Chapter XVII (8)

I Timothy iv. 1-5: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in
the _latter_ times some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with
a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain
_from meats_, which God hath created to be received with
thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For
every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it
be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word
of God and prayer."

Paul speaks of visiting the churches; that is to say, little
bands of Christians. We read in the Acts of the Apostles xv. 3:
"And being brought on our way by the church;" that is to say, a
few Christians. Read, also, xvi. 5: "Likewise _greet_ the
church that is in their house," etc.

You will now turn to Revelation xiii. 16-18: "And he causeth
all, both small and great, rich and poor, _free_ and
_bond_, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads." Now, every true Catholic receives the sign of the
cross in his forehead every Ash-Wednesday; every priest, when
he is ordained for the ministry, receives the mark of the cross
in his right hand.

A converted Roman Catholic priest, going through one of the
streets in a Southern city, picked up the thirteenth chapter of
Revelation, and, reading it, he was convinced that he was one
of those that had received the mark in his right hand, and was
led by the _Spirit_ to see his error and was
_happily_ converted, and became a Baptist minister.

Give the Bible to all our Roman Catholic priests and brethren
in America, and in less than _five_ years there would not
be a Roman Catholic church in existence. Rev. Mr. Hyacinthe, a
Roman Catholic priest, in Paris, France, has come out in
_favor_ of reading the Bible. He is now preaching in the
Notre Dame cathedral to audiences of _three thousand_. He
presses upon the people, in the most eloquent words, the study
of the Bible.

The news from Italy is very interesting. Thousands of our
Catholic brethren are inquiring and receiving the Bible, that
they may learn the way to Christ. In less than five years there
cannot be found a Roman Catholic in all that vast kingdom,
except in Rome, where the Catholic religion has to be protected
by an army. That is a curious religion that has to be protected
by the SWORD. Shame! shame!

That great city is soon to be destroyed, according to God's
word. See Revelation xiv. 20: "And the wine-press was trodden
without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even
unto the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand and six
hundred furlongs. "You are aware, I suppose, that the pope
claims two hundred miles square around Rome. The above number
of furlongs make just that number of miles. Let Bonaparte send
ALL his armies to Rome, and he could not _prevent this
prophecy from being_ fulfilled when the time comes.

Dear sir, you have a great deal to say about our Catholic
brethren exercising _greet_ faith. Paul says, "Faith
without works is dead." What are the works that God requires?
Let me tell you. It is not only to clothe the naked and feed
the hungry; but it is to go out into the _highways and
hedges_, and invite the sinner, the wayward--yes, the poor
drunkard--to become _reconciled_ to God; to put off the
_old_ man with all his deeds, and put on the new man which
is after Christ. Did you ever learn of one of our Catholic
brethren doing the like?

You speak of children being _confirmed_. What does that
mean? Why, made _Christians_. Dear sir, who can
_change_ the heart of a child or a man? No one but God.
What saith the Bible, speaking of those that were Christ's?
"Which were _born_, not of _blood_, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."--John i. 13.

{855}

You tell us that in this easy and pleasant way our Catholic
brethren join the church. Dear sir, does joining a church make
a man Christ-like? Christ says: "If ye have my spirit, ye are
mine; if ye have not my spirit, ye are none of mine."--Romans
viii. 9. Read the whole chapter; it contains the whole plan of
salvation.

Our Catholic brethren are taught that the Virgin Mary was
_born_ immaculate! What blasphemy! And also that the
church is _infallible_! When Christ asked Peter and the
disciples, "Whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered and said,
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Upon this
acknowledgment or confession of Peter, that Christ was the son
of the living God, Christ said, "I will _build my
church_"--not upon Peter, as the pope claims.

You say our Catholic brethren are not ashamed to be found
praying. Please turn to the sixth chapter of Matthew, and read
the sixth verse, which is as follows: "But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in _secret_; and thy
Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

You say the superintendent of the Catholic Sabbath-school you
visited told you that he had visited many of the Protestant
Sabbath-schools and had copied after them. I wonder where he
found a Protestant Sabbath-school _without the Bible_!

You say that the Catholics expect to rule in this country, and
that all Protestant children will be in their Sabbath-schools.
Let me say, "Let God be true, but every man a liar."--Romans
iii. 4. St. Paul has prophesied that the time shall soon come
when the Sword of the Spirit SHALL destroy the _Man of
Sin_.

There are thousands of our Catholic brethren in America that
are sick of the Catholic religion, and will soon leave it. When
I was engaged in teaching a Sabbath-school of Catholic
children, a father and mother called on me and wanted to put
their children in my school. I said, "Your priest will not
allow you to do so." They said they did not care anything about
their priest; they had been brought up in _ignorance_;
they did not want their children brought up so.

