Chapter XIV: The Episode Explained (9)

3. “The mission of the Roman Empire to inculcate and preserve among the nations the knowledge of a certain number of the doctrines and virtues forming part of the original revelation which Noah brought with him out of the ark.

4. “The advantage, for the formation of the Christian society, of the firm establishment of the outward framework of good public order, of municipal liberties, and of the general peace of the world, including the necessary security for life and prosperity.”

These are weighty considerations, and worthy of a much more extended development than the author gives in the lectures before us. His thesis affirmed as probable (and we deem it no less), Roman history would need to be re-written, and by one who should be not only an historian, but a philosopher and a Christian. The perusal of these lectures cannot fail to interest the student, and particularly those who pretend to study the philosophy of history.

POPULAR LIFE OF DANIEL O’CONNELL. 1 vol. 16mo, pp. 294.
Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

Public attention in these days is being more and more turned to O’Connell and the work he wrought. No later than last year the Holy Father held him up as a guide to Catholics in their conflict with powers leagued together against the church, against Catholic rights, and, as a matter of consequence, against all right. The more the great Irish leader’s life is studied, the more evident becomes the fact that freedom, liberty, right, were not to him merely national but universal claims. What he demanded for his own he would have granted to all, and in claiming his own he asked no favor; he called for none of what are known as heroic remedies; he appealed simply to the spirit of all sound laws and the sense of right that is in the conscience of all men. It would be well if, in future lives of him, this great, this greatest perhaps, feature of O’Connell’s character were brought out in stronger relief. For it is just this that makes him more than a leader of his people; it makes him a leader of all peoples who have wrongs to right and abuses to abolish. The small volume before us tells the story of O’Connell’s life in the conventional manner. “Popular” is on the title-page, and there is no reason why the “life” should not be popular. It “has been compiled from the most authentic sources,” says the preface modestly enough, and in this the value of the book is rated in a line. It is a compilation, and no more. As a compilation there is no especial fault to be found with it. On the contrary, the various parts are stitched cleverly together, so as to make a sufficiently interesting narrative. Compilations, however, are becoming too numerous nowadays, and the literature in which shears and paste-pot play the chief part is growing into a school, and a school that cannot be commended. It is not encouraging to open what the reader takes to be a new book, and find in it page after page of matter that has been writ or told a thousand times already.

ELMWOOD; OR, THE WITHERED ARM. By Katie L. 1 vol. 16mo, pp.
233. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1876.

The title of this story, though sufficiently thrilling, gives but a faint indication of the chamber of horrors that lies concealed between the pleasant-looking covers. The title of the first chapter is “Midnight,” and it begins as follows: “W-H-I-R-R! groaned the old clock. The sound rang throughout the immense corridor, reverberating like the moan of a lost soul.” Three lines lower down, “A wild, unearthly yell” breaks “with fearful distinctness on the midnight silence.” Chapter III. begins: “Silence! Gloom! Remorse! Anguish! Alone! all alone!” and so on. We spare the reader the prolonged agony.

The story might be called a series of paroxysms, and, were it only intended as a caricature of the dime novel, would be one of the most successful that was ever written. Murder glares from every page, and agony reverberates along every line. There is an abundance of “tall, slight figures robed in white,” “ethereal oil-lamps,” “howling tempests,” “deathly faintnesses,” thrilling “ha! ha’s!” “blue chambers,” “north-end chambers,” “awful arms,” “blood-stained hands,” poison, murder, despair, agony, death. There are the usual heroes with the conventional marble brow and clustering curls around it, and the heroines, tall and stately, sylph-like and sweet, blonde or brunette, according to order. Everybody is Maud, or Elaine, or Edwin, or Herbert. One quite misses Enid, Gawain, Launcelot, and Guinevere. Of course there is no special quarrel with nonsense of this kind, beyond the regret that there should be found persons not only to think and write it, but sane persons to publish and propagate it. When, however, we find religion dragged in to give it a kind of moral flavor—dragged in, too, in the most absurd and reprehensible fashion—what might be passed over as a foolish offence against good sense and good taste becomes a matter of graver moment, to be utterly condemned as irreverent and harmful, however unintentional the irreverence and harm may be. It is necessary to be severe about this kind of literature. Uninstructed Catholics who, by whatever misfortune, have access to paper and types, do a world of harm, though they themselves may be actuated by the best motives possible. This book would do no more harm to sensible persons than cause a laugh, possibly a shudder, at its tissue of absurdities. But falling into the hands of non-Catholics, it would by many be taken as the natural outcome of Catholic teaching, and disgust them with everything connected with the Catholic name. The preface to the book speaks of “the moral conveyed in the following pages,” which, it says, “is too obvious to need particular specification.” Possibly; nevertheless, we thought it our duty to specify it above. The preface adds that the book was written “during some of the sweetest hours” of the writer’s life, “in the midst of the most charming surroundings, and solely for the eyes of a few friends.” It is to be deeply regretted, for the writer’s own sake, that one, at least, of her few friends had not the courage and kindliness to deter her from “sending forth upon its new and unexpected mission” a book that can only bring pain to the author and pain to those who feel bound to condemn it.

