EH isH 3&v ift^-W/ SM&& Vt^< 1 ft*. r T llllili l^lfcley: i j If Y <\4V.U*i* I *|^':!*^jK V< 'K-i - - THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE Gift of THE HONNOLD LIBRARY /?' / r / / &. JR. Carter, 1 COMPLETE WORKS Uls OF THE MOST RET. JOHN HUGHES, D,D,, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. COMPRISING HIS SERMONS, LETTERS, LECTURES, SPEECHES, ETC. tapiltfc from % best AND EDITED BY LAWRENCE KEHOE. VOL. II. NEW YORK: LAWRENCE KEHOE, 7 BEEKMAN STREET; LONDON: RICHARDSON & SON, 26 PATERNOSTER ROW; 9 CAPEL STREET, DUBLIN; AND DERBY. 3AN FRANCISCO : MICHAEL FLOOD. 1865. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S64. BY LAWRENCE KEHOE, In the Clork's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. EDWAKD O. JENKINS, 6TSKBOTTPER A PBI^TKR, No. 20 North William Street. CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. INTRODUCTION : PAQK THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ARCHBISHOP HUGHES A LECTURE BY RT. REV. J. R. BAYLEY, D. D., BISHOP OF NEWARK i-xiv THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE : CIRCULAR LETTER ON THE ACCESSION OF Pius IX THE PRESENT POSITION OF Pius IX A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHE- DRAL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 1849 11 CIRCULAR IN REGARD TO COLLECTION FOR Pius IX 21 FIRST LETTER IN REPLY TO HON. HORACE GREELEY 22 SECOND " " " 24 SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE COLLECTION FOR THE POPE, JULY 1, 1849 28 THE POPE'S RETURN TO ROME : A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, MAY 12, 1850 80 PASTORAL LETTER OF THE MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP AND SUFFRAGAN BISHOPS OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK 86 AN ANSWER TO THOSE WHO WOULD DESPOIL THE POPE OF HIS TEMPORAL POWER 48 THE POPES AND THEIR TEMPORAL POWER IN THE STATES OF THE CHURCH : A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, JULY 1, 1860 53 LECTURES: THK CHURCH AND THE WORLD, SINCE THE ELECTION OF Pius IX. TO THE CHAIR OF SAINT PETER 69 THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM, AND ITS CAUSES 87 THE PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES 122 LIFE AND TIMES OF O'CONNELL 132 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE CATHOLIC CITIZEN 144 ST. PATRICK 148 SERMONS : SERMON ON THE FESTIVAL OF ST. PATRICK, 1835 158 ON THE FEAST OF SS. PETER AND PAUL, 1851 169 ON ST. PATRICK, 1852 174 AT DEDICATION OF ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH, FORT HAMILTON, NEW YORK 179 IN ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S CHURCH 185 AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST NATIONAL COUNCIL 191 AT THE DEDICATION OF ST. FRANCIS SERAPH'S CHURCH, N. Y 198 AT THE CONSECRATION OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA 203 AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY, STAR OF THE SEA, BROOKLYN, N. Y 207 AT THE CONSECRATION OF THE BISHOPS OF BROOKLYN, NEWARK, AND BUR- LINGTON. . . , 211 4: CONTEXTS. PAGE SERMON ON HIS KETURN FROM CUBA 219 " AT TIIE DEDICATION OF ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, NEW YORK 223 " AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST PROVINCIAL COUNCIL 228 " ON THE TRIUMPHS OF THE CHURCH 236 " AT THE DEDICATION OF ST. MART, STAR OF THE SEA, BROOKLYN 247 " AT THE CONSECRATION OF THE CATHEDRAL. ST. JOHNS, N. F 251 " ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE NEW ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL 263 " ON THE OCCASION OF THE COLLECTION FOR THE AMERICAN COLLEGE IN KoME. 271 " ON THE SILENCE OF CHRIST BEFORE HIS ACCUSERS 275 " ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE PAULIST CHURCH 284 " ON THE UNITY, UNIVERSALITY, AND VISIBILITY OK THE CHURCH 287 " AT THE DEDICATION OF ST. ALOYSIUS' CHURCH, WASHINGTON 293 " ON THE LAST WORDS OF OUR SAVIOUR 301 " AT THE DEDICATION OF ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCH, ALBANY, NEW YORK 308 " ON THE GREAT COMMANDMENT OF THE LAW 316 " ON KEASON AND FAITH 326 " ON THE VISIBILITY OF THE CHURCH 832 " AT THE MEETING OF THE SECOND PROVINCIAL COUNCIL 343 " AT THE OPENING OF ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH 354 " ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE NEW CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, DUBLIN. 358 " ON THE CIVIL WAR 368 LETTEES : CONTROVERSY WITH DR. DELANCEY ON THE EMANCIPATION OF THE CATHOLICS OF IRE- LAND 374 DR. DELANCEY'S KEPLY 375 LETTERS TO DR. DELANCEY. 878 INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH FIRST ARTICLE ON REV. MR. MASON'S SERMON 388 SECOND ARTICLE 894 TEN LETTERS TO REV. MR. MASON ON THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CBORCH 899 THE CONVERSION OF THE DODGE FAMILY 454 To THE LEOPOLDINE SOCIETY 459 ONE LETTER TO THE HON. HORACE GREELEY 464 THE CUBAN PIRATES 470 - CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CHARITIES 473 THE MADIAI AFFAIR CONTROVERSY WITH GEN. CASS 476 REPLY TO GEN. CASS IN SELF-VINDICATION 485 REFUTATION OF A MALICIOUS ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE N. Y. Daily Times 503 LETTER TO BISHOP LYNCH, OF CHARLESTON, S. C 513 CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE CITY INSPECTOR 520 VISIT TO IRELAND INTERVIEW WITH THE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD 526 THE ADDRESS OF THE " NATIONALISTS" 529 THE DEPUTATION FROM NENAGH, AND OTHER TOPICS THAT HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED IN IRELAND AS ITS SEQUEL 531 LETTER TO SECRETARY SEWARD IN REFERENCE TO HIS MISSION TO EUROPE 539 A NEW ECCLESIASTICAL SEMINARY FOR THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK 542 THE CONSCRIPTION THE RIOTS 544 THE CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY: - INTRODUCTION 549 REDEMPTION OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH SERMON 563 THE TRUSTEES OF ST. Louis' CHURCH, BUFFALO, AND MR. PUTNAM'S CHURCH PROP- ERTY BILL 573 MORE OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF ST. Louis' CHURCH, BUFFALO 583 REVIEW OF SENATOR BROOKS' SPEECH 589 -Do CATHOLICS, AS SUCH, MEDDLE IN POLITICS ? 593 CONTENTS. 5 PAGE SECOND LETTER IN ANSWER TO SENATOR BROOKS 597 THIRD " " " 600 FOURTH " " " 602 FIFTH " " " 606 SIXTH " " " 611 SEVENTH " " " 618 A CARD TO THE PUBLIC 619 To THE PUBLIC 620 MISCELLANEOUS : ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS, UNDER THE TITLE OF " PROTESTANTISM AND POPERY," MADE BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER 633 A REVIEW OF BISHOP ONDERDONK'S CHARGE ON THE EULE OF FAITH 667 LETTER TO THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH 684 REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ON THE CATHOLIC PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES 686 PASTORAL LETTERS, ETC 702 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL 728 " AT THE ASTOR HOUSE BANQUET 734 " AT THE MEETING FOR THE IRISH UNIVERSITY 742 " ABOUT THE NEBRASKA IRISH COLONY 751 " IN CHARLESTON, ST. PATRICK'S DAY, I860 756 " IN DUBLIN, IN 1862 759 " BEFORE YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETY 762 " IN CORK, ON EDUCATION, ETC 770 APPENDIX : THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN PRESS AND THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT 776 " THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS" A SERMON 779 REPLY TO AN ADDRESS FROM THE CATHOLICS OF HALIFAX 785 INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION IN SOCIETY . 787 SPEECH AT THE MEETING FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF IRELAND 790 THE QUESTION OF IRELAND 793 CHRISTMAS VESPER HYMN .. 796 INTRODUCTION. * The substance of a Discourse on the Life and Character of the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes, delivered in St. Bridget's Church, New York, February 28th, 1864, by the Right Rev. JAMES ROOSEVELT BAYLET, D. D., Bishop of Newark. In speaking of the lamented Archbishop of New York, I do not intend to make a formal eulogy, much less to attempt a full and complete picture of his life and character. To do this as it should be done, would need more eloquent lips than mine and a broader canvass. Still, as I was united to him for many years as his confidential secretary, and, I may be permitted to add, as his intimate friend, I have thought that it would interest you, if in a simple familiar way I were to tell you what I knew of him, and his labors for the Church of God. The memory of such a man should not be permitted to die out amongst us; and all these various ap- preciations which have been, or will be made, will help to bring out his character and services to religion more fully, and aid us to form a correct, enduring, and instructive remembrance of him. The Most Reverend Archbishop Hughes was, it may be said, without any exaggeration, an extraordinary man. His name will always occupy a high place in the list of eminent men whom Ireland has given with such rich profusion to the service of the Church and of the State in every part of the world. Of him, it may be said, though not in the sense in which the poet wrote the words, that he was " born to greatness." He would have been a distinguished man anywhere, and under any circumstances. No proscription of caste or weight of penal laws could ever have kept him down. He had a natural force and energy of character which would have manifested * The copy of the following able and instructive lecture has been kindly furnished the editor by the Eight Reverend author. EDITOB. 11 INTRODUCTION. itself in spite of every obstacle. God had given him a clear and powerful intellect, in a sound and vigorous body, and he could not but exert it. He did not owe his position and eminence to any adventitious circumstances. His whole course may be said to have been against wind and tide, and his headway was owing- to the power within him. He was not what is called a learned man, nor a laborious student, in the ordinary sense of the word. He had de- veloped and improved his natural talents by careful study at one period of his life, and had laid a broad and solid foundation of general knowledge; but the superstructure he built upon, from time to time, was not so much the result of study as of thought, not built up with materials quarried from other men's minds, but "hewn out of his own strong intellect. He needed the occasion, the excite- ment of actual collision, to bring him out fully ; and I have often thought that he would have been a much greater man, as the world counts greatness, would have made a deeper mark, and built up a more enduring fame, at other times and under other circum- stances than those in which he was placed. He wonld, for instance, have made a great lawyer not of the black-letter sort, but at the bar, before a jury. His appearance, his manner, his courage, his quick insight into character, his readiness in seizing the strong points of a case and making the most of them, his felicity of expression, his power of sarcasm, would have made him irresistible. He would have made also a great statesman, if he had been trained for it, and had had that opportunity for the exercise of real statesmanship which is afforded in other countries, but, un fortunately for us, not in our own. He was capable of forming the wisest and most comprehensive plans for the true interests of a nation, of urging them with talent, of overcoming opposition, and of carrying them out with an energy and a courage which nothing could withstand. Or as a prelate of the Church, he was fitted to have been one of the old Prince-Prelates or Cardinal-Statesmen of past times ; where he would have had broad ground to stand upon, and great national or religious principles to defend or interests to carry out, and under such circumstances he might have become a Richelieu or a Ximenes. I have not had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with the great men of the world ; I have met with some, it is true, Avho were recognized as such in their day and generation, and I have heard them talk but I have no hesitation in saying that I have never met with any one who, in conversation, impressed me so much with native vigor of intellect, and clearness and comprehensiveness of ideas, as Archbishop Hughes. Dr. Johnson's observation in re- INTRODUCTION. Ill gard to Edmund Burke, that " if a man were to go by chance under a shed with Burke to shun a shower, he would say, ' this is an ex- traordinary man,' " was true of him. When I was his secretary my office communicated with his sitting-room, and when fatigued with work he would sometimes come into my room, and enter into con- versation (most of which, as you may well suppose, was on one side), and I have often regretted since that I did not make some record of observations on men and things, which often struck me by their vigor and originality. But for whatever, or whenever, he might have been best fitted by his natural character and endowments, his lot was cast in this time and country, and under circumstances with which most of you are acquainted. He was born in Ireland in 1798,* the year of the Rebellion, as it is called, of the United Irishmen, and which, like most rebellions of this sort, only gave an excuse to the oppressor to tighten the chains. He came to this country when quite young, and commenced and finished his humanities and studies for the priesthood at Mount St. Mary's College, near Emmettsburg, in Maryland, under the auspices of its founder and president, the Rev. John Dtibois, who preceded him in the Diocese of New York, and the Rev. Father Brute, who was his master in theology, and for both of whom lie retained through life the highest veneration. Many men of remarkable ability, who have attained to great eminence afterwards, have given but slight indications of the divine spark within them during the time of their college studies. In his case it manifested itself from, the beginning of his course. All who were associated with him, either as teachers or fellow-students, recognized his talents and pre- dicted his future greatness. In college debates and orations and college squibs, he exhibited the same cleverness and facility of ex- pression, and occasional sharpness, which distinguished him in after- life. But many a sharp boy in college, who has stood at the head of his classes, and taken the highest honors, has done nothing after- wards. It was not so with him. His whole after-life answered to its early promise. "\Yhen he Avas in deacon's orders, his bishop, Dr. Conwell, of Philadelphia, came to the college, and having heard him preach before the seminarians, was so much pleased with him that he took him with him on a visitation of the diocese. At the first parish they came to, the bishop told Mr. Hughes to preach. * This was his own impression, but I understand that he was mistaken, and that in reality he was born the previous year. IV INTRODUCTION. He accordingly, after the administration of Confirmation, preached a sermon which he had carefully prepared. The old bishop was still more delighted with him, and when they came to the next station told him to preach again. Mr. Hughes, judging very wisely that what was good in one place would be equally good at another, preached the same discourse, and so on at the third and fourth place. " Why," said the old bishop, " you are just like a cuckoo, you have only one note." But he was no cuckoo, as the world, and especially those who entered the lists of controversy with him, soon found out. As soon as he was ordained a priest, and stationed in Philadelphia (after having been for a few weeks in a country mission), he was immediately recognized as a no ordinary man. The church where he officiated was crowded, Sunday after Sunday, with Catholics and Protestants who came to hear him preach. It was not that good preaching was a novelty amongst them. At that time, and for several years previous, Philadelphia had been blessed with services, and had listened to the instructions of several distinguished clergymen amongst others, of Fathers Hurley, and Harrold, and Ryan. Father Harrold in particular was one of the most accomplished pulpit orators we have ever had in this country. But there was a freshness, a vigor, and a ring about the sermons of this young priest, that left no doubt as to the genuine- ness of the metal that was in him. But he had other duties to perform besides preaching. For years he labored faithfully as a missionary priest in a large city instruct- ing the ignorant, receiving converts, visiting the sick and the poor, and shrinking from no amount of work. Besides this, the bishop made him his secretary, and in some sense his right-hand man. It was a difficult position for a young man, and particularly in the then condition of things in Philadelphia. The waves of the miserable Hogan excitement were still knocking things about. Not the least difficult matter was to manage the old bishop himself. He was now very old, and like most old men, and old bishops perhaps in particular, he was cranky and obstinate. But the young pilot had a sharp eye, and a steady hand, and a firm will, and he won golden opinions for the prudence and dexterity with which he managed matters, and kept the ship off of the rocks, and there were plenty of them. Soon every one in Philadelphia came to look upon him as their representa- tive man and champion their decus et prcesidium; and just then they had need of a champion. I have alluded to the Hogan schism, as it was called ; although it never came to that except, at any rate, for a very short time, and on a small scale. Still it was no slight INTRODUCTION. V matter, either in itself or its consequences. It was, in fact, a dread- ful example of how much evil a bad, unscrupulous man, with a pre- possessing exterior and a ready tongue, may do when he sets to work and finds circumstances favorable for a conflagration, for much depends upon such circumstances. It is with these schism and trouble makers as with certain pestilential diseases bad as they are in themselves, they need a nucleus of infection to act upon before they can do much harm ; and upon the circumstance whether this nucleus be larger or smaller depends whether it shall desolate a particular province or spread over the face of the earth : and in the moral order, whether the mischief-maker shall be known as a Hogan or a Luther. Not that I would compare Hogan with Luther, except as you compare little things with great. Luther, in his order, was a second Lucifer, and came as near to the great author of all evil as it is possible for a bad spirit, confined in the body, to approach a fallen archangel. Hogan was, after all, but a little devil ; and when one studies his character and abilities by the light of his writings, his pamphlets, and discourses, the wonder is how he should have made so much noise and done so much harm. It only shows, as I have said, that these things depend, not so much on the prime mover as on the materials upon which he acts ; just as the extent and destructiveness of a conflagration does not depend so much on the size of the spark which kindles it as upon the inflammable nature of the objects which surround it. The dreadful day of judgment will alone reveal all the sin that was committed, and the amount of evil of which he was the guilty cause, of disunion in families, of sacrilege, and of apostasy. The violence of the tempest had passed away when the Rev. Mr. Hughes came to Philadelphia ; still there were plenty of the disturbed elements at work to call for the ex- ercise of great prudence and discretion. The whole Catholic com- munity had become involved in the quarrel ; and what is more strange, large numbers of Protestants were mixed up with it, and accordingly as they sided with authority or insubordination were known as Bishopites or Hoganites. Afterwards the unfortunate differences between the Bishop and Father Harrold came to increase the evil. The Rev. Mr. Hughes' place was, of course, at the side of the bishop, but this exposed him necessarily to the hostility and misrepresenta- tions of the opposite party. He was, however, so careful in his words and conduct, so calm and cool in the midst of the angry ex- citement on both sides, that his presence acted like oil upon the waves, and was most efficient in finally restoring order and tranquil- lity. What he saw and experienced during this period, however, X VI INTRODUCTION. made a deep impression on him, and exercised a great influence over his future course of conduct. He noticed immediately that although Hogan had been ostensibly the cause of the trouble, yet the evil lay much deeper than the disappointed ambition of a weak and silly man, though that man was unfortunately a priest. Wicked and unscrupulous, as he undoubtedly was, he would soon have been brought down to his proper level, which was a very low one, if he had not been surrounded by a body of scheming laymen, who, whilst they seemed to be led by him, were in fact using him as their tool. This was made evident by the manner in which they per- severed in their course, after he had fallen overboard. It was the palmy days of what was called the trustee-system, when men who had little or nothing of Catholicity about them, except the name, thrust themselves into the management of ecclesiastical affairs, and dictated alike to bishops, priests, and people. It was the same spirit, acting on a smaller theatre, which had been at the bottom of the old contests between the Popes and the Emperors. The favorite maxim of the school is, " Let the clergy confine their attention to the spirituals, and we will manage the temporals." And they did manage the temporals, in a manner often which showed that the spiritual had very little to do with them or their conduct. Then were seen priests appointed pastors of congregations, without the consent, and often against the positive prohibition, of the bishop ; suspended priests receiving large salaries for doing nothing, and the regularly appointed pastor receiving none; and even bishops in- formed by these faithful guardians of the ecclesiastical revenues, in the eloquent language of the day, that if they would not do so and so, and appoint such and such persons, " their grub would be stopped." It was, of course, impossible in such a state of things for a bishop properly to perform the duties of his holy office, or enforce ecclesiastical discipline. The clear mind of the Rev. Mr. Hughes immediately took in all the evils of the system as soon as he was brought in contact with it. In examining the papers of the late Bishop Brute, I came across a letter, written to him about this time by the Rev. Mr. Hughes, in which, after stating that a truce had been brought about by the apostasy of Hogan (who, whilst his friends were fighting for what they called his rights, took it into his head to go to the devil, body and soul), and by some yielding on the part of the Bishop, he tells his old instructor that all this is but salving over the difficulty, and that things will never be right until the whole system be cut up by the roots. We will find that when the opportunity came for him to ^ INTRODUCTION. Vll act, he had not forgotten the lesson which he had learned in Philadelphia, x But although peace, after a certain fashion, was restored between the ecclesiastical authorities and the trustees of St. Mary's Church, war was declared against the Catholics from another quarter. The author of all evil, not satisfied with the sin committed and mis- chief caused by the Hogan affair, saw fit to stir up against them an outburst of Protestant fanaticism. The drab-coated descendants of "William Penn, though not over-tolerant in matters of legislation, were disposed to live in harmony with those of their fellow-citizens who had no sympathy with their peculiar religious tenets. But the population of Philadelphia had been largely augmented from other sources, especially from Xew England ; and there was no want of material for a crusade against the Catholic Church. The Presbyte- rians, in particular (the *< Presby-tyrants," as Coleridge used to call them), were always ready for this sort of work. According to their usual tactics on such occasions, a number of their ablest preachers were instructed to administer to their congregations for a number of successive Sundays, good large doses of anti-Popery, prepared ac- cording to the most approved receipts. When they had thus stirred up the bile of the community, and got it into a proper state of bit- terness and uncharitableness, they prepared for the grand assault. The Goliah whom they chose tor their champion in this holy war, was the Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, a Presbyterian clergyman of consid- erable ability, and who enjoyed a high reputation amongst them as a preacher and a controversialist. Like his prototype, he marched up and down some forty days, flinging defiance at the Romanists, as he politely named them. To do him justice, he seems to have been sincere in his hatred and opposition to the Catholic Church ; and his great zeal against it was not much to be wondered at, if it was not more " according to knowledge'' than that of most of his brethren in the ministry. To give you an example of ho\v well they were ac- quainted with the Catholic doctrine and practice, I will relate a cir- cumstance which I heard from the mouth of the Archbishop himself. One day, when walking along the streets of Philadelphia, he passed .by a Presbyterian Church ; and seeing the door open, and people passing in and out, he was informed, on inquiry, that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was then in session. He thought he would go in for a moment, and see how they conducted matters. When he entered, a committee was making a report upon a question which had been submitted to them in regard to the validity of Catholic baptism. You may well imagine his surprise when he Vlll INTRODUCTION. heard the chairman of the committee gravely declare that they had unanimously decided against the validity of baptism^ as administered in the Catholic Church, chiefly for two reasons: first, because the Catholic priests baptized in Latin, as if infants were not quite as well acquainted with this language as any other ; the second, be- cause they baptize with oil.* If such was the ignorance or bad faith of the ministers, you cannot much wonder at the ignorance and in- temperate zeal of the people. The Rev. Mr. Breckinridge made so much noise, preached so vio- lently against Popery and Papists, and seemed so confident that every thing he said was true, that the big jury, as it has been called out of ,doors, who are always very wise in regard to things they know nothing about, began to imagine that the old Church had not a leg to stand on, and that Catholics were hardly fit to live amongst decent people (the citizens of Philadelphia, for instance). Things were carried so far, that at last it became absolutely necessary to take the bull by the horns, and the Rev. Mr. Hughes did it in this case most effectually. He took up the challenge which Mr. Breck- inridge had so defiantly made. They had two controversies. The first by letter, on the claims of Catholicity and Protestantism, as representing God's revelation of his will through Jesus Christ ; the second was an oral one, as to whether the Catholic or Presbyterian Churches were more favorable to civil and religious liberty. They were both published afterwards ; and we are able to judge dispas- sionately, not only of the weight and force of the arguments, but of the intellectual character of the two men. It is impossible, I think, for any one to read them over without admitting that the Rev. Mr. Hughes not only had the best of the argument, but that he was much the ablest man of the two. In the oral controversy in particu- lar, which, although rewritten, still smacks of vive voce debate, he was greatly superior.f In this style of controversy he had also a great advantage over his opponent in his perfect coolness and self- control. He never lost his temper for a moment, either when listen- ing to or saying the most severe things. The Rev. Mr. Breckin- ridge lost his several times ; and whilst tlius excited, uttered words * Since I delivered this lecture, I find that the Rev. Mr. Hughes relates the above circumstance in one of his letters to Mr. Breckinridge. The Doctor in his letter in reply makes no allusion to it. Controversy, p. 70 ; ed. of 1802. f It is to be regretted that, owing to negligence and bad faith on the part of the reporter, these lectures do not appear as they were delivered. I have been told by those who were present at the debate, that they give often but a faint idea of the vigor and raciness of the original. He was in his element here. INTRODUCTION. IX which he no doubt regretted afterwards, and which called forth marks of disapprobation, even from the Protestant portion of the audience. Whilst I am upon this subject, I would make a remark which is not entirely out of place. We are constantly told, as you all know, that the Catholic Church belongs to a past age of darkness and super- stition that, like the bats, she cannot bear the light and that no one who was not a little cracked in the head, would dare to come forward, in the full blaze of this blessed nineteenth century, to defend its doctrines or practices and that when any one is found bold or foolish enough to do so, it must fare with him somewhat as it did with the famous Don Quixote in his attack on the windmills. Xow, it is rather a curious comment on this popular Protestant theory, that in all cases of controversy such as the one we are speak- ing of, they have been handed down to us, printed and reprinted, not by Protestants but by Catholics from the time, I was going to say, of Justin Martyr and Tryphon the Jew, but that would be going back too far, from the time of Bossuet and Claude to the last controversy of the sort; Bossuet and Claude; Bossuet and Leibnitz ; Milner and Sturges where, by the by, the bishop gave the prebendary such a cudgelling that the English Government had to interfere to take him off; Pope and Maguire ; Purcell and Camp- bell ; Hughes and Breckinridge ; all published and republished, as I have said, by Catholics, if there was ever a Protestant edition of them (where both sides were fairly given), I have never heard of it.* But to return to the subject before us. The ability which the Rev. Mr. Hughes had manifested in this controversy added greatly to his reputation. It was of great benefit to the Catholic religion, and, to a certain extent, broke through the wall of prejudice which surrounded us on every side. People found out that the old religion had two good legs to stand on, and was able to say more for itself than their minister could satisfactorily answer. Several persons were led by it to the Catholic Church, some of them of high social position ; and it did not a little to remedy the evils which had been caused by Hogan. The Rev. Mr. Hughes himself was elected a member of the Wistar Club, and of different literary societies, and welcomed in the social gatherings of the most distinguished men in Philadelphia. No one was surprised when a short time afterwards * Since stating the above, I have heard that there has been an edition of Purcell and Campbell's controversy published by Protestants, X INTRODUCTION, he was created a bishop, and appointed coadjutor to the venerable Bishop Dubois, of Ne w York, his early patron and friend at Mount St. Mary's. Many who are present here to-night will remember the joy with which the Catholics of New York heard of his appointment, and the warmth with which they welcomed him amongst them. The first thought, probably, that went through the minds of large numbers who filed by the catafalque the other day at the Cathedral to take a farewell look, was of the contrast, when twenty-six years before, on the same day and same hour, and on the same spot,* he rose up, after having been consecrated, to bestow his first episcopal benediction, and presented to the eager eyes of the multitude there assembled a full view of that noble face, every line of which was marked with intelligence and energy ; and when every Catholic heart warmed with love and admiration towards their then com- paratively young, but already distinguished bishop. He had not come any too soon. The long and useful life of Bishop Dubois, whose name should never be pronounced by any Catholic in this country without a feeling of respect and veneration, was drawing to its close. Within a few days, I think, after the consecration of his coadjutor, he had a stroke of paralysis, which, while it weakened still more his already enfeebled body, also clouded his mind ; and Bishop Hughes was obliged to take upon himself the administration of the diocese. Speaking to you who were his diocesans, it is not necessary to say that he did it with a vigor and ability that made itself felt. A circumstance comes into my mind which occurred about this time, and which, though trivial in itself, bears upon my subject. Negotiations had been entered into for the purchase of the Rose-Hill Farm, at Fordham, and the establishment of a college. Although it was not necessary that Bishop Dubois should be informed of it, yet, out of feelings of delicacy towards the good old man, and for fear that hearing of it from some other source, he might feel hurt at not having been consulted, the Very Rev. Mr. Starrs, who had been ordained by him, and to whom he was much attached, was sent to break the matter to him. To veil the seeming slight, he adroitly put it on the ground of policy. " It was better, you see, bishop, for him to appear in the matter than for you : he has just come here, and is not known." " Ah !" says the old gentleman, thinking probably of the clever energetic college student of days gone by, " but they will know him /" And he was soon known, * Owing to enlargement of the Cathedral, the catafalque was exactly over the spot where he had been consecrated. INTRODUCTION. XI not only by the clergy and people of his own diocese, and of the country, but by the whole community, and, to a certain extent, throughout the world, as a zealous and faithful bishop, an eloquent preacher, an able controversialist, and a courageous asserter and defender of the rights of Catholics and of the Catholic Church. From that moment until he died, or rather until disease had weak- ened his body, and, to a certain extent, his mind, he was a pillar of strength to us. We never know the value of such men until they are gone, and time alone will tell all the good he has done for us, and all the debt of gratitude we owe to him. His career as Bishop and Archbishop of New York is matter for a book, and not for a lecture. One of the first acts of his administration was the destruction, or rather, I might call it, the purgation of the trustee-system. For the system itself is not inherently bad, and rightly understood, and carried out in accordance with the principles of the Church, it may be productive of the greatest advantages. It was the erroneous views and false principles which had been grafted on to it, that made it bad, and caused it at last to become so odious. When he arrived in New York he found the good old bishop, we might say, literally besieged in his own house, and tied up hand and foot by it. But Bishop Hughes was not the man to stand a siege, nor to be tied up any length of time by any thing that was wrong and false in itself. His experience in Philadelphia had taught him the exact nature and extent of the evil. He had now the power to grapple with it, and you may be certain that he made short work with it. His first thunderbolt against it was a short but earnest pastoral letter, signed by Bishop Dubois, but written by himself. This was followed up 'by a meeting of the parishioners of the Cathedral in the school- house, where he made an application of the principles laid down in the pastoral ; and with the election for trustees which followed, the siege was raised, the shackles were taken off, and ecclesiastical authority was free, for the future, to govern according to the laws and principles of the Catholic Church. Those only who have care- fully studied the history of the Church can form any idea of the amount of undeveloped evil that lay hid within that system of un- controlled lay-administration, of ecclesiastical property, and which partially exhibited itself at Charleston, S. C., at Richmond. Va., in Philadelphia, and more slightly, but still bad enough, here in New York. The whole future of the Church in this country would have been paralyzed, if it -had been allowed fully to establish itself; and, to my mind, the most important act of Archbishop Hughes' life XI] INTRODUCTION. the one most beneficial to religion was his thus bringing the whole Catholic community to correct ideas and right principles on this most important subject. But time would fail me, if I were to attempt to go into the details of a busy administration of twenty-six years. It would be as if I should undertake to cover these walls with a series of historical paint- ings in an hour. As I have said, they are matters for a volume, not for a lecture of letters written ; of speeches made ; of controversies car- ried on; of churches built; of institutions of learning, and piety, and charity founded. I might tell of his conduct, and, to a certain ex- tent, of his thoughts and feelings, at the time of the native American riots in 1844, when, with a pen worthy of Junius, he pilloried, if I may use such an expression, those miserable men who, under the cloak of patriotism ("so often," as Dr. Johnson said of it, u the last refuge of a scoundrel"), were engaged in perverting and poisoning public opinion ; and when, by his wise and courageous counsels, he braced up and directed the timid and frightened minds of those in authority, and thus prevented, as I have reason know, bloodshed. and anarchy, and perhaps the destruction of the city itself. I might speak of his controversy with Kir wan ; of those short, but admira- ble letters, in which he not only tore off the mask from his adver- sary, but, as it were, took his scalp with it ; as admirable a piece of crushing cross-examination as ever was put into print, and which alone was sufficient to prove what I have asserted, that he would have made a great forensic lawyer. I might recall to your minds that wonderful debate, as it might be called, on the school question, when single-handed, ami on the moment, he answered and demol- ished a whole row of picked opponents in a speech four hours in length, taken down in short-hand, and printed without correction or revision, and reads now with its close logic and peculiar felicity of imagery and expression as if it had been carefully prepared in the quiet leisure of his study. But I may not dwell upon these and many similar incidents in his episcopal career, interesting as it would be to recall them to your minds ; nor is it necessary, in order to complete, in some measure, my poor and imperfect picture of this great prelate, that I should at- tempt to describe his personal appearance, so familiar to you all : his well-built, and, until disease had set its mark upon it, vigorous frame; his large and finely-formed head ;_ his noble and expressive features, all so indicative of the man and of his character, that one who had never seen him could have picked him out in a crowd of ten thousand persons. He was generally regarded as a severe man, INTRODUCTION. Xlii ]! ou:il)ly on account of a certain caustic tone in his controversial Avriiino-s: but he was not so: his heart was kind and affectionate, C7 / 7 ami his feelings were easily moved. His conversation was free from any tinge of bitterness or uncharitableness ; he always spoke kindly of those with whom he had had his severest controversies. Some of his warmest personal friends were Protestants ; for he never allowed his strong religious convictions to interfere with the amenities of so- cial intercourse. His manners were very pleasing, composed, and dig- nified, as became his exalted station with a natural ease about them which was often remarked by those who met him in society. By those who did not know him, he was supposed to be fond of political intrigue ; in fact, a wire-puller and politician. If any such were here to-night, they would be surprised to hear me say, who did know him, that he was nothing of the sort. The only time he ever inter- fered Hie least in politics, was in regard to the school question ; and that, openly and above-board, solely with reference to that import- ant matter, and without any connection with either of the so-called parties. In fact, he had no great love for those who are called poli- ticians, and cannot be said to have belonged to any political party. The only time he ever voted, I have heard him say, was once in Philadelphia, for Henry Clay ; and I do not believe that, with the exception of the school question already alluded to, he ever influ- enced, directly or indirectly, the vote of a single individual. But, although he was no politician, he was a sincere patriot ; not of the modern shoddy sort, but of the old heroic pattern. He loved the country that gave him birth with a warm affection ; and no one knew the history of its wrongs, and felt them more than he did. I remember well the feeling with which he described to me, on his return from Europe in 1848, his visit to the place w r here he had passed his earliest days, the beautiful valley of Erigle Truagh, in Monaghan ; the pleasure with which he had visited every familiar spot of his childhood, and the kindness with which he had been welcomed by his old neighbors and school-fellows, Protestants as well as Catholics. And, as he loved the old country of his birth, so he loved the new country of his adoption. He rejoiced at its greatness and prosperity, and mourned over its misfortunes with an attachment to it as heart- felt and sincere as ever burned in the breast of George Washington himself. He was too well acquainted with human nature and the history of States to regard our late unhappy civil war as a moment- ary or passing shock ; and I have no doubt that his deep anxiety for the future of our country had a very serious effect upon his al- Jteady declining health. There are some, perhaps, listening to me, XIV INTRODUCTION. who wondered at and regretted his taking sides in any manner with the Administration ; but his words at home, and his efforts abroad (which were more successful, as I have reason to believe, than even he supposed), were given, not from any motives of private friend- ship, or any sympathy with what may be regarded the distinctive principles of the party in power, but solely from a pure and disinter- ested desire to do all that was in his power, as an American citizen and patriot, and I may add also, as a bishop, to preserve the Union of the States, aud to ward off any new complications arising from foreign interference, which would make the final settlement more difficult. There are some other matters of this sort which I would like to speak of, because they have been misunderstood, and in some cases misrepresented ; but I will not detain you any longer. To sum up all in one word he whose death we lament, was a wise and energetic man, a sincere patriot, a good Christian, a faith- ful priest, and a great bishop. " Sacerdos magnus qui in diebus suis placuit Deo, et inventus est Justus." But God has taken him to Himself; and all that remains for us, is to cherish his memory to imitate his virtues to remember his precepts, as faithful and obe- dient children of that Holy Catholic Church which he loved so much, and for which he labored so zealously. THE WORKS OF ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. CIRCULAR LETTER ON THE ACCESSION OF PIUS IX. JOHN", by the grace of God, and the appointment of the Holy See, Bishop of New- York, to the Reverend Clergy of the Diocese, health and benediction. WE have had the consolation, venerable and dearly beloved Brethren, to receive at length the Apostolical Letter of our Holy Father Pope Pius IX., proclaiming to the Catholic world, on the occasion of his elevation to the chair of the Prince of the Apostles, a plenary Indulgence in form of Jubilee ; and calling upon all the faithful to unite with him in one common prayer, beseeching the Father of Mercies and the Giver of all good gifts graciously to extend to himself and to the universal Church, His divine aid and protection. We hasten, accordingly, to communicate to you these welcome tidings, that you, in turn, may announce them without delay to your respective flocks, and all may be made sharers in the joy with which our own heart is filled. Having already addressed a Pastoral Letter both to yourselves and to our beloved children of the Laity, at the commencement of this holy season of Lent, and having then taken occasion to urge, with all the earnestness in our power, the great importance of profiting by these days of grace and salvation, the urgent necessity of seeking immediate reconciliation with God by a sincere repentance for all past sins, and by an amend- ment of life, we do not now conceive it necessary to repeat these our earnest admonitions, but rather intrust it, venerable Brethren, to your own zeal and piety, to beseech and exhort to the same end with renewed earnestness and fervor ; now especially that the voice of the Chief Pastor calls upon us, that all may hasten to correspond with his pious wishes, that we may prepare to approach the throne of grace with pure hearts and with clean hands, and may receive into our bosoms an abundant share of those spiritual favors which 10 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. out of the overflowing treasures of the Church are now dispensed to the faithful of Jesus Christ by his own Vicegerent xipon earth, with Apostolic power and Apostolic liberality. The time prescribed for gaining the Indulgence is limited by the Holy Father to three weeks. We direct, therefore, that in this Diocese the Jubilee shall commence on the third Sunday of Lent, and be continued until Palm Sunday, inclusively. We authorize, however, any of the Pastors net residing in the city of New- York, or its immediate vicinity, who, on account of their peculiar position or duties, may find the period above named either too early or likely to be attended with serious inconveniences, to designate for their congregations any other three weeks between the aforesaid third Sunday of Lent and Pentecost Sunday, inclusively. The conditions required to be performed within the time appointed are the follow- ing: 1. To confess their sins with sincere compunction of heart, and reverently receive the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. 2. To visit twice, three Churches, or where this is inconvenient or impracticable, to visit one, and there pray for some time with devo- tion. 3. To fast on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, during one of the weeks of the Jubilee. 4. To give alms, each one accord- ing to his devotion. We designate, as the three Churches to be visited in this city, our Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, St. Peter's, and Transfigu- ration. Persons absent on journeys may obtain the indulgence by complying with the same conditions on their return. Those who, from infirmity or sickness, or any other sufficient cause, are unable to perform the works of piety above specified, may be made partakers of the same advantages by performing such other exercises of piety as, according to your own prudence, in view of the particular case, you may judge proper to appoint. Children who have not yet made their first communion may be dispensed from the condition of receiving the Blessed Eucharist. You are likewise empowered to absolve, even in cases at other times reserved to the Bishop. We would earnestly recommend, as the objects most deserving the charitable offerings of the faithful during these days of mercy, the suffering and famishing poor of Ireland. We are all of one ac- cord in recognizing the sacredness and paramount importance of their claims. Next to these we would suggest to the faithful within the city the Institution for the protection of destitute females, to be placed under the charge of the Sisters of Mercy, of which we spoke to you at length in our last Pastoral Letter. And now, venerable and beloved Brethren, we commit this holy cause to your zealous keeping, and we suppliantly invoke the great Shepherd of souls to guide and enlighten you, to purify your own hearts from every stain of sin, to inflame your breasts with the fire of divine charity, to vouchsafe to your lips words of persuasive truth and heavenly wisdom, to grant you fortitude and strength for the faithful discharge of the onerous duties now imposed upon you, to rics ix. li crown your labors with an abundant harvest, and may His blessing descend upon you, and abide with you forever. Given at New-York, this 3d day of March, 1847. * JOHN, Bishop of New-York. By order of the Rt. Rev. Bishop. J. R. BAYLEY, Secretary. THE PRESENT POSITION OP PIUS IX., A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 7TH, 1849, BY RT. REV. JOHN HUGHES, D.D. I am about to read as the subject of the remarks which I intend to offer, the entire 1 2th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. [The Bishop read the chapter specified.] There are times, my beloved brethren, in the history of the Christian Church, when men are so agitated and disturbed by the developments of human passions and of human projects on the earth, that it is necessary or expedient at least, for those who believe, to return to the recollection of first principles. The utility of this will be found in the fact that principles are eternal and immutable, whereas all that is not principle, is necessarily subject to the vicis- situdes of times and of circumstances. But recently, we Catholics exulted, perhaps with a presumptuous joy, at the apparent favor with which this world seemed to regard our religion and our doc- trine, and with the correction of its own judgment, with which it began to review our history. At the same time, every breeze from the East brought with it tidings of accessions to the fold of Christ and accessions not from the class that are least esteemed in this world, but accessions from the ranks of the elevated, of the educa- ted, of the powerful, of the noble. Even now we can enumerate, within a period of but a few years, about one hundred, formerly Protestant clergymen of the most distinguished character, even be- fore their change, who have relinquished the fortunes of this world, and have attached themselves to the poverty of the Catholic Cross. We, perhaps, took complacency in these events, and we supposed that God was about to open to His Church a certain glorious career of prosperity, and that from this time forward, she and her doctrines would be the rallying points of perplexed minds, around which the heterogeneous systems should ultimately congregate, and from her should derive a new and necessary principle of life for the world that is and the world that is to come. We do not say that these things are about to cease ; but in the midst of this feeling, tidings have reached us that the supreme pastor of the Church of God on earth, the Pontiff, whose accession to the Papal throne has been hailed, not merely by Catholics, but by Protestants, by all the civil- ized nations of the earth, so to speak the Pontiff who, for the first i^ ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. time, it is said said falsely, however undertook to con>f the Acts of the Apostles, which I have read, teaches, not by the phraseology simply, but by the fact which is recorded there, that although God may permit a sacrilegious world to lay its hands upon the supreme of His anointed order, He reserves to Himself the power of setting at naught both their pur- poses and their means for accomplishing them. No, Christian, Catholic brethren, there is no reason why we should be dismayed at these events. On the contrary, I might say, if there has been a moment in modern times when the Catholics might feel a certain species of pride, it should be at the moment which presents the supreme pastor of the Church in an attitude so glorious as that now occupied by Pope Pius IX. For, be it observed that the crime attributed to his predecessors by the wicked was a certain species of enmity to the progress of liberty. They were looked upon as obstacles, impediments in the way of progression. He, on the contrary, was hailed with acclamations by this same world, as one who reversed the policy of the Holy See, and adopted the principles of freedom. He made his people free comparatively, at least; he threw open the doors of the prisons of his State ; and, by way of showing the recompense which a good man may expect from a wicked world, the fetters which he struck from the hands of others they themselves were the first to fasten upon his own. The result is no fault of the Pope, therefore. Let that world which is so clamorous for freedom, account for it. The opinion of all sober- minded and reflecting men will be opposed to this wicked persecu- tion. That their cause has been injured; that even the ardent friends of Liberty will shrink back affrighted at the excesses that have been perpetrated in its name, is sure. And if tyrants shall again combine to crush this young monster as it seems to develope itself as a monster there need be no surprise ; for according to the rius ix. -16 laws of human nature its conduct on this occasion is calculated to lead to no other possible result. But for us, beloved brethren, it is a consolation to know that this people shall not succeed against the Lord's anointed. And the reason of this is, that whenever God appoints to any situation of life, He always gives the grace and the means to the appointed to accomplish the duties of that situation ; that what God has instituted, what He has commanded, what He has established, and established for an eternal duration, He will never abandon. And since we know that St. Peter himself and his successors, as heirs of the office to which he was appointed that St. Peter, in the first instance, is pro- nounced by the Saviour of men as the rock on which He should build His Church, against which the gates of hell should not pre- vail we have there, to counterbalance the wickedness of the world, the eternal veracity of the living God / and now the question will be between the strength of the sacrilegious usurpers and the God of Heaven. If all other means fail, we have faith to believe that to- day, as in the day of Peter, God will send an angel, and that angel will be found in two offices, one securing liberty to the head of the Church, and the other striking with the judgment of vengeance those who have attempted to deprive him of it. There are those among you, perhaps, who are old enough to remember, in the first French Revolution, under what was called the Republic, the cap- tivity of Pius VI., how he was seized and carried away, and died in captivity ; how his successor, Pius VII., was elected, not on the soil of the Roman States, but in exile and banishment ; and how he in his turn was carried away. Like Peter in the prisons of Herod, so was he in the apartments of Fontainbleau under guards and under sentinels, although his master, or at least the master of his liberty, aifected the greatest friendship towards him. We have seen these things. We remember an anecdote which will illustrate at once much of what we have to say upon the sub- ject. The Emperor of that great power which grew out of the French Republic cherished as a favorite policy the idea of bringing the Pope to reside in his dominions appointing him the most splendid establishment and income, far greater than that which the poverty of the Pontifical States could afford ; for the Emperor was a politician, as well as a warrior and conqueror, and he understood perfectly well, according to his mode of calculation, how important it would be to have under his control the voice and the pen of that feeble old man whom the Christian world venerated as the first and chief of its pastors. He thought to break down the spirit of the Pope in prison ; he thought to weary him out, and to obtain his consent, finally. On one occasion, to test how far his experiment was successful, he sent one of his secretaries to him with a message, which he had too much sagacity to allow the Secretary to under- stand, viz.: That he sent his best respects to the Holy Father, to inquire about his health, and to know particularly if there was any thing which his Majesty could do to gratify him and to render his 14: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. situation more comfortable. The Pope understood, though the Secretary did not, and replied in the language which belongs to Popes and will always belong to them, showing that they are above Emperors, above Kings, above Presidents, above all human power. His reply was: "Say to his Majesty how grateful I am that he should have time to remember a poor old man in prison ; and, as for my wants, say also that I have none. My cassock, indeed, is wearing out, and, if I had the means at hand, I might beguile the hours of my solitude by repairing it." As the Secretary did not understand the pith or purport of the message, so, naturally, he could not comprehend the meaning and fulness of. the reply. After repeating to his Majesty what he had heard, he went about, saying. " What can you do with an old man like that ? he does not under- stand his interest." Truly nothing could be done with him. He is a man unconnected with this world, except in his relations to the Papal States, over which he exercised temporal powers. He is des- tined for another purpose. He is a man not descended from a long line of illustrious royal ancestry, nor about to transmit power to his posterity. He is a solitary man, raised up by his own merit as human judgment supposes, but always by the Providence of God, to fulfil a station which God has appointed, of which God fe the guardian, of which God is the avenger when that station is outraged by sacrilegious violence. Why, in a little, as it were, in the very next verse of the same chapter, how greatly does the scene change, and just as the angel struck Herod, so also that splendid Imperial Majesty, which astonished the world by his conquests and by his policy, was prostrated, was compelled to change the din of war, the glory of victory, and the splendor of empire, for a solitary, comfort- less dwelling-place on a barren rock. And if he expired, we trust it was in sentiments far difi'erent from those which accompanied the last moments of the Jewish tyrant; for we know that that same Pope survived to send the messengers of religion to console the dying Emperor, as he languished far removed from the scenes ot his former earthly greatness. At the time when the Pope was a captive, who could have foreseen this? I would take occasion to request that you should write down the name of Pope Pius IX., and the events of the closing months of 1848, and the names of the parties who have taken the lead against the head of the Church. Write them down, and wait till you see how God will dispose ot one side and of the other; and how well he will order and direct and bring out of this the vindication of His eternal promise. Naturally, my beloved brethren, all men cherish the love of liberty. It is an impulse, it is a need of our nature ; but at the same time we may not, in treating of a subject like that, indulge ideas which belong to the world of possibility and of theory. W r e must take mankind as mankind is; and all experience goes to estab- lish one fact, that mankind is, now at least, a fallen race that from the period Avhen man refused obedience to his God, he forfeited liberty, and that he is never again to enjoy it, except in a degree, PIUS ix. 15 more or less, according to circumstances. You perceive, on all sides, if you read history you perceive in the State, and under every form of government, that the greatest friends of liberty, the apostles, the would-be martyrs of liberty, when they are themselves under the authority of others, scarcely reach the acquisition of the power which tempted their ambition until they, in their turn, be- come tyrants, and oppress sometimes even their own colleagues and those who depended upon them. This is the history of mankind. Therefore, there is no use in speaking of liberty, as it might be in a world of angels. Liberty must be such as man, in his present condition, is competent to ; and, in that case, I see but one division. I see throughout the world, wherever there is any thing approaching to civilization, but two classes; one, the few called the Sovereign the other, the subject. Xow, when I say Sovereign, I do not dis- tinguish between President and Emperor. I speak of the person who exercises the supreme power of the State, and I speak of those who recognize that power as subjects. The question then is : Has it been in the order of Almighty God has it been, as far as we may enter into the investigation of the case, the purpose of the Divine Saviour, in such a world as this, a world of evil, into which, as a world of evil, God cast forth His doc- trine and His Church whether in such a world as this is, it is con- sistent with the purposes of Providence that the Chief Pastor of His Church should be a subject? If we take our first inference from the testimony of history, we shall see apparently that this was not the intention of the Divine Saviour, for freedom is essential to the Pope. It is desirable for all men ; it is an essential for the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and so much so that, from the mo- ment he has fallen under the power of any human Sovereign, from that moment, either he does not act in his capacity of Pontiff, or he gives notice of the coercion ; or even if he does not that, coercion, v if it had been employed, is proclaimed the moment he gains his liberty. The present Sovereign Pontiff is the two hundred and fifty-ninth from St. Peter, and you will see, from the beginning, God so or- dained by His providence, and by inspiring them with a spirit which would be free and has been free, that He never permitted them to discharge the functions of their elevated office under the suspicion of being forced thereto by human authority. Look at them through the first two hundred and fifty years of the Christian era. Here you will find that nearly all have been martyrs; but during their martyrdom, when they dared not appeal to Paganism and its sacri- legious judges, who only waited their appearance to consign them to the scaffold, where did they seek liberty ? In the catacombs of Rome and the wild places and caves of the earth the mountains and the solitudes ; but wherever they were, always maintaining free- dom. And whenever by accident that freedom was abridged, then they considered that life that their life was no longer worth pre- serving when it was no longer useful to the Church, and they sealed 16 ARCEIBISHOP HUGHES. their testimony by surrendering it. Afterwards do you not perceive how God so disposed that the Popes should acquire freedom from human authority without any plan or design of their own ? Who that is familiar with the decline of the Roman Empire will not per- ceive something providential in the fact that, without claiming to be sovereigns, the force of circumstances compelled them, little by little, to assume the sovereignty of a small province in the Italian Peninsula ? In the first instance, when Constantino and his successors, so en- grossed in the petty, dark-minded, and tyrannical intrigues of their Eastern Court, and so be-troubled with the theological discussions in which they so impiously took part, so absorbed and so enervated by the luxuriousness of their lives, left the Italians, as it were, a prey to the invasions of their barbarian enemies under these circum- stances how often do we find the Pope writing to the Emperor, be- seeching him to send troops for their defence these troops never sent finally, the barbarians themselves taking possession of the fairest provinces of that Western Empire, and even they, Pagans or only half Christians for many of them were Arian heretics even they always abstaining Avith a certain species of reverence, and never presuming to fix their sovereign residence within the walls of eternal Rome. They, in their turn, were put down, and that province over which the Popes had acquired, by their paternal care, by their zeal and exertions to supply the defects of government in a word, by their influence that province which they had thus already acquired, the great conqueror of the eighth century, Charlemagne, conferred by an outward title which is called a gift ; but, in point of fact, it was only a restoration, and his successors speak of it in that light. This took place one thousand and forty-eight years ago. From that time the Pope has been the Sovereign of that limited province, the Patrimony of St. Peter, so called; and during the ages that have intervened, while, if you look over the map of Europe, you will find that there has not been a sovereignty that has not added to its do- minions by cruelty, treachery, and fraud how did it happen that the dominions of the Pontifical States are as limited to-day as they were the day they were first given ? How does it happen, that they who possessed universal power, even over kings, did not take advantage of this to extend the sphere of their temporal sway? The reason is that the Popes have never been actuated by the am- bition of universal dominion in temporal matters, as has been so frequently charged upon them. They are ignorant, profoundly ig- norant, who charge them with it. In his dominions the Pope has been a Sovereign ; he has been cherished by his people as a father. If there has been a fault in his government it has been the fault of leniency and mercy, and the want of harsh policy. There, in a word, that government has subsisted during a period longer, and is now older than any other monarchy in this world. It is not essential that the Pope should be Sovereign of Rome, but it is essential that between the two conditions, the one of Subject and pros ix. 17 the other of Sovereign, the Pope, the head of Christendom, shall be free ; that is to say, he shall be so placed that he shall be subject to no man, be he King or President. If they tell you, again, that the Popes have meddled with the peace of nations throughout the world ; that they have disturbed the rule of Governments ; I say in reply that they are profoundly ignorant ; that Popes have never done such things, except as con- sequents of the office which God appointed them to fill. What is the explanation of this ? It is exceedingly simple : it is, that by religion Europe was civilized ; that it owes all its civilization to the Catholic Church. You see that in Africa, along the coast of the Mediterranean, in which there was a beginning and progessive civilization so long as the people remained connected with Rome ; the moment that that union was interrupted, barbarism settled do\vn upon the land ; and you will find from that period to this there has been no increase of civilization. The Barbarians of the North, who settled on the ruins of the Roman Empire, came under the divine laws of the Church, and by her divine influences were civilized. This is a preliminary remark you must never forget ; it is the key and explanation of what men ascribe to the ambition of the Church. They were bound, therefore, to observe the laws of the Church, and the Pope was the appointed executor of those laws. If, therefore, not to enlarge upon a subject which is so ample, you will allow me to concentrate into one or two points the causes of all these troubles, I can enumerate them : The first and greatest cause has been the licentiousness of the secular Princes, even though members of the Church and professed Catholics ; yet having ample power, according to the secular order iu the State, they bore with impatience another power in the world that put re- straints and limits upon their bad passions. It was no easy matter to introduce among such a people, and especially among such a rude order of sovereignty, the single law which is the foundation of all Jhat is elegant, pure, and refined in human society the sanctity of marriage. You will find that a vast number of these questions re- solve themselves into that, and that those monarchs found it exceed- ingly irksome that they should be held to the law that bound their subjects. I need not assert this ; I suggest it, and appeal to every page of history whether it is not found just. To prevent the mon- arch from divorcing his wife ; to prevent unlawful alliances, and to protect the sanctity of holy marriage, was the difficult task of the sovereign Pontiff. We know instances in which the authority of the Pope has been assailed precisely on this ground ; we know, in. modern times, the instance of that proud and sacrilegious monarch of England, who arrogated to himself the authority of the Holy See and constituted himself head of a Church ; we can 'see in his history before that event, and in his unbounded licentiousness afterwards,, how great a relief it was for him to have cast off the restraint of the authority of the Pope. Again, we see in Germany the patriarch of the Reformation so- VOL. II. 2 18 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. called, in his commentary on Genesis, flattering the Princes by teaching that whereas Polygamy was practised by the patriarchs, the divine law neither commended nor forbade it, and that upon that subject he had nothing to say. We know that the same indi- vidual, having cast off the authority of the Pope, granted to the Landgrave of Hesse the authority to marry a second wife, the first being alive, and live with both at the same time. These were causes of the hatred to the authority of the Pope, among those petty sove- reigns who occupied the provinces of the once great but now fallen power of Rome, in existence long before the time of the so-called Reformation, for it was a part of his office to recognize no difference, where the law of God was concerned, between the peasant and the prince who ruled over him. Another cause was the correction of scandals among the clergy, for in this also the divine authority of the Holy Father necessarily came in conflict with the perverted human passions. The fallen priest and the unworthy bishop have often been found to raise their voice and throw the weight of their influence in the secular scale against the very Church that had in- vested them with character and authority. Again, another cause was the efforts of the Pope to check the tyranny of kings ; and it is singular that at a period when the people is the sovereign, when every thing is for the people, that the people themselves should forget that in former times they had no friend but the Pope. There was no giant strong enough to wrestle with the tyrants of the world except the giant successor of St. Peter. He was the preserver for them of the only remnants of liberty which they enjoyed, and out of which they might have developed a more perfect system. These have been the causes, in many instances, of quarrels between Popes and Sovereigns. And here again, \vliether you regard the Church of God as a divine institution, or whether you regard the offices of humanity which have been fulfilled by the Popes of Rome, you will perceive that liberty for the Pope is essen- tial as the atmosphere of life. How could he have made tyrants tremble on their thrones if he had been their subject and in their power ? How could he have vindicated the law of God ? How could he have raised the standard of judgment? How could he have cheered the poor themselves, either in the patience of endur- ance or the lawfulness of resistance, if he himself had been one of the poor and subject to the crouching influences of this world's tyranny ? Now, my brethren, we have no anxiety on this subject. All his- tory goes to show that whenever the Father of the Faithful the first and supreme Bishop of the Catholic Church has been invaded, whenever his person has been violated by outrage, whenever his liberty has been abridged by the temporal powers of this world, God, as it were by a glance of His watchful eye, has so ordered that the Pope's very enemies sometimes have been made instruments for restoring him to that freedom so essential to the functions of" his office. He will manifest His watchfulness now, as He did once be- PIUS ix. 19 fore. I have faith to believe that He will send His angel, if not in material, yet in an efficient mode, to work the deliverance of the supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. He will manifest His watchfulness now. You will observe how singularly it is noted that no physical agency was necessary to break the chain from the hands of St. Peter no human arm was required to throw open the iron gate, so that he should have the liberty of motion so that, where the liberty of the Pope is required, even inanimate things of this earth shall become instruments in securing him in the discharge of his office. I do not say that it is necessary for the Pope that he should be a Sovereign, but it is necessary for Christianity that he should be free, and if there is no choice except between sovereign and vassal, then must he be a sovereign. I do not say that his dignity and his office depend in the least upon his being the chief of the Papal States. I know that the Church, that the faithful of the Catholic world, will recognize him if he be a wanderer upon the Apennines. I know all that, and for his part it would be an immense relief to be released from his temporal charge ; but it is necessary for Christendom that he should be free, and if there be no middle state between a subject and a secular sovereign, then I say that for him to be a sovereign is necessary. God will mark by His intervention or by an angel unseen of men the workings of His providence, and you will see how the designs of wicked men who have invaded the authority r.nd place of the Pope shall be brought to naught. He will be restored by agencies altogether beyond the order and calculations of the foolish politicians who affect now to govern the world. In short, my beloved brethren, that idea of liberty, where there has been no previous training to the knowledge of what it means, no preparation for its enjoyment, has become a nuisance. You perceive that it has become the watchword all over Europe; and its abuses by thfcr> op- pressed multitudes just brought out of restraint are such, according to all the laws of human nature as human nature is, as justifies the reaction to which we are to be consigned for another cycle of time. Even among ourselves there is nothing more common than to hear the inexperienced, the young, and the ardent enamored, as it were, with the opportunity of making speeches about liberty. We enjoy it ; we possess it, as much as it is possible for men to possess it on earth ; and in all the calculations of this school they make only one mistake they make no account of God, who rules this world, nor of the providence of God. They know the abuses of authority, and in- stead of correcting the abuses, as wise men would wish to do, they destroy authority altogether ; and when they have destroyed human authority, they are just as ready to attack Divine authority, if the thing were possible. There is a demonaic spirit that animates a portion of them, that would make war upon God himself. O, my brethren ! let us remember that these are the agitations of passions and human events ! Ofttimes the chastisement of vice occurs by its own instrumentality. God allows and directs all these things in a 20 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. mysterious manner towards the end which He has pointed out, and which they will attain most assuredly. Let us understand, while we are the advocates of liberty, that it is not liberty in the abstract, but liberty with the belief of a God liberty within the laws which God has appointed for our government. As for us, the whole history of the Church is calculated to remove from our minds the slightest fear. Even in our own times we have seen events like this. But because it had not happened before for some ages, when Pius VI. was carried into captivity the enemies of the Church of Christ set to interpret the Apocalypse, the prophecies, and the mystic number, believing that they were about to be fulfilled according to their no- tions of interpretations ; yet most of them lived to see the triumph of the Church, or the events which prognosticated her triumph on earth. We sympathize with our Holy Father, and the Church throughout the world ought, as in the times of Peter, to offer prayers continually to God for him. We feel for him as an indi- vidual, but we have not the slightest apprehension of injury to the office which he discharges, and of which he is so illustrious and glo- rious an occupant. If necessary, the Church has resources. There is no sovereign on earth that counts so many subjects as Pius IX., independent of those petty States of Rome. Two hundred millions of men cherish him in their hearts, all of whom direct their best wishes towards his sacred person, all of whom regard in him the representative of Jesus Christ, and the authority delegated to him by St. Peter. My brethren, I know that I can speak for you and for that portion of the Church over which, though unworthy, the providence of God has placed me. Sooner than we should see him subject to any Sovereign, or President, or petty Prince, or King, we should have recourse to the old institution, and Peter- pence from every point of the compass would constitute a treasury to raise him above that subjection, even though he should occupy an island in the Mediterranean Sea a single square mile in extent. And now, Christian brethren, we have no apprehensions. It is the nature of revolutions to stir up tranquil waters, and oftentimes to bring the dregs to the surface. It will require time for the dregs to work themselves off; so in all countries, with regard to those restless spirits truly insignificant in themselves, but who, being- caught up by agitation of the time, just as straws are carried aloft by the whirlwind, come to think they are actually a part of the tempest by which they have been elevated. Now, good Christian friends, especially in reference to the Holy Father, whose expulsion, for I cannot call it otherwise, from the capital of which he was sov- ereign, from the chair of his predecessors, and from the see of which he was Bishop, the subject has called forth our sympathy, and if I have dwelt upon it to-day, you will bear me evidence that it is the first time in eleven years that I have introduced matters of this kind into the pulpit of the Catholic Church ; but I have done so designedly, to increase your information, to throw you in the direc- tion of strengthening your minds against the appearance of the PIUS ix. 21 threatening aspects of events. Knowing that the existence of the Pope, as the successor of St. Peter, and that the attributes of free- dom necessary to his discharging the duties of his office shall never be wanting, knowing that all rest under the vicissitudes of time and place, and that all these circumstances are in their nature change- able, and that God will change them, and also that the eternal prin- ciples of Divine truth and the eternal promise of God to St. Peter these have stood, stand now, and will stand till the consummation of the world, and the Church shall have accomplished fully, univer- sally, and finally, the purposes of her Divine institution. COLLECTION FOR THE POPE. CIRCULAR TO THE CLERGY OF NEW-YORK. EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE, ) M New-York, June 20th, 1849. REVEREND SIR You are aware that the Fathers of the late Pro- vincial Council have appointed the Sunday within the Octave of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul as the day on which a collection is to be taken up in all the Churches of the United States, for the tem- porary relief of our Most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX. not less glorious under the afflictions which the evils of the times have heaped upon him, than when he was greeted by the universal ho- sannas alike of the foes and of the friends of God's holy Church, of which he is the Supreme Pastor upon earth. The foes of that Church have betrayed him, or at least fallen away from their pro- fessions in regard to his sacred person. Now, therefore, is the time for his children, or rather the children of the Church of Christ, to stand by their revered and venerated Father, and by their prayers and by their offerings to console his heart with the evidence of their filial attachment, and inviolable constancy to the holy and immortal See of Peter. The sacrilegious invaders of his rights may profane the apostolic shrines of Rome may melt the sacred vessels for their nefarious purposes may strip the temples of the living God of the orna- ments with which the piety of our ancestors in the Faith had adorned them, but they will never be able to sever the divine bond of Catholic faith and subjection which binds us indissolubly to the Chair of Peter. God, in His inscrutable providence, may permit those sacrilegious men to invade with apparent success for a time the rights of His appointed representative on earth. But it will be for a time only, and after that He will rise in the might of His wisdom, and employ the folly of their own devices to scatter them to the ends of the earth, and to vindicate His consoling promise that the gates of hell shall never prevail against that Church which he built upon the rock of Peter. In the mean time the children of the Church are numerous enough to see that his enemies shall not have the power to humble 22 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. the Sovereign Pontiff to the extent of actual destitution, or want of means necessary to carry on the numerous offices of his most holy and most exalted station. We direct you to explain these things to the faithful people of your charge, and to read this our Pastoral Letter from the pulpit at each of the Masses in your church on next Sunday. Exhort them to be prepared to contribute on the Sunday following such an amount as the Catholic faith and the ability of each will prompt and enable him to offer for the general purpose of a collection to relieve the present wants of our Holy Father. You will, during the subsequent week, remit the amount contributed by your congregation to us, or to our Secretary, that it may be forwarded to the Most Rev. Arch- bishop of Baltimore, to be by him remitted, with similar collections from the other dioceses of the United States, to the illustrious and glorious exile at Gaeta, Pius IX. We have the pleasing confidence that the Diocese of New- York will not appear to disadvantage in comparison with the zeal, and liberality, and Catholic devotedness to the Holy See, of our brethren throughout the country. We leave it to the discretion of each Pastor to adopt such means as his good judgment may suggest as to the manner of accomplishing the object here presented, requiring only that it shall be attended to in all the Churches of the Diocese on the day specified. I* JOHN HUGHES, Bishop of New- York. By order of the Rt. Rev. Bishop. J. ROOSEVELT BATLEY, Secretary. LETTER FROM BISHOP HUGHES IN REPLY TO HON. HORACE GREELEy. To the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer : I beg leave to complain, through your widely circulated paper, of the injustice done me by the Hon. Horace Greeley, or his agent, by whom I am represented as directing a collection to be taken up in the Catholic churches of this diocese, for the relief and support of Pius IX. in his present struggle against the Roman Republic. The words marked in italics are Mr. Greeley's own. The idea which they express has not entered into my mind. The collection is for the relief and support of the Pope. Here the sentence closes ; but the editor of the Tribune, without either authority or foundation, alleges that it is to support the Pope in his present struggle against the Roman Republic. Mr. Greeley has heretofore professed good-will towards his Ca- tholic fellow-citizens, with what sincerity the unwarranted issue im- plied by his imaginary contest between the Pope and the Roman Republic sufficiently indicates. The collection to be made in all the PIUS rx. 23 churches of the United States on next Sunday is simply to relieve the present wants of the Supreme Bishop of the Catholic people. If Pius IX. had been a tyrant, or had been opposed to the progress of rational liberty and social amelioration, the Catholics, of this country at least, would not have sympathized so deeply in the mis- fortunes brought upon him by his own goodness and the ingratitude of the very people whose condition he so cheerfully undertook to improve. In the earlier period of his government, the voices of Catholics were drowned in the universal shout of approbation from liberal men of every creed and every country. Even Mr. Greeley himself acknowledged it as an honor to have drawn up the address to Pius IX., which went forth from this city, representing, as far as might be, the sentiments with which the entire American people regarded the newly elected Pontiff. Neither was the editor of the Tribune sparing of those courteous phrases towards his Holiness, such as "venerable Father," which marked the amiable benevolence of the writer's character, whilst to the uninitiated they sounded strange enough from the lips of a Protestant and of a Republican. Indeed, if I mistake not, he was censured by some portions of the press for using such language towards the " Man of Sin." But enthusiasm ruled the hour at the Tabernacle, and while Mr. Greeley read the address, it sounded in the ears of the enraptured multitude like the voice of the nightingale proceeding from the throat of the dove so liberal, so gentle, so benevolent were the strains of that memor- able address. Pius IX. is the same man now that he was then ; nor is it probable that in reality Mr. Greeley has undergone any change. Yet the very men from whose hands Pius IX. removed the fetters of imprisonment, and who have manifested their gratitude by plot- ting against his position, if not his lite, have become Mr. Greeley's heroes and iavorites. They wield the stiletto, and sacrifice by assas- sination the human victims who are to propitiate the goddess of Young Liberty in Italy. For these atrocities Mr. Greeley has no language of horror or denunciation. A 1'evolution has indeed taken place, but there is no evidence that it is the work of the Roman people ; whilst it is certain that to a great extent those who have taken part in it are strangers to Rome, who found other parts of Italy and of continental Europe unwilling to receive or to retain them. They have succeeded in expelling the Government which had given them hospitality. They have established, according to what I regard as the truest accounts, a reign of terror over the Roman people, which they call a government. They have broken and burned the carriages of the Cardinals, as if that were heroism. They have plundered the churches they have extorted money from the people they have almost legalized assassination, wherever their authority prevailed. And this is the phalanx recognized by Mr. Greeley as the Roman Republic. Yet no ambassador from foreign countries has recognized such a republic, except it be the 24 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. female plenipotentiary who furnishes the Tribune with diplomatic correspondence. In conclusion, I beg leave to assure Mr. Greeley that the Pope and the Cardinals and Secretaries who have to attend to the various matters of a Church spread throughout the world are, like other men, under the necessity of having something to eat and something wherewith to be clothed. And that for these purposes the Catholics of this country mean to lay their offerings, with profound venera- tion, at the feet of his Holiness Pius IX. "I* JOHX HUGHES, Bishop of New- York. June 25, 1849. SECOND LETTER IN REPLY TO HON. HORACE GREELEY. To the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer: Mr. Greeley has copied my last communication into the Tribune, and accompanied its publication with two or three columns of his own remarks ; so far, let the matter pass. He retracts the charge by which he represented me as raising for the purpose of war against the Roman Republic, the temporary relief which the Catho- lics of this country are about to present to Pius IX. in testimony of their deep sympathy for his present trials, and of profound venera- tion for his supreme office and his sacred person. But, strangely enough, Mr. Greeley, alter having withdrawn the charge, as an ex- plicit statement, reiterates it, in a series of insinuations which I barely notice, but to which I cannot reply. For instance: He wants to know what security we have that the Pope will not apply to the purposes of State the money which may be sent in the spirit of Ca- tholic reverence for the supreme head of the Church, in his tem- porary embarrassment. I answer, that we, Catholics, who propose to make the offering, have not, and do not desire, any security on the subject. When Mr. Greeley made, with other citizens, his gen- erous offering for the starving Irish, with the view of enabling them to beat off death for a period, he did not seek any security that the offering should not, by possibility, pass into the hands of the land- lords, or become the very pay of the exterminators of those cabins, which were, even during the famine, oftentimes levelled to earth, around their faint and dying inmates. He complains that I did not send my communication to the Tri- bune ; and in this he may be right, and I may have been wrong. He has ever been obliging, and, as I thought, fair, whenever I had occasion to call on him in reference to any public matter. But feel- ing deeply, as I did, the invasion of my rights and the injustice done me in the perversion of my circular, as complained of, I did not see how I could, in the communication addressed to you, preserve the PIUS ix. 25 freedom of my pen, without overtaxing Mr. Greeley's courtesy, if I had asked him to publish my remarks on himself in the columns of his own paper. He has copied my communication, as I have just mentioned, and published it with his own remarks, in the Tribune ; and if I had control of a newspaper, I should reciprocate his fairness by publishing what he has written in reply. I do not intend to review either his premises or conclusions in detail. I will state briefly that, in my opinion, many of them are unsound in morals, unwarranted in logic, and unsafe in their appli- cation to the social and civil state of any country on the earth. Of course, then, I dissent from nine-tenths of his conclusions, while I am willing they should pass with his readers for what they are worth. It is known to all men that Pope Pius IX. was willing to throw the whole weight of his name and character in favor of ameliorating the condition of the down-trodden and oppressed peoples of Europe. In the goodness of his heart and in the simplicity of his nature he imagined, no doubt, that the men who shouted their applause from all parts of the world, approving of his principles in this matter, meant, as he meant, to favor genuine liberty; that is, liberty tem- pered by moderation, order, reason, gradual progress, and the in- creasing capacity of nations to comprehend its duties, as well as to appreciate its high privileges. Recent events have proved that he mistook the character of his liberal followers everywhere, but espe- cially in his own States. There they chanted the hymn of Pius IX. surrounded the confiding Pontiff, and while they still kept chanting his hymn, were driving him by concert to the precipice of ruin, as they supposed, dreaming that prosperity would come to Italy as soon as they had pressed him over its brink. In other countries, too, the admirers of that period were sufficiently noisy, and, as professing friends, sufficiently unnatural. I shall never for- get the eulogies pronounced on him in the New York Tabernacle. i too was present, a silent though not a thoughtless spectator. I loved the Holy Father that night, not only because he was Pope, but also because he was liberal and a friend of freedom. To-day I love him more still. Mr. Greeley admits that he is now the same man that he then was, and explains the tergiversation of his political admirers by telling us that the "Pope's condition is changed." Alas, that "condition" should have such power to effect principle among honorable men ! As to the contest Avhich is now going on between the Roman government de facto and those opposed to it, neither Mr. Greeley's opinion nor mine is likely to affect its issue. In that contest the governments of France, Naples, Austria, and Spain, not to speak of other European States, are each and all intriguing and working for themselves. Even should they restore the Pope, I do not see that he will owe them any special debt of gratitude. In the mean time he is in exile, without means, so far as we know, for his own sup- port, or that of his cardinals and secretaries, by whom his spiritual 26 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. intercourse with the Catholic world demands that he should be assisted and surrounded. I am quite well aware that the absolute States of Europe will not allow him or his attendants to want the necessaries of life. But I can well imagine how the good heart of such a man may be supposed to sink, if in offering their aid they should be ungenerous enough to remind him of the hollow treachery of men who professed, like himself, liberal principles who flooded the newspapers with his praises when he did not require their sym- pathy or support who .prepared him as a devoted offering, decora- ted with fillets and garlands, for sacrifices who first cheered, and then drove him to the foot of the altar of immolation, and became desperate when he had the good fortune to pass with his life from their hands and from his own country. They could say to him in the language of Mr. Greeley, Oh how changed is your condition ! Where are those devoted friends of human freedom for whom you lifted up your voice, and shook the thrones of Europe ? Where are the men of public meetings and addresses f Where are f./te men for whose cause you have incurred exile and banishment from your throne, and from the country of your birth? Have THEY ever sent you enough to maintain your household for a single day f Who, then, are your friends, Most Holy Father, in the hour of your need f Is it not WE, who are denounced as the despots of the icorld? Will it be too much to expect that your Holiness will henceforward side with us, and frown on that pretended love of liberty, in the name of which you have been first flattered, then betrayed, and then not only forsaken, but denounced f What would Mr. Greeley have to reply to all this ? No, no we Catholics and freemen of America will not allow the ministers of absolute courts to stamp, in the presence of Pius IX., the brow of true freedom with the brand of this reproach. We will cheer him up by our sympathy, we will supply him, to some extent, witli the means of support. We shall not consent that any temporal government, either republican or monarchical, shall dare to claim him as its vassal or dependent. He belongs to the Catholic Church and to the human race ; and, in the name of freedom, as well as of religion, the Catholics of this country will present their offerings to maintain his independence. Mr. Greeley assumes that the Roman States are perfectly well gov- erned, tranquil, and happy. Would that it were so ! But was not Rossi assassinated ? Were not four priests murdered even the other day, and their bodies cast into the Tiber ? Are not the chalices and sacred vessels seized on the altar, and melted down by the demagogues who exercise their sway of usurpation ? Are not the temples of re- ligion stripped of their ornaments by the same hands ? Are they not plundering Rome of every monument of art for which they can obtain a buyer, even at the vilest price ? Are not the citizens who have any means crushed to the earth by the extortion of money in the name of the government ? Were not the priests of a single church robbed of ten thousand dollars, imposed as a fine for refusing to chant Te PIUS ix. 27 Deum at the bidding of men, of whom it is doubtful whether they believe in God or not ? If most of these things are not true, the New York Tribune is not to be relied on as regards Roman affairs. Neither is Miss Fuller, its correspondent, to be believed. And this is Mr. Greeley's happy, tranquil, prosperous " Roman Republic." I am often surprised to see even educated men in this country allowing the brightest page of its history to be tarnished by admit- ting into comparison with the American Revolution the principles and the men of petty and abortive revolutions in Europe. The men of the Revolution in this country took up arms, not to over- throw an old government, but to resist a new tyranny. They re- sisted that tyranny with success ; and when the battle was over, they were an independent nation. Their cause was just in the sight of Heaven and man. Heaven blessed them in sustaining it. They were wise in council ; they were brave in the field ; they were honorable, high-minded men everywhere ; they did no act to tar- nish the justice of their cause no act of which their proudest pos- terity need be ashamed. There was no assassin among them. They hated whatever was dishonorable ; they despised a lie and its ut- terer ; in short, they were gentlemen as well as patriots. The troops walked sometimes barefoot on the snow ; but they committed no sao- rilege ; they plundered no churches ; they respected the rights of property, both public and private. And I ask, in the name of in- sulted freedom, whether the murderers of Rossi, and of the other victims of the Roman Revolution, are to be admitted, or rather ele- vated by Americans, to any species of comparative equality with the untarnished names of Franklin, Washington, Hancock, and their noble associates ? Though not an American born, yet I, for one, feel pride enough in the history of the country to enter my humble protest against it. I perceive that Signor G. F. Secchi di Casali has volunteered his able pen to sustain Mr. Greeley's views of Italian affairs. This was scarcely necessary. Mr. Casali is an Italian, and professes to be a Catholic, although the spirit of a decided enemy to Catholic faith breathes through all I have seen from his pen. This may be fair enough ; but he is mistaken, if he supposes that Ameri- can Protestants will respect him the more for the intidel sneers which he utters against the Catholic religion, while he has not the Saxon candor and moral courage to disavow the outward profession of it. It seems Mr. Casali is just from Gaeta, and brings to order news that the Pope is in " no need of funds ; that the king of Na- ples and the emperor of Russia and the queen of Spain are putting thousands and thousands of scudi at the disposal of his Holiness. I wish it were true ; and tyrants though they are called, yet, for this one act at least, if it were true, I should thank them. But Mr. Ca- sali is more in the confidence of the liberals of Italy, and he does not tell us how much they have given. He does not tell us what is the fact, that the clergy and Catholics of the Roman States, under their new free government, would not dare to take up a public collection in 28 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. their churches for the aid of the Pope. Such is what I call the " reign of terror," but what Mr. Greeley designated the free "Koraan Republic." Neither can we trust Mr. Casali's correspondence. He knows, as well as any one, that Italian gentlemen can, as they sometimes have done, write letters from different parts of Italy without leaving their own chambers in New York. I see also, by the papers, that a meeting of Irish Catholics is to be held to raise funds for the support of the Triumvirate. I pre- dict that those who will compose that meeting will not, themselves, contribute enough to support a republic fourteen feet square ; still, let them proceed. But depend upon it, the Roman Republic will replen- ish its exchequer much more effectually by melting down the chalices. I have a pretty good idea of what description of Irish Catholics will compose such a meeting Irish Catholics d la New York Na- tion^ who imagine themselves patriotic simply because they are not religious. Of course they will not contribute to the offerings which their Catholic brethren, of all nations, will present as a testimony of reverence, and as a means of temporary relief to Pius IX. in the place of his banishment. But it is assumed that their absence from church will hardly be observed ; indeed their presence would per- haps excite greater surprise. f JOHN HUGHES, Bishop of New York. SYNOPSIS OF THE SERMON OF BISHOP HUGHES ON THE OCCASION OF THE COLLECTION FOR THE POPE, SUNDAY, JULY IST, 1849. ON the above occasion, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Hughes made a very short address, of which the following is a synopsis : In regard to the contribution for the Pope, he said that the day had been set apart for that purpose by all the Bishops in the United States. It was the duty of the Church to provide for the temporal wants of all its Bishops, and it was its first duty to provide for the supreme head of that Church in the person of the Pope. The law of nature and the law of religion alike called upon God's people to make this provision, so that he could be independent in his action, and given up to the ministrations of his sacred office. The Holy Father, by the events of the times, had been driven from the city, the palace, the church occupied by his predecessors from St. Peter down, during a period of eighteen centuries. He had been stripped of his temporal power, and sent out among those who, if they were at liberty to act as their consciences dictated, would re- joice to be permitted to supply all his temporal wants ; but even at Rome this was not now permitted. It could not be expected, the Bishop said, that the Pope should nus ix. 29 pay allegiance to any temporal power, or that he should be depend- ent either upon republics or the monarchies of the world for his sup- port. He had begun and consistently prosecuted all the real reforms that had been going on in Europe for the last eighteen months. Amidst revolutions which had shaken the world, as the waters of the sea when tossed by an earthquake, he had pursued the even tenor of his way, and was now, in his present abode, making bishops and quietly and conscientiously discharging all the functions of the Church. Amidst the shock without, he stood unmoved ; and whe- ther he should be kept from his temporal rule for a time or forever, he would be found receiving the true homage of God's people all over the world. Some thirty-four or thirty-five years ago, said the Bishop, it was the misfortune of the Pope to be driven from his church, and incar- cerated in a dungeon, through the instrumentality of the French. Providence then so ordered events that it was through the instru- mentality of the English nation that he was restored to his power and rule. The French nation, which had led captive the former Pope, by a singular coincidence is now laboring to restore Pope Pius IX. to his temporal and spiritual rule ; and thus God worked for good, and would employ again whatever instruments He willed in restoring the supreme head of the Catholic Church. The Bishop said he would make no appeal to procure the contri- bution for the support of the Holy Father, as he knew it would be a privilege for all true Catholics to lend their aid in such a cause. This was a question which had nothing to do with politics or forms of government, notwithstanding some lying newspapers have repre- sented that it had. But it was the province of the demagogue to misrepresent the truth, and there were many of these demagogues of the press who were now misrepresenting the Church and the cause of true freedom. I cannot go down from this pulpit, the Bishop continued, without adding a few words more as a caution against that spirit of the world, that diabolical spirit, which clothes itself with the robes of liberty forsooth, puts on that drapery, and, whether out of the Church or in the Church, attempts to bring down every thing, even from the very throne of God, to its own level to the standard of what it calls liberty that spirit which overthrows order and pre- cipitates society into confusion ; that spirit which becomes desperate when it finds there are other worlds and another life at the termin- ation of the present, and that there is an antagonism in the con- science of man which prevents them from succeeding as they would wish. " Why should man have a conscience ?" say the men of this kind, " because it is our only obstacle ; but for it our principles could prevail throughout the world ; let us get priests and religion out of the way ; they make cowards of men ; let priests be removed ; let Popes be removed ; let every thing that tends to create a con- science be abolished forever." These are their ideas ; and you, dear brethren, have found among 30 ABCHBISHOP HUGHES. you recently this new school of liberal teaching ; you have found among you editors and newspapers trafficking upon the ruins of a country which they have helped to degrade, and making their pages eloquent by a stupid imitation of Tom Paine and Voltaire. These are the political confectioners who seal up the poison of their infi- delity in sugar-plums of flattery to popular prejudices, that they may sell them to the children of folly. They call themselves Catho- lics too, even as Voltaire said he was a Catholic ; and when he found himself near his death, sent for a priest, as others like him have most inconsistently done. They say that they are Irishmen ; and they may be Irishmen, but not Irishmen of the legitimate stamp. They are not of those Irishmen who have preserved the nationality and honor of their country, by preserving their faith in the midst of ev- ery persecution. This spurious generation, on the other hand, would have Irishmen give away their faith for naught. I warn you, not from any feeling on the subject, but as your Bishop and Pastor, in the name of your faith, in the name of Christ, and for the sake of your children, and your own souls I warn you to be on your guard against the dangerous and bad editors and papers which profess to rescue the country which they have just contributed to ruin ; pro- fessing it with a disposition with which, it is now manifest, they would have swept off the face of the earth the priesthood of Ireland. And one of them cautions me to be very prudent, and to send this money in a secret manner, as if we were guilty of an act which we should conceal. The American people are wise and sensible and just, and they despise the man who does not appreciate the first principles of the country in which he lives. THE POPE'S RETURN TO ROME. SERMON OF BISHOP HUGHES IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, AFTER VESPERS, SUNDAY, MAY 12TH, 1850, ON THE OCCASION OF A SPECIAL THANKSGIVING FOR THE HOLY FATHER'S RETURN. The words of Holy Scripture which have appeared to me most suitable for an introduction to the few remarks I am about to make, are found in the third chapter of the Prophet Sophonius : Give praise, daughter of Sion : shout, O Israel : be glad, and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judg- ment ; he hath turned away thine enemies : the king of Israel the Lord is in the midst of thee ; thou shalt fear evil no more. Prophecy of Sophonius, iii. 14-15. Joyous tidings have reached us. The illustrious Head of the Church of God is an exile no more. The eyes of that Church have followed him in his wanderings. She has accompanied him with pros ix. 31 her tears and with her prayers ; for if it be a duty of the members of the Church, that when one member suffers, all the members shall sympathize, how much more, when the visible head of the Church himself is selected, as it were by a general conspiracy of this world, as a victim of suffering for the whole body ? You may have heard from this place, when the news of his expulsion first reached us, how that we Catholics, familiar with the history of all our Popes and our Church for eighteen hundred years, feel no species of appre- hension, when these passing events come to startle the world, and set the false prophets in the mood of their false speculation. We had no dread that the daughter of Sion should be forsaken ; we had no apprehension that the wicked should prevail ; it never came into our thoughts that the Church of God was to be thrown out of her course in the least, except in that kind of way in which His provi- dence has repeatedly employed to awaken our attention and fervor, and to bring out palpably before the world's eyes the evidence that the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. He has spoken the word of promise to His Church, and that word shall never fail. Still, beloved brethren, how was it possible for us not to feel, when the living, but not the last of the successors of St. Peter the num- ber of whom has exceeded two hundred and fifty was driven, by what seemed a universal conspiracy, from the shrine of the apostles, and from near the sacred relics of the blessed martyrs, Peter and Paul, beside which his predecessors had kept vigil during eighteen hundred years. We all felt this; the Church prayed from the rising to the setting of the sun ; and you prayed, beloved brethren. Your hearts were sad not the sadness of despondency, as if you dreaded the consequences which enmity to the truth had pro- claimed but sad, because the eyes of the Catholics from the utter- most boundaries of this earth, had been accustomed to converge upon one spot, to behold the visible head of the Church ; that spot being Rome sacred, and in spite of recent atrocities, holy and " Eternal City." Now, for an interval, the looks of Catholic Christendom were obliged to wander, according as the footsteps of the glorious pilgrim in exile traced his path, from one post to another, till at last God has risen in His majesty, and without resorting to a miracle, but leaving all human passions, the policy of courts, and the wisdom of cabinets to work out their own problems, has -made use of them to restore to his universally supreme episcopal chair, and to his tem- poral dominions, the exiled Prince of Rome, the holy Pontiff of the Catholic Church. I, at least, during all this time, never regretted the events that had occurred, except so far as the unhappy agents were in rebellion against God. I was, in a certain sense, well pleased ; because the enemies of truth, in the history of the Church, for centuries, could not have selected a man less calculated to aid their cause than the illustrious victim whom in this instance they had devoted to de- struction. It had been said, in this world of " progress" and " grow- 32 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. ing ideas," this world of "liberty," that the Popes had been, for a long time, on the side of despotism that there had not been a liberal Pope in the chair of St. Peter for years ; but, from the mo- ment of the accession of illustrious Pius IX., they could not say this any more. Here was a liberal Pope. You know the history of his first administration not of the Church (for in that, like all his pre- decessors, Peter spoke by his mouth), but of the State in which, as an example to sovereigns, he began of his own accord to divest himself of powers that had descended to him by right, and volun- tarily stripped himself of one prerogative after another in favor of his subjects, in whom he saw with a father's eyes only his own spir- itual and temporal children. The crowd behind vociferated the hymn of Pius IX. It was their hymn driving him to the destruc- tion which they had in view for him. If henceforward they shall find Pontiffs with the inflexibility and firmness of the Gregorys, the Leos, and Innocents, let them remem- ber how they treated their liberal Pontiff, who placed himself, as-it were, at the head of humanity, and prepared to lead them to under- stand the principles of freedom, so as to combine progress and liberty with order. Yet, beloved brethren, these tempests and fluctuations around the bark of Peter are nothing novel in the Church. We know that although the Church is destined, by the very charter of her exist- ence, to triumph over democracies when they oppose, over mon- archies when they assail, over the Gentiles when they rage, still God does not make that triumph miraculous or palpable to the hu- man sense of man. He works by weight and measure, and causes the triumph of His Church, as He causes the germination and growth and ripening of the seeds that are committed to the earth a stealthy, invisible, but always certain process. So it is that in apostolic times the prayers of the Church, under divine promise, were efficacious in obtaining the release of the apostle Peter, the first predecessor and model of all ; and whereas, at last, that same Peter glorified God by giving his life to martyrdom, as did also his apostolic colleague Paul, they were but first triumphs in the history of the Church and their successors, for three hundred years, nearly all died in the same cause and in a similar manner ; and whereas the Church has been in conflict, wrestling with the powers of dark- ness of this earth, and which conflict is to be its condition to the end of time ; and whereas governments have conspired, and one calamity of our human condition of society, after another, seemed always threatening to overwhelm the Church ; and whereas the Pope, the head of the Church, was always, necessarily, the most conspicuous mark for the powers of darkness, both of earth and hell, to aim at, so shall we see that the Pope may be put aside, may be banished, may be put to death. But the Pope, as such, is like his divine Author, in his official capacity, immortal, and shall never die until the consummation of the world. So far with regard to the Church. For, after all, even if Provi- PIUS ix. 33 dence should permit that the Holy Father should be expelled from the Apostolic See, this would not in the least prevent the gov- ernment of the Church, although the accustomed order and arrange- ment which has followed in the management of its affairs might be disturbed. But there is another view, in relation to the present question, which I shall briefly allude to. No cry has been so universal and so loudly uttered as the assertion that nothing would be so expe- dient as a separation of the civil from the temporal power in the person of the Pope. No doubt it would be a great relief to the Holy Father. No doubt that, though he is called Prince, his life is a life of slavery, but a life of slavery to charity and love for the Church of God. No repose for him, no leisure, no banquetings; but a solitary man, whose table does not cost as much per day as that of the most moderate family that pretends to social enjoyment in this city. It would be a relief for the Pope could he be separated from the burden of the civil power. But what then ? Is he not on earth the head of the Church of God ? Is not every member, at least every minister, of that Church required to be free ? For how can he teach the truth unless he be free ? If he be under the dread of the multitude, or, if you please, under that of the sovereign, like John the Baptist to Herod, how will he dare to speak the truth ? If there be no intermediate condition between that of a sovereign and supreme ruler in the temporal order, and that of a subject that is under the authority of the civil ruler, then I say it is essential, ia the providence of God, that the Pope should be sovereign. If the question were to be originated now, it is possible that some other species of sovereign independence might be devised; but God Him- self seems to have devised it as it is from the beginning. Rome, M-hich is consecrated by the martyrdom of the chief of the apostles, appears to be the spot on which the chair of Christ's authority, rep- resented by that of Peter, should perpetually rest. And next to this another question arises : To whom belongs the temporal sovereignty of the Roman States, if it be surrendered by the Pontiff? Does it belong to the usurpers who attempted to arrest the supreme authority out of his hands by violence ? What right have they to it ? Does it belong to the people of the Roman States ? Seventy-five out of every hundred of them would raise their hands in acclamation to have their own Holy Father as their ruler. I will even go further, and say that, in the order of Christen- dom, those States belong, in a certain sense, to all Catholics. They are the States of the Church. Christianity the whole Catholic world have an interest in them. They have belonged to her by right from the beginning. They were set apart as a spot one small portion of the earth never increased by conquest, never dis- turbed even by sovereigns, except for the passing moment.. They were set apart expressly that there might be one spot on the earth from which the vicar of Jesus Christ could give out the supreme voice of the Church of God with freedom, without restraint,, without VOL. II 3 34: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. the influence of this cabinet, or the authority of that ruler or that monarch ; because, if you take away that possession, you immediately place the Pontiff" under the influence of some temporal sovereign, some secular ruler, who, as we all know by the history of the human heart, will employ every means to secure, for secular or political ends, the partial favor or alliance of him who rules the Church of God. The great emperor who reigned during the first part of the present century took away one of the sainted predecessors of the present Pope, the holy and illustrious Pius VII., placed him under surveillance, and left him to govern the universal Church from the dim twilight of a dungeon. His majesty had then gone far enough. It now only remained that he should finish his course, and yield his breath on a lonely island in the ocean ; and England was the instrument that God, in His providence, had selected to re- store the captive Pontiff to the throne of St. Peter. His predeces- sor, Pius VI., had been carried away in like manner, and died broken-hearted in exile. These things have occurred, and may oc- cur again ; but there is always a return to Rome, for there is no Rome without the Pope. For when, during one melancholy period, it was deemed expedient to transfer the government of the Church from Rome to Avignon, during some sixty or seventy years, it was found that the affairs of the Church did not go on well ; and we may safely infer that it is in the order of Almighty God that Rome shall be the place for the Pope; and that sovereignty being essential, or at least entire freedom from secular control, the Pope is, and is to be, the sovereign of Rome. Christendom could not spare him from the see of the illustrious Peter. The feelings and judgment of the Catholic and civilized world would be outraged by putting him aside. If Rome had a Pope no more, civilized Europe would per- ceive missing from the headship of safe guidance one who had guided her up through darkness and barbarism to her present im- proved condition. She would perceive a star missing from its place, on which the eye of civilization had been cast for eighteen hundred years as the central and fixed point from which to calculate dis- tances and measure progress in every direction. If then we, hearing of the Pope's expulsion, cast our eyes upon .the earth ; if our hearts were sad ; if we prayed with downcast Jooks for the head of the Catholic Church, is it not fitting that we should now rejoice when God has hearkened to his prayer and the Church's; when God has expelled His enemy; when He seems to -call upon the Church by that beautiful epithet, so commonly used to designate her " Daughter of Sion ! Sing and shout with glad- ness." Yes, dear brethren, it is fitting ; and if statesmen, and those who are politicians, could learn any thing from the teachings of God, they might learn much from the history of the past three years. They might then understand the meaning of that incident related in the Gospel of St. Mathew : when the disciples had gone into a ship with their Divine Master, and were putting out into the PIUS ix. 35 sea, a great storm arose; and the disciples came to Him, crying, "Lord ! save, or we perish !" As it were, with a species of gentle reproach, He said to them, " Oh ! ye of little faith ;" and then He whispered His commands to the winds and the waves, and they settled down into the smoothness of a mirror. Thus, now do the waters rise, and the tempests seem to threaten the bark of the Church with destruction. Those who wished that destruction, predicted evil' of her situation ; but we never doubted that God would save her from perishing ; and now when He has put forth his arm, and restored His ser- vant to his place, the whole Catholic world rejoices. There is no other joy like the joy experienced on an occasion of this descrip- tion. It is a joy, taking its key-note from the voice of the Holy See of St. Peter, and that has its echo all round the globe ra one grand hymn, chanted by the aspirations and the joyful feelings of two hundred millions of hearts. And. that hymn is not the mere out- ward display of interested partisans ; but the heartfelt, the sincere and ardent joy that has no species of motive but that of its own sincerity manifesting itself for the protection of the Church and the Head of the Church. The very ritual prescribes the form in which the Christian world should rejoice. The secular world has various ways, oftentimes exceedingly unmeaning, and sometimes very wicked, of exhibiting its joy ; but the Church has arranged a spe- cial, and, as it were, official mode of expressing its joy, in that al- most inspired canticle, called the hymn of St. Ambrose, the Te Deum. Who is it that has heard this hymn, that does not feel it to be the most sublime aspiration towards God that the heart of man could by any possibility conceive ? Who that has travelled on the continent of Europe, and been present on some solemn occasion, in one of those immense churches that have been erected by the piety of our ancestors, capable of holding fifteen or twenty thousand peo- ple at a time, and has not been lost in the ecstasy of harmony and joy, when this song has arisen to God from the immense multitude harmonies in which were mingled the voice of old age, the stronger notes of middle age, and the sweet, soft tones of children ? In those countries on the continent, where the Catholic religion pre- vails, the Te Deum is so well known, that when it is sung, all men join in one universal chorus and express their joy, and in its har- monies they return thanks to God. We too, beloved brethren, in our humble way, may take part i.i the general gladness ; we may join in the universal symphony, and in that species of exultation which pervades the whole Catholic world; we may mingle our feeble prayers, and our desire to return thanks to Almighty God ; and it is a consolation for us even now, that during the period of exile of our illustrious father, we may have done something to sooth the weary hours of him whose heart was in Rome, where his episcopal duties belonged. We have sent him the tribute of our relief, which was but little. We have sent him our sympathy in his suffering ; and it is possible that now the expression of this our gladness may reach him ; for we know that this is the 36 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. way he would have us rejoice in returning thanks to Almighty God, to whom belongs the honor and the glory of his restoration, and of the perpetuation and government of His Church on earth. THE PASTORAL LETTER Of the Most Rev. Archbishop and Suffragan Prelates of the Province of New- York, ADDRESSED TO THE CLERGY AND LAITY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE DIOCESES, AT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRD PROVINCIAL COUNCIL. To our dearly beloved Brethren of the Clergy, and faithful Children of the Laity, health and benediction through our Lord Jesus Christ. At the close of our Council we are impelled, dearly beloved brethren, as well by sincere affection as by duty,' to address to you some words of exhortation and encouragement. Your fidelity to your bishops and your pastors in co-operating with every purpose of good, not merely for the present, but for the future of our holy religion in this country, is worthy of all praise. We exhort you, dearly beloved brethren, to persevere in this, and to leave an example for those who are to succeed us. The education of Catholic youth in a Catholic manner, to which we have so often called your attention, should be still the object of your anxious care. Wherever it is possible, whether in city or town, or rural district, let the Catholic priest and Catholic parents organize Catholic schools for the training of youth. We would also exhort the reverend clergy to superintend, from time to time, by personal inspection, the progress and working of these schools, and not leave them altogether to the direction of the teacher, however worthy of confidence he may be. The providing of priests for the perpetuation of the holy ministry in this country is a subject which also has engaged our attention and awakened our solicitude. In earlier days true men of God from France, Ireland, Germany, and other countries of Europe, priests of the martyr-spirit, came most willing to spend, and to be spent, for the salvation of souls. Their toils and their sacrifices, under our own first Bishop and Archbishop Carroll, laid on the soil of this great republic the foundations of the Church. Their name and their memory demand, in justice, our reverence and our love. More recently, and even up to the present time, our ecclesiastical students, the recruits of the sanctuary, have come, in a great meas- ure, from the same sources, but we cannot look to the zeal of other countries for the perpetuation of our clergy. The time seems to have arrived when we must depend on our- PIUS ix. 37 selves for the supply of the priesthood, by which this great work is to be continued. "We therefore exhort Christian parents to cherish in their children signs of vocation to the priesthood ; and we exhort you, beloved brethren of the clergy, to encourage this spirit in the families of your respective congregations. It is the greatest honor that God can confer on Christian parents, that a child of theirs should grow up to be a holy priest to minister at His altar. An additional motive for fostering this truly Catholic movement at the present moment is the opening of the American College in, Rome, expressly designated for this purpose. The buildings, in- cluding a beautiful chapel, are the magnificent donation of our most Holy Father Pope Pius IX., to his children in the United States. It has been already opened, and apart from its ecclesiastical pur- poses, its national character tends to place us and our fellow-citizens on an equality with other nations who have similar institutions in the Eternal City. In that college the American, whether he be a Catholic or not, will have a kind of right, or at least recognition, so that he shall not feel himself a stranger in the city of all nations. Already, some efforts have been made among ourselves to com- mence and sustain the great work. But nothing has been done on our part corresponding with the magnificent chanty of our Holy Father, who from his private resources has bestowed both a palace and a church upon his children in this country. We earnestly rec- ommend to the zeal and generosity of the faithful this most impor- tant institution. Dearly beloved brethren : We have in our councils added scarcely any thing to the legislation that has heretofore been enacted in the councils of Baltimore, or in our own. We exhort you, brethren of the clergy, to be familiar with the statutes of these councils. Many young priests have been introduced into the sacred ministry since they were enacted. We beseech them and all others to make them- selves thoroughly acquainted with these regulations of discipline proposed by the bishops and confirmed by the Holy See. The healthfulness of ecclesiastical discipline does not depend so much on the multiplication of enactments as on the conscientious observance, as far as possible, of what has been already enacted. We ourselves, on a cairn review of all that has been enacted by our predecessors, cannot discover any thing which we should wish to be changed. Be faithful, therefore, beloved brethren of the clergy, in adhering to these rules. What has just been said will explain the fact that in our present council we have scarcely added a single rule, or recommended a single new statute. The principal business that has been transacted in our present meeting has had reference to the question of erecting a new episcopal see within the limits of the present diocese of Al- bany, and of providing, so far as depends upon us, for the appoint- ment of its first bishop. Whatever has been deemed important to be communicated to 38 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. you in addition to what has been said already will be found at the close of this letter. In the mean time a question has been brought to our notice which interests not only our own dioceses or province, but the whole Cath- olic Church. Between you, dearly beloved brethren, and the prelates whom God has been pleased to place over you, there ought not to be, nor is there, any concealment. The present position of the Sovereign Pontiff is such as to awaken our anxious solicitude. The enemies of religion having exhausted their malice in various assaults against the Church during the last two or three hundred years, and having been disappointed in the results of theh' attacks upon her faith, have now concentrated their hostility against her supreme head, Pius IX., successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Christ upon earth. They do not profess to deprive him of his supreme spiritual authority, for in that attempt they know they could not succeed. But it is proposed to diminish, if not alto- gether to destroy, his temporal power, and, as we understand their language, to give him back to us and two hundred millions of Cath- olics over the globe a most respectably sustained pensioner and prisoner in Rome, with an extent of territory so limited that nothing shall be found therein except peace and happiness. This programme of political intentions is shadowed forth in a re- cent publication, which the newspapers ascribe to no less a personage than the Emperor of the French. We do not believe that it is his production. To admit it as such would, in our judgment, be a libel on his Catholic feelings and on his great intellect. In this document it is stated " that the temporal authority exercised by the Sovereign Pontiff is essential to the wel- fare of the Catholic Church." This is true ; and the Pope has this temporal authority. The question then to be asked of the author of the pamphlet is simply this : If such authority is essential to the Catholic Church, as you admit, why do you propose to take it away? For the pamphlet adds, "that whilst the temporal power of the Pope is necessary and legitimate, it is incompatible with a State of any extent. The temporal power of the Pope is essential first proposition. But that same power must be limited to a State without any extent second proposition ! The Emperor of the French is not the man to fall into such a contradiction. The document goes on to say that France has not run the risk of a great war gained four victories lost 50,000 men spent 300,000,000 francs, with a view that Austria might on the morrow of peace resume in the peninsula the domination she exercised on the eve of her defeat. Who would imagine that the conclusion to be drawn from this statement is, that the Pope's sovereignty is to be reduced to a tem- poral estate without any extent ? The remaining portion of this document is not less vague, but is less self-contradictory than what we have just cited. It refers ap- PIUS ix. 39 parently to the deliberations of a future Congress that Congress is soon to meet. We pray to Almighty God that He may guide its deliberations so as to promote His glory, the welfare of the Catholic Church, the entire and absolute independence of the Holy Father in the plenitude of his temporal rights as they have de- scended to him, and as they now stand, and the good order, peace, and happiness of the Christian nations to be represented in the Con- gress. We know, dearly beloved brethren, that this foreshadowing of approaching evils to the Church will bring affliction to your hearts as it has to ours. But we cannot separate without raising our unanimous voice in solemn protest against the violence and injus- tice, as well as the unchristian policy that is now broached, in plausible language, as a mere covering for the designs of wicked men. The designs and principles declared, so far as they are intel- ligible to us, make it our duty to denounce, to detest and abhor them, since they imply an invasion of the sacred rights, a coercion of the will even, of the Sovereign Pontiff, to whose divinely de- rived authority and august person we proclaim ourselves devoted in life and in deith. We claim the right to give public expression to our sentiments and convictions on this subject. We are an integral portion of 200,000,000 of Catholics, whose eyes are constantly turned to the See of Peter and its Supreme Pontiff. For us the question is not whether Austria con- quers France, or France conquers Austria, in a sanguinary war, with which the Holy Father, as representative of the Prince of Peace, has had nothing to do. It is not for us to settle whether the dukes and duchesses of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany shall ever return to the government of their States or not. Theirs are but the dynasties of family, and it is for others to contend whether one family or another shall occupy their place. We wish, of course, that in all things the laws of justice may prevail. But there is a territory in which we have a supreme interest. It is called the States of the Church. We belong to the Church. The Pope of Rome is our supreme spiritual head. We wish to have access to him on soil where he shall be free. We claim the .privilege of approaching the Eternal City, where he and his predecessors have reigned and ruled from time immemorial. The moment we tread its soil we feel that we have entered on ground which is and ought to be common to the same two hundred millions of our fellow Catholics. We claim the right and the privilege to pass from any ship of any nation, by the port of Ancona on the Adriatic, or Civita Vecchia on the Mediterranean, or by any other port in the Papal States, to consult our Holy Father without let or hindrance on matters appertaining to religion, and feel at the same time that we are in the States of the Church, and therefore not on a foreign soil. In proclaiming, therefore, our solemn protest against any inva- sion of the temporal rights of the Pope, we do not consider our- selves as interfering in a question that is foreign to us. But we do 40 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. so by virtue of a double right: one is, the right of giving free ex- pression to our convictions ; and the other is, the interest which, in common with all Catholics, we claim to possess in the integrity of the States of the Church. It is well known in this country, as in others, that the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood exercise their influence not for revolution or for any disturbance of social order. They exercise it for the pur- pose of sustaining order, and, when occasion requires, of soothing asperities that may grow up, even among the children of the Church, on purely human questions. And this influence is extended, as far as possible, to other members of the community who may not pro- fess our holy faith, but who may be influenced by the voice and ex- ample of Catholic teachers. But when the question presented to us touches the rights of our Holy Father as a temporal sovereign when it is proposed to meddle with the temporalities of the States of the Church then we feel as if a wound was about to be inflicted on the apple of our eye. In this country, the Government treats us, as it does all citizens, without favor, without prejudice, without partiality. It does not claim nor wish to interfere with our attachment to our supreme spiritual head. And if an attempt should be made to destroy the sovereignty of the Holy Father, or diminish its extent, it is our right, as free American citizens, as well as prelates of the Church of God, to protest and to resist. We are members of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. An attack on the States of the Church, we are free to declare beforehand, shall be considered as an attack upon us and upon our rights. Before entering yet further on this question, we are impelled to give public utterance to the consolation with which we have witnessed the apostolic firmness of our Holy Father, in resisting every species of physical or diplomatic coercion that has been attempted to compel his acquiescence in the new schemes that are submitted to his con- sideration. If those who counsel him are sovereigns, so is he, much more. As Pope, he understands thoroughly the obligations of his supreme position. As Pius IX., we know his great and generous heart. For him a prison or a cavern can have no terrors. His pre- decessors have been made familiar with such habitations. He is not less worthy of his rank than they were. He ought not to be threat- ened. If he should be threatened, we, in our own name and in the name of our people indeed, if we might use such language, in the name of the whole Catholic Church feel the insult as one personal to every member of Christ's mystical body on the earth. Nor can we pass from this topic without proclaiming our thanks and gratitude to those noble prelates of France and of other coun- tries in Europe who have spoken out fearlessly on this important topic. We are persuaded that they have said nothing which could give reasonable offence to the governments under which they live. We congratulate them ; we admire them ; and, if words of ours were necessary for such a purpose, we would encourage them to persevere; PICS IX. 4:1 for when the bishops and priests, but above all the Sovereign Pontiff on earth, shall be deprived of the liberty of speech, and the right of independence necessary, not merely to vindicate the dogmas of the faith, but also to be heard on questions of eternal justice, albeit re- lating to this earth, then, indeed, the consummation of ages cannot be remote. The temporal authority of the Pope is one of these questions. His title, as it stands to-day, is beyond all dispute the most legitimate that can be put forward by any sovereign in Europe or in the world. Trace history backwards, and you will find that no rival claimant has ever appeared that no dynasty has ever been displaced or sent into exile by him or his predecessors that his title is con- firmed by centuries that it has been ratified by the consent of all the nations of Christendom that no protest has ever been recorded in the archives of the human race against its validity. But some perhaps will inquire into the origin of this title. We answer, that the origin does not appear on human record. All we know is, that after the conversion of Constantine the Great, the seat of empire was transferred from Rome to Byzantium. During the immediate sub- sequent ages the emperor and his successors withdrew not only their presence, but also their protection, from the people of Italy. The people ceased not to invoke the aid of the emperor in periods of trial and of desolation, of famine, pestilence, and invasion by. bar- barous nations. To their appeal no answer came, nor any aid. In these trying circumstances the people raised their hands to the Sovereign Pontiff, calling upon him to be their temporal sav- iour, as well as their father. Neither were they disappointed. la famine he supplied, as far as possible, their wants. In pestilence he was among them as their comforter. At the approach of cruel in- vasion he went forth from the Eternal City bareheaded, to meet their barbarian leader to offer his own person for the sacrifice but to plead for the safety of the people. In this act of charity it is well known that his pleading and his influence became, on more than one occasion, a shield of protection for their otherwise aban- doned nation. Many writers assert that Constantine the Great conferred upon him, by written document, a certain species of political right to govern what was then, or soon after, called the Duchy of Rome. Other writers, with erudition quite as respectable, deny the truth of this statement of a donation by the first Christian emperor. We do not enter into this question, for it appears to us of very slight importance. All we know is, that the temporal authority of the emperors from Constantine the Great ceased to be exercised in what is now called the States of the Church, but especially in that portion which was more immediately connected with the imperial city of Rome. It was not usurped by the Holy Father. It was rather forced upon him by the wishes and clamor of a neglected and ungoverned people. It was a "res derelicta." But at all events, in the origin of the temporal power of the Pope, he was the chosen 4:2 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. ruler of the Italian people, within the limits of what afterwards be- came his civil jurisdiction. Popular history states that at a subsequent period Pepin and Charlemagne of France made him a donation of this same territory, with additional grants of extension as to its surface and population. There is certainly some truth connected with this statement. But we do not understand it in the sense which the phraseology of our popular history would seem to indicate. Our understanding is, that Pepin and Charlemagne did make some additional concessions, increasing the extent of the Pope's temporal dominion. They may indeed have signed their names to documents confirming the right of the Sovereign Pontiff to exercise civil dominion in the States of the Church. But the merit of their conduct on that occasion con- sists in the fact that they reverenced and strengthened in the su- preme sovereign of the Church a title with which he was already invested. They were Catholic princes. They could have taken away from the Pope his temporal dominion. But instead of doing so they confirmed it, and for this their memory has been precious and gratefully cherished by Catholics everywhere. Now, if such be the character and the validity of the title by which the Sovereign Pontiff rules as a temporal prince, can it be taken away by violence, either on the part of his subjects or of the sovereigns of other States? Certainly not without injustice. During the late troubles in Northern Italy, no power declared war against the States of the Church. But it appears that, by a process quite unworthy of Catholic rulers, treason has been -en- couraged, discontent propagated, and a spirit of rebellion fomented among the people of what is called the Romagna. If some general or statesman had been appointed to guide the progress of this treachery towards the Holy Father, there would be a system developed. But military authority declined to direct the revolution, and declined still more to restrain or regulate its pro- gress; and now we are told, forsooth, that the people of the Romag- na are in open rebellion against the authority of the Sovereign Pon- tiff. We are not told who is to be their future sovereign. If there should be such a sovereign, he will probably administer to them loyalty and contentment at the point of the bayonet, and then they will no doubt profess to be happy. Many of us have travelled through Italy and are well acquainted with the condition of things in the Papal States. It is well known that, for a period of forty years and more, there have been two governments in the States of the Church. One, the open, mild, paternal government of the Holy See. This was on the surface of the soil. The other was a subterranean government, organized and supported by arch-conspirators. Its decrees were never published, but its secret enactments were carried into execution, ever and anon, by the prompt use of deadly weapons. Thus, as we are con- vinced, the free sentiment of the people in the States of the Church has been, by the necessity of the case, stifled and repressed. Those PIUS ix. 43 who loved the government of the Holy Father did not dare to say so openly. That would have compromised their temporal interest, perhaps their lives ; and thus there is no country in the world in which the sincerity of political sentiment, whatever it may be, has been so artistically concealed as by the people of the Roman States. Are they in favor of the Carbonari ? As a people they have not said so. Are they in favor of the more recent conspirators ? They have not, as a people, so declared themselves. Are they in favor of the Pontifical government as a people, or taking them one by one ? The answer to this question might be a shrug of the shoulders. They are afraid of the subterranean cabinet, and the terrible edicts which it has the means to execute in secrecy and in blood. We do not admit, therefore, the plea which is put forward as a pretext for depriving our Holy Father of the temporal government of his States. Or, if we do admit it, we trace its existence to the agency, in part, of the very powers who now make it a plea for the rapine which, from the outset, it was in their mind to perpetrate. Take away the fear inspired by the subterranean government, which has so long kept Italy in a state of fermentation, and the peo- ple of the Romagna will be perfectly contented under the mild government of the Sovereign Pontiff. As to the question of what is called political expediency in the present programme, it implies neither more nor less than physical tbrce or diplomatic sophistry, to be employed against the Holy Father. It is said that if Louis Kapoleon should withdraw his troops from Rome, neither the government nor the life of the Holy Father would be safe. This may be true, but we are sorry that such lan- guage was ever employed. It implies that the Pope is already in bondage it implies an insult to all Catholics. It is a menace, as well as an indignity. We do not look to the Emperor of France, or the Emperor of Austria, or any Prince, for the safety of God's Church, and its supreme head on earth. These her divine Founder will protect and sustain by the infinite resom'ces of His ever-watchful providence. And if princes are weary of the glorious privilege which God has conferred on them, of protecting the Sovereign Pon- tiff, let them abdicate any such pretensions. Let them not, how- ever, spring upon Catholic Christendom, without notice, a policy so cruel, so unjust as that which they seem to meditate. Let them make known to Christendom that they have ceased to protect the head of the Church ; let them allow ten years for the Catholic peoples to provide the means of sustaining and defending the Holy Father in all his rights, and it will be strange indeed if the subjects shall not, during that period, be in a condition to carry on a duty which the sovereigns have neglected or betrayed. We and our people have watched the astonishing success with which the present Emperor of the French has governed the mighty nation at the head of which Providence has placed him. He has had, and still has, our best wishes j but if he should touch the States AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. of the Church, his act will be the bad end of a good beginning. He need not go outside of his family archives for lessons on this subject. His great uncle, in his matchless human wisdom, once arranged the affairs of Italy. There was even a King of Rome but he never reigned. The unnecessary quarrel which that same victorious emperor fixed upon the Sovereign Pontiff, was the beginning of his end, with the melancholy circumstances of which memory and history have made us all familiar. From the moment of this unhappy quarrel, the protection of God and the sympathies of men seemed to ebb simulta- neously from that astounding genius, until at last he was caught as an eagle ; his pinions were crushed and broken, and even then, the dread of his mighty intellect was such that he was confined on a desolate rock of the ocean, where he closed his earthly career. The policy shadowed forth in the document to which we have referred, is said in the newspapers to be in entire accordance with the views of the British Cabinet. It appears that the Ministers of England acknowledge the legitimacy of revolution, partly because it is the origin of their present national condition, and the source of their individual authority and importance in carrying on the gov- ernment. They quote not only their own case, but the case of other nations on the Continent, which have become what they are, through the instrumentality of revolution ; and by way of appearing to be consistent with themselves, they proclaim the right of revolu- tion, or rather as it might be called, from their present application of the principle, the right of insurrection, even though brought about and fomented chiefly by influences from without. Coming from the British Cabinet, this is a novel, and, beyond all question, a dan- gerous doctrine. It points out a key in the organism of govern- ments which, if touched with the slightest pressure of the Pope's little finger, would convulse provinces, kingdoms, and empires. That the Holy Father, however, should touch that key-note is not to be thought of for a moment. For it must be observed that all countries which have passed to their present form of government by the way of revolution, our own free Republic included, are anxious that the last revolution should be the finality of insurrection within their borders, and they are always most prompt to repress any at- tempt to repeat the experiment. Hence, every established govern- ment must regard the principle enunciated by the present British Cabinet as a mischievous and scandalous one. Establish this princi- ple, and the very ends of government would be defeated a stable government would be no longer possible. Of course, however, they do not intend that it should apply to any portion of the British Empire. Indeed, one might ask, can this be the same Great Britain which spent millions of money, and sacrificed thousands of lives, to crush the practical application of this principle, when these United States, then only British colonies, attempted to put in practice the doctrine now proclaimed by the official authority of British rulers? Is this the same Great Britain that sacrificed men's lives and mil- PITS ix. 45 lions of their property to crush out the results of the French Revo- lution, and which, at the bayonet's point, imposed upon the French people, then maddened and misled like the people of the Romagna, a dynasty which they had rejected ? Is this the same Great Britain that made the Irish patriots of '98 familiar with the triangle of tor- ture and the scaffold of death, for no crime except that of attempt- ing to put into practice the principles which it now promulgates ? Is this the same Great Britain which crushed the Canadian people in the year 1838, for their attempts to carry out what is now con- sidered to be a legitimate principle of human government ? Is this the same Great Britain which authorized the tying at the cannon's mouth of patriots and of princes in Hindoostan, to be shot in frag- ments through the air, because they had attempted in the name of their own country to have a government compatible with their own will, and in strict conformity with the rules which Downing-street now proclaims as legitimate, or at least applicable to the relations between his Holiness the Pope and his revolting Subjects in the Ro- magna ? But even later, it is but yesterday, so to speak, that the people of the Ionian Islands claimed in the most respectful manner the privilege of annexing themselves to the government of Greece, and this identical government refused it. Still, inconsistent or hypo- critical as they must be, they declare, forsooth, that rebellion and revolution are to be encouraged in the States of the Church. The race of public men of former times, great for evil as they might have been for good, seems to have passed away and given place to a generation who have inherited their policy without hav- ing inherited their candor. Having touched on this part of the subject, it is impossible for us to forget what has happened to France, the brave and unconquer- able France w r hat has happened to the crushed and bleeding Po- land what has happened- to the long-persecuted and still suffering Ireland. And if temporal governments have had in regard to these and other nations their own way, they should understand that their success has resulted more from Catholic conscience than from cow- ardice of any kind. But let England pause. She is by no means omnipotent. Let her not overtax her real power by the ambiguity or duplicity of annunciations to the world authorizing principles which, it' applied, might lead to the overthrow of her own. greatness. If Catholics every where submit reverentially to the civil government under which they live, if they do this under the dominion of Turkey, of Russia, of England, of France, indeed of any country, it is to be accounted for, in the first place, because government must exist, because a change of dynasty does not necessarily imply an improve- ment in civil administration, but, above all, because God has given us a rule of' conduct, in the exercise of which conscience sometimes forbids what courage might inspire. How, then, can the British Cabinet legitimatize rebellion, and proclaim it in the ears of the people of the Romagna ? But it is said, as already intimated, that the people are discon- 46 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. tented with their government, and that if the Pope wishes to con- tinue their sovereign, it will be necessary to make many reforms in the civil administration of his States. And this doctrine is preached by princes and politicians who, in their o-wn countries, govern, to a great extent, not so much by reforms as by standing armies. Who is there on the earth that can have the effrontery to call on Pius IX. to make reforms? Of all princes in modern times, he went forth first and farthest, almost immediately after his election, in the way of granting reforms to his people. We know much of his great and generous heart ; and if reforms are necessary, we are sure that they will be granted. But let there be no dictation on the subject by any sovereign or statesman on the earth. It is unnecessary, and it would be insulting. It would imply that the Sovereign Pontiff is already in bondage. Above all other things, moral and political freedom are necessary to the exercise of his functions. Whatever may happen in the mysterious providence of God in connection with this complicated question, we shall submit to. But let no external coercion be used to force the will of the Holy Father. As a guaranty of the independence necessary to the Holy Father, it is true we have declarations of Catholic loyalty from more than one of those who are now undermining his throne. Promises indi- cate intentions only, and are by no means equivalent to the power of fulfilling them. Still we know that when the princes that now live shall have been removed nay, perhaps swept out, even as a housemaid would brush away the cobwebs from the corner of a chamber the Pope will still live, and he will live hard by the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Eternal City. The principles, dear brethren, in regard to the Pope's temporal rule, which we have endeavored to recall to your minds in this our pastoral letter, are no novelties. They are supported by such strong, convincing authority, that they may be regarded as axioms. The Catholic princes and people of Europe have often heard them from the lips of divines and statesmen, men of the acutest intellects, who had fully considered all the bearings of the subject. The Holy Father, when he retired from Rome, or in his retreat to Gaeta, used the following words: " Among- the motives which incline me to take this step, the most important one is, to have full liberty in the exercise of the supreme power of the Holy See, which, under the present circumstances, the Catholic world might naturally conclude was no longer free in our hands." Napoleon the First uses this language : " That institution which maintains the unity of faith, in other words the Papacy, the guardian of Catholic unity, is an admirable institution. It is said, by way of reproach, that the Pope is a foreign power. It is true ; and let us thank heaven that it is so. The Pope does not live in Paris, and it is well ; nor in Madrid, nor Vienna, and for that reason we support his spiritual author- ity. At Vienna or Madrid they would say the same. Do you imagine that if he were at Paris the Austrians or Spaniards would submit to his decrees ? It rius ix. 47 is very fortunate, therefore, that he does not live out of his own country, nor among rival nations, but in old Rome, far from the Emperors of Austria, far from the Kings of France or Spain, holding the balance between Catholic sov- ereigns, leaning a little towards the strongest, but rising against him if he should become an oppressor. Centuries have been spent in making the Papacy Avhat it is, and they have been well spent. For the government of souls it^is the best, the most beneficent institution that could be devised. And this belief is not the result of devotion, but of reason/' Bossuet uses the following language in regard to this subject : " We know that the Roman Pontiffs possessed, by right as valid as any earthly power, lands, prerogatives, and sovereignty. We know still more, that these possessions, inasmuch as they were dedicated to God, are sacred, and. they can- not be invaded without sacrilege. The Apostolic See possesses the sovereignty of Rome and the Pontifical States, in order that it may exercise its spiritual power over all the world more freely in security and in peace. We congratu- late not only the Apostolic See but the universal Church on this ; and we wish, with all the ardor of our soul, that this sacred Pontificate remain forever intact." Bossuet again says : " God, who would that this Church, the common mother of all kingdoms, should in course of time be independent of every temporal power, and that the See with which all the faithful were to be in communion should at last be placed above the partialities caused by conflicting interests and national jeal- ousies, according to the foundation laid by Pepin and Charlemagne. By a happy continuance of their liberality, the Church, independent in her chief of all earthly authorities, was in a condition to exercise more freely for the com- mon good, and under the common protection of Christian kings, its celestial power of governing souls and holding in its- hand the balance ; even in the midst of empires frequently at enmity with each other, it preserves unity throughout the Christian body, sometimes by inflexible decrees and sometimes by wise regulations." Dearly beloved, it is our duty to urge these truths upon your attention at a time \vhen the father of lies is unusually active in spreading his falsehoods and his misrepresentations; when men of sin, angels of darkness, exhibit themselves as angels of light, talk of virtue which they never practised, and of liberty, which on their lips means but licentiousness, or the liberty to despoil and oppress. It is also our duty to urge you to pray for the visible head of God's Church. It is our duty to pray with you for him. The chalice of bitterness which is pressed to the lips of Pius IX. may not pass away in consequence of even our prayers, for God has His own method of protecting the Church and governing the world. But, at all events, it may bring some consolation to the heart of our revered Most Holy Father to know that even his distant children on these shores sympathize with him in his present afflictions. We know, indeed, that He who has said, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (St. Matthew, xvi. 18), will ever be with that holy Church " all days, even to the consummation of the world." (St. Matthew, xxviii. 10.) Let us, then, not fear whilst the storm rages round the bark of Peter. The Lord will awake, in His own good time, and command " a great calm." (St. Matthew, viii. 48 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. 26.) Still, we should pray, but, in particular, so live as to make our prayers acceptable to God. In St. Peter's own words, we conclude by saying to you, as we invoke every blessing upon you, " Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning heat which is to try you, as if some new thing happened to you. But if you partake of the suf- fering of Christ, rejoice that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed ; for that which is of the honor, glory, and power of God, and that which is His spirit, resteth upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a railer, or a coveter of other men's things. But if as a Chuistian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name." (1 Peter, iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.) "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you, and confirm you,, and establish you. To him be glory and empire forever and ever. Amen." (1 Peter, v. 10, 11.) Given at New- York this 19th day of January, the year of our Lord 1800. .f JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New-York, State of New- York. .{. JOHN McCLOSKEY, Bishop of Albany, State of New- York. .J, JOHN BERNARD FITZPATRICK, Bishop of Boston, State of Massachusetts. .f JOHN TIMON, Bishop of Buffalo, State of New-York, .f. JOHN LOUGHL1N, Bishop of Brooklyn, State of New-York. + JAMES ROOSEVELT BAYLEY, Bishop of Newark, State of New Jersey. J LOUIS DE GOESBRIAND, Bishop of Burlington, State of Vermont. .f DAVID WILLIAM BACON (Per Procuratorem), Bishop of Portland, State of Maine, f. FRANCIS PATRICK McFARLAND, Bishop of Hart- ford, State of Connecticut. AN ANSWER TO THOSE WHO WOULD DESPOIL THE POPE OF HIS TEMPORAL POWER. [The following letter, which appeared in the Conner and Enquirer in answer to that paper's criticism on the Pastoral Letter, is from the pen of Archbishop Hughes.] To the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer : SIR : It appears to me perfectly natural and reasonable that the Catholic prelates and people of this, and all other countries, should PIUS ix. 49 give public manifestation of their sentiments and convictions, in re- gard to the assaults now made on the rights of the visible head of their church. They do not expect persons of other denominations to unite with them in any such testimonials. But, as for themselves, they exercise a right which is common to all, when they give free and respectful utterance to their sentiments regarding a question which affects every member of the Catholic Church throughout the world. The Emperor Xapoleon has no more right to take from the Sov- ereign Pontiff, a single province from the States of the Church, than he would have to take Trinity Church. and all its property from the religious corporation that now holds it, by what is considered a just title. It is true that Trinity Church, as a temporal power, is no part of the Episcopal religion. It does not appear as a matter of belief in the thirty-nine articles, or in the Book of Common Prayer. It stands or falls by the validity or invalidity of its own title. In such a contest it is to be hoped that no Catholic would range him- self on the side of iniquitous invasion. But it would not be con- sidered extravagant or out of place for the Episcopalians of Virginia, South Carolina, or even England, to raise their voice in opposition to such a proceeding of force against equity. It is said that the Pope is at once a spiritual and temporal sover- eign ; and that this is an anomaly. But does not the Queen of England, within the whole range of her dominions on which it is said the sun never sets exercise the same civil authority which the Pope exercises over his subjects in the States of the Church ? And does she not in like manner exercise supreme spiritual authority be the same more or less over all the subjects of her empire ? She is a Protestant ; and if in the excercise of this double authority there is an anomaly, why is it that the Protestants of England and America do not commence by regulating the headship of this anom- alous power ? Is not the temporal sovereign of Prussia the recog- nized spiritual head of religion in his States ? What Protestant has found fault with this ? Is there a single king or prince in Europe who has broken away from the unity of the Catholic religion, who is not at the same time the temporal ruler and spiritual head of the Church, by whatever name it may be called, in his own dominions ? Is not the Czar of Russia the head of the Church in his States? And how is it that Protestants are blind to these anomalies, which have reference to their own condition, and so sensitive as to the Pope's being at the same time the temporal sovereign of his owu, States, and the supreme head of the Catholic Church throughout th& world ? The Catholics in the United States are loyal citizens. They do. not pretend to speak in the name of this nation when they express, their sympathy with the Sovereign Pontiff. They speak in their own name as men claiming to exercise the rights both of civil and. religious freedom. In the struggle of Greece, nothing was more popular than meetings and contributions in aid of the people of that. VOL. II 4 50 ARCHBISHOP HUGHKS. classic land ; and yet there was no complaint that they spoke in the name of the nation. It is but the other day that we read an ac- count of a vessel from this port touching at Cork, in Ireland, a part of whose cargo consisted of 23,000 muskets, supposed to be for the use of Garabaldi and his associates. This was not done in the name of the nation neither has any journal put that construction upon the act. But let us suppose that the Catholics of the United States, merely as a speculation, were to furnish 23,000 muskets to the Sovereign Pontiff, what would the journals say ? And yet the right to for- ward such a cargo ought to be as free to one class of citizens as to another. There are two kinds of tyrannies in the .world. The one is un- disguised it is open, out-spoken tyranny. Its theory and its prac- tice are adjusted into despotic harmony. We may hate we may abhor it but so far, we can hardly help respecting the consistency at least, of its theory with its practice. The other species of ty- ranny is directly the reverse. It is freedom in theory ; despotism in practice. It deludes the minds of men, especially at a distance, by its professions of liberalism and respect for the people. Where it passes, it requires the people to hurrah for liberty, whilst they feel that under this name, a bondage, crippling their thoughts, their speech, and their very souls is pressing them down to the earth. Will any one say that the French people are free this day ? There is, indeed, a one-sided freedom in that country, according to which, it is lawful to blaspheme God, to employ falsehood against religion, to deceive, if possible, the honest intentions of the subject millions, to villify the Vicar of Christ, to make plausible the pretence on which he is about to be plundered by a temporary ruler ; in short, a freedom to speak and write against everything, except the Consti- tion of the French empire, which, in other words, signifies merely the will of its Imperial ruler. But is there any freedom for truth for religion for the inde- pendent thinking of French minds, not less capable of judging be- tween right and wrong, than the Emperor himself? Is the Press free ? Is speech free ? Are the Bishops free ? Are the clergy free? Is there anything free, except the Constitution of the Empire, which, as I have said before, is neither more nor less, in practice, than the will of the Emperor ? If there is any such freedom, I would ask what is the meaning of those warnings to the Press, to the Prelates, to the Priests, and to the people of France? How can such things exist in a free country? And if the Emperor of the French has taken away from his own subjects the privileges of a free people, how can it be expected that he is going to establish freedom in a country over which neither by articles of peace nor by conquest of war he has acquired any just dominion? Ingenious and deceptive pamphlets, such as the " Pope and the Congress," are all very well, except that they are too low and too mean a pre paratory expedient, intended to conciliate the ideas of simple- PIUS ix. 51 minded Catholics with the predetermined assaults upon the spir- itual head of their Church. Every enlightened Catholic sees through the sophistry of such a document ; and its author, so far as Napoleon is concerned, becomes more and more despicable in uni- versal Catholic estimation, in view of its transparent hypocrisy and falsehood. When the uncle of the present Emperor of France first visited Italy, the States of the Church were not burdened with any national debt. The people were contented and happy. There were no sub- jects in Europe more devoted to the paternal rule of their sovereign than the people of the Papal States. Napoleon I., then General Buonaparte, at the truce of Milan, concluded between himself and Azara, in 1796, required the cession of the Legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and a part of the Romagna. He required further that the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius VI., should pay over to him, or the Direct- ory under whose orders he acted, the sum of fifteen millions cash, and all the master works in the painting and sculpture with which the Eternal City and its museums were decorated. The Treaty of Tolentino was concluded on the 19th of February, 1*797, between General Buonaparte, on the side of France, and Cardinal Mattel, on the part of the Holy See. Now, the demand of the French General having secured the paintings and sculptures of Rome, rose to the oppressive amount of thirty-one millions. Was there any justice in all this ? The people of the Roman States had not complained of misgovernment. But even after this, on one pretext or another, General Berthier, with his army, took possession of Rome itself, dragged Pius VI. (then 81 years of age) across the Alps, and left him to die at Valence, in France. This visit of the French cost the people of the Papal States, apart from the plunder of an unscru- pulous soldiery, and the ordinary expenses of Government, a sum not less than two hundred millions. This was the beginning of their poverty and of their debt. We may add that the first Emperor of France, in the plenitude of his absolute power, made a prisoner of Pius VII., and kept him as a captive at Fontainbleau. And it is true, also, that hard by the prison of the Pope, that same Napoleon was obliged to abdicate his temporal authority over the French em- pire, when the governments of Europe held their carnival in the capital of France, and dictated to the nation the kind of government under which, nolens volens, they were to live for the future. The present Emperor seems to be treading in the footsteps of his uncle. The Peace of Tolentino and the Treaty of Villafranca are marked by features of strong analogy. What is to come no one can foresee ; but it is not at all surprising that the members of the Catholic Church should feel alarmed at the bearing of the present Emperor's words and actions. At first, he exhibited himself a friend of that religion he professes, and of its supreme spiritual head. By this he gained the confidence of all the good Catholic men of France and of Europe. They were his dignified moral support. His troops were his support of mere physical reliance. The moral support is ebbing 52 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. away from him, and the time is not far distant when he will have to rely on his troops alone. France has had thirteen revolutions within the last seventy years ; and in the forty which yet remain of the present century, according to the ratio of revolutions in the past, there is time and space for half a dozen more. No friend of hu- manity can desire any such thing. But, at the same time, human nature is nearly the same under erery form of government, and every profession of religion. One thing is certain, that England is playing what the world would call a deep, wise game of domestic and foreign policy. To ovei throw the Pope is a purpose which is dear to the heart, not only of Exeter Hall, but of the great mass of the British people. If it were to be accomplished directly by their own government, it might be attended with a certain amount of odium and of inconvenience. About one-third of the subjects of Great Britain, especially in Europe, are Catholics. They owe no gratitude to their government, but from a principle of conscience they have preserved their loyalty. If England undertook to over- throw the Pope in his rightful possessions as a temporal prince, they would increase and intensify this secret feeling against the govern- ment. Under such circumstances, the Catholics of England and Ireland would have a double motive to hail the descent of Napoleon III. on their coasts. But the British Cabinet is too wise to commit such a blunder. An instrument of their policy, professing to be a Catholic, is a much more suitable agent in accomplishing the pur- pose which England has so much at heart. What mor-e illustrious instrument could they have selected than the present Emperor of the French ? In fact, we hear of nothing between these two powers at the present day except entente cordiales, and new treaties of peace, concord and commerce. The policy of England is patent. If Napoleon puts down the Pope, so much the better. He will have the malediction of Catholic Christendom, but, by way of compensation, the gratitude of Exeter Hall. If* he should stop short in his career, combustibles for his destruction may be still arranged among the Carbonari of Italy, and fabricated under the mechanical genius of English engineers and artisans. In this event, England, who looks upon his power with uneasiness, will breathe more freely. But under either, or any cir- cumstances, she has employed Louis Napoleon to fortify the coasts of Ireland without the expenditure of a single pound sterling from the British Treasury. The Irish people regarded him as a friend of religion. Recent events have taught them that he is not a friend, but an enemy. And, strange as it may sound, it is almost certain that if Napoleon were to make a landing on the coasts of Ireland, the Catholics of that country would meet and fight against him as they would against Antichrist. These are some of the reasons which a fair and impartial construc- tion of the feelings of free men, loyal to all their civil obligations, but at the same time deeply zealous for the lawful rights of the Church to which they belong, should take into consideration, in PIUS ix. 53 view of the recent pastoral letter issued by the bishops of this prov- ince. That letter is not unknown. It has been read in all the congregations of the ecclesiastical province of New- York. It has been sent to Europe. It is a testimony by which its authors made known their own convictions, and those of their people, on a solemn' question, not of politics, but of everlasting justice. A time may come when the Catholics of this country, impelled by a religious sense of duty, shall make voluntary contributions for the personal support of the supreme head of their Church upon earth. And in doing this, they will feel that they give no more reasonable offence to their fellow-citizens, or to the government under which they live, than if they contributed of their means for the support of foreign missionaries. The Holy Father has been, by the princes of the earth, misled, deceived, disappointed, betrayed, and now abandoned. He has made use of this expression, " that he would sooner beg from door to door than receive one dollar from the princes who have betrayed him." February, 1860. THE POPES AND THEIR TEMPORAL POWER IN THE STATES OF THE CHURCH. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BY THE MOST REV. ARCHIBISHOP OP NEW YORK, IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, JULY 1, 1860. I am about to address you to-day, dearly beloved brethren, on a subject and on topics which you have never heard from this place. It will not be precisely a sermon, nor will it be an appeal to your feelings or your passions. It will be a discourse historical, philoso- phical, ecclesiastical ; but in it you must not expect either eloquence of composition or oratory in delivery. It is to be a plain narrative, but in my opinion very important for Catholics to be acquainted with, when they are liable to have their minds perverted by repe- titions and mispresentations, originating either in design or in ignorance. We ought to understand something of the history of our religion, and the purpose of this discourse is to trace 'its con- nection rather, the Pope's connection with it from the beginning down to the present time, and especially that which is so odious in modern estimation, his connection with temporal things and tem- poral power. We know that the Church has always been in a struggle against the powers of the earth ; and although it is not my intention to dwell in detail upon any of these things for time will not permit still I lind the whole ground covered by the language which I have selected for my text. It is the commencement of the second Psalm of the Prophet David 54 ARCHIBISHOP HUGHES. " Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things. "The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together against the Lord and against His Christ. "Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us." It must have been during the latter portion of the rpign of Tibe- rius Nero Drusus, or in the beginning of the reign of Nero, that a traveller, dressed in Eastern costume, was seen approaching one of the entrances of the imperial city of Rome. He was weary and wayworn. The dust of 'travel had incrusted itself on the perspira- tion of his brow. He bore in his hand a staff, but not a crosier. His contenance was pale, but striking and energetic in its expres- sion. Partially bald, what remained of his hair was gray, crisp, and curly. Who was he ? No one cared to inquire, for he was only one of those approaching the gates of Rome, within the walls of which, we are told, the population numbered from three to four millions of souls. But who was this pilgrim ? He was a man who carried a message from God and his Christ, and who had been impelled to deliver that message in the very heart and centre of Roman corruption and of Roman civilization, such as it was. His name at that time was Peter. His original name had been Simon, but the Son of God having called him and his elder brother, Andrew, from the fisherman's bark on the sea of Galilee, to be His apostles, changed the name of Simon and called him in the Syriac language, Cephas, which in Latin and English is translated Peter. In Syriac the word signifies a rock, and our Saviour, by changing his name, declared the mission for which he was especially selected. He .said to him, " Thou art Cephas, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." He vras an Apostle like his brother and the other ten. But he was more he was the Rock on which the Church was to be built he was the prince of the Apostolic College. And this was the man' who was approaching the gates of the city of Rome. Where he slept that night, whether on or under the porch of some princely palace, history has not informed us. But he soon began to proclaim the message which he had from God. To human view the attempt would appear to be desperate. Rome, at that period, was divided into two principal classes masters and slaves both of the same color, and, in many instances, both of the same country. The higher class of those who were not slaves were, at that time, gorged to repletion with the wealth and the plunder which the triumphant armies of Rome had brought to the imperial Capitol from the con- quered tribes and nations of the then known world. These con- quered nations, after having been plundered, as we might say, once for all, were still retained as perpetual tributaries to the exchequer of the Cresar and of their satellites. The superstitions and idolatries of those nations were all inaugurated in the pagan temples of the Im- perial City. Their corruption of morals was also introduced, spread- ing from freemen to slaves, although such was the state of local PIUS ix. 55 morals that no imported corruption could add much to the uni- versal depravity. Such was Rome when this eastern stranger entered its iu closures. He preached the Word of Christ, and his preaching, even in that polluted atmosphere, brought forth many souls to acknowledge and adore the Crucified. He was subsequently joined by St. Paul, and both labored with a common zeal to propagate the doctrine of sal- vation. They had already made such an impression that the tyrant Nero had them arrested and condemned to death. Peter was crucified it is generally supposed on the very spot on which St. Peter's Church now stands. The cross was the instrument of punishment for the man of Hebrew origin. But Paul of Tarsus, having been born a Roman citizen, was entitled to a less igno- minious death, and accordingly he was beheaded, at a place called the Three Fountains, some distance from Rome. Nero made the distinction, which is now so popular, between what is called tem- poral and spiritual. The body was temporal; and Nero did not pretend to go further than its destruction. Peter had a successor to inherit the prerogatives of his supremacy, and carry on the work of Christ which he had commenced. Time went on. During three hundred years, most of Peter's successors were called upon to give up their lives to Nero, and those who suc- ceeded him, for the cause of Christ. Finally, the progress of Chris- tianity had become so great and striking that it invaded the army, the Imperial Guards, the Senate, andi even the household of the Emperor himself, until at length Constantine the Great repudiated paganism and embraced the salvation of the cross v which he adopted as a symbol of his dignity and power. This was in the early part of the fourth century. From that period the Church began to breathe with more freedom. In the subsequent times, and especially during the gradual crumbling and final overthrow of the Roman Empires, the Popes had unspeakable difficulties to encounter. Still they continued in the work studying by all means to propagate the name of Christ by sending holy bishops and priests to labor for the conversion of idolaters and barbarous nations throughout Europe. Time still went on ; and we see them in the middle ages almost the only men of great minds studying now not only the spiritual interests of the people, but also devising in their wisdom those principles of civil, ecclesiastical and canonical law, which lie at the basis of all civilized nations. In this they had to encounter many obstacles. They had some- times to come in contact with powerful tyrants. But while they rebuked the tyrant, they never attempted to deny or destroy the supreme power of the State which he had abused by perjury, op- pression, violation of his duties, and villanies of many kinds. Emerging from the middle ages, we find ourselves in those which are characterized as the renascent period of art, science, and liter- ature. Then comes the epoch of what has been called the Reform- ation. It was mainly aimed against the spiritual doctrines which 56 AECIIBISHOP HUGHES. had been taught and established throughout Europe by the Popes and their colleagues from the days of St. Peter. From the Reforma- tion to the present time the trials to which the Sovereign Pontiffs have been exposed, though different in form, are substantially the same as those which their predecessors had to bear until that period. Still it must be said in justice that the adherents to the Reformation, while they discussed theological questions with great ability, but with little success, have abstained from every attempt at despoiling the Holy Father of the limited temporal possessions which constitute the States of the Church. The next startling epoch in the history of Christianity is the French Revolution of 1*789 and its consequences. The events that have transpired since that terrific explosion of human passions, of infidelity, even of atheism itself, mark a period coming down to our own days, which can not be overlooked or allowed to pass in silence. In a discourse like the present it will be impossible to divide the topics into distinct and separate heads. The succession of the Popes, from St. Peter down, must be our thread of guidance through the labyrinths of history. St. Peter was chosen and appointed by our Divine Saviour to be not only an apostle like the others, but he was invested with special, distinct, and supreme prerogatives, which were not extended to any one of the others, nor to all of them united. On him the Church was to be built. After his conversion it was his privilege and duty to confirm his brethren. When Satan desired them all, the Lord prayed for him in an especial manner, that his faith might not fail. All these divine prerogatives de- scended to his successors, and riot to the successor of any other apostle. Hence, link by link, we can trace up the chain of Papal succession and supremacy, from Pius IX. to St. Peter, and from St. Peter to a higher source still, the Savionr of the world. If, in the progress of ages, the Popes acquired temporal dominion over a small portion of Italy, surrounding what remained of imperial Rome, after the Caesars had forsaken it and established themselves on the banks of the Bosphorus, it must have been in the designs of God, that during the turbulent period of the middle ages, and even in modern times, the supreme pastor of His Church should be inde- pendent of human authority and free to exercise the functions of his office without let or hindrance. The tempoi'al sovereignty of the Popes is a sequel and consequence of their spiritual supremacy. We are told that Christ's kingdom is not o/"this world ; but we know that His kingdom is in this world that it will last as long as the world itself and that its boundaries are the ends of the earth. There are some who affect not to under- stand why the temporal and spiritual authority should be united in the same person. And this objection they apply specially to the supreme pastor of the Catholic Church. They forget that every independent sovereign of Europe who has detached himself from the communion of the Church has set up a national imitation of Christ's kingdom within his own dominions, not by annexing tern- nus ix. 57 poral power to spiritual headship, but by assuming spiritual author- ity and annexing it to temporal power. The incongruity is as great in all these would-be Popes in their own States as it is in the Sovereign Pontiff. These little kingdoms of Christ, so called, in their spiritual headships are of this world, usurpations which laymen and lay women have arrogated to them- selves. The authority given to St. Peter and his successors is not of this world. It came from God through His incarnate Son. It was not, therefore, a usurpation. The usurpations by the Popes, if any, would be in annexing to their spiritual supremacy temporal rights. But even in this regard, there was no such thing as usurpation on their part. The question then comes up, how and why the successors of St. Peter acquired wealth and temporal power ? The answer is plain and obvious. We read that on the first and second occasions of St. Peter's preaching in Jerusalem, 8,000 souls were converted to Christ. This was the nucleus of that great living and united society which is now spread over the world. In Jerusalem the disciples were subjected to bitter persecution. Many of them were poor, and after this step they were abandoned and cast out by their for- mer friends. Here, then, was a case for the brethren to show whether they loved one another. The inspired writer tells us that there was not any one among them that wanted, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the pi'ice of the things they sold, and laid it down before the feet of the Apostles ; and distribution was made to every man according as he had need. Here is the origin of the wealth of the Church ; and, in connection with this, that same Peter, whom we have seen entering Rome soli- tary and penniless, struck Ananias, and Sapphira, his wife, dead, because they offered only a portion of the price of their field, as- serting that it was the whole amount, while they retained secretly a part to themselves. They lied, as the apostle says, not to men, but to God. The Ordination of the Seven Deacons took its rise from the necessity of the daily administration of these funds. There was a murmuring against the Hebrews on the part of the Grecians that is, Jews, who had been brought up in Greece and the Dea- cons were appointed to distribute these funds impartially among them all. Thus we see that the Apostles, before they separated, were, by the circumstances of the case, obliged to be custodians and distri- butors of money. During the life of St. Peter in Rome similar things took place. St. Paul tells us that he went to Jerusalem to minister to the saints that is, to carry the funds contributed by the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia to be distributed among the poor saints who were in Jerusalem. The Christians of Antioch, where St. Peter first established his See, made large collections for their poor brethren scattered through Judea ; and Paul and Barna- bas were the purse-bearers of this money. As the Word of God began to take root under the preaching of 58 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Peter and Paul in the Eternal City, the same practice was taken up by the fervent converts who, at the risk of life, embraced the Christian doctrine. The first Apostle and his successors some- times in prison, sometimes concealed in the houses of their neo- phytes, sometimes in the Catacombs were, notwithstanding all this, the recipients of sums of money, of which it would be impos- sible to form any just estimation. The persecution of the Church under pagan Rome lasted three hundred years. But it was not al- ways in full operation. It was not every day that the Roman peo- ple, from their seats in the Coliseum, could feast their eyes, and gratify the ferocity of their nature, by witnessing the banquets which the Christian martyrs furnished to the lions and tigers let loose upon them in the arena. There were occasional periods marked by the lull of the tempest, as well as others which displayed its force and its fury. But outside of Rome, and through the pro- vinces, the poor Christians were condemned to the mines, or con- fined to prisons, or mutilated in their persons. The Christian so- ciety could not lose sight of them, or their wants or sufferings, and no mattter where the Pope, for the time, might be in concealment, there were means to find access to him. The wealthy converts of the city itself were numerous. They were the saints and the mar- tyrs. After they had found the precious jewel of Divine Faith, the brilliancy of wealth became dim in their estimation, except as it might be employed for the relief of their brethren. Hence the no- ble ladies of Rome, whose possessions, in many instances, were im- mense ; the high and dignified Senators ; brave commanders, who had acquired wealth in their military expeditions, vied with each other in making their offerings to the Pope, with a view, that under his direction, they should be employed for the relief of the suffering brethren. Nor was it only in offering money, but also in conveying landed property to the Sovereign Pontiff, that, even before the con- version of Constantine, ihe Roman Church owned valuable estates in Europe, Asia, and Africa. But other species of property were confided for sacred purposes to the Roman Church money, jewels, no longer needed by the new converts, precious vessels of gold and silver, were conveyed to the care of the Sovereign Pontiff and those around him. Under the Emperor Valerian, Pope Sixtus II. was crucified. His deacon, St. Lawrence, who apparently had charge of these treasures, was ar- rested, and, in the name of the Emperor, the Prefect of Rome de- manded of him the treasures of the Church which had been com- mitted to his keeping. Having obtained a delay of a few days previous to his execution, he took advantage of it to collect the poor, who probably had been sustained or supported from these sources, and presenting them to the Imperial Prefect, he said, " These are the treasures of the Church." He was condemned and roasted to death on a gridiron. This increase of charitable donations to the Roman Church continued until the conversion of Constantine. Then it became publicly lawful to enrich the Church to build and PIUS ix. 59 adorn new temples to the honor of God. In the mean time, the emperor, after having overcome his competitors in battle, resolved to build the city of Constantinople, and establish there the seat of empire, which had hitherto been at Rome. From that period un- til the advent of Charlemagne, there was no little confusion in the mode of administering temporal authority within the States that have since been called the Patrimony of St. Peter. The interval was nearly five hundred years. At first the emperor had his rep- resentatives at Italy ; bnt they were inefficient and insincere. They could not protect the people of Italy against the successive incur- sions of the Herules, Goths, and Lombards. The people were a de- fenceless prey to the avarice and cruelty of these barbarous ma- rauders. Again and again we find the Popes writing to the emperor, and beseeching him to send troops for the protection of the Italian States. But it was in vain. The eastern portion of the empire was itself threatened from the same sources; and it was dis- covered that the emperor had made secret treaties with the chiefs of the invaders, to the effect that if they spared the eastern portion their progress in the west should not be interfered with by the presence of the imperial troops. In the mean time, the people of Central Italy threw themselves upon the Sovereign Pontiff for that protection which they could not longer expect from any other source. The Popes left nothing undone to correspond with their wishes ; in famine, in pestilence, amid the desolations of carnage, the Pope was, if not their protector, at least their father and their comforter. He sympathized with them ; his heart bled with theirs in the contemplation of the ruins which surrounded them all alike. The Pope became de facto, if not de jure, temporal sovereign of that portion of Italy which had been abandoned by the Eastern emperor, and which now constitutes the States of the Church. Only one year before inviting Pepin of France into Italy, the Pope, Stephen the Second, wrote to the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, en- treating him to come to the aid of Italy. His appeal being unheeded, he wrote the next year inviting the king of France to come to the aid of the Church. But so well were the temporal rights of the Pope recognized, that Pepin first sent ambassadors to Astolphus, king of the Lombards, entreating him to make restitution of the territory of the holy Church of God. The Pope also wrote to him in the same spirit. Deaf to these entreaties, he still persevered in his encroachments upon the Papal territory. Pepin came, at the head of his army, chastised the barbarian, made him restore the territory which he had' usurped, and bound him by treaty not to in- vade it again. This treaty, however, was not observed, and it be- came necessary for Pepin's son, Charlemagne, to make war on the Lombards, and wrest from them, once for all, the property of the Church, which he gave to the Popes as the patrimony of the holy Apostles and of the Roman Church. He confirmed him also in the temporal sovereignty, which he had exercised already for many 60 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. years. The boundaries of the Papal States have remained ever since with scarcely any permanent extension or diminution of terri- tory. The Emperor Copronymus sent ambassadors to the French conqueror, claiming the territory from which the Lombards had been driven ; but, as may be supposed, the petition was refused with contempt and disdain. The emperor had allowed the barbarians to invade the States of the Church, which he should have protected, and then, when these barbarians had been driven out by French chivalry under the command of their sovereign, it was too late to make the petition. Pepin and Charlemagne w-ere at liberty to dis- pose of it as they thought proper ; and they gave it to the See of St. Peter. Such is a brief narrative of the circumstances under which the Pope of Rome became a temporal ruler. He never dispossessed any soveregin he never violated an obligation for the purpose of obtaining this temporal dominion he imprisoned no competitor, for there was none he never put a rival aspirant to death. And now, let any one acquainted with history examine the title deeds of the several reigning dynasties in Europe, and he will find that sover- eignty was acquired in many, if not most instances, by the founder of each royal house, through them^ans of falsehood, perjury, usur- pation, and oftentimes the violent setting aside of those who had a better claim to the sceptre and the crown. % There are dark blotches on the parchment which records their acquisition of sovereignty, and, if submitted to chemical tests, by experts in chemistry, it would be found that these are human blood spots. Not one of these dynasties, however, goes so far back into antiquity as that of the Pope ; but his title, whatever else may be said of it, is as pure and stainless as the ermine which borders his mozetta. We must now pass over a long period, with scarcely a reference to the Sovereign Pontiffs who succeeded Stephen II. They lived through many centuries of violence and trouble, both in Italy and the other States of Christendom. The invaders from the Xorth were slow to adopt the principles of civilization and of law, which are essential to the existence of a State. The seeds of public law and of private civil life were few, and only in the process of germin- ation. The Popes left nothing undone to encourage, through the influence of religion, milder and more humane sentiments among these new occupants of the fallen empire. Their efforts were not altogether unsuccessful, but it was a slow and unpromising labor on their part. Between the period of Charlemagne and the 16th cen- tury very great progress had been made towards the recognition of order, respect for, and obedience to, public laws. We shall not dwell on the successors of St. Peter who governed the Church dur- ing these centuries of turbulence, ignorance, and disorder. They were great and good men for the most part. There were few sov- ereigns who could rise to an equality of merit with even those Pon- tiffs who are the least praised and the least revered. PIUS ix. 61 Among them, however, there were a few who, by the force and magnitude of their personal character, towered above the rest, and attracted the eye of contemporary and subsequent history. Among these may be mentioned Gregory VII., whose name, as Hildebrand, used to be employed as a sound to frighten children at different pe- riods of human life, from infancy to old age. He has been vindica- ted, not by Catholics, but by learned Protestant writers. The same may be said of Innocent III. I do not enter at all on the accusa- tions made against the Popes during this long interval, for their abuse of power, for their controversies with kings and emperors. I would only say, that in all those quarrels the Pope assailed not the royal power, but the desperate character of the man who had usurped or abused it. The causes generally were a violation of their oaths, the oppression of their subjects, their sacrilegious interference with the Church, their licentiousness of morals in connection with Christian marriage, their cruelty towards those from whose claims or whose influence they dreaded resistance to their unrestricted authority. The Pope, in the main, was on the side of the virtue which they trampled under foot. He was, in the main, on the side of the rights and privileges, and freedom, such as it was, of the people, oftentimes crushed to the earth by the iron hoof of would-be irresponsible power. It was well for humanity that there were Popes to stand by its rights and to keep tyrants reminded of their duties. But these things do not come into the plan or purpose of the present occasion. We pass over, then, these ages ; we shall leave the Reformation and its con- sequences entirely aside, and come down at once to the period of the first French Revolution. This is the only real out-and-out revo- lution with which history has made us acquainted. We have, in- deed, a kind of revolution in the life and death of Charles I. of Eng- land. But, then, it grew out of a usurpation of the acknowledged rights of the English people on the part of the Crown, and contrary to the provisions of law. This led to civil war, in which the monarch was defeated, and finally put to death. Again, in the time of James II., the dispute grew out of a similar cause. The king wished to introduce changes which the nation had taken precautions against, by public legislative enactments. In either case, if there was a rev- olution, it was commenced or brought on by the sovereign. In the case, of the American Revolution, it was not merely by the king of England alone, but with the concurrence of his parliament, that the contest was precipitated. The requirements of their measures would deprive the colonists of America of one of the dearest priv- ileges secured to British subjects, whether at home or abroad. They resisted, not the rightful prerogatives of the British crown and par- liament, but an unconstitutional attempt to degrade and oppress their transatlantic subjects. In this the king and parliament were rightfully resisted. The aid of Providence and their own right arms finally enabled the Americans to conquer. But, in the early part of the strife, all they desired was the repeal of the degrading 02 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and unconstitutional law which had been enacted against them. Nor was it until towards the middle of the struggle that their minds be- came familiar with the idea of independence and a separate govern- ment. The revolution in Belgium, in 1830, which drove out the king of Holland, grew out of his gradual invasion of the rights secured to the Belgians by the treaties which placed him at their head. The revolutions, so called, of 1848 were local insurrections, whether justifiable or not, by which small parties of men acquired State supremacy in a very large number of the capitals of Europe. The events proved that though they could overthrow or pull down established systems of government, they had not the genius, or the perseverance, or the union, or the patriotism necessary to erect others in their stead. But the French explosion in 1 789 was a revolution indeed. I do not say that there were not grievances in the State which there were no moral or political means left to correct or remove. The remedy may have been necessary, but it was one of desperation. It was not founded on principles of mere State renovation. The people had been prepared for it by the dis- semination of infidel writings. Its purpose was well known to be the overthrow of Christianity and of all established governments having a monarchical form. It proposed not only to overthrow tem- poral sovereigns, but it proposed also to dethrone God Himself, which, at a subsequent period, it actually did that is, by writing on parchment. It was not a political squall, or a tempest, or a hur- ricane on the surface it was accompanied by them all but itself was the upheaving of a volcano which poured forth, not only on France, but on large portions of continental Europe, the burning lava which desolated and destroyed whatever it came in contact with. On the domestic cruelties resulting from it, during the reign of terror in France, it is not necessary to speak. But in its results on other countries, especially Italy, it became the source of discontent, irreligion, poverty, and demoralization. Until that period, no sub- jects of any sovereign in Europe were more contented, more happy, more loyal to their sovereign, or less burdened with taxes of any description, than the subjects of the Pope. The Convention first, and then the Directory, sat in Paris, sending the armies of the Re- public in every direction, and issuing peremptory orders to their generals to execute the most unjust and tyrannical decrees against weaker States, which did not sympathize in their principles. Finally, and after but a few years, one man rose up among them. His genius and force of character compelled preferment from one military rank to another, until he became the master-spirit to bring about order, such as it was, out of the political chaos in which his country Avas involved. I do not speak of the means by which he rose to imperial and almost despotic power, or of the use which he made of it. The less said on these topics the better. But to all human appearance his success was a boon to the French people, though it may have been a curse to other nations. We find General Bonaparte in Northern Italy, and, after a severe struggle, victorious PICS ix. 63 over the Austrians. This was in the year 1796. The general received orders from the Directory in Paris to seize the States of the Church. Pius VI. hastened to avert this calamity he charged the Spanish ambassador, Azara, to treat with the conqueror of the Austrians. A truce was concluded in July of that year between Xapoleon and the Pope's representative. The penalty imposed on the Sovereign Pon- tiff was that he should transfer and relinquish his dominion over the two legations of Bologna and Ferrara, and a portion of the Romag- na that he should pay a sum of 15,000,000, and give up all the masterpieces of painting and of sculpture which adorned the capitol of the Christian world. The treaty of Tolentino, which followed the truce of Milan, was concluded on the 19th of February, 1797, between Bonaparte and Cardinal Mattei, the Pope's ambassador. This treaty filled Rome with misery, desolation, and disorder. The Pope, in order to pay its requirements, had to exhaust the treasury of Castle Angelo. He had to deprive himself of every precious and valuable object which he possessed, for the sum required now was thirty-one millions not including the seizure of territory and the works of art before referred to. The Roman nobility, after the example of the Pontiff, made the most noble sacrifices to meet this demand. They gave their gold and their plate, their horses and carriages, and whatever was not necessary for the most modest and humble mode of living. But, after all, the payments could not be made in specie. The govern- ment was obliged to have recourse, for the first time, to paper money ; but even this was insufficient ; while the Directory at Paris were urgent and clamorous for the whole amount that had been agreed upon. In this distress the people began to murmur revo- lutionary principles had made rapid and frightful progress among them, and every thing indicated the approach of unspeakable calam- ities. Not long after this, a commander named General Duphot was killed in Rome, by the side of Joseph Bonaparte, then ambas- sador of France. This assassination was enough to furnish a pretext for the French Directory to take possession of the Papal States, notwithstanding the sacrifices that had been made. General Ber- thier, at the head of his army, proceeded from the March of Ancona to encamp under the walls of Rome. He comm^pced by issuing proclamations encouraging the Roman people to rise against the Pope, and to throw themselves, without reserve, into the arms of the French Republic for safety and protection. He put the repub- lican seal on the museum, on the galleries of art, and on all the pre- cious objects which he wished to appropriate to himself. He estab- lished a Directory after the model of that of Paris. He appointed a commission to levy contributions and take cognizance of any effects which might belong to the government. The Pope was confined by sickness to the Vatican. This did not protect him from the most outrageous insults offered by the commissioners just referred to. They seized his pontifical ornaments, and the very rings from his fingers. His private library, consisting of 40,000 volumes, was 64 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. seized by them and sold to a stationer for a trifling sum. It was in those days of captivity that the churches were despoiled of their ornaments, that the insignia of papal authority were treated with every species of insult to the Pope. It was in those days that the French general coerced some of the cardinals to chant Te Deums in thanksgiving to God for the success of the sacrilegious invasion. The Pope in ill health, and at the age of 81 years, was seized in a violent manner, hurried from town to town, and finally across the Alps into France, where he died from the effects of ill health, fatigue, and, we may add, persecution, on the 29th of August, 1799. The cardinals had been obliged to quit Rome, and were dispersed in other portions of the peninsula. General Berthier, under the orders of the Directory in Paris, took possession of the police of foundations for relief of the indigent, of commerce, and the line arts. Amid the inconceivable privations of every kind, which were the necessary consequences of forced contributions, or of spoliations, the aggregate amount levied from the people of the Roman States is set down, on good authority, at two hundred millions. Whether this amount is counted in dollars (Roman scudi) or francs, does not appear in the text of my author. But, be that as it may, when we consider that such an amount was extorted from a population not numbering more at that period than t\vo millions when we consider that this population had no foreign commerce, no manufactures worth speaking of, no active internal trade, but were a mere agri- cultural population then we can easily understand the origin of subsequent poverty, discontent, and a spirit of revolt in the Papal States. This extortion by the French was accomplished within a period of five years, at the beginning of the present century. The Roman people have never recovered from it. It brought on their country the necessity of introducing paper money, and creating a national debt. The fluctuations of the one and the taxes necessary to meet interest on the other, have continued from year to year till the present time. But this was not the only ruinous visit of French troops to the Papal States. For another period of five years, the armies and officers of France took the country into their own hands. They sent the Pope, Pius VII., to be a French prisoner, for the same period, at JTontainebleau. Great changes were going on in the mean time. The emperor was for the most part at the head of his troops. He was on one of these expeditions when he ascertained that the Pope had excommunicated him, and his only observation was, " Does that old man think, because he has excommunicated me, the muskets are going to drop from the hands of my soldiers?" This haughty inquiry was subsequently answered in a manner which the emperor had not anticipated. He went forth for the conquest of Russia, at the head of the grandest army the world ever *;i\v. After the destruction of Moscow by fire, that army endeavored to reach their own country. But hundreds of thousands of them were overtaken by the rigors of winter in a northern climate, and not only the muskets dropped from their hands, but they also fell to PIUS ix. 65 rise no more. In the rapidity of the changes which then took place, it was not long before the Pope, Pius VII., was restored to the capitol of the Christian world, and the French emperor embarked for his destination in the island of St. Helena, where, for the re- mainder of his life, he was tortured by mean, low, and unworthy personal vexations at the hand of his British jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe. Pius VII. departed this life about the same period. He was suc- ceeded by Leo XII. After him Pius VIIL, and next Gregory XVI. There is not much in the lives of these Pontiffs to distinguish them from the ordinary class of their predecessors. Pius IX. succeeded Gregory XVI. in 1846. He was perhaps the most cherished of modern Popes in the affections of his people. From the beginning of his pontificate he anticipated their wishes in granting such re- forms in the administration, and even in the laws, as were consistent with the prosperity of the State, and the safety of the Government. In the troubles which ensued, desperate men from nearly every part of Italy assembled in the capitol, and stirred even the Romans to sympathize and co-operate in their nefarious designs. You know what the result has been. The evils inflicted on the people of the Roman States by the so-called Republican Government were begin- ning to be repaired, when this last outrage was inflicted upon the Holy Father. He has been robbed of a portion of 'those States which belong to the Church, and which, at his elevation, he was obliged, like his predecessors, to take a solemn oath to transmit to his successor, in their whole integrity, as they had been transmitted to him. It is said that the present emperor of the French is a fatal- ist in belief. He might have so imagined himself, until the day when the assassin Orsini placed in his hand a certain document, or whispered in his ears certain words which have not come to the knowledge of the public. Since then, at least, he has taken precau- tions of human wisdom which prove that he is no longer a fatalist. He has elaborated, in the deep secrecy of his own thoughts, his plans for giving another direction to the Orsinis, grenades, and stilettoes of Italian poets, when they become desperate under the influence of politics and imaginary patriotism, which they do not comprehend, except as Brutus did when stabbing Ca?sar. His campaign against Austria was brief and brilliant enough. If he had acted up to his public profession in regard to the protection of the States of the Church ; if he had fulfilled the promises of private, and, in some in- stances, autograph letters to the Holy Father, he would have acted in a manner more consistent with his professions of religion, and with the dignity and veracity from which neither a king nor an emperor should ever depart. The Holy Father has been deceived in these promises the Catholic world have been disappointed in the character of their author. They, at least, have no reason to con- fide in the spoken or the written declarations of the present empe- ror of the French, whenever it suits his private purposes to betray their interests, and to humiliate their Supreme Head. He did not VOL. II. 5 66 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. declare war against the States of the Churh ; neither did his ally of Sardinia. And yet, between them, with their connivance, if not their approval, the fairest portions of the Papal States have been se- cretly invaded, under the auspices of Piedmont, at least. Many of the inhabitants of these invaded provinces were corrupted, seduced, by prospects of emoluments or honors ; the tranquil and more or- derly portion of the population were brought under a reign of terror in which it would be dangerous for them to proclaim their fidelity to their legitimate sovereign, Pope Pius IX. I have now briefly gone through the whole of that immense subject which, in a circumscribed form, I had proposed to treat. I have shown you that from the day of Pentecost the Apostles began to be familiar with property and money intrusted to them for charitable and religious purposes. You have also seen how this same divine and beautiful sentiment was taken up and cherished by the converts of Rome and of the provinces, even while the Popes were concealed from public gaze, until at length, one by one, they were detected, arrested, led to torture and martyrdom. From the period when the Church became free under Constantine, this same sentiment of Christian charity and zeal for the honor of religion, and the dignity of its ministers, especially in Rome, took a wide and open range of liberality and beneficence. You have seen by what a just title the Popes, while they were bent only on the protection of the forsaken people of Italy, acquired, almost without their being conscious of it, all the substance of sovereign temporal power, which was after- wards confirmed and recognized first by the noble kings of France, and next by all the governments of Europe. If this is not a clear and indisputable right to that sovereignty, in a moral point of view, then there is no such thing as a right in the world. The Popes have done nothing to forfeit this original title. They have not in any way offended the Governments of France or Sardinia. No war power has declared war against Pius IX., and yet two or three of the fairest provinces of his States have been surreptitiously taken away from him, without any public sanction of human governments. But I charge that this has been done under the connivance, if not the direct approval, of the emperor of France and the Government of Turin. It is said that the subjects of the Pope in those provinces were dis- contented with their Government. This may be the fact with a few, but not with the masses of the people. But, besides, where is the population that is contented with its Government ? Certainly not that of Ireland ; certainly not that of England ; when the Chartists affrighted the city of London, and turned Louis Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington into the ranks of sworn constables to defend the city. Take away the imperial pressure that keeps down the thoughts, but still more the speech and writings of Frenchmen, and it will soon appear that entire contentment is with the few, while discontent, perhaps unreasonable in itself, will be the sentiment of the many. PIUS ix. 67 The Italians of the Roman States, crushed and impoverished by the extortions of the first and second invasion of the French army, may well be supposed as repining at the calamities brought upon them, and their consequences. If there is in the world a people more liable to the temptations of civil discontent, it would be difficult to find them. Hence the success of those who are now, and have been for sixty years, propagandists of insurrection and revolt. Their efforts have, for the moment, in the northern part of the Roman territory, been partially successful. But the end is not yet. I am quite aware that to reason on the subject, and especially with revo- lutionists and their sympathizers, is a useless undertaking. Reason with them is their own will. They may place bandits in the front ranks they have a strong conviction that in case of emergency there would be bristling bayonets in the rear to support them. Now, what is the use of directing the attention of such to the eternal principles of right, of honor, of justice, or of truth? Not the slightest use. But it is of importance to us to be acquainted with the facts, which will enable us to form a sound and discreet judgment on the merits of the whole case. For, after all, if their principles are to prevail in the world, then rights of sovereigns or of individuals are but as empty sounds. If their principles should spread among civilized nations, honor will become a vulgar and contemptible sentiment, unworthy of crowned heads as well as of mock patriots. The proper meaning of truth will be fiction, and justice among men will require to be defined a mockery and a snare. You are aware the Catholics of this diocese, clergy and laity, including men, women, and children, are invited to subscribe their names, in their several churches, to an address of sympathy which shall be forwarded to the Holy Father. No one who has not filial reverence for the head of the Church, and a Catholic zeal for her preservation, even in the temporal order, is required to sign this address. But it is expected that all who do sign it shall do so under the promptings of their own Christian and Catholic feelings ; and that in no instance shall any name be received unless accom- panied with a voluntary contribution, be the same more or less. I trust the diocese of New- York, if it cannot reach or surpass the ex- ample of other dioceses, whether in Europe or America, will, at all events, give sufficient evidence of its generous sympathies with Pope Pius IX., as well by the subscription of names as by the liberality of the aid which they will convey to the Holy Father at this critical moment of his trials and afflictions. An American prelate lately returned from Rome intimates that this aid cannot reach the Holy Father too soon. He has to sustain, as yet, the expenses of the Papal government, while the resources, to a great extent, have been cut off. It has even been intimated that if things go on as they are now for any prolonged period, the Pope will not have the means to supply the wants of his own house- hold. In the mean time, let us not cease to pray to Almighty God, invoking His interposition in favor of the Church, which, to human G8 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. view, is threatened with unspeakable disasters. We know that, whatever may happen to the crew, the bark of Peter will survive amid the agitation of the billows and the fury of the tempest. As on the sea of Galilee, so now there is one who appears to slumber, and it is for His disciples, if one might dare to use the expression, to awake Him and to invoke His aid. In the eighth chapter of St. Matthew His divine prepotency is recorded in these words : " And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the ship was covered with waves ; but He was asleep. And His disciples came to Him and awaked Him, saying, ' Lord, save us, we perish.' And Jesus saith to them, ' Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? Then, rising up, He commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm." LECTURES. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD, Since the Election of Pius IX. to the Chair of St. Peter. A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE CHINESE MUSEUM, PHILA- DELPHIA, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 31, 1850, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ST. JOHN'S ORPHAN ASYLUM. [The Author of the following address claims from its readers indulgence on the following grounds : It was a mere extemporaneous address on behalf of a charitable institution, St. John's Orphan Asylum, Philadelphia. A report of it was however published, without the Author's revision or consent. As this re- port, though perhaps a literal statement of his words, was not, either what he meant to say, or what in fact he did say, as far as he can now remember, he has felt called upon, at very great inconvenience to himself, to revise the lec- ture as thus presented by the reporter, and so allow it to go forth as his. It will be seen that the alterations are very slight, as he did not wish to do more than to correct certain misconceptions of his views, and improve some- what the defective style in which the unauthorized report had presented them. With this explanation, he submits the lecture respectfully to the indulgent judgment of the public.] DURING the first eight or ten months after the elevation of Pope Pius IX. to the Chair of St. Peter, there was no name so universally popular throughout Christendom, as that of the newly elected Sov- ereign Pontiff. It was enshrined in the hearts of all Catholics it was breathed in their prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving, for it was the name of a Pope whom, in regular succession from the prin- cipality of St. Peter, God had just appointed in the ordinary way as the supreme ruler of his visible Church on earth. It was on the lips and in the songs of the world, who affected to overlook the Pope, and regard only the man. We too, Catholics, were proud of the man ; but the Pope was much more to us. Still, in our hearts, we felt a kind of secret pride to think that in Pius IX. the world itself acknowledged not only a pure, good, holy, great man. but that it condensed all these attributes in its estimation of his character, by proclaiming him with one accord, "THE MAN OF THE AGE." An instance of this feeling came under my own notice. An es- teemed Protestant friend said to me : " We Protestants are going to take Pius IX. from you, and then what will your Church do without a Pope ?" I said, in reply : " Take care ; the Pope being so good a man, as you Protestants admit, if you take him from us, 70 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. what will your Church do without an Antichrist ?" He laughed out, and remarked, " I never thought of that." Two other Protestant gentlemen, but of an entirely different school, called on me about the same time, in somewhat of an official capacity, and evidently filled with the profound object which had inspired or authorized their mission. They introduced themselves as being associated with others who felt, and as feeling themselves, a deep interest in the progress of the human race. They were en- gaged in elaborating the new principles of a new society planning the basis on which to construct and constitute a regenerated con- dition of social life. They were not communists, nor socialists, nor Fourierists : they did not sympathize in all things with any of these ; but still they concurred in the general idea of each viz., the neces- sity of a recommencement and a new era, for the proper social de- velopment and progress of humanity. They said : " Is it not sur- prising that just at the period when these great movements of ours begin to take effect, there should arise in the world so great, so good a man as Pius IX. ? If the Pope," they said, " would only cast, pub- licly, one approving glance upon this doctrine of ours, which re- ceives so much discouragement from the governments of the world, our people would flock into the Catholic Church by thousands ; for, in fact, we have lost confidence in all other systems of religion. They are cold, they are without intrinsic energy, they have no central force. They are unable to renovate and elevate the human race." These incidents were exaggerations, but only exaggerations, I may say, of a sentiment that seemed to be universal throughout Christendom. Distinctions of religion were forgotten, and the praises of Pius IX., the outward expression of sentiments of respect for his character, burst forth on every side, immortalized in poetry and in music, in painting and in eloquence, and one universal shout seemed to arise from the civilized world, of approbation and esteem for this great man. In fact, his character had merited this esteem. But the surprise to us Catholics was, that it should have come so simultaneously from so many opposite and unexpected quarters. He had attracted the gaze of his age. He had scarcely been placed on the seat of power in the Church, over the small States called the Pontifical States, when we behold him descending into the state prisons, and striking the fetters from political captives when we find him. in the goodness of his heart, proclaiming a general amnesty, universal for all men who had offended against the political laws of the country when we find him throwing out the deep charity of his soul in a great experiment to determine, viz., whether or not kindness on the part of a ruler would not be more beneficial to con- quer, and to reclaim, and to reform perverted men, than any longer continuance of a system that had been already pronounced, at least in their vocabulary, oppressive and tyrannical. The consequence of acts like these was the applause to which I have referred. But, scarcely had thefirst sounds passed away, when, as it would now seem, many of those persons in his own States who had been loudest in THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 71 their approbation of his conduct, began to imagine that he was pre- cisely the man whom they could use ; whose very goodness would enable them to accomplish the purposes which had constituted the subject of their speculations and of their dreams. Accordingly, they surround him with snares, whilst they are poetically enthusi- astic in their vows of loyalty and fidelity. They ask a constitution he promises to grant it ; they ask a representative system he does not withhold it ; everything which that good and great heart im- agined likely to contribute to the happiness and prosperity of his people, he grants as soon as it is asked for. But presently he dis- covers alas ! for the discouragements to which goodness is ex- posed that the very hands which he had released from the mana- cles of St. Angelo for political offences, were engaged in twisting cords of bondage on his own liberty, both as Pope and temporal sovereign Things are now assuming in Rome a threatening aspect. The clouds are lowering ; they seem to come freighted with the light- ning of a revolution. And now let strangers be off, and as quick as steam can transport them, to Paris. They will mid themselves in time for a scene tar more terrifying than any from which they have fled, for there is in Paris heard the detonation of a pistol an offi- cer is shot down at his post ; then the mob and the military/are seen in the streets of that great capital ; the " Marseillaise" is sung ; the barricades are hurried up, and brave men behind them as well as in front ; lor whenever France wants to make a revolution, she has, owing to her military system, a soldier in every citizen. That which at first had bee.n but an emeute, that is, the incipiency of in- surrection, to the astonishment of all parties, is found to be next day a revolution ! The monarch who had the day before imagined himself to be firmly on his throne, has felt the concussion of the earthquake, and been shaken from it forever ; he is already on his flight, and has perhaps touched the British soil, followed by his suite -and his ministers, before the news of the revolution that ex- pelled him has reached half the villages of his great empire. Hastening then from Paris, come to the south of Italy, and you will be in time for another revolution. Those Sicilians, who pass in the world for cowards, whether they be cowards or not, as fighting against foreign enemies, have proved themselves desperate in battle amongst themselves. The king of Naples and the people of Sicily are engaged in a contest, and a revolution is effected. Sicily is free ; the royal troops are expelled ; even the king is threatened with a late similar to that of his brother of France. This, you will say, is no place for us ! Then take the diligence or steamer, and off to the north, and you will reach Vienna. Hark ! there is the shout of many voices in the street ; there is the trampling of many thousand men rushing to and fro ; there is a knock at the front gate of the Aulic Council ; the councillors within are trembling, whilst the aged Met- ternich, the man who had been the Napoleon of peace in Europe for thirty years, is obliged to retreat by the back-door from that coun- 72 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. cil, not to enter it any more. Pass on then to other States. Go to Berlin ; similar scenes await you in that capital. So that in so short a period as has elapsed since the elevation of Pius the Ninth, chro- nology has crowded events of the first order of magnitude into the history of the human race, .sufficient in number, sufficient in ex- tent of consequences, to give variety and incident of a thrilling character to an entire ordinary century. At present there is a pause, but who' shall say that revolution is at an end ? There is a lull, and that which bursts forth with the fury of a tempest has not had a tempest's duration ; it has not even lasted long enough to be called a hurricane, although it imitated a hurri- cane in its violence. Wherever it passed, it has been a squall, un- expected in its origin, blustering in its forebodings, destructive in its career, and in the zero of its termination utterly unaccountable. Who could have supposed, at the commencement or during the progress of these events, that now, in the beginning of the year 1850, the old state of things should, in a great measure, replace that which had been contemplated and abortively brought about by these changes ? Who could have imagined that Austria, for in- stance, shaken to her centre by the revolt of her whole population of millions in Lombardy, at one time, with Hungary in a similar condition at another, who could have imagined, I say, that she should have had energy and vitality enough left to put forth and reimpose her power over these populous provinces ? The world boasts of the wonderful exploits, heroism, and what not, of this European revolution. I must say that the results have not cor- responded with the anticipations, either in Baden, Lombardy, Hun- iry, Austria, Sicily, Tuscany, the Papal States, Prussia, or France, wo years ago, the reason, or at least the occasion and pretext, for the revolution in France was, that French citizens were not per- mitted to assemble at banquets in such numbers as they thought proper. Now, I am sure, they would not be permitted to have similar banquets ; and the best proof of it is, that under a popular government, created by a successful revolution, their press is stifled, and they are denied even the miserable privilege of complaint. These are, of course, extraordinary historical events. It is to be observed, however, that all events have, or have had, their ante- cedent cause in ideas of intellect real or imaginary principles going before; and it is of some importance that we should inquire and find out, if possible, how, since the elevation of Pius IX., these revolu- tionary ideas should have ripened themselves into such wild, preco- cious, or, at least, unproductive and barren maturity. We have to consider two influences as affecting deeply the des- tinies of the human race. One is what we have designated the Church ; the other, the world. The Church, of course, has no spe- cial doctrine, no theory, even, on politics, more than on commerce or manufactures ; but she has principles fitted to pervade, improve, exalt, and, in a certain sense, sanctity them all. For if the Church be, as she is, the divinely appointed guide to teach all nations after THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 73 Christ, and until the consummation of ages, then it follows that the elements of whatever is good for our race, in time as well as eter- nity in the domestic, commercial, and social relations, as well as in the purely spiritual must be comprised in her doctrine and prin- ciples. The Church began her work of amelioration in the heart and mind of men as individuals. To implant in their moral nature a love of justice and truth, the knowledge and fear of God, a right apprehension of their duties towards Him, and towards each other that is, towards society constitutes her method of improving the social and political condition of our race. But her work has been interrupted the world wrested it out of. her hands. The world preaches progress, but it recognizes no fixed starting point no defi- nite aim. Its ideas of progress are confused ; it has not any stand- ard or regulator of moral right and wrong in its political code ; its principles are the passions and caprices ofHhe day. Xow, during all these late convulsions it is supposed by many that freedom would have been greatly enlarged, were it not for ob- stacles presented in the way of its progress by the Church. It is supposed that the principle of the Church, if she have a principle on questions of this kind, is one naturally antagonistic to the freedom and development of the human mind and character ; and it may not be out of place for me, on this occasion, to enlarge somewhat on this topic, to admit how far it is true, to show that which is un- founded. If, in the history of our race, the Church has been the instrument of accomplishing great benefit to mankind, even on this specific topic ; if her principle still has the germ of all that is really pro- gressive, when you take the race in its largest capacity and longest duration if this be so, then the Church should have credit for so much. On the other hand, if these attempts which have been made by the world to force the progress and the perfection of man have not corresponded with the world's pretensions, it may be prudent to receive the popular clamors upon these topics with a good deal of caution. The question is about government, the form of gov- ernment, legislation, the improvement of life and social happi- ness, civilization in general. And the theory which seems to be most prevalent at this present time at least taking the position of the largest class of mankind is, that the people have the right to- select their own government, that all power comes from them, that they not only have the right to constitute government as they please, but they have the right to change it when they deem it ex- pedient, and to substitute any other. The Church does not hold this theory; the Church aims at the amelioration of the human heart, by forming the character of individuals according to Christian probity, in public as well as private life. The Church teaches that man is, by his nature, a being of society ; that the evidences of this accompany him from the moment of his birth until h^ goes to the grave, indicating clearly that his position is in society ; then, if that 10 74: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. be a la\v of his nature, society is an institution of God, a part of the condition of man's existence in the world. Now, society cannot exist without laws, and without authority ; and accordingly, not to speak of the Church, the holy Scripture tells us that all power is of God, and that all power in society, so far as it conies from God, is given for the benefit of all the members, but it is not theirs origi- nally. The common opinion among Catholic writers is, that this power in rulers is from God, through the people, in the first in- stance, and to be exercised for their good. There have been teachers of other religions who have maintained that power, such as kingly power, comes directly from God, under the name of divine right. We have a remarkable instance of this doctrine in the con- test, if I may so call it, between King James the First and Cardinal Bellarrnine. Cardinal Bellarmine, as you know, was not only a learned and a holy man, but one who wrote immediately under the eyes of the Pope ; and in his writings he taught, in the name of his Church, that all power in government is for the benefit of the com- munity, and that originally it comes from God, and is by the people delegated to those whom they appoint as their civil rulers. King James criticized his writings severely upon this point, and contended that kingly power came directly from God to the monarch who was consecrated king. Plis majesty was replied to by Suarez, another learned Jesuit and distinguished theologian, who repeated and vin- dicated the doctrine of JBellarmine, and professed that it is the re- ceived, common, and general opinion of all Catholic theologians that all power is from God, and in its communication from him is mediately through the community ; whereas others contended that it was immediately to the ruler. We have then this question, so far, determined, as a recognized opinion among Catholic divines, not as a dogma, but as a received and perpetually acted upon prin- ciple; for you will find no period in history when the Church had sway in the questions of civil government when these principles were not upheld by her voice and action. In order, then, that man may live in society, it is necessary for him to acknowledge power, and submit to the exercise of lawful authority ; and if there be a point in which I hold that the world, in its mode of bettering the political condition of men, has been mis- taken, it is this: it forgets that society is impossible without power and authority ; it forgets that though it may change a government from a monarchy to an aristocracy, or from an aristocracy to a de- mocracy, you change but the outward forms the substance of power and authority is the same, and must be the same. This is precisely the reason why it is that after a revolution is made, and especially when made violently, or by force, the results scarcely ever corres- pond with the anticipations ; for no matter who may be placed in the seat of authority, he must govern society as man, in his fallen condition, needs to have government and authority. The power is identical ; th% difference will be only in the form of its demonstra- tion whether you call the rulers kings or presidents, for the Church THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 75 has no theory as regards the outward forms of civil government. The Church, in her wisdom, when she had, to a great extent, an in- fluence in regulating social and political questions, saw proper, under her outstretched and protecting wings, mighty monarchies and oligarchies, and stout, though small democracies, for more than a hundred years, and alike patronized them all. The form of the govern- ment is the right of the community, at the period of its organiza- tion ; the substance, the elements of which that government must be composed, are identical, and will be unchangeable, no matter by what name you call it. Hence, therefore, it is that the Church, while she establishes this principle, and recognizes the supreme power of the State, as communicated from God through and for the benefit of the community, requires the members of the community to respect that authority ; for, without respect for that authority, the ends of society could not be attained. One of her crimes, in the false accusations of modern times, is, that she undertook to support despotic kings. We may reply, that she never recognized, and never permitted to be recognized, a despot. When the Church had sway, nations had no despots I mean of the absolute stamp. It is true that when she commenced her mission-, or rather when she had passed herself through the sea of blood up to the period of her eman- cipation, according to human liberty, she found not one single free government on this globe. There was not one but what was des- potic ; and I may add, that when her authority or influence in such matters began to be assailed in the sixteenth century, she had left within the whole of Christendom not one despotic government. I do not say that kings did not transcend their authority ; but if they did, she, as the fearless expositor of the divine law, made known to them that they could not do so with impunity. There was always hanging over their heads a just account, which they must render to God for the awful responsibility of their situation. In certain cases, when they fell from their duty, and attempted to make experiments in the direction of absolutism, she raised her voice of interdict she taught them that men were stamped with the image of their God, and redeemed by His Son, and that they could not, should not, be trampled upon with impunity. Hence the reason why she is accused of having placed her foot, so to speak, upon the neck of the despot. Nevertheless, she taught, and she teaches still, as far as she has any doctrine upon the subject, that respect for constituted authority is a corresponding obligation upon the part of the people ; otherwise anarchy would be the order of the day, and legislation would have no sufficient force ; otherwise the people themselves would be un- protected by any power which would hold those that administer the law to a strict responsibility. For if the people violate the law, the rulers will violate it in a spirit of reaction upon the people. Hence it is that, according to the Catholic religion, every citizen yields reverence and respect to the constituted authorities of his country, from a principle of conscience. And in that principle of conscience is found the safety of society, the honor and dignity of power, the 76 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. peaceful administration of the affairs of life. For what authority will your laws have to bind me if there be not a prior law coming from a higher source, making it my duty to respect your laws? Suppose the government were obliged to execute by force every law that regulates society, what condition would mankind be in ? The legislation has no effect unless there be in the heart of every man a principle by which he knows that God is the God of society, the God of order ; that God has given power over the community, or the nation, to those whom the people have appointed over them to rule ; and that they are to render them obedience within the proper limits, which obedience is rendering indirect homage to God. IJo you not find in the history of past ages, that after the old Roman civilization had passed away, after those ancient institutions which had accomplished so much during the period of their vigor had been superseded, after Southern Europe had been overrun by barbarians from the North, without laws, without manners, without conscience, without religion, with nothing but their ferocity and their love of bloodshed, the Church came in and took them and tamed them, and civilized them, and began to implant the principles of social life and social justice in their souls ; she harmonized their code of laws, and improved them ; she repressed tyranny where tyranny was attempted, and checked rebellion where rebellion would be to the detriment of the community, and contrary to the principle which we have just alluded to. Thus it is that, dining the period in which her influence was ac- knowledged, all the elements of civilization, all the necessary ele- ments of society, in the progress of rational liberty, were found and furnished. I, of course, will not pretend to say that they were as perfect as might be desired. But take a period, striking the line of separation at the point of time when the Church lost her power to continue this work of improving the human race consider what had been done before, and ask what has been done since. We, for instance, are indebted to that ancient civilization of the Church for nearly all the sound elements of good government and of social well- being. Why, during that period, you find that the barons and the bishops of England did not hesitate to stand before the monarch to teach him his duty, and signify to him that he ruled for the benefit of the English people, and not for his own personal aggrandizement. They restricted his power by withholding the means. What do you read, on every side, throughout the history of England, or the history of Germany, or the history of Spain, or of France ? You read, on every side, restraints upon power in favor of those who were its subjects. What are the immunities, and what are the rights, that gradually sprang up and became recognized what are the institu- tions of law and all the privileges of England ? Tell me one of them that has had its origin subsequent to the period when the civil State passed from under the liberty-protecting influence of the Church ! If you will follow history in these matters, you will perceive what a THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. V7 difference there is between the former state of society and the pres- ent. Of course, it would be unjust to compare the present time, with all its accelerated means of improvement, with any period that has passed ; just as it would be unfair to blame the tenth century for not having been equal to the fifteenth ; but, putting that aside, you will find that every thing affecting a community was regulated, not by the absolute will of any sovereign, but by the Diets of Ger- many by the Cortes of Spain by the Parliaments of England by the Assembly of France by the communities fairly represented. You will find that the monarchs dared not assume the responsibility of absolute government ; and that, on the contrary, although they might commit excesses, as they have done as they do still, and ever will, perhaps still the principle was recognized, and they felt the necessity of so governing as to secure the good-will and affection of the people ; and, instead of standing armies in times of peace, with which the world, in its attempted improvement, has afflicted nations, Avhenever armies were wanted, there was a feeling of patriotism, of affection for the government, and love for the country, which raised the troops on the notice of the exigency, and which called them to the field ; but there were no such things as standing armies in Cath- olic times of peace. Why are these standing armies now crushing down the poor to the earth ? Because there is no confidence between the people and the rulers ; because the monarchs know that the old principle is changed ; a new principle has been substituted in its place. The peo- ple, on the one hand, with an instinct common to man in every situa- tion, are struggling and battling for rights withheld and liberty de- nied them. The sovereigns, on the other, with the instinct of self- preservation, and the common interest of their order, will combine all the increased means of power at their disposal, and, by collusion, try to crush the people, by having standing armies supported at their expense, for the purpose of coercing them into loyalty. Under these circumstances it may be wicked, it may be foolish, it may be unprofitable, as it frequently is, for the people to rise in violence against their rulers ; but should it surprise any one to see them, in very desperation, claim their rights through the medium of rev- olution ? It would be tedious and premature to enter largely into what will hereafter be sought out as the causes of the great revolutions which have lately taken place in Europe. As yet, time has not been sufficient to scatter the smoke of various conflicting representations, as regards the events and their causes. It is too soon for philosophy to begin to speculate upon the immediate causes of the conflicts which have resulted in the shedding of so many bitter tears, and of so much human blood. Nevertheless, it may be well to observe, that, since the world superseded altogether the authority of the Church in these questions, new ideas have taken possession of the human race. There was at all times among the old Catholic nations of Christendom, a remarkable tendency in favor of real democracy ; 78 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and, accordingly, as I have remarked, this last prospered under the patronage of the Sovei-eign Pontiff and of the Church, as much as any other form of government. But, in process of time, abuses, even in the Church itself, had attracted the attention, not only of holy and learned men of the ecclesiastical orders, but also of princes and the laity ; and, from the middle of the fifteenth century, the cry was becoming louder and louder in favor of a reformation not of the Church, be it understood, but of the abuses. It was constantly referred to in writing ; it was spoken of as a thing needed. The calamities of the times were imputed to a relaxation of discipline in the Church, which they wished to see enforced; but then those who spoke thus meant reformation, not destruction. They did not mean an overthrow of the doctrines of the Church, but they meant a refor- mation of the lives of her members, whether in the orders of the clergy, of the religious, of the hierarchy, or of the people. The cry was simply a general demand for the renovation and enforcement of Catholic discipline, reaching all orders of life, whether in Church or State. Reformation, for instance, in their sense, would be, that the eccle- siastical revenues should be faithfully consecrated to the end for which they were instituted the relief, protection, and advancement of the poor. The true idea, in short, was to enforce discipline, more especially in the conduct and demeanor of the clergy. When that which is now miscalled the Reformation came forth, the central force of Christian civilization was, by the event, impaired and partially destroyed ; the power of acting on society, in any concentrated and energetic form, was marred, if not utterly paralyzed. The exterior or social unity of Christendom was broken. It was then found, that under the name of reform, a new foundation had been laid, and a new structure erected. From that period, it was necessarily im- possible that the same principles which the Church had ever recog- nized as regulating the duties and the rights of the subject and of the ruler, should be enforced by the same uniformity of voice which had improved, and, to some extent, controlled the world so long. Consequently, things took altogether a new direction. Instead of recognizing any general standard on any question of a moral character, every one was supposed to be able to form a standard for himself. You can easily conceive how important this central principle of a general standard is. For instance, weights and measures in traffic would be no security against fraud, without a legal standard which is recognized in political economy and in commerce, and indis- pensable in currency. And so with regard to morals, and the great fundamental moral questions which lie at the basis of society and government. From the moment that the unity of Christendom was broken, then necessarily the Church lost much of her moral power, because the standard was no longer recognized ; every nation that formally separated from the Church, adopted its own. It is very true that nominal liberty received a great accession in appearance, not in reality ; it is true that the result was to inspire a feeling of THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 79 great individual self-complacency, when you told every man that he was himself the very best judge to determine upon all religious, moral, social, or political questions. Nevertheless, if you will watch the prog- ress of events, you will perceive that kings began to feel that they could now become despotic, because they formed their own royal standard, and there was no ecclesiastical counterpoise to the arro- gant pretensions of the throne. From that moment, the authority of him who spoke in the supreme voice of the Church was discarded, and each sovereign appropriated to himself the headship of religion as well as of State. Throughout that period, you will find the be- ginnings of encroachments on liberty. I will not go into instances ; you know the history of the Northern States of the continent of Europe ; you know that England herself, although she lives by the constitution, yet lives by it inasmuch as that constitution had too much of its old Catholic vitality to be utterly set aside at the will of any sovereign. But you know, at the same time, that during a con- siderable period of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, it was as- serted by high authority in the reformed ranks of Englishmen, that passive obedience, which the Catholic never knew, was the duty of every subject. Would that have been, if the old system had con- tinued ? No, verily. What freedom is there in Sweden or Norway? What freedom is there I will not say in temporal, but even in religious matters in Russia, where the chieftancy of religion is recognized in the sov- ereign by a great portion of the Czar's subjects ? No freedom, at all ! Before this breaking up of Christendom into parts fundamen- tally opposed to each other in principle, you read of no revolution except such as is an honor to the dignity of human nature a revo- lution of the intellect of the age, resisting encroachments on human rights ; a revolution of moral resistance on behalf of the people, using the instrument of reason, and threatening, as a last resort, to have recourse to other means for obtaining their just demands and ancient rights, which were withheld or assailed by the sovereign. There was, after all, something almost grand in the theory of that first great revolution called the Reformation, as compared with the avowed passionistic and animal philosophy of the last outbreaks in Europe. But you will observe that I waive altogether the spiritual bearings of the question. I omit all reference to the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of one side or the other. I speak of the event in its theoretic principle, and in its influence on society ; and in that point of view, there is something apparently grand in the ideal of that first revolution. It has had consequences that will continue, for good or for evil, until time shall be no more. Because, at the same time that it overthrew a principle, which I should call the true and only safeguard of society in all its rights, it gave an impulse of selfish ac- tivity to the individual mind. It isolated man, to a certain extent, from his fellow-beings, and made him think of and for himself, in such a sense that he was something to the world, but the world was nothing, or but little, to him, except so far as he could use it for his 80 AKCHBISIJOP HUGHES. own advantage. The result of this revolution was Protestanism. Protestantism, however, in a brief time, ceased to be identical with itself, or to hold any rational position in the divine, or even human science of theology. In every department in theology as well as others it took its own eccentric and divergent direction, and gave its stamp and hue to government ; its stamp and hue to literature ; its stamp and hue even to military science ; its stamp also to the genius of tyranny which followed its progress; and there is but little doubt that, after the Augsburg Confession shall have been forgotten, or sought only as an ancient and curious parchment iirthe libraries of the future, this Protestantism will live in railroads and in banks, in Union Workhouses, in national debts and in standing armies. From the moment, then, that this revolution, with its immense consequences, was accomplished, it was manifest that the Church could not only not act upon the social relations of life with the same power, but that she could hardly preserve even her own spiritual pre- rogative. Kings are men that have their passions, like their sub- jects, and are by no means insensible to the tempting opportunities that enable them to rise above all extrinsic restraint on their will. Neither is it wisdom for us to denounce a man because he is a king. We only denounce a bad king, and that which is evil in him. But it is very clear that the sovereigns of Europe were glad of a pretext to throw off the yoke of the Church ; to get clear of that monitor who, in other days, never hestitated to stand in their presence, tell- ing them of their duties as Christian rulers, both to God and their people. The Protestant princes broke away from the Church abso- lutely. She was even forced to lower her authoritative voice, and to speak in gentler tones to those who still recognized her spiritual do- minion. The natural result was, that after this change and this diminution of the power of the Church, Catholic princes moved al- most as rapidly as others in the same direction of despotism : and they did so in various ways ; sometimes by entering into stringent treaties with the sovereign authority of the Church ; and at other times forming semi-Protestant alliances with the other courts of Eu- rope. But you will find that in almost every instance, they not only paralyzed the authority of religion over themselves, as governors of the people, but they invaded the privileges and the freedom of the Church itself. For instance, at the present time, it is a common idea with us in this country, that the Governments of France and Austria, and other Catholic States of Europe, are in league with the Catholic hierarchy ; when, so far from this being the case, they are tyrannical in their attempts at domination in ecclesiastical affairs, and, like other States, have claimed, if they have not acquired, an irresponsible power of restricting the proper Catholic authority of the Church. Though they are not prepared to reject it altogether, yrt they diminish its influence, and thwart that which remains. For instance, the Church is the Catholic Church everywhere, but in France she is called the Galilean Church. Thus, France must imi- tate England so closely, that she calls the Catholic religion within THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 81 her boundaries the Church of France, though she recognizes the su- premacy of the Holy See. The Governments of France recognize it with a vast number of qualifications that were unknown before; and these restrictions on the freedom of religion, many of her statesmen, rank unbelievers themselves, strive to designate by the name of Gal- lican Liberties. You know what these liberties were. Since their introduction into Catholic France, Bishops, that is, rulers of the Church, have not had civil liberty to meet synodically together, and discuss the things that would make for the peace, and order, and beauty of God's house. That was the -kind of liberty they were enjoying there. And just so in Germany. You will find that Cath- olic princes imitated the example of England, and other Protestant States, very closely ; that Bishops dare not meet in their dominions without a special permission from his majesty just as the Anglican Bishops dare not meet without similar authority. The Catholic people of these nations are supposed to be entirely under the direc- tion of the Pope and of the Church, while really under this secular control. It is, perhaps, not generally known, that in some of those countries, a Bishop dare not correspond with the Holy Father, ex- cept by sending his letter through the bureau of the minister, who claims the right, the impudent right, to open that letter and ex- amine it, and if there be any thing objectionable in it, to send it back. This is the condition to which the Church has been reduced in those countries ; and it has happened singularly enough, by the spe- cial providence of Almighty God, that these late revolutions of the world have been so overruled, that not so much the State, as the Church, has been emancipated wherever a change of things has ta- ken place. The Bishops of France can now meet, without asking any one, in their synods, according to their ancient usage; and they have met and spoken with united voice to their people. The Bish- ops of Germany, who had not been permitted to meet, have recently met without asking the minister, that privilege being now estab- lished. It is, as I have remarked, a singular sign of the overruling providence of God, that a movement which was intended in no spirit of friendship to the Church, but to ameliorate the condition of men,, in the social, physical, political, and other purely secular relations, has tended to promote and accomplish, at least, the emancipation of the Church in those countries. But it may be asked, what is the real Catholic doctrine with re- gard to the right of revolution ? This is a question that ought to be answered in connection with what has already been said. Now, I have affirmed that the Catholic Church does not authorize, does^. not recognize the principle that the people may change their gov- ernment when they will. It is a necessity of the people themselves, as well as by a divine rule, that, as a general principle, the contrary be sustained. Have the people of Russia, for instance (supposed to. be the most despotically governed in Europe), a right to rise in. their majesty, and destroy their government ? We say all Ameri- VOL. II. 6 82 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. cans say they have ; but have they truly ? Let us suppose the question in another case: a principle, you must understand, is of universal application ; a principle is that which no time or circum- stances can change ; and if the principle be admitted as true for Russia, it cannot be denied as true for America. And will any one pretend to say, the boldest tongued of us all, publicly to say, that our people here would be justified in destroying this government ? Will he pretend to say, that in this country the people have a right to change its government whilst it fulfils its duties, and substitute that of Turkey, or the system of Russia, in its place? Will any one dare to say so? Certainly not; and yet if the principle were true, that would be a consequence which could not be rejected. On the other hand, if it were true, they would have the right to change to- day, and the same right would revive to-morrow. Anarchy would take the place of order ; and we all know that there are certain things which succeed each other in the order of government ; that anarchy, though it may be sometimes necessary for the destruction of tyranny that is no longer endurable, has for its first condition the destruction of all liberty. Anarchy means bloodshed and confusion, destruction of all the distinctions and rights of property, and the absence of all protection for the rights of life. Anarchy, in the first instance, augurs despotism ; and it is important, wherever anarchy takes possession of a people, to understand that, not in the order, but in the disorder of things, some one person must arise, a usurper and tyrant, if you please, who shall wield a strong power, to prepare the way for liberty. Thus you will find that order must always precede liberty ; that liberty never springs up in a moment; that it is of gradual growth ; it is the result of calm, free reason, and liberty can never be engen- dered in the mind of a community so long as that community is abiding in the midst of anarchy. The question then is, are there any circumstances in which it is right for Catholics to rebel and take part against a government? There is a distinction, and even a con- tradiction, between the theory of the Church and that of the world upon this subject. The right to overthrow a government and sub- titute another in its place is proclaimed by the world, at least that part of it to which I have referred, in terms unqualified and univer- sal, as the rule, while it is admitted in the Church as the exception. The rule in the Church is obedience not servile obedience, but reasonable obedience to the authorities constituted, in every thing for which they have a right to command respect. This is the rule, and it is not every slight fault of government, it %is not every abuse of power, it is not even a great many such abuses, that would be admitted as justifying a civil revolt and social revolu- tion. The principle, of course, must be applied according to circum- stances in every case. When the supreme authority of the State has perverted the power given it from God, for and through the community, to such a degree that the injury to that people is more .than the 'benefit of the government, then the people have a right to THE CHURCH AND THE WOELD. 83 remove that government and reconstruct it on its own proper basis. But this, again, is qualified by another condition. The cardinal point is to decide whether the government, in any given case, has actually reached the point of degeneracy and abuse here implied. This is not to be decided by the mob in any city. The community does not mean a mere collection of men, women, and children in the streets ; but it means the majority of the nation a fair majority of the reasoning part of that community. It should be concluded, on sufficient grounds, that the government has ceased to fulfil the end of its institution, and that, therefore, it is no longer entitled to their respect and confidence, before the people act against it. This is one condition the failure on the part of the government to do its duty towards the community should be asserted and determined by the larger portion of those who fairly represent the nation in other capacities ; not a few boys from the polytechnic school, but heads of families who are themselves governors, who have respon- sibilities and a great stake ; others, men that have experience in life, that have a certain interest in the just government of the coun- try. Such should be understood as the majority of the community. There is still another condition, and it is this : that the people should be able to count on probable success ; for it is obvious that kings and governors, the worse they have been, and the more they deserve to be overthrown from the places which they have abused, the more will they be ready to combine all their resources to crush any at- tempt to displace them ; and consequently an unsuccessful revolu- tion, an abortive revolution, a revolution that shows the will and has not the power to accomplish the overthrow of the government, is a new patent for new tyrannies, and furnishes that government with pretences for multiplying its severity, and adding to the bur- dens by which the people are already pressed down. You see, therefore, how wise is this condition ; and it is only in such a case that the Church maintains that it is justifiable to strive after polit- ical liberty, by means of force and violent revolution. Prior argu- ments, every rational means, should first be exhausted ; then the threat of physical resistance, with a foreground of right and justice, would, in Catholic times, generally speaking, bring the monarch to a better understanding with the people. You will find that in Spain, in olden times, the Cortes never met without signifying to the king that each of them to be sure it was a ceremony, but it signified something was as good as he was, and that all of them together were a great deal better. In 1640, the government of Spain, ceasing to follow in the track of the Church, was becoming despotic : but even still the ancient Catholic liberty of the Spaniard was not forgotten ; his blood was roused when he found any attempt to invade the ancient prerogative which belonged to Castile or Cat- alonia; and, in one instance, we see the assembly of Catalonia, when an attempt was made to deprive the people of their privileges:, taking their stand as representatives of freemen. They had exhausted all their moral resources in remonstrances to the sovereign ; and they 81 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. felt it their duty and they felt that God's benediction would be around them to bid the people capable of bearing weapons to arm. The ecclesiastics themselves were armed for the defence of their ancient rights. In speaking of the pretended right of rebellion against the abuse of power on the part of rulers, there is indirectly conveyed a reflec- tion upon the very achievement to which this country, in a great measure, owes its greatness and its glory the Revolution. I have a word or two to say on that subject, and the first thing is, that the revolutions which have occurred in Europe bear but few grounds of comparison with that of America. The first great European revolution, or Reformation, as it has since come to be called, to which I have referred, pretended that its purpose was highly religious and moral viz., to exalt, at the same time, the written word of God, and to assert the dignity of the in- dividual soul of man. There is something striking, something almost grand, in the theory of this idea. Nevertheless, there were those who, from the beginning, easily perceived how the practical effect would be to throw off, as restrictive and troublesome, the living authority of the Church, and to give the individual permission to make his own authority in religion use such language as would be musical to him, and such as he would choose to hear. It was indi- vidual will, then, and not the written word of God, that was exalted in that instance. Now, if we come down to another revolution, the principle of which had been filtering through society, in long inter- vals, we find that the pretext was to exalt reason. The first was, down with the Church and up with the Bible ! The second was, down with the Bible and Church and up with human reason ! You know to what a pitch they exalted human reason, when they suc- ceeded in revolution. Their Assembly, by a large majority, passed a vote that death was an everlasting sleep, and that there was no God. This was their practical reason. But whilst they pretended to exalt reason, the real consequences of that revolution were found in the wild revelry of the bad passions of the human heart. We have said enough on that subject. These recent revolutions are easily traceable to a certain uneasiness of the masses of society, stimulated by their sufferings on one side, and the demagogism of worthless leaders on the other. It is a canker, working at the hearts of the mass of the -people. And this under the influence of ideas. Every action which occurs, every public aim which is real- ized outwardly in the world, exists first in the condition of an idea, in the human mind ; and there is that in the nature of idea, an in- stinct, if I can so call it, which urges its own propagation its mul- tiplication and extension over the world. Men entertain a zeal, which is irrepressible, to spread their ideas abroad, and bring many others to entertain similar views. The idea of modern times is more speculative than tending to alleviate the depressed condition of the human race. Heaven knows that they require elevation, that they require relief; and it is not for me to say (whatever may be their THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 85 results), that the Almighty did not permit these late outbreaks at once to scourge the rulers, who have not attended to their wants in time, and to punish the people themselves for having abandoned the ways of God, in which He had provided a better and more honorable redress for all their wrongs in social and in civil life. There is no clamor now, as at the period of the old French Revolution, con- cerning the rights of human reason ; but there are those advocates of Communism, of Fourierism, or Socialism, and all these poets and printers that sit at their desks, and speculate and create their world, and attempt to infuse their abstract ideas into the dull, busy, prac- tical work of social and civil life. Now, these men have propagated such absurd and impracticable ideas, that scarcely any species of government will reach the desires, or meet the wants, or fulfil the yearnings of a people entertaining them. Modern revolutionists have wanted one great characteristic of the American of 1776. They make little or no account of God as an invisible, but real agency, in human affairs; they trust to their wis- dom and their right arm, and thrust the idea of a divine Providence aside, except as it may seem favorable to them. They leave Him entirely out of their plan of operation, never dreaming, as it would appear, that unless He approved of their plans and purposes they would all come to naught. I am no apologist for bad governments. But, I ask, in what point do the European revolutionists compare with the workers out of the American Revolution ? Who are the great men that have been brought out or thrown up during the re- cent convulsions in Europe ? Among the popular leaders, several have betrayed the cause during the struggle ; some, as in France, turned against their own principles after the battle had been Avon; among the remainder, there is not a name that rises above medi- ocrity, there is not a real character for history, except it be among those whose career is not yet complete, over whom the judgment of men is now in suspense, and whose faults are, for this present time, forgotten in their misfortunes. And yet, in our love of freedom, and our precipitate admiration of all who profess to struggle for it, we Americans are caught up and carried away by an enthusiastic sympathy with revolutionists abroad ; and we compare this one to our Washington, and that other to our Jefferson ; and so find par- allels to our own great men, and degrade them by the comparison. Among our American revolutionists, was there one man who had the audacity to 'proclaim, in the face of assembled representatives of millions of civilized men, that if there be a God (which he denied), it' there be a Lord, he is the first enemy of the human I'ace ? or another to assert that property is theft ? Shall we forget flie honor due to the memory of the revolutionists of America, by comparing such men as these blasphemers to our heroes, the deliverers of our country ? There is another great difference that in reality the very prin- ciples of the Church to which I have referred justify the American revolution. And why ? The American revolution did not turn 86 ARCHIBISHOP HUGHES. upon the spontaneous whim of the people to overthrow one form of government in order to substitute another. It did not claim such a ric*ht. When the British ministers attempted to fasten upon these American colonists a new principle when the government, instead of being assaulted by the latter, undertook to fasten upon them a degradation, sooner than submit to which the people of England themselves would have overthrown the crown, they (the colonists) resisted the ministry. That was not rebellion. The very charter by which Britain was ruled, the very charter by which her liberties had been preserved, declared, in substance, that such an attempt was just cause of quarrel between the crown and these colonies that the constitution did not recognize the authority by which British states- men attempted to fasten that new degradation upon the colonists. Standing by their principles, our revolutionists put the government itself into the position of rebels against a higher authority than either ; and the Americans were merely defending the Bill of Rights. They took their station precisely according to the conditions to which I have referred as being requisite, in such cases, in order to make revolt, or rebellion, or revolution lawful and proper. Was resistance with us' a mere outbreak, without design, without plan ? No. Government had transcended its legitimate authority, and a majority of the people were in favor of resistance. The consequences have been independence and freedom. Separation had not been ;v direct purpose. It was the simple consequence of perversion of gov- ernment. No doubt, in the nature of things, it would have occurred at any rate, in process of time. Now, as between the Church and the world, I would ask whether in that revolution of ours you did not find Catholics taking an active part I will not say simply Catholics, as laymen, but reverend priests and learned Catholics, taking part, and thus showing distinctly that in the principles of the Catholic Church there is nothing to prohibit a lawful exercise of the fullest right in resisting governments, when they either attempt to inflict new bondage, or abuse power to such an extent as to produce more evil than good. I need not say more with regard to history, which is open before you, for even since the period to which I have referred, have you not seen Catholic colonies rebel against their Catholic governments, and proclaim their inde- pendence ? They acted with the apparent approbation of their bishops and their clergy, and with no voice of censure from the head of the Church. If time permitted, I could dilate 'on this theme, which should be followed out by the philosophical inquirer with serious attention. I have very little doubt that the time is coming when, from public necessity and the perversion of popular ideas on this subject, there will be a great return towards some universally recognized principle, by which mankind may proceed in developing the progress of the race, in harmony with all the higher attributes of our regenerated Christian humanity. But let not the American revolution be spoken of in terms that suit other revolutions. There is no parity between it and the modern outbreaks in Europe. On THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 87 the contrary, with us, universal respect for religion appears in all the outward acts and all the documents of the great body of patriots who were active in promoting the revolution. The American revolutionists, strong in the consciousness of their own rectitude and probity, were equally confident in the justice of their cause. They reverenced, or at least professed to reverence God they recognized and respected the rights of property. They trusted to heaven for its approving smile on their righteous cause, and so far as heaven is concerned, neither they nor their posterity have been disappointed. THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM, AND ITS CAUSE. A LECTURE DELIVERED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, ON SUN- DAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 10, 1850, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HOUSE OF PROTECTION, UNDER THE CHARGE OF THE SIS- TERS OF MERCY. THE civilized world at the present day may be considered as di- vided into two great religious denominations ; the one adhering to the Catholic faith, the other rallying under the general term of Pro- testantism. I am aware that there are other religious divisions, such as that of the Greek Church, and that of the followers of Ma- homet ; but I speak of nations the most enlightened and civilized of the present age, whether on the continent of Europe or on this hemi- sphere, and I conceive they can fairly be divided between those two denominations. What the Catholic Church is, does not require any particular explanation. Its meaning is at once so simple, so comprehensive, so easily understood, that it were a waste of words to make the comprehension of it more clear than it already is to every mind. Not so with Protestantism. That term, as ordinarily employed, is understood, in its popular sense, very clearly; never- theless, in any sense of science, or for the purposes of logical or theological accuracy, it is a word exceedingly ambiguous, vague, and indefinite. Protestantism is a generic title, implying the genus without entering into any of the specific varieties which it is em- ployed as a general term to designate. These two systems, working side by side, have occupied as well as divided the world between them for the last three hundred years. One, indeed, had prevailed from the beginning of Christianity ; whilst the other came into exist- ence in the sixteenth century, proclaimed its mission, entered upon its work, and has subsisted since that period. I have announced as the title of the lecture which I have proposed to give, at the request of the Catholic Institute, THE DECLINE OF PBOTESTANTISM, AND THE CAUSE. Now this word Decline, has not 88 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. been l>y me arbitrarily chosen. I have found that the meaning of it is familiar both to the Catholic and the Protestant ; I have found that the strongest authorities are on the Protestant side, and ac- knowledge, while they deplore, and aim to arrest its progress. I need not" quote, in proof of this, but one authority, the celebrated Macaulay, the essayist, historian, and reviewer; one of the clearest minds, perhaps, that the great English nation can this day boast of. Though he is no friend to the Catholic Church, yet he treats the subject in the light of impartial philosophy. He compares with the antiquity of the Catholic Church, all dynasties and human govern- ments of Europe, and finds the oldest of them but as of the origin of yesterday; he proclaims, indeed, the inroads that Protestantism had made upon the beautiful domains of the ancient Catholic dominion ; he acknowledges that, though formidable for a time, its progress was evidently of a transient character. And, looking into futurity with the keen scrutiny of a seer, he asserts by a flight of imagina- tion, and a beautiful exaggeration I might call it, that the "Catholic Church will be still young and vigorous, when, at some future day, the traveller from New Zealand shall stand upon a broken arch of London Bridge, and sketch the ruin of St. Paul's." Such is his idea ; and, I need not add, that a man who can thus write is al- ready deeply impressed with the actual and prospective decline of Protestantism. I cannot, however, agree \vith the eloquent writer ; for I would rather hope that if ever such* a traveller should come from New Zealand, instead of finding London Bridge broken up, and St. Paul's destroyed, he will be first arrested, as he approaches that noble edifice, by the sound of ten thousand voices, after some grand and solemn pontifical mass, rendering thanks, in the accents of Te Deum Laudamus, for the return of an erring nation to the unity and communion of the Catholic faith. Protestantism began in the year 1517. It had then a solitary representative ; and as regards religion, his voice was the only dis- cordant sound that could have been heard in western Christendom. All had been united, all had subsisted in the harmony of one be- lief; and although scandal had existed then, as now, and abuses of individual living were known ; and although public and private morals might have furnished much ground for complaint, still, at least there was one ideally perfect, central rallying point, on which men's minds were united the beauty, simplicity, and Unity of the faith of the Catholic Church, which God had established for the sal- vation of men. From this central point the new doctrine took its bearings of direct and indirect antagonism, and spread on every side. It became the theme of general dispute, and into that dispute were promptly infused projects of political ambition, popular discon- tent, and every species of human element and of human motive cal- culated to give impulse to the new principle, which in itself, if it were true, would have been altogether worthy of the admiration of its adherents, and would have been well calculated to spread abroad the doctrine thus introduced and propagated, with a rapidity THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 89 to which there is no such thing as a parallel in the history of the Christian Church, or in the annals of the human race. From Wir- temburgh it spread throughout Northern Germany. It reached, in a different form, however, the Cantons of Switzerland ; it penetrated the empire of France ; it took possession of Prussia ; it pervaded Holland, Xor\vay, Sweden, Denmark, England, and Scotland. It conquered them all ; and it met a successful resistance only on the western borders of Europe. The Irish nation stood together against it, and struggled with constancy, perseverance, and determi- nation ; and although the battle has lasted for three hundred years, and although that down-trodden nation has suffered intensely for its adherence to principle, still it did not give way to Protestantism. I cannot consider this as altogether the result of chance, for I can al- most persuade myself that God in his providence permitted that there should be one western border of Europe, upon which the eye of the pilgrim to this free hemisphere should rest for the last time, as upon Catholic soil, and that he should thus continue to cherish the old associations of the holy Catholic faith, by which all Europe had been, and the rest of the world might, finally, be emancipated from barbarism and infidelity. What is very remarkable is, that Protestantism should have made such progress in so short a time ; that, within fifty years- from its origin, it should have conquered and taken possession of every inch of ground of which it is in possession at this day ; so that an old man of 1567 could see Protestantism triumphant in all the nations I have mentioned, and look back to the memory of boyhood when he knew Brother Martin Luther, a pious monk, as Macaulay remarks ; or what is nearly the same, remembered him, the young father of Pro- testantism, a fugitive from the laws of his country, seeking, and happily finding, a safe hiding-place in the suburbs of some obscure German village. Oh, how Protestantism must have been surprised, astounded, and overwhelmed at the immensity and variety of the spoils, into the possession of which it so speedily entered ! Yesterday it was pro- scribed ; to-day it is master of kingdoms, thrones, armies, provinces, treasures, and the accumulated religious and charitable offerings of Catholic generations for a thousand years ! It came rapidly into the possession of what it had never labored to create ; it reaped where it had never sown; and the toil of the husbandman, who had cultivated the soil before, accrued to the benefit of his adversary, and was unrewarded. It found itself in possession not only of these, but of the Catholic churches ; and when I say Catholic churches, you will not understand me to mecan such churches as we in our cold charity and poverty have been able to erect, but those great churches that were projected on a magnificent scale, and in the spirit of an age that religion had inspired, when acres were taken into the plan, after the Catholic forefathers of the Protestant occu- pants of all this ecclesiastical wealth, from age to age, had been making their offerings at the shrine of the one Church : temples, 13 90 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. not perhaps esteemed as worthy of God ; but, at all events, such palaces, so to call them, for the veiled presence of Divine majesty and mercy amongst men, as might indicate at least to all time, their gratitude towards their merciful Creator and Redeemer. Pro- testantism took possession of them all, and found them so vast that it never has been able since to fill them with worshippers. The con- gregations of many of them now assemble in the choir, a part of the church which had been exclusively set apart for the clergy. And not alone the churches, but the universities, with all their endow- ments and benefices as depositories of learning, all, all, passed promptly into the hands of Protestantism. I make these statements to show how little Protestantism has ac- complished compared with the immensity of its means. If Protest- antism had been what it professed to be, it found itself almost by surprise put in possession of the means wherewithal to carry its tri- umphs to the ends of the earth. The Church of Christ itself, the Catholic Church, was for three hundred years obliged to dwell in the catacombs of Rome, not daring, or scarcely daring to show it- self; and when it did, it was with a prospect of martyrdom; but Protestantism seized upon a large portion of the wealth of Christen- dom, and became the master of kings and armies, senates and na- tions, universities and churches, and every thing that Catholics had, in the gradual accumulation of their charities for ages, contributed to erect for civilization and religion. We will now, therefore, regard Protestantism in its purpose. What was its mission ? Its mission, according to its own state- ments, was to renovate a faded, fallen, and false Christianity. Its mission was to introduce a pure and perfect religion, as a substitute for that " apostate Church," as it called the Catholic faith, from which itself went forth ; and if this were its purpose, we should sup- pose it would take certain grounds in reference to its mission ; for if it were conscious of the possession of truth ; if it really believed it had now taken the form in which God would have the world to be saved, it was bound to propagate itself, to make itself known, to speak in a consistent, uniform, and unequivocal language, so that it might ac- complish, in time, something like what the pretendedly faded Church had indisputably accomplished in its time before. Two tilings particularly it was bound to accomplish one was, to convert pagan nations and Catholic nations ; and the other was, to preserve itself: for, if it lost itself, in attempting to gain others, it would show that it was not what it pretended to be, but something not having that light and truth of which God is the author. I should perhaps attempt a definition of what Protestantism is. I have looked into the expositions of its most prominent advocates, but among them all I have sought in vain for any thing like a scien- tific or logical definition ; nor can I conceive it possible to give such a definition of the word Protestantism. However, I will take it in the fairest light of which it is susceptible, and endeavor to give a definition by the elements of which it is composed. I take it that THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 91 Protestantism is a general term, indicating that an individual ac- cepting it explicitly protests against the Catholic Church in the first instance, but implicitly against all human authority ; and claims, on the other hand, the right of taking the Holy Scriptures, reading them for himself, and taking the meaning and light which they re- flect upon his mind as the religion of Christ. I am aware that, in order to determine its decline or progress, it is expedient that we should fix upon what was understood by Protestantism at the period to which I refer. I will therefore take the period of 1567, when Protestantism was comprised under three great divisions the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and the Anglican ; and looking at the symbolical books of that period, it is to be understood as comprising two elements, one negative, the other positive. There is one aspect of the decline of Protestantism which can afford no comfort to the most ardent adherent of the Catholic Church, and that aspect is seen in the tendency of Protestantism to rationalism and infidelity. Protestantism comprised, originally, a great number of the primitive truths of Christianity. These truths were doctrines which the first separation from us did not prevent Protestants from carrying forth with them I mean the great mysteries of the Holy Trinity, the In- carnation of the Saviour, the Redemption by the Son of God, Origi- nal Sin, the Holy Eucharist, with or without the belief of the Real Presence, and others sanctioned in Christ's Church. These were the positive doctrines embodied in their symbolical books ; while Prayers for the Departed, Transubstantiation, the Intercession of Saints, and so many other doctrines that had been the faith of Christendom, were excluded and cut off, and this formed the nega- tive phase. You have, therefore, these two principles ; and beyond these I cannot pretend to define what Protestantism is ;. for if you pass from the generic title to the specific variety, and trace out its development from one denomination to another, down to the latest phase of human error, you will find in them all these two elements this and this, no ; and this and this, yes. They all vary, and yet all profess to be guided by their own private interpretation of the Scrip- tures alone, while all agree in protesting against the Church of God. All of them protest against every species of authority, and all of them still retain some of the prominent and positive doctrines of the Christian Church, which become a test of religious association and a special ground of communion. We cannot, therefore, at this day, but regret that what was positive in those times has ceased in a great measure to exist in the Protestantism of the present day ; but if it once included all these fundamental doctrines, how great has been its decline on the side of Latitudinariauism ! I have written for this lecture perhaps some fifteen or twenty pages of authorities alone, and I have been obliged to put them all aside, because, if I should attempt the labor of quoting authorities, to make thorough work of it, I should have to occupy my whole time with them. But then what authorities should I have had to quote ? Why, the authorities of Protestant writers, some calling themselves by one 92 AKCI1BISHOP HUGHES. denomination, and some by another ; but all of them showing the actual condition to which Protestantism has been reduced, on the very fields of its first and most astonishing triumphs. Do you speak of Germany ? In Germany, the doctrines regarding the Trinity are held, if held at all, only by the uneducated and ignorant ; but as for your preachers in the pulpit, as for your doctors of theology, and great men of every department, they have no conception of any such belief. Rationalism has taken the place of Protestantism, al- though men still claim the name, from the meaning and purport of which they have so widely departed. Do you speak of the facts usually referred to in proof of Christianity the miracles, for instance, recorded in the Holy Scriptures? They explain them all away. They apply the dreamy analogies of Mesmerism to the works of the Redeemer ; and pretend, among other cases, that the man stricken with palsy was cured by Christ because he had a deep insight into human nature, and knew the power of imagination, when he took the palsied man by the hand, fixed his eye upon him, and effected a cure. This is their explanation of Scripture ; and yet they are en- joying the emoluments of Protestantism, which were originally pro- vided in one form or another for the support of the Catholic clergy, but which are now transferred to modern Protestantism, the prin- ciples of which are sapping and undermining the vital doctrines of Christianity in such a manner, that in a short time you shall see their dominions a wilderness of paganism, and made all the more terrible because their inhabitants have been civilized. Do you go to Switzerland, where Calvin established Protestantism, and kept alive for a time the doctrine of the Trinity ? In Geneva, if they have a patron saint, it is not John Calvin, but Jean Jacques Rous- seau. His sentiments are the prevailing sentiments of those who call themselves Christians, and they are preached from the very pulpit from which the great father of that stern sect of Protestants once uttered his subtle but desperate scheme of predestination. In his day, if a man in Geneva professed disbelief in the Trinity, he ran the risk of capital punishment. But now, how changed ! If a man in that city, at the present day, professes to believe in the Trinity as Calvin believed it, he will not be burned to death he will only be laughed at! Go to France. The condition of Protestantism is nearly, if not quite similar. Travellers tell us that the temples there represent but a mockery of a memory of a departed creed ; that they are chill and dark, and that their preachers, if they speak of Christianity at all, speak in the rationalistic language of Germany. Go to Sweden ; and all again is cold and stiff as iron, although the government holds dominion, and freedom of conscience, as we understand it, is unknown. There is, it is true, an apparent con- formity to established forms in this and other northern States of Europe, which might deceive ; but the explanation is, that the civil power will not tolerate any other outward forms of religion. We read, for instance, but the other day, of a painter, and a man of genius, inspired by the enthusiasm of what is warm and beautiful in THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 93 art ; and who, whether from this or from some higher impulse, wished to become, and did become a Catholic ; whereupon he was banished from his native land, and all his property confiscated. Let us pass to England. Protestantism has not been able to pre- serve itself, even there. Look over its social and religious history from the year 1567 to the present day. See what England has passed through ; and at this day, Protestant though it still be in name, in feeling, and in law, yet it appears to be utterly unconscious of what really constitutes its religious life and mission. It seems to have no principle of self-explanation, nothing that is calculated to impress on others any respectful or reverential idea of what it is ; utterly incapable of preserving the doctrines, which it thought be- longed to itself, from the ruthless invasion of every advocate of error. On the other hand, if you look for any thing like propaga- tion of Protestantism in the Catholic or pagan world, you look in vain. It is long, indeed, since it felt the necessity of attempting something like what had been accomplished by the Catholic Church, in the conversion of the heathen ; and we find that, as early as 1701, missionary societies were instituted. What they did, however, is a blank, so far as history is concerned. We know that, within our own memory, millions and millions of money, from England and these United States, and hundreds if not thousands of missionaries, have been sacrificed in the attempt to do something towards prop- agating Protestantism in the pagan world ; and, I will say boldly, without success. I am aware that they speak of success in the Sandwich Islands ; but I believe that the success of Protestantism even there, as a religion capable of propagating itself, on further in- vestigation, will be found to be altogether illusory. We know that the population has diminished more than one-half since it came under the influence and government of what are called missions; and we know further, for we have it from their own writings, that the conversion of those who remain is of so doubtful a type, that during one period they passed a civil law enforcing attendance at public worship, and under its operation the inhabitants were driven to church ; but now, for some eighteen years or so, since the law was repealed, their churches are getting empty ; so that I conceive Protestantism will no more succeed in converting the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, than the Puritans did in converting the tribes of Indians, whom they drove from their hunting grounds in the northern and eastern portions of the United States. These failures to convert pagans, therefore, are symptoms of de- cline ; and if this failure comes, on one side, from the rejection of Catholic authority, or from the withholding its primary doctrines, must we not conclude that all those infidel systems which have grown out of Protestantism, have grown out of it at its own expense? We must either admit that all Germany, and France, and Holland have declined from Protestantism, and gone into the cold and dark regions of infidelity, or we must still call these nations Protestant, and allow that one condition of their Protestantism is the denial of 94 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. the doctrines of the Trinity, and the holy mysteries of the Christian faith. Protestants wouldj I believe, universally assert the distinc- tion. They speak of the orthodox denominations, as distinguished from what they consider heterodox or infidel variety. If, therefore, both are not equally Protestant, how vastly has Protestantism de- clined in the direction of unbelief, skepticism, and heathenism ! Protestantism declines too, on the other side, in the direction of conversions from its ranks to the true faith. It is a very consoling reflection for us that, for a long time, many of the best and mightiest minds that ever adorned Protestantism, have been coming, one after another, in the opposite direction of positive belief and of the Catho- lic Church. In Germany, though we do not pretend to be very fa- miliar with what is going on there, we hear of four hundred from among the most learned men, connected with the universities of those studious old nations, who, during the two years of 1813 and 1814, became Catholics; and every year since, some of those distin- guished minds have seen that the middle ground, negative and posi- tive, " yes and no," attempted to be occupied by Protestantism, is altogether untenable. They see that either Catholicism or Protest- antism must ultimately prevail, and whilst the largest portion wan- der still further from truth, they only follow in the direction of the broken logic of their first leaders, and can retort on those who would restrain them : " You told us that the Scriptures are our only guide, and we are their interpreters for ourselves. You have taught us to reject authority, and now do you attempt to fasten its gall- ing yoke on our necks ? If the old Catholic Church was decep- tive, as you have taught us, how dare you, who cannot agree among yourselves, attempt to bind upon us an authority which you your- selves cannot bear ?" And so the declension of Protestantism is in two opposite directions, as the positive or negative principle pre- vails the negatives all rushing off, every one in his own way, and the positives all gathering towards a Catholic centre, under the in- fluence of a prudence that dare not reject divine authority. Here is the test-point of Protestantism ; and here it is made manifest that in its very birth it inherited the seeds of death and dissolution, so as to destroy the very possibility of its self-preservation or self- propagation. It may be said that Catholic nations have also furnished infidels, and that a whole school of rationalistic and philosophic men, who disturbed the world during the latter portion of the last century, belonged to Catholic France. To this the reply is, that there is no charm in the Catholic Church to prevent a man, bent on error, from indulging liis propensities; there is no spell to be cast over him by the Church ; but he can never do so as a Catholic ; whereas, in Protestantism, in all instances that I have spoken of, it is not the lay- man only, but the preacher; and he preaches Protestantism when he preaches against the divinity of Christ, when he preaches against the miracles, against original sin, or against the atonement ; and in all this he is warranted by the negative element in the very consti- THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 95 tntion of the system of which he forms a part ; so that Protest- antism has no check upon him. If he preaches error, what right lias any authority on earth to rebuke him ? He can answer, " Look at your charter. Is it not the privilege of the Protestant is it not my right? By what claim of superiority will you dare to raise your judgment against mine, and say that I am wrong, and you are right ?" Protestantism cannot check infidelity ; and the only re- gret it appears to feel on witnessing this desolation, this cold and chilling atmosphere into which it has been ushered, is the regret that there is left no balm in Gilead, no remedy by which matters might be healed. Iti then, Protestantism has declined, is declining, and is destined to decline, it may not be unseasonable to inquire into the causes of it. I think the fact itself is undeniable, and I must abstain from quoting the innumerable instances of it, because such quotations are unnecessary. The thing itself is admitted on all sides. But now the question comes up, what causes have prevented Protestantism from taking that spread, and exercising that influence over the human race, which should have distinguished a system having, or claiming to have, the blessing and favor of God ? The causes are no doubt many ; but I think the primary cause, of which the others are consequences, is to be found in the very elements of Protestantism itself; for I conceive that God has given to man but two general principles of guidance. One is divine authority, which, as being divine, is above him ; and the other is reason, which is in him. If it be said that we, Catholics, because we admit authority, do not exercise our reason, we have an answer which is obvious, and ought to be satisfactory ; and it is this : If you ask our reason for submitting to authority, we answer, that in the exercise of that faculty we have arrived at the conclusion that God, having made a revelation, has appointed a Church, to be the depository and wit- ness of His truth, and the guide to his people to the end of the world. Now, if this be true, what can be more natural or rational than to submit our reason to the teachings and guidance that God himself has appointed ? But on the other hand, the Protestant sys- tem, from the beginning, essentially casts off all authority. It is very difficult to say now, what were, if any, the philosophical mo- tives for asserting this principle ; whether asserted by accident ; whether it was intended really to be a central and abiding point in the new system, it is difficult to say : but one thing is perfectly clear {Hid obvious that the first exigency of condition in Protest- antism was to PULL DOWN. Its first mission was not to build up, but to pull down ; and a more fruitful or efficient principle of en- couragement for the destruction of whatever did exist, never could have been devised by the perverted and perverting ingenuity of man, than the principle which made every human being the supreme judge of what was right and true, with the injunction to reject all authority. Hence, therefore, the first destructive principle of Pro- testantism was a condition of necessity, though its votaries seem 96 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. never to have had the foresight to reflect or perceive that this prin- ciple could be turned against any thing else, and, in a little time, even against itself. But having once proclaimed the principle, it could not deny the consequences. Hence, after the first ebullition of that species of half political, half religious revolution, they began to draw the semblance of a creed around themselves, and to throw some restraints over the private reasoning of their own adherents. This attempt at restraint is the other element of Protestantism, and from that period until the present day, supposing it to be thus con- stituted, it is manifest that it never could, under such principles, either preserve or propagate itself. And why ? Because these two principles came in contradiction one with the other. How can you make me free to read the Holy Scriptures and judge for myself, if you tie me down to your Augsburg Confession, your Westminster Catechism, or your Thirty-nine Articles and Homilies ? What kind of freedom is that ? The freedom you proclaimed invited me to desert the Catholic faith, in order, as it would now seem, to put my neck into the yoke you have framed. You give with one hand, and take away with the other that which you had given. Now, therefore, I must be consistent with you. Whatever systems or confessions you have made, God is invariable ; and, following out His light and yours, I see you are in contradiction with yourselves, and cannot continue to have any active existence. Either reject authority, and make every man free to follow his own judgment, or admit authority ; and if you admit authority, then you recall your own principle ! Be candid, then, and do not deceive us with words. If you mean that we are to shape our belief according to your arti- cles, tell us so. If we have reason to think you are teaching from God, we will follow you ; but, as it is, you adopt a principle which is destructive of every doctrine of your own system, and which, at the same time, deprives you of the right of correcting and calling back those who wander from your arbitrary standard of Christian belief. Hence it is, that all those persons who go in the direction of rationalism, go on the first principle of Protestantism ; and all those who accept authority, and find it not in the system of Protestantism, and discover there no guarantee of a certain faith, one after another come back to the faith of their ancestors. This principle has fol- lowed Protestantism into every department of its quasi religious life. It is like the blood in the human system. It springs from the heart of Protestantism, and pervades the whole extremities. Hence the number of sects. No man can enumerate their shades and varie- ties. It would be vain to attempt it. But all of them are justified in their character by the very first principle of separation from the as- sociation to which the primitive founders had belonged. Hence it is, too, that Protestantism has lost all organic influence over the masses of mankind, and that it has so lost all capacity to preserve even its own doctrines, that it is paralyzed, powerless, speechless ; or if it speaks, its words are of no import. It has lost all central force ; and because it was conscious of this defect from the beginning, you THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 97 will observe that it immediately attached itself, in every instance, to the State, so that kings and courts became its master from the hour of its birth. It is free, and professes to be free, only in these United States ; and of the use which it makes of its freedom, even here, none of its advocates have any great reason to be proud. It is said that it has emancipated nations. This is not the fact ; but even if it were so, it was at the expense of its own liberty, see- ing that itself became a State-slave from the first hour of its exist- ence. Protestantism at this day, wherever it is established in the Old World, is but a part of the State. You may speak of its Con- sistories, Presbyteries, and Synods of its Bishops, Ministers, and Dignitaries, but you will find them without a tongue to defend their own rights, or to define its doctrines, except the tongue which the sovereign or his civil minister puts into their mouths. In Eng- land itself, the country which has succeeded the best with Protest- antism, have we not seen but the other day, a dispute arising be- tween a Presbyter and his Bishop about the nature and efficacy of the sacrament of baptism ? a topic which has been decided by the voice of universal Christendom for eighteen hundred years! In this dispute th$ Bishop had no authority or right of judgment over the Presbyter. On the contrary, he was opposed by the Archbishop ; and there were the Presbyter, Bishop, and Ai'chbishop, all learned professors of Protestant theology, and they could not define the doc- trine of their Church with regard to baptism, until it was made known to them by a civil officer, a judge on the bench ; and to his opinion they were obliged to submit. Yet these Presbyters, Bish- ops, and Archbishops speak to us of setting, or having set nations free ; they speak to us of the freedom of countries where the re- ligion, of which they are ministers, is adopted and patronized by the sovereign and by the state ! No doubt. But the connection be- tween the Church and the State rules, as I take it, that the Church in such countries is -a mere function or department of the government, in which the sovereign speaks to the bishop, or the judge on the bench to the presbyter or the metropolitan, as he does to the admirals of the navy or the officers of the army. Ho\v then can Protestantism succeed in preserving itself, or in converting the erring world ? And again, to speak of the causes of its want of success in preserving its own doctrines, or in converting nations; how has it been, or how is it now possible for Protest- antism to succeed ? Its missionaries, for instance, carry with them double elements, the positive and the negative viz. : " Such and such doctrines to be accepted, and such and such others to be cast aside." Indeed, they often cast away all creeds as known to other men, and have no creed of their own, except as they read and choose to interpret the Scriptures. "We hear of companies of missionaries going to convert heathen nations, and of their holding consultations- from day to day on board ship, to agree, in some manner, as to what kind of doctrines they shall preach and present to the heathen.. We have an instance of one of their distinguished members who left VOL. II. 7. 98 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. this country as a missionary, who himself became converted on the voy- age, and was baptized into a new sect on reaching the pagan land. What has been the consequence of all this wavering, instability, and uncertainty ? It has been the same as that which has produced the divisions, and weakened any power that ever existed in the Protest- ant system of religion. It is natural, and to be expected, that the heathen will say to such men " How can we hearken to the voice of missionaries who come to us conflicting with each other in doc- trine ? They should not come to us with contrary or mutilated messages from the Son of God. We shall remain as we are, till your learned missionaries agree among yourselves." They have also still further confounded the simple judgment of the pagan. By the fact of being Protestants, they must necessarily commence the history of their religion, by saying that Chrisjt established a Church for the purpose of propagating His doctrine, but that after fifteen hundred years it had failed, and they had come to renew it. How can the savage inwardly digest such a story like that ? How quickly will he, with the perception of natural instinct, not to say talent, reply, "How can I know what confidence to put in you, if the Author of Christianity Himself failed in His Church ?" Thus, on every side, that inherent defect, that one principle which is self-destruction, has followed Protestantism in every one of its undertakings ; so that, at the present day, it does not in reality hold together as a system of doctrines. There is no heart in it, no intel- lect, no comprehensive or comprehensible body of principles, by which men could be brought into religious and harmonious associa- tion one with another. Protestantism, however, still numbers perhaps fifty millions of men an immense aggregate, it is true ; and among them may be found many of the most enlightened and best-educated minds that the world can this day boast of. Yet, owing to the unhappy aus- pices of the first principle of Protestantism, if God would make known what is the specific creed of each individual of these fifty millions, it is probable that not ten out of the whole number could be found to agree, on all points, in substance and detail, in the prin- ciples and doctrines of Christian revelation. On the other hand, the Catholic Church numbers two hundred millions, scattered all over the globe, from the rising to the setting of the sun ; and I run no risk in stating that, out of these two hundred millions, there could not be found ten in whose inmost souls there exists the slightest de- viation from the actual, and of course original, doctrines of the Church, in regard to the revelations of the Son of God. We have thus taken a hasty glance at the decline of Protestant- ism, and obtained a conception of some of its causes. There are many other causes to which time will not permit me to refer. Among them I look upon the civilly shackled condition of Protest- antism, in every land, as by no means insignificant. In every country it is used as a State engine by the government ; and here, where it is not so used, you can perceive the excesses and THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 99 fanaticisms into which it runs. Look at the northeastern part of this country, perhaps the most enlightened portion of it, the land which was first occupied by the stern Puritans. What is it now ? A land of Socinians a land of infidelity. The very pulpits, built for the purpose of preaching the doctrines of the Trinity, for in- stance, without any professed change from Protestantism, have been turned into places for preaching against the divinity of the Son of God ! You have there the denial of the great truths which I have enumerated. You have even women, reared under the sweet in- fluences of what should have been a Christian home, assembling now in " Congresses" and clamoring for " woman's lights ;" claim- ing to be Christians, but forgetting their true dignity, as belonging to a sex rendered for ever glorious by the virgin mother of the In- carnate God. Their Redeemer secured their privileges, which they overlook ; and now under Protestantism they are contending for " woman's rights," measured by a base human standard. They will not obtain them. You have your Father Millers also, who turned votaries of private interpretation, crazy with the idea that the last day has come, or was to have come four years ago. And who can stop him ? Who amoug Protestants has the authority to say to him, " Unhappy man, you are not a Protestant if you say so, and you must cease ?" He takes his Bible, and demonstrates from Daniel and the Apocalypse that the world was to be consumed and brought to an end in the year 1846. Otherwise the Bibles were to be thrown in the fire as deceitful and fallacious. So too with your Joe Smith and the Mormons ; and where is there any thing in Protestantism to prevent such impostors from sweeping away thousands of souls which Protestantism had under- taken to guide in the path to heaven ? The adherents of Protest- antism, no doubt, preach from the pulpit obedience to the decisions of their ecclesiastical bodies ; but of what authority are they ? None at all. All is gone ; the life is gone, the soul is gone, and the prin- ciple is gone, if there ever was any principle, except that which was calculated to produce endless divisions and contradictions among the advocates of Protestantism, and against those to whom God has been pleased to bequeath, as a legacy of mercy and infinite love, one united system of divine revelation. During all this time to which I have referred, and in which the Catholic Church saw those several nations torn from her communion, as so many bright stars swept from the celestial firmament, she was not idle. She was making inroads upon the Protestant dominions, and converting their best men. But she did not stop there ; she sent forth her missionaries to replenish and recruit from pagan lands those who should compensate for the havoc which Protestantism had made in her spiritual dominions. She brought South America and all its Indian tribes into communion with herself; and they have been preserved to her, and thereby placed in the path of continuous and progressive improvement. She sent her missionaries into China, 100 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and planted there the nucleus of what may one day turn out to be a beautiful and glorious portion of the Church of God. She sent them to Paraguav -not of your delicate stamp, not that class whose only object abroad appears to be to distribute tracts, and count even the number of their pages for the newspaper, even to the extent of millions; but her missionaries seemed to be animated by the life and soul of truth, and an ardent love of the Church. How strangely, and yet how instructively, has God manifested the distinction between truth and error ; for while Protestantism has converted none, Catholicism has converted all ! How beautiful, too, are some of the passages in the lives of many of the Catholic mis- sionaries during the very period in which Protestantism was making its ravages in Europe ! Who can imagine, for instance, a scene more touching than that exhibited on the tranquil rivers of Paraguay when the Jesuit missionaries, finding the Indians shy, suspicious, and averse to personal intercourse, or any conversation with them, resorted to their canoes, and preached to the hearts of the savages, by chanting some of those beautiful and touching hymns which the Church has consecrated to the praise of God, or the sweet anthems composed in honor of the Mother of our Holy Redeemer ? The Indians could not resist the influence of the harmony of these beauti- ful strains ; they kept pace on the beach with the movements of the canoe ; forgetting gradually their first diffidence and timidity, they Avere attracted to the presence and conversation of the missionaries. On one other occasion, in like manner, when one of two missionaries who had been separated from his only companion of the forest, re- turned to the place where he had left his brother, he found his body pierced with arrows. He had died a martyr to his faith ; and when he saw that he was dying, he had opened his Breviary at the " Prayers for the departing ;" and his surviving companion, seeing all this, instead of flying for safety, intoned on the desolate rock, over the martyr's body, the " Te Deum Lmtda/mis;" because from that moment he began to conceive stronger hopes that God would impart a blessing to that unhappy people, though they had shed the blood of their first missionary. HE had sent them, and in His hands one could be as powerful as both. Where has Protestantism pro- duced any thing like this ? Where have its missionaries exhibited any of those extraordinary manifestations of devoted faith and self- sacrifice, as well as divine approbation, which have distinguished the missionaries of the Catholic Church throughout all time ? Nothing of the kind can be found. Protestantism acquired all it ever pos- sessed in fifty years, in the heart of Christianity, amidst war and civil strife, and after that it became as if stricken with sterility. It could neither preserve itself nor its doctrines ; and whether we num- ber those who have unhappily gone farther from the truth, in follow- ing out its principles, or whether we count the multitudes disposed to return to Catholicism, there can be no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that Protestantism has declined, is declining, and is des- tined to decline; and probably, before the end of a century from THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM. 101 this clay, there will remain of it 'throughout the civilized world but a spectacle of the wreck of what had been Protestantism. This is the probability ; and it is on this account that the Church has never for a moment ceased to understand her mission and her purpose in regard to the errors of its advocates, as well as those of mankind in general. Protestantism pretends to have discovered great secrets. Protestantism startles our eastern borders occasionally on the inten- tion of the Pope with regard to the valley of the Mississippi, and dreams that it has made a wonderful discovery. Not at all. Every- body should know it. Everybody should know that we have for our mission to convert the world, including the inhabitants of the United States, the people of the cities, and the people of the coun- try, the officers of the navy and the marines, commanders of the army, the Legislatures, the Senate, the Cabinet, the President, and all! We have received from God what Protestantism never re- ceived viz., not only a commission but a command to go and teach all nations. There is no secret about this. The object we hope to accomplish in time is to convert all pagan nations, and all Protestant nations even England, with her proud parliament and imperial sovereign.. There is no secrecy in all this. It is the commission of God to His Church, and not a human project. God, who, in His own inscrutable providence, permitted this great melancholy schism to take place, knows the time, the means, and the circumstances under which the return of many souls to unity shall be accomplished. In the mean time, look over the list of great minds who have already relinquished high honors, and rank, and station in the Church of England, and sought admission to the one true Church. Who, without a feeling of pride, can pronounce the name of the meek Spencer, who was willing to be despised and abject for Christ's sake, who goes abroad among the poor, preaching to them, minis- tering to their wants, and asking them to offer up continual prayers for the conversion of his loved but erring England ? Who can think of Newman, with all the strength of his mighty intellect, and all the sweet and tender affections of his pure soul, infused into every page of his writings, coming back and endeavoring as far as possible to repair on the side of truth the unintentional injury which he and his associates had done to the Church of Christ. Who can tell among ourselves the number of Protestants, and many of them ministers, who have already come, or are preparing to come back to Catholic unity ? Now, I can say for myself that I have had much pleasant and fondly cherished intercourse with Protestants, and in all my life I never conversed with one who was entirely satisfied with his re- ligion. I do not say, however, that on this account they were as yet ready to become Catholics. But, on the other hand, those illus- trious converts, who have been liberated from the ambiguities of Protestantism, those noble auxiliaries, who have been brought up, as it were, in the camp of the enemy, such as Spencer, Newman, and others, from the moment they became Catholics, found a fulness of measure equal to the desires of their souls a provision of heavenly 102 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. things in the Church of God, suited "and equal to the aptitudes and capacities of ransomed and regenerated humanity. Why, then, should we not unite in prayer, that God will recon- duct to the fold of Christ those upright, but as yet unhappily wan- dering brethren, who are wasting their strength, their lives, on the fields of Protestantism ? Why not unite in prayer, that God will bring them all back into the sweet communion of the one true Church ? We should pray for it. We must look for it. If it had not been for these awful errors of Protestantism, if all the nations had remained in the communion of the Church of God, it would seem that Christianity, by this time, would have absorbed all the nations of the earth. If the resources and labors of those several States of Protestantism mentioned in this lecture had been united and directed to one common purpose, it seems to me that, under the oi-dinary blessing of God, Paganism, Mahometanism, and every species of darkness would have vanished before the approach of the heralds of the Cross. Oh, why should we not pray that the day may be near when the missionary from London may meet the mis- sionary from Rome, in the propagation of one and the same doc- trine, teaching the subjects of heathenism, bringing all nations into one Church, and impressing upon them the belief in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism ? THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. A LECTURE DELIVERED IN METROPOLITAN HALL, BEFORE THE CATHOLIC INSTITUTE, ON MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 8, 1853, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HOUSE OF PROTECTION, UNDER THE CHARGE OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY. AMERICAN* statesmen and orators are never more eloquent than when they dilate on the religious equality which has been guaran- teed to all the people of this land by the Magna Charter of their rights and privileges the Constitution of the United States. This equality has not only been proclaimed in theory : it has been reduced to practice. The mode by which the framers of the Constitution proposed to secure it was simple, and I may say, original. In other countries, whether Catholic or Protestant, there had been legisla- tion establishing or recognizing one predominant creed, but some- times also granting toleration to dissenters from the doctrine of the State religion. In all such cases, the rights of conscience were se- cured by affirmative la\vs: here they have a wider scope and a bet- ter security, by the constitutional negation of all power to legislate on so sacred a subject. In other countries they are secured by some positive statute, here they are safer, under a constitutional provi- THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 103 sion forbidding any such statute to be ever enacted. In other coun- tries toleration was granted by the civil authority : here the great men who framed the Constitution saw, with keen and delicate per- ception, that the right to tolerate implied the equal right to refuse toleration, and on behalf of the United States, as a civil government, they denied all right to legislate in the premises, one way or the other " Congress shall make no law on the subject of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." As soon as the States had approved and confirmed the provisions of the Constitution, it was natural that they should adjust their local charters in accordance with the principles of the great instru- ment of federal Union. Already, in 1VS4, Rhode Island had re- moved the only blemish in her laws on this subject, a brief disquali- fying clause against Roman Catholics. Pennsylvania and Delaware, I believe, were the only other States at that period which were not under the necessity of improving their legislative records, by ex- punging some clause similar to that which Rhode Island had re- pealed and erased before the general Constitution was adopted. At a very early day, however, several of them followed the example. Some twenty years ago North Carolina expurged her Constitution in this respect, in part, no doubt, owing to her esteem and regard for one of her own cherished sons, himself a Catholic, the late Judge Gaston, a man whose^character was such that it could not but reflect honor on his native State and country. Within a more recent period, New Jersey also, unprompted, and of her own accord, revised and improved her Constitution in this respect. New Hampshire, how- ever, clings to her old unaltered charter, in which is a clause disa- bling Catholics, on account of their religion, from holding any office in the State. Her distinction, therefore, among her sister States, may be described in the words of the poet : " 'Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone, All its lovely companions" Not faded, but " gone." The disqualifying clause is, I suppose, a dead letter; the Catholics of New Hampshire must be very few. On the whole, I have no doubt but that the liberality of the country at large has imbued the people of New Hampshire with kindest feelings towards even Roman Catho- lics. It must also be said to her credit, that she was one of the three States who suggested to the framers of the Constitution the very clause which I have cited, and which guarantees to all the people of this widely extended Union the perfect and perpetual equality of re- ligious rights and freedom of conscience. It is only to be regretted that after having performed, at so early a period, the function of in- dex, pointing out at the cross-ways the true path in which her thirty sisters are now advancing peacefully and prosperously, she should have continued stationary, and be found the last to practise what she had been among the first to preach. 104: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. But it was not in readjusting the dead letter of written State constitutions, that the people of this Union conformed to the new and liberal order which had been sanctioned by their authorized delegates in Convention. They labored to imbue themselves, and those around them, with its spirit and its life. The legislature, the executive, the judiciary, the pulpit, the bar, vied with each other in cherishing and uttering sentiments of reverence for the sacredness of what had been sanctioned in the provisions of the Federal Consti- tution. It was the primitive age of American patriotism. I trust, how- ever, that it may never deserve to be called, in comparison with subse- quent periods of possible degeneracy, the " Golden Age." But at all events, it was a period in which the great men of the country, of all professions, brought their sentiments, their conversation, and ac- tions, nay, controlled and brought even the very prejudices of their youth and education, into harmony with the new order of civil, religious, and social life, which had been so wisely provided for in the Federal covenant. Such an example could not fail to furnish a key-note for the universal tone of American patriotism, which it has not yet lost, and which, I trust, it never will forget or alter. Roman Catholics, at least, have every reason to remember and to cherish it. It is stated by one of our historians, that at the com- mencement of the Revolutionary war, except in the city of Penn, there was hardly another place in the colonies in which, by authority of the laws of the land, a Catholic priest could celebrate mass. Now there is no law against it anywhere. In view of this wonderful change, it may be, indeed it has been asked, why Catholics, in America, do not procure, or at least, peti- tion for similar alterations of the laws in favor of Protestants in such countries as Italy, Spain, and Portugal ? This, in my opinion, is a very silly question. Catholics in America have no more to do with the civil governments of Italy, Spain, and Portugal, than they have to do with those of England, Russia, or Turkey. But the question may, perhaps, be best answered by putting to those who ask it another just as silly, Why do you, Protestants, not induce Eng- land and the Protestant States of Northern Europe to imitate the example of this country, and abolish all legislation on the subject of religion, or "prohibiting the free exercise thereof?" All such questions, on either side, appear to me not only very ab- surd in themselves, but entirely out of place in a country like this. It is equally out of place, and altogether untrue, to assert or assume that this is a Catholic country or a Protestant country. It is neither. It is a land of religious freedom and equality ; and I hope that, in this respect, it shall remain just what it now is to the latest posterity. There are, however, certain parties that have been only partially, even to this day, penetrated by the spirit of the Constitution, and of the primitive men of the Republic, who, by word, deed, and ex- ample ushered it into the every-day business of American national life. Even this portion of the public mind is constrained to exhibit, or seem to exhibit, on its narrow surface, a formal respect for public THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 105 law and constitutional right. But still beneath that surface, and in the lower depths, there yet survives a certain vague, traditional memory of Protestant ascendency, fed by an hereditary prejudice to the effect that, in a civilized State where Protestants constitute the great majority of the people, Catholics ought to be satisfied with a subordinate position, and be very grateful, even at that, for the priv- ileges which the liberality of Protestantism in this country permits them to enjoy. To me it is a pleasure, as well as a duty, to feel and exhibit grat- itude where gratitude is due. But no collector need ever call on me for a tribute of gratitude, unless he can show a better claim than this, on account of kind offices rendered. I am grateful, and bound to be loyal to the country at large, for the benefits which I enjoy in a legal and constitutional way. I am not a citizen by the birthright of nature. But the Constitution and laws have conferred on me the birthright of civil and political nativity. For this I am grateful. If I have understood the subject, this makes me equal, before the law, to any other citizen of this Union ; and what more need any one desire what less should any.one who has been deemed worthy to be enrolled on the list of citizens, be willing to submit to ? What Catholics are, therefore, in this country, they are not by the favor of spontaneous benevolence, but by positive right, whether natural and original or legal and acquired. The object of this lecture, then, will be to show that Catholics, as such, are by no means strangers and foreigners in this land. It is not unusual to hear persons of the description I have alluded to as- sume, in conversation, that Catholics are new-comers, who enter the field at the eleventh hour, whereas they have borne the heats of the day. Not so. The Catholics have been here from the earliest dawn of the morning. They have shared in your sufferings, taken part in your labors, contributed to the common glory and prosperity of your country and theirs ; and neither the first page, nor the last page, nor the middle page of your history would have been where and what it is without them. At the period of the Revolution, the Catholics of the British col- onies were, no doubt, few. Still, they were even then numerous enough to leave their mark both on the battlefield of freedom and on the Declaration of Independence. At that period, the Catholics in this country were probably forty thousand, out of three millions. At present, my own opinion is, that they are not less than three millions and a half of the whole population. Emigration, no doubt, has contributed much to this result. But has not the whole country been growing by supplies from this source, from the very beginning? Even the oldest and stateliest family oak that now adorns the fields of early colonial plantation, though it has spread its branches far in American air, and struck its roots deep into American earth, may be traced back to its feeble beginnings of growth from a European plant transferred hither by emigration. And as it has been, so it be with similar cases. Now, this emigration has been going on 106 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. since the commencement of the colonies and of the Republic. But with or without this present emigration, the Catholics have been at all times sufficiently numerous to take part with their Protestant fellow-citizens in whatever was deemed essential to the interest and honor of the country. It is true that, as a general rule, they are seldom represented by members of their own creed in the halls of legislation, or in the high places of public office. If you look for < them in such places, you will find them, at most, " Rari nantes in gurgite vasto." But this is a slight affair. There are other departments of the public service in which, perhaps, a truer criterion is presented as the test of patriotism. From the day on which the national flag was first unfurled in the name of independence, when the people of these col- onies appealed to the sword, and left the issue of the struggle to Heaven's arbitration, until the day on which that same flag was seen triumphantly waving over the capital of Mexico, I think I shall be safe in saying that there has not been one important campaign or engagement in which Catholics have not bivouacked, fought, and fallen by the side of Protestants, in maintaining the rights and honor of their common country. On all these occasions,., from a glance at the roll of the missing, or a gaze on the upturned faces of the dead, it would be easy to discover that, however small the constituency, the Catholic body never failed to furnish a comparatively numerous delegation to the battlefield ; so that, whether in defence of the country, or in discharging the duties of civil, social, commercial, or professional life, they have justified their title, as of right, to that perfect equality with their Protestant fellow-citizens which the Con- stitution has conferred indiscriminately on all. But it may be said that even the Constitution itself is a sponta- neous concession, for which we are indebted to the liberality of Pro- testantism. If I had proofs of the contrary, what I deem due to the propriety of this occasion would prevent my making use of them. All credit and all gratitude to the liberality of the great men who framed that document, who were almost, if not altogether, exclu- sively Protestants. But the matter was not one which they might dispose of according to the impulse of their own high and generous feelings; and if there had been only one form of Protestantism pro- fessed in all the colonies, I fear much that, even with Washington at their head, the Constitution would not have been what it is. Al- most every colony had its own form of Protestantism ; and I am sorry to have to say that among them, even on religious matters, mutual charity was not always superabundant. Antagonisms from without would have defeated all the purposes of the confederation of States, if the Convention had attempted to favor any one of those forms at the expense of the others. But be this as it may, it is in the order of my subject to contend that, with or without the Con- stitution, there was no civil or religious immunity won by the suc- cess of the Revolution in which Catholics were not morally and THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 107 politically entitled, in their own right, to share equally with their Protestant fellow-citizens. Now, the Catholic Church has no recognized theory on the sub- ject of forms of civil government. The little republic of San Marino has preserved its independence and its republican forms for fourteen hundred years, in the very heart of the Papal States. The Church, however, is not an approver of revolutions, except when they are clearly justifiable. Having experienced singular protection in all the vicissitudes and revolutions of the social and political world dur- ing eighteen centuries, she has the consciousness that she lives by an inherent vitality within herself, of more than human origin. This has. sufficed her during the past ; it is sufficient for the present, and she is never troubled with doubts or misgivings in regard to her position in the future, which God has in His own hands, and can dispose of as He will. The first impression which the influence of her doctrine in regard to the principle of revolution would produce, I think, would be a presumption in favor of existing authority, until cause to the contrary should appear. Yet the principle of passive obedience on the part of subjects, or of absolute and irresponsible authority on that of sovereigns, never was, and certainly never will be, an approved principle of hers. She seems to have little con- fidence in theoretical systems which assume that great or enduring benefit is to result from those sudden and unexpected excitements, even of a religious kind those enthusiasms in favor of new schemes those irregular starts, and leaps, and bounds of popular ardor now in one direction, now in another, and not unfrequently in differ- ent and even opposite directions at the same time by which the pace of society is to be preternaturally quickened in the path of universal progress. In short, having witnessed so many experiments tried on poor credulous humanity by new doctors who turned out to have been only quacks, panaceas are not by her highly valued. She has had such long and universal experience, and such opportu- nities of studying her subject, that she knows what is in the heart of man, the bad as well as the good, much better than he knows it himself. She is inclined to suspect or distrust all those crudely con- ceived political changes which disturb the peace of communities and nations, without improving their condition. Oh, how many of these abortive and disastrous changes has she not witnessed throughout the whole world, during her life of eighteen hundred years ! But a revolution begun under such circumstances as marked the commencement, the prosecution, and completion of the American struggle for freedom, it would be impossible for her to condemn. It was admitted by the wisest statesmen of the English Senate that the authority of the British Constitution was on the side of the col- onists, and directly opposed to the violent course of their own in- fatuated government, in regard to the principle for the maintenance of which the Americans took up arms. Accordingly the Catholics, clergy and laity, were among the first and most ardent to join their countrymen in defence of common rights. Charles Carroll, of Car- 108 AKCHBISriOP HUGHES. rollton, signed the Declaration of Independence, with a bold and steady hand, risking his immense property, as well as his life, in the cause of his country. His cousin, the Rev. John Carroll, then a priest and a Jesuit, afterwards the venerated first Archbishop of Baltimore, was associated with Franklin, Chase, and Charles Car- roll, on a mission to conciliate, pending the war, the good-will, or at least the neutrality of the Canadians, who were Catholics. John Barry, of Philadelphia, a most devout Catholic, a native of Wex- ford, in Ireland, was appointed to command the Lexington, the first vessel of war owned by the Continental Congress. And so well did he acquit himself, that he received special thanks and commenda- tions from Washington himself. He was raised to the highest rank, the first who ever obtained from this government the title which is popularly known as Commodore ; his memory is held in respect by his gallant successors, and he is not unfrequently designated as the Father of the American Navy. But, not to speak of others who took a distinguished, though less prominent part in the great struggle, who, I may be allowed to ask, were your allies? Catholics. The troops furnished by Catholic France, to aid in the war of American independence, I find it stated, amounted in all to thirteen thousand. The vessels furnished by the same government, for the naval service of the young Republic, are set down in all at forty-five ships of the line, besides frigates. But money was as necessary as men ; and when the exchequer of Con- gress was empty, when the paper issues had ceased to represent any positive value, loans wei'e advanced by that same country, amount- ing in all to seven millions of dollars. Neither was this yet all. I find another account of three ships dispatched from France to this country, laden with military stores, including two hundred pieces of artillery, four thousand tents, and clothing for thirty thousand men. It may be said that France did all this from political motives, with a view to damage the power of England. But I have intended only to state the fact, not to discuss the motive. Supposing the mo- tive to be what you say, the colonies were actuated by the same de- sire : they, too, wished to damage and cripple the power of England, so as to prevent her from being able to despoil them of their con- stitutional rights as free-born men. According to all popular ideas, at least on this side of the Atlan- tic, the issue involved in the war of independence was a choice, as England presented it to the colonists, between political freedom and political slavery. During the contest, so far as religion is concerned, who were your allies and your friends ? I answer, Catholics ; and, if I may be permitted to add, none but Catholics. Of course, I do not mean to exclude by this remark the chivalrous men of different nations who risked their lives and fortunes in your cause ; and I would be especially ungrateful if among them I omitted to mention the name of the gallant Montgomery, who fell at Quebec. I speak of your allies and friends in their national, public character. On the other hand, in this contest between slavery and freedom, who were THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 109 your enemies ? Protestants ; and, if I may say it without offence, none but Protestants. Let me prove this. It is known how much the British army has been in all modern times made up of Irish Catholic soldiers. Their courage and fidelity have never been de- nied by their officers or the Government of England. But in the war which England was about to wage against the rising liberties of this country, Lord Howe, who was to take command, wrote to the British ministry that he " disliked and could not depend on Irish Catholic soldiers," and suggested that German mercenary troops should be employed ; and these German mercenaries turned out afterwards to be the far-famed Hessians. Again: In raising German troops for the purpose of crushing the liberties of this country in the war of independence, the agents of Great Britain on the Continent complained of the obstacles that were thrown in their way, whether in raising recruits or in forwarding them ; and these difficulties, it appears by dispatches to the govern- ment in London, were ascribed to the intrigues and opposition of Catholics in Germany. I think, that on a review of these evidences, there is no just and candid American, pretending to have any adequate knowledge of the history of his own country, who will not agree with me, that at the close of the war, the Catholics of this land were entitled, in their own right, to the civil and religious immunities which are secured to them in common with their fellow-citizens of other denominations, by the achievement of the independence of the United States. But there is another ground, in favor of a vast number of them, involv- ing the additional pledge of national honor. It will be recollected that, at the close of the French war, Canada was ceded by France to Great Britain. The colonies took a great interest in that war, in which Washington, still a youth, distinguished himself. The issue of the struggle has an immense bearing on the early history of the Uiiited States. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, by exploration of rivers and lakes, including even Lake Superior; by acquaintance with various tribes ; by missionary posts here, settlements there, forts, or something corres- ponding, in other places, the French, still Catholics, had created be- fore the law of nations a valid title to the whole of the valley of the Mississippi, if they had proved themselves physically capable of de- fending it against the combined power of England and her colo- nies. France proved unequal to the effort. Canada was ceded, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, to England, including all the depend- encies of Canada or of Xew France in North America. Now the rights of property and of religion were secured to all the inhabitants of the territory ceded in 1763 by France to England. The title to all the claims of France west of the Alleghanies, which passed to England by treaty, became vested in the United States at the close of the American war, and this country was bound in honor to re- spect the clause which had secured the rights of property and re- ligion to the inhabitants. Again, Louisiana was acquired directly 110 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. from France by purchase, subject to the same condition. Florida was bought from Spain, within my own recollection. Texas, at a period more recent still, and now, last of all, New Mexico, and the golden regions of California, have been acquired by treaty, and added to the national domain. In all these Territories and States, the rights of property and religion have been guaranteed to the in- habitants ; arid now, at this late day, are the ancient, or even the new Catholic inhabitants of such towns as Kaskaskia, Viricennes, St. Louis, on the Wabash and Mississippi, Natchez, Mobile, St. Au- gustine, New Orleans in Louisiana, Santa Fe in New Mexico, or San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Monterey in California, in de- spite of treaties (and the best treaty of all, the American Constitu- tion), to be told that this is a Protestant country ? with the soothing assurance, however, that they need not be alarmed, that Protestantism is only another name for liberty of conscience and universal toleration and that of its bounty, and under its benign and exuberant benev- olence, they are and shall be permitted to enjoy themselves, to own and manage their property, and to practise their religion, just the same as if they were entitled to equality of rank as fellow- citizens ! Why, if I know any thing of the American character, the enlightened portion of the Protestant mind of this country would feel as indig- nant as the Catholics themselves could feel, at the utterance of such pretensions. And yet they are all included in that one unjust and unhallowed assumption that this is a Protestant country, in which Catholics are permitted to live by the gratuity of Protestant tolera- tion. Let us now go back to the period which preceded the Revolution, whilst these States were as yet in the condition of British colonies. I need hardly recall to your recollection that of the three primitive colonies, one, that of Maryland, was Catholic. That of Virginia was first founded permanently in 1607, Massachusetts colony in 1620, and that of Maryland in 1634. I will not speak of the other col- onies, because I do not regard them as primitive, but only as inci- dental offshoots, springing up at a distance, and oftentimes growing out of a local necessity for a departure of some from the dwelling- place of their former friends. The Virginians, if I have not mis- understood their character and history, were high-minded, chival- rous, disposed to cultivate and realize their ideal of English gentle- men, even in the wilderness. They were aristocratic in their feel- ings, and they could hardly have been otherwise. They were the favored sons of England on these shores, as regarded both Church and State. Very different, in many respects, were the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth. Both colonies were of the same national stock and ori- gin, but the early inhabitants of both had been brought up under the influence of systems and associations quite antagonistic to each other. I am sorry to say that Catholics were not favorites with either. They were regarded by both with feelings, if I can use such an expression, of intense dislike ; whilst neither the inhabitants of THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. Ill Virginia nor those of Massachusetts were by any means over toler- ant to each other. The Puritans were earnest men. This is not the place or time to speak of their religious doctrines. But whether they were safe guides in theology or not, that they were sincere I have no doubt. Now, next to truth, in all cases, sincerity has the first and strongest claim to the respect and almost veneration of the human mind. Not only were they earnest and sincere, but there was no double-man among them. Whatever they seemed to be, that they were, neither more nor less. In the transcendentalism of some of their descendants, in our day, the whole of the law and the prophets has been reduced to the summary of a phrase, which im- plies that each one should " act out his own individual inward life;" and this is the precise life of which their pilgrim fathers had left them the practical example. Among them, no man presented a duality or plurality of outward phases, each purporting, according to the exigencies of interested expediency, to be the uniform type of his interior individual life. They had suffered much from persecution on account of their religion ; and they did not deem it extravagant to claim, in the wilderness at least, the privilege of being united and undisturbed iu their worship by the inroads of sectarians, and of doctrines at variance with their own. They had arrived amid the rigo'rs of winter ; they were welcomed only by ice, rocks, wild forests, and the probable hostility of Indian tribes. The reception was cold, indeed ; but, in their minds, not more so than their expul- sion from their native land, for such they considered it, had been cruel. The convictions of their conscience, on account of which all this had been brought upon them, and on account of which they had rejoicingly submitted to the hardships of their position, were such that their very sufferings served but to render their religion more and more dear to them. They cherished their religion abovo all things ; and, with a view to transmit it unaltered to their pos- terity, they conceived that they did others no wrong by excluding all other creeds and the votaries of them from their own remote, quiet, and united community. They had no objection that others should enjoy liberty of conscience ; but it was not to be in their colony. They judged that those others, if they wished liberty of conscience, might imitate their example, and find for themselves a Plymouth Rock in some other bay. If any preacher of new doc- trine rose among them, they did not deem it either unjust or op- pressive to require that he should find or found a congregation for himself somewhere beyond their borders. Whoever would judge justly and impartially of their subsequent legislation in matters of religion, should, in my opinion, regard it from this a priori point of view. Next to religion, they prized education. If their lot had been cast in some pleasant place of the valley of the Mississippi, they would have sown wheat, and educated their children ; but as it was, they educated their children, and planted whatever might grow and ripen, on that scanty soil with which capricious nature had tricked 112 ARCHBISHOP IIUGHES. off and disguised the granite beds beneath. Other colonies would have brought up some of the people to the school ; they, if I may be allowed so to express it, letdown the school to all the people, not doubting but, by doing so, the people and the school would rise of themselves. The consequence has been that education has become, among their descendants, a domestic inheritance, transmitted care- fully from one generation to another. It has become one of the characteristics of New England, and a nobler one she need not de- sire. Her sons have gone forth to every portion of this widely ex- tended and free empire ; and owing to their advantages of education they are generally sure to succeed, and often excel, in whatever business or profession of life they adopt. Owing to the same cause, the influence which they have exercised over the general mind of the country has been felt and acknowledged on every side. And if this is due first to their common-schools, and next to their colleges, and if they are indebted for their common-schools to their Pilgrim ancestors, it does them credit that, with filial reverence, they keep up from year to year the annual celebration of their forefathers' day. But it never occurred to the founders of their common-schools that a time should arrive when, under the plea of shutting out sectarian- ism, Christianity itself should be excluded from popular education. On the contrary, with their forefathers, the church and the school were regarded as mutually necessary to each other, and not to be separated. Time, I fear, will show that the system, the experiment, of divorcing religion from education, in the common-schools, will be attended with far less benefit, both to the pupils and to the country, than that system which was sanctioned by the colonists of Massa- chusetts. If partiality has sometimes portrayed the public character, whe- ther of the primitive Virginians or of the Plymouth pilgrims, in colors brighter that is, more glaring than truth, prejudice has seldom failed to follow and supply the shading with a darker hue than truth can warrant. And now of the other primitive colony, Catholic Maryland, what shall I say ? The portrait of the Maryland colony has also been taken by many artists, and the mutual resemblance of the copies is very remarkable. The picture is not over brilliant, but it is very fair. Its light is so little exaggerated, that prejudice itself has never ventured to profane the canvas with a single tint of additional shad- ing. I will present it to you as drawn by the impartial pen of a Protestant historian a native of New England, by the by, of whose reputation she and the whole country may well be proud I mean the Hon. George Bancroft. Of course, I shall invite your attention to those features which show that if civil, but especially religious liberty, be a dear and justly cherished privilege of the American people, the palrn of having been the first to preach and practise it is due, beyond all controversy, to the Catholic colony of Maryland. The history of the whole human race had furnished them with no previous example from which they could copy, although Catholic THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 113 Poland had extended a measure of toleration to certain Protestants of Germany, which had been denied them by their own brethren in their own country. George Calvert, known as Lord Baltimore, was the projector of the Catholic colony of Maryland, although it was actually settled under the leadership of his brother, Leonard Calvert, " who," says Bancroft, " together with about two hundred people, most of them Roman Catholic gentlemen and their servants, sailed for the Poto- mac early in 1634." Their landing is described as having taken place on the 27th of March. On the spot on which they landed, and in their first humble village of St. Mary's, the historian goes on to state that " there religious liberty obtained a home, its only home in the wide world." Representative government was indissolubly connected with the fundamental charter, and it was especially pro- vided that the authority of the absolute proprietary should not ex- tend to the life, freehold, or estate of any emigrant. The character of Lord Baltimore is described by the historian in the following terms : " Calvert deserves to be ranked among the most wise and benevolent law- givers of all ages. He was the first in the history of the Christian world to seek for religious security and peace by the practice of justice, and not by the exercise of power ; to plan the establishment of popular institutions with the enjoyment of liberty of conscience ; to advance the career of civilization by rec- ognizing the rightful equality of all Christian sects. The asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which, as yet, had hardly been explored, the mild forbearance of a proprietary adopted religious freedom as the basis of the State." He coes on further to remark, that at that period " every other country in the world had persecuting laws ; ' I will not, such was the oath for the Governor of Maryland, ' I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion !' Under the mild institutions and munificence of Baltimore, the dreary wilder- ness soon bloomed with the swarming life and activity of prosperous settlements ; the Roman Catholics, who were oppressed by the laws of England, were sure to find a peaceful asylum in the quiet harbor of the Chesapeake ; and there, too, Protestants were sheltered against Protestant intolerance." Their Colonial Assembly incorporated the same principles in their acts of legislation. " ' And whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion' such was the sublime tenor of the statute ' hath frequently fallen out to be of dan- gerous consequence in those commonwealths where it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceful government of this province, and the better to* preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be anyways troubled,, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.' " He adds : " Maryland, at that day, was unsurpassed for happiness and liberty. Con- VOL. II. 8 114 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. science was without restraint : a mild and liberal proprietary conceded every measure which tho welfare of the colony required ; domestic union, a happy concert between all the branches of government, an increasing emigration, a productive commerce, a fruitful soil, which Heaven had richly favored with rivers and deep bays, united to perfect the scene of colonial felicity and con- tentment. Ever intent on advancing the interests of his colony, Lord Balti- more invited the Puritans of Massachusetts to emigrate to Maryland, offering them lands and privileges, ' and free liberty of religion ;' but Gibbons, to whom he had forwarded a commission, was ' so wholly tutored in the New England discipline,' that he would not advance the wishes of the Irish peer ; and the people, who subsequently refused Jamaica and Ireland, were not now tempted to desert the bay of Massachusetts for the Chesapeake." He continues : " But the design of the law of Maryland was undoubtedly to protect freedom of conscience ; and some years after it had been confirmed, the apologist of Lord Baltimore could assert that his government, in conformity with his strict and repeated injunctions, had never given disturbance to any person in Maryland for matter of religion ; that the colonists enjoyed freedom of conscience, not less than freedom of person and estate, as amply as ever any people in any place of the world. The disfranchised friends of prelacy from Massachusetts and the Puritans from Virginia were welcomed to equal liberty of conscience and polit- ical rights in the Roman Catholic province of Maryland." By all this it would seem that the provision of the Federal Con- stitution, securing universal freedom of religion, corresponds, or might be regarded as having been almost literally copied from the provision of the charter and statutes of the Catholic colony of Mary- land, proclaimed and acted upon by them one hundred and forty years before the war of independence. Hence I submit that the Catholics of the United States, not only by what has occurred since, but by their presence and their principles, and their practice, from the earliest colonial times, are entitled in their own right to a full participation of all the privileges, whether civil or religious, which have been acquired by this country in ' the progress of her history. I have seen it stated in writing, and it may even occur to some one in this assembly, that the Catholics had no merit in this, inasmuch as they were too weak and too much afraid to have acted otherwise. Such an observation is more damaging to the character of the other two Protestant colonies than to that of Maryland. For if Protest- antism be that liberal, generous, and tolerant system which we hear so much of, why should the Catholics of Maryland have been afraid of their neighbors? The objection is severe, almost sarcastic, in re- lation to Protestantism. But if it be said that the colony of Mary- land was weak, as compared with either of the others, I will let that pass with the observation that, if no higher motive can be ascribed lor their proclaiming freedom of conscience, then I, for one, do not regret their weakness ; for, perhaps, if they had been strong, they might have been tempted to emulate and imitate the example of their colonial neighbors. It has been remarked by a modern writer, that for the last three hundred years, what is commonly called history would seem to be a conspiracy against truth. The ground of his remark, which is highly THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 115 exaggerated, is, that amidst so many religions, each historian is liable to be biased by the prejudices of youth, the influence of asso- ciations, and partialities in favor of his own sect and creed. If there be any truth in the remark, and I think there is some, it cannot be a bad rule, when an historian writes fiercely against the professors of an opposite creed, or in favor of those who belong to his own, to receive his statements, not as gospel, but for what they are worth. But when an historian writes favorably of those professing an oppo- site religion to his own, then his statements are the testimony which is extorted by, or voluntarily offered to, the majesty of truth. As to prejudice or partiality, Mr. Bancroft is admitted by all to be above suspicion : still, he is a Protestant, and on this account I preferred that you should hear his testimony in regard to the Catholic colony of Maryland, expressed in language far more classical and elegant than any I could employ. Far be it from me to diminish, by one iota, the merit that is claimed for Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and perhaps other States, on the score of having proclaimed religious freedom ; but the Cath- olics of Maryland, by priority of time, have borne away the prize, and it is but just to say, " ferat, qui meruit, palmam." But it was not in Maryland alone that the Catholics, in the early history of the colonies, gave proof of their devotedness to the prin- ciple of civil and religious liberty. The State archives of New- York furnish testimonies, in this respect, not less honorable than those of Maryland. In 1609, the North river kissed, for the first time, the prow of a European vessel ; and the gallant bark acknowledged, as the way of ships is, the affectionate welcome in the deep furrows which she ploughed up, for the first time also, on the tranquil surface of the beautiful river. But these soon disappeared ; for it is the property of water, whether by river, or lake, or sea, or ocean, as if intended to be a natural symbol of true charity and true friendship among men, to render the appropriate service to those who require it, and then generously blot out every record and memory of the favor conferred. The captain of that ship, the name of which I forget, was an Englishman, in the service of the Dutch government. His own name, I need hardly tell you, was Henry Hudson. From this beginning resulted, at a later period of our history, Fort Manhattan, next New Amsterdam and the Province of New- Netherlands ; now, however, the City and State of New- York. The colony of New Amsterdam and New Netherlands had been in existence, under the sway of a Protestant government, from that time till 1683 ; and as yet, strange as it may sound in the ears of my auditory, not a single ray of liberty, as we understand it, had dawned on the inhabitants of New Netherlands. This is queer, if, as is sometimes assumed, all liberty must necessarily come from Protestantism. If so, why had the Protestant government of Hoi- 116 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. land left its Proiestant subjects here so long destitute of what we now call their civil and religious rights ? The English took possession of the province in 1664, and the ter- ritory, extending from the banks of the Connecticut to those of the Delaware, was granted by Charles the Second to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany. In 1673, the authority of Holland was once more temporarily established ; but at the close of the war in the following year, the province was finally restored to England. The Duke of York took out a new patent. He was a Catholic, and although the school-books say he was a tyrant, still it is a fact of his- tory, that to him the inhabitants of New Netherlands, whether Dutch or English, were indebted for their first possession and exer- cise of civil and religious liberty. " The Duke of York," says the historian whom I have already so often quoted, " was at the same time solicited by those about him to sell the territory. He demanded the advice of one who always advised honestly ; and no sooner had the father of Pennsylvania, af- ter a visit to New York, transmitted an account of the reforms which the province required, than, without delay, Thomas Dongan, a Papist, came over as governor, with instructions to convoke a free legislature.' 1 ' 1 " At last," Bancroft goes on to say, " after long effort, on the sev- enteenth day of October, 1683, about seventy years after Manhattan was first occupied, about thirty years after the demand of the popu- lar convention by the Dutch, the representatives of the people met in assembly, and their self established 'CHARTER OF LIBERTIES' gave New York a place by the side of Virginia and Massachusetts." " ' Supreme legislative power' such was its declaration ' shall forever be and reside in the governor, council, and people, met in general assembly. Every freeholder and freeman shall vote for representation without restraint. No freeman shall suffer but by judgment of his peers ; and all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men. No tax shall be assessed, on any pretence whatever, but by the consent of the assembly. No seaman or soldier shall be quartered on the inhabitants against their will. No martial law shall exist. No person, profess- ing faith in God by Jesus Christ, shall at any time be any ways disquieted or questioned for any difference of opinion.' " I know not how it has happened that, in treating this subject, I had hardly launched my slender skiff, when I found it heading up stream, instead of gliding gently down the current of historical events. But now I hardly regret its caprice. I commenced with the floating of our flag from the battlements of Mexico, that is, I began at the end, and, no doubt, it will be regarded as altogether in keeping that I should end at the beginning. But the events are the same, no matter under which order of chronology they are con- sidered. That little" skiff, if I may be allowed to extend the figure for a moment, has stemmed the flow of a certain prejudice which calls itself history, has overcome successfully even the rapids of the adverse tide, and now having reached, or approximated the tran- quil waters of earlier times, I can guide its onward course, with THE CA.TUOLIC CHAPTER. gentle and recreative labor, to the very well-springs of American history. Having glanced at the period subsequent to the adoption of our Federal Constitution, at the circumstances of its for- mation at those of the American war of independence, which had preceded at those of the earlier colonies, especially of the three primitive ones, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Maryland, I now approach a period anterior to the colonies themselves, namely, the period of discoveries. In this period, all, or nearly all, is Catho- lic. From the first discovery of the country in 1492, until the date of the settlement of the first permanent colony at Jamestown, Vir- ginia, one hundred and seventeen years had passed away. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, several efforts had been made, under Protestant auspices, by Sir Walter Raleigh, and his relative, Gilbert, to make a settlement on the Atlantic borders of this coun- try. These attempts proved unsuccessful. Their projectors suc- ceeded only in giving a name to the territory in which their experi- ment had failed. They called it Virginia, a name intended, no doubt, as a compliment to Queen Elizabeth. But within seventy years from the first voyage of Columbus, the coast had been visited, explored, sketched in maps circulated through Europe at the time, visited and explored I say, in all directions, north and south, east and west, on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, by scientific and daring navigators, all Catholics, and all sailing under the flag of some Catholic power in Europe. Quebec was founded in 1541. And from the spot on which we stand to the North Pole, France, at that period, was in actual possession. In this sense, at least, that there was no European power to question her title, or disturb her occupancy. And from this spot to Cape Horn, the same was true in regard to the occupation and claim of the Spaniards and Portuguese. But as I have spoken of tlie primitive colonies, so I would now distinguish the primary discoverers of America, from those who must take rank in the secondary or tertiary class. Even in the pri- mary class, there must be no competition of honor or merit, as re- gards one who stands out by himself, the first, alone, incomparable, peerless Christopher Columbus. But at a certain distance behind him, there were three formidable rivals, desirous of seeming, at least, to share with him a portion of that human glory which has made his name immortal. You will not be surprised that all of these were Catholics, since at the period in which they lived and struggled for fame, Protestantism had not yet begun. But you will be struck with the fact that the three imitators and rivals of Columbus were his own countrymen Italians, all. Their names were Cabot (father and son), Amerigo Vespucci, and Verazzani, the two latter natives of Florence, and the former, though residing in Bristol, in England, a native of Venice. We cannot help regretting that the new hemisphere did not take the name of the first discoverer (if, as it would appear, it had 118 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. 110 name of its own) that it was not called Columbia, after the no- ble Genoese sailor, instead of America, from Amerigo, the Floren- tine. But after all, justice, in this respect, has contrived to estab- lish a " court of error " in the popular mind, whether in this land or in Europe, which rules, that whenever you pronounce the name of America, every one thinks of Columbus, and no one of Ves- pucci. Poor Columbus ! A sailor himself, and as heir to the papers of his father-in-law, he had heard and read of voyages and their won- ders, not unlike in their philosophy (but of a higher and different order) those whicU tempted Douglas from his Grampian Hills. He went about from court to court, with a heavy heart, asking permis- sion to visit the western continent and bring back news. Courtiers, and even sovereigns, who listened for a moment to his pleading, said or thought that the poor man was deranged. No, he was not ; but he would have probably become so if Providence had not opened for him an occasion and opportunity to test his theory by practical experiment. The difficulty was want of means to execute his pro- ject, or perish in the effort. In the court of Spain he had the sup- port of one or two distinguished ecclesiastics. Columbus was a scientific enthusiast, and such men are always eloquent when they speak of their favorite project. Still, his eloquence had proved vain at many courts ; and in the final, almost hopeless interview, it was, as he knelt pleading before Ferdinand and Isabella, that he touched a chord which vibrated in the inmost heart of the illustrious and royal lady. In that august presence he had spoken of the anticipa- ted glory and gain connected with the success of his enterprise, but without effect. But when he spoke of the probability of the exist- ence of men made after God's image, who might be brought to know Jesus Christ, and to be saved, believing in Him, he melted the heart of " Isabella, the Catholic," so that she lost all appreciation of the jewels that adorned her persofl and her diadem, threw them, so to speak, at the feet of the enthusiast, and deemed their value as nothing, compared with the mere possibility of their being instru- mental in bringing souls buried in the darkness of paganism to the knowledge of Christ. In a few months afterwards, Columbus was seen planting the cross on the island of San Salvador, and taking possession of this hemisphere, in the name of Christ Our Saviour (" San Salvador") and of Spain. I look upon this scene as one of the most interesting, if not thrilling, events recorded in the annals of the human race. But in this title-page and frontispiece of American history, Columbus was not alone. His partner in the glory was Isabella the Catholic, the meek, the brave, the enlightened, the discreet, the beautiful queen of Castile and Arragon. Five years from the date of that event namely, in 1497 John and Sebastian Cabot were sent out by the British Government un- der Henry the Seventh, and made an extensive survey of this coast, creating thereby that title on which Queen Elizabeth based her THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 119 right to plant colonies in this country, more than eighty years after- wards. I have now touched, merely touched, on the prominent points of American history, so far as my subject authorized or required me to do so, from the first to the last page. I have reviewed the valid- ity of the imaginary claims on which it is assumed that this is a Protestant country, in presence of the Constitution, and all that has happened since its adoption in presence of the faith of treaties in presence of the war of freedom and independence in presence of colonial history in presence of the period of discoveries ante- cedent to colonial settlement, at least on these shores, and as yet, I confess, I have not discovered the first fact or document which could warrant any man, possessed of an ordinary amount of true in- formation, to assume that this is a Protestant more than a Catholic country. But, perhaps, it may be said that the religious or sectarian char- acter of a country is to be determined, not by historic titles, either of discovery or occupation, but by the genius of its political and civil institutions. If this ground be taken, the evidences on the Catholic side are stronger than those which have already passed in review. The great elements of our institutions namely, represent- ative government, electoral franchise, trial by jury, municipal polity were all the inventions of Catholics alone. They come in part from the period of Alfred the Great. They had acquired a very high development already under Edward the Confessor, and it was only after royal power had attempted to make encroachments on the rights secured by them, that the barons at Runnymede extorted from King John a written pledge, not to secure new privileges, but to confirm those which were understood as the hereditary birthright of English Catholic freemen. These, therefore, assuredly do not supply any evidence that this is a Protestant country. But, per- haps, it may be well to inquire what is meant by this term. It surely cannot be that the elements of nature earth, air, fire, or water can be qualified as belonging to one denomination more than to another. We are composed of Catholics and Protestants, if you will, in the enjoyment of a common inheritance ; and although the fields of Protestant proprietors may be more numerous than those of Catholics, still the same dews of heaven cause the wheat to germinate in the earth, and the same sunbeams ripen the harvest of the one as well as of the other, without discrimination. But if those Protestant proprietors should ask of us to be grateful for this, that they permitted us to share the dews and the sunbeams with them- selves, that we ought to be thankful for this, our answer is No, gentlemen ; our title to the benefit of the seasons is just the same as yours. We are, indeed, grateful for your kind offices of good neigh- borhood ; but, pray, do not require us to give you thanks for Hea- ven's gifts, which we share in our own right. What, then, is the meaning of the words " Protestant country," as applied to the United States ? I suppose that, at last, it will 120 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. come down to signify nothing more than that the majority of the inhabitants are Protestants. But has it never occurred to those who could make such an observation that majorities and minorities are mere accidents, liable to change, whereas the Constitution is a prin- ciple, and not an accident ? Its great and inappreciable value is that it prescribes the duties of majorities, and protects, witli equal and impartial justice, the rights of Minorities. In this country, the Constitution of the United States is the majority, and it shall rule. Now, in presence of the Constitution, this is neither a Catholic nor a Protestant country, but a broad land of civil and religious freedom and equality, secured indiscriminately to all. In passing so rapidly on the direct line of my subject, I have been obliged to leave unnoticed innumerable incidents, many of which possess attraction enough to have made one turn aside, and dally by the way. For instance, the missionary labors of the Jesuits and other apostles of the Cross, who, thirsting not for gold, but for souls, had not ceased to traverse this country, in every direction, from the earliest period. Time has, to a great extent, obliterated their foot- prints on the soil; but the reason is, in part, that the Indian tribes among whom they labored are gone shrinking away into the deeper or more distant wilderness. The memory of the illustrious Jesuit Fathers, who labored for their conversion, has accompanied their descendants even to their present remotest hunting-grounds. But it has become comparatively weak, and is now reduced to a symbolic term, which they cherish with great affection, and express in the words " black-gown," or " robe noir." Two hundred years ago, the poor Franciscans trod the golden sands of California beneath their bare feet, without noticing or appreciating its value. They looked more to heaven than to earth ; and it would have been almost out of keeping with their character, to have made the discover}-, which has recently startled the mind and whetted the cupidity of the world. Two hundred years ago, Father Le Moyne, laboring among the Onondagas of this State, discovered the Salt Springs, which abound near Salina and Syracuse. At present, nearly all men believe in the reality of the discovery, but prejudice was then what prejudice is now, and when a Dutch clergyman of New Amsterdam, to whom Father Le Moyne had made known the discovery, reported the same to the Classis in Holland, he added, by way of caution, " but whether this information be true, or whether it be a Jesuit lie, I do not determine !" And in that precise year, that is, in 1654 pass- ing to another scene of a different order, you will be surprised and sorry to hear that the Catholics of Maryland, who had given such an example as we have seen described, were themselves disfranchised on account of religion. It is not to be inferred that, in this historic review, I have been insensible to the merits of other persons and other parties besides Catholics. But the character of my subject, and the limitation of my time, do not permit me to speak of them. Nor is it necessary. THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER. 121 Xeither the descendants of the Virginia colonists, nor those of the Pilgrim Fathers, have allowed their ancestors to pass away " unwept, unhonored, or unsung." They are proud of being the descendants of such parentage. Nor need a Catholic be ashamed if he is told that he was born near the site of old St. Mary's, in Maryland. As a colony, and as a State, she has had her distinguished men. The supreme recognized interpreter of the laws, even of the Constitution, is her son, and a Catholic. The judicial ermine will contract no stain while it is worn by him. Pure and unsullied he received it from the illustrious Marshall, and to his unknown successor he will transmit it as unsullied and as pure, but not purer than is his own private character. The death of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, is a compar- atively recent event. The galaxy of great men who had indorsed that immortal instrument had disappeared, one after another, until the star of Maryland alone was left, and not by one State, but by all, its declining course was watched with deepest interest, until, becoming brighter as it neared the horizon, it was seen no more, and is now but a gratefully cherished memory. The moral of the remarks I have made, if they have any, should be, in my judgment, that no pretensions to religious ascendency should be entertained on one side, or admitted on the other. In the whole range of human benefits, no nation on the earth has more reason to be thankful for the favor which the kind providence of Almighty God has placed in its possession, and within its reach, than the people of the United States. Let them, without distinc- tion of creed, unite, and be united, in preserving the common inher- itance ; let them vie with each other in mutual kindness and good offices, vie with each other in honorable rivalship, as to who shall be best citizens ; who shall most faithfully support the country and obey the laws. I hope the time is far distant, but yet it may come, when our country shall have need of all her children. Oh, then, let them be prepared to rally around her, as around their common mother, who had been, at all times, equally impartial and equally kind to them all. I cannot conclude without calling your attention to three distinct moments of American history, which, in the events themselves, in their circumstances and consequences, stand out apart in their own moral grandeur, not to be confounded with any others. The first, is the moment when Washington spontaneously returned his victorious sword to the civil authority of the country which he had liberated. To my mind, the annals of mankind, from the very origin of time, have never presented, in the order of merely human moral grand- eur, a moment or a spectacle more sublime than this. The other, not less sublime, is that in which, after having remained unknown to each other, so far as we can tell, from the period when the foundations of the earth were laid, two worlds met for the first time, and were introduced to each other around the cross planted by Columbus, on the island of San Salvador, in 1492. The third was that in which the Queen of Castile and Aragon offered to pledge 122 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. the precious stones of her crown, in order to defray the expenses of his expedition. If, as there is reason to believe, she Avas prompt- ed to this by love for souls that might be saved, even though their existence was yet doubtful, this was not only a sublime moment, it was almost divine, as insuring success to the enterprise from the inward prompting and impulse of heavenly charity. Of course, the chivalry of Spain would not allow their sovereign lady to make such a sacrifice. They provided means from other sources. And although they did well in this, we are tempted almost to regret that some of her jewels did not, by some honest accident, find their way to this country. The sword of Washington is treasured as a precious relic, no less of his patriotism than of his bravery. The hilt of such a sword would be fitly gemmed by a jewel once pos- sessed by such a queen the patroness of Christopher Columbus. The double relic would represent two important events connected with American history, and be an interesting memorial at the same time of the achievements of Washington and of the magnanimity and charity of " Isabella the Catholic." LECTURE ON THE PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG CATHOLICS' FRIEND SOCIETY, AT BALTIMORE, JANUARY 17, 1856. (From the Baltimore American, January 18.) [The hall of the Mechanics' Institute was filled to overflowing last night, drawn together by the announcement that the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes was to deliver a lecture before the Young Catholics' Friend Society, on the " Present Condition and Prospects of the Catholic Church in the United States." The general anxiety to learn the views of the reverend prelate on this import- ant subject has induced us to lay the lecture before our readers this morning, taken down as delivered, by a corps of experienced stenographers. The Archbishop was accompanied to the stand by a number of prominent gentlemen, invited guests of the Young Catholics' Friend Society. He was in- troduced to the audience by Ambrose A. White, Esq., President of the Society, and at the close of the applause which greeted his appearance commenced his lecture as follows.] THERE is no subject which has elicited such varied and contradic- tory speculations as an attempt to understand the present condition of the Catholic Church in the United States. Members of that Church, and members of other denominations, have indulged in speculations with regard to its members, the sources from which they are derived, and its powerful endurance amid the novel circum- stances in which it finds itself in a free country. And the circum- stances are indeed novel ; because from the beginning of Christianity until the declaration of American independence that Church has CATHOLIC CHUKCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 123 never found herself face to face with the civil government of any country except as its favorite or as its foe. The pagan emperors of Rome, as you know, opposed it with per- secution unto death. When Constantino became a Christian he favored it, and his successors pretended to favor it with their earthly patronage, until his descendants degenerated into petty disputants of theological questions, and prepared the way for the incoming of those who became the masters of the fallen empire. They, in their turn, necessarily, because they were ignorant, though brave, fell un- der the instruction of Christianity ; and, in forming the germ of the present governments and nations of Europe, in their social capacity, the Church herself was brought in as part and portion of the govern- ments thus interested, and they as civil rulers from the beginning professed to protect her. In later times, when changes of religion came, whilst she was petted in Catholic countries she was persecuted in Protestant countries ; and thus up to the present time, or the pe- riod to which I have referred, she has never found herself face to face with the country, and in rivalship with creeds, in which no favor was to be shown on one side or the other. And hence it is that this new problem has furnished a theme for the inquiry of philosophers, of every religion, on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. And when I had the honor of being invited to deliver a lecture for the benefit of young men who devote their energies to protect their still younger brethren who may be exposed to forfeit both their faith and morals unless protected, surrounded as they are by so many dangers and temptations, I thought that no subject, though a most difficult one it is, would be more in keeping with the spirit of their purpose than an endeavor to elucidate the question to which I have referred namely, The condition and prospects of the Catholic Religion in the United States. By some it has been supposed that the Catholic Church was making almost incredible progress in the absence of all restraints and discouragements placed upon her by the Legislatures of the States, and that her course was onward and prosperous. By others it has been assumed that the action of the institutions of this country was so powerful upon the Catholic mind that the Church not only made no progress, but she was actually retrograding, and in this confusion of ideas I could see but one way in attempting and it will only be an attempt, for the matter is surrounded with difficulties to elucidate what I may think now to be the actual condition of the Catholic religion here, and what are its prospects. In the first place, the Catholics who are here now are derived from three sources. One is, the primitive stock of the Maryland colony ; the second is, immigration ; and the third, is an element which has hardly yet been brought into the account, but which I think de- serves to be considered an element in elucidating this matter that of the conversion of persons of other religions. These are the three and only sources, and in endeavoring to fol- low out my ideas, it will be necessary for me, in order to use the shortest words, to repeat frequently the terms Catholic and Protest- 124 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. ant. I beg you to understand, that in this reference, I waive all theological and polemical questions, and I consider for the present, and for my purpose, these two religions as simply rival demonstrations in a noble competition, as to which shall render to God the most glory, and to man the greatest benefits. If, therefore, any syllable escapes me calculated to offend any one of this audience, I beg it to be un- derstood, that I retract such an expression by anticipation, even be- fore it is uttered. It would be unbecoming in me to avail myself of an occasion like the present, when I am honored by the presence of many who are not of the Catholic religion, to say one word which could give offence to any one in the least. For my purpose, it is neces- sary for me to take within my view a periodof seventy years ; that is to say, from a period between the declaration of Independence and the formation of the Constitution. The beginning for that period will be the year 1785, in which the Very Rev. Father John Carroll, the representative of Maryland, a Jesuit priest, was appointed by the Holy See, and invested with spiritual authority as the Superior of the clergy in this country. Until that time, such authority came through the Vicar Apostolic of London, and at that period he was ap- pointed, and here is a proper starting point for us to determine this question, because, although there remained for long years enactments upon many of the statute-books of different States, discouraging Catholics, I shall not take them into account, but shall consider that from 1785 to 1856, the Catholics of the United States have stood upon a perfect equality as to the law with their Protestant fellow- citizens. Now we must begin by asking who and where were the Catholics in 1785. Archbishop Carroll speaks of them, and finds that in Maryland there were between sixteen and twenty thousand. In Pennsylvania there were about eight thousand, according to the best accounts. A priest was appointed for New York in that year by Father Carroll, and he reports that he found a congregation of two hundred there. Except the Catholics of Maryland, those of Pennsylvania and other States, with rare exceptions, were all for- eigners. Nevertheless, in those trying days, when Carroll himself had taken such a patriotic part in vindicating the rights of his coun- try, and when the Catholics of Maryland were redeemed from all former prejudices, not only by their own candor, but by the great and illustrious name of Carroll, and his connection with the work, it so happened at the same time, that in Pennsylvania, of the eight thousand Catholics there, there were three conspicuous, trusted and honored in the great work of preparing the country for the result which has been so gloriously attained. One of these was Moylan, the first Quartermaster-general of the American army ; the second of these was Fitzsimmons, a member of Congress; and the third was Com- modore John Barry, the founder of the American navy. All these were Catholics, and considering the paucity in numbers of the general body, were at least quite conspicuous, and well quali- fied to confer honor upon it, and remove any prejudices existing CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 125 against it. Now, to the Catholics of Maryland there have been ac- cessions made ever since that period, and you will find, that although the colony of Maryland had been founded by Catholics, and although the first declaration of religious liberty, or the strongest approach to it, was there enunciated, nevertheless, from the revolution of 1688, they were disfranchised, and for the period of seventy years made no progress. Immigration was not permitted, and severe laws were enacted against them, and Governor Sharp, in 1758, himself a Pro- testant, computed them at that time as one in thirteen, in the popu- lation of the colony. Immediately after the American revolution, however, and perhaps before, some of these had gone to Kentucky, and there they introduced Catholicity. But except the three sources to which I have referred, you may look over the expanse of the whole United States, and no history mentions the existence at that period of any community of Catholics in any part thereof. Individuals, and perhaps solitary families of the Catholic faith, might have been found here and there, but these are the three sources from which, as I will call them, the native, hereditary, and American Catholics are to be derived. How was it in respect to other things ? There were at that time few Catholic churches in the whole of the United States. One was at Philadelphia, one was at Goshen-hoppen, one was at Conewaga, and I believe one at Baltimore was about finished, and that was St. Peter's church. Besides this, there was no public Catholic church in the State of Maryland. There were no Catholic schools or colleges to prepare young men for the ministry, or, in fact, Catholic schools or colleges of any kind. There were no Catholic hospitals or orphan asylums, nor any institutions of this character. There were only Father Carroll and twenty-four priests ; three of whom were inca- pacitated by age from doing duty. The glorious missions of the French Jesuits among the Indians in the Eastern States, .at the North, and along the rivers of the West, though limited to a certain extent, had passed away, and form nothing in the account we are now considering. The accessions of territory which have since taken place, are not to be counted in this original, hereditary Cath- olic population. Louisiana came in by purchase eighteen years after the period I speak of, and her population, though born on the soil, was small. Florida, which was brought into the Union, or at least acquired as territory afterwards, though it had belonged to a Catholic government, had a population scarcely worth mentioning. Since that time, the acquisition of Texas from another Catholic govern- ment has been made, but its population also was sparse ; and yet still further, the acquisition of California, which had gold, but few inhabitants, has been made. And lastly, New Mexico has been ac- quired ; but all these acquisitions have been of countries with im- mense territory, but comprising within their limits, in point of num- bers, an insignificant original Catholic population. So far, there- fore, we give an account of the condition of the Catholic Church at the beginning of the period of seventy years, which, in our circum- 126 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. stances, has been the first and most distinguishing period of light, civil liberty, and universal equality before the la\v. Whence now, it may be asked, has been the increase in the pres- ent numbers of the Catholic people? The increase has been from immigration, and I think upon that subject very erroneous ideas prevail, both among Catholics and Protestants. I think that immi- gration has been vastly overrated, and from an examination of the best authorities within my reach, both official and scientific, on the English and American side, I have every reason to believe that im- migration into this country has been much smaller than has been generally supposed, though necessarily large. It has not been possible for me to procure correct and accurate accounts of the immigration into this country, except from the British empire, but we can easily understand and conjecture what it would be from the continent of Europe. In the first place, we know, in regard to this immigration, that there is no distinction made, in the authorities upon this subject, excepting in one or two instances, between the inhabitants of one country and those of another, so that the immigration from the British empire has been described and considered in general terms ; and we know further, that so far as Catholicity is concerned, neither Wales nor England, nor Scotland, which contributed much in the earlier stages of immigration to the population of the United States, furnished any addition to the Catholic body. It remained, there- fore, for Ireland, as a part of the British empire, to furnish Catholic immigrants, and you will, perhaps, be surprised, when I mention that up to the year 1825 the immigration from the British empire counts but little over 300,000. The statistics from which I derive my information appear to be exceedingly accurate, much more so than those which have been presented by the later authorities in this country. . In the first place, after the establishment of peace, there was very little good-will between the two countries ; but, on the other hand, there was a remnant of rancor still remaining upon the one side, and self-congratulation upon the other. The immigration which began, or at least; which was first noted, was in 1794, when it was 10,000. It goes on diminishing until the close of the war, but for four or five years previous to that time, the immigration was so slight that it is scarcely to be taken into the account. From the close of the war it increased, but still in moderate degree, up to the year 1825, when it was found to have been a little more than 300,000. I may mention further, that during this period the greater por- tion of immigrants from Ireland were not Catholics but Protestants ; that is to say, they were Presbyterians from the north of Ireland, who settled, some in New Jersey, and in great numbers in Western Pennsylvania. Many of their descendants are now found in Western Virginia, in Tennessee, and in Ohio. From that class of people, therefore, the great majority of immigrants came at that period, nor does the tide of Catholic immigration appear to have set in CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 127 towards this country with any great force until after the close of the Revolutionary war. It would be tedious and tiresome to go through the dry details of statistics, and repeat how many came in this or that year. However, it is enough for me to say that the immigra- tion from Great Britain and Ireland, which, up to 1825, was a little over 300,000, reached in the following twenty-five years 1,453,325, and since that period, from 1850 to 1S56, there have arrived at the city of New York alone, 1,319,236 immigrants. During this period nine-tenths of the immigrants to this country landed in New York, and there is no account of those landing elsewhere. The statistics we have upon this subject would authorize this conclusion, that the immigration from Great Britain and Ireland, since 1790 until the present year, has amounted to about 3,250,000. Xow, if we were called upon to determine to which religious party these immigrants belonged this matter enters not into the account of the statistics of immigration although for the last fifteen years perhaps four-fifths of the Irish immigrants were Catho- lics, still, taking the whole period of time the proportion would be much greater upon the other side, the Protestant side. From the continent of Europe, from Sweden, Norway, and most of the German principalities and States, nearly all the immigrants were Protestants. There were very few Spanish and French immigrants. The object of these remarks is tirst to impress upon you a just conception of the amount of immigration, and how far it has contrib- uted to the actual results of the Catholic religion, as it now exists in this country ; and secondly, to meet the objection which has been urged on both the Catholic and Protestant side, to the effect that Catholicity wastes away under the full light and liberty of the United States. It is not long since a nobleman in the House of Parliament proclaimed on the authority of a letter written by a priest of Ireland, who was opposed to immigration, that the only way to convert the Irish would be to remove from them the pre- tence that they were persecuted by the State, and to make them equal before the law by sending them to America, and then indeed, in a short time, they would renounce their religion and become like other sensible men. The result of the immigration here I think will satisfy you, that though this has been the case to a lamentable degree, it does not in the least prove that the Catholic religion is not fit and competent to hold her own, no matter how great the light and liberty may be. It is true that hundreds of thousands of the descendants of the Cath- olic immigrants have fallen away from their religion. It is equally true that they have hardly added any thing to any other denomina- tion of Christians. It is true that they have fallen simply into a state of indifference, and, alas! sometimes into a state of infidelity. This is not because they have examined their religion in the light of the age, or in the presence of equality. Not at all. Calamities of one kind and another, the death or ignorance of their parents it may be, or their remote situation from the opportunities of practising 128 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and learning their religion, account sufficiently for the falling away of those who are acknowledged to have been lost to the Catholic Church. Again, though the number of immigrants into this coun- try alone might equal the whole number of the present population, still the slightest inspection will satisfy you as to the fallacy of the reasoning of those who misjudge this question, and will convince you that the immigration pouring into the country is like water cast into a vessel that is leaky, and that will not retain any quantity it receives. According to the laws recognized in statistics, the very common laws of mortality, immigrants to this country are dying at the rate of one in three; and this is because they are especially ex- posed to the accidents of life, to sickness, hardship of every kind, and toilsome poverty. They are especially exposed to epidemics, whether in the form of cholera, yellow fever, or anything else which decimates them, and therefore the common allowance of mortality is not sufficient to express the proportion of the deaths in their case. Now, therefore, if it be true that the action of this age of light and of freedom is detrimental to the progress or the existence of the Catholic religion, in the presence of other free denominations, how are we to account for the progress of the Catholic religion actually made, according to the statistics published in this city, in the Cath- olic Almanac ? It must be that the original Catholic population of Maryland and their descendants have kept the faith and propagated it to a great extent, or, besides the living immigrants, a vast number have been preserved, and have not fallen away, but inherited the faith of their foreign-born ancestors, and are perpetuating it. But the other element to which I have referred is conversion ; and although I am quite satisfied that the number of converts does not equal the one-third of the descendants of Catholics who have passed away from the faith, nevertheless I consider it a great ele- ment, essential for explanation of the condition of the Catholic Church at this time. We find, by the census of 1850, that there were then in the United States nineteen millions five hundred and fifty-three thou- sand and sixty-five white inhabitants, of whom two millions two hundred and forty thousand five hundred and thirty-five were of foreign -birth. Now, those of foreign birth were made up of all the nations I have mentioned ; and the only two nations which contrib- uted in any considerable degree to the augmentation of Catholics were Ireland and Germany; and in that year (1850) the Irish, ac- cording to the census, numbered nine hundred a*nd fifty thousand in the whole United States. Of this a very considerable portion were Protestants; and of the remainder, according to the laws of mortal- ity, there would be a reduction of one-sixth, up to the present time ; so that by the closest examination, and arranging the results accord- ing to the best ascertained authority within reach, it follows as an approximate calculation that at the present day there are in the United States, say eleven hundred thousand Catholics born in for- eign lands, over eight hundred thousand Irish and three hundred CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 129 thousand Germans, because of the German immigration there are two Protestants for one Catholic. Though the number is not great, I wish it to be understood that I consider this a high estimate of the foreign-born Catholics of the United States. And yet we find in the Catholic Almanac for the year 1856, that the Catholic popu- lation, by the enumeration, as reported by the different dioceses of the United States, is two millions three hundred and ninety-seven thousand five hundred ; thus leaving eleven hundred thousand for- eign-born Catholics, and the balance twelve hundred and ninety- seven thousand five hundred. We should take into the account, too, a great loss, owing to the majority of parents leaving their chil- dren unprotected not receiving an education, and owing to their poverty, being compelled to select habitations distant from religion and its ministers. Although this loss is so great, it is impossible to explain these statistics without supposing that many fell in with the doctrines of their ancestry, who propagated their faith and hope to those born in this country. A third element is that of conversion ; and so far as it is a test- question, here is a true test whether or not Catholicity can com- pare with any other denomination of Christians, where there is nei- ther popularity on the one side nor prejudice on the other. It is the number of conversions ; for while many speculate, and admit, with expressions of gratitude, that the Catholic religion is useful and beneficial to mankind, in her regions of despair and darkness, they say that it never can bear the test of light in the presence of equal education. And here is the test : when I say conversions, not in boastful terms, but which we ascribe to the Almighty, I mean those of American birth, freemen who love freedom, who would not sacri- fice legitimate freedom while embracing Catholicism and who, un- derstanding both sides of the question, have not hesitated to make sacrifices of worldly interests and advantages for what purpose ? To bear testimony to the truth which they had examined and which came under their notice, and by an act of simple faith embraced. Not for worldly motives. And here is the field and theatre, the sphere on which, it was said, it could not stand ! We all know that, from the time of Archbishop Carroll to the present day, there have been numerous converts. In New England,. East, West, South, everywhere, there is scarcely any congregation, that does not number its converts ; and those converts take bette-v- care to instil their faith into the minds of their children than those- who receive their faith from Catholic parents. What, then, is the condition of the Catholic Church as compared with the time of Archbishop Carroll ? Seventy years ago, not gping. out of this period, in the history of the United States of America,, was the first occasion on which the Catholic Church was tried by such circumstances. What is the condition to-day of the Catholic Church, its. popular tion made up of three elements ? Two millions three hundred and ninety-seven thousand five hundred souls. Then there were twenty- VOL. II. 9 130 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. two or twenty-three priests; now there are seventeen hundred and sixty-one priests. Then there was no bishop to ordain priests, if there were candidates; now there are seven archbishops and thirty- five bishops. There were but the four churches I have mentioned, and now there are nineteen hundred and ten churches, besides other stations where divine worship is held, to the number of eight hun- dred and ninety-five. Then in the Catholic Church there was not a Catholic seminary for the training of Levites for the sanctuary ; now there are thirty-seven seminaries appropriated exclusively to the training of youth to serve both God and man. Then there were no colleges ; now there are twenty-four, incorporated by the States in which they are placed. Then we had but one female academy ; now we have one hundred and thirty. But it is unnecessary to go on, and give other evidences of progress ; these are sufficient. Here, then, are circumstances which I adduce to refute the calum- ny expressed abroad as well as at home a calumny against light and liberty, as if the Catholic Church were necessarily inimical to Protestant or any other liberty a charge against the Catholic Church, which, it is said, may thrive when protected and surrounded by the patronage of civil government, as in Catholic countries, and which, persecuted, flourishes like certain weeds, growing and pro- ducing the most vegetation when trampled on. They say we in- crease when persecuted on one side, and receiving the patronage of civil government on the other. They say that the Church cannot win its own battles, and cannot meet the steady gaze of a free people and an enlightened age. This is the calumny refuted in making the exhibit of statistics regarding the condition of the Catholic Church in the United States. Now as to our prospects. Notwithstanding the poverty of Cath- olics, they have succeeded in producing the results to which I have referred I will not say in spite of light and knowledge, but in har- mony with them, during the period of seventy years under this great and extensive republic. What, then, is the prospect with re- gard to the Catholic religion ? The prospect is, that it is going on increasing by the medium of native-born Catholics in this country. Tbe prospect, with superior advantages, and the benefit of instruc- tion in almost every part of the country, and the presence of priests where it is necessary, looking to spiritual interest, for them to re- side, that Catholics will instil into their descendants the knowledge of .their religion and the lessons of virtue which they have received, and which they prize more than life. And this religion will extend, not by miraculous means, but will hold its own from the moment that immigration diminishes. It will not lapse and fall away into indiffer- ence and infidelity, of which writers have so much reason to complain. My impression is, however, that immigration will diminish. That it will cease, is not at all probable ; for the relations of kindred are too numerous to suppose that there will not constantly be persons passing from one side of the Atlantic to the other, even should they not expect any temporal advantages by the change. CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 131 Immigration, as I have said, will diminish. The country has had enough of it. The welcome is not so cordial as it was ; the hand of kindness of other days is not stretched out any more, and the immi- grants feel that they are not now so ardently welcomed. This will restrain them to some extent. On the other hand, the population of Ireland has been much thinned, so many having been driven from her soil by famine, or interred in her bosom by pestilence ; and this will influence the immigration from that country not a little, while they will be restrained by motives of religion and philanthropy from coming hither, in consequence of the reception which awaits them. The third reason is, that the governments of Europe will, as far as may be in their power, employ their influence for the same purpose. Although in the darkened minds of political economists, who arrange things according to profit and loss, it may have been the doctrine of the British that the extensive grazing farms were adapted to the purpose of improving the breed of cattle, much more profitably to the proprietor than the crowded neighborhood of peasants, yet there was famine one side and pestilence in the rear of famine. They who could escape had every inducement to leave the land for broad sheepwalks, for which they were occupied. But there are such things as wars. Wars do occur. Nations find it more profitable, if not in a pecuniary sense, in a spirit of national pride, to have a numerous hardy and brave peasantry, to meet the enemy against whom they will not be strong enough to contend. It is not at all probable that if Great Britain could have recourse to its favorite recruiting ground in 1855, with the same results of success as under Wellington in 1815 and preceding years, in that contingency it is not at all probable that the British army would not have been able to take the Redan at Sebastopol. The failure was not for the want of bravery, but a want of force ; and this exhibits that nation, so reck- less of the lives of her own people, descending, and almost consigned, to the second rank, Avhereas she was formerly in the first. I think these considerations will operate on both sides of the Atlantic to diminish immigration ; and the burden of sustaining the Catholic religion in this country, in. the same scale of progress, will devolve on the immigrants now in this country, and those who are born therein. Within the period to which I have referred, the adherents of the Catholic religion have evinced no special love for that state of society in which their enemies pretend they prosper best. If any one says you love darkness, point to your colleges. Was it the love of dark- ness that stimulated a poor population to establish those institutions of learning? If any say you are disloyal to the country, point to every battle from the commencement of the country, and see if Catholics were not equal in the struggle, and as zealous to maintain the dignity and triumph of the country as those with whom they fought ! Xor was it in the contest with Great Britain alone, against whom it is supposed we have an hereditary spite, but against Cath- olic Mexico they fought with an equal courage. Although they aimed the point of the sword at the breast of their brother Catholics, 132 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. they aimed it not the less, and in every contest they endeavored to maintain liberty as well as right. Courage is one side, and engaging in the contest is another. And when allusion is made to their social qualities, may you not point as an answer to the fact that when pes- tilence and plague had spread their dark pall over your cities, they were ready to go with others into the glorious work of charity and humanity ; and, if necessary, sacrifice their lives to mitigate pestilence and disease. On that score, what justification can there be to say that they love despotism because they are accustomed to it, and not liberty, be- cause they never realized what it is ? Before Columbus discovered the Western Continent there was a people in Europe acquainted with the rights and privileges of republican government. In Italy there was a republic of great prosperity before the discovery of America. If no other instance could be alluded to, there was one little republic (San Marino) installed in the Papal States. How long? For fourteen hundred years she has continued to preserve her liberty. Though Catholic, she is against the one-man power. Her supreme authority is not given into the hands of one man, but two, because her people love equality, and one man might deceive them in matters of control. The whole republic is not much larger than the District of Columbia, yet she has maintained her govern- ment and freedom for fourteen hundred yeaj-s. She is too just and wise to be disturbed, and too insignificant to excite the jealousy of her more powerful neighbors. Yet these people have had their periods of filibustering, and troubles growing out of feuds with some neighboring barons. Notwithstanding, they have kept on, and are not afraid. And now speaking of this republic, which is an enlargement of such a model, what should be the desire of every man who loves her? It should be what the Catholic religion desires no more light than she possesses, no more liberty than the laws by which this country has made such astonishing progress ; leaving religion to take care of its own concerns, every denomination managing its affairs in its own way. Prospering as no country has ever prospered, what ought to be the wish of every man who loves his country ? That she may remain, preserving her liberty and the laws of justice and equality as long as the Republic of San Marino, and as great a century hence as she designs to aspire. LECTURE ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DANIEL O'CONNELL. DELIVERED IN THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, NEW YORK, ON THE EVENING OF JUNE 11, 1856. THE Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell furnish a theme for the grouping, into one subject, of the most remarkable and import- LIFE AND TIMES OF o'cONNELL. 133 ant public events which history has recorded as occurring at any time between the birth and the death of a public man. I regret that the task of presenting those events in a condensed and yet lu- minous form, has not devolved on one more competent than I am to fulfil it in a manner satisfactory to so numerous and so enlightened an audience as the one I have the honor to address. If we begin by speaking of the times of O'Connell, how wonderful are the pub- lic events which occurred under his eye, and within the range of his personal knowledge ! For example, at his birth, the Catholic population of Ireland were under the inflictions of the Penal Code, which had continued for nearly ninety years, and had exercised its baneful and degrading influence on three successive generations. It combined in its malignant foldings over every portion, so to speak, of the mind and body of the Catholics of Ireland the strong coil of the anaconda, with the subtle sting of the scorpion. It de- nied them rights of property, rights of domestic order, rights of edu- cation, rights of religion in short, it denied them every right except that which could not be called a right, but a necessity ; namely, it aimed at making them paupers, as regarded property ; barbarians, in reference to science and general education ; and either apostates from the Catholic faith, or, adherents thereto under the disadvan- tages both of pauperism and ignorance. Details of specific statutes on this subject would be out of place in a lecture necessarily so brief as this must be. But, I may express the whole result in the words of Edmund Burke, who was a Pro- testant, although he never ceased to be a lover of his Irish coun- trymen. He says "It had" (that is the Penal Code) "a vicious perfection. It was a complete system full of coherence and con- sistency; well digested and well disposed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement, in them, of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." Under the operation of such a system, which had been in force for more than eighty years, Daniel O'Connell was born, in 1775. The sword of the American colonies was unsheathed in resistance against the oppressions of Great Britain in that same year. O'Con- nell, on all public occasions, ascribed the mitigation of the Penal Code in Ireland to the successful resistance of the American patriots. In 1777, a British army, in its pride of place, surrendered at Sara- toga to the once despised, insulted, and calumniated provincials. The Penal Code was relaxed in 1778. This relaxation was not the striking off of Ireland's fetters, but simply, a lengthening, by a link or two, of the chain, which, in its stringent rivetings, had crushed her energies. It gave the Catholics power and dominion over the remnants of their property, of which they had not been legally plun- dered during the three previous generations. But still they could not acquire, even by this relaxation, the right to purchase, or, as ten- ants, hold any freehold interest. 134: AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. In 1782, England was involved in war with other enemies, whose fleets rode triumphant and unopposed in the British Channel. She required twenty thousand seamen and active landsmen for her military service ; and in order to obtain them from Ireland, she relaxed the rigor of the Penal Code for a second time. By this relaxation, she permitted the Catholics of Ireland to open schools for the education of their youth in literature and religion after having made it a crime by her penal laws, during the previous eighty years, for any Catholic to teach, or to be taught, in Ireland or elsewhere. If want of education be a reproach to the Irish in later times, this historical fact will be sufficient to assign the reason. It reverses into a sad and literal sense, so far as the Irish are concerned, the hollo \v com- pliment of Lord Brougham to the enlightening genius of the British people, when, proclaiming the progress of education, he announced that the " schoolmaster was abroad ;" the schoolmaster had been literally " abroad" from Ireland during ninety years. His at- tempt to keep school, or teach any person in Ireland, Protestant or Catholic, any species of literature or science, was punishable by law with banishment ; and if he returned after banishment, he was subject to be hanged as a felon. Under these circumstances, it was certainly the schoolmaster's interest to be "abroad." But if any Catholic child, however young, was sent to any foreign country for education, such infant child incurred a corresponding penalty that is, a forfeiture of all right to property, present or pros- pective. In 1792, the French armies defeated their enemies at every point. The Netherlands were conquered ; the cannon of the battle of Ge- raappe was heard at St. James's, and the wisdom of English states- men induced them, by way of conciliating the Irish, to relax the chain of the Penal Code by an addition of two or three other links of diminished bondage. By this relaxation of the barbarous code, Catholics, for the first time in a century, might become barristers, attorneys,- and solicitors ; they could be freemen of the lay corpora- tions, the grand jury-box and magistracy were open to them, and they were permitted to attain a rank as high as that of colonel in the army, nay, some of them were allowed the elective franchise in voting for members of parliament. Up to this time, concessions to the great body of the Irish people were made under the direct apprehension of danger to the British empire, from the States with which she was at war. O'Connell was not yet of age, but already partial freedom, from one cause and another, began to dawn on his unfortunate country. All this he had seen, and part of this he was. But besides, what astonish- ing events passed before his eyes on the stage of European political, civil, and commercial vicissitudes during his life! In his times there was the French Revolution, with all its wide-spread and terrific con- sequences of bloodshed, war, triumphs, and defeats. He was still in France, as a student, when Louis XVI. was executed on the scaf- fold. He witnessed some of the horrors of the revolution. He saw LIFE AND TIMES OF o'cONNELL. 135 the priesthood of his Church slaughtered by the sanguinary multi- tude, unchecked by the disordered councils of the State. He wit- nessed, if not on the spot, the attempt to abolish Christianity, to de- throne God by denying His existence, and to substitute for the wor- ship of the Supreme Being, a symbolical divinity, called " Human Reason," an attempt, the folly and stupidity of which were almost more than its blasphemy. He saw the Corsican adventurer rush into this chaos, and reduce it to partial order, religion reno- vated, the existence and worship of God reinaugurated, order re-established amidst what had been anarchy, and this adventurer, as he might at first have been called, rising by the force of his ge- nius, the power of his sword, but above all, the permission of God, to an undisputed sovereignty, not only over France, but al- most over continental Europe. O'Connell was a sincere Catholic, and the bufferings to which the Church of God during that awful period was exposed, must have af- fected him deeply. The deism and political infidelity which had animated most of the cabinets of Europe, for half a century previous to the outbreak of the French Revolution, were now passing under his eye, from the theories inaugurated by Voltaire, into their practi- cal results on society. As an appropriate beginning, the Jesuits had already been -suppressed, at the period of O'Connell's birth ; but he lived t?o see them restored, after the malignity of their ene- mies had been confounded, and the hostile intrigues o'f Anti- Catholic cabinets had been broken up and scattered to the winds. The blows of infidelity reached higher marks, and he saw the head of the Church, Pius VI., dragged into exile, and there giving up his great soul into the hands of God. He saw Pius VII. also a cap- tive under the hands of secular power. He saw that British govern- ment which professed, and, no doubt, professed sincerely, such hatred to the " Pope of Rome," restoring at the expense of ' blood and treasure the same illustrious exile, Pius VII., to the chair of St. Peter, and to the freedom which is essential to the head of the Church. He saw a successor to the throne of Louis XVI. re- established in the halls of his royal ancestors ; whilst simul- taneously, the great conqueror of Europe, who had dazzled the world by his victories, was condemned to spend the last few years of his life as a chained eagle on a desert rock in the ocean. Two subsequent monarchs of France he saw driven into exile, where they died, unacknowledged by the great nation over whom they had reigned. Confining his view to Great Britain and Ireland alone, he could not fail to have observed the contests of parties, changes in politics, contradictions between principles professed by either party in their modification, variation, and reversals, according to different times and circumstances, and the perpetual struggle between Whigs and Tories, each for ascendency over the other. The very changes in the royal families of Europe were awful lessons of experience, ex- hibited to the steady gaze of Mr. O'Connell, and no man was better 136 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. fitted to comprehend the deep moral and political meaning which they were so well calculated to convey. But it is not surprising to me that Mr. O'Connell scarcely ever alluded in his speeches or writings to these great and terrible rev ol il- lations, which were changing from year to year the political and social condition of Europe. Burke had indulged philosophically on topics of this kind. But O'Coanell had but two predominant ideas loves : the one was the love of his country, the other of his creed, and in his public life, these two became one and indivisible. In a country like the United States, in which there is no distinc- tion of creed ; in a country like ours, in which all Christian de- nominations are equal before the law ; and on an occasion like the present, it is far from agreeable to me to have to allude to rival- ships or disagreements between English and Irish, or between Catholics and Protestants among the western islands of Europe. Yet I think it impossible for any one to conceive a just estimate of the character of Daniel O'Connell, who will not admit, in the cir- cumstances of his life and times, the distinction which is happily out of place in the free and independent States of the American Repub- lic. O'Connell is by no means the only patriot of Ireland ; but he is the only patriot who combined and absorbed into his policy the sympathetic impulses of religion and patriotism, so far as these re- garded the feelings and interests of the great mass of his country- men. Others, whose names it would be hardly necessary to men- tion here, have probably excelled him in rhetorical and eloquent periods of patriotism, and are entitled to the respect which is due to great talents. But they had not the key of the heart of Ireland they pleaded and spoke under circumstances which might attest indi- vidual devotion, and acquire for them individual feme, but so far as both were concerned, they were but "as sounding brass and a tink- ling cymbal." O'Connell, as a mere Irish patriot, was throughout his life superior to any of the illustrious names which Ireland lias been in the habit of cherishing be they Burke, Grattan, Cm-ran, or any of the others. He was not their inferior in statesmanship, jurispru- dence, or eloquence. But he was their superior so far as their coun- try was concerned ; he was their equal or more in patriotism, and had, at the same time, by all odds, the advantage over any rivals in opening up the avenues to the heart of the Irish people. He was a Catholic statesman ; they were Protestant statesmen honorable men, if you will, but shut out from any approach to the inner doors of Irish life. O'Connell's life, from the commencement of his public career, seems to have been influenced by the memory of two early, but perpetual dreams the one promising a hope that he should release his countrymen from the bondage which had been entailed by what is familiarly called the "Union," the other, that he would be enabled to rescue his fellow Catholic countrymen of Ireland, and of the British dominions, from the thraldom and deg- radation to which, before his day, they had been subjected. In ac- complishing the former, he was disappointed by the brevity of LIFE AND TIMES OF o'cOXNELL. 137 human life, and other circumstances. In the latter, he succeeded .; and during his life, he had the happiness to see, mainly through his own exertions, the altars of Ireland, England, Scotland, and the colonies of the great British empire, liberated from the degrading thraldom to which by iniquitous legislation they had been previously subjected. If with all his patriotism he had been a Protestant, he might, like others, have distinguished himself by .most eloquent speeches against the wrongs inflicted by the State, and in favor of the rights denied. But then he would have risen to a species of only individual noto- riety and general admiration as a patriotic rhetorician. He would have gone up as a blazing rocket, and descended as a mere stick. Catholics of hardly less powers than his have exhibited themselves in this way ; and so long as they were supposed to be united to the heart of Ireland by deep and undoubted sympathies, they were suc- cessively sought to be purchased by the hostile government of their country, or banished, or consigned to execution. Ireland has suffered the loss of many able and profoundly patriotic men devoted to her cause, but who sacrificed themselves, or even this public interest to the results of their individual aspirations, unsustained by any pro- found acquired sympathy with the great body of the Irish people. O'Connell was none of these. He was a statesman as well as a patriot. He understood that in the briefest possible period he could get himself transported to the gibbet at home, or to the Penal Colony abroad, for the crime of loving, or laboring for his beloved country. But he was too much of a statesman for a blunder like this. He comprehended from the beginning, that in order to effect great and radical changes in the community, a beginning must be made under the progress of humane ideas, patiently urged and pa- tiently waited for in their progressive amelioration of the social and political condition of a great State. Hence, with all the natural im- petuosity of his individual character, he blended the calmest and wisest philosophy of statesmanship into his policy, in arranging the relations of the means he intended to employ to the end which he was determined to accomplish. For twenty-three years after his ad- mission to public life, and his recognition as a distinguished member of the Irish bar, he seems to have studied out the best means where- by to realize the dreams of his life Catholic Emancipation, and the Repeal of the Union with England. Let us begin with his idea of Catholic Emancipation. O'Connell brought no hereditary influence into the contest. He was not a Peer, he was not the son of a Peer. But he had the instinctive consciousness of greatness, which talent and immense acquirement were calculated to inspire. He wished to break the fetters that encircled the altars and the limbs of his Catholic country- men. The task was immense. The resistance which it compelled him to regard as being necessary to overcome, was the resistance of a certain amount of wisdom on the part of the Catholic clergy of his country ; the resistance of the dominant party in Ireland, the 138 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. virulence of which was proverbial the Orange party ; the resist- ance of the stolid prejudices of the English yeomanry, so called; the resistance of all the corporations of Great Britain and Ireland, namely, the resistance of the established church; the resistance of the British navy ; the resistance of the army ; the resistance of the House of Commons all of them bound by an oath to oppose the idea of Catholic emancipation ; the resistance of the House of Lords ; the resistance of Peel, and Wellington, and Anglesey, and Lord Lyndhurst, and I will say last, but not least, the resistance of the British monarch himself George the Fourth. O'Connell com- prehended, therefore, what he should have to encounter, and, as I have said before, he began, and partially and prudently laid out his project, which was to collect a few, to speak into their ears words of patriotism, of truth, and of justice; and as he began the emanci- pation of the Catholics of the British empire, you can easily under- stand what discouragement it was that he could scarcely get what was called a house to hear him, and a house in those days meant ten persons of an audience ; and yet undismayed, when he found only eight he was not discouraged, but rushed into the street, caught two passers-by and brought them in ; and then he began that agitation which finally triumphed over the apathy of his countrymen, over the virulence of his Orange enemies, over the antagonism of the British Parliament and the prejudices of the British people finally over the Commons, the Lords, the Cabinets and monarchs, till that same George the Fourth, with an oath of blasphemy, was compelled it was not voluntary to sign the act by which 6'Con- nel emancipated the Catholic subjects of his empire, in spite of his opposition and all the opposition he could marshal. I was myself among those for many years, and even till recently, who thought that credit should have been given much more than O'Connell ever awarded, to Wellington and Peel, on the subject of Catholic emancipation ; but a more intimate acquaintance with documents of recent publication satisfies me that they yielded most reluctantly. And when we consider the question of triumph, in a contest, the parties to which are so unequal an individual on one side, and an empire on the other and consider the means by which that triumph was brought about, it would be worthy of any states- man to study well the tactics of Daniel O'Connell, as a statesman and a politician. This is the only solitary case in history in which an individual has been able to accomplish such great results by means entirely moral and religious. You are all aware of those maxims of which he was the author; how he used to say things which im- patient and hot-blooded young patriots could not bear, namely, that " a crime ought not to be committed ;" that " the law of God was the best guide for the patriot ;" that " whoever commits a crime, gives strength to the enemy." In short, he went so far as to say though it is not to be imagined that he meant it in a literal sense, but figu- ratively, and for the benefit of his own impetuous countrymen " that no political amelioration was worth the shedding of one drop of LIFE AND TIMES OF o'cONNELL. 