You cannot tell us of a Sabbath-school in all Italy, or in any
other country where the Roman Catholics rule, except those that
have been established by Protestants.

You tell us about Roman Catholic benevolent societies. Where,
oh! where is there an asylum for the blind and deaf and dumb,
that they may learn to read the word of God, and get a
knowledge of our Saviour Christ Jesus, and learn the way to
heaven? You cannot show one in any Catholic country.

Permit me to give you another graphic picture from the Bible,
giving a picture of the priests' dresses. Please turn to
Revelation xvii. 4, 5; "And the woman was arrayed in purple and
scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and
pearls, having a _golden_ cup in her hand," etc.

Now, all this I have seen in the great cathedral in Montreal. I
have seen our Catholic priests and brethren _bowing down_
to graven images for several minutes.

Mr. J. G. Parton, dear sir, I sincerely pray that you will,
after reading this communication, repent, (not do penance,) and
turn to the Lord, and not be under the necessity of calling
upon the rocks and mountains to fall on you and hide you from
the face of the Lamb. (Revelation vi. 16.) Do read, also, verse
17: "For the great day of his _wrath_ is come; and who
shall be able to stand?" Do read this communication carefully,
and pray that it may be blessed to your salvation.

No more at present, and I remain your friend in Christ,
Charles W. Gilbert.

---------

{856}

New Publications.

The Vickers and Purcell Controversy.
Respectfully presented to all the lovers of truth.
By John B. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati,
Printed for the benefit of Mt. St. Mary's
Seminary of the West. Benziger Brothers,
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See,
Cincinnati and New York. 1868.

The gentleman calling himself the Rev. Thomas Vickers, Minister of the First Congregational Society of Cincinnati, is a living contradiction in terms. According to the statement in the volume before us, he believes in no personal God, declares "the Christ" to be "a theological fiction," and the Bible "a crutch." What there is "reverend" about Mr. Vickers, what sense there is in his claiming the title of minister, or what appropriateness in his professing to belong to a Congregational Society, we are at a loss to divine. What greater absurdity of nomenclature can there be, than calling a pantheistic lecturer against Christianity and Theism by the name of a Congregational minister? Of what use is a church, or a minister, on his principles, or, rather, denial of principles? Nevertheless, in this very absurd and unnecessary character of minister, Mr. Vickers appeared at the laying of the corner-stone of a new temple of German infidelity, denominated, with a ludicrous disregard of common sense, St. John's Church, and made a speech, which occasioned the controversy contained in the little volume under notice. In this speech, Mr. Vickers welcomed and blessed the undertaking of the society of German infidels calling themselves St. John's Church, in the name of the Anglo-American portion of the population of Cincinnati. At the same time, he gave utterance to the most contemptuous scorn of everything which the professedly Christian part of that population holds as sacred and divine in religion. This was, to say the least of it, a piece of cool impertinence on the part of the young gentleman in question. Mr. Vickers, we believe, passed a few years in Germany, studying what he calls "science;" and he appears to have returned with a strong impression on his own mind that he is destined to enlighten the benighted believers in the Christian revelation in Cincinnati with the rays of this German luminary. He is not the first to engage in this experiment. It has been tried before, and we recommend to the attention of the illuminati of Cincinnati the following description of its result, from the pen of Dr. Hedge, of Harvard University. It is extracted from an article in the _Christian Examiner:_

"Some thirty years ago, a club was formed of young men, mostly
preachers of the Unitarian connection, with a sprinkling of
elect ladies--all fired with the hope of a new era in
philosophy and religion, which seemed to them about to dawn
upon the world. There was something in the air--a boding of
some great revolution--some new avatar of the Spirit, at whose
birth these expectants were called to assist

'Of old things, all are over old:
Of old things, none are good enough:
We'll show that we can help to frame
A world of other stuff.'

"For myself, though I hugely enjoyed the sessions, and shared
many of the ideas which ruled the conclave, and the ferment
they engendered, I had no belief in ecclesiastical revolutions
to be accomplished with set purpose; and I seemed to discern a
power and meaning in the old, which the more impassioned would
not allow. I had even then made up my mind, that the method of
revolution in theology, is not discussion, but development. My
historical conscience, then as since, balanced my neology, and
kept me ecclesiastically conservative, though intellectually
radical. There haunted me that verse in Goethe's bright song,
'The General Confession,' as applicable to ecclesiastical
incendiarism as it is to political:

'Came a man would fain renew me,
Made a botch and missed his shot.
Shoulder shrugging, prospects gloomy:
He was called a patriot.

