Chapter XL: Part I: Awakening (4)

“Ah! if there is a purgatory,” she often said, “I am enduring mine here. What has been my sin more than another’s, that this should be thrust upon me!” And at these times the tone of her voice and the expression of her face showed the impatient, unchastened fire of the haughty, rebellious spirit.

But had she none of the consolations of religion? Protestants are not pagans. No, indeed. This lady had her books of devotion in profusion. Her elegant Book of Common Prayer and her Bible lay always at hand. Other books also were on her table--“Counsel for the Sick-Room,” and kindred works, of which she contemptuously remarked that they were written by persons in good health, who found it very easy to bear patiently the pains and crosses of other people, but who might possibly not be such fine Christian philosophers if they had to endure all this themselves.

In her palmy days of health and strength she had been a communicant in the Episcopal Church, and now, when, according to the teaching of that church, she needed still more the nourishment for her soul’s health, she declined availing herself of the privilege. This always seemed to me very strange, knowing full well as I did what her church taught her, and what in all consistency she should do. But on this topic my lips were closed. Her pastor was a timid young man, who visited her at intervals, but who was afraid to urge anything upon her which she seemed not to wish. I found from her own and others’ conversation concerning him that he regarded his highest duty to his flock to be that of preaching to them, and their highest duty to come to church and listen to him. To give him as little trouble as possible, and leave him as much time to himself as they could, was to make themselves agreeable parishioners. He delighted in having certain enthusiastic and well-disposed ladies conduct Sunday-schools, societies, charities, visiting of the sick, and all other troublesome matters; thereby relieving him of all need to bother himself and take his thoughts from the fine sermons which he delighted to elaborate in his study. His wife and children claimed much of his attention, and through them society had its demands on him. In short, he liked to be very comfortable, and much money “donated” by good and kind people went to put him and his family in the enjoyment of ease and refinement, which money might, I often thought, have helped to build schools and charities. I, however, cared for the success of this reverend gentleman’s ministrations only as they affected my friend Miss Etheridge. I think he regarded me with distrust and disfavor. He always spoke of me as a _pervert_ and _Romanist_, but as he was a thorough gentleman, and as Miss Etheridge was a lady who always had her own way accorded her, no unpleasant collision ever occurred between us. I was one who never listened to his preaching, and therefore was uninteresting to him, except as I might influence one of his fold. Seeing no signs of this dire result of my intimacy, he accepted it passively as one of the circumstances which he must submit to, if not approve.

One day I was returning from Miss Etheridge’s house, when I met two Sisters of Charity, just about entering a poor, low dwelling not far from the rich one I had just left. Having a slight acquaintance with the sisters, I stopped to exchange a few words with them, and to ask what was their mission of mercy in this abode.

“Oh! we are going in to see poor Mrs. McGowan,” said one of them. “Her time passes very tediously at the best, and she likes to have us come and read to her. Will you go in and see her?”

“What is the matter with her, sister?” I asked, as I turned in at the gate, responding to the invitation.

“Chronic rheumatism,” said Sister Francina--“the saddest case! so helpless and so lonely as she is! She has had it five years, growing worse all the time.”

And now we were at the door of this victim of the terrible tyrant whose power I had witnessed in the house of her rich neighbor. I need not say how interested I was at once.

Poor, ignorant, Irish, and childless was Mrs. McGowan--but a Catholic. Very mean were all her surroundings, but very decent and cleanly. She was a woman but little older than Miss Etheridge, and in some respects not unlike her. Education and high breeding and polish were lacking, but some look in her face and complexion, and especially in the poor twisted hands, constantly reminded me of my friend. Here the silver-gray hair was almost covered by the hideous wide-frilled cap which elderly Irish women consider so decorous. Her plain dark cotton gown presented a contrast to the rich massive folds of Miss Etheridge’s heavy silk robe. No high, carved, cushioned chair supported her, but she sat on the side of her bed, with her hands patiently folded in her lap. Miss Etheridge always had her maid within call.

Bright-eyed, rosy Maggie Maloney I see her now, tenderly brushing a fly from her mistress’ forehead, or fanning her, or handing her books, a handkerchief, glass of water, or whatever else was required. But here, from morning till night sat poor Mrs. McGowan, depending for all such little offices on the kindness of her humble neighbors and their children. Her husband was a poor mechanic, who left her every morning after assisting her to dress, and lifting her from her bed to the seat by the bedside. After this, a kind woman, her nearest neighbor, performed all the services necessary for her.

