Chapter I: A New Irelander (3)

“_Ans._ I think so; decidedly less. The Chinese do not purpose
to intermeddle with our religious rights. They have no
hierarchy. They are not sworn to support any religious system.
They are mixed up at home. They have no one religion. They may
be Mahometans.

“_Ques._ You think they are less dangerous than European
Christians of a certain persuasion?

“_Ans._ I think they are less dangerous than Roman Catholics.

“_Ques._ Are they less dangerous than Europeans?

“_Ans._ Whether they be Europeans or of any other nationality,
providing they are Romanists.

“_Ques._ Suppose the Chinese should become Catholics; then they
would become dangerous?

“_Ans._ I think so.

“_Ques._ The Roman Catholics are not Christians, then?

“_Ans._ They are Christians, but not Protestant Christians.
They are Roman Catholic Christians. I make a wide distinction
between Protestants and Romanists” (p. 469).

Thus this man, professing himself an ambassador of Christ, deliberately puts himself on record as holding that pagans who know nothing of Christ’s atonement, and who, in his phrase, worship idols, are preferable to those who have had invoked upon them the name of God in baptism, who believe in the Divinity, bow at the name and hope to be saved by the merits of Jesus. Could the spirit of the most malevolent _odium theologicum_ go further? Would such an assertion be believed of any ignorant communist, much less of one who claims to be a minister of Christ, were it not contained in print in the report of a Congressional committee? If the man believes so little in the influence of the religion of the Saviour whom he preaches as his statement would indicate, it is his duty at once to resign, and relieve the society which supports him of the burden of a salary which he cannot conscientiously earn. “Believe,” said the apostle, “in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” “Not enough,” says Rev. Loomis; “you must be additionally a Protestant, or a belief in the Saviour will profit you no whit.” Has any man yet ever had a clear definition of that term, “_Protestant_”? Thomas à Kempis and St. Vincent of Paul, St. Augustine and St. Charles Borromeo, the glorious cohort of martyrs and confessors, would be dangerous citizens of the United States compared with Ah Sin and Fan Chow! This is certainly information of an unlooked-for kind, and the man competent to impart it does not usually hide his light in the dreary pages of a Congressional committee’s report. He says himself that he has been a missionary since 1844. By consequence he must have attained to a good age, and the great wonder to us is that a man of such astoundingly original views has not heretofore made his mark upon an age always anxious “to see or hear some new thing.”

The assertion that Catholics purpose to interfere with the rights of Protestants or other unbelievers, implied in the statement that the Chinese have no such intention, is both too indefinite and too futile for discussion. Catholics in all countries, but more especially in English-speaking countries, have for the past two hundred years had all they could manage to be allowed to follow the dictates of their own faith, free of legal pains and penalties, to have any time to spare for concocting plans against the civil or religious rights of others. In the only English-speaking state that they founded they established liberty of conscience, which statute was abolished by the friends of Mr. Loomis just as soon as they had the power.

But Mr. Loomis assigns reasons in favor of the superior desirability of pagan over Christian immigration, and the prominent ones seem to be that they have essentially no religion—or rather, that they have fifty; that they have no hierarchy; that, in fact, they do not support any religious system—to sum it up, that they are _mixed up at home_! How ill does not the adversary of mankind brook the distinctive unity of the church of God! Like Pharao’s magicians, everything else he can counterfeit or imitate; but the unity of the church is too much for him. Common sense teaches the most ignorant, that if our Saviour founded any church at all he founded _one_, and not four hundred jarring and jangling conventicles. Probably this is the gravamen. The Catholic, strong in the oneness of his church, and stanch in the conviction that everything not of it must be a sham emanating from the father of lies, will not be perverted by Mr. Loomis, charm he never so wisely; while, on the other hand, a lot of pagans, especially of pagans who were “considerably mixed up at home,” might furnish grist for Mr. Loomis’ peculiar gospel mill, with due toll for the miller. As with the apostle before, so this preacher now differs with the Saviour, who said and thought that there should be “_one fold and one Shepherd_.” _Absit blasphemia!_ but the sects all differ widely both from the Master, his apostles, and the church, with which he promised to abide for ever.

Lest, however, any Catholic should lay to his soul the flattering unction that his American birth might eliminate him from the general unfitness of Catholics for citizenship in the United States or from an entire appreciation of the institutions of his native country, Mr. Loomis is very careful to inform us that it does not matter whether they be Europeans or _of any other nationality; if they are Catholics_, they are not so fit for immigration to this country, still less for the exercise of citizenship, as if they were “_heathen Chinese_.” Here is a man who declaims against Catholics and denounces them for purposing to interfere with the rights of those who disagree with them in religious views, and in the same breath argues the unfitness of a population of possibly nine millions for citizenship in his own country, they being at the time all residents, mostly citizens and largely natives, merely because they belong to the old religion—the religion of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. “Resolved,” said the meeting, “that the earth belongs to the saints.” “Resolved,” added the same body, “that we are the saints.” Did it ever by chance occur to our friend of decidedly original, if limited, intellect that Senator Casserly lives in his own town, and is looked upon, with some reason, as a representative man, very well posted upon American institutions, and that it would be very hard to persuade the people of the United States of any latent disability on the part of that senator to appreciate or support them? Mr. Loomis makes a great distinction between a Catholic and a Protestant, and no doubt the difference is considerable; but the chasm is by no means as great as that which separates the Christian from the bigot, and it is hard for us to put Mr. Loomis in the ranks of the former. _Abeat_ Loomis.

