Chapter V (4)

Now, if these be facts with which we have to deal, then a very grave question meets us right here, and it is this: Can any such solid foundation for government be found in a self-governing community? In other words, can the people govern themselves for their own weal, and maintain institutions _solely by the force of their own will_, which shall accomplish the purposes of good government, and for ever secure the approval of all wise and virtuous citizens? If nay, then, royalty and aristocracy being repudiated, whither shall we fly for refuge and hope? If yea, then how is this most precious end to be attained? We Americans, by birth and blood, and still more so by passionate love of country, say most emphatically that we have never doubted that the way to such a consummation is plain, if only the nation will pursue it. It is nothing new; simply the old and trite aphorism, that a free, self-governing nation can only be so upon the conditions precedent of a clear intelligence and a well-established virtue; the latter (if we may separate the two) must always take precedence, and be regarded as the indispensable prerequisite. It follows, therefore, that education without morality would be at least futile. It is very certain that it would be absolutely _fatal_; because the intelligent man of vice is armed with keen weapons, which are greatly blunted by ignorance, and are consequently then less dangerous to society. Catiline, the polished patrician, was a greater object of alarm to Cicero and the Roman senate than the rude assassins whom he had hired to do his treason. Before and during the first French revolution, France was ablaze with genius; but, like the high intelligence of the "Archangel ruined," it brought death in its fiery track. Education without morality is more terrible than the sword in the hands of men or a nation. It is not the part of patriotism to deny that we have seen some instances of this in our own favored country, and that the tendency to that perilous condition is very apparent even now. {230} This has resulted from the too prevalent idea, taught by the infidel or indifferent press, and accepted by the unreflecting or equally indifferent citizen, that morality can be maintained without formal or doctrinal religion; that one morality is as good as another; that Plato would answer as well as Christ; that what even the pagans taught--to deal honestly by your neighbor and perform the domestic and public duties of life with reasonable decency--is quite sufficient; and that all else is nothing more than priestly dogmatism and controversial jargon. So that, indeed, the prevailing opinion of the country would almost seem to be (if we judge it by the secular press and multitudes of very honest and intelligent citizens) that America, as a Christian democratic nation, may be satisfied to be as moral, and consequently as grand and powerful, as was pagan Rome in the days of her republican simplicity of manners. They forget or ignore the history of the _Decline and Fall_, and fail to see in that tremendous catastrophe of the most extraordinary people of the ancient world, the logical development of the certain causes of destruction which were inherent in the nation from the day that Romulus slew his brother upon the wall of the rising city. It cannot be that Christ came for a delusion and a snare, or even as a simple fatuity. If his coming was necessary, then it was to teach a new religion and a new morality; _the one inseparable from the other_. If this be indisputable, then all education which is not based expressly and clearly upon religion is heathenish, and will prove destructive in the end. It will destroy the very people whom it was expected to save. It will consume them as a fire. Pride and lust of power will burn out the public conscience. The nation will drip with the blood of unjustifiable conquest, as did pagan Rome, or be given up to the ferocious struggle for individual aggrandizement, as seen in later revolutionary times. The father of our country fully recognized these principles, and in the foregoing we have but echoed his words of warning in his Farewell Address to the American People:

"Of all dispositions and habits," he says, "which lead to
political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable
supports. A volume could not trace all their connection with
private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is
the security for property, for regulation, for life, if the
sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the
instruments in courts of justice? And let us with caution
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without
religion."

To this it will be replied, by some well-meaning persons, "How can we place education in the United States upon the basis of doctrinal religion, when we have innumerable sects, none of which absolutely agree?" And now we approach the marrow of the subject.

First, let us clear away one difficulty. Let it be very distinctly comprehended that nowhere can the state find its commission as exclusive educator of the people. That is a duty and a privilege belonging, of original right, to the family; it is domestical and not political, though it may be always, and is most frequently, wise and politic that the state should lend efficient aid to _assist_, but not _arbitrarily to control_ the training of the free citizen's child. The parent is placed over the child by the Creator, and is the natural guardian, primarily responsible for the training which is to lead through this valley of probation to the eternal home. {231} Religious freedom, freedom of conscience, is not a right granted by constitutions, but is the result of the relation of man as a free, moral agent to the Creator who thought fit to make him the master of his own destiny here and hereafter. To coerce the conscience of the child by an educational system, actively or passively, (for there may be effective coercion by negative means,) is to violate the sacred rights of the parent, vested in him by the divine appointment. There is not a religious man, following any form of worship, professing to be a Christian and an American, who can seriously deny this proposition, or who would accept any other in a question involving his rights and duties in regard to his own off-spring. No such man, we are sure, would tolerate any assumption of the authority on the part of the state to step between him and his child in the matter of religious belief and instruction. No other form of tyranny would arouse so quickly the indignant resistance of an American citizen and father; and every upright man feels in his heart that what would be so grievous to him should not be imposed upon any other of his fellow-citizens, directly or indirectly. Actuated by such views in the main, the state provides a system of public schools from which, theoretical (and it may be practically in most cases,) all forms of doctrinal religion are excluded, and education is based upon a vague, undefined, generalized moral teaching which very many eminent men of different religious denominations have pronounced to be "godless," because the doctrines of Christ (the foundation of his moral law) are not taught in such schools according to any interpretation whatever, for the plain reason that it could not be done without such manifest injustice and wrong as we have already protested against. To read the Bible, _without note or comment_, to young children is, in reality, to lead them to the fountain of living waters and forbid them to drink; whereas, "to expound the word" is, at once, to violate the absolute neutrality which the state is bound to maintain in the presence of conflicting interpretations and dissenting consciences. Such is the precise difficulty. Hence it is, that the Catholic Church has set its face against the peril with which such a system of education threatens its youth; and the Catholic pastors and their flocks, though struggling with poverty, and harassed by ten thousand pressing claims upon their charity, have strained every nerve to establish parochial and other denominational schools where secular education could be imparted without sacrificing religious instruction.

