Chapter XVII: The End (8)

The graceful yet powerful pen that gave us such sketches as _A Salon in Paris before the War_, _Number Thirteen_, and others equally good, has not mistaken its powers—indeed, has not, we are convinced, yet tried them to the full of their bent—in the present more finished and more ambitious work. There is little or nothing in _Are You My Wife?_ to betray the hand of an unpractised novelist. Only here and there occurs a fulsomeness of detail on minor matters that were better condensed. In one or two places, though very rarely, the conversation flags. Conversation is, as a rule, slow enough in society itself; in a book, when slow at all, it becomes intolerable. These are the only blemishes we find in an unusually interesting book. Sir Simon Harness, Ponce Anwyll, Miss Merrywig, Miss Bulpit, Angélique, and Raymond are characters with whom we regret to part, as also Franceline and Clide, were they not so well provided for. Humor, wit, and imagination are plentiful throughout the book, while the pictures of natural scenery are often unsurpassed. Here, for instance, is a picture of still life that the best of pencils or pens might be proud to own:

“On emerging from the damp darkness after an hour with Miss Merrywig, Franceline found that the sun had climbed up to the zenith, and was pouring down a sultry glow that made the earth smoke again. There was a stile at the end of the wood, and she sat down to rest herself under the thick shade of a sycamore. The stillness of the noon was on everything. A few lively linnets tried to sing; but, the effort being prompted solely by duty, after a while they gave it up, and withdrew to the coolest nooks, and enjoyed their siesta like the lazy ones. Nobody stirred, except the insects that were chirping in the grass, and some bees that sailed from flower to flower, buzzing and doing field-labor when everybody else was asleep or idle. To the right the fields were brimful of ripening grain of every shade of gold; the deep-orange corn was overflowing into the pale amber of the rye, and the bearded barley was washing the hedge that walled it off from the lemon-colored wheat. To the left the rich grass lands were dotted with flocks and herds. In the nearest meadow some cattle were herding. It was too hot to eat, so they stood surveying the fulness of the earth with mild, bovine gaze. They might have been sphinxes, they were so still; not a muscle in their sleek bodies moved, except that a tail lashed out against the flies now and then. Some were in the open field, holding up their white horns to the sunlight; others were grouped in twos and threes under a shady tree; but the noontide hush was on them all. Presently a number of horses came trooping leisurely up to the pond near the stile; the mild-eyed kine moved their slow heads after the procession, and then, one by one, trooped on with it. The noise of the hoofs plashing into the water, and the loud lapping of the thirsty tongues, were like a drink to the hot silence. Franceline watched them lifting their wet mouths, all dripping, from the pool, and felt as if she had been drinking too. There was a long, solemn pause, and then a sound like the blast of an organ rose up from the pond, swelling and sweeping over the fields; before it died away a calf in a distant paddock answered it.”

THE LIFE OF REV. MOTHER ST. JOSEPH, FOUNDRESS OF THE
CONGREGATION OF SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF BORDEAUX. By l’Abbé
P. F. Lebeurier. Translated from the French. New York: D. &
J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

When, in the early part of the seventeenth century, St. Francis de Sales founded the Order of the Visitation, he placed the corporal works of mercy, such as visiting the sick and relieving the poor, among the duties of its members, but he was afterwards induced to modify the original plan by making enclosure a part of the constitution of the order. There was a demand, however, for communities of women devoted to the relief of human misery; and among the many congregations of this kind which were founded during the life or shortly after the death of St. Francis that of the Sisters of St. Joseph holds an important rank. This order came into existence under the fostering care of Father Medaille, a priest of the Company of Jesus, in the year 1650, in the diocese of Puy, and was soon established in many other parts of France. After an existence of a hundred and forty years, it was broken up and the sisters dispersed by the French Revolution; but upon the conclusion of the Concordat between Napoleon and Pius VII. the religious who still survived reassembled and opened a house in Lyons, in 1807, under the protection of Cardinal Fesch.

One of the most exemplary and useful members of the order since its restoration, Mother St. Joseph—in the world, Jane Chanay—is made known to us in the biography whose title we have given. There are few lives of which a judicious and faithful account would not be useful, and no kind of writing is more attractive to most readers than biography. It is seldom, however, that we meet with a religious biography with which we are altogether pleased, and this now before us is not at all to our taste. There is certainly no reason why the life of a nun should not be as full of interest as that of a woman engaged in the frivolities and vanities of the world, and we cannot but think it is the fault of the author that Mother St. Joseph’s has not been made both instructive and entertaining. The narrative is slow and interrupted, the style heavy, and the facts often trivial without being either amusing or edifying. We have the authority of Cardinal Donnet for the assertion that the book is commendable for the beauty of its diction; but this is certainly not true of the English translation, which is often neither correct nor elegant. Take, for instance, the following examples: “Other saints … are restored to their Creator with not _a maze_ to dim their lustrous brightness” (p. 22). “When once the fire of jealousy is kindled in the soul, nothing can _satiate its ravages_” (p. 26).

