The Rev. Mr. Scribner says with great truth that “one great lesson

taught by this biography [of Dr. Faber] is the lesson of charity” (p.

531). He is also so obviously correct in his remark that “charity does

not require us to admit that to be true which is false,” that we

wonder he took the trouble to make it. Moreover, we cannot and do not

wish to dispute his right “to pronounce a flaming Roman Catholic

professor a child of the devil who shows himself to be one.” But we

wish to add to his statement one more, which is that justice requires,

as well as charity, that one should not make atrocious charges or

apply opprobrious epithets without adequate proofs and motives. Let

the reverend gentleman consider, then, coolly and deliberately, and

let every Protestant reader of this article consider and judge of the

following sentence:

“It would not be enlightened charity which would make us think

that, perhaps, after all, _the licentious Roman Catholic

priests of Spain and Italy, and the brutal priests of

Ireland_, are Christian men” (p. 531).

Charity! We do not ask your charity. We spurn with indignation any

such despicable counterfeit of charity as that which is here

repudiated. The Catholic Church does not need any mantle to throw 409

over any priests who are either “licentious” or “brutal.” Let the

jurisdiction over clerical delinquents, which rightfully belongs to

her, be admitted and sustained by the civil governments, and she will

treat them with the right kind of charity, by restraining them from

all power to sin, and giving them an opportunity of doing penance.

Civil governments, when they have been engaged in a conflict with the

church, and Protestant leaders, have always been ready enough to

encourage, to employ, and to reward these outcasts of the priesthood,

or impostors who have falsely pretended to be priests. By their

suborned testimony, the British government hanged Oliver Plunkett at

Tyburn. For the sake of another of the same sort, an English jury

fined and imprisoned the most honorable and illustrious writer in

England. Examples nearer home are not wanting, and are not, we

suppose, quite yet forgotten. All those worthless members of the

priesthood who have been disgraced, or who deserve to be, we leave to

bear by themselves the judgment both of men and of God. But on what

evidence are the priests of Spain and of Italy called in general and

unqualified terms “licentious,” and the priests of Ireland “brutal”?

We would like to know what opportunity American Presbyterians have of

knowing accurately the condition of the Spanish clergy. Blanco White,

as Dr. Newman shows, furnishes no testimony which can be used to prove

any such assumption as that of our very confident friend Mr. Scribner.

In regard to Italy, is there any testimony given by trustworthy,

competent witnesses, who have lived there long enough to know what the

character of the clergy is, or anything which the violent enemies of

the church in Italy have been able to establish against the clergy,

which warrants the opprobrious epithets applied to them in the elegant

passage we have cited above? That the busybodies who are trying to

make mischief in Italy, and whose proceedings are viewed with intense

disgust by some honorable Protestant clergymen, keep some very

disreputable company among the Italian clergy, we have no doubt. We

suppose there are more than one hundred thousand priests in Italy,

and, as we have seen two such specimens as Gavazzi and Achilli, we

cannot wonder if there are some scores of similar individuals who are

able to keep their places under the protection of so detestable a

government as that of Victor Emanuel. These are the men who consort

with Protestant emissaries, and who malign the virtue of their

brethren, which they hate and envy because of their own wickedness.

But, as Dr. Newman remarks, those who leave the Catholic Church, and

yet retain some moral probity and gentlemanly honor, do not furnish

Protestants with the evidence they want in order to sustain their

defamation of the Catholic priesthood. Men like Wharton, Blanco White,

Lord Dunboyne, Gioberti,[96] Capes, Hyacinthe, and Döllinger, do not

answer the purpose for which they are wanted, because they will not

utter the gross calumnies or invent the startling, sensational lies

which certain infamous scribblers like Maria Monk, or mountebank

lecturers like Leahy and the last new Baron, manufacture for the

greedy ears of a credulous public.

The insult offered to the clergy of Ireland is equally offensive and 410

touches us still more closely. It is not so bad an epithet which is

applied to them, but, while it is vague enough to make it difficult to

seize and expose the precise calumny which the writer intends to

fasten, it is forcible enough to make it as insulting and opprobrious

as any epithet which a gentleman could well use, or a refined and

scholarly periodical suffer to appear on its pages. It is like the

gross caricatures of _Harper’s Magazine_. We blush at the thought of

noticing such an aspersion on the Irish clergy. The priests of Ireland

_brutal_? The Irish people are not a brutal people, and it is

impossible that a brutal clergy should spring from them. The clergy

are loved by their people, they cannot therefore be brutally cruel;

they are respected by them, and therefore they cannot be brutally

vicious. They are educated men; they meet noblemen and gentlemen on

equal terms. Irish society is cultivated, refined, and polished, and

the Catholic priests of Ireland are respected by the respectable

Protestants of Ireland. Such an accusation as this could not be made

in Dublin, or on the floor of the British House of Commons, without

calling derision on the head of the unlucky person who ventured to use

a sort of language about Catholics, which polite society is beginning

to regard as unfit for its ears.

It is no wonder that a gentleman so prejudiced against the Catholics

and their religion as Mr. Scribner has shown himself to be, should be

astonished or puzzled at the conversions which have taken place in the

past twenty-five years:

“How one educated in the Protestant faith can become a sincere

Papist it is difficult for us to understand, and to many minds

the thing seems impossible” (p. 516).

He tries to diminish, and as far as possible to shirk the difficulty

by laying the blame on Anglicanism and Puseyism:

“It must be remembered that for an Anglican or Puseyite to become

a Catholic is a very different thing from the conversion to

Romanism of any other intelligent Protestant.”

The perusal of Dr. Newman’s _Lectures_ will show that the Protestant

view and the Protestant prejudice have had as deep and strong a hold

in the English Establishment as in the Kirk, and, therefore, the

difficulty remains where it was. But, although we may allow that a

High-churchman is logically nearer to a Catholic than is a

Presbyterian, there are plenty of cases of the conversion of those who

were brought up in the other Protestant churches. Hurter, Phillipps,

Stolberg, and De Haller were Lutherans. Mr. Lucas was a Quaker, and F.

Baker was brought up a Methodist; Dr. Brownson was a Unitarian, and

Judge Burnett was a Campbellite. There are numbers of converts in the

United States from the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists,

Unitarians, and other denominations. It does not alter the case that

some of the best known of the converts who were brought up in various

sects became Episcopalians first, and afterwards Catholics. For, as

our author asserts, they became by that step “almost Catholics.” And

how did they first become convinced of those “almost Catholic”

doctrines, and altogether Catholic principles which they only

logically followed out when they became Catholics? Then, again, we

have the two Drachs, the two Ratisbons, Hermann and Veith, who were

Israelites. Infidels, too, have been converted, as well as Protestants

and Jews; men of every country, rank, and profession, noblemen, 411

clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, physicians, merchants, military and

naval officers, have embraced the Catholic faith. Since the time of

the so-called Reformation, these converts have amounted to hundreds of

thousands, and it is our opinion that there must be at least fifty

thousand at the present moment in the Catholic Church of the United

States. This fact must, therefore, be looked in the face, and it must

be admitted that there is something in the Catholic religion which is

capable of convincing the understanding and winning the homage of the

most intelligent, upright, and conscientious persons, even though they

have been educated in Protestantism.

Mr. Scribner admits, with a commendable candor and frankness, the

sincerity and excellence of Father Faber:

“One at least who followed Dr. Newman into that communion

deserves, as far as his love for the Lord Jesus and his

self-sacrificing zeal are concerned, to be held as a

model--Frederick William Faber. In his numerous devotional books,

in all his correspondence, and in his hymns, almost all of which

are of the highest order for beauty, tenderness, and

spirituality, there breathe sweet humility, childlike trust in

Jesus as the Saviour of the lost, and the most loving submission

to the divine will.... And yet this man, whose self-sacrificing

piety and loveliness of Christian character all must acknowledge,

was, during almost the whole period in which he so earnestly

sought the good of others by his incessant toil, as sincere and

thorough a Romanist as if he had drunk in the system with his

mother’s milk.... But as long as one retains with these errors

(‘the monstrous doctrines of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of

the Mass, the supremacy of the Pope, purgatory, the worship of

the saints, and the adoration of the Virgin’), however

inconsistently, the essential truths of the Gospel, his holding

them is not incompatible with piety. Whoever is a true worshipper

of Christ is born of God, and that the subject of this biography

worshipped and loved the Saviour it is _impossible to doubt_....

One great lesson taught by this biography is the lesson of

charity, and that we should be cautious in assuming that a man is

not a Christian because he is a Romanist. Undoubtedly, when we

obey the injunction of the Scripture to pray for ‘all saints,’ we

pray for many who are in the Church of Rome. Even a Romish priest

who prays to the Virgin, and who teaches the people to pray to

her, as Faber certainly did, may be, like him, an humble

worshipper and lover of Jesus. And though he may practise

austerities, he may do so in a different spirit from that which

actuates the masses in his own church, for, instead of being full

of self-righteousness, he may have no confidence in his own

righteousness.... We may admit, etc., and yet believe that God

has a people in the Church of Rome who live and die within her

pale” (pp. 515, 516, 517, 531, 532).

Let the reader peruse these passages carefully. They read very

differently from the other set of extracts, and yet they occur

together, mixed up with each other, and we have separated them in

order to exhibit more clearly the singular clashing in the author’s

mind between old, timeworn prejudices, and a new, intruding set of

thoughts and sentiments derived from the perusal of F. Faber’s life

and writings. We have shown how he attempts to reunite the two. But

they cannot live peaceably together in the same breast, any more than

could Sara and Agar in the same tent. They are incompatible. It is

impossible to make out of Father Faber an exceptional case. If the

charge of idolatry is sustained against us, and if, in other respects,

the Roman Church deserves the epithets applied to her by our enemies,

Father Faber went with his eyes open, and remained with his eyes

opening wider and wider, and died in a religion which cannot be

embraced without bringing death to the soul. He was no adherent of 412

any softening, modifying, minimizing school. He was not like any of

those whom Protestants are wont to regard with favor as belonging more

to themselves than to us, as a sort of secret, unconscious

Protestants, who are only externally united to the Roman Church, while

their spirit is alien from her spirit. There was nothing of Pascal,

Martin Boos, or Hyacinthe about him. He was not even one of those who

stopped short at the line of strictly defined and obligatory doctrine,

as if afraid of being extreme Catholics. He was no Gallican, no

rigorist, no advocate of anything that might be called Neo-Catholic or

Anglo-Catholic. Even in regard to minor and accessory matters, to

modes and ways in which there is great room for variation in opinion

and practice, he preferred those which characterize the genius of the

Italian and Spanish nations, and which seem to the colder and more

reserved temperament of the English to be the most remote and foreign

to their tastes and intellectual habits. He endeavored to divest

himself of everything which bore the semblance of conformity even in

accidentals to Anglicanism, and to throw his whole soul into what he

considered to be the most perfectly Catholic mould. He outran in this

many both of the old English Catholics and of his fellow-converts.

