Chapter X: Brown Bread And Bonnyclabber (4)

From J. R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: His Level Best, and Other
Stories. By Edward E. Hale.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 96.—MARCH, 1873.

The Relation Of The Rights Of Conscience To The Authority Of The State Under The Laws Of Our Republic.

(A LECTURE BEFORE A CATHOLIC SOCIETY OF S. PATRICK’S CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CONN., OCT. 20, 1872.)

REVEREND GENTLEMEN AND MY FRIENDS: Before I speak particularly of the relation of the rights of conscience to the laws existing in our republic, I consider it necessary to make a few preliminary remarks and to lay down a few principles regarding the nature of law and government in general, and the relation which they hold to religion. I shall best illustrate the difficulties which envelop this subject, and also give a clue to the way by which it may be extricated, by making a supposition.

Let us suppose that a large number of men come together for the purpose of founding a new state with all its institutions of civil society and government. Some of these are Christians, among whom are Quakers; others are Mohammedans, Hindoos, Thugs, idolaters practising human sacrifices, and communists. It is necessary that they should agree and concur with each other in regard to the rights which respect life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness in general and particular, and the means of protecting all these rights, otherwise no society or government is possible. But this cannot be done by any general consent among these different parties. The Christian holds the sacredness of life and property, and the force of the law of monogamy. The Mohammedan rejects this last, and maintains the right to a plurality of wives. The Hindoo regards it as a sacred right and duty of a widow to offer herself on the funeral pile of her husband, that her spirit may rejoin his spirit in another world. The Thug considers it a most holy and meritorious act to murder as many persons as possible in honor of the cruel goddess whom he worships; while the idolater looks on the sacrifice of children or captives as the means of placating his offended deities and procuring success in war. The Quaker will not allow of any bloodshed whatever, either for avenging crime or repelling aggression. And the communist would abolish all rights of property, reconstruct society on a wholly different plan from that which has heretofore existed, and banish all religion as noxious to the well‐being of man.

It is evident, therefore, that society cannot be constituted without religion, and that society constituted with religion, and on the basis of religious ideas, requires some agreement in these religious ideas, and the incorporation of some fixed and definite religious principles into its very structure and conformation.

If we consult history, we shall find that no state or perfect society has ever been established on the atheistic principle. Every one that has ever existed has had a religious basis, and all political and social constitutions have proceeded from religious ideas and been founded upon them. The civilization of Christendom in general has received its specific form from the influence of the Christian religion moulding and modifying in the Eastern world its previous and ancient laws, and in the West to a great extent creating a new order out of a pre‐existing state of imperfect civilization or semi‐barbarism. To this Christendom we belong, and the laws of our republic are a product of this Christian civilization. This cannot be denied, considered as a mere historical fact respecting our origin; for we are the offspring of Christian Europe, and in the beginning distinctly professed to be a Christian people. But it may be said that we have changed, have undergone a political regeneration as a nation, and in the process of transformation have thrown out all religion from our organic constitution as a republic. By our organic constitution and the laws of our republic I intend not merely the federal constitution and laws which bind together the United States, but also the laws and constitutions of the states, the _tout ensemble_ of our common and statute laws of every kind, which form the regulating code of our whole society as one political people. And in regard to this organic law, I affirm that we do not form an exception among human societies to the universal rule I have above laid down, that the state in political society is based on religious ideas.

