Chapter VII: The Search Renewed (9)

The distinctive and principal thesis defended by Dr. Shields is, that philosophy is the only umpire to determine controversies in which the opposing parties advocate what are professedly revealed and professedly scientific facts or truths, respectively, in a mutually destructive or hostile sense to each other. To a certain extent, and in a correctly defined sense, we cordially agree with him, and in this sense the high office of philosophy, as the queen of all rational science, is affirmed and defended by all Catholic philosophers and theologians worthy of the name. The five primary natural sciences--physics, mathematics, metaphysics, logic, and ethics--are certainly none of them subaltern one to another, yet the other four are subordinate to metaphysics, because its object has a precedence in the order of the knowable, and its principles furnish the other sciences with their rational foundation. Nevertheless, it is evident, and must be admitted by every one who believes in a certain, clear, and surely ascertainable revelation of facts and truths by God, which is supernatural, that there is a science above metaphysics in excellence--viz., theology, which dominates over it in so far that the latter science cannot reject any of its dogmas. The sciences cannot therefore properly be said to be separate from each other, although they are really distinct. All rational sciences are subalternated to one or more of the five primaries, and thus subordinated to metaphysics, which is subordinated to theology. We consider that the author is mistaken in asserting that a “healthful separation and progress” marked the first stage of the history of the sciences since the Reformation. If by separation he means distinction only, and the free development in each science of its own proper principles by its proper methods, this distinction was recognized and acted on before the Reformation, as may be seen by consulting the great master of the schools, S. Thomas. Some of the sciences have made great progress since that event, not by means of, but partly notwithstanding, their violent and unnatural separation from metaphysics and theology. In respect to metaphysics and ethics, the Reformation has produced one only direct result, which is a miserable decadence and retrogression, which seems to have nearly reached its lowest term. The sciences can only progress with full liberty towards the perfection of human knowledge when they exist in the due harmony and subordination which their nature demands and God has established. The exposition of the order and relation of scientific facts, principles, and deductions in the universal realm of truth, as a universal or encyclopædic science, must, therefore, always place each one in its due subordination, and cannot admit of the umpirage of an inferior over a superior science, much less of a revolt on the part of the inferior. It is absurd to suppose that the inferior tribunal of human reason can judge a case in which the judgment of God, who is the supreme reason, or of an authority which God has made supreme, comes up by appeal. Dr. Shields objects that the great problems in question cannot be settled by the determination of Scripture, councils, the Holy See, or any kind of ecclesiastical decisions, because there is no agreement respecting the true sense of Scripture, or universal recognition of a competent and unerring tribunal. To this we reply that the construction of certain and complete science is one thing, and the communication of this science to the ignorant or erring is another. Questions may be really and definitively settled, though great numbers of men may remain in culpable or inculpable ignorance or error. The _Syllabus_ has settled all that it was intended to settle, so far as the right of the matter is concerned, and for the whole body of men who submit to the infallible authority of the Vicar of Christ. Our knowledge is not in any way impaired by the ignorance of those who are deprived of the benefit of that instruction which Catholics enjoy. But, when we come to controversy, we cannot, of course, attempt to convince or confute the ignorant or erring by simply appealing to an authority which the antagonist or objector, or uninstructed inquirer, does not know or recognize to be an authority. We cannot assume the authority of God with an atheist, of the Christian revelation with an infidel, of the Catholic Church with a Protestant. One of the fathers says, _Qui fidem exigit, fidem astruat_, and Catholic theologians have always acted on that maxim. Dr. Shields, as a Protestant, has no rational idea of a positive, theological science. It is all mere controversy, and we apprehend that his philosophy will be found to be something equally unsettled and incapable of settling itself. It is a very dangerous thing for any kind of dogmatic Protestantism to concede the rights of reason, and especially so for Calvinism. Princeton appears to be losing the old, Presbyterian, Calvinistic spirit, and going the way of the rest of the world towards rationalism. We are not sorry for it, because we hope that the cultivation and exercise of reason will prepare the way for a great number of intelligent and educated young men to submit their minds to the rightful and ennobling dominion of divine faith. Notwithstanding the defects of Dr. Shields’ essay, we are glad to see him advocate the study of philosophy and exalt its dignity; for the search after the true philosophy may lead many to find it, and the true philosophy is the handmaid of the true theology, and leads her votaries to the feet of her mistress.

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. By D. M. Warren.
Revised by A. von Steinwehr. Philadelphia: Cowperthwait & Co.

This book is one which Catholic teachers should never think of using, and against which Catholic children should, as far as possible, be specially warned, should it be introduced in any school which they are obliged by circumstances to attend.

It is probable that the chapter on ethnography, which is specially objectionable, is the composition of the reviser. At least we should so infer from the stupid arrogance which crops out in its last sentence, and which is characteristic of the Prussia of to-day, intoxicated with a temporary success which was, as any careful student of history will conclude, intended for the purification of France rather than for the exaltation of her opponent. “The present historical period,” he says, “is directed by the Germanic Aryans, who are the leaders of modern Christian civilization.” Comment is unnecessary. We venture to say that few of our or anybody else’s readers have ever come across anything more impudent or absurd. It is an insult to the American people, Catholic or non-Catholic, to palm off on them such stuff as this.