We close with the following sentence, which we commend to the attention of grammar-schools: “This good father having, in the course of his missions, met with several widows and pious young women who were desirous to retire from the world and devote themselves to the service of the salvation of their neighbor, but were deterred for want of means to enter convents, he formed the intention to propose to some bishop the establishment of a congregation into which those devoted women could enter and devote themselves to labor for their salvation, and fulfil all the good works of which they were capable in the service of their neighbor” (p. 66).

PRINCIPIA OR BASIS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. By R. J. Wright.
Second Edition. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co. 1876.

The eight or ten pages of letters from various persons with which this volume is prefaced, and in which the author receives thanks for copies of his book, forcibly remind us of Sheridan’s formula for acknowledging the publications that were constantly sent him: “DEAR SIR: I have received your exquisite work, and I have no doubt I shall be highly delighted _after_ I have read it.” The persons, known and unknown, whose names are paraded here all anticipate a time when they shall be able to congratulate themselves upon having put the _Basis of Social Science_ beneath their feet.

Mr. Wright is doubtless a well-meaning man; and if good intentions could pacify a critic’s irritable soul, between him and ourselves there would be no quarrel. His aim has been, he informs us in his preface, to write a work which, without offending the religious, political, or scientific susceptibilities of any one, would commend itself especially to “pious young men” and “students for the ministry, who really desire to be useful and to be abreast of their age on this subject”; and we are therefore prepared to find him ready to embrace with equal tenderness a Mormon prophet, an Oneida free lover, a French communist, and a Catholic monk. Mr. Wright’s sweetness and piety are as offensive to us as the caress of a Yahoo was to Dean Swift. These attempts to reconcile the antagonisms, incompatibilities, and contradictions of the age, by besmearing them all with honey, are worse than absurd; they add to the confusion and weaken the power to apprehend truth. The self-imposed task of the author of this volume is one which the greatest mind now living could not perform in a satisfactory manner. Of all sciences, the social is, if it may as yet be called a science, the most difficult, the most involved and uncertain; in its idea it is a synthesis of all knowledges, and no one who has not gathered into his own mind the intellectual achievements of the whole race should attempt to construct a philosophy of social science. The importance of the study of sociology we fully admit, and gladly welcome even the humblest efforts to increase our knowledge of this subject; but when those who ought to remain in the ranks seek to take command, they become disorganizers. Had Mr. Wright been modest, he might have been useful; having attempted too much, he has failed to accomplish anything. In fact, he has not the first requisite of an author—a knowledge of the language in which he writes. His style is barbarous and tumultuary, often ungrammatical. It must, however, be striking and emphatic, if we are to judge from the number of words printed in italics and majuscules. And his thought is like his style—incoherent, crude, and embryotic. He has read Comte, Fourier, Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Appleton’s _Cyclopædia_, and with their aid and the help of a certain “Theory of the Six Units” he has sought to develop an ideal of human society not more impossible than Plato’s _Republic_ or more visionary than More’s _Utopia_.

The keynote to his system is the “Theory of the Six Units.” The six units are the Individual, the Family, the Social Circle, the Precinct, the Nation, and Mankind. It seems to have been his acquaintance with certain other “singular sixes” that led him to a belief in six, and but six, social units. In the first place, “the figure which gives the maximum amount of internal content with the minimum amount of external surface of similar bodies joined together is a HEXAGON.” Again: “In developed civilization there are six great classes of society”; but it is only in some future work that the author will tell us about these six great classes. And just here we wish to find fault with Mr. Wright for a habit he has of adroitly arousing our curiosity, and then, as we are beginning to imagine we are about to learn something, coolly dropping us with the remark that the matter “will be portrayed in another book.” He sometimes, too, seems to take a wicked delight in puzzling his readers, as in the following sentence: “All affairs, when they become ordinary, are apt to become matters of business; and business matters are—well, we need not say what.” But to return to the “sixes.” There are six fundamental motors of human passions. There are six infinities—namely, deific spirit, soul spirit, matter, space, duration, diversity. There are six organs of sense (the old notion that there were but five is exploded)—sensation, temperature, taste, smell, hearing, sight. There are six crystallizations—monometric, dimetric, trimetric, monoclinic, triclinic, and hexagonal. There are six religious societies—Adam, Adam and Eve, Patriarchy, Israel in Egypt, Israel in Palestine, the Christian Church. It follows as a matter of course that there must be six social units; and in fact, if it were worth while, we could prove that there must be ten or twenty.

There is no unit in which Mr. Wright so much delights as the Precinct. The real cause of the American civil war he has discovered to have been a neglect of Precinct by both the North and the South; and it is quite probable, we think, there is no social or political problem which may not ultimately be solved in the same felicitous and satisfactory manner.

