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OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

/  V  I  l-^T  OK 


J-.§A 


i^4%i" 


^  '^''^W^^MiM^miMm^M^mc^Mm^MiM-m 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT 
COUNTRIES  COMPARED 


IN 


CIVILIZATION,  POPULAR  HAPPINESS, 
GENERAL  INTELI^fiP^C^,  AND   MORALITY 


BY 

ALFRED  YOUNG 

Priest  of  the  Congregation  of  St.  Paul  the  Apostle 


New  York 

THE   CATHOLIC  BOOK  EXCHANGE 

1 20  West  60th  Street 

1894 


f  I    '     r     ••'     w 


yd 


1Ribi[  obstat : 

AUGUSTINUS  F.  HKWIT,  S.T.D., 
Censor  Depiitatus. 


Umpnmatur  :  (0 13  ^T 

MICHAEL  AUGUSTINUS, 
Archiep.  Nco  Ebor, 
XV li.  Odob.,  iS(^^. 


Copyright,   1894,  by  ALFRED  YOUNG. 
.-{//  rio^hfs  reserved. 


PREFACE 


rjlHE  chief  object  of  this  book  is  to  so  far  arouse 
^  the  interest  of  its  readers  as  to  lead  them  to  ex- 
amine into  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  grave  popu- 
lar accusations  laid  against  the  Catholic  Church  and 
her  priesthood  and  people  ;  and  also  to  induce  them 
to  test  the  value  of  the  evidence  offered  in  support 
of  the  boastful  claims  one  so  often  hears  made  for 
the  alleged  superior  intellectual  character  and  moral 
influence  of  Protestantism  and  modern  Secularism. 

The  better  to  realize  this  object  the  rule  adopted 
in  its  preparation  limited  the  admission  of  any  evi- 
dence to  what  might  be  found  furnished  by  Protest- 
ant witnesses  a-nd  official  authorities ;  excluding  any 
distinctively  Catholic  testimony.  In  two  or  three  in- 
stances quotations  have  been  made  from  Catholic 
writers,  but  these  are  offered  only  as  corroborative 
of  the  evidence  given  by  non-Catholic  ones. 

It  is  also  hoped  that  some  of  the  matter  contained  in 
these  pages  may  prove  of  service  to  those  who  are 
called  upon  to  defend  the  principles  of  true  Christian 
Civilization  and  social  regeneration  as  affirmed  by  the 
Catholic  Church. 

House  of  the  Paulist  Fathers, 

New   York  City^   October  75,   i8g4. 


CONTENTS. 


Chaptey-  ^''S^ 

I. — Introductory.     Why   this    Book    has 

BEEN    WRITTEN, I 

n._ClVILIZATION, H 

III. Protestant    Civilization  in   England,  21 

IV.— Protestant    Civilization     in   Ireland 

and  India, .  35 

V._A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries 

in  Europe 47 

VI.— Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico,        .  70 

VII.— Civilization    of  Barbarous    Nations,  83 

VIII.— "Catholic  America,"        .        .        .        .  91 
IX.— Protestant     and     Catholic   Missions 

TO  the  Heathen, 100 

X. — Good  Manners, 104 

XI.— Popular  Happiness, 125 

XII.— Catholicism  and  Liberty,      ..        .        .  i47 

XIII. — Protestantism  and  Liberty,  .        .        .164 

XIV.— The  Church  and  Civil  Government,   .  198 

XV.— Illiteracy  and  Ignorance,      .        .        .202 

XVI.— Popular  Education, 223 

XVII.— Parochial  Schools, 244 

XVIII.— The  Judgment  of  Solomon,    .        .        .266 
XIX.— Christian    and     Patriotic    Education 

IN  THE  United  States,    ....  276 
XX.— The     Characteristics    of     American 

Christianity, 300 

XXI. — Education  in  Rome,  .        .^      .        .        .  3^5 

XXII. — Higher  Education.    Universities,        .  324 

XXIII. — Libraries, 345 

XXIV.— A    Look     at    Literary     and    Artistic 

Mexico, 37 1 


Contents, 


Chapter 

Page 

XXV.— Poverty  and  Pauperism 

388 

XXVI.— Emigration 

431 

XXVII.— Who  owns  the  Land  ?        .        .        .        . 

440 

XXVIII.— Crime.    Education    and  Crime, 

448 

XXIX.— The  alleged  Criminality  of  the  Irish 

People, 

459 

XXX.— Drunkenness, 

466 

XXXI.— Grave  Crimes  in  general, 

471 

XXXII.— Infanticide  and  Fceticide. 

480 

XXXIII.— Suicide 

492 

XXXIV.— Illegitimacy, 

499 

XXXV.— General  Immorality 

5.8 

XXXVI.— The  Morality  of  Rome,      . 

•     530 

XXXVII.— Divorce, 

543 

XXXVIII.— Prostitution, 

551 

XXXIX.— Sinners  and  Saints,     .... 

569 

XL.— The  Return  to  Faith  and  Unity, 

575 

American  Converts  from  Protestantism. 

•     592 

Index, 

.     608 

-^ 


eaw 


CATHOI^IC   AND   PROTESTANT 
COUNTRIES  COMPARED. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
W/ij  this  Book  has  been   7vritte7i. 

IF  I  were  asked,  What  set  me  to  undertake  the  pre- 
paration of  this  present  essa}'  ?  I  should  reply : 
Oh !  Protestantism  has  been  at  its  old  tricks  again, 
making  a  wanton,  unprovoked  attack  upon  the  Catho- 
lic Church  ;  and  so  bitter  and  so  injurious  to  the  cause 
of  truth  and  justice  is  its  present  onslaught,  that  a 
plea  in  defence  is  judged  to  be  imperatively  called  for, 
both  in  justification  of  our  holy  Religion  and  of  our 
own  honor  as  true,  honest,  and  loyal  citizens ;  and 
in  the  hope,  as  well,  of  bringing  a  little  light  to  the 
popular  Protestant  mind  in  order  to  rectify  in  some 
measure  the  singularly  distorted  and  false  views  held 
concerning  our  faith  and  ourselves,  both  so  close  at 
hand,  so  open  for  examination,  and  so  desirous  of  being 
known  for  what  we  really  are. 

There  has  seldom  been  an  attack  made  upon  us  of 
so  manifold  a  character.  From  wdiatever  point  of  view 
it  was  thought  likely  to  be  successful,  no  effort  has 
been  spared  to  injure  the  Catholic  Church  and  her 
faithful  people,  socially  and  politicall3%  b}^  blows  aimed 


Introductory. 


at  our  civil  and  religious  liberties,  at  the  rights  of 
parents  in  the  education  of  children,  at  our  equal  rights 
as  citizens  before  the  state  and  as  fellow-men  striving 
to  earn  an  honest  living  in  our  own  country. 

In  order  to  make  some  show  of  justification  for  this 
wholesale  aggressive  warfare,  our  enemies  have  felt 
urged  to  represent  the  Catholic  Church  as  unworthy  to 
stand  on  an  equally  free  footing  with  other  religions,  or 
even  with  societies  professing  no  religion.  They  have 
labored  to  represent  her  as  a  religious  sj^stem  hostile  to 
those  ver}^  American  free  institutions  of  which  she  has 
really  been  the  most  ardent  supporter  and  defender,  and 
to  otherwise  disparage  her  as  being  essentially  opposed 
to  the  true  interests  of  humanity  and  enlightened  pro- 
gress. 

The  work  of  these  assailants  has  already  done  in- 
calculable harm  to  the  peace  of  the  community,  and 
they  continue  in  the  same  course  regardless  of  all 
possible  consequences.  Their  accusations  tend  to 
deepen  prejudice,  and  to  fill  the  minds  of  their  ignorant 
hearers  with  the  most  absurd  notions  concerning  our 
holy  religion. 

One  of  the  favorite  methods  of  attack  has  been  to 
institute  a  pretended  comparison  between  Catholic  and 
Protestant  countries  on  the  score  of  their  respective 
success  in  the  matter  of  popular  education  and  civiliza- 
tion, and  their  greater  or  less  freedom  from  crime  and 
immorality.  This  method  of  disparaging  the  Catholic 
Church  appears  to  have  had  a  singular  success  in 
attracting  general  notice.  We  have  been  challenged 
in   public   and   private   to  answer  the   charges  made. 

This  I  have  attempted  to  do  in  this  present  essay, 
w^hich,  though    somewhat  hastily  prepared    in  reply  to 


Introductory, 


the  urgent  call  for  it,  will,  I  trust,  be  found  sufiicientl}^ 
minute,  exact,  and  well  supported  by  reliable  evidence 
— all,  without  exception,  from  Protestant  and  strictly 
official  sources — to  enable  the  reader  to  form  a  calm, 
well-instructed,  and  decisive  judgment  on  the  merits  of 
the  subjects  treated. 

No  honest,  fair-minded  man  at  all  acquainted  with 
recent  events  in  this  country  can  deny  that  the  present 
plea  in  defence  is  perfectly  justifiable,  and  urgently 
called  for,  if  we  have  a  word  to  say  for  ourselves.  In 
the  course  of  historical  research,  and  legitimate  dis- 
cussion, it  is  often  necessary  for  Catholics  to  bring  to 
light  many  unpleasant  and  derogatory  facts  about 
Protestantism  ;  but  it  cannot  be  truly  said  that  we  are 
given  to  making  violent,  unprovoked  attacks  upon  it, 
or  upon  its  best  and  worthily  honored  adherents.  This 
is  not  the  Catholic  method. 

For  the  present  sudden  recrudescence  of  hostilitj'  to 
the  Catholic  Church  I  think  an  explanation  may  be 
offered.  Here  in  America,  in  the  course  of  our  com- 
mon, glorious  quadricentenary  Columbian  celebration, 
the  queenly  splendor,  beaut}^,  and  power  of  the 
Church  were  brought  into  singular  prominence  by 
the  vivid  and  instructive  presentation  of  some  of 
her  glorious  memories  of  the  past,  and  by  many 
demonstrative  proofs  of  her  excellency  in  every  depart- 
ment of  human  thought  and  labor  at  the  present  day. 

The  best  instructed  class  of  Protestants  showed  no 
mean  jealousy  at  this,  perhaps  to  many  of  them, 
unexpected  display  of  what  redounded  so  greatly  to  the 
honor  of  their  American  Catholic  brethren  and  fellow- 
citizens.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  generously  un- 
stinting in  their  words  of  praise. 


Introductory. 


But  it  was  hard  for  those  enemies  of  the  Catholic 
Church  who  are  instinctively  aroused  to  opposition  by 
the  least  exhibition  or  favorable  recognition  of  her 
merits  not  only  to  stand  by  as  unwilling  witnesses  to 
all  this,  but  to  be  forced  also  to  join  in  the  plaudits  of 
admiration  and  praise  bestowed  upon  the  object  of  all 
their  former   scorn,    revilings,  and    misrepresentations. 

No  better  proof  could  have  been  offered  of  the  in- 
justice of  their  former  accusations  intended  to  place 
the  Catholic  Church  in  a  false  light  before  the  minds  of 
the  people.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  they 
resorted,  according  to  old  custom,  to  making  de- 
famatory attacks  upon  her,  pouring  forth  from  pulpit 
and  press,  from  the  bureaus  of  their  anti -popery 
societies,  and  from  the  lodges  of  their  secret,  oath- 
bound  "orders,"  a  flood  of  disparaging  charges,  old 
and  new,  striving  to  re-enkindle  the  smouldering  fires 
of  former  religious  and  political  persecutions. 

The  air  i^  blue  with  their  cries  about  the  plots  of 
* '  the  astute  Roman  hierarchy  and  the  Jesuits  to  make 
the  great  exhibition  tributar}^  so  far  as  could  be,  to 
their  plans  to  Romanize  this  Protestant  land,  to  over- 
throw the  public  schools,  to  fraudulently  get  hold  of 
public  property  and  rob  the  public  treasury,  to  manipu- 
late the  ballot  and  terrorize  voters,  and  even  to  sap  the 
foundations  of  our  American  republican  government 
and  its  liberties." 

We  are  accused  no  less  of  traitorous  disloyalty  ;  of 
holding  a  secret  political  allegiance  to  the  Pope,  at 
whose  word  we  are  all  ready  to  ' '  betra}^  the  country  ' ' 
— into  whose  hands  is  not  stated.  The  old  slanderous 
caricatures  of  the  Holy  Father  and  the  Catholic  hier- 
arch}^  represented  as  savage  beasts  of  prey,  have   been 


Introductory, 


reproduced,  and  volume  after  volume  of  vile,  indecent 
anti- Catholic  literature— styled  "infamous  rubbish" 
by  the  Rev.  I^eonard  W.  Bacon  years  ago — republished 
in  cheap  form,  extensively  advertised,  and  doubtless 
finding  a  ready  sale. 

The  work  of  the  secret  "order  "  called  the  A.  P.  A. 
is  too  well  knov/n  to  need  description.  Singularly 
enough  this  politico-religious  "American"  association 
has  announced  itself  as  an  "  intemational  society,"  and 
proves  its  character  by  recruiting  under  its  banner 
numerous  "lodges"  of  British  Orangemen,  whose 
meetings  are  advertised  side  by  side  with  those  of  the 
A.  P.  A.  proper  in  the  many  newspapers  devoted  to 
their  common  cause. 

It  is  to  the  honor  of  many  of  the  really  intelligent, 
sincerely  religious,  and  worthily  honored  Protestant 
clergy  that  they  have  hastened  to  repudiate  these  un- 
worthy Protestant  brethren,  and  to  denounce  them  and 
their  style  of  attack  in  the  public  press  and  in  called 
meetings.  The  same  has  also  been  done  by  some  emi- 
nent persons  among  their  laity. 

Honorable  and  fair-minded  Protestant  leaders  of 
this  stamp  have  shown  themselves  to  be  painfully 
shocked  at  the  revelation  this  dishonest  warfare  has 
made,  not  only  of  the  wide-spread  ignorance  of  their 
own  people  concerning  the  character  of  the  Catholic 
Church  and  its  doctrines,  but  also  of  their  low  mental 
perceptive  powers,  their  lack  of  the  plainest  common 
sense,  their  blind,  unreasoning  prejudice,  as  proved  by 
their  eager  reception  of  and  ready  belief  in  the  most 
silly  falsehoods  and  absurd  literary  forgeries  circulated 
by  the  A.  P.  A.  and  its  friends.  In  a  forcible  article  in 
the   Cejitury   Magazine  for  March,   1894,  the  Rev.    Dr. 


6  Introductory. 


Washington  Gladden  thus  expresses  his  amazement : 
**  The  depth  and  density  of  that  popular  ignorance  which 
permits  the  use  of  such  documents  is  certaiiily  appalling  !  " 

It  is  earl}^  to  draw  a  comparison  between  Protest- 
antism and  Catholicism,  but  one  such  naturally  sug- 
gests itself  in  this  place.  The  great  mass  of  people 
are,  in  fact,  more  dependent  for  their  intellectual 
culture — that  is,  for  their  ability  to  think  rightly,  to 
judge  between  the  false  and  the  true,  as  well  as  be- 
tween the  right  and  the  wrong — upon  the  character 
of  the  instruction  they  receive  from  their  religious 
teachers  in  the  course  of  their  clerical  ministrations  as 
preachers,  writers,  and  spiritual  guides,  than  upon  all 
other  educational  agencies  put  together. 

Give  the  people  what  schooling  you  may,  it  is  the 
clergy  who  are  responsible  whether  their  intellectual 
powers,  no  less  than  their  moral  sense,  be  enlightened 
or  debauched. 

Compare,  then,  the  present  low  state  of  intellectual 
culture  among  the  Protestant  masses  as  revealed  by 
the  unhappy  success  of  their  clergy  in  reducing  their 
people  to  such  an  acknowledged  appalling  depth  and 
density  of  ignorance,  despite  their  many  superior 
social  advantages,  with  the  intellectual  culture  of  our 
Catholic  people,  alike  dependent  upon  their  clergy  for 
its  prevailing  standard  among  them.  No  sane  man 
could  be  brought  to  believe  that  they  would  manifest  a 
similar  obtuseness  of  intellect  and  depraved  moral 
sense  as  to  be  thus  easily  hoodwinked  and  misled, 
and  stirred  up  to  similar  violent  and  unjust  attacks 
upon  Protestants  though  all  their  clergy  and  educated 
leaders  among  the  laity  were  to  combine  together  for 
such  a  purpose.     If  by  a  morally  impossible  supposition 


Introductory. 


such  an  attempt  were  made,  it  would  be  an  act  of  the 
sublimest  folly.  The  universal  judgment  of  the  Catho- 
lic people  would  be:  "God  help  us,  our  clergy  and 
our  teachers  are  surely  all  become  insane  ;  for  what 
they  ask  of  us  is  neither  according  to  religion  nor  ac- 
cording to  reason  !  ' ' 

However  unjustifiable  may  be  the  character,  and 
base  the  methods  employed  by  the  various  orders, 
leagues,  alliances,  and  their  aiders  and  abettors,  to 
stir  up  an  anti-Catholic  crusade,  it  must  be  owned,  in 
view  of  the  considerations  I  have  just  presented  con- 
cerning the  powerful  influence  of  the  clergy  over  the 
unthinking  masses,  that  the  prominent,  active  part 
taken  in  the  movement  by  a  numerous  class  of  Protest- 
ant preachers  through  their  sermons  and  articles  con- 
tributed to  their  religious  press  is  past  all  excuse. 

The  class  to  which  I  allude  is  composed  chiefly  of 
those  who  have  long  ceased  to  aim  at  instructing  their 
people  in  religious  doctrines  and  m.oral  precepts  ;  and 
have  taken  to  discussing  the  popular  questions,  and 
even  personal  scandals,  of  the  day.  On  the  sharp  scent 
for  any  new  sensation  that  may  help  to  draw  an  audi- 
ence within  their  fast-emptying  churches,  they  are 
found  advertising  themselves  as  champions  against 
"Romanism,"  ready  to  prove  to  all  comers  the  falsity 
of  Catholic  doctrine  and  the  idolatry  of  Catholic 
devotional  practices.  They  also  proclaim  themselves  to 
be  fully  armed  with  statistics  to  show  the  illiteracy, 
criminality,  and  immorality  of  the  Catholic  clergy  and 
nuns,   and  of  their  "pope  and  priest-ridden"  people. 

The  reports  of  some  of  these  accusations  lately 
obtained  admission  into  the  pages  of  nearly  all  the 
great  city  daily  newspapers,  and  in  many  of  the  local 


8  Introductory. 


newspapers  throughout  the  country.  That  their  au- 
thors are  moved  to  make  these  charges  from  mistaken 
religious  zeal  is  hard  to  believe.  The  unanimity  of 
their  action  and  the  similarity  of  their  methods  all  go  to 
confirm  the  belief  that  they  are  acting  as  paid  agents  of 
anti-Catholic  organizations  which  employ  them  to  in- 
flame the  passions  of  the  multitude,  and  stir  up  their 
suspicions  and  fears  of  the  growing  influence  and 
numbers  of  Catholics  in  this  country,  so  as  to  enable 
the  prime  movers  of  the  crusade  to  pass  laws  intended 
to  restrict  our  civil  and  religious  liberties,  and  practi- 
cally hinder  us  from  carrying  on  our  labors  in  behalf 
of  Christian  education  and  charity.  This  is  the  avowed 
purpose,  indeed,  of  the  A.  P.  A.  order,  as  set  forth  in 
its  programme  and  in  its  detestable  oath  of  member- 
ship ;  as  it  is  no  less  the  unquestionable  intent  of 
the  * '  National  League  for  the  Protection  of  American 
Institutions,"  a  body  instituted  to  renew  the  abortive 
attempts  to  secure  the  same  end  made  for  many  years 
past  by  the  noted  "Evangelical  Alliance,"  and  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  the  same  society  under  another 
title. 

It  has  been  observed  that  every  one  of  those  preach- 
ers who  have  taken  up  the  work  of  defaming  the  Catho- 
lic Church  is  an  ardent  supporter  of  the  programme  of 
the  "National  League"  ;  and  that  they  take  every  occa- 
sion to  bring  it  before  their  hearers  in  connection  with 
their  inflammatory  harangues  against  "Romanism." 

I  venture  to  say,  that  one  must  be  blind  indeed  who 
does  not  see  from  whence  these  men  get  their  cue,  if  not 
their  pay. 

One  of  the  most  inexcusable  methods  of  attack 
resorted  to  by  our   Protestant  enemies  has   been  their 


Introductory. 


employment  of  the  services  of  disgraced  priests  and 
bogus  ''escaped  nuns,"  all  seeking  money  and  noto- 
riety, and  often  the  means  of  thus  wreaking  their 
Satanic  vengeance  upon  the  Church  that  has  been 
forced  to  disown  them.  Preachers  open  their  pulpits  to 
these  depraved  wretches  and  call  together  their  people, 
young  and  old,  to  listen  to  their  false  and  foul  ha- 
rangues. With  the  aid  of  these  base  instruments, 
slanderous  and  obscene  books  and  pamphlets  are  pre- 
pared and  published,  not  only  with  the  connivance 
and  aid  of  private  individuals  but  by  various  so-called 
"  evangelical  "  societies  whose  chief  purpose  of  exist- 
ence and  work  is  to  keep  up  an  organized  attack,  per 
fas  et  nefas,  against  all  and  everything  Catholic. 
This  sort  of  literature  is  what  the  Rev.  Leonard  W. 
Bacon,  when  pastor  of  the  New  England  Church, 
Brooklyn,  about  twenty-five  years  ago,  denounced  as 
' '  popular  anti-popery  polemics,  the  great  mass  of 
scandalous  rubbish  which  mainly  constitutes  that  part 
of  our  Protestant  literature." 

Some  of  these  publications  he  very  justly  declared 
to  be  "infamous"  in  their  character. 

He  applied  that  term  to  a  series  of  books  issued  by 
one  of  these  anti-popery  societies,  called  "The  Ameri- 
can and  Foreign  Christian  Union,"  of  whose  Board  of 
Directors  he  himself  was  one.  He  is  the  one  and  only 
shining  example  in  the  history  of  this  peculiar  phase 
of  Protestant  religious  propagandism  of  a  bold,  honest 
spirit,  braving  the  wrath  of  his  own  fellows,  in  de- 
nouncing to  their  faces  their  uncharitable  and  dis- 
honest methods. 

He  relates  in  his  unique  pamphlet,  Fair  Play  on  both 
sides :   Two  papers  from  the  Neiv   Eng lander  for  fiily, 


lO  Introductory, 


i86g,  the  purpose  of  an  article  he  contributed  to 
Putnam's  Magazine  for  January,  1869,  on  The  Literature 
of  the  comijig  Controversy  (with  Roman  Catholics),  in 
which  he  sa3'S  he  "  made  it  a  special  object  to  reveal  to 
the  public  the  character  of  a  most  itifamous  series  of 
books  in  circulation,  wdth  the  imprint  of  his  own  so- 
ciety, 'The  American  and  Foreign  Christian  Union,'  in 
the  hope  that  for  very  shame's  sake  that  institution 
might  be  brought  to  frankly  repudiate  them.  The 
hope  was  vain.  Some  were  too  flagrantly  false,  or  too 
nasty  to  bear  much  talking  about,  etc."  But  the 
Board  of  Directors,  as  he  tells  us,  voted  him  down, 
unanimously,  as  a  "wanton  calumniator,"  and  de- 
manded his  expulsion  for  showing  up  their  indecencies 
and  villany  on  the  astounding  plea  that  if  such  truths 
were  allowed  to  be  told,  "no  (Protestant)  religious 
institution  would  be  safe"  ! 

In  Putnam' s  Magazine  he  had  already  denounced 
these  publications  as  ' '  wncked  impostures ' '  and 
"shameful  scandals,"  and  had  added:  "All  the  time 
that  this  society  has  been  running  its  manufactory  of 
falsehoods  and  scandals,  only  the  resolute  good  sense 
of  the  public,  in  not  buying  the  rubbish,  has  saved  the 
(Protestant)  Church  of  Christ  from  a  burning  and  in- 
effaceable disgrace." 

To  which  I  presume  to  say  that  it  was  not  saved  the 
disgrace  of  such  infamous  and  dirty  work,  whether  the 
public  bought  the  books  or  not.  Tw^o  of  these  publica- 
tions he  pillories — an  indecent  story,  purporting  to  be 
a  true  one,  and  the  famous  forgery,  "The  Secret  In- 
structions of  the  Jesuits,"  well  kno>vn  under  its  lyatin 
title  of  Monita  Secreta. 

This   country,    as   well   as   others,  has   been  cursed 


Introductory,  \  \ 


with  a  lot  of  these  anti-popery  societies,  even  unto  this 
day. 

There  was  the  ' '  American  Protestant  Association  '  * 
(an  A.  P.  A.)  in  the  early  part  of  the  century,  followed 
by  the  "American  and  Foreign  Christian  Union"; 
then  came  the  "  Evangelical  Alliance,"  now  succeeded 
by  its  alter  ego,  the  politico-religious  ' '  National  I^eague 
for  the  Protection  of  American  Institutions,"  whose 
true  character  I  exposed  in  The  Catholic  World  of 
January,    1894. 

The  country  has  not  forgotten  the  secret  political 
"order"  of  the  "Know-nothings,"  whose  mantle 
appears  to  have  fallen  upon  the  "  United  Order  of 
American  Mechanics,"  and  the  mendacious  and  in- 
cendiary second  A.  P.  A.,  whose  voice  is  now  heard  in 
the  land.  To  all  this  unholy  work  the  great  and 
wealthy  "  American  Tract  Society"  did  not  fail  to  lend 
a  helping  hand  in  a  pious  way  through  many  a  long 
year.  O  what  a  record  of  shame !  What  a  testi- 
mony, past  all  discrediting,  of  the  weakness  of  Protest- 
antism, thus  driven  to  support  itself  by  such  immoral 
methods  ! 

It  seems  almost  incredible  :  but  we  know  there  are 
some  true  stories  that  are  stranger  than  fiction  ;  and 
this  is  one  of  them. 

America  is  not  all  ours,  but  we  people  of  the  United 
States  have  taken  the  name  to  distinguish  ourselves  as 
a  nation.  We  love  the  title  and  are  proud  of  it.  Any 
body  or  any  thing  bearing  that  name  is  welcome  with- 
out further  introduction  for  that  alone,  and  at  once 
bespeaks  our  sympathy.  Just  see  how  every  one  of 
those  anti-popery  societies,  whose  example  every  other 
similar    one   will    be    found    to    have    imitated,    have 


1 2  Introductory. 


named  themselves  ''American."  Their  founders, 
aiders,  and  abettors  must  have  been  cunningly  inspired 
to  this  by  the  very  Father  of  Lies  himself,  for  anything 
more  ?^/^- American,  more  deservedly  worthy  of  being 
the  object  of  that  suspicion,  jealousy,  dislike,  and  even 
fear  with  which  the  word  "foreign"  so  unjustifiabl}^ 
and  foolishly  inspires  the  popular  American  Protestant 
mind,  could  not  possibly  be  imagined  than  the  form, 
purpose,  and  methods  of  these  "American"  titled 
organizations. 

Protestantism,  conscious  that  it  has  no  claim  to,  nor 
hope  of  obtaining,  the  universal  acceptance  of  humanity 
on  its  own  merits,  seeks  to  get  itself  acknowledged  by 
flattering  appeals  to  the  national  vanity.  Hence  its 
every  society,  and  every  one  of  its  undertakings  in  this 
country,  is  dubbed  with  the  title  of  "American."  In 
England  they  are  all  "British";  in  Scotland,  all 
"Scotch"  ;  in  Germany,  all  "  German,"  and  so  on  to 
the  end  of  the  chapter.  So,  in  order  to  poison  the 
minds  of  its  adherents  and  deepen  their  national  pre- 
judices against  the  Catholic  Church,  which  has  done 
and  alone  can  do  what  Protestantism  feels  instinctively 
is  wholly  beyond  its  power — the  uniting  her  children  of 
all  nations  into  one  brotherhood  in  Christ — it  has  most 
industriously  laid  the  false  charge  of  "  foreignism " 
against  the  Church  on  every  occasion,  and  in  every 
possible  manner. 

The  Protestant  clamor  from  press,  platform,  and 
pulpit,  in  books  and  tracts,  is  of  "Romanism,"  "For- 
eign domination,"  "  Subjects  of  a  foreign  potentate," 
"Papal  tyranny,"  and  all  such  intolerably  unjust 
and  baseless  accusations.  We  suffer  and  wait.  We 
can  afford  to  wait.     The  Catholic  Church  is  eternal  • 


Introductory, 


her  existence  is  not  of  men,  but  of  God,  and  altogether 
out  of  the  reach  of  any  inimical  power.  The  promise 
was  not  given  in  vain,  that  the  gates  of  hell  should 
never  prevail  against  her.  Persecution  strengthens 
her :  calumny  and  misrepresentation  only  serve  to 
bring  out  the  truth  about  her  b}^  offering  occasion  for 
the  clearer  vindication  of  her  honor. 

Such  an  occasion  has  been  taken  advantage  of  to 
present  the  testimonies  and  arguments  wdiich  will  be 
found  in  this  volume.  The}^  are  submitted  to  the  fair- 
minded  reader,  if  mayhap  he  has  been  misled  to  regard 
the  Church  as  w^orthy  of  condemnation,  with  the  hope 
that  the  perusal  of  the  evidences  adduced  will  move 
him  to  resolve  to  seek  further  light. 

If  the  Catholic  Church  be  indeed  all  she  so  con- 
fidently claims  to  be  :  the  true  teacher  and  trust- 
worth}"  guide  whom  Jesus  Christ  has  commissioned  and 
empowered  to  bring  men  to  a  nobler  and  purer  order  of 
civilization,  to  be  the  hand  and  voice  of  the  Consoler 
they  so  greatly  need  in  their  manifold  sufferings  of 
body  and  soul,  and  the  mouth  of  the  Revealer  of  the 
mysteries  of  life,  death,  and  eternit}" — in  a  word,  whom 
to  hear  is  to  hear  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  it  certainly 
behooves  men  of  reason  not  to  allow  themselves  to  be 
diverted  from  examining  claims  of  such  unparalleled 
magnitude,  and  if  true,  of  such  vital  and  urgent  im- 
portance to  them,  by  appeals  that  are  evidently  made  to 
passion,  to  prejudice,  or  to  ignorance. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CIVIIvIZATION. 

A  NATION  is  said  to  be  the  more  civilized  as  its 
social  state  shows  itself  to  be  one  in  which  the 
cqualit}^  of  human  nature  is  the  more  emphatically  re- 
cognized, the  inalienable  rights  of  man  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  true  happiness  are  the  more  fully 
enjoyed  and  more  securely  defended,  if  need  be,  from 
all  unjust  hindrance  and  molestation. 

As  man  possesses  both  a  spiritual  and  material 
nature,  so  his  social  life  will  develop  itself,  under 
certain  influences,  toward  the  realization  of  a  condition 
which  is  commonly  called  civilization,  in  which  both 
these  elements  of  human  nature  are  cultivated,  either 
harmoniously,  each  according  to  its  own  worthy 
measure  of  demand  upon  human  attention  and  energy, 
or  in  a  manner  to  produce  social  discord  by  giving  mis- 
placed pre-eminence  of  the  material  over  the  spiritual. 
It  is  to  the  existence  of  this  latter  condition  that  we 
hear  the  derogatory  expression,  "mere  material  civil- 
ization/' justly  applied. 

Civilization,  in  that  it  realizes  the  development  of 
man's  spiritual  powers  and  aspirations,  will  manifest  a 
superior  degree  of  religious,  moral,  and  intellectual 
culture.  Where  this  development  of  man's  spiritual 
nature  is  proposed  as  the  highest  ideal,  the  people  will 
exhibit  an  aptitude  for  the  right  use  of  the  reasoning 
faculty,  a  love  for  philosophical  study  and  for  spiritual 
meditation.     They  will  devote  themselves  with  ardor  to 


Civilization.  1 5 


the  cultivation  of  the  fine  arts,  to  agriculture  and  other 
such  occupations  of  a  peaceful  character.  A  people 
educated  in  such  an  order  of  civilization  will  be  found 
to  exhibit  general  refinement  and  polish  of  manners,  a 
sure  and  marked  result  to  be  looked  for  among  those 
who  place  before  themselves,  as  the  chief  end  of  man's 
happiness,  the  attainment  of  the  True,  the  Good,  and 
the  Beautiful. 

Civilization  as  answering  to  the  demands  of  man's 
material  needs  (that  we  cannot  add,  and  aspirations, 
shows  at  once  its  inferiority)  results  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  useful,  generally  embracing  whatever  serves 
as  a  means  of  furthering  human  intercourse  and  the 
satisfaction  of  bodily  necessities,  comforts,  and  luxuries. 
The  degree  of  development  of  this  secondar}^  element 
of  civilization,  especially  in  these  days  of  the  marvel- 
ous achievements  of  human  energy  exhibited  in  the 
development  of  the  mechanical  arts,  is  often  im- 
properly taken  to  be  the  true  test  of  a  nation's  best 
civilization,  as  if  it  were  the  ultimate  and  crowning  fruit 
of  the  most  worthy  human  endeavor  to  supply  the  ever- 
increasing  demand  of  man's  fickle  and  inglorious  ma- 
terial wants. 

Cultivation  of  the  useful  is  even  taken  to  be  synony- 
mous with  civilization ;  and  those  nations  which  have 
been  slower  to  abandon  their  former  social  ideal  of  the 
supremacy  of  man's  spiritual  nature,  and  have  hesitated 
to  rush  with  headlong  eagerness  to  proclaim  and  obey 
the  modern  usurped  supremacy  of  his  material  nature, 
are  held  up  to  scorn  as  being  onl}^  half-civilized,  as 
lacking  in  true  progress,  and  as  unworthy  to  take  rank 
beside  those  who  seek,  but  apparentl}^  do  not  so  surely 
obtain,  the   social   happiness   they   promise   themselves 


1 6  Civilization. 


from  this  super-exaltation  of,  and  ardent  devotion  to, 
the  development  of  this  inferior  order  of  human  energy. 
It  is  certain  that  the  tendency  of  Protestantism  has 
been  to  undul}^  exalt  this  latter  phase  of  modern  social 
life.  Listen  to  its  spokesmen.  They  will  tell  5^ou  to 
look  at  the  extraordinar}-  material  progress  of  Protest- 
ant nations  such  as  England,  Germany,  and  the  United 
States;  at  their  railways  and  steamships,  their  telegraph 
lines,  their  increasing  manufactures,  the  colossal 
fortunes  amassed,  their  multiplied  inventions  minister- 
ing to  every  conceivable  comfort  and  luxury  and 
amusement  of  the  imagination,  and  then,  with  an  air 
of  contemptuous  disdain,  they  will  point  you  to  Italy, 
to  Spain,  to  Mexico,  to  South  America,  and  round  oif 
their  bombastic  oratorical  periods  with  a  triumphant 
gesture  and  tone,  as  if  there  was  not  another  word  to 
be  said  about  it — at  least,  no  word  worthy  the  consider- 
ation of  a  man  living  in  this  glorious  nineteenth 
centur}^ 

These  wretched  philosophers,  as  is  plain,  w^orship 
what,  after  all,  is  only  a  viea7is  to  an  end. .  Ask  them. 
What  is  the  end  you  seek?  They  will  tell  you  that 
they  seek  progress.  But  ask  again.  What  is  progress  ? 
or  rather.  Progress  in  what?  Why,  of  course,  the 
development  of  all  these  wonderful  material  resources, 
is  their  reply.  Resources  for  the  attaining  of  what? 
you  still  ask:  It  is  next  to  impossible  to  get  them  to 
recognize  that  the  means — the  resources — are  not  the 
end.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  sense  enough  to  per- 
ceive that  to  cultivate  a  means  for  the  sake  of  the 
means  is  absurd. 

"Oh!  "  but  they  say,  "  the  cultivation,  production, 
and   multiplication   of    those    means,   as   you    Catholic 


Civilization.  1 7 


philosophers  insist  upon  styling  them,  are  so  beneficial 
to  human  society."  Are  they  ?  In  what  way,  please? 
In  some  form  or  other  you  will  surely  get  this  answer: 
"  The}^  are  beneficial  in  that  they  afford  satisfaction 
of  man's  '  mental  curiosities,  his  amusements,  his 
material  wants,  and  his  animal  desires"  ;  although  they 
do  not  put  it  in  such  plain  language. 

That  is  the  pity  of  it.  They  have  ceased  more  and 
more  to  recognize  the  true  ideal  of  human  happiness, 
the  cultivation  and  perfecting  of  man's  spiritual  nature, 
which  is  the  only,'^nd  can  be  the  only,  true  and  worthy 
end  of  human  life  and  effort. 

Such  has  been  the  end  plainly  kept  in  view  by  the 
Catholic  Church  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  her 
struggle  with  the  brilliant  and  powerful  pagan  civiliza- 
tion which  she  found  ruling  the  world  in  boastful 
triumph.  She  never  lost  sight  of  the  same  high  pur- 
pose when  she  met  even  more  intractable  scholars  in  the 
barbarous  hordes  of  Goth,  Hun,  and  lyombard ;  and 
still,  to-day,  she  has  none  other  to  offer  to  humanity, 
either  savage  or  wrongly  civilized,  to  whom  she  must 
now,  as  always,  preach  the  same  Gospel  of  the  civiliza- 
tion Christ  bade  her  take  to  all  nations  :  ' '  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  justice,  and  all  other 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 

Hence  Christian  civilization  must  enlighten  man  as 
to  his  true  end,  and  continually  teach  these  lessons. 

Whatever  means  may  serve  to  secure  man's  true 
destiny  are  certainly  to  be  cultivated  and  developed, 
but  only  as  a  good  sen^ant  to  aid  in  the  attainment  of 
his  true  end,  and  never  as  being  that  end  in  itself. 
Whatever  proposed  means  are  of  doubtful  service, 
or  are  felt  to  be  doubtful  by  a  nation,  are  to  be  most 


1 8  Civihzation. 


cautiously  used ;  and  whatsoever  is  judged  as  of  no 
value,  or  as  likely  to  prove  a  hindrance  to  the  better 
attainment  of  man's  true  happiness,  is  to  be  condemned 
and  avoided. 

One  of  the  most  singular  of  all  modern  misappre- 
hensions of  the  true  end  of  human  society,  and  the 
mistaking  of  the  means  for  the  end,  is  seen  in  the  popu- 
lar idolatry  of  the  mere  knowledge  of  the  means  of 
education,  which  surely  are  only  means  after  all, 
however  serviceable  and  good  for  those  who  know  how 
to  use  that  knowledge  without  danger  to  themselves  or 
to  their  neighbors,  when  they  have  gotten  it. 

Not  all  science  for  all  men  alike  :  And  that  truth  is 
strongly  exemplified  in  the  evil  results  shown  in  many 
places  from  the  indiscriminate  and  hasty  forcing  of 
book-learning  upon  certain  classes  of  society,  or  upon 
half-civilized  races. 

The  consequence,  which  the  historian  Alison  calls 
"a  sad  and  melancholy  truth,"  is  seen  in  the  creation 
of  a  numerous  class  of  instructed  idlers,  soon  becoming 
unhappy  criminals,  who  would  otherwise  have  learned 
and  worked  at  an  honest  trade,  enjoying  a  keen  happi- 
ness themselves  and  radiating  happiness  upon  others, 
and  contributing  to  the  general  good  of  society. 

I  do  not  think  it  possible  to  give  any  other  explana- 
tion for  the  sudden  outbursting  in  this  century  of  those 
dangerous  classes  now  threatening  to  undermine  the 
whole  fabric  of  Christian  civilization,  the  toilsomely 
built  edifice  of  many  slowly  passing  ages — classes  sucli 
as  the  secret  oath-bound  ' '  orders ' '  of  Freemasons  and 
their  imitators,  the  Communists,  the  Socialists,  the 
Anarchists,  and  such  like,  than  that  the  headlong  "  pro- 
gress ' '  of  our  civilization  has  forced  upon   all  of  that 


Civilization.  19 


sort  a  godless  material  education,  the  very  possession 
of  which  is  a  curse  to  themselves,  and  makes  of  them  a 
class  of  avowed  enemies  to  the  whole  social  order. 

I  think  I  am  warranted  in  having  said  this  much, 
if  for  no  other  reason  than  to  offer  to  reflecting,  fair- 
minded  readers  a  rational  defence  of  the  policy  of  those 
Catholic  nations  who  have  been  slower  than  others,  not 
only  in  forcing  popular  education  upon  all  alike,  irre- 
spective of  their  capacity  to  receive  or  ability  to  employ 
this  mental  sharp-edged  tool,  but  slower  also  to  fill  their 
lands  with  railways,  telegraphs,  factories,  newspapers 
of  the  *'  Daily  Crimes  "  sort,  and  the  like  literature,  to 
which  we  and  other  such  favored  countries  point  with 
foolish  pride  as  unmistakable  evidences  that  we  enjoy 
a  **  higher"  civilization. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  higher  state  of  civilization 
with  a  rational  culture  of  the  intellect  and  a  large 
development  of  the  socially  useful  arts  and  sciences, 
corresponding  with  a  wider  spread  general  happiness 
among  the  people.  It  is  found,  and  can  only  be 
found,  where  the  interests  of  the  spiritual  order  have 
been  held  to  be  supreme,  and  have  not  been  sacrificed 
to  the  interests  of  the  material  order.  On  the  con- 
trary, wherever  we  find  those  nobler  interests  made 
subordinate  to  the  exactions  of  those  of  the  baser 
material  order,  and  sometimes  even  wholly  ignored, 
there  the  ensuing  intellectual  pride,  moral  depravation, 
and  social  misery  of  the  people  loudly  vindicate  the 
standard  of  human  * '  civilization ' '  set  up  by  the 
Catholic   Church  as  the  only  true  one. 

When  Protestantism  loudly  boasts  of  being  the 
mother  of  the  present  nineteenth  century  "  civilization," 
one  need  not  care  to  dispute  its  claim  to  have  given 


20  Civilization. 


birth  to  certain  special  characteristics  of  it  which  true 
Christianity  must  look  upon  with  dread  and  abhor- 
rence. It  is  quite  true  that  it  labored  hard  to  "  emanci- 
pate the  human  mind"  from  its  former  Catholic 
"  slavery  "  to  truth,  and  to  free  the  human  heart  from 
its  humble  obedience  to  the  restrictions  of  Catholic 
Christian  moral  principles  and  laws.  Modern  atheistic 
infidelity,  agnostic  scepticism  and  doubt,  hard  and 
selfish  materialistic  progress  crushing  under  its  iron 
heel  the  nobler  development  of  man's  spiritual  nature, 
the  base  aristocracy  of  wealth,  unbridled  luxury  in  all 
life  relations,  and  unchecked  license  in  all  man's 
animal  lusts,  resulting  in  the  decay  and  decimation  of 
national  populations  :  all  these  testify  that  the  human 
mind  and  heart  have  been  but  too  successfully  * '  eman- 
cipated ' '  from  the  intellectual  and  moral  magistracy  of 
the  Catholic  Church. 


CHAPTER  III. 

f 

PROTESTANT  CIVILIZATION  IN  ENGLAND. 

THERE  is  no  country  to  which  Protestants  point 
with  greater  pride  than  at  England,  as  showing 
forth  the  superior  enlightenment  and  progressive  civil- 
ization which  they  claim  Protestantism  has  the  glorious 
mission  to  bestow  upon  the  world  wherever  its  influence 
reaches.  Truly  her  "material"  civilization,  as  a  na- 
tion, is  wonderful.  The  Sun  does  not  set  upon  her 
empire.  She  holds  dominions  in  Europe,  Asia,  Amer- 
ica, Africa,  Australia,  and  in  the  islands  of  all  seas. 
What  nation  has  such  wealth?  What  people  have 
attained  such  mastery  in  manufactures  and  commerce  ? 

But  is  she  really  enjoy iftg  superior  enlightenment, 
and  are  her  people  rejoicing  in  this  kind  of  advanced 
civilization  ?  There  is  astounding,  horrifying  evidence 
to  the  contrary.  There  is  no  nation  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  of  whom  equal  evidence  could  be  furnished  for 
its  people's  degradation,  brutal  *"  slavery,  appalling 
immorality,  and  unparalleled  pauperism,  as  has  been 
written  concerning  England  by  Englishmen  themselves, 
to  say  nothing  of  other  testimonies.  Who  are  en- 
lightened in  England  ?  Who  are  civilized  ?  If  you 
will,  a  few,  a  very  few,  compared  with  the  great  mass  of 
her  people.  The  peasantry,  the  laborers,  the  miners, 
the  factory  operatives,  the  millions  who  deserve  the 
name  of  *'the  people" — these  are  simply  wretched 
barbarians.     Who  says   so  ? 

Besides    what    will    be     found  in   this   book  under 


22  Protestajit  Civilization  in  England. 

the  titles  of  Immorality  and  Pauperism,  I  quote  here 
from  a  most  forcible  and  eloquent  work,  The  Glory  and 
Shame  of  England,  by  Charles  Edwards  Lester,  a  well- 
known  American  traveller,  observer,  and  author  :      • 

"  It  has  been  well  said  by  an  Englishman  himself,  that  '  to  talk 
of  English  happiness  is  like  talking  of  Spartan  freedom — the 
Helots  are  overlooked.'  .  .  .  Just  in  proportion  as  the  higher 
classes  advance  in  wealth,  power,  and  influence,  are  the  poor 
depressed.  What  is  gained  by  the  few  is  lost  by  the  many.  If 
the  land-holder  grows  rich,  his  pockets  are  filled  by  the  odious 
and  unjust  tax  upon  the  necessaries  of  life.  If  the  manufacturer 
amasses  a  colossal  fortune,  it  is  because  his  dependent  operatives 
do  not  receive  a  fair  compensation  for  their  labor.  If  the  bishop 
rolls  in  wealth,  his  luxuries  are  the  price  of  the  hunger  and  naked- 
ness of  thousands  of  his  diocese.  If  a  lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland 
throws  up  his  commission  after  a  month's  administration,  and 
retires  to  a  chateau  on  the  Continent  on  /s.ooo  a  year,  this  sum 
is  wrung  from  the  starving  peasantry  of  that  misgoverned  land  " 
(vol.  i.  p.  141). 

No  historian  questions  the  general  social  happiness 
of  the  English  people  before  the  Reformation,  neither 
can  it  be  denied  that  this  happy  condition  owed  its 
foundation  and  continuance  to  the  influence  of  the 
Catholic  faith,  which  in  an  especial  manner  appears  to 
have  been  successful  in  inspiring  the  Englishmen  of 
those  times  with  an  intense  love  of  liberty.  No  people 
ever  asserted  their  rights  more  boldly  in  face  of  at- 
tempts at  tyrannical  oppression  made  by  their  kings 
or  nobles.  Who  has  not  heard  of  the  Magna  Charta 
wrested  from  King  John  by  the  barons,  led  by  a  Catho- 
lic archbishop?  Who  has  not  heard,  also,  of  those 
•'nursing  cradles  of  liberty,"  the  famous  Working- 
men's  and  Tradesmen's  Guilds,  which  not  only  kept  up 


Protestant  Civilization  in  Engla^id.  23 

for  centuries  a  truly  Christian  industrial  system,  based 
upon  justice  and  charity,  but  which  became  also  most 
powerful  means  of  sustaining  the  civil  liberties  and 
political  privileges  of  the  people  ?  What  is  not  so  well 
known  is,  that  in  Catholic  times,  under  the  tutelage 
and  living  examples  of  the  monks,  whose  numbers 
amounted  to  many  thousands,  the  land  was  so  sub- 
divided as  to  be  largely  owned  by  the  people  who 
tilled  it.  There  was  no  pauperism,  there  were  no 
Poor-laws :  the  people  had  the  wherewithal  to  live,  to 
be  housed  and  clothed  and  fed.  They  were  also  a  pro- 
foundly religious  people  ;  and  as  it  was  the  Catholic 
religion  they  believed  in  and  practised,  they  were  a 
happy  people.  For  the  Catholic  faith  is  one  which  in- 
spires joy.  Contrast  their  former  condition  with  what 
followed  the  loss  of  that  faith. 

The  numerous,  'pathetic  ruins  of  Catholic  churches, 
monasteries,  institutions  of  charity  and  learning,  to  be 
found  scattered  all  over  England,  bear  witness  to  the 
ruin  of  England's  social  happiness  wrought  by  the 
destroying  arm  of  its  Protestantism. 

Let  the  reader  get  a  copy  of  Cobbett's  history  of  the 
Refortnaiio7i  and  learn  something  of  the  ' '  improved 
civilization  ' '  Protestantism  gave  to  once  '  *  Merry  ' ' 
Catholic  England. 

The  tale  is  one  of  wholesale  murder  and  confiscation, 
hardly  equalled  for  ferocity  and  greed  by  the  deeds  of 
violence  and  rapine  told  of  the  incursions  of  the  bar- 
barous hordes  who,  in  earlier  centuries,  swept  southern 
Catholic  Europe  like  a  whirlwind.  The  motto  of 
Protestantism  seems  to  have  been  :  * '  Let  us  make  the 
rich  richer,  and  the  poor  poorer.  Let  us  make  wealth 
virtue,  and  poverty  crime.     Let  us  make  it  treason  for 


24  Protestant  Civilization  in  England, 

the  people  to  talk  of  their  '  rights'  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

Forty  thousand  such  Catholic  traitors  suffered  death 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 

One  must  be  blind  not  to  see  what  a  disastrous  in- 
fluence the  Reformation  exerted,  through  the  political 
arm,  upon  the  social  condition  of  the  working  classes 
in  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

What  has  Mr.  I^ester  to  say  of  their  condition  as 
late  as  twenty  years  ago  ? 

"  The  ignorance,  vice,  disease,  deformity,  and  wretchedness  of 
the  English  operatives  as  a  6ody  almost  exceed  behef.  I  am 
persuaded  the  physical  miseries  of  the  English  operatives  are 
greater  by  far  than  the  West  Indian  slaves  suffered  before  their 
emancipation.  They  are  too  ignorant  to  understand  their  rights 
and  too  weak  to  assert  them  "  {ibid.,  p.   i6i). 

Civilization  is  a  condition  in  which  the  inalienable 
rights  of  man  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness are  recognized.  If  the  following  be  true,  and  it  is 
alas!  only  too  true,  what  is  to  be  thought  of  England 
as  a  civilized  countr}-  ? 

"  We  talk  of  the  liberty  of  the  English,  and  they  talk  of  their 
own  liberty  :  but  there  is  no  liberty  in  England  for  the  poor. 
They  are  no  longer  sold  with  the  soil,  it  is  true  ;  but  they  cannot 
quit  the  soil  if  there  be  any  probability  or  suspicion  that  age  or 
infirmity  may  disable  them.  If  in  such  a  case  they  endeavor  to 
remove  to  some  situation  where  they  hope  more  easily  to  maintain 
themselves,  the  overseers  are  alarmed;  the  intruder  is  appre- 
hended, as  if  he  were  a  criminal,  and  sent  back  to  his  own  parish. 
Wherever  a  pauper  dies,  that  parish  must  bear  the  cost  of  his 
funeral :  instances,  therefore,  have  not  been  wanting  of  WTetches 
in  the  last  stage  of  disease  having  been  hurried  away  in  an  open 
cart  upon  straw,  and  dying  upon  the  road  !     Nay,  even  women  in 


Protestant  Civilization  in  England.  25 

the  very  pains  of  labor  have  been  driven  out,  and  have  perished 
by  the  wayside,  because  the  birthplace  of  the  child  would  be  its 
parish  !  "  {ibid.,  quoting  the  poet  laureate  Southey,  vol.  i.  p.  181). 

And  thivS  in  so-called  Christian,  Protestant  England  ! 
The  writer,  himself  a  Protestant,  goes  on  to  arraign 
the  Protestant  clergy  : 

"  It  matters  not  how  much  they  declaim  from  the  pulpit  about 
the  mercy  of  God,  and  His  regard  for  the  poor.  The  poor  are 
told  that  these  men  are  the  heaven-descended  ministers  of  this 
religion  :  men  who  afflict  the  poor ;  who  shoot  widows'  sons  to 
get  their  tithes  (for  cases  of  this  kind  have  occurred  in  Irelan-d), 
and  at  last  become  infidels.* 

"  Gibbon,  with  all  his  philosophy,  did  not  escape  the  same  con- 
clusion.   He  tells  us  the  abuses  and  corruptions  of  Christianity 

*  He  refers  to  the  well-known  "slaughter  of  Rathcormac  "  in  Ireland  on 
December  i8,  1834:  "  Having  procured  a  military  force  from  the  govern- 
ment, Archdeacon  Ryder  headed  the  troops  himself,  and  led  them  down 
to  the  cottage  of  the  widow  Ryan,  to  force  the  collection  of  ;^5  tithes, 
which  she  had  not  paid  because  she  could  not.  It  was  regarded  by  the 
populace  as  a  barbarous  cruelty  upon  a  poor  widow,  and  they  pressed  him 
to  desist.  He  gave  orders  first  to  draw  swords,  next  to  load,  and  at  last  to 
fire.  He  was  obeyed.  Nine  persons  were  killed  and  as  many  wounded. 
There  were  2,900  Catholics  in  the  parish,  and  only  29  Protestants,  and 
half  of  these  were  members  of  the  archdeacon's  own  family.  The  tithes 
he  got  from  the  parish  were  between  $7,000  and  $8,000  a  year. 

"This  'Minister  of  the  Cross'  shot  down  more  persons  than  his  whole 
congregation  amounted  to,  exclusive  of  his  own  family  !  The  heart-sicken- 
ing details  of  the  widow  searching  among  the  dead  bodies  for  her  son,  her 
finding  him  with  his  mouth  open  and  his  eyes  set  in  the  fixedness  of 
death,  the  closing  of  his  eyes,  and  the  arranging  of  the  body  in  the  decency 
of  death,  amid  the  blood  where  he  lay,  are  all  too  terrible  to  be  minutely 
described.  Another  widow  had  two  sons  killed  in  this  ecclesiastical 
slaughter.  When  their  lifeless  but  still  bleeding  bodies  were  brought 
into  her  house,  she  threw  herself  on  them  and  exclaimed,  in  Irish  :  '  They 
are  not  dead,  for  they  are  giving  their  blood  ! '  And  when  the  terrible 
truth  forced  itself  on  her  that^her  noble  boys  were  no  more,  she  went  mad. 
This  bloody  massacre  was  to  get  ^5  worth  of  corn,  due  to  the  archdeacon 
for  tithes  "  {Glory  and  Shame  0/ England,  vol.  i.  p.  227,  ed.  of  1876). 


26  Protestant  Civilization  in  England, 


made  him  a  sceptic.  Let  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England 
preach  such  doctrines  to  others  than  poor  widows  and  hungry 
children,  from  whose  scanty  wages  their  princely  incomes  are 
filched.  If  there  be  a  structure  of  tyranny  and  abuse  more 
iniquitous  in  the  eye  of  Heaven  than  any  other,  it  is  the  despotism 
of  a  state  which  converts  the  subHme  religion  of  Christ  into  an 
instrument  of  avarice  and  ambition,  of  ambition  for  the  political 
elevation  of  the  aristocracy;  and  of  ambition  which  starves 
widows  and  orphans  to  array  in  gold  those  who  are  pompously 
styled  '  God's  ministers.'  God's  ministers  they  surely  are  :  and  so 
are  thunderbolts,  tempests,  conflagrations,  and  death!"  {ihid.,  p. 

195). 

"  It  is  a  government  of  privileges  and  monopolies :  '  the  few  are 
born  booted  and  spurred  to  ride  over  the  many.'  The  working 
classes  are  degraded  and  oppressed.  All  but  the  privileged  class- 
es are  taxed  from  their  birth  to  their  death.  ...  All  are  taxed 
to  pamper  a  haughty  aristocracy,  a  political  church,  and  the 
privileged  orders"  {ibid.,  p.   no). 

In  the  author's  work  of  the  same  title,  published  in 
1876,  there  is  much  that  is  worthy  of  note.  He  pre- 
faces his  second  volume  with  several  quotations.  I 
select  one  from  Sydney  Smith  : 

"  There  is  no  doubt  more  misery,  more  acute  suffering  among 
the  mass  of  the  people  of  England  than  there  is  in  any  kingdom 
of  the  world ;  but  then,  they  are  the  great  unwashed,  dirty,  dis- 
agreeable, unfortunate  persons.  There  are  thousands  houseless, 
breadless,  friendless,  without  shelter,  raiment,  or  hope  in  the 
world  :  millions  uneducated,  only  half-fed,  driven  to  crime,  and 
every  species  of  vice  which  ignorance  and  destitution  bring  in 
their  train,  to  an  extent  utterly  unknown  to  the  less  enlightened, 
the  less  free,  the  less  favored,  and  the  less  powerful  kingdoms  of 
Europe." 

Mr.  Lester  himself  has  to  say  : 

"  The  great  crime  of  England  lies  in  sustaining  a  system  which 
oppresses,  starves,   and   brutalizes   the   masses   of   her   subjects. 


Protestant  Civilization  in  England.  27 


The  government  of  England  makes  poor  men  poorer,  and  the  rich 
men  richer.  .  .  .  The  worst  attribute  in  African  slavery 
has  been  this — forcing  men  to  work  hard  to  keep  them  from 
starving!  This  is  all  England  has  done  for  hundreds  of  years. 
She  has  millions  of  her  own  home  people  who  know  no  more 
about  Jesus  Christ  than  about  Mahomet  or  Confucius.  I  there- 
fore say  that  there  is  no  population  can  be  found  on  the  earth  who 
live  so  near  Christianity,  that  know  so  little  of  it ;  that  see  so 
much  luxury,  and  have  so  few  of  the  necessaries  of  life;  that 
dwell  in  such  filthy  holes  and  dens,  that  bask  so  little  in  the  sun- 
light of  heaven.  Who  made  this  system  ?  Who  keeps  it  up  ? 
What  good  is  the  Established  Church  and  its  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  when  you  come  to  the  question  of  bread  and  butter? 
The  Established  Church  came  to  tax  them  and  enrich  a  prelacy." 

He  had  read  Elia^  Nicholas  Nickleby,  and  Oliver 
Twist,  but  none  of  these  descriptions  gave  him  "any 
adequate  idea  of  the  enormity  and  extent  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  trampled   herd   of  British  people"    {ibid., 

pp.  35-38). 

The  author  reviews  the  history  of  England,  and  then 
gives  special  instances  showing  to  what  a  shocking 
state  of  destitution  the  poor  in  England  and  Ireland 
have  been  reduced  in  this  enlightened  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. My  eye  catches  one  item  worth  preserving  for 
reference,  concerning  Ireland.     He  says  on  page  151  : 

"  The  established  rule  of  Irish  landlords  now  is  to  drive  out 
men,  and  turn  in  cattle,  a  regime  not  resorted  to  occasionally 
but  carried  out  almost  everywhere.  It  is  a  resort  to  barbarism. 
It  is  robbing  civilized  men  of  the  natural  right  to  live  on  the  soil, 
going  back  to  the  primitive  state  in  which  beasts,  and  not  men, 
possess  the  earth.  Never  was  such  a  people  left  to  such  an  alter- 
native—total extermination  or  exile.  This  compulsory  choice  is 
fast  leaving  to  Victoria  what  Elizabeth  had  in  the  same  island — 
little  but  corpses  and  ashes  to  rule  over" 


28  Protestant  Civilization  in  Efigland. 


On  page  159  he  gives  the  official  statistics  of  evic- 
tions in  Ireland:  "From  1841  to  1851  they  destroyed 
269,253  dwellings  or  cabins,  and  in  1849  they  evicted 
50,000  families." 

In  his  second  volume  we  come  upon  unlooked-for 
horrors  in  this  leading,  highly  civilized  Protestant  Eng- 
land. On  page  310  he  quotes  the  Westminster  Review, 
discussing  the  loss  of  ownership  in  land  in  England  by 
the  people,  to  this  effect : 

"  No  thinking  man,  much  less  one  who  has  the  shghtest  idea  of 
the  sources  of  wealth  and  prosperity  of  a  people,  need  be  told 
what  must  necessarily  be  the  result  of  such  a  system,  especially 
upon  a  people  like  the  English,  whose  laboring  classes  have 
reached  a  point  of  degradation  unequalled  iti  any  civilised  nation 
on  earth" 

Mr.  Lester  quotes  one  of  Bulwer's  sayings  :  "We 
English  pay  best:  first,  those  who  destroy  us,  our 
generals  ;  second,  those  w^ho  cheat  us,  our  politicians 
and  quacks ;  third,  those  who  amuse  us,  singers  and 
musicians  ;  but  least,  and  last  of  all,  those  who  instruct 
us,  or  do  our  hard  work  "  ;  and  he  strongly  commends 
that  sentiment  to  the  serious  consideration  of  us  Ameri- 
cans  (vol.  ii.  p.  431)- 

Another  of  the  dreadful  revelations  made  of  the 
condition  of  the  English  poor  was  that  of  the 
"cellar  homes"  found  by  investigators  in  all  the 
great  cities,  and  the  contracted  and  miserable  dens 
of  the  agricultural  poor.  Mr.  Lester  quotes  at 
length  many  of  the  almost  incredible  evidences  given 
by  Joseph  Kay  in  his  startling  work.  The  Social  Con- 
dition a7id  Education  of  the  English  People  (1850), 
whose   work   was  the   result  of  his   observations   as  a 


Protestant  Civilization  in  England.  29 

commissioner  appointed  by  the  English  Cambridge 
University  to  examine  and  report  on  the  social  con- 
dition of  the  poor  in  various  countries.  Nothing  at 
all  like  the  horrible  condition  reported  could  be 
found  anywhere  in  the  world.  Aroused  by  such 
"astounding  disclosures,  revealing  such  incomprehen- 
sible scenes  of  degradation,  iyi  the  very  bosom  of  the 
highest  (?)  civilization  on  the  earth,"  the  Statistical 
Society  of  I^ondon  determined  to  ' '  sift  the  whole 
thing  to  the  bottom."  The  committee  found  all  that 
Kay  had  said  fully  true,  and  plenty  more  untold. 
These  are  their  comments  at  the  close  of  "  a  volumin- 
ous calendar  of  horror  ' '  : 

"Your  committee  have  thus  given  a  picture  in  detail  of 
human  wretchedness,  filth,  and  brutal  degradation,  the  chief 
features  of  which  are  a  disgrace  to  a  civilized  country,  and 
which  your  committee  have  reason  to  fear,  from  letters  which 
have  appeared  in  the  public  journals,  is  but  a  type  of  the 
miserable  condition  of  masses  of  the  community,  whether  lo- 
cated in  the  small,  ill-ventilated  rooms  of  the  manufacturing 
towns  or  in  many  of  the  cottages  of  the  agricultural  peasantry. 
In  these  wretched  dwellings  all  ages  and  all  sexes — fathers 
and  daughters,  mothers  and  sons,  grown-up  brothers  and 
sisters,  stranger  adult  males  and  females,  and  swarms  of 
children— the  sick,  the  dying,  and  the  dead,  all  herded  to- 
gether with  proximity  and  mutual  pressure  which  brutes  would 
resist ;  where  it  is  physically  impossible  to  preserve  the  ordinary 
decencies  of  life  ;  where  all  sense  of  propriety  and  self  respect 
must  be  lost  "  (Journal  of  the  Statis.  Soc,  London,  vol.  vi.  p.  17). 

In  the  same  journal,  vol.  xi.,  there  followed  after 
another  investigation  the  following  detailed  report : 

"  Out  of  1,954  families  visited,  551,  containing  a  population  of 
2,025  persons,  have  only  one  room  each,  where  father,  mother, 
sons,  and  daughters  sleep    together ;    562    families,  containing  a 


30  Protestant  Civilization  in  England. 

population  of  2,554  persons,  have  only  two  rooms  each,  in  one 
of  which  people  of  different  sexes  must  undress  and  sleep 
together;  705  families,  of  1,950  persons,  have  only  ^;/^  bed  each, 
in  which  the  whole  family  sleep  together;  728  families,  of  3,455 
persons,  have  only  two  beds  each,  one  for  the  parents,  and  the 
other  for  all  the  sons  and  daughters." 

As  to  the  "cellar  life"  of  the  poor  in  cities,  Mr. 
Lester  says  the  extent  of  the  evil  baffles  all  human  com- 
prehension. He  gives  a  report  of  Liverpool,  in  which 
were  found  6,294  inhabited  cellars  with  20,168  inhabi- 
tants, and  621  other  cellars  in  courts,  with  2,000  more 
dens  not  more  than  10  or  12  feet  square  and  6  feet 
high  ;  which,  from  the  revolting  descriptions,  one  would 
say  no  Esquimau  nor  African  savage  would  or  could 
live  in  them.  Well  does  Mr.  Lester  put  the  question  : 
"  In  what  other  part  of  the  w^orld,  civilized  or  barbar- 
ous, can  twenty  per  ce7it.  of  the  pop2ilatio7i  be  found  in 
such  a  condition  as  in  this  commercial  emporium  of  the 
British  Empire?" 

The  writer  sums  up  in  one  forcible  sentence  his 
opinion  of  the  degraded  condition  of  the  English  opera- 
tives :  "I  would  rather  see  the  children  of  my  love 
born  to  the  heritage  of  Southern  slavery  than  to  the 
doom  of  the  operative's  life." 

I  suppose  the  reader  thinks  I  have  shown  the 
blackest  shade  in  the  picture  of  England's  modern 
barbarism.  I  thought  I  had  myself,  until  my  eyes  fell 
upon  the  accounts  given  of  the  English  '' infa7it  a7id 
female  slaves  in  the  coal  mines,"  as  Mr.  Lester  calls 
it,  and  adds  :  ' '  No ;  slavery  in  its  most  hideous  form 
never  equalled  this,  and  the  condition,  physical  as  well 
as  moral,  of  the  most  degraded  bondsman  may  be 
esteemed  exalted  if  compared  with  that  of  a  free  collier 


Protestant  Civilization  in  England.  31 

ill  England  "  (vol.  ii.  p.  339).  He  speaks  of  a  report 
laid  before  the  House  of  Commons,  and  gives  the  com- 
ment of  a  London  journal : 

"  The  infernal  cruelties  practised  upon  boys  and  girls  in  the 
coal  mines,  those  graves  both  of  comfort  and  virtue,  have  never 
in  any  age 'been  outdone.  We  have  sometimes  read,  with  shud- 
dering disgust,  of  the  outrages  committed  upon  helpless  child- 
hood by  man  when  existing  in  a  state  of  naked  savageness.  We 
aver  our  belief,  that  in  cold-blooded  atrocity  they  do  not  equal 
what  is  going  on  from  day  to  day  in  some  of  our  coal  mines. 
Young  creatures,  both  male  and  female,  six,  seven,  eight,  nine 
years  old,  stark  naked  in  some  cases,  chained  like  brutes  to  coal 
carriages,  and  dragging  them  on  all-fours  through  sludge  six  and 
seven  inches  deep,  in  total  darkness,  for  ten,  twenty,  and  in 
special  instances  thirty  hours  successively,  without  any  other 
cessation,  even  to  get  meals,  than  is  casually  afforded  by  the 
unreadiness  of  the  miners.  Here  is  a  pretty  picture  of  British 
Civilization.  One  cannot  read  through  the  evidence  taken  by 
the  commission  referred  to,  without  being  strongly  tempted  to 
abjure  the  very  name  of  Englishman." 

Other  reports  show  that  children  of  four  and  three 
years,  and  "some  so  young  that  they  go  even  in  their 
bed-gowns,  and  who  cannot  even  articulate,"  are  forced 
into  what  John  Ruskin,  in  his  Fors  Clavigera,  calls 
"Hell-pits." 

These  children,  boys  and  girls  and  women,  not  only 
worked  like  brutes,  but  were  beaten  with  horrible 
cruelty  as  they  crawled  on  their  hands  and  knees  har- 
nessed to  the  coal-carts.  And  we  are  told  that  the  men 
working  with  them  were  stark  naked.  The  immoral 
bestiality  that  resulted  is  no  wonder.  "  In  my  pit  I  am 
the  only  girl,"  said  one,  "and  there  are  twenty  boys 
and  fifteen  men,  all  naked."     "  Te7is  0/  thousands  of 


32  Protestant  Civilization  in  England. 

these  children,"  says  the    Earl  of  Winchelsea,  "have 
been  destroyed  by  this  brutalizing  and  severe  labor." 

One  is  not  surprised  to  learn  of  their  total  ignorance 
of  Christianity.     Here  are  some  examples: 

Elizabeth  Day,  aged  17:  "I  don't  go  to  any  Sunday-school. 
I  can't  read.  Jesus  Christ  was  Adam's  son.  Theynailed  him 
to  a  tree  ;  but  I  don't  rightly  understand  these  things." 

William  Beaver,  aged  16:  "The  Lord  made  the  world.  He 
sent  Adam  and  Eve  on  earth  to  save  sinners.  I  have  heard  of  a 
Saviour ;  he  was  a  good  man,  but  he  didn't  die  here." 

Ann  Eggley,  aged  18:  "I  have  heard  of  Christ  performing 
miracles,  but  I  don't  know  what  sort  of  things  they  were.  He 
died  by  their  pouring  fire  and  brimstone  down  his  throat.  Three 
times  ten  makes  twenty.  There  are  fourteen  months  in  the 
year,  but  I  don't  know  how  many  weeks." 

Bessy  Bailey,  aged  15:  "Jesus  Christ  died  for  his  son  to  be 
saved.  I  don't  know  who  the  apostles  were.  I  don't  know 
what  Ireland  is." 

Ehzabeth  Eggley,  aged  16:  "I  can't  read.  Don't  know  my 
letters.  Don't  know  who  Jesus  Christ  was.  Never  heard  of 
Adam  either.     Never  heard  about  them  at  all." 

'what  is  this  that  Mr.  Lester  tells  us  ?  "  It  may  be 
thought  that  all  these  barbarities  have  ceased  after 
having  been  exposed.  This  is  not  true.  No  lasting 
reform  of  this  kind,  or  among  aiiy  of  the  slave  classes 
of  England,  has  ever  yet  been  worked''  (page  351). 
The  italics  are  his  own. 

Listen  to  the  testimony  from  that  startling  pamphlet, 
The  Bitter  Cry  of  Ontcast  London  : 

"Whilst  we  have  been  building  our  churches,  and  solacing 
ourselves  with  our  religion,  and  dreaming  that  the  Millennium  was 
coming,  the  poor  have  been  growing  poorer,  the  wretched  more 
miserable,  and  the  immoral  more  corrupt:  the  gulf  has  been 
daily  widening  which  separates  the   lowest   classes  of  the  com- 


Protestant  Civilization  in  England.  33 


munity  from  our  churches  and  chapels,  and  from  all  decency  and 
civilization.  .  .  .  This  terrible  flood  of  sin  and  misery  is 
gaining  upon  us.     It  is  rising  every  day." 

Mr.  Chamberlain,   M.P.,  writes  in  1883: 

"  Never  before  in  our  history  v^-ere  wealth  and  the  evidences 
of  wealth  more  abundant ;  never  before  was  luxurious  living  so 
general  and  so  wanton  in  its  display,  and  never  before  was  the 
misery  of  the  poor  more  intense,  or  the  conditions  of  their  daily 
life  more  hopeless  or  more  degraded."  And  then  he  goes  on  to 
say  that  England  has  a  "  million  of  paupers  and  millions  more 
are  on  the  verge  of  it  "  {Fortnightly  Review,  December,  1883). 

W.  J.  Conybeare,  speaking  of  "the  infidelity  now 
so  general  among  the  best-instructed  portion  of  the 
laboring  classes,"  says: 

"  It  is  a  melancholy  fact  that  the  men  who  make  our  steam- 
engines  and  railway  carriages,  our  presses  and  telegraphs,  the 
furniture  of  our  houses  and  the  clothing  of  our  persons,  have  now 
in  a  fearful  proportion  rejiounced  all  faith  in  Christianity. 
They  regard  the  Scripture  as  a  forgery,  and  religion  as  priest- 
craft, and  are  living  without  God  in  the  world.  The  revelations 
of  the  late  census  have  shown  that  in  England  alone  there  are 
more  than  five  millions  of  persons  who  absent  themselves  entirely 
from  religious  worship  "  {Essays,  Ecclesiastical  and  Social,  p.  99). 

I  am  wondering  of  what  proportion  of  our  American 
non-Catholic  people  the  same  might  be  truly  said. 
The  Rev^  T.   Hugo  wrote  : 

"  The  masses  in  Lancashire  and  of  London  w^ere  as  heathen 
as  those  of  whom  St.  Paul  drew  a  picture  in  immortal  though 
dreadful  colors.  ...  He  knew  the  mobs  of  London  and  Lan- 
cashire well,  and  he  gave  his  word  of  honor  as  a  Christian  priest 
that  there  was  no  difference  between  them  and  the  people  whom 
St.  Paul  portrayed"  {Church   Times,  October  13,   1876). 

The  Protestant  Bishop  of  Rochester,  preaching  a 
sermon  in  the  Royal  Chapel,  St.  James's,  said  : 


34  Protestant  Civilization  in  England. 


"  I  lament  that  dense,  and  coarse,  and  almost  brutal  ignorance 
in  \\  hich  the  toiling  masses  of  the  people  who  have  oictgrown  th^ 
Church's  ^rasp  are  permitted  to  live  and  die,  of  all  that  touches 
their  salvation  and  explains  their  destiny.  To  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  our  fellow-countrymen  Almighty  God  is  practically 
an  unknown  Being,  except  as  the  substance  of  a  hideous  oath ; 
Jesus  Christ,  in  His  redeeming  love  and  human  sympathy,  as 
distant  as  a  tixed  star"  {Good   Words,  January,   1880,  p.  61). 

Nearly  thirty  y^ears  ago  the  Quarterly  Revie^v  stated 
that  "there  are  (in  I^ondon)  whole  streets  within 
easy  walk  of  Charing  Cross,"  and  "  miles  and  miles" 
in  more  obscure  places,  "  where  the  people  live  literally 
without  God  in  the  world.  .  .  .  We  could  name 
entire  quarters  in  which  it  seems  to  be  a  custom  that 
men  and  women  should  live  in  promiscuous  concubin- 
age; where  the  ver}^  shop-keepers  make  a  profession 
of  atheism,  and  encourage  their  poor  customers  to  do 
the  same  "  ;  with  much  more  to  the  same  effect  {Quar- 
terly Revieiv,  April,  1861,  pp.  432-463). 

And  yet  they  tell  us,  Protestant  England,  to  look 
2i\,you,  the  glory  and  the  pride  of  the  new,  enlightened 
and  progressive  civilization  which  Protestantism  has 
given  to  the  world  ;  and  in  contrast  to  the  fruits  of  that 
civilization  as  seen  in  your  land,  developed  under  its 
influence,  they  bid  us  look  at  Italy  and  Spaiu  and 
Mexico  and  South  America  ;  in  fact,  at  any  country 
which  owes  its  civilization  to  the  influence  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Well,  we  do  look,  .some  of  us,  and, 
comparing  them  with  y^ou,  we  find  the  difference  in  the 
opposite  civilizing  influences,  as  shown  in  the  condition 
of  your  and  their  hard-working  classes  of  people, 
according  to  y^our  own  Protestant  testimony^  to  be  as 
great  as  there  is  between  curses  and  blessings. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PROTESTANT  CIVILIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 

MJEAN  DK  PARIS,  one  of  the  ablest  writers  in 
•  France,  as  our  American  author,  Mr.  Charles 
E.  Lester,  esteems  him,  finelj^  saj'S  in  his  work,  La 
Question  Irlandaise,    i860: 

••  Placed  high  in  rank  among-  the  most  enlightened  nations  of 
Europe,  Ireland  left,  in  early  times,  a  luminous  track  in  the 
history  of  Christian  civiHzation.  Suddenly  violence,  aided  by 
treason,  made  her  the  slave  of  the  stranger.  Since  then  her 
virtues  became  the  cause  of  her  misfortunes.  Faithful  to  the 
creed  of  her  fathers,  she  is  persecuted  by  an  apostate  people." 

That  is  true  to  the  letter ;  and  as  that  island  is  one 
of  the  most  richly  endowed  lands  of  the  earth,  with  a 
most  fertile  soil,  a  temperate  climate,  with  a  most  brave 
and  intelligent  people,  who  become  heroic  freemen  in 
every  land  but  their  own,  and  rival  all  other  peoples  in 
enterprise  and  social  advancement,  we  may  well  ask, 
with  M.  de  Paris,  How  has  it  come  about  that  the  name 
of  Ireland  is  in  the  ears  of  all  synonymous  with 
Famine-Land?  I  propose  to  answer  that  question  by 
the  testimony  of  the  writer  already  quoted,  Mr.  Lester, 
•who  does  not  speak  from  hearsay,  but  from  diligent 
research  and  personal  observation. 

He  devotes  some  eighty  pages  of  his  work.  The 
Glory  and  Shame  of  England,  to  the  soul-harrowing  de- 
scription of  the  progress  of  modern  civilization  in  Ire- 
land under  the    "enlightening"    influence   of    English 

35 


2,6  Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland. 

Protestantism.  The  title  of  his  historical  sketch  is 
"  Ireland  :  Her  Woes  and  Struggles  under  English 
Oppression."  And  this  Protestant  writer  does  not  fail 
to  see  and  acknowledge  that  all  the  unexampled  bru- 
tality of  England's  social,  political,  and  religious  op- 
pression of  that  land  and  its  heroic  people  is  charge- 
able to  what  has  proved  itself  to  be  the  worst  form  of 
Protestantism  the  world  has  ever  seen — the  English 
Protestant  Episcopalian  Established  Church.  He  as- 
serts it  more  than  once,  and  brings  abundant  proofs. 
If  I  were  an  Irishman  and  a  wealthy  one,  I  hardly 
know  at  what  limit  of  expenditure  I  would  stop  in  re- 
printing that  historical  sketch  in  Mr.  Lester's  book, 
and  in  bringing  it  before  the  eyes  of  as  many  English 
voters  as  could  be  reached.  Some  brief  extracts  will, 
I  think,  fully  justify  my  opinion  of  it.  This  is  a  part 
of  his  exordium : 

"  To  a  distant  observer  that  beautiful  island  appears  like  a  city 
of  ruins  in  the  saddened  light  of  evening.  Her  glory  and  her 
strength  seem  departed  for  ever.  But  it  is  not  of  the  poetry  of  the 
past  the  lover  of  Ireland  must  speak.  Her  bards  never  sang  in 
strains  so  mournful  and  pathetic  as  the  sad  lullaby  of  the  mother 
over  her  famishing  child.  The  complaint  of  poverty  and  the  cry 
of  suffering  are  more  heart-breaking  than  her  most  plaintive 
melodies.  Her  woes  and  her  dishonor  move  not  the  heart  of  her 
oppressors,  but  they  are  noted  by  the  God  of  the  poor." 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  even  before  "  Henry  VIII.* 
attempted,  Mahomet-like,  to  convert  Ireland,  sword  in 
hand,  to  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,"  the  whole 
policy  of  England  was  to  subject  the  people  to  servi- 
tude and  their  land  to  pillage.  But  when  the  new 
religion   came    in   to    sanction    and    stimulate    political 


Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland.  37 

persecution,  then  were   the   horrors   of  Ireland's   woes 
multiplied  ten  thousandfold  : 

"  Every  cruelty  and  outrage  that  can  dishonor  our  nature  was 
perpetrated  by  the  English  vampires  who  infested  the  land. 
Cities  were  sacked,  villages  burned,  women  violated,  and  the 
helpless  and  young  slaughtered  by  thousands." 

Confiscation  of  all  the  land  and  property  held  by 
Catholics  became  the  order  of  the  day,  and  the  reign  of 
starvation  began.  Under  that  English  Jezabel,  Queen 
Elizabeth,  Ireland  was  reduced  to  a  desert,  and  be- 
tween famine  and  war  there  was  swept  away  at  least 
one-half  of  the  population.  "  When  Elizabeth  ap- 
proached her  death,  and  the  future,  with  its  fearful 
retributions,  visited  her  conscience,  the  ghost  of  mur- 
dered Ireland  rose  up  before  her,  filling  her  with  terri- 
ble alarms,  so  that  she  immediately  ordered  that  some 
of  the  confiscated  estates  should  be  restored." 

Let  me  give  a  picture  of  the  Irish  peasantry  in  the 
days  of  that  infamous  monarch  whom  Protestants  are  so 
fond  of  lauding  with  the  title  of  "  good  Queen  Bess." 
Mr.  Lester  quotes  from  the  poet  Spenser,  who  had 
himself  gotten  three  thousand  of  Irish  confiscated 
acres,  and  who  actually  recommended  the  continuance 
of  the  barbarities  he  thus  describes  : 

"  Out  of  every  corner  of  the  woods  and  glynnes  they  came 
creeping  forth  upon  their  hands,  for  their  legs  could  not  bear 
them.  They  looked  like  anatomies  of  death  ;  they  spake  like 
ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves  ;  they  ate  the  dead  carrion, 
happy  when  they  could  find  them  ;  yea,  and  one  another  soon 
after ;  insomuch  as  the  very  carcasses  they  spared  not  to  scrape 
out  of  their  graves,  and  if  they  found  a  plot  of  water-cresses,  or 
shamrocks,  to  these  they   flocked  as  to  a  feast  for  the  time ;   yet 


38  Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland. 


not  able  to  continue  there  withal,  that  in  a  short  space  there 
were  none  almost  left,  and  a  most  populous  and  plentiful  country 
is  suddenly  left  void  of  man  and  beasts 

On  the  accession  of  James  I.  the  system  of  confisca- 
tion recommenced  on  a  more  extended  scale.  Bogus 
"Catholic  conspiracies"  were  hatched  up,  in  order 
to  have  an  excuse  for  plundering  their  estates.  Under 
Charles  I.  things  became  still  worse. 

' '  In  two  days  bills  of  indictment  for  high  treason 
were  found  against  all  the  Catholic  nobility  and  gentry 
in  the  counties  of  Meath,  Wicklow,  and  Dublin,  and 
three  hundred  gentlemen  in  Kildare."  This  resulted 
in  an  official  robbery  of  2,500,000  acres  owned  by  the 
"  Catholic  rebels." 

Then  came  Cromwell,  the  "  Champion  of  English 
liberty."  Under  this  bloodthirsty  despot  every  Catho- 
lic Irishman  became  a  "  traitor."  He  invaded  Ireland, 
and  his  invasion  was  a  wholesale  butchery  of  the 
miserable,  -starving  people. 

"  He  and  his  fellow  English  Protestants  regarded  the  Irish 
Catholics  as  Canaanites,  and  proclaimed  themselves  as  commis- 
sioners of  God  to  pursue  them  with  fire  and  sword.  Mercy  to 
the  conquered  was  rebellion  against  God.  In  prosecuting  this 
exterminating  war  they  had  massacred  the  peasantry  by 
thousands ;  others  they  had  transported  as  slaves,  and  multitudes 
more  exiled  themselves  from  the  land  where  they  could  no  longer 
be  free.  The  few  that  were  left  were  converted  into  slaves  to 
till  the  soil  for  the  robber  and  the  murderer,  and  bleed  under  the 
iron  scourge  that  was  laid  on  their  backs." 

Where  was  the  blessed  civilizing  influence  of  the  new 
Protestant  religion  all  this  while  ?  It  was  doing  what 
might  be  expected  of  it — urging  on  the  English  robbers 
and   murderers  to  more  ferocious   acts  of   inhumanity. 


Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland.  39 


"The  Catholic  clergy  were  banished,  their  worship  made  a 
capital  offence,  and  bloodhounds  were  employed  to  hunt  down  the 
priests.     '  Priest-hunting  became  a  favorite  field-sport '  !  " 

Next  came  the  perfidious  Cliarles  II.,  who  not  only 
confirmed  all  the  diabolical  acts  of  Cromwell,  but  con- 
tinued the  work  of  extirpation.  ' '  Three  thousand  more 
noble  Irish  families  lost  their  estates." 

One  royal  vulture  followed  another,  and  William, 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  proved  to  be  one  of  the  crudest 
of  them  all ;  and  now  our  author  tells  us,  in  one  ex- 
pressive sentence,  how  "  Ireland  lay  a  helpless  victim 
at  the  feet  of  its  merciless  masters.  The  vulture  now 
plunged  his  beak  into  the  bleeding  form  of  its  prey, 
and  tore  away  the  flesh  at  its  leisure." 

Will  my  readers  please  take  note  that  the  modern 
"Orangemen,"  as  they  are  called,  take  their  name  in 
honor  of  the  memory  of  that  English  king  who  indeed 
played  the  vulture  upon  the  prostrate  form  of  Ireland, 
even  to  the  tearing  out  its  very  vitals?  These 
' '  Orangemen  ' '  are  now  being  cordially  invited  to  cross 
the  Canadian  borders  by  our  self-constituted  "Pro- 
tectors of  American  Institutions,"  to  their  shame,  to 
come  and  help  them  attack  the  rights  of  American 
citizens.  Orangemen  have  always  well  understood  that 
sort  of  work. 

Protestantism  found  in  the  Orange  usurper  a  willing 
tool  to  ' '  reduce  the  Irish  almost  to  the  last  step  hu- 
manity reaches  in  its  downward  passage." 

A  ferocious  persecution  of  Catholics  was  set  on  foot, 
the  like  of  which  surely  has  never  been  recorded  upon 
the  pages  of  history.  Catholics  were  fined  for  every 
non-attendance     upon    the    Protestant    worship.      For 


40  Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland, 


opening  a  school  a  fine  of  ^20  or  three  months  im- 
prisonment. No  Protestant  could  marry  a  Catholic. 
An  apostate  son  of  a  Catholic  father  could  seize  the 
whole  family  property.  No  Catholic  could  be  guardian 
for  his  own  child.  No  Catholic  could  inherit  property 
owned  by  his  Protestant  relations.  All  the  Catholic 
clergy  were  banished  by  law.  Many  suffered  agonizing 
tortures  and  death.  In  1709  new  acts  were  passed, 
and  more  priest-hunting  began. 

"  For  discovering  an  archbishop,  bishop,  vicar-general,  or  other 
person  exercising  any  foreign  (?)  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  a  re- 
ward of  ^50. 

"  For  discovering  each  regular  or  secular  priest,  ^20. 

"  For  discovering  each  popish  school-master  or  usher  or  tutor. 

Now  let  us  hear  Mr.  Lester  in  his  own  words : 

"  In  all  trials  between  Catholics  and  Protestants  justice  was 
a  thing  altogether  out  of  the  question.  To  crown  the  absurdity 
and  baseness  of  this  Protestant  legislation  a  bill  was  actually 
introduced,  and  passed  both  houses  of  Parliament,  decreeing  that 
every  Catholic  priest  who  came  into  the  country  should  be  cas- 
trated.    .     .     . 

"  In  1727  George  II.  became  king,  and  the  knife  was  plunged 
deeper  into  dying  Ireland.  In  the  outset  a  bill  was  passed  dis- 
franchising all  Catholics,  who  then  constituted  five-sixths  of  the 
nation.  They  appeared  to  be  experimenting  in  cruelty  and  in- 
justice to  see  how  far  they  could  sink  humanity  in  degradation 
and  suffering.  The  continued  extortions  of  the  Established 
Church  and  landholders  reduced  the  poor  to  starvation  and 
beggary,  and  forced  them  into  outbreaks  and  resistance,  and  those 
whose  only  crime  was  being  born  Irishmen  were  shot  down  or 
hung  without  even  the  useless  iorms  of  a  trial." 

I    cannot   go    into   a   description   of  the    ' '  Act   of 


Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland.  41 

Union"  passed  in  1801,  forced  by  what  Mr.  Lester 
calls  a  "  sj^stem  of  violence,  theft,  falsehood,  and  cor- 
ruption, unparalleled  in  the  history  of  civilized  nations, 
a  union  that  destroyed  Ireland's  independence,  ruined 
her  commerce,  exhausted  her  wealth,  and  left  her  a 
helpless  victim  at  the  feet  of  her  spoiler — the  vilest  of 
England's  vile  transactions." 

"To  describe  all  the  torments  wrung  fiom  the  innocent  by 
rack  and  torture — to  enumerate  the  robbed  and  the  slain  without 
trial  or  provocation — to  portray  all  the  burnings  and  desolation  of 
villages,  till  the  inhabitants,  rendered  houseless  and  homeless, 
reduced  to  famine,  wandered  like  spectres  in  the  land  that  gave 
them  birth — and  speak  of  the  tears  and  groans  and  shrieks  the 
wronged  and  the  helpless  have  shed  and  uttered  over  their 
friends,  or  in  their  own  death  agony,  during  these  long  and  weary 
centuries — it  would  make  the  most  damning  record  of  national 
crime  ever  offered  to  the  horror  of  man  or  the  justice  of  God." 

Then  our  author  shows  how  the  most  savage  and 
unpitying  monster  of  all  was  the  Established  Protestant 
Church ;  and  how  it  gorged  itself  upon  the  last  remnants 
of  the  very  means  of  life  left  to  the  Irish  poor. 

"During  three  years  ending  1821,  100,000  prosecutions  were 
made  by  the  Protestant  clergy  to  collect  from  the  hungry  and 
impoverished  people  this  unjust  revenue.  Nearly  one-twelfth  of 
the  entire  surface  of  Ireland  wdiS  then  owned  by  the  Established 
Church.  Ten  million  dollars  annually  were  dragged  by  the  one- 
tenth  out  of  the  whole  six  million  of  people,  '  to  go  into  the 
pockets  of  four  archbishops,  eight  bishops,  and  a  thousand  and 
two  hundred  clergy,  nearly  one- half  of  whom  never  see  their 
parishes,  while  millions  of  Catholic  Irishmen  who  paid  these 
'ministers  of  Christ '  had  not  even  sufficient  third-rate  potatoes  to 
eat.  .  .  .  There  has  been  no  real  Reformation  in  the 
Chitrch" 


42  Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland. 

In  the  last  chapter  the  reader  has  already  had  an 
example  of  the  method  resorted  to  in  forcing  the  collec- 
tion of  their  unjust  tithes  by  the  Protestant  clergy,  by 
calling  out  the  soldiery  and  murdering  widows'  sons  to 
get  ;^5  worth  of  the  very  food  these  poor  wretches 
needed  to  keep  body  and  soul  together.  And  this 
example  of  Protestant  civilization  to  happen  as  late  as 
the  year  of  grace  1834  ! 

I  sicken  as  I  read  the  horrible  account  which  follow^s 
of  the  years  of  famine  and  of  no  famine,  not  because 
there  was  any  lack  of  food  in  Ireland,  but  it  was  all 
shut  up  in  the  granaries  of  the  oppressors,  and  at  the 
very  time  that  Americans  and  Turks  were  bountifully 
helping  the  starv'ing  people.  The  hard-hearted  land- 
lords and  the  harder-hearted  Protestant  ministers,  the 
hirelings  whose  sheep  the  Irish  people  were  not,  must 
have  their  rent  and  their  tithes  all  the  same. 

Does  any  one  wonder  to  hear  the  writer  ask,  again 
and  again:  "What  has  English  civilization,  or 
English  philanthropy  done  for  Ireland?  and  the 
answer  is  returned  by  the  ragged,  wretched,  and  perish- 
ing population  :     '  It  has  done  this  for  us  !  '  " 

Mr.  Lester  devotes  a  section  of  his  essay  to  the 
"outrage  of  forcing  an  Alien  Church  on  an  unwilling 
people."  He  tells  us  that  "  the  sword  and  the  Protest- 
ant Church  entered  Ireland  together.  .  .  ,  Ireland 
was  persecuted,  impoverished,  and  embittered  for  the 
sake  of  the  Established  Church."  In  a  note  on  page 
231,  after  having  fully  shown  how  the  whole  system  of 
English  Protestantism  was  that  of  a  corrupt,  aristo- 
cratic oppression  of  the  poor,  frankly  tells  the  truth 
about  it,  Protestant  as  he  is  himself: 


Protestant  Civilization  in  Ireland,  43 

"  The  English  Established  Church  started  in  sin.  Henry  VIII. 
was  its  founder.  It  was  a  rupture  between  England  and  Rome, 
inisnamed  the  Reforination  [italics  his],  and  as  if  it  were  not 
incongruous  enough  to  have  a  church  start  from  such  a  source,  in 
its  first  grand  article  it  constituted  the  king  its  head.  A  Henry 
VIII.,  a  Charles  II.,  a  George  IV.  the  representatives  of  Christ  on 
earth !  The  greatest  murderer  that  ever  escaped  from  the 
gallows  ;  the  most  corrupt  libertine  that  ever  filled  the  royal 
palace  with  courtesans ;  the  most  profligate  and  heartless  man  of 
his  time,  the  representatives  of  the  immaculate  Son  of  God! 
Nominating  all  the  bishops,  possessing  thousands  of  livings,  and 
invoking  and  dismissing  synods  at  his  royal  pleasure:  from  such 
bold  encroachments  in  the  outset  on  the  simplicity  and  purity  of 
the  Apostolic  Church,  we  should  expect  to  find  [and  do  find]  a 
secular,  selfish  establishment,  acting  not  for  the  poor  but  for  the 
rich,  not  for  the  elevation  of  man  but  for  his  more  complete 
subjugation.  Commencing  in  pride  and  lust,  it  would  necessarily 
live  by  extortion,  and  end  in  oppression." 

And  again  I  say,  they  tell  us,  Protestant  England, 
to  look  2Xyoit,  the  glory  and  pride  of  the  new  gospel  of 
civilization,  which  your  reformed  religion  has  given  to 
the  world.  And  some  of  us  have  looked,  and  what 
have  we  seen  ?  We  have  seen  what  fruits  your  new 
gospel  has  borne  in  England  and  in  Ireland,  and  every 
man  not  utterly  debased  in  mental  perception  and 
moral  sense  must  know  and  declare,  that  of  all  the 
curses  that  ever  blighted  suffering  humanity  your  mis- 
called gospel  of  enlightened  English  Protestantism  has 
been  the  bitterest. 


44  Protestant  Civilization  in  India. 


PROTESTANT    CIVIIvIZATION  IN  INDIA. 

In  regard  to  India  Mr.  Seymour  Keay,  speaking  of 
the  demoralization  of  tlie  people  under  British  rule, 
remarks  : 

"  As  to  the  demoralizing  effect  of  our  control  on  the  character 
of  the  native,  we  have  presented  to  us  the  most  fearful  corrobo- 
ration of  what  was  asserted  by  Shore,  and  reiterated  by  Campbell. 
Both  these  writers  assure  us  that  the  longer  native  states  are 
under  our  control,  the  more  marked  is  the  depreciation  in  native 
character.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years  we  have  succeeded  in 
destroying;  whatever  of  trtithfulness  and  honesty  they  have  by 
nature,  and  substituting  in  its  place  trickery,  chicanery,  a7id 
fraud.  Every  native  will  tell  you  that  it  is  impossible  nowadays 
to  find  an  honest  man,  those  who  appear  so  being  only  too  great 
fools  to  cheat  successfully.  Our  whole  system  of  law,  and  govern- 
ment, and  education,  tends  to  make  the  natives  clever,  irreligious 
and  litigious  scamps.  No  man  can  trust  afiother.  Formerly  a 
verbal  promise  was  as  good  as  a  bond.  Then  bonds  became 
necessary.  Now  bonds  go  for  nothing,  and  no  prudent  banker 
will  lend  money  without  receiving  landed  property  in  pledge,"  etc. 
(See  article  on  "  The  Spoliation  of  India,"  in  Nineteenth  Century, 
July,  1883.) 

The  civilizing  (?)  influence  of  that  unparalleled 
plundering  monopoly,  the  great  British  East  India 
Company,  is  too  well  known  to  require  special  evidence, 
but  let  us  hear  some  testimony,  to  see  if  Protestant 
England  did  any  better  when  she  at  last  became  ab- 
solute master  of  India.  Mr.  Eester  first  tells  us  how 
their  "oppressors"  systematically  robbed  the  natives 
of  all  the  land,  and  continues  :  ''  Results  the  most  dis- 
astrous have  sprung  from  this  policy.  Millions  of  the 
people  of  India  have,  in  consequence  of  it,  been  starved 


Protestant  Civilization  in  India.  45 

to    death."     He  then  quotes  a  speech  of  the  eminent 
Dr.   Bowring  : 

"  We  boast  that  we  are  a  civilized,  religious,  and  instructed 
nation;  what  of  all  these  blessings  have  we  conferred  upon  India? 
We  are  a  large  commercial  country ;  but  we  have  never  extended 
the  humanizing  and  civilizing  blessings  of  commerce  to  India. 
This  is  an  agricultural  country.  What  a  picture 
does  India  present!  Possessing  boundless  tracts  of  land,  with 
every  shade  of  climate  fit  for  the  best  productions  of  the  earth, 
yet  men  perishing  by  the  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
from  famine,  while  the  storehouses  of  the  East  India  Company  are 
filled  with  bread,  wrung  from  their  soil  by  a  standing  army.  We 
have  boasted  of  our  religion — I  do  not  mean  the  form  and  words 
which  too  many  consider  to  be  the  essence  of  Christianity.  Have 
we  miparted  any  of  it  to  the  natives  of  India  ?  No,  alas !  We 
hear  much  more  of  the  complainings  of  these  poor  natives  than 
of  their  gratitude.  We  profess  to  be  a  well-governed  nation,  and 
well  acquainted  with  the  principles  of  liberty,  which  we  highly 
prize;  but  we  have  not  given  that  liberty  to  India.  We  have  not 
even  made  justice  accessible  to  them  "  {The  Glory  a7id  Shame  of 
England,  vol.  ii.  pp.  428-9,  2d  ed.) 

Protestant  English  domination  in  India  has  not 
only  enslaved  but  demoralized  India.  Says  Lester, 
continuing  : 

"  Perhaps  there  is  no  feature  in  the  whole  system  so  painful  as 
the  degradatiojt  it  brings  upon  W07nen.  The  Mohammedan  and 
Hindoo  religions  always  treat  women  as  inferior  beings — as 
slaves  ;  but  the  Christians  of  England  carried  the  system  infinitely 
further  than  that.  There  is  no  part  of  the  world  where  slavery 
ever  entailed  so  many,  and  such  constant  and  direful  conse- 
quences upon  females.  From  a  London  journal  of  high  rank  I 
quote  the  following  passage  :  *  Such  is  the  character,  and  such  at 
this  very  time  are  the  effects  of  slavery  in  British  India.  Under 
the  various  forms  of  domestic  or  field  slaves,  eunuchs,  concubines 


46  Protestant  Civilization  in  India, 


and  dancing  girls  are  kept  for  purposes  of  prostitution,  the  law- 
less gains  of  ivhich  go  into  the  hands  of  their  masters  '  (p.  433). 

The  utmost  lawlessness  was  allowed  to  the  soldiery, 
from  the  highest  officers  down.     He  says  : 

"  While  marching  with  the  troops,  and  during  their  journeys 
into  the  interior  on  business,  the  most  brutal  outrages  are  often 
inflicted  by  the  officers  on  Indian  girls.  ...  I  have  seen  in 
Great  Britain,  and  on  the  Continent,  military  officers  of  the  highest 
rank  who  would  not  venture,  they  assured  me,  to  risk  their  lives 
one  hour  by  any  order  whatever  that  should  restrain,  either  the 
Sepoy  troops,  or  even  inferior  British  officers  commanding  them, 
in  their  liberty  of  universal prostittition.     .     .     . 

"  Christian  England  !  What  has  she  done  during  the  last  two 
hundred  and  sixty-six  years  for  heathen  India?  Heathen  India 
was,  and  is,  of  as  much  service  to  England  as  would  have  been 
Christian  India,  and  perhaps  more  :  for  besotted  idolaters  will 
more  passively  wear  the  chain  "  {ibid.,  pp.  435-36). 


N 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  GLANCE  AT  SOME  CATHOLIC  COUNTRIES  IN 
EUROPE. 

O  testimony  is  needed  to  prove  that  it  would  he  im- 
possible to  find  in  any  Catholic  country  in  the  world 
anything  at  all  like  the  barbaric  treatment  of  the  people 
to  which  they  have  been  subjected  under  Protestant 
influence  in  England  and  her  dependencies.  So  there 
is  no  call  for  evidence  to  show  how  much  less  Catho- 
lic countries  have  been  degraded  under  the  influence  of 
Catholicism,  since  there  has  not  been  any  such  ten- 
dency at  all  among  them  to  brutalize  and  torture  the 
working  classes  in  them.  All  Catholic  countries  have 
ever  been  happy  ones  for  the  common  people.  Both 
Catholic  principles  of  civilization  and  their  adaptation 
to  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  different  nations  have 
proved  themselves  to  possess  the  power  of  harmonizing 
those  tendencies  which,  if  not  controlled  by  higher  in- 
fluences, always  breed  the  most  violent  antagonisms 
among  the  necessary  classes  in  society. 

Catholic  civilization  always  keeps  in  view  as  its  ideal 
the  happiness  of  the  many.  But  this  necessarily  sup- 
poses the  nearest  possible  equalization  of  classes,  and 
the  inspiration  of  a  common  interest  in  keeping  up  the 
social  order  established  for  the  general  good.  The  word 
of  the  Catholic  Church  to  all  the  people,  high  and  low, 
rich  and  poor,  the  learned  and  the  simple,  the  master 
and  the  servant,  the  governor  and  the  governed,  has 
always  been—"  Ye    are  all  brethren  in   Christ.     Love 


48    A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Ettrope. 

one  another  and  support  each  other  as  brethren."  The 
proclamation  and  persevering  inculcation  of  this  high 
ideal  produced  what  we  know  as  Christian  Civilization, 
and  which  resulted  in  the  emancipation  of  human  so- 
ciety from  the  order  of  pagan  servitude. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  testimonies  to  this  eleva- 
tion of  human  societ}-  was  the  Catholic  inspiration  and 
cultivation  of  the  virtue  of  Patriotism — the  love  of  one's 
own  country.  Slaves  have  no  country  to  love.  But 
who  are  slaves?  Those  who  neither  own  themselves 
nor  have  any  personal  interest  in  that  of  which  they  are 
the  children,  their  Mother  Earth. 

In  all  the  different  social  systems,  therefore,  for 
which,  as  the  ages  progressed,  Catholicism  was  the 
tutor  and  guide,  we  find  some  sort  of  bond  instituted 
between  the  people  and  the  soil.  If  it  was  not  always 
such  more  complete  ownership  as  later  ages  have 
gradually  developed,  there  was,  nevertheless,  always 
enough  of  that  personal  interest  inspired  in  the  breast 
of  the  lowliest  and  poorest  to  make  them  form  a  deep- 
seated  attachment  to  their  native  land,  for  whose  de- 
fence, glory,  and  prosperity  they  were  quite  as  ready  as 
the  most  powerful  suzerain  or  noble  to  shed  their 
blood. 

When  in  another  chapter  I  come  to  speak  more  spe- 
cifically about  the  comparative  partition  of  land  in 
Protestant  and  Catholic  countries,  we  shall  see  that 
the  dominant  religious  influence  upon  the  social  order 
has  tended  to  bring  about  a  great  increase  in  what  is 
called  ownership  in  land  in  Catholic  countries,  and  to 
decrease  it  in  Protestant   ones. 

Evidence  of  this  tendency  of  Protestantism  to  favor 
the  absorption  of  the  land  by  the  few  is  not  wanting. 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe,     49 

They  even  ridicule  the  opposite  Catholic  ideal  as  being 
a  bar  to  national  prosperity.  No  wonder.  Protestant- 
ism seems  to  have  set  up  as  an  ideal  a  form  of  material 
prosperit}^  which,  to  judge  from  its  own  examples,  con- 
sists in  the  gaining  of  great  riches  by  the  few,  and  the 
consequent  impoverishment  of  the  many. 

FRANCE. 

The  erroneous  notion  that  the  most  desirable  social 
condition  is  one  similar  to  that  which  has  existed  in  the 
British  United  Kingdom  since  the  Reformation  brought 
out  the  following  from  the  Edijibiirgh  Revieii\  years 
ago,  discussing  the  folly,  as  it  esteemed  it,  of  Catholic 
France  for  its  policy  in  encouraging  numerous  proprie- 
torships in  land.     Said  that  review  : 

'•  In  no  country  of  Europe  is  there  such  a  vast  body  of  pro- 
prietors (one  half  of  the  population)  as  in  France,  and  in  no 
civilized  European  country,  with  the  exception  of  Ireland,  is  there 
so  large  a  proportion  of  the  population  (stated  to  be  two-thirds) 
engaged  directly  in  the  cultivation,  or  rather,  we  should  say,  in  the 
torture  of  the  soil.  Should  the  system  be  supported  for  another 
half-century,  la  grande  nation  will  be  the  greatest  pauper  w^ar- 
ren  in  Europe." 

That  was  the  opinion  of  the  Protestant  political 
economist,  and  all  his  English  and  Scotch  brethren 
echoed   the   sentiment. 

Samuel  lyaing,  the  travelled  observer,  writing  of 
France,  twenty  years  later,  mocks  at  the  reviewer's 
prediction : 

'"A  pauper  warren!'  Look  up  from  the  page  and  laugh. 
Look  around  upon  the  actual  prosperity  and  well-being,  and  the 
rising  industry  of  the  people.  France  owes  her  present  prosperity 
and  industry  to  this  very  system  of  sub-division  of  property,  which 


i;o     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

allows  no  man  to  live  in  idleness  and  no  capital  to  be  expended 
without  a  view  to  its  reproduction,  and  places  that  great  instru- 
ment of  industry  and  well-being,  property,  in  the  hands  of  all 
classes"  {Notes  of  a  Traveller,  pp.  64,  78). 

As  a  proof  of  the  happier  condition  of  the  French 
people  on  this  account,  he  compares  their  laborers  and 
soldiers  with  the  English,  and  tests  the  better  condition 
of  the  French  laborers  in  this  way.  In  England  a  re- 
cruit for  the  army  could  be  had  for  a  shilling  or  some 
such  small  bounty,  but  in  France  bounties  from  1,800 
to  2,000  francs  had  to  be  paid. 

We  have  seen  what  oppressors  of  the  poor  the  Angli- 
can clergy  have  been.  Let  us  hear  what  opinion  Mr. 
Eaing  had  of  the  Catholic  clergy  in  their  relation  to  the 
common  people,  after  he  had  personally  investigated 
the  condition  of  things  on  the  Continent  and  had  read 
history  : 

"  It  w^as  not  the  vast  wealth  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
and  of  its  convents,  monasteries,  and  other  establishments,  that 
was  detrimental  to  the  national  wealth  and  prosperity  of  a  country. 
All  that  was  received  was  again  expended.  As  receivers  and  ex- 
penders  the  clerical  w'ere  perhaps  better  than  the  aristocratical 
land-owners,  because  they  understood  husbandry  better,  and 
expended  their  revenues  in  peace,  in  their  own  fixed  localities,  by 
which  a  middle  class  beneath  them  was  enabled  to  grow  up." 

I  am  wondering  how  far  the  Protestant  Episcopalian 
clerical  "receivers"  in  England,  Ireland,  and  Wales 
ever  contributed  by  their  expenditures  to  the  building 
up  of  a  middle  class  among  the  people  over  whom  they 
w^ere  the  legally,  if  not  the  divinely,  appointed  pastors  ! 

Who  does  not  know  that  the  French  nation  takes  no 
second  rank  among  the  most  highly  civilized  peoples  of 
the  world  ?     Or  shall  I  not  rather  say  that  when  she 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     5  ( 


was  at  heart  and  in  mind  most  intensely  Catholic  there 
was  no  nation  to  which  she  stood  second  ?  The  France 
whose  very  name  was  synonymous  with  patriotism, 
heroism,  chivalry,  noble  aspirations,  unstained  honor, 
the  glories  of  victory  over  enemies,  indomitable  en- 
terprise and  devotion  to  sublime  ideals,  was  the  France 
that  was  Catholic  to  the  core.  Catholic  France  was  the 
France  of  great  men,  the  splendor  of  whose  renown  will 
never  grow  dim  upon  the  pages  of  history.  And  if  she 
is  among  the  conquered  and  declining  nations  of  to- 
day, it  is  because  she  has  lost  just  so  much  of  the  vivific 
force  which  her  former  universal  Catholic  faith  con- 
ferred upon  her.  As  by  an  infuriated  demon,  the  na- 
tional womb  of  France,  once  prolific  in  heroic  patriots, 
is  now  being  impregnated  by  the  modern  Zeitgeist,  and 
rapidly  giving  birth  to  a  savage  brood  of  matricidal 
anarchists.  When  France  returns  to  the  principles  of 
Catholic  civilization,  then  will  French  patriotism  live 
again. 

BELGIUM. 

As  another  contrast  to  unhappy  Protestant  England, 
Ireland,  and  India,  let  us  take  a  look  at  that  singularly 
happy  and  prosperous  Catholic  country,  Belgium.  The 
only  excuse  for  the  suiferings  and  degradation  of  the 
laboring  classes  in  the  British  Isles  ever  offered,  has 
been  the  density  of  their  populations.  But  there  stands 
Belgium,  the  most  populous  country  in  all  Europe. 
Let  us  hear  a  bit  of  testimony  concerning  it.  Mr.  Rae, 
writing  in  the  Coiitemporary  Review  (1880,  p.  329), 
says  : 

"Belgium  is  not  only  a  Catholic  country,  but  the  most  CathoHc 
of  CathoHc  countries.  .  .  .  No  other  CathoHc  nation  contains 
so  smaH  a  proportion  of  dissidents  from  the  faith,  nor  is  there  any 


52     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 


other.  Catholic  nation  where  the  dogmas  of  the  Church  are  so 
sincerely  accepted.  .  .  .  Yet,  it  has  adopted  from  the  first  the 
most  modern  of  modern  constitutions,  embodying  every  popular 
liberty  in  its  complete  length  and  breadth.  Freedom  of 
conscience,  religious  equality,  freedom  of  the  press,  of  meeting, 
of  association,  of  education,  parliamentary  government,  minis- 
terial responsibility,  universal  suffrage,  inviolability  of  person  and 
house,  equality  before  the  law,  permanence  of  judicial  appoint- 
ments, publicity  of  legal  courts,  trial  by  jury,  have  all  been,  not 
only  legalized  but  protected  in  Belgium,  without  any  of  the 
evasions  which  make  similar  legislation  in  some  countries  virtu- 
ally a  dead-letter."  * 

Belgium  is  noted  for  the  enthusiastic  patriotism  of 
its  citizens,  and  for  the  lively  interest  taken  in  its  labor- 
ing classes  and  in  the  establishment  of  free-trade^ 
schools,  thus  building  up  an  independent,  intelligent, 
self-supporting  middle  class,  whose  personal  life  is 
thoroughly  bound  up  with  the  national  prosperity  and 
the  maintenance  of  that  country's  unrivalled  free  in- 
stitutions. 

Belgium  is  specially  rich  in  coal  mines.  The  reader 
will  not  soon  forget  what  he  has  already  learned  of  the 
fearful  barbarities  to  which  the  English  colliers  are  sub- 
jected and  their  appalling  ignorance  of  Christianity. 

Here  is  what  a  Rev.  J.  P.  Norris,  one  of  the  English 
school  inspectors,  found  in  Belgium,  and  reported  to  the 
English  Parliament : 

"In  a  short  tour  of  inquiry  made  last  autumn  through  the 
Belgian  coal-fields,  I  found  the  miners  made  up  for  the  poverty  of 
*  Quoted  in  The  Chin-ch  and  the  Sects,  hj  C.  F.  B.  Alnatt,  London, 
Burns  &  Oates,  1887.  The  author  here  begs  to  acknowledge  the  special  aid 
furnished  him  in  the  preparation  of  this  book  by  the  number  of  authoritative 
references  given  in  this  and  a  former  work  of  Mr.  Alnatt,  Which  is  the 
True  Church  ?  both  of  which  essays  will  be  found  most  useful  to  ail 
readers  interested  in  the  subject-matter  of  this  present  volume. 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe,     53 

their  earlier  schooling  by  attendance  at  Sunday-schools  and  even- 
ing schools,  in  the  intervals  of  their  work.  Some  of  these 
evening  schools  were  especially  devoted  to  the  instruction  of  the 
portons,  or  overmen,  in  mensuration  and  other  mining  sciences; 
the  prizes  and  certificates  are  given  by  the  municipal  authorities 
who  supported  these  schools,  and  their  efforts  were  plainly  dis- 
cernible in  the  intelligence  and  politeness  of  those  with  whom  I 
conversed  at  their  work." 

Then  he  goes  on  to  compare  this  happy  condition  of 
the  Belgian  colliers  with  his  experience  in  the  inspec- 
tion of  the  English  coal  mines,  repeating  what  the 
reader  has  already  learned  in  a  former  chapter,  and 
summing  up  his  impressions  about  them  in  these  words : 

"  Throughout  my  tour  in  that  dark  district  of  South  Stafford- 
shire, .  .  .  where  the  child  who  goes  down  into  the  pit  at  ten 
years  old  is  consigned  to  darkness,  morally  and  physically,  .  .  • 
the  thought  of  that  benighted  group  of  boys,  and  the  almost 
melancholy  expression  which  the  torchlight  showed  me  on  the 
pale  faces  of  the  elder  men,  seemed  to  follow  me  and  drive  me 
like  a  goad"  (quoted  in  Miscellanea,  Spalding,  vol.  ii.  p.  486). 

Nothing  of  all  these  sickening  horrors  to  be  found 
in  the  Belgian  coat  mines.  No  wonder;  they  could 
neither  happen  amongst,  nor  be  endured  by,  a  Catholic 
people. 

The  Daily  Telegraph,  London  (August  2,  1878), 
says  : 

"  Civil  liberty  in  Belgium  exists  in  almost  republican  profusion. 
Even  the  fact  that  the  Ultramontane  [Catholic]  priesthood  garri- 
son the  land  (!)  does  not  prevent  the  Belgians  from  enjoying  the 
.utmost  freedom  in  respect  of  religion.  Commerce  flourishes,  and 
manufacturing  industry  advances  at  a  pace  so  rapid  that  even  we 
in  Britain  are  every  now  and  then  pressed  by  the  shadow  of 
Belgian  rivalry.  Time  would  fail  us,  too,  were  we  to  speak  at 
adequate  length  of  the  agricultural  prosperity  of  the  country.  It 
is  not   an  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  is  simply  a  huge   garden; 


54     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

that  every  available  spot  of  earth  is  under  tillage  of  the  finest  sort ; 
that  every  economist,  from  MacCulloch  down  to  Mill,  has  lavished 
the  highest  praises  on  the  Belgian  farmer,  and  on  the  condition 
to  which  he  has  brought  high  husbandry  in  his  happy  country." 

Ye  unhappy  toiling  Protestant  Englishmen,  do  ye 
not  envy  the  happy  Belgian  Catholics,  and  think  sadly 
of  the  good  old  times  when  England  was  happy  and 
Catholic  too — 

"  When  every  rood  of  English  ground  maintained  its  man  "  ? 

ITALY. 

Italy  has  been  one  of  those  countries  civilized  iby  the 
Catholic  Church.  To  such  a  high  state  of  civilization 
in  the  spiritual  order  did  she  conduct  that  people  that, 
despite  all  the  insensate  clamor  of  the  enemies  of  Christ 
and  his  Church,  all  men  know  that  she  succeeded  in 
making  that  land  the  centre  of  the  world,  the  Citadel  of 
Christendom,  the  most  sacred  Sanctuary  of  Religion, 
the  School  of  the  highest  and  best  Sciences,  and  the 
Home  of  all  that  is  Beautiful  in  Art. 

No  one  can  deny  that  it  was  dhe  to  the  influence  of 
the  ever  old  and  ever  new  Weltgcist — the  Spirit  of 
the  World — worshipped  by  Protestantism  and  modern 
Secular  Infidelity,  that  Italy  wearied  under  the  peaceful 
yoke  and  light  burden  of  the  Papal  and  Catholic  rule, 
and  was  led  to  envy  the  supposed  happier  state  of  those 
nations  "enjoying  the  blessings  of  modern  progress" 
in  material  things.  What  is  to  be  thought  of  the  re- 
sults of  her  experiment  had  better  be  given  by  one  who 
is  neither  a  Catholic  nor  friendly  to  the  Church. 

The  popular  writer,   "Ouida,"  says: 

"  The  English  press  [and  I  add  the  American]  attributes  all 
the  official  evils  of  New  Italy  to  the  old  regimes.     Now,  I  did  not 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     5  5 

live  during  the  old  regimes  and  cannot  judge  of  them  ;  but  this  I 
do  know,  that  the  hulk  of  the  people  p  issi'onately  regret  the  pe7-- 
sonal  peace  and  si?iipie  plenty  that  were  had  under  them.  The 
vices  of  the  present  time  are*  those  of  a  grasping  and  swarming 
bureaucracy  everywhere,  and  of  the  selfishness  which  is  the  worst 
fault  of  the  Italian  character.  Italy  is  essentially  a  pastoral 
country.  Those  who  would  turn  it  into  a  manufacturing  one 
would  be  as  those  who  would  turn  a  tabernacle  of  Giotto's  into  a 
breeding-hutch  of  swine.  The  people  thrive  on  their  pure  and 
ambient  air,  they  pass  their  lives  under  the  unsullied  skies,  they 
love  laughter,  song,  and  dance  ;  and  still — with  the  pipe  of  Cory- 
don  and  the  smile  of  Adonis — welcome  the  harvest  night  and  the 
village  morn.  Up  in  the  hills,  and  in  the  green  places  remote 
from  cities,  the  old,  simple,  contented  pastoral  life  still  prevails, 
and  there  the  husbandman  still  follows  Christ  and  recites  his 
Tasso.  Maybe  he  cannot  read  the  words  of  either  :  what  of  that  ? 
Raoul  and  Passanante,  the  murderer  Prevost,  and  the  murderess 
Dumaine,  could  all  of  them  read.  Were  they  the  better  for  it  ? 
•'  In  its  simplicity,  in  its  freedom,  in  its  purity  of  family  affec- 
tion, and  its  Greek-like  habits  of  industry,  I  believe  the  unspoiled 
country  life  of  Italy  to  be  the  best  that  remains  to  humanity  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  When  the  childish  pettifoggers  of  the  new 
school  scream  with  puerile  ecstasy  at  the  sight  of  a  railway  or  a 
steam-thresher,  they  know  not  all  the  beauty,  content,  and  pious 
peace  that  they  destroy,  only  to  enrich  some  Scotch  contractor  or 
some  Hebrew  usurer. 

"  The  Italian  people,  beholding  all  their  old  plenty  and  ancient 
rights  slipping  away  from  them,  stand  sullen  and  full  of  futile 
wrath  to  see  all  that  for  twice  a  thousand  years  has  been  their 
own  passing  into  the  coffer  of  the  foreign  speculator  or  money- 
lender. This  ruin  is  called  '  Progress ' — and  the  whole  land 
groans,  and  the  whole  people  curse  "  (Appendix  to  Ouida's 
Village  Commune) . 

The  worshipped  idol  of  material  "progress"  has 
turned  to  clay.  Everybody  knows  on  what  a  brink  of 
threatened  bankruptcy  the  whole  of  Italy  now  stands. 
She  soon  turned  her  steps  that  way  ;   for  between  the 


56     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

years  1872-77  the  enormous  number  of  40,000  families, 
about  196,883  persons,  were  evicted  from  their  little 
homes  because  they  could  not  .pay  the  new  heavy  taxes 
of  New  Italy,  and  were  sent  out  into  beggary  and  exile 
(Government  Report,  quoted  by  Lo7tdo7i  Tablet,  Oc- 
tober 25,  1879).  The  same  evidence  is  given  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  January,  1881,  July,  1883;  in  the 
Quarterly  Review,  October,  1882,  and  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,   Februar}^,   1886. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  hear  the  opinion  of  Mr. 
Laing,  who  seems  to  have  been  under  the  impression 
that  the  Italians  were  far  behind  the  English  in  social 
well-being  and  in  the  comforts  of  civilized  life.  One 
must  always  keep  in  mind  that  Protestant  tourists  are 
always  looking  at  a  country  through  the  spectacles  of 
"modern  progress,"  whose  lenses  fail  to  find  a  focus 
upon  any  object  but  what  represents  "money."  He 
was  writing  of  Italy  nearly  fifty  years  ago  : 

"To  what  can  this  difference  be  ascribed  ?  Italy  was  far  ad- 
vanced— as  far  in  many  points  as  she  is  at  this  day — before  Eng- 
land had  started  in  the  course  of  civiHzation,  and  when  Scotland 
was  in  a  state  of  gross  barbarism.  The  EngHshman  ascribes  this 
to  the  want  of  constitutional  government ;  the  Scotchman  to  the 
want  of  pure  religious  doctrine.  The  government  and  religion 
of  a  foreign  country  are  two  very  convenient  pack-horses  for  the 
traveller.  They  trot  along  the  road  with  him,  carrying  all  that 
he  cannot  otherwise  conveniently  dispose  of,  and  the  prejudices 
of  his  readers  prevent  any  doubt  of  the  burden  being  laid  upon 
the  right  beast.  But,  in  reality,  no  government  of  the  present 
day,  no  matter  what  be  its  form,  is  so  ignorant  of  sound  principles, 
so  blind  to  its  own  interests,  and  so  impregnable  to  public  opinion, 
as  wilfully  to  keep  back,  discourage,  or  attempt  to  put  down  in- 
dustry and  civilization.  It  is  in  the  means  they  use,  not  in  the 
end  they  propose,  that  modern  governments,  whether  despotically 
or  liberally  constituted,  differ  from  each  other,"  etc. 


,.  o..i« 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     57 

The  same  writer  bears  testimony  to  the  similar  con- 
dition of  the  peasantry  in  Italy  which  he  observed  in 
France,  and  which  is  equally  true  of  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal, with  such  happy  results,  due  to  the  great  sub- 
division of  land,  in  broad  contrast  to  their  practical 
servitude  in  Protestant  countries  as  little  better  than 
helots  under  the  few  great  landholders.     He  says  : 

"  Scotland,  or  England,  can  produce  no  one  tract  of  land  to  be  ^, 

compared   to  this  strath  of  the  Arno,  not  to  say  for  productive-  j  M 

ness,  because  that  depends  on  the  soil  and  climate,  which  we  have 
not  of  similar  quality  to  compare,  but  for  industry  and  intelligence 
applied  to  husbandry,  for  perfect  drainage,  for  irrigation,  for 
garden-like  culture,  for  clean  state  of  crops,  for  absence  of  all  fixf^j^^^ 
waste  of  land,  labor,  or  manure  ;  for  good  cultivation  and  the  good 
condition  of  the  laboring  cuttivator.  These  are  points  which 
admit  of  being  compared  between  one  farm  and  another,  in  the 
most  distant  soils  and  climates.  Our  system  of  large  farms  will 
gain  nothing  in  such  a  comparison  with  the  husbandi-y  of  Tus- 
cany, Flanders,  or  Switzerland  under  a  system  of  small  fartns" 
{Notes  of  a  Traveller,  p.  42). 

It  is  rather  strange  that  this  clear-headed  observer, 
who  notes  how  much  more  the  people  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries have  possession  of  the  land  than  in  Protestant 
ones,  thus  securing  a  more  wide-spread  social  happiness 
and  true  prosperity  among  them,  and  giving  them  a 
just  claim  to  possess  a  higher  rank  in  Civilization, 
should  have  failed  to  attribute  their  blessings  to  their 
real  cause — the  social  ideal  springing  directly  from  the 
principles  of  human  fraternity  and  equality  enunciated 
by  the  Catholic  Church.  The  modern  grasping  mo- 
nopolies, grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor,  are  no  inven- 
tions of  hers.  She  has  always  been  the  staunch  friend  of 
the  people  and  protector  of  their  rights,  and  the  uncom- 
promising foe  to  tyranny,  let  it  take  what  shape  it  will. 


58     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 


SPAIN. 

Our  modern  worshippers  of  material  progress  point 
also  the  finger  of  scorn  at  Catholic  Spain.  Trul}^  that 
country,  rejoicing  in  a  once  glorious  Catholic  civiliza- 
tion, has  lost  much  of  her  former  well-earned  honor 
and  place  of  high  rank  among  the  nations,  but  it  is  not 
to  her  Catholic  faith  that  the  blame  is  to  be  laid. 
Spain  was  never  so  great  as  w^hen  she  was  the  most 
Catholic.     A  modern  writer  sa^^s  of  her  now : 

"  The  literature  of^^pain^ejieffs'thatpf  every  Protestant  country 
in  depth,  injJijacaL-idJbis,  in  cdsthotit:  splendor ;  its  painters  and 
architects  figure  in  the  first  rinV^iu  the  Panthj^oii  of  artists ;  and 
it  possesses  a  body  of  clergy  whose  bisliop^  astounded  the  as- 
sembled Fathers  of  the  Vatican  Cqurpl  in  1870  by  their  pro- 
digious knowledge  of  science  and  thetilogy.  It  possesses  monu- 
ments which  are  like  poems  in  stone  ;  it  has  held  the  commerce 
of  the  whole  world  in  its  power  ;  it  has  spread  humanity  through- 
out half  the  world,  and  has  alone  founded  more  colonies  than  all 
other  nations  put  together." 

A  writer,  from  whose  book  {Spain  and  the 
Spa7iiards)  I  shall  presently  quote  a  few  observations 
on  the  character  of  the  Spanish  people,  laments  that  so 
man}'  tourists  after  an  ignorant  journe}^  through  Spain 
return  home  and  ' '  spread  through  the  circulating 
libraries  the  most  absurd  accusations  against  the  na- 
tion, of  which  even  the  beggar  is  a  gentleman."  He 
himself,  Mr.  N,  L.  Thieblin,  quondam  correspondent 
for  the  Pall  Mall  ^Gazette,  went  to  Spain  in  1873  as 
correspondent  for  the  New  York  Herald,  to  report  on 
the  **  situation"  of  Spanish  affairs  at  that  period  of 
political  disturbance.  Being  a  professed  Secularist, 
and  apparentl}'  a  Nullifidian,  he  has  nothing  good  in 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     59 

his  volume  to  say  of  the  religion  of  the  Spaniards,  but 
he  does  not  fail  to  say  a  few  things  which  to  the  fair- 
minded  reader  are  clear  indications  of  the  noble  and 
pure  social  character  of  that  people.  Such  results 
Catholics  point  to  with  just  pride  as  marks  of  true  civil- 
ization. In  another  part  of  this  present  volume  the 
reader  will  find  further  allusions  to  some  of  the  virtues 
which  have  distinguished  that  singularly  noble  and 
virtuous  people. 

Has  Spain  been  the  country  of  a  happy  people? 
What  esteem  have  they  themselves  had  for  their 
country?  Mr.  Thieblin  relates  a  little  story,  as  com- 
monly told  by  the  country  folk,  to  the  effect  that  when 
the  good  King  Ferdinand  III.  reached  Paradise  the 
Blessed  Virgin  bade  him  ask  anj^  favor  he  wished  for 
his  country.  So  he  asked  that  the  people  should  al- 
ways have  enough  oil,  garlic,  wine,  and  corn,  that  the 
women  should  be  beautiful,  the  men  valiant,  and  the 
mules  strong,  and  last  of  all  he  asked  for  a  good  govern- 
ment. All  the  rest  the  Holy  Virgin  granted,  but  not 
the  good  government,  saying  :  **  If  that  were  granted  to 
Spain  no  angel  would  any  longer  remain  with  us  in 
heaven." 

Here  is  a  bit  of  evidence  of  popular  happiness  in 
Spain :  There  are  less  suicides  in  that  country  than  in 
any  other  in  the  world.  One  must  go  to  those  "  more 
enlightened  and  more  highly- favored  lands,-'  about 
which  we  hear  so  much,  to  find  the  people  so  unhappy 
that  numbers  of  them  do  not  find  life  worth  living. 

The  prevailing  notion  among  many  uninstructed 
Americans  is  that  there  has  been  little  or  no  civil  or 
political  liberty  in  any  Catholic  country,  and  least  of 
all  in  Spain.     Nothing  could  be  more  erroneous.     The 


6o    A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 


best  witness  I  can  bring  is  Don  Emilio  Castelar,  the 
"Liberal"  President  of  the  short-lived  Republic  in 
Spain.  Our  author  quotes  the  following  from  that 
*'  anti-clerical  "  politician  : 

"  At  this  day  one  of  the  nations  most  fitted  for  confederation 
is  our  Spain.  We  do  not  have  the  same  repubHcan  traditions  as 
those  possessed  by  Italy  and  France.  Our  people,  always  at  war, 
have  always  needed  a  chief ;  and  this  chief  required  not  only  the 
sword  of  the  soldier  to  fight,  but  the  sceptre  of  the  monarch  to 
rule.  Notwithstanding  this  ancient  monarchical  character,  there 
are  regions  which  have  been  saved  from  the  monarchy  and  which 
have  preserved  their  democracy  and  their  republic.  There  still 
exists  in  the  north  provinces  possessed  of  an  autonomy  and  an 
independence  which  gives  them  points  of  resemblance  to  the 
Swiss  cantons.  The  citizens  give  neither  blood  nor  tribute  to 
the  kings.  Their  firesides  are  as  sacred  from  the  invasion  of  au- 
thority as  those  of  the  English  or  of  the  Americans.  Every  town 
is  a  republic,  or  governed  by  a  council  elected  by  the  citizens  at 
the  summons  of  the  church  bell.  When  the  time  fixed  by  their 
constitution  arrives,  the  representatives  of  the  towns  come  to- 
gether in  the  shade  of  the  secular  trees  of  liberty,  vote  taxes, 
draw  up  or  amend  laws,  name  new  officers  and  withdraw  the  old 
ones,  with  the  calmness  and  moderation  of  a  people  accustomed 
to  govern  themselves  in  the    midst   of    the  agitations  of  liberty. 

"  And  we  not  only  have  these  living  examples  of  democracy, 
but  we  have  also  democratic  traditions—traditions  which  we  call 
republican.  Our  Cortes  of  Castile  succeeded  frequently  in  expell- 
ing the  ecclesiastical  and  aristocratic  estates  from  their  sessions. 
One  Cortes  of  Aragon  attained  such  power  that  they  named  the 
government  of  their  kings  and  obtained  fixed  days  for  their  ses- 
sions. Navarre  was  a  species  of  republic  more  or  less  aristocratic, 
and  the  Castilzan  municipalities  were  in  the  middle  ages  true 
democratic  republics.  All  the  citizens  came  to  council,  elected 
the  alcaldes,  and  alternated  on  the  jury.  They  guarded  their 
rights  of  realty  in  which  the  servitude  of  the  tenantry  was  extin- 
guished.     They   all    bore   arms   in    the    militia,    all    held    safely 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     6 1 

guarded  the  liberties  indispensable  to  life,  and  they  founded  to- 
gether the  brotherhood  which  defended  these  against  feudalism, 
and  which  was  a  genuine  federation  of  plebeians  "  {Spain  and  the 
Spaniards,  Thieblin,  pp.  323-4). 

While  making  a  visit  to  the  Carlist  camps  he  became 
intimately  acquainted  with  General  Klio,  the  oldest  of 
the  Carlist  leaders,  and  on  his  remarking  that  Don 
Carlos  was  commonl}^  recognized  as  the  representative 
of  absolutist  theories,  he  got  this  information  from  the 
general  : 

"  You  are  greatly  mistaken  if  you  think  that  the  king  ever 
dreamed  of  absolute  power.  The  legitimate  monarchy  in  Spain 
will  not  only  rule  with  the  advice  of  the  Cortes,  but  will  restore 
all  the  ancient  franchises — the//^(?r^j,  as  we  call  them — which  have 
been  violated  in  turn  by  all  the  progressive  parties.  It  will  support 
religion,  of  course.  Our  enemies  say  we  will  overrun  the  country 
with  monks  and  priests.  That  is  simply  nonsense.  If  any  per- 
son is  disposed  to  a  monastic  life,  government,  it  seems  to  me, 
has  as  little  business  to  oppose  it  as  to  encourage  it "  {ibid.,  p.  56). 

And  here  comes  in  a  bit  of  testimony  which  might 
be  relegated  to  the  chapter  on  Education,  but  might  as 
well  be  recorded  in  this  place,  especialh^  as  our  writer 
in  several  parts  of  his  book  repeats  the  old  calumny 
about  the  ignorance  and  illiteracy  of  the  Spanish  peo- 
ple.    The  general  said  to  him  : 

"Say  what  you  may  against  the  monks,  if  you  studied  the 
Basque  provinces,  where  priests  and  monks  have  always  been 
powerful,  you  would  see  much  in  their  favor.  There  is  not  a 
single  peasant  in  those  provinces — man  or  woman — who  does  not 
write  grammatically  and  in  a  clear  hand  the  Basque  language, 
and  many  write  equally  well  the  Spanish  language  too." 

The  general  tells  us  something  more  about  these 
profoundly  Catholic  people  which  is  especially  worthy 


62     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

of  note  by  the  popular  revilers  of  the  Spaniards  on  the 
score  of  their  alleged  poverty,  lack  of  political  liberty, 
and  immorality.  If  any  such  read  this,  no  doubt  they 
will  note  it ;  but  will  they  cease  repeating  their  accusa- 
tions ? 

"  The  good  health  of  these  people  is  the  result  of  their  moral- 
ity. Not  only  are  there  no  beggars  here,  but  distressing  poverty 
is  almost  unknown.  Much  of  this  is  due  to  the  priesthood,  and 
the  remainder  to  what  the  priests  help  them  to  maintain — the 
ancient  privileges  of  the  Basque  provinces  and  Navarre.  We  en- 
joyed here,  up  to  Christina's  time,  the  most  perfect  self-govern- 
ment, and  never  knew  what  conscription  meant.  Over  and  over 
again  have  I  voted  here  as  a  landlord  of  Navarre  on  a  footing  of 
perfect  equality  with  the  poorest  of  my  farmers.  You  are  sur- 
prised at  the  strength  and  courage  of  our  young  volunteers,  some 
of  whom,  as  you  have  seen,  are  scarcely  sixteen  years  old.  // 
is  the  result  of  their  pure  lives,  and  the  absence  of  the  sources  of 
ruin  to  the  young  men  of  other  countries"  {ibid.,  p.  58). 

What  had  Don  Carlos  himself  to  say  about  the  spirit 
of  Spanish  liberty?  This  is  what  he  said  to  Mr. 
Thieblin : 

*'  No  country  in  the  world  is  less  susceptible  of  government  by 
absolutism  than  Spain.  It  never  was  so  governed,  it  never  will 
be.  The  Basque  provinces  and  Navarre  have,  from  time  im- 
memorial, possessed  the  privileges  of  the  most  free  countries  " 
{ibid.,  p.  95). 

Who  wants  better  testimony  than  the  foregoing  that, 
whether  the  Spaniards  have  had  to  bear  with  some  ad- 
ministrations of  authority  bad  enough  to  prevent  all  the 
angels  deserting  Heaven  for  Spain,  as  the  happier  place 
to  live  in,  certain  it  is  that  the  Spaniards  learned  well 
the  doctrines  of  human  fraternity,  liberty,  and  equality, 
which  their  holy  religion  has  never  ceased  to  teach  them 
and  every  other  people  whose  civilization  it  directed. 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     6t, 

Concerning-  the  all-important  question  of  property, 
the  extraordinary  equalization  of  which  in  Spain  will 
be  referred  to  elsewhere  in  this  volume,  Mr.  Thieblin 
has  these  pertinent  observations  to  make  : 

"  That  the  notions  of  property  will  ever  reach,  among  any 
branch  of  the  Latin  race  [/.  e„  Catholic  peoples],  the  extreme 
point  they  have  reached  in  Anglo-Saxon  [Protestant]  countries 
is  more  than  doubtful.  [God  grant  they  may  not  !]  That  the 
ideas  of  *  vested  interests,'  for  instance,  could  ever  be  entertained 
in  any  but  an  Anglo-Saxon  head  is  not  probable.  But  the  re- 
spect for  individual  property  will,  on  that  account,  not  be  lessened. 
There  are  not  a  few  acute  judges  of  human  affairs  who  believe 
that,  if  anything  subversive  of  the  present  theories  of  property  is 
ever  brought  to  bear  upon  the  world,  it  is  sure  to  come  from  the 
English  race,  amon^  which  the  blind  worship  of  wealth  may 
finally  exasperate  millions  of  suffering  and  disregarded  ifidi- 
viduals  "  {ibid.,  p.  328). 

And  does  not  Protestantism  boast  that  it  is  the  re- 
ligion of  the  English  race,  and  has  directed  its  civil- 
ization ? 

The  truly  civilized  man  is  distinguished  for  his  own 
self-respect,  but  no  less  for  his  respect  for  and  urbanity 
shown  to  those  not  of  his  own  nation.  "  I^et  a  for- 
eigner," says  our  author,  "  come  to  Spain  as  a  guest, 
and  he  is  received  with  open  arms,  and  more  hospitably 
than  in  any  other  country."  I  need  not  enlarge  upon 
what  all  the  world  knows  concerning  the  respect 
Spaniards  have  for  themselves.  "Even  the  beggar  is 
a  gentleman." 

The  dictator  Castelar  was  no  secularist  in  religion. 
His  words  are  well  worth  the  serious  reflection  of  many 
an  American  citizen  who  fancies  that  there  can  be,  and 
appears  to  be  set  upon  establishing,  a  social  order  and  a 


64     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

ruling  power  that  is  not  "ordained  of  God,"  and  who 
believes  that  liberty  is  possible,  and  that  the  rights  of 
man  can  be  maintained,  even  though  the  "rights  of 
God"  are  ignored. 

"  I  have  never  believed,"  says  Castelar,  "  that  to  dethrone  the 
kings  of  the  earth  it  was  necessary  to  destroy  the  idea  of  God  in 
the  conscience,  nor  the  hope  of  immortality  in  the  soul.  I  have 
always  believed  the  contrary — that  souls  deprived  of  these  great 
principles  fall  collapsed  in  the  mire  of  the  earth,  to  be  trodden  by 
the  beasts  that  perish.  Give  to  man  a  great  idea  of  himself,  tell 
him  that  he  bears  God  in  his  conscience  and  immortality  in  his 
life,  and  you  will  see  him  rise  by  this  fortified  sentiment  of  his 
dignity  to  reclaim  those  rights  which  assure  him  the  noblest  in- 
dependence of  his  being  in  Society  and  in  Nature  "  {ibid.,  p.  349). 

Mr.  Thieblin  is  disgusted  with  the  ignorant  abuse 
of  the  Spanish  people  by  the  English  and  French  (and  I 
think  he  might  have  added — and  not  a  few  Americans) , 
and  then  puts  this  home  question  :  "  And  who  is  guilty 
that  that  enchanted  land  has  neither  remained  what  it 
was,  nor  become  what  strangers  wished  her  to  be  ?  " 

How  often  do  we  hear  the  Spanish  bull-fights 
brought  up  in  evidence  of  the  barbarism  of  that  nation. 
Our  author  gives  an  honest,  straightforward,  and 
reasonable  defence  of  them,  and  he  must  be  a  strong 
disputant  who    can  lessen   the  force  of  his  argument. 

I  note  without  surprise  his  testimony  that  ' '  among 
no  people  is  the  filial  or  parental  bond  more  affection- 
ately cherished  than  in  Spain."  He  thinks  them  sadly 
lacking  in  education — he  means  in  book-learning — 
' '  but  they  fully  make  up  for  that  by  the  natural  affec- 
tions and  sympathies  which  animate  every  Spanish 
family,  of  which  no  idea  can  be  formed  by  foreigners." 
What  he  would  call  a  truly  ' '  friendly  family  circle  has 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     65 


become  an  exception  to  the  rule  in  England,  while  in 
Spain  it  is  still  the  rule  with  exceptions  to  it,  presented 
only  in  Madrid,  where  foreigners  and  political  jobbers 
have  exercised  their  wretched  influence." 

One  hears  a  deal  about  the  indolence  of  the  people 
of  Southern  Europe  ;  and  why  ?  Simply  because  they 
do  not  worship  the  almighty  dollar,  and  do  not  consider 
the  suninium  bonuni  of  man's  existence  to  consist  in  the 
amassing  of  riches,  in  working  his  body  to  early  de- 
crepitude and  his  brain  to  madness  in  order  to  get  them. 
Says  Mr.  Thieblin  : 

"The  English  are  proud  of  the  amount  of  work  they  are  ca- 
pable of  performing,  but  the  Spaniards  are  of  opinion  that  the 
English  cannot  help  working ;  for  if  they  did  not,  they  would  all 
have  to  hang  themselves,  so  dull  is  their  country ;  while  Spain, 
everybody  knows,  is  Paradise,  and  man  has  no  need  to  work  in 
Paradise.  No,  the  people  are  not  in  an  '  awful  state.'  The  na- 
tional existence  is  proceeding  in  its  usual  course  ;  everybody  has 
somet?iing  to  eat,  a  house,  a  more  or  less  handsome  wife,  a  lot  of 
children,  and  would  not  change  his  existence  for  a  much  more 
comfortable  one  in  the  best-regulated  country  in  the  world. 
...  All  over  the  country  both  poor  and  rich  walk  quietly 
about,  enjoying  life.  .  .  .  The  thorough  absence  of  any 
chance  of  making  money  in  the  English  or  American  fashion 
makes  everybody  indifferent  and  quiet,  and  the  natural  fertility  of 
the  soil  and  the  Spanish  climate  do  the  rest"  {ibid.,  pp.  377-378). 

An  amusing  story  follows  of  a  London  wine  mer- 
chant trying  to  "make  a  trade,"  as  w^e  Americans 
phrase  it,  with  a  wealthy  Spanish  grandee  for  some 
wine  :  the  Andalusian  magnate  pressing  him  to  take  all 
he  wanted,  and  the  Englishman  unable  both  to  com- 
prehend how  a  man  could  give  salable  goods  without 
pay,  and  unwilling  to  accept  the  wine  as  a  gift. 

The   author  indignantly  repudiates  the   calumnious 


66     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

charges  and  insinuations  often  made  against  the  moral- 
ity of  Spanish  women  : 

"  What  calumnies  have  not  been  written  or  said  against  the 
Spanish  woman,  and  what  are  the  merits  and  virtues — educa- 
tion [?]  excepted — that  she  does  not  possess  ?  .  .  .  You  will 
soon  discover,  on  studying  her,  that  you  must  take  all  the  virtues 
of  the  most  virtuous  Englishwoman,  all  the  grace  and  wit  of  the 
most  graceful  and  witty  Frenchwoman,  and  all  the  beauty  of  the 
most  handsome  Italian  woman,  to  make  something  approaching 
to  a  perfect  Spanish  lady  "  {ibid.,  p.  380). 

He  seems  quite  sure  of  their  ignorance  and  thinks 
them  "bigoted  and  superstitious,"  as  the  common 
Protestant  thinks  all  Catholics  are,  and  he  regrets  that 
Spanish  mothers  are  not  less  domesticated  and  less 
virtuous  on  the  score  of  their  over-careful  home  educa- 
tion of  their  children.  But  yet  he  has  to  own  that  one 
often  meets  with  highly  accomplished  young  ladies, 
many  speaking  good  English  ;  and,  except  among  the 
ver}^  lowest  classes,  the  "French  language  is  more  or 
less  spread  through  all  classes." 

As  to  feminine  morals  he  adds  : 

"  When  you  come  to  know  these  women  you  will  not  only  ad- 
mire them,  but  you  will  actually  experience  the  contagion  of  their 
virtue.  At  all  events,  I  must  confess  that  in  no  country  in  Eu- 
rope— and  I  have  seen  them  all — have  I  found  such  pure  enjoy- 
ment in  intercourse  with  ladies  as  in  Spain.  .  .  .  Such  a  thing 
as  a  young  girl  marrying  for  money,  or  for  any  social  consider- 
ation, is  almost  unknown  in  Spain.  .  .  .  Married,  she  is,  I 
believe,  as  a  rule,  the  most  truthful  and  loving  woman  on  earth, 
and  should  her  life  prove  an  unhappy  one,  no  one  will  ever  know 
it,  for  she  will  never  carry  her  complaints  either  to  a  divorce  court 
or  to  the  apartments  of  a  paramour." 

What  follows  this  testimony  should  properly  be  re- 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     67 

served  for  the  chapters  devoted  to  the  special  subject  of 
private  and  public  immorality,  but  it  might  as  well  be 
inserted  here  : 

" '  So  you  mean  to  say  that  there  is  neither  immorahty  nor 
adultery  in  Spain  ? '  the  reader  may  ask.  No,  that  is  not  what  I 
mean  to  say.  But  what  I  do  mean  to  say  is,  that  the  comparative 
percentage  of  professional  vice,  and  of  general  looseness  of  morals, 
is  much  lower  z?i  Spain  than  in  any  other  country  in  Europe. 
The  best  proof  of  this  is,  that  the  so-called  demi-monde,  or  the 
kept  women,  are  unknow^n,  even  in  Madrid  itself.  There  are 
fallen  women  in  the  capital  of  Spain,  and  in  a  couple  of  the  large  . 
towns  of  the  Peninsula  ;  but  the  total  of  prostitutes  throughout 
the  country  is,  I  believe,  much  under  the  number  we  can  daily 
tneet  in  one  leading  street  of  Paris,  London,  or  Berlin.  .  .  . 
Conjugal  unfaithfulness  preserves  still,  among  the  Moro-Iberian 
race,  the  character  of  a  very  rare  and  exceptional  occurrence  " 
{ibid.,  p.  383). 

The  reader  has  heard  it  already  more  than  once, 
but  if  there  be  a  truth  which  I  think  we  people,  who 
are  living  upon  only  some  diluted  traditions  of  pure  and 
strong  Catholic  civilization,  need  to  have  hammered 
into  our  heads  it  is  this  one  :  that  the  influence  of  Catho- 
licism tends  to  assimilate  the  morals  and  manners  of 
all  classes.  This  is  how  it  is  shown  in  Spain,  accord- 
ing to  our  author's  observation  : 

"  In  the  lowest  classes  you  see  almost  the  same  merits  as  you 
meet  with  in  the  highest  circles.  The  wife  of  a  peasant  is  just  as 
loving  to  her  husband,  just  as  careful  about  her  children,  and  just 
as  kind  to  everybody  surrounding  her  as  the  wife  of  a  grandee. 
She  is  even,  perhaps,  more  so.  Whether  you  knock  at  the  door 
of  an  inn,  or  of  an  isolated  farm,  all  the  women  of  the  house  come 
to  receive  you,  and  there  is  not  a  thing  that  will  be  refused  to  you. 
If  you  fall  ill,  whether  it  be  at  a  hotel,  a  lodging-house,  or  the 
residence  of  a  friend,  you  may  be  perfectly  sure  of  having  such 


68     A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe. 

kindness  and  attention  paid  to  you  as  you  could  scarcely  find  in 
your  own  home"  {ibid.,  p.  391). 

And  not  one  word  or  hint  that  all  these  admirable 
characteristics  are  without  any  question  whatsoever  due 
to  their  holy  religion,  the  religion  of  equality,  of  per- 
sonal purity  and  dignity,  of  divine  Christian  charity. 
But  the  most  entertaining  bit  of  all  this  author's  in- 
formation is,  to  my  thinking,  the  following.  He  had 
just  been  lamenting  what  he  calls  the  wide-spread, 
shocking  "ignorance"  of  the  people:  their  ignorance 
of  much  that  is  going  on  in  the  world,  their  child-like 
faith  in  believing  anything  you  tell  them,  and  their 
own  rather  large  dealings  in  gasconade.  By  ignorance 
he  means,  as  is  evident,  what  we  call  "  illiteracy  "  and 
as  ignorantly  make  synonymous  with  "  ignoi-ance,"  and 
not  their  intelligence,  which  he  takes  pains  to  praise : 

"  We  constantly  hear  Englishmen  complaining  of  the  impossi- 
bility  of  getting  a  straightforward  answer  to  a  straightforward 
question,  and  Spanish  newspapers  are  frequently  accused  of 
simply  telling  lies  "  ! 

Oh,  dear  me  !  what  enormities  :  unheard-of  in  well- 
schooled  countries  like  America  and  England,  for  in- 
stance !  He  does  not  assert  that  Spanish  newspapers 
do  actually  tell  lies,  but  that  they  are  accused  of  doing 
so.  Well,  well!  that  is  some  comfort.  Everybody 
knows  that  English  and  American  newspapers  were 
never  even  suspected  of  telling  the  least  little  fib  !  As 
to  "telling  lies  where  the  truth  won't  fit"  their  pur- 
pose, who  ever  dreamed  of  accusing  them  of  an  enor- 
mity so  utterly  foreign,  as  we  know,  to  all  their  history 
and  our  own  experience  in  lands  where  the  moral  in- 
fluence of  Protestantism  has  made   truth,  whether  by 


A  Glance  at  some  Catholic  Countries  in  Europe.     69 

word  or  in  print,  the  most  priceless  of  all  jewels,  and 
the  telling  of  it  the  most  angelic  of  all  virtues  ? — Why 
this  sarcasm?  Only  to  introduce  the  following  from 
Mr.  Thieblin  : 

"  The  more  a  man  is  ignorant,  or  a  nation  backward,  the  more 
they  are  sure  to  be  credulous  and  unreHable.  .  .  .  And,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  the  more  the  religion  of  a  nation  or  of  a  man 
tends  to  paralyze  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  the  more  they  must 
necessarily  be  liable  to  remain  behind  in  this  respect.  This  is  one 
of  the  chief  reasons  why  people  belonging  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
notwithstanding  t/ici'r  high  culture  in  every  other  respect,  in- 
variably prove  more  ignorant  and  less  precise  in  what  they  know 
than  those  belonging  to  the  Protestant  Church  "    {ibid.,  p.  401). 

Surely  one  cannot  say  that  the  spirit  either  of  free 
inquiry  or  of  free  speech  suffers  from  any  paralysis  in 
England  or  America,  but  as  to  popular  credulity  and 
unreliableness  in  these  piping  times,  when  "credulous 
and  unreliable"  Catholics  are  driven  to  defend  their 
rights  as  American  citizens  against  the  "protection" 
of  their  common  liberties  by  their  ' '  more  enlightened 
and  more  truthful  "  Protestant  brethren,  it  is  a  little 
strange  that  not  one  of  his  fellow-Protestant  writers  or 
speakers  have  dared  to  question  or  contradict  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Washington  Gladden's  v/ords :  "The  depth  and 
the  density  of  the  popular  ignorance  which  would 
permit  the  use  of  such  [lying]  documents  [as  have 
been  employed  to  deceive  the  Protestant  public]  is 
certainly  appalling." 

O  Liberty  !  O  Knowledge !  I  find  indeed  your 
names  in  the  dictionaries  and  the  spelling-books,  but 
who  shall  give  us  to  understand  your  meaning  in  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  men,  and  especially  of  those  men 
who  arrogate  to  themselves  the  monopoly  of  you  both  ? 


CHAPTER  VI, 

CATHOLIC    CIVILIZATION   IN   MEXICO. 

I  CANNOT  allow  myself  to  omit  laying  before  the 
reader  some  observations  made  b}"  two  recent 
Protestant  writers  on  the  condition  of  Mexico  and  the 
character  of  its  people  :  one  a  fair-minded  Protestant 
tourist,  Mr.  Thomas  A.  Janvier,  in  his  Mexican  Guide 
(Scribner's  Sons,  1894),  and  the  other  a  writer  whose 
hostility  to  the  religion  of  the  Mexicans  is  manifest, 
Mr.  David  A.  Wells,  in  his  Study  of  Mexico  (Appleton 
&  Co.,  1890). 

There  have  been  such  confidentl}"  asserted  charges 
circulated  privately  and  openly,  made  by  preachers, 
newspaper  editors  and  correspondents,  against  the 
moral  conduct  of  the  Mexican  priesthood  and  people, 
that  I  felt  sure  to  find  in  these  authors  some  alleged 
evidence  of  it.  And  if  their  immorality  of  living  were 
indeed  so  * '  notorious  ' '  as  one  constantly  hears  when- 
ever the  subject  of  Mexico  is  mentioned,  the  fact  could 
hardly  have  escaped  the  notice  and  comment  of  these 
observers.  There  is  not  the  least  allusion  to,  or  hint  of 
it  in  Mr.  Wells's  book.  His  only  indictment  against 
the  priesthood  is,  that  they  are  responsible  for  the  wide- 
spread illiteracy  of  the  people,  w^hich,  of  course,  as  one 
might  expect,  he  makes  synonj-mous  with  ignorance, 
and  for  their  "appalling"  backwardness  in  the  adop- 
tion of  recently  invented  ' '  tools  and  mechanical  appli- 
ances  of  production   and    [of    material]    civilization  " 

(p.  114). 

70 


Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico,  71 

I  searched  with  equal  diligence  through  the  volume 
of  Mr.  Janvier.  What  did  I  find  there  about  the  priest- 
hood?—  "The  parish  priests  of  Mexico,  as  a  class,  are 
men  of  devout  and  godly  lives,  who  are  entitled  to 
all  honor  and  reverence"  (p.  94).  Mr.  Wells  has  his 
fling  more  than  once  at  the  enormous  wealth  of  the 
Church,  in  a  way  to  leave  the  impression  that  the  easy 
amassing  of  this  wealth  was  the  chief  motive  of  their 
religious  activity.  But  now  that  every  foot  of  ground, 
every  church,  convent,  and  charitable  institution,  every 
priest's  own  home,  has  been  ruthlessly  confiscated  by 
the  government,  robbing  the  Church  to  pay  its  own 
expenses,  what  does  Mr.  Janvier  tell  us  of  these  men  ? 

♦•  Since  the  Laws  of  the  Rcfoj-m  "—[that  is  what  King  Henry 
VIII.  of  England  also  called  his  wholesale  robbery  of  God's  pro- 
perty]— "  there  is  nothing  to  tempt  men  to  adopt  the  clerical  life 
save  a  genuine  love  of  God,  and  a  strong  desire  to  minister  to  the 
religious  welfare  of  their  fellows,  according  to  His  ordinances. 
Apart  from  the  selfish  motive  of  obtaining  from  them  increased 
facilities  in  sight-seeing,  most  travellers  will  find  much  pleasure  in 
the  society  of  these  simple-minded  and  godly-minded  men." 

I  searched  still  closer  for  evidence ;  and  I  said  to 
myself,  The  number  of  reputed  illegitimate  children, 
and,  in  the  eye  of  the  ptiblic,  chargeable  as  such,  to 
be  found  in  the  Foundling  Asylum  of  the  City  of  Mex- 
ico wall  tell  the  story.  "It  has  accommodations  for 
more  than  200  foundlings,"  says  Mr.  Janvier ;  but  he 
does  not  tell  us  that  even  that  number  were  in  it.  "  Let 
us  say  there  were  250  in  it ;  would  this  mean  250  re- 
ceived annually  even  for  a  population  which,  taking  in 
the  City  of  Mexico  and  the  country  adjacent  from  which 
those  foundlings  would  come,  should  give  2,500  total 
births   per   annum?     Oh,   no!   for  of  these  supposable 


72  Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico. 

250  inmates  there  are  a  number,  says  our  author,  who 
are  ''taught  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  grammar, 
drawing,  sacred  history,  Christian  doctrine,  polite  be- 
havior [mark  that !],  and  the  girls  in  addition  sewing, 
embroidery,  music  !  " 

Where  is  there  room  for  suspicion  even  of  any  ex- 
cessive immorality  in    Mexico,  city  or  country? 

Evidence  will  be  found  in  another  chapter,  taken 
from  Seaman.'s  Progress  of  A^ations,  showing  that  the 
women  of  all  the  states  of  what  he  calls  "Catholic 
America"   are  noted  for  their  chastity. 

What  about  crime  ?  Nothing  to  note  in  Mr. 
Janvier's  volume.  Mr.  Wells  gives  a  quotation  from  an 
official  letter  of  United  States  Minister  Foster,  assert- 
ing, inferentially,  the  frequency  of  highway  robber\-, 
because  the  railways  are  strictly  guarded  by  soldiers. 
Our  author  evidently  agrees  with  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment, which  made  an  official  protest  against  this  charge, 
and  quotes  a  sentence  from  it : 

"  For  every  crime  against  life  or  property  in  Mexico  a  greater 
number  of  similar  cases  that  have  taken  place  in  the  United 
States  could  be  cited.  Moreover,  horrible  crimes  have  been  com- 
mitted in  the  United  States,  some  of  which  have  not  e^•en  passed 
through  the  imagination  of  the  wickedest  man  in  Mexico,  such  as 
the  robbery  of  the  remains  of  the  philanthropic  capitalist  A.  T. 
Stewart,  in  order  to  get  a  ransom  for  them," 

What  is  the  general  character  of  the  people  ?  Mr. 
Wells  quotes  from  reports  of  Consul-General  Strother, 
who  found  the  condition  of  the  laboriiifr  clas.'^es  hideous 
in  its  material  coarseness,  and  intellectual  and  spiritual 
poverty.     But,  says  Mr.  Wells  himself: 

"  With    all     this,    the    agricultural    laborers    of    Mexico,    both 


Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico.  73 


Indians  and  mixed  bloods,  are  most  universally  spoken  of  as  an 
industrious,  easily-managed,  and  contented  people  "  (p.  98). 

A  little  too  "easily  managed"  one  wotild  think, 
when  we  come  to  learn  of  the  peaceful  submission  of 
these  people  to  the  intolerable  outrages  perpetrated 
upon  them  in  their  property  and  liberty  by  the  "Re- 
formed" republican  government  since  the  days  of 
Juarez.  Here  is  a  trait  worth  mentioning,  though  not 
surprising  if  found  in  any  Catholic  country: 

"  It  is  understood  that  Indian  blood  is  no  bar  to  entrance  into 
good  society,  or  to  office,  if  the  person  is  otherwise  qualified,  and 
the  Indian  is  not  anywhere  abused  in  Mexico,  or  ejected  from  the 
lands  which  his  masters  have  tilled  from  time  immemorial,  as  has 
often  been  the  case  in  the    United  States  "  {^ibid.,  p.  99). 

Concerning  education  I  quote  one  sentence  : 

"  The  Catholic  Church  stimulated,  as  it  were,  by  its  mis- 
fortunes, and  apparently  unwilling  to  longer  rest  under  the  impu- 
tation of  having  neglected  education,  is  also  giving  much  attention 
to  the  subject,  and  is  said  to  be  acting  upon  the  principle  of 
immediately  establishing  two  schools  wherever,  in  a  given  locality, 
the  government,  or  any  of  the  Protestant  denominations,  establish 
one"  {ibid.,  p.   101). 

I  see  :  that  probably  explains  why,  siiice  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  glorious  Protestant  Reformation,  Catho- 
lics established  in  Europe  fifteen  more  universities 
than.  Protestants  (see  the  chapter  on  Universities); 
not  because  the  Church  esteems  learning — oh,  no ! 
but  simply  to  ' '  get  rid  of  the  imputation  ' '  which  would 
be  made  by  a  lot  of  slanderous  accusers  in  America 
"of  her  having  neglected  education,"  before  and  after 
Protestantism  brought  out  its  torch  of  intellectual  light 
to  make  her  conscious  of  her  own  ' '  besotted  Cimmerian 


74  Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico. 

darkness,"  as  the  phrase  goes.  The  Catholic  Church 
had  better  have  saved  herself  all  the  trouble  and  ex- 
pense. 

Are  the  Mexicans  honest  in  their  dealings  ?  Let  us 
hear  the  same  writer : 

"  They  ask  long  credits,  they  are  slow,  but  pay  their  bills, 
make  few  business  compromises  and  still  fewer  failures.  From 
actual  inspection  of  books  of  large  houses  in  Mexico,  exhibiting 
accounts  of  a  series  of  years,  I  found  that  eighty-five  to  ninety  per 
cent,  of  long-credit  sales  were  paid  in  full.  Not  one  American 
business  man  in  five  hundred  will  succeed  in  Mexico.  The  Jews 
do  not  seem  to  fancy  the  country.  Consul-Gcneral  Sutton  of 
Matamoros  tells  the  following  story  illustrative  of  the  good  faith 
in  a  mercantile  transaction  of  the  rancheros  of  Northern  Mexico: 
'  A  German  house  in  interior  Mexico  contracted  for  the  purchase 
of  two  hundred  mule-colts,  to  be  delivered  a  year  following ;  and 
payment,  at  the  rate  of  twenty  dollars  a  pair,  was  made  in  ad- 
vance. [A  good  testimony  to  the  people's  reputation  for  honesty.] 
The  year  elapsed,  and  the  mules  were  not  delivered  ;  [confidently 
assured  of  their  honesty]  the  head  of  the  house  would  not,  how- 
ever, allow  any  message  of  inquiry  or  reminder  to  be  sent,  but 
remained  quiet.  A  year  after  the  stipulated  time  the  rancheros 
came  in  with  the  mules.  There  had  been  a  disease  and  a 
drought,  which  had  killed  the  colts  the  first  year.  They  sent  no 
word,  because  it  was  so  far,  and  they  did  not  remember  the  name 
of  the  purchaser.  When  the  firm  counted  the  mules,  they  found 
that  three  had  been  brought  for  each  pair  stipulated  and  paid  for, 
which  was  the  way  the  rancheros  quietly  settled  for  their  unavoid- 
able breach  of  contract'"  {ibid.,  pp.  237,  238). 

Are  they  civilized  in  their  manners  ? 

"  American  business  men  will  not  succeed  in  Mexico  because 
their  habits,  ways,  and  methods  are  the  antipodes  of  his  own. 
Our  manners  are  not  in  accord  with  the  extreme  politeness  and 
consideration  to  be  found  in  Mexico.  Neither  time  nor  money 
has  the  transcendent  value  it  has  with  us." 


Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico.  75 

Wait  a  bit,  good  Mr.  Wells,  until  the  Freemasons, 
the  Secularists,  and  Protestants  have  had  time  to  cut  a 
good  wide  swath  in  their  Catholic  educational  field 
and  to  sow  the  seeds  of  modern  material,  godless  "  pro- 
gress "  in  it,  and  the  American  merchant  will  not  find 
the  extreme  polite,  sentimental,  and  honest  methods 
and  habits  of  the  Mexicans  any  longer  the  antipodes  of 
his  own.  It  may  even  happen  that  they  will  fling  their 
Catholic  idols  and  fetiches  into  the  fire,  and,  under  the 
influence  of  Protestantism,  become  converted  to  the 
more  intellectual  worship  of  the  great  American  god — 
the  Almighty  Dollar. 

But  I  pray  you  that  we,  as  lovers  of  liberty,  should 
go  slow  in  our  attempt  to  thus  civilize  this  "  besottedly 
ignorant"  people,  "whose  native  spirit  of  indepen- 
dence," Consul-General  Strother  tells  us,  unwarily, 
"predominates  over  all  other  sentiments,"  in  spite  of 
their  being,  as  he  thinks,  "  never  completely  Christian- 
ized, but  awed  by  force  and  showy  ceremonials"; 
for,  as  you  quote  from  the  Voz  de  Mejico  (Voice  of 
Mexico),  an  able  Catholic  daily,  against  admitting 
American  capitalists  into  the  republic  : 

"  We  (Mexicans)  combat  the  policy  of  liberalism,  which, 
greedy  of  material  prosperity,  and  dazzled  by  the  brilliancy  of 
North  American  progress,  would  open  freely  the  doors  of  our 
frontier  to  the  capital  of  our  neighbors,  whose  tendencies  towards 
absorption  are  well  known,  and  who  would  decorate  luxuriously 
our  house,  and  then  install  themselves  in  it  definitely,  relegating 
to  us  the  departments  of  servitude"  (p.  216). 

You  silly,  benighted  Mexicans  !  have  you  yet  to 
learn  that  your  old  Christian  w^orship  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
of  whom  the  Redeemer  and  True  Civilizer  of  the  world 
was  conceived   (as  alleged),  is  nothing   but  an   effete 


76  Catholic  Civilisation  in  Mexico. 

superstition  ?  Don't  3^ou  know  that  the  Zeitgeist — the 
Spirit  of  the  Age — is  now  the  Inspirer  of  all  good 
things?  Has  not  the  Zeitgeist  shown  that  it  can  in- 
spire two  hundred  religions  in  America,  when  your 
Holy  Ghost  has  not  been  able  to  inspire  but  one  for  the 
whole  world  ?  You  miserably  stupid  and  certainl}^ 
illiterate  mule- drivers !  who  have  such  tender  con- 
sciences that  yQ\x  give  three  mules  for  two  lest  any  one 
should  suffer  loss  by  j^our  misfortune ;  3'ou  have  no 
'cuteness  in  j^ou.  Truly  your  ignorance  of  the  ways 
of  the  world  in  this  glorious  nineteenth  century  is  '  *  ap- 
palling." You  ought  to  be  living  back  in  those  ages  of 
mediaeval  darkness  when  the  foolish  saints  lived  and 
committed  similar  acts  of  unprofitable  honest3^  You 
ought  to  come  up  here  and  take  a  few  lessons  in  bank- 
robbing,  holding-up  railwa}^  trains,  in  clever  bankruptcy 
and  stock-w^atering,  and  in  the  manufacture  of  green 
goods.  There's  millions  in  it !  Don't  j^ou  see  that  the 
Zeitgeist  of  our  advanced  civilization  is  more  cunning 
in  wit  and  stronger  of  arm  than  your  Christian  Holy 
Ghost;  and  isn't  the  stronger  the  better?  Don't  you 
know  that  the  Zeitgeist  has  reformed  your  wretched 
priest-ridden  country  ?  Perhaps  you  are  so  stupidly 
ignorant  that  you  don't  even  know  that  3^ou  are  re- 
formed? Well,  let  me  tell  you;  for  I  have  both  a 
resume  2.n^  some  particulars  of  a  pretty  piece  of  reform, 
by  which  the  reign  of  your  God  and  His  Christ  has 
come  to  grief,  and  the  reign  of  the  god  of  this  world 
has  3^ou  now  in  thrall,  body  and  soul.     Just  read  this: 

"  When  the  Reform  was  estabhshed,  in  1867,  the  entire  property 
of  the  Mexican  Church  was  at  once  '  nationahzed  '  (a  synonym  for 
confiscation)  for  the  use  of  the  state.  Every  convent,  monastic 
institution,  or  rehgious  house  was  closed  up  and  devoted  to  secu- 


CatJiolic  Civilization  in  Mexico.  yy 


lar  purposes ;  and  the  members  of  every  relig-ious  society,  from 
the  Jesuits  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity  who  served  in  the  hospi- 
tals or  taught  in  the  schools,  were  banished  and  summarily  sent 
out  of  the  country.  And  so  vigorously  and  severely  is  the  policy 
of  subjugating  the  ecclesiastical  to  the  civil  authority  still  carried 
out,  that  no  convent  or  monastery  now  openly  exists  in  Mexico; 
and  no  priest  or  sister,  or  any  ecclesiastic,  can  walk  the  streets  in 
any  distinctive  costume,  or  take  part  in  any  religious  parade  or 
procession.  While  Catholic  worship  is  still  permitted  (I)  in  the 
cathedrals  and  in  a  sufficient  number  of  other  churches,  it  is  clear- 
ly understood  that  all  of  these  structures  [which  the  Catholics  and 
their  pious  ancestors  consecrated  with  loving  and  adoring  sacrifice 
to  God],  and  the  land  upon  which  they  stand,  are  absolutely  the 
property  of  the  government,  liable  to  be  sold  and  converted  to 
other  uses  at  any  time,  and  that  the  officiating  clergy  are  only 
'tenants  at  will.'  Even  the  ringing  of  the  church  bells  [which  to 
the  people  was  "as  the  voice  of  God's  angels  calling  them  to  wor- 
ship] is  regulated  by  the  government.  All  those  rites,  further- 
more, which  the  Catholic  Church  has  always  classed  as  among 
her  Holy  Sacraments  and  exclusive  privileges,  are  also  now  regu- 
lated by  civil  law.  The  civil  authority  registers  births,  performs 
the  marriage  ceremony  and  provides  for  the  burial  of  the  dead, 
and  while  the  Church  marriage  ceremonies  are  not  prohibited  to 
those  who  desire  them,  they  are  legally  superfluous,  and  alone 
have  no  validity  whatever"  {Study  of  Mexico,  pp.  8i,  82). 

Mr.  Wells  shows  himself  to  be  specially  pleased  with 
some  results  of  this  high-handed  robbery  of  the  proper- 
ty which  for  centuries  the  believers  iii  God  and  Christ 
had  given  into  the  sacred  keeping  of  the  Church,  to  be 
held  and  used  for  the  honor  and  stistenance  of  their 
holy  religion,  and  as  a  patrimony  for  the  poor.  To 
seize  the  least  of  it  and  put  it  to  the  service  of  the 
world,  the  flesh,  or  the  devil,  was,  of  course,  nothing 
but  sacrilege,  a  defiant  outrage  upon  the  rights  of  God 
as  well  as  upon  the  rights  of  the  people. 


^S  CatJiolic  Civilization  in  Mexico. 

And  it  appears  that  you  "good  Mexican  Catholics 
would  not  buy  '  God's  property  '  when  the  government 
put  it  up  for  sale."  Not  so  scrupulous  were  the 
Protestant  ministers  and  other  enemies  of  your  holy 
faith,  who  had  their  agents  on  hand  to  profit  b}^  the  oc- 
casion.    Our  observing  tourist  tells  us  that — 

"  The  former  spacious  headquarters  of  the  Franciscans,  with 
one  of  the  most  elegant  and  beautifully  proportioned  chapels  in 
the  world  within  its  walls,  and  fronting  in  part  on  the  Calle  de 
San  Francisco,  the  most  fashionable  street  in  the  City  of  Mexico, 
was  sold  to  Bishop  Riley  and  a  well-known  philanthropist  of  New 
York,  acting  for  the  American  Episcopal  missions,  at  an  under- 
stood price  of  $35,000,  and  is  now  valued  at  over  $200,000." 