There is no doubt but that there are many strong and marked doctrinal differences between the various Protestant denominations which have led some of their most eminent men to argue against the possibility of a perfect or desirable system of public schools upon the mixed or non-intervention basis. Nevertheless, it is also true that in the fundamental point, essentially characteristic of Protestantism, and in which it especially differs from the Catholic Church (private interpretation and the rejection of tradition) all Protestant churches agree; and herein we find the reason why they can conform to the necessities of such a public-school system as we have described, with some degree of amalgamation; whereas their Catholic fellow-citizens cannot avail themselves of the secular advantages of such schools without a total sacrifice of religious training. {232} We are told by the Rev. James Fraser, despatched on an official mission for the purpose of reporting on the whole subject to the commissioners appointed by her Majesty Queen Victoria, and who visited the United States in 1865, that one of the _influences_ adverse to the success of our American common-school system is, "_the growing feeling that more distinctly religious teaching is required, and that even the interests of morality are imperfectly attended to;_" and another "_influence_" is "_the very lukewarm support that it receives from the clergy of any denomination, and the languid way in which its claims on support and sympathy are rested on the higher motives of Christian duty;_" from which, and other causes, the Rev. Mr. Fraser reluctantly augurs misfortune to the system itself in the future. There can be no doubt but that such "lukewarmness" does exist, and that it is produced solely by the "growing feeling that more distinctly religious teaching is required." No accord of the Protestant sects upon what they call "essentials," can permanently reconcile them to either a doctrinal teaching at the public schools, in which it would be impossible for them all to agree, or to the alternative necessity of excluding from the schools all manner of "distinct religious teaching," without which "even the interests of morality are imperfectly attended to." Hence springs not only the lukewarmness, but the affirmative opposition of distinguished Protestant clergymen to the "godless system."

It is altogether erroneous, however, to suppose, and unjust to charge, that Catholics are hostile to the continuance of the present schools. FAR FROM IT. They rejoice to see their Protestant fellow-citizens availing themselves freely of those great opportunities to instruct the future self-governing citizens of the young republic. They appreciate, nay, they insist upon the absolute necessity of raising the standard of popular intelligence, so as to insure the wisest possible administration of public affairs through the agency of the elective franchise. That their church is profoundly solicitous for the secular education of her people is too manifest for dispute, since she has, by the instrumentality of her various religious orders, established universities, colleges, academies, and innumerable preparatory schools in every great city, and throughout the rural districts of the country, wherever it was possible to do so. A glance at the Catholic Register or Directory, for 1868, will satisfy the most sceptical upon that point. The Roman Catholic Church has covered Europe with such institutions, grand in design, and magnificent in endowment; and it is not her purpose to permit her children in America to fall behind the age for the want of similar advantages, if she can supply their necessities. She is ever appealing to their public spirit, their patriotism, their religious sentiment, to obtain the means to build and conduct her educational establishments; and most nobly have they ever responded; for it was by the steady contributions of the poor mainly, that nearly all of those great works were begun and perfected.