Especially in regard to the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he

made himself the champion of the most exalted views concerning the

power and glory of the Mother of God, and the importance of her cultus

in the practical teaching and piety which is directed to the end of

the conversion and perfection of souls. He followed St. Bernardine of

Sienna, St. Alphonsus, and the V. Louis Grignon de Montfort, and his

entire spiritual doctrine is derived from similar sources, as it were

flowing from the very topmost heights of mystic contemplation, above

the clouds, and far remote from the paths and ken of ordinary mortals.

In his theology, which is remarkable both for accuracy and depth, he

always follows those authors whose doctrine accords with the strictest

criterion of Roman orthodoxy. It is not, then, anything in Father

Faber which is peculiar and self-originated, or which he brought over

from his Protestant education, and has mixed with Catholic doctrine as

a clarifying ingredient, that makes his books popular with

Protestants, and has excited the admiration of the writer in the

_Princeton Review_. F. Faber’s doctrine and sanctity are purely

Catholic products. The homage which he has extorted is homage paid to

the school in which he learned, and the masters and models he

followed. The sheep shows the quality of his pasture in the fineness

and whiteness of his wool. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs

of thistles.” If our reverend friend were more familiar with the lives

of the Saints and the works of Catholic spiritual writers, he would

cease to wonder at F. Faber and his works. We can point him to whole

libraries of works in which the characters and actions of a multitude

of similar men and women are depicted, and where countless forms of

the same divine truths and holy sentiments are presented. Those who

“practised austerities” to the greatest possible extent, the

solitaries of the desert, the holy monks and nuns, the saints of the

most heroic type, are precisely those who were marked at the same time

by their entire conformity to the doctrine and spirit of the Roman

Church, their profound humility, and their ardent love of the great

Lord and Saviour of mankind. Contrasting F. Faber, and others like 413

him, with the great body of fervent Catholics, as if they had a

“different spirit,” the great body being “full of self-righteousness,”

and these select few having “no confidence in their own

righteousness,” is sheer nonsense, and an unmeaning rattle of words.

We cannot all pretend to possess the genius, the loveliness of

character, the extraordinary graces, or the exalted sanctity of F.

Faber. But all those who hold the genuine Catholic doctrine which our

holy mother the church teaches, and possess in any degree the genuine

Catholic piety which she inculcates, are, so far, like F. Faber. The

same spirit is in all, whether they be the frail and sinful confessing

their sins with contrition, the sincere though imperfect who are

striving to keep God’s commandments with more or less diligence, or

the more advanced in Christian virtue and holiness of life. Those who

have a false and counterfeit piety, who indulge in the spiritual sins

of pride, self-confidence, and vainglory, who are willing victims to

the illusions of the devil, and seek to play the part of saints in

order to gratify their self-love and win applause, are like other

sinners, except that they have more of the hypocrite about them. They

generally become heretics, or fall into open sin, and cease acting

their wearisome part, unless they are truly humbled and converted.

These are the persons who have a “different spirit” from that which

actuates the true children of the church. That F. Faber touched the

common chords which vibrate through the great Catholic heart is shown

by the fact that he is the most popular spiritual writer of this

century. Three hundred thousand copies of his works, in some six or

seven languages, had been sold some time ago, and they still continue

to circulate everywhere. It is not a little remarkable that the same

chord is obedient to his touch in the hearts of so many Protestants.

What genius, learning, reasoning, philosophy, cannot do, the faith and

love which spring from prayer and penance accomplish with ease. It is

a remarkable fact, and we call the attention of Catholic preachers and

writers to it, as well as that of Protestants. One who disdained the

thought of diluting Catholic doctrine to suit the delicate palate of

the age, who was regardless of the opinion of men, who plumed his

pinions for a kind of audacious flight into the lofty ether in which

saints alone are wont to soar and poise in contemplation, who threw

off all drapery from the glorious form of Catholic truth, and loudly

called on all men to gaze and worship, is the one who wins the

confidence and captivates the hearts of the greatest number of the

church’s lost and estranged children. We trust that his works will win

their way, and exercise their gentle, attractive force still more

extensively among evangelical Protestants. The recommendation of a

Presbyterian pastor, which goes forth under the sanction of Princeton,

will, we trust, produce its full effect, and excite the pious

curiosity of a great number of readers to become acquainted with the

biography and writings of the gifted, lovely, holy poet, priest, and

teacher, who has been called the Bernardine of Sienna of the

nineteenth century.

We have endeavored to bring out into strong relief what is really of

the greatest moment in the article of the _Princeton Review_, and what

the weak though violent counter-protests only make more prominent and

definite, that the concessions to the personal and doctrinal purity of

Father Faber are a yielding of the most grievous of the charges against 414

Catholics and their religion. It argues, we hope, a change in the

spirit and manner of maintaining the controversy with us which is

coming on. The teaching of Father Faber is admitted to contain the

“essential truths of the Gospel,” and his most distinctively Catholic

and Roman doctrines are admitted to be “not incompatible with piety.”

The conclusion is rigidly logical and irresistible, that Calvinists

must consider the controversy between us as one not respecting

_directly_, but only _indirectly_, the essential, fundamental dogmas

and precepts of the Gospel and Christianity. Let them, then, realize

this view to themselves, think in accordance with it, and regulate

their conduct and language in harmony with it. Let them no longer

ignore and practically abjure the Christian church from the fourth

century to the present moment, and confine their sympathies to an

imaginary primitive period and the sphere of modern Protestantism. Let

them study ancient, mediæval, and modern Catholic authors, read

history and theology, and learn to discuss the real issue with us. The

Chinese method of warfare, charging upon us with shields aloft,

bearing the hideous figure of the beast with seven heads and ten

horns, with outcries and shouts of derision and vituperation, will not

answer any longer. Those who choose to follow such tactics will soon

be forced to throw their shoes into the air and take to flight. It is

too late to frighten even Presbyterian children with such nonsense.

The weakness and helplessness of the poor Irish Catholics, and of the

handful of Catholics in England, made them for a long time the easy

victims of oppression and calumny. But the day for treating the

Catholics of the English-speaking world with haughtiness and contumely

has passed by. We desire, however, no revenge or retaliation. We ask

nothing of Protestants except that they will seek the truth. In the

words of Montalembert: “The truth, and nothing but the truth--justice,

and nothing but justice--let that be our sole revenge!”[97]

[94] _The Princeton Review_, October, 1871. Art. II.:

_The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber._ By

Rev. William Scribner.

[95] _Lecture IV._, p. 206. Dublin. Third Edition.

[96] We do not intend to affirm positively that Gioberti

formally renounced the communion and faith of the Catholic

Church, a matter about which there hangs a great obscurity.

But his violent enmity to the Jesuits and his revolutionary

principles in general would have certainly led him to attack

the clergy and the existing order in the most vulnerable

part.

[97] _Monks of the West_, Introduction, last paragraph.

----------

LIMITATION.

Through limit and hindrance man works: no limit hath God, and no need;

But his wind is musical only when prisoned in the cane of the reed.

AUBREY DE VERE.

----------

MODERN OPERA.[98] 415

Nothing better pictures an epoch than the art and literature which it

produces. The great characters, religious and political, immortalized

by history, have always been surrounded by a cluster of noble

geniuses, artistic and literary. The generosity and magnanimity of

heroes is reproduced in the sublime purity of the works of art of

their epoch. Nobility of art bears testimony to the excellence of

morals. Our century is no exception to this. Confusion of principles

in politics and religion is accompanied by an analogous overturning of

morals, of art, and of literature. We are living in a time of general

depravity; at least, it is so as regards those who pretend to march at

the head of modern civilization. But their depraved literature, their

shameless arts, exercise their disastrous influence over those who

would wish to resist the current of the bad passions of the day. It is

to them that M. Stein gives warning of the danger, in depicting the

bad conditions into which dramatic music has degenerated. It is a

study of contemporaneous manners, not so much from an artistic as from

a religious and political point of view.

GENTLEMEN: A few days ago, it was shown you here how considerable is

the influence of the fine arts upon the moral life of mankind; it was

demonstrated how they can guide the human sentiment towards different

ends, good or bad.

You will permit me now to call your attention to a branch of the fine

arts which, more now than ever, and more than all others, exercises

its influence on the moral life of the people, and which merits thus

the highest degree of interest from this assembly. It is dramatic

poetry allied to musical art, that is, the Opera.

You all know the great extent of this branch, which has captivated the

favor of the public to a degree perfectly exceptional, and which has

banished to the second place all other branches of dramatic art.

The reasons of this extraordinary success are not so well known. The

excessive predilection of public theatregoers for the opera is of

quite recent date. Only forty years ago, the masterpieces of dramatic

poetry enjoyed the same favor as those of dramatic music. By the side

of Mozart and Carl Maria von Weber, Shakespeare and Schiller were

found on a footing of equality; to-day they must retire before

Meyerbeer and Offenbach, and be contented to remain eclipsed by these

favorites of the public. If you question on the subject enthusiastic

lovers of the opera, they will answer that, in our day, opera has made

progress so considerable, and attained to such perfection, that the

understanding of music is so general among the people, that this

predilection of an enlightened public for dramatic music is the most

natural thing in the world. You know there never can be question of

any other than an enlightened public; for it cannot be doubted that

every man who frequents the theatre is a man of progress. The gallery 416

represents the preparatory school; the boxes, the pupils in

philosophy.

However, it is difficult to believe that artistic taste and love of

music are the sole motives which cause the public to fill the halls of

the opera-house. Forty years ago, the works of Mozart, of Weber, and

other masters were well appreciated by connoisseurs, but they did not

meet with as much success from the public as modern operas enjoy

to-day. Or is it rather that Donizetti and Verdi, Meyerbeer and

Offenbach, understand the art better than Mozart and Weber, Spohr and

Spontini? We cannot admit it. The reason must be elsewhere, and

surely, gentlemen, you wish to know it.

In a pamphlet published ten years ago, Richard Wagner says: “The

essential foundation of art, as practised generally in our day, is

industry: its moral end is gain, its æsthetic intention to kill

_ennui_.”

This richly endowed artist has in view his colleagues in dramatic

music, the composers of opera. He knew these men well, and understood

himself how they set to work. But in the words quoted he has perfectly

explained the end and tendency of modern opera.

The end is no other than gain; and, as means conducive to this end,

effect is necessary, which must be attained at any price.

Industrialism, that tyrant of our age, has also submitted the opera to

its power, and under its domination the art exhausts itself forcibly,

because tied to the fly-wheel of the artistic fabric. To produce

effect, to surprise and bring out something which has not yet been

seen--these are the objects of actual dramatic music. To this end is

sacrificed not only art, but also all that exists--religion, politics,

morality, and truth. This unfortunate course has been inaugurated by

the Italians. In their dramatic works, Donizetti and Verdi have sought

but for effect, theatrical success, and to this end have completely

sacrificed dramatic truth. For love of effect, they have trodden upon

law, morals, and even reason. The domination of sense over mind is the

characteristic feature of their music.

But it is among the French that this style has attained its greatest

perfection, and even among the German composers, who, for love of

effect, have Frenchified themselves. The most skilful author of scores

of operas, Scribe, has offered his pen to these greedy musicians for

money, and shows his readiness to sacrifice all to it. Scribe

understood the Parisian public for which he worked. He knew its

weakness, and he has succeeded in imposing the vitiated taste of that

public on the whole civilized world.