Rev. W. W. Brier, after describing himself as “a Presbyterian minister by profession, who makes his living by raising fruit,” proceeds thus:

“_Ques._ Would a reasonable restriction of Chinamen be an
advantage or not?

“_Ans._ If a restriction is to be made in respect to China, it
ought to be made upon people who are far worse for us than
Chinese. I would trade a certain nationality off for Chinamen
until there was not one of the stock left in trade” (p. 575).

Other portions of his evidence show that he herein refers to the Irish as inferior to the Chinese. How he regards the latter is shown by his response to the suggestion of a possible danger resulting from the presence of sixty thousand Chinamen in the State, without any women of their kind, viz.:

“_Ans._ The fact is, they are laborers, and I regard them very
much in the light I do any other thing we want to use—horses,
mules, or machinery” (p. 577).

When asked if he would be willing to give the Chinese a chance to overrun California, he says:

“_Ans._ Why not? As well as to give the Irish a chance! My real
opinion is that we would be better off without any more
foreigners (p. 580).

“_Ques._ Are you quite willing there shall be no laws to
prevent this State from becoming a Chinese province?

“_Ans._ My opinion is that there is a great deal worse class of
foreigners in our land, who have all the rights of citizenship
and everything else” (p. 581).

That a man saturated to the heart’s core with such bitter prejudices against any portion of God’s children should have, under any circumstances, engaged in the work of saving souls may seem strange, and we shall not here go into the explication, which would detain us from our subject; but it is by no means surprising that such a person should fail of success as an evangelist and devote his time and prejudices to fruit-raising. He describes himself as a successful fruit-grower, and we have good authority for believing that “no man can serve two masters.” Not that he has given up preaching by any means; for he tells of his ministering in the vineyard, which means with people of his stamp delivering on Sunday an essay or so something after the fashion of a screed from the _Spectator_, and taking leave of all practical religion till the next Sunday. Of the ministrations of the Catholic priest—going in and out daily among his parishioners, preparing this one for death, comforting that one bereaved, advising and warning the vicious, alleviating want and encouraging all—he knows as little as his own mules. It appears by his evidence that he hires at times as many as sixty-five or seventy Chinamen, and, as he confessedly regards them in the same light as so much machinery, it is by no means to be wondered at that he should prefer men who will submit to be so regarded. The Chinaman possibly may, certainly the Irishman will not; and, upon the whole, we should think very much less of an Irishman if he had proved a favorite with such a specimen fossil as Rev. Brier. The Irishman is quick, full of life, strong, prone to resent an insult, courageous, and of all men least likely to allow himself to be trampled upon, ignored, or regarded in the same light as the mules and horses about the place. Further, it is more than likely that, in an encounter of wit with an Irishman, Rev. Mr. Brier would not come out first; and it is a dead certainty that Brier’s view of religion would appeal as little to the Irishman’s sympathies as it probably does to those of the reader. Taking, then, everything into account, we are not surprised that this person should not like Irishmen, but we do wonder that he should not have the grace to conceal the hypocrisy involved between his own ostensible profession on the one side, and his utter disregard of the dignity of humanity, of the value of the human soul, on the other. Under such shepherds it is no wonder that the flock becomes scattered, and, while we do not wish well to Protestantism at any time (for individual Protestants we entertain the most kindly feelings), it would be impossible for us to wish the system worse than that the watchmen upon the walls of the fortress founded by Luther and Calvin may all have the osseous heart, the hypocritical profession, and the eocene brain of Rev. Mr. Brier. Calvinism is disintegrating very rapidly, in all conscience; it needs but a few more years of the ministrations of such reverend gentlemen as this to give it the final _quietus_.

Why, even Chinamen have in this century been touched by the progressive spirit of the age. They emigrate, are found in California, the Sandwich Islands, Australia, Singapore, etc. They have opened their ports to foreigners, and are sending their young men to be educated both in the United States and in Europe. And here we have the Rev. Mr. Brier—who would build up in these United States a Chinese wall of exclusion, who would have Japan and China return to their ancient policy of non-intercourse, and who, if he had his way, would cause this great country to join them—who says deliberately that the United States would be “better off without any more foreigners.” He is a credit to the college that educated him, the State that bred him, and the religion he professes! _Exeat_ Brier.

Rev. S. V. Blakeslee is an orthodox Congregational minister, acting now as editor of the _Pacific_, which he describes as “the oldest religious newspaper on the coast.” Contrary to the former two ministers, he is bitterly opposed to Chinamen, and is only less rancorous against them than he is against the hated Irish Catholics. We give parts of his examination, omitting much that would but lead us over ground already trodden:

“_Ques._ Is there any other class of foreign labor that you
think has a tendency to render labor disreputable?

“_Ans._ Yes, I mean all whom we regard as inferior; to whom we
consign the work—all who are really inferior.

“_Ques._ What race would you put in that category?