'And I cursed the senseless drizzle,
Kept my proper goal in view:
Blockhead! when it burns, let sizzle;
When all's burned, then build anew.'

Others judged differently; they saw in every case of dissent,
and in every new dissentient, the harbinger of the New
Jerusalem. 'The present church rattles ominously,' they said;
'it must vanish presently, and we shall have a real one.' There
have been some vanishings since then.
{857}
Ah me! how much has vanished! Of that goodly company, what
heroes and heroines have vanished from the earth! Thrones have
toppled, dynasties have crumbled, institutions that seemed
fast-rooted in the everlasting hills have withered away. But
the church that was present then, and was judged moribund by
transcendental zeal, and rattled so ominously in transcendental
ears, is present still.

"It was finally resolved to start a journal that should
represent the ideas which had mainly influenced the association
already tending to dissolution. How to procure the requisite
funds was a question of some difficulty, seeing how hardly
philosophic and commercial speculation conspire. An appeal was
made. Would Mammon have the goodness to aid an enterprise whose
spirit rebuked his methods and imperilled his assets? The
prudent God disclaimed the imputed verdure; and the organ of
American Transcendentalism, with no pecuniary basis, committed
to the chance and gratuitous efforts and editing of friends, if
intellectually and spiritually prosperous, had no statistical
success. It struggled, through four years, with all the
difficulties of eleemosynary journalism; and then,
significantly enough, with a word concerning the 'Millennial
Church,' sighed its last breath, and gave up the ghost. I prize
the four volumes among the choicest treasures of my library.
They contain some of Emerson's, of Theodore Parker's, of
Margaret Fuller's, of Thoreau's best things; not to speak of
writers less absolute and less famous.

"Meanwhile the association, if so it could be termed, had
gradually dissolved. Some of the members turned papists--I
should say, sought refuge in the bosom of the Catholic Church.
A few of the preachers pursued their calling, and perhaps have
contributed somewhat to liberalize and enlarge the theology of
their day. Some have slipped their moorings on this bank and
shoal of time. One sank beneath the wave, whose queenly soul
had no peer among the women of this land. Of one

'A strange and distant mould
Wraps the mortal relics cold.'

Finally, a fragment of this strangely compounded body lodged in
a neighboring town, and became the nucleus of an agricultural
enterprise in which the harvest truly was _not_ plenteous,
and the competent laborers few; and of which, the root being
rottenness, the blossoms soon went up as dust."

Mr. Vickers may thank the Archbishop of Cincinnati for having given his very boyish lucubrations a little momentary notoriety, which they never could have acquired by their own merit. They are crude, ill-mannered, replete with commonplace, effete, and senseless vituperations of all that is venerable in Catholicity and Christianity, and betray an ignorance of the subjects treated of which makes them unworthy of any serious attention. The point which the discussion chiefly turns upon is "freedom of thought." If Mr. Vickers is a disciple of the German pantheistic school, as we suppose him to be, he is not in a condition to maintain that there is any such thing as thought or freedom. We intend to give abundant proof of this assertion, in a series of articles, to be published in our Magazine, on Pantheism, in which we shall show, to the satisfaction of any person capable of metaphysical reasoning, that pantheism destroys the possibility of thought, in the true sense of the word, as the intellection of real, objective truth. Pantheism destroys, also, all possibility of freedom by reducing all phenomena to a fatal, invincible necessity. A pantheist is bound to accept all the persecutions of the middle ages, all the definitions of the church, and the encyclical of the pope, as manifestations of God. Our godlike friends are too much like the wife of the Connecticut corporal, who replied to the query of her innocent offspring, "O ma! are we all corporals now?" with the haughty rejoinder, "No, indeed! only _your pa and I_." Mr. Vickers and the members of the free-thinking _coterie_ are not the only participators in the universal deity. If Mr. Vickers's brilliant exposition of the doctrine of the immaculate conception was a divine inspiration, Archbishop Purcell was equally moved by divine inspiration to the paternal castigation which he administers to his young and somewhat forward fellow-celestial. In fact, Mr. Vickers, the archbishop, the book containing their controversy, _The Catholic World_, ourselves, our readers, St. Thomas, Torquemada, Luther, Heidelberg University, and the Jesuits, are all one thing, or one nothing; a _Seyn_, or a _Werden_, or a _Nichtseyn_; all bubbles on the fathomless ocean of infinite--nonsense. {858} It is a wonder that Mr. Vickers lays so much to heart, and makes such a serious business out of that which has no reality. A nephew of the great German philosopher, Hegel, who was also a favorite pupil of Feuerbach, and who is now a devout Catholic, told us, some time ago, that he asked Feuerbach why philosophy was making no progress, but seemed to be at a stand-still. The latter replied, that they had already proved by philosophy the nothingness of everything, and it was, therefore, useless to push philosophy any further, adding, that it was time to go back to common sense. Such is the end of that lawless, intellectual activity which Mr. Vickers calls "free thought." It is like a head of steam that bursts its boiler, and is then dispersed in the circumambient atmosphere.

