

we trust Catholics will keep them to it. We have acted on the

defensive long enough, and turn about is only fair play. They

must now prove their libels, or suffer judgment to go against

them. They feel that it is so, and they open their defence

resolutely, with apparent confidence and pluck. They have no lack

of words and show no misgiving. This is well; it is as we would

have it, for we wish them to have a fair trial, and to make the

strongest, boldest, and best defence the nature of the case

admits.

In our remarks we shall confine ourselves principally to the

justification attempted by Mr. Bacon, in his sermons, as we find

them in the _Brooklyn Times_; and we must remind him in the

outset that the assumption with which he commences--that the

tract, in appealing to the good sense of the public, whether it

is honest to insist on certain charges against the church as

true, when the slightest inquiry would show them to be

false--makes an important concession, or any concession at all to

the Protestant rule, is altogether unwarranted. He says: "This

submitting of the questions in dispute to the public, man by man,

after the Protestant, the American fashion--concedes at the

outset one great and most vital principle, to wit, that the

ultimate appeal in questions of personal belief, is to each man's

reason and conscience in the sight of God." Quite a mistake.

There is no question of personal belief in the case. The question

submitted to the public by the tract is not whether what the

church teaches and Catholics believe is true or false, but

whether it is honest to continue to accuse the church and

Catholics of holding and doing what it is well known, or may

easily be known, they do not do, and declare they do not hold?

{240}

This is the question, and the only question, submitted. Is it

honest to continue repeating day after day, and year after year,

foul calumnies against your neighbor, when the proofs that they

are calumnies lie under your hand, and spread out before your

eyes so plainly that he who runs may read? We think even the

smallest measure of common sense is sufficient to answer that

question, which is, on one side, simply a question of fact, and

on the other, a question of very ordinary morals. The competency

of reason to decide far more difficult questions than that, no

Catholic ever disputes. We think even the reason of a pagan can

go as far as that. "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is

right?"

"But this tract," the preacher continues, "is a plain assertion

that no man ought blindly to accept the religious opinions to

which he is born, nor the instructions of his religious teachers;

but that he is bound, in honesty and justice, to hear the other

side, and decide between them by his own private judgment." If by

opinions is meant faith, it does no such thing; if by opinions

are meant only opinions, it may pass, though the tract neither

argues nor touches the question. The Catholic always supposes man

is endowed with reason and understanding, and that both are

active in the act of faith as in an act of science. There is and

can be no such thing as _blind_ faith, though blind

prejudices are not uncommon. Men seek or inquire for what they

have not, not for what they have. They who have the faith do not

seek it, and can examine what is opposed to it only for the

purpose of avoiding or refuting it. Catholics have the faith;

they are in possession of the truth, and have no need to make for

themselves the examination supposed. Non-Catholics have not the

faith; they have only opinions, often very erroneous, very

absurd, and very hurtful opinions, and they are therefore bound,

not by the _opinions_ they have received from their

religious teachers, or to which they were born, but to seek

diligently, with open minds and open hearts, for the truth till

they find it. When they find it, they will not be bound to seek

it, but to adhere to it, and obey it. There is no Protestant

teaching in this, and it is nothing "different from what the

Church of Rome always teaches her followers."

The tract says: "Americans love

fair play." The preacher says:

"I believe it is no more than the truth. If there is one thing

rather than another that Americans do love, it is this very

thing--absolute freedom and fairness of religious discussion.

Curious, isn't it? How came Americans to 'love fair play'?

Englishmen seem to have a similar taste. Catholic or Protestant

in England can speak or write his thoughts, on either side,

without hinderance or constraint. The same thing may be

remarked, in a measure, in Northern Germany. How can you

account for it? What is the reason, do you suppose, why they

don't 'love fair play' in Spain? or in Austria? or in Mexico?

or in Rome? This injured innocent stands in New York, at the

corners of the streets, bemoaning himself that he is treated

'dishonestly, and unjustly,' because the public will not buy

and read his books; and all the time, in the Holy City

itself--under the direct fatherly government of the pope--a

subject is not allowed to be (as this tract says) 'honest and

just' toward Protestant Christians by examining both sides,

except at the peril of being punished as for an infamous crime!

'Americans love fair play.' Why do all Roman Catholic nations

suppress it? Why does the pope forbid it in his own dominions?

And what reason have we to believe that, if these who are

clamoring for 'fair play' should ever hold the power in this

country, they would put it to any different use here, from that

which prevails in Catholic countries generally?"

{241}

We are not aware that there is any less love of fair play in

Spain, Mexico, or Rome, than in the United States, England, or

North-Germany, in Catholic than in non-Catholic countries, only

there is more faith and less need to seek it, or to examine both

sides in order to find it. As a matter of fact, though we cannot

regard it as any great merit, Catholics are generally far more

ready to hear both sides, and to read Protestant books, than

Protestants are to read Catholic books. We have never met with

intelligent Catholics as ignorant of Protestantism as we have

generally found intelligent Protestants of Catholicity. There is

nothing among Catholics to correspond to the blind prejudice,

deplorable ignorance, and narrow-minded bigotry of sectarians;

but we are happy to believe that even these are mellowing with

time, losing many of their old prejudices, and becoming more

enlightened and less bigoted and intolerant; there is still room

for improvement.

"Let us understand in the outset," says the preacher, "that the

charges against Catholics and the Catholic Church that are

complained of in this tract, are conceded by the writer to be

of grave importance. The prohibiting of the Bible to the

people--the belief that priestly absolution has efficacy of

itself, and is not merely conditional on the sincerity of the

sinner's repentance--the paying to images of such worship as

the heathen do--all these are declared by this writer to be

'detestable and horrible.' So that if it should appear that any

one of them is proved against Catholics or the Catholic Church,

the case is closed against them. He is not at liberty to go

back and apologize for the doctrine or palliate it. He has

declared it to be 'false doctrine'--'detestable and horrible.'"