“_Ans._ If I were to mention names, I believe the Americans
generally regard the Irish as very much inferior; yet I believe
if the priests were out of the way, if Romanism were out of the
way, the Irish would be equal to any people on earth. As it is,
they are inferior in intelligence, inferior in morality” (p.
1035).

In another portion of his testimony he complains that the people of his town (Oakland), with forty thousand inhabitants, have by no means the supply of Congregational and other Protestant churches which in the East would be considered necessary, and is asked:

“_Ques._ There are many Catholics, are there not?

“_Ans._ Oh! Catholics can hardly be said to go to church. They
do not go to listen to a sermon; they do not go to get
instructed (p. 1037).

“_Ques._ Do the Irish assimilate with the American people?

“_Ans._ They do, if they are Protestant; but the priests mean
to keep them separate, and mean to keep them as a power in
America under their control” (p. 1041).

As to his knowledge of Catholic practice and belief, the following will suffice, viz.:

“_Ques._ Have you as much prejudice against an American or
German Catholic as against an Irish Roman Catholic?

“_Ans._ If you ask, is my judgment more in approval of an
American or German than of an Irish Catholic, I should say it
was, because I do not find that the priest can control the
German as he can the Irish Catholic.

“_Ques._ Does the priest control them for evil or for good?

“_Ans._ I think that a great many priests teach them that the
end justifies the means, and that to tell a lie for mother
church is honest.

“_Ques._ Did you ever hear one preach that?

“_Ans._ Well, they were so near it—it’s all the same, probably;
but they did not use those words.

“_Ques._ Have you heard them preach?

“_Ans._ No, sir; they don’t preach much. They will stand a long
time, going through a performance, and ring a little bell for a
man to rise and kneel down, and then they will rise up again,
but they don’t preach much!”

The reader will observe the marked contempt with which those to whom _we consign the work_ are regarded as being _really inferior_. Why, in the eyes of this exponent of Christian doctrine and republican practice, labor, and those who do it, are quite as disreputable as used to be, in their own region, a class known as _poor white trash_. Now, from the conditions of this world in which we are placed, there can never, by any possibility, come a time (as there never has hitherto been one) in which it will not be incumbent on two-thirds of earth’s inhabitants to earn their _bread in the sweat of their brow_. It is God’s decree, man’s destiny, and a large proportion of the one-third who in any age of the world have managed to exempt themselves from the consequence of the _fiat_ of the Omnipotent in respect to labor, have done so by taking advantage of the honesty or simplicity of their fellow-men. They or their ancestors must have converted to their own use more than their share of the soil, the common heritage of the human race and the source of all wealth. There are not wanting at this day those who consider the laws which perpetuated the right to such original seizures unjust, and it is just such despisers of the laborer and appropriators of his work as this reverend gentleman who unwittingly give the greatest occasion for discontent to those who fancy themselves aggrieved by the existing condition of things. We are neither communists nor agrarians, but we see that, even in this happy country, it will be very possible to convert the laboring class into such by subjecting them to the scorn of such men as this witness, causing them to feel that they are regarded as really inferior, and incidentally exciting the envy which the sight of ranches of seventy-six thousand acres of land in the hands of one individual is calculated to produce. Such contempt of the laborer is un-American, to say nothing of its entire lack of Christianity, and to us it seems that no men of any nationality or religion could be so injurious to the real interests of any country as those entertaining it. We do not say that we would _trade_ the Rev. Mr. Blakeslee _for a Chinaman_, but we hope and believe that there are few Americans of his way of thinking in regard to labor, and trust that soon there will be none of _that stock_ left. The preamble to the Declaration of Independence must have long ceased to be remembered, and Christianity will be in her last throes, ere such views shall obtain; and we have confidence in the permanence of this republic, with an abiding faith that God will be with his church.

We will not bandy words with Mr. Blakeslee as to his opinion that Americans generally regard the Irish as _inferior in intelligence and morality_. It is one of those lump statements which impulsive or prejudiced men sometimes make about a whole nation in the heat of conversation, but which seldom find their way into sworn testimony. We are American to the manner born, and we not only do not believe the fact, but, so far as both reading and intercourse with our countrymen have enabled us to form an opinion, we should assert the direct contrary. There is, we well know, about all our large cities a class corresponding to the “hoodlums” of San Francisco (and we are sorry to add that they are nearly all Americans) who fancy that their mere accidental birth upon this soil has not only elevated them above all other nationalities, but raised them above the necessity of work. We can lay no stress on the opinions of this class. By all other Americans not influenced by hatred of the church, and, indeed, by many who do not regard her favorably, we have always heard remarked (and statistics will prove) the almost entire immunity of the Irish from the crime of fœticide; their large generosity to their friends and relatives, as proved by the proportionately larger amounts of money yearly transmitted by them to the old country; their unconquerable industry; the chastity of their women, though, by their condition in life, more exposed to temptation than perhaps any other body of females in the world. It is denied by nobody that where a soldier is wanted the Irishman is always on hand, and that he compares very favorably with the soldier of any other nation. As to intelligence, Mr. Blakeslee must surely be poking some mild fun at us under the sanctity of his oath. If he had ever tried to get the advantage of the most illiterate Irishman in conversation, if he had ever heard or read a true account of the result to any one who did so, he would not, for shame’s sake, appear making the wild assertion that the Irishman is deficient in intelligence. The common experience of any local community in the United States will at once brand the statement with its proper stamp, for which three letters are quite sufficient.