In the texts furnished by Scribe, all is intended for scenic

effect--all means are employed to reach this end. The requirements of

dramatic truth and of morality, even of good sense, are sacrificed to

the one end, effect. Frivolous and immodest allusions, which offer

gross food to the impure fancy, and necessarily soil the imagination

of innocence; doubtful scenes, as, for example, in _Fra Diavolo_,

where a young girl unrobes and goes to bed before the audience;

scenes of the bath, as in the _Huguenots_; scenes of seduction, as in

_Robert le Diable_; political allusions, exaltation of and homage to

the revolutionary passions, as in the _Muette de Portici_; base

flattery to the irreligious opinions and prejudices of the day; even,

in fine, scenes peculiarly religious, that are put into the piece to

produce striking contrasts, and bring out voluptuous scenes

better--these are the artistic means of which these poets and composers 417

have made use to produce effect, and to make money with this effect.

Thanks to these industrials of the opera, it happens that in France a

new opera has no longer chance of success, if it be not abundantly

provided with these means for exciting bad passions.

Now, how is it in Germany? The German good-nature imitates everything

of which the French set the example. It allows itself to be deceived,

even to the point of finding _naïveté_ where there is nothing but

immodesty. It thinks even that it recognizes a religious character in

works which do but abuse and vilify religion. The German good-nature

imagines that these creators of French art have carried dramatic music

to its highest perfection, whilst in reality they are merely skilful

workmen, and often something much worse.

If it be denied that our so-called artistic and intelligent public is

intoxicated with drinking from the poisoned cup of the French opera,

it must be conceded that in Germany there are still many men who know

and love art, and who therefore, at the start, do not sacrifice to

this musical Baal, but render testimony to the truth with regard to

the modern opera. They do not trouble themselves about the shouts and

railleries of the crowd, who are unreflecting, and seek in art only

sensual enjoyment and pastime.

Permit me here to recall the memory of a generous man, a grand master

of the musical art, whom the city of Düsseldorf formerly counted among

its citizens--to wit, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. From the letters he has

left, we know that, during his artistic career, he desired earnestly

to try his creative power on the opera, but could not succeed because,

notwithstanding his multiplied efforts, he could not find a text to

please him. During his sojourn in Paris, his father wrote him to

employ Scribe to furnish him a text, to make the composition at Paris,

and to have the joint work performed there. This letter of the father

betrays a man well versed in business. In his answer, Mendelssohn

first speaks of the difficulties which are raised against strangers

who wish to represent their works in Paris; then says: “It must be

added that, among the French, the principal condition is one to which

we must always be opposed, even when the epoch requires us to be ready

to make concessions to the taste of the day. This essential condition

is immorality. I have no music for that. It is ignoble. If the present

age exacts such requirements of the opera, I renounce it for ever. I

prefer to compose religious music.”

Honor to the honest man! Honor to the artist who in acting thus

honored himself--who refused to gain money and to make himself famous

by selling for so base a use the divine gift which God had given him!

As Mendelssohn indicates here, it is particularly Meyerbeer who has

devoted himself to this bad style. In his youth, this talented artist

had composed several operas which had not been favorably received. He

had tried without success in the German school as well as in the

Italian. He gave himself up to the mercantile style, and his career

was brilliant. Meanwhile, Meyerbeer employed Scribe to write his

texts, and these two minds understood each other wonderfully. The one

furnished piquant scenes, without regard to the exigencies of reason

and morals, and threw in a profusion of seductions for all the

passions. He set to work all the wonders of decoration. The other

illuminated the whole with seductive music, which sought but for 418

effect, and had no regard to dramatic truth. In this manner, Meyerbeer

has become not only the most famous, but also--and this is the

principal thing--the richest musician of the entire world. He knows

his business, as no one before has known it.

Meyerbeer is distinguished particularly for his predilection for

religious scenes. With consummate skill, he uses them to produce

striking contrasts. None of his last operas fail in this spicy

seasoning. As a Jew, he is impartial among the different Christian

sects. He maligns and mocks them all. In _Robert le Diable_, it is

Catholicism which is put under contribution to furnish material for

his religious scenes; in the _Huguenots_, he abuses Protestantism in

the same manner and to the same end.

Marcel, a personage insignificant and dull, a fanatical Huguenot,

interrupts everywhere the action of the piece with a Protestant

canticle, always inopportunely and without reason, but producing

always a grand effect by contrast. It is the air of the canticle of

Luther: “Our God is a tower of strength.” The success of the

_Huguenots_, this opera being so much a favorite, rests almost

entirely on the contrasts produced by this canticle.

In the first act, a merry company of cavaliers is found at table

drinking and singing a riotous song. Marcel, the incomprehensible

solitary, proceeds to thunder out, with a loud voice accompanied with

brazen instruments: “Hear me, strong God! My voice is raised to thee.”

This canticle, in the midst of jovial drinkers, intermingled with the

song they are singing--how can it fail of effect? In the second act,

there is a very violent scene. At the instigation of Queen Margaret,

the Count St. Bris has proposed his daughter to the Chevalier Raoul,

who refuses her. Valentina, the daughter, despised and scorned,

complains; Queen Margaret preaches peace; all shout and fence, and

Marcel adds his chorus in a thundering voice, “God, our guard and

protection, listen to our cries!” Is not this a shameful prostitution

of sacred things? But it produces effect; and our opera-going public,

which boasts of its delicate taste, is enchanted with it, and imagines

that the violent impression produced by these contrasts is a religious

and edifying sentiment.

In _L’Africaine_, the last production of Meyerbeer, he introduces us

immediately, in the first act, to a sitting of the secret council of

the King of Portugal. It is understood that the grand inquisitor and a

certain number of cardinals play the principal _rôle_. Finally, Vasco

de Gama is condemned, loaded with chains, and thrown into the deepest

dungeon. Why? Because he has affirmed the existence of distant and

unknown lands of which the Scripture does not speak. You know well

that ecclesiastical dignitaries have always had the habit of refuting

with chains and a prison novel ideas and scientific discoveries. At

least, by this scene the public is convinced of it, with the aid of

stunning music. This same opera, so much approved, contains also a

very piquant amorous intrigue. There are several choruses of prayer,

then a large vessel on the stage, and finally a manchineel tree, which

spreads death. We must agree that it is the possible and the

impossible.

However, it is not the Jew Meyerbeer who has pushed to the extreme his

musical industry. The Jew Offenbach has gone much further. The former

speculated principally on the curiosity of the unreflecting masses;

but while his art is under subjection to frivolity, he still seeks 419

to preserve a certain decorum. But Offenbach has got rid of the last

remains of modesty and propriety. Yet the Christian public besiege the

workshop, and applaud with frenzy the musical indecencies of this

industrious Jew.

_Orphées aux Enfers_, _La Belle Hélène_, _La Vie Parisienne_, such, for

several years, have been the favorite works with a public in advance

of its age. These operas have been played every day for weeks and

months on every stage; and often there are disputes over the tickets

for these representations. Of course, it is all owing to the beautiful

music.

With these impure works, dramatic music has attained the extreme of

degradation. After having been lowered by Meyerbeer and the modern

composers of France and Italy to the rank of an _equestrienne_, who

rides round the circus in elegant costume, the muse of music has been

thrown to the demi-monde by Offenbach. She could not fall lower.

Gentlemen, permit me to repeat the question which was laid before you

in the beginning. What is the reason that modern opera has gained the

favor of the public to so eminent a degree that not only the classical

works of this kind, but also the masterpieces of declaimed drama, are

banished from the theatre? Now, we can answer this question. The

reason of this surprising phenomenon is that, by the modern opera, art

has entered into the service of sensuality, art has lost all generous

and elevated motives. It has tasked itself to amuse a public depraved

by pleasures of every kind--to satisfy curiosity, to flatter the bad

passions, the errors and prejudices of the age, and to make a bad use

of the questions of the day.

Those who still doubt what I say have but to notice the intimate union

of the ballet with the opera which the prevailing taste dictates as an

inexorable law. In most cases, the ballet has no logical or artistic

connection with the opera. It is a foreign element which imposes

itself upon musical and dramatic action, and which is given with the

avowed intention of exciting voluptuousness. Reason is forced to

despise the ballet; moral sentiment condemns it; musical art is

obliged to lament over it as a sad aberration; nevertheless, modern

opera has concluded an alliance for life with this frivolous creation

of the present time. You know the proverb, “Tell me what company you

keep: I will tell you what you are.”

Our friends of the opera do not like to be told these things.

Judgments like these are for them the expressions of a mind opposed to

modern civilization, and lost in obsolete ideas. If one of these

partisans of modern opera hears what I have just said, he will

certainly say that the darkness of my ultramontane soul is blacker

than the color of my robe. He will maintain that it is only æsthetic

education, artistic sense, enthusiasm for music, which draws him and

his equals to similar works; and, nevertheless, the old operas which

are veritable works of art, but which do not contain any piquant

subject and little food for sensuality, leave them cold and

indifferent in the depth of their hearts. The symphonies of Beethoven

and Mozart cause these lovers of art to yawn, and the name alone of an

oratorio makes their flesh creep.

What position have we Christians to take, in order to oppose these

alarming phenomena of the present day? A critic of the seventeenth

century, named Wehrenfels, has laid down this principle for dramatic

art in general: “Finally, all our dramatic representations should be 420

such that Plato could tolerate them in his republic, that Cato could

listen to them with pleasure, that vestals could witness them without

wounding their chastity, and, what is more important, that Christians

could listen to them.”

You will say this is too antiquated a principle. Among the greater

part of our amateurs at the theatre it will only provoke expressions

of doubt; they will say that this poor Wehrenfels is far behind modern

civilization. Notwithstanding, no one undertakes to refute this

principle, to demonstrate that these requirements are groundless. But

as long as they are not refuted, we must consider them justified, and

we ask if they should not be applied to the opera. Is not the drama

when sung to be submitted to the same true moral and æsthetic laws as

the drama recited?

To the phenomena of life as produced before our eyes, we apply the

scale of conscience and of reason. Why should it not be our right and

our duty to apply them also to the opera, and to regulate our conduct

from the result of such an examination? No one will deny that this

question is well founded. Nevertheless, it would meet with much

resistance. Our enthusiasts of the opera have tacitly agreed that,

where it is a question of opera, good sense and conscience should be

silent. But ourselves, gentlemen, ought never to abandon these

principles. We should no longer be Christians, if we did not apply to

the opera the principles we practise in our lives.

Let us, then, apply these principles to the music of our day. What

must we do if it be condemned for frivolity, for immodesty and abuse

of religious things? If we find that the scenes are arranged solely

with a view to effect, and in disregard of good sense and logic? If

reason and conscience, by common accord, condemn this degradation of

art, and the deception with which this degradation is presented as

veritable art? What must we do, in presence of these great accusations

against modern opera?