What the tract regards as important or unimportant, is nothing to

the purpose; what the preacher must prove is, that it is honest

to continue to repeat charges against Catholics and the Catholic

Church which have been amply refuted, and the refutation of which

is within the reach of every one who would know the truth; or at

least he must show that the refutation is insufficient, and that

the charges are not false, but true. He will not find us

shrinking from the truth, apologizing for it, or seeking to get

behind it or around it. We, however, beg him to understand that

he is the party accused, and on trial, not we, and that we are

probably better judges on doubtful points, of what is or is not

Catholic doctrine and practice, than he or any of his brethren.

He will do well, also, to bear in mind that the question raised

by the tract is not whether the doctrine of the church is true or

false, but whether it is honest to persist in saying that it is

what the church and all Catholics affirm that it is not. What he

must prove, in order to be acquitted, is that the church and

Catholics do hold what the tract denies, and denies on authority,

or that there are good and sufficient reasons for believing that

they do so hold.

1. The tract asks, "Is it honest to say that the Catholic Church

prohibits the use of the Bible, when anybody who chooses can buy

as many as he likes at any Catholic bookstore, and can see on the

page of any one of them the approbation of the bishops of the

Catholic Church, with the pope at their head, encouraging

Catholics to read the Bible, in these words, 'The faithful should

be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures,' and that not

only for the Catholics of the United States, but also for those

of the whole world." Mr. Bacon does not meet directly the facts

alleged by the tract, nor plead truth in justification of the

libel; but undertakes to show that even if false, yet Protestants

may be personally honest in uttering it; and he adduces various

circumstances which he thinks may very innocently induce

Protestants to suppose that the church does prohibit the use of

the Bible.

{242}

We have not the patience to take up in detail all the

circumstances alleged, and refute the inferences drawn from them;

most of them are mere inventions, perversions of the truth,

misapprehensions of the facts in the case, and none, nor all of

them together, justify the inference, in face of what the tract

alleges, that the church prohibits the use of the Bible; and it

is easy for any one who honestly seeks the truth to know that

they do not.

The facts alleged by the tract are accessible to all who wish to

know them. He who makes a false charge through ignorance, when he

can with ordinary prudence know that it is false, is not

excusable; and it is not surely in those who claim to be the

enlightened portion of mankind to attempt to defend their honesty

at the expense of their intelligence. They are the last people in

the world, if we take them at their estimate of themselves, to be

permitted to plead invincible ignorance.

The _Newark Evening Journal_ is bolder and more direct than

Mr. Bacon. It asserts that the Church actually forbids the

reading of the Scriptures, and boldly challenges the fact alleged

by the tract. It says: "On the very page from which are taken the

words, 'The faithful should be excited to read the Holy

Scriptures,' are quoted, it is also said, 'To guard against error

it was judged necessary to forbid the reading of the Scriptures

in the vulgar languages, without the advice and permission of the

pastors and spiritual guides whom God has appointed to govern his

Church.' How then can it be false to say that the Church

prohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures?" Simply because to

forbid the _abuse_ of a thing is not to prohibit its

_use_. The faithful, for the promotion of faith and piety,

are excited to read the Scriptures; but to guard against error or

the abuse of the sacred writings, those who would wrest them to

their own destruction are forbidden to read them in the vulgar

languages, except under the direction of their spiritual guides.

A prudent and loving father forbids his child, who has a morbid

appetite or a sickly constitution, to eat of a certain kind of

food except under the direction of the family physician, lest the

child should be injured by it; can you therefore say that he

prohibits the _use_ of that kind of food? Certainly not. All

you can say is, that while he concedes the use, he takes

precautions against the abuse, which is in no sense inconsistent

with anything asserted by the tract.

Mr. Bacon, referring to reported cases of the confiscation of

Bibles, circulated by the Bible Society, found in the hands of

the laity, says the French Bible confiscated was the Catholic

version of De Sacy; that the Polish Bible circulated by the Bible

Society was, word for word, the copy of the version published two

centuries before, and approved by two popes; the Italian Bible,

for reading which the godly family Madiai were persecuted and

imprisoned, was the Catholic version [not so] of Martini,

Archbishop of Florence, published with the approbation and

sanction of Pope Pius VI. Suppose this correct, it does not prove

that the Church prohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures, but is

very good proof to the contrary. These versions were made and

published for the people, and would have been neither made nor

published if the use of the Scriptures was forbidden. And how can

you say that popes prohibit what you show they approved and

sanctioned? There was a German Bible before Luther, and our Douay

Bible was published before the version of King James.

{243}

"But I am not willing," continues the preacher, "that this

effrontery [what effrontery?] of this question should be let go

even with this answer." We can easily believe it. "I am ready to

call witnesses." Well, dear doctor, your witnesses; we are ready

to hear their testimony. "Whoever heard of a Catholic Bible

Society multiplying copies of the Bible?" Nobody that we know of.

But how long is it since Protestants had a Bible Society? Prior

to that, did they prohibit the use of the Holy Scriptures? "Popes

have fulminated their bulls against Bible Societies, denouncing

them as an invention of the devil." Not unlikely; but it is one

thing to denounce Bible Societies, and another to prohibit the

use or the reading of the Bible. Your witnesses. Rev. sir, do not

testify to the point. Besides, all the facts, or pretended facts,

you bring forward are too recent for your purpose. The accusation

that the Church prohibits the use of the Scriptures was made by

Protestants long before any of them are even said to have

occurred, and therefore could not have originated in them.

_Ex-post facto_ causes are not admitted in catholic

philosophy. The charge brought against the Church betrays no

little folly and ingratitude. If the Church had prohibited the

use of the Scriptures, how could the Reformers have got a copy of

them? They certainly purloined them from her, and could have got

them from no other source.

The preacher concludes his first sermon by saying: "I am glad the

time has come when it is understood on both sides that, if the

Roman Church is to commend itself to the American people, it must

begin by repudiating, as horrible and detestable, the teaching

and practice for three hundred years of the church." What has for

three hundred years been falsely alleged by her enemies to be her

teaching and practice, agreed; but what has really been her

teaching and practice, denied. "Let it but make good this new

claim, and we thank God for the new reformation, and welcome it

to the platform of Protestantism." There is no new claim in the

case; what the tract asserts has always been the doctrine and

practice of the church; she has always encouraged the use and

opposed the abuse of the Holy Scriptures. That the preacher

should desire a new reformation can be easily understood, for the

old has well-nigh run out; that he will ever be able to welcome

the church to the platform of Protestantism is, however, not

likely; for she is not fond of standing on platforms, and prefers

to remain seated on the rock. The reverend gentleman may be

shocked to hear it; but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that the

Bible and reason are not special Protestant possessions; they

were ours ages before Protestantism was born, and will be ours

ages after Protestantism is dead and forgotten.