But we may well adopt the assertion of a writer in the last January number of _Blackwood's Magazine_, that "_the fact is palpable and every statesman, philosopher, and candid student of the educational question confesses, that voluntary agencies are wholly unable to undertake a task so gigantic,_" as that of reaching the great mass of helpless ignorance existing even in the most favored communities. {233} It is exactly here that government may legitimately step in with its organized resources, but without wearing the pedagogue's cap. The wisest governments of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, have done this. They have abandoned the Lacedemonian usurpation of domestic rights, reproduced by the first Napoleon, as he expressed the policy in his curt style, "_My principal end in the establishment of a teaching corps is to possess the means of directing political and moral opinions._" A candid confession for an autocrat. The nephew, who now reigns over France, has learned by the experience of misfortune to be wiser and more faithful to natural rights. In Catholic France education is entirely free and without favoritism. The public educational fund is equitably distributed to Catholic and Protestant, and each is permitted to rear, under the supervision of their respective clergy, as they may elect, the children of their own religious household. Conscience is respected; and yet the youth of the country are not deprived of instruction in the Christian faith at the public schools. Protestant Prussia is as liberal and as wise as France, and her system of public instruction is based upon the necessity of religious teaching, and the right of the parent to direct the child, and the just relation of the pastor to the parent, and therefore the equity of a proper distribution of the public-school fund. We have not the time, nor is it necessary to go into the details; but it is sufficient to say that the Prussian system concedes more to the Prussian Catholic than the American Catholic has yet asked from an enlightened and democratic American government; and yet, strange to say, the American Catholic has been violently and persistently charged with hostility to public education, and a conspiracy to destroy republican institutions! Even England, iron-clad in her prejudices, has adopted the principles of Prussia, niggardly as her policy toward the public schools has always been. And what shall we say of "benighted Austria," the land of popish concordats! Let Mr. Kay, a recognized authority upon matters of education, and a Protestant, answer this question.

"The most interesting and satisfactory feature of the Austrian
system is the great liberality with which the government,
though so staunch an adherent and supporter of the Romanist
priesthood, has treated the religious parties who differ from
themselves in their religious dogma. It has been entirely owing
to this liberality that neither the great number of the sects
in Austria, nor the great differences of their religious
tenets, has hindered the work of the education of the poor
throughout the empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has been
demonstrated that such difficulties may be easily overcome,
when a government understands how to raise a nation in
civilization, and wishes earnestly to do so.

"In those parishes of the Austrian empire where there are any
dissenters from the Roman Church, the education of their
children is not directed by the priests, but is committed to
the care of the dissenting ministers. These latter are
empowered and required by government to provide for, to watch
over, and to educate the children of their own sects in the
same manner as the priests are required to do for the education
of their children."

He also says:

"And yet in these countries--Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhine
provinces, and the Catholic Swiss cantons--the difficulties
arising from religious differences have been overcome, and all
their children have been brought under the influence of
religious education without any religious party having been
offended." (_Kay_, vol. ii. p. 3.)

And bearing testimony to the earnest desire of the Catholic Church to advance the education of her children everywhere, he says:

{234}

"In Catholic Germany, in France, and even in Italy, the
education of the common people in reading, writing, arithmetic,
music, manners, and morals is, at least, as generally diffused
and as faithfully promoted by the clerical body as in Scotland.
It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the advance
of the people, that the popish priesthood of the present day
seeks to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the
community in Catholic lands; and they might, perhaps, retort
upon our Presbyterian clergy, and ask if they, too, are in
their countries, at the head of the intellectual movement of
the age? Education is, in reality, not only not suppressed, but
is encouraged by the popish church and is a mighty instrument
in its hands and ably used. In every street in Rome, for
instance, there are at short distances public primary schools
for the education of the children of the lower and middle
classes of the neighborhood. Rome, with a population of 158,000
souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482 teachers, and
14,000 children attending them. Has Edinburgh so many schools
for the instruction of these classes? I doubt it. Berlin, with
a population about double that of Rome, has only 264 schools.
Rome has also her university, with an average number of 600
students, and the papal states, with a population of 2,500,000,
contains seven universities; Prussia, with a population of
14,000,000, has but seven."

If the church has been found in hostility to educational systems, it has been when, as in Ireland, the schools have been made _proselytizing agencies_ and _instruments of oppression_; and if she has disfavored without opposing other systems, as here, it was solely to preserve her _own people_ from the damaging effects of a purely secular education, and to secure for them the higher advantages of a religious training. If others find that the schools answer all their wants, she is well pleased to see them derive every benefit therefrom which the best administration of such a system can produce. But the Catholic people say: If we who are counted by millions, and who are daily adding to the wealth of the nation by our labor and enterprise, are required to pay taxes for the support of the public schools which we cannot use for the education of our children, ought we not, at least, to receive an equitable proportion of the public fund, to assist us in securing what every good citizen wishes to see accomplished, the education of our youth? We are now millions, and millions more are coming, by ship and steamer, every day, almost every hour. We are a part of the nation, children and citizens of the great republic. Shall we add to the virtue and intelligence of the community, or to its ignorance and vice? We are struggling with all our might, and devoting all our means to reach the lowest stratum of our society, and lift it up into the light and air of secular knowledge and spiritual grace. Why should not the State of New York help in the good work?

The regulations of France, Prussia, Austria, England, and other countries of Europe would assuredly afford to our legislators the practical details of a good working system, which it is not our province to suggest in form, uninvited. Let it be conceded, however, that millions of men throughout this country should not be taxed for establishments of which they cannot conscientiously avail themselves, unless, at the same time, they are permitted to participate, in a reasonable way, in the enormous funds derived from those tax-rates. Let the schools, though denominational when endowed by the state, be subject to state inspection so far as to insure the full compliance with the requirements of the general law as to the standard of education to be bestowed, but with no further control over management or discipline.

