Chapter XX: 482 (7)

Mr. Coddington has published this volume in a superior manner, with clear, open type, on very thick and white paper, and adorned it with an engraved portrait of the beloved and venerable Pius IX. Once more we wish success to this timely and valuable series of lectures, and thank the reverend author in the name of the whole Catholic public for his noble championship of the dearest and most sacred of all causes--that of the Vicar of Christ.

ANTIDOTE TO “THE GATES AJAR.” By J. S. W. Tenth thousand. New York:
G. W. Carleton & Co. 1872.

Mr. Carleton appears to be convinced that “_de gustibus non est disputandum_” by a bookseller, but rather that provision is to be made for all tastes. On the back of this little pious pamphlet we find advertised _The Debatable Land_, by Robert Dale Owen; _The Seventh Vial_, containing, we conjecture, a strong dose, by Rev. John Cumming; _Mother Goose with Music_, by an ancient, anonymous author; _At Last_, a new novel, by Marian Harland, etc. The _Antidote_ is a rather weak and quite harmless dose, done up in pretty tinted paper. The writer naively asks, on p. 23: “Who would not like to fly away in the tail of a comet?”--a question which any little boy would answer in the affirmative, but cruelly dashes our hopes to the ground by telling us that “all this is mere conjecture.” Again, on p. 26, he gravely reasons thus: “As to families in heaven living in houses together, as if they were on earth, that is simply impossible. When children marry here, they leave their parents, and have homes of their own; their children do likewise, and so on _ad infinitum_. Those who would live together in heaven would be only husbands and wives and the unmarried children. And as to the married who are not all happily united here, are they to be tied together for ever whether they like each other or not?” The little pamphlet is concluded by two pieces of poetry, one of which is pretty good, the other one of those cantering hymns which are such favorites at the week-evening prayer-meeting:

“We sing of the realms of the blest,
That country so bright and so fair,
And oft are its glories confessed;
But what must it be to be there?”

The doctrine of Miss Phelps’s antagonist is more orthodox than hers, without doubt, so far as it goes, but it is presented in such a way as rather to provoke a smile than to convince or attract the mind of any one who is not already a pious Presbyterian. Our Presbyterian and other Evangelical friends contrive to make religion as sad and gloomy as a wet afternoon in the country. Even heaven itself has but small attractions for those who are not depressed in spirits, when described in the doleful strain which is supposed to be suitable to piety. Miss Phelps, as well as other members of the gifted and cultivated Stuart family, and many of similar character and education, revolted from the dismal system of Puritanism. She yearned after a brighter and more 573 beautiful religion, which has in it something else than the valley of the shadow of death. Her striving to realize this ideal produced _Gates Ajar_ and other similar works, whose immense popularity proves both her own power as a writer and also a widely-felt sympathy with the sentiments of her own mind. It is the Catholic theology alone which presents the true and complete doctrine respecting the beatific vision, the glorified humanity of Our Lord, Our Lady, and the saints, the angelic hierarchy, and the relation between the visible and invisible worlds; together with that element of the poetic and the marvellous after which the mind, the imagination, and the heart crave with an insatiable longing. We are tempted to close the present exercise, after the manner of the little book before us, with a few verses from an old hymn, written by one of the persecuted Catholics of Lancashire, at the close of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century. The whole hymn may be found in the _Month_ for September and October:

“Hierusalem, my happie home,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrowes have an end?
Thy ioyes when shall I see?

“Thy walls are made of precious stones,
Thy bulwarks diamonds square,
Thy gates are of right orient pearle,
Exceedinge riche and rare.

“Thy turrettes and thy pinnacles
With carbuncles doe shine;
Thy verie streets are paved with gould
Surpassinge cleare and fine.

“Thy houses are of ivorie,
Thy windoes cristale cleare,
Thy tyles are made of beaten gould
O God, that I were there!

“Thy gardens and thy gallant walkes
Continually are greene;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As noewhere else are seene.

“Quyt through the streetes with silver sound
The flood of life doth flowe,
Upon whose bankes on every syde
The wood of lyfe doth grow.