2. In his second sermon--in a note to which he corrects his

assertion that it was the Catholic version of Martini, and states

that it was the Protestant version of Diodati, that was used by

the godly family of the Madiai--the preacher confines his efforts

to questions raised by the tract with regard to the worship of

images and pictures, and of the Blessed Virgin and the saints.

The tract asks:

"Is it honest _to accuse Catholics of paying divine worship

to images or pictures as the heathen do_--when any Catholic

indignantly repudiates any idea of the kind, and when the

Council of Trent distinctly declares the doctrine of the

Catholic Church in regard to them to be, 'that there is no

divinity or virtue in them which should appear to claim the

tribute of one's veneration;' but that all the honor which is

paid to them shall be referred to the originals whom they are

designed to represent?' (Sess. 25.)

{244}

"The answer to this question," the preacher says, "is to be

found by asking two others: 1. What sort of honors do the

heathen pay to images? 2. What sort of honors do Roman

Catholics pay to them? When we have got answers to these two,

we can compare them, and shall be able to say whether they are

the same."

We respectfully submit that neither of these questions need be

asked; for so far as pertinent, both are answered in the tract

itself. The accusation against Catholics which the tract implies

cannot be honestly made, is that we pay _divine_ worship to

images and pictures, as the heathen do; what the tract then

denies is that Catholics pay _divine_ worship to images and

pictures; and what it asserts is, that the heathen do pay them

divine worship; but this assertion is simply illustrative, and

should it be found inexact, it would not affect the formal denial

that the worship Catholics pay them is _divine_. As to what

sort of worship Catholics do render to images and pictures, the

answer in the tract is explicit, that it is a "certain tribute of

veneration paid them in honor of their original. The worship is

not divine worship, and the honor paid is not paid to them for

any virtue in them, but is referred solely to their originals."

The catechism puts this clearly enough. "_Q. And is it

allowable to honor relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures? A._

Yes; with an inferior and relative honor, as they relate to

Christ and his saints, and are the memorials of them. _Q. May

we then pray to relics and images? A._ No; by no means, for

they have no life or sense to hear or help us."

The preacher labors to show that this inferior and relative honor

is precisely what the heathen pay to the images of their gods;

but this, if true, would not prove that we do, but that the

heathen do not, pay divine honors to images. He cites various

authorities, Christian and heathen, to prove that it is not the

brass and gold and silver, when fashioned into a statue, that the

heathen worship, but that through the statue or image they

worship the invisible gods; that is, they worship the image as

the visible representation of the invisible divinity. This is, no

doubt, in some respects, the actual fact; nobody pretends that

they worship precisely the material statue, but the numen or god,

the prayers, invocations, incantations, and the other ceremonies

of the consecration of the statue by the priests compelled to

enter the statue and take up his abode in it. But to this image,

which for them contains the god, the heathen offer sacrifices and

other acts of worship which are due to God alone, which makes all

the difference in the world, though we have no doubt that the

type copied, perverted, corrupted, and travestied in heathen

worship is the Catholic type; as all heathenism is a corruption,

perversion, or travesty of the true religion, or as Protestantism

is a corruption, perversion, or travesty of the Catholic Church.

The heathen images and pictures represent no absent reality, and

are not memorials of an absent truth, like our sacred images and

pictures; and the heathen, then, can honor only the material

substance or the supposed indwelling numen or daemon. The gods

they are supposed to bring nigh, represent, or render visible,

are either purely imaginary, or evil spirits; hence the Scripture

tells us that "all the gods of the heathen are devils." And

finally, to these idols, which are nothing but wood and stone,

brass and silver, or gold, which represent, if anything, demons

or devils, the heathen pay divine honors; while we simply honor

and respect images and pictures of our Lord and his saints for

the sake of the originals, or the worth to which they are

related.

{245}

Here is a difference which we should suppose even our Protestant

doctor capable of perceiving and recognizing.

The preacher forgets that what is denied by the tract is, that we

pay divine honors to sacred images and pictures, and cites ample

authority to prove that we do not pay divine honors to them or

through them. We offer them no sacrifices, and we offer them no

prayers or praises, even as symbols or as memorials of a worth

they represent. They are never the media through which we honor

that worth; but we honor them for the sake of the worth to which

they are related, as the pious son honors the picture of his

mother, the patriot the picture of the father of his country, or

the lover the portrait of his mistress. The respect we pay them

springs from one of the deepest and purest principles of human

nature, and can be condemned only by those who hold that there is

nothing good in nature, and condemn as evil and only evil

whatever is natural.

The minister thinks that, even should enlightened and intelligent

Catholics understand the question as explained by the catechism

and defined by the Council of Trent, yet ignorant Catholics may

not; and with them the honors paid to images and pictures

actually degenerate into idolatry. He asks:

"But how in this respect do the people of modern Italy differ

from those of ancient and heathen Italy? Do the practices of

the people there correspond to the doctrines of the

theologians, or have they, as of old time, 'bettered the

instruction?' Do they pay no special veneration, as if there

were some special virtue in the image itself, to those images

that are reputed to bleed or sweat, or to the pictures that

wink? If it was only as a guide of the thoughts toward the

person represented that the image or picture served, then one

image would serve as well as another, except that those in

which the skill and genius of the artist had most excelled to

represent in touching and vivid portraiture the object of the

worship, might be preferred above ruder and coarser works. But

as I have passed from church to church in those lands in which

the Roman system has had unlimited opportunity to work itself

out into practice, and have 'beheld the devotions' of the

people, I have seen certain statues frequented by a multitude

of worshippers, and visited by pilgrims from afar, who had come

to bow down before them, and hung with myriads of votive

offerings--waxen effigies of arms and legs and other members

that had been healed in consequence of prayers to that

particular image. And one fact, which I did not then appreciate

the bearing of, was constantly observed by myself and my

companion--that these objects of special worship and veneration

were _never_ works of superior art, but commonly rude, and

sometimes even grotesque. The inexpressibly beautiful and

touching statue by Bernini, of the Virgin holding upon her

knees the body of the dead Jesus, is in the crypt of St.