And so her weary hours passed. Equally helpless with Miss Etheridge, how very different were her surroundings! No fine pictures upon which to rest her weary eyes hung upon these walls. Here only a low ceiling and bare walls, with one small window from which she gazed, seeing what she might of the passers-by. No maid to obey her slightest demand; no exquisite music-boxes, to the low, sweet tinkling notes of which she might listen; no birds, pictures, books, flowers, fine furniture, hangings, and carpets contributed what they might to soften _her_ hard lot. Poor Mrs. McGowan had none of these. Bare, cold, hard, and pitiless seemed her position, and yet she appeared to me the happier woman of the two. A serene contentment and cheerful acceptance of God’s will seemed to sustain her. Miss Etheridge was surrounded by relatives who vied with each other in their attentions to her, and were devoured by jealousy of each other as her favor inclined capriciously, sometimes to one, sometimes to another. Indeed, I often thought this lady could not really tell between them all what was done for love of her and what for interested motives, she having a fortune to bestow as she pleased. Mrs. McGowan also had her relatives, but they were hard-working people, nieces and cousins who lived at service, and who came to see her at intervals of time and stayed as long as they could be spared. Stout men would lend their strong arms occasionally to carry her to some other part of her little dwelling. This was all the change of scene she had been able to obtain for years.

The similarity and dissimilarity in the lot of these two women chained my attention. My interest in the one increased my interest in the other, and I was thus led to compare their different ways of bearing their sufferings.

I could not help seeing that Mrs. McGowan was the happier of the two, despite her poverty. Why was this? I could not think it entirely proceeded from a more cheerful temperament, because Miss Etheridge was far from being a morose or despondent woman. But Mrs. McGowan performed to the best of her ability all her religious duties. Regularly her parish priest came to her to hear her confession and administer to her the Blessed Sacrament. To all of us comes a time in our lives when we feel the need of something more than our own or any human support, and such aid from above this humble sufferer accepted in simple, childlike faith and trust, while her proud sister-in-need disdained to receive it. No wonder that one was stronger to bear her heavy affliction than the other. Of what avail was Miss Etheridge’s superior education and cultivation to loosen or lighten her “chains”? They clasped her quite as closely and pitilessly as those of her ignorant neighbor. And while Christ himself was the soul’s health of the one, only a cold, bare formula of religious observance was offered to the other.

I longed to bring Miss Etheridge to the sense of this, so plain to myself. But hesitating always in my sensitiveness as to how my motives might be construed, I mused long upon the best way of introducing the subject. I at last concluded to get her to pass Mrs. McGowan’s door in my company. This was very naturally and easily accomplished, and I, walking by her side, told her of Mrs. McGowan, and pointed out her little dwelling. Mrs. Etheridge was interested at once, and, stopping her carriage by the gate, I went in, and told Mrs. McGowan to look out of the window at her guest. She already knew of Miss Etheridge and her affliction, and, with the keen, quick sympathy of her race, responded at once to the demand upon her. I felt the tears come up to my eyes so involuntarily and uncontrollably, that I stepped back so that Miss Etheridge might not perceive my agitation. It was touching to see these two, so far removed in social position, so near in a common suffering, talking of their feelings to each other. Miss Etheridge never forgot her dignity for an instant, and Mrs. McGowan, who had been a servant in her youth, did not presume, but acknowledged by her manner her appreciation of the superiority of her visitor, and yet with delicate tact tendered her pity and sympathy. Through the open window her voice came kindly, and her face looked cheerfully to Miss Etheridge, who was able to perceive also how homely and mean were all the surroundings of her fellow-sufferer.

“You are better cared for than I am, ma’am, and likely you will last longer; but sure, my pains would be as great in a palace as they are here. It is the Lord’s will, and I must be content.”

“May the good Lord help you, and me too,” said Miss Etheridge. Her proud face softened with a tender pity, and her voice had a tremulous vibration in it, as of some hidden chord in her heart stirred now, perhaps, for the first time. She seemed very thoughtful and silent on our way back, and I thought she was more patient with her attendants as she was lifted out of her carriage and placed in her usual chair.

After this she sent or carried to Mrs. McGowan many presents of little delicacies and comforts, and the gratitude which the poor woman freely expressed seemed to please Miss Etheridge more than anything else. It became a hobby with her to contrive some new comfort and pleasure for Mrs. McGowan.

“Ah! ma’am,” said the poor soul, “an’ what can the likes of me do for you? I have nothing to give you but my prayers,” which I doubt not she did give in no scant measure. I often thought that she enlisted powerful intercessions in behalf of Miss Etheridge which that lady would not have secured for herself.

One day, as we stopped by the little window, the sweet face of Sister Francina looked out at us. I glanced quickly at Miss Etheridge, but that high-bred lady showed no prejudice, whatever she might feel. She was looking kindly and courteously, bowing her head to the sister, even before I could speak the words of introduction. The sister, led on by Miss Etheridge’s cordial manner, and her sincere interest in one of whom she had heard so much, held quite a sprightly conversation with us. She spoke of the frequency of her visits to Mrs. McGowan, and praised the poor woman’s uniform patience and cheerfulness and piety.