{235}

In the European countries referred to, (it may be said here generally,) each religious denomination when sufficiently numerous in a district to justify it, is permitted to establish a denominational school; receiving its share of the public fund, and being subject to governmental inspection as to the proper application of the money, and the faithful discharge of the engagement to impart secular knowledge according to the fixed educational standard. The selection of the school-books and the religious training of the children are in such cases placed in the charge of the clergy, or made subject to their revision. Where the religious denomination has not sufficient numerical strength to enable it to establish a separate school, its children attend the other public school or schools, but are carefully guarded against all attempts at proselytizing, and their religious instruction is confided to their own ministers. In no instance is the proper proportion of the school fund ever refused to any denomination which has the number requisite under the law for the establishment of a separate school. By these means, perfect freedom of conscience is preserved, and public harmony and good-will promoted; whilst at the same time, the children of all churches are brought up in the wisdom of the world without losing the fear of God. In this way, too, religious freedom becomes a _practical thing_, and not a constitutional platitude or an empty national boast. In this serious matter, this great national concern, those European monarchies have expelled sham altogether. Have we? Do we in the United States, vaunting our hatred of "_church and state_," our devotion to entire freedom of conscience, our preeminent love of "_fair play_," our respect for the _inviolable rights of minorities_, do we imitate the liberal example of monarchical Europe, Catholic and Protestant, when we tax our six millions of Catholics for public schools, and then refuse them a participation in the fund? What just man will say that such a rule is right? What wise man will say that it is _politic_? At least, let it not be said that in our great cities, where there are tens of thousands of poor Catholic children, and in those rural districts where the numbers are notoriously sufficient to justify the establishment of one or more schools, they shall be driven to seek an education under a system which their parents cannot conscientiously sanction, or be left to the chances of procuring the rudiments of learning from the over-taxed and doubly-taxed resources of their co-religionists. Help the schools now actually existing, and which are filled to overflowing with eager scholars; and assist those who are willing to build up others; the cost is no greater; the educational policy of the state is equally satisfied, whilst the morals of the rising generation, purified by religious faith and strengthened by religious practices, will give the republic assurance of a glorious future.

We are satisfied that such a system would give us an enlightened Christian people, and not merely a nation of intelligent men of the world, as cold as they are polished, and as indifferent to divine things as they are eager for the pleasures of sense and the pride of life.

This would be a truly solid basis upon which to build and perpetuate the empire of a self-governing nation. Without this, our constitution is a rope of sand, our republicanism a delusion, and our freedom a miserable snare to the down-trodden nationalities all over the earth.

--------

{236}

All Souls' Day--1867.

Dying? along the trembling mountain flies
The fearful whisper fast from cot to cot;
Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers' eyes
Melt as their white lips stammer, "Not, oh! not
Him of all others? Nay,
Not him who from our hearths so oft drove death away?"

Well may those pale groups gather at each door.
Well may those tears that dread the worst be shed.
The hand that healed their ills will bless no more,
The life that served to lengthen theirs has fled;
And while they pray and weep,
Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep.

Ah! this is sudden! why, this very morn
He rode amongst us: sick men woke to hear
The step of his black pacer: the new-born
Smiled at him from their cradles; many a tear
On faces wan and dim.
He dried to-day: to-night those cheeks are wet for him.

For there he lies, together gently laid
The hands we were so proud of, his white hair
Making the silver halo that it made
In life around his brow; as if in prayer
The gentle face composed.
With nameless peace o'ershadowing the eyelids closed.

And as beside him through the night we hold
Our solitary watch, I had not started
To hear my name break from him, as of old,
Or see the tranquil lips a moment parted.
To speak the word unsaid,
The last supreme adieu that instant death forbade.

I dread the day-dawn, for his silent rest
Befits the night: I half believe him mine,
While in the tapers' shadowy light, his breast
Seems heaving, and, amid the pale moonshine
That wanders o'er the lawn.
Crouch the still hounds unknowing that their master's gone.

{237}

But when the morning at his window stands
In glory beckoning, and he answers not;
Not for the wringing of the widowed hands,
Or orphans wrestling with their bitter lot,
I feel, old friend, too well,
That naught can wake thee but the final miracle.

Was it but yesterday, that at my gate,
Beneath the over-arching oaks we met;
Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate,
A horseman every inch: I see him yet,
His morning mission done.
His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, one by one.

Mute are the mountains now! No more that cry
Of the full chase by all the breezes borne
Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply
Speeds the loud chorus! Nevermore the horn
Of our lost chief will shake
Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the startled brake!

Those summits were his refuge when the touch
Of gloom was on him, and the gathered care
Of long life, that braved and suffered much,
Drove him from beaten walks, to breathe the air
That, haunts gray Carrick's crest,
And spur from dawn to dusk till effort purchased rest.