THE SCHOLASTIC ALMANAC FOR 1876. Edited by Professor J. A.
Lyons, Notre Dame, Ind. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co. 1876.

This is modelled on the _Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac_, the first of the kind published in this country, only it is not illustrated. Its literary matter is very good, and in its paper, press-work, etc., it is a creditable publication.

THE SPECTATOR (SELECTED PAPERS). By Addison and Steele. With
introductory essay and biographical sketches by John
Habberton. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1876.

This is the first of a series to be made up of selections from the standard British essayists. The present volume contains careful selections from the _Spectator_. Those who care to see what journalism was in the days when Addison and Steele were journalists will welcome this series, so well begun in the elegant volume before us. It is to be feared that Addison or Steele would stand a poor chance of employment in the present “advanced” stage of journalism. Nevertheless, our editorial writers would do neither themselves nor their readers much harm in trying to discover what is the special charm that lingers about the pages of these dead-and-gone magazines. When they have made the discovery, they will be in a fair way to make it worth the while of an enterprising publisher, say a century hence, to wade through the pages of their journals for the purpose of unearthing the author of such and such articles, with a view to giving them again to the world.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 134.—MAY, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.

THE ROOT OF OUR PRESENT EVILS.

When Mr. Dickens repaid the hospitality which he had received by his extremely humorous satires of this country, he called the attention of all Americans to the extent to which our national vanity was likely to blind us. Mr. Chollop’s opinion to the effect that “we are the intellect and virtue of the airth, the cream of human natur, and the flower of moral force,” has been secretly cherished by many better men.

The conviction of ordinary Americans is that our system of government is so evidently perfect, and the course of our development so manifestly healthy, that nothing but sheer blindness can account for any suspicion as to their future stability. To those who question the success of our future we are wont to reply by a smile of genuine pity, or by pointing to the results already achieved and the difficulties which have been surmounted. We have fused the most incongruous race-mixture into one homogeneous nation. We have occupied a continent, and laid the foundations of a great empire upon a comprehensive and stable adjustment of all the functions of government. We have eliminated the vast system of human slavery from which our ruin had been predicted. We have overcome the most powerful assault upon the integrity of our national existence; and any violent attempt upon our government seems at present to be both impossible of occurrence and hopeless of success.

It cannot be denied, however, that recent events have awakened in the minds of earnest and patriotic Americans a sense of uneasiness and anxiety very different from any similar feeling in the past. The professional politician sees in the corruption lately developed in Washington simply the evidence of decay manifested by a powerful organization which has enjoyed unlimited power and survived the issues which brought it into existence. He would persuade the people that a “rotation” is all that is necessary in order to restore things to an honest and sober condition. Less thoughtful men demand a return on the part of officials “to the simplicity of our forefathers,” and applaud blindly every effort at retrenchment. All observant writers and thinkers deprecate any such impossibility and are quite clear as to the folly of attempting it. The _Nation_, March 16, says: “We confess that there is to us something almost as depressing in this kind of talk as in the practice, in which many of our newspapers indulge, of drawing consolation for the present corruption of this republic from the reflection that the corruption of the English monarchy one hundred and fifty years ago was just as great; because both one and the other have a tendency to turn people’s minds away from real remedies and throw them back on quackery.”

The feeling exhibited by this writer is not confined to himself; and the protest which he makes against disguise and quackery is extended much further than he himself has carried it. For the most part careful observers are willing to postpone the question of treatment until the public is settled as to what the malady really is. We are shaken out of our customary habit of mind by witnessing the disgrace and infamy which cover our present administration. Everybody feels that something ought to be done. But to pay particular attention to this portion of the body politic, without examining how far the disease extends and what is its source, is simply to run the risk of suppressing a symptom instead of curing a disorder.

The slightest attempt at candid observation reveals clearly that corruption is not confined to Washington. A few years ago it was supposed to be limited to a certain class of local politics; then it was restricted to the city of New York. Now it is proved to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to exist in every circle of society. The suspicion which once attached to the “ward politician” now hangs about our representatives and senators. Dishonesty in commercial transactions perpetrates renewed outrages. We shall soon have to establish fresh associations to insure our insurance companies and to guarantee our banks. The medical profession feels called upon to issue tracts in order to guard against the physical degeneracy of the entire race.

To deny that there is a pronounced, marked, and universal decadence in morality is simply to stultify all faculties of observation and to contradict the testimony of every sense. It is not necessary to repeat the list of scandals which are daily appearing, or to appeal to the conviction, which prevails everywhere, that we have seen but a small portion of those which really exist. It is the common sentiment that the next century will witness either a complete and radical reform of the present state of things, or else a condition far worse than the enemies of this country have ever yet predicted.