In support of this proposition, I cite the opinion of a most competent and impartial judge, Prof. Leo, of Halle, and borrow from him a definition of that which constitutes our state religion. This great historian, in the introductory portion of his _Universal History_, where he is discussing the universal principles which underlie all political constitutions, analyzes in a masterly way the elements of our own system of government; and he points out that which is the religious element, namely, the rule or law of morals, derived from the common law of Christendom, or a certain standard of moral obligation, conformity to which is enforced by the state with all its coercive power. All churches or voluntary associations which include this moral code or religion of the state within their own specific religious law possess complete equality and liberty before the civil law. With their doctrines, rites, regulations, and practices the state does not interfere, and gives them protection from any infringement upon their rights on the part of any private members of the community. But let them, on pretext of doctrine, of ecclesiastical law, of liberty of conscience, or even of any divine revelation, violate by any overt acts the rule of moral obligation recognized by the state, they come into direct collision with her authority, and must suffer the consequences. So far, therefore, as concerns that portion of Christian law, namely, the moral precepts of the Christian religion, which are incorporated into our civil law, all churches are in vital union with the state. Even Jews, because they hold, with Christians, the decalogue; and societies based on purely natural religion, because they hold the law of nature, are in the same vital union, so far, with the state. And beyond this, within the limits which this law sanctions or permits, all these churches or societies are in union with the state, as lawful, voluntary associations over which her protection is extended. But let a Mohammedan community be formed among citizens or resident foreigners, and attempt the introduction of polygamy, our laws require the civil magistrate to interfere and suppress by force this exercise of the privileges granted by their prophet. Let a community of Hindoos, Thugs, or idolaters establish itself within our bounds, and commence any of the murderous practices of those false religions, and the gibbet or the sword would be called on to execute vengeance upon them. We have in our borders the sect of Mormons, whose doctrines and practices are contrary to our fundamental laws and subversive of them. Obviously, we cannot, consistently with our safety, our well‐being, or our essential principles of political and social order, tolerate the enormities of Mormonism, much less permit the formation of a Mormon state. The right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, must be exercised in conformity to certain laws, which are to the state as her axioms or first principles, and are held as inviolable. And the exercise of this right, in this due and legitimate manner, must not be hindered by force and violence under any pretext. Therefore no pretence of conscience or religion can avail to cover any violation of law by an individual or a society, or any such infringement on the rights of others as has been just alluded to. All this presupposes that the state recognizes and bases its laws upon certain fixed ideas concerning the rights which God has really granted to men, and the obligations which he has imposed upon them. But this has also been distinctly and expressly declared by a body of men, representing the whole political people of the nascent republic which was afterwards developed into the United States of North America. The declaration was made in the very act which constituted the United Colonies free and independent states, and which was published to the world on the fourth day of July, 1776. In the first sentence of this Declaration of Independence, the Congress affirms that the people of the United States have judged it necessary “to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NATURE’S GOD entitle them.” This august body then proceeds to lay down the foundation and basis of the entire argument of the document, as follows: “We hold these truths to be self‐evident, that all men are _created equal_; that they are _endowed by their Creator_ with certain inalienable _rights_; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.” It then proceeds to argue that those governments which fail to fulfil this end, and pursue a contrary end by invading and destroying these rights, forfeit their powers; and makes an application of this principle to the _casus belli_ between the colonies and the British crown.

In this most momentous crisis, amid the very birth‐pangs of our infant republic, the people of the United States solemnly declared that the origin of all right, all law, all political organization, all government, and specifically of those which constitute the United States a separate political people, is to be found in the _lex æterna_, the law of God; that is to say, it is in religion. For what is religion? According to Cicero’s definition, it is a bond which binds men to God and to each other. This is the very meaning of the word, which comes from _ligare_, to bind, whence we have the terms ligament, ligature, and obligation. Human right is, therefore, something conferred by God. The right to govern must come from God, for we are created equal, and therefore without any natural right of one over another to give him law. The rights of the governed come from God, and are therefore inviolable; but liberty is the unhindered possession and exercise of the rights conferred by God, under the protection of lawful government; and liberty of conscience is freedom to obey the law of the Creator, and to enjoy the blessings which he has imparted to the creature by that law. These rights and liberties belong to each individual man as a grant from the Creator, which he can maintain in the face of any government, be it that of a monarch, of an aristocracy, or of a majority of the people. If a monarch, or one who executes by delegated power the sovereignty of a majority, invades the right of an individual, he violates a law. This law can be no other than that of the Sovereign Lord of the universe. There is, therefore, a higher law than human law, a higher sovereignty than human sovereignty, to which both governments and the governed are subject and amenable, and which are acknowledged as supreme by this American Republic of which we are citizens. And as another proof of this recognition, I may cite the law of oaths, or the solemn appeal to Almighty God as the Supreme Judge, by which a religious sanction is given to judicial testimony and the engagements of public officers.

There is, therefore, in our republic a religion of the state, but one embodied in civil and political society only, which leaves to citizens perfect freedom to organize churches and act out what they profess to be the dictates of their individual consciences, provided they do not violate the laws which constitute the religion of the state.

Under this law, the Catholic Church possesses in essential matters theoretical liberty and equality of rights with the various religious bodies existing in the country, with some trivial exceptions to be found in the laws of some of the states. To a great extent, this theoretical liberty is also a practical liberty, really possessed and enjoyed, and only occasionally invaded. This is a remark which is quite specially verified in the instance of your own state of Connecticut.