But yet, in all these thirty years, how few
The days we saw not the familiar form
Amid the valleys passing, till it grew
Part of the landscape: through the sun or storm
With equal front he rode,
Punctual as planets moving in the paths of God.

I've seen him, when the frozen tempest beat,
Breast it as gayly as the birds that played
Upon the drifts: and through the deadly heat
That drove the fainting reapers to the shade.
Smiling he passed along.
Erect the good gray head, and on his lips a song.

I've known him too, by anguish chained abed,
Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan,
And meekly ride wherever pity led,
To heal a sorrow slighter than his own;
Or rich or poor the same--
It mattered not: let any sorrow call, he came.

{238}

Thy life was sacrifice, my own old friend,
Yet sacrifice that earned a sacred joy,
For in thy breast kept beating to the end,
The trust and honest gladness of a boy;
The seventy years that span
Thy course, leave thee as pure as when their date began.

Who could have dreamed the sharp, sad overthrow
Of such a life, so tender, strong, and brave?
My pulse seems answering thy finger now--
'Twas one step from the stirrup to the grave!
Oh! lift your load with care,
And gently to its rest the precious burden bear.

All Souls' Day! as they place him in the aisle.
The bells his youth obeyed for Mass are ringing;
And, as beneath the churchyard gate we file,
To latest rite his honored relics bringing.
You'd think the dead had all
Arrayed their little homes for some high festival.

As if for _him_ the flowering chaplets, strewn
Throughout God's acre, breathe a second spring;
To him the ivy on the sculptured stone
A welcome from the tomb seems whispering:
The buried wear their best.
As, in their midst, their old companion takes his rest.

Yes, he is yours, not ours: set down the bier:
To you we leave him with a ready trust:
Beneath this sod there's scarce a spirit here
That was not once his friend: Oh! guard his dust!
And if your ashes may
Thrill to old love, your graves are gladder than our hearths to-day.

----------

{239}

Is it Honest? [Footnote 52]

[Footnote 52: Sermons in answer to the Tract, _Is it
Honest?_ By Rev. L. W. Bacon. _The Brooklyn Times_,
March 9th, 17th, 24th, 1868.]

A brief tract, issued a short time since by The Catholic Publication Society, seems to have produced an unusual commotion among our non-Catholic brethren, and has called forth reply after reply from the sectarian press and pulpit. The tract is very brief, and consists only of a few pointed questions; but it has kindled a great fire, and compelled Protestants to come forward and attempt to defend their honesty, in uttering their false charges and gross calumnies against Catholics and the church. It has put them on their defence, made them feel that they, not the church, are now on trial before the public. This is no little gain, and they do not have so easy a time of it, in defending their libels, as they had in forging and uttering them, when Catholics had no organ through which they could speak, and were so borne down by public clamor that their voice could not have been heard in denial, even if they had raised it. Times have changed since those sad days when it was only necessary to vent a false charge against the church, to have it accredited and insisted on by a fanatical multitude as undeniable truth, however ridiculous or absurd it might be.

Since our sectarian opponents have been put upon their defence, we trust Catholics will keep them to it. We have acted on the defensive long enough, and turn about is only fair play. They must now prove their libels, or suffer judgment to go against them. They feel that it is so, and they open their defence resolutely, with apparent confidence and pluck. They have no lack of words and show no misgiving. This is well; it is as we would have it, for we wish them to have a fair trial, and to make the strongest, boldest, and best defence the nature of the case admits.

In our remarks we shall confine ourselves principally to the justification attempted by Mr. Bacon, in his sermons, as we find them in the _Brooklyn Times_; and we must remind him in the outset that the assumption with which he commences--that the tract, in appealing to the good sense of the public, whether it is honest to insist on certain charges against the church as true, when the slightest inquiry would show them to be false--makes an important concession, or any concession at all to the Protestant rule, is altogether unwarranted. He says: "This submitting of the questions in dispute to the public, man by man, after the Protestant, the American fashion--concedes at the outset one great and most vital principle, to wit, that the ultimate appeal in questions of personal belief, is to each man's reason and conscience in the sight of God." Quite a mistake. There is no question of personal belief in the case. The question submitted to the public by the tract is not whether what the church teaches and Catholics believe is true or false, but whether it is honest to continue to accuse the church and Catholics of holding and doing what it is well known, or may easily be known, they do not do, and declare they do not hold? {240} This is the question, and the only question, submitted. Is it honest to continue repeating day after day, and year after year, foul calumnies against your neighbor, when the proofs that they are calumnies lie under your hand, and spread out before your eyes so plainly that he who runs may read? We think even the smallest measure of common sense is sufficient to answer that question, which is, on one side, simply a question of fact, and on the other, a question of very ordinary morals. The competency of reason to decide far more difficult questions than that, no Catholic ever disputes. We think even the reason of a pagan can go as far as that. "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?"