Would you condemn to silence your reason and your conscience because

you are promised amusement? Would you wish, as a return for your

money, to have sung on the stage words you despise, words you would

repulse if they were spoken? Would you put a temptation before your

children, in leading them to the opera--these same children whom you

tried to bring up in honesty, in religion, in piety, and the

observance of all Christian duties? Do you believe that at the opera,

where religion is made a plaything, where it is exposed to contempt,

attacked and calumniated, they will learn to esteem and to obey it?

Will they learn good morals, decency, and propriety from the dancers

of the ballet? It is sufficient to place before you these questions;

you will answer them yourselves. But why this severe criticism? What

will result from it?

Will my words succeed in turning dramatic music from its bad course,

and making it enter on a better? Will the thousands and thousands of

individuals who find their greatest pleasure in modern opera take

notice of them at all? I do not count upon that. But I hope with

confidence, gentlemen, that my words will engage you to examine more

closely the subject of which I have been treating. You will not form

your judgment from charlatans of criticism and enthusiastic partisans

of sensuality; but you will judge for yourselves, by vigorously

applying your Christian principles. If you are thus affected, my words

will have borne fruit.

[98] _Lecture of M. Stein, Curate of Cologne._ Delivered

before the Catholic Congress at Düsseldorf.

----------

THE STUDY OF SACRED HISTORY.[99] 421

It has been said that a distinguished English lady, remarkable for her

intelligence in the treatment of many questions affecting the

condition of the proletarian classes, and by whose persevering efforts

the erection and management of reformatories for juvenile offenders,

and industrial schools for that vagrant portion of the community known

in our civilized era as “street Arabs,” and who herself personally

superintended most admirably a reformatory for young girls in Bristol,

was accustomed to say to her visitors, in reply to their astonishment

at her wonderful perseverance and success: “Whenever I see anything

that I can call radically wrong, I never feel satisfied till I can

render to myself an intelligent reason why it has gone wrong; and

then, when I know what the causes are, I set myself to the task of

preventing, as far as possible, the occurrence of anything of the same

kind in the future.”

This practical view of the duties of life, which proved of such

benefit to the beneficiaries of that philanthropic lady, seems to have

been adopted by the author of the work before us, and to have been

applied on a more comprehensive scale. Becoming convinced, after long

investigation, that one of the evils which at present afflict society

arises out of spiritual ignorance of the history of the church and of

the pre-Christian era, instead of supinely contenting himself with

bemoaning the calamity, he set to work and produced a book which,

under its present modest title, contains a concise history not only of

the Catholic Church, but of the ways of God’s providence to man from

the creation, as far as they have been revealed to us through the

pages of Holy Writ and in the writings of ancient authorities. The

reverend author by this admirable work hoped, if he could not

contribute to dispel the mists of doubt and dissent now so widespread

in both hemispheres, to at least put into the hands of the rising

generation a preventive and an argument against those who would either

deny the existence of a revealed law, or, admitting, would pervert its

commands to their own weak or vicious purposes. His success so far has

been proportionate to his ability and purity of motive.

We are all aware that the best part of the Christian people has been

plunged into profound grief and stupefaction by the recent murder, or,

as the Holy Father more emphatically expressed it, the parricide of

the late Archbishop of Paris, and so many of his faithful clergy. Now,

who were the perpetrators of that most foul deed? In one sense,

certainly, not a wild, tumultuous mob, acting without system or

guidance, nor yet private assassins in the employment of the secret

societies, or moved thereto by personal malice or revenge. On the

contrary, the deed was done in the open day, by the arbitrary orders

of what was claimed to have been a regularly established government,

and executed by its armed soldiery, two of whom, even when about to

obey the mandates of their supposed superiors, knelt at the feet of 422

the holy prelate and begged his forgiveness for the crime they were

about to commit. It is not claimed by the apologists of the Communists

that their illustrious victims were guilty of any offence against the

state, or that even the form of a trial was accorded them; and yet

there are to be found many persons, considering themselves honorable

and intelligent, who openly or secretly applaud that glaring and cruel

act of injustice, and who thoroughly sympathize with the European

revolutionists--those enemies of all law, who, if they had the power,

would repeat in every city in Christendom the late disgraceful scenes

of Paris. It is a melancholy fact that outside the Catholic Church the

horrible murder of the venerable Archbishop Darboy and so many of his

clergy has been the cause of ill-disguised congratulation, not only

among those who are in direct affiliation with the revolutionists, but

amid the sects who profess to regard the Decalogue as part of their

fundamental doctrine. Have we yet heard from the thousands of pulpits

and hundreds of newspapers, occupied and controlled by the various

Protestant sects, one open and manly protest against the atrocious

criminals who have so recently sullied the fair fame of France by

deeds that would have disgraced the most degraded forms of savage

life? Not one.

A fact like this, so patent and portentous, while it shows how large a

portion of civilized society has fallen away from the plainest

teachings of Christian charity and justice, must necessarily lead to

the inquiry as to the best means of arresting, and, if possible,

correcting so monstrous an evil. Recognizing it as such, it is our

duty fearlessly and persistently to endeavor to correct it, for

“_Felix qui potuis rerum cognoscere causæ_” will always be a true

maxim, even when we are engaged in the study of the worst of human

miseries and disasters with a view to their alleviation.

In contemplating the many evils which now afflict Christian society,

the creation and formerly the obedient creature of the Catholic

Church, we must recollect that God has not given to his church the

gift of being the infallible preserver of the faith in every nation

and at all times, no more than she can guarantee to all people civil

order and wise government. There is no doubt that the church is the

tree set up in this world, the leaves of which are the health of

mankind, “_et quis tibi imputavit si perierint nationes quas tu

fecisti_” (Wisd. xii. 12); but who shall accuse her of countenancing

the disorders which have arisen through the rejection of her authority,

and to which she has ever been strenuously opposed? Our Lord himself

contemplates the rebellion of nations and people against his doctrine. To

the angel of the Church of Ephesus the Spirit said, “Be mindful from

whence thou hast fallen: and do penance, and resume thy first works. Or

if not, behold I come to thee and will move thy candlestick out of its

place, except thou dost penance” (Apoc. ii. 5). Even the presence of the

priesthood among us in adequate numbers is no assurance against schism

and infidelity. Though we may have every confidence in their sanctity and

the soundness of their teachings, we cannot always be certain that the

duties of their holy calling will be performed with uniform discretion,

intelligence, and zeal, or that the hearts of their congregations will

respond on all occasions and amid all circumstances to the teachings of

their pastors. It is true that at all times and in all places the

soldiers of the Cross have proved themselves the faithful guardians of

piety and morality, but it must be admitted that occasionally, 423

particularly in Europe, they have not attached sufficient importance

to the necessity of the intellectual training of the masses and to the

wonderful advances of the human mind in abstract and practical

sciences. What the Abbé Fleury wrote of a past generation is

partially, at least, true in this. In the preface to his _Historical

Catechism_, he says:

“We see a great number of devout persons who have read great

numbers of spiritual books, and are familiar with a large variety

of devotional practices, but who are totally wanting in an

understanding of the very groundwork of religion.”

Fleury’s testimony receives a remarkable corroboration in the

circumstance that, in the last century, whoever derided the

traditional belief in God and in the Christian revelation acquired

credit with the multitude as an “_esprit fort_.” In short, the idea of

there being so much as the possibility of an “_esprit fort_” who

believed in God and who _ex animo_ professed the faith of the church,

appeared to be unknown, and the universal notion in France was that

the choice consisted in being feeble and pious or strong-minded and

atheistical. Under the influence of this notion, the principal part of

the male population of France fell away from the faith, and it has

required the persistent efforts of at least two generations of

priests, and with but partial success, to lead them back to the

church. Religion in Great Britain during the past century is known to

have largely taken its complexion from France, and it is remarkable

that the bulk of the English Protestants affected to form precisely

the same estimate of it, and that it was a power inimical to the

cultivation of the understanding and a decided enemy of knowledge and

progress. The same phenomenon appears in Italy. The Italian people are

still deeply attached to the traditions of the Catholic faith, but the

popular idea of the Catholic religion, misled by the slanders and

misrepresentations of the revolutionists, is that it is the religion

of the timid, the feeble, and the pious, that its wants are limited to

functions and processions, beads and prayer-books, or what would be

rather scoffingly called “_roba di pietà_,” and that it is in no way

conscious of any wants proper to a manly understanding, and

consequently never expected to take any pains to satisfy them. In

Germany, there are perfectly analogous symptoms. Catholics in some

parts of that great empire bear the contemptuous name of

_Dunkelmänner_, men of darkness; and they are looked upon, not merely

by the positive enemies of all religion, but by the busy throng, as

certainly no friends to the legitimate progress and cultivation of the

gifts of the understanding.

The consequences of these disastrous tendencies to fall off from the

practice of the virtues and observances of the church are apparent to

all thinking men, and, if not checked, will have an equally marked

effect on the morals and faith of future generations. To some extent,

we humbly submit, they are due to a want of thorough education, not

only spiritually but humanly, among a large number of Catholics, who,

not deficient in piety and the desire to live according to the

precepts of Christianity, are too often led away by the sophistries

and superior knowledge--real or affected--of the opponents of their

faith. Learning is said to be the handmaiden of religion--and is never

so brilliant as when employed in her service, while religion,

profiting by her assistance, moves on from one triumph to another. It 424

does not appear to be a part of the providence of God that man should

simply grow into a knowledge of the doctrines of the church, in the

same manner as he advances to bodily maturity, but by intelligent and

persevering teaching and diligent practice. In our world, every year

brings new-comers on the stage, and the message to the Church of

Ephesus was, “_Age pœnitentiam et prima opera fac_.” The Catholic

clergy inherit a tradition, long anterior to that of the past century,

of being the patrons and the cultivators of the human mind, and they

still should remember these true and ancient glories of their sacred

calling. The language of the sacred liturgy on the day of Pentecost is

beautifully expressive on this subject:

“_Da tuis fidelibus_

_In te confitentibus_

_Sacrum septenarium._”

_Sacrum Septenarium_--the sacred seven gifts of the Holy Ghost,

amongst which we find the “spirit of understanding and of knowledge.”

All the gifts of the Holy Ghost doubtless require to receive their due

share of honor and cultivation. But in a generation which has gone so

widely and so terribly wrong by the way of a perverted and deceived

intellect, the cause of faith in the world demands that the battle be

fought with a special determination on the ground of the intelligence.

If Satan relies on the perversion of the mind for leading them away

from belief in the truth and divinity of the revelation brought by

Moses, and perfected by the coming and ministry of one greater than

Moses, St. Michael must contend with Satan for the possession of the

body of Moses. The more the spirit of deception that has gone abroad

seeks to discredit the Mosaic revelation, which is the forerunner in

the world of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the more we must

diligently persevere and insist that all who are willing to listen

should stir up within themselves the gifts of the spirit of

understanding and knowledge, and qualify themselves to resist and

confront the spirit of error wherever they meet with it and on all

fitting occasions. Every Catholic family ought to be a centre or focus

of Christian information. In every household there ought to be books

containing the narrative of the works of God through the line of his

great saints, beginning from the sacred narrative of Moses downwards

to the present time. Sacred history is the true tower of strength to

the cause of faith.