This has not always been the case either here or in other portions of our country. Catholics have not always enjoyed freedom of conscience and liberty of religion. If we go back to the early history of the colonies which became afterwards the United States, we shall find that their founders did not intend to grant that liberty which now exists. In some of these colonies, the Church of England, in others the Church of the Puritans, and in those of Spain and France, which were admitted at a later period, the Catholic Church was the established religion of the state. In all the English colonies the Catholic religion was proscribed and persecuted. The Puritan fathers of New England intended to establish a theocracy. There was a strict union of church and state under their old colonial governments. Only professed members and communicants of the church could vote, and the legislatures regulated the affairs of parishes, and decided doctrinal questions. Our ancestors therefore had a Christian ideal of the state before their minds which they attempted to make an actual reality, and which they dreamed should become the kingdom of Christ our Lord upon the earth which the prophets and apostles foretold. The attempt failed from causes which lay within the bosom of the community itself, and not because of any external force; and the same community which had by tacit agreement or positive statutes enacted the original law combining a specific form of religion with the state, repealed the same by its own free will. In the Puritan state, the first change came about by the multiplication of baptized persons who never became communicants. The number of citizens who were thus deprived of the highest rights of citizenship was felt to be a grave anomaly and inconvenience in a democratic state, and caused the adoption of the half‐way covenant. By this arrangement, those baptized persons who publicly acknowledged their baptism were considered as quasi‐members of the church, entitled to all political rights. When, in the course of time, the number of unbaptized persons increased, and other sects of Protestantism began to flourish, new changes were brought about by which in the end the connection between the state and the Puritan Church was dissolved. Similar causes produced similar effects in other parts of the country, and, so far as the federal union was concerned, there was obviously from the first an utter impossibility of making any specific form of Christianity the religion of the entire republic. Thus, by the very law which the necessity of the case imposed upon the separate states and the entire federal republic, that liberty of religion became established under which the Catholic Church could come in upon a footing of perfect equality with the other religious denominations. Catholics have not come into New England and Connecticut either to demand religious liberty as a right or to beg toleration as a favor. We have not obtained our rights or privileges by any agitation or revolution stirred up by ourselves in our own interest. The work was done before there was a number of Catholics worth estimating either in Connecticut or New England. It was done by the old manor‐born citizens for their own advantage and the welfare of the state.

So also, in regard to the political privileges conceded to foreign‐born immigrants. These are, in their nature, distinct and separate from the rights of conscience conceded to Catholics. Yet they have an actual connection, arising from the fact that so very large a proportion of our Catholic citizens are of foreign birth, and so large a proportion of our adopted citizens are of the Catholic religion; and therefore, in the public mind, these two matters are very much blended together, and even confused with each other. It is, therefore, quite fitting that I should speak of the two things in relation with each other. And I remark on this point that the privileges possessed by the Catholics of this state who are of foreign birth, by which they are made equal to the native‐born citizens in regard to both religious and political rights, have not been extorted by themselves, but freely conceded for the good of the state and of all citizens generally. The original inhabitants had the power to exclude the Catholic religion from all toleration. They had the power and the right to exclude all foreigners from the privileges of native‐born citizens, or to make the conditions of being naturalized more stringent than they now are. They took another course, having in view their own good and the well‐being of the state, and Catholics as well as foreigners have profited by it. Catholics have profited by the religious liberty conceded to citizens, which is something essentially distinct from the privileges conceded to residents of foreign origin. And in point of fact, although the extent and prosperity of the church in Connecticut have proceeded principally and in very great measure from the immigration of Irish Catholics into the state, yet its rights, and liberty, and equality do not depend on anything necessarily and essentially but the religious liberty granted to citizens, and which is the birthright of Catholics as well as Protestants who are born on the soil of the republic.

It would be easy to show, in respect to our country at large, that the first beginnings of the Catholic Church have an intertwined radical grasp with the first fibres of national life in our own soil; and that there is a truly glorious Catholic chapter in the history of the United States. We can find something of this even in the history of this state. The first Mass celebrated in Connecticut was said in an open field within the bounds of Wethersfield, by the chaplain of the French troops who came here to aid our fathers in fighting the battle for independence. The first Catholic sermon in English was preached by the Rev. Dr. Matignon, of Boston, in the Centre Congregational Church of Hartford, at the invitation of the Rev. Dr. Strong, the pastor of the church. The first Catholic church was formed at Hartford in 1827, by Mr. Taylor, a respectable citizen of that town, who was a convert, and who organized the few Irish, French, and German Catholic residents in the place into a congregation, which assembled on Sunday for worship. In 1830, Bishop Fenwick, of Boston, a native of Maryland, purchased and blessed a small frame church, over which he placed F. Fitton, a native of Boston, who was the pastor of the entire state, and who is still actively engaged in the duties of the priesthood at Boston. During the first five years of his ministry at Hartford, F. Fitton received eighty adult converts, who, with their families, made a considerable portion of his little flock, since, in 1835, there were only 730 Catholics in the whole state. The first bishop of the diocese of Hartford was a native of New England. The present distinguished prelate who rules the church in Connecticut is a native of Pennsylvania; and of the 150,000 Catholics under his jurisdiction nearly one‐half must be natives of the state or of the United States. We have, then, some 67,000 native‐born Catholics in this state, most of whom are native‐born Yankees.(230) If you wish to see a fair sample of these, you have only to visit St. Patrick’s Church at nine o’clock of a Sunday morning, where you will see the church filled with them, and to go into the school‐house behind the church any day in the week, where you will find 1,100 of these young Catholic Yankees busily conning their lessons, and learning to love God and their native Columbia. All these have their liberty of conscience and their other rights as citizens secured to them by their birthright, and therefore, on this ground alone, the Catholic Church is equal to the Protestant churches before the law.

And as regards foreign‐born citizens, the state having conceded to them equal rights to those of native‐born citizens, their conscience or religion is included among these rights. The original concession was a privilege, but, having been once conceded, it has become a right. And it was conceded, as I have said, for the good of the state which conceded it, and in view of a compensation or equivalent which the party of the grantor expected to receive. You did not intrude yourselves upon the soil of the state, or come uninvited to beg food and shelter. You were invited, and that not from motives of pure philanthropy. Doubtless many had a kind and philanthropic feeling in the matter, but the prime and urgent motive was that you were needed and wanted for your labor. You were told that your services were wanted for the upbuilding of the material prosperity of the state, and, as an inducement to come, you were offered citizenship, and with that, freedom to bring your religion with you and enjoy it. This was a favor to you without question; but not a purely gratuitous one. It was something advanced to you, but for which you were expected to make a future compensation. And you have well purchased your rights, not only by what you have done in the peaceful arts of industry, but by fighting for your adopted country and shedding your blood for its integrity and the consolidation of its power. You have fought for the state, and for the United States, and, therefore, the compact has been sealed and made inviolable by your blood.

Now, what is the point I have been coming to and have at length reached? It is this: that you possess the full freedom and equality of your Catholic religion, not by toleration, but as an absolute right, inhering in your character as citizens whether by birth or adoption. Catholics are legally domiciled here by virtue of our laws, which recognize, maintain, and protect their religious rights as standing on an equal footing with those of Congregationalists or Episcopalians. No doubt, we should cherish a kind feeling toward those who have granted these most precious and valuable rights, and respect their similar rights. But we must not permit ourselves to be placed in any position of inferiority to other classes of citizens. We must insist upon the full recognition of our equality in the state, and maintain with a manly bearing all our rights of conscience to their fullest extent, claiming and demanding from our fellow‐citizens a complete respect and observance of these rights, and from the state that protection in their exercise which it is bound to give.

The Declaration of Independence avows as an article of the national creed that the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been conferred by the Creator, and is inalienable, and that government is instituted for the purpose of securing to us the possession and exercise of this right. The right to liberty includes freedom to keep the commandments of God, to observe his law, to make use of all the means which he has granted to us for obtaining grace, acquiring virtue, and fulfilling the end of our creation. The right to happiness includes the undisturbed enjoyment of all the privileges of our religion, which alone can make us truly happy in this world, and enable us to obtain eternal happiness. The right to liberty and happiness gives freedom, to those who choose to do so, to devote themselves to the sacred duties of the altar and the cloister. It gives freedom to practise all the rites and ceremonies of religious worship, to dedicate our wealth to the service of God and our fellow‐men, to constitute and regulate our churches according to our own canonical law, to establish and hold possession of colleges, seminaries, convents, and charitable institutions, to educate our children, to profess and practise the Catholic religion wholly and entirely. It is the end of government to secure these rights, so that, if it fails to do so by extending an efficacious protection to their free and peaceable exercise, it is negligent of its duty; and if it impairs or violates them by unjust and tyrannical legislation, it commits a positive act of wrong and usurpation. The government, the sovereign power in the state from which the government holds its authority, are amenable to the eternal law, as well as the individual citizen; and they may violate it by neglecting to secure and protect, or by infringing upon, the rights of conscience conferred by the Creator. Wherefore it is necessary to keep a watchful guard over these rights, to proclaim and defend them loudly when they are assailed or in danger of being impaired, and by all lawful means to hinder any attempt to interfere with their exercise by unjust legislation or a tyrannical exercise of authority by the governing power and its official agents. It is a universal and constant tendency of the sovereign power in the state to usurp unjust authority and to invade the rights of its subjects. The liberty of the individual man and of the class which is governed is always in danger, and, therefore, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. This is true where the people retains its sovereignty, as well as where the sovereignty has been entrusted to a monarch or an aristocracy. It is a great mistake to suppose that a popular form of government and republican institutions are a perfect and adequate guarantee of liberty in general or of liberty of conscience in particular. The political majority or ascendant party can tyrannize over the minority or weaker party and over private citizens. Magistrates elected by a popular vote can misuse their power to oppress those whom they ought to protect. Legislatures chosen by the people can pass the most unjust and despotic laws. The Athenian democracy banished Aristides the Just, and poisoned Socrates, the wisest man of pagan antiquity, the father and founder of philosophy. In our own day we have seen the most perfidious violation of guaranteed rights, and the most tyrannical oppression of the religious freedom of Catholics, perpetrated by the Swiss Republic. Catholics are always liable to oppression where they are the weaker party, and have never any sufficient guarantee for the acquisition and preservation of their full religious liberty, except in their own numbers and strength, made available by their own energetic activity in their own cause. According to the principles and spirit of our laws and political institutions, the Catholic Church possesses in the United States a greater degree of the liberty which belongs to her by divine right than in most other countries. And in practice this liberty has been to a great extent secured to her by the justice of the people at large, and the fidelity of those to whom the administration of law has been entrusted. We may say of Connecticut especially that, considering the old and deeply rooted prejudice of her native inhabitants against the Catholic religion, it is remarkable with what comity they have received and made place for the new and mercurial race who have come in to replenish their staid old towns and quiet villages with fresh life, and with what composure they have beheld the multiplication of the crosses which gleam in the sunlight, on their hilltops and in their valleys, over the churches and convents of that which to them was a new and strange religion. Nevertheless, we cannot and ought not to be content with anything short of that full and complete liberty and equality which of right belong to us, and which do not in the least degree prejudice the same rights in those who profess a different religion. There are some things in regard to which it is our duty as well as our right to demand a greater measure of justice than that which has hitherto been yielded, and to exert ourselves to prevent a still further diminution of our rights as Catholic citizens.

One of these is the right of those unfortunate persons who are inmates of prisons, houses of reformation, and similar institutions to enjoy all the privileges and fulfil all the duties of their religion, if they are members of the Catholic Church. Closely connected with this is the right of the Catholic clergy to have access to all the members of their flock, and to exercise the functions of their sacred ministry wherever their duty calls them, unhindered, and, if necessary, fully protected by the law and all official persons.

Another is the complete and untrammelled freedom of Catholic education in all its departments. The state has no right either to prescribe and enforce religious instruction beyond those first principles of morality and civic obligation which are the foundations of our political order, or to interfere with the religious instruction which the Catholic conscience demands for those who are in a state of pupilage. Far less has it the right to prescribe an irreligious and atheistical system of instruction. I cannot enlarge upon this most important topic in this place. I will here simply recall what I have said of the possibility and danger of usurpation over the rights of conscience even in popular governments, and point out a direction from which we ourselves are threatened by this very danger. I refer to a project entertained by some persons in high positions of establishing under the authority of the federal government a national and compulsory system of education, thus depriving not only Catholics, but Protestants and Jews also, of their essential right as citizens to give their children a religious education. I do not attribute this policy to the party of the administration as a party, but it is most undoubtedly the policy of a considerable and very active section of what is called the Republican party, and is part and parcel of a scheme for modifying most essentially the relations between the federal and the state governments, for extending the authority of the governing power and restricting the private liberty of citizens. The men who are possessed by these ideas are in sympathy with that party in Europe self‐styled the progressive party. The idea which they have of liberty is their own freedom to drive the people on the path which they themselves have surveyed and marked out as the straight road to happiness and well‐being, and this compulsory march they dignify by the name of Progress. In this country, they are avowedly not content with existing institutions and laws, but are restless to try their improving hand upon them. They desire to secure uniformity according to their own ideal standard, by consolidation, concentration, unification of the legislative and executive powers in the federal government, and the reduction of the states into the condition of subordinate, dependent provinces in a republican empire. Education by the state and for the state, and in accordance with so‐called progressive ideas, is an essential part of this Prussianizing plan—an education wholly secular, from which instruction in positive, revealed dogmas and a positive religious discipline are wholly excluded, on the plea that all these are sectarian; and one, of course, which is really anti‐Christian and godless—an education like that of the University of Paris, which made a whole army of infidels among the lettered class in France. It is on this ground of education that the tyrannical and infidel power of the state is waging a battle with the point of the lance against the church and the Catholic religion in Europe. In England, also, as I know from those who have heard it from the lips of the leaders of this party, it is the fixed purpose of these leaders to work for the establishment of this infidel system by the coercive power of the state. The necessary sequel of all this is the _commune_; and, if such a system should prevail here, we have in prospect the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the destruction of those institutions of learning which will not conform to the ideal of the state, the overthrow of the most essential rights of conscience, and finally the proscription of religion, followed by the war of the masses upon the rights of property and upon the order of civil society itself.

We want none of these improvements of Boston _doctrinaires_, and no meddling of political charlatans with our constitution. Our private rights we hold from the Creator, and not from any social compact or grant of government. State rights, the strongest safeguard we have against usurpations upon our liberty, we hold from the fundamental law which first constituted us a political people—the law of unity in multiplicity, which is our strength, and the geometrical principle, of our harmonious and symmetrical structure. There was a time when our centralizing principle was in danger; when, so to speak, the centrifugal force threatened to become too strong, and to make a rupture of our system. Now it is the opposite danger we have to fear—the increase of the centripetal force. As we were in danger of flying away from our sun and becoming separated, wandering political orbs, so we are now in danger of running into our sun, and thus losing our proper orbits, becoming absorbed into the central mass, and thereby suffering the extinction of the life of liberty in the individuals who form our population. Therefore, as the exorbitant demands of state rights have been repressed, it should now be our study to prevent the encroachment of federal power upon the just domain of these state rights, of state power over municipal freedom, and of all these powers upon the personal and private liberty of the citizen. It is for the interest of all to do this, but my special purpose has been to show why Catholics in particular are bound to do it, in order to preserve that liberty which God has given to them, and their rights of conscience, among which this right of education is one of the most precious and the most imperilled.

This leads us to another point. All religious societies being equal before the law, and entitled to an equal protection, so long as they do not violate those fundamental principles of morality which constitute the religion of the state, Catholic institutions have an equal claim to a share in the distribution of the public money with those which are not Catholic. In this state, large sums have been granted to institutions which are under the control of particular denominations; for instance, to Yale College. The state is bound to be impartial, and whatever it determines to do in support of education or for the nurture and relief of the helpless and destitute, and the reformation of the depraved, it is bound to carry out on this impartial principle. Therefore grants to useful institutions ought never to be opposed or withheld on the ground that the Catholic clergy have the control over them, and that within their walls the Catholic religion is taught and practised. Nor has the state any right to prefer, much less to enforce, what is falsely called a non‐sectarian system of religious and moral instruction. This is one of the most patent fallacies by which the common mind in our time and country is duped and deluded. If there is one only true church, all other so‐called churches are sectarian, or sections cut off from the church. The true church cannot be a sect or have anything sectarian about it. But the state is incompetent to judge or decide that the Catholic Church is a sect in this sense; and, therefore, incapable of determining that the public money which is granted to a Catholic institution is devoted to sectarian purposes. The state is equally incompetent to decide that there is no one true church, and that, therefore, all denominations are sections of the true church, or sects considered in the sense of parts included in a whole. But if it were competent to decide this point in the sense indicated, the only just conclusion would be that all should be impartially treated and protected. The state is also incompetent to decide that a particular party of men, having a system differing from that of any one sect, and professing to retain the common elements of all, is not itself a sect, and that its system is non‐sectarian. It is, in fact, only another sect. Regular association, government, and special rites are not essential to the nature of a sect. There were the sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians among the Jews. There are philosophical sects. A sect is a party of men holding certain particular opinions. Those men who profess to hold what they call the essential parts of religion and morality, and to teach the same without any sectarian doctrines, simply mean that they do not hold the tenets of any of the Protestant sects around them, by which they differ from each other. But they belong to the genus Protestant nevertheless, and have their own specific _differentia_. They cannot discriminate the essential from the non‐essential parts of Christianity without a criterion, and the criterion which they adopt and apply makes their specific doctrine, which constitutes them a distinct, if not a separate, sect. They assume that the specific doctrines and laws of the Catholic Church are not essential. But in this they deny a fundamental Catholic doctrine: they place themselves in opposition to Catholics in respect to the essentials of faith and practice, and thus they are, relatively to us, a sect. The state cannot decide this question, and cannot, without injustice, prefer one party to the other. It is, therefore, a violation of Catholic rights to compel Catholics to listen to the teaching which calls itself non‐sectarian, or in any way to adopt and sanction it as a system exclusively entitled to the support and protection of the state.

The truth is that the state has nothing to do directly with religious instruction. Formerly, in this state of Connecticut, it had to do with it, because the Puritan form of Protestantism was the established religion of the state, and made part of the law. But now the state has only to protect the religious corporations and societies which have legal existence in the enjoyment of their vested rights. Grants of money and other legal provisions must be made in view of the utility to society and the state which lies in the nature of the object which any institution aims at accomplishing. Education, the care of the orphaned, the poor, the sick, and other destitute persons, and the instruction of all classes in moral and civic virtues and the fear of that Creator who is acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence as the Author of our natural rights, are useful to the state and society, and even necessary to their continuance and well‐being. Therefore the state may exercise a supervision within certain limits over these things, and grant subsidies for the purpose of sustaining them. But this must be done in such a way that no violence is committed upon the rights or the liberty of conscience guaranteed by law. Religion must be left free, and not interfered with by the state. But non‐ interference is something quite incompatible with exclusion. The state cannot confiscate the property which it has once granted to Yale College because the clergy of one particular denomination control the religious instruction of the college. Nor can it justly refuse to treat Catholic institutions of education with a favor equal to that which it shows to others, because the Bishop of Hartford will have control of their religious teaching.

It is for the interest and well‐being of the state and of all classes of its citizens that the Catholic Church should fully exercise all its rights, and enjoy the most perfect freedom of growth and development. The Catholic Church is fully and unchangeably committed to those essential principles of morality on which our laws are founded. By the very principle of the Catholic religion, those who profess it can never abandon or change these principles, and they thus receive the strongest guarantee of their perpetuity in the number and the moral power of those citizens who profess this religion. By our religion we must hold and profess that human rights are conferred by the Creator, that they are inviolable, and that civil society has been established by Almighty God, with its institutions of government, in order that these rights may be secured. We must profess that peoples and governments are accountable to God for the just administration of the trust committed to them, and responsible to a higher law than mere human laws, the eternal law itself, which is written on the conscience and clearly promulgated by a divine revelation. We must profess the sanctity of life, of marriage, of the rights of property, of oaths, contracts, treaties, and civic obligations, and the duty of allegiance and obedience to the laws and the lawful authorities in the state. All that I have shown to be the religion of the state, which is indeed nothing more than a portion of the universal common law of Christendom, is involved in the religion of Catholics and taught by it with an authority which they acknowledge as unerring and supreme. Here is, therefore, a principle of stability to the state, and to the rights of all classes of citizens, which is involved in the education and popular instruction which is given by the Catholic clergy. Moreover, as the pastors of 150,000 of the inhabitants of the state, and wielding a moral influence over them far superior to that of any other body of clergy, it is for the interest and advantage of their fellow‐citizens that their education, training in their special functions, and other qualifications and advantages for exercising their civilizing power upon such a large and increasing mass of the population, should be elevated to the highest possible grade. Therefore the schools, academies, seminaries, and religious houses in which the clergy are trained are deserving of encouragement as sources of intellectual, moral, and social benefit and improvement to society at large, which accrue to the benefit of the state.

The same is true of institutions of religious women, who are a kind of female clergy in a wider sense of the word, of schools of all kinds, of orphanages and charitable asylums. In the care of the poor and the sick especially, the Catholic Church can do a work which cannot be done so well by any other society, and thus relieve the state of a burden as well as heal a sore on the body politic which is frequently dangerous as well as distressing. Besides these more necessary services to humanity, the Catholic Church contributes to the decoration and embellishment of life, to the refinement of taste, and to the increase of innocent and elevating enjoyment. It ornaments towns and villages with specimens of fine architecture, multiplies statues and paintings, cultivates sacred music, and by its multifarious ceremonies acts most powerfully not only on the souls of men to raise their minds to an unseen world, but, in their human sentiments and manners, to give grace and refinement as well as enjoyment to a life rendered too dull and prosaic by the everlasting drudgery of an industrious and material existence.

All this would not weigh a feather with the severe Puritan ancients who founded this commonwealth. The Catholic religion is a religion of error, they would have said; error is fatal to the soul, and cannot be tolerated in a state where laws are framed according to the laws of God. But times are changed, and both laws and the minds of the descendants of the Puritans are changed with them. Even a great light among the descendants of the Scottish Presbyterians, the Rev. Dr. Hodge, has declared that the Catholic religion teaches the essentials of Christianity, exercises a wholesome moral influence, and cannot be refused the same countenance and aid by the state which is given to the Protestant religion, without the usurpation of an authority to determine what is religious error. Although the _New York Observer_ has raised an outcry against this candid statement of a learned and honest man, and has vehemently denounced the Catholic religion as worse than infidelity, I am persuaded that Yale College will not be satisfied to take a more illiberal position than Princeton, and that the general sense of the Protestant people of Connecticut will accord with that of Dr. Hodge, and reject the contrary extreme of the _Observer_. The religious people of Connecticut cannot fail to see that they have a common cause with us against atheism and progressive radicalism, and that we are a bulwark against a devastating flood which would sweep away their rights with ours if it once broke over the surface of our society. Our rights stand upon a common basis. They depend from a common chain, which is fastened by the same ring. They have nothing to fear from any violation of their liberty or usurpation of their rights on our part, even should we obtain power enough to be able to attempt such an enterprise. We always respect vested rights and established laws, when these are not contrary to the law of God. The order which is now established is the only one that is good for a state in which the inhabitants are divided in religion, and it enables these divided religious communities to live together in political harmony and social peace. We will not disturb this harmony, and we denounce those who attempt to stir up the passions of the people to destroy it as the enemies of the state as well as impious transgressors of the law of God. The rights of conscience and the liberty of religion which we possess under our laws are invaluable and precious to all of us. And there is indeed a common bond between the descendants of the Puritan founders of this commonwealth and the descendants of the persecuted Catholics of Ireland who have settled on this soil, of which perhaps you have not thought sufficiently. It is the bond which has been made by a conflict which the fathers of both these lines of descendants have maintained against a common enemy. That enemy was the despotic tyranny of the successors of Henry VIII. and their ministers. Our ancestors drew the sword against an invasion of rights which, they avowed, had been conferred upon them by their Creator, and the issue of the war was the establishment of this republic, in which the rights of conscience are declared to be sacred. The ancestors of the “exiles of Erin” who have found a new home in this republic fought, both with the sword and with the patient resistance of martyrdom, against the same despotic violence which invaded all their rights both civic and religious. It is fitting, therefore, that their descendants should dwell together in the land rescued by the blood of heroes from tyranny, and that here should flourish the religion rescued from the same tyranny by the blood of martyrs.

I conclude with the eloquent apostrophe of the Bishop of Orleans to the Belgians, which came from his mouth like the electric flash, amid thunders of applause, at the Congress of Malines in 1867, where I had the privilege of being present. “_Vous avez une patrie, sachez la garder!_”—“You have a country, _know how to keep it_!”

When we look abroad and see the dark, threatening clouds overhanging older nations, threatening new tempests to follow those which have lately burst upon them, and then look at home on the peace and liberty we enjoy; our church and religion free, priests, bishops, and the Holy Father from his prison in the Vatican, exercising their lawful jurisdiction without hindrance, we can esteem at their proper worth the blessings we enjoy. We learn how to value order, good government, and civilization founded on religious ideas, as the most precious of all earthly possessions after the faith and the means of eternal salvation. These advantages we possess in the laws and institutions which are summed up in the one word _our country_—our native land, or the land of our refuge and our children’s nativity. Let us all, therefore, prize, cherish, guard, and loyally serve it during life; prepared and resolved, if necessary, to give our blood and our lives in its defence, in emulation of the patriotic bravery of our noble brothers and ancestors from whom we have received this fair inheritance.

The Widow Of Nain.

“The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”

I.

The dust on their sandals lay heavy and white,
Their garments were damp with the tears of the night,
Their hot feet aweary, and throbbing with pain,
As they entered the gates of the city of Nain.

II.

But lo! on the pathway a sorrowing throng
Pressed, mournfully chanting the funeral song,
And like a sad monotone, ceaseless and slow,
The voice of a woman came laden with woe.

III.

What need, stricken mothers, to tell how she wept?
Ye read by the vigils that sorrow hath kept,
Ye know, by the travail of anguish and pain,
The desolate grief of the widow of Nain.

IV.

As he who was first of the wayfaring men
Advanced, the mute burden was lowered, and then
As he touched the white grave‐cloths that covered the bier
The bearers shrank back, but the mother drew near.

V.

Her snow‐sprinkled tresses had loosened their strands,
Great tears fell unchecked on the tightly clasped hands;
But hushed the wild sobbing, and stifled her cries,
As Jesus of Nazareth lifted his eyes.

VI.

Eyes wet with compassion as slowly they fell—
Eyes potent to soften grief’s tremulous swell,
As, sweetly and tenderly, “Weep not,” he said,
And turned to the passionless face of the dead.

VII.

White, white gleamed his forehead, loose rippled the hair,
Bronze‐tinted, o’er temples transparently fair;
And a glory stole up from the earth to the skies,
As he called to the voiceless one, “Young man, arise!”

VIII.

The hard, rigid outlines grew fervid with breath,
The dull eyes unclosed from the midnight of death;
Weep, weep, happy mother, and fall at his feet:
Life’s pale, blighted promise grown hopeful and sweet.

IX.

The morning had passed, and the midday heats burned:
Once more to the pathway the wayfarers turned.
The conqueror of kings had been conquered again:
There was joy in the house of the widow of Nain.

Fleurange.

By Mrs. Craven, Author Of “A Sister’s Story.”

Translated From The French, With Permission.