"But this tract," the preacher continues, "is a plain assertion that no man ought blindly to accept the religious opinions to which he is born, nor the instructions of his religious teachers; but that he is bound, in honesty and justice, to hear the other side, and decide between them by his own private judgment." If by opinions is meant faith, it does no such thing; if by opinions are meant only opinions, it may pass, though the tract neither argues nor touches the question. The Catholic always supposes man is endowed with reason and understanding, and that both are active in the act of faith as in an act of science. There is and can be no such thing as _blind_ faith, though blind prejudices are not uncommon. Men seek or inquire for what they have not, not for what they have. They who have the faith do not seek it, and can examine what is opposed to it only for the purpose of avoiding or refuting it. Catholics have the faith; they are in possession of the truth, and have no need to make for themselves the examination supposed. Non-Catholics have not the faith; they have only opinions, often very erroneous, very absurd, and very hurtful opinions, and they are therefore bound, not by the _opinions_ they have received from their religious teachers, or to which they were born, but to seek diligently, with open minds and open hearts, for the truth till they find it. When they find it, they will not be bound to seek it, but to adhere to it, and obey it. There is no Protestant teaching in this, and it is nothing "different from what the Church of Rome always teaches her followers."

The tract says: "Americans love fair play." The preacher says:

"I believe it is no more than the truth. If there is one thing
rather than another that Americans do love, it is this very
thing--absolute freedom and fairness of religious discussion.
Curious, isn't it? How came Americans to 'love fair play'?
Englishmen seem to have a similar taste. Catholic or Protestant
in England can speak or write his thoughts, on either side,
without hinderance or constraint. The same thing may be
remarked, in a measure, in Northern Germany. How can you
account for it? What is the reason, do you suppose, why they
don't 'love fair play' in Spain? or in Austria? or in Mexico?
or in Rome? This injured innocent stands in New York, at the
corners of the streets, bemoaning himself that he is treated
'dishonestly, and unjustly,' because the public will not buy
and read his books; and all the time, in the Holy City
itself--under the direct fatherly government of the pope--a
subject is not allowed to be (as this tract says) 'honest and
just' toward Protestant Christians by examining both sides,
except at the peril of being punished as for an infamous crime!
'Americans love fair play.' Why do all Roman Catholic nations
suppress it? Why does the pope forbid it in his own dominions?
And what reason have we to believe that, if these who are
clamoring for 'fair play' should ever hold the power in this
country, they would put it to any different use here, from that
which prevails in Catholic countries generally?"

{241}

We are not aware that there is any less love of fair play in Spain, Mexico, or Rome, than in the United States, England, or North-Germany, in Catholic than in non-Catholic countries, only there is more faith and less need to seek it, or to examine both sides in order to find it. As a matter of fact, though we cannot regard it as any great merit, Catholics are generally far more ready to hear both sides, and to read Protestant books, than Protestants are to read Catholic books. We have never met with intelligent Catholics as ignorant of Protestantism as we have generally found intelligent Protestants of Catholicity. There is nothing among Catholics to correspond to the blind prejudice, deplorable ignorance, and narrow-minded bigotry of sectarians; but we are happy to believe that even these are mellowing with time, losing many of their old prejudices, and becoming more enlightened and less bigoted and intolerant; there is still room for improvement.

"Let us understand in the outset," says the preacher, "that the
charges against Catholics and the Catholic Church that are
complained of in this tract, are conceded by the writer to be
of grave importance. The prohibiting of the Bible to the
people--the belief that priestly absolution has efficacy of
itself, and is not merely conditional on the sincerity of the
sinner's repentance--the paying to images of such worship as
the heathen do--all these are declared by this writer to be
'detestable and horrible.' So that if it should appear that any
one of them is proved against Catholics or the Catholic Church,
the case is closed against them. He is not at liberty to go
back and apologize for the doctrine or palliate it. He has
declared it to be 'false doctrine'--'detestable and horrible.'"

What the tract regards as important or unimportant, is nothing to the purpose; what the preacher must prove is, that it is honest to continue to repeat charges against Catholics and the Catholic Church which have been amply refuted, and the refutation of which is within the reach of every one who would know the truth; or at least he must show that the refutation is insufficient, and that the charges are not false, but true. He will not find us shrinking from the truth, apologizing for it, or seeking to get behind it or around it. We, however, beg him to understand that he is the party accused, and on trial, not we, and that we are probably better judges on doubtful points, of what is or is not Catholic doctrine and practice, than he or any of his brethren. He will do well, also, to bear in mind that the question raised by the tract is not whether the doctrine of the church is true or false, but whether it is honest to persist in saying that it is what the church and all Catholics affirm that it is not. What he must prove, in order to be acquitted, is that the church and Catholics do hold what the tract denies, and denies on authority, or that there are good and sufficient reasons for believing that they do so hold.