“Hierusalem, my happie home!
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy ioyes that I might see!”

THE PRISONERS OF ST. LAZARE. Edited by Mrs. Pauline de Grandprè.
Translated from the French by Mrs. E. M. McCarthy. New York:
Appleton & Co.

In this volume we have a rambling, desultory description of the prison of St. Lazare in Paris, and its inmates. It is a prison for women guilty of every variety of crime, and they are even incarcerated here on suspicion. But the majority of its occupants are women who have fallen from virtue more or less criminally. Two great unsolved questions of the age force themselves upon the attentive reader of this volume, filled with the pitiful tale of woman’s sin and shame: What can be done to succor unfortunates who have been ensnared and drawn away from the paths of virtue, and have a desire to return to an honest life; and what are the legitimate and proper employments of women outside of the family?

We are not competent to answer thoroughly either of these questions, which for many years have exercised the politician as well as the philanthropist; we can only express our opinion. We have no such place in this country as St. Lazare, but we have the abandoned women and their needs. Ah! that word abandoned expresses the state of the public mind toward those who have thus fallen; but the Catholic Christian cannot suffer any soul for whom Christ died to be abandoned, and the Catholic Church answers the first of these questions by opening her arms to the penitent, and offering her the refuge of “Houses of the Good Shepherd,” established in most of our large cities. By the support and multiplication of this order, whose lifework is to receive and help these poor children of sin, is the most effectual way in which Catholic women can reach the class in whose interest this book was written. We do not believe that women discharged from a prison like St. Lazare could be preserved from future danger in an institution 574 like the one proposed in the appendix to this volume. No place but a strictly religious house, in our opinion, could be a house of moral convalescence to these poor creatures. There is one way in which American Catholic women can lessen the number of these miserable outcasts. Watch over your servants, know where they spend their evenings, take them by the hand and give them loving, maternal advice as to their company, and endeavor to bring them often to confession and communion. The providence of God has committed these young girls to your care, and who knows but their souls may be required of you, negligent mistresses, in that day when we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ? With regard to the employments of women, should not women be allowed to do any honest business that they can do well? Many new openings have been made for her of late years in telegraphic and photographic offices and stores. But, after all, to touch the root of this matter, why should not woman be so trained that she could, in any emergency, have a resource and support herself? A great deal would be gained if children were brought up to feel that “it is working, and not having money, that makes people happy.” “It is a noteworthy fact,” says the author of _The Prisoners of St. Lazare_, “that three-quarters of the inmates are without knowledge of a trade or of any means of making a livelihood for themselves. The support of husband or father failing, then destitution followed, and then vice.”

PROPHETIC IMPERIALISM; or, The Prophetic Entail of Imperial Power.
By Joseph L. Lord, of the Boston Bar. New York: Hurd and Houghton.
1871.

Mr. Lord writes like a thorough gentleman, a point which we notice in this distinct and emphatic manner because it is a somewhat rare phenomenon in literature of this class. He writes, also, like a well-trained and cultivated scholar and thinker. It is, therefore, a pleasant task to read what he has written, more pleasant from the fact that his essay is a short one, and his thoughts are briefly as well as lucidly and elegantly set forth. Moreover, although a Boston lawyer, Mr. Lord really reverences the Holy Scriptures and believes the prophets. His spirit is pious and fervent, though sober, and he is alike free from cant and from unbelieving flippancy. The peculiar theory of Mr. Lord regarding the fulfilment of what we may call the imperial prophecies is not contrary to orthodox doctrine, and is in fact held by him in common with some Catholic writers, although diverse from the one held by the generality of sound interpreters. So far as all the empires preceding that of Christ are concerned, he agrees with the common interpretation. In respect to this last, he holds to a personal descent and earthly empire of our Lord. This is an hypothesis which, in our eyes, has no probability whatever. It is not wonderful, however, that a person who does not see the earthly empire of Christ in the reign and triumph of his Vicar and the Roman Church, should be driven to look for a personal descent and reign of the Lord in the latter times. In this respect, Mr. Lord agrees with a number of eminent Protestant writers, who, being disgusted with the fruits of the Reformation, and not so happy as to see the glories of the Catholic Church, fly for consolation to this brilliant but, as we think, baseless hypothesis.