This study should not, as it has heretofore generally been, confined

to ancient history; for, though we may find in the Old Testament the

wonderful working of God in his intercourse with his creatures, and

see developed and completed his works and promises to his chosen

people, we have, under the new dispensation and in the history of the

Catholic Church, as indubitable proofs of the promises and fulfilment

of them in the fulness of time by our divine Maker. The history of the

Popes, for example, from St. Peter to Pius IX., is replete with

providential incidents, astonishing the worldly and baffling the

so-called wisdom of the sceptical. The perpetual rejuvenation of the

church herself when apparently crushed and disintegrated beneath the

load of kingly oppression and the lawlessness of the mob, is in itself

not only a perpetual miracle, but the evident fulfilment of the

promises of the Founder to be with her all days even to the

consummation of the world. The lives of the grand throng of saints,

martyrs, confessors, and missionaries--the glory and pride of the

church--their sufferings, triumphs, and miracles; their love of art 425

and literature, and all that makes life holy and beautiful, are

fraught with lessons before which even the story of Abraham’s

sacrifice and Joseph’s forgiveness sink into comparative

insignificance. Sacred history should be read as a whole, from the

beginning of time to the present day, giving to the more ancient part

its proper share of attention, not only for its own sake but as

prefiguring the more perfect system of Christianity. But the history

of the Church deserves and should receive our chiefest and most marked

attention.

The book of the Rev. Henry Formby, which, under its simple title,

contains a concise and chronological narrative of sacred history from

the creation down to our own times, in this respect is one of the most

useful publications that has recently appeared from the English press,

and, though but an abridgment of a much more voluminous work on the

same subject, it preserves all the essential features of the original

with singular simplicity and lucidity of style. The title gives but a

faint idea of its merits, for in truth it is not a mere collection of

stories in the general acceptation of that term, but short, succinct,

and correct historical sketches of events related in the Old

Testament, and a condensed and necessarily short history of the church

from its foundation. The arrangement of the subject is admirable, and,

in view of the vast field of Biblical lore to be traversed, and the

numerous historical facts of the first importance to be touched on, at

least in the confined limits of one volume, there are displayed a

clearness of narration, and a nice appreciation of the salient points

in the spiritual progress of the human race, that make the book easy

to be read and understood by even the most ordinarily instructed

person. In fact, if the author had substituted “pictures” for

“stories” in his title-page, he would have been more correct.

A general knowledge of the history of the creation, and of God’s once

chosen people, the Jews, as well as an acquaintance with that of the

church herself, the perfection of what was imperfectly prefigured

under the old dispensation, ought to be an essential ingredient in the

education of every Catholic child and of every adult, no matter what

may be his condition in life; but heretofore the undertaking has been

so laborious on account of the want of elementary books on those

all-important subjects, that but little was generally known of the

workings of Providence in ancient times, and the typical significance

of many of the events related in the Old Testament, except by the

learned few. Even the early history of the church has been practically

a sealed book to the English-speaking masses, whose ideas of her long

years of suffering, persecution, and final triumph have been of the

most indefinite and oftentimes erroneous character. We have to thank

Father Formby for supplying this defect in our Catholic literature,

and in future there can be no excuse for ignorance of at least the

origin, labors, and progress of the religion we profess. In about one

hundred and sixty pages, the half of his book, devoted to the

Christian era, he presents to us very complete and exact, if not very

elaborate, views of the leading events in the history of the church

for over eighteen centuries. In addition to this, he has appended to

many of the sections in the part occupied with the pre-Christian

period short moral reflections, and institutes comparisons between the

old and new order of things, which are not only edifying, but highly

instructive, particularly to young readers. For example, with

reference to the days of the creation of the world, he remarks: 426

“Jesus Christ rested in the tomb from the work of redemption on

the Sabbath or seventh day, and arose again from the dead on the

first day of the week. For this reason, the Christians no longer

keep holy the original Sabbath, but the Lord’s day, or first day

of the week, in memory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

And again, after relating the dispersion of the builders of the Tower

of Babel, he draws this beautiful comparison:

“The nations of the world suffered a great punishment upon their

pride in the confusion of their speech, and in their separation

one from another. Jesus Christ has in part removed this

punishment; for he has again made all the nations of the earth

one religious family in his church, under the supreme government

of the successor of St. Peter, and as partakers of one and the

same sacrifice at the altar.”

In allusion to the well-known story of the sale of Joseph to the

Egyptians by his brethren, he says:

“Joseph, hated by his brethren on account of his love of virtue

and innocence, and sold by them for a slave into the land of

Egypt, is a striking figure of Jesus Christ hated by his own

people on account of his love of justice and sanctity, and

delivered up by them bound into the hands of the Roman governor,

Pontius Pilate.”

Father Formby’s diction and treatment of his subject are varied and

suited to the epoch which he describes. In the early pages of his

book, he adopts the figurative orientalisms of the Hebrew writers, but

further on he sobers down to the less florid and more matter-of-fact

style of modern times. His descriptions of the crusades and the origin

and growth of the religious orders are exceedingly graphic and

correct, though of course merely outlines of what would fill books

enough to make up an ordinary library if written in detail, and his

summing up of the so-called reformation is deserving of particular

notice.

“There is something worthy of being carefully observed as regards

the Protestantism which began in the sixteenth century to cause

whole nations and peoples to renounce the faith and discipline of

the Catholic Church. But as other great heresies, such as that of

Arius, have had a similar ruinous effect in causing a great

falling off from faith without the end of the world following in

their wake, Protestantism cannot simply for this reason by itself

be understood to be the sign to which St. Paul refers. What is

remarkable, however, in Protestantism is, that though Dr. Martin

Luther and the others who were leaders at the time formed sects,

the disciples of which called themselves by the names of

their masters--as Lutherans from Luther, Calvinists from

Calvin--Protestantism has long ago ceased to be the name of any

particular doctrine. Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists,

Socinians, and all the different sects which arose at this time,

as regards what is meant by Protestantism, are just as good

Protestants the one as the other. They may, and do, dispute with

each other about what is to be held to be true as Christian

doctrine, but as regards Protestantism they are all quite agreed.

How come, then, those who are completely at war with each other

about Christian doctrine to agree completely about

‘Protestantism’? The reason is, that Protestantism proper has but

one solitary doctrine and one solitary precept, viz., ‘_Depart

from the Roman Church_.’ All who satisfy this one precept entitle

themselves to the name of ‘Protestant.’ It is true that, up to

the present time, those who have protested against the Roman

Church have generally had the credit of deserving to be, in some

way or other, known as Christians; but this is rapidly ceasing to

be the case. ‘Protestantism’ has now come to be the name of the

confederacy of almost all without exception whose cry is, ‘Depart

from the Roman Church,’ so that there would seem to be no

rashness in recognizing it as the departure (_discessio_) which

St. Paul points to as the sign indicating the world to be drawing 427

to a close.”

In addition to the merits and attractions of this valuable

contribution to contemporaneous Catholic literature, we observe that

most of the leading incidents recorded in sacred history are

illustrated by wood-cuts very handsomely designed and executed, so

that the eye as well as the understanding is made familiar with the

historical places, incidents, and characters sought to be portrayed,

and the frontispiece is a large and excellently clear engraving of

Jerusalem. The growth of Catholic literature in England, where even in

the recollection of many of us Catholicity, confined to the humble

minority, was banned and ostracized by author and reader alike, is one

of the most healthful signs of the times, and it will be a great

dereliction of duty on our part here in America if we do not profit by

the labors of our co-religionists abroad, hoping some day to

reciprocate the favor.

[99] _The Pictorial Bible and Church History Stories,

Abridged._ By the Rev. Henry Formby. New York: The

Catholic Publication Society. 1871. 8vo, pp. 320.

----------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ESSAYS CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. By John Henry Newman, formerly Fellow

of Oriel College, Oxford. Vols. I. and II., 8vo. London: Basil

Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1871. New York: For sale by The

Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.

“These essays, with the exception of the last, were written while

their author was Fellow of Oriel, and a member of the Established

Church. They are now, after many years, republished, mainly for the

following reason: He cannot destroy what he has once put into print:

‘Litera scripta manet.’ He might suppress it for a time; but, sooner

or later, his power over it will cease. And then, if it is, either in

its matter or its drift, adapted to benefit the cause which it was

intended to support when it was given to the world, it will be

republished in spite of his later disavowal of it. In order to

anticipate the chance of its being thus used after his death, the only

way open to him is, while living, to show why it has ceased to approve

itself to his own judgment.... This, accordingly, has been his attempt

in the present edition of these essays, as far as they demand it of

him; and he is sanguine that he has been able to reduce what is

uncatholic in them, whether in argument or in statement, to the

position of those ‘difficultates’ which figure in dogmatic treatises

of theology, and which are elaborately drawn out, and set forth to

best advantage, in order that they may be the more carefully and

satisfactorily answered.”--_Author’s Preface._

Anything from Dr. Newman’s pen has a strong personal claim upon the

interest of Catholics. The volumes before us contain fifteen essays,

written at different times between the years 1828 and 1846. The

subjects are mainly connected with the intellectual progress at that

time developing in the mind of the author. The volumes are necessary

to a collection of his works, and also to a perfect acquaintance with

classic English literature.

THE FOURFOLD SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of

Westminster. London: Burns, Oates & Co. For sale by The Catholic

Publication Society, New York.

The rapidity with which volume follows volume from the prolific pen of 428

the Archbishop of Westminster has often astonished our mind. From

hints given in the preface to this last publication, we get, in part,

an explanation. It appears that his Grace employs a skilful

stenographer to take down and then copy for the press his

extemporaneous lectures. In this way, one who has a mind stored with

the acquisitions of a lifetime, and is gifted so unusually with the

_copia fundi_, can accomplish what could otherwise be done only

by a man of more leisure than is enjoyed by the active prelate of the

London diocese.

These four lectures make a pendant to the last four published, and

complete the general view of the subject. They are like all the works

of Archbishop Manning, of which our opinion has been so lately

expressed. We need, therefore, only to announce the publication of

these new lectures, and our readers will understand for themselves the

value and interest they possess.

THE TRADITION OF THE SYRIAC CHURCH OF ANTIOCH, concerning the

Primacy and the Prerogatives of St. Peter, and of his successors,

the Roman Pontiffs. By the Most Rev. Cyril Behnam Benni, Syriac

Archbishop of Mossul (Nineveh). London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1871. For

sale by The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.

This unique production symbolizes the contrariety and unity of the

East and West in a singular manner. It begins at both ends, and

finishes in the middle, where the appendices usually put at the end

are snugly sandwiched between the Syriac original and the English

translation. This translation has been made by the Rev. Joseph

Gagliardi, and is, of course, at that end of the volume which, to our

Occidental habits of thought, appears to be the natural beginning. The

Syriac begins at the opposite end, and thus both languages have their

own way, and the book will answer equally well for the reader in

Nineveh and the one in London. The tradition of the Church of

Antioch, where St. Peter established his first see, is scarcely

inferior in interest and importance to that of the Roman Church. The

learned prelate has gathered together the best and most authentic

testimonies to the supremacy of the Roman See from documents both

ancient and modern, liturgies, official acts, and writings of prelates

and learned men, both Catholic and schismatical. The references are

most carefully given, and the whole work is critical and scholarly. It

is published in a very handsome and ornamental style, and cannot fail

to interest the curious, the learned, and all who are engaged in

theological pursuits. The testimonies to the authority of the Holy See

which it contains are very valuable, and as they are given in a clear

English translation, methodically arranged, and accompanied by full

explanations, they are intelligible to any person of ordinary

education. We cannot flatter ourselves that we have very many among

our subscribers who will be able to appreciate the beauties of the

Syriac original.