139 blood." This, of course, was exaggeration ; but taking into account that he had to begin to instruct the people, that the circle composed of ten auditors repeated what he said that the newspapers took it up that little by little that circle enlarged its circumference, till it reached the most remote population of the whole island you must consider, also, that those poor people, during so long a period of bondage, had been utterly unaccustomed to the discussion of politi- cal questions in any thing like a popular form O'Connell's task, the most delicate ever statesman undertook to perform, was to excite his countrymen up to a certain point of interest and zeal, and then to restrain their impetuosity, lest it might go too far; for during the whole of his life he was watched by a thousand argus eyes of the law watched in his conduct, in his language, to see when and where, and how it would be possible for government to throw an Attorney- general's noose around his neck, and bring him to the brief end to which others were consigned before him. But those he avoided, arid if you will understand those maxims which he employed so frequently, you will perceive that these were maxims of wisdom, but furnishing no evidence that he himself was a coward he was not a man des- titute of nerve and bravery ; but he was a wise man, and he knew that, having excited up to a certain point of interest his countrymen, then it became his duty to restrain and guide ; because, if at any moment he had said the word, they wei*e, brave and impetuous people as they are, more ready for the battle than for base retreat. It would be impossible to dilate upon the various prominent points in the personal life of Daniel O'Connell. I have already, I fear, exhausted your patience, and must bring the portion of my remarks that remains to a close. O'Connell entered public life in the year 1800. His first public speech was against the Union. He was one of the first young lawyers professing the Catholic religion who made their appearance at the bar, and for a long time he was hated by the hostile judges and shunned by his fellow-counsel. But it was remarked that while he was not lucratively employed, he was, to use the language of one of his fellow-barristers, " bottling up," with great industry and economy, legal knowledge wherewith to perplex those same presidents on the bench and their colleagues. In a little time he began to acquire a reputation at the bar, and for twenty-three years he continued the profession of the law, deriv- ing from it an income of from four to five thousand pounds a year. In the mean time, with that impetuosity of natural temperament which belonged to him, and with that fearlessness which distin- guished his character, he had incurred the displeasure of not a few among his rivals ; and in consequence of having spoken once dis- respectfully of the Corporation of Dublin, he had to meet one of its members. That was D'Esterre. They met in the barbarous duel, and D'Esterre fell at fhe hands of O'Connell. This event was one of the subjects of regret to that great, religious man, up to the period of his death. It is true that at the same time, or soon after, he accepted another challenge from Mr. Peel, afterwards Sir 140 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Robert Peel ; and they had arranged to meet first in Ireland, then on the Continent ; but the future minister contrived, or it was con- trived for him, that one or the other should be arrested in Dublin and in London, and he never kept his engagement. I mention these circumstances simply to show that O'Connell had nothing in his nature of what the world sometimes calls " the white feather." He was not afraid of any thing, but he was a wise man, and after a brief period from the time of his duel with D'Esterre, he recorded a vow in heaven that he would never accept a challenge from any one ; and many a poltroon, in his after life, both in the British Parlia- ment and elsewhere, took advantage of his vow to insult him, knowing very well that they were exempt from the retribution which he would otherwise have inflicted. Mr. O'Connell has been variously represented by many persons. Some, taking up the pages of calumny which his enemies published, looked upon him as a species of monster. Those who knew him well, knew that he was a highly refined and accomplished gentle- man a man of eminent talents a man of the most enlarged and benevolent feelings as a philanthropist. During his practice at the bar, Avhenever those same Orange enemies of his had a difficult cause to manage in the Four Courts of Dublin, Daniel O'Connell was their man. They selected him, and were never disappointed. In the mean time, and whilst O'Connell was laboring with patience, and under the greatest disadvantages, for five and six and ten years, to accomplish the great end of his life, he did not postpone the op- portunity of doing good to others, simply because he could not as yet realize the darling object near his heart. In 1826 a bill for the repeal of the Test and Corporation acts which was a bill for the relief, not of Catholics at all, but of those Protestants of the British empire who did not belong to the established church that is to say, of the dissenters was before Parliament ; and although O'Connell and his contrymen were still themselves in fetters, he, by the advice of his spiritual director, Mr. Lestrange, got up a petition, signed by 800,000 Catholics, and sent it to the table of Parliament, where it reversed the decision of the ministers, and enabled him and his Catholic countrymen to see their Protestant fellow-citizens of the empire, the dissenters, emancipated before themselves. Afterwards when, in fine, he was admitted, and when the restrictions which had been imposed upon Catholics were reluctantly relieved, you find O'Connell and all his influence going to enlarge the liberties of the British people. I speak of the reform of Parliament, which had been the object of desire with many parties for more than half a century, and which would not have been granted probably till this day, had it not been for Daniel O'Connell. They speak of the changes that have occurred, but who is there that can appreciate them ? And since he has passed from this life and is gone, and men enjoy the benefits of his labors, how few there are who appreciate, at their proper value, the sacrifices of toil and care and talents of that great man for the accomplishment of the ends he had in view, and of the LIFE AND TIMES OF ocONNELL. advantages of which they are now in the enjoyment ! Before O'Connell's time every Catholic was in the condition of a serf. Before O'Connell's time they were all looked upon with contempt. No doubt the result of his labor was to excite perhaps more sharp hos- tility, as against rivals, because he took that population, that third of the British empire seven millions and a half of people he took them in the palm of his gigantic hand, and placed them on an equality with their fellow-citizens. Before his time the Duke of Norfolk had no right, was incompetent to discharge the office of a common constable ; and what was true of him was true of all the glorious old Catholic nobility of England. But O'Connell, by his own exertions, and amidst great discouragement, raised them up to an equality of which they and their successors are still in the enjoyment. Were they grateful ? It is not worth while to inquire. A man who is conscious of a right and noble purpose need not look for gratitude. Let him do his duty. O'Connell did this, and did it in a manner that reflected honor upon his nature as a man, and the religion he professed as a Christian. I have this to say of O'Connell, that from the beginning to the end of his life, never has he given one solitary counsel which any human being has had reason to regret. No wife was made a widow no child was made an orphan, by the advice of O'Connell ; because he took religion for his guide, and for the first time in the history of the world, he applied moral means for the acquisition of all that the constitution afforded. It might be said that he was tricky ; for instance, when the British Parliament set their minds to work to see how they could best sup- press his Catholic association, they passed a bill, called at the time the Algerine Act, because its object was contrary to all constitutional right. It prohibited the continuance of any political association during more than a period of fourteen days. Now, here was an unconstitutional enactment, and there was an honest man was he bound to submit to that enactment ? As far as it was law and he was a prudent man he submitted ; but he understood the Act better than its framers, and turned it against them and to his own account ; be- cause, instead of having one association pei-manent in Dublin the law allowing fourteen days he multiplied his associations over the island, eacli of them remaining in session thirteen days. Now, this is to my mind an evidence that an eminent lawyer, who understands the fundamental principles, the elements of a constitution, can go behind a hasty enactment, and, if the legislator is ignorant or faith- less in regard to its principles, to take advantage of his legislative blunder. But this was not the only case ; in tact, during that time there was a contest between the wiseacres of St. Stephen's and O'Connell ; and after they had clubbed their heads together to make laws to put him down, the story was next day in the papers that he had found a means of driving a coach-and-four through their statutes. Daniel O'Connell was not a bigot in religion he was a liberal Catholic. Do not misunderstand me my idea of a liberal Catholic 142 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. is one who is sincere and faithful in the profession of his faith, but who recognizes in every other human being the same right that he claims for himself; but in modern times a liberal Catholic has come to be understood as a man who makes no distinctions between one creed and another. O'Connell was none of these ; he believed in his religion, and from the period of his unfortunate duel to the close of his life he combined the edification of a practical Catholic in his private moral life with the highest duties of a politician and a states- man, and that is what scarcely any other public man that I have read of has ever accomplished before. In short, O'Connell was one of those men whom the world that is, the foreign world could hardly comprehend, from the calumnies that were heaped upon him. I remember him in two or three circumstances of private life, and it may perhaps relieve the tedium of this long harangue if I allude to them. The first time I met him was in London, and I was intro- duced with a determination to have a struggle with him on a cer- tain question that was on the asperity, I thought, with which he spoke of certain social institutions in this country, and I told him, after the ordinary introduction, " You are not surprised, Mr. O'Con- nell, that while you hav many friends in America, you have some who are much displeased with certain of your public remarks." And he asked, " Which ?" " Well," I replied, " they think you are too severe upon an institution for which the present generation or the present government of America is by no means responsible I mean slavery." He paused, and said, " It would be strange indeed if I should not be the friend of the slave throughout the world I, who was born a slave myself." He silenced me, although he did not convince me. I afterwards heard him in the House of Commons, and there he was the great, grave senator. You would suppose he had been brought up from childhood an Englishman, he was so calm and unimpassioned. But he was listened to with profound respect. I heard him again at one of those " Monster Meetings," as they were called, at Donny- brook. He had been preceded by several able and clever orators ; for Ireland, and especially the city of Dublin, is seldom deficient in able orators. When he spoke, it was like casting oil upon the troubled waters. Those who had preceded him had aroused and awakened the passions of that crowd of not less than two hundred thousand people. But when he spoke he stilled their stormy pas- sions, and allowed them all to go home in good-humor. At another time I had the honor of being invited to dine at his table. Nothing extraordinary occurred until after the dessert, when a little group of his grandchildren, I suppose, were permitted to en- ter. They closed around him just as some of his political satellites, but with the innocence of childhood. He had a hand for each ; one clinging to his shoulder, another climbing upon his knee. And he had an epithet of tenderness, varied from one to the other, which surprised me more than any eloquence I ever heard. In the lan- guage of the continent of Europe there are diminutive epithets of LIFE AND TIMES OF o'cONNELL. 143 tenderness, but I never dreamed that they belonged to the English language until I heard them from the lips of O'Connell. I met him again on another occasion, in London, at a large dinner party, where there were a number of members of Parliament and distinguished members of the Catholic nobility. He was near the lady who presided. Towards the end of the entertainment, a very warm discussion sprung up at the opposite extreme of the table, on a question with which they all at first seemed to be perfectly fami- liar, but jn reference to which, the more they discussed it, the more they seemed to become involved in cloud and fog. The dispute had reference to a character in one of Mr. Cooper's novels (the Pioneer), named Leatherstocking, and the specific part which the novelist had made him play in the work just alluded to; and when they were fairly " at their wits' end" (O'Connell in the mean time conversing with the lady of the house), a reference was, by common consent, made to him. After hearing both sides, he commenced to stake out the whole subject. He began with the beginning, traced the characters, distinguished one from the other time and place, till at last they all wondered ; and one said, " How is it, Mr. O'Connell, that you, who have to govern Ireland, and who have to meet the Tories in Parliament, and do this, and do that how is it that you are so perfect in a matter of this kind ?" He said and I mention it for the benefit, perhaps, of some young persons who may be en- gaged now or hereafter in the same career he said, "It is probably owing to this, that the habit of my life has been, to arrange all mat- ters of knowledge according to chronology; that is, to see the order of time in which the events took place. As a lawyer," said he, " during the period when I have devoted seventeen hours daily to my profession, I always began by studying the chronology of the case what thing took place first what the next until at last it has become such a practice with me, that although I just glanced over that novel of Mr. Cooper's, it has fixed itself upon my mind as if it were a law-case." Such, but very imperfectly presented, was Mr. Daniel O'Connell. I do not say that he had not his faults ; I do not say that he was in- fallible, either as a politician or a statesman ; but I do say that, " take him for all in all," Ireland never produced his equal before, and, I fear, never will again. And I say further, that be they few in num- ber or be they many, I, at least, shall ever claim to be one of those who cherish a profound respect, under every point of view, for the illustrious memory of the great "liberator" of Ireland. 144 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE CATHOLIC CIT- IZEN, THE SUBSTANCE OF A LECTURE DELIVERED IN PITTSBURGH, JUNE 27, 1856, BEFORE THE ST. PAUL'S INSTITUTE. (From, the Pittsburgh Catholic) [The Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes, at the earnest solicitation of the mem- bers of St. Paul's Institute, delivered a lecture before that body, in St. Paul's Cathedral. The subject he chose for the groundwork of his lecture was, " The Relation between the Civil and Religious Duties of the Catholic Citizen." The lecture, throughout, was marked with the usual ability of the distinguished Prelate, and was listened to with breathless silence by an audience of about eighteen hundred. The delivery occupied one hour and twenty minutes. We regret exceedingly our inability to lay the admirable discourse before our read- ers entire. The Archbishop not having it written out, we made an attempt to take down a report of it ; but on taking up the daily papers next morning', we found that nearly all had a report of it, and on comparing our notes with them, found them to be more full than our own. Finding this the case, we yielded in favor of the daily press ; but in doing so, we do not wish it to be understood that the report is any thing like full, nor do we pretend to indorse its ac- curacy but it is, in the main, as nearly correct as outlines generally are.] AT eight o'clock Archbishop Hughes entered the pulpit, and read a portion of Scripture from the 22d chapter of Matthew, the words of which were, " Render unto Caesar the things that are Ca3sar's, and unto God the things that are God's." The Archbishop remarked that these words were the only ones recorded by the evangelists at all analogous to the subject under consideration. The Pharisees witnessed the influence of the miracles, the holiness of life, and the doctrines of our blessed Redeemer, and thought to place Him in a position by which He would lose credit with those who loved their country, or with the government under whose yoke they were groaning. If He answered yea to the ques- tion, "Is it .lawful to give tribute to Csesar?" it would have injured him with His people, for they bore the yoke heavily. If He had said it was not lawful, they would have accused Him of want of loy- alty, and sedition against the government. Thus they imagined they had laid a snare for Him. But He knew the malice of their hearts, and demanded of them that which was the sign of tribute, and indicated that they were subject to Cresar. This same hypocrisy, this same cunning Device, this treachery of purpose, has been resorted to in every age to the present day. It is an assumption by those who wish grounds of accusation against the Church, that inasmuch as Christians recognize the spiritual authority as the authority of God, it is improper to recognize any other except as subordinate to the higher spiritual authority, and therefore the Church is assailed on grounds of divided or doubtful allegiance. The first cry of the DUTIES OF CATHOLIC CITIZENS. 14:5 Roman people was that the Christians were enemies of the empire and their fabulous divinities. Whoever has read their histories, knows that in times of pestilence, defeat, or danger, the cry was to "carry the Christians to the wild beasts, for it is with them that the gods are displeased." In subsequent times, we kno\v this has been the pretext for persecution in nearly every country, even in coun- tries nominally Catholic, where proud, selfish, worldly, interested, designing men took up the idea that the power of the Church was overshadowing and subordinating the power of the State. This plea has excited persecutions unequalled by pagan barbarity. Even in this country, continued the Archbishop, the idea begins to be propagated, and credulous and simple-minded people believe, or pretend to believe it. Now, the distinction drawn by the Saviour makes man subject to two orders, the temporal and the spiritual. The first regulates man in his duties to the Church and to God ; and the second, his duties to man and to his fellow-citizen. If the fallacy of the Pharisees had any basis, it must have been this that the spir- itual and temporal, are rival and incompatible orders ; that the friend of one must be the enemy of the other. Hence, in some countries, you see a certain enthusiasm, not real, for the State the State, the fountain of all good the State, the lord and master before whom all things bend. Where this idea prevails to any ex- traordinary degree, it is pregnant with danger. It is a fancy, a con- ception of schemers. It is not the proper idea of the State. Chris- tianity and reason teach that the two orders are perfectly compatible. God is the author of religion, and through religion the author of those precepts and laws to be obeyed by men. God, then, is the author of civil government. If this be true, how could he institute two antagonistic orders, and oblige man to be loyal to both. God is the author of civil government, and man by every manifestation of his nature is a being for society. Society is a necessity, and cannot exist without government to execute them. Consequently, all laws, spiritual and temporal, come from God. Some are uncertain whether law comes direct from God we hold it does. If both orders come from God, they do not necessarily conflict. If a conflict arise, it must be on the encroachment of one on the legitimate rights of the- other. But, in the spiritual order, we recognize the most salutary principle for the maintenance of the temporal. Suppose we did not believe in the spiritual life ; suppose men were atheists ; what force would government have ? where would be the bond to bring the civil law to bear on men's consciences? Where would be the sacredness of an oath ? the obligations of truth ? of honesty ? of any civil virtue ? Where the reasons which would restrain a man of cupidity from enriching himself at the expense of his neigh- bor's property ? You may say that the law has a penalty tor such. But the penalty is visited upon him only when he is detected. We know that human laws do not go beyond the overt act. I may covet my neighbor's goods, but the law cannot detect or punish me. The law has nothing to do with me till I stretch forth my hand under VOL. II. 10 146 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. the observation of a witness, to accomplish what my heart conceived. So you see, to protect society, the human law must repose on the eternal basis of spiritual law, whose witness is the eye of One who penetrates into the deepest recesses of the soul. Were it not for this influence, human law would be weak and inefficient to restrain crime. These orders, continued the Archbishop, are auxiliary, instead of antagonistic, and it should be the policy of wise governments to encourage the religious principle, since in that the State has its highest security. Society is kept together by the unspoken but efficient voice of the spiritual word in her heart, even when it is not audible. It is supposed that the Catholic citizen must be a contradiction in himself. Permit me to say that our modern education in history, legislation, and jurisprudence is so lamentably poor that truth is re- placed by the grossest error. More especially in this country, it is supposed that the Catholic religion is the ally of every thing despotic and arbitrary. Never, under my notice or knowledge, has she sanctioned despotism, tyranny, or oppression. The best proof of this is that the Catholic Church found the inhabitants of the world the oppressed victims of such, tyranny. Everywhere there was despot- ism. She took society and infused into it those elements which are the basis of all true society. Her writers have laid down the true principles of freedom and law more clearly than any other writers of jurisprudence not trained up in her schools. There was no such thing as an irresponsible sovereign of Europe when there was but one Church over the whole world. At that very moment when, as we are told, freedom dawned upon the world, governments became irresponsible to the spiritual power. The meaning of that freedom was to gather all the influence and irresponsibility into the State and take all away from the Church. The fact that there was not a single irresponsible government in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, ought to be suffi- cient answer to the assertion that Catholics are lovers of bondage. Another idea advanced, remarked the Archbishop, is that the Catholic in his own mind must be in conflict in the discharge of his political duties. It is want of candor, judgment, study, that induces such a belief. They say that the Catholic has a double ally in his iheart, that he is ever in a position where his religion asks him to do one thing, and the State another. But the Catholic religion has no particular form of government to recognize. She operates by a spiritual power. As time grew on, she brought about that amelioration which has elevated the Chris- tian Church. When Christ came, slawry was everywhere. Little by little, the Church began to operate on that condition of things, and slavery had disappeared from earth, at least from Europe, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Catholic religion has no doctrine -on the subject of government no doctrine to inculcate this or that -course of policy in human affairs no more than our blessed DUTIES OF CATHOLIC CITIZENS. 147 Redeemer had. It teaches that God is to be obeyed rather than man. But that suggests a case where man may expect us to obey a law in violation of God's commands. Yet the Church will not al- ways have recourse to rebellion. We have before us the example of the martyrs, who, when commanded by the temporal authorities to hold their peace, answered, "If it be lawful to obey God rather than man, judge ye," and went on repeating what they had said. Yet they still obeyed the civil government. How? By dying! by submitting to the consequences! We see the Church in the first three centuries going through such an apprenticeship. Rebel- lion was never preached. While governments changed, they sub- mitted to all. I would not depreciate the temporal authority, but I would not even put it in comparison with the authority which embraces man's eternal being. The spiritual is far more important than the tempo- ral, but the temporal can be sanctified as the auxiliary of the spir- itual. The man that is truest to God, is truest to the State. We read of Chlorus, governor of Britain, that when an edict came from Rome, commanding the persecution of the Christians, he promul- gated a decree that a test should be made to discover them, and many were weak enough to comply with the test. These, the wise and far-seeing pagan ruler dismissed from his presence, " how can I rely on you, when you have proved yourselves traitors to your God ?" But to those who had openly avowed themselves, he ex- tended a larger confidence than ever before. Referring to the objections he had enumerated, he said, these guns ought not to be discharged in an age and a land like this. If ever there was a country which had no pretext for mooting such points, it is this. The Almighty has favored this people with broad lands, free insti- tutions, and a Constitution on which the happiness of the people is based. Put all these aside, and for the first time in the history of the world, the government leaves the spiritual order intact. We read of some governments tolerating religion, whereas the wise founders of ours avoided this leaving the spiritual free and intact to produce its own effects undisturbed by human legislations. They did not even tolerate, because that would have implied that they had the power to do the reverse. They only asked men to discharge their civil duties. This was enough ; and how unreasona- ble and unprofitable to raise a hue-and-cry about Catholicism a religion which in every country, from the rising to the setting of the sun, is faithful to all governments a religion that has been before history and the world for eighteen hundred years. It is unrea- sonable and unwise to attempt to throw suspicion on such a religion, as if some mystery was concealed in it. If followed up, it will bring confusion into the national family. If applied to one Church, why not to another ? Even civil strife, perhaps, might come, though I would scarce think of such a thing. Such efforts will not tramp out such a religion a religion which survived the whole power of the Roman empire, and was not hurt 148 AKCF1BISHOP HUGHES. by it. You may make martyrs you might make apostates, but they would be mean, dastardly hypocrites. It would extend, not destroy, the creed it battled against. Such is the testimony of all history. His Grace defined his idea of a good citizen at length, and then proceeded to note another objection. They say the Catholic is entirely subjugated to his spiritual ad- visers that he will obey what Bishop, Priest, or Pope directs. They look at it as a man in a delirium of fever, and imagine what is going on in their own disordered brain to be real. Why should not the Catholics love their country ? They have sacrificed as much have shed their blood as freely, in proportion to their numbers, as any other denomination. And they obey in temporal matters their Priests and Bishops, who have altogether another mission whose it is to bring him to God to make him a good Christian, and hence, of necessity, a good citizen ! To think that they should stoop to the low tricks of politicians ! No evidence can be offered to show it. Such a charge is a foul, vile calumny. Every Catholic, however humble, knows it. He knows he can vote for whom he pleases, and he ought to make his election according to the end for which gov- ernment was established the common good. But oh ! forbid it, Almighty God ! that Priests and Bishops should stoop to direct him in a province entirely his own. After some further remarks, he concluded by addressing the young men of St. Paul's Institute^ in substance, as follows : Young men, you will never be faithful to your country, if not faithful to your God. But by an upright and honorable course in your religion, you will give guarantee of a corresponding fidelity in temporal affairs. You will become good citizens, valuable mem- bers of society, and fulfil the highest measure of your duty. At the end of life, the temporal order will sink away, and you will rise to the spiritual. You are created for eternity, and in discharging the duties of both orders, you shall, in divine mercy, be acquitted in presence of your Maker. LECTURE ON ST. PATRICK, DELIVERED IN IRVING HALL, NEW YORK, ON SUNDAY EVENING, MARCH 17, 1861, BEFORE THE CATHOLIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. [The Rt. Rev. Dr. Lynch, Bishop of Charleston, S. C., was invited by the New- York Catholic Library Association to deliver a lecture for the benefit of the Society, on St. Patrick's Day, 1861 ; but in consequence of the non-arrival of the steamer on which the Bishop took passage for New- York, his Grace Archbishop Hughes, volunteered Ms services instead, and delivered the follow ing discourse.] LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, You cannot expect from me, on so brief a notice, any thing like the lecture that would have been de- LECTURE ON ST. PATRICK. 14:9 livered here to-night by the distinguished and learned Bishop of Charleston, if something had not occurred on the way to prevent his arrival. As we expected him to deliver the panegyric at the Cathedral, and waited in hope until the last moment, so it has been here ; and it is scarcely an hour since I felt impelled, however im- perfectly, to represent him on this occasion. The twilight of St. Patrick's Day of 1861 has already fully closed in upon us ; but as the sun (which in our meridian at least has been bright) travels upon his way westward, and wherever his beams fall upon the earth there the festival of St. Patrick's Day is celebrated. It is so here ; it is- so over the continent of Europe; it is so in the Indies, in Hindostan, up to Behring's Sti'aits, and among the islands of the Pacific. Though Ireland, the island of which he is the patron saint, is, comparatively speaking, as small as a pin's head, yet the fame of St. Patrick goes around the world with the scattered popu- lation of that island. The most powerful nation the nation with the most extended empire on earth claims, to a certain extent at least, to encircle the world, and to be like one of those straps in a machine shop which runs around and around, turning the machinery,- without end ; but I tell you that St. Patrick's Day has been, and is being celebrated, even on this 17th of March, in places where the tap of the British drum has never been heard. There is much to be desired, in the biography of Ireland's apostle, with reference to details; and those who speak of him refer, for the most part, to the monument which he has left, leaving the hearer to judge from that of the architect. And the single fact that in no part of the globe has his name been forgotten or overlooked by any of the children of the nation of which he was the apostle, is ample proof both of the faith, and of the attachment to, and perseverance in, that faith of the people whom he rescued from superstition and idolatry. Hence, I say, those who speak of the saint refer generally to the faith of the island which he converted, and certainly no evidence could be stronger or more favorable. No other nation has carried its national faith, in good and evil repute, to the extreme boundaries of the habitable world, as the Irish people have carried theirs. They may be few in one locality, but they are more numerous in another; and even if there be but three or four together, or even one alone, on the 17th March, he celebrates St. Patrick's Day. But you are familiar with the theme of the faith of Catholic Ire- land, and I will not enlarge upon it. England, America, Australia every country in the world has evidence of its strength and bright- ness. But have you ever heard of the chanty of this same people, distilled and imbued into the hearts of his converts in the days of St. Patrick and through his ministry, and preserved by their de- scendants ever since ? Who has euer spoken to you about this charity ? Those who know it are so familiar with it that they hardly think it worth while dwelling upon ; but to me it seems a theme which, with a reasonable time for preparation, could be developed into something at once entertaining, instructive, and edifying, 150 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Faith, we are told by the Council of Trent, is the root of justifi- cation ; because, without faith, there can be no growth of charity. Faith is the root ; and, as the tree of life, springing from this root, grows from little to greater, it becomes adorned with branches and buds, and flowers and fruits, prominent among which is holy charity. Yet without faith for the radix, the tree cannot be so adorned cannot flourish. Of course, the mission of an apostle to a pagan nation is first, ne- cessarily, a mission of faith. They must first believe, and then, if they are faithful to their belief, there will easily grow up charity, and love, and hope, and all the Christian virtues'. For this reason it is that in the life of St. Patrick very little is said about charity ; but any one knowing any thing of the history of that people whom St. Patrick was the instrument of ransoming from paganism, will know that the virtue of charity never flourished in any land so con- stantly and ubiquitously as it did in Ireland. It would almost seem as if Almighty God had permitted that people, even as pagans, to inherit a certain amount of natural humanity, kindness, and hospital- ity, greater than that given to others. I will quote from the laws of the country enacted before Christianity was introduced to show this. We do not know much about their civil codes, but there was one prominent code the Brehon Laws which is better preserved in books of antiquity, and about which more is known than any other ; and among other things to be found in this code is this : At that period there were but few turnpikes or high-roads, and certainly no railroads at all ; and the custom had grown up that the stranger on his journey should find hospitality wherever night overtook him. And in order to secure this right of the traveller, the Brehon law enacted that no family should move from the house it then occupied without giving several months' notice, lest the traveller, not knowing of the change, should arrive in the night and find the house desert- ed. This shows the very humane disposition of the people. A sec- ond evidence of their natural kindness and humanity is, that neither St. Patrick nor any of his associates or successors were ever molested in their mission for the propagation of the Christian doctrine. The soil of Ireland has never been moistened with a drop of the martyr's blood, except where it has been shed by the sword, or by the author- ity of foreign invaders. And another thing is that, even until this day, under all her trials and privations, Ireland has never produced a man layman, priest, or bishop who became the founder of any sect opposed to the faith of his country and of his Church. You know the biography of St. Patrick as well as I do, and I need not dwell upon details. At the period of his death the country which he had found a pagan island began to exhibit the fruits of hi.s labor, not in faith alone, but iff charity also. From an early period in the sixth century, down to nearly the middle of the tenth, Ireland was the school of Europe. When I say the school of Europe, I do not mean to say that there were no learned men elsewhere ; there were, perhaps, more learned men in other countries. But it was the ST. PATRICK. 151 period when barbarism, the cold, frozen barbarism of the North, rushed down to invade and to destroy every monument of learning, and science, and faith which Christianity had already erected or perpet- uated from the ruins of the Roman empire. Turbulence and confusion were universal ; and an eminent German writer, one standing amongst the highest and greatest of German scholars, says, that during this period of 300 years, learning, and religion, and piety fled from every Christian country on the continent to take refuge in the country that St. Patrick had so recently brought under the dominion of Christ; and he uses a curious figure to describe what he means; he says that, owing to the disturbances and calamities that prevailed on the continent, the scholars and men who desfred learning, whe- ther secular or religious, fled to Ireland, as weary troops go into winter quarters for safety. Of course, it is not popular in what is called "Printing House Square" to tell all the truth, but the truth is on record ; and it is in every great library in Europe that during this period of two or three hundred years, they fled to Ireland, and were received and educated there. And did they supply themselves with clothing ? Not at all. Did they pay their masters ? Their masters did not want pay. Did they pay their board ? No ; such a thing was unknown. They were required to do none of these things ; but they were received and educated because they were advocates for learning, and wished to be instructed themselves. And whatever may have been the de- tails of the arrangements, we know that thousands and thousands from other countries were thus instructed, and that the very founders of many of the institutions now called scientific universities, &c., in England, and France, and Italy, were educated in Ireland. After this period, you know that, for the first time, as far back as history goes, Ireland, too, fell into the common condition of the na- tions at that time. The Northmen, principally Danes, invaded and took possession of England, which, it appears, was not then a very difficult task, and then invaded and occupied Ireland. Wherever they got ground, and were not prevented, their policy, their principle, I might almost say, their very instincts coarse, hardy, determined, brave barbarians, as they were was to overthrow every seat of learning, every church and convent, and to burn to ashes the ancient monuments that had been accumulated in those establishments. Desolation alone marked their progress. The contest between the people and the invaders lasted a good while, but finally, the Irish, provoked, no doubt, by those sacrilegious acts, aroused themselves, and under the command of their nominal spvereign, drove the Danes into the sea. From that time until another calamity overtook them the interval was short. That was the treachery of one of their own princes, and the invasion of another adventurer from the neighboring island. Call him Henry II. if you will ; but he did not think it worth his while to speak of his royalty when invading Ireland. A man named 152 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Strongbow, with a few adherents, gained a footing in the country, which became, in time, what has been called the Pale. I do not know the exact derivation of the word, but it was intended to mark the boundary between the invaders and the people of the country. Xow, it is a fact, that neither the Danes nor the English really con- quered Ireland. The English, to a certain extent, conquered it, but they did not complete the task in a workmanlike manner. If they had entirely conquered it, the whole of it would have been con- quered, and all the people brought under the English laws. But they did not desire the benefit of English law. English laws will take advantage of%ou wherever they can, and where you need pro- tection, there are no English laws. But we will pass from that. It was not so bad, after all, as the calamity which succeeded. We come to the reign of Queen Eliza- beth, who was, if I may use the expression, the first who had the man- liness to conquer the whole island. But, in the mean time, did charity wax cold ? Did the people of the country forget what they owed to the influence of^the Christian religion, and to the progress of educa- tion ? Certainly not. I would detain you too long were I to give you instances to prove that they still continued what they had been after their conversion ; but I may mention one fact. When Elizabeth spread her dominion over the land, she found in one town, Armagh, a university (the name university was not com- mon then, but the name of the institution was equivalent to it), in which the Irish people, under all their trials, had contrived to pro- vide means of free education and free support for every person who came to drink at the fountains of knowledge and religion. It is known that there were seven thousand persons studying in the schools of Armagh. There were fourteen townships, the rents and income of which went to this educational institution to meet the ex- penses of those persons who came to Ireland for instruction. And dear Elizabeth, upon extending her dominion to that part of the country, confiscated townships, and destroyed the university all, of course, by way of promoting the welfare of the poor Irish ! She took the townships to herself, and she extinguished the university ; that was her work. And since then but I will not harrow up your feelings by recall- ing to your recollections the oppressions and persecutions that have been deliberately framed and heartlessly executed against the peo- ple of Ireland. With them, I suppose, you are sufficiently familiar ; and if I speak of charity, I ought not to say anything that would tend to excite a feeling of resentment for injuries long gone by. That would not be Christian at any time, and it would be entirely out of place to-night. But you know it all. You are aware that since her time, and especially under her drivelling successor, James I., there is no oppression or persecution that has not been inflicted upon Ireland. Not that James was much worse than other men ; but he was imbecile. Elizabeth had attempted to settle the district ST. PATRICK. 153 of Ireland with Englishmen, and to make a colony there. She could not do it. But James, the Scotchman, because he was a Scotch- man, drove out the Irish people, and established a colony. I will not go into details, but I will conclude this historical rela- tion by saying that, take Ireland, from North to South,- from East to West, there is not an acre that has not been confiscated by the English government two or three times. And after that' policy has been pursued after they have taken away the soil by which the people lived, and given it to others, then their writers began to say that Ireland was poor, and that the Irish were beggars. It was under these circumstances that the preaching, and the teaching, and the charity which St. Patrick had infused into this people had opportunities of showing themselves. If all were wealthy, who would want alms ? If all were reduced to the same low level of poverty, who could help another ? Ireland was as a nation crushed between two millstones the lower one stationary and Catholic ; the other one revolving, and the very reverse of Catholic. But there was a means of escape. Let them quit the lower and Catholic millstone, and the Protestant mill- stone would not grind them. You all know the result. When their lands were confiscated, when the titles of their nobility and their nobility themselves were abolished, when their gentry were reduced down to the condition of the farming classes and the farmers to the condition of paupers, when all that occurred, surely there was an opening for the exercise- of Christian faith and charity, and even then Ireland kept her eye beaming full upon both, always. Nor Avas the work of education neglected even then. Their young men were forbidden to be educated at home, and they were forbidden to be educated abroad. If the young man went abroad and came back an educated man, by stealth, he was, if discovered, condemned to prison or banished, as the first gentle remonstrance ; and if he came back a second time, he was to be hanged ! The schoolmaster, too, was liable to the same penalties. You have all heard, especially in that queer literature which has made the Irish character and society a stock for promoting laughter, wherever the English language is spoken, descriptions of what are called Hedge Schools. What is the origin of Hedge School ? I will tell you. The meaning of Hedge School was a school kept in the shelter of a hedge, every student attending which, though he translated Homer into Irish, and Irish into Greek and Latin (though perhaps he did not speak English very correctly), had to bring a turf with him as his contribution to the fire to warm the school by the hedge. The origin of the Hedge School was to give the master and his pupils an opportunity of making their escape iti case the constable was at haud. There was no fear of their being caught at the door. Education was still cherished, though under many dis- advantages. Still, there were eminent scholars in the country, who, as they could not live at home, distinguished themselves abroad. 154: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. This charity is an obscure theme. It is not one well calculated to arouse the feelings very much ; but it is a very edifying one, and worthy of all praise. "When Ireland was reduced to the condition that I have described, with her large population, many in entire dis- tress, homeless, houseless, penniless, what was the resource? It was, in the language of the country, to go " from door to door ;" and I think I may say with safety both to my reading and to the memory which took notes of these things in early life, that in hardly any part of Ireland could a poor beggar apply at a farmer's house, or at any other house, without receiving some assistance. It is not simply the amount of the donations given that is to be taken into account, but the fact that the country was imbued with that feeling of sympathy and charity, which, instead of sneering at the beggar because he was poor, took him in, compassionated and assisted him. There was sympathy for him, even where the means of the donors might not warrant any large almsgiving. Now, then, I say that charity, though seldom spoken of on occa- sions like this, has been the oil that has fed and supplied the lamp of Irish faith ; for faith without works is dead in itself. On every side, so far as I have been able to read, this feeling of charity prevailed. There was no compulsion, but those who had anything, even a loaf, would divide it willingly with those who had nothing. Queen Elizabeth, with her masculine understanding and energetic will, found, what she had not read of in the history of her country, that there were beggars all over. She succeeded the old tyrant, Henry VIII., and she complained that her Royal Highness was as- sailed everywhere by paupers. She could see nothing but beggars, and she wrote to her Parliament, begging them, in the name of hu- manity, to do something for them. At last she enjoined upon them to make a law, taxing the people for their support ; and that was the beginning of the Poor Laws. Ireland needed no such law. She had learned from the teaching of St. Patrick that law of charity and brotherly feeling, sanctified by the character of the Christian reli- gion. That was the Irish Poor Law, and under that law we have heard of no instance, amidst all the sufferings, and persecutions, and privations of the Irish people, of a multitude, or even of an indivi- dual, starving or perishing because there was no Poor Law in Ire- land. And I will say, too, that famine and fever never desolated that island of ancient faith and charity until after the Poor Laws were there enacted by Lord John Russell and his associates. Under those laws millions have perished before the eyes of the government, and the very bread of charity sent from these shores would not be admitted by the hard-hearted English ministry of the day, unless it should pay the regular duty at the Custom House. I am aware that poverty is a great calamity. Extreme poverty is, in my opinion, the greatest calamity that can fall upon a Christian nation, except it be extreme wealth. That is a greater ; but both are bad, unless men have their hearts impregnated with the spirit of the Christian religion the one to bear their trials properly, and the ST. PATRICK. 155 other to make a good use of the gifts intrusted them, for the con- solation and relief of their fellow-beings. But look at the play, if I may so call it, of Christian devotion and social sympathies, which has been going on in Ireland for the last 300 years. If I could I would paint it ; but though it comes up be- fore my recollection in colors that would delight the eye of an angel, the chapter is yet unwritten. How often have I seen poor parents, with three or four children, going about, as I have already mentioned, from door to door, receiv- ing relief from every one ! How often have I seen as many as seven or eight visits between sunrise and sunset at a house, itself in very moderate circumstances ! How often have I seen, with my own eyes, that wherever the night overtook those people, and they found a house, it was somehow or other contrived that they should have the privilege of a bed, protection for the night, and something to eat in the next morning before they went away ! How well and how often do I remember hearing the password the signal between those unfortunate beings and those who were just barely less unfor- tunate than they were themselves, namely : " I want a little help for God's sake !" that password was hereditary in the minds of St. Patrick's converts and their descendants. When it came to that, anything would be granted ; because, even grace itself cannot in- spire a higher motive for a generous and charitable action than the motive for God's sake. And the reason is obvious ; I need hardly dwell upon it. How many do we meet constantly who are in need of aid, and how many of them are worthy of that aid on their own account ? I suppose very few. There may be, and are some, but we don't know them. We only know that the Christian man with the faith and charity of the Lord in his heart will see them, as it were, through God. He may say in his thoughts : " I don't know what kind of a person you are, but I know that God created you, you are my fellow being ; I would not aid or prompt you to any iniquity, but even if you should be unworthy, I do not aid you for your own woi'thiness, but for God's sake." And these words for God's sake are the passwords in Ireland. For a long time past the country has been divided into several religions Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians, Methodists. Well, although the Catholics have been the ground-to-dust people, yet the others, too, have suffered, and now and then they would be found in the train I have spoken of, going from door to door. The Catholic beggar would say : " Ma'am, I want a little help for God's sake ;" it could not be much ; the means were limited; and the other would say : " Ma'am, I want a little help." This shows you how deeply it is engraved on the hearts and souls of that people ; the Catholic would make no distinction between the beggars, but would always sanctify her alms in giving it, and supply the omission of the applicant for help, thus : " This is for God's sake." All this is what I call the play of humanity, of Christian charity, of forbearance, of hospitality, lodgings, such as they were, for the 156 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. poor, " a little help," as they called it, for those in need ; and all this in the hands of a person who had time to develop the subject properly, would present an exhibition of Christian fortitude and virtue such as, perhaps, no country on the face of the globe has ever presented or excelled. I speak not now simply of faith, for I do think and believe that if Ireland had become hard-hearted at any time to the poor, or forgetful of Christian charity, her faith would have died out ; for her charity has been to her faith like oil to the lamp. And it is now, they say, that things are brightenning up, and that the people, having been pretty-well thinned out by fevers, famines, emigration, and what they call extermination, that is, the landlords throwing them out upon the roads, are becoming better off. I should not be surprised if those who remain would fare a little better ; and I would be glad that they should become prosperous in the tempo- rary order, but God forbid that they should ever forget the noble faith and holy charity which have come down to them from the days when St. Patrick raised the Cross of Christ on their island ! Your society, and the society with which you are intimately con- nected, have in view a twofold object, charity and the dissemination of knowledge. Your library, rightly managed, and properly en- couraged, may be a source, if not of very large information, at least of a protecting influence for those wishing to read. The society of St. Vincent de Paul suggests in another form, the highest model ever presented by the world for the imitation of individual charity. St. Vincent de Paul was one who in his own life, did more than almost any one else for the virtue of charity, laid down a foundation, and presented motives to attract thousands, and perhaps by this time millions, to the sacred work, without any earthly recompense. This work of charity he carried on continually, even down to the redemption of the galley slaves for he went on board the galleys and sought to put the manacles upon his own hands and to go to Africa, in order to release the Christians who had been taken by the corsaii'S, fearing that in their calamity and weakness they might be tempted to deny Christ. But chanty is not a national virtue ; it is a Christian virtue. It belongs to all countries, and although I have spoken of it to-night with especiel reference to Ireland, I have not spoken so with the intention of denying its existence elsewhere. No other country, however, can present anything like a parallel to Ireland as a field to bring out the virtue of Christian charity if it were in ; and that is the reason why I have so spoken. But in speaking of any Christian virtue, whether faith, hope, or charity, the Catholic knows no distinction of nations, and any such distinction, intentionally made, is just so much less Catholic than it ought to be. Every man has his country, either the land of his na- tivity or the land of his adoption, and to it he is bound by every tie of honor and loyalty, even to the sacrifice of his life. That is in the human order. But in the divine order we do not know any geo- graphy. There is no geography for the Catholic as a Catholic. As ST. PATRICK. 157 a Catholic, he embraces his brother Catholic who is, perhaps at this very hour, celebrating the Holy Mysteries in the capital of China, for the old Church has been reopened there, the same as if he were in New York. He believes all that we believe, all the doctrines that our common mother the Church teaches. But if there is any trouble, we will fight China any time, as we did Mexico. In Mexico we had priests on our side and they had priests on theirs ; and our prisoners, when they were Catholics, were treated as Catholics, kindly, with every spiritual consolation ; and their pris- oners, when they came to our priests, were treated in the same way, the day after they had stood in battle array against each other. So it is that the faith and charity of the Catholic Church are not in- vaded or conquered by war. And in our own country, where there has been lately so much excitement (all of which, I trust, will terminate amicably), they di- vide it into two parts, calling them North and South, and they talk of division and civil war. Well, there is but one rule for a Catholic wherever he is, and that is, to do his duty there as citizen. But no matter how wide or how deep they may in their political aspirations and schemes contrive to present the chasm dividing the North from the South, or how impassable, the Catholics on both sides of the line, though they may not be very distinguished engineers, will, as far as religion is concerned, throw a bridge over that chasm. SERMONS A SERMON ON THE FESTIVAL OF ST. PATRICK. PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, MARCH 17, 1835, BY REV. JOHN HUGHES. PHILADELPHIA, March 17th, 1835. REV. SIR A few among the crowded audience, who this day listened to the very eloquent discourse in which you have portrayed with the fire of devotion the merits of Ireland's Apostle, as well as the wrongs of that unhappy country ; unwilling that the gratification they have experienced themselves, should be totally lost to others who were deprived of the opportunity of attending on that occasion, respectfully request a copy of your panegyric for the press. We are, Rev. Sir, very respectfully, Your humble servants, Jos. G. NANCREDE, JOHN P. OWENS, W. W. HALY, S. B. DAVIS, To REV. JOHN HUGHES. M. A. FRENAYE. PHILADELPHIA, March 18th, 1835. GENTLEMEN I have great pleasure in complying with your wishes in regard to my sermon on the festival of Ireland's Apostle. I am, gentlemen, with great respect, Your obt. servant, Messrs. Jos. G. NANCREDE, M. D. JOHN HUGHES. JOHN P. OWENS, W. W. HALT, S. B. DAVIS, M. A. FRENAYE. SERMON. " Go forth out of thy country and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, and come into the land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, I will bless thee and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed." GENESIS, xii. 1. THE history of the Irish nation furnishes so many traits of resem- blance to that of the ancient Jews, the mysterious path by which the invisible hand of Providence conducted our Saint to the field of his immortal labors, has so many points of correspondence with the history and vocation of Abraham, that the promises of Almighty God to the father of the faithful, would seem to have been literally fulfilled in the great Apostle of Ireland. " Go forth out of thy country and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land that I will show thee, and I will make thee a SERMONS. 159 great nation, and I will bless thee and magnify thy name and thou shalt be blessed." Greatness, whether national or individual, has different meanings, according to the case and circumstances in which the word is used. The Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans of antiquity, were great nations ; each excelling in something peculiar to itself. Their brilliant achievements, whether in arts or arms ; the extent of their dominions, and the pomp of their kings and courtiers, are all but too apt to catch the eye of youthful admiration, and thus create a prejudice which confounds power with greatness, and which the philosophy of riper years finds it difficult to eradicate from the mind. The power which those nations possessed was human, tempo- rary, perishable ; oftentimes engendered in crime, and upheld by cruelty. It would be injurious, therefore, to the perfection of the Supreme Being, to suppose that, in promising to make Abraham a great nation, he did not contemplate greatness of a very different order from that to which I have just alluded. The distinction is necessary when we wish to understand those promises which God made and fulfilled in their true meaning, towards the people of his choice. According to the tfmporal order, they do not seem to have been distinguished by any of those daz- zling attributes of temporal greatness, which we behold in some other nations of antiquity. They were once and again under the yoke of foreign bondage. They were oftentimes stubborn and ungrateful, and chastisement followed quickly in the footsteps of transgression. Accordingly, we find them at intervals oppressed, now by their own rulers, and now under the lash of the triumphant barbarian, who knew not the God of their leader Moses, or their father Abraham. But view their history in connection with the order of Divine greatness, and mark how distinguished they were. God had sus- pended the laws of nature for their deliverance from Egypt and : e- servation in the desert! He held communion with them he taught them. To their exclusive charge he committed the Faith and the Hope of the world's redemption. When all had gone astray, he chose them as the representatives of the human race ; and when ev- ery other bond had been severed, there remained this last link in the chain of truth and mercy, which still connected earth with heaven, time with eternity, mail with his God. The ladder of vision, by which angels were ascending and descending, rested on their hal- lowed soil ; and no wonder that they could not sing their national songs by the rivers of Babylon no wonder that their country should be dear to them, and that the wandering child of Abraham, even at this day, should shed the bitter tear, while, resting by the wayside, he looks towards the distant coast and remembers Sion ! The festival which we are this day assembled to celebrate, and the national associations connected with it, suggest to every mind the sense in which the text may be applied to the Apostle of Ireland. He, too, left his country, his kindred, and his father's 160 AECDBISHOP HUGHES. house, and came to a land which God had shown him. The children of that land, like those of Israel, have passed through the Red sea, not of water, but of blood and persecution. Ireland has seen the gushing torrent of her mountains, and the tranquil stream of her val- leys turned into the rivers of Babylon, and heard the insulting stranger ask for her national songs, whilst her harp was suspended on the willows its chords all broken, in sign of captivity. Many of her sons, too, are scattered among the nations of the earth; men who loved her too well to grace by their presence the triumphant tyranny of her oppressors ; men who bled by the sympathy of the heart at every stab which they saw inflicted on our dear, dear Erin. But wherever they are found, whether in the deep solitude of the western forest, or on the shores of distant India, the emotions which awoke in the breast of Babylon's captive at the remembrance of Sion, were never deeper or holier than those which the returning festival of Ireland's Saint causes to throb in the bosom of her exile. Other days he devotes to fortune and to fame, but the anni- versary of St. Patrick is sacred to the land of his nativity. Under whatever sky he roams, his heart, on this day, feels the magnet of his country, andtsensitive to the attraction true as the needle to the pole turns away to dwell among the graves of his fathers, to re- visit the home of his childhood, the scenes and companions of his youth. With regard to the birth-place of the illustrious servant of God, St. Patrick, whose festival the Church this day celebrates, I find that the authorities are various and contradictory. To enter into a dis- cussion on the merits of the respective claims, is as much opposed to my own views of propriety as it would be uninteresting, not to say tedious and unpleasant to yourselves. Was he born in Scotland, as appears to be the most generally received opinion ? Or was he a na- tive of Brittany in France, as some ancient records, and the circum- stance of his having been the nephew of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, would seem to establish ? These are questions, on the solution of which it does not become me to enter on an occasion like the present. Let it suffice to say, that different countries have claimed the honor of having given him birth. But what is certain is, that wherever he was born, Ireland was the theatre of his apostolic labors Ireland is the land which he reclaimed from paganism, and pre- sented to the living God as one of the greenest laurels that ever decked the brow of triumphant Christianity. What is certain is, that in his old age, when about to rest from his labors, he reclined his weary head on the lap of Ireland, that she possesses the deposit of his sacred ashes ; and whilst she keeps vigil by the hallowed urn that contains them, she is content that other nations, if they will, should dispute for the glory of having rocked his cradle. It appears that his parents had settled in Scotland, and that about the sixteenth year of his age he was captured and carried into Ire- land by a band of pirates that here he was sold into captivity. God thus far permitted, that like another Joseph in Egypt, he should SERMONS. 161 first be a slave in the land which he was destined to deliver after- wards from more than Egyptian bondage. His occupation during the period of his servitude, as we learn from his own confessions, was herding cattle on the mountains. The fabulous and absurd biographies of this distinguished servant of God, professing to be of high authority, but evidently written by some enemy of our country or his religion, ought to be branded with their true stamp of spuriousness and forgery ; and it is to be re- gretted that an attempt has been made to circulate a work of this character, even in the United States. The genuine documents, if they were ever abundant for such a work, have disappeared centu- ries ago, either in the Danish destruction of monasteries and manu- scripts in the ninth and tenth centuries, or by the more refined and deliberate malice of the invading successors. What I state of St. Patrick rests on the authority of the fragments of his own writings that have come down to us; or on that of Alban Butler, who sifted the materials on which he drew, with the discrimination of a scholar and the criticism of a stoic. From these we learn that his condition, at an early age, was such as I have just described that of a slave. But a lesson, which experience teaches, and which few, unhappily, are willing to learn, is, that every situation has its advantages and graces, and that oftentimes the occurrence which we deplore with the most intense grief, is that, precisely, which in the end is most for our good. So it was with our Saint during his captivity. Here it was, in the loneliness of his occupation, that he had leisure to re- flect on the fickle tenure of human happiness, and the instability of human things. He is but a youth, and he is already torn from the embraces of his fond parents, from all the relations of home and country, and compelled, in a strange land, to obey the will of a pagan and barbarian. Here it was, when his tender body was sinking un- der the inclemency of the seasons and the hardships of his lot ; when his young heart was breaking in the sad memory of family endear- ments, which were never, as he supposed, to be enjoyed again ; when snatched away, unexpectedly and forever, from all the objects of his early affections, he felt that every gentle tie that binds man to the earth had been rudely severed ; here it was, as we learn from his confessions, that Faith directed his mind and heart to an object which never changes never deceives, and Charity claimed those affections of his youth, which misfortune had already left without a rival object beneath the sky. His humility does not permit him to mention in his confessions the interior consolations, the pure light of the Holy Ghost that must have flowed in upon his soul during this period of his probation, when we behold him a shepherd boy on the bleak mountains of pagan Ireland, like another Moses tending the flocks of Jethro, and like Moses, too, in treaty with his God for the deliverance of a great people. The termination of his sufferings and servitude at length arrives, and he is again restored unexpectedly to the embraces of his fond but afflicted parents. The world again presents its charms and allure- VOL. II. 11 163 ARCHBISHOP HUGHKS. raents ; but his affections are preoccupied. He had given his heart to God ; and nothing could now induce him to recall or divide the offering. Religion had stooped to console him in the dark hour of his distress, and having hailed her with a lover's devotion, he clings to her with a lover's constancy. His purpose of devoting himself to the ministry of Jesus Christ and making Ireland the theatre of his mission, is opposed by his friends with all the arguments and en- treaties which worldly wisdom could inspire. But in vain. Having chosen the Lord for the portion of his inheritance, he is insensible to every species of remonstrance. It was about this time also, as he tells us in his confessions, that the will of Heaven was more clearly indicated to him in a vision, in which, like St. Paul in reference to Macedonia, he saw the Genius of Ireland beckoning him to come and preach the gospel on her shores. But knowing that it is unlawful to preach without having been sent that no man taketh this honor to himself except he be called of God, as Aaron was, by a public and legitimate appointment he subdues the ardor of his zeal to pro- claim Christ, he enters on a course of patient study and preparation, under the guidance of his uncle, St. Martin of Tours, and receives, finally, the ordination of deaconship and priesthood. Instead, however, of presenting himself immediately on the field of his labors, we find him journeying to Rome to receive authority and commis- sion to preach, from the successor of him who " being once con- verted" was to " confirm his brethren," of him Avhose superior privilege it was to feed, not only the lambs, but the sheep of Christ's universal fold. Our Apostle had become acquainted with the Irish national character, and having discovered with the eye of prophetic discrimination the rich and enduring materials of which it was composed, and which were so well adapted to the spiritual edifice that he was about to rear, he begins like a wise architect by laying the foundation on that rock of Peter, against which an infallible promise had declared that " the gates of hell should not prevail." He received the apostolical authority and benediction at the hands of Pope Celestine about the year 427. He now bids adieu to Rome and Italy, crosses the Alps, takes a final leave of those distinguished servants of God who had been his preceptors, and from whose society he had derived so much edifica- tion and delight. But Ireland was the long-cherished object of his zeal, and neither time nor space, nor the society of saintly men, must keep him estranged any longer from the people of his choice. Behold him then, at length, alighting from the ship, and standing alone on the beach of that pagan island. An apostle of Christianity viewed in such circumstances, and at such a moment, presents one of those grand spectacles of moral sublimity, to which the whole history of human enterprise, guided by human motives, furnishes no parallel. The comforts, friends, wealth, and honors that he has left behind him, contrasted with the privations, hardships, poverty, igno- miny, and probable martyrdom, that array themselves in the pros- pect before, exhibit, in connection with his choice, a phenomenon SERMONS. 163 in the moral order, which your dark, cold, earthly philosophy cannot comprehend, much less explain. Christianity had made some slight progress, previous to his coming, but idolatry according to the rites of druidism was still the religion of the country. It remained for the hand of Patrick to pluck up the pagan super- stitions of the land, and, as this operation would necessarily wound the national passions to the very quick, was it not probable that these would burst forth in a hurricane, and overwhelm with destruction the rash mortal who had dared to invade their ancient dominion ? Would not the kings, and people, and princes league together, in the words of the psalmist, against the Lord and against his Christ ? Would not the mystery of redemption be rejected, and would not a prompt if not cruel death be the recompense of him who had undertaken to proclaim it ? These are questions which suggest themselves to those who regard things according to human pru- dence, bat which never agitato the mind of an apostle. He goes forth on the strength of his commission, with no breastplate of pro- tection but his innocence, no armor but humility and prayer. Impressed with the divine conviction that he who loses his life for Christ's sake shall save it, he is a conqueror before the battle has begun. It was with these equipments and in this spirit that St. Patrick landed on the shores of Ireland, and planted the standard of the cross where the Roman legions had never ventured to plant the im- perial eagle. He takes his march through the island, preaching Christ and Him crucified, and the multitude of believers that follow in the train of his ministry seems to bring back the days of Jeru- salem and Pentecost. He preaches a doctrine of mysteries too sublime to be comprehended by the feeble powers of created un- derstandings, he proclaims a doctrine of morals stern and intolerant towards the passions of the human breast, and the tide of those pas- sions is forthwith arrested, as if by the voice of God saying : "Hereto thou shalt come, but no further ; and here thou shalt break thy proud and swelling waves." Thus did he continue for half a century, during which he labored in the work of the ministry, preaching the word of life, forming congregations, ordaining priests, founding monasteries, and encour- aging to the practice of the counsels as well as the commandment of the gospel, until he saw the whole nation, moved by unanimous impulse, bowing the neck to the sweet yoke of Jesus Christ. So rapidly did the Avork of evangelizing proceed, that the altars of idolatry seemed to crumble at his approach, and temples for the worship of the true and living God to spring up from their ruins, at his departure. The smoke of pagan incense which but yesterday rose through the thick foliage of the consecrated grove, to-day is seen no more. The glens no more echo back the rude sounds of the druid priest and bard, but in grove and glen, in the valley and on the mountain side, the incense of the heart's devotion rises in ado- ration and praise of the holy name of him who liveth and reigneth. 164 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Those were the evidences of our apostle's labors, these the miracles of his zeal, which even during his life burst forth to the gaze and admiration of astonished Christendom. To speak in detail of his ministry would swell the subject beyond the limits which the occa- sion has prescribed. I might trace him to the remotest boundary of the northern coast, carrying the word of life to the poor inhabit- ants of the very mountains on which he once obeyed the voice of a stern taskmaster. I might present him to you, standing before the National Congress at Tara, like another St. Paul, in the Areopagus with them of the "Unknown God." To form an estimate of his labors, it is sufficient to know that, aided by the grace of heaven, he effected an entire intellectual revolution in the minds of a whole people ; that he modelled the affections of a nation's heart into a ha- tred of all they had loved, andinto a love of all they had hated all the self denying precepts of the Holy Gospel. This in the merciful designs of Providence was his privilege ; and this, so long as religion shall last, this shall be the indestructible monument of his praise. Scarcely had the Apostle of Ireland rested from his labors, when we see the nation turned into one vast school of science and religion, for the education of Western Europe. The princes of other coun- tries were her pupils, and if England feel proud in the I'ecollection of her immortal Alfred, to Ireland belongs the higher pride of having formed'his mind by education. Her schools, like her heart, were open to the votaries of learning from every land. She sends forth apostles of science as well as of religion, to found universities and preside in them, of which those of Oxford, Paris and Pavia are in- stances. During nearly three centuries subsequent to her embra- cing Christianity, we find those ramparts, behind which religion and civilization took shelter from the furious incursions of northern bar- barism, defended in a great measure, by those sons of Christian Ireland who had caught the impulse of her apostle's sanctity and zeal. We read of them in Britain, Gaul, Switzerland, the Low Countries, and Italy itself; everywhere trimming the sickly lamp of science, and lifting up the torch of revelation, until Ireland became known in the ecclesiastical writings of the times as the " Island of Saints and Doctors." These are the evidences of St. Patrick's successful labors. Under his ministry we see the Church of Ireland rising on the ruins of ancient idolatry, and for more than two hundred years towering on the western borders of Europe as a pillar of celestial fire, diffusing its heat on every side, and flinging its light back to the very gates of Rome, the portals of the shrine from which the spark had been originally borrowed. The history of fourteen hundred years attests that the faith of St. Patrick has never ceased to abide in the land of our fathers. It may have lost in elevation, but it lias gained in so- lidity. It has become a pyramid of strength, against which the rage of persecution has been as impotent as that of the wandering Arab against the pyramid of the desert. It is the monument of St. Patrick ; there it has stood, there it will stand, alone, unchanged and SERMONS. 165 indestructible, amidst the ruins of all other memorials which time and tyranny have scattered around its basis. The destruction of the national archives, either by the Danes or their successors, was complete; and it is, only by the incidental allu- sions to Ireland, which are mixed up with the annals of other coun- tries, that we can form an idea of what she once was, contrasted with what she is, and has been for centuries. Thus, for instance, at the council of Constance of 1414, the English ambassadors claimed the right of precedency over those of France, and were sustained in the claim, exclusively on the ground that their master was Lord of Ireland : " for Europe," says the manuscript account of the pro- ceedings preserved in the library of Westminster, " was originally divided into tour kingdoms ; Rome for the first ; Constantinople for the second ; Ireland, which has now passed into the English, for the third ; and Spain for the fourth." The ecclesiastical annals of continental Europe from the fifth to the ninth and tenth centuries, abound with incidental testimonies, highly honorable to the learning, piety, generosity, and magnanimity of the Irish nation. That Ireland, long before the introduction of Christianity, was in possession of letters, laws, literary institutions, heraldry, music, and medicine, has been acknowledged by some of the most learned antiquarians, foreign as well as native. In fact, the rapid progress of the gospel, and the prompt conversion of the whole nation to Christianity, under the ministry of its first apostle, would be altogether inexplicable on any other hypothesis. The history of that religion in its diffusion among the nations, attests with scarcely an exception that its first preachers were immolated to the ignorance and ferocity which they had come to eradicate. The miracles of the apostles in other lands seem but to have accelerated their mar- tyrdom. The brightness of revelation was too dazzling for eyes so long accustomed to thick darkness ; and the manner it was received in Ireland is an indirect evidence that she must have been in a state of better preparation, that her intellect must have been ripen- ing and her heart mellowed and improved by the influence of her own hereditary arts and institutions. It does not appear that in proclaiming the mystery of redemption our apostle had to encoun- ter the slightest opposition, either from the people or from the public authorities. He is not only allowed to preach to the pool', in private, he appears before the national assembly, he is heard with patience, and dismissed on his errand of mercy without either threat or prohibition. Ireland alone appears to have been able, from the first, to gaze with an eagle's eye on the superior light of Christianity, until her understanding became convinced of its truth, and her heart enamored with its celestial beauty. This is an instance of intellect- ual and moral superiority without a parallel in that age, among any other people on the dark map of Western Europe. Other nations dug the martyr's grave for their first missionaries, but Ireland never raised her hands against the Lord's anointed ; and until the sword of persecution fell upon her own neck in the 16th century hers 166 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. was a virgin soil, that had never been moistened by so much as one drop of the martyr's blood. Neither can her prompt abandonment of idolatry be ascribed to fickleness, which never was an attribute of hers. Having bowed to the majesty of truth as received from her first apostle, centuries of adversity bear testimony to the unal- terable perseverance of her choice. Her oppressors have freighted their ships with systems of religion, for her adoption and use ; patron- age offered the golden prize ; and when this failed, power took up the rod of iron and scourged her; still she rejected them. Neither the bribes of patronage, on the one side, nor the scourge of perse- cution on the other, could shake the constancy of her first love ; and amidst the contradictory systems of human religions, which have distracted the Christian family from the commencement, it is a proud recollection that not so much as one heresy can claim an Irishman for its author, or Ireland for its birth-place. Begin with the commencement of Christianity, trace the current of ecclesiastical history downward to the present day, and you will find that there is not another country on the face of the globe which did not at some time produce an heresiarch, the founder of a new sect, except poor, oppressed, calumniated, but faithful, constant Ireland. The history of Ireland's political calamities is the history of the last 700 years. The Danes had made occasional and ruinous incur- sions during the ninth and tenth centuries. Literature had conse- quently declined, and the golden age of the Irish Church had passed away. The people and clergy, it is said, had become degenerate in morals at the epoch othe civil invasion. But when we come to examine the original authority on which these charges are founded, we find them to have been all foreigner 's, with one single exception. Henry II. wished to become a reformer of the Church, and on this plea obtained or forged a worthless document from Pope Adrian IV., authorizing him to invade Ireland. For the charges of immorality, then, against the Irish clergy, we have the writings of English monks, addressed to English prejudices and forwarded to an English Pope, to promote the ambitious views of an English king these are the original documents. Now, there is one important fact which stands at the head of Ireland's misfortunes, and which seems to me amply sufficient to refute these charges, or at least to show that they are grossly exag- gerated. It is the very application of Dermott, king of Leinster, to the English monarch. It is well known that the provincial king did not invoke the aid of foi-eign arms, until after he had been dethroned and expelled. But why had he been expelled ? Because he had been abandoned by his allies and his people. And why had he been thus abandoned ? Because he had violated the laws of God, by an act of public and scandalous immorality. And if the public moral feeling was powerful enough to drive him from his kingdom and country for that, which, horrible as it was, would hardly have been a blemish on the diadem of royalty elsewhere I ask, whether a SERMONS. 167 nation in which this happened, could have been as depraved and immoral as its enemies represent? At all events, the traitor and the invader soon returned, the one with the sword of ambition, and the other with the dagger of revenge, and the national independence of Ireland, unguarded and unsuspecting, was briefly assassinated. Here, then, is the first link in the unbroken chain of Ireland's politi- cal disasters ; and notwithstanding what foreign writers have said in reference to the degenerate morals of the Irish, at this period, it furnishes strong grounds for the conclusion that if morality, virtue, the sanctity of the marriage relation had been less prized in Ireland, this prince would not have been expelled from her shores for their violation ; or if in the neighboring country they had been more prized, England, like Ireland, would have shrunk back from the prof- fered hand of a traitor and adulterer, and the invasion by Henry the Second at least would never have been heard of. I do not mean to say that the extraordinary piety of the first ages of Christianity in Ireland had not passed away. I do not say that abuses of a local character, and in numerous instances, had not in- vaded even the sanctuary itself. On the contrary, we find the Irish church in a spirit of self-accusation acknowledging and bewailing the guilt of its people. We find her assembling her Bishops in a provin- cial council, and there confessing that she had sinned, that she must have sinned, otherwise God, who punishes in mercy, would not visit upon her the materials of oppression, which her prophetic eye seem- ed to discover in the perspective of futurity. But to my mind this was an evidence of faith, rather than licentiousness. It speaks the contrite heart of a David, when he bowed in silence to the insulting language and stoning of the wicked Achitophel. She could have dashed the chalice of bitterness from her lips, but like him who ago- nized in the garden, she seemed to say, Not my will but thine, O God, be fulfilled. By the acts of this council, it appears that the Irish had been in the habit of purchasing slaves, brought from the neighbor- ing coast of Britain, and sold, sometimes, by their own relatives and even the parents. If Ireland could feel remorse for her share of this crime, she must have been very different from the description given of her by the pen of foreign enmity. And yet, by the lan- guage of her Bishops, on the occasion referred to, she seems to have felt that the crime of holding slaves was sufficient to bring upon her- self the curse of bondage. Hence, by a decree of this council, it was ordered that all the English slaves throughout the island should be set at liberty. Having British slaves in her possession and British tyrants approaching her shores, she hears a voice saying, " What thou dost, do quickly," and with a presentiment that her own hands should soon feel the riveting manacles, the last noble use she made of their freedom was to strike away the chains of all her own captives. Thus did the independence of Ireland expire like the dolphin, that displays its richest colors in the agonies of dying; or, if I may venture on a holier comparison, rivalling in its last hour the charity of a Stephen in his martyrdom. But did the spirit of inde- 163 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. pendence die ? Never ! Oppressed in the city, it fled to the moun- tains persecuted for hundreds of years, it never has been, it never can be, extinguished on the Irish shores. It became the companion of that faith which had come from heaven ; and whilst the one brought boundless submission to the rule which the chastising hand of God had established, the other inspired a na- tional feeling of broad, unwavering, indomitable, eternal resistance to the misrule of man in " brief authority " which neither God, nor justice, nor reason, nor nature had ever sanctioned. The crimes that have been recorded in Irish history to the prejudice of the national character, are more the crimes of the laws than of the people. According to the laws, Irish birth was a crime, education was a crime, property was a crime, religion was a crime. And under the op- eration of those almost infernal laws, Ireland was pinioned down to the earth ; trodden and trampled on by the iron hoofs of oppression's stalking-horse, whilst the heartless rider sat with a visage as fixed and cold as the chiselled marble. What he called a crime was not a crime ; it was reason and nature pleading against tyranny. What he called the voice of rebellion, was not the voice of rebellion ; it was the groans of the captive he was torturing. He stripped her of property and then mocked at her destitution. He robbed her of ed- ucation, and then ridiculed her ignorance! He made the infant fatherless and wrecked the widow's heart; and then laughed at the desolation ! But though he could chain the neck and manacle the hands of Ireland, yet he never could stultify her understanding, nor persuade her that she was either justly or wisely governed. Though he could press her blood from the wounds he had inflicted, and try to cover the livid marks of his cruelty with the ink of calumny, yet he could neither destroy her character nor reduce her people into a nation of serfs. But there are two principles which she cherished in the secret of her heart beyond the tyrant's reach; the one is the love of freedom, "the other, unbroken attachment to the faith of her first apostle. We may hope that the flag of freedom, under the pro- tection of wise laws and a better government, will again wave on the green hills of that unhappy country ; and we may predict that the faith of St. Patrick shall continue to be the faith of Ireland, when the religions of the British Parliament shall be forgotten, or remem- bered only to convince incredulous posterity that legislatures have dared to invade the prerogatives of God, in attempting to dictate what a nation should believe. But in despite of all the blasting influence of bad laws and bad government, how often do we see the genius of Ireland bursting like a sun through the clouds which enveloped it ! There is no depart- ment of religious, moral, or intellectual greatness that has not been adorned by the contributions of Irish devotion or of Irish genius. Shall it be censurable in us to call up the memory of these things, when it is recollected that we celebrate the national festival of people who have been pre-eminent in misfortune, only because they have been pre-eminent in fidelity to the religion received from their first SERMONS. 169 apostle? But let us not forget in this happy country, where legal persecution is unknown, where our creed constitutes no disqualifica- tion, with what zeal and exactitude we should attend to the duties of that holy religion which was the consolation of our lathers when they were suffering for its sake. Let us respect ourselves, and others will respect us. Let us frown upon those unhappy men who acquire far from the salutary influence of their religion and their relations, habits of self-degradation, which bring odium and ignominy on the whole body, and confirm the prejudices of those who have studied only caricatures, and have never had an opportunity of being ac- quainted with the genuine national character. If you should have an occasion to speak to only one such, tell him that his country blushes for him, that his religion blushes for him ; and if he is insensible to this, let him be cast off and disowned, as a reproach to both. But let us all be mindful of our duties as churchmen and citizens ; our pilgrimage will be but short in this world, and it is not of much im- portance whether it be passed on this side of the ocean or the other, provided that by our fidelity to our God we are found worthy at its close to be called to the rest of that better country that awaits us beyond the grave. SERMON IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, NEW YORK. ON THE FEAST OF SS. PETER AND PAUL, SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 1851. [The Cathedral at the hour when Mass began was filled, and in most places crowded, by a congregation desirous of seeing again their Archbishop, and of hearing his first sermon on his return from Europe. The following is the best report of his sermon that appeared in print.] After reading the Gospel for the day, the Archbishop proceeded : BELOVED BRETHREN, it is to me a pleasing coincidence, that on the first day on which I have the pleasure of addressing you again, the Clmrch celebrates and honors the martyrdom of those glorious Apostles, before whose shrine it has recently been my privilege to offer prayer to God. This is a festival day, on which the Church does honor to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul commemorates the anniversary of the day on which, after having given up all else dear to them for their Master and his cause, they gave up life itself the one beheaded, the other crucified but who, out of regard for his one crime of denying his Master, begged that he might not be crucified in the same form, but with his head towards the earth. The Church, however, has an object higher than simply commemo- rating the glorious virtues of her founders, which is, to lay before us constantly the relations which they bore to Christianity and to the Church to encourage, constantly, by their example to raise us up 170 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. to something, if not like the blessed Lord Himself, who ought to be our perfect model still, at least, to those who, notwithstanding their weaknesses, performed the duties which they owed to their Creator, and whom, for their subsequent fidelity, Christ selected as the pillars of His Church the one, to be the foundation of it, and the other, the clarion voice of divine inspiration for the nations of the world the great apostle of the Gentiles. That portion of the Scriptures which I have read, designates the office of St. Peter, from the lips of our divine Lord and Saviour. The mode in which He proceeded to implant the heavenly truths in the hearts of His apostles, was one of gradual approach, suggesting something, and then eliciting something, just as a mother teaches her child, suggest- ing a word, in order that it may be repeated. And, though our divine Saviour knew what was in the hearts of the apostles, in re- gard to Himself, and even in Peter's heart, notwithstanding his for- mer denial of Him, He asks, " Whom do men say that I am ?" and after their answer, He asks, " But whom do you say that I am ?" By a generous impulse, Peter replied, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God ?" Then Christ tells Peter who He is, and says, "Thou art Peter, a rock, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Oh, blessed de- claration by our divine Saviour ! oh, sweet assurance of infallible faith ! oh, security for every struggle in which the Church may be engaged " the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Christ has built it on a rock, and that rock is Peter. It is nearly two thousand years since this was said, and during all that time, what might have been anticipated from the words of our blessed Lord have not ceased to occur. He does not say the gates of liell shall not attack the Church. Far from it. But by the words "shall not prevail," it would seem it was His will that the Church should be perpetually engaged in struggles and contests, and all that He did was to secure it against defeat and overthrow. And, in fact, if you will trace the history of the Church and of Christian economy, you will find that in every period and in every century the Church has never been out of struggles whilst carrying out the object of its institution. But the Church has no pleasant mission to discharge towards the men of the world the men of the earth. They pos- sess, indeed, the immortal spirit, the spirit which dies not but they are made of earth, and to earth they will return. And after their fall we know what they are men subject to passion, disposed to be proud of themselves arrogant and proud men men such as they seem to-day. It is, therefore, of necessity that under every form the Church should be opposed, because it contradicts the passions and inclina tions of all classes of men. It began by self-denial; and tell me any thing more difficult than self-denial. It began by teaching man hu- mility; and tell me if it is easy to divest ourselves of arrogance. Its first principle was that of charity love to all men, even to our one mies ; and this at a time when the world knew no distinction, ex- SERMONS. 171 cept friends and enemies, and it was not to be expected that the vindictive man should give up his revenge, nor that the rich man should be disposed to part with his property for the benefit of his fellow-creature, who, less fortunate in the gifts of the world, had no claim upon him, except community of race. But if these be the feelings of mankind in general, how much more did the precepts of the Church apply to those whose situations in life elevated them above the mass of mankind, such as kings, and emperors, and con- querors, who are responsible to nothing but their own changing ca- prices and their own corrupt will ! Accordingly the Church had hardly been launched in the world when the contest began. It com- menced in the time of Peter, who was brought before a magistrate and scourged, and it has continued from that time to the present ; and, notwithstanding what lying historians may say about the tem- poral might of the Church, full often when she has been assailed, the successors of St. Peter have been obliged to flee and hide themselves in caverns in the Apennines, where they, nevertheless, continued to launch forth their denunciations against the crimes of kings and emperors. This has been the battle of the Church in its outward relations ; but how much more subtle has been the contest between heresy and truth ! When Christ said that the gates of hell should not prevail against the Church, it is understood that He meant to signify that the Church should not only ultimately triumph in all its contests, but that it was the infallible and trustworthy depository of revelation that is, that He would speak to us through the Church, which He made the depository of all divine truth. The Church is not only the depository to preserve, but the channel to communicate ; and it has its interpreters to explain, when necessary, all that Christ revealed for the sanctification of man. Hence, He said He would .be with the Church to the end of the world ; and hence it is, that implicit obedience to the authority of the Church is necessary. In this im- plicit obedience, not only do we do what reason justifies, but we fulfil the precepts of the divine Master Himself, and those of the in- spired writers. The Church has not been conquered. She has been tried her power has been tested in every way that the perverted heart of man could conceive ; externally, internally, intellectually, morally, politically, in every way, for there is no power on earth that has not in turn attempted to assail the Catholic Church. Du- ring a period of three hundred years, nearly all the successors of St. Peter gave up their lives for their faith ; and after that, when Christianity and the Church were tolerated nay, taken into favor by emperors and others of high earthly influence heresies and the blending of the principles of the faith with paganism were attempted. In those controversies the Church had much to suffer ; and yet, af- ter the contest, she is found triumphant. Neither under Nero, nor his successors in blood, did the gates of hell prevail against the Church. Neither under Arius, nor others who attempted to corrupt the faith, did the gates of hell prevail against the Church. Then 172 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. came the contest between the expiring pagan light of the old Roman empire, and the barbarian darkness of the invading hordes of the north, which continued as late as the fifteenth or sixteenth century ; but neither had the false light the power to corrupt the Church, nor could the darkness obscure its teachings. His Grace then referred to the subtle enemies which the Church has had to contend with in later times, and said the great outbreak of the French revolution made indiscriminate war on all beliefs ; but that was open, and although the hands that assailed the Church were stained with blood, they at least did not disguise the spirit by which they were actuated. They did not acknowledge themselves to be actuated by the spirit of hell, because they denied the existence of hell, but they acknowledged their hatred of religion, and of all that pertained to it. But to-day there is a dark adversary which it has to contend with, which professes to harmonize with everything with Atheism or Catholicity. It is a monster of the naturalistic and pantheistic order, that resolves all things into an abstract humanity. Every thing which man does is but a phase of their one professed principle of being. Man, human nature, humanity these it pro- fesses to harmonize, and it employs every means to control and gov- ern especially the weak States of Southern Europe. It is combined with secret societies, bound by horrible oaths; and the people who really love their government, religion, and country, stand between two governments. But yet there is no apprehension, for a moment, that the gates of hell shall prevail against the Church. No, dearly beloved brethren, this species of warfare has tried the successors of St. Peter too long to leave cause for solicitude. The one who now occupies his chair feels secure in his position, in the midst of all the agitations around him ; and if it had been your privilege, as it has been mine, to have so recently and so intimately communed with him, and with the venerable members of the Sacred College, who sympathize with him in all his joys and sorrows, you would perceive that they are the only tranquil, calm, and self-possessed public men in Europe. They do not say there may not be more convulsions on the contrary, several of them think there will be but they en- tertain no anxiety as to the result. It would be impossible for you to behold without veneration the peace that is manifested by these holy men, and especially the Holy Father himself, in whom is blended the highest majesty with the profoundest humility. Oh, how blessed in the midst of these things, for one from a re- mote part of the world to spend a few days or a few months in that Eternal City, surrounded by such men, interested by such associ- ations, that he cannot turn round, even on material objects, without being reminded of so much ; but principally how glorious and con- soling it is to find himself coming into communion with men from the opposite side of the globe during the ceremonies of holy week, when he witnesses whatever is touching and edifying, during the time in which the sorrows of the Saviour, and his passion, are com- memorated by the Head of the Church himself, and those around SERMONS. * 173 him. How grand is the contemplation, when you behold, partly by accident, men from all parts of the globe all finding themselves at home all in the presence of their parent ! If you read books about holy week in Rome, they will tell you that the spectacles are rather a kind of public pageant. It is true, that when these holy things are presented to the spectator, every feeling of sanctity is taken away from them by the mob of strangers who go there at that period, to gratify the eye and their curiosity by their wild and unmannerly staring. But it is the mob who do this. But these ceremonies are not of the kind which they are repre- sented to be, but are full of deep meaning, full of most consoling in- struction to the heart of the stranger, who, though he may have charge of a portion of the Church of God, finds himself in the pres- ence of him who has entire guidance, not only of the lambs, but of the sheep of the whole flock. I will speak of one instance which oc- curred. After washing the feet of the poor men it is customary to prepare a repast for them, and the waiter on table is the Pope. It is no special order, but it is a privilege, for distinguished members of the Church to hand the dishes. On this occasion you could see a Bishop from China, next you would see the Patriarch of Jerusalem, then a Bishop from Holland, another from Africa, another from America, all falling in by chance, and all glad of the privilege of taking part in the ceremony, which shows the universality of the Church. And on this day, how glorious it is that men of all nations your countrymen as well as others find themselves under the dome, the majestic dome, of St. Peter's, which seems to have been built to express the unity, and strength, and magnitude of the Catholic Church that dome under which the devout Christian of every country and clime^ looking up, sees the inscription, Tu es Petrus, et super hanc Petram cedificabo ecclesiam meam. Who is there that, under these circumstances, does not feel- a. species of holy joy and gratitude to God, in the very relations he sustains to a spectacle so unique and unparalleled? I would hardly do justice to my own feelings, if I did not here express my gratitude for the kindness I have received as everywhere else so especially in that Eternal City, during my visit to Europe. There is one fact I must mention, that I have been the first elevated to the title of Archbishop in this country who has sought and received the sacred symbol from the hands of the Holy Father himself, instead of from the hands of the Cardinal Vicar of Rome. This is but one of many instances of kindness ; and I have reason to believe that amidst all the threatening of revolutionary storms the Holy Father casts his eyes often on this side of the ocean, and beholds with a pleasure that he does not conceal, the extension of the faith and the fidelity of the Catholics of this country, scattered though they be, to the centre of the Apostolic unity, as well as the just and kind spirit that actuates the government, imposing no restrictions on the faith, and offering no obstacles to the free exercise of our holy religion 174 jfRCHBISHOP HUGHES. such as it meets with elsewhere. I know that it is a consolation to the heart of the Holy Father, and I trust that henceforward it will continue to be so, and that we shall continue to partake of all the sacred institutions of Rome itself for there is nothing at Rome except what I have mentioned, that is not here we have the institu- tions, the ordinances, the sacraments, the means of grace ; but at Rome there are special associations. It is the city of Nero and Peter Nero for the moment, Peter for all eternity. I trust, I say, there- fore, that we will feel it not only our duty to fulfil our obligations to the Church, but to soothe the heart of that good man who was the first to extend liberty and privileges to a people who showed their ingratitude and their unworthiness by attempting to subvert his throne, and to overturn all social order. One thing is worthy of remark in Europe. In all the old countries, those who thought the existing social order was an impediment in the way of developing the privileges of humanity, have turned round and proclaimed that the question is not now about liberty, but that the first and most vital is about society. The question that is asked is, not how much or how little there is to be of liberty, but whether society is, or is not, to be destroyed. But it is very well understood that if the revolutionary principle prevails, it will not result in an increase of liberty, but will end in the destruction of all that is essential to human society. At this moment the question is, shall society be saved, or shall it perish ? In all this there is a return among infidels even among the Protestants themselves, in the highest places among a large class of Catholics, who had become jealous of the power of the Church there is an evident return to one idea : that unless religion be at the basis, there is no longer security for any right which is sacred or essential to the happiness of man no security for families for the subordination of children no security for the rights of education no security for commerce no security for virtue, for truth, for innocence, for government. And if there is no secrity for government, man returns to his original ashes, or sinks into an unprotected savage. These things are understood; and as far as outward things are concerned, this is a good augury that the Church is to be again triumphant that its great Head will re- construct and consolidate even the outward bearing of that see which was founded by St. Peter, and inherited by his successors, all sus- tained by the power of the original grant. That is the rock on which the Church is founded, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. SERMON ON ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 1852. WE are assembled here this morning to implore the blessing of God, and to invoke the benediction of St. Patrick, to whom this Cathedral is consecrated. Churches and oratories are always conse- SERMONS. 175 crated to God, but generally under the invocation of some distin- guished servant of his, who, during this life, walked in the perfection of the divine law, and whose labors, aided by God's cares, not only illustrated the religion that he professed, preached, and consecrated, but also bequeathed an example worthy of all imitation to those who come after him. Among these servants, the Apostle of Ireland is peculiarly distinguished, not that, comparing him with other saints, there seems to be any great difference found in fidelity, but because circumstances resulting from his labors have distinguished his apos- tleship more than, perhaps, any other of those who propagated the teachings of Christianity after the days of the chosen twelve. I need not enlarge before you on the circumstances, or time, or place of his nativity. I need not dwell on the incidents of his life, with which, for the most part, you are familiar. I need not speak of his study under the guidance of St. Martin of Tours, his own uncle, or of his voyage to Rome in order to obtain the divine benediction from the Vicar of Christ on the work to which he had been miraculously called, by the invitation of the people, through the medium of the bishop ; nor need I dwell on the subsequent portion of his long and laborious life. Enough it is to say and this, for the most part you know already that during the period of his labors in Ireland, he changed a pagan into a Christian nation, and a Christian nation not in the cold sense of a feeble, doubtful Christianity, but a Christian nation, so pronounced in its title, so decided, so devout, so firm, so zealous for the propagation even of those doctrines which they had just received from Heaven, that places it alone almost in all that has resulted from the preachings and teachings of the blessed Saint Patrick. Other nations shed the blood of their apostles Ireland hearkened to his teachings, weighed his evidence, and bowed themselves down at the foot of the cross, which he presented as the symbol of his mission. Other nations in time gave out adversaries, who, after having lit their candles at the lamp illumined by Saint Patrick, turned their light against the very source from which it was derived, and became preach- ers of heresy ; raising altar against altar, in the very land in which they had first drank at the fountain of truth. Not so, however, among the disciples of Saint Patrick in Ireland. A heresiarch, born on the soil consecrated by his labors, is unknown, history has not discovered him, because he never appeared before men. But, on the other hand, we may consider the results of this first apostolical mission with profit and advantage to ourselves. In the first place, we are sometimes led to imagine, that from the time the Son of God preached the doctrines of eternal life on the earth, every thing should be re-established in innocence, that his followers should be able to make a wide range of untainted atmosphere around them, so that sin should be banished wherever the Gospel was preached ; or, at least, that the order of the world should be so much improved, that wickedness should no longer be able to triumph over justice, and in- nocence, and truth. If to bear trials of this kind be the proving of the gold of individual virtue if it be the test by which God proves 176 . ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. the fidelity of a soul, which he, in his providence, leans upon with, I might alrnost say, a heavy and crushing hand ; and if such a soul still adheres to God oh ! that is the fine gold coming through and from the crucible of its trial. And if it be. thus in individual life, it is the same when we extend the comparison to whatever nation or different ages and people of the world. There is no doubt that one of the greatest temptations in the way of sustaining, not infidelity precisely, but of throwing dark clouds on the brightness of God's countenance in the government of the world, is a history like that of individual man ; but that of a nation such as Ireland, furnishes the densest clouds through which the atmosphere of faith has to pass in acknowledging and adoring the divine supremacy of the power of God. Alas! even then, how little do we understand how weak are our thoughts how imperfect our vision how little we comprehend that " the ways of God are not the ways of man," and that " his thoughts are not as our thoughts;" and that as heaven is exalted above the earth, so the wisdom and goodness of God is exalted above men, or above what men can conceive ! Otherwise, how would it be possible, if Saint Patrick brought the true faith to Ireland, and if his spiritual charge has not ceased since that time, from generation to generation if the faith which he taught is, to this day, cherished with tenacity strong as life and if it be true that, in consequence of this devotion, this tenacity, this constancy, this firmness, all, or nearly all, the temporal calamities which have crushed down that nation to the earth have resulted does it not seem hard, that God should not interpose that he should not sometimes vindicate, if not the un- worthy creatures who serve him, at least the majesty, and dignity, and holiness of the truth which they profess ? Does it not, I say, seem strange to the dark reason and wisdom of man that God should not interpose that even, in our own day, he should fatigue our patience, so that, when famine has multiplied sepulchres over that land, we should say " This is the end ?" No ; next year comes plague and pestilence then, " Oh, certainly this is the end." No ; next year fury and fanaticism come in on the ruins of a prostrate people to prove their patience, and with honor and riches to tempt the soul of the poor man and his children, in his desolate cabin on the mountain. And we dare not say that this is yet the end. It is in this respect, I say, that the subject presents a theme for contempla- tion far more important than any repetition of the life and glorious deeds of that great saint under whose patronage this cathedral is consecrated. Oh ! how admirable is the providence of God in all things ! Those tired spirits who are scandalized at such things as I have alluded to, wish all light wish to see every thing in absolute light ; and they do not reflect that, for a just vision, a portion of darkness is just as necessary to us as a portion of light. Were it all light, men would become blind, just the same as were it all darkness. But God, abid- ing iu the happiness of his own eternal and infinite existence, and at the same time thinking of us, and disposing of things physical, SERMONS. 177 moral, and temporal, in a way of wisdom of which we have no con- ception, allows the scene to shift, and we behold now the sunshine of Providence, and now what we may call its showers and shadows on the earth. But of all things that would be unreasonable, the most unreasonable would be for a believing man, a Christian man, a Catholic man, a man who reads and knows the holy Scriptures ; to look for human prosperity in this world, whether as regards nations or individuals, as the sign of God's approbation or God's love. Far from it. There is reason to fear, that when God permits men or na- tions to prosper to the extent of their desires, it is a mark of his dis- favor ; it is not that he puts a snare in their way, but because they have set their hearts upon prosperity as their god ; and he withdraws every thing that can hinder them from realizing all their so-called happiness. Then, it is known that prosperity engenders pride, and that pride kills the soul of him who harbors it ; that prosperity furnishes the way of gratifying our passions ; and the man who places his heart on such things, is the enemy of his own spiritual existence. Time passes on, and after the day when first St. Patrick landed on the Irish coast, to this period, how many generations have passed this life ! And where have they gone ? Have they gone to the condition in which the same inequality shall prevail in which the patience of God shall be still withheld, permitting evil to triumph ? or have they gone to an inheritance of happiness or misery, according to the use made of the means accorded to them ? Oh, let no man say there is no future life ; let no man say there is not a future state, in which the eternal justice of God shall prevail, and regulate, and repair, and correct, and judge all these horrors and iniquities which prevail in this world of strife, where innocence is crushed by guilt, weakness by strength, and where falsehood triumphs over truth. God exists for this purpose ; and the very mysteries of His provi- dence, which we have witnessed tyere to-day, are an evidence which renders it certain, independent of the revelations of the light of reason itself, that there is to be a future judgment, in which virtue shall have its reward and impiety its penalties. It is just as certain, as that there is a God in heaven. What consequence, then, will it be, after a few years, to man, that he may have suffered a little in this world ? because even the moments of his sufferings abridge the- period of his exile, and he will soon, if a virtuous man, if a pious man, and a man who adores and loves God, he will soon, I say, be at the end of his pilgrimage, and enter, as the Gospel of this day expresses it, " into the joy of his Lord." And then the seasons will come and succeed each other, and the tides repeat their ebbing and flowing, and the ocean shall be agitated by tempests, years succeed years, and centuries centuries.; but in that happy state in heaven there is no change no more death no more sickness no more oppression no more bondage no more inflictions on truth no more guilt crushing down innocence but man will be with his God, and will rest with his God for all time. And perhaps the first VOL. II. 12. 178 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. bright truth that will be revealed to his emancipated soul, when standing in the presence of his Creator, will be the mysterious way in which, when he thought that God was forsaking him, God was bringing him round to the end of his creation. It may be in the first bright light in which he will see how much God was his friend Avhen he thought that his heavenly Father had forsaken him. And this we may with reason believe, and, at any rate, we are bound to believe it ; because we know that God is infinite, wise, and merciful, and we may have reason to adore Him, for all time, for those very afflictions which seem to double as calamities tracking the footsteps of the great apostle of Ireland, and those who labored with him and after him, in propagating the kingdom of our Saviour. Oh, there is nothing in the world that can upraise and elevate a soul like reli- gion ; there is no good unconnected with religion ; there is no real ambition that can be gratified except in religion. In religion, those who have attained the greatest glory, were those who had the least ambition, and had no conception of attaining it in their day. The apostle of Ireland, when he travelled with weary footsteps from hamlet to hamlet, across mountains and over rivers, toiling in his holy ministry, had no conception unknown and undistinguished, as he then was that fourteen hundred years after there should be such a family as now surrounds God's altar on shores so distant ; that his name should be there as familiar as that of their own parents ; and not only that the sons and daughters of the land which was con- secrated by his labors, but that the whole Catholic Church for to- day there is not an altar in that Church in which the name of St. Patrick is not revered, and in which his intercession is not invoked should endeavor to strengthen themselves against the strifes of the world, by following the bright example which he left behind him. What is the fame of Caesar compared with this ? As long as the church shall exist, the name of that distinguished servant of God will be recorded in her annals, and will be pronounced with rever- ence; and above all, perhaps there is not a name among the early .apostles of nations so universally diffused, or cherished with such deep Christian affection, as the name of St. Patrick, the patron saint .of Ireland. St. Augustine, in England, is spoken of by those who remain in that nation attached to the faith he taught they cherish .his memory, and the Church reveres him ; but still, his labors are .almost obliterated, and a barren system is substituted for the holy jaith which he brought from Rome, and propagated in England. In Germany, St. Boniface is cherished; but still, though the Church cherishes him, the special results of his teachings are circumscribed to the nation ; but the Germans venerate the apostle by whose labors their forefathers were saved from the darkness of paganism : and so with others. But the very misfortunes of a temporal kind that have fallen on Ireland have sent forth the children of that unhappy country to every clime, and to every latitude, from the north to the south pole; and wherever they are found and they are found more or less everywhere not only do they cherish fond memory for the SERMONS. 179 apostle of their native land, but they propagate it, and make the in- fection as if it were contagious, so that those who would not other- wise have had any knowledge of St. Patrick become thus desirous to enter into those feelings, and to join in celebrating the anniver- sary festival of the apostle of Ireland. Meantime, who knows what may be the influence of the prayer of that illustrious saint near the throne of God ? who knows what may be this prayer ? who knows but that he is watching, with the solicitude which belongs to the saints, their condition, and that it may be owing to his intercession with God that they are for a little time afflicted, in order that they may be made more secure of that eternal felicity and glory which he now possesses, and which he would necessarily, under the influ- ence of divine charity, desire that they should also approach and be made partakers ? Let us, therefore, dearly beloved brethren, cast from our eyes all that filmy obstacle to a clear Christian vision. Let us not judge the things of God as we would those of men. Man must reward quickly, if at all, for time is short; or if he punishes, he must punish quickly. But God has patience. He is eternal. He has no limitation of time wherein to do justice to truth, and innocence, and piety, or to vindicate His own attributes in the punishment of crime and impiety. Let us put away all human modes of vision, and with hearts elevated to God, let us see these things in the higher range of eye, in the clearer region of our holy faith ; and then, even in the calamities that have befallen Ireland, AVC may see much for which to adore God, much for which to be pleased, even in this life. But, perhaps, in eternity alone, the whole mystery of God's providence shall break forth upon us as the deepest evidence of His greatness and His patience, when we thought him unkind and forgetful. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OP THE DEDICATION OF ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH, FORT HAMILTON, N. Y., 1852. BELOVED BRETHREN I am about to read, as the subject of the remarks I intend to make, the 121st Psalm, in which David professeth his joy for the Church : 1. I rejoiced at the things that were said to me. We shall go into the house of the Lord. 2. Our feet were standing in thy courts, Jerusalem. 3. Jerusalem, which is built as a city, which is compact together 4. For thither did the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord ; the testimony of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord. 5. Because their seats have sat in judgment, seats upon the house of David. 6. Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem ; and abund ance for them that love thee. 7. Let peace be in thy strength ; and abundance in thy towers. 8. For the sake of my brethren and of my neighbors, I spoke peace of thee. 9. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I have sought good things for thee. 180 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. I cannot better commence my remarks than by congratulating the scattered Catholics of this neighborhood on the ceremony that they have this day witnessed in the dedication of a temple to the living God, and in the service of the true religion in. which they, and, should they continue where they are, their children may address Him in spirit and in truth. I congratulate them, and I congratulate the zeal- ous and laborious pastor who has placed himself at their head, and taken perhaps a larger portion of the toils necessary to accomplish this undertaking. It is not to be expected that I should enter into the details connected with the prosecution of the work and its final accomplishment. From me you will expect rather that I should turn my words to the end and purpose of what forms the beginning of temples that have been raised to the honor of Almighty God ; and in that view it is impossible not to be struck with the language of the royal prophet, who seems to break forth into ecstacies of divine inspi- ration when he says, "My soul hath rejoiced in the things that have been said to me. Who shall go into the temple of the Lord ? " It was well known that the royal king and prophet was to bring the house and temple to the use and service of his Creator, and that until he laid the foundation of the temple of Jerusalem, there was no temple upon earth in which the true God was acknowledged and honored with truth and worship. It is well understood that he wrote by inspiration, and discharged the duties of the historian as well as of the prophet. The language employed by the royal prophet could not have ap- plication exclusively to the temple of Jerusalem. Its object was for a brief period. It was not the true temple; but was the pre- paration for the true temple. It was true for its time, but it was not the true and everlasting temple, but only the type and figure of that of holy Zion. Even Jerusalem's temple was but the type the material type shadowing forth obscurely the spiritual grandeur of that universal temple, that holy house of God the Church which extends from the rising to the setting of the sun ; and which, properly speaking, has no adequate time to which to re- strict its worship except heaven which spans us above. What is it that made the house of God so glorious in the estimation of the divine prophet ? What is it that rendered this temple glorious ? It is not the richness of the materials which adorn the temple of Al- mighty God ; for gold, in the sight of God is not gold ; it is of no more value than the meanest portion of the earth out of which it is dug up. It is not this, therefore, nor is it the splendor of architect- ure with which Christian piety and Christian faith and genius have con- structed and adorned those wondrous edifices called cathedrals, and the other temples consecrated to the Almighty. We know it is not this. What is it that renders the temple so desirable that the soul of the prophet rejoiced, when he was told that he should have the privilege of entering into the house of his Lord ? It is, that in the house which is truly God's house God is truly worshipped. It is, that in that house which is truly God's house. His love is made known, and SERMONS. 181 in that house He holds a special communion with those who wish to serve and obey Him ; and here it is, upon this ground, that I con- gratulate you, and ye scattered people, the members of that better house of God the holy Catholic Church upon your faith and obe- dience. In the very altar before which you kneel, you will have all all that constitutes the glory of the holy Catholic Church. Here you will have the true sacraments of God. Here you will have the sovereign worship, such as is due to God, and to none besides. Let me explain this. In the first place, with regard to the pure word of God when you assemble here and the minister of religion instructs you in your duties, he simply tells you what God has revealed, and what he requires you to believe. He does not come here to preach his own ideas or opinions ; for then indeed it would be the house of man and not the house of God. He does not come here to speculate or to discover new readings in the sacred text, but he comes here as one sent, and although the eighteenth century has passed away since the origin of the commission, yet he can show his credentials as perfect and as valid as if they had been received in the first century. He is sent, therefore; and if he is sent, for what purpose? Is it to improve the intellect of his congregation by speculation and intro- ducing human philosophy and the improvements of science into the knowledge and revelation of Almighty God, which cannot be im- proved ? He is sent with a message from your Redeemer and Creator^ and he partakes of that commission which says, "Go ye and preach to all nations." Teach them. And how could he teach them, unless he knew the lesson he was appointed to communicate ? How could he teach, if he had only to submit his opinions to those who should hear him ? We know very well that if God had not become man for our redemption, that in such a case we could do nothing better than speculate. But Christ? came to teach. He taught, and did not reason or speculate. He did not ask men, through the tor- tuous course of human eloquence, to come round to his views ; but he proved that he was God by the power which he exercised over nature and things. He proved who he was, and then he said, " These are the things which you have to believe, and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be con- demned." The grandeur, therefore, of the temple of the house of God is pure truth, pure teaching ; and in this there is no teaching throughout the whole Catholic Church that is not here. In this the congregation, though it consist but of fifty, there will be found those who, unknown and uninspected, are members of the great Christian community which existed since the beginning of Christianity, and which now exists from the rising to the setting of the sun ; and no empire ever existed, and none can ever exist, of such extent as that spiritually free and unfettered communion cemented together by the attraction of divine and original truth, delivered to the Church by the establishment of the holy sacrament and supreme worship. Unquestionably, the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is here, and the ministers of 182 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. God who shall address you from this place will tell you, and teach you, what God requires you to believe, and what God requires you to do. If God had not revealed himself to us, we might have believed as we saw fit ; but he has revealed himself to us, and, therefore, it is no longer permitted to people to act according to their own caprices. This was the privilege of pagans, but it is not the privilege of Christians. After that revelation we have no right to say, in the arrogance and pride of our own conceit, I can judge for myself. We have no right to use such language, because we might do so in case God had not sent his only-begotten Son into the world to teach and to save the world. Therefore, the truths of the Apostolic and Catholic, or Universal faith, will be heard here the same as if all the ancient doctors, and bishops, and popes stood by as witnesses, that it is the faith they have received from Christ and from his body. With regard to the moral precepts of religion, you know it is the duty of the minister to inculcate them, and to impress upon you the necessity of observing the decalogue the commandments of God. I am aware there is in the world at this day an idea that religion, true religion and belief, is something that must have growth in the heart of each one, and no doubt it has ; but the first stage verges into indifference, the second into infidelity, the third into paganism, and the fourth into barbarism. Each one looks for religion in him- self, and he looks to this form and that principle, and time goes on, and his mind becomes changed, and what he looks at at one time as truth, he will not look at at another in the same light. Thus, he is the sport of his own misconceptions of divine truth until the end of his life. They, at this day, pretend thafit is an individual con- cern and no doubt it is as to the responsibility of human action, separately regarded ; but they ought to know that Christ made re- ligion an outward, standing, visible, universal institution, so that any man, no matter where he is born, can, if he will, find the holy house that city and house of God spoken of in the rapturous lan- guage of the divine prophet which we have just heard. Religion, therefore, this true religion, exists independently of you and me. Here it is in the world, and we may embrace it or reject it ; but whether we do so or not, does not affect her institutions or sover- eignty, nor destroy the house of God. The Church is independent of us, for the Church is the house of the Lord, and it is for us to avail ourselves of the privilege of entering in. Now, with regard to the teaching that will be heard in this place, are you aware, or do you reflect upon it, that, notwithstanding the variety of languages, and the individual characteristics of those who are the ministers of the Catholic Church, that there is but a repetition of one ceremony round the globe ? There are no contradictory doctrines, and although there may be a Church here, and another there, and although one minister may be more learned or more eloquent than another, and although one's voice maybe strong and another weak, yet there is no discord, no variety. These are but the outward striking senses of the medium through which He teaches. Who teaches through His SEKMONS. 183 great medium ? Our divine Saviour, and no one else. When he sent His apostles, He said, " I send you, go ye, and teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you all days to the end of the world." Now, when the author of divine truth is the teacher of the Church, how can there be any contradictions ? Nor is there, for God can- not contradict Himself; and therefore we see two religions, the one contradictory and false, and the other true. With regard to the other object, the glory of the Christian temple and house of the Lord, I have remarked that there are to be administered the true sacra- ments. Now, the sacraments in the Catholic Church are institutions imbued by the Son of God with supernatural efficacy, and adminis- tered under outward signs so as to recognize them, and by which grace is conveyed individually to the souls of those who receive them worthily. This is the general definition of the sacraments. In prayer we may do all that is possible for us to do in petitioning God to forgive our sins ; but He has instituted a sacrament of penance, by which those who are stricken with compunction are forgiven their sins. This was instituted because He is our Sovereign, and because He did not save us individually and in a specific manner two thou- sand years before we came into existence. But the merits of that passion which occurred two thousand years ago are preserved in His Church, and when we came into existence by original guilt, if we apply to His mercy, and He responds to us by His own efficacy, and the merits of His death upon the cross, that is done under the sacraments. Sacraments are not ceremonies merely ; they are indeed, out- ward forms, but they have their exterior part, which is the work of man, but the interior efficacy is the work of God ; and, while the minister pours water upon the person baptized with outward forms, Christ, who authorized him, touches his guilty soul with His blood, and washes away his guilt and sin. If this be not removed, there is a barrier insurmountable and everlasting between God and that soul, for God will have no communication with sin. How is it that guilt is to be removed, then ? It is through Christ alone that it can be removed. He has appointed the sacrament of penance, in which He has directed His ministers to exercise His own prerogative, as He has declared, " W hose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained unto them ;" implying, that under outward forms Christ Himself is present, cleansing and removing the crimes that weigh heavily on the heart. Is there nothing more in this temple ? Oh, yes, verily. Here is the fulness and the perfection of sovereign adoration to God. Many of you, perhaps, have no conception of the Catholic Church, with regard to the acts of public liturgy or sanctuary. Many are brought up under circumstances which furnish no inducement to examine, and imagine that the Catholic Church is a place of convenient meeting, to hear sermons, or to chant hymns in praise of the Almighty, or to recite and offer up holy prayers. No doubt all these are appropriate in 184 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. such a place ; but many of you have no conception of what consti- tutes the dignity and glory of the Catholic Church in such a myste- rious manner. What, then, is this ? It is, dearly beloved brethren, the sacrifice of our altar, called the Mass. Those who understand what it is, know with what profound feelings of veneration, and respect, and recollection, they should assist. Those who do not understand it, look upon it as a succession of very unmeaning cere- monies seeing the priest dressed in his robes, passing to the right and to the left, and sometimes kneeling and sometimes standing. They do not understand they do not comprehend this. They have never studied or examined it ; and therefore it may be fit and appropriate, both for one and the other, I should refer to them at some length. Put away the idea of sacrifice out of religion, and in reality you have nothing left, for there is nothing to distinguish the temple of the Lord ; for supposing you imagine this absent, you may hear a very learned discourse that is not exclusively to be heard in the temple ; you may indulge in the duty and in the consolation of the exercise of prayer, but prayer you can offer up to God in your cham- bers, and it is sometimes as acceptable. Therefore, prayer does not designate the house of God. Should it be sacred poetry, should it be divine music, should it be words of praise to the Almighty that very music and those very words can be applied, and have been ap- plied to others besides the Almighty. The world can praise heroes, and they have done so with music more splendid and more divine, considered in relation to art and science, than that which has been appropriated to religion. There is, therefore, in these three depart- ments, nothing which distinguishes the house of the Lord from that of man. If you pray, you ask of God favors ; but do you not peti- tion for benefits from public authorities, and what is that but prayer ? It does not designate the house of God, nor does it draw any dis- tinction between God and man. You praise Him in psalmody and canticles, but do you not praise your great heroes ? Do you not, in poetry and prose, praise and almost deify statesmen who rise upon the wave of time, and seem to dance in view of those who witness him, until the wave is over? I do not say that you praise him unde- servedly; but I make the remark to show that neither in praise nor any thing in the house of our God can you distinguish its divine Master, except you introduce the idea of sacrifice. What is sacrifice ? Sacrifice is the supreme worship of God. It is nothing more nor less. He Himself appointed sacrifice in the ancient law. It was not in itself the fulness of divine worship, but it was the type of that which afterwards became the fulness. It was not in itself that which constitutes the pleasing victim, but it introduced the presence of that victim our divine Saviour Jesus Christ. His is the sacrifice and He is the high priest of religion, and there is no other high- priest but He, except, indeed, such as He has delegated to carry out upon the earth the outward mission and oflice of his eternal priest- hood, united to the order of Melchisedec. The Church never pretended SERMONS. 185 to derive one iota of original authority from any thing recorded in the pages of the New Testament. She is older than that. This country was an independent country before it framed its constitution, and it is absurd to suppose that this country must prove its independ ence by reference to documents of its own which could not have existed if it had not been independent before. So with regard to the Church and the New Testament. It is her Scriptures. She has written it herself. It was written to her own children, already Christians, and she has cherished and preserved it, for it is so far a duplicate of the language which the Holy Ghost had inscribed on her own heart and conscience. Therefore it is that from the Church Ave know what is divine worship, as well as from the Scriptures, for it is an impious attempt to suppose that after sixteen hundred years, the Church did not know the meaning of her own documents. It is an impious and absurd idea to suppose that she cherished in her hands documents and testimony to overthrow her authority when interpreted by her enemies. It was not bread that was delivered for us, for Christ said, " This is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins." It was not wine that was shed for many for the remission of sins. It was blood ; and that same blood Christ presented to his apostles in the chalice of benediction ; and then constituted them his priests. He said to them alone, " Do this for the commemoration of me." SERMON IN ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S CHURCH, NEW YORK, JAN. 7th, 1853, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE NEW PARISH SCHOOL-HOUSE. " But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those in his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." 1 TIM. v. 8. IT is very seldom that even in the Holy Scriptures we find conse- quences apparently so harsh as resulting from the neglect of an ordinary duty. The Apostle makes use of language which at first would seem to be unintelligible. If there be any thing in which men are liable to be indifferent, it is in taking care of their own first of themselves, and next of those who are precisely in the situ- ation that is here alluded to ; and yet the Apostle does not hesitate to suppose that the duty could not be neglected, and does not hesitate to denounce the consequences of its neglect in language more severe than it is easy to find throughout the pages of the Holy Scriptures. Many persons believe that it is an exaggerated form of expression, but I cannot apply any such rule of criticism to the words of the Apostle. St. Paul does not write about the things of this world to provide for the settlement of children. St. Paul is not interested in men who have households, that they should be well furnished, for that would be unworthy of his inspiration ; but he writes to a 186 AECHBISHOP HUGHES convert from Paganism, or Judaism, to the faith and religion of Jesus Christ. The Most Rev. Archbishop, at great length, proceeded to explain the duties incumbent upon parent's in attending, with scrupulous care, to the religious education of their children at an early age, and went on to say : We are living in a country and placed among denominations en- tirely disagreeing with ours, both as regards the theory of religion and the mode in which God would have it preserved ; nor yet are they agreed among themselves ; so that while the State has paid attention to the education of our future citizens, the State has hitherto, by necessity or choice, been unwilling or unable, to admit the most essential element of Christian knowledge into the teachings of our schools. She professes to teach no religion, and yet she is offended if we say this is a retrograde step towards the barbarism of pagan ages. She is rampant if we say this. But she will have no sectarianism, and it so happens that in the relation of creeds in this land, there is no Christianity left if you exclude all sectarianism ; and, therefore, to exclude all sectarianism is to exclude everything that pertains to be Christian in the whole length and breadth of this land. The State has imagined that this would satisfy our fellow Protestant citizens, and certainly it ought ; but, if the Apostle is to be relied upon, this will not satisfy us. They have thrown overboard the idea of a perpetual and true religion in the world they have rejected the idea of a Church as a divine corporation, instituted by Christ to preserve those truths which were sent from heaven for the benefit of the child. They imagine that religion has become an individual affair, and hence one of their great principles is that all men should search the Scriptures. And by the very word search do they not intimate that they have it not ? If they were possessed of this religion, would it be necessary to search for it ? For, if it be religion, it must be something revealed, and not discovered by long and deep mystic study. We regard it as a published outward iact, but they as an individual concern. Another principle of their religion is that God, from all eternity, has predestined certain specific individuals to come into the world, and, having been predestined, that they shall be effectually called ; and this being the stern but as they suppose and I will not ques- tion their right, the just and merciful ordination of God, of course man cannot resist, no matter whether religiously educated or not. It is his privilege, they say, to choose his religion, or to choose any religion; and whether he be educated or not, if he happened to be of the number of those whom God has ordained from all eternity, he cannot disappoint himself of the result of that eternal decree. Hence, therefore, with them it is an easy matter to send their children to schools even pagan schools, for upon this hypothesis it cannot in- terfere with the end of their creation. We, therefore, complain that they will not condescend, in their public administration of this im- portant trust of education, in which we are supposed to contribute SERMONS. 187 our share of the expense, to look at the subject from the same point at which every Catholic must regard it. It' they cannot accomplish that object which the Catholic parents find it incumbent upon them- selves to insist upon, let them relinquish it, and say, "This system suits us, and to a certain extent is in harmony with our religious convictions ; but we will not impose upon you the means that would be necessary to educate your children, and deny the common right to have them educated according to your own convictions. We will not tax you at all, and if we do in the aggregate, in which the parents all agree in the same faith, then we shall give you a portion, simply reserving to ourselves the right to say you shall not waste the public money in the mere inculcation of your specific doctrine of truth." This would be reasonable, but it is certain that no State can ever release parents altogether from the obligation of educating their children in a Christian manner; and it is certain that in our State it is, if any thing, less possible than elsewhere. I can imagine that in a State where there is only one religion, you can well organize a system of public education, and either leave out religion, or introduce it, which no one will object to ; but in a community made up of such a variety of doctrine as ours, it would be utterly impossible, perhaps, to introduce religion into schools in which sections are represented, without introducing at the same time sources of strife that would render the management of the schools utterly impracticable. I do not now discuss the question how far under these circumstances the State has the right to tax citizens, and against their will enter so deeply upon that sacred ground, which is well secured by the Consti- tution, viz., religious rights and freedom of conscience ; and which freedom of conscience ought to leave a clear way for Christian Catho- lic fathers to have their sons and daughters educated as their con- sciences dictate, provided they do it at their own expense. I enter not upon that question, but I say that education, even of the secular order, accomplishes its end better when administered, wherever it is possible, under the sanction of religion. Why is this ? Because the Church regards man not as a being of time, but it takes the whole man his whole destiny, body and soul, time and eternity and so when she establishes a school, how does she regard the pupil ? Why, her first and great principle is to prepare him not only for the State, but for the high destiny which is to be an everlasting citizen of the immortal realms of his God. The Church, therefore, in her teaching, lays the groundwork of good citizenship. She teaches the child not to lie, and at the same time teaches him that God abominates liars. So with regard to every virtue, especially those that have a social tendency, there is a groundwork of faith and religion laid down, which the State can never provide, for the State and all the States of the universe can- not make a man honest, or an honest man. The Church can do both. Him whose education she has presided by, she can train up in honesty ; and if, at any time, he should fall away, she has the power, by invisible means, to bring him back to the path he has 188 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. deserted. The State can do neither. It can punish a rogue, but it cannot make an honest man, nor an upright citizen ; and even that punishment it cannot always accomplish ; and still less will it be able to do so, when a future generation shall have taken the place of- that which now exists. Men of highly cultivated minds, and know- ing all arts and artifices, now escape from exposure, and the State has not even the power to punish a rogue, but only the rogue who has not the cunning to evade her jurisdiction. Can the State ex- pect the future generations will be as upright as their predecessors ? I tell you that the great men of the country and their associates, although they differed widely from any thing that is Catholic, never- theless, they believed and acted upon the principle, that where there is no religion, no faith, no belief, as the basis of morality, civic in- tegrity, and high-minded and disinterested patriotism, are not to be looked for as a general rule. Sufficient evidence can be adduced, that the State is not rendering a service to mankind in establishing schools, and permitting religion to come to the door, and there stop and not enter. I would commend to your attention the obligations which are imposed upon you by your parents, of transmitting your faith to your children, and then to see, whether the State aid you or not, how best you can discharge these obligations. The Church has invariably kept this in view. When there was but one religion, although human science had not so large a scope for the exercise of its power, and although even the knowledge of religion might be limited, yet it was as much a matter of course as food being provided for your children, that they should know all the mysteries of the Christian faith, and that they should practise them, so far as de- pended upon their parents. This was perfectly well understood, and at the same time, when, from distress or other circumstances, the parents were unable themselves to fulfil the requirements of education, then it happened in the beautiful economy of our common faith, that men and women of the highest education were prepared to de- vote themselves to the task not for the salaries that this world could give them, but for the love of God, and for the love of those young souls who had been brought into being, and who might otherwise be left ignorant of the divine inheritance of faith. They devoted their whole lives to the tedious and slow-wasting occupa- tion of teaching that which is true, to promote the glory of God, and the welfare of their fellow-beings. These things have existed, and although it is impossible that we can have them to any great ex- tent, yet I am happy and proud to witness the evidence of your sympathy upon the subject ; and the time is coming, and not, I be- lieve, far distant, when every Catholic parent, rich and poor, will have the opportunity of having his sons and daughters educated in schools, in which the State may not say to religion that is, the Catholic religion as was said to the ocean, " Thus far shalt thou come, and no further." The infusion of religion into education will assist science, for re- ligion will purify and elevate the ideas of the student, and will make SERMONS. 189 a cultivated intellect a blessing to the age, and not a curse, as it now is. Religion will sanctify all which would otherwise be wasted, for I confess that all science, apart from religion, however useful it may be, is of the smallest possible account. The State, in proposing edu- cation, takes man by sections, and degrades him down to the race of certain useful domestic animals, the breed of which is to be im- proved by premiums from the State authorities. It looks at man, and values him for what ? For his immortal soul ? Xot in the least, for it has nothing to do with his immortal soul. It values him for his usefulness he is to be a useful, rational, intellectual animal, and in the space between the period of his acquired education and his death, by his knowledge, and his enterprise, and devotion to his own interests, he is to accomplish, successfully and powerfully, any enterprise he may undertake, and thus become, through the medium of selfishness, an example of activity, the result of which must b-j beneficial to the whole community at large. I defy any man to say that the State has raised its soul, if it has a soul, to a higher consideration of education than that ; and I ask, if the dig- nity of man is not offended by such an estimate ? Therefore, it is evident, that although we may have tolerated the practice of seeing Catholic child ren go to these schools, because necessity has required it, that Catholic parents should be upon their guard, and exert them- selves by every means to supply what has been denied them in the schools ; for experience has taught and proved that the teaching even of the pastor once a week is counteracted by the unteaching and the negativeness the children acquire during the other six days. This is beyond a doubt, for it is matter of boast with many of those men who are advocates of this public-school system, that it is wast- ing away the growth of the Catholic Church, and that it is impossi- ble for the Catholic Church to succeed in this country, because what they call their republican American education destroys the in- fluence of divine faith, whether derived from the public teachings of the Church, or from the piety and parental affection of the domestic circle. They boast of it ; and have we a right to deny it is so ? There can be no doubt of it. But we tell those gentlemen also, in return, that the same ruin is overtaking their own children. I could prove by indisputable facts that there is a falling off I will not say from Catholicism but from Christianity, that is quite perceptible in tracing the progress of these schools. I quote one single instance from reliable authority. Nearly the whole class by which the Pro- testant ministry was formerly supplied has disappeared altogether ; and although they have places and pensions in theological semina- ries, they cannot find candidates to accept them although they have education and position offered to them, the race of pious young men, as they used to be called twenty -years ago, has died out, and this fact is acknowledged. They know not what is to be the conse- quence if Providence should' not raise up candidates to continue tffeir ministry. What is the effect of these schools but to create an absolute indifference as to all divine revelation ? A negativeness. It 190 AECUBISHOP HUGHES. may not strike the observer so immediately, because there is still a tone in the country a vague respect and a vague reverence for the Bible ; but then this reverence you will find, even among those who are appointed to teach its meaning, amounts to nothing but whatever you please. Each one is the judge each one is to search there is no clerical teaching out of the Church ; and the fact is, they have departed from whatever was possibly affirmative in their creed to such an extent, that now there is scarcely a single doctrine which they would think it worth while to defend ; and if they did, they could not defend it, because all authority is lost, except the authority of the Bible, and the authority of the Bible is precisely an authority for or against, as every man thinks proper to attach a meaning to the words he reads. The race of pious young men is disappearing ; and is it to their gratification that their children are thus falling away into indifference and skepticism is it a compensation to them that Catholic children are involved in the same ruin ? If they understood the question as we do, I am satisfied they would unite with us by every means by which we could prepare for the duties of civil, social, and domestic life, those children who, in the provi- dence of God, are consigned to be brought up in the faith and un- der the care of their parents. Then you would retain good citizens to the State, and true Christians to the Church, and the race of mockers at religion would soon be diminished. Then your house would become respectable. Then your age will become reverenced ; whereas, if this system goes on for half a century longer, with the impulses so natural to the spirit of this country, children before they are fifteen years of age, coming from these schools, will forget the endearing names of father and mother, and look upon their parents as only their fellow-citizens, nothing better than them- selves. Domestic reverence for all authority disappears with the contemptuous regard that the public, by its great influential opinion, has expressed upon education ; and, for this reason, I say to you that I thank God that you have manifested so numerous and so zealously your sympathy with the undertaking of a Christian Cath- olic school for your children in your neighborhood. I hope the time is coming when they will be multiplied, and be at least as near the Church to which you bring your offspring to consecrate them to God in Holy Baptism. You must have a care of your own, and es- pecially those of your household, under the penalty which I pray God in His infinite goodness to avert from you. SERMONS. 191 SERMON PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL, BAL- TIMORE, AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST NATIONAL COUNCIL, MAY, llth. 1852. [Having read as his text the first portion of the 10th chapter of St. John, the Archbishop spoke as follows.] THE words which I have just read, Christian brethren, are true, not because they are written in the Gospel of St. John, but they are written in the Gospel of St. John because they are true, and because before any evangelist put pen to paper, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they were true. The evangelists had not pretended, at any time, to give us a full development of all the acts and all the teach- ings of their divine Master, but after His ascension, and after the descent of the Holy Ghost, and 1 after the Church had already been extended, without a written syllable of the Xew Testament, God moved certain of them, either apostles or the immediate disciples, to put on record certain things, many of which the writers remem- bered, had seen, or heard, and those who were not witnesses had heard from others who were. And they had made record of these things. In the passage which I have just read, our divine Saviour, as was his habit, in addressing the multitude, mingled things future with things present, and also not unfrequently with things past ; for you must remember our divine Saviour did not appear in the world as a teacher simply to the generation which lived when he taught, but to that which was to succeed. The Son of God, when he appeared in the flesh, appeared as a consummator of the religion begun with Adam, or had now, according to prophecy and the economy of God, accomplished its appointed purpose. But he was the consummator of this religion. Towards him it all tended, and in him it all centred. The straining eyes of the expecting prophets looked for him, their gaze was constantly bent towards the horizon of the future, to know, and, if possible, to see such indication as would mark the period when the heavens would rain down the Just One, and cause the earth to bud forth the Saviour. Their religion was the religion of anticipation, comprised in the form of types, and having reference to the future. To us it is past. He appeared, therefore, as a consummator of one dispensa- tion, and the founder of another, not different in principle, but as materially essential. The first would be true, if the second had not come ; and the second would not have been founded in truth, if it had not been preceded by the former. The Son of God was the living connection of those two dispensa- tions. Whether as a living preacher to the multitude of disciples ready to believe the words which dropped from his lips, or to the in- credulous and proud persons who refused to hearken, whatever he said was applicable to the present, and Avas perfectly intelligible ; but we find that till even after his resurrection the disciples conceived no higher object of his coming than to restore the kingdom of Israel, forgetting when Israel lost the kingdom, the sign of prophecy 192 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. was fulfilled, and that they should then look out for the promise of the nation. Another thing, he showed the promise of the future. When he said Abraham longed to see his day, had seen it,and was glad, they said, by the comparison of time, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? His answer discharged his mis- sion in this respect, " Before Abraham was, I am." And so little did they understand, this was openly denied, and from their concep- tion of the Abrahamite faith and the declaration of the prophets, they considered this as blasphemy. So now he is speaking, in this chapter, to the people, and his language, of all other teachings, is most simple and intelligible, no strained nor far-fetched metaphor, but words understood in the simple pastoral life, terms in the lamil- iar language of the tribe, borrowed from the shephei'd's field, giving the express meaning he wished to convey. He warns them of dan- gers and intimates his mission, and'speaks of things to better their fortunes, and concludes this portion of the chapter by saying there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Now, they understand the words, for they are the most obvious, but they did not understand the meaning in which the divine Teacher applied them. How could they know the purpose for which the divine Saviour applied those simple but expressive words ? We sometimes imagine that great privileges were enjoyed by those who lived in the time and place of the Son of God ; and there are persons who even say that if they had heard the word of life declared and the way of eternal salvation pointed out by Him, they would then believe. In many respects our position is stronger, and we have a better understanding of these things than if we had then lived. The reason is, all the miracles of the divine Redeemer are established through Him as the messenger of God. The testimony of Him, as the God-man, as the Word manifested in the flesh, are as strong to us, nay, I may say stronger to us, than if we had witnessed them with our own eyes. They are our proof as well as theirs, and the human testimony of facts recorded is attested and approved under .circumstances which have no possibility of doubt. They are not facts for those only who witnessed, but for the next century, and for all time. I do not say they make the same sensibility of impression, but as to the proof of the events there is no difference as to the advan- tages they confer. Eighteen hundred years have passed away, and in tracing the consequences of our Saviour's teaching, in the institu- tions which he had established in His Church, and in the manner of preserving the Church, we find one uninterrupted accomplishment of what His contemporaries did not understand. We find at the commencement that the idea which he threw out in a familiar discourse to the people as to what should be the inevitable consequence of His ministry has been eternally accomplished, from the day the Holy Ghost descended on the holy Apostles and kindled the light of divine faith, giving illumination to the understanding, and strengthening their weak and vacillating hearts. The subject of the discourse is the Church, not in its general attributes considered SERMONS. 193 in connection with the events to flow from it, through the Son of God, bnt its everlasting foundation. There was but a glimpse, a mere sketch, of that great divine plan which he came on earth to execute. There was seen but a part by part of the mutual relations of the whole. It did not all come out until, according to his promise, he should send the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, which should guide them into all truth, and abide with them forever. It is understood that on the day of Pentecost the Church, which until that time had, as it were, been moulded into form, to which was given shape and pro- portions, but which, as yet, according to His appointment, stood forth, as we may conceive the first man stood forth prominent of the human race. When God formed his model from the slime of the earth, he breathed life and soul into him ; and then man w r as awaken- ed to the consciousness of his being, destiny, and origin. So the word of God. It was on the day of Pentecost that the Scriptures mentioned no more darkness, no more haste after light, which was at that time communicated. If there was any thing that seemed to press on the heart of the divine Redeemer more than another, it was the unity of the dis- ciples. In the seventeenth chapter of St. John, after speaking of it in various forms, he at last gives utterance to the fulness of soul to His Eternal Father : " As He and the Father are one, so He and His disciples were one ;" and not only this, but He prays that " they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that Thou has sent me." Therefore, there is nothing invisible, nothing foreshadowed. Not the unity which binds the soul in ecclesiastical unity to God, but a unity which stands out in the sight of the world. The founda- tion of the Church, then, is clearly obvious, for we know that re- ligion is founded on the veracity of God. It takes its origin from what may be termed apostolicity that is, mission and which sent the first missions. Read again the holy pages of Scripture, and you will find the Son of God did not arrogate to himself, because he ap- peared in human form, the origin of His mission, but He made known whatever he had heard from His Father. He said His Father sent Him. He was a minister from God, and He sent others to carry on the work, having received His mission from the Creator of us alL You do not find Christ attempting to make converts until he had proved His authority by His miracles. He was sent from God, and was God ; and consequently mankind are bound, wherever there is the grace of hearing, to believe in His testimony, and obey. After this He makes known His doctrine, and you will see the feature of unity always insisted upon. A few disciples around Him ; He is the- centre. Others listen to the heavenly words which He utters be- lieving they are aggregated to unity, and add so many to the origi- nal society ; and from the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit appeared as a substitute for the Son of God's mysterious absence,, wherever grace has operated on the mind of man, the number has, been constantly increased. If a Jew, he must bid adieu ta the syn- VOL. II. 13 194: ARCHBISHOP IIUGHES. agogue, and enter into the new and blessed covenant. If a pagan, he must renounce his false religion. It is not enough merely to believe, and say, " Let me alone, I will remain where I am," but the Scriptures make known the condition of salvation. He must believe with his heart unto righteousness, and follow the examples of the divine Re- deemer. Therefore, however men believe, but shrink from a prac- tice of the truth, it cannot be pleasing to God, and beneficial to His creatures. No doubt the design of our divine Saviour was to restore our fallen nature, and bring us back to union with God. In order to accomplish this, we approached two objects : first, to teach man to know himself; and secondly, to enable him to serve God. When I say to know God, I do not mean the infinite capacity to comprehend, but to know God as He is towards us. Paganism has a conception of a great first cause; and even in our own day, pagan terms are applied to Him. He is called Sovereign, Supreme Being, which implies, simply, sovereignty in his relations towards us. But the Son of God taught us that God is our Father. He is made known as a being interested in us from all eternity, as our Creator, and these things are calculated to win and attract us to obedience. He and the Father are one ; and the ground of faith, and the ground of any positive religion, must necessarily b.e by au- thority. And if you leave out authority, whatever you call it faith, opinion, or persuasion it is no foundation competent to sus- tain the duties of religious life. Duty is obvious from the unity of its origin. When men tell you, as they do, that there is no specific doctrines required to be believed by our divine Saviour, they do not intend, but the remark is calculated, to destroy all belief in revela- tion ; for it is manifested. God and the Saviour being one, He would not reveal a plurality or contradiction of doctrine ; and as Christianity flows from a single source, and as God is the author of truth, any society which is formed on the basis of that truth cannot be fraud. Unity of doctrine and faith are incorporated, and resides with us in His Church : not on learned speculations of doctors, and new readings, but on the veracity of God. We cannot understand the mysteries of divine revelation ; but God, who is truth and in- finitely wise, declares it is important for us to believe one doctrine, and reason tells us, from the moment we obtain the highest privi- lege of our intellect, that we should bow, as a holocaust, to the di- vine testimony. So even our intellects should be brought into the capacity of faith. The Church, from its commencement, has been one in its faith ; and you will do well to note the distinguished unity of the Church from any other unity. You will find in religious, philanthropic, and politi- cal associations a certain unity, for a time and space a unity de- pendent on tke voluntary knot of the members; and this plainly shows that provision is made for dissolutions. It is knot an element of self-preservation ; it is not an element of extension. It may last, but the unity is for some particular motive, to be regulated by expedi- ency. Hence, for a comparatively short time, there may be unity SERMONS. 195 from design, a visible unity. This is accidental, there is no obligation to reserve it, as long as interest requires they may be united. But on the other hand, we see on every side, whether from schism or heresy, whether an attempt is made by men, by their own authority to carry the doctrines of God out of unity, a progressive dissolution is observable. In the Catholic Church, one of Apostleship, as long as this unity is in existence, there will be found, until the end of the world, those who will engender disturbances in its unity ; and past history shows how many disturbers there have been, not bound by the tie of Christianity, but the unity of hatred, men who imagined that they could inflict a mortal wound on the Son of God. If an at- tack is to be made, all at once there is a spontaneous coalition of hearts. All in the union of passions are as feeble as inefficient, in attempting to overthrow the sheepfold or destroy the flock of the Son of God. This faith, which is one, is not simply one by virtue of sentiment, but one in outward profession. This faith, which unites the Church of Christ as a sheepfold under one shep- herd, takes its origin from Him ; and hence, whatever a Catholic is required to believe, he cannot profess to believe as an opinion of his own. He is required to believe in the sense God has revealed it ; and this is the reason why, the teaching being the same, the belief is the same ; and in this it is seen to the world, that God sent His Son into the world for its salvation. You have not dwelt sufficiently long on the importance of unity as a divine mark, and which has continued to manifest itself as singular to the world. How rare it is to find a few men, not absolutely decided on any topic or fact, who are able to agree ! How natural is the diversity and discrepancies between mind and rnind ! How difficult to get men to unite. And yet the Son of God, on the principle laid down as the rule and model of His Church, has secured unity, which, at the same time, is susceptible of extension to all ages and to the ends of the earth. You see before you many of the first pastors of the holy Catholic Church, coming from within limits extending from sea to sea the most of them never met together before. Many of them were brought up amid different sounds of language. But in the unity of faith there is no necessity to examine what is the belief. And this limited spectacle of the unity would not be different, if all the bish- ops of the Avhole Catholic Church were here assembled. And this is to be attributed to the fact that they believe the teachings of the Son of God, and because the Church is one, and because there is no necessity to examine and compare records. All were brought up under the same guidance, and under the Holy Spirit upon the Church of God. They are all united in one sheepfold, and under the guidance of one Shepherd. God made us one, by the unity of truth. The Church must be holy as well as one. She must be apostolic, because she is derived from Christ and his apostles. She must be universal, because we know that the truth of divine reve- lation does not shine for a day, and then fade ; and because the teachings of the Son of God, and the Apostles, were true in the 196 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. streets of Jerusalem or Samaria, and because the truth does not change. It would be inconsistent; we do not desire to look out for improvements in these things, which God has promised for us to the present day. The Church extends her tents to the ends of the earth. God is in the sheepfold and is the pastor of the flock, and those who enter in by Him have eternal life. I am aware of the objections which have been urged to this view of the subject. It is said : " Really, after all, this monotony of be- lief cannot be pleasing to God ;" and they point out for imitation pretended philosophers, and the variety with which God has diver- sified all portions of creation. They say the spring brings forth every hue of flowers, charming the eyes and giving perfume to the atmosphere by their sweetness. They say He has studded the fir- mament with stars, which differ from one another in effulgence and distance. They say God gives man soul and mind of his own, and it is not right to cramp it with a scope of less power ; that He has diversified the leaf and the human countenance, giving a gen- eral resemblance, but a particular difference to them all. But these pretended arguments are groundless. They forget that they con- tribute to the giving way of faith, which, like an iceberg, melts away in the direction of skepticism, atheism, and pantheism, in an age which does not think proper to dispute about any doctrine of Christ. Instead of endeavoring to induce a belief in Deity, they carry away hundreds and thousands of persons of infirm purposes. They never look at the plurality in unity, nor consider that all are governed by the same law. Arguing from their premises, every star, now regu- lated by harmony, would take its own course, instead of imaging forth God's glory at night, like a host of brilliant sentinels, indicating to us a mark of that power which we revere, and elevating the high Conceptions due to Him by whom we were all created. But the truths of God emancipate the human mind, and set his soul at liberty ; and man is bound to do the best he can. Some men are caught by the dazzling of phrase. They are deceived by the cry of progress, which sounds like something grand. The maxims pass current. Nobody questions them. But God emanci- pates the mind, and tells man to be free. You might as well at- tempt to manacle the sunbeams, or fetter the ocean, as to frustrate the design of God. We are responsible to Him for the use we make of that freedom. When the doctrine is presented, are we not free to embrace it ? We should abide by the grace of God, which speaks to our hearts. If we co-operate with that grace, do we not enjoy freedom ? But, religion in a corrupt age, and in the world, means that you are not free, unless you reject what the Son of Man taught. And they say, in equivalent language, though history ap- proves the Son of God by His miracles, a man is not to believe until he examines into the details before the tribunal of his reason, and then he may reject or adopt it, as he thinks proper. It is in this Court, outside of the Church of God, there may be some sincerity and strong convictions, but even in the name of Christ itself, there is not SERMONS. 197 a single principle in sucn a system which can be called faith. Yet God says, without faith, it is impossible to please Him. Faith is one, and He says there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. But if you take me out of faith to try me, you throw me on my own spec- ulations ; and, unless I am under your bad philosophy, I believe my own interpretation of the Scriptures. But do not tell me, for time and eternity, I must not believe in the things of God. There is not only a unity of faith, but a unity of the Sacraments, having God for their author. A belief in this unity has brought to- together these Bishops, over dreary deserts and the wide ocean, to speak with one heart and with one voice, after having invoked the light of the Holy Ghost, which they have so often invoked ; and 4 this is an evidence that the sheepfold is one, as is also the Shepherd. I do not mean to say that any man is the shepherd. Our divine Sa- viour is the Bishop and Pastor over our souls. That is an interior unity ; but for the outward Church, for the testimony which is to convince the world, God sent Him for the world cannot close its eyes to the fact. There are not many pastors and many shepherds, but they are all particles of the one Pastorship. Another form of unity in the Church of Christ is the succession of the Apostles, some of them Apostles themselves to different and pagan nations. They are endowed each with a part of the undivided episcopacy, for in faith and sacraments unity is traceable as with a pencil of the sun- light. They meet here as the early Apostles met. They meet as brethren, to examine into the affairs of the Church ; and when the proper time comes, they do not say their decisions shall be in the name of Christ our Lord, but that they blend in great confidence a knowledge of the Divine aid ; and in the joint name of the Holy Ghost and themselves, they promulgate the de- cisions. So subsequent councils will meet to define the doctrines of . faith. The same rule will be followed ; not one of sympathy, and gener- ally of sentiment, because here there is a diversity of individual character, as much so as among the same number of men elsewhere. Yet truth and faith animate all that truth which fills all space, and is colorless, but which, when brought together by persons, re- flects different shades of opinions. Looking at the old ministers and buildings of an anterior age, the lights in the windows represent ev- ery color of the sunbeams, when brought within the observation of the human eye ; yet, on entering them, there is seen no tint or color when the light has passed through. The Apostles are but individual particles for a special portion of the flock for the individual unity which pertains to the government of the Church. You knqw how Christ formed His little flock. He called His twelve disciples, Peter included, and told them to declare the truth to all nations ; and He said to them collectively what He would do for them, and what power they should have. Then, to give the last stamp to abide the mark of unity, He took Peter, not withdrawing the prerogative conferred as a simple Apostle, designating him from all the rest, and 198 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. making him the chief. He said to him, that whatsoever he bound on earth, should be bound also in heaven ; and whatsoever he should loose on earth, should be loosed also in heaven. And when the ar- dent and generous-hearted Apostle declared to the world who Christ was, the Saviour said to him: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not pre- vail against it, and I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." Also, " Satan hath desired to sift thee as wheat. I pray that thy faith fail not ; thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren." If it is true that Christ has but one sheepfold, it is equally true that He appointed one shepherd in the person of Peter, in the visible and outward common of the Church, intended to strike the world with conviction, and to persuade mankind. After His resurrection the Sa- viour conversed with Peter, and asked him whether he loved Him more than these (the Apostles), and Peter answered, " Yes, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." The Master put the question three times, and each time makes reference to His flock. To the first and second, He said, " Feed my lambs," and to the third, " Feed my sheep." The lambs and sheep constitute the whole flock, and in this figure, the unity of the sacraments and the subordination to the Apostle are apparent. If this was the intention of Christ, whether as a Church or a sheepfold, it is manifest that Peter, as the outward mani- festation, was appointed as the one shepherd. Consequently, it is that which, although Peter was invested with a portion of the apos- tolic power as regards order, establishes the claim to the successor ship of St. Peter; and in the unbroken episcopacy of the Church, we all acknowledge the superiority of him who, by an unbroken succession, has inherited from St. Peter. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICA- TION OF ST. FRANCIS SERAPH'S CHURCH, NEW YORK, APRIL 14th, J.853. The first verse of the 121st Psalm is in these words : " I have rejoiced in the things that were said to me. We shall go into the house of the Lord." This, my dear brethren, is the language of the royal prophet, which the Church has considered appropriate and set apart for offices such as those in which you have now been engaged. As yet, when the inspired prophet wrote those words, there was not upon this earth a single temple consecrated to the honor and the adoration of the true and the living God. It was his privilege to project such a SERMONS. 199 temple, under Divine direction, although it was not his privilege to see that great work accomplished ; but the very thought of it made his heart glad, and he breaks forth in poetic inspiration, with the ex- clamation that he rejoiced in the things that were said to him, and that we should go into the house of the Lord. It is a great honor conferred upon a man that he should be made capable of doing any thing calculated to promote the Divine honor, because God has no need of men's offerings, and because He is infinitely rich in power and in glory, whether men adore or do not adore. Nevertheless, it was conferring upon men a singular privilege that God should have put it in their power to make an offering pleasing to the Divinity; and it was this thought, not simply of the material edifice, but of its im- port and its meaning, which gladdened the heart of the inspired and the royal prophet. We require not to be told that God is not con- fined within the walls of a temple ; and it is not necessary that some one should say to us, the whole universe is the only appropriate temple for its Creator, and from every part it reflects back eviden- ces of His glory and His power. We understand all that ; but nevertheless it has been His will that man should set apart certain portions of this earth sacred to His honor, and erect to Him a tem- ple according to His own divine plan, which was then the only temple upon the globe consecrated to His service. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that the inspired writer restricted his pro- spective glance to the glory of that temple which his son saw com- pleted and dedicated. It was not that stupendous work, the glory of Israel, on the holy Mount Zion the temple it was not this as a material structure that ravished the eye of the inspired prophet, but it was that true temple, that true Church and true religion of the God whose direction he was obeying, and in the effort to accomplish which his heart exulted at the prospect that there should be a house of the Lord, and that he should be privileged to enter into it. The ceremonies, dearly beloved brethren, appropriate to an occasion like this, have reference more to the living edifice the living temple of the Holy Ghost the Church of Christ and each of you, as a temple, than to these perishable materials. Time will cause them all to crumble away ; but there is another house of the living God the spiritual edifice which is rising, day by day, and which is indestruct- ible and eternal. The prayers, and the sprinkling of the walls outside and within, have all reference to the purity of soul with which the worshipper in the house of God should approach and surround his sanctuary. This is the whole bearing of the entire ceremonial; and in this sense, although there is a temple here and another there, as the wants of the faithful make it necessary that they should be multiplied, there is upon the earth but one house of God, and there is but one temple, properly speaking, and there never was more ; because religion being a communication from God to man, it must necessarily be consistent with itself; and whether it was before the coming of our Redeemer, or since His coming, it never can be in contradiction with one portion in reference to another. We speak 200 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. of the Jewish law and the Jewish religion as if they were something different from ours; and they were different in one respect differ- ent in the order of time different as the morning dawn is distinct from the noonday brilliancy of that sun that shines now over our heads. The Jewish religion was but the introduction, the aurora, the beaming forth to the world of a religion, the promise of a re- ligion, the hope of a religion, which directed the eye of the people to look forward to futurity for the coming of Him who was to be the fulfilment and the perfection of all its types, figures and cere- monies ; and in this sense it might be considered that Christianity would have taken the world by surprise, if it had not been expected. It was not like a heresy that springs up unanticipated in any age, but it was looked forward to ; and in this sense it may be said that the Christian religion would not be true if it had not been preceded by the Jewish, just as the Jewish religion had its truth in its prom- ise, and in the fulfilment and universality of the religion of Christ, extending to all nations, and to be perpetuated until the end of time. The worship of the one religion was not distinct in principle from the worship of the other, the only difference being that the Christian faith is perfect, and the fulness of divine truth and the ful- ness of grace, and the fulness of life, are in actual possession, not in anticipation, as they were before. This is the only difference ; and on this account although, for the necessities of men scattered as are the inhabitants of this globe it is essential that there should be a Church from one distance to another, wherever the name of God is known, and wherever he has worshippers. Nevertheless, there is but one Church proper ; and were it possible for the two hundred millions who believe in the communion of the saints and in that Church to assemble under one mighty Catholic dome to receive them all, a scattered Church would not be necessary ; and if they be diversified, it is only as regards locality, as regards time, and as regards space ; but what is in one Church is in all. There are, indeed, many speakers to proclaim the Gospel ; but the Gospel is one Gospel, and it has no contradiction ; and, in that one Church of God to which we have been called, its voice is the voice of harmony, from the rising to the setting of the sun, and there may be many priests appointed, the outward ministers of continuing the work of sacrifice ; but they are appointed by Him who was Priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech, even our di- vine Lord. They are His representatives, and through them He is the only one, and the only High Priest, rendering to God adoration and sublime honor in the mysteries of the Christian sacrifice. There are many altars, so to speak, but there is but one victim. There are many priests, but there is but one priesthood. There are many churches, but there is only one Church. There are many bishops, if you will, but there is only one unbroken episcopacy Christ, our Sa- viour, being the Bishop and Pastor of our souls ; and it is this idea more than any other material glory appertaining to Zion's temple, which inspired the royal prophet to exclaim in exultation, that he SEKMOXS. 201 rejoiced in the things that were said, that we should " go into the house of the Lord;" and it is upon this account, dearly beloved brethren, that you too should rejoice upon this day, in which you have the consolation of entering for the first time into your enlarged and improved Church, in which you have obtained space in order that more souls may be admitted within the sound of the everlast- ing word of truth, and in sight of the tabernacle of your God. It is on this day that you all rejoice and sympathize in the lan- guage of the inspired writer at entering into the house of the Lord. I congratulate you upon the success of your undertaking. It is a blessing for you, and it will be a blessing for your children ; and I cannot inaugurate, so to speak, the improvements you have made, more fitly, than by exhorting you to conceive rightly of that great eternal temple which is the Catholic Church of God. If there be but one God, there can be but one religion. If you admitted two Gods a confliction of two supreme and eternal beings if you were subject to such an absurd error as this oh, then, you can easily conceive as a consequence, that each God would have his own religion, and that there would be contradiction ; but if there be but one God, as your faith teaches, then you know that from His adorable lips but one truth can have emanated ; and if there be but one Saviour, who established the Church, then you know that no other has had a right at any time to establish another Church in opposition to His, unless that other one should claim power from some other Deity, distinct from Him who came to be the ransom and the teacher of mankind. Cherish, then, dearly beloved brethren, cherish that high and holy appreciation of the grace of Almighty God, which called you to the communion of that one universal and eternal and holy temple, your own Church. Knowing that it was His mercy and His favor that called you, in preference to so many others, who are either left in darkness, infidelity, and paganism, or who, even in the partial light of Christianity, have turned away from the living waters of eternal life, and attempt to dig cisterns for themselves, which were not competent to contain water, cling to that eternal rock, cherish it, and impress upon your children a just appreciation of it. Teach them to be Catholics, and well-instructed Catholics. Teach them to practise their religion, and let the first holy lesson of the Christian mother to her child be, to pronounce the name of the adorable Trin- ity, and making the sign of the Cross the first great act of public profession of belief and participation in the membership of that one Church, the prospect of which through hundreds and thousands of years so dazzled the eye of the royal prophet, that he breaks forth as if unconscious almost, but in the ardor of his spirit as one enchanted and enraptured by the view, in the exulting language which I have employed, "I have rejoiced in the things that were said to me. We shall go into the house of the Lord." Let it be to you, dearly beloved brethren, the " house of the Lord ;" hearken to what God will say to you through the voice of His ministers, in this place ; 202 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and if you will make your necessities known to your God, He is here He will be here. He has vouchsafed and condescended to make His abode amongst men, and it is upon this altar that you can present your petitions, and through the merits of Christ, who shed His blood upon Cavalry, and who is to be daily mys- tically immolated upon this altar you will obtain every benefit of soul and body which God will deem expedient for your ultimate sanctification. Let me exhort you, then, to put away, for all future time, every species of disagreement among yourselves. I know there have been times when a discontented spirit, to a certain extent, prevailed in this congregation. \ rejoice that these times have passed away, and that you have seen how expedient it was that you should hearken to the legitimate authority of that one Church to which you are so proud and so happy to belong. Cherish that spirit. Nothing in the Church of God can be carried by force, nothing by contention, nothing by strife, but every thing by equal and impartial justice to- wards all every thing by the spirit of meekness, by the spirit of patience, and by that spirit which indicates that God rules in the hearts of those who profess to be His adorers. Let this be your reso- lution from this day forward, and many untold blessings will be im- parted to you by Almighty God. Through the medium of your re- ligion, untold blessings will descend to your children, and they will be brought up in the fulness of Christian faith, Christian piety, and Christian order. They will be a comfort to you while they are yet children, and that same religion which you will have taken pains to inculcate in their minds, when you become advanced in life, will come back to you in the affection, in the support, and in the kind- ness which these children, when grown up, and when you shall be in the decline of life, will exhibit to you. But if you allow them to grow up without a knowledge of religion, you need not be surprised if one day they will turn you from beneath that roof under which you had neglected to impress upon them their obligations to God, their obligations to society, their obligations to their parents and to themselves. The one Church is the universal school, in which God inculcates, through the outward organization of the ministers of His Church, those lessons so beneficial to man so long as he is upon this earth, and so important to him in view of his eternal destiny in the world that is to come. Cherish these doctrines, dearly beloved brethren. To-day let your hearts rise and expand in holy gratitude to God, who has ena- bled you to accomplish this undertaking. Chant His praises ; and, if you have favors to ask and, no doubt, the consciousness of hu- man imperfections will impress upon you that you stand in need of them ask them in humility, prayer, and union, with the sacrifice which is to be offered upon this altar, and ask the divine Victim, to appeal to His eternal Father for mercy towards us. It is thus that you will internally, as well as externally, consecrate your Church to God, that is, consecrate your own hearts consecrate your affec- ERMONS. 203 tions for, says the Holy Spirit, you are the temples of the Holy Ghost ; and, of course, you, and each one of you, is infinitely more precious than tens of thousands of churches like this, as a mere ma- terial structure. Let all, then, be consecrated to God this day. Let this be the commencement of a long period in which religion will prosper in this church in. which piety will be extended in which the old and the young will all blend together harmoniously, their voice of gratitude and their voice of prayer towards God, who has favored their undertaking, and this day crowned it with success. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONSE- CRATION OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PHILA- DELPHIA, MAY 22d, 1853. CONSECRATION is the act of separating from profane or common use something to be appropriated, by prayer, ceremonies, and the benediction of the Church, to the worship of Almighty God. From the beginning it was appointed, by divine ordinance, that places, vessels, instruments to be used in the divine service, should be set apart with special blessing as consecrated. The idea on which this divine institution is made appreciable to us, is that, by original sin, man himself had fallen from primitive sanctity that is, from the habitual consecration in which he had been created and that all other creatures, animate and inanimate, destined for his use, had, in their several degrees, partaken of the malediction pronounced against him in consequence of his fall ; and further, that the re- moval of this species of interdict, whether from man himself, or from the beings and things destined for his use, was to be effected through the merits of the Redeemer and the ministry of grace, of which He is the source and the fountain. Hence, under the new law, when the consecration regards man himself, it is accomplished through the medium of the sacraments ; and thus all the members of the Church are taken from the ranks of those upon Avhom the primitive sentence was still incumbent, and are consecrated to God by baptism. When the consecration appertains to temples, or sacred places, or altars, it is effected through the es- pecial benedictions of the Church. Persons untrained in the knowl- edge of Catholic doctrines, are sometimes confounded in their thoughts by these sacred lights and ceremonies, and it occurs to them not uufrequently to inquire whether or not inanimate things can be made, in any sense, partakers of an attribute which is primi- tively and essentially peculiar to God Himself that is, holiness. They imagine that the Holy Scriptures give no sanction to such an 201 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. idea .and yet our blessed Lord (Matt. vii. 6) says : " Give not holy things to dogs ;" and in the twenty-third chapter, seventeenth verse, he interrogates the Pharisees as to which is the greater, the gold offered in the temple, or the temple which sanctifies the gold ; the gift placed on the altar, or the altar which sanctifies the gift. In the twenty-seventh chapter, fifty-third verse of the same Gospel, as well as in the Apocalypse and in the ancient Testament, Jerusa- lem is called the Holy City ; and St. Peter (2d Ep. i. 13), speaking of the mountain on which the transfiguration of our Lord took place, calls it the Holy Mountain. St. Paul (1st Ep. Tim. iv. 4) desig- nates Christians, in general, as Saints, not because of their individual virtues, but because they have been consecrated to God by baptism. He reminds them that their bodies and members are temples of the Holy Ghost. (1st Ep. Cor. vi. 19.) We may consider, then, that this creation, with man as its sover- eign, coming originally from the will and by the word of Almighty God, was essentially the proper temple for the celebration of this divine worship ; because so long as man remained in subjection and obedience to his Creator he was pure, and fitted to be the inter- preter and high-priest of the entire visible creation. By the fall of our first parents, every thing was changed. Man had voluntarily subjected himself to the dominion of sin. His Crea- tor denounced against him the penalty of death, both as regarded his soul and his body. The very earth, and air, and elements, and to a certain extent, the living creatures which had been made for his use, were changed into instruments of trial for him, as if they had all partaken of his crime. Hope only remained, the promise of a Mes- siah was given, and that Messiah was to stand in the midst of this fallen universe as the Redeemer, High Priest, and Restorer of all that should be sacred. We are not to conceive of the Christian religion as having had its origin from the commencement of what is called the Christian Church. The true religion under the patriarchs, and as specifically established among the Jewish people, was also the religion of Christ, according to the order of time, and as preparatory for His coming. It abounded in rites, ceremonies, and sacrifice, and through His ministers alone, they were rendered acceptable to God. In the va- rious rites of benediction, dedication, consecration, and sacrifice, all was rendered agreeable to God, through the merits of the Saviour of the world. When He came on earth, however when the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, He imparted the reality to what had been hitherto but the figure of true and divine worship. Hence, the institution of the Sacraments, by which individual souls are gathered into the fold of truth, and consecrated to God ; and hence, being constituted into one sheepfold under one Shepherd, the va- rious sacramental institutions by which the divine life is preserved, nurtured, and increased into the perfection of sanctity ; and hence, too, even as regards inanimate things, the divine institution of dedi- ERMONS. "* 205 eating, blessing, and consecrating even inanimate things, so as "that they also shall acquire, not an intrinsic, but a relative sanctity, re- sulting from the sacred purposes for which they are set apart." Among them the Christian Church or temple necessarily holds the first place. After the consecration, the ground on which it stands is no longer profane or common earth, but sacred as the precincts of the burning bush, which Moses saw on the mountains. Now the sanctity of the temple is but in the order of means to an end. The temple has reference to the sanctuary, the sanctuary to the altar, the altar to the sacrifice that is offered upon it, the sacri- fice to Jesus Christ, who is at once the high-priest and victim, restoring to God the supreme homage of which original and actual sin had deprived Him. Certainly, man, even if he had persevered in in- nocence, could not have been capable of rendering to his Creator a worship so worthy of divine acceptance; and regarding the subject under -this light, the Church in her offices of Holy Saturday does not hesitate to make use of the words, that the fault of our first pa- rents was a happy fault, since it gave occasion to such and so great a Redeemer and Mediator between God and man. If we look to the grounds on which the Church is justified in using language like this, we shall find them in the institution for which our Christian temples are constructed namely, and principally, the sacrifice of man, and the administration of the sacraments. To appreciate this properly, we must regard our divine Saviour as having offered Himself a propitiation for the sins of the world. If He offered Himself, then was He a priest ; and this the Holy Scriptures assure us, when they designate Him, as by an especial title, " a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech." If He offered Himself, then was he also a victim as well as a priest ; and being thus both priest and victim, being at the same time God and Man, He was necessarily competent to restore fallen humanity to its lost inheritance, and, at the same time, to make adequate rep- aration in the divine as well as in the human ministry, which He exercised. For the offerings even of Adam, in the days of his innocence, would have been simply those of a sinless human being, but then human only. Next, the victim which he might offer would necessarily be a purely human victim ; and there would be between the Godhead adored and the mode or the means of adora- tion an infinite disparity ; whereas, when His own beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, took upon Himself the ministry of reconcilia- tion, our humanity, by virtue of the incarnation in the person of Christ, acquired the attributes of infinite perfection appertaining to the Divinity itself, so that the victim thus provided was in all respects, worthy of the acceptance of God. And the same is to be said of the High Priest, who made and offered Himself that victim for reparation of the Divine honor, outraged by the sins of me/i, and for this reconciliation with their Creator. Hence, the consecration of the Church is relative and subordinate to the offering of the sac- rifice ; and the offering of the sacrifice is in the order of supreme. 206 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. divine adoration, as appointed by our blessed Saviour, when, after the institution of this sacrifice, He appointed a priesthood to con- tinue it, saying, "Do this in commemoration of me !" It is hardly necessary that I should proceed to inform you that this, and this alone, is supreme, divine adoration ; that in this, the victim and the priest are no other than our blessed Lord Him- self; that we, who are appointed as His ministers, in every act of religion, but especially in the act of offering the sacrifice of the Mass, understand that we are but his arnbassadoi's or agents, performing outwardly and in His name the functions of divine adoration to which He gives true, intrinsic efficacy. It is true that there are in the Church many priests, and many temples, and many altars ; but it is equally true, that there is, properly speaking, but one altar, one vic- tim, one priesthood, one sacrifice, of which the Redeemer of the world is Himself the invisible, supreme, and eternal Pontiff. Nor is it to be supposed that this sacrifice is to be restricted to the death of our Redeemer on the cross. No doubt, its origin and efficacy are derived from and connected with the immolation on Mount Calvary. But in the fifth chapter of the Apocalypse, the Apostle St. John describes the vision of the altar in heaven, and the Lamb thereon offered as a victim, and surrounding priests with all the appurtenances of a sacrifice. If it be said that spiritual vic- tims are all that we can offer, namely, thanksgivings, prayer, and the praises of God, the answer is obvious, that these are dispositions of spirit universally approved and recognized. But they are abso- lutely distinct from the sacrifices which the Scriptures record of ABel, Noe, Abraham, Job, and the Jews, who, whilst they cherished those dispositions, offered also in an outward and sensible manner sacrifices to God. Nay, it is manifest that all their sacrifices had reference to the real Victim, described in the book of the Apoca- lypse (xiii. 18), the Lamb slain from the commencement of the woiid. According to the teaching of St. Paul, all the ancient rites of sac- rifice are called by that name only because they related to the only high-priest and victim, Jesus Christ. To His mediation and to His ministry their eyes and their hopes were directed by the whole ceremonial of the Jewish law. They were symbols of hope and of faith, having reference to a future reality, which we now possess. And hence, St. Paul already says, in comparing the Christian altar to the Jewish (Heb. xiii. 10), "We have an altar of which they can- not partake who serve in the tabernacle." The ground of the error which rejects the sublime doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass in the Christian Church, is the refusal on the part of those who are separated from her communion to recognize the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But if there be one article of Christian doctrine which can be proved beyond reasonable objection from the naked expressions of the Holy Scriptures, it i.s the particular doctrine of the real presence. SERMONS. 207" SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, STAR OF THE SEA, BROOKLYN, N. Y., JULY 17, 1853. MY DEAR BRETHREN I can have no hope that my voice will be able to reach the boundaries of an assemblage as large as this which I see before and around me. With silence on your part, the few words which I have to address you may be heard to a certain dis- tance ; but if there should be the least disturbance, it will be im- possible for you to hear me, although I should wish my voice to be trumpet-loud, that you might know the sentiments which this aus- picious occasion has awakened. Who will say henceforth that .the love of God, the faith of God's Church, the zeal for His glory, are diminished on the soil of freedom and liberty ? Who will dare to say so, seeing as I see such a multitude of people as now surrounds me ? And what, dearly beloved brethren, what has brought you to this scene ? Was it mere curiosity ? No doubt some may have been attracted even by curiosity to come here, but who knows whether they shall not carry away with them something more solid, something more advantageous to themselves, than the gratification of an appetite for novelty. We have just laid the corner-stone of a Church, not a temple, tor the Pagans had temples, but we have none. We have a Church composed of many buildings, if you will, of many multitudes, if you will, but still only one Church, neither more nor less ; and therefore this is not the laying the corner-stone of a new temple, or a mere temple of worship. It is that, if you will, but it is more : it is part of the universal and everlasting Church which Jesus Christ founded on earth, and which is called the Catholic Church. It is one Church ; the worshippers in that one Church be- ing of various lineage, various climates, various colors and complex- ions even, but still the people of one divine, universal, and eter- nal Church. And if there could be, by possibility, an edifice on earth capacious enough to hold them all one single Church they would find themselves perfectly in harmony as to every rite of wor- ship, and a second Church would not be necessary. Such, dearly beloved brethren, is the thought awakened in my mind by the circumstances of this occasion, in which it would seem as if every thing co-operated to make it one of the most solemn, one of the most stirring instances of Catholic zeal that has been wit- nessed, I will not say simply in the city of Brooklyn, but I will say in the archdiocese of New York. For though I have been present on many similar occasions ceremonies of laying corner-stones I confess I have seen nothing before that has approximated to the 208 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. ideal of the solemnity of such a ceremony, or to be compared with what I now witness, and with what is around me. And what, dearly beloved brethren, is the meaning of all this ? Oh, I infer from it a glorious m'eaning ; I infer from it that no change of skies, no transi- tion from one place to another, can, by possibility, destroy or di- minish in the heart of the Catholic the feeling of love which he has for his God, and the feeling of zeal which he has for his religion. The more that religion is persecuted on earth, the dearer it becomes to him ; and hence, sometimes the attempt is made to account for Catholic zeal, where Protestant governments attempt to crush and persecute our religion. But there is nothing of the kind here ; we are as free as all the rest as free as the Mormons, as free as the Presbyterian, as free as the Methodist, as free as any people who call themselves by any name. And, in the absence of all persecu- tion, why is it that such a multitude, such a sea of upturned faces, present themselves here before me to-day ? Why is it ? Because of the instinct of Catholic faith, the divine instinct communicated in its germ in baptism, and which abides in the hearts of those who have been baptized ; because, although we, you and I, are but the beings of a day, still we do not separate ourselves from our ances- tors in the faith for eighteen hundred years who have passed away, nor are we separated from our successors in the faith for eighteen hundred years to come. Who will limit the time ? Through all ages of the world in which our successors may still preach the same everlasting doctrines of truth which the Son of God originally communicated to His Apostles, and through them to the whole world. That is the meaning of your assemblage to-day ; and I regard this, for my own part, as a most auspicious and consoling occasion. It seems as if every thing had conspired to make this a bright and glorious day for the Catholics of Brooklyn and of Brooklyn alone shall I say ? No ; but of the Catholics of New York, and of the Catholics of the United States, aye, and the Catholics of Europe, if they ever shall know of this. It is a glorious day for them all and why ? Because of the evidence of such zeal as yours, because of the smiling countenance of God Himself on this occasion ; for do you not see how beautifully God has adapted the season and the day to such an occasion? The sun in his glory shines in the west, and the moon (pointing to the heavens) is there, borrowing, by anticipation, her own pure light reflected back. It is an occasion on which Na- ture, the field, the ocean, the air, and light and shade, all contribute to crown, as I may say, the spirit, the zeal, the fervor, and the faith which have brought so many of you here on this auspicious oc- casion. But I have another observation to make, and it is this: that we you and I, Catholic brethren live in an age in which there is a tendency abroad to dispute every thing, from the existence of God Himself downwards. And those who do not recognize the com- munion of saints have become stupid dupes of spiritual rappers, and SERMONS. 209 all such things ; and yon must preserve the faith for them and for their posterity. You are the guardians, you are the repositories of the truth. Though they yield to these astonishing deceptions, let them see by the steadiness, the nobleness, the consistency, the order, and the mind which has influenced the Catholic faith. Let them see, I say, and compare these with their deceptions. They call themselves strong-minded people. They are philosophers for the most part. What kind of philosophy is theirs ? given up to a superstition of that kind. And that is but one for there are ten thousand others ; and the only circumstance entitling it even to notice is, that it is the most recent, and the one now most in vogue. They would not believe in the intercession of the saints of God, reigning with him, for their own brethren on earth, but they believe in the noise of rappings. They can believe in that; and the next hour they may be looking at you, for instance, and will say: "What a superstitious multitude! Poor ignorant creatures." Have you ever been gulled by such absurdities ? Has any Catholic ever been kept under the influence of the man who preached the second coming, whose name is Miller? In a word, Christian brethren, are you not the repository of a steady, universal, eternal, divine faith, which will become at length the landmark for the guidance of the human mind, of a great portion of this great American people, who are now, for want of it, ready to go to the right or to the left, just as the most recent deceiver shall have abused their easy credulity ? That is your office, and I have no doubt that God himself, even in this day, bestows on you the grace to discharge this duty as time will advance and opportunity n\ay serve. It is not merely in the ardor which you have manifested, it is not merely in the multitude which you have crowded around this platform, but it is still more in that abiding principle of truth recognized and believed, not by caprice, but by faith, that I see this result. Oh ! that faith in the Catholic Church ! Oh ! that glorious faith, from the presence of which opinions shrink away like the mists of the morning before the rising sun ! Oh ! that faith of everlasting truth, one and the same, universal and existing through all time, because it is the Word, the declaration from the lips of God himself, and therefore cannot be a deception. This is your faith, and this is my explanation of the reason why you have assembled here to-day. For what purpose ? To raise a temple. I have explained the meaning of temple. Call it rather a wing of the one universal Catholic Church, a mere little sacristy, a portion, an outlet, an enlargement of that one edifice which constitutes the universal Church of our divine Saviour. This is the object for which we have assembled. And there is one cir- cumstance which I will refer to as calculated to inspire still more your zeal, not only at the commencement, but till the crowning stone and the completion of this great work and it is this. But, oh ! why may I not require that an angel should touch and purify my lips before I refer to it ? It is, that in this country and else- where, the divinity of Jesus Christ is denied; and, in proportion as- VOL. II. 14 210 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. the enemies of the faith multiply their blasphemies against God and against His Church, in the same proportion does the Catholic Church ever stand out firmly and strongly against every approach to such an apostacy. Hence it is that we know and profess Jesus Christ to be God and man. He is God from eternity, the second Person in the blessed Trinity. He is man born in time, conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin, and that Vir- gin's name is Mary. And the Catholic Church has ever taught, and has ever held, that Mary, being the mother of God, though in one sense the. child of Eve Eve's daughter yet, as she was to be the mother of God incarnate, He had preserved her immaculate, un- touched by the stain and the defilement of original sin. And hence the Church, from the beginning, has always been accustomed to regard Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, as conceived without sin. And now, so far as I know, these rude foundations are the first that have ever been laid on this continent in attestation of that conviction, and faith, and feeling of the Catholic Church. And this Church is to be a Church dedicated, when completed, to the ever blessed Virgin Mary ; for, though only a human creature her- self, yet, as the mother of the Son of God, the Saviour Jesus Christ, conceived without the slightest stain of original guilt, surely, Chris- tians, surely the title of this Church will not be a hindrance to your zeal in aiding in the prosecution of the work till its completion. On the contrary, I can have no doubt that wherever the Catholic faith is strong in the hearts of men, the very idea of leaving only one proof, as a testimony to that ancient conviction and feeling of the Catholic people in honor of that sacred mystery, will be an encour- agement, and that you will stand by this undertaking. You, who are Catholics of Brooklyn, without exception, this church is yours. You have others already ; but you will want more, even after this is completed. By what do you stand? Oh, by your faith, by one another, priest by priest, and man by man. Whenever occurs any great undertaking like this, commenced and completed especially under auspices so felicitous as those of this day, you will not rest till you see the work either entirely completed, or at least so far ac- complished as to be beyond the range of possible disappointment. I am astonished to-day myself, to see the multitude here around me the aged, and those in middle life, and the young and I am delighted that in the neighborhood even of this great city of 'Brooklyn, there are some fifteen hundred children looking on, and in the innocence of their life, and in the ardor of their young faith, raising their voices to God, in hope that this work shall be com- pleted, and that every other work to His glory shall be completed. Fifteen hundred children, this 17th day of July, 1853! and yet I remember the period when in this city of Brooklyn, great as it has become, great as it is, but still greater, if it were not to some extent overshadowed by the neighboring city I say, I remember the time when a priest came to Brooklyn once a month, and said Mass in a .room, or ^some private corner, to the few some ten, or a dozen SERMONS. 211 perhaps of Catholics found here. And now, what a spectacle is around me ! I ask you, then, dearly beloved brethren, to cherish the sentiment I have endeavored to impress upon your mind first ; but I ask you again, are you prepared on the right hand and on the left before me and all around are you all prepared to stand by this great work till it is accomplished? [Several voices an- swered, " Yes, yes, we are ready and willing."] Very well, your word is enough ; when you say it I know you will do it. And when this church is completed, the church itself must be tributary to another church, and that to another, and that to another so I shall put no limits to church building on this Long Island or any- where else. And now, my dear brethren, I had no intention of de- taining you so long when I began, because I am exceedingly weak ; my chest is weak; and I do not know that it would be possible for me to have spoken on any other occasion ; but I could not such has been the power of this scene over my feelings resist the effort at least. And if I have not corresponded either to my own desires or to your expectations, I know you will kindly and indulgently ac- count for it. And now I will give you, as Catholics, the Episcopal benediction with the fullness of my heart. It is not necessary that you should kneel, but at least raise your hearts to God Almighty, and ask him to confirm the sentence of benediction which I am about to pronounce. SERMON IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONSECRATION OF THE BISHOPS OF BROOKLYN, NEWARK, AND BUR- LINGTON, OCTOBER 30th, 1853. I HAVE taken for my text, on this occasion, the last words of the second chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter : " For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls." The preceding portions of this chapter had reference to the ministry, the preaching, and the priesthood of the Son of God ; and now, in conclusion, he speaks of the Redeemer as the pastor and bishop of the souls of those who believe in Him. Nor is this word pastor, or bishop, to be understood, as many other terms in the sacred writings, as a figure or comparison. It is to be understood in its simplicity, meaning the fullness of all that it ex- presses, literally and simply. The other Apostles, in their writings, have also inculcated the same great idea of the episcopacy of the Son of God. But I am not aware that any of them have expressed the whole force of the mission and the ministry of Christ in such brief, yet comprehensive terms. The Redeemer, having once con- stituted himself a pastor, is always a pastor ; but the word pastor is not enough "Bishop" is added; and "bishop" implies rule, au- 212 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. thority, and permanent government ; and it was worthy of Peter, the chief of the apostolic band, to explain and condense in such brief but expressive terms the whole office and ministry of the Son of God. What did he mean ? Simply that air episcopacy, all min- istry, all priesthood, all deaconship, all species of order, claiming, or having a right to claim, a divine commission, must be derived from the plenitude of the episcopacy which flows from its divine Author. In Him episcopacy is infinite. It is His of right. It is His accord- ing to the attributes of the divine nature, exercised in His human nature for the purpose of accomplishing the end of the incarnation. All other episcopacy is derived from that. And how is it derived ? Christ, without dividing the plenitude of episcopacy in his own character, communicated it first to his Apostles, and ordained that they should have the favor and the right, as the wants of the Church required, to communicate it to other parties, and to leave to their successors the same favor and right of communication after their death. He did not part with episcopacy because He communicated it; nor did they, when they imposed upon a new Apostle the bonds of solemn consecration, part with any portion of it. The Conse- crator loses none of the portion of the episcopacy, which is his yet how can I say portion ? It flows from Christ the Infinite ; it is in- capable of being divided. Many may be appointed to partake of it, but it is itself indivisible ; it may be extended to the ends of the earth, as the wants of God's people require ; but it is not diminished, drawn out, or made less by its extension. On a day like this, it is not at all improper to cast a look back on the circumstances of the origin and primitive divine charter of the Christian and Catholic Church. If we would, in the darkness of our own mind, light a lamp to guide our feet, where can we light it so well, even if it be but a taper, as at the sun which illuminates all ? Every one in the least familiar with scriptural history, the corres- pondence with it of ecclesiastical history, the traditions of our Church and her usages (as displayed here to-day), will know that our divine Saviour, from among his disciples at large, selected a certain number that were yet more near to him than the multitude, and that from those he chose twelve Apostles. Himself was an Apostle. He was (if I may so speak), in the first instance, an Apostle of the Church of Jerusalem ; but, with consequences of that apostolate, of the whole world and of all generations, He was a Bishop. He was an Apostle, for " apostle " means " one sent ;" and you all know what emphasis He laid on His divine mission. But sent by whom? By a person having no authority? No. His eternal Father sent him, with authority, and so he selected those twelve and sent them, as He had Himself been sent. He speaks of their power as of His own ; and sometimes remarked that greater things than He had done they should do. How could this be, un- less He extended to them, through election and communication, that true and undivided episcopacy which the Apostle St. Peter has so briefly but fully and comprehensively described, and which none of SERMONS. 