He also implies in another place that the German nation “worked out its own civilization.” We have not heard of any nation that has done that, but that the Germans did not is too manifest to admit of argument.

The principal objection to the chapter, however, is the publication, without note or comment of course, of two heresies with regard to the origin of the human race, as being equally entitled to acceptance with the Mosaic account. One of these is its origin from different original pairs, the other what is commonly known as Darwinism.

It is not worth while to give a more extended notice to a book of this sort. This species of book can be turned off by any person with a smattering of science who has the leisure for authorship, and who can find a publisher. The market is flooded with such. We should not have said anything about it had not our attention been called to it by a friend on account of its dangerous character.

It is high time that we had a complete series of really Catholic text-books which would need no correction, either in their matter or in the spirit in which they are written. We could put up even with inferior ones for the sake of religion and the faith of our young people; but we should not have to try very hard to come up to the standard of such books as the one just noticed.

NEW PRACTICAL MEDITATIONS for Every Day in the Year, on the
Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Chiefly intended for the use of
Religious Communities. By the Rev. Father Bruno Vercruysse,
S.J. The only complete English translation. New York and
Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1875.

We have seen several books of meditations, but none so _business-like_ as this. The practice of mental prayer is by no means easy to everybody, and needs much explanation and suggestive aid. Now, many of the manuals which are offered as guides prove unsatisfactory to the user by either suggesting too little or making the meditation for him. In the work before us we see nothing of this kind to regret. The plan is in many respects new. Indeed, the author calls special attention to the preface in which he explains his method.

Though “chiefly intended for religious communities,” these meditations are well adapted for private individuals, both ecclesiastic and lay. Moreover, a single “point” of each meditation will be found sufficient by itself for those who have not time for more. The work is also “enriched by several Novenas and Octaves; Meditations for the First Friday of every month, and for the days of Communion; … a new method of hearing Mass, and practical remarks on the different parts of meditations; a plan of Jerusalem with a map of Palestine, showing the different localities mentioned throughout the work, and an alphabetical table of contents, and of meditations on the Gospels of the Sundays.” Also, for religious, “Exercises preparatory to the renewal of vows, and for a retreat of eight days.”

Lastly, the approbation of his eminence Cardinal Deschamps, Archbishop of Mechlin, speaks in unequivocal terms of the work’s merit. “These Meditations,” he says, … “are remarkable for the solidity of doctrine, the happy choice of subjects, and unctuous piety. The use of them cannot fail to be very profitable to religious communities, to ecclesiastics, and to those pious persons in the world who aspire to perfection.”

Annexed also is the approbation of Father Charaux, S.J., Superior-General of the Mission of New York and Canada; together with extracts from three letters of Father Beckx, the General of the Jesuits, to the author.

MADAME DE LAVALLE’S BEQUEST: Counsels to Young Ladies who
have Completed their Education. Translated from the fourth
French edition by a Sister of St. Joseph. Philadelphia: P. F.
Cunningham. 1875.

There is no doubt that this book, written in a tone of genuine affection and interest, and addressed to young ladies who have completed their education, is one that might profitably be put into the hands of those for whom it was written and translated. The only question seems to be how best to commend it to their attention; for in these days of varied and indiscriminate reading, the advice or recommendation of older people is seldom asked, and a hurried glance at the contents of a book is often sufficient to cause its rejection, as prosy or unattractive.

To young ladies, also, who enjoying in a happy home the merited confidence of their parents, and accustomed to few restrictions from them, the minute and careful instructions and directions found in some of the chapters might perhaps seem superfluous and a little amusing. Yet, when they read the dedication, and recognize the fact that the book was written under the eyes, as it were, of the Blessed Virgin, with the approbation of her who was the truest lady as well as the purest woman in the world, they will be disposed to accept with more humility and gratitude suggestions which they must feel, if followed, would render them more truly her imitators, more worthy of the name of her children.

To those who have had the privilege and happiness of a convent education, this book is of course appropriate. It will bring to their minds the gentle teaching of those peaceful days, and act as a kind of charm in recalling holy aspirations and resolutions. Especially will they welcome it as proving the tender interest of their former teachers, which, though no longer folded around them like a mantle, now attracts their attention, as a signal waved from a secure haven, to encourage their frail barks, as they push out on the uncertain waves of life.

Thoughtful minds are glad to find in a book a companion and friend; to such, and as such, we recommend this valuable Bequest.

HERBERT’S WIFE: A STORY FOR YOU. By Minnie Mary Lee. Baltimore:
Kelly, Piet & Co. 1875.