A few days after this, I was astonished by Miss Etheridge asking me if it would be against rule for Sister Francina to visit her. I replied, “As you are an invalid, I think not.” Then Miss Etheridge asked me if I thought I could not induce her to come. “I will try,” I replied.

“I wish it,” she said--“I wish it very much. I think I may have the few comforts I can enjoy, and I _will_.”

This was uttered in a tone of such decision and defiance that I almost felt that I myself was supposed to oppose her in the matter. But the tone was really against the bitter opposition she knew she was courting, both for herself and me, from her anxious and affectionate relatives. The having of her own way and asserting herself on any subject, only added a spice to her enjoyment of what she attained, but it placed me in an awkward position toward her family. I knew that it would seem to them that I had urged this visit of Sister Francina, or at least brought it about by more direct means than was really the case. True, I was the instrument, but Miss Etheridge used me more voluntarily than they would believe. I did not like to be regarded in the light in which I was sure I would be viewed--as an undermining and scheming emissary of Rome. But, on the other hand, I did not like to be cowardly in refusing to procure for Miss Etheridge so very innocent a pleasure. If she were merely whimsical in her wish to have the sister visit her, still, why not let her be indulged? It was the sister’s mission to visit the afflicted, and here was an appeal to her charity, and to mine too. So I plucked up my courage, which was backed up by my affection for Miss Etheridge, and soon brought Sister Francina to her. It was as we anticipated. The family were up in arms about this visit. One would have supposed that I had brought a wolf, or “roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour,” to Miss Etheridge, instead of meek, gentle, innocent Sister Francina, strong only in her holy faith. But if no one else was brave, Miss Etheridge certainly was. She expressed herself so pleased at the sister’s visit, that she asked it as a personal favor and charity to herself that the sister would come often. With great delicacy, the sister was urged to accept a generous gift for the mission in which she was engaged. And Sister Francina did come; not very often--Miss Etheridge and her family could not think she presumed upon the encouragement she received--but still often enough to endear herself to Miss Etheridge more and more. The family were rampant, but powerless. Still Miss Etheridge chose to have me walk by her carriage. Still she would go and talk to Mrs. McGowan, and, doing so, she met at last Father B----. He was going in at the gate just as we, from an opposite direction, came around the corner of the house. I knew him at once, and told Miss Etheridge, asking if we should go on, which I supposed she would prefer. I was surprised at her expressing her intention to stop. She had in her lap a basket of fruit which she wished to leave for Mrs. McGowan, and, “if the priest would not object to her, she certainly would not shun him.”

Father B---- was a convert himself from the Anglican ranks. He bore about him all the genial _bonhomie_, the polished bearing, and gentle dignity which is characteristic of that class of Protestant clergy. Miss Etheridge had never been personally acquainted with him, but, having heard him preach in the bygone days when she went to church and his eloquence charmed Protestant audiences, she retained still a curiosity, if nothing more, concerning him. This at least was no stern-browed ascetic with the odor of a sanctity she could not appreciate about him, but a kindly, social gentleman, with many little points of sympathy whereon to begin an acquaintance. Father B----, seeing no repulse, readily responded to Miss Etheridge’s overtures of good-will. She certainly found her mind disabused of many previous notions of this priest at least. On the whole, I felt glad of the meeting. It thawed some remaining reserve on our part in discussing the differences between us in faith. I told her frankly how I had been led, step by step, into the fold wherein I now rejoiced to be. How my first dissatisfaction in the Episcopal Church had arisen from witnessing the utter inability of the pastor to withstand lay interference in matters which belonged exclusively to the clergy. How two wardens in open enmity still partook of the sacrament, in defiance of the rubric which bears upon the case, and which the rector never dared to enforce. How I had heard such various teaching and explaining of the creed, services, articles of religion, and everything appertaining to the whole system, that it seemed to me like the confusion of tongues “worse confounded.” That the desire to embrace in the Anglican fold such opposing elements as Calvinism on the one hand, and pure, “primitive,” and mediæval Christianity on the other--to be Ritualistic and Evangelical at the same time, worked such mischief and rebellion that I had longed for some authority, some utterance which had the ring of the true metal, and some fold wherein I might be _at rest_.

Miss Etheridge listened very patiently, very thoughtfully. I hardly expected so little opposition to all I said. She granted the force of my objections, but wondered at my being able to acquiesce in all which I had now accepted. I replied that perhaps what I had accepted would not seem to her so very unreasonable if she came to examine and understand it as I did; that nothing dispelled prejudice like an acquaintance with and analysis of the objectionable subjects; that the effect was frequently like that produced by examining some supposed spectre which has frightened us in the dark, and which we find to be only an innocent optical illusion.