But here comes the real gist of Mr. Blakeslee’s charge of immorality and stupidity against the countrymen of Swift and Burke, of Wolfe Tone and O’Connell, of Moore and John of Tuam. “If,” says he, “it were not for Romanism, they would be in course of time a very excellent people.” In other words, if they would cease to be what they are, if they would sit under the ministrations of Rev. Blakeslee and his like, if they would now give up the religion from which centuries of persecution and penal laws have failed to dissever them, they might finally come to have as thorough-paced a contempt for labor and as strong a belief in the inferiority of the laborer as this reverend gentleman himself. “Paddy,” says Mr. Blakeslee, “you are a Papist, you are an idolater, you are very immoral, and you have very little sense. Will you be good enough now to become a Congregationalist?” The Irishman’s blood boils, fire flashes from his eye, the church militant is roused in him, and away runs Rev. Blakeslee, more than ever convinced of the inferiority of the mean Irish and their imperviousness to the charms of Protestantism!

Among the ephemeral sects of the day, depending, as they do, on the temporary whims or idiosyncrasies of the individuals who “run them,” there is apt to arise a fashion in morality, so that it is something not unlike fashion in ladies’ dress—very different this season from what it was the last. Now, these sects are loud and noisy, making up in vehemence for what they lack in numbers, logic, and authority. Just now, and for some years past, the sin which it is the fashion to decry to the neglect of all others is that of drunkenness, which the church has always held to be a great scandal amongst men and a sin against the Almighty. But, while the church has received no new light on the subject, the various sectaries have erected “drinking” into the one typical, the sole crying vice, the incorporation of all the other sins. A man is now practically “a moral man,” provided he does not use liquor; and no other crime, short of murder, is, in the eyes of the Protestant community, so damning as is addictedness to drink. There is no doubt but that, in the early part of this century, liquor was drunk by the Irish to too great an extent. There is just as little doubt that a great change for the better has come over the Irish in this regard, and that the good work is still going on. But the Irish at no time exceeded the Scotch in their consumption of liquor, nor did they ever equal either the Danes or Swedes, both thoroughly Protestant nations. But if you give a man a bad name you may as well hang him; and the same holds good of a nation. It suited the sectarian temperance orators to select the Irish as the “shocking example” among nations, and falsely to attribute the exaggerated drunkenness which they represented as then existing to the influence of the church. Such a cry, once well set going from Exeter Hall and the various Ebenezer chapels, is not easily quelled; and as it is much easier for most men to take their opinions ready made than to frame them for themselves, there does remain on the minds of a large number of people a lurking distrust of the sobriety of the individual Irishman, and a general belief that drunkenness is his peculiar and besetting national vice. The statistics of the quantity of ardent spirits consumed in Ireland since the year 1870, as compared with the quantities used in England, Scotland, or Wales, will convince any one who desires to know the truth; and we are not writing for those who are content to defame a people by the dishonest repetition of a false cry. These tables prove that, man for man, the consumption referred to is in Ireland not so much as in Scotland by over three gallons, in England by nearly two gallons, and in Wales by a little less than in England. So long, however, as Sweden overtops the consumption of the highest of them by the annual amount of two and a half gallons per man, and Catholic Ireland holds the lowest rank as a consumer of ardent spirits, we have no hope that it will “suit the books” of sectarian temperance agitators to call attention to the facts. It is much easier to defame than to do justice, and by this craft many people nowadays are making a livelihood. Yet this false charge of a vice which betrays by no means the blackheartedness involved in many others—which, bad as it is, is by no means so heinous as defrauding the laborer of his hire, swindling the poor of their savings, watering stocks, accepting bribes, etc., etc., and which is not even mentioned in the decalogue—is the only one that could at any time have been charged with a decent show of plausibility against the Irish as a nation, or against the individual Irishmen whom we have in this country. We ourselves must admit that we thought there was some truth in it, till we searched the statistical tables to find out the facts, and we here make to the Irish people the _amende honorable_ for having misjudged them on the strength of the cry of sectarian demagogues.