THE LIFE OF JESUS THE CHRIST. By Henry Ward Beecher. Illustrated.

New York: J. B. Ford & Co. 1871. Vol. I.

The publishers of this work have given it a very handsome exterior,

and adorned it with a number of excellent illustrations of scenes and

places in Palestine. The attempts at reproducing some of the most

celebrated representations of our Lord are, however, not successful.

As for the work itself, it is an effort to imitate the fascinating and

popular style of Renan in such a way as to satisfy those Protestants

who call themselves Evangelical. That the author has the art of

pleasing the multitude cannot be questioned. That he is an artist in

the highest and truest sense we cannot admit. And, so far as more

solid qualities are concerned, he is not to be compared for a moment,

in respect to that erudition which brings rabbinical and classical 429

treasures to enrich and illustrate the Evangelical narrative, with Dr.

Sepp, whose _Leben Jesu_ still remains both the most valuable and the

most interesting of all works of this class thus far produced, in

spite of much that is fanciful and visionary.

If the doctrine of this book were sound, we should hail its

publication with joy, even although we could not consider it to be a

literary masterpiece. Even if it contained only the errors common to

Protestants; still, if it were sound on the great central truth of the

Incarnation; one might think it likely to be useful in preserving

among Protestants the true doctrine of the divinity and humanity of

Christ contained in their formularies. As it is, we must condemn it as

more mischievous and absurd than the _Vie de Jésus_ of Renan. Of

course, no Catholic who has any regard for his own principles will

ever think of looking for religious instruction or edification in any

book proceeding from Mr. Beecher’s pen. The evil which this shallow

and utterly heretical production, coming forth in such a taking guise,

will cause will be among Protestants. One class of them--those who

swallow its honey with pleasure--will take in a deadly poison of

heresy. Another class, who will look at its doctrine coolly and

critically, will be strengthened in their tendency to rationalism and

unbelief by its crude absurdity.

Mr. Beecher teaches a more gross and monstrous doctrine than that of

Arius, Nestorius, or Appolinaris. It is, namely, that God contracted

and diminished his divine nature within the mental and physical limits

of manhood. God became the human soul of a human body. This is the

anthropomorphism of Swedenborg. It destroys all true conceptions both

of the human and the divine nature of our Lord. Pantheism is better

than this. The reasoning and exegesis on which this revolting doctrine

is based are not worthy of a moment’s notice. All is mere superficial,

rhetorical, sentimental talk, without a shred of philosophy or

theology. We shall look with some curiosity to see what judgment the

Episcopalian and Presbyterian divines of the stricter sort will

pronounce on this latest product of the pseudo-Evangelical school.

What those of them who have some theological knowledge will think, we

know very well; but we are desirous of seeing whether they will

express their thoughts in clear and emphatic language, and caution the

Protestant public against a doctrine which subverts the Nicene Creed

and the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, to say nothing of other

formularies which are essentially the same with these.

Behold a new proof of the utter insufficiency of the text of Scripture

alone by itself even to preserve the orthodox doctrine after it has

been fully presented to the mind! How much more, then, to give it at

first hand! What the orthodox Protestants still retain of the faith is

the faith of creeds, councils, and tradition, and the exercise of

private judgment on the text of Scripture is destroying it fast.

CINEAS; OR, ROME UNDER NERO. From the French of J. M. Villefranche.

1 vol. 12mo. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1871.

If we except _Fabiola_, _Callista_, and _Dion_, we feel no hesitation

in saying that _Cineas_ is equal to any production of its kind yet

offered to the English reader. In this tale, history and tradition are

interwoven with fiction, and the result is a graphic sketch of

Christianity in the apostolic ages. The portico, the Pantheon, the

temple, and the catacomb are brought upon the stage, and made to

represent their parts. The scene changes from the Circus Maximus to

the Mamertine, from Rome to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Athens; and

at each change of scene the infant church appears clothed in new 430

beauty, in new holiness, in new strength. It is much to be desired

that Catholics of the present day should become acquainted with the

religious life of their brethren of the early church. No other study

is so well calculated to enliven our faith, animate our hope, inflame

our charity, and incite us to that heroic virtue so necessary to

perseverance in the present age. _Cineas_ tends to promote this study,

and as such we welcome it, commend it to the perusal of every

Catholic, and thank the translator and publisher for the care with

which they have performed their respective tasks.

THE LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE TO HER DAUGHTER AND FRIENDS. Edited

by Mrs. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1871.

THE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. Edited by Mrs. Hale.

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1871.

These two books, simultaneously issued from the same press and edited

by the same author, bear strong marks of similarity and contrast.

Each, in its way, has long been looked upon as a model of epistolary

correspondence in its appropriate language, and each is defaced by

that superficial, not to say anti-Christian, philosophy which

prevailed among the “higher classes” in France and England during the

last and the preceding century. The French authoress, however, has

somewhat the advantage of her English sister, not only in the

possession of a language especially adapted, by its grace and

flexibility, to this species of composition, but from the fact that

she lived surrounded by a strong Catholic public opinion, which, with

all her cynicism and fashionable scepticism, she could not wholly

disregard. We find, therefore, in many of her letters, particularly

those to her daughter, flashes of true, genuine moral sentiment, which

are the more striking from contrast with the worldly tone which

generally characterized her life and correspondence. Lady Montagu, on

the contrary, was brought up in that hard, unsympathetic school which

was inaugurated in England after the frenzy of the Reformation had

subsided, and with all her wit and womanly elegance we cannot look

upon her otherwise than as an intellectual pagan. We may search from

cover to cover of Mrs. Hale’s edition of her correspondence in vain to

find one religious sentiment that would not have been as appropriate

in the days of Horace or Zeno as in the eighteenth century of the

Christian era. This is the more singular when we recollect that these

gifted women, married to husbands far their inferiors mentally, and,

as it appears, merely for the sake of conventionalism, by a not

unnatural effort transferred the love women usually bear to the

partners of their joys and sorrows to their offspring, and centred all

their affections and hopes in their children. With our children we are

apt “to assume a virtue if we have it not,” yet still we find these

two intellectual mothers writing to their daughters in strains which,

if not positively immoral in the broad sense of that term, certainly

could not actively conduce to strengthen them against the temptations

by which they were constantly surrounded, or to elevate their minds

above the glitter and hollowness of the society in which they were

obliged to move. Both these distinguished writers were well-bred,

thoroughly educated according to the idea of their times, and were the

associates of generals, statesmen, poets, and artists, and their

frequent and familiar reference to the then leading men of their

respective countries are not only interesting, but instructive, as

giving us a view of the interior life of many eminent personages

hitherto known to us only by their public acts; but when we consider

how many unexceptionably good books this age of cheap printing has put 431

within our reach, and the shortness of this busy life itself, we

cannot recommend to our readers, particularly the younger portion, the

perusal of either volume; nor do we see the necessity of a new edition

of works which are merely ornamental, without having the merit of

being innocuous.

A COLLECTION OF LEADING CASES ON THE LAW OF ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED

STATES. With Notes and References to the latest authorities. By

Frederick C. Brightly, author of “The Federal Digest,” “The United

States Digest,” etc. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 17 and 19 South

Sixth Street, Law Booksellers, Publishers, and Importers. 1871.

Mr. Brightly, who has done so much in his previous works to facilitate

the law-student and the lawyer in their studies and preparation of

cases, by means of his admirable and learned digests and treatises,

has now acquired a new claim upon the gratitude of the student and

professional man by his _Collection of Leading Cases on

Elections_. The author has been most happy in the selection of his

subject, for there are few branches of the law so important, in a free

and representative government like ours, as the law of public

elections.

In the early days of our Republic, when there was more conservatism

than at present, only the most important civil officers of the Federal

and State governments were elective by the people, and the elective

franchise was not so universally participated in by the masses as at

the present time. Then the executive, elected by the people, was

clothed with the appointing power, which he exercised with greater

deliberation, calmness, and discrimination than is possible to the

people amidst the excitements and intrigues of a popular election. He

was held responsible to the people for an honest, faithful, and

judicious exercise of this high prerogative. But gradually the

executive, elected by, and justly accountable to, his constituents,

has been stripped of this power, and the same has become vested in or

been resumed by the people, who, while possessing, according to the

theory of the lawgivers of Ancient Greece, a greater amount of purity

of intention, are swayed more by impulses and the passions of the

hour. The legislative bodies then, as now, have always been elected by

the qualified voters. Then elections were comparatively few, and the

contests in the courts over executive, judicial, and ministerial

offices, and in the legislatures over the contested seats of members,

were comparatively few.

The law in such cases was sought for entirely from the analogies of

the English common law cases and the parliamentary precedents and

decisions. Now, while the Federal offices remain mostly as they were

under our first Presidents and Congresses, in the States almost every

office, from governor and judges of the highest courts down to

magistrates and constables, has become elective by the people, and the

States, with whom, under the Constitution, rests the power of

regulating the qualifications for the exercise of the elective

franchise, have generally removed all qualifications thereon, and

conferred universal suffrage, as it is called, upon the people.

There is scarcely a function of government, from the most vital and

momentous to the most trifling, that is not discharged in our regard

by elected officers; our lives, our liberties, our property, our

castles, and our reputations are confided to the protection or

neglect, if not abuse, of officers elected for short terms; so that

every interest of life and of society is thus governed, controlled,

and administered indirectly by the voting masses.

We will give a single illustration of this: If we take thirty-three

and a third years as the average span of human life, it may be said

that in every thirty-three and a third years [the time has been 432

estimated as much shorter in regard to what we are going to state],

the entire property of the country, its countless millions, are

administered or acted upon by a single officer, the Judge of the

Probate Court, or other officer of the law, elected by the people, and

thus incidentally by the masses themselves. Thus the various

elections, which we so heedlessly disregard or pass by, are, in fact,

the casts of the die that determine the fate of the nation, its

prosperity, happiness, and honor. The importance, therefore, of the

law regulating these elections in their varied relations may be

estimated from this fact.

That numerous questions and contests should have arisen in a country

where so many offices are to be filled, and where elections are so

frequent, is not strange, and that the decisions of our own courts

upon these litigated cases should have become numerous and controlling

is a natural result. The law of elections has been greatly developed

and expounded in this country in recent years. The leading cases

bearing upon these subjects have been skilfully and carefully collated

by Mr. Brightly, illustrated by his own notes and references, and

presented to the legal profession and the public in the volume before

us. He could not have selected a theme of greater interest or

importance to our country, especially at this time, than the law of

elections. He has handled it with the same accuracy, learning, and

industry which have always characterized his works, and elevated his

reputation as a jurist and author. The present work carries with it an

interest far more general than professional works usually possess, and

may be read with improvement and pleasure by all who are fond of a

good and readable book, who seek for useful knowledge on a matter of

vast public import, or who take an interest in the purity of

elections, and in the general morals and welfare of the commonwealth.