------

Memoirs and Letters of Jennie C. White--Del Bal.
By her mother, Rhoda E. White,
1 vol. royal 8vo, pp. 363. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1868.

We must presage our notice of this interesting book, by saying we have a dislike to memoirs written by fond and partial friends. Lives of the saints we love to read, but our digestion was early impaired by the memoirs of good children (who all died young) with which we were fed for Sunday food, and we have latterly been in the bad habit of turning away from a book labelled, _Memoirs of_, etc.

However, we read Jennie's life with interest; and it is a beautiful story, giving to the reader a delightful insight into a truly Catholic family, where the breath of piety permeates the daily walk of every member, mingling with and heightening the light-hearted pleasures peculiar to the seasons of childhood and youth. The tale of her courtship and marriage is told with a sweet and winning grace, which charms us by its naturalness. Quite unlike the prevailing spirit and sentiment of "Young America" is the history of the prompt obedience to the mandate of parental authority, in giving up their engagement. The accepted lover, a resident of Santiago, New Granada, had promised his aged father not to forsake his own country, and Jennie's father could not give his consent to the taking of his first-born to that far-off foreign land. After a struggle, they parted with aching hearts, released from their engagement; but the influence of the true woman in the mother reunited that broken bond.

Contrary to the fate of many American girls who go to foreign homes, Jennie's marriage was an exceedingly happy one. The secret is very plain--they were both earnest Catholics. Oneness in faith, and earnest-heartedness in that faith, are the best securities for happiness in married life. The sight of this happy young creature, leaving so fond a circle of friends, and such a home as Jennie left behind in New York, to go to a comparatively unknown land--a country distracted by revolutions, with churches closed and priests exiled--gives us a glowing picture of the self-sacrificing spirit of true love. Her journeys by land and by sea, before she reached her destination, were perilous indeed; and we could not but ask, Yankee-like, why such a refined and cultivated and intelligent people as those among whom her lot was cast should never have provided some more comfortable way of reaching their country. She was the first American lady there, and attracted much attention and admiration by her brave, active spirit, as well as by her large Catholic heart. Her letters to her home friends are lovely from their childlike simplicity and truthfulness; giving us glimpses of many homesick heartaches, even when she was decking herself for the dance. Sometimes there appears a little excess in her efforts to be gay, when she writes, "I danced every piece but one till five in the morning." Mrs. Del Bal went to New Granada at a time when the so-called "Liberals," under Mosquera, were in the ascendant, proclaiming a pretended religious liberty, of which some of the first acts were the disbanding of all religious communities, turning the sisters upon the world, shutting up the churches, banishing the priests, unless they took an oath whereby they would cease to be Catholics; in fact, Mosquera made himself pope. Professing to establish a government in which there should be no connection between church and state, the government framed this article for the twenty-third of their Constitution:

{859}

"In order to sustain the national sovereignty and to maintain public peace and security, the national government, and in some cases the state government, shall exercise the right of supreme inspection over all religious worships, as the law shall determine."

This is a law of liberty very like those the English Catholics enjoyed under Queen Elizabeth.

Mrs. Del Bal exerted herself to give the press at the North the true state of the case with regard to this matter, since the public papers have loudly lauded Mosquera and his government. How far she succeeded in influencing minds that swallow eagerly anything called "liberal," we are not told. Our friend Jennie was loyal to her heart's core, and never ceased to call herself and her husband American citizens; and her thorough celebration of the "glorious Fourth" was a complete success. American thrift and industry carried her through what would have been impossible to a New Granadian.

But it is Jennie's almost superhuman efforts to revive the faith in the land of her adoption which excite our wonder and admiration, even more than the tender breathings of her woman's heart, separated for ever from the earliest loved. She had everything to struggle against in her work; "deplorable ignorance among the lower classes, and the falling away from faith and duty in the educated;" and this in a land once hallowed by the daily sacrifice. Well might she call the country "God forsaken," when those who should have cared for the sheep became themselves grievous wolves devouring God's heritage. The secret of the country's desolation we may read in this sentence:

"It is a well-known fact to Protestant travellers and a wound
in the heart of the Catholic world, that the Catholic
priesthood in this part of the world and in the West India
Islands, scandalize the faithful. Why are they permitted to
remain in the church? is asked often by Protestant and
Catholic. Because they are sustained by a government which will
not acknowledge papal authority; and if the archbishop were to
remove them to-morrow, if need be, they would be reinstated by
the bayonet. Hence these scandals."