1. The tract asks, "Is it honest to say that the Catholic Church prohibits the use of the Bible, when anybody who chooses can buy as many as he likes at any Catholic bookstore, and can see on the page of any one of them the approbation of the bishops of the Catholic Church, with the pope at their head, encouraging Catholics to read the Bible, in these words, 'The faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures,' and that not only for the Catholics of the United States, but also for those of the whole world." Mr. Bacon does not meet directly the facts alleged by the tract, nor plead truth in justification of the libel; but undertakes to show that even if false, yet Protestants may be personally honest in uttering it; and he adduces various circumstances which he thinks may very innocently induce Protestants to suppose that the church does prohibit the use of the Bible. {242} We have not the patience to take up in detail all the circumstances alleged, and refute the inferences drawn from them; most of them are mere inventions, perversions of the truth, misapprehensions of the facts in the case, and none, nor all of them together, justify the inference, in face of what the tract alleges, that the church prohibits the use of the Bible; and it is easy for any one who honestly seeks the truth to know that they do not.

The facts alleged by the tract are accessible to all who wish to know them. He who makes a false charge through ignorance, when he can with ordinary prudence know that it is false, is not excusable; and it is not surely in those who claim to be the enlightened portion of mankind to attempt to defend their honesty at the expense of their intelligence. They are the last people in the world, if we take them at their estimate of themselves, to be permitted to plead invincible ignorance.

The _Newark Evening Journal_ is bolder and more direct than Mr. Bacon. It asserts that the Church actually forbids the reading of the Scriptures, and boldly challenges the fact alleged by the tract. It says: "On the very page from which are taken the words, 'The faithful should be excited to read the Holy Scriptures,' are quoted, it is also said, 'To guard against error it was judged necessary to forbid the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar languages, without the advice and permission of the pastors and spiritual guides whom God has appointed to govern his Church.' How then can it be false to say that the Church prohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures?" Simply because to forbid the _abuse_ of a thing is not to prohibit its _use_. The faithful, for the promotion of faith and piety, are excited to read the Scriptures; but to guard against error or the abuse of the sacred writings, those who would wrest them to their own destruction are forbidden to read them in the vulgar languages, except under the direction of their spiritual guides. A prudent and loving father forbids his child, who has a morbid appetite or a sickly constitution, to eat of a certain kind of food except under the direction of the family physician, lest the child should be injured by it; can you therefore say that he prohibits the _use_ of that kind of food? Certainly not. All you can say is, that while he concedes the use, he takes precautions against the abuse, which is in no sense inconsistent with anything asserted by the tract.

Mr. Bacon, referring to reported cases of the confiscation of Bibles, circulated by the Bible Society, found in the hands of the laity, says the French Bible confiscated was the Catholic version of De Sacy; that the Polish Bible circulated by the Bible Society was, word for word, the copy of the version published two centuries before, and approved by two popes; the Italian Bible, for reading which the godly family Madiai were persecuted and imprisoned, was the Catholic version [not so] of Martini, Archbishop of Florence, published with the approbation and sanction of Pope Pius VI. Suppose this correct, it does not prove that the Church prohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures, but is very good proof to the contrary. These versions were made and published for the people, and would have been neither made nor published if the use of the Scriptures was forbidden. And how can you say that popes prohibit what you show they approved and sanctioned? There was a German Bible before Luther, and our Douay Bible was published before the version of King James.

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"But I am not willing," continues the preacher, "that this effrontery [what effrontery?] of this question should be let go even with this answer." We can easily believe it. "I am ready to call witnesses." Well, dear doctor, your witnesses; we are ready to hear their testimony. "Whoever heard of a Catholic Bible Society multiplying copies of the Bible?" Nobody that we know of. But how long is it since Protestants had a Bible Society? Prior to that, did they prohibit the use of the Holy Scriptures? "Popes have fulminated their bulls against Bible Societies, denouncing them as an invention of the devil." Not unlikely; but it is one thing to denounce Bible Societies, and another to prohibit the use or the reading of the Bible. Your witnesses. Rev. sir, do not testify to the point. Besides, all the facts, or pretended facts, you bring forward are too recent for your purpose. The accusation that the Church prohibits the use of the Scriptures was made by Protestants long before any of them are even said to have occurred, and therefore could not have originated in them. _Ex-post facto_ causes are not admitted in catholic philosophy. The charge brought against the Church betrays no little folly and ingratitude. If the Church had prohibited the use of the Scriptures, how could the Reformers have got a copy of them? They certainly purloined them from her, and could have got them from no other source.

The preacher concludes his first sermon by saying: "I am glad the time has come when it is understood on both sides that, if the Roman Church is to commend itself to the American people, it must begin by repudiating, as horrible and detestable, the teaching and practice for three hundred years of the church." What has for three hundred years been falsely alleged by her enemies to be her teaching and practice, agreed; but what has really been her teaching and practice, denied. "Let it but make good this new claim, and we thank God for the new reformation, and welcome it to the platform of Protestantism." There is no new claim in the case; what the tract asserts has always been the doctrine and practice of the church; she has always encouraged the use and opposed the abuse of the Holy Scriptures. That the preacher should desire a new reformation can be easily understood, for the old has well-nigh run out; that he will ever be able to welcome the church to the platform of Protestantism is, however, not likely; for she is not fond of standing on platforms, and prefers to remain seated on the rock. The reverend gentleman may be shocked to hear it; but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that the Bible and reason are not special Protestant possessions; they were ours ages before Protestantism was born, and will be ours ages after Protestantism is dead and forgotten.