We commend it to their perusal.

The title of Father Doane’s new book is to be _To and from the

Passion Play in the Summer of 1871_. It will soon be published by

Mr. Donahoe, Boston.

MR. P. O’SHEA announces as in press, and to be published by

subscription, _The Lives of Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church

in the United States_, by Mr. Richard H. Clark, A. M. The work will

be published in two large octavo volumes, and will be ready about the

first of December. These volumes will contain the biographies of all

the deceased members of the American Catholic Hierarchy, from the

earliest dawn of Christianity on this continent to the present day,

and will trace the history of the church through the important

episcopate of Archbishop Carroll, and chronicle with graphic effect

the labors, sacrifices, and achievements of over fifty bishops who

have been called to their reward.

The Catholic Publication Society will soon publish a new edition of

Father Young’s _Office of Vespers_, greatly enlarged and improved.

The volume of _Sermons of the Paulist Fathers for 1870_ will be ready

for delivery on the 25th of November.

THE 433

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XIV., No. 82.--JANUARY, 1872.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by

REV. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at

Washington, D. C.

WHO IS TO EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN?

Every day that passes over our heads and witnesses the rapid increase

of the population of the country adds to the interest which attaches

to the reciprocal rights and duties existing between the state and the

citizen, as far as the question of the proper education of our

children is concerned. It has become a matter of the most vital

importance, superior to mere party consideration in the success of

this or that faction of politicians; for in the proper appreciation of

its magnitude and in its judicious and permanent settlement may be

said to lie not only the future welfare of this republic, but the

supremacy of Christianity itself on this broad continent. The history

of the church from its very foundation is full of instances of the

decay of religion and morality in one country simultaneously with

their growth or revival in another. It was thus that the faith, grown

weak in the farther East, found so many earnest professors in Italy,

and when Gaul and the Spanish peninsula succumbed to their pagan

conquerors, the light of the Gospel was transferred to the islands of

Britain and Ireland, and brightened into an effulgence which, in a few

centuries, penetrated the darkest recesses of the then semi-barbarized

continent. In Europe to-day, the church, assailed on one side by

Cæsarism and on the other by the secret societies, can hardly hold her

own, notwithstanding the justice of her cause and the zeal and

learning of her champions; and it would seem to be one of the

mysterious designs of Providence that the theatre of her triumphs and

conquests is, for a time at least, to be transferred to the fresher

and more vigorous New World. The astonishing growth of Catholicity in

America in our own day is an evidence of this, but our present

victories will be barren of any good results if we neglect the proper

education of our children, who, as we gradually pass away, are

destined to take our places for good or evil.

The time has come when the question, Who is to educate our children?

should be definitively answered. Pulpits, forums, and the press, in 434

their respective spheres, have discussed the matter from almost every

stand-point, and some of the ablest thinkers, particularly in the

Eastern States, have devoted their time and erudition to the

elimination of order out of the chaos of crude and transcendental

opinions which of late have filled the pamphlets and books of so many

writers in Europe and America on the subject of education. Theories

innumerable have been advanced, and historical precedents quoted in

favor of particular systems, without much approach to unanimity, and

still the problem remains as ever unsolved.

Amongst other expressions of opinion on this all-important subject, we

have before us a long and very elaborate essay in the _Congregational

Quarterly_ of Boston, strongly in favor of the continuance of the

public-school system as received in that classical city, and as

earnestly endeavoring to demonstrate that, unless the Bible, “without

note or comment,” prayers, hymns, and piety, be taught in the state

schools in conformity to the statute of 1826, these institutions will

become worse than useless, and should be discountenanced. In the

language of the writer: “The school system which requires the ethics

can receive them only as indissolubly one with the religion, and the

state that cannot sustain a statute like the Massachusetts law of

1826, which requires the principles of piety as well as those of

morality to be taught, cannot sustain a common school system.”

As a counterpoise to our New England contemporary, we find in the last

number of the _American Educational Monthly_, a magazine published in

this city, as stout a defence of secular education, while exhibiting a

decided preference for the removal from our public schools of the

Bible and the discontinuance of all teaching of a religious character.

Its arguments on these points, if less subtle, are more practical than

those of the _Congregational_, and some of the facts it adduces in

support of its views are thus plainly stated:

“It is well to repeat here what was said in the beginning: that

knowledge is not virtue itself, but only the handmaid of virtue.

This is the lesson of Connecticut statistics--a state having a

first-class university as well as the usual network of common

schools: in every nine and seven-tenths marriages there is sure

to be one divorce. Ohio, which has no university comparable to

Yale, and whose common schools are presumably no better than

Connecticut’s, has but one divorce in twenty-four marriages in a

much larger population. There are graduates of common schools who

make it their business to procure divorces by observing

prescribed forms, yet without the knowledge of one or other of

the parties--contrary to the spirit of the law.”

From the contemplation of these and other results of our common

schools, in which piety and morality are supposed to be taught, the

writer in the _Monthly_ concludes that it is better for us to “leave

devotional instruction to those whose business it is--to parents and

clergymen.”

Another writer, the editor of one of the most widely circulated of our

sectarian weekly newspapers, also a decided advocate of the public

school system as at present existing, puts forward among others the

following novel argument for its perpetuity:

“We hold, therefore, that it is unnecessary and unwise to

disperse or redistribute our common school pupils in accordance

with the dogmatic or ecclesiastical leanings of their parents

respectively--that the inconvenience and cost of so doing would

immensely overbalance its benefits. We should need far more

schools; yet our children would have to travel much further to

reach one of the preferred theological stripe than at present.

We do not decide that soundness of faith is of little 435

consequence--far from it; we only insist that provision is

already made for theological instruction apart from our common

schools, and that there is no need of making such provision

within them. The Roman Catholic and the Protestant coincide with

respect to spelling and grammar; the Trinitarian and the

Unitarian are in perfect accord as to mathematics, at least in

their application to all mundane affairs. Then, why not allow

them to read and cipher from the same text-books on week-days,

and learn theology in their respective churches and

Sunday-schools on the Lord’s day? This seems to us the dictate of

economy, convenience, and good sense.”

Nearly every week similar effusions appear in the columns of the

so-called religious press, in which are enunciated opinions and

speculations as absurd as the above, and yet as varied as the clashing

sects they profess to represent. On one point alone, and that a very

suspicious one, are they agreed--in a general determination to reduce

the children of the Catholics of this country under the sway of a

system of public instruction which parents can neither encourage nor

countenance. On the minor features of this system, with their usual

want of unity, they widely dissent one from the other.

Now, whence this confusion of ideas about one of the plainest and most

vital requirements of a free Christian people--education? Does it not

lie in the utter misapprehension of what education really is? In pagan

times, education was supposed to be the accumulation of knowledge for

its own sake or for the superiority it conferred on its possessor over

his less instructed fellows. It was of the earth, earthy. From a

Christian point of view, its aim, primarily and principally, is to

facilitate, by proper training and instruction, the attainment of our

true happiness--the knowledge and observance of the laws of God here

and eternal happiness hereafter. To the pagan, this world was

everything, and consequently he utilized his knowledge for worldly

advantage alone. For the Christian, education is merely a means to a

great end, and, as eternal bliss is infinitely greater than any

temporal enjoyment to him, the training of the soul, the immortal

part, in the ways of religion is of paramount and incomparable

importance. Secular education, when properly applied, should not be

undervalued, inasmuch as we have duties in this life to be performed,

to ourselves, our country, and our fellow-man; but it should be

tempered and permeated, so to speak, with religious instruction, so

that the learner, as his mental faculties expand with his years, may

be gradually but constantly led to the knowledge of those divine

truths which the church teaches her children, and his character thus

be insensibly formed on a true Christian basis. If we admit, as every

professing Christian is bound to do, that man’s chiefest object in

life is the salvation of his soul, if “the knowledge of God is the

beginning of wisdom,” it is the merest folly to suppose that this

knowledge, so all-important in itself, can properly be imparted to our

children after ordinary school-hours, when the young mind is fatigued

and needs repose or recreation, or on one day out of seven, when so

many distractions occur to call off the attention of most children.

This would be to make religion distasteful, if not odious, to our boys

and girls, and lead them to dread the recurrence of a day which, to

them at least, should be one of gladness and innocent enjoyment. We do

not underrate the value of parental advice and example, or ignore the

benefits conferred on our rising population by pastoral instructions

and Sunday-school training, but we assert the day-schools should also 436

take their part in supplying food to the ever-expanding and

question-asking minds of the American youth.

The formation of character, one of the great objects of education,

should be conducted on principles somewhat similar to those of

domestic economy. We do not eat all the sweets at one time and the

sours at another, the solids at one meal and the dessert at the next,

but by a judicious admixture of both produce a savory and salutary

combination which gives health and strength to the body. It may be

said that mere secular education--such as geology, geometry, history,

natural philosophy, botany, astronomy, etc., as taught in our common

schools--presents no opportunity for moral instruction. Nothing can be

more fallacious. That great master of dramatic literature,

Shakespeare, whose knowledge of the springs of human action has seldom

been equalled, has told us that we can find books in running brooks,

sermons in stones, and good in everything. Properly directed, the

anatomy of the smallest insect, equally with the contemplation of the

vast firmament with its countless planets and stars, may become a

silent and involuntary prayer to the Creator of all things. There is

not a force, physical or deduced, that is revealed to the mind of

youth that ought not to be made to bear with it some conception of the

unseen Power that presides over and governs the universe, and the

teacher who neglects to place before the minds of his pupils the moral

to be drawn from those symbols of the Creator’s almightiness does but

half his work, and that the less nobler part. Leaving dogma and

doctrine aside, are the generality of our public school teachers

capable or disposed to thus draw from nature the beautiful lessons of

God’s wisdom and power--lessons which no book can adequately teach,

but which should be before one’s eyes from infancy to the grave?

Some persons speak of religion in connection with the education of

youth as if it were a mere matter of sentiment or a holiday pastime,

to be occasionally indulged in when the more serious duties of

money-making and political advancement have been complied with. On the

contrary, it is a matter of everyday life, controlling and guiding our

intercourse with mankind individually as well as collectively, and as

we are responsible for our actions every conscious moment of our life,

so should it in one form or another be associated with our every

pursuit and act. If this be true among full-grown men and women, is it

not apparent that any system of youthful training that would

dissociate religion from secular studies in early life would send into

the world vicious or ignorant adults, who would either ignore

altogether the practice of honesty, truthfulness, and morality, or who

in their ignorance would make these great attributes of Christianity

subserve their worldly interests and passions? Education, therefore,

that would exclude religious instruction from our children during

their hours of study, which is half of their young lives, is not

education at all, at least in the Christian sense of the word. It may

make them expert financiers or glib politicians, but it cannot make

them upright, truthful, and benevolent citizens. In this regard, we

agree with the writer in the _Congregational_ when he says, “We call

attention in the outset to the immense difficulty, if it be not the

absolute impossibility, of separating religious instruction from any

practical system of public education.”