Genius is manifested—at least this is, we believe, the opinion of Mr. Emerson—quite as strikingly in quotation as in original composition, and we respectfully call the attention of the philosopher of Concord to Mr. Wright as a confirmatory example of this law of mind. Many a household will find food for thought in the following citation: “Family miffs are a grand institution for giving needful repose and after-exhilaration to overtasked affection.” And this other will be interesting to politicians: “It is to the criminal propensities of man that we owe civilization.” “Alas!” sighs our pious philosopher, “that the Radicals cannot make a better basis for civilization than the foregoing crime-begetting one.”

From Wells, the phrenologist, Mr. Wright gets the following quotation, which almost makes us repent of what we have written: “As a class the theologians have the best heads in the world.”

CANTATA CATHOLICA. B. H. F. Hellebusch. Benziger Bros.

This is a collection of music for the “Asperges,” “Vidi Aquam,” several Gregorian Masses, the Gregorian Requiem, the Preface, the Pater Noster, Responses, Vespers, the Antiphons of the Blessed Virgin, “O Salutaris,” and “Tantum Ergo,” besides a large number of pieces intended to be used at Benediction and at various other times. The Gregorian chants for the “Asperges,” “Vidi Aquam,” and the Masses are harmonized by Dr. F. Witt. We cannot say that we admire the peculiar “drone bass” which Dr. Witt uses so extensively, and the harmonies are, to our ears, crude, and sometimes even barbarous, and as a general rule are not in accordance with the _mode_. We also noticed some ear-splitting _fifths_, used without any excuse whatever. The Requiem is very incomplete; five verses only of the “Dies Iræ” are given, and the Gradual and Tract are entirely omitted. Mr. Hellebusch remarks in his preface that “the Preface and Pater Noster should only be accompanied when required by the officiating clergyman and after rehearsal.” In looking in the book for the reason for this remark, we find that to accompany the simple melody of the “Preface of Trinity” one hundred and ninety sharps, flats, and naturals are required; and in the accompaniment of the words “socia exultatione concelebrant,” in the “Common Preface,” we find twenty. The melody of the “Preface” has also been altered by sharpening “do” all through. Over eight pages are devoted to Responses, exclusive of the Responses for the Preface and Pater Noster. In that portion of the book devoted to Vespers are some grave errors. On page 103 is a note which informs us that “the Psalms _can_ be chanted to any of the following _authentic_ or _simplified_ Vesper tones.” We have yet to learn which are the eight _authentic_ tones, and we were not aware that authentic and _simplified_ meant one and the same thing. The eight Psalm-tunes are given with their various endings, and with the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and _Sixth_, or “Final by words of one syllable.” We suppose “mediation” is meant; but then the Sixth tone has no different mediation for words of one syllable, and the rule for Hebrew proper names is not given at all. In the Fifth tone the “si” is improperly marked flat. The pointing of the Psalms is very bad; we have “spirítui, spiritúi, vidít, sicút, motá,” etc. In the latter part of the book, however, the pieces are selected with good taste, and musically, although not practically, well arranged. The book has been made up in too great a hurry.

ASPERGES ME. MASS IN F. MISSA DE ANGELIS. C. P. Morrison,
Worcester, Mass.

The “Asperges” is chiefly remarkable for some very clumsy and incorrect modulations and the utter absence of any kind of melody and design. The “Mass in F” is an easy setting of the Ordinary of the Mass combined with a nauseating adaptation of English words for the use, we suppose, of the “separated brethren” who like this kind of music. We looked for and found the close on the words “Filius Patris,” with a new movement for the “Qui tollis,” and the inevitable RESURRECTIONEM mor … tu … o … rum. The C clef is placed at the beginning of the tenor part, and the notes are incorrectly written, as if in the G clef, an octave higher. The composer ought to know that the C clef is of as much importance as either the G or F clef, and not a purely fanciful character to be used or not at the option of the writer. The harmony of the “Missa de Angelis” is entirely modern, full of chromatic passages, dissonances, etc., which Mr. Morrison again ought to know are not allowed in harmonies for Gregorian chant.

ALL AROUND THE MOON. From the French of Jules Verne. Freely
translated by Edw. Roth. With a Map of the Moon constructed
and engraved for this edition, and also with an Appendix
containing the famous Moon Hoax, by R. Adams Locke. New
York: The Catholic Publication Society, No. 9 Warren Street.
1876.

It is not often the case that translations are, like the present one, an improvement on the original, especially when the original work is such an admirable one as that from which this translation is made. We noticed the first part, published under the title of _The Baltimore Gun Club_, some time ago, favorably, and have been even more pleased with this sequel.

Mr. Roth calls the book a free translation, but this term hardly conveys the idea of the adaptation which he has really made of the text. Verne certainly intended, when he laid the scene in America, to make the characters, incidents, and conversation thoroughly American, and he succeeded as well as could have been expected; but the task was one simply impossible for a foreigner, and any translation at all approaching to literal exactness, no matter by whom made, would have been sure to have shared the defects of the text. Mr. Roth, therefore, to carry out the author’s idea, had practically to rewrite the book in such a way as to preserve the genius of the conception while altering the details in a way which required an ability like that of the author himself.