Mr. Lord differs from most American Protestants in the very disrespectful esteem in which he holds democracy. It is curious to observe the very enthusiastic and adulatory language in which a number of divines express their conviction of the truth of his theory, imperialistic as it is from top to bottom. They withhold their names, 575 however, from a motive of prudence. Mr. Lord’s arguments have not convinced us that his theory is correct, but they prove their author to be worthy of esteem.

EAST AND WEST POEMS. By Bret Harte. Boston: James R. Osgood &
Company (late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood & Co.). 1871.

Many of those who have enjoyed Bret Harte’s fugitive pieces have felt a vague suspicion that the word poetry was scarcely adequate to express their character. The sketches from nature have been unquestionably graphic, and, in some cases, not devoid of real humor or pathos--all which has led to their being considered by many as evidences of genius capable by its touch of ennobling humble and insignificant subjects. The volumes, however, which have succeeded one another since Mr. Harte has left California, persuade us that he not only calls his rhymes poetry, but sincerely believes them to be such, and takes for granted that everybody who knows anything at all agrees perfectly with him. We fear that there has been a mistake somewhere. Either the public have been betrayed into an incautious endorsement of the author’s opinion of his own work, or the author has mistaken the character of the sensation which he has created.

He seems to be just as eager as ever in his efforts to astonish the world; and we know not how many more volumes of “poems” we may expect before the public and he come to an understanding. For our own part, the present is just one more than we are prepared to welcome. In spite of kindly dispositions, we are painfully impressed with the fact that the mistake we have alluded to lies with the author. We are also unpleasantly relieved from a doubt as to whether the character of his doggerel is, in all cases, due to the subject, and forced to conclude that there is a congeniality between the writer and his themes which is the secret of his success. We wish him well, and none the less in desiring space wherein to administer to the present volume the castigation which it deserves. In so doing, we would not deny him a certain amount of genuine talent, such as is shown in certain places in the “Greyport Legend” (pp. 7-10), or the “Lines on a Pen of Thomas Starr King” (pp. 65,66), or “A Second Review of the Grand Army” (pp. 95-99); nor would we be disposed to carp at a certain slovenliness which mars the beauty of other serious poems, but which did not detract from their merit on the occasions for which they were written--as was the case with the “Address” (pp. 78-81), and the poem of the “Lost Galleon” (pp. 82-93)--the latter, if we mistake not, having been composed for a social reunion of the Alumni of the Pacific Coast. But nothing could induce us to excuse the reckless vulgarity displayed in such pieces as “A White Pine Ballad” (p. 155); “In the Mission Garden” (p. 21). There is also enough nonsense in such lines as the “California Madrigal” (p. 127), “A Moral Vindicator” (p. 165), _et alibi passim_, to make the deliberate addition of “Songs without Sense” (p. 168), unwarrantably superfluous.

The author is not sufficiently aware of the distinction between coarseness and originality, or else prefers notoriety to fame. We cannot consent to the admission of his book into respectable libraries or drawing-room bookstands, still less to a place in American literature. If he should ever recognize and prune his defects, and cultivate a little more respect for those for whom he writes, as well as love for the purity of the idiom in which he deals, we shall be happy to give him that praise which would be at present most unmerited and inopportune.

SERMONS BY THE FATHERS OF THE CONGREGATION OF ST. PAUL. Vol. VI. New 576
York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1871.

For obvious reasons, we have taken occasion to speak of this volume without the knowledge of the responsible editor. The great pressure on our columns this month, which has compelled the omission of several valuable articles already in type, will not permit, however, more than a passing notice. We have always considered these annual volumes as models of wise, simple, and earnest instruction, and see no reason to change our opinion in the present instance. Indeed, there is, perhaps, increased reason, during these troublous times, to admire the bravery with which our Paulist Fathers meet the various questions demanding solution, and we therefore take pleasure in commending the work to the attention of all interested in homiletic literature. C.