There  are  excellent  bargains  to  be  had  when  one's 
conscience  is  not  particularly  tender  on  the  subject  of 
sacrilege,  and  when  one  has  the  courage  to  brave  the 
historical  ' '  curse  ' '  that  has  so  often  fallen  upon  those 
guilty  of  participating  in  it.  It  appears  that  this 
Episcopalian  bishop,  Riley,  so  comported  himself  as  to 
fall  under  the  censure  of  the  American  bishops  who  sent 
him  to  Mexico  ;  whereupon  he  defied  their  authority 
and  set  up  a  Mexican  Episcopalian  Church  for  himself. 
They  protested  against  him  and  he  in  turn  protested 
against  them,  in  good  old  orthodox  Protestant  fashion, 
and  if  he  remains  in  possession  of  the  two-hundred- 
thousand-dollar  property,  he  certainly  has  the  best  of  it. 

Your  worse  than  pagan  oppressors  now  mockingly 
tell  3^ou  that  as  they  have,  in  the  name  of  enlightened 
progress  and  liberty,  destroyed  the  power  of  your  priest- 
hood, 3'ou  can  claim  to  be  "free  citizens  in  a  free 
state"  ;  3^ou  can  vote,  and  so  prove  to  the  world  that 
you  are  a  republic  where  the  government  is  "of,  hy , 
and  for  the  people."     Wh}^  don't  you  go  down  on  your 


Catholic  Cyatii^on  in  Mexico. 


79 


knees  and  adore  the  Zeitgeist?  How  it  would  delight 
all  our  American  hearts  to  see  you  proudly  walking  up 
to  the  polls  and  casting  your  vote,  like  freemen,  for  the 
man  of  3^our  choice  !     But  what  is  this  I  hear  ? 

"  In  the  elections  for  a  new  Congress  during  the  year  1886  the 
government  so  ordered  matters  as  to  effectually  prevent  all  an- 
tagonism to  its  measures." 

You  voted  to  secure  ' '  a  larger  measure  of  indepen- 
dence and  intelligence  in  your  legislation  and  politics," 
and  3'ou  were  counted  out,  my  brothers! — you  were 
"notable  to  elect  one  single  candidate."  But  haven't 
you  the  right  of  free  speech  and  a  free  press  ?  .  .  . 
"Public  opinion  in  Mexico  has  been  defined  to  be, 
'the  opinion  entertained  by  the  President.'"  .  .  . 
Popular  election  (with  you)  is,  therefore,  little  more 
than  a  farce.  You  have  "  no  census  or  registration  of 
voters,  no  scrutiny  of  the  ballot-box  except  by  the  party 
in  power,  no  public  meetings  or  public  political  dis- 
cussions, no  circulation  of  newspapers,  no  peacefully 
organized  political  opposition  is  suffered  to  exist.  The 
central  government  for  the  time  being  both  nominates 
and  counts  in  what  candidates  it  pleases,  and  you  have 
no  redress."  That  is  what  Mr.  Wells  tells  me.  Don't 
you  remember  how  ' '  the  editor  of  the  El  Monitor  Re- 
publicano,  in  1885,  was  summarily  arrested,  condemned, 
and  served  out  a  sentence  of  seven  months  in  the 
common  penitentiary,  for  his  criticisms  upon  the 
government"?  You  foolishly  thought  that  we,  your 
neighbors  in  the  United  States,  would  sympathize  with 
you.  The  gentleman,  who  has  been  telling  you  all  I 
have  written,  will  remind  you  that  you  have  a  right 
rather  to  look  upon  our  Republic  as  a 


8o  Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico. 

"  great,  overgrown,  immensely  powerful  *  bully,'  from  whom  no 
favor  and  scant  justice  are  to  be  expected  under  any  circum- 
stances, and  who  would  never  hesitate,  if  interest  or  selfish  in- 
difTerence  prompted,  to  remorselessly  trample  down — in  the  old 
Anglo-Saxon  spirit,  and  as  it  always  has — any  weaker  or  inferior 
race,  Mexicans,  Indians,  or  Chinese,  the  poor  fisherman  of  New- 
foundland, or  again  the  negro,  if  political  sentiment  in  respect  to 
the  latter  was  not  running,  for  the  time  being,  in  another  direction; 
and  there  is  not  a  nation  or  people  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  which 
is  brought  in  intimate  contact  with  us,  but  fears  and  hates  us;  and 
that  apart  from  a  conservation  of  the  principle  of  free  government, 
which  the  United  States  is  supposed  to  typify,  would  not  be  glad 
if  the  power  of  the  Federal  government  were  by  some  contin- 
gency to  be  impaired  and  destroyed"  (pp.  211,  212). 

I,  wlio  am  a  Catholic  priest,  and,  if  I  know  myself, 
loyal  to  God  and  to  ni}^  country,  cannot  endorse  these 
sentiments  as  representing  the  true  American  spirit. 
No  Catholic  citizen  would  himself  consent  to  the  ag- 
grandizement of  our  national  power  and  prosperity  by 
acts  wdiich  would  justh'  bring  upon  us  the  loss  of  the 
respect  of  other  nations  ;  neither  do  I  think  that  the 
great  body  of  our  non-Catholic  fellows-citizens  would 
consent  to  barter  their  national  honor  for  any  such  sel- 
fish gains.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  are 
amongst  us  not  a  few  narrow-minded  souls  who  would 
appear  to  find  a  certain  kind  of  enjoyment  of  their  own 
liberties  in  seeing  other  nations  suffering  from  the  loss 
of  theirs  and  in  sympathizing  with  whomsoever  raises 
an  arm  to  destroy  them. 

M}^  dear  Mexican  Catholic  brothers,  believe  me,  no 
true-minded,  true-hearted  American,  Catholic  or  not, 
rejoices  over  your  civil  and  religious  enslavement, 
knowing  well  that  if  a   like  attempt  w^ere    made  upon 


CatJwlic  Civilization  in  Mexico.  8  [ 

their  own  liberties,  they  would  all  die  the  death  to  a 
man  sooner  than  submit  to  it. 

But  I  will  tell  3^ou  who  does  sympathize  with  your 
God-hating  Csesar  and  his  band  of  oppressors ;  with 
your  robbers  of  God's  rights  and  your  own.  I  will  tell 
you  who  clapped  their  hands  and  applauded  them  as 
they  signed  away  your  religious  liberty  with  a  stroke 
of  the  pen,  tore  down  your  churches  and  monasteries 
and  convents,  put  '"  God's  property"  under  the  auction- 
eer's hammer,  and  drove  the  servants  of  God,  the 
comforters  of  your  orphans,  your  sick  and  dying  poor, 
and  the  true  defenders  of  your  rights,  from  the  borders 
of  your  unhappy  country.  Who  did  all  this  and  con- 
tinue to  do  so  still  ?  They  who  hate  your  religion,  and 
ai"e,  as  they  have  ever  been,  set  upon  its  destruction  ; 
who,  with  the  cry  of  "  civil  and  religious  liberty  "  in 
their  throats,  plot,  like  base  assassins,  in  their  secret 
lodges  against  both  ;  who  at  this  very  hour  in  which  I 
write  are  striving  to  bring  about  in  this  free  Land  of 
Liberty  the  identical  ' '  Reform  ' '  by  which  you  have 
been  enslaved  :  agnostics,  infidels,  Freemasons,  haters 
of  God  and  of  His  Christ,  thousands  of  Protestants  out 
of  every  sect,  all  joining  hands  in  a  common  satanic 
brotherhood  of  hate  and  envy  to  overthrow  the  liberties 
of  such  as  you,  and  ourselves,  my  Catholic  Mexican 
brothers ! 

Speaking  of  the  numerous  insurrections,  revolutions, 
and  civil  wars  that  have  taken  place  in  Catholic  Amer- 
ica, and  especially  in  the  Catholic  West  India  Islands, 
Seaman,  in  his  Progress  of  Nations,  says  : 

"Protestants  full  of  prejudice  against  Catholics  charge  the 
Catholic  priesthood  and  the  want  of  pure  religion  as  the  cause  of 
nearly  all  the  political  troubles;  when  the  truth  is,  the  influence  of 

'3?  r^- 


82  Catholic  Civilization  in  Mexico. 


the  Catholic  Church  and  priesthood  is  conservative  and  quieting, 
generally  counselling  submission  to  the  administration  in  power, 
and  very  rarely  encouraging  revolutions,  or  a  revolutionary  spirit, 
except  when  deemed  necessary  to  protect  the  property  or  power 
of  the  Church. 

"  Protestantism  is  much  more  progressive  \sic\  in  its  spirit  than 
Catholicism— more  ambitious  to  propagate  its  principles  and 
doctrines,  and  to  promote  political  liberty  and  the  material  welfare 
of  the  people ;  and  therefore  more  revolutionary  in  its  tendencies  " 
(p.  501). 

That  Protestantism  is  revolutionary  in  its  spirit  is 
plain  enough  ;  but  that  it  promotes  political  libert}^  and 
the  material  welfare  of  the  people  needs  more  proof  than 
its  past  history  can  show  in  countries  where  it  has  influ- 
enced the  councils  of  state.  We  would  like  to  be 
shown  w4ien  and  where  Protestantism  by  its  fundamen- 
tal doctrines  and  in  practice  has  ever  defended  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  tyrannical  absolutism.  It  has  ever  been,  and 
ever  sought  to  make  itself,  the  creature  of  the  ruling 
power  ;  and  where  it  is  not  thus  supported  and  upheld, 
in  wdiat  country  to-day  can  it  show  its  influence  widen- 
ing among  the  masses  of  the  people  ?  If  ' '  the  people  ' ' 
love  and  trust  the  Catholic  Church,  and  stick  to  her 
through  good  and  evil  report,  it  is  because  they  know 
who  is  their  true  and  loyal  friend,  and  protector  of  their 
rights  ;  and  if  the  Mexicans  wall  but  be  loyal  to  her, 
they  shall  come  to  their  own  again. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CIVIUZATION    OF   BARBAROUS    NATIONS. 

THE  Catholic  religion  is  still,  as  it  ever  has  been, 
the  great  and  only  civilizing  force  in  the  world. 
It  is  the  power  of  truth  and  holiness  which  overcomes 
social  and  moral  degradation.  That  the  Church  has 
succeeded  is,  therefore,  not  wonderful.  Hers  is  the 
divine  mission  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  man's  Redemp- 
tion from  barbaric  as  well  as  from  pagan  depravity. 

Protestantism  never  civilized  one  barbarous  nation. 
It  has  claimed  to  have  converted  the  Sandwich  island- 
ers to  its  form  of  Christianity ;  but  did  it  civilize 
them  ?  Did  it  succeed  in  the  first  element  of  civiliza- 
tion, that  of  national  self-preservation  and  numerical 
increase  of  the  population  ?     Here  is  a  contrast : 

The  census  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  made  by  the 
Protestant  missionaries  in  1823  gave  142,000  natives. 
In  1878  they  were  reduced  to  44,088  ;  in  1890,  to  only 
34,436.  The  natives  of  the  Philippine  Islands  were 
converted  by  Catholic  Spanish  missionaries  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  The  population  in  1833  was  3,153,290; 
in  1877,  5,561,232;  and  in  1893,  7,000,000  {Encyc. 
Brit,  and  Statesman's   Year  Book^   1893). 

A  Protestant  writer,  who  is  very  far  from  being  sus- 
pected of  allowing  himself  to  say  anything  more  in 
favor  of  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion  than  lie^ 
could  help,  offers  us  this  testimony  : 

"  Spanish  power  and  law  gave  peace  and  tranquillity  to  the  na- 
tive tribes  of  the  Phihppine  Islands,  which,  of  all  things  in  the 

83 


84  Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations. 

world,  is  most  needed  by  savage  and  semi-barbarous  peoples  ;  and 
hence  even  the  Malays  have  improved  under  the  dominion  of 
Spain." 

After  noting  the  rapid  decrease  of  the  Sandwich 
islanders,  threatening  total  extinction,  this  same 
author  attributes  it  to  the  utter  lack  of  chastity  among 
them,  and  the  loathsome,  destructive  diseases  resulting 
from  their  immoralities  ;    and  adds  : 

"  The  physical  laws  of  God  are  inexorable  ;  and,  as  their  pro- 
fessions of  Christianity  [?]  cannot  save  them  from  dissolute  con- 
duct and  disease,  it  cannot  save  them  from  premature  death,  nor 
from  destruction  as  a  people"  (The  Progress  of  Nations  in 
Civilisation,  Productive  Industry,  Wealth,  and  Population,  by 
Ezra  C.  Seaman.     Second  Series,   1868). 

What  a  comment  upon  the  power  of  Protestant 
Christianity  in  the  work  of  civilization !  Now  that 
nearly  one-half  of  the  poor  remaining  Kanakas  have 
become  Catholics,  there  may  be  some  hope  that  the 
native  race  will  not  become  wholly  extinct  in  the  Sand- 
wich Islands, 

There  could  not  have  been  presented  to  Protestant- 
ism a  fairer  field,  or  more  favorable  opportunity,  to 
show  what  it  could  do  in  the  work  of  civilizing  a  bar- 
barous people  than  it  had  in  Hawaii.  The  American 
Missionary  Board  sent  its  two  zealous  missionaries, 
Messrs.  Bingham  and  Thurston,  there  in  1820.  They 
were  received  with  open  arms  by  the  queen,  installed 
as  her  chief  advisers,  made  practically  governors  of  the 
island,  and  allowed  to  make  their  Protestantism  the 
state  religion.  The  natives  were  forced  by  law  to  at- 
tend their  instructions,  and  w^ere  baptized  or  not  as  the 
missionaries  decided.     They  had  full  control,  and  used 


Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations.  85 

it,  when  two .  Catholic  missionaries  landed  there,  in 
punishing  as  criminals  all  natives  who  became  Catho- 
lics, and  they  very  soon  expelled  the  priests  from  the 
island.  Every  means  was  then  resorted  to  in  order  to 
compel  the  Catholic  converts  to  become  Protestants, 
even  to  condemning  the  women  to  penal  servitude  on 
the  public  works  for  life.  Then  the  Protestant  mission- 
aries made  themselves  and  families  into  a  landed  aris- 
tocracy of  planters,  set  up  an  imitation  constitutional 
monarchy,  and  the  simple  savages  soon  found  them- 
selves and  their  land  practically  owned  by  these  so- 
called  Christians,  who  had  come  to  civilize  them  and 
their  countr}^  and  give  them  the  blessings  of  modern 
progress.  Whether  the  horses  or  cattle  began  to  die 
out,  as  the  poor  natives  soon  did  under  the  influence 
of  Protestant  American  Missionary  Board  civilization, 
I  do  not  know ;  but  it  came  to  be  a  common  thing 
for  their  white  masters  to  make  use  of  them  to  draw 
their  carriages,  and  to  treat  them  with  great  severit}', 
as  if  they  were  dumb  and  obstinate  brutes.  As  to  the 
work  of  imparting  Christian  civilization  to  them,  there 
never  could  be  a  more  disastrous  and  shameful  failure. 
No  wonder  the  American  Missionary  Board  stopped  its 
supplies  in  1850,  withdrew  from  all  further  responsi- 
bility, and  left  the  wretched,  dying  people  to  their 
fate. 

I  made  brief  mention  of  the  far  different  fortune  that 
befell  the  Philippine  Islands,  under  Catholic  coloniza- 
tion and  religious  teaching,  as  a  contrast  to  the  work  of 
Protestantism  in  Hawaii ;  but  a  more  striking  contrast, 
perhaps,  might  be  made  between  the  Protestant  degra- 
dation and  decimation  of  that  island,  and  what  was 
accomplished  by  Catholic  missionaries  in  other  islands 


86  Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations. 

of  the  Polynesian  group — the  Gambler  Islands,  Wallis 
and  Futana,  in  the  South  Pacific. 

The  people  were  of  the  same  race,  with  similar  lan- 
guage, cannibalism  and  other  savage  institutions,  and 
heathen  superstitions.  When  the  Catholic  missiona- 
ries arrived  there  in  1840  they  found  the  natives  in 
pretty  much  the  same  state  as  the  Protestant  missiona- 
ries found  those  of  the  Sandwich  Islands.  But,  fortu- 
nately for  them,  the  latter  contented  themselves  with 
applying  their  energies  after  their  own  fashion  in 
Hawaii,  and  left  these  islands  to  the  merc}^  of  the 
Catholic  priests.  In  a  few  years  the  whole  popula- 
tion of  these  '  *  priest-ridden  ' '  islands  had  received 
Christian  instruction  and  baptism.  The  people 
were  not  robbed  of  their  lands,  but  were  taught  to 
cultivate  them.  Their  population  had  been  rapidly 
decreasing,  they  said,  on  account  of  their  savage  wars 
with  one  another  before  the  Catholic  missionaries 
reached  their  shores.  From  them  they  soon  learned 
the  arts  of  peace,  and  the  native  populations  began  to 
steadily  grow  in  numbers  and  in  material  prosperity ; 
and,  as  a  recent  writer  observes  :  "  These  islands  form, 
at  the  present  moment,  the  only  branch  of  the  Polyne- 
sian race  which  can  be  fairly  said  to  live  and  thrive." 

This  morning's  New  York  Herald  (April  22,,  1894) 
furnishes  me  with  the  following  interesting  and  timely 
account  of  the  character  and  doings  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries,  Hiram  Bingham  and  others,  and  wdiich 
is  so  apropos  to  my  present  subject,  that  I  insert  it 
here.  Probably  the  investigations  of  the  claims  made 
may  result  in  furnishing  further  instructive  matter 
illustrative  of  Protestant  methods  of  preaching  the 
Gospel,  etc.,  and  of  civilizing  barbarous  nations. 


Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations.  ^J 


HAWAII'S   $1,000,000    CI.AIM. 

A  Demand  for  Heavy  Damages  to  be  filed  against  the 
United  States  Government. 

Honolulu,  April  5,  1894.— A  racy  chapter  of  half-forgotten 
Hawaiian  history  is  likely  to  cause  a  sensation  in  the  United 
States,  and  particularly  in  the  ranks  of  the  American  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions,  within  the  next  three  months.  It  is  nothing 
less  than  the  filing  of  a  claim  for  $1,000,000  against  the  United 
States  government.  The  claim  is  based  on  alleged  robberies  by 
the  missionaries  of  1826,  led  by  Hiram  Bingham  and  abetted  by 
Captain  Jones  and  his  men,  of  the  United  States  sloop-of-war 
Peacock. 

The  story  of  how  the  poor  natives  were  compelled  at  the 
cannon's  mouth  to  raise  property  worth  $1,000,000  for  those  who 
came  in  the  name  of  Christ  to  save  their  souls,  is  like  a  chapter 
from  the  history  of  buccaneering  in  the  days  of  Spanish  suprem- 
acy. The  message-bearers  of  1826  were  not  so  devout  as  to 
train  their  minds  wholly  on  spiritual  things,  for  some  were  shrewd 
traders.  In  their  strange  dual  capacity  of  half-priest  and  half- 
Yankee  trader  they  carried  a  large  stock  of  looking-glasses  and 
small  hand-mirrors,  bonnets  and  clothing  from  ancient  and  shop- 
worn stocks  in  Boston.  The  natives  bought  freely  of  these  wares, 
and  when  the  early  chiefs  hesitated  on  account  of  hard  times,  they 
were  charitably  given  unlimited  credit. 

Though  they  knew  nothing  about  the  devouring  principle  of 
compound  interest,  they  hesitated  to  accept  credit  ;  but  were 
finally  coaxed  to  buy  the  goods  offered,  lest  their  refusal  to  pur- 
chase be  construed  as  an  insult  to  their  ingenious  visitors.  In 
buying  Christian  goods  at  the  prices  current  in  early  church  cir- 
cles, they  believed  they  were  pleasing  the  Lord.  Later,  they  were 
surprised  by  a  demand  for  immediate  payment  in  sandal-wood, 
which  then  brought  very  high  prices  in  China.  They  were  by 
this  time  hopelessly  involved  to  the  extent  of  nearly  $1,000,000 
indebtedness.  The  chief  items  were  looking-glasses,  which  were 
sold  for  sums  ranging  from  $150  to  $r,ooo  each.  The  smallest 
hand-mirrors  brought  $150,  and  it  is  said  it  was  a  fad  in  1826  for 


88  Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations. 

every  young  buck  Kanaka  to  buy  each  of  his  sweethearts — all 
had  several — a  hand-mirror.  There  was  no  excuse  for  non- 
compliance with  the  custom,  because  the  Hawaiian  lassies  knew 
that  the  message-bearers  refused  credit  to  none. 

But  the  awful  day  of  reckoning  overtook  the  people  one  bright 
morning  in  June,  1826,  when  the  war-sloop  Peacock  arrived  in 
Hawaiian  waters.  They  had  seen  war-ships  before,  but  none  had 
ever  come  save  on  a  friendly  mission.  The  unexpected  arrival  of 
the  Peacock  excited  the  native  curiosity,  the  more  particularly  be- 
cause its  commander  was  often  seen  in  close  consultation  with 
Hiram  Bingham,  Hunnewell  and  company,  and  other  missionaries. 
Finally,  some  of  the  chiefs  were  summoned  before  Commander 
Jones,  of  the  Peacock,  who  questioned  them  severely  as  to  why 
their  people  had  not  paid  for  goods  sold  and  delivered  them  by 
the  missionaries.  Hiram  Bingham  was  the  interpreter  for  the 
commander,  and  though  he  wrote  an  extended  history  of  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  he  nowhere  in  any  manner  hints  at  the  re- 
markable claim  of  a  million  dollars  which  was  collected  at  the 
bayonet's  point. 

After  the  taking  of  a  brief  amount  of  ex-parte  evidence,  Com- 
mander Jones  concluded  that  the  claims  were  all  just,  and  he  sent 
King  Kamehameha  word  that  the  sum  must  be  paid  or  he  would 
enforce  it  in  the  name  of  the  United  States.  In  reporting  the 
matter  to  Hon.  Ogden  Hoffman,  who  was  then  in  Congress,  Com- 
mander Jones  said,  in  1838:  "We  compelled  the  natives  to  pay 
nearly  $1,000,000  to  worthy  citizens  of  the  United  States." 

After  coercing  the  king  and  chiefs,  it  was  decided  to  compel 
the  promulgation  of  a  law  obliging  every  able-bodied  man  to 
scour  the  mountains  for  sandal-wood,  while  the  women  (by  which 
term  all  females  over  thirteen  years  of  age  were  included)  were 
compelled  to  contribute  tapa  cloth  and  rare  mats.  All  these 
goods  were  sold  in  China  by  the  missionaries.  The  gathering  of 
the  amount  of  sandal-wooH  required  was  a  great  hardship,  for  it 
required  an  average  of  sixteen  days'  labor  by  each  man.  Trees 
were  dug  up  by  the  roots  and  the  richly  scented  wood  was,  as  a 
result,  exterminated  in  all  the  Hawaiian  islands.  The  method  of 
collecting  the  tribute  is  thus  described  by  Commander  Jones  in 


Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations.  89 

the  letter  to  Hon.  Ogden  Hoffman  :  "  Every  man  had  to  deHver 
half  a  pecul  (sixty- seven  pounds)  of  good  sandal-wood  to  the 
governor  of  the  district  of  his  residence  before  September  i,  1827. 
In  case  of  no  sandal-wood,  we  took  four  Spanish  dollars,  or  any- 
thing conveniently  at  hand  worth  that  sum.  No  person,  except 
those  who  were  infirm  or  too  advanced  in  age  to  go  to  the  moun- 
tains, was  exempt  from  the  demand." 

Continuing,  the  commander  who  enforced  the  claim  says: 
"  Every  woman  of  the  age  of  thirteen  years  or  upward  had  to  pay 
a  mat  twelve  feet  long  and  six  feet  wide,  or  tapa  cloth  of  equal 
value,  or  to  the  sum  of  one  Spanish  dollar.  All  of  this  property 
had  to  be  put  in  designated  houses,  and  never  to  be  removed  or 
applied  to  any  other  purpose  except  the  liquidation  of  the  debts 
designated." 

These  laws  were  promulgated  by  King  Kamehameha  III.  dur- 
ing his  minority,  and  after  the  destructive  character  of  American 
cannon  had  been  explained  to  him  during  some  vivid  target  prac- 
tice. Modern  educated  Hawaiians  have  hired  Paul  Neumann  as 
their  attorney  to  investigate  these  matters,  and  he  will  soon  file  a 
claim  at  Washington  for  the  ^1,000,000  exacted  and  compound 
interest  since   1826. — Special  Correspondence  of  the  Herald. 

The  work  of  civilizing  and  Christianizing  barbarous 
tribes  cannot  be  otherwise  than  a  most  adventurous 
and  often  dangerous  undertaking,  ahnost  impossible  to 
be  regarded  in  au}^  other  light  by  the  natives  them- 
selves than  as  an  intended  conquest  of  their  persons 
and  lands  by  hostile  strangers.  They  could  hardly  be 
credited  with  any  other  motive  for  coming  amongst 
them  than  that  which  would  induce  any  one  of  these 
wild  races  itself  to  invade  the  domain  of  another  ;  viz., 
to  reduce  the  other  to  slavery.  It  is  no  wonder,  then, 
that  even  the  Spaniards,  the  greatest  and  the  most  suc- 
cessful of  all  colonizers  the  world  has  known,  should 
have  come  into  deadly  conflict  with  the  very  people 
to   whom   they   came,    bringing   the    blessings    of  the 


go  Civilization  of  Barbarous  Nations. 

Christian  faith  and  civilization.  Their  first  act  after 
setting  foot  upon  an  unknown  shore  was  always  to  set 
up  the  Cross,  the  sign  of  Peace  and  lyove  ;  and  they 
had  been  so  thoroughly  indoctrinated  with  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  their  Catholic  faith,  that  all  men  are 
equal  before  God  and  all  redeemed  by  Jesus  Christ, 
that  it  was  quite  impossible  they  should  be  filled  with  a 
desire  to  maltreat  or  exterminate  the  heathen  savages 
whose  conversion  to  Christianity  they  looked  upon 
themselves  as  being  providentially  commissioned  to 
secure  first  and  above  all  other  objects. 

All  history  testifies  that  these  Catholic  pioneers  for 
Christ  never  lost  sight  of  this  high  and  holy  mission, 
even  when  it  records  after  scenes  of  bloody  conquest 
and  deplorable  cruelties,  resulting  chiefly  from  the 
attacks  made  upon  them  by  ferocious  and  insidious 
foes. 

The  most  conclusive  evidence  that  the  Spanish 
colonizers  sought  and  continued  to  seek,  above  all,  the 
civilization  and  conversion  of  the  aboriginal  nations  they 
came  upon  and  of  whom  they  soon  became  the  masters, 
is  that  they  preserved  them  as  a  people,  acknowledged 
the  common  equality  and  dignity  of  their  manhood  by 
intermarriage,  elevating  their  women  to  the  position  of 
Christian  wives  and  mothers,  not  overrunning  the  land 
of  the  natives  with  people  of  their  own  superior  race, 
but  educating  them  to  become  Christian  possessors  of 
their  own  countr}^  ;  they,  the  conquering  power, 
always  remaining  in  an  almost  insignificant  minority, 
even  to  this  day. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

''CATHOI.IC  AMERICA." 
CIVIIvIZATlON  AMONG  THE  vSOUTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS. 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in  Seaman's 
Progress  of  Nations,  already  alluded  to,  is  that  en- 
titled "  Catholic  America."  And  the  testimony  of  the 
writer  is  all  the  more  powerful  as  it  is  quite  evident  he 
loves  not  Rome,  nor  anything  that  is  hers.  He  more 
than  once  expresses  his  judgment  that  Protestantism,  as 
a  religion,  is  more  progressive  and  adapted  to  secure  a 
more  advanced  civilization  than  Catholicism,  but  no- 
w^here  in  his  book  do  w^e  find  him  able  to  present  any 
practical  proofs  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  every  record  is 
in  favor  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  of  peoples  under 
her  influence.  What  he  has  to  say  of  the  beneficent  re- 
sults of  that  influence  in  summing  up  his  detailed  view 
of  "Catholic  America" — including  Mexico,  Central, 
and  all  of  South  America — is  well  worthy  of  quotation  : 

"  It  should  be  remembered,  to  the  credit  of  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  colonists,  and  the  Catholic  missionaries  and  Catholic 
policy,  that  they  have  been  the  means  of  changing  the  habits  of 
life,  and  of  civilizing  more  than  twenty  millions  of  American 
Indians  and  mixed  breeds  ;  while  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  German 
colonists  and  peoples  have  scarcely  exerted  any  favorable  in- 
fluence upon  the  mind,  the  character,  or  the  habits  of  life_^of  more 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  of  the  descendants  of  the 
aborigines  of  our  country.  The  English,  Scotch,  and  German 
colonists  to  America  had  no  regard,  and  scarcely  any  feelings  of 

91 


92  **  Catholic  America.''' 

humanity,  for  the  aborigines  ;  they  treated  the  Indians  as  savages, 
whose  condition  was  nearly  hopeless ;  as  a  race  so  degraded  that  it 
was  not  profitable  to  have  much  intercourse  with  them  ;  inter- 
marriages of  the  whites  with  them  has  been  generally  regarded 
as  degrading,  and  in  some  of  the  colonies  and  states  prohibited  by 
law  ;  and  no  efforts  have  been  made  to  subject  them  to  law,  to 
incorporate  them  into  the  society  of  the  white  people  as  laborers 
and  citizens,  to  restrain  their  vagrant  habits,  and  to  teach  them 
industry  by  a  system  moderately  and  humanely  coercive,  as  the 
youth  of  all  civilized  countries  are  taught  to  labor. 

"  The  Catholic  colonists  and  states  have  pursued  a  very  dif- 
ferent policy.  They  have  regarded  the  Indians  as  a  part  of  the 
human  family,  as  having  capacities  for  improvement  as  well  as 
souls\o  be  saved;  and  hence  they  mingled  with  the  Indians,  in- 
termarried with  them,  subjected  them  to  their  laws  as  laborers 
and  subjects,  or  citizens;  taught  them  many  of  the  useful  arts, 
and  how  to  work  and  habits  of  industry  ;  im.proved  their  physical 
as  well  as  their  mental  condition  ;  restrained  them  from  wars 
among  themselves  ;  raised  them  in  the  scale  of  civilization  ;  and 
converted  them  into  peaceable,  quiet,  and  reasonably  industrious 
citizens.  The  result  of  the  Catholic  policy  is,  that  the  Indians  and 
mixed  breeds  of  the  Catholic  nations  of  America  now  number 
more  than  twenty  viillions  ;  while  among  the  Protestant  peoples 
of  the  United  States  and  the  British  Provinces  they  number  but 
little  over  half  a  million.  The  question  arises,  Which  is  the 
humane  and  Christian,  and  which  the  worldly  and  selfish 
policy  ?  " 

Most  writers,  on  sober,  second  thought,  are  general- 
ly disposed  to  express  their  admiration  or  reproach  in 
more  guarded  and  less  laudatory  or  condemnatory 
terms.  The  foregoing  writer  shows  the  depth  of  his 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  what  he  had  said  in  his 
Progress  of  Nations  about  Catholic  civilization  in 
Mexico  and  South  America,  when,  in  his  second  work 
on  The  American  System  of  Government  (1870,  page 
64),  he  is  still  more  emphatic: 


**  Catholic  America^  93 

"  With  our  boasted  free  institutions,  Protestant  civilization,  and 
exclusive  spirit,  keeping  our  own  Indians  at  arm's  length,  we 
have  succeeded  in  half-civilizing  about  one  hundred  thousand, 
during  a  period  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  "  [the  one  hundred 
thousand  left  after  the  extermination  of  all  the  others]  ;  "  whilst 
our  Spanish  American  neighbors,  with  the  aid  of  the  Catholic 
priesthood,  by  mixing  \\\\.\\  and  intermarrying  with  the  Indians, 
extending  to  them  the  civilizing  agencies  of  law  and  government, 
have  subjected  to  law,  to  the  Gospel,  Catholic  cfvilization,  and  to 
some  degree  of  regular  industry,  and  raised  to  a  higher  grade  of 
civilization  than  exists  among  the  tribes  of  our  Indian  Territory, 
more  than  twelve  millions  of  the  full-blooded  and  half-breed  de- 
scendants of  the  aborigines  of  America.  Truly  we  have  no 
reason  to  be  proud  of  our  success,  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  the 
Indian  race." 

Yes,  my  dear  Mr.  Seaman,  you  are  right  :  we  have 
small  reason  indeed  to  be  proud  of  our  new  method  of 
civilizing  Indians.  But  then  you  know  our  maxim  : 
"  The  only  good  Indian  is  a  dead  one." 

OUR  NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS. 

The  very  just  remarks  of  Mr.  Seaman  lead  one  quite 
naturally  to  ask  the  question  :  Among  so-called  Chris- 
tian denominations  which  one  has  labored  to  civilize 
and  Christianize  our  own  American  Indians  ?  Which 
one  has  treated  them  as  a  part  of  the  human  family, 
having  capacities  for  improvement  as  well  as  souls  to 
be  saved  ?  Let  the  marvellous  history  of  the  heroic 
Catholic  French  Jesuit  Missionaries  among  the  most 
savage  tribes  make  reply,  to  say  nothing  of  the  con- 
stant, unwearied  efforts  of  other  such  self-sacrificing 
heralds  of  Christ.  From  whose  lips  have  the  warlike 
savages  been  willing  to  listen  to  the  story  of  the  Cross, 


94  **  Catholic  America ^ 

and  learned  to  love  and  adore  Him  who  died  thereon 
for  them,  but  from  the  Black  Robe's?  In  whom  -did 
they  find  a  brother,  a  friend,  a  protector,  a  teacher,  a 
comforter,  but  in  the  "dear  Black  Robe"?  Who 
alone  has  been  able  to  prove  that  the  Christian  reli- 
gion has  the  magic  power  to  transform  the  wild  and 
merciless  savage  into  a  man  of  justice  and  peace,  and 
impose  upon  his  brutal  and  sensual  passionate  pagan 
nature  the  difficult  restraints  of  Christian  chastity  ? 
The  "  holy  Black  Robe."  But  who  now,  standing  by 
and  witnessing  all  this,  and  confessedly  powerless  to 
perform  the  like  wonders  of  nature  and  miracles  of 
grace,  are  filled  with  jealousy  and  envy,  and  to-day  are 
stirring  up  their  people  to  pass  obstructive  laws  de- 
signed to  lessen,  as  they  hope,  the  beneficent  influence 
of  the  Black  Robe  and  of  the  faith  which  inspires  his 
life  of  divine  charity  among  the  few  Indians  they  and 
theirs  have  not  yet  exterminated  ?  The  Protestant 
bishops  and  ministers. 

Not  that  they  want  to  take  upon  their  hands  the 
same  self-sacrificing  labors  for  the  poor  savages.  That 
would  not  suit  either  their  "superior  Protestant  refined 
taste  and  intellectuality ' '  or  the  pockets  of  their  rich 
people,  upon  whom  the  demands  of  their  own  luxurious 
civilization  weigh  so  heavily.  What,  then,  do  they 
want  ?  They  want  to  stop  the  onward  progress  of 
Catholicism  whensoever   and   wheresoever   it    appears. 

* '  X,et  the  Great  Father  at  Washington  send  us  the 
dear  Black  Robes,  the  Catholic  priests  and  the  Catholic 
sisters, '  *  cr}^  the  Indians  to  the  government  which  took 
their  lands  from  them  and  bound  itself  by  solemn  treaty 
to  hold  the  price  thereof  in  trust  as  guardian  of  their 
civil   and   religions  rights — "send  us  the  Black  Robes 


Catholic  America y  ,  95 


to  love  and  teach  us  and  our  children  how  to  live  and 
serve  the  Great  Spirit,  for  we  love  them  and  will  hear 
and  obey  them  gladly." 

"  Nay,-"  say  these  religious  dogs  in  the  manger, 
"  but  ye  shall  not  have  your  Black  Robes,  nor  eat  of  the 
Bread  of  Everlasting  Life  from  their  hands.  Ye  shall 
eat  only  of  state  straw,  threshed  clear  of  the  soul- 
nourishing  wheat  of  Christian  religion,  whether  of  the 
Black  Robe  kind  or  of  our  numerous  kinds.  Let  the 
state  bind  its  own  hands  by  force  of  constitutional  laws, 
that  it  may  not  employ  either  of  us  as  its  agents  to 
fulfil  its  bounden  obligations  towards  you."  Oh!  'tis 
pity,,  and  pity  'tis,   'tis  true! 

That  is  how  it  stands  with  the  Indians  to-day,  to  say 
nothing  of  millions  more  of  those  whose  skins  are 
whiter,  though  their  souls  are  none  the  more  precious 
in  the  sight  of  God  for  that,  but  whose  freedom,  as  well 
as  that  of  their  Christian  Indian  brethren,  to  know,  love, 
and  serve  Him,  the  state  is  equally  bound,  under  pain 
of  being  branded  on  the  page  of  history  as  guilty  of 
tyranny,  to  secure  and  defend  against  all  attacks. 

Mr.  Seaman,  the  author  already  quoted,  presents  us 
with  many  points  of  comparison  between  Catholic  and 
Protestant  influence  in  those  countries  inhabited  by 
similar  races.  Our  Protestant  writers  and  orators  are 
fond  of  pointing  the  finger  of  scorn  at  those  peoples 
whom  no  one  can  deny  have  been  most  successfully 
civilized  by  the  Catholic  Church,  according  to  their 
natural  abilities  to  receive  social  improvement,  as  Mr. 
Seaman  so  forcibly  acknowledges,  and  also  proves  in 
various  parts  of  his  book.  Let  us  quote  a  few  remarks 
of  his  concerning  not  only  the  nations  under  Catholic, 
but   also   under   Protestant  influence.     He   says  of  all 


96  ,   '*  Catholic  ADierica.''' 

the  countries  comprised   under  the   title  of   "  Catholic 
America  "  : 

"  The  Indians  of  those  countries,  and  the  mixed  breeds  of 
Indian  and  white  descent,  are  a  chaste  and  industrious,  sober- 
minded,  and  quiet  people,  compared  with  tlie  negroes  and  mu- 
lattoes  of  the  British  West  Indies,  who  have  been  corrupted  by 
lax  laws  and  pohtical  ambition  ;  and  hence  the  former  are  a 
better  population  than  the  latter  for  the  support  of  free  institu- 
tions— though  their  grade  of  intellect  is  no  higher  "  (Pros^ress  of 
Natiojis,  p.  526). 

My  remark  thereon  is,  that  if  Protestantism  pro- 
motes a  purer  civilization  than  Catholicism,  here  was  a 
chance  to  show  it ;  and  it  evidently  failed  miserably. 
Of  Chili  he  says,  after  noting  the  remarkable  in- 
crease in  population,   industry,   and  education  : 

"  Verily,  it  seems  possible  for  even  a  mongrel  people,  under 
Spanish-American  (Catholic)  domination,  to  make  great  progress 
in  a  temperate  and  good  climate  and  under  favorable  circum- 
stances "  (p.  541). 

Of  Paraguay  he  says  : 

"  The  influence  of  the  Jesuits  and  [other]  Catholic  missionaries 
in  civilizing  the  Indians  and  teaching  them  industry  must  have 
been  efBcient  to  produce  such  remarkable  results.  No  such  re- 
sults have  ever  been  produced  among  a  mongrel  people,  of  infe- 
rior natural  intellect,  in  a  hot  climate  "  (p.  546). 

PROTESTANT  CIVILIZATION  IN  THE  WEST   INDIES. 

Now  for  a  contrast.  The  reader  will  please  recall 
what  Mr.  Seaman  said  about  the  chastity  of  the  Catho- 
lic Indians  and  mixed  races  in  ever}'  country  in  Catho- 
lic America.  Quoting  from  the  work  of  Mr.  William 
G.  Sewall,  a  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Times ^  he 


CatJiolic  America.''  97 


says  of  the  West  India  Islands,  under  British  Protestant 
influence.     First  of  the  Island  of  Barbadoes  : 

"  Among  their  other  vices,  immorahty  and  promiscuous  inter- 
course of  the  sexes  are  ahiiost  universal.  From  the  last  census 
it  appears  that  more  than  half  of  the  children  born  there  are 
illegitimate." 

Of  Trinidad  : 

"  The  amalgamation  of  the  European  and  African  races  is 
even  more  general  in  Trinidad  than  in  Barbadoes.  In  Port-of- 
Spain  the  ratio  of  births  is  136  illegitimate  to  100  legitimate — 
an  exhibition  of  morality  considerably  below  that  of  (Catholic) 
Havana." 

Again,  of  Kingston,  in  Jamaica,  he  says  : 

"  The  inhabitants  taken  en  masse  are  steeped    in  immorality 
promiscuous  intercourse  is  the  rule  ;  illegitimacy  exceeds  legiti- 
macy, abortion  and  infanticide    are  not  unknown." 

Quoting  from  The  American  Missionary  journal  for 
July,  1865,  in  relation  to  the  people  generally  of  the 
Island  of  Jamaica,  he  says  : 

"A  man  may  bel'a  drunkard,  a  liar,  a  Sabbath-breaker,  a  pro- 
fane man,  a  forni9^tor,  an  adulter^,  and  sujchjjjv^^and  be  known 
to  be  such,  and/^olto  ofta^pel  ap^lT^W^friTrs  head  there,  and  feel 
no  disgrac^,^m)m  tliese  tHin^,  because  they  are  so  cojnmon  as  to 
create  a  public  sentiment  in  his  favor y 

Mr.  Seaman  thus  sums  up  : 

"  Such  is  the  character  for  chastity  [italics  his  own]  of  the 
people  of  the  West  Indies.  Such  is  the  state  of  society  in  the 
finest  tropical  regions  of  the  world,  under  Anglo-Saxon  rule, 
Christian  influences,  and  Protestant  institutions,  with  many  educa- 
tional advantages,  and  among  a  generation  of  people  but  few  of 


98  "  Catholic  America^ 

whom  have  ever  been  slaves.  .  .  .  Society  in  all  the  British 
islands  is  shockingly  demoralized :  indolence,  frivolous  amuse- 
ments, and  licentiousness  reign  triumphant ;  industry  and  enter- 
prise are  paralyzed  in  most  of  the  islands,  everything  is  retrograd- 
ing except  the  business  of  getting  and  raising  illegitimate 
children ;  and  it  appears  as  if  nothing  but  Asiatic  laborers  could 
save  the   islands  from  sinking  into  barbarism"  (pp.  518-19). 

All  these  low  conditions  of  civilization,  in  a  society 
chiefly  composed  of  inferior  races  and  having  no  other 
moral  control  over  the  individual,  the  family,  and  the 
social  order  than  what  Protestantism  can  assert  and 
maintain,  need  not  surprise  us.  We  are  sad  witnesses 
to  its  lack  of  the  same  necessary  control  over  these 
three  elements  of  civilization  in  more  enlightened  na- 
tions. It  preaches  moral  doctrines  to  the  individual, 
but  is  utterly  powerless  to  enforce  their  acceptance  ;  it 
practically  denies  the  divine  sanction  of  the  family,  and 
cannot  motild  one  homogeneous  order  of  society  out  of 
people  of  different  nations,  because  it  fails  to  assert  and 
uphold  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  human 
nature  in  all  men.  When  men  who  are  not  easily  mis- 
led by  appeals  to  ignorant  prejudice  are  told  to  "  look 
at  Mexico,  at  South  America,  and  all  similar  countries 
under  the  influence  of  Catholicism,"  they  will  take  the 
speaker  at  his  word  and  look  at  them  as  the  Catholic 
Church  has  dealt  with  them,  from  the  first  moment  that 
she  displayed  before  their  barbarous,  untutored  gaze 
the  banner  of  the  Cross,  the  emblem  of  all  true  civiliza- 
tion, until  the  present  time. 

The  only  possible  judgment  that  can  be  made  will 
be,  that  if  these  savage  tribes  had  not  been  preserved 
and  brought  to  their  present  state  of  civilization  and 
faith  in  Christ  by  the  Catholic  Church,  no  other  power 


"  Catholic  America,^''  99 

either    could    or    would   have    accomplished   the   same 
results. 

It  will  be  time  enough  to  tell  us  to  look  at  this  truly 
glorious  w^ork  of  the  Catholic  Church,  wath  the  view  of 
exposing  her  alleged  deficiencies,  when  Protestantism 
can  point  out  to  us  .some  of  its  own  attempts  at  civiliz- 
ing a  similar  people  and  show  that  it  has  done  better. 
Done  better  ?  We  shall  be  quite  content  if  we  can  be 
shown  one  instance  where  Protestantism  has  done  any- 
thing at  all  except  to  degrade  and  decimate  any  bar- 
barous peoples  it  has  attempted  to  civilize. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

PROTESTANT  AND   CATHOLIC   MISSIONS  TO   THE 
HEATHEN. 

TO  properl}'  displa}"  to  the  mind  of  a  reader  who  has 
not  made  himself  acquainted  with  the  phenome- 
nal success  of  Catholic  missionary  work  among  the 
heathen,  and  the  discouraging  failure  of  Protestants  in 
the  same  field,  despite  their  earnest  efforts  backed  up 
with  untold  millions  of  money,  would  require  a  large 
volume.  I  content  myself  with  presenting  the  follow- 
ing testimony.  Short  as  is  this  piece  of  evidence,  it 
may  truly  be  said  that  it  is  an  example  of  all  the  vari- 
ous missionary  efforts  of  Protestants  in  every  country. 
Dr.  Isaac  Taylor,  Protestant  Canon  of  York,  in  an 
article  on  "The  Great  Missionary  Failure,"  in  the 
Forbiightly  Revieiv,  October,    1888,   says: 

"  Upwards  of  a  million  sterling  is  annually  raised  in  this  coun- 
try for  Protestant  missions,  and  probably  another  million  in 
America  and  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  About  6,000  European 
and  American  missionaries  and  some  30,000  native  agents  are 
employed.     Clearly  there  is  no  lack  of  men  or  means"  (p.  448). 

After  showing  the  general  failure  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries  in  India,  China,  Egypt,  Persia,  Palestine, 
Arabia,  and  Africa,  Canon  Taylor  proceeds  to  answer 
the  question,   "  Why  do  they  fail?  "  as  follows  : 

"  Let  Dr.  Legge,  a  missionary  of  thirty-four  years  standing, 
speak.  He  thinks  that  we  shall  fail  to  make  converts  so  long  as 
Christianity  presents  itself  infected  with   the  bitter  internal  ani- 


Protestant  and  Catholic  Missions  to  the  Heathen.     loi 

mosities  of  Christian  sects,  and  associated  in  the  minds  of  the 
natives  with  the  drunkenness,  the  profligacy,  and  the  gigantic 
social  evil  conspicuous  among  Christian  nations.  Bishop  Steere 
thought  that  the  two  greatest  hindrances  to  success  were  the 
squabbles  of  missionaries  among  themselves,  and  the  rivalry  of 
the  societies — there  are  224  of  them — who  tout  for  converts. 

"  The  internal  animosity  of  Christian  sects  is  well  illustrated  by 
the  report  of  Mr.  Squires,  the  local  secretary  of  the  Church  Mis- 
sionary Society  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  who  states  that  *  one 
of  the  greatest  hindrances  to  missionary  effort '  is  the  existence  of 
so  many  Christians  who  do  not  belong  to  any  of  the  Protestant 
societies.  Strange  to  say,  the  existence  of  so  many  Christians  is  a 
great  hindrance  to  the  spread  of  Christianity!  Mr.  Squire's,  with 
his  ninety-seven  assistants,  baptized  last  year  thirty-six  adults  and 
ninety-two  children,  at  a  cost  of  ^9,441. 7s. id. ;  and  the  converts 
made  by  his  society,  after  sixty-six  years  of  labor,  do  not  amount 
to  2,000,  while  the  devoted  Roman  priests  are  converting,  edu- 
cating, and  consoling  thousands  upon  thousands,  at  a  nominal 
cost,  which  comes,  not  from  any  wealthy  society,  but  mainly  from 
the  converts  themselves  "  (p.  493). 

"  In  spite  of  the  prodigal  expenditure  of  the  Protestant  so- 
cieties, three-fourths  of  the  native  Christians  in  India  are  de- 
scendants of  the  converts  of  the  early  Jesuits.  In  those  districts 
where  Xavier  labored,  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  native  Christians  are 
Roman  Catholics.  In  Travancore  alone  there  are  half  a  million 
of  them,  twice  as  many  as  the  Church  of  England  societies  can 
claim  in  the  whole  of  Africa  and  Asia  "  (p.  497). 

"Sir  W.  Hunter  reminds  us  that  for  the  last  twenty-four  cen- 
turies every  preacher  who  has  appealed  to  the  popular  heart  has 
cut  himself  off  from  the  world  by  a  solemn  act,  like  the  Great 
Renunciation  of  Buddha.  He  must  be  an  ascetic,  and  must  come 
forth  from  his  solitary  communings  with  a  message  to  his  fellow- 
men.  Our  missionaries  have  not  these  qualifications.  He  tells  us 
that  the  natives  regard  a  missionary  as  '  a  charitable  Englishman 
who  keeps  an  excellent  cheap  school,  speaks  the  language  well, 
preaches  a  European  form  of  their  old  incarnations  and  triads, 
and   drives  out  his  wife  and   his  little  ones  in  a   pony-carriage.' 


I02     Protestant  arid  Catholic  Missions  to  the  Heathen. 


The  pony-carriage  is  obviously  fatal  to  the  missionaries'  influence. 
If  St.  Paul,  before  starting  on  one  of  his  missionary  journeys,  had 
required  St.  James  and  a  committee  at  Jerusalem  to  guarantee 
him  ^300  a  year,  paid  quarterly,  and  had  provided  him  with  a 
shady  bungalow,  a  punkah,  a  pony-carriage,  and  a  wife,  he  would 
not  have  changed  the  history  of  the  world  "  (p.  498). 

"  I  believe  our  methods  are  not  only  unsuccessful,  but  al- 
together wrong.  We  must  return  to  those  methods  which  were 
crowned  with  such  marvellous  triumphs  in  the  centuries  which 
saw  the  conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  of  the  northern  na- 
tions [by  the  Catholic  Church].  The  modern  method  is  to  hire  a 
class  of  professional  missionaries,  a  mercenary  army,  which,  like 
other  mercenary  armies,  may  be  admirably  disciplined  and  may 
earn  its  pay,  but  will  never  do  the  work  of  the  real  soldiers  of  the 
Cross.  The  hireling  may  be  an  excellent  hireling,  but  for  all  that 
he  is  only  a  hireling.  If  the  work  is  to  be  done  we  must  have 
men  influenced  with  the  apostolic  spirit,  the  spirit  of  St.  Paul, 
of  St.  Columba,  St.  Columbanus,  and  St.  Xavier.  These  men 
brought  whole  nations  to  Christ,  and  such  men  only,  if  such  men 
can  be  found,  will  reap  the  harvest  of  the  heathen  world.  They 
must  serve,  not  for  pay  but  solely  for  the  love  of  God.  They 
must  give  up  all  European  comforts  and  European  society,  and 
cast  in  their  lot  with  the  natives,  and  live  as  the  natives  live, 
counting  their  lives  for  naught,  and  striving  to  make  converts,  not 
by  the  help  of  Paley's  Evidences,  but  by  the  great  renunciation 
which  enabled  Gautama  to  gain  so    many  millions  of   disciples. 

.  .  General  Gordon,  a  zealous  Puritan  Protestant,  if  ever 
there  was  one,  found  none  but  the  Roman  Catholics  who  came  up 
to  his  ideal  of  the  absolute  self-devotion  of  the  apostolic  mission- 
ary. In  China  he  found  the  Protestant  missionaries  with  comfort- 
able salaries  of  ;/;3oo  a  year,  preferring  to  stay  on  the  coast,  while 
the  Roman  priests  left  Europe  never  to  return,  living  in  the  in- 
terior with  the  natives  as  the  natives  lived,  without  wife,  or  child, 
or  salary,  or  comforts,  or  society.  Hence  these  priests  succeed  as 
they  deserve  to  succeed,  while  the  professional  Protestant  mission- 
ary fails.  True  missionary  work  is  necessarily  heroic  work,  and 
heroic  work  can  only  be  done  by  heroes.  Men  not  cast  in  the 
heroic  mould  are  only  encumbrances"  (pp.499,  500). 


Protestant  and  Catholic  Missions  to  the  Heathen.     103 


The  question  is  pertinent  :  How  did  it  happen  that 
the  Protestants,  who  had  absolute  control  of  both  throne 
and  people  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  claimed  to 
have  converted  the  natives  to  Protestantism  were  not 
able  to  hold  them  ?  Almost  one-half  of  the  remain- 
ing Kanakas  are  already  Catholics. 

Good  specimens  of  Catholic  missionaries  are  seen 
in  such  men  as  the  world-renowned  Father  Damien  and 
his  devoted  successors.  Fathers  Conrady  and  Wendelin, 
now  giving  their  lives  to  the  spiritual  consolation  and 
bodily  comfort  of  the  afflicted  lepers  of  Molokai. 

It  would  take  a  volume  to  simply  record  the  names 
of  the  magnificently  heroic  Catholic  missionaries  whose 
amazing  sacrifices  and  singular  success  in  convert- 
ing heathen  people  to  Christianity  have  found  place  in 
history. 

When  the  Church  selects  these  heralds  of  faith  and 
of  Christian  civilization,  she  takes  those  who  at  her 
own  feet  have  learned  the  sublime  lesson  of  self-sacrifice 
— the  giving  up  of  everything,  houses,  lands,  money, 
fame,  home,  and  friends,  for  Christ's  sake,  to  go 
whithersoever  she  may  send  them,  and  endure  wath  joy 
whatsoever  may  befall  them. 

If  the  reader  wishes  to  know  the  full  and  true  story 
of  Modern  Christian  Missions,  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
he  should  read  that  exhaustive  standard  work,  Christian 
Missio7is  :  their  Age^its  and  their  Results,  by  T.  W.  M. 
Marshall. 


CHAPTER  X. 

GOOD   MANNERS. 

IHAVK  already  alluded  to  the  singular  power  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  civilizing  the  "manners"  of 
the  people  of  every  nation  that  has  come  under  her  in- 
fluence. Her  success  is,  of  course,  due  to  her  perse- 
vering inculcation  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  per- 
fect equality  of  human  nature  in  all  men — kings  and 
peasants,  noble  and  common,  rich  and  poor,  freeman, 
serf,  and  slave,  black  and  white,  "  Gentile  or  Jew,  Greek 
or  barbarian."  The  motto  of  her  gospel  of  civilization 
to  the  nations  has  been  :  Liberty,  Equality,  Frater- 
nity—all free,  all  equal,  all  brethren  in  Jesus  Christ, 
and  all  to  so  regard  one  another.  She,  and  she  alone, 
has  been  able  to  preach  to  Avarring  peoples,  "  Love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself, ' '  and  to  bring  them  at  last  to  heed 
her  words,  leavening  their  whole  social  life  with  this 
doctrine  of  divine  charity  and  human  brotherhood. 

This  elevating,  refining  influence  of  the  Church 
upon,  all  classes  alike  is  recognized  by  every  observant 
traveller.  That  the  high-born  and  wealthy  should  ex- 
hibit special  social  culture  is  not  surprising,  but  that 
the  rudest  of  Catholic  peasantry  should  not  be  a  whit 
behind  their  social  superiors  is  often  commented  upon 
and  admired,  though  the  cause  is  generally  unsus- 
pected. 

It  is  also  a  matter  of  comment  that  the  illiterate  and 
poor  in  Catholic  countries  are  far  more  civilized  in  this 
respect  than  are  the  corresponding  classes  in  Protestant 


Good  Maimers.  105 


nations.  Compare  the  unlettered  Italian,  f^rench,  Span- 
ish, or  Irish  peasantry  with  the  unlettered  Protestant 
Germans,  English,  and  even  Americans.  The  former 
are  full  of  personal  dignity,  manliness,  courtesy  of  man- 
ner, refined  feeling,  delicate  sentiment  ;  and  have  even 
a  cultivated  taste  for  the  fine  arts,  notably  those  of  Italy 
and  Spain  ;  to  say  nothing  of  their  knowledge  of  their 
religion,  and,  at  least,  praiseworthy  practice  of  it.  In 
all  these  respects  the  latter  are,  as  a  class,  strikingly 
inferior,  and  a  large  number  utterly  lacking. 

The  Scotch  travelled  obser\-er,  Samuel  Laing,  notes 
this  general  taste  for  the  fine  arts  in  Catholic  countries, 
but  does  not  think  the  absence  of  it  among  the  English 
any  proof  of  a  lack  of  intellectuality.  In  this  opinion 
there  are  few,  if  any,  who  are  likely  to  agree  with  him. 
He  says  : 

"  Music,  painting,  architecture,  sculpture,  dancing,  cooking, 
all  the  arts,  fine  or  not  fine,  have  but  little  hold  of  the  public  mind 
with  us.  It  is  one  of  the  strongest  characteristics  of  the  British 
people  that  all  the  sports  and  amusements  of  every  rank  and  class 
must,  to  be  popular,  occupy  the  intellectual  powers,  the  judgment 
of  the  individual." 

Here  is  how  he  finds  the  popular  British  mind  oc- 
cupying its  superior  intellectual  powers  : 

"  Hunting,  shooting,  horse-racing,  boat-sailing,  all  amusements 
in  which  judgment  is  exercised,  and  individuality  is  called  into 
play,  should  it  be  only  in  betting  upon  the  most  absurd  objects, 
have  so  decided  a  preponderance  in  the  national  mind,  that  it  is 
altogether  a  hopeless  attempt  to  instil  mto  our  lower  or  middle 
classes  anything  like  the  passive  taste  for  music  or  painting  that 
prevails  in  foreign  countries.  I  cannot  think  this  any  proof  of  a 
want  of  intellectuality  in  a  people.  Be  it  so  or  not,  it  is  undeni- 
able that  in  the  character  of  the  people  of  Britain,  even  of  the 


io6  Good  Manners. 


higher  classes,  there  is  no  feeling  for  the  fine  arts,  no  foundation 
for  them,  no  esteem  for  them"  (Notes  of  a  Traveller,  pp.  441, 
442). 

As  to  religion,  one  is  not  surprised  to  hear  many  of 
the  Protestant  illiterate  and  poor  speak  of  it  with  con- 
tempt, and  brag  that  they  have  none  ;  and  great  num- 
bers of  those  who  do  profess  some  religion  know  no 
more  of  the  doctrines  they  are  supposed  to  hold  than  if 
they  were  uncivilized  savages.  Even  the  majority  of 
educated  adherents  of  Protestant  denominations  to-day 
would  not  dare  submit  to  an  examination  on  the  know- 
ledge of  the  doctrines  of  their  own  sects. 

In  striking  contrast  with  the  rudest  peasantry  one 
can  find  in  any  Catholic  country,  we  have  right  here  in 
our  own  States  a  population  of  between  twe^  ^id  three 
millions,  wholly  Protestant,  of  whose  uncultivated  bru- 
tality, vulgar  boorishness,  and  religious  poverty  I  find  a 
vivid  description  in  a  volume  published  by  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  as  a  report  of  its  General  Conference 
in  Boston  in  1889.* 

One  of  the  speakers,  Rev.  Frank  E.  Jenkins,  of  New 
Decatur,  Alabama,  addressed  the  conference  on  the 
subject  of  "The  Mountain  Whites  of  the  South,"  a 
class  of  people  inhabiting  a  vast  tract  of  territory,  more 
than  five  hundred  miles  long  and  two  hundred  broad, 
twice  the  size  of  New  England,  stretching  down 
through  West  Virginia,  Western  old  Virginia,  Eastern 
Kentucky,  Western  North  Carolina,  Eastern  Tennes- 
see, and  into  Northern  Alabama  and  Georgia. 

*  National  Needs  and  Remedies  ;  The  discussions  of  the  General  Chris- 
tian Conference  held  in  Boston,  Mass.,  December  4,  5,  and  6,  1889,  under 
the  auspices  and  direction  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  for  the  United 
States. 


Good  Manners.  107 

The  Rev.  Mr-.  Jenkins  tells  us  these  mountaineers 
comprise  a  class  of  whites  who  in  times  of  slavery  were 

"too  lazy  and  too  proud  to  work,  without  sufficient  intellect  or 
energy  to  enable  them  to  acquire  property  enough  to  buy  a  slave. 
They  sank  into  a  condition  scarcely  above  the  brutes  in  intelli- 
gence, or  in  manner  of  subsistence.  The  very  slaves  looked  upon 
them  with  scorn,  and  called  them  the  '  poor  white  trash,'  and  thus 
well  expressed  their  condition  and  character." 

He  describes  what  a  stranger  travelling  through 
these  districts  would  find  as  he  came  upon  the  wretched 
log-cabin  belonging  to  one  of  these  families  : 

"  A  sad-faced  woman,  with  her  snuff-stick  or  tobacco-pipe  pro- 
truding from  her  mouth,  or  a  quid  of  tobacco  swelling  out  her 
cheek,  is  sitting  in  her  door  with  her  elbows  resting  on  her  knees 
and  her  face  in  her  hands,  and  gazing  stupidly  at  you.  A  dozen 
or  more  solemn-looking,  ragged  and  dirty  children  are  standing 
about  and  staring  at  you,  and  all  of  them,  from  the  oldest  to  the 
youngest,  probably  chewing  tobacco — even  down  to  the  creeping 
babes.  You  see  no  smiles  on  these  child-faces  ;  and  however 
quietly  you  stole  upon  this  secluded  home,  you  heard  no  laughter 
from  these  solemn  children.  What  did  they  ever  have  to  make 
them  laugh  or  smile  ?  " 

Although  timber  is  not  wanting  all  around  tnem, 
they  are  apparently  too  lazy  to  build  a  log-cabin  for 
each  family,  and  make  one,  consisting  of  only  one  room, 
serve  for  the  living  and  sleeping  purposes  of  more  than 
one  generation.  Few  things  which  we  reckon  as 
among  the  necessities  of  life  are  to  be  found  in  these 
cabins.     Says  the  reverend  orator  : 

"  You  see  a  gun,  a  rough  home-made  table,  a  few  old  chairs 
helped  out  with  blocks  and  boxes,  four  or  five  rough  beds  in  the 
living  room,  a  few  plates  and  other  dishes,  an  iron  kettle  or  two, 
no  stove,  but  a  rude  fire-place  with  a  chimney  of  sticks  and  stones 


io8  Good  Manners. 


and  mud — and  you  have  made  an  inventory  of  the  furniture  for  a 
family  of  twelve,  fifteen,  twenty,  or  more.  This  is  not  an  excep- 
tional, but  a  characteristic  home.  Anything  better  is  the  excep- 
tion. Here  they  live,  eat,  drink,  and  sleep.  Here  they  are  sick^ 
and  here  they  die,  w^ith  the  neighbors  from  far  and  near  packed  in 
the  room  and  staring  at  them.  From  this  room  they  are  carried, 
within  as  few  hours  after  death  as  are  necessary  for  the  construc- 
tion of  a  rough  coffin,  to  be  buried  without  even  a  prayer,  amid  the 
terrific  screaming  of  the  remaining  members  of  the  family.  The 
'funeral  willj^e  preached'  five,  ten,  or  twenty  years  after  the 
death,  and  w^ll  include  in  its  scope  all  the  members  of  the  family 
who  have  died  since  the  last  funeral  was  celebrated." 

We  have  heard,  a  good,  deal  about  the  illiteracy  and 
ignorance  of  the  masses  of  people  in  CathoL.c  countries. 
How  much  these  accusations  are  worth,  we  shall  see 
further  on  under  their  proper  headings.  But  having 
this  great  Protestant  population  under  our  eye,  we  may 
just  as  well  see  wdiat  is  their  intellectual,  moral,  and 
religious  condition.  Rev.  Mr.  Jenkins  describes  the 
schools  which  he  tells  us  were  almost  universal  ten 
years  ago,  and  which  still  prevail  to  a  large  extent : 

"You  are  riding  along  a  mountain  road,  and  you  hear  a  hum- 
ming noise  in  the  distance,  coming  through  the  trees.  You  go  a 
little  farther  and  distinguish  human  voices  mingling  together  in 
loud  discord.  What  is  the  matter  ?  Nothing  but  a  school  at 
study,  and  all  studying  at  the  top  of  their  voices.  Such  a  din  ! 
This  is  a  'blab  '  school,  though  the  modern  advocates  of  this  kind 
of  school,  and  there  are  plenty  of  them,  sometimes  dignify  them 
with  the  more  elegant  term,  vocal  •=>q\\oo\'s,. 

"  Until  within  a  short  time  the  only  text-book  to  be  found  in 
nine-tenths  of  these  public  schools  was  the  spelling-book,  and 
many  a  school  to-day  is  but  little  in  advance.  A  word  was  re- 
garded as  correctly  spelled  when  all  the  letters  were  named — no 
matter  in  what  order.  It  could  be  spelled  forward,  backward,  or 
both  ways  from  the  middle,  and  still  be  correct !  " 


Good  Manners. 


109 


The  inevitable  consequence  of  such  limited  means  of 
enlightenment  is  not  to  be  wondered  at : 

"  You  can  find  thousands  of  people  who  never  saw  a  dozen 
books  in  their  lives,  and  even  those  who  never  saw  one,  and  do 
not  know  what  the  word  '  book  '  means,  and  more  than  a  million 
who  can  neither  write  their  own  names  nor  recognize  them  in 
print.  It  is  an  intellectual  condition  which  can  be  realized  only 
when  one  is  in  the  midst  of  it.  When  one  is  away  from  it,  he 
begins  to  almost  doubt  his  own  memory  !  " 

Of  the  moral  and  spiritual  condition  of  the  great 
mass  of  these  people,  Rev.  Mr.  Jenkins  says  that 
although  there  are  good  people  among  them,  let  what 
may  be  said  that  is  favorable,  "there  still  remains  a 
condition  of  things  whose  picture  can  scarcely  be  over- 
drawn." There  are  bloody  famil}^  feuds  and  neighbor- 
hood wars  raging  continually,  of  which  state  of  bar- 
barism we  have  heard  not  a  little  ;  "  but  the  worst  has 
not  been  told — it  cannot  be." 

What  is  their  moral  condition  on  another  important 
score,  depending  almost  wholly,  as  we  know,  upon 
what  religious  influences  have  been  brought  to  bear 
upon  a   people  ? 

"  The  relations  of  the  sexes  are  such  as  cannot  be  described. 
The  evils  are  so  great,  and  involve  so  fully  almost  every  family, 
that  public  sentiment  can  scarcely  be  arrayed  with  any  power 
against  them." 

He  intimates  that  the  most  horrible  and  revolting 
form  of  immorality  is  prevalent  among  them  : 

"  Grandchildren  who  never  had  a  legal  father  are  almost  a 
matter  of  course  as  elements  of  the  homes.  The  herding 
together  in  their  little  one-room  cabins  is  a  source  of  unbounded 
evil." 


no  Good  MaJt  ners. 


And  yet  all  these  people,  almost  to  a  man,  if  asked, 
would  reply  that  tlie}^  were  Protestants.  Our  informant 
tells  us  there  are  no  infidels  among  them,  that  ''they 
believe  in  God  and  in  the  Bible,  though  they  know 
little  about  either."     He  goes  on  to  say: 

"  The  churches  are  churches  only  in  name.  They  are  not  ex- 
pected to  be  institutions  for  the  moral  reformation  of  society  [!J. 
Their  meeting-places  are  generally  the  rough,  dirty,  log  school- 
houses.  .  .  .  Ten  years  ago  the  Sunday-school  was  unknown, 
A  little  over  a  year  ago  a  missionary  organized  the  first  Sunday- 
schools  ever  opened  in  a  region  of  more  than  two  thousand 
square  miles  in  size.     .     .     . 

"  There  are  thousands  and  thousands  of  square  miles  full  of 
people — tens  of  thousands  of  children — where  instruction  in  the 
Bible  has  never  been  given,  where  the  voice  of  family  worship  has 
never  been  heard,  and  where  no  child  has  ever  lisped  a  prayer  at 
a  mother's  knee,  or  heard  that  it  is  possible  for  a  child  to  pray." 

Ye  angels  in  heav^en,  before  whom  the  whole  world 
lies  open  to  view,  I  pray  ye  make  known  to  us,  if  from 
the  centre  of  Catholicism  radiating  over  the  whole 
earth  in  every  direction  to  its  antipodes,  there  can  be 
one  child,  knowing  itself  to  be  a  Catholic,  reduced  to 
such  a  state  of  worse  than  pagan  ignorance  !  But  now 
we  shall  learn  the  cause  of  the  religious  destitution  of 
these  mountaineers  : 

"  The  ministers  of  these  churches  are  uneducated.  In  many 
cases  they  cannot  read  a  word  in  the  Bible  or  in  a  child's  primer. 
Often  they  are  openly  immoral.  I  know  of  one  in  Tennessee  still 
acting  as  a  minister  who,  when  he  goes  to  a  neighboring  mining 
town,  is  sometimes  hired  by  the  roughs  to  pray  and  preach  for 
them  in  the  saloons  for  the  sport  it  gives  them.  His  charge  for 
such  a  prayer  or  sermon  is  a  drink  of  whiskey !  " 

Then  we  have  described  for  us  the  revival  ser^nces. 


Good  Manners,  ill 

or  "big  meetings,"  as  they  are  called.  People  gather 
in  great  crowds;  several  ministers  are  present,  ''well 
supplied  with  tobacco,  but  perhaps  without  a  Bible." 
Then  begins  the  sing-song  preaching  and  praying,  the 
wild  and  furious  gesticulation,  working  up  the  congre- 
gation to  fanatical  excitement,  followed  by  marching, 
jumping,  rolling  on  the  floor,  embracing,  screaming,  and 
bodily  contortions.     Then  the  "conversions"    begin. 

"The  converts  press  forward  and  take  the  minister  by  the 
hand  as  a  sign  of  their  desire  to  '  jine  '  him — they  '  jine  the  minis- 
ter '  instead  of  joining  the  church — they  are  baptized,  and  hence- 
forth are  good  church  members.  They  go  back  to  their  homes 
when  the  '  big  meeting  breaks  '  with  no  tJioiight  of  living  a  new 
life,  and  tviih  no  expectation  on  the  part  of  anybody  that  they 
will.  Their  religion  does  not  invoh-e  morahty,  and  everybody 
can  afford  to  be  reHgious.  These  churches  are  good  fighting 
centres.  In  them  the  ministers  fight  ministers,  and  denomina- 
tions fight  denominations.     Sectarianism  is  intensely  bitter,  etc." 

I  think  we  have  learned  quite  enough  of  what  Pro- 
testantism has  failed  to  do  with  its  own  people,  right 
here  under  our  very  eyes,  to  say  nothing  of  the  positive^ 
brutalizing  influences  of  what  Joseph  Kay  calls  the 
"corrupted  and  corruptiiig''  forms  of  it,  although  he 
had  to  acknowledge  that  even  his  own  ' '  more  intellec- 
tual form  of  Protestantism  "—the  Anglican  Church- 
was  not  fitted  for  the  masses  of  people  and  could  do 
nothing  with  them.  The  various  documents  put  out 
by  the  Evangelical  Alliance  abound  in  expressions  of 
sympathy  for  the  alleged  ignorance  of  Catholics  and 
especially  for  their  lack  of  the  light  of  the  pure  Gospel. 
Really  these  charges  are  too  absurd  in  themselves  and 
quite  unworthy  of  the  endorsement  of  the  many  honor- 
able  gentlemen   who  give  their   names  and  support  to 


112  Good  Manners. 


this  association  ;  but  Rev.  Mr.  Jenkins  did  well  to  call 
the  attention  of  the  Alliance  to  some  "sore  needs" 
much  nearer  home  than  the  ' '  Romish  ' '  fields  in  which 
it  aspires  to  labor  with  profit  to  Protestantism. 

But  let  us  turn  to  look  at  a  picture  more  pleasant  to 
contemplate. 

The  popular  novelist,  Ouida,  already  quoted,  has  in 
her  Pascarel  some  charming  descriptions  of  Italian 
character,  crediting  all  that  is  so  admirable  to  the  race 
and  not  to  its  true  cause,  their  religion  ;  but  that  is  not 
surprising  in  one  who  is  hostile  to  the  religion  of  the 
Italian  people.     Here  are  two  extracts  worth  quoting  : 

"  The  Italian,  even  in  the  lowest  strata  of  social  life,  has  a  re- 
pose and  a  dignity  in  him  which  befits  his  physiognomy  and 
evince  themselves  in  his  calm  and  poetical  attitudes.  How  bright 
he  is,  how  gregarious,  how  neighborly,  how  instant  and  graceful  in 
courtesy,  how  eager  and  kindly  in  willingness !  How  certain 
his  invariable  selection  of  a  pleasure  for  the  eye  and  ear  rather 
than  one  for  the  mouth  and  stomach  !  See  the  gay,  elastic  grace 
of  him,  the  mirth  that  ripples  all  day  long  about  him  like  the  sun- 
light. And  he  will  always  have  some  delicate  touch  of  the  artist 
in  him,  too,  and  always  some  fine  instinct  of  the  gentleman — let 
him  be  poor  as  he  will,  ill  clad,  half  starved,  and  ignorant  of  the 
letters  that  make  his  name  ;  he  will  bring  a  flower  to  a  woman 
with  the  bow  of  a  king,  and  he  will  resent  an  insolence  with  an 
air  to  which  no  purples  and  fine  linen  could  lend  dignity." 

And  the  following  on  his  Christian,  fraternal  charity : 

"  See  the  country  in  a  time  of  flood,  of  pestilence,  of  fire — she 
is  heroic,  and  the  woe  of  one  is  the  woe  of  all.  Northern  nations 
have  nothing,  for  example,  comparable  for  self-sacrifice  to  the 
*  Misericordia.'  For  consolidation,  for  devotion  to  duty,  for  all  the 
deepest  and  purest  forms  of  charity,  this  [lay  charitable]  Order 
has  no  equal  in  Europe.     Where  else  will  you  see  the  nobleman 


Good  Manners.  1 1 3 


leaving  his  masked  ball,  the  lover  his  mistress,  the  craftsman  his 
labor,  the  foeman  his  vengeance,  to  go,  at  the  sound  of  the  tocsin, 
and  aid  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  the  dying  ?  " 

And  the  very  same  may  be  vSaid  of  the  Spaniards. 
Spain  is  the  true  land  of  equality.  She  has  learned 
the  Catholic  lesson  well.     Chateaubriand  observes  that 

"One  can  never  remark  in  Spain  any  of  those  servile  airs  and 
turns  of  expression  which  announce  abjection  of  thoughts  or 
degradation  in  mind.  The  language  of  the  great  seigneur  and  of 
the  peasant  is  the  same,  the  greeting  the  same,  the  customs,  the 
compliments,  the  manners  are  the  same."  Another  writer  re- 
marks that  "  servants  are  treated  with  a  sweetness  very  different 
from  our  affected  politeness,  which  only  reminds  them  every  mo- 
ment of  the  inferiority  of  their  condition." 

Of  all  the  characteristics  of  this  truly  Catholic  people 
there  is  perhaps  no  one  which  more  profoundly  im- 
presses the  mind  of  the  stranger  than  this  prevailing 
sense  of  equality  manifested  by  all  classes  alike.  I 
have  already  given  evidence  of  this  in  a  former  chapter. 
Every  observer  of  Spanish  manners  will  fully  endorse 
the  following  testimony  of  an  English  traveller  : 

"I  will  say  for  the  Spaniards  that  in  their  social  intercourse  no 
people  exhibit  a  juster  feeling  of  what  is  due  to  the  dignity  of 
human  nature,  or  better  understand  the  behavior  which  it  be- 
hooves a  man  to  adopt  towards  his  fellow-beings.  The  wealthy 
are  not  idolized  ;  the  duke  or  marquis  can  scarcely  well  entertain  a 
very  overweening  opinion  of  his  own  consequence,  as  no  one  can 
be  found  to  fawn  upon  or  flatter  him." 

It  is  a  Spanish  maxim — "Never  magnify  any  man 
for  his  riches,  nor  esteem  him  less  for  his  poverty,  how- 
ever great  it  may  be."  And  again  :  "  The  dignity  of 
the  man  must  rise  in  proportion  as  his  rank  descends." 


114  Good  Manners. 


An  English  traveller,  Mr.  Scott,  says  : 

"  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  Spanish  snob  ;  that  odious  social 
monstrosity  is  indigenous  only  to  Anglo-Saxon  soil." 

A  vSpanish  writer,  Sanclios,  says  : 

"  In  our  Gallicia  the  blood  is  so  generous  that  the  only  thing 
which  distinguishes  the  poor  from  the  rich  is  that  the  former 
serve  the  latter." 

I  find  an  interesting  bit  of  testimony  to  that  affabil- 
ity and  politeness  so  universal  in  all  Catholic  countries 
in  a  work  written  in  1845  by  Daniel  P.  Kidder:  Sketch- 
es of  Reside7ice  and  Travel  in  Brazil,  etc.  This  gentle- 
man was  an  agent  of  the  Bible  Society,  sent  by  it  to 
that  priest-ridden  Catholic  country  to  distribute  Bibles 
among  the  people  in  the  hope  that  by  reading  them  they 
would  abandon  their  ' '  idolatrous  worship  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  and  images,  and  other  such  like  abominations 
of  Romanism,"  and  find  in  the  Scriptures  the  more  en- 
lightened form  of  faith  and  worship  called  Protestant- 
ism. 

Apparently  he  was  nol  a  little  surprised  to  find  that 
the  Bible  was  there  before  him,  and,  still  more  to  his 
astonishment,  used  and  read  as  a  devotional  book  in 
both  the  primary  and  higher  schools.  It  must  also 
have  cost  him  something  to  confess  that  ' '  the  Bible  had 
never  been  proscribed  in  Brazil." 

He  was  known  to  be  an  agent  of  a  Protestant  Bible 
Society,  not  a  very  welcome  guest  it  might  be  supposed 
in  so  intensely  a  Catholic  country  as  Brazil,  and  yet  he 
testifies  : 

"  At  one  of  the  places  I  visited,  the  individual  to  whom  I  was 
thus  addressed,  and  by  whom  I  was  entertained,  was  a  Roman 


Good  Manners.  115 


Catholic  priest ;  and  it  affords  me  unfeigned  satisfaction  to  say 
that  the  hospitality  which  I  received  under  his  roof  was  just  what 
the  stranger  in  a  strange  land  would  desire." 

The  following  tribute  to  Brazilian  politeness  and 
affability  is  enhanced  by  the  well-merited  hit  at  the 
churlishness  we  often  meet  with  elsewhere  : 

"  Within  these  coaches  might  be  witnessed  perfect  specimens 
of  Brazilian  manners.  A  person  accustomed  to  the  distant  and 
care-for-no-one  airs  which  are  generally  observed  in  the  New 
York  stages,  might  be  a  little  surprised  that  so  much  friendly  at- 
tention and  politeness  could  prevail  among  perfect  strangers,  who 
might  happen  to  meet  each  other  in  these  vehicles.  It  might  be 
equally  surprising  to  see  that  no  one  was  excluded  on  account  of 
coIo7'"  (vol.i.  p.  161). 

And  here  are  two  very  instructive  extracts  testifying 
to  that  ' '  sweetness  with  which  servants  are  treated  in 
Catholic  countries,  so  different  from  our  affected  polite- 
ness," and  to  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion  in 
enforcing  the  recognition  of  Christian  equality  between 
even  master  and  slave  : 

•'  On  the  other  side  of  us  lived  a  Portuguese  widow,  advanced 
in  life,  also  surrounded  with  a  house  full  of  slaves.  She  was  a 
model  of  amiability,  if  not  of  piety.  She  treated  her  slaves  as 
tenderly  as  though  they  had  been  her  own  children,  and  was 
specially  punctilious  in  calling  them  together  at  vespers,  and  caus- 
ing them  to  say  their  pater-nosters  and  chant  a  litany  of  moder- 
ate length.  So  well  trained  were  they  to  this  exercise  that  their 
voices  would  not  have  done  discredit  to  the  music  of  some  of  our 
churches." 

"In  the  course  of  the  evening  half  an  hour  was  devoted  to 
vespers  [night  prayers].  I  had  observed  a  great  number  of  the 
slaves  entering,  who,  in  succession,  addressed  us  with  crossed 
hands  and  the  pious  salutation,  '  Seja  loitvado  Nosso  Senhor  Jesus 


1 1 6  Good  Manners. 


Christo '—Blessed  be  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Presently  there 
commenced  a  chant  in  the  adjoining  room,  when  the  padre,  who 
sat  by  my  side,  rising,  said  he  supposed  I  did  not  pray  [!j,  but  that 
he  was  going  to  do  so.  I  corrected  his  mistake,  and  he  went  out 
laughing,  without,  however,  inviting  any  of  us  to  accompany  him. 
I  was  told  that  he  attended  these  exercises  merely  as  any  other 
member  of  the  family,  the  singing  and  prayers  being  taught  and 
conducted  by  an  aged  black  man.  The  devotions  of  the  evening 
consisted  chiefly  of  a  novena  !  It  was  really  pleasant  to  hear  the 
sound  of  a  hundred  voices  mingling  in  this  their  chief  religious 
exercise  and  privilege.  This  assembling  the  slaves,  generally  at 
evening,  and  sometimes  both  morning  and  evening,  is  said  to  be 
common  on  plantations  in  the  country,  and  is  not  unfrequent 
among  domestics  in  the  cities.  Mistress  and  servant  at  these 
times  meet  on  a  level.  The  pleasures  afforded  the  latter  by  such 
opportunities,  in  connection  with  the  numerous  holydays  enjoined 
by  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  form  certainly  a  great  mitigation 
of  the  hard  lot  of  servitude!"  {ibid.,  pp.  159-246). 

What  does  Mr.  Thieblin,  already  quoted  in  our 
glance  at  Spain,  tell  us  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was 
received  even  by  the  priests  in  that  country  : 

"Very  frequently  did  it  happen  on  my  journeys,  that  within 
five  or  six  minutes  of  my  alighting  at  an  inn  a  cure,  and  sometimes 
three  or  four  of  them,  informed  that  a  stranger  had  come,  would 
come  to  the  inn,  and  they  would  seldom  allow  me  to  remain  there. 
I  had  to  go  to  the  house  of  the  senior  of  them  if  there  were  many. 
...  A  stout  cure  at  Aranatz  was  particularly  amiable. 
...  I  think  I  had  to  pass  that  village  about  half  a  dozen 
times,  and  on  each  occasion  he  caught  me,  and  would  not  let  me 
go  unless  I  not  only  had  a  dinner  or  a  supper,  but  stopped  over- 
night with  him.  .  .  .  And  what  struck  me  as  particularly  re- 
markable in  these  cures,  and  somewhat  different  from  the  customs 
of  a  good  many  other  clergymen,  was  that,  while  giving  you  their 
best  hospitality,  they  did  not  at  all  expect  you  to  go  to  church 
with  them." 


Good  Manners. 


117 


Of  the  hospitality  of  the  common  people  he  has  the 
same  testimony  to  give  : 

"  If  a  caballero  be  thirsty  and  ask  for  a  glass  of  water,  it  is 
never  served  in  its  pure  and  simple  state.  There  is  always  in  it 
an  azucarillo,  a  kind  of  sweetmeat.  It  costs  no  more  than  a 
farthing  perhaps,  but  a  farthing  is  a  consideration  for  people  in 
these  countries,  and  as  every  woman  serves  a  good  many  aziicar- 
illos  in  a  day,  the  whole  must  cost  her  quite  a  little  fortune.  Yet 
you  feel  at  once  you  dare  not  propose  to  give  her  anything  in 
return ;  you  shake  hands  with  her,  and  that  is  the  only  ac- 
knowledgment she  will  accept.  If  you  happen  to  be  belated  and 
cannot  reach  the  inn  you  had  in  view,  you  can  safely  knock  at  the 
door  of  any  house  on  your  road — where  you  are  certain  to  be 
made  as  welcome  as  if  you  were  an  old  friend"  (Spain  and  the 
Spaniards,  pp.  67-69). 

There  has  never  been  any  question  of  the  superiority 
of  the  manners  of  the  French  to  those  of  our  English- 
speaking  people,  especially  on  the  score  of  politeness  in 
social  converse,  yet  there  has  always  been  a  deep-seated 
national  prejudice  manifested  by  the  English  against 
their  French  Catholic  neighbors.  This  testimony, 
therefore,  of  Mr.  Eaing  is  all  the  more  valuable  : 

"  Let  us  do  justice  to  the  French  character.  Their  self-com- 
mand, their  upon  honor  principle,  is  very  remarkable,  and  much 
more  generally  diffused  than  among  our  own  population.  They 
are,  I  believe,  a  more  honest  people  than  the  British.  The  beg- 
gar, who  is  evidently  hungry,  respects  the  fruit  upon  the  road-side 
within  his  reach,  although  there  is  nobody  to  protect  it.  Property 
is  much  respected  in  France,  and  in  bringing  up  children  this 
fidelity  towards  the  property  of  others  seems  much  more  carefully 
inculcated  by  parents  of  the  lowest  class,  in  the  home  education 
of  their  children,  than  with  us.  This  respect  for  the  property  is 
closely  connected  with  that  respect  for  the  feelings  of  our 
neighbors  which  constitutes  what  is  called  good  maimers.     This 


1 1 8  Good  Manners. 


is  carefully  inculcated  in  children  of  all  ranks  in  France.  They 
are  taught  to  do  what  is  pleasing  and  agreeable  to  others.  We 
English  are  too  apt  to  undervalue  this  spirit,  as  tending  merely  to 
superficial  accomplishments,  to  empty  compliment  in  words,  and 
unmeaning  appearance  in  acts.  But,  in  reality,  this  reference  to 
the  feelings  of  others  in  all  w©  do  is  a  moral  habit  of  great  value 
where  it  is  generally  diffused,  and  enters  into  the  home-training  of 
every  family.  It  is  an  education  both  of  the  parent  or  child  in 
morals,  carried  on  through  the  medium  of  external  manners. 

"  Our  lower  and  middle  classes  are  deficient  in  this  kind  of 
family  education.  It  is  a  fine  distinction  of  the  French  national 
character,  and  social  economy,  that  practical  morality  is  more 
generally  taught  through  manners,  among  and  by  the  people  them- 
selves, than  in  any  country  in    Europe  "  {Notes  of  a    Traveller, 

P-79)- 

All  that  this  writer  tells  us  of  the  French  is  equally 

true  of  all  other  Catholic  peoples,  each  nation  giving  to 
its  language  and  gesture  some  tone  or  form  of  expres- 
sion of  almost  indescribable  charm  peculiar  to  itself. 

If  I  were  to  put  a  history  of  Ireland  into  the  hands 
of  one  who  had  never  yet  met  with  an  Irish  Catholic — 
if  such  a  one  could  be  found  in  the  known  world — he 
could  not  possibly  rise  from  its  perusal  without  being 
convinced  that  the  peasantry  of  that  island,  whatever 
might  have  been  their  social  manners  three  centuries 
ago,  must  be  now  reduced,  by  force  of  the  persecutions 
to  which  they  had  been  subjected,  to  a  condition  of 
the  rudest  and  most  brutal  savagery.  One  can  well 
imagine  his  over^vhelming  astonishment  if,  after  hav- 
ing read  its  history,  he  should  come  to  visit  Ireland, 
and  journey  through  even  its  wildest  and  most  poverty- 
stricken  districts,  at  finding  there,  as  we  know  he 
would,  abundant  evidences  to  prove  that  as  a  people  the 
Catholic  Irish,  including  the  very  lowest  in  the  social 
scale,    deserve   to   be   ranked    among   the  most   polite- 


Good  Manners,  1 1 9 


mannered  nations  in  the  world  !  If  our  stranger  should 
be  somewhat  of  a  philosopher  and  be  induced  to  look 
for  the  cause  of  this  social  marA'el,  there  can  be  no 
question  that  he  would  attribute  it  to  none  other  but  to 
the  refining  influences  of  the  religion  to  which  they 
have  been  so  singularly  faithful. 

I  argue,  therefore,  that  where  a  people  are  thorough- 
ly indoctrinated  with,  and  disciplined  to  carry  out  in 
practical  social  life,  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  man's 
equality  their  civility  will  show  itself  in  their  manners. 
They  will  be  urbane,  polite,  gracious,  hospitable,  good- 
humored,  chivalric,  considerate  of  others,  respectful  to 
superiors  in  learning  or  station,  quick  of  ej^e,  and 
read}^  of  hand  to  serve  one's  neighbor,  be  he  friend  or 
stranger;  ever  courteous  to  women  and  kind  to 
children,  cultivated  and  correct  in  language,  both  as  to 
form  and  tone,  holding  in  horror  coarse  slang  and  all 
profanity  and  indecenc}'  in  conversation.  The  youth 
will  give  place  to  and  reverence  the  aged,  the  de- 
formed, and  the  infirm. 

That  the  Irish  Catholic  never  mocks  at  the  idiotic, 
but  applies  to  such  afflicted  ones  the  pitying  term  of 
''innocent,"  speaks  volumes  for  the  gentleness  of 
manners  inspired  by  their  religion.  Filial  respect  and 
obedience  will  go  through  the  whole  life,  the  parent 
always  the  parent,  the  child  always  the  child.  All 
these  habits  and  manners  characterize  a  civil  people, 
and  where  this  civility  is  highly  marked  in  all  classes 
of  society  there  is  a  high  state  of  civilization. 

This  is  the  unquestionable  character  of  every  Catho- 
lic nation  in  the  world,  not  one  excepted.  Can  the 
same  be  said  of  any  Protestant  country  ? 

If   my   reader  will    procure   a   copy   of   LippincotV s 


1 20  Good  Manners, 


Magazine  for  January,  1892,  he  will  find  therein  an 
article  contributed  by  Mrs.  Amelia  E.  Barr,  one  of  our 
charming  and  instructive  American  writers,  entitled 
"  The  Decline  of  Politeness."  Let  him  read  that,  and 
then  apply  its  well-put  truths  to  the  people  of  such 
nations  as  he  knows  or  has  heard  of. 

Why  is  politeness  declining,  and  civilization  vanish- 
ing in  some  nations  ?     Because  they  are  living  too  fast. 

"  Everybody  is  in  a  hurry.  Hurry  is  the  marching  order  of  the 
day.  There  is  no  time  to  be  civil  in  words  or  manner.  There  is 
only  time  at  best  for  good-natured  chaff  and  to  go  one's  way,  not 
reflecting  that  chaff  easily  falls  into  familiarity  and  impertinence." 

Again,  the  popular  maxim  of  the  da}^  is  : 

"  Time  is  money,  .  .  .  and  wealth  now  pushes  itself  every- 
where, and  cultivated  society  suffers  by  the  introduction  of  persons 
whose  only  claim  to  recognition  is  that  they  have  made  money. 
Making  money  does  not  necessarily  make  a  man  vulgar,  but 
pushing  does.  And  in  this  crowding,  shoving,  and  vulgarity  of 
push,  courtesy  is  lost,  and  unselfishness — the  fundamental  quality 
of  fine  manners  [the  mark  of  true  civilization] — becomes  the  very 
excellence  that  is  7iot  wanted." 

The  writer  then  goes  on  to  read  a  wholesome 
lesson  to  our  modern  vulgar,  pushing  society  women, 

"  whose  habits  of  gregarious  fastness  have  been  constantly  more 
daring  and  reckless;  .  .  .  and  the  most  delicate  graces 
of  life  are  being  lost.  .  .  .  Chivalry  and  tender  reverence  for 
women  began  in  an  age  that  knew  nothing  of  strong-minded 
women,  voluble  and  exacting,  elbowing  their  male  competitors  in 
all  the  avocations  of  life.  .  .  .  Children  are  not  now  taught  to 
honor  their  father  and  their  mother"  [No;  they  call  them  the 
"  old  man  "  and  the  "  old  woman  "],  "  and  neither  the  tone  of 
society  nor  its  securities  have  been  improved  by  neglecting  those 
domestic    good  manners  which    sweeten   and   strengthen  life   at 


Good  Manners.  \  2  [ 


its  very  roots.  ...  No  man  is  polite  enough,  no  man  is 
human  enough,  whose  pubHc  courtesies  have  not  their  origin  in 
the  gracious  sweetness  generated  upon  his  own  hearth. 
Bows,  courtesies,  costumes,  ceremonies,  have  an  enormous  moral 
value.  Now  money  rules  everything ;  .  .  .  money  scorns  the 
quiet  habits  of  the  old  world.  .  .  .  Our  heads  ache,  we  are 
weary,  the  neuralgia  at  which  our  ancestors  would  have  laughed 
tortures  our  fretted  nerves ;  we  have,  indeed,  fits  of  strange 
energy,  but  for  all  that,  wc  have  nof  health." 

Our  writer  is  hopeful  that  the  next  generation  will 
do  better.  So  it  will  if  Catholic  principles  of  civ- 
ilization regain  their  ascendency,  but  not  otherwise. 

"  Then  their  minds  will  regain  their  elasticity,  the  will,  and  the 
suavity  we  have  been  compelled  to  let  go,  or  to  spend  upon  the 
mere  task  of  getting  through  life.  But  until  this  time  arrives, 
naturally  there  is  great  danger  of  our  losing  in  the  struggle  that 
exquisite  something  which  alone  makes  us  hwnan  enough. 
There  zs  real  social  danger  in  discarding  all  forms  of  civility,  and 
even  some  antiquated  forms  and  ceremonies.  They  are  the 
symbols  of  order  and  of  safety  :  and  if  they  are  removed  from  the 
growing  generation,  as  well  as  neglected  by  our  own  over-worked 
selves,  then  we  voluntarily  take  off  powerful  checks  from  brutal 
passions,  and  we  may  gird  up  our  loins  to  meet  such  evil  days  as 
we  have  at  present  no  conception  of.  The  soldier's  uniform,  the 
sailor's  peculiar  garb,  the  nun's  veil,  the  clergyman's  cloth,  the 
civil  oath,  the  attitude  of  prayer,  the  bridal  veil,  the  marriage  ring, 
the  sign  of  the  cross — these  and  many  other  kindred  forms  and 
symbols  are  the  rivets  ajid  bolts  that  keep  home  ajtd  society 
from  falling  into  chaos."     [The  italics  are  mine.] 

How  vividly  this  lament  for  the  decline  of  politeness 
portrays,  by  contrast,  the  higher,  purer,  and  nobler 
order  of  civilization  which  has  always  distinguished  the 
people  of  Catholic  countries  under  the  truly  refining, 
educating  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion  ! 


122  Good  Manners. 


The  thoughtful  reader  will  not  fail  to  have  noted 
this  observ^ant  writer's  judgment  expressed  concern- 
ing the  great  moral  value  in  the  use  of  ceremonious 
gesture  in  social  intercourse.  The  Church  is,  as  all 
know,  a  perfect  school  of  politeness  in  the  profuse 
emplo3'ment  of  suggestive  and  appropriate  ceremonies 
in  her  public  worship.  One  does  not  learn  how  to 
behave  as  a  gentleman  by  simply  reading  a  book  con- 
taining Rules  on  Etiquette  ;  one  can  only  learn  how 
by  personally  associating  with  gentlemen.  Now,  the 
Catholic  religious  ceremonial  offers  to  all  classes  of 
persons  a  very  instructive  object-lesson  in  much  that 
goes  to  make  what  is  understood  to  constitute  polite- 
ness, and  they  naturally  come  to  imitate  what  they  so 
constantly  see  before  them,  and  in  which  the}^  take 
more  or  less  a  part.  Here  also  the  people  come  under 
that  powerful  moi^al  influence  of  politeness  of  which  our 
author  speaks,  acquiring  that  refinement  of  bearing  and 
courtesy  to  others  which  is  due  to  the  inspiration  of  the 
sentiments  of  reverence  towards  what  is  sacred,  and  of 
respectful  humility  of  behavior  in  presence  of  superiors, 
in  all  of  which  there  is  no  need  to  offer  evidence  that 
the  sanctuaries  of  the  Catholic  religion  are  unsurpassed 
as  schools  of  such  moral  culture. 

One  is  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  learn  that  the 
great  masters  of  popular  education  among  Catholics  in 
every  age,  and  notably  those  who  vow  themselves 
wholly  to  such  teaching,  have  not  forgotten  to  recog- 
nize the  necessity  of  leavening  their  instruction  with 
lessons  in  what  is  at  once  demanded  by  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Christian  charity  and  lends  to  all  social 
intercourse,  even  among  the  lowliest,  an  indescribable 
charm.     Let  us   listen  to  a  word  on  this  subject  from 


Good  Manners,  123 

the  saintly  founder  of  that  noble  army  of  lay  teachers, 
the  Christian  Brothers — the  Blessed  John  Baptist  de 
La  Salle,  who  so  highly  esteemed  the  inculcation  of  the 
principles  and  practice  of  politeness  as  to  write  a 
treatise  on  the  subject,   from  which  I  quote  : 

"  It  is'  a  surprising  thing  that  many  Christians  only  think  of 
poHteness  and  good  breeding  as  purely  human  and  belonging  only 
to  this  world.  This  shows  how  little  true  Christianity  there  is  in 
the  world,  and  how  few  persons  there  are  who  live  and  behave 
according  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ.  All  our  outward  actions, 
to  which  the  rules  of  good  breeding  apply,  should  bear  upon  them 
the  character  of  virtue  "  {Les  Regies  de  la  Bzenseance,  et  de  la 
Civilte  Chretienne). 

If  the  writer,  belonging  to  a  nation  so  renowned  and 
admired  for  its  politeness,  could  see  so  much  lacking  of 
his  own  ideal  among  his  polished  countrymen,  what 
sort  of  barbarians  would  he  not  likely  set  us  down 
to  be? 

Undoubtedly  the  most  alarming  evidence  of  the  de- 
cline of  civilization,  under  the  influence  of  Protestant- 
ism and  Secularism,  is  the  gradual  breaking  up  of  the 
very  fundamental  institution  of  society — the  family  ; 
and  the  secularizing — I  might  say  brutalizing — all  its 
former  sacred  relations.  Let  me  quote  a  few  words 
from  that  eminent  Spanish  philosopher,  Donoso  Cortes  : 

"  In  Catholic  ages,  the  family  relation  tends  to  the  highest 
degree  of  excellence  ;  its  human  element  is  spiritualized.  In  the 
domestic  life  children  reverently  submit  to  their  father  and 
mother,  and  the  inmates  of  cloisters,  with  a  still  greater  reverence 
and  submission,  bathe  with  their  tears  the  sacred  feet  of  a  better 
father  and  the  holy  habit  of  a  more  tender  mother.  When 
Catholic  civilization  is  no  longer  in  the  ascendant,  and  begins  to 
decline,  the    family  relation   immediately   becomes   impaired,  its 


1 24  Good  Manners. 


constitution  vitiated,  its  elements  disunited,  and  all  its  ties  en- 
feebled. The  father  and  mother,  whom  God  had  united  in  the 
bonds  of  affection,  substitute  for  this  sacred  tie  a  severe  formal- 
ity ;  while  the  children  lose  that  filial  reverence  enjoined  upon 
them  by  God,  and  a  sacrilegious  familiarity  usurps  its  place. 
The  ties  which  united  the  family  are  loosened,  debased,  and  pro- 
faned. Finally,  they  become  obliterated,  the  family  disperses,  and 
is  lost  in  the  circles  of  the  clubs  and  places  of  amusement.  .  .  . 
In  the  human  anti-Catholic  family  the  relation  between  father  and 
mother  lasts  only  some  years,  between  them  and  the  children 
only  some  months ;  in  the  artificial  family  of  clubs  only  a  day.  and 
in  that  of  jjlaces  of  amusement  but  for  a  moment  "  {Essay  on 
Catholicisjn,  Liberalism,  and  Socialism,  pp.  39,  40). 


CHAPTER  XI. 

POPULAR  HAPPINESS. 

CERTAINLY  the  chief  end  of  human  society  is  the 
securing  of  the  happiness  of  the  individuals  con- 
stituting it.  The  fathers  of  our  Republic  enunciated  a 
cardinal  principle  which  no  social  order  can  ignore: 
Man  has  the  inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  a  principle  in  the  proclamation 
and  defence  of  which  the  whole  history  of  Catholic 
civilization  is  the  brilliant  record.  Its  reaffirmation  by 
the  founders  of  our  Republic  was,  in  effect,  a  protest 
against  the  practical  denial  of  that  principle,  in  the  in- 
security of  life,  the  unjust  limitations  to  liberty,  and  the 
obstacles  to  popular  happiness,  following  the  establish- 
ment of  the  civil  and  religious  despotisms  everywhere 
inaugurated  and  sustained  by  Protestantism  in  Europe, 
in  proof  of  which  the  reader  will  soon  have  abundant 
evidence  in  the  chapters  on  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty. 

If  Protestantism  is  declining  in  our  country  pari- 
passu  with  the  rapid  increase  of  Catholicism  and  the 
equally  rapid  development  of  that  fundamental  principle 
of  our  American  liberties,  he  must  indeed  be  a  poor 
philosopher  of  history,  and  unreflecting  observer,  who 
fails  to  draw  the  only  logical  conclusion  possible. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  Catholic  Church 
has  made  good  her  claim  to  have  a  mission  to  beatify 
the  people,  to  give  them  a  form  of  civilization  which  in- 
sures the  greatest  possible  happiness  for  the  greatest 
number;    and   the   secret  of  her  influence   lies   in   her 

125 


1 26  Popular  Happiness. 

supernatural  j^ower  to  unify  all  the  naturally  discordant 
antagonisms  of  race  and  social  condition. 

One  of  the  greatest  marv^els  which  impresses  the 
mind  of  the  reader  of  history  is,  that  the  Church  was 
not  only  able  to  transform  the  whole  order  of  pagan 
civilization  by  bringing  all  men  under  its  sway  to  re- 
gard each  other  as  brethren,  but  that  it  was  able  to 
inspire  them  with  a  sense  of  equality,  despite  the  mani- 
fold and  necessary  physical,  mental,  and  moral  inequali- 
ties of  mankind,  and  that,  too,  not  by  depressing  the 
higher  and  more  worthy,  but  by  elevating  the  low  and 
mean  ;  not  by  permitting  the  power  of  authority  to  refer 
its  sanction  to  brute  force  sustained  by  the  bayonet  or 
by  conscienceless  majorities,  but  by  compelling  it  to 
recognize  the  divine  supremacy  of  justice  and  charity  ; 
not  by  debasing  obedience  into  servile  submission,  but 
by  ennobling  it  as  a  virtue,  as  the  voluntary  act  of  a 
freeman  sustaining  the  bulwark  of  his  own  liberties. 
This  Catholic  ideal  of  political  solidarity,  unifying  the 
interests  of  both  governors  and  governed,  is  supposed  to 
be  the  basis  of  American  democracy  upon  which  is 
founded  our  claim  to  equality  of  citizenship. 

By  so  much  as  this  idea  of  solidarity  fails  to  be  real- 
ized by  so  much  does  the  state  of  society  fail  of  being 
truly  civilized,  at  least  according  to  the  Christian  ideal, 
such  as  the  Catholic  Church  has  ever  held  up  to  man- 
kind as  the  standard  of  perfection  to  be  aimed  at,  in 
order  that  all  men,  each  one  in  his  own  sphere,  should 
not  only  enjoy  their  inalienable  right  to  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  but  be  aided  as  well  by  his  Christian  breth- 
ren to  attain  that  happiness. 

As  the  Catholic  Church  is  far  from  placing  the 
means  of  happiness  in  the   attainment  of  any  created 


Popular  Happiness.  12/ 


good  for  its  own  sake,  the  nations  Wliicli  have  been 
moulded  into  form  by  her  have  manifested  a  certain  in- 
difference towards  the  gaining  of  riches,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  mere  animal  comforts  and  luxuries  ;  in  broad 
contrast  to  that  feverish,  jealous  hankering  for  the 
possession  of  colossal  wealth,  with  its  enervating  en- 
vironments— the  well-known  and  deplorable  character- 
istics of  nations  taught  in  the  school  of  Protestantism. 
Because  Catholic  peoples  appear  to  be  contented  and 
happy  with  what  is  moderate,  plain,  and  simple,  they 
are  reviled  by  Protestants  as  being  unprogressive, 
backward,  and  worthy  of  contempt,  forgetting  that  the 
true  end  of  society  is  to  make  virtuous  and  happy  citi- 
zens of  the  many,  not  rich  and  privileged  ones  of  the 
few  ;  to  secure,  in  a  word,  the  greatest  happiness  to  the 
greatest  number.  Her  statesmanship  has  been  thus 
aptly  expressed:  "The  majority  of  citizens  should  be 
neither  too  rich  nor  too  poor.  The  greater  the  number 
of  moderate  fortunes,  the  greater  will  be  the  stability 
of  states.  A  universal  mediocrity  in  this  respect  is  the 
most  wholesome." 

And  history  confirms  the  acceptation  of  this  doctrine 
when  it  shows  us  that  until  the  disastrous  revolt  of 
Protestantism,  there  were  so  few  of  the  "too  poor"  to 
be  found  in  Catholic  nations  that  such  institutions 
as  the  state  "poor-house"  and  the  very  name  of 
"pauper,"  as  a  recipient  of  enforced  state  benevolence, 
was  utterly  unknown.  It  was  Protestantism  that  gave 
to  the  word  ''pauper''  in  all  modern  languages  the 
sense  it  now  has. 

I  wonder  how  many  of  our  scholarly  youth  or  their 
more  scholarly  elders,  to  whom  Goldsmith's  renowned 
poem,  "The  Deserted  Village,"  is  familiar,  have  per- 


128  Popular  Happiness. 

ceived  what  a  faithful  picture  it  is  of  England's  former 
popular  happiness,  the  result  of  its  Catholic  faith  and 
manners,  brought  into  vivid  and  painful  contrast  with 
its  decadence  under  the  influence  of  Protestantism. 

The  poet  is  also  the  seer.  No  doubt  he  had  much 
before  his  eyes  in  his  own  day  to  warrant  the  philo- 
sophical reflections  he  makes  upon  the  direful  conse- 
quences following  the  total  disruption  of  the  ancient 
Catholic  social  order ;  but  later  events  make  of  his  poem 
as  well  an  all  too  true  and  mournful  prophecy. 

What  an  attractive  picture  it  is  that  he  draws  of  the 
rural  happiness  formerly  reigning  amongst  the  peasan- 
try in  such  English  villages  as  the  one  which  he  has 
immortalized  as 

"  Sweet  Auburn,  loveliest  village  of  the  plain, 
Where  health  and  plenty  cheer'd  the  laboring  swain  ; 
Where  smiling  Spring  its  earliest  visit  paid, 
And  parting  Summer's  lingering  blooms  delay 'd." 

These  were  homes  of  sweet  contentment  worthy  to 
be  praised  and  envied  as 

"  Dear  lovely  bowers  of  innocence  and  ease." 

Such  indeed  they  were  vSO  long  as  the  traditional 
force  of  Catholic  civilization  preser\xd  something  of 
that  popular  happiness  it  has  always  inspired.  But  the 
Reformation  had  brought  to  England  not  only  a  new 
religion,  but  a  new  social  order,  the  order  of  material 
progress,  and  now  the  people,  once  nourished  at  the 
breasts  of  their  Mother  Earth,  found  themselves  heart- 
lessly robbed  of  their  little  but  sufficient  possessions, 
and. with  that  loss  departed  all  their  simple  and  natural 
joys  arising  from  their  affectionate  attachment  to  the 


Popular  Happiness.  129 

soil  and  to  their  peaceful  homes,  and  from  a  life-long 
association  with  sympathizing  and  kindly-hearted 
friends  and  neighbors. 

"  Sweet  smiling  village,  loveliest  of  the  lawn  ! 
Thy  sports  are  fled,  and  all  thy  charms  withdrawn: 
Amidst  thy  bowers  the  tyrant's  hand  is  seen, 
And  desolation  saddens  all  thy  green. 
One  only  master  grasps  the  whole  domain, 
And  half  a  tillage  stints  thy  smiling  plain. 

And  trenibling,  shrinking  from  the  spoiler's  hand, 
Far,  far  away  thy  children  leave  the  land." 

In  Catholic  times  the  land  sustained  the  people,  not 
in  luxury,  it  is  true,  but  with  a  sufficiency  for  a  lite  that 
was  a  happy  and  a  worthy  one.  Then  the  English 
peasant  was  glad-hearted  and  innocent,  and  could  both 
laugh  and  sing.     So  the  poet  testifies  : 

"  111  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey. 
Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay. 
A  time  there  was,  ere  England's  griefs  began, 
When  every  rood  of  ground  maintained  its  man  ; 
For  him  light  labor  spread  her  wholesome  store, 
Just  gave  what  life  required,  but  gave  no  more  : 
His  best  companions,  innocence  and  health, 
And  his  best  riches,  ignorance  of  wealth." 

But  Protestantism,  the  religion  which  inspired  the 
love  of  riches,  and  cravings  for  material  glory  and 
luxurious  animal  comforts  and  pleasures,  changed  the 
happy,  laughing  peasant  into  a  mournful  pauper, 
"scourged  by  famine  from  the  smiling  land,"  or  sink- 
ing scorned  into  a  pauper's  grave.  Hearken  to  the 
poet  : 


130  Popular  Happiness. 

"  But  times  are  alter'd  ;  trade's  unfeeling  train 
Usurp  the  land,  and  dispossess  the  swain. 
Along  the  lawn,  where  scatter'd  hamlets  rose, 
Unwieldy  wealth  and  cumbrous  pomp  repose  : 
And  every  want  to  luxury  allied, 
And  every  pang  that  folly  pays  to  pride. 
Those  gentle  hours  that  plenty  bade  to  bloom. 
Those  calm  desires  that  ask'd  but  little  room, 
Those  healthful  sports  that  graced  the  peaceful  scene 
Lived  in  each  look,  and  brighten'd  all  the  green  : 
These,  far  departing,  seek  a  kinder  shore. 
And  rural  mirth  and  manners  are  no  more." 

In  his  oft-quoted  lines  portraying  rural  happiness, 
which  follow,  the  poet,  of  course,  is  describing  only 
England  judged  by  his  knowledge  of  the  condition  of 
the  country  people  derived  from  history.  But  in  every 
line  it  is  a  truthful  picture  of  the  like  virtuous  and 
happy  life  of  the  country  people  in  every  Catholic  land 
— that  life  of  simplicity,  purity,  sobriety,  and  content- 
ment ;  a  life  accompanied  with  joyousness  and  smiles, 
with  dance  and  song,  a  life  of  homely  yet  sufficient 
comfort,  of  neighborly  friendship,  of  filial  and  parental 
love,  and  of  honored  and  peaceful  days  for  old  age. 
The  following  quotation  from  his  preface,  dedicated  to 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  show^s  that  the  poet  is  no  mean 
social  economist  in  pointing  out  the  cause  to  which  the 
loss  of  all  this  popular  happiness  is  to  be  referred  : 

"  In  regretting  the  depopulation  of  the  country  I  inveigh 
against  the  increase  of  our  luxuries  ;  and  here  also  I  expect 
the  shout  of  modern  politicians  against  me.  For  twenty  or  thirty 
years  past,  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  consider  luxury  as  one  of 
the  greatest  national  advantages "  [the  lack  of  it  in  Catholic 
countries  is  just  what  the  Protestant  controversialist  points  to  with 
the  finger  of  scorn],  "  and  all  the  wisdom  of  antiquity  in  that  par- 


Popular  Happiness,  131 

ticular  as  erroneous.  Still,  however,  I  must  remain  a  professed 
ancient  on  that  head,  and  continue'  to  think  those  luxuries 
prejudicial  to  states  by  which  so  many  vices  are  introduced, 
and  so  many  kingdoms  have  been  undone." 

Having  painted  the  bright  picture  of  that  ancient 
happiness  in  his  truthful  and  charming  verse,  and  view- 
ing the  desolation  that  has  followed  upon  the  false  and 
destructive  modern  social  ideal,  he  exclaims  : 

"  Ye  friends  to  truth,  ye  statesmen  who  survey 
The  rich  man's  joys  increase,  the  poor's  decay  ! 
'Tis  yours  to  judge,  how  wide  the  limits  stand 
Between  a  splendid  and  a  happy  land. 
Proud  swells  the  tide  with  loads  of  freighted  ore, 
And  shouting  Folly  hails  them  from  her  shore  : 
Hoards,  e'en  beyond  the  miser's  wish,  abound. 
And  rich  men  flock  from  all  the  world  around. 
Yet  count  our  gains.     This  wealth  is  but  a  name 
That  leaves  our  useful  products  still  the  same. 
Not  so  the  loss.     The  man  of  wealth  and  pride 
Takes  up  a  space  that  many  poor  supplied  : 
Space  for  his  lake,  his  park's  extended  bounds, 
Space  for  his  horses,  equipage  and  hounds ; 
The  robe  that  wraps  his  limbs  in  silken  sloth 
Has  robb'd  the  neighboring  fields  of  half  their  growth  : 
His  seat,  where  solitary  sports  are  seen, 
Indignant  spurns  the  cottage  from  the  green  : 
Around  the  world  each  needful  product  flies 
For  all  the  luxuries  the  world  supplies. 
While  thus  the  land  adorned  for  pleasure,  all 
In  barren  splendor  feebly  waits  the  fall. 
Thus  fares  the  land,  by  luxury  betray'd, 
In  nature's  simplest  charms  at  first  array 'd. 
But  verging  to  decline,  its  splendors  rise, 
Its  vistas  strike,  its  palaces  surprise; 
While  scourged  by  famine  from  the  smiling  land. 
The  mournful  peasant  leads  his  humble  band ; 


132  Popular  Happiness. 


And  while  he  sinks,  without  one  arm  to  save, 
The  country  blooms— a  garden  and  a  grave  !  " 

Then  comes  the  picture  of  the  fruits  of  all  this  rob- 
bery of  the  poor  and  of  their  happiness, — pauperism, 
slavery  in  factories  and  mines,  crime,  prostitution, 
degradation  of  once  manly  hearts,  and  forced  exile  :  a 
fate  to  many  a  one,  both  old  and  young,  far  bitterer 
than  death.  The  poet's  heart  swells  with  indignant 
sorrow,  and  from  his  lips  breaks  forth  his  righteous 
malediction  : 

"  O  luxury  !  thou  cursed  by  Heaven's  decree, 
And  ill  exchanged  are  things  like  these  for  thee  ! 
How  do  thy  potions,  with  insidious  joy, 
Diffuse  thy  pleasures  only  to  destroy  ! 
Kingdoms  by  thee,  to  sickly  greatness  grown. 
Boast  of  a  florid  vigor  not  their  own  : 
At  every  draught  more  large  and  large  they  grow, 
A  bloated  mass  of  rank  unwieldy  woe  : 
Till  sapp'd  their  strength,  and  every  part  unsound, 
Down,  down  they  sink,  and  spread  a  ruin  round." 

No  wonder  that  William  Cobbett,  that  vigorous 
Protestant  writer  who,  when  he  came  across  a  robber 
of  the  poor  in  history,  was  not  slow^  to  give  him  the 
name  he  deserved,  should  say  that  "the  Reformation 
was  a  devastation  of  England,  which  was,  at  the  time 
when  that  event  took  place,  the  happiest  country,  per- 
haps, that  the  world  had  ever  seen."  Another  such 
country  now,  containing  as  much  heart-breaking 
misery  and  revolting  wretchedness,  could  certainly  not 
be  found  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  The  reader  will  not 
have  to  go  outside  the  perusal  of  this  volume  for 
abundant  proof. 


Popular  Happiness,  133 

Popvilar  happiness  is  not  to  be  gauged  by  the  joys  of 
a  fortune-favored  few,  who,  from  the  very  fact  that  they 
possess  so  much  more  than  should  abundantly  suffice 
for  all  rational  wants  and  enjoyments,  too  often  plunge 
into  a  vortex  of  dissipation  and  find  ' '  their  toiling  pleas- 
ures sicken  into  pain."  And  this,  all  the  world  over,  is 
the  more  true  of  those  w^hose  riches  have  accumulated 
at  the  expense  of  the  unjustly  rewarded  labor  of  the 
many,  and  their  consequent  loss  of  even  the  simplest 
and  most  rightful  joys  of  human  life. 

Catholic  civilization  has  always  stoutly  maintained 
and  carefully  preserved  the  foundation  upon  w^hich 
popular  happiness  can  alone  be  sustained,  the  domestic 
life  of  the  family.  It  is  in  vain  to  hope  for  a  happy 
nation,  a  happy  community,  unless  the  social  order  be 
so  tempered  with  justice  and  charity,  and  the  means  of 
living  be  sufficiently  distributed,  as  to  insure  the  happi- 
ness of  the  domestic  life  of  the  families  of  the  people. 
If  the  bird  must  have  its  nest,  and  the  wild  beast  its 
lair,  yea,  even  the  very  serpent  its  den,  so  must  man 
have  his  home,  the  hearth  that  is  his,  the  central  object 
of  his  most  anxious  care  and  deepest  love.  The  Catho- 
lic Church  has  set  a  seal  of  sanctity  upon  the  family, 
and  no  wonder  that  she  has  a  special  rite  of  benediction 
to  consecrate  its  abiding  place. 

The  whole  trend  of  anti-Catholic  civilization  has 
been  to  degrade  and  break  up  the  divine  institution  of 
the  family  and  the  sanctity  of  home,  and  to  bring 
about  an  order  of  social  life  and  labor  which  practically 
renders  any  true  domestic  life  almost  impossible, 
especially  in  the  ever-increasing  number  of  cities  and 
their  inhumanly  overcrowded  populations.  If  the  poet 
Goldsmith  could  have   lived  to   our   day,  in  what  still 


134  Popular  Happiness, 

more  heart-searching  poetic  strains  would  his  muse  not 
have  told  the  truth  of  John  Ruskin's  prose  : 

"Though  we  are  deafened  with  the  noise  of  the  spinning- 
wheels  and  the  rattle  of  the  looms,  our  people  have  no  clothes; 
though  they  are  black  with  digging  fuel,  they  die  of  cold  ;  and 
though  millions  of  acres  are  covered  with  ripe,  golden  grain,  our 
people  die  for  want  of  bread." 

Nevertheless  the  wheels  must  spin,  the  looms  must 
rattle,  the  mines  must  be  dug,  and  the  land  must  be 
tilled  ;  but  who  shall  dare  to  point  at  the  clothes-maker 
clad  in  rags,  the  fuel-digger  dying  of  cold,  the  sowers 
and  reapers  of  grain  starving  for  lack  of  food,  and  say, 
*'  This  is  civilization  "  ?  But  in  what  countries  do  we 
see  these  social  contradictions  to  the  primary  demands 
of  humanity,  and  hear  their  material  prosperity  alleged 
in  evidence  of  an  "  advanced  and  more  enlightened 
civilization"?     In  Protestant  countries. 

To  what  countries  is  your  gaze  directed  by  the 
finger  of  scorn,  and  which  you  are  called  upon  to  pity, 
for  their  backwardness,  their  stagnation,  their  social 
apathy,  and  stolid  indifference  to  all  these  triumphs  of 
modern  progress  and  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  yet 
within  whose  borders  the  people  have  been  happy; 
where  no  poet  would  ever  have  been  inspired  to  picture 
a  "  Deserted  Village,"  where  the  people  do  not  die  of 
cold  and  hunger,  where  families  live  in  homes  as 
human  beings  and  not  like  vermin  in  rotting  tene- 
ments and  noisome  cellars,  and  where  the  poorest  of  the 
poor,  as  well  as  the  high-born  and  wealthy,  enjoy  the 
most  sacred  and  elevating  happiness  possible  to  man 
in  the  days  of  his  life  and  at  the  hour  of  his 'death, 
through  the  knowledge  and  practice  of  their  divinely 
true  and  pure  religion  ?     These  are  Catholic  countries. 


Popular  Happiness,  135 

The  political  economist,  horrified  at  the  loss  of 
popular  happiness  in  these  latter  days,  and  vSeeking  its 
cause,  finds  it  in  the  present  organized  industrial 
system.  What  moral  influence  has  been  brought  to 
bear  to  make  that  system  possible  of  acceptation  and 
endurance  by  the  people?  That  is  something  they 
ignore.  No  people  voluntarily  3'ield  up  both  their 
souls  and  bodies  to  slavery,  nor  are  there  found  tyrants 
strong  enough  to  reduce  them  to  such  servitude,  unless 
they  have  lost  the  knowledge  of  the  very  principle  of 
human  liberty  and  happiness — the  recognition  and 
defence  of  the  "  rights  of  God  and  the  rights  of  man." 

Such  has  ever  been  the  Catholic  watchword,  and 
wherever  and  for  so  long  as  the  Catholic  religion  has 
been  able  to  proclaim  it  and  thoroughly  inspire  the 
people  with  it  as  a  ruling  principle  of  social  order,  there 
the  people  have  been  happy  and  free. 

The  Catholic  religion  lost  its  power  in  England,  and 
the  reader  knows  wnth  w^hat  results  :  the  people  lost 
their  happiness.  And,  by  just  so  much  as  it  has  been 
losing  its  power  in  other  countries  and  its  influence  is 
being  replaced  by  that  of  modern  secularism,  amid  the 
acclamations  of  all  Protestantism,  and  the  order  of 
Catholic  social  life  and  labor  is  being  supplanted  by  the 
modern  anti-Christian  industrial  system,  in  just  that 
same  measure  may  one  see  the  popular  happiness  de- 
clining, and  the  people  enduring  more  or  less  of  the 
miseries  accompanying  the  march  of  our  modern  civili- 
zation, based  upon  the  principle  of  seeking  first  the 
kingdom  of  this  world  and  its  glory,  and  letting  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  its  righteousness  fare  as  it  may. 

Where  the  working-man  finds  his  happiness  the 
most  quickly  and  rudely  assailed  is  in  that  of  his  home 


1 36  Popular  Happiness. 


life.  And  naturally,  because  the  ideal  of  the  so-called 
civilization  inaugurated  by  Protestantism,  and  more 
fully  developed  by  its  logical  outcome.  Secularism,  can 
only  be  realized  by  such  industrial  systems  as  tend  to 
make  of  all  wage-earners  mere  slaves  in  the  market  of 
commerce  and  manufacture,  whose  labor  is  to  be 
purchased  not  at  its  real  value  measured  by  the  w^orth 
of  the  article  produced,  but  at  a  price  which  the  immi- 
nent hunger,  cold,  and  nakedness  threatening  them- 
selves, their  wives  and  children,  force   them    to  take. 

These  are  not  free  laborers ;  they  are  a  race  of 
human  machines,  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  seen 
before  either  among  pagan  or  Christian  nations.  How 
does  that  affect  the  home-life  of  the  working-man  ? 

Hear  what  the  late  great  English  Cardinal  Manning 
and  our  American  Bishop  Spalding,  both  well-known 
champions  of  the  rights  of  the  laboring  classes,  have  to 
sa}^  thereon.     Says  the  Cardinal : 

"If  the  domestic  life  of  a  people  be  vital  above  all ;  if  the 
peace,  the  purity  of  homes,  the  education  of  children,  the  duties  of 
wives  and  mothers,  the  duties  of  husbands  and  fathers,  be  written 
in  the  natural  law  of  mankind  ;  and  if  these  things  are  sacred 
beyond  anything  that  can  be  sold  in  the  market — then  I  say,  if  the 
unregulated  sale  of  men's  strength  and  skill  shall  lead  to  the  de- 
struction of  domestic  life,  to  the  neglect  of  children,  to  turning 
wives  and  mothers  into  living  machines,  and  of  fathers  and  hus- 
bands into — what  shall  I  say  ? — creatures  of  burdtfi !  who  rise  up 
before  the  sun  and  come  back  when  it  is  set,  wearied  and  able  • 
only  to  take  food  and  to  lie  down  to  rest — the  domestic  life  of  men 
exists  no  longer.  We  dare  not  go  on  in  this  path.  These  things 
cannot  go  on  ;  these  things  ought  not  to  go  on.  The  accumula- 
tion of  wealth  in  the  land,  the  piling  up  of  wealth  like  mountains, 
in  the  possession  of  classes  or  of  individuals,  cannot  go  on,  if 
these  moral  conditions  of  our  people  are  not  healed.  No  com- 
monweahh  can  rest  on  such  foundations." — Characteristics. 


Popular  Happiness,  1 37 

Says  Bishop  Spalding  : 

"  The  gates  of  the  city  have  in  our  day  been  thrown  wide  open 
to  the  multitude.  Formerly  it  was  necessary  to  serve  an  appren- 
ticeship before  one  was  permitted  to  labor  at  a  trade,  but  ma- 
chinery has  done  away  with  trades.  The  working-man  now  is 
only  part  of  the  machine.  He  requires  little  training  and  less  skill.  ! 
And  because  anybody  can  do  this  work  it  is  easy  to  find  people 
who  will  do  it  cheaply,  and  so  wages  sink  until  the  operative  re- 
ceives barely  enough  to  keep  him  from  starvation.  If,  from  what- 
ever cause,  he  ceases  to  work,  he  is  at  once  a  pauper ;  and  yet 
there  are  numbers  waiting  to  take  his  place.  The  social  evolution 
has  brought  forth  a  new  species,  a  race  of  human  machines  whose 
destiny  is  to  be  a  part  of  the  iron  mechanism  which  transforms  the 
world.  This  race  forms  a  people  apart ;  nothing  like  it  has  ever 
been  seen  until  now  either  in  pagan  or  Christian  civilization. 
They  have  the  name  of  freemen,  but  are  indeed  slaves  ;  they,  make 
the  most  costly  fabrics,  and  are  clothed  in  rags  ;  they  work  in  pal- 
aces, and  live  in  tenements  and  hovels.  Their  labor  is  the  most 
painful  and  the  most  fatal  to  human  life  ;  their  wages  are  so  low 
that  mothers  and  children  are  forced  to  throw  themselves  into  the 
jaws  of  Moloch  to  escape  starvation.  When  they  are  old  or  infirm 
they  are  thrown  into  the  street  or  poorhouse,  and  the  rich  man  who 
has  hired  them  is  held  guiltless  before  God  and  men.  When  the 
wheels  of  machinery  stop  the  whole  race  is  driven  to  the  public 
trough,  to  be  fed  like  cattle,  until  the  shambles  are  again  in  readi- 
ness. 

"  One  of  the  greatest  evils  which  afflicts  a  manufacturing  popu- 
lation is  the  breaking  down  of  the  family  life.  .  .  .  What 
family  life  is  possible  where  there  is  no  home  ?  The  home  is  not 
owned  ;  it  cannot  be  transmitted ;  it  has  no  privacy  ;  it  has  no 
mystery ;  it  has  no  charm.  It  is  a  rented  room  in  some  promis- 
cuous tenement,  it  is  a  shanty  in  some  filthy  street  or  alley.  The 
good  and  the  bad  are  huddled  together;  and  the  poisoned  air 
does  not  sooner  take  the  bloom  from  the  cheek  of  childhood  than 
the  presence  of  sin  and  misery  withers  the  fresh^iess  of  the  heart. 
The  children  rush  from  the  narrow  quarters  and  stifling  air  into 
the  street,  and  the  gutters  are  their  play-grcunds.     Through  all 


138  Popular  Happiness. 

the  changing  year  they  see  only  the  dirty  street  and  the  dingy 
houses.  People  who  live  in  this  atmosphere  and  amid  these 
surroundings  must  drink.  The  perfectly  sober  would  die  there 
from  mere  loathing  of  life." — Mission  of  the  Irish  Race. 

Now  let  us  hear  a  voice  from  the  centre  of  that  other 
great  Protestant  power,  Germany. 

Dr.  Engel,  the  Director  of  the  Royal  Statistical 
Society  of  Berlin,  says  : 

"  This  is  the  judgment  passed  upon  the  modern  industrial 
system,  especially  as  it  exists  in  great  cities,  by  the  most  enlight- 
ened statesmen  and  by  others  who  are  most  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  life  as  it  exists:  it  is  the  sacrifice  of  human  beings 
to  capital— a  consumption  of  men  which,  by  the  wasting  of  the 
vital  forces  of  individuals,  by  the  weakening  of  whole  generations, 
by  the  breaking  up  of  families,  by  the  ruin  of  morality,  and  the 
destruction  of  the  joyousness  of  work,  has  brought  civilized  society 
into  the  most  imminent  peril." 

And  w^hen  he  wrote  this  there  were  200,000  tramps 
in  Germany — and  what  about  that  country  as  the 
school  of  Socialism  ? 

Can  Protestantism  disown  the  responsibility  of 
having  ' '  brought  civilized  society  into  this  most  im- 
minent peril ' '  ?  Upon  whom  or  upon  what  will  it  pre- 
sume to  lay  the  blame?  Does  it  not  still  continue  to 
laud  and  magnify  all  the  attractively  brilliant  manifesta- 
tions of  national  material  prosperity,  and  take  credit  to 
itself  for  having  inspired  them,  while  scornfully  re- 
proaching Catholicism  for  acting  as  a  drag  upon  the 
wheels  of  the  trumphant  chariot  of  Modern  Progress  ? 
Is  it  not  high  time  to  call  a  halt  and  hearken  to  the 
words  of  wisdom  from  that  voice  which  has  always 
spoken  the  truth  in  justice  and  charity,  and  has  never 
betrayed  the  rights  or  the  happiness  of  the  people  ? 


Popular  Happiness.  1 39 

What  differentiates  the  modern  Protestant  and 
Secular  industrial  S3^stem  from  one  which  would  be 
created  under  the  predominant  influence  of  Catholicism 
is  the  character  of  the  motives  upon  which  they  are 
based. 

The  motive  of  the  former  is  gain,  pure  and  simple  ; 
and  it  is  assumed  that  the  social  needs  of  the  laborer  or 
of  the  consumer  have  no  restrictive  rights  to  limit  the 
possible  amount  of  that  gain.  The  result  of  such  a 
motive  is  plain.  The  capitalist  is  the  one  who  directly 
engages  the  laborer's  services  on  the  one  hand,  and  fur- 
nishes what  the  consumer  needs  on  the  other.  In  order 
to  make  the  greatest  possible  gain,  he  buys  the  material 
and  labor  which  go  to  make  up  what  the  consumer 
wants  in  the  cheapest  market,  and  sells  the  produc- 
tion in  the  dearest. 

The  pagan  motive  of  mere  gain  induces  him  to  use 
his  financial  power  in  order  to  control  both  of  these 
markets  ;  to  keep  the  supply  less  than  the  demand,  that 
he  may  charge  a  higher  price,  gaining  thereby  more 
from  the  consumers,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  keep 
the  markets  of  material  and  labor  glutted,  that  he  may 
buy  both  at  a  forced  lower  price. 

The  same  centralization  of  financial  power  enables 
the  formation  of  trust  companies  and  other  such  com- 
binations of  the  few  by  which  the  number  of  employers 
are  diminished,  and  both  laborer  and  consumer  are  thus 
left  more  completely  at  the  mercy  of  those  whose  only 
aim  is  to  extort  from  both  the  highest  possible  tribute. 
Following  the  same  track  of  ' '  progress  '  *  we  see  the 
formation  of  colossal  syndicates  into  whose  all-absorb- 
ing grasp  the  greater  part  of  the  land  falls,  and  rises  in 
value  beyond  the  hope  of  its  possession  by  the  laboring 


I40  Popular  Happiness. 

classes.  Trade,  manufactures,  and  agriculture  falling 
thus  into  the  hands  of  a  few,  they  become  the  ''too 
rich  "  and  all  the  rest  of  humanity  sink  to  the  level  of 
the  ''  too  poor,"  who  become  mere  "  hands  "  waiting  to 
be  hired  in  the  trade-market  for  an  hour,  slaves  toiling 
in  the  stifling  factories  and  sweat-shops,*  and  serfs 
who  are  owned  by,  instead  of  being  freemen  them- 
selves owning,  the  land  they  labor  upon.  Such  is  the 
outcome  of  Protestant  and  Secularist  industrial  systems 
fashioned  upon  the  social  ideas  which  have  been  foisted, 
all  too  successfully,  upon  mankind  in  these  modern  times. 
But  the  Catholic  industrial  ideal,  while  admitting 
the  motive  of  gain  as  a  legitimate  and  necessary  one, 
does  not  sanction  it  as  being  one  which  the  capitalist 
has  a  right,  either  as  a  man  or  a  Christian,  to  assert  as 
the  chief  and  onh'  reason  of  his  dealings  with  the 
laborer  or  with  the  consumer.  This  aggrandizement 
of  one  class  in  society  at  the  expense  of  the  suffering  of 
all  others  is  entirely  foreign  to  the  mind  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  motive  of  gain  is  one  which  she  regards 
as  altogether  inferior.  In  her  eyes  to  live  in  order  to 
gain  the  greatest  amount  of  money  possible  is  as  un- 
worthy as  it  is  dangerous  to  both  soul  and  body. 
"Making  an  honorable  and  suitable  living"  is  her 
proposed  motive  for  all  classes  alike,  that  each  ma}'  in 

*  The  Christian  Work^  an  Evangelical  newspaper  of  New  York,  May 
24,  1894,  contains  a  brief  but  horrifying  description  of  the  sweating  system 
as  carried  on  in  England  and  here  in  our  country.  The  writer,  Rev.  Louis 
Albert  Banks,  D.D.,  author  of  White  Slaves^  tells  us  that  every  branch  of 
industry  is  infected  with  this  social  "  plague."  Starvation  wages,  the  work 
in  foul  garrets  and  cellars,  crowded  to  suffocation  by  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren brutally  degraded,  no  privacy  or  modesty  possible,  early  death  or 
prostitution  the  usual  fate  of  the  girls,  and  altogether  a  revolting  condition 
of  mental  and  bodily  slavery  to  which  that  of  the  Southern  negroes  under 
the  worst  taskmaster  that  ever  wielded  the  lash  was  Paradise. 


Popular  Happiness,  141 


justice  and  charit}-  fulfil  its  own  rational  function  in  the 
social  order. 

What  is  the  social  order  which  Catholicism  strives  to 
realize  ?  The  sccitriiig  of  iJie  gi'eatest  happiiiess  to  the 
greatest  mimber.  What  reply  has  the  Catholic  Church 
to  make  to  those  who  ask  of  her  how  that  end  is  to  be 
secured  ?  * '  Do  unto  others  as  3'ou  would  have  them  do 
unto  you."  That  is  Christian  justice.  "  lyOve  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."     That  is  Christian  charity. 

In  a  community  thoroughly  imbued  with  these 
Christian  principles  of  justice  and  charity,  the  employer 
would  not  say  :  "  How  little  can  I  pay  and  how  much 
can  I  charge  that  I  may  gain  the  more  on  both  sides  of 
my  dealings  with  my  fellow-Christians,  let  the  laborer 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  needy  consumer  on  the  other 
suffer  what  loss  they  may  ?  ' '  but  rather  :  ' '  How  much 
more  can  I  give  to  the  laborer,  and  for  how  much  less 
can  I  supply  the  consumer,  and  yet  make  an  honorable 
and  suitable  living  ?  ' ' 

Any  one  can  see  what  would  be  the  result.  There 
would  be  the  greatest  possible  equalization  of  all  classes 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  society.  Only  moderate 
fortunes  could  be  amassed.  The  unnecessary  class  of 
social  drones,  who  contribute  in  no  way  to  the  general 
happiness,  would  be  driven  out.  The  modern  "pluto- 
crat ' '  and  state  ' '  pauper  ' '  would  disappear.  There 
would  be  no  pretext  for  violent  uprisings  of  Labor 
against  Capital.  Socialism  and  Anarchism  would  be 
impossible.  Never  would  a  case  of  starvation  be  heard 
of.  "  Every  rood  of  ground  would  maintain  its  man," 
and  the  reign  of  the  lords  of  ' '  material  progress  ' '  would 
be  over. 

Wherever  Catholic  ideas  have  had  full  sway,  there 


142  Popular  Happmess. 

such  an  order  of  social  life  has  been  realized  ;  not  to 
absolute  perfection  it  is  true — nothing  human  is  perfect. 
But  the  power  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil, 
always  instinctively  at  war  with  the  power  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  his  justice,  has  been  kept  under  by  the 
predominating  influence  of  Catholic  social  fraternal  ideas. 

Such  an  order  of  popular  happiness  was  realized  in 
Catholic  England,  in  Catholic  Germany,  Italy,  France, 
and  Spain,  and  indeed  wherever  the  Church  was  able  to 
bring  her  influence  strongly  to  bear  upon  the  people. 
The  reader  has  not  all  the  evidence  that  might  be 
adduced,  but  he  has  enough  even  in  this  present 
volume  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  assertion. 

Alas  !  how  slow  the  people  are  in  finding  out  the  true 
causes  of  all  their  miseries  and  in  recognizing  their  true 
and  staunch  friend  !  The  Catholic  Church  has  never 
yet  spoken  a  word  that  can  be  charged  with  assailing 
the  rights  and  just  dues  of  the  working-man.  Neither, 
indeed,  can  she  be  charged  with  assailing  the  rights 
and  just  claims  of  the  employer.  What  is  more,  the 
Anarchist  would  appeal  in  vain  to  her  to  sustain  his 
blasphemous  attack  upon  the  divine  authority  of  gov- 
ernment, as  would  the  Socialist  to  sanction  his  incon- 
sistent demands,  attacking  the  rights  of  property 
whether  of  rich  or  poor  in  order  to  reduce  a  nation  of 
freemen  to  slaver}-  under  the  ownership  of  an  all- 
absorbing  State  Trust  Company. 

The  Catholic  Church  upholds  and  defends  all  rights, 
no  matter  w^hose,  and  being  humanity's  consecrated 
teacher  of  the  true  principles  of  justice  and  charity,  she 
alone  is  able  to  grapple  with  great  wrongs  and  bring 
the  most  antagonistic  interests  into  harmony.  What  is 
her  word  to-day  about  the  wrongs  of  the  present  indus- 


Popular  Happiness.  J 43 


trial  system.  The  Holy  Father  of  Christendom,  Leo 
XIII.,  in  his  encyclical  on  the  condition  of  labor,  has 
treated  of  this  subject  and  pointed  out  the  remedy. 
He  says  : 

"  Public  institutions  and  laws  have  repudiated  the  ancient  re- 
ligion. Hence  by  degrees  it  has  come  to  pass  that  working-men 
have  been  given  over,  isolated  and  defenceless,  to  the  callousness 
of  employers  and  the  greed  of  unrestrained  competition.  The 
evil  has  been  increased  by  rapacious  usury,  which,  although  more 
than  once  condemned  by  the  Church,  is  nevertheless  under  a 
different  form,  but  with  the  same  guilt,  practised  by  avaricious  and 
grasping  men.  And  to  this  must  be  added  the  custom  of  working 
by  contract,  and  the  concentration  of  so  many  branches  of  trade 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals,  so  that  a  small  number  of  very 
rich  men  have  been  able  to  lay  upon  the  masses  of  the  poor  a 
yoke  little    better  than  slavery  itself." 

After  thus  probing  the  cause  of  the  general  discon- 
tent the  Pope  goes  on  to  point  out  the  remedy.     He  says  : 

"  If  Christian  precepts  prevail  the  two  classes  (capitalists  and 
laborers,  the  rich  and  the  poor)  will  not  only  be  united  in  the 
bonds  of  friendship,  but  also  in  those  of  brotherly  love.  For  they 
will  understand  and  feel  that  all  men  are  the  children  of  the  com- 
mon Father— that  is,  of  God ;  that  all  have  the  same  last  end, 
which  is  God  Himself,  who  alone  can  make  either  men  or  angels 
absolutely  and  perfectly  happy  ;  that  all  and  each  are  redeemed  by 
Jesus  Christ  and  raised  to  the  dignity  of  children  of  God,  and  are 
thus  united  in  brotherly  ties,  both  with  each  other  and  with  Jesus 
Christ,  the  first  born  among  viariy  brethren. 

"  If  society  is  to  be  cured  now,  in  no  other  way  can  it  be  cured 
but  by  a  return  to  the  Christian  life  and  Christian  institutions. 
When  a  society  is  perishing  the  true  advice  to  give  to  those  who 
would  restore  it  is  to  recall  it  to  the  principles  from  which  it 
sprung  ;  for  the  purpose  and  perfection  of  an  association  is  to  aim 
at  and  to  attain  that  for  which  it  w^as  formed ;  and  its  operation 
should  be  put  in  motion  and  inspired  by  the  end  and  object  which 
originally  gave  it  its  being.     So  that  to  fall  away  from  its  primal 


144  Popular  Happiness. 

constitution  is  disease  ;  to  go  back  is  recovery.  And  this  may  be 
asserted  with  the  utmost  truth  of  both  the  state  itself  in  general 
and  of  that  body  of  its  citizens— by  far  the  greater  number— who 
sustain  Hfe  by  labor." 

•  These  plain,  forcible  words  one  feels  are  spoken  with 
that  same  assurance  which  marked  the  language  of 
Him  wdiose  divinely  appointed  Vicar  he  is,  and  of 
whom  it  is  written."  He  spake  as  one  having  author- 
ity, and  not  as  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees."  In  the  ears 
of  many  those  words  are  sounding  as  the  voice  of  a 
heavenly  friend,  cheering  and  hopeful,  heard  above  the 
alarming  clamors  raised  by  the  warring  classes  which 
constitute  modern  society.  Yet  do  they  proclaim  any 
new  doctrine  of  human  right  ?  No  ;  they  do  no  more 
than  simply  reaffirm  what  the  Catholic  Church  has 
always  taught ;  that  if  men  are  to  have  their  God-given 
rights  they  must  be  free,  they  must  be  equal,  they  must 
be  brethren.  Neither  is  it  enough  to  teach  the  doctrine 
of  human  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  ;  that  Chris- 
tian ideal  of  true  civilization  must  be  realized  in  fact. 
And  by  whom  shall  this  regeneration  of  man  and  so- 
ciety be  brought  about  ?  By  force  of  arms  ?  by  mobs  ? 
by  incendiary  appeals  to  exasperated  multitudes  ?  All 
such  imagined  remedies  are  evidently  not  recuperative 
but  destructive.  The  only  hope  for  the  reconstruction  of 
the  disturbed  social  order  plainly  must  lie  in  the  affirm- 
ation of  sound,  healthy  principles  of  social  life  and 
vigor,  and  their  application  by  an  intelligent  and  mor- 
al power  able  to  cope  with  the  magnitude  of  the  under- 
taking ;  and  there  is  but  one  such  teacher  and  but  one 
such  power  on  the  face  of  the  earth— the  Catholic  Church. 

A      remarkable      article,      entitled      "  Religion     in 
America,"  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  leading  Pro- 


Popular  Happiness,  I45 

testant  journal  of  the  United  States— the  Independent  of 
May  10,  1894.  It  is  from  the  pen  of  a  Japanese  who  is 
a  professor  in  the  Doshisha  college  in  Tokio.  All 
that  he  knows  of  Christianity  is  Protestantism,  and 
judging  it  from  its  new  Gospel  that  blesses  the  rich  and 
despises  the  poor,  he  finds  it  a  failure.  I^et  us  hear 
some  of  his  observations  :  . 

"  There  are  many  persons  who  starve,  or  commit  suicide  even, 
vvhen  there  is  no  famine.  Therefore  the  world  is  rich,  but  the 
laborers  are  poor.  CiviHzation  is  progressing,  but  it  shows  no 
mercy  to  the  laborer.  The  Gospel  is  preached,  but  the  laborers 
cannot  hear  it.  Ah  !  the  words,  '  Blessed  are  the  poor,'  and  '  The 
Gospel  is  preached  to  the  poor,'  are  no  longer  true ;  they  are 
simply  recorded  in  a  Bible  which  is  chained  to  the  pulpit.  In 
some  extreme  cases  the  Christian  church  excludes  poor  people 
from  coming  into  the  church." 

It  is  quite  evident  that  Professor  Ukita  has  small 
knowledge  or  experience  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He 
sees  the  results  of  all  this,  and  how  the  Protestant  poor 
come  to  hate  Christianity  and  become  atheists,  anarch- 
ists,  and  socialists;   and  adds   (italics  mine): 

"  The  result  of  the  Reformation  in  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century  was  to  substitute  one  superstition  for  another, 
biblical  infallibility  for  papal  infallibility,  and  since  the  supremacy 
of  the  new  church  was  bestowed  on  the  sovereigns  of  different 
states,  there  originated  many  popes  instead  of  one  pope,  many 
Roman  churches  instead  of  one  Roman  church,  and  the  people  of 
Europe  and  America  have  forgotten  the  great  principle  of  the 
Gospel  in  the  struggle  of  the  difftrent  denojuinations." 

That  is  a  pretty  sharp  lesson  this  professor,  all  the 
way  from  Japan,  reads  to  his  American  Protestant 
friends.  But  though  he  is  evidently  ignorant  of  Catho- 
licivSm,  either  of  its  history  or  its  spirit,  he  reads  the 


1 46  Popular  Happiness. 

newspapers,  and  through  them  has  heard  the  words 
of  the  Father,  the  true  Father  of  God's  children  and 
teacher  of  Christ's  Gospel  to  the  poor,  and  so  he  is  thus 
led  to  reflect : 

"  Moreover,  at  a  lime  when  the  world  is  brought  more  and 
more  under  the  control  of  money,  and  when  the  lower  people  are 
going  to  rebel  against  the  Church,  Leo  XIII.,  the  present  Pope, 
has  proclaimed  the  mission  of  the  Church  as  follows  ; 

" '  The  mission  of  the  Church  is  to  protect  the  weak  and  to 
guard  itself  against  all  attempts  at  oppression.  Now,  after  so 
many  distresses,  the  reign  of  money  is  come.  ...  Its  attempt 
is  to  conquer  the  Church  and  to  have  control  over  all  the  people 
with  money.  Neither  the  Church  nor  the  people  will  yield  to  it. 
I  am  with  the  weak,  with  the  humble,  with  those  without  prop- 
erty :  that  is,  I  am  with  those  who  were  loved  by  our  Lord.' " 

"  Ah,  how  sacred  are  those  words  !  "  exclaims  this 
Japanese  professor  ;  and  in  listening  to  the  Holy 
Father,  he  seems  to  hear  a  voice  of  singular  power  and 
sweetness  uttering  words  of  more  than  human  wisdom 
— a  voice  like  unto  His  of  whom  it  is  written  :  "  Never 
did  man  speak  like  this  man." 

"  Though  the  very  God,  once  more  becoming  man,  should 
come  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  give  his  revelation,  it  would 
not  be  other  than  this.  There  is  nothing  improper,  even  if  we  call 
this  a  living  manifestation  of  God." 

When,  as  it  is  to  be  hoped,  by  God's  grace,  Pro- 
fessor Ukita  comes  to  discover  the  true  ' '  living  mani- 
festation of  God  "  in  the  divinely  ordained  and  divinely 
guided  Church  of  Christ,  he  will  better  understand  from 
what  inspiring  source  proceeded  those  words  impress- 
ing him  so  profoundly  as  being  none  other  but  the 
language  of  the  very  God  whose  Vicegerent  he  is  who 
uttered  them. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

CATHOIvICISM   AND    LIBERTY. 

PROTESTANT  and  other  anti-Catholic  writers  gen- 
erall}^  who  cater  to  the  prejudices  of  the  ignorant 
multitude  assume,  as  an  indisputable  maxim,  that  lib- 
erty was  born  of  the  Reformation.  They  charge  the 
Church  with  being  hostile  to  every  kind  of  liberty,  re- 
ligious, political,  civil,  and  individual.  They  associate 
Protestantism  with  liberty,  and  Catholicism  with  des- 
potism. The  great  argument  used  in  this  country 
against  the  Church  is  her  alleged  hostility  to  liberty, 
and  the  certainty,  if  she  once  gained  ascendency  here, 
she  would  destroy  our  free  institutions,  and  reduce  the 
nation  to  political  and  spiritual  slaver3^  Such  is  the 
allegation,  such  the  argument. 

I  propose  to  throw  some  light  upon  the  question  by 
evidence  furnished  from  the  writings  of  Protestant 
authorities  alone.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  very  re- 
verse of  what   is  alleged  is  true. 

The  popular  Protestant  ignorance  and  delusion  on 
this  subject  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  writings  of  their 
own  eminent  historians  and  essayists  are  read  but  by  a 
very  few  even  of  the  better  educated  among  them.  It 
is  from  these  sources  that  we  shall  see  how  well- 
grounded  is  the  claim  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  the 
founder,  the  mother,  the  protector,  the  guide,  the  all- 
in-all  to  whatever  true  liberty  of  any  kind  Christian 
civilization  may  boast  of  having  secured  to  human  so- 
ciety.    We    shall  also    learn    in  what   light    to  regard 

147 


148  Catholicisju  and  Liberty. 

Protestantism.  In  quoting  from  Protestant  writers,  the 
difficulty  I  find  is  not  in  the  lack  of  such  testimonies 
in  favor  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  condemnatory  of 
Protestantism,  but  in  contenting  myself  with  presenting 
only  such  a  limited  number  as  the  space  of  this  essay 
will  permit.  It  would  take  a  goodly  sized  volume  to 
contain  all  that  could  be  quoted. 

ABOLITION    OF    SLAVERY. 

If  the  enemies  of  the  Church  who  are  constantly 
denouncing  her  as  being  the  greatest  foe  to  liberty 
would  open  the  pages  of  any  histor}^  they  would  be 
brought  face  to  face  with  one  stupendous  fact,  which 
in  itself  would  be  quite  enough  to  silence  their  accusa- 
tions for  ever  ;  and  that  is  the  glorious  regeneration  of 
society  in  Europe  wrought  by  her  through  the  abolition 
of  slavery.  She  found  the  human  race  in  fetters.  No- 
where was  the  dignity  of  man  acknowledged,  and  no 
school  of  philosophy  nor  priest  of  any  religion  taught 
the  equality  of  all  men.  But  it  is  precisely  upon  that 
new  doctrine,  of  which  the  Catholic  Church  was  and 
continues  to  be  the  divine  herald,  that  all  liberty  is 
based.  Deny  that,  and  human  freedom  is  impossible. 
And  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  of  all  facts  connected 
with  this  emancipation  of  mankind  was  that  she  con- 
ferred this  lasting  benefit  upon  it  without  injustice  or 
revolution,  without  deluging  nations  in  rivers  of  blood. 
Inspired  to  lay  this  first  and  firm  and  all  necessary 
foundation  of  every  kind  of  true  liberty,  individual  or 
social,  religious  or  political,  she  taught  men  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ — "  Love  ye  one  another."  That  is  what 
men  learned  first  of  all  in  her  school  of  liberty,  and  they 
who  learned   the   lesson   proved  it  by  striking   off  the 


Catholicism  and  Liberty.  149 

chains  of  their  slaves.  No  man  will  enslave  another 
whom  he  loves. 

And  this  was  the  constant  voice  of  the  whole  Church 
speaking  from  Rome.  Hear  the  Pope,  St.  Gregory  the 
Great : 

"  Since  our  blessed  Redeemer,  the  Creator  of  all  things,  has 
deigned,  in  His  goodness,  to  assume  the  flesh  of  man,  in  order  to 
restore  to  us  our  pristine  liberty,  by  breaking  the  bonds  of  ser- 
vitude wh^ich  held  us  captives,  it  is  a  salutary  deed  to  restore  to 
men,  by  enfranchisement,  their  native  liberty,  for,  in  the  begin- 
ing,  nature  inade  them  all  free,  and  they  have  only  been  subjected 
to  the  yoke  of  servitude  by  the  law  of  nations  "  (1.  5.  lett.  72). 

A  strange  foe  to  liberty  must  that  Church  have  been 
which  inspired,  as  she  did,  the  foundation  of  great  re- 
ligious orders  of  men  whose  solemn  vowed  purpose  was 
to  devote  themselves  to  the  redemption  of  captives  held 
by  the  Moors  and  other  infidels,  at  all  cost,  even  to  the 
giving  up  their  lives,  if  required,  in  exchange  for 
the  liberty  of  their  brothers  in  Christ.  But  w^hat  do 
Protestants  generally  know  about  all  these  great  and 
glorious,  heroic  works  of  the  Catholic  Church  ? 
Nothing.  When  some  of  them  forcibly  open  the  pages 
of  history  which  are  so  carefully  kept  closed  to  their 
sight,  and  come  to  learn  what  the  Catholic  Church  has 
done  by  precept  and  example  in  the  performance  of  her 
mission  to  redeem  the  world,  and  give  to  humanity 
true  liberty,  both  of  body  and  soul,  one  can  easily 
imagine  in  what  esteem  they  then  are  led  to  hold  their 
former  teachers  from  whom  they  learned  all  they 
thought  they  knew  about  "Romanism." 

But  let  us  look  at  a  little  more  Protestant  testimony. 

Mr.   Lecky,  the  historian,   says  : 

''  The    Catholic    Church  was    the  very  heart  of    Christendom. 


i^o  Catholicism  and  Liberty. 


The  result  of  the  ascendency  it  gained  brought  about  a  stage  of 
civiHzation  that  was  one  of  the  most  important  in  the  evolutions 
of  society.  By  consolidating  the  heterogeneous  and  anarchical 
elements  that  succeeded  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  by 
infusing  into  Christendom  the  conception  of  a  bond  of  unity  that 
is  superior  to  the  divisions  of  nationhood,  and  of  a  moral  tie  that 
is  superior  to  force,  by  softening  slavery  into  serfdom,  and  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  labor,  Catholicism 
laid  the  very  foundations  of  modern  civilization.  In  the  tran- 
sition from  slavery  to  serfdom,  and  in  the  transit  ion  from  serfdom 
to  liberty,  she  was  the  most  zealous,  the  most  unwearied,  and  the 
7nost  efficient  agent  (Hist,  of  Rationalism,  vol.  ii.  pp.  36,  37,  209). 

Yes  ;  when  this  ' '  foe  to  human  liberty  ' '  began  her 
divine  work  every  laborer  was  a  slave,  and  she  never 
ceased  her  untiring  efforts  until  she  emancipated  the 
laboring  classes,  until  they  were  as  noble  and  as  inde- 
pendent a  class  of  freemen  as  ever  stood  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth.  The  reader  should  here  ask  himself:  Is 
the  laboring  man  a  freeman  now  ;  and  if  not,  why  not? 
What  influence  has  been  at  work,  and  from  what  date, 
to  reverse  and  destroy  his  freedom  and  is  now  rapidly 
reducing  him  to  a  social  serf,  the  very  slave  in- 
deed of  soulless,  pagan  corporations?  Any  man  of 
common  sense  should  be  able  to  see  that  the  only  true 
friend  and  staunch  defender  of  the  rights  and  liberty  of 
the  working-man  against  the  enslaving  influences  of  the 
doctrines  and  social  polity  of  Protestantism  and  Secular- 
ism, is  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

Dr.  Maitland  declares  that : 

"  At  the  darkest  periods  the  Christian  Church  was  the  source 
and  spring  of  civilization,  the  dispenser  of  what  little  comfort  and 
security  there  was  in  the  things  of  this  world,  and  the  quiet  scrip- 
tural assert er  of  the  rights  of  man  "  (Essays  on  the  Dark  Ages, 
P-  393)- 


Catholicism  and  Liberty.  151 


M.  Guizot,  the   Protestant  French  historian,  says: 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  CathoHc  Church  struggled 
resolutely  against  the  great  vices  of  the  social  state— against  sla- 
very, for  instance.  These  facts  are  so  well  known  "  [not  to  our 
modern  enlightened  Protestants,  M.  Guizot]  "  that  it  is  needless 
for  me  to  enter  into  details  "  {History  of  Civilization,  lect.  vi.) 


PROMOTION    AND  DEFENCE  OF    CIVIL    AND  POLITICAL 
LIBERTY. 

M.  Guizot,  speaking  of  the  fifth  century,  when  the 
Roman  Empire  was  in  the  agonies  of  dissolution,  and 
the  whole  of  Europe  was  inundated  by  hordes  of  bar- 
barians, says  : 

"  I  do  not  think  that  I  say  more  than  the  truth  in  affirming  that 
//  luas  the  Christian  Church  which  saved  Christianity  ;  it  was  the 
Church,  with  its  institutions,  its  magistrates,  and  its  power,  that 
vigorously  resisted  both  the  internal  dissolution  of  the  empire  and 
barbarism  ;  which  conquered  the  barbarians,  and  became  the 
bond,  the  medium,  and  the  principle  of  civilization  between  the 
Roman  and  barbarian  worlds.  ...  In  the  midst  of  that 
deluge  of  material  force  which  at  this  period  overwhelmed  so- 
ciety, there  was  an  immense  benefit  in  the  presence  of  a  moral 
influence,  a  moral  power,  a  power  which  derived  all  its  force  from 
convictions,  from  belief,  from  moral  sentiments.  Had  there  been 
no  Christian  Church  the  whole  world  would  have  beeti  aban- 
doned to  mere  material  force.  The  Church  alone  exercised  a 
moral  power"  ( Guizot 's  Hist.  Gen.de  la  Civilisation  en  Europe, 
3d  ed.,  Paris,  1840,  2eme  legon). 

"  The  Church  was  a  regularly  organized  society,  having  its 
principles,  its  rules,  its  discipline,  and  animated  with  an  ardent 
desire  of  extending  its  influence,  of  conquering  its  conquerors. 
Among  tha  Christians  of  this  period,  among  the  Christian  clergy, 
there  were  men  who  had  thought  upon  all  moral  and  political 
questions,  who    had  decided  opinions   and  energetic    sentiments 


152  Catholicism  and  Liberty, 

upon  all  subjects,  and  a  vivid  desire  to  propagate  and  give  them 
empire.  No  society  ever  made  more  vigorous  efforts  to  make  her 
influence  felt,  and  to  mould  to  her  own  form  the  world  around 
her,  than  the  Christian  Church  from  the  fifth  to  the  tenth  century. 
She  had,  in  a  manner,  assailed  barbarism  on  all  points,  to  civilize 
by  subduing  it"  (Jb.,  3eme  legon,  p.  86). 

"  All  the  civil  elements  of  modern  society  (municipal  govern-^ 
ment,  the  feudal  system,  and  royalty)  were  either  in  their  infancy 
or  in  decrepitude.  The  Church  alone  was  young  and  organized  ; 
she  alone  had  acquired  a  settled  form,  and  retained  all  the  vigor 
of  her  prime  ;  she  alone  had  both  activity  and  order,  energy  and 
a  system — that  is,  the  two  great  means  of  influence.  .  .  .  The 
Church  had,  moreover,  agitated  all  the  great  questions  which 
concern  man;  she  was  solicitous  about  all  the  problems  of  his 
nature,  about  all  the  chances  of  his  destiny.  Hence  her  influence 
on  modern  civilization  has  been  immense  ;  greater,  perhaps,  than 
has  ever  been  imagined  by  her  most  ardent  adversaries  or  her 
most  zealous  advocates.  Absorbed  either  in  her  defence  or  in 
aggression,  they  considered  her  only  in  a  polemical  point  of  view, 
and  they  have  failed,  I  am  convinced,  in  judging  her  with  fairness, 
and  in  measuring  her  in  all  her  dimensions  "  (/<^.,  5eme  le9on, 
p.  132). 

And  again  the  same  writer  : 

"  To  destroy  the  liberty  of  the  Papacy  would  be  to  aim  a 
death-blow  at  the  rights  and  liberty  of  the  people." 

But  what  was  the  best  he  could  sa}'  of  Germany, 
the  home  and  school  of  Protestantism  ? 

"  Far  from  demanding  political  liberty,  it  has  accepted,  I 
should  not  like  to  say,  political  servitude,  but  rather  the  absence  of 
liberty  "  {Hist,  of  Civ.,  lect.  xii.) 

Let  US  hear  an  English  writer.  The  .historian 
Milman,  speaking  of  the  sixth  century  of  Christianity, 
says  : 


Catholicism  and  Liberty.  \t\ 


"When  anarchy  threatened  the  whole  west  of  Europe,  and 
had  already  almost  enveloped  Italy  in  ruin  and  destruction,  on  the 
rise  of  the  power  of  the  Papacy,  both  controlling  and  conserva- 
tive, hung,  humanly  speaking,  the  life  and  death  of  Christianity— 
of  Christianity  as  a  permanent,  aggressive,  expansive,  and,  to  a 
certain  extent,  uniform  system.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  what 
had  been  the  confusion,  the  lawlessness,  the  chaotic  state  of  the 
middle  ages  without  the  mediasval  Papacy"  {History  of  Latin 
Christianity,  book  iii.  ch.  vii,  vol.  ii.) 

Much  more  will  be  found  in  the  same  work,  and  in 
the  same  author's  Metropolis  of  Christianity  and  His- 
tory of  Early  Christianity . 

The  Protestant  biographer  of  the  heroic  Pope  St. 
Gregory  VII. — Voight — relates  the  many  struggles 
made  in  the  defence  of  both  civil  and  religious  liberty 
by  the  very  power  which  ignorant  Protestants  are  ac- 
customed to  look  upon  as  the  chiefest  of  tyrants,  and 
the  strongest  upholder  of  despotism.  What  is  his  con- 
clusion ? 

"  The  Holy  See  was  the  only  tribunal  which  could  set  any 
limits  to  imperial  despotism,  as  a  second  defender  of  humanity  " 
(Hist.  Greg.    VIL,  ii.  p.  98). 

Samuel  lyaing,  the  Scotch  Calvinist  traveller,  was 
able  to  write  of  Germany  in  1846  :  "  The  German  popu- 
lations are  without  political  liberty  as  well  as  civil 
liberty."  The  same  writer  tells  us,. in  his  instructive 
work,  that  the  most  degrading  condition  of  serfage 
prevailed  in  Prussia  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  present 
centtiry  : 

"  The  serfs — that  is,  the  laboring  classes  and  farmers — were 
held  and  treated  like  slaves,  without  personal  freedom,  and  any 
one  who  deserted  was  brought  back  by  the  military,  who  patrolled 


154  Catholicism  and  Liberty. 

the  roads  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  escape  of  the  peasants 
into  the  free  towns,  and  was  imprisoned,  fed  on  bread  and  water 
in  a  black  hole,  which  existed  on  every  baronial  estate,  and 
flogged.  This  system  was  in  full  vigor  up  to  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century,  and  not  merely  in  remote,  unfrequented  corners 
of  the  Continent,  but  in  the  centre  of  her  civilization  (?) ;  all  round 
Hamburg  and  Lubeck,  for  instance  ;  in  Holstein,  Schleswig,  Han- 
over, Brunswick,  and  over  all  Prussia  "  {Notes  of  a  Traveller, 
i'846,  pp.  97,  104). 

The  reader  will  please  note  that  he  particularly 
specifies  the  strongest  Protestant  states  in  Germany. 

Now  let  us  hear  from  the  Rev.  E.  Cutts,  D.D.,  in  a 
work  published  by  the  English  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge  : 

"In  the  middle  ages  the  Church  was  a  great fiopular  institu- 
tion. .  .  .  One  reason,  no  doubt,  of  the  popularity  of  the 
mediaeval  Church  was  that  it  had  always  been  the  chajnpion  of  the 
people  and  the  friend  of  the  poor.  In  politics  the  Church  was 
always  on  the  side  of  the  liberties  of  the  people  against  the 
tyranny  of  the  feudal  lords.  In  the  eye  of  the  nobles  the  laboring 
population  were  beings  of  an  mferior  caste ;  in  the  eye  of  the  law 
they  were  chattels ;  in  the  eye  of  the  Church  they  were  brethren 
in  Christ,  souls  to  be  won  and  trained  and  fitted  for  heaven.  In 
social  life  the  Church  was  an  easy  landlord  and  a  kind  master. 
.  .  .  On  the  whole,  with  many  drawbacks,  the  mediaeval 
Church  did  its  duty — according  to  its  own  li-dit — to  the  people. 
It  was  the  great  cultivator  of  learning  and  art,  and  it  did  its  best 
to  educate  the  people.  It  had  vast  political  influence,  and  used  it 
on  the  side  of  the  liberties  of  the  people.  ...  By  means  of  its 
painting  and  sculpture  in  the  churches,  its  mystery  plays,  its  re- 
ligious festivals,  its  catechising  and  its  preaching,  it  is  probable 
that  the  chief  facts  of  the  Gospel  history  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
Creeds  were  more  universally  known  and  more  vividly  realized 
than  among  the  masses  of  our  present  population"  {Turning- 
points  of  English  Church  History,  1874,  pp,  16,  165), 


Cat Jiolicisui  and  Liberty.  155 


James  Anthony  Froude,  the  historian,  says  : 

^'  Never  in  all  their  history,  in  ancient  times  or  modern,  never 
that  we  know  of,  have  mankind  thrown  out  of  themselves  any- 
thing so  grand,  so  useful,  so  beautiful  as  the  Catholic  Church  once 
was.  In  these  times  of  ours  well-regulated  selfishness  is  the 
recognized  rule  of  action  ;  every  one  of  us  is  expected  to  look  out 
for  himself  first,  and  take  care  of  his  own  interests.  At  the  time  I 
speak  of  the  Church  ruled  the  state  with  the  authority  of  a  con- 
science, and  self-interest,  as  a  motive  of  action,  was  only  named  to 
be  abhorred.  The  bishops  and  clergy  were  regarded  freely  and 
simply  as  the  immediate  ministers  of  the  Almighty ;  and  they  seem 
to  7ne  to  have  really  deserved  that  hii^h  estimate  of  their  charac- 
ter. It  was  not  for  the  doctrine  which  they  taught,  only  or 
chiefly,  that  they  were  held  in  honor.  Brave  men  do  not  fall 
down  before  their  fellow-mortals  for  the  words  which  they  speak, 
or  for  the  rites  which  they  perform.  Wisdom,  justice,  self- 
denial,  nobleness,  purity,  high-mindedness — these  are  the  qualities 
before  which  the  free-born  races  of  Europe  have  been  contented 
to  bow  ;  and  in  no  order  of  men  were  suck  qualities  to  be  foutid 
as  they  were  found  six  hundred  years  ago  in  the  clergy  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Th^y  called  themselves  the  Successors  of  the 
Apostles  ;  they  claimed,  in  their  Master's  name,  universal  spiritual 
authority,  but  they  made  good  their  pretensions  by  the  holiness  of 
their  own  lives.  They  were  allazued  to  rule  because  they  deserved 
to  rule,  and  in  the  fulness  of  reverence  kings  and  nobles  bent  be- 
fore a  power  which  was  nearer  to  God  than  their  own.  Over 
prince  and  subject,  chieftain  and  serf,  a  body  of  unarmed,  de- 
fenceless men  reigned  supreme  by  the  magic  of  sanctity.  They 
tamed  the  fiery  Northern  warriors,  who  had  broken  in  pieces  the 
Roman  Empire.  They  taught  them — they  brought  them  really 
and  truly  to  believe — that  they  had  immortal  souls,  and  that  they 
would  one  day  stand  at  the  awful  judgment-bar  and  give  account 
for  their  lives  there.  With  the  brave,  the  honest,  and  the  good, 
with  those  who  had  not  oppressed  the  poor  nor  removed  their 
neighbor's  landmark,  with  those  who  had  been  just  in  all  their 
dealings,  with  those  who  had  fought  against  evil,  and  had  tried 
valiantly  to  do  their  Master's  will,  at  that  great  day  it  would  be 


1 56  Catholicism  and  Liberty, 

well.  For  cowards,  for  profligates,  for  those  who  lived  for  luxury 
and  pleasure  and  self-indulgence,  there  was  the  blackness  of 
eternal  death. 

"  An  awful  conviction  of  this  tremendous  kind  the  clergy  had 
effectually  instilled  into  the  mind  of  Europe.  It  was  not  a  Per- 
haps ;  it  was  a  certainty.  It  was  not  a  form  of  words  repeated 
once  a  week  at  church  ;  it  was  an  assurance  entertained  on  all 
days  and  in  all  places,  without  any  particle  of  doubt.  And  the 
effect  of  such  a  belief  on  life  and  conscience  was  simply  immeas- 
urable. 

"  I  do  not  pretend  that  the  clergy  were  perfect.  They  were 
very  far  £rom  perfect  at  the  best  of  times,  and  the  European  na- 
tions were  never  completely  submissive  to  them.  .  .  .  They 
could  not  prevent  the  kings  from  quarrelling  with  each  other. 
They  could  not  hinder  disputed  successions,  and  civil  feuds,  and 
wars,  and  political  conspiracies.  What  they  did  was  to  shelter  the 
weak  from  the  strong.  In  the  eyes  of  the  clergy  the  serf  and  his 
lord  stood  on  the  common  level  of  sinful  humanity.  Into  their 
ranks  high  birth  was  no  passport.  They  were  themselves,  for  the 
most  part,  children  of  the  people  ;  and  the  son  of  the  artisan  or 
peasant  rose  to  the  mitre  or  the  triple  crown,  just  as  nowadays  the 
rail-splitter  and  the  tailor  become  Presidents  of  the  Republic  of 
the  West.  The  Church  was  essentially  democratic,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  had  the  monopoly  of  learning ;  and  all  the  secular 
power  fell  to  it  which  learning,  combined  with  sanctity,  and  as- 
sisted with  superstition,  can  bestow  "  (Froude's  Short  Studies  on 
Great  Subjects,  vol.  i.  2d  ed.,  1867,  pp.  33-37). 

The  learned  Canon   Farrar  sa3'S  : 

"  What  was  it  that  had  preserved  the  best  elements  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  fourth  century  ?  The  self-sacrifice  of  the  Jiermits. 
What  was  it  which  saved  the  principles  of  law,  and  order,  and 
civilization  ^  What  rescued  the  wreck  of  ancient  literature  from 
the  universal  conflagration  .'*  What  restrained,  what  converted 
the  inrushing  Teutonic  races  ?  What  kept  alive  the  dying  embers 
of  science  ?  What  fanned  into  a  flame  the  white  ashes  of  art.? 
What  reclaimed  waste  lands,  cleared    forests,  drained   fens,  pro- 


Catholicism  and  Liberty.  157 


tected  miserable  populations,  encouraged  free  labor,  equalized 
widely  separated  ranks?  What  was  the  sole  witness  for  the 
cause  of  charity,  the  sole  preservative  of  even  partial  education, 
the  sole  rampart  against  intolerable  oppression  ?  What  force  was 
left  which  could  alone  humble  the  haughty  by  the  courage  which 
is  inspired  by  superiority  to  those  things  which  most  men  desire, 
and  elevate  the  poor  by  a  spectacle  of  a  poverty  at  once  voluntary 
and  powerful?  What  weak  and  unarmed  power  alone  retained 
the  strength  and  the  determination  to  dash  down  the  mailed  hand 
of  the  baron  when  it  was  uplifted  against  his  serf,  to  proclaim  a 
truce  of  God  between  warring  violences,  and  to  make  insolent 
wickedness  tremble  by  asserting  the  inherent  supremacy  of 
goodness  over  transgression,  of  knowledge  over  ignorance,  of 
quiet  righteousness  over  brute  force  ?  You  will  say  the  Church  ; 
you  ivill  s.iy  Christianity.  Yes,  but  for  many  a  lon^  century  the 
very  bulwarks  and  ra7nparts  of  the  Church  were  the  mofiasteries, 
and  the  one  invincible  force  of  the  Church  lay  in  the  self-sacrifice, 
the  holiness,  the  courage  of  the  Monks  "  (Saintly  Workers,  \i\).  82, 
83,  ed.  1878). 

"  From  the  fifth  to  ;he  thirteenth  century,"  says  the  same 
writer,  "  the  Church  was  engaged  in  elaborating  the  most  splen- 
did organization  which  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Starting  with 
the  separation  of  the  spiritual  from  the  temporal  power,  and  the 
mutual  independence  of  each  in  its  own  sphere,  Catholicism 
worked  hand-in-hand  with  feudalism  for  the  amelioration  of  man- 
,kind.  Under  the  influence  of  feudalism  slavery  became  serfdom, 
and  aggressive  was  modified  into  defensive  war.  Under  the 
influence  of  Catholicism  the  monasteries  preserved  learning,  and 
maintained  the  sense  of  the  unity  of  Christendom.  Under  the 
combmed  influence  of  both  -grew  up  the  lovely  ideal  of  chivalry, 
moulding  generous  instincts  into  gallant  institutions,  making  the 
body  vigorous  and  the  soul  pure,  and  wedding  the  Christian 
virtues  of  humility  and  tenderness  to  the  natural  graces  of 
courtesy  and  strength.  During  this  period  the  Church  was  the 
one  mighty  witness  for  light  i)i  att  age  of  darkness,  for  order  in 
ajt  age  of  lawlessness,  for  pers  nal  holiness  ift  an  epoch  of 
licentious  rage.  Amid  the  despotism  of  kings  and  the  turbulence 
of  aristocracies,  it  was  an  inestmiable  blessing  that  there  should 


158  Catholicism  and  Liberty.  ^ 

be  a  power  which,  by  the  unarmed  majesty  of  simple  goodness, 
made  the  haughtiest  and  the  boldest  respect  the  interests  of 
justice,  and  tremble  at  the  thought  of  temperance,  righteousness, 
and  judgment  to  come  "  {Huhcan  Lectures  for  1870,  p.  115,  lect. 
iii.,  "  The  Victories  of  Christianity  "). 

Here  is  the  testimony  of  another  English  writer : 

"The  Church  may  fairly  claim  the  credit  of  having  founded 
and  preserved  modern  civilization.  When  the  empire  sank 
beneath  the  advancing  Huns,  it  was  the  Bishop  of  Rome  who 
stayed  the  destroying  hand  of  the  barbarian  ;  it  was  the  spiritual 
influence  of  the  Church  which,  amidst  the  ruins  created  by  bar- 
barism and  anarchy,  procured  respect  for  the-  great  fabric  of 
Roman  Law  ;  it  was  her  religious  ritual  and  conventual  schools 
which  more  than  any  other  cause  prevented  the  Latin  language 
from  becoming  extinct.  In  all  these  instances  the  Church  ap- 
pears as  the  champion  of  order  and  liberty  "  {Quarterly  Review, 
January,  1878,  p.  11). 

Mr.  Laing  has  also  to  say  : 

"  Law,  learning,  education,  science,  all  that  ive  ter7n  civiliza- 
tion in  the  present  social  condition  of  the  European  people,  spring 
from  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  pontiff  and  of  the  Catholic 
priesthood  over  the  kings  and  nobles  of  the  middle  ages.  All 
that  men  have  of  civil,  political,  and  religious  freedom  in  the 
present  age  may  be  clearly  traced,  in  the  history  of  every  country, 
to  the  working  and  effects  of  the  independent  power  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  over  the  property,  social  economy,  movement, 
mind,  and  intelligence  of  all  connected  with  her  in  the  social 
body  "  {Observations  on  Europe,  1850,  p.  395). 

The  following  is  from  an  American  writer,  penned 
while  slavery  yet  existed  here  : 

"  The  Catholic  Church  was  in  reality  the  life  of  Europe.  She 
was  the  refuge  of  the  distressed,  the  friend  of  the  slave,  the 
helper  of  the  injured,  the  only  hope  of  learning.     ...     Let  us 


Catholicism  and  Liberty.  1 59 

not  cling  to  the  superstition  which  teaches  that  the  Church  has 
always  upheld  the  cause  of  tyrants.  Through  the  middle  ages 
she  was  the  only  friend  and  advocate  of  the  people,  and  of  the 
rights  of  man.  To  her  influence  was  it  owing  that,  through  all 
that  strange  era,  the  slaves  of  Europe  were  better  protected  by 
law  than  are  now  the  free  blacks  of  the  United  States  by  the 
national  statutes"  {North  American  Review,  July,  1845). 

Dr.  Nevin,  another  esteemed  American  Protestant 
essayist,  saj^s  : 

"  It  is  historically  certain  that  European  society,  as  a  whole,  in 
the  period  before  the  Reformation,  was  steadily  advancing  in  the 
direction  of  a  rational,  safe  liberty.  The  problem  by  which  the 
several  interests  of  the  throne,  the  aristocracy,  and  the  mass  of 
the  people  were  to  be  rightly  guarded  and  carried  forward  in  the 
onward  movement  of  civilization,  so  as  by  just  harmony  to  serve 
and  not  hinder  the  true  welfare  of  all,  was  one  of  vast  difificulty. 
The  simple  position  of  these  several  elements  relatively  to  each 
other,  at  the  going  out  of  the  middle  ages,  is  of  itself  enough  to 
show  how  false  it  is  to  represent  the  old  Catholicity  as  the  enemy 
of  popular  liberty;  for  we  see  that  European  civilization  at  this 
time,  after  having  been  for  so  many  centuries  under  the  sole 
guardianship  of  that  power,  presented  no  one  of  these  interests 
as  exclusively  predominant  "  {Mercersbtiyg  Review,  March,  1851). 

If  the  reader  will  now  turn  back  to  the  chapter  in 
which  I  have  given  some  testimony  concerning  the 
social  condition  and  manners  of  the  Spanish  people,  he 
will  see  how  thoroughly  that  nation  has  been  imbued 
from  time  immemorial  with  the  noblest  and  purest  ideas 
of  human  liberty,  and  in  fact  enjoyed  better  defined 
civil  rights  and  larger  political  privileges  than  perhaps 
any  other  country  in  Europe,  Catholic  or  Protestant. 
Don  Carlos  did  not  overstate  the  truth  when  he  said : 
' '  No  country  in  the  world  is  less  susceptible  of  govern- 
ment by  absolutism  than  Spain.     //  never  was  so  gov- 


1 60  Catholicism  and  Liberty, 

• =" — "= — " — " " ' "  "  ' — 

erned ;  it  never  will  be.''  I  take  the  liberty  of  saying 
to  that  assurance,  that  if  ever  Spain  unhappily  should 
lose  her  Catholic  faith  it  surely  will  be  so  governed. 
After  having  so  abundantly  proved  from  the  mouths 
of  Protestant  authorities  of  the  most  reliable  character 
what  the  world  owes  to  the  Catholic  Church  for  its 
present  civilization  and  liberty,  I  so  far  allow  myself  to 
depart  from  the  general  rule  observed  in  tbis  essa}^  as 
to  quote  from  a  Catholic  author  certain  observ^ations 
which  I  might  indeed  have  made,  but  of  whose  more 
forcible  style  I  prefer  to  give  the  reader  the  benefit. 
The  writer  is  discussing  the  subject  of  political  liberty, 
and  of  its  spirit  evidenced  in  the  desire  of  limiting 
power  by  means  of  popular  representative  institutions. 
He  goes  on  to  say  : 

"  Does  political  liberty  in  this  point  of  view  originate  in 
Protestant  ideas  ?  Is  it  under  any  obligation  to  them  ?  Has  it, 
in  fine,  any  reproach  against  Catholicity  ?  I  open  the  works  of 
Catholic  writers  anterior  to  Protestantism  in  order  to  ascertain 
their  sentiments  on  this  subject,  and  I  find  they  take  a  clear  View 
of  the  problem  to  be  solved.  I  examine  rigidly  whether  they 
teach  anything  opposed  to  the  progress  of  the  world,  to  the 
dignity  or  the  rights  of  man ;  I  examine,  again,  whether  they  bear 
any  affinity  to  despotism  or  to  tyranny,  and  I  find  theiti  full  of 
sympathy  for  the  progress  of  enlightenment  and  of  mankind,  in- 
flamed with  noble  and  generous  sentiments,  and  zealous  for  the 
happiness  of  the  multitude.  I  remark,  indeed,  that  their  hearts 
swell  with  indignation  at  the  mere  mention  of  tyranny  and  despot- 
ism. I  open  the  records  of  histor\'.  I  study  the  opinions  and 
customs  of  the  nations,  and  the  predominating  institutions ;  I  be- 
hold on  all  sides  nothing  but  fiieros,  privileges,  liberty,  cortes, 
states-general,  municipalities,  and  juries.  All  this  appears  in  the 
greatest  confusion,  but  I  see  it ;  and  I  am  not  astonished  to  dis- 
cover an  absence  of  order,  for  it  is  a  new  world  just  arisen  from 
chaos,    I   ask  myself  if   the  n-^onarch    possesses  in    himself  the 


Catholicism  and  Liberty.  l6l 

faculty  of  making  laws ;  and  upon  this  question  I  very  naturally 
find  variety,  uncertainty,  and  confusion  ;  but  I  observe  that  the 
assemblies  representing  the  different  classes  of  the  nation  take 
part  in  the  enactment  of  the  laws.  I  ask  whether  they  have  any 
interference  in  the  great  affairs  of  the  state  ;  and  I  find  it  stated  in 
the  codes  that  they  are  to  be  consulted  on  all  grave  and  important 
affairs;  I  see  monarchs  frequently  observing  this  precept.  I  ask 
whether  these  assemblies  possess  any  guarantees  for  their  exist- 
ence and  their  influence  ;  and  the  codes  inform  me  by  the  most 
decisive  texts,  and  a  thousand  facts  are  at  hand  to  convince  me, 
that  these  institutions  were  deeply  rooted  in  the  customs  and 
manners  of  the  people. 

"  Now,  what  was  then  the  predominating  religion }  Catho- 
licity. Were  the  people  much  attached  to  religion  ?  So  much  so 
that  the  spirit  of  religion  predominated  over  all.  Did  the  clergy 
possess  great  influence  ?  Very  great.  What  was  the  power  of 
the  Popes  ?  It  was  immense.  Where  do  you  find  the  clergy  at- 
tempting to  extend  the  power  of  kings  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
people  ?  Where  are  the  Pontifical  decrees  against  such  or  such 
forms  ?  Where  are  the  measures  and  plans  of  the  Popes  for  the 
restriction  of  one  single  legitimate  right  ?  No  reply.  Then  I  say, 
indignantly,  Europe  under  the  influence  of  Catholicity  arose  from 
chaos  to  order,  civilization  advanced  at  a  firm  and  steady  pace, 
the  grand  problem  of  political  forms  engaged  the  attention  of  men 
of  wisdom,  questions  of  morality  and  laws  were  receiving  a  solu- 
tion favorable  to  liberty,  and  yet  the  influence  of  the  clergy  was 
never  greater  even  in  temporal  matters,  and  the  power  of  the 
Popes  was  in  every  sense  quite  colossal.  What !  one  word  from 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff  would  have  smitten  unto  death  every  form 
of  popular  government ;  and  yet  such  forms  were  receiving  a  rapid 
development.  Where,  then,  is  the  tendency  of  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion to  enslave  the  people  ?  Where  the  infamous  alliance 
between  kings  and  Popes  to  oppress  and  harass  the  people,  to 
establish  on  the  throne  a  ferocious  despotism,  and  to  rejoice 
under  its  gloomy  shades  over  the  misfortune  and  tears  of  man- 
kind ?  When  the  Popes  had  a  quarrel  with  any  kingdom,  was 
it  usually  with  the  king  or  the  people  ?  When  it  was  necessary 
to  oppose  a  firm  front  against  tyranny  and  oppression,  who  stood 


1 62  Catholicism  and  Liberty. 

forward  more  promptly  or  more  firmly  than  the  Sovereign  Pontiff? 
Does  not  Voltah-e  himself  admit  that  the  Popes  restrained 
princes,  protected  the  people,  and  put  an  end  to  the  quarrels  of 
the  time  by  a  wise  intervention ;  reminded  both  kings  and  people 
of  their  duties,  and  hurled  anathemas  against  those  enormities 
which  they  could  not  prevent?"  {Protestantism  and  Catholicity 
Compared,  Balmez,  ch.  Ixi.) 

I  deem  it  quite  impossible  for  any  unbiassed  person 
to  read  the  scholarly  work  of  Balmez  without  heartily 
subscribing  to  the  verdict  with  which  he  closes  his 
volume  : 

"  Before  Protestantism  European  civilization  had  reached  all 
the  development  which  was  possible  for  it.  Protestantism  per- 
verted the  course  of  civilization,  and  produced  immense  evils  in 
modern  society.  The  progress  which  has  been  made  since 
Protestantism,  has  been  made  not  by  it,  but  in  spite  of  it.  I  have 
only  consulted  history,  and  I  have  taken  extreme  care  not  to  i)er- 
vert  it.  I  have  borne  in  mind  this  passage  of  Holy  Writ  :  '  Has 
God,  then,  need  of  thy  falsehood  ?  '  The  documents  to  which  I 
refer  are  there;  they  are  to  be  found  in  all  libraries,  ready  to 
answer  ;  read  them,  and  judge  for  yourselves." 

Here,  by  way  of  contrast,  and  as  a  painful  exempli- 
fication of  forgetfulness  of  the  scriptural  warning  ques- 
tion which  Balmez  quotes,  I  choose  among  hundreds  of 
similar  ones  the  following  :  It  first  appeared  as  an  edi- 
torial in  the  columns  of  the  New  York  Herald,  Octo- 
ber 14,  1880.  The  anti-Catholic  Evangelical  Alliance 
quickly  caught  it  up,  inserted  it  in  several  of  its  official 
documents,  offered  it  before  congressional  committees 
as  evidence  condemnatory  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
caused  it  to  be  widely  circulated  throughout  the 
country,  with  what  lamentable  effect  in  confirming  and 
deepening  old  and  unfounded  prejudices  in  the  minds 
of  Protestants,  may  well  be  imagined  : 


Catholicism  and  Liberty,  163 


"  This  is  a  Protestant  country,  and  the  American  people  are  a 
Protestant  people.  They  tolerate  all  religions,  even  Mohamme- 
danism ;  but  there  are  points  in  these  tolerated  religions  to  which 
they  object  and  will  not  permit;  and  the  vice  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  by  which  it  has  rotted  out  the  political  institu- 
tions of  all  countries  where  it  exists,  which  has  made  it  like  a 
flight  of  locusts  everywhere,  will  be  properly  rebuked  here  when 
it  fairly  shows  its  purpose." 

' '  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy 
neighbor,"  is  one  of  the  commandments  by  which  men 
shall  be  judged.  Every  time  I  come  across  that  piece 
of  false  testimony  and  others  from  the  same  source  (and 
one  need  not  be  surprised  to  hear  it  repeated  in  the 
next  Protestant  sermon  he  hears,  or  in  the  next  Protest- 
ant newspaper  he  reads)  I  cannot  but  wonder  how  the 
right  reverend,  reverend,  and  honorable  members  and 
officers  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  can  bring  them- 
selves to  risk  the  consequences  of  such  gross  violations 
of  that  commandment — consequences  standing  recorded 
against  them  on  God's  Judgment  Book,  standing  while 
they  live,  and  as  they  die,  with  no  sign  of  repentance 
or  of  effort  at  retraction  and  restitution.  In  the  whole 
history  of  the  Catholic  Church  such  obliviousness  to  the 
demands  of  truth  and  justice  has  no  parallel. 

Comparing  the  character  of  the  testimonies  we  have 
just  heard,  the  language  of  Cardinal  Newman  comes 
in  as  a  very  apposite  reflection  :  ' '  Not  a  man  in  Europe 
(or  elsewhere)  now,  who  talks  bravely  against  the 
Church,  but  owes  it  to  the  Church  that  he  can  talk 
at  all." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

PROTEvSTANTISM  AND  LIBERTY. 

MY  Catholic  reader  has  probably  wondered  that  I 
have  not  made  special  allusion  to  the  foundation 
and  defence  of  popular  liberty  in  England  centuries 
before  Protestantism  brought  in  its  tyrants  to  rule  over 
that  unhappy  kingdom.  But  I  have  taken  it  for 
granted  that  Catholics  need  not  be  reminded,  neither 
ought  any  Protestant  of  the  least  learning  to  be  told, 
that  all  English  liberties  are  Catholic :  that  Magna 
Charta  itself  was  written  and  sealed  by  Catholic  hands  ; 
that  representative  forms  existed  when  Protestantism 
was  not  dreamed  of  ;  also  trial  by  jur\^  fixed  courts, 
habeas  corpus,  taxation  only  by  consent  of  the  people, 
all  of  which  were  ruthlessly  trampled  under  foot  by  the 
royal  founders  of  English  Protestantism,  and  the 
doctrines  of  the  "  divine  right  of  kings"  distinguished 
for  their  brutal  despotism,  and  whose  parliaments 
became  the  cringing,  abject  slaves  of  their  will. 

How  can  Protestantism  make  the  least  claim  to 
having  either  proclaimed  new  principles  of  free 
government,  or  aided  in  the  spread  of  civil,  political,  or 
religious  liberty  ?  It  is  indisputable  that  the  people 
lost  their  liberties  as  Protestantism  gained  influence, 
and  the  increase  of  royal  power  dates  precisely  from 
this  rise  of  rebellion  against  the  divine  sanction  of 
authority  whether  in  Church  or  state,  only  to  confer  an 
absolute  irresponsible  human  authority  upon  the  state 

over  both  religion  and  the  social  order.      I^ook  at  the 

164 


Protestantism  and  Liberty,  165 

absolute  despotism  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  in 
England,  the  like  of  which  Christendom  had  never 
seen.  When  the  war  of  the  Huguenots  was  over  in 
France,  royal  power  became  more  absolute  than  ever. 
Under  Gustavus,  King  of  Sweden,  and  under  his 
successors,  the  people  fell  back  into  the  worst  condition 
of  serfage.  In'Denmark,  in  Prussia,  the  kings  assumed 
absolute  mastery,  and  in  Austria  the  Emperor  Charles 
V.  followed  their  example.  In  Italy  the  smaller 
Catholic  republics  weakened  and  disappeared  ;  in  Spain 
the  ancient  Cortes  of  Castile,  Aragon,  Valencia,  and 
Catalonia  were  abandoned. 

Protestantism  gave  the  word — the  king  rules  no 
longer  subject  to  divine  law,  but  by  his  own  arrogated 
"  divine  right,"  and  is  limited  in  his  power  only  by  his 
own  will.  Religious  unity,  founded  upon  recognition 
of  the  rights  of  God  in  both  Church  and  state,  was 
violently  severed,  and  the  people  of  Europe  were 
broken  up  into  two  great  warring  factions,  mortally 
hating  one  another,  and  issuing  in  the  most  savage  and 
relentless  conflicts,  in  the  course  of  which  the  kings 
triumphed  at  the  expense  of  the  loss  of  the  civil, 
political,  and  religious  liberties  of  the  people.  Royal 
power,  instructed  by  Protestantism  that  both  Church 
and  state  were  but  creatures  of  its  will  and  pleasure, 
and  that  it  need  no  longer  fear  the  anathemas  of 
Christ's  Vicegerent,  looked  on  from  its  throne  of  irre- 
sponsible rule  as  the  people  quarrelled  and  raged  and 
slew  one  another,  and  waited,  until  exhausted  with 
their  own  frenzied  passions  and  finding  themselves  on 
th'e  brink  of  social  ruin,  they  were  themselves  forced  to 
yield  up  every  iota  of  liberty  they  possessed  into  the 
hands  of  their  kings  to  save  themselves  from  utter  ex- 


1 66  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

tinction."  That  is  why  the  people  in  Sweden  submitted 
to  the  fierce  despotic  seizure  of  absolute  power  by 
Charles  XI.  in  1680.  That  is  why  the  natives  in 
Denmark,  alarmed  at  the  prevailing  state  of  anarchy, 
supplicated  King  Frederick  III.  in  1669  to  declare  the 
monarchy  hereditary  and  absolute,  and  why,  later  on, 
came  the  Cromwellian  despotism  in  Khgland  and  the 
creation  of  the  hereditary  Stadtholder  in  Holland. 

In  England,  when  James  I.  came  to  the  throne,  that 
royal  theologian  proclaimed  this  doctrine:  '*  God  has 
appointed  the  king  or  ruler  absolute  master,  and  all 
privileges  which  co-legislative  bodies  enjoy  are  pure 
QoncQSsiows  proeeedi?ig  from  the  ktJig's  bounty.''  How 
does  that  sound  in  the  ears  of  those  who  are  vainly 
striving  to  make  the  cap  of  liberty  fit  the  head  of  Pro- 
testantism ?  Listen  to  this :  When  the  king  pro- 
claimed that  doctrine  of  absolutism  to  his  Parliament, 
they  listened  in  cowardly  silence.  But  when  a  court 
preacher  in  Catholic  Spain  dared  say  the  same,  as  he 
was  preaching  a  flattering  sermon  before  King  Philip 
II.,  -and  said,  "Sovereigns  have  absolute  power  over 
the  property  and  persons  of  their  subjects  " — a  doctrine 
carried  out  to  the  letter  in  Protestant  Sweden  and 
Denmark,  as  it  was  by  the  founders  of  Protestant 
royalty  in  England — the  people  rose  indignantly  and 
denounced  him  to  the  Inquisition.  That  tribunal  con- 
demned him  and  his  doctrine,  punished  him,  and 
obliged  him  to  make  a  public  recantation  in  the  face  of 
the  king.  The  Protestant  English  had  long  forgotten 
their  ancient  Catholic  liberties.  They  lost  them  both 
when,  and  because,  they  lost  their  Catholic  faith.  The 
Catholic  Spaniards  were  more  happy.  They  kept  their 
faith,  and  that  faith  told  them  of  their  rights,  and  gave 


Protestantism  and  Liberty,  167 

them  courage  to  assert  them.  They  "knew  the  truth, 
and  the  truth  had  made  them  free."  Protestant 
absolutism  never  triumphed  in  Spain. 

What  we  see  and  have  evidence  for,  as  having  been 
the  results  of  the  Reformation  in  other  countries,  is  only 
a  faithful  record  of  what  England  suffered  from  the  loss 
of  her  Catholic  faith. 

"  We  have  looked  for,"  says  the  Protestant  traveller,  Bremner, 
"  but  can  find  no  single  check  to  the  }K)wer  of  the  king  in  Den- 
mark. Laws,  property,  taxes,  all  are  at  the  mercy  of  his  tyranny 
or  caprice.  The  peasants  remain  now  in  many  parts  of  Denmark 
little  better  than  serfs  "  {Excursions  in  Denmark,  Norway,  atid 
Sweden,  Robert  Bremner,    London,  1840).     Mark  the  date  ! 

That  other  travelled  observer,  Laing,  confirms  this 
statement : 

"  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  circumstances  in  modern 
history  that  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
all  other  countries  were  advancing  towards  constitutional  arrange- 
ments of  some  kind  or  other  for  the  security  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty,  Denmark,  by  a  formal  act  of  her  states  or  diet, 
abrogated  even  that  shadozu  of  a  constitution  and  invested  her 
sovereigns  with  full,  despotic  power  to  make  and  execute  law 
without  any  check  or  control  on  their  absolute  authority.  Lord 
Molesworth,  thirty-two  years  after  this  singular  transaction, 
makes  this  curious  observation— that  '  in  the  Roman  Catholic  re- 
ligion there  is  a  resisting  principle  to  absolute  civil  power  due  to 
division  of  authority  with  the  head  of  the  Church  at  Rome,  but  in 
the  north  the  Lutheran  Church  is  entirely  subservient  to  the  civil 
power,  and  the  whole  of  the  northern  people  of  Protestant  coun- 
tries [England,  Denmark,  Sweden,  Norway,  and  Germany] 
have  lost  their  liberties  ever  since  they  changed  their  religion 
for  a  better  [?].'  The  Swede  has  no  freedom  of  mind,  no  power 
of  dissent  in  religious  opinion  from  the  established  church.  One 
not  baptized,  confirmed,  and    instructed  by  a  clergyman  of  the 


1 68  Protestantism  and  Liberty, 

established  church  cannot  marry,  hold  office,  or  exercise  any  act 
as  a  citiscn—\\Q  would,  in  fact,  be  an  outlaw.  A  country  in  this 
state  lacks  the  very  foundation  on  which  civil  liberty  must  stand." 

• 

Protestant  Prussia  was  no  better.  The  serf  system, 
introduced  and  servilely  submitted  to  under  the 
influence  of  the  "  better"  religion,  continued  to  prevail 
in  that  kingdom  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century.  "The  condition  of  these  born-serfs — the 
great  body  of  the  people,"  Laing  tells  us,  "was  very 
similar  to  that  of  the  negro  slaves  in  the  West  Indies 
before  their  emancipation."  The  very  system  of 
education  in  Prussia,  so  much  admired  by  American 
Protestants,  and  which  they  seem  so  determined  to  force 
upon  our  own  free  people,  "  was  nothing,"  says  Laing, 

"  but  a  deception,  a  delusion  put  upon  the  noblest  principle  of 
human  nature— the  desire  for  intellectual  development — practised 
for  the  political  end  of  rearing  the  individual  to  be  part  and  parcel 
of  an  artificial  system  of  despotic  government,  of  training  him  to 
be  eithfer  its  instrument  or  its  slave,  according  to  his  social 
station  "  {Notes  of  a   Traveller,  p.  174). 

Listen  to  our  present  anti-Catholic  preachers, 
National  Leagues,  Alliances,  secret  "orders"  of 
A.  P.  A.'s,  and  "American  Mechanics,"  with  their 
cries  about  "  protecting  American  institutions  "  against 
what  they  falsely  charge  the  Catholic  Church  with  be- 
ing desirous  of  and  plotting  to  secure — viz.,  the 
"Union  of  Church  and  State."  And  all  this,  too,  right 
in  the  face  6f  their  own  failure  to  make  such  an  union 
between  the  Protestant  church  and  state,  as  I  have 
lately  proved  beyond  all  cavil  in  the  pages  of  The 
Catholic  Wo7id  Magazine  (January  and  February, 
T894). 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  169 

Why  all  this  outcry  from  Protestants  about  the 
dangers  to  religious  liberty  to  be  apprehended  from 
union  of  church  and  state  ?  What  is  the  fact  ?  There 
is  '  *  Union  of  Church  and  State ' '  in  England  and 
Wales,  Scotland,  Prussia,  Sweden,  Norway,  and  Den- 
mark— all  Protestant  countries.  In  England  the  king 
or  queen  is  at  the  same  time  head  of  the  church  and  of 
the  state,  and  the  church  is  reduced  to  the  condition  of 
a  mere  creature  and  tool  of  the  state.  If  Protestantism 
be  favorable  to  religious  liberty,  why  did  it  bring  about 
this  union  of  church  and  state  in  every  country  where 
it  has  been  the  dominant  religion,  and  why  does  it 
still  sustain  it  in  greater  or  less  force  in  all  the 
above-mentioned  countries  ?     Says  Hallam  : 

"  It  is  often  said  that  the  essential  principle  of  Protestantism, 
and  that  for  which  the  struggle  was  made,  was  something  dif- 
ferent from  what  we  have  mentioned  ;  a  perpetual  freedom  from 
all  authority  in  religious  belief,  or  what  goes  by  the  name  of  the 
'right  of  private  judgment.'  But  to  look  at  what  occurred,  this 
permanent  independence  was  not  much  asserted,  and  still  less 
acted  upon.  The  Reformation  was  only  a  change  of  masters  " 
{History  of  Literature,  vol.  i.  p.  200). 

Let  the  reader  get  at  a  history  of  Switzerland,  and  he 
will  find  that  in  the  Protestant  cantons  the  democratic 
principle  was  weakened,  and  the  legislature  "  bossed  " 
the  Church.  But  the  Catholic  cantons  are  the  freest 
of  all.  He  will  not  find  any  persecution  of  Protestants 
there,  no  attempt  to  unite  church  and  state,  and  no  loss 
of  their  original  Swiss  liberties. 

The  Protestant  historian,  D'Aubigne,  is  puzzled  to 
explain  this,  and  offers  an  amusing  reason.  The 
Catholic  cantons .  are  chiefly  the  mountainous  parts  of 


1 70  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 


Switzerland,  the  Protestant  ones  are  in  the  plains.  So 
M.  D'Aubigne  tells  us  that  "intelligence  had  not 
penetrated  to  those  heights ' '  /  He  meant  that  they  were 
not  intelligent  enough  to  embrace  the  new  Protestant- 
ism. Thank  God  ! — nor  base  enough  to  barter  away 
the  least  of  their  democratic  liberties. 

Catholics  have  often  declared  the  Catholic  religion 
to  be  the  "Religion  of  the  State,"  but  that  title  has 
never  been  synonymous  with  "Creature  and  Tool  of  the 
State."  Catholics  know^  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  they  carry  it  out  in  practice  :  "  Render  unto  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's  ;  and  unto  God  the  things 
that  are  God's."  Protestantism  has  always  delivered 
over  the  things  that  are  God's  into  the  hands  of  Caesar, 
and  has  tamely  submitted  to  let  Caesar  do  what  he 
would  with  them,  whether  those  "  things  of  God  "  were 
so  judged  to  be  His  by  themselves,  or.  by  Catholics  ; 
and  Caesar  has  not  been  slow  to  take  advantage  of  the 
tyrannical  power  they  have  invested  him  with,  both  to 
keep  them  in  a  base  religious  slavery  and  to  rob  Catho- 
lics of  every  "  thing  of  God  "  which  they  held  as  holy 
and  consecrated  to  His  service. 


FREEDOM   OF   CONSCIENCE   AND   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY. 

Perhaps  there  are  no  subjects  concerning  which 
there  is  greater  confusion  of  mind  among  Protestants 
than  that  of  religious  liberty  and  the  freedom  of 
conscience.  Their  common  erroneous  notions  of  Catho- 
lic doctrine  and  practice  on  the  same  subjects  lead 
them  to  make  and  to  give  credence  to  all  sorts  of  ab- 
surd charges,  and  to  interpret  many  facts  of  history  in 
a  false  light. 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  1 7 1 

This  is  all  the  more  surprising  because  the  true 
ethical  doctrines  of  their  own  sects  are  precisely  in 
accordance  with  those  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Not 
one  of  their  intelligent  teachers  would  pretend  that 
there  could  be  liberty  of  any  kind  without  law,  or  that 
freedom  of  conscience  meant  anything  else  than  free- 
dom to  obey  that  voice  of  God  in  the  nature  and  heart 
of  man  which  speaks  within  the  soul  as  an  internal 
witness  both  of  the  existence  and  law  of  God.  Both 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  in  doctrine,  are  agreed  that 
a  man's  conscience  is  supreme,  not  in  giving  him  per- 
mission to  do  whatsoever  he  chooses,  but  just  the  con- 
trary, supreme  and  absolutely  inflexible  in  exacting 
obedience  to  obligations  to  what  it  says  is  duty.  As 
Cardinal  Newman  forcibly  proclaims  its  supremacy : 
"Conscience  is  the  aboriginal  Vicar  of  Christ,  a 
prophet  in  its  informations,  a  monarch  in  its  peremp- 
toriness,  a  priest  in  its  blessings  and  anathemas,  and, 
even  though  the  eternal  priesthood  throughout  the 
Church  could  cease  to  be,  in  it  the  sacerdotal  principle 
would  remain  and  would  have  a  sway."  And  this 
great  Christian  writer  goes  on  to  show  how  this  true 
idea  of  Conscience  has  become  dimmed  in  these  later 
days,  first  through  the  antagonism  of  infidel  philoso- 
phers, and  secondly  as  a  consequence  of  popular  igno- 
rance and  licentiousness  in  living'.  What  freedom  of 
conscience  has  come  to  mean  in  the  popular  mind,  and 
the  confused  notions  concerning  religious  liberty  that 
have  resulted,  the  Cardinal  thus  clearly  and  succinctly 
exposes  : 

"  In  the  popular  mind,  no  more  than  in  the  intellectual  world, 
does  '  conscience  '  retain  the  old,  true,  Catholic  meaning  of  the 
word.     There  too  the  idea,  the  presence  of  a  Moral  Governor  is 


1 72  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

far  away  from  the  use  of  it,  frequent  and  emphatic  as  that  use  of 
it  is.  When  men  advocate  the  rights  of  conscience,  they  in  no 
sense  mean  the  rights  of  the  Creator,  nor  the  duty  to  Him,  in 
thought  and  deed,  of  the  creature ;  but  the  right  of  thinking, 
speaking,  writing,  and  acting  according  to  their  judgment  or 
their  humor,  without  any  thought  of  God  at  all.  They  do  not 
pretend  to  go  by  any  moral  rule,  but  they  demand,  what  they 
think  is  an  Englishman's  [and  an  American's]  prerogative,  for 
each  to  be  his  own  master  in  all  things,  and  to  profess  what  he 
pleases,  asking  no  one's  leave,  and  accounting  priest  or  preacher, 
speaker  or  writer,  unutterably  impertinent  who  dares  to  say  a 
word  against  his  going  to  perdition,  if  he  like  it,  in  his  own  way. 

"  Conscience  has  rights  because  it  has  duties  ;  but  in  this  age, 
with  a  large  portion  of  the  public,  it  is  held  to  be  the  very  right 
and  freedom  of  conscience  to  dispense  with  conscience,  to  ignore 
a  Lawgiver  and  Judge,  to  be  independent  of  unseen  obligations. 
It  becomes  a  license  to  take  up  any  or  no  religion ;  to  take  up  this 
and  that,  and  let  it  go  again  ;  to  go  to  church,  to  go  to  chapel, 
to  boast  of  being  above  all  religions,  and  to  be  an  impartial  critic 
of  each  of  them. 

"  Conscience  is  a  stern  monitor,  but  in  this  century  it  has  been 
superseded  by  a  counterfeit  which  the  eighteen  centuries  prior  to 
it  never  heard  of,  and  could  not  have  mistaken  for  it,  if  they  had. 
//  is  the  right  oj  self -will.  '  * 

I  submit  that  more  than  one  of  those  Protestant 
enemies  of  the  Catholic  Church  who  are  so  clamorous 
about  their  "  freedom  of  conscience,"  and  so  ready  to 
accuse  the  Pope  and  the  Catholic  hierarchy  and  priest- 
hood generally  with  denouncing  and  interfering  with 
that  freedom,  might  make  use  of  the  words  of  Cardinal 
Newman  as  an  ' '  examination  of  their  own  conscience  ' ' 
as  to  the  justice  of  their  accusations. 

*  TAe  Pope :  How  far  does  He  control  Conscience  ?  How  far  does  he 
inter/ere  7vith  Citizenship  ?  By  Cardinal  John  Henry  Newman.  Being  his 
Answer  to  the  Right  Honorable  W.  E.  Gladstone's  pamphlet  entitled 
"Vaticanism."    The  Catholig  Book  Exchange,  i2q  W.  60th  St.,  New  York. 


Protestantism  and  Liberty,  173 

And  will  they  not  also  join  with  the  Catholic  Church 
in  denouncing  that  '' so-called  \\h^x\.y  of  conscience" 
which  they  now  see  is  the  one  she  does  denounce — the 
assumed  ''right  of  self-will"?  They  must,  or  deny 
the  true  idea  of  conscience  as  being  the  voice  of  God 
and  the  exponent  of  His  divine  will,  against  which  no 
creature  dare  assert  his  own  without  blasphemy. 

Can  one  wonder  that  the  Catholic  Church  sounds 
the  note  of  alarm  when  such  doctrines  of  human  liberty 
as  the  following,  taught  by  the  English  philosopher, 
Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill,  are  found  to  receive  a  wide  ac- 
ceptance— not  among  Catholics,  thank  God!  but  among 
many  who  call  themselves  Christians?  Says  Mr. 
Mill: 

"  The  appropriate  region  of  human  Hberty  comprises,  first, 
the  inward  domain  of  consciousness ;  demanding  liberty  of 
conscience  in  the  most  comprehensive  sense,  Hberty  of  thought 
and  feeling,  absolute  freedom  of  opinion  and  sentiment  on  all  sub- 
jects, practical  or  speculative,  scientific,  moral,  or  theological. 
The  liberty  of  expressing  2A\di  publishing  opinion  may  seem  to  fall 
under  a  different  principle,  since  it  belongs  to  that  part  of  the  con- 
duct of  an  individual  which  concerns  other  people  ;  but  being  al- 
most of  as  much  importance  as  the  liberty  of  thought  itself,  and 
resting  in  great  part  on  the  same  reasons,  is  practically  insepar- 
able frojn  it,  etc.,  etc."  {Mill  on  Liberty,  Introd.) 

Either  I  am  very  greatly  mistaken  or  such  is  the 
view  of  liberty  which  many  Protestants  proclaim  to  be 
theirs,  and  act  upon,  especially  when  they  attempt  to 
justify  the  license  they  give  themselves  in  disturb- 
ing the  social  peace  of  Catholic  peoples  by  expressing 
and  publishing  their  moral  and  religious  opinions 
among  them,  of  which  I  will  presently  give  an  ex- 
ample. 


1 74  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

One  other  fact  is  worth  remark.  It  is  an  every- 
day speech  among  Catholics  that  one  is  "bound  in 
conscience"  to  do  this  or  to  avoid  that,  while  I  think 
I  am  not  going  beyond  the  truth  to  say  that  a  good  deal 
more  is  heard  among  Protestants  about  the  freedom  of 
conscience  than  about  its  obligations.  Catholics  also 
are  constantly  reminded  in  various  ways  of  their  being 
' '  bound  in  conscience ' '  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  land 
they  live  in  and  to  be  loyal  to  the  government  ;  to  be 
no  less  "  bound  in  conscience  "  to  obey  the  laws  of  the 
Church  and  to  be  loyal  to  its  divinely  appointed  rulers  ; 
and  above  all,  bound  to  obey  the  law  of  God  written  on 
the  heart  to  do  what  the  conscience  aflirms  to  be  right, 
and  not  to  do  what  is  declared  by  the  same  interior 
monitor  to  be  wrong. 

This  constant  instruction  as  to  their  conscientious 
obligations  results  in  making  Catholics,  in  relation  to 
their  country,  peaceful,  law-abiding,  and  loyal  citizens  ; 
in  relation  to  their  Church,  faithful  to  its  doctrines,  de- 
vout in  fulfilling  its  precepts,  and  filial  in  their  loving 
obedience  to  those  whom  God  has  set  over  them  ;  and 
in  relation  to  the  debt  or  duty  which  they  ' '  owe  to 
their  owai  conscience"  as  the  phrase  is,  in  regard  to 
their  direct  personal  responsibility  to  God,  the  well- 
known  practice  of  confession,  so  universal  and  so  freely 
and  earnestly  resorted  to  in  order  to  receive  from  God 
forgiveness  for  sins  of  which  their  consciences  accuse 
them,  is  a  signal  proof  of  the  strict  and  constant  atten- 
tion Catholics  pa}  to  the  admonitions  and  convictions 
of  their  conscience.  No  wonder,  then,  to  find,  as  you 
will,  in  every  Catholic  prayer-book  a  number  of  ques- 
tions enabling  the  reader  to  make  a  careful  ' '  exami- 
nation of  conscience." 


Protestantism  and  Liberty,  175 

From  the  foregoing  remarks,  and  especially  what  I 
have  quoted  from  Cardinal  Newman,  one  can  very, 
easily  see  how  it  comes  about  that  Catholics  and 
Protestants  are  very  likely  to  have  quite  diverse  notions 
concerning  the  extent  of  what  goes  by  the  name  of 
"  religious  liberty,"  and  in  what  consists  a  righteous 
enjoyment  of  one's  freedom  of  conscience. 

As  a  general  rule,  wherever  Catholic  governments 
have  limited  the  so-called  "  exercise  of  the  freedom  of 
conscience  "  as  claimed  by  Protestants,  it  will  be  found, 
and  is  too  notorious  to  need  proof,  that  under  the  title  of 
exercising  their  rights  of  conscience  they  have  includ- 
ed the  freedom  to  go  among  Catholic  people  and  pre- 
vent them  from  peacefully  exercising  their  own  rights 
of  conscience,  by  insulting  and  misrepresenting  their 
holy  faith,  calling  them  "idolaters,  priest-ridden,  the 
slaves  of  Antichrist,"  and  seeking  by  all  means,  fair  or 
foul,  to  spread  disbelief  among  the  people,  cause  them 
to  apostatize — in  Catholic  ej^es  a  blasphemous  denial 
of  Christ — and  often  bringing  on  violent  and  even 
bloody  conflicts  between  the  antagonistic  parties  they 
created.  Then  the  Catholic  government,  of  course, 
would  come  to  the  defence  of  its  Catholic  citizens  and 
punish  these  pestilent  disturbers  of  the  public  peace, 
who  immediately  cried  out  to  the  world  that  they  were 
being  "persecuted." 

We  have  a  recent  instance  which  will  serve  as  a 
good  example  of  this  "  enjoying  one's  freedom  of 
conscience"  at  the  expense  of  other  people's. 

A  certain  Methodist  minister.  Rev.  Justus  H.  Nel- 
son, went  down  to  Brazil  to  evangelize  those  "  be- 
nighted, priest-ridden"  people  through  the  columns 
of  a  newspaper  he  edited.     Religious  liberty  was,  and 


I  "6  Profcsiautisni  and  Liberty. 

still  is.  fully  granted  in  Brazil  by  that  Catholic  people, 
both  for  private  belief  and  public  worship,  the  sale  o\ 
Protestant  Bibles,  books,  tracts,  and  even  to  the  pub- 
lishing of  a  Methodist  religious  newspaper.  But  this 
Protestant  apostle  was  not  content  with  enjoying  all 
these  privileges  in  a  peaceful  manner.  He  must  go  out 
into  the  street  and  personally  insult  a  Catholic  religious 
procession. to  freely  satisfy  his  conscientious  convictions, 
for  which  the  pious  bystanders  "persecuted"  him,  as 
he  complained,  by  knocking  his  hat  off.  Enraged  at 
having  his  freedom  of  conscience  interfered  with,  he 
used  the  colunuis  of  his  newspaper  to  denounce  and 
ridicule  these  "superstitious  nuimmeries "  and  the 
"idolatry  of  the  \'irgin." 

I  have  not  space  to  recount  all  his  vile  insults; 
his  arraigning  the  bishops  and  priests  as  impostors ; 
his  provoking,  and,  to  the  Brazilian  Catholics,  horribly 
blasphemous  ridicule  of  all  that  they  held  as  most 
sacred.  The  Methodist  New  York  organ  and  name- 
sake of  Rev.  Mr.  Nelson's  newspaper,  The  Christian 
Adi'Ocati\  not  only  copied  all  these  exasperating  at- 
tacks upon  the  faith  and  peace  of  the  people  in  Brazil, 
but  defended  them  ;  and  why?  Because  "  in  Brazil," 
said  tlie  New  York  editor.  "  the  Catholic  priests  domi- 
nate the  popular  will."  And  again:  "  All  the  super- 
stitious ceremonials,  nuimmeries,  and  open  vices  so 
characteristic  of  Roman  Catholic  countries.*  abound  in 
many  of  the  larger  towns."  The  curious  reader  may 
lind  a  copy  of  the  Rev.  Nelson's  unseemly  editorial 
writing  in  the   New    York    Catholic  Xeics  of    February 

*  When  my  reader  shall  have  read  the  chapters  devoted  in  this  book  to 
Crime  and  Immorality  he  will  be  able  to  judge  what  justice  there  is  in 
this  sweeping  accusation. 


J^rotestantisJH  and  Liberty.  I77 

5,  1893.  Tlie  upshot  of  it  was  that  the  Brazilian 
authorities  stojj]j'_-rl  tliis  Methodist  \va\-  of  "  cxtrcisiiig 
one's  freedom  of  conscience"  In*  sending  tliis  reverend 
disturber  of  tlie  ];ub]ic  peace  to  prison  for  a  few  montlis 
in  St.  JoseplTs  Jail.  Tliat  was,  perhaps,  the  most  un- 
kinrl  persecution  of  all — to  immure  a  Methodist  minis- 
ter in  a  dungeon  actually  dedicaterl  to  the  '"idolatrous 
worship  "   of  a  saint  I 

What  rlirl  his  Methoflist  brethren  and  co-laborers  at 
liome  in  the  L'nited  States  do  then  ?  They  actually 
attemijted  to  induce  our  government  to  interfere  and 
force  the  iirazilian  Catholics  to  tamely  submit  to  all 
the.se  outrages  upon  their  faith  and  .social  peace. 
"Prompt  action  has  been  taken."  the  Christian  Advo- 
cate told  us.  "  Bishop  Foss  has  written  a  personal  let- 
ter to  President  Harri.son,  who  promptly  responded  that 
he  had  at  once  forwarded  it  to  Secretary  Foster  for 
immediate  diplomatic  action.'"  Is  not  tliat  a  pretty 
specimen  of  what  it  would  appear  Methodi.st  Protes- 
tants understanrl  by  religious  liberty,  and  enjoying 
one's  freedom  of  conscience  ? 

Are  we  to  understand  that  this  is  the  kind  of  re- 
ligious liberty  the  Methodists  have  just  besought  the 
Holy  Father  to  use  his  influence  to  obtain  for  them  in 
Peru,  Bolivia,  and  Ecuador?  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
their  bishop,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Newman,  enclosed  with  the 
memorial  a  copy  of  his  printed  sentiment  about  these 
vSouth  American    Catholics,   as  follows  : 

"  I  woukl  rather  be  a  South  American  Inca  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  whose  [pagan]  altars  were  unstained  with  the  worship 
of  saints  of  an  apostate  church,  than  a  South  American  papist 
of  the    nineteenth  century,"  with  all  the   rest  of  his  abominable 


I  yS  Protestantism  and  Liberty.^ 


farrago  of  detraction  and  insult.     (See  the   Christian   Advocate 
(Methodist)  June   i,   1893.) 

The  perusal  of  his  letter,  together  with  a  copy  of  the 
Report  of  the  Case  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Nelson,  would  no 
doubt  aid  the  Holy  Father  in  understanding  the  sort  of 
"freedom  of  conscience"  these  Methodist  bishops, 
ministers,  colporteurs,  and  editors  would  "exercise" 
if  they  could  once  be  permitted  to  do  as  they  like  in 
those  Catholic  countries. 

But  let  us  hear  what  just  such  another  character  as 
this  Rev.  Mr.  Nelson— a  Mr.  Daniel  P.  Kidder,  hired 
agent  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Missionary  Society 
to  act  as  Bible  distributer  in  Brazil,  has  to  say  of  the 
religious  liberty  he  found  there  in  1845.  His  book  of 
travel  is  not  quite  so  full  of  ignorant  misrepresentation 
as  his  Rev.  Methodist  Brother  Nelson's  newspaper  was, 
but  there  is  quite  enough  to  make  his  testimony  of 
what  \^  favorable  to  Bj'azil  unimpeachable.     He  writes  : 

"  The  BraziHans,  on  their  poHtical  disenthralment,  adopted  a 
liberal  and  tolerant  constitution.  Although  it  made  the  Roman 
Catholic  apostolic  religion  that  of  the  state,  yet  it  all&wed  all 
other  forms  of  religion  to  be  held  and  practised,  save  in  buildings 
'  having  the  exterior  form  of  a  temple.'  It  also  forbade  persecu- 
tion on  the  ground  of  religious  opinions." 

In  another  place  he   tells  us  : 

"  It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  there  is  not  a  Roman  Catholic 
country  on  the  face  of  the  globe  where  there  prevails  a  greater 
degree  of  toleration,  or  a  greater  liberality  of  feeling  towards 
Protestants  "  (Sketches  of  Residence  and  Travel  in  Brazil,  etc., 
vol.  i.  p.  137). 

Now  let   us    hear  Mr.  I^aing,  the  Scotch  travelled 
Bachelor  of  Cambridge,  once  more  : 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  1 79 


^'  The  principle  that  the  civil  government,  or  state,  or  church 
and  state  united,  of  a  country,  is  entitled  to  regulate  its  religious 
belief  has  more  of  intellectual  thraldom  in  it  than  the  power  of 
the  popish  Church  ever  exercised  \Vi  the  darkest  ages,y"(9r  it  had 
110  civil  pOTC'er  joined  to  its  religious  power.  The  Church  of 
Rome  was  an  independent,  distinct,  and  often  an  opposing  power 
in  every  country  to  the  civil  power,  a  circumstance,  in  the  social 
economy  of  the  middle  ages,  to  which  perhaps  [certainly  ?]  Eu- 
rope is  indebted  for  her  civilization  and  freedom.  ...  In 
Germany  (in  1846)  the  seven  Catholic  sovereigns  have  12,074,700 
Catholic  subjects,  and  2,541,000  Protestant  subjects.  The  twenty- 
nine  Protestant  sovereigns,  including  the  four  free  cities,  have 
12,113,000  Protestant  subjects,  and  4,966,000  Catholic.  Of  these 
populations  in  Germany  those  that  have  their  point  of  spiritual 
government  without  their  states  and  independent  of  them — as  the 
Catholics  have  at  Roine — enjoy  certainly  more  spiritual  independ- 
ence, are  less  exposed  to  the  intermeddling  of  the  hand  of  the 
civil  power  with  their  religious  concerns,  than  the  Protestant 
populations,  which  since  the  Reformation  have  had  church  and 
state  united  in  one  government,  and  in  which  each  autocratic 
sovereign  is  de  facto  a  home-pope  "  {Notes  of  a  Traveller,  p.  194). 

He  goes  on  to  praise  the  ' '  popish  clergy ' '  for  taking 
a  firm  stand  upon  liberal  and  popular  grounds  in  de- 
fence of  the  people's  rights,  and  concludes  by  saying 
that  "  Catholicism  is,  in  fact,  the  only  barrier  at  present 
171  Prussia  against  a  general  a7id  debasing  despotism  of 
the  state  over  tniiid  and  action.''' 

In  the  light  of  such  opinions  what  is  to  be  thought 
of  the  present  organized  attack  upon  Catholics  and 
their  priesthood  by  the  **  National  lycague,"  the 
"A.  P.  A.s,"  and  all  the  rest  of  the  self-constituted 
**  Protectors  of  American  institutions,"  in  this  land 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty?  What  a  shameful 
page  of  American  history  they  are  writing,  to  be  sure  ! 

The  end  sought  by  all  these  associations  and  their 


1 80  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

supporters  is  one  and  the  same — to  prevent  Catholics 
enjoying  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  guaranteed 
to  them  b}^  the  Constitution.  Some  of  these  associa- 
tions openly  declare  that  purpose  to  be  one  they  not 
only  seek,  but  bind  themselves  by  a  slavish  oath  to  use 
all  means,  fair  and  foul,  to  accomplish  if  they  can. 
Others,  like  the  "  National  League  for  the  Protection 
of  American  Institutions,"  confine  their  acknowledged 
purpose  to  secure  the  accomplishment  chiefly  of  that 
article  of  tyranny  contained  in  the  programme  of  the 
oath-bound  societies — that  of  legally  robbing  all  edu- 
cation and  all  charitable  work  of  religion  and  moral- 
ity ;  both  of  which  elements  of  spiritual  culture  Catho- 
lics declare,  and  with  truth,  are  essential  to  the  free 
enjoyment  of  their  and  everybody  else's  religious 
liberty,  and  which  they  are  bound  in  conscience  to 
provide  for  all  under  their  parental  or  charitable  care. 
The  pretence  made  by  this  League  and  the  other 
* '  Protectors  ' '  is  one  that  cannot  and  never  will  be  sus- 
tained by  a  free  people.  They  assert  that  religious — 
or,  as  they  style  it,  "sectarian" — education  is  detri- 
mental to  the  interests  of  the  state,  and  that,  as  Catho- 
lics are  set  upon  educating  their  own  children  with 
religion,  the  state  needs  to  be  "protected"  against 
them  and  their  purpose.  Does  any  sane  man  believe 
that  they  are  honest  in  all  this  outcry  against  ' '  sectar- 
ianism ' '  ?  All  their  pretended  arguments  boiled  down 
amount  to  this  one  proposition — Sectarianism  does  not 
promote  but  hinders  patriotism. 

One  is  tempted  to  ask  :  Does  Protestant  sectarianism 
hinder  patriotism  ?  Are  these  over-loyal  protectors  of 
American  liberties  ready  to  admit  that  it  does  ? 
Would  they  dare  to  offer  any   evidence  in  support  of 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  \  8 1 

the  implied  charge  that  because  Catholics  are  far  and 
away  more  true  and  devoted  to  their  religion  than 
Protestants  are — or,  as  they  would  say,  viorc  sectarian 
— they  are  therefore  less  patriotic  ?  Is  infidelity  likely 
to  make  better  patriots  than  Christianity  ?  But  why  go 
on  asking  such  useless  questions  ?  They  will  take 
good  care  never  to  reply  to  them.  They  say  one  thing 
and  mean  another. 

A  prominent  politician,  Mr.  Edw^ard  M.  Shephard, 
denouncing  the  other  day  the  base  methods  of  the 
A.  P.  A.s  and  the  falsehood  of  their  charges  against 
the  patriotism  of  Catholics  in  the  United  States,  went 
on  to  give  this  bit  of  testimony  : 

"  I  am  myself  a  strong  Protestant ;  but  the  strongest  Protest- 
ant, if  an  intelligent  and  honest  man,  must  admit  the  enormous 
service  to  piety  and  good  morals  rendered  in  this  country  by  the 
Church  against  which  this  movement  of  intolerance  is  directed. 

*'  So  far  as  public  affairs  are  concerned,  no  religious  body  has 
contained  men  who  have  rendered  more  distinguished  and  more 
unselfish  patriotic  service  than  members  of  the  Catholic  Church 
have  during  the  whole  history  of  the  American  government,  and 
especially  at  the  present  time.  There  is  not  a  sound  political 
principle,  there  is  no  single  reform  which  makes  for  righteousness 
in  public  affairs,  among  whose  firmest  and  sincerest  promoters  are 
not  numbered  our  fellow-citizens  of  the  Catholic  faith. 

"  It  is  well  enough  for  us  Protestants  to  remember  that  the 
great  majority  of  our  political  knaves,  whether  in  federal,  state,  or 
local  politics,  have  been,  like  Tweed,  men  professing  to  be 
sincere  Protestants.  We  had  better  remember  that  in  modern 
times,  as  was  the  case  between  three  hundred  and  four  hundred 
years  ago,  it  has  more  than  once  happened  that  Sir  Thomas 
More  has  been  a  Catholic  and  Henry  VIII.  a  Protestant." 

And  now  I  am  going  to  give  what  I  believe  to  be  the 
real   reason   that   lies  at   the  bottom  of  their  hearts,  a 


1 82  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

reason  of  the  fear  they  have  to  allow  Catholics  to  go  on 
enjoying  equal  civil  and  religious  rights  with  them- 
selves. It  is  illustrated  in  the  unwillingness  of  the 
English  law-makers  to  emancipate  Catholics  from  the 
civil  disabilities  that  oppressed  them  when  an  attempt 
was  made  to  pass  a  bill  for  their  emancipation  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  the  3'ear  1805.  The  Attorne}^- 
general  of  the  government  opposed  the  bill.  Why? 
Hear  his  reason  : 

"  Bear  in  mind  that  it  is  just  the  same  thing  for  England  to  re- 
peal the  laws  enacted  against  the  Catholics  and  to  have  im- 
mediately a  Catholic  parliament,  and  the  Catholic  religion,  instead 
of  the  existing  Establishment  "  {Parliamentary  Debates,  etc.,  vol. 
iv.  p.  943,  London,  1805,  speech  of  the  Attorney-general). 

What  better  tribute  could  be  paid  to  the  truth  and 
spiritual  power  of  Catholicism,  at  that  time  the  de- 
spoiled victim  of  Protestantism  in  England,  crushed  by 
penal  laws,  treated  as  an  outcast  that  must  not  dare 
show  its  face  upon  the  domain  of  its  own  rightful 
inheritance  ?  What  a  confession  of  the  essential  weak- 
ness and  unrighteous  religious  despotism  of  the  Pro- 
testant Law-Established  Church !  Any  one  can  see 
that  the  animus  which  prompted  this  parliamentary 
speech  in  England,  intended  to  frighten  the  clergy  and 
the  people  with  the  already  successful  popular  bugaboo 
of  "  Popery,"  and  the  spirit  inciting  the  efforts  now 
being  made  right  here  in  America  to  forge  and  rivet 
upon  Catholics  manacles  of  civil  and  religious  servi- 
tude similar  to  those  which  England  declared  herself 
afraid  to  remove,   are  one  and  the  same. 

Every  appeal  to  mere  passion,  to  ungrounded  fear, 
to  ignorant  prejudice,  instinctively  fashions  a  hue  and 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  183 

cry,  a  shibboleth  to  pass  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and 
take  the  place  of  argument  or  evidence.  In  England  it 
was  No  Popciy,  invented  by  the  "  Protestant  Associa- 
tion ' '  for  the  Protection  of  English  Institutions  i 

Here  we  have  a  similar  one,  invented  by  the  "  Na- 
tional League  for  the  Protection  of  American  Institu- 
tions." Its  hue  and  cry  is  No  Sectarianism  ! — mean- 
ing, as  everybody  knows,  No  Catholicism  ! 

And  here  I  cannot  let  the  opportunity  pass  without 
noting  that  both  these  terms  of  opprobrium  have  pre- 
cisely the  same  relation  to  the  parties  imposing  them  as 
a  stigma  upon  the  Catholic  Church.  They  do  not 
belong  to  her  nor  express  her  character,  hut  to  t/iem- 
setves,  and  are  singularly  appropriate  to  the  form  and 
spirit  of  their  religious  sects. 

What  did  the  English  people  understand  by 
"  Popery  "  ?  Not  at  all  what  is  involved  in  the  spirit- 
ual rule  of  the  Pope,  either  in  its  exactions,  or  in  the 
faithful  obedience  of  Catholics  to  it.  Not  in  any 
country.  No,  not  in  Rome  itself.  They  took  it  to 
mean  the  subjection  of  the  people  to  a  power  which 
was  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  "  Head  of  the  Church 
in  temporals  and  spirituals  "  ;  a  power  that  was  en- 
gendered by  the  union  of  Church  and  state  ;  a  power 
that  could  define  doctrine  which  the  people  must 
believe,  and  make  laws  that  they  must  obey ;  a 
power  that  made  religion  its  bond- slave  and  tool  to 
serve  the  state  in  ruling  its  kingdom  of  this  world  ;  a 
power  that  had  the  audacity  to  claim  supreme  jurisdic- 
tion over  the  religion  of  Christ,  to  deny  its  fundamental 
principle  of  faith,  to  alter  its  doctrines,  and  control  its 
moral  influence,  and  all  this  on  the  score  of  its  being  tJie 
head  of  the  state  ;  a  power  that  acknowledged  no  limit  to 


1 84  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

its  exactions  but  its  own  will.  Such  is  the  monstrosity 
called  "Union  of  Church  and  State"  in  Protestant 
countries,  the  very  opposite  to  any  such  union  adopted  in 
Catholic  countries. 

When,  therefore,  our  American  agitators  denounce 
such  a  union,  and  tell  their  deluded  hearers  that  this  is 
what  Catholics  are  anxious  to  see  established  here,  they 
either  do  not  know  what  they  are  talking  about,  or  they 
are  unpardonable  deceivers  of  the  people.  We  want  no 
such  union  of  the  Church  and  state  as  existed  even  in 
Catholic  countries  repeated  here — to  say  we  do  is  an 
atrocious  slander — and  so  long  as  we  have  an  arm  to 
defend  our  country  and  our  rights  as  freemen,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  higher  rights  of  God,  no  Protestant 
"  union  of  Church  and  state"  shall  be  established  here, 
either.  That  "  abomination  of  desolation  "  has  already 
cursed  enough  countries  in  the  world.  Who  that 
makes  au}^  pretence  to  have  read  history,  does  not 
know  that  such  was  the  identical  ' '  Popery ' '  under 
which  those  very  Protestant  Englishmen  were  slavishly 
living,  and  have  been  living  ever  since  the  Reformation? 

But  what  matter  ?  A  dog  will  either  cowardly  fear 
or  viciously  attack  his  own  reflection  in  a  mirror,  and 
so  the  ' '  No-Popery  ' '  cry  did  eminent  service  in  the 
mouths  of  the  English  "  Protestant  Association."  Eet 
the  reader  take  up  an  encyclopaedia  and  read  what 
comes  after  the  name  of  "  Eord  George  Gordon  (1751- 
1793),"  president  of  the  "  Protestant  Associations  of 
England  and  Scotland."  He  will  find  a  brief  account 
of  the  horrible  "  No-Popery"  riots  stirred  up  by  this 
infamous  man  and  his  fellows  ;  of  the  burning  of  Catho- 
lic churches  and  dwellings,  of  the  breaking  open  of  the 
prisons,  the  Bank  of  England  and  other  public  build- 


Protesta7itisni  and  Liberty.  185 

ings,  and  pursuing  their  work  of  violence  and  conflagra- 
tion until  the  interference  of  the  military,  resulting  in 
the  death  of  nearly  five  hundred  persons.  The  story  of 
Barnaby  Rudgc,  by  the  great  English  novelist  Dickens, 
gives  a  most  graphic  picture  of  these  riots. 

And  all  pray  for  what  reason  ?  Oh  !  some  well- 
meaning  Englishman  had  introduced  a  bill  in  Parlia- 
ment looking  to  the  removal  of  Roman  Catholic  civil 
and  religious  disabilities.  Quite  good  reason  enough 
for  such  Protestant  ' '  Protectors  of  English  Institutions ' ' 
against  ' '  popery  ' '  as  then  ' '  raged  like  the  heathen  ' '  in 
England,  when  ''the  people  imagined  a  vain  thing," 
and  were  ready  to  burn,  pillage,  and  kill  to  get  rid  of  it. 

Now  let  me  ask  our  fellow  American  citizens  who 
are  '  ranging  themselves  under  the  banners  of  the 
"National  League,"  the  "A.  P.  A.,"  and  other  such 
"Protestant  Associations"  for  protecting  American 
institutions  from  the  dangerous  increase  of  Catholicism, 
and  for  whom  the  secret  password  and  the  open  hue 
and  cry  is  No  Sectarianism  !  what  do  they  understand 
by  "sectarianism"  ?  Not  what  it  is  defined  to  be  in 
dictionaries,  nor  according  to  the  sense  in  which  that 
appropriate  if  odious  term  has  always  been  employed 
in  all  decent  and  honestly  worded  literature  ;  certainly 
not  :  but  rather  the  very  thing  that  has  always  been 
the  distinctive  mark  of  Protestantism,  and  especially  of 
that  sort  of  Protestantism  at  whose  beck  and  call 
to-day  the  people  are  allowing  their  fears  to  be  excited, 
their  prejudices  deepened,  and  their  hearts  embittered 
against  the  Catholic  Church  for  what  she  is  not,  and  for 
what  she  has  never  been  reproached  before.  Who  can 
honestly  deny  it  ? 

Do  you  ask  me  how  it  is  possible  for  otherwise  in- 


l86  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

telligent  and  well-instructed  persons  to  fall  so  easily 
under  this  delusion  and  become  so  blind  as  to  fail  any 
longer  to  see  that  the  enemy  they  fear  is  in  reality  one 
of  their  own  household  ?  The  best  reply  that  suggests 
itself  to  me  is,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  too 
7iear  an  object  as  well  as  being  too  far  from  it,  in  order 
to  see  it  clearly.  In  either  case  the  object  is  out  of 
focus.  If  it  happens  that  at  this  present  moment  of 
"  taking  observ^ations "  of  the  alleged  enemy,  so  many 
of  our  Protestant  fellow-citizens  see  not  things  as  they 
are  it  is  because  the  N.  L.  P.  A.  I.,  the  A.  P.  A.,  and 
other  well-belettered  anti-Catholic  associations  have 
taken  into  their  hands  the  business  of  adjusting  the 
lenses  of  the  sectariscope.  How  deftly  they  shorten  the 
focus  when  it  is  pointed  at  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
how  cunningly  they  lengthen  it  when  it  is  directed 
toward  themselves  ! 

Religious  liberty  is,  of  course,  something  that  is 
viewed  by  Catholics  and  Protestants  from  a  different 
stand-point.  Catholics,  who  are  as  certain  of  the 
divine  authority  of  their  religion  as  they  are  that 
the  sun  shines,  can  never  allow  to  themselves  the 
liberty,  so  called,  of  error.  With  them  it  is  a  grievous 
sin  to  wilfully  deny  or  to  put  themselves  in  the  occasion 
of  doubting  the  truths  of  their  faith.  No  one  has  the 
liberty  to  sin.  For  the  same  reason  no  Catholic  can 
grant  ' '  liberty ' '  to  any  unbeliever  to  come  in  and 
tempt  his  children  or  his  brother  Catholics  to  doubt  or 
deny  their  religion,  any  more  than  he  can  allow  any 
one  to  tempt  them  to  commit  any  other  sin.  The  very 
intolerance  of  Catholic  authorities  in  refusing  to  permit 
Protestants  and  other  unbelievers  to  come  into  the  midst 
of   a   faithful   people,  and   to   freely   preach   doctrines. 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  1 87 

held  necessarily  by  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  errone- 
ous, and  to  tempt  them  to  doubt  and  deny  their  faith,  is 
only  all  the  more  convincing  testimony  to  the  certainty 
of  their  faith  and  to  their  loyalty  to  truth.  There  are 
ever  ringing  in  the  ears  of  Catholics  the  words  of  Jesus 
Christ:  **  Whosoever  shall  deny  Me  before  men,  him 
will  I  also  deny  before  the  face  of  my  Father  who  is  in 
heaven."  "  Whosoever  shall  scandalize  the  least  of 
these  little  ones ' '  (scandalize — to  give  occasion  to 
another  to  commit  sin ) ,  "it  were  better  for  him  that  a 
millstone  should  be  hanged  about  his  neck  and  that 
he  should  be  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea." 

Toleration  of  peaceful  political  or  religious  error  is 
justly  demanded  of  Christian  charity  and  even  of  pagan 
benevolence.  Such  toleration  is  certainly  the  doctrine 
as  it  has  been  the  practice  of  Catholics  ;  but  * '  free 
error  in  a  free  state  "  as  a  principle  for  unlimited  action 
is  a  grandiloquent  absurdity  which  no  rational  man 
will  attempt  to,  justify.  A  foreigner  who  would  come 
here  from  some  monarchy  or  autocracy,  and  from  under 
a  banner  on  which  that  maxim  is  inscribed  would 
gather  together  our  fellow-citizens  and  our  children,  and 
then  harangue  them  with  denunciations  of  our  republi- 
can form  of  government,  charging  it  falsely  with  all 
sorts  of  crimes,  heaping  ridicule  and  insult  alike  upon 
President,  Congress,  governors,  and  all  in  authority, 
and  then  inciting  his  hearers  to  rebellion,  would  pretty 
soon  find  himself  "persecuted  for  conscience'  sake" 
by  loyal  citizens,  and  not  the  last  by  Catholics  either, 
who  are  as  much  opposed  to  ' '  free  treason ' '  as  they  are 
to  "free  heresy  and  apostasy,"  when  "enjoying  one's 
freedom  of  conscience  "  takes  that  shape.  This  is  that 
miserable    ' '  counterfeit   of   the   rights   of    conscience ' ' 


1 88  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

which    Cardinal  Newman    so   w^ell   stigmatized   as   the 
"  rights  of  self-will." 

It  cannot  be  proved  that  the  Catholic  Church  ever 
persecuted  any  man  for  any  private,  peaceful,  conscien- 
tious convictions  of  his  own,  no  matter  how  different 
from  her  own  faith.  And  the  best  proof  of  this  is  that 
to  do  so  would  be  directly  contrary  to  the  teaching  of 
the  Church  by  her  councils  and  by  her  greatest  doctors. 
The  Catholic  Church,  as  I  have  already  said,  teaches 
her  children  to  obey  their  conscience  because  it  is  the 
voice  of  God,  and  therefore  she  teaches  them  to  respect 
that  voice  of  God  in  the  breasts  of  other  men.  Her 
dictum  is,  "  It  is  never  lawful  to  go  against  one's  con- 
science." The  Fourth  Council  of  I^ateran  says:  "  He 
who  acts  against  his  conscience  loses  his  soul." 

So,  as  all  Catholic  theologians  teach,  even  heretics 
and  unbelievers  must  obey  their  conscience  ;  and  if  so, 
then  on  what  possible  ground  could  the  Church  perse- 
cute them  for  their  conscientious  belief  ?  Am  I  right 
in  my  assertion  ?     Here  are  my  authorities. 

The  great  school  of  theologians  at  Salamanca,  in 
Spain,  taught  that  "one's  conscience  is  alwa3's  to  be 
obeyed  whether  it  tells  truly  or  erroneously,  and  that 
whether  the  error  is  the  fault  of  the  person  thus  erring 
or  not"  {Theolog.  Moral.,  t.  v.  p.  12,  ed.  1728). 

These  universally  esteemed  Catholic  teachers  not 
only  say  this  for  themselves,  but  go  on  to  show  that 
such  has  been  the  doctrine  of  the  greatest  former  theo- 
logians of  the  Church,  such  as  St.  Thomas,  St. 
Bonaventure,  and  others.  Of  course,  if  a  man  is  culpa- 
ble in  being  in  error,  which  is  due  to  his  lack  of  sincer- 
ity and  earnest  will  to  learn  the  truth,  then  his  falliiig 
into  error  yN2.^  a  sin,  and  for  that  he  is  responsible    to 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  189 

God.  But  now  note  the  Catholic  doctrine.  Being  in 
error,  he  is  bound  in  conscience  to  act  according  to  that 
error,  so  long  as  he  in  full,  sincerity  thinks  the  error  to 
be  truth. 

How  do  these  theologians  hold  that  this  would  affect 
Catholics  ?  They  hold  that  if  a  Catholic  erroneously 
believQd  a  precept  of  the  Pope,  bishop,  or  priest  to  be 
morally  wrong,  he  is  bound  not  to  obey  these  superiors, 
and  that  he  would  commit  a  sin  if  he  did. 

How  does  that  doctrine  affect  Protestants  and  un- 
believers? The  celebrated  Jesuit  theologian  Busen- 
baum — mark  it,  my  dear  Protestant  reader,  a  Jesuit  ! — 
writes  thus  : 

"  A  heretic,  as  long  as  he  judges  his  sect  to  be  more  or  equally 
deserving  of  belief,  has  no  obligation  to  believe  [in  the  Church]." 

And  he  continues  : 

"  When  men  who  have  been  brought  up  in  heresy  are  per- 
suaded from  boyhood  that  we  Catholics  impugn  and  attack 
the  word  of  God,  that  we  are  idolaters,  pestilent  deceivers,  and 
are  therefore  to  be  shunned  as  pests,  they  cannot,  while  this  per- 
suasion lasts,  listen  to  us  with  a  safe  conscience  "  (tom.  i.  p.  54). 

It  goes  without  saying  that  such  persuasion  should 
be  fully  sincere,  and  that  one  does  not  wilfully  shut 
his  eyes  and  ears  against  the  plain  evidences  of  truth. 
Sincerity  does  not  make  an  error  truth  ;  but  it  does 
excuse  one  from  sin  in  holding  to  the  error  which  he 
thinks  to  be  truth. 

Therefore  there  is  no  possible  ground  for  inflicting 
any  sort  of  pains,  penalties,  or  disabilities  upon  such  an 
one  ;  and  I  say  again,  it  cannot  be  proved  that  the 
Catholic  Church  ever  sanctioned  the  punishment  of 
any  one  for  sincerely  believing   an  error.     Before  she 


1 90  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

could  do  that  she  would  have  to  stultify  herself  and 
declare  that  one  has  no  excuse  for  being  in  error  and 
cannot  justifiably  act  in  errpr.  But,  on  the  contrary, 
she  does  declare  that  he  not  only  may  be  in  error  with- 
out fault,  but  so  being  he  is  bound  to  act  according  to 
his  convictions. 

The  Catholic  Church  has  many  a  time,  and.  right- 
fully, sanctioned  the  action  of  the  civil  authorities  in 
the  performance  of  their  bounden  duty  in  carrying  out 
the  public  law  made  to  protect  the  faith  of  the  people 
and  the  public  peace  of  the  community  against  open 
attacks  made  upon  both  by  heretics,  apostates,  and 
unbelievers  who  set  themselves  to  work  to  disturb  and 
destroy  one  and  the  other.  Hindering  their  self- 
assumed  license  of  speech,  and  punishing  them  for 
overt  acts  is  ^written  down  as  * '  persecution  for 
conscience'  sake"  by  their  sympathizers.  Any  crim- 
inal might  just  as  reasonably  urge  that  he  was  perse- 
cuted for  conscience'  sake  by  the  district  attorney  and 
the  judge  and  jury  that  condemned  him  for  breaking 
the  law  of  the  land. 

Years  ago  our  famous  Chancellor  Kent,  when  Chief- 
Justice  of  the  State  of  New  York,  pronounced  an  unan- 
imous judgment  of  the  court  in  a  case  (8  Johnson's 
Reports,  page  225)  in  which  "the  defendant  was  in- 
dicted and  condemned  for  wickedly,  maliciously,  and 
blasphemously  uttering  in  the  hearing  of  divers  good 
and  Christian  people,  of  and  concerning  the  Christian 
religion  and  concerning  Jesus  Christ,  certain  foul  and 
blasphemous  words  in  contempt  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion and  in  contempt  of  the  laws  of  this  State. ''^  It  was 
argued  in  defence  of  the  prisoner  that  he  was  only 
exercising  his  liberty  of  conscience,  guaranteed  to  all 


Protestantism  and  Liberty,  191 

citizens  by  the  Constitution.  But  the  court  in  reply 
brought  out  the  Constitution,  and  showed  that  it  de- 
clares that  * '  the  liberty  of  conscience  hereby  granted 
shall  not  be  so  construed  as  to  excuse  acts  of  licentious- 
ness (undue  license  of  speech  or  act) ,  or  justify  prac- 
tices inconsistent  with  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  stated 
That  is  the  doctrine  of  Catholic  states,  and  according 
to  that  doctrine  the  state  of  Brazil  very  justly  con- 
demned the  Rev.  J.  H.  Nelson,  Methodist  disturber 
of  the  peace  and  safety  of  that  state,  as  other  Catholic 
states  have  punished  just  such  other  disturbers  and 
blasphemers  of  the  Christian  religion  as  he. 

One  never  hears  of  Catholic  missionaries  resorting 
to  such  methods  either  in  Protestant,  Mussulman,  or 
heathen  lands.  If  they  did  they  would  get  very  pro- 
perly punished  for  such  attacks  upon  the  peace  and 
good  order  of  society.  Much  less  are  they  so  false  to 
charity  and  truth  as  to  charge  Protestants  or  others 
who  do  not  believe  as  they  do  with  holding  doctrines 
they  detest  and  repudiate,  and  disseminate  tracts  and 
other  publications  filled  with  gross  insults  to  the  faith 
and  morality  of  their  ministers  and  people,  setting  the 
whole  community  by  the  ears,  and  inciting  the  out- 
raged people  to  violent  reprisals. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  is  a  common  Protestant 
method.  These  uneasy  enemies  of  religious  liberty  are 
filled  with  the  spirit  of  persecution,  arrogating  to  them- 
selves the  privilege,  granted  to  them  by  neither  God 
nor  man,  to  hinder  everybody  else  from  the  peaceful 
enjoyment  of  their  own  religion.  Catholic  missionaries 
content  themselves  in  similar  efforts  to  convert  un- 
believers with  rational  argument,  friendly  persuasion, 
and  the  powerful  example  of  holy  and  self-denying  lives. 


192  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

Now  we  can  hear  Mr.  Ivccky,  who,  after  acknowl- 
edging that  on  the  score  of  persecution,  so-called,  the 
Catholic  Church  was  only  "defending  herself  against 
innovation  and  aggression,"  goes  on  to  make  this  com- 
parison : 

"  But  what  shall  we  say  of  a  church  that  was  but  a  thing  of 
yesterday,  a  church  that  had  as  yet  no  services  to  show,  no  claims 
upon  the  gratitude  of  mankind,  a  church  that  was  by  profession 
the  creature  of  private  judgment,  and  was  in  reality  generated  by 
the  intrigues  of  a  corrupt  court,  which,  nevertheless,  suppressed 
by  force  a  worship  that  multitudes  deemed  necessary  to  their 
salvation,  and  by  all  her  organs,  and  with  all  her  energies,  perse- 
cuted those  who  clung  to  the  religion  of  their  fathers  ?  What 
shall  we  say  of  a  religion  which  comprised  at  most  but  a  fourth 
part  of  the  Christian  world,  and  which  the  first  explosion  of  pri- 
vate judgment  had  shivered  into  countless  sects,  which  was, 
nevertheless,  so  pervaded  by  the  spirit  of  dogmatism  that  each  of 
these  sects  asserted  its  distinctive  doctrines  with  the  same  confi- 
dence, and  persecuted  with  the  same  unhesitating  virulence 
[defending  herself  against  innovation  and  aggression,  Mr.  Lecky], 
as  the  Church  which  was  venerable  with  the  homage  of  more 
than  twelve  centuries  }  What  shall  we  say  of  men  who,  in  the 
ftame  of  religious  liberty,  deluged  their  land  with  blood,  trampled 
upon  the  very  first  principles  of  patriotism,  calling  in  strangers 
to  their  assistance  [just  as  the  self-styled  "  international  order  " 
of  the  A.  P.  A.  are  calling  in  British  Orangemen  to  help  them 
"protect"  American  institutions],  and  openly  rejoicing  in  the 
disasters  of  their  country,  and  who,  when  they  at  last  obtained 
their  object,  immediately  established  a  religious  tyran?iy  as  ab- 
solute as  that  which  they  had  subverted  }  .  .  .  Nothing  can 
be  more  erroneous  than  to  represent  [Protestant]  persecution  [of 
Catholics]  as  merely  a  weapon  which  was  employed  in  a  moment 
of  conflict,  or  as  an  outburst  of  natural  indignation,  or  as  the  un- 
reasoning observance  of  an  old  tradition.  Persecution  among  the 
early  Protestants  was  a  distinct  and  definite  doctrine,  digested 
into  elaborate  treatises,  and  enforced  against  the  most  inoffensive 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  193 


as  against  the  most  formidable  sects.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
pahniest  days  of  Protestantism.  It  was  taught  by  those  who  are 
justly  esteemed  the  greatest  of  its  leaders  "  (Lecky,  Rationalism 
in  Europe,  vol.  ii.  pp.   57-61). 

The  eminent  Protestant  historian,  Hallam,  pro- 
nounces the  same  judgment  upon  Protestantism  : 

"  Persecution  is  the  deadly  original  sin  of  the  Reformed 
churches,  which  cools  every  honest  man's  zeal  for  their  cause  in 
proportion  as  his  reading  becomes  more  extensive "  {Constit. 
Hist.,  vol.  i.  chap,  ii.) 

Modern  Protestantism  has  not  a  whit  improved. 

"  Hopital  and  Lord  Baltimore,  the  Catholic  founder  of  Mary- 
land, were  the  two  first  legislators  who  uniformly  upheld  religious 
liberty  when  in  power;  and  Maryland  continued  the  solitary 
refuge  for  the  oppressed  of  every  Christian  sect  till  the  Puritans 
succeeded  in  subverting  the  Catholic  rule,  when  they  basely  en- 
acted the  whole  penal  code  against  those  who  had  so  nobly  and 
so  generously  received  them  "  (Lecky,  Rationalisjn  in  Europe, 
vol.  ii.) 

The  most  barba*rous  penal  laws  existed  against 
Catholics  in  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  and  were 
re-enacted  with  greater  severity  under  William  and 
Mary,  almost  in  the  eighteenth  century.  King  James 
II.  lost  his  crown  of  the  three  kingdoms  because  of  the 
edict  of  toleration,  which,  as  it  tolerated  Catholics,  was 
denounced  as  an  act  of  outrageous  tyranny  ! 

The  Episcopalian  colony  in  our  own  Virginia  adopt- 
ed the  penal  laws  against  Catholics,  and  the  Puritans  in 
Massachusetts  made  it  an  offence  punishable  with 
banishment  from  the  colony  to  harbor  a  Catholic  priest 
for  one  night,  or  give  him  one  meal  of  victuals. 

Up  to  1788  an  article  in  the  confession  of  faith  of  the 


IQ4  Protestantism  and  Liberty, 


Presbyterian  Assembly  of  the  United  States  declared  it 
to  be  the  duty  of  the  civil  magistrate  to  extirpate  here- 
tics and  idolaters,  and  it  stands  to-day  in  the  confession 
of  faith  of  Presbyterians  in  Scotland,  and  of  the  United 
Presbyterians  in  this  country.  The  first  Protestant 
minister  of  Boston,  John  Cotton,  called  toleration  "that 
devil's  doctrine." 

Congregationalism  was  the  state  religion  in  Massa- 
chusetts up  to   1835. 

American  Protestants  particularly,  who  make  the 
most  boastful  claims  for  their  Protestantism  as  a 
system  on  the  score  of- civil  and  religious  liberty,  have 
manifested  the  most  ardent  sympathy  with  every  des- 
potic usurpation  of  power  that  has  taken  place  in 
Catholic  countries,  and  have  fomented  and  encouraged 
every  such  revolution  by  means  of  their  emissaries, 
their  associations,  and  outpoured  contributions.  They 
pretend  to  hold  monarchy  in  horror,  but  who  rejoiced 
so  heartily  as  they  when  the  temporal  rule  of  the  Pope 
was  overthrown  and  the  Savoyard  king  came,  and  has 
made  of  all  Italy  a  first-class  pauperized  power  ? 

Why  have  the  infidel  and  Freemason  republics  of 
France  and  Mexico  their  hearts'  best  wishes  and  the 
loudest  applause  of  their  throats  ?  Because  they  have 
some  sort  of  a  republic  ?  Not  at  all.  It  is  because  in 
them  Catholics  have  lost  their  liberties,  and  their  re- 
ligion is  oppressed,  their  property  and  temples  of 
worship,  and  institutions  of  charity,  all  belonging  to 
God,  confiscated  in  order  to  strengthen  the  very  hands 
of  their  oppressors.  Who  but  they  clapped  their  hands 
and  sang  pseans  of  joy  when  Bismarck  proclaimed  the 
Culturkampf  in  Germany  ?  and  w^ho  are  to-day  mourn- 
ing and  expressing  their  disappointment   because  that 


Protestantism  and  Liberty.  195 

glorious  hero  of  theirs,  the  Protestant  emperor's  right- 
hand  "man  of  iron  and  blood,"  has  been  forced  to 
make  not  only  one,  but   many  journeys  to    Canossa  ? 

Protestants  have  tried  their  utmost  to  prevent  this 
country  becoming  a  perfectly  free  country  for  anybody 
but  themselves,  just  as  they  have  much  better  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  in  every  country  they  control  in 
Europe ;  and  it  has  always  been  with  many  tears,  and 
sighs,  and  groans,  mingled  with  the  most  violent 
demonstrations  of  popular  rage,  that  they  have  ever  re- 
luctantly relaxed  their  hold  upon  a  tyrannical  rule  over 
Catholics  which  enabled  them  to  keep  the  "papists  " 
in  a  state  of  political  slavery  and  under  an  oppressive 
social  ban.  And  then  to  prate  about  the  libert}^  that 
has  been   given  to   the  world   by  Protestantism  ! 

What  is  the  chief  danger  that  threatens  the  liberties 
of  the  people  in  a  republic  ?  Unquestionably  it  is  the 
centralization  of  power  and  the  undue  enlargement  of 
the  prerogatives  of  the  state.  There  is  no  blinking  that 
plain,  self-evident  truth.  Now  let  my  reader  go  out 
and  note  the  religion  professed  by  all  his  acquaintances 
who  have  been  showing,  and  are  now  particularly  mani- 
festing, by  their  sympathies  with  various  political  meas- 
ures now  pending,  that  they  desire  and  are  working  to 
make  the  state  more  supreme.  Whom  would  he  find  in 
favor  of  putting  all  things  possible  into  the  hands  of  the 
state?  Who  wants  National  this,  and  National  that,  to 
be  established?  Protestants,  every  one  of  them.  One 
would  think  these  liberty  lovers  would  be  slow  to  vote 
away  their  own  freedom.  Not  at  all.  They  never 
flourished  yet  except  under  a  despotism  ;  and  because 
this  country,  by  the  grace  of  God,  is  not  a  despotism,  is 
the  chief  reason  why  they  are  very  far  from  flourishing 


ig6  Protestantism  and  Liberty. 

here,  and,  per  coiitra,  that  is  just  the  reason  of  the  pro- 
gress and  astonishing  triumphs  of  Catholicism,  which  is 
founded  in  Hberty,  which  itself  gave  liberty  to  all  na- 
tions, which  upholds  liberty,  and  many  a  time  has  gone 
to  death  in  its  defence. 

The  liberty-sacrificing  spirit  of  Protestantism  goes 
even  to  the  most  absurd  extremes.  I^isten  to  its 
clerical  demagogues  who  denounce  celibacy  in  priests 
and  nuns  because  "  the  condition  of  so  many  deprives 
the  state  of  just  so  many  citizens  that  would  be  born  of 
them  if  they  were  married  ' '  !  Their  patriotic  charity 
had  better  begin  at  home.  Marriage  with  them  does 
not  appear  to  be  a  profitable  source  of  increased  citizen- 
ship. Married  Catholics  supply  the  state  now  with  two 
citizens  to  their  one.  And  as  if  every  man  of  common 
sense  does  not  see  through  this  hypocritical  plea,  and 
know  that  their  venomous  attacks  upon  Catholics  exer- 
cising their  inalienable  individual  liberty  to  consecrate 
themselves  to  a  life  of  chastity  for  their  own  spiritual 
perfection  and  for  the* more  complete  liberty  to  sacrifice 
themselves  for  the  good  of  others,  are  all  instigated  by  a 
sense  of  mingled  anger  at  sight  of  what  is  a  standing 
reproach  to  them,  and  of  jealousy,  seeing,  as  they  do, 
that  because  of  it  the  Catholic  Church  is  continually 
acquiring  the  respect,  love,  admiration,  and  gratitude 
of  mankind. 

Let  Protestantism  do  even  worse  than  it  has  done, 
vilifying  and  calumniating  the  priesthood  and  monks 
and  nuns,  stirring  up  the  puerile  fears  of  the  ignorant 
public,  getting  legislative  "smelling  committees,"  as 
erst  in  Massachusetts  in  Know-Nothing  times,  to  "  in- 
spect", convents,  raise  riotous  mobs  to  burn  down 
churches,  make  war  upon  every  Catholic  consecrated  to 


Protestantism  and  Liberty,  197 

God's  service,  confiscate  their  property,  drive  them  out 
of  their  own  native  land  ;  aye,  even  the  self-sacrificing, 
defenceless  Jesuits  and  other  religious  orders  of  men  and 
women — all  these  favorite  methods  of  its  own,  it  can  anci 
will  not  fail  to  use  where  it  has  the  power  in  order  to 
down  the  Catholic  religion,  and  do  it  all  in  the  glorious 
name  of  Liberty  too — God  save  the  mark  ! — and  under 
pretence  of  ' '  protecting  free  institutions  ' '  ;  but  it  can 
never  succeed  in  crushing  out  of  the  human  heart  its 
divinely  inspired  sense  of  the  supremacy  of  Virtue, 
and  its  instinctive  adoration  of  the  Beauty  of  Holiness. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  CHURCH  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

IT  ought  to  be  a  superfluous  task  to  prove  that  the 
Cathohc  Church  has  never  been  the  enemy  of  free 
institutions,  and  indeed,  after  the  irrefragable  evidence 
already  presented  to  the  contrary,  it  would  be  quite  suf- 
ficient to  meet  any  such  charges  with  a  simple,  flat  denial, 
and  leave  the  burden  of  proof  upon  those  who  make 
them.  But  probably  a  few  observations  on  the  relation 
of  the  Church  to  particular  forms  of  government  may 
be  useful  to  some  reflecting  but  uninstructed  readers. 

The  Catholic  Church  has  no  Civil  Policy.  All 
governments  are,  in  their  political  forms,  alike  to  her. 
She  was  not  commissioned  to  found  and  perpetuate  a 
universal  state.  She  fully  recognizes  the  independent 
right  of  a  people  to  choose  for  themselves  such  a  form 
of  government  as  seems  to  them  the  best  for  their  own 
interests ;  and  when  they  have  thus  made  their  choice, 
she  holds  that  God  sanctions  it.  It  becomes  "  a  power 
ordained  of  God  "  ;  and  at  once  the  Church  reverences 
that  ordination,  and  exacts  from  all  her  children  who 
are  its  citizens  the  most  perfect  loyalty  to  the  estab- 
lished order  and  conscientious  obedience  to  the  laws  of 
the  land.  This  is  her  true  position  towards  every 
government,  be  it  an  autocracy,  monarchy,  oligarchy, 
aristocracy,  or  democracy. 

But  being  herself  a  divine  society,  the  one  and  only 
such  ordained  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ  for  all  man- 
kind alike,  it  follows  that  there  ought  to  be  a  perfect 
harmony   between   those   principles  of  natural  justice, 

morality,   human   liberty,    authority,   obedience,    social 

198 


The  Church  and  Civil  Government,  199 

unity  and  peace — the  rights  of  man  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,  as  we  Americans  phrase  it — 
principles  which  the  state  at  its  ordination  receives 
power  to  proclaim,  and  assumes  the  duty  of  conserving 
and  defending — and  her  own,  which  are,  in  fact,  the 
very  same  principles  illuminated  and  sanctified.  Her 
principles  do  not  contravene  or  negative  the  natural 
powers  of  the  state  to  proclaim  and  defend  the  rights  of 
God  and  the  rights  of  man  ;  they  perfect  them. 

**  Be  ye  perfect,  as  your  heavenly  Father  is  perfect," 
is  the  message  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Church  to  every 
man,  to  every  society,  and  to  every  government.  The 
heavenly  Father  is  the  God  of  the  Church  and  the  God 
of  the  state,  one  and  the  same  ;  and  He  says  to  both : 
"Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  but  Me."  And  he 
has  no  two  antagonistic  or  contrary  principles  of 
justice,  morality,  unity,  authority,  obedience ;  no 
second  word  of  liberty  or  purpose  in  his  twofold  ordina- 
tion of  the  natural  and  supernatural  orders  of  society. 

This  perfecting  of  the  natural  man,  of  the  natural 
social  order  and  natural  form  of  government,  has  been 
the  work  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  one  which  she 
alone  is  capable  of  performing.  This  is  Christian 
civilization  ;  and  who  has  ever  presumed  to  claim  for 
any  other  power  the  realization  of  this  divine  regenera- 
tion and  sanctification  of  mankind  and  society  ? 

Recognizing  the  natural  right  of  a  people  to  adopt 
any  form  of  government  founded  upon  the  proclamation 
and  defence  of  the  rights  of  God  and  the  rights  of  man, 
the  Catholic  Church,  being  a  divine  society,  embracing 
in  a  holy  brotherhood  people  of  all  nations  and  tongues, 
citizens  of  all  sovereignties,  she  stands  between  earth 
and  heaven  the  universal  illuminator  and  sanctifier 
of  them  all.     Therefore  with  a  Catholic,  be  he  a  citizen 


200  The  Church  and  Civil  Government, 

of  a  republic  or  subject  of  a  monarch 3^  or  of  a  more 
absolute  form  of  government,  his  patriotism,  his  loyalty, 
his  obedience  to  law  and  order  become  Christian  virhies. 
The  influence  of  the  Church  on  society  is,  therefore,  to 
elevate  and  ennoble  it,  to  contribute  most  powerfully  to 
the  stability  of  governments,  by  upholding  lawful 
authority  and  inspiring  her  children  wnth  reverence 
and  respect  for  the  persons  in  whom  that  authority  is 
vested.  To  comprehend  more  clearly  this  beneficent, 
transforming  influence,  one  should  consider  the  deep 
importance  of  its  result  in  the  supernatural  exaltation  of 
the  natural  divine  sanction  of  state  authority.  For  a 
Catholic  citizen  or  subject  to  be  guilty  of  disloyalty  or 
grave  disobedience  to  the  public  law  or  order,  is  to 
commit  a  mortal  sin  and  imperil  his  soul's  salvation. 
Has  paganism,  secularism,  or  Protestantism  ever  pre- 
tended to  offer  such  a  motive  for  loyalty  and  obedience  ? 

Protestantism  has  uttered  a  good  deal  of  sentimen- 
tal talk,  apparently  in  agreement  with  the  principles  of 
the  Catholic  Church  ;  but  what  Protestant  citizen  or 
subject  ever  felt  that  it  was  his  Protestantism  which 
inspired  him  with  this  salutary  fear  of  losing  his  soul, 
let  the  gravity  of  the  offence  against  the  authority  of 
the  state — apart  from  the  immorality  of  the  act  itself — 
be  never  so  great  ? 

United  in  the  bonds  of  a  divine  fraternity  with  all 
men,  Catholics  know  nothing  of  that  pagan  sort  of 
patriotism  and  loyalty  founded  in  servdle  fear,  which 
would  appear  to  consist  more  in  hating  and  reviling  the 
people  of  every  other  nationality,  as  exhibited  in  the 
odium  attached  to  the  very  word  foreigner,  and  in 
decrying  every  other  form  of  government,  than  in 
loving  one's  own  people  and  fellow-citizens  wnth  a 
fraternal  love,  and   in  staunchly  upholding  one's  own 


The  Church  and  Civil  Government.  201 

political  order.  Catholics  are  a  free  people  everywhere, 
intellectually  and  morally.  No  chains  can  bind  a  free- 
man's soul;  and  one  of  the  marks  of  a  freeman  is  that 
he  lets  others  enjoy  their  freedom  as  well. 

Individual  right,  political  liberty,  and  social  peace, 
the  full  enjoyment  of  man's  inalienable  rights  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  are  not  guaranteed 
per  se  by  any  form  of  government.  The  guarantee  of 
all  these  blessings,  and  of  a  true  advance  in  civilization, 
lies  in  the  virtue  of  the  governors  and  of  the  governed. 

The  questions  which,  apart  from  all  others,  I  would 
desire  to  press  upon  the  thoughtful  reader's  mind  are  : 
Which  of  the  two  religions,  Catholicism  or  Protestant- 
ism, affirms  fundamental  principles  of  justice,  morality, 
and  liberty?  Which  one  recognizes  the  dignity  and 
equality  of  human  nature  ?  Which  one  has  the  power 
to  sweetly  unite  all  men  of  all  governments  into  a 
common  brotherhood  ?  Which  one  has  proved  itself  to 
be  the  true  friend  of  the  working-man,  and  the  bold, 
unflinching  enemy  of  the  oppressor  ?  Who  has  in  the 
past,  and  can  be  relied  upon  for  all  time  to  courage- 
ously hurl  the  withering  anathema  at  tyranny  in  high 
places,  and  offer  its  own  breast  to  receive  the  first  blow 
of  death  aimed  at  the  down-trodden  and  defenceless? 
Which  one  is  the  very  well-spring  of  public  and  private 
virtue  ?  Whose  first  and  last  word  in  the  education  of 
youth,  in  the  discipline  of  the  family,  in  the  training  of 
the  citizen,  is  virtue?  In  sum:  Which  religion  echoes  in 
its  temples  of  worship,  proclaims  from  its  pulpits  of  doc- 
trine, through  its  literature  and  art,  and  by  the  mouths 
of  its  accredited  spokesmen,  the  terse  and  pregnant 
sentence  of  the  wisest  of  all  legislators  and  the  lyord  of 
all  virtue  :  "  Seek  y^  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His 
justice,  and  all  other  things  shall  be  added  unto  3^ou  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ILIvlTERACY    AND    IGNORANCE. 

IN  these  days  of  intellectual  pride  illiteracy  has  come 
to  be  commonly  regarded  as  a  fitting  term  of  re- 
proach, as  if  it  were  an  ignominious  and  criminal 
defect,  much  as  our  purse-proud  age  regards  poverty, 
though  ever  so  honest,  with  scorn,  and  avoids  contact 
with  it  as  if  its  very  touch  were  pollution. 

They  who  make  the  false  popular  judgment  which 
places  the  highest  means  of  happiness  in  the  possession 
of  wealth,  also  assume  that  to  be  deprived  of  the  ready 
means  of  satisfying  the  insatiate  curiosity  of  the  mind 
afforded  by  the  ability  to  read,  cannot  but  be  a  con- 
dition of  the  greatest  infelicity.  That  one  who  is  at  the 
same  time  poor  and  illiterate  must  necessarily  be  con- 
demned to  an  utterly  joyless  existence,  seems  to  such 
unobservant  persons  too  evident  a  truth  to  need 
demonstration. 

It  is  from  among  such  a  class  of  persons  that  one 
hears  charges  of  "  illiteracy  "  made  as  if  it  were  some- 
thing unquestionably  disgraceful  and  guasz-crimmsLl, 
needing  defence  or  apology.  They  display  their  own 
ignorance  in  this,  giving  it  a  meaning  quite  other  than 
what  is  taken  note  of  and  reported  by  the  very  au- 
thorities from  whom  they  quote  their  statistics. 

I  feel  sure  it  will  surprise  some  persons  to  learn  that 
in  itself  it  is  understood  to  mean,  simply  and  strictly, 
no  more  than  the  simple  inability  to  read  and  write, 
and  by  the  statisticians  of  some  countries  those  unable 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance,  203 


to  write,  though  they  may  be  able  to  read,  are  reported 
as  illiterate. 

Illiteracy  is  not  at  all  a  term  synonymous  with  ig- 
norance. An  ignorant  man,  one  witless,  shallow,  and 
inexperienced  in  mental  acquirements,  and  degraded  in 
moral  sense  and  habits,  may  be  illiterate  ;  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  one  simply  illiterate  is  sure  or  even 
likely  to  be  intellectually  deficient  or  morally  debased. 
The  mere  fact  that  one  escapes  being  classed  as  illiter- 
ate by  learning  to  read  and  write  is  no  evidence  that 
his  former  condition  was  one  of  mental  and  moral  de- 
ficiency, neither  does  his  newly  acquired  science  offer  a 
guarantee  that  he  is  provided  with  the  means  which 
will  quickly  or  even  assuredly  raise  him  out  of  such  a 
state  if  he  happen  to  have  been  in  it  beforehand. 

Reading  and  writing  are  not  the  only  means  of 
cultivating  the  intelligence,  purifying  and  exalting  the 
moral  character,  or  of  refining  or  reforming  one's 
manners. 
•  It  should  be  evident  that  mere  reading  and  writing, 
considered  as  a  means  in  themselves  alone,  in  view  of 
the  acquirement  of  the  knowledge  requisite  for  and 
useful  to  the  masses  of  people  among  whom  illiteracy 
is  likely  to  be  found,  are  of  small  value  compared  with 
careful  observation,  practical  experience,  and  the  les- 
sons learned  from  the  voice  and  example  of  others.  So 
far  from  this  means  of  acquiring  knowledge  being  a 
sure  or  even  probable  preventive  of  criminal  conduct, 
the  records  of  all  prisons  show,  by  the  small  proportion 
of  ''illiterate"  convicts  compared  with  the  educated 
ones — and  as  all  competent  sociologists  are  now  agreed 
— that  it  is  not  to  the  lack  of  the  ability  to  read  and 
write  that  their  criminal  acts  are  to  be  attributed,  but 


204  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 

rather  to  the  lack  of  having  learned  a  trade  or  some 
such  honest  means  of  earning  a  living,  possessed  of 
which  one  naturally  associates  himself  with  law-abiding 
citizens  seeking  mutual  protection  for  their  property 
and  handicraft. 

There  may  be,  therefore,  in  a  given  country  or  dis- 
trict a  large  number  of  persons  statistically  reported  as 
"illiterate  " — so  many,  indeed,  that  the  percentage  of 
illiteracy  wull  be  very  high  for  such  a  region — and  yet 
the  ' '  illiterates ' '  may  have  a  fair  and  useful  general 
knowledge  of  worldly  affairs ;  the}^  may  be  able  to  think 
rightly,  possess  good  practical  judgment  ;  be  skilled  in 
some  agricultural  or  mechanical  art ;  be  distinguished 
for  gentleness  of  disposition,  refinement  of  manners, 
nobility  of  character,  and  even  for  a  cultivated  taste  for 
the  fine  arts — as  has  been  alwa3^s  observed  by  travellers 
is  possessed  by  the  low^er  classes  in  Italy  and  Spain  ; 
they  may  be  hospitable,  brave,  and  generous ;  lovers 
of  liberty,  heroically  patriotic ;  law-abiding  ;  indus- 
trious ;  socially  contented  and  happ}^  ;  thoroughly  re- 
ligious ;  well  versed  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Holy 
Gospel,  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion,  and 
faithful  to  the  duties  it  imposes  upon  them  as  parents, 
and  children,  and  citizens.  And  every  page  of  history 
bears  witness  that  there  have  been  many  millions  of 
such,  who,  despite  their  "  illiteracy,"  have  been  able 
to  manifest  human  and  divine  virtue  carried  to  a  lofty 
summit — men  and  women  worthy  of  being  praised  as 
great  heroes  before  the  world  and  as  glorious  saints  be- 
fore God. 

He  would  be  a  poor  logician  who  would  reason 
that  the  modern  wider  diffusion  of  literary  attainments 
must  necessarily  be  accompanied  by  a   corresponding 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  205 

decrease  in  the  standard  of  intellectual  vigor  and  sagac- 
ity among  those  who  are  no  worse  off,  if  no  better,  than 
they  were  before.  One  man's  acquired  wisdom  does 
not  deepen  the  stupidity  of  his  neighbor. 

Will  my  reader  please  look  back  to  the  period 
antedating  the  invention  of  printing  by  a  Catholic 
(1450),  before  Protestantism  began  to  be,  and  will  he 
please  imagine  how  great  would  then  have  been  the 
reported  percentage  of  illiteracy  in  every  country  if  the 
modern  collector  of  statistics  had  been  around?  And 
yet  there  were  enough  good  citizens,  good  Christians, 
and  good  in  everything  else  that  ennobles  humanity,  to 
make  the  world,  in  their  time,  worth  living  in,  and  its 
generations  able  to  score  a  lasting  and  honorable 
record.  Those  were  the  times,  as  every  instructed 
person  now  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  when  the  grand 
principles  of  Christian  civilization,  of  human  liberty 
and  rights,  of  sound  political  and  social  economy,  were 
affirmed,  defended,  and  interpreted— principles  to  be 
credited  as  the  very  raison  d'etre  of  all  those  constitu- 
tional liberties  and  civil  rights  upon  which  our  present 
enlightened  and  progressive  civilization  is  based. 

Popular  illiteracy  at  a  high  percentage  is  plainly 
not,  therefore,  a  mark  of  a  low  standard  of  popular 
mental  culture,  of  the  ability  to  think  and  think  both 
logically  and  wisely.  It  is  indisputable  that  those  were 
the  days  of  profound  learning  and  vast  erudition  in  the 
numerous  universities  and  schools,  the  partial  records 
of  which  are  yet  preserved  in  huge  volumes  reprinted 
from  manuscripts,  and  testified  to  by  the  still  larger 
number  of  great  folios  printed  in  the  age  immediately 
succeeding,  specimens  of  which  our  greatest  libraries  are 
proud  to  own  and  esteem  as  of  priceless  intrinsic  value. 


2o6  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance, 

It  needs  but  little  reflection  to  conclude  that  if  popu- 
lar illiteracy  were  indeed  what  it  is  now  so  unphilo- 
sophically  and  vigorously  denounced  to  be — the  cause 
of  mental  hebetude,  of  social  and  moral  degradation, 
then  the  influence  in  former  times  of  such  a  general 
condition  among  the  masses  would  have  rendered  ab- 
solutely impossible  the  mental  and  moral  elevation  of 
such  a  vast  number  of  scholars  and  saints  to  an  emi- 
nence before  which  we  moderns  stand  in  stupefied 
wonder — scholars  of  honest  and  holy  life,  studying, 
praying,  and  working  in  all  the  fields  of  science,  human 
and  divine. 

The  modern  tourist,  with  his  Baedeker  in  hand, 
goes  tramping  over  the  soil  of  countries  to  visit  and 
admire  the  greatest  monuments  of  genius  which  the 
world  can  boast  of,  all  inherited  from  ages  statistics 
would  lead  one  to  believe  were  very  "illiterate." 
Nearly  all  of  the  greatest  universities  now  standing 
saw  their  corner-stones  laid,  and  their  greatest  number 
of  students  gathered  together  within  their  walls,  in  ages 
when  statisticians  would  have  reported  a  high  rate  of 
illiteracy  among  the  people. 

We  who  have  made  ourselves  so  dependent  upon 
reading  and  writing  for  the  acquirement  of  almost 
every  kind  of  knowledge  that  we  possess,  have  come 
to  imagine  that  one  who  cannot  do  either  must  of 
necessity  be  an  ignorant  person,  and  would  laugh  any 
one  to  scorn  who  would  presume  to  hazard  the  assertion 
that  there  could  be  any  education,  mental  or  moral, 
worthy  of  the  name,  without  it.  But  it  cannot  be  de- 
nied that,  though  the  percentage  of  popular  illiteracy 
may  in  those  times  have  been  high  compared  with 
what  it  is  to-day,  the    percentage  oi  popular  education 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance,  207 

in  its  best  sense — the  acquirement  of  solid,  useful 
knowledge  in  the  secular  order,  and  of  that  knowledge 
and  true  wisdom  in  the  spiritual  order  which  exalts, 
ennobles,  and  refines  the  soul,  disciplining  the  will  and 
stimulating  it  to  honor  and  virtue — was  yet  vastly 
higher. 

To  be  lettered,  or  literary,  is  a  term  which  may  per- 
haps be  also  rightly  used  as  meaning  learned ;  but  the 
opposite  of  ignorance  is  not  learning,  but  wisdom  ;  and 
even  the  unlettered  may  be  wise. 

Wisdom  is,  as  says  Holy  Writ,  "  from  above  "  ;  that 
is,  due  to  divine  education,  which  wisdom,  as  the 
Apostle  goes  on  to  say,  is  "  first  of  all  chaste,  and  then 
peace-giving."  As  Cardinal  Newman  well  remarks: 
' '  The  Church  does  not  think  much  of  any  other  sort 
of  so-called  'wisdom.'  "  Faith,  knowledge  from  above, 
chastity  and  charity,  the  principles  of  that  "peace" 
the  Word  of  God  brought  down  to  men  of  good  will, 
are  becoming  characteristics  of  all  true  Christians,  but 
more  especially  of  the  Christian  student. 

Mere  learning,  alas  !  is  an  accomplishment  many 
had  better  never  have  gotten,  and  the  consequence  of 
its  possession  by  some  men  deserves  rather  to  be  called 
ignorance,  inspiring  them,  as  it  does,  with  scepticism 
and  unbelief,  and  begetting  loose  morals  and  proud 
contentions.  The  principles  of  true  wisdom  are  prin- 
ciples of  spiritual  life.  The  principles  of  that  learning 
which  does  not  refer  itself  to  the  divine  source  of  all 
science  are  the  principles  that  lead  to  spiritual  death. 

Says  Kenelm  Digby,  in  his  wonderful  historical 
work,   Mores  Catholici,  or  Ages  of  Faith  : 

"  No  age  is  void  of  moral  darkness.  The  holy  fathers  in  primi- 
tive times  lamented  the  reign  of  wickedness  and  ignorance  :  this, 


2o8  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 

too,  we  lament,  and  this  our  posterity  will  lament  also  ;  but  never 
does  the  Church  lose  the  savor  of  sanctity  and  of  learning  which 
she  received  from  Christ.  Ignorance  is  the  punishment  of  sin, 
but  not  every  one,  as  says  the  Master  of  the  Sentences,  who  is 
ignorant  of  something,  or  who  knows  something  less  perfectly,  is 
therefore  in  such  ignorance,  or  ought  to  be  called  ignorant,  because 
that  only  should  be  called  ignorance  when  what  ought  to  be 
known  is  not  known.  Such  ignorance  is  the  punishment  of  sin 
when  the  mind  is  obscured  with  vice,  so  as  not  to  be  able  to  know 
the  things  it  ought  to  know  "  (Peter  Lombard,  book  ii.  distinct. 

XX.) 

But  it  may  be  asked  :  How  could  the  masses  of 
common  people  acquire  any  considerable  amount,  or 
even  a  sufficiently  useful  amount  of  knowledge  for  their 
condition  in  life,  when  printed  books,  newspapers,  and 
the  like  were  as  yet  not,  and  when  even  manuscripts 
were  few  and  of  great  price  ? 

The  explanation  is  simple.  In  those  days  the  people 
learned  more  by  hearing,  and  cultivated  the  faculty  of 
memory  to  a  degree  which  to  us  seems  almost  incredi- 
ble. Those  were  the  days  when,  for  example,  school- 
boys could  recite  by  heart  the  entire  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Psalms.  Then  it  was  the  custom,  still  prevailing 
in  the  modern  high  schools  of  learning,  and  imitated  in 
all  popular  lecture  halls,  for  scholars  to  gather  about 
the  chair  of  the  teacher  and  listen  to  him.  Teaching 
viva  voce  is  still  acknowledged  to  be  the  most  effective 
method  of  enlightening  and  impressing  the  intellect. 
In  order  to  reach  the  heart  and  sway  the  passions,  to 
persuade  men  or  children  to  do  good  or  to  defend  the 
right,  printed  books  are  as  spiritually  weak,  in  com- 
parison to  the  living,  sympathetic  voice  of  the  speaker, 
as  a  poor  photograph  is  compared  with  the  original 
painting. 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  209 

A  quotation  is  to  the  point  : 

"  Huber,  who  gives  us  an  account  of  Oxford  University,  and 
who  is  neither  CathoHc  on  the  one  hand,  nor  innovator  on  the  ex- 
isting state  of  things  on  the  other,  warming  yet  saddening  at  his 
own  picture  [of  University  decadence]  ends  by  observing:  '  Those 
days  never  can  return  :  for  the  plain  reason  that  then  men  learned 
and  taught  by  the  living  word,  but  now  by  the  dead  paper  ' " 
{Historical  Sketches,  Oxford,  Cardinal  Newman). 

In  olden  times  the  scholars  indeed,  as  now,  took 
down  some  notes  of  what  they  heard,  but  they  were 
not  such  slaves  as  we  moderns  are  to  these  records. 
They  were  able  to  retain  and  keep  ready  for  reference 
within  the  prodigious  store-houses  of  their  memories 
the  greater  part  of  what  they  heard. 

But  I  beg  the  reader's  attention  to  a  capital  point. 
Despite  all  the  printed  works  already  written  upon  a 
subject,  and  at  hand  for  the  use  of  the  students,  even 
though  they  may  be  from  the  pen  of  the  lecturer  him- 
self, nevertheless  they  assume  for  the  time  being  the 
condition  of  the  illiterate.  Why  not  content  one's  self 
with  the  books?  Why  compass  land  and  sea,  and  go 
to  increased  expense,  to  get  the  very  same  instruction 
from  the  mouth  of  the  writer  of  them  ?  This  is  the 
reason.  From  the  original  thinker  and  speaker  they 
get  not  only  the  word,  but  what  printed  signs  are  at 
best  feeble  to  convey — the  meajiing  of  them.  Meaning, 
in  its  fulness,  is  conveyed  to  the  mind  much  more 
quickly  and  effectively  by  the  tone  and  emphasis  with 
which  the  words  are  expressed.  Moreover,  one  is 
thereby  spared  the  danger  of  not  apprehending  the 
author's  true  meaning,  and  of  putting  one's  own,  and 
not  improbably  an  erroneous  one,  hito  the  text,  instead 


2  lo  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 

of  getting  the  author's  meaning  out  of  it.  That  is 
what  Protestants  do  with  the  printed  Bible.  Only 
the  living  teacher  can  give  the  true  and  living 
vieaning. 

The  Catholic  method  of  learning  the  infallible  truth 
and  will  of  God  is  fully  justified  by  both  philosophy  and 
science. 

As  to  the  superiority  of  oral  instruction  to  books,  I 
quote  the  opinion  of  an  eminent  professor  of  Oxford 
University. 

"  While  die  type,"  he  says,  "  is  so  admirable  a  contrivance  for 
perpetuating  knowledge,  it  is  certainly  more  expensive,  and  in 
some  points  of  view  less  effective  as  a  means  of  communication, 
than  the  lecture.  The  type  is  a  poor  substitute  for  the  human 
voice.  It  has  no  means  of  arousing,  moderating,  and  adjusting 
the  attention.  It  has  no  emphasis  except  italics,  and  this  meagre 
notation  cannot  finely  graduate  itself  to  the  need  of  the  occasion. 
It  cannot  in  this  way  mark  the  heed  which  should  be  specially 
and  chiefly  given  to  peculiar  passages  or  words.  It  has  no  variety 
of  manner  and  intonation,  to  show  by  their  changes  how  the 
words  are  to  be  accepted,  or  \yhat  comparative  importance  is  to 
be  attached  to  them.  It  has  no  natural  music  to  take  the  ear, 
like  the  human  voice  ;  it  carries  with  it  no  human  eye  to  range, 
and  to  rivet  the  student  w^hen  on  the  verge  of  truancy,  and  to 
command  his  intellectual  activity  by  an  appeal  to  the  courtesies 
of  life.  Half  the  symbolism  of  a  living  language  is  thus  lost, 
when  it  is  committed  to  paper.  And  that  symbolism  is  the  very 
means  by  which  the  forces  of  the  hearer's  mind  can  be  best 
economized  or  most  pleasantly  excited.  The  lecture,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  delivered,  possesses  all  these  instruments  to  win, 
and  hold,  and  harmonize  attention  ;  and  above  all,  it  imparts  to 
the  whole  teaching  a  human  character,  which  the  printed  book 
can  never  supply.  The  professor  is  the  science,  or  subject,  vital- 
ized and  humanized  in  the  student's  presence.  He  sees  him 
kindle  into  his  subject;  he  sees  reflected  and  exhibited  in  him,  his 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance,  1 1 1 

manner,  and  his  earnestness,  the  general  power  of  the  science  to 
engage,  deHght,  and  absorb  a  human  inteUigence.  His  natural 
sympathy  and  admiration  attract  or  impel  his  tastes  and  feelings 
and  wishes  for  the  moment  into  the  same  currents  of  feeling,  and 
his  mind  is  naturally  and  rapidly  and  insensibly  strung  and  at- 
tuned to  the  strain  of  truth  which  is  offered  to  him  "  (Professor 
Vaughan,  apiid  Cardinal  Newman's  Rise  and  Progress  of  Uni- 
versities, p.   1 86). 

I  am  sure  my  reader  who  may  feel  some  interest  in 
these  facts  will  peruse  with  pleasure  the  following  ex- 
tract from  the  famous  philosopher  Plato.  It  is  a  story 
related  by  Socrates,  and,  as  will  be  seen,  is  singularly 
apposite  as  an  illustration  of  the  pre-literary  method  of 
acquiring  knowledge. 

I  am  not  disinclined  to  quote  it  for  another  reason. 
It  presents  in  a  most  clear,  concise,  and  forcible  way 
the  whole  controverted  question  between  Catholics  and 
Protestants  as  to  the  Rule  of  Faith — with  us  the  living, 
interpreting  voice  ;  with  Protestants  a  dead  letter  which 
cannot  answer  any  questions,  nor  defend  itself  if  it  be 
charged  with  saying  what  is,  in  fact,  wholly  contrary 
to  its  true  mind.  The  extract  is  from  the  Phcedrus^ 
and  I  copy  from  Professor  Jowett's  translation  : 

"  Socrates. — At  the  Egyptian  city  of  Naucratis  there  was  a 
famous  old  god,  whose  name  was  Theuth ;  the  bird  which  is 
called  the  Ibis  was  sacred  to  him,  and  he  was  the  inventor  of 
many  arts,  such  as  arithmetic  and  calculation  and  geometry  and 
astronomy  and  draughts  and  dice,  but  his  great  discovery  was  the 
use  of  letters.  Now,  in  those  days,  Thamus  was  the  king  of  the 
whole  of  Upper  Egypt,  which  is  the  district  surrounding  that  great 
city  which  is  called  by  the  Hellenes  Egyptian  Thebes,  and  they 
call  the  god  himself  Ammon.  To  him  came  Theuth  and  showed 
his  inventions,  desiring  that  the  other  Egyptians  might  be  allowed 
to  have  the  benefit  of  thepn  ;  he  went  through  them,  and  Thamus 


2  [  2  Illiteracy  and  Ignorajice. 


inquired  about  their  several  uses,  and  praised  some  of  them,  and 
censured  others,  as  he  approved  or  disapproved  of  them.  There 
would  be  no  use  in  repeating  all  that  Thamus  said  to  Theuth  in 
praise  or  blame  of  the  various  arts.  But  when  they  came  to 
letters,  '  This,'  said  Theuth,  '  will  make  the  Egyptians  wiser  and 
give  them  better  memories  ;  for  this  is  the  cure  of  forgetfulness 
and  of  folly.'  Thamus  replied  :  '  O  most  ingenious  Theuth,  he 
who  has  the  gift  of  invention  is  not  always  the  best  judge  of  the 
utility  or  inutility  of  his  own  inventions  to  the  users  of  them.  And 
in  this  instance  a  paternal  love  of  your  own  child  has  led  you  to 
say  what  is  not  the  fact ;  for  this  invention  of  yours  will  create 
forgetfulness  in  the  learners*  souls,  because  they  will  not  use  their 
memories  ;  they  will  trust  to  the  external  written  characters  and 
not  remember  of  themselves.  You  have  found  a  specific  not  for 
memory  but  for  reminiscence,  and  you  give  your  disciples  only  the 
pretence  of  wisdom  ;  they  will  be  hearers  of  many  things,  and 
will  have  learned  nothing  ;  they  will  appear  to  be  omniscient,  and 
will  generally  know  nothing ;  they  will  be  tiresome,  having-  the 
reputation  of  knowledge  without  the  reality.'  " 

'' Phczdriis. — Yes,  Socrates,  you  can  easily  invent  tales  of 
Egypt  or  of  any  other  country  that  you  like." 

"  Socrates. — There  was  a  tradition  in  the  temple  of  Dodona 
that  oaks  first  gave  prophetic  utterances.  The  men  of  that  day, 
unlike  in  their  simplicity  to  young  philosophy,  deemed  that  if 
they  heard  the  truth  even  from  '  oak  or  rock,'  that  was  enough  for 
them  ;  whereas  you  seem  to  think  not  of  the  truth  but  of  the 
speaker,  and  of  the  country  from  which  the  truth  comes." 

"  PhcEiiriis. — I  acknowledge  the  justice  of  your  rebuke  ;  and  I 
think  that  the  Theban  is  right  in  his  view  about  letters." 

"  Socrates. — He  would  be  a  simple  person  and  quite  without 
understanding  of  the  oracles  Thamus  and  Ammon,  who  should 
leave  in  writing  or  receive  in  writing  any  art  under  the  idea  that 
the  written  word  would  be  intelligible  or  certain  ;  or  who  deemed 
that  writing  was  at  all  better  than  knowledge  and  recollection  of 
the  same  matters." 

"  PhcEdrus. — That  is  most  true." 

"  Socrates, — I  cannot  help  feeling,  Phaedrus,  that  writing  is  un- 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  213 

fortunately  like  painting ;  for  the  creations  of  the  painter  have  the 
attitude  of  life,  yet  if  you  ask  them  a  question  they  preserve  a 
solemn  silence.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  written  speeches. 
You  would  imagine  that  they  had  intelligence  ;  but  if  you  want  to 
know  anything,  and  put  a  question  to  one  of  them,  the  speaker 
always  -gives  one  unvarying  answer.  And  when  they  have  been 
once  written  down  they  are  tossed  about  anywhere  among  those 
who  do  and  among  those  who  do  not  understand  them.  And 
they  have  no  reticences  or  proprieties  towards  different  classes  of 
persons:  and  if  they  are  unjustly  assailed  or  abused,  their  parent 
is  needed  to  protect  his  offspring,  for  they  cannot  protect  or  de- 
fend themselves." 

Nevertheless,  in  the  illiterate  ages  to  which  I  have 
referred  education  was  not  altogether  deprived  of  the 
advantages  of  the  faculty  of  sight.  If  the  people,  taken 
as  a  whole,  had  no  printed  books  and  but  few  manu- 
scripts from  which  to  learn  recorded  facts  concerning 
nature  and  science,  they  were  all  the  more  urgently 
obliged  to  supply  the  want  by  their  own  original, 
personal  observations  of  nature  in  all  its  instructive 
and  beautiful  forms  and  operations.  The  constant 
practice  of  such  observations  served  to  render  their 
senses  all  the  more  acute  to  learn  the  manifold  lessons 
which  nature,  closely  studied,  is  sure  to  teach — living 
lessons  which  are  but  feebly  taught  by  the  dead  letters 
of  a  book,  and  demanding,  moreover,  the  cultivation  of 
one's  spiritual  powers  of  perception ;  lessons,  let  me 
add,  necessary  to  the  completion  and  rounding  out  of 
the  true  education  of  the  whole  man. 

Such  an  education  is  as  much  superior  to  that  of 
mere  book-knowledge  as  the  personal  life-association 
with  the  great  heroes,  saints,  and  sages  of  the  world, 
listening  to  their  words  and  coming  under  the  direct  in- 


214  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 

fluence  of  their  example,  would  be  superior  in  its  edu- 
cational value,  especially  in  view  of  man's  higher 
destiny,  to  what  might  be  gained  by  visiting  a  museum 
of  most  faithfully  designed  wax  figures  representing 
them,  and  by  perusing  their  printed  biographies  and 
uninterpreted  writings. 

If  one  would  seek  to  learn  the  reason  for  the  extra- 
ordinary development  of  genius  in  those  past  ages, 
testified  to  by  the  countless  monuments  of  immortal  re- 
nown they  have  left,  he  will  find  it  in  the  fact  that 
both  scholars  and  the  common  people  found  a  true, 
pure,  and  sanctifying  education  in  the  personal  study 
and  contemplation  of  the  ever  open  Book  of  Nature, 
and  by  a  close,  intelligent,  and  sympathetic  personal 
association  with  learned,  wise,  and — what  is  better — 
holy  teachers,  who  taught  not  for  gain,  but  for  the 
honor  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  souls  of  men. 

He  who,  from  the  windows  of  his  luxuriously 
furnished  palace  car,  is  borne  along  at  the  rate  of  sixty 
miles  an  hour,  and  casts,  it  may  be,  a  glance  of  con- 
temptuous pity  at  the  slowly  moving  cart  of  the  farmer, 
may  justly  congratulate  himself  upon  the  greater  ease 
of  his  means  of  convej^ance  and  the  earlier  date  of  his 
arrival  at  the  same  destination  ;  but  he  should  reflect 
that  the  plodding  farmer  has  enjoyed  a  closer,  happier, 
and  more  intelligent  companionship  by  the  way  with 
the  great  living  instructor,  Nature,  and  from  whom  he 
has  meanwhile  gained  a  knowledge,  serviceable  for  his 
oivii  2cse,  which  may  well  offset  the  special  personal 
advantage  the  other  has  obtained  by  his  saving  of  time 
in  making  the  same  journey. 

I  find  two  very  instructive  paragraphs  in  lyaing's 
Notes  of  a   Traveller  confirmatory  of  what  I  have  just 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  2  \  5 

been   saying,  both  as  to  fact  and  the  superior  intellec- 
tual and  moral  force  of  oral  teaching  : 

"  From  the  days  of  the  Apostles  to  the  Reformation  all  in- 
struction was  oral,  all  knowledge  was  conveyed  by  word  of  mouth 
from  the  teacher  to  his  pupils.  But  printing  and  the  diffusion  of 
books  have  reduced  to  insignificance  this  ancient  mode  of  com- 
municating knowledge,  especially  in  abstract  science.  It  is  con- 
fined now  to  the  branches  of  knowledge  connected  with  natural 
substances,  and  the  operations  on  them.  Knowledge  is  imparted 
to  the  mind  now  through  the  eye,  not  through  the  ear,  and  the 
book  read,  referred  to,  considered  in  the  silence  of  the  closet,  has 
in  all  studies,  sciences,  public  and  private  affairs,  and  intellectual 
acquirement,  superseded,  even  in  the  universities,  the  duty  and 
utility  of  the  orator,  lecturer,  or  speaker.  Reading  has  reduced 
oral  instruction  to  utter  insignificance  in  pure  science  and  in  pub- 
lic affairs ;  and  the  ancient  but  imperfect  mode  of  conveying  in- 
formation by  word  of  mouth  is  banished  to  the  nursery.  The 
influence  of  the  oral  teacher  naturally  must  decay  along  with  the 
utility  and  importance  of  his  occupation ;  and  this  principle  of  the 
decay  of  the  moral  influence  of  oral  tuition  reaches  the  Presby- 
terian pulpit  "  (p.  401). 

And  again  : 

"  Moral  effects  in  society  can  only  be  produced  by  moral  in- 
fluences. We  may  drill  boys  into  reading  and  writing  machines, 
but  this  is  not  education.  The  almost  mechanical  operations  of 
reading,  writing,  and  reckoninor  are  unquestionably  most  valuabl  i 
acquirements — who  can  deny  or  doubt  it  } — but  they  are  not  edu- 
cation ;  they  are  the  means  only,  not  the  end — the  tools,  not  the 
work,  in  the  education  of  man.  We  are  too  ready  in  Britain  [and 
in  the  United  States  too]  to  consider  them  as  tools  which  will 
work  of  themselves— that  if  the  laboring  man  is  taught  to  read 
his  Bible,  he  becomes  necessarily  a  moral,  religious  man— that  to 
read  is  to  think.  This  confounding  of  the  means  with  the  end  is 
practically  a  great  error.  We  see  no  such  effects  from  the 
acquisition  of  much   higher  branches  of  school  education,  and  by 


2l6  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance, 

those  far  above  the  social  position  of  the  laboring  man.  If  the 
ultimate  object  of  all  education  and  knowledge  be  to  raise  man 
to  the  feeling  of  his  own  moral  worth,  to  a  sense  of  his  re- 
sponsibility to  his  Creator  and  to  his  conscience  for  every  act,  to 
the  dignity  of  a  reflecting,  self-guiding,  virtuous,  religious  member 
of  society,  then  the  Prussian  state  educational  system  is  a  failure. 
It  is  not  a  training  or  education  which  has  raised,  but  which  has 
lowered,  the  human  character"  (pp.   171-72). 

I  commend  these  observations  to  the  serious  con- 
sideration of  all  those  who,  in  our  own  countr}-,  are 
called  upon  to  solve  the  questions  which  will  not  down 
concerning  the  character  of  our  present  system  of 
popular  schooling. 

So  1  have  come  to  the  point  I  intended  to  reach,  but 
which  was,  probabl3^  to  the  reader  one  unlooked-for; 
which  is,  to  show  that  the  results  obtained  by  modern 
statistical  tables  of  popular  illiteracy  are  at  best  of  but 
meagre  value  by  which  to  test  the  actual  acquisition  of 
knowledge  by  the  masses  of  people,  usefiil  and  suf- 
ficiently requisite  in  their  day  and  for  their  life  pur- 
poses, and  the  general  well-being  of  society.  If  the 
statistically  illiterate  are  actually  shut  out  from  the 
knowledge  of  innumerable  bald  facts  (among  which  it 
would  be  safe  to  say  the  majority  presented  to  those 
who  can  read  by  such  books  and  newspapers  as 
come  in  their  way,  are  either  of  no  personal  value 
to  them,  or  are  of  a  nature  to  debase  and  pollute  their 
minds),  these  non-readers  are  forced  to  make  a  better 
choice  of  subjects  of  thought  and  are  also  necessarily 
thrown  back  upon  bestowing  more  time  to  the  mental 
digestion  of  what  they  have  learned,  and  thus  know 
better  what  they  do  know,  and  better  what  to  do  with 
it.     Some  one  very  aptly  said:   "An  educated  person 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  2  r  7 

is  one  who  has  not  only  acquired  learning,  but,  having 
acquired  it,  has  been  taught  what  to  do  with  it."  The 
acquisition  of  knowledge  merely /^r  its  oivn  sake  is  as 
likely  to  prove  injurious  to  one's  mental  vigor  as  the 
indiscriminate  gorging  of  all  sorts  of  food  would  be 
dangerous  to  one's  bodily  health. 

The  crowding  of  one's  brain  with  facts  is  by  no 
means  to  be  ranked  as  education — not  even  as  a  spe- 
cifically intellectual  education.  A  late  critic,  speaking 
of  the  prevalence  of  this  partial  system  of  modern 
popular  schooling,  writes : 

"  At  an  inquest  upon  a  suicide  of  humble  rank  the  other  day, 
an  intelligent  but  uncultured  witness  expressed  his  opinion  that 
the  deceased  had  '  overcrowded  his  mind.'  This  is  the  case  just 
now  with  a  good  many  of  us.  Every  one  is  put  upon  his  fullest 
hterary  diet,  without  regard  to  either  his  appetite  or  digestion. 
Poor  humanity  may  be  difficult  to  enhghten,  but  nothing  is  more 
easy  than  to  educate  it  beyond  its  wits." 

Another  acute  observer  of  the  lamentably  partial  and 
hide-bound  views  of  what  education  should  be — Mrs. 
Amelia  E.  Barr — thus  discourses  in  a  most  thoughtful 
and  suggestive  article  on  "  The  Decline  of  Politeness," 
in  LippincotV s  Magazine,  January,  1892,  from  which  I 
have  already  quoted  when  treating  of  "  Good  Man- 
ners "  as  an  important  element  of  true  civilization. 
The  writer  says  : 

'•  The  general  idea  of  education  is  the  passing  an  examination 
in  some  book-learning.  No  one  thinks  nowadays  of  subjecting 
children  to  discipline,  of  teaching  them  obedience,  truthfulness, 
honest  dealing,  sympathy  for  suffering,  respect  for  honorable 
old  age.  Yet.  if  we  do  not  have  those  virtues  in  greater  perfection 
than  they  existed  in  preceding  generations  [the  writer  might  truly 
have    added — or  at    least   half   as    muchj   what    becomes  of   our 


2 1 8  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 

vaunted  education  ?  It  is,  indeed,  the  relaxed  discipline,  the 
diminished  respect  for  authority,  the  encouragement  of  luxury,  the 
going  out  of  fashion  of  industry,  contentment,  and  thrift,  tinited 
with  mere  book-leariiing,  that  has  made  the  working  classes 
everywhere  discontented,  covetous,  dishonest,  without  pride  in 
their  work,  every  year  doing  it  more  reluctantly,  more  scampishly, 
more  dishonorably." 

This  erroneous  and  dangerous  modern  idea  of  edu- 
cation is  clearly  chargeable  to  the  spirit  of  Protestant- 
ism and  of  its  logical  development,  Secularism,  both  of 
which  unite  in  fostering  intellectual  pride,  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  their  revolt  against  the  infallible 
supremacy  of  truth  by  the  doctrine  of  "private  judg- 
ment" and  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  universal 
doubt. 

It  is  to  these  superficial  views  of  education,  which 
ignore  almost  entirely  the  element  of  moral  discipline, 
the  writer  last  quoted  very  justly  refers  that  mod- 
ern decline  of  politeness  she  has  doubtless  observed  in 
nations  under  Protestant  or  secular  educational  in- 
fluence, but  which  is  so  distinguished  a  characteristic  of 
the  social  habits  of  the  commonalty  as  well  as  of  the 
higher  classes  among  Catholic  nations  to-day  as  in 
former  times.     Her  reflections  are  well  worth  perusal. 

Although  it  would  not  cause  me  much  surprise  to 
hear  the  accusation  made  from  some  quarter,  yet  I 
think  the  reflective  and  honest  reader  will  hardly  im- 
pute to  me  the  presumption  of  taking  out  a  brief  in  de- 
fence of  illiteracy,  as  being  in  any  sense  a  preferable 
condition  in  itself.  The  reproach  so  often  heard  from 
the  mouths  of  the  enemies  of  the  Catholic  Church,  that 
it  subserves  her  interest  to  keep  the  masses  of  people 
in  ignorance,  or  that  she  has   been  in  the  past  more 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  219 

than  in  the  present  indifferent  and  unwilling  to  en- 
courage education  among  all  classes,  is  too  absurdly 
false  to  deserve  even  a  denial.  Her  whole  histor}^  is  as 
much  a  history  of  the  rise  and  development  of  learning 
in  all  branches  of  human  and  divine  science  in  in- 
numerable schools,  colleges,  universities,  and  monas- 
teries, in  the  foundation  and  encouragement  of  orders 
of  religious  men  and  women  wholly  devoted  to  the  in- 
struction of  the  common  people,  as  it  is  a  history  of  the 
rise  and  progress  of  Christian  civilization  itself,  un- 
questionably her  work,  and  hers  alone.  One  who  has 
the  least  knowledge  of  history  must  know  himself  to  be 
a  wilful  liar  who  would  assert  that  the  Catholic  Church 
has  failed  to  do  all  that  it  has  been  possible  to  do  at 
different  epochs,  among  different  nations  in  various 
states  of  civilization,  to  make  education  esteemed  as  a 
boon,  or  that  she  failed  to  make  use  of  all  the  means 
and  opportunities  which  the  times  afforded  to  encourage 
the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge  among  the  people, 
equally  wdth  the  cultivation  of  the  higher  sciences  and 
the  more  elevated  and  refining  arts. 

My  design  in  begging  the  fair-minded  reader  to 
listen  to  such  a  lengthy  preface  to  the  statement  of 
some  facts  having  more  immediate  reference  to  certain 
derogatory  accusations  on  this  score  must,  I  hope,  be 
plain.  I  have  meant  to  show  that  popular  illiteracy  is 
no  proof  that  the  people  are,  therefore,  mentally  or 
morally  ignorant  and  debased. 

He  who  exhibits  an  official  table  of  statistics  show- 
ing that  a  high  percentage  of  illiteracy  obtains  in  this 
or  that  country  must  not  expect  his  audience  to  jump^ 
at  the  conclusion  he  insinuates  or  openly  charges,  that 
the  people  of  such  a  country  are  ignorant  and  morally 


220  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 

debased.  Such  a  conclusion  is  wholly  unwarranted  by 
facts  in  past  history  and  at  the  present  day. 

And  again,  if  a  nation  is  to  be  found  upon  whom 
real  ignorance  and  a  low  grade  of  civilization  can  be 
charged  with  truth,  I  am  equally  sure  that  such  a 
lamentable  condition  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  their 
statistical  illiterac}^  except  as  a  partial  and  the  least  of 
the  true  causes  thereof. 

It  is  easy  to  raise  a  clamor  that  illiteracy  is  the 
mother  of  all  human  shame,  wrong,  and  misery,  that 
to  it  is  to  be  referred  the  greater  part  of  crime  and 
pauperism — it  is  not  quite  so  easy  to  prove  the  charge 
and  no  writer  ever  yet  tried  to  substantiate  it 
that  did  not  fail  in  his  endeavor.  The  charge  of 
illiterac}^,  as  being  in  itself  such  a  shameful  and 
horrible  condition,  or  as  being  the  cause  of  all  the 
social  ills  that  mind,  heart,  and  flesh  are  heirs  to,  is  a 
modern  bugaboo  brought  out  to  awaken  childish  fears, 
deepen  prejudice,  and  round  off  their  ranting  platitudes 
by  persecuting  religious  bigots  and  socialistic  political 
charlatans. 

The  truth,  on  the  contrary,  is,  as  will  be  shown 
in  the  course  of  this  essay,  that  the  modern  popular 
diffusion  of  human  knowledge  is  open  to  the  charge  of 
having  been  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  alarming  in- 
crease of  all  sorts  of  crime  and  immorality,  a  lamentable 
consequence  which  would  not  have  followed  had  this 
education  been  accompanied  with  and  directed  by  the 
acquisition  of  divine  knowledge.  The  fundamental 
principle  of  our  modern  education  inspired  by  Protest- 
antism, and  accepted  and  confirmed  by  its  logical  and 
more  powerful  successor.  Secularism,  has  been  false 
and   pernicious.     Its    maxim    is    the   contrary   of  the 


Illiteracy  and  Ignorance.  22 1 

Gospel  maxim,  and  bids  its  children  "Seek  first  the 
kingdom  of  this  world  ' '  ;  esteeming  riches  and  power 
above  virtue  and  nobility  of  character  ;  success  before 
honesty  and  honor  ;  animal  pleasures  and  ease  above 
spiritual  delights ;  free  error  above  loyalty  to  truth  ; 
selfishness  above  divine  charity  ;  luxury  above  self- 
denial  ;  measuring  the  obligations  of  justice  by  the  ex- 
actions of  penal  laws,  and  of  individual,  as  well  as  na- 
tional right,  by  sheer  brutal  might ;  despising  poverty 
as  a  shame,  and  almost  cursing  it  as  a  crime;  and  look- 
ing upon  suffering — the  world's  expiator  and  redeemer 
— as  an  unmerited  blow  dealt  by  the  hand  of  a  blind 
fate. 

Such  have  been  the  undeniably  demoralizing  and 
destructive  consequences  following  hard  upon  the  fast- 
flying  footsteps  of  modern  popular  education,  excluding 
more  and  more,  as  it  advances,  the  restraining  and 
sanctifying  influences  of  religion. 

It  w^ould  have  been  far  otherwise  had  the  Catholic 
ideal  of  education  been  recognized,  asserted,  and  real- 
ized in  practice.  That  ideal  asserts  the  priority  and 
supremacy  by  right  of  the  divine  over  the  human  order. 
It  repeats  the  principle  laid  down  by  Jesus  Christ : 
' '  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteous- 
ness." The  Catholic  Church  has  never  lost  sight  of 
that  ideal,  and  her  struggle  to  maintain  it  for  her  own 
children  has  cost  her  some  of  her  greatest  sacrifices,  as 
it  has  aroused  the  most  violent  opposition  to,  and  brutal 
attacks  upon,  her  right  to  live  and  teach  as  Christ  com- 
manded her  to  do,  that  she  has  ever  sustained  at  the 
hands  of  her  enemies. 

Here  in  America  the  contest  for  the  supremacy  of 
the    principle   affirming    the    truest,    best,    and   safest 


222  Illiteracy  and  Ignorance. 


method  of  popular  education  is  not  far  from  a  decisive 
crisis.  It  may  seem  marvellous  to  some  persons  that 
Catholics,  being  in  such  a  small  minority — not  more 
than  one-sixth  (the  census  gives  one-ninth)  of  the 
population — and  so  inferior  in  wealth  and  political 
power,  should  be  able  to  force  such  a  vast  majority,  al- 
most wholly  devoted  to  the  sustaining  of  the  secularist 
principle  of  education,  to  take  note  of  our  arguments, 
to  weigh  their  value,  and  stand  on  their  defence  against 
their  logical  force. 

But  though  comparatively  so  much  smaller  in  num- 
ber, and  weaker  in  all  mere  human  means,  there  can 
be  no  question  about  the  ultimate  result.  The  right 
will  always  win.  We  have,  and  know  we  have,  the 
God  of  the  right  on  our  side.  What  matter  our  small 
number  ? 

"  With  God  one  is  a  majority!  " 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

POPULAR   EDUCATION. 

NO  more  convincing  evidence  could  be  offered  as 
proof  that  the  deplorable  ignorance  of  Protestants 
concerning  the  Catholic  Church  is  fostered  by  the  mis- 
representations of  her  character  and  doctrines  made  by 
their  religious  teachers  than  is  afforded  by  the  per- 
sistent repetition  in  their  hearing  of  a  notorious  slander- 
ous forgery,  which  is  received  by  them  not  only  without 
the  least  show  of  protest,  but,  as  has  been  more  than 
once  noted,  with  shouts  of  assenting  applause.  This 
forgery  is  an  alleged  Roman  Catholic  maxim  which  is 
always  presented  as  if  quoted  from  our  writings,  viz.: 
"  Ignorance  is  the  mother  of  devotion." 

It  is  now  impossible  to  trace  this  slander  to  its 
original  author,  but  one  need  not  be  surprised  to  come 
upon  it  in  almost  any  Protestant  controversial  work, 
or  hear  it  repeated  in  any  anti-popery  sermon  or  lecture. 

One  of  the  most  unblushing  repetitions  of  it  is  to 
be  found  in  the  widely  circulated  book  entitled  Our 
Country,  written  by  a  certain  Rev.  Dr.  Josiah  Strong, 
who  is  the  chief  secretary  of  that  anti-Catholic  asso- 
ciation called  the  "Evangelical  Alliance,"  in  one 
of  whose  official  documents  (No.  XXIII.,  1887)  the 
following  is  quoted  from  the  book  of  its  Rev.  Secretary : 

"  Rome  has  never  favored  the  education  of  the  masses.  In 
her  relations  to  them  she  has  adhered  to  her  own  proverb  :  '  7^- 
7iorance  is  the  mother  of  devotion.'  " 

And  then  this  false  witness  against  his  neighbor 
goes  on  to  confirm  his  own  true  character,  and  that  of 
his  society,  by  making  the  following  other  false  as- 
sertions, as  evidence  in  this  essay  will  prove  them  to  be: 


224  Popular  Education. 


"  Rome's  real  attitude  toward  the  education  of  the  masses 
should  be  inferred  from  her  course  in  those  countries  where  she 
has,  or  has  had,  undisputed  sway  ;  and  there  she  has  kept  the 
people  in  besotted  ignorance.  Instance  her  own  Italy,  where 
seventy-three  per  cent,  of  the  population  are  illiterate ;  or  Spain, 
where  we  find  eighty  per  cent.;  or  Mexico,  where  ninety-three  per 
cent,  belong  to  this  class," 

That  Rev.  Dr.  Strong  or  many  other  anti-popery 
preachers  and  writers  of  his  class  should  deliberately 
publish  and  industriously  circulate  such  a  patent 
forgery  and  misleading  manipulated  statistics  in  order 
to  defame  the  Catholic  Church  is  not  surprising.  It 
is  their  trade.  But  that  their  barefaced,  unproved 
assertions  should  receive  ready  acceptance  and  belief 
among  even  millions  of  Protestants  of  every  class 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  this  well-schooled 
country,  to  whom  the  history  of  the  past  and  the  pres- 
ent state  of  the  world  ought  not  to  be  a  totally  un- 
known quantity,  surpasses  all  explanations  save  one — 
to  borrow  the  language  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Washington 
Gladden — ' '  the  appalling  depth  and  density  of  the 
popular  ignorance  ' '  of  Protestants  due  to  the  teaching 
of  such  men  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Strong. 

I  propose  to  offer  in  answer  to  all  these  gratuitous 
slanders  positive,  unimpeachable  evidence,  with  refer- 
ences to  reliable  authorities  carefully  noted — a  method 
of  fair,  judicial  procedure  as  carefully  omitted  by  our 
accusers.  Upon  the  evidence  I  shall  adduce  one  can 
easily  form  a  judgment  with  what  justice  or  sincerity 
these  never-ceasing  injurious  charges  have  been  made 
by  the  revilers  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Most  unquestionably  the  best  basis  upon  which  to 
make  a  fair  comparison  of  what  Protestant  and  Catholic 
countries  are  doing  for  the  spread  of  popular  education 


Popular  Education.  225 

is  the  actual  percentage  of  the  attendance  of  school 
children  at  about  the  same  date,  supplemented  by  other 
evidence  of  a  similar  positive  character  from  reliable 
authorities,  and,  above  all,  respectable  ones.  This 
kind  of  evidence,  positive,  clear,  and  convincing  in  its 
character,  is  something  Protestant  controversialists 
generally,  and  religious  demagogues  always,  avoid 
giving.  Accusatory  charges  of  illiteracy,  as  evidence 
of  what  Catholic  countries  are  not  doing  and  have  not 
done,  are  more  to  their  taste,  and,  being  more  difficult 
of  verification,  suit  their  purpose  better. 

As  a  well-known  fact  statistics  of  illiteracy  are,  as  a 
rule,  both  too  meagre  and  uncertain,  as  acknowledged 
by  statisticians  themselves,  to  form  the  basis  of  a  just 
comparison,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  official 
statistics  of  illiteracy  for  all  the  countries  one  cares  to 
investigate  are  not  given.  What  icnoffLcial  statistics 
may  be  found  are,  for  the  most  part,  mere  guesswork, 
being  nothing  better  than  general  estimates  founded 
upon  observation  of  particular  classes  of  persons,  such 
as  army  conscripts  and  married  couples  unable  or  too 
bashful  to  sign  their  names  in  a  register. 

The  following  comparative  table  is  taken  from  "  The 
Dictionary  of  Statistics,  by  Michael  G.  Mulhall,  Fellovv^ 
of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  etc.,"  one  of  the  best 
authorities  known  (edition  of  1892,  article  "  Education," 
pp.   231  to  243). 

I  have  joined  with  this  table,  for  my  readers' 
satisfaction  as  to  the  religious  side  of  the  question,  the 
respective  number  of  Catholics  and  Protestants  in  these 
countries.  These  figures  are  also  taken  from  the  same 
book,  article  "Religion"  (pp.  512,  513).  I  have  also 
placed  together  in  comparative  view  the  countries  in 
which  either   religion   is   dominant,  and    the    countries 


IC^v       ifywi 


216 


Popular  Education, 


\  ^ 


where  the  population  is  about  equall}^  divided,  or  where 


(Mi 


at  least  one-third  is  Catholic.  '  '^ 

Those   persons  who  have  seen  one  of  the  common/ 
slanderous    "tabular   statements"    of    illiteracy    lately"/  .c(X 
published  in  the  New  York  Herald,  classing   all  these    ^^ 
latter  countries  as  wholly  Protestant   ones,  will  under-  ^ 
.stand  my  motive  for  this   separation.  {MJl^AA 




Protestant  countries. 

Protestant 
population. 

Catholic 
population. 

Average  attend- 
ance 0/ school 
children  per  1,000 
population. 

Australia 

Norway,  Sweden,  ) 

and  Denmark,     ) 

United  States,  .     .     . 

Great  Britain  and  ) 

Ireland,                S 

2,880,000 

8,340,500 

50,890,000 

29,398,000 

845,000 

4,500 

9.000,000 

5,336,000 

140 
140 
130 
123 

Catholic  countries. 

Catholic 
population. 

Protestant 
population. 

Average  attend- 
ance 0/ school 
children  per  1,000 
population. 

France, 

Belgium,  .     .     .     .     . 

Austria, 

Spain 

Italy 

Portugal,  ..... 

29,202,000 
6,016,000 
20,227,000 
17,542,000 
28,360,000 
4,707,500 

693,000 

10,000 

400,000 

7,600 

62,000 

500 

170 

106 
90 

54 

Mixed  countries. 

Protestant 
population. 

Catholic 
population. 

Average  attend- 
ance 0/  school 
children  per  1,000 
population. 

Switzerland,      .     .     . 
Netherlands,      .     .     . 
Germany,      .... 

Canada, 

• 

1,724,000 

2,491,000 

!    29,370,000 

2,440,000 

1 ,  1 90,000 

1 ,440,000 

16,789,000 

1,792,000 

210 

140 
100 

Popular  Education. 


227 


The  combined  population  of  Catholics  and  Protest- 
ants, as  given  above,  do  not  quite  exhaust  the  number 
of  the  entire  population  for  some  countries,  but  the 
figures  answer,  as  they  stand,  to  show  the  relative  num- 
ber of  each  religious  bod>    in  a  given  country. 

There  is  another  table  worthy  of  our  inspection 
which  reports  the  number  of  children  enrolled  in  school . 
This  table  is  copied  from  the  Report  of  the  U.  vS. 
Commissioner  of  Education,  1889-90,  vol.  i.  pp.  553-57  : 


EDUCATION     IN     EUROPE     BETWEEN     KINDERGARTEN     AND 

UNIVERSITY— 1890. 

Coutitries. 

Religion. 

Children  enrolled  ■ 

in  school  per  \,ooo 

population. 

Bavaria, 

7-10  Catholic. 

'l\'l 

Baden,    .     . 

Yi  Catholic. 

206 

Saxony,  .     . 

. 

Protestant. 

202 

Prussia,  .     . 

Ys  Protestant. 

196 

Switzerland,    . 

Y},  Protestant. 

195 

Wiirtemberg, 

\- 

Protestant. 

190 

'  German  Empire, 

.  i      Yi  Protestant. 

188 

England  and  Wales 

,    :              Protestant. 

166 

Scotland,     .     .     . 

.  ;           Protestant. 

164 

Norway, 

Protestant. 

lU 

Sweden, 

.     .             Protestant. 

'54 

France,  .     . 

.  '             Catholic. 

•  51 

Ireland, 

.  j             Catholic. 

147 

Netherlands, 

.  j      2/  Protestant. 

142 

Belgium,     . 

. 

Catholic. 

135 

Austria, 

. 

Catholic. 

131 

Austria-Hung 

ar\ 

, 

.  '             Catholic. 

129 

Hungary,    . 

Catholic. 

126 

Denmark,   . 

. 

Protestant. 

no 

Spain,     .     . 

. 

Catholic. 

106 

Italy,       .  ^ 

■ 

Catholic. 

96 

1 

\L*¥^ 


J» 


X 


J 


228  Popular  Education. 


For  the  United  States  another  table  gives  the  num- 
ber of  school  children  enrolled  as  233  per  1,000  of  popu- 
lation, as  reported  in  the  census  of  1890. 

On  page  5  of  the  same  volume  this  number  is  given 
as  202,  of  which  the  average  attendance  is  stated  to  be 
about  one-third  less,  about  135  per  t, 000  of  the  popu- 
lation, somewhat  higher  than  the  figure  given  by 
Mulhall,  for  1888. 

There  appears  to  be  no  explanation  of  the  great 
discrepancy  of  figures  given  for  France  or  for  the 
difference  of  estimate  made  for  vSwitzerland. 

Both  of  the  foregoing  tables  are  well  worthy  careful 
inspection  and  comparison.  Taking  the  figures  of 
either  one  upon  which  to  make  a  comparison  be- 
tween what  Catholics  and  Protestants  are  doing  for 
education  in  various  countries  where  the  religion  of 
one  or  the  other  is  predominant  the  conclusion  one  is 
sure  to  arrive  at  is,  that  there  is  no  foundation  whatso- 
ever for  the  thousand- times  reiterated  charges  made  by 
calumniating  enemies  of  the  Catholic  Church,  that 
where  she  is  in  power  the  people  are  ignorant  and  de- 
prived of  the  ordinary  means  of  instruction.  All  false, 
all  false,  all  false !  is  the  answer  to  such  accusations 
given  by  the  figures  of  both  these  tables. 

/;/  both  of  them  Catholics  stand  at  the  head ;  and  hold 
an  honorable  rank  with  Protestant  countries,  as  their 
percentages  show. 

The  United  States  Commissioner's  report  gives  the 
average  enrollment  for  all  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 
as  159,  and  for  the  United  States,  in  the  official  report 
on  page  5,  as  202,  and  the  average  attendance  at  about 
135.  Both  countries  are  doing  better  now.  Our  Com- 
missioner  tells    us   he    reports    Scotland's  first   year's 


Popular  Education.  229 

experience  in  free  vScliools.  Mark  that  !  He  means 
free  "government"  schools,  iox  free  religious  schools 
existed  in  Scotland,  as  in  other  countries,  in  Catholic 
times  long  before  Protestantism  came  in  to  break  up 
all  the  educational  establishments  founded  by  the 
Church.  Free  schools  were  in  existence  in  Rome 
centuries  before  the  Reformation,  and  have  never 
ceased  being  there,  as  will  be  proved  in  the  chapter 
specially  devoted  to  the  subject  of  Education  in  the 
Capital  of  Catholicism. 

Neither  the  United  States  nor  England  started  in  to 
undertake  the  work  of  popular  education  until  long 
after  Catholic  Austria,  France,  and  Belgium.  Both 
Protestant  and  Catholic  Germany  were  already  well 
forward  in  the  work — "with  perfect  systems,  ac- 
complishing magnificent  results,"  as  says  Joseph  Kay, 
the  Protestant  sociologist,  in  his  celebrated  work, 
The  Social  Conditiot  and  the  Education  of  the  People  iji 
England  (1850,  page  266),  and  when  the  Papal  States, 
and  especially  Rome,  were  better  supplied  with  public 
free  schools  than  even  Berlin  and  other  parts  of  Prussia, 
as  I  shall  presently  prove. 

At  the  same  period,  about  fifty  years  ago,  our  own 
countr}^'  was  but  just  beginning  to  bestir  itself  on  this 
subject.  By  the  Census  of  1850  I  find  that  in  the 
United  States  fully  one-fifth  of  the  adults  over  "twenty 
years  of  age,  exclusive  of  the  slaves,  is  reported  as 
illiterate. 

Now,  I  pray  my  readers  to  see  what  a  comparatively 
low  figure  the  mighty,  wealthy,  and  leading  power  of 
Protestantism — the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland — cuts  in  the  Mulhall  table  ;  not  to  mention 
its    two-third    Protestant   colony   of    Canada.     Surely 


^^Ji 


230  Popular  Education. 


there  must  be  some  good  reason  for  this.  I  think  I 
have  found  one  that  may  explain  this  rather  disgrace- 
fully low  figure  for  popular  education  in  the  great 
Protestant  kingdom   "of  this  world"  par  excellc7ice. 

The  whole  trouble  lay  with  the  "degraded  and 
besottedly  ignorant  Catholic  Irish."  Protestant  Eng- 
land, which  does  the  governing,  law-making,  and  edu- 
cating for  the  whole  kingdom,  saw  wnth  great  pity  and 
compassion  to  what  a  horrible  state  of  illiteracy 
poverty,  besotted  ignorance,  etc.,  etc.,  the  Pope  of 
Rome  and  his  minions,  the  papal  clerg}^  in  Ireland,  had 
reduced  that  unhappy  people.  England's  Protestant 
heart  yearned  to  spread  the  blessings  of  popular  edu- 
cation among  these  benighted  Catholic  subjects ;  but 
it  was  all  in  vain.  They  did  not  want  to  be  educated, 
they  never  did,  and  they  wouldn't  be  now  or  ever. 
Being  a  very  devout  Roman  Catholic  people,  they  of 
course  hated  the  very  name  of  ' '  School  "  or  "  School- 
master," for  they  knew  the  doctrine  of  their  papal 
religion  well — *'  Ignorance  is  the  mother  of  devotion," 
and  they  resolved,  come  what  might,  to  live  up,  or 
rather  down,  to  it.  This  obstinate  determination  of  the 
Catholic  Irish  to  keep  themselves  in  ignorance  fully 
accounts  for  the  low  figure  which  even  at  this  late 
day  has  to  be  recorded  opposite  the  proud  name  of 
"  The  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  «;/^  Ireland." 

But  I  do  not  wish  my  unsupported  word  to  be  taken 
in  evidence.  I  give  the  higher  testimony,  briefly 
stated  by  one  of  our  American  leading  educators — 
Henry  Barnard,  EE.D. — who  had  the  honor  to  be  the 
first  United  States  Commissioner  of  the  Bureau  of  Edu- 
cation ;  and  of  course  he  is  pretty  good  authority  ;  this 
is  what  he  says  : 


Popular  Education,  231 

"  Until  the  beginning  of  this  century  the  Catholics,  who  con- 
stituted four-fifths  of  the  population  in  Ireland,  were  not  only  not 
permitted  to  endoic,  conduct,  or  teach  schools,  but  Catholic  parents 
even  were  not  permitted  to  educate  their  children  abroad  ;  and  it 
was  made  an  offence,  punished  by  transportation  (and  if  the 
party  returned  it  was  made  high  treason),  in  any  Catholic  to  act 
as  a  schoolmaster,  or  even  as  a  tutor  in  a  private  family" 
(Barnard's  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  xi.  page  134). 

In  what  other  tone  than  that  of  irony  could  I  have 
permitted  myself  to  preface  such  an  unquestionable 
but  almost  incredible  statement  ?  Protestant  England, 
indeed,  with  its  small  ratio  of  school  children  per  1,000 
of  the  population  at  the  present  day  for  the  whole  king- 
dom, to  presume  to  revile  as  it  does  the  illiteracy  and 
ignorance  of  its  own  oppressed  Irish  Catholic  subjects  ! 
Just  think  of  it ;  the  Catholic  schoolmaster  teaching  A, 
B,  C,  at  the  peril  of  penal  exile  ;  and  if  he  dared  return 
to  his  dearly  loved  native  land — well,  the  hangman's 
rope  would  effectually  silence  his  traitorous  teaching 
tongue  ! 

I  have  just  received  a  copy  of  an  Irish  newspaper 
in  which  is  reported  an  instructive  little  address  made 
to  some  Catholic  school  children  in  Ireland  by  the  pres- 
ent Irish  Cardinal  Logue,  the  humor  of  which  will  be 
appreciated  no  less  than  the  force  of  its  testimony  to 
the  love  Irishmen  have  ever  cherished  for  education, 
and  the  sacrifices  they  have  made  for  it.  His  Emi- 
nence said  : 

"  It  was  thought  necessary  to  use  some  little  compulsion  in 
gathering  the  children  to  school.  I  never  found  it  necessary  dur- 
ing my  experience,  neither  do  I  think  it  useful  ;  but  those  who 
rule  over  your  interests  are,  I  suppose,  wiser  than  we  are,  and 
they  appear  to  have  only  one   system  of  ruling  over  us,  and  that 


232  Popular  Education. 


is,  ruling  by  Coercion  Acts.  The  grown-up  people  have  been 
coerced  since  I  remember,  and  I  suppose  long  before  it,  and 
when  they  have  exhausted  all  the  powers  of  coercion  on  the 
grown-up  people  they  have  taken  to  the  children.  So  you,  my 
dear  children,  are  now  under  a  Coercion  Act,  and  the  best  that  I 
wish  you  is  that  you  may  never  give  them  an  opportunity  of 
applying  this  Coercion  Act.  The  children  were  in  former  gen- 
erations coerced  by  the  same  authorities,  but  the  coercion  was  to 
keep  them  out  of  school.  They  kept  them  out  of  school,  of 
course,  but  they  could  not  suppress  the  love  of  learning  and  the 
love  of  knowledge  which  seems  to  be  natural  to  the  Irishman's 
heart.  They  took  to  the  hedgerows,  and  so  by  stealth,  at  the 
risk  of  their  lives,  at  least  at  the  risk  of  the  lives  of  their  teachers, 
and  at  the  risk  of  ruin  on  the  part  of  their  parents,  the  poor 
children  of  Ireland  strove  to  acquire  knowledge.  Now  the  co- 
ercion is  used  in  the  opposite  direction  to  bring  them  into  the 
schools,  and  I  hope  it  will  succeed  in  such  parts  of  the  country 
as  it  is  required  in.'' 

The  great  and  instructive  truth  here  so  well  stated 
is  crystallized  in  the  old  familiar  quotation,  ''  Stretched 
on  the  mountain  feini,  pupil  and  teacher  met ^  felo7iioitsly ,  to 
learn.''' 

But  what  was  Ireland  in  the  da^^s  when  she  was  not 
only  Catholic  but  free  ?  So  many  of  my  readers  have 
been  accustomed  to  think  of  that  nation  as  having  been 
always  little  better  than  semi-civilized,  that  they  will 
be  astonished  when  I  tell  them  the  truth.  So  far  as 
learning  was  a  factor  in  the  Christian  civilization  of 
Europe  Ireland  takes  rank  as  one  of  the  foremost 
leaders  a  thousand  years  before  Protestantism  saw 
the  light.  lyook  at  her  numerous  schools  of  learning 
following  directly  upon  her  conversion  to  the  Catholic 
faith,  among  which  stand  out  Armagh,  a.  d.  455,  with 
seven   thousand   pupils;    lyismore,  Cashel,   Arran,  Clo- 


Popular  Education,  233 

nard,  Clonmacnoise,  Benchor,  lauded  by  St.  Bernard  ; 
Clonfert,  and  lona,   a.   d.  563. 

Listen  to  the  historian,  St.  Aengis,  telling  us  that 
Gauls,  Romans,  Germans,  and  even  Egyptians,  were 
scholars  in  these  Irish  schools  ;  and  to  St.  Aldhelm,  of 
Westminster,  in  the  seventh  century,  complaining  that 
the  English  schools  were  neglected  for  those  of  Ireland. 
"Nowadays,"  says  he,  "the  renown  of  the  Irish  is 
so  great  that  one  daily  sees  our  scholars  going  to  and 
returning  thence,  and  crowds  flock  over  to  their  island 
to  gather  up,  not  merely  the  liberal  arts  and  physical 
sciences,  but  also  the  four  senses  of  Holy  Scripture." 

It  was  Moore,  the  melodious  goet  of  Ireland,  who 
said — apropos  of  the  fact  being  cited  that  in  former 
times  Ireland  sent  teachers  all  over  Europe — "True, 
it  was  abroad  that  the  Irish  sought,  and  abroad  that 
they  found,  the  reward  of  their  genius."  We  of  the 
United  States  can  bear  testimony  to  that  truth. 

Cardinal  Newman  quotes  this  saying  of  Moore  with 
approval  in  his  Historical  Sketches,  and  adds  :  "If  there 
be  a  nation  which,  in  matters  of  intellect,  does  not  want 
'protection,'  to  use  the  political  word,  it  is  the  Irish. 
I  would  be  paying  a  poor  compliment  to  one  of  the 
most  gifted  of  nations  of  Europe  did  I  suppose  that  it 
could  not  keep  its  ground,  that  it  would  not  take  the 
lead  in  the  intellectual  arena,  though  competition  was 
perfectly  open."  And  again,  alluding  to  the  superior 
intelligence  and  vigor  of  that  Catholic  people,  he  says 
in  another  place  :  "The  fact  is  manifest,  the  English 
language  and  the  Irish  race  are  overrunning  the 
world." 

Here  is  a  fact  utterly  inexplicable  except  one  admits 
the  truth  of  the  Cardinal's  words.     "There   is  no  in- 


234  Popular  Education. 


stance,"  says  Lecky  in  his  History  of  Erigland  in  the 
Eighteenth  Ceyitnry,  "even  in  the  Ten  Persecutions,  of 
such  severity  as  that  which  the  Protestants  of  Ireland 
have  exercised  against  the  Catholics"  (vol.  i.  ch.  ii.) 
And,  despite  their  long-continued  misgovernment,  so- 
cial persecution,  and  general  poverty,  Irish  scholars 
of  eminence  founded  colleges  of  their  own  nation  in 
Rome  and  Paris,  and  have  never  failed  to  keep  the 
chairs  of  their  professors  filled  by  competent  men.  One 
of  the  French  colleges  of  the  highest  repute  for  learning 
is  that  of  the  Ecole  des  Haute s  Etudes  in  Paris,  and  who 
should  have  been  chosen  and  remain  for  3ears  its 
worthy  president  b^t  an  Irishman  ! 

Mentioning  these  two  Irish  colleges  out  of  Ireland 
reminds  me  of  the  existence  also  of  five  English  Catholic 
colleges  out  of  England — those  of  Douay  and  Rheims, 
Rome,  Valladolid  and  Lisbon,  founded  by  English 
Catholics  hindered  by  their  persecuting  Protestant 
brother  Englishmen  from  establishing  them  at  home. 
That  the  colleges  in  France  were  schools  of  no 
mean  learning  is  evidenced  to  the  world  by  the  fact 
that  English-speaking  Catholics  owe  their  trans- 
lation of  the  Old  Testament  to  these  exiled  schol- 
ars at  Douay,  and  of  the  New  Testament  to  those 
of  Rheims:  versions  of  Holy  Scripture  w^hich,  if  less 
distinguished  for  the  beauty  of  rhetorical  expression 
than  the  Protestant  version  ' '  of  King  James, ' '  have  been 
fully  vindicated  as  being  superior  in  doctrinal  and 
textual  accuracy. 

The  true  reason  why  England  cuts  such  a  low  figure 
in  the  statistics  of  popular  education  compared  even 
with  other  Protestant  nations,  is  because  its  domi- 
nant form  of  Protestantism — the  National   established 


Popular  Education.  235 


Episcopalianism — soon  lost  and  never  sought  to  regain 
those  whom  Protestant  Englishmen  of  that  Church  are 
wont  to  call  the  "lower  classes."  The  whole  system 
and  temper  of  the  Established  Church  tended  to  destroy 
all  sympathy  between  its  clergy  and  the  common 
people.  Most  of  the  clergy  were  taken  from,  and  only 
associated  with,  the  "higher  classes,"  and  took  little 
interest  in  the  social  advancement  or  culture  of  the 
ignorant  hinds  who  tilled  the  fields,  toiled  in  the 
mines,  or  became  later  on  mere  animated  machines 
working  in  the  brutalizing  factories. 

But  England  was  not  always  so  low  down  in  the 
scale  of  learning  as  now.  When  Protestantism  arose  in 
that  once  happy  Catholic  country  it  found  the  land  cov- 
ered with  thousands  of  monastic  and  parish  schools; 
the  country  teemed  wnth  noted  scholars,  and  their  fame 
w^ent  abroad  all  over  Europe.  As  early  as  the  four- 
teenth century  school  children  were  taught  not  only 
their  own  English  but  the  Latin  and  French  languages. 

In  the  fifteenth  centur}^  it  appears  that  some  of  the 
nobility  began  to  get  jealous  of  the  wide-spread  learn- 
ing of  the  lower  orders,  and  petitioned  parliament  in 
the  reign  of  Richard  II.  that  they  should  at  least  not 
be  allowed  to  go  to  the  schools  of  the  monks,  from 
which  so  many  poor  scholars  came  out  learned  in 
science  and  rose  to  dignities  in  the  state.  But 
parliament  passed  the  following  law:  "Everyman  or 
woman,  of  whatsoever  state  or  condition  they  be,  shall 
be  at  liberty  to  send  their  son  or  daughter  to  take 
learning  in  any  kind  of  school  that  pleaseth  them  with- 
in the  realm." 

Eet  my  reader  pick  up  any  good  history  of  England, 
and   learn   how   many   thousands  of   monasteries   and 


236  Popular  Education, 

nunneries  were  confiscated  by  the  royal  founder  of 
Protestantism  in  England,  Henry  VIII.  Let  him 
learn  how  many  tens  of  thousands  of  these  monks  and 
nuns,  whose  whole  lives  were  consecrated  to  study,  and 
prayer,  to  the  teaching  and  succoring  the  poor  in  their 
necessities,  were  driven  out  to  secular  occupations,  or 
either  hanged  or  exiled  ;  and  then  he  may  imagine  how 
rapidly  the  pall  of  ignorance  fell  upon  the  English 
people,  deprived  of  almost  every  means  of  education 
for  either  the  higher  or  lower  classes.  Like  a  death- 
dealing  cyclone  Protestantism  passed  over  the  land, 
and  never  reinstated  one  out  of  the  thousands  of  schools 
and  homes  of  learning  and  religion  that  it  destroyed. 

So  far  as  the  education  and  general  well-being  of  the 
masses  of  people  were  concerned,  England  never  re- 
covered from  the  disastrous  blow  it  received  at  the 
hands  of  the  reformed  religion.  Its  two  ancient  and 
renowned  universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  hardly 
escaped  extinction,  and  English  Protestantism  con- 
tented itself  with  the  poor  remains  of  them  that  it 
suffered  to  stand  ;  and  never  cared  for,  if  it  felt  the  need 
of,  any  other  such  sanctuaries  of  higher  education  for 
nearly  three  hundred  years.  As  to  the  cause  oi  popu- 
lar education  let  us  see  in  what  condition  England  had 
come  to  by  the  middle  of  this  present  century,  and  then 
we  can  judge  what  it  must  have  been  all  along  since 
the  spirit  of  Protestantism  reigned  supreme  over  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  the  English  people. 

Joseph  Kay,  in  his  work  already  quoted,  will  tell 
us  at  the  end  of  his  volume : 

"  Here  in  England,  with  our  vast  accumulated  masses,  with  an 
expenditure  on  abject  pauperism  which  in  these  days  of  our  pros- 
perity amounts  to  ^5,000,000  per  annum,   with   a  terrible  defi- 


Popular  Education,  237 

ciency  in  our  churches  and  clergy,  with  the  most  demoraUzing 
pubHcations  spread  through  the  cottages  of  our  operativ^es,  with 
democratic  ideas  of  the  wildest  kind  ;  where  the  majority  of  the 
operatives  have  no  religion  ;  where  the  national  religion  is  one 
utterly  unfitted  to  attract  an  uneducated  people  ;  where  the 
aristocracy  is  richer  and  more  powerful  than  that  of  any  other 
country  in  the  world — the  poor  are  more  depressed,  more  pauper- 
ized, more  numerous  in  comparison  to  the  other  classes,  more  ir- 
religious and  very  much  worse  educated  than  the  poor  of  any 
other  European  nation  solely  excej)tin,!L;  Russia,  Turkey,  South 
Italy,  Portugal,  and  Spain." 

What  a  sad"  and  bitter  contrast  to  the  condition  of 
the  people  when  England  was  Catholic  and  "Merry" 
— when  the  very  word  "pauper"  in  its  present  legal 
and  social  sense  was  not  in  the  language. 

"  A  time  there  was  ere  England's  griefs  began. 
When  every  rood  of  ground  maintained  its  man." 

Kay's  great  work,  which  startled  not  only  England 
but  all  other  nations  by  its  fearful  revelations  of  igno- 
rance and  crime,  bristles  with  proofs  that  Protestant 
England  and  Wales  were  in  a  horrible  state  of  mental 
and  moral  degradation.  The  population  was  then 
(1850)  hardly  17,000,000,  and  he  says  that  there  were 
8,000,000  illiterates  ;  that  50  per  cent,  also  of  the 
children  attended  no  school,  and  very  many  of  what 
teachers  there  were  in  country  districts  could  not 
themselves  either  read  or  write. 

Italy,  Spain,  and  Portugal  are  shown  by  Mulhall's 
table  to  be  behind,  but  not  so  far  behind  Protestant 
England  and  Canada  as  the  popular  hue  and  cry 
against  them,  because  they  are  Catholic  countries,  has 
led  many^  to  believe. 

What  did  Kay  think  of  the  backwardness  of  Catholic 
countries  ?     This  : 


238  Poptilar  Education. 

"  Alas  !  Romanist  countries  have  far  outstripped  tis  in  the 
eagerness  with  which  they  are  promoting  the  education  of  their 
people.  They  understand  the  signs  of  the  times.  We  have  yet 
to  learn  them  "  {Social  Condition  of  the  English  People,  p.  298). 

What  did  he  hope  from  his  own  Protestantism  to 
help  rescue  the  ignorant  masses  ? 

"  The  great  majority  of  the  people  in  the,  great  towns  of  this 
kingdom  have  no  religion.  They  are  not  fitted  for  the  reception 
of  Protestantism,  or  if  they  are  so  in  a  few  cases,  it  is  only  for  the 
reception  of  a  corrupted  and  co7-riipti)ig  phase  of  it,  and  we 
have  taken  from  them  the  only  religion  capable  of  influencing 
them  in  their  present  state  "  (p.  298). 

That  last  remark  is  true  enough.  He  meant  the 
"Protestant  religion  as  by  law  established."  He 
should  have  meant  the  Catholic  religion,  taken  awa}^ 
from  the  people  three  hundred  years  before.  Samuel 
Laing,  that  eminent  vScotch  Presbyterian  writer,  could 
have  told  him  so.  He  says  in  his  Notes  of  a  Traveller, 
p.  394:  "Catholicism  has  certainly  a  much  stronger 
hold  over  the  human  mind  than  Protestantism.  The 
fact  is  visible  and  undeniable."  And  he  was  led  to  say 
this  by  observing  the  powerful  influence  the  Catholic 
religion  has  had,  not  only  over  the  higher  classes  but 
over  the  illiterate  and  poor.  Protestant  countries  will 
bear  no  comparison  to  Catholic  ones  in  this  respect. 

The  observant  reader  will  not  fail  to  note  the  very 
singular  remark  of  Kay:  "They  (the  English  people) 
are  not  fitted  for  the  reception  of  Protestantism,  except  in 
a  few  cases."  A  confession  that  Protestantism,  despite 
the  united  power  of  its  kings  and  nobility,  and  the 
enormous  wealth  of  its  Law-Church  P^stablishment,  had 
either  failed — "except  in  a  few  cases" — to  force  the 
new  religion  into  the  minds  and  hearts   of   the  people, 


Popular  Education.  239 

or  that  it  had  ba.sel3^  suffered  them  to  fall  awa3^  into 
infidelity  or  a  scornful  Nothingarianism.  If  one  did  not 
know  the  context  of  Kay's  remark,  he  would  naturally 
suppose  he  was  alluding  to  some  nation  of  cannibals  in 
the  South  Seas,  or  savage  tribe  in  the  interior  of  Africa. 

Seven  years  after  Kay's  work  appeared,  when  states- 
men and  writers  in  England  were  beginning  to  discuss 
the  proposal  of  establishing  the  national  public  schools, 
the  London  Times,  after  exposing  the  general  irre- 
ligious character  of  the  working  classes,  would  ap- 
pear to  have  come  up  to  only  a  half-hearted  interest  in 
the  movement.  "  We  do  not  think,"  it  says,  alluding 
to  the  proposed  schools,  "that  they  are  likely  to  leave 
the  w^orking  population  in  a  viore  irreligious  state  than 
the^^  find  it  in."  It  had  just  remarked  that  the  census 
showed  "  a  million  heads  of  families  who  never  went  to 
any  church,"  specifying,  for  example,  the  wealthy 
district  of  Paddington,  wdiere  there  w^ere  only  70  such 
out  of  1,400;  and  the  district  of  Clerkenwell,  "with  a 
population  of  52,000,  of  whom  no  more  than  200  of  the 
laboring  classes  are  attendants  at  an}-  place  of  wor- 
ship" {Dublin  Revic7i.\  vol.  xlv.  p.  59). 

If  Catholic  countries  like  Spain  and  Italy,  so  pro- 
foundly religious  and  Christian,  should  have  been  slow 
in  adopting  the  modern  means  of  securing  popular 
education — so  called — it  is  not  greatly  to  be  wondered 
at  ;  seeing  the  prevailing  spirit  of  such  forced  purely 
secular  schooling  by  state  power  is  one  which,  by  ignor- 
ing, as  it  does,  religious  instruction  and  moral  discipline, 
tends  to  fostet scepticism  and  infidelity,  and  is  followed 
hy  an  alarming  increase  of  crime  and  immorality. 

With  the  knowdedge  of  what  has  thus  resulted  in  the 
loss  of  faiih  and  Christian  virtue,  not  only  in  all  strong- 


240  Popular  Education, 

ly  Protestant  countries  but  even  of  late  years  in  Catho- 
lic France,  where  the  powers  that  be  are  hostile  to 
Christianity,  who  shall  blame  them  for  hesitating,  and 
for  slowly  adopting  a  popular  policy  for  their  own 
Christian  people,  so  difficult  to  establish  as  it  would 
seem,  without  yielding  up  the  school-house  to  be  a 
godless  temple  for  the  Prince  of  this  world,  across 
whose  threshold  the  Prince  of  Heaven,  teaching  His 
divine  religion,  must  not  put  His  foot? 

And  yet  these  shallow-minded  world-worshippers  can 
revile  those  nations  who  seek  first  of  all  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  His  righteousness,  because  they  look  before 
they  leap,  and  are  slow  to  force  upon  their  people  a 
worldly  benefit  at  the  risk  of  such  a  fatal  price.  Could 
they  have  seen  their  way,  as  Catholics  for  instance  in 
this  country  are  resolved  to  see  their  way  first,  how  to 
bestow  this  worldly  benefit  accompanied  by  religion  in 
order  to  prevent  its  becoming  to  the  rising  generation  a 
' '  dangerous  and  pernicious  advantage  both  to  them- 
selves and  to  society  at  large,"  as  the  wisest  and  best  of 
all  moralists  and  true  educators  are  unanimous  in  de- 
claring it  to  be  if  not  so  accompanied  ;  then,  as  has 
been  proved,  and  as  this  essay  has  shown  and  will 
further  prove.  Catholics  not  only  equal  but  surpass 
Protestants  and  Secularists  both  in  the  results  achieved 
in  purely  secular  knowledge,  and  also  in  the  standard 
of  individual  and  social  morality  set  up  and  safe- 
guarded. 

I  have  omitted  in  this  place  all  reference  to  Catholic 
countries  like  Mexico  and  the  States  of  ^outh  America. 
They  are  not  in  a  reasonably  equal  social  condition  as 
to  the  races  composing  the  population  to  be  fa.rly  called 
into  comparison  with  other  countries,  either  Catholic  or 


Popular  Education.  241 

Protestant  ones,  such  as  I  have  alkided  to.  Those 
countries  are  vast  in  extent  and  thinly  populated,  and 
the  people  are  a  half,  and  in  some  four-fifths,  pure 
Indians  or  of  mixed  races,  who  under  Catholic  humane 
and  Christian  influence  were  preserv^ed  and  brought  to 
a  better  civilized  condition,  and  not  exterminated  like 
wild  beasts,  as  such  races  have  been  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Protestantism. 

That  a  much  lower  percentage  of  school  enrollment 
should  be  reported  for  Mexico,  and  all  the  countries  of 
South  America,  than  for  the  United  States,  or  any 
part  of  Europe,  is  not  at  all  surprising.  The  wonder 
is  that  the  percentages  are  as  high  as  reported.  Sup- 
pose our  carping  critics  should  be  called  upon  to  ' '  look 
at  ' '  the  low  percentage  of  school  children  among  both 
whites  and  blacks  all  through  the  Southern  States  a 
very  few  years  ago  ;  or  at  the  shocking  state  of  illiter- 
acy and  barbarism  combined  existing  all  through  Ithe 
vast  mountainous  region  inhabited  by  the  "  low  white 
trash,"  as  described  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Jenkins  (see 
chapter  x.  pp.  106-112),  to  which  there  is  no  parallel 
to  be  found  in  any  Catholic  country  in  the  world. 
The  counsel  to  people  living  in  glass  houses  is  respect- 
fully offered  to  all  such  •  antagonists. 

We  have  already  seen,  under  the  head  of  com- 
parative results  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  civilization, 
enough  to  show  that  the  countries  included  in  "  Catho- 
lic America"  have  not  been  found  wanting  when 
w^eighed  in  a  just  balance  by  even  Protestant  observ-ant 
judges.  In  a  future  chapter  the  reader  will  have  an 
opportunity  of  considering  the  educational  condition  of 
Mexico  more  in  detail. 

I  began  this  chapter  with  a  quotation  taken  from  the 


242  Popular  Education. 


mouth  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Josiah  Strong,  voicing  the  opin- 
ion of  the  deluded  Protestant  muUitude  concerning  the 
CathoHc  Church  and  her  sentiments  on  education. 
Said  this  reverend  teacher,  a  doctor  of  divinity  too,  in 
whose  word  they  have  trusted  :  ' '  Rome  has  never 
favored  the  education  of  the  masses.  She  has  adhered 
to  her  own  proverb  :  '  Ignorance  is  the  mother  of  de- 
votion '."  -I  open  the  w^orks  of  truly  learned  Protestant 
writers,  and  I  cannot  find  one  sentence  endorsing  the 
assertion  of  Dr.  Strong  ;  but  I  find  more  than  enough  to 
show  that  his  assertion  is  false.  Here  is  one  from  the 
pen  of  the  eminent  English  scholar.  Rev.  Canon  Farrar, 
as  an  example  of  many  others  : 

"  Consider  what  the  Church  did  for  education.  Her  ten 
thousand  monasteries  kept  ahve  and  transmitted  that  torch  of 
learning  which  otherwise  would  have  been  extinguished  long  be- 
fore. A  religious  education,  incomparably  superior  to  the  mere 
athleticism  of  the  noble's  hall,  was  extended  to  the  meanest  serf 
who  wished f 07'  it.  This  fact  alone,  by  proclaiming  the  dignity  of 
the  individual,  elevated  the  entire  hopes  and  destinies  of  the  race. 
The  humanizing  machinery  of  Schools  and  Universities,  the  civil- 
izing propaganda  of  missionary  zeal,  were  they  not  due  to  her  ? 
And,  more  than  this,  her  very  existence  was  a  living  education; 
it  showed  that  the  successive  ages  were  not  sporadic  and  acci- 
dental scenes,  but  were  continuous  and  inherent  acts  in  the  one 
great  drama.  In  Christendom  the  yearnings  of  the  past  were 
fulfilled,  the  direction  of  the  future  determined.  In  dim  but 
magnificent  procession,  'the  giant  forms  of  empires  on  their  way 
to  ruin  '  had  each  ceded  to  her  their  sceptres,  bequeathed  to  her 
their  gifts.  .  .  .  Life  became  one  broad  rejoicing  river,  whose 
tributaries,  once  severed,  were  now  united,  and  whose  majestic 
stream,  without  one  break  in  its  continuity,  flowed  on,  under  the 
common  sunlight^ from  its  Source  beneath  the  Throne  of  God" 
{lb.,  p.  i86,  lect.  v.,  "Christianity  and  the  Race"). 

I  open  the  works  of  an  ancient  Catholic  saint  and  I 


Popular  Education.  243 

read  :  ' '  Ignorance  is  an  atrophy  of  the  soul  ;  but  knowl- 
edge is  its  food  "  (St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Strornat., 
lib.  vii.   12). 

I  hear  the  words  of  Pope  St.  Gregory  protesting 
against  the  exclusion  of  Christians  from  the  schools  by 
Julian  the  Apostate  : 

"  I  trust  that  every  one  who  cares  for  learning  will  take  part  in 
my  indignation.  I  leave  to  others  fortune,  birth,  and  every  other 
fancied  good  which  can  flatter  the  imagination  of  man.  I  value 
only  science  and  letters,  and  regret  no  labor  that  I  have  spent  in 
their  acquisition.  I  have  preferred,  and  ever  shall  prefer,  learning 
to  all  earthly  riches,  and  hold  nothing  dearer  on  earth  next  to 
the  joys  of  heaven  and  the  hopes  of  eternity." 

I  turn  to  the  writings  of  a  later  Catholic  saint,  a 
Franciscan  monk,  who  stands  among  the  chief  apostles 
of  Catholic  "  devotion,"   and  I  read  : 

"  Easily  will  the  spirit  of  error  delude  you,  if  you  ?iegleci 
science ;  nor  hath  the  cunning  enemy  any  machinations  more 
efficacious  to  remove  devotion  from  the  heart  than  that  of  causing 
you  to  walk  negligently  and  without  reason,  for  God  is  wisdom, 
and  he  wishes  Himself  to  be  loved,  not  alone  affectionately,  but 
also  wisely"  (St.  Bonaventure,  Meditations  on  the  Life  of  Christ, 
ch.  xliv.) 

But  why  quote  the  language  of  the  learned  and  the 
holy  against  the  reckless,  false  testimonies  of  such  men 
as  make  up  the  rank  and  file  of  our  modern  revilers. 
The  day  of  their  judgment  at  the  hands  of  their  own 
deceived  people,  awakened  at  last  to  a  sense  of  the  in- 
dignity they  have  suffered  from  such  impostors,  cannot 
be  far  off.  We  may  well  leave  them  to  the  fate  that 
awaits  them. 


CHAPTER   XVIL 

PAROCHIAL  vSCHOOLS. 

THE  manipulation  of  statistics  in  order  to  discredit 
Catholic  religious  education  under  the  title  of 
"parochial  sj^stem  " — that  being  the  system  we  have 
been  forced  to  adopt  in  self-defence  of  parental  rights 
in  this  country — is  one  of  the  favorite  methods  recent- 
ly employed  by  Protestants  in  their  violent  attacks 
upon  us. 

Not  that  we  deem  it  necessary  to  apologize  for 
having  adopted  the  parochial  system  where  it  can  be 
carried  out.  So  far  as  it  the  better  insures  the  im- 
parting of  Catholic  faith  and  Catholic  morals  and 
manners,  it  is  unquestionably  superior  to  any  other 
system,  and  I  will  presently  give  some  evidence  that 
thoughtful,  religious-minded  Protestants  are  equally 
well  convinced  of  the  same  as  imperative  for  the  secur- 
ity of  their  own  religious  faith. 

The  late  popular  hue  and  cry  here  in  the  United 
States  has  been,  "Down  with  the  parochial  schools! 
Give  them  no  quarter !  To  aid  or  countenance  them 
in  any  way  is  to  betray  the  country  into  the  hands  of  a 
foreign  potentate!  "  A  certain  Baptist  preacher,  Rev. 
P.  S.  Moxom,  in  a  fiery  harangue  before  the  people  of 
Boston,  in  Music  Hall,  December  23,  1888,  roused  them 
to  a  frenzy  when  he  said  :  ' '  Were  the  ruling  ideas  on 
education  by  the  Papacy  to  become  supreme,  the  Re- 
public would  cease  to  exist."     Then  he  brought  out  a 

notorious    fabricated   table    of    statistics   which    I    will 

244 


Parochial  Schools. 


245 


speak  of  further  on.  Warming  with  his  subject,  he 
enlarged  upon  the  superior  morality  of  the  public- 
school  teaching,  especially  in  ''  triithfidness,  honesty^ 
scrupulous  regard  for  the  rights  of  others,''  and  he  added  : 
"Those  who  are  taught  in  the  Roman  Catholic  paro- 
chial schools  are  wronged  in  the  deepest  way  by 
having  essential  falsehood  incorporated  with  all  their 
thinking  upon  human  experience  and  destiny."  I  am 
sure  my  readers  feel  like  asking,  with  me,  if  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Moxom  got  his  truthfulness,  honesty,  and  scrupu- 
lous regard  for  the  rights  of  others  through  a  public- 
school  education?  It  is  certain  his  shadow  never  fell 
across  the  threshold  of  a  Catholic  parochial  school. 
Considering  the  sacred  character  of  this  man's  profes- 
sion, his  astounding  temerity  in  getting  off  this  farrago 
of  falsehoods  is  only  equalled  by  what  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Washington  Gladden  calls  the  ' '  appalling  depth  and 
density  of  the  popular  Protestant  ignorance  ' '  of  his 
Boston  audience,  who,  as  the  report  goes  on  to  say, 
received  the  reverend  orator's  speech  "with  tremend- 
ous and  long-continued  applause,  with  warm  greetings 
and  congratulations  as  he  left  the  platform." 

But  this  reverend  false  witness  is  only  one  among 
many  of  the  same  mind  and  the  same  language.  Pul- 
pit, press,  and  platform  have  all  united  in  making  sim- 
ilar accusations,  as  foolish  as  they  are  false.  Perhaps 
the  most  foolish  of  all  is  the  one  I  have  alluded  to 
among  Rev.  Mr.  Moxom 's  other  charges.  It  is  this 
one,  based  upon  the  manipulated  statistics  he  read  to 
his  Boston  audience  :  ' '  Parochial  schools  produce  illit- 
eracy, pauperism,  and  crime." 

This  was  the  thesis  upon  which  a  certain  Mr.  Dexter 
A.  Hawkins,  a  New  York  lawyer,  constructed  a  famous 


246  Parochial  Schools. 


pamphlet,  entitled  The  Relation  of  Education  to  Wealth 
and  Mo7'ality  and  to  Pauperism  and  Crime. 

This  pamphlet  had  a  wide-spread  circulation,  and  his 
"table  of  statistics  "  offered  as  indisputable  proof  of  his 
thesis  was  extensively  copied  by  the  Protestant  religious 
journals.  Probably  a  more  impudently  dishonest  fab- 
rication never  issued  from  the  press,  and  its  circulation 
has  done  so  much  to  confirm  the  ignorant  prejudices 
of  the  Protestant  public  and  to  arouse  their  hostility  to 
our  parochial  schools  that  I  repeat  its  refutation  here  in 
the  hope  that  it  may  prove  for  some  an  antidote  to  the 
poison  they  have  imbibed  from  it. 

This  literary  fraud  was  first  exposed  in  the  Catholic 
World,  April,  1884,  by  the  Rev.  George  Deshon,  and 
more  minutely  by  myself  in  the  Freeman' s  Jour7ial^ 
November  29,  1890,  and  again  in  The  Independent, 
January  15,  1891,  of  which  I  present  a  brief  summary. 

Pretending  to  take  his  statistics  from  the  United 
States  Census  Report  for  1870,  Mr.  Hawkins  made  up 
the  following  table  : 


Illiterates.     Paupers.     Criminals.     Inhabitants. 


Parochial  system, 

1,400 

410 

160  to  the  10,000. 

Public-school  system 

in  21  States,        .     . 

350 

170 

75  to  the  10,000. 

Public-school  system 

in  Massachusetts,     . 

71 

49 

II  to  the  10,000. 

He  first  sent  this  table  to  an  English  periodical, 
from  which  it  was  copied  into  the  New  England  Journal 
of  Ediication  in  1876.  In  1883  he  published  his  pam- 
phlet. What  is  there  true  in  his  table  as  given  above  ? 
lyCt  the  reader  judge  after  he  has  read  the  following 
evidence. 


Parochial  Schools.  247 


What  statement  or  number  of  illiterates,  paupers, 
and  criminals  educated  in  parochial  schools  or  where 
such  schools  exist  does  the  Census  Report  of  1870 
give  ?  Not  one  word  or  figure.  Does  the  Census 
Report  give  the  number  of  paupers  and  criminals 
educated  in  the  public  schools  either  in  the  twenty-one 
States  or  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  or  make  a 
statement  from  which  the  number  can  be  deduced  ? 
Not  one  word  or  figure.  I  ask  and  reply  to  these  ques- 
tions because,  as  we  shall  see,  neither  the  parochial 
schools  nor  the  public  schools  have  anything  to  do  with 
these  figures.  The  table  is  misleading,  as  the  compiler 
himself  proves  in  attempting  to  explain  how  he  makes 
the  figures  apply  to  the  prevailing  system  of  schooling 
under  which  these  illiterates,  paupers,  and  criminals 
were,  as  he  says,  "produced." 

He  tells  us  that  the  figures  he  gives  for  results  of  the 
' '  parochial-school  system  ' '  represent  the  percentage 
of  "foreign-born"  illiterates,  paupers,  and  criminals, 
and  for  the  ' '  public-school  system  ' '  the  figures  repre- 
sent the  percentage  of  the  "native-born  "  ones.  The 
number  of  his  figures  for  the  foreign-boni  illiterates  in 
all  the  States  and  for  the  native-born  ones  in  21  North- 
ern States  are  near  enough  to  the  truth,  but  he  multi- 
plied those  for  paupers  and  crimi7ials  by  ten  I  leaving  the 
figures  for  the  State  of  Massachusetts  correct  so  as  to 
make  a  strong  contrast  to  the  foreign-born  in  the  whole 
United  States,  whom  he  was  set  upon  defaming,  by 
asserting,  as  he  does  in  his  explanation,  that  "  all  the 
foreign-born  citizens  were  educated  in  parochial  schools 
in  Europe,"  and  assuming  that  all  the  "native-born 
citizens"  were  educated  in  public  schools. 

If  Mr.  Hawkins  had  had  the  intention  of  giving  his 


248  Parochial  Schools, 


readers  the  whole  truth  about  illiteracy,  pauperism, 
and  crime  in  the  United  States,  he  would  have  pre- 
sented this  true  table  of  these  facts,  as  found  in  the 
Census  Report  for  1870,  and  which  any  one  interested 


To  every 

10,000  inhabitants  : 

Illiter- 

Pau- 

Crimi- 

ates. 

pers. 

nals. 

1.397 

41 

15K 

361 

17 

7 

71 

49 

II 

1,120 

21 

15 

1,603 

13X 

aY^ 

1,479 

16 

7% 

can  certify 


Foreign-born    citizens    in    the    whole 

United  States,         .... 
Native-born  citizens  in    21    Northern 

States,  ...  .         . 

Native-born  citizens  in   the  State   of 

Massachusetts,       .... 
Foreign-born  citizens  in  16  Southern 

States,  ..... 

Native-born   citizens  in    16  Southern 

States,  whites  only. 
Native-born    citizens    in    the    whole 

United  States,  all  colors. 

The  honest  inquirer  naturally  asks :  Why  did  this 
hunter  of  statistics  suppress  the  number  of  illiterates, 
paupers,  and  criminals  for  the  native-born  white  citi- 
zens of  the  16  Southern  States?  There  is  only  one 
answer — it  would  spoil  the  misleading  evidence  he 
desired  to  furnish,  especially  about  illiteracy  being  the 
cause  of  increased  pauperism  and  crime  ;  a  charge 
which  is  flatly  contradicted  by  the  figures  in  the  true 
table  of  statistics  just  given. 

How  came  he  to  say  that  the  foreign-born  citizens 
were  educated  in  parochial  schools  ?  He  tells  us : 
"The  foreign-born  citizens  are  mostly  Irish,  and  they 
were  all  educated  in  parochial  schools."  Both  asser- 
tions are  false,  and  he  must  have  known  they  were  false. 


Parochial  Schools,  249 


That  is  proved,  first,  by  the  following  figures  he  saw  in 
the  Census  Report,  as  follows  : 

Foreign-born  population,  .....  5,567,229 
Natives  of  Ireland, 1,855,827 

Second,  by  the  fact  that  there  never  has  been  a  paro- 
chial system  of  schools  in  Ireland,  and  he  knew  it ;  for 
he  tells  us  elsewhere  that  he  had  travelled  in  Ireland 
in  order  to  study  the  various  systems  of  education. 
And  so  he  manufactured  this  misleading  and  false  doc- 
ument in  order  to  deceive  the  Protestant  American 
public  and  prejudice  them  against  the  Catholic  Church 
and  her  religious  system  of  education  ! 

This  is  the  way  Mr.  Hawkins  sums  up  the  net  re- 
sults of  his  fabricated  table  for  his  deluded  readers  : 

"Society  under  the  parochial  school  produces  four  times  as 
many  illiterates,  two  and  a  half  times  as  many  paupers,  and 
more  than  twice  as  many  criminals  as  under  the  average  public 
school ;  or,  if  we  take  the  Massachusetts  type  of  public  school, 
society,  under  the  parochial  school,  produces  twenty  times  as 
many  illiterates,  eight  times  as  many  paupers,  and  fourteen  times 
as  many  criminals  as  under  the  public  school." 

All  built  up  upon  an  absolutely  baseless  foundation  ! 

But  what  about  the  Massachusetts  figures  as  really 
given  for  that  State  in  the  Census  ?  Here  they  are,  as 
any  one  can  verify  : 

Full  number  of 
Illiterates.     Paupers.     Criminals. 
Foreign-born,  ....       89,830  381  1,235 

Native-born,      ....  7.912       5-396  1.291 

Now  let  me  apply  the  same  ' '  explanation  ' '  to  them 
as    Mr.    Hawkins   applied  to   his   table,  and   see   how 


250  Parochial  Schools, 


much  truth  there  is  in  his  boasted  Massachusetts  per- 
centage : 

To  every  io,cxx)  illiterates : 
Paupers.     Criminals. 
Parochial-school  system,      ....  43  138 

Public-school  system 6,820  1,631 

That  is,  as  Mr.  Hawkins  argued,  and  if  he  told  the 
truth  we  would  have  a  right  to  conclude,  the  Massa- 
chusetts public-school  system  produced  in  the  year  1870 
one  hundred  and  sixty  times  as  many  paupers  and  about 
twelve  times  as  many  criminals  as  the  parochial-school 
system ! 

But  even  if  we  do  not  adopt  his  juggling  "  explana- 
tion," and  look  the  truth  square  in  the  face,  it  is  quite 
evident  that  the  foreign-born  illiterates  in  Massachu- 
setts— at  that  date,  in  great  part  if  not  ' '  mostly  ' '  Irish 
Catholics,  who  could  not  have  gone  to  any  school, 
being  illiterate — are  proved  by  the  Census  Report  to  be 
one  hundred  and  sixty  times  more  industrious  and  twelve 
times  more  moral  than  the  native-born  illiterates  of  that 
State,  who  did  not  go  to  any  school  either,  but  for 
whose  industry  and  morality  Massachusetts  Protestant- 
ism is  justly  called  upon  to  answer. 

I  have  already  shown  how  much  of  the  illiteracy  of 
the  poor  Irish  immigrants  is  chargeable  to  the  influence 
of  either  the  Catholic  religion  they  professed,  or  to  the 
parochial  system  ;  but  it  is  quite  evident  from  whom 
these  "mostly"  Irish  obtained  that  social  ajid  moral 
knozvledge  and  discipline  which  kept  them  out  of  the 
Massachusetts  poor-houses  and  prisons — only  43 
paupers  out  of  6,863,  and  only  138  criminals  out  of 
1,769. 

If  one  wants  a  striking  bit  of  evidence  that  illiteracy 


Parochial  Schools. 


251 


is  not  a  condition  which  produces  pauperism  or  crime 
the  foregoing  figures,  taken  from  the  Census  Report  for 
the  State  of  Massachusetts,  supply  him  with  such  a 
one. 

There  is  more  and  worse  to  tell  about  these  frau- 
dulent Hawkins  statistics.  Although  he  elsewhere 
accuses  the  Catholic  religion  of  favoring  ignorance,  he 
avoided  all  mention  of  it  in  relation  to  his  table  of 
statistics,  as  if  he  were  only  honestly  attacking  the 
"parochial  system"  of  schooling.  How,  then,  are  we 
to  explain  the  following  more  fraudulent  tinkering  of 
his  table  of  figures  ? 

In  the  International  Review  (A.  S.  Barnes  &  Co., 
New  York,  March,  1880)  the  late  Hon.  John  Jay, 
attacking  "Romanism,"  introduces  Mr.  Hawkins's 
table  fixed  up  in  this  style  : 

"Without  referring  to  similar  statistics  abroad,  we  find  at 
home  census  and  police  returns,  all  telling  the  same  story — that 
Roman  Catholic  schools,  as  compared  with  our  own,  are  pro- 
paganda of  ignorance,  superstition  (?),  vagrancy  (?),  pauperism, 
and  crime.  Mr.  Dexter  A.  Hawkins  has  shown  from  the 
United  States  Census  of  1870  the  comparative  number  of  illiter- 
ates, paupers,  and  criminals  produced  respectively  by  the  Roman 
Catholic  parochial  schools,  the  public  schools  of  21  States,  and  by 
the  public  schools  of  Massachusetts.  There  are  furnished  to 
every  10,000  inhabitants: 

By  Roman  Catholic  schools, 

By  public  schools  of  21   States,     . 

By  public  schools  of  Massachusetts, 

That  is  the  shape  in  which  the  Hon.  John  Jay  gave 
out  the  Hawkins  table.  It  calls  for  no  comment ;  for  it 
speaks  loudly  and  clearly  enough  for  itself.     While  Mr. 


Illiterates. 

Paupers. 

Criminals 

.      1,400 

410 

160 

350 

170 

75 

.        71 

69 

II 

252  Parochial  Schools. 


Jay  was  president  of  the  "Evangelical  Alliance" 
this  altered  table  was  published  in  several  of  its 
official  documents,  which  have  been  circulated  all  over 
the  country  and,  despite  their  exposure  in  the  Catholic 
World  and  by  myself,  copies  were  to  be  obtained  at  the 
office  of  the  society  as  late  as  this  present  year.  These 
false  Hawkins-Jay  statistics,  defaming  parochial  and  Ro- 
man Catholic  schools,  of  which  there  is  not  one  word  in 
the  census  or  police  returns,  have  been  effectively  used 
by  our  unscrupulous  enemies,  being  quoted,  even  since 
public  refutation,  before  congressional  and  legislative 
committees,  and  hurled  at  us  from  hundreds  of  Protes- 
tant pulpits,  platforms,  and  newspapers,  without  ceasing. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  they  have  succeeded  so  well  as 
they  have  done  in  deceiving  even  the  very  elect 
amongst  our  most  fair-minded  and  friendly  citizens  of 
every  and  of  no  faith  ?  Alas !  is  there  no  respect  for 
truth  left  in  the  hearts  of  our  fellow- Protestant  country- 
men when  the  Catholic  religion  comes  before  them  to  be 
judged  ? 

The  Protestants  of  this  country  have  stirred  them- 
selves up  to  the  most  foolish  and  unfounded  hostility 
and  prejudice  against  parochial  schools.  If  there  be 
any  just  cause  at  all  for  this  animosity  it  certainly  is 
not  referable  to  the  system  as  conducted  in  Catholic 
countries;  but  I  will  allow  that  there  has  been  some 
reason  for  it  furnished  by  the  character  of  the  Protest- 
ant parochial  schools  in  England.  Of  late  the  English 
clergy  are  beginning  to  realize  that  if  they  would  save 
their  own  religion  from  becoming  extinct,  they  must 
have  the  education  of  the  masses  conducted  according 
to  the  Catholic  ideal.  That  is  what  we  are  telling 
all  the  Protestant  denominations  in  the  United  States, 


Parochial  Schools.  253 


and  yet  how  blind,  how  blmd  !  What  blinds  them? 
Nothing  but  their  prejudice,  deepened  yet  more  and 
more,  strange  to  say,  by  the  efforts  of  their  own  clergy 
against  everything  Catholics  call  good.  Reason  and 
the  lessons  of  experience  cannot  reach  them.  "  Noth- 
ing good,"  they  cry,  ''can  come  out  of  the  Catholic 
Nazareth." 

In  evidence  of  what  I  have  just  said  about  English- 
men waking  up  to  the  danger  threatening  their  Protest- 
antism from  mere  secular  education,  I  adduce  the 
following  item,  clipped  from  a  recent  copy  of  the  Derry 
Joiwnal  : 

"  Speaking  at  Liverpool,  Bishop  Ryle  said  if  the  Church  of 
England  ever  allowed  the  education  of  her  children  to  go  out  of 
her  hands  her  days  were  numbered.  If  this  occurred  they  would 
find  a  dry  rot  at  the  heart  of  the  Church  of  England.  If  the 
Church  of  England  would  not  attend  to  her  children  the  Church 
of  Rome  would.  Whatever  her  faults  might  be,  they  could  not 
lay  it  to  the  charge  of  the  Church  of  Rome  that  she  neglected  her 
children,  for  wherever  the  Church  of  Rome  placed  a  church  she 
always  took  care  to  build  a  school  as  well. 

"  There  is  no  slander  so  ready  in  the  mouths  of  the  uncultured 
controversialist  as  that  which  imputes  to  '  Rome '  the  desire  and 
the  design  of  keeping  her  people  in  ignorance.  Bishop  Ryle 
takes  the  higher  and  true  view,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Potter — one  of 
the  most  observant  of  ministers — is  with  the  eminent  dignitary  in 
that.  '  Heartily  endorsing '  Bishop  Ryle,  Mr.  Potter  went  on  to 
say  : 

•"I  am  fully  convinced  that  the  entire  success  of  our  Church 
in  the  future  depends  upon  the  influence  we  can  exert  upon  the 
children  now  under  our  control,  and  therefore  I  feel  that  there 
is  no  agency  in  connection  with  our  Church  of  so  much  im- 
portance as  that  which  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  young.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  question  of  the  day  is  that  of  edu- 
cation.    No  matter  where  we  turn   this  is  what  meets  our  view. 


254  Parochial  Schools. 


In  fact,  it  is  the  prominent  thoug-ht  of  the  day.  No  matter  what 
view  people  may  entertain  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  there  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  perfect  and 
complete  system  of  its  ecclesiastical  arrangements  for  the  pro- 
motion of  its  own  interests ;  and  one  of  the  striking  features  in 
that  system  is  the  great  care  which  is  taken  of  the  young  of  the 
flock.  Early  impressions  are  never  forgotten,  and  so  the  Church 
of  Rome  is  determined  that  she  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  any 
system  of  education  for  the  young  which  does  not  include  re- 
ligion. In  this  resolve  she  is  wise,  and  so  we  (Protestant 
Episcopalians),  acting  upon  the  same  principle,  desire  to  secure 
that  there  shall  be  a  combination  of  secular  and  religious  instruc- 
tion in  all  our  schools.' 

"  This  testimony,  so  fairly  given,  comes  with  peculiar  aptness  at 
this  time,  when  on  the  narrowest  grounds  an  unjust  agitation  is 
maintained  in  Ulster  against  admitting  the  Christian  Brothers  to 
the  benefits  of  the  Education  Act." 

Let  any  one  read  the  Protestant  Episcopalian  organ 
in  this  country — The  Churchina7i.  There  is  just  the 
faintest  acknowledgment  that  parochial  schools  are  de- 
sirable ;  but,  no,  it  would  never  do  to  own  it  frankly. 
It  would  justify  the  Catholics  ! 

Now  for  a  few  facts  enabling  us  to  compare  the 
results  of  parochial  or  religious  Catholic  schools  and 
state  "  non-sectarian"  public  schools,  which  are  claim- 
ed to  realize  the  Protestant  ideal  of  popular  education : 

"  A  writer  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  says,  that  out  of  339 
pupils  who  obtained  prize  exhibitions  in  Paris  in  1878,  242  be- 
longed to  the  Christian  Brothers'  schools.  Between  1847  and 
1877,  out  of  1,445  such  exhibitions,  1,145  were  carried  off  by  the 
Christian  Brothers'  boys ;  the  public-school  candidates  being  the 
larger  number,  and  the  public  schools  had  received  40,000,000 
francs  for  support"  {The  Church  Revieiv,  Protestant  Episco- 
palian, July,  1890). 


Parochial  Schools.  255 


In  the  same  period  of  thirty-one  years,  of  the  whole 
number,  620,  consisting  of  the  first  twenty  leading 
scholars  of  each  year,  the  Catholic  boys  numbered  527  ! 
Thirty-one  victories  in  thirty-one  years  without  a 
break  ! 

Utterly  confounded  by  the  phenomenal  superiority 
of  the  Christian  schools,  the  Paris  University  got  its 
Secularist,  nineteenth  century,  Protestant-like  temper 
up,  and  in  1869  resolved  to  defeat  the  superior  showing 
of  the  Christian  Brothers'  educational  work.  So  they 
put  on  a  new  test,  the  obtaining  of  certificats  d' etudes, 
granted  to  all  deserving  scholars.  This  was  to  enable 
their  low-grade  scholars  to  compete.  They  kept  it  up 
bravely  for  nine  years.  The  results  for  that  period  show 
that  of  9,499  certificates,  the  Catholic  boys  were  613  in 
majority  ;  and  that  the  sum  of  the  averages  per  school 
amounted  to  194  for  the  Catholics  against  only  55  for 
the  public-school  boys  (Amer.  Cath.  Quar.  Review, 
October,    1879). 

Then  they  resorted  to  brute  force  to  crush,  if  pos- 
sible, the  Catholic  schools  by  conscripting  all  these 
noble,  self-denying  Catholic  schoolmasters  into  the 
army  ;  following  Protestant  England's  example  m 
hanging  and  transporting  all  Catholic  teachers  in  Ire- 
land, so  as  to  get  up  some  statistical  tables  of  illiteracy 
"produced  by  the  Catholic  parochial  system  of  edu- 
cation "  ! 

The  same  results  in  favor  of  all  Catholic  schools 
have  been  achieved  wherever  competitive  examinations 
have  been  held,  in  other  countries.  Just  such  ex- 
aminations have  been  held  for  congressional  appoint- 
ments to  West  Point  ;  and  the  leading  boys  in  more 
than  one  instance  were  pupils  of  the  parochial  schools 


2  $6  Parochial  Schools. 


in  this  city.     We  are  alwa3^s  ready  for  the  trial    at  a 
moment's  notice. 

Everybody  who  went  near  the  late  international 
Educational  Exhibit  in  the  great  Chicago  Fair  was 
convinced  that  the  Catholic  schools  would  be  sure  to 
receive  a  large  number  of  prizes  to  be  conferred  in  any 
and  every  department. 

The  Catalogue  of  the  "Catholic  Educational  Ex- 
hibit," now^  published,  is  a  bulk}^  volume  of  350  pages, 
and  is  only  a  mere  index  of  the  names  of  the  Catholic 
schools  represented  at  the  Fair  and  titles  of  the  w^ork 
exhibited.  Ten  such  volumes  would  not  be  able  to 
contain  even  the  briefest  description  of  the  exhibits. 
As  to  the  total  number  of  them,  it  must  have  run  up 
into  the  tens  of  thousands.  The  introduction  to  the 
Catalogue  tells  us  that  1,200  establishments  sent  ex- 
hibits, and  that  in  order  to  display  them  it  was  neces- 
sary to  employ  29,214  square  feet  of  floor-space,  afford- 
ing over  60,000  square  feet  of  wall  and  desk  surface, 
and  1,000  linear  feet  of  aisles.  From  the  list  of  awards, 
signifying  a  medal  and  diploma ,  there  would  appear  to 
have  been  over  seven  luindj'ed  awarded  to  Catholic 
schools  in  the  United  States  alone,  and  over  niyiety  to 
foreign  schools  conducted  by  the  Christian  Brothers, 
sent  in  from  Belgium,  France,  Spain,  Great  Britain, 
the  Isle  of  Mauritius,  and  the  Hawaiian  Islands.  We 
can  well  believe  the  indefatigable  Christian  Brother 
Maurelian,  the  devoted  and  masterly  secretary  and 
manager  of  this  triumphant  revelation  of  Catholic  edu- 
cational superiority,  when  he  says:  "The  Parochial 
School  is  apotheosized,  the  Catholic  philosophy  of 
education  is  vindicated.  The  ardent  expectations  of 
the  most  sanguine  have  been  distanced.     From  all  lips, 


Parochial  Schools.  257 


partisan  and  non-partisan,  have  dropped  words  of  praise 
and  exclamations  of  astonished  delight."  Compara- 
tively speaking,  one  of  the  largest  giant  offsprings  of 
the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  was  the  "Catholic 
Educational  Exhibit." 

No  less  brilliant  and  surprising  to  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  visitors  was  the  monster  Diocesan  School 
Exhibit  held  in  Central  Palace  Hall,  New  York  City, 
May  14  to  28,  1894.  The  reader  is  referred  to  a  valu- 
able critical  notice  of  this  special  displa}^  of  the  superior 
results  of  our  parochial  educational  work  contributed 
to  the  Catholic   World,  July,    1894. 

And  mark  it  well  :  all  these  splendid  results  have  been 
won  in  the  very  teeth  of  opposition  and  discouragement 
on  the  part  of  our  fellow-citizens,  under  the  burden  of 
double  taxation,  with  means  far  below  those  at  the 
command  of  any  other  schools. 

Surely  every  citizen  of  our  glorious  and  beloved 
country,  whatever  may  be  his  religious  convictions, 
cannot  help  but  feel  a  just  pride  in  being  able  to  point 
to  such  a  manifestation  of  educational  interest,  and 
brilliant  proof  of  intellectual  development  amongst  us, 
no  matter  by  whom  exhibited.  They  should  all  be 
only  too  happy  to  learn  that  Catholics  are  better  than 
they  believed,  and  rejoice  to  see  them  receive  the  crown 
of  merit  they  have  so  justly  won.  I  am  rejoiced  to 
know  that  such  have  been  the  sentiments  of  thousands 
whose  American  manliness  and  straightforward  hon- 
esty rise  superior  to  all  prejudice.  This,  to  so  many 
Protestants,  marvellous  and  truly  magical  spectacle 
of  Catholic  education,  was  not  the  least  among  the 
great  wonders  which  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  millions 
of  visitors   to   the    great   Fair.     They  have   taken   the 


258  Parochial  Schools. 


memor}^  of  it  home  with  them,  and,  with  the  grace  of 
God,  it  may  lead  them  to  find  out  more  of  the  un- 
suspected glories  and  beneficent  works  of  the  Catholic 
Church. 

If  this  meets  the  eye  of  any  one  hitherto  igno- 
rant I  would  call  his  attention  to  one  remarkable  fact — 
the  existence  of  the  vast  number  of  Catholic  education- 
al bodies  of  men  and  w^omen,  numbering  tens  of 
thousands  of  teachers,  of  every  nation  and  tongue — 
there  are  forty  such  distinct  religious  orders  reported 
as  contributing  work  from  their  institutions  and 
scholars  to  the  Catholic  Exhibit — teachers  who  vow 
their  w^hole  lives  to  the  work  of  education,  and  all 
without  personal  honor  or  for  one  cent  of  pay  ;  denying 
themselves  all  the  pleasures  and  comforts  so  ardently 
sought  for  b}^  people  in  the  world,  that  they  may  de- 
vote all  their  energies  and  sympathies  of  mind  and 
heart  to  the  work  of  true  education.  What  has  Protes- 
tantism, or  its  later- born  ^//(fr  <?^^,  modern  Secularism, 
with  its  horde  of  agnostics,  infidels,  socialists,  and  an- 
archists, to  show  in  comparison  ?  What  similar  self- 
sacrifices  for  the  cause  of  education  has  Protestantism, 
as  such,  ever  inspired  ?  The  majority  of  Protestants 
would  appear  to  be  wdiolly  ignorant  of  the  main  pur- 
pose of  the  life-work  of  the  great  order  of  Jesuits.  Their 
aim  is  the  same  with  that  of  the  Christian  Brothers — 
to  devote  themselves  without  personal  reward  or  salary 
to  the  work  of  education.  And  now  I  tell  a  blunt  truth. 
It  is  because  these  orders  of  teachers  give  themselves 
to  educate  children  as  Christians  that  the  world  hates 
them,  calumniates  and  persecutes  them.  "  Ye  shall 
be  hated  of  all  men  for  my  Name's  sake"  was  the 
prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ,  whose  sacred  Name  they  bear. 


Parochial  Schools. 


259 


And  that  is,  at  bottom,  the  reason  why  the  Infidel, 
the  Secularist,  the  Protestant,  all  hate  the  Catholic 
parochial  school,  and  labor  to  suppress  it.  Wherever 
these  enemies  have  obtained  the  upper  hand  in  civil 
authority,  in  America,  in  England,  in  France,  and 
Germany,  they  have  so  worked  their  plans  by  laws 
which,  if  they  do  not,  as  it  used  to  be  in  Ireland,  hinder 
Catholic  education  by  exile  and  the  hangman,  are 
nevertheless  of  such  a  character  as  to  prevent  Catholics 
from  having  an  equally  fair  field.  lyook  at  the  army 
conscription  laws  in  France  and  Germany,  seizing  on 
the  Catholic  teachers  who  have  vowed  their  lives  to 
the  work  of  Christian  instruction.  Look  at  the  same 
countries,  one  under  an  infidel,  and  the  other  under  a 
Protestant  government,  banishing  the  Jesuits,  whose 
whole  aim  is  to  teach  the  rising  generations  so  that 
they  will  not  lose  their  faith  in  Christ,  and  will  be  hon- 
est, law-abiding,  and  loyal  citizens  of  their  country. 
What  are  Protestants  in  the  United  States  so  set  upon 
now?  What  are  the  anti-Catholic  Evangelical  Al- 
liance, the  secret  oider  of  the  "  A.  P.  A's,"  and  the 
National  League  for  the  Protection  of  American  Insti- 
tutions working  for  so  industriously,  and  by  such 
mean,  underhand,  un-American  methods  ?  Their  aim 
is  one.  It  is  to  stop  Catholics,  so  far  as  they  can,  from 
educating  their  children  in  their  own  faith. 

The  truth  is,  that  Protestantism  is  nothing  more 
now  than  a  too-willing  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  Infidel 
Secularist,  who  hates  the  name  of  Christ,  and  who  is 
resolved  to  make  the  state  anti-Christian.  Therefore 
these  foolish,  short-sighted  Protestants,  not  seeing  that 
they  are  sacrificing  themselves  and  the  faith  of  their 
own   children,   are  lending  this  Secular  Antichrist   all 


26o  Parochial  Schools. 

their  power  and  influence  to  carry  out  its  determined 
purpose.  The  cry  has  gone  forth:  "Education  must 
be  non-Sectarian!"  Oh,  yes!  we  know  what  that 
means — non-Christian;  and  nothing  less  for  Protest- 
ants than  for  Catholics,  as  they  will  find  to  their  sorrow. 

As  I  write  the  anti-Catholic  Leagues  are  busily  em- 
ployed poisoning  the  public  mind  with  misrepresenta- 
tions of  the  Catholic  religion,  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  we  have  conducted  our  educational  and  charitable 
work  in  this  country.  With  them  every  Protestant  re- 
ligious paper  is  acting  in  concert.  Their  columns  teem 
with  charges  of  "Romanist  fraud,  collusion,  conni- 
vance, intrigues  of  its  priesthood  with  disloyal  and  un- 
principled politicians  to  rob  the  public  funds,  etc.," 
alleging,  as  ifior  proof,  statements  of  amounts  of  money 
appropriated  according  to  law  received  by  our  institu- 
tions, showing  that  we  Catholics  have  received  vastly 
more  than  Protestant  or  Jewish  ones,  at  the  same  time 
dishonestl}^  collocating  under  the  title  of  so-called 
' '  non-sectarian  ' '  institutions  several  that  are  notori- 
ously Protestant,  and  some  even  in  spirit  and  work 
professedly  anti-Catholic* 

They  suppress  the  fact  that,  if  some  appropriations 
made  to  us  are  more  in  the  gross  amount,  they  are  just, 
because  we  have  done  precisely  that  much  more  work, 
besides    saving  the  State  millions  of  dollars  contributed 

*  Perhaps  in  the  whole  record  of  misrepresentation  of  facts  by  Protest- 
ant assailants  of  Catholic  educational  and  charitable  work  there  is  nothing 
to  surpass  their  continuously  repeated  charges  about  our  obtaining  undue 
state  aid.  Complete  refutations  in  detail  can  be  found  in  the  Catholic 
World,  articles  "  Private  Charities  and  Public  Lands,"  April,  1879,  and 
"Private  Charities  and  Public  Money,"  May,  1879.  These  instructive 
articles,  reproduced  in  substance  and  corrected  to  date,  have  just  been  laid 
before  the  New  York  Constitutional  Convention  now  in  session.  See  also 
the  Catholic  World,  August,   1894. 


Parochial  Schools,  261 


by  ourselves  in  support  of  institutions  over  which  we 
have  control.  Thus  they  hoodwink  the  too  easily 
deluded  public.  They  know  perfectly  well  that  the 
charge  of  our  obtaining  an  undue  proportion  of  money, 
and  obtaining  it  by  fraud,  is  false. 

All  these  misrepresentations  and  false  accusations  are 
made  use  of  to  influence  the  passing  of  a  proposed  Con- 
stitutional Amendment  that  would  hinder  all  State 
appropriation  to  anj^  school  or  charitable  institution 
conducted  by  any  religious  body.  The  purpose  they 
have  in  view  is  apparent ;  but  they  do  not  seem  to  see 
that  they  are  working  to  secure  what  will  prove  tenfold 
more  disastrous  to  Protestantism  than  to  ourselves, 
unless  they  have  in  mind  the  hope  of  escaping  the  pro- 
visions of  the  amendment  by  dishonestly  declaring 
their  own  schools  and  institutions  to  be  non-sectarian. 

One  of  their  pretended  ' '  dangers  ' '  to  our  American 
Institutions  which  they  have  leagued  themselves 
together  to  "  protect  "  is  that  of  an  alleged  intention  of 
Catholics  to  bring  about  a  ' '  union  of  Church  and 
state,"  falsely  and  as  senselessly  charging  that  such 
would  be  the  result  if  the  state  paid  for  secular  in- 
struction in  any  schools  conducted  by  religious  bodies. 

But  it  is  plain  their  amendment  would  make  a  very 
practical  ' '  union  between  the  great  American  *  No 
ChicKcir  and  state."  And  that  "  No  church "  is  as 
much  bent  on  destroying  Protestantism  as  on  weaken- 
ing Catholicism. 

It  looks  as  if  these  people  were  willing  to  pull 
down  the  house  over  their  own  heads  provided  we 
Catholics  get  no  roof  to  cover  ours,  or  are  buried  with 
them  in  the  ruins. 

If  the  state  cannot  take  cognizance  of  any  particular 


262  Parochial  Schools, 


religion,  as  she  certainly  cannot,  nor  put  any  citizen  to 
a  religious  test,  then  the  state  clearly  has  a  right  to 
employ  any  efficient  agency  for  the  performance  of  char- 
itable or  educational  work  and  ask  no  question,  whether 
it  be  an  agency  in  which  the  faith  of  the  citizens 
conducting  it  be  Catholic,  Protestant,  Jewish,  or  Nulli- 
fidian.  Are  our  public-school  teachers,  our  policemen, 
or  any  official  you  can  name,  from  janitor  of  a  school  up 
to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to  be  questioned 
first  of  all  what  he  believes  or  what  he  does  not  believe 
in  religion  ? 

But  these  good  people  are  crying  out  that  the  state 
ought  to  ask  :  Is  this  a  Catholic  institution,  or  a  Pro- 
testant institution,  or  a  Jewish,  or  an  infidel,  a  "  free- 
thought  "  or  a  "  no-thought  "  institution  ?  And  that 
the  state  ought  to  take  cognizance  of  religion,  so  as  to 
keep  Catholics  from  getting  any  more  money  than  other 
religious  bodies,  or  that  it  must  not  let  Catholics  have 
more  work  of  the  kind  to  do  than  Protestants,  so  that 
all  shall  have  an  equal  share  in  the  appropriations  from 
public  funds.  This  would  be  taking  cognizance  of  re- 
ligion with  a  vengeance. 

"  That  is  just  what  we  want  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment for,"  they  say;  "we  w^ant  an  equality  on  the 
score  of  religion  by  hindering  the  state  from  giving  one 
cent  to  any  religious  body.  Catholic,  Protestant,  or 
what  not." 

The  absurd  consequence  is  evident.  The  State  must 
ask  of  the  board  of  directors  of  a  school  or  a  charitable 
institution  :  ' '  Have  any  of  you  gentlemen  any  religious 
faith?" 

"No,  Mr.  State,  may  it  please  you,  none  of  us  has 
any  religion," 


Parochial  Schools,  263 


"Oh  !  very  good  ;  here  is  my  check  for  the  amount 
of  services  rendered." 

But  if  the  poor  fellows  would  be  obliged  in  con- 
science to  reply  :  "  Well,  we  are  very  sorry  to  have  to 
tell  the  truth,  but  we  are  Episcopalians,  or  Methodists, 
or  Baptists,  or  Presbyterians,  or  Jews,  or  Catholics." 

"Go  away,"  the  State  would  say,  "  I  know  you  not; 
I  am  forbidden  to  take  cognizance  of  people  who  own 
up  they  have  some  religion,  and  cannot  swear  they  are 
non- sectarian  ;  that  they  are  neither  Episcopalians,  nor 
Methodists,  nor  Baptists,  nor  Presbyterians,  nor  Jews, 
nor  Catholics,  nor  of  any  religion.  Your  board  of 
directors  cannot  draw  for  any  funds  upon  me." 

"  But — "  the  voice  of  some  one  may  be  heard  say- 
ing, as  they  now  are  preparing  to  say  on  the  day  wdien 
the  amendment  passes — "while  we,  individually,  are 
Episcopalians,  or  Methodists,  or  what  not,  our  board  is 
non-sectarian,  and  we  are  ready  to  swear  to  it." 

"  Very  w^ell,  then  ;  take  the  oath,"  says  the  State, 
and  say  after  me  :   '  We,  the  president  and  members  of 

the  board  of  the society,  do  solemnly  swear  without 

equivocation  or  mental  reservation,  in  the  presence  of 
Almighty  God,  that  this  board  is  not  composed  of 
members  selected  on  account  of  their  particular  re- 
ligious faith,  neither  is  any  person  held  by  the  mem- 
bers, either  officially  or  personally,  as  ineligible  to  elec- 
tion as  a  member ^of  the  same;  be  he  Protestant, 
Catholic,  Jew,  Mohammedan,  Mormon,  Agnostic,  In- 
fidel, or  Nullifidian  ;  neither  is  there  any  agreement 
between  us,  verbally,  wa-itten,  or  mentally  understood, 
that,  in  the  event  of  a  vacancy  occurring  in  this  board 
by  death  or  resignation  of  any  member,  that  his  place 
shall   be    filled   by    a  person   of  like  religious  faith  or 


264  Parochial  Schools. 


from  the  same  religious  denomination.  Moreover,  we 
swear  that  in  no  way  has  this  board  hindered  any  pupil, 
any  child  or  adult,  under  its  care  from  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  his  religious  libert}^  guaranteed  to  him  by  the 
Constitution,  nor  have  we  prevented  any  such  person 
from  the  practice  of  an}^  or  all  such  religious  duties 
which  his  particular  faith  places  him  under  moral  obli- 
gation to  fulfil. 

"Moreover,  thirdly,  this  board  also  swears  that  it 
has  taught  no  person  under  its  care,  child  or  adult,  any 
religious  doctrine ;  that  there  is  or  is  not  a  God,  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  or  is  not  the  Son  of  God,  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion  is  or  is  not  true  ;  in  fact,  that  on  the  sub- 
ject of  religious  belief  or  morals  specially  enjoined  by 
any  religion  we  have  not  uttered  one  word,  made  no 
sign,  nor  allozved  anybody  else  to  do  so.  This,  of  course, 
flatly  contradicts  what  we  have  just  sworn  to  about 
granting  full  religious  liberty  ;  but  that  is  the  fault 
of  the  amendment,  not  ours." 

•*  That  is  an  iron-clad  oath,"  say  the  members  of  the 
board. 

"So  is  my  public  treasury,"  responds  the  State; 
* '  and  if  you  wish  its  iron-clad  doors  to  be  open  for  your 
benefit  you  must  take  the  iron-clad  oath."  Are  Pro- 
testants ready  for  this  outcome  ? 

The  question  of  State  aid  to  religious  charities  was 
argued  in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  the  State  of 
New  York  in  1868.  Among  those  who  came  forward 
most  conspicuously  in  that  body  to  rebuke  the  narrow 
sectarian  spirit  which  remonstrated  against  "sectarian 
charities  ' '  and  which  clamored  at  the  benefactions  to 
Catholic  asylums,  was  no  less  bitter  a  Protestant  than 
Mr.  Erastus  Brooks,  then  editor  of  the  Eveiiing  Express  : 


Parochial  Schools.  265 


"  Let  me  address  a  few  words,"  said  he,  "  to  those  who  would 
refuse  appropriations  to  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  faith.  Those  who  know  my  antecedents  will  not  accuse 
me  of  any  undue  partiality  for  the  adherents  of  this  Church.  I 
would  give  them  no  advantage  over  others,  and  I  would  do  them 
no  wrong  by  discriminations  against  them  ;  and  least  of  all  in 
dispensing  charity  would  I  inquire  the  religious  faith  of  any  who 
need  assistance.  .  .  .  While  discarding  state  and  Church 
as  combinations,  we  must  remember  t/iat  there  can  be  no  true 
charity  where  all  religion  is  excluded,  since  a  pure  charity  is  the 
very  essence  of  practical  Christianity.  To  say  that  the  state  has 
nothing  to  do  with  religion,  makes  it  atheistical;  and  that  educa- 
tion and  charity  form  no  part  of  its  duties,  makes  it  barbarian." 

Evidently  the  same  argument  applies  to  the  question 
of  the  state  subsidizing  with  just  appropriations  other 
schools  than  its  own. 

And  now  let  Protestants  take  notice  :  We  Catholics 
can  stand  this  pressure  and  opposition,  and  they  can- 
not.. They  never  have  stood  it,  and  are  not  likely  to 
do  it  now,  when  their  own  ranks  are  filled  with  clergy- 
men and  people  of  all  classes,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  who  are  Secularists  at  heart — as  many  of  them 
are  ©penly  acknowledged  to  be — who  have  long  ago 
lost  all  faith  in  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  their  various 
denominations. 

Protestantism  is,  therefore,  on  the  high  road  to  ex- 
tinction. Two  more  generations  of  their  own  children 
brought  up  without  the  least  sign  of  Christianity  in 
their  education,  and  the  place  that  knew  it  once  will 
know  it  no  more.  Our  future  society  will  then  stand 
to  witness  the  contest  for  the  souls  of  men  and  for 
the  coming  order  of  civilization  that  will  be  waged 
between  the  Catholic  Christ  and  the  Secular  Anti- 
christ. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  JUDGMENT   OF  SOLOMON. 

NOW  I  am  going  to  bring  Catholics  and  Protestants 
before  the  "  Judgment  of  Solomon  "  on  this  school 
question.  My  readers  will  recall  the  Scripture  story  : 
how  King  Solomon  the  Wise  gave  a  judgment  which 
at  once  discovered  the  true  mother  of  the  child  claimed 
by  two  women.  "  Divide  the  child  in  two,  and  give  a 
half  of  it  to  each  woman,"  was  the  decree.  "I  am 
content,"  said  the  impostor.  "Nay,"  cried  out  the 
true  mother,  "not  so;  do  not  kill  the  child,  but  give  it 
to  her  that  it  may  live."  Then  said  the  wise  King: 
"  Give  the  child  to  her,  and  let  it  not  be  divided,  for 
she  is  the  true  mother  thereof. ' ' 

What  application  has  this  wise  judgment  of  Solo- 
mon to  the  present  contention  between  Catholics  and 
Protestants  as  to  who  shall  have  the  child,  all  of  the 
child,  so  that  it  may  receive  proper  intellectual,  moral, 
and  religious  education,  a  whole,  true,  living  education? 

That  which  goes  to  make  up  a  true  education  is  com- 
posed of  two  elements,  well  distinguished  as  religious 
and  secular.  To-day  we  hear  a  popular,  insincere  cla- 
mor, all  the  more  self-condemnatory  in  those  who  use 
it,  which  distinguishes  those  elements  as  sectarian  and 
71071-sectarian.  Given  together,  both  these  elements  com- 
bine to  unify  the  educational  vitality  of  the  child,  and 
they  mutually  strengthen  each  other.  To  divide  them 
is  as  fatal  to  the  true  mental  and  moral  being  of  a  child 

as  it  would  be  its  certain  death  to  force   a  separation 

266 


TJie  Jiidgvicnt  of  Solomon.  267 

between  its  soul  and  body — to  divide  the  spiritual  from 
the  material  element  of  a  living  man.  This  has  not 
only  been  the  constant  assertion  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
but  until  the  late  rise  of  Nullifidian  (no-faith)  Secular- 
ism in  politics  and  education,  threatening  a  violent  dis- 
ruption of  the  political  and  social  order,  such  was  also 
the  common  sentiment  of  all  religious-minded  Protes- 
tants. Some  of  them  are  not  blind  to  the  truth,  even  to- 
day. Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  in  the  columns  of  the 
Christian  67^/^;/,  January  14,  1893  (now  the  Outlook), 
thus  plainly  and  effectively  states  the  case  : 

"  It  is  the  impartation  of  life,  not  the  pedagogical  instruction 
in  ethics,  which,  in  increasing  numbers,  the  people  are  beginning 
to  call  for  in  their  educational  institutions,  both  public  and  pri- 
vate. It  is  clear  that  this,  not  a  sciefice  (only)  of  ethics,  is  the 
demand  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  .  .  .  The  Christian 
Union  has  been  foremost  among  the  journals  which  have  de- 
manded an  improvement  in  our  public-school  system  in  this 
respect.  We  have  insisted  that  the  Roman  Catholic  critics  are 
largely  right  in  saying  that  our  present  public-school  system  is  irre- 
ligious, and  that  an  irreligious  school  system  is  fatally  defective. 
We  have  maintained  that  life  cannot  be  done  up  in  two  separate 
parcels,  one  labelled  secular  and  the  other  religious,  and  dealt 
out  at  different  shops  ;  that  education  is  worthless,  if  not  worse 
than  worthless,  if  it  does  not  involve  the  impartation  of  the 
religious  life;  that  the  development  of  faith,  love,  reverence, 
conscience,  must  be  carried  on  with  the  development  of  percep- 
tion, imagination,  intellect ;  that  to  develop  the  latter  and  leave  the 
former  dwarfed  and  stunted  is  a  process  7iot  deserving  the  Jiame  of 
education,  and  will  neither  fit  the  pupils  for  life  nor  secure  pros- 
perity, nor  even  safety,  for  the  Republic.  The  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  must  be  developed  with  the  intellectual.  This  cannot  be 
done  by  the  memorizing  of  a  catechism,  nor  by  the  formal  read- 
ing of  the  Bible,  nor  by  dividing  education  into  two  unequal 
fractions  and  entrusting  all  intellectual  education   to  the    public 


268  The  Judgment  of  Solomon. 


school  and  all  moral  culture  to  the  home  and  the  Sunday-school. 
One  of  the  results  of  this  attempted  division  is  the  introduction 
into  the  public  schools  of  the  wretched  mechanical  methods 
which  Dr.  Rice,  in  the  /^cr//;;/ of  January,  1893,  describes  as  preva- 
lent in  the  schools  of  New  York  City.  Such  methods  never  could 
have  ruled  there  if  the  public  had  realized,  what  the  Puritan 
fathers  did  realize,  that  education  is  and  must  be  a  spiritual 
process." 

Dr.  Abbott  writes  in  the  year  1893.  Nearly  fifty 
years  ago  Mr.  Laing,  in  his  Notes  of  a  Traveller-,  speak- 
ing of  the  state  educational  vSystem  in  Prussia,  wrote  : 

"Who  could  suppose  that  while  literary  men  were  extolling 
the  high  educational  state  of  Prussia,  her  moral  state  stood  so 
low  that  such  a  sect  as  the  Muckers  could  not  only  exist  in  the 
most  educated  of  her  provinces,  but  could  flourish  openly, 
and  number  among  its  members  clergy,  nobility,  educated 
and  influential  people  ?  These  writers  had  evidently  been 
deceiving  themselves  and  the  public ;  had  looked  no  further  than 
to  the  means  of  education,  and  had  hastily  concluded  that  these 
means  must  necessarily  be  producing  the  end.  If  to  read, 
write,  cipher,  and  sing  be  education,  they  are  quite  right — the 
Prussian  subject  is  an  educated  man.  If  to  reason,  judge,  and 
act  as  an  independent,  free  agent,  in  the  religious,  moral,  and 
social  relations  of  man  to  his  Creator  and  to  his  fellow-men,  be 
that  exercise  of  the  mental  powers  which  alone  deserves  the 
name  of  education,  then  is  the  Prussian  subject  a  mere  drum-boy 
in  education  compared  to  one  of  the  unlettered  population  of  a 
free  country  "  {Notes,  etc.,  p.  226). 

Who  does  not  see  that  the  popular  Protestant  cry  to- 
day is  :  * '  Divide  the  child  in  two  !  We  are  content !  ' ' 
And  what  is  enough  to  make  one  shudder  with  horror 
is  to  hear,  in  effect,  the  insane  clamor  from  the  Protest- 
ant multitude  :  ' '  Divide  all  the  children  in  two  with 
the  sword  of  the  state  !     Sooner  than  that  the  Catholic 


The  Judgment  of  Solomon.  269 

children  shall  live,  let  the  sword  fall  as  well  upon   our 
own  !  ' ' 

But  let  us  look  further  in  order  to  see  even  yet  more 
clearly  which  is  the  true  Mother  in  this  rivalry  for 
possession  of  the  child.  As  yet  the  sentence  of 
Solomon — "Give  the  living  child  to  this  Catholic 
woman,  for  she  is  the  mother  thereof" — has  not  been 
pronounced,  and  as  the  impostor  came  before  Solomon's 
'  judgment-seat  in  possession  of  the  child,  so  Protestants 
are  now  practically  in  possession  of  the  children,  as  a 
body,  in  this  country.     Now  for  the  test. 

Thus  the  Catholic  woman:  "I  pray  thee,  O  just 
and  wise  State,  to  grant  unto  thy  servant  that  I  may 
give  suck  unto  my  own  child.  Behold  how  it  languishes 
and  faints  for  want  of  nourishment,  and  '  my  bowels  of 
compassion  are  moved  upon  my  child  '  as  I  witness  its 
sufferings.  Behold  my  breasts  are  full,  and  this  other 
woman's  are  dry.  Therefore  suffer  me  to  come  unto 
the  child  that  I  may  suckle  it." 

"  Nay,  I  will  not  that  she  come  near  it !  "  cries  out 
the  Protestant  woman.  "  Keep  her  off,  O  King  State  ! 
Deny  her  all  access  to  the  child.  '  No  sectariaJiism  in 
the  public  schools  '  !  Is  not  that  the  law  which  the 
Protectors  of  American  Institutions  would  fain  make, 
O  King,  if  they  could  ?  It  is  true  I  have  little  or  no 
*  sectarian  '  milk  to  give  the  child,  for  my  breasts  are 
dry,  or  so  nearly  dry  that  the  child  will  not  suck.  But 
then  neither  shall  she  suckle  it,  however  full  be  her 
breasts.  Keep  her  off ;  for  if  once  she  be  permitted  to 
nurse  the  child  before  thine  eyes,  O  State,  and  in  the 
sight  of  all  the  people,  then  will  her  fruitfulness  be 
shown,  and  the  shame  of  my  barrenness  be  made 
manifest." 


270  The  Judgment  of  Solomon. 

"Then  I  praj',"  still  pleads  the  Catholic  woman, 
"  that  I  may,  at  least,  take  the  child  under  my  own 
roof-tree  and  there  minister  unto  its  wants." 

"  Forbid  her  also  this,"  cries  the  other  ;  and  there  is 
a  dog-in-the-manger  "  wrath  in  her  eyes  and  fury  in 
her  hands  ' '  as  she  looks  around  for  her  friends  and 
neighbors — her  "  Evangelical  Alliance,"  her  "  Nation- 
al League  for  the  Protection  of  American  Institutions," 
her  "A.  P.  A's,"  and  her  "loyal  British  Orangemen," 
who  have  come  over  to  help  ' '  protect  American  In- 
stitutions," who  all  troop  forward  with  a  goodl}^  display 
of  banners  inscribed  with,  "  No  foreign  domination  !  " 
carried  by  the  British  Orangemen  ;  "No  Church  and 
State  !  "  carried  by  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  which 
labored  hard  in  Congress  to  establish  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion, and  failed  ;  "  No  state  aid  to  sectarian  schools  !  " 
carried  by  the  National  League  for  P.  A.  I.,  and,  in 
place  of  a  banner,  an  old  hangman's  noose  formerly 
used  in  Ireland  to  choke  the  Catholic  woman's  brothers 
who  were  schoolmasters,  carried  by  the  A.  P.  A's,  and 
the  United  Order  of  American  Mechanics. 

And  as  they  all  now  stand  face  to  face  round  about 
the  king's  judgment-seat.  King  State  saith  to  his 
officers  :   ' '  Bring  me  a  sword  !  ' ' 

And  the  friends  of  the  Protestant  woman  in  great 
haste  bring  unto  him  a  sharp  sword  they  have  them- 
selves prepared — the  sword  of  the  "  XVItli  Amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution."  And  when  they  have 
brought  the  sword  before  the  king,  "  Divide,"  saith  he, 
"  the  living  child  in  two,  and  give  half  to  the  one  and 
half  to  the  other." 

And  the  woman  whose  child  is  alive  saith  to  the 
King   (for  her  bowels  yearn   upon  her  child):    "I  be- 


TJie  Judg ment  of  Solomon.  271 

seech  thee,  my  lord,  give  her  the  child  alive,  and  do 
not  kill  it,  but  grant  me  leave  to  come  unto  it,  so  that 
it  die  not ;  I  will  stand  without  her  (school)  house  all 
the  da}' ,  and  when  she  and  the  child  shall  be  weary  of 
each  other,  then  thy  ser\^ant  craves  to  be  let  come  near 
unto  the  fruit  of  her  own  womb  for  the  space  of  a  brief 
half-hour,  O  King  State,  and  in  haste  will  I  suckle  it 
that  it  die  not,  and  go  my  way." 

But  the  other  cries  out :  ' '  Let  it  be  neither  mine  nor 
hers,  but  Nullifidian,   and  be  divided,  though  it  die." 

Shall  not  the  King  State  answer  and  say  in  the 
words  of  Solomon  the  Wise  :  ' '  Give  the  living  child  to 
the  Catholic  woman,  and  let  it  not  be  divided,  for  she 
is  the  true  mother  thereof"?  And  shall  not  all 
America  "hear  the  judgment  which  King  State  shall 
judge,  and  fear  the  King,  seeing  that  the  wisdom  of 
God  is  in  him  to  do  judgment  "  ? 

A   CONTRAvST. 

In  every  Catholic  country  provision  is  made  se- 
curing to  all  Protestants,  Jews,  and  Schismatic  Greeks 
the  right  to  educate  their  children  religiously  and 
according  to  the  tenets  and  practices  of  their  particular 
faith.  In  Austria,  for  instance,  this  right  is  not  only 
secured,  but  provision  is  made  requiring  them  to  do  so, 
and  even  obliging  Protestant  ministers  to  see  to  the 
giving  of  religious  teaching  to  the  Protestant  children 
who  go  to  Catholic  schools,  where  they  are  not  able  to 
conduct  their  own  schools.     Here  is  the  proof: 

"The  most  interesting  and  satisfactory  feature  of  the  [Catho- 
lic] Austrian  system  is  the  great  liberahty  with  which  the  govern- 
ment, although  so  staunch  an  adherent  and  supporter  of  the 
Romanist  priesthood,  has  treated  the  reUgious  pai ties  who  differ 


2/2  The  Judgment  of  Solomon. 

from  itself  in  their  religious  dogmas,  //  has  beeti  entirely  owing 
to  this  liberality  that  neither  the  great  number  of  the  sects  in 
Austria,  nor  the  great  difference  (f  their  religious  tenets,  has 
hindered  the  work  of  the  education  of  the  poor  throughout  the 
empire.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  such 
difficulties  may  easily  be  overcome  when  a  government  under- 
stands how  to  raise  a  nation  in  q\\\\\z-a.\!\qx\,  and  wishes  earnestly 
to  do  so. 

"  In  those  parishes  of  the  Austrian  Empire  where  there  are 
any  dissenters  from  the  Romanist  Church,  the  education  of  their 
children  is  not  directed  by  the  priest,  but  is  committed  to  the  care 
of  the  dissenting  ministers.  These  latter  are  empowered  and  re- 
quired by  government  to  provide  for,  to  watch  over,  and  to  pro- 
mote the  education  of  the  children  of  their  own  sects,  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  priests  are  required  to  do  for  the  education  of 
Catholic  children. 

"  In  each  county  a  dissenting  minister  is  chosen  by  the  magis- 
trates, as  the  general  superintendent  and  inspector  of  the  edu- 
cation of  all  the  dissenters  of  his  county.  This  minister,  accom- 
panied by  one  of  the  county  magistrates,  is  required  to  visit  and 
inspect  the  dissenting  schools  in  his  county  at  least  once  in  every 
year,  and  to  report  thereon.  He  is  also  required  and  empowered 
to  enforce  the  building  of  schools  in  districts  inhabited  by  dis- 
senters alone,  but  unsupplied  with  schools  ;  to  oblige  all  the  dis- 
senters to  send  their  children  to  some  school  or  to  educate  them 
efficiently  at  home ;  to  take  care  that  the  children  of  dissenters 
who  attend  Romanist  schools  receive  regular  religious  instruction 
from  so?ne  minister  of  their  own  sect"  (Kay,  Social  Condition 
and  Education  of  the  People  of  Europe,  English  edition). 

Austria  is  not  the  only  Catholic  country  that  has 
shown  this  true  spirit  of  liberality  : 

"  And  let  it  be  remembered  that  these  great  results  have  been 
attained,  notwithstanding  obstacles  at  least  as  great  as  those 
which  make  it  so  tlifficult  for  us  to  act  [in  England].  Look  at 
Austria,  Bavaria,  and  the  Prussian  Rhine  provinces,  and  the  Swiss 
cantons  of   Lucerne  and  Soleure.     Will  any  one  say  that  the  re- 


The  Judgment  of  Solomon.  27  3 

ligious  difficulties  in  those  countries  are  less  than  those  which 
exist  in  our  own?  Is  Roman  Catholicism  in  these  countries  free 
from  the  arrogance  and  haughtiness  which  are,  at  the  same  time, 
the  causes  and  effects  of  a  vain  belief  in  human  infallibility,  and 
which  stimulate  opposition  instead  of  conciliating  opinion  ?  Is 
the  sectarianism  of  the  Jesuits  of  Lucerne,  or  of  the  priests  of 
Bavaria,  of  a  more  yielding  character  towards  the  Protestant 
'  heretics  '  than  that  of  one  Protestant  party  in  England  towards 
another?  And  yet,  in  each  of  these  countries,  the  difficulties 
arising  from  religious  differences  have  been  overcome,  and  all 
their  children  have  been  brought  under  the  influence  of  a  re- 
ligious education,  without  any  religious  party  having  been  of- 
fended "  {ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  3). 

Here  is  what  the  Gatholic  cantons  of  Switzerland 
did,  with  the  "horrible"  Jesuits  in  power: 

"  Those  children  who  differ  in  faith  from  the  teacher  are  al- 
ways, throughout  Switzerland,  allowed  to  absent  themselves  from 
the  classes  whilst  the  religious  lessons  are  being  given,  and  are, 
in  such  cases,  required  by  law  to  attend  one  of  their  own  clergy, 
in  order  to  receive  doctrinal  instruction  from  him.  Even  in  Fri- 
bourg,  a  canton  which  was  at  the  time  of  my  visit  governed  by 
priests  who  were  under  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  the  children 
of  Protestants  were  instructed  in  the  same  schools  and  in  the 
same  classes  with  the  children  of  the  Romanists,  and  were  al- 
low^ed  to  absent  themselves  during  the  religious  lessons  "  {ibid., 
vol.  ii.  p.  351). 

The  Swiss  radicals  and  Protestants  could  not  endure 
to  see  such  a  liberal  and  happy  state  of  things  go  on  ; 
and  shortly  after  Mr.  Kay's  visit  they  stirred  up  a 
persecution  against  those  two  Catholic  cantons  of  Fri- 
bourg  and  Lucerne,  invaded  them,  broke  up  their  edu- 
cational establishments,  drove  out  the  Jesuits,  and 
made  war  upon  the  liberties  of  the  people  guaranteed 
to  them  by  the  fundamental  articles  of  the  Swiss  Con- 


274  The  Judgment  of  Solomon. 


federation.  And  then  for  us  Americans  to  be  told  to  sit 
quietly  by  and  hear  Protestants  boasting  about  their  be- 
ing the  only  champions  of  religious  liberty  and  the  only 
promoters  and  "protectors"  of  free  education,  and  in 
the  same  breath  denouncing  our  holy  Church  as  a  * '  re- 
ligious system  \v1iicli  with  its  managers  are,  and  al- 
ways have  been,  essentially  foes  to  civil  and  religious 
freedom,  and  to  symmetrical  intellectual  progress"! 
(Sentiment  of  Rev.  Dr.  Buckley,  Methodist,  the 
Christian  Advocate,   December  15.    1892). 

I  leave  my  readers  to  decide  who  is  deserving  of 
this  last  reproach.  (N.  B.— The  Methodists  have  no 
parochial  schools.)  Catholics*  are  standing  in  the 
breach  fighting  hard  for  the  civil  and  religious  rights 
of  Methodists  and  other  Protestant  parents  to  educate 
their  children  according  to  their  own  religious  con- 
victions, and  this  is  a  specimen  of  the  thanks  they  get 
for  it. 

But  let  us  hear  again  from  Mr.  Kay,  who  has  some- 
thing more  to  tell  us  about  Catholic  Bavaria,  where  at 
his  time  of  writing  the  ever-maligned  Jesuits  were  in 
power : 

"  At  the  time  I  visited  Munich  the  Jesuit  party  was  in  power. 
The  ministers,  however,  showed  the  greatest  willingness  to  fur- 
nish me  with  all  the  information  I  required,  and  supplied  me  with 
all  the  statistics  and  documents  I  wished  to  procure.  I  visited  a 
priest,  v/ho  directed  one  of  the  large  educational  establishments 
in  the  city.  He  told  me  that  they  had  established  eight  normal 
colleges  in  Bavaria,  for  the  education  of  teachers,  and  that  two  of 
these  had  bee?i  especially  set  apart  for  the  educatioJi  of  Protestant 
tcacners.  He  seemed  to  make  very  light  of  all  difficulties  arising 
from  religious  differences,  and  spoke  of  education  as  a  national 
work,  which  it  is  very  necessary  to  accompHsh,  by  the  joint  efforts 
of  all  religious  parties"  {ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  293). 


TJie  Judgment  of  Solomon.  275 

Do  not  these  facts  furnish  enough  evidence  to  show 
who  are  the  true  friends  and  protectors  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty  ?  How  can  any  one  of  our  present 
would-be  persecutors  look  at  them  and  not  blush  ? 

To  what  is  due  all  the  present  educational  war  that 
is  now  being  waged  with  so  much  bitterness  in  our  own 
country,  boasting  as  it  does  of  its  religious  liberty  ? 
Evidently  to  nothing  else  but  to  the  narrow-minded 
illiberality  of  our  Protestant  fellow-citizens.  I^et  them 
compare  all  their  own  religious  bigotry,  and  deter- 
mination to  put  every  possible  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
us  Catholics  here  in  America  educating  our  children  as 
we  have  a  right  to  do,  with  the  open-hearted,  fair- 
minded,  and  strictly  just  treatment  the  people  of  their 
faith  receive  in  Austria  and  other  Catholic  countries, 
and  at  a  time  when  their  bugaboo  ' '  Jesuits ' '  were  in 
power,  too. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

CHRISTIAN    AND    PATRIOTIC     EDUCATION     IN  THE 
UNITED   STATES. 

UNDER  the  above  heading  I  propose  to  show,  by 
official  statistics,  how  much  Protestants,  compared 
with  Catholics,  have  been  doing  to  impart  a  religious 
and  patriotic  education  to  their  children.  I  presume  to 
say  that  an  exhibit  of  this  sort  is  a  pretty  reliable  index 
of  the  esteem  in  which  each  religious  body  holds  its 
own  doctrines,  moral  discipline,  and  religious  devotional 
worship.  Those  who  really  have  a  high  esteem  for 
their  religion  will  not  only  show  themselves  to  be 
earnest  and  faithful  believers,  but  will  be  extremely 
solicitous  about  the  transmission  of  their  own  faith  and 
its  practice  to  their  children  ;  ready  to  make,  if  need 
be,  all  reasonable  sacrifices  for  that  purpose. 

Nay,  more  ;  I  confidently  assert  that  one's  patriotism 
is  rightfully  to  be  measured  by  this  anxiety  and  care 
to  have  the  minds  of  the  rising  generation  inculcated 
with  those  religious  principles  which  one  believes  in  his 
heart  of  hearts  are  necessary  to  the  safety  and  true  pro- 
gress of  the  Republic.  That  some  religious  principles 
are  deemed  by  Protestants  to  be  of  such  necessity, 
would  appear  to  be  evidenced  by  the  constant  claims 
they  make  for  their  Protestantism,  and  their  equally 
constant  expressions  of  alarm  lest  the  doctrines  of  the 
Catholic  Church  should  prevail.  And  yet,  w^hen  it 
comes  to  putting  one's  patriotic  faith  in  one's  religion  to 

276 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S.    277 


test,  what  do  we  find  ?  That  is  what  I  propose  to  show 
by  the  following  tables,  copied  from  the  Report  on 
Ediccatio7i  in  the  United  States  at  the  Eleventh  Census, 
i8go  : 

PAROCHIAL    SCHOOLS,    1890. 


The  United  states. 

Total , 

Catholic,     .     .     .     .     , 
Evangelical  Lutheran, 
German  Evangelical, 
Protestant  Episcopal,  . 
All  others,  .... 

Baptist, 

Methodist,  .... 
Presbyterian,  .  .  . 
Congregational,   .     . 


Teachers. 


16,150 

12,303 

2,991 

386 

275 

None 
None 
None 
None 


Pupils. 


799,602 
626,496 
142,963 

15.639 
8,385 
6,119 


White. 

788,609 

620,174 

142,302 

15,638 

4.635 
5,860 


Colored. 


10,993 

6,322 

661 

I 

3.750 
259 


SUMMARY. 

The  United  States.                           Teachers.  Pupils. 

Total, 16,150  799,602 

Catholic, 12,303  626,496 

All  Protestants^, 3,847  173,106 


The  next  table  in  the  official  report  gives  tne 
combined  numbers  for  parochial  and  denominational 
schools.  I  have  subtracted  the  "parochial"  figures 
so  that  the  denominational  ones  may  be  seen  at  a 
glance : 


278     Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S, 


DENOMINATIONAL   SCHOOLS 


That  is,  private  schools,  other  than  parochial,  under  control  of 
members  of  diffcre7it  denominations. 


The  United  States. 

Total, 

Catholic,  .... 
Methodist  Episcopal, 
Presbyterian,  .     .     . 

Baptist, 

Congregational,  .     . 
Protestant  Episcopal, 
Lutheran,    .... 
All  others  *     .     .     . 


Teachers. 

Pupils. 

17,414 

286,142 

5,907 

75,470 

3,026 

58.546 

i>793 

37965 

1.635 

29,869 

1,219 

27,453 

1,339 

13,265 

532 

8,688 

1       1,963 

34,886 

White. 


244,815 
75.074 
49,103 
26,358 
24,848 

15-I71 

12,584 

8,687 

32,990 


Colored. 


396 

9,443 
I  1 ,607 

5,021 
12,282 

63 1 
1,896 


SUMMARY. 

The  United  States.  Teachers.  Pupils. 

Total, 17,414  286,142 

Catholic 5,907  75,470 

All  Protestants, 11,507  210,672 

GRAND    SUMMARY    OF    RELIGIOUS    SCHOOLS. 
The  United  States.  Teachers.  Pupils. 

Total, 33,564         i,o85.74J 

Catholic, 18,210  701,966 

All  Protestants 1 5,354  383,778 

This  is  a  striking  and  very  suggestive  exhibit.  Dr. 
H.  K.  Carroll,  special  agent  of  the  "eleventh  census 
of  churches,"    in    his    YQvy    complete    and    instructive 

*  As  will  be  seen,  these  figures  make  the  sum  of  the  totals  correct.  The 
combined  figures  for  Parochial  and  Denominational  schools  given  for  *' all 
others"  in  the  Peport  are  apparently  erroneous,  as  the  sum  of  the  totals 
would  then  be  too  large. 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S     279 

work  *  reports  the  number  of  Protestant  church- 
members,  or  "communicants,"  of  all  denominations 
at  14,180,000,  and  of  Catholic  "communicants"  at 
6,242,267. 

I  take  his  figures  only  for  the  Roman  Catholics, 
6,231,417,  and  for  the  Greek  Uniates,  10,850.  It  was 
not  proper  to  include  under  the  title  of  ' '  Catholic  ' ' 
various  schismatics,  and  the  two  apostate  bodies  j^clept 
"  Old  Catholics  "  and  "  Reformed  Catholics,"  and  then 
speak  of  "Catholics  of  all  bratiches.''  He  was  in- 
structed, it  seems,  by  those  reporting  to  him  that 
Catholic  "communicants"  form  85  per  cent,  of  the 
whole  number.  Adding,  therefore,  15  per  cent,  to  com- 
prise the  non-communicating  children,  the  number, 
7,343,843,  would  represent  the  entire  Catholic  popula- 
tion . 

As  to  the  so-called  Protestant  population,  Dr- 
Carroll  estimates  that  those  reported  as  communicants 
form  about  two- sevenths  only  of  the  whole  number, 
there  being,  as  he  thinks,  an  average  of  two  and  a 
half  "adherents"  to  every  "communicant"  among 
the  different  denominations — some  130  in  all.  There- 
fore he  estimates  the  Protestant  ' '  population ' '  at 
49,630,000. 

The  whole  number  of  religious  denominations  of  all 
kinds  is  set  down  at  143;  and  Dr.  Carroll  reminds  us 
that  an  American  citizen  is  as  free  to  choose  or  change 
his  religion  as  he  is  to  choose  or  change  his  residence, 
and  adds  that  "  if  none  of  these  143  denominations  suit 

*  The  Religious  Forces  of  the  United  States^  enumerated,  classified,  and 
described  on  the  basis  of  the  Government  Census  of  i8go.  With  an  Intro- 
duction on  the  Condition  and  Character  of  American  Christianity  by 
H.  K.  Carroll,  LL.D.,  in  charge  of  the  Division  of  Churches,  Eleventh 
Census. 


28o    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S. 


him,  he  still  has  a  choice  among  150  separate  and  in- 
dependent congregations  which  have  no  denominational 
name,  creed,  or  connection  "  ! 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  his  estimate  for  Pro- 
testants, the  number  given  for  Catholics  appears  much 
too  small.  So  far,  however,  as  these  estimates  at  all 
affect  the  question  under  present  examination  they  may 
be  accepted  as  sufficiently  accurate.  The  contrast  is 
made  all  the  greater  in  favor  of  the  Catholic  exhibit. 

Having  acknowledged  that  there  are  only  about 
twenty  and  a  half  millions  of  what  he  calls  * '  Christian 
believers  ' '  of  all  creeds  and  denominations — Protestant 
and  Catholic — about  one-third  of  the  entire  population. 
Dr.  Carroll  goes  on  to  claim  that  the  ''Christian 
population  "  amounts  to  56,992,000.  One  is  tempted  to 
call  this  the  "  make-believe  "  Christian  population. 

But  now  he  owns  that  there  are  about  ' '  five  millions 
who  are  probably  opposed  to  the  churches  for  various 
reasons."  And  though  on  one  page  he  thinks  the 
showing  "  not  an  unfavorable  one,"  yet  on  the  succeed- 
ing page  he  thus  concludes  his  numerical  view  of  the 
religious  population  : 

"  We  must  not  forget  that  in  the  tifty-seven  milHons  counted 
as  the  Christian  population  are  many  who  are  indifferent  to  the 
claims  of  rehgion,  and  seldom  or  never  go  into  a  house  of  wor- 
ship. Adding  these,  and  the  large  number  of  members  on  whose 
lives  religion  exercises  practically  no  power,  to  the  5,000,000 
(opponents  of  religion),  we  have  a  problem  of  sufficient  magnitude 
to  engage  the  mind,  heart,  and  hand  of  the  church  for  a  genera- 
tion. One  out  of  every  twelve  persons  is  either  an  active  or 
passive  opponent  of  religion  ;  two  out  of  three  are  not  members  of 
any  church  "  {The  Religious  Forces,  etc.,  Introduction,  p.  xxxvi.) 

Protestantism   has    indeed   a   problem   of  no   small 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U,  S,    281 

magnitude  to  solve  in  the  interest  of  its  claims  to  be 
"true  gospel  Christianity,"  and  the  best  exponent  of 
those  principles  upon  which  the  hopes  for  the  per- 
manency of  our  free  American  institutions  and  the  true 
progress  of  our  people  are  based.  If  Protestantism  has 
succeeded  in  winning  so  comparatively  small  a  number 
of  its  own  nominal  adherents  to  heartily  accept  its 
doctrines  and  faithfully  practise  its  moral  precepts  in 
the  past,  surely  the  outlook  for  the  future  is  not  very 
encouraging. 

What  a  humiliating  confession  to  be  obliged  to 
make  !  After  so  long  a  reign  of  power  in  this  country, 
with  nothing  to  hinder  it  from  exercising  its  full  in- 
fluence upon  its  people,  and  what  has  it  to  show  ?  A 
lot  of  warring,  split-up  sects,  not  one  of  them  able  to 
claim  an  average  of  more  than  two-sevenths  of  its 
people  as  church-members.  The  thirty-five  millions  of 
their  non-church-members,  according  to  their  own 
manner  of  speech,  are  not  even  "  Christians."  At  best 
they  are,  as  all  know,  mere  "adherents,"  hangers-on, 
or  persons  having  only  nominal  "preferences."  Of 
these  only  a  small  number  can  be  said  to  have  any 
rational  faith,  any  intelligent  notion  of  divine  truth,  or 
who  pretend  to  order  their  lives  by  any  definite  re- 
ligious doctrine  or  Christian  moral  principle.  It  is  all 
very  well  to  call  them  Protestants,  or  that,  if  asked, 
they  would  probably  so  call  themselves  ;  but  practi- 
cally they  should  be  ranked  with  those  non-Christian 
indifferentists,  unbelievers,  mere  secularists  and  agnos- 
tics, who  are  not  professed  atheists  or  infidels. 

Dr.  Carroll  tells  us  that  there  is  07ie  out  of  every 
twelve  persons  who  is  either  an  active  or  passive 
opponent  of  religion.     I  presume  to  say  that,  looking  at 


282    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S. 

his  thirty-five  million  Protestants  who  may  pretend  to 
be  Christians  in  name,  but  who  certainly  are  not  in 
fact,  there  are  many  more  such  opponents  than  one  out 
of  every  twelve.  What  did  our  I^ord  say  ?  ' '  He  that  is 
not  with  Me  is  against  Me;  ajid  he  that  gathereth  not 
with  Me,  scattereth .' ' 

If  an}^  religious  s\'stem  couid  succeed  better  in 
scattering  its  adherents  and  bringing  on  all  possible 
discord  and  disunion  than  Protestantism  has  so  disas- 
trously succeeded  in  doing,  the  world  will  have  yet  to 
look  upon  such  an  arch-enemy  of  true  Christian  reli- 
gion, the  first  principle  of  which  is  Unity,  and  by  which 
mark  its  divine  Founder  declared  it  was  to  be  known 
as  the  true  religion  of  God. 

What  has  this  confessed  and  evident  failure  of 
Protestantism  to  produce  union — blowing  some  new 
wind  of  doctrine,  as  it  does,  from  ever}-  point  of  the 
religious  compass — to  do  with  our  present  subject  ?  It 
has  this  to  do  with  it.  It  solves  the  otherwise  almost 
incredible  figures  of  the  tables  I  have  just  quoted. 
The  great  majority  of  so-called  Protestants  have  no 
faith  in  Christianity,  as  necessar}^  either  for  the  state  or 
for  the  people.  If  they  had  they  w^ould  never  be  feo  cold- 
hearted  and  careless  in  their  profession  and  practice 
of  what  they  assume  to  be  Christianity,  and  so  unsolici- 
tous  about  its  transmission  to  the  coming  generations. 

Its  very  fundamental  principle  of  religious  disinte- 
gration will  ever  prevent  Protestantism  contributing  to 
the  unity  and  stability  of  the  state,  as  it  wall  surely  tend 
to  prevent  the  living  of  Christian  brethren  together  in 
unity.  Let  the  reader  get  Dr.  Carroll's  book  and  study 
the  facts  it  gives,  as  well  as  some  of  his  very  pertinent 
observ^ations. 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S.    283^ 

By  some  means  or  other  it  has  come  to  be  the  popu- 
lar notion  that  the  American  State  is  Nullifidian.  How 
has  that  notion  come  to  prevail  ?  Is  this  a  sign  that 
th.e:  Jive  millions  of  those  who  are  of  ''No  religion" 
have  already  proved  themselves  stronger  than  the  Jifly- 
seven  millio7is  of  nominal  Christians  ? 

No  ;  let  the  plain  and  honest  truth  be  told.  Protest- 
ants have  been  unfaithful  to  their  religious  principles 
and^  scattered  and  divided  in  counsel,  they  have  gone 
over  to  the  enemy  and  have  done  all  they  could  to  be- 
tray this  country,  which,  not  so  very  long  ago,  might 
confidently  call  itself  a  Christian  one,  into  the  hands  of 
the  unbeliever. 

No  other  evidence  is  needed  than  the  exhibit  I  have 
just  made,  which  shows  that  they  have  united  them- 
selves with  the  unbeliever  in  establishing  a  system  of 
popular  education  which  will  infallibly  insure  the 
spread  of  "  no  religion,"  and  that  they  have  taken  little 
or  no  pains  to  give  their  children  an  education  which 
would  insure  their  adherence  to  the  religious  faith  of 
their  parents.  They  have  made  a  mistake  and  one  that 
cannot  but  prove  disastrous  for  the  future  hopes  of 
Protestantism.  Who  does  not  see,  if  the  vast  majority 
of  children  are  instructed  (I  cannot  say  educated)  in 
schools  of  "no  religion,"  that  at  no  distant  date  this 
country  will  be  a  country  of  "no  religion"?  What 
then  will  happen  ?  What  becomes  of  an  edifice  when 
the  foundations  are  taken  away  ? 

All  our  Catholic  writers  have  constantly  sounded 
this  note  of  alarm,  hoping  to  bring  intelligent  and 
religious-minded  Protestants  to  a  realization  of  the 
danger  that  threatens  their  own  interests,  and  as  well 
the  national  welfare  of  our  common  beloved  country. 


284    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S. 

Nearly  twenty  years  ago  I  had  occasion  to  repeat  this 
warning  in  some  letters  I  contributed  to  the  New  Eng- 
land J  oiirnal  of  Education  (March  18,  1876,  et  seq.),  in 
whose  columns  appeared  the  old  Hawkins-Jay  fraud  on 
''illiteracy,  crime,  and  pauperism,"  and  a  false  ac- 
cusation that  Cardinal  McCloskey  (as  voicing  the  gen- 
eral Catholic  sentiment)  was  opposed  to  a7iy  free  public- 
school  system. 

Let  us  hear  a  few  opinions  on  the  vital  importance 
of  religious  education  from  those  who  are  worthy  to  be 
heard.  In  his  farewell  address  our  wise  and  ever- to-be- 
honored  Washington  said  : 

"  Religion  and  morality  are  the  pillars  of  human  happiness. 
Let  us  with  caution  indulge  the  supposition  that  morality  can 
be  maintained  without  religion.  Reason  and  experience  forbid 
us  to  expect  that  national  morality  can  prevail  in  exclusion  of 
religious  principle." 

The  celebrated  historian  and  statesman  Guizot,  a 
Protestant,  having  before  his  mind  the  dreadful  conse- 
quences following  upon  the  infidel  doctrines  of  Voltaire 
in  his  own  country  of  France,  said  : 

"  In  order  to  make  popular  education  truly  good  and  socially 
useful,  it  must  be  fundamentally  religious.  I  do  not  mean  by  this, 
that  religious  instruction  should  hold  its  place  in  popular  edu- 
cation, and  that  the  practices  of  religion  should  enter  into  it :  for 
a  nation  is  not  religiously  educated  by  such  petty  and  mechanical 
devices ;  it  is  necessary  that  national  education  should  be  given 
and  received  in  the  midst  of  a  religious  atmosphere,  and  that 
religious  impressions  and  religious  observances  should  penetrate 
into  all  its  parts.  Religion  is  not  a  study  or  exercise  to  be  re- 
stricted to  a  certain  place  and  a  certain  hour ;  it  is  a  faith  and  a 
law,  which  ought  to  be  felt  everywhere,  and  which  after  this 
manner  alone  can  exercise  all  its  beneficial  influence  upon  our 
minds  and  our  lives." 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S.    285 

Have  we  Catholics  ever  said  more,  Or  asked  more 
than  that  ?  But  what  is  the  cry  that  is  heard  all 
around  us  ?  "  You  Catholics  are  the  avowed  enemies 
of  popular  education  ' '  ;  and  that  from  the  mouths  of 
prominent  politicians  and  Protestant  church  dignitaries 
whom  one  supposes  to  be  educated  men.  And  they 
keep  on  unblushingly  repeating  the  same  falsehood 
right  in  the  very  face  of  all  past  history,  of  all  that  the 
Csttholic  people  and  their  priesthood  are  doing  in  every 
countr}^  and  especially  in  our  own. 

Despite  the  fact  that  we  are  paying  our  full  quota  of 
the  taxes  which  create  the  school  fund,  we  Catholics 
possess  in  this  country,  in  proportion  to  our  wealth  and 
numbefs,  more  parochial  schools,  seminaries,  acade- 
mies, colleges,  and  universities,  established  and  sus- 
tained exclusively  by  our  own  private  resources,  than 
all  other  denominations  of  Christians  put  together. 
And  yet  we  are  "avowed  enemies  to  popular  edu- 
cation" !  And  because  we  cheerfully  impose  upon 
ourselves  this  double  burden,  and  are  resolved  to  bring 
up  our  childi-en  as  Christian  citizens  in  the  way  that  all 
the  wise  and  good,  even  among  Protestants,  know  to 
be  the  only  possible  and  necessary  way  to  secure  the 
future  welfare  and  stability  of  our  glorious  and  beloved 
Republic,  we  are  denounced,  forsooth,  as  being  un- 
patriotic ! 

Listen  to  the  former  prime  minister  of  France,  M. 
Thiers,  in  his  report  to  the  Corps  Legislatif: 

"  We  must  make  education  more  religious  than  it  has  been 
up  to  the  present  moment.  We  must  put  it  upon  its  former 
basis  ;  and  if   we  do  not,  /  tremble  for  the  future  of  France." 

France,  or  at  least  the  powers  that  have  been  lately 


286    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S. 


ruling  that  cotlntr}^  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  counsel  of 
this  wise  statesman,  banished  every  word  and  sign  of 
religion  from  education,  whether  popular  or  of  the 
higher  grades,  and  Avhat  are  the  consequences  ?  In- 
fidelity has  spread  over  that  once  Christian  land  like  a 
plague,  and  anarchy,  with  its  dynamite  bombs,  is 
threatening  the  overthrow  of  all  order  and  government, 
and  the  inauguration  of  another  and  more  devastating 
Reign  of  Terror. 

There  is  another  ominous  sign  of  national  de- 
cadence. An  article  has  just  appeared  in  that  lead- 
ing Paris  review^  Le  Correspondant  (April,  1894),  en- 
titled "A  Cry  of  Alarm"!  What  is  it  all  about? 
Only  this  :  that  from  1881  to  1889  the  excess  of  births 
over  deaths  in  France  has  been  going  down  from 
108,000  to  85,000;  and  suddenly  in  the  space  of  the 
three  succeeding  years  the  excess  of  deaths  over  births 
amounted  to  about  60,000,  while  the  populations  of 
every  other  nation  in  the  world  (and  the  figures  are 
given)  have  been  increasing  at  the  rate  of  50,000  to  a 
million  and  more  aniutally !  Why  is  France  thus 
threatened  with  extinction  ?  The  waiter  shows  that  it 
is  due  to  the  alarming  increase  of  immorality  and  other 
crimes.  To  what  is  that  increase  owing?  To  the 
banishment  of  all  religious  education  in  the  public 
schools.  And  he  proves  it  :  for,  despite  the  general 
loss  for  all  France,  in  the  five  strongly  Catholic  depart- 
ments of  Brittany  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  is 
reported  at  15,688.  Who  now  are  truly  patriotic  in 
France  ? 

Catholic  Americans  are  now  furnishing  our  country 
with  twice  as  many  children  pro  rata  as  Protestants. 
Who   now  are  truly  patriotic  in  America  ? 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S.    287 

I^isten  to  Herr  Von  Puttkanier,  the  eminent  minister 
of  public  worship  in  the  German  Empire  : 

"  I  am  convinced  that  on  the  day  on  which  we  cease  to  make 
the  saving  teachings  of  the  Gospel  the  basis  of  education,  the  fall 
of  our  national  civilized  life  will  be  inevitable." 

Let  us  hear  what  the  eminent  and  world-honored 
statesman,   Mr.   Gladstone,   has  to  say  : 

"  Every  system  which  places  religious  education  in  the  back- 
ground is  pernicious." 

Chief-Justice  Melville  W.  Fuller,  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  speaking  at  the  celebration  of 
the  centennial  anniversary  of  Bowdoin  College,  June 
28,  1894,  reminded  his  audience  of  the  objects  the 
founders  of  that  institution  had  in  view  ;  and  added  : 

"  Those  were  the  days — I  trust,  in  every  fundamental  sense, 
they  still  are  with  us — when  all  alike  regarded  virtue  and  piety  as 
essential  elements  of  education,  and  religion  as  the  chief  corner- 
stone of  an  educational  institution. 

"  It  was  impossible  that  any  other  view  could  be  entertained. 
Religion  of  some  kind  has  been  the  basis  of  education  of  what- 
ever kind  and  at  whatever  time  ;  and  as  the  things  of  truth,  of 
honesty,  of  justice,  of  purity,  of  loveliness,  and  of  good  report  were 
the  acknowledged  ends  of  education,  these  were  to  be  attained 
only  through  the  spiritual  forces  of  the  Christian  religion  by 
which  human  culture  had  been  preserved  and  through  which  it 
was  to  reach  its  highest  development, 

"  The  charter  did  but  adopt  the  language  of  the  constitution 
of  the  State,  which  declared  not  only  that  knowledge,  wisdom, 
and  virtue  were  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  people's 
rights  ^nd  liberties,  but  also  that  the  people  s  happiness  and  good 
order  and  the  preservation  of  civil  government  essentially  de- 
pended upon  piety,  religion,  and  morality ." 


288    CJiristian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S, 

The  sentiments  I  have  quoted  from  these  Protestant 
writers  are  but  the  echoes  of  the  language  of  all  moral- 
ists and  educators  in  past  ages,  both  pagan  and  Chris- 
tian. Of  what  has  alwaj^s  been  the  sentiment  of 
Christians  there  is  no  need  of  proof,  but  I  say  that 
even  the  pagans  never  dreamed  of  divorcing  reli- 
gion from  education.  When,  for  instance,  the  ques- 
tion came  up  in  the  fourth  century,  after  the  conversion 
of  the  Emperor  Constantine,  whether  Christians  could 
send  their  children  to  the  pagan  schools  or  teach  in 
them,  Tertullian,  a  century  before,  had  given  it  as  his 
opinion  that  as  all  teachers  in  the  pagan  schools  would 
have  to  take  part  in  their  idolatrous  religious  cere- 
monies. Christians  could  not,  of  course,  teach  in  these 
schools,  but  scholars  might  attend  them  who  were  not 
so   obliged. 

That  great  Doctor  of  the  Church,  St,  Chrysostom, 
discusses  the  same  question.  Hear  the  Catholic  saint, 
the  polished  writer,  the  "golden-mouthed"  orator: 

"  If  no  one  can  give  you  a  guarantee  that  your  schoolmasters 
are  such  who  can  answer  for  the  virtue  of  your  children,  you 
ought  not  to  send  them  to  these  schools.  '  Are  w-e,  then,  to  give 
up  literature  }  '  you  will  exclaim.  I  do  not  say  that,  but  I  do  say 
that  we  must  not  kill  souls.  When  the  foundations  of  a  building 
are  sapped,  we  seek  rather  for  architects  to  reconstruct  the  whole 
edifice  than  for  artists  to  adorn  the  walls.  In  fact,  the  choice  lies 
between  two  alternatives — a  liberal  education,  which  you  may  get 
by  sending  your  children  to  the  public  schools,  or  the  salvation  of 
their  souls,  which  you  secure  by  sending  them  to  the  schools  of 
the  monks.  Which  is  to  gain  the  day,  science  or  the  soul  ?  If 
you  can  unite  both  advantages,  do  so  by  all  means  ;  but  if  not,. 
choose  the  most  precious." 

The    reader   observes  how  St,  Chrysostom   decides 


Christian  and  Patriolic  Education  in  the  U,  S,    289 


when  the  Christian  schools  at  that  very  early  date  were 
necessarily  far  inferior  to  the  pagan  ones  in  the  means 
and  efficiency  of  instruction.  We  can  easily  under- 
stand in  what  uncompromising  language  he  would  ex- 
press that  decision  if  he  were  to-day  one  of  our  Ameri- 
can bishops,  in  a  country  where  the  Catholic  Christian 
schools  are  lacking  in  nothing  that  is  absolutely  re- 
quisite, and  where  so  many  of  them  are  proved  to  be 
far  superior  to  the  "  non-sectarian  "  ones,  even  in  pure 
secular  instruction;  and  which,  if  judged  according  to 
the  principles  and  sentiments  we  have  just  heard  from 
the  wise  and  the  good,  are  beyond  all  comparison  the 
most  truly  living,  most  morally  and  patriotically  safe 
halls  of  education  of  which  our  country  can  boast. 
And  when  I  say  education,  I  mean  just  about  what 
Laing,  that  acute  observer  of  systems  of  popular  schools 
in  Europe,  defines  it  to  be  :  The  obtaining,  by  teach- 
ing and  discipline,  the  power  "  not  only  to  read,  write, 
and  cipher,  but  to  reason,  judge,  and  act  as  an  in- 
dependent free  agent ;  in  the  religious  "  (religiousyfr^/, 
mark  it!),  "moral,  and  social  relations  of  man  to  his 
Creator  and  to  his  fellow-men".  {Notes  of  a  Traveller, 
p.  226). 

I  said  that  the  ancient  pagans  would  never  have 
dreamed  of  divorcing  religion  from  education.  I  might 
have  added,  nor  the  modern  ones  either.  In  evidence 
I  quote  from  a  very  remarkable  pamphlet,  just  issued 
by  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Aid  for  Colleges  and 
Academies,  entitled  Christian  and  Secidar  Education,  by 
the  Rev.  Wolcott  B.  Williams,  of  Charlotte,  Michigan: 

"  The  English  government  has  created  in  India  a  vast  system 
of  secular  education.  The  attitude  of  the  government  toward 
religion  is  that  of  perfect  neutrality.     The  experiment  enables  us 


290  Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U,  S. 


to  see  what  secular  education  unaided  by  Christianity  can  do  to 
elevate  a  people.  Rev.  William  Burgess,  missionary  at  Madras, 
says;  '  It  must  ])e  evident  to  all  who  have  had  any  intercourse 
with  the  educated  youth  of  this  country,  and  who  have  studied  the 
various  phases  of  thought  current  in  large  cities,  that  the  influ- 
ence of  a  purely  secular  education,  such  as  is  given  in  govern- 
ment colleges,  tends  to  utter  atheism.' 

"  The  Indian  Mirror,  a  native  paper,  expresses  this  opinion  : 
'  We  believe  we  are  correct  in  saying  that  there  is  a  pretty  strong 
feeling  amongst  the  more  thoughtful  and  earnest  portion  of  our 
educated  countrymen  against  the  materializing  tendencies  of  the 
system  of  education  pursued  in  government  schools  and  colleges. 
Experience  has  fully  attested  the  evil  effects  of  the  system,  and 
one  has  only  to  refer  to  the  large  number  of  graduates  and  under- 
graduates of  our  university  in  order  to  be  convinced.  It  is  a  no- 
torious fact  that  young  men  fresh  from  college  impudently  parade 
their  materialism  and  intidelity  before  their  half-educated  com- 
rades, and  pooh-pooh  the  sacred  truths  of  religion  and  morality. 
Nothing  is  more  disgusting  than  the  effrontery  and  conceit  with 
which  our  B.  As.  and  M.  As.  scoff  at  God,  immortality  and 
conscience.' 

**  Another  writer  tells  us:  'It  is  often  remarked  by  Hindus: 
*'  A  secular  system  of  education  has  been  the  bane  of  the  country. 
The  present  scepticism  and  infidelity  are  the  result.  The  hope 
of  India  is  in  education,  and  in  education  that  must  be  religious. 
ISIany  of  us  would  like  to  see  the  Bible  in  government  schools  and 
colleges  rather  than  no  religious  book  at  all."' 

"  We  have  this  testimony  from  Rev.  Gilbert  Karney,  secretary 
of  the  Church  of  England  Zenana  Missionary  Society :  '  A  Hindu 
judge,  a  strict  Brahman,  addressed  my  colleague  in  this  way: 
"  Sir,  what  are  you  thinking  of  in  your  educational  matters  ?  Our 
young  men  go  from  hence  to  the  university;  they  come  away  de- 
tached in  many  cases  from  their  old  religious  systems,  recognizing 
no  law,  human  or  divine  ;  and  now  you  are  taking  up  in  the  same 
way  the  education  of  the  women  ;  what  can  you  be  thinking  of? 
Have  you  English  people  contemplated  what^the  result  will  be 
if  our  young  women  and  girls  are  thus  detached  from  all  the 
sanctions  and  usages  of  their  old  life,  and  left  without   anything 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U,  S.    291 

to  take  their  place  ?      Te/l  the  people  of  England  that  it  must  7iot 
be'''  (pp.  67-69). 

Protestants  have  been  .spending  untold  millions  of 
money  and  sending  out  armies  of  missionaries  to  con- 
vert the  heathen  of  India  to  some  of  their  forms  of 
Christianity.  And  now  these  very  heathen  can  turn 
round  and  justly  reproach  them  for  being  the  means  of 
spreading  materialism  and  atheism  among  them. 

The  quotations  I  have  made  from  Rev.  Mr.  Wil- 
liams's pamphlet  were  preceded  by  two  very  signifi- 
cative sentences.  They  are  worth  repeating  here  as 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  imputation  made  elsewhere 
in  this  volume,  that  Protestants  appear  to  be  willing  to 
risk  the  very  religious  belief  of  their  own  children  in 
the  hope  of  depriving  Catholic  children  of  theirs 
through  the  system  of  secular  schools.  The  writer 
says  : 

"  Secular  education  tends  to  materialism.  We  have  spoken 
of  the  large  number  of  Christian  teachers  in  our  public  schools ; 
but  if  we  rely  wholly  upon  the  state  for  education  we  shall  not 
long  be  able  to  furnish  such  teachers  for  our  schools.  The  ex- 
clusive devotion  of  young  people  to  the  study  of  material  things 
for  fifteen  or  twenty  years  tends  to  make  thein  materialists, 
whatever  the  character  of  their  teacher. 

"Protestants  often  exult  in  the  fact  that  public  schools  are 
lessening  the  influence  of  Catholic  priests  over  the  young,  but  fail 
to  notice  that  by  the  same  process  their  own  religious  influence 
over  the  rising  generation  has  been  lessened  by  turning  over  to 
secular  schools  the  education  of  a  large  class  of  young  people  that 
had  hitherto  been  educated  in  Christian  institutions." 

The  principal  object  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Williams's 
work  is  to  show  the  disastrous  consequences  to  the 
ministry  of  the  chief  Protestant  denominations  resulting 


292    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S. 

from  the  popular  purely  secular  education.  His  argu- 
ments are  supported  by  copious  tables  of  .statistics. 
The  appearance  of  such  a  pamphlet  at  this  time  with 
quasi-official  approbation  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  is 
a  most  encouraging  sign.  What  is  wanted  is  just  such 
an  intelligent  discussion  of  the  subject. 

And  now  I  am  about  to  quote  from  a  recent  writer 
concerning  whose  orthodoxy  there  can  be  no  question 
— Protestant  orthodoxy,  I  mean — notwithstanding  the 
ultra- Romanism  that  breathes  in  every  sentence.  The 
end  this  now  prominent  anti-popery  American  writer 
had  in  view  at  the  time  of  the  pronouncement  of  these 
**  popish  "  sentiments  in  an  address  entitled  "  Religion 
and  the  State,"  delivered  by  him  before  the  Congrega- 
tional Club  of  New  York  and  vicinity,  on  April  19, 
1886,  was  to  prepare  the  public  mind  for  the  establish- 
ment of  the  "  Union  of  Church  and  State,"  for  which 
he  was  working  as  agent  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance, 
and  w4iicli  was  sprung  upon  Congress  by  him  and  his 
associates  three  years  after. 

The  reader  will  find  a  detailed  account  of  this  at- 
tempt and  its  failure  in  the  Catholic  World  magazine, 
January.  1894.  This  very  address  of  his  was  offered 
by  him  before  the  Congressional  Committee  in  order 
to  strengthen  his  argument  for  the  establishment  of 
Protestantism  as  the  state  religion,  by  forcing  upon  the 
country  an  amendment  to  the  national  Constitution 
obliging  every  State  in  the  Union  to  have  ' '  public 
schools  in  which  shall  be  taught  the  common  branches 
of  knowledge,  virtue,  morality,  and  the  principles  of  the 
Christiaji  religion y  The  chairman  of  the  committee, 
Hon.  Henry  W.  Blair,  explained  the  last  sentence  to 
mean  :   "  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion  so  lim- 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S.    293 

ifcd  as  to  specifically  and  emphatically  exclude  the  Chris- 
tian priticiples  of  one  or  two  sects. ' '  These  plotters  must 
have  taken  the  American  people  for  a  lot  of  fools ! 

But  let  us  hear  the  writer,  the  orator,  the  agent  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance,  and  now  the  ruling  spirit 
and,  so  far  as  it  appears,  the  chief  and  only  expounder 
and  spokesman  of  the  "  National  League  for  the  Pro- 
tection of  American  Institutions" — the  Rev.  James  M. 
King,   D.D. 

This  present  ardent  champion  of  "No  sectarianism 
in  the  public  schools"  began  by  asking  this  funda- 
mental question  : 

**  What  constitutes  real  education,  and  what  are  the  perils  of 
education  when  purely  secular  ?  Education  consists  in  the  sym- 
metrical development  of  the  whole  man  for  the  purpose  of  his 
creation.  This  purpose  is  admitted  to  be  moral.  The  state  is 
preparing  citizens  to  be  competent  to  their  responsibilities,  and 
these  are  all  moral.  Secularized  education  is  a  misnomer.  It  is 
no  education  at  all.  Never  before  has  the  attempt  been  made; 
the  verdict  of  mankind  in  every  age,  under  every  civilization,  is 
against  it  {Religion  and  the  State,  p.  9). 

•*  Daniel  Webster,  in  his  argument  against  the  Girard  will, 
said  :  '  In  what  age,  by  what  sect,  where,  when,  by  whom,  has 
reHgious  truth  been  excluded  from  the  education  of  youth  ? 
Nowhere,  never.  Everywhere  and  at  all  times  it  has  been  re- 
garded as  essential.  It  is  of  the  essence,  the  vitality  of  useful 
instruction.' 

"  Governor  Rice,  of  Massachusetts,  recently  said  :  '  I  lift  up  a 
warning  voice,  with  respect  to  the  inadequacy  and  perils  of  our 
modern  system  of  one-sided  education,  which  supposes  it  can 
develop  manhood  and  good  citizenship  out  of  mere  brain  culture.' 

"  Dr.  Schaff  says  :  '  Intellectual  education  is  worth  little  with- 
out virtue,  and  virtue  must  be  supported  and  fed  by  piety,  which 
binds  men  to  God,  inspires  them  with  love  to  their  fellow-man, 
and  urges  them  on  to  noble  thoughts  and  to  noble  deeds.     ,    ,     , 


294    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U,  S. 

A  self-governing  democracy  which  does  not  obey  the  voice  of 
conscience,  and  own  God  as  its  ruler,  must  degenerate  into 
mobocracy  and  anarchy.' 

"  '  Despotism,'  says  De  Tocqueville, '  may  govern  without  faith, 
but  liberty  cannot.'  " 

"Victor  Cousin,  the  profoundest  of  French  philosophers,  in  an 
address  before  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  maintained  that  '  any  sys- 
tem of  school-training  which  sharpened  and  strengthened  all  the 
intellectual  powers,  without  at  the  same  time  affording  a  source 
of  restraint  and  counter-check  to  their  tendency  to  evil  by  supply- 
ing moral  culture  and  religious  principle,  was  a  curse  rather  than 
a  blessing'"  {ibid.,  p.  lo). 

Having  fortified  his  position  with  these  true  senti- 
ments from  such  notable  authorities,  this  former  bold 
and  doubtless  honest  champion  of  the  necessity  of 
religious  education  went  on  to  say  : 

"  Many  children  and  youth  of  the  nation  live  under  family  con- 
ditions incompatible  with  self-respect  or  with  moral  purity.  And 
these  get  all  their  education  from  the  state.  Under  a  republican 
form  of  government  not  only,  but  under  a  government  mfact  re- 
publican, the  moralities  of  the  Christian  religion  must  constitute 
the  basis  of  its  educational  system  for  the  training  of  its  citizen- 
ship, if  the  form  and  privileges  of  government  are  to  be  per- 
petuated. 

"  In  case  secular  education  is  to  be  made  non-Christian,  in 
order  to  be  consistent  there  must  be  non-Christian  editions  of 
text-books  prepared  by  the  state.  And  these  must  cover  the 
fields  of  history,  natural  science,  rnental  and  moral  philosophy, 
and  general  literature.  Christian  truths  and  facts  are  so  in- 
grained in  the  sources  of  knowledge  of  English-speaking  peoples, 
that  the  secular  teacher  who  seeks  to  avoid  the  assertion  or  denial 
of  them  will  find   his  teaching  reduced  to  very  naked  rudiments. 

"  To  avoid  in  instruction  the  facts  concerning  the  work  and 
worth  of  Christianity  in  our  history  is  to  impart  anti-Christian  in- 
struction not  only,  but  to  misrepresent,  and  this  is  to  destroy  the 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U,  S.   295 

basis  of  all  morals  ;  and  moral  instruction  cannot  be  separated  at 
any  point  or  for  any  period  of  time  from  the  intellectual  without 
injury  "  {ibid.,  pp.  9,   10). 

Excellent !  One  would  not  ask  better  from  the 
mouths  of  Catholic  defenders  of  truth  in  Christian  his- 
tory. Now  he  advances  to  higher  and  broader  ground. 
One  would  think  this  (at  that  time)  agent  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  had  been  receiving  instruction  from 
some  Jesuit  :• 

"  The  public  schools  cannot  be  wholly  secularised  and  claim  to 
educate.  They  cannot  be  wholly  secularized  unless  they  are  con- 
fined to  the  barest  elementary  instruction,  and  this  would  not  be 
education,  but  simply  getting  ready  to  acquire  knowledge. 

"  Dr.  Schaff  says  :  '  An  immense  interest,  like  the  education 
of  a  nation  of  cosmopolitan  and  pan-ecclesiastical  composition, 
cannot  be  regulated  by  a  logical  syllogism.  Life  is  stronger  and 
more  elastic  than  logic.  It  is  impossible  to  draw  the  precise  line 
of  separation  between  secular  a»d  moral,  and  between  moral  and 
religious  education.  Absolute  indifference  of  the  school  to  morals 
and  religion  is  impossible.  It  must  be  either  moral  or  immoral, 
religious  or  irreligious.  Christian  or  anti-Christian.  Religion 
enters  into  the  teaching  of  history,  mental  and  moral  philosophy, 
and  other  branches  of  learning  which  are  embraced  in  our 
common-school  system,  and  which  public  sentiment  deems  nec- 
essary. .  .  .  An  education  which  ignores  religion  altogether 
would  raise  a  heartless  and  infidel  generation  of  intellectual 
animals,  and  prove  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing"  {ibid.,  pp. 
16,  17). 

The  boldness  of  this  now  converted  and  new-mantled 
prophet  of  ' '  Schools  of  No  Religion  ' '  in  quoting  Dr. 
Schaff  at  that  time,  shows  how  resolved  he  and  his 
were  in  1886  to  have  "sectarian"  schools  supported 
by  the  state  and  none  other.  But  they  failed  to  get 
their  own  sectarian  Protestantism  taught  in  the  public 


296    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S, 

schools  by  force  of  constitutional  law.  Now  what  do 
they  want?  They  want  to  impose  upon  all  children 
an  education  which,  to  use  their  own  language,  would 
raise  a  heartless  and  infidel  generation  of  intellectual 
animals,  and  which  would  be  to  them  a  curse  rather 
than  a  blessing.  But  to  secure  that  national  curse  a 
constitutional  amendment  must  be  passed  which  will 
make  all  the  state  schools  non-sectarian,  and  forbid 
the  state  from  even  allowing  religion  to,  be  taught  in 
any  school  in  w^hich  it  pays  for  education.  Therefore 
they  call  upon  all  citizens  to  join  the  National  League 
for  the  Protection  of  American  Institutions  or  the 
A.  P.  A's,  and  vote  for  that  amendment. 

If  ever  there  was  an  un-American  institution  it  is 
the  present  system  of  godless  public  instruction  which 
this  League  and  all  its  equally  un-American  allies  are 
now  working  tooth  and  nail,  by  foul  means  as  well  as 
fair,  to  "protect,"  and  wh!bh,  as  we  have  seen,  they 
formerly  denounced  as  a  "  national  curse."  Who  calls 
the  present  system  of  schools  '  *  godless  ' '  ?  The  Catho- 
lics probably.  They  are  not  alone.  Hear  what  Dr. 
King  himself  called  it  ;  and  let  us  also  listen  to  the 
"demands,"  if  you  please,  which  he  went  on  to  make 
in  his  famous  address  : 

"  The  things  ive  must  demand:  In  view  of  the  facts  of  our 
history,  of  the  Christian  formation  and  rise  of  our  government, 
and  of  the  Christian  origin  of  our  state  schools ;  and  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  state,  so  founded  and  formed,  assumes  the  right 
to  educate  its  citizenship,  and  wherever  it  has  acted  definitely  it 
has  acted  upon  the  basis  of  Christian  morals,  and  has  not  con- 
sidered that  it  was  infringing  upon  the  rights  of  conscience  as 
protected  by  constitutional  provision  ;  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
any  adequate  education  for  responsible  citizenship  cannot  be  en- 
tirely secular,  we  demand,  as  an  ultimatum,  that  the  schools,  the 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U,  S,    297 

nurseries  of  our  citizenship,  shall  not  be  handed  over  to  godless 
instruction  and  divorced  from  Christian  moral  culture,  thus  be- 
cojning  the  nurseries  of  vice  and  imjnorality  where  God  is  ig- 
nored (Religion  and  the  State,  p.   16). 

"  The  attitude  we  ought  to  assume  in  case  our  rightful  de- 
mands are  not  conceded:  The  state,  failing  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  a  citizenship  made  up  of  accountable  beings,  and  the 
public  schools  becoming  godless,  and  therefore  necessarily  im- 
moral. Christian  citizens  must  deny  the  right  of  the  state  to  as- 
sume  to  give  such  an  inadequate  education. 

"  The  added  demands  that  we  believe  it  is  high  time  ive  an- 
nounced: Yes,  more  than  this.  I  am  about  convinced  that  the 
time  has  come  when  we  must  demand  that  the  state,  assuming 
to  teach  its  citizens  as  a  preparation  for  the  responsibilities  of  • 
citizenship,  must  not  only  recognize  Christianity  as  the  religion 
of  the  people,  in  conformity  with  historical  and  judicial  precedent, 
but  must  require  the  teaching  of  Christian  morality  wherever  edu- 
cation is  supported  by  taxation  or  by  state  grant  (I). 

"  And  not  only  must  we  insist  upon  the  common  schools 
teaching  Christian  morality,  but  when  the  state  (as  with  us) 
enters  upon  the  questionable  work  of  higher  education,  and  seeks 
to  prepare  teachers  for  their  work  in  the  common  or  higher 
schools,  then  we  must  put  the 'salt  of  Christian  morality  in  at 
these  fountain-heads,  or  make  up  our  minds  to  forfeit  the  respect 
both  of  God  and  of  good  men,  and  invite  a  reign  of  irresponsi- 
bility and  immorality. 

"  We  are  told  that  history  and  precedent  have  nothing  to  do 
with  this  question  in  its  present  demands  for  solution.  As  well 
might  the  individual  say  that  birth  and  educational  opportunity 
have  nothing  to  do  with  determining  present  duty.  We  are  told 
that  we  must  keep  retreating  until  we  reach  tenable  ground. 
This  is  the  cry  of  the  enemies  of  righteous  government  and  of 
humanity,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  echoed  by  the  lovers  of  goodness 
or  of  God. 

"  Is  it  not  time  for  the  populations  that  give  character  to  our 
civilization  and  stability  to  our  government  to  assert  themselves  ? 
Is  it  not  time  to  return  to  the  foundation  principles  upon  which 


298    Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S. 

our  liberties  and  integrity  as  a  nation  rest  ?  Is  it  not  time  to 
banish  this  sickly  sentimentality  that  under  the  hypocritical  con- 
cession to  religious  freedom  retreats  in  the  presence  of  secularism, 
of  Jesuitism,  and  of  atheism?"  {zbtd.,  pp.  19,  20). 

The  fling  at  ' '  Jesuitism  ' '  is  rather  unfortunate  at 
the  close  of  such  a  series  of  arguments,  all  of  which  the 
Jesuits  would  most  heartily  endorse. 

But  who  is  this  that  talks  so  forcibly  of  the  perils 
of  a  purely  secular  education  ;  who  declares  it  to  be 
' '  no  education  at  all  "  ;  who  quotes  the  warnings  of 
the  patriot  and  the  sage  against  such  a  false  system  ; 
who  denounces  the  non-sectarian  public  schools  as 
"godless,"  and  as  "nurseries  of  vice  and  immoral- 
ity"; who  boldly  denies  the  right  of  the  state  to  as- 
sume to  give  non-sectarian  education ;  who  appeals  to 
us  as  Christians  and  patriots  not  to  forfeit  the  respect 
both  of  God  and  of  good  men  and  invite  a  reign  of 
irresponsibility  and  immorality  by  upholding  this  secu- 
lar school  system  ;  who  cries  shame  upon  those  who, 
under  the  hypocritical  concession  to  religious  freedom, 
retreat  in  the  presence  of  secularism  and  of  atheism  ? 
Can  this  be  the  Reverend  Secretary  and  Supreme 
Manager  of  the  National  League  for  the  Protection  of 
American  Institutions  ?  Yea  !  my  Christian  American 
brethren  and  fellow-citizens,  this  is  none  other  than  the 
very  same  man.  And  now  you  and  I  are  able  to  know 
just  what  to  think  of  that  same  Secretary,  and  of  the 
society  which  he  represents,  and  of  its  principles, 
methods,  and  pretended  purposes. 

Dr.  King  offered  this  lecture  of  his  in  support  of  the 
attempt  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  to  pass  a  Consti- 
tutional Amendment  the  very  opposite  to  what  his  Na- 
tional I^eague  is  working  for  now  !     And  how  soon  he 


Christian  and  Patriotic  Education  in  the  U.  S,    299 

was  converted  !  He  laid  this  lecture  before  the  Con- 
gressional committee  in  the  very  same  year  and  not  far 
from  the  very  same  month  in  which  the  National 
League  was  founded,  with  himself  as  Secretary.  Who 
blows  hot  and  cold  in  one  breath  ? 

But  let  this  be  said  for  him  :  He  has  furnished  us 
with  a  clear,  definite,  and  powerful  exposition  of  the 
principles  of  Education,  every  sentence  of  which  is  fully 
endorsed  by  Catholics,  and  they  ought  to  be  as  fully 
endorsed  by  all  Protestants  calling  themselves  Chris- 
tians. His  pronouncements,  if  they  lack  in  anything, 
fail  to  regard  the  equal  religious  rights  of  other  citizens 
who  are  neither  Catholics  nor  Protestants.  In  their 
discussion  of  this  most  vital  question  Catholics  have 
never  ignored  these  rights  which  others  equally  hold 
with  themselves  under  our  common  Constitution,  but 
have  always  argued  that  the  school  system  should  be 
so  organized  as  to  perfectly  safeguard  them,  forcing  no 
one  to  submit  to  what  would  be  a  tyrannical  infring- 
ment  of  his  religious  freedom.  And  the  day  of  national 
peace  and  the  advancement  of  the  highest  interests  of 
the  nation's  welfare  will  only  dawn  when  this  question 
shall  be  settled  upon  this  only  just,  reasonable,  and  truly 
American  basis. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY. 

THE  title  of  this  chapter  is  borrowed  from  one  of  the 
sections  of  the  Introduction  to  Dr.  Carroll's  work, 
The  Religious  Forces  of  the  Ujiitcd  States;  my  purpose 
being  to  preface  the  list  of  the  Protestant  denominations 
I  shall  copy  from  his  pages  with  some  comments  of  my 
own  upon  certain  of  his  assumptions  concerning  the 
Church.  Dr.  Carroll  is  not  one  of  those  accusing 
enemies  of  our  holy  religion  whom  I  have  felt  bound  to 
hold  up  to  righteous  reprobation  in  the  course  of  this 
work.  Yet,  with  the  most  honest  intentions  in  the 
world  to  tell  what  he  believes  to  be  the  truth  about  the 
Church,  he,  like  most  other  such  fair-minded  and 
otherwise  fairl}-  intelligent  Protestant  friendly  critics,  in 
fact  misrepresents  her,  as  I  think  some  of  my  comments 
which  follow  will  clearly  show.     He  writes  : 

"  The  Christianity  which  prevails  in  the  United  States  is  ortho- 
dox and  evangelical.  These  terms  include  both  the  Catholics  and 
the  Evangelical  Protestants.  Together  they  constitute  the  great 
Christian  forces  which  possess  the  country  and  determine  its  re- 
ligious character.  The  Church  of  Rome  has  had  a  growth  in 
this  free  country  that  has  been  simply  phenomenal." 

Why  introduce  the  word  "free"  ?  There  is  just  a 
reasonable  suspicion  that  Dr.  Carroll  thinks,  wdth 
Protestants  generally,  the  Catholic  Church  ought  not 
to  find  a  congenial  soil  in  a  "free"  country.     L<et  me 

assure   him  that   wdiile   other  causes   specially   contri- 

300 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity.    301 

bute  to  the  Church's  phenomenal  increase  in  mere 
numbers,  it  is  not  at  all  to  be  set  down  as  •^phenomenon 
that  she  should  flourish  both  in  quality  and  in  quantity 
in  a  country  whose  fundamental  principles  of  liberty 
her  doctrines  specially  and  singularly  both  sanction 
and  uphold. 

"  Though  it  was  the  first  to  set  up  the  Christian  standard  on 
this  soil,  and  its  missionaries  were  pioneers  in  exploration  and 
settlement  in  the  great  West,  it  was  not  a  strong  Church  at  the 
close  of  the  colonial  period.  There  were  in  1784  hardly  30,000 
Catholics,  two-thirds  of  whom  were  in  Mar^-dand  and  Penn- 
sylvania, the  rest  being  widely  scattered.  Immigration  from 
Ireland  gave  the  Church  the  first  considerable  impulse  of  growth, 
and  immigration — Irish,  German,  French,  Italian,  and  other — has 
made  it  the  largest  and  most  composite  Church  in  the  United 
States.  The  only  wonder  is,  that  the  Church  could  receive  and 
care  for  such  masses  of  diverse  nationalities." 

Yes,  indeed  it  is  a  wonder  to  human  eyes.  But, 
you  see,  dear  friend,  that  however  diverse  the  nations 
and  tongues,  their  faith  was  one  and  the  same  both  in 
substance  and  in  the  strength  of  its  intelligent  and 
heartfelt  convictions.     So  the  wonder  passes. 

"  Its  energies  have  been  severely  taxed,  but  it  has  managed  to 
organize  and  equip  its  parishes  as  rapidly  as  necessity  required, 
and  in  recent  years  to  give  some  attention  to  its  educational 
facilities,  which  have  been  neither  excellent  nor  adequate." 

If  w^e  had  had  fair  play  in  the  matter  our  critic 
would  have  been  spared  making  that  last  remark. 
However,  I'll  not  stop  to  quarrel  with  the  statement; 
but  Dr.  Carroll  might  also  have  told  us  that  the  edu- 
cational facilities— say  of  the  Protestant  Church  or 
churches  throughout  the  vast  territory  of  the  Southern 


302     The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity, 

States,  among  a  population  of  whites  far  above  the 
mass  of  Catholics  in  social  condition  and  pecuniary 
resources — were  neither  as  excellent  nor  as  adequate 
even  as  ours. 

"  A  church  composed  so  largely  of  European  elements,  with 
an  episcopate  foreign  in  nativity  or  extraction,  education,  and 
ideas,  under  the  immediate  control  of  a  foreign  pope  and  his 
councilors,  would  hardly  be  expected  to  fall  in  at  once  with 
American  ideas,  particularly  with  that  idea  which  distinguishes 
our  system  of  popular  education  from  that  of  all  other  countries." 

Might  one  not  suggest  that  a  more  appropriate  read- 
ing than  "  with  that  idea,"  which  I  have  italicized, 
would  be  with  that  conditiojt  wdiich  distinguishes  our 
system  of  popular  education  as  the  result  of  an  experi- 
ment w^hicli  failed  from  the  start  to  regard  the  fun- 
damental American  principles  of  equal  rights  and  re- 
ligious liberty  ? 

"  Catholics  have  been  openly  hostile  to  our  public  schools,  de- 
nouncing them  as  godless  " — 

State  or  any  other  schools  entirely  wanting  in  reli- 
gious instruction  are  certainly  "godless,"  and  Catho- 
lics are  not  alone  in  so  denouncing  them.  The  reader 
has  had  evidence  already  of  that. 

" — protesting  against  the  injustice  of  being  taxed  for  the  support 
of  institutions  they  could  not  patronize,  and  insisting  that  they 
be  relieved  of  school-rates,  or  that  the  school  moneys  be  divided 
and  a  fair  share  given  to  Catholic  schools." 

Yes  ;  w^e  Catholics  are  freemen,  and  we  will  always 
protest  against  injustice.  Up  to  this  the  majority  of 
our  forty-nine  million  Protestant  fellow-citizens,  great 
lovers  of  liberty  and  justice  as  they  claim  to  be,  have 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity.    303 

for  some  reason  made  up  their  minds  to  play  the  tyrant 
in  our  regard  all  the  same.  It  is  not  the  first  instance 
of  the  like  in  the  history  of  Protestantism. 

"  The  determined  popular  resistanee  to  this  demand  increased 
Catholic  hostility  and  made  the  struggle  a  somewhat  bitter  one." 

That  is  how  a  Protestant  chooses  his  terms  when  he 
has  to  write  of  anything  Catholic.  Mark  them— "popu- 
lar ;w/^/rt //a  "  and  "Catholic  hostility ;'  as  if  Protest- 
ants were  standing  on  their  rights  and  defending  them- 
selves from  a  Catholic  hostile  attack.  That  is  the  talk 
of  the  A.  P.  A's  to-day. 

"  It  is  not  strange  that  many  Protestants  sliould  regard  a 
foreign  church,  with  foreign  ideas,  and  under  foreign  domination, 
as  a  menace  to  American  institutions." 

If  Dr.  Carroll  believes  just  what  he  asserts,  it  is 
very  strange  that  he  did  not  include  ' '  many  Catholics ' ' 
with  the  "many  Protestants."  For  if  the  charge  of 
foreignism  be  true,  Catholics  have  certainly  as  much 
intelligence  to  discern  that  fact  as  Protestants.  But 
the  charge  is  untrue,  and  the  many  Protestants  who 
think  it  well  founded  are  either  very  ignorant  or  very 
bigoted. 

Dr.  Carroll  had  already  sounded  his  pagan  alarm 
of  "  foreignism,"  and  now  he  makes  it  reverberate  with 
three-fold  power.  It  has  done  useful  service  in  the 
anti-Catholic  cause  many  a  time.  Now  I  have  this  to 
say,  and  I  wish  I  could  say  it  loud  enough  for  Protest- 
ants to  hear:  It  is  altogether  false  to  say  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  is  a  "  foreign  ' '  Church  in 
America  or  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  Because  it  is 
the    Church    of   a   very    large    number   of  foreign   im- 


304    The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity. 

migrants  in  America  does  that  give  Dr.  Carroll  or  any 
one  else  the  right  to  call  it  a  "  foreign  "  Church?  Yet 
that  is  about  the  only  reason  very  ignorant  and  preju- 
diced Protestants  have  for  so  styling  it.  Neither  has 
the  Catholic  Church  any  "ideas  "  that  are  in  any  sense 
foreign  to  true  American  ideas ;  on  the  contrar}^,  as  I 
have  already  said,  Catholic  doctrines  sanction  and 
uphold,  as  the  doctrines  of  no  other  religious  body  do, 
true  American  principles  of  liberty,  equal  rights  and 
the  ability  of  the  people  for  self-government.  Neither 
is  the  Catholic  Church  or  its  people  in  America,  or  any- 
where else  in  the  world,  under  "foreign"  domination. 
Viewing  the  true  relation  between  Catholics  and  the 
Pope  as  the  head  of  their  Church,  and  the  high-priest 
of  their  religion,  the  "domination"  he  exercises  over 
them  cannot  possibly  be  one  that  is  ' '  foreign  ' '  to  any 
country.  The  supremacy  of  the  Pope  is  equally  at 
home  anywhere  under  the  sun.  How  can  one  suppose 
that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  should  have  founded  a 
Church,  or  promulgated  a  religion  which  would  prove 
to  be  "foreign"  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
and  a  menace  to  American  or  to  any  other  ' '  institu- 
tions "  that  would  have  a  right  to  exist  ?  Divine  truth 
and  divine  law  can  now^here  be  foreign,  nor  can  the 
profession  of  the  one,  or  obedience  to  the  other  possibly 
imperil  any  humanly  good  institution. 

Christianity  is  a  universal  religion,  altogether  inde- 
pendent of  any  nationality.  A  Catholic  is  bound  to  be, 
and  can  be,  truly  obedient  to  the  law^  of  Christ,  of  which 
the  Pope  is  the  supreme  judge  and  executive,  and  be 
none  the  less  a  loyal  American,  Chinaman,  English- 
man. Japanese,  or  Italian.  To  say  that  Catholics  can- 
not at  the  same  time  be  loyal  Americans  is,  therefore, 
an  accusation  as  absurd  as  it  is  unjust. 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity.    305 

How  long  will  Protestants  continue  to  treat  all  our 
protestations  against  this  charge  as  if  we  were  un- 
worthy of  belief?  Do  the}^  really  think  us  base  enough 
to  combine  in  keeping  up  such  a  lie  ? 

Self-respecting  controversialists  should  drop  this 
odious  and  ill-founded  plea  ;  and  it  is  not  a  little  sur- 
prising to  find  it  cropping  up  in  such  a  work  as  that  of 
Dr.  Carroll's.  I  find  some  sentiments  on  this  subject 
worth  quoting  in  the  reported  address  of  Professor 
Edmund  J.  Wolf,  D.D.,  of  Gettysburg,  Pa.,  delivered 
at  the  Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  Bos- 
ton, December  6,  1889.  Dr.  Wolf  is  presumably  a 
Lutheran,  and  the  title  of  his  address  is  "Our  Debt 
and  Duty  to  the  Immigrant  Population."  He  thus 
begins  : 

"  Contempt  of  foreign  nationalities  is  the  mark  of  paganism. 
Christianity  gives  honor  to  all  men.  It  teaches  them  that  all  are 
made  of  one  blood.  It  recognizes  in  every  man  a  divine  image. 
.  .  .  Those  whom  nationality,  language,  usages  have  placed 
afar  off,  are  brought  nigh  by  the  blood  of  Christ.  Under  the 
reign  of  the  Gospel  there  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  barbarian  nor 
Scythian,  American  or  European,  Anglo-Saxon  or  Mongolian. 

"  Certainly,  in  proportion  as  the  mind  of  our  Lord  is  in  us,  race 
antipathies  disappear.  Yet  the  foreigner  still  finds  himself  at  a 
great  disadvantage  in  [Protestant]  Christian  lands,  and  encounters 
cruel  prejudice  even  from  Christian  churches. 

"  American  birth  is  no  patent  of  nobility  ;  the  native  is  born  to 
no  moral  or  intellectual  purple.  Yet  not  to  have  enjoyed  this 
privilege  is  often  viewed  as  a  mark  of  inferiority.  People  in  a 
peculiar  garb,  with  a  peculiar  brogue,  having  peculiar  manners, 
and  possibly  slight  peculiarities  of  culture,  betray  a  foreign  na- 
tivity, and  though  these  several  characteristics  are  intrinsically 
not  beneath  our  standard,  yet  the  foreign  stamp  on  them  raises  a 
barrier  of  coldness,  of  distrust,  of  estrangement — unless  the  spirit 
of  Christ  in  us  discerns   under   the   uncommon   exterior   fellow- 


3o6    The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity. 

citizens  with  the  saints  and  of  the  household  of  God.  The 
American  people  have  weighty  considerations  to  take  a  large 
Christian  view  of  the  immigration  problem.  The  noblest  princi- 
ples that  underlie  our  boasted  political  structure  call  on  us  to 
extend  the  hand  of  welcome  to  the  stranger,  and  the  mixed  blood 
in  our  veins  must  warm  our  hearts  toward  his  approach,  unless 
with  ignoble  irreverence  the  interval  of  a  generation  or  two  has 
made  men  oblivious  of  their  European  ancestry." 

Dr.  Wolf  goes  on  to  picture  the  immense  benefit  it 
is  to  this  country  to  receive  such  vast  numbers  of 
persons  of  vigorous  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral 
qualities,  well  worthy  to  interblend  with  our  own 
people,  and  proving  themselves  able  to  take  rank  with 
Americans  in  every  station  of  life. 

They  being  largely  Protestant,  he  goes  into  greater 
detail  about  the  German  and  Scandinavian  immigrants, 
and  especially  about  the  treatment  they  receive  at  the 
hands  of  their  fellow- Protestants  in  America,  and  he 
reads  the  Protestant  American  ' '  churches  ' '  a  rather 
severe  lesson  thereon  : 

"  Often  the  greatest  discouragements  with  which  these  breth- 
ren have  to  contend  are  the  endeavors  of  American  shepherds 
to  discredit  their  work,  to  disturb  their  flocks,  to  entice  away  their 
simple  sheep;  now  holding  out  worldly  inducements,  now  plying 
them  with  sectarian  fanaticism,  impugning  the  soundness  of  their 
faith,  or  claiming  for  themselves  a  monopoly  of  God's  grace,  en- 
deavoring by  this  means,  by  all  means  to  build  up  their  own 
organizations  from  the  membership  of  German  and  Swedish 
churches." 

Oh,  dear  me!  is  this  indeed  true?  What  follows 
also  applies  to  Evangelical  work  for  Catholic  im- 
migrants : 

"  It  will  not  do  at  this  day  to  make  the  pretext  of  offering 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity.    307 


these  people  a  better  religion.  We  have  had  enough  of  that  cant. 
The  times  of  this  ignorance  are  happily  past  [I  fear  Dr.  Wolf  is 
mistaken];  with  millions  of  our  native  population  in  ignorance  of 
the  gospel  and  outside  of  the  Church,  you  cannot  convince  the 
world  that  you  are  sacrificing  yourself  for  humanity  when  you  are 
manifestly  blocking  the  path  of  others  whose  self-sacrificing  de- 
votion is  not  questioned." 

Now  comes  the  plea  which  is  made  for  interfering 
with  the  language,  customs,  and  religion  of  foreigners, 
Protestant  and  Catholic — they  must  be  Americanized, 
and  that  immediately.  Dr.  Wolf  treats  such  a  pretext 
as  it  deserves  : 

"  Our  cherished  institutions,  it  is  claimed,  are  in  danger  from 
these  large  foreign  communities  if  they  be  not  promptly  in- 
corporated with  our  religious  organizations  and  fused  into  the 
more  distinctively  American  forms  of  Protestantism.  Political  ad- 
vantages are  tlius  made  a  cover  for  sectarian  proselytism.  The 
interests  of  the  church  are  subordinate  to  those  of  the  state. 
This,  rightly  interpreted,  makes  the  country  the  end,  the  church 
the  means,  and  the  amalgamation  of  foreigners  into  our  American 
life  the  foremost  task  of  the  church.  It  is  enough  here  to  re- 
mind those  who  entertain  this  plea  that  the  Lord  Jesus  did  not 
die  to  Americanize  men,  but  to  save  them  from  their  sins.  .  .  . 
If  they  are  thus  redeemed  they  will  surely  make  good  citizens, 
etc." 

And  to  my  joy  Dr.  Wolf  calls  to  mind  a  similar 
sentiment,  **  the  golden  words  addressed  to  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  Conference  two  years  ago  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  that  Association" — Dr.  Josiah  Strong.  I  find 
his  words  following  hard  upon  solemn  warnings  and 
forebodings  becoming  that  well-known  enemy  of  ' '  Ro- 
manism," all  about  "the  policy  of  Ultramontanism 
which  is  fraught  with  imminent  danger  to  our  institu- 
tions," and   the  necessity   of    organizing  the  forces  of 


3o8    The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity, 

Protestantism  in  order  to  avert  these  dangers  by  forcing 
the  Catholic  children  into  secular  schools,  where  "there 
is  little  danger  of  their  being  made  the  minions  of  a 
foreign  potentate."  Yes,  even  Dr.  Josiah  Strong  could 
and  did  say  : 

"  Christ  did  not  die  to  save  our  country  ;  his  agony  was  not 
for  institutions.  The  only  way  to  elevate  our  civilization  is  to 
elevate  our  citizens.  The  only  way  to  save  institutions  is  to  save 
men.  But  we  shall  not  save  men  if  we  seek  them  for  the  sake  of 
our  institutions  and  our  civilization.  They  were  made  for  man, 
not  man  for  them.  And  we  shall  fail  of  the  lower  unless  we  aim 
at  and  achieve  the  higher." 

Now,  I  may  say  in  passing  that  the  Catholic 
Church  does  not  object  to  the  coming  out  of  such 
prophets  to  curse  her  as  Dr.  Josiah  Strong,  especially 
when  the}^  conclude  the  burden  of  their  *  woe  ' '  with 
such  true  sentiments.  There  is  just  another  sentence 
or  two  from  Dr.   Wolf  worth  quoting : 

"  Foreigners  who  are  in  great  haste  to  renounce  with  their 
native  land  the  noblest  and  best  possessions  it  gave  to  them 
[their  religious  training],  in  whom  religious  and  moral  principles 
are  so  superficially  rooted  that  they  can  throw  them  aside  on 
landing  here,  must  be  prima  facie  an  ignoble  class.  A  self- 
respecting  people  who  cherish  their  sacred  traditions,  in  whom 
truth  and  righteousness  have  become  ingrained,  whose  faith  is 
identified  with  their  very  being,  and  who  are  set  against  religious 
innovations,  is  an  element  worth  having." 

And  this  sensible  thinker  saj'S  a  good  word  apropos 
of  how  it  looks  from  the  other  side.  If  foreigners  are 
distrusted  because  they  are  foreigners,  it  must  be 
remembered  that   we  are   also  foreigners  to  the   immi- 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity.    309 

grant.      Kven    of    Protestant     immigrants     Dr.    Wolf 
tells  us : 

"  They  do  not  know  the  voice  of  strangers.  They  distrust  it. 
They  misapprehend  it.  American  clergymen  are  just  as  much 
strangers  to  them  as  they  are  to  America,  and  the  American's  reH- 
gion  [Protestant  Americans'  rehgion,  if  you  please,  Dr.  WolfJ» 
with  its  divisions,  its  rivalries,  its  baldness  of  worship,  its  emo- 
tionalism and  demonstrative  piety,  strikes  them  as  something 
very  strange." 

And  here  is  a  word  of  wholesome  counsel  in  whose 
favor  Catholics  also  might  well  be  included  : 

"  If  we  were  not  restrained  by  sectarian  bias  and  jealousy,  if 
we  were  more  imbued  with  the  wisdom  and  spirit  of  the  gospel, 
we  should  long  ago  have  effected  organizations  to  aid  those 
Christian  immigrants  in  their  evangelization  of  their  countrymen 
alo7ig  the  line  of  their  ow7i  usages  and  traditions.  A  co-opera- 
tion like  this  would  repress  the  rampant  denominationalism  which 
is  the  reproach  and  the  weakness  of  our  American  [Protestant] 
Christianity.  It  may  not  be  the  Antichrist,  as  some  have  thought, 
yet  it  doubtless  is  the  demon  of  our  American  system  which,  by 
common  consent,  must  be  cast  out." 

It  might  be  thought  proper  that  I  should  speak  of 
the  characteristics  of  our  American  Catholic  Chris- 
tianity, if  for  no  other  reason  than  to  draw  a  compari- 
son between  our  united  religious  forces  and  the*  dis- 
cordant and  divided  ones  of  Protestantism.  But  I 
think  the  presentation  of  such  a  contrast  is  not 
needed.  All  I  care  to  say  is  that  those  who,  like 
Dr.  Carroll,  imagine  they  see  a  difference  in  the  char- 
acter of  "American  Catholicism"  and  *' foreign  Ro- 
manism" are  very  much  mistaken,  especially  on  the 
score    of    its    being    an     alleged     improvement    upon 


3IO    The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity, 

European  Catholicism  "in  giving,"  as  our  critic 
thinks,  "to  our  communicants  a  better  and  truer 
gospel  than  in  those  countries  where  it  does  not 
come  into  contact  with  Protestantism."  The  real 
effect  of  Catholicism  coming  into  contact  with  Protes- 
tantism will  be  shown  in  the  chapters  on  Crime  and 
Immorality. 

I  left  this  and  other  reflections  on  the  character  and 
influence  of  the  Catholic  Church  by  Dr.  Carroll  stand- 
ing to  allow  Dr.  Wolf  and  Dr.  Strong  to  have  their 
say  on  ' '  foreignism  ' '  a^nd  ' '  Americanization  for  its 
own  sake,"  and  although  there  is  still  matter  for  more 
comment  in  Dr.  Carroll's  Introduction,  my  limited 
space  obliges  me  to  proceed  at  once  to  lay  before  the 
reader  the  list  he  gives  of  American  Protestant  sects, 
which  is  quite  proof  enough  of  our  ' '  rampant  denomi- 
nationalism  " — "the  demon  of  our  American  Protes- 
tant system  of  religion,"  and  truly  a  great  "reproach 
and  weakness  of  our  American  Protestant  Chris- 
tianity." 

That  the  breaking  away  from  the  Church  in  the 
first  place,  and  this  ever-increasing  dissolution  of  Prot- 
estantism into  smaller  and  all  the  more  opinionated 
sects,  is  a  manifestation  of  the  spirit  of  Antichrist, 
would  appear  to  be  foretold  by  St.  John  the  Apostle  : 

"Now  there  are  become  many  Antichrists.  They  went  out 
from  us ;  but  they  were  not  of  us.  For  if  they  had  been  of  us, 
they  would,  no  doubt,  have  remained  with  us ;  but  that  they  may 
be  manifest,  that  they  are  not  all  of  us "  (I.  Epist.  St.  John, 
chap.  ii.  18,  19). 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity,    311 


PROTESTANT     DENOMINATIONS     IN      THE     UNITED 
STATES.— ra;w//^  of  i8go.) 
Adventists: 

1.  Evangelical. 

2.  Advent  Christians. 

3.  Seventh-Day. 

4.  Church  of  God. 

5.  Life  and  Advent  Union. 

6.  Church  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
Baptist: 

1.  Regular  (North). 

2.  Regular  (South). 
S.  Regular  (Colored). 
\.  Six-Principle. 

5.  Seventh-Day. 

6.  Freewill. 

7.  Original  Freewill. 

8.  General. 

9.  Separate. 

10.  United. 

11.  Baptist  Church  of  Christ. 

12.  Primitive. 

13.  Old  Two  Seed  in  the  Spirit  Predestinarian. 
Brethren  (River)  : 

1.  Brethren  in  Christ. 

2.  Old  Order  of  Yorker, 

3.  United  Zion's  Children. 
Brethren  (Plymouth)  : 

1.  Brethren  (I). 

2.  Brethren  (II). 

3.  Brethren  (III). 

4.  Brethren  (IV). 
Catholics  (self-styled)  : 

1.  Old  Catholic. 

2.  Reformed  Catholic. 
Catholic  Apostolic. 
Christadelphians. 
Christians: 

1.  Christians  (Christian  Connection). 

2.  Christian  Church,  South. 


312    The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity, 

Christian  Missionary  Association. 

Christian  Scientists. 

Christian  Union.  • 

Church  of  God  (Winnebrenerian). 

Church  Triumphant  (Schweinfurth). 

Church  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 

Communistic  Societies  : 

1.  Shakers. 

2.  Amana. 

3.  Harmony. 

4.  Separatists. 

5.  New  I c aria. 

6.  Altruists. 

7.  Adonai  Shomo. 

8.  Church  Triumphant  (Koreshan  Ecclesia). 
Congregationalists. 

Disciples  of  Christ, 
dunkards: 

1.  Dunkards  or  German  Baptists  (Conservative). 

2.  Dunkards  or  German  Baptists  (Old  Order). 

3.  Dunkards  or  German  Baptists  (Progressive). 

4.  Seventh-Day  Baptists,  German. 
Evangelical  Association. 
Friends: 

1.  Friends  (Orthodox). 

2.  Friends  (Hicksite). 

3.  Friends  (Wilburite). 

4.  Friends  (Primitive). 
Friends  of  the  Temple. 
German  Evangelical  Protestant. 
German  Evangelical  Synod. 
Latter-Day  Saints: 

1.  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-Day  Saints. 

2.  Reorganized  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-Day  Saints. 
Lutherans: 

General  Bodies: 

1.  General  Synod. 

2.  United  Synod  in  the  South. 

3.  General  Council. 

4.  Synodical  Conference. 


The  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity,    3 1 3 

Independent  Synods  : 

1.  Joint  Synod  of  Ohio,  etc. 

2.  Buffalo  Synod. 

3.  Hauge's   Synod. 

4.  Norwegian  Church  in  America. 

5.  Michigan  Synod. 

6.  Danish   Church  in  America. 

7.  German  Augsburg  Synod. 

8.  Danish  Church  Association. 

9.  Icelandic   Synod. 

10.  Immanuel  Synod. 

11.  Suomai   Synod. 

12.  United  Norwegian  Church  of  America. 
Independent  Congregations. 

Mennonites: 

1.  Mennonite. 

2.  Bruederhoef. 

3.  Amish. 

4.  Old   Amish. 

5.  Apostolic. 

6.  Reformed. 

7.  General  Conference. 

8.  Church  of  God  in  Christ. 

9.  Old   (Wisler). 

10.  Bundes  Conference. 

11.  Defenceless. 

12.  Brethren  in  Christ. 
Methodists: 

1.  Methodist  Episcopal. 

2.  Union   American  Methodist  Episcopal. 

3.  African    Methodist  Episcopal. 

4.  African   Union  Methodist  Protestant. 

5.  African    Methodist  Episcopal  Zion. 

6.  Zion  Union   Apostolic. 

7.  Methodist    Protestant. 

8.  Wesleyan    Methodist. 

9.  Methodist    Episcopal.  South. 

10.  Congregational    Methodist. 

11.  Congregational    Methodist  (Colored). 

12.  New   Congregational  Methodist. 

13.  Colored    Methodist  Episcopal. 

14.  Primitive    Methodist. 

15.  Free    Methodist. 

16.  Independent   Methodist. 

17.  Evangelist  Missionary. 


314    ^-^^  Characteristics  of  American  Christianity. 

Moravians. 
Presbyterians  : 

1.  Presbyterian  in  the  United  States  of  America  (Northern). 

2.  Cumberland  Presbyterian. 

3.  Cumberland  Presbyterian  (Colored). 

4.  Welsh  Calvinistic  Methodist. 

5.  United   Presbyterian. 

6.  Presbyterian  in  the  United  States  (Southern). 

7.  Associate   Church  of  North  America. 

8.  Associate    Reformed  Synod  of  the  South. 

9.  Reformed    Presbyterian  in  the  United  States  (Synod). 

10.  Reformed  Presbyterian  in  N.  America  (General  Synod). 

11.  Reformed  Presbyterian  (Covenanted). 

12.  Reformed  Presbyterian  in  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
Protestant  Episcopal  : 

1.  Protestant  Episcopal. 

2.  Reformed  Episcopal. 
Reformed  : 

1.  Reformed  Church  in  America. 

2.  Reformed  Church  in  the  United  States. 

3.  Christian  Reformed. 
Salvation  Army. 
Schwenkfeldians. 
Social  Brethren. 
United  Brethren  : 

1.  United  Brethren  in  Christ, 

2.  United  Brethren  in  Christ  (Old  Constitution). 
Unitarians. 

Universalists. 

Independent  Congregations  (156  in  number). 

The  true  and  only  successful  way  to  cast  out  this 
"demon"  of  denominationalism,  whose  name  is 
"Legion,"  is  for  all  these  unhappily  divided  Protest- 
ants to  unite,  and  by  common  consent  hear  the  paternal 
invitation  of  the  Holy  Father  of  Christendom  to  return 
to  the  One  Fold  under  the  One  Shepherd. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

EDUCATION   IN   ROME. 

THE  accusation  so  persistently  repeated  by  our  ene- 
mies, and  so  readily  credited  by  the  Protestant 
public,  that  the  Church  is  the  friend  of  ignorance  and 
opposed  to  education,  is  made  to  back  up  the  old,  long- 
standing calumny,  that  she  hates,  because  she  dreads, 
the  light,  that  ignorance  is  essential  to  her  life  and  the 
secret  of  her  power. 

If  this  accusation  had  the  least  foundation  in  truth 
then,  of  all  places  in  the  world,  the  City  of  Rome  ought 
to  furnish  the  clearest  exemplification  of  this  alleged 
benighting  policy.  Schools  ought  always  to  have  been 
very  rare  in  that  centre  and  stronghold  of  the  religion 
that  lives  and  thrives  by  ignorance.  One  would  take 
it  for  granted  that  anything  like  a  free  school  there  was 
never  heard  of.  And,  if  anybody  should  ever  have  at- 
tempted to  undermine  the  papal  throne  and  the  very 
foundations  of  the  Catholic  Church  itself  by  daring  to 
open  such  a  school,  of  course  he  must  have  been  seized 
at  once,  thrown  into  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition, 
and,  after  having  been  properly  tortured,  left  there  to 
rot  and  die. 

Now  it  happens  that  there  was  just  such  a  man, 
Giuseppe  Calasanzio  by  name,  and,  strange  to  say,  by 
profession  a  Catholic  priest,  and  it  was  in  the  year 
1597  when  he  did  this  very  deed.  And  not  only  once, 
"  but  ever  so  many  times.  The  fact  is,  he  is  the  founder 
of  the  first  fy^ee- school  system.     What  did  Rome  do  to 

3^5 


3i6  Education  in  Rome, 

this  man  ?  Only  this :  she  canonized  him  as  a  saint, 
and  named  him  as  the  holy  patron  of  all  schools  for  the 
common  people,  and  especially  of  all  fire  schools. 
Every  priest  in  the  whole  world  to-day  celebrates  at  the 
altar  the  festival  of  this  Catholic  saint  of  free  schools. 

But,  if  this  Saint  Giuseppe  Calasanzio  brought  free 
schools  under  a  system,  then  such  schools  must  have  ex- 
isted before?  Most  certainly.  Rome  had  always  been 
solicitous  to  provide  for  the  education  of  children,  and 
here  is  good  evidence  of  it,  evidence  standing  for  over 
four  hundred  years  before  that  saint  himself  was  born. 

In  1 179  Pope  Alexander  III.,  at  the  third  Council  of 
Lateran,  had  the  following  decree  passed  :  "  Since  the 
Church  of  God,  like  a  tender  mother,  is  bound  to  pro- 
vide for  the  poor,  both  in  those  things  that  appertain 
to  the  aid  of  the  body,  and  in  those  which  belong  to  the 
advancement  of  the  soul ;  lest  the  opportunity  should  be 
wanting  to  those  poor  children  who  cannot  be  aided  by 
their  parents,  let  a  competent  benefice  be  founded  in 
every  cathedral  church  and  assigned  to  a  teacher, 
whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  teach  the  clerks  and  poor 
scholars  of  the  same  church  gratuitously ,  by  which 
means  the  support  of  the  teacher  may  be  assured  and 
the  way  to  instruction  opened  to  learners.  lyCt  this 
practice  be  restored  in  other  churches  and  monasteries 
if,  in  times  past,  anything  was  set  apart  for  this  pur- 
pose. But  let  no  one  exact  a  price  for  granting  per- 
mission to  teach." 

Popes,    prelates,    and    priests    have    always   shown 
themselves  to  be  of  one  mind  ever  since  with  this  Pope 
Alexander.     What  is  the  result  as  witnessed   to-day  ?  ■ 
Free  education,  in  Rome  itself,  from  the  great  Roman 
University  down  through  its  colleges  and  seminaries  to 


Education  in  Rome.  3  \  7 

the  last  of  its  numerous  schools,  forms  one  of  the  most 
striking  and,  to  all  but  its  calumniators,  the  most  pleas- 
ing features  of  the  great  Capital  of  the  Christian  world. 
The  university  and  all  the  other  institutions  of  higher 
education  in  Rome  are y)r^.  Of  what  other  city  in  the 
world  can  the  same  be  said  ?  A  comparativel}^  small 
number  of  pupils  in  the  parish  schools  pay  a  small  sum 
to  aid  in  their  support.  When  next  my  reader  hears 
the  charge  made  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
her  popes  and  her  priests,  are  all  foes  to  education,  let 
him  stand  up  on  his  feet  and  tell  the  speaker  that  his 
assertion  is  false,  that  Rome  herself  is  the  Founder  of 
the  Free- School  system. 

Now  let  us  hear  a  little  Protestant  testimony  about 
Rome  and  look  at  a  few  figures.  Laing,  in  his  Notes 
of  a  Traveller^  thus  discourses  of  the  state  of  education 
in  Rome  : 

"  In  Catholic  Germany,  in  France,  Italy,  and  even  Spain,  the 
education  of  the  common  people  in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic, 
music,  manners,  and  morals  "  (which  last  two  elements  of  true 
education  should  be  printed  in  capitals)  "  is  at  least  as  generally 
diffused  and  as  faithfully  promoted  hy  the  clerical  body  as  in  Scot- 
land. It  is  by  their  own  advance,  and  not  by  keeping  back  the 
advance  of  the  people,  that  the  Popish  priesthood  of  the  present 
day  seek  to  keep  ahead  of  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  com- 
munity in  Catholic  lands,  and  they  might,  perhaps,  retort  on  our 
Presbyterian  clergy,  and  ask  if  they,  too,  are  in  their  countries  at 
the  head  of  the  intellectual  movement  of  the  age  }  Education  is, 
in  reality,  not  only  not  repressed,  but  is  encouraged  by  the  Popish 
Church,  and  is  a  mighty  instrument  in  its  hands  and  ably  used. 

•'  In  every  street  in  Rome,  for  instance,  there  are  at  short  dis- 
tances public  primary  schools  for  the  education  of  the  children  of 
the  lower  and  middle  classes  in  the  neighborhood.  Rome,  with  a 
population  of  158,678  souls,  has  372  public  primary  schools,  with 


3 1 8  Education  in  Rome. 

482  teachers  and  14,099  children  attending  them.  Has  Edin- 
burgh so  many  pubHc  schools  for  the  instruction  of  those  classes  ? 
I  doubt  it.  Berlin,  with  a  population  about  double  that  of  Rome, 
has  only  264  schools.  Rome,  also,  has  her  university,  with  an 
average  attendance  of  660  students,  and  the  Papal  States,  with 
a  population  of  2,500,000  (in  1846),  contain  seven  universities. 
Prussia,  with  a  population  of  14,000,000  (nearly  six  times  as 
great),  has  but  seven  universities." 

"  These  are  amusing  statistical  facts — and  instructive  as  well 
as  amusing — when  we  remember  the  boasting  and  glorying 
carried  on  a  few  years  back,  and  even  to  this  day,  about  the  Prus- 
sian educational  system  for  the  people,  and  the  establishment  of 
governmental  schools,  and  enforcing  by  police  regulation  the 
school  attendance  of  the  children  of  the  lower  classes. 

"  The  statistical  fact  that  Rome  has  above  a  hundred  schools 
more  than  Berlin,  for  a  population  little  more  than  half  of  that  of 
Berlin,  puts  to  flight  a  world  of  humbug  about  systems  of  national 
education  carried  on  by  governments  and  their  moral  effects  on 
society." 

Now,  just  here  I  must  call  attention  to  the  singular 
value  of  the  evidence  of  this  Scotch  Calvinist,  who  was 
no  friend  of  the  education  of  the  "  lower  classes,"  and 
was  bitterly  opposed  to  the  ' '  state  taking  up  the  trade 
of  teaching,  monopolizing  the  business,  and  enforcing 
by  law  and  regulation  the  consumption  of  a  certain 
quantity  in  every  family  out  of  the  government  shops  " 
(pp.  402-3). 

But  how  can  I  say  that  he  was  no  friend  of  the  edu- 
cation of  the  "lower  classes  "  when  he  had  just  lav- 
ished such  high  praise  upon  what  Rome  had  so  suc- 
cessfully done,  far  away  and  ahead  of  Protestant  Prus- 
sia ?     Listen  to  this  : 

"  It  is  very  much  owing  to  the  zeal  and  assiduity  of  the  priest- 
hood in  diffusing  instruction  in  the  useful  branches  of  knowledge 


Education  in  Rome.  319 

that  the  revival  and  spread  of  Catholicism  have  been  so  consider- 
able among  the  people  of  the  Continent.  .  .  .  The  Catholic 
clergy  adroitly  (!)  seized  on  education,  and  not,  as  we  suppose  in 
Protestant  countries,  to  keep  the  people  in  darkness  and  igno- 
rance, and  to  inculcate  error  and  superstition;  but  to  be  at  the 
head  of  the  great  social  influence  of  useful  knowledge,  and  with 
the  conviction  "  [O  wily  Roman  priesthood  !]  "  that  this  knowl- 
edge— reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  all  such  acquirements — 
is  no  more  thinking,  or  an  education  leading  to  thinking,  and  to 
shaking  off  the  trammels  of  popish  superstition,  than  playing  the 
fiddle,  or  painting,  or  any  other  acquirement  to  which  mind  is 
applied  "  (p.  405). 