Besides having made the book really an American one, he has added to its scientific merit by a fuller explanation of the problem which is the nucleus of the story.

The “Moon Hoax,” which is appended, was probably the most successful and the best contrived of all the scientific canards which have ever appeared. It was written more than forty years ago, but its memory has not yet died out, and it was so cleverly done as to be well worthy of this reprint.

The book is illustrated by twenty-four cuts, besides the map of the moon mentioned in the title. It would really have been better without the rather clap-trap additional about the Centennial at its close, but this makes it all the more American, and may be excusable under the circumstances.

THE WYNDHAM FAMILY: A Story of Modern Life. By the author of
_Mount St. Lawrence_. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale
by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The best of motives and any quantity of the most pious reflections have combined to make of these two volumes a remarkably dull story. This is to be regretted; for those who can overcome the repugnance of wading through page after page of what, with the best will in the world we can only call dreary writing, will find much sound sense on the conduct of the family and what are called “the exigencies” of modern society. The author has attempted a bold feat—to paint the “heroics” of the kitchen, or, as they are called in the story, “the glory of service.” That there may be, that there is often, glory in service there can be no doubt. This is the power of Christianity. That a cook may be, and indeed often is, a model of self-sacrifice, or at least a source of great self-sacrifice in others, he would be a rash man who should undertake to deny. The author of _The Wyndham Family_ would reverse the old saying that “God sends the food, but the devil sends the cook.” To be sure, the particular cook here held up to view turns out to be quite a superior character, and this makes one of the surprises of the story. The experiment, however, can scarcely be considered a happy one. Were the two volumes condensed into one; were the atmosphere of the kitchen a little less obtrusive; were the girls in the story made to talk like girls, and not like what on this side would be called by some “school marms”; were there only a little more of the relief afforded by such a character as “Uncle Sanders,” _The Wyndham Family_ might have been not only what it now is, a vehicle for highly moral reflections, but a popular and interesting story.

It is strange that England, which has done so much in reviving Catholic English letters within the last century, and which is so high in the higher walks of literature, should, with a very few exceptions, continue to furnish about the poorest specimens of Catholic stories that the world has ever seen. Indeed, a kind of “goody-goody” school has grown up there which holds its own with exasperating persistency. The sooner that school is broken up the better. There surely might be found a happy medium between the “penny dreadful,” or the fleshly school of fiction, and that which reads like a very weak dilution of the penny catechism.

THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE
CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK FOR THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31,
1875.

Apart from the mass of interesting statistics contained in this report, the comprehensive style adopted by the compiler of presenting facts and figures deserves special mention.

We have been interested in the development of the law compelling children to attend school, but fail to find satisfactory information regarding its workings in the report of the Superintendent of Truancy. An increase of 7,614 in the daily average attendance is claimed by him. These figures do not agree with the facts stated on pp. 12 and 213, and in addition the attendance of 1874 shows an increase of 15,094 over 1873.

After a year’s trial the superintendent comes to the conclusion that the law, as it now stands, is a failure, and recommends the enactment of other laws, and the erection of new institutions to enforce the present law, of which he says: “Instances of opposition on the part of the parents to the law, or the efforts of the agents, are extremely rare; but rather do they regard them as welcome visitors and valuable auxiliaries, their authority and suasion being earnestly solicited for the reformation of the child” (p. 424).

FLAMINIA, and other stories; LUCAS GARCIA, and other
stories; PERICO THE SAD, and other stories; ROBERT, OR THE
INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER; THE CRUCIFIX OF BADEN, and other
stories; THE STORY OF MARCEL, and other tales. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

These are all excellent stories, choice flowers of fiction culled from French, Spanish, Italian, German, and English gardens, while those of native growth are not forgotten. They are reprints from THE CATHOLIC WORLD; and how admirably fitted they are to meet a general want the reader may judge for himself by glancing at this month’s Bulletin, which presents the verdict of the Catholic press on them. Nothing is more needed nowadays than good popular Catholic literature, stories, perhaps, more than anything else. We accordingly welcome the republication in book form of stories which were universally well received as they appeared in the columns of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and only hope that the series may be continued.

EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE IN 1871. Translated from the
French by the Lady Blanche Murphy. Benziger Brothers, New
York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. 1876.

This is a little volume of very readable sketches, relating the persecutions and sufferings of the various brotherhoods of Paris during the brief reign of the Commune in 1871. Their schools were closed, their houses invaded, and the brothers who had not succeeded in escaping to some safe hiding-place were arrested and thrown into prison. The services of the Christian Brothers as ambulance nurses during the war were known to the whole country; but the Commune ruthlessly drove them from the bedsides of the wounded and dying soldiers. “Down with the Black-gowns!” was the cry. “Death to the Brothers! Let them go join Darboy.”