Going to church can, in the mind of Mr. Blakeslee, mean only one thing—_i.e._, going to hear a sermon—and so he says that “_Catholics can hardly be said to go to church_.” Certainly the prime object of a Catholic in going to church is not _to listen to a sermon_, nor should it be so. It is hardly worth while to attempt to enlighten a man like Mr. Blakeslee, who himself habitually sheds light from both pulpit and press; but if we are to take the knowledge he seems to possess of the Catholic Church as a specimen of the information he diffuses on other points, what rare ideas must not his hearers and readers attain of matters and things in general! Yet he is a man who professes to have made a theological course, which should involve not only the study of the doctrines and practises of his own sect, but also, to some slight extent, of the remaining sects of Protestantism, to say nothing of the church on which two hundred million Christians rest their hopes of salvation. He knows no more of the celebration of the Blessed Eucharist in the Church of Rome than to describe it as “_going through a performance and ringing a little bell for a man to rise and kneel down_”; and yet the fellow does not hesitate to announce what is the doctrine and what the practice of the church—nay, to hold himself forth as a champion against her tenets, as though he were divinely commissioned to instruct thereon. To see ignorance is at all times unpleasant; blatant ignorance combined with assumption of knowledge is doubly nauseous; but the supereminent degree of loathing is only excited when ignorance or conceit of knowledge elevates itself into the chair of the spiritual guide and denounces what it in no whit understands. _Be these thy gods, O Israel?_ Surely it is not to hear the lucubrations of men of this stamp that any sane people would go to church. We can only wish to the sheep of such a pastor increase of knowledge, decrease of prejudice, and an enlarged ability to tell truth on the part of their shepherd! We repeat that Catholics do not go to church primarily or solely to hear a sermon. But they do go there to join in spirit at the celebration of the divine Sacrifice, to pray to God for grace to assist them through life, to make and strengthen good resolutions, and to obey the command of the church. We all believe that the devout hearing of one Mass is far more valuable than the hearing of all the sermons ever delivered or printed since the sermon on the Mountain of Beatitudes; and we lay no stress whatever on the best formulæ of words ever strung together by the ingenuity even of the most pious and learned of mere men, when compared with the expiatory sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, instituted by him and celebrated, not merely commemorated, by the priest to whom he has given the power. Should it ever happen—and as the mercy of God is infinite, and his ways past finding out, it is not impossible—that this poor deluded man should be brought to a knowledge of the truth, with what shame and confusion of face would he not read his ignorant and impudent travesty of the worship of God in his church!

If there be, as there doubtless are, other Protestants who get their instruction about Catholics from Mr. Blakeslee and his like, and who believe with this witness that the _priests mean to keep them_ (the Catholics) _as a power in America_ under their (the priests’) control, it would not be, and is not, worth our while to attempt to argue the point with such. They will so believe, like the relatives of Dives, though one rose from the dead to confute them. Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone! But we appeal to the Catholic voters of this country, of American or foreign birth, to answer: Has your bishop or parish priest ever undertaken to dictate to you how you should vote? Has your vote, on whatever side given, interfered in the slightest degree with your status in the church? Do you know of a single instance in which one or the other of these things has taken place? We cannot lay down a fairer gauge. If these things take place they cannot occur without the knowledge of those among whom they are done and upon whom they are practised. They are Americans, and it is a free country. Long ere this would the country have rung with the proof, had any such been forthcoming. Mr. Blakeslee’s lying charge meant, if it meant anything, that Catholics were to be kept apart as a political power; for neither we nor any other Catholic desires or hopes otherwise than that the church, _as a religious body_, shall, till the end of time, be kept separate and apart from all the sects of Protestantism, which we believe to be heresy and schism.

One would naturally always rather give an adversary the credit of having honestly mistaken the facts than be obliged to consider him a wilful slanderer and falsifier. But there are circumstances in which the assertion made is so patently false, or has been so often thoroughly refuted, that, though the heart would fain take refuge in the former course, the brain refuses to accept any but the latter. Such a case occurs where Mr. Blakeslee says that “_a great many priests teach them that the end justifies the means, ... that to tell a lie for mother church is honest_.” Every Catholic who has learned his catechism knows that this is not so. We believe that _he_ knew it was not so when he said it, but that his own innate malevolence against the church, and the spirit of the father of lies speaking through him, compelled him to the utterance of this vile slander. For which great sin may God forgive him: he stands in sore need of it.

But after all, if Satan is so easily caught on a cross-examination as he on this occasion allowed his servant to be, we need not stand in much dread of his lies. The same man whose lips are not yet dry from saying _on oath_ that the priests teach their people to tell lies, when asked if he ever heard any single priest so teach, shuffles out of it thus—his own words need no comment from us:

“_Ans._ Well, they were so near it; it’s all the same,
_probably_! They didn’t use those words!

“_Ques._ Have you ever heard them preach?

“_Ans._ _No, sir!_

We, on the contrary, think that it was not all the same “_probably_,” and heartily thank his satanic majesty for his negligence in failing to inspirit his servant with the knowledge that, in order to be believed, in swearing as to what priests preach in their sermons, it is necessary to be able also to swear that the witness has heard at least one such sermon. _Valeat_ Blakeslee.

Other preachers testified; and when the question arose as to Catholic foreigners, more especially Irish Catholic, all betrayed the cloven hoof, though some veiled their hatred in much more seemly words than did others. It had been our intention to examine their testimony, in so far as it touched the church, _seriatim_; but further reflection induces us to believe that from these few pages the reader can learn sufficiently the depth of the ignorance and the extent of the hatred of these blind leaders of the blind. If the reward in heaven be exceeding great to those whom all men shall hate, revile, and despitefully use, surely the glory of Catholics, and of Catholic Irishmen especially, will be great in the next world; for certainly they are not loved of men in this.

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A LITTLE SERMON.

FROM “THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS.”

The Poor One of Assisi trod one day
Bevagna’s road, and, praying by the way—

His heart seraphic, like the choirs above,
Filled with the sweetness born of heavenly love—

Lifting his eyes, that loved the earth’s fair face,
He saw, thick gathered in a bosky place,

A host of birds that flitted to and fro,
Filling the boughs with twittering murmur low.

“Wait here, my brothers,” fell in gentle speech;
“Unto this multitude needs must I preach:

“Here by the wayside, good Masseo, bide
Till I these little birds have satisfied.”

Into the field he passed, the flowers among,
Where, on the bending stems, the songsters swung.

Gathered the wingèd things about his feet,
Dropped from the boughs amid the grasses sweet:

Reverent dropt down to listen to God’s word,
Silenced their song that his Poor One be heard.

Touching with his gray robe their eager wings,
St. Francis softly stilled their flutterings.

Sedate they sat with crested heads alert,
The near ones nestling in their brother’s skirt.

“My little birds, ye owe deep gratitude
To God, who has your forms with life imbued,

“And ever in all places should ye praise
Your Maker, who in love keeps you always,

“Since by His hand to you is freedom given
To fly where’er ye will, on earth, in heaven:

“Since from his strong and loving hand ye hold
Your double garments guarding you from cold:

“Since, that no evil blight fall on your race,
He gave in Noe’s ark your sires a place.

“And unto him deep gratitude ye owe
For this pure air whence life itself doth flow.

“And then ye sow not, neither do ye reap,
Yet God for you doth plenteous harvest keep;

“The streams He gives you, and the limpid spring
Where ye may drink of waters freshening;

“He gives the hills and valleys for your rest,
The great-armed trees where each may make his nest.

“And, since ye cannot spin nor sew, his care
Weaves the soft robes ye and your fledglings wear.

“How much he loves that doth so richly give!
Praise him, my little birds, all days ye live!

“So keep ye well from sin of thanklessness,
And God keep you, whom let all creatures bless!”

Bowed all the little birds their heads to earth,
Oped wide their bills, and sang with holy mirth

Their _Deo gratias_ when St. Francis ceased,
Yet rose not till his hand their wings released

With Christian cross signed in the happy air,
Giving the songsters leave to scatter there.

Softly, so blessed, the grateful birds up-soared
And marvellous music in their flight outpoured:

Looked not at earth, nor him they left behind,
Parting in ways the holy cross had signed.

Singing they cleft the quarters of the sky—
Type of St. Francis’ mission wide and high:

Type of his little ones who nothing own,
Whose humble trust is in their Lord alone—

So nourished as their brother birds are fed,
Whose great Creator doth their table spread.

Listening the lessening chant, St. Francis smiled,
Praising his Lord for joy so undefiled.
—_From the French of F. A. Ozanam_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF MARY. By the Rev. J. De Concilio, Pastor of St.
Michael’s Church, Jersey City, author of _Catholicity and
Pantheism_. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9
Barclay Street. 1878.

We must apologize to Father De Concilio for being late with our notice of his book. Our excuse is, simply, lack of time for its perusal—anything but lack of desire; for, on learning that the author of _Catholicity and Pantheism_—a work that has won unstinted and generous praise from all competent critics, and established the fame of its author as a profound philosophical thinker—was engaged upon a work about the Blessed Virgin, we hailed the promised boon as a feast, both intellectual and devotional, of the rarest kind. And are we disappointed? On the contrary, our most sanguine expectations are surpassed.

Father De Concilio tells us in his preface that this new book is “a necessary part” of his former work on _Catholicity and Pantheism_, “though it may seem to have very little to do with it.” “For Mary,” he says, “is the best refutation of pantheism, the universal error of our time. The substance of this error is to absorb the finite in the infinite, and, consequently, to abolish, to do away with, all created agency. Now, Mary, as we shall prove, represents created agency in its grandest, sublimest, and most magnificent expression. She represents created agency in all the mysteries of God relating to the creature. She is, therefore, the best and most convincing refutation of pantheism, the rock against which the mighty waves of this universal error must exhaust their force.” Again: “Pantheism, in pretending to exalt humanity, degrades it and deprives it of everything that causes its glory. Mary, the grandest specimen of human nature, exhibits human personality in its most colossal proportions, and is the glory, the pride, the magnificence of our race.”

We quote these passages from the author’s preface, because they furnish the key-note to the whole work.

The volume opens with an admirable “Introduction,” showing how Christianity was needed to bring fallen man to the knowledge and love of God, and how “the world owes Christianity, along with its results, to Mary”; also, how the same instrument must bring back the knowledge and love of God to-day, lost again as they have been in great part; whence “the necessity of true, accurate, solid knowledge of Mary.” Then follow the five books into which the essay is divided, the chapters of each book being subdivided into articles. This arrangement at once gives conciseness to the argument, and much relieves the strain upon the reader’s thought.

The first, second, and fourth books are the most important: the first dealing with “Mary’s place in the divine plan of the universe”; the second with “the grandeur of Mary’s destiny”; and the fourth with “the consequences of Mary’s dignity relatively to God, to the human race, and to herself.” The third book treats of “the perfections of Mary in general,” and its arguments will be readily admitted by the reader who has accepted those of the preceding books; the fifth, again, elucidates “Mary’s merit and glory,” which no one will question who agrees with the fourth book.

Father De Concilio shows himself a master by the easy strength with which he expounds the divine plan of the universe, and the place which the Incarnation holds therein. The eight articles of his first chapter are thus recapitulated:

“End: The greatest possible manifestation and communication of divine goodness.

“Preliminary means: Creation of substances, spiritual, material, and composite—angels, matter, and men.

“Best means to the object: The hypostatic union of the Word with human nature.

“Effects of the Incarnation with regard to God: Infinite glory and honor.

“With regard to created nature: Universal deification.

“With regard to personalities: Deification of their nature in Christ, and beatific union with the Trinity through their union with Christ by sanctification.

“God foresees the fall, and permits it in order to enhance these effects by redemption.”

We do not at all wonder at a reviewer in the Chicago _Interior_ complimenting our author on “profound scholarship in Catholic theology.” “The book,” he says, “is bold to familiarity in describing with scientific particularity and clearness of outline the constitution of the Holy Trinity as defined by Catholic theologians.” We do, however, wonder that this writer, if a believer in revelation, should go on to compare Father De Concilio to a chemist analyzing “a pyrite of iron,” and still more that he should declare his “ideas as grossly _anthropomorphic_ as it is possible to be”(!) Would this critic call the Bible anthropomorphic? He says nothing about our author’s theology of the Incarnation—unless he means to hit at _that_ as “anthropomorphic.” It is precisely about the Incarnation that Protestants are utterly at sea. When the reviewer adds: “We can understand, after examining this book, the character of Catholic devotion to Mary as we never understood it before,” we are compelled to reply: “Then your understanding of it is a greater mistake than ever before, unless you have first come to realize the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation with its bearings; and if that were the case you would avow it, for you could not remain a Protestant another hour.”

Let any Protestant of sufficient education read the first of these five books earnestly and prayerfully, and he will have to acknowledge that his hitherto Christianity, be it what it may, is divided _toto cœlo_ from Catholic Christianity—the _totum cœlum_ being precisely his lack of that “knowledge of Mary” which is inseparable from an intelligent belief in the Incarnation.

The Catholic student will be specially interested by the way in which Father De Concilio treats of Mary’s “co-operation.” She is set forth—and in a clearer light than ever before by any book in the English language—as the great “representative _personality_” of our race. It is in this capacity that she consents to the Incarnation and Redemption. “A God-Man was necessary to expiate for the sins of mankind. But that was not sufficient. According to the law of wisdom, mentioned in our last argument, God was ready to help human nature to that extent as to effect the Incarnation and produce the God-Man; but God required, also, that mankind should do all it could towards its own redemption. It could not give the God who was to divinize the acts of human nature; it could not actually effect the union between human nature and the divine person of the Word; but it could freely and deliberately offer the nature to be united for the express purpose and intent of suffering; and this offering could only be made by means of a _representative human person_ fully conscious of the necessity of expiation, of the conditions required by it, and of the consequences resulting therefrom” (pp. 77, 78).

Again (pp. 78, 79): “The consent of Mary was required in the plan of God in order to elevate created _personality_ to the highest possible dignity, and thus to fulfil the end which God had proposed to himself in exterior work.” This purpose, he goes on to say, was not completed by God “taking human _nature_ to be his own nature, and to be God with him.” ... “Human _personality_ does not exist in Christ, and receives no honor from him. There is one person in him, and that is divine.” ... “Mary, therefore (p. 80), fulfils the office of creation, and especially of created personality, in its most sovereign act—the act which this personality would have elicited in Jesus Christ, if it had been in him. Human nature, such as it was in Christ, could not give itself, because to give is a personal act, and God wished to carry to its utmost extremity the communication of goodness, that human nature should give itself in order to be made partaker of the responsibility and attribution of the effects of that mysterious union.”

Having thus shown the inestimable importance of Mary’s consent to the Incarnation, our author proceeds to point out “the extent or comprehensiveness” of that consent—to wit, that “in giving her consent to the Incarnation and redemption” she “not only agreed to become the Mother of Jesus Christ the _Redeemer_, ... but also to become a _co-sufferer_ with him; so that Mary’s Compassion was to accompany, to go hand in hand with, Christ’s Passion, _both_ being _necessary_ for the redemption of mankind, according to the plan selected by God’s wisdom.”

Here is something new to us, but very delightful to discover, since it glorifies Our Blessed Lady so much more than the ordinary view of her Dolors. We knew that “she consented to undergo all the anguish and sorrow and martyrdom consequent upon her from the sacrifice and immolation of her divine Son,” and thus “join her _Compassion_ to his Passion, in order to redeem mankind”; that, in this sense, she “consented to become the _corredemptrix_ of the human race.” But it had not occurred to us that “all this, implied in her consent, was _necessary_ as that consent itself.”

Our author here quotes Father Faber’s theory about Mary’s privilege of being “corredemptrix”—the term by which saints and doctors call her—and shows that the gifted Oratorian, in his exquisite book on Mary’s sorrows (_The Foot of the Cross_), “has not done justice to the subject.” He even quarrels with Faber’s “co-redemptress” as a “_substitution_” for the ancient “corredemptrix,” whereas it would appear but a translation—that is, as Faber uses it. We feel sure, too, that the English word _may_ mean the full equivalent of the Latin. But, at all events, Father Faber’s theory is that Mary’s dolors were among the _unnecessary_ sufferings of the Passion. “Indeed,” he says, “they were literally our Lord’s unnecessary sufferings.... Her co-operation with the Passion by means of her dolors is wanting, certainly, in that indispensable necessity which characterizes the co-operation of her maternity.” To this Father De Concilio remarks that Father Faber “had an incomplete idea of the office of Mary as to redemption,” and objects to the doctrine of “unnecessary sufferings” as “theologically inaccurate, to say the least.” “The Passion of Christ,” he says, “must be considered as a _variety_ of sorrows _co-ordained_ by the _unity_ of the sacrifice—the beginning of which was the maternal womb, in which the Incarnate Word placed himself in the state of a victim, and the termination Calvary, where the grand holocaust was consummated.” And, after establishing this point, he proceeds to prove that Mary’s Compassion was “among the necessary elements of the redemption.” He brings to light, both from the Fathers and from reason, “a principle in the economy of our redemption,” whereby God had to supply, indeed, a means of infinite merit (through the Incarnation), but, equally, had to exact from humanity all that itself could do towards atonement. From this principle he deduces three consequences:

_First_. That “our Lord’s humanity was to suffer as much as ... would bear a kind of proportion to the offence and realize the principle that human nature was to do as much as possible towards its own redemption.” Whence, obviously, “the distinction of necessary and unnecessary sufferings in the life of our Lord” is untenable.

_Second_. That “human nature was required to do more than suffer in Christ. It was required to deliberately and willingly offer up that human nature to be united to the Word of God for the purpose of redemption, by means of a representative of the whole human race.” Whence “the necessity of Mary’s consent to the Incarnation and redemption.”

_Third_. That “it was necessary that the highest representative of human personality, the human head of the race, _should be subject also to the highest possible martyrdom which a human person may be subject to_, as a reparation coming from a human personality, and unite it with the sufferings of the humanity of the Word, and thus bring its own meed of suffering required by God’s wisdom for our ransom.” “This was necessary,” he adds, “because in our Lord _humanity suffered as a nature, not as a personality_.”

From these deductions, then, the author concludes that “Mary’s Compassion is a necessary element of the redemption, and Mary is really and truly the corredemptrix of the human race.” But, of course, he is careful to add that “Christ alone redeemed us truly, really, and efficaciously, because he alone could give infinite value to those sufferings, and, therefore, he is the only Redeemer. Mary is the corredemptrix, but only in the sense just explained.” “Those,” he says, “who are afraid to think Mary’s sufferings necessary for our redemption are thinking only of the infinite value required for our sacrifice. Mary has nothing to do with that. In speaking of her co-operation we limit ourselves to speaking of what was required from human nature and human personality as their mite towards redemption, independent of the infinite worth to be given only by Christ’s infinite personality.”

To us, we must joyfully avow, this elaborate argument for Mary’s greater glory appears irrefragable.

What specially delights us in the fourth book, again, is to see our heavenly Mother proved the “channel” and “dispenser” of all grace. This, also, is an unspeakable gain to us. And we need not say that if, on the one hand, our learned theologian has invested his Queen with a sublimity and an awe that makes us feel how unworthy of her notice is our best of love and service, he has inspired us, on the other hand, with more confidence than ever in her tenderness and power.

Those, too, of our readers who have a turn for contemplation and have thought much on Our Lady will meet in these pages with many an idea which has come into their minds before, and which, perhaps, they have been afraid to disclose, or even harbor. Such will join with us in revelling over the logic which makes blessed certainties of these exquisite guesses.

In conclusion, we are quite unable to express our thanks to Father De Concilio for his magnificent book. But he does not need our gratitude. She whose champion he is will not fail to fulfil in his regard the promise which to him must be so precious: _Qui elucidant me vitam æternam habebunt_—“They who make me shine forth shall have life everlasting.”

WHY A CATHOLIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY? By William Giles Dix. New
York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay Street. 1878.

The author of this essay once contributed to THE CATHOLIC WORLD a thoughtful article called “The Roman Gathering.” (See CATHOLIC WORLD, May, 1868.) He was then a Protestant. It is consoling to find him no longer among those who, while forced to envy the Catholic Church, remain outside her communion on the strength of some hazy theory or from a superstitious dread of using their reason. Having come, by God’s grace, to see the truth himself, he aims at making others see it equally clearly. He shows very forcibly, and in simple language, “that the New Testament, and the Protestant version of that, proves these propositions:

“I. Christ founded a church.

“II. Christ founded _one_ church, one only: _not a corporation of national churches, not a federal union of churches_, but literally one church.

“III. That one church of Christ was intended to be the only spiritual guide, on earth, of Christians.

“IV. That [this] church had the promise of endurance and of guidance until the end of the world.

“V. That [this] church was the beginning of the church known historically as the Catholic Church.”

Of course this is very old ground; but Mr. Dix goes over it in a way that ought to induce earnest Protestants of any denomination to follow him.

Here is an excellent hit:

“A word is in many mouths—_Ultramontane_—intended to represent extreme views of papal rights. Now, I care not whom you select among the defenders of the powers of St. Peter and his successors, you will find the attributes ascribed by any such writer to the successors of St. Peter not so strong as the single commission of our Lord to his apostles recorded in the New Testament. _The most ultramontane writers that I know of are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John._ The only difficulty which any one finds in the interpretation of the words of our Lord referring to his church is because those words are so plain and direct. They so clearly set forth the amplest prerogatives ever claimed for the Church of Christ that many people seem to believe that they cannot mean what they seem to mean, and, therefore, must be explained away.”