So  it  appears  that  Rome  is  not  to  be  praised  after  all 
for  taking  the  lead  in  educating  the  common  people,  but 
to  be  reviled  for  the  cunning  of  its  priesthood  in  spread- 
ing knowledge  among  them  as  the  surest  means  of 
binding  them  more  securely  with  the  ' '  trammels  of 
its  popish  superstition  "  !  That  is,  the  education  of  the 
people  is  sure  to  result  in  the  ' '  spread  of  Catholi- 
cism ' ' ;  and  as  a  champion  of  Calvinism — the  stoutest 
form  of  Protestantism — he  is  opposed  to  this  powerful 
means,  devised  by  wily  Romish  priests,  of  keeping  up, 
and  securing  from  the  Protestant  ranks  new  adherents 
and  slaves  to,  its  popish  superstition.  This  is  what  he 
meant  by  saying  that  the  statistical  facts,  apparently 
witnessing  to  the  glory  of  Rome,  were  ''  i7istructive  3.^ 
well  as  amusing."  The  long  and  the  short  of  it  is,  the 
Catholic  Church  must  be  reviled  and  downed  in  any 
case.  In  their  own  countries,  where  Protestants  have 
the  floor,  she  is  to  be  reviled,  and  falsely,  for  keeping 
the  people  in  ignorance  ;  and  lo  !  the  travelled  Protest- 
ant philosopher,  finding  Rome  leading  the  most  en- 
lightened countries  in  the  world  in  teaching  the  people, 
tells  us  she  is  to  be  reviled  because  she  does  7iot  keep 


320  Education  in  Rome, 


them  in  ignorance.  Whence  Protestants  are  to  receive 
' '  instruction  ' '  that  the  ' '  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge 
among  the  lower  classes"  is  a  dangerous  thing  for 
Protestantism  to  encourage  ;  for  by  it,  it  is  only  lending 
its  aid  to  the  spread  of  Catholicism  ! 

Now,  I  presume  to  find  also  some  instruction  from 
these  facts  and  Protestant  contradictions,  and  it  is  this. 
The  clear-headed,  philosophical  Scotchman  is  right. 
Education — that  is,  education  in  its  true  sense,  not  the 
mere  acquirement  of  the  means  of  knowledge,  for 
which  he  justly  censures  the  Prussian  system — is  un- 
questionably one  of  Rome's  most  powerful  means  of 
spreading  her  Catholic  faith  ;  and  the  Protestant  falsi- 
fiers know  this  perfectly  well  to  be  true,  and  tremble 
every  hour  at  the  sight  of  her  alarming  increase. 
They  wish  it  were  in  truth  otherwise,  and  as  the  wish 
is  father  to  the  thought,  they  boldly  declare  that  the 
Catholic  Church  does  keep  the  people  in  ignorance, 
and  is  opposed,  tooth  and  nail,  to  the  spread  of  edu- 
cation;  thus  vainly  comforting  themselves  by  a  self- 
deceiving  assertion  of  what  they  wish  were  true  ;  since 
if  Rome  really  did  keep  her  people  uninstructed,  there 
might  be  some  hope  of  Protestantism  gaining  over 
some  of  them  as  converts,  instead  of  it  all  being  just  the 
other  way — Protestantism  losing  its  very  best,  most 
enlightened,  and  choicest  souls  to  swell  the  ever-increas- 
ing numbers  of  the  advancing  Catholic  hosts.  I  think 
that  is  somewhat  instructive,  although  my  Protestant 
readers  may  not  find  it  very  amusing. 

And  here  we  find  a  clear  explanation  of  what  would 
otherwise  remain  an  insoluble  mystery — the  anti- 
education  penal  laws  of  Protestant  England,  declar- 
ing all  Catholic  Irish  schoolmasters  to   be  felons   and 


Education  in  Rome.  321 

traitors,  and  their  being  transported  and  hanged  ac- 
cordingly. Rome  must  be  hindered  from  strengthening 
herself  by  the  spread  of  education  in  Ireland,  even  if  it 
takes  the  brand  of  the  felon  and  the  hangman's  rope  to 
stop  her ! 

Let  us  look  at  a  few  figures  presenting  a  general 
view  of  the  state  of  education  in  Rome  at  a  date  when 
that  city  was  wholly  under  papal  rule.  I  copy  from  the 
Roman  official  municipal  Report  for  1869,  which  I 
happen  to  have  at  hand,  and  which  is  probably  the  last 
one  issued  by  the  papal  government — Siato  delle  a7iime 
dell'  alma  Citth  di  Roma  per  V anno  i86g  : 

SCIENTIFIC   INSTITUTIONS. 

students. 

The  Roman  University,     .         .         .        .        .        ,  1,300 

Lyceum  of  Pontifical  Seminary, 786 

Roman  College, 1,225 

The  Propaganda, 264 

Roman  Gymnasium  of  Philosophy,    ....  91 

College  of  St.  Thomas, 91 

College  of  St.  Bonaventura, 12 

Technical  Institute  of  Geodesy  and  Iconography,         .  60 

Total, 3,829 

ACADEMIC    INSTRUCTION. 
Pupils  in  68  convent  schools  and  conservatories,      .  1,738 

Pupils  in  various  charitable  institutions,       .         .         .      1,216 

Total, 2,954 

ELEMENTARY    INSTRUCTION. 

Pupils  in  44  schools  (all  free)  for  boys,         .         .         .      6,341 
Pupils  in  District  schools  in  all  parishes  (paying  a  small 

sum), 1,567 

Pupils  in  61  schools  (all  free)  for  girls,     .         .         .  6,490 

Pupils  in  9  schools  (paying),         .         .         .         .  .553 

Pupils  in  District  schools  in  all  parishes  (paying),     .         2,171 


322  Education  in  Rome, 

The  number  of  District,  or  "Regionary,"  schools 
added  to  the  others  brings  the  whole  number  of  schools 
up  to  about  400. 

SUMMARY. 

^PUPILS.-N 

Male  Instruction.  Free.  Pay. 

Scientific  institutions, 3,829  — 

Elementary  schools, 6,341  1,567 

Female  Instruction. 

Convent  schools  and  conservatories,       .       .  2,954  553 

Elementary  schools, 6,490  2,171 

Totals, 19,614        4,291 

Grand  total,  23,905.  Population  of  Rome  at  the  same  date, 
220,532. 

From  the  foregoing  table  the  reader  will  see  that  the 
number  of  the  student  population  of  Rome  as  compared 
with  the  total  population  of  the  city  is  very  high.  The 
showing  certainly  forbids  all  adverse  criticism.  Here 
we  have  23,905  pupils  or  students,  of  all  ages  and  con- 
ditions, who  were  receiving  public  instruction ;  and, 
with  the  exception  of  some  small  fees  paid  in  the  dis- 
trict schools  and  in  a  few  schools  taught  by  the  sisters, 
the  whole  of  the  education,  from  that  given  in  those 
renowned  institutions,  the  Roman  University  and  Ro- 
man College,  down  to  that  of  the  ordinary  common 
parish  school,  was  then  fi^ee. 

Besides  this  properly  public  instruction  there  are 
reported  in  1869  some  841  inmates  in  the  various 
ecclesiastical  institutions  of  learning — The  Roman, 
Pius,  Vatican,  French,  North  and  South  American 
Seminaries,  and  the  numerous  colleges  of  different 
nationalities — The  Urban,  German-Hungarian,  two 
English,    Scotch,    Irish,     Greek-Ruthenian,     Belgian, 


Education  in  Rome.  323 

German,  Polish,  Caprariaii,  Pampliilian,  and  lyom- 
bard. 

Rome  educates  not  only  her  own  children,  but  other 
nations  gladly  avail  themselves  of  her  unstinting  gen- 
erosity to  send  theirs  to  share  in  the  bountiful  and 
rare  intellectual  feast  which  she  spreads. 

As  to  the  University,  the  Roman  College,  and  other 
such  institutions  imparting  a  superior  education,  the 
best  testimony  to  their  merit  is  the  fact  that,  like  those 
who  aspire  to  excel  in  art,  scholars  esteem  themselves 
most  highly  favored  who  can  become  pupils  in  Rome. 
That  centre  of  Christendom  is  the  Capital  of  the  Chris- 
tian scholar  and  the  Christian  artist. 

Catholicism  creates  a  congenial  atmosphere  where 
flourish,  side  by  side,  learning,  piety,  and  the  worship 
of  the  beautiful :  and  it  is  in  Rome  that  one  finds  the 
memories  cherished  of  great  numbers  of  those  who 
under  her  tutelage  have  worthily  claimed  the  admira- 
tion of  the  Church  and  of  the  world  for  their  pre- 
eminence in  sacred  and  profane  science,  for  their  mar- 
vellous sanctity  and  their  unrivalled  works  of  artistic 
genius. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

HIGHER    EDUCATION— UNIVERSITIES. 

I  THINK  it  has  been  sufficiently  well  proved  in  a 
former  chapter,  under  the  head  of  Illiteracy  and 
Ignorance,  that  the  standard  of  general  intelligence 
among  a  people  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  percent- 
age of  their  illiteracy,  taking  illiteracy  in  its  strict 
sense — the  inability  to  read  and  write — but  that  a  good 
test  of  the  popular  mental  culture  may  be  found  in  the 
number,  character,  and  flourishing  condition  of  the 
schools  of  higher  learning,  such  as  colleges  and  univer- 
sities, which  they  have  created. 

An  ignorant  populace  does  not  establish  these  seats 
of  advanced  science,  nor  does  it  fill  them  with  thou- 
sands of  students  gathered  from  the  same  nation,  and 
also  attracted  to  their  halls  of  learning  by  the  fame  of 
their  professors  from  distant  parts  of  the  world.  The 
very  best  test  of  this  character  and  standard  of  the 
popular  intelligence  is  to  be  found  in  the  number  and 
deservedly  high  reputation  of  those  particular  institu- 
tions of  advanced  science  known  as  universities. 

So  we  may  say  in  truth,  that  where  universities 
abound,  there  general  intelligence  abounds  in  all 
classes  of  the  people.  What  is  more,  institutions  of 
this  sort,  not  to  speak  of  the  various  kinds  of  schools  of 
a  lower  order,  have,  with  few  exceptions  of  a  late  date, 
owed  their  foundation,  encouragement,  and  prosperity 


Higher  Education — Universities,  325 

to  the  inspiration,  sanction,  and  fostering  care  of  Re- 
ligion.    All  past  history  attests  this. 

Therefore,  a  very  just  comparative  estimate  may  be 
made  of  the  beneficent  influence  of  Catholicism  and 
of  Protestantism  in  promoting  the  general  intelligence 
of  a  people  under  their  respective  control  by  examining 
a  faithful  exhibit  of  what  each  has  done  in  the  way  of 
founding  and  raising  to  a  high  standard  of  excellence 
these  seats  of  superior  learning. 

Europe  offers  us  the  best  means  of  making  the  fair- 
est comparison  possible,  and  certainly  it  presents  the 
most  favorable  field  for  Protestantism  to  show  what 
fruits  of  this  kind  it  has  been  able  to  produce. 

Before  coming  to  vStatistical  proofs  I  beg  the  reader 
to  peruse  the  following  extract  from  the  pen  of  a  well- 
known  English  Protestant  writer,  whose  words  will 
admirably  serve  as  an  introduction  to  this  chapter  : 

Mr.  Edmund  Ffoulkes  writes  : 

"As  little  can  it  be  denied  that  the  glories  of  the  thirteenth 
century  were  due  to  the  vigorous  reforms  inaugurated  by  St. 
Gregory  VII.  and  his  successors,  as  that  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries  witnessed  a  very  extensive  declension  of  manners 
and  discipline,  though  by  no  means  of  civilization.  Even  on  the 
former  head,  were  I  writing  a  church  history,  there  would  be 
some  extenuating  circumstances  to  be  produced  in  behalf  of  a 
period  during  which  upwards  of  fifty  universities  were  founded  in 
all  parts  of  Europe  ;  gorgeous  cathedrals  of  the  stamp  of  Orvieto, 
Sienna,  Milan,  Strasburg,  Winchester  (as  restored  by  William  of 
Wykeham),  Toledo,  and  Seville  erected;  professorial  chairs  for 
the  study  of  Hebrew  and  Chaldee,  Greek  and  Arabic,  ordained 
by  a  General  Council  for  Rome,  Paris,  Oxford,  Bologna,  and 
Salamanca.  No  less  than  tv/enty  printed  editions  of  the  Bible 
were  brought  out  in  High  or  Low  German  alone  between  A.  D. 
1460  and  the  age  of  Luther;    upwards  of  twelve    hundred  books 


326  Higher  Education — Universities, 

issued  from  the  printing-presses  of  Italy  alone,  between  A.  D. 
1471-80.  For  commentators  on  the  Bible,  it  could  boast  of 
Tostatus  and  Nicholas  of  Lyra;  for  masters  of  the  inner  life, 
John  Tauler  and  Thomas  a  Kempis ;  for  ideal  artists,  Fra  Angel- 
ico  and  Fra  Bartolomeo.  It  was  not  behindhand  in  men  and 
women  of  the  saintly  graces  of  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  St.  Brid- 
get, St.  Elizabeth  of  Portugal,  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  and  St.  John 
Cantius ;  of  the  ardent  philanthropy  of  Bartholomew  de  las 
Casas ;  of  the  splendid  abilities  of  Cardinal  Ximenes,  or  the 
splendid  munificence  of  William  of  Wykeham  and  Wainflete" 
{Christendoms  Divisions,  vol.  i.  p.  130). 

Now  let  us  have  some  evidence  in  support  of  the 
truth  of  Mr.  Ffoulkes's  obser\^ations. 

In  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Education  for  1889-90,  vol.  i.  pp.  561-72,  will  be 
found  several  lists  of  foreign  universities.  The  first 
list  arranges  them  according  to  the  date  of  their 
foundation.  They  are  copied  from  a  work  entitled 
Minei'va,  Jahrbuch  dcr  Universitixteii  der  Welt.  A 
more  accurate  and  reliable  list  is  to  be  found  in 
Haydn's  Dictionary  of  Dates  (Harper  &  Brothers,  New 
York),  the  figures  of  which  generall}^  coincide  with 
those  given  in  another  standard  work,  Encyclopcedia 
of  CJironology,  Woodward  and  Cates  (Longmans  & 
Co.,  London). 

The  following  table  of  European  universities  is  com- 
piled from  these  sources,  omitting  those  founded  by 
Russia  and  other  Greek  Orthodox  countries.  Where 
the  dates  are  not  the  same,  those  given  by  Haydn  or 
Woodward  and  Cates  have  been  chosen. 


Higher  Education —  Universities. 


327 


UNIVERSITIES   FOUNDED  BY  CATHOLICS. 


late  of 

Locality. 

1385- 

found- 
ation. 

Before  the  13///  century. 

1386. 

433- 

Bologna,  Italy. 

1390. 
1394- 

630. 

Cambridge  England. 

700. 

Cracow,  Poland. 

729. 

Paris,  France. 

802. 

Oxford,  England. 

1403. 

830. 

Lyons,  France. 

1405. 

926. 

Louvain,   now  in  Bel- 

1409. 

gium. 

1409. 

968. 

Cordova,  Spain. 

1411. 

II45. 

Rheims,  France. 

Total,  9. 

1419. 

Thirteenth  Century. 

1422. 

1209. 

Valencia,  Spain. 

1431. 

1224. 

Naples,  Italy. 

1436. 

1228. 

Padua,  Italy. 

1439- 

1229. 

Toulouse,  France. 

1440. 

1233- 

Salerno,  Italy. 

1445- 

1239. 

Salamanca,    Spain, 

1450. 

from  Palencia,  1208. 

1450. 

1245. 

Rome,  Italy. 

1454- 

1253- 

Sorbonne,  France. 

1456. 

1264. 

Ferrara,  Italy. 

1460. 

1289. 

Montpellier,  France. 

1460. 

Total,  10. 

1460. 

Fourteenth  Century. 

1465. 

1305- 

Orleans,  France. 

1465. 

1307. 

Perugia,  Italy. 

1472. 

1308. 

Coimbra,    Portugal, 

1473- 

from  Lisbon,  1279. 

1474. 

1339- 

Grenoble,  France. 

1476. 

1343- 

Pisa,  Italy. 

1476. 

1346. 

Valladolid,  Spain. 

1348. 

Prague,  Austria. 

1477. 

1349- 

Perpignan,  France. 

1477- 

1360. 

Pavia,  Italy. 

1477- 
1482. 

1364. 

Angers,  France. 

1364. 

Anjou,  France. 

1491. 

1365. 

Vienna,  Austria. 

1494. 
1498. 

1365. 

Orange,  France. 

1368. 

Geneva,  Switzerland. 

1499. 

1380. 

Siena,  Italy. 

Cologne,  Germany. 
Heidelberg,  Germany. 
Erfurt,  Germany. 
Palermo,  Italy. 

Total,  19. 

Fifteenth   Century. 
Wurzburg,  Germany. 
Turin,  Italy. 
Leipsic,  Germany. 
Aix,  France. 
St.     Andrew's,    Scot- 
land. 
Rostock,  Germany. 
Dole,  France. 
Poitiers,  France. 
Caen,  France. 
Florence,  Italy. 
Mechlin,  Germany. 
Catania,  Italy. 
Glasgow,  Scotland. 
Barcelona,  Spain. 
Valence,  France. 
Greifswalde, Germany. 
Nantes,  France. 
Basel,  Switzerland. 
Fribourg.  Germany. 
Bourges,  France. 
Budapest,  Hungary. 
Bordeaux,  France. 

Treves,  Germany. 

Saragossa,  Spain. 

Copenhagen,        Den- 
mark. 
Upsala,  Sweden. 

Tubingen,  Germany. 

Mentz,  Germany. 

Innspruck,  Germany. 

Parma,  Italy. 

Munster,  Germany. 

Aberdeen,  Scotland. 

Madrid,  Spain. 

Toledo,  Spain. 

Total,  34. 


328 


Higher  Education —  Universities, 


Date  of  Locality. 

found- 
ation. Sixteenth  Century. 

1502.  Wittenberg,  Germany. 

1504.  Seville,  Spain. 

1506.  Frankfort,  Germany. 

1506.  Breslau,  Germany. 

1 517.  Compostella,  Spain. 

1517-  Siguenza,  Spain. 

1532.  Santiago,  Spain. 

1533.  Evora,  Portugal. 
1537.  Granada,  Spain. 
1540.  Macerata,  Italy. 
1548.  Messina,  Italy. 
1562.  Sassari,  Italy. 

1564.  Besan^on,  France. 

1565.  Dillengen    (Suabia), 

Germany. 

1568.  Douai,  France. 

1568.  Braunsberg,  Germany. 

1572.  Nancy,  France. 

1578.  Wilna   (Polish),   Rus- 
sia. 

1580.  Klausenburg,    Hun- 
gary. 

1580.  Orviedo,  Spain. 

1585.  Gratz,  Austria. 

1592.  Venice,  Italy. 

Total,  22. 
Seventeetith  Century. 

1603.  Cagliara,  Italy. 

1606.  Parma,  Italy. 

1614.  Paderborn,    Germany. 


1621.     Strasburg    (Alsace), 

Germany. 
1623.     Salzburg,  Austria. 
1665.     Bruges,  France. 
1671.     Urbino,  Italy, 

Total,  7. 
Eighteenth  Century, 

1722.     Dijon,  France. 

1722,     Pau,  France. 

1727.     Camerino,  Italy. 

1743.     Erlangen,    Bavaria, 
Germany. 

1780.     Grosswardein,      Hun- 
gary. 

1784.     Lemberg,  Austria. 
Total,  6. 
Nineteenth  Century. 

1808.     Clermont,  France. 

1808.     Rennes,  France. 

1816.     Liege,  Belgium. 

1816.     Ghent,  Belgium. 

1826.     Munich,     Germany, 

from  Ingolstadt,i472 

1834.     Brussels,  Belgium. 

1862.     Drumcondra    (Catho- 
lic), Ireland. 

1874.  Agram,  Hungary. 

1875.  Czernowitz,  Austria. 
1882.     Prague    (Bohemia), 

Austria. 
1888.     Lille,  France. 

Total,  II. 


Anterior  to  the  religious  revolt  of  Protestantism, 
Roman  Catholic  nations,  always  with  the  approval  and 
encouragement  of  the  popes,  had  founded,  as  we  see,  72 
universities  in  Europe.  The  number  generally  claimed 
is  66.  Among  these  universities  founded  by  Catholics 
before  the  Reformation  we  find  the  names  of  most  of 
those  which  have  attained  the  greatest  renown,  several 
of  which  are  now  in  the  hands  of  Protestants,  as  are 
also  so  many  hundreds  of  the  great  architectural  monu- 


Higher  Education — Universities.  329 

ments  of  religion,  the  fruits  of  the  wonderful  genius  of 
Catholic  architects  and  sacrifices  of  the  Catholic  people. 
In  Catholic  times  those  now  Protestantized  universities 
had  their  thousands  of  students ;  nowada3'S  more  than 
one  thousand  is  a  number  to  boast  of.  And  the  same 
is  true  of  the  comparative  number  of  worshippers  in  the 
Protestantized  churches  and  cathedrals. 

Let  us  make  a  summary  of  the  foregoing  list : 


SUMMARY. 

France, 

20 

England, 

Italy, 

.   15 

Portugal, 

Germany, 

•   15 

Poland, 

Spain, 

7 

Belgium, 

Austria, 

2 

Hungary, 

Scotland, 

3 

Sweden, 

Switzerland,     . 

-> 

Denmark 

Total  of  universities  founded  before  the  Reformation,  72. 

Since  the  "  light  of  the  Reformation  dawned  on  the 
former  benighted  and  besottedly  ignorant  Catholic 
Europe,"  as  is  the  custom  of  revilers  of  the  Catholic 
religion  to  say,  the  new  foundations  of  other  universi- 
ties by  Catholic  nations  remaining  true  to  their  faith, 
and  thus  depriving  themselves  of  the  new  Protestant 
"  light,"  were  as  follows,  as  reported  in  our  list : 


France, 

8 

Hungary,       . 

3 

Italy, 

.     8 

Belgium,   . 

•     3 

Spain,    . 

6 

Alsace, 

2 

Austria,     . 

.    4 

Portugal, 

.     I 

Germany, 

9 

Ireland, 

I 

Polish  Russia, 

.     I 

Total 

.46. 

Total  of  all  universities  founded  in  Europe  by  Catholics,  118. 


330 


Higher  Education —  Universities, 


The  following  is  a  list  of  all  the  universities  founded 
by  Protestants  as  reported  in  the  sources  quoted. 
There  are  several  institutions  named  as  universities  in 
the  list  given  by  the  Commissioner  of  Education 
which  are  omitted,  as  on  examination  they  were 
found  to  be  only  colleges. 


UNIVERSITIES  FOUNDED  BY  PROTESTANTS. 


Date  of 
found- 
ation. 

1527. 

1544. 

1558. 
1565. 

1575- 
1583. 
1585. 

1591. 


1604. 
1607. 
1632. 
1632. 

1636. 
1640. 
1665. 


Locality. 

Szxteejtth  Centitry. 

Marburg,  Germany. 

Konigsberg,      Ger- 
many. 

Jena,  Germany. 

Helmstadt,     Germany 
(extinct). 

Leyden,  Holland. 

Edinburgh,  Scotland. 

Franeker,         Holland 
(extinct). 

Dublin,  Ireland. 

Total,  8. 

Seventeenth  Century. 

Groningen,  Holland. 

Giessen,  Germany. 

Amsterdam,  Holland. 

Dorpat,      (German) 
Russia. 

Utrecht,  Holland. 

Abo,  Finland. 

Kiel,  Germany. 


1666.     Lund,  Sweden. 
1694.     Halle,  Germany. 
1694.     Dresden,  Germany. 
Total,  10. 

Eighteenth  Century. 
1735.     Gottingen,  Germany. 
1737.     Christiania,  Norway. 
Total,  2. 

Nineteetith   Century. 
1809.     Berlin,  Germany. 
181 8.     Bonn,  Germany. 
1826.     London,  England. 
1832.     Zurich,  Switzerland. 
1832.     Durham,  England. 
1834.     Berne,  Switzerland. 
1 83-      Geneva,  Switzerland. 
1878.     Stockholm,  Sweden. 
1880.     Dundee,  Scotland. 
1880.     Victoria,  England. 
1 89 1.     Lausanne,    Switzer- 
land. 

Total,  II. 


SUMMARY. 


Germany, 
Switzerland, 
Holland,      . 
England,    . 


12 
4 
4 
3 


Sweden, 

Scotland, 

Ireland, 

Norway, 

Finland. 


Total  of  all  universities  founded  in  Europe  by  Protestants,  31 


Higher  Education —  Un iversities.  331 

So  with  all  the  light  furnished  to  the  Christian 
nations  of  Europe  by  Protestantism,  and  with  all  its 
boasting  of  having  "  emancipated  the  human  intellect," 
it  has  not  been  able  to  get  ahead  of  ' '  benighted 
Romanism,"  or  even  to  equaLit. 

Here  is  a  singular  fact.  When  England  became 
Protestant  she  possessed  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  both 
famous  universities  founded  by  Catholics.  One  would 
think  that  the  English  having  their  intellects  eman- 
cipated from  the  darkness  of  Romanism,  there  would 
presently  be  a  perfect  blaze  of  light  shining  out  from  a 
rapidly  increasing  number  of  these  halls  of  advanced 
learning.  What  is  the  truth  ?  Under  its  Protestantism 
these  two  Catholic  universities  more  than  sufficed  for 
England's  intellectual  wants,  for  the  number  of  their 
students  decreased,  and  has  never  since  come  up  to 
what  it  was  in  Catholic  times — a  good  proof  of  the  com- 
paratively lower  standard  of  general  intelligence  and 
popular  desire  for  advanced  literary  culture  prevailing 
in  England  ever  since  the  Reformation. 

Worthy  of  their  high  reputation  as  are  these  two 
celebrated  universities,  the  number  of  students  now^  at- 
tracted to  their  halls  from  other  nations  is  comparatively 
small.  In  Catholic  days  great  numbers  flocked  thither 
from  all  parts  of  Europe.  As  to  their  former  numbers, 
w^e  are  told  that  there  were  in  Oxford  in  the  year  1209, 
3,000  students;  in  1231,  30,000;  in  1263,  15,000;  in  1350, 
between  3,000  and  4,000,  and  in  1360,  6,000. 

They  were  able  to  hold  their  own  pretty  well  with 
their  rivals  on  the  Continent,  among  which  were  Bo- 
logna in  the,  thirteenth  centur}-,  with  its  10,000 
scholars,  and  Paris  w^ith  40,000. 

The  reader  who  chooses  to  examine  the  history  of 


332  Higher  Education —  Universities, 

the  two  great  English  universities,  and  who  notes  the 
extraordinary  efforts  they  had  to  make  to  keep  them- 
selves from  becoming  extinct,  and  of  how  much  of  their 
property  they  were  despoiled  by  Protestant  ravishers, 
royal  and  commonal,  might  fairly  be  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  early  English  Protestantism  knew  almost  as  little 
what  to  do  with  those  renowned  Catholic  seats  of  learn- 
ing as  the  Anglican  Church  Establishment  has  known 
what  use  to  make,  other  than  as  curiosities  to  be  exhib- 
ited, of  the  glorious  old  Catholic  cathedrals  and  churches 
which  Protestantism  did  not  destroy  or  suffer  to  fall 
into  picturesque  ruin.  We  all  know  what  Protestant- 
ism did  with  those  hundreds  of  other  halls  of  learnine, 
hardly  inferior  to  the  universities,  and  every  one  of 
w^hich  was  a  centre  of  popular  schooling  and  of  charity, 
for  the  people  in  its  neighborhood  ;  that  is,  the  monas- 
teries, of  large  domain  and  wath  magnificent  buildings. 
All  these  institutions,  the  protectors  and  patrons  of 
learning,  were  suppressed,  to  become  the  homes  of  the 
powerful  and  over-rich  royalty  and  aristocracy  which 
Protestantism  created,  and  afterwards  pampered  in 
preference  to  using  its  influence  to  preserv^e  these  insti- 
tutions of  learning  and  extend  their  benefits  more 
widely.  In  Catholic  times  all  the  finest  productions  of 
architectural  art  were  temples  of  religion,  homes  of 
study  and  prayer,  and  halls  of  learning.  Upon  what 
buildings  is  the  w^ealth  of  money  and  of  art  lavished  by 
Protestantism  to-day  in  ever}^  country  ? 

One  more  remarkable  fact  deserves  to  be  noted.  It 
was  not  until  the  very  recent  date  of  1826 — nearly  three 
hundred  years — that  rich  and  powerful  Protestant  Eng- 
land felt  the  need  of,  or  was  inspired  by  its  Protestant- 
ism to  create,  more  universities  than  Catholics  had  left 


Higher  Education —  Universities.  333 

to  it  ready  made.  And  what  sort  of  new  universities 
did  it  create?  London  Universit3^  like  the  Royal 
University  of  Ireland,  is  only  an  examining  board  for 
some  colleges.  Victoria  University  is  the  title  of 
several  associated  colleges:  and  Durham,  the  third 
one,  is  a  university  founded  as  late  as  1832,  reported 
now  in  1890  as  having  only  215  students,  with 
one  college  in  England,  one  in  Barbadoes,  and  one 
in  Sierra  Leone  ! 

Some  more  results,  noted  by  the  same  Report  al- 
ready quoted,  are  worth  looking  at.  Of  the  new  uni- 
versities founded  by  Catholics  since  the  Reformation, 
it  will  be  seen  that  as  many  of  them  are  able  to 
show  more  than  1,000  students  as  those  founded  by 
Protestants. 

But  now  perhaps  we  shall  find — taking  into  account 
the  university  work  achieved  by  Protestants,  not  only 
in  the  comparatively  less  renowned  ones  they  founded 
themselves,  but  including  also  the  numerous  ones  they 
seized  out  of  the  glorious  72  which  Catholics  had  al- 
ready founded — that  Protestants  have  left  Catholics  far 
and  away  behind  them.  There  is  a  practical  test  to 
offer  for  that :  the  comparative  number  of  students  re- 
ported to-day  for  a// the  best  ones,  able  to  show  1,000 
or  more  students. 

Number  having  over 
1,000  students. 

Protestant  universities,  okl  and  new,  21 

Catholic  "  "      "         "  29 

(Commissioner's  Report,  page  563.) 

Reference  to  the  Encyclopcsdia  Britayinica  shows  that 
"  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  only  two  universities  (out 
of  the  present   21    in   the  German  Empire)   had  more 


334  Higher  Education — U7iiversities. 


than  a  thousand  students;  at  present  there  are  nine" 
(article  "  Universities  "). 

It  is  needless  to  remind  the  reader  that  twenty-five 
years  ago  Germany  was  more  Protestant  than  it  is  now. 
The  same  authority  tells  us  that  ' '  in  point  of  discipline 
and  of  moral  control  over  the  students  the  universities 
of  Germany  must  be  pronounced  inferior  even  to  the 
English  ones." 

The  waiter  of  the  article  in  the  Encyclopcsdia  takes 
this  singular  way  of  explaining  the  altogether  re- 
markable reorganization  of  the  Catholic  intellectual 
forces  in  Europe  at  a  time  when  they  were  being  so 
fiercely  attacked  by  Protestantism  : 

"  The  repudiation  on  the  part  of  the  Protestant  universities  of 
both  papal  and  episcopal  authority  evoked  a  counter  demonstra- 
tion among  those  centres  which  still  adhered  to  CathoHcism,  while 
their  theological  intolerance  (?)  gave  rise  to  a  great  reaction, 
under  the  influence  of  which  the  mediaeval  Catholic  universities 
were  reinvigorated  and  reorganized— although  strictly  on  the 
traditional  lines — while  new  and  important  centres  were  created. 
It  was  on  the  tide  of  this  reaction,  aided  by  their  own  skill  and 
sagacity,  that  the  Jesuits  were  borne  to  that  commanding  position 
which  made  them  for  a  time  the  arbiters  of  education  in  Europe." 

The  reader  will  perceive  how  this  neat  "explan- 
ation ' '  chimes  in  wdth  that  of  our  friend  Laing,  as 
given  in  the  last  chapter  ;  and  with  a  similar  one  given 
by  Dr.  Wells  to  explain  why  the  persecuted  Catholics 
in  Mexico  established  two  schools  to  every  one  opened 
by  the  government  or  by  Protestants,  viz.,  "  not  to  rest 
any  longer  under  the  imputation  of  having  neglect- 
ed   education"    {A  Study   of  Mexico,  D.    A.  Wells,  p. 

lOl). 

But  now  Protestantism  has  been  long  claiming  for 


Higher  Education —  Universities.  335 

itself  the  title  of"  emancipator  of  the  human  mind." 
Will  some  one  be  good  enough  to  tell  us  in  what  quar- 
ter of  the  world  it  can  be  said  of  this  "emancipator," 
as  it  was  thus  truly  said  of  the  Jesuits,  that  it  has  been 
for  any  time  at  all  the  arbiter  of  education  ? 

What  better  evidence  could  there  be  than  this  result 
to  prove  that  Catholic  influence  far  surpasses  that  of 
Protestant,  not  only  in  promoting  general  intelligence, 
but  in  inspiring  in  the  masses  of  people  a  singular  love 
of  learning  and  desire  to  excel  in  it.  A  tree  is  known 
by  its  fruits.  The  universities  show  by  the  greater 
number  of  their  scholars  the  fruits  of  the  popular 
esteem  of  knowledge. 

There  is  another  test  for  comparison,  and  a  ver^^ 
critical  one,  too.  In  what  countries  do  we  find  to-day 
the  highest  percentage  of  university  students  compared 
with  the  population  ? 

Mulhall  thus  replies:  "The  number  of  university 
students  compared  with  population  is  much  greater  in 
Spain  and  Belgium  than  in  other  European  countries." 

So  I  turn  to  our  Commissioner's  Report  for  1888-89, 
vol.  i.  pages  82  and  245,  and  find  that  the  number  of 
pupils  in  the  English  universities  amount  to  8,802,  and 
those  in  Spain  at  the  same  date,  15,787-  "^^^  States- 
man's  Year  Book  for  1893  gives  the  population  of 
England  in  1887  as  27,826,798,  and  of  Spain  as  only 
16,945,786. 

With  a  population  of  only  6,000,000  Belgium  re- 
ports 4,252  strictly  university  students.  That  Catholic 
country  also  reports  such  a  great  number  of  students 
in  the  schools  of  the  Fine  Arts,  etc.,  that  I  am  led  to 
present  them : 


33^  Higher  Education — Universities, 

Students. 
Students  in  the  Universities,        ....         4,252 
Royal  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  Antwerp,     .         .         1,315 

Schools  of  Design, 14,565 

Royal  Conservatories  and  other  Schools  of  Music,   14,869 


Total, 35,001 

A  pretty  good  showing  for  Catholic  Belgium  with  its 
6,000,000  population — 35,001  students  receiving  a 
higher  education. 

Not  to  tire  the  reader  with  a  multiplication  of 
examples  strengthening  the  proof  of  the  superiority  of 
Catholic  nations  in  this  respect,  I  will  content  myself 
with  one  other : 

Ntnnber  of  Number  of 

Population.  Universities.  Students. 

Catholic  Italy,        .     28,000,000  21  16,922 

Protestant  Prussia,     29,000,000  11  13,483 

If  I  have  chosen  Spain  and  Italy  among  others  it  is 
because  they  are  the  chosen  targets  selected  b}^  revilers 
of  the  Catholic  Church  at  which  to  aim  their  heaviest 
blows  of  defamation. 

The  reason  for  the  higher  percentage  of  univer- 
sity students  compared  with  the  population  being  found 
in  Catholic  countries  is  this  :  In  Protestant  countries 
the  youth  are  encouraged  to  seek  a  career  which 
promises  wealth.  Hence  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  students  in  those  countries  who  limit  themselves  to 
what  is  called  the  "commercial  course"  in  study. 
In  Catholic  countries  they  are  led  to  aspire  rather 
after  excellence  in  some  spiritual  and  intellectual 
avocation. 

It  will  be  now  very  interesting  to  the  reader  to  see 
a  complete  list  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  universities 
in  Europe  existing  to-day,  and  the  number  of  students 
reported  in  attendance.     The    table  comprises    the  in- 


Higher  *  Education —  Universities.  337 

formation  given  in  the  Statesman' s  Year  Book,  1893, 
and  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Comniissio7ier  of  Edii- 
cation,  1889-90.  The  only  defect  is  the  lack  of  a  com- 
plete report  of  the  French  universities,  now  called 
"Facultes,"  of  which  there  are  thirty;  but  I  have 
given  only  twenty,  as  only  that  number  appear  to  give 
the  full  university  course  of  studies.  Of  the  students 
in  these  twenty  universities  proper,  I  find  only  the 
students  of  eleven  of  them  reported.  So  that  the 
number  accredited  to  France  should  be  much  higher. 

CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  UNIVERSITIES  IN 
EUROPE. 

CATHOLIC. 

Cotmtries.                                      Universities.  Students. 

Italy 21  16,922 

France, 20  17,083 

Austria-Hungary ii  18,097 

Spain, 10  16,000 

Belgium 4  4,252 

Catholic  German  States,      .            4  5,897 

Ireland,*      .....          i  — 

Total,       ...       71  78,251 

PROTESTANT. 

Countries.  Universities.  Students. 

Protestant  German  States,     .  14  17,863 

England, 4  8,340 

Scotland, 5  6,585 

Ireland, i  1,193 

Sweden, 2  2,405 

Norway, I  i,537 

Denmark, i  1,300 

Switzerland, 4  2,928 

Netherlands, 4  2,734 

Total,       ...  36  44,885 

*  The  Statesman's  Year  Book,  1893,  says  :  "  The  Catholic  University  of 
Ireland  [founded  1854]  includes,  besides  University  College,  Dublin,  seven 
other  Catholic  colleges."  The  number  of  its  university  students  is  not 
given.  The  "  Royal  University  of  Ireland  "  and  the  "  London  University  " 
are  not  included  in  the  above  list  for  reasons  already  noted. 


338  Higher  Education  —  Universities. 

UNIVERSITIES   WITH    BOTH    CATHOLIC    AND    PROTESTANT 
FACULTIES. 

Germany,  Bonn,  Breslau,  and  Tubingen,  ....     3,640 

SUMMARY. 

Universities.  Students. 

Catholic, 71  78.251 

Protestant, 36  44,885 

Equally  Protestant  and  Catholic,        3  3,640 

The  foregoing  table  needs  no  comment.  I  commend 
it  to  the  careful  inspection  of  every  fair-minded  person. 
Experience  forbids  the  hope  that  even  such  evidence 
would  be  enough  to  close  the  mouths  of  those  who 
make  a  business  of  defaming  everything  Catholic. 

UNIVERSITIES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Let  us  now  take  a  peep  at  home.  The  Commis- 
sioner's Report  for  1889-90,  vol.  ii.  page  788,  gives  us 
a  stimmar}^  of  all  the  higher  institutions  of  learning  in 
the  United  States,  including  both  universities  and  col- 
leges. The  total  amounts  to  415.  Only  99  of  them  are 
reported  as  "non-sectarian,"  of  which  there  are  44 
State  universities.  The  remaining  316  are  under  some 
kind  of  religious  control.    This  is  the  summary  in  brief  : 

DENOMINATION    OF    COLLEGES    AND    UNIVERSITIES. 

Non-Sectarian,       ....  99  Protestant  Episcopal,     .     .  6 

Methodist, 74  Reformed, 6 

Roman  Catholic 51  Friends, 6 

Presbyterian, 49  Universalist, 4 

Baptist, 44  Evangelical  Association,     .  2 

Congregational,     ....  22  German  Evangelical,      .     .  i 

Christian, 20  Seventh  Day  Adventist,      .  i 

Lutheran, 19  Swedenborgian,     ....  i 

United  Brethren,  ....  10 

Total,  415. 


Higher  Education — Universities.  339 

The  Report  signalizes  about  twelve  institutions  in 
the  United  States  that  appear  to  deserve  to  take  full 
rank  as  universities,  although  many  more  bear  the  title. 
The  Census  Report  gives  the  Catholic  population  as 
one-7iinth  of  the  whole.  Yet,  as  will  be  seen,  despite 
our  many  disabilities  in  comparison  with  Protestants, 
we  have  succeeded  in  establishing  one-eighth  of  all 
these  higher  institutions  of  learning.  Take  the  facts  as 
they  are.  We  are  quite  satisfied  with,  and  proud  to  be 
able  to  show,  such  a  truly  astonishing  result. 

The  reader  need  not  be  told  how  much  more  we 
would  surely  have  done  had  our  people  been  the  equals 
of  Protestants  in  financial  means  and  general  social 
condition,  and  had  not  been  so  heavily  burdened  with 
the  enormous  outlay  of  many  millions  required  for  the 
building  of  our  churches,  elementary  schools,  and  num- 
berless charitable  institutions. 

Again  I  say,  the  existence  of  a  college  or  university 
is  good  evidence  of  the  superior  general  intelligence  of 
all  classes  of  a  community  which  has  created  it.  Those 
51  Roman  Catholic  universities  and  colleges  bear  un- 
impeachable testimony  to  the  fact  that,  despite  the  in- 
ferior social  condition  and  advantages  of  the  majority  of 
them,  our  Catholic  Americans  possess  general  intelligence 
quite  equal  to  the  same  number  of  Protestant  Americans 
producing  the  same  number  of  such  institutions. 

Moreover,  excepting  a  few  strictly  Protestant  ones, 
and  some  of  the  State  universities,  surpassing  ours  in 
some  special  scientific  departments,  due  to  greater  mon- 
etary resources  and  to  longer  existence,  no  one  would 
pretend  to  assert  that  our  5 1  institutions  are  not  quite 
equal  in  every  respect  to  any  other  5 1  Protestant  ones 
of  the  same  class. 


340  Higher  Education —  Universities. 

Moreover,  I  think  one  might  safely  assert  without 
risk  of  question  that  the  same  number  of  Protestants 
of  equal  social  condition  and  means  would  not  have 
created  as  man}^  institutions  of  equal  merit. 

Again,  the  ver}^  existence  of  our  numerous  religious 
orders  of  men  and  women  devoted  to  teaching,  the  like 
of  which  Protestantism  has  nothing  to  show  ;  and  the 
thousands  of  colleges  and  female  academies  the}^  have 
erected  and  conducted  all  over  the  world,  bear  irrefraga- 
ble testimony  to  the  superior  general  intelligence  of  the 
Catholic  people  and  to  their  high  esteem  for  polite 
learning. 

UNIVERSITIES  IN  vSOUTH  AMERICA. 

After  all  that  w^e  constantly  hear  of  the  "  besotted  " 
condition  of  South  America,  and  of  the  high  percentage 
of  illiteracy  reported  as  evidence  of  that  condition,  I 
will  content  myself  with  mentioning  the  universities 
which  I  find  reported  by  the  Statesman' s  Year  Book  and 
the  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education. 

The  number  of  students  is  not  fully  reported. 

Argentine  Republic,    ...     2       Peru, 3 

Bolivia, 5       Salvador, i 

Chili, I       Uruguay I 

Colombia 2       Venezuela, 2 

Ecuador, i 

Total  universities  in  South  America,  18. 

Brazil  and  other  South  American  States  not  men- 
tioned are  reported  as  having  several  colleges,  schools 
of  law,  medicine,  etc. 

I  pointed  out  the  fact  that  all  the  great  universities 
of   Kurope   had   been   founded  by  Catholics,  many  of 


Higher  Education — Universities.  341 

them  centuries  before  Protestantism  came  into  exist- 
ence. Some  of  my  readers  may  have  asked :  How, 
then,  did  so  many  of  them  come  to  decline  in  their 
eminence  in  learning,  and  in  the  numbers  of  their 
scholars  just  following  the  rise  of  Protestantism?  The 
answer  is  contained  in  the  question.  They  declined 
because  of  Protestantism,  which  showed,  especially  in 
its  beginnings,  the  greatest  hostility  to  education,  and 
set  back  the  magnificent  work  the  Catholic  Church  was 
engaged  upon  by  the  religious  wars  it  instigated,  its 
violent  suppression  of  numberless  educational  orders, 
and  wholesale  confiscations  of  the  monasteries,  schools, 
colleges,  and  universities.  Protestantism  robbed  the 
schools,  drove  out  the  school  teachers — some  they 
hanged,  others  they  exiled — appropriated  Qr  burned 
the  magnificent  libraries,  and  left  the  whole  field  of 
education  wherever  its  influence  was  felt  to  become  a 
desolate  waste  {History  of  the  Reformatioji,  Cobbett  ; 
Henry  VHI.  and  the  English  Monasteries,  F.  A.  Gas- 
quet,  London) .  Let  us  hear  what  Luther  thought  of 
the  seats  of  high  learning.  He  says:  "The  devil 
never  invented  more  cunning  and  more  pernicious 
means  to  root  up  utterly  the  gospel  of  Christ  than 
the  design  of  founding  the  universities."  And  again, 
that  "the  academies  are  figured  by  the  idol  Moloch," 
as  Philip  Melanchthon  in  his  book,  entitled  Didymus, 
had  said  before  him,  when  he  commended  the  English 
heretic  Wycliffe  for  his  wisdom  in  that  he  was  "the 
first  man  to  see  that  the  academies  were  synagogues  of 
Satan" — '' Qid  omnium  primus  vidit  aeademias  esse 
SatancB  synagogasr  But,  afterwards  Luther  lamented 
the  decay  of  the  universities  and  the  disuse  of  the 
honors  with  which  kings  and  people  had  treated  learn- 


342  Higher  Education —  Universities. 


ing  in  Catholic  times.  "  Formerly,"  said  he,  "  masters 
of  art  were  honored ;  one  carried  lighted  flambeaux 
before  them.  It  was  a  great  festival  when  doctors  were 
made.  One  went  round  the  city  on  horseback  ;  one 
put  on  one's  best  clothes.  All  that  is  no  more;  but  I 
wish  that  good  custom  were  revived. ' '  ( Michelet,  Meyti. 
de  Luther,  iii.  107,  and  Digby's  Ages  of  Faith,  book  viii. 
chap.  V.) 

It  would  appear  that  England  suffered  more  from 
the  destroying  hand  of  Protestantism  than  any  other 
country  in  the  loss  of  eminent  schools  of  learning. 
Before  the  Reformation  there  were  nearly  three  hundred 
halls  and  private  schools  at  Oxford,  besides  the  colleges  ; 
there  were  only  eight  halls  remaining  towards  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  century  (Phillips's  Life  of  Car- 
dinal Pole,  part  i.  p.  220,  quoted  in  Cobbett's  History  of 
the  Protestant  Reformation). 

At  the  present  time  Oxford  has  five  halls  and  twen- 
ty-three colleges.  All  these  halls  and  twelve  of  the 
colleges  were  founded  before  15 16.  Cambridge  has  nine- 
teen colleges,  of  which  twelve  were  founded  before  151 1. 
With  these  facts  staring  one  in  the  face  it  is  a  little 
difficult  to  see  just  where  the  intellectual  superiority  of 
Protestantism  comes  in.  Boastful  claims  do  not  prove 
it.  One  wants  some  good  evidence  in  support  of  such 
claims  before  saluting  Protestantism  in  honor  of  its 
superior  intellectual  merits. 

Cobbett  quotes  a  comparative  table  from  a  standard 
work,  The  Universal  Historical,  Critical,  and  Biographi- 
cal Dictionary,  giving  a  list  of  eminent  men  of  learning 
"  celebrated  for  their  published  works."  This  list  em- 
braces the  period  from  1600  to  1787.     I  reproduce  it: 


Higher  Education —  Universities.  343 

England^  Scotland^ 

and  Ireland.  France.  Italy. 

Writers  on  law, 6  51           9 

Mathematicians, 17  52  15 

Physicians  and  surgeons,    .     .               13  72  21 

Writers  on  natural  history,     .                 6  33^1 

Historians, 21  139  22 

Dramatic  writers,      ....               19  66          6 

Grammarians, 7  42          2 

Poets, 38  157  34 

Painters, 5  64  44 

Totals,     ...  132  676       164 

The  above  table  furnishes  practical  evidence  to  show 
how  much  credit  is  due  to  Protestantism  for  ' '  enlight- 
ening the  human  mind."  Now  after  three  centuries  of 
power,  and  three  centuries  of  failure  to  build  again  the 
ruins  it  made  of  Catholic  educational  work,  state  gov- 
ernments, fully  as  hostile  to  the  Catholic  ideal  of 
education  as  Protestantism  is,  have  started  in  to  repair 
some  of  its  destructive  work,  so  far  as  mere  secular 
instruction  is  concerned ;  and  yet,  despite  all  their 
wealth  and  heroic  efforts,  the  impoverished,  double- 
taxed,  toiling,  self-denying  Catholics  come  forward  and 
beat  them  out  and  out  in  their  own  chosen  field. 

As  to  the  boasted  modern  enlightenment  insuring 
the  destruction  of  Catholicism,  let  us  hear  the  opinion 
of  Lord  Macaulay,  who  certainly  had  no  special  love 
for  the  Catholic  Church  : 

"  We  often  hear  it  said  that  the  world  is  constantly  becoming 
more  and  more  enlightened,  and  that  this  enlightenment  must  be 
favorable  to  Protestantism  and  unfavorable  to  Catholicism.  We 
wish  that  we  could  think  so.  But  we  see  great  reason  to  doubt 
whether  this  is  a  well-founded  expectation.     We  see  that  during 


344  Higher  Education — Universities, 

the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  human  mind  has  been  in 
the  highest  degree  active ;  that  it  has  made  great  advances  in 
every  branch  of  natural  philosophy ;  that  it  has  produced  innu- 
merable inventions  tending  to  promote  the  convenience  of  life ; 
that  medicine,  'surgery,  chemistry,  engineering  have -been  very 
greatly  improved  ;  that  government,  police,  law  have  been  im- 
proved, though  not  to  so  great  an  extent  as  the  physical  sciences. 
Yet  we  see  that,  during  these  two  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
Protestantism  has  made  no  conquests  worth  speaking  of.  Nay, 
we  believe  that,  as  far  as  there  has  been  change,  that  change  has, 
on  the  whole,  been  in  favor  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  feel  confident  that  the  progress  of  knowledge  will 
necessarily  be  fatal  to  a  system  which  has,  to  say  the  least,  stood 
its  ground  in  spite  of  the  immense  progress  made  by  the  human 
race  in  knowledge  since  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth  "  {Essay  on 
Rankes  History  of  the  Popes). 

Mr.  [lyaing's  opinion  is  also  worth  quoting,  as  he 
loved  not  *'  Popery  "  : 

"  The  Protestant  religion  exists,  it  may  almost  be  said,  only  in 
detached  corners  of  the  world,  and  is  there  torn  into  a  hundred 
sects  and  divisions.  The  clergy  of  her  two  branches  are  occupied 
in  unseemly  squabbles  for  power  and  property,  and  not  leading, 
nor,  in  public  estimation,  capable  of  leading,  the  religious  re- 
vival among  Protestant  Christians,  nor  of  meeting  and  refuting 
the  learning  and  theological  scholarship  of  professed  infidel  [and 
agnostic]  writers.  The  popish  church  is  advancing  stealthily  but 
steadily,  step  by  step,  with  a  well-organized,  well-educated,  zeal- 
ous, and  wily"  [wily,  of  course]  "priesthood  at  the  head  of 
and  guiding  the  religious  revival  in  her  domain  of  Christianity, 
and  adapting  herself  to  the  state  of  the  public  mind,  and  to  the 
degree  of  social  and  intellectual  development  in  every  country, 
from  the  despotism  of  Naples  to  the  democracy  of  New  York  " 
{Notes  of  a  Traveller,  p.  413). 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

LIBRARIES. 

UT  IBRARIES,  in  our  modern  sense  of  collections 
JL^  of  printed  or  written  literature,  imply  an  ad- 
vanced and  elaborate  civilization."  This  is  the  open- 
ing sentence  of  a  lengthy  and  most  instructive  article 
in  the  E7icyclopc£dia  Dritamiica  (ed.  of  1888).  This  is 
an  unquestionable  truth.  A  barbarous  or  wholly  un- 
cultivated people  never  founded  a  library.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  number  and  character  of  their 
libraries  attest  the  measure  of  the  general  intelligence 
of  different  civilized  nations.  I  might  well  content  my- 
self with  simply  referring  the  reader  to  the  article  on 
Libraries  in  the  Ejicyclopcedia  Bidtannica  just  quoted  in 
evidence  that,  if  they  are  to  be  judged  by  the  standard 
just  named,  the  people  of  Catholic  countries  have  al- 
ways been  and  are  still  far  more  intelligent  than  the 
people  of  Protestant  ones. 

The  history  of  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  history  of 
literature,  both  of  its  cultivation  and  the  preservation 
of  its  fruits. 

To  what  do  we  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
classics  at  the  present  day  but  to  the  indefatigable 
literary  zeal  of  the  Catholic  priesthood — of  popes, 
bishops,  priests,  and  above  all  of  the  monks — in  collect- 
ing, preserving,  and  transcribing  these  highly-prized 
treasures  ?  Who  produced  and  who  carefully  preserved 
the  Book  of  books — the  Holy  Bible,  especially  the  Bible 
of  Christians — the  New  Testament?     From  what  source 

345 


346  Libraries. 


has  flowed  forth  the  all  precious  and  profoundly 
learned  writings  of  the  long  line  of  fathers,  doctors, 
theologians,  and  historians  of  Christianity  ?  He  would 
be  a  venturesome  defamer  indeed  who  w^ould  dare  call 
in  question  the  debt  that  the  world  owes  to  the  Catholic 
Church  on  the  score  of  the  cultivation  of  letters,  as  the 
controversialist  would  be  no  less  venturesome  to  at- 
tempt to  frame  an  excuse  for  the  attacks  made  upon 
literary  culture  by  the  early  Reformers  and  the  wanton 
destruction  of  untold  thousands  of  books  and  manu- 
scripts in  hundreds  of  libraries  by  these  vandals  who 
sprang  up  all  over  Great  Britain,  German}^,  and  in 
other  countries  where  Protestantism  in  its  bigoted  and 
ignorant  wrath  strove  by  fire,  sword,  and  robbery  to 
wipe  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth  every  vestige  of  what 
had  been  the  most  glorious  monuments  of  Christendom. 

The  writer  in  the  Eiicyclopcsdia  tells  us  that  in  the 
early  ages,  "as  Christianity  made  its  wa}',  and  a  dis- 
tinctively Christian  literature  grew  up,  the  institution 
of  libraries  became  a  part  of  the  organization  of  the 
Church."  So  intimately  did  this  union  of  literature 
and  religion  become,  that  alongside  every  cathedral 
church  the  Catholic  bishop  erected  a  library.  Many 
of  these  subsist  to  the  present  day.  Popes,  prelates, 
and  monks  vied  with  each  otiier  in  collecting  books, 
and  increasing  the  number  of  volumes  by  employing 
copyists  to  reproduce  for  their  own  use  what  they  could 
borrow  for  a  time  from  other  owners. 

The  most  famous  of  all  libraries  in  the  world  is  that 
of  the  Vatican  at  Rome,  founded  by  Pope  Hilary  in 
the  sixth  centur}- ,  a  thousand  3'ears  before  the  advent 
of  Protestantism.  It  is  difficult  to  condense  in  the 
short  space   I  can  devote  to  this  otherwise  highly  in- 


Libraries,  347 


structive  subject,  as  bearing  upon  the  point  I  desire  to 
make  concerning  the  relation  of  libraries  to  popular 
intelligence,  the  mass  of  information  contained  in  the 
article  of  the  EncyclopcEdia  to  which  I  have  referred.  I 
can  only  present  a  few  suggestive  facts. 

LIBRARIES  IN  CATHOLIC  COUNTRIES. 

Of  Italy  the  writer  says : 

"  As  the  former  centre  of  civilization,  Italy  is,  of  course,  the 
country  in  which  the  oldest  existing  libraries  must  be  looked  for, 
and  in'  which  the  rarest  and  most  valuable  MSS.  are  preserved." 

Here  is  a  rather  singular  bit  of  evidence  : 

"  The  local  rights  and  interests  which  so  long  helped  to  im- 
pede the  unification  of  Italy  was  useful  in  erecting  and  preserving 
at  numerous  minor  centres  many  libraries  which  otherwise  would 
probably  have  been  lost  during  the  progress  of  absorption  that 
results  from  such  centralization  as  exists  in  England." 

What  that  "absorption  by  centralization  in  Eng- 
land" and  in  other  Protestant  countries  really  con- 
sisted in  he  does  not  specify  ;  but  in  fact  it  was,  as 
every  reader  of  history  knows,  the  confiscation  by 
robbery  of  many  Catholic  libraries,  and  the  destruction 
by  fire  of  as  many  more.     He  continues  : 

"  In  spite  of  long  centuries  of  suffering  and  of  tne  aggression 
of  foreign  sword  and  foreign  gold,  Italy  is  still  rich  in  books  and 
MSS.,  and  there  are  probably  more  books  in  United  Italy  than  in 
any  other  country  except  France.  When  the  Italian  government 
published  its  valuable  report  on  '  Biblioteche,'  in  the  Statistica 
del  Regno  d' Italia  in  1865,  a  table  of  relative  statistics  was  given, 
which  professed  to  show  that,  while  the  number  of  books  in 
Austria  (2,408,000)  was  greater  than  the  total  contents  of  the 
public  libraries  in  any  one  of  the  countries  of  Great  Britain,  Prus- 


34^  Libraries. 


sia,  Bavaria,  or  Russia,  it  was  surpassed  in  France  (4,389,000) 
and  in  Italy  (4,149,281),  Italy  thus  exhibiting  a  greater  propor- 
tion of  hooks  to  inhabitants  than  any  other  state  in  Europe,  ex- 
cept only  [Catholic]  Bavaria." 

And  at  that  time  the  immense  libraries  of  Rome  and 
Venice  were  not  included  in  the  report.  In  1880 
Austria  had  5,476,000  volumes  and  France  7,298,000 
in  their  great  public  libraries  (of  30,000  volumes  and 
over)  alone. 

Of  the  210  public  libraries  named  in  the  Report 
(in  1880  there  were  493)  164  were  open  to  the  general 
public.  It  must  not  be  overlooked  that  this  statement 
gives  no  true  index  to  the  vast  amount  of  books  and 
numerous  smaller  libraries  existing  all  over  Italy.  One 
of  the  first  acts  of  "United  Italy  "  was  to  extinguish 
the  very  sources  of  learning  and  of  the  institution  of 
libraries,  by  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries.  The 
writer  tells  us  :  . 

"In  1875  there  were  1,7000!  these  confiscated  libraries,  con- 
taining 2,500,000  volumes." 

However,  strange  to  say,  it  seems  that  these  "  be- 
sottedly  ignorant  ' '  Italians,  all  the  more  ignorant  of 
course  in  the  scattered  communes,  made  such  an  out- 
cry over  this  robbery  and  attempt  at  ' '  centralization  ' ' 
of  the  literary  forces  contained  in  these  monastic 
libraries,  that  the  government  was  forced , to  hand  over 
a  great  part  of  the  .spoils  to  the  local  authorities,  who 
.set  up  at  once  371  new  libraries  out  of  what  they  got  ; 
a  number  which  in  one  year  increased  to  415.  The 
rest  of  the  information  contained  in  this  part  of  the 
writer's  article  devoted  to  Italian  libraries,  itself  greatly 
condensed,  would  make  a  good-sized  pamphlet.     Taken 


Libraries.  349 


all  in  all,  it  is  quite  evident  that  in  libraries,  as  being 
valuable  and  judicious  collections  of  books,  Italy  leads 
the  world. 

From  the  same  source  we  learn  that  twenty-five 
years  ago  there  were  in  France — not  counting  any  of 
the  libraries  in  Paris  or  others  not  literally  free — 340 
public  libraries,  containing  3,734,260  volumes  and 
44,436  MSS.  From  a  tabular  list  of  libraries  in  all 
countries  we  find  that  the  one  great  National  Library 
of  Paris  contains  2,290,000  volumes  and  80,000  MSS., 
and  that  there  are  over  1,000,000  more  volumes  dis- 
tributed among  other  city  libraries. 

The  writer  tells  us  that  ' '  Paris  is  much  better  pro- 
vided than  London  or  any  other  city  in  the  world  with 
great  public  libraries." 

If  I  remember  right  France,  up  to  a  pretty  late  date, 
was  a  thoroughly  Catholic  country.      Vcrbiim  sap. 

It  appears  that  statistics  have  been  prepared  for  use 
(as  desired)  by  somebody  to  the  effect  that  the  people 
of  Spain  and  Portugal  are  very  illiterate,  the  percent- 
age given  for  the  former  being  63  and  for  the  latter  82. 
Tourists  also  report  that  they  find  the  people  '  *  shock- 
ingly ignorant.*"  This  testimony  is  not  uncommon  in 
the  mouths  of  those  wdio  "  do  "  those  countries  in  a 
few  weeks,  and  cannot  themselves  speak  either  Spanish 
or  Portuguese.  That  they  are  shockingly  ignorant  of 
the  English  language  and  of  English  manners  is  un- 
doubtedly very  true.  But  are  they  nevertheless  a 
highly  intelligent  people  ?  Is  there  good  evidence  that 
those  "illiterate"  countries  enjoy  an  "advanced  and 
elaborate  civilization  "  ?  What  about  the  character  of 
their  literature  as  testified  to  by  the  libraries  they  have 
founded    and    sustained  ?     The    Encydopcsdia    already 


350  Libraries, 


quoted  informs  us  that  in  one  library  in  Madrid  there 
are  400,000  volumes  and  200,000  pamphlets,  and  con- 
tinues : 

"  Spam'sh  literature  Is,  of  course,  well  represented.  There 
are  30,000  MSS.  of  great  value,  a  collection  of  120,000  prints, 
formed  from  the  important  series  bought  from  Don  Valentin 
Carderera.  In  1880  54,875  books  were  issued  to  51,966  readers. 
Of  the  other  Madrid  libraries  it  is  enough  to  mention  the  Biblio- 
teca  de  la  Acadcinia  de  la  Historia  (20,000  volumes  and  1,500 
MSS.),  which  contains  some  printed  and  manuscript  Spanish 
books  of  great  value.  In  the  renowned  library  of  the  Escorial 
there  are  now  32,142  volumes,  with  583  Greek,  1,905  Arabic,  ']'}, 
Hebrew,  and  2,050  Latin  MSS." 

The  table  further  on  gives  the  names  and  contents 
of  large  libraries  in  Barcelona,  Cadiz,  Salamanca, 
Santiago,    Seville,  Toledo,  Valencia,    and    Valladolid. 

Of  libraries  in   Portugal   the   writer  tells  us  that — 

"  Among  them  the  National  Library  at  Lisbon  takes  the  first 
place,  containing  200,000  volumes,  among  which  theology,  canon 
law,  history,  Portuguese  and  Spanish  literature  largely  pre- 
dominate. The  MSS.  number  9,415,  including  many  of  great 
value.  There  are  two  other  large  libraries  in  Lisbon,  with  90,000 
volumes  ;  and  also  notable  libraries  in  the  cities  of  Coimbra, 
Evora,  Mafra,  and  Oporto." 

This  information  concerning  Spain  and  Portugal  is 
limited  to  the  truly  great  libraries  of  those  few  cities. 
No  account  is  given  of  the  numerous  libraries  contain- 
ing less  than  30,000  volumes  which  are  to  be  found  in 
the  smaller  towns. 

Austria  figures  very  largely  in  the  table,  and,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  is  reported  as  having  a  greater  num- 
ber of  volumes,  2,408,000  (now  over  5,000,000),  than 
in  any  one  of  the  countries  of  Great    Britain,  Prussia, 


Libraries.  351 


Bavaria,  or  Russia.  The  Encyclop(Edia  gives  the  num- 
ber of  libraries  in  those  portions  of  Austria  represented 
in  the  Reichsrath  in  1870  as  577.  Of  these  there  are 
libraries  of  first  rank  in  159  religious  houses  and  semi- 
naries. Smaller  ones  are  also  to  be  found  in  the  463 
monasteries  ;  some  of  these  dating  back  to  the  sixth 
century.  Remarkable  privileges  are  given  in  these 
Austrian  libraries,  especially  in  those  in  Vienna,  of 
which  there  are  loi  : 

"  The  reading-room  of  the  great  University  Library  of  Vienna 
is  open  to  all  comers.  In  winter  it  is  open  from  5  A.  M.  to  8  P.  M., 
and  from  9  to  12  on  Sundays.  In  1879  159,768  volumes  were 
read  in  the  library,  16,300  volumes  lent  out  of  Vienna,  and  4,418 
volumes  sent  carriage  free  to  borrowers  outside  of  the  city." 

If  I  am  not  mistaken,  in  spite  of  all  this  evidence, 
the  searchers  after  the  statistics  of  illiteracy  in  Catholic 
countries  have  managed  somehow  to  find  a  pretty  high 
percentage  of  that  sort  of  proof  of  popular  ignorance 
reported  for  Austria. 

The  following  are  some  items  of  interest  concerning 
Belgium  : 

"The  famous  Royal  Library  of  Brussels,  made  up  largely  of 
books  confiscated  from  the  houses  of  the  Jesuits  and  monasteries, 
contains  now  350,000  volumes,  30,000  MSS.,  100,000  prints,  and 
50,000  coins  and  medals. 

"  The  University  Library  of  Ghent,  also  made  up  from  many 
suppressed  religious  communities,  has  250,000  volumes  and  1,600 
MSS. 

"  The  library  of  the  Catholic  University  of  Louvain  contains 
250,000  volumes.  The  University  of  Liege  contains  105,746 
volumes,  87,254  pamphlets,  1,544  MSS.,  and  142  incunabula." 

Other  large  libraries  exist  in  the  cities  of  Antwerp, 


352  Libraries. 


Bruges,   Maestricht,  Mons,  Namur,  and  Tournai.     All 
the  Belgian  libraries  are  marked  as  open  and  free. 

Before  examining  the  character  of  the  libraries 
in  Great  Britain,  Holland,  Denmark,  Norway,  and 
Sweden,  all  strongly  Protestant  countries,  and  Ger- 
many, one-third  Catholic,  I  beg  to  call  the  reader's 
attention  to  a  few  notes  I  find  in  the  E7icyclopa;dia  con- 
cerning South  America  and  Mexico.     The  writer  says  : 

"  The  importance  of  public  libraries  has  been  fully  recognized 
by  the  Argentines,  and  at  present  more  than  200  of  them  are  in 
the  country.  They  are  due  to  benefactions,  but  the  government  in 
every  case  adds  an  equal  sum  to  any  endowment.  The  National 
Library  at  Buenos  Ayres  contains  40,000  volumes.  It  is  passably 
rich  also  in  MSS.,  some  of  great  interest  concerning  the  early 
history  of  the  Spanish  colonies.  Two  other  libraries  in  the  city 
contain  45,000  volumes.  The  chief  library  of  Brazil  is  the  Public 
National  Library  of  Rio  de  Janeiro,  now  comprising  120,000 
volumes  and  1,000  MSS.  National  literature  and  works  con- 
nected with  South  America  are  special  features  of  this  collection. 

"  Other  libraries  in  the  city  are,  that  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine 
(18,000  volumes).  Marine  Library  (19,500  volumes),  National 
Museum  (9,000  volumes),  Portuguese  Literary  Club  (53,000  vol- 
umes), Biblioteca  Flumenense  (43,000  volumes),  the  Benedictine 
monastery  (9,000  volumes),  and  the  Biblioteca  Municipal  (i  5,500 
volumes).  At  the  Philadelphia  Exposition  in  1876  the  Empire  of 
Brazil  reported  460,272  volumes  in  its  libraries,  all  open  to  the 
public.     In   1875  there  were  85,044  readers." 

The  table  reports  the  following  national  libraries  : 
one  in  Santiago,  Chili,  with  65,000  volumes;  one  in 
Nicaragua,  with  15,000  volumes;  one  in  Peru,  at 
Lima,  wath  35,000  volumes;  one  in  Uruguay,  at 
Montevideo,  with  17,000  volumes  ;  and  one  at  Caracas, 
in  Venezuela,  containing  29,000  volumes.  Smaller 
libraries  are  not  mentioned. 


Libra7'ies.  353 


In  the  chapter  where  I  treat  of  the  literature  and  art 
of  Mexico  will  be  found  the  following  statement  about 
its  libraries  :  there  are  20  public  libraries  (72  in 
1890),  with  236,000  volumes,  and  private  libraries  with 
from  1,000  to  8,000  volumes  innumerable. 

The  reader  has  a  brief  but  instructive  view  of  the 
number  and  character  of  great  public  libraries  in  Catho- 
lic countries.  It  is  impossible  to  obtain  any  statistical 
information  of  the  countless  private  libraries,  contain- 
ing probably  almost  as  many  more  printed  volumes. 
In  the  house  of  every  Catholic  gentleman  of  means  or 
high  rank  one  of  the  largest  and  most  artistically  orna- 
mented apartments  is  the  "  Library,"  and  the  visitor  is 
sure  to  find  in  it  abundant  evidence  of  the  scholarly 
taste  and  culture  of  the  family.  He  is  shown  these 
literary  treasures  with  every  demonstration  of  pride  in 
the  number  and  excellence  of  the  collection,  and  as  be- 
ing esteemed  by  the  owaier  as  among  the  most  precious 
and  honorable  possessions  of  the  family.  And  this 
has  been  the  case  in  every  country  and  in  every  age. 
All  these  well-known  facts  are  undeniable  evidences 
that  every  Catholic  country  has  enjoyed  "  an  advanced 
and  elaborate  civilization,"  a  civilization  indeed  of  the 
highest  and  noblest  order,  which  w^as  not  strictly  con- 
fined to  a  limited  class  of  wealth}^  people,  but  which 
included  the  mass  of  people  generally,  not  all  to  the 
same  degree,  it  is  true,  but  in  the  moral  and  intellectual 
benefits  of  which  the  whole  people  more  or  less  partici- 
pated ;  and,  as  a  whole  people,  they  deserve  to  be 
credited  with  the  honor  of  having  produced  these 
magnificent  intellectual  fruits. 

One  notable  fact  must  be  borne  in  mind.  The  con- 
tents of  Catholic  libraries,   containing  as  they  do  the 


354  Libraries. 


most  valuable  of  all  the  literary  productions  of  the 
world,  are,  with  insignificant  exceptions,  made  up  of 
works  written  by  Catholics.  And  it  is  equally  true 
that  in  all  the  great  libraries  in  Protestant  countries 
very  many  of  their  most  highly  valued  works,  both 
printed  volumes  and  rare  MSS.,  will  be  found  to  have 
also  been  written  by  Catholic  scholars. 

In  the  departments  of  philosophy  and  theology,  both 
dogmatic  and  moral,  Catholic  scholars  have  abounded 
in  their  works  of  unsurpassed  genius,  while  Protestants 
have  contributed  but  little  in  comparison  to  the  advance- 
ment of  these  sciences.  I^et  my  reader  go  to  any  large 
public  library  and  make  the  experiment.  What  better 
testimony  does  one  want  to  prove  the  intellectual  su- 
periority of  those  who  have  professed  and  do  profess 
the  Catholic  faith  ?  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them." 

LIBRARIES  IN  PROTEST/VNT  COUNTRIES. 
And  now  let  us  take  a  look  at  a  similar  class  of 
Hbraries  in  Protestant  countries,  again  using  the  En- 
cyclopcEdia  Britannica  in  evidence.  And  first  for  Swit- 
zerland. The  population  of  this  country  is  about 
equally  divided  between  Catholics  and  Protestants,  but 
amongst  us  it  is  often  spoken  of  and  generally  believed 
to  be  a  wholly  Protestant  country.      The  writer  says : 

"  No  less  than  2,096  libraries  are  reported,  of  which  four-fifths 
belong  to  the  class  of  '  popular  libraries  and  those  for  young  peo- 
ple.' Only  18  have  as  many  as  30,000  volumes.  The  largest 
collection  of  books  in  Switzerland  is  the  University  Library  of 
Basel,  founded  [by  Catholics]  with  the  university  in  1460.  The 
monastic  libraries  of  St.  Gall  and  Einsiedeln  date  respectively 
from  the  years  A.  D.  830  and  946,  and  are  of  great  historical  and 
literary  interest." 


Libraries.  355 


So  it  appears  that  in  this  commonly  esteemed 
Protestant  country,  and  which,  by  the  way,  stands  at 
the  head  of  the  list  for  the  number  of  its  school  children, 
the  only  libraries  worth  mentioning  on  account  of  their 
historical  and  literary  merit  were  founded  by  Catholics, 
and  the  two  which  deserve  especial  note  are  monastic 
ones.  Evidently  Protestantism  has  not  a  heavy  score 
to  claim  in  Switzerland. 

Instead  of  quoting  from  the  EyicyclopcEdia  for  in- 
formation concerning  German  libraries,  I  prefer  to 
lay  before  the  reader  an  extract  from  a  late  German 
newspaper,  the  Kobiische  Volkszeihing ,  as  it  contains 
some  facts  of  special  interest  to  the  reader  desirous  of 
obtaining  a  comparative  view  of  this  subject  as  affect- 
ing the  reputation  for  learning  of  the  two  great  re- 
ligious divisions  of  the  German  population,  two-thirds 
of  which  are  Protestant  and  one- third  Catholic. 

"  A  short  time  ago  a  statistical  account  of  the  hbraries  of  Ger- 
many was  published,  from  which  many  interesting  facts  may  be 
learned.  According  to  it  there  are  130  Hbraries  open  to  the  pub- 
lic, containing  altogether  about  twenty  milHons  of  books  and 
200,000  manuscripts.  Besides  these  there  are  about  1,550  other 
libraries  owned  by  high-schools,  seminaries,  private  families,  etc. 
All  the  1,606  libraries  together  contain  27,091,288  printed  books 
and  240,416  manuscripts.  Over  2,300,000  marks  ($575,000)  are 
spent  annually  to  increase  these  treasures  of  learning. 

"  But  what  is  most  interesting  as  well  as  honorable  to  us 
Catholics  is  the  fact  that  the  greatest  part  of  these  treasures  has 
been  collected  by  men  of  our  faith.  The  most  celebrated  of  these 
libraries  are  also  made  up  of  books  and  manuscripts  taken  from 
monasteries.  And,  in  addition  to  this,  even  in  our  time,  Catholic 
institutions  and  Catholic  families  take  the  first  places  in  point  of 
number  and  excellence  of  their  libraries. 

"  Before  giving  any  details,  I  wish  to  call  back  to  the  mind  of 


$$6  Libra7'ies, 


the  reader,  how  from  the  beginning  of  the  so-called  Reformation 
Catholic  monasteries  and  other  institutions  were  seized  by  the 
state,  and  their  property  and  libraries  confiscated.  The  monks 
were  driven  from  their  homes  and  decried  as  hostile  to  learning. 
And  now  the  fruit  of  their  silent,  patient  labor  is  the  pride  of 
Protestant  Germany  and  England,  of  France  and  Austria. 

"  It  was  especially  during  the  Reformation,  afterwards  under 
Joseph  II.  of  Austria,  and  finally  under  Napoleon  I.,  that  those 
acts  of  injustice  were  perpetrated. 

"  Now  for  a  few  details.  The  library  of  Berlin,  opened  in 
1 66 1,  received  the  libraries  of  the  monasteries  of  Magdeburg  and 
Westphalia ;  later  on,  those  of  the  monasteries  of  Silesia,  Prussia, 
Posen,  and  the  Rhine  provinces.  The  library  of  the  University  at 
Breslau,  Silesia,  contains  the  books  taken  from  over  70  monas- 
teries or  other  Catholic  ecclesiastical  institutions. 

"  Karlsruhe  obtained  part  of  the  libraries  of  the  monasteries  of 
Baden,  among  which  St.  Blasien,  Reichenau,  etc.  Heidelberg 
contains  60,000  volumes  taken  from  the  monastery  of  Salem. 
Leipzig  has  a  collection  taken  from  the  Benedictines,  Dominicans, 
and  Augustinians  of  Saxony.  The  same  is  the  case  with  the 
other  state  libraries  of  Germany.  Thus  we  see  how  these  es- 
tablishments of  the  state  have  become  rich  by  plundering  Catho- 
lic institutions. 

"There  are,  besides,  existing  120  Protestant  and  81  Catholic 
libraries.  The  120  Protestant  libraries  contain  436,647  volumes; 
the  Catholic,  however,  1,019,118.  Protestant  institutions  of  this 
kind  receive  greater  appropriations  from  the  state  for  their  libra- 
ries and,  as  a  rule,  are  older  than  the  Catholic  ones,  still  they 
cannot  compete  with  Catholic  private  generosity.  Only  one  ex- 
ample as  a  proof.  In  T\.ibingen  there  is  a  Protestant  seminary 
with  25,000  volumes,  and  the  Catholic  William's  College  with 
40,000  volumes.  The  former  receives  a  considerably  greater 
appropriation  than  the  latter. 

"  There  are  also  already  quite  large  libraries  in  some  of  the 
now  existing  monasteries,  though  they  were  obliged  to  commence 
anew  after  Napoleon's  spoliation.  Thus  the  Benedictine  monas- 
tery of  Metten  contains  60,000 ;  St.  Boniface,  Munich,  36,000  vol- 
umes, etc. 


Libraries,  357 


"  Among  the  cities  we  find  Catholic  ones,  as  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
Aachen,  Cologne,  Treves,  Mentz,  etc.,  among  the  first.  The 
same  can  be  said  of  Catholic  families  of  the  nobility.  Loewen- 
stein.  Taxis,  Isenburg,  etc.,  are  found  in  the  first  rank,  many  of 
them  possessing  collections  of  100,000  volumes." 

The  writer  of  the  article  in  the  Eyicyclopcedia  says 
very  truly  that  ' '  Germany  is  emphatically  the  home  of 
large  libraries."  The  details  which  he  gives  concern- 
ing the  foundation  and  character  of  the  contents  of  the 
most  important  of  them  confirm  the  truth  of  the  statis- 
tics given  by  the  Kolnische  Volkszeitiuig .  From  this  ar- 
ticle it  also  appears  that  the  most  valuable  of  the  twenty- 
one  university  libraries  in  Germany  were  founded 
before  the  Reformation.  So  that,  although  there  have 
been  many  magnificent  libraries  founded  by  Protestants, 
especiall}^  in  Berlin,  Dresden,  and  Stuttgart,  a  large 
number  of  their  literary  treasures  are  the  works  of 
Catholics.  One  can  well  imagine  how  marvellous  must 
have  been  the  literary  productiveness  of  Catholic  scholar- 
ship, even  in  the  ages  of  popular  "illiteracy"  and 
"  mediaeval  darkness,"  that  almost  every  great  library 
in  the  w^orld  can  now  boast  of  possessing  a  number, 
some  of  them  thousands,  of  these  fruits  of  the  labor  of 
Catholic  genius,  all  bearing  irrefragable  testimony  to 
the  "advanced  and  elaborate  civilization"  of  the  ages 
which  produced  them. 

In  Protestant  Holland  there  are  large  libraries,  in 
Amsterdam,  Haarlem,  the  Hague,  Leyden,  Rotterdam, 
and  Utrecht,  the  total  number  of  volumes  reported  for 
them  being  680,000  volumes  and  10,600  MSS.  Of 
these  we  are  told  that  "the  University  Library  of 
Utrecht  (150,000  volumes)  dates  from  1582,  when  cer- 
tain conventual  collections   were    brought   together  to 


358  Libraries, 


make  a  public  library,"  and  that  the  "basis  of  the 
great  library  of  Amsterdam  (100,000  volumes)  consists 
of  a  collection  of  books  together  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, which  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  became  the 
property  of  the  city,"  by  the  usual  method  adopted  by 
the  "  glorious  pioneers  of  enlightenment  of  the  human 
mind  "  in  possessing  themselves  of  other  people's  prop- 
erty and  appropriating  the  honors  of  other  people's 
intellectual  labor,  and  the  benefits  of  other  people's  sac- 
rifices.    So  much  for  Protestant  Holland. 

Let  us  take  a  look  at  Protestant  Scandinavia,  includ- 
ing Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway.  Four  large  libra- 
ries are  reported  for  Denmark,  all  in  the  city  of  Copen- 
hagen. The  number  of  volumes  amount  to  822,000, 
with  22,000  MSS. 

Two  of  these,  the  Royal  Library  and  the  University 
Library,  trace  their  foundation  to  a  date  anterior  to  the 
Reformation. 

In  Norway  there  are  three  large  libraries,  two  in 
Christiania  with  295,200  volumes,  and  one  in  Trond- 
hjem  with  50,000  volumes,  all  founded  since  1780. 
There  are  also  three  libraries  in  Sweden,  one  at  Lund 
(120,000  volumes),  one  at  Stockholm  (250,000),  and 
one  at  Upsala  (220,000  volumes),  all  founded  since 
the  Reformation. 

As  the  population  of  Sweden  and  Norway  taken 
together  is  about  the  same — six  millions — as  Catholic 
Belgium,  I  am  led  to  compare  the  library  statistics  of 
both.  Here  are  the  figures  as  taken  from  the  Encyclo- 
pcedia  : 

Number  of        Total         Total 
libraries.       volumes.      MSS. 

Sweden  and  Norway,  .         .  6  935,200     23,470 

Belgium, 10  1.399.958     33.909 


Libraries.  359 


It  cannot  be  said  of  the  Protestant  "  enlightenment  " 
in  Sweden  and  Norway  that  it  has  ever  suffered  any 
obscuration  from  the  presence  of  Catholic  "  darkness," 
and  yet   will  the  reader  please  look  at  the  figures  ? 

And  now  we  come  finally  to  examine  the  libraries  in 
the  Protestant  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 
The  writer  in  the  EricyclopcEdia  gives  a  complete  list  of 
all  the  libraries,  great  and  small,  and  in  the  preface  to 
the  table  informs  us  that  the  list  for  other  countries  has, 
with  few  exceptions,  been  limited  to  those  of  30,000 
volumes  and  upwards. 

All  told,  the  number  of  libraries  accredited  to  the 
United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  is  only 
330.  The  dates  of  their  foundation  are  as  follows  :  In 
the  tenth  century,  i ;  in  the  eleventh,  i ;  in  the  four- 
teenth, 6  ;  in  the  fifteenth,  12  ;  in  the  sixteenth,  12  ;  in 
the  seventeenth, , 24  ;  in  the  eighteenth,  44;  and  in  the 
nineteenth,  230.  Looking  a  little  more  critically  at  the 
dates  we  observe  that  of  these  230  founded  in  the 
present  century,  123  are  dated  as  founded  since  1850. 
What  is  the  explanation  of  that  ?  It  appears  that  ' '  the 
first  Public  Libraries  Act  was  introduced  into  the 
House  of  Commons  by  Mr.  Ewart  in  1850."  Despite 
the  rapid  increase  of  libraries  accessible  to  the  public 
since  that  date,  we  are  told  that  "  London  is  still 
very  badly  off  as  regards  public  libraries,"  and  that, 
although  there  are  several  important  libraries  in  Edin- 
burgh, "there  is  no  considerable  lending  library  open 
freely  to  the  poorest  of  the  people,  and  two  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  introduce  the  Libraries  Act 
have  been  unsuccessful." 

There  does  not  appear  to  be  over  five  large  libra- 
ries in  all  Ireland  ;    and  we  are  informed  that  * '  there 


360  Libraries, 


is  no  librar}^  in  Dublin  corresponding  in  extent  and 
public  accessibilit}'  to  the  British  Museum  in  I^ondon, 
or  the  Advocates'  Library  in  Edinburgh."  A  parlia- 
mentar}^  act  was  passed  in  1854  to  stimulate  the  founda- 
tion of  such  an  one,  but  "the  scheme  thus  authorized 
has  never  been  carried  out."  The  town  of  Dundalk 
is  at  present  the  only  town  in  Ireland  that  has  a 
library  under  the  Public  Libraries  Act,  but  the  rate 
produces  for  its  sustenance  onl}-  /^8o. 

These  few  facts  concerning  the  evidences  of  ' '  an 
advanced  and  elaborate  civilization"  supplied  by  the 
number  and  character  of  a  country's  libraries  are  quite 
enough  to  show  no  great  boast  can  be  made  for  the 
Protestant  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land. From  the  ever- to-be-remembered  epoch  of  the 
bursting  of  the  light  of  Protestantism  upon  the  world 
lying  in  the  darkness  of  "  Romanism  T  up  to  the  3'ear 
1800,  this  great  and  powerful  kingdom  of  Protestant 
enlightenment  could  only  show  100  libraries  in  all  its 
borders,  and  of  these  only  seven  could  show  100,000  and 
more  volumes  on  their  shelves.  The  truth  is  that  this 
proud,  self-conceited  power,  glor3'ing  in  having  the 
privilege  of  wielding  the  strongest  arm  in  the  defence 
and  for  the  propagation  of  Protestantism,  abundantly 
rich  in  all  resources  needed  to  enable  that  religious 
system  to  accomplish  its  mission  of  intellectual  enlight- 
enment to  the  fullest  measure  of  its  capabilities,  makes 
but  a  paltry  showing  in  comparison  with  almost  any 
other  nation.  Judged  by  its  capabilities  and  opportu- 
nities, it  deserves  to  be  ranked  the  lowest  among  civil- 
ized nations  on  the  test  we  have  just  been  examining. 

How  did  it  come  about  that  these  once  olorious 
scholarly  Catholic  countries  of  England,  Scotland,  and 


Libraries.  36 1 


Ireland,  the  homes  of  learning,  to  which  students 
flocked  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  attracted  by  the 
fame  of  their  great  schools  and  universities,  sank  so 
quickly  down  from  their  pre-eminent  rank?  Certainly 
there  was  no  lack  of  books  in  these  Catholic  lands. 
There  is,  on  the  contrary,  evidence  that  their  halls  of 
learning  were  filled  with  them.  So  completely  covered 
was  the  land  with  monasteries  that  they  were  but  a  few 
hours'  journey  apart,  and  a  notable  part  of  the  monk's 
life  w^as  devoted  to  study,  to  the  writing  of  manu- 
script volumes  and  collecting  them  in  libraries.  There 
were  libraries  enough  in  those  Catholic  daj's  to  prove 
that  the  English,  Scotch,  and  Irish  people  were  in  the 
full  tide  of  an  advanced  and  elaborate  civilization. 
What  became  of  the  numerous  cathedral  and  monastic 
libraries  existing?  They  were,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth  by  the  glorious 
heralds  of  Protestant  enlightenment.  All  the  monas- 
teries were  either  suppressed  or  razed  to  the  ground 
and  their  priceless  libraries  wantonly  destroyed.  The 
Protestant  historian  Tyrrell,  in  his  history  of  England, 
laments  the  loss.  The  great  libraries  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  were  destroyed  by  the  king's  visitors,  one 
of  whom  boasted  that  he  had  left  the  New  College 
quadrangle  all  covered  with  leaves  of  torn  books  !  What 
books  were  not  burned  were  sold  for  wrapping-paper. 
A  few  were  afterwards  found  in  the  shops  and  redeemed. 
The  present  great  Bodleian  Library  of  Oxford  contains 
only  three  of  all  those  thousands  of  volumes,  the  pride 
and  glory  of  that  once  renowned  Catholic  university.* 

*  History  0/  England^  James  Tyrrell,  1700;  Notitia  Monas/ica,  Thomas 
Tanner,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph's,  1695.  See  also  Chamberlain's  Present 
State  0/ England,  part  iii,  p.  46. 


362  Libraries. 


Of  the  commissioners  who  made  the  visitation  to 
Oxford  in  1 549-50  Anthony  Wood  says  : 

"  The  principal  ornaments,  and  at  the  same  time  supports  of 
the  university — that  is,  the  Hbraries,  filled  with  innumerable 
works,  both  native  and  foreign — they  either  permitted  or  directed 
to  be  despoiled.  Hence  a  great  multitude  of  MSS.,  having  no 
mark  of  superstition  about  them  (unless  it  were  to  be  found  in 
the  red  lines  on  their  titles),  were  adjudged  to  the  flames  or  to 
the  vilest  purposes.  Works  of  scholastic  theology  were  sold  off 
among  those  exercising  the  lowest  description  of  arts,  and  those 
which  contained  circles  or  diagrams  it  w^as  thought  good  to 
mutilate  or  burn,  as  containing  certain  proof  of  the  magical 
nature  of  their  contents  "  {Hist.  Univ,  Oxon.) 

Bale,  the  Anglican  Bishop  of  Ossory,  Ireland, 
though  a  bitter  foe  to  the  Church,  quotes  Leland  as 
saying  : 

"  If  there  had  been  in  every  shire  of  England  but  one  solemn 
library  for  the  preservation  of  those  most  noble  works,  and  prefer- 
ment of  learning  in  our  posterity,  it  had  been  somewhat.  But  to 
destroy  all  without  consideration  is,  and  will  be  for  ever  unto 
England,  a  most  horrible  infamy  among  the  grave  seniors  of 
other  nations.  A  great  number  of  them  which  purchased  these 
superstitious  mansions  reserved  the  books  in  their  libraries ;  some 
to  scour  their  candlesticks  and  some  to  rub  their  boots ;  and  some 
they  sent  over  sea  to  the  bookbinders,  not  in  small  numbers,  but 
.at  times  whole  ships  full,  to  the  wondering  of  foreign  nations. 
Yea,  the  universities  of  this  realm  are  not  all  clear  in  this  detesta- 
ble fact.  I  know  a  merchantman,  who  shall  at  this  time  be 
nameless,  that  bought  the  contents  of  two  noble  libraries  for 
forty  shillings  price  ;  a  shame  it  is  to  be  spoken.  This  stuff  hath 
he  used  instead  of  gray  paper  for  the  space  of  these  ten  years, 
and  yet  he  hath  store  for  as  many  years  to  come.  Our  posterity 
may  well  curse  this  wicked  fact  of  our  age,  this  unreasonable 
spoil  of  England's  most  noble  antiquities." 


Libraries,  363 


A  writer  in  the  Letters  of  Eminent  Persons  fro?n 
the  Bodleian  says : 

"  Whole  libraries  were  destroyed  or  made  waste-paper  of,  or 
consumed  for  the  vilest  uses.  The  splendid  Abbey  of  Malmes- 
bury,  which  possessed  some  of  the  finest  MSS.  in  the  kingdom, 
was  ransacked,  and  its  treasures  either  burnt  or  sold  to  serve  the 
commonest  purposes  ot  life.  An  antiquary  who  travelled  through 
that  town  many  years  after  the  dissolution  relates  that  he  saw 
broken  windows  patched  up  with  remnants  of  the  most  valuable 
manuscripts  on  vellum,  and  that  the  bakers  had  not  then  con- 
sumed the  stores  they  had  accumulated,  in  heating  their  ovens." 

All  this  destruction  of  the  halls  of  learning  in  Eng- 
land with  their  priceless  literary  treasures  was  done  in 
cold  blood,  by  acts  of  Parliament  and  by  royal  order. 
In  France  and  Germany  the  same  means  of  enlighten- 
ing the  world  and  promoting  learning  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  libraries  were  resorted  to  by  the  Protestants  of 
those  countries.  The  Huguenots  burned  the  famous 
library  of  St.  Benedict  snr  Loire,  with  its  five  thousand 
valuable  MSS.,  and  wherever  in  other  provinces  of 
France  they  were  able  to  foment  civil  war  they  attacked 
the  cathedral  and  monastic  libraries  and  burned  their 
contents. 

In  Germany  the  horrible  "War  of  the  Peasants," 
which  Luther  encouraged,  resulting  in  the  death  of 
over  a  hundred  thousand  of  them,  and  the  great 
"  Thirty  Years'  War,"  due  to  the  civil  discord  brought 
about  by  the  "blessed"  Reformation,  were  both  sig- 
nalized by  the  savage  destruction  of  many  famous 
libraries.  The  city  of  Miinster  possessed  the  largest 
and  most  highly  prized  library  in  all  Germany.  It 
was  burned  by  an  Anabaptist  rabble  at  the  order 
of    one    of    their   prophets.      The     same    reason     for 


364  Libraries, 


burning  the  library  was  given  by  these  Bible  fanatics 
as  Omar  gave  for  burning  the  great  library  of  Alexan- 
dria ;  substituting  the  word  Bible  for  Koran  :  ' '  The 
books  in  the  library  are  either  conformable  to  the  Bible 
01  they  are  not.  If  the  former,  they  are  useless,  and 
should  be  destroyed  ;  if  the  latter,  they  are  baneful 
and  should  be  burned ;  therefore  in  either  case  the 
library  must  be  destroyed." 

These  are  some  of  the  evidences  of  the  spirit  of  early 
Protestantism  and  of  its  methods  to  bring  about  "the 
emancipation  of  the  human  intellect,"  about  which  we 
hear  so  much. 

LIBRARIES  IN   THE    UNITED    vSTATES. 

The  necessary  forms  of  social  activity  among  the 
people  of  the  United  States  during  the  earlier  years  of 
our  country  naturally  precluded  them  from  giving 
much  attention  to  the  building  up  of  those  great  store- 
houses of  literature.  No  just  reproach  could,  therefore, 
be  cast  upon  the  almost  wholly  Protestant  people  of 
that  period  if  libraries  were  few^  in  number  and  scant  in 
contents.  Of  late  years,  however,  there  have  been 
several  first-class  libraries  founded,  and  older  ones  have 
been  greatl}^  enriched  in  the  number  and  value  of  their 
collections.  There  has  also  been  a  very  rapid  increase 
in  the  number  of  smaller  libraries,  semi-public  and  free 
circulating  ones.  The  United  States  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion gives  the  present  number  of  all  public  or  semi- 
public  libraries,  of  1,000  volumes  or  over,  as  3,804.  Of 
these  about  566  may  be  classed  as  truly  "public" 
libraries.  But  that  is  an  excellent  showing,  and  re- 
dounds greatly  to  the  honor  of  our  country,  and 
especially  to  the  honor  of  the  Protestant  citizens  who 


Libraries.  365 


have   contributed    the    largest   share   in  the   work   of 
library  extension. 

THE  PRINTING-PRESS. 

The  popular  Protestant  belief  is  that  somehow  the 
invention  of  the  printing-press,  being  coeval  with  the 
beginnings  of  Protestantism,  is  to  be  credited  to  its 
''light,"  and,  as  well,  the  advantage  that  was  taken  of 
the  new  art  in  the  multiplication  of  books.  There  is 
about  as  much  propriety  in  associating  the  invention 
and  active  use  that  was  at  once  made  of  the  printing- 
press  with  Protestantism  as  there  is  in  associating 
together  the  ideas  of  Protestantism  and  I^iberty.  Let 
us  look  at  a  few  facts. 

When  was  linen  or  cotton  paper  such  as  we  now 
use  invented  ?  The  historian  Hallam  fixes  the  date 
at  about  A.  d.  iigg  (ylnti'odudion  to  Literature^  vol.  i. 
p.  50). 

When  were  engraved  letters  and  pictures  on  blocks 
of  wood,  ivory,  or  metal,  in  the  form  of  what  we  now 
call  "types,"  first  invented  and  used?  Certainly  as 
early  as  the  tenth  century.  Many  books  were  printed 
by  hand  from  those  types,  and  the  system  of  this  kind 
of  printing  was  called  chirotypography  and  xylog- 
raphy. 

The  Ericyclopcsdia  Britannica  (article  Typography) 
gives  a  list  of  twenty  such  books,  "  probably  of  German 
origin,"  and  ten  others  printed  in  some  towns  of  the 
Netherlands.     Says  the  writer: 

"  Among  these  the  Biblia  Pauperu7n  (the  Bible  of  the  Poor) 
stands  first.  It  represents  pictorially  the  Hfe  and  passion  of 
Christ,  and  there  exist  MSS.  of  it  as  early  as  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, some  beautifully  illuminated." 


366  Libraries. 


What,  then,  did  the  invention  of  John  Gutenberg, 
about  1450,  consist  in  ?  In  arranging  these  hand- 
types  so  as  to  multiply  copies  of  the  book.  That  in- 
vention was  the  Printing-Press.  Every  Christian  coun- 
try was  as  yet  Catholic,  and  the  immediate  and  active 
use  of  the  press  spread  throughout  Europe  with  aston- 
ishing rapidity.  From  the  year  1455  to  1536,  a  period 
of  eighty-one  years,  it  is  computed  that  no  less  than 
22,932,000  books  were  printed  (Petit  Radel,  Reeherches 
sur  les  BibliotJieques^  p.   82). 

Hallam  tells  us  that  the  first  book  of  any  great  size 
that  was  printed  was  the  Eatin  Bible,  which  appeared 
in  1455.  Martin  Euther  was  born  in  1483,  and  his 
Bible,  in  the  German  language,  was  issued  in  1530.  It 
is  a  common  belief  amongst  Protestants  that  this  was 
the  first  Bible  ever  printed  in  the  vernacular.  What  is 
the  fact?  There  were  more  than  seventy  different 
editions  of  the  Bible  in  the  different  languages  of  the 
nations  of  Europe  printed  before  Euther' s  Bible  was 
put  forth. 

The  library  of  the  Paulist  Fathers  of  New  York 
City  contains  a  copj^  of  the  7iinth  editioyi  of  a  German 
Bible,  profusely  illustrated  with  colored  wood  engrav- 
ings, and  printed  by  Antonius  Coburger  at  Nuremberg 
in  1483,  the  ve^y year  hi  which  Luther  was  born.  The 
first  edition  of  this  same  Bible  was  issued  in  1477. 
Nine  editions  of  the  Bible  in  the  language  of  the  people 
in  six  years  in  one  city  of  Germany,  and  that  within 
thirty  years  of  the  invention  of  the  printing-press,  and 
issued  by  Catholics,  too  ! 

But  any  intelligent  Protestant  can  easily  explain  this 
immediate  and  extraordinarily  rapid  publication  of  the 
Bible  by  these  Catholics  even  before  Euther  was  born. 


Libraries.  367 


You  can  never  catch  the  wily  priesthood  of  Rome  nap- 
ping. They  foresaw  that  Protestantism  with  its  enlight- 
enment was  coming — the  religion  of  the  Bible,  and  of 
nothing  but  the  Bible,  and  they  knew  that  the  ministers 
of  this  Bible  religion  would  for  three  hundred  years  de- 
vote themselves  to  "spreading  the  Bible  in  Heathen 
and  Papal  lands,"  and  would  charge  Rome  and  all  its 
popes,  bishops,  and  priests,  including  Jesuits,  with  keep- 
ing the  Bible  from  the  people,  and  burning  it  whenever 
they  could.  All  this  they  knew — w^hat  do  they  not 
know? — and  so,  with  Jesuitical  cunning,  they  set  to 
work  at  once  to  print  off  as  many  Bibles  as  they  could, 
in  every  language,  just  to  have  it  to  say  that  they 
printed  Bibles  in  the  vernacular  before  Protestants  did, 
in  order  to  deprive  them  of  the  glory  of  having  been  the 
first  to  do  so ;  making  up  their  popish  minds  all  the 
while  that  the  people  should  never  be  permitted  to  look 
into  one  of  them.  Oh !  there's  no  coming  up  with 
the  astuteness  of  the  wily  priesthood  of  Rome  ! 

We  have  heard  more  than  once  of  the  Bible  being 
"  chained  by  the  Romish  priests."  For  once  the}^  who 
make  such  assertions  tell  the  truth.  The  celebrated 
Biblia  Pauperum — the  Bible  of  the  Poor — was  one  of 
those  that  were  chained.  As  copies  of  the  Bible  were 
necessarily  very  costly  and  scarce  in  those  days,  the 
custom  was  to  chain  one  to  a  pillar  in  the  church 
where  even  the  poorest  of  the  poor  could  get  at  it ;  but, 
of  course,  not  to  read  it.  Oh  !  no.  When  druggists 
and  other  merchants  in  New  York  City  chain  costly 
city  directories  in  their  stores  they  do  it  precisely  to 
prevent  people  looking  into  them. 

As  a  singular  example  of  the  proverbial  vitality  of 
lies    I    find   this   old   siiggestio  falsi  in   the    "chained 


368  Libraries. 


Bible  ' '  stor}^  dished  up  in  a  recent  work  entitled  Public 
Libraries  in  America,  hy  W.  I.  Fletcher,  M.A.,  libra- 
rian of  Amherst  College  ;  in  which  it  is  presented  twice 
as  an  illustration,  once  in  the  text  and  again  on  the 
back  of  the  cover,  representing  a  ' '  Holy  Bible  ' '  with  a 
dangling  chain  and  a  hammer  descending  to  break  it, 
with  a  Latin  device — ''  Libros  liberate'' — beneath;  a 
motto  well  chosen  to  revive  the  original  flavor  of  the 
ought- to-be-stale  falsehood  it  is  designed  to  illustrate. 

Mr.  Fletcher  may  be  an  excellent  librarian,  but 
when  he  presumes  to  tell  us  that  '  *  the  Reformation 
made  a  tremendous  assertion  of  the  right  of  man  to 
spiritual  freedom,"  and  that  "the  thousands  of  volumes 
written  by  the  monks  in  the  dark  ages  and  by  them 
collected  into  libraries  were  not  much  used,"  and  limits 
his  praise  for  the  service  rendered  by  these  libraries  to 
the  "  preserv^ation  and  handing  down  to  later  and 
happier  (?)  eras  the  gems  of  classic  ^^Christiaii  omitted] 
thought  and  learning,"  one  is  naturally  led  to  regret 
that  he  did  not  himself  liberate  certain  books  among 
the  61,000  which  he,  as  custodian,  keeps  "chained" 
under  lock  and  key,  and  read  them  before  venturing  to 
add  another  on  the  subject  of  Libraries  to  his  literary 
stores. 

No  doubt  the  fear  of  the  priests  lest  the  people  should 
know  there  was  a  Bible  also  explains  why  the  Catho- 
lic Church  in  the  earl}^  days  of  her  existence  took  so 
much  pains  to  collect  together  all  the  writings  esteemed 
as  inspired,  and  after  pronouncing  judgment  upon 
which  were  inspired  and  which  were  not,  compiled 
them  in  one  volume  and  called  it  the  "Bible."  You 
see  Protestants  could  have  done  all  that  just  as  well 
and  no  doubt  better ;   but  then   Rome,  as  usual,  got  on 


Libraries,  369 


the  ground  ahead  of  them  for  more  than  a  thousand 
3'ears,  and  Protestants  were  thus  forced  to  take  the 
Bible  from  her  hands.  But  being  more  enlightened 
the5%  of  course,  judged  of  its  inspiration  for  themselves 
and  of  its  meaning  as  well,  and  rejected  both  what 
books  and  what  interpretations  did  not  suit  the  new  re- 
ligion they  adopted. 

As  to  the  stupendous  labors  of  the  tens  of  thousands 
of  monks  occupied  during  many  centuries  in  multiply- 
ing copies  of  the  Bible,  patiently  writing  out  the  whole 
Scriptures  by  hand,  and  marvellously  illuminating  them 
— some  of  these  copies  being  written  entirely  in  letters 
of  gold — any  one  but  a  blind  and  superstitious  devotee 
of  Romanism  must  see  that  they  had  the  Protestant 
"British  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel" 
and  the  great  Protestant  "  American  Bible  Society  "  in 
their  eye,  and  were  determined  to  forestall  them  at  all 
cost  ! 

And  what  may  thus  be  said  in  explanation  of  all 
that  the  popes  and  bishops  and  priests  and  monks  have 
done  in  the  matter  of  producing  copies  of  the  Bible  also 
applies  to  the  cultivation  of  letters  and  the  multipli- 
cation of  all  other  kinds  of  books  by  Rome  and  all  her 
agents  in  every  age  and  in  every  country,  and  especially 
by  her  agents  near  home  in  Italy.  One  must  not  find 
fault  with  Protestantism  for  being  so  much  behindhand 
in  literature  and  the  arts,  and  so  much  inferior  to 
Catholicism  in  all  these  things.  You  see  Protestants 
were  not  there  to  do  it.  All  they  need  now  is  time  and 
opportunity'  to  catch  up  with    Rome. 

Having  established  the  truth  by  indisputable  proof 
I  submit  to  the  fair-minded  reader  that  the  form  and 
tone  of  the  foregoing  reflections  stand  fully  justified  by 


370  Libraries. 


the  false  charges  of  Rome's  hostility  to  and  fear  of  the 
Bible,  and  of  the  neglect  of  the  cultivation  of  literature 
generally  by  the  Catholic  Church — charges  that  are 
unceasingl}^  made  in  the  hearing  of  Protestants  by  their 
trusted  clerical  teachers,  tract  and  newspaper  writers. 
Audi  alteram  pai^tem  is  a  time-honored  maxim  ;  but 
when  shall  the  day  come  when  Protestants  will  hear 
the  other  side  ?  When  it  does  come  it  cannot  fail  to 
prove  a  disastrous  day  of  retribution  for  those  who  are 
responsible  for  their  deception. 

I  content  myself  with  quoting  a  sentence  at  present 
under  my  eye  as  a  conclusion  to  this  chapter.  It  is 
from  the  pen  of  an  American  writer  reviewing  Hallam's 
Middle  Ages  in  the  columns  of  the  North  American  Re- 
view,   1840  : 

"  The  great  ascendency  of  the  papal  power,  and  the  influence 
of  Itahan  genius  on  the  hterature  and  the  fine  arts  of  all  countries, 
made  Italy  essentially  the  centre  of  light — the  sovereign  of 
thought — the  Capital  of  Civilization." 

Hallam's  own  words  were  these  : 

"  It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  Italy  supplied  the  fire  from 
which  other  nations  lighted  their  own  torches  "  (Hist,  of  Litera- 
ture, vol.  i.  p.  58). 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

A  LOOK  AT  IJTERARY   AND  ARTISTIC  MEXICO. 

AND  now  we  wall  '*  look  at  Mexico,"  as  the  popular 
anti-Catholic  writers,  preachers,  and  lecturers  are 
continually  telling  their  audiences  to  do ;  but  who  at 
the  same  time  take  precious  good  care  never  to  bring 
Mexico  within  sight  by  giving  any  evidence  concern- 
ing that  country  which  is  supported  by  reliable  au- 
thority. Protestant  tourists  and  missionaries,  ignorant 
of  the  language,  hostile  in  spirit  to  the  religion,  and  as 
sharp-sighted  to  discover  any  local  scandal  as  they  are 
stone-blind  to  anything  that  would  redound  to  the 
general  credit  of  the  people,  or  of  the  clergy — these 
are  the  informants  upon  whom  their  already  prejudiced 
listeners  depend  for  their  knowledge  of  Mexico.  Ap- 
parently they  do  not  wish  to  hear,  any  more  than 
their  informants  desire  to  tell,  anything  good  of  the 
country,  of  its  inhabitants,  or  of  their  manners,  cus- 
toms, or  religion.  How  very  careful  all  these  corre- 
spondents and  reporters  of  what  they  saw  and  heard 
in  Mexico  are  to  avoid  giving  the  information  required 
to  form  a  just  judgment  of  the  social  status  of  the 
people;  viz.,  that  38  per  cent,  of  the  11,000,000  inhabi- 
tants are  full-blood  Indians,  43  per  cent,  of  mixed 
race,  and  only  19  per  cent,  are  whites,  a  proportion  that 
is  also  applicable  to  nearly  all  of  Central  and  South 
America. 

How  very  careful,  also,  they  are  not  to  dwell  upon 
the  fact  that  all  these  aboriginal  races  were  preserved 

371 


372         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico. 

by  their  Spanish  Catholic  conquerors,  made  brothers 
of,  raised  at  once  to  equalit}'  by  intermarriage,  con- 
verted to  Christianity,  and  civilized.  They  are  a  virtu- 
ous people,  peaceful,  refined  in  manners,  hospitable, 
charitable  to  a  fault,  devout,  brave  and  patriotic;  but 
do  we  hear  anything  of  all  this?  Not  a  word.  What 
we  do  hear,  and  hear  told  as  if  it  were  all  possible 
crimes  and  misfortunes  rolled  into  one,  is  that  they 
are  dreadfully  illiterate  !  The  percentage  of  illiteracy 
given  to  the  audience  is  asserted  according  to  fancy. 
If  the  speaker  chose  to  sa}"  95  per  cent.,  or  even  99  per 
cent.,  he  would  be  quite  safe  to  be  believed.  He  can 
also  assert,  and  generally  does,  that  the  Mexicans — like 
all  other  Catholics  indeed- -are  horribly  superstitious. 
He  is  also  quite  safe  in  this  slander  too,  knowing  that 
no  questions  will  be  asked.  Or  he  may  take  to  lament- 
ing, with  the  Methodist  Bishop  Newman,  that  the  pagan 
"altars  of  the  aborigines,  unstained  with  the  worship 
of  saints,  in  temples  open  to  the  pure  heavens,"  were 
overthrown  to  give  place  to  the  altars  of  the  Crucified 
Saviour  of  the  w^orld,  the  Divine  Redeemer  and  Civil- 
izer  of  the  nations  {Christian  Advocate,  Methodist, 
June  I,  1893),  and  confidently  promise  his  hearers  that 
Methodism  is  going  to  carry  to  those  benighted  peo- 
ple, sitting  in  the  darkness  of  Roman  idolatry,  the  light 
of  Protestantism,  and  preach  to  them  the  saving  gospel 
of  riches  and  railways,  and  "free  thought  "  to  believe 
anj^thing  but  "Romanism" — and  not  fear  to  hear  one 
dissenting  murmur  from  his  ignorant  and  prejudiced 
audience  when  he  winds  up  his  oration  with  a  climax 
like  tliis  :  "I  would  rather  be  a  South  American  Inca 
of  the  fifteenth  century  than  a  South  American  papist 
of  the  nineteenth"    (Bishop  Newman,  ut  sjipra) . 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico.        373 


Before  presenting  evidence  of  what  Mexico  has  done 
in  the  way  of  education,  I  have  been  led  to  draw  the 
reader's  attention  to  the  character  of  the  sources 
through  which  information  about  that  country  is  gen- 
erally conveyed  to  Protestants.  Now  let  us  get  at  a 
few  facts. 

I  find  in  the  Report  of  our  Commissioner  of  Educa- 
tion for  1890  that  the  school  enrollment  in  Mexico  is  4.7 
per  cent,  of  the  population.  That  is  low  compared  with 
the  United  States,  whose  percentage  is  23.3  ;  or  with 
that  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, which  is  16.3.  But  the  reader  must  not  jump  at 
the  conclusion  that  because  only  47  out  of  every  1,000 
of  the  population  are  enrolled  in  the  Mexican  primary 
schools,  that  the  remaining  953  are  all  illiterate,  or,  as 
he  may  hear  from  some  reviler  of  Mexico,  "  the  percent- 
age of  Mexican  illiteracy  is  95.3  per  cent." 

What  would  we  think  of  the  honesty  of  a  lecturer  or 
preacher  who  would  calculate  the  illiteracy  of  the 
United  States  in  that  way,  and  assert  that  only  233 
persons  out  of  i  ,000  in  the  United  States  can  read  and 
write,  and  that  our  illiteracy  is  76.7  per  cent.? 

I  cannot  do  better  than  give  the  following  extract 
from  a  writer  who  was  certainly  competent  to  give 
exact  information.  It  will  tell  us  the  state  of  educa- 
tion in  Mexico  as  far  back  as  1876.  What  special  im- 
provements have  since  been  made  I  add  in  brackets 
from  the  Statesman's  Year  Book,  1893.  The  writer's 
book  is  entitled  The  Republic  of  Mexico  in  1876  :  the 
Character,  Habits,  Costumes,  a7id  Vocations  of  its  Inhabi- 
tants, written  in  Spanish  by  Antonio  Garcia  Cubas, 
and  translated  into  English  by  George  E.  Henderson. 
The  author  says  in  his  introduction  : 


374         ^  Z^^/t'  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico. 

"  This  book  has  been  written  with  the  view  of  removing  the 
wrong  impressions  that  may  have  been  left  on  the  minds  of  the 
readers  of  those  works  which,  with  evil  intent  or  with  the  desire 
of  acquiring  notoriety  as  novelists,  have  been  composed  and  pub- 
lished by  different  foreigners  in  regard  to  the  Mexican  nation. 
These  impressions  have  been  received  during  a  rapid  excursion 
of  pure  amusement,  making  no  longer  stay  in  the  various  towns 
than  the  time  required  to  repack  the  valise  and  continue  on  a 
journey  of  useless  results." 

Not  so,  most  innocent  Senor  Antonio;  many  of  these 
travellers  manage  to  bring  back  with  them  a  good  deal 
of  ' '  information  ' '  which  they  find  very  useful  for  their 
purposes. 

"  Isolated  facts  that  are  obtained  in  every  society  in  contradic- 
tion to  general  rules,  and  a  disposition  to  judge  events  without  a 
proper  examination  and  careful  study,  are  not  sufficient  to  give 
complete  knowledge  of  any  class  of  people,  and  much  less  to  au- 
thorize the  giving  out  of  such  impressions  through  the  medium 
of  the  press." 

And   you   might   have   added    "or   the   pulpit,"  good 
Seiior  Antonio. 

On  page  33,  under  the  head  of  Public  Instruction, 
the  author  says  : 

"  Primary  instruction  in  the  schools  of  the  Republic  consists  of 
the  following  branches:  reading,  writing,  Spanish  grammar, 
morality  and  good  manners,  and  moreover,  in  the  girls'  schools, 
needle-work  and  other  useful  labors.  In  some  of  the  States  the 
study  of  geography,  national  history,  and  drawing  are  also  obliga- 
tory, whilst  in  the  schools  that  are  not  supported  by  the  govern- 
ment notions  of  algebra  and  geometry,  elements  of  general  and 
natural  history,  ornamental  and  lineal  drawing,  and  the  French 
language  are  taught. 

"  The  number  of  primary  schools  in  the  whole  of  the  Republic 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexij^o.         375 


reaches  8,103,  instead  of  5,000  that  existed  in  1870.  Of  the 
number  referred  to,  according  to  the  work  of  Sehor  Diaz  Covar- 
rubias,  603  are  supported  by  the  State  governments,  5,240  by  the 
municipal  authorities,  378  by  private  corporations  or  individuals, 
117  by  the  Catholic  clergy,  besides  1,581  private  establishments 
that  are  not  gratuitous,  and  184  not  classified. 

"  These  schools  are  attended  by  350,000  scholars  of  both 
sexes.  [In  1888  there  were  10,726  primary  schools,  with  543-977 
pupils.  In  1889  there  were  7,334  government  and  municipal 
schools,  with  412,789  pupils.] 

"  Secondary  instruction,  as  well  as  professional  education,  are 
under  the  charge  of  the  State,  with  subjection  to  the  programmes 
established  by  law,  which  prescribes  the  liberty  of  education  and 
professions.  In  the  Republic  of  Mexico  there  are  105  establish- 
ments of  secondary  and  professional  instruction,  in  the  following 
form  :  i  special  preparatory  school  in  the  City  of  Mexico;  19  civil 
colleges  of  jurisprudence  ;  20  schools  of  medicine  and  pharmacy ; 
10  schools  for  engineers;  2  naval  schools;  3  commercial  schools; 
3  academies  of  arts  and  sciences;  2  agricultural  schools;  2 
academies  of  fine  arts  ;  2  conservatories  of  music  and  declama- 
tion ;  I  military  college  ;  24  seminaries  supported  by  the  Catholic 
clergy ;  i  school  for  the  blind  ;  i  school  for  the  deaf  and  dumb  ; 
14  secondary  schools  for  girls.  Total  number  of  such  institutions 
105,  with  an  attendance  of  14,809  pupils.  [In  1889  the  number 
attending  these  higher  schools  was  21,000.] 

"The  number  of  professors  and  employees  in  the  public 
instruction  in  1876  was  8,770.  There  are  20  public  libraries  [72  in 
1890],  with  236,000  volumes,  and  private  libraries  with  from  1,000 
to  8,000  volumes  are  innumerable.  There  are  museums  of  antiqui- 
ties, paintings,  and  natural  history  in  many  of  the  larger  cities  [19 
in  1890].  There  are  73  institutions  dedicated  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  arts  and  sciences,  of  which  29  are  scientific,  3  meteorological 
observatories,  21  literary,  20  artistical,  and  3  of  a  mixed  character. 

"In  the  year  1874  there  were  164  journals  and  magazines,  of 
which  18  were  scientific,  9  literary,  2  artistical,  26  religious,  and 
118  political"  [in  1890  317  newspapers]. 


376         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico. 

MEXICAN    LITERATURE. 

If  it  be  true,  as  I  have  already  endeavored  to  im- 
press upon  the  reader,  that  the  number,  character,  and 
flourishing  condition  of  schools  of  higher  learning,  such 
as  universities,  colleges,  academies,  and  the  like,  fur- 
nish a  good  test  of  the  general  standard  of  popular  in- 
telligence, so  a  similar  test  ma}-  be  found  in  the  num- 
bers and  literary  eminence  of  a  people's  authors,  their 
poets,  historians,  philosophers,  essayists,  and  such  like 
persons  of  superior  intellectual  culture.  Perusing  the 
works  of  some  recent  tourists  in  Mexico,  I  confess  I 
was  surprised  to  find  that  commonly  disparaged  country 
on  the  score  of  its  educational  attainments  so  distin- 
guished for  the  number  of  its  learned  and  brilliant 
writers  ;  of  many  of  whom  I  find  mention  in  Thomas  A. 
Janvier's  Mexican  Guide  and  in  Picturesque,  Political^ 
and  Progressive  Mexico,  by  Mary  B.  Blake  and  Margaret 
Sullivan.*  Neither  of  these  writers  pretends  to  give  an 
exhaustive  list  of  literary  celebrities  who  are  quite 
worthy  to  take  rank  with  similar  scholars  in  other  more 
highly  favored  countries.  Mr.  Janvier  particularly, 
who  devotes  several  pages  of  his  highly  instructive  and 
entertaining  volume  to  the  "Language  and  Literature 
of  Mexico,"  apologizes  for  the  brevity  of  his  notice 
as  a  very  imperfect  sketch  of  what  really  exists.  This 
writer  reasons  very  justly,  that  even  what  he  has  per- 
sonally observed  ought  to  be  received  as  evidence  of 
being  "  the  legitimate  product  of  a  high  state  of  civiliza- 
tion,'" but  which  he  thinks  must  be  regarded,  in  the 
case  of  Mexico,  as  "merely  an  accidental  interpola- 
tion of  intelligence  and  refinement  in  the  midst  of  bar- 

*  I  take  the  liberty  of  quoting  from  these  two  Catholic  lady  writers,  as 
their  testimony  is  fully  sustained  by  that  of  Mr.  Janvier. 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico.         '^yy 

barism."  His  latter  conclusion  only  goes  to  show  the 
force  of  preconceived  notions  and  prejudice.  Can  he 
allege  any  other  instance  in  the  history  of  peoples  to 
justify  him  in  supposing  the  possibility  of  the  concur- 
rence of  such  extraordinary  intelligence  and  refinement 
of  a  barbaric  nation's  authors  of  singular  merit,  erudite 
historians,  charming  poets,  and  learned  philosophers 
and  theologians  ?  But  he  reinforces  his  first  argument 
to  the  danger  of  his  second  when  he  says  :  "  It  is  cer- 
tain that  literary  qualities  of  a  high  order  are  inherent 
(?)  in  the  Mexican  race,  a  fact  demonstrated  by  the 
numerous  works  written  in  Spanish  by  native  Mexi- 
cans, men  and  women." 

It  is  not  very  good-natured  in  him  to  assert  that 
when  the  ecclesiastical  supervision  of  literature  became 
more  strict  that  the  ' '  prostration  of  letters  in  Mexico 
became  absolute,"  although  he  excepts,  as  he  has  the 
honesty  to  do,  the  learned  theological  treatises  written 
by  the  monks,  and  the  "delightful"  chronicles  of  the 
same  saviours  of  literature  all  over  the  world  in  every  age. 

That  he  does  not  name  any  of  these  theologians  or 
their  works  is  not  surprising  in  a  litterateur  of  his 
tastes  and  experience  ;  but  he  must  permit  us  Catholics 
to  believe  that,  when  the  most  exalted  intellects  give 
themselves  up  to  profound  scientific  and  meditative 
study  upon  the  supreme  subjects  of  the  Being  of  the 
Creator,  His  attributes  and  His  relations  to  man  and 
his  destiny,  their  intellectual  powers  are  no  less  worth- 
ily engaged,  and  productive  of  no  less  benefit  to 
humanity,  even  though  the  fields  of  lighter  and,  to  in- 
ferior minds,  more  attractive  literary  culture  be  for  the 
while  left  to  such. 

However,  it  is  plain  he  is  in  nowise  minded  to  deny 


378         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico, 

to  hivS  Mexican  literary  brethren  their  just  meed  of  his 
appreciative  praise  ;  and  he  goes  on  to  tell  us  of  Carlos 
de  Siguenza  y  Gongora,  poet,  philosopher,  mathema- 
tician, historian,  antiquarian,  and  critic ;  of  Sister 
J  nana  Ynez  de  la  Cruz,  a  nun  whose  verse  and  prose 
found  renown  even  in  Spain  ;  of  the  dramatist  Alarcon  ; 
of  the  historians  Clavigero,  Veytia,  and  Gama  ;  of  the 
poets  Navarete  and  Tagle ;  of  the  patriotic  poets 
Ortega  and  Quintana-Roo  ;  of  the  novelist  Jose  Joa- 
quin Fernandez  de  Lizardi,  whose  work  will  be  "  en- 
duringly  known  "  ;  of  the  dramatist  Gorostiza  ;  of  the 
poets  Carpio  and  Pesado  ;  of  the  poet  and  dramatist 
Galvan,  and  others  ;  all  contributing  *'  to  raise  Mexican 
literature — though  the  fact  scarcely  is  known  to  the 
outside  world —  ' '  [an  ignorance  of  which  the  Protest- 
ant revilers  of  Mexico  are  not  slow  to  take  advantage] 
"to   an  honorable  ajid  even  a    commanding  position.'' 

But  our  tourist  is  not  yet  done.  There  are  still 
many  more  w^orthy  of  notice.  He  speaks  of  several, 
and  finally  mentions  a  renowned  historical  novelist, 
Seilor  Riva  Palacio,  and  continues:  "With  him  may 
be  grouped,  as  living  writers  of  high  merit,  the  poet 
Juan  de  Dios  Peza  ;  Jose  Maria  Vigil,  the  archaeolo- 
gist ;  and,  to  quote  Bandelier,  the  '  great  documentary 
historian  of  Mexico '  Joaquin  Garcia  Icazbalceta  ;  the 
archaeologist  Alfredo  Chavero ;  the  philologist  Fran- 
cisco Pimentel ;  and  the  philosopher  Ramon  Man- 
terola." 

I  quote  verbatim  from  the  chapter  on  "Literary 
Mexico,"  in  the  entertaining  volume  from  the  pens  of 
the  two  lady  writers  already  mentioned  : 

"  The  list  of  Mexican  authors  stretches  almost  indefinitely. 
Besides   those   already   mentioned    as    novelists,    Manuel    Payno, 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico.         379 

Pedro  Castera,  Peon  Contreras,  Vincente  Morales,  and  Jose 
Maria  Esteva  are  well  known  as  brilliant  and  forcible  writers. 
Upon  more  serious  topics,  whether  of  political  or  social  import- 
ance, one  finds  the  names  of  Zarco,  Prieto,  Baranda,  Siliceo, 
Arriaga,  Ocampo,  Alcaraz,  Lerdo,  Montes,  Zamacono,  Yanes, 
Mariscal,  and  many  others,  who  have  contributed  largely  to  the 
education  of  the  people.  As  poets,  a  still  greater  number  of 
popular  and  celebrated  men  and  women  find  honorable  place  in 
the  ranks.  Guillermo  Prieto  is  probably  best  known  in  what 
might  be  called  national  songs,  full  of  originality  and  patriotism. 
Jose  Maria  Esteva  follows  him  closely  in  giving  expression  to  the 
natural  traits  and  habits  of  the  country.  Acuna,  Luis,  G.  Ortiz, 
Silva,  Gutierrez-Najera,  Dias-Miron,  Covarrubias,  Juan  Valle, 
Eduardo  Zarate,  Francisco  Colina,  Firso  de  Cordova,  Apapite 
Silva,  Manuel  Romero,  Esther  Papia,  Rosa  Carreto,  Refugia 
Argumeda  de  Ortiz,  and  Miguel  Ulloa.  Justo  Sierra,  one  of  the 
most  forceful  and  virile  of  singers,  and  Manuel  Flores,  by  his  ten- 
derness and  sweetness,  have  taken  high  rank  among  Spanish 
poets,  even  outside  of  their  own  country.  Every  popular  Mexican 
romancist  is  also  a  popular  poet.  Among  famous  religious 
writers  are  Sister  Juana  de  la  Cruz,  Senor  Carpio-Pesado, 
Arango,  Bishop  Montesdeoca,  and  others.  As  dramatists, 
Gorostiza  and  Alarcon  rank  well  among  Spanish  classics;  while 
Calderon,  Rodriguez  Galvan,  Chavero,  Mateos,  Contreras,  Acufia, 
and  others  have  produced  much  skilful  and  remarkable  work. 
Senors  Juan  de  Dios,  Pesa,  and  De  las  Rosas  hold  an  enviable 
place  as  poets  of  the  home  and  domestic  life.  As  linguists 
Senors  Altimirano,  Yscalbalceta,  and  Pimentel  are  best  known, 
the  latter  having  made  important  studies  upjn  the  Indian  dialects 
of  the  country ;  while  Orozco  y  Berra,  in  his  Histojy  of  Ancient 
Mexico,  has  excelled  all  previous  writers  upon  the  same  subject. 
The  best  author  upon  constitutional  subjects,  or  those  relating  to 
political  economy,  is  probably  Sefior  Vallarta ;  but  each  of  these 
lists  of  authors  could  be  reinforced  by  numberless  names.  Those 
given  are,  perhaps,  enough  to  disabuse  the  American  mind  of  any 
feeling  that  Mexico  lacks  the  expression  of  literary  tastes,  or 
suffers  in  comparison  with  other  lands  from  want  of  scholarly 
interpretation." 


380         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico. 

Well,  I  think  it  ought  to  be  enough ;  but  will  it  be  ? 
There  is  one  test  I  would  like  to  see  made  :  and  that 
would  be  for  a  Mexican  litterateur  to  play  tourist  in 
turn  ;  and,  after  a  summer's  visit  to  the  United  States, 
having  also  had  the  entree  to  our  best  literary  circles, 
and  the  acquaintance  of  our  most  distinguished 
authors,  to  write  a  volume  similar  to  those  from  which 
I  have  just  quoted :  then  to  compare  the  lists  of 
Mexican  celebrities  we  have  had  presented  to  us,  with 
the  one  which  he  would  display  before  his  fellow- 
Mexicans,  in  order  to  disabuse  the  Mexican  mind  of 
any  feeling  that  the  United  States  lack  the  expression 
of  literary  tastes,  or  suffer  in  comparison  with  their 
own  sunny  land  or  with  others,  from  want  of  scholarly 
interpretation ! 

MEXICAN  ART. 

Another  no  less  striking  evidence  of  the  intellectual 
culture  and  refined  taste  of  the  Mexican  people  is  af- 
forded by  the  great  number  of  their  artists  and  the  high 
encomiums  passed  upon  their  works.  To  this  must  be 
added  both  the  keen  appreciation  of  the  merits  of  these 
artistic  productions  shown  to  be  possessed  by  the  com- 
mon people,  and  their  own  singularl}^  apt  and  skilful 
artistic  ability  to  produce  beautifully  harmonious  and 
graceful  articles  w^hich  serv-e  for  personal  adornment, 
for  festive  display,  or  to  add  a  charm  to  objects  serving 
the  commonest  uses. 

Mr.  Janvier  devotes  a  section  of  his  instructive  vol- 
ume to  this  subject,  showing  that  from  the  earliest  days 
of  Mexican  history  art  of  no  mean  order  has  flourished 
throughout  the  country.  What  is  now  the  "National 
School  of  Fine  Arts  "  in  the  City  of  Mexico — National 
now,   of  course,  since  the   Secularist  Reform  banished 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico.         381 

the  names  of  all  the  Saints  of  God  from  their  artistic 
shrines  in  that  Catholic  land,  though  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  they  themselves  have  not  yet  left  the  country — was 
once  called  the  Academia  de  las  Nobles  Aries  de  San 
CARI.OS  de  la  Nueva  Espana.  This  institution  is  the 
successor  of  the  parent  art  school  in  Mexico,  founded 
in  1529  by  the  eminent  Franciscan  monk,  Fray  Pedro 
de  Gante.  Our  author  goes  on  to  enumerate  a  goodly 
list  of  highly  distinguished  artists,  men  and  women, 
some  of  Spanish  birth,  some  native  Indians,  and  others 
of  mixed  blood.  One  of  these,  Francisco  Kduardo 
Tresguerras,  he  styles  "  a  great  architect,  a  painter  and 
sculptor  of  marked  ability,  and  styled,  not  inaptly,  '  the 
Michael  Angelo  of  Mexico.'  "  An  appreciative  men- 
tion of  some  of  the  more  notable  paintings  and  pieces 
of  sculpture  occupies  four  pages  of  the  writer's  book  ; 
one  of  which,  a  "  Saint  Charles  Borromeo,"  by  Solome 
Pina,  obtained  the  chief  prize  in  Rome  itself.  Another, 
the  "  Las  Casas  "  of  Parra,  he  tells  us  ranks  as  one  of 
the  great  pictures  of  the  world. 

Further  on  in  his  volume,  when  he  comes  to  name 
and  describe  the  many  monasteries,  churches,  chapels, 
and  other  religious  institutions,  he  calls  the  reader's 
attention  to  hundreds  of  paintings  deserving  of  mention 
for  the  reason  of  their  remarkable  artistic  merit  and 
great  renown. 

How  did  the  Fine  Arts  come  to  reach  such  an  ex- 
traordinary height  of  cultivation  in  Mexico,  producing 
works  worthy  to  be  classed  with  the  great  masterpieces 
of  Catholic  European  genius  ?  Artists  do  not  grow  on 
bushes,  neither  can  they  be  served  to  order,  even 
though  that  order  were  a  government  one  with  millions 
to  pay  the  bill.     Perhaps  it  may  suggest  a  new  and  not 


382         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico. 

unprofitable  thought  to  some  of  my  readers  when  I  tell 
them  that  the  Catholic  religion,  being  the  religion  of 
God,  is  the  religion  not  only  of  the  True,  and  of  the 
Good,  but  also  of  the  Beautiful  ;  the  Tri-unal  ex- 
pression of  the  Being  and  Act  of  the  God  Whom  Catho- 
lics know,  serve,  and  love.  Their  religion  is  to  know 
the  Infinite  True,  to  serve  the  Infinite  Good,  and  to 
love  the  Infinite  Beauty.  Their  possession  of  divine 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity  gives  to  all  Catholics,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  the  triple  master-key  which 
opens  the  inner  Sanctuary  where  the  Vision  of  the 
True,  the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful  is  revealed. 

That  is  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  Catholic  people, 
even  of  the  ruder  sort,  not  only  are  certain  of  the  high- 
est Truth,  while  the  wisest  of  the  world  are  babbling 
like  children  about  the  great  ' '  Unknown  and  Unknow- 
able," but  also  in  the  light  of  that  Truth  seek  the  high- 
est and  purest  Good  at  all  cost,  and  know  a  good  paint- 
ing— inspired  by  the  contemplation  of  the  divinely 
Beautiful — when  they  see  it.  And  now  the  reader 
knows  the  secret  of  the  abundance  of  artists  in  Catholic 
countries,  and  of  the  splendor  of  their  transcendent 
genius,  as  also  of  the  wide-spread  appreciation  of  true 
art  among  the  Catholic  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water,  the  toilers  on  land  and  on  sea.  And  he  is  also 
furnished  with  a  good  reason  for  the  lack  of  all  this 
popular  artistic  taste  among  the  people  in  Protestant 
countries. 

This  worship  of  the  divine^  holy  Spirit  of  Beauty 
also  goes  a  great  way  towards  explaining  the  greater 
popular  happiness  one  sees  in  Catholic  countries.  It  is 
what  the  hard,  dollar- worshipping  world  cannot  even 
comprehend ;  but  the  worship  of  the  beautiful  is  quite 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico.         383 

as  essential  for  the  perfection  and  happiness  of  the  soul 
as  the  search  after  truth  and  the  practice  of  the  good, 
although  it  is  not  given  to  all  men  to  stand  and  minister 
as  consecrated  priests  at  the  altar  of  either.  Saj^s 
Bulwer-Iyytton  :  "  Without  the  idea  of  Beauty,  couldst 
thou  conceive  of  a  form  in  which  to  clothe  a  soul  that 
has  entered  Heaven  ?  ' '  Only  a  Catholic  artist  can 
paint  a  glorified  saint,  and  it  was  always  for  the  eyes 
and  the  soul  of  the  common  people  that  great  Catholic 
artists  have  sought  to  depict  upon  their  canvas  the 
beauty  of  holiness.  And  in  those  days  when  the 
spirit  of  beauty  was  worshipped  most  fully  the  people 
were  the  most  happy,  as  they  were  also  most  noble. 
lyCt  us  hear  one  who  testifies  to  all  this,  and  does  not 
altogether  deny  the  source  of  inspiration  whence  the 
popular  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  sprang.  The 
writer  is  speaking  of  the  Italians  and  their  artists  : 

"  In  the  old  days  men  Hved  greatly  great  lives  to  great  ends. 
Their  faith  was  ever  present  with  them — a  thing  of  daily  use  and 
hourly  sweetness.  Their  households  were  wisely  ruled,  and 
simply  ordered.  They  denuded  themselves  of  their  substance  to 
give  their  gold  to  the  raising  of  mighty  works — vivis  lapidibus — 
which  to  this  day  do  live  and  speak.  Great  artists  narrowed  not 
themselves  to  one  meagre  phase  of  art,  but  filled  with  all  its  in- 
numerable Powers  the  splendid  plenitude  of  their  majestic  years. 
And  that  art  was  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  who  followed  it,  and 
adored  its  power,  and  were  nourished  by  it,  so  that  it  was  no 
empty  name,  but  an  ever-vivifying  presence — a  divinity  at  once  of 
hearth  and  temple  that  brooded  over  the  cities  with  sheltering  and 
stainless  love. 

"  Therefore,  in  those  days,  men  giving  themselves  leave  to  be 
glad  for  a  little  space,  were  glad  with  the  same  sinewy  force  and 
manful  singleness  of  purpose  as  made  them  in  other  times  labori- 
ous, self-denying,  patient,  and  fruitful  of  high  thoughts  and  deeds. 
Because  they  labored  for  their  fellows,  therefore  they  could  laugh 


384         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico, 

with  them ;  and  because  they  served  God,  therefore  they  dared  to 
be  glad.  Nowadays  science  makes  a  great  discovery,  the  tired 
world  yawns,  feels  its  pockets,  and  only  asks,  '  Will  it  pay  ?  '  " 
(Pascarel,  "Ouida"). 

Yes,  it  is  this  worship  of  the  Beautiful — the  worship 
that  is  true  because  it  is  accompanied  with  Sacrifice — 
that  solves  the  otherwise  inexplicable  mystery  of  the 
conception  of  those  sublime  ideal  harmonies  of  form, 
tone,  symmetry,  proportion,  and  color,  and  of  their 
realization  in  the  marvellous  edifices  of  Catholic  wor- 
ship with  all  their  ravishing  works  of  art,  soul-inspiring 
ceremonial  and  melody,  within  whose  heaven-revealing 
walls  the  knees  of  the  very  unbeliever  instinctively  bend 
to  pray — sublime  and  majestic  temples  of  which  the 
highest  genius  of  Protestantism  is  incapable  of  grasp- 
ing the  full  meaning,  or  of  making  for  its  own  bald, 
inexpressive  worship  any  rational  use — all  erected  at 
a  period  of  Christian  civilization  when  the  percentage 
of  illiteracy — Protestantism's  touchstone  of  ignorance 
— throughout  all  Christendom  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient evidence  in  the  eyes  of  its  modern  sociologists 
to  convince  them  that  the  people  must  have  been 
sunken  in  gross  ignorance  and  superstition.  Cath- 
olic civilization  is  essentially  spiritual,  Protestant  civil- 
ization material.  Compare  the  results  of  one  with  the 
other  :  '*  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

I  am,  therefore,  not  surprised  to  find  the  Catholic 
Mexicans  an  artistic  people.  The  tourist,  Dr.  Wells, 
already  quoted  in  the  chapter  on  Civilization  in  Mexico, 
publishes  the  following  letter,  written  in  defence  of  his 
own  people  by  a  Mexican  gentleman  who  felt  aggrieved 
by  the  author's  criticisms  upon  the  backward  industrial 
condition   of  Mexico.     I   regard  it  as  a   singular  con- 


A  Look  at  Literary  aytd  Artistic  Mexico.         385 

finnation  of  my  foregoing  views  concerning  the  con- 
trast between  the  different  nature  of  the  civilization 
esteemed  by  Catholics  and  Protestants. 

Dr.  Wells,  the  Protestant,  speaks  in  disparaging 
terms  of  that  social  condition  which  not  only  has 
prompted  the  Mexicans  to  do  so  little  to  secure 
material  progress  in  the  past,  but  seems  to  make  them 
disinclined  to  make  any  strenuous  effort  to  secure  it 
in  the  future.  The  Mexican  writer,  speaking  from 
the  Catholic  vStand-point,  shows  himself  far  more  con- 
cerned for  the  spiritual  side  of  his  people's  civiliza- 
tion, and  confidently  offers  evidence  of  progress  in 
that  as  a  complete  answer,  in  his  opinion,  to  the 
adverse  criticisms  of  Dr.  Wells.     He  says  : 

"  If  you  pass  through  the  Academy  of  San  Carlos,  you  will  see 
pictures  executed  by  native  Mexican  artists  in  the  highest  style  of 
art,  comparing  most  favorably  with  any  production  of  the  acad- 
emies of  design  of  Paris,  Rome,  Munich,  or  elsewhere.  Go  with 
me,  if  you  please,  to  a  narrow  lane  in  the  small  but  picturesque 
city  of  Cuernavaca,  and  there  in  a  small  room,  working  with  im- 
plements of  his  own  make,  you  will  observe  a  native,  whom  you 
would  perhaps  class  among  the  peons,  carving  a  crucifix  in  wood, 
so  highly  artistic,  with  the  expression  of  suffering  on  our  Saviour's 
face  so  realistic,  that  any  foreign  sculptor  of  the  highest  renown 
would  be  proud  to  call  the  creation  his  own.  Again,  visit  with 
me  the  village  of  Amatlan  de  los  Reyes,  near  Cordoba,  and 
observe  the  exquisitely  embroidered  Jiuipilla  of  some  native 
woman,  surpassing  in  many  respects  the  designs  of  the  art- 
needlework  societies  of  New  York  or  Boston;  not  to  mention 
the  fine  filigree  work,  figures  m  clay  and  wax  as  executed  by  the 
natives  in  or  near  the  city  of  Mexico  ;  the  art  pottery  of  Guadala- 
jara, the  gourds,  calabashes,  and  wooden  trays  highly  embellished 
by  native  artists,  whose  sense  or  acceptation  of  art  is  not  acquired 
by  tedious  study  at  some  academy  of  design,  but  is  inborn  and 
spontaneously  expressed  in  such  creations." 


386         A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico, 

Little  cares  the  Protestant  tourist  for  carved  cruci- 
fixes and  embroidered  huipillas.  This  very  fact  that 
the  Mexican  people  have  ' '  much  of  aesthetic  taste 
and  an  innate  genius  for  music,  painting,  sculpture, 
embroider}^,  dress,  decoration,  and  the  fine  arts  gen- 
erally," is  rather  to  be  deplored,  as  standing  in  the 
way  of  their  "material  development." 

My  reader  will  find  a  suitable  reflection  to  make  in 
this  place,  already  quoted  from  Ouida's  Village  Cotn- 
mwic,  in  the  chapter  on  Civilization,  when  that  popular, 
brilliant  writer  contrasts  the  influence  of  the  old  and 
new  regimes  upon  the  Catholic  people  of  Italy  ; 
where,  destructive  as  the  new  idol  of  modern  material 
progress  has  proved  to  the  happiness  of  the  people, 
it  has  not  yet  been  strong  enough  to  imitate  in  spirit 
and  in  act  the  diabolical  confiscations  of  God's  prop- 
erty and  the  wholesale  butcheries  of  His  servants  and 
true  adorers,  as  was  done  in  the  Protestant  English 
Reformation  under  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth;  crush- 
ing out  all  spiritual  life  together  with  the  people's 
civil  and  religious  liberties. 

The  foregoing  information  and  comparison  of  the 
different  ideals  and  characteristics  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant  civilization  ought  to  be  quite  sufficient 
evidence  that,  on  the  subject  of  education  alone,  not 
to  speak  of  other  matters,  Mexico  has  been,  amongst 
us,  a  much-maligned  country.  It  is  a  showing  of 
which  the  Catholic  Church,  so  far  as  her  influence  is 
concerned,  may  well  be  proud.  The  honest,  reflecting 
reader,  at  all  acquainted  with  the  character  of  the  races 
of  which  the  vast  majority  of  the  population  of  Mexico 
and  South  America  is  composed,  and  from  what  condi- 
tion of  barbarism  these  pagan  races  have  been  brought 


A  Look  at  Literary  and  Artistic  Mexico.         387 

to  a  not  unworthy  standard  of  Christian  civilization  and 
faith  by  the  Catholic  Church  is  not  disposed  to  wonder 
at  the  high  percentage  of  illiteracy  still  prevailing 
there,  nor  deem  this  lack  of  the  means  of  instruction 
the  worst  of  all  possible  conditions  for  the  classes  of 
people  there  who  are  illiterate,  even  supposing  it  were 
true,  which  it  is  not,  that  they  have  been  designedly 
kept  so.  Protestantism  never  could  have  done,  and, 
what  is  more,  never  would  have  done,  with  them 
what  the  Catholic  religion  has  done;  that  is  sure. 
Their  Spanish  masters  and  civilizers  never  made  it  an 
offence,  punishable  by  law,  to  teach  their  slaves  to  read 
and  write,  as  our  own  Southern  States  did.  Those  who 
live  in  glass  houses  should  not  throw  stones. 

As  to  South  America  especially,  what  must  surely 
astonish  any  one  is  the  fact  that  there  exist  to-day  so 
many  universities  in  these  vast,  sparsely-settled  coun- 
tries, several  of  these  institutions  containing  more  than 
five  hundred  students.*  That  fact  alone  is  worth 
any  amount  of  talk,  and  is  quite  evidence  enough 
to  prove  that  education  is  highly  esteemed  there,  and 
that  there  must  be,  not  a  condition  of  besotted  ignor- 
ance among  the  people,  but  just  the  contrary.  Of 
course  it  would  be  utterly  hopeless  to  expect  that  the 
ignorant,  illogical,  or  malicious  reviler,  who  is  deter- 
mined to  make  illiteracy  and  ignorance  synonymous,  is 
going  to  see  this,  or,  seeing  it,  to  admit  its  truth,  and 
stop  his  railings  at  Rome  and  all  that  is  hers.  Such 
persons  will  go  on  as  long  as  they  have  willing,  ignor- 
ant, and  prejudiced  listeners.  Just  judgments  can  only 
be  looked  for  from  those  who  love  truth. 

*  See  chapter  on  Univsersities. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

POVERTY  AND  PAUPERISM. 

THE  purpose  of  this  essay  is  very  far  from  being  an 
attempt  to  deny  or  belittle  the  benevolence  of 
Protestants.  All  things  considered  they  possess  that 
natural  virtue  in  a  very  high  degree.  Indeed  I  will  not 
here  venture  to  draw  any  comparison  between  indi- 
vidual Catholics  and  Protestants  on  the  score  of  what 
might  be  embraced  under  the  title  of  ' '  humanit}'  ' ' 
towards  the  poor.  Who  does  not  know  how  truly  dis- 
tinguished many  Protestants  are  for  their  kind,  tender- 
hearted benevolence,  for  their  personal  sympathy  with 
those  who  are  in  distress;  how  ready  with  hand  and 
lavish  with  mone}^  in  great  crises  of  human  suffering  ; 
how  public-spirited  and  philanthropic ;  foremost,  very 
often,  in  proposing,  and  most  proudly  diligent  in  ex- 
ecuting some  scheme  of  beneficence?  Amen,  they 
shall  have  their  reward  :  and  what  Catholic  is  there 
who  does  not  pray  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  that  it 
may  be  of  the  fullest  measure,  pressed  down,  and  run- 
ning over  ? 

Nor  have  I  the  least  intention  of  casting  a  slur  upon 
the  character  of  Protestant  benevolence  and  generosity 
when  I  impeach  Protestantism,  as  a  system,  for  lacking 
both  in  principle  and  practice  what  we  Catholics  call 
Chaidty.  Benevolence  carried  to  the  highest  degree  of 
natural  virtue  is  not  Christian  Charity.  It  is  in  itself  all 
good  ;  pleasing  to  God— although  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  Protestantism  denies  that  it  is — but  in  order 


Poverty  ana  Pauperism.  389 

that  this  or  any  other  mere  natural  virtue  should 
become  a  Christian  virtue  its  exercise  must  be  based 
upon  a  supernatural  motive.  Abstemiousness,  either 
as  a  protest  against  vicious  luxury  in  dress,  food, 
or  drink,  or  for  the  sake  of  health,  is  not  Christian  Self- 
denial.  Stoical  continence  is  not  Christian  Chastity. 
Large-handed  and  warm-hearted  Benevolence  is  not 
Christian  Charity.  Even  if  it  goes  to  the  deprivation  of 
all  of  one's  propert}',  and  the  sacrifice  of  one's  life  for  the 
benefit  of  one's  fellow-men,  still  it  is  not  Christian 
Charity.  If  anybody  knew  the  ' '  mind  of  Christ  Jesus  ' ' 
it  was  the  great  Apostle,  St.  Paul.  Hear  him:  "  If  I 
should  distribute  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  if 
I  should  deliver  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not 
charity^  it  profiteth  me  nothing  "  (I.  Cor.  xiii.  3).  If 
all  this  sounds  paradoxical  in  the  ears  of  any  of  my 
Protestant  readers  let  them  come  and  ask  its  solution 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  Then  they  will  be  able  to 
read  this  essay  intelligently,  and  understand  that,  hav- 
ing already  said  what  I  have  in  praise  of  Protestant 
benevolence,  what  I  am  about  to  say  about  Protestant- 
ism and  its  works  in  relation  to  the  poor  is  not  taking 
back  with  one  hand  what  I  have  offered  with  the  other. 
If  there  be  any  reason  for  the  apparent  paradox  in  my 
two  assertions,  between  the  too  well-known  evidence  to 
the  first  to  be  doubted,  and  the  unwelcome  evidence  I 
am  going  to  offer  in  support  of  the  second,  I  think  it 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  great  numbers  of  people 
live  inconsistently  with  the  principles  which  they  pro- 
fess, and  especially  with  their  religious  principles. 
The  consequence  is  that  some  are  happily  better  than 
their  religious  principles,  if  strictly  taken,  would  logic- 
ally lead  them  to  be,  as  very  many  Protestants  are ;  and 


390  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

many  are  unhappily  worse,  and  offer  in  their  lives  ex- 
amples which  are  employed  as  evidence  to  discredit  the 
religion  they  profess.  And  this  is  true  of  many  Catho- 
lics. One  other  important  consideration  is  this  :  vast 
numbers  of  Protestants,  if  judged  by  the  distinctive 
doctrines  of  their  own  denominations,  are  not  Protest- 
ants at  all ;  and  if  judged  both  by  their  real  faith  and 
works  are  Catholics,  belonging  to  the  soul  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  no  matter  what  they  call  themselves  ; 
whether  they  love  or  hate  the  Church  ;  however  little 
or  however  much  the}^  know  of  her  and  of  her  doctrines. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  where  the  funda- 
mental religious  principles  of  a  people  are  dominant 
there  the  whole  social  order  will  be  colored  and  modi- 
fied either  for  the  better  or  for  the  worse.  I  think 
the  reader  will  find  that  pretty  well  proved  in  the 
course  of  this  volume. 

Having  learned  the  distinction  between  benevolence 
and  Christian  charity,  I  think  we  can  enter  upon  our 
subject  and  examine  more  intelligently  into  the  causes  of 
Pauperism,  and  its  rapid  increase  in  Protestant  countries. 

What  is  pauperism  ?  It  is  a  condition  in  which  a 
certain  number  of  people  are  forced  to  seek  the  very 
necessaries  of  life  at  the  hand  of  the  state.  People 
who  are  poor,  who  may  even  suffer  from  the  want 
of  shelter,  food,  and  clothing,  or  be  reduced  to 
ask  alms  publicly,  and  for  whom  Protestantism 
has  invented  the  term  '  *  beggar, "  as  it  has  also  the 
term  "  pauper"  as  opprobrious  titles,  are  not  therefore 
paupers,  in  the  sense  of  their  being  of  a  class  thrown 
upon  the  official  aid  of  the  state  for  subsistence.  Our 
IvOrd  called  the  *'poor"  blessed,  and  the  Catholic 
Church  has  never  forgotten  to  echo  that  divine  benedic- 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  391 

tion  upon  them ;  but  Protestantism  has  banned  them, 
and  set  a  mark  of  ignominy  upon  their  heads.  Our 
Lord  promised  that  the  blessed  poor  should  never  be 
wanting  to  his  Church — ' '  The  poor  3^e  shall  have  al- 
ways with  you,"  and  the  promise  has  had  a  perfect  ful- 
filment. Of  Protestantism  it  is  true  to  say  that  it  never 
had  the  poor  with  it,  nor  ever  will  have  them.  That 
the  poor  cling  to  the  Catholic  Church  ;  that  they  love 
her  and  gladly  abide  with  her ;  that  they  crowd  her 
sanctuaries  of  worship,  and  are  the  ever- ready  means 
at  hand  for  him  who  hath  to  give  ' '  alms  that  redeem 
the  soul,"  and  enable  him  to  comfort  and  succor  the 
Divine  Redeemer  of  the  world  in  their  persons,  this  is 
one  of  the  greatest  glories  of  the  Catholic  Church,  as  it 
is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  evidences  that  she  is  the 
True  Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  She  has  been  the  object 
of  many  scornful  words  from  those  who  are  utterly 
blind  to  her  character  as  the  kingdom  of  divine  char- 
ity, but  as  has  been  well  said  :  "  That  the  Catholic 
Church  ever  ignored  the  poor  would  be  an  assertion 
that  were  hopeless  to  make  even  in  Exeter  Hall ' '  ;  and 
I  will  add  for  America — or  even  to  find  printed  in  the 
documents  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 

But  Protestantism  has  not  inherited  any  lot  or  part 
in  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of  Christ.  It  has  sought 
to  ignore  the  poor,  to  shift  them  off  as  a  hateful  burden, 
to  get  them  put  out  of  sight,  arrested  by  policemen  in 
the  street  as  criminals,  driven  into  "poor-houses" 
where  they  are  made  to  feel  degraded  in  the  sight  of 
the  passers-by,  ticketed  and  reported  to  the  world  as 
"paupers,"  there  to  sit  and  eat  the  bread — not  of 
charity,  but  of  vState  "  appropriation" — in  uncomforted 
destitution  and  shame. 


392  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 

Thank  God  !  no  such  institution  of  similar  import 
and  character  is  to  be  found  in  Catholic  countries 
as  the  Protestant  American  "poor-house,"  or  as  the 
Protestant  English  have  named  theirs — the  ' '  work- 
house." The  Catholic  Church  knows  the  mind  of 
Him  who  first  blessed  the  poor  ;  Who  Himself  of  His 
own  will,  for  the  love  of  men,  bore  the  sorrows  and 
pains  of  povert}^ ;  Who  took  upon  Himself  the  form  of 
a  serv^ant,  and  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head;  Who 
made  voluntary  poverty  a  supernatural  virtue.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  His  own  Church  should  preach  his 
divine  doctrine  and  imitate  his  example  ?  The  Church, 
therefore,  that  has  alwa3's  loved  and  blessed  those 
whom  Jesus  Christ  loved  and  blessed,  and  has  even 
canonized  beggars,  is  not  going  to  stultify  herself  b}^ 
imprisoning  the  poor  in  a  work-house. 

State  "  Pauperism"  is  one  of  the  subjects  for  statis- 
tical reports  for  all  Protestant  countries,  and  though  the 
same  title  may  be  found  in  these  Reports,  as  in  the 
Statesman' s  Year  Book,  for  some  Catholic  countries, 
yet,  on  examination,  it  will  be  seen  that,  although 
there  are  homes  and  asylums  for  the  poor,  and  bureaux 
de  bienfaisanee  for  their  temporary  succor,  they  are  no 
such  places  as  Dickens  in  his  novel.  Our  Mutual 
Friend,  so  vividly  portrays  in  his  picture  of  Betty 
Higden,  and  her  flight  and  death,  rather  than  go  to 
such  a  place  of  horror  and  despair.  And  who  has  not 
known  of  more  than  one  Bett}^  Higden  in  Ireland,  and 
even  in  prosperous  America  ? 

There  is  indeed  some  state  aid  in  a  few  modern 
Catholic  countries,  but  it  is  only  a  moiety  compared 
with  private  charit3%  and  is  distributed  so  far  as  it 
is   possible  through  private   channels,  chiefly  through 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  393 

those  associations  of  pious  persons  of  high  and  low 
degree  who  make  such  labor  one  of  Christian  love.  No 
such  hard  official  government  S3^stem  of  poor  relief  as 
exists  in  all  Protestant  countries  is  to  be  found  in 
Catholic  ones,  and  the  less  certain  Catholic  nations 
have  come  to  conform  their  social  ideas  to  the  forms 
consonant  with  vSo-called  "modern  progress"  the  less 
there  is  of  any  state  poor  laws,  or  state  "  pauperism." 

In  Belgium,  Austria,  Hungary,  and  France  there  is 
some  state  provision,  but  no  general  state  system  like 
that  of  England  and  other  Protestant  countries.  Funds 
for  poor  relief,  even  much  that  is  administered  by  the 
government  in  supporting  hospitals  and  refuges,  are 
almost  wholly  supplied  from  private  donations,  lega- 
cies, and  the  like.  I  read  in  the  Statesman' s  Year 
Book  of  Italy:  "In  Italy  legal  charity,  in  the  sense 
of  a  right  in  the  poor  to  be  supported  by  the  parish  or 
commune,  or  of  an  obligation  on  the  commune  to 
relieve  the  poor,  does  not  exist,"  and  then  the  Report 
gocb  on  to  show  an  exhibit  of  money  contributed  from 
various  private  sources  of  an  enormous  amount — 
89,673,307  lire,  of  which  39,046,034  lire  were  dis- 
bursed, leaving  a  balance  of  money  for  the  love 
of  God  to  be  ready  for  the  poor  of  50,627,273  lire. 
Think  of  that,  and  the  poor  Italian  nation  almost  hope- 
lessly ruined  with  the  burdens  of  state  taxation.  God 
will  bless  and  save  Italy,  for  she  still  is  Catholic  while 
she  loves  the  poor.  I  want  my  reader  to  weigh  that  well. 
There  is  a  good  deal  oi poverty  in  Catholic  Italy,  but  no 
"pauperism,"  and  the  poverty  there  has  rapidly  and 
shamefully  increased  under  the  new  anti-Catholic  regime. 

There  is  no  title  or  report  of  "Pauperism"  in 
Spain,  or    Portugal,  or    Mexico,    or    in    any    State    of 


394  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

South  America.  These  countries  have  not  y^\,  aban- 
doned their  poor  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  state. 
And  so  "pauperism"  does  not  exist  in  them. 

But  my  reader  will  perhaps  be  led  to  say — You  can- 
not deny  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  poverty  in  those 
countries,  and  so  it  comes  to  the  same  thing.  No, 
it  does  not  come  to  the  same  thing.  First,  I  want 
to  say  that  in  former  times  when  the  influence  of 
Catholic  ideals  tempered  the  whole  social  order,  so  as 
to  discourage  the  getting  of  riches  as  a  sumnmm 
bo7iicm — the  vice  of  modern  society  throwing  all  the 
wealth  and  land  into  the  hands  of  a  few,  the  rich 
getting  richer  as  the  poor,  who  have  to  pay,  get 
poorer — there  was  then  less  poverty  in  amount,  and  it 
was  not  of  so  debasing  a  character.  In  evidence  of  this 
it  is  quite  sufficient  to  refer  the  reader,  for  an  example, 
to  the  condition  of  England  when  she  was  Catholic — 

"  When  every  rood  of  ground  maintained  its  man  "  ; 

when  poverty  was  no  disgrace  ;  when  the  word  ' '  pau- 
per," in  its  modern  sense,  was  not  even  in  the  language 
of  any  nation.  I^et  him  compare  England  then  with 
the  present  condition  of  that  country  of  "pauperism" 
par  excellence  to-day.  Look  at  the  whole  of  Great 
Britain,  England,  Wales,  Scotland,  and  unhappy  Ire- 
land. Who  and  how  many  own  everything  ?  Kay,  in 
his  Social  Condition  of  the  English  People  (page  24) , 
tells  us  that  in  the  short  space  of  forty-five  years,  1770 
to  1 815,  the  number  of  freeholders  of  estates  in  Eng- 
land was  reduced  from  250,000  to  only  32,000  !  Even 
250,000  was  a  shamefully  small  number  for  all  Eng- 
land. And  how  much  less  than  32,000  are  they  now 
in  this  year    of   advanced   Protestantism    a.d.    1894? 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  395 


Mulhall  (article  "Land")  tells  us  that  the  number  of 
all  landholders  owning  over  10  acres  amounts  to  only 
141,100.  Those  owning  500  and  more  acres  only 
10,070  !  Just  think  of  that.  It  is  a  fact  that  deserves 
much  thought. 

Let  the  reader  go  to  history  and  learn  who  is  respon- 
sible for  it,  and  when  this  spoliation  of  the  people  and 
this  hideous  degradation  of  the  poor  began.  He  will 
find  that  it  began  with  Protestantism,  and  that  it  has 
gone  from  bad  to  w^orse  under  Protestantism.  So  in 
every  other  country  that  abandoned  the  Catholic  faith, 
the  same  story  is  told  of  casting  out  the  poor  from  the 
loving  Christian  heart,  and  the  setting  up  of  a  system 
of  state  pauperism. 

And  I  want  to  say,  secondly,  that  while  in  Protestant 
countries  poverty  is  treated  with  scorn  and  contempt, 
bew^ailed  as  an  evil  thing,  nigh  unto  a  curse,  resulting 
in  the  loss  of  manhood  and  self-respect  in  the  poor 
themselves— losing  as  they  do  their  sense  of  equality 
in  the  sight  of  God  with  the  high-born  and  rich — it  is 
far  otherwise  with  the  poor  in  Catholic  countries,  no 
matter  how  abject  may  be  their  want. 

It  is  precisely  against  this  attempt  to  degrade  their 
inborn  human  dignity  and  self-respect  made  in  Protest- 
ant states  by  their  "Pauper  laws"  that  the  English 
"Betty  Higdens,"  the  starving  Irish,  and  their  poor 
brothers  and  sisters  in  other  countries  indignantly 
revolt ;  and  rather  than  suffer  themselves  to  be  thus 
contemptuously  crushed  under  the  heel  of  state  pride, 
as  if  they  were  vermin,  turn  aw^ay  with  horror  from  the 
hand  that  offers  the  "pauper"  bread,  and  go  to  star\^e 
to  death  upon  the  highway  rather  than  eat  this  self- 
debasing  food. 


39^  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

I  find  a  very  singular  illustration  of  the  results  of 
the  opposite  treatment  of  the  poor  by  the  two  different 
"spirits"  of  charity  in  an  article  by  Rev.  W.  Walter 
Edwards,  in  the  Contcmpoj-a^y  Revie7i\  Jul}^,  1878, 
"The  Poor-Iyaw  Experiment  at  Elberfeld,"  a  city  then 
of  85,000  inhabitants,  in  Westphalia,  where  Catholicism 
is  dominant.  The  article  discusses  the  comparative 
treatment  of  the  poor  in  Elberfeld  and  in  English 
towns,  and  its  effect  in  diminishing  pauperism.  This 
English  clergyman,  coming  fresh  from  his  English 
experience,  finds  that  there  is  no  pauper  work-house 
and  no  public  beggars  in  Elberfeld.  It  is  all  out- 
door relief.  And  why  ?  Because  * '  the  Elberfeld 
system  is  founded  upon  the  idea  of  respect  for  the 
destitute."  Excellent!  He  writes,  "the  destitute," 
not  "paupers,"  and  he  adds  :  "  It  is  deemed  luiworthy 
— to  use  the  expression  of  Herr  Prell,  Chief  of  the 
Department  of  Poor  Relief — to  try  a  person's  need  by 
any  such  expedient  as  that  which  we  English  possess 
in  the  work-house  test."  And  the  system  ?  The  whole 
town,  in  the  persons  of  all  its  citizen  voters  of  every 
rank,  is  a  vast  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  Society,  visiting  the 
poor  personally  "  with  great  kindness,"  and  differs  only 
from  the  latter  society,  which  is  wholly  voluntary,  in 
that  the  people  of  Elberfeld  put  themselves  under  the 
penalty  of  disfranchisement  from  three  to  six  years  and 
a  doubling  of  his  town  taxes  to  be  suffered  by  any 
voting  citizen  who  refuses  to  serve  the  poor  in  his 
turn.  There  is  not  much  need  to  refuse,  for  we  learn 
that  so  numerous  are  the  visitors  that  in  1876  an 
average  of  only  two-and-a-half  cases  at  the  same  time 
fell  to  the  lot  of  each  visitor. 

I  said  there  were  no  pauper  work-houses,  such  as  the 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  397 


English  poor  look  upon  with  horror,  and  fly  from  as 
from  .something  worse  than  a  pestilence.  But  there 
are,  sa3'S  the  writer,  "several  almshouses  or  asylums, 
into  w4iich  admission  is  eagerly  soitglit  for  b}'  the  aged 
and  destitute  poor."  Mark  what  follows  :  "  These  are 
mostly  connected  with  various  religious  denominations, 
and  are  free  from  state  eontrol. ' '  He  finds  ' '  difficulty 
in  getting  statistics  from  these  institutions."  Plainly, 
because  it  is  not  in  the  spirit  of  Catholic  charity  to 
ticket  and  count  and  show  up  the  poor. 

Contrast  the  eagerness  of  the  poor  to  get  into  an 
Elberfeld  almshouse  with  the  eagerness  of  the  state 
poor  to  keep  out  of  an  English  work-house  or  American 
poor-house. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  doors  of  every  Catholic 
asylum  for  the  aged  and  other  poor  and  the  suffering 
are  literally  besieged  by  eager  applicants  :  and  how 
happy  they  are  for  whom  the  good  sisters  can  find 
room  !      Now  look  at  this  : 

"The  returns  (Wellington,  Salop)  show  that  from  1870-76 
the  work-house  was  offered  to  2,783  persons  ;  and  that  out  of  these 
only  187  accepted  the  offer,  and  many  of  these  remained  for  only 
a  very  few  days  "  (6th  Report  Local  Government  Board,  p   22). 

This  pagan  S3^stem  of  "  pauper  work- house  or  no  re- 
lief "appears  to  work  differently  even  in  England.  In 
some  places  where  it  is  rigidly  enforced  it  rejoices  the 
Rfev.  Mr.  Edwards  to  be  able  to  sa}^  that  it  greatly  re- 
duces pauperism.  He  does  not  seem  to  see  that  it  only 
reduces  the  statisties  of  pauperism  for  those  places  where 
the  poor  have  y^et  some  little  self-respect  left,  and  he 
has  the  singular  obtuseness  to  assert  that  to  help  the 
poor  by  out-door  relief  is  only  making  ' '  state-created 
paupers."     At  Atcham  this  system  reduced  pauperism 


39^  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 

to  0.9  per  cent,  of  the  population.  Good  for  the  poor  of 
Atcham  !  They  had  some  spirit  left  in  them.  But  at 
Cardigan  it  increased  the  pauperism  statistics  to  8.0 
per  cent.  A  sad  testimony  to  the  degradation  of  the 
people  of   Cardigan. 

Rev.  Mr.  Edwards  would  like  to  see  the  Atcham 
syvStem  universally  adopted  in  England  and  Wales. 
Then,  says  he,  "the  numbers  on  the  pauper-roll" 
[there  it  is  again,  everlastingly  ticketing  the  poor] 
"would  .sink  from  the  present  figure  (1878)  of  749,476 
to  217,589.  Is  it  violently  presumptuous  to  assert  that 
531,887  persons  are  state-created  paupers?"  Which 
must  strike  one  as  a  singular  method  of  reducing 
poverty  !  Lock  the  public  treasury  and  placard  all  Eng- 
land and  Wales  with  "The  Pauper  work-house  or  No 
Relief,"  and  the  names  of  531,887  state-created  paupers 
will  disappear  from  the — land  ? — no,  from  the  statistics  ! 
Well,  all  I  say  is,  that  if  it  did  so  succeed,  no  more 
glorious  testimony  could  be  given  that  modern  English 
paganism  has  not  utterly  crushed  out  all  sense  of  honor 
and  independence  from  the  hearts  of  the  vast  suffering 
army  of  the  English  poor. 

The  Catholic  Church  has  not  only  taught  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  human  equality  and  fraternity  in  her 
schools  of  philosophy  and  theology,  but  has  everywhere 
sedulously  inculcated  it  upon  the  people  by  both  pre- 
cept and  example.  So  thoroughly  are  Catholic  people 
indoctrinated  with  this  principle  of  true  Christian  no- 
bility that  they  assert  their  equality  as  a  matter  of 
course,  acting  upon  it  with  the  assurance  of  simplicity, 
and  showing  none  of  those  offensive  and  insolent  airs 
which  mark  the  manners  of  one  who  presumes  upon 
what  he  has  no  right. 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  399 

It  is  upon  this  doctrine  of  human  equality  that  the 
Church  built  that  marvel  of  the  world,  her  spiritual 
edifice  of  divine  charity,  the  most  stupendous  of  all 
the  triumphs  of  Christianity. 

To  the  king  and  slave,  to  the  prince  and  peasant, 
to  the  rich  man  and  the  beggar,  the  Church  continually 
preached  '*  Ye  are  brethren,  of  one  nature,  equal  in  the 
sight  of  God."  And  then  came  the  harder  lesson  to  be 
learned,  but  the  sweeter  when  they  had  it  by  heart : 
' '  Ye  are  both  brethren  of  Jesus  Christ ;  therefore  love 
ye  one  another,  as  Christ  has  loved  and  died  for  you 
alike." 

Do  you  wish  to  see  to-day  a  striking  proof  of  this 
Catholic  recognition  of  human  equality  ?  Go  to  Spain, 
and  you  will  see  the  beggar  asking  a  light  for  his 
cigarette  from  the  costly  cigar  of  the  greatest  lord,  who 
allows  him  to  take  it  without  the  least  affectation  of 
condescension.  LivSten  to  the  Spanish  writer  who  tells 
us  that  ' '  one  ought  never  to  magnify  any  man  for  his 
riches,  nor  esteem  him  less  for  his  poverty,  however 
great  it  may  be." 

Of  what  nation  but  a  Catholic  one  could  this  story  be 
told?  "A  king,  leaving  his  palace  in  company  with 
some  courtiers,  passed  a  beggar  standing  at  the  gate, 
to  whom  he  gave  an  alms,  at  the  same  time  lifting  his 
jewelled  cap  in  return  to  a  similar  salute  from  the 
beggar,  adding  with  a  gracious  smile  :  *  God  keep  thee, 
brother.'  Hearing  which,  one  of  the  courtiers,  affect- 
ing surprise  at  the  speech,  said  :  '  Is  the  beggar,  then, 
one  of  your  royal  family  ?  '  'Nay,'  quickly  respond- 
ed the  king,  '  he  is  not  one  of  my  family,  but  I  am  one 

of  his:'' 

Protestant    travellers    in    Catholic    countries    often 


400  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

speak  of  the  boldness  and  persistence  of  the  beggars 
they  meet  there.  What  the}'  take  for  insolence  is  in 
realit}'  not  so  esteemed  b}'  their  Catholic  brethren,  who 
understand  full  well  that  the  beggar  is  not  only 
conscious  of  his  human  equalit}-  with  the  person  of 
whom  he  solicits  alms,  but  that  he  is  by  the  ver}-  act 
offering  occasion  to  the  other  to  do  a  good  spiritual  act, 
such  as  Catholics  are,  as  a  matter  of  course,  expected 
to  do  when  occasion  presents  itself.  If  receiving  an 
alms  the  poor  man  is  profuse  in  his  thanks  (generall}' 
expressed  in  the  form  of  invoking  a  benediction),  it  does 
not  surprise  him  to  hear  in  reph'  from  the  donor,  "  Nay, 
the  favor  is  yours."  And  here  is  another  remarkable 
expression  illustrating  the  same  truth.  When — as,  for 
instance,  in  Spain — one  happens  not  to  be  able  to  give 
an  alms  when  asked,  or,  what  is  of  rare  occurrence, 
though  able,  unwilling,  the  beggar  is  not  roughly 
thrust  aside,  or  left  unspoken  to,  but  with  hat  up- 
lifted the  other  will  say,  Pcrdona  mc,  hcrmano,  en  el 
nombre  de  Dios — "Pardon  me,  brother,  in  the  name  of 
God." 

I  open  that  instructive  volume  The  Mexiean  Guide, 
by  Thomas  A.  Janvier,  a  Protestant,  and  on  page  94  I 
find  the  item  "  Beggars."  And  what  has  our  clever, 
charming  American  writer  to  tell  us  about  Mexican 
Catholic  beggars  ?  This  :  * '  There  are  not  many  beg- 
gars in  Mexico  ;  but  the  few  found  there  are  apt  to  be 
most  resolutely  persistent  in  their  demands."  The 
reader  now  knows  why.  "  The}-  can  be  shaken  off  by 
the  payment  of  a  few  coppers,  or  the}-  ma}^  be  exorcized 
by  the  formula — Perdona  me,  herinano,  en  el  nombre  de 
Dios:' 

The  writer  omitted  telling  about  the  lifting  of   the 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  401 

hat,  which  part  of  the  Catholic  "exorcism"  he  pro- 
bably had  not  learned.  Just  think  of  it;  even  the 
wretched,  half-breed  Mexican  people,  "sitting  in  the 
darkness  of  Romanism,"  "degraded  by  papal  super- 
stition," and  all  the  rest  of  it  so  disgustingly  fami- 
liar to  our  ears,  have  the  good  old  Spanish  Catholic 
polite  and  Christian  formula  by  heart — ' '  Pardon  me, 
brother^   in  the  name  of  God ' '  ! 

The  very  term  employed  to  designate  a  beggar  re- 
veals the  high  spiritual  motive  in  the  mind  both  of  him 
who  asks  and  of  him  who  gives.  The  Spaniards  call 
him  familiarly  a  '' pordiosero,''  an  abbreviation  of  his 
form  of  appeal,   "  For  the  love  of  God." 

Here  is  another  apt  illustration  of  the  Christian 
fraternal  spirit  inspired  by  Catholicism.  The  Spaniard 
at  home,  or  where  his  language  is  spoken  and  his  man- 
ners prevail,  calls  the  man  of  high  rank  an  "  hidalgo." 
And  that  is  because  he  possesses  ''  hidalguia,'"  or 
gentlemanliness.  A  gentle-man,  as  a  Catholic  under- 
stands it,  is  one  who  has  Christian  humility,  which 
leads  him  to  recognize  the  equality  between  himself 
and  all  mankind,  and  especially  the  poor  and  lowly. 
Now  read  this  about  a  Mexican  hidalgo  : 

"  A  certain  Captain  Don  Domingo  de  Cantabrana  having  been 
hospitably  sheltered  by  some  poor  monks,  he  being  a  stranger  to 
them,  paid  the  cost  of  completing  their  church  at  the  expense  of 
$70,000.  So  great  was  the  gentlemanliness  {hidalguid)  oi  the 
Sefior  de  Cantabrana,  declares  the  chronicler,  that  in  due  legal 
form  he  renounced  for  himself  and  his  heirs  the  title  of  patron 
that  was  his  by  right  of  his  munificence.  His  work,  he  said,  was 
not  for  any  temporal  glory  or  profit,  but  for  the  diffusion  of  divine 
religion,  and  for  the  exaltation  of  the  glorious  patriarch  San  Jose, 
'therefore  he  begged  the  good  fathers  to  accept  in  his  place  that 
holy  saint  as  their  Patron'"  (Mexican    Guide',  Janvier,  p.    181). 


402  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 

I  find  in  the  volume  of  another  recent  writer,  already 
quoted  in  the  chapter  on  Mexican  civilization,  a  singu- 
lar, unconscious  testimony  to  the  recognition  of  human 
equality  among  the  Mexicans,  which  obtains,  indeed, 
in  all  Catholic  countries  despite  the  widest  differences 
in  social  rank  and  condition — thus,  as  says  the  Psalm- 
ist, '  *  raising  the  poor  man  out  of  the  mire  to  place 
him  among  the  princes  of  the  people."  I  count  it  as 
a  valuable  bit  of  testimony,  coming  as  it  does  from  the 
pen  of  one  whose  Protestant  disesteem  of  the  Catholic 
religion  is  so  apparent  in  his  book.     He  says : 

"  There  do  not  seem  to  be  any  aristocratic  streets  or  quarters 
in  the  cities  of  Mexico,  but  rich  and  poor  distribute  themseh^es 
indiscriminately,  and  not  unfrequently  live  under  the  same  roof" 
{A  Study  of  Mexico,  David  A.  Wells,  1890). 

This  prejudiced  tourist  of  course  flings  off  his 
remarks  here  and  there  about  the  ' '  degradation  and 
poverty  of  the  masses"  in  Mexico,  seeing  these  two 
conditions  of  vileness  through  American  Protestant 
eyes ;  but  there  is  no  proof  of,  nor  any  attempt  to  offer 
any  evidence  of,  there  being  any  '  *  pauperism ' '  in  that 
country.  Had  he  found  anything  like  that  truly  dis- 
graceful and  alarming  state  which  is  now  eating  out  the 
very  life  of  the  English  social  order  we  would  certainly 
have  had  it  displaj^ed  before  our  eyes  in  italics  and  with 
double-leaded  head-lines  to  the  chapters.  Why  is 
there  no  ' '  pauperism  ' '  in  Mexico  ?  Because  the  people 
are  Catholic,  and  they  care  for  their  poor.  "The 
charitable  and  benevolent  institutions  of  Mexico, 
public  and  private,"  says  another  writer,  **  equal 
in  number  and  scope,  if  they  do  not  exceed,  our  own 
in  the  United  States"    {Mexico^  Picturesque ^   Political ^ 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  403 

Progressive,   Mary    E.    Blake    and    Margaret    F.    Sulli- 
van, 1888). 

A  Mr.  F.  R.  Quernsey,  writing  from  the  City  of 
Mexico,  contributes  a  delightful  article  to  the  Boston 
Herald  of  July  10,  1894.  He  is  himself  a  Protestant, 
and  in  the  course  of  his  letter  says  with  great  naivete 
that  ' '  one  would  needs  be  a  very  bitter  Protestant  to 
deny  the  palpable  facts"  he  relates.  Evidently  he 
knows  what  "bitter  Protestants"  are  equal  to  some- 
times in  the  way  of  * '  denial  of  palpable  facts ' '  con- 
cerning the  Catholic  Church.  What  he  goes  on  to  say 
about  the  spirit  in  which  the  poor  are  treated  in 
Mexico  is  worth  repeating: 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  practical  effects  of  CathoHcism 
among  those  who  earnestly  follow  the  precepts  of  their  religion 
are  to  make  people  truly  humane.  There  is  a  sympathy  here 
among  the  classes  which  has  something  noble  in  it.  When  one 
sees  the  poor  fed  at  the  door,  and  not  turned  over  to  some  institu- 
tion ;  when  in  the  country  houses  of  the  rich  it  is  not  uncommon 
to  find  a  table  spread  for  the  decent  poor  who  may  have  to  seek 
aid,  and  one  finds  wealthy  women  having  their  circle  of  depen- 
dents on  whom' no  cold,  formal  charity  is  bestowed,  but  assistance 
prompted  by  the  heart,  then  one  comes  to  reflect  on  what  has  set 
these  springs  m  motion. 

"Go  into  the  city  of  Tacubaya,  a  suburb  of  this  capital,  and 
accompany  the  Passionist  Fathers  on  their  rounds ;  go  and  see 
how  simply  these  good  men  live,  and.  then  consider  how  enormous 
are  the  benefits  which  a  religion  such  as  animates  these  men  con- 
fers on  the  poorer  classes.  When,  in  an  age  of  faith  in  mere 
materialism,  men  are  found  who  gladly  put  away  all  temptations 
to  make  gain,  and  literally 'go  about  doing  good,'  no  one  can 
doubt  the  sincerity  of  their  faith.  It  must  be  a  powerful  convic- 
tion which  makes  men  of  intelligence  spend  their  days  among  the 
ignorant  and  the  disinherited  of  the  earth." 


404  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 

This  observant  writer  has  evidently  looked  at 
Mexico  from  a  point  of  view  unobstructed  by  the 
mists  of  prejudice. 

Mr,  Brantz  Mayer,  Secretary  of  the  American  Lega- 
tion in  Mexico,  in  his  Mexico  as  It  Was  and  Is  (1844), 
wrote  of  the  common  clergy,  upon  whom  he  was  not 
likely  to  lavish  undeserved  praise  : 

"  Throughout  the  republic  no  persons  have  been  more  univer- 
sally the  agents  of  charity  and  the  ministers  of  mercy  than  the 
rural  clergy.  The  village  aims  are  the  advisers,  the  friends  and 
protectors  of  their  flocks.  Their  houses  have  been  the  hospitable 
retreats  of  every  traveller.  Upon  all  occasions  they  constituted 
themselves  the  defenders  of  the  Indians,  and  contributed  towards 
the  maintenance  of  institutions  of  benevolence.  They  have  inter- 
posed in  all  attempts  at  persecution,  and,  whenever  the  people 
were  menaced  with  injustice,  stood  forth  the  champions  of  their 
outraged  rights." 

But  the  days  of  the  pordioseros,  and  all  their  brothers 
the  poor,  are  doomed  in  Mexico.  The  state  is  god 
now  in  that  country,  and  the  reign  of  "  pauperism  "  is 
beginning.  As  Protestantism  did  in  England  under 
Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth,  so  the  Freemasons  and 
Secularists  (all  Protestantism  applauding)  now  ruling 
over  Mexico  have  seized  all  the  property  consecrated 
to  God  and  the  poor,  and  all  the  bountiful  patrimony 
of  the  poor,  and  swept  it  into  the  state  treasury 
' '  to  pay  its  debts  "  ;  all  the  religious  orders  have 
been  suppressed,  some  expatriated,  lest  the  sight  of 
their  best  friends  and  truest  lovers  might  possibly 
rouse  the  people  to  take  holy  vengeance  upon  their 
persectitors.  No  "man  of  God"  or  shepherd  of  the 
poor  can  own  one  foot  of  ground  ' '  in  the  Name  of 
God,"  and  what  hospitals  and  asylums  are  suffered  to 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  405 

remain  are  now  to  be  held  * '  in  the  name  of  the  State  ' '  ; 
for  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  this  world  is  first  to 
be  sought  now,  and  not  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His 
justice.  Yes,  "  pauperism  "  must  come  to  Mexico,  and 
the  statistics  will  be  made  up  and  reported,  for  even  the 
Sisters  of  Charity  were  refused  permission  to  remain  to 
comfort  and  succor  their  ''dear  poor."  By  an  act  of 
the  government,  December  14,  1874,  the  order  of  those 
devoted  servants  of  the  poor  was  suppressed,  and  the 
Sisters,  robbed  of  the  children  of  their  hearts,  were 
driven  from  the  land. 

It  seems  that  of  late  years  the  presence  of  a  few 
Sisters  of  Charity  and  other  Catholic  religious  sisters 
is  tolerated  on  condition  that  they  wear  no  dress  nor 
show  any  sign  that  they  are  the  consecrated  servants  of 
the  God  of  Heaven  and  of  Christ,  the  world's  Re- 
deemer. 

I  am  not  surprised  to  find  the  same  loving  fraternity 
between  rich  and  poor  in  other  Catholic  countries, 
besides  Spain  and  Mexico.  The  Statesiuan's  y^ear 
Book  tells  us  that  it  is  the  custom  in  Austria  (probably 
in  the  smaller  towns)  for  the  destitute  poor  of  a  district 
to  be  taken  by  turns  to  live  with  the  families  of  the 
place,  and  to  be  treated  for  the  time  being  as  members 
of  the  same  household.  Has  Protestantism  ever  shown 
itself  able  even  to  comprehend  these  evidences  of  the 
spirit  of  divine  love  ? 

Still  less  has  it  understood,  as  it  has  been  wholly 
unable  to  imitate,  save  in  a  few  recent  and  singular 
instances,  the  great  Catholic  associations  and  Orders 
of  Charity,  the  record  of  whose  marvellous  labors  and 
sacrifices  for  the  suffering  and  the  poor  will  form  the 
brightest  page  of  human  nobility  and  glorious  merit  to 


4o6  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

be  found  at  the  opening  of  the  Books  of  Judgment 
when  the  God  of  all  I^ove  and  of  Sacrifice  shall  reward 
every  man  according  to  his  works.  To  even  mention 
the  names  of  them  would  need  a  whole  book  ;  to  de- 
scribe them  and  their  labors,  a  library  of  thousands  of 
volumes. 

To  many  of  my  readers  the  names  of  many  may  be 
familiar,  but  how  few  are  known  even  by  hearsay  to 
the  general  public  ?  The  average  Protestant  may  have 
heard  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity — who  has  not  ? — but  he 
does  not  know  that  there  are  mau}^  such  orders  of 
''  Sisters  of  Charity  "  and  *'  Sisters  of  Mercy." 

By  this  time,  also,  almost  the  whole  world  has  heard 
of  the  "lyittle  Sisters  of  the  Poor,"  who  are  beggars 
for  the  superannuated  and  destitute  poor  men  and 
women  whom  they  care  for  as  tenderly  as  mothers  care 
for  their  infants,  and  who  content  themselves  with  what 
is  left  over  when  their  aged  beneficiaries  have  been 
supplied  with  the  best  food  the}^  have  in  the  house. 
A  young  French  girl,  Marie  Janet,  founded  that  charit- 
able order  in  1840.  She  died  last  year  seeing  266 
homes  for  the  old  poor  established,  sheltering  and 
caring  for  40,000  inmates.  It  is  said  that  120,000  of 
these  ' '  dear  poor  ' '  have  died  in  the  arms  of  the  Little 
Sisters. 

Then  there  are  the  "  Sisters  of  the  Poor  of  St. 
Francis,"  into  whose  free  hospitals  for  the  poor  the 
rich  w^ould  fain  go  to  be  nursed  ;  the  '  *  Little  Sisters 
of  the  Assumption,"  who  nurse  the  poor  in  their 
own  homes  without  pay  ;  the  ' '  Sisters  of  the  Good 
Shepherd,"  to  whose  loving  arms  the  "Good  Shep- 
herd" brings  the  "lost  ones"  He  has  found  and 
rescued — and  many  more  of  such,  right   here  amongst 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  407 

us,  to  say  nothing  of  a  thousand  others  of  different 
names,  composed  both  of  men  and  women,  doing  their 
marvellous  works  of  charity   all   over  the  world. 

The  charitable  society  called  the  "Society  of  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,"  whose  members  are  all  laymen  of 
every  trade  ^d  profession,  giving  their  time  of  rest 
from  their  daily  occupations  in  personally  visiting  their 
*  *  dear  poor, ' '  is  one  whose  very  existence  is  proof 
enough  that  the  Religion  which  inspires  it  is  the  true 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  No  less  may  be  claimed  for 
other  lay  societies  of  Charity  because  the  same  divine 
Spirit  inspires  them  all. 

My  pen  refuses  to  be  silent  until  I  mention  a 
Society  of  Charit}^  composed  only  of  Catholic  widows. 
Their  hospitals  are  found  in  France  and  Belgium. 
The  rich  and  high-born  ladies  form  with  others  of 
lesser  rank  a  common  sisterhood  to  ser\^e  in  turn  to  do 
all  the  work,  even  the  most  menial  and  revolting  to 
human  nature,  in  their  hospitals  devoted  to  the  care  of 
cancer  patients  ivho  are  poor,  whether  curable  or  not. 
The  widows  who  associate  themselves  together  for 
this  work  of  divine  pity  do  not  take  vows.  They 
quietly  serve  their  hours  as  appointed  in  the  day,  and 
then  resume  their  ordinary  position  and  duties  .  in 
society.  One  who  has  long  served  in  this  way  tells  me 
that  in  France  and  Belgium  many  ladies  of  the  very 
highest  rank- are  devoted  members  of  this  association. 
They  call  themselves  "The  Women  of  Calvary."* 

Although  the  members  of  these  numerous  lay 
societies  take  no  vows,  yet  they,  equally  with  the  tens 

*  A  life  of  the  saintly  foundress,  containing  also  a  full  description  of 
this  charity,  is  just  published — Widoivs  and  Charity.  Benziger  Bros., 
New  York. 


4o8  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

of  thousands  of  those  who  do  vow  their  lives  to  the 
service  of  the  poor,  strive  to  cuhivate  that  singular 
Christian  virtue  of  self-abnegation,  in  imitation  of 
the  poverty  of  Jesus  Christ,  who,  though  Master  of  the 
whole  world,  took  upon  himself  the  form  of  a  servant, 
and  had  not  where  to  la}^  His  head.  Hence  the  Spirit 
of  God,  which  is  the  Spirit  of  Love,  inspired  the  Catho- 
lic Church  to  make  voluntar}^  poverty  a  virtue  together 
with  voluntary  chastity  and  obedience.  And  so  these 
heroes  of  divine  love  take  the  vows  which  shield  them 
with  the  triple  armor  of  Holy  Poverty,  Holy  Chastity, 
and  Holy  Obedience.  They  are  of  those  who  are 
among  the  ' '  few  chosen  ' '  out  of  the  * '  many  called, ' ' 
who  have  heard  addressed  to  them  the  call  of  Jesus 
Christ,  who  became  poor  for  our  sakes — "  Go  sell  what 
thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  come  follow  Me  ' '  ; 
and  again:  "Every  one  that  hath  left  house,  or 
brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife,  or 
children,  or  lands  for  My  Name's  sake,  shall  receive  an 
hundred  fold,  and  shall  possess   life  everlasting." 

When  the  Catholic  Church  inspires  heroic  souls  to 
succor  and  serv^e  the  poor,  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ, — 
"Go  sell  all  thou  hast,  and  give  it  to  the  poor,  and 
come,  follow  Me," — is  obeyed  to  the  letter.  Such 
chosen  ones  obey  the  first  part  of  this  commandment 
by  abandoning  all  worldly  possessions  and  by  binding 
themselves  under  vow  not  to  seek  them  ;  and  the 
second  part  by  literally  taking  the  form  of  a  servant 
and,  in  the  Spirit  of  the  Divine  Lover  of  the  poor, 
giving  themselves  wholly  to  their  service. 

With  that  Divine  Call  in  the  heart  one  who  has 
heard  and  obeyed  may  truly  say  :  '  *  With  the  sick  I 
became  well ;    with  the  poor,  rich  ;  with  the  homeless 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  409 

I  found   shelter;    and    with    the   dying   I    learned    to 
live." 

To  love  as  well  as  to  care  for  the  poor  is  a  Christian 
precept  binding  upon  the  ' '  man}^  called "  ;  to  love 
them  as  Christ  loved,  "even  unto  death,"  giving  up 
all  for  their  sakes,  is  a  Christian  coimsel  to  the 
"  chosen  few." 

And  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Church's  most 
glorious  and  successful  works  of  charity,  the  greatest 
wonders  have  been  wrought  by  those  who  made  this 
act  of  self-abnegation  the  most  complete.  Voluntary 
sacrifice  is  the  secret  of  her  divine  power  which  she 
learned  at  the  foot  of  the  cross.  It  is  the  talisman 
that  opens  the  treasuries  of  heaven  and  earth,  and 
endows  her  with  a  strength,  courage,  and  consecrated 
majesty  in  presence  of  which  the  adverse  powers  of 
the  world  la}^  down  their  arms,  confess  themselves 
subdued,  and  bow  down  in  worship. 

What  has  Protestantism  ever  shown  in  its  doctrine 
or  practice  that  would  invite  one  to  hear  this  call  of 
Jesus  Christ  or  inspire  one  with  courage  to  follow  His 
example  ? 

Is  not  its  whole  history  a  record  of  denial  of  the 
words  of  Christ,  of  vindictive  contempt,  hatred,  and 
violent  persecution  of  monks  and  nuns  ?  Does  not  its 
literature  teem  with  appalling  false  testimony  against 
them  ?  When  this  pretended  Reform  first  started,  did 
it  not  drive  these  devoted  servants  of  Christ  out  of  their 
convents  and  hospitals  and  asylums,  did  it  not  con- 
fiscate all  the  patrimony  of  the  poor  held  by  these  holy 
almoners  of  God's  charity  ?  Did  it  not  revile  them,  put 
a  stigma  of  infamy  upon  them,  and  hang  or  exile 
thousands   upon   thousands  of  these  devoted    Brothers 


4IO  Poverty  a7id  Pauperism. 

and  Sisters  of  the  poor  in  every  land  where  it  got 
political  and  religious  sway  ?  No  blacker  record  will 
be  found  on  the  pages  of  God's  righteous  Judgment 
Book  than  the  story  of  this  war  of  extermination  waged 
by  Protestantism  against  these  friends  of  the  poor  ;  and 
now  being  continued  by  our  modern  God-ignoring 
Secularism. 

It  tore  from  the  honored  and  beloved  head  of  the 
poor  man  the  crown  of  blessing  that  Christ  had  placed 
upon  it,  and  sent  him  forth  sad  and  friendless,  with  the 
brand  of  "pauper"  stamped  upon  his  forehead,  to  be 
shunned  of  all  men,  as  one  accursed. 

And  then  it  proclaimed  its  new  Gospel,  the  gospel 
of  riches,  of  "material  progress,"  of  pagan  luxury  in 
living,  of  everything  in  which  the  poor  could  have  no 
fraternal  lot  or  part.  No  wonder  the  poor  have  turned 
a  deaf  ear  to  its  preaching,  and  have  fled  from  its  taber- 
nacles. Protestantism  seized  all  the  splendid  and  vast 
sanctuaries  of  Catholic  religion,  once  crowded  to  their 
doors  by  multitudes  of  the  poor,  but  from  thenceforth 
they  were  deserted,  as  well  they  might  be,  by  those 
"of  whom  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  It  has  gone 
on  preaching  its  Gospel  from  newer  shrines,  but  the 
poor  enter  them  not,  for  their  Divine  Lover  and  His 
Friends  are  no  longer  there. 

"The  poor  man  crieth,  and  the  Lord  still  heareth 
him,"  but  the  ear  of  Protestantism  is  dull  and  thick- 
ened with  a  surfeit  of  the  good  things  of  this  life,  glory- 
ing in  its  vaunted  pinchbeck  "  Progress,"  and  it 
' '  understandeth  7iot  the  language  of  the  poor  and 
needy"  appealing  for  alms  "  for  the  love  of  God,"  and 
"in  the  Name  of  Christ,"  or  "in  honor  of  His  holy 
Mother."     It  bids  them  stand  out  of  the  way,  and  not 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  411 

trouble  the  peace  o'f  its  prosperity  with  their  importunate 
and  superstitious  appeals,  or  offend  its  fastidious,  over- 
nice  nostrils  with  the  odor  of  their  beggarly  garments  ; 
but  go  to  the  state  poor-house,  where  paupers  belong, 
and  rid  the  proud  pathways,  which  the  dainty  feet  of 
decent  society'  alone  may  tread,  of  their  depressing  and 
loathsome   presence. 

It  is  not  of  the  very  many  sincere  believers  in 
Protestantism  that  this  is  a  faithful  picture,  but  it  is 
true  of  Protestantism  taken  as  a  system,  and  alas  !  too 
true  of  many  of  those  w^ho  are  of  its  multiple 
folds,  but  more  especially  so  of  those  who  are  of  that 
one  or  other  form  of  Protestantism  which  is'the  religion 
of  their  country  "  as  by  law  established." 

Before  presenting  to  the  reader  a  table  of  the  statis- 
tics of  pauperism,  of  emigration,  and  of  the  comparative 
amount  of  ownership  in  land  in  Protestant  and  Catholic 
countries,  the  best  tests  of  the  relative  pauperized  con- 
dition of  the  people,  taken  as  a  whole,  I  am  led  to  offer 
special  evidence  of  what  a  horrible  state  of  national 
pauperism  the  leading  power  of  Protestantism  in  the 
world  has  been  reduced  to.  I  shall  quote  first  of  all 
from  Kay's  Social  Condition  of  the  English  People^  1850  : 

"  The  agricultural  workman's  horizon  is  bounded  by  the  high 
red-brick  walls  of  the  union  work-house.  .  .  .  The  town 
work-houses  and  the  town  gaols  are  crowded  with  inmates,  the 
inhabitants  are  burdened  with  rates,  and  the  towns  swarm  with 
paupers  and  misery." 

Quoting  Dr.  Channing's  Duty  of  Free  States,  he  says  : 

"  The  condition  of  the  '  lower  classes  '  in  England  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  is  a  mournful  comment  on  English  institutions  and 
civilization.     The  multitude  are   depressed  to  a  degree  of   igno- 


412  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

ranee,  want,  and  misery  which  must  touch  every  heart  not  made 
of  stone.  In  the  civihzed  world  there  are  fewer  sadder  spectacles 
than  the  present  contrast  in  Great  Britain  of  unbounded  wealth 
and  luxury,  with  the  starvation  of  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands.  Misery,  famine,  brutal  degradation,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood and  presence  of  stately  mansions  which  ring  with  gaiety  and 
dazzle  with  pomp  and  unbounded  profusion  shock  us  as  no  other 
wretchedness  does.     .     .     . 

"  Before  the  enactment  of  the  new  poor-law  we  were  spending 
annually  between  six  and  seven  million  pounds  sterling  for  the 
relief  of  abject  pauperism  in  England  and  Wales  alone,  and  four 
to  five  millions  since.  The  i7idependence  of  the  poor  is  dest7'oyed. 
What  country  is  there  in  the  world  where  such  an  expenditure 
is  found  to  be  necessary  to  save  the  laborers  from  starvation  ? 
.  .  .  In  1848,  in  addition  to  the  hundreds  of  thousands  assisted 
by  charitable  individuals,  1,876,541  paupers  were  relieved,  or 
about  one  person  out  of  every  eight  of  the  population  was  a 
pauper  in  1848." 

He  adds  a  table  to  show  that  the  number  of  such 
paupers  had  been  increasing  at  an  alarming  rate.  Did 
it  continue  to  get  worse  ?     We  shall  see. 

Let  me  first  give  my  reader  a  picture  of  what  an 
English  work-house  was  some  years  ago  when  Dickens 
was  writing  Oliver  Twist  and  Nicholas  Nickleby,  and  he 
will  then  see  how  English  Protestantism  treated  the 
poor : 

"  The  English  work4iouses  are  reckoned  among  the  '  Chari- 
ties.' [So  are  the  American  "  poor-houses."]  Perhaps  it  would 
be  well  to  find  for  them  some  other  name.  Some  of  these  work- 
houses do,  indeed,  afford  comfortable  homes  for  the  poor  [as 
the  word  comfort  is  defined  in  the  vocabulary  of  men  who  have 
learned  to  dispense  with  the  greater  part  of  what  other  men  call 
the  necessaries  of  life].  But  there  is  nothing  so  painful,  I  find,  as 
the  thought  of  being  one  day  compelled  to  enter  a  work-house. 
It  is  a  dark  cloud  that  hangs  on  the  vision  of  every  poor  man  in 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  413 

England  when  he  looks  into  the  future.  These  work-houses  are 
often  the  scenes  of  great  cruelty,  privation,  and  suffering.  .  .  . 
In  many  instances  the  keepers  speculate  on  the  stomachs  of 
parish  paupers,  keeping  them  upon  short  or  damaged  food  ;  deny- 
ing them  many  of  the  most  common  necessaries  of  life,  and  all  its 
comforts.  Instances  are  not  a  few  in  which  the  inmates  die  in 
lonely,  filthy  chambers  by  night,  without  medical  aid,  without  an 
attendant,  without  even  a  rushlight  to  flicker  over  their  pillows, 
while  they  are  passing  through  death's  struggles.  The  selfish 
avarice  of  the  keeper  combines  with  the  interests  of  the  parish  to 
shorten  the  pauper's  days,  and  to  rid  themselves  of  the  thankless 
burden  as  quickly  as  possible.  To  accomplish  this,  the  cords  of 
life  are  cut  asunder  by  cold  neglect  and  barbarous  treatment. 
"All  that  is  known  in  such  cases  is,  that  the  prayer  of  the 
dying  pauper  is  often  denied,  when  he  asks  that  the  physician 
may  come  to  him,  or  some  one  watch  by  his  bed ;  or  the  minister 
of  religion  be  called  to  breathe  out  a  prayer  for  his  soul  ;  or,  if  he 
is  to  be  left  entirely  alone  while  the  soul  is  breaking  away  from 
its  shattered  house,  that  they  will  have  mercy  and  bring  a  light, 
that  the  darkness  of  night  may  not  mingle  with  the  death-shades 
of  the  grave  as  they  settle  over  his  bed  of  rags.  In  the  morning 
they  go  to  his  chamber,  and  find  that  he  is  dead.  It  causes  no 
grief ;  no  friend  was  with  him  when  he  died — but  God.  A  rough 
coffin  is  ordered — price  seven  shillings  and  sixpence — the  body 
is  taken  away,  and  that  is  the  end  of  the  pauper  ;  his  dying  groans 
heard  only  by  the  ear  of  a  merciful  God ;  over  his  grave  no  tear 
of  affection  is  shed  ;  no  monument  ever  rises  ;  and  in  a  little  while 
no  one  but  He  whose  all-seeing  eye  notices  the  falling  sparrow 
can  tell  whose  grave  it  is  where  the  pauper  sleeps.  The  work- 
house is  a  gloomy  place  for  the  poor  to  go  to ;  it  is  one  of  the 
most  dismal  places  I  ever  entered.  In  the  best  of  them  England 
does  not  pay  back  to  the  pauper  half  the  law  has  taken  from  his 
former  earnings.  It  would  be  a  difficult  matter,  I  apprehend,  to 
find  many  persons  in  the  parish  work-house  who  have  not  paid 
far  more  to  support  the  government  which  has  impoverished 
them,  than  the  parish  pays  for  their  support  when  they  can  work 
no  longer "  ( The  Glory  and  Shame  of  England,  C.  Edwards 
Lester,  vol.  i.  p.  152  et  scq.     Harper  &  Brothers,  1841). 


414  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 

Mr.  I^ester,  writing  again  on  the  same  subject  in 
1876,  has  this  to  say  of  his  first •  exposure  of  the  con- 
dition of  England  : 

"  My  statements  have  stood  the  test  of  twenty-four  years,  and 
all  my  pictures  of  the  vice,  the  degradation,  the  sufferings,  the 
sottishness,  the  heathenism  of  the  masses  of  the  Enghsh  people, 
have  been  outdone  since,  by  reports  made  to  the  British  Parlia- 
ment on  the  horrors  of  the  collieries,  the  barbarities  practised  in 
the  work-houses,  the  worse  than  slave-toil  of  the  factories,  the 
plethora  of  the  Prelacy,  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  physical 
poverty  of  their  flocks,  the  ignorance  of  the  great  herd  of  Eng- 
land's home  subjects"  {Ibid.,  ^d.  of  1876,  vol.  i.  p.  26). 

There  have  been  many  investigations  made  since 
Lester  and  Kay  wrote,  all  telling  the  same  story.  One 
of  the  best  of  the  works  lately  published  is  Pauperism 
ayid  the  Endowment  of  Old  Age  by  Mr.  Charles  Booth, 
President  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  who  is  recog- 
nized in  England  as  being  the  first  authority  on  Poverty 
and  Pauperism.  This  writer  is  not  General  Booth  of 
the  Salvation  Arm}^,  although  he  is  good  authority  too, 
whose  testimony  can  be  found  in  his  Darkest  England 
a7id  the  Way  Out.  Mr.  Charles  Booth  first  brought  out 
his  Life  a7id  Labor  of  the  People  (4  vols.) ,  dealing  chiefly 
with  London.  But  in  the  second  work  mentioned 
above  he  gives  tables  of  the  percentage  of  Pauper- 
ism for  the  whole  population.  From  this  it  appears 
that  of  persons  under  16  3^ears  of  age  2.8  per  cent,  are 
paupers  (receiving,  z.  e.,  either  indoor  or  outdoor  relief). 
Of  persons  between  16  years  of  age  and  60,  3.8  per 
cent.  ;  between  60  and  65,  8.1  per  cent.,  and  over  65 
3^ears,  25.9  percent.  ;  making  more  than  one  person  in 
four  over  65  in  all  England  dependent  more  or  less  upon 
state  aid. 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  415 

On  page  165  of  Mr.  Booth's  book  he  quotes  another 
acknowledged  authority,  Rev.  W.  S.  Blakely — Essays 
on  Paicperism — as  saying  that  by  an  independent  in- 
quiry in  26  country  parishes  no  less  than  42  per  cent, 
of  the  aged  who  died^ there  had  had  relief  during  the 
closing  years  of  their  lives.  Mr.  Booth  adds  that  for 
the  whole  county  30  per  cent,  would  be  a  true  average. 

The  New  York  Sun  of  May  6,  1894,  has  an  article 
on  "  Age  and  Pauperism  in  England,"  and  the  writer, 
after  citing  some  of  the  foregoing  statistics,  adds  that 
in  the  district  of  Southwark,  London,  84  per  cent,  of 
the  old  people  are  receiving  public  charity. 

Truly  this  is  an  appalling  state  of  things.  What 
is  to  be  thought  now  of  that  country  which  has  been 
lauded  as  being  ' '  the  pride  and  panoply  of  Nineteenth 
Century  Protestantism  ' '  ? 

Kay,  who  although  a  member  of  the  Established 
English  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  acknowledges 
more  than  once  that  it  is  no  church  for  the  poor ;  and  all 
the  while  that  he  is  relating  the  extreme  horrors  revealed 
by  his  investigations,  he  evidently  has  in  mind  their  ac- 
companying shocking  nioral  depravity,  and  gives  evi- 
dence enough  to  make  the  heart  sicken.  It  is  no  won- 
der that  we  find  him  asking — "  Who  or  what  is  respon- 
sible?'' 

Naturally  the  description  of  the  pauperism  of  the 
English  people  is  followed  by  a  chapter  on  * '  The 
English  Church  in  its  relation  to  the  English  Poor." 
Caring  for  the  poor,  and  saving  them  from  moral  degra- 
dation, from  the  loss  of  their  sense  of  manhood  and  of 
Christian  equality,  is  and  must  be  the  work  of  their 
religious  teachers.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  a  strong  passage 
thereon  in  his  Fors  Clavigera.     What  has  Mr.   Kay  to 


4i6  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

say  about  the  influence  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  as  by  law  established  in  England. in  this  Chris- 
tian work  ?  He  puts  it  concisely  when  he  sa3^s : 
"Where  there  is  not  a  constant  intercourse  between 
the  clergyman  and  his  people,  the  poor  do  not  go  to 
church."  Then  he  tells  us  that  not  one  in  ten  of  the 
laboring  classes  ever  enter  a  church.  He  instances  one 
of  the  best  administered  parishes  in  I^ondon — St. 
Pancras : 

"  I.  More  than  100,000  of  the  parish  have  no  sittings  in  either 
church  or  chapel. 

"  2.  Small  as  the  churches  are,  they  are  not  half  filled. 

"  3.  The  majority  of  all  poor  children  are  growing  up  without 
receiving  daily  instruction." 

He  finds  the  "  Romanist,"  and  even  the  "  Ranters'  " 
services  crowded  with  poor  people,  where  the  services 
of  "the  Anglicans,  Independents,  Methodists,  or  Baptists 
will  not  attract y?//y.  The  upshot  of  the  whole  revela- 
tion of  things  made  by  him  on  this  subject  is,  that  the 
Protestant  Church  has  lost  even  its  own  poor.  Their 
clergymen  are  fine  gentlemen — too  fine  to  take  any 
notice  of  the  dirt}^  and  uneducated  poor.  He  deals  out 
his  reproaches  to  these  ministers  very  daintil}^  but 
effectually,  and  ends  up  by  drawing  a  strong  contrast 
of  their  neglect  of  the  poor  and  the  shameful  empti- 
ness of  their  churches  with  the  rapid  advance  of  the 
* '  Romanist ' '  Church  and  the  wonderful  success  it  has 
among  the  poor.  "It  behooves  us,"  he  adds,  "to  con- 
sider these  things,  if  the  English  Church  is  not  willing 
to  give  up  the  poor  to  the  care  of  the  Romanist 
priests." 

That  touched  the  vital  point,  and  told  in  one 
sentence  of  the  utter  and  disastrous  failure  of  English 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  4 1 7 

Protestantism  to  do  the  work  of  Christ  for  the  poor. 
The  promise  of  the  Lord  that  His  own  should  always 
have  the  poor  with  them  certainly  has  not  been  in- 
herited by  English,  nor,  indeed,  by  any  other  form  of 
Protestantism. 

"  The  operatives  in  Lancashire,"  he  tells  us,  "  are  in 
the  habit  of  saying  :  '  There  is  no  Church  in  England 
for  the  poor;  there  is  only  a  Church  for  the  rich.'  " 
And  immediatel}'  after  he  holds  up  again  the  other  side 
of  the  picture  : 

"In  the  Romanist  churches  all  are  treated  as  equals  in  the 
presence  of  their  God,  In  them  the  poor  are  welcomed  with  an 
eagerness  which  seems  to  say  :  the  Church  was  meant  especially 
for  such  as  you.     Let  the  English  Church  take  warning !  " 

Yes,  it  ought  to  ;  but  of  what  use  would  that  be  when 
it  has  no  such  spiritual  food,  as  the  Catholic  Church 
has  in  abundance,  to  give  to  its  corporally  and  spirit- 
ually pauperized  and  starving  children  ?  That  Church 
of  ProtCvStantism  is  itself  only  a  state  institution,  its 
clergy  only  state  agents,  and  evidently  so  separated  in 
life  and  spirit  from  the  poor  and  needy  that  they  cannot 
sympathize  with  them  nor  understand  them. 

The  Good  Shepherd  knows  and  is  known  by  his 
flock,  and  they  follow  him  ;  and  if  need  be,  he  lays 
down  his  life  for  them.  Of  whom  is  this  true  to  the 
letter,  the  Protestant  minister  or  the  Catholic  priest .? 

That  Protestantism  took  very  soon  to  despisftig  and 
cruelly  neglecting  the  poor  is  testified  to  by  a  curious 
bit  of  writing  from  the  pen  of  one  of  Protestant  Eng- 
land's earliest  authors,  Thomas  Nash  (a.,  d.  1567- 
1600).  It  is  entitled  A  Latter  Day  Appeal,  taken  from 
his  Chris fs  Tears  over  Jerusalem,  a  satire  on  the  city 
of  London. 


4i8  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 


"A  LATTER  DAY  APPEAL. 

"  If  Christ  were  now  naked  and  unvisited,  naked  and  unvisited 
should  He  be,  for  none  would  come  near  Him.  They  would 
rather  forswear  Him  and  defy  Him,  than  come  within  forty  foot 
of  Him.  ...  A  halfpenny  a  month  to  the  poor  man's  box 
we  count  our  utter  impoverishing.  I  have  heard  travellers  of 
credit  avouch,  that  in  London  is  not  given  the  tenth  part  of  that 
alms  in  a  week,  which  in  the  poorest  besieged  city  of  France  is 
given  in  a  day.  What,  is  our  religion  all  avarice  and  no  good 
works  f  Because  we  may  not  build  monasteries,  or  have  masses, 
dirges,  or  trentals  sung  for  our  souls,  are  there  no  deeds  of  mercy 
that  God  hath  enjoined  us  ? 

"  Our  dogs  are  fed  with  the  crumbs  that  fall  from  our  tables.. 
Our  Christian  brethren  are  famished  for  want  of  the  crumbs  that 
fall  from  our  tables.  Take  it  of  me,  rich  men  expressly,  that  it  is 
not  your  own  which  you  have  purchased  with  your  industry  :  it  is 
part  of  it  the  poor's,  part  your  prince's,  part  your  preacher's.  You 
ought  to  possess  no  more  than  will  moderately  sustain  your  house 
and  your  family.  Christ  gave  all  the  victual  He  had  to  those  that 
flocked  to  hear  His  sermons.  We  have  no  such  promise-founded 
plea  at  the  day  of  all  flesh  as  that  in  Christ's  name  we  have  done 
alms-deeds.  How  would  we  with  our  charity  sustain  so  niany 
mendicant  orders  of  religion  as  we  heretofore  have,  and  as  now  at 
this  very  hour  beyond  sea  are,  if  we  cannot  keep  and  cherish  the 
casual  poor  atnongst  us?  Never  was  there  a  simple  liberal 
reliever  of  the  poor  but  prospered  in  most  things  he  went  about. 
The  cause  that  some  of  you  cannot  prosper  is,  for  you  put  out  so 
little  to  interest  to  the  poor. 

"  No  thanks-worthy  exhibitions,  or  reasonable  pensions,  will  you 
contribute  to  maimed  soldiers  or  poor  scholars,  as  other  nations 
do,  but  suffer  other  nations,  with  your  discontented  poor,  to  arm 
themselves  against  you.  .  .  .  The  livings  of .  colleges  by  you 
are  not  increased,  but  diminished.  Because  those  that  first  raised 
them  had  a  superstitious  intent,  none  of  us  ever  after  will  have 
any  Christian  charitable  intent. 

"  In  the  days  of  Solomon  gold  and  silver  bare  no  price.     In 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  419 

these  our  days  (which  are  the  days  of  Satan)  naught  but  they 
bear  any  price.  God  is  despised  in  comparison  of  them.  Demas 
forsook  Christ  for  the  world ;  in  this  our  deceasing,  covetous 
world  Demas  hath  more  followers  than  Christ.     ... 

"  Our  English  curmudgeons  have  treasure  innumerable,  but 
do  no  good  with  it.  All  the  abbey-lands  that  were  the  abstracts 
from  impertinent  alms,  now  scarce  afford  a  meal's  meat  of  alms. 
A  penny  bestowed  on  the  poor  is  abridged  out  of  housekeeping" 
(English  Prose,  Selections,  with  critical  introduction,  etc.,  Henry 
Craik). 

The  voice  of  another  outspoken  Englishman  will 
show  that  English  Protestantism,  at  least,  has  not 
changed  its  spirit  since  the  days  of  Nash. 

I  open  at  hazard  the  Fors  Clavigej^a  of  John  Ruskin. 
In  vol.  vii.  page  263  I  find  this  language.  He  is  inter- 
preting the  Apocal3-ptic  charge  to  the  seven  angels  of 
the  seven  churches,  and  he  goes  on  : 

"  Observe,  first,  all  these  charges  begin  with  the  same  words, 
'  I  know  thy  works  I '  Not  even  the  maddest  and  blindest  of 
Antinomian  teachers  could  have  eluded  the  weight  of  this  fact, 
but  that,  in  the  following  address  to  each  church,  its  work  is 
spoken  of  as  the  state  of  its  heart,  of  which  the  interpretation  is 
nevertheless  quite  simple ;  namely,  that  the  thing  looked  at  by 
God  first,  in  every  Christian  man,  is  his  work — without  which 
there  is  no  more  talk  or  thought  of  him.  '  Cut  him  down — why 
cumbereth  he  the  ground  ?  '  But  the  work  being  shown,  has  next 
to  be  tested.  In  what  spirit  was  this  done — in  faith  and  charity, 
or  in  disobedient  pride  ?  '  You  have  fed  the  poor }  '  Yes ;  but 
did  you  do  it  to  get  a  commission  on  the  dishes,  or  because  you 
loved  the  poor  ?  You  lent  to  the  poor :  was  it  in  true  faith  that 
you  lent  to  Ale,  or  to  get  money  out  of  my  poor  by  usury  in 
defiance  of  Me  ?  " 

And  this  bitter  and  well-deserved  reproach  upon  not 
a  little  of  Protestant  ' '  charity  ' '  is  made  by  one  who  in 


420  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

true  Protestant  spirit  could  write  a  few  pages  further 
on:  "Wherever  the  Christian  Church  has  resolved  to 
live  a  Christian  life,  there,  instantl}^  manifest  approval 
of  Heaven  is  given  by  accessioh  of  7vo7idIy  pi'ospcrity 
and  victory."  The  italics  are  his.  Schemes  of  econom- 
ical benevolence  are  not  wholly  unknown  much  nearer 
home  than  Protestant  England.  In  some  parts  of  the 
United  States  it  has  been  the  custom  in  small  country 
towns  to  put  up  the  poor  at  auction  in  town-meeting, 
to  be  knocked  down  to  the  lowest  bidder,  or  person  who 
would  take  and  keep  them  at  the  least  expense  to  the 
community. 

Hearken  to  Mr.  Ruskin  again,   addressing  whom? 

"Alas!  wolf-shepherd,  this  is  St.  George's  word  to  you: 
'  In  your  prosperity  you  gave  these  men  high  wages,  not  in  kind- 
ness to  them,  but  in  contention  for  business  among  yourselves. 
You  have  declared  again  and  again,  by  vociferation  of  all  your 
orators,  that  you  have  wealth  so  overflowing  that  you  do  not 
know  what  to  do  with  it.  These  men  who  dug  the  wealth  for 
you  now  lie  starving  at  the  mouth  of  the  hell-pits  [the  collieries] 
you  made  them  dig;  yea,  their  bones  lie  scattered  at  the  grave's 
mouth.  Your  boasted  wealth — where  is  it  ?  Is  the  war  between 
them  and  you  because  you  now  mercilessly  refuse  them  food, 
or  because  all  your  boasts  of  wealth  were  lies  ?  " 

And  why  all  this  fierce  objurgation  of  the  pauper- 
izing policy  of  English  society  ?  I  find  the  an.swer  on 
another  page  where  he  tells  that  se-called  Christian 
people  that  they  have  come  to  forget  God,  who  in 
Feudal  Catholic  times  (which  for  much  he  does  not 
admire)  was  not  forgotten  : 

"  There  was  in  the  Feudal  system  a  Final  Authority,  of 
which  the  imagination  is  like  to  be  lost  to  Protestant  minds: 
that  of    the    King    of    kings  and    Ruler    of    empires;    in  whose 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  421 


ordinances  and  everlasting  laws,  and  in  '  feudom,'  or  faith  and 
covenant  with  whom,  as  the  Giver  of  Land  and  Bread,  all  the 
subordinate  powers  (of  kings,  princes,  dukes,  etc.)  lived  and 
moved  and  had  their  being." 

Yea,  Mr.  Ruskiii,  and  loved  the  poor  as  their  own 
flesh  and  blood. 

As  I  write  my  eye  falls  upon  the  report  of  a  sermon 
preached  by  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  the  successor 
of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  the  pulpit  of  Plymouth 
Church,  Brooklyn,  and  editor  of  the  Outlook.  He  is 
reasoning,  from  the  Catholic  stand-point,  that  "love  is 
the  generic  law  of  life,"  and  that  neither  man  nor 
society,  the  family  nor  the  government,  have  a  right  to 
live  ignoring,  or  in  defiance  of,  that  law.  And  then  he 
tells  us  how  the  modern  governing  powers  have  sinned 
in  this  respect,  but  he  does  not  tell  his  audience  how 
much  of  the  success  of  the  spirit  of  the  modern  Anti- 
christ in  seizing  upon  the  reins  of  government  in  so 
many  countries  is  due  to  the  sympathy  and  connivance 
of  Protestantism.  Indeed,  this  sort  of  "kingdom  of 
the  world"  is  the  creation  of  Protestantism,  and  is  a 
return  to  paganism,  under  which  there  was  no  "neigh- 
bor" to  "love  as  one's  self."     Thus  Dr.  Abbott : 

"  The  Psalmist  says  justice  aiid  judgment  are  the  habitation 
of  God's  throne,  so  justice  and  judgment  should  be  the  habita- 
tion of  human  government  : 

" '  He  shall  judge  the  poor  of  the  people,  he  shall  save  the 
children  of  the  needy,  and  shall  break  in  pieces  the  oppressor. 
.  .  .  For  He  shall  deliver  the  needy  when  he  crieth,  the 
poor  also,  and  him  that  hath  no  helper.  He  shall  spare  the 
poor  and  needy  and  shall  save  the  souls  of  the  needy.' 

•'  Will  any  man,  looking  on  the  governments  of  the  world, 
say  that  that  is  the  ideal  according  to  which  governments  are 
organized  }     Will  any  man,  looking  upon  the  continent  of  Europe, 


422  Poverty  and  Pauperism, 

say  that  men  are  attempting  to  carry  on  government  upon  that 
basis?  In  Italy,  where  the  peasant  farms  are  being  sold  under 
the  taxes,  is  government  organized  to  help  the  poor  and  needy?" 

The  well-informed  reader  knows  that  no  such 
cruel  treatment  of  the  poor  was  ever  heard  of  w^hen 
God  was  King  in  Italy  in  the  person  of  His  Vice- 
gerent. 

"  In  Germany,  where,  as  Evarts  said,  every  peasant  carries  a 
soldier  on  his  back,  is  government  organized  to  help  the  poor  and 
needy  ?  Is  it  in  France  or  Russia  ?  [Dr.  Abbott  seems  to  have 
forgotten  the  existence  of  England.] 

"  Come  across  the  sea  :  will  you  say  that  judgment  and  justice 
are  the  habitation  of  the  State  House  at  Albany  or  the  Capitol  at 
Washington  ?  Will  any  man  say  that  the  law  of  God  is  the  law 
of  any  government  on  the  face  of  the  globe  ?  "  (The  Outlook, 
March  31,  1894). 

These  are  bold  and  trenchant  questions,  and  if  Dr. 
Abbott  would  insist  upon  giving  neither  himself  nor 
any  of  the  people  who  look  to  him  for  guidance  any 
rest  or  peace  of  soul  until  a  clear  logical  answer  shall 
have  been  found  to  them  in  all  their  bearings,  Plym- 
outh Church,  with  its  pastor  and  its  people,  could  not 
possibly  help  confessing  that  there  is  no  hope  for 
humanity,  no  hope  for  the  social  and  political  orders  in 
any  country,  save  by  a  return  to  the  true  ideal  of  divine 
and  Christian  life  as  proposed  by  the  Catholic  Church. 

Wherever  Protestantism  has  had  any  real  power  it 
has  always  been  b}^  being  the  creature  and  tool  of  the 
state.  That  union  known  as  "Church  and  State" 
in  Protestant  countries  ought  to  read  '*  State  and 
Church,"  for  the  Protestant  state  is  the  master  and  the 
ProtCvStant  '  *  church  ' '  bows  and  bends  itself  to  serve 
"whatsoever  the  state  willeth."     Therefore  it  is  true 


« 


Poverty  and  Pauperism,  423 

that  this  * '  State  Protestantism ' '  is  not  only  negatively 
responsible  for  the  grievous  pauperism  of  the  people  by 
its  usurpation  of  the  office  of  their  true  shepherds,  who 
did  indeed  lay  down  their  lives  for  their  sheep,  but  it 
is  also  positively  responsible  in  that  it  both  acted  the 
part  of  the  hireling,  who,  when  the  wolfish  state  came 
devouring  and  scattering  the  sheep,  fled  and  lifted  not 
a  finger  for  their  protection,  and  also  turned  around 
and  helped  to  ravage  the  fold,  seizing  the  pleasant  and 
nourishing  pastures  of  the  sheep,  and  fattening  upon 
them  while  the  sheep  starved.  And  worse  than  all,  the 
once  gracious  and  loving  Christian  equality  and  frater- 
nity between  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  that  reigned 
in  Catholic  days  was  violently  trampled  under  foot,  and 
castes  and  '  *  classes  ' '  were  formed  ;  the  rich  had  a  new 
gospel  preached  to  them,  but  of  the  true  Gospel  that 
Christ  said  should  be  preached  to  the  poor  and  witness 
by  that  fact  to  the  truth  of  His  divine  mission,  Protest- 
antism soon  showed  that  it  neither  was  nor  could  be 
the  herald. 

So,  following  the  voice  of  the  religious  teacher,  the 
governing  powers  of  Protestantism  built  up  its  policy 
of  ruling  the  masses  by  laws  such  as  masters  make  to 
keep  down  slaves,  and  the  once  proud  and  brave  Catho- 
lic yeomanry  fell  blighted,  cowed,  degraded,  and  im- 
poverished ;  and  when  the  poor  cried  unto  their  mas- 
ters in  the  days  of  their  hideous  distress  for  a  little 
love  and  a  little  bread,  they  were  cast  off  with  the 
words  of  stinging  scorn — "  Go  to  the  work-house  ;  3^ou 
are  paupers  !  "  And  still  they  cry,  and  the  agonizing 
tones  of  their  supplication  pierce  the  heart  with  wring- 
ing pain,  but  so  long  as  Protestantism  lives  and  can 
preach  its  gospel  of  riches,  so  long  will  they  hear  none 


424  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

other    but   the   self-.same    answer — ' '  Go   to   the  work- 
house ;  you  are  paupers !  ' ' 

How  true  this  is  of  English  Protestantism  needs  no 
further  proof.  The  same  and  even  worse  is  true  of  the 
people  in  all  of  the  Protestant  United  Kingdom.  If 
anything,  the  crushing  and  pauperizing  of  the  Irish 
people,  the  horrible  mockery  of  Christianity  enduring 
there  so  long  as  the  Established  Church  was  allowed  to 
personate  it  in  that  unhappy  country,  was  a  thousand 
times  worse  than  in  England.  But  when  the  poor  man 
in  Ireland  echoed  the  cry  of  his  starving  brother  in 
England  for  a  little  love  and  a  little  bread,  blessed  be 
God  !  there  was  yet  left  to  him  the  Soggarth  aroon — 
the  dear  priest — who  could  and  did  give  him  oceans  of 
love,  love  faithful  and  true,  and  all  the  bread  he  had. 
So  the  poet  sings  : 

"  Who,  in  the  winter's  night. 
When  the  cowld  blast  did  bite — 

Soggarth  aroon — • 
Came  to  my  cabin-door 
And  on  my  earthen-flure. 
Knelt  by  me,  sick  and  poor, 

Soggarth  aroon  ? 

Who,  as  friend  only  met, 
Never  did  flout  me  yet, 

Soggarth  aroon  ? 
And,  when  my  heart  was  dim. 
Gave,  while  his  eye  did  brim. 
What  I  should  grive  to  him. 


Och  !  you,  and  only  you. 

And  for  this  I'll  be  true  to  you, 

Soggarth  aroon !  " 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  42  5 


Alas  for  you,  poor  Protestant  Englishmen  !  you  have 
had  no  Soggarth  aroon.  And  though  starvation  is 
hard,  and  human  nature  is  weak — how  weak  when 
strained  to  its  last  breaking  no  one  wonders ;  but 
many  and  many  an  Irishman,  happily  yet  holding 
on  to  the  faith  that  told  him  he  was  still  a  man 
let  whate'er  betide,  who,  when  his  grasping  absentee 
landlord  sent  him  the  Protestant  state  answer  to  his 
pitiful  beseechings  for  food — ' '  Go  to  the  work-house  ; 
3'ou  are  a  pauper  !  ' '  and  to  whom  food  in  plenty  was 
offered  if  he  would  but  take  Protestantism  with  it, 
spurned  the  scornful  thrust  at  his  manhood  and  its 
glory,  bore  the  trial  of  his  faith  with  the  martyr's  cour- 
age, and  proudly  lay  down  and  died  on  the  highway, 
unsheltered,  uncomforted,  and  unfed,  rather  than  eat 
the  cursed  bread  of  the  pauper  and  of  the  apos- 
tate. 

There  is  scarce  a  passion  that  stirs  within  the  hu- 
man breast  vSo  strong  as  the  love  of  one's  native  land. 
When  duty  calls  it  is  hard  enough  to  sunder  the  strong 
bond  and  bid  it  farewell,  maj^be  for  years  or  maybe  for 
ever.  But  when  no  higher  voice  of  right  doth  call ; 
when  one  is  forced  to  fly  from  it  as  from  the  face  of  a 
pestilence,  when  its  earth  becomes  of  iron  and  its  sky 
of  brass,  when  it  has  nothing  to  offer  to  its  children  but 
pauper's  rags  and  a  pauper's  grave,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing left  but  to  go  forth  upon  an  unknown  journey  dark 
with  forebodings  of  possible  disaster,  to  seek  in  the  land 
of  the  stranger  what  their  own  denies  to  them,  then, 
indeed,  the  parting  is  scarce  less  bitter  than  death. 
Exile !  What  a  shuddering  thrill  of  woe  unmans  even 
the  stoutest  heart  of  him  who  has  suffered  it ! 

Over  twelve  millions  have   been   driven  to   self-exile 


426  Poverty  and  Pauperism. 

from  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  Wales  since  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  on  whose  gor}^  plains  thousands  of 
their  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Welsh  brothers  had 
fallen  to  their  death  to  give  glory  to  the  English  flag. 
Of  these  twelve  million  children  of  an  ingrate  soil  it  is 
needless  to  surmise  how  many  millions  of  them  had  no 
choice  between  exile  and  a  pauper's' life  and  a  pauper's 
death. 

We  hear  much  about  the  excessive  number  of  Irish 
figuring  in  the  pauper  statistics  of  this  land,  to  which 
so  many  fled  in  the  hour  of  their  despair.  Over  five 
millions  of  them  bade  farewell  to  their  worshipped  land 
with  blinding  tears  and  breaking  hearts,  but  not  all 
reached  this  home  of  freedom  and  the  right  to  live,  for 
tens  of  thousands  of  them  perished  by  the  way.  In 
one  year  alone — 1846-47 — twenty  thousand  of  them  died 
of  the  pestilential  ship-fever,  and  saved  England  the 
cost  of  making  as  many  pauper  cofhns,  and  the  digging 
of  as  many  pauper  graves.  From  the  depths  of  the  sea 
rose  up  the  shimmering  ghosts  of  those  thousands  of 
exiled  dead  and  hastened  back,  as  spirits  may,  to  go 
and  kiss  once  more  the  dear  old  sod,  and  mingle  their 
tears  with  the  dewdrops  sparkling  on  the  native  grass 
and   heather ! 

Pauperized,  banned,  and  exiled  by  English  Protest- 
antism, by  its  arms  of  social  and  political  power,  such 
of  them  as  reached  our  shores  found  a  smiling  and  a 
true-hearted  welcome  from  many  a  free-born  American  ; 
but  not  from  all.  Protestantism  may  change  its  soil, 
but  it  is  ever  of  the  same  spirit,  as  Catholic  Irishmen 
have  found  to  their  grief,  even  here — my  British  lords 
and  gentlemen,  even  here  !  Fear  not ;  many  of  us 
Americans  have  kept  up  the  old  Protestant  traditions 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  427 

of  our  English  forefathers.  We  have  the  pauper  poor- 
house  too,  and  we  ticket  and  duly  report  the  statistics 
thereof.  We  took  account  of  the  paupers  in  the  United 
States  in  1890.  We  had  73,045  of  them  in  state  alms- 
houses, or  I  in  every  857  of  the  population.  You  have 
I  in  every  39  of  your  whole  population  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland.  Of  all  our  73,045  paupers  in  almshouses 
27,648  were  foreign-born.  Of  these  you  furnished 
16,915.  Yes,  you;  for  the  Irish,  the  Scotch,  and  the 
Welsh  paupers  are  as  much  yours  as  the  English.  As 
a  pauper-making  and  pauper-furnishing  country  you 
bear  the  palm.  I  am  just  now  presenting  a  com- 
parative view  of  pauperism— oi  state  pauperism — the 
degraded  and  hopeless  condition  into  which  the  poor 
of  Jesus  Christ  fall  in  countries  under  Protestant  civil- 
ization and  rule,  with  the  QMx\s\X'^\\  poverty  to  be  found 
in  Catholic  countries,  where  no  state  pauperism  like 
yours  exists.  There  is  enough  poverty  in  Catholic 
lands,  but  there  is  never  too  much  for  the  loving  care 
of  Catholic  hearts.  But  you  have  so  many  paupers 
that  they  die  by  thousands  on  your  hands  for  want  of 
bread,  and  you  drive  into  exile  tens  of  thousands  more 
to  help  fill  the  state  almshouses  of  other  lands.  My 
lords  and  gentlemen  of  England,  how  like  you  to  hear 
this  bitter  truth  ? 

Now  let  us  look  at  some  figures  of  pauperism  at 
home.  By  its  overflow  upon  our  shores  we  shall  be 
able  to  judge  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic  countries 
are  the  most  pauperized. 


428 


Poverty  and  Pauperism, 


lATlVITY  OF  FOREIGN-BORN  PAUPERS  IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES.— ( a-// j//^  of  1S90.) 

FROM    COUNTRIES 

UNDER 

FROM  COUNTRIES    UNDER 

PROTESTANT    RULE     AND 

CATHOLIC   RULE    AND    CIVIL- 

CIVILIZATION. 

IZATION. 

Australia, 

8 

Austria, 

95 

Bermuda, 

I 

Azores, 

3 

British  Guiana, 

] 

Bavaria, 

9 

Canada  (English), 

.     815 

Belgium, 

31 

Denmark, 

.     114 

Bohemia, 

.      170 

England, 

1,956 

Canada  (French),         .      109 

Germany, 

6,773 

Central  America 

I 

Holland, 

.     138 

Chili, 

31 

Iceland, 

I 

Corsica, 

, 

I 

Ireland, 

14,128 

Cuba, 

5 

Isle  of  Malta, 

4 

France, 

.      410 

Isle  of  Man,  . 

6 

Hayti, 

2 

Isle  of  St.  Helena, 

I 

Hungary,    . 

49 

New  South  Wales, 

2 

Italy, 

145 

Norway, 

.     369 

Mexico, 

42 

Prussia, 

I 

Moravia,     . 

Sandwich  Islands, 

2 

Peru, 

i          3 

Saxony, 

I 

Portugal,     . 

•J 

27 

Scotland, 

•     575 

South  America, 

19 

South  Australia,    . 

Spain, 

14 

Sweden,   •      . 

.    646 

Switzerland  (half 

)>      .       154 

Switzerland  (half), 

.     154 

Wales, 

.    256 

Total, 

1,321 

Total, 

25,953 

I  might  write  a  folio  and  not  be  able  to  present  such 
a  convincing  argument  as  is  offered  by  the  figures  of 
the  foregoing  table.     Mark  the  summary  of  it  : 

NATIVITY    OF    FOREIGN-BORN    PAUPERS    IN    THE    UNITED 

?>TATES.— (Census  of  i8go.) 
From  Protestant  countries, 25,953 


From  Catholic  countries. 


1,321 


Poverty  and  Pauperism.  429 

As  the  pauperism  of  Ireland  is  directly  due  to  the 
misrule  of  the  English  government  and  the  heavy  and 
iniquitous  burden  of  the  alien,  law-established  Church 
laid  upon  her  suffering  people  for  so  long  a  time, 
her  paupers  are  properly  chargeable  to  that  Protes- 
tant power.  The  bitterest  enemy  of  the  Irish  people 
would  never  dare  to  pretend  that  their  pauperism 
was  in  an}^  sense  due  to  their  religion,  except  that 
one  might  say,  and  truly,  that  if  they  had  been 
anything  but  Catholics,  even  idolatrous  heathen,  they 
would  never  have  suffered  so  horribly  at  the  hands 
of  their  Protestant  persecuting  masters.  But  if  Ireland 
were  taken  off  the  list,  even  then  there  would  still  be 
left  11,825  paupers  born  in  Protestant  countries  against 
the  1,321  born  in  Catholic  countries. 

Mr.  lycster  tells  us  that  some  years  ago  England 
offered  a  premium  for  emigration  '  *  and  not  only  did 
she  employ  agents  to  persuade,  by  false  representa- 
tions, her  subjects  out  of  her  dominions,  but  she 
directly  appropriated  funds  for  that  purpose."  On  the 
same  page  he  gives  this  note: 

'•  I  am  half  tempted  to  give  what  lays  at  my  hand,  the  statistics 
of  Pauper  Exportation  to  the  United  States  by  the  British  gov- 
ernment. Of  her  exportation  of  criminals,  secretly  and  clandes- 
tinely, to  our  shores,  I  need  hardly  speak.  In  multitudes  of  cases 
condemned  men,  indicted  persons,  or  people  who  had  become 
obnoxious  or  dangerous,  whom  the  Colonial  authorities  would  not 
receive,  have  been  shipped  to  this  country — supplying  us  with 
murderers,  burglars,  and  thieves;  while  of  the  pauper  class  the 
number  has  amounted  to  tens  of  thousands.  We  all  know  that 
this  went  so  far  that  our  general  and  state  governments  had  to 
resort  to  laws  of  self-protection,  when  the  most  earnest  and  re- 
peated protests  and  expostulations  had  failed  "  {Glory  and  Shame 
of  Engla7id,  vol.  i.  p.  289), 


430 


Poverty  and  Pauperism, 


I  have  already  explained  the  omission  of  statistics 
of  pauperism  in  the  official  Reports  of  the  social  and 
political  condition  of  Catholic  countries.  There  are, 
however,  some  figures  so  tabulated  for  Austria  and 
Belgium,  these  states  making  some  report  of  needy  per- 
sons assisted  in  part  by  the  government.  I  have  gone 
through  the  Statesman' s  Year  Book,  and,  taking  the 
statistics  of  pauperism  as  reported  for  the  last  year,  the 
following  is  a  table  compiled  from  those  figures  show- 
ing the  ratio  of  one  pauper  to  a  certain  number  of  the 
population  ;  which  presents  the  most  concise  and  clear 
view  the  reader  could  have  of  the  alarmingly  pauper- 
ized condition  of  Protestant  countries  : 


ONE  PAUPER  TO  HOW  MANY  OF  THE  POPULATION? 


Protestant  Countries. 


Sweden, 
Holland.     . 
Denmark,  . 
Norway, 
Germany,    . 
Great  Britain 
and  Ireland 


I  to  every  19 
I  to  every  20 
I  to  every  23 
I  to  every  25 
I  to  every  31 

I  to  every  39 


Catholic  Countries. 


Austria, 
Belgium,    . 
France, 
Italy, 
Spain, 
Portugal, 
Mexico, 
Every    coun- 
try in  Central 
and      South 
America. 


I  to  every     145 
I  to  every  1,321 

No  reports  of 
"  Paupers,"  nor 
of  the  number 
of  their  poor 
who  are  cared 
for  on  Catho- 
lic, Christian 
principles. 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 

EMIGRATION. 

I  HAVE  already  spoken  of  the  enormous  number  of 
people  forced  by  England's  pauper  system  to  exile 
themselves  from  their  native  land  ;  but  I  have  not  yet 
told  all  the  truth.  Mr.  Charles  Edwards  Lester  tells'us 
that  he  had  in  hand  the  statistics  of  Pauper  Exportation 
to  the  United  States  by  the  British  government.  That 
is,  as  he  says  : 

"  It  is  well  known  from  these  authentic  sources  that  by  far  the 
largest  share  of  imported  paupers  and  criminals  whom  even  her 
own  colonial  authorities  would  not  receive  were  shipped  here  by 
the  authority  or  money  of  the  govei-ninetit,  or  both'' 

And  these  are  his  reflections  thereon  : 

"A  more  brutal  deed  was  never  justified  by  a  civilized  nation. 
Whenever  a  good  opportunity  offered  itself,  these  paupers,  old 
and  infirm,  were  shipped  off  like  cattle,  in  vessels  hired  to  convey 
them  to  other  countries,  where  their  miserable  food  and  miserable 
burial  would  not  be  charged  to  the  government.  Is  this  not  more 
inhuman  than  shipping  off  slaves  to  New  Orleans  or  the  Georgia 
plantations  ?  Our  own  coasts  have  never  rung  with  wilder  fare- 
wells than  have  gone  up  from  the  shores  of  England's  despairing 
emigrants.  Multitudes  have  thus  been  banished  for  the  crime  of 
being  poor,  when  their  poverty  was  brought  on  them  by  the  rob- 
bery of  these  very  persons,  who  thus  wrenched  them,  like  neg- 
lected branches,  from  the  parent  tree.  England  lets  them  toil  as 
long  as  that  toil  wrings  from  the  ground  or  manufactory  the 
luxuries  she  enjoys,  and  then,  when  old  and  infirm,  she  ships  them 
to  strange  lands  to  find  for  themselves  graves.  The  Southern 
planter  fed   and  clothed  his   decrepit,  aged  slaves.     The  humane 

431 


432  Emigration, 


man  refuses  to  knock  in  the  head  the  horse  that  has  carried«him 
for  years,  because  he  can  do  no  more  work.  But  England,  more 
cruel  to  her  subjects  than  the  master  to  his  slave,  or  the  man  to 
his  beast,  not  only  plunders  their  pockets,  but  wrings  their  hearts 
with  anguish  ;  and  when  her  merciless  extortion  can  force  out  no 
more,  she  casts  forth  the  exhausted  and  helpless  wretch  into  the 
wilderness  to  die  !  "  (The  Glory  and  Shame  of  E7igla7id,  ed.  1876, 

vol,    i.    pp.    289,  2C)0). 

Is  Great  Britain  the  only  Protestant  country  that 
has  forced  this  last  hope  of  life  upon  the  poor  ?  And 
what  is  the  record  of  Catholic  countries  on  this  point  ? 
lyCt  us  have  a  look  at  the  figures.  Mulhall  tells  us 
that,  "since  181 5  to  1888,  no  fewer  \\\'2i\\  hventy- seven 
millions  of  people  in  Europe  have  left  their  homes, 
broken  up  family  ties,  and  sought  their  future  in  new 
lands."     Then  he  gives  this  table  : 

In  order  to  give  the  reader  a  general  idea  of  the 
ratio  of  emigrants  to  population,  I  add  the  present 
population  in  millions  : 

FROM    PROTESTANT   COUNTRIES,    1816-1888. 


Country. 

Nuviber  of  Emigrants. 

Population. 

Great  Britain 

and  Ireland,      .         .       9,860,000 

37,000,000 

Germany, 

5,670,000 

49,000,000 

Sweden  and  Norway,      .         .         .      1,070,000 

6,000,000 

Holland,     . 

345,000 

4,000,000 

Denmark, 

220,000 

FROM    CATHOLIC    COUNTRIES. 

2,000,000 

Country. 

Number  of  Emigrants. 

Population. 

Italy,       . 

3,580,000 

30,000,000 

France, 

1,540,000 

38,000,000 

Austria,     . 

1,290,000 

23,000,000 

Belgium, 

970,000 

6,000,000 

Spain, 

760,000 

17,000,000 

Portugal, 

540,000 

4,000,000 

Emigration.  433 


The  emigrants  from  Switzerland,  two-thirds  Protest- 
ant, number  760,000.  Its  present  population  is  3,000,000. 
Here  are  a  few  notes  given  by  Mulhall  which  throw  a 
good  deal  of  light  upon  the  above  table  : 

1st.  The  table  shows  that  the  emigration  from 
Protestant  countries  is  vastly  greater  in  proportion  to 
their  population  than  from  Catholic  countries.  Why  ? 
Because  Protestant  countries  are  not  as  good  countries 
for  a  poor  man  to  live  in  as  Catholic  ones. 

2d.  No  emigrants  to  speak  of  have  left  Catholic 
countries  to  go  to  any  one  of  the  Protestant  countries 
in  Europe.  Why  ?  Because  Protestant  countries  are 
good  countries  for  a  poor  man  to  keep  out  of.  Poor  as 
he  may  be  in  his  own  country,  he  would  be  sure  to  fare 
as  badly  or  worse  in  the  other. 

3d.  A  very  large  proportion  of  emigrants  from 
Catholic  countries  go  to  other  Catholic  countries ;  many 
of  the  Italians,  Spaniards,  French,  and  Portuguese  to 
South  America.  Great  numbers  of  the  French— not 
exiled  paupers — have  gone  to  colonize  Algeria  ;  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  Belgian  emigrants  to  France. 
Why  ?  Because,  though  all  Catholic  countries  are 
good  countries  for  a  poor  man  to  live  in,  some  are  better 
than  others  ;  and  Catholics  make  good  colonizers  of 
new  countries. 

4th.  Five  per  cent,  of  the  Spanish  emigrants  return 
to  Spain. 

5th.  Thirty-three  per  cent,  of  the  Italian  emigrants 
have  returned  to  Italy — which  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  they  did  not  find  the  countries  they  went  to  as 
good  for  poor  men  as  their  own. 

6th.  France  and  Belgium  received  just  as  many 
immigrants  from  other  countries  as  the  emigrants  who 


434 


Emigration, 


left  them.  The  finest  feature  of  French  emigration  is 
that  of  its  glorious  host  of  laborers  for  Christ,  its  heroic 
missionaries  to  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 

7th.  Tested  by  our  own  experience,  and  that  is 
great  and  of  long  duration,  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  have  turned  out  criminals  and  paupers  from  among 
the  immigrants  we  have  received,  have  come  to  us  from 
countries  under  Protestant  rule  and  civilization.  I^et 
us  see  the  proof: 

COMPARATIVE    TABLE    OF     FOREIGN-BORN    PAUPERS 

AND  FOREIGN-BORN  CRIMINALS  IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES.— (C^«j«j  of  1890. ) 


FROM  COT 

JNTRIES   XJ 

NDER 

FROM   COUNTRIES 

UNDER 

PROTESTANT     RULE 

AND 

CATHOLIC 

RULE   AND    CIVIL- 

CIVILIZATION 

IZATION. 

Paupers.     Criminals. 

Pa  I 

pers. 

Crimitials, 

Australia, 

8 

58 

Argentine 

Barbadoes, 

— 

I 

Republic 

— 

2 

Bermuda, 

I 

— 

Austria, 

. 

95 

173 

British  Colum- 

Azore Islands, 

3 

I 

bia, 

— 

3 

Bavaria, 

. 

9 

8 

British  Guiana,        i 

Belgium, 

31 

26 

Canada  (Eng- 

Bohemia, 

170 

36 

lish),     . 

.      815 

1. 48 1 

Brazil,     . 

4 

Cape  of  Goo 

d 

Canada 

Hope, 

— 

I 

(French), 

109 

99 

Denmark,     . 

114 

113 

Central  Amer- 

England, 

1,956 

1,914 

ica, 

, 

I 

I 

Germany, 

6,773 

2,936 

Canary  Islands, 



I 

Gibraltar, 

— 

ChiH,      . 

31 

8 

Holland, 

138 

61 

Corsica, 

I 

I 

Iceland, 

I 

— 

Cuba, 

5 

13 

Ireland, 

14,128 

5.559 

France, 

410 

278 

Isle  of  Man, 

6 

4 

Hayti,     . 

2 

Isle  of  Malta 

4 

3 

Hungary, 

49 

130 

Emigration, 

435 

Paupers. 

Criminals. 

Paupers. 

Criminals 

Isle  of  St.  He- 

Italy.      . 

145 

562 

lena,          .             i 

— 

Mexico, 

42 

604 

Jamaica,       .          — 

2 

Moravia, 

I 

— 

New  South 

Panama, 

— 

I 

Wales.     .            2 

2 

Peru,      . 

3 

3 

New  Zealand,        — 

6 

Portugal, 

27 

9 

Norway,      .          369 

208 

Sicily,     . 

— 

3 

Prussia.       .              i 

21 

South  America,      19 

II 

Sandwich 

Spain,    . 

14 

26 

Islands,    .             2 

2 

Switzerland 

Saxony,       .              i 

— 

(half).       . 

154 

77 

Scotland,     .         575 
South  Aus- 

479 

Totals, 

1.321 

2,077 

tralia.      .              I 

— 

Sweden,     .         646 

348 

Switzerland 

(half).      .         154 

n 

Wales,        .          256 

89 

Totals,     25,953 

13.369 

For  the  same  reason  both  the  Irish  paupers  and 
criminals  are  properly  placed  in  the  table  on  the 
Protestant  side,  they  having  been  born  in  a  country 
under  England's  Protestant  rule  and  civilization  ;  but  I 
have  placed  the  Canadian  French  paupers  and  crimi- 
nals on  the  Catholic  side  ;  for  although  for  some  time 
past  under  English  rule,  their  civilization  is  French  and 
Catholic. 

I  need  not  repeat  here  what  has  been  already  said 
about  the  pauperism  of  the  Irish  :  but  this  may  be  said 
about  the  large  number  of  criminals  of  Irish  birth,  that 
many  as  there  are,  they  are  not  almost  equal  in  number 
to  the  paupers,  as  is  the  case  with  the  English  crimi- 
nals from  England,  nor  do  they  far  exceed  them,  as  the 
criminals  from  English    Canada  do. 


436  Emigration, 


Again  :  of  all  immigrants  to  our  shores  the  Irish 
have  been  the  most  needy,  most  socially  depressed  and 
exasperated  by  heartless  treatment.  It  is  just  such  a 
class  of  persons  which  furnishes  the  sort  of  prisoners 
found  in  our  American  jails.  In  great  part,  therefore, 
the  Irish-born  criminal  product  in  the  United  States  is 
justly  traceable  to  the  fault  of  their  Protestant  English 
rulers  and  their  iniquitous  oppressive  system  of  govern- 
ment. 

Further  on  in  this  volume  it  will  be  shown  that  at 
home  the  Irish  are  not  distinguished  for  excessive 
criminality  ;  but  the  fact  must  not  be  overlooked  that 
emigration  from  one's  native  land  is  itself  a  most 
dangerous  trial  to  one's  virtue ;  and  the  Irish,  and 
more  especially  the  extremely  needy,  socially  depressed, 
and  exasperated  ones,  like  all  others  of  the  same  class, 
are  easily  led  into  crime.  I  find  some  very  just  re- 
marks thereon  under  the  head  of  ' '  Emigration  as  a 
Cause  of  Crime  "  in  a  well-known  work  :  The  Danger- 
ous Classes  of  New  York  and  tweyity  years'  work  among 
them,  by  Mr.  Charles  Eoring  Brace,  a  gentleman  who 
would  not  be  likely  to  hold  the  Catholic  religion  or  its 
priesthood  excused  from  blame  in  this  matter  without 
eminently  just  reason.     On  page  34  he  says  : 

"  There  is  no  question  that  the  breaking  of  the  ties  with  one's 
country  has  a  bad  moral  effect,  especially  on  a  laboring  class. 
The  emigrant  is  released  from  the  social  inspection  and  judgment 
to  which  he  has  been  subjected  at  home,  and  the  tie  of  Church 
and  priesthood  is  weakened.  If  a  Roman  Catholic,  he  is  often  a 
worse  Catholic,  without  being  a  better  Protestant.  If  a  Protest- 
ant, he  often  becomes  indifferent.  Moral  ties  are  loosened  with 
the  religious.  The  intervening  process  which  occurs  here,  be- 
tween his  abandoning  the  old  state  of  things  and  fitting  himself 
to  the  new,  is  not  favorable  to  morals  or  character. 


Emigration.  437 


"  The  consequence  is,  that  an  immense  proportion  of  our  igno- 
rant and  criminal  class  are  foreign-born.  Of  the  49423  prisoners 
in  our  (New  York)  city  prisons,  in  prison  for  one  year  before 
January,  1870,  32,225  were  of  foreign  birth.  ...  Of  the 
foreign-born,  21,887  were  from  Ireland  ;  and  yet  at  home  the  Irish 
are  one  of  the  most  law-abiding  and  virtuous  of  populations — the 
proportion  of  criminals  being  smaller  than  in  England  or  Scot- 
land." 

I  submit  to  the  fair-minded  reader,  who  shall  have 
carefully  examined  the  evidence  just  given,  that, 
judged  by  this  very  practical  test  of  the  numbers  and 
character  of  the  emigrants  from  them,  one  cannot  fail 
to  be  convinced  of  the  great  superiority  of  Catholic 
countries  over  Protestant  ones  in  affording  to  people 
who  live  by  their  daily  labor  better  means  of  leading  a 
contented  and  useful  life,  enjoying  the  cherished  asso- 
ciations of  their  native  land  and  the  cheering  com- 
panionship of  their  fellow-countrymen ;  and  in  dis- 
pensing to  those  who  suffer  from  poverty  holier, 
sweeter,  and  more  comforting  succor. 

To  say  nothing  of  the  many  superior  advantages  in 
the  spiritual  order  which  people  of  all  classes  find  in 
countries  where  the  very  atmosphere  is  redolent  with 
the  delicious  fragrance  of  Catholic  faith  and  piety,  one 
cannot  but  be  deeply  impressed  with  the  fact  that  in 
such  countries  are  found  abodes  of  Christian  peace, 
true  homes  for  high-born  and  lowly,  for  rich  and  poor ; 
where  no  man  need  lack  a  lover  and  a  friend.  Catho- 
lic countries  are  not  the  lands  where  the  sons  of  toil 
find  cause  to  rise  up  and  curse  the  spot  of  earth  upon 
which  they  were  born,  as  with  angered  yet  aching 
hearts  they  fly  from  them  to  seek  upon  some  more  hos- 
pitable shore  the  little  love  and  the  little  bread  that  na- 
ture demands  but  which  man  has  denied. 


438  Emigration, 


The  words  of  the  poet,  Goldsmith,  have  already 
drawn  for  us  on  a  former  page  the  sad  picture  of  how 
Protestantism  desolated  one  of  the  fairest,  loveliest,  and 
most  fruitful  of  countries  that  Heaven  smiled  upon, 
whose  very  name  breathes  the  melody  of  gladness  ;  a 
land  peopled  with  noble,  valiant,  justice-loving,  and 
tender-hearted  men  and  women  ;  and  the  same  seer  has 
not  failed  to  mark  the  forced  emigration  of  her  sturdy 
yeomanry  as  one  among  not  the  least  of  the  bitter  con- 
sequences of  fair  England's  fate  following  hard  and  fast 
upon  the  outburst  of  those  selfish  and  unchristian  so- 
cial principles  which,  past  all  gainsaying,  owe  their 
affirmation  and  development  to  Protestantism. 

Let  us  hear  the  poet's  mournful  strain  as  he  beholds 
the  sad  procession  of  unhoused  emigrants  seeking  the 
ship  that  is  to  bear  them  away  into  unmerited  exile : 

"  O  luxury  !  thou  cursed  by  Heaven's  decree, 
How  ill-exchanged  are  things  like  these  for  thee ! 
E'en  now  the  devastation  is  begun, 
And  half  the  business  of  destruction  done  ; 
E'en  now,  methinks,  as  pondering  here  I  stand, 
I  see  the  rural  virtues  leave  the  land. 
Down  where  yon  anchoring  vessel  spreads  the  sail, 
That  idly  waiting  flaps  with  every  gale. 
Downward  they  move,  a  melancholy  band, 
Pass  from  the  shore,  and  darken  all  the  strand." 

Those  lines  from  ' '  The  Deserted  Village  ' '  are  but  the 
repetition  of  the  same  sad  truth  already  told  by  the 
poet  in  his  former  descriptive  poem  :  '*  The  Traveller." 
The  spectacle  of  his  country's  loss  through  this  forced 
self-exile  of  her  people  was  evidently  one  which  deeply 
affected  him,     I^isten  : 


Emigration.  439 


'  Have  we  not  seen,  'round  Britain's  peopled  shore, 
Her  useful  sons  exchanged  for  useless  ore  ? 
Seen  all  her  triumphs  but  destruction  haste, 
Like  flaring  tapers  bright'ning  as  they  waste  ? 
Seen  opulence,  her  grandeur  to  maintain, 
Lead  stern  depopulation  in  her  train. 
And  over  fields  where  scattered  hamlets  rose, 
In  barren,  solitary  pomp  repose  ? 
Have  we  not  seen,  at  pleasure's  lordly  call. 
The  smiling,  long-frequented  village  fall  ? 
Beheld  the  duteous  son,  the  sire  decay 'd, 
The  modest  matron  and  the  blushing  maid. 
Forced  from  their  homes,  a  melancholy  train. 
To  traverse  climes  beyond  the  western  main; 
Where  wild  Oswego  spreads  her  swamps  around, 
And  Niagara  stuns  with  thundering  sound  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

WHO  OWNS  THE  LAND  ? 

FROM  the  land  comes  everything  of  which  man  has 
need  for  his  hfe  or  his  pleasure,  either  directly  or 
indirectly.  Moreover,  with  ownership  in  land  comes 
not  only  the  means  of  living,  but  a  sense  of  human 
freedom,  of  personal  independence.  Who,  after  all,  are 
the  nobility,  and  what  made  them  not  only  noble 
by  name,  but  noble  by  nature  ?  They  are  those  who 
own  the  land,  whose  very  name  is  the  proud  title  of 
honor  and  rank  with  which  man  adorns  his  person  and 
transmits  to  his  children  as  their  most  priceless  inherit- 
ance. Who  are  the  "landed  gentry"?  Not  those 
w^ho  labor  on  the  land  or  rent  it,  but  those  who  oivn  it. 
By  so  much  more  as  the  land  is  distributed  as  to  its 
ownership,  falling  naturally  and  rationally  into  the 
hands  of  a  larger  number  of  families,  by  just  so  much 
more  is  the  number  of  people  civilized,  elevated  in 
character,  and  rendered  happy,  increased.  Where  the 
ownership  in  land  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a 
few,  thOvSe  few  become  inordinately  rich  and  powerful 
at  the  expense  of  the  corresponding  want,  misery,  and 
degradation  of  the  many. 

Between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism,  which  re- 
ligion has  encouraged  the  more  a  general  distribution 
of  the  land  among  the  people  ?  In  what  countries  do 
you  find,  therefore,  the  few  glutted  with  wealth,  and 
the  many  reduced  to  abject  pauperism  and  brutalized 

in  manners  ?     I  will  give  the  facts  for  countries  which 

440 


W/io  Owns  the  Land  ? 


441 


have  been  long  enough  in  existence  to  show  the  results 
of  such  a  social  condition,  and  thus  give  cogent  evi- 
dence for  or  against  the  civilizing  and  huraan-ennobling 
moral  influence  of  the  prevailing  religion  of  the  people. 

I  have  already  shown,  both  in  this  portion  of  my 
essay  and  under  the  head  of  Civilization,  that  the 
tendency  of  Protestantism  is  to  exalt  material  prosperity 
and  to  inspire  the  desire  of  gaining  riches;  while,  in 
marked  contrast  with  this  worldly  spirit,  the  tendency 
of  Catholicism  has  been  to  exalt  the  spiritual  perfection 
of  man  as  the  suminum  bojium  to  be  acquired,  to  equal- 
ize as  much  as  possible  the  different  necessary  classes 
of  men,  and  to  inspire  contentment  in,  both  rich  and 
poor  with  what  is  simple  and  moderate. 

The  following  tables  from  Mulhall  will  offer  an 
instructive  contrast : 


Protestant  countries. 

Great  Britain  \ 
and  Ireland    ( 

Total  acres. 
78,000,000 

Number  0/ 
owners. 

1 80,000 

Average 
acres  to 
oivners. 

■   390 

Germany, 

133,000,000 

2,436,000 

37 

Sweden,  . 

101,000,000 

1 94,000 

300 

Norway,  . 

77,000,000 

75,000 

200 

Denmark, 

9,000,000 

71,000 

115 

Holland, 

8,000,000 

I  54,000 

45 

Catholic  countries. 
Italy, 

Total  acres. 
7 1 ,000,000 

Number  of 
owners. 

1,265,000 

Average 
acres  to 
owners. 
36 

France,    . 

1 3 1 ,000,000 

3,226,000 

32 

Austria,  . 

153,000,000 

6,150,000 

20 

Spain, 

1 2 1 ,000,000 

596,000 

95 

Portugal, 

22,000,000 

4 1 9,000 

30 

Belgium, 

7,000,000 

315,000 

18 

Does  not  that  table  tell  a  story  worthy  of  being  told 
again  ? 


Ac7-es. 

Oivners  0/500 
and  more  acres. 

22,000,000 

10,070 

18,000,000 

2,705 

17,000,000 

6,500 

57,000,000 

19.275 

Owners  of  less 
than  500  acres. 

21,000,000 

295410 

78,000,000 

314,685 

442  Who  Oivns  the  Land? 

Mulhall  afterwards  gives  detailed  official  reports  in 
which  Great  Britain  appears  to  have  a  better  showing 
as  to  the  number  of  oivners,  viz.,  314,685,  but  a  worse 
showing  in  partition  of  the  land  : 


England, 
Scotland, 
Ireland, 

Total, 


Total,         ' .         .        . 

Look  at  that,  57,000,000  of  acres  out  of  78,000,000 
owned  by  only  19,275  owners!  But  now  compare 
Great  Britain  with  even  this  larger  number  of  owners, 
great  and  small,  with  Catholic  Belgium,  having  only 
7,000,000  of  acres,  less  than  one-eleventh  of  the  great 
Protestant  kingdom,  and  yet  it  has  one  thousand  more 
owners.  Compare  it  with  Portugal,  the  object  of  so 
much  Protestant  pity  and  derision — Portugal  with 
almost  one-fourth  less  land,  and  yet  has  105,000  more 
owners. 

That  grave  authority,  the  E^icyclopcBdia  Britannica, 
in  its  article  "  Land,"  gives  an  exhibit  of  the  partition 
of  land  in  the  United  Kingdom  in  another  form.  The 
writer  first  takes  occasion  to  show  how  this  most  un- 
equal distribution  in  England  came  about  ;  pointing 
out  its  true  cause — the  separation  of  the  people  into  the 
two  classes  of  the  over  rich  and  the  very  poor,  and  the 
desire  of  the  rich  to  augment  their  estates.  We  have 
already  learned  what  religious  system  fosters  this  un- 


I,200 

16,200 

6,200 

3.150 

50,770 

380 

;6i,83o 

70 

W^o  Owns  the  Land  f  443 

charitable  and,  therefore,  unchristian  desire.  The  re- 
sult of  the  rich  thus  buying  up  the  little  holdings  of 
their  poorer  neighbors,  '  *  driving  out  men  and  driving 
in  cattle,"  may  be  seen  in  the  following  summary 
which  I  tabulate  from  the  figures  given: 

1880.  Acres. 

Total  acreage  of  the  United  Kingdom,  .  .  .  77.635,301 
Total  cultivated  land  (including   parks 

and  pastures,  but  not  mountain  or       .         .         . 

waste), 47,515,747 

BY    DOMESDAY    BOOK    OF    1 87 5. 

Average  number 
Number  of  owners.         of  acres  to  each 
owner. 

One-quarter  of  total  acreage, 

One-quarter  of  total  acreage, 

One-quarter  of  total  acreage. 

One-quarter  of  total  acreage, 

"  One-fifth  of  all  the  land  in  the  kingdom  is  held  by  about 
600  peers. 

"  One- half  of  the  whole  territory  is  in  the  hands  of  only  7,400 
individuals;  the  other  half  is  divided  among  312,500  individuals. 

"  The  total  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  (not  including 
Channel  Islands  and  Isle  of  Man)  in  1881  was  35,100,000 ;  so  that 
barely  one  in  a  hundred  owns  more  than  an  acre  of  soil." 

Evidently  every  rood  of  English  ground  does  not 
now  maintain  its  man. 

The  same  authority  gives  the  following  details  for 
France  : 

"  In  France  there  are  now  about  2,000,000  properties  under  12 
acres,  and  1,000,000  between  12  and  25  acres,  while  there  are 
only  150,000  above  100  acres.  Of  the  whole  population  there  are 
1,750,000  who  cultivate  their  own  land  with  their  own  hands,  and 
who  are  not  tenants  ;  850,000  who  cultivate  as  tenants,  and  only 
57,000  who  cultivate  by  aid  of  a  foreman  or  steward.  Of  farm 
laborers  there  are  only  870,000." 

171 


444  Who  Ozvns  the  Land  f 

And  the  revival  after  the  French  Revolution  of  this 
system  of  wide  distribution  of  land  among  the  people, 
which  was  the  ancient  Catholic  custom  up  to  the  middle 
of  the  17th  century,  when  the  reign  of  wealth  and  lux- 
ury began  under  I^ouis  XIV.  and  the  people  lost  their 
hold  upon  the  soil,  was  the  one  about  which  all  the  Pro- 
testant English  and  Scotch  political  economists  made 
their  great  outcry.  That  was  to  be  expected.  The 
system  was  anti- Protestant.  '^  La grajide nation,''  ^2\A 
the  Edinburgh  Review,  "will  certainly  be  the  greatest 
pauper  warren  in  Europe,  and  will,  along  with  Ireland, 
have  the  honor  of  furnishing  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water  for  all  other  countries  in  the  world."  Instead 
of  France,  the  reader  knows  which  country  has  become 
the  greatest  pauper  warren  in  Europe,  and  has  the 
honor,  etc.,  etc.     (See  chapter  v.  p.  49.) 

The  Statesman' s  Year  Book  gives  only  3,840,253  as 
owners  in  Austria-Hungary.  Even  if  that  estimate  be 
correct  as  against  Mulhall's  figures,  that  countr> 
would  still  be  a  million  and  a  half  ahead  of  Protest- 
ant Germany,  the  only  Protestant  country  making  an 
apparently  good  show.  Let  us  look  at  the  following 
tables  of  the  partition  of  land  between  the  nobles  and 
farmers  as  given  by  Mulhall  for  the  three  kingdoms  of 
Prussia,   Saxony,  and  Bavaria. 


PROTESTANT    PRUSSIA    (GERMAN    EMPIRE). 


Land  held  by 

The  crown, 
The  nobles, 
Farmers,  . 
Cottiers,    • 


Number  of 

oivners. 

Acres. 

Average 
acres. 

— 

1 1,200,000 

— 

22,470 

21,200,000 

950 

1,503,000 

44,800,000 

30 

1,087,000 

3,100,000 

3 

Number  of 
oivners. 

Acres. 

Average  acres 
to  owners. 

. 

1,077,000 

— 

440 

490,000 

1,100 

53.000 

1 ,440,000 

27 

33,000 

160,000 

5 

BAVARIA    (GERMAN    EMPIRE) 

Number  of 
owners. 

Acres. 

Average  acres 
to  owners. 

. 

3,430,000 

— 

1,100 

400,000 

370 

.       1z(i,QOO 

1 1 ,700,000 

50 

.       290,000 

1,500,000 

5 

Who  Owns  the  Land?  445 

PROTESTANT  SAXONY  (GERMAN  EMPIRE). 
Land  held  by 
The  crown. 
The  nobles. 
Farmers,  . 
Cottiers, 

CATHOLIC 
Land  held  by 
The  crown, 
The  nobles, 
Farmers, 
Cottiers, 

The  following-  table  of  landowners  is  given  by  Mul- 
hall  for  the  whole  Empire  of  Austria-Hungary  : 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 
T      ^  t  7v  *  Number  of 

Land  held  by  owners. 

Peasants, 4,673,000 

Farmers, 1,259,000 

Gentry, 162,000 

Nobles, 56,500 

Total 6,150,500 

Another  table  specifies  25,180,000  acres  as  held  by 
1,507,000  peasant  owners  in  Austria  proper,  at  an 
average  of  17  acres  each.  There  are  more  peasant 
proprietors  in  the  whole  empire  than  in  any  other  one 
of  the  countries  named. 

Of  Protestant  Denmark  Mulhall  says:  **In  1801 
the  kingdom  belonged  to  614  nobles,  who  possessed 
until  1788  the  right  to  buy  and  sell  the  tenantry  like 
cattle." 

Of  Italy  the  compiler  of  the  Statesman's  Year  Book 
has  to  say  : 

"In  Italy  generally  the  land  is  much  subdivided," 


446  IV/io  Owns  the  Land  f 


Of  Spain  : 

"  In  Spain  the  soil  is  subdivided  among  a  very  large  number  of 
proprietors." 

Of  Belgium :    * 

"The  tendency  in  Belgium  is  to  a  great  subdivision  of 
holdings." 

Mulhall  vSays  of  Spain  : 

"In  1877,  out  of  the  596,000  land-owners  there  were  only 
3,900  whose  rent-roll  reached  $2,000  a  year." 

That  would  not  be  a  favorable  report  in  Protestant 
estimation  ;  but  it  fulfils  the  Catholic  social  ideal  as 
given  by  a  Spanish  writer : 

••  The  majority  of  citizens  should  be  neither  too  rich  nor  too 
poor.  Those  who  are  too  rich  become  often  proud  and  insolent, 
and  the  poor  vile  and  cunning.  The  greater  the  number  of  moder- 
ate fortunes,  the  greater  will  be  the  stability  of  states.  A  universal 
mediocrity  in  this  respect  is  the  most  wholesome  "  {Compitum, 
Kenelm  H.  Digby,  book  iii.  chapter  iv. :  "  The  Road  of  the  Com- 
monalty to  the  Catholic  Church,"  a  most  instructive  and  charm- 
ing essay  on  the  relation  of  Catholicism  to  the  Poor  and  Common 
People). 

The  same  writer  (Digby)   aptly  remarks: 

"  The  singularity  of  the  few,  for  which  Catholicism  has  no 
predilection,  will  never  be  as  natural  an  object  of  imitation  to 
generous  minds  as  an  assimilation  to  the  many  whom  it  has  the 
mission  to  beatify." 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  acknowledging  and  prais- 
ing that  true  Christian  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion 
towards  preventing  the  rich  becoming  too  rich  and  the 
poor  from  falling  into  abject  misery.     Its  aim  has  been 


W/w  Oivns  the  Land?  447 


to  realize,  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  a  universal  mediocrity. 
That  happy  state,  happy  for  both  the  high-born  and 
the  lowly,  must  have  long  existed  in  Spain ;  for  an  old 
writer,  John  della  Casa,  speaking  of  the  propriety  of 
one's  conforming  himself  to  the  manners  of  the  mass  of 
people,  makes  this  pertinent  inquiry,  revealing  the 
general  equal  social  condition  in  Catholic  Spain  : 

••  What  boots  it  to  proclaim  one's  self  rich  in  a  town  where  no 
one  is  esteemed  for  having  more  than  others  ?  " 

Digby,  quoting  this,   adds  : 

"  Catholicism  produces  the  real,  useful,  and  natural  equality, 
preserving,  as  in  the  community  of  bees,  different  functions,  or- 
der, and  rule,  and  yet  conformity  of  manners." 

Of  the  relation  of  Protestantism  to  the  poor  and  to 
the  common  people  generally,  it  is  plain  that  its  tend- 
ency is  to  separate  communities  into  two  widely  di- 
vergent and  hostile  classes — the  proud,  insolent  rich, 
and  the  slavish,  suffering  poor.  The  whole  modern 
labor  systems,  the  grinding,  heartless  monopolies  and 
trusts,  are  all  the  products  of  Protestantism.  All  the 
statistical  facts  adduced  in  this  volume  go  to  prove  that 
Protestantism  is  not  a  religion  that  practically  recog- 
nizes the  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  man.  Its  spirit 
has  been  to  flatter  and  exalt  the  rich  and  to  despise  the 
lowly.  And  so,  of  course,  the  poor  have  no  love  for  it, 
and  resist  every  attempt  made  to  gain  a  few  of  them  by 
sweet  words  and  gifts. 

One  might  most  justly  say  of  Protestantism,  con- 
sidered in  its  relation  to  the  social  order,  as  was  said 
by  Apemantus  :  "The  middle  of  humanity  it  never 
knew,  but  the  extremity  of  both  ends." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

CRIME. 

KDUCATION  AND  CRIME. 

IN  discussing  the  subject  of  crime,  so  far  as  to  enable 
one  to  make  a  comparison  between  Protestant  and 
Catholic  nations,  a  ver}^  important  fact  should  first  be 
emphasized :  that  illiteracy  is  not  a  cause  of  crime, 
neither  is  it  a  condition  likely  to  result  in  an  increased 
proportion  of  crime,  as  has  been  asserted  over  and  over 
again,  for  reasons  of  their  own,  chiefly  by  anti-Catholic 
writers  and  preachers  of  more  voice  than  profundity  of 
learning.  The  very  contrary  is  the  case ;  the  illiterates, 
whether  of  Protestant  or  Catholic  countries,  furnish  a 
very  small  quota  to  the  number  of  criminals  of  any 
description.  Every  census,  every  official  document, 
every  statistical  work,  the  reports  of  all  prisons  and  re- 
formatories, every  serious  treatise  on  social  science, 
shows  this  to  be  true. 

The  historian  Alison,  writing  in  1852 — History  of 
Europe  (vol.  i.  chap,  i.) — first  clearly  gives  the  rea- 
son, and  adds : 

"  Experience  has  now  abundantly  verified  the  melancholy  truth 
so  often  enforced  in  Scripture,  so  constantly  forgotten  by  mankind, 
that  intellectual  cultivation  has  no  effect  in  arresting  the  sources 
of  evil  in  the  human  heart ;  that  it  alters  the  direction  of  crime, 
but  does  not  alter  its  amount.  This  melancholy  truth  is  sup- 
ported by  a  most  widespread  and  unvarying  mass  of  proofs.  The 
utmost  efforts  have,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  been  made  in  vari- 
ous countries  to  extend  the  blessings  of  education  to  the  laboring 

44S 


Crij}iL\  *  449 

classes  ;  but  not  only  has  no  diminution  in  consequence  been 
perceptible  in  the  amount  of  crime  and  the  turbulence  of  man- 
kind, but  the  effect  has  been  just  the  reverse,  they  have  both  sig- 
nally and  ala7'i7iingly  increased.'' 

Then,  for  an  example,  lie  cites  Prussia  and  France, 
when  the  former  was  already  so  thoroughly  schooled  by 
law  and  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  France  were 
illiterate-: 

In  [Protestant]  Prussia,  all  crimes  :  i  criminal  in 
every  587  of  the  population. 

In  [Catholic]  France,  all  crimes  :  i  criminal  onl}-  in 
every  7,285  of  the  population. 

As  far  back  as  1847  we  have  this  testimonj'  of  a 
competent  observer  in  France  : 

"  The  idea  that  the  multiplication  of  crime  proceeded  from  ig- 
norance of  the  population  obtained  such  uncontradicted  credit 
that  we  have  long  combated  against  facts  before  renouncing  it. 
We  have  sought  by  all  sorts  of  combinations  to  escape  from  the 
conclusion  which  results  from  a  simple  comparison  of  the  statis- 
tical tables  of  crime  in  the  departments,  but  in  vain.  We  have 
been  forced  to  recognize  the  truth,  that  crime  is  in  no  way  deter- 
mined by  the  defect  of  instruction  "  (M.  Allard,  Journal  gen. 
de  r instruction  ^ublique,  8  Maii,   1847). 

Passing  over  .scores  of  such  testimonies  I  pick  up  the 
United  States  Census  Bulletin  of  May  6,  1892.  It 
makes  this  record  : 

Total    number   of    prisoners    in    the    United  States 

June  I,  1890, 82,329 

Charged  with  homicide, 7.386 

"  Of  these  homicidal  criminals,  those  who  can  read  and  write, 

61.73  P^'"  cent.     Those  who  can  read  only,  4.84  per  cent.     Totally 

illiterate,  33.43  per  cent." 

From  Mulhall's  Dictionary  of  Statistics,  p.    165  : 


450  *  Crime, 

Criminals  in  England  and  Wales  :  able  to  read,  68.6  per  cent. 
Unable  to  read,  31.4  per  cent. 

Also  on  p.   166  for  Ireland: 

Criminals  able  to  read  70  per  cent. 
Unable  to  read,  30  per  cent. 

Dr.  Leffingwell,  a  specialist,  in  his  work  on  illegiti- 
macy, proves  from  the  English  Registrar  General's  Re- 
port that  for  ten  years  (1879-88),  in  the  County  Mayo 
(Connaught),  in  Ireland,  nearly  all  Catholic,  and  very 
illiterate  and  poverty-stricken,  the  total  number  of 
illegitimate  children  was  322.  But  in  prosperous,  edu- 
cated, Protestant  Ulster  the  number  was  3,084.  The 
Registrar's  Report  for  1862  for  Scotland  sa}- s : 

"  The  counties  which  show  the  highest  proportion  of  illegiti- 
macy— double  that  of  England  and  Wales,  and  thrice  that  of 
Ireland — are  the  counties  which  are  in  the  highest  condition  as 
to  education." 

And  again  : 

"  In  Kirkcudbright,  a  southern  county  in  Scotland,  the  illiteracy 
was  only  i  per  cent.,  a  better  showing  than  in  any  country  in  Eu- 
rope ;  yet  the  rate  of  bastardy  which  annually  prevails  there  is 
greater  than  in  any  one  of  the  89  departments  of  France  except 
Paris. 

"  In  the  department  of  Finisterre,  in  France,  the  most  illiterate 
of  all  parts  of  that  country,  the  ratio  of  illegitimacy  was  but  34  to 
1,000  births,  less  than  prevailed  during  the  same  period  (1879-88) 
in  any  county  of  England,  Wales,  or  Scotland  "  (Illegitimacy,  by 
Albert  Leffingwell,  M.D.) 

But  then,  it  is  well  to  note  that  Finisterre,  like  Irish 
Connaught,  where  the  percentage  of  illegitimacy  is  the 
lowest  in  the  world,  is  almost  Catholic  to  a  man. 


Crime, 


451 


Let  us  take  a  look  at  the  evidence  furnished  by  a 
few  prison  reports  : 

STATE    PRISONS    OF    NEW    YORK,    189O. 


Educated, 

Sing-Sing  Prison. 

j  Went  to  public  schools, 
•      1 420  ^  y^^^^  tQ  o^her  schools. 

1,403 
17 

Illiterate, 

.     .     133 

Total, 

.       1.553 

Auburn  Prison. 

Educated,      . 

^    \  Went  to  public  schools, 
^ '<^- 5  1  \Yej^t  to  other  schools. 

545 
480 

Illiterate, 

.     .    126 

Total, 

.      1,151 

Clinton  Prison. 

Educated,      . 

^  Went  to  public  schools, 
•     '   '^^\  Went  to  other  schools, 

637 
74 

Illiterate, 

•     •       93 

Total, 

.     .     804 

CALIFORNIA. 

Educated,      . 

San  Quentin  Prison,   1890. 

V  Went  to  public  schools, 
■      ^'^5-  1  Went  to  other  schools, 

945 
107 

Illiterate, 

.     .     240 

Total, 

.      1,392 

PENNSYLVANIA. 
Philadelphia  State  Penitentiary,  1890-91-92. 
1890,  prisoners  received,  527  : 

r  ^  Went  to  public  schools, 
'  42^  Went  to  private  schools, 
.     .  65     Went  to  no  school, 


Educated, 
Illiterate, 


Total,      .     527 
Went  to  both  Roman  Catholic  and  other  schools,  12 
Went  only  to  Roman  Catholic  schools,        .         .13 
To  all  other  private  schools,         ,         .         .         '55 


382 
80 

65 
527 


Total. 80 


452 


Crime, 


1891,  prisoners  received,  446: 
Educated,      .     .     .403 
Illiterate,       ...      43     Went  to  no  school 


^  Went  to  public  schools, 
\  Went  to  private  schools. 


Total,      .     .     446 
Went  to  both  Roman  Catholic  and  other  schools.  22 
Went  only  to  Roman  Catholic  schools,        .         .     12 
To  other  private  schools 30 


339 
64 

43 
446 


Total,     . 
1892,  prisoners  received,  474 
Educated,      .     .    .418 
Illiterate,       ...      56 


64 


Went  to  public  schools. 
Went  to  private  schools. 
Went  to  no  school. 


Total,      .     .   474 
Went  to  Roman  Catholic  and  other  schools 
Went  only  to  Roman  Catholic  schools 
To  other  private  schools,     . 

Total,     .... 
Convicts  21  years  of  age  and  under, 
Went  to  public  schools. 
Went  to  other  schools, 
Went  to  Roman  Catholic  schools. 


361 

57 

_56 

474 


Total, 87 


19 
14 

24 

57 

62 
18 

7 


87 


Mr.  Richard  Vaux,  President  of  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors of  the  Philadelphia  Penitentiary,  remarks  in  the 
course  of  one  of  the  reports  :  "  Crimes  of  education  that 
require  intellectual  training  to  commit  are  assuming 
new  phases  and  are  increasing." 

Here  is  irrefragable  testimony  furnished  by  the 
Report  of  the  same  Pennsjdvania  State  Penitentiary 
for  1893.  A  table  entitled  "Education  vs.  Crime" 
summarizes  the  number  of  convicts  received  between 
1 829-1 893   and  their  educational  condition: 


Crime,  453 

Total  convicts  received, 17.224 

Convicted  of  crimes  against  property,        ....     13,919 

Of  these,  Illiterate, 2,230 

Read  only, 922 

Read  and  write, 10,767 

Convicted  of  crimes  against  the  person,    ....        3,305 

Of  these,  Illiterate, 809 

Read  only 216 

Read  and  write, 2,280 

I  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  remarkably  small 
number  of  the  convicts  reported  above  who  received  their 
education  in  Roman  Catholic  schools.  Where  now 
stand  the  assailants  of  our  Catholic  schools,  Dexter 
Hawkins,  the  Hon.  John  Jay,  the  "Evangelical  Alli- 
ance ' '  and  the  numerous  Protestant  preachers  and  para- 
graphers  with  their  accusations  that  '  *  Catholic  paro- 
chial schools  are  productive  of  crime  "  ?  It  would  be, 
doubtless,  very  instructive  if  similar  detailed  infor- 
mation could  be  obtained  from  other  prisons  in  the 
country. 

Certainly  crime  is  on  the  increase  at  an  alarming 
rate.  Nobody  pretends  to  deny  it.  But  it  is  not  due, 
thank  God  !  to  the  increase  of  the  number  of  parochial 
schools.  If  Protestants  were  only  zealous  for  the' cause 
of  true  education,  and  would  imitate  us  Catholics  in 
conducting  and  supporting  religious  schools,  most  as- 
suredly they  also  could  make  a  smaller  showing  of  their 
Protestant  criminals  compared  with  those  who  got  their 
education  (?)  in  the  state  schools  of  "  no  religion." 

As  the  proof-sheets  are  passing  through  my  hand 
my  eye  falls  upon  an  editorial  on  the  "Increase  of 
Crime ' '  in  the  Chicago  Interior,  a  leading  Presby- 
terian newspaper.     The  writer  says: 


454  Crime. 

"  In  some  of  the  addresses  delivered  at  the  recent  convention 
of  prison  authorities,  it  was  stated  that  the  number  of  criminals 
was  perceptibly  on  the  increase.  Statistics  were  given  which 
supported  the  contention,  and  though  the  exact  ratio  may  not  be 
strictly  ascertainable,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  as  to  the 
growth  of  crime  all  over  the  land.  This  is  a  condition  of  things 
that  no  Christian  patriot  can  view  with  complacency." 

Most  certainly  Catholic  Christian  patriots  cannot 
view  such  a  condition  either  with  complacency  or  in- 
difference, and  have  proved  that  they  will  not.  But 
it  seems,  as  evidence  given  in  a  former  chapter  shows, 
that  Protestants,  calling  themselves  Christians  and  set- 
ting themselves  up  as  the  model  and  only  true  patriots, 
have  been  willing  to  view  this  alarming  condition,  if 
not  with  complacency,  at  least  with  a  stolid  determina- 
tion to  avoid  looking  at  one  of  its  most  prolific  causes, 
the  purely  secular  instruction  of  youth  in  schools  and 
colleges;  schools  of  "scepticism,  of  materialism,  and 
atheism,"  whose  graduates  with  "disgusting  effrontery 
and  conceit  scoff  at  God,  immortality,  and  conscience," 
in  which  halls  of  learning,  as  Dr.  King,  Secretary  of 
the  National  League  P.  A.  I.  brings  us  Dr.  Schaff  as 
authority  for  saying,  "  are  brought  up  heartless  and. 
•  infidel  generations  of  intellectual  animals  who  prove-a 
curse  rather  than  a  blessing"  to.  society- ;  and..a -good 
deal  more  from  Dr.  King  himself  and  others  to  the  same 
effect.  (See  chapter  on  "  Christian  and  Patriotic  Edu- 
cation in  the  United  States.") 

Our  Presbyterian  editor  of  the  Interior  finds  himself 
forced  to  ask  this  pertinent  question  : 

"  Are  our  systems  of  education  doing  all  they  might  for  the 
moral  training  of  the  young  ?  " 

He   goes    on    to    say,    of    course,    as   a   good   aiiti* 


Crime,  455 

Catholic,  that  we  must  '*  preserve  the  public  school 
from  sectarian  [religious?]  control  and  interference,'* 
and  yet  swallows  his  own  words  in  this  fashion  : 

"  The  education  that  neglects  the  moral  nature  of  the  pupil 
does  him  and  society  as  well  a  great  injustice.  The  expert 
criminals  of  to-day  are  not  the  brutalized  denizens  of  the  slums; 
they  are  fairly  well  educated,  and  some  of  them  are  experts  in 
caligraphy,  as  the  numerous  instances  of  forgery  only  too  plainly 
attest.  The  education  that  leaves  the  moral  sense  dormant  is  too 
often  only  a  dangerous  power.  Present  day  tendencies  [the 
result  of  Protestant  social  principles]  have  been  so  strongly  in 
the  direction  of  magnifying  material  success  that  moral  culture 
has  been  too  much  obscured"  {The  Interior,  July  5,  1894). 

I  am  happ3^  to  be  able  to  aid  in  diffusing  this  sound 
doctrine,  and  it  is  additional  encouraging  evidence  to 
what  Rev.  Mr.  Williams  gave  us  in  his  pamphlet  that 
the  Presbyterians  are  beginning  to  wake  up  to  the 
fatal  consequences  of  this  irreligious  system  of  popular 
schooling. 

The  same  tale  is  told  in  every  reliable  book  and 
official  document.  It  is  indeed  a  melancholy  truth,  as 
Alison  says,  but  it  is  an  undeniable  one,  that  crime 
increases  with  the  increase  of  popular  education,  not 
only  in  the  number  of  crimes,  but  in  the  heinousness 
of  their  character  ;  deliberate,  cold-blooded  murder  for 
gain  or  lust,  child  murder,  murder  by  abortion,  hinder- 
ing conception  of  children,  suicide,  burglary,  forgery, 
robbery  by  bank  defalcations,  cheating  in  trade,  politi- 
cal "jobs,"  counterfeiting,  unnamable,  unnatural  im- 
morality, illegitimacy,  divorce,  concubinage  with  edu- 
cated mistresses,  oppression  of  the  poor  and  of  the 
laboring  classes,  and  the  increase  of  the  terrible  human 
misfortune,  insanity. 


45^        '  Crime. 

Confronted  with  such  testimony  the  historian  Alison 
was  led  to  say  : 

"  These  facts,  to  all  persons  capable  of  yielding  assent  to 
evidence  in  opposition  to  prejudice,  completely  settle  the  ques- 
tion ;  but  the  conclusion  to  which  they  lead  is  so  adverse  to 
general  opinion,  that  probably  more  than  one  generation  must 
descend  to  their  graves  before  they  are  generally  admitted  " 
{History  of  Europe,  vol.  i.  chap.  i.  39). 

What  conclusion  are  we  to  draw  from  these  facts? 
Is  popular  education,  then,  an  evil  in  itself?  By^  no 
means.  One  conclusion  is  that  already^  well  proved,  I 
think,  in  the  course  of  this  essays,  viz.  :  that  mere  illit- 
eracy is  not  a  condition  so  dangerous  to  the  peace  and 
general  good  order  of  society  as  it  is  often  asserted  to 
be.  Arid  the  next  conclu.sion  is,  that  there  has  been 
some  fault  in  the  kind  of  education  given  :  and  I  think 
a  child  should  be  able  to  see  where  the  trouble  comes 
in.  All  this  increase  of  qx'ww^,  pari- passu  with  modern 
popular  education,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  head  only^ 
has  been  schooled,  and  the  heart  left  uneducated  and 
undisciplined.  And  this  popular  system,  so  lauded 
by  Protestants  and  Secularists,  of  schooling  the  head 
alone,  has  ignor-ed  the  most -important  element  also 
*6f -pure  mental  culture,  ftot-to  "b"e  had  except  through 
religion,  and' that  is  the  knowledge  of  the  true  princi- 
ples of  right,  of  liberty,  of  justice,  and  of  charity. 
Modern  so-called  education  limits  itself  almost  wholly 
to  the  overcrowding  of  the  mind  with  hard,  bare,  un- 
fruitful scientific  facts  and  theories.  The  mind  is  not 
enlightened  by-  facts  alone,  but  also  and  much  more 
by^  principles,  and  of  what  use  are  even  both  princi- 
ples and  facts  unless  the  heart  is  disciplined  to  make 
good   use  of  them  ? 


Crime.  457 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  why  crime  has  so  notabh^ 
increased  with  the  spread  of  popular  schooling.  Reli- 
gion has  been  ruled  out  as  something  that  is  not  neces- 
sary to  the  requisite  education  of  a  citizen.  In  this 
all  the  modern  Protestant  and  Secular  states  have 
agreed,  and  the  proof  of  their  folly  is  given  by  the 
alarming  ijicrease  of  crime,  and  especially  the  increase 
of  those  anti-social  crimes  which  attack  the  very  exist- 
ence of  all  law  and  order.  "Popular  education  must 
be  non-sectarian  ' '  cries  the  modern  Protestant  by  the 
voice  of  all  his  newspapers,  preachers,  and  anti-Cath- 
olic leagues  and  alliances.  And  the  Secularist  and 
Infidel  echo  his  cry.  And  what  is  the  answer  from 
those  who  get  this  non-sectarian  education  ?  The  ex- 
plosion of  dynamite  bombs,  intended  to  kill  the  law- 
makers and  the  rulers  of  the  state.  I  have  said  this 
before  ;  but  there  are  some  people  who  will  not  wake  at 
the  first  alarm  of  ' '  Kire  !  " 

Says  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott : 

"Teaching  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  is  not  enough. 
Development  of  intelligence  without  a  concurrent  development 
of  the  moral  nature  does  not  suffice.  As  has  often  been  pointed 
Out,  intelligent  wickedness  is  more  dangerous  than  wickedness 
that  is  unintelligent;  the  devil  knows" enough  ;  sending  him  to 
public  school  will  not  make  a  better  devil  of  him;  knowing  how 
to  make  dynamite  without  also  knowing  what  are  the  rights  of 
property  and  the  rights  of  life  do  not  make  the  pupil  a  safer 
member  of  society;  skill  in  speech  unaccompanied  with  con- 
science gives  only  that  product  of  modern  civilization — an  edu- 
cated demagogue"  {Ckrzstiu7t   Union,  November  22,  1888). 

The  reader  has  already  had  plenty  of  evidence  to 
show  that  Dr.  Abbott  is  not  alone  in  his  sentiments. 
All  of  the  wisest  and  best  of  Protestant  moralists  agree 


458  Crime. 

with  Catholics  in  asserting  that  education  without  reli- 
gion is  not  only  likely  to  prove  a  danger  to  the  state 
and  to  society,  but  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing  to  the 
scholar.  What  it  behooves  all  such  to  consider  is  the 
fact  that  the  alarming  and  rapid  increase  of  crime  did 
not  begin  to  manifest  itself  until  state  governments 
seized  upon  the  work  of  popular  educatimi  both  in 
Catholic  and  Protestant  countries,  and  conducted  them 
on  what  is  now  called  non-sectarian  principles  and 
methods,  a  polite  term  for  what  is  really  and  practi- 
cally atheistic,  or  at  best  un-Christian.  The  state  has 
evidently  made  a  false  judgment  and  a  disastrous  mis- 
take in  thus  declaring  that  the  stability  and  prosperity 
of  the  political  and  social  order  do  not  need  the  aid  of 
religion.  But  who  are  responsible  for  this  false  judg- 
ment and  disastrous  mistake  of  the  state  ?  Protestants, 
anti-Catholics,  and  Secularists.  I^et  them  look  to  the 
fatal  consequences  of  their  error. 

And  now,  at  the  outset  of  our  examination  of  the 
records  of  crime  among  Catholic  and  Protestant  nations, 
I  beg  the  reader  to  keep  the  question  well  before  his 
mind  as  he  is  confronted  with  the  evidence  for  or 
against  both — seeing  this  evident  increase  of  crime, 
which  surely  all  deplore.  Is  the  proportion  of  that 
increase  shown  to  be  as  great  in  those  Catholic  coun- 
tries where  the  religious  S3^stem  of  education  has  been 
maintained  through  the  influence  of  Catholicism,  as  in 
Protestant  countries  where  the  secular  S3^stem  has  been 
either  introduced  or  submitted  to  by  the  prevailing 
Protestantism?  His  conclusion  will  enable  him  to  form 
a  just  judgment  on  the  most  vital  of  all  questions  now 
demanding  solution  in  the  interests  of  modern  society. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE  AIvIvEGED  CRIMINALITY  OF  THE  IRISH  PEOPLE. 

BEFORE  taking  up  in  detail  the  consideration  of 
the  graver  crimes  of  which  we  have  knowledge 
from  official  and  other  reliable  sources,  I  am  led  to 
devote  a  few  words  to  the  examination  of  the  common 
charge  made  by  English-speaking  Protestants  that  the 
Irish— Irish  Catholics,  of  course,  are  a  notably  criminal 

people. 

Everybody  knows  that  Protestant  Englishmen  have 
been  accustomed  to  look  upon  the  Irish  as  great  crim- 
inals because  they  have  proved  themselves  to  be  such 
an  indomitable,  liberty-loving  race,  and  have  refused  to 
tamely  submit  to  be  oppressed  to  suit  the  profit  and 
convenience  of  their  English  masters. 

The  great  and  enlightened  late  Prime  Minister,  Mr. 
Gladstone,  has  labored  hard,  and  with  no  little  success, 
to  convince  his  brother-countrymen  that  Irishmen  are 
by  no  means  so  lacking  in  social  and  national  virtue 
that  self-government  with  them  would  mean  self-de- 
struction. 

Count  out  the  agrarian  crime  to  which  they  have 
been  provoked  beyond  all  human  endurance,  and  where 
are  the  statistics  of  crime  in  Ireland  to  show  that  its 
Catholic  inhabitants  are  deserving  of  being  called  a 
criminal  people?  I  shall  give  some  evidence  thereon 
in  due  course. 

But  the  American  Protestant  thinks  he  has  good 
reason  to  regard  them  as  worthy  of  this  reproach  be- 


459 


460      TJie  Alleged  CrtJninality  of  the  Irish  People. 

cause  the  Irish  have  for  some  3^ears  back  furnished 
an  undue  proportion  of  convicts  (not  all  Catholics)  to 
our  prisons.  The  fact  deserves  examination  as  to  its 
causes. 

In  the  chapter  on  Emigration  I  have  briefly  drawn 
the  reader's  attention  to  the  fact  that  emigration  itself 
is  in  no  small  measure  the  occasional  cause  of  crim- 
inal incitement  and  associations.  All  great  cities  fur- 
nish, of  course,  a  larger  proportion  of  criminals  than 
rural  districts.  Great  seaports,  like  New  York  City, 
being  depots  receiving  vast  numbers  of  immigrants,  fur- 
nish a  still  greater  proportion.  With  many  poor  but 
honest  and  religious  immigrants,  whether  from  Ireland 
or  other  countries,  come  all  sorts  of  vicious  characters. 
One  natural  result,  therefore,  is  that  the  criminal  class 
of  our  own  and  other  such  cities  \\\\\  be  recruited  largely 
from  this  foreign,  needy  element,  W\ro\Ni\ pele-mele  upon 
our  shores.  Considering  the  condition  of  starvation  and 
social  persecution  from  wdiich  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  Irish  immigrants  fled,  and  the  temptations  to 
which  they  are  infallibly  exposed,  the  wonder  is  not 
that  statistics  show  the  greater  number  of  our  criminals 
in  proportion  to  others  of  their  class  to  have.  been.  Irish, 
but  rather  that  there  have  not  been  more.  Since,  the 
.tide  of,  immigration  has  set  in  from  other  countries  we 
begin  to  see  other  nations  furnishing  a  steadily  increas- 
ing number  to  the  criminal  record.  If  so  many  Irish, 
German,  and  Italian  immigrants  had  not  had  the  re- 
straining and  helping  moral  influence  of  the  Catholic 
religion  it  is  needless  to  say  how  much  worse  a  story 
would  be  told.  But  it  has  given  the  Irish  a  bad  name 
with  unreflecting  people,  and  has  furnished  a  weapon 
for  Protestants  to  strike  with,  both  at  their  race  and  at 


The  Alleged  Criviinality  of  the  Irish  People.     461 


their  religion.     Let  them  be  judged  by  vSome  figures 
given  for  their  own  land.     It  is  due  to  them. 

The  EneyelopcEdia  Bjitaniiica,  ninth  edition,  in  its 
article  *' Ireland  "  (table  No.  Ivi.),  shows  the  number 
of  ''more  seidous  offeiiees''  in  Ireland  as  compared  with 
equivalent  numbers  of  the  population  for  Great  Britain 
in  the  3xar  1878  : 

Ireland.  England.  Scotland. 

3.842  4.797  6,487 

The  Cheltenham  (English)  Examiner,  May  16, 
1886,  says  : 

"  Death  sentences  are  eight  times  greater  in  England  than  in 
Ireland  to  equal  numbers  of  population.  London,  equal  in  popu- 
lation to  that  of  all  Ireland,  has  double  the  number  of  indictable 
offences.  Rural  crime  is  also  shown  to  be  greater  in  England 
than  in  Ireland:  Aggravated  assaults  on  women  and  children  for 
the  same  population — England,  597;   Ireland,  337." 

"The  proportion  of  crime,"  says  the  writer  (a 
Presbyterian),  "is  not  only  greater  in  Britain  than  in 
Ireland,  but  it  is  also  of  a  more  brutal  character"; 
and  he  adds,  what  Mulhall  also  observes : 

"  Agrarian  crime,  for  which  there  is  a  pretext  that  is  wanting 
this  side  of  the  Channel,  is  included  in  the  list  given  for  crimes  in 
Ireland." 

Mr.  Trench,  agent  to  Lord  Lansdowne,  bears  this 
testimony  : 

"  There  are  ten  times  as  many  murders  in  England  as  there 
are  in  Ireland.  .  .  .  The  English  ruffian  murders  for  money; 
.  .  .  the  Irishman  murders  patriotically — to  assert  and  enforce 
a  principle.  The  Irish  convict  is  not  necessarily  corrupt — he  may 
be  reclaimed.  The  English  convict  is  irreclaimable'"  {Journals, 
etc.,  1868,  vol.  ii.  pp.  130,  221,  222). 


462      The  Alleged  Criminality  of  the  Irish  People. 


Mr.  James  Anthony  Froude,  in  his  fifth  lecture  de- 
livered in  New  York,  in  1872,  said: 

"  He  did  not  question  the  enormous  power  for  good  which  had 
been  exercised  in  Ireland  by  the  modern  Catholic  priests.  Ire- 
land was  one  of  the  poorest  countries  in  Europe,  yet  there  was 
less  theft,  less  cheating,  less  house-breaking,  less  robbery  of  all 
kinds  than  in  any  coimtry  of  the  same  size  in  the  civilized  world. 
In  the  wild  district  where  he  lived,  they  slept  with  unlocked  doors 
and  open  windows,  with  as  much  security  as  if  they  had  been 
.  .  .  with  the  saints  in  Paradise,  for  any  danger  to  which  they 
were  exposed.  ...  In  the  last  hundred  years,  at  least,  im- 
purity had  been  almost  unknown  in  Ireland.  This  absence  of 
vulgar  crime  and  this  exceptional  delicacy  and  modesty  of  char- 
acter were  due,  to  their  everlasting  honor,  to  the  influence  of 
the  Catholic  clergy"  {Times,  November  16,  1872). 

I  am  not  called  upon  to  defend  the  Irish  people  as 
a  race.  They  are  their  own  best  defence.  The  now 
nearly  forty  years  of  my  priestly  life  and  work  having 
been  almost  wholly  devoted  to  Irish  Catholics  and  their 
children  in  America,  I  may  justly  claim  to  know  what 
are  the  special  faults,  vices,  if  you  will,  of  their  nation- 
al character  (what  nation  has  not  its  own  ?  and  how 
singularly  blind  every  one  is  to  them  !),  but  I  claim  as 
well  to  know  their  virtues  ;  and  this  I  say  :  their  vices 
lack  as  much  of  the  malice  of  deliberation  as  their 
virtues  possess  the  unfaltering  courage  and  self-sacrifice 
of  heroism ;  and  it  is  known  of  all  men,  in  the  language 
of  the  Psalmist,  that  "their  sound  hath  gone  forth 
into  all  the  earth,  and  their  words  unto  the  ends  of  the 
world."  Many  years  ago  I  heard  this  beautiful  and 
appropriate  figure  applied  to  them  by  an  orator  whose 
name  I  have  forgotten:  /j 

"  The  Irish  people,  shut  up  within  the  limits  of  a  narrow  island. 


The  Alleged  Criminality  of  the  Irish  People.     463 


were  like  to  a  most  precious  balm  enshrined  in  a  small  but 
beauteous  jewelled  casket,  which  the  covetous  ravager  seized,  but 
could  not  unlock,  though  his  giant  heart  was  of  oak  and  his  hands 
of  steel.  In  his  disappointed  rage  he  raised  it  on  high  until  it  be- 
came a  spectacle  to  all  nations.  Then  casting  it  to  the  earth,  he 
crushed  it  with  his  heel  of  iron ;  when  lo  !  he  did  but  give  escape 
to  the  sweet-smelling  and  strengthening  balm,  whose  delicious 
fragrance  and  invigorating  essence  were  caught  up  and  carried  by 
the  angels  of  Purity,  Justice,  and  Liberty  to  the  uttermost  bounds 
of  the  earth." 

Let  an}^  other  nation  in  the  world  show  such  an 
astonishing  array  of  successftil  business  men,  farmers, 
bankers,  judges,  lawyers,  physicians,  merchants,  promi- 
nent and  honored  representatives  in  our  halls  of  Con- 
gress and  State  legislatures,  and  in  other  high  official 
positions  in  the  National  and  State  governments ;  emi- 
nent and  learned  prelates  and  priests  in  the  Church  ; 
professors  in  every  class  of  educational  work  ;  authors 
and  poets  of  note  ;  such  a  host  of  honest  and  pure  men 
and  women  among  the  laboring  and  ser\^ant  classes,  as 
Ireland  can  show  in  this  country  (not  to  speak  of  its 
own  land) ,  of  those  who  are  its  sons  and  daughters, 
either  born  of  poor  parents  at  home,  or  tracing  their 
ancestry  no  further  back  than  to  grandparents  who 
came  here  as  poor  steerage  passengers  in  an  emigrant 
ship  ;  almost  all  of  them  children  of  the  Catholic 
Church.     What  other  nation  can  show  the  like  ? 

If  statistics  give  a  large  number  of  Irish  criminals 
and  paupers,  the  sociologist  will  tell  you  why  it  is,  and 
why  it  is  quite  reasonable  it  should  be  so,  despite  their 
nationality  or  their  religion.  These  Irish  criminals 
and  paupers  in  this  country  are  the  dregs  of  an  enforced 
emigration   of   a   population   degraded   by   oppression, 


464      The  Alleged  Criminality  of  the  Irish  People. 

reduced  to  torturing  poverty,  and  stimulated  to  violent 
reprisals  against  their  oppressors,  flying  from  one  form 
of  grasping  landlordism  to  another  in  this  country 
which  drives  the  lower  classes  of  them  into  a  com- 
pulsory order  of  social  life  and  environments  which 
cannot  but  breed  crime,  fostered  and  increased  by  a 
base,  conscienceless  class,  composed  of  their  own  fel- 
low-Irishmen and  others,  who  def}^  the  most  solemn  en- 
treaties and  denunciations  of  their  religious  superiors, 
and  the  laws  of  the  state ;  and  who,  carried  away  by 
the  popular  passion  for  amassing  riches,  open  their 
convict  and  pauper-making  drinking  saloons,  and  there 
devour  the  substance  of  their  hard-working,  free- 
hearted, and  too  free-handed  fellow-countrymen.  The 
Catholic  Church  has  no  more  unworthy  representatives 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  of  her  true  moral  influence 
than  these  drinking  saloon  breeders  of  crime  and 
poverty. 

Speaking  of  the  benefit  which  foreign  immigrants 
have  been  to  our  country.  Prof.  Edmund  J.  Wolf  in  his 
address  on  the  subject  of  "  Our  debt  and  duty  to  the 
Immigrants  ' '  before  the  General  Conference  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  in  Boston,  in  1889,  pays  the  fol- 
lowing tribute  to  them,  and  which  certainly  is  specially 
applicable  to  our  citizens  of  Irish  birth  : 

"  They  [the  immigrants]  come  not  to  ravage  the  country,  but 
to  make  it  blossom  as  the  rose ;  not  to  pillage  our  cities,  but  to 
enlarge  and  enrich  them  ';  not  to  overturn  the  republic,  but  on 
every  battle-field  consecrated  to  its  defence  mingling  their  blood 
with  the  blood  of  the  native,  and  counting  it  worthy  of  every 
sacrifice  to  secure  its  blessings  for  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren."    ... 

"  In  every  station  and  callins:  we  are  constrained  to  accord  the 


The  Alleged  Criminality  of  the  Irish  People.    465 

immigrant  a  prominence  that  entitles  him  to  honorable  consider- 
ation. We  cannot  take  a  look  into  our  agricultural,  industrial,  en- 
gineering, mercantile,  financial,  journalistic,  educational,  artistical, 
scientific,  and  professional  spheres  without  recognizing  an  array  of 
eminent  names  of  foreign  birth. 

"  Certainly,  in  the  strictly  material  realm,  in  the  impetus  they 
have  given  to  our  industries,  the  boundless  domain  they  have 
brought  under  cultivation,  the  immense  cities  which  through  their 
impulse  have  risen  as  by  magic,  the  measureless  increase  they 
have  given  to  our  productive  power,  and  the  untold  millions  they 
have  added  to  our  national  wealth,  they  have  placed  us  under 
obligations  that  beggar  calculation.  And  it  has  yet  to  be  demon- 
strated that  they  have  perceptibly  deteriorated  the  character  of 
that  prosperity  to  which  they  have  contributed  so  much."      .     .     . 

"  It  is  the  intensity  and  incorruptibility  of  their  religious  con- 
victions that  has  landed  thousands  of  these  aliens  on  our  shores. 
It  is  to  escape  from  the  stifling  oppression  of  state  churches,  and 
the  soul-poisoning  fellowship  with  rationalism,  that  they  have 
cast  their  lot  in  this  republic,  where  their  faith,  unfettered  and 
uncorrupted,  may  have  the  freest  and  fullest  exercise." 

This  language,  so  free  from  any  taint  of  narrow- 
minded  bigotry,  coming  from  a  Protestant,  and  spoken 
before  an  audience  furnished  him  by  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  is  singularly  refreshing. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

DRUNKENNESS. 

AS  I  was  led  to  make  special  allusion  in  the  last 
chapter  to  the  vice  of  drunkenness,  I  may  just  as 
well  deliver  m3^self  at  once  of  what  I  have  to  say  on 
that  subject. 

The  intemperate  love  for  strong  drink  would  appear 
to  be,  in  a  great  degree,  a  national  vice,  difficult  for 
religion,  Protestant  or  Catholic,  to  suppress.  The 
Italians,  Spaniards,  and  French  are  remarkable  for 
their  temperate  use  of  intoxicating  drink.  Says  a  Prot- 
estant writer  (Mr.  Scott)  of  the  Spanish  people : 

"  The  Spaniard  looks  upon  a  drunkard  with  the  most  undis- 
guised horror  and  contempt.  There  are  few  mortals  more  ab^ 
stemious  and  less  given  to  excesses  of  any  kind  than  the  people 
of  the  peninsula"  (Through  Spain,  1886). 

The  London  Daily  News  correspondent,  writing  from 
Spain  at  the  time  of  the  war  between  the  Carlists  and 
the  Republicans,  September  i,  1873,  among  other 
praises  lavished  upon  the  Legitimist  volunteers  bears 
this  testimony  to   their  sobriety  : 

"  A  more  cheerful  or  better  behaved  set  of  men  I  have  never 
seen,  and,  marvel  of  marvels,  7iot  a  single  instance  of  anythijig 
like  drunkenness  can  I  recall,  notwithstanding  that  the  victory 
of  Dicastillo  and  the  fall  of  Estella  were  double  events  which 
might  well  have  led  any  member  of  Tattersall's  to  bet  on  the  con- 
trary."    (The  italics  are  the  writer's  own.) 

And  3^et  what  more  intensely  Catholic. people  than 
the    Spanish  ?    Compare   with    them   what    the    Qiiar- 

466 


Drunkenness.  467 


terly   Review  (October,    1875)   says    about  the    English 
people  : 

"  It  is  calculated  that  upwards  of  60,000  die  annually  in  this 
country  from  the  effects  of  drink.  There  are  no  less  than  600,000 
habitual  drunkards  in  England  and  Scotland,  who  riot  and  waste 
with  comparative  impunity  in  the  presence  of  terrified  children 
and  despairing  partners,  and  too  often  end  in  suicide  or  homi- 
cide" (pp.  415-418). 

The  Saturday  Review  (April  20,  1861)  says  that  "if 
Scotland  is  the  most  Sabbatarian  and  Calvinistic  coun- 
try iipon  earth,  its  town  populations  are  at  least  the 
most  drunken  of  drunkards."  (See  also  official  au- 
thorities quoted  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1861, 
pp.  432-463.) 

Mr.  C.  Edwards  Lester,  in  his  work,  The  Glory  and 
Shame  of  England,  has  this  to  say  : 

"  Summing  up  the  returns  of  assurance  societies  and  of  the 
Registrar  General  conjointly,  one  out  of  nineteen  of  the  adult  male 
population  of  Engla7id,  between  the  ages  of  thirty  and  sixty,  dies 
of  drinking.  What  was  the  carnage  of  the  Crimea  compared 
with  this  perpetual  slaughter !  The  amount  of  ruin  wrought  by 
drinking  among  the  educated  classes  is  infinitely  greater  than  the 
pro-rata  of  their  numbers"  (vol.  ii.  ed.  of  1876,  p.  411). 

Concerning  the  moral  condition  of  I^ondon  a  writer 
in  the  New  York  Sun,  November  13,  1892,  gives  us 
some  startling  facts  both  of  drunkenness  and  prostitu- 
tion in  that  city.  His  testimony  en  the  latter  head  will 
be  found  in  another  chapter.  Here  are  some  extracts 
from  his  communication  : 

"  The  degradation  of  woman  is  more  common  in  London  than 
in  any  great  city  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Nowhere  save  in  London 
is  drunkenness  as  common  among  women  as  among  men  ;  no- 
where else  is  the  social  evil  so  obtrusive  and  so  unrepressed ;  no- 


468  Drunkenness. 


where  else  are  the  influences  of  home  on  so  low  a  moral  plane ; 
nowhere  else  is  the  marriage  relation  so  unequal  a  partnership ; 
nowhere  else  is  poverty  so  poor  and  vice  so  vicious.     ... 

"  Since  yesterday — within  a  fortnight,  to  be  exact — London  has 
awakened  to  the  facts  that  all  her  public  bars  are  thronged  with 
women  ;  that  there  are  more  drunken  women  in  her  streets  than 
drunken  men ;  that  a  very  large  majority  of  the  prisoners  com- 
plained of  in  her  principal  police  courts  for  being  '  drunk  and  dis- 
orderly '  are  women.  This  has  been  the  state  of  things  for  some 
time,  but  the  evil  has  been  growing  rapidly  worse,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  Daily  Telegraph  began  a  series  of  graphic  portrayals 
of  the  great  disgrace,  under  the  caption  "  The  National  Shame," 
that  the  callous  public  conscience  was  aroused.     .     .     . 

"  Nearly  all  are  agreed,  however,  that  this  is  a  comparatively 
new  stain  upon  the  national  character.  Twenty  or  twenty-five 
years  ago  intemperance  among  the  women  of  England  was  as 
rare  as  it  is  among  the  women  of  America  to-day.  ...  In 
America  it  would  be  safe  to  assume,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  that  a 
woman  seen  drinking  at  a  public  saloon  bar  was  a  drunkard,  and 
that  she  was  not  a  stranger  to  the  police  court.  The  practice  is 
unknown  even  among  the  lowest  resorts.  On  the  other  hand, 
almost  every  public  bar  in  London  has  a  very  large  portion  of  its 
length  partitioned  off  for  the  special  use  of  female  customers. 
.  .  .  This  does  not  mean  that  there  is  any  real  privacy  or  even 
separation  of  the  sexes.  Good  order  generally  prevails.  Women 
who  drink  at  public  bars  almost  always  buy  spirits.  Gin  is  the 
ultimate  tipple,  in  almost  every  case  :  and  gin  is  to-day  a  greater 
curse  to  Englishwomen  than  whiskey  is  to  all  America.  .  .  . 
Statistics  of  vice  are  entirely  untrustworthy  data  upon  which  to 
base  an  estimate  of  the  moral  standing  of  a  community  or  nation. 
The  town  which  enforces  in  the  courts  the  laws  against  drunken- 
ness and  unchastity,  for  instance,  appears  on  the  records  to  be 
steeped  in  vice  ;  while  its  profligate  neighbor,  which  scarcely  re- 
presses indulgence  in  vicious  appetites,  figures  as  the  abode  of 
virtue. 

"  The  number  of  womeii  arrested  in  London  last  year  for  being 
drunk  and  disorderly  was  8,373 — several  hundred  more  than  in 
any  previous  year,  to  be  sure,  but  not  an  appalling  number  in  a 


Drunkenness,  469 


population  of  5,000,000.  The  people  who  are  raising  the  cry 
against  intemperance  among  women  are  making  the  mistake  of 
giving  these  figures  significance  and  congratulating  London  on 
being,  after  all,  more  moral  than  Glasgow,  where,  with  only  a 
fraction  of  the  population  of  the  metropolis,  the  commitments  of 
women  to  prison  last  year  numbered  10,500.  The  explanation 
is  that  women  who  get  drunk  publicly  in  Glasgow  are  usually 
arrested.  If  the  same  policy  were  followed  in  London,  all  the 
jails  and  police  stations  of  the  metropolis  could  not  hold  the 
prisoners.  No  one  is  ever  arrested  in  London  for  simple  intoxi- 
cation. The  law  as  it  stands  does  not  permit  it.  The  police 
have  not  even  authority  to  arrest  a  drunken  person  in  a  place  of 
public  amusement.  It  is  the  very  obviousness  of  the  evil  which 
has,  at  last,  forced  it  on  public  attention.  A  woman  drunk  or 
under  the  influence  of  liquor  is  a  rare  sight  in  the  streets  of  New 
York.  In  the  streets  of  London  the  black-bonneted,  black- 
gowned,  shabby,  listless  figure,  with  pale,  prematurely  old,  slight- 
ly bloated  face,  bearing  traces  still  of  refinement,  with  bony  white 
hands  holding  the  black  shawl  tightly  about  her,  standing  patient- 
ly and  pennilessly  outside  the  public  house,  is  a  sight  more  fa- 
miliar than  the  policeman  on  the  corner.  She  does  not  beg. 
That  would  be  a  crime  and  would  bring  swift  punishment,  as 
does  every  offence  under  the  English  law  which,  in  the  least, 
threatens  an  Englishman's  purse.  She  waits,  no  matter  how 
long,  until  another  of  her  class,  more  fortunate  than  she,  comes 
with  a  few  coins  to  purchase  and  share  the  '  drop,'  which  alone 
brings  them  a  poor  counterfeit  of  happiness.     .     .     . 

"  Lady  Frederick  Cavendish  in  a  recent  address  before  the 
annual  Church  Congress  said  :  '  In  the  old  heavy-drinking  days 
excess  among  the  ladies  was,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  absolutely 
unknown.  Can  we  say  as  much  to-day  ?  Is  the  word  '  pick-me- 
up  '  known  only  among  men?  Are  nips,  at  11  A.M.  or  after 
dinner  unheard  of,  or  B's  and  S's  never  resorted  to  by  ladies? 
.  .  .  And  I  must  here  protest  against  a  new  fashion  of  young 
ladies — or  old  ones,  as  for  the  matter  of  that — accompanying 
gentlemen  to  the  smoking-room  after  dinner,  and  sharing  not  only 
the  cigars  but  the  spirits  and  water  "  (  Vice  in  Modern  London, 
H.  R.  C.) 


470 


Drunkenness. 


The  following  table  from  Mulhall  will  present  a  very- 
instructive  comparative  view  (article  ' '  Disease  " )  : 

DEATHS  FROM  DRUNKENNESS  PER  10,000  DEATHS. 

CATHOLIC  COUNTRIES  AND 
CITIES. 

All  Italy,     . 
City  of  Genoa, 

"     "  Turin, 
.    "     "  Dublin, 

"     "  Vienna, 

"     "  Brussels 


D 

PROTESTANT  COUNTRIES 

AND 

CITIES. 

I 

All  England, 

21 

5 

City   of   London, 

.     12 

5 

"  Edinburgh,    . 

10 

10 

"      "  Amsterdam    . 

5 

20 

"      "  Berlin,    . 

13 

40 

"      "  Bale,       . 

20 

"      "  Breslau, 

20 

"  Berne,    . 

35 

"      "  Copenhagen,  . 

70 

Duchy  of  Oldenburg,  . 

87 

City  of  Kiel, 

90 

"     "  Stockholm, 

90 

"     "  New  York, 

75 

As  the  reader  is  probably  led  to  suppose,  there  is  no 
report  of  deaths  from  drunkenness  for  either  Spain  or 
Portugal. 

When  Protestant  nations  showing  a  prevalence  of 
this  vice  beyond  anything  that  Ireland  or  any  other 
Catholic  nation  exhibits  will  point  out  to  us  a  Prot- 
estant apostle  of  temperance  who  can  stand  side  by 
side  with  the  world-renowned  and  world-honored 
Father  Theobald  Mathew,  or  can  show  among  their 
bishops  or  ministers  equally  efficient  control  over  large 
multitudes  exposed  to  temptation  in  this  regard,  with 
that  exerted  by  the  Catholic  episcopate,  priesthood,  and 
their  church  temperance  societies,  then  we  will  begin  to 
believe  that  Protestantism  has  equal  moral  influence 
with  Catholicism  in  ameliorating  this  shameful,  uti- 
Christian,  and  socially  degrading  vice. 


v*^" 


V 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

GRAVE  CRIMES  IN  GENERAL. 

MULHALL  in  his  Didionayy  of  Statistics  introduces 
his  article  on  "Crime"  with  tables  of  average 
convictions  in  several  countries,  copied  from  Prof. 
Bodio's  international  records  of  crime.  The  averages 
are  given  for  eight  years,  1876-84.  Why  these  statis- 
ticians have  chosen  to  make  averages  of  the  grave 
criminal  offences  noted  for  seven  Catholic  and  only 
three  Protestant  countries  is  not  explained.  I  will  copy 
these  tables,  adding  the  populations  of  each  as  given 
for  1 88 1,  and  then  present  the  comparative  results. 


NUMBER 

OF 

CRIMI 

NALS      C( 

3NDEMN 

ED,     A 

NNUAL 

AVERAGES 

Catholic  con 

jttries. 

Murder. 

Wounding. 

Robbery. 

Various. 

Total. 

Italy,      . 

2,720 

44.220 

47-220 

1,160 

95.320 

France, 

582 

23,910 

41,830 

3,880 

70,202 

Austria, 

540 

51,160 

15.054 

2,060 

68,814 

Spain,    . 

1,265 

7,180 

9.920 

172 

18,537 

Hungary, 

1,180 

5,265 

10,270 

1,210 

17.925 

Belgium, 

80 

9,710 

6,110 

764 

16,664 

Ireland, 

54 

324 

3.410 

44 

3.832 

Totals, 

6,421 

141,769 

123,814 

9.290 

291,294 

Protestant  countries. 

Murder. 

Wounding. 

Robbery. 

Various. 

Total. 

Germany, 

.          505 

57.420 

102,260 

6,364 

166,549 

England, 

. 

148 

696 

43,100 

432 

44.376 

Scotland, 

' 

19 

434 

10,020 

53 

10,526 

Totals, 

.         672 

58.550 

155.480 

6,849 

221,451 

The 

reader 

who   examines 

Mulhall 

will  find  that 

471 

472  Grave  Crimes  ifi  general. 

Prof.  Bodio  omits  the  number  of  robberies  which 
Austria  should  have.  These  are  given  in  another 
table,  viz.,  15,054.  In  order  to  make  the  table  per- 
fectly correct  I  have  inserted  that  number.  This 
makes  the  average  of  criminals,  per  million,  for 
Austria  rise  from  2,435  to  3,107,  and  causes  the 
general  average  of  criminals  per  million  for  all  Catho- 
lic countries  to  rise  from  1,929  to  2,029. 

There  is  another  correction  which  strictly  should  be 
made  for  Hungary.  Prof.  Bodio  gives  its  robberies  at 
10,270.  The  official  table  gives  only  4,905.  But  I  let 
that  pass. 

Prof.  Bodio  has  also  charged  Hungary  with  1,180 
annual  murders.  This  is  also  an  evident  and  probably 
typographical  error,  for  the  official  tables  rate  Hungary 
with  only  190  murders.  I  let  that  pass  also.  I  limit 
my  corrections  to  those  which  would  favor  Protestants ; 
I  want  to  avoid  lessening  the  best  show  that  can  be  made 
for  the  Protestant  side.  So  long  as  some  of  the  figures 
are  there,  even  discrediting  to  Catholics,  let  them  stand. 

In  the  next  table  Prof.  Bodio  gives  the  following 
table  of  criminals"  condemned  3'early  per  viillioii  inhabi- 
tants, 1876-84  : 

Catholic  countries.  Protestant  countries. 

Italy,       .         .         .         .     3,338  Germany,        .         .  .     3,677 

France,  ....     1,862  England,         .         .  .1,715 

Austria  (corrected),        .     3,107  Scotland,         .         .  .     2,815 

Spain,     .         .         .         .1,117  

Hungary,         .         .         .     1,019  Total,           .         .  .     8,207 

Belgium,  .         .         .     3,020  

Ireland,  ....        744  General  average 

for  each  country,  .     2,735 

Total,  .         .         .   14,207 


General  average 

for  each  country,         .     2,029 


Grave  Crimes  in  general.  473 

The  populations  of  these  countries  upon  which  Prof. 
Bodio  has  based  his  ratios  are  not  given.  But  that  the 
reader  may  judge  of  the  relative  proportion  I  give  the 
sum  of  the  populations  for  each  set  as  reported  for 
1881: 

Population. 
The  seven  Catholic  countries,  ,  .  .  131,498,000 
The  three  Protestant  countries,    .         .         .       75,077,000 

Therefore  we  have  this  comparative  summary : 

Total  ajinual    General  average 
Population.       average  of  of  critnitials 

criminals.  per  country. 

Seven  CathoHc  )  131,498,000      291,294  41,613 

countries,        \  j    -^y         .         ^      ^ 

Three  Protestant  )  75,077,000      221,451  73,813 

countries,  \  n>  11^  '^:>  /j>     j 

That  is  a  showing,  "  taken  by  and  large,"  of  which 
Catholics  need  not  be  ashamed.  For,  as  we  see,  if  the 
ratio  of  criminality  were  made  the  same  for  both,  then 
if  75,000,000  Protestants  produce  221,000  criminals, 
131,000,000  Catholics  ought  to  produce  386,000;  but 
they  show  only  291,000.  I  do  not  forget  that  Germany 
is  one-third  Catholic,  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  charge 
that  share  of  its  crime  against  its  Catholic  popula- 
tion. 

Details  of  other  crimes  and  immoralities  will  justify 
my  objection  to  make  that  admission.  Besides  this 
comparing  only  three  Protestant  countries  with  seven 
Catholic  ones  is  giving  to  the  Protestant  ones  an 
altogether  overstrained  advantage.  Some  particulars 
will,  however,  throw  more  light  on  the  subject. 

Now  Mulhall  remarks  that  Prof.  Bodio  overstates 
the   ratios   for   England,    Scotland,    and    Ireland,    and 


474  Grave  Crimes  in  general. 

refers  to  the  next  page  for  correction.     About  the  same 
date,  1880-89,  there  is  an  annual  average  given  thus  : 

England.         Scotland.         Ireland. 
Convictions,  .         .         10,800  1,910  1,760 

On  which  I  remark  that  even  if  these  figures  replace 
those  of  Prof.  Bodio  the  ratio  for  the  Protestant  coun- 
tries would  still  be  higher  than  for  the  Catholic  ones. 
But  these  lower  figures  evidently  do  not  include  all  the 
crimes  noted  in  Prof.  Bodio's  tables.  The  proof  is  that 
immediately  afterwards  Mulhall  gives  official  tables  of 
these  ver}^  crimes  for  the  years  1880  and  1887.  As  the 
crimes  for  1887  are  afterwards  specified  I  give  them, 
that  the  reader  may  certify  the  justice  of  my  remark. 

CRIMES    AND    OFFENCES   PUNISHED     BY    DEATH,    PENAL   SERVI- 
TUDE,  AND    IMPRISONMENT    IN    ENGLAND,  SCOTLAND,  AND 
IRELAND    IN    1 887    (page    164). 

England,  163,359  Scotland,  73,650  Ireland,  34,978 

Crimes  specified  on  pages  i6j,  166. 

ENGLAND. 

Murder, 163 

Shooting  or  stabbing, 970 

Burglary, 3850 

Attacks  on  women, 878 

Robbery, 47.223 

Assault, 75,873 

Sundry, 34.4oo 

Total, 163,359 

SCOTLAND. 

Murder 23 

Burglary, 948 

Robbery, ..  11,119 

Assault,  etc., 61,560 

Total, 73,650 


Grave  Crimes  in  general. 


47S 


IRELAND. 


Murder,  . 
Shooting,  etc 
Burglary, 
Assault,  etc., 
Offences, 

Total. 


51 
171 

135 

856 
33.165 

34,978 


Having  given  these  ofEcial  statistics  for  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland,  I  am  led  to  present  a  com- 
parative table  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  countries  of 
equal  populations,  and  see  whether  they  stand  equal  in 
crimes  reported  from  them.     I  copy  still  from  Mulhall : 

COMBINED    POPULATION  FOR 

England  and  Germany,        ....       71,343,000 
Italy,  Austria,  Hungary,  and  Ireland,  .       71,042,000 

CRIMES    OF   MURDER    AND    ROBBERY    REPORTED  FOR    1 886. 

Murder.  Robbery. 

England, 163  47,223 

Germany 298  88,816 


Totals, 


461 


Italy,  ......        .2,720 

Austria, 274 

Hungary,    .         .         .         .         .         .     190 

Ireland, 51 


Totals, 


3,235 


136,039 

47,220 
15,054 
4,905 
3,410" 

70,589 


Here  is  the  first  and  only  excess  yet  shown,  or  that 
I  can  find  standing  against  Catholic  countries  for  any 
crime — the  one  of   murder.     On   this  I  have  to   say — 

First. — That  the  average  of  1,180  murders  found  in 
Prof.  Bodio's  table  against   Hungary  is  plainly  a  cleri- 

*  From  Bodio. 


4^6  Grave  Crimes  in  general, 

cal  error.  Hungarians  are  not  among  the  murderers 
by  the  thousand.  The  only  nations  who  do  murder  by 
the  thousand  are  Italy,  Spain,  and  the  United  States. 

Second. — As  regards  murder,  some  countries  include 
infanticide,  and,  as  Mulhall  says  for  Ital}^  "all  cases 
of  criminal  homicide,"  and  some  do  not.  This  will  ac- 
count in  a  great  measure  for  the  much  larger  number 
of  "  murders  "  -charged  in  statistical  tables  against 
Italy,  Spain,  and  other  Catholic  countries,  and  equally 
so  for  the  comparatively  smaller  number  in  some 
Protestant  countries,  where  killing  an  infant  is  not 
accounted  ' '  murder, ' '  and  even  where  it  is  so  accounted 
by  law^  is  winked  at,  and  almost  wholly  escapes  either 
registration  or  punishment.  Not  so  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries. 

The  figures  in  statistics  point  to  the  unwelcome  fact 
that  the  United  States  makes  a  bad  showing  for  the 
crime  of  murder,  at  present.  The  Chicago  Tribune  has 
been  making  a  specialty  of  its  reports  on  this  matter, 
and  that  paper  reported  6,791  murders  and  homicides 
for  the  year  1892.  Mulhall  quotes  from  the  same  au- 
thority figures  for  the  six  years  1884-89,  giving  the 
total  of  14,770  murders,  or  2,461  yearly.  And  it  has 
been  getting  worse  rapidly.  The  superintendent  of  the 
last  Census  (1890),  in  a  Bulletin  on  Homicide  published 
in  1892,  says  : 

"Of  82,329  prisoners  in  the  United  States,  June  i,  1890,  the 
number  charged  with  homicide  was  7,386."  And  further  on  adds; 
"In  the  tenth  Census  (^1880)  there  were  reported  4,608  prisoners 
charged  with  homicide." 

As  to  murders  in  Ireland  I  find  a  singular  piece 
of  information  in  Mulhall.     After  giving   statistics  of 


Grave  Crimes  in  general.  477 

•  'deaths  by  violence  ' '  lie  makes  this  remark  :  ' '  Under 
the  item  of  *  Murder '  are  included  deaths  from  aggra- 
vated assault,  which  in  some  countries  are  put  down  as 
'  deaths  from  fracture,'  also  deaths  resulting  from  riot." 
It  is  a  great  pity  he  did  not  mention  the  names  of  all 
those  other  countries  who  thus  get  credit  for  few  mur- 
ders. I  find  only  one,  and  that  is  Scotland,  whose 
murders  for  1886  were  reported  as  only  19,  but  there 
are  822  "  fractures."  I  was  wondering  how  vScotland 
managed  to  have  so  small  a  murder  report.  I  suppose 
every  man  who  dies  from  a  cracked  crown  at  Donny- 
brook  Fair,  in  Ireland,  is  reported  as  "murdered." 

Third. — As  to  forming  a  judgment  on  the  compara- 
tive morality  of  nations  founded  upon  the  character  of 
the  prevailing  crimes,  and  their  excess  over  the  same  in 
other  nations,  all  writers  are  agreed  in  saying  that  a 
low  standard  of  morality  is  indicated  more  by  the  preva- 
lence of  C7'imes  of  deliberation,  requiring  skill  and  calcu- 
lation in  cold  blood,  than  by  those  resulting  chiefly 
from  sudden  impulse  and  violent  J)rovocatio7t. 

Crimes  of  deliberation  are  Burglary,  Robbery, 
Forgery,  Fraud,  Perjury,  Embezzlement,  Assaults  on 
women  and  children,  Infanticide,  FcEticide,  and  Sui- 
cide. These  are  the  notable  crimes,  in  the  commission 
of  which  Protestant  nations  greatly  exceed  Catholic 
ones. 

Crimes  of  sudden  impulse  and  violent  provocation 
are  such  as  Murders  and  Stabbing.  These  crimes  dis- 
tinguish for  their  excess  Italy  and  Spain. 

Wherever  crimes  against  property  are  increasing  the 
general  morality  is  certainly  going  down.  The  Churek 
and  the  World,  an  Anglican  publication  (1867,  page 
388),  gives  the  following  summarj^  regarding  offences 


4/8  Grave  Cruncs  in  generaL 


against   property    taken   from    the   Statistical  Society's 
Journal  iox  1864-65: 

England  and  Wales,  i  criminal  in  190  of  the  population. 
Saxony  and  Sweden,  "  about  the  same." 
Scotland,  "  something  worse  than  England." 

Ireland,  "  29  per  cent,  less  than  England." 
Spain,  I  criminal  in  10,000  of  the  population. 
Belgium,  i  criminal  in  1,700  of  the  population. 

Returns  from  the  chief  cities  of  England  given  by 
this  same  authority  show  : 

"That  in  Birmingham  in  1864  there  were  1,576  robberies,  and 
178  persons  convicted  of  using  false  weights  and  measures,  being 
I  in  every  169  of  the  population,  or  i  in  every  85  adults.  In  Man- 
chester there  were  7,242  of  these  criminals  (more  than  in  all 
Spain  or  Russia),  i  in  every  46  of  the  population,  or  i  in  every 
23  of  the  adults.  In  Liverpool  there  were  5,933,  being  about  i  in 
70  of  the  population,  or  i  in  35  of  the  adults.  The  list  might  be 
indefinitely  extended.  In  the  Metropolis  the  state  of  things  is 
but  a  shade  better ;  and  the  startling  fact  that  in  the  past  year 
above  800  tradesmen  of  South  London  have  been  detected  and 
punished  for  using  the  '  false  balance'  and  127  in  Islington — a 
sample,  as  every  one  knows  (besides  adulteration  of  food)  of  what 
is  going  on  in  every  town  in  the  kingdom — has  revealed  a  fearful 
state  of  moral  turpitude  among  that  class.  The  latest  returns 
would  seem  to  show  that  at  least  i  in  190  of  the  existing  popula- 
tion of  England  and  Wales  are  guilty  of  detected  acts  of  flagrant 
dishonesty  of  various  kinds,  the  same  proportion  nearly  as  in 
Saxony  and  in  Sweden." 

The  writer,  a  Protestant,  goes  on  to  say: 

"  The  coincidence  is  surely  remarkable  that  crime,  especially 
against  property,  should  be  far  less  frequent  where  confession  ex- 
ists as  a  recognized  and  energizing  part  of  religion  than  where  it 
does  not." 


Grave  Crimes  in  general.  479 

Of  Sweden  lyaing  bears  this  testimony  : 

"  It  is  not  without  dismay  that,  on  turning  to  the  criminal 
statistics  of  this  generally  educated  people,  we  find  that  the 
amount  of  criminal  offences,  in  proportion  to  the  numbers  of  the 
population,  exceed  greatly  those  of  England,  Scotland,  or  Ireland; 
that  the  numbers  of  illegitimate  children  and  of  divorces  from  the 
marriage  tie — both  undeniable  tests  of  the  moral  condition  of  a 
people — are  vastly  greater  "  (Notes  of  a  Traveller,  chap,  viii.,  ed. 
1854). 

He  adds,  citing  official  reports,  that 

"  the  murders,  rapes,  robberies,  and  acts  which  are  criminal  in 
all  countries  exceeded  very  far,  in  proportion  to  the  population, 
the  number  of  the  same  crimes  in  our  unschooled,  dense  popula- 
tion." 

A  testimony,  by  the  way,  to  the  illiterate  condition 
of  Great  Britain  at  that  date,    1854. 

Again,  he  says  : 

"  In  1837,  26,275  persons  were  prosecuted  in  Sweden  for 
criminal  offences,  of  whom  21,262  were  convicted,  being  one  ac- 
cused to  every  114  of  the  entire  population,  and  one  convicted  to 
every  140,  of  crimes  of  a  heinous  character.  In  1836  the  number 
of  convicts  was  i  to  every  134  of  the  population"  (A  Tour  in 
Sweden,  1838). 

The  reader  has  now  reliable  testimony  and  some 
important  considerations  to  guide  him  in  forming  a  fair 
judgment  upon  the  relative  morality  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant  countries  based  upon  the  amount  of  such 
crimes  as  have  already  been  brought  to  his  notice. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

INFANTICIDE  AND  F(I:TICIDE. 

I  NOW  come  to  the  examination  of  two  classes  of  mur- 
ders which,  taking  the  element  of  deliberatmi  into 
account,  are  more  heinous  than  many  murders  of  adults. 
Of  these  murders  of  children  before  and  after  birth  there 
is  small  notice  in  Statistical  Reports,  but  everybod}^ 
knows  they  are  committed  by  the  thousand.  Of  course 
there  are  some  such  murders  in  Catholic  countries,  but 
they  are  comparatively  very  few.  Were  there  enough 
upon  which  to  base  any  serious  charges  for  either 
infanticide  or  foeticide  those  who  are  on  the  sharp 
scent  for  any  evidence  of  Catholic  immorality  Would 
not  fail  to  make  them.  Mulhall  gives  a  table  showing 
that  between  1830-80  infanticide  in  France  has  in- 
creased from  120  to  296  annually. 

I  find  some  startling  records  about  England  given 
by  Ka}^  {Social  Condition  of  the  Ejiglish  People),  He 
says  and  proves  that  in  1850  it  was  "a  common 
practice  for  the  degraded  poor  in  many  towns  to  enter 
their  children  in  what  is  called  '  burial  clubs  '  and  then 
cause  their  death  either  by  starvation,  ill-usage,  or 
poison,"  in  order  to  get  the  money  assured  in  case  of 
death.  He  cites  many  facts,  horrible  ones  ;  how  the 
people  got  hardened  to  it,  and  boasted  of  it.  He  cites 
from  a  report  of  the  City  of  Manchester : 

"  Out  of  100  deaths,  60  to  65  are  of  infants  under  five  years  old. 
One  man  put  his  children  into  nineteen  clubs.  .  .  .  One  sin- 
gle club  boasted  of  34,100  members,  the  entire   population  of  the 

480 


Infanticide  and  Fceticide,  48 1 


town  being  little  more  than  36,000  !  !  !  "     [The  three   exclamation 
points  are  his.] 

That  was  nearly  fifty  years  ago,  and  one  takes  it  for 
granted  that  English  Protestant  civilization  is  by  this 
time  far  advanced  beyond  this  condition  of  barbarous 
immorality  and  crime.  Let  us  see.  At  a  recent  meet- 
ing of  the  National  Society  for  the  Pi'evcntion  of  Crnetty 
to  Cliild}-en  the  Duke  of  Fife,  alluding  to  the  alarming 
reports  of  the  city  coroner  in  Manchester,  made  these 
remarks  : 

"  Now,  there  was  one  object  which  he  should  think  their  so- 
ciety— the  National  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Chil- 
dren— would  never  rest  until  they  obtained,  and  that  was  further 
powers  to  deal  with  child  insurance.  (Applause.)  The  evil  was 
a  terrible  one,  and  he  was  sure  they  would  agree  with  him  when 
he  told  them  that  last  year  alone  5,509  children  who  died  were 
known  to  be  insured  for  the  aggregate  sum  of  fji'],\AtZ,  which 
was  no  less  than  ^4  i8j.  6d.  per  child  on  an  average,  whereas  6ps. 
had  been  fixed  as  the  maximum  insurance  for  children  in  Work- 
ing-men's Mutual  Assurance  Companies.  This  was  a  revolting 
thing,  and  one  which  he  thought  strongly  called  for  the  interven- 
tion of  Parhament.  (Hear,  hear.)  He  earnestly  hoped  this 
question  would  no  longer  be  shelved  "  (Berry  Journal,  Decem- 
ber 29,  1893). 

And  here  is  another  recent  testimou}- : 

"  When  an  English  judge  tells  us,  as  Mr.  Justice  Wills  did 
the  other  day,  that  there  were  any  number  of  parents  who  would 
kill  their  children  for  a  few  pounds  insurance  money,  we  can  form 
some  idea  of  the  horrors  of  the  existence  into  which  many  of  the 
children  of  this  highly  favored  land  are  ushered  at  their  birth " 
(///  Darkest  England  and  the  Way  Out,  by  General  Booth, 
page  65). 

Any  one  who  wishes  to  see  what  a  dreadful  state  of 
wretchedness   and  immorality  the    English   poor   have 


482  Infanticide  and  Fccticide. 

fallen  into  in  that  so  ' '  highly  favored  ' '  Protestant  land, 
despite  the  wealth,  power,  and  number  of  its  Protestant 
clergy  and  people,  should  read  General  Booth's  book, 
and  that  startling  pamphlet — The  Bitta'  Cry  of  Outcast 
Londo7i. 

The  reflection  made  by  Kay  at  the  close  of  fourteen 
pages  of  his  book  devoted  to  these  horrifying  details  of 
child-murder  might  be  as  justly  made  in  this  year  of 
grace  1894.     This  is  what  he  says  : 

"  Alas,  these  accounts  are  only  too  true !  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  a  great  part  of  the  poorer  ctasses  of  this  country  are 
sunk  into  such  a  frightful  depth  of  hopelessness  of  misery  and 
utter  moral  degradation  that  even  mothers  forget  their  affection 
for  their  helpless  little  offspring,  and  kill  them,  as  a  butcher  does 
his  lambs,  in  order  to  make  money  by  the  murder," 

He  is  not  the  only  witness.  A  Protestant  clerical 
writer,  the  Rev.  Canon  Humble,  in  The  Church  and  the 
World,  1866,  contributes  a  long  article,  "Infanticide, 
its  Cause  and  its  Cure."  I  quote  one  passage.  After 
speaking  of  the  wholesale  murder  of  infants,  he  says  : 

"  Thus,  bundles  are  left  lying  about  the  streets,  which  people 
will  not  touch,  lest  the  too  familiar  object — a  child's  body — should 
be  revealecl,  perchance  with  a  pitch-plaster  over  its  mouth,  or  a 
woman's  garter  round  its  throat.  Thus,  too,  the  metropolitan 
canal  boats  are  impeded,  as  they  are  tracked  along,  by  the  num- 
ber of  drowned  infants  with  which  they  come  in  contact,  and  the 
land  is  becoming  defiled  by  the  blood  of  her  innocents.  We  are 
told  by  Dr.  Lankester  that  there  are  12,000  women  in  London  to 
whom  the  crime  of  child-murder  may  be  attributed.  In  other 
words,  that  one  in  every  thirty  women  (between  fifteen  and  forty- 
five  years  of  age)  is  a  murderess." 

And  I  believe  there  were  no  "  burial  clubs  "  then  for 
the  murderers  to  make  money  by  their  crime. 


Infanticide  and  Foeticide.  483 

As  the  writer  was  a  Protestant  clergjanan,  what  he 
says  by  way  of  "  Prevention  and  Cure  of  Infanticide  " 
is  worth  noting  :  ' 

"  The  high  moraHty  of  Ireland  is  owing  in  great  part  to  the 
habit  of  the  people  (CathoHcs)  going  to  confession,  and  the  low 
tone  of  morals  in  Scotland  is,  I  fear,  to  be  greatly  attributed  to 
the  impossibility  of  having  recourse  to  this  sacramental  ordi- 
nance." 

That  murder  of  even  legitimate  children  in  Protest- 
ant England  was  common  these  writers  and  official  re- 
ports of  the  Registrar  General  and  physicians  show ; 
but  the  murders  of  illegitimate  children  are  still  more 
numerous.  In  1875  the  Registrar  General  gives 
deaths  of  legitimate  children  at  205  per  i  ,000 ;  of 
illegitimate  418.  In  12  rural  districts,  the  proportion 
was  97  deaths  of  legitimate  to  293  illegitimate  {Ille- 
gitimacy, by  Dr.  A.  Lefhngwell,  page  70). 

The  sixth  annual  report  of  Sir  George  Graham,  the 
Registrar  General,  p.  38,  says: 

"  If  the  mortality  were  not  greater  among  illegitimate  than 
among  legitimate  children,  every  fifteenth  person  in  England 
must  be  of  illegitimate  extraction." 

"  In  Glasgow  for  three  years  (1873-75)  the  deaths  of  legitimate 
were  149  to  154  per  1,000;  of  illegitimate,  between  277  to  293. 

"  During  a  long  series  of  years  the  mortality  of  illegitimate 
children  was  double  that  of  legitimate  in  [Protestant]  Denmark  " 
(Dr.  Sorensen,  Infant  Mortality  m  Denmark.  Ibid.,  pp.  70, 
71.75)- 

The  Rev.  B.  Waugh,  in  an  article  contributed  to  the 
Contempoj'ary  Review,  May,  1890,  on  "  Baby-Farming," 
and  another  on  "  Child- lyife  Insurance,"  in  the  same 
magazine,  July,  1890,   afhrms  that  more  than  a  thou- 


484  Infanticide  and  Foeticide, 


sand   children— most  of   them   no    doubt  illegitimate- 
are  viurdcrcd  annually  in  England  for  insurance  money. 
Here  is  some  more  evidence  : 

"  An  inquest  was  held  before  Mr.  Braxton  Hicks,  at  the  Star 
and  Garter,  Battersea,  concerning  the  death  of  a  female  child 
whose  body  was  found  in  the  Thames.  Dr.  Kempster  stated  that 
he  saw  tlie  body  at  the  mortuary,  and  had  made  a  post-uiortcm 
examination.  The  bones  of  the  skull  had  been  fractured  all  over, 
and  the  nose  was  flattened  on  the  face.  The  injuries  were  in- 
flicted while  the  child  was  alive,  and  they  were  the  cause  of  the 
death.  The  Coroner :  '  I  think  we  have  had  about  ten  similar 
cases,  have  we  not?  '  Dr.  Kempster  :  '  Yes;  all  killed  the  same 
way!  The  Corojier :  *  In  these  cases,  as  soon  as  the  child  is 
born,  its  head  is  knocked  all  to  pieces,  and  the  body  then  thrown 
into  the  river.'  The  jury  returned  the  verdict  of  '  Wilful  murder 
against  some  person  or  persons  unknown '  "  {London  Times, 
February  5,  1891). 

Of  course  everybody  knows  that  it  would  be  al- 
together impossible  to  find  anything  at  all  in  Catholic 
countries  to  compare  with  this  horrible  record  of  mur- 
derous criminality.  The  reason  is  plain.  According 
to  Catholic  morals  and  their  strict  enforcement,  espe- 
cially through  the  confessional,  and  aided  by  state 
laws  and  the  confirmed  general  sense  of  Catholic  peo- 
ples, the  killing  of  an  infant  is  held  to  be  murder  equal 
in  guilt  to  the  murder  of  an  adult,  and  an  equally  hor- 
rible sin  in  the  sight  of  God.  There  would  appear  to 
be  no  such  profound  sense  of  abhorrence  of  infanticide 
or  unquestioning  conviction  of  the  sin  of  it  among 
Protestants.  It  is  the  subject  of  remark  that  in  Prot- 
estant countries  there  are  ver}^  few  trials  for  such  mur- 
ders. How  rarely  do  we  ever  hear  of  one  in  the  United 
States ! 


Infanticide  and  Fee  tic  ide,  485 

Rev.  Canon  Humble,  in  his  remarkable  monograph 
on  Infanticide,  shows  how  it  is  regarded  in  England. 
He  attributes  the  "  widely  prevailing  evil  "  to  a  "  low 
moral  condition  of  the  English  people,"  and  says: 
*'The  dreadful  frequency  of  the  crime  of  infanticide  is 
passed  by  with  a  hasty  remark  by  those  persons  who 
could  not  rest  in  their  beds  if  no  attempt  were  made 
to  discover  the  murderer  of  a  full-grown  man."  If  all 
the  murders  of  infants  were  brought  to  record,  to  what 
alarming  figures  would  not  the  statistics  of  homicide  in 
the  United  States  and  England  run  up  to,  not  to  men- 
tion other  Protestant  countries ! 

The  same  reverend  writer,  just  quoted,  mentions  a 
proposed  revision  of  the  Penal  Code  of  England  making 
the  killing  of  a  child  wider  seven  years  of  age  only  mur- 
der in  the  second  degree  !  The  reason  he  assigns  for 
the  entertainment  of  such  a  barbarous  proposal  shows 
how  utterly  oblivious  of  the  sin  of  such  murders  the  Eng- 
lish mind  had  become.  He  says  that  being  a  commer- 
cial, money-making  nation,  the  value  of  a  human  life  is 
rated  according  to  how  much  can  be  got  out  of  it. 
A  grown  man's  life  is  worth  something,  a  child's  com- 
paratively nothing.  What  a  barbarously  low  .standard 
of  morality  for  a  Christian  people  to  live,  I  will  not  say 
up,  but^'down  to  ! 

In  Catholic  countries  the  wretchedly  poor  who  are 
tempted  to  abandon  their  legitimate  children,  or  sinful 
women  to  hide  the  evidence  of  their  shame,  do  not 
smother,  strangle,  poison,  or  drown  them,  but  they 
fly  to  the  refuge  which  the  Christian  sense  of  public 
Catholic  morality  provides — the  foundling  asylum, 
that  glorious  institution  of  charity  to  be  found  in  all 
great  cities    of   Catholic    countries,  and   of   which  few 


486  Infanticide  and  Fceticide. 


other  such  life-saving  homes  are  found  in  Protestant 
lands  besides  those  which  are  founded  by  Catholics 
and  cared  for  by  Catholic  sisterhoods. 

It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why 
infanticide  of  both  legitimate  and  illegitimate  children 
is  so  prevalent  among  Protestants  is  because,  contrary 
to  the  Catholic  and  true  Christian  idea,  they  have 
been  educated  to  look  upon  abject  poverty  and  the 
inheritance  of  bastardy  as  crimes.  So  that  in  their 
eyes  a  child  which  is  to  its  poor  or  sinful  parents  an 
intolerable  burden  to  support  or  witness  of  their  shame 
is  a  criminal  who  has  no  right  to  life. 

FCETICIDE. 

There  is  another  class  of  murders  from  which  Cath- 
olics, as  compared  with  Protestants,  have  but  little  to 
answer  for — the  murder  by  abortion.  The  doctrine  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  her  canons,  her  theologians, 
without  exception,  teach,  and  constantly  have  taught, 
that  the  destruction  of  the  human  foetus  in  the  womb 
of  the  mother,  at  any  period  from  the  first  instant 
of  conception,  is  a  heinous  crime,  equal,  at  least  in 
guilt,  to  that  of  murder.  All  Catholics  know  this,  and 
have  a  salutary  horror  of  the  crime.  Protestantism 
does  not  teach  morality  in  this  definite  way,  and 
hence  Protestant  women  fall  back  upon  their  doctrine 
of  private  judgment  to  determine  their  moral  right  to 
do  what  seems  best  or  allowable  to  them.  The  appall- 
ing consequences  of  this  are  not  surprising.  The 
crime  of  abortion  among  Protestants  everywhere  is 
widespread  ;  and  in  connection  with  other  detestable 
immoral  practices,  abominations  strictly  forbidden  and 
abhorrent  to  Catholics,  results  in  lowering  their  birth- 


Infanticide  and  Foeticide.  487 

rate  to  an  alarming  degree.  Great  numbers  of  Prot- 
estant parents  make  up  their  minds  to  have  no  more 
children  either  conceived  or  born  than  they  want  to 
have. 

Dr.  H.  B.  Storer,  an  eminent  physician  of  Boston, 
startled  the  community  by  publishing  three  books  in 
1^6-]— Criminal  Abortion;  Why  Not?  A  Book  for 
Every  Woman;  and  Is  it  If  A  Book  for  Every  Man, 
quickly  followed  by  one  on  the  same  subject — Serpents  i?i 
the  Dove's  N'est—hy  Rev.  John  Todd,  a  Protestant  min- 
ister of  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts.  Added  to  these,  con- 
firming their  revelations  of  the  numerous  child-murders 
by  abortion  in  New  England,  committed  almost  exclu- 
sively by  Protestants,  came  out  numerous  treatises  by 
other  physicians,  notably  the  two  by  Dr.  Nathan  Allen, 
of  Lowell,  Mass. — Changes  in  the  Ne7v  England  Popu- 
lation, and  The  Neiv  England  Family.  All  bear  wit- 
ness either  positively  or  indirectly  to  the  power  ex- 
ercised by  the  principles  and  practices  of  Catholic 
morals,  especially  the  benefit  of  confession,  to  pre- 
vent these  wholesale  murders,  and  the  Sodomitical 
iniquity  of  **  economizing  in  children"  among  Prot- 
estants of  all  classes.     Says  Dr.  Storer  : 

"Hardly  a  newspaper  in  the  land  that  does  not  contain  their 
open  and  pointed  advertisements.  .  .  .  The  profits  that  must 
be  made  from  the  sale  of  drugs  supposed  abortifacient,  may  be 
judged  from  the  extent  to  which  they  are  advertised  and  the 
prices  willingly  paid  for  them." 

Again  : 

"  We  are  compelled  to  admit  that  Christianity  itself,  or  at 
least  ProtestantzsDi,  has  failed  to  check  the  increase  of  criminal 
abortion." 


488  Infanticide  and  Foeticide, 

Rev.  Dr.  Todd,  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that 
abortion  is  "  infinitel}'  more  frequent  among  Protestants 
than  among  Catholics,"  acknowledges  the  benefit  of 
the  confessional  and  strict  Catholic  doctrine,  and 
pleads  and  appeals  to  Protestant  women  to  stop  these 
"fashionable  murders,"  warning  them  that  the}^  were 
* '  pitching  their  tents  towards  Sodom  ' '  and  bringing 
down  upon  themselves  the  w^ath  of  God. 

Dr.  Allen  tells  us  of  evidence  received  by  the  Rev. 
S.  W.  Dike,  of  Vermont,  in  reply  to  inquiries  sent  out 
by  him  to  nearl}-  all  parts  of  New  England,  to 

"  judges,  state's  attorneys,  lawyers,  police  officers,  to  large  num- 
bers of  physicians  and  specialists,  with  a  few  clergymen.  Nearly 
all  responded.  .  .  .  In  ihree-fourths  of  the  localities  reporting 
on  this  point  licentiousness  is  said  to  be  increasing.  In  nearly  as 
many  the  destruction  of  unborn  life  goes  on  as  fast,  or  faster, 
than  ever.  Physicians  are  very  emphatic  on  this  point,  and  many 
speak  with  great  indignation  of  the  wicked  practices  of  some 
church  members.  Nearly  all  find  this  increase  among  tke  native 
population." 

So  far  Rev.  Mr.  Dike.     Dr.  Allen  goes  on  to  say  : 

"  Few  persons  are  aware  how  extensively  this  destruction  of 
unborn  life  is  carried  on  in  what  are  considered  the  better  classes 
of  society. 

"  The  '  arts  of  destruction  and  prevention  of  human  life  '  are 
comparatively  unknown  among  the  Irish,  English,  and  Germans 
of  New  England.  If  physicians  should  publish  what  they  know 
on  this  subject  it  would  make  a  shocking  disclosure." 

Then  he  quotes  from  a  paper  in  the  Boston  Medical 
and  Surgical  Journal  (December,  1S79).  A  ph5\sician 
there  writes : 

"  hi  the  early  part  of  my  practice  the  prevailing  fashion  and 
desire   among   married  women  were  to   bear   children    and   rear 


Infanticide  and  Fccticide.  489 


families.  To  be  barren  was  considered  among  the  Jews  a  curse 
of  the  Almighty,  and  many  of  our  grandmothers  cherished  senti- 
ments akin  to  this,  Temp07'a  mutantur  !  What  physician  at  the 
present  day  has  not  had  to  hang  his  head  for  shame,  and  feel  the 
strength  of  his  moral  indignation  rise  at  witnessing  the  apathy  or 
positive  dislike— to  use  no  stronger  term — with  which  the  first 
faint  cry  of  the  new-born  infant  is  received.  I  have  never  known 
an  Irish  mother,  no  matter  how  poor,  or  how  many  little  ragged 
children  around  her,  that  did  not  receive  every  new-born  babe 
with  emotions  and  expressions  of  gratitude  as  a  blessed  gift  from 
God.  This  sentiment,  however  rudely  expressed,  has  never 
failed  to  win  my  admiration,  and  I  take  pleasure  in  pointing  it  out 
as  the  finest  trait  of  Irish  female  character." 

' '  What  a  contrast  do  these  two  pictures  present !  ' ' 
exclaims  Dr.  Allen.  "  How  tender  and  natural  the 
latter— how  cold  and  heartless  the  former  !  ' '  And  he 
makes  the  very  just  remark  that  at  bottom  the  whole 
immoral  business  threatening  extinction  of  the  (Prot- 
estant) New  England  family  is  due  to  " «  lack  of 
patriotism  which  leads  one  to  endure  pain  and  practice 
self-denial  to  people  one's  own  land"  ^Thc  New  Eng- 
^land  Family,  Nathan  Allen,  M.D.)  There  spoke  a 
philosopher  who  knew  how  to  find  a  true  test  of 
patriotism. 

A  writer  in  the  Catholic  World  (April,  1869),  treat- 
ing of  the  comparative  morality  of  Catholic  and  Protes- 
tant countries,  quotes  from  Harper's  Magazine: 

'  We  are  shocked  at  the  destruction  of  human  life  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Ganges,  but  here  in  the  heart  of  Christendom 
foeticide  and  infanticide  are  extensively  practised  under  the  most 
aggravating  circumstances.  ...  It  should  be  stated  that  be- 
lievers in  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  never  resort  to  any  such 
practices ;  the  strictly  Americans  [Protestants  and  other  non- 
Catholics]  are  almost  alone  guilty  of  such  crimes." 


490  Infanticide  and  Fccticide. 

And  the  following  from  Bishop  Coxe  of  the  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  Church  : 

"  I  have  hitherto  warned  my  tiock  against  the  blood-guiltiness 
of  ante-natal  infanticide.  If  any  doubts  existed  heretofore  as  to 
the  propriety  of  my  warning-  on  this  subject,  they  must  now  dis- 
appear before  the  fact  that  the  world  itself  is  beginning  to  be 
horrified  by  the  practical  results  of  the  sacrifices  to  Moloch  which 
defile  our  land." 

.  These  testimonies  were  given  twenty-five  years  ago. 
Have  the  warnings  been  heeded  ?  Has  Protestantism 
been  able  to  lessen  this  slaughter  of  their  innocents  in 
the  least  ?  On  the  contrary,  it  is  notorious  that  it  has 
gone  on  increasing  to  a  fearful  extent,  aided  by  the 
shameless  increase  of  legalized  Protestant  and  Infidel 
polygamy  and  polyandry  in  the  shape  of  divorce,  to 
which  the  existence  of  children  would  be  a  hindrance. 
The  Boston  Herald  (November  9,  1891)  reported 
verbatim  a  sermon,  worthy  of  a  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
preached  in  Newburyport,  Mass.,  on  the  previous  Sun- 
day by  the  Rev.  Brevard  D.  Sinclair,  pastor  of  the  Old 
South  Presbyterian  Church  of  that  city.  I  doubt  if 
such  a  startling  call  to  judgment  for  their  sins  was  ever 
before  preached  to  any  audience.  I  copy  the  following 
extracts  from  it : 

"  Unfaithfulness  to  the  marriage  vows  is  one  of  the  most 
flagrant  sins  of  New  England  ;  witness  the  multifarious  records 
of  the  divorce  courts  and  the  adulteries  which  are  so  unblushingly 
committed  in  this  country. 

"  The  prevention  of  offspring  is  pre-eminently  the  sin  of  this 
city  of  Newburyport  and  New  England,  and  if  it  is  not  checked 
it  will  sooner  or  later  be  an  irremediable  calamity.  Society,  the 
[Protestant]  Church,  and  the  public  conscience  is  dead  in  this 
matter. 


Infanticide  and  Fceticide.  491 

"  Women,  professors  of  Christ's  holy  religion,  go  about  advising 
young  married  women  to  forestall  the  ordinance  of  God  by  pre- 
venting the  birth  and  rearing  of  children.  Do  these  white-walled 
sepulchres  know  that  they  are  committing  the  damning  sin  of 
Herod  in  the  'slaughter  of  the  innocents,'  and  are  accessories 
before  the  fact  to  the  crime  of  murder  ?  Do  they  who  counsel 
and  practise  these  diabolical  vices  know  they  will  fall  under  the 
curse  of  God  before  the  great  white  throne  ? 

"God  forbid  that  I  should  eulogize  Romanism,  but  the  Roman 
Catholic  is  the  one  Church  which  is  a  practical  foe  to  this  hell- 
born  sin,  which  has  fastened  its  fangs  and  death  venom  in  the 
vital  heart  of  marriage.  Before  God,  I  believe  that  many  of  the 
errors  of  the  Romish  Church  are  cancelled  by  its  loyalty  to  that 
great  law  of  God  which  enforces  the  truth  that  the  end  of  mar- 
riage must  not  be  profaned. 

♦•  New  England  is  lifting  up  her  hands  to-day  with  pretended 
horror  at  the  thought  of  Catholic  domination.  We  are  told  that 
the  Roman  Catholics  are  going  to  possess  New  England. 
Through  your  sin  they  are  !     And  they  ought  to  ! 

"  It  makes  no  difference  to  God  whether  your  ancestors  came 
over  the  sea  in  the  Mayflower  or  in  the  steerage  of  a  Cunarder, 
nor  whether  your  pedigree  can  be  traced  to  a  Puritan  or  to  an 
assisted  emigrant  from  Cork;  but  one  thing,  is  of , paramount  con- 
cern to  God— He  intends  to  fill  this  world  with  righteousness, 
and  He  will  see  to  it  that  the  people  who  violate  His  laws  shall 
perish  from  the  earth,  and  that  those  who  obey  His  precepts  shall 
occupy  the  place  of  a  disobedient  people.  If  the  Romanists  will 
obey  God  in  this  matter  and  rehabilitate  the  crumbling,  decaying, 
rotten  wrecks  of  the  New  England  home,  state,  and  church 
by  obliterating  this  sin,  then  they  will  and  ought  to  possess  this 

land. 

"  '  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder  ! '  Burn  this  into  your  consciences, 
ye  sinning  children  of  Beelzebub  who  encourage  young  women  to 
this  crime  !  Infanticide  is  the  national  sin  of  New  England.  I 
do  not  fear  but  that  God  will  blot  it  out,  as  He  did.  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah ! " 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

SUICIDE. 

THE  comparative  view  of  Protestant  and  Catliolic 
immorality  on  the  score  of  the  crime  of  murder 
would  not  be  complete  without  a  table  of  ratios  showing 
the  contrast  between  countries  in  the  number  of  their 
suicides,  or  self-murders.  I  copy  the  following  table 
as  found  in  the  J Vor/d  Almanac  for  1894,  quoting  from 
Barker,  giving  the  latest  statistics  : 


Protestant 

Rate  per 

Cai/iohc 

Rate  per 

Countries. 

100,000  pop. 

Coimtries.                       100,000  pop 

Saxony,     .     . 

.      .           31. 1 

Austria,    ....         21.2 

Denmark, 

.      .           25.8 

France, 

157 

Hanover,  .     . 

.      .           14.0 

Bavaria,    . 

9.1 

Prussia,     .     . 

.      .           13.3 

Belgium, 

6.0 

Victoria,  .     . 

.     .        II. 5 

Hungary, 

5-2 

Sweden,    .     , 

.    .          8.1 

Italy,    . 

3.7 

Norway,    .     . 

.    .          7-5 

Ireland, 

1.7 

England  &  W 

ales,           6.9 

Spain,  . 

1.4 

Scotland,  .     , 

4-0 

MIXED    NATIONS. 

United  States,  about  1-6  Catholic,     .  .  ;  .     .     3.5 

Netherlands,  about       >^  Catholic,     .  .  .  .3.6 

All  Germany,  about      Yi  Catholic,     .  .  .  .  14.3 

Switzerland,  about        3^  Protestant,  .  .  .  20.2 


Mulhall  has  this  to  saj'  concerning  the  comparative 
number  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  suicides  : 

"  Suicide  is  much  more  frequent  in  Protestant  than  in  Catholic 
countries.  Legoyt  and  other  writers  show  that  even  in  countries 
where  both  religions  exist  the  tendency  of  Protestants  to  suicide 

492 


Suicide. 


493 


is  greater,  as  shown  in  the  rates  of 

the  follow 

ing 

countries  per 

million  of  each  : 

Countries. 

Per  ynillioti 
Protestants. 

Per  million 
Catholics. 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 

.          63 

17 

Prussia, 

.        170 

52 

Bavaria, 

.        195 

69 

Austria-Hung-ary, 

.        140 

90 

Switzerland 

.        262 

81 

Mulhall  adds  an  instructive  table  of  suicides  in 
Switzerland  for  six  years,  ending  1881,  which  goes  to 
confirm  the  fact  stated  and  proved  by  Legoyt,  of  the 
much  greater  tendency  of  Protestants  to  commit  the 
crime  of  self-murder,  and  also  accounts  for  the  high 
rate  given  to   Switzerland  in  Barker's  table  : 

SUICIDES    IN    SWITZERLAND    PER    MILLION    INHABITANTS. 


In  the  Catholic  cantons. 
In  the  Protestant  cantons, 
In  the  Mixed  cantons, 

Totals, 


Catholics. 

Protestants. 

20 

205 

127 

602 

116 

360 

263 


1,167 


And  he  adds 


*'  It  would  appear  that  in  the  Catholic  cantons  the  Protestants 
are  much  less  prone  to  suicide  than  where  their  own  religion  is 
dominant.  For  like  reasons,  Catholics  are  much  more  liable  to 
suicide  in  Protestant  or  mixed  cantons  than  in  their  own," 

To  put  the  table  in  another  shape  for  comparison  : 

SUICIDES    IN    SWITZERLAND    PER   MILLION    INHABITANTS. 

Catholic  suicides  in  Catholic  cantons,      ...  20 

Protestant  suicides  in  Protestant  cantons,       .         .  602 

Catholic  suicides  in  Protestant  cantons,           .         .  127 

Protestant  suicides  in  Catholic  cantons,           .         .  205 

Catholic  suicides  in  Mixed  cantons,  .      .         .         .  116 

Protestant  suicides  in  Mixed  cantons,      .         ,         ,  360 


494  Suicide, 


That  is  to  say  :  The  moral  influence  of  Protestantism 
would  appear  to  induce  the  commission  of  suicide,  while 
the  moral  influence  of  Catholicism  is  just  the  contrary  : 

1.  The  Swiss  P?vtestants  commit  30  times  as  many 
suicides  in  their  own  cantons  as  Catholics  do  in  theirs. 

2.  They  commit  only  10  times  as  many  if  they  have 
strong  Catholic  influence  about  them. 

3.  But  they  commit  18  times  as  many  where  their 
own  religion  is  equally  strong  with  the  Catholic. 

4.  Swiss  Catholics  commit  6  times  more  suicides 
where  Protestant  influence  is  strong  than  they  do  at 
home. 

5.  And  5  times  as  manj^  where  Protestant  influence  is 
equal  to  their  own. 

Moral  :  Swiss  Catholics  had  better  stay  at  home  in 
their  own  cantons,  for  it  looks  as  if,  where  they  are 
subject  to  Protestant  influence,  they  found  life  in  the 
same  proportion  just  that  much  less  worth  living. 

And  here  is  an  equally  strong  contrast  for  Catholic 
and  Protestant  states  in  Germany  : 

"  According  to  the  Deutsche  Criminal  Zeitufig,  it  appears  that 
the  number  of  s,\.\\c\(\ts per  million  oi  the  inhabitants  during  the 
period   1875-1881  was  as  follows: 

Schleswig-Holstein,  98.6  per  cent.  Protestant,    .  .  287 

"             "              .  .  245 

"             "               .  .  218 

"      Catholic,        .  .  95 

"             -               .  .  83 

.  .  72 

"  The  German  paper  (Protestant)  remarks :  •  These  numbers 
are  eloquent.  From  this  table  it  may  be  calculated  that  in  the 
Prussian  state,  with  a  purely  evangelical  population,  if  all  other 
circumstances  be   alike,  the  number  of  suicides  is  three   or  four 


Saxony,     .     .     . 

93 

Brandenburg,    . 

97 

Westphalia, 

69 

Rhineland,    .     . 

73 

Prussian  Poland, 

54. 

Suicide.  495 


times  greater  than  with  a  purely  CathoHc  population  '  "  {London 
Tablet,  May  3,   1884). 

I  think  these  tables  might  be  safely  offered  as  evi- 
dence of  a  crucial  test  of  the  comparative  moral  influ- 
ence of  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  religions  to  restrain 
their  people  from  the  commission  of  this  crime. 

The  same  testimony  is  given  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hay- 
man,  a  Protestant  clergyman  writing  for  the  Fort- 
iiightly  Review,  October,  1886,  where  it  appears  that 
suicides  increased  in  Saxony  at  an  alarming  rate  be- 
tween 1881-86,  and  that  Saxony  and  Thuringia,  al- 
most exclusively  Protestant,  lead  the  world  in  this 
crime. 

He  says  : 

"  If  a  map  of  Europe  were  before  us,  shaded  in  proportion  to 
the  returns  of  known  vice  and  crime,  the  darkest  shadow  would 
seem  to  rest  exactly  where  the  boast  of  intellectual  light  is  great- 
est— in  Saxony,  the  very  shrine  of  modern  culture,  the  fortress  of 
'  free  thought.'  Most  portentous  of  all  is  the  bad  pre-eminence 
of  Saxony  to  suicide." 

Then  he  gives  a  comparative  table,  very  similar  to 
the  one  already  quoted  above,  prefaced  by  the  rates 
for  Saxony  and  Thuringia  : 

"  ANNUAL    AVERAGE    RATE     OF     SUICIDES     PER     MILLION    OF 
POPULATION. 

1874-8— Saxony, 33^ 

1874-8— Thuringia. 305 

He  adds: 

"From  1874-79  the  Saxon  suicides  increased  nearly  56  per 
cent.,  while  the  population  had  increased  only  7  per  cent.  To 
sum  up  the  ghastly  tale,  Saxony  is  said  to  have  reached  at  the  last 
census  408  suicides  per  million," 


496  Suicide. 


He  tells  us  also  that  in  this  same  ovenvhelmingh^ 
Protestant  countr}^ — 

"Criminals  punished  by  law  increased  as  follows: 

1871,       1872,       1873,       1874,        1875,        1876,        1877, 
11,001.     12,706.     13,089.    15,144.     16.318.    19,012.     21,319. 

"Of  these,  foul  assaults  upon  children  increased  by  918  per 
cent.,  criminals  under  eighteen  by  430  per  cent.,  and  r///A/ rr//;/- 
inah  by  100  per  cent." 

' '  Intellectual  light  is  greatest  in  Protestant  Sax- 
ony," is  it?  Well,  that  goes  to  show  the  truth  for 
which  Catholics  are  always  contending,  that  Educa- 
tion witho2it  the  true  religion  is  a  curse  instead  of  a 
blessifig. 

And  this  is  proved  not  only  by  what  highly  educated 
Protestant  Saxony  shows,  but  by  what  even  Catholic 
France  has  already  shown  by  the  late  rapid  increase 
of  crime,  and  especialh'  of  suicide,  following  upon  the 
.state  establishment  of  education  without  religion. 

A  distinguished  French  writer,  the  Vicomte  Eu- 
gene Melchior  de  Vogiie,  in  an  article  contributed 
to  Ha7-per' s  Magazine,  January,  1892,  thus  summar- 
ize.^ the  results  of  the  "New  Faith  in  Science": 

"  When  the  men  brought  up  in  this  new  current  of  thought 
arrived  in  power  they  neglected  nothing  in  order  to  realize  in  the 
Republic  the  ideal  of  their  youth  ;  they  imposed  the  heaviest  sac- 
rifices upon  the  state  for  the  purposes  of  popular  education 
with  the  conviction  that  they  were  at  last  going  to  annihilate 
Christianity,  and  convert  the  whole  nation  to  the  new  religion  of 
Science.  .  .  .  Above  all,  it  became  clear  from  too  evident 
social  symptoms  that  if  science  can  satisfy  some  very  distin- 
guished minds,  it  can  do  nothing  to  moralize  and  discipline  soci- 
ety :  criminal  statistics  loudly  f)roclai7ned  this  inefficacy.     .     .     . 


Suicide.  497 


At  the  very  moment  when  the  poHticians,  after  having  shaped 
society  to  their  mind,  were  celebrating  the  definite  emancipation 
of  man  by  science"  [the  mot  d'ordre  which  Protestantism  pro- 
claimed by  its  doctrine  of  private  judgment  ]  "  all  the  philosophi- 
cal and  literary  productions  of  the  young  manifested  gloomy 
despair.  They  replied  to  the  official  apotheosis  by  a  unanimous 
confession  of  impotence,  scepticism,  and  premature  lassitude. 
Clear-sighted  boys  analyzed  life  with  a  vigor  and  a  precision  un- 
known to  their  predecessors.  Having  analyzed  it  they  found  it 
bad,  they  even  turned  away  from  life  with  fear  and  horror.  We 
are  now  witnessing  this  singular  phenomenon.  While  our 
material  civilization  is  multiplying  its  prodigies,  and  placing  at 
the  disposal  of  men  all  the  forces  of  nature ;  while  that  civiliza- 
tion is  increasing  ten-fold  the  intensity  of  life  in  a  society  where 
life  offers  enjoyments  only  to  the  leisured  and  cultured  classes, 
behold  we  hear  sounding  on  the  peaks  of  intelligence  a  great 
cry  of  discouragement :  '  Beware  of  deceitful  nature,  fear  life, 
emancipate  yourself  from  life  !  '" 

The  French  infidel  and  the  Protestant  are  both 
driven  to  the  same  abyss  of  suicide  b}^  the  same  prin- 
ciple. 

The  rapid  increase  in  the  United  States  of  this 
hideous  crime  which  has  ever  been  held  as  "ac- 
cursed" in  the  sight  of  God  and  man,  the  deliberate 
commission  of  which  should  justly  doom  the  name  of 
the  malefactor  to  everlasting  infamy,  has  been  one  of 
the  many  alarming  evidences  amongst  us  of  the  popular 
loss  of  faith  in  God,  in  human  life  and  destiny. 

Aside  from  the  larger  number  of  those  who  are 
victims  to  the  logical  consequences  of  atheism  and  of 
the  principles  of  false  religious  doctrines,  we  see  not  a 
few  whose  suicide  is  plainly  traceable  to  the  influence 
of  our  madly  feverish  order  of  social  life,  both  in  its 
business   occupations  and  in  its  physically  enervating 


49^  Suicide. 


and  morally  polluting  amusements.  This  is  the  hellish 
work  of  one  of  those  infuriate  demons  summoned  from 
Pandemonium  to  accompan}-  its  march,  and  too  often 
suffered  to  direct  its  path,  by  our  boasted  secularist 
''  Progress,"  itself  suicidal  in  its  insane  self-deprivation 
of  the  heavenly  guidance  and  light  of  Christianity. 

Has  my  reader  never  heard  of  those  diabolical  asso- 
ciations known  as  Suicide  Clubs  ?  Has  he  ever  thought 
it  worth  his  w^hile  to  ask  in  w^hat  countries  they  are 
formed,  what  sort  of  persons  are  members  of  them,  and 
of  what  system  of  education  they  w^ere  pupils  w^ho  thus 
gamble  away  their  life  on  the  throw  of  a  die  ?  Is  mod- 
ern society  startled  into  dumb  horror  by  these  ghastly 
revelations  ?  No,  it  sits  at  its  ease  and  reads  the  last 
edition  of  the  Daily  Crimes,  wath  its  "  scare  "  headings 
of  the  latest  murders,  suicides,  robberies,  adulteries, 
sensational  divorces,  and  never  stops  to  ask  itself  the 
question,  Who  is  responsible?  Who  has  spoken  the 
word  of  death  to  these  despairing  self-destroyers  and 
made  the  Word  of  I^ife  of  none  effect  ? 


CHAPTER   XXXIV. 

ILLEGITIMACY. 

I  NOW  approach  a  subject  which,  in  spite  of  the 
truth  to  be  found  on  the  pages  of  every  reliable 
authority,  has  formed  the  basis  of  the  most  confidently 
asserted  charges  of  immorality  made  against  Catholic 
countries  by  the  defamers  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Their  unscrupulous  misrepresentations,  their  manipula- 
tion of  statistics,  are  something  almost  beyond  credence. 
Counter  evidence  clearly  disproving  their  charges  has 
been  brought  forward  again  and  again.  All  to  no  pur- 
pose. It  is  a  melancholy  truth,  but  a  notorious  one  : 
no  Protestant  slanderous  accuser  of  the  Catholic 
Church  that  I  ever  heard  of,  be  he  clergyman  or  lay- 
man, lecturer  or  editor,  has  ever  come  out  and  fairly 
acknowledged  that  his  accusations  were  unfounded  in 
fact,  although  they  were  proved  to  be  false  beyond 
all  cavil. 

What  has  already  been  shown  about  the  crime  of 
infanticide  would  lead  any  one  to  agree  that  even  on 
the  supposition  that  Protestant  and  Catholic  countries 
were  about  equal  in  the  sin  of  begetting  illegitimate 
children,  one  w^ould  surely  expect  to  find  in  the  statis- 
tical tables  a  vastly  greater  number  of  these  witnesses 
to  immorality  charged  to  Catholic  than  to  Protestant 
countries.  For,  as  has  been  already  proved,  Protest- 
ants kill  many  of  theirs,  and  Catholics,  with  rare  ex- 
ceptions, let  all  theirs  live.  So  that  one  could  say  too, 
that  such  being  the  case.  Catholic  countries  might,  in 

499 


500  Illegitimacy. 


fact,  be  a  great  deal  more  moral  in  this  respect  than 
Protestant  ones,  even  if  more  illegitimate  births  should 
be  reported  to  their  charge. 

But  are  more  reported  ?  If  there  are  not,  and  if  the}^ 
have  twice  as  many  children  as  Protestants  allow  them- 
selves to  have  of  any  sort,  as  is  w^ell  known,  then  one 
must  be  a  fool  not  to  see  whose  foot  this  dirty  shoe  fits. 

One  other  point  should  be  kept  in  mind,  viz.,  that 
where  prostitution  abounds  there  the  rate  of  illegiti- 
macy will  be  lowered.  A  low  rate  of  illegitimacy  will 
be  found  in  two  Protestant  countries  which  appear  as 
exceptions  to  the  general  rule  for  them.  There  is  a 
very  low^  rate  in  some  Catholic  countries  too.  In  which 
countries  prostitution  is  in  excess  will  be  shown  in  the 
chapter  on  that  subject.     Let  the  reader  compare  both. 

The  following  are  tables  taken  from  Mulhall,  Lef- 
fingwell,  and  the  Statesman's  Year  Book  for  1893; 
omitting  Switzerland,  there  being  no  special  statistics 
for  the  different  cantons  to  allow  a  comparison  to  be 
made  on  the  score  of  religion  : 


Illegitimacy 


SOI 


TABLES  OF  II^IvEGlTlMACY. 

TO    I.OOO   BIRTHS    HOW    MANY    WERE    ILLEGITIMA IE  ? 


Mulhall. 

Mulhall. 

Lejffingivell. 

Statesman'' s 

Catholic 

Average^ 

Average^ 

Average, 

Year  Book, 

Countries. 

1865-78. 

1887-88. 

1878-82. 

1893. 

Austria, 

135 

149 

143 

147 

Bavaria,  . 

130 

132 

142 

France, 

74 

82 

74 

86 
80 
82 

Hungary, 

71 

— 

— 

Belgium, 

71 

93 

77 

Italy, 

65 

75 

73 

70 

Portugal, 

56 

— 

— 

122 

Spain, 

5S 

' — 

— 

— 

Ireland, 

23 

29 

25 

27 

Protestant 

'     Countries. 

Saxony, 

143 

— 

127 

122 

Denmark, 

in 

100 

lOI 

100 

Sweden, 

102 

149 

lOI 

102 

Scotland, 

93 

83 

84 

76 

All  Germany, 

87 

95 

89 

91 

Norway, 

85 

79 

82 

68 

England  and  Wales, 

54 

46 

48 

42 

Holland,       . 

35 

32 

30 

1          31 

Taking  Mulhall' s  complete  table  of  averages  (1865- 
7<S),  I  offer  to  the  reader  the  same  results  presented  in 
another  form : 


here  is  i 

[  illegitimate 

Catholic 

There  is  i 

illegitimate 

Protestant 

tn 

every 

countries. 

in 

every 

countries. 

4347 

)irths  in 

Ireland 

28.57  births  in 

Holland 

18.03 

M          . 

Spain 

P 

igland  and 

17.85 

" 

Portugal 

19.51       ' 

Wales 

FS.38 

" 

Italy 

11.75      ' 

Norway 

14.08 

" 

Belgium 

11.59      ' 

Germany 

14.08 

.. 

Hungary 

10.74      ' 

Scotland 

13-36 

U                  i 

France 

9.80      ' 

Sweden 

7.69 

« 

Bavaria 

900      ' 

Denmark 

7.40 

<<        < 

Austria 

6.99      ' 

Saxony 

502 


Illegitimacy 


Why  Catholic  Austria  and  Bavaria  stand  so  high 
compared  with  other  Catholic  countries,  and  why  Eng- 
land, Wales,  and  Holland  stand  so  low  compared  with 
other  Protestant  countries,  will  be  explained  further  on : 

We  find  that  Sweden  has  been  increasing  very 
rapidly,  as  another  table  of  Mulhall  shows,  as  follows  : 


1 84 1  -60- 
1861-70 
1871-75 


■IllC! 


Per  1,000  births, 
itimates,     97 
105 
115 


Germany    I 
in  Mulhall  savs   of 


GERMANY. 
Having    some    more  minute  details  for 
present    them.     An    official    ta" 
Germany  : 

For  46  years  en  din g  1886. 
Illegitimates  in  every  1,000  Catholic  births,       58 
Illegitimates  in  every  1,000  Protestant  births,  85 

In  his  Moralstatistik,  Krlangen,  1868,  a  Protestant 
German  sociologist,  Von  Oettingen,  published  statistics 
from  which  Von  Hammerstein,  in  his  Edgar,  compiles 
the  following  comparative  table  : 

PERCENTAGE   OF    ILLEGITIMATE   BIRTHS. 


1S62.       , 

1863. 

1864. 

Total. 

Districts. 

1 

Cath. 

Prot. 

Cath.  ;  Prot. 

Cath. 

Prot. 

Cath. 

Prot. 

Rhine  Prov's, 

3.53 

3.62- 

3.61 

,3.58 

3-67 

3.58 

3.60 

3-59 

Westphalia,  . 

3-15 

4.11 

3.33 

4.42 

3.35 

4.18 

if 

425 

Posen,     . 

6.40 

7.01 

6.79 

7.62 

6.83 

7.06 

6.67 

7-32 

Prussia,  . 

6.85 

9-31 

7.29 

973 

7.45 

9.67 

7.20 

9-57 

Saxony,  . 

6.II 

9.67 

6.57 

10.31 

6.04 

10.34 

6.24 

10.11 

Pomerania,    . 

9-77 

9.68 

948 

IO-35 

9-77 

10.36 

9.67 

10.13 

Brandenburg, 

7.71 

11.49 

8.36 

12.15 

8.41 

II. 51 

8.16 

11.72 

Schleswig,      . 

9.16 

13-04 

10.13 

14.12 

10.07 

13-57 

9.76 

13.58 

The   whole  / 
1     Kingdom.  \ 

5.96 

9.58 

6.40 

10.18 

6-39 

10.01 

6.25 

9-93 

Illegitimacy,  503 

The  foregoing  table  gives  brilliant  and  convincing 
evidence  of  the  superior  moral  influence  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  showing  precisely  the  same  comparative  re- 
sults for  illegitimacy  in  these  German  countries  as 
Mulhall  noted  for  suicides  in  the  Protestant  and  Catho- 
lic cantons  of  Switzerland.  That  is,  in  strongly  Catho- 
lic provinces,  such  as  the  Rhine  Provinces,  Westphalia, 
and  Posen,  Protestants  are  much  less  guilty  of  this 
sin  than  where  their  own  religion  is  dominant.  For 
like  reason  Catholics  are  much  more  liable  to  this 
species  of  immoralit}^  in  the  strongly  Protestant  prov- 
inces of  Prussia,  _S5.xony,  Pomerania,  Brandenburg, 
and  Schleswng  than  in  their  own.  The  copy-book 
proverb  applies  also  to  this  case — "Evil  communica- 
tions corrupt    good  morals,"  and  vice  versa. 

ENGLAND   AND    vSCOTLAND. 

Much  unreported  illegitimacy  and  the  prevalence 
of  the  social  evil  both  go  far  to  help  out  murderous 
abortion,  and  not  a  little  of  the  infanticide  sheltered 
under  the  title  of  "  still  births,"  in  enabling  Protestant 
countries,  and  especially  England,  Wales,  Scotland, 
and  Holland,  to  make  a  tolerably  decent  show  for 
illegitimacy  in  the  general  table  of  statistics. 

In  London  and  other  English  cities  many  illegiti- 
mates are  not  likely  to  be  reported  as  such  because 
no  demand  is  made  upon  parents,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  birth,  to  show  their  marriage  certificate.  It 
is  taken  for  granted  that  people  who  live  together 
in  outward  respectability  are  legally  married.  Let 
us  see  if  we  can  furnish  any  facts  going  to  show 
that   the   real    rate  of    illegitimacy   in   those   countries 


504  Illegitimacy, 

should  be  higher  than  reported  in  the  tables  already 
given. 

The  vScottish  Registrar  General  deplored  the  '  *  ex- 
cessive incontinence"  of  Scotland  thirty-three  years 
ago.  He  said  then  that  "  immorality  was  not  confined 
to  the  humbler  classes"  {Times,  November  26,  i860). 
Another  authority  quoted  in  the  Times  (July  17,  1858) 
declares  that  "  nearly  every  tenth  Scotsman  was  a  bas- 
tard," and  speaking  of  the  coimtry  districts,  he  says  that 
"  it  is  the  exception  and  not  the  rule  if  a  master  has  not 
been  chargeable,  some  time  or  other,  with  corrupting 
those  under  him."  ^ 

Dr.  Leffingwell,  in  his  monograph  on  Illegitimacy, 
gives  some  tables  worth  repeating.  The  first  gives  the 
number  of  illegitimates  per  thousand  births  in  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland  for  twelve  years  (i 878-1 889). 
This  table  shows,  as  he  says,  that  "year  after  year, 
of  each  i  ,000  births  in  Scotland  there  are  almost  twice 
as  many  illegitimate  as  in  P^^ngland  and  Wales,  and 
more  than  three  times  as  many  as  in  Ireland."  He 
then  asks  these  questions  : 

"  Is  the  peasant  mother  of  Ireland  more  soHcitous  for  the 
chastity  of  her  daughters  than  her  sisterhood  of  Scotland  and 
England?  Are  the  prece})ts  of  virtue  more  highly  prized  and 
effectively  inculcated  in  the  mud  cabins  of  Mayo  than  beneath 
the  thatched  roof  of  the  Highland  cotter  ?  Is  superior  virtue  the 
result  of  education  ?  Why,  the  Irish  peasantry  are  steeped  in 
ignorance  [?]  as  compared  with  the  laboring  population  of  North 
Britain.  Shall  we  infer  that  \  ice  and  poverty  go  hand-in-hand  ? 
But  an  Englishman  would  not  kennel  his  dogs  in  such  cabins 
as  I  have  seen  in  Achill  and  Western  Ireland.  Can  it  be  the 
effect  of  religious  training?  But  Scotland  rejoices  in  the  open 
Bible  and  the  right  to  private  judgment;  while  Ireland  sub- 
mits her  conscience  to  the  control  of  her  priesthood  and  the 
guidance  of  an  Infallible  Church." 


Illegitimacy,  505 


I  think  the  reader  might  be  able  to  answer  Dr.  Lef- 
fingwell  any  or  all  of  these  quevStions  of  his.  Here  is  a 
table  showing  the  average  illegitimacy  in  the  English 
counties  and  in  North  Wales,  given  by  the  same  writer  : 

Table    III.    (page    15). — To    1,000    Blrths    in    different 
SECTIONS  OF   England   and  Wales,  how  many  were 

ILLEGITIMATE   DURING    A    PERIOD    OF    lO   YEARS? 

Divisioiis  and  \o  years,       Divisions  and  lo  years, 

counties.  average,  counties.  average. 

Shropshire 82  Devonshire, 47 

Cumberland,      ....  76  Somerset 43 

Hereford 76  Hampshire, 43 

Norfolk, 74  Kent, 43 

Westmoreland,       ...  70  Surrey, 40 

North  Wales 69  All  England,      ....  48 

Table  VHI.   (page   31). — City    and    Country:      To    1,000 
Births  how  many  were  illegitimate? 

Cities.  1889.  Country  districts. 

London,    ....     ...     38  North  Wales,    ....  71 

Birmingham 45  Westmoreland,      ...  72 

Liverpool, 58  Cumberland 79 

Shropshire, 79 

In  all  Catholic  countries  the  cities  show  a  larger  rate 
of  illegitimacy  than  the  country  districts.  In  Protest- 
ant countries  it  is  just  the  reverse.  This  is  evidently 
to  the  credit  of  the  Catholic  religion,  the  results  of 
whose  virtuous  influence  is  thus  exhibited  where  that 
influence  can  be  brought  more  directly  to  bear  upon 
the  mass  of  people  and  where  the  social  restraints  are 
so  much  stronger ;  and  it  is  for  the  same  reason  to  the 
discredit  of  the  influence  of  Protestantism,  that  it  fails 
to  reach  the  same  class  of  people  where,  if  it  had  any 
power  at  all,  such  influence  ought  to  be  manifest. 


So6 


Illegitimacy. 


I^et  us  see  the  condition  of  the  country  districts  of 
Scotland.     Dr.  Leffingwell  gives  this  table  : 


Table  IV.  (page  i6). — Of  each  i.ooo  Births  in  die 
PARTS  OF  Scotland,  how  many  were  illegitim 


lo  counties  having 
a  low  rate  of 
illegitimacy. 

Ross  and  Cromart 

Shetland  Isles, 

Dumbarton, 

Renfrew,      .     . 

Orkney  Isles,    . 

Bute,    .... 

Stirling,    .     .     . 

Sutherland,  .     . 

Fife,     .... 

Lanark,     .     .     , 


Average  for 
lo  vears^ 
1876-85. 

47 

52 

54 

59 
62 
66 
66 
68 
68 
69 


10  comities  having 
a  high  rate  of 
illegititnacy. 

Nairn,     .     .  . 

Roxburgh,  .  . 

Caithness,  .  . 

Kincardine, 

Aberdeen,  .  . 

Kirkcudbright, 

Dumfries,    .  . 

Elgin,      .     .  . 

Wigtown,    .  . 

Banff,      .     .  . 


Av 


FERENT 

ATE  .- 

era gc  for 

\0  vears, 

1876-85. 

106 

108 

108 

125 

146 

153 
158 
164 


What  now  is  to  be  thought  of  the  reliability  of  the 
figures  given  for  Scotland,  high  as  it  is,  and  for  the 
comj^aratively  low  figures  for  England  and  Wales,  as 
found  in  the  general  tables  of  Mulhall,  Lefhngwell,  and 
the  Statesnia?i's   Year  Book? 

What  becomes  of  these  illegitimate  children?  In  all 
Catholic  countries  everything  is  done  to  give  them  an 
equal  chance  for  life  with  legitimate  children,  and  the 
merciful  refuge  of  the  foundling  asylum  is  there  to 
receive  those  who  would  otherwise  suffer  death  or  cruel 
abandonment  on  the  highway,  as  is  the  case  in  Protest- 
ant countries.     Let  us  hear  Dr.  Leffingwell  again : 

"  h\  Christian  England  the  chance  of  living  for  the  illegitimate 
child  is  far  less  than  for  others.  In  1875  the  Registrar  General 
pointed  out  that  while  the  death-rate  of  legitimate  children 
during  the  first   year  of   life  was    about    205    per    1,000,  that  of 


Illegitimacy  §07 


illegitimate  was  more  than  twice  as  great,  or  418    per  1,000,  as 
exhibited  in  the  following  table  "  : 

Table  XVI.    (page  70).— To   1,000  Infants  born  of   each 

CLASS,   HOW   MANY   DIED   UNDER   ONE  YEAR?    (1875.) 
Towns.  Legitimate.         Illegitimate. 

Preston,         .... 

Liverpool 

Nottingham, 

Radford,       .... 

Driffield,        .... 

Twelve  other  districts, 

Stratford-upon-Avon-, 
Scotland  (1873-75) : 

Glasgow,       .... 


214 

448 

205 

418 

191 

365 

187 

547 

168 

596 

97 

293 

69 

239 

49  to 

154 

277  to  293 

The  Registrar  General  tells  us  liow  these  children 
die:  "They  are  suffocated,  drowned,  poisoned,  stran- 
gled, scalded,  burned  alive!"  In  a  note  the  author 
quotes  Dr.  Sorensen's  Infant  Mortality  in  De7i7nark  to 
show  that  in  that  Protestant  country  there  is  the  same 
proportion  of  deaths  of  illegitimates  as  there  is  in 
England  and  Scotland. 

AUvSTRIA  AND  BAVARIA. 

Notmg  the  high  figures  for  Catholic  Austria  and 
Bavaria,  Dr.  Ivefhngwell  expresses  surprise,  they  being 
Catholic  countries,  and,  not  knowing  the  real  cause,  he 
is  induced  to  draw  the  hasty  conclusion  that  the  test  of 
religion  in  this  matter  does  not  show  the  superiority  of 
morals  in  favor  of  the  Catholic  Church,  a  conclusion 
which  he  evidently  would  not  have  made  had  he  found 
these  two  Catholic  countries  showing,  in  common  with 
Ireland  and  other  countries  under  strong  Catholic  in- 
fluence, a  generally  lower  rate  than  Protestant  ones. 


§o8  Illegitimacy. 


Here  is  the  explanation  of  Dr.  Leffingwell's  apparent 
"paradox."  I^egal  marriage  is  practically  forbidden 
to  great  numbers  in  German  Austria  and  Bavaria.  No 
person  in  Austria  can  niarr}-  if  he  does  not  know  how  to 
read,  write,  and  cipher.  In  both  Austria  and  Bavaria 
a  man  must  show  that  he  possesses  a  sum  of  money 
quite  out  of  the  reach  of  a  great  many  before  he  can  get 
a  license  to  marry.  Of 'course  they  marry  all  the  same, 
secretly,  but  as  the}^  cart  show  no  license,  all  their  chil- 
dren go  doicn  Oil  the  state  records  as  illegitimate  (Church 
and  the  World,  i86y,  art.  "  A  (Protestant)  Layman's 
View  of  Confession  " ) . 

This  last-named  writer  very  justly  remarks  that 
' '  these  countries  ought  to  be  excepted  from  the 
average." 

It  is  surprising  that  Dr.  Lefhngwell  should  have  for- 
gotten that  he  himself  had  given  these  facts  about  the 
obstacles  to  legal  marriage  in  Bavaria  (which  is  getting 
better  in  figures  for  "  legitimacy  "  now  those  laws  are 
partly  relaxed),  and  had  also  cited  a  reliable  French 
authority  to  show  that  there  were  similar  obstacles  in 
France  and  Italy.     He  says  : 

"  Dr.  Bertillon  estimated  that  in  Paris  there  are  probably  no 
less  than  80,000  homes  where  parents  are  hving  in  harmony,  and 
educating  their  children,  married  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  ex- 
cept that  they  refuse  [or  rather,  neglect,  as  is  generally  the  case 
with  such  bad-living  Catholics]  to  obtain  the  sanction  of  either 
Church  or  State.  But  their  children  are  illegitimate.  In  Italy, 
another  and  very  sad  phase  of  illegitimacy  is  the  result  of  the 
present  struggle  between  Church  and  State.  To  the  pious  Catho- 
lic marriage  is  a  sacrament,  which  needs  no  sanction  from  human 
government  to  make  it  valid.  But  in  the  eye  of  the  law  marriage 
is  simply  a  civil  registration.  Unfortunately  hundreds  of  poor 
girls  have  relied   solely  on  the    religious  marriage,  only  to    find 


Illegitimacy.  509 


themselves  mothers  of  bastard  children,  whose  legal  rights  the  law 
cannot  acknowledge  "  (pp.  45,  46).* 

And  of  course  all  these  countries,  Austria,  Bavaria, 
France,  and  Italy,  get  the  benefit  of  displaying  a  higher 
figure  of  illegitimacy  and  giving  themselves  a  worse 
name  on  the  score  of  morality  than  they  deserve. 

When  the  reader  examines  the  whole  table  he  will 
see  very  plainly  why  Protestant  controversialists,  and 
especially  those  decidedly  "on  slander  bent,"  always 
quote  with  a  flourish  of  trumpets  the  high  figures 
against  France,  Austria-Hungary,  and  Bavaria  in  or- 
der to  make  some  plausible  show  of  evidence  for  their 
charges.  "These  notable  facts,"  say  they,  "give  us 
the  basis  of  a  certain  judgment  against  the  efficacy  of 
Romanism  to  restrain  vice  and  immorality  when  com- 
pared with  Protestantism."  Which  remark,  I  may  say, 
will  afford  to  the  present  reader  the  basis  of  a  justifiably 
hearty  laugh  at  the  expense  of  such  poorly  armed  ad- 
versaries of  "Romanism." 

IRELAND. 

Dr.  Iveifingwell  gives  a  very  suggestive  table  com- 
paring the  illegitimacy  in  England,  Wales,  and  vScot- 
land  with  Ireland  : 


*This  is  affected  sympathy  for  the  "poor  girls."  Dr.  Bertillon  could 
hardly  be  ignorant  that  every  Catholic  girl  knows  she  is  truly  married 
when  the  religious  ceremony  takes  place,  and  that  her  children  cannot  be 
"bastards"  in  any  sense  but  that  of  a  legal  fiction  in  countries  where  the 
civil  marriage  is  required  and  not  performed. 


5IO 


Illegitimacy. 


Table  V.  (page  19).  To  each  1,000  unmarried  Women 
(Spinsters  and  Widows)  between  the  Ages  of  15- 
45 :  how  many  illegitimate  Children  were  born 
annually  from  1878  TO  1887? 


Country. 

Rate  of 
Illegitimacy. 

Proportionate  Scale. 

Ireland, 
England  ) 
and      \ 
Wales,    ) 
Scotland, 

4.4 
14.0 
21.5 

— ■ 

So  it  seems  that  ultra  Protestant  Scotland  produced 
five    times  as    many  illegitimates  as  Catholic    Ireland. 

But  Ireland  itself  is  not  all  Catholic,  and  here  is  a 
chance  to  make  the  same  sharp  crucial  moral  test  on 
illegitimacy  as  was  made  in  Switzerland  on  suicide, 
comparing  the  people  of  the  same  race  and  nation  under 
different  religious  influences. 

The  same  writer  contrasts  the  Catholic  county  of 
Mayo  (Connaught)  with  the  Protestant  county  of 
Down   r Ulster)  : 


Total  illegitimates         To  i,ooo 
for  10  years,  1879-88.         births. 


Connaught, 
Ulster,     . 


322 
3,084 


5.6 
51.1 


That  is,  Protestant  Irishmen  are  ten  times  as  im- 
moral as  Catholic  Irishmen,  their  next-door  neighbors. 
Probably,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Switzerland  suicides, 
what  few  Protestants  there  are  in  Connaught  have 
fewer  illegitimate  children  from  living  under  the  pure 
and  high  moral  influence  of  the  prevailing  Catholic  re- 
ligion, and  what   Catholics   there   are  in   Ulster  have 


Illegitimacy.  5  ^  ^ 


more  illegitimate  children  from  living  in  a  Protestant 
atmosphere,  than  they  would  have  had  if  living  out  of  it. 
In  the  Deny  (Irish)  Journal,  March  19,  1894,  I  find 
another  remarkable  contrast  noted  between  the  Catholic 
city  of  Dublin  and  the  Protestant  one  of  Belfast  : 

In  Dublin  one  birth  in  42  is  illegitimate. 
In  Belfast  one  birth  in  21  is  illegitimate. 

That  is,  the  illegitimate  births  in  Protestant  Belfast 
exceed  those  in  Catholic  Dublin  by  100  per  cent. 

And  still  another  evidence  that  if  the  Irish  Catholics 
are  poor  they  are  "honest,"  as  they  say  in  Ireland, 
meaning  by  honest,  chaste.  The  proportion  of  mar- 
riages in  Ireland  to  population  is  about  one-half  of  the 
number  in  many  other  European  countries.  A  low  rate 
of  marriage  ought  naturally  to  result  in  increased 
illegitimacy.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  Ireland  has  the 
lowest  rate  of  this  evidence  of  immorality  of  all  countries  in 
the  world!  I  salute  you,  chivalrous  sons  and  chaste 
daughters  of  Erin  !  ye  honor  the  land  that  gave  you 
birth,  and  bear  glorious  testimony  to  the  pure  and  holy 
doctrine  of  your  faith,  to  which  you  have  been  so 
marvellously  true.  No  New  York  "Social  Purity 
Eeague  "  need  send  any  missionaries  to  j-ou  1 

HOLLAND. 

But  my  Protestant  reader  may  still  point  with  proud 
assurance  to  the  low  figure  of  only  35  or  less  per  1,000 
for  Holland  ;  not  so  very  far  above  even  Ireland,  chaste 
queen  of  the  world.  Well,  let  us  see  how  it  is  in  Hol- 
land.    We  will  first  hear  a  Protestant  English  writer: 

"  Here  a  few  words  on  the  unhappy  reason  why  London  and 
other   large  towns  of    Great    Britain  and  also    Holland   are  (ap- 


5 1 2  Illegitimacy. 


parently)  comparatively  moral  in  this  respect.  .  .  .  The 
urban  population  of  Great  Britain  appears  to  be,  what  most 
certainly  it  is  not,  comparatively  pure,  the  rural  the  most  cor- 
rupt; whilst  on  the  Continent  the  reverse  is  evident.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  this  difference  is  owing-  to  the  prevalence  of 
what  is  justly  called  the  '  social  evil ' ;  to  the  license — it  may,  in 
truth,  be  called  ejicotiragemcnt — which,  in  the  populous  districts 
of  this  country,  and  notoriously  in  Holland,  is  given  to  public 
prostitution.  Of  course  there  will  be  no  illegitimacy  among 
Mohammedans  and  Hindoos,  in  Japan  and  China,  or  the  African 
tribes,  nor  also  among  those  who  live  in  much  the  same  mode  " 
(J.  D.  Chambers,  (Protestant)  Recorder  of  Salisbury,  The  Church 
and  the   World,  1867,  page  390). 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  rate  of  illegitimacy 
in  England  would  be  higher  but  for  the  prevalence,  not 
only  of  the  social  evil  but  of  infanticide.  But  where 
is  there  any  evidence  leading  to  the  belief  that  this 
latter  crime  is  committed  to  any  notable  extent  in  Hol- 
land? 

The  Statesman' s  Year  Book  (1893),  from  which  I 
have  frequentl}^  quoted,  contains  for  nearly  every 
country  a  table  of  vital  statistics,  often  for  several 
years.  These  tables  are  entitled  "Movement  of  the 
Population,"  and  give  total  numbers  for  annual  births, 
illegitimates,  still-births,  deaths,  and  marriages.  Ex- 
amining these  tables,  and  comparing  one  with  the 
other,  I  was  led  to  note  the  proportion  of  illegitimate 
to  still-born — that  is,  children  reported  as  "born  dead." 
I  obser\^ed  that,  in  general,  the  higher  the  percentage 
reported  for  illegitimacy  the  lower  is  the  percentage  of 
still-born.  A  very  suggestive  fact,  which  goes  very 
far  towards  explaining  (besides  other  reasons  already 
assigned)  the  very  high  percentage  of  illegitimacy 
attributed  to  Catholic  Austria,  Hungary,  and  Bavaria, 


Illegitimacy.  5 1 3 


and  the  singularly  low  percentage  credited  to  Protestant 
Holland.  There  are  no  reports  of  still-born  children 
for  Great  Britain,  which  is  to  be  regretted,  as  it 
would  probably  throw  additional  light  upon  the  rate 
of  illegitimacy  accorded  to  England.  Now,  what  do 
we  find  is  the  proportion  of  illegitimates  in  Holland 
to  the  still-born?  The  figures  I  am  going  to  use  are 
the  annual  average  for  five  years  : 

Holland — Illegitimates,  4,825 
Still-born,        7,540 

A  condition  of  things  altogether  unique,  there  being 
no  other  country  in  the  world  where  the  still-born 
are  even  equal  in  number  to  the  illegitimates,  but 
are  one-half,  one-third,  one-quarter,  .  or  one-fifth  in 
number  of  the  latter.  One  naturally  asks  the  ques- 
tion. How  does  it  happen  that  Holland  should  be  so 
singularly  distinguished  for  this  unusual  proportion 
of  still-born  children  to  illegitimates  ?  The  Dutch 
women  are  notoriously  strong  and  healthy. 

The  question  becomes  still  more  pertinent  when  we 
come  to  compare  the  proportion  of  these  classes  in 
Protestant  Holland,  charged  with  only  35  illegitimates, 
to  the  1,000  births,  with  Catholic  Austria  (135  to 
1,000)  ;  Bavaria  (130  to  1,000)  ;  and  Hungary  (71 
to  1,000). 

Here  are  the  annual  averages  for  all  these  countries  : 


Austria, 
Bavaria, 
Hungary, 

Holland,         ....  4.825  1  ,l\o 


Illegitimates. 

Still-born. 

135.571 

26,230 

28,598 

6,697 

61,730 

13-363 

514  Illegitimacy, 


I  find   that  in   his   official  tables   of  vital   statistics 
Mulhall  gives  the  still-births  thus  : 

Austria, 23,600      Hungary, 11,800 

Bavaria, 7,000      Holland, l,!^*^ 

which  figures  would  make  it  all  the  better  for  the  Cath- 
olic countries,  and  the  worse  for  Holland.  In  order  the 
better  to  show  the  reader  the  results  of  this  enormous 
discrepancy  between  these  countries  I  will  present  the 
figures  for  the  illegitimates  and  still-born  of  Holland 
as  they  ought  to  be,  supposing  that  they  are  brought  to 
the  same  proportion  between  these  classes  as  there  is, 
for  example,  in  Austria.  Here  are  the  two  propor- 
tions with  results : 

AUSTRIA.  HOLLAND. 


Illegitimates.  Still-born.  Illegitimates.       Still-born. 

As     135,571     are     to       26,230     so     are      4,825      to        930 

That  is,  if  the  figures  for  illegitimates  are  correct, 
there  ought  to  be  only  930  still-births  annually  in  Hol- 
land;    but  there  are  in  fact  7,540! 

And  again  : 

AUSTRIA.  HOLLAND. 


Still-born.  Illegitimates.  Still-born.     Illegitimates. 

As       26,230     are     to      135,571     so     are     7,540     to     38,974 

That  is,  if  the  figures  for  the  still-born  are  correct, 
there  ought  to  be  38,974  illegitimates  annually  in 
Holland,  but  there  are  reported  only  4,825! 

That  would  run  up  the  rate  of  Holland  above  any 
other  country  in  the  world,  viz.:  258  illegitimates  per 
1,000  births  ! 


Illegitimacy.  5  1 5 


Now,  taking  into  consideration  the  fact  that  these 
three  Catholic  countries,  Austria,  Bavaria,  and  Hun- 
gary, are  among  the  few  which  have  the  smallest  num- 
ber of  still-births  in  proportion  to  their  illegitimates,  it 
does  not  take  a  very  wise  man  to  divine  that  they 
let  all  their  illegitimates  live '  which  have  a  chance 
for  life.  They  do  not  commit  the  crime  of  murder  to 
cover  up  the  shame  of  their  birth,  and  then  report 
them  as  "  stili-born."  What  number  of  still-births 
ought  Austria  to  show  compared  with  her  illegitimates 
if  the  proportion  were  the  same  as  it  is  in  Holland  ? 
Instead  of  26,230,  the  figures  would  then  be  212,063. 
The  reader  has  some  points  for  reflection. 

SWEDEN  AND  NORWAY. 

If  any  Protestant  country  ought  to  show  what  are  the 
fruits  of  the  prevailing  religion,  it  is  Sweden.  Mr. 
Laing,  the  Scotch  traveller,  gives  this  account  of  it : 

"  It  is  a  singular  and  embarrassing  fact,  that  the  Swedish 
nation,  isolated  from  the  mass  of  European  people,  and  almost 
entirely  agricultural  or  pastoral,  having  in  about  3,000,000  of  indi- 
viduals only  14,925  employed  in  manufactories,  and  these  not 
congregated  in  one  or  two  places,  but  scattered  among  2,037 
factories ;  a  country  having  no  great  standing  army  or  navy,  no 
external  commerce,  no  afflux  of  strangers,  no  considerable  city 
but  one,  and  having  schools  and  universities  in  a  fair  propor- 
tion, and  a  powerful  and  complete  church  establishment,  undis- 
turbed in  its  labors  by  sect  or  schism,  is,  notwithstanding,  /;/  a 
more  demoralized  state  than  any  nition  in  Europe.  This  is  a 
very  curious  fact  in  moral  statistics  "  {A  Tour  in  Swede7i  in 
1838). 

Readers  who  have  carefully  examined  the  evidence 
given   in   this  book    have    probably  come    to  the  con- 


5 1 6  Illegitimacy, 

elusion  that  this  immoral  condition  of  Protestant  Swe- 
den is  not  a  singular  or  curious  fact.  Mr.  Laing 
goes  on  to  prove  what  he  asserts  by  citing  official 
reports  in  evidence,  giving  statistics  of  such  an 
enormous  amount  of  crime  that  it  sums  up  seven- 
fold greater  than  the  record  in  England.  He  shows 
that  the  proportion  of  illegitimate  to  legitimate  chil- 
dren, for  all  Sweden,  is  as  one  to  fourteen  ;  and  fcr 
the  one  great  city,  the  capital,  Stockholm,  it  is  one  to 
two  and  three-tenths  !  and  in  the  same  city  one  out  of 
every  forty-nine  of  the  inhabitants  is  annually  con- 
victed of  some  criminal  offence ! 

An  attempt  at  explanation  was  made  by  the  Swedish 
government.  This  drew  from  Mr.  Laing  a  Reply,  in 
which  he  quotes  the  country's  ow^n  vouched- for  sta- 
tistics and  says : 

"The  divorces  this  year  (1838)  were  147;  the  suicides,  172. 
Of  the  2,714  children  born  in  Stockhohn  that  year,  1,577  were 
legitimate  and  1,137  illegitimate,  making  a  balance  of  only  440 
chaste  mothers  out  of  2,714,  and  the  proportion  of  illegitimate  to 
legitimate  children,  not  as  one  to  two  and  three-tenths  as  pre- 
viously stated,  but  as  one  to  one  and  a  half !  " 

Of  Norway  the  other  Protestant  tourist,  Robert 
Bremner,  in  his  Excursions  in  Denmark,  Norway,  and 
Sweden,  bears  similar  testimony  about  that  country. 

DENMARK. 

If  religion  has  any  influence  in  promoting  morality 
one  looks,  of  course,  for  favorable  results  more  among 
the  country  people  than  in  crowded  cities.  This  evi- 
dence of  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion  is  seen  in 
all  Catholic  countries,  and  the  contrary  is  the  case  in 


Illegitimacy.  5 1  / 


Protestant  ones,  as  has  been  already  noted.     Protestant 
Denmark  is  no  exception. 
Here  is  the  proof: 

"  With  regard  to  the  peasant  population  of  the  rural  districts 
...  it  was  found  that  of  a  hundred  first-born  children  no  less 
than  thirty-nine  were  born  under  seven  months  after  marriage, 
to  which  must  be  added  nine  (9)  per  cent,  born  between  seven 
and  nine  months  after  marriage.  A  great  number  of  the  brides 
who  were  not  pregnant  at  marriage  had  already  had  illegitimate 
children  with  the  bridegroom  or  others;  so  that  it  may  proba- 
bly be  assumed  that  in  two-thirds  of  the  marriages  (^childless 
marriages  excepted^  the  bride  had  had  children  while  unmar- 
ried, or  was  pregnant  at  the  marriage  "  (  Westergaard  on  Mar- 
riage Statistics  0/  Denmark,  Copenhagen.  Translation  furnished 
to  Seventh  International  Congress  of  Hygiene  and  Demography). 

The  foregoing  evidences  concerning  Illegitimacy 
make  a  bad  showing  for  the  moral  influence  of  Protest- 
antism. And  lest  the  reader  to  whom  these  facts  are 
new  may  imagine  I  have  kept  back  information  on  this 
subject  that  might  be  damaging  to  the  character  of 
Catholicism,  I  wish  to  assert  right  here  that  so  far  as 
my  examination  of  the  authorities  quoted  or  as  my 
reading  of  any  other  authors  has  brought  to  my  notice 
any  facts  or  inferences  derogatory  to  the  influence  of 
the  Catholic  religion,  I  have  found  nothing  to  defend 
or  palliate  other  than  what  I  have  already  placed  upon 
these  pages.  If  anything  of  this  nature  has  escaped 
my  scrutiny,  no  doubt  other  eyes  will  find  it ;  but  from 
what  lies  before  us  in  the  way  of  evidence  on  these 
pages  there  certainly  does  not  appear  to  be  room  for 
much  promise  of  probable  counter  charges  of  any 
weight. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

GENERAI.   IMMORALITY. 

CHILDREN  born  after  marriage,  no  matter  how 
soon,  are  not  counted  as  illegitimate — that  is, 
unlawful — but  who  shall  say  that  their  conception  was 
not  immoral  f  Suppose  that  this  is  so  largel}^  prevalent 
in  a  country  or  district  that  even  the  Protestant  clergy- 
men should  testif}'  that  they  "never,"  or  for  a  long 
term  of  years  ' '  do  not  remember  an  instance  of  their 
having  married  a  woman  who  was  not  either  pregnant 
at  the  time  of  her  marriage  or  had  had  one  or  more 
children  before  her  marriage,"  can  any  one  doubt  the 
depraved  state  of  morals    in  such  places  ? 

We  have  just  seen  in  the  last  chapter  what  a  de- 
moralized condition  of  things  in  this  respect  is  reported 
for  Denmark.  .  .  .  Let  us  hear  some  evidence  upon 
the  same  subject  for  England  and  Wales. 

ENGLAND. 

In  a  former  chapter  I  directed  the  reader's  attention 
to  some  evidence  of  the  wretched  character  of  the 
dwellings  of  the  poor  and  of  the  working  classes 
generally  in  England  (see  pp.  28-30).  Mr.  Joseph 
Kay,  in  his  work,  The  Social  Condition  and  Education 
of  the  English  People  (American  edition.  Harper 
Brothers) ,  devotes  nearly  a  hundred  pages  to  this  sub- 
ject alone,  relating  facts  of  his  own  observation  and 
from  other  e3^e-witnesses  of  the  most  horrifying  char- 
acter.    After  reading  the  revolting  descriptions  one  can 

518 


General  Immorality.  5 1 9 

hardl}'  make  up  one's  mind  which  class  suffered  the 
most  in  this  respect,  the  laborers  and  operatives  in 
cities  and  towns  or  the  peasantry  in  the  country  dis- 
tricts. If  these  pages  of  Kay's  book  were  read  before 
an  audience  in  any  Catholic  country,  or,  say,  in  the 
United  States,  the  names  of  places,  persons,  and  evi- 
dence being  omitted,  I  do  not  think  the  listeners  could 
imagine  of  what  barbarous  country  or  of  what  degraded 
and  savage  people  the  facts  related  could  be  true. 
Indeed,  I  feel  quite  sure  that  but  a  few  persons  would 
readily  believe  there  was  any  truth  at  all  in  the 
narrative. 

What  I  have  already  quoted  from  reliable  authori- 
ties sufficed  at  the  time  to  show  how  greatly  the  poor 
and  laboring  classes  had  come  to  suffer  in  Protestant 
England  in  their  means  of  shelter.  What  is  of  pain- 
ful interest  in  considering  the  present  subject  is  the 
gross  immorality  to  which  all  investigators  have  called 
attention  as  resulting  from  the  overcrowding  of  the 
wretched  people  of  all  ages  and  sexes  in  the  miserable 
dens,  whether  cellars  in  towns  or  cottages  in  the 
country,  within  which  they  are  forced  to  pass  at  least 
the  hours  of  the  night.  The  following  description  of 
the  character  of  the  "  cellar"  dens  in  towns,  as  given 
by  Kay,  is  an  average  specimen  of  those  and  other 
dwellings  of  the  poor  in  many  English  counties  for 
which  he  giv-es  special  details : 

"  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  two  and  three,  and  sometimes 
for  four  families  to  live  and  sleep  together  in  one  room  without 
any  division  or  separation  whatever  for  the  different  famihes  or 
sexes.  There  are  very  few  cellars  where  at  least  two  families  do 
not  herd  together  in  this  manner.  Their  beds  are  made  some- 
times   of   a   mattress   and  sometimes    of    straw    in    the    corners 


5  2  o  Gen  era  I  Im  morality. 

of  the  cellar  and  upon  the  clamp,  cold,  flag  floor;  and  m 
those  miserable  sleeping  places  the  father,  mother,  sons,  and 
(laughters  crowd  together  in  a  state  of  filthy  indecency, 
and  much  worse  off  than  the  horses  in  an  ordinary  stable. 
No  distinction  of  sex  and  age  is  made.  Sometimes  a  man 
is  found  sleeping  with  one  woman,  sometimes  with  two 
women,  and  sometimes  with  young  girls ;  sometimes  brothers 
and  sisters  of  the  age  of  i8,  19,  and  20  are  found  in  bed  together  ; 
while  at  other  times  a  husband  and  wife  share  their  bed  with  all 
their  children. 

"  The  poor  creatures  who  inhabit  these  miserable  receptacles 
are  of  the  most  degraded  species;  they  have  never  learned  to 
read  have  never  heard  of  the  existence  of  a  Deity ;  have  never 
been  inside  of  a  church,  being  scared  from  the  doors  by  their  own 
filth  and  wretchedness;  and  have  scarcely  any  sense  of  a  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong"  (page  96). 

When  this  writer  comes  to  speak  of  the  peasants' 
cottages  he  gives  us  even  more  revolting  details,  and 
adds  that  * '  facts  have  been  mentioned  to  him  of  these 
crowded  bedrooms  much  too  horrible  to  be  alluded  to. 
Nor  are  these  solitary  instances,  but  similar  reports  are 
given  by  gentlemen  writing  in  all  parts  of  the 
country"  {ibid.,  p.  118). 

Then  he  takes  up  his  tale  of  horrors  and  relates 
what  was  to  be  seen  in  many  different  counties  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales.  The  following  may  serve  as  an 
average  specimen  of  the  dreadftilly  immoral  condition  of 
the  English  and  Welsh  w^orking  people  and  peasants 
whom  Kay  describes  : 

"  In  the  counties  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  one  species  of  im- 
morality peculiarly  prevalent  is  that  of  bastardy.  There  are  no 
counties  in  which  the  percentage  is  so  high  as  it  is  in  Norfolk — 
being  there  53.1  per  cent.,  and  in  Suffolk  27  per  cent,  above  the 
average  of   England  and  Wales.     '  The  immorality  of  the  young 


General  I  in  morality,  5  2 1 

women,'  said  a  rector  of  one  parish  to  me,  '  is  literally  horrible, 
and  I  regret  to  say  it  is  on  the  increase  in  a  most  extraordinary 
degree.  No  person  seems  to  think  anything  at  all  of  it.  When  I 
first  came  to  the  town  the  mother  of  a  bastard  child  used  to  be 
ashamed  to  show  herself,  and  there  was  not  one  common  prosti- 
tute in  it;  now  there  is  an  enormous  number  of  them.'" 

He  endeavors  to   bring  to  bear  the  influence  of  the 

religion  of  which  he  is  a  minister  to  impress  upon  these 

mothers   of   illegitimate    children    the   enormity   of  the 

offence  ;  but  that  influence  is    shown   to  have  had   no 

.weight,  for  he  adds: 

"  There  are  no  cases  in  which  I  receive  more  insult  from  those 
I  visit.  They  generally  say  they'll  get  on  as  well,  after  all  that's 
said  about  it :  and  if  they  never  do  anything  worse  than  that  they 
shall  get  to  Heaven  as  well  as  other  people." 

Another  clergyman  told  him  ' '  that  he  never  recol- 
lected an  instance  of  his  having  married  a  woman, 
etc.,"  as  just  stated  above.  Still  another  clergyman 
found  it  ' '  absolutely  impossible  for  him  to  convince 
such  that  they  had  done  wrong."  "There  appears," 
said  he,  "  to  be  among  the  lower  orders  a  perfect  dead- 
ness  of  all  moral  feeling  upon  this  subject."  Then 
follow  some  particulars,  which  respect  for  the  general 
reader  compels  me  to  omit.  He  finds  two  hundred  and 
twenty  common  brothels  in  the  town  of  Norwich,  and  a 
larger  proportion  of  prostitution  in  the  town  of  Bury 
than  is  to  be  found  in  any  other  town  or  city  in  Eng- 
land  (pp.   168-70). 

The  reports  of  these  and  other  counties  exhibit  the 
wretched  condition  of  the  laboring  poor  ;  it  being  a 
common  thing  for  a  whole  family,  father,  mother,  small 
children,  and  grown-up  daughters  and  sons,  to  all  sleep 
in    the    same    room,   and  even    in    the    same   bed.     No 


522  General  Ini  morality. 

wonder  we  should  read  :  ' '  Any  degree  of  indelicacy 
and  unchastity  ceases  to  surprise."  This  seems  to 
have  been  the  horrible  state  of  things  over  a  great  part 
of  England  when  Kay  wrote  in   1850. 

Do  I  hold  Protestantism  responsible  for  all  this 
shocking  immorality?  Of  course  I  do.  Do  you  not 
think  that  if  anything  comparable  to  it  could  ever  have 
been  found  in  any  Catholic  country  in  the  w^orld,  that 
the  Catholic  religion  would  not  have  been  held  respon- 
sible ?  Of  course  it  would,  and  we  should  not  be  left 
long  in  ignorance  of  the  evidence  either,  nor  spared  a 
swift  condemnation. 

But  surely,  when  such  a  deplorable  and,  for  Protes- 
tantism, such  a  shameful  revelation  of  its  inability  to 
prevent  the  masses  of  its  people  from  falling  into  such  a 
degraded  condition  had  been  forced  upon  the  notice  of 
its  clergy,  they  would  at  once  have  set  to  work,  and  in 
a  few  years  a  better  story  could  be  told.  Let  us  hear 
if  a  change  for  the  better  has  taken  place.  Here  is 
some  testimony  of  the  state  of  things  a  quarter  of  a 
century  later,  and  not  far  from  our  own  present  day : 

"  Our  fashionable  and  vulgar  7noralily,"  writes  the  Rev.  J.  B. 
Sweet,  vicar  of  Otterton,  Devon,  in  1883,  "  zs  the  natural  pro- 
duct and  precise  reflex  of  our  popular  theology.  Self-indulgent 
solifidianism  stamps  it  all.  Licentiousness  and  dishonesty,  profli- 
gate extravagance,  by  gambling,  betting,  and  immorality,  and  an 
utter  disregard  of  truthfulness,  characterize  large  classes  of  so- 
ciety. .  .  .  At  no  previous  date  in  English  history  has  the 
marriage-bond,  the  very  basis  of  society,  been  so  openly  violated 
and  dishonored  as  to-day.  The  Divorce-Law  of  the  State,  now 
in  direct  antagonism  to  that  of  the  Church,  is  eating  into  the  very 
vitals  of  the  nation.  It  permits,  and  therefore  encourages,  dis- 
solution of  marriage  on  easy  terms  ;  facilitates  (whilst  protesting 
against)   collusive   actions   for   adultery ;  Iegali/.es  the  forbidden 


General  Immorality.  523 

union  of  the  guilty  parties ;  floods  the  whole  realm  with  vile  de- 
tails of  evidence  given  in  its  courts,  and,  as  a  climax,  dares  to  im- 
pose a  penalty  on  the  faithful  priest  who  closes  his  church  against 
the  marriage  of  an  adulterer  at  God's  altar.  .  .  .  With  such 
impunity  and  encouragement  for  the  grossest  offenders,  it  is  little 
wonder  that  marriage  is  made  by  multitudes  a  cloak  for  preceding 
sin  ;  or  that  concubinage  increases  ;  or  that  further  relaxations  of 
the  marriage  laws  are  desired,  extending  even  to  a  demand  for 
unrestrained  indulgence,  and  a  total  suppression  of  God's  first  in- 
stitution for  the  happiness  and  increase  of  mankind.  Meantime 
the  streets  of  our  metropolis,  and  of  various  provincial  towns,  are 
said  to  swarm  with  prostitutes,  often  mere  children,  to  an  extent 
surpassing  continental  cities,  where  vice  is  avowedly  taken  under 
protection  of  the  law.  Corporations,  mayors,  and  magistrates 
are  beating  about  to  find  a  remedy  for  what  has  become  a  civil 
plague  ;  .  .  .  and  so  general  has  become  the  sense  of  grow- 
ing viciousness  and  of  a  widely  spreading  impurity  in  youth,  that 
Peers  in  Parliament,  Bishops,  Clergy,  and  Laity  in  Congress  and 
Conferences,  Archbishops  in  their  palaces,  and  even  ladies  by 
press  and  platform,  are  occupied  in  devising  antidotes  for  evils 
which  in  our  early  days  were  never  subjects  of  private  conversa- 
tion or  public  discussion"  (The  Increase  of  Immorality,  etc.,  pp. 
28,  30). 

WALES. 

But  how  shall  I  present  to  my  reader  the  revolting 
immorality  of  Wales,  largely  under  the  influence  of 
Methodism,  and  of  the  so-called  Independents,  as  given 
in  thirty-three  pages  of  Kay's  book.  I  give  a  few 
testimonies  (the  worst  will  not  bear  repeating),  all 
from  Protestant  clergymen  and  laymen  of  their  own 
towns  and  districts: 

"  Promiscuous  intercourse  is  most  common  ;  it  is  thought  of  as 
nothing,  and  the  women  do  not  lose  caste  by  it "  (Rev.  John 
Griffith,  vicar  of   Abedare). 

"  The  want  of  chastity  results  from  the  practice  of  bundling,  or 


524  General  Ijiunorality. 


courtship  on  beds,  during  the  night,  a  practice  widely  prevailing, 
and  in  the  classes  immediately  above  as  well  as  among  the  labor- 
ing people"  (Mr.  Symonds,  commissioner  for  Brecknockshire, 
Cardiganshire,  and  Radnorshire). 

"  The  vastly  increasing  crime  of  illicit  intercourse  prevails  to  a 
great  extent,  and  these  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the  un- 
educated"  (E.  Seymour,  magistrate). 

"  Men  wash  themselves  when  stripped  in  presence  of  women; 
the  result  is  the  frequency  of  illicit  intercourse  "  (Rev.  J.  Hughes, 
curate  of  Llanelly). 

"  Drunkenness  and  illegitimacy  are  the  prevailing  vices,  the 
second  considered  a  very  venial  offence  "  (Rev.  W.  L.  Bevan, 
vicar  of  Hay). 

"  The  number  of  illegitimate  children,  when  compared  with 
England,  is  astounding"  (Rev.  M.  Griffiths). 

"  The  young  persons  in  Sunday-schools  are  not  only  grossly 
ignorant  on  every  other  subject,  but  also  grossly  immoral.  Many 
of  the  girls  have  bastard  children "  (Very  Rev.  Dean  of  St. 
David's). 

"  Promiscuous  intercourse  is  carried  on  to  a  very  great  degree  " 
(Thomas  Williams,  superintendent  of  the  Independent  Sunday- 
school). 

"  Want  of  chastity  is  so  prevalent  that,  although  I  promised  to 
return  the  marriage  fee  to  all  couples  whose  first  child  should  be 
born  after  nine  months  from  the  marriage,  only  one  in  six  years 
entitled  themselves  to  claim  it"  (Rev.  L.  H.  Davies,  Troedey 
Raur). 

"  Great  laxity  on  the  subject.  Sexual  lusts  and  drunkenness 
are  the  popular  vices  "  (Rev.  W.  D.  West,  curate  of  Presteigne). 

"  In  the  crime  of  bastardy  I  fear  the  people  of  this  country  are 
pre-eminent"  (Sir  W.  Cockburn,  New  Radnor). 

"  Unchastity  in  the  women  is,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  a  great  stain 
upon  our  people.  The  number  of  bastards  is  very  great  "  (Rev. 
R.  L.  Venables,  vicar  of  Clyro). 

"  The  breach  of  chastity  is  considered  neither  a  sin  nor  a  crime. 
Women  who  have  had  two  or  three  illegitimate  children  are  as 
frequently  selected  for  wives  as  those  of  virtuous  conduct  "  (Rev. 
John  Price,  rector  of  Bledfa). 


General  luiuiorality,  525 

111  North  Wales,  in  the  parish  of  Hawarden,  of  which 
the  inhabitants  were  exelusively  English — 

"  Incontinence  is  increasing-  so  rapidly  as  to  render  it  difficult 
to  find  a  cottage  where  some  female  of  the  family  has  not  been 
enceinte  before  marriage.  One  vice  is  flagrant  throughout  North 
Wales,  and  remains  unchecked,  and  has  almost  ceased  to  be  con- 
sidered an  evil — that  is  the  barbarous  practice  preceding  mar- 
riage "  [bundling]   (Rev.  J.  P.  Foulkes). 

"  Want  of  chastity  flagrant,  and  not  confined  to  the  poor. 
Farmers'  daughters  are  courted  in  bed.  With  domestic  servants 
the  vice  is  universal.  I  have  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  keeping 
my  own  servants  from  it.  I  secured  their  chamber  windows  with 
bars.  I  am  told  by  my  parishioners,  that  unless  I  allow  the  prac- 
tice I  shall  very  soon  have  no  servants  at  all,  and  that  it  will  be 
impossible  to  get  any  "  (Rev.  W.  Jones,  vicar  of  Nevin). 

"  I  assert  with  confidence,  as  an  undeniable  fact,  that  unchas- 
tity  is  not  regarded  as  a  vice,  scarcely  as  a  frailty,  by  the  common 
people  of  Wales.  It  is  considered  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the 
regular  thing  before  marriage.  It  is  avowed,  defended,  laughed 
at,  without  scruple  or  shame  or  concealment,  by  both  sexes  alike" 
(Rev.  J.  W.  Trevor,  chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Bangor). 

I  am  told  that  Wales  is  the  country  from  which  the 
Mormons  have  for  years  been  largely  recruiting  their 
numbers,  and,  if  it  be  true,  these  poor  degraded  con- 
verts have  certainly  not  gone  from  bad  to  worse. 

Again  I  ask  :  Do  I  hold  Protestantism  responsible 
for  all  this  unequalled  shocking  immorality  ?  Again  I 
answer :  Of  course  I  do  ;  and  I  think  that  every  un- 
biassed judge  of  what  results  one  would  have  a  right  to 
look  for  among  masses  of  people  so  directly  under  its 
influence  as  the  English  and  Welsh  people  have  been 
under  their  Protestantism  would  make  the  same  judg- 
ment. 

I  am  wondering  why  some  of  those  good  Protestant 


526  General  Inunorality. 

ministers  whose  words  I  have  quoted  did  not  club  to- 
gether, and  import  some  Catholic  servant  girls  from 
Ireland  !  Ah  !  does  not  ever}^  reader  feel,  at  the  verj^ 
mention  of  them,  the  blowing  of  a  sweet,  pure,  refresh- 
ing breeze,  after  all  this  foul,  suffocating  nastiness  ! 

But,  no  doubt,  it  is  well  they  never  thought  of  doing 
so,  for,  out  of  reach  of  the  influences  of  their  holy  and 
pure  religion,  and  exposed  to  the  poverty  of  moral  aid 
in  a  wholl}"  Protestant  country,  they  might  have  turned 
out  nearly  as  bad  as  the  others.  Purity  of  morals  is 
dependent  upon  the  spiritual  power  one's  religion  has, 
not  onh'  to  preach  good  moral  principles,  but  to  both 
win  and  enforce  their  adoption.  And  above  all  to  keep 
the  heart  and  mind  innocent.  In  these  respects  it  is 
plain  that  the  system  of  Protestantism  has  proved  to  be 
a  disastrous  failure.  Well  did  Laing,  the  Scotch  Prot- 
estant writer,  testify:  "Catholicism  has  certainh^  a 
much  stronger  hold  over  the  human  mind  than  Protest- 
antism "   ( Notes  of  a    Traveller,   p.   394). 

To  what  did  Mr.  Kay  attribute  the  hideous  pauper- 
ism by  the  millions,  and  the  degraded  moral  condition 
of  England  and  Wales  w^hich  he  so  minutely  and 
graphically  describes?  The  chief  cause  he  believed  to 
be  the  phenomenal  lack  of  popular  education.  And  it 
must  be  said  to  his  credit  that  he  did  not  fail  to  assert 
very  strongly  that  if  such  education  were  to  be  given  to 
the  people,  it  ought  to  be  a  Christian  one.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  not  a  little  surprising  that  he  did  not  read  a 
stronger  lesson  to  the  Protestant  clergy  than  he  timidly 
ventured  upon  doing  here  and  there  in  his  book.  He 
owns  that  Protestantism  is  no  religion  for  the  poor,  the 
ignorant,  and  the  sinful,  nor,  indeed,  for  the  masses  of 
people. 


General  hnniorality.  527 

He   devotes   two   or  three   pages   to    "  The  Roman 

Chuirh  in  its  relation  to  the  English  poor.''  It  is  amus- 
ing to  find  him,  in  common  with  most  Protestant 
writers,  dwelhng  upon  the  superior  "intellectual" 
character  of  Protestantism  compared  with  "  Roman- 
ism," They  are  all  alike,  equally  ignorant  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  and  think  it  is  nothing  but  an  outside 
show,  a  "glittering  spectacle"  which  appeals  to, 
catches  and  holds  the  senses  only. 

Do  these  persons  reflect  that  their  *  *  superior  intel- 
lectual faith,"  as  they  fancy  it  to  be,  has  proved  itself 
to  have  no  better  hold  upon  the  intellects  or  heart  of 
the  well-educated  than  it  has  upon  the  poor  and  illite- 
rate ?  Do  Catholic  priests  keep  their  people  from  im- 
morality by  the  effect  of  ' '  glittering  spectacles  ' '  ? 
They  are  evidently  hard  driven  to  find  a  reason  to 
explain  away  the  spiritual  power  of  Catholicism. 

Kay  has  to  acknowledge  that  everywhere  the 
"Romanist"  clergy  were  making  great  headway, 
especially  with  the  ver}^  classes  that  the  Protestant 
clergy  could  do  nothing,  or  would  do  nothing  with  ;  as 
we  know  has  been  the  case  in  England  and  elsewhere 
ever  since.  He  thinks  the  reason  why  "  Roman  priests 
do  not  feel  the  disgust  which  a  more  refined  man  [such 
as  the  Protestant  minister]  cannot  help  feeling,  in 
being  obliged  (?)  to  enter  the  low  haunts  of  the  back 
streets  and  alleys,  is  because  so  many  of  them  are  not 
men  of  refined  habits  themselves  ' '  !  That  is  the  way 
of  the  blind  who  will  not  see  ;  who  will  give  any  and 
ever}^  reason,  even  a  false  one,  rather  than  the  true 
and  only  reason,  which  is  this  :  The  Catholic  Church 
is  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  therefore  she  loves 
the  poor,  and  goes  to  seek  and  save  the  sinful :  and  be- 


5  28  General  I  minor  ality. 


ing  filled  with  divine  power,  wisdom,  and  charity,  she 
knows  how  to  hold  the  souls  of  her  people,  and  hinder 
them  from  going  to  destruction.  Her  past  record  and 
the  story  of  the  present  equally  go  to  show  that  she  is 
the  only  moral  power  which  can  save  the   world. 

Let  us  hear  what  our  Scotch  Presbyterian  friend 
Laing  has  to  say  of  the  Catholic  priests,  and  how  he 
cautions  Protestant  ministers  against  not  only  the  in- 
justice but  the  danger  of  making  false  and  indecent 
charges  about  them  in  the  hearing  of  their  own  people  : 

"  The  sleek,  fat,  narrow-minded,  wealthy  drone  is  now  to  be 
sought  for  on  the  episcopal  bench,  or  in  the  prebendal  stall  of  the 
Lutheran  or  Anglican  churches  ;  the  well-off,  comfortable  parish 
minister,  yeoman-like  in  mind,  intelligence,  and  social  position,  in 
tlie  manse  and  glebe  of  the  Calvinistic  Church.  The  poverty- 
stricken,  intellectual  recluse,  never  seen  abroad  but  on  his  way 
to  and  from  his  studies,  or  church  duties,  living  nobody  knows 
where,  but  all  know  in  the  poorest  manner,  upon  a  wretched 
pittance  in  his  obscure  abode,  and  this  is  the  popish  priest 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  has  all  the  advantage  of  the  posi- 
tion with  the  multitude  for  giving  effect  to  his  teaching.  Our 
clergy,  especially  in  Scotland,  have  a  very  erroneous  impression 
of  the  state  of  the  popish  clergy.  In  our  country  churches  we 
often  hear  them  prayed  for  as  men  wallowing  in  luxury  and  sunk 
in  gross  ignorance.  This  is  somewhat  injudicious  as  well  as 
uncharitable  :  for  when  the  youth  of  their  congregations  who,  in 
this  travelling  age,  must  often  come  in  contact  abroad  with  the 
Catholic  clergy  so  described,  find  them  in  learning,  liberal  views, 
and  genuine  piety,  according  to  their  own  doctrines,  so  very  dif- 
fer e7it  from  the  description  and  the  describers,  there  will  unavoid- 
ably arise  comparisons,  in  the  minds  especially  of  females  and 
young  susceptible  persons,  by  no  means  edifying  or  flattering  to 
their  clerical  teachers  at  home.  .  .  .  Our  churchmen  should 
understand  better  the  strength  of  a  formidable  adversary,  who  is 
evidently  gaining  ground  but  too  fast  on  our    Protestant   Church, 


General  Inunorality.  529 


and  who  in  this  age  brings  into  the  field  zeal  and  purity  of  life 
equal  to  their  own,  and  learning,  a  training  in  theological  scholar- 
ship, and  a  general  knowledge  superior,  perhaps,  to  their  own " 
{Notes  of  a  Traiteller,  p.  399). 

Judging  from  many  years  of  observation  I  should 
say  that,  if  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Protestant  ministry 
in  the  United  States  serving  as  preachers,  lecturers, 
newspaper  editors,  missionary  agents  and  correspon- 
dents, with  some  most  honorable  exceptions,  could  have 
that  bit  of  sage  advice  brought  to  their  notice,  it  would 
not  come  amiss.  How  often  have  these  thoughtless, 
and  in  many  cases  unscrupulous,  accusers  of  the  Catho- 
lic clergy  defiled  the  minds  of  their  youthful  hearers, 
disgusted  their  older  ones,  and  sent  many  a  one  to 
Rome  to  find  if  these  things  they  have  heard  be  true — 
and  not  finding  them  true,  well — with  what  conse- 
quences following  I  leave  the  reader  to  imagine. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

THE   MORALITY  OF   ROME. 

AS  I  liave  just  intimated  in  closing  the  last  chapter, 
one  of  the  favorite  subjects  of  attack  made  by 
Protestant  assailants  of  the  Catholic  religion  is  the 
morality  of  its  priests,  monks,  and  nuns.  Charges  of 
the  grossest  immorality  against  these  particular  classes 
of  persons  form  nearly  four-fifths  of  all  the  ' '  wicked 
impostures  and  slanders ' '  that  are  heard  from  their 
pulpits,  and  which  flavor  the  harangues  of  anti-Cath- 
olic lectures  and  newspaper  correspondence  purporting 
to  describe  the  condition  of  the  Catholic  clergy  and 
religious  in  lands  that  are  foreign  to  their  audience, 
and  of  which  their  hearers  and  readers  have  no  ex- 
perience. The  fact  of  the  frequency  and  enormity  of 
these  accusations  is  too  well  known  to  need  particular 
evidence.  I  was  not  at  all  surprised,  therefore,  to 
read  the  following  from  the  pen  of  Bishop  Newanan 
of  the  Methodist  Church  in  the  New  York  Christian 
Advocate,  June  i,  1893,  writing  from  South  America. 
After  lamenting  the  conversion  of  the  original  Indian 
races  to  Christianity  by  the  labors  of  the  Spanish 
missionaries  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  great  sums 
of  money  obtained  by  Pizarro  and  sent  to  the  King  of 
Spain ;  and  then  of  ' '  the  larger  sum  sent  to  the  holy 
mother  Church,  for  the  pious  work  of  building  cathe- 
drals for  the  masses,  monasteries  for  the  monks,  con- 
vents for  the  nuns,  and  orpha^i  asylums  for  their 
progejiy.'' 

530 


The  Morality  of  Rome.  531 

Neithej^-  am  I  surprised  to  learn  that  other  ' '  re- 
vilers  without  cause,"  of  the  same  class  and  mind 
with  this  Methodist  bishop,  should  have  promptly 
profited  by  the  recent  politico-religious  outbreak,  pre- 
pared by  the  Evangelical  Alliance  and  the  National 
League  for  the  Protection  of  American  Institutions, 
and  consummated  by  those  secret,  would-be  assassins 
of  political  and  religious  liberty,  the  A.  P.  A's,  to 
pour  forth  from  pulpit  and  press  sermons  and  books 
filled  with  similar  charges  against  the  morality  of 
priests  and  nuns.  When  one  considers  the  vile  char- 
acter of  these  charges,  their  patent  absurdity,  and  the 
readiness  with  which  they  are  received  and  credited 
by  the  general  mass  of  Protestants,  the  remark  of  the 
Rev.  Washington  Gladden  already  quoted  is  singularly 
pertinent — "the  depth  and  the  density  of  that  popular 
ignorance  which  permits  the  use  of  such  documents 
(or  the  preaching  of  such  sermons,  or  printing  of  such 
correspondence)   is  certainly  appalling." 

One  fact  in  connection  with  this  outpouring  of 
defamatory  accusations  is  quite  notorious,  the  lack  of 
any  reliable  evidence  accompanying  them.  Or,  if  any 
references  are  made  to  what  purports  to  be  an  authority 
for  their  statements,  they  are  of  such  a  vague  character 
that  certification  is  impossible.  One  will  find  that  they 
are  generally  prefaced,  if  at  all,  with  such  expressions 
as  :  "A  writer  says  "  ;  ' '  An  ex-priest  says  * '  ;  "  The 
Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education  [many  volumes  of 
tens  of  thousands  of  pages]  say,"  etc.  What  writer, 
or  in  what  book,  or  in  what  volume,  or  at  what  page — 
all  such  references,  which  no  man  of  honor  or  honesty 
of  purpose  who  feels  called  upon  to  make  an  accusation 
would  permit  himself  to  omit,  are  wanting. 


532  The  Morality  of  Rome. 

Such  have  ever  been  and  are  the  tactics  of  the  popu- 
lar assailant  of  Rome  and  of  all  that  is  hers,  even  unto 
this  day. 

I  am  led  to  renew  the  exposure  already  made  (but, 
of  course,  to  no  effect)  of  a  very  remarkable  calumny 
of  this  sort ;  remarkable  both  for  its  audacity,  its  false- 
hood, and  the  persistence  of  its  life.  Among  sundry 
unproved  charges  lately  obtaining  place  in  one  of  our 
great  New  York  daily  newspapers — the  New  York 
Herald,  January  7,  1894 — was  the  one  following,  at- 
tacking the  morality  of  the  City  of  Rome,  and  by  a 
base  innuendo,  h  la  Bishop  Newman,  the  morality  of 
its  clergy  and  nuns.  The  writer  made  the  general 
charge  that  "out  of  4,000  children  born  in  Rome, 
3,600  are  illegitimate."  And  to  substantiate  the 
charge  he  goes  on  to  say  : 

"  The  El  Solfeo,  an  Italian  journal  of  prominence  [no  date 
given],  publishes  the  following  statistics:  'In  1870  Rome  had 
2,469  secular  clergy  among  cardinals,  bishops,  prelates,  and  cures; 
2,766  monks,  and  2,117  nuns;  in  all,  7,322  religious  of  "both  sexes. 
The  number  of  births  reached  in  the  same  year  to  4,378,  of  which 
1,215  were  legitimate  and  3,163  illegitimate.  The  illegitimates, 
therefore,  being  in  the  proportion  75.25  per  100  of  the  total 
births." 

Look  at  the  base  innuendo  conveyed  in  the  accusa- 
tion. In  the  same  year  tha.t  Rome  had  7,322  persons 
vowed  to  a  life  of  celibacjs  3,000  out  of  4,000  children 
born  were  illegitimate;  and  this  in  1870^ 

If  there  really  is  such  an  Italian  journal  as  "El 
Solfeo,"  and  if  it  be  "prominent"  in  anything,  it 
probably  is  so  for  its  cowardly  attacks  on  priests  and 
nuns.  Its  editor  knew  his  audience,  however,  when  he 
ventured  to  offer  them  this  old  time-worn  counterfeit. 


The  Morality  of  Rome.  533 

newly  polished  with  his  salacious  varnish.  He  knew 
they  would  take  it,  and  give  it  a  wide  circulation,  and 
ask  no  questions. 

As  soon  as  my  eye  fell  upon  it  I  recognized  the  face 
of  an  old  absurd  fabrication  which  has  served  the  base 
purposes  of  these  calumniating  enemies  of  ' '  Roman- 
ism "  (and  unfortunately  served  them  but  too  well,  in 
deceiving  their  people,  and  deepening  their  ignorant 
prejudices)  for  more  than  twenty-five  years,  to  my  own 
knowledge,  and  probably  ever  since  1836 ;  the  date 
originally  chosen  upon  which  to  fix  this  fraudulent 
accusation. 

The  El  Self  CO  picked  up  the  slander  somewhere, 
copied  the  charge,  giving  the  number  of  births  and  the 
alleged  proportion  of  illegitimate  children,  changed  the 
original  date  of  these  4,373  births  from  1836  to  1870, 
tacked  on  the  number  of  priests  and  nuns  in  1870,  and 
sent  the  false  testimony  out  upon  its  travels  to  do  its 
evil  work. 

I  have  before  me  an  official  folio  document,  giving 
the  vital  statistics  and  the  number  of  different  classes 
of  persons  in  Rome  for  the  long  period  from  1600  to 
1869  inclusive.  The  Report  is  entitled,  Stato  delle 
Anime  delV  Ahna  Citta  di  Roma  per  V anno  1869. 

In  this  last  year  (1869)  the  number  of  the  clergy 
and  religious  of  both  sexes  was  7,480,  and  the  total  of 
births  was  5,276.  In  changing  the  date  and  letting 
the  number  of  births  for  1836  stand,  the  slanderer  in 
the  El  Solfco  overreached  himself.  There  have  never 
been  less  than  5,000  births  in  Rome  since  the  year 
1845,  as  the  Official  Report  shows. 

The  original  charge  as  found  repeated  in  Evenings 
ivith    the    Romanists,    by    Rev.     M.    Hobart    Seymour 


534  TJie  Morality  of  Rome, 

(Carter  Brothers,  New  York),  was  fully  exposed  in 
the  Catholic  Woiid,  October,  1869.  Those  who  have 
circulated  this  calumny  have  been  shown  the  refuta- 
tion ;  not  one  of  them  has  ever  been  honest  enough  to 
retract  it.  They  never  do.  They  wait  a  convenient 
time  and  then  patch  up  their  former  charges,  as  the 
El  Solfeo  has  done  with  this  old  fraud,  and  put  them 
forth  again  as  good,  or  almost  as  good  as  new — good 
enough,  any  way,  to  serve  their  purposes.  Those 
people  who  are  so  professedly  horrified  over  the  alleged 
immorality  of  Catholic  priests  and  nuns,  never  seem  to 
be  conscious  that  there  is  anything  immoral  in  bearing 
false  witness  against  their  neighbor,  and  of  acting  on 
the  motto  Protestants  themselves  invented  and  then 
falsely  charged  the  Jesuits  with  holding,  that  "  the  end 
justifies  the  means  ";  in  this  case  lying  and  sticking  to 
it  in  order  to  put  down  "  Romanism."  Or,  if  their  con- 
sciences do  sometimes  accuse  them  of  a  breach  of  that 
commandment,  they  act  as  if  God  would  probably  wink 
at  it,  when  the  ' '  neighbor ' '  is  only  a  Roman  Catholic. 
The  notable  fabrication  alluded  to  being  one  of  the  very 
worst  ever  perpetrated  deserves  a  thorough  exposure. 
I  quote  from  Rev.  Mr.  Seymour's  book  : 

"  In  the  Italian  statistics  of  Mittermaier  we  have  the  number 
of  exposed  infants  received  in  II  S.  Spirito,  II  Conservatorio,  and 
other  estabHshments  of  this  class.  The  number  received  during  a 
series  of  ten  years  amounts  to  31,689.  This  total  distributed 
among  the  ten  years  gives,  as  the  mean,  the  number  of  3,160 
infants  exposed  annually  in  the  City  of  Rome." 

He  then  gives  the  population  of  Rome,  153,678, 
and  the  total  of  births  as  4,373,  which  are  exactly 
the  figures  for  1836  given  in  the  Roman  official  Report. 


The  Morality  of  Rome.  535 

Then  we  get  this  deduction  : 

Total  number  of  births, 4.373 

Average  annual  number  of  "  foundlings  "  received 

for  ten  years,  being  about  one-tenth  of  31,689,       .         3,160 

Annual  number  of  legitimate  births^  only         .         .         1,213 

At  this  the  Rev.  Mr.  Seymour  holds  up  his  pious 
hands  and  exclaims  :  ' '  This  is  a  frightful  number  of 
illegitimate  births,  and  a  number  without  parallel  of 
cruel  and  unnatural  mothers  !  "  And  we  may  add,  it 
indicates  an  unparalleled  amount  of  gullibility  in  any 
one  who  would  for  one  moment  credit  such  an  absurd 
statement. 

What  is  the  truth?  First.  There  neither  is,  nor 
ever  was,  such  an  institution  as  " //  Conservatorio  "  in 
Rome.  The  fellow  was  ignorant  of  the  Italian  lan- 
guage. The  word  "conservatorio"  is  a  general  term 
used  to  designate  sometimes  a  school,  a  conservatory, 
a  hospital,  or  an  asylum.  II  Santo  Spirito  is  itself  a 
"  conservatorio." 

Second.  The  II  S.  Spirito  is  the  only  asylum  where 
foundlings  are  received,  and  that  institution  is  not  all 
devoted  to  the  care  of  foundlings  either.  On  the  con- 
trary that  work  occupies  but  a  very  small  quarter  in 
that  hospital. 

Third.  The  whole  fabricated  cnarge  is  based  upon 
the  vital  statistics  for  1836.  The  official  returns  for 
that  year,  as  given  in  the  document  I  have  in  hand, 
are  these  : 

1836.  Population  of  Rome,       ....         153,678 
"     Total  births, 4-373 


536  The  Morality  of  Rome. 


(The  New  York  Herald  by  a  typographical  error 
made  the  last  figure  an  8.) 

Both  figures  betray  the  original  hands  of  Mitter- 
maier,  Seymour  &  Co. 

No  such  figures  are  to  be  found  from  that  day  for- 
ward or  before.  And  yet  the  El  Solfeo  and  its  too- 
willing  dupes  and  aids  unblushingly  put  down  ' '  In 
the  year  1870  " — and  so  betrayed  themselves. 

The  real  population  in  1869  was  already  220,532, 
and  the  total  births  5,277,  and  in  1870  were  probably 
more. 

Fourth.  How  did  the  master  fabricator,  Mitter- 
maier,  get  his  31,689  "  exposed  infants"  in  ten  years? 
Oh  !  that  is  "  as  easy  to  do  as  falling  off  a  log."  He 
simply  counted  up  the  number  of  all  the  convent 
schools,  and  of  all  the  hospitals  and  all  asylums  in 
Rome,  and  put  them  down  as  being  all  foundling 
asyluins  I  Then  he  counted  up  all  the  pupils  in  these 
schools,  all  the  sick  in  the  hospitals,  all  the  orphans 
and  old  men  and  women,  all  the  deaf,  and  dumb,  and 
blind,  every  soul,  in  fact,  in  every  such  school  and 
charitable  institution  in  Rome  during  ten  years,  and 
found  the  total  number  to  be  31,689!  And  then,  oh 
shame  !  he  had  the  unparalleled  audacity  to  say  that 
this  was  the  number  of  illegitimate  ehildren  Rome  pro- 
duced during  that  time.  That  takes  away  one's 
breath.  Hence  he  got  at  the  average  annual  number 
3,160 — about  one-tenth  of  the  whole  alleged  31,689 
illegitimates— as  his  reverend  pupil,  Mr.  Seymour, 
followed  him  also  in  deducing  the  same  when  he  pub- 
lished his  evil  book  forty  years  ago ;  and  which  num- 
ber their  reverend  and  other  pupils  in  this  year  of 
grace   now   transfer   to    1870!     They   felt   assured,    no 


TJie  Morality  of  Rome.  537 

doubt,  that  this  change  in  the  face  of  the  counterfeit 
would  not  be  detected  by  those  whom  they  intended  to 
deceive  by  it.  Any  charge,  however  absurd,  against 
Rome,  goes. 

There  is  one  other  equally  convenient  method  by 
which  this  ready  reckoner  of  Roman  immorality  might 
have  made  up  his  astounding  total  of  31,689  for  ten 
years  and  then  deduced  the  annual  one-tenth — 3,160. 
I  will  give  an  example  to  show  how  it  could  be  done 
without  taking  the  trouble  even  of  getting  the  statistics 
of  all  the  charitable  and  educational  institutions  in 
Rome  for  ten  years.  If  it  had  occurred  to  the  inventive 
mind  of  the  original  Mittermaier  there  is  little  doubt  he 
would  have  adopted  it.  This  is  the  method.  Never 
mind  counting  up  all  the  aforementioned  school  and 
hospital  inmates  for  ten  years.  Take  any  one  3-ear 
and  multiply  the  figures  of  that  year  by  ten.  I  will 
take  one  year — say  the  year  1869 — for  which  I  have  all 
the  details  of  II  S.  Spirito  and  all  other  asylums  and 
institutions — there  are  eight3-seven  of  them — then  I 
will  add  the  number  of  their  inmates  together,  as  re- 
ported, multiply  them  by  teji,  and  let  us  see  how  we  will 
come  out  : 

1869.  Inmates  of  all  convent  schools,          .         .  1,738 

"         "    "    male  charity  hospitals,        .  878 
a         .<    <.    feuiale  hospitals,  refuges, 

and  asylums, 1,216 

Total  inmates  of  the  87  institutions,  .         .         3,832 

Multiply  these  by  ten,  and  say,  after  Mittermaier  and 
Rev^  Seymour:  "II  S.  Spirito,  II  Conservatorio  (?), 
and  other  establishments  of  this  class,  received  during  a 
series  of  ten   years  the   following   number   of  exposed 


53$  The  Morality  of  Rome. 


infants,  viz.,  38,320.  This  total  distributed  among  the 
ten  years  gives,  as  a  mean,  the  number  of  3,832  infants 
exposed  annually  in  the  city  of  Rome.  The  population 
in  1869  was  220,532,  and  the  total  births  were  5,276. 
Hence  we  have  : 

1869.  Total  number  of  births,     ....         5,276 
Annual  average  number  of  foundlings  received 
for  ten  years,  being  one-tenth  of  the  num- 
ber 38,320 3-832 

Annual  number  of  legitimate  births  only,  .         .         1,444 

There  you  have  it !  Now  go  on,  and,  like  the  El 
Solfco  and  its  foolish  dupe  in  New  York,  report  that 
"the  number  of  priests,  monks,  and  nuns  in  Rome  in 
1869  was  7,480,"  and  add  : 

"The  number  of  births  reached  in  the  same  year 
5,276,  of  which  1,444  only  were  legitimate  and  3,832 
illegitimate.  The  illegitimates,  therefore,  being  in  the 
proportion  of  72.63  per  100  of  the  total  births." 

Those  of  my  readers  who  recall  the  exposure  I  made 
of  the  Hawkins-Jay  fraud  in  chapter  seventeen  will  see 
that  it  sometimes  becomes  necessary  for  our  Protestant 
accusers  of  this  class  to  multiply  by  ten  in  order  to 
make  the  sum  of  Roman  Catholic  crime,  pauperism,  and 
immorality  come  out  right,  or,  at  least,  to  make  it  come 
up  to  as  high  a  figure  as  is  wanted  for  the  occasion  and 
the  audience.  Did  I  not  say  well  that,  provided  one 
has  made  up  his  mind  to  risk  the  consequences  in  the 
sight  of  God  and  man,  and  wishes  to  get  up  a  telling 
table  of  statistics  against  Rome,  the  playing  hocus- 
pocus  with  figures  to  achieve  his  purpose  is  "as  easy 
as  falling  off  a  log  "  ?     But  I  am  not  yet  through  with 


The  Morality  of  Route.  539 

the  examination  of  this  ' '  infamous  forgery  "  as  it  was 
repeated  in  the  Herald. 

Fifth.  How  many  inmates,  exclusive  of  the  Sisters 
in  charge,  are  reported  as  being  in  the  S.  Spirito 
foundling  asylum  2X  the  end  of  the  year  1869?  249; 
and  not  all  iL.gitimate  either,   as  I  shall  prove. 

Sixth.  To  how  many  married  women  would  there 
be  one  birth?  The  Vital  Statistics  for  all  Italy  show 
that  there  is  about  one  birth  to  every  five  married 
women.  Having  the  statistics  I  use  the  year  1867  as 
an  example.  How  many  married  women  in  Rome  in 
the  year  1867?     30,471. 

How  many  children  might  we  expect  to  find  born  of 
them  ?  6,094.  How  many  children  all  told,  legitimate 
and  illegitimate,  were  born  that  year? 

Living  children 5739 

Still-born  children 381 

Total  births, 6,120 

As  will  be  seen,  26  more  than  the  average  number 
of  honest,  legitimate  children  to  whom  the  30,471 
married  women  ought  to  have  given  birth  {Civilta 
Cattolica,  June,  1868,  and  Stato  delle  Anime,  etc.,  1869). 

Where  now  is  the  place  for  any  illegitimates  at  all  ? 
The  Vital  Statistics  do  not  say  how  many  there  were ; 
but  it  is  quite  plain  that  they  could  not  possibly  be  over 
one  or  two  hundred.  The  fact  is,  that  when  Rome  was 
under  the  rule  of  the  Popes  it  was  one  of  the  most  moral 
cities,  in  this  as  in  several  other  respects,  in  the  world. 
In  Rome  possibly,  in  all  Italy  certainly,  the  percentage 
of  illegitimac}^  has  gone  up  since  the  loss  of  the  "  cleri- 
cal "  rule,  and  the  unhappy  people  are  left  exposed  to 


540  The  Morality  of  Rome. 

the  unmolested  attacks  of  the  infidel  ravishers  of  their 
homes,  their  morals,  and  their  social  peace. 

And  if  the  ''  rate  of  illegitimacy  "  for  all  Italy  has 
gone  up  since  the  Pope  was  deposed,  as  the  statistics 
for  six  late  years  given  in  the  Statesman' s  Year  Book, 
1893,  now  shows,  it  does  not  prove,  even  so,  that  the 
advanced  rate  is  of  real,  but  only  of  apparent  illegiti- 
macy. The  title  over  the  number  of  these  is — "  Num- 
ber of  illegitimate  and  exposed  infants."  Who  make  up 
the  half  of  these  exposed  infants  ?  Honest,  legitimate 
children,  left  by  the  wretched  mothers  at  the  foundling 
asylums,  whom  the  new  regime  drove  from  their  happy 
little  homes  for  non-payment  of  state  taxes,  to  wander 
into  exile,  or  die,  like  the  evicted  peasantry  of  Ireland, 
by  the  highway. 

This  leaving  of  sick,  rickety,  and  otherwise  diseased 
infants  by  poor  parents  unable  to  rear  or  care  for  them, 
at  the  doors  of  foundling  asylums  in  Italy,  and  es- 
pecially at  the  II  S.  Spirito  in  Rome,  it  being  a  hospital, 
and  whose  number  helped  to  swell  the  general  statis- 
tics of  "illegitimates,"  was  done  even  in  the  time  of 
Papal  rule.  So  I  come  to  the  proof  that  not  all,  pro- 
bably not  the  half  of  the  infants  received  in  the  found- 
ling department  of  the  II  S.  Spirito  hospital  in  Rome 
were  illegitimate. 

Mr.  John  Francis  Maguire,  member  of  Parliament, 
wrote  an  elaborate  account  of  his  personal  investigation 
of  all  the  institutions  of  Rome  in  1870. 

How  many  "foundlings"  does  he  say  are  received 
in  the  II  S.  Spirito  in  Rome  per  annum  ?  900.  But 
he  adds : 

"  The  number  of  900  may  seem  very  great — " 


Tlie  Morality  of  Rome.  541 


Oh  !  not  at  all,  Mt.  Maguire,  for  a  certain  Mitter- 
maier,  the  Rev.  M.  Hobart  Seymour,  the  El  {})  Solfco 
newspaper,  and  the  New  York  preacher  all  say  that 
the  annual  number  is  3,160. 

" — but  it  should  be  stated  that  the  hospital  of  S.  Spirito  affords 
an  asylum  not  only  to  the  foundlings  of  Rome,  but  to  those  of  the 
provinces  of  Sabina,  Fronsinone,  Velletri,  and  the  Comarca,  and 
also  districts  on  the  borders  of  Naples." 

But  they  are  all  illegitimate,  are  they  not  ?  No. 
Maguire  testifies,  and  truly,  as  evidence  I  will  presently 
give  shows,  that  a  large  number  of  them  are  legitimate 
infants  put  by  their  poor  parents  into  the  turning-wheel 
of  the  foundling  asylum,  to  be  cared  for  and  nursed, 
having  marks  for  future  identity  and  baptismal  certifi- 
cates showing  their  lawful  birth,  pinned  on  their 
clothes;  and  "  though,"  he  adds,  "this  facility  of  get- 
ting rid  of  legitimate  offspring  leads  to  a  disregard  of 
the  manifest  obligations  of  a  parent's  duty,  I  can  only 
say  that  it  does  away  with  that  awful  proneness  to 
infanticide  which  distinguishes  other  countries,  but 
pre-eminently  England"  (Rome,  John  Francis  Ma- 
guire, M.P.,  p.   193). 

One  example  taken  off-hand  proves  his  words  and  is 
my  excuse  for  quoting  his  Catholic  testimony.  Re- 
quest was  made  in  1868  for  the  actual  receptions  of 
foundlings  at  the  S.  Spirito  between  its  last  report  at 
Easter  to  July  of  the  same  year,  a  period  of  three 
months.     This  was  the    reply  : 


Foundlings  received. 

0/ legitimate  birth. 

Uncertain. 

vl  May,     .     .     84 

38 

46 

n  June,    .     .     76 

25 

51 

n  July,     .     .     78 

29 

49 

Totals,  .     .  238  92  146 


542  The  Morality  of  Rome. 


If  all  those  of  "uncertain"  birth  were  illegitimate, 
and  that  is  not  sure,  four  times  that  number  would  be 
only  584,  and  these  would  be  chargeable  not  to  Rome 
alone,  but  to  a  large  district  of  country  as  well,  contain- 
ing many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  inhabitants.  So 
that  I  was  safe  in  saying,  as  I  did,  that  at  the  most 
there  were  not  over  one  or  two  hundred  illegitimate 
children  born  annually  in  Rome. 

.  But  let  the  highest  figures,  those  for  all  infants  re- 
ceived (238)  during  the  three  months,  stand.  Four 
times  238  is  952,  just  about  what  Mr.  Maguire  said  was 
the  average  of  all  such  infants  received  in  the  hospital 
as  foundlings,  and  not  3,160  as  the  slanderers  have  as- 
serted and  do  assert,  and  alas  !  will  continue  to  assert 
in  spite  of  every  proof  to  the  contrary. 

But  I  have  had  my  say  ;  and  have  once  more 
brought  to  book  one  of  the  worst  specimens  of  what  the 
Rev.  Leonard  W.  Bacon,  Protestant  minister,  so  boldly 
and  truly  stigmatized  as  "wicked  impostures  and 
shameful  scandals  put  out  by,  and  circulated  under, 
the  sanction  of  some  of  the  most  eminent  pastors, 
bishops,  theologians,  and  civilians  of  the  American 
Protestant  churches,  to  the  burning  and  ineffaceable 
disgrace  of  the  (Protestant)  Church  of  Christ." 
Shame  !  shame  !  shame  ! 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

DIVORCE. 

THERE  is  no  need  to  enlarge  upon  the  shameful 
and  fatal  wound  given  to  the  moral  life  of  modern 
societ}^  by  the  introduction  and  continued  sanction  of 
divorce  by  Protestantism.  Whoso  attacks  the  divine 
institution  of  the  family,  as  this  system  of  legalized 
polygamy  and  polyandry  does,  unmistakably  aims  a 
fatal  blow  at  the  most  precious  of  all  institutions  of 
Christian  civilization,  the  Family.  Nay,  more,  it  tends 
to  sap  the  very  foundations  of  human  society  by  pro- 
voking the  commission  of  unnatural  crimes  in  order  to 
be  rid  of  what  otherwise  would  be  a  powerful  hindrance 
to  the  enjoyment  of  this  degrading  immoral  license,  viz., 
the  procreation  of  children.  It  is  to  the  eternal  infamy 
of  the  memory  of  the  founder  of  the  Protestant  revolt, 
Martin  Luther,  and  to  his  associate  leaders  of  the 
Reformation,  Melanchthon  and  Bucer,  that  they  laid  the 
foundations  of  this  detestable  system  of  divorce  by  de- 
liberately sanctioning  the  open  bigamy  of  the  Land- 
grave of  Hesse,  who  appealed  to  them  as  expositors  of 
the  law  of  Christ  for  permission  to  have  two  wives. 
This  permission  they  gave  in  a  carefully  prepared  docu- 
ment signed  at  "  Wittenberg,  on  Wednesday  after  the 
feast  of  St.  Nicholas,  1539-"  This  document,  in  its  origi- 
nal Latin  with  an  English  translation,  may  be  found 
in  Spalding's  i//^^/7  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  i.  p.  484- 
The  very  foundation  of  the  Episcopalian  form  of 
Protestantism   in  England    under   Henry    VIII.,    who 


544  Divorce. 


made  himself  and  his  successors  on  the  throne  the  royal 
heads  '  *  in  spirituals  and  temporals ' '  of  their  new 
national  church,  was  due,  as  every  school-boy  knows, 
to  the  taking  of  both  law  and  gospel  into  his  own 
hands  by  that  adulterous  and  murderous  monarch. 
Protestantism  is  so  essentially  disintegrating  and  de- 
structive in  its  nature,  that  it  would  be  in  vain  to  look 
to  it  to  sustain  the  indissolubility  of  any  bond  whatso- 
ever. All  religious  unity  among  its  adherents  has  dis- 
appeared. That  might  have  been  easily  foreseen  from 
the  start.  And  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  began  at  once,  as 
it  did,  to  weaken  the  belief  in  marriage  as  a  divine  in- 
stitution, and  that  it  has  gone  on  from  bad  to  worse  unto 
this  day.  There  is  not  a  sect,  Episcopalian,  Presby- 
terian, Congregational,  Methodist,  Baptist,  lyUtheran, 
or  any  one  of  the  hundred  and  more  subdivisions 
of  "  Protestant  Christianity  "  here  or  in  Europe,  that 
would  not  admit  to  "good  standing"  in  their 
' '  churches  ' '  and  to  the  reception  of  its  '  *  ordinances  ' ' 
any  man  or  woman  divorced  by  the  law  who  has  mar- 
ried again,  the  divorced  wife  or  husband  being  still 
living.  Whatever  may  be  the  so-called  disciplinary 
decrees  of  the  Protestant  sects  concerning  marriage  as 
found  written  in  their  books,  all  of  them  practically  put 
them  aside  and  accept  the  enactments  of  the  civil  law 
and  the  decisions  of  the  courts.  It  is  the  old,  old  story 
— Caesar  first,  and  God  last. 

A  few  words  from  some  English  writers  deserve 
quotation  : 

"  Within  two  years  of  the  transfer  of  cases  of  div^orce  a  vinculo 
from  the  legislative  to  a  special  court,  their  number  has  risen 
from  three  per  annum  to  three  hundred.  Lord  Campbell,  noting 
this  in  his  diary,  might  well  say  that   he  was  *  appalled,'  and,  like 


Divorce.  54$ 


Frankenstein,  stood  aghast  at  the  monster  he  had  called  into  ex- 
istence {Li'fc  of  Campbell,  quoted  in  Guardian,  April,  1881). 
What  would  his  lordship  have  felt  had  he  lived  to  see  this  day  ? 
For  the  multiplication  of  divorce  cases  in  England  now  threatens 
to  rival  that  of  the  United  States;  where,  in  Connecticut,  e.  g  , 
against  91  divorces  in  1849,  there  is  now  a  yearly  average  of  440 ; 
the  ratio  of  marriages  to  divorces  being  only  ten  to  one ;  the  in- 
crease of  divorces  in  thirty  years  500  per  cent.,  and  of  population 
only  70  per  cent.  (National  Chiu^cJi,  May,  1883).  The  number 
of  divorces  in  America  will,  it  is  estimated,  at  the  present  rate  of 
increase,  equal  that  of  marriage  in  twenty  years  {Morning  Post, 
June  20,  1883).  The  marriages  of  divorced  persons  in  England 
had  reached  107  in  1878;  and  is  now  at  1,000  since  1856.  A 
social  revolution  of  the  darkest  dye  is  on  us,  and  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  law;  yet  no  one  demands  inquiry.  Premiers  and  Bishops, 
Parliament  and  Convocation,  fold  their  hands"  (Quoted  in  the 
Churck^and  the  Sects,  Allnatt,  note,  p.   17). 

The  well-known  English  Protestant  clergyman,  Rev. 
S.  Baring-Gould,  in  his  Germany,  Past  and  Present 
(vol.  i.  chap,  v.),  says: 

"  In  Demnar/c  divorce  is  much  more  common  than  in  Ger- 
many. From  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  I  fear  that  morals  are 
at  a  terribly  low  ebb  in  the  peninsula  and  its  islands.  Out  of 
10,000  persons  in  Germany  over  fifteen  years  old,  26  are  divorced ; 
in  Denmark,  50 ;  in  Hungary,  44 ;  in  Switzerland  {exclusively 
among  the  Zivinglians  and  Calvinists) , /\.j  ;  in  Catholic  Austria 
there  are  only  4.8  [and  these,  of  course,  Protestants].  The  Statis- 
tical Report  of  the  government,  published  in  1872,  says :  '  The  con- 
nection between  the  relative  proportion  of  divorced  and  religious 
confessions  is  unmistakable.  In  the  specially  evangelical  dis- 
tricts divorces  are  frequent,  in  fhe  strictly  Catholic  they  are  rare.'" 

This  •is  good  evidence  in  favor  of  the  moral  influence 
of  Catholic  surroundings  to  lessen  Protestant  immoral- 
ity, as,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  case  for  suicide 
in  Switzerland. 


546    .  Divorce, 


The  Edinburgh  Review^  October,  1880,  p.  529,  says: 

"  The  average  for  Prussia — the  Protestant  state  par  excellence 
— is  no  less  than  90  in  1,000.  In  Transylvania  it  is  said  that 
among  the  German  Lutherans  two  out  of  every  three  girls  that 
get  married  are  divorced  before  the  end  of  the  year,  and  that  most 
married  women  have  had  three  husbands." 

Truly,  that  is  a  frightful  exhibit.  In  our  own 
country  the  daily  newspapers  tell  us  of  the  alarming 
increase  of  this  suicidal  attack  upon  the  family.  Dr. 
Nathan  Allen  in  his  pamphlet,  The  New  England 
Family,  dwells  at  length  upon  the  then  threatening 
state  of  things  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  and  he  gives 
statistics  which  are  found  repeated  in  the  following  ex- 
tract of  a  review  oi  Lectures  on  the  Calling  of  a  Christian 
Womaji,  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Morgan  Dix,  Rector  of  Trin- 
ity Church,  New  York  City.  The  reviewer  in  the 
Literary  Clmrchinati  (English),  October  12,  1883,  says: 

"  The  sins  of  woman  against  her  vocation  are  treated  of  in 
Lecture  IV.  and  Lecture  V.,  on  Divorce,  and  may  well  startle  us 
in  England  when  we  see  the  fearful  results  already  arrived  at  in 
America,  through  the  facilities  afforded  to  it.  We  will  only  call 
attention  to  the  statistics  given  in  Vermont,  1878,  the  ratio  being 
I  divorce  to  every  13  marriages,  in  Rhode  Island  and  New  Hamp- 
shire I  to  every  10,  and  in  Maine  even  worse.  Mr.  Dix  also 
notes  '  a  fact  that  must  be  stated.'  From  the  total  of  marriages 
registered  in  the  several  States,  those  contracted  and  solemnized 
by  Roman  Catholics  must  be  deducted.  For  they,  all  honor  to 
them,  allow  no  divorce  a  vinculo ,  following  literally  the  command 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Among  Protestants,  or  non-Roman 
Catholics,  the  divorces  occur  ;  and  these  run  up  to  as  high  a  rate 
as  I  divorce  to  every  14  marriages  in  Massachusetts,  and  in 
Connecticut  to  i  in  every  8.  The  practical  result  of  this  facility 
of  divorce  is  that  in  the  New  England  States  alone  families  are 
broken  up  at  the  rate  of  2,000  every  year.     And  note  this :  that 


Divorce,  547 


while  the  laws  for  protecting  marriage  have  been  gradually 
weakened,  and  facilities  for  divorce  extended,  crimes  against 
chastity,  morality,  and  decency  have  been  steadily  increasing" 
(p.   124). 

As  the  Rev.  Dr.  Dix  belongs  to  that  division  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  known  as  "  High  "  he 
avows  the  necessity  of  some  definitive  and  executive 
power  in  Christian  society  in  order  to  deal  with  such 
evils  as  this.  How  utterly  powerless  all  the  sects  of 
Protestantism  are,  including  Dr.  Dix's  own,  to  stop  the 
bestial  onslaught  of  this  social  monster,  everybody 
knows  full  well.     Dr.  Dix  is  further  quoted  as  saying  : 

"  This  is  not  only  a  sign  of  an  infidel  society ;  it  is  also  an  up- 
growth from  the  principles  which  form  the  evil  side  of  Protestant- 
ism. There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  genesis  of  this  abomina- 
tion. I  quote  the  language  of  the  Bishop  of  Maine  :  '  Laxity  of 
opinion  and  teaching  on  the  sacredness  of  the  marriage  bond  and 
on  the  question  of  divorce  originated  amongst  the  Protestants  of 
Continental  Europe  in  the  i6th  century.  It  soon  began  to  appear 
in  the  legislation  of  Protestant  States  on  that  Continent,  and  near- 
ly at  the  same  time  to  affect  the  laws  of  New  England.  And 
from  that  time  to  the  present  it  has  proceeded  from  one  degree  to 
another  in  America,  until  the  Christian  conception  of  the  nature 
and  obligations  of  the  marriage  bond  finds  scarcely  any  recog- 
nition in  legislation,  or,  as  must  be  inferred,  in  the  prevailing 
sentiments  of  the  community.'  This  is  a  heresy  born  and  bred 
of  free  thought  as  applied  to  religion  :  it  is  the  outcome  of  the 
habit  of  interpreting  the  Bible  according  to  a  man's  private  judg- 
ment, rejecting  ecclesiastical  authority  and  Catholic  tradition,  and 
asserting  our  freedom  to  believe  whatever  we  choose,  and  to  select 
what  religion  pleases  us  best"  (p.   136). 

This  is  a  remarkable  avowal  to  come  from  an  Ameri- 
can Protestant  Episcopalian  doctor  of  divinity.  One  is 
naturally  led  to  ask  :    Where  is  that  necessary  definitive 


548  Divorce. 


and  executive  power  in  his  church  ?  The  only  one 
such  we  know  of  is  the  head  of  its  English  branch  (or 
rather,  root),  who,  at  present,  is  Queen  Victoria.  That 
head  our  American  Protestant  Episcopalian  branch 
does  not  acknowledge  to  be  theirs;  but  then,  whom 
or  what  does  it  acknowledge  as  its  head  ?  To  whose 
definitive  and  executive  authorit}',  civil  or  ecclesiasti- 
cal, do  the  bishops,  clergy,  and  people  of  the  "Protest- 
ant Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America," 
as  they  officially  term  their  American  branch,  submit 
their  individual  free  thought  and  private  judgment  ? 
To  whose  decisions  on  moral  questions  do  they  feel 
bound  in  conscience  to  conform  their  conduct  ?  Here 
is  a  case  in  point,  and  a  very  serious  one  too,  involving 
the  very  life  of  society.  But  wh}^  ask  these  useless 
questions  ?  Everybody  knows  that  there  is  no  *  *  au- 
thority "  in  the  world  that  presumes  to  declare  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ,  and  has  the  power  to  enforce  its  deci- 
sions on  this  or  an}^  other  moral  question,  but  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  of  which  the  Pope  is  the  un- 
disputed supreme,  definitive,  and  executive  head. 

The  New  York  Churchman  (Protestant  Episcopa- 
lian), September  8,  1894,  contains  a  condensed  account 
of  the  Report  on  Divorce  of  the  House  of  Convocation 
of  York  in  England.  I  transfer  the  matter  to  these 
pages  as  offering  the  very  best  kind  of  evidence.  The 
reader  will  not  fail  to  notice  that  it  contains  a  very  bold 
and  honest  self-accusation  on  the  part  of  these  English 
Churchmen  that  ''the  Chitrch  of  E^igland  is  gidlty  of  con- 
nivance in.  this  matter  of  divorce.'''  May  their  courage 
be  equal  to  their  compunction  wdien  it  comes  to  meeting 
the  enemy  at  close  quarters  !  But,  even  so,  will  their 
people  recognize  the  voice  and  hand  of  ' '  authority  ' '  ? 


Divorce.  549 


The  report  says : 

"  We  have  already  seen  how  divorce  is  marching  onward  with 
ever-increasing"  rapidity,  bearing  in  its  train  those  natural  con- 
sequences— the  disintegration  of  family  life,  laxity  of  ideas  as  to 
the  marriage  bond,  a  growing  appetite  for  greater  facilities  for 
breaking  that  bond,  perjury,  lying  collusions,  and  increasing 
temptations  to  unfaithful  conduct.  This  surely  means  the  steady 
lowering  of  the  moral  tone  of  the  nation,  and  a  drifting  toward 
the  depraved  state  of  American  morals  in  the  matter  of  marriage. 
If  England  is  to  go  forward  on  the  path  she  has  already  com- 
menced to  tread,  what  will  be  her  condition  one  hundred  or  even 
tifty  years  hence  ? 

"Where  can  we  look  for  any  check  to  this  course  that  the 
nation  has  thus  embarked  upon  ?  Who  should  be  the  natural 
upholder  of  the  morals  of  the  country  ?  Ought  not  the  answer  to 
be,  '  The  Church  of  Christ  in  this  land'?  Have  we  not  already 
seen  how  religious  societies  in  America  blame  themselves  because 
they  have  made  no  firm  stand  against  the  prevalent  laxity  ?  Have 
we  not  seen  how  the  Roman  Church,  there  standing  alone,  has 
firmly  opposed  and  stamped  out  amongst  its  own  members  exery 
tendency  of  the  kind,  and  has  thus  had  a  marked  influence  for 
good  ? 

"  It  is  surely  the  duty  of  the  Catholic  Church  of  this  land — 

"  (i)  Boldly  and  faithfully  to  set  forth  the  doctrine  of  mar- 
riage as  taught  by  our  Lord  and  His  Church, 

•"  (^2)  To  strive  by  every  means  to  maintain  a  sound  and 
healthy  public  opinion  on  the  subject, 

"  (3)    To  uphold  a  strict  discipline  among  her  own  members. 

"  (4)  And  to  remember  that  a  Church  of  diminished  numbers, 
yet  of  pure  life,  is  more  loyal  to  Christ,  and  doing  more  good  in 
the  nation,  than  a  Church  which  lowers  her  moral  standard  to 
meet  the  lowered  moral  standard  of  the  world. 

"  We  maintain  that  the  Church  of  England  is  guilty  of  con- 
nivance in  this  matter  of  divorce  : 

"  (i)  As  regards  the  issue  of  marriage  licenses  from  the 
diocesan  registries,  which,  prima  faciCy  are  'voluntary  faculties,' 
granted  by  the  bishop. 


550 


Divorce, 


"  The  report,  after  giving  tabulated  statistics,  goes  on  to  say : 

"  '  The  practice  varies  greatly. 

'"Out  of  the  thirty-four  (i)  dioceses  of  England  and  Wales— 

"  '  (a)  Six  only  (Chester,  Chichester,  Ely,  Lichfield,  Norwich, 
and  Salisbury)  refuse  to  issue  licenses  to  any  divorced  person 
whatsoever. 

'''(b)  Fifteen-and-a-half  (2)  (St.  Albans,  Bath  and  Wells. 
Canterbury,  Durham,  Exeter,  the  ancient  diocese  of  Bristol, 
Hereford,  Llandaff,  Lincoln,  Liverpool,  Manchester,  Newcastle, 
Leterborough,  Rochester,  Truro,  Winchester)  grant  the  bishop's 
faculty  for  a  fresh  union  to  the  successful  petitioner  or  plaintiff 
ii\  a  divorce  suit. 

'''(c)  Whilst  eleven-and-a-half  (St.  Asaph,  Bangor  (3),  Car- 
lisle, St.  David's,  Gloucester,  London  (4),  Oxford,  Ripon,  South- 
well, Wakefield,  Worcester,  York)  make  no  rule  against  the  issue 
of  licenses  to  either  party.  Some  leave  it  to  the  surrogates  to 
do  as  they  please,  some  merely  order  the  surrogates  to  be  sure 
that  a  certified  copy  of  the  decree  absolute  is  filed  whichever 
party  applies,  so  as  to  make  it  clear  that  the  decree  was  not 
one  merely  for  judicial  separation  (5).  Thus  in  eleven-and-a- 
half  dioceses  the  bishop's  faculty  for  a  fresh  union  is.  supplied 
to  the  convicted  adulterer  as  well  as  to  the  successful  petitioner.'" 

On  the  score  of  this  now  universally  practised  Prot- 
estant iniquity  there  is,  of  course,  no  comparison  to 
make.  They  have  the  sin  and  the  shame  all  to  them- 
selves, with  no  Catholic  to  dispute  with  them  the  dis- 
honor. What  is  more  :  this  question  of  divorce  fur- 
nishes a  practical  test  of  the  power  of  Christianity  to 
regenerate  society  when  it  is  suffering  from  erroneous 
doctrine  or  degrading,  immoral  practices.  The  reli- 
gious systems  of  Protestantism  are  confessedly  unable 
to  carry  the  mission  of  Christian  regeneration  into 
effect  by  deciding  the  true  doctrine  and  enforcing  the 
decision.  The  Catholic  Church  is  able,  as  no  one  dis- 
putes.    The  conclusion  is  evident. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

PROSTITUTION. 

^tlHERE  are  three  very  pertinent  remarks  I  would 
X  like  to  make  concerning  my  investigations  of  this 
repulsive  subject  which  equally  apply  to  that  of  Ille- 
gitimacy. The  first  is,  that  the  never-ceasing  vitupera- 
tive attacks  upon  the  Catholic  Church  made  by  clerical 
and  lay  spokesmen  of  every  Protestant  sect  are  seldom 
free  from  charges  of  immorality  and  of  immoral  doctrine 
and  influence  based  upon  the  alleged  excess  of  illegiti- 
macy and  prostitution  among  Catholic  peoples. 

My  second  remark  is,  that  outside  of  making  use,  by 
way  of  just  defence  against  these  unmerited  charges, 
of  the  statistics  furnished  by  official  authorities  or  by 
their  own  writers,  no  Catholic  has  ever,  to  my  knowl- 
edge, attacked  either  the  Protestant  religion  or  its 
clergy  and  people  in  similar  brutal  fashion. 

My  third  remark  is,  that  Protestants  seem  to  be 
particularly  fond  of  hunting  up  statistics  of  illiteracy, 
pauperism,  crime,  and  immorality.  As  has  been 
already  seen,  most  of  my  statements  have  been  taken 
either  directly  from  Protestant  authorities  or  are  con- 
firmed by  their  own  investigations.  If  the  reader 
chooses  so  to  view  the  relative  character  of  the  per- 
sonifications in  the  fable,  as  applied  to  this  matter, 
the  Lion  is  quite  content  to  abide  by  the  ' '  History  ' ' 
of  him  as  written  by  the  ''Man:'  In  what  sort  of 
light  the  Man  would  appear  if  the  Lion  took  it  into 
his   head   to  write  a   history,  and   especially   a  moral 

551 


552  Frost  iiution. 


histoos  of  him,  may  well  be  imagined  after  seeing 
what  the  Man,  in  attempting  to  vShow  up  the  in- 
iquity of  the  Lion,  has  been  forced,  willy-nilly,  to 
tell  about  himself. 

Some  friends,  both  of  the  Lion  and  the  Man,  may 
possibly  say — Don't  stir  up  this  ver}^  objectionable 
matter.  I  reply — It  is  already  stirred  up  most  reck- 
lessly, most  publicl}^  and  most  offensivel3\  Not  by  us 
Catholics,  but  by  those  who  are  very  far  from  being 
an}'  better  friends  of  sinners  than  they  are  of  the  poor, 
but  who  in  their  wrong-headed  ignorance  of  the  true 
spirit  of  Christ  revile  the  Catholic  Church  for  "im- 
morality and  pauperism  ' '  because  they  see  the  outcast 
and  the  poor  hastening  to  throw  themselves  upon  her 
maternal  bosom  of  divine  cliarit}^  the  poor  knowing 
well  that  she  will  pour  out  her  alms  sweetened  with 
love  to  relieve  their  bodily  needs,  and  the  penitent 
sinner  equally  sure  that  she  will  speak  to  them  the 
words  of  hope  and  forgiveness  as  she  shelters  them 
under  her  mantle  of  mercy.  The  Friend  of  vSinners 
and  of  the  Poor !  Oh  !  glorious  title,  worthily  borne 
through  days  of  good  and  evil  report  by  God's  most 
holy  Church  ! 

If  I  bring  myself,  therefore,  to  drag  into  the  light 
the  true  facts  concerning  this  unwelcome  subject,  it  is 
because  too  man}'  have  been  misled  b}^  false  and  exag- 
gerated charges  to  look  upon  the  Catholic  Church  as  a 
"  mystery  of  moral  iniquity,"  in  proof  of  which  her  un- 
scrupulous enemies  have  not  hesitated  to  put  out  tables 
of  false  statistics  about  the  social  evil,  and  published 
books  and  pamphlets,  the  very  names  of  which  must 
not  defile  these  pages  even  in  defence.  Without 
further  ado  I  present  simply  some  cold  figures. 


Prostitution, 


553 


Mulhall  gives  these  statistics  for  a  few  cities  without 
remark  or  reference  ;  to  which  I  have  added  the  calcu- 
lated number  of  inhabitants  for  e ver}-. prostitute  : 


Cities, 
Protestant. 

I  Prostitute 
to  how  many 
inhabitants  ? 

How   7nany  to 
every  10,000 
inhabitants  ? 

How  many 
in  the  city  ? 

London, 

Berlin,          .         . 

Catholic. 

Paris, 
Lyons, 
Marseilles,  . 
Bordeaux,    . 

40 

82 
69 

80 

83 
248 

122 

US 
112 

3 1 ,800 
27,300 

26,990 
5,520 
4,080 
2,610 

It  would  appear  that  Mulhall  based  his  compilation 
of  the  full  numbers  for  London  upon  the  statistics  of 
population  for  1881.  The  figures  given  for  the  other 
cities  calculated  upon  his  ratio  of  prostitution  do  not 
correspond  with  any  statistics  of  population  I  can  find. 
If  the  same  ratio  be  taken  to  hold  good  for  later  years, 
then  the  numbers  for  the  three  great  cities  where  one 
expects  this  vice  to  be  the  more  rampant  would  be 
these  : 


1 891.  London 

Paris, 
1890.  Berlin, 


-Full  number, 


35.092 
29,469 
39.853 


Before  offering  an  explanation  of  these  figures  I 
present  a  carefully  compiled  table  made  by  a  cele- 
brated German  authority,  which  was  quoted  as  reliable 
b}^  the  Rev.  S.  Baring-Gould  in  his  Germany,  Past 
and  Present,  vol.  i.  p.  167.  The  authority  is  Haus- 
ner's    VergieicJicnde  Statistik  von  Europa,    1865,   vol.  i. 


554 


Prostittition. 


p.  179.  From  the  table  of  Hausner  I  give  all  the 
Protestant  cities  named,  and  select  from  the  list  of 
Catholic  cities  an  equal  number,  and  those  which  con- 
tain the  largest  number  of  inhabitants  and  in  which  this 
vice  should  be  more  prevalent,  so  as  to  preclude  an}^ 
possible  charge  of  unfairness  towards  the  Protestant 
side : 

PROTESTANT    CITIES. 


I   Prostitute  to 

Hozv  niajiy  to 

hoiv  many  in- 

every 10,000 

habitants  ? 

inhabitants  ? 

Hamburg,         ...            48 

208 

Berlin, 

62 

161 

London,     . 

91 

109 

Liverpool, 

129 

77 

Amsterdam, 

153 

65 

Rotterdam, 

171 

58 

Edinburgh, 

198 

50 

Dresden.   . 

236 

42 

The  Hague, 

248 

40 

Manchester  (?), 

489 

20 

CATHOLIC    CITIES. 

I  Prostitute  to 

How  many  to 

how  many  in- 

every 10,000 

habitants  ? 

inhabitants  ? 

Buda-Pesth,      .         .         .          103 

97 

Vienna,     . 

^59 

62 

Naples,      . 

208 

48 

Munich,     . 

220 

45 

Madrid,     . 

240 

41 

Paris, 

247 

40 

Brussels.    . 

275 

36 

Marseilles, 

283 

35 

Bordeaux, 

312 

32 

Lyons, 

422 

23 

The  best  Protestant  city  on  the  list  is  Manchester, 
in  England,  and  I  think  it  deserves  to  have  the 
mark  of  interrogation  which  I  find  placed  after  it. 
Its  superior  and  singular  purity  above   all  other  Prot- 


Prostitution.  555 


estaut  cities  in  Europe  is  certainly  questionable. 
Although  I  have  omitted  it  from  the  list,  I  think 
the  Catholic  Italian  city  of  Bologna,  the  best  one  of 
the  Catholic  cities  named  by  Hausner,  deserv^es  mention. 
It  has  but  I  prostitute  to  590  inhabitants  and  only 
16  to  every  10,000  inhabitants. 

Compared  even  with  French  cities,  it  seems  that 
Bologna  has  not  been  assigned  her  place  of  honor 
without  just  cause.     A  recent  French  wTiter  says  : 

'*  Violations  and  crimes  against  chastity  are  infinitely  less  fre- 
(juent  in  Italy  than  in  France,  where  these  crimes  are  increasing  " 
{Dc  la  crwiinalite  en  France  ct  en  Italie:  etude  medico-tcgaie, 
Dr.  Albert  Bournet,  Paris,   1884). 

The  reader  must  have  already  noticed  the  extra- 
ordinary discrepancy  between  the  figures  given  in  the 
two  sets  of  tables  for  the  great  cities  of  London, 
Paris,  and  Berlin ;  for  if  we  take  the  ratio  given  by 
Hausner  as  holding  good  at  this  present  day,  the 
following  results  would  appear,  in  which  I  wall  include 
also  Vienna  : 

PROTESTANT    CITIES. 

1 891.  London — Full  number,    ....         46,275 

1890.  Berlin,  "  "  ....         25,464 

CATHOLIC    CITIES. 

1 891.  Paris — Full  number,         ....  9,910 
1890.  Vienna,  "           " 8,582 

Such  a  discrepancy  demands  explanation.  This  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  London  and  Berlin  are  charged 
with  the  approximate  number  of  these  unfortunate 
women,  including  both  those  who  are  sufficiently 
well  known  to  the  police  to  be    estimated,  and    those 


5  56  Prostitution. 


whose  character  is  discovered  through  investigations 
made  by  parliamentary  commissioners,  physicians,  and 
sociologists.  This  latter  class  is  termed  "clandes- 
tine," the  ostensible  occupations  of  these  women  being 
quite  other  than  their  real  one.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
figures  for  Paris  and  Vienna  appear  extraordinarily 
low,  because  they  are  the  report  only  of  those  known  to 
government  authorities,  and  the  number  of  "  clandes- 
tines  "  are  not  included. 

There  have  been  a  good  many  essa3-s  written  on  this 
subject,  and  all  agree  that  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  do 
more  than  make  a  general  estimate  based  upon  investi- 
gations more  or  less  thorough.  The  following  may 
throw  some  light  upon  the  condition  of  London. 

A  report  from  the  select  committee  of  the  English 
House  of  Lords  on  the  Contagious  Diseases  act,  together 
with  the  proceedings  of  the  committee,  minutes  of  evi- 
dence, etc.,  1867-68,  says  "that  in  the  3'ear  1859  the 
police  reported  6,849  i^i  London,  and  6,515  in  the  year 
1868,  and  they  do  not  pretend  to  estimate  others 
unknown,  which  are  said  by  some  to  range  from  20,000 
to  80,000."  The  following  appeared  some  3-ears  before 
in  Taifs  Edinburgh  Magazine,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  748,  1857  : 

"  Mr.  Daniel  Cooper  says  the  number  of  street-walkers  in  Lon- 
don was  28,000.  The  Lancet  (the  celebrated  medical  journal)  is 
declared  to  state  on  best  authority  that  one  house  in  60  in 
London  is  a  brothel,  and  one  in  every  16  females,  of  all  ages, 
is  de  facto  a  criminal  in  this  respect.  Mr.  Talbot  and  other 
careful  observers  calculate  the  number  of  brothels  in  London  at 
5,000,  and  the  number  of  fallen  women  at  80,000." 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  truth  of  these  high 
estimates  for  London,  it   must  be   said  for  Paris  that, 


Prostitution.  557 


although  it  has  had  the  worst  popular  reputation,  in 
this  respect,  of  any  Catholic  city,  writers  have  not 
charged  against  it  an  equall}^  great  number  of  brothels 
and  fallen  women,  or  even  expressed  a  suspicion  of  the 
number  being  as  great. 

But,  after  all,  the  comparative  amount  of  this  vice 
in  densely  populated  cities  offers  no  true  test  of  the 
general  moralit}^  of  a  wdiole  country.  What  would 
better  reveal  the  condition  of  popular  morals  in  this 
respect  would  be  evidence  of  its  prevalence  in  small 
towns,  villages,  and  outlying  country  districts.  The 
reader  has  had  some  such  evidence  presented  in  former 
chapters  for  England  and  Wales.  I  feel  quite  safe  in 
saying  that  nothing  at  all  similar  has  ever  been  charged 
against  the  rural  districts  of  any  Catholic  country,  or 
even  suspected  of  them. 

There  is  a  point  of  comparison  which  is  suggested  to 
one's  mind  in  examining  this  subject,  and  that  is  the 
notorious  publicity  of  this  vice  in  Protestant  cities  con- 
trasted with  its  strict  suppression  from  view  in  Catholic 
ones.  Any  person  who  has  had  occasion  to  be  out  in 
the  streets  after  nightfall  in  I^ondon  has  been  imme- 
diately made  aware  of  the  shocking  and  repulsive  exhi- 
bition of  it.  One  cannot  help  reflecting  what  a  corrupt- 
ing influence  this  shameless  and  unrestricted  obtrusion 
of  it  must  have,  not  only  upon  many  others  who  but 
for  such  enticements  forced  upon  them  would  not  fall 
under  its  influence,  but  especially  upon  the  youth  of 
all  clavSses.  Even  in  so  esteemed  dissolute  Paris,  not 
at  any  hour  is  a  prostitute  permitted  to  show  herself  as 
such  on  the  street;  and  the  same  repressive  surveil- 
lance obtains  in  other  Catholic  cities,  and  I  believe  in 
some  Protestant  Continental  cities  also. 


558  Prostitution. 


Under  the  title  of  ' '  Drunkenness  ' '  I  quoted  from  an 
article  in  the  New  York  Sun  of  November  13,  1892, 
entitled  "  Vice  in  Modern  London."  Here  are  some  of 
the  same  writer's  observations  on  the  social  evil  in  that 
city: 

*'  The  degradation  of  woman  is  more  common  in  London  than 
in  any  great  city  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Nowhere  is  the  social 
evil  so  obtrusive  and  so  unrepressed.  .  .  .  London's  great 
army  of  '  unfortunates  '  has  sunk  to  a  lower  scale  in  the  slavery 
to  drink  than  have  their  sisters  in  other  large  capitals.  It  fol- 
lows that  vice  in  London  is  more  repulsive  than  in  more  seduc- 
tive Paris.  But  what  it  lacks  in  gilding  it  makes  up  in  obtrusive- 
ness  and  insistence.  Nowhere  on  earth  can  anything  be  found 
to  match  the  scenes  in  Regent  Street,  Piccadilly,  and  the  Strand 
late  at  night.  Soliciting  by  these  women  is  entirely  unchecked  by 
the  police.  An  American  gentleman  walked  along  the  Strand  for 
a  single  block  one  evening  last  week  (November  3,  1892),  without 
in  -anyway  encouraging  attention  except  by  his  rather  slow  walk, 
and  he  was  accosted  by  no  less  than  26  women.  Within  100 
yards  of  Piccadilly  Circus  there  may  be  counted  on  any  pleasant 
evening  from  150  to  300  bold,  painted  faces  that  mark  as  plainly 
as  would  a  branding-iron  the  name  of  outcast. 

"  London  shuts  its  official  eyes  to  the  whole  thing,  and  as  a 
result  vice  flaunts  itself  where  it  will.  Even  daylight  does  not 
shame  it  out  of  sight.  .  .  .  Criticism  is  an  ungracious  task, 
but  when  the  subjects  of  it  are  themselves  the  critics  of  all  the 
world,  perhaps  no  apology  is  needed.  The  temptation  to  point 
the  finger  of  scorn  at  London — hypercritical,  hypocritical  London 
— is  far  greater  than  to  join  in  the  chorus  of  denunciation  of  gay 
and  slandered  Paris.  Paris  is  gloriously  wicked ;  London  is 
guiltily  so." 

Evidently  the  London  kettle  cannot  reproach  the 
Paris  pot  for  its  blackness.  A  writer  in  the  C/uarh  and 
the  IVortd  (iSGj) ,  the  Anglican  High-Church  journal 
already    quoted,    arguing   in   praise   of  the    beneficial 


Prostitution.  559 


effects  of  the  confessional  in  the  repression  of  vice, 
gives  a  number  of  statistics  taken  from  the  Statistical 
Society's  Journal,  vol.  i.,  concerning  the  brazen  publicity 
of  this  evil  in  English  cities,  and  contrasts  all  this  un- 
restricted public  moral  poisoning  of  youth  with  the 
way  it  is  kept  out  of  sight  in  Catholic  cities.  He 
says: 

'  *•  Those  who  have  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  the  well- 
ordered  condition  of  Ireland,  France,  Belgium,  and  Spain,  espe- 
cially of  Rome,  and  the  cities  of  North  Italy,  in  this  respect 
will  scarcely  hesitate  in  their  opinion.  The  '  Catholic  religion ' 
will  not,  cannot,  produce  its  due  effects  for  the  amelioration  of 
mankind  if  it  be  preached  and  practised  by  instalments  only,  and 
one  of  the  most  important  be  omitted."  [He  alludes  to  the 
confessional]  "  In  its  completeness,  who  doubts  its  ability  to 
regenerate  the  most  degraded  of  human  beings  }  " 

The  Episcopalians,  as  we  know,  are  gradually  intro- 
ducing the  confessional,  so  fiercely  denounced  and 
maligned  by  their  former  brethren. 

One  finds  jewels  in  unsuspected  places.  Such  a 
place  are  the  columns  of  a  New  York  Protestant  reli- 
gious journal,  strongly  anti-Catholic— the  C/i7istia?i  at 
Work,  from  whose  issue  of  September  8,  1892,  I  ex- 
tract this  editorial  note  : 

"  There  is  no  question  that  the  confessional  as  a  means  for 
relief  to  the  sin-burdened  soul  has  its  advantages.  It  must  be 
a  great  relief  to  one  bearing  the  burden  of  some  peculiar  sin 
to  be  able  to  go  into  a  closet  and  there,  through  a  small  screen 
window,  whisper  into  the  ear  of  the  faithful  priest  the  story  of 
the  sin  and  ask  what  he  shall  do.  To  be  sure,  there  is  the 
feeling  in  our  Protestantism  '  Go  and  tell  Jesus.'  But  even  here 
perplexity  and  doubt  sweep  over  the  soul  as  the  questions  arise — 
What  must  I  do  ?     What  reparation  muit  I  make  ?     Or  yet,  The 


560  Prostitution. 

tempter  assails  me  irresistibly  at  times;  what  shall  I,  what  can  I 
do  ?  That  agonized  cry  often  comes  up  from  the  troubled  soul 
that  seeks  relief,  but  in  vain.  We  thus  throw  out  the  subject  for 
the  consideration  of  those  having  interest  in  the  matter.  Of 
course  many  would  say  '  Go  and  tell  your  minister.'  But  often 
the  minister  is  the  very  last  one  to  whom  one  would  confide  the 
distressing  secret.  So  far  as  the  Roman  confessional  is  con- 
cerned it  is  inseparable  from  the  dogma  of  priestly  absolution 
with  which  it  is  connected.  But  it  would  undoubtedly  be  a 
great  source  of  comfort  at  times  if  some  sin-burdened  soul 
could  find  some  judicious  friend  who  could  serve  him  in  this 
critical  time  of  spiritual  depression  and  conflict." 

There  are  millions  of  such  tempted  and  sin-bur- 
dened souls  who  certainly  have  a  vital  "  interest  in  this 
matter" — an  interest  so  great  that  its  urgent  demands 
overbalance  in  value  all  other  life  attractions  and  re- 
duce its  purest  joj'S  to  worthless  baubles  in  comparison 
to  them. 

I  am  happy  to  aid  the  Christian  at  Work  in  throwing 
out  the  subject  for  the  consideration  of  such  suffering 
souls,  and  if  they  will  but  consider  it  well  the  grace  of 
God  will  make  the  way  to  the  true  and  only  satisfactory 
means  of  relief  as  easy  as  common  sense  makes  it  plain. 
The  Catholic  confessional  is  just  such  a  practical  means 
of  "  telling  Jesus  "  one's  sins  and  receiving  His  assured 
forgiveness.  Many  a  priest  has  had  the  happiness  to 
find  the  troubled  whisper  at  the  small  screen  window  of 
his  confessional  to  come  from  a  Protestant,  driven  like 
a  storm-wearied  bird  to  seek  in  this  surely  comforting 
refuge  a  shelter  from  the  pitiless  tempest  of  passion  and 
sin.  Though  they  know  that  as  Protestants  they  can- 
not ask  for  absolution,  yet,  oh  !  what  an  unspeak- 
able relief  it  is  to  unburden  one's  tortured  and  per- 
plexed conscience  at  the  feet  of  one  who  can  be  counted 


Prostitution.  56  [ 


upon  to  listen  and  give  counsel  as  a  sympathizing 
friend,  if  no  more,  and  who  will  carry  the  secrets  of 
his  soul  with  the  silence  of  God.  But  let  us  return  to 
our  subject. 

It  is  worth  while  repeating  here  what  I  have  already 
quoted  from  a  writer  who,  as  newspaper  correspondent 
to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  and  the  New  York  Herald, 
tells  us  in  his  published  volume  that  he  had  seen 
every  country-  in  Europe,  and  had  this  to  say  about 
Catholic  Spain  : 

"  The  comparative  percentage  of  professional  vice,  and  of  gen- 
eral looseness  of  morals,  is  imich  lower  in  Spain  than  in  any 
cotmtry  in  Europe.  The  best  proof  of  this  is  that  the  so-called 
demi-monde,  or  the  kept  women,  are  unknown,  even  in  Madrid 
itself.  There  are  fallen  women  in  the  capital  of  Spain,  and  in 
a  couple  of  the  large  towns  in  the  Peninsula  ;  but  the  total 
of  prostitutes  throughout  the  country  is,  I  believe,  muck  under  the 
number  ive  can  daily  meet  in  one  leading  street  0/  Paris,  Londo?i, 
or  Berlin  "   {Spain  and  t lie  Spaniards,  N,  L.  Thieblin,  p.  383). 

It  is  notorious  that  even  in  Cuba  the  known  fallen 
women  are,  with  rare  exceptions,  of  other  nationalities. 

Protestant  moralists  and  controversial  writers  have 
been  accustomed  to  condemn  the  legal  restrictions  of 
the  social  evil  in  Catholic  cities  acting  in  this  matter, 
and  wisely,  upon  the  well-recognized  moral  principle 
that  "of  two  evils  one  may  choose  the  lesser."  The 
lesser  evil  is  the  official  toleration  and  supervision  of 
the  least  amount,  and  this  the  state  has  a  right  to  do  in 
the  interests  of  both  public  health  and  general  public 
moralit}'.  It  is  on  this  same  principle  that  drunken- 
ness, another  immoral,  degrading,  crime-creating,  and 
citizen-destroying  vice,  comes  under  the  cognizance  of 
the  authorities.     The  state  cannot  prevent  a  man's  drink- 


5  62.  Prostitution. 


ing  intoxicating  liquors  or  getting  drunk  in  his  own 
house,  or  in  the  house  of  anybody  else,  any  more  than 
it  can  prevent  one  committing  other  personal  immoral- 
ities in  private,  but  it  can  and  ought  to  take  cognizance 
of  any  social  condition,  or  it  may  be  public  system,  of 
otherwise  lawful  human  action  which  is  judged  to  be  a 
positive  proximate  occasioii,  or  circumstantial  cause,  so 
prevalent  as  to  threaten  the  peace,  good  order,  bodily 
and  moral  health  of  the  community  at  large.  Public 
enticements  to  the  commission  of  the  immoral  acts  of 
drunkenness  and  harlotry  ought  both  to  be  reduced  to 
their  lowest  terms  and  put  under  the  narrowest  legal 
restrictions  which  public  opinion  will  sustain.  If  this 
involves  legal  toleration  of  some  of  these  proximate 
occasio7is,  say  ten  houses  of  ill-fame,  or  of  the  modern 
"  liquor-saloons, "  thereby  shutting  up  a  hundred  others, 
and  limiting  the  number  and  force  of  these  virulent 
public  attacks  upon  public  health  and  virtue,  so  be  it. 
But  all  know  that  restrictive  laws  are  dead-letters  be- 
yond the  sanction  imposed  by  the  standard  of  public 
virtue.  The  Sim's  contributor,  already  quoted,  would 
seem  to  imply  that  in  England  that  standard  is  fright- 
fully low  when  he  says  : 

"  The  authorities  (?)  would  be  glad  to  put  such  restrictions 
on  the  social  evil  as  are  employed  in  the  German  capital  (and 
other  Continental  cities),  but  English  public  sentiment  would  not 
permit  it.  To  adopt  such  a  policy  would  involve  official  admis- 
sion that  the  evil  exists.  The  Englishman  prefers  to  wear  a 
cloak  of  virtue,  even  though  the  uncovering  of  the  vilest  vice  be- 
neath would  enable  him  in  some  degree  to  mitigate  the  evil." 

Sooner,  also,    than   acknowledge   the   horrible   pre- 
valence of  drunkenness  the  Englishman  forbids  by  law 


Prostitution.  563 


the  arrest  of  any  drunkard,  man  or  woman,  in  the 
streets  or  even  in  places  of  public  amusement.  Public 
sentiment  compels  that  law  to  stand  despite  the  evil. 
Why  ?     Because  the  public  standard  of  morality  is  low. 

How  utterly  incapable  even  well-meaning  Protest- 
ants are  of  dealing  with  the  social  evil,  as,  indeed,  with 
any  other  vice,  and  how  shockingly  mischievous  even 
their  attempts  at  reform,  has  been  lately  shown  in  the 
positively  immoral  methods  resorted  to  by  a  certain 
Protestant  minister  in  this  City  of  New  York.  "We 
believe,"  said  a  leading  Protestant  journal,  "  that  the 
results  have  justified  the  methods  adopted,"  thus  de- 
liberately sanctioning  the  immoral  principle,  the  end 
justifies  the  means — a  principle  which  the  Jesuits  have 
been  falsely  charged  by  Protestants  time  out  of  mind 
with  holding  and  acting  upon.  But  who  does  not  know 
that  of  the  inconsistency  of  Protestantism  there  is  no 
measure  ?  All  know  how  this  minister's  indiscreet  pro- 
cedure resulted  in  forcing  into  wide-spread  publicity 
revolting  details  of  his  own  filthy  observations  and 
stool-pigeon  enticements  to  the  commission  of  enor- 
mities the  possibility  of  which,  it  is  safe  to  say,  not  one 
in  a  million  of  the  newspaper  readers  under  whose  eyes 
the  story  was  thrust  ever  imagined.  The  dreadful 
consequence  is  evident.  Numberless  pure-minded  and 
innocent  boys  and  girls  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  this  country  have  had  a  poisonous  stain 
fixed  upon  their  imaginations  which  to  the  end  of  the 
longest  life  will  not  be  erased.  What  else  did  Protest- 
antism ever  succeed  in  doing  under  its  pretence  of  Re- 
form, save  to  ruin  and  destroy? 

Wherever  I  could  I  have  spoken  of  these  degraded 
women  as  "  unfortunates."     Not  without  purpose.     To 


564  Prostitution. 


my  mind  nothing  lias  contributed  so  much  to  deprave 
the  popular  moral  sense  and  act  as  an  incitement  to 
evil — thus  increasing  the  social  plague — than  the  pre- 
vailing notion  that  they  are  led  to  embrace  this  life  of 
shame  in  order  to  gratify  their  own  immoral  desires  ; 
that  they  are  to  be  regarded  as  wilful  and  malicious 
moral  poisoners  who  take  a  diabolical  delight  in  ruining 
the  souls  of  others  :  a  rather  incredible  depravit}^  to 
attribute  to  human  nature,  especially  when  one  knows 
that  the  life  is  one  of  such  unspeakable  horror  and  so 
frequently  ends  in  nameless  suffering  and  premature 
death,  the  period  of  time  such  a  career  is  endured 
averaging  no  more  than  three  years. 

No,  the  truth  is  that,  however  degraded  and  blasphe- 
mousl}^  wicked  not  a  few  of  them  become,  the  great  ma- 
jority are  unfortunate  victims,  entrapped  by  scoundrels 
and  harpies,  girls  unwisely  schooled  above  their  sta- 
tion, and  without  proper  moral  and  religious  education, 
or  driven  by  dire  want  to  sell  their  bodies  and  souls 
for  bread.  Of  the  first  cause  there  is  no  need  to  speak 
further.  But  the  second  and  third  deserve  more  par- 
ticular notice.  Nineteen  centuries  of  experience,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  dictates  of  common  sense,  fully 
justify  the  principles  and  action  of  the  Catholic 
Church  on  the  vital  question  of  education.  Both 
are  well  known,  no  less  than  the  unwise  and  irra- 
tional opposition  w^hich  the  principles  she  has  always 
afhrmed  and  acted  upon  have  met  with  at  the  hands 
of  Protestants,  Secularists,  and  Infidels.  So-called 
"education,"  lacking  religious  and  moral  teaching  and 
discipline,  is  sure  to  produce  immoral  living.  No 
one  would  presume  to  saj^  that  Protestants  purposely 
adhere  to  such    erroneous   principles    and   methods  on 


ProstitiUion.  565 


that  account,  but  it  ought  to  be  for  them  a  startling 
fact  that  it  was  in  state-schooled  Protestant  Prussia 
where  the  two  "ministers  of  the  gospel,  Ebel  and 
Diestel,"  founded,  at  Konigsberg,  the  sect  of  the 
"Muckers,"  whose  religious  obscenities  were  incom- 
parably worse  even  than  those  of  which  the  Protestant 
minister  deliberately  made  himself  particeps  criminis 
by  paying  for  the  exhibition  of  them  in  the  New  York 
brothel.  The  sect  of  the  Muckers  increased  very 
rapidly,  and  came  to  embrace  the  greater  part  of  the 
nobility  and  other  highly  educated  persons  in  the 
province.  Laing,  in  his  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  says: 
"  It  is  only  in  the  history  of  Otaheite  that  its  parallel 
can  be  found,"  and  he  immediately  ascribes  this  ap- 
palling outbreak  of  immorality  to  the  then  Prussian 
system  of  national  schooling  without  moral  and  reli- 
gious education,  just  what  our  American  Protestants 
and  Secularists  are  determined  a  oittrance  to  force 
upon  all  the  children  of  this  and  other  countries. 

It  should  be  no  less  the  subject  of  their  serious  con- 
sideration that  English,  Welsh,  Swedish,  and  Ameri- 
can Protestantism  furnished  and  continues  to  furnish  its 
largest  quota  of  membership  to  the  polygamous  Mor- 
mon sect.  Out  of  Protestantism. also  came  the  Oneida 
free-love  community,  and  the  numerous  private  adhe- 
rents of  its  bestial  principles  and  imitators  of  its  prac- 
tices scattered  throughout  the  country. 

The  third,  and  certainly  the  most  common,  cause 
which  drives  women  to  this  revolting  extremity  is  a 
most  pitiable  one— the  pangs  of  hunger.  How  few 
men  think  of  or  even  suspect  this  ;  or,  if  knowing  it, 
how  fewer  still  would  be  base  enough,  heartless  enough, 
to  take  advantage  of  it ! 


^66  Prostitution, 


A  celebrated  French  specialist,  Dr.  Duchatel,  who 
made  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  this  subject, 
gives  a  sample  of  one  of  his  investigations  in  the  city  of 
Paris.  Of  5,183,  comprising  then  nearly  the  whole 
number  known  officially  to  the  authorities,  he  notes  the 
following  causes  : 

"  2,696  driven  to  it  by  parental  abandonment,  excessive  want, 
and  imminent  starvation.  89  to  earn  bread  for  the  support  of 
starving  parents  or  children  !  280  driven  by  shame  to  fly  from 
their  homes,  and  2,118  abandoned  by  traitorous  seducers,  and 
having  no  shelter  or  occupation." 

Just  think  of  the  shuddering  horror  of  it,  of  the  de- 
spair of  mind,  of  the  piercing  heart  agonies  mingled 
with  the  exhausting  cravings  for  food,  driving  these 
unhappy  beings,  as  with  the  lash  of  a  malignant  fury, 
to  immolate  themselves  upon  the  altars  of  this  iniquity  ! 
The  morally  debased  who  take  advantage  of  all  this 
misery  either  do  not  know,  or  willingly  blind  them- 
selves to  it.  They  lie  to  themselves  and  to  their  fellows 
about  it,  in  order  to  give  some  excuse  for  their  own 
baseness  ;  and,  like  dastards  as  they  are,  try  to  throw 
the  blame  upon  the  helpless  victims  of  their  own  in- 
famous desires  whom  .they  remorselessly  plunge  deeper 
and  deeper  down  into  an  abyss  of  mental  and  bodily 
agonies  to  which  the  pains  of  hunger  and  shame 
from  which  these  pitiful  creatures  so  unfortunately  and 
so  unwisely  hoped  to  escape,  can  bear  no  comparison. 

Altogether  aside  from  the  comparison  which  might 
be  based  upon  the  show  of  numbers  made  by  neces- 
sarily imperfect  statistics,  there  is  another  and  of  far 
greater  weight  which  the  reflecting  reader  will  draw 
from    the  consideration   of  the    comparative   treatment 


Prostitution,  567 


these  poor  wretches  receive  at  the  hands  of  the  Catho- 
lic and  Protestant  clergy  and  people.  The  very  pros- 
titutes themselves  know  to  whom  they  can  fly  with 
full  assurance  of  being  met  with  tender  compassion 
and  aided  to  escape  from  the  thraldom  of  their  horri- 
ble life.  They  know,  too,  who  have  so  often  hunted 
them  down  and  dragged  their  shame  and  misery  before 
the  scornful  and  unpitying  gaze  of  the  public. 

There  never  has  been  any  form  of  human  suffering, 
sin,  or  shame  for  which  the  Catholic  Church  has  not 
been  ready  to  supply  abundant  means  of  relief  and 
rescue.  The  motive  which  has  alwa3'S  inspired  Catho- 
lic society  to  establish  orders  without  number  of  self- 
sacrificing  men  and  women  to  meet  every  conceivable 
want  is  pre-eminently  one  of  divine  love,  altogether  of 
a  higher  character  than  that  of  the  purest  natural  be- 
nevolence. If,  therefore,  the  Catholic  Church  labors  to 
lessen  or  obliterate  the  social  evil,  or  any  other  ill  that 
afflicts  the  moral  or  physical  well-being  of  society,  she 
works  with  the  hands  of  those  to  whom  she  has  taught 
the  mystery  of  how  to  love  like  God,  giving  not  only 
what  they  have,  but  what  they  are — themselves — the 
true  test  both  of  human  and  divine  love. 

Refuges  and  Rescue  Societies  for  prostitutes  are  not 
unknown  in  Protestant  countries,  founded  and  sup- 
ported in  their  work  of  mercy  by  Protestants,  and  I 
would  not  detract  one  iota  from  the  meed  of  praise  that 
is  their  due,  neither  will  the  God  of  all  mercy  and  com- 
passion fail  to  reward  them  as  He  only  can  ;  but  Prot- 
estantism at  its  best,  with  all  its  resources  and  all  its 
sacrifices,  has  not  produced,  neither  can  produce,  one 
such  an  institution  and  band  of  self-immolating 
laborers   devoted  to  the  like  work    as   is   the    Catholic 


568  Prostitution, 


Order  of  the  Good  Shepherd  and  its  sisterhood,  whose 
asylums,  not  only  of  rescue  and  temporary  shelter  but 
of  penitential  reformation  and  purification,  are  to  be 
found  in  nearly  all  great  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic 
cities. 

Not  to  mention  others  founded  for  a  similar  purpose, 
or  the  thousands  of  charitable  orders  which  flourish 
wherever  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  faith  is  felt,  that 
one  organization  of  the  Sisters  of  the  Good  Shepherd, 
when  it  is  considered  not  only  as  a  humane  institution 
for  the  shelter  of  the  wretched  and  socially  banned  and 
degraded,  but  as  a  spiritual  work  of  expiation — the 
'  *  filling  up  by  these  heroic  women  in  their  own  self- 
sacrificing  lives  what  is  wanting  in  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,"  for  the  atonement  of  the  sins  of  their  fallen 
and  abandoned  sisters — this  alone  would  be  title 
enough  to  prove  that  the  Religion  which  can  inspire 
such  superhuman  virtue  is  none  other  than  the  Church 
of  Christ,  the  vSin-Bearer  and  Redeemer  of  the  world's 
iniquity. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

SINNERS  AND  SAINTS. 

rjOME  of  my  readers  are  probably  imagining  that 
)3  they  see  me  chuckling  with  delight  over  the 
amount  of  clear  evidence  I  have  been  able  to  display 
in  proof  of  the  superior  morality  of  Catholic  countries. 
If  so,  they  are  mistaken.  My  satisfaction  in  finding 
the  record  showing  so  large  a  balance  in  our  favor  is 
too  deeply  weighted  with  sadness  at  discovering  so 
much  as  there  really  is  of  immorality  justly  charged  to 
our  account  to  allow  that  satisfaction  to  elevate  itself 
into  a  joy. 

There  are  Catholic  sinners  and  there  are  Protestant 
sinners,  and  though  the  statistics,  be  they  never  so  near 
the  truth,  show  that  Protestant  immorality  has  been  so 
much  greater;  yet, judged  by  the  fundamental  dogmas 
of  our  separate  and  really  opposite  faiths — ours  re- 
vealed from  on  high,  endowed  with  divinely  sanctify- 
ing power,  and  theirs  derived  from  the  weak  and  un- 
certain source  of  human  private  opinion  and  choice  ; 
judged  moreover  by  the  more  numerous  supernatural 
graces  and  holier  influences  with  which  our  divine 
religion  invests  the  life  of  a  Catholic,  all  combining 
to  offer  him  the  means  of  being  perfectly  noble,  pure, 
and  strong  to  resist  the  impulses  of  passion:  those 
evidences  w^hich  appear  on  the  score  of  the  various 
vices  w^e  have  reviewed  might  be  double  as  favora- 
ble as  they  are,  and  yet  be  to  us  Catholics  a  record 
which,    before    the    Face    of   the    Crucified  whom  we 

569 


570  Sinners  and  Saints. 


know,   adore  and   profess  to  love  with  all  our  hearts, 
ought  to  make  us  blush  with  the  greater  shame. 

"  I  am  not  so  great  a  sinner  as  thou  "  is,  after  all, 
no  noble  boast  in  the  mouth  of  one  whose  religion  is  the 
religion  of  saints — especially  in  the  face  of  another 
whose  religion  is  one  of  such  pitiful  spiritual  poverty  ; 
a  sorry  note  of  triumph  for  one  whose  feet  are  planted 
upon  the  Rock  of  certainty  and  truth  to  sound  in  the 
ears  of  another  stumbling  in  t*he  quagmire  of  doubt  and 
error  with  no  one  to  point  the  way  to  a  solid  foothold  ; 
a  wretched  display  of  trophies  honorably  won  for  him 
who  has  access  to,  and  free  use  of,  all  the  armor}-  of 
Heaven,  and  the  ready  aid  of  all  the  mighty  hosts 
thereof,  to  flourish  before  the  gaze  of  an  enemy  who 
has  lost  the  key  to  the  celestial  gates,  and  is  ignorant 
of  the  pathway  that  leads  thither,  and  who  vainly 
fancies  that  with  the  arms  of  his  own  fashioning,  of  a 
hundred  and  more  self-destructive  forms,  he  can  do 
quite  as  effective  service  in  overcoming  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil  as  he  who  wields  the  one  Catholic 
invincible  sword  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Poor,  barren,  crownless  Protestantism,  whose  house 
is  builded  upon  the  sand,  whose  temples  are  filled  with 
wrangling  worshippers,  what  time  the}^  are  not  united 
in  attacking  "  Romanism,"  it  would  be  no  great  credit 
to  the  One,  Holy,  Catholic,  Apostolic  Church  of  God — 
Heaven  of  the  soul  if  Heaven  on  earth  there  can  be — 
the  very  sanctuary  of  the  saints,  if  she  could  find  no 
better  evidence  of  being  all  she  claims-  to  be  than  to  say 
to  you — "  lyook  at  the  statistics  :  My  children  are  not 
so  great  sinners  as  thine." 

Such  ought  not  to  be,  nor  is  it  the  test  the  Catholic 
Church  really  offers  to  prove  her  unity,   her  truth,  and 


Sinners  and  Saints.  571 

her  sanctity.  Protestantism,  at  its  best,  could  never  be 
a  standard  either  of  faith  or  morals  by  which  she  could 
consent  to  be  judged.  But  it  is  quite  plain  that  Prot- 
estantism does  judge  itself,  and  is  forced  to  feel  that  it 
is  being  judged  and  condemned  by  the  world  when  put 
in  contrast  with  Catholicism.  Hence,  conscious  of  its 
own  inferiority  and  of  its  inability  to  elevate  itself  to  an 
equal  rank,  it  is  ever  seeking  to  drag  down  the  Catholic 
Church  to  its  own  level,  and  with  the  shout  of  "  Thou 
art  as  bad  and  worse  a  sinner  than  I,"  it  spends  its 
breath  in  endeavoring  to  discredit  the  glorious  testi- 
monies to  the  truth  and  sanctity  of  the  Catholic  Church 
recorded  upon  the  pages  of  history,  in  trumping  up  all 
sorts  of  false  accusations,  misrepresentations,  calumnies, 
and  even  concocting  the  most  patent  forgeries,  knowing 
it  can  count  upon  the  ' '  appalling  depth  and  density  of 
the  popular  ignorance  ' '  of  its  own  adherents  to  be  be- 
lieved, and  hoping  as  well  to  stir  up  and  excite  to  vio- 
lence the  fears  and  jealousy  of  others  who  instinctively 
hate  the  name  of  Christ.  Cannot  you  hear  the  cries? 
' '  Your  percentage  of  illiteracy  is  greater  than  mine  !  ' ' 
**  Your  maxim  is  that  '  Ignorance  is  the  mother 
of  devotion !  ' "  "  Your  nations  are  more  debased 
and  uncivilized  than  mine  !  "  * '  You  are  not  the 
friend  of  Caesar!"  "You  produce  more  paupers, 
more  criminals,  more  illegitimate  children,  more  pros- 
titutes than  I !  " 

That  some  minds  made  to  know  the  truth  are  de- 
ceived by  these  false  cries,  that  souls  hungering  and 
thirsting  for  her  strengthening  spiritual  food  and  yearn- 
ing for  that  measure  of  divine  love  which  only  the 
Catholic  Church  can  bestow,  are  thus  deluded  and 
turned  away  from  receiving  these  gifts  from  her  out- 


5/2  Sinners  and  Saints. 

stretched  hand  most  fully  justifies  all  the  words  of  de- 
fence written  in  this  book. 

There  are  Catholic  sinners  and  Protestant  sinners — 
too  many  of  both,  God  knows — but  no  one  is  ignorant 
from  whose  fold  there  goes  forth  the  Good  Shepherd  to 
seek  out  and  save  the  lost  sheep,  no  matter  how  far  it 
may  have  strayed,  and  when  he  has  found  the  lost 
one  to  bring  it  home  again  upon  his  shoulders  rejoic- 
ing. As  an  ever- tender  mother  of  souls,  the  Catholic 
Church,  with  the  ingenuity  of  divine  charity,  devises 
all  kinds  of  refuges  for  the  shelter  and  care  of  those 
who  suffer ;  refuges  for  the  homeless,  the  sick,  the 
orphaned,  for  wayward  3'outli  and  helpless  age,  for  the 
abandoned  and  despised  poor,  yea,  for  the  criminal  and 
the  harlot,  the  rejected  and  disinherited  of  the  earth. 
And  she  is  herself  a  sweet  and  blessed  spiritual  refuge 
for  them  all.  She  can  think  of  no  higher  term  of  honor 
to  bestow  upon  the  very  Mother  of  God  herself  than  the 
"  Refuge  of  Sinners."  And  she  is  no  less  honored  in 
being  herself  so  called.  And  it  is  her  joy  and  her 
crown  that  they  all  cling  to  her,  and  love  her,  and  trust 
her,  and  crowd  about  her  feet,  sure  of  her  loving  smile, 
her  sympathy  and  comforting  words,  and  that  the 
heavenly  dews  of  her  benediction  will  fall  equally  upon 
them  all,  as  the  dews  of  heaven  fall  both  upon  the  just 
and  the  unjust. 

But  the  Church  not  only  fulfils  the  mission  of  Christ 
in  the  divine  work  of  redeeming  sinners,  bringing  to 
them  mercy  and  forgiveness,  and  establishing  them 
again  in  the  peace  and  love  of  God,  but  she  is  the 
medium  of  the  accomplishment  of  that  higher  w^ork  of 
the  Incarnate  Son  of  God,  the  work  of  Sanctification. 

Protestants  may  imagine  they  get  at  the  true  com- 


Sinners  and  Saints.  573 

parative  amount  of  sin  among  themselves  and  Catholics 
by  hunting  up  tables  of  statistics  recording  what  is,  so 
to  speak,  known  of  all  men.  Nobody  knows  so  well  as 
the  Catholic  priesthood  how  meagre  and  often  one-sided 
is  that  testimony  as  a  complete  and  satisfactory  evi- 
dence of  the  comparative  moral  power  of  the  Catholic 
Church  and  of  Protestantism.  None,  therefore,  can  so 
justly  pronounce  judgment  upon  both.  They  make  a 
profound  study  of  both  religious  systems ;  while  few  of 
the  most  highly  educated  of  the  Protestant  clergy  have 
other  than  the  most  vague  and  erroneous  notions  of 
the  doctrines  or  discipline  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Their  judgment,  based  upon  w^hat  they  know,  is  prac- 
tically worthless.  For  the  great  majority  of  their  clergy 
and  people  the  whole  of  Catholicism  is  a  sealed  book. 
And  yet  with  what  unblushing  assurance  they  will  talk 
and  preach  of  it  and  gravely  write  about  it,  telling  us 
to  our  faces  that  we  believe  this  and  are  bound  to  do 
that,  almost  always  asserting  what  is  wholly  untrue, 
and  for  which  they  can  bring  no  evidence  but  their  own 
wrong-headed  impressions  gained  from  superficial  ob- 
servations of  Catholic  life  and  worship  entirely  beyond 
their  understanding,  and  the  reasons  whereof  they  will 
not  take  the  least  trouble  to  inquire. 

Therefore  they  know^  almost  as  little  about  Catholic 
sinners  as  they  know  about  Catholic  saints.  Where 
would  Protestantism  stand  as  a  sanctifying  power  if 
brought  into  comparison  with  the  Catholic  Church  and 
asked  to  show  her  .statistics  of  saints  ?  It  has  prac- 
tically nothing  to  place  side  by  side  with  the  brilliant 
and  marvellous  record  of  supernatural  sanctity  which 
is  the  very  life  history  of  Catholicism  in  every  nation 
and  in  every  age.     And  the  reason  for  this  difference  is 


574  Sinners  mid  Saiiits. 

plain.  The  Catholic  Church  is  not  only  a  religion  of 
Redemption,  but  a  religion  of  divine  Sanctification,  by 
which  it  guides  mankind  in  the  ways  of  Perfection.  In 
that  there  can  be  no  comparison,  for  she  alone  is  the 
Church  of  the  All-Perfect  God.  She  is  known  of  all 
men  as  the  "Holy"  Catholic  Church;  and  is  well  .so 
named,  for  she  is  the  very  school  of  sanctity.  She  en- 
lightens the  intelligence  and  disciplines  the  hearts  of 
those  who  would  aspire  after  the  most  perfect  union 
possible  with  God.  Reason  alone  may  teach  man  to 
look  for  the  highest  and  most  worth}'  object  of  human 
life  in  God  as  Creator  ;  but  it  is  only  from  the  Catholic 
Church  that  one  can  learn  the  ideal  of  that  higher  pos- 
sible destiny  of  sanctification  revealed  by  Jesus  Christ ; 
an  ideal  which  invites  him  to  become  perfect,  not  only 
as  man  but  as  God ;  to  be  perfect  ' '  even  as  the 
Heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 

Who,  then,  are  the  Catholic  saints?  They  are  her 
children  whom  she  has  taught  and  trained  to  be  perfect 
like  God.  What  a  marvellous  work  of  regeneration 
and  superexaltation  of  human  nature  must  not  this  be  ; 
and  by  virtue  of  what   divine  wisdom  and  power ! 

"  God  is  become  wonderful  in  His  saints."  Truly. 
And  in  this  mj'sterious  work,  b}-  which  even  the 
Creator  can  be  glorified  in  the  perfection  of  His  crea- 
tures, the  Catholic  Church  stands  alone,  the  master, 
the  teacher,  the  guide.  From  her  sanctuaries  of  reli- 
gion have  gone  forth  those  holy  ones,  numbered  by  the 
many  thousands,  whose  names  are  held  in  worshipful 
honor  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  of  the  sun,  from 
generation  to  generation. 

Protestantism  has  not  dared  to  canonize  one  saint. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

THE   RETURN  TO   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  AND   UNITY. 

THK  Protestant  so-called  "Reformation"  has  often 
been  spoken  of  as  being  a  religious  revolution,  and 
many  Protestants  are  ignorantly  led  to  believe  that  it 
was  a  successful  one  ;  that,  despite  the  continued  and 
more  vigorous  existence  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the 
one  and  only  organized,  and  the  one  and  only  divinely 
founded  Christian  Republic,  somehow  or  other  there 
was  produced  a  new  Christian  organization  which  came 
to  be  called  "Protestantism,"  having  the  right  to  as- 
sume the  reins  of  Christian  government  and  lawfully 
depose  the  Catholic  Church,  and  to  declare  all  Christian 
people  freed  from  their  allegiance  to  it.  The  intelli- 
gent reader  begins  to  smile,  for  it  is  quite  well  known 
that  the  Reformation  never  was  able  to  revolutionize 
either  the  Catholic  creed  or  the  Catholic  Church  gov- 
ernment. It  never  was,  and  plainly  enough  is  not  to- 
day, anything  better  than  a  religious  rebellion.  It  gave 
itself  a  name  suited  to  a  rebellion — Protestantism — that 
which  protests  or  rebels  against  the  Catholic  Church  ; 
and  in  view  of  its  whole  history  the  outside  world  has 
agreed  that  it  is  a  name  which  aptly  describes  its  char- 
acter and  aim.  It  accomplished  nothing.  It  was  not 
able  to  get  its  denials  of  Catholic  doctrine  or  discipline 
accepted  by  the  mass  of  those  who  for  one  reason  or 
another  went  out  from  the  Catholic  fold  ;  neither  has  it 
ever   been   able   to   bring   the   rebellious   multitude   it 

575 


576       TJie  ReUcrn  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity. 

created  into  common  council  to  formulate  a  common 
creed  or  agree  upon  a  common  constitution  as  an 
organized  form  of  Christianity.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
ever-living  and  powerful  presence  of  the  Catholic 
Church  to  protest  against,  Protestantism  would  have  no 
reason  to  exist.  What  often  astonishes  some  of  its 
adherents  who  are  led  to  examine  its  claims  is  the  dis- 
covery that  Protestantism,  either  as  a  S3^stem  (if  such  a 
conglomeration  of  opposing  beliefs  can  be  called  a  S3^s- 
tem),  or  as  represented  by  any  one  of  its  sects,  holds 
no  revealed  truth  which  it  can  prove  independently  of 
the  Church,  and  that  it  has  nothing  positive  but  what  it 
holds  in  common  with  the  Church.  Even  the  funda- 
mental Protestant  doctrine  of  private  judgment  is  noth- 
ing better  than  a  denial  of  the  Christian  principle  of 
di\ine  authority  as  necessary  to  an  act  of  Ch7'istia7i 
faith  or  of  Christian  morals.  The  character  of  Protest- 
antism as  being  essentially  a  rebellion,  and  that  it  can- 
not be  anything  else,  is  plainly  seen  in  this  its  protest 
against  any  rightful  superior,  external,  organized 
authority  to  define  doctrine,  and  to  decree  and  exe- 
cute law  in  religion.  Let  such  a  principle  be  applied 
to  politics  ;  every  one  must  see  that  the  adoption  of  such 
a  principle  would  result  in  the  rankest  anarchy,  and 
that  it  would  make  any  form  of  government  as  impos- 
sible in  the  social  order  as  Protestantism  would  evi- 
dently make  impossible  any  Christian  Republic  or 
"Kingdom  of  Christ"  impossible  in  the  religious 
order. 

In  Protestantism  there  is,  as  one  might  expect  there 
would  be,  no  order,  no  union,  no  system,  no  governors, 
and  no  governed.  Protestants  do  not  even  "  join  "  any 
particular  sect,  and  apparently  offer  to  accept  its  pecu- 


The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity.        ^yj 


liar  tenets  and  submit  themselves  to  its  discipline, 
because  they  recognize  in  that  denomination  any  right 
to  demand  from  them  or  others  such  an  intellectual  and 
moral  adhesion ;  but  because,  all  things  considered, 
it  happens  to  teach  what  they  think  is  most  probably 
true,  and  conducts  its  religious  services  and  administers 
its  church  affairs  in  a  way  that  suits  their  notions, 
tastes,  or  prejudices.  There  have  been  some  converts 
from  Protestantism  to  the  Catholic  Church  of  that  sen- 
timental, private-judgment  and  private-taste  sort;  and 
of  such  are  they  who,  finding  themselves  brought  face 
to  face  with  vSomething  they  do  not  like  in  the  Church, 
escape  out  again  into  the  unguarded  religious  desert 
wdiere  one  ma}^  think  and  do  as  pleases  him  best.  True 
and  intelligent  converts  to  the  Church  never  think  of 
making  a  bargain  with  their  consciences  as  to  the  pro- 
bability of  their  liking  the  Church  when  they  get  into 
it ;  they  assume  as  a  maxim  that  they  are  not  free  to 
take  what  pleases  or  may  please  them,  but  bound  in  the 
sight  of  God,  and  in  peril  of  the  loss  of  their  salvation, 
to  believe  and  do  what  ought  to  please ;  and  it  is  from 
the  Church  of  Christ  that  they  are  to  learn  what  ought 
to  please.  Hence  the  bani;er-word  of  the  Catholic 
Church:  "One  lyord.  One  Faith,  One  Baptism."  The 
banner-word  of  Protestantism  (if  it  can  be  said  to  have 
one)  is:  "  Not  one  Lord,  not  one  Faith,  not  one  Bap- 
tism "  ;  or  this  is  probably  a  better  form  :  ' '  lyicense  to 
believe  what  one  likes,  and  no  moral  responsibility  to 
any  outside  authority." 

Why  do  Protestants  protest  against  the  Catholic 
Church  ?  Simply  and  always  because  she  claims  au- 
thorit}^  in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  requires  submission 
to  it.     It  is  not  because  they  believe  her  to  be  a  false 


5/8       The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity, 

and  corrupt  Church  that  they  reject  this  authority,  but 
they  assert,  and  in  this  they  are  true  to  their  fundamen- 
tal principle,  that  she  is  false  and  corrupt  precisely  be- 
cause she  claims  authority.  Any  such  a  claim  is,  of 
course,  in  downright  opposition  to  the  only  plea  they 
can  possibly  make  to  gain  adherents:  that  in  true 
Christianity  there  is  no  such  thing  as  authority  to  teach 
and  guide,  but  everybody  is  free  to  teach  and  guide 
himself— that  is,  as  they  might  probably  stipulate,  if 
one  be  able  to  read  the  Protestant  Bible,  which,  in  fact, 
is  printed  without  the  authority  of  anybody  and  without 
anybody's  certificate  of  genuineness.  As  to  the  unfor- 
tunate wretches  who  cannot  read  this  unauthorized 
book  (the  Catholic  authority  being,  of  course,  con- 
sidered null) ,  one  would  be  much  puzzled  to  know  how 
Protestantism  would  get  the  knowledge  of  Christian 
truth  into  their  minds,  and  the  influence  of  its  moral 
precepts  exerted  upon  their  hearts,  to  say  nothing  of 
first  deciding  what  are  the  truths  and  moral  precepts  of 
Christianity.  Anything  more  self-contradictory,  more 
self-destructive  than  Protestantism,  cannot  well  be 
imagined. 

But  then  there  still  exist  many  thousands  who  put 
their  faith  in  it,  who  fancy  that  its  beginnings  were  the 
work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (although  they  are  obliged  to 
own  by  rather  unworthy  instruments) ,  and  are  under 
the  delusion  that,  like  a  living  seed  planted  in  a  fruitful 
soil,  the  Protestantism  of  Luther,  Calvin,  Henry  VIII., 
et  al. ,  soon  sprang  up  and  has  gone  on  growing  into  a 
mighty  tree  whose  fruit  of  righteousness,  liberty,  popu- 
lar happiness,  etc.,  etc.,  now  appeases  the  religious 
hunger  of  the  nations,  and  under  the  grateful  shadow 
of  whose  wide-spreading  branches  the  people  delivered 


TJie  Return  to  Christian  Fait  It  and  Unity.        579 


from  the  bondage  of  '*  Romanism,''  even  as  the  children 
of  Israel  were  delivered  from  Egyptian  bondage,  may 
now  sit  down  at  their  ease  and  believe  as  they  list,  and 
enjoy  all  the  good  things  of  earth  and  sense  without 
stint  or  forbidding  frown  from  any  law  that  says  unto 
them— Thou  shalt  not ! 

Unfortunately  for  these  many  all-too-ignorant  and 
confiding  Protestants  their  original  Protestantism  had 
nothing  in  it  to  be  likened  to  a  living  germ,  else  we 
should  have  seen  it  develop  into  some  definite  form,  and 
jdeld,  as  every  living  tree  should,  its  own  distinctive 
fruit.  "  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  from  thorns  nor  figs 
from  thistles.  Neither  does  the  same  tree  bring  forth 
good  fruit  and  evil  fruit."  lyisten  to  this  excellent 
statement  of  the  difficulty  even  a  Protestant  minister 
saw  there  must  be  in  the  way  of  ever  uniting  Protest- 
antism into  one  body  : 

"There  is  a  difference,  and  a  wide  one,  between  an  organization 
and  an  organism — the  latter  nascitur,  the  former _/?/.  A  carpen- 
ter with  a  saw,  a  hammer,  and  a  bag  of  nails  can  construct  a 
platform  [or  build  up  an  imitation  tree]  ;  but  not  even  a  gardener 
can  grow  a  plant  unless  the  seed  which  he  puts  into  the  ground 
*  hath  life  in  itself.'  Ecclesiology  has  much  to  learn  from  biol- 
ogy ;  and  some  of  us  who  are  convinced  that  unity  is  coming 
believe  that  when  it  does  come  it  will  be  by  the  germ  and  not  by 
the  tool  process." 

Plainly  enough.  But  where  outside  of  Catholic 
unity  can  one  find  an  **  organism,"  a  "  living  germ," 
as  a  centre  and  origin  of  unity  ?  The  writer,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Huntington,  Episcopalian  Rector  of  Grace 
Church,  New  York  City,  tells  us  how  he  thinks  such 
an  organism  may  possibly  be  manufactured  : 


58o       The  Return  to  Christian  Fait  J i  and  Unity. 


"  Now,  while  it  is  evident  that  no  one  of  the  existing  American 
churches,  w/t/i  its  present  limitations,  can  hope  to  draw  to  itself 
the  love  and  allegiance  even  of  a  bare  majority  of  our  people, 
it  is  by  no  means  so  evident  that  some  one  of  them  might  not,  in 
the  providence  of  God,  become  the  centre  of  growth  out  of  which 
the  final  organism  should  be  elaborated"  {Difficulties  of  Organic 
Union,   The  Independent,  April    13,   1893). 

Elaborating  a  living  organism  out  of  an}^  fabricated 
organization,  combination,  compilation,  or  accretion 
whatsoever,  is  a  transformation  of  genus  which  one 
feels  the  science  of  biology  certainly  has  not  as  3^et,  nor 
is  likely  to  offer  in  the  future,  any  exemplification  from 
which  the  anxious  Protestant  ecclesiologist  might  hope 
to  derive  useful  instruction  concerning  the  possible  in- 
fusion of  life  into  any  one  of  the  soulless,  germless, 
sects  of  Protestantism. 

How  absurdly  vain  such  a  hope  !  And  how  most 
absurdly  vain  of  all  to  be  expressed  by  a  minister  of 
that  one  of  divided  Protestantism's  organizations  which 
tolerates  within  its  pale  the  greatest  number  of  varied 
beliefs  concerning  Christian  doctrine,  and  even  con- 
cerning the  Person  of  Christ  Himself! 

As  a  fact  Protestantism,  like  all  sudden  and  violent 
outbreaks,  very  soon  reached  the  limit  of  its  explosive 
force.  What  real  damage  it  did  to  the  external  body 
of  the  Church  in  causing  the  apostasy  of  some  nations 
it  was  not  long  in  doing.  Substituting  man's  authority 
for  God's,  its  first  step  was  to  declare  human  govern- 
ment stiperior  to  the  divine  ;  subjecting  religion  to  the 
temporal  authority  of  the  state. 

It  has  always  revered  Caesar  as  its  master,  and  in 
return   for   his    countenance   and   support    it  has  been 


The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  a  fid  Unity.        581 

willing  to  make  its  doctrine  and  discipline  conform  to 
suit  his  demands. 

Where  the  civil  power  does  not  care  to  appoint  its 
own  agents  as  pastors  of  their  flocks  the  Protestant 
sects  claim  the  right  to  "call"  whomsoever  pleases 
them  best  to  minister  over  them,  and  woe  to  such 
pastors  if  they  do  not  succeed  in  pleasing  their  flocks. 
The  consequence  is  well  known.  The  ignorant  people, 
victims  to  their  self-conceit  and  unbridled  passions, 
have  arrogated  to  themselves  the  right  to  define  doc- 
trine and  act  as  judges  upon  the  moral  law. 

Hence  Protestantism  has  gone  on  making  progress 
only  in  one  thing,  and  that  is  in  change  of  faith.  I 
ought  to  say  in  change  of  opinion,  for  Protestantism 
proper  affords  no  more  ground  for  faith  than  it  does  for 
the  other  theological  virtues  of  hope  and  charity,  all  of 
which  require  for  their  exercise  a  divine  object  whose 
word  is  conveyed  to  us,  and  received  as  infallibly  true, 
whose  promises  as  absolutely  sure,  and  whose  perfec- 
tion as  the  supreme  reason  of  all  love.  Is  it  not  beyond 
all  question  that  Protestantism  puts  human  opinion  in 
place  of  divine  faith,  wishful  expectations  in  place  of 
divine  hope,  and  natural  philanthropy  in  place  of 
divine  charity  ? 

What  kind  of  reform  is  that  Avhich  has  thus  abolished 
divine  faith,  and  enthroned  human  opinion  in  its  stead? 
What  kind  of  reform  is  that  which  has  ended  in  the 
majority  of  Protestants  holding  that  no  particular  belief 
is  necessary,  and  asserting  that  creeds  and  dogmas  are 
not  essential  to  Christian  religion  ?  What  shall  be  said 
of  that  reform  boasting  its  power  to  lift  mankind  up 
upon  a  higher  intellectual  plane  where,  after  three  cen- 
turies of  its   pretended    enlightenment   of  the   human 


582        The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity. 

intellect,  it  is  reduced  to  come  before  the  world  with  no 
better  definition  of  the  aim  of  religion  as  comprehend- 
ing the  higher  truths  and  the  purer  moral  principles  it 
is  justly  expected  to  reveal  and  the  loftier  spiritual 
aspirations  it  promises  to  call  forth,  than  this  childish 
truism  :  Be  good  and  do  good,  and — you  will  be  good 
and  do  good  ? 

Men  who  think,  who  have  not  wholly  stifled  the 
voice  of  conscience,  are  not  going  to  be  put  off  with 
such  a  mocking  answer  to  their  demands  for  knowledge 
of  God,  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  the  divine  law,  of  the 
meaning  of  human  life,  and  of  the  destiny  of  the 
human  soul.  That  accounts  for  the  continued  losses 
the  different  Protestant  sects  suffer  in  the  defection  of 
many  of  their  more  eminent  scholars  and  saintly- 
minded  adherents. 

It  is  owned  that  among  the  more  scholarly  class  in 
England  many  soon  fell  away  from  any  belief  in  the 
divinity  of  Christ  and  lapsed  into  Deism,  whose  leading 
writers  are  held  responsible  for  the  origin  of  the  infidel 
philosophy  of  France,  and  of  the  Rationalism  and 
Pantheism  of  Germany.  Protestant  writers  do  not  dis- 
pute this.  The  Quarterly  Review  (January,  186 1,  p. 
288)  speaks  of  "our  old  English  Deists,  who  were  the 
true  fathers  of  French  atheism  and  German  un- 
belief." 

Mr.  Vizetelly,  writing  in  1879,  says: 

"  Prussian  Protestantism  has  been  gradually  sliding  into  pure 
Pantheism  and  even  Atheism.  To-day  these  are  the  dominant 
creeds,  not  only  in  the  capital  and  the  larger  towns,  but  likewise 
in  many  of  the  rural  districts,  although,  of  course,  in  a  less  degree. 

" '  In  the  sphere  of  religion,'  laments  one  Berlin  journal, 
'  liberal  Protestantism  has  long  since  destroyed  all  respect  for  the 


The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity,        583 

Commandments  of  God,  and  Christianity  seems  absolutely  dead 
in  our  midst.  At  Berlin  there  are  many  thousands  who,  since 
their  youth,  have  remained  utter  strangers  to  Christ's  Church, 
and  who,  if  they  still  belong  to  it,  only  do  so  in  name.'  .  .  . 
If,  as  Menzel  says,  Berlin  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  the 
Elysium  of  Freethinkers,  in  the  nineteenth  it  is  unquestionably 
the  limbo  of  Atheism,  and  Atheism,  moreover,  which  proclaims 
itself  from  the  housetops "  {Berlin  under  the  New  Empire^ 
V.  ii.  pp.   108-111). 

Mr.  I^aing,  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  writer  often 
quoted  in  this  volume,  writing  of  the  religious  con- 
dition  of  Germany  as  he   observed    it   in  1845,  says: 

"  If  the  question  is  reduced  to  what  really  are  its  terms  in 
Germany  at  present — Catholicism,  with  all  its  superstitions, 
errors,  and  idolatry,  or  to  no  religion  at  all ;  that  is  to  say,  not 
avowed  infidelity,  but  the  most  torpid  apathy,  indifference,  and 
neglect  of  all  religion,  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  latter  condition 
of  a  people  is  preferable.  The  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic 
Churches  in  Germany  and  S^uitserland  are  in  reality  extinct. 
The  sense  of  religion,  its  intiuence  on  the  habits,  observances, 
jmd  life  of  the  people,  is  alive  only  in  the  Roman  Catholic  popu- 
lation "  (iVotes  on  the  German  Catholic  Church,  London,  1845, 
p.  145). 

Let  us  see  what  is  to  be  thought  of  its  condition 
nearly  half  a  century  later.  Says  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view,  October,    1880  : 

"  The  land  which  was  the  cradle  of  the  Reformation  has  be- 
come the  grave  of  the  Reformed  faith.  .  .  .  All  compara- 
tively recent  works  on  Germany,  as  well  as  all  personal  observa- 
tion, tell  the  same  tale. 

"  DeJiial  of  every  tenet  of  the  Protestant  faith  among  the 
thitiki?!^  classes,  and  indiff'erence  in  the  masses,  are  the  positii/e 
and  negative  agencies  beneath  7uhich  the  Church  of  Licther 
a?id  Melanchthon  has  succumbed. 


584       TJie  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity. 


"  In  contiguous  parishes  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  popula- 
tions one  invariable  distinction  has  long  been  patent  to  all  eyes. 
T/ie  path  to  the  Catholic  Church  is  trodden  bare,  that  to  the 
Protestant  Church  is  rank  with  grasses  a?id  weeds  to  the  very 
door''  (pp.  530,  539). 

Here  is  evidence  of  the  foregoing  up  to  date.  I 
quote  from  the  New  York  Independent,  September  6, 
1894.  An  article  entitled  "The  New  Theology  of  Ger- 
many," b}^  Prof.  George  H.  Schodde,  Ph.D.,  is  intro- 
duced with  this  assertion : 

"The  storm-centre  of  the  theological  unrest  of  our  day  and 
generation  is  the  land  of  Luther.  New  departures  in  religious 
and  theological  thought,  as  a  rule,  first  spring  up  there ;  .  .  . 
the  seed  of  innovation  is  rapidly  sown  in  other  soils,  with  fruits 
possibly  more  or  less  modified  by  local  circumstances,  etc.,  etc." 

"Theological  unrest,"  "New  departures  in  reli- 
gious thought,"  "Innovations" — of  what  else  has 
Protestantism  been  the  ' '  storm-centre  ' '  from  its  begin- 
ning ?  The  article  just  quoted  from  goes  on  to  present 
a  dismal  picture  of  "religious  thought"  in  I^uther's 
land.  There  is  a  deal  about  "reconstruction"  of 
Christianity  upon  new  doctrinal  and  moral  principles, 
the  most  popular  leaders  undermining  the  belief  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  denying  openly  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  His  Atonement,  and  His  miracles. 
The  upshot  of  it  all  is,  that  in  Germany,  as  elsewhere, 
Protestantism  is  now  almost  wholly  rationalistic,  and  one 
need  not  have  to  be  born  a  prophet  to  predict  its  fate. 
As  a  pretended  religion  divinely  revealed  and  brought 
to  mankind  by  a  divine  Christ,  requiring  for  salvation 
faith  in  certain  truths,  and  conformity  of  conduct  with 


TJie  Return  to  CJiristian  Faith  mid  Unity.        585 

definite  moral  principles,  everybody  knows  its  days  are 
already  numbered.  A  very  few  years  will  suffice  for 
its  entire  decomposition  and  ultimate  disappearance. 
With  all  its  appeals  to  intellectual  pride,  national  pre- 
judice, and  moral  license,  the  Reformation  soon  saw  its 
converts  slipping  away  from  the  control  its  leaders 
sought  to  exercise  over  them,-  and  the  number  has  gone 
on  rapidly  increasing  of  those  who  have  entirely  given 
over  seeking  any  answer  to  the  problems  of  life,  death, 
and  futurity  from  their  own  Protestantism.  Of  these 
the  far  greater  part,  alas!  have  fallen  into  cynical  scep- 
ticism, indifferent  rationalism,  or  antagonistic  infidelity. 
Others,  and  these  by  God's  grace  are  of  late  years  both 
notable  in  number  as  of  great  worthiness  of  character, 
have  turned  their  footsteps  towards  the  true  and  only 
source  of  divine  knowledge,  of  divine  help,  and  divine 
peace,  the  holy  Catholic  Church. 

Every  now  and  then  the  question  forces  itself  upon 
earnest  and  sincere  souls — Why  are  we  Protestants  ? 
No  one  ever  yet  insisted  upon  giving  himself  an  answer, 
based  upon  a  thorough  examination  of  the  Catholic 
Church  (in  order  to  learn  the  reasons  for  protesting 
against  its  claims  to  be  the  onl}^  Christian  Church),  but 
failed  to  get  a  satisfactory  one.  This  is  also  the  cause 
of  numerous  conversions,  as  we  have  seen  exemplified 
in  the  well-known  English  Tractarian  movement,  which 
brought  about  the  loss  to  the  Anglican  Church  Estab- 
lishment of  such  men  as  Newman,  Manning,  Wilber- 
force,  Ward,  Faber,  Oakeley,  Allies,  Formby,  Dal- 
gairns,  Eockhart,  Coleridge,  and  to  the  Episcopalian 
denomination  in  this  country  of  such  as  Bishop  Ives 
of  North  Carolina,  Bay  ley,  Hewit,  Walworth,  Wad- 
hams,    Preston,    McMaster,    and   in    addition   to   those 


586       The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity. 

named  hundreds  of  others  of  like  learning  and  piety 
both  in  England  and  the  United  States. 

In  fact,  conversions  from  Protestantism,  and  those 
from  among  its  most  exalted  personages  as  well  as  from 
every  station  in  life  and  profession,  have  always  been 
going  on  from  the  very  outset  of  the  Reformation.  I 
have  in  hand  a  volume.  Converts  to  Rome  during  the 
XlXth  Century  (I^ondon  :  Swan,  Sonnenschein  &  Co.), 
of  over  one  hundred  pages,  double-columned,  which  i^^ 
nothing  more  than  a  selected  list  of  names,  chiefly  of 
English  converts,  including  hundreds  of  the  titled 
nobility  and  gentry,  graduates  of  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge, with  very  many  from  the  public  service,  archi- 
tects, artists,  and  scientists,  officers  in  the  army  and 
navy,  members  of  the  medical  and  legal  profession, 
writers  of  note,  etc.  The  names  of  no  less  than  six- 
teen members  of  royal  families  are  recorded  for  Ger- 
many, besides  others  distinguished  for  their  social  rank 
or  eminence  in  personal  character.  The  appearance  of 
a  limited  list  of  American  converts  in  the  same  volume 
suggests  to  me  that  a  larger  and  more  correct  list  of  such 
persons  might  prove  very  interesting  to  many  of  my 
readers.  At  best  it  can  be  but  a  selected  list;  and 
even  so,  it  is  quite  likely  the  names  of  very  many 
equally  worthy  to  be  mentioned  have  been  overlooked. 
If  one  cared  to  make  simply  a  show  of  numbers  there 
would  be  no  difficulty  in  printing  a  volume  to  rival  a 
large  city  directory  in  size. 

The  number  I  have  selected  more  than  suffices  for 
my  object  in  offering  such  a  list  at  all,  which  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  general  intention  of  this  present  volume, 
to  enable  my  readers  to  contrast  the  character  and 
number  of  "converts  to  Rome  "  with  the  character  and 


The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity.        587 

number  of  those  who  are  known  to  them  or  of  whom 
they  may  have  heard  as  having  renounced  the  CathoHc 
faith  to  become  Protestants.  If  I  do  not  print  a  list  of 
the  latter  it  is  simply  because  I  have  never  seen  a  list 
of  such  persons,  nor  can  I  recall  the  names  of  any 
whose  defection  has  proved  any  loss  to  the  Church,  or 
any  gain  to  Protestantism,  whether  they  w^ent  out  from 
the  clergy  or  laity.  Still  I  would  have  put  down  the 
names  of  any  whose  character,  in  the  opinion  of  either 
Catholics  or  Protestants,  would  entitle  them  to  "  honor- 
able mention,"  and  as  a  set-off  against  the  weight  of 
evidence  supplied  by  the  Catholic  ''exhibit"  of  con- 
verts from  Protestantism  if  I  could  think  of  any  so 
esteemed. 

I  need  not  enter  here  into  a  discussion  of  the  quite 
opposite  motives  which,  as  a  rule,  have  incited  and 
governed  the  transit  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  con- 
verts. It  is  well  known  that  Protestants  are  not 
offered,  neither  do  they  expect  to  gain  any  worldly 
advantage  or  easier  means  of  gratifying  their  animal 
lusts  by  becoming  Catholics.  Many  know  full  well 
that,  on  the  score  of  these  attractions,  they  will  be 
called  upon  to  make  heroic  sacrifices  ;  and  not  one  but 
will  surely  meet  with  some  restraint  and  loss  of  this 
nature.  All  the  gain  they  count  upon  receiving,  and 
the  only  kind  that  is  offered  them,  is  of  a  spiritual 
nature — to  attain  to  a  higher  and  clearer  knowledge  of 
God  and  of  all  the  divine  truths  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, to  have  the  means  of  realizing  more  fully  the 
aspirations  of  their  souls  for  a  life  of  greater  purity  and 
self-sacrifice,  and  of  securing  with  certainty  their 
eternal  salvation. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that   such   are   not  the 


588        The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity, 

reasons  which  those  who  renounce  the  Catholic  faith 
and  cast  off  the  Catholic  spiritual  restraints  can  hon- 
estly offer  for  their  becoming  Protestants.  It  is  also 
very  well  known  that  not  a  few  of  such  take  refuge  in 
Protestantism,  having  first  of  all  been  excluded  from  the 
Catholic  fold  on  account  of  their  pertinacious  heresy  or 
scandalous  lives.  The  witty  Dean  Swift  is  reported  to 
have  said :  "  Whenever  the  Pope  cleans  up  his  garden, 
he  always  throws  his  ill-smelling  weeds  over  our 
wall." 

It  is  not  quite  correct  to  say  that  the  Pope  throws 
such  worthless  "weeds"  over  the  Protestant  wall,  but 
rather  that,  being  thrown  out  of  the  Church,  simple- 
minded  Protestants  rush  to  pick  them  up,  and  persuade 
themselves  that  they  are  resplendent  with  the  beauty  of 
holiness  and  give  forth  the  odor  of  sanctity.  There 
has  been  not  a  little  of  this  self-delusion  concerning 
these  professed  converts  from  "Romanism,"  but  lately 
their  new  patrons  are  beginning  to  scan  them  a  little 
more  critically.  Here  are  a  few  words  in  evidence 
selected  from  a  most  instructive  and  highly  entertain- 
ing work  *  by  a  zealous  Methodist  missionary  to  Italy  : 

"  The  experiment  of  utilizing  ex-priests  had  been  tried  and 
had  failed  in  Mexico  and  South  America.  ...  It  was  found 
necessary  to  get  rid  of  all  the  ex-priests,  and  only  two  of  all 
that  have  been  employed  in  the  Mexican  mission  have  ever 
done  our  cause  any  good.' 

"  Some  priests  are  ex  necessarily.  They  have  quarrelled  with 
their  superiors,  or  been  guilty  of  some  immorality,  or  they  want 

*  Fotir-and-a-half  Years  in  the  Italy  Mission  :  a  Criticisjn  of  Missionary 
Met  hods,  hy  K&v.  Everett  S.  Stackpole,  D.D,  Anything  more  disgrace- 
fully fraudulent  than  this  Methodist  mission  work  in  Italy  it  would  be  hard 
to  find. 


Tlie  Return  lo  Christian  Faith  and  Unity.        589 

more  salary,  or  to  get  married.  Usually  they  are  careful  to  pro- 
vide for  future  employment  before  their  conscientious  scruples 
force  them  out  of  the  priesthood.     .     .     . 

"  The  ex-priests,  on  the  whole,  have  done  us  very  little  good 
and  very  much  harm.  Some  have  disgraced  the  ministry  and  re- 
turned to  Roman  Catholicism.  It  is  very  hard  to  erase  the 
Jesuitical  marks  of  the  priesthood.  A  character  truly  indelible 
is  stamped  upon  them.  Once  a  priest  always  a  priest,  is  a 
saying  that  holds  good  in  general.  The  Italians  say  a  priest 
has  seven  skins  :  you  must  flay  him  seven  times  before  you 
will  find  the  new  man." 

This  outspoken  minister  goes  on  to  give  some  ex- 
amples of  the  sort  of ."  converts  "  the  Methodists  get 
hold  of  in  Italy  as  students  for  their  ministr}^  and  it  is 
pitiable  to  see  how  egregiously  they  allow  themselves 
to  be  humbugged  by  a  lot  of  disreputable  sharpers.  I 
give  his  description  of  one  of  them  : 

"  The  first  young  man  admitted  [to  the  theological  school  in 
Florence]  had  been  expelled  from  a  Roman  Catholic  seminary 
for  vagabondage.  He  professed  conversion  and  united  with  our 
church  at  Turin ;  .  .  .  was  employed,  as  assistant  pastor. 
At  Milan  he  was  also  President  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  is 
said  to  have  left  the  city  with  some  of  the  funds  of  that  society 
in  his  pocket.  How  the  heart  sunk  at  the  first  sight  of  him  ! 
Fraud  was  written  all  over  his  countenance.  He  could  pray 
and  exhort  with  what  passes  for  '  unction  '  with  some.  .  .  . 
We  dismissed  him  after  six  weeks  of  trial.  By  cheating  and 
])orrowing  he  succeeded  in  taking  away  about  one  hundred 
francs.  Lying  and  swearing  w'ere  his  daily  pastime.  .  .  . 
Under  the  plea  of  a  persecuted  evangelical  he  solicited  money 
from  all  the  pastors  in  the  city.  This  is  a.  common  trick, 
etc.,  etc." 

The  good  minister  goes  on  to  describe  nine  of  such 
worthless    and   vicious   characters  upon    whom   $4,000 


590       The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity. 

were  spent  in  the  hope  of  suppljnng  the  Methodist 
mission  in  Ital}^  with  agents  to  labor  for  the  perversion 
of  the  people  from  their  Catholic,  Christian  faith  to 
Protestantism. 

The  conversions  of  the  ex-priests,  the  ex-monks,  and 
the  pretended  ex-nuns,  who  have  been  received  with 
open  arms  b}'  the  various  Protestant  sects  in  this 
countr}^,  offer  but  poor  evidence  for  the  superior 
spiritual  character  of  Protestantism  as  a  religion. 
Certainl}^  the  Catholic  Church  is  well  rid  of  them. 
The}'^  were  no  examples  to  point  at  in  evidence  of 
her  sanctit}^ 

Let  the  reader  examine  the  following  list  of  names, 
and  mark  the  strong  contrast  between  the  character  of 
these  converts  and  the  wretched  outcasts  from  the 
Church  which  seek  refuge  in  Protestantism. 

Considering  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  Church,  both 
in  her  doctrine  and  spiritual  treatment  of  souls,  has 
equall}^  drawn  all  these  varied  classes  to  her  fold,  fully 
satisfying  all  their  intellectual  convictions  and  spiritual 
aspirations,  it  seems  to  me  that  that  fact  alone  might 
reasonabl}^  be  deemed  by  any  reflecting  person  quite 
sufficient  evidence  that  the  Church  is  the  true  Church 
of  God.  In  one  word,  that  she  is  the  Church  of  the 
divine  Truth,  of  the  divine  Goodness,  and  of  the  divine 
Love. 

The  proverb,  "All  roads  lead  to  Rome,"  is  true  in 
so  far  as  it  includes  all  the  pathways  of  those  who  seek 
the  realization  of  their  ideals  and  the  fulfilment  of  their 
desires  in  what  is  higher,  better,  and  purer,  and  in 
what  brings  them  nearer  to  God.  Rome  is  like  the 
centre  of  a  circle,  the  point  of  unity  at  which  all  the 
countless  true   radii   converge   from  all  possible  direc- 


The  Return  to  Christian  Faith  and  Unity.        591 

tioiis.  In  that  singular  unparalleled  attraction  which 
the  Catholic  Church  exercises  in  being  the  end  of  the 
journe}'  of  so  many  persons  of  diverse  gifts,  tastes,  and 
needs  is  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  our  Lord  :  that  when 
He  should  be  lifted  up  (to  be  seen  and  known  of  all) 
then  would  He  "draw  all  men  unto  Himself." 

If  the  life-histories  of  many  converts  could  be 
known,  even  of  not  a  few  of  those  whose  names  are 
here  recorded,  we  would  see  fulfilled  in  a  signal  man- 
ner the  prophecy  of  Isaias  concerning  the  Church  : 

' '  The  children  of  them  that  afflict  thee  shall  come 
bowing  down  to  thee  ;  and  all  that  slandered  thee  shall 
worship  the  steps  of  thy  feet,  and  shall  call  thee  the 
City  of  the  Lord,  the  Sion  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  " 
(Isaias  Ix.   14). 


AMERICAN    CONVERTS    FROM     PROTESTANTISM 
TO    CATHOLICISM. 

CLERGYMEN. 

Converts  who  became  Catholic  Priests. 


(Those  who,  so  far  as  known  to  the  compiler,  were  formerly  Protest- 
ant ministers  are  marked  with  an  asterisk,*) 


*  Bayley,     Most     Rev.     James 

Roosevelt,    eighth     Arch- 
bishop of  Baltimore. 
Becker,  Rt.  Rev.   Thomas    A., 
Bishop  of  Savannah. 

*  Barber,  Rev.  Daniel,  a  Revo- 

lutionary soldier,  an   Epis- 
copalian minister  (Vt ) 

*  Barber,   Rev.    Virg-il    Horace, 

a  Jesuit,  son  of  the  fore- 
going ;  his  wife  Jernsha, 
and  their  children,  Samuel, 
Mary,  Abigail,  Susan,  and 
Josephine. 
Barber,  Rev.  Samuel,  a 
son  of  the  Rev. 
Horace  Barber. 

*  Baker,    Rev.    Francis 

Paulist. 

*  Baker,  Rev.  Richard  Swinton. 
Bartlett,  Rev.  William  E.  ( Bait.) 
♦Bradley,  Rev.  Joshua  Dodson 

(N.  Y.) 


Jesuit, 
V^irgil 

A.,    a 


Rev.      Francis,     a 


*  Barnum, 

Jesuit. 
Bodfish,  Rev.  J.  P.  (Mass.) 
Ikown,    Rev.    Algernon   A.,    a 

Paulist. 
Brown,  Rev.  Louis  G.,a  Paulist. 

*  Brown,  Rev.  Mathias.  a  Pas- 

sionist. 

*  Curtis,    Rt.    Rev.    Alfred    A., 

Bishop  of  Wilmington. 
Carter,  V.  Rev.  Charles  Ignatius 
Hardman    (Ky.),    formerly 
V.  G.  of  Phila. 

*  Clark,    Rev.     Arthur     M.,    a 

Paulist. 

Clark,  Rev.  James,  a  Jesuit. 

Cyril,  Rev.  T.,  a  Passionist. 

Craft,  Rev.  Francis  M.  (N. 
Dak.) 

Cuthbert,  Rev.  Fr.,  a  Benedic- 
tine monk. 

*Clapp,  Rev.  Walter  C,  a 
Paulist  novice. 


592 


American  Converts  from  Protestantism.  593 


Deshon,  Rev.  George,  Lieu- 
tenant U.  S.  A.,  a  Paulist. 

*Doane,  Rt.  Rev.  Mgr.,  son  of 
(Prot.)  Bishop  Doane  of 
N.  J. 

*  Denny,  Rev.  Harmon,  a  Jesuit. 
Dwyer,  Rev.  William  H. 

*  Button,   Rev.  Francis  (Ohio). 
Eccleston,  Most    Rev.  Samuel, 

fifth  Archbishop  of  Balti- 
more. 

*  Everett,    Rev.     Wm.     (New 

York  City). 

Frisbee,  Rev.  Samuel  H.,  a 
Jesuit,  son  of  Judge  Fris- 
bee. 

*Ffrench,  Rev.  Charles  D. 
(Portland,  Me.) 

Fisher,  Rev.  Nevin  F. 

*  Fairbanks,   Rev.  H.  F    (Mil- 

waukee). 
Gilmour,     Rt.    Rev.     Richard, 

Bishop  of  Cleveland. 
Granger,  Rev.  A.  (111.) 
Goldschmidt,  Rev.  J.  C.  (Ohio). 

*  Griffin,  Rev.  Charles. 
Geyer,  Rev.  Adolph  (N.  Y.) 
Hecker,  V.  Rev.  Isaac  Thomas, 

Founder  and  first  Superior 
General  of  the  Paulists. 

*Hewit,  V.  Rev.  Augustine  F., 
second  Superior  General  of 
the  Paulists.  The  son  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Nathanael  Hewit, 
Congregational  minister  of 
Bridgeport,  Conn. 

Hedges,  Rev.  Samuel  B.,  a 
Paulist. 


*Haskins,  Rev.  George  F., 
Founder  of  the  House  of  the 
Angel   Guardian  (Boston). 

Hill,  Rev.  B.  D.,  a  Passionist. 

^  Hoyt,  Rev.  Wm.  Henry  (Vt,) 

*  Hudson,  Rev.  David,  C.S.C. 

(Ind.) 
Holly,     Rev.     Norman    D.,     a 
Paulist. 

*  Jenkins,    Rev.  Charles    K.,    a 

Jesuit. 

*  Lemke,  Rev.  Henry,  compan- 

ion of  the  Rev.  Prince  Gal- 
litzin. 

*  Lyman,  Rev.  Dwight  E.  (Bait.) 

*  Leeson,  Rev.  A.  B.  (Bait.) 

*  McLeod,  Rev.  Donald. 
Merrick,  Rev.  David  A.,a  Jesuit. 

*  Mackall,  Rev.  Francis  P.  (N.J.) 
*Monk,    Rev.     Lewis     Went- 

worth,  son  of  the  Hon. 
Cornwallis  Monk,  of  Can- 
ada. 

*  Monroe,  Rev.  Frank,  a  Jesuit, 

great-nephew  of  President 
Monroe. 

Metcalf,  Rev.  Theodore  (Bos- 
ton). 

Major,  Rev.  Thomas  S.  (Ky.) 

*  Murphy,  Rev.  John  F. 
Meriwether,   Rev.   Wm.  A.,   a 

Jesuit. 
Nevins,  Rev,  Aloysius    Russell, 
a  Paulist. 

*  Nears,  Rev.  Henr>-  F.,  a  Paul- 

ist. 
^i'  Norris,  Rev.  Mr.  (Milwaukee). 
*Oertel,  Rev.  J.  J.  Maximilian, 


594         Americafi  Converts  froin  Protestantism. 


author  of  Reasons  of  a 
Liitherati  Minister  for  be- 
coming a  Catholic. 

*  Preston,  Rt.  Rev.   Mgr.  Thos 

S.,  late  V.  G.  of  New  York. 
Rosecrans,  Rt.   Rev.  Sylvester 

H.,   Bishop   of    Columbus, 

brother    of     Gen.    W.     S. 

Rosecrans,  U.  S.  A. 
Robinson,  Rev.  Thomas  V.,  a 

Paulist. 

*  Robinson,    Rev.  John  Rhine- 

lander,  died  a  Paulist 
novice. 

Robinson,   Rev.   Dr.  Henry  L. 

Searle,  Rev.  George  M.,  a  Paul- 
ist. 

Spencer,  V.  Rev.  F.  A.,  Pro- 
vincial of  the  Dominicans, 
son  of  a  Protestant  clergy- 
man. 

*  Stone,  Rev.  James  Kent,  for- 

merly President  of   Hobart 
and   Kenyon    (Prot.)    col- 
leges,  author  of     The  I?i- 
vitation  Heeded,  a  Passion- 
ist. 
Sumner,  Rev.  John,  a  Jesuit. 
Simmons,  Rev.  Gilbert,  a  Paul- 
ist. 
Simmons,  Rev.  Wm.  I.  (Provi- 
dence). 
Salt,  V.  Rev.  Wm.-P.  (N.J.) 
Starr,  Rev.  W.  E.  (Bait.) 
Shaw,  Coleridge,  died  a  Jesuit 
novice. 


Southgate,  Rev.  Edward,  son 
of  (Prot.)  Bishop  South- 
gate. 

Tyler,  Rt.  Rev.  William,  first 
Bishop  of  Hartford. 

*  Thayer,    Rev.   John    Thayer 

(Boston). 
Tillotson,  Rev.  Robert  Beverley, 

a  Paulist. 
Tabb,  Rev.  John,  (St.  Charles' 

College,  Md.) 

*  Van  Rensselaer,  Rev.  Henry, 

a  Jesuit. 

Whitfield,  Most  Rev.  James, 
fourth  Archbishop  of  Balti- 
more. 

Wood,  Most  Rev.  James  Fred- 
erick, first  Archbishop  of 
Philadelphia. 

*  Wadhams,  Rt.  Rev.  Edgar  P., 

Bishop  of  Ogdensburg,N.Y. 

*  Walworth,  Rev.  Clarence  A., 

son  of  Chancellor  Wal- 
worth, New  York. 

Wyman,  Rev.  Henry  M.,  a 
Paulist. 

Waldron,  Rev.  Edward    Q.  L. 

Woodman,  Rev.  Clarence  E.,  a 
Paulist. 

Welsh,  Rev.  Edward,  a  Jesuit. 

Whitney,  Rev.  John  D.,  a  Jesuit. 

Wilson,  Rev.  Fr.,  a  Dominican. 

Young,  Rt.  Rev.  Josue  M., 
Bishop  of  Erie. 

Young, 'Rev.  Alfred  Young,  a 
Paulist. 


American  Converts  from  Protestantism.  595 


Converts  from  the  Protestant   Ministry  who,  so  far 

AS    KNOWN,  DID   NOT  ENTER  THE   CATHOLIC   PRIESTHOOD. 

Allen,  Rev.  George,  LL.D.  (St. 
Albans,  Vt.) 

Adams,  Rev.  Mr.  (lowaj. 

Adams,  R  Henry  A.  (New 
York  City). 

Boddy,  Rev.  Wm. 

Bowne,  Rev.  George  Washing- 
ton. 

Coggeshall,  Rev.  G.  A.  (Provi- 
dence, R.  I.) 

Converse,  Rev.  James  M.  J. 

Colt,  Rev.  A.  B.,  grandson  of 
(Prot.)  Bishop  Hobart. 

Egan,  Rev.  Dillon  (Cal.) 

Fisher,  Rev.  F.  (Corona,  Long 
Island). 

Gilliam,  Rev.  G.,  afterwards 
physician  (Bait.) 

Huntington,  Rev.  Joshua,  au- 
thor of  Groping  s  after 
Truth. 

Huntington,  Rev.  J.  Vincent, 
Litterateur. 

Homer,  Rev.  Mr. 

Ives,  Rt.  Rev.  Levi  Silliman, 
Episcopalian  Bishop  of 
North  Carolina.  The 
founder  of  the  Catholic 
Protectory,  New  York  City. 

Ironside,  Rev.  George  E.  (N.  J.) 


Kaicher,  Rev.  John  Keble. 

Kewley,  Rev.  John  (N.  Y.  City). 

Locke,  Rev.  Jesse  Albert. 

Markoe,  Rev.  Mr.  (St.  Paul, 
Minn.) 

Meredith,  Rev.  W.  M. 

McMorgan,  Rev.  Pollard. 

Pollard,  Rev.  J. 

Powell,  Rev.  Wm.  E. 

Russell,  Rev.  Edwin  B.,  D.D. 

Russell,  Rev.  J.  C.  and  family 
(Bait.) 

Rodgers,  Rev.  J.  W.,  D.D.,and 
family  (Memphis). 

Robinson,  Rev.  Wm.  C,  Judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Conn,  and  Professor  of  Law 
in  Yale  University. 

Richards,  Rev.  Henry  Living- 
ston. 

Reiner,  Rev.  John  M. 

Richards,  Rev.  John. 

Thornton,  Rev.  Mr.  (Charles- 
ton, S.  C.) 

White,  Rev.  Calvin,  grand- 
father of  Richard  Grant 
White. 

Witcher,  Rev.  Mr.  and  wife. 

Wheaton,  Rev.  Homer  (Pough- 
keepsie,  N.  Y.) 


THK  MKDICAI.  PROFESSION. 

Alley,  Dr.  (Phila.)  Bigelow,  Dr.  (Mich.) 

Allen,  Dr.  John  (N.  Y.  City).  Brown,  Dr.  Wm.  Faulkner. 

Bellinger,  Dr.  John  (S.  C.)  Budd,  Dr.  Chas.  H. 

Bryant,  Dr.  John  (Phila.)  Burt,  Dr.  (S.  C.) 


596  American  Converts  from  Protestantism. 


Chilton,  Dr.  (Va.) 

Cabbamus,  Dr.  T.  T. 

Cooke,  Dr.  (111.) 

Craft,  Dr.  Isaac  B.  (Ohio). 

Drenford,    Dr.  George  (D.  C.) 

Darland,  Dr.  Richard. 

Derby,  Dr.  Haskett. 

Dwight,  Dr.  (Boston.) 

Emmet,  Dr.  Thomas  Addis  (N. 
Y.  City). 

Elliott,  Dr.  Johnson. 

Floyd,  Dr.  Wm.  P.,  son  of  Gov. 
Floyd  (Va.) 

Faust,  Dr.  (Washington,  D.  C.) 

Greene,  Dr.  (Maine). 

Greene,  Dr.  (St.  Louis), 

Gregory,  Dr.  Elisha  H. 

Hassell,  Dr.  Samuel  (N.Y.  City) . 

Harvey,  Dr.  John  Milton. 

Hewit,  Dr.  Henry  Stuart,  son  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Nathanael  Hewit, 
Congregationalist  minister 
(Bridgeport,  Conn.) 

Keyes,  Dr.  Edward  L.  fN.  Y. 
City). 


Leffingwell,  Dr.  Albert. 

Locke,  Dr.  (Ann  Arbor,  Mich.) 

McLaughlin,  Dr.,  of  the  Hud- 
son Bay  Company. 

Meriwether,  Dr.  Wm.  A.,  now 
a  Jesuit. 

Marcy,  Dr.  E.  A.  (N.  Y.  City). 

McMurray,  Dr.  Elgin  T. 

MacDougal,  Dr. 

Petersen,  Dr.  (Phila.) 

Pollock,  Dr.  Simon,  Jr. 

Ouackenbos,  Dr.(Albany,  N.  Y.) 

Russ,  Dr.  (New  Mexico). 

Reynolds,  Dr.  Chevalier. 

Richmond,  Dr.  John  B.  (N.  J.) 

Salter,  Dr.  Richard  H.  (Boston). 

Spencer,  Dr.  John  C.  (N.  Y.) 

Sterling,  Dr.  George  A.  (Long 
Island). 

Van  Buren,  Dr.  William  H. 
(N.  Y.  City). 

Wood,  Dr.  James  Robie  (N.  Y. 
City). 

Woodville,  Dr.  (Monroe  Co., 
Va.) 


THE  ARMY  AND  NAVY. 


Aldrich,  Col. 

Beaumont,        Rear        Admirnl 

John  C. 
Brisbane,  Gen.  Abbot  H. 
Buell,  Gen.  Don  Carlos. 
Belton,  Col.  Francis  S. 
Brittin,  Col.  Lionel. 
Basket,  Col.  John. 
Bradshaw,  Col. 
Brownson,  Major  Henry  F. 


Cook,  Gen.  William. 

Cutts,     Col.    James     Madison, 

nephew  of  Pres.   Madison. 
Caldwell,  Col. 
Clarke,  Col.  W.  E. 
Cooper,  Col.  George  Kent. 
Chase,  Capt.  Bela. 
Curd,   Lieut.    Thomas    (died   a 

Jesuit  novice). 
Dearborn,  Major  Axel. 


American  Converts  from  Protestantism.  S97 


Deshon,    Lieut.    George    (New 
London,    Conn.),     now     a 
priest  and  Paulist. 
Dodge,  Lieut. 
Foster,  Gen.  John  G.,  of   U.   S. 

Engineers. 
Frye,  Col. 
Floyd,  Col,  George. 
Floyd,  Col.  Ben.  Rush. 
Fountain,  Capt.  S.  W. 
Graham,  Gen.  Lawrence. 
Guest,  Commodore  John. 
Gerdes,    Capt.    F.    H.,     U.  S. 

Coast  Survey. 
Griffen,  Capt.  B.  B. 
Hardin,  Gen.  M.  D. 
Harney,  Gen.  W.  S. 
Hardie,  Gen.  James  A. 

Hill,  Gen. 

Harwood,  Rear   Admiral    An- 
drew Allen. 

Hudson,  Col.  McK. 

Hyde,  Col. 

Holbrook,  Col.  P.  N. 

Hooper,  Col.  George  P. 

Haldeman,  Capt. 

Ives,  Lieut.  Joseph  C. 

Jenkins,  Gen.  Albert. 

Jones,  Gen.  James. 

Johnston,  Lieut. 

Kilpatrick,  Gen.  Hugh  Judson. 

Kane,  Col.  George  P. 

Lane,  Gen.  Joseph. 

Longstreet,  Gen.  James. 

Larned,  Col.  Charles. 

Lamson,  Col.  D.  S. 

Lay,  Capt.,    brother   of   (Prot.) 
Bishop  Lay. 


MacDougal,  Gen.  Clinton  Du- 

gald. 
McKaig,  Gen.  T.  J. 
Monroe,     Col.    James,     grand- 
nephew  of  Pres't  Monroe. 
Montgomery,  Col.  L.  M. 
Newton,  Gen.  John  E. 
Northrop,  Gen.  Lucius  B. 
Nearnsie,  Major  J.  R. 
Nicholson,  Lieut.,  U.S.N. 
Ord,  Gen.  Edward  O.  C. 
Otis,  Col.  E.  S. 
Ord,  Capt.  Placidus. 
Payne,  Col.  Rice  W. 
Rosecrans,   Gen.  Wm.  Starke. 

Revere,  Gen.  Joseph  Warren, 
grandson  of  Paul  Revere 
of  Revolutionary  fame. 

Ramsay,  Admiral  Francis  M. 

Rathbone,  Col.  John  Cass. 

Ransom,  Capt.  Augustine  Dun- 
bar. 

Scammon,  Gen.  E.  Parker. 

Stone,  Gen.  Charles  P. 

Stanley,  Gen.  David  Sloan. 

Sturgis,  Gen.  Samuel  D. 

Smith,  Gen.  George. 

Sands,  Admiral  B.  F. 

Strobel,  Major. 

Shurtleff,  Capt.  Nathanael  B. 

Summerhayes,  Lieut.  J.  W. 

Spear,  Lieut. 

Tyler,  Gen.  Robert  O.,  son  of 
President  Tyler. 

Thayer,  Gen.  Russell. 

Tucker,  Col.  N.  A. 

Troy,  Col. 
Tilford.  Col. 


598  American  Converts  from  Protestantism. 


Turner,  Major  Henry  S. 
Vincent,    Gen.     Thomas     Mc- 

Curdy. 
Vault,  Col.  G.  W.  T. 


Whipple,  Gen.  A.  W. 
Wayne,  Gen.  Henry  C. 
Ward,    Capt.    James    Harman, 
naval  author. 


THE  PUBLIC   SERVICE    AND  THE  EAW. 


Anderson,  Hon.  Wm.  Marshall, 

brother     of     Col.     Robert 

Anderson,   commander    of 

Fort  Sumter. 
Arrington,  Hon.  Judge  (111.) 
Atwater,  Hon.  Mr.   (New    Ha- 
ven). 
Austin,  Charles,  (Law.)  (N.  Y.) 
Burnett,  Hon.  Peter  H.,  Gov.  of 

California,   Judge ;    author 

1;''"        A^      of   The  Path  ivhich   led  a 

W^  ,V     Protestant   Lawyer  to   the 

V*     J-"        Catholic  Church, 

'■■''     Brightly,  Frederick  C.   (Law.), 

author     of     the      Federal 

Digest,  etc. 
Bakewell,   Hon.    Judge   Robert 

A.  (St.  Louis). 
Bissell,  Hon.  William    H.,  Gov. 

of  Illinois. 
Bliss,    George,    (Law.)     (New 

York  City). 
Boggess,  Judge  Caleb. 
Carpenter,  Gen.,  (Law.)   Lieut,- 

Gov.  of  Rhode  Island. 
Chandler,     Hon.     Joseph      R., 

Minister  to  Naples. 
Clarke,  Hon.  Beverley  L. 
Dent,    Hon.   Louis,  relative   of 

Gen.  Grant. 
Dunne,     Hon.      Chief     Justice 

(Arizona). 


Ewing,  Hon.  Thomas,  Senator, 

Secretary  of  the  Interior. 
Florence,  Hon.  Thomas  B. 
Field,  William  Hildreth,  (Law.) 

(New  York  City). 
Heath,  Hon.  Judge  (N.  C.) 
Hurd,  Hon.  Frank  (Ohio). 
Holcomb,    Hon.    Silas    Wright 

(New  York  City). 
Hatch,     Roswell     D.,     (Law.) 

(New  York  City). 
Howard,    George    H.,    (Law.) 

(Washington,  D.  C.) 
Johnston,         Attorney-General 

(Miss.) 
Johnston,  Hon.  J.  W.,   Senator 

(Va.) 
Joyce,  Hon.  John  (Ky.) 
Keiley,  Hon.  A.  M.  (Va.) 
Livingston,     Hon.     Vanbrugh, 

U.  S.  Minister  to  Russia. 
Lee,    Hon.      Thomas     Simms, 

Gov.  of  Maryland. 
Manley,  Judge  M.  E.  (N.  C.) 
Moore,  Judge  (N.  C.) 
Mulkey,   Hon   Judge   John    H. 

(111.) 
Pugh,  Hon.  George  E.,  Senator 

(Ohio). 
Price,  Hon.  Jonathan  H. 
Rice,  Hon.  Judge  (S.  C.) 
Rankin,  Hon.  Judge  (Cal.) 


American  Converts  from  Protcstmitisnt.  599 


Ryland,  Hon.  Judge  (Cal.) 

Smith,  Hon.  Truman. 

Sawyer,  Hon.  Lemuel. 

Stephens,  Judge  Linton,  broth- 
er of  Hon.  Alex.  Stephens 
(Ga.) 

Tenney,  Judge  (N.  Jersey). 

Troyman,  Hon.  James. 


Van    Dyke,    Hon.     James    A. 

(Detroit). 
Whittlesey,  Hon.  David  C. 
Washington,  Hon.  John  N. 
Weld,  Hon.  W.  E.  (III.) 
Wilkins,  Hon.  Judge  (Mich.) 
Wilson,  Hon.  Ben  (W.  Va.) 


I.ITERATURK,  THE  ARTS  AND  SCIENCES. 

Haldeman,  Prof.      Samuel     S., 


Anderson,  Henry  James,  LL.D., 
Prof.  Columbia  College. 

Allen,  Heman  (Art.),  Music, 
Chicago. 

Brownson,  Orestes  A.,  LL.D. 
(Lit.),  Author,  Editor  of 
Brownson' s  Rei/iew, 

Baker,  Prof.  Alpheus. 

Blyth,  Stephen  Cleveland  (Lit.) 

Coleman,  Carryl  (Art.) 

Crawford,  Marion  (Lit.),  Novel- 
ist. 

Dwight,  Prof.,  Harvard  Medical 
College. 

Dorsey,  Prof.  Oswald. 

Dorsey,  Mrs.  Anna  H.  (Lit.) 

Dahlgren,  Mrs.  Madeleine  Vin- 
ton (Lit.) 

Ermenstrout,  Prof.  John  S. 
(Lit.) 

Ellet,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Fries 
(Lit.) 

Fisher,  Mrs.  Frances  C.  (Chris- 
tian Reid)  (Lit.),  Novelist. 

Frost,  Prof.  Sydney  B. 

Hassard,  John  R.  G.  (Lit.) 

Hall,  James,  New  York  State 
Geologist. 


Naturalist. 
Hemmenway,  Mrs.  (Lit.),  author 

of   Historical    Anfials    of 

Vermont. 
Johnston,      Richard      Malcolm 

(Lit.) 
Jones,  Prof.  Gardner. 
Keene,  Laura  (Lit.  and  Art.) 
Lathrop,  George  Parsons  (Lit.) 
Lathrop,  Mrs.  Rose  H.,  wife  of 

the  author  and  daughter  of 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
Le  Vert,  Mrs.  Octavia  Walton 

(Lit.) 
McMaster,  James  A.  (Lit.),  Ed- 
itor    of      the      Freeman's 

Journal. 
Miles,  George  H.  (Lit.) 
Martin,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  G.  (Lit.), 

wife  of  Homer  D.  Martin, 

the  artist. 
Monroe,  Miss  Mary  (Lit ) 
Mason,  Miss  Emily  (Lit.) 
Poole,  Thomas  H.  (Architect). 
Rea,  Robert  T.  (Lit.) 
Smith,  Sanderson  (Naturalist). 
Stoddaid,  Charles  Warren  (Lit.) 


6oo  American  Converts  from  Protestantism. 


Starr,  Miss  Eliza  Allen  (Lit.) 
Tincker,    Miss     Mary     Agnes 

(Lit.),  Novelist. 
Thompson,  Miss  Dora  (Lit.) 
Walker,  John  Brisbane    (Lit.), 

Editor     of      Cosmopolitan 

Magazine. 
Wolf,  Geo.   D.  (.Lit.),  Journalist. 

FROM  VARIOUS 

Allen,  Miss  Fanny,  daughter  of 
Gen.  Ethan  Allen  of  Rev- 
olutionary fame. 

Anger,  Calvin  (Boston). 

Anderson,  Mrs.  William  Mar- 
shall, daughter  of  Gen. 
Duncan  McArthur,  Gov.  of 
Ohio. 

Austin,  The  Misses  Eliza,  Sara, 
and  Kate  (Burlington,  Vt.) 

Austin,  Mrs.  Charles  (N.  Y.  C.) 

Arnold,  Mrs.  William  (N.  Y.  C.) 

Arnold,   Mrs.  (Chelsea,    Mass.) 

Arrington,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Judge 
Arrington  (111.) 

Abell,  Samuel  (Md.) 

Barlow,  The  Misses  Debbie, 
Helen  and  Anna  (Ver- 
mont). 

Barry,  Mrs.  John,  wife  of  Com- 
modore Barry,  U.  S.  N. 

Brownson,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Dr. 
Orestes  A.  Brownson. 

Berrian,  T.  Chandler,  son  of'^ 
Rev.  Dr.  Berrian,  Rector  of 
Trinity  Church   (N.  Y.  C.) 

Blount,  Thomas  Mutter,  his  wife, 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Blount,  and 


Willis,  Richard  Storrs  (Lit.) 
White,  John  (Art.),  Music. 
White,    Ferdinand    E.     (Art.), 

Music. 
Walworth,  Mansfield  (Lit.),  son 

of    Chancellor    Walworth, 

New  York. 
Wentworth,  Mrs.  J.  W.  (Art.) 

WAIvKS  OF   LIFE. 

their  children,  Thomas 
Mutter,  William  Rochester, 
Margaret  Elizabeth,  Annie 
Isabella,  Charlotte  Caro- 
line, Mary  Bonner,  Alice 
Knight,  Louisa  Knight 
(Washington,  D.  C.) 

Beekham,  Miss  Fanny  (Va.),  a 
Visitation  nun. 

Beers,  Miss  Julia  (Litchfield, 
Conn.) 

Bliss,  Mrs.  George  (N.  Y.  City). 

Bleecker,  Miss  Rosalie,  cousin 
of  Arclibishop  Bayley. 

Bass,  The  Misses  Ella  and  Jen- 
nie, daughters  of  the  Coun- 
tess Bertinati. 

Barber,  Mrs.  Jerusha,  wife  of 
Rev.  Virgil  H.  Barber. 

Barber,  The  Misses  Mary,  Abi- 
gail, Susan,  Josephine, 
■  daughters  of  the  foregoing, 

^..n'n"'"^!!  of  whom  with  their 
y  ^^^    mgther  became  nuns. 

BueT,  Oliver  P.  and  wife  (N.  Y. 
City). 

Buel,  David  Hillhouse,  a  Jesuit, 
son  of  the  foregoing. 


American  Converts  from  Protestantism,  60 1 


Buel,  Hillhouse  A.,  son  of  Rev. 
David  Buel. 

Brooks,  A.  E.  (N.  Y.  City). 

Browne,  Charles  F.,  the  humor. 
ist  "  Artemus  Ward." 

Bellinger,  Edmund,  Jr.(Charles- 
ton,  S.  C.) 

Bellinger,  The  Misses  Harriet, 
Sarah,  and  Susan  (Charles- 
ton, S.  C.) 

Bradford,  Mrs.  Mary,  sister  of 
Mrs.  Jefferson  Davis. 

Bland,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Hon.  Rich- 
ard P.  Bland  (Mo.) 

Burnett,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Judge 
Peter  H.  Burnett. 

Boggs,  Mrs  ,  wife  of  Admiral 
Boggs,  U.  S.  N. 

Brent,  Mrs.  Sarah  L.  (N.  Y.  C.) 

Boyle,  Mrs.  Amelia,  wife  of 
Capt.  Boyle  ;  also  their  five 
children  (N.  Y.  City). 

Bostwick,  Mrs.  Eliza,  daughter 
of  Presbyterian  missionary 
to  Ceylon  (N.  Y.  City). 

Branhardt,  Joseph  (N.  C.) 

Brewster,  Miss  Ann. 

Chappell,  Alfred  H.  (New  Lon- 
don, Conn.j 

Cheney,  Miss  Mary  (Mass.),  a 
nun. 

Cook,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Gen.  Wm. 
Cook  (N.  J.) 

Clinton,  Miss  Margaret  (Va.),  a 
nun. 

Cutting,  Mrs.  (N.  Y.)  {nee  Mar- 
ion Ramsay,  D.  C.) 


Coleman,    Abraham    B.    (Nan 
tucket). 

Casewell,  Henry,  and  family 
(Parkersburg,  W.  Va.) 

Clarke,  D.  W.  ( Vt.) 

Churchill,  Franklin  H.  (N.  Y. 
City). 

Chase,  Miss  Harriet  (Nantuc- 
ket). 

Chapin,  Lindley  (N.  Y.  City). 

Coppinger,  Mrs.  John  J., 
daughter  of  Hon.  James  G. 
Blaine. 

Connolly, Mrs.  Pierce,  Foundress 
of  the  nuns  of  the  Holy 
Childhood. 

Clay,  John  B.,  son  of  Hon.  Hen- 
ry Clay. 

Caldwell,  William  Shakespeare. 

Caldwell,  Mrs.  Mary  E. 

Clark,  Mrs.  Mary  (Ky.) 

Chapezo,  Benjamin  (Ky.) 

Crump.  John  I.  (Conn.) 

Cowles,  Miss  Ellen,  daughter 
of  Editor  Cowles  (Cleve- 
land. O.) 

Curtis,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  L.  A. 
(Buffalo). 

Dahlgren,  Mrs.  Madeleine  Vin- 
ton, wife  of  Admiral  Dahl- 
gren, U.  S.  N. 

Davidson,  Mrs.  Anna  and  fam- 
ily (\V.  Va.) 

Deshon,  Miss  Sarah,  daughter 
of  Rev.  G.  H.  Deshon 
(Conn.) 

Drexel,  Mrs.  Joseph. 


6o2  American  Converts  from  Protestantism, 


Davis,  Miss  Helen,  sister  of  Ad- 
miral Davis,  U.  S.  N. 

Dana,  Miss  Charlotte,  sister  of 
Richard  H.  Dana,  the  au- 
thor (Boston). 

Dana,  Miss  Matilda  (Boston). 

Day,  Mrs.,  niece  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster. 

Edgar,  Miss  Constance,  grand- 
daughter of  Daniel  Web- 
ster, a  Visitation  nun. 

Elcock,  Mrs.,  nee  Belle  Seyfert, 
wife  of  Judge  Elcock 
(Pa.) 

Etheridge,  Miss  Emma,  daugh- 
ter of  Emerson  Etheridge 
(Tenn.) 

Edes,  Miss  Ella  B.,  niece  of 
(Prot.)  Bishop  Wainwright, 
of  New  York. 

Everett,  The  Misses,  nieces  of 
Hon.  Edward  Everett. 

Field,  Mrs.  William  Hildreth 
{nee  Miller)  (Homer, 
N.  Y.) 

Freeman,  Miss  Annie,  a  nun. 

Floyd,  Mrs.  {nee  Preston),  wife 
of  Governor  John  Floyd 
(Va.) 

Floyd,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Dr.  William 
P.  Floyd  (Va.) 

Floyd,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Col.  George 
Floyd  (Va.) 

Floyd,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Col.  Ben. 
Rush  Floyd  (Va.)  The  fore- 
going are  sons  of  Gov. 
Floyd,  who  also  became  a 
convert. 


Floyd-Jones,  Mr,  and  Mrs.  G.  S. 
(N.Y.  City). 

Fisher,  Miss  Annie,  daughter  of 
Judge  Fisher  (Washing- 
ton, D.  C.) 

Green,  Hannibal  (N.  Y.) 

Gardes,  Henry  (N.  Orleans). 

Guion,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William 
H.  (N.  Y.  City). 

Glover,  Mrs.  O.  R.  (N.  Y.  City). 

Guernsey,  Miss  Julia  M.  (De- 
troit). 

Graham,  Miss  M.  A.,  sister  of 
Gen.  Graham,  U.  S.  A.,  a 
Visitation  nun. 

Gould,  John  M.,  son  of  Protes- 
tant minister  (Boston). 

Greenough,  Horatio. 

Hecker,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George 
V.  (N.  Y.  City). 

Hayes,  Dr.  Isaac  Israel,  Arctic 
Explorer. 

Healy,  Mrs.,  wife  of  the  artist, 
G.  P.  A.  Healy. 

Harper,  Miss  Emily. 

Hartwell,  Mrs.  Anna  Frances,  a 
nun  and  Superioress  of  the 
Mission  Helpers  to  the  Ne- 
groes. 

Hite,  Miss  Mary  (V^a.),  a  Visita- 
tion nun. 

Hewit,  Mrs.  Catharine  {nee 
Hurd),  wife  of  Dr.  Henry 
S.  Hewit. 

Hohnes,  Mrs.  George  (Va.), 
daughter  of  Gov.  John 
Floyd. 

Holly,  Mrs.  S.  C.  (N.  Y.  City). 


American  Converts  from  Protestantism.  603 


Hudson,  Miss  Elizabeth,  sis- 
ter of  Col.  Edward  McK. 
Hudson,  U.  S.  A. 

Hooper,  Mrs.  George  P. 

Hamniersley,  Mrs.  Louis. 

Henderson,  Miss  Mary  (Ky.) 

Hunt,  Mrs.  William  H.,  daugh- 
ter of  Jacob  Barker  (N. 
Orleans). 

Ives,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edward. 

Ives,  Mrs.,  daughter  of  (Prot.) 
Bishop  Hobart. 

Jones,  Miss  Wilhelmina,  daugh- 
ter of  the  distinguished 
naval  officer,  Jacob  Jones, 
a  Visitation  nun. 

Jones,  Miss  Sarah,  daughter  of 
Judge  Jones  (N.  Y.  City), 
a  Sacred  Heart  nun. 

Johnston,  Mrs.  Richard  Mal- 
colm, wife  of  the  author. 

Johnson,  Mrs.  Andrew,  7ice 
Rumbough  (N.  C.) 

Jaboeuf,  Mrs.  M.  R.,  daiighter 
of  Borden  M.  Voorhees 
(Washington,  D.  C.) 

Johnston,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Judge 
John  W.  Johnston  (Va.), 
daughter  of  Gov.  John 
Floyd. 

King,  Mrs.  Jane  (Mass.) 

King,  Miss  Frances,  daughter 
of  foregoing,  a  Sister  of 
Mercy. 

Kearney,    Mrs.,    wife   of    Gen. 

Philip  Kearney. 
Kearney,  The  Misses,  daughters 
of  the  foregoing. 


Lay,  Mr.,  son  of  Protestant 
Bishop  of  Maryland. 

Lee,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Dr.  Charles 
Carroll  Lee  (Bait.) 

Lafarge,  Mrs.  Margaret  Mason, 
granddaughter  of  Commo- 
dore Perry,  U.  S.  N. 

Lord,  Thomas  Scott  J.  (N.  Y.) 

Lewis,  Mrs.  Letitia,  wife  of  Col. 
Wm.  Lewis  and  daughter 
of  Gov.  John  Floyd,  of 
Va. 

Lyons,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Judge 
Lyons  (Va.) 

Lynch,  Mrs.  Howard,  nee  Fonda 
(N.  York  City). 

Lippitt,  Miss  Caroline  (Cam- 
bridge, Mass.) 

Linton,  Miss  Sarah,  niece  of 
Col.  Graham,  U.  S.  A.,  a 
Visitation  nun,  author  of 
Linton's  Historical  Charts. 

Lord,  Haynes  (N.  York  City). 

Lord,  Mrs.  Hicks  (N.  Y.  City). 

Livingston,  Mrs.  Vanbrugh,  nee 
Jaudon  (New  York  City). 

Levin,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Lewis  C. 
Levin,  the  "  Know-Noth- 
ing' leader  in  Philadel- 
phia. 

Longfellow,  Miss  Marian,  rela- 
tive of  the  poet  Long- 
fellow. 

Lowe,  Mrs.  Hester,  wife  of 
Gov.  Lowe  (Md.) 

Larwill,  Mrs.  M.  J.  (Ohio). 

Monroe,  Miss,  daughter  of 
President  Monroe,  a  nun. 


6o4         American  Converts  from  Protestantism. 


Marks,  Mrs.  C.  C,  nee  Fonda 
(New  York  City). 

Mann,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Lieut. 
Mann,  U.  S.  N. 

Miller,  Henry  Wisner  (New 
York  City). 

Meynen,  Hermann  (N.  Y.  C.) 

Meagher,  Mrs.  Thomas  Francis. 

Metcalf,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Theodore 
(Boston). 

Metcalf,  Miss  Julia  (Boston). 

Mason,  Miss  Emily  (Va.) 

Miles,  Mrs.  George,  mother  of 
Geo.  H.  Miles,  the  author. 

McKintry,  W.  E.  (Cal.) 

McKintry,  Mrs.  Annie  Hedges 
Livingston  (Cal.) 

Medary,  Samuel,  son  of  Gov. 
Medary  (Ohio). 

McCarthy,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Sena- 
tor Dennis  McCarthy  (Syr- 
acuse, N,  Y.) 

Matthews,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Capt . 
John  P.  Matthews  (Va.) 

Miles,  Mrs.  Josephine  C.  (N.  Y.) 
a  Dominican  nun. 

Miles,  Miss  Marian  H.,  daugh- 
ter of  foregoing,  a  Visita- 
tion nun. 

McVickar,  Lawrence. 

Morrogh,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Dr.  W. 
P.  Morrogh  (N.  J.) 

Miller,  Mrs.  Mary  E.  (N.  Y. 
City). 

Miller,  Miss  Elizabeth,  daugh- 
ter of  the  foregoing. 

McCallum,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hiram 
(Lockport,  N.  Y.) 


Martin,  Miss  Helen,  daughter 
of  Senator  Martin,  of  Kan- 
sas, a  Sister  of  Charity. 

Moore,  Henry  (Wheeling,  W. 
Va.) 

McLaughlin,  Mr.  (San  Jose, 
Cal.) 

Northrop,  Lucius,  father  of 
Bishop  Northrop  (S.  C.) 

Newton,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Gen. 
John  E.  Newton,  U.  S.  A. 

Nevins,  Mrs.  Richard,  daughter 
of  Gov.  Medary,  of  Ohio. 

O'Shaughnessy,  Mrs.  J.  F., 
daughter  of  Judge  Nelson 
J.  Waterbury  (N.  Y.  C.) 

O'Connor,  Mrs.  M.  P.  (San 
Jose,  Cal.) 

Olds,  Miss  Mary,  daughter  of 
Senator  Olds  (Ohio). 

Palmer,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Julius  A. 

Pierce,  Wellington  Augustine 
(Buffalo). 

^ycHowska,  Mrs.,  daughter  of 
Gen.  Wm.  Cook  (N.  J.) 

Peel,  Miss  Kate,  daughter  of 
Senator  Peel  (Ark.) 

Preston,  Miss  Henrietta  (Va.) 

Pearce,  The  Misses  Julia  and 
Fanny  (Boston),  both  Visi- 
tation nuns. 

Peter,  Mrs.  Sarah  (Ohio). 

Piatt,   Mrs.,  wife   of   Col.  Don  ^     || 
Piatt. 

Robertson,   Miss   Sadie     (New 
Orleans),  a  Visitation  nun. 
Riggs,   George  W.    (Washing- 
ton, D.  C.) 


American  Converts  from  Protestantism.  605 


Rosecrans,  Mrs.,  wife   of  Gen. 

W.  S.  Rosecrans. 
Ripley,   Mrs.,  wife   of    George 

Ripley,  journalist. 
Raynor,  Miss   Susan,  daughter 
of  Hon.  Kenneth  Raynor, 
and  niece  of  Bishop  Polk. 
Ripley,  Miss  Phoebe,  daughter 
of     Rev.    Samuel    Ripley, 
Unitarian  minister,  a  Visi- 
tation nun. 
Robinson,       Miss       Lodoiska, 
daughter     of     Dr.     Henry 
Robinson      (New      Bruns- 
wick, N.  J.) 
Raven,  Miss,  daughter  of  Thos. 

Raven  (N.  Y.) 
Robertson,   Miss,    daughter    of 
Rev.    John    Robertson,    a 
Sister  of  Mercy. 
Springer,  Reuben  R.  (Ohio). 
Seton,  Mrs.  Eliza  A.,  Foundress 
of  the  Sisters  of  Charity  in 
U.  S. 
Scott,  The    Misses   Virginia,  a 
nun ;  Cornelia,  wife  Lieut. 
Scott,  of  U.    S.   A.  ;   Ella, 
wife     of     Mr.     McTavish 
(Bait.),     Camilla,    wife    of 
Mr.    Hoyt    (N.    Y.)      The 
four  daughters  of  Maj.-Gen. 
Winfield  Scott,  U.  S.  A. 
Starr,  Mrs.  W.,  Superioress  of 
the  Sisters  of    the    Divine 
Compassion  (N.  Y.  C.) 
Storrs,  Mrs.  Annie  Isabella,  nee 

Blount,  Washington. 
Smith,  The  Misses  Lucy  Eaton, 


late  Mother  M.  Catherine 
de  Ricci,  Dominican  pri- 
oress; and  Isabel  Mcln- 
tyre,  also  a  Dominican 
nun,  daughters  of  Baldwin 
Smith  (N.  Y.) 
Spooner,  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  Wet- 
more,  wife  of  Col.  Alden 
Spooner  (Brooklyn). 
Smith,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Gov.  Smith 

(Ala.) 
Semmes,  Mrs.  Thomas   J.   (N. 

Orleans). 
Semmes,  Mrs.  B.  J.  (Memphis). 
Smith,  Miss  Anna  E.,  daughter 
of  Admiral   Joseph  Smith, 
U.S.N. 
Sedgewick,  Miss  Jane   (Stock- 
bridge,  Mass.) 
Salter,  Mrs.  Richard  H.  (Mass.) 
Salter,     Miss       Edith      Agnes 

(Mass.) 
Scammon,  Mrs.,  wife    of    Gen. 

E.  P.  Scammon,  U.  S.  A. 
Smith,      Mrs.      Ida      Greeley, 
daughter  of  Horace  Gree- 
ley. 
Salter,  Miss  Mary  J.,  daughter 
of  Chaplain  Salter,  U.  S.  A. 
Salter,  Miss  Helen  J.,  a  Sister 

of  Mercy. 
Salter,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Dr.  Salter, 
Boston,  daughter  of  Rev. 
Dr.  Woods,  Prof,  in  An- 
dover  Seminary. 
Sprague,  Mrs.  Harriet  Ewing, 
wife  of  Henry  Sprague 
(New  York). 


6o6  A  merican  Converts  from  Protcstantisin. 


Smyth,  The  Misses  Emma, 
Agatha,  Dorthula,  Frances, 
daughters  of  Capt.  Harold 
Smyth  (Va.) 

Schley,  Mrs.  (Milwaukee). 

Stephens,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Judge 
Stephens  (Ga.) 

Snowdon,  Miss  Eliza  (Md.),  a 
nun. 

Smith,  Miss  Martha  (Va.),  a 
nun. 

Tuckerman,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sam- 
uel P.  (Boston). 

Thomas,  Mrs.  Henry  Theodore, 
daughter  of  James  God- 
dard  (New  York  City). 

Tyler,  Mrs.,  widow  of  Presi- 
dent Tyler. 

Tyler,  Miss  Margaret,  daughter 
of  the  foregoing. 

Thayer,  Henry  Adams  (Mass.) 

Thompson,  Miss  Margaret, 
formerly  a  member  of 
Protestant  sisterhood. 

Taylor,  The  Misses  Emma  and 
Clara,  nieces  of  Laura 
Keene. 

Trautmann,  Miss  Elizabeth  (D. 
C),  a  nun. 

Travers,  Miss  Elizabeth  (D.  C), 
a  nun. 

Torrens,  Miss  Mary  (Mass.),  a 
nun. 

Turner,  Miss  Mary  (Va.),  a  nun. 

Thompson,  Mrs.  Valentine 
(Ky.) 

Throop,  Francis  H.  (Brooklyn, 
N.  Y.) 


Van  Buren,  Mrs.,  wife  of  Dr. 
Wm.  H.  Van  Buren  (N.  Y. 
C),  daughter  of  Dr.  Valen- 
tine Mott. 

Van  Zandt,  Eugene  (N.  Y.  C.) 

Van  Rensselaer,  Miss  (N.  Y.), 
a  Sister  of  Charity. 

Voorhees,  The  Misses  Eliza, 
Marion  R.,  Ella,  and  Kath- 
erine,  daughters  of  Bor- 
den M.  Voorhees  (Wash., 
D.C.) 

White,  Mrs.  Richard  (Phila.) 

Walley,  Thomas  (Boston),  un- 
cle of  Wendell  Phillips. 

Waggaman,  Thomas  E.,  great- 
nephew  of  President  Tyler. 

Waggaman,  Mrs.,  sister  of 
President   Tyler. 

Waggaman,  Miss  Sarah,  daugh- 
ter of  foregoing,  a  Visita- 
tion nun. 

Whittier,  Miss  Harriet,  niece 
of  Admiral  Smith,  U.  S.  A., 
and  cousin  of  the  poet 
Whittier. 

Ward,  Mrs.  Anna,  H.  B.  and 
sisters,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  H. 
Van  Zandt,  Mrs.  Sarah  B. 
Hunt,  daughters  of  Jacob 
Barker  (New  Orleans). 

Wentw^orth,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J. 
W.  (New  York  City). 

Wilber,  Joshua  (Lockport,  N. 
Y.) 

Wixon,  Miss  Emma,  Prima 
Donna  Mile.  Nevada. 

Wood,   Dr.  James  Robie  and 


American  Converts  from  ProtestaJitism.  607 


sisters,  the  Misses  Jennie 
C,  Mary  E.,  Annie  E.,  and 
Alfred  C,  grandchildren  of 
Thomas  Walley  (Boston). 

Willetts,  Miss  Anglesia  (Brook- 
lyn), a  sister  of  the  Divine 
Compassion. 

Wilson,  Miss  Edith,  formerly 
member  of  a  Prot.  sister- 
hood (New  York  City). 

Worthington,  Mrs.  Lewis  (Cin- 
cinnati). 

Worthington,  Mrs.  George 
(Cleveland). 


White,  Mrs.  John,  ?/tr  Schirmer. 
Willis,    Mrs.,   sister    of    (Prot.) 

Bishop  Phillips  Brooks. 
Williams,    Mrs.,   wife   of    Gen. 

Robert  A.  Williams,  U.S.A. 
Woodbridge,  Miss  Madeleine,  a 

nun. 
Woodville,   Mrs.,   daughter    of 

Dr.  Carey  Breckenridge. 
Webb,  Mrs.  Nehemiah  (Ky.) 
Young,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas 

(N.  J.),  and  sons,  George  A., 

Alfred,  and  Henry. 
Young,  Mrs.  Edward  (Ga.) 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Rev.  Lyman,  on  the 
necessity  of  both  secular  and 
rehgious  elements  in  popu- 
lar education,  pp.  267-8  ;  de- 
ficiencies of  popular  educa- 
tion, p.  457  ;  sins  against 
the  law  of  life  by  the  gov- 
erning powers,   pp.   421-22. 

Abortion,  Criminal,  pp.  486-91  ; 
the  sin  of  New  England,  p. 
490. 

Abstemiousness,  not  Christian 
self-denial,  p.  389. 

Academies,  called  synagogues 
of  Satan  by  Wycliffe,  p.  341. 

Adventists,  list  of  societies  of, 
p.  311. 

Age  and  Poverty  in  England, 
article  in  the  New  York  Stm, 
p.  415. 

Alarcon,  Mexican  dramatist, 
p.  378. 

Alexander  III.,  Pope,  decreed 
free  parochial  schools  in 
1 179,  p.  316. 

Alison,  Archibald,  says  intel- 
lectual cultivation  increases 
the  amount  of  crime ;  his 
History  of  Europe  quoted, 
pp.  448-9,'  456. 

Allard,  M.,  quoted  from  the 
Journal  dc  rinstruci/on 
publtque,  p.  449. 

American  Converts  to  Catholi- 
cism, list  of,  pp.  592-607. 

American  and  Foreign  Chris- 
tian Union,  the,  p.  9. 


60S 


American  Protestants,  sympa- 
thize with  every  despotic 
usurpation  of  power  in  Cath- 
olic countries,  p.  194;  why 
they  praise  the  infidel  and 
Freemason  republics  of 
France  and  Mexico,  and  the 
Culturkanipf  in  Germany, 
p.  194;  tried  to  monopolize 
religious  freedom  in  the 
United  States,  p.  195. 

Ancient  Classics,  our  knowledge 
of  them  due  to  the  Catholic 
priesthood,  p.  345. 

A.  P.  A.,  the  (American  Pro- 
tective Association),  pp.  5,  8 
(American  Protestant  Asso- 
ciation), 1 1. 

Arango,  Mexican  religious 
writer,  p.  379. 

Artists,  Mexican,  p.  381. 

Assumption,  Little  Sisters  of 
the,  p.  406. 

Austria,  obliges  Protestant  min- 
isters to  see  to  the  religious 
instruction  of  Protestant 
children  in  Catholic  schools, 
p.  271  ;  its  public  libraries, 
p.  351  ;  makes  some  state 
provision  for  its  poor,  p.  393 ; 
reason  assigned  for  the  high 
percentage  of  illegitimate 
births  in,  pp.  508-9. 

Authors,  Mexican,  pp.  378—79. 

Bacon,  Rev.  Leonard  W.,  quot- 
ed, pp.  5,  9,  10,  542. 


Index. 


609 


Bale,  Anglican  Bishop  of  Os- 
sory,  quotes  Leland  on  the 
destruction  of  monastic  li- 
braries  in  England,  p.  362. 

Balmez,  on  political  liberty  un- 
der Catholicism,  pp.  160-62. 

Baptists,  list  of  sects  of,  p.  311. 

Barbadoes,  Island  of,  under 
British  Protestant  influences, 
p.  97. 

Baring-Gould,  Rev.  S.,  quoted 
on  divorce  on  the  European 
Continent,  p.  545. 

Barnard,  Henry,  LL.D.,  on  pe- 
nal laws  against  educating 
Catholics  in   Ireland,  p.  23. 

Barr,  Mrs.  Amelia  E.,  on  the 
decline  of  politeness,  pp. 
120-21  ;  a  false  idea  of  edu- 
cation the  cause  of  discon- 
tent of  the  working  classes, 
p.  217. 

Basque  Provinces,  the  education 
in,  pp.  61,  62. 

Bavaria,  reasons  assigned  for 
the  high  percentage  of  ille- 
gitimate births  in,  pp.  508-9. 

Beggars,  not  paupers,  in  Catho- 
lic countries,  pp.  399,  400; 
the  secular  state  in  Mexico 
converting  them  into  pau- 
pers, p.  404. 

Belfast,  rate  of  illegitimacy  in, 
p.  511. 

Belgium,  colliers  in,  pp.  52,  53 
civil  liberty  in,  p.  53  ;  its  uni- 
versity and  fine-art  students 
in  1888-89,  p.  336  ;  its  pub- 
lic libraries,  pp.  351-52; 
makes  some  state  provision 
for  its  poor,  p.  393. 
Benevolence  not  Christian  char- 
ity even  when  carried  to  the 


highest  degree,  p.  388 ;  Prot- 
estants possess  it  in  a  high 
degree,  p.  388. 

Berlin,  the  limbo  of  atheism,  p. 
583- 

Bertillon,  Dr.,  quoted  by  Lef- 
fingwell,  pp.  508-9. 

Bible,  the,  twenty  editions  of, 
brought  out  in  Germany  be- 
tween 1460  and  the  age  of 
Luther,  p.  325;  commenta- 
tors on  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
p.  326 ;  more  than  seventy 
editions  of  printed  before 
Luther's  translation,  p.  366  ; 
chained  by  the  Catholic 
priesthood,  pp.  367-68. 

Bingham,  Hiram,  American 
Protestant  missionary  to 
Hawaii,  pp.  84-87. 

Blair,  Hon.  Henry  W.,  p.  292 ; 
explains  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase,  "the  principles  of  the 
Christian  religion,"  in  a  pro- 
posed amendment  to  the 
national      Constitution,      p. 

293- 

Blake,  Mrs.  Mary  E.,  p.  376; 
her  book  on  Mexico  quoted, 
p.  403. 

Bodio,  Prof.,  p.  47i  I  his  inter- 
national records  of  crime 
quoted  bv  Mulhall,  pp.  471- 

75. 
Bonaventure,  Saint,  on  the  evils 

caused  by  neglect  of  science, 

P-  243. 
Booth,  Charles,  statistical  tables 

of  pauperism  in  England,  p. 

414. 
Bournet,  Dr.  Albert,  quoted  on 

Criminality    in    France    and 

Italy,  p.  555. 


6io 


Index. 


Bowringj  Dr.,  his  arraicrnment 
of  the  British  East  IiuHa 
Company,  p.  45. 

Brace,  Charles  Loring-,  quoted 
on  the  bad  moral  effects  of 
emigration,  pp.  436-37. 

Bremner,  Robert,  finds  the  peas- 
ants of  Denmark  no  better 
than  serfs  in  1840,  p.  167. 

Brethren  (Plymouth),  list  of,  p. 
311- 

Brethren  (River),  list  of,  p.  311. 

Brooks,  Erastus,  rebukes  anti- 
Catholic  bigotry,  p.  265. 

Burgess,  Rev.  William,  on  the 
tendency  of  the  English  sys- 
tem of  secular  education  on 
the  natives  of  India,  p.  290. 

Burial  Clubs  in  England,  pp. 
48CV81. 

Calasanzio,  Giuseppe,  Saint, 
founded  the  first  free  school 
system  in  1597,  p.  315. 

Cambridge,  University  of,  p. 
331  ;  present  condition  of, 
p.  342. 

Cantabrana,  Captain  Don  Do- 
mingo de,  p.  401. 

Carlos,  Don,  on  the  Spanish 
spirit  of  liberty,  p.  62. 

Carpio-Pesado,  Mexican  reli- 
.   gious  writer,  p.  379. 

Carreto,  Rosa,  Mexican  poet, 
p.  379- 

Carroll,  Dr.  H.  K.,  p.  278 ;  his 
Religions  Forces  of  the 
United  States,  quoted  and 
commented,  pp.  278,  282, 
300,  304. 

Castelar,  Emilio,  no  secularist 
in  religion,  p.  63;  quoted, 
p.  64. 


Catholic  America,  p.  96. 

Catholics,  comparative  immo- 
rality of,  in  the  Protestant 
l)rovinces  of  Germany,  p. 
503- 

Catholic  Church,  the,  essential- 
ly democratic,  p.  1 56  ;  has  no 
civil  policy,  p.  199;  never 
been  the  enemy  of  free  in- 
stitutions, p.  199;  a  divine 
fraternity,  p.  200;  not  a 
friend  to  illiteracy,  p.  218; 
devoted  to  the  instruction  of 
the  common  people,  p.  219; 
not  foreign  in  any  country, 
p.  304  ;  its  history  the  history 
of  literature,  pp.  345-6; 
medium  of  the  work  of 
sanctification,  pp.  572-74. 

Catholic  countries  in  Europe, 
p.  47. 

Catholic  educational  exhibit  at 
the  Chicago  Fair,  p.  256. 

Catholicism  and  liberty,  p.  147  ; 
laid  the  foundations  of  mod- 
ern civilization,  p.  150;  ten- 
dency of  to  exalt  men's 
spiritual  perfection  as  the 
supreme  good,  p.  441. 

Catholic  parochial  schools,  why 
hated  by  secularists,  infidels 
and  Protestants,  p.  259  ;  ref- 
utation of  the  charge  that 
they  obtain  undue  State  aid, 
p.  260. 

Catholic  priesthood,  the,  pre- 
servers of  the  ancient  class- 
ics, pp.  345-6. 

Catholic  social  ideal,  the,  p.  446. 

Catholic  universities,  72  founded 
in  Europe  before  the  Refor- 
mation, p.  328  ;  29  of  those 
now  in  existence  have  1,000 
or  more  students,  p.  333. 


Index, 


6ii 


Cavendish,  Lady  Frederick,  her 
address  to  the  church  con- 
gress quoted,  p.  469. 

Census  Report  statistics  of  edu- 
cation, p.  248;  of  pauper- 
ism and  crime,  p.  248 ;  of 
nativity,  p.  249. 

Centralization  of  power  the 
chief    danger   of    republics, 

p.  195. 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  M.P.,  on 
wealth  and  poverty  in  Eng- 
land, p.  33. 

Chambers,  J.  D.,  on  the  social 
evil  in  Great  Britain  and 
Holland,  pp.  5ii--i2. 

Channing,  William  E.,  his  Duty 
of  Free  States  referred  to, 
4D.  411. 

Charles  XI.  of  Sweden  seizes 
absolute  power  in  1680,  p. 
166. 

Chateaubriand  on  Spanish  man- 
ners, p.  113. 

Chavero,  Alfredo,  Mexican 
archaeologist,  p.  378. 

Chicago  Fair,  the,  its  education- 
al exhibit,  p.  256. 

Child  insurance  in  England,  p. 
480 ;  testimony  of  General 
Booth,  p.  481  ;  of  the  Duke 
of  Fife,  p.  481  ;  of  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Wells,  p.  481. 

Child  murder  in  England,  pp. 
480-86. 

Christian  Brothers,  the,  success 
of  their  work  in    Paris,    pp. 

2  54-55- 

Christian  Charity,  Protestant- 
ism lacks  it  in  principle  and 
practice,  p.  388. 

Christian  Chastity  not  identi- 
cal with  stoical  continence, 
p.  389. 


Christian   Education,  the  effort 
to  impart  it  a  test  of  patriot-  y 
ism,  p.  276. 

Christian  Missions,  their  agents 
and  results,  p.  103. 

Church,  the,  and  civil  govern- 
ment, p.  198. 

Church  and  the  World,  the, 
quoted  on  the  effects  of  the 
confessional,  p.  559. 

Churchman,  the  New  York, 
quoted  on  divorce  in  Eng- 
land, pp.  549-50. 

Civilization  defined,  p.  14 ;  its 
modern  foundations  laid  by 
Catholicism,  p.  i  50. 

Civilization,  Catholic,  in  France, 
pp.  49-51  ;' in  Belgium,  pp. 
51-54;  in  Italy,  pp.  54-58; 
in  Spain,  pp.  58-70;  in 
Mexico,  pp.  70-93;  among 
the  North  American  Indians, 
pp.  93-95- 

Civilization,  Protestant,  in  Eng- 
land, pp.  21-34;  in  Ireland, 
pp.  35-44;  in  India,  pp.  44- 
46. 

Clavigero,  Mexican  historian,  p. 
378. 

Cobbett,  William,  History  of  the 
Reformation,  pp.  23,  132; 
cited,  pp.  342-3- 

Confessional,  the,  Protestant 
testimony  to  its  effects  in  re- 
pressing vice,  pp.  559-60. 

Congregationalism,  the  State 
religion  in  Massachusetts  up 
to  1835,  p.  194. 

Conscience,  Catholic  doctrine 
as  to  the  unlawfulness  of 
disobeying,  pp.  188-89. 


6l2 


Index, 


Constitution,  the  proposed  six- 
teenth amendment  to,  p.  270. 

,  Constitutional  amendment  pro- 
posed against  State  aid  to 
schools  conducted  by  any 
religious  body,  pp.  261,  264. 

Continence,  stoical,  not  Chris- 
tian charity,  p.  389. 

Converts,  list  of  American,  pp. 
592-607  ;  who  became  Cath- 
olic priests,  pp.  592-94  ;  from 
the  Protestant  clergy,  p.  595  ; 
from  the  medical  profession, 
pp.  595-96  ;  from  the  army 
and  navy,  pp.  596-98  ;  from 
the  public  service  and  the 
law,  pp.  598-99 ;  from  litera- 
ture and  art,  pp.  599-600 ; 
from  various  walks  of  life, 
pp.  600-607. 

Cortes,  Donoso,  on  the  family 
relation  in  Catholic  ages, 
p.  123  ;  its  decline  as  Catho- 
lic civilization  declines,  pp. 
123-24. 

Cotton,  John,  on  toleration,  p. 
194. 

Council  of  Lateran,  the,  decreed 
free  parochial  schools,  p.  316. 

Cousin,  Victor,  considered  pure- 
ly secular  education  rather  a 
curse  than  a  blessing,  p.  294. 

Coxe,  Bishop  A.  Cleveland,  his 
warning  against  infanticide 
in  the  United  States,  p.  490. 

Crime,  increase  of  in  the  United 
States,  pp.  453-54;  its  in- 
crease coincident  with  the 
spread  of  State  secular  edu- 
cation, p.  458;  agrarian 
counted  in  the  statistical  ta- 
bles for  Ireland,  p.  461  ; 
grave  in  the  United  States, 
p.  476. 


Crimes,  official  statistics  of 
grave,  in  Europe  and  Great 
Britain,  pp.  471  75;  against 
property  a  measure  of  gen- 
eral morality,  p.  477  ;  of  de- 
liberation, p.  477  ;  of  impulse 
and  provocation,  p.  477. 

Criminals,  Irish,  why  counted  on 
the  Protestant  side,  p.  435  ; 
literate  predominate  in  the 
U.  S.  and  Great  Britain,  pp. 
449-50  ;  the  majority  of  fur- 
nished by  large  cities,  p.  460- 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  his  treatment 
of  Irish  Catholics,  p.  38. 

Cubas,-  Antonio  Garcia,  his 
work  on  Mexico  in  1876 
quoted  and  commented,  pp. 
374-75. 

Cutts,  Rev.  E.,  D.D.,  on  the 
mediaeval  church  as  the 
friend  of  the  poor,  p.  154. 

D'AUBIGNE,  his  singular  ex- 
planation of  the  presence  of 
liberty  in  the  Catholic  can- 
tons of  Switzerland,  p.    170. 

Denmark,  marriage  statistics  of, 
p.  517;    immorality  in,  ibid. 

Diocesan  school  exhibit  in  New 
York,  the,  p.  257. 

Divorce,  founded  in  modern 
times  by  Luther,  Melanch- 
thon,  and  Bucer,  p.  543  ;  the 
frequency  of  among  Prot- 
estants, pp.  546-47. 

Dix,  Rev.  Morgan,  on  Divorce, 
pp.  546-47- 

Drunkenness,  not  a  Spanish 
vice,  p.  466 ;  in  England, 
Scotland,  London,  p.  467- 
69;  table  of  deaths  from,  p. 
470. 


Index. 


613 


Dublin,  rate  of  illegitimacy  in, 

p.  571. 
Duchatel,  Dr.,  on  the  causes  of 

prostitution  in   Paris,  p.  566. 
Durham  University,  p.  333. 

Edinburgh,  has  no  consider- 
able libraries  free  to  the 
poor,  p.  359. 

Edinburgh  Review,  quoted  on 
peasant  proprietorship  in 
France,  pp.  49,  444;  on  the 
frequency  of  divorce,  p. 
546;  on  the  cradle  of  the 
Reformation  becoming  the 
grave  of  the  Reformed 
faith,  pp.  583-84;  relation  of 
to  wealth  and  poverty,  pau- 
perism and  crime,  pp.  246-7. 

Education,  properly  composed 
of  two  elements  which  it  is 
fatal  to  separate,  p.  266 ; 
religiously  minded  Protest- 
ants formerly  in  accord  with 
CathoHcs  on  this  point,  p. 
267  ;  not  repressed  but  en- 
coLTraged  by  the  Catholic 
clergy  of  Europe,  pp.  317. 

Elberfeld,  the  poor  lav/  experi- 
ment in,  p.  396. 

Elio,  General,  testifies  to  the 
good  influence  exerted  by 
the  Spanish  clergy,  p.  61  ; 
attributes  the  good  health 
of  young  Spanish  soldiers  to 
their  purity,  p.  62. 

Elizabeth  of  England,  her 
death-bed  remorse  for  her 
treatment  of  Ireland,  p.  37. 

E!  Solfeo,  refutation  of  its  slan- 
derous insinuations,  pp.  532- 
41. 

Emigrants  from  Protestant 
countries,   statistics    of,      p. 


432 ;    from    Catholic    coun- 
tries, p.  432, 

Emigration  from  Protestant 
countries  proportionately 
greater  than  from  Catholic, 
p.  433  ;  the  finest  feature  of 
French,  p.  434  ;  a  dangerous 
trial  to  virtue,  pp.  436-37. 

Encyclopasdia  Britannica,  the, 
on  German  University  sta- 
tistics, pp.  333-34 ;  its  arti- 
cle on  libraries  quoted  and 
commented  throughout  ch. 
xxiii.,  p.  345;  quoted  on 
land-ownership  in  Great 
Britain  and  France,  pp.  442- 
43 ;  on  crime  in  Ireland,  p. 
461. 

Encyclopedia  of  Chronology, 
Woodward  &  Gates,  re- 
ferred to,  p.  326. 

Engel,  Director  of  the  Royal 
Statistical  Society  of  Berlin, 
on  the  modern  industrial 
system,  p.  138. 

England,  Protestant  civilization 
in,  p.  21 ;  its  operatives 
greater  sufferers  than  the 
West  Indian  slaves  before 
emancipation,  p.  24;  no  lib- 
erty for  its  poor,  p.  24;  its 
Protestant  clergy  arraigned, 
pp.  25,  43;  misery  of  the 
masses,  p.  26;  a  government 
of  privileges  and  monopolies, 
p.  26 ;  cellar  homes  of,  pj). 
28,  30;  women  in  its  coal 
mines,  pp.  30-32 ;  suffered 
more  than  other  countries 
from  the  Reformation  in  the 
loss  of  its  schools,  p.  342 ; 
its  first  Public  Libraries  Act, 
p.  359;  its  ancient  libraries 
destroyed  by  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, p,  363 ;  rapidly  decreas- 


6i4 


Index 


ing  number  of  its  freeholders, 
pp.  394-95  ;  age  and  pauper- 
ism in,  p.  415;  child  insur- 
ance and  child  murder  in, 
pp.  481-86;  proposed  revi- 
sion of  its  penal  code,  p. 
385  ;  suicide  in,  p.  493  ;  great 
increase  of  divorces  in,  pp. 
544-45  ;  increase  of  general 
immorality  in,  pp.  522-23. 

English  Catholic  colleges  out- 
side of  England,  p.  234. 

Esteva,  Jose  Maria,  Mexican 
writer,  p.  379. 

Evangelical  Alliance,  the,  re- 
port of  its  General  Confer- 
ence in  1889,  pp.  106-111  ; 
circulated  fraudulent  statis- 
tics, p.  252. 

Family,  the,  gradually  break- 
ing up  under  the  influence 
of  Protestantism  and  Secu- 
larism, pp.  1 23-24  ;  its  threat- 
ened extinction  in  New  Eng- 
land, pp.  489-90. 

Farrar,  Canon,  on  the  influence 
of  monks  and  hermits  in 
preserving  Christianity,  pp. 
1 56-58  ;  on  the  work  of  the 
Church  in  education,  p. 
242. 

Fife,  the  Duke  of,  on  child  in- 
surance in  England,  p.  481. 

Fletcher,  W.  J.,  Public  Libra- 
ries in  America,  p.  368. 

Foeticide,  p.  486. 

Foreigner,  odium  attached  to 
the  term  due  to  Protestant- 
ism, p.  200. 

Foreignism,  charge  of,  against 
the  Catholic  Church,  false, 
P-  303- 


Foreign  nationalities,  contempt 
of,  mark  of  paganism,  p.  305. 

P>ance,  peasant  proprietors  of, 
p.  49;  its  Catholic  clergy  in 
their  relation  to  the  common 
people,  p.  50;  makes  some 
State  provision  for  its  poor, 
P-  393 ;  reason  for  the  high 
percentage  of  its  illegitimate 
births,  508. 

freedom  of  conscience,  p.  170. 

Freenolders,  their  decreasing 
numbers  in  England,  p.  394. 

Froude,  James  Anthony,  quoted 
on  the  former  influence  of 
the  Catholic  clergy  in  Eu- 
rope, pp.  155-56;  attributes 
the  paucity  of  crime  in  Ire- 
land to  the  influence  of  the 
Catholic  clergy,  p.  462. 

Fuller,  Chief-Justice,  on  reli- 
gion in  education,  p.  287. 

Galvan,  Rodriguez,  Mexican 
poet  and  dramatist,  pp. 
378-9. 

Germany,  the  home  and  school 
of  Protestantism,  p.  i  52  ;  has 
accepted  the  absence  of  lib- 
erty, p.  152;  Laing's  testi- 
mony, pp.  153-54;  the  reli- 
gious sense  extinct  in,  except 
among  Catholics,  pp.  583- 
84. 

Gladden,  Rev.  Washington, 
on  popular  ignorance  in  the 
U.  S.,  p.  6. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  on  religious 
education,  p.  287  ;  efforts  on 
behalf  of  the  Irish  people, 
p.  459- 

Crlory  and  Shame  of  England, 
the,  quoted  pp.  22-27,  3^1 
36,  37,  40,  41. 


Index. 


615 


Goldsmith,  Oliver,  his  "  De- 
serted Village  "  quoted  pji. 
127-132,  438;  his  "Travel- 
ler "  quoted  p.  439. 

Good  Manners,  p.  104;  Italian, 
pp.  112,  113;  Spanish,  pp. 
113,  114;  French,  pp.  117, 
118;  Irish,  119;  Mrs.  Barr 
on  the  decline  of,  pp.  120, 
121  ;  the  Catholic  Church  a 
school  of,  pp.  J  22,  123. 

Good  Shepherd,  Sisters  of  the, 
p.  406. 

Gordon,  General,  his  opinion  of 
Catholic  missionaries,  p.  102, 

Gordon,  Lord  George,  incited 
"No-Popery"  riots,  p.  184. 

Gorostiga,.Mexican  novelist,  pp. 

378-79- 

Graham,  Sir  George,  on  child 
mortality  in  England,  p.  483. 

Gregory,  Saint,  Pope,  on  slavery, 
p.  149;  on  Julian  the  Apos- 
tate's exclusion  of  Christians 
from  schools,  p.  243. 

Gregory  VII.,  Pope,  glories  of 
the  13th  century  due  to  re- 
forms inaugurated  by  him 
and  his  successors,  p.  325. 

Guernsey,  F.  R.,  on  the  spirit  in 
which  the  poor  are  treated 
in  Mexico,  p.  403. 

Guizot,  his  History  of  Civiliza- 
^tio7i  quoted,  pp.  151—52; 
on  the  necessary  basis  of 
popular  education,  p.  284. 

Gutenberg,  John,  in  what  his 
invention  of  the  printing- 
press  consisted,  366. 

Hallam,  Henry,  his  History  of 
Literature  quoted,  pp.  109, 
370;  Constitutional  History, 
P-  193- 


Hausner,  statistics  of  prostitu- 
tion,, pp.  554--5- 

Hawaii,  two  Methodist  mis- 
sionaries sent  to  in  1820,  p. 
84 ;  their  methods  with  the 
natives,  pp.  85—89;  the 
American  Missionary  Board 
stopped  supplies  and  with- 
drew from  responsibility  for 
in  1850,  p.  85. 

Hawkins,  Dexter  A.,  his  statis- 
tical frauds  exposed  in  the 
Catholic  World  by  Rev. 
George  Deshon,  p.  246. 

Haydn,  Dictionary  of  Dates, 
p.  326. 

Hayman,  Rev.  Dr.,  quoted  on 
suicides  in  Saxony,  pp.  495— 
96. 

Herald,  the  New  York,  quoted 
on  Hawaii,  pp.  87—89 ;  ca- 
lumnious editorial  in,  p.  163. 

Hesse,  Landgrave  of,  his 
bigamy  sanctioned  by  the 
founders  of  Protestantism, 
P-  543- 

Hidalgo,  what  a  Spanish  is,  p. 
401. 

Hilary,  Pope,  founded  the  Vat- 
ican library  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, p.  346. 

Holland,  its  public  libraries, 
how  founded,  pp.  357—8. 

Huguenots,  the,  destroyers  of 
libraries,  p.  363. 

Human  happiness,  true  ideal 
of,  p.  17  ;  in  Spain,  p.  59  • 
popular,  p.  125. 

Hungary,  makes  some  state  pro- 
vision for  its  poor,  p.  393. 

Huntington,  Rev.  Dr.,  quoted 
on  difficulties  of  Protestant 
union,  pj).  579-80. 


6i6 


Index. 


ICAZBALCETA,  J.  C,  Mexican 
historian,  p.  378. 

Ig-norance  an  atrophy  of  the 
soul,  p.  243. 

Illegitimacy  in  the  West  Indies, 
p.  97  ;  more  prevalent  in  the 
Protestant  than  in  the  Cath- 
olic counties  of  Ireland  ; 
tables  of,  p.  501  ;  on  the 
increase  in  Sweden,  p.  502  ; 
percentage  of  in  different 
German  states,  p.  502  ;  com- 
parative tables  of  for  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  p.  510; 
rate  of  in  Dublin,  p.  511  ;  in 
Belfast,  p.  511  ;  high- figures 
for  in  Austria  and  Bavaria 
explained,  p.  507. 

Illiberality  of  American  Prot- 
estants causes  the  present 
educational  strife  in  the  U. 
S.,  p.  275. 

Illiteracy,  what  it  signifies  in 
statistical  tables,  p.  202 ; 
those  of  some  countries  con- 
note by  it  simply  the  in- 
ability to  write,  p.  203;  not 
a  term  synonymous  with 
ignorance,  p.  203 ;  compat- 
ible with  a  fair  degree  of 
practical  knowledge,  pp.  204, 
207 ;  crime  and,  in  various 
United  States  prisons,  pp. 
451-53. 

India  enslaved  and  demoralized 
by  English  Protestant  dom- 
ination, p.  45  ;  women  of  un- 
der English  rule,  pp.  45—6; 
license  allowed  to  all  ranks 
of  British  soldiery  in,  p.  46 

Indian  Mirror,  the,  quoted  on 
the  bad  effects  of  the  educa- 
tion given  in  government 
schools  and  colleges,  p.  290. 

Infanticide,  Canon   Humble   on 


in  London,  p.  482  ;  its  pre- 
vention and  cure,  pp.  482—3  ; 
national  sin  of  New  Eng- 
land, p.  491. 

Interior,  the  Chicago,  quoted  on 
the  increase  of  crimeTn  the 
U.  S.,  pp.  454--5- 

International  Review,  the,  ca- 
lumnious article  in  by  Hon. 
John  Jay,  cited  p.  251. 

Ireland,  official  statement  of 
evictions  in,  p.  28;  confisca- 
tions under  Queen  Elizabeth, 
p.  37;  peasantry  of  de- 
scribed by  Edmund  Spenser, 
p.  37 ;  confiscations  under 
James  I.,  p.  38;  under 
Charles  II.,  p.  39;  persecu- 
tions under  William  of 
Orange,  pp.  39,  40;  revived 
under  George  II.,  p.  40; 
Church  of  England  in,  pp. 
25,  41,  42;  no  system  of 
parochial  schools  in,  p.  249; 
agrarian  crime  excepted, 
crime  less  in  proportion  and 
brutality  than  in  England, 
p.  461  ;  its  people  compared 
to  a  precious  balm,  p.  462. 

Irish  landlords,  p.  27;  schools 
antecedent  to  Protestantism, 
pp.  232—3  ;  colleges  in  Rome 
and  Paris,  p.  234 ;  criminals 
and  paupers,  sociological 
reasons  for  the  number  of, 
pp.  463-4. 

Italy,  p.  54;  evictions  for  un- 
paid taxes,  p.  56;  manners 
of  its  people,  pp.  1 12— 13  ;  its 
libraries,  pp.  347—8 ;  legal 
charity  not  existent  in,  p. 
393 ;  much  poverty  but  no 
pauperism  in,  p.  393;  reason 
for  high  rates  of  illegitimacy 
in,  pp.  508—9. 


Index. 


6iy 


J.AMES  I.  of  England,  his  doc- 
trine of  divine  right,  p.  i66, 

James  II.  of  England,  lost  his 
throne  because  of  his  edict 
of  toleration,  p.  193. 

Janvier,  Thomas  A.,  praises  the 
devout  and  godly  lives  of  the 
Mexican  priesthood,  p.  71  ; 
his  Mexican  Guide  quoted, 
pp.  yjd—'],  380--81,  401. 

Jay,  Hon.  John,  his  use  of  the 
fraudulent  statistics  of  D.  A. 
Hawkins  in  the  Internation- 
al Rev  ienv,  p.  251. 

Jenkins,  Rev.  Frank  E.,  quoted 
on  the  mountain  whites  of 
the  South,  pp.  107--111. 

Jesuits,  the,  education  the  main 
purpose  of  their  work,  p. 
258  ;  for  a  time  the  arbiters 
of  education  in  Europe,  p. 
334- 

Jews  allowed  to  educate  their 
children  in  their  own  tenets 
by  every  Catholic  govern- 
ment, p.  27  iT 

Julian  the  Apostate,  excludes 
Christians  from  schools,  p. 
243- 

Kamehameha  III.,  King  of 
Hawaiian  Islands,  pp.  88-9. 

Karney,  Rev.  Gilbert,  quotes 
the  testimony  of  a  Brahmin 
judge  in  condemnation  of 
the  English  secular  system 
of  Indian  education,  p.  290. 

Kay,  Joseph,  quoted  pp.  28, 
'229;  condition  of  the  Eng- 
lish poor,  pp.  236-7  ;  Eng- 
land outstripped  by  Catholic 
countries  in  promoting  popu- 
lar education,  p.  238  ;  how 
Austria     secures      religious 


teaching  to  children  of  all 
sects,  pp.  271-74;  condition 
of  the  English  lower  classes, 
pp.  411-12;  the  English 
Church  in  its  relations  to 
the  English  Poor,  pp.  416- 
17  ;  on  child  murder  in  Eng- 
land, p.  482  ;  on  cellar  life 
in  England,  pp.  519-20; 
on  bastardy  in  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk,  pp.  520-21  ;  on  the 
Roman  Church  in  its  rela- 
tion to  the  English  poor,  p. 
527. 

Keay,  Seymour,  on  the  de- 
nioralization  of  East  Indians 
under  British  rule,  p.  44. 

Kidder,  Daniel  P.,  Bible  agent 
in  Brazil,  p.  114;  says  the 
Bible  was  never  proscribed 
in  Brazil,  p.  114;  testifies  to 
the  charity  and  devotion 
of  Brazilian  Catholics,  pp. 
1 14-15;  on  religious  liberty 
in  Brazil,  p.  178. 

King,  Rev.  James  M.,  quoted 
concerning  purely  secular 
schools,  pp.  293-95  ;  his  ex- 
position of  the  principles  of 
education  fully  endorsed  by 
Catholics,  p.  299. 

Kolnische  Volkszeitung,  the,  on 
the  make-up  of  German 
public  libraries,  pp.  355-57- 

Laing,  Samuel,  on  peasant 
proprietorship  in  France,  p. 
49;  relations  of  the  conti- 
nental Catholic  clergy  to  the 
common  people,  p.  50 ; 
Italian  civilization,  p.  56; 
agriculture  in  Italy,  p.  57; 
comparison  between  Britons 
and  Europeans  with  respect 
to  the  fine  arts,  pp.   105-6; 


6i8 


Index. 


the  French  more  honest 
than  the  British,  p.  117; 
serfdom  in  Germany  in  1846, 
pp.  153-4;  the  CathoHc 
Church  the  source  of  cixiH- 
zation,  p.  1  58  ;  subserviency 
of  Lutheranism  to  the  civil 
power  in  Denmark  and 
Sweden,  pp.  167-8 ;  edu- 
cational system  of  Prussia, 
p.  168 ;  CathoHcism  in  Prus- 
sia, p.  179;  on  the  decay  of 
oral  instruction,  pp.  215-  16  ; 
Cathohcism  has  a  stronger 
hold  than  Protestantism  on 
the  human  mind,  p.  328  ; 
the  state  educational  system 
of  Prussia,  p.  268  ;  definition 
of  education,  p.  289  ;  Rome 
superior  to  Edinburgh  and 
Berlin  in  the  number  of  its 
schools  and  scholars,  p.  318  ; 
not  himself  a  friend  to  popu- 
lar education,  p.  318  ;  motive 
assigned  by  for  the  diffusion 
of  education  by  the  Catholic 
clergy,  p.  319;  on  the 
advance  of  *'  the  popish 
church,"  p.  344;  on  Swedish 
morality,  p.  479 ;  a  moral 
anomaly  in  Sweden,  p.  515  ; 
quotes  official  statistics  of 
Sweden,  p.  516;  on  the 
Catholic  clergy,  p.  528  ;  the 
religious  sense  extinct  in 
Germany  except  a'^iong 
Catholics,  p.  583. 

Land,  comparative  statistics  of 
ownership  of  in  Protestant 
and  Catholic  countries,  p. 
441  ;  how  divided  in  Great 
Britain,  pp.  442-3 ;  peasant 
proprietorship  of  decried 
by  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
p.  444;  how  divided  in  Prot- 
estant Germany,  pp.  444-5. 


Latin  Bible,  the,  the  first  printed 
book,  p.  336. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  h\s  History  of 
Rationalism  quoted  pp.  149- 
50 ;  on  persecution  by  Prot- 
estants, pp.  192-93;  un- 
paralleled severity  towards 
Catholics  of  Irish  Protest- 
ants, p.  234. 

Leffingwell,  Dr.  Albert,  on  il- 
legitimacy and  illiteracy  in 
France,  Ireland,  and  Great 
Britain,  p.  450;  on  illegiti- 
macy in  England,  p.  483  ;  on 
illegitimacy  in  Scotland,  pp. 
504-507. 

Leland,  quoted  by  Bishop  Bale 
of  Ossory,  p.  362. 

Leo  XIIL,  Pope,  his  encyclical 
on  the  condition  of  labor,  p. 
143- 

Lester,  Charles  Edwards,  his 
Glory  and  Shame  of  Eng- 
land quoted,  pp.  22,  24-27, 
32,  36-7,  40,  41  ;  on  English 
work-houses,  ])p.  412-14;  on 
the  exportation  of  paupers 
by  England  to  the  United 
States,  pp.  429,  431-32;  on 
the  proportion  of  deaths 
from  drink  in  England,  p. 
467. 

Liberty,  civil  and  political  in 
Spain,  p.  59;  the  loss  of  it 
accepted  in  Germany,  p. 
152;  championed  by  the 
church,  p.  158;  European 
society  steadily  advancing 
toward  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  p.  159;  politi- 
cal liberty  not  the  offspring 
of  Protestantism,  pp.  160- 
63 ;  no  liberty  without  law, 
p.  171;  of  conscience  not 
denounced    by  the  Catholic 


Index. 


619 


Church,  p.  173  ;  true  domain 
of  human,  p.  173;  religious 
asked  of  the  Pope  by  Metho- 
dists for  Peru,  BoHvia,  and 
Ecuador,  p.  177;  rehgious 
not  the  hberty  of  error,  p. 
186;  (Hfferently  regarded  by 
CathoHcs  and  Protestants, 
p.  186. 

Libraries,  their  number  and 
character  a  test  of  general 
intelhgence,  p.  345  ;  in  Italy, 
pp.  347-8;  in  Portugal,  p. 
350;  in  Austria,  p.  351  ;  free 
and  open  in  Belgium,  pp. 
351-2;  public  in  South 
America  and  Mexico,  ]  p. 
352-3;  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries, pp.  354-60;  in  Sweden, 
p.  358;  in  Norway,  p.  358; 
in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
pp.  359-60;  destruction  of 
by  the  early  Reformers,  pp. 
346,  361-63 ;  destroyed  in 
France  by  Huguenots,  p. 
363  ;  in  the  United  States,  p. 
364- 

Literature,  the  history  of  its 
cultivation  and  preservation 
a  history  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  p.  345  ;  Spanish  as 
represented  in  a  single 
library  of    Madrid,  p.    350. 

Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor,  p.  406. 

Lizardi,  J.  J.  F.  de,  Mexican 
novelist,  p.  378. 

Logue,  Cardinal,  on  compul- 
sory education,  quoted  pp. 
231-2. 

London,  The  Bitter  Oy  of  Old- 
cast,  p.  32  ;  University  of,  p. 
333 ;  badly  off  for  public  li- 
braries, p.  359 ;  drunken- 
ness in,  p.  467;  the  social 
evil  in,  p.  558. 


Louis  XIV.,  under  the  reign  of, 
the  French  people  lost  hold 
of  the  soil,  p.  444. 

Luther,  Martin,  thought  the 
devil  the  founder  of  uni- 
versities, p.  341  ;  his  German 
Bible  issued  in  1  530,  p.  366  ; 
sanctioned  bigamy,  p.  543. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  on  enlight- 
enment as  favorable  to 
Protestantism,  pp.  343-4. 

Maguire,  J.  F.,  on  the  foundlings 
of  Rome,  pp.  540-41. 

Maitland.  Dr.,  Essays  on  the 
Dark  Ages,  p.  i  50. 

Manning,  H.  E.,  Cardinal,  on 
the  home  life  of  the  laboring 
classes,  p.  136. 

Manterola,  Ramon,  Mexican 
philosopher,  p.  378. 

Marshall,  T.  W.  M.,  author  of 
Christ  tail  Missions,  \>.  103. 

Massachusetts,  Census  Report 
of  nativity,  illiteracy,  pau- 
perism, and  crime,  p.  249. 

Material  Progress  a  means  to 
an  end,  p.  16;  Protestantism 
tends  to  exalt  unduly,  p.  16. 

Mayer,  Brantz,  on  the  rural 
clergy  of  Mexico,  p.  404. 

Medical  and  Surgical  Journal, 
the  Boston,  on  the  decline 
of  child-bearing  in  New 
England,  pp.  488-9. 

Melanchthon,  Philip,  commends 
Wycliffe's  opinion  of  acade- 
mies as  synagogues  of  Satan, 
p.  341- 

Mexico,  p.  70;  why  American 
business  men  cannot  suc- 
ceed in,  p.  74 ;  church 
property     confiscated,     pp. 


620 


Index, 


77-8;  Mexican  Catholics  re- 
fuse to  purchase  such  prop- 
erty, p.  78 ;  American  Prot- 
estants less  scrupulous,  p, 
78;  Protestant  Bp.  Riley 
and  his  Mexican  Episcopa- 
lian Church,  p.  78 ;  who 
s\mpathize  with  the  o.>pres- 
sive  (governments  of  Mexico, 
\i.  81  ;  how  the  j^oj  ulation 
of  is  made  up,  p.  371  ;  char- 
acter of  public  instruction 
in,  pp.  374-5  ;  I  uhlic  libra- 
ries, museums,  and  news- 
papers of,  p.  375  ;  literature 
of,  pp.  376-81  ;  list  of  Mexi- 
can authors,  pp.  378-9;  art 
in,  p.  380;  no  state  pauper- 
ism in,  p.  393;  beggars  in,  p. 
400;  charitable  and  benevo- 
lent institutions  of,  p.  402  ; 
suppression  of  religious 
orders  in,  pp.  404-5. 

Middle  Ages,  the,  manner  of 
teaching  in,  pp.  208-9. 

Mill,  John  S.,  quoted  on  human 
liberty  p.  173. 

Milman,  quoted  on  the  service 
rendered  to  civilization  by 
the  Papacy,  p.  153. 

Missions  to  the  heathen,  p.  100. 

Mittermaier,  false  statistics  of 
illegitimates  in  Rome,  p. 
536. 

Modern  educational  system  a 
chief  cause  of  the  increase 
of  immorality  and  crime, 
pp.  220-21. 

Monastic  libraries,  destroyed 
by  the  Reformers,  pp.  346. 
361-63. 

-Montesdeoca,  Bishop,  Mexican 
religious  writer,  p.  379 

Moxom,  Rev.  P.  H.,  makes  false 


charges    against    the    paro- 
chial schools,  pp.  244-5. 

Mulhall,  Michael  G.,  p.  225  ;  his 
comparative  tables  of  school 
attendance  in  different 
countries,  p.  226;  finds  that 
Belgium  and  Spain,  in  pro- 
portion to  population,  have 
more  university  students 
than  other  European  coun- 
tries, p.  335  ;  on  the  number 
of  English  landholders  in 
1894,  p.  395;  on  the  distri- 
bution of  lai\d  in  Denmark 
and  Spain,  ji.  445;  compar- 
ative statistics  of  death  from 
drunkenness  in  Catholic  and 
Protestant  countries,  p.  470; 
statistics  of  crime,  pj).  474- 
75,  477;  vi'al  statistics  of 
Austria  and  Bavaria,  p.  514; 
statistics  of  prostitution,  p. 
553- 

Muckers,  the  sect  of,  p.  565. 

Nash,  Thomas,  his  Latter  Day 
Appeal  quoted,  pp.  418-19. 

National  League  for  the  pro- 
tection of  American  institu- 
tions, the,  pp.  8,  II,  180;  its 
principles  formerly  de- 
nounced by  its  chief  ex- 
pounder, pp.  293-99. 

Navarete,  Mexican  poet,  p.  378. 

Nelson,  Rev.  Justus  H.,  p.  175  ; 
his  newspaper  and  perform- 
ances in  Brazil,  pp.  176-7; 
sent  to  jail  for  calling  the 
devotion  to  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin idolatry,  p.  177. 

Nevin,  Dr.,  on  Catholicism  as 
the  friend  of  popular  liberty, 
p.  I  59. 


Index. 


621 


New  England,  decline  of  child- 
bearing"  in,  pp.  489-91  ;  in- 
fanticide the  national  sin  of, 
p.  491.     • 

Newman,  Cardinal,  p.  163;  on 
conscience,  i)p.  171-2;  his 
testimony  to  the  Irish  race, 
p.  233. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  Methodist 
bishop,  p.  372;  his  slander 
of  monks  and  nuns,  p.  530. 

Nicholas  of  Lyra,  commentator 
of  Holy  Scripture,  p.  326. 

Norris,  Rev.  J.  P.,  report  to 
British  Parliament  on  the 
condition  of  Belgian  colliers, 

p.  53- 

North  American  Review,  quot- 
ed pp.  158-59,  358. 

Norway,  public  libraries  of,  p. 
358. 

Oral  instruction  superior  to 
written,  pp.  208-16. 

Order  of  the  Good  Shepherd, 
the,  p.  568. 

Orozco  y  Berra,    Mexican    his- 
torian, p.  379. 
.  Ouida,  appendix  to  her  Village 
Comimine    quoted,    p.      54 ; 
/*r/5<:rt;v/ quoted,  pp.  112-13, 

383. 

Our  Country,  a  volume  of  anti- 
Catholic  n)isrepresentations, 
p.  22. 

Oxford,  University  of,  p.  331  ; 
its  present  condition,  p.  342  ; 
spoliation  of  its  library  by 
the  Reformers,  p.  362. 

Palacio,  Riva,  Mexican  histor- 
ical novelist,  p.  378. 
Paper,  when  invented,  p.  365. 


Papia,  Esther,  Mexican  poet,  p. 

379- 

Paris,  Jean  de,  his  Qiecsfion 
Irlandaise  quoted,  p.  35. 

Paris,  the  University  of,  p.  331  ; 
has  more  public  libraries 
than  any  other  city,  p.  349. 

Parochial  Schools,  pp.  244-65. 

Parra,  Mexican  artist,  p.  381. 

Passionist  Fathers,  the,  in  Ta- 
cayuba,  Mexico,  p.  403. 

Patriotism,  the  rightful  meas'^re 
of,  p.  276. 

Paulist  Fathers,  the,  possess  a 
copy  of  the  9th  edition  of  a 
German  Bible  printed  the 
year  of  Luther's  birth,  p. 
366. 

Pauperism  defined,  p.  290; 
State  a  subject  for  statistical 
reports  in  all  Protestant 
countries,  p.  392;  does  not 
exist  in  Portugal,  Spain,  and 
Mexico,  p.  393 ;  and  the  en- 
dowment of  old  age,  pp. 
414-15;  statistics  of  in  Eng- 
land, pp.  414-15;  the  crea- 
tion of  State  Protestantism, 
pp.  423-4;  statistics  of  in 
U.  S.,  pp.  427-S;  due  in 
Ireland  to  English  misrule, 
p.  429 ;  comparative  statis- 
tics of  in  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant countries,  p.  430;  not 
identical  with  poverty,  p. 
394. 
Paupers,  nativity  of  in  the 
United  States,  p.  428;  ex- 
portation of  by  England  to 
the  U.  S.,  p.  429;  foreign 
born  in  the  U.  S.,pp.  434-5  5 
Irish,  why  counted  on  the 
Protestant  side,  pp.  429, 
435-6. 


622 


Index, 


Penal  Laws  against  Catholics 
in  Virginia  and  Massach-u- 
setts,  p.  193. 
Philippine  Islands,  the,  con- 
verted by  Spanish  mission- 
aries in  the  i6th  century, 
p.  83 ;  their  present  condi- 
tion compared  with  that  of 
the  Sandwich  Islands,  p.  83. 

Pimentel,  F.,  Mexican  philolo- 
gist, p.  378. 

Pina,  Solome,  Mexican  artist, 
p.  381. 

Plato,  quoted  on  the  superiority* 
of  the  spoken  to  the  written 
word,  pp.  211-13. 

Polynesia,  the  Gambler,  Wallis, 
and  Futana  islands,  p.  86; 
Catholic  missionaries  ar- 
rived in  in  1840,  p.  86; 
steady  advance  in  popula 
tion  and  material  prosperity 
of,  p.  86. 

Poor,  the,  cling  to  the  Catholic 
Church,  p.  391  ;  Protestant- 
ism seeks  to  turn  over  to  the 
State,  p.  391  ;  State  aid  to 
in  Catholic  countries,  pp. 
392-3;  dread  State  alms- 
houses, pp.  395,  397-8  ;  how 
treated  in  Austria,  p.  405  ; 
attitude  of  Protestantism 
toward,  pp.  409-11. 

Pope,  the,  supremacy  of  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  American 
civil  order,  p.  304;  equally 
at  home  in  all  countries,  p. 
304. 

Pope  Alexander  III.  decreed 
free  parochial  schools  in 
1 179,  p.  316. 

Pope  Gregory  VII.,  the  reforms 
inaugurated  by,  p.  325. 

Popery,  what  the  word  signified 


to  the  English,  p.  183;  the 
English  have  been  living 
under  a  state  of  things  ex- 
actly similar  to  their  view 
of,  ever  since  the  Reforma- 
tion, p.  184. 

Popular  Education,  not  an  evil, 
p.  456;  how  deficient,  pp. 
456-7  ;  "  must  be  non-secta- 
rian," p.  457 ;  not  an  effi- 
cient preventive  of  crime,  p. 
448-58. 

Popular  Happiness,  p.  125. 

Popular  Illiteracy  not  a  mark  of 
low  mental  culture  on  the 
part  of  a  people,  p.  205 ; 
no  proof  that  a  people  is 
morally  or  mentally  debased, 
p.  219. 

Popular  Liberty,  the  chief  dan- 
ger that  threatens  it  in  a  re- 
public, p.  195. 

Pordioseros,  Mexican  name  for 
beggars,  pp.  401,  404. 

Portugal,  libraries  of,  p.  350; 
no  pauperism  in,  p.  393. 

Poverty,  not  identical  with  pau- 
perism, p.  394  ;  treated  with 
contempt  in  Protestant 
countries,  p.  395  ;  respected" 
in  Catholic  countries,  pp. 
396-7,  400. 

Printing,  invented  as  early  as 
the  loth  century,  p.  365. 

Printing-Press,  the,  invented  in 
1450,  p.  365. 

Property,  equalization  of  in 
Spain,  p.  63  ;  subversive 
theories  of  sure  to  come 
from  the  English  race, 
p.  63. 

Prostitutes  more  often  unfortu- 
nate victims  than  wilful 
moral  poisoners,  pp.  563-4. 


Index. 


623 


Prostitution,  Mulhall's  statistics 
of,  p.  553  ;  Hausner's  statis- 
tics of,  pp.  554-5- 
Protestantism  boasts  itself  as 
the  religion  of  the'  English 
race,  p.  63 ;  claims  to  have 
converted  the  Sandwich 
islanders,  p.  83  ;  never  civil- 
ized one  barbarous  people, 
p.  83  ;  decrease  of  native 
population  of  the  Sandwich 
islands  under  Protestant 
Christianity  compared  with 
increase  of  such  population 
in  the  Philippines  under 
Catholics,  p.  83 ;  decrease 
of  Sandwich  islanders  at- 
tributed to  unchastity  and 
its  resultant  diseases,  p.  84; 
never  flourished  except  un- 
der despotic  rule,  p.  195  ;  in 
the  U.  S.  has  failed  to  con- 
vert the  vast  majority  of  its 
adherents  to  faith  in  its 
doctrines  or  the  practice  of 
its  precepts,  pp.  280-82 ; 
religious  disintegration  the 
fundamental  principle  of,  p. 
282 ;  degradation  of  the 
*  poor  began  with  and  has 
progressed  under,  p,  395  ; 
attitude  of  toward  the  poor, 
pp.  409-11  ;  tendency  of  to 
exalt  material  progress  and 
inspire  the  desire  of  riches, 
pp.  441,  447;  moral  influ- 
ence of  on  suicide,  p.  494 ; 
responsible  for  the  increase 
of  immorality  in  England, 
pp.  522-25;  the  parent  of 
modern  divorce,  pp.  543-50; 
at  its  best  not  a  standard  by 
which  the  Church  could  con- 
sent to  be  judged,  pp.  569- 
71  ;  essentially  a  rebellion, 
p.   575;  its  only  progress  a 


change  of  opinions,  p.  581; 
at  present  almost  wholly 
rationalistic,  p.  584. 

Protestant  Civilization  in  Eng- 
land, pp.  21-34;  in  Ireland, 
pp.  35-43  ;  in  India,  pp. 
44-6;  in  the  West  Indies, 
pp.  97-8 ;  in  the  Sandwich 
Islands   pp.  83-89. 

Protestant  Denominations,  list 
of,  from  the  U.  S.  Census 
Report  of  1890,  pp.  311-14. 

Protestant  Reformation,  the, 
Cobbett's  History  of,  p.  23; 
disastrous  influence  of,  p. 
24  ;  brought  England  a  new 
social  order  as  well  as  a 
new  religion,  p.  128  ;  only  a 
change  of  masters,  p.  169. 

Protestant  Reformers,  the,  de- 
stroyers of  libraries,  pp.  346, 
361-63. 

Protestant  Universities,  only  21 
have  1,000  or  more  students 
at  the  present  day,  p.  333. 

Protestants,  the  right  given  to, 
to  educate  their  children  in 
their  own  tenets  in  every 
Catholic  country,  p.  271  ;  in 
the  U.  S.  have  united  with  m- 
fidels  to  establish  an  educa- 
tional system  which  insures 
the  spread  of  "  no  religion," 
p.  283;  in  the  U.S.  unfaith- 
ful to  their  religious  princi- 
ples, p.  283 ;  accused  by 
heathens  of  spreading  athe- 
ism and  materialism.  1x291  ; 
vast  numbers  of  belong  to 
the  soul  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  p.  396  ;  comparative 
purity  of  in  the  Catholic 
provinces  of  Germany,  p. 
503 ;     apparently  insensible 


624 


Index. 


to  the  sin  of  bearing  false 
witness  against  Catholics,  p. 
534. 

Quarterly  Review,  the  Lon- 
don, quoted,  pp.  34,  1 58  ; 
on  the  effects  of  drink  in 
England  and  Scotland,  p. 
467  ;  calls  English  deists  the 
fathers  of  French  atheism 
and  German  unbelief,  p.  582. 

Ouintana-Roo,    Mexican    poet, 
^    p.  378. 

Rathcormac,  the  slaughter 
of,  p.  25. 

Religion  not  divorced  from  edu- 
cation even  by  pagans,  j). 
288. 

Religious  Orders  suppressed  in 
Mexico,  pp.  404-5. 

Religious  toleration  cost  James 
11.  his  crown,  p.  193;  called 
"  a  devil's  doctrine"  by  the 
first  Protestant  minister  of 
Boston,  U.  S.,  p.   194. 

Report  of  the  U.  S.  Commis- 
sioner of  Education  for  1889 
-90,  pp   227,  326,  337-8. 

Rome,  its  university  and  all 
other  institutions  of  higher 
education  free,  p.  317  ;  state 
of  education  in  when  wholly 
under  papal  rule,  pp.  321-22; 
the  morality  of  defended,  pp. 
530-542. 

Rosas,  de  las,  Mexican  author, 
p.  379- 

Ruskin,  John,  quoted,  pp.  134, 
419-21. 

Ryle,  Protestant  bishop,  on  the 
necessitv  of  church  schools, 
P-  253-  " 


Saint  Chrysostom  decides 
against  sending  Christian 
children  to  pagan  schools, 
p.  288. 

Saint  Giuseppe  Calasanzio,  pa- 
tron of  free  schools,  pp.  315 
-16. 

Saint  Vincent  de  Paul,  the  so- 
ciety of,  p.  407. 

Sandwich  Islands,  the,  convert- 
ed, not  civilized,  by  Protest- 
ant missionaries,  p.  83  ;  rap- 
id decrease  of  natives,  p.  83  ; 
causes  of  this  decrease,  p. 
84 ;  how  Hawaii  was  civil- 
ized by  American  Protest- 
ant missionaries,  pp.  84-89. 

Saturday  Review,  the  London, 
on  drunkenness  in  Scotch 
towns,  p.  467. 

Schaff,  Dr.,  quoted,  pernicious 
effects  of  education  without 
religion,  pp.  293-95. 

Schismatic  Greeks  in  every  Cath- 
olic country,  the  right  given 
to,  to  educate  their  children 
in  their  own  tenets,  p.  271. 

Schodde,     Prof.     George      H.,  % 
quoted    on    present    condi- 
tion of  religious   thought  in 
Germany,  p.  584. 

Seaman,  Ezra  C,  praises  the 
influence  of  the  Catholic 
Church  and  its  clergy,  p. 
82;  on  Spanish  power  and 
law  in  the  Philippine  Islands, 
p.  83 ;  on  the  causes  of  the 
numerical  decrease  of  the 
Sandwich  Islanders,  p.  84; 
on  American  Protestant  civ- 
ilization, p.  93;  testifies  to 
the  good  results  of  Catholic 
civilization  in  Mexico,  Cen- 
tral and  South  America, p.  96. 


Index, 


625 


Sewall,  Wm.  G.,  on  vice  in  Brit- 
ish West  Indies,  p.  96. 
Seymour,  Rev.  Hobart,  his  Eve- 
nings   with   the  Roma7iisis 
quoted  and  commented,  pp. 
534-41. 
Shephard,     Edward      M.,     de- 
nounces the  A.  P.  A.,  p.  181. 
Siguenza  y  Gongora,    Mexican 

author,  p.  378. 
Sinclair,   Rev.  Brevard   D..   his 
phihppic  against  New  Eng- 
land morals  quoted,  pp.  490 
-91. 
Slavery,    its    abolition    accom- 
plished    by     the     Catholic 
Church  without  injustice  or 
revolution,  p.  148;   religious 
orders  vowed  to  the  redemp- 
tion of  captives  from,  p.  149. 
Smith,  Rev.  Sydney,  quoted  on 
the    wretched    condition   of 
the  English  masses,  p.  26. 
Social  Evil,  the,  in  London,   p. 
558;  a  Protestant  minister's 
method  of  ferreting  it  out  in 
New  York,  p.  563. 
Social  Order,  the  Catholic  ideal 

of,  p.  141. 
Soggarth     Aroon,     the    poem, 

quoted,  p.  424. 
Sorensen,  Dr.,  on  infant  mortal- 
ity in  Denmark,  p.  483. 
Spain,  literature  and  art  of,  p. 
58 ;  fewer  suicides  in  than 
in  any  other  country,  p.  59  ; 
professional  vice  and  immo- 
rality less  than  in  any  other 
European  country,  p.  67 ; 
manners  of,  pp.  1 13-14; 
sense  of  equality  in,  pp.  113- 
14;  literature  and  libraries 
of,  p.  350;  no  pauperism  in, 
p.   393 ;    proof  of    Christian 


equality    in,     p.    399 ;    little 

prostitution  in,  p.  561. 
Spalding,  J.  L.,  Bishop,  on  the 

home   life    of   the    laboring 

classes,  p.  137. 
Spaniards,  the,  how  they  regard 

drunkards,  p.  466. 
Spanish  Inquisition,  the,  obliges 

a  preacher  of  "  divine  right " 

to  recant  publicly,  p.  166. 
Spenser,    Edmund,    quoted  on 

Irish  destitution,  p.  37. 

Stackpole,  Rev.  Everett  S.,  on 
the  harm  done  by  ex-priests 
to  Protestant  missions,  pp. 
588-9. 

Statesman's  Year  Book,  its  sta- 
tistics of  university  students 
in  Spain  and  England  for 
1888-9  quoted,  p.  335;  for 
1893,  pp.  337-8,  40 ;  on  Aus- 
trian treatment  of  the  poor, 
p.  405  ;  its  tables  of  land 
distribution  in  Germany,  Ita- 
ly, Spain,  and  Belgium,  pp. 
444-6 ;  vital  statistics  for 
1893,  p.   513- 

State  Protestantism  positively 
and  negatively  responsible 
for  pauperism,  p.  423. 

Statistics,  the  Jay-Hawkins' 
refuted,  p.  246 ;  unscrupu- 
lous use  made  of  by  Prot- 
estants, p.  252. 

Storer,  Dr.  H.  B.,  cited  on  abor- 
tion, p.  487. 

Strong,  Rev.  Josiah,  slanderous 
assertions  of,  against  the 
Roman  Church,  pp.  223-4; 
cited  pp.  307-8. 

Suicide,  comparative  tables  of 
in  Catholic  and  Protestant 
countries,  p.  492  ;    in    Great 


626 


Index. 


Britain,  p.  493  ;  in  Ireland,  p. 
493  ;  in  Prussia,  p.  493  ;  in 
Austria-Hungary,  p.  493  ;  in 
Switzerland,  p,  493  ;  in 
Schleswig-Holstein,  p.  494  ; 
in  Saxony,  pp.  494,  496  ;  in 
Brandenburg,  p.  494;  in 
Westphalia,  p. 494;  in  Rhine- 
land,  p.  494  ;  in  Prussian  Po- 
land, p.  494 ;  in  Thuringia, 
p.  495  ;  increase  of  in  France, 
pp.  496-7  ;  rapid  increase  of 
in  the  United  States,  p.  497. 

Suicide  Clubs,  p.  498. 

Sullivan,  Mrs.  Margaret  Y .,  pp. 
376,  403. 

Sun,  the  New  York,  quoted  on 
drunkenness  in  London,  pp. 
467-9 ;  on  the  social  evil  in 
London,  pp.  558,  562. 

Sweden,  public  libraries  of,  p. 
358  ;  immorality  of  its  people, 
p.  479  ;  increase  of  illegiti- 
macy in,  p.  502  ;  its  official 
statistics  of  divorce  and  il- 
legitimacy, p.  576. 

Sweet,  Rev.  J.  B.,  on  the  in- 
crease of  immorality  in  Eng- 
land, pp.  522-3. 

Swiss  Confederation,  the,  reli- 
gious liberty  guaranteed  by 
its  constitution,  p.  273. 

Switzerland,  religious  liberty 
destroyed  in  the  Catholic 
cantons  of  Fribourg  and  Lu- 
cerne by  radicals  and  Prot- 
estants, p.  273. 

Tait's  Edinburgh  Magazine 
quoted  on  prostitution  in 
London,  p.  556. 

Taylor,  Canon,  quoted  on  the 
failure  of  Protestant  mis- 
sions, pp.  100-  102. 


Tertullian,  concerning  Christian 
teachers  and  pupils  in  pagan 
schools,  p.  228. 

Thieblin,  N.  L.,  on  Spanish  af- 
fairs in  1873,  p.  58;  defends 
Spanish  bull  fights,  p.  64; 
on  the  morality  of  Spanish 
women,  p.  66 ;  on  Spanish 
hospitality  to  strangers,  pp. 
116-17;  on  the  small  per- 
centage of  professional  vice 
in  Spain,  p.  561. 

Thiers,  his  report  to  the  Corps 
Legislatif  on  education 
cited,  p.  285. 

Tocqueville,  De,  quoted,  p.  294^ 

Todd,  Rev.  John,  on  abortion 
in  New  England,  pp.  487-8. 

Tresguerras,  F.  E.,  Mexican 
architect,  painter  and  sculp- 
tor, p.  381. 

Trinidad  Island  under  British 
Protestant  influence,  p.  97. 

Ukita,  Japanese  professor,  on 
religion  in  America,  pp. 
145-6. 

United  Order  of  American 
Mechanics,  the,  p.  11. 

United  States,  the,  Eleventh 
Census  Report  on  Education, 
pp.  277-8. 

Universal  Historical,  Critical, 
and  Biographical  Dictionary, 
quoted  by  William  Cobbett, 
PP-  342-3- 

Universities,  list  of  those  found- 
ed by  Catholics,  pp.  327-8 ; 
72  founded  in  Europe  before 
the  rise  of  Protestantism,  p. 
328  ;  university  students  less 
numerous  now  than  in  Cath- 
olic ages,  p.  329;  46  founded 
by   Catholic    nations    since 


Index. 


627 


the  Reformation,  p.  329;  31 
founded  in  Europe  by  Prot- 
estant nations,  p.  330  ;  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge  less 
frequented  since  the  Refor- 
mation, p.  331  ;  21  Protes- 
tant universities  of  the  pres- 
ent day  have  i  ,000  or  more 
students,  p.  333  ;  29  Catho- 
Hc  have  the  same  number, 
p.  333  ;  reason  assigned  why 
Cathohc  countries  have  the 
highest  percentage  of  uni- 
versity students,  p.  336 ; 
Luther  declared  the  devil  to 
be  the  true  founder  of,  p. 
341. 
University  of  Paris,  the,  unsuc- 
cessful tactics  of,  against 
the  work  of  the  Christian 
Brothers,  p.  255. 

Vatican  Library,  founded  in 
the  6th  centary  by  Pope 
Hilary,  p.  346. 

Vaughan,  Professor,  on  the  su- 
periority of  oral  instruction 
to  the  use  of  text-books,  pp. 
210-1 1. 

Vaux,  Richard,  on  the  increase 
of  crime  in  Pennsylvania,  p. 
452. 

Vigil,  Jose  Maria,  Mexican 
archaeologist,  p.  378. 

Vizetelly,  on  pantheism  and 
atheism  in  Prussia,  pp.  582- 
83 

Vogiie,  Eugene  Melchior,  on 
the  results  to  morality  of 
"the  new  faith  in  science," 
pp.  496-97. 

Voight,  — ,  in  his  biography  of 
St.  Gregory  VII.,  testifies  to 
the    intiuence    of    the    Holy 


See    against    despotism,    p. 

153- 

Voltaire,  his  admission  concern- 
ing the  Popes,  p.  162. 

Voluntary  chastity,  obedience, 
and  poverty  Christian  vir- 
tues, p.  408. 

Von  Oettingen,  statistical  tables 
of,  p.  502. 

Von  Puttkammer,  on  the  neces- 
sity of  Christian  education, 
p.  287. 

Wales,  revolting  immorality 
in,  pp.  523-25  ;  Mormonism 
largely    recruited    from,    p. 

525- 

Washington,  George,  his  Fare- 
well Address  quoted,  p.  284. 

Waugh,  Rev.  B.,  on  baby  farm- 
ing, pp.  483-4. 

Webster,  Daniel,  argument  of, 
against  the  Girard  will 
quoted,  p.  293. 

Wells,  David  A.,  in  his  Study 
of  Mexico,  accuses  the  Mexi- 
can priesthood  as  responsi- 
ble for  the  i  literacy  of 
Mexicans,  p.  70;  the  Mexi- 
can government  protests 
against  a  charge  made  by, 
p.  72  ;  testifies  to  the  good 
character  of  the  agricultural 
population,  p.  73  ;  on  Catho- 
lic education  in  Mexico,  p. 
73  ;  honesty  of  Mexicans,  p. 
74 ;  why  American  business 
men  fail  in  Mexico,  p.  74 ; 
failure  of  the  ballot  to  secure 
free  speech  or  a  free  press 
in  Mexico,  p.  79;  affirms  that 
the  United  States  makes 
enemies  of  every  nation  and 
people   brought  into  contact 


628 


Index. 


with  it,  p.  80  ;  offers  an  ex- 
planation of  Catholic  atten- 
tion to  education  in  Mexico, 
p.  334 ;  on  human  equality 
in  Mexico,  p.  402. 

West  Indies,  the  moral  con- 
dition of,  pp.  96-7. 

Westphalia,  the  Poor  Law  ex- 
periment in  Elberfeld,  p.  396. 

Williams,  Rev.  Wolcott  B., 
quoted  on  religious  and 
secular  education,  pp.  289- 
91. 

Wolf,  Edmund  J..  D.I).,  his  ad- 
dress on  Our  Debt  and  Duty 
to   the  Immigrant   Popula- 


tion quoted  and  commented, 
pp.  305-9 ;  his  tribute  to  im- 
migrants, pp.  464-5. 

Women  of  Calvary,  the,  p.  407. 

Wood,  Anthony,  quoted  on  the 
spoliation  of  the  Oxford 
library,  p.  362. 

Woodward  and  Oates,  Encycto- 
pcedia  of  Chronology,  p.  326. 

YuUN(;,  Rev.  Alfred,  his  arti- 
cles on  D.  A.  Hawkins  in 
the  New  York  Independtmt 
and  the  New  York  Free- 
man's Journal,  p.  246. 


NOTE. 

Where  other  editions  of  the  works  of  Kay  and  Laing  are  not 
named  in  the  text,  those  from  which  quotations  have  been  made 
in  this  volume  are  the  following  : 

"  The  Social  Condition  and  Education  of  the  People  in  Eng- 
land. By  Joseph  Kay,  Esq.,  M.A.  New  York  :  Harper  and 
Brothers.     1864." 

"  Notes  of  a  Traveller  on  the  Social  and  Political  State  of 
France,  Prussia,  Switzerland,  Italy,  a7td  other  parts  of  Europe 
during  thj  present  century.  By  Samuel  Laing,  Esq.  From  the 
second  London  edition.     Philadelphia:  Carey  and  Hart.     1846." 


14  DAY  USE 

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