“The watchword of the Revolution,” said Raoul Rigault to M. Cotte, the writer of one of these sketches, and late director of the press ambulances of Longchamps—“the watchword of the Revolution is death to religion, to ritual, to priests!” And he added: “As long as there is left in the land one man who dares pronounce the name of God all our labor will have been in vain, and we shall not be able to lay down the sword and the rifle.”

The style of the translation is easy and simple, and these _Episodes_ will very fittingly occupy a place in “The Catholic Premium-Book Library.”

THE STORY OF A VOCATION: HOW IT CAME ABOUT, AND WHAT BECAME
OF IT. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

This is really the story of two vocations—of one in the world, and of another in, but not of, the world. It is one of those pure, graceful, yet interesting tales which are only too few. The translation, from the French, is well done. Parents and those who have charge of children will find this book not only highly entertaining but of real utility.

THE EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND,
A.D. 1400 TO 1875. With appointments to monasteries and
extracts from consistorial acts taken from MSS. in public
and private libraries in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Ravenna,
and Paris. By W. Mazière Brady. Vol. I. Rome: Tipografia
della Pace. 1876.

This collection of curious documents relates to the Catholic succession. It is of great utility to the searcher into ecclesiastical antiquities. The author has consulted archives and searched out old records with much diligence, and gathered together a number of curious items of information of great value and interest to the antiquarian student. The most interesting of these is the account of Dr. Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, the last of the old line of Catholic succession in England, a prelate whose learning and sanctity make him worthy to close the series which St. Augustine began.

BOSTON TO WASHINGTON. A Pocket Guide to the Great Eastern
Cities and the Centennial Exhibition, with Maps. New York:
Hurd & Houghton. 1876.

The title of this work will give the reader but a poor idea of its value compared with other guides, which are mere advertising sheets. This book is neat in every way—in its paper, in its printing, in its illustrations, and in its binding—and contains a great amount of interesting and correct information about the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and will prove a valuable guide to the traveller, whether native or foreign.

VOYAGES DANS L’AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE. Par L. R. Père P. J.
De Smet, S. J. Bruxelles: Benziger Bros.; New York.

This is a French edition of Father De Smet’s travels as an Indian missionary in the Rocky Mountains and in Oregon. This celebrated Jesuit, besides being a zealous apostle, was also a keen observer of men and customs, and his descriptions of Indian life, with which no man was more familiar, are both entertaining and instructive. A biography of Father De Smet has been recently published in Belgium, an English translation of which would, we think, be welcomed by American Catholics.

NOTE TO THE ARTICLE ON “THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY.”

Those who read carefully the philosophical articles which appear from time to time in our pages will notice that different, and even contradictory, opinions on some points are to be met with occasionally. It seems proper to explain, therefore, that the editor, and those who assist him in supervising the conduct of the magazine, while professing a general adhesion to the doctrine of St. Thomas, allow a considerable latitude in the expression of individual opinion by the different writers who contribute articles; and do not necessarily imply, in their approbation of pieces for publication, that they concur in every respect with the statements and arguments contained in them.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 136.—JULY, 1876.

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

SONNET.

THE CENTENARY OF AMERICAN LIBERTY.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

A century of sunrises hath bowed
Its fulgent forehead ‘neath the ocean-floor
Since first upon the West’s astonished shore,
Like some huge Alp forth-struggling through the cloud
A new-born nation stood, to Freedom vowed:
Within that time how many an Empire hoar
And young Republic, flushed with wealth and war,
Alike have changed the ermine for the shroud!
O “sprung from earth’s first blood,” O tempest-nursed!
For thee what Fates? I know not. This I know
The Soul’s great freedom-gift, of gifts the first—
Thou first on man in fulness didst bestow:
Hunted elsewhere, God’s Church with thee found rest:—
Thy future’s Hope is she—that queenly Guest.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES,

1776-1876.

The social conditions of life which have been developed in the European colonies of North America, though to a certain extent the result of the physical surroundings of the early settlers, are chiefly the freer growth of principles which had been active, for centuries, in the Christian nations of the Old World. The elements of society here, unhindered by custom, law, or privilege, grouped themselves quickly and spontaneously into the forms to which they were tending in Europe also, but slowly and through conflict and struggle. The great and most significant fact, that it was found impossible in the New World to create privileged classes, clearly pointed in the direction in which European civilization was moving. Another fact not less noteworthy is the failure of every attempt to establish religion in this country.

Though there is but little to please the fancy or fire the imagination in American character or institutions, it is nevertheless to this country that the eyes of the thoughtful and observant from every part of the world are turned. The Catholicity of Christian civilization has generalized political problems and social movements. Civilization, like religion, has ceased to be national; and the bearing of a people’s life upon the welfare of the human race has come to be of greater moment than its effect upon the national character. It is to this that the universal interest which centres in the United States must be attributed.

We are a commonplace and mediocre people; practical, without high ideals, lofty aspirations, or excellent standards of worth and character. In philosophy, in science, in literature, in art, in culture, we are inferior to the nations of Europe. No mind transcendentally great has appeared among us; not one who is heir to all the ages and citizen of the world. Our ablest thinkers are merely the disciples of some foreign master. Our most gifted poets belong to the careful kind, who with effort and the file give polish and smoothness, but not the _mens divinior_, to their verse; and who, when they attempt a loftier flight, grow dull and monotonous as a Western prairie or Rocky Mountain table-land. Our most popular heroes—Washington and Lincoln—are but common men, and the higher is he who is least the product of our democratic institutions.

Our commercial enterprise and mechanical achievements are worthy of admiration, but not so far above those of other nations as to attract special attention.

If to-day, then, the American people draw the eyes of the whole world upon themselves, it is not because they have performed marvellous deeds, opened up new realms of thought, or created higher types of character, but because their social and political condition is that to which Europe, whether for good or evil, seems to be irresistibly tending. Beyond doubt, the tendency of modern civilization is to give to the people greater power and a larger sphere of action. Every attempt to arrest this movement but serves to make its force the more manifest. This spirit of the age is seen in the general spread of education, in the widening of the popular suffrage, in the separation of church and state, and in the dying out of aristocracies. We simply note facts, without stopping to examine principles or to weigh consequences. Those who resist a revolution are persuaded that it will work nothing but evil, while those who help it on hope from it every good; and the event most generally shows both to have been in error. Our present purpose does not lead us to speculate as to the manner in which the general welfare is to be affected by the great social transformations by which the character of civilized nations is being so profoundly modified; but we will suppose that the reign of aristocracies and of privilege is past, and that in the future the people are to govern; and we ask, What will be the influence of the new society upon the old faith?

The essential life of the Catholic Church is independent of her worldly condition; and though we are bound to believe that she is to remain amongst men until the end, we are yet not forbidden to hold that at times she may to human eyes seem almost to have ceased to be; that as in the past Christ was entombed, the _deletum nomen Christianum_ was proclaimed, in the future also the heavens may grow dark, God’s countenance seemingly be withdrawn, and the voice of despair cry out that all have bent the knee to Baal.

“But yet the Son of Man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” We may hope, we may despond; let us, then, dispassionately consider the facts.

First, we will put aside the assumption that it is possible to organize this modern society so as to crush the church by persecution or violence. In a social state, which can be strong only by being just, attempts of this kind, if successful, would inevitably lead to anarchy and chaos, out of which the church would again come forth with or before the civil order. We cannot, then, look forward to a prolonged and open conflict between the church and the civilized governments of the world without giving up all hope in the permanency and effectiveness of the social phase upon which we have entered. In the end the European states, like the American, must be convinced that, if they would live, they must also let live; since a _modus vivendi_ between church and state is absolutely essential to the permanence of society as now constituted.

The question, then, is narrowed to the free and peaceable life of the church in contact with the popular governments which are already constituted or are struggling for existence; and it is in their bearing upon this all-important subject that the world-wide significance of the lessons to be learned from a careful study of the history of the Catholic Church in the United States becomes apparent. For a hundred years this church has lived in the new society, and all the circumstances of her position have been admirably suited to test her power to meet the difficulties offered by a democratic social organization. The problem to be solved was whether or not a vigorous but yet orderly and obedient Catholic faith and life could flourish in this country, where what are called the principles of modern civilization have found their most complete expression.

If we would understand the history of our country, we must not lose sight of the religious character of the men by whom it was explored and colonized. Religious zeal led the Puritans to New England, the Catholics to Maryland, and the Quakers to Pennsylvania; and among the Spaniards and the French there were many who, like Columbus and Champlain, deemed the salvation of a soul of greater moment than the conquest of an empire. We might, indeed, without going beyond our present subject, speak of the heroic and gentle lives of the apostolic men who, from Maine to California, from Florida to the Northern Lakes, toiled among the Indians, and not in vain, that they might win them from savage ways and lift them up to higher modes of life. The Catholics of the United States can never forget that the labors of these men belong to the history of the church on this continent; that the lives they offered up, the blood they shed, plead for us before God; and that if their work is disappearing, it sinks into the grave only with the dying race which they more than all others have loved and served. But in this age men are little inclined to dwell upon memories, however glorious. We live in the present and in the future, and, in spite of much cheap sentiment and wordy philanthropy, we have but weak sympathy with decaying races. We are interested in what is or is to be, not in what has been; and perhaps it is well that this is so. We have but feeble power to think or act or love, and it should not be wasted. If Americans to-day are busy with thoughts of a hundred years ago, it is not that they love those old times and their simple ways, but that by contrast they may, in boastful self-complacency, glory in the present. They look back, not to regret the fast-receding shore, but to congratulate themselves that they have left it already so far behind. It is enough, then, to have alluded to the labors of the Catholic missionaries among the North American Indians, since those labors have had and can have but small influence upon the history of the church in the United States. To understand this history we need only study that of the Europeans and their descendants on this continent.