But we turn from this sad picture to our young friend. Working with all the ardor of a soul given to God, filled with the love of Christ, her prayers and labors brought forth abundant and immediate fruits; but not till that day when the Great Master shall make up his jewels will it be known how many were brought back to faith and duty by her efforts. The missionary spirit pervaded all her life, and we may believe that love for souls, in part, led her to give her consent to so sad and final a parting from her early home; for she laid her plans for these poor, neglected people before she left her father's roof. She found some pious, devoted women in Santiago, (where are they not found?) and she gave them work to do. Everything prospered in her hands: Sunday-schools, altar societies, associations of the Sacred Heart; and at last, through her instrumentality, the laws were repealed that closed the churches, the _Te Deum_ was sung, the sanctuary lamp was relighted, and 'la nina Jennie' was acknowledged, by the grateful people, as a public blessing God sent.

It is extremely touching to mark how, amid the constant terror of revolution, the wearing care of churches, hospitals, Sunday-schools, altar societies, plantations, and housekeeping, with a retinue of easy-going, lazy servants, she turns to entertain a dear friend with tales of her beloved parents, recalling the happy and united life at home, and then runs to console these absent ones by telling them, in her letters, with the artlessness of a child, that her husband must be good, since she is so happy with him, away from all she loved before! Only four years was she permitted to cheer the heart of her fond husband--only four years to lead the life of a devoted missionary in that desolate vineyard. The snapping of the chain by death that bound that household; the departure of her noble father--we may well believe-- coming upon a heart filled with care for the souls about her, lying in worse than heathen darkness, hastened her own death.

{860}

As we close the volume, we can not mourn for her nor for her dear family; it is a blessed privilege to have such a friend in heaven.

"Life is only bright when it proceedeth
Toward a truer, deeper life above:
Human love is sweetest when it leadeth
To a more divine and perfect love."

No, we mourn for Santiago, and pray our dear Lord to compassionate a country so piteously torn by revolutions, and abandoned by those who should be first to hear the cry that comes over the land to all Catholics, "Send us priests who have an apostolic spirit, good judgment, and tact!"

The publisher's portion of the work is well done. It is well printed on fine paper, and the binding is in keeping with the rest of the book. It is, in fact, the handsomest book Mr. Donahoe ever published, and we are glad to see so great an improvement in his book-making.

------

The Woman Blessed by all Generations; or,
Mary the Object of Veneration, Confidence, and
Imitation to all Christians.
By the Rev. Raphael Melia, D.D.
London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1868.
For sale at The Catholic Publication House, New York.

Dr. Melia is an Italian priest, residing in London; a man of solid learning, great zeal for the conversion of Protestants, and possessing a competent knowledge of the English language. His work is a comprehensive treatise on the dignity and office of the Blessed Virgin, and the reasons for the veneration and invocation of Mary practised in the church; to which is added a devotional treatise on the imitation of her virtues. The author goes thoroughly into the arguments from Scripture, tradition, reason, theology, and antiquities. His style is lively, popular, and somewhat diffuse, so that his learning is brought to the level of the understanding of ordinary readers, and his arguments made plain by ample and minute explanations. The book is also illustrated by _fac-similes_ from ancient works of art. It is a treasury of knowledge on the charming and delightful subject of which it treats, and both Catholics and Protestants who wish to gain thorough, solid information respecting the Catholic devotion to Mary, with ease and pleasure to themselves, will find this book to be the very one they are in need of. The author is entitled to the thanks of all English-speaking Catholics for this labor of love, and we trust that his excellent work may be the means of increasing and diffusing, both in England and America, that solid and fervent devotion to the Blessed Mother of God which is both the poetry and an integral part of the practical piety of our religion.

------

We have just received from Messrs. Murphy & Co., Baltimore, _The Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore_. _The Catholic World_, for August, contained an elaborate article on this work, written from an advance copy kindly furnished by Mr. Murphy. It is unnecessary to say anything more with regard to its contents, except to reiterate what was then said as to its external appearance. It is a handsome volume, finely printed on good paper, and bound in various styles and in the best manner known to the art of binding, and is a credit to the publisher. It is for sale at the Catholic Publication House, New York.

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