We again welcome the author of _The Heart of Myrrha Lake_ to the field of Catholic literature. The writer possesses many of the qualifications most essential to a writer of fiction--skill in the construction of plots, ability to read character at sight, and a certain raciness and vivacity of style, which holds the reader’s attention from first to last, and gives her the preference over some writers of greater artistic finish. In this is indicated our chief criticism and regret--that one so well qualified should neglect that attention to detail which characterizes the perfect artist. Not that we would advocate anything stiff or “artificial,” for true art is always in harmony with nature. It is precisely these exuberances and inaccuracies which cause the writer subsequent annoyance, and for which the critical eye is needed, to prune and correct. The plot of _Herbert’s Wife_, though simple, abounds in vivid pictures of real life, and its incidents serve the moral purpose of the story admirably. We do not doubt that each succeeding effort will exhibit less and less of the defect alluded to.

BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON, AND TEA. By Marian Harland. Author of
_Common Sense in the Household_. New York: Scribner, Armstrong
& Co. 1875.

This is decidedly the most sensible, and, we may add, entertaining book on domestic economy we remember to have met. “Marian Harland” has evidently availed herself of her skill as a novelist in sugar-coating a subject supposed to be unpalatable to those for whom the book is intended, the instructions being conveyed in the form of “Familiar Talks with the Reader.” If the writer succeeds in inducing her fair countrywomen to become proficients in the art she teaches, much will have been added to the substantial comfort of households, and a truer appreciation reached of the services of good domestics.

LINGARD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, ABRIDGED: With a Continuation
from 1688 to 1854. By James Burke, A.B. And an Appendix to
1873. The whole preceded by a Memoir of Dr. Lingard, and
Marginal Notes. By M. J. Kerney, A. M. Baltimore: J. Murphy &
Co. 1875.

This is a library edition of the abridgment heretofore issued by the same house, printed on better paper, and making a handsome octavo of 688 pages.

Lingard’s is still considered the standard English History by Catholic, and by an increasing number of impartial non-Catholic, students, and as it is probable that comparatively few readers will consider they have time enough for the entire work, this edition is likely to be a favorite one with book-buyers.

THE CATHOLIC PREMIUM-BOOK LIBRARY. First Series, 8vo. New York
and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1875.

The six volumes we have seen of this series seem to be creditable specimens, both in matter and illustrations, and the publishers are to be commended for their contributions towards a class of literature which needed attention. We cannot well have too many books which are attractive in style and healthful in tone at the same time. The works having been taken from the French, the translations have been made by competent hands, and the pictures have much greater pretensions to being termed illustrations than many which are made to do duty in that capacity. We think, however, that the publishers’ American printers and binders could have produced better work than the letter-press and “imitation cloth” binding of these volumes.

The same publishers also issue a duodecimo and an 18mo series of the same library.

WANN SPRICHT DIE KIRCHE UNFEHLBAR? ODER: NATUR UND ZWECK DES
KIRCHLICHEN LEHRAMTS. Von Thomas Franz Knox, Priester des
Oratoriums in London. Regensburg: Georg Joseph Manz. 1874.

We are glad to see that Father Knox’s work has met the appreciation in Germany of which this translation is the evidence. The publication may also, we presume, be taken as an indication of the feeling which a community of interests and dangers engenders, and which is drawing the members of the one fold in different lands into closer relations and sympathies.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: Rose Leblanc. By Lady
Georgiana Fullerton. 16mo, pp. 220.--The Two Victories. By Rev.
T. J. Potter. Third edition. 16mo, pp. 170.--Olive’s Rescue,
etc. 18mo, pp. 149.--True to the End. 18mo, pp. 150.--The
Little Crown of St. Joseph. Compiled and translated by a Sister
of St. Joseph. 24mo, pp. 347.

--The Double Triumph: A Drama. By Rev. A. J. O’Reilly. Paper,
16mo, pp. 66.--The Foundling of Sebastopol: A Drama. By W.
Tandy, D.D. Paper, 16mo, pp. 70.

--A Politico-Historical Essay on the Popes as the Protectors of
Popular Liberty. By Henry A. Brann, D.D. 8vo, pp. 30, paper.

From G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York: Philosophy of Trinitarian
Doctrine. By Rev. A. J. Pease. 12mo, pp. 183.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: Socialistic, Communistic,
Mutualistic, and Financial Fragments. By W. B. Greene. 16mo,
pp. 271.

From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: Emmore, etc. 18mo,
pp. 99.--Trouvaille, etc. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton.
18mo.--Reparation, etc. Same author.

From the AUTHOR: Mansions in the Skies: An Acrostic Poem on the
Lord’s Prayer. By W. P. Chilton, Jr. 12mo, pp. 27.

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: Through the year: Thoughts
Relating to the Seasons of Nature and the Church. By Rev. H. N.
Powers. 16mo, pp. 288.

From BAKER, GODWIN & CO., New York: Reports of the Board of
Directors and the Committees of the Xavier Union, New York,
etc. 1875.

From J. W. SCHERMERHORN & CO., New York: The Mosaic Account of
the Creation, the Miracle of To-day; or, New Witnesses of the
Oneness of Genesis and Science. By Chas. B. Warring. 1875.

From HENRI OUDIN, Paris: Les Droits de Dieu et les Idées
Modernes. Par l’Abbé François Chesnel. 8vo, pp. xxxix., 394.

From the AUTHOR: The Proposed Railway across Newfoundland: a
Lecture. By Rev. Father Morris. 8vo, pp. vi., 46, paper.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXI., No. 126.--SEPTEMBER, 1875.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

THE RIGHTS OF THE CHURCH OVER EDUCATION.

FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES, ETC.

Of all the questions which preoccupy--and justly--public opinion, and on which war is declared against the Catholic Church, one of the most vital is that of education.

“It is certain that instruction is, in fact, the great battle-field chosen in our days by the intelligent enemies of the faith. It is there they hope to take captive the youth of France, and to train up future generations for impiety and scepticism. And it must be admitted that they conduct this war with a skill which is only equalled by their perseverance.”[167]

We endeavored to point out, in a former article, the intentions of the enemies of the church, the depth of the abyss they are digging for Christian society, and the infernal art which they have shown in combining their plan of attack.[168] Since then, a first success has befallen them to justify their hopes and inflame their ardor. We may expect to see them increase their efforts to carry the fortress. Why should they not succeed when they have opposed to them only divided forces?

Happen what may, however, we must remain true to ourselves. It is our duty to hold fast the standard of our faith, in spite of the contradictions of human reason; and to oppose to the pagan error, that the state is master of education, the Christian truth, that the church alone is endowed with the power to educate the young.… The opponents of the church on this point are of two classes. One consists of those who never belonged to her, or who do so no longer; the other, of those who still call themselves her children. The former are principally Protestants, and those philosophical adversaries of revelation who deny, with more or less good faith, Catholic doctrine, and pretend to find nothing in it but illusion and blind credulity. These are, it must be owned, consistent with themselves when they refuse to the church the rights she claims over education. Their logic is correct; but it is the logic of error, and to contend with such adversaries we should have to begin with a proof of Christianity. That is not our object. Whatever may be their error, however, on the subjects of Christian revelation and the church, we hope to be able to convince them that a spirit of encroachment and ambition of rule has no part in the pretensions of the church, in the matter of the education of the young. Rather, they ought to acknowledge, with us, that therein we only fulfil a duty the most sacred, the most inviolable--that of conducting Christian souls to their supreme and eternal destiny.

But what is far less excusable is the inconsistency of certain Catholics. They are persuaded, they say, of the truth of the Catholic religion; they profess to believe her doctrine, to submit to her authority; and yet one sees them make common cause with the enemies of their faith in repudiating all control of the church in questions of instruction and of education. It is for these especially we write, in the hope of convincing them that, in challenging for herself not only complete liberty to teach her children divine and human science, but also the moral and religious direction of all Christian schools, the Catholic Church claims nothing but what is her right, and pretends to nothing more than the legitimate exercise of a necessary and divine power. Would that they could understand, in short, that no Catholic can, without inconsistency and without a kind of apostasy, assent to the exclusion of the Church from the supervision of instruction, and to the whole of it being directed by the sole authority of the civil power!

I.--THE PRINCIPLES OF SOLUTION IN THE PRESENT QUESTION.

The whole Christian theory of education rests on the following twofold truth taught by the Catholic Church: that man is created by God for a supernatural end, and that the church is the necessary intermediary between man and his supreme destiny. These two points cannot be admitted without admitting, also, that the church is right in all the rest. Unfortunately, nothing is less common than the clear understanding of these truths, essential as they are to Christianity. It will, therefore, not be unprofitable to take a brief survey of them.

The Christian religion does not resemble those philosophical theories which an insignificant minority of the human race have been discussing for three thousand years without arriving at any conclusion, and which have no practical issue for the rest of mankind. Its aim, on the contrary, is essentially practical. From the first it addresses itself, not to a few persons of the highest culture, but to all indifferently, rich and poor, learned and ignorant. It is designed for every one, because every one has a soul, created in the image of God, and because this soul religion alone can save--that is to say, conduct to its ultimate end, by rendering it at last conformable to its divine type, to the infinite perfections of God. But especially is Christianity practical, because, without any long discussions, it says to every one of us, “I am the voice of God revealing to men truths which it is their duty to believe, virtues which it is their duty to practise in this life in order to deserve, after death, everlasting happiness in the very bosom of God. Here are my credentials; they affirm the mission I have received from on high. Believe, then, the Word of God; practise his precepts, and you will be saved.” Her credentials having been verified, it comes to pass that multitudes of men yield faith to the teachings of Christianity as coming from God; they place themselves under her obedience, and the Christian society is founded, with its hierarchy, its object clearly defined, and its special means determined by Jesus Christ, its divine founder.

But is it all, and will it be sufficient to call one’s self Christian, to be enrolled in the number of believers, to have received baptism, and to practise with more or less fidelity the precepts of the divine and ecclesiastical law? To suppose that it is, is the fatal error of a number of modern Christians, as unacquainted with their religion as they are lukewarm in fulfilling its duties. Thus understood, would Christianity have done anything but add to the religions of the philosophers incomprehensible mysteries, exceedingly troublesome practices, and ceremonies as meaningless to the mind as useless to the soul? Far from this, Christianity is itself, also, radical after its fashion. It deprives man of nothing which constitutes his nobility; it enriches it rather. It does not oppose his legitimate aspirations for what is great, for what is beautiful; it hallows them rather. It does not deny him the gratification of any of his loftier and more generous instincts; it only supplies them with an object infinitely capable of contenting them. In a word, it does not destroy nature; it transforms and deifies it, by communicating to it a supernatural and divine life.

What is life in mortal man but the movement of all his powers in quest of an object which gives them happiness? Well, then, Christianity lays hold of these human powers, and, in order to transform them, it infuses into them a new principle, which is grace--that is, the virtue of God uniting itself to the soul; it places a higher end before them--the possession of God in his own essence, an infinite object of knowledge and of love; it enables them, indeed, to bring forth works not possible to our frail nature without a divine illumination which enlightens the intelligence, and without a holy inspiration which strengthens and assists the will. It is a completely new man grafted on the root of the natural man. It is a new way of living, wherein, under the influence of a supernatural and divine principle, our feelings become purified by finding their source in God, our knowledge enlarges, because it penetrates even into the mysteries of the divine essence, and our love becomes limitless as God himself, the only true good, whom we love in himself, and in his creatures, the reflex of himself.

We know well that rationalistic philosophy, when it hears us speak of a divine life, of union with God by a higher principle than nature, shrugs its shoulders, and with superb self-complacency rings the changes on the words illusion, mysticism, extravagance. But what matter? Has it ever, like us, had any experience of this second life of the soul, so as to understand its reality and its grandeur? Its God, silent and solitary, exists only for reason. He will never issue from his eternal repose. He will not meddle with his creatures to constitute their happiness. This is not the God to satisfy our nature, thirsting for the infinite. He is not the God of Christianity whom we have learned to know and to love.

But to return to the church. Manhood is not the work of a day. Thirty years at the least pass away before the human being arrives at maturity, passing successively through the stages of infancy, boyhood, and youth. What care, what pains, and what active solicitude are needed for his education! A mother, a father, a master, devote themselves to it by turns. Fortunate if, after all, these efforts are crowned with success! Is it to be said that it costs less time and labor to bring a soul to spiritual maturity, to raise it to the perfection of this divine life? A day, a year--will they suffice to enlighten the intelligence with truths it must believe, to instruct it in obligations it must fulfil, but, above all, to form in it a habit of all those virtues it is bound to practise? Or is its education so different from the natural education that it can dispense with an instructor? Will the child, unaided, raise itself to God--we mean to the highest degree of moral perfection, of Christian sanctity? It would be folly to suppose it. It needs, therefore, a master; some one charged with the duty of teaching it truth, of forming it in virtue. Who is this instructor? Is it any other than that one to whom Jesus Christ, the divine but invisible Master, once said, “As my Father has sent me, I send you. Go then, teach all nations; teaching them to observe my whole law.” This instructor is the church, represented by her pastors, the lawful successors of the apostles.

This principle must be borne in mind, this indisputable truth of revealed doctrine. We shall see the consequences of it presently. We assert that the church, and the church alone, has received from Jesus Christ the power of forming the supernatural man--the Christian in the full force of that term. No one else can pretend to it. Not the state, with its power; not private individuals, with their knowledge, however great; not even the father or mother of the family, great as is the authority over their children’s souls with which God has invested them. And wherefore? Because the church alone possesses the means indispensable for a Christian education.

These means are of three kinds. In the name of God, the church gives truth to the understanding; she imposes a law on the will; and she dispenses grace, without which the Christian would lack power to believe the truth and to fulfil the law. Withdraw these things, and Christian education ceases to exist. You deliver up the understanding to human opinions; therein it loses faith. The will becomes a law to itself; that is to say, it has no other law to guide it than its own caprices and passions; and then, the moral force disappearing, man in the face of duty is oftener than not powerless to fulfil it. Now, who is it whom God has charged with the duty of preserving amongst men, and of communicating to every generation the treasure of revealed truths? Who is it who represents on earth the divine power, and has the right of enlightening consciences on the subjects of justice and injustice, of right and wrong? Whom, in short, has Jesus Christ appointed minister of his sacraments to distribute to souls the supernatural succors of grace? The church, and the church alone. To her have all generations of mankind been entrusted throughout the progress of the ages, in order that she may bring them forth to spiritual life, and form in them Jesus Christ, the divine model whom Christian education ought to reproduce in every one of us. It is, then, true that the formation of the supernatural man, of the Christian, is the proper ministry of the church; that this ministry constitutes a part of her essential functions; that it is, in a sense, her whole mission on earth; so much so, that she could not abdicate it without betraying her trust, without abandoning the object of her mission, and overthrowing the whole work of Christianity.

This is a fundamental principle which no sincere Catholic could think of rejecting, so solidly is it based on revelation, and so conformable is it to the principles of faith. There remains, consequently, only to deduce from it its consequences, and to point out how the whole claim of power over the instruction and education of Christian youth which the church asserts flows from it as a necessary and logical deduction. Now the church herself having been careful to determine the rights which belong to her, it is her word we shall take for our guide, it is her doctrine we propose to defend. It is clearly annunciated in the Encyclical _Quanta Cura_, and in the _Syllabus_, the most authentic exposition of the mind of the church on all the disputed questions of the day, as it is the most assailed.

II.--POSITION OF THE QUESTION.

For nearly three centuries the government of France has labored with indefatigable persistency and energy to concentrate in its hands all the social powers, and to constitute itself, as it were, the universal motive-cause in the state. Autonomy of provinces, communal franchises, individual or collective precedence in certain great public services, all have successively disappeared before the continual encroachments of the central power. Thus the state is no longer a living organism of its own life, at once manifold and ordered. It has become a huge mechanism, whose thousands of wheels, inert and powerless of themselves, move only at the impulse of the centre of the motive forces. To make of society a kind of human machine may be the ideal of a certain materialist and socialist school. It has never been the idea of Christianity. We Christians have too much regard for our personal dignity, we know too well the limits of the functions of the civil power, thus to abdicate all spontaneity, all precedence of our own, and to consent to become nothing but mere parts of a machine, when we can be, and ought to be, activities full of life and movement.

In the matter of education especially, what errors have not been committed, of what usurpations has not the civil power incurred the guilt? By the creation of an official, pattern university, monopolizing instruction, and subject exclusively to the direction of the government, all the authorities to whom belonged formerly the instruction and education of youth have been suppressed at one blow. There is no longer any right recognized, any action suffered, but that of the state, master both of school and pay. Everything by the state, everything for the state, this through long weary years has been the undiscussable maxim against which Catholic consciences, little disposed to sacrifice their right to the usurped power of the government, struggled in vain.

At last, thanks to the persistent protest of those consciences, so long despised; the principle has lost its pretended obviousness, and the fact itself has received its first check--sure prelude of its approaching disappearance. The moment seems to have arrived when those who have the right ought to claim their legitimate share in the exercise of a function eminently social. Now all have a right here. The government has its rights; as responsible for the good and evil which befall society; for the evil, to check and prevent it; for the good, to help in effecting it. The church has her rights, because she is the great moral power in society, and there is question here, pre-eminently, of a moral function. The family has its rights, for it is its fruit which has to be reared and instructed. Individuals, even, have their rights--the right of devotion and sacrifice in behalf of a holy work, and of a ministry which, more than any other, stands in need of those graces.

Here are, assuredly, enough of rights, despised for three-quarters of a century, and swallowed up in the insatiable power of the state. It would be a deed worthy of our generation to re-establish all in their original and proper order. It is being attempted, we know, and already the National Assembly[169] has begun to concede an instalment of justice to the family and to individuals. But the church! Why is silence kept concerning her? Why is it sought to exclude her from the debate, and to treat her claims as null and void? We Catholics cannot accept this disavowal of our rights. It concerns us to ascertain what place they propose to assign to our church in the modern state. We should like to know whether we still belong to a Christian society, or must prepare to defend the rights of our conscience in a state decidedly pagan.

What are these rights? What do we demand for the church? What position, in short, do we wish to see her assume in all that concerns the education of youth? Such are the questions we propose to solve. We will state them with yet more precision. When there is question of the rights of the church in communities, three hypotheses are possible according to the different conditions of those communities. We may suppose a state religiously constituted--that is to say, wherein the gospel and Christianity are not only the rule of life and the religion of individuals, but, besides, the foundation of legislation, the worship adopted in the manifestations of public piety; whatever may be, in other respects, the general aspect of the relations established, by common consent, between the church and the state.

In opposition to this first hypothesis there exists another--that of a civil society, wherein the religious authority and the political authority have the appearance of ignoring one another; wherein the state affects indifference with regard to all religions, fosters no one of them, and, limiting its action exclusively to the material interests of the community, leaves individuals to embrace and practise whichever of the worships suits them best. To borrow the popular formula, such a constitution would realize “a free church in a free state”; or, more exactly, “a state separated from the church.”[170]

Lastly, modern times have given birth to a third kind of political constitution, a mean between the two preceding ones, in which Catholicity is no longer the base of the social edifice in preference to every other religion, and is only one of the public worships recognized by the state; at times that of the majority of the citizens, and observed as such in the religious solemnities in which the government takes a part. In this hypothesis, the state remains religious, but it is neither Catholic nor Protestant. A Christianism vague and general enough to lend itself to all communions, a kind of rational deism, rather, inspires its legislation; honor is done to ministers of recognized worships, and when government feels a need of betaking itself to God, in order to implore his mercy, or to give him thanks for his blessings, it orders prayer in all the places of worship without distinction. Manifold, as may be supposed, are the shades of difference in the manner of constituting a state of such indefinite religious forms. It is nevertheless true that the greater number of our modern constitutions reproduce, more or less, the type we have just sketched. Are we to see in this merely a kind of transition between ancient communities, which almost all realized the first hypothesis, and the communities of the future? Or will the state, separated from the church, organize itself and govern itself in a complete independence of all religion? This is the dream of our free-thinkers. For the happiness of humanity, we hope it will not be realized.

In addition to these three hypotheses there remains the state persecutor of the church. But although this is by no means uncommon in these days, it does not enter into our present subject; which is limited to determining the rights and action of the church in a tranquil and, up to a certain point, regular state of things.

Further, Christianity being to us truth, and the Catholic Church the only true Christianity, it evidently follows that the first hypothesis constitutes the normal state of society, that in which it attains its end with the greatest perfection by the most abundant and most appropriate means. Religion, in short, is as necessary to communities as to individuals; and of all religions, only the true one can be a real element of the prosperity of states.

The problem to solve, then, is as follows: First to examine and determine the rights which belong to the church in a well-organized society--that is to say, in a Christian or Catholic society. Then, when we know the better, the more perfect, to lay down the necessary and the possible, in communities where human passions have made for the church an inferior position, but little favorable to the full exercise of her rights.

III.--CHRISTIAN EDUCATION IN A CHRISTIAN STATE.

The Jews in this resembled, to a certain extent, a Christian--that is a Catholic--people; namely, that amongst them one of the tribes had been chosen by God to be wholly consecrated to his service, and to be devoted exclusively to the ministry of the altars. So also, but with the difference demanded by the new conditions of the priesthood, God chooses amongst the faithful his clerics, divinely called to exercise the sacerdotal functions; for under the New Law, as under the Old, no one can pretend to this honor unless he be called of God. Here, then, are two categories of individuals in the nation; those who, by divine vocation, are destined for the service of the church, and those who continue in the ordinary condition of Christians--the ecclesiastics and the laics. The distinction is necessary, because the church does not claim the same rights in regard to both.

_The Rights of the Church over the Education of Clerics._--The education of clerics--of young men, that is, who devote themselves to the ecclesiastical ministry--has always been the object of the liveliest solicitude of the church. Solely anxious to see the knowledge of the faith and true piety flourish among the faithful entrusted to her care, could she forget that people conform themselves to the model of those who govern them, and that the essential condition for enlightening understandings in the truths of religion, as well as for inclining their hearts to the practice of Christian virtues, is first to fashion a clergy solidly instructed and sincerely pious? In Thomassin[171] may be found innumerable examples testifying to the solicitude of the church on the subject of schools wherein young clerics are instructed. But the most solemn act, and the most prolific in happy results, that has been accomplished for this object, is, without contradiction, the decree of the holy Council of Trent, directing all the bishops, metropolitans, and other pastors charged with the government of the church to erect, each in their respective dioceses, a house or seminary for the purpose of lodging there, of instructing in ecclesiastical science, and bringing up in ecclesiastical virtue, the children of the town, diocese, or province, who shall show signs of a true divine vocation.[172]

At the same time that it directs the institution of seminaries, the council is at the pains to explain their great usefulness, the necessity, even, of them for the church, as the only efficacious means of always providing zealous as well as solidly instructed ministers. It lays down also the way of life which should be observed within them, the studies to which especially the young men should devote themselves, the means to be employed by the masters for the complete education of their pupils, and even the resources of which the bishops will be able to avail themselves to help to defray the expenses of these precious schools.

It may have been already remarked how the council regulates everything of its own authority and without asking aught of secular powers. It proves the church’s right to herself alone institute and organize her ecclesiastical seminaries. But that which decisively manifests her mind on this point is the care which the Council of Trent takes to place the entire administration of these schools in the hands of the bishops, assisted by two of the oldest and most prudent of the cathedral chapter, chosen by them under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.[173] Such is the authority to which belongs exclusively the right of regulating all that concerns the education of clerics. Neither can the lay faithful, nor Christian families, nor, still less, governments, meddle at all with this work, which is exclusively the affair of the church. Accordingly, in the forty-sixth proposition of the _Syllabus_, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., has reproved, proscribed, and condemned the doctrine of those who pretend “to subject to civil authority the method to be followed in the theological seminaries.”

The church claims, then, complete liberty to choose her ministers herself, and to form them in the manner which seems to her most desirable. This is no privilege which she asks of the state, it is a right which she holds from Jesus Christ, and by his divine appointment: the right of existing, the right of perpetuating herself upon earth by keeping up her hierarchy of teaching pastors and faithful taught, and in recruiting from among the latter those whom God himself calls to the honors of the priesthood.

And, in truth, to what rights over the education of clerics can a civil government pretend? Is it to judge of the knowledge which is necessary for the ministers of the altar? But is not the church appointed by Jesus Christ the sole guardian of revealed truth, and has not she alone received the mission of teaching the peoples? Can it be, indeed, to discern in the subjects who present themselves a divine vocation, and the degree of virtue requisite for a priest? But for such discernment, has, then, the civil power the special illumination of the Holy Ghost? Does it know the mysterious action of grace in the soul, and does God reveal to it his secrets? Or can it be, as some governments have not been afraid to do, to determine the number of young men who ought every year to respond to the call of God and enrol themselves in the sacred army? Impious and sacrilegious pretension! which says to the Spirit of God, “Thus far shall your inspirations go, and no farther.” As if the state, and not God, were the judge of the church’s needs! As if the civil power had received from Jesus Christ the commission to fix annually in the budget the effective of men employed in his divine service, after the same fashion as it regulates the annual contingent of soldiers called to the service of the state!

But no, not one of these pretensions is tenable. The state has no power whatever over the education of clerics; and the church, by its divine institution, is alone competent for this work, necessary above all to its existence and the perpetuity of its action in the world.

Such are the rights of the church in this first department of education. They are absolute, exclusive, and inalienable. What have we next to say of those she possesses in the education of the laity?

_The Rights of the Church over Public Education._--That which certain Catholics refuse to the church, even in a community Christianly constituted, is not the right of giving instruction in the public schools, and making her influence felt there to the advantage of the morality and good education of the youth. No one but a rationalist or free-thinker can deny the necessity of making religion the foundation of all education, if we would bring up Christians, and not unbelievers. More than this, these same Catholics acknowledge, besides, that the church by her priests, and her religious devoted to the education of youth, enjoys the right possessed by all citizens of opening public schools and teaching, not only the verities of the Catholic faith, but letters and human science in all its branches. They are generally advocates of freedom of instruction to its utmost extent; and the power they accord to the humblest citizen they do not commit the folly of refusing to those whose character, knowledge, and disinterestedness best qualify them for those delicate functions.

Here, then, are two acknowledged rights of the church, on which we need not insist further. First, the right of providing religious instruction for the youth at school, and their education according to the principles of Christian morality. Secondly, the right of giving, herself, to children and to young people, whose families entrust them to her, a complete education, embracing instruction in letters and in the secular sciences; the right, consequently, of founding religious congregations entirely consecrated to the ministry of instruction and Christian education; the right of establishing these institutions, providing for their recruitment, and for their material means of existence. All this, it is acknowledged, constitutes the normal condition of the church in communities which concede a just share of influence to the Catholic religion, to its ministers, and to all those who are inspired with its spirit of devotion to the general welfare. But observe the points of divergence between the Catholics of whom we are speaking and those who are more jealous to preserve intact the rights conferred by Jesus Christ upon his church. According to the former, a distinction must be made between religious education and literary or scientific education. The former, by its object and by its end, escapes from the competence of the state to re-enter what is exclusively the province of the church. It is different with literary and scientific instruction. That, they say, is a social service which belongs, like other services of a similar kind, to the jurisdiction of the city or nation. The exercise of the teaching ministry is undoubtedly free. Private individuals are entitled to devote themselves to it without let or hindrance. But the direction of this ministry should be ascribed to the state, the only judge of whatever affects the present and the future of society. Guardian of order, of justice, and of morals in the community, it is the duty of government itself to regulate the discipline of public schools, the instruction which is given there, the academic titles which open the way to certain civil or administrative careers, and the choice of masters; who, at any rate, should not have incurred any of the disqualifications determined by the law. Moreover, since its functions impose on it the duty of encouraging, as much as possible, useful institutions, and such as are essential to public prosperity, the government is bound to support schools founded by private individuals; and even, if there be not enough of them for the needs of the people, to institute others by its own authority, and out of the public funds. This, according to them, belongs to the domain of the state. Here it reigns supreme, without having to share its power with any other power, civil or religious. Public instruction is a branch of administration on the same grounds as war or finance.

Thus think and speak Catholics of the modern political school. Unluckily for them, such is not the doctrine of the church. Pius IX., in the forty-fifth proposition of the _Syllabus_, explicitly condemns the opinion we have just described, and which he formulates in the following terms: “The whole direction of public schools, in which the youth of a Christian state is brought up, with the exception, to a certain extent, of episcopal seminaries, can be and ought to be vested in the civil authority, and that in such a manner that the right of no other authority should be recognized to interfere with the discipline of those schools, with the curriculum of studies, with the conferring of degrees, or with the choice or approval of masters.” This, however specious, is thus erroneous, and no Catholic can maintain it. It is, in fact, false in a two-fold point of view--false in a merely natural point of view, because it ascribes to the state a function which, in default of the church, belongs exclusively to the family; false also, and especially, in a supernatural point of view, because it separates what ought to be united, the temporal consequences of education, and its supernatural end. We will expose this twofold error.

Under the empire of a nondescript philosophical paganism, our modern politicians have a striking tendency to enlarge more and more in society the circle of governmental privileges. One would suppose, to listen to them, that it was the function of power to completely absorb all the organic elements which go to make a nation, and to leave no longer existing side by side of it, or beneath it, aught but inert individualities, social material capable of receiving impulse and movement only from it. Healthy reason protests against a theory so destructive of the most indispensable elements of social prosperity. Families collecting into cities forfeited none of their natural rights; cities, in associating themselves in nations did not pretend to abdicate all their powers. What both sought, on the contrary, in association, was a stronger guarantee of those very rights; it was the maintenance of the most inviolable justice in human relations; it was, in short, an efficient protection against violence and oppression, whether from within or without.