The early colonists of the present territory of the United States were as unlike in their religious as in their national characters. English Puritans founded the colonies of New England; New York was settled by the Dutch; Delaware and New Jersey by the Dutch and the Swedes; Pennsylvania by Quakers from England, who were followed by a German colony. Virginia was the home of the English who adhered to the Established Church of the mother country, and North Carolina became the refuge of the Nonconformists from Virginia; in South Carolina a considerable number of Huguenots found an asylum; and in Maryland the first settlers were chiefly English Catholics. Nearly all these colonies owed their foundation to the religious troubles of Europe. The Puritans, the Catholics, and the Quakers were more eager to find a home in which they could freely worship God than to amass wealth.

The religious spirit of New England, whose influence in this country, before and since the Revolution, has been preponderant, was as narrow and proscriptive as it was intense, and a gloomy fanaticism lay at the basis of its entire political and social system. The Puritan colonies were not so much bodies politic as churches in the wilderness. To the commission appointed to draw up a body of laws to serve as a declaration of rights, Cotton Mather declared that God’s people should be governed by no other laws than those which He himself had given to Moses; and one of the first acts of the Massachusetts colony was the expulsion of John and Samuel Browne with their followers, because they refused to conform to the religious practices of the Pilgrims. If dissenting Protestants were not tolerated in New England, Catholics certainly could not hope for mercy; and, in fact, they were denied religious liberty even in Rhode Island, which had been founded by the victims of Puritan persecution as a refuge for the oppressed and a protest against fanaticism. Though Mr. Bancroft, whose partisan zeal, whenever there is question of New England, is unmistakable, denies that this unjust discrimination was the act of the people of Rhode Island, it served, at any rate, so effectually to exclude Catholics that when the war of independence broke out not one was to be found within the limits of the colony.

Puritanism, more than any other form of Protestantism, drew its very life from a hatred of all that is Catholic. The office and authority of bishops, the repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, the sign of the cross, the chant of the psalms, the observance of saints’ days, the use of musical instruments in church, and the vestments worn by the ministers of religion were all odious to the Puritans because they were associated with Catholic worship; and in their eyes the chief crime of the Church of England was that she still retained some of the doctrines and usages of that of Rome. Religion and freedom, though their conception of both was partial and false, were the predominant passions of the Puritans; and since they looked upon the Catholic Church as the fatal enemy alike of religion and of freedom, their fanaticism, not less than their enthusiastic love of independence, filled them with the deepest hatred for Catholics. They had the virtues and the vices of the lower and more ignorant classes of Englishmen, from which for the most part they had sprung. If they were frugal, content with little, ready to bear hardship and to suffer want, not easily cast down, they were also narrow, superstitious, angular, and unlovely; and these characteristics were hardened by a cold, gloomy, and unsympathetic religious faith. The credulity which led them to hang witches made them ready to believe in the diabolism of priests; while the narrowness of their intellectual range rendered them incapable of perceiving the grandeur and excellence of an organization which alone, in the history of the world, has become universal without becoming weak, and which, if it be considered as only human, is still man’s most wonderful work. With the æsthetic beauty of the Catholic religion they could have no sympathy, since they were deprived of the sense by which alone it can be appreciated. Though they fasted, appointed days of thanksgiving, and, through a false asceticism, changed the Lord’s day into the Jewish Sabbath, the fasts and saints’ days of Catholics were in their eyes the superstitions of idolaters; and while they assumed the right to declare what is true Christian doctrine and to enforce its acceptance, they indignantly rejected the spiritual authority of the church, though historically traceable to Christ’s commission to the apostles.

The measures, therefore, which the colonies of New England took to prevent the establishment of the Catholic Church on their soil, were merely the expression of the horror and dread of what they conceived its influence and tendency to be. In 1631, just eleven years after the landing of the _Mayflower_, Sir Christopher Gardiner, on mere suspicion of being a papist, was seized and sent out of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and in the same year the General Court wrote a letter denouncing the minister at Watertown for giving expression to the opinion that the Church of Rome is a true church. Three years later Roger Williams, whose tolerant temper has been an exhaustless theme of praise, joined with the Puritans in declaring the cross a “relic of Antichrist, a popish symbol savoring of superstition and not to be countenanced by Christian men”; and, in proof of the sincerity of their zeal, these godly men cut the cross from out the English flag. Priests were forbidden, under pain of imprisonment and even death, to enter the colonies; and the neighboring Catholic settlements of Canada were regarded with sentiments of such bigoted hatred as to blind the Puritans to their own most evident political and commercial interests. So unrelenting was their fanaticism that one of the grievances which they most strongly urged against George III. was that he tolerated popery in Canada. In the New England colonies, down to 1776, the Catholic Church had no existence, and the same may be said of the other colonies, with the exception of Maryland and of a few families scattered through parts of Pennsylvania. In Maryland itself, where the principles of religious liberty, which now form a part of the organic law of the land, had been first proclaimed by the Catholic colonists, the persecution of the church early became an important feature in the colonial legislation. In successive enactments the Catholics were forbidden to teach school, to hold civil office, and to have public worship; and were, moreover, taxed for the support of the Established Church. The religious character of Virginia, though less intense and earnest than that of New England, can hardly be said to have been less anti-Catholic; and it is therefore not surprising that we should find the cruel penal code of the mother country in full vigor in this colony.

It would have been difficult to find anywhere communities more thoroughly Protestant than the thirteen British colonies one hundred years ago. The little body of Catholics in Maryland, in all about 25,000, who, in spite of persecution, had retained their faith, had sunk into a kind of religious apathy; and as their public worship had long been forbidden and they were not permitted to have schools, to indifference was added ignorance of the doctrines of the church. A few priests, once members of the suppressed Society of Jesus, lingered amongst them, though they generally found it necessary to live upon their own lands or with their kindred, and with difficulty kept alive the flickering flame of faith. Without religious energy, zeal, or organization, the Maryland Catholics were gradually being absorbed into mere worldliness or into the more vigorous Protestant sects; and, in fact, many of the descendants of the original settlers had already lost the faith. In this way the character of the old Catholic colony had been wholly changed; so that Maryland surpassed all the other colonies in the odious proscriptiveness of her legislation, levying the same tax for the introduction into her territory of a Catholic Irishman as for the importation of a Negro slave. The existence of the Catholic families there, and of the small and scattered settlements in Pennsylvania, if recognized at all by the general public, was looked upon as an anomaly, an anachronism, which, from the nature of things, must soon disappear. There is no exaggeration, then, in saying that the Revolution found the British provinces of North America thoroughly Protestant, with a hatred of the church which nothing but the general contempt for Catholics tended to mitigate; while the seeming failure of the Catholic settlement in Maryland, one hundred and fifty years after the landing of Lord Baltimore, gave no promise of a brighter future for the faith.

In the presence of the impending conflict with England political questions became supreme, and the Convention of 1774, in its appeal to the country, entreated all classes of citizens to put away religious disputes and animosities, which could only withhold them from uniting in the defence of their common rights and liberties. Though this appeal was probably meant to smooth the way for a more cordial union between New England and the Southern colonies, which were even then as unlike as Puritan and Cavalier, it was also an evidence of the public feeling, showing that with the American people religious questions were fast coming to be merely of secondary importance. At any rate it was responded to cheerfully and generously by the Catholics, who, without stopping to think of the wrongs they had suffered, threw themselves heartily into the contest for national independence. The signer of the Declaration who risked most was a Catholic, and a Catholic priest was a member of the delegation sent to Canada to bring about an alliance, or at least to secure the neutrality of that province.

The conduct of the Catholics in the war made, no doubt, a favorable impression, and the very important aid given to the American cause by Catholic France had still further influence in softening the asperities of Protestant prejudice; but, unless we are mistaken, we must seek elsewhere for the explanation of the clause of the federal Constitution which provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the United States”; as well as of the First Amendment, to the effect that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These provisions were merely a part of a general policy, which restricted as far as possible the functions of the federal government, and left to the several States as much of their separate sovereignty as was consistent with the existence of the national Union.

This is evident from the fact that the federal Constitution placed no restriction upon the legislation of the different States in matters of religion, leaving them free to pursue the intolerant and persecuting policy of the colonial era; and, indeed, laws for the support of public worship lingered in Connecticut till 1816 and in Massachusetts till 1833, and anti-Catholic religious tests were introduced into several of the State constitutions. In New York, as late as 1806, a test-oath excluded Catholics from office; and in North Carolina, down to 1836, only those who were willing to swear to belief in the truth of Protestantism were permitted to hope for political preferment. New Jersey erased the anti-Catholic clause from her constitution only in 1844; and even to-day, unless we err, the written law of New Hampshire retains the test-oath.

The provision which denied to the general government all right of interference in religious matters was a political necessity. Any attempt to introduce into Congress religious discussions would have necessarily rent asunder the still feeble bands by which New England and the Southern States were held together. The reasons of policy which forbade the federal government to meddle with slavery applied with ten-fold force to questions of religion.

The First Amendment to the Constitution, of which we Americans are so fond of boasting, cannot, then, be interpreted as the proclamation of the principle of toleration or of the separation of church and state; it is merely the expression of the will of the confederating States to retain their pre-existing rights of control over religion, which, indeed, they could not have delegated to the general government without imperilling the very existence of the Union. Nearly all the leading statesmen of that day recognized the necessity of some kind of union of church and state, and their views were embodied in the different State constitutions.

The year before the first battle of the Revolution no less than eighteen Baptists were confined in one jail in Massachusetts for refusing to pay ministerial rates; and yet John Adams declared “that a change in the solar system might be expected as soon as a change in the ecclesiastical system of Massachusetts”; and at a much later period Judge Story was able to affirm that “it yet remained a problem to be solved in human affairs whether any free government can be permanent where the public worship of God and the support of religion constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state.”