Startling as this conviction may appear, the only thing which ought to surprise us is that the present disorder has not been foreseen and is not now more fully understood. It would have been easy to predict the increase of wealth and the consequent increase of luxury in our midst. No sane person can doubt that these sources of temptation will be greater in the future. The presence of wealth, the possibility of attaining it, will call forth all the activity of the rising generation, and the keenness of the struggle, in which all are free within the limits of the law, will tend constantly to lower the standard of honesty. The strictness of party discipline, the disgust which the mass of citizens have for attending to the details of politics, offer the widest scope for unprincipled adventurers. There are few careers in which quackery, fraud, and imposture cannot secure those fruits for the possession of which honesty and labor are forced to suffer and to strive.

It does not involve a cynical view of mankind to decide that where the occasion of sin abounds wickedness will increase and prove destructive, unless adequate means are taken to preserve the purity of a nation.

This restraining influence in the history of nations hitherto has been religion, which is supposed to furnish motives and to supply the strength and means of combating these evil tendencies, and of defining and consolidating public morality.

The religion under profession of which the older portions of the republic developed was professedly Christian and retained much of the traditional morality of the middle ages. There was no particular form of Protestantism which succeeded in impressing itself permanently upon the growing republic, although some connection of church and state was universally recognized in the early State constitutions. The rigid forms of Puritanism and Quakerism were well calculated to preserve frugality and simplicity of life as long as they could be maintained in rigidity. But no system of mere forms or external restraint could suffice for the direction of a civilization which, still in its infancy, presents so much richness and luxuriance of growth. Neither the austerity of the Roundhead nor the dignity of the Cavalier could hope to remain as the type upon which the American character was to be moulded. The external habiliments of the early generations were bound to disappear, as they have disappeared. But their principles—_i.e._, the beliefs of Protestantism—were to remain and to form the intellect and conscience of the American people. However great the influence of Southern statesmen upon our external constitution, the New England mind has wrought most powerfully upon the popular sentiment of the country. This action has been manifold.

The stock in trade, to use a homely comparison, with which Protestantism assumed its duty of providing for the moral and intellectual necessities of the American people was contained in the principles of the so-called Reformation.

In addition to the theory of private judgment, which was retained, with the utmost inconsistency, the early religion of this country reposed upon two fundamental and mischievous errors which were inherited from the authors of the Reformation. These were the heresies of justification by faith alone and the total depravity of human nature. If any proof were wanting of the strength and permanence of the religious instinct in man, it would appear in the fact that such monstrous delusions could so long receive the assent of those who professed at the same time perfect freedom of belief. These disgusting caricatures of Christian dogma have almost lost their control over human reason, and will remain only to demonstrate the needs of man and his weakness when acting in abnormal ways and under false traditions. But the fruit which they have borne will not speedily perish. After crystallizing into a system and founding institutions for perpetuating its growth, the Calvinism of New England assumed all the proportions and manners of an established sect. The preachers were intellectually well worthy of the position which they enjoyed. Great eloquence, rich thought, and all the scholarship of which they were possessed were wasted in elaborate sermons proving, or attempting to prove, their dark and malignant creed. A large mass of the people, however, not attracted by the airs of Calvinism, were repelled by the heavy and metaphysical style of the Calvinistic pulpit.

Before the separation of the colonies from the mother country New England Calvinism had become sufficiently dry and devoid of sentiment to prepare the way for a more emotional religion. Thousands of eager souls drank in the enthusiasm of Asbury, Coke, and the other apostles of Wesleyanism. The founders of Methodism in America, though obliged to adopt some articles of faith as distinctive of their organization, owed their success to the fact that, discarding all reasoning, they appealed to religious emotion, and were mainly instrumental in founding that school of theology whose doctrine is that it matters little what one does or believes, provided one _feels_ right.

Emotionalism has run its course and dies out in the Hippodrome, whither the official teachers of evangelicalism have led their congregations to receive from the ministrations of two illiterate laymen that spiritual stimulant which can no longer be obtained from educated preachers in the fashionable meeting-house.

While the ancient organizations of Puritanism continued, with more or less dilution of its original doctrines, another movement had arisen in the very heart of Calvinism. The Unitarian movement has proved a complete reaction against what are called the doctrines of the Reformation. It has resulted in the extinction of the religious sentiment. Its popular summary is to the effect, that it makes little difference what one feels or believes, provided he _does_ right. From the society of the Free Religionists back to the original shades of Calvinism is a gloomy road for even the imagination to travel, but no one can pass over it in fancy without perceiving the utter impossibility of persuading one who has once emerged from, ever to return to, the earlier darkness.

To continue in a creed which involved blasphemy against the goodness of God and the denial of all the natural sources of morality, or to surrender one’s self to religious emotion without any solid intellectual principle, or else to place individuals in entire dependence upon their private perceptions of religious and moral truth, and finally pass from one degree of scepticism to another—one of these three alternatives was proposed as the occupation of the American intellect during the most active period of national growth.

The Egyptian darkness which Calvinism brings upon any thoughtful soul was the inheritance of the religious youth of the country. What virtue can exist when total depravity is daily preached? What bar does it put to the passions of man to know or to believe that his salvation does not depend upon his good life? What conception of the universe can he form who sees in it only the work of what a popular preacher has called an “infinite gorilla”? Nothing is more pathetic than the history which we have of minds whose natural goodness vainly struggled against these detestable heresies. And if the religious heart of New England found in its creed nothing but discouragement, what was the effect of that religion upon the popular mind? Is it not mainly to its influence that all that is repulsive and hard in the Yankee character is to be attributed?

But, on the other hand, what has been left by the decay of emotional religion? It might have been prophesied with safety that the result would be simply a reaction. So far as can be observed, it is nothing more or less. The writer was not a little amused at reading lately in a Methodist paper an editorial charging strongly against the present style of revivals, under the heading of “Religious Fits.” The editor, in the course of his remarks, very bluntly asserted that religious fits are not much better than any other kind of fits—a proposition which sums up the vital weakness of Methodism. And when a whole nation or a large class is reduced to this condition, the recovery from the fit will be attended with great disaster. “The religion of gush,” as it has been forcibly styled, is fatal to morality. It is an attempt to feed a starving man upon stimulants. The appearance of strength which it gives is simply an additional tax upon the system. Emotional religion may succeed in quieting women who are secluded in domestic life, or even the weaker sort of men who are occupied solely in teaching it; but for the common mass, who are daily exposed to temptation, it is, at most, a salve with which the wounds inflicted upon conscience are plastered over. There is nothing in it to discipline the soul before trial, and nothing to repair its weaknesses after it has fallen.

With regard to the results of the naturalistic revolt against Calvinism there is little to be said. The charming writers who have given it prestige are not its product but its cause. In so far as they assert the dignity of human reason against Calvinism, to this extent they are in harmony with our natural instincts and have tended to produce a wholesome influence. But even transcendentalism is past its wane, and will be known in the future only by its literary reputation. Free religion has developed no permanent constructive idea. Its principal effect will be to obliterate whatever of Christianity has clung to the tradition of New England Protestantism. Its mission will be accomplished when all connection between the past and present shall have been effectually broken. It leaves us only a considerable amount of scientific knowledge which we should possess without it. Its morality staggers through the wide range extending from free love and spiritism into the undefined vacuity which it supposes to lie between these bolder theories and old-fashioned uprightness. Like emotional Protestantism, it is wholly incapable of withstanding any strain or of guiding and controlling the absolute individualism which it has created. If the Congregational pastor of Plymouth Church affords a sad example of the impotence of emotional pietism, the unfortunate plaintiff in the lawsuit against him is no less a melancholy instance of the aberrations of the last phase of American Protestantism.

There is little affectation of concealment, on the part of thoughtful Americans, of the conviction that our national growth and the success of our government are subject to the universal laws according to which past empires have risen and perished. It is to be hoped that the success with which we have been blessed so far will not blind our eyes to this truth. We must have a solid basis of morality, or we are doomed to fall into such a condition as will make our absolute extinction a desirable thing. Whence is this new life to come? Is there anything in American Protestantism which can reverse its steady process of decay and disintegration? Has it any principles which can arrest for one moment the popular tendencies? We are unable to see in it even a “serviceable breakwater against errors more fundamental than its own”; quite the contrary. Its dogmatic front only serves to disgust those who mistake it for Christianity. Protestantism never converted a nation to Christianity or formed one. It could do neither even if it had an opportunity. In its latitudinarian aspect it directly fosters the present vagueness of moral convictions; while its emotional tendency only justifies the substitution of sentiment for reason and nullifies all attempts to subject the feelings to the judgment.

However one may be disposed to prefer the paganism which universally pervades our era to the unlovely fanaticism of earlier times, experience, both past and present, forbids the indulgence of any hope of future success springing from it.

It is hard to imagine what thought has been expended upon this subject by those who profess to see the way out of our present difficulties through a lavish system of public education. We hear declamations on this subject which fill us with bewilderment. If the public schools were able to furnish the people with sound moral instruction, we could understand something of the enthusiasm which describes them as the sources of national morality and as the salvation of the future. God knows we have no desire to cut off one ray of light; but the present moment is not one in which to indulge in madness. The sooner it is understood that our system of education is destroying the generation that is subjected to its influence, the better. It stands to reason that the great need of the hour is to save our children from its evils. Our public education barely succeeds in exaggerating all the moral and physical degeneracies of the day. To develop the desire and capacity for action and enjoyment, without providing means of guiding and restraining within wholesome limits the power thus produced, is simply to court disaster. We are suffering at present from aversion to hard labor and a quiet life from the unbridled desire of wealth and pleasure, from the absence of well-defined moral sentiment. The present system of education, so vehemently applauded, is an aggravation of all the morbid tendencies of our condition. This complaint will not receive much attention coming from this source, but it is finding universal utterance from the medical profession, and its justice will speedily appear to the most casual observer.

There is nothing in paganism, however brilliant its science or art, that can restore the health of a race which is morally corrupt. The “positive stage of development,” as it is styled by a certain class of modern writers, is an age of decrepitude. If the analogy be true which they hold to exist between the life of man and the development of a race, we must expect death as soon as the “positive” era has been attained. The muscular epoch has passed. The age of delusions has left the mind incapable of anything but observing facts; the demand for artificial stimulants has exhausted the brain of the nation; and the body politic, though surrounded with luxury, is moribund beyond the power of recovery.

While we do not fully accept the analogy of positivism, we are convinced that neither Protestantism nor paganism can raise the nation from the slough in which it seems about to settle. Nor will it be saved by the infusion of fresh blood, as was the ancient world according to some ingenious writers. The Hun and Vandal and Goth would never have changed their originally savage state had they not met in the world that they destroyed an indestructible power which, after surviving the assaults of both Roman and barbarian, by its subtle constructive faculty altered the face of the earth. This power was Christianity, whose work of universal civilization was so fatally marred by the religious catastrophe of the sixteenth century.

Now that the false Christianity of our forefathers has developed its utter worthlessness as a guide, it will be well to inquire whether the religious system, which is historically identified with Christianity, contains any of those elements of stability so lacking in our civilization.

It is not to be expected that such a discussion, even if resulting favorably to Catholicity, will be sufficient to convert the American people to its faith, but it will greatly conduce to removing misconceptions and ignorance on the part of many of our fellow-citizens with regard to the relative merits of Catholicity and Protestantism.

No system can ever prove efficient which is unable to maintain its own integrity. No intellectual movement can hope to exert any large practical influence after it has lost its unity. Protestantism, having begun with a denial of the need of authority, was soon forced to contradict itself in practice in order to preserve its existence. But the principle which had given it life could not be disregarded, and the germ of discord, involved in the idea of a teaching body without any claim to be believed save what private conscience might be willing to concede to it, continued to produce disintegration without end.

The evils of our present exaggerated individualism are universally admitted. Men are united upon all points except those involving moral responsibility. While it is quite clear that in matters of science we are willing to trust to authority, on the other hand, in the more complex and easily perverted order of ideas (involving as they do the gravest consequences), every man is endowed with infallibility. This is simply an inversion of the natural order. The normal and rational order is preserved by Catholicity. With the Catholic Church religious truth as the basis of morality is a tradition whose bearing upon human science and politics always requires fresh application and is co-extensive with the possibility of human growth. But while this application of principle is left to individual effort and furnishes the proper exercise of the intellect, the excesses of individualism are always to be counteracted by a living authority. The ability of the church to maintain her unity has been demonstrated and perfected in its operation by the storms which the last three centuries have launched against her. The opposition to her, on the contrary, has brought about its own destruction. If the absurdities of modern individualism are to be remedied, the cure lies in an earnest consideration of the claims of Christianity. Protestantism, though a grievous calamity, has served to settle for ever all those questions concerning the supreme source of doctrinal authority which had been raised by the intrigues of the secular power in the middle age. Now it is no longer possible to confuse the sentiment of obedience to authority by reference to unlawful sources. The attack of modern governments upon the church tends still further to circumscribe the limits of secular power, and to define clearly that which belongs to Cæsar and that which belongs to God.

The stability and permanence of Catholic thought are maintained in great measure by the prerogatives of the spiritual power, which promulgates and guards the divine tradition committed to its care. But the real power which that tradition exercises is its truth and its conformity with facts. The divine revelation is made to reason. It supposes a rational being. It is accepted on rational and convincing evidence, and becomes operative in virtue of divine grace. Its aim is to elevate and ennoble human nature and to heal its infirmities. In fulfilling this mission it acts in harmony with God’s other works, always above and with reason, but never against it. It puts no obstacle in the way of human science, which, as the Vatican Council declares, can only contradict revelation by being incomplete or by misinterpreting divine truth. It encourages labor in its development of nature as a means of discipline and as furnishing the necessary condition of peace and civilization. It stimulates art to search after beauty as a means of showing the necessity and embellishing the truth of heavenly doctrine. It is true that the Catholic faith does not permit the intellect to repose in any one of these occupations as its sole end. In the light of divine truth science and art are united by a synthesis; and the rest which faith forbids the soul to take in earthly pursuits is denied by its own nature. The synthesis which faith provides is sought restlessly and eagerly by the mind. Modern thought, which has been turned away from Catholicity, searches vainly for some principle of unity.

The faith which redeemed the ancient world and prepared the germs of that degree of civilization that has not been wholly destroyed by Protestantism, was in no respect like the withering, soul-destroying horrors of Calvinism. The doctrines which supplied matter for the intense intellectual life of the middle age, which corrected Aristotle and piled tome after tome of the close, serried reasoning of St. Thomas Aquinas, was in accord with human reason, vindicated the dignity and powers of man, and stimulated him with fresh vigor in every sphere of science, poetry, and art. Scholasticism was nothing else than an effort of human reason to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christianity. The present generation is so grossly ignorant of those eight hundred years of most intense life which formed Christendom that it is not capable of appreciating their influence and still less their character. But whoever will read the _proœmium_ of the _Summa Contra Gentiles_ of the “Angel of the Schools” will see the difference between the constructive doctrine of the middle age and the reactionary delusions of the sixteenth century—the bitter fruit of that splendid revival of paganism. Protestantism, viewed as a system of doctrine, was simply an extravagant caricature of the supernaturalism of the Catholic Church. As a system of morality it was nothing else than the emancipation of the passions from the restraints imposed by Christianity. Having destroyed the necessary conditions of faith by denying authority, it presented the ideas of grace and sanctification in such a distorted manner as to render sacraments unnecessary and unmeaning, to do away with free will, merit, and natural goodness—in a word, to abolish human nature. Wherever the heirs of the so-called Reformers have revolted from the unnatural task of propagating their religious system they have left mankind, not simply bewildered by the darkness whence it has emerged, but without the heavenly guidance which genuine Christianity provides. It has robbed men of the light of heavenly doctrine, and has furthermore stripped them of the aid of the sacramental system, the means of the action of divine grace and of the growth of supernatural life, without which natural virtue and natural intelligence cannot long endure in purity.

The present state of our people calls for what Protestantism has not. Justification by faith could not save its first professor from breaking his vows and debauching another person equally bound; nor will its influence increase by repeating his famous dictum, _Pecca fortiter sed crede fortius_. The evanescence of genuine fanaticism on the part of evangelical religion is no guarantee of a better state of morals. Our people have got beyond simply _believing_ and _feeling_; they wish to _do_ right, but they are gradually coming to acknowledge that man cannot _do_ right without _knowing_ what he ought to do, viz., what is right; and the best and wisest will confess that they do not know what they ought to do, and that they can see nothing in the future from whence they may expect to learn. Whether they will be content to review the evidences of Catholicity we know not. Many are doing so, but the intense worldliness of the day is not favorable to serious thought on the part, of the multitude. Should, however, the authority of true Christianity be revealed to, and accepted by, them, we may justly expect a development of the utmost significance in the history of the world.

Catholicity not only preserves and restores the Christian truth of which men have been robbed by the heresies of the Reformation, but it preserves, sanctifies, and makes fruitful the natural goodness which remains in the individual, the race, and the nation. But above all things it applies those principles of natural justice and purity which are now so seriously jeopardized.

An unjust man can console himself, when transmitting his dishonest gains to his descendants, by reflecting that he is to be justified by faith alone. This has been done to our certain knowledge, and doubtless every New Englander can recall similar cases. A man who admits the injustice of his transactions can find ways of forgetting his indebtedness. The fraudulent bankrupt can revel in the wealth of his wife and children. Even the thief who admits in the abstract the obligation of restoring that which he has stolen, without the assistance of the confessional is too apt to cling to that which he has once acquired.

We want, first, to hear the Catholic doctrine of the necessity of restitution in the place of maudlin denunciation of “carnal righteousness.” We want to have it well understood that no amount of exalted emotion will relieve the guilty thief until he has handed over his ill-gotten goods. We do not say that the neglect of this doctrine is the cause of the special cases of corruption which come before our eyes; but we freely assert that the spread of dishonesty is due to nothing less than the ineptitude and fatuity of Protestantism in this respect.

We further assert our conviction that no amount of preaching will change the present widespread disregard of the rights of property. These must be enforced in the private life of each man, backed by a supernatural principle. The means which the Catholic Church has provided for the support and assistance of the individual conscience is the confessional. This it is which has created the very sentiment of honesty that is now dying out among us for want of it. Antiquity did not possess this sentiment. The Greeks encouraged stealing and made a god of theft. The Romans acknowledged only the claims of hospitality and the force of law. Our barbarian ancestors grew and thrived upon piracy and pillage. It was no abstract or speculative doctrine which overcame their savage traits and established the new sentiment which condemns successful villany; nor will the present decay of honesty be arrested by any system which divorces it from the institution that has brought it into existence.

The most fatal symptom, however, of our lapse into paganism reveals itself in that department of morality in which the struggle is carried on with the most lawless of human passions. The morality of Protestantism offered no assistance to the individual in this conflict between reason and the excesses of that instinct which is at once the most necessary and at the same time the least governable. Developments such as Mormonism and the Oneida Community, the increasing frequency of divorce, and the freedom with which the maxims of the ancient Christian morality are questioned, are sufficient to illustrate the decay of fixed principles of morality. Such results are not strange when we recall the actual conduct of the founders of Protestantism. Nor is it unreasonable to expect a certain amount of laxity in an intellectual movement which constitutes each individual his own supreme judge and teacher of morals; but the worst is that the very source of purity is thoroughly vitiated. In ancient Christianity the laws of chastity were clearly defined, peremptory, and plainly set before the intellect. Modern individualism, having begun by denying man’s responsibility and asserting his necessary depravity, has placed the rule of virtue, not in reason, but in instinct. The old morality was a sentiment based upon dogmatic conviction. The modern Neo-protestantism has nothing upon which to depend for its purity of life except the natural feelings of modesty and shame. The very idea of attempting to subject sexual instinct to reason is scouted as an absurdity by popular writers. The license taken by those whose occupation is to amuse the public every day increases in shamelessness. Art, whether pictorial or dramatic, will not listen to any suggestion of restraint, and the natural sentiment upon which our virtue rests is constantly being weakened.

It is foolishly supposed that this species of disorder, having gone to certain lengths, will at last return to rational limits. It is with some such notion that the enthusiasts, who profess to see in popular education a panacea for all evils, expatiate upon the future. This, however, is mere thoughtlessness. The development of the nervous temperament in the system of a nation is no remedy for this moral illness; on the contrary, the reverse is true. The result is the most dangerous form of sensuality. When an intense and excitable organism, quick in its intellectual movements, eager in its appreciation of beauty, is left to follow its own instincts in the application of wealth, we have the nearest approach to the ancient classic type of culture. The recent development of American art is a source of universal remark. Here the successful artist finds golden appreciation. The diva of the lyric stage, the painter and sculptor, meet with substantial welcome. The growing taste for beauty of line is well known and acknowledged. Extravagance in dress is becoming a national weakness. There is every indication that the next century will witness in our descendants a race more elegant in its tastes, more intense in its enjoyment of every form of beauty, than even the heirs of European refinement—a generation as unlike the ungainly type of Brother Jonathan as an Athenian of the age of Pericles was dissimilar to the rude Pelasgic fisherman of the Hellespont. We think of Greece most commonly in her æsthetic character and influence; but we must not forget that her immorality as recorded in history was hideously dark. The product of her sensuous and overwrought knowledge and enjoyment of nature spread with her literature and art. They brought death to the strong and vigorous race which had overcome the world. The annals of Suetonius and Tacitus, the calm records of current facts, are too obscene to bear circulation among ordinary readers of our day. The literature of their time has to be expurgated before it is fit to be perused by youthful students. The crimes which are charged by the apostle in his terrible invective against the heathen culture, which are rehearsed by Terence and Aristophanes, satirized by Juvenal, laughed at by Horace, celebrated in the flowing measures of Anacreon, Ovid, and Catullus, and coldly set down by historians as the public acts of the cultivated classes—these frightful excesses live to-day, with all their unnatural beastliness, in the exquisitely-wrought marbles and frescos of Pompeii.

There was never a case in which either a nation or an individual was cured of this species of corruption by increasing the æsthetic faculties and amplifying the temptations of wealth. But, it is urged, education gives the rising generation the ability to read, and therefore puts it in the way of acquiring sound instruction. Let it be understood that we believe no parent has a right to deny this instruction to his children; but we bespeak on the part of all earnest men the utmost attention to the practical issue of this theory, in order that they may see how incomplete it is as a safeguard to the virtue of the youth now growing up. What is the nature of our popular literature? Upon what sort of reading is the newly-acquired art exercised? What is the ratio of books which furnish useful instruction to those works whose aim is solely to amuse and excite the imagination? And of the latter class, what is the proportion between the harmless and noxious publications? Those who receive only elementary instruction practically go to school in order to learn to read novels and the trashy and immoral periodicals whose costly illustrations and increasing number amply prove the increasing demand for them. The influence of the press is necessary and indispensable, but there is nothing in our literature which will in any degree restrain the tendencies of our civilization.

We wish it were possible to use language of sufficient force to express the reality of our perilous condition; for our people have already gone far enough in this direction to excite the utmost alarm. The moral corruption of New England is such as to threaten with extinction the vigorous race which originally inhabited it. The medical profession of this country is so profoundly impressed with the constant decrease in the birthrate of the native stock and with its marked physical decadence, that essays on these subjects are to be seen in every scientific periodical.

Ten years ago Dr. Storer called attention to the fact that, as far back as 1850, the natural increase of the population, or the excess of births over deaths, was by those of foreign origin, and that subsequently the ratio in favor of foreign parents was constantly on the increase. “In other words,” he says, “it is found that, in so far as depends upon the American and native element, and in the absence of the existing immigration from abroad, the population of our older States, even allowing for the loss by emigration, is stationary or decreasing.” Dr. Storer did not hesitate to attribute this fact to the criminal destruction of human life or to the suppression of the family by those whose natural instincts ought to procure its conservation. The evidences of this widespread evil are before us in every daily issue of the press.

The demands of pleasure, the numerous inducements to women to find their occupation outside of domestic life, and to shrink from the duties and cares of maternity—none of those temptations which furnish the occasion of this crime are to be met by increasing the size and beauty of our public schools or by providing the children of the poor with elegant accomplishments. Nor will the result be more favorable if the privilege of the elective franchise is added to the other extra-domestic responsibilities of American women. What, then, is to save us when marriage, if recognized, has ceased to be a desirable state, when luxury and nervous development have subjected the chastity of single life to the severest temptation, and when our inherited morality has vanished in the process of our growth?

If the native American race is not going to die out, it must learn from foreigners the secret of their vitality. Christianity has, in the confessional, the means of applying not only sacramental grace to the fallen and repentant, but of securing them from further disorder. Dr. Storer has told the country very plainly that “the different frequency of the abortions depends, not upon a difference in social position or in fecundity, but in the religion.” In other words, the cultivated American is far below the ignorant immigrant in morality; and the reason of this is that the immigrant referred to is a Catholic and his employer is not.

Dr. Storer proceeds to observe: “It is not, of course, intended to imply that Protestantism, as such, in any way encourages or, indeed, permits the practice of inducing abortion; its tenets are uncompromisingly hostile to all crime. So great, however, is the popular ignorance regarding this offence that an abstract morality is here comparatively powerless.” This touches the fundamental truth involved in the whole discussion—“an abstract morality” never can prove effective against any concrete evil. But the doctor further expresses his conviction, drawing the legitimate conclusion and stating the fact: “And there can be no doubt that the Romish ordinance, flanked on the one hand by the confessional and by denouncement and excommunication on the other” (he has previously quoted from the pastoral of a Catholic prelate), “has saved to the world thousands of infant lives.”

The American people is beginning to perceive that wealth and culture without true morality mean ruin. If it does not perceive that Protestantism is the cause of its present corruption, it at least confesses that its inherited religion is powerless to remedy the evils of the day. We cannot ask it to reject its false guide much faster than it is doing. We cannot tell how soon it will be able to receive the divine truth of Christianity. It will be no pleasure to us to have the old faith vindicated by the destruction of this people.

We beg to be allowed to preserve our Catholic population and to keep them pure and faithful, at least until non-Catholics can offer something which will meet their own contingencies. If this demand be persistently disregarded and our honest attempt to save ourselves be misconstrued into an assault upon others, we will do the best we can, at all events.

But, in the meantime, let all earnest men admit the reality of danger. Do not let attention be absorbed by particular manifestations of a disease which is universal. The evils which threaten our life will not be removed by retrenchment of government expenses, or by a temporary destruction of party tyranny, or by an ostentatious simplicity in official circles, or by “justification by faith,” or by pietistic feeling, or by acting out individual crotchets, or even by sound moral doctrine in an abstract form, but by the living truth of God, taught by him through human lips, applied by him with divine efficacy through the ministry of human hands. The truth which has saved the ancient world and has produced all that is desirable in modern civilization is alone able to preserve our nation in its future growth.

A FRENCH NOVEL.[69]

This title will prove a disappointment to those who only associate the idea of a French novel with that typical production of vicious and feverish literature to which the fiction-mongers of France have so long accustomed us, and whose corrupt influence has made itself felt far beyond the limits of the nation which gives it birth. Our present purpose is not to discuss one of those pernicious books, but to consider one which rises as far above their level by its artistic beauty and literary merits as by the nobler tone of its morality. A novel by a Catholic writer, impregnated from first to last with the spirit and principle of the faith, full of noble sentiments, and yet as amusing and as exciting as any “naughty” novel; a book where all the good people, even the holy people, are as charming, witty, odd, or fascinating as if they were anything but holy; a book that conveys in the characters and scenes it brings before us a great moral lesson, and which at the same time absorbs and excites us as powerfully as the cleverest novel of the sensational school, with its inevitable murders and forgeries and double marriages—the appearance of a novel such as this is surely an event that it behoves us to examine closely as the curious literary phenomenon which it is.

Mrs. Augustus Craven’s last work, _Le Mot de l’Enigme_, which, under the title of _The Veil Withdrawn_, appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD simultaneously with its issue in the _Correspondant_ of Paris, is known to most of the readers of the present article, but we would ask them if, when enjoying its persual, they have sometimes stopped to consider what a genuine achievement the book was, and how pregnant with promise for the lighter Catholic literature of the future? Any book by the author of the _Récit d’une Sœur_ is sure to command a wide audience in Europe and America among readers of different languages and creeds; but there are reasons why _The Veil Withdrawn_ should meet with a specially triumphant welcome from us Catholics, for it is in truth a triumph over prejudices whose narrow and tyrannical rule have hitherto been fatal to Catholic fiction. The _Récit d’une Sœur_, the peerless story that stands unrivalled amidst the literature of the world, taught many lessons to our day, but no one, perhaps, more important, considering its possible results, than that which it conveyed to Catholic writers—namely, that religion, in its most ardent form and its most rigid application, is compatible with the tenderest romance; that human hearts and imaginations, far from being chilled or fettered by the sublime truths of the faith, are kindled and enlarged by their influence; that human passions come into play as powerfully in souls ruled by the divine law as in those that reject and defy it, the only difference being that to the former they are weapons used in noble warfare, servants and auxiliaries, whereas to the others they are tyrants that strike only to destroy. The loves of Alexandrine and Albert revealed this secret to the world, and this alone would have sufficed to immortalize the _Récit_. No romance ever reached the skyey heights to which these lovers soared; and yet, while their hearts sang their sweet love-song together, their souls were fixed on God, dreaming of heaven, where their love was to find its perfect consummation, scorning the pitiful meed of earthly happiness, unless it might lead them to the secure possession of the eternal bliss of which this was but the transient foretaste. “_Pour la vie, c’est trop court!_”[70] was Alexandrine’s reply when Albert asked her for the ring on which the words were graven, _Pour la vie!_ And such should be the motto of all love worthy of the name.