213 the others possessed in the same plenitude. In the first instance, the twelve were all equal with this difference, that every inspired writer begins the enumeration of the Apostles with the name of Peter ; and if any thing is to be said, Peter always speaks in the name of the rest. But, after communicating to them unitedly a communication in his own episcopacy and apostleship, He then ex- tended to St. Peter prerogatives singular and personal which He had not before conferred, nor did He afterwards confer on the others. He did not, however, Himself accomplish the fulness (if I may so term it) of this office. Before the ascension, He spoke of the ne- cessity of sending to the Apostles the Comforter, or Paraclete, who should bring to their minds all things requisite. He told them to remain ; and from the Ascension to the day of Pentecost, we may look upon those Apostles (to use a term which we now employ) as Bishops elect. The descent on them of the Holy Ghost, in the visi- ble form of fiery tongues, was required ; when the Holy Ghost so descended, then they w r ere consecrated, and then was given to them the power to communicate to their successors the same spirit com- municated to them by God in this extraordinary manner. The lim- its of my time will not permit a full development of all that presents itself on the subject. Suffice it to say, among the Twelve, Christ had chosen one Judas; though chosen by Christ, Judas fell, and after Christ had ascended into heaven, the Apostles immediately felt it was their prerogative to select and consecrate one instead of the fallen Apostle. Peter, of course, takes the lead ; he presents the subject, confirms the choice, and Matthias becomes one of the Apos- tles. Afterwards, by an extraordinary vocation, Saul, the perse- cutor, is overcome by the divine power, struck down by the Truth which he had opposed, raised up bythe hand of God, and consti- tuted an Apostle ; an Apostle, be it observed ; not as an independent character, not unconnected with the corporation, but as a partaker of the same power (a power attested by the performance of extra- ordinary miracles) given to the first Apostles themselves. Now Paul, thus converted to God, to prove the ardor of an Apostle, has no limits to his labors, or the success with which God crowned them. He ranges from city to city, from province to province, an Apostle that is " sent." But, if you read his labors, you will imme- diately perceive that the moment a city or province was gained, he remained no longer in that city or province, but made others par- takers of his apostleship. Thus Titus and Timothy were made Apostles, partaking the power originally communicated by Christ to the Twelve. But there is this difference, the Apostles were sent to an unbelieving and corrupt world, and, as an evidence of their mission in the first instance, were invested with, miraculous power. To their labors no limits were assigned ; the province which they were to convert, either actually or through their successors, was the whole earth ; their mission extended to all ages. The expectation which the divine promise had excited would not have been re- sponded to had they stopped in the midst of their career, to be 214: AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. Bishops of the flocks whom they had brought into the fold of Christ. Everywhere they went as conquerors. They appointed a Bishop, and the limitation of his apostleship, which is now called the diocese. Titus was limited to one place, Timothy to another. Peter established Christianity at Antioch (where the followers of our Saviour were 1 first called Christians), but he was not content to remain there; he passed' on to Alexandria, and there founded another glorious Church. Then he goes to attack paganism at its very headquarters; for he is sent a conqueror. He establishes the Church of Rome. And while every other See founded by the Apostles is destroyed, or almost entirely so, time has spared that founded by Saint Peter, where he remained, and crowned his apos- tolate by a glorious martyrdom under the Emperor Nero. What, then, is the difference between Apostles and Bishops ? None but this : There is but one episcopacy through all time and place, and every Bishop, by right and consecration, is a partaker of the Apos- tleship. In the next place, we perceive that these primitive Apostolical Sees became the headquarters (so to speak) of the Christian religion in the several countries where they were established. Thus Antioch Alexandria, Ephesus, and other places, became great central and radiating points of Christianity ; and the local Bishop there, in communion with his colleagues, penetrated into the provinces, and multiplied centres of the Episcopacy, in order that those professing the faith should not be too far removed from the points in which authority for the faith they professed resided. In proportion as those subsequent Sees increased, the See whence they had been de- rived acquired more ecclesiastical prominence, so as to be called the Patriarchal, or Metropolitan See, and the other Sees paid a species of deferential submission to its authority. Such is the simple his- tory of the transition from Apostleship to Bishopric. Woe to a Bishop if he be not sent ! The words are, " Go, and preach the Gospel." Who says "go?" He that was authorized. It is not only grateful, but it is consoling to know that the spectacle of this day is but a continuation of the primitive consecration of Bishops. Time and change have disturbed the whole social and political order of the world ; but this stream of divine origin^ still flows in every direction, like the waters of the rivers of God in the garden of paradise, which flowed north and south, and east and west. Christ is the reservoir, and wherever the stream runs it blesses the land, and blesses the people who acknowledge the source from which it rises. Is not the spectacle of this day a sermon quite sufficient ? Many of you remember when there was no Bishop in New York, and no great motive for a Bishop coming here. But the successor of St. Peter, casting his eye over the earth, perceived a necessity for not leaving the few Catholics who were then here without a Pastor and Bishop of their souls. Here one was sent. What were the Catho- lics at that time? It was, I believe, in 1816, and through the SERMONS. 215 greater part of New Jersey and the whole of New York, they were supposed to be from ten to sixteen thousand poor and scattered foreigners ; yet they were too many to be neglected. How many were his colleagues (priests), to assist and support him ? Only three ! Time has passed on. The first Bishop was soon succeeded by another, for death removed him ; and the second by another, who will soon be removed. Nevertheless, the faith radiating from this centre, passed through this State and New Jersey, from hamlet to hamlet, from village to village, from city to city ; until now, what was then so insignificant a Bishopric, is a Metropolitan See ; and however unworthy the occupant of that See, he will not, on that ac- count, restrain the expression of his pride, at least his great re- ligious joy, at perceiving within the seven past years, four illustrious Sees, offshoots from the primitive one established in New York in 1816. There has been a similar change in the Diocese of Boston. So that there are now nine Bishops in a region where, about six years ago, there were but two. Thus have we examples inciting us to go on, spreading, through the ambassadors of God, the plenitude of Christ's episcopacy to the ends of the earth. Whose episcopacy is ours ? Whence can it have come, if not from a divine source ? The apostleship was extended. There was one Apostle the superior of all in jurisdiction and authority. To him and all his successors was given the power of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. He and they were charged with a commission reaching to the present day. Our divine Master declared that Satan desired to have the entire Apostolic College : " Satan hath desired to have you, that he may silt you as wheat;" and then turning to this one, He said, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith change not, and thou being once con- verted, confirm thy brethren." This, the edifice in which we trust, is sure in its foundation, magnificent in its structure, and reaches to the sky. Was not Christ's mission one of universality ? But take away the foundation thus provided, and universality, community, cannot by any possibility exist. They speak of Branches, taking their com- parison from a tree. But all the branches must derive life from a root. What would you say of a cluster of branches gathered into one heap, without a living organization ? Where would be their vitality ? And thus the Church of God must draw its existence from one root, and one alone. Even the system of our world was a puzzle, until one centre was discovered. The astronomer, starting from the principle of unity, traces the laws of a creation. There must be unity unity in every thing in the human soul, in the family, in the city, in the State. Wherever there is not unity, there is confusion. What else can there be? And you, Most Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers (said the Archbishop, turning towards the sanctuary), if you were not in communion with the successor of St. Peter, you would be so many scattered individuals, each liable to be led away by his own fancies, as they might be opposed to those of his brothers. You would be as stones brought together by an architect who had not prepared them, so that they would fit, 216 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. eacl) to another. He might find two to fit, but he would not find a third ; lie might find three, but he would not find a fourth. The very spectacle of to-day proves the simplicity of the design of God, and warns us not to be wiser than it is needful to be wise. You take at once, and without hesitation, your places. You have no comparison of doctrinal views to make ; no inquiries as to the party to which, you belong, for there is no party in the Church of God. How could there be, when in that Church Christ is the source of Catholic union ? Look at the brilliant examples given here. Here are three Bishops, natives of three different nations ; here is a dis- tinguished consecrator, a native of another. And they meet here, not strangers nor foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the Saints, built on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the corner-stone. And hence it sounds barbarous to a Catholic ear to hear of n foreign religion, as if God were not for all as if His faith were the production of a single soil or clime! There are no foreigners there is no distinction in the Church of God. The episcopacy given to St. Peter, and dispensed by him, as rays are traced back to the sun, is traced back to him ; and there, in him, we are all united, all at home. Even in the small number here, there is a sufficient type and evidence of the universality, the universal unity of the Catholic Church. Here you may regard the type of the episcopal arch, where one stone is built in fitting har- mony with another. One may be larger, more or less polished than another; but all are fitted into the great work of the Catholic hierarchy, the strength and keystone of which is the successor of St. Peter. Were that keystone wanting, all would fall to pieces, and you might trace, the ruin without being able to account for the cause. I am aware it is said, and it has passed, in the minds of some, into a truism, that to be subject in spiritual matters to the supremacy of the Pope, is to be necessarily a slave ; for, so far as the order of the episcopacy is concerned, the Pope is only a Bishop, and to submit to him is to relinquish a portion of individual freedom. Now, out of the Catholic Church, the special commission to Peter is ignored, or receives no explanation that I could ever hear. But leaving that, nowhere, save in communion with the See of Rome, can any Bishop exercise his episcopacy with true freedom. Need I prove this ? It needs no proof. There have been heretics, such as the Arians, and Nestorians, and Eutychians. Some have preserved their episcopacy ; but what an episcopacy ! Some, without being here- tics, have been prompted by pride to oppose the Pope. Look at the Greek Church. What is it ? Subject to the nod of the Czar. He is said to be, in his private life, a good man, but with his iron will he controls that Church as he does his army. What kind of Bishops are they in that Church ? I do not deny the possibility of their being real Bishops ; but how can they exercise with freedom the functions exercised by the Apostles ? The Apostles respected the temporal authority, but asked no privileges of it. They asked no permission to enter a pagan empire, and preach Christ therein. SERMONS. 217 Why ?$ Because they were Apostles who recognized but one centre and one authority for their mission. Pass to another country where the civil power is not despotic, but supposed to be constitutional. Look at its Sees, which of old were proud and contentious. Canter- bury was punctilious in its obedience to the Pope ; yet contention was frequent in Canterbury and York. But, since the Pope has been discarded, and they have fallen under the authority of the Prime Minister, Canterbury is quiet, tame ; it and its appendages are passive ! For want of the strong arm of St. Peter, a Presbyter, in the presence of his Bishop, may deny the importance of baptism. Pass to another country, where the civil power does not meddle with such things. What will we see there ? Questions appertain- ing to Bishops brought to trial. And what is the freedom of the accused? He falls undetthe caprice and predjudice which may happen to influence the m^ority of his colleagues. He may deserve or not their condemnation.but he will feel the irresponsible tyr- anny of the majority; he rmist cringe, or be crushed. No; there is neither freedom nor episcopal dignity separate from the centre of Christian unity. This is not broken, as if Christian unity were the decree of wise men. It is the plan of the divine Archi- tect. The scene of this day may be viewed as affording a picture of the whole Catholic Church. I view it with mingled sadness and satisfac- tion. With you, my friends, I feel sadness at losing two priests to whom you have been deservedly attached, the Right Reverend Bishop of Brooklyn, and the Right Revei-end Bishop of Newark. One has ministered among you for fourteen or fifteen years. I need not say any thing of him, except that night and day, at early dawn and late at eve, and throughout the day, his ministry has occupied him ; he has attended to your sanctification, waited on your sick beds, and instructed your children. Besides, he has been to me a kind friend ; for several years he has been my vicar-general ; and I am not going to enlarge on feelings which should be mine even more than yours, were I to speak of regret at his elevation to a su- perior post. The other is endeared to us by circumstances of a dif- ferent kind. Although in early life he Avas not brought up in the unity of the Christian fold, yet the simplicity of his heart, and the Tightness of his intentions, led him to where simplicity of faith is alone to be found. I had not seen him till I saw him in Europe, in 1843. Previously he had been in the Seminary of Saint Sulpice. His superiors, who had a high idea of his merits, asked me to let him be ordained there ; but I refused, as circumstances seemed to me to require that he should return to his own country, and be among his own family. He spent a brief time in our seminary, and there he was ordained, at this same altar whereat he is now consecrated. He took the Lord for his portion, and for the lot of his inheritance; and the world took him at his word, and left him no other. The duties of his holy office absorbed him ; yet every hour he could spare was devoted to what class ? He may be surprised when I 218 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. say that he had a clientele of his own ; poor bound boys and appren- tice girls, to whom he gave many a day and hour in instructing them. He was my Secretary; and considering the great amount of business thrown on the Bishop of New York, and my incapacity to attend to it, I will say briefly that the diocese of New York owes a debt of gratitude to the Bishop of Newark. A third has been ap- pointed Bishop of Burlington in Vermont ; the Right Reverend Doc- tor de Goesbriand, well known throughout the Church in this country, and deeply regretted in the late missions, which have been rendered fruitful by his apostolic labors, has come from a distance to bear his distinguished part in the ceremonies of to-day. I have no doubt that there is many a growing hamlet and village in the northwestern part of New York, whose grief for their lost pastor is the best trib- ute to his zeal, self-denial, and Christian devotion. Our cathedral is particularly honored ^o-day by the presence of many illustrious prelates from different pArts of the country. For myself, and in the name of the people^onored by the presence of so many illustrious prelates, I return them thanks. But there is one in particular to whom I must tender my most profound thanks the consecrating prelate, the distinguished Nuncio, who stands so de- servedly high in the confidence of our present father, Pius IX. He has taken from my shoulders a burden in giving us the honor of his presence and ministry to-day. To all these, I know, dearly beloved brethren, that, with me, you feel grateful. I now close this sermon, which has been longer than the state of my health, and the length of the ceremony rendered advisable. This illustrious consecrating prelate will impart to you the Apostolic benediction. The blessing of God, I hope, will accompany the new prelates to their Sees, and may the same blessing, gushing forth like living waters, rest on all the people of God! Let them not be afraid, auspice Maria. Let us remember the ministry in this coun- try is placed under the special protection of the Virgin Mother of God. I wish to add a few words: The clergy and laity of New York have been desirous to pay their respects in some formal manner to the distinguished apostolical guest now present amongst us. Here- tofore, it has not been in my power to fix a time for the discharge of that pleasing duty, as his advents were generally unexpected and unannounced, and his departures more sudden than he himself an- ticipated. But now I am permitted to say that he will remain in New York during the present week, and, perhaps the greater por- tion of the next ; and as he has kindly accepted the invitation to viit several establishments for Christian education schools, and as many churches as it will be possible ; on this occasion there will be an opportunity for the clergy and people of those different churches and institutions to present to him those expressions of profound re- spect which are due to his own personal merit, but which he will still more willingly accept in the name of that illustrious Pontiff, whose representative he is. SERMONS. 219 SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETURN FROM CUBA, DELIVERED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, MAY, 1854. " I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own sheep they are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and flieth ; and the wolf snatcheth and scattereth the sheep ; and the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling : and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd ; and I know mine, and mine know me ; as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father : and I lay down my life for my sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold : them also I must bring ; and they shall hear my voice : and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." JOHN X. 11-16. THE first words which find utterance on this occasion, prompted by the feelings of the heart, are, on my part, words of gratitude to Almighty God for His protection and good providence during that period in which I have been absent from the post that is so dear to my heart; gratitude to God for the accomplishment of the object of that absence; and I shall extend this expression of gratitude to the people among whom I have sojourned, for nothing could be more soothing to an invalid at any time, although to me so unexpected, than the attention and kindness which I everywhere received. I was not among strangers, but among friends ; and a friendship so delicate, so studious to anticipate every wish, I never experienced, nor did I suppose possible. Towards those I should give public ex- pression of my gratitude. I need not enter into details ; but there is one in particular the amiable, the learned, and saintly Bishop of Havana to whom I feel under obligations which it will never be in my power to repay. Nor to those alone should I express my grati- tude, for it seemed as if all combined to take away from absence the feelings with which it is accompanied. I knew, indeed, before I left, that many prayers were offered for -me; that orphans raised their hands and hearts to God ; religious communities here you, your- selves all took an interest in the occasion which prompted my de- parture ; and not only you, but, to my astonishment, I may say in the South, in the West, and in the East, prayers have been offered up constantly for a health and a life so unimportant as mine. For all this I ought to be grateful, as well as for my preservation from accident by sea and land. In the midst of multitudinous accidents God has protected me ; nor will I say that this happy result is solely due to the delicious climates in which I have sojourned for a time, but still more to the prayers that God has heard and hearkened to prayers that have been answered so effectively. I am also grateful that during my absence nothing has occurred calculated to inflict deep sorrow. The faithful have persevered in that steady course of upright conduct which has won for them the respect of those who have no sympathy with their creed. The clergy, also, under the 220 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. prudent guidance of him who was charged with the administration of the diocese in my absence, have deserved well of their flocks for their zealous care ; and all that rises after those four months as a subject of regret, is the absence of some to whom our people had been long in the habit of looking up for a certain amount of protec- tion and patronage. Death, the destroyer, has been among you, and in this particular instance lias selected from among the laity men advanced in life, whose zeal for the interests of the community to whic1i they were so much attached, render them ornaments to this community. They have been called hence ; and while we feel that their absence leaves a chasm, a void, we may not cease to hope that others will take their place in' the high sphere of usefulness to which they had devoted a large portion of their lives, their talents, and their paeans. This is the only regret I feel to find that death has been among you, selecting from the laity those whom we mi^ht be least disposed to spare ; and also from among the clergy those who were in the prime of their youth, whose years seemed to prom- ise the commencement of a long career of usefulness in the service of God. But this ia nothing new in the world it is a continuation of what has been, and is but introductory to what will be ; but God never permits us, even if we should be negligent in the performance of our duty, to remain long unadmonished, not merely by the word of the minister of religion, but by a more direct warning an in- timation of what we are, whence we came, and whither we are tending. In reading this gospel our minds are directed to a subject of ex- ceeding importance to us, namely that God, in whom are all attri- butes infinitely perfect, has one attribute which He has communi- cated in part to His creatures, without divesting himself of its fulness. He is the pastor by excellence, yet He has communicated that pastor- ship to others in the organization of the Church ; he has sent others on that same divine mission He came to fulfil. He has constituted other pastors with Him, who are acting by His authority and in His name, so that their pastorship is undistinguished from His own. Thus it is that in all that pertains to religion, man, if disposed to do what is right, has ample grounds of hope, because he has to deal with One who desires his salvation, and who has provided and brought within his reach all the means necessary to ita accomplish- ment. Neither is it to be supposed that this power of pastorship is limited to those especially consecrated to the ministry in fact, all power on the earth is of God ; and whether it be that of the sove- reign or the rulers, or whether it be that of the father of the family, whether it be that of the owner of slaves, or that of the masters of those who are temporarily placed in that position by their own volun- tary act, there is throughout all this an extension of the pastorship of God, and it is that it may be employed for His glory that we find it thus distributed among men. Then, if men have this authority over others, whether it be over children, or slaves, or servants, they have power, and that power is from God ; and because it is from SEKMONS. 221 God it is to be respected, on the principle of conscience, by those who are subject to it. But, as Christians, how would you mistake the nature of that power it' you were to suppose it simply the result of good fortune, the recompense of your own industry, that you should be placed in the position of superior and master ! Xo ; it is not for this purpose that they are bound, by a principle of conscience, to hearken to your authority, to obey your will in matters consistent with the will of God ; but they know, if they understand their religion, that the power you exercise is but a portion of the supreme power that be- longs to God. I would, therefore, call your attention to-day to this subject, because on a proper understanding of it, and on a discharge of the duties it implies, depend the hope of the rising generation, the renovation of society, and the diffusion of the Spirit of God through all classes. If God has given power to man, it does not follow that he is the owner or proprietor of that power ; he has it with certain duties, and, beyond all question, those who are consti- tuted in power have, at the same time that the power is real that is, from the source of all power a responsibility connected with it which they will do well to pay attention to. Every one who re- gards the constitution of society must observe how God has insured its continuance by a reliance upon those who are, of those who come after them. Man, at his birth, is the most helpless of all living crea- tures, whether as regards the weakness of his body or the feebleness of his intellect; and it is for this reason that God has imparted those feelings to human nature which give play to all the noble impulses and affections that He has planted in our breasts. If, generally speaking, it is an obligation resting on the individual to show kind- ness to a stranger, how much more is it so in domestic relations ! Is not the father of the family invested with the power of God, so that he is a sovereign, commanding and expecting to be obeyed, as he should be? And if this be the case, the question is whether God has given him that privilege that he may seek for pleasure, while others are made to contribute to its gratification : the question is, whether God has distributed His power among men for such mean purposes ? Certainly not. No doubt the master has a right to claim obedience ; but at the same time there is a responsibility which God intended him to ful- fill that he shall extend to those under his authority, and who are liable to be influenced by him, every means by which they shall be enabled also to fulfill the purposes of their being towards Him who created and who redeemed them; instruction, where it is neces- sary ; example ; and, after example, correction. Oh ! dearly beloved brethren, if Christian parents, and employers, and masters were im- pressed with the dignity of their position, with a proper sense of the high trust Providence has deposited in their keeping, how would the whole order of society begin to be renovated by the practice of primitive virtues ! how would servants be encouraged, being pro- vided with the opportunities of learning the truths of their holy re- 222 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. ligion ! It would be the high and glorious privilege of such supe- riors to furnish them with the means of enlarging their minds, and becoming more and more grounded in the principles of their reli- gion. Instruction ! how sad and lamentable is the reflection which this subject awakens, when I look back upon my recent expedience among those little kingdoms, those sovereigns of a family, where six or eight white persons occupied the mansion, and were surrounded by a large body of slaves, four and five and six hundred constituting one great family, in which the master was the sovereign, with a power immense for good or evil ! I do not pretend to say that the responsibility of such a position is overlooked, for I have been de- lighted to perceive and find, in more than one place, that the owner felt the responsibility of his position ; that he had procured the ser- vices of a clergyman ; that instruction from day to day was going on among those who were as dark in their spirit as in their complexion, and incapable almost of understanding, rendering their instruction a tedious task. Nevertheless, God knows their position, and does not hold them responsible for the neglect of opportunities they have never had. Seized in their own countiy, where they lived in igno- rance of God and transported from it, how glorious is the privilege of the master who, in that position, might introduce them to a knowledge of their real dignity, as the redeemed creatures of our common heavenly Father! While we all know that this condition of slavery is an evil, yet it is not an absolute and unmitigated evil ; and even if it were any thing more than what it is a comparative evil there is one thing, that it is infinitely better than the condition in which this people would have been, had they not been seized to gratify the avarice and cupidity of the white man. I have taken pains to inquire of some who were transported to Cuba .during the last three years, whether they wished to return to their own coun- try, and they invariably stated that they did not. The simple rea- son of this is, that they are unprotected there from a perpetual war a war in which mercy to the conquered is unknown, so that the cap- tive is killed the moment he is seized, and it is a mitigation of the penalty of defeat when he is sold into foreign bondage. I have seen those masters impressed with the conviction of what they owed to those creatures, leaving nothing undone that kindness could prompt, at the same time that they provided for all their spiritual and tem- poral wants. And here it is worthy of consideration that the difference in the relations and obligations of those who own slaves, and those who are masters of hired servants, or the parents of children, is rather one of degree than of kind ; the obligation reaches them all, and it is in this way they can use the power which God has given them for the express purpose for which it has been given to them, for instruction, example, and correction. How noble are the prerogatives of an en- lightened man, who has the power and the will to perform the du- ties of a Christian towards those who so greatly depend on him, to prepare them for the discharge of their duties in this life, and fur the SERMONS. 223 eternal glory for which they were created ! Oh ! that we might see the impression of this responsibility brought home to those who have authority in society those who are the sovereigns in the do- mestic circle those who are looked upon as superiors by children for God has implanted in the mind of the child a feeling of reliance upon its parents, an implicit confidence .in their wisdom, in order that it may be an easy task for parents to avail themselves not only of the authority they possess, but of that beautiful disposition which they find in the hearts of the young. Let us all endeavor to imitate the pastorship of the good Shepherd for we are all shepherds, each in his own sphere, each one who has been specially intrusted with the care of others. This beautiful example of our divine Lord should be an encouragement to use our authority for the good of those who are under us ; it should not be used so as to become a ground of condemnation for ourselves, but rather make it an occa- sion for the promotion of our own sanctification, as becomes good shepherds good in our own humble and distant way, far from the great Model, yet imitating Him in the performance of the duties of that pastorship which He has committed to us for the glory and ben- efit of those who are placed under our authority. Thus, dearly be- loved brethren, the ministry of our pastorship will become easy, the disposition which religion requires shall be cultivated around every hearth, and every family become a church, its head the high-priest and king, protecting, guarding, and instructing those who consti- tute the objects of his affection as well as his authority. And as all society is composed' of families, it is obvious, if this practice were universally adopted, the world would be renovated; and we Catho- lics, under the guidance of our own Shepherd, would soon show to the world an example far more powerful than any argument of the schools. The deeds of Christians is the argument that cannot be an- swered; and we should, therefore, become models to each other, in the practice of those Christian virtues which it has been the object of the good Shepherd to cultivate among those of His flock. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICA- TION OF ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, 28th ST., NEW YORK, MAY 21st, 1854. " But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a dper, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and go- eth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but decei / 224: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. eth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." These words, my dear Christian brethren, might seem at first to have but little connection with the solemn and joyous occasion which has brought us this day together before the altar of God. They form the epistle of the Sunday, and though not selected for the ceremony of dedication, they may nevertheless furnish us with reflections altogether appropriate to this solemnity, which ought to excite sentiments of joy and thanksgiving in your hearts, and in the heart of your respected, learned, and zealous pastor, who witnesses to-day the successful accomplishment of his labors and the recom- pense of his many solicitudes. It is to me an occasion of that de- scription, and I do not know how I could better discharge the obli- gations of my ministry than by calling your attention, on this first day of the opening and dedication of St. Stephen's Church, to the purpose for which churches are founded and completed. The Apos- tle, instructing those who had been, by his ministry and that of his associates, converted to the faith of Christ, takes occasion already to warn them against a possible mistake, and he makes a distinction which runs through the whole of that portion of his epistle which you have just heard. He has before the contemplation of his in- spired vision, not only a danger of that period, but a danger which besets the faithful through all time namely, the danger of con- founding true with spurious religion, or taking the profession for the practice, the name for the substance ; and he uses an illustration for this of a person looking at the reflection of his countenance in a mirror, and who, afterwards going forth, forgets " what manner of man he was." So the epistle, speaking of religion, intimates clearly and distinctly that religion, by itself and unfollowed, unsustained, unsupported by the discharge of the obligations which it imposes, is the reality of the metaphor which he employed to imply the possible mistake. And this is very clear; for, if you read another verse, you will find he says that a man who does not know how to bridle his tongue in other words, a person given to detraction, to slander, or uncharitable- ness in speech that such a man deceives not his neighbor his neigh- bor is only scandalized but he deceives his own heart ; and such a man's religion is vain. We can easily understand that religion coming from God cannot be vain. The meaning of the epistle in regard to such a man is, that he has made it what God has not. God intended it to be a reality he has taken from it its substance, and made it a vanity, by M'hich his own heart is seduced. It is not, dearly beloved brethren, that I mean to dwell upon this vice to-day ; but I mean to infer from this mode of reasoning of the inspired Apost.le, that religion, in order to accomplish the ends for which God permitted her to de- scend from the holy heavens to this polluted earth, is not a thing of sentiment merely, but that it is the beginning, the centre, the power that should rule the whole .of life, no part of which is beyond the in- SEEilONS. 225 fluence of its principles. St. James did not speak of every derelic- tion, but he takes one as a sample, and that one by no means rare in the world, and he intimates distinctly that where that one vice, as a sample for it would apply to others far more at variance with the principles of religion ; but he selects this, and intimates that moral rectitude must be the consequence and the practice of a man who receives God's religion, and preserves it as God gave it, not making it vain, and taking away from it its best part and power. And then, on the other hand, by showing an indication in one point of conformity between the practice of the Christian and his religion, he says religion is pure and undefiled; and this is not the whole, but it is also a sample of the correspondence which religion sustains. The point, therefore, to which I would this day direct your atten- tion is, that religion is essential for man ; and that religion in any sense less than that embracing the holy purpose for which it was communicated, is inefficient. These things are particularly necessary to be kept in mind at a time like the present. We live in an age in which there is a wild- ness of speculation, in which every man is a writer, a philosopher, and in which all subjects, all ideas are thrown into a sort of eloquent confusion ; and you must have perfectly clear and distinct views of the whole duty of man, in order that by the possession of them you may be enabled to ward off the stupid sophistry of those who con- tend, on the one side, that the profession of religion is sufficient, and, on the other side, of those who claim that the practice of morality is sufficient. It is well, however, first to understand what is meant by religion. The very word implies its meaning religio, to bind, or re-bind, to re-attach. And what is the meaning of this? That by religion God has given us a bond of union to Himself by which he elevates us towards Him ; by which it is in our power, by His grace, to imitate Him as far as we can. He is all merciful ; He is all just, and makes justice a part of man's duty. He is all truth,, and He tells us that falsehood offends. This is the communication of religion. It binds us fast to God. It is the communication of His. will. It consists, in brief, of three parts; the first of which is. th,e dogma which He has revealed that dogma which the incredulous infidel and skeptic has taken such pains to denounce as unnecessary for man's happiness. And yet that dogma came from God. And this alone is the foundation on whiqh religion itself may be consid- ered as resting, because it is the communication of the knowledge of God as He is, as far as our minds would be capable of compre- hending that communication. This attaches us to God> makes us understand whence we come, for what purpose we exist, and those primary dogmas not opinions, but established revelation j for if opinions were all that could be presented in the name of religion, it would not have been worth while for the people of this congregation to make the sacrifices necessary to erect this structure. If morality can exist in the world without religion, this is a waste of money, as was said by one when the feet of our Saviour were anointed. VOL. II. 15 226 ABCHBISHOP HUGHES. But there is more necessary ; it is the inculcation of divine truth that makes us know God, comprehending the whole range of mys- teries, beginning with original sin down to the Incarnation ; the in- stitution of the holy Eucharist the sacrifice of the Mass the found- ing of the Church of Christ these are mysteries which we have to believe in. But then the graces which we obtain through the merits of Christ are applied to us in the institution of this religion those graces by which He cleanses the soul of the infant from origi- nal sin, and by which He removes the deep stains of sin from the breast of the penitent sinner in the sacrament of penance it is in this part that He gives us the divine sacrament of the altar it is in this part that when the soul is about to take its flight to another world, by the prayer of the priest He cleanses that soul. He would not speak of the affections which these considerations were calculated to awaken of the close union of spirit which sup-, ported the martyrs who had died for Christ of the holy love of those virgins who had devoted themselves to him ; but would come to the next part The outward obligation religion imposes upon all its professors. Religion not only bound us to God, on one hand, but to our fellow- creatures, on the other; for where did we find our duty to our fel- lows but springing out of our duty to God ? The worldly-minded saw religion not as she is, but as reflected in the lives of her pro- fessors; and when they saw these not fulfilling the obligations im- posed, they looked upon religion as horrid ; and seeking out some example of a moral atheist, they contrasted the two, and then preached that men may be moral without the aid of religion. But this was a false deduction. They should not allow their minds to be filled with such doctrine ; and for this reason, that outside of religion there was nothing to be found to direct us what morality is. Some would say, reason was sufficient to direct. Reason, as now with us, had been improved by Christianity. But even so, could reason be relied upon ? Reason, perverted by sin, swayed to and fro by the dark passions of the heart, how could it be a guide to moral actions ? Any rule of morality must, if true, from the nature of things, be universal; it could not be a rule derivable from an indi- vidual. Such a universal and fixed standard was to be found in re- vealed religion alone. The rule which permitted one man to do with a good conscience what Another might not do with a good conscience, could not be a rule for every one. In the first place, religion binds us to God as the author of faith, and then, as a consequence, just as the light comes from the sun, so do all duties rise up in order and harmony ; and the man who has true religion is a man who would be true to God, and to his coun- try next, for next to God, a man's country has a claim upon him ; he will be true to his family, to his neighbor, and to his friend, and he will not be false to his enemy. And all this is the deduction from a simple principle, perfectly resulting from religion ordering our obligations, and thus giving us grace to discharge them, so that SERMON'S. 227 when the period of life shall have passed away, we may be associ- ated with God forever. This is not any new doctrine : it is a doc- trine with which the Fathers of the Church were familiar from a very early period. Tertullian, with that nervousness of style which char- acterized him, almost taunted the persecuting Romans. He said : " You mistake you have a suspicion that our religion will be in- jurious to the empire, but we offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass for you when you are sacrificing our martyrs ; when you are shedding our blood, we pray for your Caesar ; we offer ourselves to aid you in repairing any disasters, when you are careless about them ; we go into your armies and fight your battles, when your own people refuse." We find St. Chrysostom enlarging upon the same subject, and showing that no society can exist without religion ; that there is no security even in the temporal order for that is the point of view from which I am regarding this subject and he gives as a reason for it, that when God revealed religion, this was His teaching. When He permitted, as a punishment, a nation to be involved in idolatry, still He preserved the idea of religion ; and I invoke the testimony of all mankind, and of all ages and creeds and sects, for the proof of this fact that, according to the testimony of mankind, there is no standard of morality in principle or honor, apart from religion, that can constitute a basis of safety for society, or protec- tion for the rights of man. And what is the proof? It is before our eyes at this very day. Those men say that honor would prevent them from the commission of a sin or crime ; that it would make them ashamed to do a mean act ; but with all that, they oblige the incumbent of office to begin by an act of religion in taking an oath. This is because his reason and principle of honor are not deemed sufficient. And that act of the oath to discharge the duties of his office can be traced back to the pagan times, for God allowed the feeling to remain in the human heart. Therefore, let not the idea enter your minds of receiving that cant, that religion is something for Sundays very good for private purposes. That is vain religion, or, rather, infidelity. And a vain religion is what would imply all these obligations, and yet conduct varying from them. Let us ap- preciate duly this distinction, for this church is this day dedicated to God for the purpose of perpetuating religion, so important in the attainment of your salvation so important in the hopes of your rising families so important to you in the prospective view of your old age. In short, if you take away the basis of religion, morality is at an end. I do not mean to say that every man will go to the whole extent of immorality, but I mean to say there will be no foundation left; that there are certain prime tests which may invade any man's breast, in which neither honor nor principle will sustain him. There are certain means which man may adopt to obtain high offices, which religion forbids the use of. What are those prin- ciples of honor which you talk of but the principles infused into the world by the Catholic Church, and which have penetrated into so- 228 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. ciety that no longer recognizes the authority, the source from which they emanated ? Understand that no amount of piety will be suffi- cient in the sight of God if these every-day practical duties are neg- lected. Cherish religion as the basis and rule of moral life; cherish it as the prospective safety of your country, for what would become of you if your honor or your principles were at the mercy of infi- dels ? Even Voltaire trembled when he thought of communities professing the principles that he professed ; but they are still very rife, and even as rife in this city as in any other part of the world. Be on your guard against them ; remember, religion is not a the- ory it is that by which you reinvigorate your hearts. But then your service to God does not end with your sacred interview with Him in the holy place; you must discharge all those duties that fami- lies and friends deserve at your hands, that they may thus under- stand that the practice of religion is the surest guard for the safety of their country. SERMON ON THE OPENING OF THE FIRST PRO- VINCIAL COUNCIL OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1st, 1854. I READ from the Gospel of this day, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, the twenty-second chapter of Matthew, beginning with the thirty-fifth verse. " And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him : Master, which is the great commandment of the law ? Jesus said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like unto this : thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets." The first provincial council of the ecclesiastical province of New York is about to be solemnly opened under the invocation of the Spirit of God, which you have been all requested to pray for during these weeks past, for unless God guide our deliberations they will not have His blessing. It will also be opened under the solemn in- vocation of the power of the prayers and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the immaculate mother of our Redeemer. It is an event in the history of the^hurch in this country. There are there must be many within the sound of my voice who recollect the time when there was no bishop in all that is now this province, and scarcely more than two or three priests. Contrasting the memory of that day with the spectacle which you now witness, these persons must be struck with the wonderful development and progress which re- ligion has made within this interval. There is, indeed, no new SERMONS. 229 question of faith, or of doctrine, to be discussed in our assembly. There is no rising heresy to be met by the testimony of the bishops and pastors of the Catholic Church. But the new relations which have sprung up in consequence of the multiplicity of bishoprics, and, of course, the great increase of boundaries between one diocese and another, has rendered it expedient that these venerable prelates should assemble, and that we should take counsel together under the invocation of that divine Spirit of God as to the things which make for the peace of Sion, the order of the house of God, and the beauty of Jerusalem. And although there be no question of doc- trine before this council, there are many things which require that kind of regulation which is provided for in the economy and disci- pline of the Catholic Church; boundaries and the relations between one diocese and another to be settled, so that there may be no con- fusion ; an increased and growing zeal is to be encouraged among the clergy; the extension on every side of the knowledge of the truth, and the means by which men may come into closer communion with their God, and by which they may be enabled to accomplish their own salvation. These are matters which must occupy the attention of the assem- bled fathers during the few days that we shall have the happiness to be together, and, with them, of their learned theologians who bring into this council the experience of their ministry among the people for years, and who are enabled to present their views as to the breaches of discipline to be repaired, what order touching sacred things is to be vindicated and established, so as to bring every thing into perfect uniformity with the general discipline of the Catholic Church. On such an auspicious occasion how would it be pos- sible for me to have selected words from the sacred Scriptures more appropriate than those which the very Gospel of the day as read in the Mass has furnished, and which you have just heard ? For, after all, whatever else may come as consequences, the primary ob- ject is to set before you the words of our divine Saviour to those who interrogated Him, not from a sincere desire of truth, but, as often before under other circumstances, to entrap Him in His words. A law- yer inquired of Him which was the great commandment, as if he were prepared to follow it the moment he heard what it was ; and our divine Saviour, in a few words, in that simple, touching, but full and complete style which was peculiar to him as the divine Teacher, answered : " There are two ; or, rather, one with a consequence, and that one is, to love God with one's whole heart, with one's whole soul, with one's whole mind. This is the first and greatest." And you will observe that our divine Redeemer speaks only partially of the other, as if it was in its very nature a conse- quence of the one laid down, and to impress upon those who heard him and upon us, for these words were not spoken for the lawyer, but for his disciples of all ages, to impress upon him, and upon us, that the man who loves God as God alone deserves to be loved, cannot avoid loving his neighbor as himself. If, then, this be the 230 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. whole of the law and the prophets, how would it be possible to con- dense into briefer language the great end for which councils are generally called, for which the ministry is appointed, for which the sacraments have been instituted, for which God sent forth to all the world teachers to echo and to re-echo, and to continue to echo these eter- nal truths to the end of time ? And therefore it is that in the fe\v re- marks which I shall make, I shall call your attention to that partic- ular precept of our divine Saviour. It is the sum of Christian pro- priety ; it is the perfection of the evangelical law ; it is the fulness of the spirit of divine Christian love ; it is what ought to be the study of all who profess to be the disciples of the Son of God ; to love God. And why ? Need I unfold at any length the motives which should induce the creature to love and adore the Creator ? Would it be necessary for me to explain to you how God, in this amiable- ness, this loveliness, is infinitely amiable ? how, in short, by a law peculiar to His own being infinite in that as in all other attributes fle has prepared the hearts of men that is, endowed them with a capacity for that highest and most sacred of all precepts ? how He has made love an essential want of the human soul, and how he has stamped the difference between that love which has Himself and His infinitely perfect attributes for its object, and all other loves ? how all other loves disappoint, and how they pass away? how they are fleeting ? how they are unsubstantial, though sometimes delusive ? how the love of honor is but the glitter which tempts the imagination and the poor wandering mind of man '? how wealth, if men love wealth the basest species of love beyond the reasonable wants of human nature, is incapable of satisfying ? how it disappoints and corrodes, and cannot return any thing like happiness to the man who sacrifices the power of a noble heart at the shrine of that base idol ; how all these species of love, of human love, even the love of parents, must pass away and die out ; and then nothing remains of that heart which God made so capable of love, except himself? It was the remark of Saint Augustine that God had made the heart of man for obedience to this precept, and made it under such a law that it never can find rest till it rest in the centre of all perfection, and in the source of all that is holy and beautiful that is, in God himself. Besides, need I say more, when we know that day by day we are so dependent on the sustaining arm of that almighty Being, that it requires the same power to sustain us hour by hour which it did to create us, or to create the world ; that we live and move only by His permission, and that no matter how we may flatter and deceive ourselves in supposing that we are the architects of our own prosperity, and that we are the framers and the projectors of our own good fortune ? Let us not be deceived; it is by the permission of God that we so prosper ; but that permission is connected with a responsibility. The only thing is, that we should remember that we are at all times instantaneously and constantly dependent on the support of that almighty and perfect Father who has created and who sustains us. Need I say more ? Again, when our race fell from innocence ; SEBMONS. 231 when God had endowed it with the attribute, the only one that would enable it to render Him homage, according to that nature which He has given us, according to that intellect, that capacity for love, and that moral being when the race, I say, fell from that state of innocence, has He ceased to look after us? On the con- trary, has He not sent His only-begotten Son to reinstate us, if we will, in the inheritance which we had forfeited, either by original sin or by our own actual transgressions? Under these circum- stances there is no necessity to urge the reasons why we should love God above all things, because he is incomparable. There is no thing that can be compared to him. He is the one God, and there is no other to whom He can be compared a Being infinite, perfect, and the source of all that we are and of all that we have, both in the order of nature and in the order of grace. We owe to Him if we have the slightest capacity to interpret in the slightest degree the very speakings and throbbings of our own hearts ; we owe to Him that love, and love less than that here described is not worthy of God. But that other part to which our divine Saviour refers to love our neighbor as ourselves He deduces as a conse- quence, partly distinct, but having one common origin. And the rea- son of that is manifest. We are all God's children. We are bound to love our Father, and if we are bound to love our Father, then, for our Father's sake, we are bound to love each other. That is clear. The light of reason comprehends it instantly, and here is the motive which distinguishes charity from other species of affec- tion. I know that it is common to speak of philanthropy and phi- lanthropy is a beautiful pagan sentiment. But there is not a parti- cle of charity in the word philanthropy alone. Philanthropy is a sentiment that is capricious. A man may say, and take great com- placency in thinking, that he loves all mankind, and that he loves them all alike. But when he comes to the experience, day by day, of the varieties of character which he will meet, and of the antag- onism and the opposition of sentiment, he will soon find that he is under the caprice of his own unstable feelings and of his own un- stable heart ; and consequently that he is guideless and starless on that broad ocean which he calls philanthropy. He is propelling his own bark if you will and is pleased with the progress he is making : but he has no guide and no rudder to steer by ; he has no point in view and has no point of departure. Philanthropy is a sentiment fickle and changeable as the human heart and the human mind ; whereas, if you take charity, you have God always as the star, the bright, ever-shining star to guide your course, because he is entitled to your love. Your fellow-man may be unworthy in a certain sense ; he may be one who has not those peculiar qualities which are calculated to at- tract, but rather to repel and disgust ; still, when he falls under the eye of divine charity, charity beholds in him the image of God, the Creator and Father of all, and one redeemed by the blood of Christ ; and from that moment, all that natural repulsiveness disappears, and 232 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Christ springs up to the eye of faith, and charity ministers to Him as its own divine office. Hence, my dearly beloved brethren, the first precept of Christ is charity. But I speak now more particularly of chanty among men, and I need not enlarge my remarks to ex- plain how it is that charity this Christian charity of which I speak is inconsistent with a certain interesteduess, or, I may call it by a lower word still, selfishness, which is the enemy of charity, and of course, the enemy of the peace of mankind. Charity is disinter- ested. u Charity," says the Apostle, " seeketh not its own ; it be- lieveth all things ; it hopeth all things." Charity hath its original mo- tive too elevated to be disturbed by those reasons which would repel and break up all the pretended benevolence of simple philanthropy. If we look for the perfect image of charity, we shall find it in our divine Saviour Himself. What is our belief in respect to Him ? That, for our sakes, He put away all that which could be called self- interest. He was rich and glorious in heaven as He was in the be- ginning as " the Word with God." He was God, and He made Him- self man, in order that in our nature, by a union of the divine with the human, He might redeem us. But at what sacrifice ? Oh, who is it that can study the love of our divine Redeemer, and witness the humiliation to which He subjected Himself, even before His last agonizing hour, and not say that there is charity that there is per- fect charity that there is the model of charity ? He has not left it unsaid, " A new commandment I give unto you ; and this is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you." This precept of charity, therefore, is not simply a sentiment nor a work of supererogation which Christians can perform or can leave un- performed without crime. It is a positive commandment of our divine Redeemer. It is His commandment ; and so much so that He has said, "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." HOW T can we then love one another how can we exercise that universal and beautiful precept of Christian charity, it' every man keeps selfishness in his own heart, and cares not for his neigh- bor. What is it that augments disturbance in families'? Some- times the merest trifle, sometimes a word thoughtlessly spoken, or improperly interpreted ; and thus little and little, that natural and perverse feeling of selfishness acts in one breast and acts in another, till alienation and alienation gradully becoming greater and greater is the consequence. At last comes the spirit of vindictive- ness, sometimes showing as if the demon had taken possession of that heart which Christ should have sanctified. It is so in do- mestic life ; it is so in social life ; it is the origin of wars between nations; it is the origin of civil strife; it is the curse of mankind; it is the triumph of old Adam over our divine Saviour. And every Christian who would be a true disciple of the Son of God, must study to banish and remove that selfishness, as a principle of his na- ture, corrupt in itself, and. antagonistic to the Divine and beautiful virtue of Christian charity. By Christian charity we love our neigh- bor. And who is our neighbor ? Those that we have associations SERMONS. 233 with are intimately our neighbors; those of our city are our neigh- bors; those of our country are our neighbors; those of the whole earth are our neighbors. Whoever is made to the image and like- ness of God is man's neighbor; and to him, man that is, a Chris- tian man if he follow the precepts of his divine Master, owes all the sacred obligations of Christian charity. Nay, has He not com- manded us to love our enemies ? and this is so much, that pagans formerly regarded Christianity as an absurdity, because it command- ed what was impossible. Is it not impossible ? Proofs are innumerable, in ecclesiastical his- tory, of its exercise. If they supposed if they understood that this love of our enemies, this doing good to those who hated ns, praying for those who persecuted us, consisted, like philanthropy, in a certain sympathetic affection towards our enemies, this were another question. But our divine Saviour has not made the princi- ples of Christian virtue and Christian excellence dependent upon any basis so fluctuating as a mere sentiment of the human breast. Char- ity is an eternal principle. I have already suggested that, when say- ing that in God you see the motives why you should love your enemy, because he is God's creature, and God loves him as well as you ; if he commits an error, the common Father waits for his conver- sion, and you need not be less indulgent. It cannot be expected, there- fore, that you should entertain or express towards him the senti- ments that bind the nearest relations of social or domestic life. It is not the sensibility of the father or mother towards their children, but it is a principle stronger than sensibility, for sensibility is something variable. But when God is eternally God, and eternally perfect, and eternally the father of all, and He commands you to love your enemy in the sense of wishing him well, and of doing him good, if He stand in need of it, and if it were in your power to do it then the pre- cept is not only possible, but feasible and delightful. It is a luxury to a man who is so imbued with a spirit of Christian love that he can exercise that virtue. Thus, dearly beloved brethren, in all our relations, this precept of brotherly love is one that ought to be cher- ished ; and that other antagonistic principle of selfishness, when a man shuts his eyes to all that is foreign from himself, and thinks of himself alone, lives for himself alone, labors for himself, and, at all times, even to the extent, perhaps, of absolute injustice, prefers his own personal interests to the interests of his neighbor, oh, this man knows not what is Christian charity. Christian charity is dis- interested, it is broad, it is expansive, it takes in all that God has cre- ated, no matter whether we may have been acquainted with them or not. For it is remarkable, as I observed before, that the capacity of the human heart seems to be something infinite. You can love all that you know your country, the people of all other countries and when you have embraced the whole globe, there is still a superfluity of capacity for love in that heart, by which you can love a thousand more globes and their inhabitants, were they in existence. You can rise above the temporal order, and indulge even that spirit of 234 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. love in the human heart, by embracing all the angels and all the spirits that surround the throne of God. And yet you have not ob- jects enough to fill the capacity for love in your heart. You must have God. There is no other that can fill that almost infinite ca- pacity but the divine and infinite Being. It may be, my dear breth- ren, that at this time there is more reason than usual for urging upon you the necessity for this precept. It is not to be disguised, that if charity be at all times an obligation, and if at all times we are bound to bear with patience injuries from others, for God's sake, and if at all times we are bound to love our enemies, there are at this particular time reasons why you should impress more and more deeply on your hearts the importance of this divine obligation im- posed upon you by your Saviour. And what are those reasons? Why, the reasons are, that not only as individuals, when any of your number transgresses the law, but as a whole body you are held accountable. The reasons are, that you are denounced and it is hard for human weakness to bear reproaches on the most delicate topics that can arouse the resentment of man that you are de- nounced as being unfit, on account of your religion, to enjoy the privileges of the country you inhabit. You are denounced because those principles of faith and religion which you profess are said to be adverse to the spirit and genius of the institutions of this country. These denunciations are such, that even on the Sunday you can hardly pass from one portion of the city to another without coming within the reach of some living voice that is sustained in those de- nunciations, as if you had not the right to walk the public streets without being reduced to the necessity of hearing insult adequate to the stirring up of the proud spirit of men who take their model from the standard of liberty recognized popularly in this country. Well, for that reason, the more necessity of charity, the more necessity of pa- tience, the more necessity for you to avoid every thing offensive. Propagate among those whom you know, as a principle of religion, to avoid every thing which can disturb the peace and order of society, or violate the laws of the country. It is not necessary for you at this day to enter into any defence. It is not at all requisite that you should begin to prove by syllogism that you are loyal citizens. The history of your creed, even in this country, is a proof of your loy- alty. From the earliest period when Europeans settled here, your ancestors in the faith were of their numbers ; and they took part in every thing appertaining to the country's welfare and progress, and in proportion to their numbers they were found in the high places of legislation, and in the high places of judiciary. They were found in the cabinet ; and they were found on the battle-field, and on the floods of the ocean fighting for their country. Let our enemies point to one that has ever disgraced the position which he occupied. Till they do that it is in vain for them to pretend to question the loyalty of men whose loyalty is not a mere affection of self-inter- est, but a principle. Who is it that can trace the history of the SERMONS. 235 Church, who will not see that this same chanty which we have spoken of, and this same loyalty to which I now refer, have ever ac- companied those who were in communion with the Church of God ? Need I refer to the whole history of persecution to prove it ! Under pagan Rome, for three hundred years, all the machinery of that vast empire was plied with cruelty to crush and extinguish the rising heresy of the Christian faith; and yet, .were Christians ever disloyal ? Is there a single instance of their being disloyal ? They understand better the nature of their religion of the religion of Him who taught them this principle, that the first duty which man owes is to his God, and the second duty to his country. And his country is the land in which he was born ; or if not, the land to which he pledges his solemn allegiance on oath. He is not free to be disloyal. It is of obligation to be loyal. It is the very principle of the Catho- lic Church that a man's family has a third claim upon him, the sec- ond claim being that of his country. And for that country he must sacrifice property, and, if necessary, life itself. He knows but one country ; he can recognize but one country ; and, therefore, in the Catholic religion there is no such thing as the possibility of dis- loyalty to a land to which we owe our obligation. Need I refer to the last three hundred years' persecution under the British empire, during which time the same cry was kept up, and all who professed the Catholic faith were debarred from honors, subject to fines, had their schools closed by supreme authority, so as to make them dark- minded, and blind, and ignorant ? And yet the reproach against them is, that they were loyal too loyal. Viewed, then, by the tests of history as exemplifying the spirit of the Christian Church, is it possi- ble, that in a country in which we enjoy such advantages, in which the government declares itself impartially just towards all, with- out knowing any distinction before the law, in which we are made equal, in which we have the liberty to assemble here in council a privilege which we could not enjoy in some countries which call themselves Catholic is it possible, I say, that in such a country we should not love the institutions, and cherish them with an affection deeper than those who have been unable to make a comparison be- tween this and lands and governments of bondage ? But the ob- ject of these remarks, dearly beloved brethren, has been to im- press upon you the necessity of adhering to the true principles of your religion. If you adhere to the principles of the Catholic faith, you cannot err in matters of a secondary character. And if it be a fact that some persons have violated the law, with what justice is it that the whole body should be branded with the stain of their misconduct, and that it should be imputed to the Catholic Church ? Whereas, in every instance, you will find the individual who trans- gresses is one who pays very little attention to the Catholic Church, but who does not come within the sound of the word of God on Sundays, who does not attend to the sacraments of his Church, but who goes abroad reckless of consequences; and for that matter, having no other claim to attention, except the very violation of the 236 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. laws which bring disgrace upon him. But this ought not to bring disgrace on those who conduct themselves in a proper Christian man- ner. Let us all then be prepared, if the day of trial should come, to bear with patience scoffs and taunts. Let us not be down-hearted if, when we are insulted by the living voice of public brawlers in the streets, the newspaper press which used to be, in the happier days of this gov- ernment, the guardian of every man's rights, which spoke with au- thority far more powerful than that of governor, mayor, or legislator, because it kept always before its tyes the original principle of equality between men,leaving every man to be punished by the law according to the extent of his own personal guilt if a degraded newspaper press be found echoing and almost apologizing for, indecencies that it used to notice only with indignant scorn and reprobation it is no longer true to its calling. Before you retire, therefore, I would exhort you to unite in prayer, such as will be offered in the sanctuary, that Almighty God may bless our council; that our deliberations may be conducted so as to promote His glory, and to increase the love of Him among mankind, and the love of mankind among themselves and each other. Let that be the object of your prayer, for it is customary, and has been from the beginning of the Church, to invite the faithful to unite always in the petitioning God that He would guide and direct those things which have for their object the ordering of His house, and the promo- tion of the peace and happiness of mankind on this earth, and in the better world to which we aspire. TRIUMPHS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. SERMON ON PALM SUNDAY, 1855. " And a very great multitude spread their garments in the war, and others cut boughs from the trees and strewed them in the way : And the mul- titudes that went before and that followed, cried, Baying : Hosanna to the Son of David : Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord : Hosanna in the highest." ST. MATTHEW, xxi. 8, 9. THE narrative of the Holy Scriptures, as read in the Mass of Palm Sunday, is the history of the Passion of our Saviour. It be- gins with the 21st chapter of St. Matthew, and concludes in the 27th, and is appropriately read at this season. But the words which we have just read as our text, are those which are especially appli- cable to the solemnity of the day. They are the record of the en- thusiasm of the people, on seeing the Son of God entering into the Holy City. They are the records also of that mutability of human affections, by which the same voices that then cried out, "Hosanna," a few days afterwards, under change of circumstances, cried out, " Let Him be crucified." Nevertheless, the Church, in order to im- SEKMONS. 237 press upon you the great truth that if our Saviour submitted to the humiliation of the Passion, it was not by necessity, but by His own choice, and as the manifestation of his love the Church, I say, lias preserved these words in the Gospel that you, following day by day, through the ecclesiastical year, the course of the mysteries of the earthly life of the Son of God, may say in welcoming him to your hearts: "Hosanna! blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." In short, the palms you wear are significant of triumph as well as of joy. The palm is the symbol which, along the aisles of the catacombs, distinguishes among the saints who were laid there to sleep during the first ages of the Church, those who died as martyrs to their faith. The branch of palm and the ampula, the vial of blood engraved on their tombs, distinguish the martyrs above all others, and symbolize victory. Victory ! And yet it seems strange for me to speak to you to-day on the subject of vic- tory, since there is no necessity for us now to speak of the victory of the Son of God, seeing that He has triumphed over death and the grave thus became a conqueror. But it has its application to the Church, which inherits the vicissitudes of His life. That Church is heir to His sufferings, and at the same time to His tri- umphs. It may, however, seem strange to you that I should speak of tri- umphs, and of palms which symbolize it, at a moment when you are assailed in private circles and in the public journals with imputa- tions of dishonor, with revilings, with calumnies, with slanders ; and when even those who should be, and who are by their very office, the appointed guardians to regulate principles of eternal justice, have themselves, in pushing their authority to an extreme, at- tempted to invade, I will say, simply the rights and liberties of the Church of Jesus Christ. This would not seem a moment to speak of triumph ; and yet it is precisely the moment when that subject is proper. It is so because what do these assaults prove? They prove that ordinary means are now considered not sufficient to ar- rest the progress of truth on the theatre of free discussion ! They prove that there is no way of putting down this hated teacher of the doctrine of the Son of God, this representative of His own pres- ence the Church but by poisoning the minds of those who know naught of her divine attributes and of her majestic beauty ; by poi- soning their minds beforehand, and making them believe that she is a source of corruption, that she is the enemy of the human kind, that she is the adversary of all that is enlightened or grand in con- ception or performance. And if they find* this course necessary, is not this a time of tri- umph ? But there is still more, dearly beloved brethren. Looking over the history of this Church, of that miraculous society, one, harmo- nious, universal, independent, that one Christian society called the Church looking, I say, over the annals of her history, and of what she has passed through, you perceive how closely she resembles, in 238 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. her history, the history of the life of her divine Founder. Hers is a succession of trials and of triumphs. Hers is, like His, an everlast- ing suffering from the part of the world, and of the enemies of truth ; and from the part of God, a perpetual triumph. And who is it that can recollect without emotion the moment when the first Apostle entered the gates of Rome the imperial mistress of the world and entered the lists with the powers of that almost bound- less empire when Peter entered the lists with Nero? Both were conquerors; both had their triumphs ! Nero had his for a moment, Peter had his triumph for all eternity, in heaven and on earth. Watching her struggling course during the first three hundred years, we see that the whole force of that empire, which had sub- jected the nations of the world, was directed towards the extinguish- ment of the young life of Christian society. And yet that society grew up, strengthened and expanded, while that mighty colossus of an empire crumbled into dust. Thus it is, that while, on the part of the world, the Church is, and has been, and ever will be as- sailed by all the bad passions of the human heart, allied with power, allied with science, and allied with wealth, and while she must, like her Master, suffer for the present, nevertheless at the proper time she triumphs. But there is a special reason why the uplifted palms in your hands to-day should be regarded by you as a token of triumph, the celebration of a victory. That victory is the great event which has so lately occurred. It is the definition of a doctrine which, although believed as a cherished sentiment in the heart of the Church for eighteen hundred years, had not yet before received the official seal of the Church. I speak of the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And the ground of triumph in respect to this topic is, not that any definition or any belief could make that most distinguished and most elevated of all God's intel- lectual creatures, whether in heaven or on earth, more honored ; or that any definition could add to her glory or to her prerogative, but that all the heresies by which the Church has been assailed from the beginning contains, without one single exception, in the errors which they teach, some principle calculated to weaken or destroy, and, if possible, to bring into degradation, in the estimation of men, the ever-blessed Virgin Mother of God. That has been more par- ticularly the case within the last three hundred years. The least ancient of the heresies which have been preached, is that one espe- cially which made it a point to wound her and cut her off. Their theory was, to adore her Son, indeed ; but at the same time, by way of increasing His honor, they would depreciate the prerogatives of His Mother, and almost call into questipn the attributes requisite to render her, as the servant of God, an object of any special re- spect. And they thought they were making great progress. At first they pretended to reject things, the mere excrescences of time, which had grown into the holy practices of the Catholic Church. Then after these came others, seeing other " errors" untouched by SERMONS. 239 the first Reformers, until finally every doctrine of the Church, even to the divinity of the Son of God, has been not only disputed, but denied and rejected, under the plea of making Christianity pure, and at the same time rational and worthy of intelligent beings. These errors have gone as far as they possibly could go. And on the other hand, while the Church has maintained those doctrines which she always had maintained, it is remarkable that in proportion to the assaults of the adversaries of truth, the faith of her children be- comes more and more warmly intense towards every dogma which her enemies had denied. Among them, more especially, the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I will not say in the outward expres- sions of Catholics scattered through communities where no sounds were heard but sounds of hostility, these may have found them- selves, at times, under a necessity, as it were, under a sense of ex- pediency, at least, not to urge those truths which they believed, but, throughout the Christian world, this increasing devotion to the Virgin Mary has been general. Finally, at a time when many of these idle speculators, these philanthropists without God, the hu- manitarians without any divinity, these men who look at human na- ture as a kind of improbable upper strata of animal life, and have no key to its mysteries these men who believed at last, I suppose, that the Church of Christ- had fulfilled her high mission, and was now a thing which had outlived the period of its usefulness, and should be cast aside then it is that the Church of Christ has de- termined a great point of faith. Ah! let these men meditate on the spectacle which was witnessed in Rome on the 8th of December, 1854, and they will probably understand that the Church is not dead that the Church is not old that the Church has not outlived her usefulness that she lives and reigns, and is conqueror; and that she has seen the rise and the ruin of empires and of dynasties dur- ing eighteen hundred years herself unmoved so she will live to witness all the changes and vicissitudes, and the end of these silly speculations on human philosophy and human humanity, by which these philanthropists would attempt to come to the relief of man- kind, in raising and elevating this fallen, and otherwise depressed and unhappy race. It was my privilege, dearly beloved brethren, to be among the favored ones who witnessed the assembly of bishops at Rome. As it was not my design to pronounce any thing like a formal discourse to-day, I shall, perhaps, better fulfil your desires if I give you, in brief, a narrative of things as they occurred, in connection with this great subject of universal joy and triumph. I will, therefore, pro- ceed to do so. As I have remarked, for the last three hundred years, but particularly since the beginning of this century, those who were most nearly in communion with God bishops, priests, and holy persons devoted to religion expressed outwardly their great desire that the Sovereign Pontiff should define as an article of faith that belief which had been floating, from the beginning, on the sea of Catholic tradition, and abiding in the Catholic heart, 240 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. with reference to the Immaculate Conception. The Holy Father entertained with favor the expression of this sentiment ; and during the period of his exile from beside the tomb of the Apostles, when at Gaeta, he issued an encyclical letter to all the bishops of Chris- tendom, requiring or requesting them to furnish him with a declara- tion of the sentiment which prevailed among their clergy and people on the subject. Of course, it required a long time to receive an- swers to such a letter, sent to the various parts of the earth ; but, little by little, one after another, these responses came in, to the number of, I think, five hundred and sixty-four, from so many bishops, scattered throughout the world; and of these there were less than fifty whose writers considered that, although the doctrine was true, and was believed by them and by their people, it was not expedient to define it at that moment. There were only four out of that immense number whose writers were not prepared for the definition. These letters are published, and constitute an aggregate of nine octavo volumes. And still, owing to the difficulty of access in such remote and pagan lands as some of the bishops dwell in, they have not yet received the encyclical letter, or had not been able to forward their answer. These letters having been received, the Holy Father, even then, while yet at Gaeta, appointed a com- mission of twenty of the most learned theologians, for the purpose of investigating every thing which history has recorded on this sub- ject. These, again, after their return, were aided by others in Rome ; and, finally, after much prayer and fasting, and supplication of God, both by himself and by others whom he required to unite with him, the Holy Father determined no doubt, under divine inspira- tion to make that solemn declaration of the doctrine. For this purpose he invited a certain number of bishops, so that the episco- pacy of each country might be more or less represented, to assem- ble at Rome. He did not invite many, because he was aware that to some bishops it would be a matter of great inconvenience to go, and he knew that any thing like an invitation or formal request would be corresponded with, no matter at what sacrifice. Not- withstanding even this, for some days previous to the 8th of De- cember, there were assembled, from day to day, some one hundred and fifty-four bishops, of the Catholic Church, representing every nation, and, I may say, every tongue and tribe under the sky. These had come together, and the question was submitted to them, not, indeed, as to the doctrine, for they had already been foremost to profess ; nor as to the appropriateness or fitness of the time these two points were withheld :but as to the framework and words, or what is called BULL the form or article of the proclama- tion in which this doctrine was to be defined, as it had been drawn up by the theologians. It was this which was submitted to them. This it was their duty to canvass, paragraph by paragraph, line by line ; and they did so, having for the purpose simply to sift out and examine, and probe whether any authority had been quoted in support of the doctrine, which authority could be questioned. It SERMONS. 24:1 was their province to see that no slight error of the theologians should introduce a doubtful testimony in support of such a doctrine. O dearly beloved brethren, what a spectacle was the meeting of these bishops ! All were kindly received by the Holy Father. All assembled in a public hall adjoining the great St. Peter's. There was no introduction necessary. On the second, third, and fourth days, there came in other bishops, travel-worn, who had come from, the distant East, or from the far-off South. These men, who had journeyed thousands and thousands of miles, had but just time to refresh themselves and put on their episcopal robes before they walked into the assembly ; they took part in the discussion of the matter before the body in the very hour within which they had ar- rived. There was no comparing of notes as to what each one be- lieved; there was no question of high doctrine or low doctrine; there was no interrogation as to what school one belonged, or as to what had been the influence which the sentiments of the government or the effect of the climate, or of the Church, North or South, or East or West, had had upon the minds of those who came to take part in the proceedings of that august assembly. There was the oneness, the universality of truth one heart, one faith and lan- guage. If every bishop had spoken his mother tongue, what a jar- gon would have been there ! What an imitation of the scene at the Tower of Babel ! But there was one language used the lan- guage of the Church ; and a faithful and a truthful one is that lan- guage, by which every bishop understood the other, and read his thoughts without ambiguity. There was no time, I say, for intro- ductions or making acquaintances; but they were able to. read each other's countenances. And thus, after they had transacted the business for which they came, they returned home, each to the fold he had left behind, without with a few exceptions having made the acquaintance of even the brethren whom they had met in that assembly. Finally, came the day for the promulgation of the dogma. That 8th of December deserves to be celebrated in the- annals of the Church, for all time to come, as a day of joy to every Christian heart. The Holy Pontiff himself the supreme Pontiff officiated; and at the proper time received, in the name of the whole- Catholic Church including the Greek and Armenian received, iix the name of the whole Catholic world, from the lips of the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, supported by the bishops, the sup- plication that, by the authoritative and infallible decision of the Church, he might declare the prerogative of the Mother of God. That scene cannot be described ; and no one ought to atempt to de- scribe it. I shall not attempt to delineate to you the picture which that scene has left still fresh and glowing in my memory. I do not speak of the wonders of art, architecture, painting and music by which that scene was rendered so impressive. Let those things pass. They became insignificant on that occasion. But the grand and touching spectacle of two hundred prelates, besides an immense multitude of the faithful surrounding the successor of St. Peter,. VOL. II. 16 242 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. that successor occupying his throne on the very tomb of Peter him- self on the very spot where Peter, prince of the Apostles, bore tes- timony of his faith, and of his love to his Master, by choosing the same instrument of death the cross but, from a feeling of his un- worthiness, requested as a favor that he should be crucified with his head to the earth ; on the same spot, I say, there sat St. Peter's successor, able to count, link by link, the whole chain which bound him to the first Apostle, and, through that Apostle, to Christ, and, through Christ, to God. There he sat. All other things had changed, but there he was still on the rock. The very tempests and persecutions and trials by which the Church had been continu- ally agitated, had served only to remind him of how truly the reality corresponds with the description given by the Son of God. How could he, or how could you, dearly beloved brethren, recognize this as the Church of Christ, if it were a Church without trials'; if it were a Church sustained by the riches and talents of the powerful of this earth ; if it were a Church having the universal love of man- kind ? If it were all this, it would not be the Church of Christ, and you could find no similarity between it and what He describes ; be- cause He described it, that those who should persecute to the death the children of that Church should think they were rendering God a service ; when to own communion with His Church was to lose alt hold on worldly favor or social reputation. There sat the august successor of St. Peter, the head of that Church which had endured persecution and still triumphs ; while the tempests now agitating the world, and the waves of persecution were wasting their harmless fury around the base of the rock. Around him knelt venerable bishops, his brethren in the episco- pacy; for the Pope is but a bishop in the order of rank. As to or- der he is a bishop, but in what appertains to jurisdiction he is the chief. He was surrounded by his brethren, and at the proper time that document which had been prepared for the promulgation of this doctrine was read by him in a clear, distinct, audible voice, but .amid a silence which was, I may say, awful, in such a multitude of people. When he came to that part which is purely doctrinal, which is the definition namely, that God, by a special prerogative, had, through the merits of Jesus Christ, preserved the Virgin Mary from every stain of original guilt when he came, I say, to that point, his voice grew tremulous with emotion, and then you might have seen every cheek present bedewed with tears of emotion and of tenderness. And at the proper time, after having announced it, the music of the special choir was forgotten that choir so peculiar and so cultivated in its power of execution, was forgotten and the great hymn of praise and thankfulness, Te Deum laudamus, was raised under that mighty dome of St. Peter's, and sustained by forty thousand voices. Such was the spectacle witnessed on that occasion. But in the mean time the bells from the towers of three hundred churches announced the joyful tidings to the expectant population; and from town to town, and from village to village, SERMONS. 243 went forth the news that at last, by the supreme authority of the Church, it was no longer a belief of individual choice or affection, but a doctrine of the Catholic Church, that Mary, the Virgin Mother of the Son of God, among other prerogatives of divine grace, had been conceived without a stain of sin. As there exists misconception in regard to this point, it may be proper that I should explain to you the sum and substance of the question. I need not remind you that the Catholic Church, in her origin, preserved the faith in the utmost simplicity. Doctrines were believed which had as yet not been formally expressed by any precise definition. Thus, you know, that whereas the divinity of Christ is the very corner-stone of Christian doctrine, that dogma was an undefined one, and not in the form in which we now have it, un- til three hundred years after the time of our divine Saviour. Will any one say, will any Socinian say, that because this doctrine was not de- fined, it was therefore not believed ? That would be absurd. Its not being defined proves nothing, or it proves that it was believed, and that the definition was not necessary till the period when Arius and his associates were disposed to take advantage of the simplicity, or, if I may so call it, the vagueness of the faith ; and, by an inge- nious use of human language, they pretended to teach that the divinity of Christ was certainly not hitherto believed. So, too, with refer- ence to the Scriptures. It was at a later period still when the Church defined and proposed those books of the Holy Scriptures which are of inspired origin and canonical. Up to that time, some denied one book, some another. There was a certain vagueness and indefiniteness about it. So again with regard to the nature of Christ the schism which took place in the time of Nestorius. The Nestorians would have Christ as a duality of persons the Di- vine person and the human person. They would admit that the Blessed Virgin was the mother of the man Jesus, but not the mother of the Divine Jesus. The doctrine of the Church had been at all times that the Person was one, and that the Divine and human na- tures were united in the one Person ; and, consequently, that the Blessed Virgin Mary was the mother of this one Person Jesus Christ. So at the Council of Ephesus, where the question had been much argued, the multitude of the faithful outside, waiting patiently to know the authoritative decision of the Church on this subject, as soon as they heard that it was lawful to continue still, as they had con- tinued before, to call Mary the Mother of God, a shout of triumph ran through the crowded streets of Ephesus, proclaiming the joyful news. Thus, you perceive, that a doctrine may be true, and may be revealed and known as true, long before it receives the authoritative seal and sanction of the teacher which God has appointed to pre- "serve all truth, and to make known all things whatsoever touching the faith of Christ. In what, therefore, is the difference between our condition as Catholics now, and what it was before this dogma was proclaimed ? I will tell you, in brief. Before that time we believed by individual belief. It was a sentiment which was familiar 24:4: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. in the writings of our predecessors. We find the ardent devotion which from the earliest times they have manifested towards the Blessed Virgin. Because they loved Christ, their Master, they loved His blessed Mother, hardly separating them with this differ- ence : that the one was a pure creature, created in time, and the other was God and man united. But in the human relations of Christ they never separated Him from His mother in that bold and repulsive sense in which modern heresy has attempted to accomplish it. The flesh of Christ and the flesh of Mary was one flesh. We, therefore, believed in the Immaculate Conception as a sentiment. True, there was a time when we might deny it without ceasing to be a Catholic, because it was not defined ; just as in other matters we might do; and just as in early periods theologians accepted or denied certain books in the New Testament, because there had been no authoritative definition of what books should be regarded as in- spired writings. We conclude that St. Augustine believed in the Immaculate Conception ; for though he wrote much on the doctrine of the original sin being universal, he had always excepted the Blessed Mother of God. She was excepted. He did not say that she was conceived without sin, because it was not his province to pronounce a dogma in any authoritative form ; but he excepted her. She was too sacred to be included in his theory of universal de- pravity. And what is this universal depravity, dearly beloved brethren ? You know that it is original sin. You know that by the fall of our first parents it was introduced, and all mankind be- came tainted. You know that a polluted fountain does not give forth pure water. You are aware that in the order of procreation of mankind from that first pair, the parents communicate to their children their own nature, and they could not communicate a higher nature. The guilty parent could not communicate innocence to the being about to be created. Thus original sin passed into a law of nature ; but the doctrine of the Catholic Church is, that the Blessed Virgin Mary, by the merits of the death of Jesus Christ, applied to her iti anticipation, as a qualification for her high calling, was ex- empted from that common law. We are cleansed, by the grace of God, from original sin in baptism. It is the grace of God which cleanseth us from that original taint of guilt. But she, in the very moment of her conception, by the grace of God, was sanctified without baptism. Mary, according to the defined and universal faith of every Cath- olic heart, never had contracted the slightest stain, the slightest blemish, either of original or natural sin. And, in fact, dearly be- loved brethren, though this be called Catholic doctrine, if there were among those who are separated from the Catholic Church any who believe really, not by mere common parlance, but believe really, the divinity of Jesus Christ, they should, as a matter of course, admit the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary ; because He was in that flesh thus ministered to under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, and because it would be an SERMONS. 2i5 incongruity and an indignity to suppose that He would take flesh of a being who had been at any time, at any period in her conception or afterwards, under the dominion of sin, and nnder the dominion of the devil. And this would have been so had it been otherwise. She could never have been the Mother of God had she been, not one preserved by His divine grace and power from the stain of original sin, but one ransomed one who had been the slave of the devil from original sin, but who was now emancipated to become the mother of the " Word made flesh." The Catholic heart never be- iieved any such thing ! Always and everywhere the sentiment of the Immaculate Conception is implied in the nature of the Christian faith. As a matter of course, it was a consequence necessary from the belief in the Incarnation. This sentiment always existed, and would have existed, though it had not received this authoritative sanction. It was the universal faith, the universal belief throughout the Catholic world, and of ages and ages gince the commencement of the Church, as private belief. But when an infallible Teacher, an infallible Propounder of what is true, gives authority to this faith, it then becomes dogma, and is not personal, conviction, but faith for all. Without that authority we may believe a dogma ; but we have no authority to impose it on any one else ; so we had no authority heretofore to teach this in an authoritative sense. It was a senti- ment. But now what has happened ? It has happened that that which has been universally believed in by the whole Catholic Church from the beginning, has received the sanction of what ? Of the Holy Catholic Church of the Supreme Pastor of that Church ; of him who is the Vicegerent of Christ in determining truth ; of the Vicar of Christ ; of the one whom Christ commanded us to be- lieve ; of the one minister of whom He said : " He that hears you, hears me ; and he that despises you, despises me." Who, then, is it that thus teaches doctrine ? It is the Son of God. Thus it has been taught. And now this truth, so authorized by the Church, has become a dogma of the Catholic faith, namely : that by the mer- its of Jesus Christ, God, by a singular prerogative, had in the first instant of her Conception, exempted the ever-glorious Mary from the taint of original sin. That it is which is the subject of joy ; not that we doubted about it before, but that it sanctifies our faith. You be- lieved before, because you so thought ; but now you believe, because the authority appointed by God for the purpose proposes it for your belief; and you believe the testimony of God, through the medium thus appointed. That is the only difference. And it is in this that we rejoice. We rejoice that the prerogative, the first, and after her divine Maternity, the highest prerogative which distinguishes the Blessed Virgin Mary, has been thus solemnly recognized, and solemnly proclaimed before the world. Let those men, who, in their shallow conceptions, and by their low estimate of what is humanity, attempt to ameliorate mankind ; let them now lift their eyes, and" let them understand how that hu- manity which exhibits so much of misery and wretchedness, and has ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. so little capacity and susceptibility for all that is great and sublime, let them understand, I say, how that humanity is dignified, how that humanity is exalted. Jesus Christ has accepted that humanity- He took its nature upon Himself to repair the evils of original sin and its ill effects, and to enable us to overcome actual sin ; and from that moment the world received the element of a true amelioration. But the divine Saviour, we are told, though man, was God also, and had, of course, the excellency and perfection of unapproachable goodness even in His humanity. But there is another by which humanity is raised. There is one daughter of Eve a daughter who was as pure in her Conception and in her nature as if she had been the first born before the fall of our parents as if she had been a child of their innocence, with the difference that then she would have been pure and immaculate by nature ; but now she is by the grace and by the prerogative of God. Look on her, then, and watch her humble footsteps along the career of her after life, free from taint of sin in birth, in life, or in death. She was the creature of God, as you are. She was not divine. She was human ; but she was quali- fied for a divine nature, and was chosen above all the daughters of the earth. This humanity, therefore, is not all bad or irredeemable. There is at least one exception. There is that pure bright lily un- defiled ; there is that one who has been fitly described by so many epithets and comparisons in the writings of the ancient fathers ; there is one on whom while fixing your eyes you behold the point from which the man who would elevate humanity must take his de- parture. Rejoice, therefore, dearly beloved brethren, on this occasion. Let the palms in your hands be at once the commemoration of the jour- ney of our Saviour to Jerusalem, and of this great triumph after eighteen hundred years. Let your hearts be lifted up. Suraum corda. Let there be no depression because of the enmity and as- saults of the world. By them you know what you are ; and you know that if you were not what you are, you would not be assailed. Let your hearts be lifted up to God. Let them rejoice in a tender holy joy ; and give thanks for his infinite mercies. And may we by grace be preserved from the ruin which original sin brought on the whole human race, and may we live here, exempt from every stain and defilement which have descended to us from our first parents. Let the day be held sacred. Let the 8th of December be called, for many centuries to come, the Anniversary of the Immaculate Conception. Let it be fixed in your minds. And for myself, I propose to com- memorate it, both in testimony of the event, and of my joy at being present at the Council, and in gratitude for many favors, and for the extraordinary protection which I have received and I have no doubt, from the all-powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Let me have the happiness to commence a monument to be dedicated to the glory of God and His Church, and be in commemoration of the events which have so recently transpired, and of the Catholic ideas which I have endeavored thus to communicate. SERMONS. 24:7 SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH OF MARY, STAR OF THE SEA, BROOKLYN, APRIL 29th, 1855. " The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains. The Lord loveth the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob. Glorious things are said of thee, O City of our God." I REMEMBER the time, said the Archbishop, when a priest was sent from the dwelling of the Bishop of New York once a month to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass in Brooklyn. In the interval which has elapsed between that day and the present, great changes have taken place. When I find myself addressing only one portion of the flock of Brooklyn, and that so multitudinous ; when I turn my eyes to the sanctuary, and behold the prelate whom God has appointed to rule the Church of this diocese, and another prelate appointed elsewhere, and these surrounded by venerable priests, and these, again, accompanied in the .ceremonial by, perhaps, the young neophytes of the sanctuary ; when I lift my eyes and behold this beautiful and glorious temple of God, I find that great changes must have taken place since the period when a priest came to Brooklyn to offer once in a month the holy sacrifice of the altar. Yes, dearly beloved brethren, great changes have taken place, and other changes in the continued progress of the City of God, whose foundations are in the holy mountains, will take place from day to day. It is not my purpose to dwell in much detail on the triumph of your zeal and charity in aiding the priest who undertook the erection of this church. He has completed his work so far ; and having completed it so far, the voice of God, through the ordinary channels by which His will is made known to man especially in the order of the Catholic hierarchy that voice calls him to a new, unseen, unknown field ; and whether he is to be surrounded there by faithful members of the holy Catholic Church, who shall sustain and co-operate with him aid him as you have done is a problem ; but there is no despondency, no doubt in any mind upon the sub- ject. I would remark briefly, that the impression which the very appearance, the coup cPceil of this church, has made upon my own mind, is one of grandeur. It is creditable to the pastor, who offi- ciates in his new character for the first time in this temple, erected much by his zeal, and labor, and solicitude ; and, whatever may come hereafter, he has left a monument of that zeal and of his de- votion in the holy ministry. If you inquire for that monument, you have only to look around ; it is here : but it is not his alone, it is yours also. Nor does the fact that this church is very much in debt, in the least detract from the remarks I make in regard to it j 248 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. for the people who have raised it thus far will pay its debts and com- plete it. A debt on the Catholic Church, under certain circum- stances, is not the greatest of calamities ; but what would be a calam- ity for you and the sanctuary of this holy temple, would be to have persons placed between you and your priesthood as middle-men, touching with profane hand the sanctuary of which they should stand in awe, and sinking your church in debt, even though you had freed it from all responsibility. That would be a calamity ; but debt, simply debt, is not a great calamity ; time and Catholic zeal will remove all that, so far as you would desire to have it removed. But you, in the mean time, should be faithful to Almighty God, and not permit men well-meaning men if you please, but incompetent to stand between the clergy and the faithful laity of the Catholic Church between you and the devoted pastor whom you so much respect. By united effort almost every thing can be accomplished ; and it is a mercy of the Almighty that in this case there is not the slightest probability that your efforts will be thwarted by that un- Catholic system which makes laymen masters over God's sanctuary and God's Priests. This is a matter for which you should be thankful. However, dearly beloved brethren, the church, this perishable monument which will in time crumble, is but of little consequence as compared with that it symbolizes. And what does it symbolize ? The Church, the " City of God, " the Gates of Sion," which the Lord loveth above all the tabernacles of Jacob. This it symbolizes ; because, although it is the Church located on a certain spot, and al- though it is itself, and not any other Churh, nevertheless God has so or- dained His divine religion, that the fulness thereof and the completeness of all God's institutions, and mercies, and revelations, and sacraments are here, and are to be here in this church just as they are through- out the whole world. There is nothing in the Holy Catholic Church Avhich is not in every congregation that is, a fulness of divine truth, the administration of the sacraments, and the presence of that order of ecclesiastical government which the Almighty has appointed for the government of this " City of God" on earth. Divine truth revealed the sacraments, as channels of grace, flowing from the death of Jesus Christ upon the Cross and the government of that Church which preserves its unity. These you are to have in this new temple, and you need not go abroad to find any thing better than you have here. You may travel East or West, you may find yourself in the magnificent dome of St. Peter's, you may behold the Supreme Pastor there officiating ; but these are only outward points of difference. As to all that is intrinsic in religion, you have it here truth of revelation. And here let me observe in regard to this, that God has adapted His revelation to the nature df man as it is. If we had been of a different nature spiritually, the Almighty, no doubt, stooping to our aid in mercy, would have adapted the means of mercy according to our nature ; but as it is, thus He has revealed His religion to us in its present form. And you will observe one . SERMONS. 249 peculiar attribute of the human mind, that except when it is dark- ened by the clouds and vapors of man's passion, arising from the corrupt heart, it is always yearning after truth ; infill its inquiries the subject is truth ; in regard to any thing of importance, it is al- ways uneasy, dissatisfied, till it reaches a point that indicates cer- tainty. This is the nature of the mind of man ; and because this is the nature of his intellect, God has, in His revelation, stamped truth with the seal of certainty in His Church. It is not, of course, possi- ble for me now to enlarge upon this question of the divinity of the Church ; it is enough for me to say that it is the work of Christ; that it is what Christ appointed it should be ; that it is authorized by Him to speak in His name, as He spoke in the name of His Father ; that, therefore, it would be something different from the Church which He instituted, if it could hesitate, or stammer, or speak with a double tongue of the truths God has communicated to secure and render stable the convictions of the human mind. It speaks in positiveness and simplicity " Yea, yea ; nay, nay" but there is no doubtful speculation in the Church of God. The minis- ters of that Church are not authorized to give out the results of their own investigations in the form of opinion. They have a mes- sage ; and as our divine Saviour stated that He was sent by the Father, and thus establishing His own mission, so He sent others ; but He sent them not to give way to speculations, as if the revela- tions of God were a crude system of philosophy, but to teach the truth all truth, as He promised to be with them always. If, therefore, you are of curious minds if you are of that tempera- ment which would study and be a votary of some ancient pagan philosophy or modern infidelity, go where those things are to be found; but in this "City of God," the foundations of which are in the holy mountains, you will not find much to gratify your appetite for uncertainty. Here is truth, but coming from God through the channel which He has appointed. It is not my truth, though I pro- nounce it ; it is God's truth, and I am but the echo of the divine voice. Thus, in regard to the human mind, you will observe, be- loved brethren, how God in the order of His revelations has adapted it to the actual condition of man. But man has a heart as well as an intellect, and God has adapted His religion to the one no less than to the other. How is it possible for you, without religion, and that communicated in the form of certainty, as far as God's word can make it how could you fill up the capacities of your heart were it not for the truths that are thus derived. You can love ; and that is a sen- timent which God has implanted in human nature, so that you can- not divest yourselves of it. You can love your neighbor, your friend, the people of your country, the whole human race, and be- yond that hitman race, rise to the celestial region, and embrace in the capacity of your love all created spirits, the cherubim and seraphim ; and when you shall have embraced all in that single sentiment, you will find that in all these there is not enough to till up the measure of your capacity, and that in God alone is a subject of infinite love 250 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. capable of filling the capacity of your almost infinite love, showing the connection which He has established with Himself and the hu- man heart. Thus when you hear in this place the mysteries of reli- gion announced, the doctrine of the Trinity, of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, of the incarnation of our divine Saviour, becoming man for our sake, all these are truths to be believed by the intellect. You will not understand them, because they are mysteries ; but you will under- stand that God cannot deceive you : there is the satisfaction for the reason ; and when the reason is satisfied, you will be attracted as by a magnet to the love of God; while those who are possessed with the ideas of modern heresies and infidelity, speak of God as a being away at some immense distance, wrapt up in himself, perfectly happy and perfectly indifferent about human affairs. Thus, as regards man, you perceive that the Almighty has adapted His revelations to our nature. Don't allow it to be said that because you hearken to the voice of God, even though it sound in your ears through human channels, therefore, you give up your reason ; let no such folly take possession of your heart, but let it be understood that the man who has faith in the truth of God possesses the highest reason. God is dishonored by those who make this objection, as if, although He has made a revelation, they deny to Him either veracity or the power to transmit that revelation as certain truth through all nations and through all time. And hence, they themselves, by the very desire they have to seek in doubt, acknowledge they have lost the thread of communication with the living God ; because if they possessed it, it would not be necessary to seek ; because when they give out the result of their investigations of Scripture, they give out only opin- ions and speculations ; and the danger of the evil resulting from all this is, that the God of all truth is presented to those who hearken to them as a God of uncertainty. This is the result, and it is on this account purely, beloved brethren, that of all the favors Heaven has be- stowed on us, we Catholics ought to be bound most in gratitude for the gift of faith. It is the gift of God ; God is master of it ; He has imparted it to us, and we ought to beseech Him that He will extend that gift to those who are groping in the midst of the contradictions of human speculation. In the mean time, however, our days upon earth are but few ; let us endeavor to improve them ; let us hearken with docility and humility to the voice of authority the Church of Christ ; let us practise the virtues which the religion of Christ im- poses upon us as a portion of our spiritual devotion ; let us be faith- ful and devoted in our attendance upon those institutions through which God operates directly by the ministry of His priests. It is thus that by another sanctitication, different from the outward cere- mony of the day, you will make the place worthy of God to whom it is consecrated ; it is thus you will correspond, in some measure, with the very title of this church, which is dedicated to Mary the Immaculate, the daughter of Eve, who never was at any time under the dominion of the devil, and this also, by a title which those who SERMONS. 251 have travelled much will recognize as peculiarly appropriate, namely, " The Star of the Sea," Mary, the Mother of redeemed humanity. Eve was the natural mother, but Mary was the Mother in the order of grace; not that she was any more than a creature, but she was the creature chosen of God to be the Mother of His divine Son, who was to be immolated for the salvation of the world. Mary the bright, the beautiful, " the Star of the Sea," the unpolluted, the holy, the faithful ; Mary, who stands out from humanity as one bright and particular star ; and as we are tossed and exposed to the shipwrecks of life, let every Catholic heart be uplifted, because Mary was of earth she was our Mother ; and be assured, beloved brethren, if you cher- ish this devotion, this piety towards the Mother of God, you will just in the same proportion be more and more faithful to God. Mary is a creature ; but then the solitary and exceptional creature who was appointed from all eternity to be the Mother of the Word In- carnate. Ask of her to intercede for us with her divine Son ; pray to her, study her example, behold her humility, her patience, every thing that fills the mind of him who contemplates her life and char- acter, I will not say with admiration, but with awe and admiration mingled together. Be faithful children of Mary the Immaculate the sinless Mary, who is designated in the inspired poetry of the Church as " The Star of the Sea." Then your presence will be an additional consecration of this temple then your bodies will become consecrated, and then you will correspond with the infinite mercy of God in communicating to you the certain truths of revelation, and confirming them with the gift of faith; then you will be worthy dis- ciples of Him to whose honor this temple is dedicated, through the patronage of the ever-glorious and blessed Virgin Mary. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OP THE CONSECRA- TION OF THE CATHEDRAL, ST. JOHNS, NEW- FOUNDLAND, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th, 1855. "Now, faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not." HKB. xi. i. IF there is any one in this vast assemblage who has not seen, but has desired to see a monument of Catholic faith, to-day he has but to raise his eyes and look around, for this is indeed a monument of Catholic faith. Its erection and completion would have been im- possible, except by a people who believe. Without that faith al- 232 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. luded to in the text, the existence of this magnificent cathedral could not be accounted for, in the centre of a community principally made up of poor but laborious fishermen, and in a city, as it may now be called, which was known but yesterday or the day before merely as a fishing station. This is a cathedral of which any city in Europe or the world might be proud. Its plan was projected on a scale of surpassing magnitude ; its foundations were laid broad and deep on this elevated site, commanding a prospect of unsurpassed beauty. It rose on these foundations to the elevation which its pro- portion required ; and, as it surrounds us this day, we are struck with admiration at the solidity, fitness, and elegance which art has distributed and embodied on every side. For richness of material and perfection of design, its altar is unrivalled on the western side of the Atlantic ocean ; whilst, on whatever side we look, we behold the pillar of strength modulated into the arch of beauty. I repeat, then, that even as a public edifice, a specimen of architecture, there is no city in the world which might not be proud of such a building as the Cathedral of St. Johns, which has just been consecrated. And by whom has this noble cathedral been erected ? By the fish- ermen of Newfoundland by the hardy sons of toil, possessing little of this world's substance, but unspeakably rich in the divine inherit- ance of Catholic faith. It was they who cheered on the work from its commencement ; it was they who, year after year, contributed liberally from their scanty earnings during its progress ; and it is they who have the best right to exult in the triumphant completion of a great work, begun and sustained throughout by the unwa- vering impulse which is derived from the spirit of faith. Most of you remember the day on which your late Apostolic Bishop laid the corner-stone of this cathedral. In doing so, he exemplified the whole meaning of the Apostle in the words of my text. According to human view there were no means to carry out the gigantic purpose which he had conceived. He had but the bene- diction of Heaven, and the support of his poor but believing people to rely upon. But, strong in the meaning of the inspired Apostle, he knew that " faith was the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that did not appear." Hence, in a large spirit and with a strong heart, he commenced the work undaunted by the prospective difficulties and even disappointments that were to be encountered in the progress of its execution. It may be said of him as of the royal prophet " How he swore to the Lord ; he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob : if I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house ; if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie ; if I shall give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, or rest to my temples, until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob." (Ps. cxxxi. 2, 3, 4). Like the royal prophet, too, he passed from the scene of his earthly labors without having witnessed the final accomplishment of his holy purpose. Had he been spared to wit- ness what we behold this day, he would have regarded it as a sufficient earthly recompense for the toils, anxieties, and solicitude which he SEKMONS. 253 underwent, and in which he sacrificed his health, and perhaps his life. But it pleased Almighty God to ordain otherwise, and to call him to his heavenly reward. It must have been a consolation to him, however, to know that whilst he resigned his spirit into the hands of his Creator, he transmitted to a successor of his own choice the episcopal charge of his beloved flock, and the unfinished task Avhich he had so nobly begun. That successor, called of God to his high office, was specially qualified for the charge. He brought to it the same ardent faith and piety, a mind most richly stored with ecclesiastical learning and general information ; he brought to it the energies of youth and of a robust constitution, as well a moral temperament particularly qualified and competent to encounter dif- ficulties of whatever description and thus qualified, he took up the great work which his predecessor had begun, and bore it onward and onward, until to-day he has the consolation of witnessing its final and triumphant accomplishment. On all this, my Lord Bishop of Newfoundland, I offer you my congratulations ; I offer them to the devoted clergy of your diocese, who stood faithful by your side; I offer them to the faithful people over whom you are appointed, and whom you govern with so much spiritual advantage to them, so much honor to the episcopal order, and to our holy religion and I say, that considering the means by which it has been erected, this monument of Catholic faith has not been surpassed, nor per- haps equalled, by any thing to be found in the annals of the Chris- tian Church. Do not suppose, dearly beloved brethren, that in making these remarks, I wisli to excite in you any feeling of vain-glory; such a feeling would detract from the merit of the sacrifices you have al- ready made. But silence on my part would be affectation, for the very stones of this edifice proclaim eloquently the truth of what I say. No doubt the wealthier portion of your brethren on shore have contributed liberally, and probably the same has been done by persons not of our communion. From their merit in this I would not detract, but the secret of success in erecting this cathedral nay, the very basis of your commercial prosperity is traceable to the industry of those hardy and adventurous sons of the billow, the fishermen of Newfoundland. They went forth, year after year, to reap their precarious and perilous harvest from the depths of the sea ; and year after year, they returned bearing, not the gleanings, but the rich sheaves, to lay them as offerings on the altar of God for the erection of a tabernacle to His name. Faith, and faith alone, could have inspired and sustained them during the progress of this glorious undertaking. When I speak of faith in the sense of the Apostle, as quoted in our text, I mean that divine principle of belief as it operates in the hearts of living men. It was the same in the breasts of our fore- fathers whilst they lived ; but now that they are gone from this earth, faith, by which they lived in their day and generation, has ceased for them, and been replaced by knowledge. All the truths of rev- 254: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. elation are divine objects of faith, things which we are bound to believe. They are true in themselves, because they have been re- vealed by God, and were true before we were called into existence. Hence, they are objects of our faith, as distinguished from the actual faith itself, which exists as a living principle in our hearts. Again, the Church, divinely instituted, is at once the guardian and the wit- ness of the doctrines of revelation which we have to believe as ob- jects of faith. Her uniform, perpetual, and infallible testimony con- stitutes the motive or groundwork of our belief. Thus it was in the days of the Apostles ; their divine Master proposed to them the truths of revelation which it was necessary they should believe ; and the gospels refer continually to this topic of "belief and unbelief" among those who heard the divine word from the lips of our Saviour Himself. The teachings of Christ, therefore, were the objects of di- vine faith to His Apostles and disciples. They believed, and the mo- tive of their belief was the veracity and divinity of their blessed Lord. They knew by His miracles that He was a teacher sent of God ; and when He proposed to them the mysteries of Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead the doc-trine of the Incarnation of the adorable Eucharist of the infallibility of His Church and her duration until the consummation of the world, they did not speculate on the doctrine they did not reason they did not dispute they believed. The word of Christ was the motive of their belief. And this faith is so much a part nay, so much the very foundation of our reconciliation with our offended Creator, that the Apostle declares it " impossible without it to please God ;" and our Saviour says, " He that believeth and is baptized, shall be be saved ; He that believeth not, shall be condemned." It was by this faith that the fishermen of Galilee, after their vocation and the descent of the Holy Ghost, became the Apostles by whose life and labors the glad tidings of revelation were communicated to the ends of the earth. They and their associates and their successors have con- stituted the body of official witnesses, to testify and declare at all times what were the doctrines revealed to them by Christ. Their testi- mony has been unbroken, perpetual, and ubiquitous, wherever the faith of their blessed Master has prevailed. From day to day, from year to year, from generation to generation, from century to century, the unanimous voice of those appointed witnesses, the Apostles and their successors, though dispersed throughout Christendom, has been heard publishing the same doctrines of revelation, and condemning the errors which might spring up claiming, falsely, to have been re- vealed by the Saviour. The members of this divinely constituted body of witnesses passed successfully, one by one, from the scene of their earthly and apostolic labors ; but the body itself continued, be- came enlarged and extended on every side, as nation after nation sub- mitted to the sweet yoke of Jesus Christ. Now, this external organi- zation of the Church is the mode and form under which its Redeemer provided that the doctrines revealed by Him, and which constitute the objects of our faith, should be transmitted to us and to those who SERMONS. 255 shall come after us, tinder the infallible attestation of witnesses ap- pointed by Him, and guaranteed by the promise of His own pres- ence with them, in order that we, too, may believe and have eternal life. Thus, we know from the Evangelists that out of the multitude of disciples who believed, Christ selected twelve to be Apostles, and communicated to them the prerogatives of His own ministry ; not, indeed, that they should become the revealers of new doctrines, but that they should be perpetual witnesses of those which they had learned from Him. Among these twelve He selected one, namely, Peter, and constituted him personally as the rock on which His Church should perpetually rest. To him alone, He said : "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." To him alone, He said: "Thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren." To him alone, He said : " Feed my lambs, feed rny sheep ;" that is, to thee I give primacy and supreme authority over the entire sheepfold of which I am the good Shepherd. Here, therefore, we behold the external form and organization of the Christian Church the disciples, the Apos- tles, and the divinely appointed chief of all, St. Peter. The little flock has continued, and under this external organization has enlarged itself to the ends of the earth, presenting itself at all times under the identical form which it received from the divine Pastor. Here, to day, and everywhere, are the faithful disciples of our Lord. Here, and everywhere throughout Christendom are the bishops of the Church, who have succeeded the Apostles; but not here, nor everywhere, is the successor of St. Peter, but only in the See which the blessed chief of the Apostles founded in Rome, and which, since the establishment of Christianity, has been the centre of Catholic unity, the seat of Apostolic primacy and universal supremacy over the Church of Christ. This Church has been the ever-living, ever- speaking, ever-judging and determining witness of the truths which Christ revealed, and which are proposed to one generation after another as the objects of our living and active faith. It is by faith, and if necessary, baptism, that we are individually brought into communion with the Church. It is through the witnessing of the Church and the grace of the sacraments, of which she is the deposi- tary and the dispenser, that we are individually brought into commu- nion with our divine Redeemer ; and it is through His merits, com- municated to us by the medium of the Church, in the grace of faith itself and of the sacraments, that we are brought into communion with His eternal Father. Oh ! what a poor, I had almost said, beg- garly conception of the Incarnation and ministry of Christ must that man have, who restricts it to the few days of His mortal life, and to the limited sphere of His personal mission in an obscure province of the Roman empire. For him, the Founder of Christianity preached the word of life and performed miracles during only a period of three years; for him, the Incarnation and ministry of the Redeemer are but a transitory apparition of which certain incidents have been historically preserved and recorded in the inspired pages of the four 256 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Evangelists ; for him, the preservation of the Scriptures, and the privilege of interpreting them, as best each one may, are all of the work of Christ that survived His crucifixion on Mount Cavalry. If he reads, he does not understand the intimate relations which Christ established between Himself and His ever-living and ever-teaching representatives, namely, the Apostles and their successors, united with their supreme chief on earth, Peter, and the bishops of Rome who have succeeded him. To them, in the persons of the Apostles, He declared that "all power was given to Him in heaven and on earth ;" and in the exercise of that power, He commanded them to "go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the, Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to ob- serve all things whatsoever He commanded them" declaring, at the same time, that " He would be with them all days, even unto the con- summation of the world :" adding elsewhere, that those whoshould hear them, should hear Him ; that those who should despise them, should despise Him; and those who should despise Him, should de- pise the Father who sent Him. All this had taken place years before any portion of the New Testament was written ; and in such lan- guage, it is clear that our Blessed Saviour instituted the outward form of His Church, and promised His divine and perpetual presence in order to carry on, through her instrumentality, and to diffuse to the very ends of the earth the works of His own ministry, and the mer- its of His sacrifice on the cross for the redemption of mankind. Faith, then, is the unwavering and entire assent of our understanding to the truths which God has revealed, and which His Church has borne down to us, as a divinely commissioned and infallible witness. Consequently, that belief, or persuasion, as it is sometimes called, which rests upon human reasoning, upon high probability, upon opinion, upon the interpretation which we, as individuals, put upon the pages of Holy Writ upon, in short, any other foundation, except the infalli- ble teaching of the Church, which Christ appointed for the purpose of bearing witness to the truths revealed by Him, is not, arid can not be called divine faith. We may turn our attention now to a contemplation of the changes that have been wrought in the character and life of nations as well as of individuals, who have been blessed with the heavenly gift of faith. Under this view we may consider the devotion, the zeal, the suffering, and the martyrdom of the Apostles, in attestation of the truths which they preached and propagated throughout the world. During the first three hundred years of our era, every species of per- secution unto death was put in requisition by the Roman empire for the vain purpose of sustaining paganism and extinguishing the faith of Christ in the blood of those who professed it. Many of the successors of St. Peter, during those days of pagan cruelty and Chris- tian heroism, confirmed the truths of revelation which they had received and preached, by the testimony of their blood, under the hand of the executioner. Xot only the Pontiffs, but also the priests and laity of the Church, the Christian noblemen, the Christian slave, SERMONS. 257 the citizen, the soldier, the man of gray hairs and the tender virgin, in short, victims of every rank and of every class, were sought out, given over to tortures and to death, in the vain hope of extinguishing the faith, and appeasing the ferocity of a pagan people, and of the fabulous gods of their falling empire. The Church beheld and suf- fered these cruelties ; but her mission was to preach the truths which Christ had revealed, and she could neither cease from her labor, nor make any compromise to appease the anger of the rulers of this world. The martyrdom of her children, though an affliction in one sense, was to her a subject of triumph ; and if at any time a tear stood in her eye, or a blush diffused itself over her meek counte- nance, it was when some child of hers, too weak to bear the tor- tures, had recourse to apostasy, and saved the life of the body by denying the truth that had been revealed, and of which she was the witness. After the close of this long persecution, and when the master of the Roman empire himself became a disciple of the cross, and trans- ferred its symbol as the most glorious jewel in the imperial diadem, the Church, in bearing witness to the truths of revelation, had to en- counter new adversaries and new dangers. The centuries succeed- ing the conversion of Constantino were the most remarkable for the springing up of heresies, immediately or remotely connected for the most part with the mystery of the Incarnation, the person, nature, and attributes of our Lord Himself. The authors of these heresies were generally men of much learning and intellectual capacity. Pride, which is adverse to the simplicity of faith, was in their hearts the subtleties of pagan philosophy in their understandings. Whether consciously or not, they attempted to adulterate the de- posit of faith, and to propagate, as doctrines of Christianity, truths which Christ had not revealed. The necessity of combating these errors gave occasion to those immortal writings which have done so much for the illustration of the real doctrines of Christianity, and to whose testimony succeeding ages have constantly referred. Their authors were what are commonly called the " Fathers of the Church." But not by their writings alone did the successors of the Apostles bear witness to the truths of revelation, and against the novelties of error. Councils assembled, convoked and presided over by the suc- cessors of St. Peter, or his immediate representative, in which the bishops of the Church recorded their testimony in favor of the truth and against the heresies of the innovators. During these ages the- Church confounded the pride of those who, professing Catholicity,, yet chafed under the yoke of divine faith. She confounded the pride of the rebellious intellect, and expelled from her borders the attempted admixture of a pagan philosophy, which even some indi- vidual bishops of her communion had sought to infuse into the pure and simple teachings of the Christian religion. Thus, after having triumphed over brute force, as wielded by pagan persecutors for three hundred years, she triumphed again over the sly, seductive,, but dangerous subtleties of the proud and perverted intellects ot* VOL. II. 17 258 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. heresiarchs, who disturbed her peace by their various attempts to seduce her children from the paths of divine truth into the laby- rinths of human error. A third struggle was in store for her. She had purified and renovated such civilization as pagan Rome had es- tablished in Italy and Southern Europe. But the empire itself was in progress of dissolution. New tribes, new hordes, new peoples, without civilization, except of the rudest type, were breaking into the various departments of what had once been the Roman empire. They were for the most part barbarians and idolaters; or if they had any notion of Christianity, it was derived from an erroneous source. They poured in from the north in irresistible torrents. Wave after wave of such populations swept over the land, carrying away all that was destructible the bark of Peter alone being enabled to resist the torrent, and rise to the surface of the flood. When their irruptions had partially ceased, she had a new struggle to sustain, not no\v against learning and perverted knowledge, but against rudeness, ignorance, barbarism, and military ferocity. Yet she educated those barbarians, she civilized them, she imbued them with a knowledge of the Chris- tian doctrine, and under her fostering care they became the germs of the civilized and Catholic nations of Europe as they are to-day. This again was the triumph of faith. She proposed to them, as an infallible witness, the doctrines which her divine Founder has com- manded her to teach all nations, and on her testimony they believed. Again, Europe had emerged gradually from this condition of igno- rance of all but the Christian doctrine into a period of renovated science and knowledge. The improvement was the work of the Church, the indirect consequences of the belief in the Christian religion. And now, let the Church prepare for another contest, not less cal- culated to test her invincibility than those which had preceded. New heresies are broached and promulgated by certain proud but rebellious children whom she herself had cherished in her bosom. These last errors were too irrational, too clumsily supported by their authors, to be of any lasting consequence, if secular governments had not taken advantage of them for the attainment of secular and po- litical ends. Whilst Christendom was united, the exercise of irre- sponsible and despotic power by sovereigns was hardly practicable in the presence of the Church and under the supervision of the Holy See. Kings and rulers, though supreme in their own department, yet, as professing members of the Catholic Church, were held bound by her laws to the observance of at least the great moral precepts of the Christain faith. They could not, witli her sanction, violate the sacredness of the marriage bond ; they could not violate their lawful oaths, or become public perjurers or despotic tyrants, crush- ing the people whom they were only appointed to govern, and not to oppress. This was deemed a bondage from which royalty, in many instances, took advantage of the distractions in the Church as an opportunity to relieve and emancipate itself. The errors of the in- novators in their several countries were soon blended with the policy SERMONS. 259 of the state in which they lived ; and their followers, if not them- selves, have been obliged by the power of the State to adopt such modifications, such diminutions of the doctrines committed by our Saviour to the guardianship and the witnessing of the Church, as their temporal rulers were pleased to authorize. Again, the powers of the State were applied in the forms of reward and penalties to seduce the children of faith from allegianoe to the Church, and trans- form them into vassals, who were expected to bow down before the image which the sovereigns had set up. Our forefathers, in the great empire of which you are now an important colony, were no strangers to this political system of rewards and punishments. But they were men of faith in their day. They suffered martyrdom when the occasion demanded it. They suffered the loss of property, of position, of reputation itself, rather than recognize in a mere secular government the spiritual rights, and power, and authority, which the Saviour of the world conferred upon His Church alone ; and so they suffered loss of all things that they might preserve the heavenly inheritance of faith, and transmit the same to their de- scendants. The contest, if not over, is much abated in violence ; and in the presence of that empire and of mankind, we may say with the Apostle St. John, '-This is the victory which conqueretli the world, our faith." I need not tell you, dearly beloved brethren, that faith alone is not enough for salvation : it must be accompanied by good, works ; it must manifest itself in the exercise of those vir- tues which it suggests, and of which it is the foundation and the sup- port ; it must be the reliance of holy hope, and the groundwork of divine charity. The Council of Trent speaks of faith as the "basis of good woi'ks, and as the root of justification." And the Church has ever taught, in the language of the Apostle, that "faith without works', is dead in itself." What is the secret of the devoted zeal which through all ages has prompted, and still prompts the apostolic missionary to forsake the endearments of home, and to give his la- bors and his life for the conversion of men who have never heard the name of Christ ? What has inspired the martyrs with the heroism which enabled them to triumph over death ? What is it that sus- tained, and still sustains those great benefactors of the human race, those unappreciated servants of God, who devote themselves to the mitigation of human suffering at the sacrifice of worldly comfort, and even of life itself? It is charity boaring evidence to faith. To this faith, operating through charity, we must trace the origin of those great monuments of departed generations with which Eu- rope is studded from one eminence, so to speak, to another those ministers, as they are called in England, those cathedrals, monasteries, convents, hospitals, and orphan asylums, which are found on the continent. These are, indeed, monuments of faith, that still speak for the belief of our religious ancestors. They are the results of faith wrought out through social co-operation into glorious evidences of humanity, improved, purified, and elevated into works of divine charity. Their foundations were laid deep in the earth ; their AKCUBISHOP HUGHES. domes, their turrets, and their spires pointed towards heaven, as if pleading to God that He might pardon the sins of the earth, and thus, like lightning-rods in modern science, turning aside or suspend- ing, at least, the divine vengeance against the iniquities of the world. They were not the creation of mere secular governments. The expenditure which they involved was not derived from taxes decreed by civil legislation, and extorted in the name of the State from un- believing or unwilling contributors. Their expenses were borne by the offerings of charity, proceeding froiu many hands and many hearts, as a voluntary tribute offered for the love of God and the love of man. All these, as mere material structures, were, in their day of consecration, like this your own glorious cathedral, monu- ments of faith. But it is not in the founding of these institutions that the highest evidences of the power of that faith are to be looked for. A slight acquaintance with the history of the Church will satisfy any one that the power of faith, working by charity, was yet more effectually illus- trated in the consecration of individuals to the great labor of serving God and man by a perpetual sacrifice of themselves in works of charity by which such service could be sustained. Humanity in some of those ages was borne down under a dense cloud of igno- rance. And in presence of this you behold men and women, them- selves educated, and sometimes of high rank, devoting themselves for the love of God and the love of man to the life-long labor of in- structing others. The aged and destitute, the sick and wounded, the forsaken in infancy, the Christian captive under the dominion of the infidel master; in short, the various calamities or afflictions to \vhich mankind are exposed, presented, as they still present, occa- sions for the exercise of holy charity resting on the basis of divine faith. Here is the key of those various orders that have existed and still exist in the Church, some devoting themselves to this phase of human suffering, some to that, some to another, until at last you behold faith and charity taking up and assuming voluntarily the mitigation, and, so to speak, eauctification of all the sufferings to which humanity is liable. Under the influence of these divine gifts of faith and charity, the calamities of mankind have been, as it were, scientific- ally arranged and classified under their respective heads. By the divine influence of the same divine gifts operating in the hearts of individuals, there has always been in the various religious orders a succession of volunteers to undertake the work specially contempla- ted by their institutions. Not only were they inspired to undertake the work, oftentimes of a nature most discouraging and most repul- sive, but they were sustained in its execution from youth to old age, and that without any recompense except the recompense of faith, which is, according to the Apostle, " the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appeal 1 not." To the mere human eye they seemed but as instructors for the ignorant, nurses for the sick, substitutes for the Christian captive \vhen they caused the manacles of bondage to be stricken from his hands and fastened SERMONS. 261 on their own, sisters to the recovered penitents of their own sex, mothers to the destitute orphan ; and to the world it has ever ap- peared a mystery how such persons could devote themselves to such labors without the prospect of any human recompense whatever. But the explanation is, that they 'were illumined by the light of divine faith and sustained by the fire of holy charity. To them the very toils which they had to undergo, were " the substance of things to be hoped for," the very objects of their solicitude and care were to them " the evidence of things that appear not." The Re- deemer had declared that whatsoever they should do for one of the least of His brethren, should be done for Himself; and consequently their services in all the departments of Christian charity were ulti- mately directed as if to the very person of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He appeared not, but by faith He was evident to them in the person of every suffering member of humanity. All these labored in communion with the subjection to the Holy Catholic Church. Outside of her communion nothing of the kind has ever been or can ever be witnessed. Wherever civil govern- ments have usurped the functions and authority of the Church, charity in its true sense has disappeared, and faith has been replaced by mere human opinion involving speculation, doubt, and infidelity. Previous to their sacrilegious usurpation of ecclesiastical supremacy in their several States, the poor were abundantly provided for by the voluntary offerings of a believing people. After such usurpation the fountains of charity were dried up, and legal coercion was necessary to provide relief for the victims of destitution. Instead of the ancient establishments for their relief, we behold for the first time the grim workhouse exhibiting more of the prison than of the asylum ; we be- hold voluntary poverty for Christ's sake treated with derision, and the victims of involuntary destitution, if not permitted to die unre- lieved, relieved in such a manner as would imply the punishment of crime no less than the relief of want. I need hardly remind you, my dear brethren, that the inculcation of the principles of Divine Faith and of Holy Charity from this day forward is the great supernatural object for which this noble Cathe- dral has been this day consecrated. Here, before this altar, on this ground now blessed and sanctified in the work of Christ, as the earth itself had been cursed in the work of Adam, you will make known your petitions to God, abiding in His Holy Tabernacle. Here you will listen to the words of eternal life from the chief pastor whom God has placed over you, or the priests by him commissioned; here, in short, you will find for your souls a harbor of perfect rest and tranquillity, in which you will invoke the divine blessing and the divine protection against the storms and the dangers of the elements which in your humble but most important industry you will have to encounter. The fact of having erected this edifice to the glory of God is an evidence both of your faith and of your charity. It exhibits these as the characteristic of the Catholic inhabitants of your island. The inhabitants of other lands may erect palaces for 262 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. their Sovereigns which will indicate in their grandeur the existence of national wealth and of national pride. The merchants of great cities may conspire in the construction of public buildings for the purpose of regulating commerce and exchange ; all such structures proclaim the earthly principle from which they are derived, and the earthly purpose to which they are dedicated. Useful they may be and no doubt are; but if traced to their lowest foundation, they will be found to rest upon the basis of mere worldly pride or interested selfishness. Not so with an edifice like this. A Cathedral is an exception among public buildings; its purpose, its object, and the motives which prompted its erection, must all be estimated by a standard entirely different from that of those public buildings whose origin and end are limited by earth and time. This Cathedral is the product of voluntary offerings from those who expect no return of the capital or interest invested in it, who expect no remuneration, no privilege, other than the sacred privilege of worshiping God be- neath its mighty dome. The bishops from other dioceses who have the happiness to be here to-day have witnessed a spectacle worthy the ages of faith. When we return to our respective homes, we shall make known how the fishermen of Newfoundland, who go forth on the rocking billows to prosecute the development of a most important depart- ment of industry amidst the tempests and dangers of the ocean, how these fishermen, I say, have been able from their scanty earnings to economize and create a fund sufficient to rear this magnificent tem- ple as a tabernacle to the God of Jacob. Yet even this grand edifice, solid as it is, will perish. But you, dearly beloved brethren, are to be living stones in the everlasting temple which is not reared by human hands; you are sustained now by that " faith which is substance of things to be hoped for, the evi- dence of things which appear not." Let it be your care to secure the end for which you were created, an eternal abode in that better world where faith will be no longer necessary, where neither tem- pest, nor suffering, nor disappointment can reach where you will be aggregated to the glorious company of the saints and martyrs, and confessors and virgins where you will see with your own eyes God our Saviour, and near him, but elevated above all created be- ings, His ever blessed Virgin Mother, who has been figuratively and beautifully termed the " Star of the Sea." Her sweet name is fa- miliar to your lips, it is often in your hearts. Her intercession you invoke in the moment of danger, and as a safeguard against tempta- tion. She is nearly related to the incarnation of our Divine Saviour. She is the most perfect of all God's creatures, preserved from every stain of original and of actual sin. And under her powerful patron- age I invoke upon you the blessing of Almighty God, in time and in eternity, as the only adequate reward of your labors in the erec tion of this glorious monument of your faith and charity. SEEMON8. 263 SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF LAYING THE CORNER STONE OF THE NEW ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, AUGUST 15th, 1858. " Nisi D&minus ^ffidificaverit domum; in vanum laboraverunt qui cedifiant earn. Nisi Dominus custadierit cicitatum,frustra vigilat qui custodit earn." " Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it." Ps. cxxvi. 1, 2. VENERABLE FATHERS AND BISHOPS I need not say how deeply-I am grateful to you for the honor of your presence on this solemn and important occasion. I have not been insensible to this honor, nor ignorant of the inconveniences which you have incurred, by leaving, even for a brief period, the devoted flocks that look up to you, re- spectively, as to their highest local Father's and Pastors. To you also, dearly beloved and most respected priests of my own diocese, but if possible, still more to those who have come from other episcopal jurisdictions, I return the thanks of a true and grateful heart, for your presence this day. To the faithful of my own diocese, who, in the main, constitute the vast assemblage of persons actually surrounding the corner-stone of our new cathedral, I need not say that I am grateful ; that they know already for it is not the first time that I have called upon them ; but it' they had not responded in such numbers as they have done, it would be the first time that they had failed me. This they have never done, and this I am sure they never will do, when any great work is to be commenced or completed for the glory of God and the salvation of men. And I now have to return in an especial manner my grateful thanks to those who have filled up my list of expectation, which, when announced in a circular letter addressed to a limited number, might have been looked upon as a bold if not daring proposal. But the manner in which they have responded to it has filled me with astonishment, proving, as it does, that in general the faithful in their zeal and generosity for any thing appertaining to the glory of God and the forwarding of religion, are, if possible, in advance even of the pastors whom God has appointed over them. In the history of the Catholic Church during 1800 years, the truth of what I have just remarked has not, in my opinion, been brought out more clear- ly, or more promptly than in the response which I have received from those to whom I had the honor of addressing a circular letter, dated June 14, 1858. It has been said that those who ai-e, or are supposed to be wealthy, are generally cold and indifferent to the suc- cess of great religious undertakings like the present one. This re- proach has been extended to even the members of the holy Catholic 264: AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. Church ; and it has been asserted, and to a great extent believed, that it is only the poor who by their simple faith and devotedness to their religion support our charities and build our churches. The event of this day, so far, at least, contradicts and refutes this popular idea. The circular just referred to could not have been ad- dressed to more than 140 of the members of our communion in the city and diocese of New York. To a great many equally devoted the circular was not sent, owing to the fact that the Archbishop had not the pleasure of knowing them personally, or of knowing their address. It is true that two or three circulars were addressed to prominent Catholics out of the diocese, and it would be a culpable omission on my part if I did not acknowledge, as I do with pride, that at least in one case, the response was worthy of a veteran mis- sionary and of a man of God. I do not say that in any case the re- sponse was otherwise ; but both as regards clergymen and laymen, if any instance to the contrary occurred, it was that, not the good will, but the means of carrying it out have been wanting. I may here add, that I have been more touched at the evident regret of those who could not come up to the expectation suggested in the circular for the first year, than even by the magnanimous prompti- tude of those who felt that not only they would, but they could affix their names to the first roll of the first patrons of this new St. Pa- trick's Cathedral. To them it was a work of joy and satisfaction, the feeling of which they could not conceal. I am aware that not a few of them, con- sidering the depression of the times, felt the inconvenience of Chris- tian generosity. But looking back through the brief experience which the occasion required, I cannot call to mind a single person, male or female, layman or clergyman, whose heart in responding to the appeal could be considered, to say the very least, smaller than his income. And now I have to announce that my bold expectations have been realized ; that I have found one hundred persons who have subscrib- ed, and many of them already paid, $1,000 dollars each, once for all to carry on this great work of a new cathedral, during the first year of its progress and when I think of this I cannot help exclaim- ing in gratitude, Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. Neither can I suppress another exclamation in which humanity, all fallen though it be, can hardly fail to sympathize Honor and tender reverence Irom every Christian heart to Mary, the Immaculate Vir- gin Mother of the Redeemer of mankind. He is our Saviour, blend- ing in His own person the divine as well as the human nature. She, His humble Mother, was all human sin only excepted the excep- tion being the effect of His infinite merits. Honor and reverence also to the present supreme head of the Ca- tholic Church, Pius IX., for that, after having been tried in the cru- cible of virtue, it was his privilege among all the successors of St. Peter, to define by supreme and divine authority, what indeed the SEKMONS. 265 Catholic Church had always believed, but which had not until then taken the absolute form of a dogma of Catholic faith. It is true that all honor to the Blessed Virgin was recognized, and all privi- lege and dignity included in her title as Virgin Mother of the eter- nal Word made flesh, in the person of our Saviour Jesus Christ. It was n't that the definition of her last prerogative, viz., her perpetual exemption from actual and original sin, through the merits of her divine Son, should be reserved for a Pontiff, who, in meekness and humility, approaches so nearly to her own example ; and it is also touchingly affecting to reflect that the Blessed Virgin herself could leave this definition in abeyance during so many centuries, until a period should arrive when the definition should be hailed with such universal joy by all the children of her divine Son. It is a final con- firmation of our own privilege, for by a voice from the cross of Cal- vary she was assigned to us iii the person of St. John the Evangelist as our mother the dying Saviour uttering these words, " Son, be- hold thy mother." It is touchingly affecting, I have said, that she, if we might use such language, waited until the definition of her exemption from original sin could be, as it has been, proclaimed by the voice of the supreme Pastor on earth, without any strife or uncharitableness ; nay, I might add, without producing so much as a ripple on the calm sea of Catholic faith. Next to Almighty God, the corner-stone of this Cathedral is to be laid under the auspices of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Its special patron, as announced, is the glorious Apostle of Ireland St. Patrick originally selected as patron of the first Cathedral commenced by our Catholic ancestoi's in Mott-street, fifty -two years ago. Their un- dertaking was indeed an example of zeal and enterprise worthy of our imitation. They were very few, they were very poor ; but their minds were as large as the Cathedral which they projected, and theirs were the hearts of great men. It might be said of them what is mentioned in the Scriptures, but in a different sense, that " there were giants in those days." They laid the foundation of the first Cathedral, at a period when it is said that the Catholics of New York were not numerous enough to fill the small Church of St. Peter, in Barclay-street, and that ten years after, when the Cathedral was opened, it was necessary during a short period to shut up St. Peter's on alternate Sundays, in order to accustom the people to find their way to the new church, which was then considered to be far out of the city. Honor to the memory of our ancestors of that period ! The laws of the Catholic Church do not permit more than one Ca- thedral in one diocese. There will be but one Cathedral in this Met- ropolitan See. It will be the same as it has been until the conse- cration of this church. Neither is a bishop at liberty to substitute from the calendar of the saints a new patron, simply because there is to be a new Cathedral in his diocese, unless by special permission of the Holy See at Rome, which I have not the intention to solicit. The dispensations of Divine Providence towards nations and in- 266 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. dividuals are essentially mysterious and impenetrable. "Whether in their national or individual capacities, it is clear from the history of the human race, that God oftentimes permits His enemies to be pros- perous in this world, and reserves for His friends the bitter chalice of humiliation and poverty. The Holy Scriptures and the teaching of our Lord would seem to mark out that distinction as it has just been described ; and in that case, taking eternity into account as well as time, who shall say that God has been unkind in the order of providence, to the nation converted to Christianity by the Apos- tolic labors of the French captive boy, who is known in ecclesiasti- cal history as St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. He found that isl- and a pagan land ; he left it at his death the freshest and most beautiful flower that adorned the brow of the Christian Church. He dotted its entire surface with temples in honor of the true God. He made its mountains and valleys vocal with hymns of praise that rose as a national chorus day and night to the throne of the Lamb. He ordained priests he consecrated bishops he colonized from point to point fervent and holy communities of men and virgins, who of- fered themselves for every good work of doctrine and of charity, until, as it is stated by the learned German author, Gueres, Religion, Learning, Piety, disturbed and oppressed by the troubles of the time on the continent of Europe, had to take refuge in Ireland, like a fatigued army retreating to winter-quarters. During two or three centuries, or even more, from the period just alluded to, Ireland sent forth her missionaries, some of whose names are still known, in connection with either the universities, monas- teries, or great churches that sprang up in Scotland, England, Ger- many, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and even Italy herself. At home the spiritual descendants of St. Patrick, amidst their own ca- lamities, never ceased to encourage learning and piety. For the support of the schools in the city of Armagh alone, the rental of fourteen townships had been set apart by the generosity of the peo- ple, and it remained for Queen Elizabeth to confiscate this property, and for her successors, by way of recompense to an injured people, to shut up the very schools which they had established. Since then they have become, to a great extent, outcasts from their native land and been scattered over the earth. You can trace their path of life through all the civilized countries of the world. You can trace them through England itself, through America, through India, through Australia, and though there may be no mark to designate the graves in which they slumber, still the churches which they have erected, either wholly or in part, all round the globe to the same faith by which St. Patrick emancipated them from heathenism these churches, I say, are most fitting headstones to commemorate the existence, and I may add, in a Christian sense, the honorable history of the Irish people. They are not, by any means, exempt from the sins to which hu- manity is subject. And what is the fact, and what is in harmony with the other parts of their destiny, if we might so call it, is, that SERMONS. 267 whether in their own country or in foreign nations, they come in for the largest share of justice, and the smallest of mercy, when they happen to violate the laws of the land. This, too, is an additional proof that the providence of God, in their regard, is mysterious and impenetrable. Yet, as a nation, if they are to be pelted simply on account of their guilt, it would be difficult to find another nation qualified by its own inno- cenc'e to cast at them the first stone. But, on a day like this, we do not think of individuals or of na- tions, but only the great and glorious Catholic Church, which em- braces the whole human race as one family ; and in this sense, the very ceremony in which we are engaged proves that this is practi- cal amongst us as well as theoretical. On the parchment containing the names of the first patrons of the cathedral now projected, the United States of America, Ireland, Scotland, England, Belgium, Spain, France, and Germany, are all represented. The names of members belonging to the Catholic Church from all these countries will slumber side by side on the parchment that engrosses them, and is to be deposited in the cavity of that corner-stone. Neither can I omit to mention that two gen- tlemen, who are not Catholics, have spontaneously contributed each the amount specified in my circular. Their motive is not their be- lief at the present moment in the Catholic religion. But it is that -they are New Yorkers by birth that they have traveled in Europe, and that they are ambitious to see at least one ecclesiastical edifice on Manhattan Island of which their native city will have occasion to be proud. With regard to this anticipation, I can only say, that so far as depends on me, they shall not be disappointed. And now, my hundred and three first patrons, what shall I say of you, after having already expressed my gratitude for the prompt and generous manner with which you have responded to my call ? I shall say this, that you have set an example that will edify your brethren, both here and elsewhere. I will say this further, that those who are to carry on the work for the second year, will emu- late that example, and, according to their means, will rival you in zeal and generosity. I will say once again, that until this cathedral shall have been completed, and crowned with success, your example will save me from the necessity of " begging ;" or, if I should have occasion to "beg," it will furnish me with a model text. And now, if I should have to distinguish between the clergy and laity of my diocese, what shall I have to say ? This : That judging from the past, in which the clergy were at all times loyal and one-minded in aiding their unworthy bishop in whatever enter- prise he had engaged, so will they be in all times to come and to them, with the powerful co-operation which they will always have from their devoted flocks, I commend this great work, no mat- ter under whose episcopal auspices it may hereafter be carried on. One thing I would say to all, if my voice was strong enough to reach the furthest boundary of this immense multitude, and that is, 268 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. that this work will require the constancy of strong minds, generous hearts, and powerful arms. It is a work which would, if that were possible, be accomplished by the enthusiasm of a single day. But as it is, the prosecution and completion of it will require firmness, determination, and unconquerable perseverance. It will require what is essential to every great undertaking, steadiness and indomi- table resolution, always relying upon the help of God to see it brought to a perfect consummation. Nor of all this have I the slightest doubt. What more shall I say of you, first patro,ns of this cathedral ? I shall not speak of you, but I shall speak for you. What have you done ? You have given a hundred and three thousand dollars towards the building of a temple which can add nothing to the glory of God ; for His is the earth, and the fulness thereof. On the other hand, this money might have been given to the poor. All this will be thrown up at you by those who are of this world, and have no comprehension of what is really faith, and what is real- ly charity. And it is significant that you would seem to belong in this case to the school of Christ, when He bore with the extravagance of Mary Magdalene pouring ointment on His sacred feet ; and your ac- cusers, if it were not almost uncharitable to say so, would seem to be- long to the school of him who carried the purse, aud looked upon the penitent Mary's offering as if it were a defrauding of the poor. . Now I will say for you that this is a great work for the poor. It comes up at a time when they are unusually depressed ; your charity will give them honorable employment to a considerable extent ; and as the world is now constituted, compensation for honest labor is much better than alms for the relief of poverty under an unavoida- ble pressure which imposes idleness by necessity on the working classes. Now, when you are reproached with your extravagance, ask your accusers whether it is in fact a crime to provide employ- ment and compensation for the mechanic and laborer, who really belong to the substantial portion of society in all countries. But then they will say, you are Catholics, and we have to sup port so many of your poor more than of any other denomination, and would it not have been better to provide these, your humble brethren, the comforts of a charitable roof and home, than to waste so much money in founding what, no doubt, you intend as a gor- geous cathedral ? When they tell you this, do not forget the charity that is due to persons ; but, as for the argument itself, laugh it to scorn. And say, that the building of cathedrals and churches was, in all ages, intimately connected with and conducive to the support of the poor, until the period when the first predecessors of those who accuse you, actually spoiled and ruined, so far as human agency could accom- plish it, the plan of Christ for the protection of the poor. Say to them, that the first lady in Christendom that ever witnessed what we now call "pauperism," was Queen Elizabeth that her father SERMONS. 269 \\'as the robber of the poor in suppressing churches, monasteries, and cathedrals in Catholic England. That, except as used in the Gospel, beati pauperes, the word pauper was unknown in the modern languages of Christendom, until the period just referred to ; that it is creditable to her woman's nature that Elizabeth sympathized with the poor, and that, after one or two homilies addressed to her par- liament on the subject, she was, in very desperation, compelled to introduce, almost to the shame of Christianity, human laws forcing men to support their own destitute brethren. Compulsion was necessary ; the law of charity in the Gospel, as prescribed by our Lord, had be- come inefficient, and apparently obsolete ; and it was requisite to invoke the same human legislative authority, which is divinely insti- tuted for the punishment of crime and the protection of society, in order to make Christians " love each other," or at least to pay some- thing into the public treasury to prevent men from dying of starvation. Has all this resulted in benefit to the poor ? I cannot answer the question. I can only express my own regret that it has imposed a triple expenditure upon the rich, from one-third of which the poor, according to the old system, would have been well provided for, without the necessity of inflicting upon them the stigma of social degradation. Say to them, finally, that if they were guided by the large, and may I not call it divine, instirret of the Catholic religion, they would consider the poor of future generations as well as of the present. And in that view they would regard with certainty the erection of this cathedral as a head fountain, sending out its living waters of faith and charity on all sides, and as a great nursery for cul- tivating the principle of charity among the generations that are to suc- ceed us. This is enough, on that subject ; and it only remains for me to re- quest that you all unite in deep adoration of God, in the spirit of the psalms and prayers that are to be offered in laying the corner-stone, and in consecrating even the foundations of this cathedral, bearing in mind the sentiment which shall be uppermost in the hearts of the venerable bishops and clergy who are here present, as well as my own, that JV?si I)ominuscedijicavint domum, in vanum labor aver unt qui cedificant earn. The following is the circular referred to in the preceding sermon. NEW YORK, June 14th, 1858. GENTLEMEN : The Archbishop of New York begs leave to apprize you that he will have the honor to call upon you personally, at the earliest opportunity, in reference to the great New St. "Patrick's Cathedral, to be erected on the block bounded by 5th avenue, west, and Madison avenue, east, and between 50th and 51st streets. The building is to be 322 feet long, 97 feet wide in the clear, with a transept 172 feet, and an elevation of 100 feet from the floor to the crown point of the clear story. The Archbishop feels authorized to present himself in the name of his office of the clergy and laity of his diocese at the head of this great undertaking. And in order that it may begin under Divine as well as human auspices, he 270 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. now presents this first portion of his plan to those only who may be able and disposed, under noble impulses, to aid him in carrying it out. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. We propose for the glory of Almighty God, for the honor of the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin, for the exaltation of Holy Mother Church, for the dignity of our ancient and glorious Catholic name, to erect a cathedral in the city of New York that may be worthy of our increasing numbers, intelligence, and wealth as a religious community and, at all events, worthy as a public ar- chitectural monument of the present and prospective greatness of this metrop- olis of the American Continent. The ultimate success of this undertaking is not doubtful ; but its triumphant accomplishment will depend, in a great measure, on the response which I am to receive from those to whom I have the honor of addressing this letter. The object of it is to ascertain whether there are not in my diocese, or rather in the city of New York itself, one hundred persons who will subscribe one thousand dollars each once for all to be paid in quarterly instalments, if they desire it, during the first year, and to be expressly and exclusively appropriated to carry on the work during the same period. No other appeal shall be made to the Catholic body until towards the end of this first year, dating from the 15th of August, 1858. In about a year from that time it is my intention, and, I think, with reasonable hopes of success, to call for another one hundred thou- sand dollars from those who can contribute in sums less than one thousand, but not less than one hundred dollars each. The success of the second year will depend on that of the first. Independent of the amounts thus contributed at the commencement, the moral effect of such a noble beginning will be equiv- alent in importance to the amount subscribed through the influence of example. It will sustain the heart of the people at large. It will inspire them with an ar- dent desire to see this great work accomplished. It will stimulate them to an honorable rivalship in their liberal contributions, according to their means, and thus, I anticipate, that allowing five years for its completion, there need not be a single suspension of the work. Every thing depends on the first year. My principle is to pay as we proceed up to the amount of half a mil- lion of dollars ; and if, at that point, it should be necessary to obtain, on loan, two or three hundred thousand dollars, I do not think that this need frighten any one. But I should not wish it to be consecrated in my lifetime, until it is finished from the foundation stone to the top of the cross on the up- lifted spires. Whether I succeed or not, in the object of this communication, I shall, with the help of God, bless and deposit the corner-stone on the Feast of the Assump- tion of this year viz., the 15th of August, precisely at 4 o'clock in the after- noon. If, what I cannot anticipate, I should be unsuccessful in the object of this appeal, the corner-stone shall be laid the same, and protected by an iron railing against possible injury until the arrival of better times. I may not have the consolation of seeing it consecrated, but I cannot leave for my successor the honor and great privilege of seeing it begun. The names of subscribers to this first year's expenditure shall be engrossed on parchment, and deposited with other memorials in the cavity of the corner- stone, where, though unseen by men, they will ever be under the eyes and in- spection of God, and may turn up for honor and mercy on the Day of Judg- ment. These names, however, of the first patrons of the New St. Patrick's Cathe- dral will be handed down to posterity, embalmed in the traditions, and cher- ished in the memories of future generations a glorious example and edifica- tion, not only to the people of New York, but also to the whole United States and the whole Catholic world. Ji JOHN, Archbishop of New York. SERMONS. 271 SERMON IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, ON THE OCCASION OF THE COLLECTION FOR THE AMERICAN COLLEGE IN ROME, DECEMBER 12th, 1859. His Grace said that it had been announced last Sunday that the offerings for the day would be sacred to the purpose of establishing an American college in Rome. It would be impossible for his Grace to be indifferent to such a glorious enterprise, but indisposition ren- dered it doubtful whether he could speak on the subject that day. The observations his Grace intended to make were founded on the verses of the last chapter of St. Matthew, in which our Saviour says: " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye and teach all nations." The authority of the Church as a teacher was derived from Christ as a teacher. The commission He gave to His Apostles was, that they should " teach all nations." This commis- sion contained within itself an authority as to subordinate teaching, by which the nations of the earth might be lifted from the darkness of paganism and heathenism to the light of civilization. But there was also a third teaching, springing from the first, and connected with the teachings of the Apostles, which was incumbent on parents with regard to their offspring. This last teaching was connected with the first in a particular manner, which might be explained by the fact that, when the Apostles taught, they addressed themselves to mature minds, which understood them ; and these teachings were often enforced by miracles, as was indeed necessary in the early ages of the Church. Thus we behold Christ as a teacher training His Apostles, and telling them that He only gave what He received from His Father, thus preparing them for the subordinate teaching which was to be transmitted to the children of those whom they should teach. And now when about to retire from earth He sent twelve Apostles, giving them a commission to " teach all nations." After the descent of the Holy Ghost, these twelve Apostles went forth on their divine errand, and when those whom they taught had become disciples of the Cross, they taught their children the same truths, thus showing that the doctrii>es of Christ, if true for the parents, were also true for the children of all generations. The Apostles traversed many lands, propagating everywhere the doctrines of their divine Master, and thus left this secondary teaching of children to their parents. The Church never recognized the awful doctrine that children should grow up without any religious teaching, until they should become old enough to form a judgment for themselves. This would only be permitted by parents who were uncertain about the 272 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. truth of their own religion. Religion in the Catholic Church was not a speculation, but a permanent universal truth, and to those whom God had led into the light of it, was a conviction and not a specu- lation. The official teachers of Christianity were the Apostles, and their successors in the priesthood ; but at the same time, the laity, as a necessaiy consequence, became teachers of their children and ser- vants, and as time passed, universities, colleges, and schools were established for the purpose of teaching every thing which it was es- sential that man should know. The early Fathers of the Ch'urch had got all the knowledge which was attainable in their age. These were they who vindicated against heathen philosophy the truths of their faith, and thus set aside all religion which had its origin in the proud brain of man ; and after the Church had for three hundred years passed through the Red Sea of persecution, there was infused into it a community of education, and a zeal to support it. Univer- sities sprang up, and though the monasteries were distinct from these, they were no less important in the matter of education. Chiefs, during the feudal system, caused education to suffer, in consequence of their wars with each other ; for they loved the sword and despised the book. The Church was not inimical to education ; on the con- trary, she had in all ages fostered it to the utmost of her power. True, some of the universities had passed into the hands of those who were opposed to the Church, but had they not been in exist- ence at the time of the so-called Reformation, they would never have been in existence. The sacred influence of parental authority came through the pastors of the Church. The child given to parents was the child of God as well as theirs ; it was the child of the Holy Cath- olic Church from the moment it was consecrated to God by the Sacrament of Baptism. When the children should grow up they might perhaps be unfortunate enough to forget the teachings they had received, and deny the Church ; but then the responsibility of the parents ceased. Hence the teachings of the good and pious Christian mother were such as would always leave a lasting impres- sion upon the children. Parents should therefore see that their off- spring were taught in such a manner as not to swerve from the faith. When all Christendom was Catholic, education was not neglected, and the schools now called " Common Schools" were established everywhere, before the unhappy distraction of the Church, and even Sunday was encroached upon to teach children. Common Schools were, therefore, by no means a modern institution. But these schools were supported upon the voluntary principle. The Church did all her work by the gentle influence of her own divine right as a teacher, acting upon her children through the love of Jesus Christ, and not for human gain or human salary. Here, on the contrary, every thing has been done thi'ough Legislature, thus showing that the bestowal of education was not a labor of love, and that the civil power had to be called in to aid it. Common education was established in Russia, and other nations, SERMONS. 273 and in no country in the world had an attempt been made to divorce it from Christianity, except in our own. Prussia, with all her head- strong Protestantism, had left this an open question, and even Eng- land had allowed Catholic schools to be established apart from others, and had allowed a. pro rata sum for their support. On this subject much had been said lately. Catholics had been denounced as overthrowing the Bible in the Public Schools ; but this was not the case, and indeed what had been said on this subject was sufficient to show that Catholics approved of no system of education from which religion was excluded. True, it might be better that children should be taught in these schools, than that they should go about and suffer from the pernicious teachings of the streets, but in no case would it be lawful to attend these schools if Catholics had schools of their own. Many years ago the consequences of the present school system had been predicted. Then it was considered as one of its beautiful features that no sectarianism should be recognized therein. To this, it was replied, that where no established religion was ac- knowledged, all was sectarian, therefore all religion should be ex- cluded. It gave him pleasure now to say, after twenty years' experience, that many men of high standing had dreaded the conse- quences of such an exclusion. Seldom did Catholic preachers make allusion to what was said in pulpits not their own ; but in the recent agitation two Protestant clergymen of high standing and authority among their respective sects, had made use of language stronger and more terrific than had ever fallen from the lips of a Catholic in ref- erence to this matter, from which sermons his grace read extracts. These were thB schools so strongly spoken of by their own patrons^ to which Catholic parents were advised to send their children. It was true, these Rev. gentlemen had found a panacea for the evil, by saying that a portion of the Bible should be read in these schools. There were many versions of the Bible ; who could distinguish the true Bible from the false one ? While the Catholic Bible was re- ceived as the true version, Catholics must necessarily discountenance any Bible which was not approved by the Church. Again, they recommended that the Lord's Prayer should be recited as it was in the Bible. Now that prayer had a whole sentence more in it, as found in the Protestant Bible, than it had in the Catholic Bible, and the Catholic child retiring from these schools, had learned two dis- tinct versions of the Lord's Prayer one from the common schools, and one from the teaching of the Church. But Catholics had ceased to make war upon these schools ; all they had to do was to recognize the Catholic Church as a teacher, and make the best provision for their poor children their poverty would permit. Let them continue to labor as they had labored, and with time and the blessing of God they would yet be able to make a better provision for Catholic chil- dren than they now had. The Church was the fond mother of edu- cation ; she was the same now as ever, and had her universities in various parts of Europe. And now, to exemplify her care for edu- cation, the Sovereign Pontiff had suggested that there should be VOL. II. 18 274r ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. founded a college for Americans in the eternal city of Rome itself. The Church of Christ had been extinguished in the British Islands ; education to Catholics had been prohibited ; and if they crossed the sea to obtain it, such a proceeding was a crime, punishable by imprison- ment, and, in certain contingencies, by death itself. Spain, France, Belgium, and Germany had opened the doors of their universities, and even special colleges had been founded for the inhabitants of the British Islands; but above all, it was in Rome that the greatest provisions had been made for education, and apart from the regular institutions of the Church, every nation in Europe had its own special college, including England, Scotland, Ireland, Hungary, and Greece. The lectures of the colleges of Rome were free to all, with- out distinction of creed or country, and learned professors of all na- tions were there to diffuse information to all who sought it. The present Holy Father, taking a deep interest in the Catholic Church in this country, had, out of his own slender means, instituted and offered to the Bishops of this country a college in the Eternal City for the United States. Their offerings were designed not to purchase this college, but to keep it in repair ; to furnish it and pro- vide it with a library, and, as health was of the utmost importance to youth, to purchase a villa to which the students could retire for rec- reation at certain seasons of the year. Candidates would not be re- ceived indiscriminately, but the Bishops were empowered to send such as they could recommend for their piety and learning. It might be that some of those present might not live to see the realization of the College, but there were those under the guidance of the Christian Brothers, returning from that city, now honey-combed by the relics of martyrs, to minister among them, who would be at once a dignity and an ornament to the Church of God in the United States. How- ever, be that as it might, it showed that the education of the Church was never extinguished. Considering that a collection had to be taken up in every Church in the country, it was evident that the establishment of the college would not be oppressive to individuals, and the means contributed would enable them to fit out a college worthy of their country. The managers, the rectors, and the pro- fessors would be American, and all things connected with the house would be especially adapted to this country. The wonder 'was that an establishment of this kind had not been instituted in Rome for America before now. England had her English college, Scotland her Scotch college, and Ireland her two Irish colleges. Why, then, should not America have her American college ? And now, with the blessing of God, this was to be accomplished. His Grace had often remarked how lonely Americans seemed in the Eternal City. They had no local habitation within its walls ; and, however kind professors of other colleges might be, still for Americans one thing was lacking. Generations yet unborn would bless the memory of that Pontiff who thought of establishing an American college, and those Catholics who contributed to carry out the glorious under- taking. SERMONS. 275 THE SILENCE OF CHRIST BEFORE HIS JUDGES. A SERMON DELIVERED ON GOOD FRIDAY, 1859, IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL. " When the chief priests, therefore, and the officers had seen Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him. Pilate saith to them, Take Him you and crucify Him, for I find no cause in Him. " The Jews answered him : We have a law, and according to the law He ought to die ; because He made himself the Son of God. " When Pilate, therefore, had heard this saying, lie feared the more. " And he entered into the hall again ; and he said to Jesus : Whence art thou ? but Jesus gave him no answer." JOHN six. You are familiar, my dear brethren, with the history of the suffer- ings and death of our divine Saviour. The history of those suffer- ings was read in the Mass of last Sunday, and you have the details before you in the office of Holy Week. It embraces that great brief intermediate period between the Jewish history of religion and the history of the Catholic Church, in which the prophecies and figures of the one, the trials, the triumphs, and the realities of the other, meet and mingle together as in a common centre. The Jewish re- ligion was intended for a limited duration, until the fulness of time appointed, and until the Expected of Nations should come to give reality to all its hopes and promises. The expiration of that religion was substantially announced by its own zealous advocates, when for the first time they turned their back upon the God of their fathers, and appealed to Caesar, a prince of this world, for authority to crucify the Holy One. This final apostasy of the Jews was still more attested when, even after the death of Christ, they pierced His side with a spear ; and when the sacraments of the Catholic Church gushed forth from His own divine heart through the wound they had just made, in mingled blood and water, which, falling on the earth, was a renovation of the same the blood signifying atonement for the sins of its inhabitants at all times, and the water as the emblem of cleansing and washing away the sins of the world for time to come. And it is through this wound, if I might so speak, that by the ap- pointment of the divine Saviour, His Church, through the medium of her sacraments, has been invested with power to remit sin, or rather, under the proper conditions, to annihilate sin in regard to the individual members of His mystical body. This is done in the Sacra- ment of Baptism, in the Sacrament of Penance, and by a special mercy towards the dying, in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. Good Friday throughout the Church has been appointed from the earliest times to commemorate the sufferings and death of our Lord. His Passion begins immediately after the institution of the Holy Eucharist, and the sacrifice of Mass on the night previous, at the 276 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. close of the Jewish Passover. From that commencement you may trace the progress of His sufferings, from stage to stage, as it is re- corded by the inspired Evangelist in your prayer-books. But you may trace it also, on all the days of the year, in that beautiful devotion which is represented and commemorated by the Stations of the Cross. It is customary in many countries to pronounce from the chair of truth a discourse well calculated to excite all the sympathies of the human heart for the spectacle of divine innocence in the person of Christ persecuted unto death. But the real purpose is to excite in us contrition for our own sins, because He was bruised for our ini- quities. That view of the subject I leave to your own private and devout meditations, and in the remarks which I am about to make I shall not dwell upon the indignities offered to and sufferings under- gone by our Redeemer ; but I shall treat of that mysterious silence which our Lord observed when He declined to give an answer to the question of Pilate, asking Him whence He came. The Christian mind is necessarily overwhelmed in the contempla- tion of the Passion of our divine Lord. Most portions of it, how- ever, are relieved, or rather varied by the recital of some words pro- ceeding from His divine lips, or some new insult offered to His sacred person. But when we come to speak of His silence both before Herod and Pilate, we are filled with a sentiment of awe and pro- found astonishment. Who may venture to explain that mysterious silence, since the inspired Evangelists themselves furnish no key for its explanation ? The coal of fire invoked by the prophet Isaiah to purify his lips, would be necessary for him who should undertake to explain this emphathic silence of the Son of God who came to be the teacher of mankind. Invoking on myself the aid of that divine illu- mination and purification of speech invoked by the prophet, I would call your attention to two reflections, which shall constitute the sub- ject of this discourse : First, that both Herod and Pilate were with- out any pretext of ignorance -in regard to our divine Saviour which could warrant them in demanding more light than they had already received ; and second, that by this silence He would teach his fol- lowers an example of the meekness of the Christian spirit, whenever the question does not affect so much the honor and glory of God as the self-vindication of his servants who may be called to trial and to suffering. Jesus Christ did not appear among men as a usurper, or as one who had come without being foretold or expected. The Jews espe- cially, including Herod, no less than the high-priests, had in their own books, in their sacrifices, in their rites and ceremonies, a perpet- ual lesson to encourage and sustain the hope of the Messiah's com- ing, and to long for the period of His advent. Every thing respect- ing His birth, the place and circumstances, His life, His teachings, His miracles, His passion, His death, and His glorious resurrection from the grave, was minutely recorded in the prophecies of their sacred books. And with all these they were familiar, so much so, that when the wise men from the East came, guided by a miracu- SKKMOXS. 277 lous star to Jerusalem, the high-priests explained to them from one of their prophecies that he was to be born in Bethlehem of Juda. It would be too tedious to mention more than a few of the prophe- cies attesting His identity and His divine mission. But in regard to the great mystery of this day, what can be more clear or explicit in reference to His sufferings than the prophetic language of holy David, who lived one thousand years before ? In his 21st Psalm he declares the very words which the Saviour should pronounce in His agony on the Cross, " O God, my God, look upon me ; why hast thou forsaken me In thee have our fathers hoped ; they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them But I am a worm, and no man ; the reproach of men and the outcast of the people. All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn. They have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head." "He hoped in the Lord, let Him deliver Him. Let Him save Him, seeing He delighteth in Him Depart not from me, for tribulation is very near for there is none to help me For many dogs have encompassed me, the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet ; they have num- bered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me ; they have parted my garments amongst them ; and upon my vesture they cast lots With thee is my praise in a great church; I will pay my vows in the sight of them that fear Him. All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord. And all the kindred of the Gentiles shall adore in His sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's ; for He shall have dominion over the na- tions And to Him my soul shall live, and my seed shall serve Him." Who, my dearly beloved brethren, reading these sacred words in- scribed by the Royal Prophet on the pages of inspiration, written a thousand years before the event, and shall compare them with the narrative of the Passion of our divine Saviour, will not be almost tempted to regard them as much in the light of history as of pro- phecy ? And the chanting of these Psalms in their sacred worship constituted for these thousand years the glorious hope of Israel and the sacred joy of Jerusalem. Such a people, when the Saviour did appear among them, had no pretext for ignoring Plis character, or for regarding Him as an unexpected stranger. Neither were other prophecies wanting in regard to a sufficient measure of light, whereby they might identify Him of whom their Fathers uttered their fervent hopes in begging of God that the heavens might rain down the Just One, and the earth bud forth the Saviour. But there were other prophecies scattered through all their books, with which His birth, and life, and public mission were in strict accordance. His holiness, His doctrine, His omnipotent power in performing miracles, had all been alluded to in clear pro- phetic language throughout the pages of the Old Testament. With these His contemporaries of the Jewish nation, especially the priests and doctors of the law, were familiar But among all the prophets 278 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. there was none more cherished, for the sweet sorrows which he in- fused into his prophecies regarding Christ, than Isaias, who lived seven hundred years before the birth of the Crucified. His descrip- tion of the events which we this day commemorate may be found in the fifty-second and fifty-third chapter of his prophecies. And you can easily pei'ceive how they are almost descriptive of the incidents that occurred in the Passion of our Lord. He says, " Behold, my servant shall understand: he shall be exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men : he shall sprinkle many nations : kings shall shut their mouth at him : for they to whom it was not told of him have seen, and they that heard not have beheld. Who hath believed our report ? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ? and he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground ; there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness ; and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him. Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity : and his look was, as it were, hidden and despised ; where- upon we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows : and we have thought him, as it were, a leper, and as one struck by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins : the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way : and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. lie was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth : he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth." The inspired prophet then is caught up into ecstasy at the vision of the Church, which should result and spring up from the sufferings and death of the Messiah. He turns his enraptured vision to the gentile nations, and bursts forth in the following strain of inspiration : *' Give praise, O thou barren that bearest not ; sing forth praise, and make a joyful noise, thou that didst not travail with child ; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a hus- band, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and stretch out the skins of thy tabernacles, spare not : lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt pass on to the right hand, and to the left : and thy seed shall inherit the gentiles, and shall in- habit the desolate cities For he that made thee shall rule over thee, the Lord of Hosts is his name : and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, shall be called the God of all the earth." Such is the prophet's description of the God-man who stood be- fore Pilate, and when questioned by that pagan ruler whence he was, declined to give an answer, and remained silent. But even this circumstance had been noted in the ancient prophecies, where, as you have just heard, he is represented as a lamb before the shearer, not opening his mouth. SERMONS. 279 It may easily be admitted that Pontius Pilate, being a Roman pagan, and representing the authority of Cffisar, should be ignorant of the sacred books of the Jewish religion. But our Redeemer did not vouchsafe to make any reply when questioned by King Herod. This Herod was the same who, out of human respect, beheaded St. John the Baptist. Both these princes, however, if not familiar with the prophecies, had learned enough of the doctrines and the miracles of Christ to be inwardly convinced of His extraordinary power, un- exampled holiness and innocence. Herod wished, through curiosity, to see Him of whom he had heard so much. He hoped that our Saviour would gratify him by the performance of a miracle to be wrought in his presence. He questioned Him, says the text, with many words, but Jesus answered him nothing. So, in like manner, Pilate was convinced of His innocence. His wife, even whilst he sat in the tribunal of judgment, cautioned him against having any thing to do with that just man. He pleaded with the multitude to have Him saved ; and when he did not succeed, he washed his hands, as if that ceremony could cleanse him from the guilt of his unjust sentence. Whilst he hesitated the Jews threatened him with the enmity of Caesar. The blood from which he washed his hands they invoked upon themselves and upon their children. But since our Saviour was appointed as the teacher of men, why is it that. He did not answer the questions of Herod and of Pilate? There is no doubt that He could have answered them in such a manner as to have made them believers in His divinity. And yet He was silent. Oh ! the mysterious judgments of God ! They had resisted know- ledge which was within their reach they had resisted the grace that had been given them. Their questions proceeded not from a sincere desire to know truth, but from a culpable curiosity, or a desire to display their own consequence in the world, as great princes. Pilate had once before asked of our Saviour what is truth ? and retired be- fore there was time to give an answer. It may be then that our Saviour declined a response because it would be an additional grace which they would reject like all the others they had received. How many are there in the world who have within their reach the means of knowing the truth, through the teachings of the Church, but who, like Herod and Pilate, stand aloof under pretence that more light is needed, and who, in their affected desire to know what truth is, turn away before they can receive the answer ! For them, too, Christ will be silent. Christ fulfilled His office as a divine teacher no less by His silence when he declined to answer the questions of Herod and of Pilate, than by His living words when he spoke to the people and gave authority to the Apostles to carry on His work. The first words of His, re- corded by the Evangelists, were an announcement that He was sent to be about the works of His Father. He had just been among the doctors in the temple, where He had spoken at the age of twelve years, so as to fill those who heard Him with admiration. For near- ly twenty years from that time He was obedient to His mother and 280 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. St. Joseph, and in this He was a teacher to all children and an ex- ample of reverence for domestic and filial obedience. His public ministry lasted but three years. During this period He taught pub- licly. His discourses were simple in their language, but divinely profound in their meaning. He gathered around Him the humble and the meek. He spoke to them in the city, in the villages, in the fields, by the wayside, on the margin of the lake, and on the moun- tain. He taught in the presence of His enemies, in the temple, and elsewhere. He knew what was passing in the hearts of those that heard Him, and not unfrequently replied to their thoughts even be- fore utterance had been given to them. He was mild and meek in all His ways ; and yet how often do we find Him using strong and energetic language, when pride and self-righteousness required re- prehension ! He never hesitated to pronounce in their own hearing, woe to the Scribes and the Pharisees ; woe to the rich and to the world : nay, He carried His zeal for the glory of His heavenly Father, and for the honor of the holy temple to such a point, that He cast out the money-changers from its portals, declaring to them that His house was the house of prayer, but that they had made it a den of thieves. On the other hand, look at the divine sublimity of His sermon on the mountain, when He declared that the kingdom of heaven belonged to those who were poor in spirit that the pure of heart should see God that the meek should possess the land that present suffering for His sake is a pledge of future comfort that every desire after justice should be satisfied that the merciful should obtain mercy that peace-makers should be called the children of God. Here is the speech of the divine teacher j brief in words but fathomless in its divine meaning. So also did he teach by his miracles. The first was at the mar- riage of Cana in Galilee, where, at the suggestion of His blessed Mother, He changed water into wine. This, says the Evangelist, was the beginning of His miracles. The motive apparently was to save the family from a humiliation of their poverty, as if they had invited guests without being able to treat them according to the hospitalities usual among their neighbors on such occasions. Before He spoke His Mother told them to do whatever He should say to them. Then He directed that the six water-pots should be filled with water, and told the stewards to draw. In producing the change of water into wine, He used no spoken words, but as the steward drew it off it had ceased to be water, and had become wine. There is but one other instance of a miracle performed by Christ without the use of spoken words, and that was when He gave extension to the five loaves on the mountain, wherewith the multitude were fed to the number of five thousand. But in His divine wisdom these two miracles were performed as introductory to, and symbolic of, the Holy Eucharist, in which bread and wine, by His almighty power, and the words of His appointed minister, are changed into His body and blood. These, and the other miracles which He performed, made Him SEKMONS. 281 known to all the people. He restored the son of the widow of Nairn to his mother. He raised Lazarus from the tomb He healed the sick, caused the lame to walk, stilled the tempest, gave speech to the dumb, and hearing to the deaf; He cured a man born blind : and all these cases were subjects of admiration on one side and of contradiction on the other, so that His doctrine and His miracles became subjects of disputation among all the people of Jerusalem ; and, except by wilful indifference to truth, it was impossible that either Herod or Pilate should have been unacquainted with these things, and therefore it may be that when they questioned Him at their own tribunal in the hour of his voluntary humiliation, He was pleased to answer them no word, as if they had already received and neglected too many graces to obtain another at their own ca- price. Neither is this the only lesson of instruction which we may infer from the silence of Christ on the two occasions just alluded to. His Apostles and His Saints at all times have understood and practised the sublimity of this silent teaching. His Apostles in particular, after their reception of the Holy Ghost, never ceased to declare all His doctrines in the face of a world leagued with the enemy of souls to extinguish it. They all finally, like their divine Master, gave their blood in martyrdom, in attestation of the truth of their teach- ings. But history has handed down to us no record of self-defence, when they stood before the tyrants and rulers who consigned them to martyrdom. Then and there it was their privilege, since the question concerned only themselves personally, to imitate and prac- tise the doctrine of silence which they had learned from the example of their divine Master in presence of Herod and Pilate. Indeed, there is nothing more remarkable in the death of the martyrs, or in the lives of the confessors, than this entire abstinence from sell-vindi- cation. It is true that St. Paul, exercising his civil rights as a Roman citizen, appealed from the iniquitous persecution of the Jews to the Emperor for protection. But in making his appeal before one of the Roman governors, he takes occasion to preach Christ and his doc- trines about judgment and justice, so that the judge on his tribunal trembled at the sound of his captive's voice. But of himself he said nothing, except that he was innocent of the accusations made against him, and that as a right he appealed to Cffisar. But when, under the tyrant Nero, St. Peter and he were con- demned to death, there is no record of any speech or word uttered in self-vindication. There is also another remarkable instance, or rather a universal rule, pervading the inspired pages of the entire New Testament. It is to be remembered that St. Matthew did not write until about nine years after the death of Christ ; and he was the first of the Evan- gelists. Neither in his Gospel, nor in either of the other three, is there found a single expression regarding the life and sufferings and death of our blessed Redeemer, except in the merest and briefest narrative of events. There is no word of denunciation against His 282 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. adversaries, or his persecutors, or those who nailed His hands and feet to the cross. Neither is there a word of sympathy for the suf- ferings of their Lord. He was put to death because He called Him- self, as He really was, the Son of God. But no expression is found of horror at the indignities which were offered to Him, or of human sympathy in the contemplation of His agonies. They remembered that he had been Himself silent before the tribunal of His judges. They remembered that when He went forth through the gate of the city, amidst the scoffings of the multitude, on his way to Calvary being already from head to foot one living wound and when He fainted under the weight of the cross, and the tears of sympathy were freely poured out by the devout women who mingled with the rab- ble, He said to them, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children" as if He would inti- mate that words and even tears of human sympathy are not the highest testimony that His followers can give, but that they should shed rather tears of compunction for their own sins. The Apostles, no doubt, felt all the tenderness of human sentiment in regard to His physical and mental sufferings, but when they came to write the history of them under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they are silent with regard to their own sentiments, which, no doubt, du- ring the remainder of their lives were themes of meditation treas- ured up in their hearts. In all this, beloved brethren, we adore the ways of God, so different from the ways of men. Neither the high- priests, nor the mob, nor the judges, nor the executioners, could have any power over Christ, except so much as He permitted. He became flesh through love for man. He had offered His life to His eternal Father for the sins of the world. He was at once the High Priest, because he offered the sacrifice ; and He was the victim, because He submitted to be immolated on the cross. This was the baptism with which He had to be baptized, and in regard to which he was straitened till it should be accomplished. He had power to lay down His life and to take it up again. And His death was riot a mere human tragedy, but it was a divine reparation for the injuries which sin had offered to His eternal Father, and a recon- ciliation between God and man, through the merits of the death of Him who was at once God and man by the union of a divine and hu- man nature in His own person. It was indeed as man that He suf- fered, but as being God and man, the dignity of the victim was sufficient to make that suffering ample for the atonement of the sins of the whole world. 1 have not attempted to make a picture of the sufferings of our Lord. If I did, the colors might be too strong for my own contempla- tion, or for yours. But these sufferings are impressed on your memory and on your heart. They are subjects for your private devotion and feeling. The inspired writers have presented them as a mere narra- tive, a brief skeleton of facts, leaving it to the followers of Christ to fill up the outline by the superabundance of their love for God, their contrition, and even, if you will, their sensible devotion to the divine SERMONS. 283 Victim who carried not merely the wood of the cross, but the sins of the world on His shoulders as He passed on to Golgotha from the court of Pilate, there to atone for them by a final act on the altar of His sacrifice. I may not close these observations without alluding to the exam- ple left to us by her who in all relations was nearest to her divine Saviour, next to God. His ever Blessed Virgin Mother had been with Him or near Him through all His life, and she would not be absent in the hour of His death. Apart from the unspeakable dignity which God had conferred upon her by choosing her to minister, through the opera- tion of the Holy Ghost, the very flesh of Him who was bruised and crucified for us, what is so remarkable as the fact that but a few words spoken by her have been recorded by the Evangelists ? One of them, indeed, actually alludes to her practice of silence. He says that she laid up these words in her heart- What she said to her di- vine Son on His occasion of remaining in the temple is recorded. What she said to him at the marriage of Cana in Galilee, to which I have referred, is also recorded. But no other word of hers is recorded, ex- cept, indeed, that outburst of inspiration which she uttered on the occasion of her visit to St. Elizabeth, with which you are so familiar as the canticle of the Church under the title of the Magnificat. She witnessed all the trials of her divine Son her soul, according to the prophecy of holy Simeon, was pierced with a sword of grief, but there is no expression of resentment, or even of pity and sympathy, pre- served to us by the inspired writers. Painters, indeed, represent her as swooning away by the foot of the cross, but there is no his- torical authority for any such representation. She knew who it was that was dying, and why it was that He gave Himself up to be cruci- fied. And she was too united with God not to be resigned to His will, whatever might be the interior agonies of her own heart. He who refused to answer either Herod or Pilate, has yet a few words which He utters from His own great throne, the cross on which He was suspended. These words were as a legacy to us all. We were represented by St. John the Evangelist, and the legacy was that same Blessed Mother as our advocate and our example. To her also, in the same words, He transferred us as her future chil- dren : " Woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother." In a few moments after this, He said, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit," and presently added, "It is consummated," and gave up the Ghost 284: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OP THE MISSIONARY HOUSE AND CHURCH OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE, NEW YORK, JUNE 19th, 1859. " Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." THESE words of the holy prophet, beloved brethren, said the Most Rev. Archbishop, are presented to us in her offices by the Church whenever we undertake any thing like the great work, the com- mencement of which has brought you together this day. The prophet speaks of " the house," but the Church understands it em- phatically of the House of God, which is not every house, but a spe- cial house set apart, and to be consecrated to His worship and His glory ; and hence, if, in any undertaking, these words would be ap- propriate on the hearts and on the lips of a Christian, they are more particularly so when we venture to raise a structure to the honor of the great God who created this magnificent universe out of nothing. We employ them on this occasion, as upon many others, to signify that all the merit which man can have is the merit of his good intentions, of his high and noble will ; not indeed (for that would be extreme arrogance and impiety) as if he could add any thing to the majesty and glory of God, but he can add indirectly by recognizing that glory, and, as far as it is within his means, by manifesting even in an outward way his reverence for God, who, though unseen, is everywhere, but more especially on the altar of the Holy Catholic temple. When God created the heavens and the earth there was no sin ; but sin was afterwards committed by His permission that is to say, by His not having prevented it having left man at liberty to render Him a homage that would be a free homage. In consequence of the sin committed by our first parents, we have entailed upon us all the trials, and sufferings, and disappointments, and sickness, which we experience in life, and finally death itself. This was the work of the first Adam. The second Adam that is, our Saviour Jesus Christ introduced the resurrection. By the first Adam there was entailed upon the earth as well as upon its inhabitants a general malediction. The words of the Almighty were, that the earth itself was cursed ; and that malediction has not been removed, because the conse- quences of original sin still prevail. Man, thou art but dust, and unto dust thou must return ; and the admonition of the precept was, that on the day that the free, but innocent, and pure, and holy crea- tures which had just come from the creating hand of God should fall, they should die. We all know what death is; and although the SEKMOSS. 2S5 Son of God became man, and died for us, it was not to redeem us from the temporal penalty of sin, so much as to redeem us from that eternal death which would have been otherwise the con- sequence of human transgression. It is for this reason that when- ever the Church authorizes a portion of the earth to be taken and set apart from profane and secular uses to be the ground and the foundation of an altar to His glory, through the merits and by the authority of that same Jesus Christ, the malediction that adheres to the earth in general is removed ; and this is the object of the cere- mony of prayers and benediction connected with the laying of the corner-stone of a new church. It has been my own happy privilege during the period of my episcopal life, to have officiated in laying the corner-stones of many temples to God ; and as it is to-day your consolation, and joy, and pride, so it is to me a source of great gratification to assist again in that sublime office. The place on which you stand, as you know, js the centre of a district that is as yet but sparsely populated, but which promises ere long to be densely peopled. There was no sanctuary near this place, no altar, no sacrifice, but there soon will be ; and you need not to be told of the advantages that will result not only to the Catholics of this neighborhood, but to the whole population, for in every Oatholic church there is a fulness of all that is in the universal Church ; there is its authority recognized and sustained ; there is the power of its episcopacy, and the especial power of its priesthood to consecrate the Victim of the New Law in the Holy Sacrifice of the Christian church. This is the highest worship man can offer to God, because every merit comes through His incarnate Son ; every pi-ayer of ours that reaches the ears of the Eternal, must be sanctioned by the merit of our divine Redeemer. But if prayers receive that benediction through His incarnation, how much more should we receive through the adorable Sacrifice which He instituted in which He Himself is a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedeck, and in which you blend your prayers with the priest who ministers in the name of Christ. And this is what we are to have here. The edi- fice which is now in course of erection, may not be the church which is to occupy this ground hereafter, but is to be here for a long period, to serve the poor members of the mystical body of Christ in this neighborhood. From this place the poor people will derive con- solations in all the trials of life ; their children will be consecrated to God at the font of Baptism ; their youth, at a mature and proper age, will be united in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony ; their sick will be visited in this place ; and when they or others shall find their consciences burdened with sin, and will come and confess, God, through the ministry of His priests, will remove the burden, and let them go forth with a light heart; not with the liberty of transgress- ing again, but with the holy intention of never more offending God. Here, too, they will come to be united with the Head of the Church in the adorable sacrament of the Holy Communion ; and when sickness shall have overtaken them they will derive from here the 286 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. consolation of the last rites of the Church of which the Apostle speaks . ' Is any one sick among you, let him bring the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him." These are the consolations and the ground of our holy religion, and if it were possible for all men to meet in one temple, the recog- nition of those efforts by which we erect temples to God would not be necessary ; but the people of God are scattered from the rising to the setting of the sun, and where their wants require it, let a new corner-stone, and another and another be laid, till ample provision shall have been made for the whole people of God, so that none shall perish for lack of the bread of life. This church is to be superintended by clergymen who devote them- selves voluntarily to the work of God ; not merely by attending to the spiritual wants of their own neighborhood, but as occasion may offer and opportunities 7nay be multiplied, to carry the word of life to distant regions, with the approbation of the Bishop and their Sovereign Pontiff. Of course, beloved brethren, this is not a time for me to deliver a discourse upon the Catholic religion, but it is a time for me to say that were it not that the minds of men were pre- occupied with false opinions regarding the religion of the Way of the Cross, they would be open to the light of truth iu a country free and untrammelled as this is. Now, those false opinions and prejudices are to be struggled with. We have no means no charm to remove them ; at the same time it is the duty of God's missiona- ries to present the truth wherever an opportunity is presented, for we know our divine Lord established but one Faith, one Church, one Baptism. We know that the characteristics of the Church be- long exclusively to that great spiritual communion of which the suc- cessor of St. Peter is the visible head. No man can fix the period of its beginning after Christ, or say from wfiat community it separated. There have been separations ; but this Church remains in the same ground as the tree of eternal life, planted by the hand of our divine Lord, instead of the tree of perdition by which our first parents fell, and by which we became degenerate by inheritance. I will therefore conclude by exhorting you to aid in a liberal and enlarged spirit of Christian faith and chanty in this noble undertaking, not merely to- day, but whenever the opportunity occurs ; because it is by the small but numerous contributions of faithful men and women in a country like ours, that we can succeed in laying the foundation of a church, and erecting an altar to the glory of the living God. SERMONS. 287 THE UNITY, THE UNIVERSALITY, AND VISIBIL- ITY OF THE CHURCH. A SERMON DELIVERED IN ST. PETER'S CHURCH, NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JULY 3, 1859. THE words which I am about to select from the Holy Scriptures, are found in the twelfth chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, eleventh and twelfth verses : " But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members ; and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body ; so also is Christ." The Apostle, dearly beloved brethren, proceeded the Most Rev. Prelate, has indicated, in these solemn and profound words, not only to the Corinthians, but to all the followers of Christ, the nature of their true dignity, and of their spiritual equality. He had labored among the people of Corinth as their Apostle some three years, and from thence he went to establish the Church of Ephesus. During his absence, questions arose which, if we were to form a conclusion from the tone of this chapter, would seem to have reference to a dis- pute concerning the equality or the inequality of members of the Church of God ; and on these questions they sent a deputation of three of their members, with a letter, submitting the case to their Apostle and the founder of Christianity among them. This letter, of which there is no record that we know of, gave occasion to the writing of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, about sixteen years after the ascension of Christ. Although it had for its subject the case that had been submitted to the Apostle, yet the Church has pronounced it a divinely inspired letter, and has always regarded it in that light. I allude to this circumstance merely to show that the Church was in vigorous life and activity, and in ex- tended establishment, before any portion of the New Testament was written; that, therefore, the Church tells us what the Scriptures are, and that the Scriptures, except indirectly as written evidence on parchment, cannot tell us what they are of themselves ; for no docu- ment, human or divine, could ever explain itself except under the testimony necessary to render it authentic and contemporary with its writing, and the other testimony of living and perpetual witnesses and judges to translate and make known its meaning. But for these t\vo testimonies the Holy Scriptures would be useless, and, what we see them outside of the communion of the body of Christ a stum- bling block, a theme of disputation and of division not that they in- culcate division, but because the key to them has been lost ; because if if we receive not the Scriptures from the Church as the living inter- preter of their meaning, we must forever be groping in the dark in our search for the truth, and never finding it. 288 ARCHBISHOP HUGHKS. The Apostle, however, whether it be to meet the case that had been submitted to him, or otherwise, has given us an admirable and elevating view of the Church of the living God. He meets their case, probably, .by referring to their difficulties, and speaks before the passage I have read of the unity of the spirit and the diversity of the membership of the body of Christ. He says: " And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto profit. To one, indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom ; and to another, the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit ; to another, the working of miracles ; to another, prophecy ; to another, the discerning of spirits ; to ano- ther, diverse kinds of tongues ; to another, interpretation of speeches." Then comes the language of the Apostle in regard to the variety of spirits : " But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every ono according to his will. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body ; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles ; whether bond or free ; and in one Spirit have we all been made to drink." Thus the Apostle indicates the equality of membership in the Church of God. We are engrafted on the tree of life by the sacra- ment of baptism. We became living members of the mystical body by this sacrament ; and after that, whether God makes one an Apos- tle and another a prophet, or gives the gift of tongues and miracles to another, it does not elevate him, except in the order of a special grace ; for he, like the rest, was baptized into the one body of the Church of Christ. You are aware that when the Apostles were sent forth they were poor and uneducated, but they bore the name of the Redeemer upon their lips and the breastplate of innocence as their only shield. 'But God did not leave them without divine evidence that they had been commissioned by Him. Without such evidence the world would indeed have been startled ; but every thing was foretold as regarded the coming of Christ, which was in perfect harmony and accord with all that had gone before. And so when He sent His missionaries to teach the truth, He never left them without the necessary 'means to certify the sacred character of their mission; and accordingly, in the case of the Apostles, we read, immediately after the descent of the Holy Ghost, of the miracles they performed at the gate of the tem- ple, which was called the Beautiful, and how, when they preached, the people from all the different nations and provinces who were as- sembled within the gates of the city heard each their own tongue, as if the speaker had been of his country and kindred. And these things continued more or less, as it pleased God to enable them to establish His Church on the earth, and until such time as they were no longer necessary. Now, however, the Apostle begins already to signify that these things are the good pleasure of God ; that they are spontaneous or voluntary manifestations of His divine power, but that they do not necessarily enter into and become a permanent part of the Church SEEMONS. 2S9 of His divine Son. And hence he refers them to another miracle, which was far more sublime in its amplitude than any gift of tongues the mystical body of Christ " for in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body." To what would the Apostle direct their attention and owl's? To the spectacle of the Catholic Church to what constitutes the really sublime, the wonderful, the silent, but at the same time the eloquent and the perpetual evidence of divine workmanship. The Church is visible, otherwise it could not be a body ; and in that single definition has not St. Paul anticipated the errors of those who, separa- ting themselves voluntarily from it, have taken refuge in the idea of an invisible Church ? Can they speak of a Church which gives no signs of existence ? If it is invisible, how do they know it exists? If it is invisible in the sense in which they use the word, then it is not the Church of Christ ; because the Church of Christ, both by His own declaration frequently repeated and by those of his inspired Apostles, is something visible, outward and obvious to the senses of men, so that every man, whether he belongs to it or not, sees it, hears it, knows of it, and therefore cannot deny its existence. But how can any one speak of that which is invisible. It is thus as if the Apostle, inspired with the prophetic spirit regarding the errors of future times, gives out that simple definition of a Church one body consisting of many members, the entrance to which is by baptism. Now, after baptism, some may be priests, some may be of this reli- gious order, some of that, wearing different liveries of Christ ; some bishops, some doctors, and always one, but only one, who shall be the visible head of the visible body of Christ. I spoke, dearly beloved brethren, of the sublimity of this miracle, and it will require some attention to appreciate the meaning of this term. If we see a man raise a dead body to life, the effect is instan- taneous and overwhelming ; but if we wish to examine the greater and more sublime spectacle of the body of Christ, the Catholic Church, we must direct our attention to the language of the Apostle. If we supposed it was the spontaneous concurrence of the free minds of all ages who professed Christianity or Catholic faith, it would be unaccountable, and yet it is so. We might imagine the possibility of two hundred millions of men alienated from each other by diver- sity of language, of climate, of color, of government, of habits, of training and education, and yet you find these two hundred millions of minds concentrated upon great points of Christian faith with an accordance and a voluntary choice, just as you can trace the rays that warm and enliven the earth up to the great luminary from whieh they come. Would not this be a great miracle if it were spontaneous? And is it not ? for who is the Catholic that is coerced, that is not free to believe and to follow differently from that which his Church teaches ? From the rising to the setting of the sun, you may interrogate every nation, and unless there is something before which may have wounded his pride, he will answer that there is no calamity on earth to which he would not submit more willingly than the slightest deviation from, VOL. H 19. 290 ARCHBISHOP HUGHE?. the faith of that Holy Catholic Church. Now this is not by accident, and the explanation is found in the formation of the Church itself. It is true we have a description of it in the Evangelist's writings, but it is equally true if the Evangelist had not written a description of it ; it was engraved by the fiery pen of the Holy Spirit itself. She knew she was an outward visible body, to which, as a principle of vitality and divine power, her Founder had promised the Holy Spirit as the life and soul, the light, the fire, the guidance, the di- rection of that great unity ; but at the same time that diffused body represented its divine Founder. Many thoughtless people who are separated from her teachings imagine that after a time the Church collected the epistles and then compared them, and entered into a certain agreement to form a Church and call it by any name. Now no such thing ever occurred, and to assert it is to overlook the evi- dence to the contrary, and to betray their ignorance of the very works of which they so flippantly speak. How did Christ form His Church? He first had His disciples, who were upright and pure of heart, the simple and poor of His country. They heard His doc- trines, and became enamored of the beauty of His celestial precepts, and He taught them before they were yet a body and before they were compacted into the unity and universality which He intended should be the marked characteristics of His institution. From these He selected one after another till the number became twelve, and He selected them as members, in an especial manner and for an es- pecial purpose, because otherwise all the members would have been equal ; and as Paul develops his comparisons in the chapter from which I read, the eye could say to the hands, I have no need of thy help ; and so, without that distinction of order in the same Church, and in consequence of the same baptism into the body of Christ, the idea of a body \vould have no existence. But He selected twelve Apostles, and transferred His sacred office to them : " As the Father sent me, so I also send you." And yet the body is not complete, because there is wanting a head, and there can be but one head to one body, physical or moral, except that of a monster, and that does not come in the moral order. So He selected one, and made him the head of the Church and the centre of unity. He made him the visi- ble magnet which draws as to one common centre of divine faith the belief of every intellect and the affection of every heart. And now that the body of Christ, in His Church, is thus framed, and moulded, and compacted together by the very hand and appointment of the Son of God, it remains only that the child shall grow, but no change shall take place in its form and existence. The disciples, so to speak, that surrounded the person of Christ, by the lake shore, have grown into a vast multitude that covers the face of the earth, but there is no change in their relation to their Master. The Apostles, who were twelve, and co-ordinate with St. Peter, have been multiplied as tar as the wants of the Church have re- quired ; but there is no change in the form of the body, and the head remains the same. Now what I would call your attention to, as the SERMONS. 291 sublime and abiding testimony of the truth and divinity of religion, is the existence of that Church, and the immutability of its charac- ter. If we look at its origin, she appears so feeble that an infant in the cradle would not appear, to human vision, weaker than the Church of God in its early days, going forth into the world to meet the enemies that were arrayed against her, to meet the power of the tyrant and the persecutor, to meet idolatry and superstition to meet, in a word, a combination between earth and hell. And yet she grew and extended, and the body is now everywhere. It is in this wonderful diffusion, this universality, unity, and visibility of the Catholic Church, that she stands out alone ; that she presents herself to the contemplation of reasoning men, and, like the visible world, there is nothing to which she can be compared. If it be said that the members of the Church are not all saints and angels, this should not surprise us ; it takes nothing from the divinity and sublimity of the spectacle to which I have referred. God did not select the mem- bers, the Apostles, and the head of His Church from among the angels, but from among men ; He did not bring His Church into a perfect world where it would have nothing to do but to exhibit the beauty of its own holiness. No; He launched His Church into a world where it would have to meet with iniquity. Here is the battle-field of that Church ; here is where it has to contend not only against the evil passions of individuals without, but from within ; against the in- firmities of man, against his pride, against his stubborn will, against everything that is displeasing to God. Now, it is not necessary that every one belonging to the Church shall be saved, for man is a free agent, and is left to his free will. Some may speak to us of questions below the dignity even of con- sideration. They may say that this religion, though it may be of Heaven, and have many signs of supernatural origin, is not the best religion for man. They may signify to us that wherever men throw off its yoke, they become rich and powerful ; whereas, in other coun- tries they are poor and weak ; but when they tell us this, do they not expose themselves to ridicule and contempt if they believe in Christianity at all ? Of course, if there is no God and no religion, let every man scramble for himself; let there be no such thing as justice, and say at once that we are cast upon this earth for a uni- versal scramble, and the strongest man with the least principle will be sure to come out as one of the conquerors. But what does the whole of this amount to ? To a confirmation of what I have said, and I will give you proof of it immediately. The enemy of man's salvation, that evil spirit who was a liar from the beginning, by a mysterious permission from God, was suffered to tempt the Saviour, and to his perverse, depraved mind nothing was more likely to ena- ble him to succeed than the offer of wealth. When, therefore, he brought the Son of God to the summit of a mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth, he knew that if he could secure the Head of the redeemed people he would secure the followers, and he offered Christ all those if He would fall down and adore him. Our 292 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Saviour answered as the Church answers "Thou sh alt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shall thou serve." Thus He rebuked Satan. And with regard to the supposed power, and wealth, and learning of nations that have rejected Christ, what does that argument amount to? We know that Rome was vastly more wealthy and more powerful than any other nation, but what was her religion? We know what was the character of the worship of Jupiter, and Venus, and all the imaginary gods of the most de- praved and scandalous character. And then, again, were they an ignorant people ? Look at their works of art; go beyond Rome, and you will find evidences of the cultivation of the human mind in Greece, such as the world has never been able even to equal ; of perfection in the arts and sciences such as no Christian people have.ever reached or attempted to rival. The fact is, they have exhibited monuments which Christian minds in a great many instances are incapable of appreciating. If, then, all these things be arguments against the body of Christ, let us go back to Roman paganism and the superstition and idolatry of Greece. We cannot for a moment admit that there is the slight- est force in such arguments as these, and yet they are used, and some weak people imagine that there is really something in them. What is it to us, dearly beloved brethren ? w*e who cannot stoop to com- pare ourselves, as members of the body of Christ, with any thing in this world ; there is no other association with which we could insti- tute a comparison ; Christ has associated us with himself, and has en- grafted us upon the tree of life. His divinity, and all the attributes of His humanity, He has in a certain sense communicated to us in the sacraments. And what is it to us if a nation, the paltry thing of a day, is powerful or not ? What is it to us if nations have had their birth and growth to the plenitude of their power? They have passed away, and the very place of their great cities can scarcely be found ; while the Church, which dates its origin before they had an existence, and which, although the subject of persecution by kings and emperors, and petty tyrants, looks down with pity upon them. They have had their day, and it has been frequently her mission to give them the last rites of human burial ; but as for herself, she is immortal. Remember, therefore, that you are members of that mystical body, and . prize above all things that grace that God be- stowed upon you, without any merit of yours, when He made you members of the Holy Catholic Church. SERMONS. 293 SERMON ON THE OCCASION OP THE DEDICA- TION OF ST. ALOYSiUS' CHURCH, WASHING- TON, D. C., OCTOBER 16th, 1859. [PREFACE. At the present time, when the progress of Catholicity demands the utmost expansion of literature to repel the erroneous statements of adver- saries jealous of such progress, it becomes the duty of Catholics to unite and avail themselves of every means at disposal to advance Catholic literature to the greatest possible extent, and thus co-operate with the missionaries of the Church. The best controversial works are at our hands let us inform our minds fully ; the best works of meditation are under our eyes let us brighten our in- tellects and strengthen our faith by following the examples laid down for us, and keep always before our mind's eye the glorious old faith for which the mar- tyrs sacrificed their lives.] " And when he (Jacob) was come to a certain place, and would rest in it after sunset, he took of the stones that lay there, and putting under his head, slept in the same place. And he saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven ; the angels also of God ascending and de- scending by it. And the Lord leaning upon the ladder, saying to him : I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac ; the land wherein thou deepest I will give to thee and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth ; thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south ; and in thee and thy seed all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed. And I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land ; neither will I leave thee till I shall have accom- plished all that I have said. And when Jacob awaked out of sleep, he said : Indeed, the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And trembling, he said: How terrible is this place ! this is no other but the house of God and the gate of heaven. And Jacob, arising in the morning, took the stone which he had laid under his head and set it up for a title, pouring oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of the city Bethel, which was before called Luza. And he made a vow, saying : If God shall be with me, and shall keep me in the way by which I walk, and shall give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, and I shall return prosperously to my father's house, the 'Lord shall be my God : And this stone which I have set up for a title, shall be called the house of God : and of all things that thou shalt give to me I will offer tithes to thee." GENESIS, xxviii. 11-22. THE consecration of a church to the honor and glory of God and the spiritual interests of man, is happily an event of frequent occur- rence in our time and in our country. At the period when freedom was proclaimed throughout the land, religion was emancipated from every hindrance to its progress, and we have seen it in our own lifetime extending with the extent of population, and increasing with its increase, till wherever the country is inhabited, you will find it dotted with temples erected to the living God, bearing on their summits the sign of the Cross, the symbol of our redemption. 294: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. To-day you witness another instance of the same progress ; to-day you behold the efforts of the zealous Fathers of the Society of Jesus, who have undertaken and toiled for the accomplishment of this work, crowned with success ; to-day the contributions which you have generously offered to aid in carrying on the good work are brought together in the completeness of a church, appropriate in its design for its sacred purposes, and complete in its style, that re- flects honor on those engaged in its erection. It has been finally dedicated by solemn rite and prayer to the adoration and worship of the Almighty, and from henceforth you may say with more reason than the Patriarch when he beheld the mysterious vision of a ladder resting on earth and reaching to heaven, while the angels were as- cending and descending by its steps, " Terrible is this place. Truly the Lord is here, and I knew it not." Whilst it is true, beloved brethren, that all our churches are dedi- cated under the patronage and invocation of some saint, it is to be remembered that the consecration is exclusively to God ; but from the beginning it was customary for the Church to place the new temple when erected under the patronage of some martyr or apos- tle, and sometimes even under that of angels and archangels who had borne commission from the eternal throne as messengers to the human race. Nothing could be more proper in the present instance than that the patron saint of this church should be se- lected from the distinguished servants of (rod who were called in early life from the scenes of their virtues and their labors ; nor is there one, considering that this church is built in connection with an institution for Christian education, who could have been selected more appropriately than the blessed, holy, and angelic youth, St. Aloysius de Gonzaga. He is the fittest model for Christian young men that could be chosen in an age and under circumstances in which good morals are advantageously placed for the contem- plation of practical virtue, in which youth are acquiring those elements of knowledge and science best calculated to make them at once good Christians and good citizens. With these St. Louis of Gonzaga has always been a patron and a model. They have selected him, if one could so speak, as their favorite saint, because he displayed, during 'the period of his education and youth, those eminent virtues which rendered him so pleasing in the sight of God, and authorized his being enrolled in the calendar of His saints. Thus, the ceremony of this day brings up to your minds many things dear and consoling to the human heart. The sanctification of the place, and even of the walls, so far as matter is susceptible of sanctity ; the setting it apart especially for the celebration of the mysteries of our holy religion ; the external rite by which it is linked into the chain of such consecrations, I will not say from the begin- ning of Christianity, but even from the beginning of the world, render it already venerable and sacred in Christian estimation. Of course I need not remark that the outward ceremony is symbolic of SERMONS. 295 the consecration and purity of those who are to worship in this place ; that the holiness imparted to this material structure is relative, and that you who are to worship within its precincts are to be the true and living representatives of the sanctity which will render yourselves as well as this temple pleasing in the sight of our divine Master. Religion is the link M-hich connects earth with heaven ; the bond which unites man with his God. Religion in this life is internal and external, spiritual and corporeal, in harmony with the twofold nature in which God has created us. Without the interior spirit the external act would be but of little value in the divine presence. Without the ex- ternal act, so far as worship is public, religion would not be suited to our nature, however well it might accord with that of purely and ex-' clusively spiritual beings. Unhappily, however, ideas have been and still are more or less prevalent, calculated to disturb this admirable order of God's appointment, as to the mode in which He desired that man should serve and adore Him. The co-operation of the human soul in every act of religion worthy of Heaven should pro- ceed from the heart. This is admitted by all ; but with regard to external worship attempts have been made to propagate the idea that it is of little or no consequence either for the glory of God or the fulfilment of man's religious duties. These ideas have not been formalized into any specific system, but they are uttered in words and writings, and unhappily reduced to practice by those who have ceased to be impressed with any deep sense of Christian doctrine or Christian duty. * According to them, God does not require either the erection of temples or external worship of any description. The whole universe is His appropriate temple, and they regard it as lit- tle less than superstition to construct temples or decorate them as if they were to be pleasing in the sight of His Majesty. There are others still who have rejected this external worship on principle. They quote the words of our Saviour against it when He said, "* God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth." The object of the remarks which I am about to make will be to present a fe\v of the grounds which are calculated to prove that those positions have no foundation either in reason or in revelation. When God created man He made him from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his body a living and immortal soul. It was through the senses of the body that man became visible, and manifested the operations of his invisible soul. It was thus that he held communion with God and with the material world, of which he had been created the earthly sovereign. In the Garden of Eden there was no neces- sity for external worship. Then, indeed, our first parents could look forth into the universe and regard it as a magnificent temple which God had created for His glory. There was as yet no malediction pronounced against the earth. Sin had not as yet entered into the world. The sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the earth in its nearer beauty all the external works of God were to them the great book of His power, and of His glory, and of His goodness. This 296 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. glorious creation, as it was, could not interpret itself; it required the eye of man to gaze upon it and to be its interpreter. It required the heart of man to appreciate it, and his spirit to reflect, as the high-priest of creation, the silent glory of which itself was uncon- scious. But sin entered into the world, and because the high-priest had disobeyed his God, eveiy thing is changed, and the earth itself, for his transgression, falls under the malediction of its Creator. From that period external as well as internal religion and worship became necessary. The sons of Adam offered sacrifice of material things to the God of their father, and He was pleased with the offering as an external act of worship. If we trace the history of the divine econ- omy towards the human race, we shall discover through the succes- sion of the Patriarchs down to the Deluge that worship internal and external was cherished and preserved by traditions which they had received from their first ancestor. Immediately after the Deluge the first act of Noah is the offering of sacrifice in thanksgiving tor the protection that had been extended to the few who had been saved for the renovation of the human family. Again, in the very words of the text, we find that Jacob, immediate father of the twelve tribes of Israel, consecrated the spot on which the Almighty had vouchsafed to him the vision of communication between the earth and Heaven, and as soon as the posterity of Abraham became nu- merous enough to form a nation, God himself became their legislator and their leader. He prescribed a code for their national economy and government as a distinct and chosen people. H^ prescribed even to the minutest detail the acts of religion, times, places, and manner of public worship, by which they should honor and reverence His name. The Tabernacle, the construction of which He directed, was an outward means for inward and mysterious devotion. It was com- posed of matter such as might have been used for secular purposes ; but from the moment of its completion and dedication to the purpose for which it was intended, we behold with what judgment he visited those who profaned its relative sanctity. He punished the sons ot Aaron with death for their irreverence in discharging the outward duties of their sacred office. At a subsequent period, when Osa raised his hand unauthorized to stay the leaning Ark of the Cove- nant, he was struck with instant death. And will it be said that God does not require external worship of the body as well as adoration of the soul, since all these manifestations belong to the external order and were of divine appointment ? Coming down to a later period still, He appointed the erection of the Temple on Mount Zion, and so pleasing was the thought of this to the Royal Prophet that, through- out the Psalms, he appears to us enraptured and carried away in the anticipation of the beauty and glory of God's house. Now, this house of the Lord was composed of matter, all precious as it was. Could it be true, then, that God should not approve of the erection of temples in the honor of His name, or that they, under the prescribed rite of consecration, should not acquire a relative sacredness in his sight ? We know the contrary ; for, as we read SERMONS. 297 in the second Paraliporaenon, seventh chapter, that in the dedication of the temple, " when Solomon had ended his prayer, tire came down from heaven and consumed the holocausts and the victims ; and the majesty of the Lord filled the house, and the priests could not enter into the Temple of the Lord because the majesty of the Lord had filled the Temple of the Lord. And the Lord appeared to him by night, and said : " I have heard thy prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. My eyes shall also be open, and my ears attentive to the prayers of him that shall pray in this place : for I have chosen and I have sanctified this place, that rny name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart may remain there perpetually." Not only did the Almighty thus manifest His glory and His pres- ence in the holy temple, but he vindicated its character in subsequent times by the punishment which he inflicted upon those who profaned its sanctity. When it was despoiled by Nabuchodonosor, and the sacred vessels carried to Babylon, the punishment of God pursued the profaner of the' sanctuary. His son, Baltassar, notwithstanding his wickedness, was borne with by Heaven's patience till he caused his cup of guilt to overflow by bringing out the sacred vessels taken from the temple to grace his last profane banquet. Then came the hand writing on the wall ; then did he lose his kingdom and his life. Other instances of a similar kind are not wanting to show that the erection of temples and the practice of public worship according to divine appointment, although both are external, were pleasing to the Almighty God. If we pass to the New Testament, in which the substance of all these rites are to be realized, we shall not find any precise direction or order, on the part of our Saviour, for the erection of churches, or for the special order of public worship. The reason is obvious. It is that He instructed His Apostles ; that they were imbued with a knowledge of all things whatever he had said to them ; that He com- municated to them the Holy Ghost for their perpetual guidance in the things that appertain to His kingdom ; and we shall trace the sacredness of public worship through them rather in practice than in any specific precept left in writing, either by them or their divine Master. The first condition of the infant church was, as we know, a condi- tion of suffering and persecution from Jews and Gentiles. Never- theless, whether in private houses or in caverns, or more extensively still, in the subterranean churches of Rome, now called Catacombs, the faithful were accustomed to assemble to celebrate the holy mys- teries and unite in all the requirements of Christian worship. Sub- sequently still, when the Church obtained her freedom, we behold temples of great magnificence rising on every side. It is to be ob- served that, although these temples were numerous, the religion was everywhere the same. The Church was not now the Church of a single nation, but the Church of all nations. Its temples were many, but its priesthood and its episcopacy were one. Following on the 298 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. development of this truth through succeeding ages, we behold that the Christians never lost sight of this obligation, that wherever they found themselves, their first thought was to erect an altar for the celebration of the divine mysteries and the purposes of public wor- ship. Not to speak of Asia and Africa in the first days of the Church, if we cast our eyes over the surface of Europe even to-day we shall behold these noble structures, vicing some of them, I might say, with the solitary temple of Jerusalem in magnificence and grandeur. We may see them from one eminence to another those glorious cathe- drals and minsters raising their spires into the very clouds of heaven as lightning-rods to draw off the vengeance of God provoked by the sins of the people. It is unnecessary to d\vell longer on this subject. If facts of divine revelation and the practice of the Christian people from the begin- ning can constitute an argument or an evidence, then it is clear that material churches and public worship are of divine appointment, and sustained by the Divine approbation. If we consult reason on this subject, we shall find it to be perfectly in accordance with revelation, and the idea of restricting the adoration of the Supreme Being to the internal acts of the soul is one to which reason is entirely opposed. In not one of the functions by which the human soul manifests itself is it, or can it be, independent of the body to which it is united. It is true that God reads the heart, and He knows its purpose before that purpose is outwardly manifested ; but, on the other hand, where there is adoration in the heart it manifests itself naturally through external means. In regard to this, as well as to every subject, the conclusions of reason should be founded on facts ; otherwise such conclusions amount to mere conjecture at the best. Are there any facts con- nected with the history of nature or of religion in opposition to the testimonies already quoted from revelation ? Is it reasonable to sup- pose that God could have created man in his twofold nature of a spirit and a body, that He could have united these, and yet either ordained or permitted that only one of those should take part in the adoration of His name ? This is contrary to the fact, and not less contrary to the dictates of reason. All the powers of man, the soul and body united, are bound to render homage, each according to its own attributes, to the Creator of both. Neither can there be found in the development of man's nature an exception to this rule. When the soul is moved by any intense feeling, it manifests itself naturally by attitudes of the body or expressions of the countenance in har- mony with the interior sentiment. Thus Solomon, in his prayer to God at the dedication of the Temple, knelt upon the ground, and raised his hands towards heaven ; thus Daniel, in his captivity by the waters of Babylon, both through the dictates of religion and the promptings of nature, thrice everyday turned his face to the distant and holy mountain and adored God, showing by the attitude of the body the yearnings of the soul ; thus his fellow-captives suspended their harps on the willows and refused to chaunt the canticles of SERMONS. 299 Zion in a strange land all showing both the promptings of nature and the teachings of religion by which the eye of the soul was turned to those particular places in which God had chosen to dwell in an especial manner. But the point on which I am insisting has been established by the history of the whole human race. Among the people of God it was by divine institution, but even among the nations that had strayed away from the primitive tradition and fallen into idolatry, the same law of nature universally prevails. It could come from no other source, for the teachings of God and even God himself had been for- gotten ; and yet they had temples, and worship, and sacred places especially dedicated to some imaginary divinity of their own crea- tion. In all this the principle to which I have referred has been sus- tained by the voice of universal human nature. Their reason was not capable of protecting them from the worship of false gods. The worship, also, which was rendered to these false divinities was in itself oftentimes vile and horrible ; nevertheless, through all this, the combined nature of man maintained itself by outward actions in con- formity with the inward sentiment by which they were animated. It would be impossible, therefore, for those who reject the authority of revelation to discover in the history of the human race a single fact calculated to make a divorce between the soul and the body in the worship which man owes to his Creator ; and consequently, as I said before, it follows that reason and religion are perfectly harmo- nious upon this subject. ' I shall not dwell longer upon these remote considerations of a topic in which I am aware that you, dearly beloved brethren, need not to be instructed. On an occasion like the present we should rather turn our attention to the great benefits which God has bestowed upon us in training us under the guidance of divine truth, and in es- tablishing a worship in which the whole of our nature our soul and body may unite, whether in public or in private devotion. Who is it, even in his closet, if his soul desires forgiveness from God, who is not immediately prompted to assume that attitude of body which becomes the sentiments within. It may be simply kneeling, it may be standing, it may be in prostration with the face to the earth, it may be with uplifted hands, and eyes towards the throne of grace and the eternal Father of all ; but it would be doing violence, whether in public or private, to deny to the body, material though it be, the privilege of sympathizing with the soul in its desires, its hopes, its tears, and its joys. Even in human society, how could we manifest to each other esteem and respect, except through the medium of external signs, by means of which our inward feelings are manifested ? In brief, dearly beloved brethren, our nature is such that God has not communicated to us the knowledge of the means by which He would be acceptably adored unless through the medium of the cor- poreal senses. He could have communicated to the soul immediately the knowledge of all truths and mysteries ; but instead of this He has adopted a mode suitable to our nature as men. He spoke by 300 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. His prophets, and from the beginning justified the expression of St. Paul, that " faith cometh by hearing." So the Redeemer of the world took a body and soul like ours, and thus made himself mani- fest. Speaking with the organ of the body he was heard through the sense of hearing, and in this way the truths of religion were communicated to the spirit otherwise prepared by grace for their re- ception. We have said much with regard to the sanctity of special places and material things in the history of the people of God; how the tab- ernacle, and the ark of the covenant, and the temple, all composed by divine precept from earthly matter, became holy in the sight of God and man by consecration to divine service. And yet, what were these but the shadows of that which constitutes the glory of the Catholic material church. In it, besides the consecration you have just witnessed, the holy mysteries are celebrated. There is the altar, on which is mystically offered the sacrifice of the new law. In this sacrifice our religion teaches us that Christ, through the ministry of men selected and ordained for that purpose, continues to execute his office a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedeck. Our religion teaches us that, under the mystic veil of bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ are present on our altar ; and if in an- cient times the servants of God approached these things which he had set apart for his own service with awe and reverence, how much deeper should be the awe and reverence with which we should stand before the Christian tabernacle ! for when we enter the church we are immediately in the divine presence. It is in the church also that the lessons and the teachings of God are constantly repeated. It is in the church, and in the contemplation of the unbloody sacri- fice that is offered, that we are assembled in spirit at the very scene of Calvary to witness the immolation of the divine Victim who gave His life in expiation of the sins of the world. It is there that we im- bibe courage and receive grace to imitate His holy example ; His patience under suffering, His charity, His spirit of forgiveness, His manifest and infinite love both for His eternal Father and for all mankind. A Catholic church, therefore, even though composed of earthly materials as a mere structure, is, nevertheless, in the most exalted sense, the House of God ; and, on entering it, we may, under feelings such as His sanctuary should inspire, exclaim with the prophet, " How terrible is this place ! This is no other but the house of God and the gate of heaven." In conclusion, dearly beloved brethren, the inference to be drawn from these remarks is the conviction that God has commanded pub- lic worship, and that man's nature requires it ; the Church enjoins it. It is one of the most solemn precepts, that every member of her communion not prevented by legitimate cause shall be present at the holy mysteries on every Sunday and festival. The foregoing obser- vations sufficiently imply the decorum, and reflection, and devotion of heart which should characterize those who enter the portals of the House of God. It would be a practical contradiction of our faith if, SERMONS. 301 believing in the necessity of public worship* as prescribed by the Church, we should, nevertheless, be indifferent to the opportunities of assisting at its performance, either on the plea of slight inconveni- ence, or, what would be worse still, from a spirit of indifference for the sacred things of religion. It would also imply a contradiction between ojar faith and our conduct, if within the sacred walls of the Church we should not bear ourselves with that decorum which be- comes petitioners round the sanctuary of God and of His Christ. It is thus by serving God in the whole nature in which He has created us, during our probation in this life, that when the union between the soul and the body comes to b'e dissevered by death, while the material part shall return to the earth from which it was taken, the emancipated spirit, sanctified through the medium of religion, shall wing its flight towards that triumphant Church in which it will min- gle with angels and saints round the throne of God, adoring Him with everlasting love, and in the enjoyment of everlasting happi- ness. THE LAST WORDS OF THE SAVIOUR. A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, NEW YORK, GOOD FRIDAY, 1860. " When Jesus, therefore, had taken the vinegar, He said, It is consummated ; and, bowing His head, He gave up the ghost." THESE words are found in the Passion of Our Lord, as described by the Evangelist St. John, 19th chap. 30th verse. Part is histori- cal ; part is composed of the last words uttered by the Son of God before his death " It is consummated." It might be asked " What is consummated ?" Apparently it would signify that that chalice which He had prayed the Father to allow to pass away from Him had been quaffed to the very dregs ; that His human sufferings were now at an end, and that the period of his glory was quickly approaching. But there is much more than this contained in the words " it is consummated," and they throw the mind of the Catholic who is instructed in the w r hole mystery of God back to the origin and the source of the necessity for the suf- ferings of our divine Lord. If there had been no sin in the world, there would have been no Saviour to suffer, for He suffered to make atonement to His eternal Father, and at the same time to restore fallen, sinful man to the rights which had been forfeited by his first parents, and in the forfeiture of which he himself individually too often co-operates. The great mystery, therefore, is not precisely that the Son of God should take flesh, that the Word which was with God in the beginning, and which was God, should be made flesh and 302 ARCHBISHOP HTJQHES. dwell among us in humility, in poverty, in destitution, in suffering, and should close His mortal career by a cruel and ignominious death that is not the real mystery. The real mystery, which is a key to that and to every other, is, that God, who by His almighty power could have prevented it, ever permitted sin or death to enter the world. I know that after this is admitted it is in the ordr of God's attributes that a Redeemer should come, because in all these attri- butes He is infinite in His power, as \ve know even by physical ob- servation, in the creation of that glorious world that surrounds us glorious, I say, so far as it comes from the hand of God, but not glorious to us in so far as we do not correspond with our obligations to the Creator. His power is infinite in the creation of the heavenly bodies, in the creation of the earth, in the creation of the ocean, and if you take a microscope and look at the humblest flower, that is beautifully painted, although too small to be detected by the naked eye, His power is there just as infinite in its manifestation as it is in the creation of the globe. His greatest power that is, the exercise of His infinite power was displayed in the creation of man. He formed his body from the slime of the earth, as the sculptor would make his model so far the sculptor can imitate, but here his power stops ; but God, after having formed the body, breathed into it a living soul. He said, as if intimating a deliberate act, " Let us create man in our own image and likeness." This likeness is not in the body but in the soul, and He endowed man with attributes, limited indeed, but still bearing in their features some resemblance to His own infinite attributes. He gave him understanding, memory, will ; he was distinct from all the other productions of Almighty power all the rest were created under a law from which they do not devi- ate, and under which they are incapable of offending their Creator. But man was raised to such a dignity above them all that there was but one test by which he could recognize and reverence a superior being, and that test was obedience. I have said that God could have prevented sin, but on this hypo- thesis it would be exceedingly difficult to imagine the possibility of that, except in one case, and that would be to reduce man down to the condition of the brute that acts by instinct, or the tree that bends its branches and its leaves as the wind blows the condition of a pup- pet on wires ; the condition of dead matter. In any of these condi- tions it would be impossible for man to render that homage which only a being with free will can render. That which results from ne- cessity cannot be voluntary homage, and God created man so that no homage from him could be acceptable except that which was vol- untary. Hence He created him with free will, and imposed upon him but one simple precept. He endowed his nature with eminent gifts of a supernatural order by which he knew his Creator, and by which he was freed from the concupiscence which lias been entailed through his fall on his descendants. The only thing that God did not exempt him from was temptation, but temptation is not sin. If the choice between good and evil SERMONS. 303 had been withheld from him, how could he have had an oppor- tunity of obeying his Creator and of fulfilling the precept? He was not, therefore, exempted from temptation, otherwise he would not have fallen ; but the proof that temptation and sin are not the same is, that our divine Redeemer permitted Himself to be tempted even by the devil, and in spoken language was invited, when hungry, to turn stones into bread, and in another form of temptation to test His power by casting Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. If our first parent had persevered in clinging to the precept of his God, the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit would have been to him a vic- tory ; but it' he had not the liberty to choose evil, how could he have proved his fidelity to his God ? We know the consequence of his transgression. The Scriptures have made it known to us that he fell from his innocence, and that he and his posterity, in the human order from that hour to the last day of the world, are subject to temporal suffering in partial expiation of the penalties brought upon his race by his infidelity to his Creator. All these temporal sufferings are of the human order. Sickness, which is partial death, wars, pestilences, disappointments, persecutions, every thing that troubles or afflicts the heart of man, is a consequence of that original crime, increased, no doubt by his own abuse of the free will which God has, even in his fallen state, now left to him. It would seem as if God too much re- spected the noble creature He had formed and endowed with reason and immortality to deprive him of freedom ; and if Scripture had never said a word upon the subject, the fact is before our eyes that free will cannot be denied that when a man, in the desperation of his passions, seizes the deadly instrument to put an end to his life, he is free to turn it against himself, and he is also free to throw it away. Therefore the existence of sin by the voluntary abuse of man's freedom is a thing not to be questioned or denied. It makes up the order of the whole world. ]S T o\v, as I have said, God in His power is infinite ; God in His justice is infinite, and that justice He exercised in the expulsion of our first parents, and entailing upon them and their descendants the penalty of their crimes ; but it is not to be forgotten, and especially on the day when the dying Saviour exclaimed, " It is consummated" it is not to be forgotten that God is infinite in His mercy as well as in His power and justice. And now having thus, as I have said, permitted I will not say permitted, but having not prevented the entrance of sin and death into the world, the mystery of the Saviour's birth and sufferings lias a key of explanation. Tin's is the development of infinite mercy towards man, and although the sen- tence was originally pronounced apparently without condition, yet there was one expression addressed to the enemy of innocence, who had appeared as the seducer in the shape of a serpent, signifying and expressing that after all the miseries and penalties to be incurred, the seed of the woman would crush his head. The father of the human race, even in his exile from the Garden of Paradise must have cher- ished the hope, that in connection with the memory of what he had 304 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. been, and the consciousness of what he now was, he would think and believe that the God who had created him, and whose justice had been manifested in his expulsion, had still some great secret by which the results of his sin might be mitigated. From that period to the coming of Christ, it is known to you all how from one patriarch to another, and from one prophet to another, the story of the coming of a Redeemer was perpetuated ; how, even in the case of pagan na- tions, their separation from the truth did not extinguish this idea of expiation for the original^ transgression. In the history of the whole human race, wherever you find them mentioned, no matter how de- based by ignorance or degraded by superstition, or how abominable their religious practices, there was one idea pervading them all, that there was a hope of reconciliation. They had their sacrifices, and they turned into a barbarism an original truth, imagining that the most precious victim that could be offered to their imaginary deities was the one most likely to propitiate and gain the kindness and mercy of the fabulous god to whom the sacrifice was offered. Hence human sacrifice everywhere, among all nations ; because a man or a woman was deemed the most precious thing that could be offered : and in that act of sacrifice an act of murder, in reality, but, in their idea at least, connected with a primitive offence they acknowledged two things, that God had been offended and that God was to be pro- pitiated by a victim and a sacrifice. But not only in this was the original disobedience and the neces- sity of a propitiation manifested, for as time advanced the prophets were inspired to sing those glorious hopes of a fallen race. How clearly and distinctly were pointed out all the circumstances of the life of the incarnate Son of God ! The prophet Isaias describes the passion in such language, that the infidels and enemies of Christianity have found it so clear they have contended it was a fabrication sub- sequent to the events they predicted. How shall any one speak of the psalms of David, which describe the events current in his time, it is true, but having a mystical reference to the real glory of the Saviour of which God had inspired his prophetic soul ? When he speaks of Solomon and his glory and his .dominion to the ends of the earth, it is clear that that language could not be applied literally to his son. Then there are other descriptions applying equally to the humiliations and glory of Christ to be found scattered throughout the whole of the Old Testament. And why is this ? Because the Sa- viour who was to come was the Saviour of the people of God, and through Him alone did they hope lor redemption. This was the reason of their anxiety, and the yearning of their souls for the coming of the just and the holy One an anxiety and a yearning which is shown on every page of their history. The Saviour, therefore, in the words of my text, pronounced something that reached back to the creation of man, and was to reach forward to the consummation of the world. " It is consummated" that is to say, the work for which I offered myself, for which the Father appointed Me, is accomplished, and the SERMONS. 305 gates of the eternal paradise, which have hitherto been closed, even against the prophets and saints of the old law the faithful servants and oftentimes martyrs of God for the truth these gates are now unbolted. And after this, the Scriptures tell us, He descended into hell ; that is to say, He visited all those souls who had been called out of life before His coming. This is not, as heresy has pretended, the everlasting hell of the damned, from which there is no escape ; it is- that place called hell which was the abode of the sainted spirits before the Redeemer had opened heaven to them. It is that which is called in the parable of Lazarus " Abraham's bosom," a resting- place, a place of expectation, but not of suffering and torture. For them "it is consummated." What else is consummated ? The re- demption of all mankind, for He died for all, and He died in that sense that each member of His Church may say, He died for me, in the language of St. Paul, as if I were the only one. But His death was for all, and all that would be saved from the beginning to the end of time in preaching salvation " it is consummated." What more ? How much more ? If you turn your eyes now from the period to which we refer, and from the summit of Calvary to the distant coun- tries of the world, and over the long series of ages to all these and over all these it extends. He was not to die every day in the physi- cal and suffering sense of the term, but the very work by which His death was to apply for the individual salvation of man was also con- summated. He had already organized His Church. He had already laid down the rule for its government ; He had already established and instituted the sacraments ; He had already provided for the per- petual teaching of truth without contradiction, and truth accompa- nied with a certainty which would remove all doubt that is, divine faith. These sacraments are the channels of redemption. It is through them that flows the blood which was poured forth from His hands, and feet, and side upon the cross ; and although the people of the nineteenth or twelfth century did not live at the same time when their Redeemer died, He did not die away from them, but in the merits of His death He provided for their guidance, and the chan- nels by which the merits of that death should pass from soul to soul, to cleanse and purify it individually and especially to God. "It is consummated." It is usual, my beloved brethren, on good Friday, to dwell upon the mere physical or mental sufferings of the Son of God ; but it is not necessary ; it would not be difficult to ex- cite sympathetic feelings of a sentimental order in every breast, by a description of those sufferings. That is not necessary. It is cer- tain that we never can fathom the depth of this mystery, which we are satisfied simply to acknowledge and to adore. It is a mystery for our adoration, for our gratitude ; but our lives are too short, too- brief, to fathom its depth, or to reach its foundation. I have only said that in it God has exhibited to us another attribute, the attribute of mercy, of infinite mercy. Xor is the attribute of infinite justice unmingled with it, for it can be easily imagined that no ordinary cause could have so offended God and so removed from His holy VOL. n 20 306 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. presence His creature ; that it could not have been a common fault that required so great a victim for its expiation. What does this show in the justice of God? It shows, above all, His holiness, His horror of sin, and at the same time His infinite mercy toward the sinner. It shows His justice, because in our nature it required an expiation of an infinite merit. How could fallen man expiate for the sins of men ? How could the second person of the blessed Trinity suffer if He had remained in His exclusive divinity ? God, as such, could not suffer, and hence it is that the Son of God, the second per- son of the blessed Trinity, took upon Him our nature and became one of us in a certain sense one of the sons of Adam, except that He took flesh from one exempted from every stain, so that His body was in all respects like ours, sin only excepted. This is taught us by the holy Scriptures first quoted in the Psalms of David, 39th chap. 7th verse, and again alluded to in the 10th chap. 5th verse of St. Paul to the Hebrews : " Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith : Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not : but a body thou hast fitted to me. " Holocausts for sin did not please thee. " Then said I : Behold I come : in the head of the book it is written of me that I should do Thy will, O God. " In saying before, sacrifices, and oblations, and holocausts for sin thou wouldest not, neither are they pleasing to thee, which are offered according to the law ; " Then said I : Behold, I come to do thy will, God ; he taketh away the first that he may establish that which followeth." It is in this body that the Son of God suffered. He was man perfect man ; His soul a human soul ; His body a natural body conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the substance of an im- maculate Virgin ; for it could not be that He who came to redeem the whole race should take flesh from one who had been for a single instant one of Satan's slaves. Now it is consummated. We again are liable to confine the meaning of this to the last act of His life on the cross ; but it was all one sacrifice. It was not a sacrifice in the mere act of dying ; it was a sacrifice from the begin- ning from the moment of the annunciation ; it was all one great, moral, divine act; and accordingly, if you examine you will per- ceive that nothing in the life of Christ was less than a sacrifice. His birth, the persecutions of Plis childhood, the malice and indignities poured upon Him by His jealous and envious opponents, the detrac- tion uttered against Him through His life, the very incredulity of those who heard the words of salvation, and paid no heed, but went their way, the unjust seizure of His person, the mockery of His trial, the scourging of His flesh all are but the gradual accumula- tion of one sacrifice; and now "it is consummated." We might dwell upon certain features in the life of our divine Redeemer, or on such portions of it as we are accustomed to call " the Passion of our Lord." Among men, "passion" implies some- thing evil a yielding to a propensity that is not in harmony with the law of God-. There could be no such passion in the life of Christ. The passions of men are subjective, within themselves ; the Saviour SERMONS. 307 had no passion within Himself; His passion was objective ; that is, His passion was suffering, humiliation, and death ; and that was im- posed upon Him ; He was the object of the passions of men ; but, as for Himself, He had none. And hence it is that you will find no expression of resentment or indignation, not eve.n by the Apostles in their writings after their having been inspired by the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. They never say a harsh word of the per- secutors of their Master, or their own persecutors. He is denied by one Apostle and betrayed by another, and by the very sign that is known among men to signify friendship ; and yet the Apostles only relate the facts, and complain not at all, showing that after the re- ception of the Holy Ghost they understood the spirit of their Mas- ter. Previous to that, one was so indignant that he drew his sword and cut off the ear of one of those by whom the Saviour was appre- hended, but he saw his Master healing the wounded member. In the Passion there was suffering without resentment; for in the life of our Saviour we find none of those vicissitudes of joy and sor- row which are common to men. If we refer to the sufferings of His human nature with His knowledge of all that was coming, we can understand how deep and how acute must be that suffering. We can see it in the garden of agony we can see it everywhere ; but whether He is hailed with the acclamations of the multitude, as when He entered the city of Jerusalem, and the people took branches from the trees, and even strewed their garments in His way, He was not excited by passions ; His heart and soul were fixed upon other things ; and instead of rejoicing with the multitude, He shed tears over the Holy City, because He knew the desolation which the inhabitants were about to bring upon themselves and their children. But if you refer to the human element, to the sufferings of His flesh, it must have had a tenderness and susceptibility of pain which the most refined of human beings cannot conceive or feel. Physical suf- fering is relative. A little infant suffers with sickness and dies ; but the suffering is not as great as the impression made by witnessing it would lead us to apprehend, because consciousness is wanting, rea- son has not been developed. And so it is if you go to the lower species of animals: the contortions that indicate suffering are manifested ; but where there is no consciousness, or but a feeble consciousness, the suffering cannot be great. And hence it is that in the practice of medical men, the results of which are doubtful in a moral point of view, when you wish to perform a painful operation you use certain remedies for what purpose ? To dull the edge of the instrument that is to perform the amputation ? No ; but to kill or diminish the consciousness of the sufferer. Hence it is, that in proportion as the mind and the body are elevated more and more, just in that proportion does every sense, while suffering, tell and act with tenfold agony up- on both. If that be true, who can conceive all the sufferings of the Son of God in His mind and body, in all those tortures and insults which were heaped upon Him by the rabble when proceeding from the Holy City in which an unjust sentence had condemned Him to 308 AKCilBISHOP HUGHES. death. He goes forth to the place of final execution, already par- tially dead, for they have crowned Him with thorns, they have scourged Him at the pillar, they have beaten His face with their hands ; and when, therefore, He goes forth to the place of execution He is already partially dead. He proceeds in the midst of the rab- ble, in the midst of those who, perhaps but a short time before, had cried out, " Hosanna to the Son of David ;" but now He proceeds in the midst of jeers and scoffs from the gate of Jerusalem leading to Golgotha, and as one living wound from head to foot. The rest you know; and I have said already that the whole es- tablishes this one point, which ought to be ever present in the mind of the Christian ; the whole exhibits the infinite justice, and the more dear and infinite mercy of God our creator ; for in the life of Christ and in His death, the justice and mercy of God are commin- gled and to be adored the justice in teaching us that none but the Word made Flesh could make satisfaction for our sins ; so holy is God, and so horrible is sin, that it required such a victim to appease His wrath, and to restore fallen man to the everlasting kingdom. It teaches us all this, and it indicates the very fountain and source of every grace that God bestows upon us individually. All this was consummated; not in point of fact as yet, but in point of the institu- tion of the sacraments and the establishment of His Church. It is not to be supposed that He is absent from us not at all. He is still carrying on the work of redemption the same as by anticipa- tion in the sacrifices of the old law, He was carrying on that re- demption from the hour of Adam's fall ; but, now in the reality of all that had been prefigured, He is carrying on the Avork of redemp- tion still more universally still more efficaciously since the hour in which He declared, " It is consummated." SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICA- TION OF ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y., MAY 13th, 1860. " For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered to you ; that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giv- ing thanks, broke it and said : Take ye, and eat ; this is my body, which shall be delivered for you ; thia do for a commemoration of me. In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying : This chalice is the new Testament of my blood ; this do ye as often as you shall drink it for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink this chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord till He come." 1 COB., chap. xi. 23-26. THE spectacle which surrounds you this day, and the solemnities you have just witnessed, said the Most Rev. preacher, must bring to SERMONS. 309 your eyes and your hearts gladness and consolation. A great work, after much toil and many generous sacrifices on your part, has reached its accomplishment ; and has now been presented with the most solemn rites as your offering to Almighty God, in honor and in support of the religion established and sustained by the Word made Flesh. It is true that God requires, in the first place, and especially, the worship of the heart ; but to-day, on whichever side I turn my gaze, I behold evidences proving that this material structure has sprung up, in its beautiful proportions, from the' internal faith and worship of Christian hearts. Nor do I hesitate to say that, all things considered, it is worthy to be regarded as an offering to the Al- mighty, and as a public evidence that faith is still found on the earth. It has been erected at a great expense, provided from the slender means of a devoted and faithful people. The scale upon which it Avas projected had in view its purpose as the house and sanctuary of the Lord. The manner, also, in which the architectural design has been carried out by the mechanics and workmen employed, must be looked upon as doing great credit to those who have had, respect- ively, the charge of the various departments of this beautiful struc- ture. As it stands to-day, it is, for the people of St. Joseph's, and for their devoted and Very Rev. Pastor, a great triumph. It is a perpetual monument of their zeal and perseverance, which, as a monument, if you would behold, you have but to look around. Indeed, I feel myself impelled to congratulate, not only the pastor and people of this Church, but also the clergy and laity of the en- tire diocese of Albany, on the progress and development that reli- gion has made since God was pleased, through the voice of our Holy Father, to appoint the reverend arid amiable prelate who now rules this great flock. His zeal, his wise and gentle government, his firmness withal, have, with the divine blessing, built up a new crea- tion in the diocese committed to his care. I remember distinctly, during a period of ten years, how few and far between were the Catholic priests, the Catholic laity, and Catholic churches within this vast territory, which at that period was included in a territory much more extended, within what was then the diocese of New York. The change that is observable on every side is truly consoling. When the corner-stone of the first St. Joseph's was laid, a carpen- ter's bench on an adjoining lot served as a pulpit on which to ad- dress the few and evidently not wealthy hearers who came to wit- ness the ceremony. It was thought at that time to be a very bold undertaking, but it succeeded. In the interval, however, it has emerged into a glorious Catholic temple, which, even apart from its sacred purposes, and looked upon only as a public edifice, would be considered an ornament to any city in the world. And yet this new St. Joseph's is but one of the many Churches (certainly the most conspicuous next to your magnificent cathedral) that have been erected since the period referred to. Nor is it in this alone that one can witness the immense progress of our holy faith. It is still more in the union of hearts, the faithful co-operation with their bishop in 310 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. every good work, that the clergy and laity of Albany have distin- guished themselves, and have been enabled to accomplish so much, It is time, however, that I should invite your attention to that which will henceforward be the crowning glory of this church. I mean the divine purposes for which it has been erected ; I mean the preach- ing of the word of God ; I mean the sanctuary of prayer, even in the very presence of the Lamb who was slain from the beginning of the world, but who is to be present on your altar and in your taberna- cle ; I mean the administration of the sacraments instituted by Him, and through the administration of which He has appointed that the merits of His death should be applied, individually, through the min- istry of His Church, to the sanctification and support of every soul that is anxious to be enriched with the treasures of His grace, and to secure the happiness of eternal life. Here, Christian parents will bring their infant children to be con- secrated and sanctified in baptism, that they, too, may become mem- bers of the body of Christ, and living temples of the Holy Ghost. Here, they who are competent and disposed to enter into the holy state of matrimony, will come to have their union approved and confirmed by the minister of God, and sanctioned by the blessings of His holy Church. Here, Confirmation will be administered. Here, if occasion re- quire, the sacrament of holy orders will be conferred on the Levites of the sanctuary. From this place the blessed oils and the bread of life will be borne forth to the sick-bed, when the priest of the Church will pray over the sufferer, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, as the Apostle prescribes, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and if he be in sins, the sins shall be forgiven him. In short, here will our Saviour continue to carry on the work of redemption for which He came on earth. But there is intimately connected with these, but still of a more ele- vated, mysterious, and divine dignity, the sacrifice of the Mass. This constitutes the supreme glory of the Catholic temple. All that is grand in the construction ; all that is precious in the material of which it is composed, converge on the sanctuary, or rather on the tabernacle and sacred altar, at which the consecration of the holy Eucharist takes place, and on which it reposes under the appearance of bread and wine. Take away the divine Christian Eucharist, and the altar will be a word without meaning or significance, the priest- hood will cease to discharge its functions, sacrifice there will be none, and this splendid temple would become a mere secular build- ing, convenient indeed for the meeting of those who might frequent it, but entirely robbed and despoiled of the heavenly and unspeak- able gift and priesthood which constitute its supreme and divine ex- cellence. It is true that the sacrifice of the Mass is universal in the Christian fold, and that, in its intrinsic nature, it would be the same, whether celebrated under the mighty dome of St. Peter or under the branches arranged by the missionary among the Indians; just for one rnorn- SERMONS. 311 ing, the temporary altar to be removed before sunset, if it should be necessary to remove the camp from one -location to another. But still, in view of the ineffable mystery of the real presence in our churches, it would not be too much to say that, if they could be built of precious stone, their construction, even then, would be but a faint symbol of the faith and piety, the love and adoration clustering around the altar on which the sacrifice of the new law is offered. Now, I wish to invite your special attention to this particular sub- ject. I shall begin by recalling to your minds what is the nature of sacrifice as appointed by Almighty God, and especially of the sacri- fice which our Redeemer instituted in His Church. Sacrifice, in its special meaning, is an oblation of something which is offered to God, to be consumed in acknowledgment of His sov- ereign dominion over all things. It is a recognition of human guilt on the part of those by whom or for whom it is offered. It is a pub- lic acknowledgment of the supreme adoration which is due to the Creator; and, at the same time, an official act of hope and confidence in His boundless mercy. From the fall of our first parents, sacrifice became the outward expression of all that I have just said. It was continued through the long line of the holy patriarchs. It was not a new mode of worship, but it received new and more detailed ap- proval as to the manner in which it should be celebrated, from the period when God appointed that His servant Moses should become the leader of His chosen and segregated people. The holy Scriptures give us minute details of the sacrifices, and the mode of offering them, under the Jewish law ; but all these were merely types of the real and infinite sacrifice which the Messiah offered on the cross. They are terminated on the day when the Saviour of the world gave up the ghost on Mount Calvary. The question then would be, whether He left His Church less provided with the means of adoring God than the Jew- ish people had been with their rites of sacrifice, which were only figurative ? He has not so left His Church. He instituted the sac- rifice which we call the Mass on the night before His crucifixion. That institution was, in its nature, entirely distinct from what is called the last supper, 'or the final celebration of the Jewish Passover. It was after the celebration of the Jewish Passover, and as a separate and distinct act, that He took bread and wine, and having given thanks, He presented them to His disciples with a declaration that under the appearance of bread was His body, and of wine His blood, commanding them at the same time, and through them their lawful successors, to do as He had done for a commemoration of Him. And it was then and there that He instituted the adorable sacrifice which His Church offers up on her altars, and through the ministry of her priesthood, from the rising to the setting of the sun. On the follow- ing day, He Himself became the victim of the bloody sacrifice in which He gave His life on the cross for the redemption of the world. But between the victim which He offered for the perpetual sacri- fice by which God might be adored in the Eucharist, and the same Victim expiring on the cross, He made no substantial distinction. 312 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. On the cross His blood was shed from His veins until life was extin- guished. In this He fulfilled the meaning of the types of the priest- hood of Aaron, and terminated their ministry. But in prophecy, inspired by the Holy Ghost from the early time, He had another priesthood according to the order of Melchisedeok. This priesthood He enters upon in the institution of the adorable sacrament and sac- rifice of the altar. The high pontiff, the priest forever, according to the order of Melchesedeck, is one and the same. The Victim on the cross and the Victim on the altar, are one and the same, but offered to God in two distinct manners. The manner of the sacrifice would be distinct in one case from what it is in the other. But the sub- stance of the Victim, under a different form is entirely the same. He identified them by saying, in presenting the holy Eucharist, "This is my body, which shall be delivered for you ; this is my blood, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins." And, ac- cordingly, after His ascension into heaven, and after the descent of the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, His apostles and disciples failed not to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, both in Jerusalem, and wherever they carried the good tidings of His doctrine ; so that, at any given time since that period, wherever the Christian name has been propagated, there also has been established the holy sacri- fice of the Mass. It is true that this divine institution has been rejected, more or less, in modern times, by many who have rejected, also, the teachings of the Church. But this has been a novelty, and a deviation from the early practice and liturgies of the Christian people. Mow, from the beginning of the world, sacrifice, as appointed by God, has been the supreme act in which man could offer true adora- tion to the Supreme Being. At all times, His people adored Him in various other ways, and there was no place in which it was not lawful for them to recognize their dependence and His sovereignty, such as internal and individual adoration, humility, prayers of the heart, praise, thanksgiving, obedience, sacred poetry, and psalmody. But all these fall vastly below the adoration rendered to Him through the medium of sacrifice for there is nothing in these that could not be applied, relatively, to human beings and to the angelic choirs. We praise men ; we pray to them ; we solicit them for favors ; we chant their merits in exquisite poetry and in national song. We in- voke the intercession of the saints and holy angels in prayer ; we honor and revere the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mother of our Lord and Saviour as the most eminent being that God ever created far above angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim. Still, to none of these, nor to all of them together, is it lawful to offer sacrifice, which belongs solely and exclusively to God alone, as the supreme act of divine worship. From the beginning of the world to the present hour, whenever or wherever religious sacrifice was offered to any other than the One true and holy God, then and there was consummated the act of idolatry. Now, this being the case, all the sacrifices, all the teachings of the SERMONS. 313 Church, all the testimonies of the holy Fathers, and of the liturgical books, bear testimony to the simple fact that the " Word made Flesh" offered himself as the one adequate victim for the sins of the whole world; and that He appointed and instituted for His followers the mystical sacrifice of our altars, on which He becomes present under the appearance of bread and wine, by virtue of the consecra- tion of His priest, who has been duly appointed to minister in His name, by His authority, and as His representative. He himself, in- deed, is the great Pontiff of our souls ! He Himself is the High Priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedeck. And if those who are ordained to be His representatives consecrate and change bread and wine into the substance of His body and blood, it must be remembered that they do so in His right and as His representa- tive. This is manifest from the very words of the liturgy in the Mass, when they speak, according to the language of Chrysostom, as if there were other Christs, when, at the solemn moment of con- secration, they utter the identical words of the Saviour in the insti- tution of the sacrament and the sacrifice. They say : " This is my body ;" and next, " This is my blood, of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins." Thus, then, the Son of God has left with His Church a sacrifice unspeakably superior to any which had existed among the Jews. In a discourse like this, which must necessarily be brief, it would be impossible for me to bring forward, either from the Holy Scrip- tures, the writings of the Fathers, or the decisions of the Church itself, those authentic testimonies which support what I have just said. The quotations would fill volumes. But, happily, it is not necessary to accumulate the evidence on which our holy faith repo- ses. That faith is, to us, the gift of God. The perpetual and uni- versal testimony of Christ's Church is for Catholics entirely sufficient. The two hundred or two hundred and fifty millions of members of which the Church is composed, are so many living witnesses to the truth of this doctrine. Scattered though they be, over the whole earth, of every tongue, and tribe, and nation, still, if interrogated, they would answer in one universal voice, " So we believe." In like manner the generations of the past, from the day of Pentecost, who were in communion with St. Peter and his successors, have believed in the same sacrament and sacrifice. You behold immediately, therefore, how intimate is the relation which our divine Redeemer has established between Himself and His Church. It must be remembered that whilst He was on earth, notwithstanding His living presence and His miracles, there were but lew who recognized Him as the Son of God. Peter was the first to proclaim his belief in the Incarnation. But even after His resur- rection another Apostle, Thomas, refused to believe until he should be satisfied by touch, as well as sight, of the identity of His divine master; whom, after having been convinced in the way he desired, he proclaimed as his Lord and his God. Our Saviour said to him, " Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed ; blessed 314: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. are they who have not seen and have believed." This is the blessing of divine faith in the Catholic Church. Her pontiff, her priesthood, her people, have not ceased to recognize that same Jesus Christ who was rejected by so many and adored by so few, when He exercised, in His own person, the divine ministry which He came upon the earth to fulfil. Now, this recognition and adoration constitute the glory of His Church; not merely in presence of His humanity, whilst He remained among men, but also in the sacrament and the sacrifice of the altar which He instituted. He was the rejected of men, in the language of prophecy, and the outcast of the people. But she recog- nizes and adores Him, as well in the sacrament and sacrifice of the new law, as when He was suspended on the cross. Indeed, her glory is, that her divine Founder enriched her for all time to come with the last and best gift of His infinite love. Pondering on this mystery of divine goodness, we might say that the charity of God's omnipotence could not bestow upon the Church any more precious gift than this. For in this the Church, on the one hand, has the privilege of adoring His incarnate Son, not only as an historical Redeemer by His death on the cross, but also in the perpetual Saviour present in the eucharistic sacrament and sacrifice of the altar ; whilst, on the other, she is glorified by a daily sacrifice, by the dignity of the priesthood which offers, and of the Victim that is offered, so that she does not represent the sacrifices of mere type, but the reality of the infinitely perfect sacrifice which the Jewish types were appointed to foreshadow. In the mystical immolation of the Lamb, the priest does what the Saviour did on the night in which He was betrayed ; and he does it for a commemoration of Christ. He does it to show forth the death of the Lord until He come. He does it because our Saviour commanded His Apostles, and their lawful successors, so to do. It is an action, as well as a prayer. But the action itself, as well as the prayer, is of Christ's ap- pointment. What, then, is and must be, so far as the priesthood and sacrifice are concerned, the homage and adoration which are rendered to God ? The victim is no other than His own divine Son. The priest who offers is no other than, as has been explained, a minister ap- proved by His Church, representing Him outwardly at the Christian altar. The consequence of all this, dearly beloved brethren, is that the humanity of Christ nay, the body and blood of Christ is the victim of the oblation ; the perfect victim, which on the one side be- ing divine as well as human, must be infinitely acceptable to the Divinity. For, although it was the body of Christ that suffered on Calvary, and although it is the body of Christ that is mystically offered in our eucharistic oblations, still it must be remembered that in the incarnation there can be no separation between the body and blood, soul and divinity, of our divine Redeemer. Again, the supreme priest is no other than that same Saviour and Son of God, although He is represented by a priesthood on earth appointed by Himself. It is the privilege of Catholics, therefore, to unite with SERMONS. 315 the visible priest at their altars in the whole intention and meaning of the sacrifice. In that act their individual prayer is elevated to the supreme rank of supreme adoration of God. Since the incarnate Word is at once the priest and the victim of the sacrifice, there can be no imperfection in the offering itself, however imperfect may be the visible minister of the altar. Hence, dearly beloved brethren, the recollection, t'he devotion, the decorum that should be observable whenever we assist at this divine institution; hence the zeal and piety of all ages in this mode of rendering its celebration, even exte- riorly, more august in the sight of heaven and of men. Hence these gorgeous temples which, from the moment when Christianity was permitted to emerge from the catacombs, began to arise from point to point all over the surface of Christendom, and which, even now, constitute the wonder and admiration of mankind. And, I might add, hence the beautiful church and altar of which you have witnessed the dedication. The faith of the Catholic Church on this subject being such as I have described, it is but a necessary consequence that such things should take place. But it is time that I should draw to a close. I have already men- tioned, that on a day like this, controversy and disputation would be out of time and out of place. It is too sacred for any thing but the feelings of joy and gladness which must animate the pastor and peo- ple of St. Joseph's church at witnessing the triumph of their arduous undertaking. I might make even another remark. Those who are not Catholics may regret that whereas human reason is incompetent to understand the mystery of which I have spoken, I might at least have met that objection. My answer must be very brief, and it is this : that in the last analysis, whether of nature or of divine revela- tion, human reason is incompetent to understand any thing, not even how the grass grows, how the eye sees, how the arm of the human body moves at the volition of something which is not the arm. But all can understand that if God has made a revelation at all, what He says ought to be believed, whether human reason comprehend it or not. Finally, dearly beloved brethren, it should be our study to conform to these divine doctrines and institutions ; to consecrate and sanctify ourselves, as well as this church in which we are to be present at the consecration of the Victim in the sacrifice of the Mass ; to become ourselves living stones in the construction of that ever- lasting temple which is not made by human hands. I mean of that heavenly Jerusalem described by the evangelist St. John, in his Apocalypse, in which the saints of Christ shall adore forever and ever ; in which there shall be no grief, no teai's, no necessity for fur- ther sacrifices, and in which it will be no longer necessary that faith should be exercised, since we shall know as we are known, and see God face to face. 316 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. "THE GREAT COMMANDMENT IN THE LAW." A SERMON DELIVERED TUESDAY, JUNE 5th, 1860, AT CHAPEL- HILL UNIVERSITY, NORTH CAROLINA. " But the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together, and one of them, a doctor of the law, asked Him, tempting Him : Master, which is the great commandment in the law ? Jesus said to him : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment ; and the second is like to this : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two command- ments dependeth the whole law and the prophets." ST. MATTHEW, xxii. 34. IT might appear strange at first view that our divine Redeemer should have deemed it necessary to renew a precept, placing the af- fections of the human soul under obedience. It should seem but a necessary consequence, that they who know God to be their Creator, Father, and Saviour, should love Him by a spontaneous movement of their hearts without the necessity of a commandment to that effect. But it should be remembered that the precept, as originally laid down in the book of Deuteromony, and now so emphatically confirmed by the incarnate Son of God, was addressed to that fallen race whom He came to redeem and elevate. So far as we know, the angels themselves were not commanded to love their Creator. The principle of that love was inherent in their spiritual nature. No doubt a test was appointed by which, in the exercise of their free will, they might prove their fidelity to God, or their rebellion against Him. By this test they were tried. Having been created simultaneously, the trial or temptation, which would prove their fidelity, was one and the same. In the exercise of their free will some adhered to God ; others resisted, and would not serve. These latter were expelled from heaven, and fell to rise no more. For them there was not, and there was not to be, at any time, a saviour. Again, in the creation of our first parents in the garden of Para- dise, there is no evidence that God imposed on them any special ob- ligation to love Him. This would be necessarily implied, but it has not been specifically commanded. Their test by which they should recognize the supremacy and sovereignty of their Creator, was em- bodied in a prohibitory precept forbidding them to taste of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were free; and in the exercise of their freedom, they chose to violate the com- mandment of their God, and to involve themselves and their pos- terity in a ruin which would have been irremediable for time and for eternity, if God had not so loved the world as to give His only be- SERMONS. 317 gotten Son, that whosoever should believe m Him might not perish but might have life everlasting. It is to their descendants, all maimed and wounded in their nature by the ravages of original and actual sin, that the precept was given in specific words, commanding them to love God, and to love their neighbor. There is a great mystery involved in what I have just said. The right understanding of it furnishes a key for all other mysteries. It is this : Why God permitted that the noblest work of His creation, viz., angels and men, should have the power to rebel against Him, whilst all the other portions of His creation obey His laws with con- stant and unvarying fidelity ? In other words, why God should have permitted sin, or, at least, not prevented it ? The answer to this is so far as man may interpret the divine counsel that He created both angels and men, and endowed them with such exalted faculties that an obedience of necessity on their part would have been unworthy of His infinite majesty and of the dignity of their nature. There were but two alternatives. One would be the law of ne- cessity, by which they should have to move under perpetual compul- sion, and thus stand before God, bowing reverence, as puppets on a wire bow at the touch of a spi'ing. This order has been observed by the Almighty in the creation of the material world, whether animate or inanimate. Thus, the planet which we inhabit obeys God in its rev- lutions, in its seasons, in its fertility, in the beauty of its solid grounds, and the terrific majesty of its mighty oceans. Thus, the other planets of our system move in their orbits with a constancy and regularity that have never been found at fault. Each is found precisely in the place at the time appointed according to the law which God has imposed upon them for their guidance. Thus, also in reference to the stars, which His powerful hand has distributed and poised in their several places throughout the immensity of space. If God, there- fore, had denied free will at their creation, either to angels or men, they would have fallen under a law similar to that which is applica- ble to the irrational works of Almighty God. Sin, indeed, would have been thus prevented ; but then intelligence would have been a superfluous burden, free-will a mockery, and memory either useless or impossible. There would be no rational being to ofier freely its homage and adoration to its Creator and Sovereign. God would still remain in the solitude of His being, as He was previous to the creation of men or angels. He might contemplate His works as they would stand out giving evidence of His power ; but among them all there would not be any person, or any thing capable of ren- dering Him that soul-felt, rational, voluntary homage which is due from all creatures, as a recognition of His infinite power and un- speakable perfection. Men and angels, and things whether animate or inanimate, would be under a law of necessity. Free-will there could be none ; and without free-will, there can be no rational or voluntary obedience, love, or adoration towards God. As it is, ail His works may be referred to as exemplifying His om- 318 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. nipotence and His glory. They do not understand themselves. But man, in the greatness of his intellect, can be their interpreter. He can read their bright pages ; and even if Heaven had not given him a better book, this alone would be sufficient to raise his soul, and fix his heart in the contemplation of His divine author. But after all, it is not in the survey of this outward glorious world that man discovers those perfections of his Creator which excite him to charity and love. When we consider His eternity, His infi- nite knowledge, His omnipotence, the wonders of His creation, we are filled with respect, with astonishment, with admiration ; our un- derstanding is confounded is overwhelmed ; but the heart is not touched. It is only when we meditate upon His goodness, His mercy, and His charity towards His creatures, that our hearts feel the first attraction of love, by which we are drawn to Him, and recognize that His love for us should be reciprocated on our part. Here, then, we begin to understand the reasonableness of the precept by which we are commanded to love Him with our whole heart, with our whole soul, and with our whole mind and our neigh- bor as ourselves. It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to know whether at any time we love God, according to the force and energy which the evangelist employs in characterizing the nature of that love. Pa- rents and children, and even friends, are conscious of the affection which binds them to each other. But this is in the natural order. It is tender ; it is sustained, while it lasts, in a great measure, by the aid of the senses as well as the susceptibility of our nature. The love which we owe to God is not of this order, since we see Him not with the eyes of flesh, since we hear Him not, except through the echoes of His word. The love, therefore, that is due to Him is of a super- natural character, and the precept of our Saviour does not imply that we shall be moved to deep sensibility by the operation of divine love in our hearts. It requires that we should love God as God, and man as our neighbor. Our blessed Saviour has abundantly explained this point by laying down the test of love such as the law requires. In the fourteenth chapter of St. John we are told : " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And lie that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him." And again, in the same evangelist, we find the Saviour's words, as follows: "If you keep my com- mandments, you shall abide in my love, as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and do abide in His love." The test, therefore, laid down by the Saviour Himself, shows that the fulfilment of the precept is not necessarily evidenced by senti- ments or feelings which are present to us, and of which we are con- scious at any time, but rather depends for its accomplishment upon the sterner virtues of self-denial, and obedience to the com- mandments. This will require many sacrifices which it is impossible to make, SERMONS. 319 unless by the aid of divine grace, promised to us through the merits of Jesus Christ; for without Him we can do nothing. There is another point of view in which it would seem that the nature of man, even in his fall, is such that it is of itself prepared for the reception of the precept contained in my text. His heart's life is love. The capacity of that love can embrace the boundaries of the woVld, and elevated by divine grace, can penetrate the heavens, and make its offerings at the foot of the throne of God Himself. ~\Ye all know this by experience, that we can love our parents, our kindred, our friends, our neighbors, our country, our fellow-beings throughout the world. Of course, in proportion as these are more nearly related to us, our love, if I can so speak, is more ardent. But God has endowed our hearts with a capacity to extend, in principle, at least, our good-will to men, and even to angels ; and yet by this the capacity and the love itself remain undiminished, like the light and warmth of the sun, which constantly diffuse themselves over the world, and are never exhausted or diminished in the lumi- nous fountain from which they proceed. This aptitude in the natu- ral order would seem to have been a preparation for our duties in the supernatural God has so created us that we could not divest our- selves of the desire to be happy. We seek to satisfy that desire by placing our affection upon objects entirely inadequate to the purpose. They are attractive ; and in addition, we invest them with proper- ties of excellence by which, we suppose, that in their possession we should find happiness. Sometimes we are not disappointed. But the duration of our felicity is always precarious and essentially brief. The object is removed from us or it has not the qualities which we had ascribed to it or it has not accomplished towards our felicity what we had anticipated or our affection itself has undergone a change, and we find that our love yearns for something better, sdmething more permanent, something more capable of tilling up the void which we feel. Now, in reality, so Immense is the capacity of love in the human heart that nothing can satisfy it fully, ade- quately, and permanently, except God, who is unchangeable, infi- nitely lovely, and perfect. Show me a man who, without forfeit- ing any just privilege of human affection, really loves God, and I will point him out to you as one who is essentially happy. For another, who fixes his affections upon human things, no matter how excellent they may or seem to be, but who does not love God, real happiness is utterly impossible. And it is for this reason that St. Augustine exclaimed : " Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God ! and our hearts cannot rest until they rest in Thee ! Among Christians of every name it is well ascertained that meek- eyed Charity has never given rise to controversy. She has been re- cognized by all as the dove bearing amidst the distractions of the Christian world the olive branch of peace. All have recognized in her the description of the heavenly virtue, as given by St. Paul : " Charity is patient, is kind. Charity envieth not, dealeth not per- versely, is not puffed up." Now it is certain that the ground-work 320 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. of chanty is the love of God, as commanded in the words of my text, and yet infidelity has not hesitated to raise its voice against this vir- tue, and to proclaim that it is impossible to love a God such as our religion represents him to be that it is impossible to love a God who inspires fear into the hearts of men, and who punishes crime by an everlasting penalty. But we answer, if God did not punish crime, on what basis could virtue and holiness found their hopes of His ap- proval and of their recompense at His hands ? No infidel has yet dared to deny the distinction between vice and virtue. The simplest notions of common justice indicate that God, as a legislator, exercises the double function of rewarding the one and punishing the other, otherwise the wicked and the just would be on a perfect equality in the divine presence. Crime would have no remorse, and virtue would be robbed of its motive and its hope. Where a wicked man, against the laws of heaven and earth, imbrues his hands in the blood of his brother he is justly, by divine and human law, condemned to forfeit his life. His country causes him to be executed, and if the infidel's argument were sound that would be a reason why we should not love our country. But he would say that, after all, it was only the cruel anticipation of a death which, in the natural order, would occur at no very distant period, but that God's penalty for unrepent- ed crime is eternal. This, so far as his objection is concerned, is a fallacy. The execution of a man by the authority of his country is an act, so far as he is concerned, reaching to eternity. He dies of- tentimes impenitent, sometimes blaspheming God, and pouring his maledictions on his fellow-beings. We know what the sentence of divine justice will be in his regard, but the execution of the sentence is not postponed on that account. Shall we, therefore, cease to love our country ? Assuredly not. But it would cease to deserve our patriotism if it did not make the distinction between virtue and vice if it did not protect the good citizen and punish the evil-doer. I mention this illustration of the fallacy as well as the impiety that are generally blended together in the seductive pages of infidel writing, because, unhappily, falling into the hands of young men emerging from college life, they but too often produce impressions, or doubts, or hesitations, which it will take years and years often- times to vanquish and remove. They would do well, therefore, to avoid every species of written or of spoken infidelity. They would do well to cherish the simple belief of those lessons both of precept and example which were inculcated in the domestic circle of their homes and in their university. Infidels may speak and write as they will, multiplying with seductive eloquence their words against reli- gion, but educated youth should not permit such words to disturb in their regard the fonndations of Christianity, for they are solid as the everlasting hills, and indestructible as the divine Architect by whom they were laid. Other things, including infidels and infidel writings, shall pass away, but the foundation and the superstructure of Christianity never. Having said so much on the first, on the greatest and first com- SERMONS, 321 mandment, we turn to the second, which is like to it Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The fultilment of this precept is, under all circumstances, difficult, and were it not that it depends on the first commandment the love of God of which it is an inseparable appendix, I have no hesitation in saying that, in many cases, it would be impossible. And yet it is the special test by which Christ would have His disciples to be re- cognized. In the 13th chapter of St. John He says : " A new com- mandment I give unto you that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." In the 15th chapter of the same Gospel our Saviour declares : "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do the things that I com- mand you." The sphere in which this virtue is to be exercised is precisely that which is occupied by our fallen race. This portion of the divine precept could have no application either to our first parents or to the celestial spirits that surround the throne of God. Among them there is no opportunity for the exercise of fraternal charity, there are no tears to be dried away, no sorrows to be assuaged, no sufferings to be alleviated, no desolate orphans nor any destitute, aged, or sick to be protected or comforted. But in this life, on the contrary, the very order of human existence would seem to have pointed out to man the necessity of mutual aid between those who need it and those who have the means to afford it. This is clear from the moment we reflect that there is no member of the human family that is independent by himself alone ; be he a king, or be he a beggar, the necessity of aid and sympathy from his fellow-beings is indispensable ; and this law pervades the whole human race, prov- ing that man was created for society and not for solitude or selfish- ness. The human family exists by succession in the natural order, and not by a simultaneous creation. In the weakness of childhood, or in the feebleness of old age, we should perish promptly, were it not for the aid and protection that are furnished by our kindred or our fellow-beings. In the moral order, we should grow up in ignorance of our God and of our duty, Avere we not provided with, the means of instruction by those who were in life before us. Under these circumstances, it would seem but natural that mankind should,, from the very necessity of the case, from a sense of their mutual de- pendence on each other, have coalesced in a common system of mu- tual aid and mutual benefit. We know from history, however,, that the very reverse of this has been the ordinary condition of men, whenever divine charity had not prepared the way for the right ap- preciation of the duties which we owe one to another. Human na- ture was essentially the same at all times and in all places, and yet,, if you go outside the boundaries of Christianity, you will find not a trace or an evidence of the benefits which charity has diffused among, the followers of Christ. Humanity had not been extinguished phi- VOL. II. 21. 322 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. losophy boasted itself as philanthropic, but this was only in pompous words, for nothing was in reality accomplished. Cruelty in legisla- tion, hard-heartedness in social life, indifference to the sufferings of others, the oppression of the weak by the strong, the deliberate and authorized destruction by parents of their own offspring, the power of life and death over their children and domestic dependants these were all that humanity could accomplish, whilst it was unenlightened by divine charity, and unimpelled to do good by the precept and example of our Lord. It was into such a world that He introduced the Christian religion, and by a new commandment inculcated espe- cially the mutual duty of love and charity "a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. This is My command- ment, that you love one another. He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." And St. John, in the 4th chapter of his first epistle, says : " Let us, therefore, love God, because God hath first loved us. If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not : this com- mandment we have from God, that he who loveth God love also his brother." From the period, therefore, when Christ imposed this new commandment upon his disciples there was light and hope for the world. After the ascension of our Redeemer, the Apostles and those who succeeded to their ministry ceased not to inculcate this as an obligatory part of His religion, so that wherever the Gospel was preached charity became an essential portion of Christianity. It had to encounter the hostility of paganism and of human passions. Nevertheless, it diffused its happy influence on every side. Even before the close of the persecutions by the Roman emperors it had accomplished wonders, both among the disciples themselves and the pagans by whom they were surrounded. Eusebius, in his Ecclesias- tical History, tells us of the miracles of fraternal charity performed by the brethren during the pestilence that desolated the Roman Empire for a period of ten years, in the third century, in which they took care not only of their members, but also of the suffering pagans who had been abandoned by their own friends and relatives. And St. John Chrysostom, in his preface to the Epistle to the Philippiaus, does riot hesitate to say that the charity of the Christians exercised a most powerful influence in the conversion of the pagans. We know that Ju- lian the Apostate, was bitter in his reproaches against those who still ad- hered to the tottering gods of paganism, because they permitted them- selves to be so outstripped by the Galileans in works of fraternal charity. I am aware that the precept of our Saviour on this subject, if mis- understood, is liable to objection. For instance, we are commanded to love not only our neighbors, but our enemies. Now, if this were understood to be a love such as a parent herishes for his son, or mutual friends for each other, obedience to the precept would hardly be possible. But, in this case also, our divine Redeemer de- scribed the species of love which we are to entertain for our ene- mies. In the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, He says : " You have SERMONS. 323 l.enrd that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemies ; but I say to you, love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." Now this is the species of love which is required in order to fulfil His precept. There are other passages conneted with this sub- ject, to which exception has been taken. It has been said that the duty of doing unto others as we would that others should do unto us, if reduced into practice, would, in many instances, be subversive of order in civil society, and tend to reduce all conditions of life to a certain species of general equality. No such consequence can be fairly deduced from the legitimate meaning of fraternal charity. Order and subordination it respects. Government is essential in the family, and in the State, and no government can subsist in either without the distinction of conditions. But charity would reconcile and elevate them all into the beautiful, harmony of Christian brother- hood. Such has been the effect of her influence from the days of Christ Himself. Her advance may seem to us to have been slow ; but it has ever been steady and progressive. Under her auspices every species of human suffering has been, to a great extent, pro- vided for. She has operated in a twofold manner : first, acting on individuals in their every-day life, preparing them to do good, and to relieve distress in a private way ; next, in inducing Christians to combine for accomplishing works of humanity through the means of association ; and thus, in every Christian land, whether of Europe or of America, public institutions have been erected for the relief of hu- man wretchedness. She has provided homes, and nurses, and food, and clothing, and instruction for destitute orphans and abandoned infants retreats for the aged hospitals for the sick. With that ingeniousness which the love of God and man inspires, she has in- vented a language for the deaf and dumb, by which they can inter- change thought with each other, the same as if the gift of speech and hearing had not been denied them. She has contrived a system of edu- cation by which the blind can read by the touch of their fingers. Even the insane have not been forgotten in the scope of the love enjoined upon us by the commandment of Christ. It is true that many of these institutions have been founded arid fostered by civil govern- ments. But whence did such governments derive the feeling and convictions which have prompted them to make such provision for the poor ? Unquestionably they have descended to us from the precept of our Lord, for wherever that precept is unknown, civil govern- ments have never attempted any thing of the kind. The most civil- ized countries of paganism, such as Greece and Rome, never left be- hind them a single monument, I had almost said, of decent humanity. They excelled us, indeed, in works of art, which we still admire. But, so far as the interests of humanity are concerned, all those works, including the admirable productions of Phidias and Prax- iteles, are insignificant as compared with the single lunatic asylum, which crowns one of the summits of your beautiful capital. There have not been wanting those who have criticized and almost 324: AECHBISHOP HUGHES. censured this whole system of Christian chanty and human benevo- lence. 'They have insisted that it encourages idleness, and destroys that noble feeling of self-reliance, on the exercise of which the pros- perous and healthy condition of a community so much depends. Alas ! it is easy for those who have inherited or acquired by their own industry competency and wealth to criticize the condition of their less fortunate brethren. In some few instances such an abuse of public and private charity on the part of those who are its recipients, may have taken place ; but this is not a valid reason why the love of o*ur neighbors should be discountenanced. It is not the poor alone who abuse the gifts which God bestows upon them, whether by the hands of charity or through any other channel. Is not ev- ery gift of His liable to abuse? The light of the day the darkness of the night the wealth, of which His providence has made us the stewards the health, without which life itself would become tiresome do we not abuse them all ? But God, who knows our na- ture, does not withhold those gifts because we occasionally abuse them. Let us extend the same principle to the poor, and hold in its merited estimation that great commandment of our Lord and Master, that, as His disciples, we should love one another. Young gentlemen of the graduating class, my task is done. I have endeavored to present to you, not according to the details of the- ology, but in a broad and general view of its benefits, the great pre- cept of Christian charity. I have pointed out the divine authority on which the precept is founded, whether as it regards the love of God, or the love of our neighbor. This has not been in that style of language, of oratory, or of eloquence to which you have been ac- customed, or which befits the hall of science and such an audience as I see before me. For more than a third of a century it has been my duty to preach the word of Godj but it was almost always to the willing ears and fervent hearts of the humble and simple-minded, who, in their own fervor, were prepared to hear and be edified at whatever might be said. In speaking to them I have acquired the habit of imitating the simplicity of the gospel itself, caring little for ornaments of style, provided I could find terms calculated to convey ideas. If the ideas should be retained by my hearers, the language which had been used as their vehicle, was of the slightest consequence. On this occasion, however, more attention to the language, as well as to the idea, might have been given with great propriety. I have, at least, given you proof of ray good-will ; and, if I have communicated ideas that may rise up in your memory hereafter, prompting you to love God and your neighbor, I shall feel myself highly rewarded. In the mean time, I thank you for that patience and attention which you have exhibited during my discourse. You are now about to go forth and enter upon the busy scenes of active life. It is the wish and the hope of all your nearer friends, and it is mine also, that you will so deport yourselves on the new theatre of life as to reflect credit upon your distinguished Alma Mater, be a source of comfort and legitimate pride to your parents and your family, and an honor SEEMONS. 325 to that great country which rightfully, expects much from her noble sons who have had the benefits of such an education as it has been your privilege to receive. Another wish and hope, which I may be allowed to express in my own name, is, that God will protect you, pour upon you His choicest blessings in this life, and enable you to reach that better life, in another world, for which you were created. REASON AND FAITH. A SEBMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICATION OF ST. PAT RICK'S CHURCH, NEWBURGH, N. Y., DECEMBER 2, 1860. " You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you ; and have appointed you that you should go, and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should re- main." JOHU, chap. xv. 16. THESE are the words of our divine Redeemer on one of those occa- sions when He spoke, as it were, more exclusively to His immediate Apostles and disciples. They were, it might be said, among His last confidential words to them. The message referred to them, and not to the whole. He told them they had not chosen Him, but He had chosen them, in order that they " should go and should bring forth fruit ;" and that their " fruit should remain." There is much of deep instruction in these words. They are in perfect harmony with cor- responding intimations given by Him on other occasions to the Apos- tles whom He was to send forth for the work of converting the world to the belief of His doctrines. He says that you " should go," and yet it is not a separation precisely from their divine Master, because He says elsewhere, " And lo ! I am with you all days, even to the con- summation of the world." But His observation to the effect that they had not elected or chosen Him, but that He had chosen them, was, no doubt, intended for instruction through all time, and for uni- versal application. If He had left these words unsaid it might come to pass, as it has in some instances, that the sheep would choose the shepherd ; that that world which they were appointed to enlighten should imagine itself possessed of the right and authority to select its teachers. It was to guard against this that our Saviour said to them, " You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you; that you should go and should bring forth fruit and your fruit should remain." In short, dearly beloved brethren, the whole of this and many corres- ponding portions of the new Testament, converge upon the estab- lishment of one great and essential truth, and that truth is, that without a mission no man can minister rightfully in the things of 326 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. God. Now, that mission can come but from one source, and that source is the Founder of the Church, the Saviour of the World. Nor does He leave it to be inferred that He has not received a com- mission, for He says, " As the Father hath sent Me, so I also send you," and " he that heareth you, heareth Me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me ; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me." Thus religion and the authority of religion are traceable to the throne of the eternal God Himself, for our Saviour spoke in His hu- man capacity when He spoke of His mission. And thus, from the present day, travelling up the stream of time to its very fountain, you will find that this commission, this "go" and "bring forth fruit," has been perpetually the rule and guide of the Church of God upon earth. It is essentially the first condition of a mission. If God has not sent me, mediately or immediately (for it amounts 'to the same thing), I should have no right to address you in His name from this place. If God has not sent me, I have no commission ; but I can say, in an humble and subordinate sense, " You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," because I am sent as one of those Avho are commanded to go forth in the order of time, to bring forth fruit, with a view that that " fruit should remain." The same commission has been extended to the Apostles and their successors, and will know no interruption till the consummation of the world. Anything outside of that maybe benevolent, may be philanthropic; but it is not directly of God, it is of humanity, and has not the quali- fication for a divine work. Hence, therefore, the Church is neces- sarily a Church of mission. We are called to the faith indeed by the general vocation of Christian truth, and then one is chosen here and another there, their qualifications tested, and when they are deemed worthy by those who had been called and consecrated before them, they are associated in the sacred mission. Then again come in the words, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should re- main." This has been the rule of the Church from the beginning, and is repeated from the rising to the setting of the sun. The other point is the unity of the Church, as well as its mission, and unity could not result except from a divine mission. These two marks of the Church, therefore, are essential, and, when I shall have said a few words upon them, I will endeavor to meet the only current objection with which the mission of the Apostles and their succes- sors has ever been resisted ; that is to say, the pretended discrepancy and contradiction between man's reason and the mission the Apostles were commanded to proclaim to the ends of the earth. With re- gard to the first, unity and mission cannot be separated. The first point, therefore, of truth is this very reason itself that if there be but one God, there cannot be two true religions, for the supposition that there should be two religions emanating from the authority of one and the same God, is a contradiction. He would have, if He made them both true, to contradict Himself and that would destroy SERMONS. 327 all conception of his infinite perfection. From Him revelation is the divine teaching necessary for man, to bring him into communion with the Church of Christ and with Christ Himself, and through Christ with God, his creator. There are no two opposite ways, di- vinely appointed, for this. I do not speak now of the good inten- tions of individuals who reason it out, to their own satisfaction, that when they mean to serve God, when they form a religion in their own minds, they stand in as good a position as if they were members of the mystical body of the Son of God. I do not speak of them ; I do not condemn them ; I leave them alone ; but I say they are not in the path of salvation, even with all their good intentions, because God has proclaimed His revelation. From the very beginning, His Church was visible to all men ; it was a species of corporation, having officers who could trace the exercise of their authority to the very Fountain of revelation itself. It was not a hidden Church ; it was always conspicuous ; and, while the Apostles and their successors traversed the globe, while they passed from one nation to another, guarding the lamp of faith and illuminating other lamps of faith in the darkness and ignorance of superstition and paganism, they did this on the ground that they were sent ; they did it on divine au- thority ; and, although they might not have heard with their own ears the words I have read, nevertheless these words reached to them, and substantially they could prove their commission just as if they were present at the time our holy Redeemer spoke in person to His Apostles. What was the result? As should ha^e been ex- pected ; they had no opinions of their own to propagate ; they had a message from God, and although they spoke in different languages, still you will find no variation in their testimony. Peter, and An- drew, and James, and Thomas, and their successors, all spoke one and the same language it might have been in various tongues, as they had to address different nations, but the substance of their les- son never varied. And what does this prove ? It proves precisely that they understood the meaning of the words of their divine Mas- ter, after the reception of the Holy Ghost, which up till that period were obscure in their minds. The second part of the result was unity not merely unity in doc- trine, but unity in belief. There could arise no contradiction, no discrepancy between the teaching of the Apostles in any age and the faith that teaching inspired into the minds of the hearers by the su- pernatural aid of divine grace. And hence, if you pass from one region to another, visit every country on the globe, learn the lan- guage of every tribe, inquire and examine wherever you may, you will find that they all believe the same doctrine without contradic- tion. This is the outward form of the Church. But there is another, which contains the inward riches of divine grace with which the Son of God endowed her. We behold this in her teachings ; the minister of God does not give out his speculations ; he repeats and re-echoes the same thing which the divine Master commanded His Apostles to to teach, when He said, "Go ye, therefore; teach all nations, bapti- 328 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. zing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- .manded you; and lo! I am with you all days, even to the consum- mation of the worlch" He .does not say, teach them according to the best of your understanding, but teach them whatever I have com- manded you. But as to the internal life, the divine guarantee to the Church is manifested by that agreement and unity of doctrine which ought to exist among Catholics. It should be a necessary result that the charity of religion ought to be as much one as the faith ; that is, suppose if they have one faith, and one Lord, and one baptism, how could they have two hearts, one loving the other hating ? Charity should be exercised in connection with this divine institution ; for in connection with it she has spread blessings over the nations of the earth. Look at every thing that is noble and dignified in humanity, and you will trace it to charity, for charity is "the meek-eyed daughter" of God Himself, and those who have not charity have not the fulness of perfection which the faith of Christ inspires. In the mean time, what helps to fulfil the duties of this Christian life if we ourselves are utterly incapable of rendering any service to God worthy of His acceptance ? Humanity cannot elevate itself; it re- quires a levei', and it is for this reason that God sent His only begot- ten Son to raise and sanctify man. And the groundwork of this is belief, is faith. It comes through a messenger sent by God, and no other can bear it except through false pretences. Christ 4oes not forsake His Church. They would have a very crude perception of the Incarnate Son of God who imagine that He was merely an historical person, living in an obscure province of the Roman empire, and though He seemed to lay the foundations of His Church, that still he ascended to the right hand of His Father, leaving that Church without a guide and protector. He has, with His divine wisdom, made His work perpetual ; and it is perpetual in this sense, that it was to extend to generations who did not then exist. Let us say that this satisfaction for the sins of the world was com- pleted upon the Cross of Calvary. What would that be to us ? We did not exist. How do its merits come to us ? because, before we could be redeemed by the Son of God we must exist. There were then two modes : one was to suppose and it is an awful supposition, yet it has gained credit that through all eternity God had deter- mined, by an unchangeable decree, that certain persons only should have the benefit of redemption. This never came into the message which the Apostles were to carry to mankind. On the contrary, they taught, and the Church teaches, that although Christ is not physically, as during his mortal life, he is nevertheless substantially and mystically, present in His Church. If we speak of the Sacraments, it is true that the minister officiates that he performs the rites and ceremonies in words and in acts, that the person who enters the Church by the grace of baptism is cleansed from original sin, and even actual sin. But how is it ? He speaks the words of authority in the name of his divine Master ; he SERMONS. 329 baptizes him in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The pouring of water is symbolic of the washing away of sin ; but Christ is not absent ; He is virtually present, and He cleanses the soul by His blood. In Confirmation it is the same ; it is He that imparts the Holy Ghost through the rite that He appoints. In the Holy Eucharist it is also the same. He is the high-priest and the victim, and He has said : " This is my body, this is my blood ; do this for a com- memoration of me ;" and the Apostle, referring to it, says : " As often as you do this, you show forth the death of the Lord till He come." And it is thus in every sacrament we never consider Christ as having forsaken His Church. He is the guardian of her truth, the guide of her counsel, the perpetuator of the application of the merits of His own death. These are the channels, and it is through these that He has carried on, and still carries on, the work of redemption, bringing it down from one age to another till it reaches all who are disposed individually in the Church. Now, beloved brethren, the other part is the obstacle which the world sets up against this authoritative teaching instituted by the Son of God ; and it was not wonderful that enlightened philosophers pagans especially should sneer at the doctrines taught by the Apostles, as these philosophers pretended that the dogmas of Chris- tianity did injustice to the human mind. But it is strange that there should be persons still found who imagine a contradiction between what is called human reason and the mysteries of divine faith. This is what is surprising, for, if we believe at all, we believe by faith, not by reason. If we speculate, we doubt the word of God, and that is not rational nor just. If we know that Christ and His Apostles, properly authorized, taught this doctrine, and we begin to take it to pieces and examine it through the lens of our understanding, it is an insult to God. Who can doubt His word ? He taught it ; then it is rational to believe it, not because we understand it, but because it rests upon authority that cannot deceive. Our faith, therefore, is a high and glorious homage rendered to God. It is said by some writers that we sacrifice reason to faith. This is hardly correct. We believe because God has taught it, and we reverence God too much to dispute what He has revealed. But it is said, how can I believe how can any one believe in the Trinity, in the resurrection of the body which goes down into the grave and mingles with the earth, and springing up again in the verdancy of the grass, is dissi- pated and blown to the winds ? Reason knows nothing at all about this. Then, again, the very Incarnation, the very doctrine that the eternal Son of God became man and took our nature upon Himself, and in that nature redeemed the whole race by the merits of His Passion who can understand that ? But are we obliged to under- stand it ? Not in the least. Then we are irrational if we believe it ? Not at ail. Are you correct in setting up reason as the test of any one truth, except in positive science, where you begin by premises 330 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. which are generally mere truisms and which end by conclusions ? But in any other thing is there reason ? We speak of human reason as the great guide of the race the great test of what is to be done, what is to be believed, what is to be rejected. But has any one ever told you what human reason is ? Human reason, in general, is a vague term having its own range of meaning ; but it is not, and never can be established as competent to decide any thing, I will not say the mysteries of revelation, but even the natural mysteries around us. Can any one explain to me, by human reason, what is a blade of grass, what is the nature and operation of the fruit-bearing tree, or the fruit itself? Reason knows nothing about it. Can any one give me a reason for the fact that I can use my hand by mere volition, or close my eyes, or open them and see ? Is there any reason for all this? None at all. How do we -believe it? On another basis not by the divine teaching of revelation, but by the testimony of our senses ; and our senses are not our reason be- cause we see the grass, because we see the fruit, because we are conscious of these operations. In short, I might almost say, that while reason has its own invaluable sphere, it is not capable at its highest point of excellence of explaining satisfactorily any one phe- nomenon that falls under the senses of men. And again, what is this reason this human reason ? There is no such thing in the aggre- gate there is no universal human reason. Every man has a portion of it, but it is so uncertain and so variable that scarcely any two men will be found to agree upon the same thing. You might as well say that there is a universal face for humanity, but we know there is no such thing. All men have faces, but they are different from each other. So it is with reason : reason is from God ; it is a guide in the ordinary things of life, but it is not a universal attribute. There is no general human reason, for if there were, the consequence would be that all men would think alike. If there were a universal reason it would necessarily come to that, and then what would be the result ? The result would be that all activity and enterprise in human life would be brought to the monotony of a stand-still no man would be wiser than another no man would be more profound than another the same universal human reason would be the same universal standard of all there would be no such thing as variety, this more and that less, between man and man. There is another proof of this. There are men who call themselves philosophers, and their business has been from the time of Plato perhaps before to analyze human reason and to lay it open to dissect it, and make it a plain, easy study. But do any two of these philosophers ever agree ? What kind of an element is human reason, in regard to which those who are its students never agree with each other ? God gave for the guidance of reason, in its eccentricities, an in- fallible and unvarying teaching, corning from His own throne. Can I then be a reasonable man in accepting these mysteries ? Do I not discard reason and stultify my nature ? I trust not. I have two guides : One is this reason which has deceived me so often and is SERMONS. 331 mute when I question it about any thing ; it has no rational explana- tion for the phenomena that are around it in this world. Now, God gave revelation, not to extinguish reason, but for its guidance in the duties of this life, in the knowledge of its origip, and in the eternal end for which it was created. Can I accept it ? Why not ? I can use my reason with all freedom in reference to these mysteries not the mysteries themselves intrinsically considered, but the evidence on which these mysteries repose. Is this the Church that Christ es- tablished upon earth ? Here is a question which I can examine, be- cause it affords a field for reason. There is no reason why Cffisar should have conquered Gaul many years ago. There is no reason why Napoleon should have died upon a barren rock in the ocean. Ho\v, then, do we believe these things? Because they come to us by authority : we could not doubt them without shocking reason itself. And if we have such certainty with regard to human events, how much greater is the certainty with regard to those superhuman events which relate to Christ the Son of God, His Apostles, and their successors! This is within the domain of reason. It is the tes- timony to the fact that we can examine, but the testimony itself being incontrovertible, the fact cannot be disputed and must be received. But how shall we receive these mysteries, yet respect reason ? Simply because it is of all things reasonable that we should believe a testimony that, by the closest scrutiny and investigation, we find to be undeniable. The jury do not examine the crime, but they ex- amine the witnesses, and so, according to the testimony, they tind a verdict. Would it then be unreasonable for me to reject these in- disputable testimonies which have come down to us in one continued stream, all bearing upon the same subject ? Would it be reasonable for me to deny all this ? It would be very irrational, because, on an authority liable to be wrong, we believe the common things of this life. The starting point is the commission of teaching. When that commission is real, there is unity of belief; and, then, while the world and the philosophers of the Areopagus of Athens, and the Sophists and wicked men and the late infidels of France have arrayed reason against religion, still we cannot overthrow divine testimony and the human testimony which bears out the evidence of the fact. Here is the fact before us, and it is on that account I would say that, while there is unity of heart and doctrine, reason is best protected in the Catholic Church. Reason in the Catholic Church is placed in its pro- per sphere, and it is protected within that sphere ; but, aside from that it leads men astray, because the pride of man's heart often spreads mists over the skies. As for ourselves, this very ceremony of to-day is another evidence that the promise has not died out, " You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you ; and have appointed you that you should go, and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain." Let us endeavor to correspond with the goodness of Almighty God in the institution of religion, giving to us, in this world of igno- 332 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. ranee, of darkness and doubt, one solid foundation on which we may rest without being moved by the earthquakes of human opinion and human reason. Let us be true to our faith. THE VISIBILITY OF THE CHURCH OP GOD. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, BOSTON, SUNDAY, MARCH 10TH, 1861. THE words which I have selected for this auspicious occasion are found in the third chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, fourteenth and fifteenth verses : " These things I write to thee, hoping that I shall come to thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth." In this apostolic admonition of St. Paul to his disciple, Timothy, now already Bishop of the infant Church of the city of Diana, the great Ephesus, he seems to make but little distinction between the local Church of that city and the great and universal Church, that he knew from the language of his Master and His promises was to fill the whole earth. He takes, apparently, a twofold view of them, as one and the same, with scarcely a distinction ; for then every local church participated, as now it participates, when it is under the guidance of legitimate priests, and in communion with the organic body of the whole faithful, and especially with the visible Head on earth, the centre of unity under such circumstances, every local church participates in the privileges that belong to the whole uni- versal communion, But, at the period when St. Paul wrote, the very beginning of Christianity, it was customary to designate a church, not so much by the figure of its material construction, as on account of its being the place in which the new converts and follow- ers of the Son of God were accustomed to assemble for the purpose of celebrating the holy mysteries ; for the purpose of hearing the word of the living God ; for the purpose of feasting their eyes with the contemplation of that great pillar which had its basis on the so- lidity of truth, and which sustained the whole globe of Heaven's revelations to man ; a place where they united in prayer ; a place, in which they were, as the Apostle describes in the Acts, "of one heart and one soul." It would be entirely out of order to imagine that the Church at Ephesus, at the time when Paul addressed this SERMONS. 333 epistle to its Bishop, was an edifice of magnificence, or of grandeur, or of sublimity, so far as its material structure was concerned, like the one in which it is our privilege to assemble to-day, and to assist at those same holy mysteries which were celebrated by Timothy and his little flock. Their church, under this point of view, may have been, as in Jerusalem, an upper chamber, where the Church first met ; it may have been, in that luxurious city of Ephesus, the break- ing of bread from house to house, as it had been in Jerusalem ; it may have been, as in imperial Rome, when some wealthy or noble converts gave up their apartments for the private celebration of the service of the living God ; it may have been in some hidden and re- tired receptacle, to avoid the scoiFs and the persecution of the pa- gans and unbelievers which yet constituted the population of Ephe- sus ; it may have been, for that matter, as in the catacombs around the suburbs of that corrupt mistress of the then known world, the pagan capital of the Roman empire ; still, it was called the Church, because, without any separation from the great universal Church, it was a part of the same. To-day, however, we find that that little mustard-seed of the Church has grown up into a mighty tree, spread- ing its branches to the east and the west, to the north and the south, aifording, or at least offering, to all nations shelter and pro- tection from the spiritual enemies of man, and bringing all within the range of the aid and grace that God has instituted, in the Church, for the salvation and sanctification of His people. To-day, it is not in one of the catacombs that we are assembled ; we are not lighted by those little earthen lamps that we have seen with our eyes ; but here stands an edifice, a church, in the twofold sense of the term ; and here it stands, in the meridian of the sun, which shines glo- riously upon the work, a monument not the last memento, we trust to the venerable father who conceived the idea of its con- struction, and who has been spared, after a long and laborious life, to witness the realization of all his hopes. We trust and pray that he will be spared yet many days, even years, to enjoy the fruits of his past few years of labor the fruits of his toils by day, of his anxieties during the night ; for I take it, and I suppose you will all agree with rne, that the conception of so magnificent an undertaking as this church, and the edifices that surround it, could not have been successfully realized without constant care, constant toil, and con- stant anxiety of mind. Having conceived the idea, however, he has been exceedingly felicitous in the selection of those who were to carry it out in its material relations. Whether we speak of the ar- chitects who embodied his idea, or of their subordinates, the me- chanics who executed the work, we can say, that we have rarely, if ever, seen an edifice, designed from its foundation to promote the glory of God and the welfare of this people of Boston, that has bet- ter conformed in its results to the purpose for which it was originally conceived. It is unnecessary for me to speak on this subject. You have but to look before you at these altars ; you have but to look around you 334 ABCHBISHOP HUGHES. at the structure in which you are now incluaea ; you have but to raise your eyes to this vaulted ceiling, to these columns, and this tasteful, classical exhibition of human skill, and when you know that all this has been designed, not as a work to feed or encourage the sentiment of human vanity, but a work for the glory of God, you can see, and, I might also add, you can hear the very walls pro- claiming what manner of church this is. Every thing speaks for it- self; and it is a deed on which it would not be unbecoming for him who addresses you, the first from this pulpit, to congratulate that venera- ble father and his associates, and those who have taken part in car- rying out this work, and all of you, because I look upon it as a great monument of your faith, of your zeal, and of the generosity with which you have co-operated in the execution of this noble design. Let us pass, however, from a local church to that other and great Church to which the Apostle alludes, and which he designates as "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." That Church, beloved brethren, has not been constructed by human hands ; it has not been the plan or the design of a mere mortal. It is composed of living stones ; it occupies, not a small and restricted portion of this globe on which we live, but extends over its whole surface. That is the universal Church. Of the attributes of this Church, time would not permit me to engage your attention in ref- erence to each or all, with any lengthened detail. You all know, of necessity, certain of the attributes of that " pillar and ground of the truth," the " Church of the livirfg God." Being founded by Him, you know it must be, in its essence and its purpose, holy, like its Author. Being founded by Him, not for the generation in which He lived, and suffered, and died, but for all generations, then you know that it is indestructible, that it is perpetual, that it knows no termina- tion until the period designated by its Founder, the consummation of the world. You know, that being His work, it has been carried on under His direction. When He withdrew His visible presence from the flock which He had instituted, he appointed others, with His own special prerogatives, not indeed to found a new Church, but to perpetuate to new and everlastingly succeeding generations the truth which he had taught them, and which He commanded them to teach others. You know that this great universal Church, having been an organization of the Son of God, founded on His rev- elation and teaching, must have another attribute ; that is to say, it must live in unity ; for where there is truth, there can be no contra- diction ; where there is contradiction, and especially contradiction founded, apparently, or, as they say, on the very word of God Himself, truth is wanting on the one side or the other. These are attributes with which the Catechism has made every Catholic familiar. The Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. But there is another attribute which is less frequently dwelt upon in our pulpits, but yet which, on reflection, would seem to me, so far as the human mind is capable of appreciating the great works of SERMONS. 335 God, more striking than any of those I have mentioned. And what is that attribute ? Its VISIBILITY. That Church is as visible as this edifice ; it is visible from the rising to the setting of the sun ; and if you would know the reasons, if you would examine them, even slightly, you would perceive that since God gave His only begotten Son tor the redemption of the world, and since the world itself was visible, it follows of necessity, that the Incarnate Word should be- come visible ; and so it did, in the person of Jesus Christ, born of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. If you would know the reason, therefore, it is that the Church was not made or instituted for invis- ble beings; that from the beginning the human race was visible; but then visible in its destructions, visible in its corruptions, as it fell away from the chain of original truth ; visible in its reciprocal wars and bloodshed ; visible in its conquests, the stronger over the weaker ; visible in the whole material activity of man, apart from the divine conception of the unity of truth. If there was no unity, yet mankind was visible ; and it is in such a world as this that God, if I can so use the expression, launched the bark of St. Peter, His holy Church, to struggle as a visible organization, before a visible organizatiou ; being the jewel contained in the outward casket, the priceless value of which was the divinity of its principle, and the unity of its truth. Reason, dearly beloved brethren, simple reason, will satisfy any one that the Church was intended by our Redeemer to be a visible society. He, Himself, when He commenced His mission upon earth, at the age of thirty years, began His ministry on nothing else. There was nothing invisible ; every thing was brought out in the presence of His disciples and His Apostles, so that with their ears and their eyes they could hear and see what the Son of God was doing, and what He was teaching and proclaiming. Does He cure a man born blind ? He does not do it by an inward act of voli- tion. Of course, His will, without the utterance of a word or the exhibition of a sign, would have been sufficient to restore the man's sight ; but He uses an outward rite and ceremony. He takes clay and spittle, and spreads this compound over the eyes of the blind man, and tells him, in the hearing of all, to go to the pool of Siloam and wash. And was this an invisible Saviour ? He could have faised Lazarus from the dead t)y another act of His will ; but, in- stead, He shed tears and groaned; He used human langunge in the hearing of all, saying, "Lazarus, come forth." There is no instance in the ministry of Christ or His preaching in which He was not visi- ble, and in which His ministry did not come under the sense, to some extent, of those who were present on those occasions. Yes, there are two two instances; but then they had reference to that perpetua- tion of His death which is mystically celebrated at our altars. One was when, without any visible increase of bread for the hungry mul- titude on the mountains, He divided the small portion that there was to be distributed, and instead of its being increased into a vol- ume, indicating to the human eye that it would be sufficient, it 336 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. obtained an inexhaustible quality, and the more it was spread to the hungry multitude, the more it seemed to be inexhaustible, so that there were baskets of fragments left after that multitude had been satiated. Why was this? It had reference to the mystery of the bread which is consecrated into His body and blood on the Christian altar. The other instance was at the marriage in Cana. When His blessed mother, on account of the poverty, no doubt, and, perhaps, the humiliation of the family, in the presence of their guests, signi- fied to Him that the wine was exhausted, He directed the stewards of the feast to fill the vases with water and then to draw. There was no visible exhibition connected with this; but here are these two elements,- and this special exception was a preparation for the insti- tution of the holy mystery of the Eucharist, with regard to which He said, "lam the living bread which came down from heaven; your fathers did eat of manna, and are dead ; He that eateth of my flesh shall live forever ;" and so on. But in all the rest, Christ M'as a visible Christ, and not an invisible spirit, passing or lapsing quietly, noiselessly from one place to another, and propagating even His o\vn heavenly doctrine. And when He came to appoint His disciples, was it not the same thing ? Did He not call them one by one in an outward manner? Did He not gather them around Him? From the disciples He selected those twelve. From those twelve He se- lected one as the head of the Church ; and that very " pillar and ground of the truth " is, in His own declaration, reposing upon the rock of Peter, on which He declared He would build His Church, and the gates of hell should not prevail against it. This is the basis, and all truth is supported and built upon it. It is the column, "the pillar, and ground of the truth." When He sent forth His Apostles, what was the character of the mission He gave them ? Was it to propagate pious ideas, from one neighborhood to another, without a centralization, without an or- ganization, without a dome to protect the whole of His revelation ? Was it to collect here and there a few persons, who, on comparing religious notes and pious sentiments, should agree, for the time being, that they would unite and form a society and a church of their own ? No, my brethren, there would be no symptom of God's presence, if. that had been all. But He said to'those who were to take up His mission and carry it on through space and through time, "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. Go ye, therefore ; teach all nations ; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And now, behold I am with you always, to the consummation of the world." Oh, how many generations have passed since then ! How many tribes, and peoples, and nations, have been enlightened with the light of the gospel of Christ! How many innumerable spirits have been sanctified under the influence, and by the riches of the grace, with which its divine Author en- dowed it for the sanctification of the human soul ! And it is to-day as young as ever. The work which Christ operated on the cross SERMONS. 337 was llh death once for all, and for the whole human race. But the merits of that death, if that were the beginning and end of redemp- tion, would have extended only to those who happened to live da- ring the ministry and at the period of the death of the Son of God. A small redemption, to be sure. How, then, could the merits of that death remain in abeyance for eighteen hundred years, and be brought down by His appointment so that it can be applied, and so applied, individually, to every human soul that belongs to and con- stitutes a member of the Church of the living God, " the pillar and ground of the truth ?" There have been but two ways. One has been ever rejected by us, because it is unscriptural, because it is ir- rational, because it is impious ; and that method would be taking the same ground, that Christ died once for all, but that even the mystical representation of His death on the Christian altar, which is substitu- ted, always is derogatory to God ; and how to explain, how to bring into harmony the facts with this theory? It is pretended that from all eternity, God foreseeing, or, rather, seeing, since there is no fore- sight or past for Him, the human race, made a selection, according to His own infinite and arbitrary thoughts, among the rational be- ings whom He was to create, and for those whom Pie had chosen, His incarnate Son should make perfect atonement, so that no drop of that precious blood which moistened the earth on Calvary's hill should have fallen in vain ; and all for whom He died should, of a necessity, and by this eternal decree, reach and obtain ultimate sanc- tification. But as for the rest, the theory went on to say that He did not die for them. He passes them by ; and there is added, by way of explanation, a word which no one can dispute, that God owed man nothing, and if lie did pass them by, and appoint a Saviour for a chosen few, He did no injury to those whom He overlooked. But that is not the doctrine of that " pillar and ground of the truth " to which the Apostle calls our attention. On the contrary, it is true that the satisfaction made for the sins of the world by the death of Christ, He being the victim, but at once God and man in the same person, suffering as man, forgiving by His divinity the infinite merit of that suffering is that He suffered for those who then lived, and the next generation, and the next, and the next age, and all nations. And while the plenitude of this satisfaction of the cross is- complete, He did not abandon His work. On the contrary, He ever promises to be with His Church ; He promises to give her the Holy Ghost, to teach Her all truth, and to bring all things into her mind,, whatsoever He had said. All this shows that even until this day,, and from this day iintil the end of the world, God and His holy spirit will be with that Church, and will be in that Church. He will continue, Himself now invisible, indeed, but having organized a visible and universal society, professing the truth which He taught,, practising and obtaining sanctification from the sacraments which He instituted, hearing His own divine truth unchangeably uttered from the pulpit of every local church in communion with the great organized body of the faithful He will continue there, He is there. Voi>. II. $2 338 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Some one preaches, indeed, but that is external. He preaches, too, with His grace, to many a heart, and many a heart refuses to receive Him. But the grace, the inward grace that accompanies the legiti- mate preaching of those whom Christ sends, is His gift ; and, in that sense, He is the preacher. He appoints His ministers to govern the Church, and the successor of Peter is the chief of that ministry. But He is there as the higher head, and He abandons it not ; and in its government He suggests and directs the course best fitted for the purpose which He had in view in becoming man and dying upon the cross for that human nature which he came to raise from groveling with its crimes and its superstitions in the very dust. We baptize with water, according to the form prescribed ; but He is present with His ministers, and He cleanses, by the application of His own blood, the stains of original or of actual sin from the soul of the individual who desires to be incorporated into the union of his Church. In their eyes, He is in His Church, laboring and carrying on from age to age and from country to country His own great work. And hence it is that we have no hesitation in saying that there are two works known to mankind, which bear upon themselves the impress of God's own hand and power. And I know of none but these two. All the rest are of secondary origin, and as such, they bear the stamp of man's imperfection. But with regard to these two, or either of them though they belong to distinct orders what human ingenuity couM divine, or imagination conceive, any thing which by possibility could be compared with them ? What are these two works ? The crea- tion of the world is one. You cannot imagine any creation whk-h you could compare with it. The establishment of the Church is the second; and it bears, though of a different order, just as evidently and distinctly the mark of God's work, as the creation of the world. There is only one objection that might arise in the minds of some within the hearing of my voice, in regard to this comparison. That objection would be You say that the creation of the world and the foundation of the Catholic Church are both distinctly and exclusively ,the work of God Himself, and not of human origin ? Yes, that is my position. Then, how is it, the objector continues, if this be so, that there is such a difference between the two creations ? It the "Church be, as you say, the exclusive work of God, why is it that its members correspond so imperfectly with the holy and divine origin -of their existence ? Why is it that among you Catholics there are to be found nominal members who would do but little credit even to a human religious society by the manner of their lives ? Why is it, then, considering that they have intellect and capacity, and a power of love lor their Creator who made them and redeemed them why is it that they correspond so little with the glory of their origin ? I will answer, briefly. The answer will be simple, and, I think, convincing enough. The answer may be deduced from this .observation, that the creation of the world was under one law, pe- culiar to brute matter, to irrational life, to every thing that consti- tutes its visibility and composes its parts ; that man, on the contrary, SERMONS. 339 was made under a different law ; that he was endowed with intellect, endowed with memory, endowed with a capacity of loving his God and obeying Him ; but endowed with the faculty of free will, which God left under his own guidance,' with the aid, indeed, of grace and of divine light, and all those spiritual helps; but yet with this parti- cular observation to be made, that though He was Almighty God and could have deprived man of free will, or have so controlled him that it would always harmonize with His divine wisdom, He has not been pleased to do so ; and hence we are called upon to admire the wisdom and justice, the width and depth of the mind of the Lord. "Who has known the mind of the Lord and who has been His counsel ?" I can tell you, therefore, that one Christian out of the two hundred millions scattered over the earth that obeys God in simplicity, and by the co-operation of his free-will with the grace and supernatural aids he receives, renders more glory to the Creator than twenty thousand material worlds like this. The material world was made under the law of necessity, that law was imposed upon it from the beginning, and hence it is that there is no such thing as disobedience or rebellion against God in the material or irrational animal creation that He has produced. Does not the sun rise every day at the appointed instant ? Does he not set accordingly ? Is there a human being round the globe who is disappointed in the hour of his meridian ? No. Do. not the stars keep their nightly procession ? And that procession is going on day and night, with the difference that the light of our centre unfits the eye to behold those glittering orbs in the tirmanent, but they are always in motion, and never out of place. They have no free will. They are a book, brilliant on every page, sparkling, and dazzling, and charming the eye of mortals, and moving in their order as battalions of light ; but then they do not understand them- selves ; they have no conception of what they are; and it required man to be created, and man with his intellect, and with his eye, and with his power of gazing upon that magnificent and brilliant book ofthe heavens and, indeed, I may say of the earth and then as a rational high-priest, standing between God and these material works of His power, and giving utterance, if I may so speak, to their silent adora- tion, and conveying, through his own intellectual nature the tribute of which they are entirely unconscious. If he looks upon the earth, upon the solid land, he sees it every spring enamelled with a new succession of flowers, and those painted in a style of beauty which no artist can successfully imitate. ; and from point to point, either from the petals of the opening flower, or from the fragrant branches of aromatic shrubs, the very atmosphere is perfumed. But these have no power of adoration. These flowers and shrubs obey the law under which they were created and renewed, and again it re- quires man to interpret them. He is not like these ; he has free will ; and if he be true to his being, and true to his religion, he can inter- pret all these mysteries that are unknown to the pages of the book. J3ut as for him, God could not have created him so. There were 340 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. but two ways to create man as man is. One would be to create him as he is, and to require of him a voluntary homage and adoration to his Maker, not a forced one. The other would be to create him under coercion, under the law of necessity. But then, if he were created under the law of necessity, he might kneel down, and as it is our practice, he might make the sign of the cross, and he might go through all the external exhibitions of religion, or the internal, even ; and after all, what would he be ? He would be nothing more, noth- ing less, than appertains to a puppet, made in mockery of the human shape, and strung on wires, to be pulled and taught to bow down and reverence by the hand of a magician. In that case, man would be reduced to the condition of the earth, the stars, and the heavens, or the inanimate or merely instinctive brute creation, entirely inca- pable of rendering to God a homage in harmony with the almost divine perfection with which his Creator endowed him. That is the difference. Free will is not taken from any man. A man may call himself a member of the Church, and yet violate its holiest precepts, and he does that freely ; God does not coerce him. In the mean while, under the dome of that Church is his hope of salvation and the enjoyment of eternity, the comfort and stability of his heart and of his intellect, because, under the dome of that Church, he knows that he is not " carried about by every wind of doctrine." .That Church is visible ; every thing made it so the teachings of Christ, the outward mission of the Apostles, the very mode of com- municating His eternal truth : for the Apostle says that faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God ; and he continues : "How can ye hear unless there is a preacher ? and how can they preach unless they are sent ?" And is not all this a visible economy in the Church of God ? Reason requires it ; and how gloriously that Church has vindicated I will not say the commission of Christ, but the require- ments of human reason ; I will not say even the requirements of human reason, but this bright, prophetic vision that raptured the souls of patriarchs and prophets, Isaiah, Daniel, Micheas, who, looking forward to their hope, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Root of Jesse, and praying for the coming of the desired one, the Messiah, described the Church as a city built on the summit of a mountain, high above the hills, and to which all nations should flow. This was the vision that raptured their prophetic gaze when they contemplated the Church of the Son of God. If you look to history, have not all these anticipations been realized ? From the little chamber in Jerusalem, have you not seen the Apostles dispersing to the ends of the earth ? And although they had to en- counter a world buried in superstition and depravity, still, how they carried that word of God, even in a brief period, to the end of the earth ; and how for eighteen hundred years their successors have labored to propagate and extend in a visible form thai one, great unbroken, holy, Apostolic and everlasting Church ! It is not neces- sary, precisely, that there should be a visible union of men on the earth ; but, every denomination having a confession or a symbol o? SERMONS. 341 its own, assumes a visible form. But, then, it is very limited, and it must be very limited ; and even limited as it must be, its members cannot cling- together for any considerable length of time, because it is a human organization. Men compare their own religious convic- tions and sentiments, and when they find they agree, they make what has been sometimes called, but not in dignified language, a re- ligious platform ; and they become a visible union ; but what conies of it ? The same men, oftentimes, are not of the same principles for six months in succession. Those who agree at first conclude to dis- agree in a brief time after. They speak the same language, they are accustomed to the same social habits. But have you thought of this great Christian Church, maintaining its unity, maintaining the iden- tity of its doctrines, the identity of its government, the identity of its sacraments every thing, and extending, not to the narro.\v limits of a neighborhood, but from the rising to the setting of the sun, per- vading with these same doctrines nations that speak different lan- guages, crossing every latitude and longitude, visiting every conti- nent and every island of the ocean, and every where propagating the same principles, and every where constituting an identity of the visible Church, which the Apostle described as " the pillar and ground of the truth ?" Where have been the limits to the zeal of the Apostles and their successors ? Even up to the present day, you may tind them in the frozen region of the Arctic isles for there is, even in our time, and while I am speaking, a zealous successor of the Apostles, who visits as his mission, from the north point of Norway and Sweden to Spitzbergen, and Iceland, and Greenland, hoping to find or create and bring in to this one universal fold, some soul for whom Christ died upon the cross. Go to the burning sands of Africa, along the Niger shores, from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope, and although there are few nominally professing Christians, still they all have the traditions of the Church of Christ, not merely as a secret system of philosophy, but as a great outward and univer- sal society spreading over the earth. Go along the other shores, now so desolated by Mahomedunism, the coast of Barbary, and you will pass from point to point the ruins of cities where once lived those great Apostolic men who adorned the Church by the holiness of their lives and the sublimity of their doctrines the St. Cyprians, St. Alexanders, and other writers who stand not so high for holiness as for learning, Origen and Tertullian. They were the lights of that now darkened shore of Barbary. But go to the furthest East, travel from the Caspian Sea eastward, and along the borders of China, and through the interior of China itself, and you will find that visible Church, and although their language, and their skies, and their scenes are altogether different, still, if that congregation which wor- ships this day in the capital of that great empire, Pekin, were to be associated with you, there would be found an identity in the govern- ment of the Church, an identity in the sacraments, and in all those things that constitute the bond of Christian profession. It may be said that if all I have uttered were literally true, the 342 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Church would be everywhere, whereas it is not ; at least, it does not enfold and embrace all men. But there is a sense in which it is ev- erywhere. The Mahomedans, you know, not by argument or by doctrine, but by the scimitar in one hand, and the Koran in the other, destroyed Christianity in those once flourishing provinces of the Church, Persia, a portion of Arabia, and the south coast of the Mediterranean, and even on the northern cast of the Black sea ; and it may be said that the Church is not there. But I have explained to you already that God does not force the free will of His creatures, even when exercised against Him. When I say force, I mean He does not apply to them the whole of His power, and that, conse- quently, evil, wickedness, and tyranny have their course in the world as well as piety. He did not prevent true Christians from be- ing massacred, almost within the memory of our own time ; He did not prevent that once glorious Church of the British Isles from being plundered and perverted ; but yet, in all these places, there are the representatives of the one visible and universal Church ; and although they are not in the number that would seem to correspond, yet, out of four parts of nominal Christians, this one, united, holy, catholic, and universal communion constitutes three parts. There are two hundred millions; and is there any one who can say that is not worthy of a thought ? Could the ingenuity of man, could any thing less than the application, originally, of divine power, sustain such an outward society, particularly, sustain it when it is as united as the members of one family ? Never ! All the rest, as I have remarked before, is the work of man ; all the rest will perish ; the very world itself, as God has not omitted to teach us, will, at His own time, His own appointed time, melt away and disappear ; the sun will become dark, and the moon will not give its light, and those brilliant orbs that we see with so much pleasure will fall from their places. That is God's prophecy for the material universe. And now, whatsoever man has done on this earth has the seeds of decay in its own na- ture. He may erect a magnificent temple to God, even the great wonder and admiration of the world, St. Peter's, at Rome, but it is the work of man ; it has the seeds of decay in itself; and the time may come when it shall exhibit ruins not unlike those of Baalbec and Palmyra, which puzzle the traveller to know whence and how such magnificence could have originated. All this may happen. The great ship that has been the wonder of the world it is the work of man, and it is already realizing the doom of its origin. De- cay, accident, fire will show the end of man's work. But as for the Church, that is the second incomparable work of God, and that will never perish. It will perpetuate itself throughout the globe, in the midst of persecution. Kings will rise up against it, and princes will rage at its progress, and cupidity will plunder its altars and as- sail its ministers, but it is God's work, and when it ceases from this earth, it is only to be transferred, member by member, to that other and invisible Church invisible now to us in which there will be no crime, no necessity for free will, in which all will be peace, and those SERMONS. 313 who loved and served God, and belonged to His Church upon earth, will rejoice with Him forever in that triumphant Church which He has prepared for them in heaven. And that is the blessing which I invoke upon you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. SERMON AT THE SECOND SESSION OP THE SECOND PROVINCIAL COUNCIL OP THE EC- CLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5th, 1861. "TJvrt Jesus answered them, saying : " The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world keepeth it until life eternal. If any man minister to Me, let him follow Me, and where I am, there also shall My minister be. If any man min- ister to Me, him will My Father honor. Now is My soul troubled and what shall I say ? Father, save Me from this hour ; but for this cause I came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. A voice therefore came from heaven : I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again. The multitude, therefore, that stood and heard, said that it thundered. Others said, an angel spoke to Him." JOHN, chap. xii. You are present to-day, dearly beloved brethren, at the second session of the Provincial Council. It is the custom to have a solemn Mass of Requiem during every such Council for the deceased pre- lates of the Province. It is generally understood that it is for those w r ho have died since the last Provincial Council ; but to-day, sur- rounded by the prelates of the Province, one of their own number has offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for all the deceased prelates from the very commencement of the Church in this country. The words which I have selected, about the dying of the grain of wheat, in order that it might bring forth much fruit, are not inapplicable to this occasion. It is true that the Church teaches us as a sacred duty to pray for the departed ; and even in the Scriptures of the ancient Testament, we find that it is enjoined by inspiration. In the Second Book of Macchabees we read of the leader of the Jewish people, in their extremity, making a gathering, and sending twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifices to be offered up for the dead, believing considering the resurrection, for if he did not 344 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. believe that they would rise again, it would be superfluous to pray for the dead. But he did this because he considered that those who had fallen asleep in godliness had great grace laid up for them. "It is therefore a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." The Church lias taught that doctrine from the very beginning; it is contained in the Apos- tles' Creed ; the "communion of saints" intimates to us that death has not absolutely the power of cutting off the spiritual bonds or links that bind those who are struggling yet on the battle-field of time to those who are already enjoying the triumphs of their good fight, as well as those who, outside the portals of eternal bliss, are awaiting admission. It is in ordinary life a duty to pray for the dead. It is a great privilege for the Catholic, which no other profes- sion of belief enjoys. It soothes the grief of mourning friends, when some one dear to them has been taken away. It sanctifies their grief, it raises their thoughts into communion with that spiritual world towards which we are all hastening; for, while death must have been awful to the pagans, to those Avho think it forbidden to utter one prayer for the soul of a departed relative, it is to us a great consolation that we are permitted to pray nay, that the charity of love makes it a duty for us to pray for the dead. And now, looking back to the distant periods, when those prelates to whom I have referred were laboring on this soil for the glory of God, ministering to Him, many a diocese, or at least many a com- munity, was rendered sad by the decease of its Father and its Bishop. But yet, we have here our divine Saviour Himself saying that nnless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He Himself, our blessed Lord, was supremely that grain of wheat. And you will not fail to remember that during His life upon earth His success in converting His own people to the knowledge of the truth was not so striking as was found afterwards among those apostles who grew out of His death, and who were the "much fruit" of the primitive grain. Sometimes the people refused to hearken to His doctrine ; sometimes they turned away, always full of jealousy and evil pas- sions against Him ; and the Scripture, in one place, says that He was not able to do much in a certain neighborhood. On the other hand, the Church has grown out of His death. His disciples and apostles, if they understood it at the time, could with difficulty comprehend how their living Master should not be the principle of the 'diffusion of knowledge and of grace, rather than their dead master. But it is as He has said : " When the Son of Man sh all be lifted up, He shall draw all things to Himself;" and although the text applies primarily, and in its strictest sense, to our blessed Lord, yet, in the subordinate and relative sense, it may be applied to those who have succeeded in the inheritance or appointment of the epis- copal office. The Apostles di%d as so many grains of wheat ; and when we read of their martyrdom to-day, do they not bring forth good fruit ? Are they not the grand testimony, coming down side SERMONS. 345 by side with Christianity, and bearing testimony to its eternal truth ? The text, therefore, is applicable to them, for the good fruit is the result of their labors, but more especially of their death. The first prelates who came to this country were men of this de- scription, duly appointed, inheriting all the prerogatives of the Apostle- ship, with the certain distinction as regards the Prince of the Apos- tles. They died ; and although many years have passed since their death, it would not be becoming, even if it were optional, for their successors in a Council that is a part of the fruit that grew out of their death, to forget their memory, either at the altar, or to allow it to subside and perish in the minds of the faithful. It would be most interesting, dearly beloved brethren, if time permitted, to give a description of the Catholic Church in this land from the beginning. We could refer to the earlier period, the period of the Revolution, when the first synod was held on this con- tinent, or at least the northern portion of it ; when Bishop Carroll and the clergy of his diocese, embracing the whole United States, assembled in council to the number of twenty-five, and passed cer- tain statutes that are read to-day with immense edification. In 1808 new bishoprics were established and new bishops appointed by the Holy See. They were altogether four one for New York, one for Boston, one for Philadelphia, and one for Bardstown, Ken- tucky. They were all consecrated in the year eighteen hundred and ten, except the first bishop of New York, who was consecrated in eighteen hundred and eight. But, as has already been intimated, I must confine myself to a commemoration of those first bishops and their immediate successors who have died within the present Eccles- iastical Province of New York. The first bishop of this diocese, Dr. Concannan, after having been consecrated in Rome, set out for the diocese of New York, over which he was to preside. But, owing to the existence of war in Europe at that time, he could not come from Rome by any direct route. He purposed to embark at Naples, where he died on his journey. Some say he was poisoned, but that has not been made clear. Probably he had with him means enough to tempt some assassin to take his life. Dr. Concannan was already far advanced in years at the period of his appointment and consecration. We have not learned any thing of him as a writer or an orator. He had been a member of the Order of St. Dominick, and had resided in the Eternal City during a long period. And the fact of his having been chosen by the Holy See as the first bishop of New York is a sufficient evidence that in Rome he was distinguished by the qualities necessary or suitable for the government of a diocese. From a deep inspection of his por- trait which is now all that, to a practised eye, can give any indica- tion of his personal qualities it would be inferred that he was a learned man. His countenance beams with those traits which would indicate his character. Venerable in appearance, dignified in his life and manners, he yet betrays an unmistakable evidence of firmness, charity, and benevolence. 346 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. He was succeeded by the Right Rev. John Connolly, consecrated in eighteen hundred and fourteen as the second bishop of New York. He did not reach his diocese until eighteen hundred and sixteen. He died in eighteen hundred and twenty-five, after a brief adminis- tration of nine years. Dr. Connolly had been a member of the same distinguished order of St. Dominick. He, too, was far advanced in life when he entered on the duties of the Episcopacy. In one of his first letters to Rome he describes the condition of the diocese. There were three priests, and, he supposed, about seventeen thousand Catho- lics within the whole extent of his jurisdiction. Dr. Connolly was also a prelate well versed in purely ecclesiastical literature. He was humble, devout, patient, and charitable ; but the novelty of the circum- stances in which he was placed, the sudden transition from the peaceful abodes of conventual life to the active and stirring scenes of a city like New York, even at that time, rendered him apparently pas- sive and diffident of himself in the sterner duties of the episco- pal office. He had to undergo much labor in the ministry, ow- ing to the paucity of his clergy, and he had to encounter many contradictions and trials which, as he thought, it would be rather his duty to bear in meekness than to correct by authority. He was, therefore, a peaceful man, a humble man, a man giving way in a great measure to the usages and pretentions of lay- men ; and, as a general rule, he preferred submission where there was no great principle involved, for he had an idea of scandal as the most terrible thing that could happen ; and when the threat was made of an appeal to the newspapers, he gave way, lest scandal might come. There were but two churches in the city and out of the city : in the whole diocese, which then included the entire State of New York as well as the greater portion of New Jersey, there could not have been more than three or four others. At the period of his death, which was in eighteen hundred and twenty-five, there were but thirteen priests in all. He was succeeded by the Right Rev. John Dubois, consecrated in eighteen hundred and twenty six. Bishop Dubois died in eighteen hundred and forty-two, after an administration of thirteen years, for his health, towards the end of his life, became too weak to sustain the burden. Bishop Dubois was an extraordinary man. He was a young priest exercising the holy ministry in Paris when the French revolution of seventeen hundred and eighty nine broke out, and its fury was particularly aimed at the priesthood. Mr. Dubois found means to escape, and, bearing a letter of recommendation from General Lafayette to some of the distinguished men of Virginia, he landed at Norfolk and was kindly received by the Washingtons, the Patrick Henrys, and other patriotic men of that State which has since been called "the Mother of Presidents." Unable to speak the language, and yet desiring to learn it, he devoted himself to the teaching of French. As soon as he began to speak English, with a moderate knowledge of the language, he turned his attention to the SERMONS. 347 exercise of the holy ministry. But at that time there could scarcely be found ten Catholic families on the whole surface of Virginia. Bishop Carroll received him with great kindness, and extended to him every encouragement. His labors in the ministry were transferred from Virginia to Maryland, where he had whole counties under his care. Instances of his untiring zeal and of his immense physical powers to bear fatigue are still popular traditions throughout the dis- tricts which he attended. According to one of these traditions, he could ride fifty miles on horseback during the night and be at home in the morning. He was subsequently placed as pastor of Frederick City, where he built a small church. He had still an immense terri- tory, without any other priest to aid him. There were a few scat- tered Catholics in the neighborhood of Emmetsburg, which was a part of his mission. About the year 1809, he discovered at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains a gushing stream of the purest water. It was in great abundance, and in his zeal for the education of the Catholic youth, he proposed to make it the seat of a future college, which is now the flourishing college of Mt. St. Mary's. The difficulties which he had to encounter in the first years of this undertaking are almost inde- scribable. But assured of the purity of his motives, no difficulties could discourage him, and he persevered with indomitable energy in prosecuting the enterprise he had taken in hand until he had brought the institution to a high measure of success. He was not always sus- tained by the encouragement of his clerical superiors. His scattered flock was poor, and they could not, and certainly did not, give him much aid. There he was, alone in the midst of a family of students that loved him as a father, until he was joined by his faithful and saintly friend, Rev. Mr. Brute afterwards first Bishop of Vincennes. Independent of the anxieties incident to the support of such an es- tablishment, he still had the care of the Congregation and of the mission. He was the superior of the Sisters of Charity, to whose in- struction and guidance he devoted his untiring zeal. Their institu- tion, began about the same time that the college was commenced, had also grown up to be one of the most important religious commu- nities in the United States. The first humble buildings of Mount St. Mary's were of logs rudely enough put together. Mr. Dubois determined to erect a magnificent stone edifice ; and when it was completed, but not yet occupied, the torch of an incendiary, applied to the cupola, caused it to be burnt to the ground in his presence. The building was not insured, and its entire destruction before his eyes, in the dead hour of the night, would have crushed the spirit of almost any other man. No doubt he felt it deeply, but he betrayed no external emotion. When that grand and beautiful edifice was already a heap of ruins, he simply remarked to those around him, of whom I happened to be one, " that in its structure there were many defects, but that now he would build a better one." He did build another and had the consolation to see it completed and occu- pied by his students and seminarians before his appointment by the 348 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. Holy See as Bishop of New York. After visiting his diocese and witnessing its desolation, and the hopelessness of obtaining means for the education of a future clergy, or the establishment of educational institutions, he determined to visit Europe, and make the case known in the different Catholic countries which he afterwards visited. How far he was successful in this appeal is not known. But it is singular enough that during his absence he should find himself in the midst of another revolution in his native city Paris. It was in 1830 when the government of Charles X. was overthrown, and that of Louis Philippe substituted. After an absence of about two years, he re- turned, and immediately purchased a beautiful site on the Hudson River, at a place called Nyack, for the purpose of a Catholic college. A costly edifice was erected on that beautiful site, and it was on the point of being completed when, like the first college, it likewise fell a prey to the flames. This was also a severe blow, the more so as there was no insurance on the building. It afflicted him, no doubt, but having made his act of resignation to the will of God, it was not observed that the sad event destroyed in the least his habitual cheerfulness. The accumulation of years had now begun to tell upon him. He confined himself more exclusively to the imme- diate duties of his episcopal office. From this brief and imperfect sketch you can easily make up your mind as to the character of my late predecessor, and especially you will recognize a force of will and a constancy of determination, which mark him out among our deceased prelates as one differing in many respects from others. His inward qualities of mind and heart, of kindness, charity, tenderness towards his clergy and his flock, I could dwell upon at great length. He had his trials in the administration of his diocese from other sources more afflicting to him than the loss of a building. The condition of the Church, and in some instances a desire on the part of the laity to take part in its government, with or without the Bishop's approval, must have been to him very afflict- ing. It may be that the habits of his life, as a missionary, without being much accustomed to mingle with the world, especially with a population of this city which he may not have understood at all events, it happened that misconceptions, sometimes misrepresenta- tions, grew up between him and his flock, which prevented to some extent a just appreciation that each side could have fairly attributed to the other. Towards the last years of his life, however, this feeling passed away, and no prelate could receive a fuller acknowledgment from his people, deeper reverence or esteem than was extended to the last years of the venerable Bishop Dubois. He was a man of fine education, but the activity of his life or his mission prevented him from cultivating intimately or keeping up the earlier stores of learning he had laid by. He was a man of the most gentle parts truly a father ; a man of charity ; a man that felt for every calamity, but one who, if approached with a menace, was, as he said sometimes, like a pillar of iron, while if you approached him with the gentleness of good manners he was every thing you could desire. SERMONS. 349 The first Bishop of Boston was the Right Rev. John B. Cheverus. He was consecrated in 1810, and died Cardinal Archbishop of Bor- deaux in 1836. Dr. Cheverus, like Bishop Dubois, was driven out from his native country by the horrors of the first French revolution. He was accompanied by a learned and saintly priest Rev. Mr. Ma- tignon. I believe they spent some time in England and then came to Boston as missionary priests. They had endeared themselves, be- fore the appointment of th Bishop, to the people of Boston of all denominations, by their devotedness to their duty as pastors of the small flock of poor Catholics which were then to be found in the capital of Xew England. By their amiable and polite intercourse with its inhabitants generally, their polished manners, and fine edu- cation, they had endeared themselves to the people of Boston. It is said that Dr. Matignon was the first selected tor the Episcopacy ; but his own humility, and his great respect for his colleague, induced him to decline, and in consequence of this Dr. Cheverus was ap- pointed. His elevation to the Episcopacy did not at all change the simplicity of his manners or the suavity of his character. His ap- pointment was hailed by Protestants as well as Catholics. They re- membered his many virtues ; they knew that such was his spirit of char- ity for the poor, that on one occasion, in the evening twilight, he had been detected bearing on his own shoulders a burden of wood, and entering into a squalid apartment, in which it had come to his knowledge that the inhabitants were almost destitute of food and of fuel. His administration was all that could adorn his life until the period of his recall to his native country. The fewness and the poverty of his flock did not leave it in his power to do much for the spread of religion outside of Boston. But everywhere he was cher- ished with respect and veneration, even by those who regretted that so good a man should be engaged in supporting so poor a cause. On his returning to France the See of Boston was for some time vacant. As his successor, the Holy See appointed Right Rev. Bene- dict Fenwick, of the Society of Jesus. Dr. Fen wick was consecrated in 1825, and died in 1846, after an administration of 20 years. Bishop Fenwick was a native of Maryland, of a highly respectable family, in which, through good report and evil report, religion and piety had not ceased to flourish from the first landing of the Catholic colony of his native State. A proof of this is, that he himself and two of his brothers embraced the ecclesiastical state. He was edu- cated at Georgetown College, and became a member of the order under whose teaching and training he had been brought up. After having been admitted to the priesthood, he was for some time, if I am not mistaken, on the mission in the lower counties of Maryland. Subsequently he was rector of the same venerable college in which he had been educated. We find him next associated with the Rev. Father Coleman as pastor of St. Peter's, in Barclay-street, when there was no church in this city except that small brick edifice, which has since given way to the present church. In the mean time there were found a few Catholics in the city of 350 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. Charleston, South Carolina. The nucleus of the church in that city was found among the refugees who had been driven out by the in- surrections and massacre of the white population in San Domingo. There were a few other Catholics; but at all events, disputes and strife grew up in such a way that the presence of some competent pastor was deemed necessary to preserve religious peace, to restore charity, and improve the spiritual condition of the people by every means that zeal and prudence could suggest. The Archbishop of Baltimore Most Rev. John Carroll immediately selected Dr. Fenwick as his representative to arrange matters in Charleston. In this he was almost entirely successful. He remained in that trying post until the arrival of the Right Rev. Bishop England. His presence being no longer required, he returned to Georgetown, and remained there until he was surprised at receiving from the Holy See the bulls of his appointment to the diocese of Boston. Though an American by birth, he was not considered, especially by the Prot- estants of Boston, as equal to his departed predecessor Dr. Cheve- rus. He did not manifest any disposition to mingle in society ; his books and his episcopal functions were enough for him. It would take longer time than can be afforded to give even a brief account of the wonderful development of religion during his administration. Although he had no seminary, still he contrived to encourage young men and boys who manifested signs of a vocation to the priesthood. He sent them to Montreal, and in some cases to St. Sulpice, in Paris. In the mean time he supplied the wants of his growing diocese with missionaries from other sources. Churches began to rise in neigh- borhoods where the Catholic religion had scarcely ever been heard of except as a term of reproach and contempt. As time went on, those whom he had sent away for their education began to return with well-stored minds to aid and support him in his incessant Apos- tolic labors. At that period there was but one Bishop for all the States of New England, and yet the increase of Catholics was so great that he soon found it necessary to ask the Holy See for a di- vision of the diocese the new one to include the States of Connecti- cut and Rhode Island; and since his death two other divisions became necessary one Episcopal See being appointed at Burlington, Vermont, and the other in Portland, Maine. Bishop Fenwick was one of the most amiable, kind-hearted, and fatherly prelates that we ever knew. He was of a naturally buoyant and cheerful disposition. He was beloved by his clergy and by all that knew him. He, too, turned his attention to the necessity of Catholic education in his diocese. He had provided an establishment for the right training of young ladies, at the head of which was a religious community of accomplished Ursuline ladies. This- was the celebrated Convent of Mt. Benedict in Charlestown, which was afterwards, in 1834, burnt to the ground, together with its contents, by an infu- riated mob. He hoped to obtain compensation for the loss from the justice of the State Government, which, however, has never taken any notice of the flagrant act. He established a college at Wor- SERMONS. 351 cester, and this also was consumed by fire ; but I think after his death. I have said that he was of a cheerful temperament ever gay when he was among those that knew him. But neither was his a flowery path. His solicitude for all the priests and people of his immense diocese was constant. His labors, whether in travelling or keeping up his correspondence, were very great. But these again he bore with great constancy and perseverance, and he could have borne still more if other crosses had not been laid on his shoulders. Among these there would be not a few resulting from the disappointment of his hopes in regard to some of those whom he had either received or prepared for the exercise of the holy ministry in his diocese. Nor was this all : towards the end of his life he was even rudely assailed in the newspapers, and some of the most injurious articles against him he could trace to the very hands that he had consecrated on the day of their ordination. This very probably preyed upon his mind, and perhaps hastened the progress of disease, the symptoms of which made themselves manifest for several years before his death, which took place in the year 1846. The first Bishop of Hartford was the Right Rev. William Tyler, consecrated March 17, 1844, and who died in 1849. Bishop Tyler had been brought up by Dr. Fenwick, and had lived in his house several years after he was ordained priest. Bishop Ty- ler was also a man exceedingly fond of retirement. He was a man of few words not distinguished, indeed, for great powers of ora- tory, or great ability as a writer. But he was zealous and holy, gen- tle in his administration, but firm enough in maintaining the dignity of his state and the independence of his mitre whenever unauthor- ized persons assailed him by a pressure from without. He accom- plished during his brief administration as much as the times and the circumstances of his new diocese enabled him to carry out. But be- sides all this, his health was delicate, and began to fail perceptibly very soon after his consecration. His disease was consumption. I re- member distinctly that at the last Provincial Council which he ever attended in Baltimore, he pleaded with the Bishops to pray that the Holy See might grant him a coadjutor. They were rather opposed to it, under the impression that, judging from appearances, he might yet live many years. They did not reflect that the disease which had been stealthily approaching, and which never forgives, sometimes imparts a treacherous appearance of health to the countenance of its intended victim. When Bishop Tyler found that the case he had represented was almost discredited by the other prelates, he drew forth and handed round a document with an expression on his face that indicated the certainty of his request being granted. It was a certificate of his doctor's, stating in brief that one of his lungs was almost entirely gone, and the other was not much better. Of course, his request was granted. I mention this as a proof, that in life, his was the simplicity of a child. He felt that he had gained the day. A coadjutor was appointed, but good Dr. Tyler did not live to see him. 352 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. The Bishops at that Council recommended the Reverend Bernard O'Reilly, then Pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Rochester. lie was consecrated on the first of November, eighteen hundred and fifty, and perished in the steamship Pacific, which sailed from Liverpool, and has not since been heard from. Bishop O'Reilly was a mission- ary in the west of this diocese for many years previous to his ap- pointment was always a zealous, laborious, and exemplary priest. After his consecration his zeal and activity became even greater un- der the sense of his new responsibilities. He visited his diocese more than once limited, indeed, as to its extent, and as to the num- ber of his clergy and his flock. But a new impluse was given to the progress of religion during his brief administration. He made him- self acquainted with every thing, and where encouragement was necessary he did not fail to encourage ; neither did he omit to cor- rect any real abuse wherever he found it. His zeal and industry were remarkable, and in proof of that zeal, and of the interest which a Bishop takes in the well-being of his flock, he sailed to Europe for the purpose of getting more laborers in. the vineyard, which he was not to cultivate any more. He gave his life for his flock ! I have spoken in a brief manner of all the deceased prelates of what is now the Ecclesiastical Province of New York. Time did not permit me to enlarge on any one of them in a special manner. It was necessary to condense and abbreviate ; and, except as to dates, I have spoken entirely from memory of these pioneers of religion. I had the pleasure of seeing the first Bishop of Boston, Dr. Cheve- rus, at the consecration of Archbishop Marechal, in the year eighteen hundred aud seventeen. Of the others, the Right Reverend Doctor Connolly, of New York, was the only one that I never saw. With all the others I was personally acquainted. I have spoken of them, therefore, from personal knowledge. Nor do I pretend to the strictest accuracy in regard to some of the facts to which I have re- ferred. But I know, of my own knowledge, that they are substan- tially correct. These venerable first fathers of our province are fairly daguerre- otyped in my memory, both as to their physical appearance and as to that diversity of individual character which would mark the in- terior operations of their mind and heart. Casting a glance over what I have said so imperfectly, I could imagine them, if that were possible, as a mosaic of painted glass, grouped into a small frame, to be set in a large window of some great cathedral. From within you could discover the varieties or the diversity which they would mutually exhibit to the human eye. In stature in complexion in expression of countenance, in the analysis of the color of their hair or their eyebrows, you could not find two alike. If judging from their expressions of countenance, you would perceive that in their natural temperament no two would be altogether alike. This would be a view of them, the shadows within the walls of the Cathedral. But go outside and look inwards, and you can perceive no differ- ence. They were all Bishops ; and the holy Catholic faith which SERMONS. 353 they preached was the same for all. In that regard they were one, and their faith was as combined and as colorless as the atmos- phere, which is identical, and cannot be, in the open air, sepa- rated. They, too, were the grains of wheat that have now died, and have "borne much fruit. The result of their toilsome labors may be esti- mated by a view of the progress which religion has made in this Province since the period when God called them, as His ministers, to be glorified with Himself. They fought the good fight they laid, under the blessing of God, the foundations of religion in this Province during their lives, and after their death they brought forth much fruit. If any one would investigate the result of their pri- mary labors, he can easily make the comparison from almanacs or other sources of Catholic information, between the condition in which the diocese of N"ew York and Boston were found when the first bishops arrived on those shores, and the actual condition of the Church within the limits of the Province at the present day. It is not, then, without reasonable and tender motives that the Church directs, at every Provincial Council, the celebration of a Solemn Mass of Requiem for the repose of the souls of the deceased prelates. It is true that those to be thus prayed for refer more par- ticularly to such prelates as may have been called to their reward since the last Provincial Council. In the present instance, however, I have deemed it expedient to enumerate the bishops of this Prov- ince who have died from the beginning of its hierarchy. We have every reason to believe and trust that they are now enjoying the glory which Christ promised to His faithful ministers. Never- theless, it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins. We all join, therefore, in the intention of the venerable prelate who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of their souls, and in commemoration of their great zeal and labors. They have left behind them a noble example for those who are to come dfter them, by their untiring zeal, their labors, their humility in prosperity, their Christian pa- tience under great trials, which may be objects of imitation for the bishops and priests who have succeeded them. VOL. II 23 354 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL, NEW YORK, SEPT. 29th, 1861. " My house shall be called the house of prayer." ST. MATTHEW, xxi. 13. THESE were the words of our divine Saviour, when he rebuked those who were present in the holy Temple of Jerusalem for their want of reverence towards the sacred place. In the outer court of that great and glorious structure perhaps in the porches of it there had been going on a species of traffic as in a market-place ; and this is the only instance in which the Redeemer would seem to have exhibited the appearance of impatience, when He scourged those traffickers from the sacred edifice. He said to them "My house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." I am aware, my dear brethren, that in sympathy with your zealous pastor you have been and still are engaged in the work of erecting a house to God which is to be " a house of prayer ;" that this future temple, already commenced, is to be dedicated to the service of the Almighty under the auspices of the glorious St. Michael the Arch- angel, prince of the heavenly hosts. This, dearly beloved brethren, is a great and glorious work for you to have on hand ; its commence- ment is already a great work ; to labor on until it is completed will be the crowning of that noble and Christian purpose which has prompted you from the beginning, and which will sustain you to the end. It is a great work to take from any portion of the surface of this earth, which was all cursed in the malediction brought upon us, and even on material things, by original sin it is a great work to take a portion of that earth to Tiave it sanctified by benediction and prayer it is a great work to lay the foundation on that sanctified portion of the earth and erect thereon a church to the honor and glory of the living God, and to do this where a church had never been before. This u truly a great work, and in this work I am happy to know that hitherto you have all clung together with zeal, and co- operated with your reverend pastor in the noble enterprise, and I am confident that you will so persevere until the work is completed. And now what is the great glory of such an undertaking ? Is it to erect a material structure that even from the summit of its cross shall point heavenward? Is that all? That would not be much. Still, the intention being to promote the glory and honor of God, and the welfare of mankind and the perpetuation of religion even that is a great deal. But what is our Christian house of God ? A house of prayer. Of course in the magnificence of structure, in the SERMONS. 355 richness of decoration, in the grand and sublime pomp which be- longed to the temple of Jerusalem, we might hardly venture the slightest approach to comparison. At the same time, the lowliest and humblest Christian church is far more glorious to God than even that temple of which He Himself direpted the structure, and of which I might say He Himself was the architect. But it was only a temple to prefigure the future things which should result from the same divine source, when His only-begotton Son should become man and die, fulfilling all ancient types, and accomplishing the redemp- tion of the world. For, after all, what was the temple of Jerusalem abstracting from it, its magnificence and glory the only temple on the the face of this little globe of ours erected to the honor and adora- tion of the true God, for there was no other temple in which God was adored ; but what was it ? It was the guiding light of the first Revelation ; it was the sustaining hope of the human race ; it was the place of real, or rather symbolic sacrifice, for the real Victim had not yet come. It was all this, but beyond all this, oh, it was the House of God ; and by how many barriers did He interpose be- tween the irreverence and thoughtlessness of the people and that portion of it called the " Holy of Holies !" By how many ablutions and purifications were the people required to be cleansed physically, but still more morally, before they put their foot on the threshold of that holy place ! And even that Holy of Holies was so sacred that none might dare to enter except the high-priest, and he only once a year. Well we know what was in that Holy of Holies. It was a shadow, or rather I might say a type, of what we have now. Only a type. The treasures of that Holy of Holies, that Sanctum Sanc- torum, were the tables of the law on stone, and a portion of the miraculous manna, which God sent down from heaven for the nour- ishment of His people during their wanderings in the desert from the bondage of Egypt to the promised land. The manna was miraculously preserved in an urn. The other type was the rod of Aaron. These were all types, and their fulfilment is manifest before you even in the humblest temple the Church permits to be conse- crated to the honor of God. The Law is no longer to be ascertained by writing on marble, but by the living voice of the Church, which is the spouse of Christ, which speaks by His authority, and determines and declares to you what you ought to do, and what you ought to avoid, in order to reach the kingdom of heaven. It is no longer a marble tablet, but the living voice of the Church of Christ, and this makes a great difference with regard to that type. The manna was the type of the very perfection of the Christian altar, and on the altar that living bread which came down from heaven, and which is not like the manna, that the Fathers partook of in the desert, but is an everlasting food that was given for the sustainment of the people. This was the bread of life, and this constitutes the fulfilment of the type exemplified by the preservation of manna in the Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple. The other type was, as I have said, the rod of 356 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Aaron. You all know that God appointed Aaron as the head of the priesthood of His chosen people, that with that rod miracles were performed, and that it was a symbol of sacerdotal authority, but only a symbol. That sacerdotal authority has its perfection and reality in the constitution of the Church. That rod, properly speaking, be- longs to the hand of Jesus Christ, and by Him was transmitted clearly and distinctly to His Apostles and their successors, for the government and guidance of the Church, for the chastisement of the presumptuous and profane, for the exercise of that holy authority which could not be derived from kings or human governments, but is derived from the eternal source of all that is worthy of reverence. The authority of the Church, therefore, was symbolized in the rod of Aaron in that Holy of Holies. Here, then, are the three great elements. They were the shadow, but since the coming of our Sa- viour we have the substance. And it is on this account the Catholic church I do not mean now the Church at large, but any temple con- secrated to God far surpasses, to the eye of the soul, the grandeur of even the temple of Mount Zion. In fact, except as I have just explained, there could be no ground of comparison. And now, dearly beloved brethren, is it not a great work in which you are en- gaged, when not merely for a day, nor a year, nor an age, but for countless generations, you have laid the foundations and in part erected the structure of a temple to the honor and glory of God, which thus surpasses even the great and only temple which existed before Christianity ? What will be your relations to this church, and the relations of your children and their children, and children's children ? The law of God will emanate from this place. You will hearken to its word and pay attention to its precepts. Therefore it is that in this Church, as upon Mount Zion, God Himself will speak to you through the ministry of His appointed priest. This is a great deal. You will not come here to listen to opinions and speculations and criticisms and vague things, such as fill those meeting-houses not churches where people go to hear and discuss questions, and where, if the preacher is philosophical, they hearken, and if he is witty, they laugh. Not so in the House of God it is the house of prayer. You will come here to listen to His words, for though He is not present to your organ of vision, nevertheless He is present by His Holy Spirit. His Spirit is here, as in any part of the Church, teaching His minis- ters truth, and bringing to their recollection whatever He has told them. This is your law of God ; this is the table of the decalogue, not en- graved on marble, but speaking in the living voice, according to the doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church. Is this all for which the Christian temple is distinguished from the Jewish ? Not all this is but a small part. In the Jewish temple there were sacrifices according to the ceremonial rite of that selected nation, and that rite itself having been prescribed by Divine autho- rity. But every rite that was authorized in the ancient law was but a simple shadow of the one Sacrifice first completed on the Cross of SERMONS. 357 Calvary, and now diffused and perpetuated in the Mysteries of the Holy Altar. Nor is it the sacrifice of animals of sheep, of oxen, of goats, or of doves, but what is called now the holy and unbloody immolation or offering to God of the holy Victim who died upon that cross. This is the reality. When you come to the house ot prayer, you will come as if you clustered around the base of that hill on which the \ r ictim for the redemption of the world expired. The priest is consecrated for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice he is the outward minister, but our divine Lord Himself is both the priest who offers the sacrifice and He is the victim that is immolated and offered to His eternal Father. The Jewish temple had nothing to be compared to it. And it is here that the real bread of life is to be distributed not food for the body, although you receive it under sensible forms, but food for the soul. " Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you." " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him." This is the fulfilment of the symbolic manna which was miracu- lously preserved in the temple of Jerusalem. But I have only "spoken of a few things, nor shall I have time to dwell on the many others that crowd upon my thought. For instance, if the divine Redeemer is present here in the Holy Sacrament, what a privilege it is for you, without being shut out from the sanctum sanctorum, to be able to approach to the footstool to make your petition, to make known to Him your wants, to ask of His mercy what you need, to drink at the fountains of eternal life with your lips almost touching the limpid waters ! This is the house of prayer. It is true that we should and can pray everywhere ; and whenever we pray to Him in sincerity He will hearken to our petition. Nevertheless, He has chosen special places, and above all is the altar of the Christian Church, where His ear is ever open to the prayer of the broken heart and the petition of the penitent, when he asks for strength to resist evil inclinations and to withstand temptations. But this is not all ; you know that from birth to death the Church never loses sight of any of her children. The pious parent brings the infant here to be born anew by the waters of regeneration in holy Baptism ; and as that child grows up, and has already attained to the use of rea- son, there is provided in the Church the Sacrament of Confirmation to strengthen the faith communicated in Baptism, to make it vigor- ous, and lively, and courageous. When men yield to the seductions of the devil through cupidity by a desire for wealth illegitimately obtained a barrier is raised up between the soul and God. How is this barrier to be removed ? The sinner must come to the priest, and, as it were, turn state's evidence against himself accuse himself to himself in a word, he must be his own accuser. Now, this Sacrament of Penance is what the early Fathers called the second after shipwreck. .The first shipwreck was anterior to Bap- tism, and every child was born in original sin, with one holy and immaculate exception. After Baptism sin comes, and this is the 358 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. second shipwreck, from which the sinner is saved by penance. Well, here is the House of God, the House of Prayer, and here is to be found that same authority by which sins are forgiven, and which descends to every priest who is authorized. Your souls will also long for the sustaining aliment of spiritual life ; you will come to the House of Prayer, where you will assist in offering up the sacrifice upon the altar ; for, in the language of the Holy Scriptures, you are a royal priesthood yon are partakers in the priesthood you unite with the priest, and concentrate all your thoughts and intentions upon the act he is performing. This is the highest act of worship. Then, for the sustainment of your spiritual life, you are made partakers of that spiritual Victim the Bread of Angels is laid before you. And these are the things that mark the House of God as the House of Prayer prayer in its broad and mag- nificent sense, including the holy offering, which is that of the Body and Blood of Christ. You will remember when you enter this place, you should enter with purity of heart, with uprightness of intention. While here, you should be actuated by a feeling of religious awe on account of the presence of the divine Majesty on the altar. Decorum, recollection, every thing that is becoming, should mark and stamp your conduct here, indicating the presence of a people who understand their duty, and who appreciate as they should the sacredness and holiness of the House of God, which is the House of Prayer. SERMON ON THE OCCASION OP LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE NEW CATHOLIC UNI- VERSITY OF IRELAND, IN DUBLIN, JULY 20th, 1862. " Woe to you, lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge ; you yourselves have not entered in, and those that were entering in you have hin- dered." LUKE, xi. 52. IN a foregoing portion of the chapter from which these words are taken, our Lord denounces, even in their presence, the hypocrisies and superior pretensions of the Pharisees. In the forty-fifth verse, one of the lawyers, answering, saith to him, " Master, in these things thou reproachest us also." But He said, " Woe to you, law- yers, also, because you load men with burdens which they cannot bear, and you yourselves touch not the packs with one of your fin- gers." And in the fifty-second verse, as you have just heard, He SEBMONS. 359 again says, but for a different reason, " Woe to you, lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge ; you yourselves have not entered in, and those who were entering in you have hindered." Lawyers among the Jews were those who devoted themselves to the interpretation of the Books of Moses, which contained the whole constitution, both civil and religious, of the Jewish people. Our divine Saviour rebukes them for the difficulties which they multiplied in order to prevent the simple-minded of their countrymen from adopt- ing the true sense of the inspired book. They were the expounders of the law, whilst the Pharisees affected to fulfil its requirements to the very letter, and then claimed homage on account of their sancti- monious deportment. The occasion, dearly beloved brethren, which has brought you to- gether on this day, and all the circumstances connected with it, nat- urally suggested the text which I have chosen. The Pharisees, the Sadducees of modern times, and even those to whom has been in- trusted the enactment of just laws, or the just interpretation of those laws, as applied at least to the Catholic people of Ireland, have all been concerned in imposing burdens on their fellow-men too weighty to be borne, and have likewise attempted to seize the key of knowledge ; and, whilst they themselves have not entered in, they have hindered those who were entering. It is not for me to pronounce any woe against them. God is their judge, and to Him at least, if not to men, they must one day render an ac- count of their stewardship. The individual who addresses you has always advocated the diffusion of true knowledge, and in the coun- try to which he now belongs has not ceased to encourage education in its whole extent, from its elementary principles up to its highest development ; and now in this, his native land, he cheerfully seconds, with all his feeble powers, the purpose which you have so unani- mously adopted of establishing a National Catholic University, worthy of your religion, and worthy of this noble old kingdom. It is nearly fifty years since, that like some disjointed and feeble spar, no longer useful to the wrecked and stranded barque of which it had once been a portion I voluntarily floated off from the shores of this island. I was borne westward to another country beyond the Atlantic ocean. In that country I had an opportunity of improving my education, for legislation there had not attempted to monopolize and appropriate to itself the key of knowledge; and there, although a Roman Catholic, I was made a freeman and an American citizen, long before the Act of Catholic Emancipation was passed by the British Parliament. My recollections of Ireland at that time are, that there was no real Catholic school within the boundaries of the island ; that there was no real Catholic newspaper published in any part of the British dominions ; that Catholic books, even of devo- tion, were published, if at all, almost by stealth, and difficult to be procured; that the germs of a Catholic University, such as you need, and such as, with the blessing of God, you are prepared to establish in this land, were to be looked for in the little schools ob- 360 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. scurely kept in obscure alleys of large towns, or perchance under the shelter of hedges in the country. Great changes have taken place since those days. The laws against all Catholic teaching have been relaxed. The Catholics have been emancipated at least, so it is proclaimed education, intermediate between the hedge school and the University, has been publicly encouraged and gener- ally diffused throughout this country. Even this capital of Ireland, which is now blooming afresh, was then looked upon, after the loss of its parliament, as a fading and faded city. The Catholics at that period felt their depression as a class, and seemed to grow up physi- cally with curved shoulders, fitting them for heavy burdens which they could not bear, but which irresponsible and iniquitous legisla- tion had imposed on their fathers and on themselves. That same legislation had bolted the doors of knowledge against them, so that they were hindered from entering any establishment of education, except such as I have described. At present all this is in process of change. The Catholics, so far as I can judge, stand up, both men- tally and physically, with a more erect and less crouching attitude ; and, in proportion as they maintain that attitude, and thus prove to their countrymen and the world that they deserve to be placed on an equality with the most favored citizens of the State, they are now, and will continue to be, looked upon with less hostility and more respect. The degrading prejudices, both national and impe- perial, which their fathers had to struggle against, are gradually giv- ing way, and the period cannot be far distant when the British em- pire will need their services, whether in the cabinet or the field, and will avail itself of the cultivated intellect of the whole Irish people, without distinction of creed. But to attain even this result, you must found, sustain, and cherish your national Catholic University. By Catholic University I do not mean that your talented young countrymen of any denomination should be excluded from the ad- vantages which such an institution is calculated to afford. What I mean is, that such a University shall be absolutely entitled to the entire confidence of the venerated hierarchy, the devoted priest- hood, and the truly Catholic inhabitants of this island. I may be told that ample provision has already been made for the higher edu- cation of the Irish people, and that the Catholics ought to avail themselves of what has already been done. But the laws of God will not permit them to do so. The present institutions of learning in this country are positively or negatively hostile to, and in their tendency destructive of, the Catholic faith. And the Catholics who should co-operate with the purpose of such institutions, would neces- sarily co-operate with them for the destruction of that holy faith which they have received, and of that infallible Church to which they belong. Their hopes for all eternity are bound up with that faith and that Church. If they were capable of proving false to their own conscience, false to their God for sake even of education they would, besides offending their Creator, deserve to be re- garded with distrust and contempt by their fellow-citizens of other SERMONS. 361 denominations. Having betrayed their own conscience, violated their fidelity to their God, what confidence could be placed in them by their country ? But is it true that the conscience of a sincere Catholic father presents an insuperable objection to the high-schools founded nominally by the State, but practically at the expense of the people ? It is unquestionably true. Take, for example, Trinity College. If that institution be loyal to the principles on which it was founded, it is, and avowedly must be, antagonistic to Catholi- cism. It has had nominally Catholic students and scholars. But at what sacrifice of conscience at what peril to their own souls I shall not pretend to determine. The Queen's Colleges were framed obviously with the view to meet the supposed general desire and wants of the people of this country, without distinction of creed. But the framers of this system of mixed education do not seem to have understood the value of religious principle, nor the dignity of man, regarded in the fulness of his whole being as a rational . and immortal creature. If man's whole destiny were confined to the sphere of earth, and included within the narrow limits of human life, then indeed the Queen's Colleges might be regarded as unex- ceptionable. If you assume that man, in the intention of his Crea- tor, was to have no aspirations beyond the term of his mortal exist- ence, then, in that hypothesis, the colleges referred to would be admirably adapted to the accomplishment of their purpose. Human reason in their halls might be thoroughly developed knowledge of any or every description might be there accumulated intellect, memory, social affections, might be cultivated with great success ; but the heart would still be left dry as earth without water; and the will that dangerous faculty if left undisciplined or unguided by a light far superior to that which reason alone can furnish, would be liable to become, even in this world, the scourge of its possessor and of society. Besides this, and far above it, the framers of this mixed system of eduoation have overlooked, I might say entirely, both the nature and the dignity of man. Man is composed of soul and body. His soul is distinct from his reason. When his brain ceases to operate oc- cording to its organic laws, he becomes irrational, his reason is gone, but his soul remains. When he dies, reason, will, memory, affection, have accomplished their task in his regard, and aided him through the earthly stage of his being as an immortal creature. And yet, on the right use of these faculties, improved and guided by the light of Christian revelation and aided by Divine grace, depends his happi- ness in that second and eternal state for which God had created hinu Admit that man dies all soul as well as body, when he ceases to live in this world and then, in that hypothesis, there could be no legitimate objection to the mental training that is offered to the Irish people in the Queen's Colleges. But why this mutilation of man's whole nature ? Why this lowering, if not destruction, of his natural dignity, as left unprovided for in this utterly defective, if not spurious- system of education, which, if it were what it should be, would take- 362 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. into account that man is an immortal, as well as a mortal being, in- stead of regarding him as merely a rational animal with faculties that must perish when the cold hand of death shall have touched and chilled forever the throbbings of his heart? I do not pretend to say that such results were intended by those who digested the scheme of these colleges. But if these results be the necessary or probable consequences of the system, it makes very little difference to fathers and guardians of Christian youth whether they were con- templated or whether they result from an inherent defect or some latent bad principle in the system itself. In this view I am surprised that sincere and conscientious Protestants do not entertain the same convictions in regard to any system of education founded on such an unchristian, if not anti-christian, principle as that which lies at the root of the Queen's Colleges. A sincere Protestant father, no matter to what particular denomination he belongs, if he be sincere, would wish his son to grow up and live in his own religion. But how can that be if he sends his son to institutions of learning in which religion as a Divine revelation is utterly and professedly ig- nored, for the reason, apparently, that those that profess Christianity do not agree among themselves in their definition as to what it is? This objection, however, can have no application to Catholics. They understand perfectly what Christianity is. It is the teaching of God, made known in this world by His divine and only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, preached throughout the world by the apostles whom the Christ called around Him, and invested with His own divine prerogatives, with a command that they should teach all nations that they should preach His doctrine to every creature that He was identified with them in that teaching all days, even to the end of the world. This divine teaching, however, did not exclude among His disciples a knowledge of any thing that another, but unspoken order of communication, resulting from a proper study of all His works in the creation of the world of all the capacities of the human mind to investigate these works to look up to the firmament above to measure the distance from one star to another, to calculate the mag- nitude of each, and their mutual relations to each other, to dive into the bowels of the earth and bring up all minerals for the use of the inhabitants of the surface coal for fuel, lead, iron, silver, and gold by ingots, which has its value either with or without the stamp of a Prime Minister. Under the guidance of education even the ways of the trackless ocean are as familiar to the human mind apply- ing itself to that study as the letters of the alphabet. But the mariner should be instructed also in the teachings of reve- lation, and then in every fitful change of the element that bears him up he will see the power of the Almighty God, who created him and created the ocean. When in a calm, he looks upon its surface as upon a mirror, reflecting to his eye all the majesty of the firma- ment, he will watch the scarcely perceptible heavings of its bosom, gentle as the breathing of a slumbering infant ; and again, when the tempest lashes the waters into commotion when it increases in SERMONS. 363 violence when his frail barque is tossed about in the furious par- oxysms of the hurricane when all sounds are lost to his ear except those which come from the groaning mast and the sharp, whistling, shrill, but fearful music which the storm produces as it plays through the cordage of his ship, not at all like that which zephyrs evoke from the ^Eolian harp then it is more particularly that he will adore the God who controls these elements, and wonder that the Creator should have endowed man with the capacity to meet the tempest, and guide his barque safely amidst its violence. But why should I designate any one department of human science more than another ? The botanist discovers beauties and evidences of divine power in the tiny frame or the exquisitely painted cups of the smallest flower. But all this is concealed from him if he be sent forth to study nature un- prepared by the special revelation of God, making known to him the spiritual relations w.hich bind him to his Creator. It is said of Laiande, the distinguished Frencn astronomer, when some one ob- served in his presence that God was clearly manifest in the external works of creation, he observed, with a sneer, that he had been read- ing astronomy fov thirty years, and he never saw the name of God written among the stars. The man who could use such language must have had a godless training. The first indication of the effect of such training will be found in the real or affected indifference of the pupils as well as professors towards religion of any kind. His light head will become intoxicated by a little learning. In his voca- tion he will confound his earlier companions by displaying quirks of science. He may, if he be an Irish Catholic youth, attend Mass out of respect for the feelings of his parents he will be found as having made already some advances in the direction of latitudinarianism, popularly called liberality he will have discovered that Ireland is no place for an aspiring young man of genius that it is hampered by the hereditary superstitions of its people that England alone opens up for his ambition a career of advancement, and towards England he will become a toady so far he will entitle himself to notice, and, in due time, he will probably catch the eye of British patronage and receive his due recompense, not so much for his great talents as for his pliant aptitude and servility. That objections like these were foreseen by the framers of the Queen's Colleges must be- come evident to those who have studied their history so tar. If they were not foreseen, why, permit me to ask, have their founders ex- hibited up till this day such an anxiety or desire to have clergymen of different religions occupying professional chairs in these colleges? Have they not sought for them the approval of Catholic and Protes- tant clergymen of every denomination ? Have they not desired that your bishops should smile approval and encouragement on them? Have not Catholic priests been induced, in the beginning, at least, to accept professorships within their walls ? Have not the ministers of different and antagonistic denominations been brought in as pro- fessors? and for what purpose except that their Christian and clerical character might lull suspicion as to the unchristian, if not anti-Christian, 364 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. general principles on which those institutions are founded ? Was it not hoped that all sectarianism should be eliminated, and that these professors should give an example, within the walls of the colleges, of what might be accomplished if all religions should be equally ignored within ? The result would be, that those who never agreed before on dogmatical questions should now live under the smiles of government patronage, as a happy family, infusing into the minds of their pupils, by the influence of their own example, a total indifference as to the great vital question of religion, which had existed among the Irish people as an apple of discord, a bone of contention, among the inhabitants of this distracted island. The salary attached to a professorship was a tempting bait, worth grasping at, and worth re- taining. A sly stab at some vital doctrine of the Christian faith might be given by some professor of history, or a beautiful panegy- ric pronounced on Arianism as it was in the beginning of the fourth century. The abstract philosophy of religion would not be overlooked, and Christianity at large would be exhibited in the light of a conglomer- ation of discord-ant sects whose petty squabbles were unworthy the notice of learned professors, or to the inflated sciolists given over to their teaching. You must either recognize some form of religion in those colleges, and then they are clearly sectarian in the eyes of Catholics at least, or you must exclude alike every special form of Christian belief, and they are clearly atheistic. If you exclude the clerical professors of all religions, you have but little to alter in the statutes and regulations of the system to adapt it to the condition of a people living under a government whose established religion, if the paradox can be imagined, should be atheism or pantheism. I think, therefore, that the gentlemen who presented the other day a petition for a charter to the Premier of C4reat Britain and Ireland made a serious mistake in the title of their humble, but despised supplication. They might have known that the word " Catholic" prefixed to University would be fatal to their hopes. They should have called it " Irish University," or qualified it by some other vague epithet. But I am glad that in the name of the Catholic people of Ireland the gentlemen who presented the petition refused to adopt any other term except that by which the University is already known. The response of the government was also clear, candid, unambiguous, amounting in substance to the monosyllable, "No." This monosyllable, instead of preventing the success of your under- taking, may contribute not a little to its attainments. It has the entire approval of your bishops and clergy. It had already the ap- proval and blessing of the Supreme Head of the Church on earth, His Holiness Pius IX., who, even while in exile, did not hesitate to lift up his voice and point out to the bishops of this island the dangers likely to result to the faith and morals of the people committed to their care, if given over to the education of the Queen's Colleges. The University of Louvain, in Belgium, was the model which His Holiness proposed for your imitation. You have asked no aid from SERMONS. 365 the public treasury you are willing to leave the State colleges to the exclusive enjoyment of those who, if any, have confidence in them. You propose to erect the new University at your own ex- pense, and all you expected from the Government by way of en- couragement was a piece of parchment called a charter, and this has been refused. You asked for Imperial permission to purchase the bread of knowledge with your own money, and not at the expense of the State, and the request has been denied. Under these circum- stances, I can imagine myself as speaking to the whole Irish nation, as if here assembled ; and if they are that people that I assume, and al- most know them to be, I look upon the Catholic University of this land, as counting from this very day, virtually an accomplished fact. It is evident that you have no public institution of learning on this island, the advantages of which, as conscientious Catholics, you can avail yourselves. Then you must, by united and persevering efforts, erect an institution of your own. There is no law of the land for- bidding it. The ranks of your people have indeed been thinned by famine, pestilence, and emigration ; still you are a Catholic popula- tion of between four and five millions of souls too many to be ex- posed to want of education, or to the risk of salvation by accepting that which has been offered. You owe it to the memory of your noble ancestors, who suffered every privation rather than forfeit or jeopard- ize their holy faith. You owe it to yourselves you owe it to your children, and to the future generations who shall occupy your place, and still inherit, as well as transmit, the religion by which the Apos- tle of Ireland, Saint Patrick, converted your pagan ancestors from the darkness of idolatry to the light of Christianity. You owe it to your God, who has preserved you in that faith you owe it to your native country, and to this empire, if not to the world at large. A Catholic University is the great need of your nation and of your fellow-citizens ; and, in view of that need, every man, woman, and child should, in reference to this undertaking, feel and appro- priate to himself the language of the royal prophet, in reference to the house of the Lord, as yet unbuilt. " O Lord, remember Da- vid and all his meekness ; how he swore to the Lord. He vowed a vow to the God of Jacob If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie if I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, or rest to my temples, until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Ja- cob." Yes, build your University endow it provide it, an easy task, with suitable professors crowd its halls with the talented youth of the land, so fruitful of genius. Do this, I say, with or without the Prime Minister's charter. Some other Prime Minister may be actuated by a better spirit towards your people. But, whether or not, make good and great Irishman of education, by the superiority of your training foster the talents of your people elevate the mind of your country inspire them with a lawful ambition to emulate and rival, if not surpass, whatever is great in knowledge, in science, 366 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. or in art, as developed in other countries teach your fellow-citizens and the world that it is possible for Irish Catholics to be at the same time loyal towards their God and their country learned au- thors distinguished ornaments of any learned profession, whether of theology, jurisprudence, medicine in all its branches, even states- manship, and all this without ceasing to be good, fervent, and faith- ful members of your one Holy Catholic Church. All this is what your ministry do not comprehend, do not know, and are afraid to learn. I am aware that, owing to the influence which the interested, albeit oftentimes trashy literature of Great Britain, and sometimes of Ireland itself, has caused foreign nations to look upon the Irish people as an ignorant race, who prefer mental darkness to intel- lectual light. Your Catholic University must dispel this delu- sion. If there be any one characteristic of the Irish race distinguishing your people, it has been from the earliest times an hereditary love of learning. That love has been an instinct, and almost a passion of your people since the conversion of Ireland. It was this that ren- dered them so well known, so much admired during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, when they were employed in retrim- ming the almost extinguished lamp of science (such as it was in those ages) in England, Scotland, and in many portions of the continent of Europe. Testimonies on this subject could be quoted from for- eign authors sufficient to fill volumes. During the same centuries what was Ireland itself but one extensive school of saints and teachers, to which the votaries of learning came in crowds, and were received with that generous hospitality for which the nation was then, and is still, so celebrated ? The hedge schools in modern times, when learning was cultivated by stealth and against the laws, are a proof that their love of knowledge could not be extinguished. The pool- scholar is not the imaginative creation of its talented author. Leave out the ludicrous incidents connected with his struggle, and the sal- lies of Irish wit which I suppose was necessary to render it palata- ble to the public taste of the " sister island" at least, and it js a genuine type of that desire of knowledge which has been at all times natu- ral to the people of this country. If these things can be said witli truth of the ancient and modern people of Catholic Ireland, then the silly charge that they prefer ignorance to light falls to the ground. It is contradicted and refuted by history. Out of their own country there is no people so ready to avail themselves of the ad- vantages of learning. In America they are distinguished members of the bar ; they are eloquent senators in the halls of legislation ; they are brilliant commanders of armies in the melancholy and san- guinary struggle that is now going on, fomented, as is believed, by European secret interference, .prompted by jealousy of the growing prosperity and hitherto united councils of the great American lie- public. But take the poorer classes of Irish who have emigrated to that country, Catholics for the most part, and they still show the same zeal for knowledge. There are about three hundred and sev- SERMONS. 367 enty Catholic Churches in the single state of New York, and there is scarcely one of them that has not attached to it a parish school for the education of their children in the faith of their fathers. They have, in all the country, eleven or twelve Catholic Universities, not indeed as well endowed nor as distinguished as either Trinity College or Oxford but they will grow. The laws of the State have granted them the privileges of universities in charters, such as your Government has just refused to their countrymen at home. All this goes to prove that ignorance has no magnetic power for the attraction of the Irish mind. But look back for a century or two cast your eye upon the sur- face of Continental Europe, not to speak of these islands, and you will find Irishman or their descendants occupying high places in al- most every Catholic government. The venerable Field-Marshal Nugent, of Austria, is an Irishman. In the same country, O'Don- nell, who saved the life of the present young emperor from the dagger of the assassin, is an Irishman, or the descendant of one and, if education had not been cherished by his ancestors, whether at home or abroad, he would not have been by the side of Francis Joseph. O'Donnell, who has lately tamed the arrogance of Mo- rocco, is the Prime Minister of Spain. M'Mahon, of France, saved the life and the army of Napoleon III. on the battle-field of Magenta. These and many others, descendants of Irish ancestors, would never have attained their distinction in other lands if they had not been ardent votaries of knowledge and good education. The laws and policy of Great Britain have excluded seven-eighths of the people of this country from any share in the management of its official inter- ests. And yet, from the favored one-eighth, what distinguished names has Ireland furnished in every department of public life ! All these statements have been made for no other purpose than to prove that Irishmen at home and abroad are naturally fond of education and knowldege. This fact furnishes you an additional ground of en- couragement in prosecuting the great work which you have on hand. It has been for some years past so much spoken of, that the Catholics of Europe and America look forward, almost with impa- tience, to see it completed. It is commenced under auspicious circum- stances. It is intended to promote the glory of God, who will be with you by His providence in prosecuting it to a successful termi- nation. It has the approval of your venerated clergy the sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff and, if I may judge by the presence of the municipal corporations, of other cities as well as of Dublin, among whom there must be gentlemen of other religious denominations, it has, so far as those towns and cities are concerned, the sanction of their populations. Your Protestant fellow-countrymen cannot be opposed to its erection ; for, though they may still have prejudices against your faith, yet I doubt whether there is one who would not prefer to see the Catholics of this country rise by their own exer- tions into a more enlightened sphere of social and civil life. Neither England nor Scotland can be reasonably opposed to it, since both coun- 368 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. tries, especially Scotland, have made such noble sacrifices for the education of their people. In conclusion, I beg leave to remark that during a life which is by no means brief, and in which, whether in one country or another, I had to meet and pass through unex- pected events, the circumstance of my having been invited to ad- dress you from this place, and on such an occasion, is one of the most pleasant incidents that I can call to mind. I shall ever recur to it with sentiments of satisfaction and delight. Once again, and probably for the last time, I shall soon take leave of the country in which I was born. But I cannot do so without invoking upon you and upon your national University, in the fulness of my heart, the blessing of Almighty God, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost Amen. SERMON ON THE WAR, DELIVERED IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, AUGUST 17th, 1862. I AM about to read the seventh and eighth verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark, thirteenth chapter : " And when you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, fear ye not, for such things must needs be ; but the end is not yet. " For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes in places, and famines. These are the beginning of sorrows. " I need not, dearly beloved brethren, express the comfort and pleas- ure which we have to-day in finding ourselves once more in the place from which we have often had the consolation to address you. I need not invite you to join with us in giving thanks to Almighty God for that benign providence and constant protection which He has afforded us during the dangers of a long and too tedious ab- sence from our flock. That absence has, indeed, been much longer than I anticipated, and this has, in part, grown out of the fact that when I left this country I had no intimation of the great solemnity which was to take place in the Cathedral Church of the Christian world, in the canonization of the noble martyrs who preached the faith of Christ, and gave their blood in testimony of its truth in the islands of Japan. The knowledge of that event reached me about the middle of winter, and prolonged ray stay for several months more than I desired. I do not regret it, however, for had I been at home at the same period, I should, like so many of the venerable prelates of the hierarchy throughout the world, have undergone any hardships of voyage to be present and take part in the most solemn ceremony that ever Rome, since the days when St. Peter first en- SERMONS. 369 tered it, had seen. There was a picture what the Catholic Church is. There was a picture, and, at the same time, an embodiment of of all that authors have said or written of its unity, of its univer- sality, of its perpetuity, of its holiness ; for the servant of God who distinguishes himself, even to the shedding of blood as a martyr or a hero of Christ, is not forgotten ; he is inscribed on the calendars of the holy servants of God who follow the Lamb. But I presume it would not be so much in accordance with your desire that I should dwell upon this topic, leaving out another which is more immediately interesting to us all, although it be not of the same high and divine character. Next to religion, men are taught by religion itself to love and serve their country. The one is only more sacred than the other, but both have an intimate relation to each other which ought not be overlooked, and especially when one's country stands in need of aid and support. It is true that I have had many opportunities during my absence of discussing the one and the other of these topics, and perhaps no one, except sent on a special message, has ever had more opportunities to under- stand, and comprehend, and watch the operation of feelings in dis- tant countries with regard to the melancholy struggle that is now agitating this land. I had no message to deliver. Another could have carried the message ; but none was committed to me, except the message of peace, except the message of explanation, except the message of correcting erroneous ideas as opportunity might afford me the chance of doing, in the same spirit and to the same end. I have lost no opportunity, according to my discretion, and that was the only qualification connected with my going I have lost no oppor- tunity to accomplish these ends to explain what was misunder- stood to inspire, so far as language of mine could have that ef- fect, the spirit of peace and good-will into the people of foreign States towards that one nation to which I exclusively owe allegiance and fidelity. The task was not so easy as some might have antici- pated ; its accomplishment has not been so successful as I could have desired. Nevertheless, I trust that, directly or indirectly, my going abroad, in great part for the purpose of aiding the country, has not been altogether without effect. In the first place, I found, on landing in Europe, that they were few who had any just conception of the nature of the controversy between this Government and a very large number of our fellow- citizens. Not only had they no correct idea, but their ideas were entirely the reverse of what was true, and very many of them, continue to entertain those notions. What was their theory ? Their theory was that a prosperous portion of the American people had been repelled by acts of the Government to such an extent, that they could bear the yoke of oppression and loyalty to the Govern- ment which they had helped to establish no longer. I took every opportunity to explain to them that this was not the fact ; that they themselves had not presented any specific charge to sustain VOL. II. 24 370 ARCHBISHOP HTJGHES. that allegation ; that, officially, there was not on record a single act that could be called by the name of oppression. The answer to this was, it is impossible that so many people so many States, with such interests involved, should have taken the ground which they have taken, except forced to it by oppression on the part of the Government. The next ground was, and especially in England, that it was but a repetition of the same policy that severed these colonies nearly one hundred years ago from the mother country ; that the Americans had always boasted that the Revolution of 1776 was not a gratuitous undertaking, but that it was against the op- pression of the British Government, and that now these same people would not allow their fellow-citizens to claim the same privileges, but that at any rate it was a gallant exhibition to see men banded together, and risking all their prospects in life, their wealth, every thing, even their lives, in a cause which was presented to the world as one prompted by a love of human liberty. And again, they said it was inconsistent on the part of the Government to op- pose this; and finally, which was the true reason, that the country was becoming too large for one supreme dominion. Better that it should be divided. Why not ? Beyond this, what was the other reason ? It was interest European interest. Interest is a prompt- ing motive for all nations and for all men ; but interest ought to be founded upon principle of some kind, while in this, case I could find no rational, just, or defensible principle on which they could found tneir anti- American policy. It was the desire to possess an article indispensable for the support of their artisans, and to keep their vast machinery from being eaten up by rust. This was at the bottom of their sophistries ; and when it was founded on such a basis, you can understand how useless it would be to argue with them. Say you came from the spot, and that the facts were thus and thus, and their opinion, formed at such a distance, was more than all your facts, and swere treated as much more. There was a time when the country, now in such unexampled difficulties, was on the point of being at- tacked by foreign force it was a critical moment. The time passed ; ,the opportunity was lost, owing to divided councils and mutual jealousies; not from any sense of the injustice involved in the un- dertaking, but because it could not command the unity of power and the support of the whole people. That time passed away ; it was SOOQ felt that the opportunity was lost ; and then came the sec- ond phase, which was mutual self-congratulation, that if Europe, abstained from intermeddling, Americans would themselves accom- plish their own work of division without costing a penny to any other State. During that period there were anxious expectations every day of hearing of some result which would terminate this aw- ful contest. In the mean time came news of the wonderful efforts on both sides. In the efforts, the bravery, and the sacrifices made by the South, as they called it, and in the corresponding, if not greater efforts made by the North, which they saw on one side or the other, they perceived the reality of their theoretical phantom of SERMONS. 371 growing power which they had previously comprehended, and on the existence of which our safety for the time to come de- pends. Such was the state of the case, as near as 1 can judge, when I left Europe. I conversed with men of nearly every nation, and the general feeling was what I have described in the first place, a de- termination, not by understanding the question, but by the decision of European will, that the South should be right, and the North wrong. That was fixed in nearly all minds, and if you met one re- flective and deliberate enough to hear the truth, he was among the exceptions. I will not include in this category those who, rising in the scale of human society, felt it their duty to listen and to reflect. No one can tell to what particular cause their abstaining from in- termeddling with us may have been occasioned by reflections on the whole matter. To help, however, these reflections, there were re- ports of astounding armies springing spontaneously from the very soil from every city, and village, and hamlet so that where there was before less than fifty thousand men, there had succeeded six or seven hundred thousand. These made a stronger impression than the views of any statesman in Europe or America could produce. The result is, that there is no disposition to interfere if it is possible to avoid it. The only danger is that which may arise from suffering and starvation among the working classes, who are not accustomed to starve, but accustomed to labor and to live by their labor. There has been great forbearance in France and England on this score. In France, through the winter, the forbearance of the people, on the very verge of starvation, is worthy of all praise. They were encouraged by hope; their friends spoke comfort to them, and persuaded them that the time was not far distant when relief would come to the*m. Their bishops and priests encouraged them, not merely by words, but by appealing to all who could to supply the means of passing through the winter withont any crisis of famine or want. They say it was worse in England. It might have been worse in one sense, but not so bad in another. In the great district of Lancashire the operatives are suffering ; they are idle by twenty-five or thirty per cent, of the workmen, and the probability is that there will be still less employment. But England, with her vast resources, and the knowledge that these men are not accustomed to hunger, has come to their relief, and they are not now the specially suffering class of that great nation. In the mean time, I take it that France and England are turning their attention in other directions to supply the means of employing their operatives. American cotton has been hitherto all their reliance; they have endeavored, but with little success, to culti- vate it under the various soils and climates comprehended within the territories of those nations. They are turning their attention to the cultivation of flax, which at one time was a great article of com- merce and manufacture. This has no doubt resulted from a hope that this great controversy in the United States would ultimately 372 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. lead to some means being taken to reconstruct the country as it was before, and that, with patience, the ports in the Southern country would be opened, and trade allowed to flow once again in its usual channels. This was the crime charged upon the Federal Govern- ment, that it had forbidden the regular flow and reflux of foreign trade with the South. That fact they can complain of no more. The ports are open, and this people, towards whom they had pro- claimed such friendship, have refused to sell the so much desired article. Whether it is the refusal of the South to sell their commodity, or of the North to open their ports for the traffic, the operatives of Lan- cashire are subject to the same inconvenience by the absence of cotton. Finally, they have taken up the idea that it would be a danger- ous experiment to interfere with this melancholy case ; that it would cost more to them than any benefit they would realize from the result of their interference, and that already, during this period of suspense, efforts were being made that would lay the foundations of national strength, which would enable this country to compete with the whole world. To these circumstances I ascribe a great deal of that forbearance and that kindlier tone, for the public sentiment in both countries is marked by a milder tone towards us. It would be impossible for me, and it would not be proper in this place, to enter into details. I can only give you general impressions. I do not know what may happen in case this war should continue as it has been since I left this country. The papers have rendered the condition of the country perfectly confused. It is very difficult for one even acquainted with this country to comprehend how the land lies ; and so it is with foreigners. Nor is it in any one's power to say with absolute certainty what may happen if this war con- tinues. What is the prospect of its coming to an end ? I do not see any prospect. There does not appear to be an issue, and it may be that God, for some design of His own, which future generations will ap- preciate, has permitted this calamity to scourge the country in order to bring from these results benefit to the whole human race. These are circumstances, the results of which no man can fathom, they de- pend upon so many conditional circumstances. But there is one question that ought to be clear to every mind, and it is this that if such a warfare should continue for years, it is recognized as the privilege of other nations, in the name of humanity, to try and put an end to it. The people themselves should put an end to it with as little delay as possible. It is not a scourge that has visited this na- tion alone. Wars have been from the beginning of the world, na- tions against nations, and that most terrible of all wars, civil war, in which brother is arrayed against brother. How long is this to go on ? As it goes on, it is affording a pretext for all the nations to combine against us ; but even then, I say their interference should not be permitted, except in the way of benevo- lence ; but, if with the sword, we should unite in setting them at SERMONS. 373 defiance. But I would say if they do interfere, and interfere suc- cessfully if the country and the Government are not sustained by every sacrifice that is necessary, then your United States will be- come a Poland. Then it will become divided into fragments ; then the strife will hover on all the borders ; every State will claim to be independent, and render itself an easy prey to foreign powers. Oh! let not this be so. I know little of what has occurred since I left. I have had scarcely time to look at a paper since my return ; but, by all accounts, much has been attempted, but not much realized towards terminating this unnatural war. Volunteers have been appealed to, and they have answered the appeal ; but for my own part, if I had a voice in the councils of the nation, I would say, let volunteers continue, and the draft be made. If three hundred thou- sand men be not sufficient, let three hundred thousand more be called upon, so that the army, in its fulness of strength, shall be always on hand for any emergency. This is not cruelty ; this is mercy ; this is humanity any thing that will put an end to this draggling of human blood across the whole surface of the country. Then, every man, rich and poor, will have to take his share ; and it ought not to be left to the Government to plead with the people, to call upon them to come forward, and to ask if they will permit themselves to be drafted. No; but the people themselves should insist upon being drafted, and be allowed to bring this unnatural strife to a close. Other efforts will be made on the other side ; and who can blame them, since they have cast their die on the issue ? But, any way, this slow, lingering waste of human life should be cut short. In the mean while, it is enough for us to weep over this calamity ; it is enough for us to pray to God that it be brought to an end. It is enough for us to make a sacrifice of every thing to sustain the pow- er, and the authority, 'and the unity of the only Government that we profess to acknowledge. But it is not necessary to hate our opponents, nor to be cruel in the battle ; it is necessary to be brave, to be patriotic to do what the country needs ; and for this God will give us His blessing, as a recompense for discharging our duty without violating any just laws, divine or human. LETTERS. CONTROVERSY WITH THE REV. DR. DELANCY- EMANCIPATION OF THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. To the Editor of the U. 8. Gazette : SIR In the name of those American citizens who profess the Catholic religion, I request the insertion of the following communi- cations. I do not write as a clergyman, but as a citizen ; I do not wish to make your paper the channel of religious controversy, but the medium of self-defence ; I do not intend any thing disrespectful to the Rev. Gentleman whose name is mentioned^ut I address my remarks to him, because it would be unjust to make others in any way responsible for his sentiments. Philadelphia, July 13th, 1829. J . H. TO THE PUBLIC. KNOWING how unwelcome to many is every thing like religious controversy, I feel that a decent regard to their sentiments re- quires that I should explain the provocation and assign the reasons that have induced me to intrude on the public notice, and appeal to the justice of public opinion. In the Church Register of the 6th of June last, there are two articles calculated to ferment a spirit of en- mity between fellow-citizens of the same commonwealth. In one of them, the Catholic religion, which the writer calls the Church of Rome, is represented under this figure : " The lion, who lies in his den, pining with famine, or wasted and weakened with disease, unable to raise his feeble limbs, against even a helpless lamb, is still a lion ; and with returning health and vigor will recover his wanted (wonted) ferocity, and wait only for occasion to evince it." If this charge be true, the author is bound by justice to prove it ; if it be false, then I conceive that he will see the propriety of offering at least some apology for its publication. It was published during the term of editorial service, and under the immediate supervision, of the Rev. W. H. Delancy, P. D. I have good reason to believe that it is from his pen, and that his alone is the responsibility. I am at a loss to imagine what it is that provoked such an attack from such a quarter. When I reflect that the injustice of this re- LETTERS. 375 mark will recoil on its author, towards whom I entertain no unkind feeling, the alternative is painful: but yet it is necessary ; for silence under such a charge might be construed into a consciousness of its being founded on truth. In this country all religions are equally free ; and yet it is in the power of any man to calumniate the religion, and wound the feelings of any other man ; and, to a certain extent, cause him and his belief to be pointed at by the finger of popular detestation. Against this the laws afford no protection. But yet, there is a natural safe- guard of freedom 'and of justice in the disinterested and impartial decisions of society. This is the tribunal before which the offender can be summoned, and to which he can be rendered responsible ; a tribunal whose just judgment, even men of the greatest moi'al cour- age are seldom found brave enough to disregard or despise. If different denominations indulge in blunt abuse of each other, and in mutual recrimination, then all harmonies that sweeten social life are liable to be continually interrupted. If the Catholic religion be as ferocious as the gentleman's language would insinuate, then every voice ought to be raised against it, until it should be finally hissed out of the world. But the fact is, that charges, less odious perhaps, but equally unfounded, have been brought against Episcopalians, and might have been brought against any other denomination of Christians. To-day it is my turn ; to-morrow it may be yours. If our religious rights are equal, then, how firm soever we may be in our respective principles of belief, we should respect each other's rights; and decorum should govern our intercourse. Hence it is, that I feel authorized to call on the Rev. Dr. Delancey publicly for the proof of the charges which he has promulgated, and, as it ap- pears to me, without any provocation. I would have been satisfied with even a private explanation, as may be seen from the following correspondence with that gen- tleman. TO THE REV. DR. DELANCEY. REV. AND DEAR SIR Although I have not the pleasure of being acquainted with you, yet I hope I may be excused for the lib- erty I take in addressing you, in private, on a subject which may become public hereafter. There is in the Church Register of the 6th of June a com'mentary on the mission of Bishop Fenwick in Ohio, and also an article on Cathqlic emancipation, both of which are unjust, illiberal, and wounding to the feelings of Roman Catho- lics, and both of which are said to be from your pen. It appears to me, Rev. Sir, that the Catholics have done nothing to merit such treatment at your hands. I have not the columns of a newspaper at command, but unless some explanation be given, I intend to review both articles in a pamphlet. This may yet be necessary. And as I mean to hold you personally responsible for their language, I think that justice requires of me, first, to give you an opportunity of saying 376 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. whether or not you are the author. This is the object of the pres- ent note, and I hope the motive will be sufficient apology for the liberty taken by Yours, very respectfully, JOHN HUGHES. i This note was put into the post-office about the 26th of June, and to this I received the following answer, dated June 29, 1829. PHILADELPHIA, 29th June, 1829. REV. ASTD DEAB SIR My absence from the city during the last week must be my apology for not replying to your private note sooner. I am one of an association of clerical gentlemen formed for editing the Church Register. It is a matter of regret to me that the terms of our association do not allow me to give you a more explicit answer than the above statement affords to your question, " whether or not I am the author of certain articles in the Church Register of June 6th, which you designate as unjust, illiberal, and hurtful to the feelings of Roman Catholics." You must excuse me also for saying, that had I been disposed to take advan- tage of the circumstance, the intimidating tone of your note is of itself suffi- cient to authorize entire silence on my part, especially when it is indulged be- fore you have ascertained on any solid authority the authorship of the objec- tionable articles. In this free country, both individuals and associations are al- lowed to pen their sentiments with a freedom which I am sure your own good sense will convince you ought not to be repressed or abashed by threats. Editors are responsible for what they, as such, may have penned and published ; and, I presume, without knowing their sentiments on the topic, that the editors of the Church Register will, if appealed to, be ready to take such a course as the cause of truth and Church shall require. If, however, you intend to make me personally the object of your meditated assault, I shall prepare my mind to endure it with as much composure as I can summon to my aid. And, in the mean time, I remain, as formerly, Very truly and respectfully yours, W. H. DELANCEY. JUNE 30, 1829. REV. AND DEAR SIR I have just received yours of yesterday, in which you regret that " the terms of your association" will not allow you to give a direct answer to my inquiry. It is also to me a subject of regret that gentlemen, and especially clerical gentlemen, should seek immunity behind so unworthy a protection. You are aware, dear sir, that editors who are unknown, are, like anonymous writers, beyond the power of being made responsible. I cannot, therefore, see any thing in your polite note calculated to make me change my original determination. Neither would I trouble you a second time, were it not to assure you that, whether my words authorized it or not, you have misunder- stood my motive and my meaning. I was not conscious of using " threats or intimidations," and, on looking over a copy of my note, LETTERS. 377 I do not perceive that it is fairly susceptible of such a construction. With regard to the freedom of this country, and of the pen and press, I agree in the propriety of your observations. When I made use of the word "personally," I wished it to be understood that I should address my remarks to you as " one of the editors." You seem, I arn sorry to perceive, to have anticipated all that is gen- erally understood by the expression personal. I might "have played the part of an invisible antagonist, but I deemed it dishonorable ; as I hope I shall never write or say any thing of which I should be ashamed to avow myself the author. Having always entertained the same opinion of you, I deemed it my duty, on a principle of justice as well as honor, to give you the first intimation of the course I intended to pursue ; lest, after having advanced further, I should ascertain, contrary to strong evidence, that the articles alluded to were written by some other of the clerical gentlemen of the associa- tion. I hope, sir, this explanation of my motives will correct the misconception on which you accuse me of having intended to intimi- date you by threats. Neither do I meditate any thing that deserves the name of " assault." For the rest, my mind is unchanged ; and my inquiries are at an end. I would not have written this were it not to remove those impressions and again to assure you that I remain, very truly yours, JOHN HUGHES. KEY. AND DEAR SIR Your note of yesterday contains the following passage : " It is to me a subject of regret that gentlemen, and especially clerical gentle- men, should seek immunity behind so unworthy a protection. You are aware, dear sir, that editors who are unknown, are, like anonomous (anonymous!) writers, beyond the power of being made responsible." From this quotation I infer that you are ignorant of the fact that the editors of the Church Register are not anonymous or unknown, but have placed their names on their journal, Vol. iv., No. I., page 7, to which I beg leave to refer you. Had I not supposed you acquainted with this fact, I should have mentioned it in my answer on Monday ; and my single object in troubling you with this note is to apprise you of a circumstance, which, you will perceive, blunts the edge of the former, and destroys the application of the latter, of the two sentences quoted above from your letter. I remain, very truly and respectfully yours, W. H. DELANCEY Wednesday, July 1, 1829. Now, I intend to address this reverend gentleman in two or three letters, in which I promise myself the pleasure of showing him reasons (which, I know, will satisfy an impartial public), to prove that he ought not to have indulged in the language which he has made use of. It is not my intention to enter into a religious con- troversy with him, nor to deal in personalities, but to confine myself strictly to the question at issue. J. H. 378 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. TO THE REV. DR. DELANCEY, ONE OF THE EDITORS OF THE "CHURCH REGISTER." REV. AND DEAR SIR If Catholics had manifested any spirit of hostility towards the Episcopal Church, I should not be surprised at the harsh notice that has been taken of them in the Church Regis- ter. I think, sir, that so long as we discharge the duties of good citizens and neighbors, so long as we are not grasping at any mo- nopoly of privilege, and our march in society as a religious body is quiet and peaceable, we should not be held up to the public scorn of our fellow-citizens. The world is wide enough for us all. The sun shines upon the Catholic as well as upon the Episcopalian, the laws of our country know no difference between their respective creeds, and why should they apply to each other terms of opprobrium which will not convince the judgment, and cannot reach the heart, except per- haps to beckon forth some of its worst passions. If you publish that my religion is error and superstition, and I answer your argument by asserting that yours is heresy, then we are both beating the air ; we may excite bad feeling, but we cannot hope by such language to ac- complish any good end. If the child of error be a rational being, the zeal which would reclaim him must be blended with charity and with prudence, and should address him in the words of mild and persuasive reasoning. If any thing in the world be calculated to make bigots of Catholics, it is the abuse which is heaped upon their doctrines by a thousand presses. When the ceremonies of their re- ligion are denounced as " trumpery," their belief as " superstition," their liturgy " mummery," their clergy, from the Pope down to the lector, as leagued for the purpose of palming a univei'sal delusion on the credulity of the world, their people as drinking down absurdi- ties all the days of their lives ; in other words, when the clergy are represented as knaves, and the laity as fools, then the most effectual means are taken to confirm them in this their belief, whether it be right or wrong. But, if they are in error, it is a pity that the means taken to ex- tricate them out of its mazes should be calculated rather to entangle them the more. The experiment has been fairly tried in England, and the result is, that there is no religion in that country which in- creases so rapidly by the accession of new members, or in moral, physical, and, permit me to add, intellectual influence. In Ireland, strange as it may seem to those who have heard so much about what is called the second reformation, the case is precisely the same as in England. Mr. Dwight, who shows his sarcastic enmity towards Catholics almost as often as he speaks of them (whilst he treats the Deists with " Christian charity"), affirms that in Sax- ony and in Prussia the conversions to the Catholic doctrine are very numerous. In this country the remarks that have been made on the mission of Bishop Fenwick, show that you yourself are not un- acquainted with its progress. But England is, perhaps, after all, LETTERS. 379 the best instance to prove that Catholics are not to be reclaimed from the " error" of their ways by the power of harsh epithets. She is the great parent of those societies which have caused the Holy Scriptures to be universally circulated, after having translated them into every language in Europe, not excepting even the Irish. She is the great storehouse of tracts and anti-catholic tales, from Blanco White and Father Clement down to Andrew Dunn ; add to this the invective of the weekly, monthly, and quarterly (soi disant religious) periodicals, and you will perceive a kind of miraculous proportion between the increase of Catholics, and the efforts that are made to emancipate them from the bondage of obedience to their Church. It is a remark that has not escaped the notice of wise men, that ex- tremes are not so remote as common observation generally supposes. Thus when Protestants are required to believe too much against the Catholic religion, until perchance a nearer acquaintance convinces them that their credulity has been abused by those whose writings and assertions they believed, it produces a kind of reaction in their minds, there is a suspicion breaks in upon them, that if all were right on their side of the question, and wrong on the other, such misrepresentation would not be necessary ; this prepares the mind for impartial inquiry, and after the burden of prejudice is thrown off, inquiry leads to a conviction which makes them Catholics. The doctrines of our Church should be fairly stated, the argu- ments against them should be candid, and all the ipse dixit charges should be rendered honest-looking, by being kept within the limits of probability. When a Protestant is told that 80,000,000 of ra- tional beings are kept in the unity of the same faith by the influence of their priests, knowing, as every Protestant must know, that it re- quires nice management to keep 80 souls in any other common doc- trine, he hears enough, if he be a man of good mind, to shake his be- lief. What ! 80,000,000 believing the same doctrine, which is repre- sented to be a compound of absurdity, and all this effected by a set of priests who live by their trumperies ! Verily, this is enough to make any man a Catholic. Transubstantiation is nothing to it. For there the omnipotence of God is concerned, and He can do what no man understands. But here, if the doctrines are so absurd, so im- pious, and so opposed to Christian revelation, Heaven can have noth- ing to do with it. And without the sanction of Heaven, without the aid of witchcraft, the priests can persuade eighty millions of ra- tional beings to stake their immortal souls on the truth of a doctrine which is said to flash with the evidence of its absurdity. Seeing then by the experience of 200 years that the present mode of attack tends to increase the evil it was designed to prevent, I will conclude these general observations by suggesting that the ex- periment be varied, and that a truce be made with obloquy for fifty years to come, in order to give it a fair trial. We are happy in our ignorance, and we would thank those who are, ever and anon, ex- pressing their contempt for our credulity, to mind their own imme- diate concerns, and, as the children would express it " let us alone." 380 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Now, sir, we come to the point at issue. In the Church Reg- ister of June 6th, there is an extract from the London Catholic Miscellany on the Catholic Mission in Ohio. By the power of emphasis it is made to address the national as well as the religious prejudices of your readers. But, even this is not enough, the commentary declares the Catholic doctrine " corrupt" and " superstitious," and those by whom it is propagated, " aliens to our country." I have no objection that you should spirit up the missionary zeal of " Churchmen" and Americans, but when you apply the lever for that purpose, you would do well to find some other fulcrum. 1st. Bishop Fen wick is not an " alien." He is by birth an American. 2d. The gratitude of this Republic shown to the respected La Fayette, proves that our country can acknowledge obligations to aliens. 3d. All the foreign missionaries of all the so- cieties, of every denomination, not excepting even the Rev. Mr. Robertson in Greece, are " aliens" wherever they go, out of their own country. There are conclusions to be drawn from each of these propositions, and I hope it will not be necessary for me to say what they are. I merely wished to prove what I stated in my no- tice to the public, viz., that you ought not, even for consistency's sake, to have applied the epithets. As to the terms " corrupt" and " superstitious," they are adjec- tives, and belong, consequently, to a part of speech that never proved any thing. They figure more consistently in the arguments of the Deist against us all. But your application of them is like Connecticut calling Massachusetts a Yankee country because it lies to the north. So on the map of theological controversy " super- stitions" may be used in every degree, from the poles to the equator. You should have remembered that the Episcopal Church occupies a middle latitude, and that your invectives against us may be turned against yourselves, by those who are less superstitious, because they are more to the south. However, it is a pity that so many millions with better opportunities to ascertain, cannot discover in the Cath- olic religion the corruption and superstition of which you speak. Whilst it is equally lamentable that so many other millions who are not Catholics pretend to discover in your belief many things which they regard as neither " pre-eminently pure, nor yet very scriptural." Thus, harsh expressions prove neither the falsehood of our doctrine nor the truth of your own. They prove nothing ; they do no good ; they only wound our feelings without any motive or necessity ; and, I repeat it, they ought not to have been used. Why is it, sir, that your zeal never prompted you to write a paragraph against Mr. Owen or Miss Wright, who have been endeavoring to establish in the " western wilds of our country" a doctrine, the operation of which would shake every stone in the walls of your own beloved Zion? Why is it that there is such constant carping at the Catholics, and scarcely a word said about the principles of New Harmony, which teach that the belief of Jesus Christ's divinity is a " superstition" LETTERS. 381 that must be eradicated out of the human mind, before man can be happy ? Not long since this same Church Register published in the form of an original article, that " twenty Catholic priests had ar- rived in New York for the valley of the Mississippi," and in a laconic blast sounded the tocsin of alarm, the echo of which is still ringing throughout the land. It would be conferring a favor on the Cath- olics, who are ignorant of such an " arrival," and on the Protestants whose slumbers have been disturbed without necessity, if some of the editors of that paper would tell us what became of the reverend priests after their landing, as nobody has seen them. These things will, perchance, engage your attention, whilst I pre- pare a few remarks on your ideas of Catholic Emancipation, which will be the subject of my next. In the mean time, I remain, yours, romises and declarations to His teachers collec- tively, implying that they should not err in the commission with which He intrusted them. Besides those adduced by Mr. Mason, I shall quote only one other : " He that hears you hears Me." That He said so, is a fact which the reviewer will admit. If, then, Christ, as He declared, speaks to us through the pastors of His Church, so that in hearing them we hear Him, the point is established, not on opinion, as the reviewer pretends, but on facts incontrovertible. But, as he can split a hair with the acuteness of his dialectics, he will ask how I can know with certainty, that the words quoted con- stitute a pledge of infallibility to the Church? I answer, just as we know that an endorsement of a note renders the endorser re- sponsible for the payment of the sum. I am not infallible in either case I am certain in both because the conclusion in both is founded on facts which we challenge the reviewer to deny, consistently with his belief as a Christian. Thus, then, we arrive at the establish- ment of infallibility, without having recourse to opinion in the matter. The reviewer's objection, which, by the way, is not original, is founded on the incorrect assumption that we are incapable of judging with certainty of events, facts, things, as we are in judging of theories and that our conclusions, in reference to both, are nothing but opinions. He can hardly be ignorant of the difference. We are infallibly certain that the convent in Charlestown has been consumed by fire because it is a fact but we are not certain that our interpretation of the Constitution is the true one. Apply the illustration to the subject before us. It is by the tes- timony of fuels that we prove the infallibility of the Church. And the infallibility of the. Church being proved, we learn from this divinely appointed teacher what are the doctrines of life which Christ lias taught from the beginning, and teaches by her ministry. We receive them with simplicity, as coming from God. Our faith is founded upon the infallibility of Christ communicated to the pas- tors of the Church for the preservation of his doctrines, and the exclusion of errors ; and our faith resting on this foundation, every individual of the Catholic Church has infallible certainty, although he has not personal infallibility. He hears Christ through those whom Christ has appointed to teach him; and here is his security. If there is any " absurdity" in this reasoning, let the reviewer ex- pose it. Is there any thing in this which a " healthy mind" like Mr. Mason's 398 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. must necessarily nauseate ? This, in fact, is the true position which the principle of his sermon struggled powerfully, but in vain, to oc- cupy. If he had taken this ground, how easily he might break through the gossamer net which his reviewer has laid for him ! How inevitable would he have rendered his conclusion, that " perilous in the extreme is the condition of him by whom the decisions of the Church are despised !" But before closing these remarks, I would remind the reviewer that in attempting to show what Protestantism is not infallible he has but too faithfully exhibited what it is. Infidelity requires men to disbelieve the doctrines of Christianity Pyrrhonism brings into doubt only. But unless there be a medium between belief and disbelief, and I can discover none, where, I would ask, is the reed difference between Pyrrhonism and Infidelity ? Now, on the review- er's system, pyrrhonism is not only obvious it is unavoidable. He is pleased to assign no other foundation for infallibility but opinion / and, although I have proved that he is mistaken, yet let us see how the Protestant belief is affected by his reasoning. If, as he says in the extract quoted above, to ground an article of belief on opinion is to " build your house on sand," or to " build a castle in the air," as it certainly is, then what are to come of the articles of belief held by Protestants, since they are all in this very predicament ? The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Inspiration of the Scripture, on what does the belief of these doctrines rest among Protestants ? On OPINION ; and, according to the reviewer, those who believe on opinion are " building a castle in the air." How will he get over this obvious consequence ? I cannot better illus- trate the difficulty, than by giving their true application to his words. Methinks, then, I hear him recommending after this, the belief of the Trinity, for instance, to a Protestant audience : " Be- lieve it believe that Scripture declares only believe it that your belief is but OPINION matters not swallow both, the opinion and belief, and then you will have a brave appetite for implicit faith in all the other points of our creed. Will Mr. Mason recommend a similar prescription ? No, he cannot ; his mind is in too heal- thy a condition not to nauseate such a drug. How, then, will he get over the absurdity of building his (Protestant) faith on opinion ?" Now, since according to the reviewer all doctrines in the Protest- ant system are only OPINIONS ; and since the very word opinion implies the absence of proof in the premises, and consequently the absence of certainty in the conclusion ; and since the absence of certainty implies doubt, I'd leave to the reviewer and Mr. Mason the melancholy task of marking the lines of separation between Protestantism, Pyrrhonism, and Infidelity. We are not sorry that we have taken the pains to follow the reviewer in the substance of his arguments, such as they were. Under pretence of refuting Mr. Mason, he took occasion to fling much rubbish around the base of the Catholic Church. The trouble LETTERS. 399 of clearing it away has been compensated by the comfort of again beholding the rock of adamant on which are laid the corner-stone and foundation of the divinely planned and imperishable structure. The tempest and the rain may beat against it, but have no power to shake it. With its summit reaching to the skies, it stands a monument without a parallel, towering in solitary grandeur amid the sects that error has multiplied, and the broken scepters and ruined empires that time has scattered around it. From the Philadelphia Catholic Herald, Jan. 15, 1835. TEN LETTERS TO REV. MR. MASON. LETTER I. DEAR SIR The individual who now addresses you, became ac- quainted with your name through the medium of your Convention Sermon, a copy of which some friend was kind enough to send me. The principles set forth and vindicated in that sermon were calcu- lated, coming as they did from a Protestant clergyman, to win his respect for the talents and independence of its author. At a period in the history of Protestantism, when the value of first principles in sustaining the Christian religion is not only not understood but is entirely disregarded, it was consoling to behold at least one Protestant arm stretched forth to arrest, if possible, the downward course of things in the Episcopal denomination. It has not escaped your ob- servation that in the absence of the authority of the Church in deter- mining what things have been revealed, and what things, conse- quently, her children are bound to believe, there is nothing left for the guidance of the human mind, on the most momentous of all subjects, but speculation and opinion. You have seen the errors into which that principle seduced its votaries in every age since the foundation of the Christian Church. It was the principle of the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, the Ariang, the Nestorians, the Mani- chaeans. It is the principle of the Presbyterians, Quakers, Unita- rians, Universalists, and Deists; And seeing the consequences to which it has led, it is no wonder that in your zeal for the doctrines of that denomination that has been the least injured by its operation, you should have attempted to make it subordinate to another prin- ciple that of Church authority. This authority you traced to the legitimate source Christ Himself. Your arguments have been replied to in The Churchman, of New York ; The Episcopal Re- corder ; and latterly, at more length, in The Protestant Episco- palian. But they have not been anywhere answered or refuted. Your reviewers have proved that Episcopalianism could not, consis- 400 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. tent with her origin and history, occupy the position you had selected for her which is, in fact, the position of the true Church. Among your reviewers there is one who has espoused the cause of private opinion in opposition to Church authority with a devo- tion which is less distinguished for ardor and energy than for plod- ding and pertinacity. If this individual were a Deist, contending for the pretended rights of human reason against the incomprehen- sible doctrines set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles, I should regard him as laboring in a vocation consistent with his character. But if he be a Christian, and a minister of the Episcopal Church, I cannot help regarding him as one who betrays the sacred deposit of whicl he professes to be one of the private guardians. It is precisely IE this character that he assumed the office of reviewer ; and yet he destroys the efficacy of his own criticism ; for, taking him on his own ground, one is at a loss to understand why your opinion in favor oi Church infallibility should not be as near the truth as his opinion to the contrary. In calling you to an account, however, for the doc- trines contained in your sermon, he virtually arrogates to himself some portion of that infallibility (although he is too modest to say so) which he will not allow to be ascribed to the whole Catholic Church. The present writer took the liberty of publishing in the Catholic Herald of October 23, 1834, some remarks on the relative merits of the controversy, as it stood between yourself and your reviewer. This the reviewer has resented, with becoming ill-humor, in the latest number of the Protestant Episcopalian. The som-etimes sneering and always disrespectful allusions which he made to the doctrine of the Catholic Church on the subject of your sermon, would have fur- nished to any one desiring it an ample apology for retorting on the reviewer and his creed with well-provoked severity. This, however, is not, even now, my intention. Instead of discussing the question on the ground on which yo-ur sermon has placed it, I shall take a retrospective view of its history and bearings, and call your attention to principles and facts connected with the subject which it has not been practicable hitherto to pass in review. I shall not lose sight, however, of the reviewer or his arguments, if arguments we may call his ingenious elusions of the true point at issue ; or, when this is impossible, his dexterous retreat into the sanctuary of all unbe- lievershis own opinion. In addressing these letters to you, dear sir, around whose name the controversy has hitherto revolved, my intention is, without changing the sphere, to enlarge the circle in which, owing to cir- cumstances already alluded to, I find myself comprehended. I make no apology for using your name without your permission. I believe that none is necessary. If you will condescend to read these letters, you will have an opportunity of judging between the princi- ples which have been, at least, partially set forth in your own sermon, and those by which they have been controverted by your Episcopal brethren. LETTERS. 401 At all events, I shall consider myself amply rewarded if I should succeed in putting one single individual effectually on his guard against the irreligious and skeptical principle advocated by the re- viewer, under the seductive but deceitful plea of vindicating the rights of human reason against the requirements of divine revela- tion. This plea has already converted Protestant into infidel Ger- many. What it has done in Germany it will do here ; and the songs of your reviewer are in the syren notes by which its harbin- gers may be recognized everywhere. If there is any thing which the reviewer has made clear it is this: that, according to him, all the security afforded by the Christian re- ligion for the truths on which Christians build the hope of salvation, is opinion. This he admits to be the case with Protestants, and asserts that, with regard to certainty, the condition of Catholics is equally desperate. " Assumption," says he, " and opinion are the only basis for the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church." This I shall endeavor to disprove in the course of these letters. In my former remarks I had stated " that the very word opinion implies the absence of proof in the premises, and consequently the absence of certainty in the conclusion." This the reviewer calls " prating," and settles the question with the following ipse dixit authority: "Neither of these assertions is true. In no reasonable opinion of a reasonable man is there the absence of proof." A better critic than the reviewer, defining the meaning of the word according to common usage and to common sense Dr. Johnson tells us that opinion is " persuasion of the mind, without proof or certain knowledge" " Opinion is," says Hale (quoted by Johnson), " when the assent of the understanding is so far gained by evidence of probability that it rather inclines to one persuasion than to another, yet not altogether without a mixture of uncertainty or doubting," Such, then, is the tenure by which the reviewer boasts that it is the privilege of Pro- testants to hold their belief of the various doctrines of the Christian religion ! Now, this definition of opinion corresponds with what I said of it, and fully bears me out in stating that the reviewer's sys- tem virtually encourages " Pyrrhonism and infidelity." The re- viewer, however, sensible of this difficulty and its consequences,, qualifies and speaks of " reasonable opinion." But who shall de- termine when and whether an opinion is reasonable f You would answer that it belongs to the Church. The reviewer thinks differ- ently ; he would refer the settlement of the question back to the tribunal where it originated opinion. Thus, taking Dr. Johnson's definition of opinion, and our reviewer's acknowledgment that this word expresses the measure of his belief in the doctrines of Chris- tianity, it follows inevitably that his faith is the " persuasion of his mind, without proof or certain knowledge;" in other words, that he believes, " yet not altogether without a mixture of uncertainty and doubting." Is not this Pyrrhonism ? Our reviewer may scatter the seeds of opinion in the Church infidelity will reap the- harvest. VOL. H.-26 402 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Look abroad, dear sir, and witness the consequences of having banished the doctrine of Church authority for which your sermon contended, and of having substituted the criterion of opinions for ascertaining the doctrines of the Christian religion. Look at the state of the Protestant religion generally, even in the United States. It presents a multitude of sects, so blended, that the vo- taries of each have only to turn round on their seats to hear the ref- utation of one set of doctrines by the advocates of another it exhibits the ministers contradicting each other the people carried about from one sect to another by caprice ; here, instructed to re- ject the mystery of redemption, and there worked up to fury and fanaticism everywhere flattered lor their superior intelligence, and in return giving themselves up to the opinions of their preachers for the time being. In the mean time, men of learning, engaged in sec- ular pursuits, stand aloof from all religion ; taught by our reviewer's system that they can learn from the sacred desk only opinions, and persuaded, often with reason, that their own are as likely to be cor- rect as those of the minister. They may sometimes go to the church, but let them be questioned on the great truths of Christianity, Original Sin, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Trinity, e third hypothesis is, that the supposed errors might have " crept in" by accident, and been adopted by all the members of the great Catholic society. But this, again, is so pregnant with ab- surdity, that a few words will suffice for its refutation. 1st. The doc- trines were pure when the error was broached for the first time 1 . The individual, therefore, who adopted and undertook to introduce it into general belief, must have known that it was an error, and had not been a part of the doctrine received from the apostles. 2nd. Every individual to whom it was subsequently proposed for adoption must have known equally that it was an error. Hence the error did not " creep in," at least, but must have been embraced by every member of the Church, with the personal knowledge that in doing so he was apostatising deliberately from the doctrines of Christ. But, thirdly, the propagation of such an error would necessarily create divisions ; some would advocate, others oppose. The conse- quence would have been a separation ; and then history would have added another sect to the catalogue of heresies that have been con- demned by the Church. Besides these there are no other possible ways in which the doctrines received from the apostles could be depraved by error. History informs us that individuals have fre- quently made the attempt ; but the issue has invariably been that the error has been branded as error by the Catholic testimony of the Church, and that those who have adhered to it have been cut off from the Christian society. Thus from the very nature of the Christian doctrine, and the con- stitution of the Christian Church, its testimony furnishes the broadest and most solid basis of moral evidence that ever was laid for the support of human certainty. The facts of profane history that are best authenticated, are not as well established by moral evidence as the facts of the Catholic doctrine. And the reason is, that dynasties have been overturned and supplanted, nations have been partially extinguished and remodeled; but the great primitive Catholic so- ciety, unconfiued by geographical limits, unchanged by national dis- asters, has preserved its identity, and never suffered a revolution in its government, or a subversion of its principles. After eighteen centuries it exhibits a spectacle of some-two hundred millions of souls, divided by language, by national habits, by climate, by everything that diversifies the surface of the globe ; and yet agreeing in the " belief of the same doctrines, participation of the same sacraments, and subjection to the same legitimate pastors." The doctrines now professed have been professed by all the preceding ages and genera- tions of the Church from the days of the apostles, making the testi- mony of society universal and uniform both with regard to time and place. This kind of natural or moral certainty, produced by the unanimous testimony of the Catholic Church, is no hindrance to that divine as- LETTERS. 447 sistance, that supernatural infallibility which Jesus Christ promised to His Church. The Holy Scriptures teach us positively that He promised to be with His Church all days, even to the end of the world, and that the gates of hell should never prevail against her. Now these and other declarations to the same effect, set forth in these letters and in your sermon, should leave no doubt in the minds of those who admit the omnipotence and veracity of Jesus Christ. That these declarations were understood as the divine guarantee for the infallibility of the Church, is a point which the doctrine and practice of the Church itself, and the writings of the fathers against the heretics of their times, place beyond the reach of controversy. I only make a passing allusion to this topic here, as it has been treated elsewhere, and as the object of the present essay is to show what is meant by infallibility as an attribute of the Church of Christ. Infallibility belongs by nature only to God ; but He can communi- cate of that attribute to those to whom he has confided the preach- ing and preservation of his message to mankind. The successors of the apostles are commissioned to preach that lesson of revealed truth by the same authority which deputed the apostles themselves. These successors were bound to neither add to nor take from the doctrines of the Church; they were bound by their office to suffer no alteration of them within the limits of their jurisdiction. What then is the nature of their testimony, whether assembled in general council, or dispersed in the various countries of the globe ? Is it, as among Protestants, in the nature of determining truth by ballot^ and deciding on the dogma of revelation by the test of a majority ? No. It is simply determining whether the point in dispute had or had not ,,been held as a doctrine revealed by Jesus Christ in the various por- tions of the Church in which they presided as bishops. This testi- mony is a concentration of evidence which attests the universal be- lief of the Church ; and as this belief has never changed since the foundation of Christianity, determines, in a way consonant with rea- son, consonant with revelation, consonant with the unchangeable nature of truth, consonant with the safety of the believer, and the attributes of the divine founder of the Church, what are the doctrines revealed by him for the salvation of men. Such is the manner in which the bishops of the Church are, and have been from the beginning, bound by the very obligations of their office, to guard and transmit the deposit of faith which was once delivered to the saints. Did any one of them attempt to alter one tittle of it? The testimony of the people over whom he pre- sided, who had been instructed by his predecessor in the Episcopal office, before the attempt to introduce the novelty of doctrine, would convict him. The testimony of his clergy who were ac- quainted with the doctrines of the Church, would convict him. The testimony of his Episcopal colleagues throughout the world would convict him. He could not, if he would, succeed to corrupt the doctrines of a Church guarded from the approach of error by a uni- verse of witnesses. 448 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. Since this has ever been the condition of the Catholic Church, strike into its history at whatever period yon may choose to select, it fol- lows both from the means which Christ appointed, for the trans- mission of His doctrine and the promise of His Holy Spirit to teach her all truth that her testimony in determining what are the doc- trines of the Revelation is invested with such circumstances, both of the natural and supernatural order, as to preclude the possibility of error or deception. Testimony, in which error or deception is im- possible, is infallible testimony. And the Church which is compe- tent to give such testimony, is an infallible Church. Protestantism can have no such claim. And although, as has been said before, you were triumphant in that portion of your sermon which went to prove the existence of infallibility as a necessary at- tribute of the Church of Christ, you were singularly unhappy in at- tempting to connect it with those sects of Christians who are not in communion with the great primitive Catholic society. The Episco- pal denomination seems to have a body of doctrines expressed in her articles. But these are only the opinions of those by whom the articles were drawn up. They are interpreted variously by those who profess to believe in them. Consequently they are not susceptible of testimony and if they were, Episcopalians could not be admitted competent wit- nesses, inasmuch as their evidence could extend only to a period of three hundred out of eighteen hundred years. This same remark is applicable to all sects, even as tar back as the Arians in the fourth cen- tury. How then could the infallibility of the Church of Christ be applicable to any of these? The stream must flow from the foun- tain of life by an uninterrupted and traceable course the chain of witnesses must be unbroken, not a link missing in the whole lapse of ages. These are found in the Catholic Church alone, and with them that infallibility which was promised by its divine Founder. I am not unmindful that many objections can be raised against this essential tenet of the Christian religion. But in this it is like the other doc- trines of Revelation they are exposed to the objections of the captious and the unbeliever ; but they are not less true on that ac- count. In my next letter I propose to bring up those objections which are really worthy of notice. Yours, &C., J. H. LETTER X. DEAR SIR At the close of my last letter I observed that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church, though sustained by reason, by revelation, and history, is still the theme of objection. This will not appear surprising to you, who are aware of the objections that are raised against the mission of the Apostles, the character of Christ, LETTERS. 4A9 and even the existence of God Himself. But you are equally aware that these objections prove nothing against the doctrines they are intended to assail, but only prove the darkness and depravity of the understanding from which they emanate. So it is with regard to the objections usually preferred against the infallibility of the Church of- Christ. Still they are common ; and, as they have some influence on the minds of uneducated Protestants, owing to the fact that the ministers and dignitaries of the Protestant Church believe, or affect to believe, in their solidity, it is but reasonable that all such as are worthy of notice should be examined and refuted. This is what I propose to do in the present letter. 1. It is OBJECTED " That the pastors of the Church, by virtue of her infallibility, lord it over the faith of the people, who, from the moment they are imbued ^oith this belief, will receive implicitly whatever their spiritual guides think proper to erect into faith.' 1 '' Now those who can be deluded by this objection are persons who have never examined the true state of the case. It is a sacred prin- ciple in the society of Christians that compose the Church visible and militant, that it would be sacrilegiously criminal either to add to, or to take from, the doctrines originally revealed by Jesus, and taught by His Apostles. Hence, the faith of the people composing that society is always OLDER than the ordination and appointment of those who are to be its official teachers and the dispensers of the divine mysteries. The bishops of the Church are the authorized expounders of the Christian doctrines, the heirs of the apostles in all things appertaining to the deposit of the faith and the adminis- tration of the sacraments. Hence, not only the belief of the whole society is older, but the whole episcopal body is in the discharge of its functions anteriorly to the consecration of each bishop, by whom the apostolic succession in the Church is continued. He is bound to teach what the Church teaches, and what had been taught by his predecessors in the great communion of the Catholic Church from the beginning of Christianity. He is not only a teacher, but a be- liever ; he is not a maker of creeds, but a icitness of truth ; not the irresponsible arbiter of doctrine, but a disciple of faith. Before he could succeed to pervert the faith of the Church, he must first per- vert the memory and judgment of not only his flock, but also of his colleagues throughout the world. Hence, the true state of the ques- tion presents the fact as directly the opposite of what is supposed in the objection. It is the faith of the people, the faith of the clergy, the faith of the Episcopal body. In a word, the faith of the Catholic Church, that " lords it" over the pastors as well as the flocks. One bishop or another may fall away, because nfallibility is not a per* sonal attribute ; but if he does, it is by a flagrant violation of the terms on which he was associated in the discharge of the heavenly trust. His profession of faith was the Apostles' Creed, in which he was bound to believe "in the holy Catholic Church." What is here said of one bishop, is true of all. Hence, the infallibility of the Church; and the belief of it in the minds of the faithful, so far from VOL. II 29 450 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. enabling the pastors to corrupt the faith of the people, is precisely the criterion which would betray the attempt of the hireling shep- herd, who would sacrilegiously attempt to model the ark according to his own erring opinions. A faith such as that established by Christ, unalterable, has unity and uniformity for its characteristics. It is believed by all the members in the communion of the great Christian society to which it was originally revealed ; this consti- tutes unity. It icas believed by all the preceding generations of this society; here is its APOSTOLICITY. How then, could the pastor of a church change a doctrine so guarded by the wisdom of the divine Architect of the Christian Church ? What ! Under pretence of a prerogative, attempt to alter the doctrines for whose preservation that had been given, and in the act, proclaim to the world that they had forfeited it ? Make a palpable change by way of proving that the doctrines are immutable! No, dear sir, it is in the Catholic Church alone that the clergy cannot " lord it" over the faith of the people. The pastor of a congregation, and the bishop of a diocese, and the Pope are all as subject to the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolical Church as the humblest member of the communion. The objection, therefore, is founded on ignorance of the true state of the case. In consequence of this ignorance, Protestants judge of the Catholic ministry as they do of their own. They won- der how it happens that the preaching and teaching of the Catholic priesthood have so much more reverence in the minds of their flocks than the same offices have when discharged by Protestant ministers. The reason is obvious: The Catholic priesthood are the organs of a CIIUKCH whose faith is immutable ; the Protestant ministers are the organs of their own opinions. And the reasoning of the objection is this: "If our ministers can so much " lord it" over our belief, being fallible men, how much more power would they have to lead us astray if they belonged to a Church which is infallible." 2. It is OBJECTED " That all tnen are fallible ; that many pas- tors, who fell into error themselves, persevered in it, and drew their flocks also into error." You will be able to appreciate the importance of this objection when you reflect that, whilst Protestants urge it against the Church, the Deists press it against the Scriptures, written by men, ami handed down to us by men. Now, in refutation of the pre- tended objection, it is sufficient to observe that all men, individually taken, are indeed fallible. But even in ordinary transactions, when a great number of man bear unanimous testimony to a fact of which they are competent to judge and testify, and in circumstances which render collusion among fliem impossible, then their testimony pro- duces a moral certainty, and is rendered morally infallible. Thus the testimony on which we believe in the expulsion of Charles X., -and the substitution of Louis Phillippe as King of France, is sustained by infallibility of the natural or moral order, although we deny the attribute to every witness that ever testified to the fact. LETTERS. 451 Now, the ground of certainty for all the doctrines of the Catholic Church are broader and deeper than those which sustain the fact just mentioned. Because it would be easier to falsity a tact of which one kingdom, almost one city, was the scene, than to falsify another of which the whole Catholic world is the theatre, and every member a witness. The fact in question is not whether the doctrine is true, but whether it is or is not an article of Catholic belief. The fact being settled, it comes under the test, long since sanctioned, for de- termining the doctrines of truth. " Quod semper, quodubique, quod ab omnibus, creditum est." The falling off of particular pastors proves only the fallibility of human opinion, but not the fallibility of the Church, which, besides the certainty produced by the universal and uniform character of its testimony, has the unfailing promise of the Son of God, that He will be with its pastors "all days, till the consummation of the world." 3. It is OBJECTED " That during those ages which are called the dark <>r middle ages, when ignorance teas so general, not only the people, but also the clergy, were too uneducated, too unenlightened, to decide on questions of doctrine." The answer in this is very simple. In the first place, the ignorance, however great it might be as to other branches of knowledge, never affected the doctrines of Christianity. Secondly, there were among the clergy many whose writings prove that, both by their genius and acquirements, they would have done honor to any age. Thirdly, the matters to be decided, whenever a controversy arose on doc- trine, was simply a matter of fact, viz., whether or not such or such a point was a portion of Catholic faith. Fourthly, the infallibility of the Church was not made to depend on the science of its ministers. Lastly, besides all this, it is put beyond dispute that, on all the arti- cles of Christian doctrine, the Church of the tenth and of the eighteenth centuries believed precisely the same as the Church of the third, fourth, and fifth, when her doctrines were attested by the writings and adorned by the holy lives of the fathers, against whom the charge of ignorance, except by the infidels, has not been preferred^ 4. It has been OBJECTED " That the doctrines of the Church- have not been uniform that councils have been opposed to councils.' 1 '' This is a common objection, and if it had any foundation in truth, it would have been an easy matter for those who urge it to establish its validity by proof of the fact. In the first place, it is utterly false that what \vas defined as an article of faith in one council was ever discarded or condemned by another. It is a sheer calumny, invented by the Protestants to cover the glaring criminality of the schism and heresies which even the Scriptures denounce as crimes. The charge made against the Council of Rimini, as having contradicted or condemned the decision of the Council of Nice, is founded on ignorance of the particular question, or on disingenuousness in stating it. The question was about the divinity of Christ, which the Arians denied. In defining the doctrine, the one council used a term to express it, and to brand the heresy, which the other did not 452 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. use, the meaning being the same in both cases. This involved no contradiction ; and besides, the Council of Rimini did not represent the Ch'jrch, being composed only of the western bishops, in which the Pope did not preside, neither by himself nor by his legates. 5. It is OBJECTED " That the question of general councils is complicated / that there is no certain sign whereby to distinguish a general council from one that is not general." In answer to this, it is to be observed that a council is general or oecumenical when the bishops of the whole Catholic Church are invited to attend, and the supreme bishop, the Bishop of Rome, presides in it either by himself or by his legates. Thus the question about whether the Pope is superior to the council, or the council superior to the Pope, and on which so much, has been said and written, is of no practical utility. The collision between the Pope and a general council is impossible, because a general council supposes the concurrence of the Pope. Without this the whole Church is not represented, and except the whole Church be represented, the council is not general or oecu- menical. The supposition, therefore, is like that which would ascribe a twofold sovereignty to the human agent, and suspend its action until it should be determined whether the sovereignty of the head is to absorb the sovereignty of the body, or, vice versa, whether the body is to exercise supremacy over the head. There is but one sovereignty, one supremacy, and it is the body and head united. So is it in the Church. Again, it is a mistake to suppose, as many Protestants do, that the attestation of Catholic faith must depend absolutely on the testimony of a general council. In fact, the Church is as a general council in perpetual session since the days of the Apostles. Whether the bishops of the Church are assembled together or separate, and presiding in their respective sees through- out the world, their character of witnesses and judges, as well as the nature of the testimony, is identically the same ; the difference con- sists only in the mere circumstances of time and place. 6. It is OBJECTED " That councils have decreed new articles of faith." This objection is founded on the ignorance or bad faith, of those who put it forth. In effect, those definitions of doctrine which emanated from general councils were nothing but the attestation of the apostolic, Catholic faith, in language so precise and so condem- natory of the opposite error, that neither the heretics nor the faithful could pervert or mistake the true meaning of the dogma. Thus, in the Council of Nice, 325, the heresy of Arius was branded with the indelible mark by the use of a word which had not been used before to express a doctrine which had always been. The Church testified that, according to her doctrine, Jesus Christ was " consubstantial" with the Father. The divinity of the Holy Ghost she attested, in language equally apt and appropriate, in the Council of Constanti- nople, in 381. So of the councils of the succeeding ages. The definition of doctrines, in set and precise terms, was neces- sary only in proportion as heresy attempted to corrupt the faith of LETTERS. 453 believers. The epoch^of those definitions, respectively, indicates, not the time when the doctrines which they define began to be be- lieved, but the time when the heresies opposed to them began to be broached. The divinity of Christ, always believed, would have been defined at an earlier period if Arias had lived earlier, and attempted its rejection. The doctrine of Transubstantiation, always believed, did not require to be expressed by this word until Berengarius and his followers were impious enough to deny or explain it in a sense unknown to the Church. In short, the Protestants whose greatest religious ambition seems to have been to prove that the Church of Christ could lead, and, in fact, had led, its members into error Irnve an easy way to accomplish their object, if the fact were not the very opposite of what they wished to make it appear. How often have they asserted that the Church at different times gave contra- dictory decisions on the same article of Christian faith ? How often have they bearded with defiance as to the exhibition of the proof ? And yet the proofs would be at hand if the thing had ever occurred. Call on your reviewers, then, and since they deny the infallibility of the Church of Christ, let them produce facts to sustain their denial. Every dictate of reason tells us that a Church, founded by Him who was truth itself, and founded for the express purpose of teaching the doctrines which He had revealed, ought to be so guarded by the wise provisions of divine omnipotence, as that those who should abide by her teaching could not be deceived. Every page of the sacred writing relating to this subject is in strict accordance with the dic- tate of our reason just referred to, and tells us that so Christ did establish His Church. Every page of ecclesiastical history bids de- fiance to the individual who would search it for evidence and facts to show that the Church has ever been less than what the inspired apostle designates her to be the " pillar And ground of the truth." And yet, dear sir, the critics of the Episcopal Church, who have been so much offended with the principles of your sermon principles which constitute the shame of those who, in the name of religion, impugn them these critics affect to believe that infallibility is a privilege which Christ could, but did not, bestow on His Church. These men, unhappily, are pledged by their position to oppose the belief of infallibility in the Church of Christ. Hence they frame an idea of that infallibility according to the wants of their argument. "When they pretend to state the Catholic belief on the subject, they only falsify it, and thus mislead thousands. It was provided by the Saviour of men for the preservation of doctrines as revealed by Him ; they make it apply to points of mere discipline, and variations in discipline are adduced to disprove uni- formity of doctrine, and consequently to disprove infallibility. It AV.-IS given as the protection of the people, whereby they might be guarded from the delusions of human opinion, on which the whole Protestant system is made to wheel. Your critics treat it as a fond pretension of the Catholic clergy to enable them the more effectually to lead the people astray. 45J: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Thus it is that they confound things entity distinct, in order extract from the contusion the appearance or argument against t^c infallibility of the Church. The object of the foregoing letters has been to show, that from the origin of revelation, under the Old as well as under the New Testa- ment, there has ever been, in the society of true believers, a tribunal against whose decision, in matters of doctrine, no individual could rebel, without incurring the displeasure and violating the precepts of Almighty God. In the ancient law the text is clear, as I had oc- casion to show in the first portion of these letters. After the Jewish Church passed away, Christ was the teacher ; and after him, the Apostles and their successors, who were appointed to teach, not their own opinions, but " whatsoever He had commanded tJiem." The fathers of the Church were adduced as witnesses, and, according to their testimony, the Church was the umpire to decide, without ap- peal, in all controversies of faith. According to their testimony, it was heresy to contemn the decision of the Church. What was true of the Church then is still true. The nature of that infallibility has been examined, and it has been seen that, from the very circum- stances of the doctrines to be attested, and of the witnesses, the tes- timony is of such a character as to preclude, even on the rules of moral evidence, every possibility of Catholic error. But add to this the promises of the Saviour to the Church, and the moral certainty is exalted to the order of divine faith. The opposite side of the case presents a variety of sects scattered along the pathway of the Church, whose opinion it is that she is fallible ! And what is the origin, the source of this judgment? Simply that she did not change her faith by sanctioning their errors! And what is the weight of this judgment ? Precisely that which is due to persons whose opinions change from day to day, and who cannot agree among themselves. Acknowledging that Christ made a revelation of doctrines, and yet in perpetual contradiction with each other as to what those doctrines are ! Here are the two sides of the question, having no medium between. It is for a wise man, who values things temporal and things eternal, according to the estimate of a St. Paul, to determine whether it is safer to believe with the Catholic Church, than to doubt and deny with the reviewer. Farewell. Yours, &c., J. H. From the Annuls of the Propagation of the Faith, 1840. THE CONVERSION OF THE DODGE FAMILY. The following narrative has been addressed to the Central Com- mittee of Paris, by Mgr. Hughes, Bishop of Basileopolis, and Coad- jutor of New York : LETTEBS. 455 Among the instances of conversion from Protestantism, there have been some of persons eminent by their position in society, and dis- tinguished by their talents. There is one case in particular within my knowledge, the circumstances of which cannot but edify those pious and devout souls who are associated in your truly Catholic and holy work. In the interior of the diocese of New York, in Onon- dago County, there is a little congregation, composed entirely of converts from Protestantism. It consists of eighteen already re- ceived into the Church, and two, who as catechumens, are preparing for baptism. Nearly all are members, or immediate relatives, of the principal family ; and when the first conversion took place, the nearest priest was at a distance of sixty miles. Even at present they have no priest nearer than eighteen miles. The head of this family is a farmer of large wealth and property ; a man of good education, and strong understanding, who has been a representative of the county in the legislature. From himself and his excellent lady I had the account of their conversion, which I give as nearly as possible in their own words. But written words can convey no idea of the expression of spiritual joy and peace of soul which beamed on their countenances whilst they related it. One evening in the spring of 1836, a peddler was passing along the road in front of their house. The road, as usual in spring, was deep ; and his horse, in dragging the wagon through the mud, broke some of the harness, and he could not proceed. Colonef Dodge, the farmer referred to, seeing the situation of the poor man from his window, came out and ordered his men to assist in extricating the wagon. As it was near night, he invited the peddler to stay at his house till morning, when he might proceed on his journey. After supper the farmer entered into conversation with his guest, and the time passed agreeably until the hour for retiring approached ; when, all at once, it occurred to Mrs. Dodge that perhaps the peddler was a Catholic ; and the idea of having a Catholic to sleep under her roof frightened her very much. She spoke to her husband ; for, believing, as she had been taught, that Catholics were idolaters, and capable of every crime, she thought it sinful, as well as dangerous, to harbor one of them in her house. Her husband made inquiry, and found that the poor man was really a Catholic but it was too late to send him away. Colonel Dodge, who had found his guest very sensible and modest in conversation, thought it a pity that so apparently honest a man should be involved in the supposed errors of our faith ; for although he did not partake in the alarm of his wife (who had probably never seen a Catholic before), still this much he was at least convinced of, that no man of common sense could believe in what he imagined to be the absurdities of our doctrine. Pitying the man, and yet curious to hear what answer he would give, Colonel Dodge began to expos- tulate with him, and express his surprise that he should believe in the doctrines of the Church of Rome. The peddler answered with great modesty and prudence. He said he was a firm Catholic, but 456 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. unqualified, for want of education, to defend or explain his doctrine. He concluded by saying that if Colonel Dodge knew what the Catholic faith was he would have a better opinion of it. Xext morning the peddler, in returning thanks for the kindness and hospitality he had received, observed that he had a book, which he would be happy to leave, and which might induce Colonel Dodge to think better of the Catholic Church. To this the colonel agreed, and invited the peddler to call at the house when he should have occasion to pass that way again. The gentleman began to read his book, the first Catholic work he had ever seen on the subject of religion, and as he advanced he was struck and surprised at the unexpected strength of the arguments from Scripture, from reason, and the early lathers, in lavor of the Catholic faith. Passages that struck him as particularly forcible, he would read aloud to his wife. At first she thought it a sin to listen, but .as her husband thought otherwise, her scruples on that point soon gave way, and she became so interested in the subject that she soon ventured to read the book herself. In this way they continued for several months, until the peddler returned. They asked hirn if he had any moro'books on the same subject, and fortunately he was able to supply them. Colonel Dodge obtained from him a list of all the Catholic works on the subject that could be procured in New York, and wrote to have them forwarded. Hitherto, he and. his family were tne most steady, and among the most influential members of the Presbyterian Church ; but the perusal of these books produced a singular and painful effect on his mind with regard to the whole Protestant system. He had been sincere as a Protestant, and now his confidence in Protestantism was shaken. The idea which began to predominate in his mind was, that Protestantism could not be the Church, nor could its ministers be the true ministers of Jesus Christ. This idea was at first rather a doubt than a con- viction of his mind. He thought it was his duty to consult his minister, but the effect was rather to increase than remove his doubt. He required some proof to satisfy him that Protestantism was the CJuirch, and that the ministers were not mere laymen, void of all ministerial character. He found that all the answer he could get was only evasion of the question, and mere sophistry. The minister, however, placed in his hands a work of his own on the Apocalypse of St. John, intending to prove that the Pope is Antichri>t, and that the Church of Rome is apostate and idolatrous. This, the minister told him, would remove all his doubts. It so happened that the very day on which this took place, the peddler called again at the house. Colonel Dodge told him what the minister had said, and showed him the book which had been placed in his hands, as the key to the Apocalypse. The peddler requested him to lay it aside until he could present him with another on the same subject, by a Catholic author, and then to read them both together. This was agreed to. The work here referred to is a work written about the middle of the last century, by an English bishop, LETTERS. 457 Dr. "Wamsly, under the title of " Pastorini." It is not such a work as an enlightened director would place in the hands of a Protestant who is seeking for Catholic truth. Like all works written on the Apocalypse, it necessarily abounds with much speculation. But, in the present instance, it would seem as if the zeal of the poor man was under the guidance of wisdom from above, for what was Colonel Dodge's astonishment, when reading and comparing these two books on the same subject, he discovered that whatever was remarkable for a spirit of faith and piety in the work of his minister had been copied, line for line and icordfor word, from Pastorini ! and what Avas not copied consisted of denunciations and calumnies against the Catholics, and which he knew to be nothing but calumnies. He pointed out this circumstance to his wife, and though as yet they had not made up their minds to embrace the Catholic faith, still all these together had utterly destroyed their faith in Protestantism. In the meantime, the colonel ceased to attend their worship. He, Avho had been a deacon, the principal support of the church, not only absented himself from the communion and public worship, but lost no opportunity of proving to his neighbors that neither the true Church nor the true ministry of Christ is with the Protestants of any denomination. The people were confounded ; for, being a man of superior mind and education, they were unable to reply to what he said ; and being also a man of known probity, his opinions had great weight. He sought all opportunities to prove the same to the ministers ; but they avoided him, apprehending, no doubt, what would be the consequence if they did otherwise. In order to allay the doubt which his remarks were exciting among the people, the ministers and elders deemed it wisest to charge him with heresy, and have him and his wife tried before an ecclesiastical court for having denied the doctrines of the sect. They ordered the process, however, in such a way, that he should not have an opportunity of speaking in his own defence. It must have been an affecting sight to behold these persons in the same congre- gation in which .they worshipped God from their childhood, ar- raigned by the ministers whom they had been attached to ; sur- rounded by neighbors and friends whom they loved ; and on their trial for the testimony which they had borne against the errors of their former religion, and in favor of truth. As yet they had never seen a Catholic, except the poor man to whom they had given hos- pitality during the night. The residence of the nearest priest was sixty miles, or twenty leagues distant. However, they felt, as they told me, an inward calm and peace of mind, which they could not account for. The trial commenced with Mrs. Dodge ; she was asked, specifically, her belief on such and such points of doctrine, to each of which she made reply. At length, to the great astonishment of all (and even of herself, when she thought of it afterwards), she stood up in the midst of the congregation, and said : " My belief, my whole belief, is in what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. All, whatever that Church teaches I believe firmly; all, whatever 4:58 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. that Church condemns I disbelieve and reject. Now this is my faith ; and I bid you fai'ewell." She and her husband immediately retired from the church, and returned to their home, leaving the poor ministers at a loss what to do. From that time they continued to instruct themselves further in the principles of the Christian doctrine, by means of the books which had been purchased and obtained from the city. They lent out these books to such of their neighbors as would read them ; and one after another they entered on the same course of examination by which they had been guided to the knowledge of truth. These formed associations of prayer, and especially the prayers for Mass on Sundays; and continued in this way from the period of their quitting the church at the trial in September, 1836, until the Christinas fol- lowing ; when Colonel Dodge and his wife took their private car- riage, and in the coldest weather, and over roads that were almost impassable, traveled to Utica, where the nearest priest was stationed, in order to be at Mass on Christmas morning, and to receive their new birth in the waters of baptism on the nativity of our Redeemer. They also engaged die clergyman to visit them for the purpose of baptising the others, who desired it with equal ardor. The sister and brother-in-law of Mrs. Dodge, their two daughters, and son, and other of their neighbors followed the example, and embraced the faith, until at the period of my visit in July last, there were in all sixteen who had abjured Protestantism, and been received into the communion of the Church. They have now a church and priest within eighteen miles, where they attend Mass on Sundays whenever it is possible. But besides this, Colonel Dodge has fitted up a private chapel in his house, sep- arated from the parlor by folding doors ; and the priest visits them to say Mass and administer the sacraments occasionally on a week- day. There they have their altar adorned and decorated in the richest manner that the resources of the country would allow. Sil- ver candlesticks, a very neat ivory ciucifix, white tine linen, and beautiful fresh flowers at the foot of a small picture of the Blessed Virgin constituted its decorations when I had the happiness of pay- ing this excellent family a short visit last summer. Evening and morning the family, and on Sundays and festivals, when they cannot go to Mass, the whole little flock assemble before this altar, and unite in the prayers and devotions of our holy religion ; but when the priest comes their joy is complete. Colonel Dodge throws his rooms open, and invites all his Protestant neighbors to attend, " and," said he, "in spite of their prejudices they are forced to acknowledge themselves struck with a feeling of awe, in witnessing even the out- ward ceremonial of the Holy Sacrifice, and the profound attention of those who assist at and believe in it." I had but a few hours to spend with them, the journey, going and returning on the same day, having been thirty-six miles. I hardly spoke ; 1 listened in .silence, and with secret emotions, wishing my own heart to share in all the feelings of faith and joy which I saw LETTERS. 459 abounding in theirs. I was reminded of the first Christians; they appeared and spoke as persons who, by a special grace of God, had been put unexpectedly in possession of the heavenly treasure, and who were still in the freshness of their joy and gratitude. This was particularly observable when they contrasted the emptiness of their former worship with that of the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrifices and communion of the Christian altar. Colonel Dodge told me that for the first year after he renounced Protestantism, and embraced the Catholic faith, his neighbors and former friends became estranged, and shunned him ; so much so, that he had almost determined at one time to sell his property, and remove into some neighborhood where he should not be exposed to such painful treatment. " But," he added, " latterly they were more reconciled ; our intercourse is more free and general. Instead of being driven away by their prejudices against the Catholic faith, I have thought it rather my duty to stay, and try to remove those prejudices." "For," continued he, "they are ignorant not only re- specting the Catholic, but also respecting their own religion ; and such is my opinion of the integrity of many of them, that I have no doubt but if their ignorance could be removed, they would themselves return to the religion from which our forefathers separated without any just cause." TO THE LEOPOLDINE SOCIETY. DIOCESE OF NEAV YORK IN 1840. The history of the Catholic Church in the State of New York may take its date from the year 1780. About that period the Catholics were sufficiently numerous to undertake the erection of a small church. As yet there was no bishop in the United States, and the faithful were generally in a state of great exposure from the want of priests. Nevertheless, induced by temporal considerations, many Catholics settled in the city and principal towns of New York ; and in the year 1810 the Holy See erected it into an episcopal see, and appointed the first bishop, Dr. Concanen. This prelate did not live to reach his diocese. After a lapse of five years his successor, Dr. Connolly, was appointed, and arrived in New York in 1816. He found in the whole diocese three priests and two Churches, with a population of sixteen thousand souls. This prelate died in 1825, and was succeeded by the present bishop, Dr. Dubois, who was conse- crated in 1826, and who, on account of his age and infirmity, has resigned the administration of the diocese into the hands of his co- adjutor. At the present time the Catholic population of the diocese of New York is supposed to exceed two hundred thousand souls. The clergy amount to fifty-six, and the Churches to forty-nine. Thus it 4:60 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. appears that within the last twenty-four years there have been built in the diocese forty-seven churches; the clergy have increased from three to fifty-six, and the Catholic population from sixteen thousand to upward of two hundred thousand. The statement just made gives a flattering view of the progress of religion, and cannot but afford satisfaction to the pious Catholics of Europe -who have taken so deep an interest in extending the bless- ings of the true faith to their brethren in foreign countries. But their conception of the subject would be very imperfect and errone- ous if they were to draw their conclusions from this naked and sim- ple statement, without taking into account the remarks by which' it it is to be qualified. And if in perusing what has been said the reader will reflect for a moment, he will naturally inquire : 1. How it has happened that in New York, one of the first set- tled provinces of America, the Catholic religion should have had so recent an origin as th,e year 1780 ? 2. How it has happened that the Catholic population has increased so much since that time ? and 3. Whether that numerous population which has found means to build so many churches within so short a period, may not now be considered as sufficiently wealthy, and sufficiently well established and provided for, not to need any further aid from their brethren in Europe ? It is presumed that the following remarks will afford a satisfactory answer to each of these inquiries : 1. New York was originally a Dutch colony, subject to Holland. This was at a perio t d when the laws of the mother country were perfectly intolerant towards Catholics ; and the same intolerance was established in the new colony. The province subsequently became subject to the British government, and the laws of exclusion against the Catholics became, if anything, more rigid than they had been before the change. It was not likely, therefore, that Catholics in a country so extensive as the United States would fix their residence in a colony where the government was authorized by law to deprive them of their property, their liberty and life, for the profession of their faith, and the exercise of their worship. These cruel and iniquitous laws were abolished in 1789; and we find that in the diocese of New York Catholicity takes its birth from the very year in which they were repealed. This explains why it was that the commencement of our religion in that portion of the United States is of so recent a date. 2. The existence of those laws of intolerance is one of the reasons of the great increase of Catholics from the moment when they were repealed. The first Catholic settlers were, and indeed the majority still are, emigrants from Europe, principally from Ireland and Ger- many. There was also a considerable accession from France and her colonies in the West Indies during the Revolution. Those Catholics who are Americans by birth are composed of the children and de- scendants of those emigrants, and of such as have returned to the BETTERS. 461 Church from Protestantism. New York is one of the wealthiest and most prosperous States of the Republic. There are none which presented more advantages and inducements to emigrants who wish to improve their temporal condition. The extensive works of in- ternal improvement by canals and railroads which were carried on in this State; the commercial character of the city and thriving towns of the interior presented as large a premium for the toil of the laborer, the skill of the mechanic, and the enterprise of the merchant, as could be found anywhere else. Lands also could be purchased in abundance, and on reasonable terms. In all these circumstances then, taken together, we have the ex- planation of the great increase of Catholics in the diocese of New York within the last twenty-four years. There are many privations, especially of a moral character, inci- dent to the life of the poor emigrant in America, even when he is conscious of improving his temporal comforts. The wealth, the manners, sometimes the language, and generally the more elevated condition in society of the people by whom he is surrounded, remind him constantly that he is not in the land of his fathers, nor among the companions of his youth. It is only when he has the consolations of his religion within his reach that he feels comparatively happy in his new position. If, on the Sunday, he can be present at the holy sacrifice of the Mass, if he can only see the minister of his religion on the altar, and hear the word of God in the language to which his ear was accustomed from childhood, he forgets that he is among strangers and in a strange country. He can approach the sacraments ; he can have his children baptized by a minister of his own creed ; he can indulge the hope that, under the guidance of their pastor, they will not tbrsake that creed when they grow up ; and when sick- ness overtakes him, and death gives warning of its approach, he can call the same minister to his bedside, and receive at his hands the sanctifying unction and the bread of life. Hence, in the diocese of New York the cry for priests comes to the bishop's ear from almost every quarter; often, alas! when he has no priest to send. And as the people judge that one of the greatest inducements for a priest to come amongst them is the existence of a suitable place for the celebration of the divine worship, their first effort in every new settlement is to erect a church, now larger, now smaller, according to their means and numbers. They do not reflect that to provide the minister of the sanctuary is often much more difficult than to erect the temple. These remarks explain to us the reason why the Catholics of this diocese have built so many churches in so short a time, notwithstanding their poverty. 3. Is religion, then, sufficiently well established in this diocese not to need the charitable aid which the zeal of Europe has labored to extend to foreign missions? The following remarks will enable the reader to decide, and perhaps give some ideas on the state of religion in America, at least in New York, which could not be derived from the first outward appearance of things. 462 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. "We have seen that the Catholics of this diocese have increased first, by emigration from Europe ; second, by occasional conversions from Protestantism ; third, by the natural increase of the population. We have seen that churches have sprung up in the cities and through- out the country ; but if we were to stop here there would be made on the mind of the reader an erroneous impression with regard to the condition of the Catholic Church in the diocese of New York. The zeal of the Catholic emigrants springs, as has been already remarked, from their ardent desire to have a priest ; and the con- sequence, which is foreseen and unavoidable in their circumstances, is, that the churches generally are in debt. The people contribute liberally, according to their means, but it must be remembered that they are only poor emigrants, just commencing in a new country, and struggling to supply the first great want of their condition, viz., the want of religion. They are able to contribute just enough to make the ground" and church, when finished, good security for the borrowed money necessary to complete it. If they can accomplish this, they expect to have a clergyman among them. This is the great point. Then the congregation will flourish by his zeal. Others will join them. They will be enabled to pay the interest of their debt from year to year ; and after a time, when their numbers will have increased, and their industry will have enlarged their private means, they will be enabled to pay the principal also. This is their reasoning ; and this is an outline of the history of almost every church in the diocese. For instance, nine additional churches have been built in the city and suburbs of New York within the last fifteen years. But the debt on these churches united exceeds half a million of florins ! and the interest on this debt amounts annually to thirty thousan'd florins! The other churches of the diocese, with few exceptions, are more or less in the same situation. Still, time will enable the Catholics to overcome all these difficulties, for their means will be enlarged and their expenditures diminished. But it is manifest that so long as this state of things continues, the onward progress of religion, so far as it depends on their means, is necessarily retarded. If they could appropriate to the building of churches or other necessary institutions, what they are obliged to pay for those already erected, the case would be very different. But, unhappily, what shou-ld belong to the present and the future is already mortgaged in the past. The consequence is that not only are the churches in debt, but they are almost destitute of those things essential to the decency of the house of God and His worship. And vestments and sacred vessels for the altar would be most worthy and seasonable offerings from such as love the beauty and comeliness of Sion. Neither is this all. There should be one church at least, and one pastor, for every two thousand souls. And the moment this is ad- mitted, it follows that fifty more churches and fifty more priests would be requisite to supply the spiritual wants now existing ! How LETTERS. 463 are these wants to be supplied ? The providence of God, indeed, has many resources, and we must trust in Him. But in this state of spiritual destitution, think of the souls who must find themselves deprived of the blessings of religion. Think of the children of the poor Catholics, who, in their exposed state, must fall a prey to the false zeal of wealthy Protestants ; of those who, brought up in re- mote parts of the country, without the care and instruction of the Catholic pastor, without the habits of their religion, will be ignorant of the truth, or indifferent about it; and who, in becoming heads of families, will entail upon their offspring the same spiritual mis- fortunes. How can a bishop t>e without deep concern, charged with a diocese in which such consequences threaten his people on every side? The least reflection will convince you that the progress of religion in the diocese of New York is left far behind the progress of the Catholic population, and that the number of the Catholics, in their present situation, is precisely the evidence of their need. If they were fewer their spiritual wants could be more easily supplied. And if there is any thing calculated to excite the charity and zeal of pious Christians in Europe, it should be that in this diocese there are so many of their brethren as " sheep without a shepherd," the bishop not having means to educate or send out missionaries to take charge of them. It would have been perhaps an advantage if they had not increased so fast. But what is to become of them if so great a dis- proportion between the number of priests and the amount of popula- tion is to continue ? It is easy to foresee that ignorance of religion, especially among the- rising generation, apostacy from the faith, irreligion, and immorality will prey upon that surplus portion of the Catholic people for whose spiritual wants the bishop is unable to provide. There is as yet no house of religious education in the whole diocese ; and the consequence is that the youth of wealthier families are ex- posed to lose their faith by being educated in dangerous intercourse with Protestantism. There is no theological seminary for the train- ing of the future priests under the bishop's inspection ; and hence he has hitherto been obliged by the wants of the people to accept such clergymen from other countries and other States as offered them- selves. They are, happily, good and generally zealous missionaries ; but is it not a painful and dangerous necessity which obliges him to send laborers into the vineyard of the Lord without knowing them f It is clear, therefore, that until houses of religious education and a theological seminary are established, religion in the diocese of New York is deprived of the very sources, the life-spring, on which its real progress and prosperity must, under God, depend. The undersigned, a coadjutor-bishop and administrator of New York, is now engaged in an effort to establish a theological seminary in the diocese, and one of the objects of his voyage to Europe is to lay a statement of his situation before your association and to solicit its aid. The foregoing remarks will show how little he can expect 4:64: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. from liis own people, in their present situation. Could he have accomplished his object without the aid of his brethren in Europe, he certainly would not have undergone the fatigues of so long, not to say dangerous, a journey. He has already contracted for the ground and buildings suitable for the purpose, but he could not venture to occupy them until they shall have been nearly, if not quite, paid for ; and for the means to do this he looks entirely to the charity of the faithful. Should he be so happy as to succeed in this, he has already the offer of worthy and zealous clergymen to take charge of it. Convinced of the absolute necessity of this institution, he begs most respectfully, but at the same time most earnestly, to recommend it to the charitable consideration of the Leopoldine Association, and is persuaded that its members cannot appropriate their charities to a holier object than one which, through the medium of a theological seminary, will send forth ministers of religion in a country where " the harvest is so great and the laborers are so few." When those ministers in future time shall stand before the altar, offering up the Lamb of God in the holy sacrifice, surely their bene- factors will not be forgotten in 'the oblation. * JOHN HUGHES, Bishop of Basileopolis, Coadjutor and Administrator of New York. VIENNA, April 16, 1840. ONE LETTER TO THE HONORABLE HORACE GREELEY. SIR You have continued to manifest, for some time past, a great desire to know my opinions on certain questions of which I have said nothing, whilst you manifest great dissatisfaction with certain other opinions which I have expressed, or which have been imputed to me. Hence, I have but little hope that your opinions and mine are likely to be found coincident. I do not take you to task for the opinions which you publish, nor am I prepared to admit your right to abridge the liberty or interfere with the expression of mine. And yet, if I understand you, you have made the attempt to do so in the concluding sentence of your article of Thursday morning, in which you proclaim that " it is a sad day for our country, when a prelate so able and powerful as Archbishop Hughes is heard instilling into the minds of -his flock distrust of, and aversion to, secular Common Schools." In other words, it is a sad day for our country when Archbishop Hughes does not agree in opinion with Hon. Horace Greeley. Permit me, sir, to indicate the extent to which I respect opinion, LETTERS. 465 whether public or private. If it is composed of conclusions legiti- mately deduced from facts which are certain, I bow with reverence to its authority. If it be deductions from facts which are assumed on grounds of probability, and which cannot be disproved, I take it for what it is worth ; but it is no authority for me. If I knew it to be founded, not on facts, but on fallacies and falsehoods, then I do not honor it with the name of public or private opinion, but I rank it under the head of ignorance, prejudice, ifad presumption. All the votes of mankind, all the newspapers on earth, cannot change false into true, nor true into false. Hence, therefore, neither your opin- ions nor mine can have any worth, except in so far as they are de- duced from facts. Now the basis of opinion is not the same in your mind as it is in mine. I am a Catholic, and the truths of ray religion are to me facts from which I draw my deductions. You, on the other hand, have the disbelief of the Catholic religion as one great element in the groundwork of your opinions. There is no great probability, there- fore, that our opinions, respectively, will be found to harmonize with each other. And yet, I trust no great evil will befall the country, even if I should have the misfortune to differ with you in opinion. Still, you have exhibited great curiosity to know what I think on certain questions, touching civil and religious liberty, and, especially, in Rome. Have patience with me, then, while I lay them before you, as briefly as possible. I. As regards myself, I claim to be a friend of civil and religious liberty, in a sense more just and true that is, in my opinion, of course than any which you are in the habit of attaching to those words. God is the author of truth. The Devil is the father of lies. I am not sure that you believe in the existence of a devil, but cer- tainly you cannot deny the existence of falsehood. Now, in my opinion, your system of religious liberty goes to put God and the Devil, truth and falsehood, on the same level. You hold it as a re- ligious right no less sacred to deny God, if a man thinks proper, than to worship Him ; and hence, you implicitly deny to God Him- self the right to impose on man the obligation of worship, for that would take away the freedom of his right to be an Atheist. II. I deny, with the Catholic Church, any right of one man, by physical coercion, to compel the conscience of another man. Hence, therefore, I am opposed to all penal laws having the coercion of con- science for their object. In countries which are already divided and broken up into religious sects, mutual toleration, kindness, and good-will, in all the civil and social relations of life, constitute at once, in my opinion, the duties and the rights of all. But, I am not aware that a Protestant State, such as Sweden, is bound, by way of granting religious liberty, to place Atheism on the same footing as Lutheranism. Neither am I of opinion that the Sovereign Pontiff, whose subjects are entirely Catholic and united in belief is bound to throw his States open for the preaching of every form of Protest- antism and infidelity. As spiritual head of the Catholic Church on, VOL. II. 30 466 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. earth, he is bound to preserve the revelation which lias Christ for its author. To encourage opposition to that religion would be to take sides with the father of lies, and I am sure, sir, that you would hardly expect the Pope to go so far. Besides, as a temporal prince, he knows the horrors of civil war which have desolated other coun- tries, springing out of the ambitions of religious sects, each struggling for political ascendency in the State. But, besides all this, he knows that it is a fundamental article .of the Pro- testant religion to believe that he is Antichrist. Liberty of con- science, therefore, in your sense, would require that the Pope should become directly a party to the introduction of every species of er- ror and impiety, and the overthrow of his own authority both as temporal prince and sovereign pontiff. III. But you say that inasmuch as religious freedom, in your sense, is allowed to Catholics in Protestant countries, the Pope ought to reciprocate by throwing the Pontifical States open to all sects? of believers and unbelievers. I will first observe that there are Pro- testant States, in which the Catholic religion is not tolerated at all ; that in most of the others it is barely tolerated, whilst its professors, so far as depends on the Government, are depressed and degraded ; that in no country pretending to be Protestant, except the United States, are they placed on an equal footing with their Protestant fellow- countrymen ; whilst in several Catholic countries, such as France, Belgium, and Bavaria, Protestants are placed, practically as well as theoretically, on a perfect political equality with Catholics. I may fur- ther add, that the toleration of Catholics in Protestant States has not been a gratuitous concession of Protestant liberality. When Pro- testantism began in those countries, the Catholics were in possession. Strifes and civil wars followed, and at their close, neither party had succeeded in devouring or destroying the other. What could be more natural or more necessary than to tolerate by compromise those whom it had been found impossible to root out ? I deny, therefore, that you can present a single Protestant State which could be a model for the Pope's imitation in the premises. In all Protest- ant States, Catholics are tolerated by necessity; and even under the law of necessity the toleration is grudgingly and spitefully extended. Witness the recent enactment in England, which hypocritically pro- fesses to maintain a religious as well as civil liberty. In this coun- try, I deny that Catholics are tolerated. They enjoy their rights with their fellow-citizens, under the Constitution, the trainers of which disavowed all authority to tolerate or prohibit any form of the Christian religion. IV. For these reasons, your argument fails in the comparison be- tween the broken-up condition of Protestant States with Catholic subjects, and the united condition of the people in the Pontifical States in which there are no Protestants, except strangers, who visit Koine for their pleasure, and who have there every facility of exer- cising their religious rights, save the privilege of preaching insurrec- tion. I would deem it, therefore, a great impropriety, and a great LTCTTKRS. impertinence, to meddle with the Government of the Pontifical States, just as I would resent with becoming indignation the inter- meddling of any subject of the Pontifical States with the freedom and sovereignty of our own Government. In these statements you have my opinion in regard to civil and religious liberty both at home and elsewhere. V. You have taken what I consider the unwarrantable liberty of throwing personal suspicion on my sincerity and loyalty as a Republican, and a citizen of these United States. I will not stoop to argue that question with you. It is a question not be settled. A voluntary exile in early life from the land of my nativity, the first honor that was conferred upon me was the right of freedom and citizenship in the United States. No word or action of my life has ever dimmed, or shall ever tarnish that honor. No dignity in the Church has ever diminished in value in my estimation ; and no fur- ther honor, even if offered, could be accepted by me on conditions that would vitiate my obligations to my country, or diminish my right as one of her citizens. It is true I have not preached Red Re- publicanism in Europe, for, so far as it has hitherto made itself known, I despise it everywhere. But in circles in which Americans have rarely on opportunity of making their sentiments known, I have uniformly vindicated the Government and institutions of the United States ; and I will say, briefly, that of the twenty-four millions which compose their popula- tion, there is not a more sincere or more loyal citizen than the humble individual whose integrity you have seen fit to call in ques- tion. It does not follow, however, that I hold our Government and institutions to be the best for all nations at all times ; and if on this subject I hold a different opinion from you, I hope you will tolerate my weakness, and not proclaim the event as marking a sad day for our country. VI. You have taken me to task also in regard to the distinguished Hungarian leader who is soon to visit our shores. It seems that in estimating his character I have again the misfortune not to agree with you in opinion. Whether the error is on your side or on mine I am willing to leave to the decision of public opinion in both hemispheres, as that decision shall stand five years hence. I have watched with moderate interest the movements that have been going on in the name of liberty throughout Europe within the last lour or five years. Their results have disappointed both the friends and the enemies of freedom throughout the world. The convulsions which have taken place, contrary to almost all similar convulsions in past times, have not thrown up to the surface a single great man. There was a time when I thought that distinction was possibly re- served for Kossuth. His speeches were eloquent and beautiful ; his prayers to the God of Hungary seemed redolent of piety and patriot- ism. Indeed I am not sure that he did not compose revolutionary litanies, invoking the aid of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints. And this seemed to .mark so great a difference between him 4:68 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. and most of the other revolutionary leaders, that, at one time, I imagined history would write his name as that of a great man. Like the others, he was unsuccessful and unfortunate. And so long as he was a captive in the Turkish dominions, I was willing to forget his faults in consideration of his captivity. But when, on his release from prison, I found him offering the incense of adulation to the god of British pride, and chanting paeans of flattery to the very power that had crushed principles such as he professed to have contended for in the persons of Smith O'Brien and the other Irish patriots when I found him unnecessarily flinging insult at the religion of most of the people of Hungary, simply because such insult would be grateful in the ears of his English auditors, I could not help forming the opinion that the stuff was not in him, and that history would write him down, not among the heroes, but rather among the humbugs, of which this nineteenth century has been so prolific. My mind is so constituted that I could not come to any other conclusion, and therefore I throw myself on your indulgence, seeing that in this also I have the misfortune to differ with you in opinion. VII. You have also assumed the right to hold me responsible for certain newspaper articles published in Catholic journals, not only in Xew York, but also in France and England. In reply to this, I have the privilege of giving you the statement of a fact instead of an opinion ; and that fact is, that I do not acknowledge myself re- sponsible, directly or indirectly, for any article in any newspaper of which I am not myself the author. The New York Freeman's Journal was formerly under my direction. Between three and four years ago, it was transferred by me to its present editor and pro- prietor ; and I should consider him unqualified for his oflice if he as- sumed to discharge its oflice as the slave of any man's thoughts. He is a freeman, and independent master of a free press. His journal has sometimes been called " Archbishop Hughes's organ ;" and although you are better informed on that subject than some other editors pretend to be, and proclaim that I have no official connection with it, still, somewhat inconsistently, you hold me ac- countable for its opinions. These I am at liberty to approve or dis- approve, no less than yourself. The paper makes its way on its own merits, of which its readers are the best judges. I am one of them ; and although I may see in the Freeman's Journal, as I do in other papers, many things which I would not write, or would not write exactly in the same way, still, I hold it that, take it for all in all, the Neio York Freeman's Journal is a very good Catholic paper. But it is my organ only inasmuch as I am in the habit of publishing in its columns any official communication which I have to make to the Catholic clergy and people of this diocese. In all else, the talented editor writes and publishes on his own responsibility, without dictation from any source, whatever he thinks proper. VIII. It is again my misfortune to differ with you in opinion re- garding common-school education. It is not necessary for me, I hope, to say that I am an advocate for general, nay, universal educa- LETTERS. 469 tion. My efforts to establish colleges, seats of learning, and even day-schools, for the education of youth in this diocese, will be a sufficient proof that I am no advocate of ignorance. Our disagree- ment, therefore, is not in regard to education itself, but in regard to the circumstances under which it is imparted. The divided condition of the community on the subject of religion has led to a system which affects to divorce the religious doctrine of each denomination from the rudiments of primary science in schools. If we were a people of unbelievers in Christianity, this system would be in perfect harmony with our condition. And yet, happily, it is urfderstood that the welfare of society and the State must rest, ultimately, on a religious basis of some kind. We are still a Christian country, com- posed, indeed, of many sects in religion, and if you exclude from education the peculiar doctrines of each sect, one after another, you necessarily exclude Christianity itself; for all the Christianity of the laud is made up of the several " sectarian" doctrines which are severally excluded. Hence if we had one other sect among us, having for its peculiar doctrine a belief in the expediency of exclud- ing from the minds of youth all knowledge of and faith in Chris- tianity, our present common schools might be denominated " a legal establishment for the purpose of causing Christianity to die out, and of promoting the interests and purposes of one anti-Christian sect." Now, sir, your opinion may be that such a result is desirable. Mine is directly the reverse. I believe it would be more beneficial to the country and to society that the religious influences of the least desirable sect of professing Christians in the land should be felt in the common school, than that all Christianity, under the pre- tence of excluding all sectarianism, should be eliminated. Whether any other system could be adopted in the actual state of the case, it is not for me to decide ; but I am very strong in the opinion that the present system is not calculated to meet the requirements which Catholic parents, at least, are bound to fulfil towards their Catholic offspring. It may suit other denominations to have their children brought up without any admixture of religious teaching in their education, but it does not suit, us. I was not ignorant that common schools existed in New England before they did in Prussia ; but you will remember that the people of New England contended strenu- ously for the unity and exclusiveness of religion, whereas the Prus- sian system was framed, in contempt of distinctive dogmas, for the purpose of amalgamating, in the new generation, religions hitherto separate. IX. I have thus, sir, given you my opinions on nearly all the topics in regard to which you have called for them. I fear they will be as little agreeable to you as the silence of which you seem to complain. I can only say of them, however, that they are entirely sincere, and I am sure if they were not you would not think them worth having. But my position will be rather singular, if, after having called them forth, you should be among the first to censure me for their utter- ance. In conclusion, whatever may be our differences of opinion on 470 ABCHB1SHOP HUGHES. these or other topics, I trust that we are both actuated by a desire of promoting the good of our country, the interests of society, and the happiness of mankind. I remain, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, * JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New York. NEW YOKK, Nov. 21, 1851. THE CUBAN PIRATES. To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer : MESSRS. EDITORS Mr. P. de Goicouria was introduced to me some weeks ago by a note from a highly esteemed friend. The ob- ject of his call was to ask that on the first of this month, the anniver- sary of their death, Masses of requiem might be offered up in the Cathedral for the souls of his countrymen and others, who were shot in battle or executed in the island of Cuba last year; but who died in the profession of the Catholic faith, exhibiting those evidences of compunction for their sins, and those signs of Christian hope, which entitled them to be regarded as members of the Catholic Church in their last hours. To this I assented ; but with the distinct condition that the Mass or Masses of requiem should not be turned into an occasion for promoting the political cause in which those unhappy men perished. Mr. de Goicouria seemed to feel and acknowledge the justice and propriety of this proviso. He merely requested that their surviving relatives, who are in this city or in Philadelphia, might have an opportunity to assist at the Mass of 10 o'clock, which was to be what Catholics call Loic Mass that is, not chanted nor accom- panied by music. These friends and relatives he estimated at from ninety to a hundred. To this I assented. I would put no barrier to the exercise of Catholic charity, or the solace of human grief. So it was understood between us, that the friends and relatives of the fallen, to the number mentioned, should be present at the 10 o'clock Mass on the 1st inst. Having come to this understanding, the interview terminated. With Mr. de Goicouria, so far as I then had an opportunity of know- ing him, I was much pleased. He also professed to be satisfied, and took leave with all those polite professions of satisfaction which can be so gracefully expressed by a Spanish gentleman. - Soon after this interview I had to leave the city ; but I took care to direct that in case I should not be here in time, the sacred offices, as agreed upon between Mr. de Goicouria and myself, should be celebrated. I returned in the last days of August. But before I alighted from the carriage, I was told of the dangerous illness of a near and dear relative, some miles from the city. I had barely time to open the letters which had accumulated on my table in. my ab- LETTERS. 471 sence. Among them was one from Mr. de Goicouria. I supposed that it was to remind me that the 1st of September would be in a few days ; and without reading it, I laid it aside till I should have a moment to read and answer it at the same time. In the mean while Mr. de Goicouria, accompanied by a friend of his who was not in- troduced, called. From the former, I ascertained that the object of the letter was to request that the low Mass which had been agreed on should now be a High Mass of requiem, that a cenotaph might be erected in the Cathedral, and a sermon preached on the day ap- pointed, suitable to the occasion. I acceded to the request of Mr. de Goicouria, so far as the High Mass was in question. The ceno- taph and sermon I declined acceding to. Again Mr. de Goicouria took leave with no expression of dissat- isfaction ; but with many polite professions, as if he had nothing to complain of. This was on the last Sunday of August. Nothing had yet led me to suspect that Mr. de Goicouria was not or had not been acting in the simplicity of good faith like myself. But when after his departure I took up his letter and read it, I was shaken in ray opinion. There I saw him not as the man who cared so much for the souls of the departed, as for the chances of a politi- cal game which the adventurers had not yet played to the end. I could not be a party to this new, and hitherto unannounced, ar- rangement. The Catholic Church is not a party in the politics of any nation, at home or abroad. Her mission is to all nations, and to all parties in each, except as either may be divided from the other by the eternal principles of right 'and wrong. She can never give up her mission and her message to all for the sake of only some. Mr. de Goicouria must have known that every State is bound to respect thejiis gentium as a condition of being admitted into a fam- ily of nations. Every State is further bound by the faith of treaties. He must know that the citizen, each citizen, of a State is bound, according to his place and calling, to maintain, to co-operate with his fellow-citizens in maintaining the public faith, whether of the right of nations, or of the lawful positive treaties of the sovereignty under which he lives, enjoys his rights, and is protected. He must know that all these rights are legally forfeited the moment any cit- izen, by an overt act, violates the conditions on which they are predicated. When I read his letter, which must have been written with delib- eration (since he has not hesitated to publish it), suspicions were awakened in ray mind, not unaccompanied, I confess, with indigna- tion and surprise. In this letter I found that Mr. de Goicouria, be- sides the office for the dead, wished that a cenotaph might be erected, " inscribed either with the names of our lost friends or the places where they yielded up their lives, to be placed appropriately in the Cathedral during the ceremonies" But more than this ; in his let- ter Mr. de Goicouria requested that not only there should be a sermon, but he actually took the superfluous pain? to point out to 472 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. me the text, chapter and verse, from which the preacher on the oc- casion might derive his eloquence or inspiration ! Still I knew I had not agreed to any thing which the laws of the Catholic Church did not authorize, and I could easily overlook the personal indignity offered by Mr. de Goicouria in what seemed to me an attempt, under plea of prayers for the dead, to procure an ecclesiastical or quasi ecclesiastical sanction of certain political schemes of the living, to which he knew I could not be a party ex- cept as a dupe. His letter satisfied me that this was the role assigned me. Still I determined to change nothing in the religious office it should take place, High Mass and all, as agreed on between us. But these convictions were plainly and painfully confirmed on Tuesday of last week, when I found the city papers filled with invi- tations not only to all Cubans, and to the friends of the cause in which so many perished one year ago, but also to the " public at large," instead of the ninety or a hundred relatives of the deceased, for whose right to be present Mr. de Goicouria had stipulated. The highest and holiest ministerial office known to the Catholic Church was blazoned forth in those papers, as a " HIGH MASS IN HONOR OF GENERAL LOPEZ ;" or a " HIGH MASS FOR THE MARTYRS," etc., and all this predicated on the consent and approval of the Catholic Archbishop of New York ! And all this after Mr. de Goicouria had assured me, in words that would always be regarded between gen- tlemen as a sufficient guarantee, that nothing of the kind was meant or should be allowed. Then I saw, beyond the possibility of doubt, that my confidence had been abused. I forbade any music or High Mass in the Cathe- dral ; but in all other respects I directed that the Masses should be celebrated for the repose of the souls of the unfortunate Catholics who met death in Cuba one year ago, in the manner and at the hours which had been agreed upon. The High Mass and music were prohibited ; and this is what a man like Mr. de Goicouria has the power of face to call "breaking my promise" It may be said that Mr. de Goicouria should not be held account- able for matters which possibly were arranged and carried out, whether as regards the newspapers or otherwise, without his knowl- edge or consent ; and that therefore he should not be blamed for what he had no power or opportunity to prevent. This plea will not suffice. 1st. I have waited one whole week to give him an op- portunity to disavow any thing for which he might not have been prepared to assume the responsibility. 2d. He alone assumed or was authorized to treat with me for the religious offide so frequently referred to in this communication. With no other person have I had any intercourse on the subject. I have no complaint against his countrymen in regard to it, either in their individual or in their aggregate capacity. He was authorized, or took it upon himself, to speak and act, not for his countrymen generally, but for the imme- diate relatives of the deceased. By all the laws of justice, therefore, of reason, and of decent inter- LETTERS. 473 course between man and man, he, and (so far as I am concerned) he alone, is responsible for whatever was culpably clone or culpably omitted in the transaction between him and me. Indeed, on that score he seems to regard his achievement as a glory. For in one of the city papers, side by side with his letter to me, is the following statement : " As soon as the Herald and other papers announced the grand Mass, the Archbishop and two Bishops, with a great number of Catholic clergy, met at the Archbishop's house, and concluded that it would create a sensation in the Catholic world, and particularly in the dominion of her Catholic Majesty ; and they decided to have only one single Mass, without any function becoming to that object whatsoever." Poor gentleman ! Sis highest capacity for explaining or even estimating the notions which should actuate a Catholic prelate in such circumstances, reaches only the standard which is intrinsically low and base. But there is not, in the above extract, a sentence, nor a word, nor a letter, nor a mark of punctuation which is not a false- hood ; falsehood in detail, falsehood in aggregate. Mr. de Goicouria m;j^ or may not have written it. It is a falsehood in either case ; and as such I hold him accountable for it ; because he has had seven days to contradict it if it was not his, and he has during seven days indorsed it by his silence. Should Mr. de Goicouria be disposed to promote political objects under pretence of charity to the souls of the faithful departed, I hope he will henceforth make his experiments in some other quarter. I am, gentlemen, Your obedient servant, !< JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK Sept. 8, 1852. CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CHARITIES. To the Editor of the Evangelist : An interesting controversy might be expected when different re- ligious denominations are contending for the distinction of pre- eminence in works of charity. Such a controversy has been going on for some weeks, brought about by an article in your paper, giving a simple enumeration and statement of the various charitable institutions established and sustained by the Roman Catholics of this city. This was not in the nature of a boast, but merely as re- butting a charge brought against the Catholics by a number of highly respectable gentlemen, who accused them of being negligent on the important point of charity, even towards their own people, and of non-concurrence with the schemes of benevolence that have been, from time to time, inaugurated by their fellow-citizens of other denominations. 4:74: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. The synopsis published in your paper, some time ago, in regard to what the Catholics have done and are doing for works of charity, was not an exaggeration. It seems, however, to have given offence to the editor of the New York Observer, who has taken you also to task for having published the article in your columns. The editor of the Observer, whilst advocating charity,, should not disregard truth, even though that truth inure to the advantage of opponents. It is not my intention to follow him through all the disguises under which he would enfold and cloak up the topic in question. According to the Observer, every public institution of benevolence or humanity is to be set down as a monument of Protestant charity. This is not fair. From the moment that any public institution is supported at the common expense by taxation, such, for instance, as our public schools, it is a monument of Catholic as well as Pro- testant charity, if it can be called charity at all. The same remark is applicable to poorhouses and other institutions, the neces- sary support for which is required at the hands of all citizens, without distinction of creed. How the Observer can regard these as works of Protestant charity more than of Catholic charity, or of Je\jjish charity, I am at a loss to conceive. But it would be in vain to^x- pect evidences of sound reasoning where truth is eliminated from its basis. If the editor of the Observer would secure to Catholics the taxes which they have to pay for these public institutions, depend upon it they would support their own poor in a much better manner than they are now supported. There are, however, certain statements made by the editor of the Observer, in his paper of the 16th inst., which I know to be incor- rect and utterly false, although he may have believed them to have been founded in truth. For instance, he quotes, on the authority of a gentleman who must, indeed, have been a gentleman, since he had an Irish servant, and a Catholic withal, in his household. Her name was Margaret. She was a Catholic. Her sister was sick. The gentleman humanely urged her to bring her sick sister to his house, and allowed her to occupy the spare room, with everything com- fortable around her. Now all this is highly worthy of a humane gentleman, whether Catholic or Protestant. But in the convalescence of Margaret's sick sister, a mysterious carriage drove up to his door on one Monday, and he tells us, or rather the editor of the Observer tells the public, that the sick sister of Margaret was hustled off in a hurry to the Sisters of Charity, where she remained exactly four weeks. She had exactly $12, and at the rate of $3 per week, her whole savings were exhausted at the end of thirty days. Then these cruel sisters of Charity, ac- cording to the gentleman, and the editor of the Observer, turned her, sick and penniless, out of doors. Such is the story of the Observer. I assure you, sir, that, so far as the Sisters of Charity are concerned, the accusation is as false as falsehood can ever be. I trust the editor of the Observer will have LETTERS. 4:75 honor enough either to prove Ins charge against the Sisters of Charity, or retract his injurious accusation. Again, the editor of the Observer asserts that the sick sister of his servant Margaret, when she had been turned out by the Sisters of Charity, was obliged to go to Bellevue Hospital, where she died ; that she was buried in the Bishop's burial-place at the expense of her sister, by paying $10 for the ground. I am not aware of more than two false statements in this paragraph. The first is the state- ment that the Bishop has, or has ever had, any burial-place ; the second that the sum of $10 was charged for a grave in Calvary Cemetery. On the contrary, all poor Catholics are interred in that cemetery at the expense of their co-religionists ; and the Catholics, at their own expense also, have in constant employment a hearse to convey the remains of the dead from Bellevue Hospital or else- where, for the purpose of securing to them a resting-place far more sacred and soothing to their feelings in life than the prospect of slumbering in Potter's Field. Another mistake of the editor of the New York Observer is his statement that a poor woman had paid fifty cents to the priest for three masses for the repose of her husband's soul, when she was de- pendent on charity for bread. Sir, this poor woman may have hoaxed the editor or the gentleman who had Margaret for his ser- vant, by the recital of a story like this. But there is no truth in it, and this is rather a defect on the part of an editor who is contending on behalf of charity. Another case still in which the editor of the Observer has allowed himself to be overcome by his anti-Catholic credulity. A woman, he tells us, was charged with paying five cents a month to the Pur- gatorian Society, which she admitted. This took place in the presence of others beside himself or the gentleman on whose au- thority he relied. There would be no crime in this if it were true. But the editor tells us that the Purgatorian is a secret society, which is not the fact, for if it were how could he know so much about it? Another instance still, I may mention, in which the editor of the Observer, in his zeal for charity, has overlooked or disregarded truth. A poor Irishwoman, he tells us, a Romanist, applied to a gentleman for charity. He, not liking her appearance or knowing anything about her, refused aid unless she brought a certificate of good character, and as her priest lived in the neighborhood, he re- ferred her to him for this purpose. The woman called on the priest, but he would not give her a character except she paid twenty-five cents for it, which he said was his price. She replied, " Do ye think I'll be after giving you twenty-five cents, when I have not a penny to buy bread ?" Of course, continues the editor of the Ob- server, she got no certificate. The editor of the Observer must be eaten up with anti-Catholic credulity when he believed, if he really did believe, such a story as this. Allow me to enumerate briefly what I have to say in regard to these questions of fact : 476 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. 1st, He said that the Sisters of Mercy require the payment of board from the virtuous but destitute young women who take refuge under their roof. This is not true. 2d, That the Sisters of Charity turned the sister of Margaret, the gentleman's servant, sick and penniless, out of doors This is not true. 3d, That a poor woman, dependent on charity for bread, paid a priest fifty cents for three masses for the repose of her husband's soul. This is not true. 4th, That a priest required twenty-five cents, that being his price for a certificate required by a poor Irishwoman, a Romanist. This is not true. I trust the editor of the Observer is a gentleman who would not knowingly publish false statements injurious to his neighbors, even for the purpose, strange as it will sound, of promoting charity. I call upon him, therefore, to prove the charges just enumerated, or, if he cannot prove them, to withdraw them as becomes an honor- abj man, whether he be Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile. A war like that which he wages against the defenceless Sisters of Mercy and of Charity, is revolting to the ordinary feelings of a humane and enlightened community. But since he has made these charges, I have taken the liberty to contradict them, and to pronounce them untrue, leaving it to the editor of the Observer to sustain them by positive proof. If he has no proof, let it be hoped that, like a good Christian gentleman, he will revoke them. If he shall do either of these, I shall hold him not unworthy of a controversy on the general subject of charity, whether of a Protestant or a Catholic character. If he cannot prove and will not retract, then. I consider him un- worthy of further notice. * JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YOKE, April 20, 1867. THE MADIAI AFFAIR. CONTROVERSY WITH GENERAL CASS. To the Editor of the New York Freeman's Journal: THE heading of this communication suggests the matter which it proposes to discuss. No preface or introduction is necessary. The case of the Madiai, as reported in newspapers, had already attracted the attention and active sympathy of distinguished gentlemen, espe- cially in England, previous to its having been taken up in this country. It had been the occasion of meetings in Exeter Hall in LETTERS. 477 London. It had been especially adopted by Sir Culling Eardley and Lord Roden, wlio are by no means distinguished as promoters of religious liberty in their own country. Under such sanction in England, it would be strange if the movement did not produce some corresponding action in this country ; for latterly it seems as if the philanthropists of this land deem it their highest honor to be imita- tors of the corresponding class in England. There is nothing done by the aristocracy of England in the name of benevolence and phil- antropy which does not immediately provoke the desire of imitation among the aristocracy here. And the only example we have failed to imitate is the establishment of Ragged Schools, which have become so popular in London and its vicinity. This we have not yet ventured on, although, heaven knows, so far as the title is concerned, the materials are not wanting. England, as an accompaniment of the emigration of at least her Catholic subjects, has not allowed them to leave her shores unprovided with all the requisites fitting them for admission into Ragged Schools. With tliis exception, whatever becomes popular among a certain class of English nobility and gentry is sm'e to be imitated on this side of the ocean. In this way we can account for the convocation of a Madiai sympathy meeting in Metropolitan Hall. The call of the meeting was signed by some of our most respectable citizens. It was attended by a very large assembly of persons who would attend the meetings of Exeter Hall against Catholics with as much sympathy and pleasure. The proceedings of the meeting were in strict accordance with its purpose, which was to shut off all free discussion, and to excite an unkind, uncharitable, and bitter Protest- ant feeling against the Catholics of the United States and of the world. I should perhaps observe in this place, to the credit of the Protestant clergy of this city, that if they attended the meeting at all, it was only in the capacity of silent spectators, whilst the resolu- tions were brought forward and speeches delivered by reverend brethren imported apparently for the occasion from the suburban and neighboring villages around Xew York. I need not refer to the course which was given to the whole dis- cussion on that occasion. I may remark, however, that it comprised scurrilous denunciations-of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Jesuits, of the Pope, of Catholic governments in Europe, of the Catholic citizens of the United States, and of the Catholic religion and its members at all times and places. This was the purpose to which the Madiai meeting directed its powers of eloquence and denuncia- tion. Whether the gentlemen who signed the call for that meeting, Hon. Luther Bradish, Collector Hugh Maxwell, Hiram Ketchum, Esq., and other gentlemen of equal respectability, intended to furnish an occasion for denouncing their Catholic fellow-citizens in this country, is more than I can take upon me to decide. From my previous knowledge of some of these gentlemen, and my respect for all, I should be unwilling to believe that they would loan their honored names for a purpose so unworthy of their social position, 478 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and so much at variance with the civil institutions of their country. I cannot, however, acquit them of responsibility ; in this, that having accepted, or assumed the trust of calling a public meeting, they delegated that trust to other trustees, in whom the public could not have the same confidence. Other meetings like that at Metro- politan Hall have already been held in other parts of the country, and the probability is that Messrs. B radish, Maxwell, and Ketchum, whether it was their intention or not, will have inaugurated a Pro- testant crusade against their Catholic fellow-citizens, hardly less violent, or less dishonorable than that which resulted from the " Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk." The wisdom and expediency of giving any encouragement to religious excitements, in connection with civil and social rights, appear to me extremely doubtful. The Catholics of this country have had nothing to do with the trial and imprisonment of the Madiai in Florence. What good effect, therefore, will be produced by an attempt, through the medium of public meetings, to denounce them for an act which they had no power either to accomplish or prevent ? Is it wise to encourage strifes among the various denomi- nations of which the United States are composed ? Would it not be wiser to recognize the rights of each denomination and of each individual fully and frankly, as they are recognized by the Constitu- tion of the country ? Some have the same right to be Catholics as others have to be Protestants. All have the right to profess what religion they please. And since this is the condition of all the people of the United States, is it wise or just to denounce any portion of them for the offences, real or imaginary, committed by their brethren of the same creed in foreign countries ? The time may come, and perhaps sooner than is expected by our wisest public men, when the United States will have need of the support of all her citizens. Who can tell whether the future of this country may not reveal dangers either from foreign enemies, or from internal divisions, which will test the loyalty and fidelity of every citizen of whatever religion ? In such an emergency the Catholics, in spite of the denunciations to which they had been lately exposed, will be found among the fastest friends of the Union and the bravest defenders of the soil. They have ever been such and during the last few years when even statesmen not of their religion were ready to follow the lead of a foreign demagogue, the Catholics have exhibited evidences of self- control, of calm and wise loyalty to the United States, of a well- poi.sed self-possession, which have entitled them to the respect of their countrymen. If it be true then that from the earliest coloniza- tion of these States, and through all the struggles which they had to undergo in peace or in war, the Catholics have ever sustained an untarnished reputation, have never furnished a coward on battle- field, or a traitor in council ; if they have discharged honorably their civil duties in times of peace, and their obligations of patriotism in times of war, why should they now, under the auspices of the gentlemen who called the meeting at Metropolitan Hall, be given LETTERS. 479 over to the coarse and vulgar denunciations of the reverend orators who figured on that occasion ? The charge alleged in the preamble of the resolutions adopted at that meeting, and on which the resolutions themselves are founded, is, that for no other crime except that of " possessing and reading their Bible," the Madiai, husband and wife, were tried, convicted, and incarcerated by the government of Tuscany. If this charge be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I am quite free and quite willing to denounce the proceedings of the govern- ment of Tuscany as oppressive, unjust, and cruel. Such an act would be a disgrace to any government, Catholic or Protestant. But I must beg leave to say that I do not believe the truth of the charge. I regard it as a falsehood,, and I have no doubt that it will turn out to be so. If this should prove to be the case, the proceed- ings at Metropolitan Hall will reflect but little credit on those who sanctioned and took part in them. Observe, I do not doubt the truth of the statement that the Madiai "possessed and read their Bible," but I do doubt and deny that for this, and for this alone, they were tried and condemned to prison. I must observe, at the same time, that I have no knowledge of the circumstances of the case, except what has come under the notice of every one who has read the newspapers of the day concerning it. I have come to this conclusion on grounds of probability, which to my mind are not less strong in their aggregate than positive and direct testi- mony. First. There is no law in Tuscany against " possessing and reading the Bible." Second. Even if there was such a law, it is impossible that the Madiai should have been convicted under it, inasmuch as, in their very prison they are allowed to " possess and read their Bible." It is not probable that any country would punish an offender for a crime, and yet allow him to continue, during the penalty, in commission of the same. For instance, in our own courts men con- victed of forgery are not allowed to carry on the trade in the State's Prison. I think that these reflections will satisfy any candid mind, that the Madiai are not condemned solely for the crime of" possess- ing and reading their Bible." And if they are not condemned solely for this, it follows that the proceedings at Metropolitan Hall are founded on obvious falsehood. The circumstances, however, were not thought worthy of consideration, and the truth would have been rather a detriment than an advantage to the purpose of the meeting. The impression intended to be made by the speakers on that occasion was, that the government of Tuscany, the Jesuits, the Pope, and the members of the Catholic Church throughout the world have a mortal dread of the Bible. This would be strange indeed. To them the book, the New Testament at least, was originally given in manu- script by its inspired authors. They have been its witnesses and its guardians from the beginning. It has been recognized and used by them as, in so far as it goes, a duplicate on parchment of the doctrines which our Saviour had inscribed, with a pencil of divine fire, 480 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. in characters of living faith on the heart of the Church. The art of printing facilitated its diffusion, and the Church availed herself with eagerness of that art for the purpose- of multiplying copies of the Holy Scriptures. Numerous editions of the Bible were pub- lished in the principal languages of Europe, under the patronage of popes, cardinals, and bishops, long before Protestantism came into being. The Italians were well acquainted with the Bible in their own beautiful language before Martin Luther was born. The first Italian edition was published in Venice in the year 1471, and forty successive editions were published in the different cities of Italy anterior to the date of the Protestant translation, which was published, not in Italy, but in Geneva, in the year 1562. In the very year of our American independence the Archbishop of Florence brought out another translation, for which he received the special thanks of Pope Pius VI. In our own country the Catholics have published not less than twenty or twenty-five editions of the Holy Scriptures of every size, from the folio down to the octavo, many of which are stereotyped. Is it not surprising, then, that our Protestant neighbors will persist in supposing that we are afraid of our own original and hereditary documents that have never been cut off of our possession ? Connected with the case of the Madiai, a new national policy has been broached in the Senate of the United States, by no less dis- tinguished a Senator than General Cass. This policy, with which the gentlemen at Metropolitan Hall appeared to be very familiar, purports to be a vindication of the rights of conscience, to be secured to all American citizens in whatever countries they may choose to travel or sojourn. The ground on which this policy is advanced is, that in this country strangers of every nation are allowed to exercise their religion as their conscience may dictate, and therefore in all other countries Americans have the right to claim and exercise a similar privilege. It is hardly necessary for me to observe that freedom of conscience which is here contended for is inviolable in its very nature and essence. To say that any man or any nation has either physical or moral power to destroy freedom of conscience, is to give utterance to a patent absurdity. Conscience without free- dom is not conscience, but for this very reason the freedom of con- science is beyond the reach of man's power. God has provided in the human soul a fortress to which it can retreat, and from which it can hurl defiance against all invaders. I presume, therefore, that there is a confusion of ideas in the minds of those who with General Cass plead eloquently for that which requires no pleading, namely, freedom of conscience. That is universal, that is indestructible, that is inviolable. They must be understood to mean liberty of ex- ternal action according to conscience, which is quite a different thing. This external liberty of action according to conscience in all countries is regulated, to a certain extent, by the enactment of positive laws. In some countries the range is wider, in others more restricted ; but it is limited in all, not even excepting the United States. The liberty LETTERS. 481 of conscience which is recognized and applauded in Connecticut will not be tolerated (on certain subjects) in South Carolina or in Ala- bama. The Mormons have been obliged to seek retirement in Deseret, in order to enjoy what they call liberty of conscience, and the liberty they there enjoy would not be allowed, them under the toleration of the laws of Xew York. Is it expected, then, in the project of General Cass, that they too shall have the privilege of exercising liberty of conscience in their peregrinations among foreign States? Again, the assumption of General Cass is a fallacy. He assumes that the freedom of religion in this country is a boon conceded by Protestant liberality to all the inhabitants of the land. This is not so. It is a privilege which was won by the good swords of Catholics and Protestants in the battles for national independence. It is a common right, therefore, and is not to be regarded as a concession from one denomination to the other. This arrangement, in regard to liberty of conscience, suited the policy of the country, and was absolutely indispensable after the Revolutionary war. Does General Cass mean to say, l!hat because it suited us all other nations must adopt it, whether it suits them or not ? As well might England say, that because it suited her finances to admit free trade, she will insist upon it that all other nations shall do the same. General Cass knows as well as any man living, that until this country becomes vastly stronger, and foreign States much weaker than they are, all pleadings on this subject will be treated as driveling by foreign States. Oh, if you have a mind to arrange the constitutions and laws of European States by the power of armies and navies, that, in- deed, is another matter. But the United States will expose them- selves to ridicule if tjiey drag such a question into their diplomatic intercourse with foreign governments. It is a recognized principle in this country, that every sovereign and independent nation has the right to adopt its own constitution and laws. The constitution and laws of a country are but the ag- gregate of general principles applicable to the peculiar situation, protection and welfare of the citizens or subjects of which it is com- posed. They may be regarded as the public and permanent expres- sion of the aggregate conscience of that State. Thus, without going out of our own country, Massachusetts has one form of public con- science, Louisiana has another. Does Mr. Cass mean to say that an> abolitionist from Boston, under plea of liberty of conscience, still has the right to talk in New Orleans, and preach, and harangue, and write, and publish on the subject of slavery as he might choose to do in Faneuil Hall? If not, I would say with all respect, that the policy in regard to this subject which General Cass advocates in the Senate, is calculated to have no practical effect either at home or abroad, except to stir up sectarian animosities against his Catholic fellow citizens ; and this is hardly worthy of his patriotic services, advanced age or accumulated honors. Indeed, 1 am quite persuaded that the country has lowered itself VOL. II. 31 482 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. in dignity if it be true, as the newspapers have stated, that the Pres- ident, through Secretary Everett, has become a petitioner side by side with Lord Roden, and taken his place .of expectation and hope in the antf-chamber of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The supreme government of this country ought not to stoop to an investigation, however sacred may be the occasion, of a political trial in the petty States of Italy. In doing so, it exposes itself to humiliation and re- buke without redress. The Grand Duke can easily ask Mr. Secre- tary Everett certain questions about the liberty of conscience in this country, which the latter would tind himself exceedingly puzzled to answer. If the Grand Duke or his Minister should ask Mr. Everett whether liberty of conscience is recognized in the United States as unlimited the same in one State as in another the Secretary will have to reply, " No." If the same interrogator should ask Mr. Ev- erett what became of the helpless female inmates of a certain Con- vent in Charlestown, near Boston, who were driven out without ac- cusation, or trial, or condemnation before any civil tribunal, ex- pelled from their peaceful home in the depths of night, their house and furniture committed to the flames can Mr. Everett tell what happened to them afterwards ? Again the Secretary would have to answer, " No." Did the State of Massachusetts make any compen- sation to those persons for the destruction of their property or the violation of their rights? Mr. Everett would have to answer, " Xo." Is the State of Massachusetts bound to protect the individual rights of its citizens ? Mr. Everett would have to answer " Yes," (in the- ory,) in practice (in this case, at least), " No." How then, it might further be asked, do you pretend that liberty of conscience is ex- tended to all the citizens of the United States? Is there any prac- tical diiference between the social intolerance which prevails in your country where there are so many religions, and the legal intolerance of our dominions where there is but one ? It seems to me that the Secretary of the United States, who has it not in his power to give different answers to questions such as these, rather exposes himself and his native State, if .not his country, by going all the way to Florence to plead for liberty of conscience, whilst such violations of its rights have been perpetrated, and left unrecompensed at his own door. Other violations of liberty of conscience in different parts of the country are by no means rare in our history. They occurred in Philadelphia, where churches and convents were burned to ashes by the intolerance of the mob. There is this, however, to be said in ex- tenuation that, at least, if the civil authorities of Pennsylvania did not protect its citizens from these outrages, it allowed compensation for the damage done to their property. I fear much that social in- tolerance is not to be ascribed so much to the principles of any re- ligion, as to the diseased moral nature which is the common inherit- ance of us all. The evidence of this can be discovered no less in the United States than elsewhere. There is among us a super- abundance of social and domestic intolerance, in despite of those laws of religious freedom of which we are so ready to boast, but LETTERS. 483 which, unfortunately, have no power to protect the object of that intolerance. Is it rare that poor servants are driven out from their employment because they will not, against their conscience, join the domestic religion " of State" which the family has made exclusive ? Is it unusual to hear of men disinheriting their own offspring for no cause except that of practising their acknowledged rights of con- science ? These are matters with which we are made too familiar, notwithstanding our boasted rights and liberty of conscience. I have offered these remarks not in any spirit of controversy, but in the spirit of peace and of truth. There are moments when every citizen, who feels that he can say something promotive of the welfare of his countrymen, and of advantage to his country, is authorized to give public utterance to his sentiments, how humble soever he may be. With such a feeling I offer the foregoing reflections to the con- sideration of my fellow-citizens for what they are worth no more. -f JOHN, Archbishop of New York. A CARD. WHEN the unexpected distinction was conferred on the under- signed of having his humble name and supposed principles intro- duced by General Cass into the deliberations of the Senate of the United States, and there discussed, and to some extent denounced, in a manner prejudicial to the sentiments and character of that humble individual, he begs leave to claim it as the privilege of a citizen to appeal from any denunciation however eloquent, or from any hasty judgment even of that distinguished assembly which ranks in his mind, and, as he thinks, ought to rank in the mind of the world, as the most honorable and dignified deliberative assembly on the earth to the common sense and common justice of its indi- vidual members and of his fellow-citizens, without the slightest in- tention on his part to bias their impartial judgment one way or the other. The undersigned begs leave to say that it is his intention to reply, through the medium of the public press, to the great speech, so called, of the distinguished senator from Michigan, the Hon. Mr. Cass. Mr. Cass enumerates several cases which appeal directly to the most sacred feelings of the human heart. He is, as might naturally be expected in these particulars, on the side of human feelings. But the whole tone of his speech is calculated to leave the impression in the minds of his hearers when he spoke, and of his readers when he published, that the humble individual who has so unworthily been the occasion of a waste of precious public time, is opposed to the humane views of General Cass. This would be an inference unwarranted by truth, and against which the undersigned begs leave to enter beforehand an humble but firm protest. 484: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. There is only one question connected with this great speech of the honorable senator from Michigan which has given the undersigned the slightest pain. This is, that in reading the senator's speech it has occurred to the mind of this writer that General Cass so de- servedly honored by his country, and so highly esteemed, as well for his patriotic virtues as for reasons of private courtesy extended to the undersigned when the general was our distinguished representa- tive at Paris may have imagined that certain expressions in the letter on which he animadverts may have been intended for personal ap- plication to himself. I would beg leave to say now, that in the sacred presence of that conscience f6r which he so eloquently pleaded, I must assure him that when the letter was written, or before or since, it would be, and has been, and I trust ever will be, impossible for the undersigned to speak or write one syllable disparaging to the high character, honor, public or private integrity of General Cass. At the same time, as a mark of the confidence of the undersigned in Senator Cass's impartial justice, and, indeed, in imitation of the general's own free course in the great speech to which reference has already been made, the undersigned begs leave to say that, as far as God, and nature, and history, and philosophy, and the rights of nations, and the experience of human life may have enabled him to judge, and furnished him with means for analyzing the speech of our distinguished senator, he shall claim the liberty of applying the tests rigidly, but most respectfully. The undersigned, in addition, begs leave to say that he hopes, not- withstanding his numerous official engagements and duties, to be able to publish his remarks on General Cass's speech within ten, or at most fifteen days from this date. The undersigned feels most deeply the disadvantages under which he must necessarily appear in venturing to review the dicta of so eminent a statesman as General Cass. General Cass is regarded, as I have no doubt deservedly, by almost a majority of the American people, as one of our most tried and most worthy statesmen. The undersigned, on the contrary, if he is known at all to any consider- able portion of his countrymen, is known as far as certain news- papers distribute knowledge only as a narrow-minded, illiberal, bigoted adversary of the progress of our age and the development of our institutions. Under these circumstances, no one can feel more deeply than the subscriber the disadvantageous position, the necessity of occupying which the long meditated and deliberately arranged speech of Gene- ral Cass has imposed upon him, if he would not be forgetful of a reasonable measure of respect for himself and for his Catholic fellow- countrymen. For nearly a year and a half General Cass has been shedding the illuminations of his experienced intellect and the con- centrated powers of his brooding mind on the letter which forms the staple of his great speech ; and the undersigned hopes that he may be allowed the reasonable period already referred to for an op- LETTERS. 485 portunity to veply, in answer to General Cass, to statements, insinua- tions, inuendoes, and inferences, which he fears may be found in the senator's speech, or deduced from it, calculated to lower the under- signed in the good opinion of his fellow-countrymen, whether sena- tors or private citizens. * JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New York. NEW YOKE, May 17, 1854. REPLY TO GENERAL CASS, IN SELF-VINDICATION. SOME persons imagine that a high honor has been conferred on rue by the importance assigned to my name in the great speech which General Cass has thought proper to pronounce in the Senate of the United States. The providence of God has directed that General Cass should serve not only his country but his race in one order of life, and that it should be mv humble privilege to serve both in another. I trust that my purity of motive is not inferior to his. But whilst he has steered his prosperous bark on yielding tides and with favoring winds, as one of the approved and cherished great men of his country, it has been my lot, though a citizen of the same country, to have been occupied in propelling the little skiff intrusted to my charge in a direction generally adverse to the current, whether of wind or tide. General Cass is a senator I am, before the law, only a private citizen. I am also an ecclesiastic of the holy Catholic Church, even an unworthy prelate. The duties and speculations of our distinct departments appertain to such divergent relations, al- though intended to promote ultimately the same great beneficial ends we have in view, that any controversy in regard to them must necessarily appear to the American people and to the civilized world as an extraordinary event, especially under the constitutional character of our own beloved country, which has so wisely for its circumstances eliminated religious questions from the deliberations of Congress. That my name, or any views of mine in an incidental letter, should have attracted such serious attention on the part of General Cass, or any other senator, is to me rather a humiliation than a pride. The circumstance brings me, as a citizen, into an apparent collision with a senator. I am not disposed to waive either my rights as a citizen, or sacrifice my principles as a patriot and a man, simply be- cause the tide of American public opinion may be turned against me. Neither am I prepared, on the other hand, to say one word in maintaining my position, which, considering my age and rank in the Church, might give apparent sanction to that growing irreverence which is becoming so prevalent in this age, whether as it relates to pre-eminence, civil, ecclesiastical, social, domestic, or senatorial. To my utter astonishment, General Cass thinks that his name was first brought into my letter without any cause or occasion having 486 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. been presented on his part. I shall perhaps best discharge my duty in reference to this by giving a brief statement of the circumstances which I thought warranted me in using the name of General Cass. The circumstances were these. A man and his wife, named Madiai, had been arrested in Florence. They had been tried according to the laws of their country, and condemned to the penalty which the said laws had provided against persons offending as they had done. The report of their crime, as it reached the newspapers of England and America, was that they had been imprisoned merely for owning and reading their Bible. It was natural and even honorable that all men, whether Catholics or Protestants, should feel and manifest their abhorrence for the disproportion between the alleged crime and the positive penalty. A meeting of sympathy was convened and held in this city. The undersigned, with a view to learn the real facts of the case, attended that meeting. The speakers on the occa- sion vituperated the pope of Rome, the monks of Italy, the friars, the Jesuits, and the Catholics every where. The only person or party that was treated with a decent share of moderation was the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Towards the middle of the proceedings, the fol- lowing resolution, complimentary to General Cass, as 'a bright par- ticular star shining out from the dark heavens of human nature, which the orators had been describing, was proposed and carried by acclamation : Resolved, 4, That this meeting firmly believes that it is the duty of the Gov ernment of the United States to protect all our citizens in their religious rights, whilst residing or sojourning in foreign lands ; approves in the fullest manner of the noble attempt of a distinguished senator from Michigan (General Cass) to call the attention of the Government and the public to this important subject ; and entertains the confident hope that this Government will speedily secure to its citizens, by the express stipulations of international treaties, the right to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience in every foreign land. N. Y. Times, Jan. 8, 1853. In view, of the lampooning which all Catholics, from the Pope downwards, had received at the lips of the orators, it did strike me as somewhat strange that the above resolution should have been intro- duced. The question that arose in my mind was, t; How came it there ?" The circumstance, however, seemed to me to be a sufficient reason for referring to General Cass, by name, in a letter which I wrote some time after. I have ascertained since that the Rev. Dr. Baird, who might be called the chief conductor of the Madiai meeting, was found in a short time afterwards perfectly conversant with the proceedings going on in the Senate touching religious matters abroad. He is reported to have proclaimed, in the Hall of the American In- stitute in Baltimore, on the 17th of February, 1853, that Mr. Un- derwood, a senator, had done him the honor of reading Ins (Mr. Underwood's) report on the subject referred to, before reporting it to the Senate, and that he (Dr. Baird) approved of it. That report, if ever published, I have not been able to find ; but I think it not improbable that such report would have been, in consequence of tbe LETTERS. 487 reference of a petition from the Maryland Baptist Union Association, which General Cass had so eloquently recommended to the appro- priate committee in a speech delivered January 3, 1853, just lour days previous to the Madiai meeting. The petition alluded to had reference especially to the condition of the Baptists under the Protestant government of Prussia. A reference to this subject is found in a senatorial document, published from the files of the Department of State, and designated S. Doc. CO. A letter from our minister at Berlin, Mr. Barnard, dated January 31, 1853, addressed to Mr. Everett, Secretary of State, gives an account of his poor success in attempting to obtain tolera- tion for Protestant subjects of the Protestant government to which he was accredited. Taking this document in connection with what has gone before, there would appear to be a perfect harmony of benevolent feelings among the distinguished persons connected with the subject, namely: Mr. Barnard, Mr. Cass, Rev. Dr. Baird, and Mr. Underwood. The truth of facts, and the accuracy of memory among the parties, are not by any means so perfect. Mr. Barnard pleads for subjects of Prussia, who are Baptists ; Mr. Cass for the religious rights of Americans who go abroad ;"Dr. Baird for international treaties to secure such rights ; Mr. Cass, not for treaties, but for an amiable, diplomatic, officious, and unofficial inter- ference everywhere in favor of American religious rights; and Mr. Underwood, as having covered the whole ground by previously read- ing his report to Dr. Baird, who approved of it even before it was submitted to the Senate. I trust it will be, as it ever has been, the pleasing duty as well as right of the Executive Department of this Government to interpose its kind and courteous offices with other state sovereignties in dissuad- ing from acts of oppression likely to shock the feelings of humanity at large. But for this purpose I think legislation is unnecessary, and under the circumstances I vastly prefer the form of policy presented at the Madiai meeting to that which General Cass has broached in his senatorial place. The former goes for treaties, and I go for treaties, if any thing is to be done in the matter ; the latter goes for charging our representatives abroad with half-defined duties, semi- national, semi-religious, semi-benevolent, semi-humanitarian, and, if I may be allowed the expression, semi-everything, and yet nothing definite. This, I trust, will be received by General Cass as a sufficient apology for my having introduced his name into my letter. In my letter, to which General Cass takes such exceptions, I stated that, if our American Congress implicated itself in such questions, to be seen to by our representatives abroad, I feared that such interference would be regarded by foreign Governments as drivelling. I was not then aware that what I anticipated as a prob- able contingency had already become an historical fact. It appears from Mr. Barnard's communication, that a letter addressed by him to the king of Prussia, confided to a distinguished hand, had been 4:88 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. returned to him the party declining the responsibility of presenting it. Interviews between our minister and the king, and the king's private secretary, subsequently took place; and it is amusing to per- ceive with what amiability of language the king and his secretary lowered down the American minister. Diplomacy never employed more courteous language for the purpose of bowing out an in- truder. All this has been substantially recorded by our minister himself; and I can translate the correspondence in no other sense, under the circumstances, than as if the king and his private secretary in courteous language, well known to diplomacy, and with refined manners, becoming perfect gentlemen on both sides, had said to Mr. Barnard, "Mr. American Minister, will you have the kindness to mind your own business." Now, as a citizen of the United States, I should be sorry that our foreign representatives by any legislative rules should ever be obliged to leave it in the power of majesty or royalty to lower them down in a manner like this. If, under the sincere profession of respect for the character, ser- vices, and position of General Cass, which has already been tendered, it should happen that any thing may be said by me in this writing apparently at variance with that profession, I trust that he knows me too well to believe for a moment that I am capable of saying one thing and intending another, directly the reverse. Yet his speech has imposed upon me the obligation of speaking frankly, within the limits that courtesy prescribes. I complain of General Cass. He has done me injustice, not intentionally, of course, but yet he has done me injustice. Pie has presented as the caption of my letter to the Freeman's Journal, a caption w.hich is not mine at all. And this circumstance leads me to fear that time did not per- mit him to read attentively the document, insignificant as it was, which his speech professes to review. Again, whenever he does not quote my own identical words, but professes to represent the mean- ing of my statements, he misrepresents me again, no doubt, unin- tentionally. His commentaries upon these misrepresented state- ments of mine, must necessarily correspond with the misrepresenta- tions themselves; and thus I am placed, by implication, before the American people as maintaining sentiments and advocating prin- ciples which I abhor and despise. Again, General Cass must permit me to complain of him, in that he suggests an immediate judgment against me at the tribunal of what he calls the " nineteenth century," " the spirit of the age," " public sentiment," and, above all, the opinion of the great American public. This is not fair. I have great respect for the American people ; but even a Senator of the United States ought not to attempt the extinguishment of honorable manhood in any citizen, by waving in his face the threat and danger of his incurring the frown of even the great American people. For the purposes of this argument, it is not necessary that I should incur the frown of either, lint if circumstances required it, I am quite prepared to meet the issue with which the senator would indirectly LETTERS. 4:89 intimidate me, and to incur without a murmur, in regard to any question now discussed between us, the frown of any people, rather than incur the frown and reproach of my own conscience. The honorable senator has represented me as attempting to balance accounts between this country and the Grand Little Duchy of Tus- cany. This was not fair. I made no accusations against this country. I merely suggested that civil governments, our own included, are sometimes unable to escape difficulties such as have sent the Madiai from Florence, according to law, and driven unprotected ladies from their dove-cot in Charlestown, in Massachusetts, against law, into common banishment. General Cass thinks that inasmuch as the banishment of the Madiai was according to law, in Tuscany, and that of the Ursulines against law and by violence, the comparison is wonderfully against Tuscany and in our favor. I believe directly the reverse. The laws of Tuscany had made known to all parties beforehand, that the establishment of domestic conventicles for the purpose of proselytizing the subjects of the Grand Duchy from the established religion, would be visited with the judicial decisions of the established courts, and would be followed on conviction of parties with the penalties which the law had in such case provided. Here there was at least fair notice given beforehand. The commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the other side, had proclaimed to all the in- habitants of the land, that property, reputation, and life would be safe under the shield of her sovereign protection, unless in the case that all or either should be forfeited according to law and justice applicable to the case. The Madiai of Florence had not been deceived by the laws of the country under which they lived. The nuns of Charlestown, in regard to the laws of the country in which they had contided, were deceived. The latter, without having in- curred even a reproach, much less an impeachment, or trial by jury, or judicial sentence consequent on such trial, were driven from their own home in violation of law, their property destroyed, the very graves of their departed sisters desecrated. What then? " Oh," says General Cass, " that was a mob." My answer is, " So much the worse for his side of the comparison." The State of Massachu- setts ought not to have allowed those ladies to spend their money in building a house, an'd confiding their safety and property to the high promise of its sovereign protection, if the State of Massachu- setts felt itself incapable of protecting them. But although in any country in the world it may happen, as it has happened u, nearly all, that a mob may have violated the laws, still, when order is restored, such sovereign State having pledged itself to protect personal rights, ought to be prepared to make such puny reparations as would be possible with a view to vindicate its own character of sovereignty. Massachusetts has neither protected, nor has she compensated. General Cass thinks that reparation should have been made. This shows the benevolence of his heart. But the outrage has been on record in the public annals of the country and of the world for the last twenty years, and even General Cass had never before be- 490 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. trayed, so far as I am aware, the secret of his kind sympathies to the poor ladies of Charlestown. Neither has any of the great men of Massachusetts, so far as has come to my knowledge, expressed publicly such sympathy for them. Mr. Everett, or his great prede- cessor, Mr. Webster, since the burning of the Convent at Charles- town, lias hardly been able to find himself in a locality from which it would be possible to look on the Bunker Hill monument, without having at the same time within the range of his vision the black walls and the ruins of Mount Benedict. I have a vague recollection that Mr. Everett did, on one occasion, many years ago, refer to the subject in language of regret; but if I am not mistaken in my mem- ory, he alleged on that occasion that by false zeal the convent had been raised, and by false zeal it had been destroyed, thereby ig- noring all distinction between acts loyally and honestly done in faith of protection from the sovereignty of the State, and acts done in violation of the State's laws and contempt of its authority. It may be easily imagined with what greater pleasure I shall be able to h'nd points of agreement with my own principles of convic- tion, in the apparently hostile views of General Cass, than points of divergency or antagonism. And strange as it may appear to some, I am persuaded that there is no difference between the distinguished Senator and myself in regard to nine tenths of his great speech. A large portion of it is an assertion, or rather reiteration of patriotic and liberal feelings, with which every true American is, as a matter of course, supposed to be imbued. Among his countrymen the Senator from Michigan has acquired an honorable eminence by his well-known patriotism, benevolence of heart, zeal for the advancement of his country's interests, and profound respect for religion, all of which have been generally acknowledged, if not universally appreciated. His speech will be very much abridged if we put aside all that he has said developing by implication these noble attributes of his own personal feelings and character. Neither shall I offer one word of apology for the real or supposed crimes insinuated in his speech against foreign States, whether Catholic or Protestant, for their want of decent humanity regarding the burial of the dead within their limits. In all those States, I take it for granted, there are many things as well .as this, which might be advantageously re- formed. I would only observe, that Protestants sojourning in Catho- lic countries can hardly claim privileges which, if offered in their own, they would not choose to accept. They do not believe in prayers for the dead ; and the attendance of Catholic clergymen at the obsequies of the departed has invariable reference to that belief. Neither do they believe in what Catholics call the consecration, by religious rites, of Catholic cemeteries. Hence, in their own country they prefer to be interred in common ground, not consecrated. I do not see, therefore, any solid reason for its being insisted on that they should be buried in consecrated ground when they are abroad, in Catholic countries, since the very idea of such a thing never enters into their mind in their native land. If the following exhibit LETTERS. 491 a correct estimate of what American Protestants believe regard- ing Catholics, one might infer that the former would have no desire to be interred among such pagans, either at home or abroad. THE PEESBYTEUIAXS VS. THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. The Presbyterian General Assembly (New School) sitting at Philadelphia, on Thursday, had under consideration a report from a special Committee on " Popish Baptism." The report was read by Dr. Hatfield. The question sub- mitted for the consideration of the Committee was as follows : " Is the administration of what is denominated Baptism in the Roman Catho- lic Church to be recognized as Christian baptism ?" The Committee said the dispensation by other than regular ordained minis- ters had been departed from by the Romish Church. The Committee concludes that the Romish Church is no longer a Church of Christ, but a synagogue of Satan. The Pope is considered the Antichrist. The tendency of the Popish Church is to establish the power of the Pope in all parts of the world, in oppo- sition to the Church and religion of Christ. The forms of the Church of Rome were considered mummeries by the Committee. The latter, in conclusion, says : " The ministers of the Church of Rome are not authorized to administer the sacraments ordained by Christ, our Lord, in the Gospel, and that the admin- istration of what is denominated Baptism in the Roman Catholic Church is not to be recognized as Christian baptism." The report was signed by Edwin F. Hatfield, D. D., and Samuel H. Cox, the majority of the Committee. Prof. SMITH, the third member of the Committee, submitted a minority re- port, differing from the views of the majority, and taking the ground that Pa- pal baptism is valid. The arguments of the majority were replied to in detail in the minority report. The minority deems it impolitic to urge to extremity differences which will further alienate the Catholic people from Protestantism. The reports were accepted, and a debate ensued, upon a motion made by Dr. Waterbury, to adopt the report of the majority. At 12 o'clock, a mo- tion to indefinitely postpone was negatived. The Rev. Mr. RILEY submitted the following resolution as an amendment to the motion to postpone the subject : Ef solved, That in view of the great diversity of opinion and of practice in the Presbyterian Church on the subject of Popish baptism, and in view of previous action of the Assembly, it will be inexpedient for the present Assembly to take action in the case. Rev. Dr. BBAINARD opposed the adoption of the majority report, and hoped the matter would be left to the consciences of those who were to benefited by it. Mr. TAYLOR, of Cleveland, during a speech upon baptism, stated that if he was a minister he would tell his flock the whole truth ; and that is, if they be- lieved not upon the Lord Jesus Christ they would be damned. He did believe that baptism was essential to salvation. The debate was continued up to the hour of adjournment. N. Y. Express. Leaving the above specimen of liberality to speak for itself, I must be permitted to say that Senator Cass has been exceedingly infelici- tous in one of the examples by which he would illustrate the hard- ships of American Protestants in Catholic countries in regard to this matter of Christian burial. He tells us of a Protestant who was at the point of death at San Diego, and who was so anxious to be buried in a consecrated place of sepulture, that he consulted the American minister as to whether he should not make a profession of Catholi- 492 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. cism with the view to secure the right to such interment. The min- istc-r, like an honest man, dissuaded him from such a course, founded on such a motive. But still the Senator tells us that the ceremony of recantation was performed in extremis, and that the dying man, by this nominal change of faith, secured for his body after death a resting-place in a consecrated cemetery. From all which statement by General Cass, the obvious inference is, that the poor man either became sincerely a Catholic, which he had a right to do, or died a hypocrite, a traitor to his conscience and his God, thereby sacrificing his soul for sake of a grave. I think the Senator from Michigan has been still more unfortu- nate in his allusion to some distinguished personage in Spain, sup- posed to be a woman, if not a lady. I hope the public will excuse me for not referring to his language, since he himself avows, in the exordium of his reference, that it is "painfully disgusting." In this Gen. Cass was not mistaken. If he had spoken of his own knowl- edge, even on this "painfully disgusting" subject, no man would dis- pute his testimony. But he speaks on the authority of the London Times. The editor of that paper, however, instead of giving utterance from human tongue to this assault upon woman, allowed it to pass into universal circulation from the leaden lips of his iron-hearted journal. Nor could he have imagined that any man, especially an American Senator, would repeat what he had published, except under the pressure of some grave necessity, requiring that for ends of public justice the depravity of woman as well as of man should be made as public as possible. Such weighty reasons Gen. Cass must no doubt have had, but he has made no allusion to them. The first person whose acquaintance I made on this earth was a woman. Her pretensions were humble ; but to me she was a great lady nay, a very queen and empress. She was more ; she was my earliest friend, ray visible, palpable guardian angel. If she smiled approval on me, it was as a ray from Paradise shed on my heart. If she frowned disapproval, it seemed like a partial or total eclipse of the sun. Gratitude for all her kindness to me compels me to enter my humble plea and protest against any rash judgment degrading to one of her sex, who has not had the benefit of trial or self-defence. For this reason, as well as for others which it is not necessary that I should adduce, I take the liberty of saying that I, for one, do not believe the accusations of the London Times. That paper is the most powerful organ in the world of its o\vn kind, either to destroy or build up any character or any cause, whether public or private. If God should ever permit the noble, but oftentimes perverted capacities of the hu- man intellect to elevate a wrong cause to a perfect equality with a right cause an unjust cause to a perfect level with a just one a false cause to an equality with a true one ; such are the immense re- sources within its reach for procuring, in regard to all causes, the very kind of information from abroad which it desires; and such its gigantic powers in manipulating, if I can use the term, this terrible Anglo-Saxon tongue of ours, that the feat of destroying in the minds LETTERS. 493 of its readers, all distinction between right and wrong would be ac- complished by the London Times. I do not say that it is more disposed to embrace a wrong cause instead of a right than any of its contemporaries; I only suggest that its powers of maintaining a wrong cause are greater than theirs ; and the temptations to do so will be graduated according to the scale of its powers. It has been my pleasant duty when in Europe at different times within the last fourteen or fifteen years, to defend, according to my feeble ability, not only our American institutions, but also our indi- vidual statesmen, against the testimony of the London Times. In its issue of February 7, 1842, it charges one of the latter with "au- dacious unfairness of argument" it charges that " to attempt to fight under false colors, to pervert and misrepresent with a kind of bowing and scraping appearance of candor, is a characteristic of his composition." It sneers at his designating itself as a "high author- ity" it does " not know whether most to admire at the audacity of his misrepresentation or at the admirable coolness, the innocent, gen- tlemanly superiority with which he' carries it off." In its issue of January 9, 1846, it describes the same American statesman and his supporters as " the noisy demagogues of a faction" it hopes that " the Republic of America is not sunk so low as to be driven into hostilities by such men as he." In its issue of February 18, 1846, allusion is made to the same American statesman, though his name is not mentioned, as "one who panders to a sanguinary passion." Now this American statesman is no other than General Cass. And this is the testimony of his chosen witness against some unpro- tected female residing beyond the Pyrenees. If the authority is good against her, who can reject it as against the senator from Michigan ? I beg leave to reject it indignantly as against both or either ; but as it affects General Cass, he has cut himself off from the privilege of rejecting, by having indorsed in the Senate of the United States the testimony of a chosen witness who has described his character in terms so little flattering. The portions of General Cass's speech with which I am most pleased are his quotations from jurists, whether their names be Puffendorf or Vattel. In them there is no confusion of ideas ; although Vattel complains of such confusion as being one of the difficulties against which jurists and publicists have to contend. Besides this, I could hardly desire better arguments to refute General Cass than he him- self has had the patience and industry to produce. If time permit- ted, I should enjoy as a pleasant recreation the privilege of analyz- ing the speech of the distinguished Senator. I think it would be no difficult task, by means of a critical distribution or rather classification of his arguments pro and con., to prove that the ill- digested parts of the complex subject which he had taken in hand are on the whole so equally balanced, that if each could be logically arranged under its own appropriate head, and either set off accord- ing to its weight and measure against its opposite, the several posi- J:94: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. tions of this great production would be found so mutually effective in their destruction of each other, that no positive result would re- main, except that General Cass is, what everybody knows, a states- man of great benevolence, having a great respect for the American people, especially the majority. The Senator from Michigan maintains the supremacy of individual conscience ; but he nullifies that supremacy according to his defini- tion of conscience, by limiting the right to follow its dictates, and subjecting that right to the prohibition of law, human or divine. Now if the conscience of the individual is supreme, and the law of the land of any country is supreme also, which supremacy shall give way to the other? These are the premises' laid down by General Cass ; but, unfortunately, he has left the conclusions to be drawn from them, respectively to destroy or annihilate each other. His idea of conscience is not that it is a superior and indestructible, in- dependent, moral faculty in the human soul, enabling every man to distinguish and choose between what seems to him good and evil ; but that conscience gives right to the individual to act out or mani- fest in words or deeds its interior dictates. On the other hand, he arms the civil authorities of all countries with the acknowledged right to control outward actions ; so that, by confounding outward actions with conscience itself, he betrays and hands over that sacred principle to be judged of and controlled by magistrates and civil governments. His first ebullition in favor of conscience is the proc- lamation that his purpose is " not merely to protect a Catholic in a Protestant country, a Protestant in a Catholic country, a Jew in a Christian country, but an American in all countries." General Cass professes to speak and act in regard to this subject on the ground of principle. Principle is neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish, nor Christian at least in the sense in which it has been employed by him. Principle, if any thing, is universal. And since General Cass has attributed to what he calls an American, something like a special prerogative, he ought to show some grounds why an Ameri- can, here classified under the head of religious denominations, should have any special or exceptional preference. Four religious denomi- nations are mentioned, namely : Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and Christian. This nomenclature General Cass may explain. Its terms, theologically considered, are, at least, intelligible. But when he comes to rank an American as a representative of a fifth sect, I really do not understand what he means. If an American, as such, has a right to protection in all countries, why not also a European, an Asiatic, or an African ? It seems, according to him, that religious denominations, in general, should be treated, by condescension, with kindness in all countries; but when a man professes the American religion, which General Cass has not explained, such a man has a pre-eminent right to special protection everywhere; that wherever he appears in foreign lands, the sovereignty of the State, in regard to all questions appertaining to religion, must fall back the moment he proclaims himself an LETTERS. 495 American. And it shall be understood that when he arrives on the shore of such country, with a full measure of American atmosphere, American sunbeams, and American religion according to Mr. Cass, sufficient for his consumption during the period of his passage through or sojourning within that country, he shall have the right to say and do what he thinks proper, provided always it be according to the dictates of his conscience. If this doctrine can obtain, several consequences which Mr. Cass had tried to guard against in other parts of his speech must neces- sarily follow. Every nation has the real or supposed element of sovereignty within itself. But if the rights of conscience are su- preme, and an American is to be protected everywhere in acting out its dictates, then the sovereignty of such nation must give way to the sovereignty of his conscience. What then ? Two sovereign- ties are immediately in conflict. Which shall yield to the other? If the sovereignty of the State must give way to the sovereignty of the individual, provided that individual be an American, then let foreign sovereign States hide their diminished heads, for it is ob- vious that two rival sovereignties cannot both prevail in the same State. Then, if that be the case, as the Senator seems to anticipate, then let us proclaim at once that all the nations of the earth are already prospectively annexed to the United States ; and that the evidence of the occasion which will make it decent and proper, and for their own interests, that they should strike their flags, will be the appearance of an American on their shores. The only trouble in connection with this patriotic purpose is, that when we define our rights hastily, whether as regards a principle or an international boundai-y line, it may happen that, after having asked more, we may finally be compelled to take less. Whether as regards private con- tracts or public treaties, it is a well-known law that it requires two or more parties to make a bargain. It must be within the recollec- tion of General Cass that a few years ago we had fixed a north- western boundary line, on which we had determined to stand or fall. But this was before the consent of the other party had been ob- tained ; and when the matter came to a bargain, we allowed the other party to undefine our position, and to slide us off from our chosen line to another two or three hundred miles south of it. I have been quite amused at the eloquent denunciations by Gene- ral Cass of absurd maxims and wicked pretensions on the part of civil governments to control conscience, to dictate or prescribe to their subjects what they shall believe. In that part of his great speech I have the pleasure to agree with him. It is probable, however, that he thought, as many of his readers will have thought, that he \v:is denouncing Catholic principles. The fact, however, is distinctly the reverse. The jurists and the governments that fell under the real weight of his censure were of his own school. A brief retro- spect of the condition of Europe, both previous to and since the Ref- ormation, will make this point clear. All the States of Europe had been Catholic. The people of these States had but one religion. 496 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. That religion was older than their civil governments. Consequently their civil governments never dictated to them what they should believe. And when General Cass speaks of the arrogance and im- piety of civil governments dictating to their people what they shall believe or what they shall not believe, he makes, without perhaps being aware of it, an exception in favor of Catholic governments, down, at least, to the period of the Reformation. The civil laws of those countries were in many respects exclusive and intolerant. But then, since all (for I must use the word all, though occasional excep- tions arose) were of the same faith, and had no desire to change, the laws were substantially innocuous in the absence of objects on whom they might be executed. Then came the Reformation. The Refor- mation resulted in the formation of States on the anti-Catholic or Protestant basis. In these the form of the new religion was deter- mined on by the civil governments. I am not aware of a single Catholic State, except, pei'haps, it be Spain, which has since passed any laws especially directed against Protestants. On the other hand, I do not know a single Protestant State in which the govern- ment did not attempt and carry out by special laws those very acts which General Cass so eloquently denounces. When General Cass finds jurists sustaining such pretended rights of the civil government, he may be sure they do not belong to the school of St. Thomas Aquinas, or Suarez, or the other great publicists that have been so numerous in the Catholic Church. These were men who never put on the philosopher's cloak with the view of playing the tribune either towards their countrymen or their race. These were men who derived their principles of human law, of government, whether civil or ecclesiastical, from the same supreme and eternal source. They flattered neither kings nor people. They feared God, and feared few besides. They were not the men who wrote of the divine right of kings. They held that government is by divine right, but that the individual sovereign or ruler in such government is of human right. And if it had been possible for General Cass to have con- sulted their pages, he would have discovered that they maintained the rights and dignity of human nature from the highest to the lowest members of society. There is no difference between General Cass's conception of con- science as a moral faculty and mine. He, however, betrays the rights and liberty of conscience, as I understand it, by identifying this moral faculty with the outward actions which are supposed to manifest its dictates from within. No civil government that ever existed has, or ever had, either the right or the power, physical or moral, to coerce or extinguish man's conscience. It is beyond the reach of government. They might as well attempt to pass laws regulating the exercise of memory as regulating the decisions of man's conscience. This freedom of conscience, however, General Cass has identified with outward action ; and on the other hand, by recognizing the rights of civil government to control the outward actions of men, he has betrayed conscience into the hands of the LETTEBS. 497 magistrate. All human law has for objects either persons, or things, or acts, and beyond these human legislation cannot go. Con- science, according to my distinction, does not come within the reach of law, but as understood and represented by General Cass, he hands it over into the domain of civil government, and confounds it with things over which that government has acknowledged rights and legitimate power of interference. I am bound, therefore, to vindicate the liberty of conscience in reply to the dangerous doc- trines of General Cass. When the early Christians appealed to the Roman emperors through the apologies of their Justins and Tertullians, pleading for liberty of conscience, they did not thereby claim the right to do all the good in outward actions which their consciences would have approved. They pleaded that they might not be compelled to do any act which the law of God and the law of their consciences had forbidden. At one time, for instance, some glorious confessor of the Christian name was called upon by the civil magistrate to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods. He refused, because he had a higher law in his conscience. What then ? He was put to death he became a martyr. At another time, some tender Christian virgin was required to sacrifice her chastity she refused, and was sent to the wild beasts. In some instances, indeed, torture caused the Christian to fail and to obey men rather than God. But in all this, which is an extreme case, had the whole strength of the Roman empire power to destroy the " rights of conscience," the " liberty of conscience," the "freedom of conscience" in the heart of either of these glorious martyrs or this supposed apostate ? Assuredly not. General Cass thinks that if the " sentient being" is exposed to physical sufferings, the freedom of conscience is in great danger, if not abso- lutely lost. Every one knows that this is an erroneous position. It is only when human weakness yields to suffering in such circum- stances, that conscience asserts her highest power. The individual feels himself degraded in his own estimation. Conscience told him at the moment of his yielding to a sinful compliance, making his- declaration contrary to hers, that he was a base hypocrite ; and that same conscience did not fail to vindicate the sovereignty by her continued frowns and reproaches. General Cass has not taken the pains to distinguish the whole office of conscience. It may be expressed in brief words. The whole duty of man is to " avoid evil and to do good." Now, although evil and good are relative terms, and not judged of at all times and in all places by the same standard, nevertheless, conscience is the faculty whereby the distinction is made. A thing may seem morally evil to a man. He cannot do it, without sinning, offending God and offending his own conscience. Another thing may appear good, and there is no obligation on him to do it, even though his- conscience approve, unless the circumstances warrant its performance. The decalogue says, " Honor thy father and thy mother." This is an affirmative precept, which requires that at proper times, and in VOL. II. 32 498 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. proper circumstances, we shall honor our parents ; but does not re- quire that we should be always thus occupied. " Thou shalt not steal." This is a negative precept, and there is no time, or place, or circumstance in which it is lawful for us to steal. So in the order of negative precepts a man may not do, without sin, any act which the voice of his conscience tells him is wrong. He may, indeed, have an erroneous conscience and be mistaken as to the intrinsic morality of the act, but still, until his conscience shall have been enlightened, or, as General Cass expresses it, " improved," he must abide by its dictates, and avoid doing what it has ruled to be unlawful. Hence, if any Protestant, American or not, who, travel- ling or sojourning in a Catholic State, should be called upon by the civil power to make a declaration or to do an act which his con- science condemns, he cannot comply. Let us suppose him to be re- quired to swear that he believes in the Pope's supremacy. Being a Protestant, his conscience will oblige him to refuse. And if, in con- sequence of this refusal, physical torture be applied, one of two things will happen, he will suffer the torture and be loyal to con- science, or he will betray conscience by swearing to a lie. If any thing of this kind should be attempted in a Catholic country, or any act required which any American's conscience condemns, General Cass will find me ready to vote for the employment of the American army and navy to punish that nation which would impiously dare to commit so unlawful an outrage. Not because the man's con- science had been violated, for that is impossible, but because the law of such country would have gone beyond the boundaries of all human law, since these relate not to the faculties of the human soul, but to outward persons, things, and acts. And as the person here supposed would have done no act bringing him under the law, his right of person would have been violated, and it would become lawful for his country to inflict condign punishment on the nation or parties so violating it. But whilst no civil government or power on earth has a right to require that a man shall do a sinful or immoral act, it does not by any means follow that governments are bound to permit a man to act outwardly what his conscience tells him is good. In the one case his conscience decides for himself alone. In the other case its dictates would prompt him to decide for others, by doing what he supposes good, whether it be suitable for others or not. Here civil governments have a right to come in and say, " Let us see about that." They have n, right also to refer to their laws as a rule for personal conduct. If the individual still imagines that his conscience requires him to do some act forbidden by the law, but yet highly praiseworthy in his estimation, he can make the experiment, but he must abide the consequences. But in General Cass's view of conscience there is no distinction, or but a fallacious one, between conscience acting for the individual, forbidding him to do an evil act, and conscience dictating to him to do good, or what he may think good, without regard to others, LETTERS. 499 wherever he may find himself. If this principle were carried out, I fear that strange exhibitions of individual zeal would become very frequent. If the supposed American should happen to be a Mormon, he will have a right to carry out the dictates of "his conscience in all countries. If he should happen to be a Millerite, visiting Rome, it shall be his privilege to pitch his tent in front of St. Peter's church, then and there, under the protection of General Cass's doctrine, to speak and act according to the dictates of his conscience. He will undertake to prove that the end of the world is at hand. And by applying " figures, which never lie," to the Book of Daniel and of Revelations, and elucidating the subject still more by exhibiting appropriate drawings of the big horn and the little horns, with various references to the number of the beast, descriptive of Anti- christ, prove clearly that his doctrine is right. In the mean time it might happen that this supposed Antichrist, the Pope, would be looking down from some window of the Vatican, unable to interfere, lest his Government should be understood as violating the rights of American conscience as shadowed forth by General Cass. I am not unmindful that General Cass has ascribed very high powers, and, in my judgment, extravagant powers to human govern- ments, in a supposed right of theirs to judge what is conscience and what is not. And in this he betrays again the faculty of conscience as understood by me. " It is not," he says, " efery vagary of the imagination, nor every ebullition of feeling, nor every impulse of the passions, however honest the motive may be, which can lay claim to the rights of conscience." Again, " The human legislator has the right to separate presumptions or unfounded pretensions, at war with the just constitution of society, from conscientious dictates properly regulated and operating within their just sphere." Here General Cass takes away from individual conscience the very rights which he had claimed for it elsewhere ; and he refers to the legisla- tor, because he is a legislator, to determine whether a doctrine held by the conscience of a man is to be regarded as a vagary of the im- agination, or is consistent with the just constitution of society. In other parts, his position is that there is no lord or judge of a man's conscience, but God and the man himself. However, I find such mutual contradiction in the phrases of General Cass, as he touches now on one topic and now another, that it may become necessary tor me hereafter to examine his speech more in specific detail. As it is now spread out before me in thirteen or fourteen columns of the Washington Globe, its dimensions horizontally considered in the order of length and breadth, become absolutely appalling. Its depth is by no means frightful; a child could wade through it. Its other dimensions would be its height; and in that sense it may be my duty to analyze this immense mountain of words; and if in doing so I shall discover the smallest mouse of sound logic, practical common sense, or philosophical statesmanship, General Cass shall have the benefit of the discovery. I cannot, however, close this communication, already too long, 500 AKCHUISHOP HUGHES. without referring, as in proof of my position, to one of the historical illustrations adduced by General Cass in support of his. He refers to epochs in the civil wars that resulted from the reformation in Germany and in France. And because the word liberty of con- science is said to have been granted to the Protestants of both coun- tries by their respective sovereigns. General Cass seems to think that my idea of liberty of conscience is refuted by its having been granted in treaties, according to General Cass's quotations from "Universal History, Vol. 26, p. 302." I am quite surprised that this very ref- erence did not tend to clear up the confusion of ideas which prevails on the subject. The Protestants in Germany and the Hu- guenots in France had freedom of conscience from the very begin- ning of their history. It was in the exercise of that freedom that they left the Catholic Church and became Protestants. General Cass will not deny this ; that freedom of conscience they had pre- served through all the civil wars which ended, for the time being, in the truce referred to by him. It was in the exercise af that freedom of conscience which was theirs, that they had taken up arms ; and if it had been theirs during all this time, how can General Cass say that it was only given to them by the sovereign in 1532 and in 1561 ? He knows the pi'ofound, but apparently simple, maxim in law, Quod meum est, amplius meum esse, non potest what is mine, cannot become more mine. For many years freedom of conscience was theirs already, and according to this maxim could not become more theirs. Now, if it was theirs already, I would ask, with great respect for General Cass and " Universal History," how could it become more theirs by the grant of others? Consequently, General Cass and " Universal History" must mean something else than freedom of con- science. It must mean that they should be allowed to retain what- ever advantages, whether of property and power, civil and religious, which they had secured during the progress of the dispute. Between the outward exercise of their freedom of conscience against the laws of the State, and the pretensions of the State sovereignty to preserve order, the freedom of conscience was the pretext on one side, the sovereignty of the State was the plea on the other. And this granting of liberty of conscience referred to by General Cass, reminds me of the alms given by the traveller, as mentioned in Gil las, to a poor man who had asked him for charity in a very 'piteous tone, but who had his musket levelled at the same time. General Cass will no doubt criticise this comparison as he has done other figurative lan- guage in my poor letter. So experienced an orator must certainly kno\v that the value of a comparison is its suggestive property, which always depends upon its substantial agreement, but circumstantial difference, as regards the thing to be illustrated. Omnis comparatio claudicat. General Cass must surely be aware that the figure of an egg is not a comparison suited to the description of another egg, they are both so much alike ; that to suggest the idea of a piece of chalk by comparing it with another piece of chalk, would be entirely out of the rules of rhetoric. General Cass has taken advantage of LETTERS. 501 this even for the purposes of argument, when he assumes that be- cause I spoke of the destruction of property, whether in Boston or in Philadelphia, as a violation of the rights of conscience in regard to those persons to whom such property belonged, I am to be under- stood literally, and, therefore, as recognizing that conscience can be violated through the medium of outward violence. I did not mean any such tiling. No outward violence can reach that fortress in the human soul to which conscience can always retreat, and from which she can laugh to scorn the attempts of men to invade her stronghold. I do not admit that from the beginning of the world up to this day there ever has been a violation of the rights, freedom, liberty, or divine sovereignty of the human conscience. That is the portion of man's nature which God placed beyond the reach of human power. His civil rights might be taken away, his property confiscated, his reputation rendered infamous, the life of his body sacrificed at the stake, or given to wild beasts at the Coliseum ; but the sovereignty of his conscience, above all earthly powers, has never in a singfe in- stance been vanquished by the cruelty or injustice of his fellow- beings. When, therefore, General Cass takes advantage of my using language in reference to this subject, such as that the rights of conscience had been violated in Charlestown, or in Philadelphia, he forgets that there is among men an order of language appropriate to the science of any subject, and another which accommodates itself to the confusion of ideas in the popular mind. Persons who perfectly understand our solar system do not hesitate to speak of the rising and the setting of the sun, at the same time that they, in a scientific point of view, would maintain that neither phenomenon ever occurs; that in reality the sun is the centre of our system, and that all the planets, the earth included, are rising, and setting, and revolving around the centre. I stated at the commencement of this reply, that the necessity of finding myself in an apparent collision with so distinguished a man as General Cass, was less of a pride than of a humiliation. The circumstances under which my letter was written have been referred to in the foregoing part of this communication. I never dreamed that that letter would attract the special attention of any one. It has turned out otherwise, however. If General Cass had intimated to me, in any private manner, that there was one word in it dis- respectful to himself, I should have immediately, in the same manner, replied in vindication or in apology. Itj on the other hand, he had signified to me twelve or fourteen months ago, that he intended to make my letter the groundwork or occasion of his great speech, I should have been prepared with ample materials to reply to it far more effectively than it has been possible for me to do, amidst incessant interruptions, and within the limited period that has been allowed me since his oration in the Senate. As it is, however, I stand by my letter, and shrink not from the explosion of the great mortar, which it has taken this experienced gunner so long a period to charge, as if he intended that it should not only kill my little 502 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. sparrow of a letter, but also that it should frighten away all the birds of the neighborhood. I find my little nycticorax in domicilio not only chirping, but without a single featheret of its wing ruffled. This letter is already too long, and I hope I may be pardoned if I make a few general remarks bearing more or less directly on the circumstances which directed it. The first remark is, that in this country at least, no man is oppressed, in consequence of his religious belief, so long as he submits legally to the constitution and laws by which it is governed. And yet, I regret to say, that many of our citizens are hardly satisfied with this equal and common privilege, unless there be furnished them, from time to time, occasions on which they may give vent to that lamentable intolerance which lurks in human nature every where, no less than in human governments in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. How tame would be the pro- ceedings of such meetings as that, for purposes of sympathy with the Madiai, or those of our anniversary week, were it not for the vent which they furnish for the denunciation of Pope and Popery. There is not, and there ought not to be, opposition to or complaint of these proceedings. The Catholics of the United States are accus- tomed to such. Many respectable Protestants are rather offended by them. But on the whole, this is a country of free speech and free writing, and it is better to bear with the abuse of either than that any legislation be employed to prevent it. In the mean time, we of the clergy are obliged occasionally to travel abroad some- times because we have not received a suitable call at home ; and sometimes because feeble health, by bronchitis especially, compels us to seek the benefit of foreign climates. Still wherever we go we must never forget the object of our vocation, which is to do good. And thus, forgetting the difference between restraints on the out- ward development of individual conscience in other countries, and the unbounded freedom in this respect which we enjoy at home, we are liable in a mistaken zeal, but always with the best intentions, to get into little difficulties with the police of foreign cities or states. What will be the consequence, if, according to General Cass's pro- ject, we shall have a quasi fight, under the high sanction of the Congress of the United States, to hang on to the buttons of our For- eign Ministers, and pull them right and left into the little dogmatical squabbles in which we may have contrived to get ourselves involved ? Should I go to Stockholm, I might be disposed to rent a room, announce that I intended to celebrate Mass therein on such or such a day, inviting all who thought proper to be present. The room should be honestly, loyally paid for, of course. But if the municipal authorities of Stockholm should interfere with me, or take me before the magistrates for this, I should proclaim myself an American citizen and look to our Resident Minister for protection. Some clergymen of our many Protestant denominations might be just as imprudent in the capital of any Catholic country in Europe. General Cass thinks it would be all right, provided the local laws were not violated but there is the rub. LETTERS. 503 For my own part, I think that as we have no established religion at home which in our circumstances I regard as a great benefit BO it might be as well for us to deal with other nations prudently and modestly, just as we find them, until, little by little, influenced by our beautiful example, they shall be induced to imitate it. The Congress of the United States are too well qualified to discharge the duties for which they -were elected, to require the slightest sug- gestion from any private citizen as to the course they should pursue in regard to the matter which General Cass has brought before them. He has suggested to his fellow-senators that I pronounced their course all wrong. This was a mistake. I spoke of him alone, and of no other member of Congress. If I may be allowed to express an opinion, as an humble citizen, conscious of loyalty to the Constitution, obedience to the laws, re- spect for and benevolence towards all my fellow-citizens, without distinction of creed, to give expression to my own sentiments, I should sum them up, not as regards this special topic, but as regards the general policy of the country, in a very few words. I would say that whilst the power, almost pre-potency, of the United States is admitted and acknowledged wherever I have traveled in Europe, there is still a prevalent idea abroad that this greatness is rather detracted from by a certain tone of self-complacency and of con- temptuous reference towards other States. They say that we are too great to stand in need of boasting ; that we are too powerful and too rich to be under the necessity of acquiring a right to property by fraudulent means. I do not pretend to judge how far these im- putations are correct, but for my own part I would say, that the honor and dignity of this great free nation are likely to be best and most permanently sustained by adhering to a principle which is ascribed to as true an American as ever lived, namely We ask for nothing that is not strictly right, and will submit to nothing that is wrong. * JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, June 5, 1854 REFUTATION OF A MALICIOUS ARTICLE PUB- LISHED IN THE N. Y. DAILY TIMES. To the Editor of the New York Tribune : SIR On the 9th of January, 1857, H. J. Raymond, Esq., editor of the New York Daily Times, published in his paper a mendacious and scurrilous article against Archbishop Hughes. It professed to be a communicatioD, and was signed " Equitas." In the course of a 50-i ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. week or ten days, Mr. Raymond was called on by a gentleman to meet the legal consequences of that libelous article, or to make known the writer's name. Mr. Raymond professed his regret that on the same afternoon he was compelled to go to Washington as a witness in some matter of Congressional dispute about the hon- esty of certain members in certain monetary transactions. He promised, however, that he should be absent only one day, and that as soon as he returned he would make known the author of "Equitas." Mr. Raymond went to Washington, and was there catechized by a Committee of the House, but nothing very clear was elicited from his answers. He returned about the time he himself had specified, but was unable still, as he pretended, to give the name of his cor- respondent. Neither should he have promised to give it in so brief a period, since, according to his subsequent statement, the author resided in Boston. Still, from time to time, Mr. Raymond was dunned for the name of the author of the libel which he had pub- lished. He became somewhat alarmed and somewhat nervous in regard to the subject, but he kept on shuffling and procrastinating as long as he could. Finally, on the 17th of February of this year, he addressed a note to the Archbishop, couched in the following terms : "DAILY TIMES OFFICE, New York, Feb. 17, 1857. " DEAR SIB I was greatly surprised to learn last evening that you had never received from me any note in explanation of the publication of an article signed ' Equitas' in the Times of Jan. 9. I regret this, especially as it has left me un- der the suspicion of treating you with a disrespect which most assuredly I do not feel. " The article reached me, accompanied by a private note in the same hand- writing, signed by Dr. McElroy of St. Mary's Church, Boston, who avowed him- self the author. Relying entirely upon the respectability and the responsibility of the name the genuineness of which I did not for an instant suspect I gave the article into the printer's hands without even a perusal. On being applied to for the name of the author, I wrote to Dr. McElroy for permission to give it or rather to afford him an opportunity of assenting to its surrender and was astonished to hear in reply that the whole thing was a FORGERY ; and that he knew nothing whatever of the article in question. I wrote to him at once ex- pressing my deep mortification at so shameful an. imposition. I also immedi- ately wrote you a note, embracing these explanations and enclosing the origi- nal of the private note accompanying the article, together with Dr. McElroy's reply to my letters. I sent them by a lad the same who brings this to No. 263 Mulberry street, and he told me afterwards that he put it under the door. The next day I was informed that it had not then reached you, and supposed that this was in consequence of your absence or of some accident. As I heard no more of it, I took it for granted that it had subsequently been received, and had no suspicion to the contrary until last night. " I enclose the manuscript of the article, which may possibly afford some clue for the detection of the author. " I am, with great respect, " Your obedient servant, " H. J. RAYMOND. " Archbishop HUGHES." A note of this kind would be calculated to win the confidence of the Archbishop, and it really had that effect for the time being. LETTERS. 505 But there are circumstances connected with other proceedings of Mr. Raymond which are inexplicable. For instance, lie speaks of a note accompanying the manuscript of " Equitas," and alleges that he had sent that note, together with a private one of his own, to No. 263 Mulberry street. Now, any note left at 263 Mulberry street would reach the Archbishop. When Mr. Raymond was questioned on this discrepancy, he pleaded that' the boy by whom he had sent it would be still forthcoming; but that as a great snow'storm pre- vailed at the time, the boy may not have found the house ; but to use the words of his own explanation of this affair, the boy must have slipped it under the door of another. The Archbishop accepted for the time being this explanation, although other circumstances would throw doubt upon it. For instance, the first page of the communi- cation of "Equitas" had been trimmed off at the top by the scissors of Mr. Raymond, as any one can see by the manuscript which the editor of the Times subsequently furnished to the Archbishop. The boy, even in a snow-storm, could have slipped under the Arch- bishop's door, or that of any of his neighbors, the whole communi- cation, just as easily as the trimmed portion which Mr. Raymond pretended to have sent by the diligent lad who, because there was a snow-storm, could not distinguish 263 Mulberry street from any other house in the neighborhood, and who, therefore, discharged his message by slipping the communication under the most conve- nient door. The Ex-Honorable Henry J. Raymond, once viceroy of the State of New York, had shown himself towards the Archbishop in former times' as a courteous gentleman. Courtesy, at the hands of others, the Archbishop hardly ever forgets. And it so happened that, even before these events, that he had been in conversation with a third party who knew him and knew Mr. Raymond well. He alluded to Mr. Raymond's kindness in terms which were as sincere as complimentary. But the mutual friend interrupted him by stating : " Sir, you do not know Mr. Raymond. He is plausible in friendship, lie is plausible in treachery ; he has much animal cunning ; but he was born without the instincts of a gentleman, and neither his education nor his opportunities of associating with gentlemen have been able to supply the innate and original deficiency." The Archbishop thought this a harsh and perhaps unjust analysis of Mr. Raymond's character, and, in his own intercourse with that gentleman, making allowances, he thought there was much that would relieve Mr. Raymond from so undesirable a reputa- tion. Accordingly, the note which we have already quoted, and one or two others, were looked upon as proof that if he even had the misfortune to be born without the " instincts of a gentleman," still he was doing his best to acquire them. His second note is as follows : 506 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. " DAILY TIMES OFFICE, New York, Feb. 21, 1857. " DEAR SIR I enclose a paragraph from this morning's Times. I owe it to myself to say that I should Jiave published such a one long ago, had I not supposed from a conversation with the gentleman who called at my house on your behalf, that you would desire some steps to detect the authorship of the article signed ' Equitas.' " " I am, very truly, " Your obedient servant, "HENRY J. RAYMOND. " Archbishop HUGHES." The following is the article to which Ex-Vice-Governor Raymond, editor of the Times, alludes in the foregoing note. It was published in the Times of Saturday, February 21, 1857, as a kind of amende honorable to the Archbishop : " A DOUBLE AND DOUBLY CONTEMPTIBLE IMPOSITION. The editor of a daily newspaper is, from the necessity of his position and the nature of his duties, exposed to impositions of various kinds, from which it is not always easy to protect himself. Falsehood and forgery, if shrewdly employed, are very likely to deceive editors, as they constantly deceive merchants, "lawyers, and business men of every kind. We have endeavored to protect the columns of the Times against such frauds, and on the whole have no special reason to complain of failure. Yet, in at least one instance, the very impudence of the imposition secured its success. " We received, some time since, a communication commenting on Archbishop Hughes' article on the Catholic Press. It came accompanied by a private note to the editor of the Times, signed with the name of one of the most venerable and respectable of the Catholic clergy in Boston, who avowed himself the author, and expressed a desire not to be known as such, unless it should become neces- sary. Recognizing the alleged authorship as eminently responsible, the article was published, without any thing more than a cursory perusal, in the Times of January 9, under the signature of ' Equitas.' Upon subsequently applying to the supposed author for permission to give his name to parties interested, we were surprised by the reply that he had never written any such article, and knew nothing whatever of the matter. It was clear that his name had been deliberately forged by the writer, who availed himself of this criminal mode of striking a cowardly blow at the character of the Archbishop, and at the same time of belying a Catholic clergyman, and imposing upon the editor of the Times so far as to make it the means of giving effect to his double malignity. The character of the article corresponds with the means employed to secure its publication. It was palpably and purely malicious designed not to promote any good public end, but simply to gratify personal malice. It was a compound of abuse, mingled with facts distorted, perverted, and misrepresented, well- calculated to impose upon hasty readers. " We need not add the expression of our regret at having been thus betrayed into the publication of such an assault upon the personal character of Arch- bishop Hughes. This distinguished Prelate has never shrunk from a full and complete responsibility to the public for whatever action he had deemed it his duty to take in connection with public affairs. Whatever he does is done openly in his own namej and we have more than once had occasion to express our dissent from his sentiments and his policy. But of the purity of his character, and the integrity of his motives, and his fidelity to the interests intrusted to his charge, there is no room to doubt. We should be sorry to suppose that the cowardly calumniator who by fraud and forgery has made this journal the vehicle of his malice, had been able to injure him in the slightest degree." LETTERS. 507 No\v, this public statement of Mr. Raymond's would seem to in- dicate that he has, after all, the instincts of a gentleman. But the shady and shuffling proceedings which marked his trimmings of the communication of " Equitas," and his pretensions that he had re- ceived a private note, which his poor, innocent, blundering boy slipped under the door of some house in New York during a snow- storm, throw not a little suspicion over his public statement and his private note. And it remains still an open question whether he came into life destitute of the essential qualities of what is commonly called a gentleman, as his friend asserted. Since commencing this article, the Archbishop has learned that Mr. Raymond is now in Europe, and some have assumed that be- cause he is absent he is not responsible for what appears from day to day in his paper. This, to a certain extent, may be admitted. But his absence is no excuse for the publishing in his journal of calumnious and libelous articles by his representatives. If an editor goes to Europe, and wishes to save his own reputation, he should either announce the name of his locum tenens, and throw the respon- sibility of such publication on him, or he should give such wise in- structions to his representatives as would save himself from the dis- honor of their publication. The Archbishop denies the claim of irresponsibility to any editor who, going abroad, allows his sanctum and tripod to be occupied by an unprincipled substitute. One would suppose, in view of the whining apologies put forth by Mr. Raymond, either in private notes or through the columns of the X. Y. Daily Times, that no such article could ever appear in that journal as that published editorially in the issue of Saturday morning, 18th inst. Mr. Raymond affected to denounce his corre- spondent as a " FORGER," but now the forger is elevated to te edi- torial rank of the X. Y. Times, as may be seen by the following article, headed "ROME AND XEW YORK": FIUST. " ROME AND NEW YORK. It is now twenty years since the aged Bishop Du Bois lay on his death-bed, and, in reply to the daily and dutiful call of John, Bishop of Basileopolis, hi.s coadjutor, with the right of succession, responded : ' I am better much better.' Neither mitred nor crowned heads love to see the forms of their successors darkening the sick-chamber : and the shadow which the stalwart presence of Bishop Hughes cast upon the bedside of the old French prelate seemed like the first admonition of that Valley of Death into which, in spite of his assurances that he was better, he was fast hastening, and soon sunk." Xow, Mr. Editorial Forger of the Times, Bishop Dubois died in 1842, and it is only in your office that twenty years could be made out of fifteen. The other portions of this first paragraph are merely trite enough to be copied by those who have not brains enough to be original. 508 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. SECOND. " Twenty years have passed, and the same shadow falls athwart the path of his successor not upon his death-bed, but prematurely upon his unconscious daily walk. How well or how ill the Roman Catholic Prelate has administered his great trust it is not for us to say. He has not escaped accusation. For years he has not only set aside all rivalry and repressed all recusancy, but sub- stantially nullified the position of every ecclesiastic whose talents or influence could be brought into comparison with his own. To one of urbane manners and social taste he would give the charge of a rude and unformed congregation. To another, a bankrupt church ; to another, an insubordinate congregation. On the other hand, he lifted up the lowly, the ignorant, and the uncouth, and he soon gathered about him a body-guard of ecclesiastics of whom he was facile princeps ; and in the diocese of New York, more liberally, perhaps, than any- where else in the Roman Church, was the divine word realized Beati sunt pauperes animi." Forger, you state that it is not for you to say how well or how ill the Archbishop has administered his great trust. Then, Forger, why do you say it ? You say he has not escaped accusation. But why should he have expected to escape accusation ? To be accused is a part of a bishop's office. You say that for years he has not only set aside all rivalry and repressed all recusancy, but substan- tially nullified the position of every ecclesiastic whose talents or in- fluence could be brought into comparison with his own. Now, Edi- torial Forger of the Times, it so happens that the Archbishop has conferred his actual position on every clergyman of the diocese ; it so happens that no ecclesiastic, worthy of the name, has ever pre- tended to rival the Archbishop, either in talents or influence, and this for an obvious reason that the whole authority of a diocese is confined solely and exclusively to the Bishop or Archbishop who is charged with its government ; that the priests of his diocese are his auxiliaries, to aid him in his efforts by their own zeal and talents, and to share with him, through filial sympathy, the burthen of op- pressioft or of calumny, such as you have published in the Times. You say that to a priest of urbane manners and social tastes the Archbishop would give the charge of a rude and unformed congre- gation. But why not ? Such a congregation might be elevated and refined by a pastor of " urbane manners and social tastes." And why should his urbanity and social tastes be thrown away among people as refined as himself? You say that to another the Archbishop would give a bankrupt church. This can apply only to one clergyman, and whether he will understand it as a compliment remains to be seen. You say that to another he would give an insubordinate congregation. But in such a case you might have known that he himself had in his own hands the power to subordinate the congregation, and the pastors, too, if circumstances rendered such a proceeding necessary. You say that, on the other hand, he lifted up the lowly, the ig- norant, and the uncouth. But, Forger, is it a crime in an Arch- bishop to do what his Divine Master had done ? for certainly the Apostles were not selected on account of their " urbane manners and social tastes." LETTERS. 509 THIRD. " But is this the accusation upon which it is said the Pope is DOAV called upon to terminate the Episcopal functions of John Hughes ? By no means ! Rome would not heed such a charge ; nor would it give ear to the representations which, it is said, have been made long since to the Holy See, that the Catholic cause in America has suffered alike from the inordinate pretensions and the inexplicable inefficiency of His Grace. In a city through which three millions of Catholics have entered since he has had charge of the diocese of New York in a city which numbers more professors of the faith than Rome itself -his accusers say that there is not a monument of Catholic power or influence, not an institution perfected; and that he alone has seemed unconscious of the move- ments of that living host, whose presence and influence has invited the atten- tion and alarmed the jealousy of the Protestant people of these States. Every- where else, they say, the Church is an organization, with a policy, with a great framework of institutions, to be filled up as time shall afford the means. Here, it is said by members of the Church, it is a chaos, without form and void. Not even an architectural structure worthy of a powerful and wealthy community not a well-organized charity not an institution of learning that commands respect, and that can point to His Grace as its founder or sustaiuer. His, they say, has been the ambition and the politics of our aldermen, and not the states- manship of a prelate of the Church." Forger of the Times, you are quite mistaken in regard to the facts alleged in the foregoing paragraph. The Archbishop is in constant communication with the high dignitaries in the Church in Rome. He enjoys their confidence ; and one great proof of this is, that after having given a general letter to our Minister Plenipotentiary to China, he requested of his Eminence, Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of the College of the Propaganda, another general letter of introduction and recommendation for the same distinguished personage; and that this document, so unusual from such a source under such cir- cumstances, was most kindly and promptly made out, and will be in China awaiting Mr. Reed's arrival. You intimate that the Arch- bishop has done nothing, or but little, for the three millions of Cath- olics who have arrived and passed through New York within the last twenty years. Forger of the Times, what do you care for such people ? You might as well hold the Archbishop responsible for the disputes and riots that are now going on in the city of New York, as for those Catholics who have passed through the city; and as to those Catholics who remain, notwithstanding all that is said against them, they may be considered, when compared with those from whom they should receive example, as law-abiding and peaceful cit- izens. Everywhere else, you say, the Church is an organization and a great framework of institutions, to be filled up as time shall afford the means. Now in New York the Church is an organization ; and time has already furnished, to a great extent, the means of filling up its framework. You say that it is a chaos ; and perhaps it will be- come such if forgers like yourself had influence enough to arrest for a moment its onward progress. You say that there is not even an architectural structure worthy of a powerful and wealthy community. But wait till we build the new St. Patrick's Cathedral. And, forger though you be, you must have common sense enough to understand that the settler in the West commences by erecting a log-cabin, and 510 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. then, afterward, the stately mansion rises by its side. You say that there is not a well organized charity, not an institution of learning that commands respect, that can point to His Grace as its founder or sustainer. Well, it is certain that there are several well organized charities in this city ; that there are some institutions of learning ; and that, if they cannot point to His Grace as their founder and sus- tainer, his Grace must be the happiest prelate in Christendom, seeing that, according to you, the priesthood and people of his diocese have founded and sustained them without his co-operation. Still, forger, he had a veto on them all ; and if he had said " No" in regard to any one of them, it would have no existence to-day. Try to be just, therefore, forger of the Times, and give His Grace some credit for not having prevented the foundation and sustainraeut of these various institutions. FOURTH. " And yet even these accusations have passed unheeded by Rome. The more serious inculpation for which clergy of the Archdiocese, now present in the Eternal City, invoke the thunders of the Vatican, is that the Primate of New York has omitted to notice, with due solemnities, the declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception ; and that he turned his back and fled to Cuba when the Nuncio of Pius IX., assailed by the press, hooted and stoned by the mob, and burned in effigy in a hundred cities and villages, most needed his support These are serious offences at Rome. Maladministration, nepotism, indolence, arrogance, a meddling and petty spirit, are nothing compared with offences which imply indifference to the Virgin Mary, and disrespect to the representative of the Vicar of Christ on earth." Forger, you do not fabricate as adroitly as an unprincipled editor of the Times might be expected to do. The first sermon preached by the Archbishop on his return from Rome was in honor of the solemn definition, by our Holy Father, the Pope, of the Immaculate Conception. It was not a written, nor even a well-prepared sermon ; but it was taken down by a reporter of the New York Herald, and through the circulation of that paper found its way, uncorrected as it was, into the Eternal City. Imperfect as it was, it was deemed worthy of translation, and of being deposited among other similar documents in the archives of Rome. The Archbishop at the same time announced the purpose of constructing a new church in honor of the Immaculate Conception. And then, forger, you are equally unfortunate in your allusion to Archbishop Bedini. You say that Archbishop Hughes turned his back on the Nuncio of Pius IX., while the said Nuncio was being assailed by the press, hooted and stoned by the mob, and burned in effigy in a hundred cities and vil- lages, during a period in which he most needed "his" (the Arch- bishop's) support. Now, it so happens that as long as the Nuncio honored the Archbishop with his presence and society, he was treated, both in New York and elsewhere, with all the courtesy and not a few of the honors to which a distinguished foreigner visiting the United States on lawful business would be entitled. But the Archbishop of New York, during his tour with the Nuncio, contracted a violent LETTERS. 511 cold, which threatened the most serious consequences, as it was thought by his physicians that his lungs were, or would be soon, deeply affected. They advised his going to Cuba. But previous to his departure no personal insult had been offered to the amiable and learned Nuncio, Bedini. Rome, therefore, has no complaint against the Archbishop for having neglected to honor the definition of the Immaculate Concep- tion, nor for having turned his back on the Nuncio of Pius IX. The paper proceeds in the next paragraph as follows: FIFTH. " It is difficult for the American mind to realize this indifference on one side., this sensitiveness on the other ; but the fact, we believe, is not less true, and our readers need not be surprised if they hear that the Pope and his Holy Col- lege of Cardinal have designated a coadjutor to the Archbishop, with the right of succession, or, with still more painful severity, have designated administra- tors of the diocese, into whose hands its affairs shall pass, thus virtually deposing the present incumbent." Mr. Forger, you need not be in the least uneasy with regard to the matter referred to in the paragraph just quoted. The writer of this can state, on the highest authority, that the Archbishop of New York has not the slightest idea of asking for a coadjutor, and that there is not the slightest probability of one being appointed during his life, except at his own request. Then, as to resignation, he will take that into serious reflection about the year 1879, if his life should be prolonged to that remote period. It may not be amiss, however, to state that if St. Peter, in the person of Pius IX. or his successor, should wish his resignation at any time, he will de- scend the steps of his archiepiscopal throne with a more willing and a lighter heart than he had when he mounted them for the first time. As to administrators, and all that, if the forger were not as ignorant as he is malicious, he should know that they can have no place in the Catholic Church. It does not recognize "standing committees" to play bishops in the vacancy of a Catholic See. SIXTH. "But the harshness of the measure will, doubtless, be concealed under the honeyed phrases and deferential forms in which churchmen disguise every movement of what, among worldlings, would be called ambition or rivalry. The organ of the Archbishop will announce that His Grace has petitioned to his holiness to be relieved of the cares which press too heavily upon him ; that he desires to devote the remainder of his life to seclusion, and the devotional exer- cises which befit his calling and his age. The bishops who are to take posses- sion of the diocese, and whom his charity and humility will forbid him to hate, will bow before him, will burn incense before him, will kiss his signet ring, and uphold Ms train as he ascends the altar to celebrate the mysteries of his religion." Oh, Forger ! ambitious as you suppose the Archbishop to be, he would not have the courage to see the bishops who are to take charge of his diocese bowing and burning incense before him, and 512 AKCIIBISHOP HUGHES. especially upholding his train or kissing his ring. This would be too much. SEVENTH. " Already conjectures are whispered as to the successorship, and the priests of Maynooth, and the Celtic clergy generally, speak of Archbishop O'Connor, of Pitteburg, while the ecclesiastics of American birth look to Bishop McClosky, of Albany, formerly coadjutor of New York, to whom, indeed, the suffrages of his colleagues of the Church would be gladly awarded, had he not refused, or at least omitted, to be an accuser of the Archbishop when the necessities of the Church called for his intervention." On this point, too, Mr. Forger, you may be perfectly at ease. The priests of Maynooth have enough to do in preserving the roof which protects them for there are forgers in London as well as in New York. Drummond and Spooner, though they may not have less malice, yet have more ability in their sad vocation than yourself. You ought to know that in the Catholic Church national distinctions are not encouraged, but rather repudiated. There is no doubt that if the See of New York were vacant, the amiable Bishop of Albany or the Bishop of Pittsburg would be a most excellent choice. But these distinguished prelates are wedded each to his own diocese; and it is almost certain that, except under an obligation of obedience to the Holy See, neither of them would give up his present post for any other appointment. Under all these circumstances, therefore, you must accept the epithet which Mr. Raymond fastened on the correspondent by whom he pretended to have been deceived, and for which deception he made a public apology that would be honor- able to himself if it could be considered sincere. He called his cor- respondent a forger, without, perhaps, foreseeing that the future occupant of his editorial chair would prove by a tenfold stronger title his claim to the epithet. In the meantime, let the Catholic people of the diocese of New York and their clergy be united as they have been for many years, meeting day by day as they have met, with prudence and forti- tude, the trials from without or from within which may happen to arise. The younger clergy will acquire more experience, and when the proper time comes it will not be difficult to select a suitable prelate to be the coadjutor or successor of the present Archiepiscopal incumbent. Another remark we shall make before concluding. Forger as- serts that there are clergy of the archdiocese now present in the Eternal City invoking the thunders of the Vatican on what he calls the Primate of New York. This again is a mistake. There are only two priests of the diocese in the Eternal City, neither of them, invoking any thunder of any kind on any one. The one is in perfect health both of body and mind the other was not so well when last heard from. But he was about to take the benefit of the baths at Tivoli, and great hopes were entertained of his perfect restoration to health. But his physicians were not sanguine that the rugged climate of LETTERS. 513 New York would be suitable to his constitution after his return. Fortunately, however, there is every variety of climate on our shores. fr JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, July 30, 1857. LETTER TO BISHOP LYNCH, OP CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA. NEW YORK, Aug. 23, 1861. RIGHT REV. DEAR SIR I have received your letter of the 4th instant. How it reached me I can hardly conjecture. But it came to hand within about the usual period required for the transmission of mail matter between Charleston and Nesv York during happier years, when all the States, North and South, found their meaning in the words *"E pluribus Unum." It must have run the blockade, or dodged the pickets on hostile borders. I have read it with very deep interest, increased, if any- thing, by the perils of flood and field through which it must have passed. If even the innocent lightning of the North were permitted to carry a message into Southern latitudes, I would telegraph you for permission to publish your calm and judicious communication. As it is, however, my only chance of acknowledging it is through the Metropolitan Record, and without special permission publish your letter at the same time. In this way it may happen that during the war, or afterwards, my answer will come under your inspection. Yours is, in my judgment, one of the most temperate views of the present unhappy contest that has ever come under my notice from, any son of South Carolina. It is not to be inferred, however, that because I admire so much the calmness of its tone and temper \ therefore agree with all its arguments and speculations. You say I am " reported to have spoken strongly against the- war policy of the Government of the United States, as fraught with much present suffering, and not calculated to obtain any real ad- vantage." Be assured that previous to the outbreak of military violence, I was most ardently desirous of preserving peace and union ; but, since violence, battle, and bloodshed have occurred, I dare not hope for peace unless you can show me a foundation of rock or solid ground (but no quicksand basis) on which peace can be re-estab- lished. The nature of your ministry and mine necessarily implies that we should be the friends of peace. It was the special legacy of our Divine Master to His flock. And it would be strange if we,, VOL. II. 33 514: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. His appointed ministers, should be found in the ranks of its Enemies. His words were, as we find in St. John, " Peace I leave to you, my peace I give to you ; not as the world giveth do I give to you." And yet St. Paul, in writing to the Christian converts of Rome, says : " If it be possible, as much as it is in you, have peace with all men." I think this latter inspired quotation lias at least a remote bearing on our present sad difficulties. Your explanations of the causes which have led to this war are entirely Southern in their premises and conclusions. But they are so mildly, and even plausibly stated, that I leave them uncontroverted. Your description of the evils resulting from the war is too correct to be gainsayed by me. Still, here we are in the midst of a sanguinary contest, which, so far as I can see, like a hurricane on the ocean, must exhaust its violence before we can expect the return of national calm. There is no one who desires more ardently than I do the advent of that bright day on which we shall all be re-united in one great prosperous and happy country. Instead of controverting the correctness of your views in regard to the causes of our actual troubles, or determining where or on whom the responsibility of their existence rests, I shall beg leave to make my own statement from a point of view which is found in the general sentiment of the people north of Mason and Dixon's line. They say that whatever may have been the anterior origin of this war, its immediate cause was the overt act of turning guns, put in place by the State of South Carolina, against a public military defence of the country at large, which of right belonged to all the States in common. Then it is thought, or at least stated, in these quarters that the South, for many years past, Avould not be satisfied with less than a paramount control of the Federal Government. The South, it is well known, has been in a fretful mood for many years under Northern assaults, made upon her civil and domestic institutions. It would be, on my part, very uncandid to disguise the conviction that in this respect the South has had much reason to complain. Leaving, however, opinions to fluctuate as they may, I will simply give you my own as to the primary causes of our present strife. You know that free speech and a free press are essential con- stituents of the first notions of Anglo-Saxon liberty. These were the shibboleth of its existence, prosperity, and prospects. In the exercise of these peculiar privileges, the North of this country has used its type and its tongue offensively against the South. Neither was the South backward in the work of retaliation on the same principle. But the Anglo-Saxon, whether of the South or of the North, would see the whole world set in a blaze rather than put limits to the freedom of the press or the unbridled license of the tongue, except when the laws interpose for the- protection of public authority or individual rights of character and property. At the commencement of our national institution as an indepen- dent State, slavery for instance, was found to exist, almost univer- LETTERS. 515 sally, in the North as well as in the South. The word itself was not used in any of the paragraphs found in the Magna Charta of our Government. The slave-trade from the western coast of Africa had been encouraged by the subjects and the Government of Great Britain. The Government of England did not hesitate to affix its veto on some of the enactments made by the recognized local autho- rities of the Colonies for the diminution of the slave-trade. It would appear that from this trade, so abominable in its primary origin, there were certain emoluments accruing to the treasury of the mother country. And these emoluments were looked to as a source of revenue, just as some countries in Europe, in their sovereign capacity, monopolize the largest portion of profits resulting from commerce in salt and tobacco. After the Revolution slavery was gradually dispensed with in all the Northern States. Whether this was done from what would now appear a sense of humanity, or from motives of domestic or political lucre, it will be for you, as for me, a private right to determine, each according to his own opinion. But slavery was a social element recognized in all the States at the period of the Revolution. So far the changes that have supervened in reference to slavery have been all in the North, and the South is to-day as to this matter in statu quo just as she was at the period of the Declaration of Independence. The Northern States, in the exercise of their acknowledged right, repudiated slavery within their own borders. The Southern States, in the equal exercise of theirs, have done just the reverse. The North, unrepenting of many sins of its own, has exhibited great re- morse for the sins of its neighbors. A portion of its inhabitants talk in a certain style, not only of this subject, but of a great many others, about national sins which, according to its solution of Pagan ethics or of Christian duty, every human being is bound to correct. Yet, the biggest sin in our day known to the North is not what occurs in ita own immediate neighborhood or State, but the monster iniquity of the South, which, between you and me, and as the world goes, might have been permitted to manage its own affairs in its own way, so that its acts should be found either in harmony with, or not in violation of, the Constitution of the United States. I am an advocate for the sovereignty of every State in the Union within the limits recognized and approved of by its own representa- tive authority, when the Constitution was agreed upon. As a con- sequence, I hold that South Carolina has no State right to interfere with the internal affairs of Massachusetts. And, as a further con- sequence, that Massachusetts has no right to interfere with South Carolina, or its domestic and civil affairs, as one of the sovereign States of this now threatened Union. But the Constitution having been formed by common consent of all the sovereign parties engaged in the framework and approval thereof, I maintain that no State has aright to secede, except in the manner provided for in the document itself. The revolt of the Colonies against the authority of Great Britain 516 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. is quite another thing. If England had extended to these Colonies the common rights and privileges nominally secured by the British Constitution, we have high authority for believing that the Colonies would not have gone, at least when they did, into rebellion. Indeed, it might be asserted and maintained that it was not the Americans, but the British Ministry and Government, that supplied legitimate reasons for the American Revolution. In the present case it would be difficult, by parity of reasoning, to justify the grounds on which the South have acted. I think a few remarks will satisfy you of the correctness of this statement. You say that for many years the South has proclaimed its dissatisfaction, and announced its determined purpose of secession, if certain complaints should not be attended to, and their causes redressed ; that the South was all the time in earnest, and the North would never believe in their sincerity or their predictions. This may be so ; but it gives me an occasion to remark that the Federal Go- vernment as such had given no special reason for the secession of the South at this time more than there was ten, or even fifteen years ago. The Personal Liberty Bill was unconstitutional in the few States which adopted it. New York was too wise and too patriotic to be canght in that trap. The so-called Personal Liberty Bill was never adopted, so far as documents are evidence, either directly or indirectly, by the Government at Washington. Indeed I am not aware of any, statute passed by the Federal authority which could give the South additional reasons for discontent or complaint within the last ten or fifteen years. I have thus alluded to the unofficial causes for Southern resent- ment. Even in your own letter the cause alleged is the election of the present Chief Magistrate. This does not seem at all sufficient to warrant the course which the South has adopted. The Government originally agreed upon by all the States has lasted during a period of between seventy and eighty years. Du- ring this time its executive administration was enjoyed by the South for fifty-two years. No Northern President has ever been re- elected. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, have each discharged that office for a term of eight years. The con- clusion is, then, that out of seventy or eighty years of the adminis- tration of our Government, fifty-two years have enured to our patri- otic men of the South. This fact involves the potentialities and powers of the Government as having been exercised by supremacy on the part of the South. The navy, the army, the incumbents of the Supreme Court were not ignorant of or insensible to this fact. Now, I put it to your candor to say whether, after such a history of the administration of our country, the South might not have tol- erated the occupancy of the presidential chair by the present incum- bent, who, with his Northern predecessors in that office, could hardly expect to survive officially the ordinary four years of a Northern Supreme Magistrate ? You say that President Lincoln was elected by Black Republicans LKTTKRS. 517 in the North. I am inclined to think that he was indirectly or negatively elected by Democrats, North and South. The Black Re- publicans presented one candidate ; and, in order to defeat his elec- tion, the Democrats, North and South, presented three. If the lat- ter had only selected one candidate, it is probable that the Black Republicans, as you call them, would have been found as minus habentes. But when the Democrats distributed their votes, appa- rently with a view of rendering them inefficient, then, of course, the one man of choice was elected over the three candidates and com- petitors that had been placed in rivalship with each other, and, in the aggregate, all against him alone. That he was constitutionally elected under these circumstances is not denied either in the South or in the North. Then, if so elected, he is the Chief Magistrate of all the United States of America, and by his very oath of office is bound by their own common consent to see that neither Maine, on the northeast, nor Texas, on the southwest, be permitted to over- throw the original Federal compact agreed upon in the Constitution of this Government. If States shall be allowed, in face of that Fed- eral Constitution, to kick over the traces of a common Union, as agreed upon in the primitive days of our Government, then it is dif- ficult to see why counties, and townships, and villages may not be at liberty to do the same thing just as often as a freak or fancy to do so may or shall come upon them. There appears to be an idea in the South that the Federal Gov- ernment and the people of the North are determined to conquer and subjugate them. This, I think, is a great mistake. First, in the sterner sense of the word "conquer," it seems to me utterly im- possible ; and, if possible, I think it would be undesirable and inju- rious both to the North and to the South. Unless I have been de- ceived by statements considered reliable, I would say that the mind of the North looks only to the purpose of bringing back the seceded States to their organic condition ante bellum. There remains now scarcely a hope of peace, and the issue is ap- parently that the North must triumph on the field of Mars, or that the South shall prove itself victorious on the same bloody arena. But, after all, we must not despair in reference to a coming peace. The idea of an armistice, even for six 'months, is now utterly hope- less ; but I think that the North, if the chance were presented, would be as willing to enter on terms of peace as the South itself. Still, I am bound to say, under deep conviction of the truth, that, of both sections unhappily launched on the swelling current of our do- mestic troubles, the North will be the latter to sink or swim in the sanguinary tide on which both are now afloat. You make mention of the Commissioners sent to Washington at an early period of the struggle with kind, fair, and liberal proposi- tions, as you consider them, for the arrangement of the whole diffi- culty. Before reaching the point of settlement there would be found a vast amount of principle involved. Commissioners should have some recognized authority to warrant them in attempting to 518 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. discharge the duties of their official office. Those of the South, in the circumstances, so far as I can see, had no authority what- ever. The people of your region (when I say people, of course I mean the voters, as commonly understood in this country) had scarcely been consulted on this vital question. Their Government, so-called, was unrecognized by any civil principality on the face of the earth. Commissioners presented themselves before the public servants of a Government universally recognized by all nations. The terms of these Southern Commissioners were more of dictation than of peti- tion. The Government at Washington had to choose one or another of two alternatives. The President and his Cabinet might have chosen the alternative of perjury, and acceded to the demands of those Commissioners ; or they might, as they surely did, decline ev- ery official intercourse with them. They chose the latter course. And now it only remains to see whether the Government is what it calls itself the Government of the United States, or merely the Government of a fraction thereof, and that fraction measured out to them by the Southern Commis- sioners, who could not show a legitimate title for the commission which they professed to execute. You think it hard that foreigners and Catholics should be deluded into the service of the recognized Federal Government, in order to be immolated in the front of battles, and made food for Southern powder. If this end were a deliberate policy in the North, I should scout and despise it. I admit and maintain, that foreigners now naturalized, whether Catholics or not, ought to bear their relative burden in defence of the only country on these shores which they have recognized, and which has recognized them as citizens of the United States. Mr. Russell, the correspondent of the London Times, reports a conversation which he had with "a very intelligent Southern gen- tlemen, formerly editor of a newspaper," who stated, on behalf' of the Confederacy " Well, sir, when things are settled we'll just take the law into our own hands. Not a man shall have-a vote unless he's American born, and by degrees we'll get rid of these men who disgrace us." Mr. Russell inquired : "Are not many of your regi- ments composed of Germans and Irish of foreigners, in fact?" " Yes, sir." This very " intelligent Southern gentleman, formerly editor of a newspaper," is certainly no true representative of the gentlemen whom it was iny good fortune and pleasure to meet whenever I travelled in the South. But no matter. If the statement be true, it only shows that for Irish and foreigners in general the South is nearly as unfriendly as the North can be. It proves, further, that, so far as the Irish are concerned, the hereditary calamities of their native land follow them up wherever they go, in one form or another. Here, and now, they are called upon by both sides to tight in the battles of the country ; and no matter who triumphs, they need LETTERS. 519 not look for large expressions of thanks or gratitude from either side. Still, whether in peace or war, take them for all in all, they are as true to the country as if they had been born on its once free and happy soil. Pardon me this digression, and let me return to the other senti- ment touching the hope of a prospective peace. That word " peace" is becoming more or less familiar here in the North. In a crisis like this it is riot, in my opinion, expressive of a sound principle or a safe policy. Its meaning changes the basis and the issue of this melancholy war. If changed, it will be a war, not between the South and the North, geographically considered, but a war between the two great political parties that divide the country. Instead of this partisan hostility, wise patriots should rival each other in restoring or preserving the Union as one nation, its pros- perity, and the protection and happiness of its entire people in all their legitimate rights. But all this is to be judged of by others, and the opinion of any individual is of the smallest account. If a word of mine could have the slightest influence, I would suggest that, even whilst the war is going on, there might be a convention of the seceded States held within their own borders. There might be one representative appointed from each of those States by the governor, to meet and examine the whole case as it now stands ; arrange and draw up a report of their grievances, or what they con- sider such ; and report to their respective governors the result of their deliberations, and the conclusions at which they shall have ar- rived. The same process might be adopted in the States that have not seceded, and similar reports be made to their respective governors. This would be only a preparatory measure for something more im- portant. If a better feeling or understanding could be even par- tially arrived at, a future convention of all the States by their rep- resentatives would have something to act upon. The difficulties might be investigated and provided for ; the Constitution might be revised by general consent, and if the platform sufficiently ample for 3,000,000 at the period when the Constitution was formed is found to be neither of breadth nor strength to support a population of 33,000,000, wise and patriotic men might suggest, according to the rules prescribed in the original document, the improvements which the actual condition of the country would seem to require. The Constitution itself, in its letter and spirit, is no doubt the same as it was when first framed ; but every thing around has been under- going a change for nearly eighty years. For a peace of that kind I would be a very sincere, it not an influential, advocate. But to expect that a peace will spring up by the advocacy of individuals, in the midst of the din and clash of arms, amidst the mutually alienated feelings of the people, and the widening of the breach which has now separated them, would be, in my opinion, hoping against hope. Still, we must trust that the Almighty will overrule and direct the final issues of this lamentable contest. 520 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. I had no intention to write so long a response to your kind letter. Enough, and perhaps more than enough, has been said ; and it only remains for me to add, that the Catholic faith and Catholic charity which unites us in the spiritual order, shall remain unbroken by the booming of cannon along the lines that unfortunately separate a great and once prosperous community into two hostile portions, each arrayed in military strife against the other. I have the honor to remain, as ever, Your obedient servant and brother in Christ, * JOHN, Archbishop of New York. Right Rev. P. N. LYNCH, Bishop of Charleston. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE CITY INSPECTOR. CITY INSPECTOR'S DEPARTMENT,) New York, April 1, 1860. J To THE MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP HUGHES : SIR Your attention is earnestly directed to the following extract of a law of this State, entitled " An act to amend an act providing for the registry of births, marriages, and deaths," passed April 2, 1853 : Extract from the Statutes. " It shall be the duty of clergymen, magistrates, and other persons who per- form the marriage ceremony in the city of New York, to keep a registry of the marriages celebrated by them, which shall contain, as near as the same can be as- certained, the names and surnames of the parties married, the residence, age, and condition of each, whether single or widowed, and to report the same on or before the first Monday of each and every month to the City Inspector. " SEC. 7. Every person who shall neglect to comply with, or violate the pro- visions of this act, shall forfeit and pay for each offence the sum of $50." As the chief officer of this department, it is my duty to se^ that the provis- ions of this law are complied with, and any omission or neglec; to comply with the same will compel the enforcement of its requirements. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, DANIEL E. DELAVAN, City Inspect >r. AECHBISHOP HUGHES' REPLY. NEW YORK, May 26, 1860. SIR It is within a few days that I received your communication dated April 1st, of this year. I would beg leave to say that nothing is left undone in the Church to which I belong which is not in har- mony with the best interests of society. Persons proposing to be LETTERS. 521 married are published in their respective churches, on different pub- lic occasions, previous to their matrimonial contract. Every precau- tion is taken to guard against the domestic iniquities which are too often sanctioned by other official officers of civil matrimony. I have, therefore, to say, with the utmost respect, that many cases have oc- curred, and are still liable to occur, in which it is for the Catholic priest to remedy privately the evils which the corruption of morals may have entailed, so far as any remnant of private conscience is concerned on the part of the delinquents. But I beg to say, once for all, that unless under coercion, I shall never betray these or sim- ilar weaknesses of fallen human nature, when it turns up in the form of penitence. If the State appointed a salary for clergymen to per- form marriage, or any other religious act, as its official agent, I can understand that the State might have a right to inquire into the manner, time, circumstances, etc., of such act, and to hold its agent responsible to its laws. There may be those who will admit the obligation, in the absence of these conditions, to render the State an account of their stewardship. But I beg leave to say, with the ut- most respect for all human legal authority, that I am not of the num- ber. I am prepared for a prison, or for a scaffold ; but I am not prepared to obey a requisition which would violate the obligations of my conscience in a country like this, in which it is said that civil and religious liberty is the right of every citizen. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, J* JOHN, Archbishop of New York. DANIEL E. DELAVAN, Esq., City Inspector. ME. DELAY AN TO THE ARCHBISHOP. T INSPECTOR'S I New York, May 31, 1860. CITY INSPECTOR'S DEPARTMENT,) His GRACE, ARCHBISHOP HUGHES : SIR Upon the receipt of your letter of the 26th inst., I submitted the same to the Corporation Counsel, with the accompanying note : (See copy, hereto annexed, dated May 28, 1860.) To which I have received the following reply : (See copy, hereto annexed, dated May 28, 1860.) You therefore see that a compliance with the statute becomes imperatively necessary ; and should such compliance not be made, I shall have discharged my duty in placing the matter in the hands of the recognized authorities to act in the premises as they may deem proper. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, DANIEL K DELAVAN, City Inspector. 522 ABCIIBISHOP HUGHES. THE VICAR-GENERAL TO MR. DELAVAX. NEW YORK, June 1, 1860. To DANIEL E. DELAVAN, City Inspector : SIR Your letter of the 31st ult., to the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes, in reference to marriages, has been duly received. The Most Rev. Archbishop is absent from home for a few days ; but I have no doubt that he will reply as soon as he returns. I deem it my duty to acknowledge the receipt of your letter in his absence. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, WM. STARRS, V. G. THE ARCHBISHOP TO MR. DELAVAN. NEW YORK, June 9, 1860. SIR On my return from the South I find your communication dated May 31, 1860. What I stated in a former communication was not by any means intended to be construed except as an expla- nation. I have no wish to claim, either in my own name or in that of the religious community to which I belong, any exception from the laws of the State or of the Union. It remains, therefore, for the Corporation Counsel and yourself to proceed in the matter as it is enjoined upon you to do by your oath of office. Very respectfully, Your obed'ient servant, 4. JOHN, Archbishop of New York. DANIEL E. DELAVAN, Esq., City Inspector. To the Editor of the Herald: MR. DANIEL E. DELAVAN, City Inspector, having inaugurated a private correspondence with the Archbishop of New York, has betrayed the implied privacy by publishing the correspondence with- out the knowledge or consent of the other party. How far the decency of official position could have warranted such a course on the part of the City Inspector it is for others to say. His principle of guidance was to be inferred from the laws of the land and his oath of office. But, turning aside from these, he has made his appeal to the public press. What his object may be in selecting the archbishop as the target for odium it is difficult, or rather it is not difficult, to say. Others have kept afloat when they were likely to LETTERS. 523 sink, or for the moment, risen higher by such a course as that which Mr. Delavan has adopted. There is a law respecting marriage in the city of New York, odious, unpopular, and, as the writer thinks, unconstitutional. Mr. Delavan has taken an oath to execute that law. The State has given him power his oath of office binds him to do so. And yet he only writes in the newspapers. In his state- ment, as published in the Herald of this day, he does not quote the entire statute of 1853. And, in the portion which he does quote, he substitutes words of his own for others which the Legislature employed. The second letter of the Archbishop was mainly in answer to the contents of an official communication drawn up with great solemnity, bound together with fresh green ribbon. This second letter was in reply to the contents of this document, which the City Inspector, in his appeal to the newspapers, has thought proper to suppress. The law itself was passed April 2, 1853, and has not been enforced, in a single instance, up to the present time. In the first paragraph it is required that clergymen, magistrates, and other persons who perform the marriage ceremony in the city of New York, shall keep a register of the marriages celebrated by them, which shall contain, as near as the. same can be ascertained, the name and surname of the parties married, the residence, age, and condition of each, and whether single or widowed. In paragraph four of the same act ifc is provided that the City Inspector of the city of New York shall be entitled to receive such fees for recording each birth, marriage, or death as the Board of Supervisors of the city of New York shall establish, the fees for recording the births being payable by the Board of Supervisors, and the recording of marriages by the person reporting the same, it being provided that the fee for recording e"ach birth or marriage shall not exceed the sum of one dime. Paragraph five says, every clergyman, magis- trate, or other person solemnizing marriage, and reporting the same in accordance with this act, shall be entitled to demand and receive for the same, from the parties, the sum of at least one dollar, out of which he shall pay the fee for recording such marriage. The seventh paragraph says : Every person who shall neglect, or refuse to comply with, or violate the provisions of this act, shall forfeit and pay for each offence the sura of fifty dollars, to be sued for and recovered in the name of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Com- monalty of the city of New York, and the penalty, when recovered, shall be paid over, one-half thereof to the Corporation of the city of New York, and one-half to the party making complaint thereof. The parties who contrived this law were understood, at the time, to have intended merely the creation of a new clerkship, or the increase of emoluments to the City Inspector's office, at the rate of ten cents for every marriage to be performed in the city of New York. Magistrates are officers of the law ; clergymen are merely what they profess to be, and receive no emolument from the State. The act provides for the registering, by physicians and professional 524: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. raidwives, of the several births in which they have assisted pro- fessionally. They are taxed also for every such birth the sum of ten cents. But the fees for recording such births are payable by the Board of Supervisors whilst the clergyman who performs the mar- riage is obliged to travel to the Inspector's office with a record of the same, and to pay a penalty often cents out of his own pocket for the privilege of the journey. It is true that the law authorizes him to demand from the parties married the sum of at least one dollar, out of which he shall pay the fee. So that, after committing simony under the statute, by selling or charging for a sacred rite, he has ninety cents left out of one dollar to compensate him for his trudging visit to the Inspector's office. But it may not have occurred either to the Legislature or Mr. Delavan that parties may wish and have a right to get married who have not even a dollar to give. "What is the clergyman to do in that case ? Independent of all this, the true compliance with the law would involve all clergymen, on occasions of marriage, in a position of odium and insolence degrading to themselves, offensive and intoler- able to the free people of the city of New York.- They are required to ascertain the name and surname of the parties married. This was a matter of course before the act was passed. But, in addition, they are required to ascertain the residence, age, and condition of each of the parties. Let us take these three requirements in suc- cession. First, the clergyman is really bound to know that the parties about to contract matrimony are free to do so. Their residence does not belong to the rite of matrimony. And if any clergyman should ask the street and number of their abode, they would have a right to say, " It is none of your business ; we come to be married, and not to give details which belong to the department of the census." Next question to be asked, under this precious law, is the age of the parties respectively " Pray, sir, what is your age ?" " I came to be married, not to tell my age." " And now, young lady, pray, how old may you be ?" The clergy- man who would address such a question, at such a moment, to a lady about to be married, would incur, and justly, the indignation of every relative and every friend of hers who would come to witness the ceremonial. He might blush and bow his head, and say that he acted under the requirements of an act of the Legislature, and of Mr. Delavan, City Inspector. But if the whole company hurled their bouquets, or something harder, at the head of the clergyman who should have the indelicacy, whether in obedience or disobedi- ence to the law, to ask such a question, at such a moment, no one could blame them. It would be an insult, aggravated by time, place, and circumstance ; and the people of New York, whether high or low, rich or poor, would not stand it. The next interrogatory pre- scribed in the law would be as to the condition of each. The parties could answer, with great propriety, " Our condition is our own ; we are not bound to say whether our parents were oystermen or baro- LETTERS. 525 nets ; we are what we are ; we came here to be married, and not to be inquisitionized." The clergyman, if such a clergyman could, by any possibility, be found in New York, who should have gone through these require- ments of the law of Mr. Delavan, might allege the authority which compelled him to be rude and insolent. But the whole thing is stupid, absurd, and, as to its execution, utterly impossible. The people would not, and certainly should not, submit to any such insolence. Nor should any clergyman who has a decent respect for his office degrade that office by voluntary obedience to so stupid a requirement in regard to the most sacred institution that is known to Christian civilization. Marriage is the basis of all that is pure and dignified in the. Christian family. If ignorant legislators tamper with marriage, they will inflict a deep wound upon the social con- dition. It is said that in Catholic countries the civil law takes cognizance of marriage, and France has been referred to. But ask any respectable Frenchman, who is imbued with Christian ideas, why it is that in the principal towns, especially Paris, there are so many illegitimate births, and he will answer immediately that, making large allowance for human depravity, those births are to be accounted for by the fact that the State has multiplied civil impediments to marriage, and that large classes of the poor, especially, falling into sin, are willing to persevere in it rather than go through the ordeal of marriage which the State has prescribed. Now, it is not to be denied that marriage is, to some extent, a subject for State solicitude. Local registries in every church and by every magistrate ought to be preserved ; in the Catholic Church they are preserved. For statistics the State should have a right to claim the knowledge of the number of marriages performed during any given time. But they should not require of the clergyman to pay ten cents for every marriage performed by him, as a perquisite, to the City Inspector's office. They should not require of him to find out the age of a young gentleman and lady who are about to bo married, or their condition in life, or any other knowledge that might be intrusive on the domestic privileges of American families. It has been said that the Archbishop opposes the law. He does so emphatically in the sense of moral opposition, because he regards the law as contemptuous and oppressive towards the clergy, insolent and offensive to the laity ; and, therefore, it is very well understood that, except under physical coercion, administered by the City Inspector, he at least shall have nothing to do with it. * * * A CARD TO THE PUBLIC. IN a recent correspondence with the City Inspector of Xew Yoi k, the Archbishop sanctioned the publication of a statement prejudical 526 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. to Mr. Delavan, and which statement he now finds to have originated in a mistake. The statement was that Mr. Delavan, in sending documents to the newspapers, had suppressed one portion of the correspondence. Mr. Delavan has denied this, and, on stricter examination, the Archbishop acknowledges that Mr. Delavan, so far, was entirely correct, and the Archbishop entirely in error. The Archbishop for this apologizes to Mr. Delavan, for he would rather forfeit a triumph than be unfair or ungenerous to any human being. The correspondence, though brief, when printed in the newspapers, was, on the other hand, protracted from the 1st of April until the 13th of June. During this interval the Archbishop was often absent from home, and especially towards the end, during his visit to North Carolina. The communications of Mr. Delavan, unfortunately, arrived, for the most part, during his absence ; and it was probably owing to this that the mistake referred to before seemed to have its foundation in truth. But the Archbishop does not pretend that this is a legitimate excuse. He should have made himself certain of the truth of the whole matter ' for it is not of much importance whether an individual be injured by design or by accident. When he is injured unintentionally he is entitled to that reparation which the Archbishop, in this case, now offers. It must not be understood, however, that the Archbishop hereby relinquishes one iota of the principle involved in the very unneces- sary controversy which Mr. Delavan has fixed upon him. * JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, July 5, 1860. VISIT TO IRELAND. INTERVIEW WITH THE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD. [Although the following document does not come under the head of " Let- ters," still it was deemed necessary to insert it here, in order to properly under- stand the two letters that follow.] From the Dublin Freeman's Journal. On Tuesday evening, July 22d, 1862, a meeting of Nationalists was held in the hall of the National Brotherhood of St. Patrick, Dublin, to take into con- sideration the propriety of presenting an address, expressive of their affection and reverential admiration for the Archbishop of New York. An address was read, which it was agreed should be presented to His Grace. It was then agreed that His Grace should be forthwith communicated with, to learn at what time he LETfERS. 527 would be prepared to receive the address. His Grace fixed the hour of half past eleven on Thursday morning. On Thursday morning the deputation, headed by The O'Donoghoe, proceeded to the Qresham Hotel, where they were received with kindly and affectionate cordiality by His Grace. Mr. M'Donnell was directed to read and present the address. It expressed much reverence and affectionate admiration for His Grace, as a great prelate of the Church, and a man who, by his genius and his virtues, had done so much to raise the character of the Irish race in America ; it mentioned how great a benefactor and a blessing he had been to the poor Irish exiles thrown upon the quays of New York. Hie Grace, after the address had been presented, addressed the deputation in the most kindly and affectionate manner. He said I assure you, gentlemen, it would be difficult it would he impossible to express the feelings with which I receive this most complimentary expression of your regard. I have received more than one address already since I came to Ireland ; and yours shares this one defect with all the others, that in it any thing I have done has been greatly exaggerated. In this address you touch on topics on which, indeed, I have very much to say ; but having been taken somewhat by surprise, I have not had an opportunity to prepare a written reply there have been so many de- mands upon my time ; but I promise you that, before I leave Ireland, I will send you such written expression of the feelings inspired by your kind address. The O'Donoghoe is, I suppose, your leader Mr. Holland The Donoghoe, my Lord, is the leader of the Nationalists of Ireland. (Applause.) His Grace I hope he will be leader of all Ireland yet ; for I think his talents, hie character, his position, and his old historic name qualify him for such a post of leadership. (Hear, hear.) He is still a young man ; but when he is as old as I am, I trust he will have many years of good and faithful service done to his country to look back upon with satisfaction. (Applause.) But your ref- erence to the funeral of M'Manus brings many strange old recollections to my mind. 1 left Ireland when I was young ; though, indeed, not very young, for I was eighteen years old. Many things were far different in Ireland then from what they are now. There have been great changes since. It was a surprise to me to find that M'Manus was not only a brother Irishman, but, as it were, a neighbor of my own, for he was a Monaghan man ; so also was Devin Keilly. When I was called upon to perform those religious rites over the remains of M'Manus I received a letter from the Archbishop of San Francisco, informing me how he had died, how true a Catholic he had been, how he had received the last solemn rites and the sacraments of the Church, and how edifying a death was his. You know how much gratification I therefore had in celebra- ting those religious offices over his remains. (Applause.) You have spoken of M'Manus as a good patriot ; but there is something more. We may all have our faults ; and I can respect those who struggle for a righteous cause, though they may act rashly and imprudently. No human being can live without some faults ; but we have all of us the one guide to turn to religion revelation. To all true men, whatever their condition or struggle may be, religion must be every thing ; holding by that we cannot go wrong. (Hear, hear.) Now (con- tinued His Grace, with a smile), I will confess to you, gentlemen, that when I left this country for America (then so young a man) I had a kind of spite against priests and bishops. (Much laughter.) Remember how long ago that was well, my spite against the priests and bishops was based on the false im- pression that they stood between our people and their liberties that but for them Ireland would be free. (Laughter and applause.) His Grace But, you know, I was mistaken. There was one bishop, of whom I never heard any thing but what was bad (Laughter.) In fact, he was re- ported to be a regular Government man. (Renewed laughter.) You may be sure I did not like him ; but, let me confess it, I found afterwards that he was one of the best friends of Ireland. You know his was the time of what is called the revolution of '98 ; a movement, in which, after all, the means were not equal to the object proposed ; and that is every thing. (Hear, hear.) Now, gentlemen, there are three grounds on which alone, according to the teaching 528 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. of our Church, rebellion is justifiable. St. Thomas, of Aquinas, you know, lays them down very clearly. One condition is if the country is borne clown by a grievous weight of tyranny that is the extreme condition. But, then, in the government of men some allowance must be made ; for government and laws are only the embodiment of great general principles ; and, human nature not being perfect, the operation of the law may sometimes be opposed to the very principles of equity they are supposed to inculcate. Take, for example, the case of that Catholic lady who married that Protestant what shall I call him ? (Laughter.) What was her name ? The O'Donoghoe Mrs. Yelverton. Archbishop Hughes -Just so. Well, hers was a case in which an Irish judge and an Irish jury decided by equity and justice (hear, hear), and yet her case may be set aside on technicalities of law. These contradictions between law and equity are things we must make allowances for ; but, if the people are so treated that there is a general feeling amongst them that they are subject to intolerable oppression, then that is one ground and justification of rebelling. Another condition is the justice of your cause and object ; but, then, here is the third and great condition : " Have you measured your strength, and made sure of success t" (Hear, hear.) If you undertake a revolution, and have not so measured your strength, you commit a great crime. (Hear, hear.) It will not do, however just the cause, to undertake to fight a great empire with a few rusty muskets, and a commissariat contained in your carpet-bag. (Ap- plause and laughter.) Such rash proceedings only insure ignominious failure, and settle the tyrant more firmly in his saddle. (Hear, hear.) No, the way for an oppressed people to achieve their rights is not by rashness and intemper- ate haste, but by patience, steadiness, and resolute purpose. (Applause.) Gen- tlemen, there are events occurring calculated to bring the wrongs, the miseries, the sufferings of the Irish people under consideration elsewhere. (Hear, hear ) But if the time comes, it will not be to redress your wrongs merely for the world is selfish, and nations takes care of themselves it will originate in an ' an effort to settle other and more general grievances ; through them, no doubt, Ireland may have her opportunity. (Murmurs of applause.) I think I have said enough ; and now, in conclusion, gentlemen, let me thank you heartily for the compliment you have paid me. Mr. Gill We thank your Grace for the kindly and paternal reception you have given us ; and we have nothing more to say, except to assure you that, with the attack of the English newspapers upon the great American Republic, which are echoed by one or two pseudo-liberal papers here in Dublin, the Irisli people have no sympathy. (Hear, hear.) Archbishop Hughes I believe that ; but there is an element here called " gentility" (laughter) which follows that English teaching. But I can as- sure you, gentlemen, that those English papers are filled with constant false- hoods respecting this American war. I know, for example and this is a proof how cunningly they do their work an instance recently, in which the corres- pondent of one London journal stated a number of facts, each individual fact of which was true ; but yet the man had so manipulated and combined the facts that the entire statement became one great falsehood. (Laughter.) Mr. Harnett--Well, my Lord, whatever individual opinions may be, wo shall all be rejoiced to see the great quarrel ended, and peace and unity restored. His Grace If we do not finish it soon enough, we will send over for twenty thousand more of you to fight under our flag, and, please God, we may end the quarrel soon. (Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Holland We have plenty of good men in our constabulary, my Lord, who would officer your army readily enough. His Grace, after a few words more, gave the deputation his benediction, and the gentlemen then retired greatly pleased by his urbanity, high gentlemanly bearing, and cordial kindliness. LETTERS. 529 THE ADDRESS OF THE " NATIONALISTS." CORK, August 2, 1862. To the JBditor of the Cork Examiner : MY DEAR SIR On the eve of my departure for New York, I beg permission to make grateful acknowledgment of the kindness and attention which have been extended to me since my arrival in this country. The occasion of my visit was to deliver a discourse on Catholic education in connection with the new University. Im- mediately on my arrival in Liverpool, last November, I promised the Very Rev. Dr. Woodlock that before I returned to America I should comply with his request, not having at that time any idea of the extent to which the question of Catholic education had seized on the popular and national mind of this kingdom. The demonstration of the 20th ult., on the occasion of laying the corner-stone of this new university, is a proof that the cause has been taken to heart by the venerable prelates, clergy, and people of Ireland. During my stay in Dublin I was called upon to address several assemblies, prin- cipally of young men and students. Among them was the Catholic Young Men's Society and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. On these and other occasions I had to speak without any special prepa- ration. The reports of my observations published in the news- papers, though as well taken down as could be expected, were oftentimes inaccurate as found in the papers. Not one of them was seen by myself, either in manuscript or in proof, previous to their publication ; and if, under these circumstances, there may be found thoughts or expressions to which exception may have been taken, I believe that in such case the speaker is not held to be strictly re- sponsible for what is put in print. During the seven days of my stay in Dublin, there is only one circumstance which I cannot look back to with entire satisfaction that is, the publication of a private conversation between several gentlemen and myself on the occasion of presenting me with a com- plimentary address. That address was read in my presence, and at its close I intimated that I should respond to it in writing before taking my departure from the country. The conversation that took place, as reported in the public press, is partly true, and partly the reverse of truth. The meaning which it is intended to convey in print is not- the true meaning of my words as uttered in conversation. But even if this were not so, I cannot but look upon it as a violation of ordinary courtesy that a private conversation with me should be given to the public without my previous knowledge or consent. It exonerates me from any written or formal reply to the address pre- sented me, to which, however, I feel bound to allude in this. parting letter. First. The address purported that it should be presented by a deputation from Nenagh ; whereas, in point of fact, it is not an ad- VOL II. 34. 530 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. dress from the people of any particular place in Ireland. It ap- pears to have been written in Dublin, by authority of the gentlemen who have seen fit to publish their names in connection with it. It emanated, as we read, from the meeting of Nationalists held in the Hall of the National Brotherhood of St. Patrick in Dublin. And yet no intimation was given me, previous to its presentation, that Nationalists or Brotherhoods of St. Patrick had anything to do witli it. I had not heard, nor do I know now, what is the meaning of the "Nationalists of Ireland." I have been told since that the Brother- hood of St. Patrick is a secret society that is, a society having regu- lations and duties to which the individual member, at the period of initiation, binds himself by an oath, or solemn appeal to God, which is equivalent to an oath. Every such society, no matter by what name it calls itself, is condemned by the laws of God and the de- cisions of the Catholic Church. Every such society is unlawful even before men. It is a snare for those who enter into it. It leads to no good either for Church or State. It is well known, both in America and Dublin itself, that I have ever opposed secret societies, as the proper discharge of my duties as a prelate required me to do. Second. The case of the late Terence Bellew McManus was intro- duced in the address, and in reference to that case, the gentleman presenting the document appeared not to have been acquainted with the facts. I was waited upon by a committee of gentlemen in New York, requesting that the holy sacrifice of the Mass might be offered up for the repose of the soul of McManus ; that his remains, which had just then arrived from San Francisco, should be borne in grand funeral procession through the streets of New York to the Cathedral. The first part of the request was granted ; the second was peremp- torily refused. A testimonal from the Archbishop of San Francisco, to the effect that McManus had received the last rites of the Church while living, was a sufficient warrant to entitle his departed soul to the prayers of the faithful. His remains were decently deposited in the receiving vault of the cemetery until they should be removed. This is all that can be ascribed to me, as the Archbishop of New York. And even this I could not accept as a compliment, if, inten- tionally or accidentally, it implied any censure upon the conduct of others. Third. It was obvious that the history of McManus and his asso- ciates tinged, if I can so express it, the whole conversation. I re- ferred to the bad impressions which calumnies uttered against the prelates and clergy of Ireland had upon my own mind when I was yet young and uninformed of the full state of the case. Fourth. What I said of the right of revolution in general, ac- cording to Catholic doctrine, I am represented as having said in reference to Ireland in particular. It had no more reference to Ire- land than any other country. It was based on principles of law, winch, if sound, are universal. Belgium had recourse to revolution, and succeeded, because she had observed the conditions laid down LETTERS. 531 by St. Thomas. But because Poland and Ireland attempted a revo- lution when some, if not all, the conditions to justify such a course were wanting, neither Poland nor Ireland have been successful in their attempt. In this view of the subject, I charged with rashness any attempt which did not hold out a reasonable prospect of success as calculated to confirm the governing power more and more in its authority. But, altogether, what I said on the occasion has been apparently misconceived or misrepresented, so that the true idea does not appear in the printed report. I turn from this rather unpleasant topic to the more agreeable duty of making my grateful acknowledgments of the kindness with which I have been received by the clergy and people of the Irish capital, and by their brethren during a brief visit to Killarney ; but still more I owe the expression of my grateful feelings to the inhabi- tants of this beautiful old Cork, from which I take my departure for my home in the West. The people of your city have enabled me to be present at a public banquet in which I had the pleasure of meeting a very large number of your most respectable citizens. I take it as a personal honor that the mayor of Cork did not hesitate to preside on the occasion. To him, and to the gentlemen who sur- rounded him at the festive board, I make my concluding and very sincere acknowledgments. Respectfully your obedient servant, %> JOHN, Archbishop of New York. THE DEPUTATION FROM NENAGH AND OTHER TOPICS THAT HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED IN IRELAND AS ITS SEQUEL. NEW YORK, November 29, 1862. To the Editor of the Cork Examiner : DEA.R SIR The letter of leave-taking which I drew up in the library of his Honor the Mayor, on the morning before my de- parture from Cork, has given rise to much discussion in the Irish newspapers since my departure from Qaeenstown. I regret the necessity that I felt incumbent upon me to make known my sentiments ; and if the results have been unpleasant to others, they are almost painful to me. I have been placed in an ambiguous position before my friends and before your country. My veracity which, as far as I am aware, has never been doubted in any other land, has been called into question in Ireland for the first, and probably for the last, time in my life. And though, when I 532 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. read the report of my reply to that deputation in a public journal, and though I felt I was wounded, and that unworthy advantage had been taken of me, still, after ten minutes' reflection, I made up my mind rather to submit to it in silence, for the sake of my native land, than to expose its parts or its aggregate in detail. This pur- pose I retained, shunning, as much as possible, all allusion to the subject until the Friday evening previous to my embarkation. On that evening I was the honored guest of Mr. Maguire. He was kind enough to invite a number of respectable gentlemen to meet me at dinner. There was no topic of politics introduced at table ; but, during the desert, a gentlemen who sat directly opposite to me took occasion to allude to my reply to the deputation in Dublin, and with a frankness for which I thank him now, he mentioned that it had been the theme of discussion in the railway train among highly res- pectable gentlemen whom he named ; that they regretted it ; that, in their opinion, it was calculated to do mischief in the interior of Ireland ; and that they thought I was bound to give some explanation before leaving the country. The gentleman .himself seemed to be of the same opinion ; and the others around the table, if silence could be construed into an approval of what he said, seemed to be of the same opinion. I felt this not a little. But I gave no verbal ex- planation either of my feelings at the moment, or of the facts of the case. Still, I made up my mind to give an explanation ; and the next day the good Mayor provided me in his library with pen, ink, and paper. His books were at my service; but the case did not require that I should consult them. The letter was written between ten and eleven o'clock, with scarcely time left for its appearance in the Cork Examiner that afternoon. Perhaps, however, I will accomplish my object best by giving, with as much simplicity and brevity of language as possible, the his- tory of the whole proceeding. On the night of Wednesday, 23d of July, about eleven o'clock, when I had already retired to rest, a message was brought to my room from a gentlemen in the hall of the hotel, who gave his name as P. Gill, editor of the Tipperary Advocate, who wished to know when it would be convenient for me to receive a deputation from Nenagh, or, it may be, that he was from Nenagh at the head of a deputation. It was too late to give an answer, but he was to call in the morning to receive a response. Together with the message, I received what I considered a rough draft of an intended address which was to be presented to me. This rough draft, as I regarded it, was written partly on two sides of a single leaf of ruled paper, such as might have been picked up from the desk, or even the floor of a scrivener's office. It bore no date of either time or place it had no signature it was not written on the responsibility, so far as the document itself is evidence, of any man, or any number of men in Ireland. All this you will see in the original before the close of this communication. LETTERS. 533 I do not mean to say that the value of an address is not to be sought for in the sentiments which it expresses for those indeed constitute its true worth. But, in presenting any thing worthy to be called an address, it is usual to incorporate something of its his- tory and derivation. It is also customary to furnish, in connection with it, something that may be called its "mountings." Thus, the Catholic young men of Dublin, with exquisite taste, surprised me at their meeting with a complimentary address, imprinted with letters of gold on green silk, and beautifully mounted. Thus, also, the mu- nicipal authorities of the city of New York, in their own name, and in that of their constituents, presented me with an official address of congratulation on the occasion of my safe return to my home and to my flock. This, as may be supposed, was gotten up in style superior to any thing that I had previously received. Addresses from one thousand orphan children from the boys and girls of our parochial schools were all, both before my departure and since my return, engrossed and presented with sentiments and the formality of mountings, which rendered them very dear to me, and worthy to be preserved as long as I live. Plow, then, could I imagine that the leaf of ruled paper to which I have referred could have been intended as the address to which the deputation referred ? At the close of the interview, seeing that they had no copy of their own, and that they borrowed mine for recital, I offered it to them, think- ing that it might be of use to them in engrossing what they had in- tended to be the real address. This they declined, stating they did not need it. But to return. It was appointed, however, the next morning that I should be happy to receive the deputation, or whatever it might be called, between eleven and twelve o'clock that day. They were punctual to the hour. They were introduced one after the other by The O'Donoghoe. It appears they had no address of their own, but they borrowed mine, which I had read in the morning, and caused it to be read again by a young man accompanying them. After the reading had been concluded, there were but two courses to be adopted by me. One was to thank them briefly for their kind intentions. But this, especially if they had come from Xenagh to pay me a compliment, would seem to be discourteous, if not harsh, on my part. I determined, instead, to make a few impromptu remarks in reference to what had just taken place, and bearing on the substance of their address. These remarks, though not without a purpose to render them perhaps instructive, if not agreeable, were uttered in a playful manner and colloquial tone of voice. I did not know any of the gentlemen present, not having seen any of them either previous to or since the interview, except the gentleman who introduced them. My language was familiar and confiding. The O'Donoghoe's presence made me feel that I was half surrounded by friends. Judge of my astonishment, then, when I discovered in a public newspaper 534 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. a report of my reply, without any preceding report of the so-called address, of which it would be an acknowledgment. It never occurred to me that there was among the gentlemen comprising the deputation, or whatever they may call it, one who had been professionally unknown to me, purloining the sounds of my voice, acting as a "skilled short-hand writer of many years prac- tice," and preparing for the public press a report of my observa- tions, which I never was to have an opportunity of seeing, revising, or correcting, until it appeared in the papers. If he had come and been introduced as a reporter for the press, he need not have been one iota the less a gentleman. I should have received him just the Bame as the others, and should either have declined making any remarks, or I should have furnished him with the appropriate accommodation for the exercise of his mysterious, but, sometimes useful art, with a view to correct his report before it should be handed over to merci- less type. Nothing of this, however, took place. But after the ap- pearance of my letter in Cork, and my departure from the Irish shores, new issues have been raised. The reporter insists upon the the entire accuracy of his production. Now, that, in reality, was not the grievance of which I complained. But my complaint was, that any one of these gentlemen, so respectably introduced, should have turned stenographer or reporter, I may say, so far as I am concerned, in a clandestine manner, and surreptitiously procure for his own use a report of my remarks, which I was never allowed to have seen until it was too late for me to suppress, amend, or correct any thing therein contained. In my letter I said that the report was partly true and partly the reverse of truth. To be a true report it should have omitted nothing it should have added or altered nothing. The reporter admits that he, writing, as he tells us, "against time" " omitted in transcription of his notes those unimportant and irrele- vant observations which were spoken in a colloquial tone, and, as it were, in parenthesis, by the Archbishop, and which had no reference to the subject matter before us." And he adds immediately, ' the faithful accuracy of my report is then unquestionable." This is a most illogical conclusion from his foregoing acknowledgment that he left out what he took upon himself to think irrelevant. When you reflect on the circumstances under which I spoke, and when the short-hand reporter had his own version of my remarks already in type, I am sure, you will come to the conclusion that it was a hard and ungenerous test that I should correct from memory the inaccuracies of his report. I remember, however, one case in which I know he has substituted a word of his own in place of the word expressed by me. To understand this mistake, permit me to observe that a member of Parliament in the British dominions is, I believe, called the mem- ber for such a town or city. In my reference to The O'Donoghoe, for whose agreeable presence I did not know to what circumstance either I or the deputation was indebted, and somewhat curious, I observed : " The O'Donoghoe is, I suppose, your representative." LETTERS. 535 But so long unaccustomed to the ordinary language used in Ireland and England to express my idea, I said : " The O'Donoghoe is, I suppose, your representative," or some word equivalent to that, meaning thereby that I supposed the audience were his constituents, and he was their member in Parliament. Of this sentiment and pur- pose I am entirely conscious, as the idea which I wished to express. In this country members of Congress are called in their aggregate by that term. But the country is divided into Congressional dis- tricts, allowing a member for each district, according to the required number of its population. Towards the district, the individual mem- ber is called representative of district so-and-so, and the people of that district are called his constituents'. This was my idea, and from this idea, clearly in my mind at the time as well as now, I think my observation was : " The O'Donoghoe is, I suppose, your representa- tive." The report makes me say, "The O'Donoghoe is, I suppose, your leader." The word " leader," at such a moment, it would be impossible for me to use, nor did 1 employ the term. But some one replied : " The O'Donoghoe, my Lord, is a leader of the Nationalists of all Ireland." The Freeman's Journal says that this remark was made by Mr. Holland. In that case Mr. Holland was rather in front of me, slightly on my left hand, at probably a distance of six or seven feet. Mr. Holland says "that he carried on his operations by my side." The O'Donoghoe says "that Mr. Holland stood within two or three yards of the Archbishop, and not behind him, or behind some one else, as might be ingeniously suggested." " The report,''' 1 continues The O'Donoghoe, " though neither quite full nor free from error, seems to me to be truthful so far as it went." Mr. Hol- land says : " I was standing at his (the Archbishop's) side all the time." Mr. Hartnett says '' that Mr. Holland stood only one pace from him (the Archbishop) to the right.' 1 '' Mr. Hartnett also says of the report : " It is, of course, an abbreviated account." Thus it will be seen that whilst I was engaged in speaking, and thinking of nothing that might be going on, these gentlemen, listen- ing, and looking with their eyes towards the point on which I stood, are yet unable to describe, or at least to agree, upon the ex- act locality occupied by Mr. Holland. He says ' that he stood by my side all t/ie time." I say that if he was the person who described The O'Donoghoe as " leader of the Nationalists of Ireland," then, at that period of the interview, Mr. Holland stood slightly on my left, and about six feet in front of me. If he changed quarters, and found himself, as Mr. Hartnett says, " standing only one pace from me to my right," I am at a loss to know how the locomotion was effected the more so, because Mr. Holland himself says that he u was standing by my side all the time.' 1 '' Now, supposing that Mr. Holland was on my right at a distance of one pace, or supposing he was by my side, all those in front of me would have an opportunity of seeing him at his work, because he would be facing them, and not me. Besides, as a kind of guest, for the time being, of a number of Irish gentlemen, it would never occur 536 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. to me to look sideways or backwards, as if I suspected that something might be going on unworthy of them or unworthy of me. I might add another circumstance, with which every gentleman accustomed to public speaking must be familiar, in his own experience, and that is, if his mind is thoroughly" impressed with the ideas which he wishes to express, his eye will accompany the direction of his voice. But the look is not fixed on any one in particular. Things of a slighter nature may occur which he might have seen, if his mind were not preoccupied and absorbed in the topics he was discussing. At all events, if gen- tlemen who are simply listening and looking on are not agreed as to where the note-taker stood, there may be some allowance made for the speaker's not having detected the work of the operator as it was going on. At all events, such is the fact in the present case. Permit me, sir, to acknowledge with thanks, the kind offices of several of the Irish journals that came to my defence on this ques- tion. I have before me your own excellent JSxaminer, as, perhaps, the very first also, the Dublin Nation, which, by its deep, search- ing analysis of the case, merely on circumstantial evidence, rendered any remarks of mine at that time almost unnecessary. There were some other papers that took up the same view of the case ; but I regret that they have disappeared from my table. In both these papers I am sorry that the learned writers did not fathom, with deeper attention, the points on which it is said that the question between the reporter and myself amounts to one of credibility or veracity. I am happy to say that there is not any question of veracity between Mr. Holland and myself. That gentle- man says that I saw him engaged in his professional labor. I say I did not ; and on that point I am a witness, and Mr. Holland is not a witness. He may be of opinion that I might have seen him, which, probably, is the fact, if my attention had been called to the subject. -But to say that I did see him, as he describes, is going too far. The object of the testimony is not the same as regards the two witnesses, and, therefore, there cannot be a question of veracity involved. It is on one side a positive fact of which I am conscious ; it is on the other side an opinion in reference to a point on which the reporter is utterly disqualified to furnish any credible testimony. But it is in keeping with that professional arrogance by which some of his class pretend to know better what a speaker has to say than the speaker himself. Thus Mr. Holland tells the Irish public that in his report "there is nothing which distorts my remarks by a hair's breadth from the meaning intended by His Grace." This is a bold plunge for a re- porter to make into the mind and consciousness of a speaker. He knows, as he alleges, what you have said ; but he knows still more, the very meaning which you had intended to convey. I must apologize for trespassing on your valuable space at such length; but as I am determined never to return to this unpleasant topic, I must throw myself on your indulgence for even additional LETTERS. 537 space in order to bring it to a close, which I hope will be satisfactory to my friends in Ireland as well as to myself. You have seen, in the foregoing remarks, how the affair of the Xenagh deputation passed off in Dublin. The interview lasted, I should think, less than an hour. And here, I pi-ay you to notice two things one is, that I had no intimation at any time, except as above described, of who the gentlemen were, or, as it turned out, whence they severally came, or of their place of meeting, or of their pro- ceedings as a society in framing and adopting an address, or of their chairman at any meeting, or of any thing connected with them, ex- cept what turned up from their own statement afterwards in con- nection with their unauthorized publication of my remarks. They did not communicate with me, by note or otherwise, either before or after the interview. The other remark is, that in their subsequent explanation there are contradictions from the pan of the same writer, and mutual discrepancies in their general testimony. Whereas, I beg you to hold me acquitted of every thing connected with the affair, except what occurred in the Gresham Hotel. I had nothing to do with their proceedings before or after ; and for these they may account to themselves and to each other as they think proper, leav- ing me out of the question. I have said already that nothing could be more manly, direct, and creditable to its author than the letter which The O'Donoghoe pub- lished on his connection with the deputation, or whatever it may be called. I had divined already that he was, perhaps, like myself, availed of for the occasion without any previous knowledge or con- sent. His letter proves this ; and I hold that amiable and honorable fentleman as blameless in the matter as if he had not been present, would apologize to him if I said anything improper when I asked of the person who had described him as the leader of the Na- tionalists of Ireland, " why he should not be the leader of all Ire- land ?" My idea was that public men like him, whilst attending to the local duties of their high office, should embrace in their grasp of statesmanship the whole nation united, and not allow themselves to be self-appropriated by any one fragment of a socially or politically divided people. The deputation, or whatever it was, appears to be much offended at my having stated in my letter that I had been told they were a secret society. This they deny, and I am very glad that they are able to do so with, I trust, a good conscience. But I did not say in my letter that they were a secret society, but that I had been told so. I confess that their denial, in the manner in which it is made, has not altogether removed my doubts on that subject. On the day of the procession in Dublin there was a multitude which no man could number ; and yet they can tell you, in a tone of boasting, that their members counted exactly 2,000 not to speak of the uncounted thousands of their brethren in England or Scotland. If they wish to stand acquitted of the suspicion, at least, which was 538 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. entertained, I might say generally, in Ireland, by those who spoke on the subject, that the Brotherhood of St. Patrick was a secret society, let them give proof of the contrary, and let any respectable clergyman of Dublin, but especially the venerable prelate who adorns whilst he governs that Church, give a public statement to the effect that they are not a secret society, and then they will be regarded both at home and abroad as worthy members of that one great universal society, the Catholic Church. But this privilege of genuine and free Catholics they cannot expect to enjoy if they band and bind themselves together by ligaments of an unholy, forbidden, and secret bondage. They have written to me requesting that I should give the names of my informants as to their true character. This is asking too much, and I beg leave once for all to decline respectfully a compliance with their request. I may say in general, however, that when Mr. McManus was interred for the third and last time, in Dublin, some misunder- standing grew up between the clergy there and those who had taken so deep an interest in his remains and in his obsequies. The noise of that occurrence reached New York at the time, and was heard with deep regret. Again, in Itome, during the latter months of last winter, I heard of the annoyance and almost opposition to the Archbishop of Dublin, growing out of resentment at the course which His Grace thought it proper to pursue on the occasion referred to. All this left an im- pression on my mind. But neither in Rome nor in Ireland had I any conversation on the subject with the Archbishop of Dublin. If any one can imagine the calamities that have been entailed upon Irishmen in the United States, to my knowledge, during a period of thirty-six years of ministry, he will not be surprised that, independent of their being forbidden by the Church, I should have a dread of secret societies. I have seen more than one young Irish- man brought to an ignominious scaffold in consequence of having previously placed their necks in the yoke of secret associations. Aye, young men who would never have disgraced their country or their name if they had stood by themselves as free and untrammeled indi- viduals, acting for themselves instead of being called upon to render a service to some fellow-member of the same unhappy fraternity to which they belonged. No one will rejoice to learn that there are no secret societies in Ireland more ardently than I shall ; for if there should be none in Ireland there will be none here. And whereas all such societies in the diocese of New York, at a period when its ex- tent was by 11,000 square miles greater than that of all Ireland, were suppressed by a statute enacted at my first Diocesan Synod, in 1842, depriving their members of access to the holy sacra- ments of the Church during life, and of Christian burial after death, unless they should have severally renounced their bad associations they submitted, and became, as opportunity was afforded them in their wanderings, good practical Catholics. And whereas religion, peace, and increasing respect for Irishmen have continued to increase LETTERS. 539 since that time, it would be very sad for me and for my clergy to find that new affiliations were about to be propagated to bring back to this country the old state of things. I take the liberty of enclosing to you the original address pre- sented to me in Gresham's Hotel. My apology for this will be found in the fact that it is an anonymous document, and that I would not know to whom it belongs or to whom I should address it. I have taken an American copy of it, but I should not wish .the Irish original to be found among my papers either during life or after my death. Perhaps from this notice the author or authors may claim it, and in that case you will oblige me much by transferring it to their custody. In the meantime I shall forget, if possible, all that has occurred, and think of old Ireland and her people as I used to do before I had the honor of being waited upon by the deputation from Nenagh. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, % JOHN, Archbishop of New York. LETTER TO THE HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, SECRETARY OP STATE, IN REFERENCE TO HIS MISSION TO EUROPE. NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 1862. MY DEAR GOVERNOR It is now more than twenty-three years since I had the pleasure of being introduced to you on the railroad train between Albany and Utica. Opportunities for cultivating more intimately that first acquaintance have been few and far be- tween. Still, as a personal friend, apart from what they commonly call politics, I have always recognized you, in my own mind, as a true, unflinching man of upright principle. As for myself, I cannot say that I ever belonged to any political party, and yet, since my return from Europe, certain nominally Catholic papers have written me down as a politician. Much allow- ance must be made for such writers. They assume that my going to Europe was for a political, not a national purpose ; in fact, they seem, or choose to appear, as incompetent to distinguish between what is vulgarly called a politician and a patriot. Of the two, I would prefer to be considered a patriot rather than a politician. Before the outbreak of this melancholy civil war, it is known to you, my dear Governor, that I foresaw the coming calamity. I wrote to distinguished persons in the South, praying and beseeching 54:0 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. that they should exercise their influence for the perpetuation of peace, or rather against the disruption of the Union. In my own sphere, in New York, I left nothing undone to soothe bitter pre- judices, especially on the part of abolitionists, with a view, and even in hope, that the domestic strife which has since overtaken us might be arrested and turned aside. It is just one year and eight days since it was desired, by a tele- graphic communication, that I should visit the city of Washington on public business. I obeyed the summons. I spoke ray mind freely. It was thought that, in the perils of the nation, at that time, I could be useful in promoting the interests of the commonwealth and of humanity if I would go to Europe and exercise whatever little influence I might possess in preventing France and England from intermeddling in our sad quarrel. It has, no doubt, escaped your memory that, during the fourteen or fifteen hours which I spent in Washington, I declined the accep- tance of what would be to persons, not of my rank, a great honor. I did not absolutely refuse before deciding, but I wished to consult one or two persons very near and dear to me in New York. Finally, and at the very last hour, there was a word uttered to me, not by any special member of the Cabinet to which you belong, but by the authority which it possesses, to the effect that my acting as had been suggested was a personal request, and would be considered as a personal favor. In three minutes I decided that, without consult- ing any body, I should embark as a volunteer to accomplish what might be possible on the other side of the Atlantic in favor of the country to which I belong. What occurred on the other side, I think it would be, at present, improper for me to make public. I am not certain that any word, or act, or influence of mine has had the slightest effect in preventing either England or France from plunging into the unhappy divisions that have threatened the Union of these once prosperous States. On the other hand, I may say that no day no hour even was spent in Europe in which I did not, according to opportunity, labor for peace between Europe and America. So far that peace has not been disturbed. JSut let America be prepared. There is no love for the United States on the other side of the icater. Generally speaking, on the other side of the Atlantic the United States are ignored, if not despised ; treated in conversation in the same con- temptuous language as we might employ towards the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, or Washington Territory, or Vancouver's Island, or the settlement of the Red River, or of the Hudson's Bay Territory. This may be considered very unpolished, almost unchristian lan- guage proceeding from the pen of a Catholic Archbishop. But, my dear governor, it is unquestionably true, and I am sorry that it is so. If you, in Washington, are not able to defend yourselves in case of need, I do not see where, or from what source, you can ex- pect friendship or protection. Since my return I made a kind of LETTERS. 541 familiar address to my people, but not for them exclusively, in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Some have called it not a sermon, but a dis- course, and even a war blast, in favor of blood spilling. Nothing of that kind could be warranted by a knowledge of my natural tem- perament or of my ecclesiastical training. From the slight corres- pondence between us, you can bear me witness that I pleaded in every direction for the preservation of peace, so long as the slightest hope of its preservation remained. When all hope of this kind had passed away I was for a vigorous prosecution of our melancholy war, so that one side or the other should find itself in the ascen- dency. On my return from Europe, I knew it was expected that I should make, in writing or otherwise, some observations of my experience abroad that would reach the public generally. These observations were made in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, on the 18th of August. They consisted of a very simple narrative of my experience in different countries of Europe during my absence from New York. Towards the close of my remarks, two ideas I ventured to express with perhaps more energy than had been employed in the simple narrative. One was the advocacy of conscription, in preference to the drag- ging business of enlistment and volunteering. Perhaps some may have thought that it was unbecoming for me in a Catholic pulpit to have expressed my opinion on this topic. But I know that the country, which I had no reason not to love, was being agonized by civil war. And besides, on reflection, I consider that conscription, sometimes called drafting, is the only fair, open, honest mode by which a nation can support its rights, and, in case of danger, its own independence. Many of my hearers on that occasion confounded the principle of conscription with the abominable practice of the " press gang," during the war between England and France. This, of course, was their mistake, not mine. France is a military nation, and a great nation ; and its system of conscription, although at periods of great national necessity, verging in its operation to almost cruelty, in taking from the family one after another of the sons who might be other- wise the hope, and the stay, and consolation of their aged parents, is, notwithstanding, still the impartial mode of providing for national defence and honor. Yet, on the whole, there is no system in civilized countries so just, so equitable, and so efficient in raising an army of defence, as the system of conscription rightly administered. If it can be dispensed with by the multitude of volunteers, of course there would be no objection to that result. But a government must ex- ecute the office for which it was appointed, and for the execution of the functions of which it is supposed to have ample means, or else it should abdicate. The other idea w r as, that either by volunteers or by conscription, if we have a government which we recognize as legitimate, it should multiply its powers by thousands, and hundreds of thousands, even 542 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. millions, to the extent of existing necessity for the putting down of civil war. This was not expressed as the gratuitous advice of a speaker in the pulpit ; but suggested as an intimation that if he had any advice to offer the councils of the nation, that advice would be what he has now expressed. On this question there may be different opinions, in regard to which I have not an additional word to say. It may be humanity to allow conflicting brethren of the same nation to protract and drag onwards, for a period even of ten years to come, the bloodshed with which they are reciprocally now so familiar. Another view of humanity and mercy is that which I suggested, namely that the melancholy contest should be brought to a close with as little delay as possible. The reason that operated and still operates on my mind in favor of this view of humanity, as compared or in contrast with the other, is, that so far as my knowledge of his- tory warrants a conclusion, the most humane battle in any military strife, whether of a foreign or a domestic character, has been invari- ably the battle which put an end to the war. If there were any possible means of settling our domestic strife in a peaceful and bloodless manner, I hope you will believe that no one in this country is or can be more prepared to aid in bringing about such a result. As it is, however, I consider myself as perfectly use- less in such an enterprise, though by no means unsolicitous in refer- ence to the momentous consequences that are impending upon us like a dark cloud, which furnishes no ray of light either on its under or upper margin. Believe me, my dear Governor, as ever, your devoted friend and servant. fc JOHN", Archbishop of New York. A NEW ECCLESIASTICAL SEMINARY FOR THE PROVINCE OP NEW YORK. NEW YORK, Dec. 7, 1862. The building and grounds heretofore known as the Troy Univer- sity, in the city of Troy, hitherto belonging, it is said, to the Meth- odist denomination, have been sold, and the undersigned, through the agency of the Rev. Father Havermans, has become the purchaser. The undersigned has not himself surveyed either the premises or the edifice ; but his confidence in the venerable pastor of St. Mary's is such, that whatever the latter says on the subject he assumes as en- tirely correct. This is the turning of a leaf in my human life and in my declining LETTERS. 543 years. But no matter; the world must go on, and the Church of God still more. When the undersigned shall have disappeared from the scene, there will be others to take up the unfinished task. Our intention is that the new place shall be the central, if not the only, theological seminary in the ecclesiastical province of New York. The only drawback is, that the property is not in our diocese of New York. But after all, this is a trifling consideration for one who, through life, has ignored civil or ecclesiastical boundaries in the sense of impediments to any good work that could promote the glory of God, and the diffusion of His grace and mercy, through the me- dium of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. Our intention is to invite the venerable priests of St. Sulpice, in Paris, to take ch-arge of it, when it shall be tilted up suitably for their reception. This society of Sulpicians is known, especially in France, but, in point of fact, over the whole globe, as the best edu- cators and trainers, if we can so employ the term, of aspirants to the holy ministry during their preparation for the priesthood. For many generations they have educated not merely the priests, but even the bishops of that noble country to which they belong. Their pupils have been such men as the Cheverus and Matignon, of Boston ; the Marechal, of Baltimore ; the DuBourg, of St. Louis ; and last, though not least, the venerable Dubois, of New York. I do not say that these distinguished prelates, whose memory is cherished by us all, were their pupils in youth ; but they, through life, corresponded with the educational type of the venerable Sulpi- cians. Under their training there is no reason why American youth should not aspire to the same ecclesiastical dignity of deportment, if not of distinction in the Church. The Sulpicians are, we may say, men of God. They are disinterested. They are learned. They are humble. They are self-denying. They are devoted to the education of candidates for the priesthood. But whatever may be the extent of their self-denial for Christ's sake, one thing is certain, that even before the world, and in spite of themselves, they are and must be looked upon as high-bred and educated gentlemen. But if, after all, the Sulpicians may not be induced to take charge of this new prop-" erty, we must look in other directions for those who will be able to carry out our intention. It is not necessary at present to ask any aid from the faithful peo- ple of our diocese to sustain this undertaking. The providence of Almighty God has permitted that enough should have been placed in our hands, although of right belonging to our diocese of New York, to carry this Avork through. We are confident that no privi- lege hitherto granted by the Legislature of the State of New York in favor of those who have heretofore conducted what is called the Troy University, will be denied to, withdrawn from, or refused to us. We shall not be beggars at their doors for pecuniary aid. But in all other respects we shall look to the Legislature for protection and encouragement. We are told that the building will accommodate two hundred and 54:4: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. fifty students, allowing one student for each room. In that case our intention would be, that iu its internal arrangements there should be two seminaries entirely distinct from each other, except in the chapel and at meals. One should be for the theological department ; the other for the preparatory, which the French call the Petit Semi- naire. If the Sulpicians should, in the charity habitual to them, be willing to take charge of this new establishment, it is evidently proper that they should not be burdened with the whole cost of its purchase ; and when that day shall have arrived, it is certain that I shall in my own diocese, and very likely some of the other bishops of the prov- ince in theirs, make a dash at a collection, and, in a single day, extinguish the heavy load of debt which the place necessarily owes at the present moment. J- JOHN, Archbishop of New York. THE CONSCRIPTION-THE RIOTS. " The first man we ever heard advocate a general conscription for the prosecu- tion of the war for the Union was Archbishop Hughes, in his sermon directly after his last return from Europe last year. He condemned the reliance on volunteering as hazardous, and as placing too large a share of the burden on the generous and public-spirited, urging that, since the obligation to serve rested equally on all, the liability or risk should be apportioned accordingly." To the Editor of the Herald : The foregoing paragraph is taken from the Tribune of this morning. It is the latest malignant article against the undersigned with which the Honorable Horace Greeley has been in the habit of favoring him for some time past. Permit me to request of you the insertion of a few remarks in the Herald, which may throw light upon the subject which Mr. Greeley misrepresents and affects to misunderstand. He says " that I condemned the reliance upon volunteering as hazardous, and as placing too large a share of the burdens on the generous and public- spirited ; urging that, since the obligation to serve rested equally on all, the liability or risk should be apportioned accordingly." 1. I did not condemn volunteering. 2. I did not recommend a coercive conscription, but that tho. people of the North, who stand by the Federal Government, should demand conscription by their own voluntary choice and act. This would be their own system of volunteering. The main object of my remarks on the occasion referred to by Mr. Greeley was to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. The last and decisive battle in every LETTERS. 5i5 war is necessarily the most merciful in its results, since it puts an end to the further shedding of human blood. This was the main object as regards the interests of the country at large. My remarks were not intended for the congregation whom I was addressing, but for the whole people. Since that time many most sanguinary battles have been fought, in which blood sufficient to -float a ship of war has been shed ; and yet it seerns that many other similar battles are still to be fought before we come to the final struggle which shall decide the question. I have been attacked by three Catholic laymen, editors of the Baltimore Jfirror, and by a priest of Bedford, Pennsylvania, as if I were a man of war, and as if the idea of bringing the war to a speedy termination was a cruelty, instead of allowmg it to fertilize the fields of Tennessee, of Virginia, Maryland, and even Pennsylvania, Avith periodical supplies of human gore. This is the idea of mercy and humanity entertained by the pro- prietors of the Baltimore J/wror and the gentle shepherd of Bedford as to what constitutes humanity and mercy. 3. Another reason that influenced me on the day on which I preached the sermon referred' to by Mr. Greeley, was the fact that on my return from Europe I found the number of ablebodied men fathers, brothers, husbands in my congregations vastly thinned, and the widows and orphans multiplied all around me. How could this have happened ? Was it all voluntary on the part of those who abandoned their homes to defend their country ? I knew that to a great extent it was voluntary and patriotic, especially at the com- mencement of the war. There were militia regiments in Xew York who felt that, whether they were Catholics or not, whether they were natives or foreigners, deemed, with honorable chivalry that, having donned the national uniform, they were bound to rush and rally for the defence of the country which they did. This would be one class ; and they were numerous enough to leave not a few desti- tute widows and orphans far from the field on which they were slaughtered or taken prisoners. But there was another class ; it was composed of those Irish and Catholic citizens or laborers employed by men of wealth in factories or in other establishments of honorable industry. What I am now about to say is more than I can vouch for of my own personal knowledge. It was stated to me on my return that the employers of those men, immediately after the Avar broke out, sus- pended their factories and other departments in Avhich human labor had been employed, to compel these Irish and Catholic operatives to enlist, in order that their families might not starve ; and that all this Avas adroitly accomplished under the plea that Avar had rendered it ne- cessary to suspend all manufacturing establishments; that this pretend- ed necessity was only for the purpose of sending fighting men to the field, by which the neighborhood would be relieved from the presence- of workmen of foreign birth ; that, in point of fact, as soon as neces- sity drove that class awav, their places Avere promptly supplied by VOL. II. 35 546 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. other operatives; whilst, in the mean time, such manufacturers and traffickers upon the public calamities of civil war have been vastly more prosperous than ever before. Sooner than witness such mean and base tricks upon unfortunate laborers, I was then, and am now, prepared to approve of a thousand conscriptions openly appointed by the government; provided, however, that the same shuffling and low trickery shall not be employed to expose the poor to the dangers of battle, and leave the wealthy to become wealthier in their quiet homes. 4. No language of mine could ever be interpreted as recontmend- ing the Government to enact a coercive conscription, but, judging from my own feelings, I supposed that the people of the North* if they had a government such as their fathers instituted a govern- ment of which they would be worthy, and which would be worthy of them they would have patriotism enough to stand up as one man and say, " This thing cannot be allowed to go on ; either those who have rebelled against the Government must have their rebellion thoroughly put down, or they must put us, who make no rebellion, under their triumphant dominion. But at all events this thing ought not to go on. All wars must come to an end, especially when only one side is disposed to offer peace, which the other scornfully rejects." The substance of what has just been expressed will be found in the following extract from my sermon, which I offer for the reconsider- ation of the Hon. Horace Greeley, the three publishers and pro- prietors of the Baltimore Jffirror, and the Rev. Thomas Heyden, Bedford, Pennsylvania. After having spoken of my observations iu Europe, among the highest authorities and guides of public opinion on that continent, I made known that, according to my observation, there was no good feeling towards the United States even in this struggle for self-preservation, and at the close of this narrative it seems, by the reporter's account of my sermon, that I used the following words : " I do not know what may happen in case this war should continue, as it has been continuing since I left this country. The news renders all attempts at judging fairly impossible, because it is contradictory and confused. It is diffi- cult for one even acquainted with the country to comprehend how the land lies ; much more is it so with those who are not acquainted with it ! Nor is it in any one's power to say with absolute certainty what may happen if this war continue. And, in the mean time, what is the prospect of its coming to an end ? I do not see any prospect. There does not appear to be an issue ; and it may be that God, for some design of His own, which future generations can appreci- ate, has allowed this war to scourge us in ord.er to bring future benefits to the human race. There are things that no man can pretend to fathom questions that depend on so many additional circumstances for their solution ; but there is one thing and one question that should be clear to every mind. It is this, that if a war of this kind should be continued for many years, it is recognized as being allowable for other nations to combine in their strength and put an end to it. Better for the people themselves to put an end to it with as little delay as possible. It is not a scourge that has visited us alone. From the beginning of the world wars have been nation against nation and oftentimes the most terrible of all wars, which is not a war of nation against nation, but of brother against brother. How long is this to go on ? If it goes on, what i j LETTERS. 547 to be the result of it ? As affording a pretext for all the Powers of Europe to combine to put an end to it ? And, although I would not say that even then they should not be permitted to interfere when they interfered through bene- volence, and above all when the sword might be put at rest but I do say to every man that if they do interfere, and if they interfere successfully, if the country and the Government are not maintained by every sacrifice that is necessary to maintain them, then your United States will become a Poland then it will become divided then strife will multiply across every border ; every State, or every section, will claim to be independent and make itself an easy prey for those who will turn and appropriate the divisions of the people of this country for their own advantage. Oh! let it not be so. I know little of what has transpired here during my absence. I have scarcely had time to look at the papers since I returned. But at all events much has been done, though not much has been realized, towards terminating this unfortunate war. Volunteers have been appealed to in advance of the draft, as I understand ; but for my own part, if I had a voice in the councils of the country, I would say, let volunteer- ing continue. If the 300,000 on your list be not enough this week, next week make a draft of 300,000 more. It is not cruel this is mercy, this is humanity. Any thing that will put an end to this drenching with blood the whole surface of the country, that will be humanity. Then every man on the continent, rich or poor, will have to take his share in the contest. Then it will not be left to the Government, whatever government it will be, to plead with the people and call on them to come forward, and ask them if they would be drafted. No, it is for them, the people, to rise and ask the Government to draft them ; and those who are wealthy and cannot go themselves, can provide substitutes, and bring the thing to a close, if it can be done. No doubt the same efforts will be made on the other side and who can blame them ? For the sake of humanity we must resort to some course of this kind. In the mean while, beloved brethren, it is enough for us to weep for this calamity, to pray God that it be put to an end, to make sacrifice of every thing that we have to sustain the independence, the unity, the perpetuity, the prosperity of the only Government we acknowledge in the world. But it is not necessary to hate our enemies. It is not necessary to be cruel in battle, nor to be cruel after its termination. It is necessary to be true, to be patriotic, to do for the country what the country needs ; and the blessing of God will recompense those who discharge their duty without faltering and withput violating any of the laws of God or man.' ; I may have been mistaken in my estimate of humanity and mercy and patriotism, as expressed in the foregoing remarks, and it may be that, my critics Greeley, of the New York Tribune ; Kelly, Hedian & Piet, proprietors of the Baltimore Mirror, and the Rev. Mr. Heyden, of Bedford, Pennsylvania are correct in their views of humanity in desiring that the war should be interminable. But not all the Tribunes or Mirrors or country parsons in the United States can change my convictions of humanity or patriotism on that score. For all these gentlemen, and for their objections, there is a document already in manuscript to refute then,, individually and collectively. But I could not expect that any daily paper would have space, however well disposed its editor might be, for the pub- lication of such a document. When printed, it shall stand by itself in the form of a small volume. Two remarks, and I shall have done. One is, that some years ago I was the means of preventing a riot in the city of New York, and Mr. Greeley, on that occasion, pro- nounced in his paper that better the streets of New York should flow with blood than allow the supposition that the civil authority was insufficient or indisposed to preserve order and to protect life ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. and property, than that these results should be due directly or in- directly to ecclesiastical influence. Even now, Mr. Greeley, either by himself or by his reporters, charges our present troubles upon the Irish. He says that all who have been arrested are Irish. Xo doubt, the Irish are fit to take their share on the battle-field in defending the country. Then they are veiy fit to be arrested and taken up as innocuous victims of our municipal laws. I was in New York when the first number of Mr. Greeley's paper was published. Its first theory was that all international quarrels might be settled with peaceful arbitration. This lasted for a time. But Mr. Greeley was an advocate for revolution in every other country ; and, having passed once through Italy, he saw the country, and of course, more or less, even the people, through the windows of the vetterino ; and when he returned he published a little book of his travels, the amount of which was that the Italians were un- likely, if not unfit, to enjoy liberty, unless they could look down a cannon's throat, in which statement he imposed upon them a feat, the accomplishment or imitation of which no humane man would suspect Mr. Greeley to be capable. There are many things bearing upon Mr. Greeley's homily to me, in this paper of the 9th instant, which in another way and at the proper time shall be taken notice of. * JOHN HUGHES, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, July 14, 1863. POSTSCRIPT. In spite of Mr. Greeley's assault upon the Irish, in the present disturbed condition of the city, I will appeal not only to them, but to all persons who love God and revere the holy Catholic religion which they profess, to respect also the laws of man and the peace of society, to retire to their homes with as little delay as possible, and disconnect themselves from the seemingly deliberate intention to disturb the peace and social rights of the citizens of New York. If they are Catholics, or of such of them as are Catholics, I ask, for God's sake for the sake of their holy religion for my own sake, if they have any respect for the Episcopal authority to dissolve their bad associations with reckless men, who have little regard either for Divine or human laws. * JOHN, &c., &c. THE CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. INTRODUCTION. FEW questions of a comparatively local character have arisen in modern times, to which circumstances have so much attracted public attention, as the question of the late Church Property Bill, passed in the Legislature of New York, and the incidents antecedent to or growing out of its enactments. The writer would not havt? the slightest doubt as to the accuracy of public sentiment, if the question were thoroughly understood. He has unbounded confidence in the justice and fairness which characterize the judgment of the American people in regard to any matter, the true merits of which have been brought under their notice. No doubt that under the impulse of generous feelings, they are sometimes liable to be led away by ap- pearances. We have seen that in more than one instance, political adventurers from other countries have succeeded in imposing upon them, and betraying them into proceedings far from creditable to their calmer judgments. But such delusions have been of a very brief and transitory duration. The sober second thought soon re- places the sentiment of impulse, and rectifies its errors. It will be so in regard to the question now under consideration. The Ameri- can people, the living embodiment and practical administrator of the great and noble principles which are inscribed in our free constitu- tions, will never allow those sacred principles to be perverted or trampled under foot to gratify the spurious patriotism of a clique, who are attempting to infuse religious strife into the very arteries of civil freedom, of social happiness, and national strength. This being now as it has ever been the deliberate judgment of the writer in regard to the character of the American people, he lias deemed it but a respectful duty to them to furnish, in this introduc- tion, such explanation of the true grounds of the question involved in the late act of the Legislature of New York, as will enable them to ibrm their own just conclusions, according to the merit and evi- dence of the case submitted. It has been the supreme and sovereign will of the American peo- ple from the period of their independence, that all religious denomi- nations residing within their borders should enjoy the same equality 550 ABCHBISHOP HUGHES. of rights and privileges under the constitution and laws of the coun- try. And although several of the States continued for many years to retain enactments preventing Catholics from the full enjoyment of these equal privileges, still the great predominant sentiment of the country induced those States, one after another, to abolish such enactments, so that at the present day they disgrace the statute book of no commonwealth in the whole Union, except that of Xew Hampshire. In this great principle of religious equality among the various denominations composing the powerful free empire of the American people, it was never intended that the State should pre- scribe for any denomination a code of discipline which should em- barrass its members in carrying out the principles of their faith. It never was intended that the rules which might harmonize with the faith of one denomination, should be imposed, unsolicited, upon another whose religious belief was of an entirely different character. On the contrary, the principle hitherto adopted and universally acted upon, if we except the Church Property Bill as it is commonly called, has been that each denomination should either use a general enactment, such as the law of 1784 in this State, or solicit, at the hands of the Legislature, such special enactment as might enable them, consistently with the requirements of the Constitution, to manage the external affairs of their communion as a religious body according to their respective symbols of faith. II. The venerable Archbishop Carroll, who himself took part in the revolution by which American independence was won, wished to as- similate, as far as possible, the outward administration of Catholic Church property in a way that would harmonize with the democratic principles on which the new government was founded. With this view he authorized and instituted the system of lay trustees in Catholic congregations. Regarded a priori, no system could appeal- to be less objectionable, or more likely both to secure advantages to those congregations, and at the same time to recommend the Catholic religion to the liberal consideration of the Protestant senti- ment of the country. It would, he thought, relieve the priest from the necessity and painfulness of having to appeal from the altar on questions connected with money, touching either the means of his own support, repairs of the church, or other measures essential to the welfare of his congregation. It would at the same time secure the property, by the protection of law, for the perpetual uses to which it had been set apart and consecrated. It would be a bond of union between the priest and the people. It would be a shield to protect the minister of the altar from the very suspicion of being a money- seeker, and at the same time a means to provide for his decent maintenance. All these were no doubt the considerations which moved the venerable and patriotic Archbishop to adopt and recom- mend the system of lay trustees. On paper and in theory that sys- CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 551 tern was entirely unobjectionable. It was well calculated to gain the confidence of a mind so generous and so liberal as that of the first Archbishop of Baltimore. But in practice it became the bitter chalice of his old age. It led to violent strifes in Charleston and in Norfolk. It led to riots and bloodshed in Baltimore and Philadel- phia. Archbishop Carroll, when there were but two churches in the city of Baltimore, was doomed to witness the congregation of one of them assembling at the house of divine worship on Sunday with loaded muskets in their hands. He was doomed even during his own administration to see an excommunicated priest inaugurated by lay trustees in another church in Philadelphia ; and to undergo a legal prosecution at the hands of lay trustees, in the civil court, for a simple act of episcopal jurisdiction. It is impossible to tell what would have been the consequence of that prosecution had it not been for the high character which the good prelate had sustained, and for the high estimation in which he was held by the whole community of Philadelphia, Protestant as well as Catholic. After his death, similar results of lay-trusteeship followed in the church of St. Mary in Philadelphia. Whoever will turn to the press of that city in the years 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, will see melancholy evidence of its workings in social strifes, religious enmities, schism, lawsuits, fearful riots, and bloodshed. The evils which manifested themselves in these churches on a grand scale, were witnessed in a minor degree in almost every con- gregation throughout the country, under the government of lay- trustees. The churches of this city were by no means exempt from them ; and some of our older Catholic inhabitants have witnessed, both in St. Peter's and in St. Patrick's, scenes of strife which they deplored, and which they would be ashamed to read in recorded detail. III. Such was the general condition of the Catholic people of the United States in the year 1829, when their bishops were numerous enough to hold counsel together for the purpose of securing peace, promoting piety, and improving the moral and social condition of their respective flocks. In the fifth decree of this first council, the following statute was agreed upon, and rendered applicable to each diocese except that of Charleston : " Whereas lay trustees have frequently abused the right conceded to them by the State, to the great detriment of religion and scandal of the faithful, we de- sire earnestly that henceforth no church be erected or consecrated unless the title thereof, whenever it can be done, shall be assigned by a written document to the bishop of the diocese in which it is to be erected, for the purpose of divine worship and the benefit of the faithful." In the fourth decree of the third council of Baltimore, held in 1837, both the clergy and laity are reminded of the heavy spiritual penalties decreed by the Council of Trent against all persons, whether lay or clerical, perverting from the sacred purpose for which 552 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. it is appropriated any thing given by the faithful for religious or charitable uses. The fourth statute of the seventh Provincial Coun- cil of Baltimore, held in 1849, lays down the rule as follows : " The fathers have ordained that all churches and other ecclesiastical goods which have accrued from the gifts or offerings of the faithful, and which are to be employed for purposes of charity or religion, shall belong to the ordinary, unless it appear and is proven in writing that they have been conceded to some religious order or congregation of priests for their own use." These are the only laws of discipline regarding Church property which I find enacted in the provincial councils of Baltimore. This latter statute had reference more particularly to that kind of property which might have been given in a vague and indefinite way, and which it might happen that the priest, either in good faith or other- wise, might construe as having been given to himself for his personal use. But in no case has the idea ever been entertained of acquiring wealth or making the Church rich, or creating revenues which even a bishop or archbishop might be at liberty to use or abuse at his discretion. IV. It is hardly necessary to remind the Protestant reader that Catho- lics have their own mode of Church government, and that when they were admitted to equality of privileges, the same as other religious denominations, their mode of regulating questions of Church disci- pline, according to the principles of their creed, was substantially recognized and guaranteed. This, of course, should be in harmony with those principles of the constitution and general laws of the State by which its own supreme sovereignty should be maintained, and its right of protection to all its inhabitants in the domain of civil legislation secured. Still, it was never intended that the Catholic idea regarding Church property should, through the operation of civil laws, be made conformable to those of any other denomination of Christians. This would be a contradiction. It would be taking from them by legislation a portion of what had been secured to them by the constitution and the bill of rights. It was under these convictions that the present Archbishop of New York enjoined upon the Catholics under his charge the obliga- tion of regarding Church property in the light of their faith. Hence, in his pastoral letter, published after the first diocesan synod in 1842, we find the following as the true Catholic idea according to which Church property is to be regarded. The document was published at a time when the evil consequences of lay trusteeship in the city of New York were beginning to manifest themselves : " Now ecclesiastical property is that, and all that, which the faithful contribute from religious motives and for religious purposes. It is the church, the ceme- tery, and all estate thereto belonging. It is the pew rents, the collections, and all moneys derived from or for the benefit of religion. It is the sacred furniture of the house of (iod. In a word, it is all that exists for ecclesiastical purposes. According to the laws of the Church and the usage of all nations, such property, CHUKCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 553 though it must be protected by human laws, as other material property, yet, being once brought into existence in the form and for the uses of religion, is considered as if it were the property of God, which cannot be violated, alienated, or wastefully squandered, without (besides ordinary injustice, as if it were com- mon property) the additional guilt of a kind of sacrilege. It is not considered, in the canon law, either the property of the bishop, or the property of his clergy, or the property of the people, but as the property of God, for the reli- gious uses of them all. Hence it is the duty of all to preserve it, but to preserve it not with the care which would be sufficient in matters of a secular character, but under a sense of the awful responsibility involved in such administration. In the enactments of the canon law, the highest functionaries of the hierarchy itself were not allowed to undertake their administration without having first taken an oath that they would administer, preserve, and transmit it as above described." This is the same pastoral letter which became a stumbling-block to the trustees of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo. In their petition to the Legislature they substituted an entire falsehood of their own in- vention as the ground of their opposition to episcopal authority. They say that Bishop Hughes attempted to compel them (the trus- tees) to make over the title of their church to him. The spirit of this false statement was the foundation for the bill enacted in the last session of the Legislature. And when Senator Brooks asserted that among the property conveyed to the Archbishop of New York there were numerous transfers from trustees, there was special malice blended with the falsehood of his assertions. It was intended by him to be understood, and it was so understood by those who heard or read his speech, that the Archbishop had abused his episcopal authority for the purpose of wresting from the hands of lay trustees the property which the la\v of the State had authorized them to hold and administer. But, thanks to Almighty God, the writer of this has been providentially forearmed, if not forewarned, against such unfounded calumnies as Mr. Brooks has seen fit to invent and publish in the, Senate chamber of the State of New York. On pages 11 and 12 of that same pastoral letter, published in 1842, we find the following statement, showing how grossly Mr. Senator Brooks has at once misrepresented the state of facts and the purity of motives. Referring to the discipline of the Catholic Church, as laid down in the provincial councils at Baltimore, the Archbishop says : " One of the first and most explicit decrees of the Provincial Council in Balti- more, directed and enjoined on the bishops of this province, that they should not thenceforward consecrate any church therein, unless the deed had been pre- viously made, in trust, to the bishop thereof. This rule has hitherto been fol- lowed strictly by the great majority of the episcopal body ; and wherever it has been followed, the faithful are exempted from many of the evils to which we have already referred. Religion progresses, the clergy are freed from annoy- ances, their ministry is respected, their influence with the people obtains large and numerous contributions for the erection or improvement of churches, and the danger of seeing those sold for debt, and given over to profanation, is alike removed from the apprehensions of pastor and people. In proportion to their numbers, the multiplication of churches has been as great among them as in this diocese, and yet their churches are almost, if not entirely, out of debt. "Notwithstanding the feelings that must arise from the contrast of their situa- tion with ours, we have, for what appeared iceighty reasons, hitherto declined exe- 554: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. cuting the statutes of the decrees of the Baltimore councils on this subject. In the first place, the system existed here more, perhaps, than in any other diocese. Secondly, it was intimated that the laws rendered the tenure in trust of Church property by the ordinary uncertain, if not insecure. Besides, if it could be avoided, without injury to religion and the ecclesiastical property, we should be . glad to see the bishop freed from the solicitude inseparable from its guardian- ship. These considerations, which might be much enlarged, have induced us to hope that the present system of lay trustees might be so modified as to secure some benefit and exclude many of the evils which have resulted from the irre- sponsible exercise of its powers." V. About this period the bankruptcy of our lay trustees commenced. Churches, also, began to rise, in which the people did not desire their services. And so earnest was the bishop in taking precau- tions against maladministration in the new system, and against the dangers of reproach or even suspicion in regard to their admin- istration by the pastors, that he published the following rules. RULES FOK THE ADMINISTRATION OF CHURCHES WHICH HAVE NO TRUSTEES. " Inasmuch as the temporal affairs of any church may fall into disorder from the absence of a regular system for the management of the same ; and inas- much as the responsibility, and perhaps the reproach of maladministration would rest upon the clergyman, it is deemed essential, both for the regulation of the temporal concerns of each congregation, and for the protection of the pas- toral character, that certain general rules, as nearly uniform as possible, should be adopted. It is hoped that the following simple rules will be found sufficient for the purpose. " 1st. The incomes of our churches arise from two sources, viz. : Pew-rents and Sunday collections. The pastor is required to keep in a book of his own a regular account of the collections taken up on Sundays and festivals : he is also required to keep a similar regular account of the pew-rents as paid in by the collector ; he is required to appoint at least two confidential and pious mem- bers of his congregation, competent for such a task, by their own good sense and experience the one to be treasurer of church revenues, the other secre- tary, for keeping regular records of such transactions, appertaining to the affairs of the church, as are to be recorded both to be his assistants in managing his temporal concerns, and in aiding him with their knowledge of affairs and ad- vice in every matter which requires reflection, and is of any importance. " 2d. All moneys arising from the sources of income already mentioned shall be deposited in the hands of the treasurer. The collector shall make a double report of the sums, receiving credit in his book, as he deposits them with the treasurer, and entering each transaction on the book kept by the pastor ; so that one book shall be exactly correspondent with the other. Neither the secretary nor treasurer shall appropriate or expend any of this money, except by virtue of a written order from the pastor in each case, which order shall be the treasurer's voucher. The pastor is required, in the expendi- ture of this income, for which he shall be responsible, to conform strictly to the rules of the diocese, with regard to the manner, and the amount and limitation of such expenditure. " Under the head of expenditure is included the necessary expense of support- ing public worship the salaries given to persons employed in the church, or for the congregation as organist, sexton, or collector. These, the pastor will regulate with due regard to the propriety of the selection, and the circumstances of his church. Under the same head will come the amount necessary for the CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 555 maintenance of the pastor, and of his assistant, when there is more than one clergyman. It is the Bishop's wish, that so far as the fixed sum necessary for the support of the pastor is concerned, it should be the same in all churches throughout the diocese, viz. : Six hundred dollars for the pastor, and four hundred dollars for the assistant, with the understanding that the assistant shall bear half the expenses of the house, receiving half the perquisites ; and, if he should prefer paying a weekly sum for board, he shall receive one-third of the perquisites. " In case it happen, that either for the convenience of the congregation, or as a means of living, some clergyman, incapable of rendering other missionary service than that of celebrating Mass, should be engaged, the sum to be allowed shall, in no case, exceed three hundred dollars. If such clergyman shall, in process of time, become capable of performing certain other duties of the mis- sion, this sum will be increased at the discretion of the pastor, with the knowl- edge and approbation of the Bishop. " 3d. Wherever there is a parsonage attached to the church, and belonging to the congregation, it shall be for the use of the pastor and such other clergy- men as may officiate in such church ; in such case, too, at least for the time to come, the congregation should provide the residence of the clergy with a suffi- cient and decent supply of furniture ; and having once furnished such supply, it is to be kept up ever afterwards as church property, at the expense of the pastor for the time being. " No article of church service, such as sacred vessels, vestments, paintings, or other things of this kind, for which the congregation shall have contributed, either by direct contribution or through the medium of the church income, shall belong to the pastor ; but every such article shall belong to the church and congregation, for its use and benefit. " In cases where there is no parsonage owned by the congregation, for the pastor's residence, it will be lawful for him to receive one hundred dollars per annum additional, for the purpose of defraying house-rent ; but it is earnestly recommended that wherever there is a permanent congregation, they and their pastor together take measures to erect a suitable dwelling for his resi- dence " 4th. It is further required, that every six months a strict report of the condi- tion, the income, and the expenditure, regularly audited, shall be forwarded to the Bishop, for the purpose of being recorded in a registry, to be kept at his house for that purpose. A copy also of such report shall be published and dis- tributed among the congregation. " The circumstances in which some of the churches in this extended diocese vary from others, will probably prevent these rules from being equally applied to them all ; but it is considered that they are entirely applicable to all the larger congregations, in which the divine service is regularly kept on all Sundays and festivals. It is hoped also that many congregations of recent origin, and lim- ited resources, will grow up in a short time, by their prudence in managing their affairs, and the increase of their numbers, to the measure of being able to com- ply with these requirements. " %. JOHN HUGHES, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. " NEW YORK, July, 1853." First published in 1843, and republished July, 1853. VI. It was by no act of the Bishop that the trustee system of New York broke down within a year or two after the publication of this document. All the Catholic churches of this city had been under the management of lay trustees. They were at that period eight in 556 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. number. Of these, five boards of as many churches, namely, St. James's, Transfiguration, St. Paul's at Harlem, St. Peter's in Barclay- street, and St. John's at the corner of Fiftieth-street and Fitih ave- nue, all became bankrupt, their last official act having been to pass the churches severally either to assignees or to be sold by the sheriff for the benefit of creditors. Two other churches, namely, St. Joseph's and St. Mary's, permitted their trustees to retire from office, and thus saved their property from the fate of the other churches. The church of St. Nicholas, in Second-street, was then under trustees, and has still continued to be administered by them without the slightest hindrance on the part of the Bishop. St. Pat- rick's church has also continued under similar administration. They, proposed more than once to resign, but the Bishop would not con- sent to it, inasmuch as their trusts were more important, and as they were disposed at all times to discharge them in a manner conformable to the principles of the Catholic faith, and at the same time in accord- ance with the law of their charter derived from the State. Here, then, we have five churches thrown into market to be alienated from Catholic worship, through the unfortunate adminis- tration of lay trustees. Were they to be sold as so many insolvent theatres ? Their trustees had contracted debts in the name of the Catholic community were their creditors to be cheated out of money which they had loaned in good faith ? Were the Catholics to be not only deprived of their altars, but also to incur the disgrace of non-payment of debts which their trustees had lawfully contracted in their name ? These were the questions which the Bishop, and the clergy, and the people of New York had to decide. It was agreed that the Bishop should purchase these churches, and, if possible, pre- serve them for the sacred purposes to which they had been dedicated. But they were indebted for more than double the amount for which they were sold. And these melancholy legacies of debt thrown upon the Bishop and Catholic people constitute the greater part of the pretended wealth which Senator Brooks ascribed to the Bishop. They were indeed entered on the records as the Bishop's property ; but the acquisition, burdened as it was to an amount more than double its value, instead of making a poor man rich, would be cal- culated to make a rich man poor. It would be tiresome to go into a detail of the embarrassments in which the mismanagement of lay trustees had contrived to involve these churches. Let it suffice to state in general that by a determi- nation which does immortal honor to the Catholic community of New York, every claim against them in law and in equity has been honorably met and discharged or provided for. No man, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, is able to say that he was defrauded or that he lost so much as one penny by the insolvency of these churches, at the period of the bankruptcy of their trustees. But it may be instructive, as regards both the past and the future, to give a brief history of the workings of the trustee system, as contrasted with the present mode of administration in one of these churches. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 557 That of St. Peter's, in Barclay-street, shall be taken as a sample of the condition of the others. St. Peter's is the oldest Catholic church in the city. It was for twenty-live years the only one. Its congregation was the wealthiest until within a recent period. It had always been under the manage- ment of lay trustees. When the former St. Peter's was found too small and it was determined to replace it by a new church, the board then existing had the ground free of debt, the materials of the old edifice, ten thousand dollars, it rs said, in their treasury, as well as whatever may have been realized from voluntary contributions for the construction of the present church. This, one would suppose to indicate an auspicious commencement of the work. When the church was completed as it now stands, and a pastoral residence built on ground which they had leased from the corporation of Trinity Church, the trustees, besides whatever money was in hand at the commencement of the work, found themselves indebted to the amount of $116,444.23. They continued their administration of the church from April, 1837, to May, 1844, and in this interval, instead of diminishing the debt they increased it by the sum of $18,500.77, making the whole debt when they became bankrupt and made an assignment of the church for the benefit of creditors, $134,945. When this property was sold at the Exchange it was knocked down at the highest bid, which was 846,000. It was purchased by one of the congregation to be transferred to the bishop. Here, then, is one of those entries of a property valued at 846,000, but with a moral obligation incumbent on the purchaser to provide for its debt to the amount of $134,945. And this is quoted by Senator Brooks as evidence of the immense wealth of the Archbishop. Another entry which he quotes as evidence of property acquired is the unex- pired term of the lease from Trinity Church of the ground on which the pastoral residence of St. Peter's Church is built. The Arch- bishop had to assume the payment of arrears of ground-rent, with interest on the same, to the amount of 82,200. There were but three years of the term of that lease unexpired, and yet Senator Brooks, concealing all this, cites the transfer from the assignees as an evidence of the immense wealth which the Archbishop was gather- ing into his possession. It may be matter of surprise that the trustees should have been able to accumulate such an amount of borrowed money on a property which sold in the Exchange for less than one-third of its indebted- ness. This is to be explained as follows: Soon after the erection of the church was commenced, the trustees induced the pastor of the church to proclaim from the pulpit, that the poor who had money, even in small sums, might with perfect safety give the use of it to the Board of Trustees that they should allow the same interest that was allowed on deposits in the savings banks, that it would be perfectly safe ; and that, without loss to themselves, the deposit- ors would be aiding the church and promoting religion. When these announcements were made I am quite persuaded that all parties 558 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. acted in good faith, and had entire confidence in their future ability to return these sums, whenever they should be called tor. Accord- ingly, an indefinite number of certificates, handsomely engraved, and fortified by the corporate seal of the Board, were'given in due form to the depositors who came to offer their money. In this way they found their treasury replenished and overflowing. Time went on they struggled during a period of seven years to pay their interest, but the capital of their debt increased during the same time from $116,000 to 8135,000. Their charter required that the Bishop of the diocese should be invited to attend their meetings, but no such invitation was ever sent to the present Archbishop. On the con- trary, they regarded him as one having no confidence in their system, in short, as one opposed to trustees. Neither shall I conceal a fact which it is no pleasure to me to have to record. And it is this : that finding themselves and their church sinking irretrievably, they waited on the Bishop a short time before the assignment, intimated to him their financial condition, but with a gilding of confidence in which he could not participate, desired he would authorize them to increase their mortgage to a sum of $40,000 instead of $19,000, out of which they should pay off the old mortgage, and from the balance discharge certain other pressing debts. They acknowledged at the same time that the trustee system was by no means the best, and proposed with the greatest simplicity to transfer the whole property to the Bishop, which he respectfully but absolutely declined. The Bishop also admonished them, that as honest men they could not allow the claims of a new and enlarged mortgage on their property to come in against the rights of the note-holders. That the church, according to their own acknowledgment, was bankrupt, and con- sequently belonged in right and in justice equally pro rata to all their creditors. They seemed to acquiesce in this just view of the case. But it came to the knowledge of the Bishop within a few days afterwards, that they were actually negotiating for a loan of $40,000 at an insurance office in Wall-street. The Bishop then wrote a note, addressed to their Board, warning them against proceeding in the matter of that loan, and stating that if they did proceed he should publish a copy of that note, both for his o\vn vindication, and to their discredit. They proceeded notwithstanding. They paid off their old mortgage, and applied the balance of the new one to the payment of such debts as they thought proper to discharge before making their assignment. When reproached afterwards for having disregarded the advice of the Bishop, it was alleged that his com- munication had been mislaid among their papers, and had escaped notice until the whole transaction was completed. Finally, the assignment was made September 14th, 1844, in which the trustee system bequeathed to any purchaser the ecclesiastical property of St. Peter's Church, which was sold according to law in the Exchange of New York for $46,000. By this transaction the Catholic community were pledged for a surplus debt over and above the amount which the church brought, of $88,945. This was the CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 559 legacy which lay trusteeism bequeathed to a betrayed community. This was its last will and testament, if we except a codicil resulting from the assignment, and the sale of the property. VII. Previous to the assignment by the bankrupt trustees, some of the note-holders had taken legal measures for the recovery of their claim. These persons, under legal advice, disputed the validity of the sale, and hence the whole question was referred to the courts of law, and remained undecided until the 1st of November, 1849, that is, five years, one month, and sixteen days. During this period the officers of the law, namely, the assignees, and those employed by them, were, for the time being, not only administrators, but. pro- prietors, of the Church of St. Peter. At the commencement of their administration, the Bishop Avas assured that inasmuch as the law, whilst the case was in chancery, would not allow any interest to be paid except that of the bond and mortgage, there would be an accu- mulation from the income of the church of three or four thousand dollars per annum. This would have made some eighteen thousand dollars of a fund for the payment of note-holders at the expiration of the suit. Instead of this, however, the surplus income, if there was any, has never been accounted for. Even the annual interest on the bond and mortgage was not fully paid. The church went in arrears on the item of interest alone, during these five years, four thousand and sixty- four dollars and eighty-one cents. It went in arrears on the ground-rent of the priests' residence, due to the corporation of Trinity Church, two thousand two hundred dollars ; thus making an arrearage during these five years of six thousand two hundred and sixty-four dollars and eighty-one cents. From this is to be taken one thousand two hundred and thirty-three dollars and eighty-seven cents, paid to note-holders from the revenues of the church, and leaving the arrearage of interest on its debt five thousand and thirty dollars and ninety-four cents. From all which we present the following results. When the trustees of St. Peter's commenced the building of their present church, the ground on which it stands was free of debt. They had, it is commonly said, in their possession, besides contributions, which are not counted, and besides the ma- terials of the old edifice, which are not counted, the sum of $10,000.00 When the church was completed in 1837, they were indebted. . . . 116,444.23 During their administration from 1837 to 1844, they increased this debt by the amount of 18,500.77 After the assignment, when they got the State of New York to play the part of sexton and administrator, they increased this debt still further to the amount of. 5,030.94 Making in all $149,975.94 The Catholics of the State of New York ought to be grateful to the excommunicated trustees of St. Louis's Church, the Hon. Mr. 560 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Putnam, and the Hon. Mr. Brooks, for the success of their joint la- bors in fastening upon them a system of lay trusteeship, of the workings of which the history of St. Peter's Church, in Barclay street, furnishes a specimen. Neither has it been simply in the un- accountable increase of debt that the administration of that church has entailed evil upon the Catholic community. During a great portion of the time, but especially during the period of the assign- ment, nothing was left undone to bring disgrace and infamy on the Catholic name in New York. The assignees were the pastors of the church. The senior pastor was, through ill health, for the most part confined to his room, and unable to attend with proper diligence to the duties which the law had imposed on him. The junior assignee took but little interest in the subject, partly because he was the junior, and partly because his natural force of character, especially when a stern duty was to be performed, would range somewhere between the positive and the negative of whatever question would come up. The consequence was that, under legal advice, a third party was introduced, and constituted a plenipotentiary in the ad- ministration of the affairs of St. Peter's. He was supposed at the time to be a Catholic. When he entered on the duties of his office his pecuniary condition was but a few degrees above that of a pauper. He was said to be a good bookkeeper, and the writer would not indorse that sentiment, while he is willing to acknowledge that he kept his books well although even in this respect there are items on his books which appear to have never been accounted for. This man was treasurer, secretary, trustee in fact, every thing in St. Peter's Church. He employed subordinates at his will dismissed them when he chose ; received all moneys for pew-rents ; counted Sunday collections; made his entries of income and expenditure just as he thought proper. After some time the Archbishop learned with regret that the promised accumulation of surplus income was not to be expected. He urged that every practical economy should be re- sorted to ; inquired into the items of expenditure which might be reduced, and found, as the only result, that this administrator of the law had but one -item of economy, Avhich was indignantly spurned by the Archbishop ; and this was a suggestion to withhold from the senior pastor the sum allowed to him, but which his broken health did not permit him to earn by actual labor. This may show the delicate scrupulosity of an agent of the law in administering the temporal affairs of a Catholic church. In the mean time, the unfor- tunate note-holders, whose money had been received by the trustees of St. Peter's, rendered the Bishop's life a daily martyrdom by their waitings and lamentations at the loss of the little earnings which their industry had accumulated, and which, now that age, and poverty, and ill-health had overtaken them, were no longer within their reach. He could not come to their aid ; but he could not, on the other hand, drive them from his door harshly. He was doomed to listen to their tales of distress. If he told them that they must address themselves to the assignees, their answer was that they CHUECH PKOPEKTV CONTROVERSY. 561 had applied ; that the assignees referred them to the agent of the la\v, who received all the moneys of St. Peter's church ; that when they applied to him he swore at them, and threatened to kick them out of his office. This species of daily torture continued during the whole period of the assignment. And as time went on, one could read in such newspapers as were liable to be imposed upon, a series of scurrilous articles against the Archbishop, and against St. Patrick's Cathedral, for not coming to the relief of the poor note-holders of St. Peter's. Whence those articles proceeded was by no means a secret. The last edition of them has appeared in the New York Express. And if any editor thinks that he can annoy Archbishop Hughes with a repub- lication of the scurrilities which emanated from under the assign- ment of St. Peter's church, he will easily find the man to furnish them. The Catholic reader would not have a full idea of the abominations connected with this legal administration of St. Peter's church if we were to withhold from him the following statements. We have seen that the legal administrator was a plenipotentiary in all respects. He allowed arrears to accumulate on the interest of bond and mortgage. He allowed arrearages to accumulate on the ground rent of the pas- toral residence. Death had removed the senior pastor. Other clergymen were sent to aid in discharging the spiritual duties of the sacred ministry. They were men who feared God, and did not fear powers of attorney. Their presence became disagreeable to our plenipotentiary ; and, in order to scatter the priests from his neigh- borhood, he made known that the corporation of Trinity Church, inasmuch as their ground rent had not been paid, wished to re-enter and take possession of their property. He placed a bill accordingly on their house "TO LET." Some of the priests were already frightened away, others had their books packed up ; but in the mean time, and by the merest accident, it came to the knowledge of the Archbishop that the corporation of Trinity Church had no wish to drive out the priests of St. Peter's on account of arrearage, but that they acceded to the proposition under the advice of the legal plenipotentiary, who had stated to them that the interests of the church required a larger revenue, and that the only means to eifect it were to dispossess the priests of their abode and rent the house. Under these circumstances the Archbishop sent word that he would become their tenant, and see that the arrearage should be duly paid. At this stage of the proceedings, patience and endurance had be- come exhausted. The Archbishop directed that a meeting should be called of the congregation on the following Sunday evening. This broke* somewhat unexpectedly on the ears of our plenipotentiary. But he was conscious of the powers which the law gave him within the sacred precincts of St. Peter's church, and he remarked, in the most calm and philosophical way imaginable, to one of the congregation : " The Bishop is coming here this evening : I hope he will behave well. If he does, we shall treat him with respect ; but if he does not, I shall say to him, 'Bishop, there's the door for you.' " VOL. II. 36 G2 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. This meeting look place, however, and the Bishop behaved well. But he brought this man up, and placed his conduct and administra- tion before his eyes in such a light, that without being told to quit his office, he sought the door and relinquished it that is, ceased to render any further services, but claimed and obtained his salary, ac- cording to law, for the unexpired portion of his engagement. If the Catholics of St. Peter's desire to go through another expe- rience like this, they are at liberty to organize lay trustees when they will, and the Archbishop will have no hesitation in passing to a new board the title of the property which is now recorded in his name which he has been instrumental in saving for them and for religion, and in restoring their reputation for honesty, which would have been sacrificed if it had not been for his interference. VIII. The condition of St. Peter's Church was at the lowest mark on the night of the meeting just alluded to, from which the plenipotentiary of the law made his final exit. The legality of the sale under the as- signment was confirmed by the proper tribunal. The church began to be administered under the present system. The legacy from lay- trusteeship at this period, was, omitting the $10,000 which they had in hand at the commencement of the building, $139,975.94, and the assets which they bequeathed as value for this, were the walls and roof of St. Peter's as it stands. The law of the land would have been satisfied if the Catholics had paid only the 146,000 for which the church was sold under the assignment. But everlasting justice is an older and a higher law than is written on the statute books of men. And although the Catholic community had been betrayed into this false position by lay-trusteeism, still the sense of the higher law would not permit them to have recourse to repudiation of just debts. Measures were accordingly taken. The Archbishop brought together a number of the leading members of the church as a com- mittee. They began nobly by subscribing themselves large amounts for the immediate relief of the note-holders who were most in need. Other measures were adopted and put in a train of execution. The consequence has been that under the present system of management, within the period of five years, from the first of November, 1849, to November, 1854, the income of the church was $63,563.08, instead of $43,481.19, during a similar period of five years under the assign- ment that the note-holders received during this time $22,674.72, instead of 81,233.87 that the arrears on interest and on ground- rent have been paid up that, in short, every dollar of debt con- tracted by the abominable system of lay-trusteeship has been actually paid or securely provided for. As a memorial of this change, and a portion of the Catholic history of New York, we cannot do better than insert here, as taken from the FreemarC's Journal, the proceedings of a meeting held in St. Peter's Church on the last Sunday evening of the year 1852 : CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 563 REDEMPTION OF ST. PETER'S CHURCH. From, the Freeman's Journal, Jan. 1, 1353. The discourse of the Most Rev. Archbishop, on last Sunday evening, at St. Peter's Church, Barclay street, of which we have the pleasure of presenting the substance to our readers, will show that the work of redeeming that church from its desperate financial embarrassments has already been accomplished, or is on the eve of being so. This result, joyful to every true Catholic in America, is one that could with difficulty have been conceived of as possible at the time the Archbishop, three years ago, took that church into his hands to rescue it from the deplorable condition to which " the law" administration of the parish had reduced it. In November, 1849, the statement published in the Fffeman respecting the debts accumulated, and till then increasing, upon the church, made the work of rescuing it look like a tedious and dispiriting task, to be handed down from one faithful administration to its successor. How great, then, is the debt of gratitude due to the Archbishop, to the Rev. Mr. Quinn, who at that time consented to take charge of the parish, to the Rev. Mr. Bay- ley, who, with Mr. James B. Nicholson, has spent so much time and labor in disentangling and regulating the confusion of affairs, and to all the fervent and devoted Catholics who have contributed their exertions to this good and glo- rious work ! Catholics need no longer avoid Barclay street, nor blush, if they come in sight of St. Peter's, at the disgrace of which it stood out the bulky and only monument in the financial history of Catholic churches. The style of architecture of St. Peter's does not admit of the carvings we have seen on the outer faces of the walls of some old Gothic churches in Europe, where figures were chiseled representing the spirits of evil driven forth, with hideous grimaces, from within the Temple ; but their places might on this building be supplied by cutting on the granite tablets of its portico, in truthful figures of arithmetic, the history of its boards of trustees, and uncanonical ma- noeuvres. While, within the church, we think it might be a pious and edifying counterpart to engrave on a tablet of pure white " A LOKG DESOLATION', AND A SHAME GROWN OLD, THREE TEARS OF CANONICAL OBEDIENCE AND CATHOLIC DEVOTION HAVE SUFFICED TO REPAIR. A. D. 1852." The church was very tastefully decorated, and the altar was magnificently dressed for this joyful occasion. The church was densely crowded by an audi- ence as intelligent and respectable as could well be assembled in any one place. At the close of the Archbishop's address, the congregation, who entered deeply into the jubilant spirit of the evening, rose, while the choir, which always performs good music at St. Peter's, chanted the Te Denm Laudamus, as ar- ranged by Romberg. But we are too long detaining our readers from the words of the Archbishop, which were pretty nearly as follows : " It is a little over three years since I had occasion, impelled by the duties of my office, to come here and call your attention to the situation of the temporal affairs of this church. What had passed, if not under my eyes, at least within the range of my knowledge, for some, years pre- viously, had filled me with apprehension that unless I interfered, with or without permission, not even the wreck of the hopes of the creditors of this church would have been preserved ; and on that occasion, you will remember, I had no words of kindness ; but my language was of censure, and censure almost indiscriminately applied. Now, thanks be to Almighty God, I have no occasion to use the language of censure, but rather to congratulate 564 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. you and the Catholic Church in this city, and in this country, upon the im- provement in the condition of the temporal affairs of St. Peter's Churcli during the interval. The story of this church has gone abroad to the world wherever the English language is spoken and known, and it has been deplored as a ca- lamity by those who have never seen the country ; because, in fact, if the result which was obvious, but a short time ago, had occurred, it would have left a per- manent blemish upon the Catholic name, and it would have been the first time in the annals of the Catholic Church, that men placing their confidence in the faith of that Church, especially where the sacred temple was concerned, had ever been known to have suffered or to have lost thereby. If you read ecclesi- astical history, you will not find another instance of a Catholic church in the same circumstances in which St. Peter's was but three years ago ; and although I may not say that it is entirely released from that condition, nevertheless, I consider it so much so, that henceforward we need not hang our heads when the name of St. Peter's, as a specimen of Catholic honesty, is brought under our notice. " Before referring to the actual condition of the church at this moment, I will invite you to review with me, briefly, the history and events which have brought about this result. It pleased our ancestors in the faith, when they were yet few in this city, when they were poor, and had much to struggle against, to conform their mode of administering temporal property connected with their religion, to the mode prevalent among their Protestant fellow-citizens. It was supposed to be republican, enlightened, and advantageous, and hence, in- stead of governing the church property according to the rules the ancient and safe rules of the Catholic Church they received a patent and authority from the State for the management of the same. They got themselves incorporated, and a few individuals, selected by themselves from their number, became a body perfect in law, with all the prerogatives that are usually attached, and also the responsibilities to that special designation. And so they continued. I will not pretend to enlarge upon the advantages or disadvantages of this system in its relation to matters not now before us. I will not pretend to say whether it was in harmony with the spirit of the Catholic Church, or whether it did not tend to create a species of congregational feeling which is not Catholic. In all its relations to Catholic discipline, and to that unanimous harmony of feeling which ought to belong to the Catholic Church in social and religious relations, as a community of faith and charity in all these regards, I will pass over the advantages or disadvantages of that system ; but I have one heavy charge to bring against it in the relation that most interests us at present, and it is this that it gave power to the body corporate for the time being, to contract debts to any amount that public credit would reach, strengthened in those days by the known fidelity of the Catholics in connection with their Church, to meet all their obliga- tions. And what made this still more objectionable was, that these trustees did not continue from year to year the same individuals ; for then, as a consequence, their operations would accumulate, and the same individuals could be held ac- countable for them, or at least would be in a situation to explain how they oc- curred, and to take measures to prevent them from becoming unmanageable ; but this trustee system changed its members every two or three years, so that every new set coming in had the power to contract debts, and had also, especi- ally as the time went on, to manage the obligations contracted by their prede- cessors, who had departed from the body corporate, and were lost and unknown in the multitude at large. They could say, we did not contract these debts, for we found them contracted ; they have been entailed upon us, and we must bear with them. But, at the same time, when circumstances seemed to require it, they had the same power to contract new debts, and thus passing from one suc- cession to another of trustees, the body corporate became but a fiction. Hence this church the very cradle of Catholicity, the very spot upon which the altar was permanently erected for the first time in the State of New York this church, the oldest and most endeared by every fond recollection of the oldest families, became, at the period of its completion, and as it now is, indebted to CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 565 the amount of $135,789 ; and this debt was contracted, not to those persons whose province it is to loan money with perfect sense as to the security and responsibility ; but this money had been borrowed upon the faith of a corporate seal, from the poor and the industrious mechanic, who had economized and laid up some of his earnings for the day of his need. It was borrowed from persons in the humbler departments of life : and the reason this debt is so sacred upon us is because they, in lending their money, and taking this seal of a corporate body as a sufficient guarantee, imagined in their own minds that they were loaning to the Catholic Church of God the same Church which we speak of in the Apostles' Creed, where it is said, " I believe in the Catholic Church." They imagined that they were loaning to our Divine Saviour, and it was the fact of the Church, the creed of the Church, that constituted their security, and not the figment of a corporate right with the high seal of a sovereign State upon it. " This was the condition in which the church was at that period. I need not say that, while I was made aware, as Bishop of the diocese, of the condition of things here, I never was admitted to the confidence or the secrets of that civil corporation. Its requirements imposed upon its members the obligation of in- viting me to their meetings : but the invitation I never received ; nor did they ever pay to the Bishop of the Diocese that respect of consulting him in regard to matters involving such consequences, until the period when they came to make known that they were bankrupts, as a corporation, and proposed to pass over to me the church, with all its income, and all its responsibilities. I must do my- self the justice to say, that upon that occasion I told them that they could not, in conscience, borrow one farthing more ; and that they could not, in conscience, increase the amount of their bond and mortgage, because I conceived that the whole of their property was not equivalent to the several obligations of notes on hand which they had distributed among the poor ; and that, therefore, the property, injustice, was no longer theirs, but was the property, and the only value, for those notes which had been given to persons who had claims ; and that the effect of a mortgage would be to cut out some of those claims, or, at least, to leave them until after the claims of the mortgage should be paid. If, upon that occasion, my advice had been taken, all would have been sold without hesita- tion, because I do not look upon the value of a temple, even if it were of mar- ble and gold, as any thing to be compared with the value of Catholic integrity in matters of religion. It was, however, overruled, and I do not regret it. The next thing was an assignment, which was to have taken place ; but the parties who were the creditors, and who supposed they had a right to step in, caused an injunction (the full meaning of which I really am not able to explain, or even to comprehend) to be imposed, so that, up to 1844, the church was gov- erned by law, in the name of a charter, and afterwards it was governed by law, under another aspect, and in such a way that even the sacred officers of religion seemed to be, to a certain extent, regulated by the requirements of the ordinances of law. At this period, the church was indebted $134,3*1. That continued under assignees from November, 1844, until the period to which I have already referred, when I came here with a determination, and conscious of my rights as a Bishop, and in my interpretation of my duties, to break up the whole system, no matter what should be the consequences, for it had gone on long enough. I had been induced to acquiesce in the arrangement at first by the promise, that during that interval, inasmuch as the law had put a stop to cer- tain payments of interest, there would be an accumulation of $4,000 or $5,000 a year to the benefit of the poor creditors. This reconciled me to it ; yet after the four or five years were up, we found that not only was there no accumulation for the benefit of creditors, but the church had actually increased its debt ; fornp to the period of 1844, interest had been paid by the trustees ; but from that period un- til November, 1849, except upon the mortgage, and not all upon that, no inter- est had been paid ; and yet we find at this period that the debt was $135,789, showing an increase of debt, during those five years, of $1,408. Upon that oc- casion, you will recollect, I invited the congregation to rally around me, and 566 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. see what could be done ; and immediately after, measures were taken, by col- lection, by appealing to the generous members of the congregation, and by every means that could be suggested, to get something to pay the more needy and the more numerous class of the poor who were hovering arbout, and craving for the sums which they had deposited, or at least for some part of them. A society was formed ; and, under the constancy and devotion of that society, guided by the zeal and incessant watchfulness of the reverend pastor of the church, much has been done since ; for I find now, that within these three years, the debt has not increased, but, on the contrary, has been reduced by the sum of $19,706.92 ; and of this amount, $9,156.18 was paid to note-holders, in cash, on account, and the balance was paid to the assignees, for the same class of credit- ors. Besides this, during the same three years, in which the church has not been under the management of legal agents, there have been paid, for improve- ments and extra expenses, $2,742, making, in all, paid within the last three years, over and above current expenses, $22,448.72. You recollect that all this has been the gratuitous efforts of parties who had no individual concern in con- tracting the debts which have so long been impending upon this church. Their moneys have been gratuitous offerings to ransom the good faith of the Catholic Church ; and latterly there has been, in addition, an opportunity of disposing of the interest which this church had in certain lots in Fiftieth street, between the Fourth and Fifth avenues. I must take occasion here to re- mark, that these lots, and others, to the same extent, had been originally held by the Cathedral and St. Peter's conjointly, and that previous to the sale, there was a meeting of the trustees of the Cathedral called, at which I was present, and at which, with the good-will of the people, and in accordance with my strong recommendation, it was resolved that the grounds belonging to St. Pe- ter's should be bid up by them at any price whatever, not exceeding the whole debt upon this church. Why was this resolution adopted ? It was because if they should sell for double their value, the money was to go to a part of the Catholic community to whom it was honestly due. It was because the money with which that purchase should be paid belonged to the Catholic community, and because the idea of a Catholic community is, that there should be no selfish- ness or sectarianism in their dealings whenever their affairs are conducted ac- cording to the principles, and the views, and the salutary discipline of their own Church. By this means, the property was enhanced in value at least one- fourth, and if occasion had required, it would have been bid up to a still greater amount. And now, what is the summary of all this ? It is that you divide the payment of the debts of St. Peter's church between the security which the law has guaranteed, either in consequence of the acts of the trustees, or the duties of the assignees, and the supplement which has been made up by the generous feelings which have pervaded the breasts of all those who have taken part in add- ing to what the law furnished as a supplement, reaching to the whole estate. This constitutes the two elements ; and whereas the present debt of the church is $115,000 ; and whereas there is secured as one item, to which note-holders have no claim in which they have no interest the mortgage of $40,000 - the balance would be some $86,000 due ; and on this amount the sale of real estate, by law, and personal property for evdry thing has been sold, even to the vest- ments and organ the result would be, if I can use the language employed elsewhere, a dividend of probably sixty-five or seventy per cent, to those poor note-holders. This is what the law simply would secure to them ; but it is much to your credit, my dear brethren you, the congregation of St. Peter's that you have made up over and above what the law provides, and in such a manner, that I am here authorized to say that before the first day of May next, every dollar and every cent that is due on the face of these notes shall be paid totheir holders, without the diminution of one farthing." The Archbishop then went on to detail the various applications made to him, through actual necessity, by the poorer class of subscribers to the church, and at the same time exonerated the corporation of Trinity church, in their ca- pacity of lessors, from all blame on account of the too notorious move of eject CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 567 ment, which sent some of the clergy away from the building used as a pres- bytery. He alluded to them in the following expressions : " I return my thanks now to that corporation, for the kindness and forbearance with which they treated the clergy of St. Peter's church upon that occasion, for they made the observation, that for a sum so trifling* they would not be willing to see the clergy of any denomination dispossessed and turned out from their lodgings and places of usual residence. What is the whole result of this review, my dear brethren ? It is that I congratulate you for the constancy and the liber- ality with which you have entered into our plans, and contributed at the door on Sunday, without being fatigued during these three years, your offerings towards the full payment of the poor note-holders of this church. I congratu- late your pastor, who, by his prudence, and his devotion, and unceasing en- ergy, lias been your representative, encouraging you, and accomplishing the wonderful things which he has accomplished, when you find that within three years, besides the ordinary expenses of this church, he has paid, or you have enabled him to pay, twenty-two thousand dollars to the poor note-holders. I congratulate St. Peter's church that they have borne their own burdens, and called for no aid from other quarters. I congratulate and return my thanks to those gentlemen who first met me at the residence of the clergy, on the very night on which that downward system was broken up when they, with a liberality for which, individually, they had been known, in other circum- stances contributed their hundred, and even some of them five hundred dol- lars, towards the redemption of this temple, and towards wiping away the stain which its circumstances were calculated to leave upon the Catholic Church. " Nor can I avoid returning thanks to the present assignees, the Rev. Mr. Bayley and Mr. James B. Nicholson, for I am well aware of the labors, the assiduity, the patience, the loss of time, and the trouble which these gentle- men have taken at all times to execute in the most perfect manner the trusts committed to their charge. And now, dearly beloved brethren, is this dear- bought experience to be lost upon the Catholic body ? Is this fact, extending over more than fifteen years, and perplexing the efforts of the Catholic body in this entire city, bearing down their credit, and sending abroad the watchword of distrust against those dealing with the church is all this to pass away, without impressing upon our minds some useful lesson ? I trust not. I trust it will be a lesson to this congregation and this city, and to the Catholic Church throughout the entire United States. It is an experience, and an experience going to show that wherever, in the management even of thefr temporal affairs, the Catholic people have deserted the rules laid down in their Church, that God has not manifested His blessing in their operations. It will be a lesson which ought not to be lost on trustees, or bishops, or priests, or laymen, viz. : that they have no right to turn into bankers, even though the poor should have full confidence in making them the depositories of money. It is a treacherous business. It was an unfortunate day on which the practice was introduced, because it steals upon men ; and while I may seem to speak in a manner which would imply censure upon the motives or integrity of those who have been concerned in the administration of this church as trustees, I beg leave to say that I have never known any individual among them in whom I could not place the utmost confidence ; but the system itself, the system of borrowing, I entirely deprecate. It is a dangerous system, and certainly as long as Almighty God permits me to be at the head of this diocese, no priest of mine, or Catholic lay- man, shall ever have authority, in the name of religion, to receive one penny in the form of deposit. This is the lesson with the experience we have had should teach us, and another lesson is one of benefit, as well as warning, and it is this : It is now very difficult for Catholics, as such, to borrow money, for our reputation has been injured ; and so far as we are a religious body, I rejoice that it is so, and I trust that the difficulty of borrowing money, except in cases of absolute necessity, will be so increased, that we shall learn to find within ourselves all the resources for the healthy continuation and extension of our 568 ARCHBISHpP HUGHES. Church. In this sense it will be a benefit ; and, dearly beloved brethren, I cannot but rejoice, that during these three brief years, every thing which was so dark in the future, and almost hopeless, God, by His providence, and by in- spiring you with those feelings which truly become your faith, to repair the blunders in which you had become involved by acting under different authori- ties, has changed to that point that I am able and authorized no\v to say, that every dollar of the money for which notes have been given by the trustees of this church, shall be paid. I must, however, make a distinction. I must say, that where these notes have passed for a very small sum in the days of need, from the hands of the original owners to persons who have purchased them, in all such cases the purchaser of the note, if he presents it, shall be entitled to what the law allows him, and this will be more than he paid for it. In the second place, there is no idea or pretence of paying interest upon these notes. In my recollection, most of the holders whom I saw would have been willing to give the notes for one-fifth of their value : and the Catholics all I may say all, for I conceive that in the purchase of the ground all have been represented have taxed themselves and paid over and above what the law required to make up Catholic equity, instead of civil law. They have made this sacrifice, and if they are able to pay the poor Catholics, it is but just that the latter should, too, feel a small portion of the sacrifice ; and I hope that there is no man or woman, calling himself or herself a Catholic, who will have the courage to speak, after this sacrifice, of claiming interest. " Yet, I must make one exception. It has come to my knowledge, during my intercourse with a gentleman having charge of this matter, that, in some cases, the poor servants of families took their money, either if they had it by them, or in some instances from the Savings Bank, and brought it here, and that instances are known in which the companion of the Catholic, who was not herself a Catholic, but a Protestant, was nevertheless induced to invest the money as if she were a Catholic ; and it would be very cruel, indeed, if persons not belonging to the Church at all, but yet having shown such a confidence in the Church, should not receive their money ; and for this reason I take it upon myself to say, not only that they shall receive their principal, but every farthing of interest to the present day ; so that those who are not Catholics, and have deposited their money, are, under the circumstances, such as shall be entitled to their interest as well as principal ; and whether the resources within our reach will be sufficient to meet this or not, I pledge my word, and take it upon myself, that in every such instance, these persons shall be paid both principal and interest. As far as the Catholics are concerned, they must not pretend to speak of interest. I am astonished to hear some persons, who only a year ago would have been thankful if they could have got half their capital, begin to speak as if they were in the market of usury, when they knew how much their brethren have done. " I will now conclude. It is the last Sunday evening of the year 1852. The next Sunday will be another year ; and it has been in Catholic times a practice, always at the close of the year to return thanks to Almighty God, with prayer and solemn music, for the blessings which he has bestowed upon his people during the season that has just passed away. In addition to this 1 think you have other reasons. We have all other reasons to thank Almighty God. and on that account I shall say, both as commemorating the total dispersion of that black cloud which has so long impended over this church, that in both thanks- giving for that and the blessings that God has bestowed on us in this result, We shall unite in asking that there shall be offered to-day a solemn Te Deurn in thanksgiving for all these blessings and benefits." The Te Deum Lnudamus was then sung by the choir, the entire congregation standing. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 569 IX. Enough has been said to give an idea of the results of my trustee- ship as exemplified in a single church. Circumstances rendered the condition of the other four bankrupt churches, to which allusion has already been made, only less desperate than that of St. Peter's. The other ten churches that have been erected for as many new congregations, are still heavily in debt. But, inasmuch as they can not be irretrievably mortgaged without the knowledge of the Arch- bishop, and inasmuch as he will never suffer them to be so mortgaged, the danger of their being alienated from Catholic worship is remote and impossible. All these fifteen churches, the titles of which are nominally vested in the Archbishop, but which, in reality, belong to the several congregations, constitute the basis of that supposed wealth which Senator Brooks estimated at a little short of $5,000,000. We have the authority of Messrs. Glover and Wetmore for stating that after the payment of their debts, their value, allowing the average of the ground on which they stand at the very high sum of $5,000 each lot, would amount to the sum of 139,000, or thereabouts. Besides the nominal ownership of the ground on which these churches stand, Archbishop Hughes is not the proprietor of a single square inch of land on Manhattan Island. ^ X. It is not for us to determine by what right a senator may be authorized to involve a private citizen (for neither the Constitution nor the laws of this country recognize any ecclesiastic in any different capacity) in the necessity of taking the trouble and going to the expense which a refutation of Mr. Brooks's falsehoods has imposed upon Archbishop Hughes. Certainly no man is a criminal on account of the amount of property which may be recorded in his name, pro- vided it has been honestly acquired or honestly preserved for the purposes to which it is set apart. And if the acquisition of wealth by religious denominations is sufficient to excite the jealousy of the State, the investigation should extend to all denominations, and not be exceptionally restricted to one. At all events, if the Legislature of New York is disposed to take an inventory of the ecclesiastical wealth of each denomination in the State, they should begin with those who, by original rights or the prescription of time, have come into the management of really immense property. In that way the Episcopalians, the Dutch Reformed Church, the Presbyterians, the Methodists and Baptists would, by the immense preponderance of their ecclesiastical property, claim precedence over the Catholics, who are but of comparatively recent origin in this city, and even yet in the condition of pure struggle to provide places of worship for their increasing numbers. The writer of this entertains no jealousy towards any denomination on account of their ecclesiastical wealth. It is to be assumed that they came into its possession by 570 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. honest and honorable means. And were it twice or ten times as large as it is, we would still say that the State has no right to inter- fere with it, at least in the sense of contingent confiscation, con- templated and provided for in Senator Putnam's bill against Ca- tholics. XL Neither have we the slightest objection to the system of lay trus- teeship which the same bill would force upon Catholics, that is, so far as other denominations may have found it suitable to their interests and in harmony with their doctrines. It has so happened, however, as an historical fact, that the Episcopalians, Dutch Reformed Church, Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, and probably some other denominations, have sought exemption and obtained it from the crude enactments of the law of 1784, which Senator Putnam has revived against Catholics. We say candidly, that this system is entirely out of keeping with the principles of religious belief and of ecclesiastical discipline peculiar to our faith. Nor do we know any denomination, except the Congregationalists, to whom it is applicable or by whom it is desired. Neither is it of much consequence to Catholics, J,hat wherevej it has existed some of the clergymen of other denominations have complained of it bitterly, as authorizing a despotism of the laity, controlling their freedom in the "ministra- tion of the Word," if not of the sacraments. Neither is it our business to complain that Protestant lay-trustees have not only in some instances brought their churches into market by their mis- management, allowed some of them to be sold even to Catholics, but also, if report can be relied on, have failed to pay the debts which they had contracted in the name of the religious community to which they belonged whether the sufferers were, as in son>e cases, those who had loaned them money on bond and mortgage, or cases more cruel still, in which mechanics, laborers, and others were ultimately cheated out of the wages of their hard labor. All these are questions which our Protestant fellow-citizens have a right to decide for themselves, and if they are entirely satisfied as for them- selves, with this system, certainly Catholics have no right to pre- vent their approval and adoption of it. We speak for Catholics only. XII. This may, perhaps, be the proper place in which to introduce a few explanatory remarks regarding some points alluded to by Sena- tor Brooks, which, without explanation, the uncatholic reader would be liable to misunderstand. It has been stated in various ways that Catholics regard church property, when once dedicated to religious purposes, as the property of God. The meaning, in the minds of Catholics is, that no matter in whom the title of such CHURCH PKOPKRTY CONTROVERSY. 571 property is vested, its use is the common right of all ; that the Bishop has no right to exclude the congregation, nor the congrega- tion to exclude the Bishop ; in short, that it is to be used for the purpose of Catholic worship. It has happened, and it may happen again, that some portions of property of this kind have been sold. Thus arises the question, very silly in itself, " How can the property of God be sold ?" T\vo instances have been alluded to during this discussion. One was the old Transfiguration Church, in Chambers street. The church edifice was exceedingly rickety. Improve- ment in the neighborhood required that great expense should be undergone to shore it up. And improvement demanded that the ground on which it stood should be occupied for warehouses, rather than as a place of worship. It was accordingly sold, and the money which it brought was used partly to pay its debts, and partly to purchase the present Transfiguration Church, formerly Protestant Episcopalian " Zion," corner of Mott and Cross streets. It may be remarked, by the way, that the old Transfiguration Church had never been consecrated or dedicated by any Catholic religious rites. The amount of debt from the beginning was such, that neither Bishop Dubois, nor Archbishop Hughes would consecrate a temple so likely to pass away from religious to secular uses. Something similar occurred in regard to what was called St. Stephen's Church, on the corner of Twenty-seventh street and Madison avenue. Ground had been purchased there by the congregation with the sanction of the Bishop ; a temporary building was erected, but never consecrated, inasmuch as it was only temporary and to be occupied as a school-house after the church should have been erected. In the mean time the Harlem R. R. Company became the proprietors of the rest of the block in which this building was situated. The character of that occupancy rendered it expedient to build the con- templated church on that ground ; whilst, on the other hand, the Harlem R. R. Company desired the possession of the whole square. It was accordingly sold to them, and the purchase money employed in buying lots and building St. Stephen's Church in a more suitable place. It was in relation to this property that Senator Brooks placed on record one of the most palpable falsehoods of which he has been guilty. He describes the sale of this property and its transfer to the Harlem R. R. Company. Of course, then, he was aware that it had passed out of the Archbishop's possession. And he must have known that he was perpetrating a falsehood when he enumerated this same property as being still in the Archbishop's possession. XIII. It has been said that the Archbishop should not have applied terms of opprobrium to a senator of the State of New York ; and some papers have gone so far as to say that he has applied the word " liar," " scoundrei," " villain," &c., to Senator Brooks. This is en- tirely untrue. Whether Mr. Brooks deserves those epithets or not 572 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. is purely a matter of inference in the mind of each reader. But the Archbishop has not applied them. Mr. Brooks in this respect has been his own worst enemy. In his speech in the senate of New York he made statements which were entirely and absolutely false. Admonished as to their falsehood, he undertook to prove them, and in this attempt perpetrated many additional falsehoods. Thus the issue of veracity between him and the Archbishop became vital ; and if Mr. Brooks has gone to the wall on that issue, it has been by his own procurement. He became the centre of a triangular testi- mony. At one angle were his own statements ; at a second, those of Messrs. Glover and Wetmore, whose veracity no man will ven- ture to call in question ; and at the third point of the triangle were the records of the register's office. Mr. Brooks had falsified these records. That fact is attested both by their own text and by the testimony of the two gentlemen above named. If Mr. Brooks, therefore, has any complaint to make as to the charge of falsehood, let him blame not the Archbishop, but his own tongue and his own pen. In the speech in Albany he said there were fifty-eight entries of property then held by the Archbishop. When he came to ex- amine them he found, NOT fifty-eight, but forty-six. And when truthful men came to examine his special report, they found neither fifty-eight nor forty-six, but only THIRTY-TWO. Let no one, then, be offended or scandalized if the Archbishop has applied to such statements of Senator Brooks the only term in our language which characterizes them according to what they are, namely, falsehoods. These they are, neither more nor less. And they would be just what they are if, by a ridiculous affectation of spurious politeness, the Archbishop had treated them as mere typo- graphical errors. The only object of education in this life is to dis- tinguish, in all departments of human knowledge, the line which separates truth from falsehood. If we were not in the hope of be- coming able to make this distinction, the labors of the student would become purposeless, and education would be a mere toil without the prospect of a recompense. To apply the term falsehood to a deliber- ate statement made by any one claiming the immunities of social decency, must necessarily appear harsh, and is, in fact, a humiliating necessity on the part of him who employs it. But when there is no alternative left when you have to deal with a man so unscrupulous as to leave you no choice except to put him into the pit which he had dug for you then in that case things must be called by their proper names truth must be called truth, and falsehood, falsehood : it is for the author of either to be responsible both to God and men. XIV. It is said by many that the late controversy between Senator Brooks and myself will have made a great man of him. I doubt much whether that is possible. But if the event should verify the prediction, it will not awaken in my breast a single feeling of regret. CHURCH PKOPEETY CONTROVERSY. 573 I have no objection that Senator Brooks should succeed in any avo- cation of life to which he may devote himself. The late controversy between him and me has brought out for the admiration of his countrymen, if they choose to admire it, the special department ot talent in which his forte lies. If they deem it worthy of recom- pense, let them reward it by making Senator Brooks mayor of the city, governor of the State, or president of the Union, in case they can find no fitter man. As for the writer of this, he has only to complain of the injustice done him by Senator Brooks in the speech which he delivered in the senate at Albany on the 6th of March last. In that speech the senator held up Archbishop Hughes to the odium and suspicion of his countrymen. And this he did, not by a statement of facts, but by a statement of silly and absurd false- hoods. It may be "as well to conclude this introduction with a restatement of that portion of Mr. Brooks's speech which has given rise to the late controversy between the Senator and the Archbishop of New York. The passage referred to is as follows : " I had occasion during a visit of a day in New York to secure references, taken from the register's office there, of the amount of property held by John Hughes in that city. I suppose its value to be, in New York alone, not much short of five millions of dollars. So far from this property being held, when in churches, by trustees, there are numerous transfers from trustees to John Hughes ! Beginning with February, 1842, and continuing through 185-1, a friend of mine copied fifty-eight entries of as many distinct parcels of property made in the name of land for John Hughes, all in the space of twelve years ! not to John Hughes, Bishop, nor to John Hughes, Archf Bishop, nor to John Hughes, as trustee for the great Roman Catholic Church but to plain John Hughes in his own propria persona. Some of these parcels cover whole squares of land, and nearly all of them are of great value. The rule of that Church is never to part with property, and to receive all that can be purchased. What is true of New York city is true of the State, and fifteen or twenty cases of pro- perty assigned to Bishop John Timon were named by the senator from Monroe." [" To those who were curious in such matters, Mr. Brooks exhibited to the senate the number, book, and page of those several entries in the city of New York in behalf of John Hughes."] THE TRUSTEES OF ST. LOUIS'S CHURCH, BUFFALO, AND MR. PUTNAM'S CHURCH PROPERTY BILL. NEW YORK, March 28, 1855. To the Editor of the New York Freeman's Journal : Having arrived by the Atlantic, yesterday, I have had barely time to read the foregoing strange documents. I proceed to make the following hasty observations in regard to them, inasmuch as Cath- olics, and others, perhaps, are anxious to know my opinions. 574: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. I do not think that there is any real ground for the alarm and appre- hension which I understand is now prevalent among the Catholics of this city, and no doubt of the entire State, as to the effects of a law, which is now under discussion in the Legislature at Albany, regarding ecclesiastical property. No doubt it is in its spirit and in its object an anti-Catholic enactment, although it professes to embrace all denomi- nations except the Society of Friends. Should it pass, it may reach other religious communities, and strike deeper into their ecclesiastical or- ganizations than its framers would wish. On the other hand, they felt themselves obliged to give it the form and appearance of a gen- eral law, instead of calling it by its true title, " a penal enactment, requiring Roman Catholics of the State of Xew York to be governed, in the enjoyment and use of their own property set apart for eccle- siastical purposes, not by the discipline of the religion which they profess, but by the statute of the Legislature." This would be the true title of the bill as it has now passed the Senate. But even should it become a law, we can hardly think that our Protestant fellow-citizens would take any pleasure in executing upon us the an- noyances and injuries, for the infliction of which it has so ingeniously provided. It would impose such intricate, onerous, and sometimes odious duties on the officers who should be appointed to see it exe- cuted, that, unless ample fees were provided, they would become dis- gusted with its requirements. It would certainly inflict very great injury on us in our rights of conscience, and in our rights of property, and this without producing any benefit to any class of our fellow-citizens. Still, should it pass, we shall not sink under it. We have borne up under weightier dis- couragements. I should not be surprised if its results would be beneficial, rather than otherwise, to the real interests of the Catholic Church and people. The very fact that we have been singled out and fettered in the enjoyment of religious immunities by civil enact- ments, will, in all probability, excite that sympathy which is natural to the American breast in favor of those who suffer under the reality, or even under the appearance of persecution, whether that persecu- tion be legal or not. It will have the effect to brace many who have hitherto been lukewarm Catholics, to a higher, a deeper, and a holier appreciation of that religion which is thought to require civil enact- ments for the crippling of its progress. It will withdraw many from the too ardent pursuit of political ends and political objects, by which theiv minds were led away and wasted on mere transitory and tem- poral concerns. It will insinuate to Catholics that, in the minds of their fellow-citizens, they, because of their religion, are hardly quali- fied to take part in the political strifes by which the country is per- petually agitated. And the more they withdraw from such agitations, whether by their own choice or by such legislative rebukes as the enactment under consideration contemplates, the more their hearts and their minds will turn to other considerations affecting their fu- ture being, and the religion by means of which they are to secure, ultimately, the end of their creation. In this view it is probable that CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 575 the law, now before the Legislature at Albany, will prove in its re- sults rather beneficial than otherwise to the Catholic body at large. The Legislature does not propose to confiscate their church property, but only to take the management of it out of their hands. It proposes to furnish them, and to force upon them, a wiser, juster, and therefore better code of ecclesiastical discipline for the manage- ment of their church property, than their Church has provided for them. But still it does not go to the length of confiscation. It ap- pears to be a foregone conclusion in the minds of the framers, that the law will accomplish, in practice, the results which are outlined in its theory. This is not so certain. Professional gentlemen may discover some defect in the framing and wording of the enactment which will render it inapplicable. But even if this should be the case, it will only produce in the minds of Catholics the very feelings and purposes which it aims to overthrow or prevent. The Catholic laity, in my opinion, will reason with themselves thus: "The Legislature wishes to prevent our doing with our own property what we think proper ; it wishes us to give nothing by de- vise, conveyance, gift, or any other form of transfer, to our bishops and clergy, for the purpose of promoting or supporting our religion, except as it sees fit to direct. Now, in this it seems to meddle with our religious as well as civil rights ; and we shall find twenty ways outside the intricate web of its prohibitions for doing, and doing more largely still, the very things which it wishes us not to do. In these matters which invade our religious, as well as civil rights, we shall take the liberty of doing what is right in our own way." It does not follow from all this, that 1 should witness the passage of the act in question with pleasure or satisfaction. But I look upon it in anticipation of its worst consequences; and in order to allay the apprehensions which prevail, I point out the probable consequences. Under any circumstances, we must maintain our confidence in the justice and wisdom of the State, to which it is our pride to belong. If experience should make it apparent, hereafter, that the working out of this law is partial and oppressive upon one denomination, and only one, of the community, another future Legislature, better in- formed of the true state of the case, will either amend its defects, or repeal it altogether, in case it should be found not amendable. I have said that I could not, nor can any Catholic, approve of it, or witness its passing into a law with any feeling of pleasure or sat- isfaction. But, on the other hand, it is a matter of congratulation to the Catholics that they have not had recourse to any thing like public meetings or remonstrances, such as are usually had recourse to, to prevent the passage of an iniquitous or injurious enactment. There have been times when it might have been their duty thus to meet, pass resolutions, and forward numerously signed remonstrances. But in an hour so pregnant with excitement, when it would be so easy to engender feelings that ought to be guarded against, they have acted wisely in leaving the matter entirely in the hands of 576 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. those who are appointed legislators to represent the sovereign will of this sovereign State. No remonstrance shall go forth from me against the contemplated legislation, nor shall I encourage any thing of the kind in others. The matter is in the hands of the Senate and Assembly of New York. They are entirely, or nearly all, Protest- ants ; and Protestants have always boasted that they were in favor of the most unbounded civil and religious liberty. If it be their good pleasure, in this instance, to refute their professions by their acts, be it so ; but the glory or dishonor shall be theirs alone. I think, however, that the chances for right legislation in this mat- ter would be greater, if the Legislature of New York were better Informed of the true state of the case of the facts and their bearings involved in the groundwork of the act of legislation to which we have referred. It is hardly possible that they should be acquainted by personal knowledge, with the religious discipline peculiar to the various denominations of the community. So, also, in regard to the specific facts involved in the so-called ecclesiastical property question among Catholics. Their tutors appear to have been the lay-trustees of St. Louis's Church, in Buffalo. What these gentlemen have said, whether orally or in the form of petition, has been regarded as Cath- olic testimony, and consequently the testimony of men who could not be suspected of wishing injury to that denomination to which they profess to belong. When one reads their petition, and the act now under deliberation, he is struck with how nicely they fit into each other. The petition of George Fisher, Michael Hesmer, Wil- liam B. Le Couteulx, George Landrack, and seventeen others, is the foundation, the bill before the House, the superstructure to be reared upon it. Now, wise legislation should rest upon a sound and solid basis. That which is presetted to the Legislature by the gen- tleman from Buffalo, is neither sound nor .solid ; and with this part of the question I propose to deal at some length, the more so that they have introduced my name into their petition. I begin by de- claring, as a man of honor and veracity, that the petition of the self- styled Catholics of St. Louis's Church, so far as it alleges grievances to be redressed or provided against, is a compound of fiction in all its material parts, with a small sprinkling of truth in portions which are not material, from beginning to end. It begins with the follow- ing statement: ' Shortly after these events, Bishop Hughes attempted to compel the trustees to convey the title of this church (St. Louis's; to him. The trustees resisted firmly." The whole burden of the petition rests upon the accuracy or the in- accuracy of this statement, at least so far as Bishop Hughes is con- cerned. I proclaim in the face of the signers of the petition, and of the Legislature, and of the whole world, that in the extract just quoted there is not a sentence, nor a word, nor a syllable, nor a let- ter of truth. Having premised so much, it may be proper for me to give a brief CHUKCH PEOPEETY CONTROVERSY. 577 history of the origin and nature of the difficulties between myself and the trustees of St. Louis's Church, in Buffalo. In order to make the matter more intelligible 1 , it is necessary that I should revert to the bearings of the question, as it affected the Catholic people of the diocese of New York at the period referred to. When the undersigned was appointed to the government of the diocese in 1839, he found every church therein under the manage- ment, so far as related to what was called temporalities, of lay-trus- tees. He found the congregations of those churches generally di- vided among themselves into contending parties, having no mutual sympathies one with the other. He found them involved in debt more than equal to the value of the property. In the city of New York there were, at that period, six Catholic churches. Of these, three were barely able to meet the interest on their debts as they became due, whilst the other three were involved apparently beyond any prospect of extrication. These three latter churches, or rather the trustees representing them, became bankrupt in their corporate capacity. The real and personal property passed into the hands of assignees, and were disposed of in the ordinary course of law, just the same as if they had been bankrupt theatres. The price which they brought would not have paid more than thirty cents on the dollar to their creditors. And, on the other hand, it would have been a stigma on the Catholic body at large, and not on the trustees as individuals, if their debts, whether recoverable by law, or acknowledged to be due in justice, should not be paid to the last farthing. Now, here was a result that startled and alarmed the Catholics. From the time of their origin in the city of New York, they had been in the habit of contributing generously by voluntary subscrip- tion, as well as by high pew rents ; and after a continuance of such contributions during a period of more than half a century, they made the melancholy discovery that the churches which they had built, and supposed themselves to own, were sunk in debt far more than, they were worth, and belonged, both in law and equity, to their creditors. All the money they had contributed for religious pur- poses, over and above current expenses for the maintenance of divine worship, was gone gone ; and with it their honor as a trustworthy religious community! The present Archbishop of New York was- the purchaser of those churches when they were sold respectively ; that is, he was the highest bidder, and accordingly they passed into- his hands for the time being, not in the form of a trust for him and his successors, but by a legal title in fee simple. From that moment the confidence and hopes of the Catholic people began to revive. They rallied around their Bishop, and around the clergymen respect- ively appointed by him to take charge of those churches. By an ef-- fort, which has continued for years, they paid off or provided for their debts, as determined by the legal price for which they were sold. But they did more than pay their lejral debts. They retrieved their own honor as a religious denomination, by paying, also those VOL. II. 37 578 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. debts for the recovery of which there was no law. They wiped out every stigma which the bad management of Jay-trustees had brought upon their otherwise untarnished name. I would not be understood here as imputing moral delinquency to the several boards of trustees then in existence, or to their prede- cessors. But experience has proved in our own country, as well as elsewhere, that there is a subtle element of deceptiveness, lurking and inherent, in the nature of corporate bodies. The members of such bodies are seldom conscious of the presence of tin's element, which, as long as things go on well, philosophy has been baffled in her attempts to define or identify. It is only when the community is stunned by some explosion or mismanagement of public trusts by corporate bodies, that the fact itself becomes palpable and undeniable. But even then, except in some startling case of fraud, the astonish- ment settles down into that benevolent humanity which winds up a catastrophe on a railroad, with the considerate verdict that blame is not to be attached to any one in particular. I have never known an instance of fraud or peculation ampng the lay-trustees of the unfortunate churches to which I have referred. In other respects, they were not exempt from those self-illusions to which corporate bodies, even in seasons of apparent prosperity, are so fre- quently liable. This was proved by the result of their long labors. After an administration of the temporal aifairs of the Catholics dur- ing a period of fifty years, they and the community were astonished at discovering that the church property under their management was still in debt to an amount more than its entire value. Thus it was ascertained that, except in the mere use of the edifice for relig- ious purposes, the condition of the Catholics of New York was worse than if they had never owned any church property whatever. It was not surprising, therefore, that the Catholic community, clergy and laity, under such circumstances, should turn away, as they did, in disgust, from a system which had wrought out such unexpected, and, for the honor of their fame as a religious community, such dis- creditable results. On the other hand, since the management of church property by lay trustees has been set aside, or, rather, has died out, their repu- tation has been retrieved and restored. They have seen paid off not only their legal debts, but the debts of honor bequeathed to them by the defunct system. They have seen those older churches recov- ered from ruin, and new churches springing up on every side. They have seen an end put to divisions, bickerings, and strifes in the several congregations of the diocese, and a spirit of union, har- mony, and above all, charity, extending itself over their whole com- munity. With this experience fresh in their memory, nothing less than ab- solute coercion will induce them to return to a system, from the effects of which they have escaped at the expense of so many and such noble sacrifices. I am, however, far from being satisfied with the mode in which CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 579 church property is generally held at the present time. It has in- volved the Bishop in many cares, anxieties, and responsibilities, which it would be for him a great and most desirable relief to be rid of. And I should hail with delight any legislative measure by which, on the one side, the dangers that have resulted from the for- mer mismanagement of lay trustees might be securely guarded against ; and, on the other side, the inconveniences of the present system, the rights of the laity as well as of the clergy provided for, and the church property legally secured to the sacred ends and pur- poses for which it was created and intended. In the petition which Mr. Putnam presented to the Legislature on behalf of St. Louis's Church, it is insinuated, if not asserted, that the system of lay trustees was set aside by the improper exercise of episcopal authority in the diocese of New York. This is entirely untrue. When that system was set aside there was no Catholic Bishop in the State of New York, except myself, and I know that I never used my episcopal authority, whether properly or improperly, for the purpose of displacing lay trustees in any church in my dio- cese. It is quite true that when appealed to I have recommended, in a few instances, that they should resign, as the best means of put- ting an end to strifes among themselves, or of saving the church under their management from being sold for its debts. This, how- ever, was always in the form of friendly advice; but in no case have I ever asked them to resign their office as an act of obedience to episcopal authority. In no case have I asked them, or any of them, to make over the title of their church property to me. I never re- cognized in them the right of ownership, and I should as soon have thought of asking the corporation of Buffalo to make over to me their city property, as of asking the trustees of St. Louis's to make over the title of their church. It was not theirs in such a sense, or for such a purpose. They could not do it if they would ; and if they did attempt it, it would be as faithless agents, attempt- ing to betray the confidence of their principals, in giving a worthless deed of property which was not theirs. Consequently, whilst the statement alluded to in the petition of the trustees, and seventeen others, is utterly empty of truth, it is filled and overflowing with absurdity and nonsense. The authority of a bishop in the Catholic Church is a spiritual au- thority. It is the same in a church that has trustees, as in one that has none. All Catholics acknowledge and are subject to that au- thority. I may add also what is indeed obvious, that that authority extends to outward things which are set apart and appropriated for purposes of religion; and that, consequently, when the faithful have contributed for the purposes of Catholic worship, it isofthejurisdiction, of the right, and duty of the Bishop, to see that property so contri- buted, and for such a purpose, shall not be misappropriated, squan- dered, or perverted from its use. In the Statutes of our Synod, held in 1842, certain rules were laid down by which lay trustees should be thenceforward guided 580 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. in administering the ecclesiastical property which the Catholic peo- ple had contributed for the purpose of religion. The following ex- tract from our Pastoral Letter, published on that occasion, contains the only rules which could in the least trench on the prerogatives of lay trustees which had been so long enjoyed for ruin with impunity : " We have, therefore, directed and ordained, by the statutes of the diocese, that henceforward no body of lay trustees, or lay persons, by whatever name called, shah 1 be admitted to appoint, retain, or dismiss, any person connected with the church such as sexton, organist, singers, teachers, or other persons employed in connection with religioner public worship, against the will of the pastor, subject to the ultimate decision of the ordinary. We have ordained, likewise, that the ex- penses necessary for the maintenance of the pastor, and the support of religion, shall, in no case, be withheld or denied, if the congregation are able to afford them. It shall not be lawful for any board of trustees, or other lay persons, to make use of the church, chapel, basement, or other portions of ground, or edifices con- secrated to religion, for any meeting having a secular, or even an ecclesiastical object, without the approval, previously had, of the pastor, who shall be account- able to the Bishop for his decision. And, with a view to arrest the evils of the trustee system in expending inconsiderately, or otherwise, the property of the faithful, it has been ordained as a statute of the diocese, that no board of trustees shall be at liberty to vote, expend, or appropriate for contracts, or under any pretext, any portion of the property which they are appointed to adminis- ter (excepting the current expenses as above alluded to), without the express approval and approbation of the pastor, In every case, And it is further or- dained, that even thus, the trustees of the churches, with the approbation of the pastor, shall not be at liberty to expend an amount larger than the sum of one hundred dollars in any one year, without the consent of the Bishop approving or permitting such expenditure." I am sure that no member of the Legislature, not even Mr. Put- nam, will be able to discover in these regulations any thing unjust, unwise, or oppressive. They took from the boards of trustees the power of contracting debts ad libitum, and bequeathing to their successors in office the less pleasant duty of making payment. They took from lay trustees the right of employing church property for the payment of persons connected with religion, against whose fit- ness or moral character the pastor of the church might have strong and well-founded objections. In these regulations will be found the only grounds that ever existed for the resistance to episcopal au- thority which the trustees of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo, were pleased to inaugurate. All the other boards of trustees in the diocese acquiesced in them, and the Catholics at lai'ge saw in them a prudent measure and a wise precaution. The only exception was the trustees of St. Louis's Church. They would be Catholics after their own fashion, and they have reaped the consequences. Not understanding the English language well, they caused the Pastoral to be translated into German. Then, in their corporate capacity as lay trustees, they took it into "mature and respectful" consideration, and re- viewed it paragraph by paragraph. They were kind enough to ap- prove of some parts, whilst in the most polite language, which a French gentleman knows so well how to employ, they signified to me CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 581 that other portions of the document did not meet their approbation. Their objections were chiefly, I may say exclusively, against the regulations contained in the above extract from the Pastoral Letter. They would not allow either bishop or priest to examine their church books, or their treasurer's accounts. They would not allow the pastor to have any thing to do with the approval or disap- proval of persons whom they might think fit to employ in connec- tion with the services of the church. Thus, by implication, they Avould reserve to themselves the right to employ an infidel to teach catechism to the children of the congregation the right to employ a Jew to serve the priest at Mass, and a scoffer at all religion to play the organ on Sunday, or chant the praises of God in His holy temple. Their refusal to acquiesce in the above regulations of the Pastoral Letter was communicated to me, accompanied by polite ex- pressions of profound respect for episcopal authority. In reply, I expressed to them briefly my regret at the course which they thought proper to adopt, intimated that the duties of my office re- quired that I should be- the Bishop, .and that in the government ot the diocese they should be content with their condition as laymen ; that under no circumstances would I quarrel or have any contro- versy with them that if they thought proper to persevere in their resolutions, we should part company in pence that bishops and priests, and religion itself, were quite as free in this country as were lay trustees. In the Pastoral Letter it had been made known that at the period of six months from its promulgation, the priest should be withdrawn from every church whose trustees should refuse to comply with thie above regulations. The trustees of St. Louis's Church alone per- severed in their refusal. The priest, however, was not withdrawn, by me, but was actually compelled by the ill treatment he received from the trustees and their adherents to quit his post and return to his native country. From the time he left I did not send another priest, nor was another priest permitted to officiate in their church. But as the Catholic people whose interests these men had so. mis- managed, whose peace they had destroyed, whom they had deprived of religious consolation so far as depended on them, were still a precious portion of my Catholic flock, I sent two other priests, not indeed to be under the ignorant tyranny of lay trustees in St. Louis's Church, but to be free ministers of God, freely discharging their duties towards all the people. The Almighty gave a blessing to their ministry and labors. A new temple was soon commenced, and this church of St. Louis re- mained, an altarless pile, which its owners might have disposed of as they thought proper. On my second episcopal visitation, one or two years afterwards, the trustees then in office addressed me a note soliciting me to receive them for the purpose of an interview in regard to its condition. I informed them in repl.v that unless they were prepared to acquiesce in the requirements of the Pastoral Letter, and thus come back to the starting point of their schism, an 582 AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. interview would be useless, and could not be granted. They came, notwithstanding, at the hour which they indicated in their note. They asked me to explain the meaning of certain passages in the extract of the Pastoral as quoted above. That was readily given, and at its close they alleged, as an apology for their schismatical course up to that time, that they were unacquainted with the value of English words, that Mr. William B. Le Couteulx had been their interpreter and that he had always assured them that the Bishop was endeavoring to get possession of their church property, in order to give it to the Irish ! In short, they stated (that is, some of them stated and the rest remained silent) that if my interpretation of the Pastoral Letter was correct, Mr. Le Couteulx had been deceiving them from the beginning, and that now they were prepared to sub- mit in all things to the general discipline of the diocese as set forth in the Pastoral Letter. Their submission was complete and uncon- ditional, it was spontaneous, for, I neither argued with them nor suffered them to argue with me. I congratulated them, intimating at the same time that their acknowledged and causeless obstinacy had given great scandal, which, as good Christians, they were bound to repair as far as possible. This they admitted, and were prepared to ask pardon of God and of their Bishop for the scandals they had given.. They besought the Bishop, however, to open their church and preach in it on the following day, which was Sunday. I replied that before I opened their church they should make the amende honorable to their fellow-Catholics of the diocese and of the world, which they did in the afternoon papers by a public expression of their regret for the course they had hitherto pursued. Here the matter ended, as between the Bishop of New York and the trustees of St. Louis's Church. A new pastor was appointed, and things went on peacefully till the diocese was divided. With the details of the subsequent history of this controversy I am unacquainted, but I am quite persuaded that the trustees of St. Louis's Church have had as little reason to complain of their present zealous and devoted Bishop as they had to complain of me. Whether in view of the foregoing facts the Legislature can do any thing to relieve those gentlemen from the laws of the religious denomination to which they profess to belong, it will remain for Mr. Putnam and his colleagues to determine. Their petition states as follows, viz. : " The trustees sent one of their number, William B. Le Couteulx, Esq., to Europe for the purpose of preventing this arbitrary, and as was claimed, this illegal action of the Bishop, through the intervention of Cardinal Fornari, the Pope's Nuncio in Paris. Mr. Le C. succeeded in his mission. No further efforts were made at the time by Bishop Hughes to disturb the title to the church, and its members fondly hoped that peace was permanently restored." Here is a strange jumble of fact and fiction. It is quite true that Mr. Le Couteulx went to Europe, it is quite false that he succeeded in his mission. Bi&hop Hughes had many conversations with Cardi- CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 583 nal Fornari in Paris after Mr. Le C.'s visit, and the Nuncio never so much as alluded either to Mr. Le Couteulx or to the St. Louis's Church in Buffalo. Pence, then, was not restored in consequence of any authority in the Catholic Church, for neither bishop, nor cardinal, nor pope, ever spoke or wrote to Bishop Hughes on the subject. But peace was restored in consequence of the trustees having, in the interview above alluded to, voluntarily and unconditionally sub- mitted to the requirements of the Pastoral Letter ; in consequence of their having expressed sorrow for their scandalous conduct ; and in consequence of their having promised, if the Bishop would only grant them a priest, to conform thenceforward in their administration as lay trustees to the rules of the diocese. Such is the plain, simple history of facts involved in the so-called controversy between the trustees of St. Louis's Church and myself, up to the period when the diocese was divided. Let no one suppose that this statement of facts is untrue or incorrect in any of its parts. I had some correspondence, but no controversy with the trustees. I had much conversation also, especially with their spokesman ; and I defy him to show that in writing, in speech, or by any act or sign, I have ever made the proposition, or exhibited the desire, to meddle, directly or indirectly, with the title of their church. This is a true and simple, though hastily written statement, of the whole question between St. Louis's Church and the undersigned. f JOHN, Archbishop of New York. MORE OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ST. LOUIS CHURCH, BUFFALO. To the Editor of the New York Daily Times : Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx's letter, addressed to me, and published in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, of the 5th inst., and copied into your paper of this date, requires some notice at my hands. I shall have no direct controversy with Mr. Win. B. Le Couteulx. But I must begin by disclaiming any intention to injure " a reputa- tion which he has acquired by the rectitude of his conduct, his man- ners, and his kind and upright disposition." This is the character which he claims for himself, and with which I have nothing to do. It would be well for him if he had economized his reputation, and spared it as much as I have done. I have no unkind feelings towards him or towards any human being. But his own acts determine that he is without the slightest necessity for an imputation against it on my part. Besides, if he looks at the testimonies of certain journals, he will be satisfied that he never stood so high as he does at present, in the estimation of the enemies of the Catholic Church, for the ac- complishment of whose purposes, he and his colleagues have made themselves, voluntarily and gratuitously, the efficient implements. 584 4 AECHBISHOP HUGHES. Mr. Le Coutoulx assumes that I have branded him and his col- leagues, in the public prints, as infidels and liars. I must beg leave to decline the authorship of such vulgar language. But if Mr. La Couteulx adopts such epithets, and applies them to himself and his associates, I cannot deny him the superior advantages of knowing whether they are truly applicable or not. I only disclaim having used or applied such terms, and throw back their authorship upon Mr. Win. B. Le Couteulx. But I thank that gentleman for aiding me in establishing the triumph of truth over falsehood, touching the difficulties between St. Louis's Church and myself. In the petition presented to the Legislature of New York, it i* stated, " shortly after these events Bishop Hughes attempted to com- pel the trustees to convey the title of their property to him. The trustees resisted firmly." To this statement the name of Mr. Le Couteulx is signed, among others, as a veracious witness. In the letter now before me, I find the following statement : " It is true, sir, that you (Bishop Hughes) never demanded, that is to say, in ex- press words, the title to our church property." This is signed as a veracious statement by Wm. B. Le Couteulx. These two statements, from the same author, contradict each other, and I choose to believe the statement in the letter, inasmuch as it is a substantial endorse- ment of what I had previously written namely, that in the state- ment of the petition there was not a sentence, or a word, or a syllable, or a letter of truth. In this, Mr. Le Couteulx substantially agrees, when he says that I never demanded the title to the church property. But he goes on to say that, if he and the trustees had acquiesced in the requirements of my Pastoral Letter, the whole of. their property would have passed under my absolute control and dominion. This consequence was altogether a non sequitur. Other congregations acquiesced in those regulations, and yet continued in the undisturbed possession of their property, just as before. And I may as well ob- serve here, that from the day on which the Pastoral Letter was pub- lished until the present hour, I have never asked, I have never accepted, I have never received one inch of church property from trustees, of any description. If Mr. Le Couteulx and his colleagues are so incapable of reasoning, as to suppose that their compliance with a regulation of discipline, not touching on their vested rights in the least, was a transfer of their property, it furnishes an evidence of stupidity entirely unbecoming men of pretensions like theirs. But Mr. Le Couteulx himself has no confidence in this subterfuge, for he says : " If this argument of mine on your Pastoral Letter is not con- clusive, what are we to think of the decree adopted in the synod of Baltimore in 1849?" of which he gives the words of the fourth arti- cle. Alas, how Mr. Le Couteulx must feel himself lowered down, when he is obliged to quote as a pretext for the schismatical course which he and his colleagues thought proper to adopt in 1842, any event which took place seven years afterwards. And this warrants him in asking, " Is not that article conclusive ? Does it not show, plainly, that you and Bishop Timon demanded our property ?" Now, CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 585 manifestly it shows no such thing. First, because I (that is, Bishop Hughes) had nothing to do with the St. Louis's Church, in Buflalo, when that article was written in 1849. Secondly, because that ar- ticle had no reference to any vested title in church property already existing, whether in trustees or otherwise. Thirdly, because Mr. Le Couteulx, or whoever translated the fourth statute, has perverted the meaning, and falsified the text. The words of the statute, as it stands in Latin, are as follows, viz : " titatuerunt Patres Ecdesias o/ti/tes, ceteraque bona Ecclesiastica, quce vel dono, vel FUMiurn oblationibus acquisita, in charitatis velreligionis operibus sunt lin- pendeiidt, ad ordinarium pertinere ; nisi appareat^ scriptoque constet ilia ordini alicui JRijyidari, vel Sacerdotum Congregatiuni in ipsorum, usurn trad it a firisse." The translation of which is simply this : " The Fathers have directed or ordained that all churches and other ecclesiastical goods acquired by donation, or by the otierings of the faithful, to be expended or employed in works of charity or of religion, belong to the ordinary, unless it appear and is made evident in writing, that such property has been given to some religious order or community of priests." The words which are suppressed in Mr. Le Couteulx's translation, and which show that this statute had a prospective, and not a retrospective bearing, are the words, " /Sitnt impendenda to be expended." It is singular how the translator should have omitted, by mistake^ the- only two words in the article which refute his interpretation of its meaning. Consequently, therefore, Mr. Le Couteulx is just as unfortunate in quoting tiiis article, as he is in making an event of the year 1849 a groundwork for what he and his colleagues had done in 1842. Mr. Le Couteulx now proceeds to controvert my statement with regard to the unqualified and spontaneous submission of the trustees on my episcopal visit to Buffalo. It seems he has taken the pains to have them make affidavit in regard to what occurred in the interview betweeeu them and me ; and like sensible men, as they are, they first declare on oath that my statement is entirely and altogether in- correct as regards what one of them said respecting Mr. Le Couteulx's having been their interpreter, and his having been de- ceiving them from the commencement, that is, if my explanation of the meaning of the Pastoral Letter was correct. The public will be painfully amused at the reason which warrants them in declaring, under oath, that my statement is entirely and altogether incorrect. That reason is, that they do not even remember Mr. Le Couteulx's name was once pronounced during said interview. Now, tin's only proves on oath that they have had bad memories ; but it does not warrant them in stating that a thing did not occur simply because it has escaped their recollections. 1 made the statement because it was true ; because I remember it distinctly. But, considering the position in which Mr. Le Couteulx finds himself, it is singular that he or his associates should deem it necessary to invoke the solemnity of an oath before a commissioner of deeds, and the whole sum and substance of that oath amounts only to a declaration that 586 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. they do not remember what occurred at the interview. Nbn mi ricordo. Mr. Le Couteulx reminds me that it was I who drew up the amende honorable signed by the trustees, and published on the same day in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. This is true. But I will explain how it happened. The interview occurred on Saturday, after twelve o'clock. It lasted some time. The paper, it was said, was usually published at two o'clock. They were exceedingly anxious that I should open, and preach in, St. Louis's Church on the following day (Sunday). I, on the other hand, had made known to them my determination never to open that church until they should first ask pardon of their fellow-Catholics of the diocese of New York and of the country for the scandal which they had given. They attempted to draw up th'e formulary of a document to that effect. But their very anxiety to have it in time for the afternoon paper disqualified them from writing it as hastily as they would wish. I witnessed what I considered to be at that moment their good Catholic disposition ; and in order not to disappoint them in their hopes for the following day, I took the pen and drew the form of their apology, making it as little humiliating to them as possible. I saw that they would have signed a card reflecting upon themselves much more seriously for their past conduct ; but I felt that it would be ungenerous and uncharitable on my part to take advantage of their disposition by imposing on them anything that could be con- strued into an act of humiliation. Mr. Le Couteulx is very much surprised that Cardinal Fornari should never have spoken or written to me on the subject of St. Louis's Church in Buffalo. However, the fact is as I have stated. No ecclesiastic in the Church, from the Pope downward, has ever spoken or written to me on the subject. What passed between Mr. Le Couteulx and the Nurucio in Paris I do not know, but when Mr. Le Couteulx stated, in his petition to the Legislature, that he had appealed to Cardinal Fornari as a special deputy from the trustees of Buffalo, and that he had been " successful in his mission," he placed me under the necessity of showing that he was quite mistaken, and that there was not a word of truth in the pretended success of his mission. He says that he called upon me on his return, imme- diately after his arrival at New York ; and that he wrote the next day to Nuncio Fornari a faithful account of what had taken place between him and me during the brief interview. I should be very curious to see that letter, for I am at a loss to imagine what it could be made up of. I recollect well the substance of what occurred in the interview. I received Mr. Le Couteulx as I would any other gentleman, if not cordially, at least courteously. He never told me that he had been on a mission to Cardinal Fornari with a view to have my administration impeached or amended. But after the ordinary common-place, he proceeded to express his desire that the difliculties in Buffalo might be brought to an end. I may here ob- serve that, pending those difficulties, I had determined to have no CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 587 quarrel or controversy with the recusant lay Catholics of St. Louis's church ; and as the best means of carrying out that determination, I had made it a rule to have no conversation with any irresponsible in- dividual or solitary member of that congregation. When Mr. Le Couteulx, therefore, touched on the subject, I signified to him, in language as polite as the occasion would permit, that it was a subject on which I did not allow myself to converse with any unauthorized member of St. Louis's church, and gave the conversation another turn by asking what kind of a passage he had had, and whether the weather had been fine during the voyage. He says now that he sent a faithful account on the following day of what took place ; and since this is the amount of what really did take place, Cardinal For- nari must have found his letter exceedingly interesting. However, Mr. Le Couteulx seems to have been under some strange hallucination ; for he asserts that my episcopal visitation to Buffalo was just about two months after he had dispatched his let- ter, and corresponded to a nicety with the time when I should have had a letter from Cardinal Fornari in answer to his. Now, such reckoning as to time was fair enough. But the hallucination to which I refer consists in Mr. Le Couteulx's supposing that my visit to Buffalo was in consequence of the Nuncio's admonition; and as proof of this, he says that I went to Buffalo and settled every thing with the trustees upon the publication of a card, showing that "you (Bishop Hughes) was right, and they (the trustees) wrong." Mr. Le Couteulx knows that, as became my duty, I visited the different congregations of the diocese that the Catholics of Buffalo were en- titled to that visit; and that as to the schismatical trustees of St. Louis's church, and their adherents, they were no longer numbered among my flock, except as wayward, self-willed, and erring breth- ren. I neither sought them out nor spoke of them. And I may say now, that as the difficulty then stood, their church would have crumbled into dust, brick by brick, before I should have consented to give them a priest, or do any other act which should recognize the principle of their stupid resistance to episcopal authority. I did not address myself to the trustees. They, in language more than suffi- ciently humble and respectful, addressed themselves to me, begging that I would admit them to an interview. This I declined peremp- torily, excepting on condition of their preparedness to come back to the starting point of their schism, and to acknowledge themselves wrong in all their subsequent course. Still, poor Mr. Le Couteulx seems to have imagined that, because it was just two months from the time he wrote a letter to Cardinal Fornari, I must have received from that illustrious prelate an admonition to proceed to Buffalo, and make my peace with the trustees on the best terms possible. In dealing with such a letter as the one I am now replying to, it is difficult for even pity to triumph over impatience. It is hardly worth while to be sorry at the ungenerous attack which Mr. Le Couteulx makes on the zealous and amiable Rev. Mr. Pax, the real builder of St. Louis's church, Buffalo ; for although he 588 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. could not have built it out of his own funds, yet he wore himself down in toiling to obtain subscriptions for its erection. Nor would he have ever undertaken such a task, if he had not been assured by the venerable Bishop Dubois, that in his mission in Buffalo he Avould not be under the government of lay trustees. This assurance was made, inasmuch as the respected and venerable father of Mr. Le Couteulx had given a deed of the property on which the church now stands, to the late Bishop Dubois, not dreaming that a number of laymen should, in the mean time, get themselves surreptitiously recognized as trustees of the same. Their treatment of the Rev. Mr. Pax may be best ascertained from the letters he wrote to me complaining of their conduct, and giving facts and dates regarding what happened. I continued to encourage him, begging of him to bear every thing for the sake of the poor people, assuring him of what was the fact, that if he left them, I had no German clergyman to put in his place. This, however, was long previous to the schism inaugurated by Mr. Le Couteulx and his colleagues. Even that Bchism, however, did not authorize me, as I thought, to remove him ; but when annoyances, and these arising from the rebellious portion of his own flock, as was supposed even by the Buffalo editors at the time, reached a point of endangering his life, such as the hurling of large paving-stones through his windows in the darkness of .night, I could not, in conscience, require him to continue longer. Mr. Le Couteulx says that he carried away with him $6,000, which Mr. Le Couteulx describes as " a pretty fair compensation for so short a time of martyrdom." Mr. Le Couteulx must pardon me if I say candidly, that although it may be true, yet I cannot believe this statement. Will he be pleased to make known his authority that Mr. Pax carried away $6,000 ? When he shall have stated the au- thority on which he makes this announcement, I shall take the lib- erty of examining it, and I have no doubt it will prove as hollow as that on which he has made other statements. Mr. Le Couteulx con- cludes that, in his opinion, the great majority of Catholics in this country will rejoice if Hon. Senator Putnam's bill becomes a law. Now, as to the rejoicing of the Catholics, or a majority of them, that is a matter entirely extraneous from the subject in hand. One thing is certain that neither the great majority, nor the great minority of Catholics in this country, will ever select Mr. Win. B. Le Cou- teulx as their spokesman. If they wish the aid of civil legislation in regulating the ecclesiastical matters of their church, they will make their desire and express their wants in the language of respect and truthfulness which it becomes those who approach the Legislature of the State to employ. In the mean time, they feel wounded to think that whereas they had not made any complaint to the Legislature, that honorable body should feel itself warranted to thrust upon them a code of discipline which they do not desire which has been founded on the misrepresentation of the trustees of St. Louis's church, Buf- falo, and sustained by the illiberal and anti-Catholic feeling which now so unhappily prevails throughout the State. CHUKOH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 589 Finally, if Mr. Wm. B. Le Coutetilx is now placed in a condition by no means flattering to his own estimate of his character, as pos- sessing "a pure conscience and a reputation which he has acquired by the rectitude of his conduct, his manners, and his kind and upright disposition," he must hold himself, not me, respon- sible for the result. For the last twelve or thirteen years he and his colleagues have lost no opportunity of assailing me, assailing the Bishop of Buffalo, assailing the Prelates of the United States, some- times directly, sometimes indirectly, by frequent, injurious statements utterly unfounded in truth. This is the day of reckoning which he and his colleagues have brought upon themselves by the unwarrant- able allegation of their petition to the Legislature. Having remained almost silent under such obloquy for these many years past, and having now at length taken my pen in hand, I wish Mr. Le Cou- teulx and his colleagues to bring out all they have to say, and I pledge myself, founding that pledge on the omnipotence and infalli- bility of truth, to continue from document to document to oppress them with its crushing weight. O O f- JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, April 7, 1855. REVIEW OF SENATOR BROOKS'S SPEECH. To the Editors, of the Courier and Enquirer: WHEN an individual who never expected much from the favors of fortune, finds himself unexpectedly and all at once the proprietor of immense wealth, it is, I trust, not unbecoming in him to expend a portion of it in promoting the welfare of his countrymen by mul- tiplying the opportunities for acquiring knowledge. Neither should feelings of gratitude be altogether disregarded in such expenditure ; and as I am mainly indebted to the Hon. Erastus Brooks for the immense fortune which I now possess, I hope his modesty will permit him to share with rue in the immortality which will result to its founder from the magnificence and perpetuity of the monument, " cera perreniusj' 1 which is to commemorate my princely fortune, and his sagacity in finding out its existence. In a speech delivered by Mr. Senator Brooks before that branch of our Legislature which has been so enlightened by the flashing evidences of his erudition, and encouraged to habits of industry by his painstaking search after the titles of property vested in me, he has made known that my property in the city of New York alone is not much short of five millions of dollars. His colleagues must have been as much edified as I have been surprised at this announcement. Still, it appears that Mr. Senator Brooks, like an honorable man, who would not deceive, furnished evidence from the records of property in New York to 590 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. sustain his senatorial statement ; for, towards the close of his speech, he has inserted in brackets the following words : " To those who were curious in such matters, Mr. Brooks exhibited to the Senate the number, book, and page of those several entries in the city of New York in behalf of John Hughes," So it seems certain, on the testimony of Mr. Brooks, that my property in this city alone is not much short of five millions of dol- lars. Out of the city it should be proportionably great, but of its extent Mr. Brooks has not given us any information. Like a strictly conscientious man, he testifies only to what he knows. The amount in his estimate would be five millions ; but, in order to avoid the pos- sibility of error, he leaves a little margin, and declares it not much short of that amount. The paper called the Presbyterian sets it down at twenty-five millions of dollars, and I know not by what right Mr. Brooks should have diminished the amount of my property by strik- ing out the surplus twenty millions so generously assigned me by the Presbyterian. The reason may be that the Presbyterian is not a Senator, and therefore (though I do not admit the validity of the reason) less bound to be truthful in its statements and accurate in its arithmetic than an honorable- Senator. Besides, the Presbyterian being a religious paper, allowance must be made for its benevolent exaggerations, and its efforts to be liberal in dealing with persons of another creed. It seems, then, that I must bid good-bye to the twenty millions, and satisfy myself with what Mr. Brooks allows property not much short of five. Let us state it at four millions. And now I have a proposition to make to Mr. Brooks, which will be interesting to him and our fellow-citizens at large. In order to avoid being reduced to want in my old age, I propose to set apart one-half of this amount, and to secure it out of the estate, as a reasonable provision against what is commonly called a " rainy day." I shall reserve to myself the right of expending the other two millions for the public good, according to my own sense of what is likely to be most beneficial. Much has been already done for the diffusion of knowledge ; but the perusal of Mr. Brooks's speech, and of other kindred documents, satisfies me that more is still needed. I propose, therefore, to found a public library for the use, not of any one profession or class of men, but for all mankind. I think that with the surplus two millions which Mr. Brooks has allowed me I shall be enabled to erect a suitable building ; and I propose to furnish it with the best editions of books that can he found in Europe or America, to the number of five hundred thousand volumes. According to a rough estimate, half a million would be sufficient to put up the building, a million to furnish the books, and another half million to be funded, so that the annual interest may be sufficient to meet current expenses such as librarians' salaries, gas lights, provision of Croton water, tables, and the conveniences for writing out any extract which visitors may think proper to make. It is to be open to natives and foreigners, Catholics CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 591 and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles ; in short, a really public library, worthy of this immense city. And as an evidence of my gratitude to our honorable Senator, to whom I am indebted for the discovery of my immense riches, I would have it called that is, if the gentle- man's modesty will permit me the Erastus Brooks Library. This designation should be engraved in large and gilded letters over its marble portals; and I am sure the honorable gentleman will consent to have the apartment to be allotted as the receptacle of curious pamphlets enriched by a copy of his speech, pronounced in the Senate at Albany on the 6th of March, 1855. Thus posterity will know from the outside of the building not only to whom they are indebted for so important a public institution, but also, from an in- vestigation of its more precious treasures of literature within, what manner of man their benefactor was. I foresee that there may be a difficulty about the location of the edifice ; but without waiting for the formalities which have to be gone through as regards other particulars, we can settle this ques- tion immediately. Mr. Brooks, as a gentleman of veracity, assured the Senate of New York, after having examined my property, that " some of the parcels cover whole squares of land, and nearly all of them are of great value." Now, this is an extraordinary discovery, and if it had not been asserted on the veracity of an honorable Senator, I could not have believed it. I do not know where any of these squares of land are situated ; but of course Mr. Brooks kno\vs, and I pledge myself to give him a deed of any one of them he may choose to select, provided he can only find it out which is more than I can do. This I am ready to do to-morrow, even though it should encroach on that portion of my estate which I would re- serve for " pin-money." Mr. Brooks has stated that, within twelve years, fifty-eight entries of as many distinct parcels of property were made in my favor. Now, this is more than I am aware of, for, in fact, I never counted such entries. So, also, with regard to the whole squares of land of which I am the owner, if Mr. Brooks has not made a statement at variance with truth. I am not aware of such ownership. I do not know where those squares of land are situated. But, of course, Mr. Brooks knows otherwise he would not have made the assertion. It is possible that some persons have made over to me squares of land without giving any intimation of the fact, and I should be much obliged to Mr. Brooks if he would take the pains to consult documents in the register's office once more, and let me know where those squares of land are. But there are some things which Mr. Brooks has stated with regard to my property which I know to be incorrect and unfounded in truth. He says, for instance, that in the register's office there are numerous transfers from trustees to me. Now this statement I know to be untrue, inasmuch as I have never received or accepted any transfer of any property whatever from trustees. In this particular, at least, Mr. Brooks allowed himself to be deceived, and contributed his share towards the deception of his fellow-senators and the public. But 592 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. with regard to the whole squares of land which, he says, are mine, I hereby authorize him to sell any one of them at his option, for cash, pledging myself, as I do hereby, to give to the purchaser such deed as I possess of the same. You may suppose, gentlemen, that all this is written in playful- ness. Xow, whether or not, will depend on the truth of Mr. Brooks's statements, made in the Senate of New York on the 6th of March. If Mr. Brooks was in earnest, so am I. If Mr. Brooks, on a matter of fact, spoke the truth, taking his assertion as the ground of my hypothesis, I speak the truth also. If my property is not much short of five millions, as Mr. Brooks asserted, I pledge myself sol- emnly that there is no jest as to the project of the new Library. But if, on the other hand, Mr. Brooks did not speak the truth in the statements which he made, the worse for posterity, and the worse for him. The matter is reduced at present to a question of veracity, and it is for Mr. Brooks to prove his assertion, or occupy the position which his failure to do so has in reserve for him. In sober seriousness, however, is it not melancholy to witness the multitudinous and mendacious charges which are made from day to day against Catholics, as a body, and against individuals professing their religion ? If there be an intention among the public men of this country to disfranchise Catholics, to abridge them of their rights, in the name of all that is honorable, I would jsay, let it be done by a manly and noble declaration to that eifect. If Protestantism cannot thrive in this country unless it have some one or more denominations to degrade and trample upon, as in Great Britain and Ireland, let it speak out candidly and make known the fact. If defamation in ag- gregate and in detail can accomplish it, the Catholics of this country will soon be degraded enough in the minds of their fellow-citizens. But even of this we should not have so much reason to complain, if the purpose were openly avowed, so that all parties would have fair and timely warning. If that should be done, I have no hesitation in taking on myself to say, that so far as Catholics are concerned, im- migration will soon come to a dead stand, and emigration will probably commence. It is exceedingly painful for me to have to appear in the public pi-ess in reference to topics of this kind ; but, if the trustees of St. Louis's Church, and even an honorable Senator, accuse me of acts which would be dishonorable, and even dishonest, if they were true, have I not the right, is it not my duty, both to myself and those who take any interest in my reputation, to hurl back the talse accu- sations in the face of their authors ? If Messrs. Brooks and others make charges against me by name, which I know to be false, have I not a right to defend myself, and to denounce them as unreliable and false witnesses? If not, I have studied the sense of justice and fair play, by which Americans are actuated, to very little purpose. If I have no right to defend myself when assailed, personally and by name, by any man, against the accusation, then have I studied the rights of an American citizen and the genhis of American institu- CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 593 tions to very little purpose indeed. I respect the dignity of a Sena- tor; but when an individual who is invested with that dignity trifles with it at my expense, I claim the right to hold him responsible for the accuracy of his statements. For these reasons, I request Mr. Erastus Brooks, with all the re- spect that is due to him, to meet the issue of veracity between him and me, and either to prove his statements, or to retract them un- der the impulse of those high principles which constitute an honor- able man, whether he be a Senator or not. * JOHN, Archbishop of New York. DO CATHOLICS, AS SUCH, MEDDLE IN POLITICS? To the .Editor of the New York Freeman's Journal : Ix the Albany State Register there is a long editorial article, headed " Another Bull from the Vatican? purporting to be a re- view of certain phrases in my letter addressed to your Journal, and published on the 31st ult. In this the editor of the Register gives loose reign to the indulgence of strong bigotry, in language hardly remarkable for any thing else than its prosiness and imbecility. A newspaper is made of old rags, transformed into adaptation for its use. It receives any impression, true or false, enlightened or stupid, which type have been arranged to impress upon its surface. I can have no direct controversy with a newspaper abstractedly from its editor. The editor of the Albany State Register is, I per- ceive, a Mr. S. H. Hammond, a highly respectable man, no doubt, but apparently very credulous, and certainly most inaccurate in his statements. Mr. Hammond must have sen my letter, in which I denied the truth of the statement made in the petition of the Trus- tees in Buffalo, to the effect that I had attempted to compel them to make over the title of their church to me. He must have seen that the correctness of my statement was admitted by Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx, one of the signers of the petition, and, as a, conse- quence, he must have seen the falsehood of the charge above re- ferred to. And yet Mr. Hammond does not hesitate to repeat hi& calumny, as if it had not been denied, and the truth of the denial admitted by one of the parties signing the petition. How is this to be accounted for ? It is for Mr. Hammond to answer the question. But not only does he repeat this refuted calumny, but he enlarges. on it as if it were true ! How is this to be accounted for ? I leave Mr. Hammond to answer. I shall not go over the ground again. VOL. II. 38 594: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. But Mr. Hammond has insinuated other charges to which I think it proper that I should make a suitable reply. He does not state those charges in specific language. He assumes them as matters not to be called into question. He passes from the Catholic indi- viduals to the Catholic system, and betrays unmistakable evidences that, whether artificially or naturally, he is under the influence of an anti-Popery mania. Speaking of the Catholic Church and its mem- bers in this country, he uses the following language : " Were the evils of this system confined wholly to spiritual mat- ters, we should have nothing to say. But they reach far beyond this. This despotism seeks a control beyond the mere pale of the Church. It has become ambitious of civil power. It bands its sub- jects together, and marches them into the arena of politics. It grasps at the control of the political action of the government, and struggles to direct its policy. It favors alliances with political ambi- tion, and joins hands with the demagogues of party. When Governor Seward said, ' Bishop Hughes is my friend I honor, respect, and confide in him,' he was speaking of a political friend and associate ; a confederate in securing political influence ; a supporter in the exer- cise of political power. With Bishop Hughes he took the long line of descending priesthood, and the fettered and bound masses of the Catholic people." Mr. Hammond is evidently a credulous man. There was a period when the old-womanism of Protestant London entered into a ju- dicial investigation of a reported conspiracy of the Papists, the con- spiracy being no more nor less than a plot on the part of the emissaries of Rome, to blow up the river Thames, and drown the royal city of London. If Mr. Hammond had been an editor at the time and place when and where this occurred, the circumstances around him and the credulous character of his mind would have been more in harmony with each other than they are at present. If Mr. Ham- mond knows any fact to prove that the Catholic religion bands its subjects together and marches them into the arena of politics, he owes it to himself and his country to furnish the evidences. If he knows no such facts, then, he is bearing false witness against his neighbor. If he knows any facts going to prove that the Catholic religion, or its professors, as such, struggle to direct the policy of this country, he is hardly less than a traitor if he conceals the proofs of so dangerous a proceeding. If the Catholic religion forms alli- ances with political ambition, and joins hands with the demagogues of party, Mr. Hammond is more guilty than those he accuses, if he conceals the facts which would substantiate his assertion. If, as he says, Gov. Seward did me the honor to call me his friend, and to say that he respected and confided in me, it is more than I ever knew or heard before ; but as to the confidence reposed in me, Governor Seward would not have been disappointed. Mr. Hammond says that Governor Sew;vrd was then speaking of a political friend and associate ; and I can assure him that in this statement he has forsaken the path of truth. This I know of my own knowledge. I CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 595 am not a political friend and associate of Governor Seward ; I never was ; I am not his confederate in securing political influence ; I am not his supporter in the exercise of power. And yet I am proud to call him my friend, in the only relation that ever existed between us, which has been one of mere social, and, to me, pleasant inter- course. If the people of the United States should think proper to confer upon him the highest honor in their gift, I shall not heave a sigh or shed a tear at their choice. But no vote of mine shall aid him. In this, as in all his public acts, he is in the hands of his countrymen ; and I am well dispensed from the necessity of either approving or con- demning his principles or his conduct. And since this topic has been brought up again, I will say this, that so far from his being a gainer by his friendship towards me, which I highly esteem, he would have been buried under the obloquy which open enemies and deceitful friends have vied with each other in heaping upon him in connection with my name, if he had not been proof against calumny. The long ordeal through which he has passed, under the calumnious imputations of intrigue with Catholics and foreigners, and his emerg- ing from it with a blighter name than before, is a proof that he needs no individual support, that his is intrinsically the sterling metal of a true man. But he can propel his own bark, as he has hitherto done, without any aid from me or from Catholics. I will state, for the information of Mr. Hammond, who is prob- ably too young to remember the period when it was necessary for me to state it before, in the face of several editors of New York city and New York State, that in all my life I never voted but once ; and in all ray life I never advised, publicly or privately, any one as to how he should vote, except once also. That was under very pe- culiar circumstances. The Catholics of New York city were en- deavoring to relieve themselves from the injurious consequences of a system of education for the support of which they had to pay taxes, and the administration and superintendence of which were a mo- nopoly in the hands of a close corporation, known as the Public School Society. At first the Catholics were opposed to me in seek- ing a change which has since resulted very beneficially to the cause of education. Next, the whole Protestant community were op- posed, and sounded the alarm of the dangers of Popery, in a manner just as silly, and just as little true, as the present trumpet notes of the Albany State Register. Finally, the truth made its way, the change took place, the facilities for education have been multiplied on every side. The Public School Society is gone, and no persua- sion could induce either Catholics or Protestants to return to their old system. To effect the change we had to appeal by petition to the proper authorities ; first, to the Common Council, where our petition was denied ; next, to the Legislature of the State, where the change took place not precisely as we could have desired, but as the Legislature thought proper to make it. Mr. Hammond will be pleased to take particular notice of the fact I am now about to mention : that within a few days previous to the election, the Public School 596 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Society, by their agents, waited on the candidates for the Legisla- ture, and required a pledge from them, from those of one party as well as those of another, to refuse the petition for a change in the system of education, in the event of their being elected. This was too much. It was secret. It was insidious. It left the Catholics to vote for one party or the other, concealing from them that no matter which party they voted for, or which candidate, they were elevating into power men who had prejudged their cause, and had bound themselves to reject even a consideration of its merits. In a meet- ing which they had called in furtherance of their appeal to the Leg- islature, this discovery of the unworthy trick to deprive them be- forehand even of the right of a hearing, was communicated to me, and on that occasion I urged them, with all the zeal and earnestness I was capable of, to refuse their vote to any man of any party, who had accepted the degrading pledge, that if elected he would refuse them even the chance of obtaining justice. If this was meddling with politics, then I did meddle once, but I have never regretted it. On the contrary, there is nothing in my life, apart from my sacred ministry, to which I look back with so much satisfaction as to the course I pursued on that occasion. And if, by a secret combination among those to be elected by their votes, there should be an attempt to deny them the fair right of petitioning the Legislature as other citizens have a right to do, or to deny the prayer of that petition, however just it might appear in the eyes of an impartial Legislature, I feel that I am yet American citizen enough to do again what I did on that occasion. I did not call it meddling in politics, but only an in- terference to break up an unworthy combination, formed with the view to deny one portion of the people rights to which all are equally entitled. But in no other case have I ever aided or abetted, or been in con- nection with any political party, or any individual of any party, since the world began. On the contrary, when I was appointed to take charge of this diocese, I prescribed for its numerous clergy, as a rule of conduct, to abstain from all interference in politics. I did not deny them the right to vote as other citizens merely in consequence of their being clergymen. That right, I believe, they have seldom, if at all, exercised. I myself have not exercised it. I have ever considered that the most appropriate position for a clergyman, whether Catholic or Protestant, to occupy in the midst of political struggles, is one, if not of absolute neutrality, at least of abstinence from all partisanship. There are few congregations in which the members are not divided in their political opinions, and the Catholic clergyman who would take sides on such an occasion would be sure to impair the usefulness of his own ministry. How, then, can Mr. Hammond of the Albany State Register, call me a political friend and associate of Governor Seward, or of any other man ? Is Mr. Hammond at liberty, in violation of a precept of the decalogue, to bear false witness against his neighbor ? I defy all men living to point out an act in my life in which I have been con- CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 597 nected with any political party, any political causes, any political in- dividual in the United States or elsewhere. How, then, can Mr. Hammond give circulation to a statement which he knows to be in- jurious to me, and winch is at variance with truth? I tell him the Catholics, as such, have no politics. They are free to vote on all occasions just like their fellow-citizens that is, as each man chooses. Let them be as free on this subject as Mr. Hammond him- self. If they err, they are in the company of immejnse majorities of Americans and Protestants. If they do not err in their preference or in their party, so much the better for the country. But whether they err or not, they act with large portions of their fellow-country- men. It is evident that Mr. Hammond is one of the oracles of a new po- litical organization, which hopes to rise into power by depressing Catholics. For myself, I have no great objection to see that party come into power, because once having power in their hands, I think the true American would revive in their breasts, and they would ad- minister it, generally, just as if they were called by one of the old party names. But I regret that they think it expedient to degrade and depress Catholics as a means to their success. And I am ut- terly at a loss to understand how a Legislature, which evinced so much political virtue and patriotism as was exhibited in the election of Mr. Seward to the Senate, could have found itself capable of passing the anti-Catholic Church Property Bill, but too well calculated to in- tensify and perpetuate a bitter memory in regard to the influences by which that bill was passed. The Catholics had not asked for such a bill ; they did not need it. It was forced upon them un- der false assertions. It was intended for them alone. It is an act of partial legislation. They will, no doubt, submit to it in so far as they are bound to* do, but they are not likely to be voluntary par- ties to its execution. In conclusion, I request Mr. Hammond, as a particular favor, either to prove that I am a political partisan, a meddler in politics, &c., &c., or else to withdraw so unfounded a charge. I think, in doing the one or the other, he will render equally a service to the public and to the undersigned. * JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YOEK, April 17, 1855. SECOND LETTER. To the Editor of the New York Freeman's Journal: TRUTH is a great thing. There would be no chance for the pro- tection of innocence or of righteousness without it. Mr. Brooks feels this, the force of truth, as if it were his enemy ; and he exhibits the 598 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. instinctive philosophy of poor human nature by shrinking away in dread from its approach, even without waiting until the tribunal at which he stands accused has pronounced him guilty of falsehood. It is the same instinctive philosophy which prompts the man of un- controlled passions, when he has committed a deed of fatal violence against his fellow-man, to magnify to others, as well as to himself, the great distinction there is between manslaughter and murder, even before his trial has come on. And Mr. Brooks, inheriting this poor human nature like other men, and seeing truth in the distance, but approaching, begins to throw out a remote defence by giving us the moral definition of a lie as necessarily resulting from an intention to deceive. But who has spoken to Mr. Brooks, or even whispered to him, except it be his own conscience, any thing about a lie or lying? Why, then, should he anticipate his defence by drawing a distinction between falsehood ignorantly uttered and deliberate mendacity ? Nobody can answer these questions except Mr. Brooks himself. And if Mr. Brooks had not contrived to place himself in the disreputable position which he now occupies, his casuistry about lying would have been altogether superfluous. However, Senator Brooks, according to the just principles of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, is entitled to the benefit of all doubts like any other accused person, whether as regards the facts or the law of the case. I have charged Mr. Brooks with uttering falsehood prejudicial to my reputation, in his speech pronounced on the 6th March, and in presence of his colleagues in the Senate Chamber of New York. I have not enumerated all the falsehoods of that speech, but have taken one or two specimens. The controversy is still pend- ing, as Mr. Brooks has not had time to look after the real state of the case. He has been, to use his own introductory expression, " under the pressure of official duties at Albany." In that speech Mr. Brooks stated that I was the owner of real estate to the amount of something little short of five million of dol- lars. This was untrue, and in order to exhibit its author to the public just as he is, I pledged myself solemnly that after deducting two millions' worth from my supposed enormous estate, I should appropriate the balance to the erection of a library, if Senator Brooks could point out where the property was. This was the first falsehood (Mr. Brooks must pardon me for using the plain term) which I pointed out in his speech. Senator Brooks stated in his place that some of my real estate consisted of whole squares. The senator did not state how many, and his colleagues, if they believed him at all, may have inferred that these whole squares amounted to fifteen or twenty at all events, they could not be less than two. This was the second falsehood pointed out and charged on Mr. Brooks, as having been uttered in his speech of the 6th of March. The third was, that many of the conveyances of real estate to me were made by trustees. Now, I state that any one who asserts either of these three statements, asserts a gross, and, towards me, an injurious falsehood. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 599 Senator Brooks thinks he has discovered a way of twisting out of the awkward position into which he rushed with eyes open and malice prepense. He proposes an arbitration, forsooth. He will appoint one, I may appoint another, and these two shall jointly elect a third, whose duty it shall be to decide whether he has stated the truth, or whether Archbishop Hughes has equivocated or omitted the truth. Gentle Senator Brooks! With what a show of artless- ness he attempts to evade the direct issue of veracity involved in the controversy ! I know, of my own knowledge, that in the three statements above referred to, Senator Brooks has taken as great a liberty with truth as if he had said that two and two make seven. Arbitration is unnecessary. If I arn the owner of whole squares of ground, Mr. Brooks can show from the records of the city, or in- dicate for physical inspection, where they are. If he fails to do this, while his proofs, if he has any, are so undeniable, and so within his reach, then the public will not fail to perceive that Mr. Brooks, in his place as senator, has made a statement which was false, and in- tended to be injurious. So if I received any conveyance of property from trustees, the records cited by Mr. Brooks in the Senate will bear him out. If he fail to produce those records, then the public will perceive that his statement is a falsehood, and will not be slow in coming to the conclusion that Senator Brooks is what he is. It is, I own, humiliating for me to have to write thus of any of my fellow-citizens, especially of one who has been honored with a confidence large enough to depute him to the Senate of the State. But I have been assailed by so many calumnies from various sources, that a test like the present, brought forth in plain and direct lan- guage, may be taken as a sample of the power and the advantages which a man cherishing a love of truth, of honor, and of rectitude, will possess over a whole army of such accusers as Mr. Senator Brooks. He cannot prove his statements, and the reason is, because they are untrue. Will it not be better for him, then, to pay homage to truth by acknowledging that he had deceived himself and con- tributed to the deception of others? Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx comes out with a little card very much in the vein of that instinctive philosophy of poor human nature of which Senator Brooks has given so naive a specimen. Mr. Le Cou- teulx thinks that "denials against denials, being no proofs, would amount to a miserable pen-war." Mr. Le Couteulx misrepresents the state of the question. It is not denials against denials. I stated that the assertion in Mr. Le Couteulx's petition, namely, that "Bishop Hughes attempted to compel the trustees to convey the title of this church property to him," was a falsehood. Now, Mr. Le Couteulx did not deny, but acknowledged this in writing ; consequently he is my witness, although his testimony is superfluous, to prove that it was a falsehood. And yet he and his colleagues have imposed on the Legislature of the State by having this among other falsehoods believed as the truth. And now Mr. Le Couteulx has come to the conclusion that " denials against denials, being no proofs, would 600 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. amount to a most miserable pen-war." He forgets that he did not deny my statement, that he admitted it, and thereby acknowledged the falsehood of his own. How could he deny the truth, and which he knew to be the truth ? For he knew from the beginning, as well as he does now, that I never attempted to compel the trustees to convey the title of their church property to me. Until Mr. Le Cou- tenlx, therefore, shall find some ground of truth to stand upon, he will do well to give up his " most miserable pen-war," and apologize, with Mr. Brooks, for the deception which he, with others, has prac- tised on the Legislature of the State and on his fellow-citizens. Perhaps he makes the distinction about the morality of lying which the senator has brought forth, namely : That to constitute a lie there must have existed "an intention to deceive." I do not enter into the sanctuary, if it can be called by so sacred a term, of intentions in the breast of either Senator Brooks or Mr. Le Couteulx. I speak of their public acts and of their printed words, leaving others to judge of their intentions as charitably as they may. But even if it were only for the sake of good example to the rising generation, they would do well to retract those false statements, being convinced that the security of the State and the welfare of society are never so well guaranteed as when they rest on the everlasting foundations of truth. + JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, April 17, 1855. THIRD LETTER. To the Editor of the New York Daily Times : MR. WILLIAM B. LE COUTEULX, George Fisher, Michael Hesmin, John Londrack, by name, and seventeen others without name, were the authors of the falsehood palmed on the Legislature of New Yo*rk, in their petition on behalf of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo. The Anti- Catholic Church Property Bill, brought in by Mr. Putnam, was founded in great part on the falsehoods thus attested. One of these was, that "Bishop Hughes attempted to compel the trustees of St. Louis's Church to convey the title o!' their church property to him." The falsehood of this statement has been already pointed out by me, and reluctantly admitted by Mr. William B. Le Couteulx, who, in his letter, published in the New York Daily Times of the 7th instant, admits that I never demanded the title to their church pro- perty ; but, that after reading my Pastoral Letter, published in 1842, he and his colleagues were stupid enough to come to the conclusion that, it' they acquiesced in the requirements of the Pastoral Letter, " the whole would have passed under my absolute control and abso- lute dominion " I have already stated that this consequence need CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 601 not necessarily follow,- and as a proof, which Mr. Le Coutetilx and his colleagues may be capable of understanding, the trustees of St. Nicholas Church, in Second-street, in this city, did acquiesce in the requirements of the pastoral, and yet continued to be legally the owners and administrators of their church property just the same as before. Mr. Le Couteulx, in a letter of his dated Buffalo, April 21, attempts to go over this ground again. That is quite unnecessary. He forgets, indeed, the politeness of a French gentleman, and as showing his consciousness of the fact, he says : " These remarks, rather severe, have been forced out of me." The good gentleman may be perfectly easy on this score. He has forfeited the attributes which would have left it in his power to be " severe," towards any one, but especially towards me. As there is still some misapprehension with regard to the history of the unfortunate St. Louis Church in Buffalo, I shall take advantage of this occasion to supply the information I possess on the subject. First of all, Mr. Le Couteulx, senior, gave a deed to Bishop Dubois for a certain piece of ground to be used for the purposes of Catholic worship. Next, Mr. William B. Couteulx and some others, by a surreptitious movement, even while Bishop Dubois was still living, contrived to become a corporate body to take charge of his father's donation to the Bishop. Thirdly, since the church has been com- pleted, Mr. William B. Le Couteulx has not left any thing undone to defeat the intentions of his venerable father, and drive away Catholic worship from the ground which his parent had given to the late Bishop of New York for religious purposes. Fourth, it is not certain that Mr. William B. Le Couteulx wishes to deprive the Catholic congregation of St. Louis of this property by bringing about its relapse into the residuary estate of his father, from which even something might be added to his own private inheritance ; and yet it is difficult to account for the obstinate and schismatic course which Mr. William B. Le Couteulx has adopted in regard to it on any other hypothesis. His generous and pious father made a donation to the city of Buffalo of ground for an orphan asylum. Mr. William B. Le Couteulx must be cognizant of the fact that, when the asylum was built, and Catholic children, among others, admitted, the Pro- testant bigotry of the managers would not admit the ministry of a Catholic priest towards the poor children of that religion which his father professed, and of which he was an ornament, just as much as his son William B. is the reverse. Here, then, is the result of his father's benevolence. He contrives that the Catholic priest shall be alienated from the ground given by his father for Catholic pur- poses ; and the managers of the orphan asylum contrive to have the same priest repelled from entrance on the ground given for an orphan asylum. I'do not thank Mr. Le Couteulx for admitting the falsehood already pointed out in the petition of which he was one of the signers. He could not have done otherwise. And if he thinks that he is honoring his father's memory by defeating his father's 602 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. pious intention, let him continue in his unfortunate anti-Catholic course. As there has been some mistake in regai'd to the name of Le Couteulx, I think it proper to state that no son or daughter of Mr. William 1>. Le Couteulx is now in this country. At all events, Mr. Le Couteulx of thk city is the son of the truly Catholic and amiable Mr. Le Couteulx, who at present resides in Paris, and who so well sustains the honor of his hereditary name. He is only nephew to Mr. William B. Le Couteulx, leader of the trustees of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo. f JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, April 18, 1855. FOURTH LETTER. To the ^Editors of the Courier and JSnquirer : I AM glad to perceive, by his attempted defence in your paper of this date, that Mr. Brooks begins to realize vaguely the position in which he has placed himself. He commences his pitiable defence by misrepresenting the state of the question. He says it is " in regard to my ownership of real estate property in the city of New York." The question is not in regard to any such thing, and this Mr. Brooks knows as well as I do. The question is in regard to the truth or falsehood of certain statements made by him in the Senate of New York on the 6th of March. In reference to my ownership of real estate property, as Mr. Brooks calls it, there is no question. The title of many Catholic churches in the city of New York is vested in me, and so far I am the owner. My intention, even, is to add to this property by purchasing such additional lots, or accepting the gift of them, as I may find from time to time to be desirable for the purpose of providing religious instruction for the wants of the Ca- tholic flock committed to my charge. If Mr. Brooks will examine the records of the city of New York three months from this time, he will probably find conveyances made to me by parties who have the right to sell or bestow, as they think proper. But I shall waive all controversy regarding matters introduced into Mr. Brooks's reply, in order to direct his wandering attention to the real state of the case. On the 6th of March he asserted that my property in the city of New York alone was not much short of five millions. This was falsehood No. 1. He asserted that of this property numerous transfers had been made to me by trustees. This was falsehood No. 2. He asserted that some of the parcels conveyed to me covered whole squares of land. This was falsehood No. 3. Now, we shall take these falsehoods in their order. Mr. Brooks, CHUKCH PKOPEKTY CONTROVEKSY. in maintaining falsehood No. 1, has copied out ten entries as found in the register's books of this city. He heads the list with the words : " CONVEYANCES TO JOHN HUGHES." The first conveyance is a lease, which shows, so far as the owner- ship of real estate is concerned, that the very heading of the entries is not correct. The second is also a lease, showing the same thing. The third is from George Wildes and Agnes his wife, and it re- mains for Mr. Brooks to show that Mr. Wildes and his wife had been trustees of a Catholic church. The fourth is from Andrew Byrne, and is the conveyance, not of real estate, but of a lease also. The fifth is from David Dudley Field and Stephen J. Field, trus- tees of wife and Harriet D. Field, wife of D. D. Field. (I copy from Mr. Brooks's report of these matters in your journal, but I de- cline all responsibility for their accuracy.) Mr. Brooks does not in- form us whether these parties had been trustees of Catholic church property or not. The sixth is from the Rev. Wm. Patton, D. D., and Mary his wife. Mr. Brooks does not say that the Rev. Dr. and his wife had been trustees of any Catholic church. Here Mr. Senator Brooks seems to have become desperate, and gives a duplicate under head No. 7 of the conveyance made by George Wildes and Agnes his wife, as already recorded under head No. 3. I was not aware that Mr. Wildes had given me two deeds of the same property. But Mr. Senator Brooks is a man of singular enterprise, and he has made the discovery, and attempted to impose upon the public by a falsehood so easily to be detected. No. 8 is from Mr. Bartholomew O'Connor, who, if Mr. Brooks is to be believed, is named in the record as trustee to Christ's Church the truth being that Mr. Bartholomew O'Connor in that case was only the assignee of a bankrupt board of trustees. No. 9 is fronn George Plammann and Catharine A. his wife ; Thomas Ward and Margaretta his wife ; Nathaniel P. Baily and his wife, et a/., to Nicholas Dean, of the second part, and John Hughes, of the third part. Under the same No. 9 we find, immediately fol- lowing, Andrew Byrne, clergyman, to John Hughes, bishop. No. 10 is a specimen of Mr. Brooks's eloquent brevity of style. It is entitled, " Same to same.' 1 '' Here again Mr. Brooks duplicates the same conveyance ; so that in the simple copying from the registry, by way of defence for older falsehoods, he invents new ones, and in two instances copies the same conveyances I suppose by way of guarding against mistakes. 1 hope the respectable gentlemen and their wives here mentioned will hold Mr. Brooks, and not me, responsible for having their names paraded in a public newspaper. The extract of all these entries is brought forth by Mr. Brooks to substantiate what I have taken the 604: AKCHBISHOP HUGHES. liberty to call his falsehood, uttered in the Senate of New York, when he alleged in his official capacity, and as one having taken pains to be well informed on the subject, that the value of my real estate in the city of New York alone was not much short of five millions. We have just seen that Mr. Brooks has counted two conveyances each twice over, and that instead of ten conveyances, there are in reality only eight on the very record which he professes to have ex- amined. None of these conveyances of real estate are from trustees of Catholic churches. Is it not lamentable to think that a man who has been senator of the State of New York should so misrepresent the records of entries which are open to the inspection of all in the register's office ? But the question is not whether I am the owner of some portion of real estate, but whether Mr. Brooks did not utter a falsehood when he stated that the value of my property in the city of New York alone was little short of five millions of dollars. The gentle- man attempts to make his extract honest-looking by describing the boundaries of each section of property thus conveyed with a minute- ness very uninteresting to the public, but with an exactitude becom- ing a conveyancer's apprentice. One would suppose that he imagined himself copying a list of the arrivals at the hotels, to be published in that meanest of all printed newspapers, the New York Express, of which he is one of the editors. Now, the difference between the value of the eight conveyances cited by Mr. Brooks, and a little short of five millions of dollars, will be the measure of the difference between the truth of his present de- fence and the falsehood of his assertion in the Senate on the 6th of March last. I suppose the gross value of the eight conveyances enumerated to be two hundred thousand dollars, and deduct two hundred thousand dollars from a sum a little short of five millions say four millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars there remains a difference between truth and falsehood of four millions five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which Mr. Brooks has still to account for. In other words, by a strict arithmetical calculation, there is a difference of two thousand two hundred and seventy-five per cent, between the truth, if we can call it so, of Mr. Brooks's de- fence and the original falsehood of his statement. This is a large per centage, but Senator Brooks may yet have means of reducing it. So far, I think, it is quite clear that the charge of falsehood No. 1 has not been refuted. However, small work is enough for the senator during one day, and as he signs his letter " for to-day, yours very respectfully," we must wait to see what he has in reserve for to- morrow. I would only beg him not to attempt filling up his sched- ule by enumerating the same conveyance twice, as he has done " for to-day." Falsehood No. 2, as found in his speech of the 6th of March, is, that among the conveyances there are numerous transfers from trus- tees to John Hughes. Mr. Brooks has done nothing as yet by way of attempt to sustain this falsehood. He has not shown one single CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 605 such transfer, and accordingly we may say there is little short of five millions per cent, between his impotent defence and his false as- sertion on the 6th of March, in the Senate of New York. But we must be indulgent, and allow him time to examine the records for them. The statement in his speech which we marked as falsehood No. 3, that some of the parcels of property conveyed to me cover whole squares of land, Mr. Brooks "for to-day" has not had time, I sup- pose, to indicate, as he has done in other instances, in what part of the city all these certain lots, or whole squares of land lie, and are situate. But we must give him time. He has done pretty well for one day. He has made ten entries for the newspapers out of eight in the register's books ; and to a .man who can do this, powers of originality cannot be denied. On the whole, I think Mr. Brooks has been very unsuccessful in his attempt to substantiate the three propositions which I have indi- cated as falsehoods Nos. 1, 2, and 3. In the present melancholy predicament in which Mr. Brooks has con- trived to place himself, I think he might dispense with all moralizing as regards proprieties of language. They are out of season for his pen. He is not satisfied at my using the word falsehood in regard to any of his assertions, however injurious to me or mischievous to others. Xow, falsehood is the only word that could express my meaning. To gentlemen of more refined sensibility than the senator, a gentler term would have been sufficient to arouse that quick and honorable resentment either to prove the assertion advanced, or to apologize manfully for having been betrayed into it. On the other hand, if a stronger expression had been used, it would have implied a direct violation of the courtesies of life, even in regard to one by whom truth had been so outraged. Mr. Brooks is very severe upon me, as he imagines, when he says that " a scullion can call names, and use epithets; but names and epithets," says Mr. Brooks, "are not truth." Pray, where did Mr. Brooks learn this philosophy ? I can assure him that names and epithets rightly applied are truth, and oftentimes truth in its condensed form. Nor do they cease to be truth, when they are rightly employed, even by scullions. The only philosophy which would be profitable to Senator Brooks is that by which in his dealings with his fellow-men, whether in the Sen- ate chamber or elsewhere, he should take those precautions becom- ing an honorable gentleman, to see that it should not be in the power of friend or foe, of scullion or prelate, to apply to him any name or epithet which should unfortunately be too well founded in truth. I confess that it is any thing but pleasant to me to be obliged to employ them. But when Mr. Brooks has so gratuitously gone out of his way to impress upon the minds of his colleagues in the Senate, and of his fellow-citizens elsewhere, the belief of statements utterly at variance with truth, he cannot deny me the privilege of calling upon him for the proof of his statements, if he has any, and of stig- matizing them as falsehoods, if he has not. G06 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. I do not know that I have any thing more to say until Mr. Brooks bi ings out the results of another day's investigation of the records. fr JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NBW YORK, April 19, 1855. FIFTH LETTER. To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer : THERE is a moral of general utility involved and in process of in- creasing development in the controversy between Senator Brooks and myself, which the public will do well to store away in its mem- ory. If I dare make a suggestion for the benefit of the rising gen- eration who are now receiving instruction in the public schools, I would urge the teachers to impress upon the children the possibility of their giving utterance to some falsehood, since to err is human, but to caution them at the same time against the culpability and dangers of attempting to maintain a falsehood, if by any misfortune they should have asserted it. And as an illustration, they might say to the classes " Just look at the condition of Senator Brooks, who is actually in this predicament." The senator begins his un- fortunate defence in the Courier and Enquirer of this morning, by the following assertion : " i\Iy statements in the Senate were : " First. As to the fact of the property owned by John Hughes meaning the Archbishop. " Secondly. As to the value of the property thus held by John Hughes meaning the Archbishop. " Thirdly. As to their transfer from trustees to John Hughes meaning the Archbishop." He adds : " I am charged with falsehood in these my several as- severations." It is not true that these were Mr. Senator Brooks's statements in the Senate. It is not true that Mr. Brooks has been charged with falsehood in these his several statements. Mr. Brooks knows that neither of these assertions of his is true. And Mr. Brooks knows that he shall be my witness to prove that he knows that they are not true. In his speech in the Senate, after having professed to make him- self acquainted with the amount of property held by John Hughes, in this city, as taken from the register's office, he goes on to say : " I suppose its value to be, in New York alone, not much short of five millions of dollars. So far from this property being held, when in churches, by trustees, there are numerous transfers from trustees to JOHN HUGHES. Beginning with February, 1842, and continuing through 1854, a friend of mine copied fifty eight entries of as many distinct parcels of property made in the name of land CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 607 for JOHN HUGHES, all in the space of twelve years. Not to JOHN HUGHES, Bishop, not to JOHN HUGHES, Arch'f'Bishop (sic), nor to JOHN HUGHES as trustee of the Roman Catholic Church, but to plain JOHN HUGHES, in his propria persona.. Some of these parcels cover whole squares of land, and nearly all of them are of great value." Speech of Mr. Brooks delivered in the Senate of Neio York on the Qth of March, 1855. When Mr. Brooks attempts in his letter of this morning to sub- stitute another set of statements instead of these, and declares them to be the statements made by him in the Senate, he does that which an honorable man, with the knowledge which he has, would have shrunk from doing. He furnishes, like a broken-down witness under cross-examination, the very testimony which is fatal to him- self. The charge of falsehood was made against his statements as found iu his speech, and not against the silly subterfuge of statements as set down in his letter of this morning. Having disposed of this point in which Mr. Brooks is witness against himself, we must pro- ceed to examine the result of his labors in trying to make up for the two thousand two hundred and seventy-five per cent, which his account, after his first day's investigation of the records, left as a balance to be still accounted for, between the truth of his defence and the falsehoods of his speech. I shall endeavor to allow a great many trifling things to pass to the credit of Mr. Brooks, so as to relieve him, if possible, from the weight of the burden under which he labors. He begins by alleging that he is borne out in regard to conveyances from trustees by the fact that the trustees of St. John's Roman Catholic Church gave me a lease of their property. Now one of two things: A man who has a lease is either the owner of the property or he is not. If he is not the owner, the property has not been conveyed to him in the sense of Mr. Brooks's statement, that numerous transfers of property were made to me by trustees ; and, in that event, Mr. Brooks has failed to prove his assertion. He has only proved that I am the tenant of the trustees of St. John's Church ; and if he thinks this warrants his statement, then a lease, according to Mr. Brooks, will be equivalent to a deed in fee-simple. This is Radicalism, Fourierism, such as has not been put forth before. But, besides, it so happens that this St. John's Roman Catholic Church has been always, and now is managed, in its temporal affairs, by lay trustees, and the Archbishop has never meddled with them, except when they attempted, once or twice, to disregard the discipline of the diocese in other respects. The next pretended trustee is Mr. Bartholomew O'Connor, who became legal assignee of one of our bankrupt boards of lay trustees, and who transferred it according to law, and entirely in his civil capacity, as an agent of the law. The Archbishop purchased it at the highest price it would bring, paid its debts, and preserved it for the uses of religion to the congregation by whose exertions it had been built, and by whose lay trustees it would have been ruined if the Archbishop had not taken it in hand. 608 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Mr. Brooks demurs as to the question of conveyance from Andrew Byrne, and denies that he duplicated. But he corrects his error in a way which surprises me. He says, now, that the transfers were made, not by Andrew Byrne to me, but by me to Andrew Byrne. His words are : " If he, the Archbishop, will look again, he will see that there were two transfers from him (the Archbishop) to Andrew Byrne." Now, if this be so, it will tell against Mr. Brooks, and actually increase, instead of diminish the per-centage of difference between the truth of his defence, and the falsehoods of his speech in the Senate. He acknowledges, however, that in the case of George Wildes, and Agnes his wife, he, Senator Brooks, did duplicate, and counted the same transfer twice ; and in reference to this, I am proud to see him acknowledge the truth. He says : "I owe it to the public to state that a transfer of property was twice cited by me by mistake, because it was so written." Well, well, whether it was so written or not, this little confession will do him no harm. But, unfortunately, Mr. Brooks shows scanty signs of penitence ; for, although he acknowledges that he duplicated, he does not omit to add the false citation to the number of entries. In his preceding letter, the conveyances, according to Mr. Brooks, amounted to ten. Now, strike out from ten, one entry which he duplicated, and let us suppose him correct -in stating, as he does in his letter of this date, that two other entries which he had adduced as from Andrew Byrne to John Hughes, were in reality from John Hughes to Andrew Byrne, his ten entries of yesterday are reduced to seven " for to-day." Still, after acknowledging these mistakes, Mr. Brooks dashes on, and counts his conveyance for to-day as No. 1 1 instead of No. 8. This is from Zachariah Kuntz to John Hughes, and is, no doubt, the ground on which the St. Francis Church, in Thirty-first-street, now stands. No. 12, according to Mr. Brooks, but No. 9, according to his correct statement, is from James Foster and his wife to John Hughes. The senator does not say that Mr. and Mrs. Foster had been trustees of a Catholic church. No. 13 is Sarah Remsen to John Hughes. No. 14 is George W. Hall, of Buffalo, to John Hughes. No. 15 is from James Kae, of Macon, Georgia, to John Hughes. No. 16, George W. Hall and wife to John Hughes. No. 17, G. W. and II. A. Costar to John Hughes. Here I must pause to point out an instance of the exceeding exactness and scrupulosity with which our senator describes the dimensions of this particular lot. He says it is between Seventh and Eighth streets, and is " one hundred feet by two inches." See what it is to be exact. A few more discoveries of this kind will mount up towards the five millions. One hundred feet by two inches ! No. 18. Mary Anne Gaffney, B. Gaffriey, and A. J. Donnelly to John Hughes. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 609 No. 19, John Y. Westervelt, sheriff, to John Hughes. No. 20, Richard Kein, clergyman, to John Hughes. No. 21, Gregory Dillon to John Hughes. Thus closes Senator Brooks's second day's labor in finding out the entries of property conveyed to me. I shall not examine them, minutely, but just take them as the senator has presented them. I shall only claim that he shall strike out three from Uventy-one, as mistakes acknowledged by himself then there will remain eighteen. But in his speech at Albany he asserted that he had " copied FIFTY- EIGHT ENTRIES OF AS MANY DISTINCT PARCELS OF PROPERTY, made in the name of land from John Hughes." Out of these he has dis- covered, so far, but eighteen ; and he has forty more to find out, if he would support the false statement of his speech. But Mr. Brooks begins to despair of the recorder's office, and I shall not trouble him further at present in regard to it, except to say that I shall hold him accountable for the forty other entries which would be necessary to change the statement in his speech from a falsehood into a fact. He hopes to prove, however, from the Catholic Almanac, what the register's office fails him in. He says the diocese of Brooklyn has fifteen churches, and insinuates that I am the owner of them all. The diocese of Buffalo has a hundred churches, and that of Albany eighty-seven, and Mr. Brooks arranges his defence so as to insinuate that these churches belong to me. I may tell him that all church property in the diocese of Brooklyn, Albany, and Buffalo belong to the Catholic people of each. But Mr. Brooks is determined that I shall be rich whether I will or not, and he enumerates, not as from the register's office, but as from the Catholic Almanac, among other items of property, " The Confraternity of the Rosary, &c., &c." " The Arch-Confraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary." He does not tell us by whom conveyances were made to us of these parcels of property. We may suppose, however, that they are from John Doe and Richard Roe and their icices, as found recorded in Lib. 1,759, page, a little short of 5,000,000. Our veracious senator next enumerates as my property : " The Redemptorist Convent, 3d-street. " College of St. Francis Xavier, West 15tli-street. " Community of Brothers, Canal-street. " Academy of the Holy Infant Jesus, Manhattan ville. " Convent" of the Sacred He-art, near Manhattanville. " Sacred Heart Academy, near Harlem. " Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, Houston and Mulberry. " Academy of St. Vincent, 107th-street. " St. Mary's School, East Broadway." I must tell Mr. Brooks, that in this long list of institutions I have not the slightest portion of property, as he will find if he takes the trouble to examine the records of the register's office a little more minutely. In the senator's next effort I would suggest to him, if he caa VOL. II. 39 610 AECHBI8HOP HUGHES. do it honestly, to diminish the large per centage of difference be- tween whatever is of trutli in his defence and the falsehood of state- ments made by him in his speech at Albany, by slipping in to my account, towards making, up the five millions, a large slice of the real estate which, it is generally understood, is owned by Wm. B. Astor, Esq. Of course I have said, if this can be done honestly. It will save the senator the trouble of going out of this city, either to the diocese of Albany, or Buffalo, or Brooklyn. Let us now come to the arithmetic of the matter. We allowed him for his first day's labor in the register's office a discovery of property to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. For his second, and just to encourage him in making out his five millions, we will allow his discoveries to be worth two hundred thousand more. Let us state it thus : According to Senator Brooks in the Senate of New York, on the 6th of last March, the property of Archbishop Hughes, in the City of New York alone, was worth $4,750,000 Mr. Brooks's first day's investigation of the Archbishop's real estate, say, $200,000 Second day's ditto", 200,000 Deduct $400,000 Balance between truth and falsehood still to be ac- counted for by the senator $4,350,000 Besides this, Mr. Brooks will have to account for the forty missing entries on the register's books, which he paraded before the Senate on the day and date above mentioned. And I hope he will not give up the register's office for the Catholic Almanac, or enumerate any more " Confraternities of the Rosary" among the parcels of my property. But what has become of the whole squares of land which the senator says were mine ? Verily the senator's case furnishes a moral, and should be held up as a beacon, cautioning youth espe- cially against an attempt to sustain any statement which they know to be untrue. How easy would it have been for Mr. Brooks to have come out at first with the old saw, humanum est errare ! How much less humiliating than his present position, if he had said that he had been misled by the false statements of the trustees' petition from St. Louis's Church, Buffalo ; that for a moment the anti-Popery mania had taken possession of his will, memory, and understanding; that he had been carried away by the passions of the hour, and did not reflect on what he was saying, &c., &c. His letter of this date shows that in his zeal to make up the differ- ence between truth and falsehood, he does not overlook the smallest things. We have seen already the minuteness with which he has set down that valuable property of mine, which, according to him, is a hundred feet one way by two inches the other. He has discov- ered, also, that by a deed in the recorder's office, I am entitled to a free seat in the Harlem Railroad cars from the City Hall to Ford- ham, and from Fordham to the City Hall, as often as I choose to CHUKCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 611 ride. It is ungenerous in Mr. Brooks to quote this, because in his speech he asserted-that he spoke of ray property in the city of New York alone, whereas, if he reflects for a moment, he will perceive that this property of a free seat in the Harlem Railroad cars, is only partly in the city. It is in the city from the Park to Harlem Bridge, and all beyond that is out of the city. This is a small matter ; but Mr. Brooks is so nice and scrupulous in his enumerations of my property, that I think he must have overlooked it through inad- vertency. The public will perceive that in all I have hitherto written, I have not embarrassed the question by an explanation of the circumstances under which property has been entered in my name. I reserve to myself the privilege of giving a full and candid account of such matters, for the information of those who may take an interest in the question, so soon as Mr. Brooks shall have accounted for the balance of my property, constituting the difference, if he is to be be- lieved, between $400,000, for which we have given him credit al- ready, and 4,750,000 which he said my property in the city of New York alone was worth, on the 6th of last March. But I cannot close the present communication without again directing the attention of the public to the dangers, not so much of making a false and foolish statement in a senatorial speech, as Mr. Brooks has done, but of persevering, as Mr. Brooks does, in the attempt to sustain it by new subterfuges. ! JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, April 21, 1855. SIXTH LETTER. To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer : I HAVE charged Senator Brooks with falsehoods, uttered deliber- ately by him in the Senate chamber of New York, and calculated, if not intended, to inflict injury on my reputation. I have sustained the charge already to some extent by facts, and pledge myself to the public that other facts shall not be wanting to complete the proof of my charge. In the mean time, Senator Brooks affects to ignore the evidences that brand him as no honorable man would suffer himself to be branded, as nothing more than idle epithets that have no meaning. If I call a man a thief, or the receiver of property stolen from me, he may say (provided he is innocent) that the charge of theft, or the receiving of stolen goods, falls harmless at his feet that if I am satisfied with my "string of epithets," he is content with his " record of tacts." But if I show on his person the very property which has been stolen from me, it is too late for him to say that " my charges fall harmless at his feet." 612 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. I use this illustration not as intended to degrade Mr. Brooks in any way, but to point out to him that when I charge him with false- hood, it is because he has been guilty of falsehood, and if he dare deny the charge, I am quite prepared to prove it. Our senator, therefore, must see the necessity of standing up for his reputation. The matter is too serious for that philosophy which he attempts to put on. He should know that his friends, his con- stituents, the Legislature of New York, and the people of the State and country at large, have an interest in his reputation which he has no right to trifle with. No man is the absolute owner either of his life or character. Neither the one nor the other is his property in any sense that would authorize him to destroy or damage it. His life is the property of God. His character belongs to his fellow-men. His relation to either is that of a trustee, and society has a right to require that he shall act as a faithful guardian for the preservation of both. Mr. Senator Brooks, therefore, is not at liberty to affect the philosophy of indifference when the charge of falsehood is brought against him on responsible authority. He has no right to let him- self down to a position of acknowledged degradation, without mak- ing an effort to sustain himself against charges which are damaging to his character only in so far as, unhappily for him, they are too true. Again, Mr. Brooks may not attempt to throw dust into the eyes of that " intelligent peopla" whom we both address, by copying out extracts from the register's office as regards property conveyed to me. This is not the question. If Mr. Brooks had stated before the Senate that certain conveyances had been made to me in the city of New York, or elsewhere, he would have stated what I myself was the first to proclaim, what is known to the whole community of New York, and what requires no proof. It is known to all that for the last twelve or fourteen years, property designed for Catholic church purposes has been vested in the Bishop, said property being in all other respects, for its uses, its income, its expenditures, as much the property of the several congregations, as if it had been invested in lay trustees the only difference being that there is no authority whereby such property can be mortgaged and brought into jeopardy by irresponsible laymen without the knowledge and concurrence of the Bishop. By copying extracts from the register's office, there- fore, Mr. Brooks is attempting to prove what is not in dispute, what is admitted, what is known to all as a general fact. But even in his undertaking to prove what everybody knows as to the general fact, Mr. Brooks is not justified in falsifying the records from which he pretends to give extracts. In this he shows the moral danger of an attempt to sustain a primary falsehood, since every such attempt involves the necessity of having recourse to secondary, and, in maintaining these, to certify falsehoods ad infinitum nauseam. The fiat of the Almighty at the creation, in reference to plants and trees, ordaining that each should bear fruit and seed according to its kind, is perfectly applicable to truth and falsehood. Each bears fruit according to its kind. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 613 To elucidate this principle, it will be sufficient to state that in hu- man thought or human language there are but three kinds of propo- sitions possible. First, the proposition which is true, and which ' yields fruit according to its kind, requiring nothing but truth to sus- tain it. Second, the proposition which is false, and in like manner yields fruit according to its kind, making it necessary that other falsehoods should be invented and employed for its support. Third, a mixed proposition, which is partly true and partly false; but which, when it comes to be analyzed, and the portion which is true divided from the portion which is false, will produce distinct corre- sponding fruits, each according to its kind. The portion which is false will require falsehoods for its support, and the portion which is true will rest exclusively for support on the fruits which it bears ac- cording to its kind. In other words, falsehood cannot be main- tained by truth, nor does truth ever require to be maintained by falsehood. Having premised these observations, I proceed to say that, of the primary falsehoods contained in Mr. Brooks's speech in the Senate of New York, the first I shall notice is the statement that " the value of Archbishop Hughes's property in the city of New York alone is not much short of Jive millions of dollars.' 1 '' As Mr. Brooks is en- gaged in an attempt to sustain this falsehood, I shall reserve for another communication the proofs that it has already borne fruits according to its kind. The second is the statement in his speech that he " had copied from the records fifty-eight entries of as many distinct parcels of property made in the name of and for John Hughes." The senator's extracts from the register's office, are an attempt to sustain this statement ; and although he has falsified the entries, and counted at least one entry twice over, as shall be shown more fully hereafter, he has as yet reached only No. 30, out of fifty-eight, leaving twenty- eight distinct entries to be still accounted for. In regard to the fifty-eight entries, we find in his speech the follow ing statement, em- bodied by way of annotation : " To those who were curious in such matters, Mr. Erooks exhibited to the Senate the number, book, and page of these several entries in the city of New York." This was on the 6th of last March. He has, in his pretended extracts from the register's office, counted some entries twice ; he has falsified others, and yet, having arrived, according to his own calculation, at No. 30 out of fifty-eight, for which he had day and date, book and number and page, to flourish in the face of his brother senators more than seven weeks ago, he now acknowledges himself as minus habens^ and begs for somebody to help him out of his difficulty. This may be seen from the following advertisement in that meanest of all printed newspapers, which it is unnecessary to mention : " CONVEYANCES TO ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. " The friends of the rights of church trustees, and the laity, against the usur- pations of Archbishop Hughes, and his associates, are requested to send ab- 614 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. etracts of conveyances of church property to him, to the office of the New York Express. Our object is to elicit the truth as to the amount and value of the church property owned by the Archbishop and his associates in office." So, then, Senator Brooks is now begging that somebody may furnish him with evidences to support a statement made by him on the 6th of March, accompanied with a pretended exhibition of num- ber, book, etc., which contained the official proofs of the statements in his speech. Verily, the senator's propositions are bearing fruit each according to its kind ! The third of the primary falsehoods of his speech was, that " some of these parcels cover whole squares of land, and nearly all of them are of great value." I take it for granted that Senator Brooks ad- mits the falsehood of this statement, inasmuch as hitherto he has made no allusion to it. If, however, he does not admit its falsehood, surely he will not withhold from the public the whereabouts of these whole squares of land. The fourth primary falsehood which I pointed out in the speech of the senator is, that " numerous transfers of this property, or par- cels of land, were made by trustees to John Hughes." I have always denied that I ever asked, sought, received, or ac- cepted any property from lay trustees. This denial I repeat to-day with increased emphasis. My words in a public document, published before I had seen the speech of Senator Brooks, were, " that I never recognize in them" (trustees of the Catholic Church property) " the right of ownership ;".... that " they could not make over to me the title of such property ; that it was not theirs in such a sense or for such a purpose ; that they could not do it if they would." Mr. Brooks affects to believe that he has invalidated this statement by the fact that the trustees of St. John's Church made to me a lease of their property for 999 years. Now, to proVe the truth of my statement in this particular, it is only necessary to mention two facts. The one is, that this transfer was that of a lease, and not of property in fee-simple, as the false statement in the senator's speech implied. The second is, that so far from accepting this property, as giving me any right of ownership, I have never meddled with the management of its temporal affairs, directly or indirectly that it is now, and always has been, administered by lay trustees, just in the same manner as if no such transfer of lease had ever been nfade". I wish it to be understood that every report of extracts which Mr. Brooks has hitherto put forth as from the register's records, shall be specifically and critically examined by a professional gentleman, with the view of showing, number by number, how the several pri- mary falsehoods of the senator's speech have borne fruit, each accord- ing to its kind, in his attempt to sustain them. The senator has ob- tained from " The Trade" a series of opinions extracted from various newspapers favorable to his position. He forgets that the matters in debate between him and me are matters of fact and not of opinion. What if the Legislature of New York and the Supreme Court of the United States gave an opinion either in his favor or in mine ? It CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 615 would not be worth a straw, inasmuch as the question is not one of opinion but one of fact. Two and two make four. That is a fact. And if any man were to say that they make five or seven,, the in- dorsements of other men, possibly as blinded as himself, would not alter the state of his case one iota. Besides, these worthy confreres of Senator Brooks are under a mistaken view of the subject. They seem to suppose that if any property had been conveyed to me, then Senator Brooks is right and I am wrong. They seem to suppose that I denied the owner- ship of any property. But this pretended ignorance must be a piece of affectation. They do not forget that in my very first letter I ad- mitted the ownership of property, nor was I at all parsimonious in reserving a sufficient amount to myself out of the unexpected fortune of twenty-five millions bestowed on me by The, Presbyterian, which Mr. Brooks had the cruelty to reduce to a sum barely short of five millions. They do not forget that taking this diminished appropriation of the senator as the standard of calculation, I reserved the amount of two millions as a provision against want in my old age, and devoted the surplus (say $2,750,000) to the establishment of a great institu- tion which was to bear the title of " The Erastus Brooks Library'' that is, on the hypothesis that the senator should point out where all this immense property was. The senator has attempted to change the issue, and he writes little squibs himself, or gets others to write them for him, or accepts them if spontaneously offered, to the effect that he has triumphed over me, because he has proved that some conveyances of land have been made in my favor, which was never denied. But let these kind editors help him out in showing the amount of property the fifty-eight entries the numerous transfers from trustees the whole squares of land, which, in his speech at Albany, on the 6th of March, he stated were mine. If they do not help him in this way they do not help him at all, although their little squibs may fill up a portion of the New York Jewess, and in- duce its readers to think that Senator Brooks imagines himself to be making great progress. Having disposed sufficiently of the senator's last effort, at least till a reliable investigation of the records shall have been made, I will lose sight of the senator, and address the remaining portion of this communication to the good sense and candor of my fellow-citizens, Catholics and Protestants, whose esteem I value, and who may have been misled in their judgment on the subject involved. First. It has been the practice, especially since the bankruptcy of no less than four boards of Catholic lay trustees in this city alone, to invest the title of new churches in the Bishop. This was conform- able to the discipline of the Catholic Church as regulated by the Provincial Councils of Baltimore. It was also in conformity with the wishes of the Catholic people, at least in this city, whose tem- poral interests and reputation as a religious community had been almost destroyed by the bad management of lay trustees. It is un- 616 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. derstood among Catholics that whatever may be the form of legal tenure by which church property is held, being once recognized as church property, it belongs not to the bishop or the trustees, or the parishes, or the people, but that it is to be regarded as the property of God, set apart for religious uses, and enjoyed for the common benefit of all. Secondly. Under these circumstances, they look upon the bishop as the natural guardian of property which has been created, not by any gift or donation of the State, but by their own voluntary contri- butions of charity. And whatever law the State may pass, there is one thing certain, that nothing less than coercion will induce the Catholics to discontinue or withdraw the confidence which they have in their bishops as the natural guardians of such property. They never dream that the bishop is the owner of their church and church property, merely because the deed thereof may be recorded in his name. Neither will less than coercion induce them to put their property, and their reputation as a religious community, at the irresponsible disposal of lay trustees, armed with legal power to mortgage their property, and impose upon them, as has been done already, the burden of debts by which their churches may become bankrupt and sold for the benefit of creditors. Thirdly. It was in this full understanding on all sides that they (the Catholics of New York) contributed to redeem no less than four churches from the disgraceful consequences of bankruptcy, through bad management on the part of lay trustees. These churches were sold under process of law for the benefit of their creditors. The amount which they brought would not have been more than some thirty or forty cents in the dollar. But when the bishop consented to put himself ~at the head of the Catholic body, and accept the title of this property, they rallied around him ; and by imposing sacrifices on themselves, they paid not, only the thirty cents on the dollar, which the law of the State had secured to the creditors, but they went beyond law, and conformed to justice by paying one hundred cents to the dollar. There is no spirit of repudiation of honest debts among Catholics, but they are not willing that lay trustees shall have the power of mortgaging I will not say their property only, but also their upright and honorable fame. Fourthly. It is in this spirit and with this understanding that the Bishop is invested with the title of whatever church property is recorded in his name, either in the city of New York or throughout the diocese. Each church belongs, practically, to the Catholic con- gregation worshipping therein. All the churches of the diocese be- long in the same way to all the Catholics of the diocese. To suppose that the bishop should alienate them, mortgage them, or in any other manner abuse his trust for his own use and benefit, is to sup- pose something that has never entered the minds of the Catholic people. And, for myself, I can say, that rny support since I have been appointed Bishop of New York has been derived from the free and voluntary offerings of the flock committed to iny charge. Not CHUKCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 617 so much as one farthing has accrued to me from the nominal owner- ship of church property. Fifthly. It must not be inferred from this that I am not suffi- ciently provided for, whether as regards my personal expenses or the much weightier expenses incident to my position as Catholic Arch- bishop of New York. In that respect I feel that I am very rich rich in the confidence and affections of the people committed to my care rich in the moderate but sufficient sum which is provided annually for the support of my person and my position rich in the consolation derived from witnessing the increasing piety, harmony, union, zeal, and mutual charity of the people committed to my care rich in the consciousness that from the moment. I was reluct- antly induced to accept the office in the Church of which I then felt and still feel myself so unworthy, I made an offering of my mind, and heart, and life for the glory of God, in promoting the spiritual and temporal welfare of the flock over whom I was placed as pastor by the great Bishop and Shepherd of our souls. Sixthly. Having thus shown how rich a man I am, it is but fair now that I should state how poor. Fortunately the temporal affairs of my diocese are in good order, so that my successor, were I to die to-morrow, will only have to look at the private archives to under- stand at a glance the actual condition of matters and things. As representative of the diocese, I am personally indebted to the amount of thirty thousand dollars. But by way of assets I have in my personal right an amount of property which I suppose, if its value could be realized, would cover the debt. Mr. Brooks and his associates may feel an interest in knowing of what these assets con- sist, and I will tell him. They are partly bequests, partly donations, partly the hope of a favorable decision in regard to a suit which was in chancery before chancery was abolished. Besides this property, which I consider as assets against my debts, I am the owner of a library which would be of little use to many of those who take an interest in the question of my property, but which to me is very valuable. I am the owner of a part of the furniture of the house in which I live but only a part. Let us now sum up. All that is Church property on Manhattan Island, whether the title be invested in me or not, belongs to the Catholics of Manhattan Island, and not to me. When this deduction is made, I am left the owner of my library and a part of the furniture in my dwelling. But I am not the owner of one square inch of ground within the city of New York. I am the owner of the bed I sleep on, but not of the roof or the walls that protect me against the inclemency of the seasons. I do not, however, complain of my poverty, for I am not poor. I know that any one invested with the office which I hold in the Church of God, is the more honored in proportion as his condition assimilates to that of his Divine Master, who had not whereon to lay his head. And it would be an especial reproach to me to be the successor of the devoted and disinterested Bishop Dubois, who died so poor that the Catholics of his cathedral had to bear the expenses 618 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. of his funeral, if I disgraced the inheritance of his office by grasping at and appropriating to my own use any thing more of the things of this world than are necessary to provide me with daily food and raiment. But notwithstanding all this, Senator Brooks will have to give some account of- the four millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars which he said was the value of my property on the 6th day of last March. 4- JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, April 28, 1855. SEVENTH LETTER. To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer: OUR senator has a vague idea of respectability, tinder the influence of which he intimates that falsehoods, with the deliberate utterance of which he is charged, and with which no honorable man would suffer himself to be branded, are by no means complimentary to him. But it is impossible to relieve him from these charges. False- hood he has been guilty of in almost every paragraph of his speech on the 6th of March, and of his writings-in reference to it since. For the present, I shall only enumerate the last falsehood from his pen. It is found in the following words, viz. : " First now as to the parcels of property and squares of land, I enumerate the thirty-two lots of ground on Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets in two parcels, one three hundred and fifty feet by two hundred and ten feet ten inches, and the other, one hundred and five feet by eighty-five." When Mr. Brooks wrote this, he knew as well as I do that I am not the owner of a solitary square inch of ground on Fiftieth or Fifty-first street, and with this knowledge in his mind, Mr. Erastus Brooks has exhibited himself in the light of a man who has no regard for veracity, and who is, therefore, utterly unworthy of notice. I take him consequently, with covered hands, to the nearest open sash of a window, and send him forth with the single mental observation, " Go hence, wretched and vile insect, the world has space for you as well as for me." * JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NBW YORK, May 1, 1855. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 619 A CARD TO THE PUBLIC. THE citizens of New York, and of the United States, must have seen, and the decent portion of them must have regretted, the progress of what seemed to be a controversy between the under- signed and Mr. Erastus Brooks, senator of the State of New York. The point involved is a point of veracity, in which Senator Brooks is responsibly charged with falsehood, and although the case would warrant it, the charge has not been extended to a more degrading terra. The undersigned, although not born in this country, is far from being insensible or indifferent to the necessity of maintaining an honorable character for those who represent its high functions in the legislature, the judiciary, or the executive. And it is no pleasure to him, but directly the reverse, that Senator Brooks has placed it in his power, and made it of obligation for him to prove, as he is quite prepared to do, that he, the said Senator Brooks, is a man of falsehood. All this shall appear in less than ten days from the date of this card. In the mean time, the undersigned feels humbled at the necessity of saying or writing any thing which should bring infamy or dis- grace upon his country, even though the falsehoods of a person like Senator Brooks should be the immediate occasion of it. The physical and material powers of the United States are becom- ing more and more recognized from day to day by the civilized nations of the world. Unfortunately the moral attributes of our progressive greatness are, in the estimation of the same nations, sinking from day to day. And what with the unfavorable portion that is perhaps true in this unsettled account, and the prejudices of foreign nations who are unprepared to believe any favorable report in our regard, the probability is, that whether we like it or not, our course in the esteem of the civilized world has at this moment a rather downward tendency. The undersigned is but a cipher, yet he feels an interest in the reputation, honor, prosperity, and progress of the United States, which makes it a very painful duty for him to charge any one who has officiated as a senator of the country at large, or of a particular State, with falsehood. But, under present circumstances, there is no alternative. He charges Senator Brooks with multiplied and deliberate falsehoods, and he only solicits from the rightmindedness and patience of the American public a suspension of judgment for ten days. In the mean time, it would be unbecoming and perfectly disgust- ing in the eyes of foreign journalists, and his own countrymen at home, as well as humiliating and painful to his own feelings, to see and read in the American journals, that a Roman Catholic Arch- bishop, who claims tojbe an American, and who, if he is not an American, has no right*or claim on any other, country in the world, 620 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. should appear as the accuser of an American senator, whose place of nativity is unquestioned, charging upon the same senator falsehoods deliberately and repeatedly uttered. This is the issue to which Mr. Erastus Brooks has urged and brought me. I meet it. And while I shield as much as possible the dignity of character which is implied by the word senator, I hope that the justice of American public opinion will give me full liberty to repel and expose the falsehoods of the man called Erastus Brooks. I appeal with entire confidence to the patience, as well as justice, of that American public opinion, which has never disappointed me in matters of trutk and justice, for a suspense often days or two weeks. f JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW YORK, May 3, 1855. TO THE PUBLIC. * * * " Mater veritatis dies non permissura sit longum fraudibus regnum." Grotius, de Imp. 8. P. 100, 6. 6. * * * " Light, the mother of Truth, will not permit Deception to enjoy a long reign." DURING the last session of the New York Legislature, a petition was presented by the trustees of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo, com- plaining of pretended grievances which they had suffered, as they alleged, at the hands of their ecclesiastical superiors, and praying for an act of civil legislation, on the part of the State, by which their religious grievances might be brought to an end, and similar ones henceforth prevented in other congregations. In that petition they averred, among other numerous falsehoods, that " Bishop Hughes had attempted to compel them (the trustees) to make the title of their church over to him." The Hon. Mr. Putnam drafted a bill of contingent confiscation and penalties against the Catholics of this State, unless their Bishops should henceforth govern and regu- late all matters affecting church property, according to the provi- sions of the act. The undersigned denied that there was one word, or syllable, or letter of truth in the statement quoted from the peti- tion ; and Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx has since admitted its entire falsehood, even while attempting to vindicate his own course and that of his fellow-trustees. Notwithstanding the falsehoods of his petition, they are entirely adopted by Mr. Putnam, and the one already mentioned is specially incorporated in his speech in favor of the bill. There is no evidence that Mr. Putnam was then aware of the falsehood which he had adopted from the text of the petition. But he must be aware of it now. Mr. Senator Brooks, of this city, also made a speech on the same side. By him the falsehood or falsehoods of the Buffalo petition adopted by Mr. Senator Putnam, were entirely thrown in the shade CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 621 by the gigantic scale on which he projected his. According to him, Bishop Hughes was the owner, in his own personal right, of an immense amount of real estate in the city of Xew York. He sup- posed its value to be little short of five millions of dollars. It con- sisted, according to him, of no less than fifty-eight distinct parcels of real estate, some of them covering " whole squares of land," and all recorded in the register's office, to the number of fifty-eight entries. Of this property there were, according to Mr. Brooks, " numerous transfers from trustees," -and, lest any senator should doubt his veracity, he sported a pretended reference as from the records in the register's office, giving book, number, and page for the correct- ness of his statements. One is at a loss whether to be surprised more at the boldness of this man's falsehoods, or at the imbecile credulity of a public, calling itself enlightened, who, nevertheless, seemed to receive his state- ments as so many gospel truths. Shortly after my return from Europe, I called the attention of Senator Brooks to the wantonness and extravagance of his assertions. My letter was written in a spirit of playfulness. I intimated that after reserving to myself, against the wants of old age, out of this property little short of five millions, as Mr. Brooks had asserted, the sum of two millions, I should appropriate all the balance, say two millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to the founding of a magnificent library which should be worthy of Xew York ; and as I was indebted to the senator for my immense fortune, it should bear his name, and be called " THE ERASTUS BROOKS LIBRARY." I intimated, however, in a tone sufficiently serious to attract his attention, that his statements were untrue, and I called upon him either to prove or retract them. He chose the alternative of proof, and the public will see how desperate is the condition of a man who undertakes to prove a falsehood : since truth will ever scorn to be a handmaid in such an enterprise, and will leave him entirely depend- ent on his ingenuity for the invention of secondary falsehoods in support of those which were primary. Out of this grew the late controversy between Mr. Brooks and myself. It was not my business to prove that the statements of his speech were false. It was his to prove them true. It was but fair that he should have full scope to accomplish this awful task in his own way, and the public have witnessed the industry with which he has prosecuted the work. It has been matter of surprise to some, that I should not have had at any moment my proofs at hand to refute both the primary and secondary falsehoods of Mr. Brooks. In other words, that I was not prepared to prove a negative, which no man has ever done by direct argument, and which no man can ever do. The proof of a negative must always be by deduction from argument which is positive ; and how could I bring my proofs of a negative through the medium of positive facts to a close, until Mr. Brooks should have completed his whole winding and tortuous career of mendacity ? I 622 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. believe he has done this, at least. And now it is time for me to bring my positive facts to bear upon his positive falsehoods, scatter them to the winds, and leave him standing before the community a self-degraded, self-ruined man. But before I commence, it is proper to state that whatever property may be found on the records of the register's books in the city of New York, in my name, is in equity and truth, though not in its legal form, the property of the several congregations to be enumerated hereafter ; that the management of this property has been, by a rule of the diocese dating as far back as 1843, in the hands of the respective pastors of each congregation, Avho are required to associate with them one or two respectable and competent laymen to assist them in the administration of the tempo- ralities of their church to keep regular accounts of its income, its expenditures, etc., to make and publish, from time to time, at least once a year, a report of the condition of the church, to be distributed among their pew-holders, and a copy of the same to be forwarded to the archiepiscopal residence, in order to have it inserted in a diocesan register kept for that purpose. The title of their church lots was vested nominally in the Bishop. But he never considered this as giving him any more right to the ownership, in the sense of Mr. Brooks, than he would have to regard as his awn an offering of charity handed to him for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum. Nei- ther has he ever received so much as one farthing of revenue or in- come from this property, in consequence of his nominal ownership. Neither has he troubled himself with the management of the tem- poralities of these congregations, except in so far as to prevent the church property from being mortgaged, or exposed to alienation, as had been the case under the irresponsible management of lay trustees. Whenever the clergyman and his advisers reported to the Bishop the expediency of their doing something in regard to such property, he acquiesced as often as his judgment approved of their proposal. In this way deeds, and titles, and transfers, and mortgages, etc., were brought to him from time to time for signature, and, as a mat- ter of course, he went through the legal formality of appending his name. So, also, when new lots were purchased for the erection of new churches, required by the increasing numbers of the faithful, the deed was made out in the Bishop's name, and the local pastor and his associates managed all the rest. It is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that the Bishop himself should have been almost taken by surprise by the display of docu- ments exhibited by Mr. Brooks, purporting to be extracts from the records in the register's office. The Archbishop was perfectly aware, in a general way, that Mr. Brooks had entered boldly on a career of falsehood ; but he was not prepared to suppose that a sen- ator of the State of New York, in order to brazen it out against him, would have dared to falsify the public records. This, ho\vever, Mr. Brooks has done. Before proceeding to exhibit the secondary falsehoods of Mr. Brooks more at length, I shall give a statement of all the property CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 623 recorded in my name in the register's office on the day of the sen- ator's speech. It is the same to-day, as nothing has been added to or taken from it since. The property, then, which is recorded in my name, is the aggre- gate of lots on which fifteen different Catholic congregations have their places of worship, their priest's residences, and, in some in- stances, their schools. ' The number of these lots is seventy-seven, (77) giving a fraction over five lots each for the church edifices of these fifteen congregations. I am told by competent judges, that if these lots were to be sold, the buildings on them, though exceed- ingly valuable to the Catholics as places for the purposes of divine public worship, would not add to their value in the estimation of purchasers. I am further told, by competent judges, that, scattered as they are at various points, from Barclay-street to Manhattanville, they would not fetch more, one with the other, than five thou- sand dollars each lot. This would produce, as the total value of property recorded in the register's office, in the name of the Arch- bishop : The sum of $385,000 But in the same register's office there are recorded as encum- brances on these seventy-seven lots, mortgages to the amount, in the aggregate, of 245,640 Reducing the net value of property recorded in the name of Arch- bishop HUGHES, to the alarming sum (not of a " little short of $5,000,000," but) of $139,360 It is to be observed that before the Archbishop realized even this sum, it would be necessary for him not only to become a dis- honest man, but also to go through the process of turning fifteen Catholic congregations, with their respective priests, into the streets of the city. Such are the length and breadth, and height and depth, of all the real estate recorded in the name of Archbishop Hughes in the books of the register's office. I trust the Protestant community will breathe more freely in consequence of knowing this fact. I trust also that our Catholic laity will be prepared better to give an answer, when the supposed immense wealth of their Archbishop is made a reproach to them. I may as well add here, that the property of the Cathedral, including Calvary Cemetery, is managed by the Board of Trustees of St. Patrick's Church ; that they receive, and expend, and keep an account of all income and all outlay connected with their trust ; that the Archbishop's relation to it is precisely the same as that of his predecessor ; that he has no personal income to the amount of one farthing from these revenues, except what is annually appropriated by the Board for his decent maintenance ; that the sum thus apportioned, though sufficient, is yet moderate enough, and that if it is not more, the reason is that the Archbishop has more than once declined to accept a larger amount. 624: ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. There was a period during the late controversy between Mr. Brooks and myself, -when I almost doubted whether falsehood would not gain the victory over truth. A perfect novice as regards deeds and titles and formalities of law, I should not have known where to commence my refutation of the man of falsehood. Accordingly, I referred the matter to two respectable legal gentlemen, namely, Messrs. T. James Glover and W. C. Wetmore. When I asked the public to suspend their judgment for ten days or two weeks, it was that these gentlemen might have time to examine the records in the register's office. This they have done. They have followed Mr. Brooks, number by number. They have examined every thing alleged by him as on the authority of the public records, and from their reliable statement now submitted, I shall be able to show that Mr. Brooks has been guilty of numerous, deliberate, and wilful false- hoods, including the daring experiment of perverting and falsifying the very records which he pretended to cite. Here are the letter and report of Messrs. Glover and Wetmore : To the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes : In compliance with your request, we have examined the various records of conveyances to you, mentioned in the several letters of Senator Brooks, as well as others made by you ; and we beg leave to present to you, as the result of such examination, the accompanying report, upon the accuracy of which you may confidently rely. We have only to observe that the respective deeds are numbered to corre- spond with the numbers used by Senator Brooks, and that those which are not noticed are correctly cited by him, except some inaccuracies of reference. We have the honor to be, with great respect, Your obedient servants, (Signed) T. JAMES GLOVER. W. C. WETMORE. NEW YORK, May 11, 1855. REPORT. No. I. is a lease for 999 years, at a nominal rent, but with a covenant on the part of the lessee to maintain a church according to the rites and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. No. II. is an assignment of a lease affecting the same premises mentioned in No. XIX. The lots belonging to St. Paul's Church at Harlem, were assessed for the opening of One Hundred and Seventeenth-street, in 1840. They were sold to P. Doherty, for non-payment of the assessment, and the same not being re- deemed were leased to him by the Mayor, &c., of the City of New York, for twenty years. This is the lease assigned by P. Doherty to the Rt. Rev. John Hughes, as stated in No. II. The identical premises were conveyed by the Sheriff, in an execution sale against the Trustees of St. Paul's Church, to the Rt. Rev. John Hughes, as set out in No. XIX. The two deeds convey but one and the same piece of property. No. III. is between {he sanie parties and for the same premises mentioned in No. VII. No. VI. is a deed by Patten and wife of the half part of a vault for burial on the premises mentioned in No. X. No. VII. is the same as No. III. as above stated. CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 625 No. VIII. is correctly stated as follows : Bartholomew O'Connor Deed dated of the 1st part, 7th Feb., rec. 22 to Sept., 1845. Rt. Rev. John Hughes Lib. 465, p. 415. of the 2d part. This deed cites a conveyance by the Trustees of Christ Church to Bartholo- mew O'Connor, dated 5th January, 1843, whereby the trustees, with the con- sent of the Court of Chancery, assigned their lands, &c., upon trust to sell the same, and out of the proceeds to pay their creditors. It then, in consideration of $42,000, conveys the four lots on James-street, and also the vestments, church furniture, and organ. Mr. Connor is nowhere styled Trustee to Christ Church, nor trustee of Christ Church. Nor was he such in fact or in law, nor can he with propriety be so styled. He was simply an assignee for the benefit of creditors, by virtue of an assignment made January, 1843, and conveyed the premises in February, 1845, to Rt. Rev. John Hughes in the same manner as he might have- done to any other purchaser. No. IX. is a conveyance of the property of the Sacred Heart, at Manhattan- ville, the whole of which was subsequently conveyed by the Rt. Rev. John Hughes to Aloysia Hardy, by deed dated 10th February, 1847, recorded on 17th January. 1848," lib. 497, p. 292. No. XI. The premises mentioned in this deed, executed by Z. Kantze, though separately numbered on the map, really form but one lot, having a front on the street of twenty-five feet by about one hundred and sixty feet deep. Nos. XIV., XV., and XVI., all relate to the property of the Convent of Mercy. X*o. XIV. is an assignment of a lease for life of one lot on Mulberry-street. No. XV. is a confirmation of a previous deed by the attorney in fact of Mr. Rea, to \V. H. Butler the power of attorney having been lost. No. XIV. is the main source of title to this property. The whole of it was conveyed by the Most Rev. John Hughes to " The Institution of Mercy," as soon as incorporated, according to law, by deed dated 1st June, 1854 ; rec". 15th June, 1854, lib. 663, p. 368. Xo. XVII. is a conveyance of a " strip of land," not a lot, being only two inches in width by one hundred feet in depth, adjoining another lot. No. XVIII. is the conveyance of an irregular piece of land at the corner of Twenty-seventh-street and Madison-avenue ; on the preceding page of the record is a release of dower in the same premises in consideration of The whole of this piece of land was conveyed by the Most Rev. Archbishop. to the Harlem Railroad Companv, by deed dated 6th Januarv, 1853 ; rec. 2tt April, 1853, lib. 616, p. 640. Xo. XIX. is the sheriff's deed mentioned above under the head of No. 11^. and conveys the same premises. No. XXII. is a deed of confirmation of the same premises described in No. XLVI. The latter (No. XLVI.) is a deed from Rev. Felix Varela, to the Most Rev. John Hughes, of the property known as Transfiguration Church. It bears date April 23, 1850, and was recorded on the 1st day of November, 1850, in liber 554, page 486. The conveyance Xo. XXII. bears date December 9th, 1851, and was recorded on - , in liber 591, page 268. This deed recites upon its face an order of the Supreme Court, dated Xovember 22d, 1851, authorizing the trustees to execute it in confirmation of the title of the grantee. The whole of these premises mentioned in the above deeds, was conveyed by the Most Rev. Archbishop to L. J. Wyeth, by deed dated May 2d, 1853 ;. recorded the same day, lib. 640, p. 464. No. XXVI. is an assignment of a lease for the unexpired portion of a term,. having originally three years and six months to run from. November 1st,. 1850. VOL. II. 40 626 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. No. XLI. is a conveyance from the Corporation of the Protestant Episcopal Church, known as Zion's Church. No. XLIII. is a conveyance of four lots, on the corner of Fifth-avenue and Fiftieth-street being one hundred feet five inches on the avenue, by one hundred feet in depth. It is not a conveyance of " a square of land," in the sense in which the term is used ; nor, indeed, in any sense. But the entire premises described in this deed were conveyed by the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes to the trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral, by deed dated February 8th, 1853 ; recorded March 9th, 1853, liber 630, page 337. No. XLVI. has been already disposed of. The deed of the Orphan Asylum property is correctly stated as follows : The Mayor, Aldermen, &c., of the city of New York, of the first part, to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum Society, in the city of New York, of the second part deed dated August 1st, 1846 ; recorded Book A of Deeds, page 271, comptroller's office - conveys a piece of land on Fifth-avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty- second streets, and extending easterly 450 feet, upon condition that the parties of the second part erect thereon, within three years, a building to be approved by the Mayor, and that they keep the premises for the purposes contemplated by their charter. The counterpart is signed by the President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Asylum. (Signed) T. JAMES GLOVER. W. C. WETMOKE. The foregoing authentic statements, taken from the records, will warrant me in summing up the results of the examination made by Messrs. Glover and Wetmore, as follows : I. Mr. Brooks has falsified the record, by styling Bartholomew O'Connor " Trustee to Christ Church." II. He falsely cited the deed from the'trustees of Transfiguration Church, executed in 1851. The falsehood consisted in suppressing what appears upon the face of that deed that it was simply in con- firmation of a title previously vested in the Archbishop. The prem- ises had been, in truth, conveyed to him by Rev. F. Varela, in 1850. III. He intentionally falsifies, when he declares that the deed of Michael Curran conveyed " a square of land." IV. He wilfully counts the following premises twice: 1st. The property of St. Paul's Church, first under the lease from P. Doher- ty, and again under Jiie deed from Westervelt. 2d. The half part of a vault for burial, under the deed from Patten and wife, the same having been embraced in the premises conveyed by Rev. Andrew Byrne. 3d. The lot described in deed from Mr. Rea, first under that deed, and again tinder the deed from G. W. Hall. 4th. The Transfiuration Church property, first under the Varela deed, and again under the deed of confirmation. V. He includes the following property, though conveyed away by the Archbishop : 1st. The property of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville. 2d. The property of the Convent of Mercy. 3d. The property at the corner of Madison-avenue and Twenty-seventh-street. He will not deny that he knew the Archbishop conveyed away this property, for he cites the deed to the Harlem Railroad Company in the very letter in which he falsely attributes to the Archbishop the ownership of it. 4th. The property of the Transfiguration Church. Not content with setting CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 627 it down as still vested in the name of the Archbishop, though he conveyed it away two years ago, Mr. B. counts it twice. 5th. The four lots at the corner of Fifth-avenue and Fiftieth-street. VI. He counts the following as entire lots : 1st. The half of a vault for burial. 2d. The " strip of laud," two inches wide, conveyed by Costar's executors. 3d. A piece of land, 15 feet by 97 feet four inches, conveyed by R. Kein. 4th. A piece of land, 26 feet three inches by 32 feet 6 inches, conveyed by Wood's executors. VII. He counts the leasehold lot assigned by J. R. Bayley, al- though the term expired on the 1st of May, 1854. VIII. He counts the property conveyed by Z. Kantze as two lots the same forming, in truth, but one. This reduces the number of deeds of lots now vested in the Arch- bishop to 32, and reduces the lots themselves from 101 to 77, as fol- lows : Whole number of deeds quoted by Mr. Brooks 46 Actual number, as taken from the records in the register's office 32 Difference 14 Whole number of lots stated by Mr. Brooks 101 Strike out the following lots. 1. Lease St. John's 3 2. " J. R. Bayley ; expired May, 1854 1 3. " P. Doherty ; counted twice 1 4. Deed Patten " 1 5. " James Rea " 1 6. " Trustees of Transfiguration Church ; counted twice 2 7. " Commann ; conveyed away 1 8. " G. W. Hall " 6 9. " M. A. Gaffney " 2 10. " Rev. F. Varela 2 11. ' Michael Curran " 1" square" 12. " Costar's executors ; a strip 1 13. P. Kein ; part of lot 1 14. " Wood's executors ; part of lot 1 Making in all ; . 24 Which, subtracted from 101, as reported by Mr. Brooks, leaves a balance, as has been elsewhere mentioned, of lots 77 It would require a small volume to develop at length all the cir- cumstances of meanness that characterize the falsehoods of which Mr. Brooks has been guilty. I may say, in general, that all false- hoods range themselves either under one or other of these two heads namely: the assertion of something that has no existence in reality, or the denial of something which has. It follows, therefore, that falsehood has no real existence, except as the negative of truth ; and consequently that what is called public opinion has no power to create truth from falsehood, or to destroy truth and render it false. 628 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. Public opinion, to be worth any thing as regards things which exist, or things which do not, ought to be the legitimate offspring of truth its creature, not its creator. A friend of mine has preserved some four columns of scraps from different newspapers, published for the most part in the interior, as evidence of public opinion in regard to the late controversy between Mr. Brooks and myself. The generality of the press, however, and especially in the large cities, have had the kindness to abstain from pronouncing judgment on the question of veracity until the evidence should be all in and the testimony closed on both sides. For this just course of forbearance pending the con- troversy, and especially since I solicited a suspension of judgment for ten days or two weeks, I now make my grateful acknowledg- ments. But I have no such acknowledgments to make to the jour- nals which have pronounced a premature judgment, and whose hasty opinions have been eagerly gathered into the columns of the Express. Having indorsed Mr. Brooks without waiting to know what they were about, it was but consistent that they should vilify Archbishop Hughes, which they have not failed to do. I do not ask them to retract what they have said ; I do not ask them to recall or change their opinions on the subject ; but I do ask them, as the only repara- tion which it is in their power to make, to publish this letter in their respective papers. If they are honorable men they will do so. If I were their enemy, which I am not, I could not desire to inflict on them a more humiliating punishment for their unfair and rash judg- ment. If they only publish this letter, they may, of course, if they choose, still continue to encourage falsehood, and the falsification of public documents, by their continued indorsement of Senator Brooks. It is customary throughout nearly all Christendom for a Catholic bishop to prefix the sign of the cross to his signature. Most of those editors just now referred to, and who have been fabricating public opinion for the New York Express, seem to be too poor in the re- sources of their printing-offices to possess any type which would rep- resent the symbol of Christianity, and as the next substitute thereto, or rather in ridicule thereof, they substitute the sign of the assassin the dagger. They imagine apparently that this substitution will make tremendous havoc on the reputation of Archbishop Hughes. But they seem to forget that the sign of the cross is the sign of man's redemption, and that symbol in which St. Paul glorified, and the symbol which, when represented by a dagger, they are giving over to the scandal of youth, the ridicule of the infidel and scoffer at all Christianity. And yet our type-founders are not surely so barren of ingenuity as not to be able to invent something outside the alphabet Avhich would give a grave and decent idea of the sign of the cross. Every civilized nation is familiar with symbolic language, nor are we, as a people, at all deficient in this respect, with the single exception I have just mentioned. Outside the alphabet we have our symbolic type to represent, for instance, a section of railway, a steam-engine, a tree, a house, a stray horse, or a runaway negro. In fact we have CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 629 in our printing-offices symbolic type for alrr^st every thing except the sign of the cross. Surely it cannot be that our printers are so excessively American, according to the late and improved sense of that term, that they reject the sign of the cross because it symbol- izes & foreign religion. Alas ! if all Americans were like some of our modern legislators, Christianity, the thing symbolized, as well as its type, would be foreign enough. Be this, however, as it may, I will forgive those editors if they will only publish this letter, and allow their readers to see and study the melancholy evidences it exhibits of the humiliating position into which their rash, unjust, hasty con- clusions in my regard, and their blind reliance on the veracity of Senator Brooks, have betrayed them. Their readers will perceive that the honorable senator has left no species of falsehood unem- ployed. Being no doubt acquainted with the rules of evidence, they will perceive that Mr. Brooks has perpetrated the falsehood direct, assertio falsi) which, if such a term can be applied in such a case, is manly and undisguised falsehood as, lor example, the " whole squares of land" which in his speech he said were mine. This is the out and out assertio falsi, without a shadow of mitigation. The next species is in the insinuation of what is false, suggestio falsi, Take, tor example, the case in which he intimates, and would have the public believe, that the property given to the Orphan Asylum by the corporation of the city was given to me, on the plea that my name, as president of the society, and that of its secretary, were signed to the conditions 6n which the conveyance had been made. The third species is the suppressing of the truth, suppressio veri. This has been exemplified by our senator as, for instance, in the case of the deed, which has on its face, as certified by Messrs. Glover and Wetmore, " in confirmation?" 1 of a previous title. If the first species of falsehood here alluded to be regarded as at least bold, open, manly, and outspoken, the second and third, whenever a ques- tion of veracity is involved, are always looked upon as low, sneaking, and base. On the whole, it appears, from records and testimony which Mr. Brooks will not dare deny, that he is an expert in every department of falsehood, and that we can say of him, but in a dif- ferent sense, what the poet said of Sheridan he Through each mode of the lyre, And was master of all." Time will not permit me to go into further details on this melan- choly subject. I presume the public is disgusted with the exhibition which Senator Brooks has rendered it my painful but imperative duty thus to furnish, on the authority of witnesses and documents which he cannot gainsay. The reader, however, cannot be more dis- gusted with it than the writer is. And if he will cast his eyes back over the correspondence which has taken place, he will see that I left nothing undone at an earlier stage of its progress to warn and save Mr. Brooks from results which he has determined on realizing 630 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. lo the bitter end. I spoke of the bad example to our youth which would result from his course ; I reminded him that his reputation belonged not to himself, but to his country, and that he was not at liberty to trifle with it ; I tried to rouse him to the dangers of his career by language approaching insult, in order to bring him to an issue on some specific question of veracity before he should have ac- cumulated upon his head the mountain which not only hides, but crushes. It was all in vain. If I was content with my " epithets," he said he was content with his " facts." And by this bold but des- perate course, Mr. Brooks must have flattered himself that he should carry a large portion of the public with him ; or, at all events, that he should so befog the question as to enable him to escape detection and exposure. That mass of "public opinion," so called, which has been gathered from various newspapers into the columns of the Ex- press, shows that for a brief period Mr. Brooks succeeded in his pur- pose ; but should he ever enter on a controversy again, let him not forget the motto prefixed to this letter, in which the great Dutch philospher proclaims an important principle, namely : " Light, the the mother of Truth, will not permit Deception to enjoy a long reign." Before closing this communication, I must be allowed to say a few words in reference to the style of vituperation employed towards me by those editors whose adverse opinions have been garnered in the columns of the Express. They hold it as an impertinence for a for- eigner like myself to adventure on any criticism of the language which a native-born American Senator may think proper to employ to his prejudice. They have indorsed the career and position of Mr. Brooks, in reference to the issue of the late controversy, and in op- position to facts and truth. I hold their opinions, therefore, at a very low estimate. Nevertheless, I must tell them that I am not a foreigner ; I renounced foreignism on oath nearly forty years ago. I procured from the proper court a certificate of political and civil birth- right as an American citizen, and I am not disposed to relinquish one jot of the privileges to which, in the faith of the country, it entitled me. But if I renounced foreignism, I did not renounce humanity. And whilst I hold myself to be as true and loyal an American as ever claimed the protection of our national flag, I would not exchange the bright memories of my early boyhood in another land, and be- neath a different sky, for those of any man living, no matter where he was born. Those editors who fabricate public opinion for the N. Y. Express, say that I am not an American. But they are mistaken. If principles and feelings which are theorized, though, perhaps, not always realized in the system of our free government, constitute an American, they were mine from earliest memory they were innate they were inherited they were a portion of my nature. I could not eliminate them from the moral constitution of my nature and being, even if I would. In this sense I was an American from birth. I revered justice and truth, as it were, by instinct. I hated oppres- sion and despised falsehood. I cherished, both for myself, and, as CHURCH PROPERTY CONTROVERSY. 631 far as practicable, for all mankind, a love of the largest liberty com- patible with private rights and public order. Of course, then, when penal lan r s, enacted on account of my religion, had rendered rny na- tive land unfit for a life-long residence, unless I would belong to a degraded class, America, according to its professed principles, was the country for me. But I came not merely to be an inhabitant, but a citizen of the United States. I have, therefore, been an American I am an American I will be an American I shall be an American in despite of all the editors that have rushed into the Xew York Express, with only half the evidence before them, to re- cord judgment in favor of Senator Brooks, and against Archbishop Hughes. In regard to the recent enactment of our Legislature, forcing an unsolicited bill on the Catholics of New York, out of which the late controversy with Senator Brooks arose, it is not, perhaps, becoming for me to say much. It is, I think, the first statute passed in the Legislature of New York since the Revolution, which has for its ob- ject to abridge the religious and encroach on the civil rights of the members of one specific religious denomination. Hitherto when any denomination of Christians in the State desired the modification of its laws affecting Church property, the Legislature waited for their petitions to that effect, took the same into consideration, and when there was no insuperable objection, modified the laws so as to ac- commodate them to the requirements of the particular sect or denomi- nation by whom the petition had been presented. Thus, the law of 1784, though still on the statute-book, has become practically anti- quated and obsolete. From its odious and oftentimes impracticable requirements, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Dutch Reformed Church, the Quakers, and perhaps others be- sides, have at various times solicited exemption at the hands of the Legislature, and obtained special enactments more in accordance with their tiiith and discipline respectively. Now, this antiquated law is the one which is revived, reinvigorated, strengthened by pro- visions for contingent confiscation of Church property, and forced upon the Catholics of the State of New York as sufficiently good for them. They had not petitioned for it they did not desire it they will not have it, if they can lawfully dispense with its enact- ments. I am indebted to the kindness of a friend, perfectly competent to form a judgment on the subject, for the following synopsis of the hardships provided for in the different sections of this Church Tenure Bill: 1st. It makes void a deed of land, if intended for religious wor- ship that is to say, it takes from every man (lay or ecclesiastic) the right, either to give to any individual, or to buy a lot, to devote it to the highest purpose to which it can be devoted, the adoration of the living God. 2d. It avoids a last will of any real estate so used. It thus makes it unlawful for any man to leave such property by will to 632 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. any person, even his own children, and this notwithstanding he may have purchased it and built a church upon it with his own money. 3d. It attempts to affect lands, held in fee-simple absolute, with a newly created trust in law, by a usurpation of judicial functions, which, if tolerated, would destroy the Judiciary, and make the Leg- islature supreme and despotic. 4th. It would thus not only impair the validity of a vested title, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, but it u r ould de- prive a man of his property without judicial process, in violation of our State Constitution and Bill of Rights. 5th. By a short, summary sentence, it would wrest from the indi- vidual and from his heirs and devisees all title to such property on his death (no matter how lawfully acquired), declaring by a stretch of power equalled only by the assumed omnipotence of Parliament, that on his death it shall vest in the State. The Constitution delares that the entire and absolute property in lands is vested in the individual owner, subject only to the law of escheat for defect of heirs. Yet, here we have a statute above the Constitution a statute of confiscation and of usurpation. More- over, it is the legislation of the strong against the weak the legis- lation of political and religious animosity, forcing, in the 19th cen- tury, and in this free land, upon one religious body a system of church management hostile to their Church discipline. How many are the private rights, hitherto declared sacred and in- alienable, which are stricken down by this bold enactment ! Surely there is matter in this act to make thinking men pause and wonder that the transition from unrestricted freedom to absolute despotism is BO easy and so rapid. Such is the synopsis of the effects contemplated by what is called the Church Tenure Bill. And the reader who has had the patience to peruse the whole of this communication, will have seen by what means it was introduced, and by what means its enactment has been accomplished. { JOHN, Archbishop of New York. NEW TOBK, May 14th, 1855. MISCELLANEOUS. AN EXAMINATION OF THE REASONS ALLEGED BY A PROTESTANT FOR PROTESTING AGAINST THE DOCTRINE. OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ; OR, AN ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS, UNDER THE TITLE OF "PROTEST- ANTISM AND POPERY," MADE BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER.* " It is a shame to charge men with what they are not guilty of, in order to make the breach wider, already too wide." Dr. Montague, Bishop of Norwich. " In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis liberalitas, in omnibus caritas." It will be recollected that this is not an attack on the religion of others, "but a reply to their misrepresentations and groundless objections ; and if, in the an- swers, any expression should be found indecorous or uncharitable, the writer of them has only to observe that it was not intended as such his sole object was the defence of Catholic faith, the removal of his correspondent's prejudices, and the exposition of truth. THE AUTHOR. DEAR SIR As you have modestly concealed your name, and sub- stituted a fictitious signature to your objections, I shall suffer you to remain unknown for the present, and shall encroach on your privacy no further than by addressing you through your " Bostonian" mask, in the second person. When I saw the title under which those ob- jections were brought forward, I naturally concluded that you had entered the arena of controversy qs a representative of " Protestant- ism," and of course was much surprised, in reading your ninefold " protest," to find that you become neither more nor less than your own individual representative; and that the whole question is re- duced to this, "whether the doctrine of the Catholic Church, or that which you, as a protesting individual, are pleased to adopt and pro- fess, be the true religion." Your words, after having laid down the Catholic doctrine on the several points (though not without the usual quantum of misrepresentation), are universally these : " Whilst _Z^ as a Protestant, believe,"