TO AND FROM THE PASSION PLAY, IN THE SUMMER OF 1871. By the Rev. G.
H. Doane. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

This elegant volume contains not only an accurate description of the Passion Play--a spectacle to which, of course, none but a Catholic can do justice--but also a great deal of interesting matter about a number of things and places that the author saw on his journeys to and fro. As regards Paris, we have a sketch of some of the deeds of the Commune, and, in particular, the murder of the late archbishop.

It is worthy of remark that, when Father Doane describes whether a place or an incident, he avoids that elaboration and artifice which pall upon the reader in many books of travel, and gives us his thoughts and impressions in an easy and happy style. We congratulate him on his literary efforts; and thank him cordially for affording us so much valuable information in so pleasant a manner.

The “Catholic Publication Society” has in press, and will publish immediately, _The Pastoral Address of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland on the School Question_. It will be got out in a 12mo pamphlet, and will be sold for $3 per 100 copies.

The “Catholic Publication Society” will also publish, early in January, _The Liquefaction of the Blood of St. Januarius_; _Lentent Sermons_, from the Italian of Rev. Paul Segneri, S. J.; and _Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects_, Vol. II., by Archbishop Manning.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., New York: The Holy Bible according to
the Authorized Version (A.D. 1611), with an explanatory and
critical commentary, and revision of the Translation, by Bishops
and other Clergy of the Anglican Church. Edited by F. C. Cook,
M.A., Canon of Exeter. Vol. I., Part I. Genesis-Exodus. 8vo, pp.
xii., 928.

From HURD & HOUGHTON, New York: The Last Knight: A Romance-Garland,
from the German of Anastasius Grün. Translated with Notes by John
O. Sargent. 8vo, pp. vi., 200.--The Church Idea: An Essay toward
Unity. By Wm. R. Huntington, Rector of All Saints’, Worcester.
12mo, pp. 235.

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: Songs of the Sierras. By Joaquin
Miller. 12mo, pp. 299.

From CARLTON & LANAHAN, New York: The Mission of the Spirit; or, The
Office and Work of the Comforter in Human Redemption. By Rev. L. R.
Dunn. 12mo, pp. 303.

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT, Philadelphia: The Resurrection of the
Redeemed; and Hades. By James Boggs. 12mo, pp. 145, 69.

From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York: Art in Greece. By H. Taine.
Translated by John Durand. 12mo, pp. 188.

From PATRICK DONAHOE, Boston: The Four Great Evils of the Day. By
Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. 18mo. pp. 207.--Review of
a “Treatise on Infant Baptism” by Thos. H. Pritchard, D.D. Part I.
By Rev. J. V. McNamara, Pastor of St. John’s Roman Catholic
Church, Raleigh, N.C. Paper, pp. 46.

From ROBERT CLARKE & CO., Cincinnati: Who is the Pope? And Who is
Pius IX. among the Popes? By F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. Paper,
pp. 15.

From THE FREE PRESS ASSOCIATION, New York: Appeal to the People of
the State of New York, adopted by the Executive Committee of
Citizens and Taxpayers for the Financial Reform of the City and
County of New York, etc. Paper, pp. 16.

From D. APPLETON & CO., New York: Philosophy of Style: An Essay. By
Herbert Spencer, author of “First Principles of Philosophy,” etc.
Pp. 55.

International Congress on the Prevention and Repression of Crime,
including Penal and Reformatory Treatment. By E. C. Wines, LL.D.,
Commissioner of the United States. Paper, pp. 28.

THE 577

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XIV., No. 83.--FEBRUARY, 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
REV. S. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C.

THE DUTIES OF THE RICH IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

NO. I.

IN REFERENCE TO COMMUNISM.

Under the foregoing title, we propose to present to the careful attention of the wealthy class of American citizens a series of essays on some topics which concern them very nearly. We intend to make each one short, that it may be easily read, and that the reader who is interested in the matters we discuss may have time to think over each topic by itself. We address them principally to Catholics, and shall, therefore, always take for granted and appeal to Catholic principles and doctrines. Yet we are convinced that others not Catholics will find a great deal in them which they must acknowledge to be true, and likely to do them good, if they are at all earnest and conscientious.

Since we expect to say some things to the rich, and to those who are by other advantages besides wealth in an elevated social position, which will be severe, and perhaps to some unpalatable, we may as well begin by placing a guard against a possible misunderstanding of our intent. No careful reader of our magazine can suppose that we would sympathize with or encourage any movement hostile to the just rights or reasonable privileges of the wealthy class. Moreover, we cherish a deep respect for all the hierarchical institutions of the political and social order, as well as for their more sacred and elevated counterparts in the ecclesiastical system. We recognize the necessity, even in our republican commonwealth, of a certain elevated social class, in which men of wealth must unavoidably have an eminent position. Whatever we have which can check our ultra-democratic tendencies, infuse a conservative spirit into our public opinion, give dignity, decorum, and stability to our institutions, elevate and refine our social tone, and add a becoming splendor to our civilization, calls forth our sympathies, and receives our deliberate and reasoned approbation. Whatever censures, therefore, we may pronounce upon the vices, follies, and delinquencies of the rich and 578 the otherwise highly placed in social rank, and whatever admonitions we may address to them respecting the duties and dangers of their position, must be taken as coming from a friend, not only to themselves as individuals, but to their class. With these preliminaries, we address ourselves to our task.

We have placed the title “In Reference to Communism” at the head of our first article for one special reason. Communism threatens the wealthy class with a war of extermination. It is obvious, therefore, that the rich have more need to reflect on the duties and dangers of their position, at the present time, than they have ever had before. So, then, we call their attention at the outset to the war which the fanatics of revolution are preparing for them, in order that our words may have more weight, and that they may give more serious thought to the subjects we intend to discuss with them. And here we will explain that we employ the single terms “rich,” “rich people,” etc., for convenience’ sake, including under this designation other qualifications besides moneyed wealth, and other persons besides those who possess great fortunes; namely, all those who possess any species of privilege or power which gives them social dignity and influence.

We say, then, to the rich: your class, your privileges, your possessions, your lives, are threatened by an enemy whose character is disclosed by the bloody orgies of the Paris Commune. What application do we make of this grave and alarming fact? Simply this. The rich members of society ought to reflect seriously on all the questions which relate to their position in the commonwealth. They ought to think of their duties, to examine their own delinquencies, to consider the line of conduct they ought to adopt, to use their power and influence rightly and rationally, to educate their children carefully, and in every way to prevent and defeat the nefarious plots of the party of revolution. We say, earnestly and emphatically, that there is now a special necessity and obligation to use wealth, education, intellectual power, social influence, political power, moral and religious force, to avert the dangers which threaten society, and to promote its solid and firm establishment on a right basis. Moreover, the self-interest of the rich demands this of them most imperatively. All their private and personal interests depend on the peace and good order of society. Their own safety demands of them that they should work for the salvation of political and social order, when they are in danger, just as they would bear a hand at the pumps on board a leaking ship, or man the batteries of their own beleaguered city. Hostility between the wealthy and the laborious classes is a great evil in society. When the hostility of the masses against the aristocracy becomes violent, and tends to produce a revolution and an exterminating war of the former against the latter, there is a deadly sickness in the body politic which threatens its dissolution. This state of things exists at present in Christendom. We are not so deeply affected as yet in this country; but we are not altogether sound or safe from the infection, and there is reason enough to be on the alert to protect ourselves from it. The rich have duties toward society in general, and toward its several classes and individuals in particular. And they have, at the present time and in present circumstances, a special obligation to give these duties careful attention.

All this would he strictly true and sufficient to arouse the rich to a 579 greater vigilance in fulfilling the duties of their high position, even if they were free from blame, as a class, for the disorders and evils of modern society; but, if they are chiefly to blame for these evils through their past neglect and delinquency, there is an additional and imperative motive in this fact for a strenuous effort on their part to repair the past in the present and the future by a redoubled fidelity and energy. We think they are to blame. It is our deliberate judgment that communism, and the whole mass of social disorders which have lately come to the surface of the body politic under this loathsome and deadly form, are principally to be traced to the abuse of power and wealth by the governing classes. Kings, nobles, rich men, authors, politicians, have, in part by their gross abuse of the trust committed to them, and in part by their neglect and indifference, generated the moral _petroleum_ to which demagogues and leaders of revolution, the Mazzinis, Garibaldis, Karl Marxes, Dombrowskis, and Raoul Rigaults, have applied the torch. There have been many great and good things done by kings, and by the members of the political, social, and intellectual aristocracy. There have been many admirable and excellent persons, many heroes and saints, among these elevated classes in society. Nevertheless, on the whole, they have been, especially for the past three centuries, grievously delinquent, and continually becoming worse; and even more extensively delinquent by neglect than by positive criminality. The greatest part of the miseries and crimes which darken the annals of history may be traced to kings and their associates in government. Their ambition, their selfish policy, their unjust or unnecessary wars, their disregard of the happiness of the common people, their haughtiness of demeanor, their personal vices and corrupting example, have been the fruitful causes of misery and vice among their subjects. They have reacted against themselves by producing hatred and contempt of thrones and kings, of authority and government. The aristocracy have followed closely the royal example set before them. And the men of genius and intellectual culture, the princes and rich men of the realm of arts and letters, since the fatal epoch of the _renaissance_ of paganism, have prostituted their heaven-born gifts to the service of every destructive error and every corrupting vice. The greater number of those who have not positively aided the work of ruin have been apathetic and indifferent, and have not positively aided the work of salvation, at least with the zeal and energy which might justly be expected from them.

Moreover, kings, nobles, and the wealthy class have made war on the church. They have revolted against the Holy See, enslaved the hierarchy and the clergy, and despoiled the church.

They have robbed and well-nigh suppressed the monastic orders. In this way, they have sapped and undermined the foundations of their own stability; for it is the principle of religious obedience and reverence, first of all toward God, and then secondarily toward all powers established and sanctioned by the law of God, which is the source of the sentiment of loyalty. The rebellion of the state against the church must, therefore, terminate in the rebellion of the lower against the higher classes in the state. The monastic institution was the strongest of all links between rich and poor, great and humble, by reason of the fact that its members belonged to both classes at the same time. The destruction of monasticism, therefore, resulted 580 necessarily in a hostility of these two classes toward each other. So it has come about that the aristocracy, excited by kings against the church, turned next against the kings, the commercial and middle classes turned against the aristocracy, and now the masses are turning against the men of wealth, or, as their own leaders express it, against “the supremacy of cash.” The condition of the laboring classes is, at best, in many respects a hard one. It is a great and an arduous thing which is required of them; to submit patiently to the supremacy of the higher classes. Religion alone makes their position tolerable; religion, binding together both the superior and the inferior classes in divine love. The hierarchy and the aristocracy must be recognized by the people as holding their high position for the common good of all, and as working with a self-denial equal or superior to their own; that is, as really _laborers_ in another sphere of action, but with a common end in view, in order that they may contentedly acquiesce in the inequality of rank, wealth, and social privileges which prevails in society. So soon as the people are convinced, whether wrongly or rightly, that the privileges of their spiritual or temporal superiors are mere privileges of a caste, which despises, rules, and taxes the people for its own selfish aggrandizement and pleasure, they begin to hate them with a deadly hatred. The Catholic people are content that the Pope govern, rebuke, and punish them; that he possess the wealth and splendor of a spiritual and temporal sovereign; that he reign as the vicegerent of God on earth--because they believe that all this is for their own highest good. They are content that bishops and priests possess all the honors and privileges of their office, and willing to sustain them in these, for the same reason. Take away this belief, and it is not long before they begin not only to withhold their contributions, to withdraw their allegiance, to refuse obedience, to lose respect and love for their spiritual superiors, but to cry out for their overthrow and even clamor for their blood. It is the same in respect to the secular privileged classes. And, at the present moment, since the greatest amount of external and material privilege, splendor, and worldly good in general has passed into the hands of the wealthy class, it is this class which is most immediately exposed to the brunt of the attack which is directed against caste and privilege. We will quote the language of one of the official organs of the International Society, the _Egalité_ of Geneva, in order to show with the utmost clearness what is their spirit and aim:

“When the social revolution shall have dispossessed the
_bourgeoisie_, in the interests of public utility, as the
_bourgeoisie_ dispossessed the nobles and the clergy, what will
become of them?

“We cannot answer with positive certainty, but it is probable
that the new order of things will give them, to borrow an
expression from one of our friends, an infinitely more precious
wealth, that of labor, well paid, at their discretion; so that
they may be no longer obliged to live by the labor of others, as
they have hitherto lived. In case some of them should be
incapable of labor, which will happen to a good many, seeing that
_hitherto they have never learned the use of their ten fingers,
what then_? Well, then they will be given tickets for soup.

“‘But that is too little,’ the _bourgeois_ will howl.

“‘Too little!’ the workman will reply--‘too little to have work,
at your discretion, well paid, and soup for the invalids! The
deuce! You are hard to please. We could have been well satisfied
with such terms formerly.’”[119]

This is the unavoidable conclusion, and the practical as well as 581 unavoidable conclusion, to which the whole mass of the people must come, unless they are convinced that the rich labor more usefully for the common good, and for the good of the poor, by means of their wealth with its attendant privileges, than they would by manual labor. They cannot be convinced of this, unless rich and poor alike recognize the truth of religious and Christian principles, and act on them practically. On the materialistic, anti-theistic ground, you cannot get a foothold against communism. It is all a waste of words to show that civilization, art and science, social and political splendor, national greatness, etc., require the concentration of wealth in a few hands. What does the poor man care for these, if this life is all, material good the _summum bonum_, and he himself miserable? His condition becomes insupportable, and he would rather burn the world with petroleum than bear it. It is very true that his desperate efforts will make his condition far worse. But he will not listen to you when you try to prove this to him, and, if you should even convince him, you would only render him more desperate. He must believe that he is under the government of God, that he has been redeemed by Christ, that heaven is opened to him by faith, that this world is a place for gaining merit by labor and suffering, that the difference in rank, wealth, and privilege is ordered by God for the good of all and every one, if he is to be contented with his lot. For him is the Pope, the bishop, the priest, the splendid church, the glittering vestments and chalices. For him, too, is government, for him is commerce and trade, for him science and art, for him are some men rich. The church and the state are necessary for his good, and both church and state have need of men in whose hands wealth and power are deposited.

If the people are to be convinced of this, they must see that their spiritual and temporal superiors are convinced of it, and act accordingly. The rich as well as the poor must act on Christian principles--act as men who have a trust committed to them for the common good. They must, in a word, be zealous _laborers_ in their own sphere. And it is especially incumbent on them, at the present time, to do everything possible to ameliorate and elevate the condition of that class of society who are not merely doomed to a life of manual labor, but to a life of misery and degradation. The people have been taught that they possess political sovereignty, and universal suffrage has given them the right and power to exercise it. Can they be expected, then, to remain content for ever with a sovereignty which is united with a state of social abjectness and misery? Is it safe or prudent to neglect, despise, or insult them; or to swindle them and defraud them of their rights, and at the same time to flaunt before their eyes the gaudy insignia of what they believe to be ill-gotten wealth? Especially when we consider that they read the newspaper every day. We leave it to our rich merchants and our educated men to think over and answer to themselves these questions.

For ourselves, we are convinced that the only safety for the wealthy class, and for society, is to be found in a return to purely Christian and Catholic principles. And we shall proceed to give our views more definitely and in detail upon the part which devolves on the rich in this work of social regeneration, in our future articles.

[119] See the _Dublin Review_, Oct., p. 459.

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THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 582