But we do not coincide with him in his estimate of the right and duty 437

of the state to provide this education. Granted that religion is an

essential element in education, who is the proper authority to

inculcate it? Clearly not the state, for, in our theory of government,

the state knows no religion, nor under any pretence can it lay claim

to any apostolic authority to preach and teach the Gospel to the

nations. That is a power far anterior to and above all existing

governments. That the state is or ought to be religious in the

character of its acts cannot be denied, but this character should be

derived from the teachings of the church to its individual members,

and gives it no power to prescribe to the church what she should teach

or allow to be taught, for the authority of the teaching church is

from God, and that of the state from man. It is true that the common

law framed by our Catholic ancestors recognized the laws of the

church, as far as public morality and the observance of Sundays and

holidays were concerned, as part of the law of the land, but it was

never intended that the state should be placed above the church in

matters spiritual, much less to make it the teacher and expounder of

her doctrines. This innovation was one of the fruits of the

“Reformation,” which, while professing to liberate the minds of men

from spiritual thraldom and the authority of the popes, actually

subjected their consciences and forms of faith to the whim of

parliaments and the arbitrary _dicta_ of local lay tyrants. Even to

this day, the House of Lords in England, composed as it is mostly of

laymen, and those, too, not remarkable for their piety or morality, is

the court of last resort to determine and decide what are and what are

not the doctrines taught by our Holy Redeemer.

If the state claim the right to educate our children, that right cannot

be derived from the natural law; for the state, being an artificial

organization, cannot in its corporate capacity have any natural law.

On the contrary, the natural law bestows the possession, care, and

custody of the child on the parent, and the duty thus imposed cannot

be relinquished or delegated without a manifest infraction of the

first principles of that law. Besides, the state is only constituted

to do for the citizen what he, from his want of ability, means, or

strength, cannot do for himself. Its office is simply the

administration of justice, retributive and distributive, and the

enactment of laws to facilitate that object. All outside of that is

simply usurpation, which may, and generally does, degenerate into

tyranny. Whenever a state invades private reserved rights and

oversteps the bounds of its legitimate duties, law and justice are not

only brought into contempt, but enactments in themselves abstractly

just are despised and evaded. The futile attempts to enforce certain

sumptuary laws in this and other countries prove this conclusively.

Nor does the state derive its power to educate our children as it sees

fit from the will of the people as expressed in the fundamental laws

of the land. In the Declaration of Independence, it is clearly stated

that among the _inalienable_ rights of mankind are life, liberty, and

the pursuit of _happiness_. Now, who that has been blessed with

children does not know that the care and custody, education and

maintenance, of his offspring constitute the greatest happiness of his

life, compared with which riches, honors, and fame dwindle into

insignificance? One of the most powerful arguments against Southern

slavery, now happily for ever abolished, was that it separated the

child from its parent: but what is the value of freedom to me if, as 438

the _Congregational_ suggests, I must see my child forced into a

common school, to listen to the reading of a Bible which I believe, at

best, to be a mutilated and perverted copy of the Holy Scriptures, and

be obliged to repeat prayers and hymns that too often, alas! are but

blasphemies against the holy name of him who died on the cross for

man’s redemption? In one case the body alone suffered, in the other

the eternal salvation of immortal souls is imperilled. Even the

framers of the constitution, that noble document about which so much

is said and so little understood, having surveyed their work, and

finding it defective in respect to providing guarantees for the

perfect freedom of religion, hastened by an amendment to supply the

deficiency. “Congress,” they ordained, “shall make no law respecting

the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise

thereof,”[100] and our own state, on November 3, 1846, by its

constitution, emphatically declares that “the free exercise

and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without

_discrimination or preference_, shall for ever be allowed in this

state to all mankind.” (Art. I. sec. 3.)

Does the state derive its authority to teach religion to our children

from God? If so, where is its authority? The writer in the

_Congregational_ evidently considers the Bible an authority on

matters of faith and discipline. Yet we fail to find in the inspired

writings any authority for the state of Massachusetts, or any other

purely political corporation, to teach the doctrines of Christ. But,

if the state have a right so to teach, it has a right also to decide

what shall be taught, and this, of course, must depend on the character

of the officials through whom the state for the time being acts; for

as yet, unlike other and more favored Protestant countries, we have no

fixed state religion, and must depend on the popular electoral vote

for our faith and ideas of morality. We would like the advocates of

religious teaching in schools, “the Bible, prayers, hymns, and piety,”

to be more explicit on this point. Are our children to be taught

religion according to the parliamentary doctrine of the Church of

England, or the total depravity notions of the followers of Calvin;

are they to be obliged to deny the divinity of Christ with the

Unitarians, and eternal punishments with the Universalists? Are we, in

fact, bringing children into the world to be liable any day to be

indoctrinated into the vagaries of Methodism, Congregationalism,

Presbyterianism, Muggletonianism, Mormonism, or any other of the

thousand “isms” born of that fruitful mother of dissent, the much

vaunted Reformation? Or are we to have them treated to a dose of each

and every one in turn as the political wheel brings their professors

to the surface? The idea seems perfectly absurd, and yet it is the

logical consequence of the _Congergational’s_ position that the state

can teach religion in its schools; for the state, being liable to be

controlled at any time by any of the believers in the “isms,” must of

necessity teach its own ism, and, having the sovereign authority, who

can dispute its choice? But, says the writer in the _Congregational_,

and those who agree with him, we do not violate the rights of

conscience, we only advocate the reading of the Bible, “in which the

Papist does not believe,”[101] prayers, hymns, and piety. Now, in 439

what does the religion of the Congregationalists consist, if not in

these very matters which they would insidiously intrude on the

attention of our children? Does any one believe, if the writer in

question, or those who believe in his sentiments, had the control of

our schools, that the prayers and hymns would be such as a Catholic

child could conscientiously listen to? Would the Apostles’ Creed and

the _Confiteor_ be among the forms, or would the _Stabat Mater, Ave

Maria Stella_, in Latin or English, or any other of the beautiful

appeals to the clemency and protection of the Blessed Mother which the

church puts into the mouths and hearts of her little ones, find a

place in schools presided over by the advocates of religion and piety,

as prescribed by the law of 1826? And yet, we venture to say that more

than one-half of the children who attend the public schools in the

very city in which this _Quarterly_ is published are Catholics, and

born of Catholic parents. Yet we are told that not only the morals,

but the religion of our children is to be at the mercy of politicians,

calling themselves the state, too often elevated to power by most

corrupt intrigues. Is there anything particularly virtuous in the

character of our legislators or the members of our board of education

that would induce us to suppose that they were specially selected by

Providence to teach his laws and expound his doctrines? And still, for

all practical purposes, they are the state. They enact the laws,

select the schoolbooks, appoint the teachers, and prescribe the course

of study to be pursued. If their appointees leave out the Bible,

prayers, hymns, etc., the schools become, in the language of the

_Congregational_, the instruments of “sweeping away the political

Protestantism of the land,” while, if they do enforce the observance

of these religious exercises, we have a new set of apostles annually

or biennially elected by political coteries to teach our children!

The three great sources of authority which all writers on the

philosophy of government ascribe to the state are, then, wanting, to

justify these assumptions of the advocates of the right of the state

to teach religion to the children of its citizens, but the

_Congregational_ still argues that it has a right to teach

“morality and piety.” How are morality and piety to be taught without

religion? What is its idea of morals abstracted from practical

religion? Does the writer who adorns its columns believe that the end

and aim of all true education is to promote man’s true happiness, and,

if so, does he believe in a hereafter of eternal rewards and

punishments, and how we are to earn the one and avoid the other? He

knows as well as we do that, of some dozen leading Protestant sects in

this country, not two are agreed on the essential Christian duty and

faith of man necessary for his salvation. Who, then, is to decide but

the state, which, as we have endeavored to prove, has neither a divine

mission nor even human consent to interfere in spiritual matters? It

may be said that the state does not decide these questions, but it

does. Every hour devoted to a child’s instruction, relatively at

least, involves the question of man’s true destiny; for the religious

question, which is the question of man’s true destiny, sums up all

other questions. As far as Catholics are concerned, they object to

each and all such teachers, whether appointed by the warring sects or

by the temporal authority. For example, the writer in the

_Congregational_, though evidently an intelligent and accomplished 440

gentleman, would not be a very safe teacher in a school composed in

whole or in part of Catholic children. Any person who could endorse as

he does Draper’s absurd assertion that the _Imitation of Christ_ was

the forerunner of the Reformation, call the illustrious Fénelon a

Jansenist, style millions of his fellow-citizens by the cant epithets

of “Romanists” and “Papists,” and coolly declare that Catholics do not

believe in the Bible, is evidently unfitted to form a correct opinion

on any religious subject, much less to be entrusted with the

instruction of youth.

“But,” says the writer above quoted, “the safety of democracy requires

compulsory education. The work cannot be entrusted to churches, or to

corporations, or to individuals.” Now, this may mean very little or a

very great deal. If it mean, as he hints in another part of his

article, that the state has an absolute right to teach a particular

religion or any religion at all in its public schools, and enforce

attendance therein, for the preservation of our democratic form of

government, we entirely dissent from his proposition. The very essence

of a free government lies in its recognition of religious liberty and

the natural rights of individuals, and our best guarantees of freedom

rest on the fact that majorities, which for the time being represent

the power of the state, all potent as they may be, cannot set aside

the fundamental law, and dare not infringe on the civil or religious

liberty of the citizen. No state could or ought to attempt an exercise

of power so utterly despotic and foreign to the genius of our

institutions.

We are aware that of late it has been customary to denominate our form

of education as the American system, for the purpose, doubtless, of

exciting public prejudice in its favor. The system is not by any means

American in the national sense. It is purely local, and of Puritanical

origin and growth. When the New England colonies by persecution and

violence secured for themselves uniformity of worship, such as it was,

they established schools, in which prayers, hymns, and piety were

taught _ad libitum_, with all the raw-head-and-bloody-bones

anti-Catholic fiction which the descendants of the Pilgrims mistook

for veritable history. Being all of one mind, such a system of

training could have no perceptible evil effect on the pupils; for, if

they did not hear intolerance and falsehood in the school, they were

pretty certain to hear them in the meeting-house. But times have

strangely altered since then, as the writer in the _Congregational_ is

forced to admit. “The reason our school system had to be modified,” he

says, “was not that it was _per se_ right from the day it was enacted,

but because the foreign immigration and the changes of time had

produced an immense revolution in the religious spirit of the people,

and required the readjustment of the civil creed in the school

system.” In no sense, then, can this system of public education which

is sought to be thrust upon us be called American, except, perhaps, as

contradistinguished from that of England, France, Germany, Austria,

and other so-called despotic countries, in all of which the

denominational plan, more or less generally, prevails. In the latter

two countries particularly, one Catholic and the other Protestant, the

scheme of secular education has been tried and abandoned, and the

wisdom of the new system has been proved beyond peradventure. If it be

American to tax citizens for the support of schools and compel them to

send their children to be called Romanists and idolaters, then is the 441

public-school system entitled to that distinctive appellation? We do

not think that it is.