Peter's, and admiring critics go down to study it by

torchlight. But the image which is _adored_ is a grimy

bronze idol above it in the nave of St. Peter's, which is so

venerated as the statue of that apostle that the toes of the

extended foot have been actually kissed away by the adorations

of the faithful."

It is very evident that the preacher, whatever opportunities he

may have had, knows very little of the Catholic people in

general, or of the Italian people in particular, and his guesses

would deserve more respect if made in relation to his own people.

Protestants have no distinctive worship which can be offered to

God alone, and are therefore very poor judges of what they may

see going on before their eyes among a Catholic people. The

Church is responsible only for the faith she teaches and the

practices she enjoins, approves, or permits. If the people depart

from this faith and abuse these practices in their practical

devotion, the fault, since she takes away no one's freedom, is

theirs, not hers.

{246}

The worship that Catholics render to God, the honor they pay to

the saints, and the respect they entertain for sacred images,

differs not, as all worship with Protestants must, simply as more

or less, but in kind, and not even a Protestant community can be

found so ignorant as not to be able to distinguish between an

image or a picture and the saint or person intended to be

represented by it. For the many years we lived as a Protestant we

never met any one of our brethren who mistook his mother's

portrait for his mother herself, or the statue of a distinguished

statesman for the statesman himself. Who ever mistakes the

equestrian statue of George Washington in Union Square for George

Washington on horseback, or confounds Andrew Jackson himself with

Mill's ugly equestrian statue of him in one of the squares of

Washington? Who could mistake the bronze horse on which the image

of the old General is placed, and which you fear every moment is

going to tilt over backward, for a real horse? Well, my dear

doctor, however ignorant these Italian people may be whom you see

kneeling before an image or a picture of the Madonna, they know

more of the doctrines of the Gospel, more of God, and of man's

duties and relations to him, more of his proper worship, than the

most enlightened non-Catholic community that exists or ever

existed on the earth. They may not know as much of error against

faith and piety, of false theories and crude speculations as

non-Catholics; but they know more of Christianity, more of what

Christianity really is, what it teaches, and what it exacts of

the faithful, than the wisest and most learned of your sectarian

ministers, not even excepting yourself.

With regard to bleeding, sweating, or winking pictures, if you

find people believing in them, you will never find among

Catholics any who believe that they bleed, sweat, or wink by any

virtue that is in the picture itself; but that the phenomenon is

a miracle, which God works by the saint pictured. You may doubt

the miracle, but not reasonably, unless on the ground that the

evidence in the case is insufficient. Whoever believes in God

believes in the possibility of miracles, and there is nothing

more miraculous in a picture of the Madonna winking, sweating, or

bleeding, than there was in Balaam's ass speaking and rebuking

his master. It is simply a question of fact. If the proofs are

conclusive, the fact is to be believed; if insufficient, no one

is bound to believe it.

If you find the people flocking to a particular image or picture

and bringing to it their votive offerings, it certainly is not,

as the preacher takes notice, on account of its merit as a work

of art; for the Italian people, with all their love and exquisite

taste for art, do not, like so many non-Catholics, confound

artistic culture with religious culture; nor is it because they

hold that there is any hidden virtue in that particular image or

picture itself, but because the saint whose it is, has or is

believed to have specially favored those who have invoked him

before it. They may or may not be mistaken as to the fact, but

the principle, on which the special devotion to our Lady or a

saint before a particular shrine is a correct one; and there is

in the practice no special honor to the image or picture for its

own sake, and consequently nothing necessarily superstitious or

idolatrous.

Even if, as there is no reason to believe, the statue of St.

Peter in St. Peter's at Rome, and which the preacher calls a

"grimy bronze idol," was originally, as he tells us some say it

was, a statue of Jupiter, the honor paid to it by the faithful

would not be paid to Jupiter, while intended to be paid to St.

Peter.

{247}

But the toes of the image have been worn away by the kisses of

the worshippers; and do not these kisses prove that Catholics

adore the image? The heathen adore their gods by kissing the feet

of their statues; and when Catholics kiss the feet of the images

of their saints, how can it be said that they do not worship or

adore images as the heathen do? The heathen use incense in the

worship of idols; Moses prescribes incense, and the Jews use it

in their worship of the true God; therefore the Jews are

idolaters! The preacher forgets that what the tract declares to

be dishonest is the accusation that Catholics pay _divine_

worship, that is, the worship due to God alone, to images and

pictures, as the heathen do. To kiss the feet of the statue of

St. Peter, from love and devotion to the saint himself, the

prince of the apostles, on whom our Lord founded his church, is

not to pay divine worship to the image, nor even to Peter

himself. Were we so happy as to find ourselves at St. Peter's in

Rome, we are quite sure that we should kneel before the statue of

St. Peter, and kiss its feet, running the risk of its having been

once a statue of Jupiter, and we should do it as a proper method

of expressing our love and veneration for the great apostle, and

as simply and innocently as the mother kisses the carefully

preserved portrait of her beloved son slain in battle for his

faith or his country. As to using the forms used by the heathen

to express affection or devotion, if proper in themselves, we

have as little scruple as we have in using the language which our

ancestors used in the worship of Woden or Thor, in our prayers

and praises to the One Ever-living and True God.

3. The sermon next takes up the false accusation that Catholics

pay divine worship to the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The

tract asks:

"Is IT HONEST _to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed

Virgin or the Saints in the place of God or the Lord Jesus

Christ_--when the Council of Trent declares that it is

simply useful to ask their intercession in order to obtain

favor from God, through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who

alone is our Saviour and Redeemer--

"When 'asking their prayers and influence with God,' is exactly

of the same nature as when Christians ask the pious prayers of

one another?"

The preacher says, "At the outset let me remark, that the

question what Roman Catholics _do_ is not conclusively

answered by quoting what the Council of Trent declares." This

supposes that the same rule must be applied to Catholics, who

have an authoritative church, that is applicable to

non-Catholics, who have none, or to people among whom every one

believes according to his own private judgment, and does what is

right in his own eyes. But this is not permissible. Our faith is

taught and defined by authority, and to know what we as Catholics

believe or do, you must be certain what the church

authoritatively teaches or prescribes. We cannot go contrary to

that and be Catholics. No doubt Catholics may depart from the

faith of the church, and disobey her precepts; but when they

obstinately persist in doing so, they cease to be Catholics in

faith and practice, and their belief or their practice is of no

account in judging what is or is not Catholic doctrine or

practice. They who believe or do anything contrary to what is

declared by the Council of Trent, are _pro tanto_

non-Catholics. To know what is Catholic faith and Catholic

practice, you have only to consult the standards, of the Catholic

Church--not every individual Catholic, as you must every

individual Protestant when you wish to ascertain what is

Protestant

opinion and practice.

{248}

Our standards speak for themselves; and in determining what

Catholicity enjoins or allows, you must consult them, and them

only.

Mr. Bacon and his brethren have as free access to our standards

as we ourselves have, and they must remain under the charge of

dishonestly misrepresenting us, or prove by our standards that

the church offers or authorizes or does not forbid her children

from offering divine worship to the Blessed Virgin. Their

surmises, their conjectures, their inferences from what they see

among Catholics, but do not understand, must be thrown out as

inadmissible testimony. There are the standards: if they sustain

you, well and good; if not, you are convicted, and judgment must

go against you. This is the case presented by the tract, and

which Mr. Bacon and his friends are to meet fairly and squarely.

Now, the tract shows from the standards, from the Council of

Trent, which is plenary authority in the case, that the

accusation against Catholics of "putting the Blessed Virgin or

the saints in the place of God or the Lord Jesus Christ," is an

accusation so manifestly untrue that no one can honestly make it.

Here also is the catechism, which the church teaches all her

children. "_Q. Does this commandment [the first] forbid all

honor and veneration of saints and angels?_ No; we are to

honor them as God's special friends and servants, but not with

the honor which belongs to God." The Council of Trent declares

that "it is good and useful to ask the saints who reign together

with Christ in heaven, to pray for us," "or to ask favors for us

from our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is our Redeemer and

Saviour." We ask the saints in heaven, as we ask our friends on

earth, to pray for us. Here is the whole principle of the case.

The Council of Trent, Sess. 22, c. 3, defines that, "though the

church is accustomed to celebrate masses in honor of the saints,

yet she teaches they are never to be offered to them, but to God

alone." _Non tamen illis sacrificium offerri docet, sed Deo

soli, qui illos coronavit._ Now, with Catholics the

distinctively divine worship, the supreme worship due to God

alone, and which it would be idolatry to offer to any other, is

sacrifice, the highest possible sacrifice, the sacrifice of the

Mass, which our priests offer every day on the altar; the one

unbloody sacrifice which was offered in a bloody manner on

Calvary. This is offered to God alone; all else that is offered

to God in worship, prayer, praise, love, veneration, may, in kind

at least, be offered to men. We honor the chief magistrate,

whether called king or emperor, president or governor; we honor

the prelates whom the Holy Ghost has placed over us in the

church; we pray to or petition rulers and men in authority; we

chant the praises of the great and the heroic; we love our

country, our family, and friends; we venerate the wise and the

good, who, in services to the cause of truth, morals, and

religion, prove themselves godlike. That Protestants, who have no

sacrifice, no priest, no altar, no victim, should mistake the

nature of our _cultus sanctorum_, is not surprising, for

they have nothing in kind to offer God that we do not offer to

the saints, especially to the queen of saints, the Blessed Mother

of God. But this is their fault, not ours; for it is easy for

them to know--for our standards tell them so--that we as

Catholics place the supreme act of worship in the sacrifice of

the Mass--holding that only God is an adequate offering to God,

and that the sacrifice of the Mass is never offered to the saints

or to any but God alone.

{249}

There is a marked difference between our _cultus sanctorum_

and that with which men like Mr. Bacon, of Brooklyn, seek to

identify it. The heathen offered sacrifices, the highest form of

worship they had, to their idols, their demigods and heroes; we

offer the highest worship which we have--and we have it only

through God's goodness--to the one, living, true God only. This

proves that the accusation against Catholics of putting the

Blessed Virgin and the saints, as objects of worship, in the

place of God, is a false accusation, so well known or so easily

known to be false, that no one of ordinary intelligence can

honestly make it.

But the preacher supposes that Catholics, in other respects, put

them in the place of God. This is impossible. Catholics hold that

the saints, with the Blessed Virgin at their head, are men and

women--creatures whom God has made, has redeemed with his own

blood, and has elevated, sanctified, and glorified by his grace,

and therefore they cannot identify them with him or substitute

them for him. We hold that Mary is the Mother of Christ, and that

he is her Lord as well as ours, and that it is through his merits

alone, applied beforehand, that she was conceived without

original stain; and can anybody, so believing, mistake her for

her Son, in any respect put her in his place, or assign to her

his mediatorial work? The very fears expressed by our Protestant

friends that we do or are liable to do so, prove that even they

are able to discriminate between her and her Son; why not then

we?

The reverend gentleman continues:

"We are invited to several inquiries. First: Is it true that

the prayers that are offered by Roman Catholics to departed

saints, and especially to that holy woman whom we with them in

all generations unite to call the blessed, are only of such a

nature as we might offer to a fellow-Christian here upon the

earth in soliciting his prayers in our behalf? Secondly: Are

these supplications only for favor and influence, or are they

for the direct gift of blessing and salvation? Do they put Mary

into the place of Christ, the one Mediator between God and man;

making of the All-Merciful Saviour who inviteth all to come

unto him, an inaccessible object of dread and terror, whom we

dare not approach except through the mediation of Mary? Do they

ascribe to her the glory due to Christ, the only name given

under heaven among men whereby we may be saved? Do they profess

faith in her alone for salvation? Do they put the saints in the

place of the Holy Ghost, by supplicating from them directly the

divine gift of holiness and the renewal of the sinful heart?"

We have answered these questions by anticipation. It is probable

that Catholics believe somewhat more distinctly and more firmly

in "the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus," than

do the sects, and are less likely to forget it, seeing that all

their practical devotions, public and private, the great honors

given to Mary and the saints are founded on it and tend directly

to keep us from forgetting it. Catholics do not pray to Mary

because they regard the All-merciful Saviour as inaccessible, or

as an object of dread and terror; nor because she comes in

between them and him, represents him, or enables them to approach

him through her, as is evident from the fact that we not

unfrequently directly beseech him to grant that she and other

saints may pray for us. We honor her as the mother of God in his

human nature. We pray to her to pray to him for us, not only

because she is our mother as well as his, but because she is dear

to her Son our Lord, and he delights to honor her by granting her

requests.

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For a like reason we invoke the saints, that is, ask them to pray

for us. We must then be more ignorant and stupid than even our

sectarian ministers believe us, if, in praying to them because as

his friends they are dear to him, we substitute them for him from

whom what we seek can alone come. If we believe they themselves

give it, why do we ask them to pray him to grant it? Cannot our

acute and ingenious doctor see that the invocation of saints

renders the error he supposes Catholics fall into utterly

impossible in the case of the most ignorant Catholic, and that it

tends to fix the mind and the heart directly on the fact that

every good and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down

from the Father of lights? Can he not see that the intercession

we invoke is a clear confession of the truth he thinks it

obscures or obliterates? If we think the good comes from them,

why do we ask them to intercede with Christ to bestow it? Why not

ask it of them? But is it true, as the tract affirms, that we ask

nothing of Mary and the saints in heaven that it would be

improper to ask of our fellow-Christian? This is not precisely

what the tract asserts. It asserts that asking their prayers and

influence is exactly of the same nature, that is, the same in

principle, with what Christians do when they ask the pious

prayers of one another. To this the preacher replies:

"I hold here a volume of 800 pages, almost every one of which

contains an answer to these questions, so far as I honestly

read it, in the affirmative. It is _The Glories of Mary_,

by St. Alphonsus Liguori, approved by John, Archbishop of

New-York. I scarcely know where to begin quoting, or to cease.

"'O Mary, sweet refuge of miserable sinners, assist me with thy

mercy. Keep far from me my infernal enemies, and _come

thyself_ to take my soul and present it to my eternal

Judge.' 'All the mercies ever bestowed upon men have come

through Mary.' 'Mary is called the gate of heaven, because no

one can enter heaven if he does not pass through Mary, who is

the door of it.' 'As we have access to the eternal Father only

through Jesus Christ, so we have access to Jesus Christ only

through Mary.'

"'Mary is the peacemaker between sinners and God.' 'My Mother

Mary, to thy hands I commit the cause of my eternal salvation.

To thee I consign my soul; it was lost, but thou must save it.'

'Thou art the advocate, the mediatrix of reconciliation, the

only hope, and the most secure refuge of sinners.' 'I place in

thee all my hopes of salvation.' 'She is the advocate of the

world and the true mediatrix between God and man.' 'Blessed is

he who clings with love and confidence to those two anchors of

salvation, Jesus and Mary.' 'Deliver me from the burden of my

sins; dispel the darkness of my mind; banish earthly affections

from my heart.' 'O Lady, change us from sinners to saints.'"

Tastes differ, and not every Catholic would employ every

expression used by St. Alphonsus in his _Glories of Mary_;

but none of these expressions convey to the Catholic mind what

they do to the Protestant mind; for Catholics have a key to their

meaning in their faith in the incarnation. The strongest of them

is justified by the relation of Mary to that great mystery in

which centres and from which radiates the whole of Christianity.

From her was taken that flesh, that human nature, in which God

redeems and saves us; and being taken from her, she has a

relation to God, our Saviour, and consequently to our redemption

and salvation, which no other woman, no other creature, has or

can have. This relation explains the passages in the Litany of

our Lady of Loretto, and those passages of St. Alphonsus and

other Catholic writers which assert that all mercies and graces

come from God through her. They all come from God in his human

nature; and as that nature was taken from her, they must in some

sense come through her.

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They come through her, because they come from God as born of her.

They also come through her, because God, her divine Son, who

gives them, loves her as his mother, and delights to honor with

the highest honor a creature can receive; he therefore confers

the favors mortals pray for only through her intercession. But as

all the special honor done to her is done only in consequence of

her relation as his mother, the higher we carry that honor the

more clear, distinct, and energetic our conviction of the fact of

the incarnation, and the more impossible it must be for us to put

her in the place of the Incarnate Word, or to substitute her for

her Son, who is the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ

Jesus. To do so would be not only to rob him of his glory, but to

deny her title to that very honor given to her as the mother of

God. Catholics are not capable of anything so illogical and

absurd.

The key to the other expressions objected in St. Alphonsus is in

this same relation to the incarnation and the confidence of the

Saint in the power and efficacy of Mary's prayers or intercession

for us with her divine Son. He confides to Mary, leaves in her

hands the cause of his eternal salvation, as the client confides

his cause to his advocate or counsel. "My soul," he says, "was

lost, but thou must save it"--by thy intercession with thy Son,

who will deny thee nothing thou dost ask, because thou canst

never ask but what he inspires thee to ask, and what is agreeable

to his will, and he delights to honor thee before heaven and

earth by granting thy requests. In the same way understand the

expressions, "the advocate," "the mediatrix of reconciliation,"

and all the rest. The term mediatrix is not the best possible,

because it is liable to mislead not a Catholic, but a

non-Catholic, who believes little in the incarnation, and refuses

to interpret the language of Catholics by the official teaching

of their church. The Catholic always knows in what sense it is

said, and for him the explanations are never necessary; still

less are they necessary for Him who sees and knows the thoughts

and intents of the heart before they are even formed. It is the

duty of non-Catholics to consult the standards of the church and

to explain what seems to them difficult or inexact in the warm

and energetic expressions of Catholic love and devotion by them;

and it is not honest to found a charge against Catholics on such

expressions without having done so. The preacher continues:

"'Is IT HONEST to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed

Virgin or the saints in the place of God or of the Lord Jesus

Christ? You have the answer. You know the place which God

claims for himself the 'honor which He will not give to

another.' You have heard from the very words of the Roman

Catholics themselves the place to which they exalt the spirits

of departed men and women."

Yes, you have the answer such as your minister gives; and we have

shown that his answer misinterprets facts which he does not

understand; that it refuses to interpret them by the key

furnished in the official teaching of the church; that it

contradicts itself, and proves, if anything, the falsity of the

very charge it undertakes to establish, and therefore clears

neither him nor you, if you accept it, from the charge of

dishonestly bringing false accusations against the church of God.

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"Is IT HONEST _to assert that the Catholic Church grants any

indulgence or permission to commit sin_--when an

'indulgence,' according to her universally received doctrine,

was never dreamed of by Catholics to imply, in any case

whatever, any permission to commit the least sin; and when an

indulgence has no application whatever to sin until after sin

has been repented of and pardoned?"

The preacher has the air of conceding that this charge is

unfounded, and says, "If it is made, it does not appear to be

sustained yet he maintains that indulgences really remit the

punishment due to sins committed after the indulgence has been

bought and paid for; for they are alleged to preserve the

recipient in grace till death, in spite of subsequent sins." And

he cites the case of Tetzel, in the sixteenth century, in proof

He adduces what purports to be a form of absolution published by

Tetzel, and offered for sale in the market-places of Germany. The

form of absolution alleged is manifestly a forgery, and a very

stupid forgery; and besides, absolution and indulgences are very

different things, and the indulgence affects only a certain

temporary punishment that remains to be expiated after the

absolution is given or the eternal guilt is pardoned, and is

rather a commutation than a remission of even that temporary

punishment, which, if not commuted or borne here, must be

expiated hereafter in purgatory. There is no _form_ of

indulgence; there are _conditions_ of gaining an indulgence;

but there is no certificate given to the effect that we have

obtained it. If we have sincerely complied with the conditions

prescribed by the pope, we gain it; but whether we have gained it

neither we nor the church can know in this life without a special

revelation. Every Catholic knows that to offer money for it would

argue a disposition on his part that would render it impossible,

while he retained that disposition, to gain an indulgence. No one

can gain an indulgence while in a state of sin, and hence

indulgences are not at any price profitable things to purchase.

That Tetzel exaggerated the virtue of indulgences was asserted by

Luther and his friends; but that he offered them for sale in the

market-places, was never, we believe, even pretended until after

his death--was and never has been proved. Luther and his friends

complained that he was causing a scandal, and procured his arrest

and imprisonment in a convent of his order, where he died two

years after, without the matter, owing to the troubles of the

times, even undergoing a judicial investigation. As for Luther's

own testimony, in a case touching his hatred against Rome, it is

of no account.

"The only sense," continues the preacher, "in which the Roman

Church has ever sold licenses for crime, has been in this, of

announcing (not in America, in this century) a tariff of

cash-prices at which (_with_ contrition) all evil

consequences of certain sins, whether in this world or the

world to come, would be cancelled. The price-current in Germany

in the sixteenth century, ranged as follows: for polygamy, six

ducats; for sacrilege and perjury, nine ducats; for murder,

eight ducats. In Switzerland, at the same period, the price was

for infanticide, four francs; for parricide or fratricide, one

ducat."

This seems to us quite enough. The Catholic will perceive that

our learned friend is not very well posted on Catholic matters.

He evidently confounds sacramental absolution with indulgences,

and indulgences with the dispensations which the church grants in

particular cases, not from the law of God, nor the law of nature,

but from her own ecclesiastical law; and supposes that the fees

paid to the chancery for the necessary legal documents in the

various causes that come before it, are the fees paid by the

faithful for indulgences and the pardon of their sins. [Footnote

53]

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A man who speaks of matters of which he knows nothing is liable

to say some very absurd things. Nevertheless, the preacher says

expressly, and we doubt not means to concede the point made by

the tract, that indulgences are not licenses to commit sin, but

he has labored to make his concession as little offensive to his

Protestant brethren as possible. Still he concedes it. "I think,

therefore," he says, "that the author of this tract is right in

claiming that it is not just to assert that the Catholic Church

grants any indulgence or permission to commit sin." No, she does

no such thing, she only "intimates beforehand her willingness, if

such and such crimes are committed, to make it all right with the

malefactor both in this world and the world to come, for

penitence--and CASH." He who should offer cash to pay for

absolution would receive for answer, "Thy money perish with

thee!"

[Footnote 53: For a full proof of the forgery of the above

passage in the book called _Tax-Book of the Roman

Chancery_, see Bishop England's Letters to Dr. Fuller,

Works of Bishop England, vol. iii. p. 13.]

"Is IT HONEST _to repeat over and over again that Catholics

pay the priests to pardon their sins_--such a thing is

unheard of anywhere in the Catholic Church--when any

transaction of the kind is stigmatized as a grievous sin, and

ranked along with murder, adultery, blasphemy, etc., in every

catechism and work on Catholic theology?"

The preacher thinks it is very honest, because, if the church

prohibits and punishes it as simony, it is very evident that it

sometimes happens. If the offence had never been committed, the

church would never have had occasion to legislate on the matter.

It was argued that for a long time the crime of parricide was

unknown at Rome, because there was no law prohibiting and

punishing it. This is his answer, and a proof, we suppose, of his

candor of which he boasts, of his readiness to die rather than

knowingly repeat a false charge against the church! The real

accusation against the church, which the tract denies can be

honestly made, is that Catholics are required to pay, or that the

priest can lawfully exact pay, for the pardon or absolution he

pronounces in the sacrament of penance. It does not necessarily

deny that the thing may sometimes be done, but, if so, it is

unlawfully, is a sin, and ranked along with murder, adultery,

etc. The sin of simony, in one form or another, has in the

history of the church often been committed, and those who

committed it are, in general, favorites with Protestant

historians, who seldom fail to brand as haughty tyrants and

spiritual despots the noble and virtuous popes who struggled

energetically against it, and did their best to correct or guard

against the evil. But honest men will not hold the church

responsible for the misdeeds of unprincipled men, which she

prohibits and exerts all the power of her discipline to prevent

and punish. The case is too plain to need argument. Penance, the

church teaches, is a sacrament, of which absolution is a part,

and to sell any sacrament or part thereof is simony, a grievous

sin; and though there is no sin that may not have been committed,

yet the fact of a priest, however depraved, demanding pay for

sacramental pardon or absolution is not known to have ever

occurred. The church prohibits it, indeed, but only in

prohibiting simony, and we are not aware that she has ever passed

any special law against this particular species of simony, and

therefore the argument of the preacher falls to the ground, and

for aught he shows, it is true to the letter that the thing is

unheard of.

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"Is IT HONEST _to persist in saying that Catholics believe

that their sins are forgiven merely by the confession of them

to the priest, without a true sorrow for them, or a true

purpose to quit them_--when every child finds the contrary

distinctly and clearly stated in the catechism, which he is

obliged to learn before he can be admitted to the sacraments?

Any honest man can verify this statement by examining any

Catholic catechism."

"Nothing," says the preacher, "could be more conclusive than this

logic, if we could constantly presume that the belief and

practice of the people always coincide exactly with the teaching

of the catechism." If the coincidence were perfect, there would

be no sins to confess, no need of the sacrament of penance, and

no question as to the condition of ghostly absolution or pardon

could ever be raised. But as the preacher finds nothing to object

to under this head in the teaching or official practice of the

church, we must presume that he finds the logic of the tract,

whatever may be the deceptions, if any, practised upon the

priest, is quite conclusive, and he certainly concedes quite

enough to show that the accusation against the church which the

tract repels, cannot be honestly repeated. We would remind the

preacher that no one is forced against his will to go to

confession, and the very fact of one's going is presumptive proof

of sincere sorrow for his sins, and a resolution, weaker or

stronger, God helping him, to forsake them. Why should he seek to

deceive the priest, when he knows that if he seeks to do so, he

would not only receive no benefit from the absolution, but would

commit the grievous sin of sacrilege by profaning the sacrament?

"Is IT HONEST _to say that Catholics believe that man, by his

own power, can forgive sin_--when the priest is regarded by

the Catholic Church only as the agent of our Lord Jesus Christ,

acting by the power delegated to him, according to these words,

'Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and

whose sins you shall retain, they are retained?' St John xx.

23."

The preacher has offered no reply, or, if he has, we have

overlooked it, to this grave accusation; perhaps he has none to

make. The journals, however, attempt a reply, the purport of

which is, that, though the tract states truly the official

teaching of the church, yet Catholics practically believe, as

every one knows who has had intercourse with them, that it is the

priest, not God, who they believe pardons sin. This, too, is in

substance the reply of Mr. Bacon throughout. The tract states the

doctrine of the church correctly on all the points made, but then

that, it is pretended, is not the doctrine of the Catholic

people, the practical doctrine of Catholics, and gives no clue to

the practical workings of the Roman system--a clear confession

that they really have nothing to object to Catholic doctrine and

practice, though they have much to object to in what is no

doctrine or teaching or practice of the church. The reason of

this, we suppose, is, that they have no conception of the church.

Now, we think it is very likely that there are many Catholics who

cannot define very scholastically the distinction between

efficient cause and instrumental or medial cause; but put the

question to the most ignorant Catholic you can find. "Do you

believe the priest as a man in confession pardons your sins?" as

soon as he gets hold of what you are driving at, he will answer:

"No; he pardons or absolves them as a priest." This answer means

that the priest does not absolve by a virtue in him as a man, but

by virtue of his priestly office, to which he is appointed by the

Holy Ghost; that is, as the minister, or as the tract says, the

agent of our Lord Jesus Christ. All Catholics unhappily do not

conform their life to their faith; but you will find that the

faith of the people is that of the church, that which the church

officially teaches; and there is no room for the distinction

which non-Catholic ministers and journals, try, as their best

resort in self-vindication, to make between Catholicity in the

formularies of the church and the Catholicity that works

practically in the faith and lives of the Catholic people,

whether learned or unlearned.

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All this talk about the practical workings of the system is

moonshine, at least outside of the record, to which no Catholic

is bound to reply. We are required to believe and defend only

what the church teaches and requires of her children:

8. The tract concludes with the question,

"Is IT HONEST _to make these and many other similar charges

against Catholics_--when they detest and abhor such false

doctrines more than those do who make them, and make them too,

without ever having read a Catholic book, or taken any honest

means of ascertaining the doctrines which the Catholic Church

really teaches? AMERICANS LOVE FAIR PLAY."

In spite of all that sectarian preachers and journals can say,

the unprejudiced and fair-minded American will answer, to each

question the tract puts, No! it is not honest, but gravely

dishonest; for every one is bound to judge Catholics by the

standards of the church, open to all the world. And these

manifestly disprove the accusations.

We have attempted no defence in this article of our holy religion

itself. We have only attempted to show our Protestant accusers

that their efforts to prove themselves honest, in their false

charges against the church and her faithful children, are

unsuccessful. They have not successfully impeached the tract in a

single instance, nor vindicated themselves from a single one of

its charges; nor can they do it. Many things may be said against

the immaculate spouse of Christ; the daughters of the

uncircumcised may call her black, may rail against her, and call

her all manner of hard names; but she stands ever in her

loveliness, all pure, and dear to her Lord, who loves her, and

gave his life for her, and dear to the heart of every one of her

loving children, and all the dearer from the foul aspersions cast

upon her by the ignorant, the foolish, and the malicious.

We have not taken much notice of the professions of candor and

independence of the preacher; for we have never much esteemed

professions which are contradicted by deeds; nor are we easily

won by fine things said of individual Catholics by one who in the

same breath calumniates the holy Catholic Church. Few sermons

have we read that show a more decided hostility to our religion

than these of the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, of Brooklyn, which are

unredeemed from their low sectarian character by any depth of

learning, extent of historical research, force of logic, richness

of imagination, flow of eloquence, or sparkle of wit. We have

found them very commonplace and dull; we have found it a dull

affair to read and reply to them; and we fear that our readers

will find our reply itself very dull, for dulness is contagious.

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Magas; or, Long Ago.

A Tale Of The Early Times.