After this, I refrained from obtruding any more of my religious views upon Miss Etheridge, until one day when she asked me to read _Morte d’Arthur_ to her, and I came upon the passage:

“Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”

I remarked that Tennyson had, with a poet’s insight, spoken like a true Catholic. Miss Etheridge denied that it was Tennyson’s own belief advanced, but only that of King Arthur, the words being put into his mouth by the poet as fitting for him, the same as any writer would make any Catholic speak, or as he might put very evil words into the mouth of a blasphemer.

“True,” I said; “but while an author must make his characters speak according to their supposed faith, he is not obliged to give such forcible words to them in opposition to his own private belief. He is hardly likely to do so. He may screen himself behind his characters, or he may betray himself through them. We may guess at his own leanings more or less accurately, and he may contradict himself. Here certainly the poet seems in favor of prayers for the dead.”

“But is it prayer for the _dead_ Arthur, after all?” said she. “Was he not only going away ‘to the island-valley of Avilion?’”

“Tennyson has named the poem _Morte d’Arthur_, and it is so accepted and understood,” I replied.

She acquiesced in this, but still opposed with true Protestant unbelief and persistency the idea that any good could come from prayers for the dead.

I told her that, even while I had been a Protestant, this had always seemed to me a tender and affectionate practice of Catholics to try to reach and help those on the other side of the grave, and that, even if it were unavailing, it was at least harmless, and I could never understand why it should be denounced as wicked. That it benefited the souls of those who prayed, at least, if not those for whom they prayed.

“My dear Miss Etheridge,” said I, “is the thought that I might pray for the repose of your soul after your death offensive to you now in life?”

She was silent only a moment. That she could be the object of such prayer was probably then presented to her mind for the first time, and startled her somewhat. Then she said:

“Why, no; certainly not. I cannot but regard it as a kind and loving thing to do, even if a useless one.”

“But you would not do as much for me,” I rejoined.

“Ah,” she said evasively, “you will not be neglected; be sure of that.”

Only about a week after this we heard that Mrs. McGowan was ill. The blinds were closed at her window, and Father B---- and the sisters went oftener than usual to see her. I too went back and forth, and brought Miss Etheridge tidings of how Mrs. McGowan bore her sufferings; of all that was done for her spiritual and bodily comfort, of all that was hoped and all that was feared, and at last of her death.

This affected Miss Etheridge more than one could have supposed possible. It was touching to witness her sadness. That this proud lady, so widely separated in everything but the same infirmity from this poor Irishwoman, should truly grieve for her awakened in me a greater admiration for Miss Etheridge’s noble heart than I had before entertained. She seemed restless and anxious to be doing something still for the poor woman. She asked me if I did not think it could be managed that she could see Mrs. McGowan once more before her burial.

I told her it could without difficulty, and so it was done. Respectfully the crowd parted for her little carriage as it made its way through the humble assemblage which is sure to be around the house of death among the Irish. Willing arms carried her to the side of the coffin, whereon her own gifts--a cross and crown of beautiful flowers--had been placed.

In silent dignity she gazed at the face and hands of the dead--curiously at the lighted candles and emblems of the faith of the departed, and at the habit which covered the body, now straightened in the rigidity of death.

She was very composed, and soon signified her desire to be conveyed to her carriage, and in silence she returned to her home. I thought Miss Etheridge showed, in this act of going to pay the last mark of respect to her humble friend, true heroism and charity. She was a mark of curious observation to a crowd of people with whom she had no sympathy, and her helplessness and peculiar infirmity made her more sensitive to the notice and notoriety which she knew her going would bring upon her; and yet she had the courage to brave such results. Only a true lady, lifted above all vulgar fears and considerations, would have done this. No _mean_ soul would have desired so to do.

“The chains have fallen off her now,” she said to me. “I wonder if she remembers and thinks of me. You think of her as being in a different state from that which I have been taught to believe as that of the departed; but we will not argue about it now. I only want to do for her yet--something which I do believe she would, poor soul, have done for me, had I gone first. It pleases me to do what she would in life have liked to think would be done for her, whether availing or unavailing.”

And with this apologetic remark, Miss Etheridge actually placed in my hand a large sum of money to convey to Father B---- for Masses to be said for the repose of the soul of Mrs. McGowan. I was truly astonished. Was this the fruit of our reading of _Morte d’Arthur_? If so, I blessed the day we did it. But I was afraid of being hopeful overmuch, Miss Etheridge might never advance beyond this liberal yielding of a stubborn prejudice. It was the last thing she could do for her poor friend, and her generous soul took pleasure in doing it. I was afraid that this was all; and for a time it seemed to be all.

The summer passed into autumn, and I was recalled to my city home. I parted with Miss Etheridge with great regret, and the more so because she could not write to me, save by the hand of another. I promised to write to her, and she said that I should get tidings of her from time to time in some way. “According to my message shall my scribe be,” she said, and so we parted.

I did write from time to time, and I had a brief note now and then, written by Miss Etheridge’s business agent, telling me of her continued good health, but increasing infirmity. But during Easter-tide I received a longer missive, written in the delicate penmanship of Sister Francina. “According to my message shall my scribe be,” she had said to me, and now I knew her meaning, for the message was that she was a Catholic.

As I folded up the letter, the words came to my mind:

“These through great affliction came.”

DUTIES OF THE RICH IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

NO. VI.

PRIVATE DUTIES--CONTINUED.

The life of that class which in fashionable parlance is called “society” in the capitals and great towns of Europe, and especially in Paris, the capital of the _beau monde_, is the most opposite to the ideal of the Christian life that can exist without being essentially criminal. The same remark applies, of course, to the imitation of it among ourselves. We have implied that it is not essentially criminal. Not that it is possible to doubt the vast amount of moral evil existing in its bosom, but that this evil is not in the very nature of the mode of life intended, in such a way that all those who are engaged in it must necessarily live in sin. The nature or essence of this mode of life consists in making the pursuit of social and other pleasures, in themselves innocent and lawful, a regular and habitual occupation, instead of an occasional relaxation. It is possible to do this, without grievously neglecting those duties which are of positive obligation in one’s state of life, and without neglecting the precepts of religion. It is, nevertheless, difficult to do it for a long time. It is a dangerous kind of life to lead. And precisely because it is dangerous, the church is indulgent to those who are involved in it, allows them to receive the sacraments with the greatest liberality, and encourages them to approach these sources of grace frequently, in order that they may be preserved from sin. Some, especially women under the authority of parents or husbands who are worldly minded and imperious, are involved in such a life against their own inclination, others are kept in it by their own levity and weakness of character and the force of habit and fashion. The former ought to receive the sacraments as frequently as possible, in order that they may triumph over the obstacles in the way of attaining that degree of perfection to which they aspire. The latter ought to do the same, in order that they may live in the state of grace and save their souls. This is a doctrine which gives scandal to rigorists and Pharisees, and frequently the persons who are inwardly the most corrupt are the most rigoristic in their opinions. But the Catholic Church, which has cast out the Jansenistic leaven as a detestable and deadly poison, cares not for Pharisaic scandal, and does care for the soul of the imperfect and the sinner, whom she acknowledges for her children.

Indulgent as the church is to those who are weak and imperfect Christians, or who even fall often into sin, provided they are always trying to rise out of it again, she never ceases to hold up her ideal of the Christian life in all its perfection before her children, and to admonish and persuade them by the most powerful motives to copy it in their actions. All those who really aim at being good Christians are uneasy in a worldly life, and generally withdraw from it, to a great extent, when they become sobered by age and experience. Those who are fervent have a great dislike for it, and have always done their utmost to emancipate themselves from its servitude and frivolity. It is a dangerous kind of life, and one which becomes wearisome and insipid after a time even to those who have no taste for anything better. To pass all the months which are spent in town, with the exception of a few weeks in Lent, in a round of balls, parties, visits, and theatre-going, and to dawdle away the summer in the inanities and _ennui_ of a fashionable watering-place, is to make existence as flat and unprofitable as it can well be--to exhaust its flavor as well as waste its substance. The satire of Thackeray is only simple truth, and it is enough to direct to the page of the novelist for a full illustration of the moral we wish to point, without referring the jaded votaries of fashion to any more tedious species of literature. It is necessary to distinguish among the fashions and pleasures of the world those which are positively immoral from those which are innocent in themselves, and only noxious when they are inordinate and excessive. It is a matter of strict obligation to shun the former altogether. Immodest dances and fashions of dress, licentious plays, excess in eating and drinking, are sinful in themselves, and lead to the grossest sins. It is a simple matter of fact that society among the higher classes, in the nations of Christendom, has been for a long time, and still is, deeply affected by the moral corruption into which the pursuit of pleasure as the occupation of life always tends to resolve itself. Paris, the modern Babylon, has led the way, and the world has followed Paris. This corruption is the chief cause of the miseries with which society has been scourged and is now threatened. From the court of Louis XV. the first step was to the Place de Grève, the second to the burning Tuileries. Petroleum, which will one day burn up the world, is the oil which bubbles up in the bosom of a corrupt Christian aristocracy, the product of the wickedness of the higher classes in Christian society, who have turned away from a true Catholic life to the life of pagans, or a life for this world only. A _beau monde_, indeed, it is! It is against such a _beau monde_ as this, with its whole complex of heresy and immorality, infidelity and licentiousness, intellectual pride and low materialism, outward splendor and inward contempt of all dignity or authority, superficial gaiety and real, haggard misery, all closely affianced and affiliated together, that Pius IX. has been perpetually fulminating his condemnation. But we may go further back and higher up than Pius IX. to St. Peter himself, and find the same denunciation of heresy, revolt, and luxury, as allied vices, expressed in much severer language than that of his successor. In his second Encyclical Epistle, the Prince of the Apostles writes as follows:

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation; but
to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented.
And especially those who _walk after the flesh_ in the lust of
uncleanness, and _despise governments_, audacious, pleasing
themselves, they _fear not to bring in sects_, blaspheming, ...
_as irrational beasts_, naturally tending to the snare, and
to destruction, blaspheming those things which they know not,
they shall perish in their corruption, receiving the reward of
injustice, _counting pleasure the delights of a day_, stains
and blemishes, _flowing in delicacies, rioting in their feasts
with you_, having eyes full of adultery, and of never-ceasing
sin: alluring unstable souls, having their heart exercised with
covetousness, sons of malediction; ... these are fountains
without water, and clouds tossed with whirlwinds, to whom the
mist of darkness is reserved. For, _speaking swelling words of
vanity_, they allure in desires of the flesh of riotousness
_those who had escaped a little from them who converse in error:
promising them liberty_, when they themselves are slaves of
corruption; for by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is
the slave. For, if having fled from the pollution of the world
through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, being
again entangled in them, they are overcome; _their latter state
is become unto them worse than the former_.”[109]

We may see this exemplified in Rome at the present moment, in Victor Emanuel, Hyacinthe, Gavazzi, the Jews Arbib and Jacob Dina, the venders of infidel and licentious prints, sectarian preachers, chiefs of the Garibaldian faction, and courtesans, all knotted together like a pyramid of rattlesnakes, to hiss against the Holy Father, the representative on earth of Christ and God. And this is the modern world, as opposed to the true Christian society, the church. It is an apostasy worse than heathenism; “for it had been better not to have known the way of justice, than, after having known it, to have turned back from that holy commandment.” This apostasy shows itself more glaringly in the Rome of Victor Emanuel and his _buzzurri_ than elsewhere, but it is the same throughout the modern world. And in this world Catholics must live, and live either superior to it, or its slaves. If they are contaminated by it, their moral corruption leads them directly to the loss of faith as well as the loss of grace. The infidelity into which numbers of the higher classes on the Continent of Europe have fallen during the past century is notorious. We have had some of these degenerate Catholics among ourselves, retaining the name of Catholic as a kind of national and family heirloom, but denying and mocking at all the mysteries of faith, resisting and thwarting the bishops and priests who founded our American churches, and generally crying out for a priest in their last moments, while their relatives are chiefly anxious for the pomp of a requiem, a solemn funeral procession, and a monument in consecrated ground. Love of the world has made others, who have had a better education in their youth, become apathetic and alienated from their fellow-Catholics and the church, as they have grown rich. And some have openly apostatized, in order to profess a _more genteel religion_. The inordinate love of wealth, pleasure, and honor, brings the will into collision with the practical, moral law of the church, and thus implants an aversion to the Catholic religion and the spirit of revolt against it. These dispositions prepare the way for the revolt of the will, and through the will of the mind, against the doctrine and authority of the church, and eventually for a total abjuration of allegiance to God. The sinner is always called in the ancient Scriptures _a fool_, because he prefers this world to the next, creatures to the Creator; and “_the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God_.” The only consistent alternative is, therefore, the total abjuration of folly, complete subjection to the law of wisdom, and the regulation of the whole life in conformity to its dictates. The fashions and customs of the world, when they are contrary to Catholic principles, must be wholly renounced and despised. Nay, more. When they are absurd, ridiculous, contrary to reason and good sense, one who has a proper respect for himself and a just independence of character ought to neglect and disregard them, unless doing so involves a greater inconvenience than that caused by conformity. Those who profess to be governed by the law of Christ ought to regulate their table, their household order, their dress, their social customs, their pleasures and amusements, and all the minor morals of life, by a Christian standard, and not by the standard of a corrupt world. To be ashamed and afraid to do this is disgraceful cowardice. It is for Christians to subdue the world and compel it to conform, at least outwardly, to their standard; not to submit to its galling and degrading servitude. If this cannot be done, let them cut the world, in so far as their relative duties and necessary obligations towards it will permit, and form their own separate society; as they have frequently been forced to do since Christianity was founded. It is necessary to keep the law of Christ, it is necessary to be wholly conformed in mind and conduct to the doctrine and spirit of the church, it is necessary to merit the kingdom of heaven; but it is not necessary to be fashionable or to please the world. Moreover, to be truly honorable, it is necessary that one should esteem his Catholic profession as his greatest glory, and not tarnish it by sentiments or conduct unworthy of a Christian. Most of those Catholics in this country who are now living in ease and affluence are descended from ancestors who sacrificed everything and suffered untold hardships for their faith; and what do they deserve if they dishonor the blood of the martyrs by becoming the slaves of the wicked power which persecuted them?

We desire now to apply all that we have said in a special manner to the education of children--the most important of all the private duties of heads of families. What we have to say on this head applies in general to all parents in comparatively easy circumstances, but in some particulars to those only who are wealthy in the strict sense of the term. The weighty obligation rests on all Catholic parents of bringing up their children in the faith and in virtue, in view of the great end of life, which is to glorify God here and to enjoy him hereafter in heaven. This is a difficult task in itself, especially so in the present age and in this country, and in some respects more difficult for those who are rich than for any others, excepting, perhaps, the very poor. The children of the rich in this country are generally brought up in great self-indulgence, excessive liberty, and according to a precocious method. They are prepared for a kind of life which requires great wealth, and, at the same time, their prospects of possessing it with permanent security are very precarious. We might adduce many considerations going to show that it is almost to be regarded as a calamity rather than an advantage to be born of rich parents in this country. If we had accurate statistics, they would, in our opinion, show that very few of the children and descendants of wealthy families have remained in affluent or even easy circumstances. The majority of those who are rich are children of parents who were poor, or, at least, dependent on their own exertions for a living. A great number of the children who have been brought up with the expectation of inheriting a fortune have become poor, and far too many have gone altogether to ruin. The sons of the rich are exposed to the danger of being ruined by the vices into which they easily fall, and by the indolent and inefficient character they too frequently form, together with the reverses of fortune which are not fatal to energetic men, yet are ordinarily fatal to those whose habits are effeminate. Their daughters are exposed to the same reverses of fortune, to the miseries resulting from unhappy marriages, and to the consequences which follow from personal habits of extravagance and self-indulgence. Most of these miseries flow from a bad education, and those which proceed from no such cause and are among the inevitable evils of this earthly life, are made unbearable and desperate by the effects of a bad education.

So far as temporal well-being is concerned, parents ought to aim at preparing their children to take care of themselves after they are grown up. All boys, no matter how rich their fathers may be, ought to be prepared for some profession or business in which they can make their own fortune, or, at least, a living, and they should be compelled to take care of themselves when they become men, without any more help from their fathers than is sufficient to place them in the way of doing so. This is the only way to perpetuate wealth in families, for, if children are trained up to live in leisure on the fortunes which they are to inherit, the largest fortunes will soon be lost by division and subdivision, even if they are not scattered by dissipation or mismanagement. Daughters should be educated in such a way that they can be their own housekeepers, or even earn their living by their education and accomplishments, if the reverses of their parents or the disasters of married life bring them into straits and difficulties.

This result can only be secured by keeping children in the state and under the discipline of childhood so long as they are children in age. Obedience, industry, self-denial, simplicity of dress and diet, moderation in amusements, and a strictly and purely Catholic education--such are the only means of preparing children either for a condition of wealth or for one of poverty. Our American children who are reared in the families of the rich are generally brought out of the nursery and the school-room too young: they are too highly fed, too much indulged, have too many amusements, and are _blasé_ before they are fully grown. Is it judicious for Christian mothers to dress their little daughters like ballet-dancers for their children’s parties? To send their sons with billets of excuse from their lessons to school after taking them overnight to the opera or theatre? What can be expected of children who are allowed to sleep late, to eat daintily and excessively, to read all kinds of trash, to dress extravagantly, spend money, go about with liberty, and indulge in pleasures which keep them up late at night? Such a life has a worse effect than merely to make the character effeminate. It directly fosters the most morbid and destructive propensities of the weak and fragile human nature, and leads to vice and death. We do not speak of those cases where parents lead their children to ruin by the direct influence of impious or immoral conversation, or an example which is flagrantly bad. There are some such who would seem to set to work with an express purpose of corrupting and ruining their children. But our present purpose is with those who may be supposed to read our articles attentively and seriously, and who cannot, therefore, be suspected of anything worse than weakness, or error of judgment. It is against this weak following of the common fashion, the common maxims, the common current of the world, that we warn those parents who wish to be good Christians and to bring up their children well.

The highest and ultimate end of education is the attainment of the chief good to which the soul is destined, and to which it has received the right in baptism. The principal obligation of Catholic parents is, therefore, the education of their children in the principles and practices of the faith and law of the church. And this leads us to speak of the obligation of the rich, the educated, and all the influential laymen of the Catholic Church in this country, to bestir themselves in the work of Catholic education. Schools and colleges, purely and thoroughly Catholic, and fully sufficient to give all the requisite kinds and degrees of instruction which are needed by our youth, must be multiplied and sustained. It is a fixed and settled doctrine of the church that education is by divine right under the care and jurisdiction of the hierarchy. Those who teach the contrary are unsound in doctrine, and good Catholics are bound in conscience to give no heed to their opinions on this point. It is, moreover, a point also settled by the highest authority in the church, viz., that of the bishops of those countries where mixed education is a subject of practical moment, and of the Holy See, that mixed education is dangerous. This is the judgment of the bishops of Germany, Ireland, England, and the United States. As an instance, we cite the language of the Irish bishops in a resolution passed unanimously at Maynooth, August 18, 1869, in which they say:

“They reiterate their condemnation of the mixed system of
education, whether primary, intermediate, or university, as
grievously and intrinsically dangerous to the faith and morals
of Catholic youth; and they declare that to Catholics only,
and under the supreme control of the church in all things
appertaining to faith and morals, can the teaching of Catholics
be safely entrusted.”

The decrees of the Councils of Baltimore are of the same tenor, as is likewise the official action of the bishops of England.

Pius IX., in his _Syllabus_ of Dec. 8, 1864, condemned the proposition (No. 48):

“Catholics may approve that mode of education of youth which is
disjoined from the Catholic faith and the power of the church,
and which concerns itself exclusively, or at least primarily,
with the knowledge of natural things and the ends of earthly
social life.”

In accordance with this decree, the Holy See has repeatedly sent instructions to the Irish and English bishops, directing them to oppose mixed education, and has prohibited ecclesiastics from holding any office in the Queen’s colleges of Ireland. We are warranted, therefore in reiterating the declaration made by F. O’Reilly, of whom the _Dublin Review_ says, “hardly a theologian can be named in these islands whose name carries with it so much weight”--that the view which Catholics do take or ought to take of mixed schools is, that they are “objectionable, dangerous, ineligible.”[110] In fact, nearly all the Catholics of rank and wealth in England, the Duke of Norfolk included, have foregone the advantages of the universities in obedience to this teaching. The same is true in Ireland, and F. O’Reilly says that “the Catholics of Ireland _as a body_ (including the upper and middle classes) repudiate and condemn mixed education as at variance with their religious principles, views, and opinions.”

We cannot carry out any further, at present, the topic we have here briefly introduced, but must confine our remarks to the duty which is devolved on the wealthy Catholics of the United States by these decisions of the rulers of the church, which, we take for granted, they most cordially desire to have fully carried out in practice. We said just now that they must bestir themselves in the work of Catholic education. This applies to education in all its various degrees, but we wish to speak more especially of colleges for the higher grades of instruction. It is not enough for the opulent parents whose sons are sent to college, to send them to a Catholic college and pay a high price for their instruction. There is a great difficulty in the way of maintaining and improving our colleges which cannot be met in this manner. If our colleges are to rely on a revenue derived from the pupils, the tuition fees must be placed so high that all but the sons of the wealthy are practically excluded from them. Officers of the army and navy, lawyers, physicians, and others in similar positions, are frequently embarrassed by the inadequacy of their incomes to meet the expenses of a mode of life suited to their social rank. The great cost of education makes it very nearly impossible for them to send even one boy, much more several, to the schools and colleges which are the most eligible. Besides, there are many other parents in still more moderate circumstances, who have sons desiring, and fitted for profiting by, the best education. The sons of the rich are not ordinarily the most eager and diligent students, and, if a college is exclusively or chiefly composed of youths of this class, they themselves will degenerate into the most superficial scholarship, and the college will fail of accomplishing the chief part of the end for which it is established. Education ought to be made cheap and accessible to boys and youths of all classes. This cannot be done without large endowments and revenues. If the task of earning the money necessary for the vast outlay which must be made, is left on the shoulders of the clergy and religious orders, they must necessarily demand a very high price for their instruction, and thus become the teachers of the sons of the rich almost exclusively. It follows from this, by strict logical sequence, that the laity must bestir themselves to active efforts, and take the burden off the shoulders of the clergy. It is unjust that a body of men who have sacrificed their lives to the good of the laity, and who give them the fruit of their talents, their learning, and their labors, for no compensation beyond their modest and single livelihood, should be forced to furnish or to beg the means of buying the grounds, erecting the buildings, and carrying on the operations of colleges and schools for the convenience of the rich and leisured classes; and paying, besides, the expenses of those youths who are without resources, that they may fill their own places when they are worn out by work. It is the interest of the laity to provide education for their children, and to provide for filling up the ranks of the priesthood. The opulent and influential laity are therefore bound to take an active part in the work. And, as things are at present, we see no way of doing this after an organized method, except by associations like that of the “Catholic Union” of New York. We trust that this respectable body will take up this matter in earnest, and we urge upon all those who care for their posterity, their country, and their religion, to co-operate generously and zealously with it in whatever enterprises it may undertake, which will certainly be under the highest ecclesiastical sanction, and managed by men of the greatest ability and worth.