2. In his second sermon--in a note to which he corrects his assertion that it was the Catholic version of Martini, and states that it was the Protestant version of Diodati, that was used by the godly family of the Madiai--the preacher confines his efforts to questions raised by the tract with regard to the worship of images and pictures, and of the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The tract asks:

"Is it honest _to accuse Catholics of paying divine worship
to images or pictures as the heathen do_--when any Catholic
indignantly repudiates any idea of the kind, and when the
Council of Trent distinctly declares the doctrine of the
Catholic Church in regard to them to be, 'that there is no
divinity or virtue in them which should appear to claim the
tribute of one's veneration;' but that all the honor which is
paid to them shall be referred to the originals whom they are
designed to represent?' (Sess. 25.)

{244}

"The answer to this question," the preacher says, "is to be
found by asking two others: 1. What sort of honors do the
heathen pay to images? 2. What sort of honors do Roman
Catholics pay to them? When we have got answers to these two,
we can compare them, and shall be able to say whether they are
the same."

We respectfully submit that neither of these questions need be asked; for so far as pertinent, both are answered in the tract itself. The accusation against Catholics which the tract implies cannot be honestly made, is that we pay _divine_ worship to images and pictures, as the heathen do; what the tract then denies is that Catholics pay _divine_ worship to images and pictures; and what it asserts is, that the heathen do pay them divine worship; but this assertion is simply illustrative, and should it be found inexact, it would not affect the formal denial that the worship Catholics pay them is _divine_. As to what sort of worship Catholics do render to images and pictures, the answer in the tract is explicit, that it is a "certain tribute of veneration paid them in honor of their original. The worship is not divine worship, and the honor paid is not paid to them for any virtue in them, but is referred solely to their originals." The catechism puts this clearly enough. "_Q. And is it allowable to honor relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures? A._ Yes; with an inferior and relative honor, as they relate to Christ and his saints, and are the memorials of them. _Q. May we then pray to relics and images? A._ No; by no means, for they have no life or sense to hear or help us."

The preacher labors to show that this inferior and relative honor is precisely what the heathen pay to the images of their gods; but this, if true, would not prove that we do, but that the heathen do not, pay divine honors to images. He cites various authorities, Christian and heathen, to prove that it is not the brass and gold and silver, when fashioned into a statue, that the heathen worship, but that through the statue or image they worship the invisible gods; that is, they worship the image as the visible representation of the invisible divinity. This is, no doubt, in some respects, the actual fact; nobody pretends that they worship precisely the material statue, but the numen or god, the prayers, invocations, incantations, and the other ceremonies of the consecration of the statue by the priests compelled to enter the statue and take up his abode in it. But to this image, which for them contains the god, the heathen offer sacrifices and other acts of worship which are due to God alone, which makes all the difference in the world, though we have no doubt that the type copied, perverted, corrupted, and travestied in heathen worship is the Catholic type; as all heathenism is a corruption, perversion, or travesty of the true religion, or as Protestantism is a corruption, perversion, or travesty of the Catholic Church.

The heathen images and pictures represent no absent reality, and are not memorials of an absent truth, like our sacred images and pictures; and the heathen, then, can honor only the material substance or the supposed indwelling numen or daemon. The gods they are supposed to bring nigh, represent, or render visible, are either purely imaginary, or evil spirits; hence the Scripture tells us that "all the gods of the heathen are devils." And finally, to these idols, which are nothing but wood and stone, brass and silver, or gold, which represent, if anything, demons or devils, the heathen pay divine honors; while we simply honor and respect images and pictures of our Lord and his saints for the sake of the originals, or the worth to which they are related. {245} Here is a difference which we should suppose even our Protestant doctor capable of perceiving and recognizing.

The preacher forgets that what is denied by the tract is, that we pay divine honors to sacred images and pictures, and cites ample authority to prove that we do not pay divine honors to them or through them. We offer them no sacrifices, and we offer them no prayers or praises, even as symbols or as memorials of a worth they represent. They are never the media through which we honor that worth; but we honor them for the sake of the worth to which they are related, as the pious son honors the picture of his mother, the patriot the picture of the father of his country, or the lover the portrait of his mistress. The respect we pay them springs from one of the deepest and purest principles of human nature, and can be condemned only by those who hold that there is nothing good in nature, and condemn as evil and only evil whatever is natural.

The minister thinks that, even should enlightened and intelligent Catholics understand the question as explained by the catechism and defined by the Council of Trent, yet ignorant Catholics may not; and with them the honors paid to images and pictures actually degenerate into idolatry. He asks: