f^lf^^^^^ ?^ OF THE University of California. / V I l-^T OK J-.§A i^4%i" ^ '^''^W^^MiM^miMm^M^mc^Mm^MiM-m CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES COMPARED IN CIVILIZATION, POPULAR HAPPINESS, GENERAL INTELI^fiP^C^, AND MORALITY BY ALFRED YOUNG Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle New York THE CATHOLIC BOOK EXCHANGE 1 20 West 60th Street 1894 f I ' r ••' w yd 1Ribi[ obstat : AUGUSTINUS F. HKWIT, S.T.D., Censor Depiitatus. Umpnmatur : (0 13 ^T MICHAEL AUGUSTINUS, Archiep. Nco Ebor, XV li. Odob., iS(^^. Copyright, 1894, by ALFRED YOUNG. .-{// rio^hfs reserved. PREFACE rjlHE chief object of this book is to so far arouse ^ the interest of its readers as to lead them to ex- amine into the truth or falsehood of the grave popu- lar accusations laid against the Catholic Church and her priesthood and people ; and also to induce them to test the value of the evidence offered in support of the boastful claims one so often hears made for the alleged superior intellectual character and moral influence of Protestantism and modern Secularism. The better to realize this object the rule adopted in its preparation limited the admission of any evi- dence to what might be found furnished by Protest- ant witnesses a-nd official authorities ; excluding any distinctively Catholic testimony. In two or three in- stances quotations have been made from Catholic writers, but these are offered only as corroborative of the evidence given by non-Catholic ones. It is also hoped that some of the matter contained in these pages may prove of service to those who are called upon to defend the principles of true Christian Civilization and social regeneration as affirmed by the Catholic Church. House of the Paulist Fathers, New York City^ October 75, i8g4. CONTENTS. Chaptey- ^''S^ I. — Introductory. Why this Book has BEEN WRITTEN, I n._ClVILIZATION, H III. Protestant Civilization in England, 21 IV.— Protestant Civilization in Ireland and India, . 35 V._A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe 47 VI.— Catholic Civilization in Mexico, . 70 VII.— Civilization of Barbarous Nations, 83 VIII.— "Catholic America," . . . . 91 IX.— Protestant and Catholic Missions TO the Heathen, 100 X. — Good Manners, 104 XI.— Popular Happiness, 125 XII.— Catholicism and Liberty, .. . . i47 XIII. — Protestantism and Liberty, . . .164 XIV.— The Church and Civil Government, . 198 XV.— Illiteracy and Ignorance, . . .202 XVI.— Popular Education, 223 XVII.— Parochial Schools, 244 XVIII.— The Judgment of Solomon, . . .266 XIX.— Christian and Patriotic Education IN THE United States, .... 276 XX.— The Characteristics of American Christianity, 300 XXI. — Education in Rome, . .^ . . . 3^5 XXII. — Higher Education. Universities, . 324 XXIII. — Libraries, 345 XXIV.— A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico, 37 1 Contents, Chapter Page XXV.— Poverty and Pauperism 388 XXVI.— Emigration 431 XXVII.— Who owns the Land ? . . . . 440 XXVIII.— Crime. Education and Crime, 448 XXIX.— The alleged Criminality of the Irish People, 459 XXX.— Drunkenness, 466 XXXI.— Grave Crimes in general, 471 XXXII.— Infanticide and Fceticide. 480 XXXIII.— Suicide 492 XXXIV.— Illegitimacy, 499 XXXV.— General Immorality 5.8 XXXVI.— The Morality of Rome, . • 530 XXXVII.— Divorce, 543 XXXVIII.— Prostitution, 551 XXXIX.— Sinners and Saints, .... 569 XL.— The Return to Faith and Unity, 575 American Converts from Protestantism. • 592 Index, . 608 -^ eaw CATHOI^IC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES COMPARED. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. W/ij this Book has been 7vritte7i. IF I were asked, What set me to undertake the pre- paration of this present essa}' ? I should reply : Oh ! Protestantism has been at its old tricks again, making a wanton, unprovoked attack upon the Catho- lic Church ; and so bitter and so injurious to the cause of truth and justice is its present onslaught, that a plea in defence is judged to be imperatively called for, both in justification of our holy Religion and of our own honor as true, honest, and loyal citizens ; and in the hope, as well, of bringing a little light to the popular Protestant mind in order to rectify in some measure the singularly distorted and false views held concerning our faith and ourselves, both so close at hand, so open for examination, and so desirous of being known for what we really are. There has seldom been an attack made upon us of so manifold a character. From wdiatever point of view it was thought likely to be successful, no effort has been spared to injure the Catholic Church and her faithful people, socially and politicall3% b}^ blows aimed Introductory. at our civil and religious liberties, at the rights of parents in the education of children, at our equal rights as citizens before the state and as fellow-men striving to earn an honest living in our own country. In order to make some show of justification for this wholesale aggressive warfare, our enemies have felt urged to represent the Catholic Church as unworthy to stand on an equally free footing with other religions, or even with societies professing no religion. They have labored to represent her as a religious sj^stem hostile to those ver}^ American free institutions of which she has really been the most ardent supporter and defender, and to otherwise disparage her as being essentially opposed to the true interests of humanity and enlightened pro- gress. The work of these assailants has already done in- calculable harm to the peace of the community, and they continue in the same course regardless of all possible consequences. Their accusations tend to deepen prejudice, and to fill the minds of their ignorant hearers with the most absurd notions concerning our holy religion. One of the favorite methods of attack has been to institute a pretended comparison between Catholic and Protestant countries on the score of their respective success in the matter of popular education and civiliza- tion, and their greater or less freedom from crime and immorality. This method of disparaging the Catholic Church appears to have had a singular success in attracting general notice. We have been challenged in public and private to answer the charges made. This I have attempted to do in this present essay, w^hich, though somewhat hastily prepared in reply to Introductory, the urgent call for it, will, I trust, be found sufiicientl}^ minute, exact, and well supported by reliable evidence — all, without exception, from Protestant and strictly official sources — to enable the reader to form a calm, well-instructed, and decisive judgment on the merits of the subjects treated. No honest, fair-minded man at all acquainted with recent events in this country can deny that the present plea in defence is perfectly justifiable, and urgently called for, if we have a word to say for ourselves. In the course of historical research, and legitimate dis- cussion, it is often necessary for Catholics to bring to light many unpleasant and derogatory facts about Protestantism ; but it cannot be truly said that we are given to making violent, unprovoked attacks upon it, or upon its best and worthily honored adherents. This is not the Catholic method. For the present sudden recrudescence of hostilitj' to the Catholic Church I think an explanation may be offered. Here in America, in the course of our com- mon, glorious quadricentenary Columbian celebration, the queenly splendor, beaut}^, and power of the Church were brought into singular prominence by the vivid and instructive presentation of some of her glorious memories of the past, and by many demonstrative proofs of her excellency in every depart- ment of human thought and labor at the present day. The best instructed class of Protestants showed no mean jealousy at this, perhaps to many of them, unexpected display of what redounded so greatly to the honor of their American Catholic brethren and fellow- citizens. On the contrary, they were generously un- stinting in their words of praise. Introductory. But it was hard for those enemies of the Catholic Church who are instinctively aroused to opposition by the least exhibition or favorable recognition of her merits not only to stand by as unwilling witnesses to all this, but to be forced also to join in the plaudits of admiration and praise bestowed upon the object of all their former scorn, revilings, and misrepresentations. No better proof could have been offered of the in- justice of their former accusations intended to place the Catholic Church in a false light before the minds of the people. It is not surprising, therefore, that they resorted, according to old custom, to making de- famatory attacks upon her, pouring forth from pulpit and press, from the bureaus of their anti -popery societies, and from the lodges of their secret, oath- bound "orders," a flood of disparaging charges, old and new, striving to re-enkindle the smouldering fires of former religious and political persecutions. The air i^ blue with their cries about the plots of * ' the astute Roman hierarchy and the Jesuits to make the great exhibition tributar}^ so far as could be, to their plans to Romanize this Protestant land, to over- throw the public schools, to fraudulently get hold of public property and rob the public treasury, to manipu- late the ballot and terrorize voters, and even to sap the foundations of our American republican government and its liberties." We are accused no less of traitorous disloyalty ; of holding a secret political allegiance to the Pope, at whose word we are all ready to ' ' betra}^ the country ' ' — into whose hands is not stated. The old slanderous caricatures of the Holy Father and the Catholic hier- arch}^ represented as savage beasts of prey, have been Introductory, reproduced, and volume after volume of vile, indecent anti- Catholic literature— styled "infamous rubbish" by the Rev. I^eonard W. Bacon years ago — republished in cheap form, extensively advertised, and doubtless finding a ready sale. The work of the secret "order " called the A. P. A. is too well knov/n to need description. Singularly enough this politico-religious "American" association has announced itself as an " intemational society," and proves its character by recruiting under its banner numerous "lodges" of British Orangemen, whose meetings are advertised side by side with those of the A. P. A. proper in the many newspapers devoted to their common cause. It is to the honor of many of the really intelligent, sincerely religious, and worthily honored Protestant clergy that they have hastened to repudiate these un- worthy Protestant brethren, and to denounce them and their style of attack in the public press and in called meetings. The same has also been done by some emi- nent persons among their laity. Honorable and fair-minded Protestant leaders of this stamp have shown themselves to be painfully shocked at the revelation this dishonest warfare has made, not only of the wide-spread ignorance of their own people concerning the character of the Catholic Church and its doctrines, but also of their low mental perceptive powers, their lack of the plainest common sense, their blind, unreasoning prejudice, as proved by their eager reception of and ready belief in the most silly falsehoods and absurd literary forgeries circulated by the A. P. A. and its friends. In a forcible article in the Cejitury Magazine for March, 1894, the Rev. Dr. 6 Introductory. Washington Gladden thus expresses his amazement : ** The depth and density of that popular ignorance which permits the use of such documents is certaiiily appalling ! " It is earl}^ to draw a comparison between Protest- antism and Catholicism, but one such naturally sug- gests itself in this place. The great mass of people are, in fact, more dependent for their intellectual culture — that is, for their ability to think rightly, to judge between the false and the true, as well as be- tween the right and the wrong — upon the character of the instruction they receive from their religious teachers in the course of their clerical ministrations as preachers, writers, and spiritual guides, than upon all other educational agencies put together. Give the people what schooling you may, it is the clergy who are responsible whether their intellectual powers, no less than their moral sense, be enlightened or debauched. Compare, then, the present low state of intellectual culture among the Protestant masses as revealed by the unhappy success of their clergy in reducing their people to such an acknowledged appalling depth and density of ignorance, despite their many superior social advantages, with the intellectual culture of our Catholic people, alike dependent upon their clergy for its prevailing standard among them. No sane man could be brought to believe that they would manifest a similar obtuseness of intellect and depraved moral sense as to be thus easily hoodwinked and misled, and stirred up to similar violent and unjust attacks upon Protestants though all their clergy and educated leaders among the laity were to combine together for such a purpose. If by a morally impossible supposition Introductory. such an attempt were made, it would be an act of the sublimest folly. The universal judgment of the Catho- lic people would be: "God help us, our clergy and our teachers are surely all become insane ; for what they ask of us is neither according to religion nor ac- cording to reason ! ' ' However unjustifiable may be the character, and base the methods employed by the various orders, leagues, alliances, and their aiders and abettors, to stir up an anti-Catholic crusade, it must be owned, in view of the considerations I have just presented con- cerning the powerful influence of the clergy over the unthinking masses, that the prominent, active part taken in the movement by a numerous class of Protest- ant preachers through their sermons and articles con- tributed to their religious press is past all excuse. The class to which I allude is composed chiefly of those who have long ceased to aim at instructing their people in religious doctrines and m.oral precepts ; and have taken to discussing the popular questions, and even personal scandals, of the day. On the sharp scent for any new sensation that may help to draw an audi- ence within their fast-emptying churches, they are found advertising themselves as champions against "Romanism," ready to prove to all comers the falsity of Catholic doctrine and the idolatry of Catholic devotional practices. They also proclaim themselves to be fully armed with statistics to show the illiteracy, criminality, and immorality of the Catholic clergy and nuns, and of their "pope and priest-ridden" people. The reports of some of these accusations lately obtained admission into the pages of nearly all the great city daily newspapers, and in many of the local 8 Introductory. newspapers throughout the country. That their au- thors are moved to make these charges from mistaken religious zeal is hard to believe. The unanimity of their action and the similarity of their methods all go to confirm the belief that they are acting as paid agents of anti-Catholic organizations which employ them to in- flame the passions of the multitude, and stir up their suspicions and fears of the growing influence and numbers of Catholics in this country, so as to enable the prime movers of the crusade to pass laws intended to restrict our civil and religious liberties, and practi- cally hinder us from carrying on our labors in behalf of Christian education and charity. This is the avowed purpose, indeed, of the A. P. A. order, as set forth in its programme and in its detestable oath of member- ship ; as it is no less the unquestionable intent of the * ' National League for the Protection of American Institutions," a body instituted to renew the abortive attempts to secure the same end made for many years past by the noted "Evangelical Alliance," and is to all intents and purposes the same society under another title. It has been observed that every one of those preach- ers who have taken up the work of defaming the Catho- lic Church is an ardent supporter of the programme of the "National League" ; and that they take every occa- sion to bring it before their hearers in connection with their inflammatory harangues against "Romanism." I venture to say, that one must be blind indeed who does not see from whence these men get their cue, if not their pay. One of the most inexcusable methods of attack resorted to by our Protestant enemies has been their Introductory. employment of the services of disgraced priests and bogus ''escaped nuns," all seeking money and noto- riety, and often the means of thus wreaking their Satanic vengeance upon the Church that has been forced to disown them. Preachers open their pulpits to these depraved wretches and call together their people, young and old, to listen to their false and foul ha- rangues. With the aid of these base instruments, slanderous and obscene books and pamphlets are pre- pared and published, not only with the connivance and aid of private individuals but by various so-called " evangelical " societies whose chief purpose of exist- ence and work is to keep up an organized attack, per fas et nefas, against all and everything Catholic. This sort of literature is what the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, when pastor of the New England Church, Brooklyn, about twenty-five years ago, denounced as ' ' popular anti-popery polemics, the great mass of scandalous rubbish which mainly constitutes that part of our Protestant literature." Some of these publications he very justly declared to be "infamous" in their character. He applied that term to a series of books issued by one of these anti-popery societies, called "The Ameri- can and Foreign Christian Union," of whose Board of Directors he himself was one. He is the one and only shining example in the history of this peculiar phase of Protestant religious propagandism of a bold, honest spirit, braving the wrath of his own fellows, in de- nouncing to their faces their uncharitable and dis- honest methods. He relates in his unique pamphlet, Fair Play on both sides : Two papers from the Neiv Eng lander for fiily, lO Introductory, i86g, the purpose of an article he contributed to Putnam's Magazine for January, 1869, on The Literature of the comijig Controversy (with Roman Catholics), in which he sa3'S he " made it a special object to reveal to the public the character of a most itifamous series of books in circulation, wdth the imprint of his own so- ciety, 'The American and Foreign Christian Union,' in the hope that for very shame's sake that institution might be brought to frankly repudiate them. The hope was vain. Some were too flagrantly false, or too nasty to bear much talking about, etc." But the Board of Directors, as he tells us, voted him down, unanimously, as a "wanton calumniator," and de- manded his expulsion for showing up their indecencies and villany on the astounding plea that if such truths were allowed to be told, "no (Protestant) religious institution would be safe" ! In Putnam' s Magazine he had already denounced these publications as ' ' wncked impostures ' ' and "shameful scandals," and had added: "All the time that this society has been running its manufactory of falsehoods and scandals, only the resolute good sense of the public, in not buying the rubbish, has saved the (Protestant) Church of Christ from a burning and in- effaceable disgrace." To which I presume to say that it was not saved the disgrace of such infamous and dirty work, whether the public bought the books or not. Tw^o of these publica- tions he pillories — an indecent story, purporting to be a true one, and the famous forgery, "The Secret In- structions of the Jesuits," well kno>vn under its lyatin title of Monita Secreta. This country, as well as others, has been cursed Introductory, \ \ with a lot of these anti-popery societies, even unto this day. There was the ' ' American Protestant Association ' * (an A. P. A.) in the early part of the century, followed by the "American and Foreign Christian Union"; then came the " Evangelical Alliance," now succeeded by its alter ego, the politico-religious ' ' National I^eague for the Protection of American Institutions," whose true character I exposed in The Catholic World of January, 1894. The country has not forgotten the secret political "order" of the "Know-nothings," whose mantle appears to have fallen upon the " United Order of American Mechanics," and the mendacious and in- cendiary second A. P. A., whose voice is now heard in the land. To all this unholy work the great and wealthy " American Tract Society" did not fail to lend a helping hand in a pious way through many a long year. O what a record of shame ! What a testi- mony, past all discrediting, of the weakness of Protest- antism, thus driven to support itself by such immoral methods ! It seems almost incredible : but we know there are some true stories that are stranger than fiction ; and this is one of them. America is not all ours, but we people of the United States have taken the name to distinguish ourselves as a nation. We love the title and are proud of it. Any body or any thing bearing that name is welcome with- out further introduction for that alone, and at once bespeaks our sympathy. Just see how every one of those anti-popery societies, whose example every other similar one will be found to have imitated, have 1 2 Introductory. named themselves ''American." Their founders, aiders, and abettors must have been cunningly inspired to this by the very Father of Lies himself, for anything more ?^/^- American, more deservedly worthy of being the object of that suspicion, jealousy, dislike, and even fear with which the word "foreign" so unjustifiabl}^ and foolishly inspires the popular American Protestant mind, could not possibly be imagined than the form, purpose, and methods of these "American" titled organizations. Protestantism, conscious that it has no claim to, nor hope of obtaining, the universal acceptance of humanity on its own merits, seeks to get itself acknowledged by flattering appeals to the national vanity. Hence its every society, and every one of its undertakings in this country, is dubbed with the title of "American." In England they are all "British"; in Scotland, all "Scotch" ; in Germany, all " German," and so on to the end of the chapter. So, in order to poison the minds of its adherents and deepen their national pre- judices against the Catholic Church, which has done and alone can do what Protestantism feels instinctively is wholly beyond its power — the uniting her children of all nations into one brotherhood in Christ — it has most industriously laid the false charge of " foreignism " against the Church on every occasion, and in every possible manner. The Protestant clamor from press, platform, and pulpit, in books and tracts, is of "Romanism," "For- eign domination," " Subjects of a foreign potentate," "Papal tyranny," and all such intolerably unjust and baseless accusations. We suffer and wait. We can afford to wait. The Catholic Church is eternal • Introductory, her existence is not of men, but of God, and altogether out of the reach of any inimical power. The promise was not given in vain, that the gates of hell should never prevail against her. Persecution strengthens her : calumny and misrepresentation only serve to bring out the truth about her b}^ offering occasion for the clearer vindication of her honor. Such an occasion has been taken advantage of to present the testimonies and arguments wdiich will be found in this volume. The}^ are submitted to the fair- minded reader, if mayhap he has been misled to regard the Church as w^orthy of condemnation, with the hope that the perusal of the evidences adduced will move him to resolve to seek further light. If the Catholic Church be indeed all she so con- fidently claims to be : the true teacher and trust- worth}" guide whom Jesus Christ has commissioned and empowered to bring men to a nobler and purer order of civilization, to be the hand and voice of the Consoler they so greatly need in their manifold sufferings of body and soul, and the mouth of the Revealer of the mysteries of life, death, and eternit}" — in a word, whom to hear is to hear the Saviour of the world, it certainly behooves men of reason not to allow themselves to be diverted from examining claims of such unparalleled magnitude, and if true, of such vital and urgent im- portance to them, by appeals that are evidently made to passion, to prejudice, or to ignorance. CHAPTER II. CIVIIvIZATION. A NATION is said to be the more civilized as its social state shows itself to be one in which the cqualit}^ of human nature is the more emphatically re- cognized, the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of true happiness are the more fully enjoyed and more securely defended, if need be, from all unjust hindrance and molestation. As man possesses both a spiritual and material nature, so his social life will develop itself, under certain influences, toward the realization of a condition which is commonly called civilization, in which both these elements of human nature are cultivated, either harmoniously, each according to its own worthy measure of demand upon human attention and energy, or in a manner to produce social discord by giving mis- placed pre-eminence of the material over the spiritual. It is to the existence of this latter condition that we hear the derogatory expression, "mere material civil- ization/' justly applied. Civilization, in that it realizes the development of man's spiritual powers and aspirations, will manifest a superior degree of religious, moral, and intellectual culture. Where this development of man's spiritual nature is proposed as the highest ideal, the people will exhibit an aptitude for the right use of the reasoning faculty, a love for philosophical study and for spiritual meditation. They will devote themselves with ardor to Civilization. 1 5 the cultivation of the fine arts, to agriculture and other such occupations of a peaceful character. A people educated in such an order of civilization will be found to exhibit general refinement and polish of manners, a sure and marked result to be looked for among those who place before themselves, as the chief end of man's happiness, the attainment of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Civilization as answering to the demands of man's material needs (that we cannot add, and aspirations, shows at once its inferiority) results in the develop- ment of the useful, generally embracing whatever serves as a means of furthering human intercourse and the satisfaction of bodily necessities, comforts, and luxuries. The degree of development of this secondar}^ element of civilization, especially in these days of the marvel- ous achievements of human energy exhibited in the development of the mechanical arts, is often im- properly taken to be the true test of a nation's best civilization, as if it were the ultimate and crowning fruit of the most worthy human endeavor to supply the ever- increasing demand of man's fickle and inglorious ma- terial wants. Cultivation of the useful is even taken to be synony- mous with civilization ; and those nations which have been slower to abandon their former social ideal of the supremacy of man's spiritual nature, and have hesitated to rush with headlong eagerness to proclaim and obey the modern usurped supremacy of his material nature, are held up to scorn as being onl}^ half-civilized, as lacking in true progress, and as unworthy to take rank beside those who seek, but apparentl}^ do not so surely obtain, the social happiness they promise themselves 1 6 Civilization. from this super-exaltation of, and ardent devotion to, the development of this inferior order of human energy. It is certain that the tendency of Protestantism has been to undul}^ exalt this latter phase of modern social life. Listen to its spokesmen. They will tell 5^ou to look at the extraordinar}- material progress of Protest- ant nations such as England, Germany, and the United States; at their railways and steamships, their telegraph lines, their increasing manufactures, the colossal fortunes amassed, their multiplied inventions minister- ing to every conceivable comfort and luxury and amusement of the imagination, and then, with an air of contemptuous disdain, they will point you to Italy, to Spain, to Mexico, to South America, and round oif their bombastic oratorical periods with a triumphant gesture and tone, as if there was not another word to be said about it — at least, no word worthy the consider- ation of a man living in this glorious nineteenth centur}^ These wretched philosophers, as is plain, w^orship what, after all, is only a viea7is to an end. . Ask them. What is the end you seek? They will tell you that they seek progress. But ask again. What is progress ? or rather. Progress in what? Why, of course, the development of all these wonderful material resources, is their reply. Resources for the attaining of what? you still ask: It is next to impossible to get them to recognize that the means — the resources — are not the end. They do not seem to have sense enough to per- ceive that to cultivate a means for the sake of the means is absurd. "Oh! " but they say, " the cultivation, production, and multiplication of those means, as you Catholic Civilization. 1 7 philosophers insist upon styling them, are so beneficial to human society." Are they ? In what way, please? In some form or other you will surely get this answer: " The}^ are beneficial in that they afford satisfaction of man's ' mental curiosities, his amusements, his material wants, and his animal desires" ; although they do not put it in such plain language. That is the pity of it. They have ceased more and more to recognize the true ideal of human happiness, the cultivation and perfecting of man's spiritual nature, which is the only,'^nd can be the only, true and worthy end of human life and effort. Such has been the end plainly kept in view by the Catholic Church from the beginning to the end of her struggle with the brilliant and powerful pagan civiliza- tion which she found ruling the world in boastful triumph. She never lost sight of the same high pur- pose when she met even more intractable scholars in the barbarous hordes of Goth, Hun, and lyombard ; and still, to-day, she has none other to offer to humanity, either savage or wrongly civilized, to whom she must now, as always, preach the same Gospel of the civiliza- tion Christ bade her take to all nations : ' ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all other things shall be added unto you." Hence Christian civilization must enlighten man as to his true end, and continually teach these lessons. Whatever means may serve to secure man's true destiny are certainly to be cultivated and developed, but only as a good sen^ant to aid in the attainment of his true end, and never as being that end in itself. Whatever proposed means are of doubtful service, or are felt to be doubtful by a nation, are to be most 1 8 Civihzation. cautiously used ; and whatsoever is judged as of no value, or as likely to prove a hindrance to the better attainment of man's true happiness, is to be condemned and avoided. One of the most singular of all modern misappre- hensions of the true end of human society, and the mistaking of the means for the end, is seen in the popu- lar idolatry of the mere knowledge of the means of education, which surely are only means after all, however serviceable and good for those who know how to use that knowledge without danger to themselves or to their neighbors, when they have gotten it. Not all science for all men alike : And that truth is strongly exemplified in the evil results shown in many places from the indiscriminate and hasty forcing of book-learning upon certain classes of society, or upon half-civilized races. The consequence, which the historian Alison calls "a sad and melancholy truth," is seen in the creation of a numerous class of instructed idlers, soon becoming unhappy criminals, who would otherwise have learned and worked at an honest trade, enjoying a keen happi- ness themselves and radiating happiness upon others, and contributing to the general good of society. I do not think it possible to give any other explana- tion for the sudden outbursting in this century of those dangerous classes now threatening to undermine the whole fabric of Christian civilization, the toilsomely built edifice of many slowly passing ages — classes sucli as the secret oath-bound ' ' orders ' ' of Freemasons and their imitators, the Communists, the Socialists, the Anarchists, and such like, than that the headlong " pro- gress ' ' of our civilization has forced upon all of that Civilization. 19 sort a godless material education, the very possession of which is a curse to themselves, and makes of them a class of avowed enemies to the whole social order. I think I am warranted in having said this much, if for no other reason than to offer to reflecting, fair- minded readers a rational defence of the policy of those Catholic nations who have been slower than others, not only in forcing popular education upon all alike, irre- spective of their capacity to receive or ability to employ this mental sharp-edged tool, but slower also to fill their lands with railways, telegraphs, factories, newspapers of the *' Daily Crimes " sort, and the like literature, to which we and other such favored countries point with foolish pride as unmistakable evidences that we enjoy a ** higher" civilization. There is such a thing as a higher state of civilization with a rational culture of the intellect and a large development of the socially useful arts and sciences, corresponding with a wider spread general happiness among the people. It is found, and can only be found, where the interests of the spiritual order have been held to be supreme, and have not been sacrificed to the interests of the material order. On the con- trary, wherever we find those nobler interests made subordinate to the exactions of those of the baser material order, and sometimes even wholly ignored, there the ensuing intellectual pride, moral depravation, and social misery of the people loudly vindicate the standard of human * ' civilization ' ' set up by the Catholic Church as the only true one. When Protestantism loudly boasts of being the mother of the present nineteenth century " civilization," one need not care to dispute its claim to have given 20 Civilization. birth to certain special characteristics of it which true Christianity must look upon with dread and abhor- rence. It is quite true that it labored hard to " emanci- pate the human mind" from its former Catholic " slavery " to truth, and to free the human heart from its humble obedience to the restrictions of Catholic Christian moral principles and laws. Modern atheistic infidelity, agnostic scepticism and doubt, hard and selfish materialistic progress crushing under its iron heel the nobler development of man's spiritual nature, the base aristocracy of wealth, unbridled luxury in all life relations, and unchecked license in all man's animal lusts, resulting in the decay and decimation of national populations : all these testify that the human mind and heart have been but too successfully * ' eman- cipated ' ' from the intellectual and moral magistracy of the Catholic Church. CHAPTER III. f PROTESTANT CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND. THERE is no country to which Protestants point with greater pride than at England, as showing forth the superior enlightenment and progressive civil- ization which they claim Protestantism has the glorious mission to bestow upon the world wherever its influence reaches. Truly her "material" civilization, as a na- tion, is wonderful. The Sun does not set upon her empire. She holds dominions in Europe, Asia, Amer- ica, Africa, Australia, and in the islands of all seas. What nation has such wealth? What people have attained such mastery in manufactures and commerce ? But is she really enjoy iftg superior enlightenment, and are her people rejoicing in this kind of advanced civilization ? There is astounding, horrifying evidence to the contrary. There is no nation on the face of the earth of whom equal evidence could be furnished for its people's degradation, brutal *" slavery, appalling immorality, and unparalleled pauperism, as has been written concerning England by Englishmen themselves, to say nothing of other testimonies. Who are en- lightened in England ? Who are civilized ? If you will, a few, a very few, compared with the great mass of her people. The peasantry, the laborers, the miners, the factory operatives, the millions who deserve the name of *'the people" — these are simply wretched barbarians. Who says so ? Besides what will be found in this book under 22 Protestajit Civilization in England. the titles of Immorality and Pauperism, I quote here from a most forcible and eloquent work, The Glory and Shame of England, by Charles Edwards Lester, a well- known American traveller, observer, and author : • " It has been well said by an Englishman himself, that ' to talk of English happiness is like talking of Spartan freedom — the Helots are overlooked.' . . . Just in proportion as the higher classes advance in wealth, power, and influence, are the poor depressed. What is gained by the few is lost by the many. If the land-holder grows rich, his pockets are filled by the odious and unjust tax upon the necessaries of life. If the manufacturer amasses a colossal fortune, it is because his dependent operatives do not receive a fair compensation for their labor. If the bishop rolls in wealth, his luxuries are the price of the hunger and naked- ness of thousands of his diocese. If a lord-lieutenant of Ireland throws up his commission after a month's administration, and retires to a chateau on the Continent on /s.ooo a year, this sum is wrung from the starving peasantry of that misgoverned land " (vol. i. p. 141). No historian questions the general social happiness of the English people before the Reformation, neither can it be denied that this happy condition owed its foundation and continuance to the influence of the Catholic faith, which in an especial manner appears to have been successful in inspiring the Englishmen of those times with an intense love of liberty. No people ever asserted their rights more boldly in face of at- tempts at tyrannical oppression made by their kings or nobles. Who has not heard of the Magna Charta wrested from King John by the barons, led by a Catho- lic archbishop? Who has not heard, also, of those •'nursing cradles of liberty," the famous Working- men's and Tradesmen's Guilds, which not only kept up Protestant Civilization in Engla^id. 23 for centuries a truly Christian industrial system, based upon justice and charity, but which became also most powerful means of sustaining the civil liberties and political privileges of the people ? What is not so well known is, that in Catholic times, under the tutelage and living examples of the monks, whose numbers amounted to many thousands, the land was so sub- divided as to be largely owned by the people who tilled it. There was no pauperism, there were no Poor-laws : the people had the wherewithal to live, to be housed and clothed and fed. They were also a pro- foundly religious people ; and as it was the Catholic religion they believed in and practised, they were a happy people. For the Catholic faith is one which in- spires joy. Contrast their former condition with what followed the loss of that faith. The numerous, 'pathetic ruins of Catholic churches, monasteries, institutions of charity and learning, to be found scattered all over England, bear witness to the ruin of England's social happiness wrought by the destroying arm of its Protestantism. Let the reader get a copy of Cobbett's history of the Refortnaiio7i and learn something of the ' ' improved civilization ' ' Protestantism gave to once ' * Merry ' ' Catholic England. The tale is one of wholesale murder and confiscation, hardly equalled for ferocity and greed by the deeds of violence and rapine told of the incursions of the bar- barous hordes who, in earlier centuries, swept southern Catholic Europe like a whirlwind. The motto of Protestantism seems to have been : * ' Let us make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. Let us make wealth virtue, and poverty crime. Let us make it treason for 24 Protestant Civilization in England, the people to talk of their ' rights' to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Forty thousand such Catholic traitors suffered death in the reign of Henry VIII. One must be blind not to see what a disastrous in- fluence the Reformation exerted, through the political arm, upon the social condition of the working classes in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. What has Mr. I^ester to say of their condition as late as twenty years ago ? " The ignorance, vice, disease, deformity, and wretchedness of the English operatives as a 6ody almost exceed behef. I am persuaded the physical miseries of the English operatives are greater by far than the West Indian slaves suffered before their emancipation. They are too ignorant to understand their rights and too weak to assert them " {ibid., p. i6i). Civilization is a condition in which the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness are recognized. If the following be true, and it is alas! only too true, what is to be thought of England as a civilized countr}- ? " We talk of the liberty of the English, and they talk of their own liberty : but there is no liberty in England for the poor. They are no longer sold with the soil, it is true ; but they cannot quit the soil if there be any probability or suspicion that age or infirmity may disable them. If in such a case they endeavor to remove to some situation where they hope more easily to maintain themselves, the overseers are alarmed; the intruder is appre- hended, as if he were a criminal, and sent back to his own parish. Wherever a pauper dies, that parish must bear the cost of his funeral : instances, therefore, have not been wanting of WTetches in the last stage of disease having been hurried away in an open cart upon straw, and dying upon the road ! Nay, even women in Protestant Civilization in England. 25 the very pains of labor have been driven out, and have perished by the wayside, because the birthplace of the child would be its parish ! " {ibid., quoting the poet laureate Southey, vol. i. p. 181). And thivS in so-called Christian, Protestant England ! The writer, himself a Protestant, goes on to arraign the Protestant clergy : " It matters not how much they declaim from the pulpit about the mercy of God, and His regard for the poor. The poor are told that these men are the heaven-descended ministers of this religion : men who afflict the poor ; who shoot widows' sons to get their tithes (for cases of this kind have occurred in Irelan-d), and at last become infidels.* " Gibbon, with all his philosophy, did not escape the same con- clusion. He tells us the abuses and corruptions of Christianity * He refers to the well-known "slaughter of Rathcormac " in Ireland on December i8, 1834: " Having procured a military force from the govern- ment, Archdeacon Ryder headed the troops himself, and led them down to the cottage of the widow Ryan, to force the collection of ;^5 tithes, which she had not paid because she could not. It was regarded by the populace as a barbarous cruelty upon a poor widow, and they pressed him to desist. He gave orders first to draw swords, next to load, and at last to fire. He was obeyed. Nine persons were killed and as many wounded. There were 2,900 Catholics in the parish, and only 29 Protestants, and half of these were members of the archdeacon's own family. The tithes he got from the parish were between $7,000 and $8,000 a year. "This 'Minister of the Cross' shot down more persons than his whole congregation amounted to, exclusive of his own family ! The heart-sicken- ing details of the widow searching among the dead bodies for her son, her finding him with his mouth open and his eyes set in the fixedness of death, the closing of his eyes, and the arranging of the body in the decency of death, amid the blood where he lay, are all too terrible to be minutely described. Another widow had two sons killed in this ecclesiastical slaughter. When their lifeless but still bleeding bodies were brought into her house, she threw herself on them and exclaimed, in Irish : ' They are not dead, for they are giving their blood ! ' And when the terrible truth forced itself on her that^her noble boys were no more, she went mad. This bloody massacre was to get ^5 worth of corn, due to the archdeacon for tithes " {Glory and Shame 0/ England, vol. i. p. 227, ed. of 1876). 26 Protestant Civilization in England, made him a sceptic. Let the clergy of the Church of England preach such doctrines to others than poor widows and hungry children, from whose scanty wages their princely incomes are filched. If there be a structure of tyranny and abuse more iniquitous in the eye of Heaven than any other, it is the despotism of a state which converts the subHme religion of Christ into an instrument of avarice and ambition, of ambition for the political elevation of the aristocracy; and of ambition which starves widows and orphans to array in gold those who are pompously styled ' God's ministers.' God's ministers they surely are : and so are thunderbolts, tempests, conflagrations, and death!" {ihid., p. 195). " It is a government of privileges and monopolies : ' the few are born booted and spurred to ride over the many.' The working classes are degraded and oppressed. All but the privileged class- es are taxed from their birth to their death. ... All are taxed to pamper a haughty aristocracy, a political church, and the privileged orders" {ibid., p. no). In the author's work of the same title, published in 1876, there is much that is worthy of note. He pre- faces his second volume with several quotations. I select one from Sydney Smith : " There is no doubt more misery, more acute suffering among the mass of the people of England than there is in any kingdom of the world ; but then, they are the great unwashed, dirty, dis- agreeable, unfortunate persons. There are thousands houseless, breadless, friendless, without shelter, raiment, or hope in the world : millions uneducated, only half-fed, driven to crime, and every species of vice which ignorance and destitution bring in their train, to an extent utterly unknown to the less enlightened, the less free, the less favored, and the less powerful kingdoms of Europe." Mr. Lester himself has to say : " The great crime of England lies in sustaining a system which oppresses, starves, and brutalizes the masses of her subjects. Protestant Civilization in England. 27 The government of England makes poor men poorer, and the rich men richer. . . . The worst attribute in African slavery has been this — forcing men to work hard to keep them from starving! This is all England has done for hundreds of years. She has millions of her own home people who know no more about Jesus Christ than about Mahomet or Confucius. I there- fore say that there is no population can be found on the earth who live so near Christianity, that know so little of it ; that see so much luxury, and have so few of the necessaries of life; that dwell in such filthy holes and dens, that bask so little in the sun- light of heaven. Who made this system ? Who keeps it up ? What good is the Established Church and its Thirty-nine Articles, when you come to the question of bread and butter? The Established Church came to tax them and enrich a prelacy." He had read Elia^ Nicholas Nickleby, and Oliver Twist, but none of these descriptions gave him "any adequate idea of the enormity and extent of the suffer- ings of the trampled herd of British people" {ibid., pp. 35-38). The author reviews the history of England, and then gives special instances showing to what a shocking state of destitution the poor in England and Ireland have been reduced in this enlightened nineteenth cen- tury. My eye catches one item worth preserving for reference, concerning Ireland. He says on page 151 : " The established rule of Irish landlords now is to drive out men, and turn in cattle, a regime not resorted to occasionally but carried out almost everywhere. It is a resort to barbarism. It is robbing civilized men of the natural right to live on the soil, going back to the primitive state in which beasts, and not men, possess the earth. Never was such a people left to such an alter- native—total extermination or exile. This compulsory choice is fast leaving to Victoria what Elizabeth had in the same island — little but corpses and ashes to rule over" 28 Protestant Civilization in Efigland. On page 159 he gives the official statistics of evic- tions in Ireland: "From 1841 to 1851 they destroyed 269,253 dwellings or cabins, and in 1849 they evicted 50,000 families." In his second volume we come upon unlooked-for horrors in this leading, highly civilized Protestant Eng- land. On page 310 he quotes the Westminster Review, discussing the loss of ownership in land in England by the people, to this effect : " No thinking man, much less one who has the shghtest idea of the sources of wealth and prosperity of a people, need be told what must necessarily be the result of such a system, especially upon a people like the English, whose laboring classes have reached a point of degradation unequalled iti any civilised nation on earth" Mr. Lester quotes one of Bulwer's sayings : "We English pay best: first, those who destroy us, our generals ; second, those w^ho cheat us, our politicians and quacks ; third, those who amuse us, singers and musicians ; but least, and last of all, those who instruct us, or do our hard work " ; and he strongly commends that sentiment to the serious consideration of us Ameri- cans (vol. ii. p. 431)- Another of the dreadful revelations made of the condition of the English poor was that of the "cellar homes" found by investigators in all the great cities, and the contracted and miserable dens of the agricultural poor. Mr. Lester quotes at length many of the almost incredible evidences given by Joseph Kay in his startling work. The Social Con- dition a7id Education of the English People (1850), whose work was the result of his observations as a Protestant Civilization in England. 29 commissioner appointed by the English Cambridge University to examine and report on the social con- dition of the poor in various countries. Nothing at all like the horrible condition reported could be found anywhere in the world. Aroused by such "astounding disclosures, revealing such incomprehen- sible scenes of degradation, iyi the very bosom of the highest (?) civilization on the earth," the Statistical Society of I^ondon determined to ' ' sift the whole thing to the bottom." The committee found all that Kay had said fully true, and plenty more untold. These are their comments at the close of " a volumin- ous calendar of horror ' ' : "Your committee have thus given a picture in detail of human wretchedness, filth, and brutal degradation, the chief features of which are a disgrace to a civilized country, and which your committee have reason to fear, from letters which have appeared in the public journals, is but a type of the miserable condition of masses of the community, whether lo- cated in the small, ill-ventilated rooms of the manufacturing towns or in many of the cottages of the agricultural peasantry. In these wretched dwellings all ages and all sexes — fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, grown-up brothers and sisters, stranger adult males and females, and swarms of children— the sick, the dying, and the dead, all herded to- gether with proximity and mutual pressure which brutes would resist ; where it is physically impossible to preserve the ordinary decencies of life ; where all sense of propriety and self respect must be lost " (Journal of the Statis. Soc, London, vol. vi. p. 17). In the same journal, vol. xi., there followed after another investigation the following detailed report : " Out of 1,954 families visited, 551, containing a population of 2,025 persons, have only one room each, where father, mother, sons, and daughters sleep together ; 562 families, containing a 30 Protestant Civilization in England. population of 2,554 persons, have only two rooms each, in one of which people of different sexes must undress and sleep together; 705 families, of 1,950 persons, have only ^;/^ bed each, in which the whole family sleep together; 728 families, of 3,455 persons, have only two beds each, one for the parents, and the other for all the sons and daughters." As to the "cellar life" of the poor in cities, Mr. Lester says the extent of the evil baffles all human com- prehension. He gives a report of Liverpool, in which were found 6,294 inhabited cellars with 20,168 inhabi- tants, and 621 other cellars in courts, with 2,000 more dens not more than 10 or 12 feet square and 6 feet high ; which, from the revolting descriptions, one would say no Esquimau nor African savage would or could live in them. Well does Mr. Lester put the question : " In what other part of the w^orld, civilized or barbar- ous, can twenty per ce7it. of the pop2ilatio7i be found in such a condition as in this commercial emporium of the British Empire?" The writer sums up in one forcible sentence his opinion of the degraded condition of the English opera- tives : "I would rather see the children of my love born to the heritage of Southern slavery than to the doom of the operative's life." I suppose the reader thinks I have shown the blackest shade in the picture of England's modern barbarism. I thought I had myself, until my eyes fell upon the accounts given of the English '' infa7it a7id female slaves in the coal mines," as Mr. Lester calls it, and adds : ' ' No ; slavery in its most hideous form never equalled this, and the condition, physical as well as moral, of the most degraded bondsman may be esteemed exalted if compared with that of a free collier Protestant Civilization in England. 31 ill England " (vol. ii. p. 339). He speaks of a report laid before the House of Commons, and gives the com- ment of a London journal : " The infernal cruelties practised upon boys and girls in the coal mines, those graves both of comfort and virtue, have never in any age 'been outdone. We have sometimes read, with shud- dering disgust, of the outrages committed upon helpless child- hood by man when existing in a state of naked savageness. We aver our belief, that in cold-blooded atrocity they do not equal what is going on from day to day in some of our coal mines. Young creatures, both male and female, six, seven, eight, nine years old, stark naked in some cases, chained like brutes to coal carriages, and dragging them on all-fours through sludge six and seven inches deep, in total darkness, for ten, twenty, and in special instances thirty hours successively, without any other cessation, even to get meals, than is casually afforded by the unreadiness of the miners. Here is a pretty picture of British Civilization. One cannot read through the evidence taken by the commission referred to, without being strongly tempted to abjure the very name of Englishman." Other reports show that children of four and three years, and "some so young that they go even in their bed-gowns, and who cannot even articulate," are forced into what John Ruskin, in his Fors Clavigera, calls "Hell-pits." These children, boys and girls and women, not only worked like brutes, but were beaten with horrible cruelty as they crawled on their hands and knees har- nessed to the coal-carts. And we are told that the men working with them were stark naked. The immoral bestiality that resulted is no wonder. " In my pit I am the only girl," said one, "and there are twenty boys and fifteen men, all naked." " Te7is 0/ thousands of 32 Protestant Civilization in England. these children," says the Earl of Winchelsea, "have been destroyed by this brutalizing and severe labor." One is not surprised to learn of their total ignorance of Christianity. Here are some examples: Elizabeth Day, aged 17: "I don't go to any Sunday-school. I can't read. Jesus Christ was Adam's son. Theynailed him to a tree ; but I don't rightly understand these things." William Beaver, aged 16: "The Lord made the world. He sent Adam and Eve on earth to save sinners. I have heard of a Saviour ; he was a good man, but he didn't die here." Ann Eggley, aged 18: "I have heard of Christ performing miracles, but I don't know what sort of things they were. He died by their pouring fire and brimstone down his throat. Three times ten makes twenty. There are fourteen months in the year, but I don't know how many weeks." Bessy Bailey, aged 15: "Jesus Christ died for his son to be saved. I don't know who the apostles were. I don't know what Ireland is." Ehzabeth Eggley, aged 16: "I can't read. Don't know my letters. Don't know who Jesus Christ was. Never heard of Adam either. Never heard about them at all." 'what is this that Mr. Lester tells us ? " It may be thought that all these barbarities have ceased after having been exposed. This is not true. No lasting reform of this kind, or among aiiy of the slave classes of England, has ever yet been worked'' (page 351). The italics are his own. Listen to the testimony from that startling pamphlet, The Bitter Cry of Ontcast London : "Whilst we have been building our churches, and solacing ourselves with our religion, and dreaming that the Millennium was coming, the poor have been growing poorer, the wretched more miserable, and the immoral more corrupt: the gulf has been daily widening which separates the lowest classes of the com- Protestant Civilization in England. 33 munity from our churches and chapels, and from all decency and civilization. . . . This terrible flood of sin and misery is gaining upon us. It is rising every day." Mr. Chamberlain, M.P., writes in 1883: " Never before in our history v^-ere wealth and the evidences of wealth more abundant ; never before was luxurious living so general and so wanton in its display, and never before was the misery of the poor more intense, or the conditions of their daily life more hopeless or more degraded." And then he goes on to say that England has a " million of paupers and millions more are on the verge of it " {Fortnightly Review, December, 1883). W. J. Conybeare, speaking of "the infidelity now so general among the best-instructed portion of the laboring classes," says: " It is a melancholy fact that the men who make our steam- engines and railway carriages, our presses and telegraphs, the furniture of our houses and the clothing of our persons, have now in a fearful proportion rejiounced all faith in Christianity. They regard the Scripture as a forgery, and religion as priest- craft, and are living without God in the world. The revelations of the late census have shown that in England alone there are more than five millions of persons who absent themselves entirely from religious worship " {Essays, Ecclesiastical and Social, p. 99). I am wondering of what proportion of our American non-Catholic people the same might be truly said. The Rev^ T. Hugo wrote : " The masses in Lancashire and of London w^ere as heathen as those of whom St. Paul drew a picture in immortal though dreadful colors. ... He knew the mobs of London and Lan- cashire well, and he gave his word of honor as a Christian priest that there was no difference between them and the people whom St. Paul portrayed" {Church Times, October 13, 1876). The Protestant Bishop of Rochester, preaching a sermon in the Royal Chapel, St. James's, said : 34 Protestant Civilization in England. " I lament that dense, and coarse, and almost brutal ignorance in \\ hich the toiling masses of the people who have oictgrown th^ Church's ^rasp are permitted to live and die, of all that touches their salvation and explains their destiny. To hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen Almighty God is practically an unknown Being, except as the substance of a hideous oath ; Jesus Christ, in His redeeming love and human sympathy, as distant as a tixed star" {Good Words, January, 1880, p. 61). Nearly thirty y^ears ago the Quarterly Revie^v stated that "there are (in I^ondon) whole streets within easy walk of Charing Cross," and " miles and miles" in more obscure places, " where the people live literally without God in the world. . . . We could name entire quarters in which it seems to be a custom that men and women should live in promiscuous concubin- age; where the ver}^ shop-keepers make a profession of atheism, and encourage their poor customers to do the same " ; with much more to the same effect {Quar- terly Revieiv, April, 1861, pp. 432-463). And yet they tell us, Protestant England, to look 2i\,you, the glory and the pride of the new, enlightened and progressive civilization which Protestantism has given to the world ; and in contrast to the fruits of that civilization as seen in your land, developed under its influence, they bid us look at Italy and Spaiu and Mexico and South America ; in fact, at any country which owes its civilization to the influence of the Catholic Church. Well, we do look, .some of us, and, comparing them with y^ou, we find the difference in the opposite civilizing influences, as shown in the condition of your and their hard-working classes of people, according to y^our own Protestant testimony^ to be as great as there is between curses and blessings. CHAPTER IV. PROTESTANT CIVILIZATION IN IRELAND. MJEAN DK PARIS, one of the ablest writers in • France, as our American author, Mr. Charles E. Lester, esteems him, finelj^ saj'S in his work, La Question Irlandaise, i860: •• Placed high in rank among- the most enlightened nations of Europe, Ireland left, in early times, a luminous track in the history of Christian civiHzation. Suddenly violence, aided by treason, made her the slave of the stranger. Since then her virtues became the cause of her misfortunes. Faithful to the creed of her fathers, she is persecuted by an apostate people." That is true to the letter ; and as that island is one of the most richly endowed lands of the earth, with a most fertile soil, a temperate climate, with a most brave and intelligent people, who become heroic freemen in every land but their own, and rival all other peoples in enterprise and social advancement, we may well ask, with M. de Paris, How has it come about that the name of Ireland is in the ears of all synonymous with Famine-Land? I propose to answer that question by the testimony of the writer already quoted, Mr. Lester, •who does not speak from hearsay, but from diligent research and personal observation. He devotes some eighty pages of his work. The Glory and Shame of England, to the soul-harrowing de- scription of the progress of modern civilization in Ire- land under the "enlightening" influence of English 35 2,6 Protestant Civilization in Ireland. Protestantism. The title of his historical sketch is " Ireland : Her Woes and Struggles under English Oppression." And this Protestant writer does not fail to see and acknowledge that all the unexampled bru- tality of England's social, political, and religious op- pression of that land and its heroic people is charge- able to what has proved itself to be the worst form of Protestantism the world has ever seen — the English Protestant Episcopalian Established Church. He as- serts it more than once, and brings abundant proofs. If I were an Irishman and a wealthy one, I hardly know at what limit of expenditure I would stop in re- printing that historical sketch in Mr. Lester's book, and in bringing it before the eyes of as many English voters as could be reached. Some brief extracts will, I think, fully justify my opinion of it. This is a part of his exordium : " To a distant observer that beautiful island appears like a city of ruins in the saddened light of evening. Her glory and her strength seem departed for ever. But it is not of the poetry of the past the lover of Ireland must speak. Her bards never sang in strains so mournful and pathetic as the sad lullaby of the mother over her famishing child. The complaint of poverty and the cry of suffering are more heart-breaking than her most plaintive melodies. Her woes and her dishonor move not the heart of her oppressors, but they are noted by the God of the poor." It cannot be denied that even before " Henry VIII.* attempted, Mahomet-like, to convert Ireland, sword in hand, to the principles of the Reformation," the whole policy of England was to subject the people to servi- tude and their land to pillage. But when the new religion came in to sanction and stimulate political Protestant Civilization in Ireland. 37 persecution, then were the horrors of Ireland's woes multiplied ten thousandfold : " Every cruelty and outrage that can dishonor our nature was perpetrated by the English vampires who infested the land. Cities were sacked, villages burned, women violated, and the helpless and young slaughtered by thousands." Confiscation of all the land and property held by Catholics became the order of the day, and the reign of starvation began. Under that English Jezabel, Queen Elizabeth, Ireland was reduced to a desert, and be- tween famine and war there was swept away at least one-half of the population. " When Elizabeth ap- proached her death, and the future, with its fearful retributions, visited her conscience, the ghost of mur- dered Ireland rose up before her, filling her with terri- ble alarms, so that she immediately ordered that some of the confiscated estates should be restored." Let me give a picture of the Irish peasantry in the days of that infamous monarch whom Protestants are so fond of lauding with the title of " good Queen Bess." Mr. Lester quotes from the poet Spenser, who had himself gotten three thousand of Irish confiscated acres, and who actually recommended the continuance of the barbarities he thus describes : " Out of every corner of the woods and glynnes they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them. They looked like anatomies of death ; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they ate the dead carrion, happy when they could find them ; yea, and one another soon after ; insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves, and if they found a plot of water-cresses, or shamrocks, to these they flocked as to a feast for the time ; yet 38 Protestant Civilization in Ireland. not able to continue there withal, that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country is suddenly left void of man and beasts On the accession of James I. the system of confisca- tion recommenced on a more extended scale. Bogus "Catholic conspiracies" were hatched up, in order to have an excuse for plundering their estates. Under Charles I. things became still worse. ' ' In two days bills of indictment for high treason were found against all the Catholic nobility and gentry in the counties of Meath, Wicklow, and Dublin, and three hundred gentlemen in Kildare." This resulted in an official robbery of 2,500,000 acres owned by the " Catholic rebels." Then came Cromwell, the " Champion of English liberty." Under this bloodthirsty despot every Catho- lic Irishman became a " traitor." He invaded Ireland, and his invasion was a wholesale butchery of the miserable, -starving people. " He and his fellow English Protestants regarded the Irish Catholics as Canaanites, and proclaimed themselves as commis- sioners of God to pursue them with fire and sword. Mercy to the conquered was rebellion against God. In prosecuting this exterminating war they had massacred the peasantry by thousands ; others they had transported as slaves, and multitudes more exiled themselves from the land where they could no longer be free. The few that were left were converted into slaves to till the soil for the robber and the murderer, and bleed under the iron scourge that was laid on their backs." Where was the blessed civilizing influence of the new Protestant religion all this while ? It was doing what might be expected of it — urging on the English robbers and murderers to more ferocious acts of inhumanity. Protestant Civilization in Ireland. 39 "The Catholic clergy were banished, their worship made a capital offence, and bloodhounds were employed to hunt down the priests. ' Priest-hunting became a favorite field-sport ' ! " Next came the perfidious Cliarles II., who not only confirmed all the diabolical acts of Cromwell, but con- tinued the work of extirpation. ' ' Three thousand more noble Irish families lost their estates." One royal vulture followed another, and William, the Prince of Orange, proved to be one of the crudest of them all ; and now our author tells us, in one ex- pressive sentence, how " Ireland lay a helpless victim at the feet of its merciless masters. The vulture now plunged his beak into the bleeding form of its prey, and tore away the flesh at its leisure." Will my readers please take note that the modern "Orangemen," as they are called, take their name in honor of the memory of that English king who indeed played the vulture upon the prostrate form of Ireland, even to the tearing out its very vitals? These ' ' Orangemen ' ' are now being cordially invited to cross the Canadian borders by our self-constituted "Pro- tectors of American Institutions," to their shame, to come and help them attack the rights of American citizens. Orangemen have always well understood that sort of work. Protestantism found in the Orange usurper a willing tool to ' ' reduce the Irish almost to the last step hu- manity reaches in its downward passage." A ferocious persecution of Catholics was set on foot, the like of which surely has never been recorded upon the pages of history. Catholics were fined for every non-attendance upon the Protestant worship. For 40 Protestant Civilization in Ireland, opening a school a fine of ^20 or three months im- prisonment. No Protestant could marry a Catholic. An apostate son of a Catholic father could seize the whole family property. No Catholic could be guardian for his own child. No Catholic could inherit property owned by his Protestant relations. All the Catholic clergy were banished by law. Many suffered agonizing tortures and death. In 1709 new acts were passed, and more priest-hunting began. " For discovering an archbishop, bishop, vicar-general, or other person exercising any foreign (?) ecclesiastical jurisdiction, a re- ward of ^50. " For discovering each regular or secular priest, ^20. " For discovering each popish school-master or usher or tutor. Now let us hear Mr. Lester in his own words : " In all trials between Catholics and Protestants justice was a thing altogether out of the question. To crown the absurdity and baseness of this Protestant legislation a bill was actually introduced, and passed both houses of Parliament, decreeing that every Catholic priest who came into the country should be cas- trated. . . . " In 1727 George II. became king, and the knife was plunged deeper into dying Ireland. In the outset a bill was passed dis- franchising all Catholics, who then constituted five-sixths of the nation. They appeared to be experimenting in cruelty and in- justice to see how far they could sink humanity in degradation and suffering. The continued extortions of the Established Church and landholders reduced the poor to starvation and beggary, and forced them into outbreaks and resistance, and those whose only crime was being born Irishmen were shot down or hung without even the useless iorms of a trial." I cannot go into a description of the ' ' Act of Protestant Civilization in Ireland. 41 Union" passed in 1801, forced by what Mr. Lester calls a " sj^stem of violence, theft, falsehood, and cor- ruption, unparalleled in the history of civilized nations, a union that destroyed Ireland's independence, ruined her commerce, exhausted her wealth, and left her a helpless victim at the feet of her spoiler — the vilest of England's vile transactions." "To describe all the torments wrung fiom the innocent by rack and torture — to enumerate the robbed and the slain without trial or provocation — to portray all the burnings and desolation of villages, till the inhabitants, rendered houseless and homeless, reduced to famine, wandered like spectres in the land that gave them birth — and speak of the tears and groans and shrieks the wronged and the helpless have shed and uttered over their friends, or in their own death agony, during these long and weary centuries — it would make the most damning record of national crime ever offered to the horror of man or the justice of God." Then our author shows how the most savage and unpitying monster of all was the Established Protestant Church ; and how it gorged itself upon the last remnants of the very means of life left to the Irish poor. "During three years ending 1821, 100,000 prosecutions were made by the Protestant clergy to collect from the hungry and impoverished people this unjust revenue. Nearly one-twelfth of the entire surface of Ireland wdiS then owned by the Established Church. Ten million dollars annually were dragged by the one- tenth out of the whole six million of people, ' to go into the pockets of four archbishops, eight bishops, and a thousand and two hundred clergy, nearly one- half of whom never see their parishes, while millions of Catholic Irishmen who paid these 'ministers of Christ ' had not even sufficient third-rate potatoes to eat. . . . There has been no real Reformation in the Chitrch" 42 Protestant Civilization in Ireland. In the last chapter the reader has already had an example of the method resorted to in forcing the collec- tion of their unjust tithes by the Protestant clergy, by calling out the soldiery and murdering widows' sons to get ;^5 worth of the very food these poor wretches needed to keep body and soul together. And this example of Protestant civilization to happen as late as the year of grace 1834 ! I sicken as I read the horrible account which follow^s of the years of famine and of no famine, not because there was any lack of food in Ireland, but it was all shut up in the granaries of the oppressors, and at the very time that Americans and Turks were bountifully helping the starv'ing people. The hard-hearted land- lords and the harder-hearted Protestant ministers, the hirelings whose sheep the Irish people were not, must have their rent and their tithes all the same. Does any one wonder to hear the writer ask, again and again: "What has English civilization, or English philanthropy done for Ireland? and the answer is returned by the ragged, wretched, and perish- ing population : ' It has done this for us ! ' " Mr. Lester devotes a section of his essay to the "outrage of forcing an Alien Church on an unwilling people." He tells us that " the sword and the Protest- ant Church entered Ireland together. . . , Ireland was persecuted, impoverished, and embittered for the sake of the Established Church." In a note on page 231, after having fully shown how the whole system of English Protestantism was that of a corrupt, aristo- cratic oppression of the poor, frankly tells the truth about it, Protestant as he is himself: Protestant Civilization in Ireland, 43 " The English Established Church started in sin. Henry VIII. was its founder. It was a rupture between England and Rome, inisnamed the Reforination [italics his], and as if it were not incongruous enough to have a church start from such a source, in its first grand article it constituted the king its head. A Henry VIII., a Charles II., a George IV. the representatives of Christ on earth ! The greatest murderer that ever escaped from the gallows ; the most corrupt libertine that ever filled the royal palace with courtesans ; the most profligate and heartless man of his time, the representatives of the immaculate Son of God! Nominating all the bishops, possessing thousands of livings, and invoking and dismissing synods at his royal pleasure: from such bold encroachments in the outset on the simplicity and purity of the Apostolic Church, we should expect to find [and do find] a secular, selfish establishment, acting not for the poor but for the rich, not for the elevation of man but for his more complete subjugation. Commencing in pride and lust, it would necessarily live by extortion, and end in oppression." And again I say, they tell us, Protestant England, to look 2Xyoit, the glory and pride of the new gospel of civilization, which your reformed religion has given to the world. And some of us have looked, and what have we seen ? We have seen what fruits your new gospel has borne in England and in Ireland, and every man not utterly debased in mental perception and moral sense must know and declare, that of all the curses that ever blighted suffering humanity your mis- called gospel of enlightened English Protestantism has been the bitterest. 44 Protestant Civilization in India. PROTESTANT CIVIIvIZATION IN INDIA. In regard to India Mr. Seymour Keay, speaking of the demoralization of tlie people under British rule, remarks : " As to the demoralizing effect of our control on the character of the native, we have presented to us the most fearful corrobo- ration of what was asserted by Shore, and reiterated by Campbell. Both these writers assure us that the longer native states are under our control, the more marked is the depreciation in native character. In the course of a few years we have succeeded in destroying; whatever of trtithfulness and honesty they have by nature, and substituting in its place trickery, chicanery, a7id fraud. Every native will tell you that it is impossible nowadays to find an honest man, those who appear so being only too great fools to cheat successfully. Our whole system of law, and govern- ment, and education, tends to make the natives clever, irreligious and litigious scamps. No man can trust afiother. Formerly a verbal promise was as good as a bond. Then bonds became necessary. Now bonds go for nothing, and no prudent banker will lend money without receiving landed property in pledge," etc. (See article on " The Spoliation of India," in Nineteenth Century, July, 1883.) The civilizing (?) influence of that unparalleled plundering monopoly, the great British East India Company, is too well known to require special evidence, but let us hear some testimony, to see if Protestant England did any better when she at last became ab- solute master of India. Mr. Eester first tells us how their "oppressors" systematically robbed the natives of all the land, and continues : '' Results the most dis- astrous have sprung from this policy. Millions of the people of India have, in consequence of it, been starved Protestant Civilization in India. 45 to death." He then quotes a speech of the eminent Dr. Bowring : " We boast that we are a civilized, religious, and instructed nation; what of all these blessings have we conferred upon India? We are a large commercial country ; but we have never extended the humanizing and civilizing blessings of commerce to India. This is an agricultural country. What a picture does India present! Possessing boundless tracts of land, with every shade of climate fit for the best productions of the earth, yet men perishing by the thousands and hundreds of thousands from famine, while the storehouses of the East India Company are filled with bread, wrung from their soil by a standing army. We have boasted of our religion — I do not mean the form and words which too many consider to be the essence of Christianity. Have we miparted any of it to the natives of India ? No, alas ! We hear much more of the complainings of these poor natives than of their gratitude. We profess to be a well-governed nation, and well acquainted with the principles of liberty, which we highly prize; but we have not given that liberty to India. We have not even made justice accessible to them " {The Glory a7id Shame of England, vol. ii. pp. 428-9, 2d ed.) Protestant English domination in India has not only enslaved but demoralized India. Says Lester, continuing : " Perhaps there is no feature in the whole system so painful as the degradatiojt it brings upon W07nen. The Mohammedan and Hindoo religions always treat women as inferior beings — as slaves ; but the Christians of England carried the system infinitely further than that. There is no part of the world where slavery ever entailed so many, and such constant and direful conse- quences upon females. From a London journal of high rank I quote the following passage : * Such is the character, and such at this very time are the effects of slavery in British India. Under the various forms of domestic or field slaves, eunuchs, concubines 46 Protestant Civilization in India, and dancing girls are kept for purposes of prostitution, the law- less gains of ivhich go into the hands of their masters ' (p. 433). The utmost lawlessness was allowed to the soldiery, from the highest officers down. He says : " While marching with the troops, and during their journeys into the interior on business, the most brutal outrages are often inflicted by the officers on Indian girls. ... I have seen in Great Britain, and on the Continent, military officers of the highest rank who would not venture, they assured me, to risk their lives one hour by any order whatever that should restrain, either the Sepoy troops, or even inferior British officers commanding them, in their liberty of universal prostittition. . . . " Christian England ! What has she done during the last two hundred and sixty-six years for heathen India? Heathen India was, and is, of as much service to England as would have been Christian India, and perhaps more : for besotted idolaters will more passively wear the chain " {ibid., pp. 435-36). N CHAPTER V. A GLANCE AT SOME CATHOLIC COUNTRIES IN EUROPE. O testimony is needed to prove that it would he im- possible to find in any Catholic country in the world anything at all like the barbaric treatment of the people to which they have been subjected under Protestant influence in England and her dependencies. So there is no call for evidence to show how much less Catho- lic countries have been degraded under the influence of Catholicism, since there has not been any such ten- dency at all among them to brutalize and torture the working classes in them. All Catholic countries have ever been happy ones for the common people. Both Catholic principles of civilization and their adaptation to the peculiar characteristics of different nations have proved themselves to possess the power of harmonizing those tendencies which, if not controlled by higher in- fluences, always breed the most violent antagonisms among the necessary classes in society. Catholic civilization always keeps in view as its ideal the happiness of the many. But this necessarily sup- poses the nearest possible equalization of classes, and the inspiration of a common interest in keeping up the social order established for the general good. The word of the Catholic Church to all the people, high and low, rich and poor, the learned and the simple, the master and the servant, the governor and the governed, has always been—" Ye are all brethren in Christ. Love 48 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Ettrope. one another and support each other as brethren." The proclamation and persevering inculcation of this high ideal produced what we know as Christian Civilization, and which resulted in the emancipation of human so- ciety from the order of pagan servitude. One of the most remarkable testimonies to this eleva- tion of human societ}- was the Catholic inspiration and cultivation of the virtue of Patriotism — the love of one's own country. Slaves have no country to love. But who are slaves? Those who neither own themselves nor have any personal interest in that of which they are the children, their Mother Earth. In all the different social systems, therefore, for which, as the ages progressed, Catholicism was the tutor and guide, we find some sort of bond instituted between the people and the soil. If it was not always such more complete ownership as later ages have gradually developed, there was, nevertheless, always enough of that personal interest inspired in the breast of the lowliest and poorest to make them form a deep- seated attachment to their native land, for whose de- fence, glory, and prosperity they were quite as ready as the most powerful suzerain or noble to shed their blood. When in another chapter I come to speak more spe- cifically about the comparative partition of land in Protestant and Catholic countries, we shall see that the dominant religious influence upon the social order has tended to bring about a great increase in what is called ownership in land in Catholic countries, and to decrease it in Protestant ones. Evidence of this tendency of Protestantism to favor the absorption of the land by the few is not wanting. A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe, 49 They even ridicule the opposite Catholic ideal as being a bar to national prosperity. No wonder. Protestant- ism seems to have set up as an ideal a form of material prosperit}^ which, to judge from its own examples, con- sists in the gaining of great riches by the few, and the consequent impoverishment of the many. FRANCE. The erroneous notion that the most desirable social condition is one similar to that which has existed in the British United Kingdom since the Reformation brought out the following from the Edijibiirgh Revieii\ years ago, discussing the folly, as it esteemed it, of Catholic France for its policy in encouraging numerous proprie- torships in land. Said that review : '• In no country of Europe is there such a vast body of pro- prietors (one half of the population) as in France, and in no civilized European country, with the exception of Ireland, is there so large a proportion of the population (stated to be two-thirds) engaged directly in the cultivation, or rather, we should say, in the torture of the soil. Should the system be supported for another half-century, la grande nation will be the greatest pauper w^ar- ren in Europe." That was the opinion of the Protestant political economist, and all his English and Scotch brethren echoed the sentiment. Samuel lyaing, the travelled observer, writing of France, twenty years later, mocks at the reviewer's prediction : '"A pauper warren!' Look up from the page and laugh. Look around upon the actual prosperity and well-being, and the rising industry of the people. France owes her present prosperity and industry to this very system of sub-division of property, which i;o A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. allows no man to live in idleness and no capital to be expended without a view to its reproduction, and places that great instru- ment of industry and well-being, property, in the hands of all classes" {Notes of a Traveller, pp. 64, 78). As a proof of the happier condition of the French people on this account, he compares their laborers and soldiers with the English, and tests the better condition of the French laborers in this way. In England a re- cruit for the army could be had for a shilling or some such small bounty, but in France bounties from 1,800 to 2,000 francs had to be paid. We have seen what oppressors of the poor the Angli- can clergy have been. Let us hear what opinion Mr. Eaing had of the Catholic clergy in their relation to the common people, after he had personally investigated the condition of things on the Continent and had read history : " It w^as not the vast wealth of the Roman Catholic Church, and of its convents, monasteries, and other establishments, that was detrimental to the national wealth and prosperity of a country. All that was received was again expended. As receivers and ex- penders the clerical w'ere perhaps better than the aristocratical land-owners, because they understood husbandry better, and expended their revenues in peace, in their own fixed localities, by which a middle class beneath them was enabled to grow up." I am wondering how far the Protestant Episcopalian clerical "receivers" in England, Ireland, and Wales ever contributed by their expenditures to the building up of a middle class among the people over whom they w^ere the legally, if not the divinely, appointed pastors ! Who does not know that the French nation takes no second rank among the most highly civilized peoples of the world ? Or shall I not rather say that when she A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 5 ( was at heart and in mind most intensely Catholic there was no nation to which she stood second ? The France whose very name was synonymous with patriotism, heroism, chivalry, noble aspirations, unstained honor, the glories of victory over enemies, indomitable en- terprise and devotion to sublime ideals, was the France that was Catholic to the core. Catholic France was the France of great men, the splendor of whose renown will never grow dim upon the pages of history. And if she is among the conquered and declining nations of to- day, it is because she has lost just so much of the vivific force which her former universal Catholic faith con- ferred upon her. As by an infuriated demon, the na- tional womb of France, once prolific in heroic patriots, is now being impregnated by the modern Zeitgeist, and rapidly giving birth to a savage brood of matricidal anarchists. When France returns to the principles of Catholic civilization, then will French patriotism live again. BELGIUM. As another contrast to unhappy Protestant England, Ireland, and India, let us take a look at that singularly happy and prosperous Catholic country, Belgium. The only excuse for the suiferings and degradation of the laboring classes in the British Isles ever offered, has been the density of their populations. But there stands Belgium, the most populous country in all Europe. Let us hear a bit of testimony concerning it. Mr. Rae, writing in the Coiitemporary Review (1880, p. 329), says : "Belgium is not only a Catholic country, but the most CathoHc of CathoHc countries. . . . No other CathoHc nation contains so smaH a proportion of dissidents from the faith, nor is there any 52 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. other. Catholic nation where the dogmas of the Church are so sincerely accepted. . . . Yet, it has adopted from the first the most modern of modern constitutions, embodying every popular liberty in its complete length and breadth. Freedom of conscience, religious equality, freedom of the press, of meeting, of association, of education, parliamentary government, minis- terial responsibility, universal suffrage, inviolability of person and house, equality before the law, permanence of judicial appoint- ments, publicity of legal courts, trial by jury, have all been, not only legalized but protected in Belgium, without any of the evasions which make similar legislation in some countries virtu- ally a dead-letter." * Belgium is noted for the enthusiastic patriotism of its citizens, and for the lively interest taken in its labor- ing classes and in the establishment of free-trade^ schools, thus building up an independent, intelligent, self-supporting middle class, whose personal life is thoroughly bound up with the national prosperity and the maintenance of that country's unrivalled free in- stitutions. Belgium is specially rich in coal mines. The reader will not soon forget what he has already learned of the fearful barbarities to which the English colliers are sub- jected and their appalling ignorance of Christianity. Here is what a Rev. J. P. Norris, one of the English school inspectors, found in Belgium, and reported to the English Parliament : "In a short tour of inquiry made last autumn through the Belgian coal-fields, I found the miners made up for the poverty of * Quoted in The Chin-ch and the Sects, hj C. F. B. Alnatt, London, Burns & Oates, 1887. The author here begs to acknowledge the special aid furnished him in the preparation of this book by the number of authoritative references given in this and a former work of Mr. Alnatt, Which is the True Church ? both of which essays will be found most useful to ail readers interested in the subject-matter of this present volume. A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe, 53 their earlier schooling by attendance at Sunday-schools and even- ing schools, in the intervals of their work. Some of these evening schools were especially devoted to the instruction of the portons, or overmen, in mensuration and other mining sciences; the prizes and certificates are given by the municipal authorities who supported these schools, and their efforts were plainly dis- cernible in the intelligence and politeness of those with whom I conversed at their work." Then he goes on to compare this happy condition of the Belgian colliers with his experience in the inspec- tion of the English coal mines, repeating what the reader has already learned in a former chapter, and summing up his impressions about them in these words : " Throughout my tour in that dark district of South Stafford- shire, . . . where the child who goes down into the pit at ten years old is consigned to darkness, morally and physically, . . • the thought of that benighted group of boys, and the almost melancholy expression which the torchlight showed me on the pale faces of the elder men, seemed to follow me and drive me like a goad" (quoted in Miscellanea, Spalding, vol. ii. p. 486). Nothing of all these sickening horrors to be found in the Belgian coat mines. No wonder; they could neither happen amongst, nor be endured by, a Catholic people. The Daily Telegraph, London (August 2, 1878), says : " Civil liberty in Belgium exists in almost republican profusion. Even the fact that the Ultramontane [Catholic] priesthood garri- son the land (!) does not prevent the Belgians from enjoying the .utmost freedom in respect of religion. Commerce flourishes, and manufacturing industry advances at a pace so rapid that even we in Britain are every now and then pressed by the shadow of Belgian rivalry. Time would fail us, too, were we to speak at adequate length of the agricultural prosperity of the country. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is simply a huge garden; 54 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. that every available spot of earth is under tillage of the finest sort ; that every economist, from MacCulloch down to Mill, has lavished the highest praises on the Belgian farmer, and on the condition to which he has brought high husbandry in his happy country." Ye unhappy toiling Protestant Englishmen, do ye not envy the happy Belgian Catholics, and think sadly of the good old times when England was happy and Catholic too — " When every rood of English ground maintained its man " ? ITALY. Italy has been one of those countries civilized iby the Catholic Church. To such a high state of civilization in the spiritual order did she conduct that people that, despite all the insensate clamor of the enemies of Christ and his Church, all men know that she succeeded in making that land the centre of the world, the Citadel of Christendom, the most sacred Sanctuary of Religion, the School of the highest and best Sciences, and the Home of all that is Beautiful in Art. No one can deny that it was dhe to the influence of the ever old and ever new Weltgcist — the Spirit of the World — worshipped by Protestantism and modern Secular Infidelity, that Italy wearied under the peaceful yoke and light burden of the Papal and Catholic rule, and was led to envy the supposed happier state of those nations "enjoying the blessings of modern progress" in material things. What is to be thought of the re- sults of her experiment had better be given by one who is neither a Catholic nor friendly to the Church. The popular writer, "Ouida," says: " The English press [and I add the American] attributes all the official evils of New Italy to the old regimes. Now, I did not A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 5 5 live during the old regimes and cannot judge of them ; but this I do know, that the hulk of the people p issi'onately regret the pe7-- sonal peace and si?iipie plenty that were had under them. The vices of the present time are* those of a grasping and swarming bureaucracy everywhere, and of the selfishness which is the worst fault of the Italian character. Italy is essentially a pastoral country. Those who would turn it into a manufacturing one would be as those who would turn a tabernacle of Giotto's into a breeding-hutch of swine. The people thrive on their pure and ambient air, they pass their lives under the unsullied skies, they love laughter, song, and dance ; and still — with the pipe of Cory- don and the smile of Adonis — welcome the harvest night and the village morn. Up in the hills, and in the green places remote from cities, the old, simple, contented pastoral life still prevails, and there the husbandman still follows Christ and recites his Tasso. Maybe he cannot read the words of either : what of that ? Raoul and Passanante, the murderer Prevost, and the murderess Dumaine, could all of them read. Were they the better for it ? •' In its simplicity, in its freedom, in its purity of family affec- tion, and its Greek-like habits of industry, I believe the unspoiled country life of Italy to be the best that remains to humanity on the face of the earth. When the childish pettifoggers of the new school scream with puerile ecstasy at the sight of a railway or a steam-thresher, they know not all the beauty, content, and pious peace that they destroy, only to enrich some Scotch contractor or some Hebrew usurer. " The Italian people, beholding all their old plenty and ancient rights slipping away from them, stand sullen and full of futile wrath to see all that for twice a thousand years has been their own passing into the coffer of the foreign speculator or money- lender. This ruin is called ' Progress ' — and the whole land groans, and the whole people curse " (Appendix to Ouida's Village Commune) . The worshipped idol of material "progress" has turned to clay. Everybody knows on what a brink of threatened bankruptcy the whole of Italy now stands. She soon turned her steps that way ; for between the 56 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. years 1872-77 the enormous number of 40,000 families, about 196,883 persons, were evicted from their little homes because they could not .pay the new heavy taxes of New Italy, and were sent out into beggary and exile (Government Report, quoted by Lo7tdo7i Tablet, Oc- tober 25, 1879). The same evidence is given in the Edinburgh Review, January, 1881, July, 1883; in the Quarterly Review, October, 1882, and in the Nineteenth Century, Februar}^, 1886. It may be worth while to hear the opinion of Mr. Laing, who seems to have been under the impression that the Italians were far behind the English in social well-being and in the comforts of civilized life. One must always keep in mind that Protestant tourists are always looking at a country through the spectacles of "modern progress," whose lenses fail to find a focus upon any object but what represents "money." He was writing of Italy nearly fifty years ago : "To what can this difference be ascribed ? Italy was far ad- vanced — as far in many points as she is at this day — before Eng- land had started in the course of civiHzation, and when Scotland was in a state of gross barbarism. The EngHshman ascribes this to the want of constitutional government ; the Scotchman to the want of pure religious doctrine. The government and religion of a foreign country are two very convenient pack-horses for the traveller. They trot along the road with him, carrying all that he cannot otherwise conveniently dispose of, and the prejudices of his readers prevent any doubt of the burden being laid upon the right beast. But, in reality, no government of the present day, no matter what be its form, is so ignorant of sound principles, so blind to its own interests, and so impregnable to public opinion, as wilfully to keep back, discourage, or attempt to put down in- dustry and civilization. It is in the means they use, not in the end they propose, that modern governments, whether despotically or liberally constituted, differ from each other," etc. ,. o..i« A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 57 The same writer bears testimony to the similar con- dition of the peasantry in Italy which he observed in France, and which is equally true of Spain and Portu- gal, with such happy results, due to the great sub- division of land, in broad contrast to their practical servitude in Protestant countries as little better than helots under the few great landholders. He says : " Scotland, or England, can produce no one tract of land to be ^, compared to this strath of the Arno, not to say for productive- j M ness, because that depends on the soil and climate, which we have not of similar quality to compare, but for industry and intelligence applied to husbandry, for perfect drainage, for irrigation, for garden-like culture, for clean state of crops, for absence of all fixf^j^^^ waste of land, labor, or manure ; for good cultivation and the good condition of the laboring cuttivator. These are points which admit of being compared between one farm and another, in the most distant soils and climates. Our system of large farms will gain nothing in such a comparison with the husbandi-y of Tus- cany, Flanders, or Switzerland under a system of small fartns" {Notes of a Traveller, p. 42). It is rather strange that this clear-headed observer, who notes how much more the people in Catholic coun- tries have possession of the land than in Protestant ones, thus securing a more wide-spread social happiness and true prosperity among them, and giving them a just claim to possess a higher rank in Civilization, should have failed to attribute their blessings to their real cause — the social ideal springing directly from the principles of human fraternity and equality enunciated by the Catholic Church. The modern grasping mo- nopolies, grinding the faces of the poor, are no inven- tions of hers. She has always been the staunch friend of the people and protector of their rights, and the uncom- promising foe to tyranny, let it take what shape it will. 58 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. SPAIN. Our modern worshippers of material progress point also the finger of scorn at Catholic Spain. Trul}^ that country, rejoicing in a once glorious Catholic civiliza- tion, has lost much of her former well-earned honor and place of high rank among the nations, but it is not to her Catholic faith that the blame is to be laid. Spain was never so great as w^hen she was the most Catholic. A modern writer sa^^s of her now : " The literature of^^pain^ejieffs'thatpf every Protestant country in depth, injJijacaL-idJbis, in cdsthotit: splendor ; its painters and architects figure in the first rinV^iu the Panthj^oii of artists ; and it possesses a body of clergy whose bisliop^ astounded the as- sembled Fathers of the Vatican Cqurpl in 1870 by their pro- digious knowledge of science and thetilogy. It possesses monu- ments which are like poems in stone ; it has held the commerce of the whole world in its power ; it has spread humanity through- out half the world, and has alone founded more colonies than all other nations put together." A writer, from whose book {Spain and the Spa7iiards) I shall presently quote a few observations on the character of the Spanish people, laments that so man}' tourists after an ignorant journe}^ through Spain return home and ' ' spread through the circulating libraries the most absurd accusations against the na- tion, of which even the beggar is a gentleman." He himself, Mr. N, L. Thieblin, quondam correspondent for the Pall Mall ^Gazette, went to Spain in 1873 as correspondent for the New York Herald, to report on the ** situation" of Spanish affairs at that period of political disturbance. Being a professed Secularist, and apparentl}' a Nullifidian, he has nothing good in A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 59 his volume to say of the religion of the Spaniards, but he does not fail to say a few things which to the fair- minded reader are clear indications of the noble and pure social character of that people. Such results Catholics point to with just pride as marks of true civil- ization. In another part of this present volume the reader will find further allusions to some of the virtues which have distinguished that singularly noble and virtuous people. Has Spain been the country of a happy people? What esteem have they themselves had for their country? Mr. Thieblin relates a little story, as com- monly told by the country folk, to the effect that when the good King Ferdinand III. reached Paradise the Blessed Virgin bade him ask anj^ favor he wished for his country. So he asked that the people should al- ways have enough oil, garlic, wine, and corn, that the women should be beautiful, the men valiant, and the mules strong, and last of all he asked for a good govern- ment. All the rest the Holy Virgin granted, but not the good government, saying : ** If that were granted to Spain no angel would any longer remain with us in heaven." Here is a bit of evidence of popular happiness in Spain : There are less suicides in that country than in any other in the world. One must go to those " more enlightened and more highly- favored lands,-' about which we hear so much, to find the people so unhappy that numbers of them do not find life worth living. The prevailing notion among many uninstructed Americans is that there has been little or no civil or political liberty in any Catholic country, and least of all in Spain. Nothing could be more erroneous. The 6o A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. best witness I can bring is Don Emilio Castelar, the "Liberal" President of the short-lived Republic in Spain. Our author quotes the following from that *' anti-clerical " politician : " At this day one of the nations most fitted for confederation is our Spain. We do not have the same repubHcan traditions as those possessed by Italy and France. Our people, always at war, have always needed a chief ; and this chief required not only the sword of the soldier to fight, but the sceptre of the monarch to rule. Notwithstanding this ancient monarchical character, there are regions which have been saved from the monarchy and which have preserved their democracy and their republic. There still exists in the north provinces possessed of an autonomy and an independence which gives them points of resemblance to the Swiss cantons. The citizens give neither blood nor tribute to the kings. Their firesides are as sacred from the invasion of au- thority as those of the English or of the Americans. Every town is a republic, or governed by a council elected by the citizens at the summons of the church bell. When the time fixed by their constitution arrives, the representatives of the towns come to- gether in the shade of the secular trees of liberty, vote taxes, draw up or amend laws, name new officers and withdraw the old ones, with the calmness and moderation of a people accustomed to govern themselves in the midst of the agitations of liberty. " And we not only have these living examples of democracy, but we have also democratic traditions—traditions which we call republican. Our Cortes of Castile succeeded frequently in expell- ing the ecclesiastical and aristocratic estates from their sessions. One Cortes of Aragon attained such power that they named the government of their kings and obtained fixed days for their ses- sions. Navarre was a species of republic more or less aristocratic, and the Castilzan municipalities were in the middle ages true democratic republics. All the citizens came to council, elected the alcaldes, and alternated on the jury. They guarded their rights of realty in which the servitude of the tenantry was extin- guished. They all bore arms in the militia, all held safely A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 6 1 guarded the liberties indispensable to life, and they founded to- gether the brotherhood which defended these against feudalism, and which was a genuine federation of plebeians " {Spain and the Spaniards, Thieblin, pp. 323-4). While making a visit to the Carlist camps he became intimately acquainted with General Klio, the oldest of the Carlist leaders, and on his remarking that Don Carlos was commonl}^ recognized as the representative of absolutist theories, he got this information from the general : " You are greatly mistaken if you think that the king ever dreamed of absolute power. The legitimate monarchy in Spain will not only rule with the advice of the Cortes, but will restore all the ancient franchises — the//^(?r^j, as we call them — which have been violated in turn by all the progressive parties. It will support religion, of course. Our enemies say we will overrun the country with monks and priests. That is simply nonsense. If any per- son is disposed to a monastic life, government, it seems to me, has as little business to oppose it as to encourage it " {ibid., p. 56). And here comes in a bit of testimony which might be relegated to the chapter on Education, but might as well be recorded in this place, especialh^ as our writer in several parts of his book repeats the old calumny about the ignorance and illiteracy of the Spanish peo- ple. The general said to him : "Say what you may against the monks, if you studied the Basque provinces, where priests and monks have always been powerful, you would see much in their favor. There is not a single peasant in those provinces — man or woman — who does not write grammatically and in a clear hand the Basque language, and many write equally well the Spanish language too." The general tells us something more about these profoundly Catholic people which is especially worthy 62 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. of note by the popular revilers of the Spaniards on the score of their alleged poverty, lack of political liberty, and immorality. If any such read this, no doubt they will note it ; but will they cease repeating their accusa- tions ? " The good health of these people is the result of their moral- ity. Not only are there no beggars here, but distressing poverty is almost unknown. Much of this is due to the priesthood, and the remainder to what the priests help them to maintain — the ancient privileges of the Basque provinces and Navarre. We en- joyed here, up to Christina's time, the most perfect self-govern- ment, and never knew what conscription meant. Over and over again have I voted here as a landlord of Navarre on a footing of perfect equality with the poorest of my farmers. You are sur- prised at the strength and courage of our young volunteers, some of whom, as you have seen, are scarcely sixteen years old. // is the result of their pure lives, and the absence of the sources of ruin to the young men of other countries" {ibid., p. 58). What had Don Carlos himself to say about the spirit of Spanish liberty? This is what he said to Mr. Thieblin : *' No country in the world is less susceptible of government by absolutism than Spain. It never was so governed, it never will be. The Basque provinces and Navarre have, from time im- memorial, possessed the privileges of the most free countries " {ibid., p. 95). Who wants better testimony than the foregoing that, whether the Spaniards have had to bear with some ad- ministrations of authority bad enough to prevent all the angels deserting Heaven for Spain, as the happier place to live in, certain it is that the Spaniards learned well the doctrines of human fraternity, liberty, and equality, which their holy religion has never ceased to teach them and every other people whose civilization it directed. A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 6t, Concerning- the all-important question of property, the extraordinary equalization of which in Spain will be referred to elsewhere in this volume, Mr. Thieblin has these pertinent observations to make : " That the notions of property will ever reach, among any branch of the Latin race [/. e„ Catholic peoples], the extreme point they have reached in Anglo-Saxon [Protestant] countries is more than doubtful. [God grant they may not !] That the ideas of * vested interests,' for instance, could ever be entertained in any but an Anglo-Saxon head is not probable. But the re- spect for individual property will, on that account, not be lessened. There are not a few acute judges of human affairs who believe that, if anything subversive of the present theories of property is ever brought to bear upon the world, it is sure to come from the English race, amon^ which the blind worship of wealth may finally exasperate millions of suffering and disregarded ifidi- viduals " {ibid., p. 328). And does not Protestantism boast that it is the re- ligion of the English race, and has directed its civil- ization ? The truly civilized man is distinguished for his own self-respect, but no less for his respect for and urbanity shown to those not of his own nation. " I^et a for- eigner," says our author, " come to Spain as a guest, and he is received with open arms, and more hospitably than in any other country." I need not enlarge upon what all the world knows concerning the respect Spaniards have for themselves. "Even the beggar is a gentleman." The dictator Castelar was no secularist in religion. His words are well worth the serious reflection of many an American citizen who fancies that there can be, and appears to be set upon establishing, a social order and a 64 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. ruling power that is not "ordained of God," and who believes that liberty is possible, and that the rights of man can be maintained, even though the "rights of God" are ignored. " I have never believed," says Castelar, " that to dethrone the kings of the earth it was necessary to destroy the idea of God in the conscience, nor the hope of immortality in the soul. I have always believed the contrary — that souls deprived of these great principles fall collapsed in the mire of the earth, to be trodden by the beasts that perish. Give to man a great idea of himself, tell him that he bears God in his conscience and immortality in his life, and you will see him rise by this fortified sentiment of his dignity to reclaim those rights which assure him the noblest in- dependence of his being in Society and in Nature " {ibid., p. 349). Mr. Thieblin is disgusted with the ignorant abuse of the Spanish people by the English and French (and I think he might have added — and not a few Americans) , and then puts this home question : " And who is guilty that that enchanted land has neither remained what it was, nor become what strangers wished her to be ? " How often do we hear the Spanish bull-fights brought up in evidence of the barbarism of that nation. Our author gives an honest, straightforward, and reasonable defence of them, and he must be a strong disputant who can lessen the force of his argument. I note without surprise his testimony that ' ' among no people is the filial or parental bond more affection- ately cherished than in Spain." He thinks them sadly lacking in education — he means in book-learning — ' ' but they fully make up for that by the natural affec- tions and sympathies which animate every Spanish family, of which no idea can be formed by foreigners." What he would call a truly ' ' friendly family circle has A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 65 become an exception to the rule in England, while in Spain it is still the rule with exceptions to it, presented only in Madrid, where foreigners and political jobbers have exercised their wretched influence." One hears a deal about the indolence of the people of Southern Europe ; and why ? Simply because they do not worship the almighty dollar, and do not consider the suninium bonuni of man's existence to consist in the amassing of riches, in working his body to early de- crepitude and his brain to madness in order to get them. Says Mr. Thieblin : "The English are proud of the amount of work they are ca- pable of performing, but the Spaniards are of opinion that the English cannot help working ; for if they did not, they would all have to hang themselves, so dull is their country ; while Spain, everybody knows, is Paradise, and man has no need to work in Paradise. No, the people are not in an ' awful state.' The na- tional existence is proceeding in its usual course ; everybody has somet?iing to eat, a house, a more or less handsome wife, a lot of children, and would not change his existence for a much more comfortable one in the best-regulated country in the world. ... All over the country both poor and rich walk quietly about, enjoying life. . . . The thorough absence of any chance of making money in the English or American fashion makes everybody indifferent and quiet, and the natural fertility of the soil and the Spanish climate do the rest" {ibid., pp. 377-378). An amusing story follows of a London wine mer- chant trying to "make a trade," as w^e Americans phrase it, with a wealthy Spanish grandee for some wine : the Andalusian magnate pressing him to take all he wanted, and the Englishman unable both to com- prehend how a man could give salable goods without pay, and unwilling to accept the wine as a gift. The author indignantly repudiates the calumnious 66 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. charges and insinuations often made against the moral- ity of Spanish women : " What calumnies have not been written or said against the Spanish woman, and what are the merits and virtues — educa- tion [?] excepted — that she does not possess ? . . . You will soon discover, on studying her, that you must take all the virtues of the most virtuous Englishwoman, all the grace and wit of the most graceful and witty Frenchwoman, and all the beauty of the most handsome Italian woman, to make something approaching to a perfect Spanish lady " {ibid., p. 380). He seems quite sure of their ignorance and thinks them "bigoted and superstitious," as the common Protestant thinks all Catholics are, and he regrets that Spanish mothers are not less domesticated and less virtuous on the score of their over-careful home educa- tion of their children. But yet he has to own that one often meets with highly accomplished young ladies, many speaking good English ; and, except among the ver}^ lowest classes, the "French language is more or less spread through all classes." As to feminine morals he adds : " When you come to know these women you will not only ad- mire them, but you will actually experience the contagion of their virtue. At all events, I must confess that in no country in Eu- rope — and I have seen them all — have I found such pure enjoy- ment in intercourse with ladies as in Spain. . . . Such a thing as a young girl marrying for money, or for any social consider- ation, is almost unknown in Spain. . . . Married, she is, I believe, as a rule, the most truthful and loving woman on earth, and should her life prove an unhappy one, no one will ever know it, for she will never carry her complaints either to a divorce court or to the apartments of a paramour." What follows this testimony should properly be re- A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 67 served for the chapters devoted to the special subject of private and public immorality, but it might as well be inserted here : " ' So you mean to say that there is neither immorahty nor adultery in Spain ? ' the reader may ask. No, that is not what I mean to say. But what I do mean to say is, that the comparative percentage of professional vice, and of general looseness of morals, is much lower z?i Spain than in any other country in Europe. The best proof of this is, that the so-called demi-monde, or the kept women, are unknow^n, even in Madrid itself. There are fallen women in the capital of Spain, and in a couple of the large . towns of the Peninsula ; but the total of prostitutes throughout the country is, I believe, much under the number we can daily tneet in one leading street of Paris, London, or Berlin. . . . Conjugal unfaithfulness preserves still, among the Moro-Iberian race, the character of a very rare and exceptional occurrence " {ibid., p. 383). The reader has heard it already more than once, but if there be a truth which I think we people, who are living upon only some diluted traditions of pure and strong Catholic civilization, need to have hammered into our heads it is this one : that the influence of Catho- licism tends to assimilate the morals and manners of all classes. This is how it is shown in Spain, accord- ing to our author's observation : " In the lowest classes you see almost the same merits as you meet with in the highest circles. The wife of a peasant is just as loving to her husband, just as careful about her children, and just as kind to everybody surrounding her as the wife of a grandee. She is even, perhaps, more so. Whether you knock at the door of an inn, or of an isolated farm, all the women of the house come to receive you, and there is not a thing that will be refused to you. If you fall ill, whether it be at a hotel, a lodging-house, or the residence of a friend, you may be perfectly sure of having such 68 A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. kindness and attention paid to you as you could scarcely find in your own home" {ibid., p. 391). And not one word or hint that all these admirable characteristics are without any question whatsoever due to their holy religion, the religion of equality, of per- sonal purity and dignity, of divine Christian charity. But the most entertaining bit of all this author's in- formation is, to my thinking, the following. He had just been lamenting what he calls the wide-spread, shocking "ignorance" of the people: their ignorance of much that is going on in the world, their child-like faith in believing anything you tell them, and their own rather large dealings in gasconade. By ignorance he means, as is evident, what we call " illiteracy " and as ignorantly make synonymous with " ignoi-ance," and not their intelligence, which he takes pains to praise : " We constantly hear Englishmen complaining of the impossi- bility of getting a straightforward answer to a straightforward question, and Spanish newspapers are frequently accused of simply telling lies " ! Oh, dear me ! what enormities : unheard-of in well- schooled countries like America and England, for in- stance ! He does not assert that Spanish newspapers do actually tell lies, but that they are accused of doing so. Well, well! that is some comfort. Everybody knows that English and American newspapers were never even suspected of telling the least little fib ! As to "telling lies where the truth won't fit" their pur- pose, who ever dreamed of accusing them of an enor- mity so utterly foreign, as we know, to all their history and our own experience in lands where the moral in- fluence of Protestantism has made truth, whether by A Glance at some Catholic Countries in Europe. 69 word or in print, the most priceless of all jewels, and the telling of it the most angelic of all virtues ? — Why this sarcasm? Only to introduce the following from Mr. Thieblin : " The more a man is ignorant, or a nation backward, the more they are sure to be credulous and unreHable. . . . And, as a matter of course, the more the religion of a nation or of a man tends to paralyze the spirit of free inquiry, the more they must necessarily be liable to remain behind in this respect. This is one of the chief reasons why people belonging to the Catholic Church, notwithstanding t/ici'r high culture in every other respect, in- variably prove more ignorant and less precise in what they know than those belonging to the Protestant Church " {ibid., p. 401). Surely one cannot say that the spirit either of free inquiry or of free speech suffers from any paralysis in England or America, but as to popular credulity and unreliableness in these piping times, when "credulous and unreliable" Catholics are driven to defend their rights as American citizens against the "protection" of their common liberties by their ' ' more enlightened and more truthful " Protestant brethren, it is a little strange that not one of his fellow-Protestant writers or speakers have dared to question or contradict the Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden's v/ords : "The depth and the density of the popular ignorance which would permit the use of such [lying] documents [as have been employed to deceive the Protestant public] is certainly appalling." O Liberty ! O Knowledge ! I find indeed your names in the dictionaries and the spelling-books, but who shall give us to understand your meaning in the minds and hearts of men, and especially of those men who arrogate to themselves the monopoly of you both ? CHAPTER VI, CATHOLIC CIVILIZATION IN MEXICO. I CANNOT allow myself to omit laying before the reader some observations made b}" two recent Protestant writers on the condition of Mexico and the character of its people : one a fair-minded Protestant tourist, Mr. Thomas A. Janvier, in his Mexican Guide (Scribner's Sons, 1894), and the other a writer whose hostility to the religion of the Mexicans is manifest, Mr. David A. Wells, in his Study of Mexico (Appleton & Co., 1890). There have been such confidentl}" asserted charges circulated privately and openly, made by preachers, newspaper editors and correspondents, against the moral conduct of the Mexican priesthood and people, that I felt sure to find in these authors some alleged evidence of it. And if their immorality of living were indeed so * ' notorious ' ' as one constantly hears when- ever the subject of Mexico is mentioned, the fact could hardly have escaped the notice and comment of these observers. There is not the least allusion to, or hint of it in Mr. Wells's book. His only indictment against the priesthood is, that they are responsible for the wide- spread illiteracy of the people, w^hich, of course, as one might expect, he makes synonj-mous with ignorance, and for their "appalling" backwardness in the adop- tion of recently invented ' ' tools and mechanical appli- ances of production and [of material] civilization " (p. 114). 70 Catholic Civilization in Mexico, 71 I searched with equal diligence through the volume of Mr. Janvier. What did I find there about the priest- hood? — "The parish priests of Mexico, as a class, are men of devout and godly lives, who are entitled to all honor and reverence" (p. 94). Mr. Wells has his fling more than once at the enormous wealth of the Church, in a way to leave the impression that the easy amassing of this wealth was the chief motive of their religious activity. But now that every foot of ground, every church, convent, and charitable institution, every priest's own home, has been ruthlessly confiscated by the government, robbing the Church to pay its own expenses, what does Mr. Janvier tell us of these men ? ♦• Since the Laws of the Rcfoj-m "—[that is what King Henry VIII. of England also called his wholesale robbery of God's pro- perty] — " there is nothing to tempt men to adopt the clerical life save a genuine love of God, and a strong desire to minister to the religious welfare of their fellows, according to His ordinances. Apart from the selfish motive of obtaining from them increased facilities in sight-seeing, most travellers will find much pleasure in the society of these simple-minded and godly-minded men." I searched still closer for evidence ; and I said to myself, The number of reputed illegitimate children, and, in the eye of the ptiblic, chargeable as such, to be found in the Foundling Asylum of the City of Mex- ico wall tell the story. "It has accommodations for more than 200 foundlings," says Mr. Janvier ; but he does not tell us that even that number were in it. " Let us say there were 250 in it ; would this mean 250 re- ceived annually even for a population which, taking in the City of Mexico and the country adjacent from which those foundlings would come, should give 2,500 total births per annum? Oh, no! for of these supposable 72 Catholic Civilization in Mexico. 250 inmates there are a number, says our author, who are ''taught reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, drawing, sacred history, Christian doctrine, polite be- havior [mark that !], and the girls in addition sewing, embroidery, music ! " Where is there room for suspicion even of any ex- cessive immorality in Mexico, city or country? Evidence will be found in another chapter, taken from Seaman.'s Progress of A^ations, showing that the women of all the states of what he calls "Catholic America" are noted for their chastity. What about crime ? Nothing to note in Mr. Janvier's volume. Mr. Wells gives a quotation from an official letter of United States Minister Foster, assert- ing, inferentially, the frequency of highway robber\-, because the railways are strictly guarded by soldiers. Our author evidently agrees with the Mexican govern- ment, which made an official protest against this charge, and quotes a sentence from it : " For every crime against life or property in Mexico a greater number of similar cases that have taken place in the United States could be cited. Moreover, horrible crimes have been com- mitted in the United States, some of which have not e^•en passed through the imagination of the wickedest man in Mexico, such as the robbery of the remains of the philanthropic capitalist A. T. Stewart, in order to get a ransom for them," What is the general character of the people ? Mr. Wells quotes from reports of Consul-General Strother, who found the condition of the laboriiifr clas.'^es hideous in its material coarseness, and intellectual and spiritual poverty. But, says Mr. Wells himself: " With all this, the agricultural laborers of Mexico, both Catholic Civilization in Mexico. 73 Indians and mixed bloods, are most universally spoken of as an industrious, easily-managed, and contented people " (p. 98). A little too "easily managed" one wotild think, when we come to learn of the peaceful submission of these people to the intolerable outrages perpetrated upon them in their property and liberty by the "Re- formed" republican government since the days of Juarez. Here is a trait worth mentioning, though not surprising if found in any Catholic country: " It is understood that Indian blood is no bar to entrance into good society, or to office, if the person is otherwise qualified, and the Indian is not anywhere abused in Mexico, or ejected from the lands which his masters have tilled from time immemorial, as has often been the case in the United States " {^ibid., p. 99). Concerning education I quote one sentence : " The Catholic Church stimulated, as it were, by its mis- fortunes, and apparently unwilling to longer rest under the impu- tation of having neglected education, is also giving much attention to the subject, and is said to be acting upon the principle of immediately establishing two schools wherever, in a given locality, the government, or any of the Protestant denominations, establish one" {ibid., p. 101). I see : that probably explains why, siiice the break- ing out of the glorious Protestant Reformation, Catho- lics established in Europe fifteen more universities than. Protestants (see the chapter on Universities); not because the Church esteems learning — oh, no ! but simply to ' ' get rid of the imputation ' ' which would be made by a lot of slanderous accusers in America "of her having neglected education," before and after Protestantism brought out its torch of intellectual light to make her conscious of her own ' ' besotted Cimmerian 74 Catholic Civilization in Mexico. darkness," as the phrase goes. The Catholic Church had better have saved herself all the trouble and ex- pense. Are the Mexicans honest in their dealings ? Let us hear the same writer : " They ask long credits, they are slow, but pay their bills, make few business compromises and still fewer failures. From actual inspection of books of large houses in Mexico, exhibiting accounts of a series of years, I found that eighty-five to ninety per cent, of long-credit sales were paid in full. Not one American business man in five hundred will succeed in Mexico. The Jews do not seem to fancy the country. Consul-Gcneral Sutton of Matamoros tells the following story illustrative of the good faith in a mercantile transaction of the rancheros of Northern Mexico: ' A German house in interior Mexico contracted for the purchase of two hundred mule-colts, to be delivered a year following ; and payment, at the rate of twenty dollars a pair, was made in ad- vance. [A good testimony to the people's reputation for honesty.] The year elapsed, and the mules were not delivered ; [confidently assured of their honesty] the head of the house would not, how- ever, allow any message of inquiry or reminder to be sent, but remained quiet. A year after the stipulated time the rancheros came in with the mules. There had been a disease and a drought, which had killed the colts the first year. They sent no word, because it was so far, and they did not remember the name of the purchaser. When the firm counted the mules, they found that three had been brought for each pair stipulated and paid for, which was the way the rancheros quietly settled for their unavoid- able breach of contract'" {ibid., pp. 237, 238). Are they civilized in their manners ? " American business men will not succeed in Mexico because their habits, ways, and methods are the antipodes of his own. Our manners are not in accord with the extreme politeness and consideration to be found in Mexico. Neither time nor money has the transcendent value it has with us." Catholic Civilization in Mexico. 75 Wait a bit, good Mr. Wells, until the Freemasons, the Secularists, and Protestants have had time to cut a good wide swath in their Catholic educational field and to sow the seeds of modern material, godless " pro- gress " in it, and the American merchant will not find the extreme polite, sentimental, and honest methods and habits of the Mexicans any longer the antipodes of his own. It may even happen that they will fling their Catholic idols and fetiches into the fire, and, under the influence of Protestantism, become converted to the more intellectual worship of the great American god — the Almighty Dollar. But I pray you that we, as lovers of liberty, should go slow in our attempt to thus civilize this " besottedly ignorant" people, "whose native spirit of indepen- dence," Consul-General Strother tells us, unwarily, "predominates over all other sentiments," in spite of their being, as he thinks, " never completely Christian- ized, but awed by force and showy ceremonials"; for, as you quote from the Voz de Mejico (Voice of Mexico), an able Catholic daily, against admitting American capitalists into the republic : " We (Mexicans) combat the policy of liberalism, which, greedy of material prosperity, and dazzled by the brilliancy of North American progress, would open freely the doors of our frontier to the capital of our neighbors, whose tendencies towards absorption are well known, and who would decorate luxuriously our house, and then install themselves in it definitely, relegating to us the departments of servitude" (p. 216). You silly, benighted Mexicans ! have you yet to learn that your old Christian w^orship of the Holy Ghost, of whom the Redeemer and True Civilizer of the world was conceived (as alleged), is nothing but an effete 76 Catholic Civilisation in Mexico. superstition ? Don't 3^ou know that the Zeitgeist — the Spirit of the Age — is now the Inspirer of all good things? Has not the Zeitgeist shown that it can in- spire two hundred religions in America, when your Holy Ghost has not been able to inspire but one for the whole world ? You miserably stupid and certainl}^ illiterate mule- drivers ! who have such tender con- sciences that yQ\x give three mules for two lest any one should suffer loss by j^our misfortune ; 3'ou have no 'cuteness in j^ou. Truly your ignorance of the ways of the world in this glorious nineteenth century is ' * ap- palling." You ought to be living back in those ages of mediaeval darkness when the foolish saints lived and committed similar acts of unprofitable honest3^ You ought to come up here and take a few lessons in bank- robbing, holding-up railwa}^ trains, in clever bankruptcy and stock-w^atering, and in the manufacture of green goods. There's millions in it ! Don't j^ou see that the Zeitgeist of our advanced civilization is more cunning in wit and stronger of arm than your Christian Holy Ghost; and isn't the stronger the better? Don't you know that the Zeitgeist has reformed your wretched priest-ridden country ? Perhaps you are so stupidly ignorant that you don't even know that 3^ou are re- formed? Well, let me tell you; for I have both a resume 2.n^ some particulars of a pretty piece of reform, by which the reign of your God and His Christ has come to grief, and the reign of the god of this world has 3^ou now in thrall, body and soul. Just read this: " When the Reform was estabhshed, in 1867, the entire property of the Mexican Church was at once ' nationahzed ' (a synonym for confiscation) for the use of the state. Every convent, monastic institution, or rehgious house was closed up and devoted to secu- CatJiolic Civilization in Mexico. yy lar purposes ; and the members of every relig-ious society, from the Jesuits to the Sisters of Charity who served in the hospi- tals or taught in the schools, were banished and summarily sent out of the country. And so vigorously and severely is the policy of subjugating the ecclesiastical to the civil authority still carried out, that no convent or monastery now openly exists in Mexico; and no priest or sister, or any ecclesiastic, can walk the streets in any distinctive costume, or take part in any religious parade or procession. While Catholic worship is still permitted (I) in the cathedrals and in a sufficient number of other churches, it is clear- ly understood that all of these structures [which the Catholics and their pious ancestors consecrated with loving and adoring sacrifice to God], and the land upon which they stand, are absolutely the property of the government, liable to be sold and converted to other uses at any time, and that the officiating clergy are only 'tenants at will.' Even the ringing of the church bells [which to the people was "as the voice of God's angels calling them to wor- ship] is regulated by the government. All those rites, further- more, which the Catholic Church has always classed as among her Holy Sacraments and exclusive privileges, are also now regu- lated by civil law. The civil authority registers births, performs the marriage ceremony and provides for the burial of the dead, and while the Church marriage ceremonies are not prohibited to those who desire them, they are legally superfluous, and alone have no validity whatever" {Study of Mexico, pp. 8i, 82). Mr. Wells shows himself to be specially pleased with some results of this high-handed robbery of the proper- ty which for centuries the believers iii God and Christ had given into the sacred keeping of the Church, to be held and used for the honor and stistenance of their holy religion, and as a patrimony for the poor. To seize the least of it and put it to the service of the world, the flesh, or the devil, was, of course, nothing but sacrilege, a defiant outrage upon the rights of God as well as upon the rights of the people. ^S CatJiolic Civilization in Mexico. And it appears that you "good Mexican Catholics would not buy ' God's property ' when the government put it up for sale." Not so scrupulous were the Protestant ministers and other enemies of your holy faith, who had their agents on hand to profit b}^ the oc- casion. Our observing tourist tells us that — " The former spacious headquarters of the Franciscans, with one of the most elegant and beautifully proportioned chapels in the world within its walls, and fronting in part on the Calle de San Francisco, the most fashionable street in the City of Mexico, was sold to Bishop Riley and a well-known philanthropist of New York, acting for the American Episcopal missions, at an under- stood price of $35,000, and is now valued at over $200,000." There are excellent bargains to be had when one's conscience is not particularly tender on the subject of sacrilege, and when one has the courage to brave the historical ' ' curse ' ' that has so often fallen upon those guilty of participating in it. It appears that this Episcopalian bishop, Riley, so comported himself as to fall under the censure of the American bishops who sent him to Mexico ; whereupon he defied their authority and set up a Mexican Episcopalian Church for himself. They protested against him and he in turn protested against them, in good old orthodox Protestant fashion, and if he remains in possession of the two-hundred- thousand-dollar property, he certainly has the best of it. Your worse than pagan oppressors now mockingly tell 3^ou that as they have, in the name of enlightened progress and liberty, destroyed the power of your priest- hood, 3'ou can claim to be "free citizens in a free state" ; 3^ou can vote, and so prove to the world that you are a republic where the government is "of, hy , and for the people." Wh}^ don't you go down on your Catholic Cyatii^on in Mexico. 79 knees and adore the Zeitgeist? How it would delight all our American hearts to see you proudly walking up to the polls and casting your vote, like freemen, for the man of 3^our choice ! But what is this I hear ? " In the elections for a new Congress during the year 1886 the government so ordered matters as to effectually prevent all an- tagonism to its measures." You voted to secure ' ' a larger measure of indepen- dence and intelligence in your legislation and politics," and 3'ou were counted out, my brothers! — you were "notable to elect one single candidate." But haven't you the right of free speech and a free press ? . . . "Public opinion in Mexico has been defined to be, 'the opinion entertained by the President.'" . . . Popular election (with you) is, therefore, little more than a farce. You have " no census or registration of voters, no scrutiny of the ballot-box except by the party in power, no public meetings or public political dis- cussions, no circulation of newspapers, no peacefully organized political opposition is suffered to exist. The central government for the time being both nominates and counts in what candidates it pleases, and you have no redress." That is what Mr. Wells tells me. Don't you remember how ' ' the editor of the El Monitor Re- publicano, in 1885, was summarily arrested, condemned, and served out a sentence of seven months in the common penitentiary, for his criticisms upon the government"? You foolishly thought that we, your neighbors in the United States, would sympathize with you. The gentleman, who has been telling you all I have written, will remind you that you have a right rather to look upon our Republic as a 8o Catholic Civilization in Mexico. " great, overgrown, immensely powerful * bully,' from whom no favor and scant justice are to be expected under any circum- stances, and who would never hesitate, if interest or selfish in- difTerence prompted, to remorselessly trample down — in the old Anglo-Saxon spirit, and as it always has — any weaker or inferior race, Mexicans, Indians, or Chinese, the poor fisherman of New- foundland, or again the negro, if political sentiment in respect to the latter was not running, for the time being, in another direction; and there is not a nation or people on the face of the globe, which is brought in intimate contact with us, but fears and hates us; and that apart from a conservation of the principle of free government, which the United States is supposed to typify, would not be glad if the power of the Federal government were by some contin- gency to be impaired and destroyed" (pp. 211, 212). I, wlio am a Catholic priest, and, if I know myself, loyal to God and to ni}^ country, cannot endorse these sentiments as representing the true American spirit. No Catholic citizen would himself consent to the ag- grandizement of our national power and prosperity by acts wdiich would justh' bring upon us the loss of the respect of other nations ; neither do I think that the great body of our non-Catholic fellows-citizens would consent to barter their national honor for any such sel- fish gains. But it cannot be denied that there are amongst us not a few narrow-minded souls who would appear to find a certain kind of enjoyment of their own liberties in seeing other nations suffering from the loss of theirs and in sympathizing with whomsoever raises an arm to destroy them. M}^ dear Mexican Catholic brothers, believe me, no true-minded, true-hearted American, Catholic or not, rejoices over your civil and religious enslavement, knowing well that if a like attempt w^ere made upon CatJwlic Civi lization in Mexico. 8 [ their own liberties, they would all die the death to a man sooner than submit to it. But I will tell 3^ou who does sympathize with your God-hating Csesar and his band of oppressors ; with your robbers of God's rights and your own. I will tell you who clapped their hands and applauded them as they signed away your religious liberty with a stroke of the pen, tore down your churches and monasteries and convents, put '" God's property" under the auction- eer's hammer, and drove the servants of God, the comforters of your orphans, your sick and dying poor, and the true defenders of your rights, from the borders of your unhappy country. Who did all this and con- tinue to do so still ? They who hate your religion, and ai"e, as they have ever been, set upon its destruction ; who, with the cry of " civil and religious liberty " in their throats, plot, like base assassins, in their secret lodges against both ; who at this very hour in which I write are striving to bring about in this free Land of Liberty the identical ' ' Reform ' ' by which you have been enslaved : agnostics, infidels, Freemasons, haters of God and of His Christ, thousands of Protestants out of every sect, all joining hands in a common satanic brotherhood of hate and envy to overthrow the liberties of such as you, and ourselves, my Catholic Mexican brothers ! Speaking of the numerous insurrections, revolutions, and civil wars that have taken place in Catholic Amer- ica, and especially in the Catholic West India Islands, Seaman, in his Progress of Nations, says : "Protestants full of prejudice against Catholics charge the Catholic priesthood and the want of pure religion as the cause of nearly all the political troubles; when the truth is, the influence of '3? r^- 82 Catholic Civilization in Mexico. the Catholic Church and priesthood is conservative and quieting, generally counselling submission to the administration in power, and very rarely encouraging revolutions, or a revolutionary spirit, except when deemed necessary to protect the property or power of the Church. " Protestantism is much more progressive \sic\ in its spirit than Catholicism— more ambitious to propagate its principles and doctrines, and to promote political liberty and the material welfare of the people ; and therefore more revolutionary in its tendencies " (p. 501). That Protestantism is revolutionary in its spirit is plain enough ; but that it promotes political libert}^ and the material welfare of the people needs more proof than its past history can show in countries where it has influ- enced the councils of state. We would like to be shown w4ien and where Protestantism by its fundamen- tal doctrines and in practice has ever defended the rights and liberties of the people against the encroach- ments of tyrannical absolutism. It has ever been, and ever sought to make itself, the creature of the ruling power ; and where it is not thus supported and upheld, in wdiat country to-day can it show its influence widen- ing among the masses of the people ? If ' ' the people ' ' love and trust the Catholic Church, and stick to her through good and evil report, it is because they know who is their true and loyal friend, and protector of their rights ; and if the Mexicans wall but be loyal to her, they shall come to their own again. CHAPTER VII. CIVIUZATION OF BARBAROUS NATIONS. THE Catholic religion is still, as it ever has been, the great and only civilizing force in the world. It is the power of truth and holiness which overcomes social and moral degradation. That the Church has succeeded is, therefore, not wonderful. Hers is the divine mission to preach the Gospel of man's Redemp- tion from barbaric as well as from pagan depravity. Protestantism never civilized one barbarous nation. It has claimed to have converted the Sandwich island- ers to its form of Christianity ; but did it civilize them ? Did it succeed in the first element of civiliza- tion, that of national self-preservation and numerical increase of the population ? Here is a contrast : The census of the Sandwich Islands made by the Protestant missionaries in 1823 gave 142,000 natives. In 1878 they were reduced to 44,088 ; in 1890, to only 34,436. The natives of the Philippine Islands were converted by Catholic Spanish missionaries in the six- teenth century. The population in 1833 was 3,153,290; in 1877, 5,561,232; and in 1893, 7,000,000 {Encyc. Brit, and Statesman's Year Book^ 1893). A Protestant writer, who is very far from being sus- pected of allowing himself to say anything more in favor of the influence of the Catholic religion than lie^ could help, offers us this testimony : " Spanish power and law gave peace and tranquillity to the na- tive tribes of the Phihppine Islands, which, of all things in the 83 84 Civilization of Barbarous Nations. world, is most needed by savage and semi-barbarous peoples ; and hence even the Malays have improved under the dominion of Spain." After noting the rapid decrease of the Sandwich islanders, threatening total extinction, this same author attributes it to the utter lack of chastity among them, and the loathsome, destructive diseases resulting from their immoralities ; and adds : " The physical laws of God are inexorable ; and, as their pro- fessions of Christianity [?] cannot save them from dissolute con- duct and disease, it cannot save them from premature death, nor from destruction as a people" (The Progress of Nations in Civilisation, Productive Industry, Wealth, and Population, by Ezra C. Seaman. Second Series, 1868). What a comment upon the power of Protestant Christianity in the work of civilization ! Now that nearly one-half of the poor remaining Kanakas have become Catholics, there may be some hope that the native race will not become wholly extinct in the Sand- wich Islands, There could not have been presented to Protestant- ism a fairer field, or more favorable opportunity, to show what it could do in the work of civilizing a bar- barous people than it had in Hawaii. The American Missionary Board sent its two zealous missionaries, Messrs. Bingham and Thurston, there in 1820. They were received with open arms by the queen, installed as her chief advisers, made practically governors of the island, and allowed to make their Protestantism the state religion. The natives were forced by law to at- tend their instructions, and w^ere baptized or not as the missionaries decided. They had full control, and used Civilization of Barbarous Nations. 85 it, when two . Catholic missionaries landed there, in punishing as criminals all natives who became Catho- lics, and they very soon expelled the priests from the island. Every means was then resorted to in order to compel the Catholic converts to become Protestants, even to condemning the women to penal servitude on the public works for life. Then the Protestant mission- aries made themselves and families into a landed aris- tocracy of planters, set up an imitation constitutional monarchy, and the simple savages soon found them- selves and their land practically owned by these so- called Christians, who had come to civilize them and their countr}^ and give them the blessings of modern progress. Whether the horses or cattle began to die out, as the poor natives soon did under the influence of Protestant American Missionary Board civilization, I do not know ; but it came to be a common thing for their white masters to make use of them to draw their carriages, and to treat them with great severit}', as if they were dumb and obstinate brutes. As to the work of imparting Christian civilization to them, there never could be a more disastrous and shameful failure. No wonder the American Missionary Board stopped its supplies in 1850, withdrew from all further responsi- bility, and left the wretched, dying people to their fate. I made brief mention of the far different fortune that befell the Philippine Islands, under Catholic coloniza- tion and religious teaching, as a contrast to the work of Protestantism in Hawaii ; but a more striking contrast, perhaps, might be made between the Protestant degra- dation and decimation of that island, and what was accomplished by Catholic missionaries in other islands 86 Civilization of Barbarous Nations. of the Polynesian group — the Gambler Islands, Wallis and Futana, in the South Pacific. The people were of the same race, with similar lan- guage, cannibalism and other savage institutions, and heathen superstitions. When the Catholic missiona- ries arrived there in 1840 they found the natives in pretty much the same state as the Protestant missiona- ries found those of the Sandwich Islands. But, fortu- nately for them, the latter contented themselves with applying their energies after their own fashion in Hawaii, and left these islands to the merc}^ of the Catholic priests. In a few years the whole popula- tion of these ' * priest-ridden ' ' islands had received Christian instruction and baptism. The people were not robbed of their lands, but were taught to cultivate them. Their population had been rapidly decreasing, they said, on account of their savage wars with one another before the Catholic missionaries reached their shores. From them they soon learned the arts of peace, and the native populations began to steadily grow in numbers and in material prosperity ; and, as a recent writer observes : " These islands form, at the present moment, the only branch of the Polyne- sian race which can be fairly said to live and thrive." This morning's New York Herald (April 22,, 1894) furnishes me with the following interesting and timely account of the character and doings of the Protestant missionaries, Hiram Bingham and others, and wdiich is so apropos to my present subject, that I insert it here. Probably the investigations of the claims made may result in furnishing further instructive matter illustrative of Protestant methods of preaching the Gospel, etc., and of civilizing barbarous nations. Civilization of Barbarous Nations. ^J HAWAII'S $1,000,000 CI.AIM. A Demand for Heavy Damages to be filed against the United States Government. Honolulu, April 5, 1894.— A racy chapter of half-forgotten Hawaiian history is likely to cause a sensation in the United States, and particularly in the ranks of the American Board of Foreign Missions, within the next three months. It is nothing less than the filing of a claim for $1,000,000 against the United States government. The claim is based on alleged robberies by the missionaries of 1826, led by Hiram Bingham and abetted by Captain Jones and his men, of the United States sloop-of-war Peacock. The story of how the poor natives were compelled at the cannon's mouth to raise property worth $1,000,000 for those who came in the name of Christ to save their souls, is like a chapter from the history of buccaneering in the days of Spanish suprem- acy. The message-bearers of 1826 were not so devout as to train their minds wholly on spiritual things, for some were shrewd traders. In their strange dual capacity of half-priest and half- Yankee trader they carried a large stock of looking-glasses and small hand-mirrors, bonnets and clothing from ancient and shop- worn stocks in Boston. The natives bought freely of these wares, and when the early chiefs hesitated on account of hard times, they were charitably given unlimited credit. Though they knew nothing about the devouring principle of compound interest, they hesitated to accept credit ; but were finally coaxed to buy the goods offered, lest their refusal to pur- chase be construed as an insult to their ingenious visitors. In buying Christian goods at the prices current in early church cir- cles, they believed they were pleasing the Lord. Later, they were surprised by a demand for immediate payment in sandal-wood, which then brought very high prices in China. They were by this time hopelessly involved to the extent of nearly $1,000,000 indebtedness. The chief items were looking-glasses, which were sold for sums ranging from $150 to $r,ooo each. The smallest hand-mirrors brought $150, and it is said it was a fad in 1826 for 88 Civilization of Barbarous Nations. every young buck Kanaka to buy each of his sweethearts — all had several — a hand-mirror. There was no excuse for non- compliance with the custom, because the Hawaiian lassies knew that the message-bearers refused credit to none. But the awful day of reckoning overtook the people one bright morning in June, 1826, when the war-sloop Peacock arrived in Hawaiian waters. They had seen war-ships before, but none had ever come save on a friendly mission. The unexpected arrival of the Peacock excited the native curiosity, the more particularly be- cause its commander was often seen in close consultation with Hiram Bingham, Hunnewell and company, and other missionaries. Finally, some of the chiefs were summoned before Commander Jones, of the Peacock, who questioned them severely as to why their people had not paid for goods sold and delivered them by the missionaries. Hiram Bingham was the interpreter for the commander, and though he wrote an extended history of the Hawaiian Islands, he nowhere in any manner hints at the re- markable claim of a million dollars which was collected at the bayonet's point. After the taking of a brief amount of ex-parte evidence, Com- mander Jones concluded that the claims were all just, and he sent King Kamehameha word that the sum must be paid or he would enforce it in the name of the United States. In reporting the matter to Hon. Ogden Hoffman, who was then in Congress, Com- mander Jones said, in 1838: "We compelled the natives to pay nearly $1,000,000 to worthy citizens of the United States." After coercing the king and chiefs, it was decided to compel the promulgation of a law obliging every able-bodied man to scour the mountains for sandal-wood, while the women (by which term all females over thirteen years of age were included) were compelled to contribute tapa cloth and rare mats. All these goods were sold in China by the missionaries. The gathering of the amount of sandal-wooH required was a great hardship, for it required an average of sixteen days' labor by each man. Trees were dug up by the roots and the richly scented wood was, as a result, exterminated in all the Hawaiian islands. The method of collecting the tribute is thus described by Commander Jones in Civilization of Barbarous Nations. 89 the letter to Hon. Ogden Hoffman : " Every man had to deHver half a pecul (sixty- seven pounds) of good sandal-wood to the governor of the district of his residence before September i, 1827. In case of no sandal-wood, we took four Spanish dollars, or any- thing conveniently at hand worth that sum. No person, except those who were infirm or too advanced in age to go to the moun- tains, was exempt from the demand." Continuing, the commander who enforced the claim says: " Every woman of the age of thirteen years or upward had to pay a mat twelve feet long and six feet wide, or tapa cloth of equal value, or to the sum of one Spanish dollar. All of this property had to be put in designated houses, and never to be removed or applied to any other purpose except the liquidation of the debts designated." These laws were promulgated by King Kamehameha III. dur- ing his minority, and after the destructive character of American cannon had been explained to him during some vivid target prac- tice. Modern educated Hawaiians have hired Paul Neumann as their attorney to investigate these matters, and he will soon file a claim at Washington for the ^1,000,000 exacted and compound interest since 1826. — Special Correspondence of the Herald. The work of civilizing and Christianizing barbarous tribes cannot be otherwise than a most adventurous and often dangerous undertaking, ahnost impossible to be regarded in au}^ other light by the natives them- selves than as an intended conquest of their persons and lands by hostile strangers. They could hardly be credited with any other motive for coming amongst them than that which would induce any one of these wild races itself to invade the domain of another ; viz., to reduce the other to slavery. It is no wonder, then, that even the Spaniards, the greatest and the most suc- cessful of all colonizers the world has known, should have come into deadly conflict with the very people to whom they came, bringing the blessings of the go Civilization of Barbarous Nations. Christian faith and civilization. Their first act after setting foot upon an unknown shore was always to set up the Cross, the sign of Peace and lyove ; and they had been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the funda- mental principle of their Catholic faith, that all men are equal before God and all redeemed by Jesus Christ, that it was quite impossible they should be filled with a desire to maltreat or exterminate the heathen savages whose conversion to Christianity they looked upon themselves as being providentially commissioned to secure first and above all other objects. All history testifies that these Catholic pioneers for Christ never lost sight of this high and holy mission, even when it records after scenes of bloody conquest and deplorable cruelties, resulting chiefly from the attacks made upon them by ferocious and insidious foes. The most conclusive evidence that the Spanish colonizers sought and continued to seek, above all, the civilization and conversion of the aboriginal nations they came upon and of whom they soon became the masters, is that they preserved them as a people, acknowledged the common equality and dignity of their manhood by intermarriage, elevating their women to the position of Christian wives and mothers, not overrunning the land of the natives with people of their own superior race, but educating them to become Christian possessors of their own countr}^ ; they, the conquering power, always remaining in an almost insignificant minority, even to this day. CHAPTER VIII. ''CATHOI.IC AMERICA." CIVIIvIZATlON AMONG THE vSOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS. ONE of the most interesting chapters in Seaman's Progress of Nations, already alluded to, is that en- titled " Catholic America." And the testimony of the writer is all the more powerful as it is quite evident he loves not Rome, nor anything that is hers. He more than once expresses his judgment that Protestantism, as a religion, is more progressive and adapted to secure a more advanced civilization than Catholicism, but no- w^here in his book do w^e find him able to present any practical proofs of it. On the contrary, every record is in favor of the Catholic Church and of peoples under her influence. What he has to say of the beneficent re- sults of that influence in summing up his detailed view of "Catholic America" — including Mexico, Central, and all of South America — is well worthy of quotation : " It should be remembered, to the credit of the Spanish and Portuguese colonists, and the Catholic missionaries and Catholic policy, that they have been the means of changing the habits of life, and of civilizing more than twenty millions of American Indians and mixed breeds ; while the Anglo-Saxon and German colonists and peoples have scarcely exerted any favorable in- fluence upon the mind, the character, or the habits of life_^of more than one hundred and twenty thousand of the descendants of the aborigines of our country. The English, Scotch, and German colonists to America had no regard, and scarcely any feelings of 91 92 ** Catholic America.''' humanity, for the aborigines ; they treated the Indians as savages, whose condition was nearly hopeless ; as a race so degraded that it was not profitable to have much intercourse with them ; inter- marriages of the whites with them has been generally regarded as degrading, and in some of the colonies and states prohibited by law ; and no efforts have been made to subject them to law, to incorporate them into the society of the white people as laborers and citizens, to restrain their vagrant habits, and to teach them industry by a system moderately and humanely coercive, as the youth of all civilized countries are taught to labor. " The Catholic colonists and states have pursued a very dif- ferent policy. They have regarded the Indians as a part of the human family, as having capacities for improvement as well as souls\o be saved; and hence they mingled with the Indians, in- termarried with them, subjected them to their laws as laborers and subjects, or citizens; taught them many of the useful arts, and how to work and habits of industry ; im.proved their physical as well as their mental condition ; restrained them from wars among themselves ; raised them in the scale of civilization ; and converted them into peaceable, quiet, and reasonably industrious citizens. The result of the Catholic policy is, that the Indians and mixed breeds of the Catholic nations of America now number more than twenty viillions ; while among the Protestant peoples of the United States and the British Provinces they number but little over half a million. The question arises, Which is the humane and Christian, and which the worldly and selfish policy ? " Most writers, on sober, second thought, are general- ly disposed to express their admiration or reproach in more guarded and less laudatory or condemnatory terms. The foregoing writer shows the depth of his conviction of the truth of what he had said in his Progress of Nations about Catholic civilization in Mexico and South America, when, in his second work on The American System of Government (1870, page 64), he is still more emphatic: ** Catholic America^ 93 " With our boasted free institutions, Protestant civilization, and exclusive spirit, keeping our own Indians at arm's length, we have succeeded in half-civilizing about one hundred thousand, during a period of two hundred and fifty years " [the one hundred thousand left after the extermination of all the others] ; " whilst our Spanish American neighbors, with the aid of the Catholic priesthood, by mixing \\\\.\\ and intermarrying with the Indians, extending to them the civilizing agencies of law and government, have subjected to law, to the Gospel, Catholic cfvilization, and to some degree of regular industry, and raised to a higher grade of civilization than exists among the tribes of our Indian Territory, more than twelve millions of the full-blooded and half-breed de- scendants of the aborigines of America. Truly we have no reason to be proud of our success, in promoting the welfare of the Indian race." Yes, my dear Mr. Seaman, you are right : we have small reason indeed to be proud of our new method of civilizing Indians. But then you know our maxim : " The only good Indian is a dead one." OUR NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. The very just remarks of Mr. Seaman lead one quite naturally to ask the question : Among so-called Chris- tian denominations which one has labored to civilize and Christianize our own American Indians ? Which one has treated them as a part of the human family, having capacities for improvement as well as souls to be saved ? Let the marvellous history of the heroic Catholic French Jesuit Missionaries among the most savage tribes make reply, to say nothing of the con- stant, unwearied efforts of other such self-sacrificing heralds of Christ. From whose lips have the warlike savages been willing to listen to the story of the Cross, 94 ** Catholic America ^ and learned to love and adore Him who died thereon for them, but from the Black Robe's? In whom -did they find a brother, a friend, a protector, a teacher, a comforter, but in the "dear Black Robe"? Who alone has been able to prove that the Christian reli- gion has the magic power to transform the wild and merciless savage into a man of justice and peace, and impose upon his brutal and sensual passionate pagan nature the difficult restraints of Christian chastity ? The " holy Black Robe." But who now, standing by and witnessing all this, and confessedly powerless to perform the like wonders of nature and miracles of grace, are filled with jealousy and envy, and to-day are stirring up their people to pass obstructive laws de- signed to lessen, as they hope, the beneficent influence of the Black Robe and of the faith which inspires his life of divine charity among the few Indians they and theirs have not yet exterminated ? The Protestant bishops and ministers. Not that they want to take upon their hands the same self-sacrificing labors for the poor savages. That would not suit either their "superior Protestant refined taste and intellectuality ' ' or the pockets of their rich people, upon whom the demands of their own luxurious civilization weigh so heavily. What, then, do they want ? They want to stop the onward progress of Catholicism whensoever and wheresoever it appears. * ' X,et the Great Father at Washington send us the dear Black Robes, the Catholic priests and the Catholic sisters, ' * cr}^ the Indians to the government which took their lands from them and bound itself by solemn treaty to hold the price thereof in trust as guardian of their civil and religions rights — "send us the Black Robes Catholic America y , 95 to love and teach us and our children how to live and serve the Great Spirit, for we love them and will hear and obey them gladly." " Nay,-" say these religious dogs in the manger, " but ye shall not have your Black Robes, nor eat of the Bread of Everlasting Life from their hands. Ye shall eat only of state straw, threshed clear of the soul- nourishing wheat of Christian religion, whether of the Black Robe kind or of our numerous kinds. Let the state bind its own hands by force of constitutional laws, that it may not employ either of us as its agents to fulfil its bounden obligations towards you." Oh! 'tis pity,, and pity 'tis, 'tis true! That is how it stands with the Indians to-day, to say nothing of millions more of those whose skins are whiter, though their souls are none the more precious in the sight of God for that, but whose freedom, as well as that of their Christian Indian brethren, to know, love, and serve Him, the state is equally bound, under pain of being branded on the page of history as guilty of tyranny, to secure and defend against all attacks. Mr. Seaman, the author already quoted, presents us with many points of comparison between Catholic and Protestant influence in those countries inhabited by similar races. Our Protestant writers and orators are fond of pointing the finger of scorn at those peoples whom no one can deny have been most successfully civilized by the Catholic Church, according to their natural abilities to receive social improvement, as Mr. Seaman so forcibly acknowledges, and also proves in various parts of his book. Let us quote a few remarks of his concerning not only the nations under Catholic, but also under Protestant influence. He says of all 96 , '* Catholic ADierica.''' the countries comprised under the title of " Catholic America " : " The Indians of those countries, and the mixed breeds of Indian and white descent, are a chaste and industrious, sober- minded, and quiet people, compared with tlie negroes and mu- lattoes of the British West Indies, who have been corrupted by lax laws and pohtical ambition ; and hence the former are a better population than the latter for the support of free institu- tions — though their grade of intellect is no higher " (Pros^ress of Natiojis, p. 526). My remark thereon is, that if Protestantism pro- motes a purer civilization than Catholicism, here was a chance to show it ; and it evidently failed miserably. Of Chili he says, after noting the remarkable in- crease in population, industry, and education : " Verily, it seems possible for even a mongrel people, under Spanish-American (Catholic) domination, to make great progress in a temperate and good climate and under favorable circum- stances " (p. 541). Of Paraguay he says : " The influence of the Jesuits and [other] Catholic missionaries in civilizing the Indians and teaching them industry must have been efBcient to produce such remarkable results. No such re- sults have ever been produced among a mongrel people, of infe- rior natural intellect, in a hot climate " (p. 546). PROTESTANT CIVILIZATION IN THE WEST INDIES. Now for a contrast. The reader will please recall what Mr. Seaman said about the chastity of the Catho- lic Indians and mixed races in ever}' country in Catho- lic America. Quoting from the work of Mr. William G. Sewall, a correspondent of the New York Times ^ he CatJiolic America.'' 97 says of the West India Islands, under British Protestant influence. First of the Island of Barbadoes : " Among their other vices, immorahty and promiscuous inter- course of the sexes are ahiiost universal. From the last census it appears that more than half of the children born there are illegitimate." Of Trinidad : " The amalgamation of the European and African races is even more general in Trinidad than in Barbadoes. In Port-of- Spain the ratio of births is 136 illegitimate to 100 legitimate — an exhibition of morality considerably below that of (Catholic) Havana." Again, of Kingston, in Jamaica, he says : " The inhabitants taken en masse are steeped in immorality promiscuous intercourse is the rule ; illegitimacy exceeds legiti- macy, abortion and infanticide are not unknown." Quoting from The American Missionary journal for July, 1865, in relation to the people generally of the Island of Jamaica, he says : "A man may bel'a drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a pro- fane man, a forni9^tor, an adulter^, and sujchjjjv^^and be known to be such, and/^olto ofta^pel ap^lT^W^friTrs head there, and feel no disgrac^,^m)m tliese tHin^, because they are so cojnmon as to create a public sentiment in his favor y Mr. Seaman thus sums up : " Such is the character for chastity [italics his own] of the people of the West Indies. Such is the state of society in the finest tropical regions of the world, under Anglo-Saxon rule, Christian influences, and Protestant institutions, with many educa- tional advantages, and among a generation of people but few of 98 " Catholic America^ whom have ever been slaves. . . . Society in all the British islands is shockingly demoralized : indolence, frivolous amuse- ments, and licentiousness reign triumphant ; industry and enter- prise are paralyzed in most of the islands, everything is retrograd- ing except the business of getting and raising illegitimate children ; and it appears as if nothing but Asiatic laborers could save the islands from sinking into barbarism" (pp. 518-19). All these low conditions of civilization, in a society chiefly composed of inferior races and having no other moral control over the individual, the family, and the social order than what Protestantism can assert and maintain, need not surprise us. We are sad witnesses to its lack of the same necessary control over these three elements of civilization in more enlightened na- tions. It preaches moral doctrines to the individual, but is utterly powerless to enforce their acceptance ; it practically denies the divine sanction of the family, and cannot motild one homogeneous order of society out of people of different nations, because it fails to assert and uphold the Christian doctrine of the equality of human nature in all men. When men who are not easily mis- led by appeals to ignorant prejudice are told to " look at Mexico, at South America, and all similar countries under the influence of Catholicism," they will take the speaker at his word and look at them as the Catholic Church has dealt with them, from the first moment that she displayed before their barbarous, untutored gaze the banner of the Cross, the emblem of all true civiliza- tion, until the present time. The only possible judgment that can be made will be, that if these savage tribes had not been preserved and brought to their present state of civilization and faith in Christ by the Catholic Church, no other power " Catholic America,^'' 99 either could or would have accomplished the same results. It will be time enough to tell us to look at this truly glorious w^ork of the Catholic Church, wath the view of exposing her alleged deficiencies, when Protestantism can point out to us .some of its own attempts at civiliz- ing a similar people and show that it has done better. Done better ? We shall be quite content if we can be shown one instance where Protestantism has done any- thing at all except to degrade and decimate any bar- barous peoples it has attempted to civilize. CHAPTER IX. PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN. TO properl}' displa}" to the mind of a reader who has not made himself acquainted with the phenome- nal success of Catholic missionary work among the heathen, and the discouraging failure of Protestants in the same field, despite their earnest efforts backed up with untold millions of money, would require a large volume. I content myself with presenting the follow- ing testimony. Short as is this piece of evidence, it may truly be said that it is an example of all the vari- ous missionary efforts of Protestants in every country. Dr. Isaac Taylor, Protestant Canon of York, in an article on "The Great Missionary Failure," in the Forbiightly Revieiv, October, 1888, says: " Upwards of a million sterling is annually raised in this coun- try for Protestant missions, and probably another million in America and on the Continent of Europe. About 6,000 European and American missionaries and some 30,000 native agents are employed. Clearly there is no lack of men or means" (p. 448). After showing the general failure of the Protestant missionaries in India, China, Egypt, Persia, Palestine, Arabia, and Africa, Canon Taylor proceeds to answer the question, " Why do they fail? " as follows : " Let Dr. Legge, a missionary of thirty-four years standing, speak. He thinks that we shall fail to make converts so long as Christianity presents itself infected with the bitter internal ani- Protestant and Catholic Missions to the Heathen. loi mosities of Christian sects, and associated in the minds of the natives with the drunkenness, the profligacy, and the gigantic social evil conspicuous among Christian nations. Bishop Steere thought that the two greatest hindrances to success were the squabbles of missionaries among themselves, and the rivalry of the societies — there are 224 of them — who tout for converts. " The internal animosity of Christian sects is well illustrated by the report of Mr. Squires, the local secretary of the Church Mis- sionary Society in the Bombay Presidency, who states that * one of the greatest hindrances to missionary effort ' is the existence of so many Christians who do not belong to any of the Protestant societies. Strange to say, the existence of so many Christians is a great hindrance to the spread of Christianity! Mr. Squire's, with his ninety-seven assistants, baptized last year thirty-six adults and ninety-two children, at a cost of ^9,441. 7s. id. ; and the converts made by his society, after sixty-six years of labor, do not amount to 2,000, while the devoted Roman priests are converting, edu- cating, and consoling thousands upon thousands, at a nominal cost, which comes, not from any wealthy society, but mainly from the converts themselves " (p. 493). " In spite of the prodigal expenditure of the Protestant so- cieties, three-fourths of the native Christians in India are de- scendants of the converts of the early Jesuits. In those districts where Xavier labored, ninety per cent, of the native Christians are Roman Catholics. In Travancore alone there are half a million of them, twice as many as the Church of England societies can claim in the whole of Africa and Asia " (p. 497). "Sir W. Hunter reminds us that for the last twenty-four cen- turies every preacher who has appealed to the popular heart has cut himself off from the world by a solemn act, like the Great Renunciation of Buddha. He must be an ascetic, and must come forth from his solitary communings with a message to his fellow- men. Our missionaries have not these qualifications. He tells us that the natives regard a missionary as ' a charitable Englishman who keeps an excellent cheap school, speaks the language well, preaches a European form of their old incarnations and triads, and drives out his wife and his little ones in a pony-carriage.' I02 Protestant arid Catholic Missions to the Heathen. The pony-carriage is obviously fatal to the missionaries' influence. If St. Paul, before starting on one of his missionary journeys, had required St. James and a committee at Jerusalem to guarantee him ^300 a year, paid quarterly, and had provided him with a shady bungalow, a punkah, a pony-carriage, and a wife, he would not have changed the history of the world " (p. 498). " I believe our methods are not only unsuccessful, but al- together wrong. We must return to those methods which were crowned with such marvellous triumphs in the centuries which saw the conversion of the Roman Empire and of the northern na- tions [by the Catholic Church]. The modern method is to hire a class of professional missionaries, a mercenary army, which, like other mercenary armies, may be admirably disciplined and may earn its pay, but will never do the work of the real soldiers of the Cross. The hireling may be an excellent hireling, but for all that he is only a hireling. If the work is to be done we must have men influenced with the apostolic spirit, the spirit of St. Paul, of St. Columba, St. Columbanus, and St. Xavier. These men brought whole nations to Christ, and such men only, if such men can be found, will reap the harvest of the heathen world. They must serve, not for pay but solely for the love of God. They must give up all European comforts and European society, and cast in their lot with the natives, and live as the natives live, counting their lives for naught, and striving to make converts, not by the help of Paley's Evidences, but by the great renunciation which enabled Gautama to gain so many millions of disciples. . . General Gordon, a zealous Puritan Protestant, if ever there was one, found none but the Roman Catholics who came up to his ideal of the absolute self-devotion of the apostolic mission- ary. In China he found the Protestant missionaries with comfort- able salaries of ;/;3oo a year, preferring to stay on the coast, while the Roman priests left Europe never to return, living in the in- terior with the natives as the natives lived, without wife, or child, or salary, or comforts, or society. Hence these priests succeed as they deserve to succeed, while the professional Protestant mission- ary fails. True missionary work is necessarily heroic work, and heroic work can only be done by heroes. Men not cast in the heroic mould are only encumbrances" (pp.499, 500). Protestant and Catholic Missions to the Heathen. 103 The question is pertinent : How did it happen that the Protestants, who had absolute control of both throne and people in the Sandwich Islands, and claimed to have converted the natives to Protestantism were not able to hold them ? Almost one-half of the remain- ing Kanakas are already Catholics. Good specimens of Catholic missionaries are seen in such men as the world-renowned Father Damien and his devoted successors. Fathers Conrady and Wendelin, now giving their lives to the spiritual consolation and bodily comfort of the afflicted lepers of Molokai. It would take a volume to simply record the names of the magnificently heroic Catholic missionaries whose amazing sacrifices and singular success in convert- ing heathen people to Christianity have found place in history. When the Church selects these heralds of faith and of Christian civilization, she takes those who at her own feet have learned the sublime lesson of self-sacrifice — the giving up of everything, houses, lands, money, fame, home, and friends, for Christ's sake, to go whithersoever she may send them, and endure wath joy whatsoever may befall them. If the reader wishes to know the full and true story of Modern Christian Missions, Protestant and Catholic, he should read that exhaustive standard work, Christian Missio7is : their Age^its and their Results, by T. W. M. Marshall. CHAPTER X. GOOD MANNERS. IHAVK already alluded to the singular power of the Catholic Church in civilizing the "manners" of the people of every nation that has come under her in- fluence. Her success is, of course, due to her perse- vering inculcation of the Christian doctrine of the per- fect equality of human nature in all men — kings and peasants, noble and common, rich and poor, freeman, serf, and slave, black and white, " Gentile or Jew, Greek or barbarian." The motto of her gospel of civilization to the nations has been : Liberty, Equality, Frater- nity—all free, all equal, all brethren in Jesus Christ, and all to so regard one another. She, and she alone, has been able to preach to Avarring peoples, " Love thy neighbor as thyself, ' ' and to bring them at last to heed her words, leavening their whole social life with this doctrine of divine charity and human brotherhood. This elevating, refining influence of the Church upon, all classes alike is recognized by every observant traveller. That the high-born and wealthy should ex- hibit special social culture is not surprising, but that the rudest of Catholic peasantry should not be a whit behind their social superiors is often commented upon and admired, though the cause is generally unsus- pected. It is also a matter of comment that the illiterate and poor in Catholic countries are far more civilized in this respect than are the corresponding classes in Protestant Good Maimers. 105 nations. Compare the unlettered Italian, f^rench, Span- ish, or Irish peasantry with the unlettered Protestant Germans, English, and even Americans. The former are full of personal dignity, manliness, courtesy of man- ner, refined feeling, delicate sentiment ; and have even a cultivated taste for the fine arts, notably those of Italy and Spain ; to say nothing of their knowledge of their religion, and, at least, praiseworthy practice of it. In all these respects the latter are, as a class, strikingly inferior, and a large number utterly lacking. The Scotch travelled obser\-er, Samuel Laing, notes this general taste for the fine arts in Catholic countries, but does not think the absence of it among the English any proof of a lack of intellectuality. In this opinion there are few, if any, who are likely to agree with him. He says : " Music, painting, architecture, sculpture, dancing, cooking, all the arts, fine or not fine, have but little hold of the public mind with us. It is one of the strongest characteristics of the British people that all the sports and amusements of every rank and class must, to be popular, occupy the intellectual powers, the judgment of the individual." Here is how he finds the popular British mind oc- cupying its superior intellectual powers : " Hunting, shooting, horse-racing, boat-sailing, all amusements in which judgment is exercised, and individuality is called into play, should it be only in betting upon the most absurd objects, have so decided a preponderance in the national mind, that it is altogether a hopeless attempt to instil mto our lower or middle classes anything like the passive taste for music or painting that prevails in foreign countries. I cannot think this any proof of a want of intellectuality in a people. Be it so or not, it is undeni- able that in the character of the people of Britain, even of the io6 Good Manners. higher classes, there is no feeling for the fine arts, no foundation for them, no esteem for them" (Notes of a Traveller, pp. 441, 442). As to religion, one is not surprised to hear many of the Protestant illiterate and poor speak of it with con- tempt, and brag that they have none ; and great num- bers of those who do profess some religion know no more of the doctrines they are supposed to hold than if they were uncivilized savages. Even the majority of educated adherents of Protestant denominations to-day would not dare submit to an examination on the know- ledge of the doctrines of their own sects. In striking contrast with the rudest peasantry one can find in any Catholic country, we have right here in our own States a population of between twe^ ^id three millions, wholly Protestant, of whose uncultivated bru- tality, vulgar boorishness, and religious poverty I find a vivid description in a volume published by the Evan- gelical Alliance, as a report of its General Conference in Boston in 1889.* One of the speakers, Rev. Frank E. Jenkins, of New Decatur, Alabama, addressed the conference on the subject of "The Mountain Whites of the South," a class of people inhabiting a vast tract of territory, more than five hundred miles long and two hundred broad, twice the size of New England, stretching down through West Virginia, Western old Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennes- see, and into Northern Alabama and Georgia. * National Needs and Remedies ; The discussions of the General Chris- tian Conference held in Boston, Mass., December 4, 5, and 6, 1889, under the auspices and direction of the Evangelical Alliance for the United States. Good Manners. 107 The Rev. Mr-. Jenkins tells us these mountaineers comprise a class of whites who in times of slavery were "too lazy and too proud to work, without sufficient intellect or energy to enable them to acquire property enough to buy a slave. They sank into a condition scarcely above the brutes in intelli- gence, or in manner of subsistence. The very slaves looked upon them with scorn, and called them the ' poor white trash,' and thus well expressed their condition and character." He describes what a stranger travelling through these districts would find as he came upon the wretched log-cabin belonging to one of these families : " A sad-faced woman, with her snuff-stick or tobacco-pipe pro- truding from her mouth, or a quid of tobacco swelling out her cheek, is sitting in her door with her elbows resting on her knees and her face in her hands, and gazing stupidly at you. A dozen or more solemn-looking, ragged and dirty children are standing about and staring at you, and all of them, from the oldest to the youngest, probably chewing tobacco — even down to the creeping babes. You see no smiles on these child-faces ; and however quietly you stole upon this secluded home, you heard no laughter from these solemn children. What did they ever have to make them laugh or smile ? " Although timber is not wanting all around tnem, they are apparently too lazy to build a log-cabin for each family, and make one, consisting of only one room, serve for the living and sleeping purposes of more than one generation. Few things which we reckon as among the necessities of life are to be found in these cabins. Says the reverend orator : " You see a gun, a rough home-made table, a few old chairs helped out with blocks and boxes, four or five rough beds in the living room, a few plates and other dishes, an iron kettle or two, no stove, but a rude fire-place with a chimney of sticks and stones io8 Good Manners. and mud — and you have made an inventory of the furniture for a family of twelve, fifteen, twenty, or more. This is not an excep- tional, but a characteristic home. Anything better is the excep- tion. Here they live, eat, drink, and sleep. Here they are sick^ and here they die, w^ith the neighbors from far and near packed in the room and staring at them. From this room they are carried, within as few hours after death as are necessary for the construc- tion of a rough coffin, to be buried without even a prayer, amid the terrific screaming of the remaining members of the family. The 'funeral willj^e preached' five, ten, or twenty years after the death, and w^ll include in its scope all the members of the family who have died since the last funeral was celebrated." We have heard, a good, deal about the illiteracy and ignorance of the masses of people in CathoL.c countries. How much these accusations are worth, we shall see further on under their proper headings. But having this great Protestant population under our eye, we may just as well see wdiat is their intellectual, moral, and religious condition. Rev. Mr. Jenkins describes the schools which he tells us were almost universal ten years ago, and which still prevail to a large extent : "You are riding along a mountain road, and you hear a hum- ming noise in the distance, coming through the trees. You go a little farther and distinguish human voices mingling together in loud discord. What is the matter ? Nothing but a school at study, and all studying at the top of their voices. Such a din ! This is a 'blab ' school, though the modern advocates of this kind of school, and there are plenty of them, sometimes dignify them with the more elegant term, vocal •=>q\\oo\'s,. " Until within a short time the only text-book to be found in nine-tenths of these public schools was the spelling-book, and many a school to-day is but little in advance. A word was re- garded as correctly spelled when all the letters were named — no matter in what order. It could be spelled forward, backward, or both ways from the middle, and still be correct ! " Good Manners. 109 The inevitable consequence of such limited means of enlightenment is not to be wondered at : " You can find thousands of people who never saw a dozen books in their lives, and even those who never saw one, and do not know what the word ' book ' means, and more than a million who can neither write their own names nor recognize them in print. It is an intellectual condition which can be realized only when one is in the midst of it. When one is away from it, he begins to almost doubt his own memory ! " Of the moral and spiritual condition of the great mass of these people, Rev. Mr. Jenkins says that although there are good people among them, let what may be said that is favorable, "there still remains a condition of things whose picture can scarcely be over- drawn." There are bloody famil}^ feuds and neighbor- hood wars raging continually, of which state of bar- barism we have heard not a little ; " but the worst has not been told — it cannot be." What is their moral condition on another important score, depending almost wholly, as we know, upon what religious influences have been brought to bear upon a people ? " The relations of the sexes are such as cannot be described. The evils are so great, and involve so fully almost every family, that public sentiment can scarcely be arrayed with any power against them." He intimates that the most horrible and revolting form of immorality is prevalent among them : " Grandchildren who never had a legal father are almost a matter of course as elements of the homes. The herding together in their little one-room cabins is a source of unbounded evil." no Good MaJt ners. And yet all these people, almost to a man, if asked, would reply that tlie}^ were Protestants. Our informant tells us there are no infidels among them, that ''they believe in God and in the Bible, though they know little about either." He goes on to say: " The churches are churches only in name. They are not ex- pected to be institutions for the moral reformation of society [!J. Their meeting-places are generally the rough, dirty, log school- houses. . . . Ten years ago the Sunday-school was unknown, A little over a year ago a missionary organized the first Sunday- schools ever opened in a region of more than two thousand square miles in size. . . . " There are thousands and thousands of square miles full of people — tens of thousands of children — where instruction in the Bible has never been given, where the voice of family worship has never been heard, and where no child has ever lisped a prayer at a mother's knee, or heard that it is possible for a child to pray." Ye angels in heav^en, before whom the whole world lies open to view, I pray ye make known to us, if from the centre of Catholicism radiating over the whole earth in every direction to its antipodes, there can be one child, knowing itself to be a Catholic, reduced to such a state of worse than pagan ignorance ! But now we shall learn the cause of the religious destitution of these mountaineers : " The ministers of these churches are uneducated. In many cases they cannot read a word in the Bible or in a child's primer. Often they are openly immoral. I know of one in Tennessee still acting as a minister who, when he goes to a neighboring mining town, is sometimes hired by the roughs to pray and preach for them in the saloons for the sport it gives them. His charge for such a prayer or sermon is a drink of whiskey ! " Then we have described for us the revival ser^nces. Good Manners, ill or "big meetings," as they are called. People gather in great crowds; several ministers are present, ''well supplied with tobacco, but perhaps without a Bible." Then begins the sing-song preaching and praying, the wild and furious gesticulation, working up the congre- gation to fanatical excitement, followed by marching, jumping, rolling on the floor, embracing, screaming, and bodily contortions. Then the "conversions" begin. "The converts press forward and take the minister by the hand as a sign of their desire to ' jine ' him — they ' jine the minis- ter ' instead of joining the church — they are baptized, and hence- forth are good church members. They go back to their homes when the ' big meeting breaks ' with no tJioiight of living a new life, and tviih no expectation on the part of anybody that they will. Their religion does not invoh-e morahty, and everybody can afford to be reHgious. These churches are good fighting centres. In them the ministers fight ministers, and denomina- tions fight denominations. Sectarianism is intensely bitter, etc." I think we have learned quite enough of what Pro- testantism has failed to do with its own people, right here under our very eyes, to say nothing of the positive^ brutalizing influences of what Joseph Kay calls the "corrupted and corruptiiig'' forms of it, although he had to acknowledge that even his own ' ' more intellec- tual form of Protestantism "—the Anglican Church- was not fitted for the masses of people and could do nothing with them. The various documents put out by the Evangelical Alliance abound in expressions of sympathy for the alleged ignorance of Catholics and especially for their lack of the light of the pure Gospel. Really these charges are too absurd in themselves and quite unworthy of the endorsement of the many honor- able gentlemen who give their names and support to 112 Good Manners. this association ; but Rev. Mr. Jenkins did well to call the attention of the Alliance to some "sore needs" much nearer home than the ' ' Romish ' ' fields in which it aspires to labor with profit to Protestantism. But let us turn to look at a picture more pleasant to contemplate. The popular novelist, Ouida, already quoted, has in her Pascarel some charming descriptions of Italian character, crediting all that is so admirable to the race and not to its true cause, their religion ; but that is not surprising in one who is hostile to the religion of the Italian people. Here are two extracts worth quoting : " The Italian, even in the lowest strata of social life, has a re- pose and a dignity in him which befits his physiognomy and evince themselves in his calm and poetical attitudes. How bright he is, how gregarious, how neighborly, how instant and graceful in courtesy, how eager and kindly in willingness ! How certain his invariable selection of a pleasure for the eye and ear rather than one for the mouth and stomach ! See the gay, elastic grace of him, the mirth that ripples all day long about him like the sun- light. And he will always have some delicate touch of the artist in him, too, and always some fine instinct of the gentleman — let him be poor as he will, ill clad, half starved, and ignorant of the letters that make his name ; he will bring a flower to a woman with the bow of a king, and he will resent an insolence with an air to which no purples and fine linen could lend dignity." And the following on his Christian, fraternal charity : " See the country in a time of flood, of pestilence, of fire — she is heroic, and the woe of one is the woe of all. Northern nations have nothing, for example, comparable for self-sacrifice to the * Misericordia.' For consolidation, for devotion to duty, for all the deepest and purest forms of charity, this [lay charitable] Order has no equal in Europe. Where else will you see the nobleman Good Manners. 1 1 3 leaving his masked ball, the lover his mistress, the craftsman his labor, the foeman his vengeance, to go, at the sound of the tocsin, and aid the poor, the sick, and the dying ? " And the very same may be vSaid of the Spaniards. Spain is the true land of equality. She has learned the Catholic lesson well. Chateaubriand observes that "One can never remark in Spain any of those servile airs and turns of expression which announce abjection of thoughts or degradation in mind. The language of the great seigneur and of the peasant is the same, the greeting the same, the customs, the compliments, the manners are the same." Another writer re- marks that " servants are treated with a sweetness very different from our affected politeness, which only reminds them every mo- ment of the inferiority of their condition." Of all the characteristics of this truly Catholic people there is perhaps no one which more profoundly im- presses the mind of the stranger than this prevailing sense of equality manifested by all classes alike. I have already given evidence of this in a former chapter. Every observer of Spanish manners will fully endorse the following testimony of an English traveller : "I will say for the Spaniards that in their social intercourse no people exhibit a juster feeling of what is due to the dignity of human nature, or better understand the behavior which it be- hooves a man to adopt towards his fellow-beings. The wealthy are not idolized ; the duke or marquis can scarcely well entertain a very overweening opinion of his own consequence, as no one can be found to fawn upon or flatter him." It is a Spanish maxim — "Never magnify any man for his riches, nor esteem him less for his poverty, how- ever great it may be." And again : " The dignity of the man must rise in proportion as his rank descends." 114 Good Manners. An English traveller, Mr. Scott, says : " There is no such thing as a Spanish snob ; that odious social monstrosity is indigenous only to Anglo-Saxon soil." A vSpanish writer, Sanclios, says : " In our Gallicia the blood is so generous that the only thing which distinguishes the poor from the rich is that the former serve the latter." I find an interesting bit of testimony to that affabil- ity and politeness so universal in all Catholic countries in a work written in 1845 by Daniel P. Kidder: Sketch- es of Reside7ice and Travel in Brazil, etc. This gentle- man was an agent of the Bible Society, sent by it to that priest-ridden Catholic country to distribute Bibles among the people in the hope that by reading them they would abandon their ' ' idolatrous worship of the Virgin Mary and images, and other such like abominations of Romanism," and find in the Scriptures the more en- lightened form of faith and worship called Protestant- ism. Apparently he was nol a little surprised to find that the Bible was there before him, and, still more to his astonishment, used and read as a devotional book in both the primary and higher schools. It must also have cost him something to confess that ' ' the Bible had never been proscribed in Brazil." He was known to be an agent of a Protestant Bible Society, not a very welcome guest it might be supposed in so intensely a Catholic country as Brazil, and yet he testifies : " At one of the places I visited, the individual to whom I was thus addressed, and by whom I was entertained, was a Roman Good Manners. 115 Catholic priest ; and it affords me unfeigned satisfaction to say that the hospitality which I received under his roof was just what the stranger in a strange land would desire." The following tribute to Brazilian politeness and affability is enhanced by the well-merited hit at the churlishness we often meet with elsewhere : " Within these coaches might be witnessed perfect specimens of Brazilian manners. A person accustomed to the distant and care-for-no-one airs which are generally observed in the New York stages, might be a little surprised that so much friendly at- tention and politeness could prevail among perfect strangers, who might happen to meet each other in these vehicles. It might be equally surprising to see that no one was excluded on account of coIo7'" (vol.i. p. 161). And here are two very instructive extracts testifying to that ' ' sweetness with which servants are treated in Catholic countries, so different from our affected polite- ness," and to the influence of the Catholic religion in enforcing the recognition of Christian equality between even master and slave : •' On the other side of us lived a Portuguese widow, advanced in life, also surrounded with a house full of slaves. She was a model of amiability, if not of piety. She treated her slaves as tenderly as though they had been her own children, and was specially punctilious in calling them together at vespers, and caus- ing them to say their pater-nosters and chant a litany of moder- ate length. So well trained were they to this exercise that their voices would not have done discredit to the music of some of our churches." "In the course of the evening half an hour was devoted to vespers [night prayers]. I had observed a great number of the slaves entering, who, in succession, addressed us with crossed hands and the pious salutation, ' Seja loitvado Nosso Senhor Jesus 1 1 6 Good Manners. Christo '—Blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ. Presently there commenced a chant in the adjoining room, when the padre, who sat by my side, rising, said he supposed I did not pray [!j, but that he was going to do so. I corrected his mistake, and he went out laughing, without, however, inviting any of us to accompany him. I was told that he attended these exercises merely as any other member of the family, the singing and prayers being taught and conducted by an aged black man. The devotions of the evening consisted chiefly of a novena ! It was really pleasant to hear the sound of a hundred voices mingling in this their chief religious exercise and privilege. This assembling the slaves, generally at evening, and sometimes both morning and evening, is said to be common on plantations in the country, and is not unfrequent among domestics in the cities. Mistress and servant at these times meet on a level. The pleasures afforded the latter by such opportunities, in connection with the numerous holydays enjoined by the Roman Catholic religion, form certainly a great mitigation of the hard lot of servitude!" {ibid., pp. 159-246). What does Mr. Thieblin, already quoted in our glance at Spain, tell us of the manner in which he was received even by the priests in that country : "Very frequently did it happen on my journeys, that within five or six minutes of my alighting at an inn a cure, and sometimes three or four of them, informed that a stranger had come, would come to the inn, and they would seldom allow me to remain there. I had to go to the house of the senior of them if there were many. ... A stout cure at Aranatz was particularly amiable. ... I think I had to pass that village about half a dozen times, and on each occasion he caught me, and would not let me go unless I not only had a dinner or a supper, but stopped over- night with him. . . . And what struck me as particularly re- markable in these cures, and somewhat different from the customs of a good many other clergymen, was that, while giving you their best hospitality, they did not at all expect you to go to church with them." Good Manners. 117 Of the hospitality of the common people he has the same testimony to give : " If a caballero be thirsty and ask for a glass of water, it is never served in its pure and simple state. There is always in it an azucarillo, a kind of sweetmeat. It costs no more than a farthing perhaps, but a farthing is a consideration for people in these countries, and as every woman serves a good many aziicar- illos in a day, the whole must cost her quite a little fortune. Yet you feel at once you dare not propose to give her anything in return ; you shake hands with her, and that is the only ac- knowledgment she will accept. If you happen to be belated and cannot reach the inn you had in view, you can safely knock at the door of any house on your road — where you are certain to be made as welcome as if you were an old friend" (Spain and the Spaniards, pp. 67-69). There has never been any question of the superiority of the manners of the French to those of our English- speaking people, especially on the score of politeness in social converse, yet there has always been a deep-seated national prejudice manifested by the English against their French Catholic neighbors. This testimony, therefore, of Mr. Eaing is all the more valuable : " Let us do justice to the French character. Their self-com- mand, their upon honor principle, is very remarkable, and much more generally diffused than among our own population. They are, I believe, a more honest people than the British. The beg- gar, who is evidently hungry, respects the fruit upon the road-side within his reach, although there is nobody to protect it. Property is much respected in France, and in bringing up children this fidelity towards the property of others seems much more carefully inculcated by parents of the lowest class, in the home education of their children, than with us. This respect for the property is closely connected with that respect for the feelings of our neighbors which constitutes what is called good maimers. This 1 1 8 Good Manners. is carefully inculcated in children of all ranks in France. They are taught to do what is pleasing and agreeable to others. We English are too apt to undervalue this spirit, as tending merely to superficial accomplishments, to empty compliment in words, and unmeaning appearance in acts. But, in reality, this reference to the feelings of others in all w© do is a moral habit of great value where it is generally diffused, and enters into the home-training of every family. It is an education both of the parent or child in morals, carried on through the medium of external manners. " Our lower and middle classes are deficient in this kind of family education. It is a fine distinction of the French national character, and social economy, that practical morality is more generally taught through manners, among and by the people them- selves, than in any country in Europe " {Notes of a Traveller, P-79)- All that this writer tells us of the French is equally true of all other Catholic peoples, each nation giving to its language and gesture some tone or form of expres- sion of almost indescribable charm peculiar to itself. If I were to put a history of Ireland into the hands of one who had never yet met with an Irish Catholic — if such a one could be found in the known world — he could not possibly rise from its perusal without being convinced that the peasantry of that island, whatever might have been their social manners three centuries ago, must be now reduced, by force of the persecutions to which they had been subjected, to a condition of the rudest and most brutal savagery. One can well imagine his over^vhelming astonishment if, after hav- ing read its history, he should come to visit Ireland, and journey through even its wildest and most poverty- stricken districts, at finding there, as we know he would, abundant evidences to prove that as a people the Catholic Irish, including the very lowest in the social scale, deserve to be ranked among the most polite- Good Manners, 1 1 9 mannered nations in the world ! If our stranger should be somewhat of a philosopher and be induced to look for the cause of this social marA'el, there can be no question that he would attribute it to none other but to the refining influences of the religion to which they have been so singularly faithful. I argue, therefore, that where a people are thorough- ly indoctrinated with, and disciplined to carry out in practical social life, the Catholic doctrine of man's equality their civility will show itself in their manners. They will be urbane, polite, gracious, hospitable, good- humored, chivalric, considerate of others, respectful to superiors in learning or station, quick of ej^e, and read}^ of hand to serve one's neighbor, be he friend or stranger; ever courteous to women and kind to children, cultivated and correct in language, both as to form and tone, holding in horror coarse slang and all profanity and indecenc}' in conversation. The youth will give place to and reverence the aged, the de- formed, and the infirm. That the Irish Catholic never mocks at the idiotic, but applies to such afflicted ones the pitying term of ''innocent," speaks volumes for the gentleness of manners inspired by their religion. Filial respect and obedience will go through the whole life, the parent always the parent, the child always the child. All these habits and manners characterize a civil people, and where this civility is highly marked in all classes of society there is a high state of civilization. This is the unquestionable character of every Catho- lic nation in the world, not one excepted. Can the same be said of any Protestant country ? If my reader will procure a copy of LippincotV s 1 20 Good Manners, Magazine for January, 1892, he will find therein an article contributed by Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, one of our charming and instructive American writers, entitled " The Decline of Politeness." Let him read that, and then apply its well-put truths to the people of such nations as he knows or has heard of. Why is politeness declining, and civilization vanish- ing in some nations ? Because they are living too fast. " Everybody is in a hurry. Hurry is the marching order of the day. There is no time to be civil in words or manner. There is only time at best for good-natured chaff and to go one's way, not reflecting that chaff easily falls into familiarity and impertinence." Again, the popular maxim of the da}^ is : " Time is money, . . . and wealth now pushes itself every- where, and cultivated society suffers by the introduction of persons whose only claim to recognition is that they have made money. Making money does not necessarily make a man vulgar, but pushing does. And in this crowding, shoving, and vulgarity of push, courtesy is lost, and unselfishness — the fundamental quality of fine manners [the mark of true civilization] — becomes the very excellence that is 7iot wanted." The writer then goes on to read a wholesome lesson to our modern vulgar, pushing society women, " whose habits of gregarious fastness have been constantly more daring and reckless; . . . and the most delicate graces of life are being lost. . . . Chivalry and tender reverence for women began in an age that knew nothing of strong-minded women, voluble and exacting, elbowing their male competitors in all the avocations of life. . . . Children are not now taught to honor their father and their mother" [No; they call them the " old man " and the " old woman "], " and neither the tone of society nor its securities have been improved by neglecting those domestic good manners which sweeten and strengthen life at Good Manners. \ 2 [ its very roots. ... No man is polite enough, no man is human enough, whose pubHc courtesies have not their origin in the gracious sweetness generated upon his own hearth. Bows, courtesies, costumes, ceremonies, have an enormous moral value. Now money rules everything ; . . . money scorns the quiet habits of the old world. . . . Our heads ache, we are weary, the neuralgia at which our ancestors would have laughed tortures our fretted nerves ; we have, indeed, fits of strange energy, but for all that, wc have nof health." Our writer is hopeful that the next generation will do better. So it will if Catholic principles of civ- ilization regain their ascendency, but not otherwise. " Then their minds will regain their elasticity, the will, and the suavity we have been compelled to let go, or to spend upon the mere task of getting through life. But until this time arrives, naturally there is great danger of our losing in the struggle that exquisite something which alone makes us hwnan enough. There zs real social danger in discarding all forms of civility, and even some antiquated forms and ceremonies. They are the symbols of order and of safety : and if they are removed from the growing generation, as well as neglected by our own over-worked selves, then we voluntarily take off powerful checks from brutal passions, and we may gird up our loins to meet such evil days as we have at present no conception of. The soldier's uniform, the sailor's peculiar garb, the nun's veil, the clergyman's cloth, the civil oath, the attitude of prayer, the bridal veil, the marriage ring, the sign of the cross — these and many other kindred forms and symbols are the rivets ajid bolts that keep home ajtd society from falling into chaos." [The italics are mine.] How vividly this lament for the decline of politeness portrays, by contrast, the higher, purer, and nobler order of civilization which has always distinguished the people of Catholic countries under the truly refining, educating influence of the Catholic religion ! 122 Good Manners. The thoughtful reader will not fail to have noted this observ^ant writer's judgment expressed concern- ing the great moral value in the use of ceremonious gesture in social intercourse. The Church is, as all know, a perfect school of politeness in the profuse emplo3'ment of suggestive and appropriate ceremonies in her public worship. One does not learn how to behave as a gentleman by simply reading a book con- taining Rules on Etiquette ; one can only learn how by personally associating with gentlemen. Now, the Catholic religious ceremonial offers to all classes of persons a very instructive object-lesson in much that goes to make what is understood to constitute polite- ness, and they naturally come to imitate what they so constantly see before them, and in which the}^ take more or less a part. Here also the people come under that powerful moi^al influence of politeness of which our author speaks, acquiring that refinement of bearing and courtesy to others which is due to the inspiration of the sentiments of reverence towards what is sacred, and of respectful humility of behavior in presence of superiors, in all of which there is no need to offer evidence that the sanctuaries of the Catholic religion are unsurpassed as schools of such moral culture. One is not surprised, therefore, to learn that the great masters of popular education among Catholics in every age, and notably those who vow themselves wholly to such teaching, have not forgotten to recog- nize the necessity of leavening their instruction with lessons in what is at once demanded by the fundamental principles of Christian charity and lends to all social intercourse, even among the lowliest, an indescribable charm. Let us listen to a word on this subject from Good Manners, 123 the saintly founder of that noble army of lay teachers, the Christian Brothers — the Blessed John Baptist de La Salle, who so highly esteemed the inculcation of the principles and practice of politeness as to write a treatise on the subject, from which I quote : " It is' a surprising thing that many Christians only think of poHteness and good breeding as purely human and belonging only to this world. This shows how little true Christianity there is in the world, and how few persons there are who live and behave according to the spirit of Jesus Christ. All our outward actions, to which the rules of good breeding apply, should bear upon them the character of virtue " {Les Regies de la Bzenseance, et de la Civilte Chretienne). If the writer, belonging to a nation so renowned and admired for its politeness, could see so much lacking of his own ideal among his polished countrymen, what sort of barbarians would he not likely set us down to be? Undoubtedly the most alarming evidence of the de- cline of civilization, under the influence of Protestant- ism and Secularism, is the gradual breaking up of the very fundamental institution of society — the family ; and the secularizing — I might say brutalizing — all its former sacred relations. Let me quote a few words from that eminent Spanish philosopher, Donoso Cortes : " In Catholic ages, the family relation tends to the highest degree of excellence ; its human element is spiritualized. In the domestic life children reverently submit to their father and mother, and the inmates of cloisters, with a still greater reverence and submission, bathe with their tears the sacred feet of a better father and the holy habit of a more tender mother. When Catholic civilization is no longer in the ascendant, and begins to decline, the family relation immediately becomes impaired, its 1 24 Good Manners. constitution vitiated, its elements disunited, and all its ties en- feebled. The father and mother, whom God had united in the bonds of affection, substitute for this sacred tie a severe formal- ity ; while the children lose that filial reverence enjoined upon them by God, and a sacrilegious familiarity usurps its place. The ties which united the family are loosened, debased, and pro- faned. Finally, they become obliterated, the family disperses, and is lost in the circles of the clubs and places of amusement. . . . In the human anti-Catholic family the relation between father and mother lasts only some years, between them and the children only some months ; in the artificial family of clubs only a day. and in that of jjlaces of amusement but for a moment " {Essay on Catholicisjn, Liberalism, and Socialism, pp. 39, 40). CHAPTER XI. POPULAR HAPPINESS. CERTAINLY the chief end of human society is the securing of the happiness of the individuals con- stituting it. The fathers of our Republic enunciated a cardinal principle which no social order can ignore: Man has the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a principle in the proclamation and defence of which the whole history of Catholic civilization is the brilliant record. Its reaffirmation by the founders of our Republic was, in effect, a protest against the practical denial of that principle, in the in- security of life, the unjust limitations to liberty, and the obstacles to popular happiness, following the establish- ment of the civil and religious despotisms everywhere inaugurated and sustained by Protestantism in Europe, in proof of which the reader will soon have abundant evidence in the chapters on Civil and Religious Liberty. If Protestantism is declining in our country pari- passu with the rapid increase of Catholicism and the equally rapid development of that fundamental principle of our American liberties, he must indeed be a poor philosopher of history, and unreflecting observer, who fails to draw the only logical conclusion possible. There can be no question that the Catholic Church has made good her claim to have a mission to beatify the people, to give them a form of civilization which in- sures the greatest possible happiness for the greatest number; and the secret of her influence lies in her 125 1 26 Popular Happiness. supernatural j^ower to unify all the naturally discordant antagonisms of race and social condition. One of the greatest marv^els which impresses the mind of the reader of history is, that the Church was not only able to transform the whole order of pagan civilization by bringing all men under its sway to re- gard each other as brethren, but that it was able to inspire them with a sense of equality, despite the mani- fold and necessary physical, mental, and moral inequali- ties of mankind, and that, too, not by depressing the higher and more worthy, but by elevating the low and mean ; not by permitting the power of authority to refer its sanction to brute force sustained by the bayonet or by conscienceless majorities, but by compelling it to recognize the divine supremacy of justice and charity ; not by debasing obedience into servile submission, but by ennobling it as a virtue, as the voluntary act of a freeman sustaining the bulwark of his own liberties. This Catholic ideal of political solidarity, unifying the interests of both governors and governed, is supposed to be the basis of American democracy upon which is founded our claim to equality of citizenship. By so much as this idea of solidarity fails to be real- ized by so much does the state of society fail of being truly civilized, at least according to the Christian ideal, such as the Catholic Church has ever held up to man- kind as the standard of perfection to be aimed at, in order that all men, each one in his own sphere, should not only enjoy their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, but be aided as well by his Christian breth- ren to attain that happiness. As the Catholic Church is far from placing the means of happiness in the attainment of any created Popular Happiness. 12/ good for its own sake, the nations Wliicli have been moulded into form by her have manifested a certain in- difference towards the gaining of riches, and the pur- suit of mere animal comforts and luxuries ; in broad contrast to that feverish, jealous hankering for the possession of colossal wealth, with its enervating en- vironments — the well-known and deplorable character- istics of nations taught in the school of Protestantism. Because Catholic peoples appear to be contented and happy with what is moderate, plain, and simple, they are reviled by Protestants as being unprogressive, backward, and worthy of contempt, forgetting that the true end of society is to make virtuous and happy citi- zens of the many, not rich and privileged ones of the few ; to secure, in a word, the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Her statesmanship has been thus aptly expressed: "The majority of citizens should be neither too rich nor too poor. The greater the number of moderate fortunes, the greater will be the stability of states. A universal mediocrity in this respect is the most wholesome." And history confirms the acceptation of this doctrine when it shows us that until the disastrous revolt of Protestantism, there were so few of the "too poor" to be found in Catholic nations that such institutions as the state "poor-house" and the very name of "pauper," as a recipient of enforced state benevolence, was utterly unknown. It was Protestantism that gave to the word ''pauper'' in all modern languages the sense it now has. I wonder how many of our scholarly youth or their more scholarly elders, to whom Goldsmith's renowned poem, "The Deserted Village," is familiar, have per- 128 Popular Happiness. ceived what a faithful picture it is of England's former popular happiness, the result of its Catholic faith and manners, brought into vivid and painful contrast with its decadence under the influence of Protestantism. The poet is also the seer. No doubt he had much before his eyes in his own day to warrant the philo- sophical reflections he makes upon the direful conse- quences following the total disruption of the ancient Catholic social order ; but later events make of his poem as well an all too true and mournful prophecy. What an attractive picture it is that he draws of the rural happiness formerly reigning amongst the peasan- try in such English villages as the one which he has immortalized as " Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheer'd the laboring swain ; Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid, And parting Summer's lingering blooms delay 'd." These were homes of sweet contentment worthy to be praised and envied as " Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease." Such indeed they were vSO long as the traditional force of Catholic civilization preser\xd something of that popular happiness it has always inspired. But the Reformation had brought to England not only a new religion, but a new social order, the order of material progress, and now the people, once nourished at the breasts of their Mother Earth, found themselves heart- lessly robbed of their little but sufficient possessions, and. with that loss departed all their simple and natural joys arising from their affectionate attachment to the Popular Happiness. 129 soil and to their peaceful homes, and from a life-long association with sympathizing and kindly-hearted friends and neighbors. " Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn ! Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn: Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green. One only master grasps the whole domain, And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. And trenibling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land." In Catholic times the land sustained the people, not in luxury, it is true, but with a sufficiency for a lite that was a happy and a worthy one. Then the English peasant was glad-hearted and innocent, and could both laugh and sing. So the poet testifies : " 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey. Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. A time there was, ere England's griefs began, When every rood of ground maintained its man ; For him light labor spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more : His best companions, innocence and health, And his best riches, ignorance of wealth." But Protestantism, the religion which inspired the love of riches, and cravings for material glory and luxurious animal comforts and pleasures, changed the happy, laughing peasant into a mournful pauper, "scourged by famine from the smiling land," or sink- ing scorned into a pauper's grave. Hearken to the poet : 130 Popular Happiness. " But times are alter'd ; trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain. Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose : And every want to luxury allied, And every pang that folly pays to pride. Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom. Those calm desires that ask'd but little room, Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene Lived in each look, and brighten'd all the green : These, far departing, seek a kinder shore. And rural mirth and manners are no more." In his oft-quoted lines portraying rural happiness, which follow, the poet, of course, is describing only England judged by his knowledge of the condition of the country people derived from history. But in every line it is a truthful picture of the like virtuous and happy life of the country people in every Catholic land — that life of simplicity, purity, sobriety, and content- ment ; a life accompanied with joyousness and smiles, with dance and song, a life of homely yet sufficient comfort, of neighborly friendship, of filial and parental love, and of honored and peaceful days for old age. The following quotation from his preface, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, show^s that the poet is no mean social economist in pointing out the cause to which the loss of all this popular happiness is to be referred : " In regretting the depopulation of the country I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries ; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages " [the lack of it in Catholic countries is just what the Protestant controversialist points to with the finger of scorn], " and all the wisdom of antiquity in that par- Popular Happiness, 131 ticular as erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue' to think those luxuries prejudicial to states by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone." Having painted the bright picture of that ancient happiness in his truthful and charming verse, and view- ing the desolation that has followed upon the false and destructive modern social ideal, he exclaims : " Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay ! 'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting Folly hails them from her shore : Hoards, e'en beyond the miser's wish, abound. And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name That leaves our useful products still the same. Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied : Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage and hounds ; The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth : His seat, where solitary sports are seen, Indignant spurns the cottage from the green : Around the world each needful product flies For all the luxuries the world supplies. While thus the land adorned for pleasure, all In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd, In nature's simplest charms at first array 'd. But verging to decline, its splendors rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; While scourged by famine from the smiling land. The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; 132 Popular Happiness. And while he sinks, without one arm to save, The country blooms— a garden and a grave ! " Then comes the picture of the fruits of all this rob- bery of the poor and of their happiness, — pauperism, slavery in factories and mines, crime, prostitution, degradation of once manly hearts, and forced exile : a fate to many a one, both old and young, far bitterer than death. The poet's heart swells with indignant sorrow, and from his lips breaks forth his righteous malediction : " O luxury ! thou cursed by Heaven's decree, And ill exchanged are things like these for thee ! How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Diffuse thy pleasures only to destroy ! Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown. Boast of a florid vigor not their own : At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe : Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round." No wonder that William Cobbett, that vigorous Protestant writer who, when he came across a robber of the poor in history, was not slow^ to give him the name he deserved, should say that "the Reformation was a devastation of England, which was, at the time when that event took place, the happiest country, per- haps, that the world had ever seen." Another such country now, containing as much heart-breaking misery and revolting wretchedness, could certainly not be found on the face of the globe. The reader will not have to go outside the perusal of this volume for abundant proof. Popular Happiness, 133 Popvilar happiness is not to be gauged by the joys of a fortune-favored few, who, from the very fact that they possess so much more than should abundantly suffice for all rational wants and enjoyments, too often plunge into a vortex of dissipation and find ' ' their toiling pleas- ures sicken into pain." And this, all the world over, is the more true of those w^hose riches have accumulated at the expense of the unjustly rewarded labor of the many, and their consequent loss of even the simplest and most rightful joys of human life. Catholic civilization has always stoutly maintained and carefully preserved the foundation upon w^hich popular happiness can alone be sustained, the domestic life of the family. It is in vain to hope for a happy nation, a happy community, unless the social order be so tempered with justice and charity, and the means of living be sufficiently distributed, as to insure the happi- ness of the domestic life of the families of the people. If the bird must have its nest, and the wild beast its lair, yea, even the very serpent its den, so must man have his home, the hearth that is his, the central object of his most anxious care and deepest love. The Catho- lic Church has set a seal of sanctity upon the family, and no wonder that she has a special rite of benediction to consecrate its abiding place. The whole trend of anti-Catholic civilization has been to degrade and break up the divine institution of the family and the sanctity of home, and to bring about an order of social life and labor which practically renders any true domestic life almost impossible, especially in the ever-increasing number of cities and their inhumanly overcrowded populations. If the poet Goldsmith could have lived to our day, in what still 134 Popular Happiness, more heart-searching poetic strains would his muse not have told the truth of John Ruskin's prose : "Though we are deafened with the noise of the spinning- wheels and the rattle of the looms, our people have no clothes; though they are black with digging fuel, they die of cold ; and though millions of acres are covered with ripe, golden grain, our people die for want of bread." Nevertheless the wheels must spin, the looms must rattle, the mines must be dug, and the land must be tilled ; but who shall dare to point at the clothes-maker clad in rags, the fuel-digger dying of cold, the sowers and reapers of grain starving for lack of food, and say, *' This is civilization " ? But in what countries do we see these social contradictions to the primary demands of humanity, and hear their material prosperity alleged in evidence of an " advanced and more enlightened civilization"? In Protestant countries. To what countries is your gaze directed by the finger of scorn, and which you are called upon to pity, for their backwardness, their stagnation, their social apathy, and stolid indifference to all these triumphs of modern progress and the spirit of the age, and yet within whose borders the people have been happy; where no poet would ever have been inspired to picture a " Deserted Village," where the people do not die of cold and hunger, where families live in homes as human beings and not like vermin in rotting tene- ments and noisome cellars, and where the poorest of the poor, as well as the high-born and wealthy, enjoy the most sacred and elevating happiness possible to man in the days of his life and at the hour of his 'death, through the knowledge and practice of their divinely true and pure religion ? These are Catholic countries. Popular Happiness, 135 The political economist, horrified at the loss of popular happiness in these latter days, and vSeeking its cause, finds it in the present organized industrial system. What moral influence has been brought to bear to make that system possible of acceptation and endurance by the people? That is something they ignore. No people voluntarily 3'ield up both their souls and bodies to slavery, nor are there found tyrants strong enough to reduce them to such servitude, unless they have lost the knowledge of the very principle of human liberty and happiness — the recognition and defence of the " rights of God and the rights of man." Such has ever been the Catholic watchword, and wherever and for so long as the Catholic religion has been able to proclaim it and thoroughly inspire the people with it as a ruling principle of social order, there the people have been happy and free. The Catholic religion lost its power in England, and the reader knows wnth w^hat results : the people lost their happiness. And, by just so much as it has been losing its power in other countries and its influence is being replaced by that of modern secularism, amid the acclamations of all Protestantism, and the order of Catholic social life and labor is being supplanted by the modern anti-Christian industrial system, in just that same measure may one see the popular happiness de- clining, and the people enduring more or less of the miseries accompanying the march of our modern civili- zation, based upon the principle of seeking first the kingdom of this world and its glory, and letting the kingdom of God and its righteousness fare as it may. Where the working-man finds his happiness the most quickly and rudely assailed is in that of his home 1 36 Popular Happiness. life. And naturally, because the ideal of the so-called civilization inaugurated by Protestantism, and more fully developed by its logical outcome. Secularism, can only be realized by such industrial systems as tend to make of all wage-earners mere slaves in the market of commerce and manufacture, whose labor is to be purchased not at its real value measured by the w^orth of the article produced, but at a price which the immi- nent hunger, cold, and nakedness threatening them- selves, their wives and children, force them to take. These are not free laborers ; they are a race of human machines, the like of which has never been seen before either among pagan or Christian nations. How does that affect the home-life of the working-man ? Hear what the late great English Cardinal Manning and our American Bishop Spalding, both well-known champions of the rights of the laboring classes, have to sa}^ thereon. Says the Cardinal : "If the domestic life of a people be vital above all ; if the peace, the purity of homes, the education of children, the duties of wives and mothers, the duties of husbands and fathers, be written in the natural law of mankind ; and if these things are sacred beyond anything that can be sold in the market — then I say, if the unregulated sale of men's strength and skill shall lead to the de- struction of domestic life, to the neglect of children, to turning wives and mothers into living machines, and of fathers and hus- bands into — what shall I say ? — creatures of burdtfi ! who rise up before the sun and come back when it is set, wearied and able • only to take food and to lie down to rest — the domestic life of men exists no longer. We dare not go on in this path. These things cannot go on ; these things ought not to go on. The accumula- tion of wealth in the land, the piling up of wealth like mountains, in the possession of classes or of individuals, cannot go on, if these moral conditions of our people are not healed. No com- monweahh can rest on such foundations." — Characteristics. Popular Happiness, 1 37 Says Bishop Spalding : " The gates of the city have in our day been thrown wide open to the multitude. Formerly it was necessary to serve an appren- ticeship before one was permitted to labor at a trade, but ma- chinery has done away with trades. The working-man now is only part of the machine. He requires little training and less skill. ! And because anybody can do this work it is easy to find people who will do it cheaply, and so wages sink until the operative re- ceives barely enough to keep him from starvation. If, from what- ever cause, he ceases to work, he is at once a pauper ; and yet there are numbers waiting to take his place. The social evolution has brought forth a new species, a race of human machines whose destiny is to be a part of the iron mechanism which transforms the world. This race forms a people apart ; nothing like it has ever been seen until now either in pagan or Christian civilization. They have the name of freemen, but are indeed slaves ; they, make the most costly fabrics, and are clothed in rags ; they work in pal- aces, and live in tenements and hovels. Their labor is the most painful and the most fatal to human life ; their wages are so low that mothers and children are forced to throw themselves into the jaws of Moloch to escape starvation. When they are old or infirm they are thrown into the street or poorhouse, and the rich man who has hired them is held guiltless before God and men. When the wheels of machinery stop the whole race is driven to the public trough, to be fed like cattle, until the shambles are again in readi- ness. " One of the greatest evils which afflicts a manufacturing popu- lation is the breaking down of the family life. . . . What family life is possible where there is no home ? The home is not owned ; it cannot be transmitted ; it has no privacy ; it has no mystery ; it has no charm. It is a rented room in some promis- cuous tenement, it is a shanty in some filthy street or alley. The good and the bad are huddled together; and the poisoned air does not sooner take the bloom from the cheek of childhood than the presence of sin and misery withers the fresh^iess of the heart. The children rush from the narrow quarters and stifling air into the street, and the gutters are their play-grcunds. Through all 138 Popular Happiness. the changing year they see only the dirty street and the dingy houses. People who live in this atmosphere and amid these surroundings must drink. The perfectly sober would die there from mere loathing of life." — Mission of the Irish Race. Now let us hear a voice from the centre of that other great Protestant power, Germany. Dr. Engel, the Director of the Royal Statistical Society of Berlin, says : " This is the judgment passed upon the modern industrial system, especially as it exists in great cities, by the most enlight- ened statesmen and by others who are most thoroughly ac- quainted with life as it exists: it is the sacrifice of human beings to capital— a consumption of men which, by the wasting of the vital forces of individuals, by the weakening of whole generations, by the breaking up of families, by the ruin of morality, and the destruction of the joyousness of work, has brought civilized society into the most imminent peril." And w^hen he wrote this there were 200,000 tramps in Germany — and what about that country as the school of Socialism ? Can Protestantism disown the responsibility of having ' ' brought civilized society into this most im- minent peril ' ' ? Upon whom or upon what will it pre- sume to lay the blame? Does it not still continue to laud and magnify all the attractively brilliant manifesta- tions of national material prosperity, and take credit to itself for having inspired them, while scornfully re- proaching Catholicism for acting as a drag upon the wheels of the trumphant chariot of Modern Progress ? Is it not high time to call a halt and hearken to the words of wisdom from that voice which has always spoken the truth in justice and charity, and has never betrayed the rights or the happiness of the people ? Popular Happiness. 1 39 What differentiates the modern Protestant and Secular industrial S3^stem from one which would be created under the predominant influence of Catholicism is the character of the motives upon which they are based. The motive of the former is gain, pure and simple ; and it is assumed that the social needs of the laborer or of the consumer have no restrictive rights to limit the possible amount of that gain. The result of such a motive is plain. The capitalist is the one who directly engages the laborer's services on the one hand, and fur- nishes what the consumer needs on the other. In order to make the greatest possible gain, he buys the material and labor which go to make up what the consumer wants in the cheapest market, and sells the produc- tion in the dearest. The pagan motive of mere gain induces him to use his financial power in order to control both of these markets ; to keep the supply less than the demand, that he may charge a higher price, gaining thereby more from the consumers, and, on the other hand, to keep the markets of material and labor glutted, that he may buy both at a forced lower price. The same centralization of financial power enables the formation of trust companies and other such com- binations of the few by which the number of employers are diminished, and both laborer and consumer are thus left more completely at the mercy of those whose only aim is to extort from both the highest possible tribute. Following the same track of ' ' progress ' * we see the formation of colossal syndicates into whose all-absorb- ing grasp the greater part of the land falls, and rises in value beyond the hope of its possession by the laboring I40 Popular Happiness. classes. Trade, manufactures, and agriculture falling thus into the hands of a few, they become the ''too rich " and all the rest of humanity sink to the level of the '' too poor," who become mere " hands " waiting to be hired in the trade-market for an hour, slaves toiling in the stifling factories and sweat-shops,* and serfs who are owned by, instead of being freemen them- selves owning, the land they labor upon. Such is the outcome of Protestant and Secularist industrial systems fashioned upon the social ideas which have been foisted, all too successfully, upon mankind in these modern times. But the Catholic industrial ideal, while admitting the motive of gain as a legitimate and necessary one, does not sanction it as being one which the capitalist has a right, either as a man or a Christian, to assert as the chief and onh' reason of his dealings with the laborer or with the consumer. This aggrandizement of one class in society at the expense of the suffering of all others is entirely foreign to the mind of the Catholic Church. The motive of gain is one which she regards as altogether inferior. In her eyes to live in order to gain the greatest amount of money possible is as un- worthy as it is dangerous to both soul and body. "Making an honorable and suitable living" is her proposed motive for all classes alike, that each ma}' in * The Christian Work^ an Evangelical newspaper of New York, May 24, 1894, contains a brief but horrifying description of the sweating system as carried on in England and here in our country. The writer, Rev. Louis Albert Banks, D.D., author of White Slaves^ tells us that every branch of industry is infected with this social " plague." Starvation wages, the work in foul garrets and cellars, crowded to suffocation by men, women, and chil- dren brutally degraded, no privacy or modesty possible, early death or prostitution the usual fate of the girls, and altogether a revolting condition of mental and bodily slavery to which that of the Southern negroes under the worst taskmaster that ever wielded the lash was Paradise. Popular Happiness, 141 justice and charit}- fulfil its own rational function in the social order. What is the social order which Catholicism strives to realize ? The sccitriiig of iJie gi'eatest happiiiess to the greatest mimber. What reply has the Catholic Church to make to those who ask of her how that end is to be secured ? * ' Do unto others as 3'ou would have them do unto you." That is Christian justice. " lyOve thy neighbor as thyself." That is Christian charity. In a community thoroughly imbued with these Christian principles of justice and charity, the employer would not say : " How little can I pay and how much can I charge that I may gain the more on both sides of my dealings with my fellow-Christians, let the laborer on the one hand and the needy consumer on the other suffer what loss they may ? ' ' but rather : ' ' How much more can I give to the laborer, and for how much less can I supply the consumer, and yet make an honorable and suitable living ? ' ' Any one can see what would be the result. There would be the greatest possible equalization of all classes necessary to the existence of society. Only moderate fortunes could be amassed. The unnecessary class of social drones, who contribute in no way to the general happiness, would be driven out. The modern "pluto- crat ' ' and state ' ' pauper ' ' would disappear. There would be no pretext for violent uprisings of Labor against Capital. Socialism and Anarchism would be impossible. Never would a case of starvation be heard of. " Every rood of ground would maintain its man," and the reign of the lords of ' ' material progress ' ' would be over. Wherever Catholic ideas have had full sway, there 142 Popular Happmess. such an order of social life has been realized ; not to absolute perfection it is true — nothing human is perfect. But the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil, always instinctively at war with the power of the king- dom of God and his justice, has been kept under by the predominating influence of Catholic social fraternal ideas. Such an order of popular happiness was realized in Catholic England, in Catholic Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, and indeed wherever the Church was able to bring her influence strongly to bear upon the people. The reader has not all the evidence that might be adduced, but he has enough even in this present volume to prove the truth of the assertion. Alas ! how slow the people are in finding out the true causes of all their miseries and in recognizing their true and staunch friend ! The Catholic Church has never yet spoken a word that can be charged with assailing the rights and just dues of the working-man. Neither, indeed, can she be charged with assailing the rights and just claims of the employer. What is more, the Anarchist would appeal in vain to her to sustain his blasphemous attack upon the divine authority of gov- ernment, as would the Socialist to sanction his incon- sistent demands, attacking the rights of property whether of rich or poor in order to reduce a nation of freemen to slaver}- under the ownership of an all- absorbing State Trust Company. The Catholic Church upholds and defends all rights, no matter w^hose, and being humanity's consecrated teacher of the true principles of justice and charity, she alone is able to grapple with great wrongs and bring the most antagonistic interests into harmony. What is her word to-day about the wrongs of the present indus- Popular Happiness. J 43 trial system. The Holy Father of Christendom, Leo XIII., in his encyclical on the condition of labor, has treated of this subject and pointed out the remedy. He says : " Public institutions and laws have repudiated the ancient re- ligion. Hence by degrees it has come to pass that working-men have been given over, isolated and defenceless, to the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained competition. The evil has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless under a different form, but with the same guilt, practised by avaricious and grasping men. And to this must be added the custom of working by contract, and the concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself." After thus probing the cause of the general discon- tent the Pope goes on to point out the remedy. He says : " If Christian precepts prevail the two classes (capitalists and laborers, the rich and the poor) will not only be united in the bonds of friendship, but also in those of brotherly love. For they will understand and feel that all men are the children of the com- mon Father— that is, of God ; that all have the same last end, which is God Himself, who alone can make either men or angels absolutely and perfectly happy ; that all and each are redeemed by Jesus Christ and raised to the dignity of children of God, and are thus united in brotherly ties, both with each other and with Jesus Christ, the first born among viariy brethren. " If society is to be cured now, in no other way can it be cured but by a return to the Christian life and Christian institutions. When a society is perishing the true advice to give to those who would restore it is to recall it to the principles from which it sprung ; for the purpose and perfection of an association is to aim at and to attain that for which it w^as formed ; and its operation should be put in motion and inspired by the end and object which originally gave it its being. So that to fall away from its primal 144 Popular Happiness. constitution is disease ; to go back is recovery. And this may be asserted with the utmost truth of both the state itself in general and of that body of its citizens— by far the greater number— who sustain Hfe by labor." • These plain, forcible words one feels are spoken with that same assurance which marked the language of Him wdiose divinely appointed Vicar he is, and of whom it is written." He spake as one having author- ity, and not as the Scribes and Pharisees." In the ears of many those words are sounding as the voice of a heavenly friend, cheering and hopeful, heard above the alarming clamors raised by the warring classes which constitute modern society. Yet do they proclaim any new doctrine of human right ? No ; they do no more than simply reaffirm what the Catholic Church has always taught ; that if men are to have their God-given rights they must be free, they must be equal, they must be brethren. Neither is it enough to teach the doctrine of human liberty, equality, and fraternity ; that Chris- tian ideal of true civilization must be realized in fact. And by whom shall this regeneration of man and so- ciety be brought about ? By force of arms ? by mobs ? by incendiary appeals to exasperated multitudes ? All such imagined remedies are evidently not recuperative but destructive. The only hope for the reconstruction of the disturbed social order plainly must lie in the affirm- ation of sound, healthy principles of social life and vigor, and their application by an intelligent and mor- al power able to cope with the magnitude of the under- taking ; and there is but one such teacher and but one such power on the face of the earth— the Catholic Church. A remarkable article, entitled " Religion in America," appeared in the columns of the leading Pro- Popular Happiness, I45 testant journal of the United States— the Independent of May 10, 1894. It is from the pen of a Japanese who is a professor in the Doshisha college in Tokio. All that he knows of Christianity is Protestantism, and judging it from its new Gospel that blesses the rich and despises the poor, he finds it a failure. I^et us hear some of his observations : . " There are many persons who starve, or commit suicide even, vvhen there is no famine. Therefore the world is rich, but the laborers are poor. CiviHzation is progressing, but it shows no mercy to the laborer. The Gospel is preached, but the laborers cannot hear it. Ah ! the words, ' Blessed are the poor,' and ' The Gospel is preached to the poor,' are no longer true ; they are simply recorded in a Bible which is chained to the pulpit. In some extreme cases the Christian church excludes poor people from coming into the church." It is quite evident that Professor Ukita has small knowledge or experience of the Catholic Church. He sees the results of all this, and how the Protestant poor come to hate Christianity and become atheists, anarch- ists, and socialists; and adds (italics mine): " The result of the Reformation in the beginning of the six- teenth century was to substitute one superstition for another, biblical infallibility for papal infallibility, and since the supremacy of the new church was bestowed on the sovereigns of different states, there originated many popes instead of one pope, many Roman churches instead of one Roman church, and the people of Europe and America have forgotten the great principle of the Gospel in the struggle of the difftrent denojuinations." That is a pretty sharp lesson this professor, all the way from Japan, reads to his American Protestant friends. But though he is evidently ignorant of Catho- licivSm, either of its history or its spirit, he reads the 1 46 Popular Happiness. newspapers, and through them has heard the words of the Father, the true Father of God's children and teacher of Christ's Gospel to the poor, and so he is thus led to reflect : " Moreover, at a lime when the world is brought more and more under the control of money, and when the lower people are going to rebel against the Church, Leo XIII., the present Pope, has proclaimed the mission of the Church as follows ; " ' The mission of the Church is to protect the weak and to guard itself against all attempts at oppression. Now, after so many distresses, the reign of money is come. ... Its attempt is to conquer the Church and to have control over all the people with money. Neither the Church nor the people will yield to it. I am with the weak, with the humble, with those without prop- erty : that is, I am with those who were loved by our Lord.' " " Ah, how sacred are those words ! " exclaims this Japanese professor ; and in listening to the Holy Father, he seems to hear a voice of singular power and sweetness uttering words of more than human wisdom — a voice like unto His of whom it is written : " Never did man speak like this man." " Though the very God, once more becoming man, should come in the nineteenth century and give his revelation, it would not be other than this. There is nothing improper, even if we call this a living manifestation of God." When, as it is to be hoped, by God's grace, Pro- fessor Ukita comes to discover the true ' ' living mani- festation of God " in the divinely ordained and divinely guided Church of Christ, he will better understand from what inspiring source proceeded those words impress- ing him so profoundly as being none other but the language of the very God whose Vicegerent he is who uttered them. CHAPTER XII. CATHOIvICISM AND LIBERTY. PROTESTANT and other anti-Catholic writers gen- erall}^ who cater to the prejudices of the ignorant multitude assume, as an indisputable maxim, that lib- erty was born of the Reformation. They charge the Church with being hostile to every kind of liberty, re- ligious, political, civil, and individual. They associate Protestantism with liberty, and Catholicism with des- potism. The great argument used in this country against the Church is her alleged hostility to liberty, and the certainty, if she once gained ascendency here, she would destroy our free institutions, and reduce the nation to political and spiritual slaver3^ Such is the allegation, such the argument. I propose to throw some light upon the question by evidence furnished from the writings of Protestant authorities alone. It will be seen that the very re- verse of what is alleged is true. The popular Protestant ignorance and delusion on this subject is due to the fact that the writings of their own eminent historians and essayists are read but by a very few even of the better educated among them. It is from these sources that we shall see how well- grounded is the claim of the Catholic Church to be the founder, the mother, the protector, the guide, the all- in-all to whatever true liberty of any kind Christian civilization may boast of having secured to human so- ciety. We shall also learn in what light to regard 147 148 Catholicisju and Liberty. Protestantism. In quoting from Protestant writers, the difficulty I find is not in the lack of such testimonies in favor of the Catholic Church and condemnatory of Protestantism, but in contenting myself with presenting only such a limited number as the space of this essay will permit. It would take a goodly sized volume to contain all that could be quoted. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. If the enemies of the Church who are constantly denouncing her as being the greatest foe to liberty would open the pages of any histor}^ they would be brought face to face with one stupendous fact, which in itself would be quite enough to silence their accusa- tions for ever ; and that is the glorious regeneration of society in Europe wrought by her through the abolition of slavery. She found the human race in fetters. No- where was the dignity of man acknowledged, and no school of philosophy nor priest of any religion taught the equality of all men. But it is precisely upon that new doctrine, of which the Catholic Church was and continues to be the divine herald, that all liberty is based. Deny that, and human freedom is impossible. And perhaps the most wonderful of all facts connected with this emancipation of mankind was that she con- ferred this lasting benefit upon it without injustice or revolution, without deluging nations in rivers of blood. Inspired to lay this first and firm and all necessary foundation of every kind of true liberty, individual or social, religious or political, she taught men the doc- trine of Christ — " Love ye one another." That is what men learned first of all in her school of liberty, and they who learned the lesson proved it by striking off the Catholicism and Liberty. 149 chains of their slaves. No man will enslave another whom he loves. And this was the constant voice of the whole Church speaking from Rome. Hear the Pope, St. Gregory the Great : " Since our blessed Redeemer, the Creator of all things, has deigned, in His goodness, to assume the flesh of man, in order to restore to us our pristine liberty, by breaking the bonds of ser- vitude wh^ich held us captives, it is a salutary deed to restore to men, by enfranchisement, their native liberty, for, in the begin- ing, nature inade them all free, and they have only been subjected to the yoke of servitude by the law of nations " (1. 5. lett. 72). A strange foe to liberty must that Church have been which inspired, as she did, the foundation of great re- ligious orders of men whose solemn vowed purpose was to devote themselves to the redemption of captives held by the Moors and other infidels, at all cost, even to the giving up their lives, if required, in exchange for the liberty of their brothers in Christ. But w^hat do Protestants generally know about all these great and glorious, heroic works of the Catholic Church ? Nothing. When some of them forcibly open the pages of history which are so carefully kept closed to their sight, and come to learn what the Catholic Church has done by precept and example in the performance of her mission to redeem the world, and give to humanity true liberty, both of body and soul, one can easily imagine in what esteem they then are led to hold their former teachers from whom they learned all they thought they knew about "Romanism." But let us look at a little more Protestant testimony. Mr. Lecky, the historian, says : '' The Catholic Church was the very heart of Christendom. i^o Catholicism and Liberty. The result of the ascendency it gained brought about a stage of civiHzation that was one of the most important in the evolutions of society. By consolidating the heterogeneous and anarchical elements that succeeded the downfall of the Roman Empire, by infusing into Christendom the conception of a bond of unity that is superior to the divisions of nationhood, and of a moral tie that is superior to force, by softening slavery into serfdom, and prepar- ing the way for the ultimate emancipation of labor, Catholicism laid the very foundations of modern civilization. In the tran- sition from slavery to serfdom, and in the transit ion from serfdom to liberty, she was the most zealous, the most unwearied, and the 7nost efficient agent (Hist, of Rationalism, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37, 209). Yes ; when this ' ' foe to human liberty ' ' began her divine work every laborer was a slave, and she never ceased her untiring efforts until she emancipated the laboring classes, until they were as noble and as inde- pendent a class of freemen as ever stood upon the face of the earth. The reader should here ask himself: Is the laboring man a freeman now ; and if not, why not? What influence has been at work, and from what date, to reverse and destroy his freedom and is now rapidly reducing him to a social serf, the very slave in- deed of soulless, pagan corporations? Any man of common sense should be able to see that the only true friend and staunch defender of the rights and liberty of the working-man against the enslaving influences of the doctrines and social polity of Protestantism and Secular- ism, is the Roman Catholic Church. Dr. Maitland declares that : " At the darkest periods the Christian Church was the source and spring of civilization, the dispenser of what little comfort and security there was in the things of this world, and the quiet scrip- tural assert er of the rights of man " (Essays on the Dark Ages, P- 393)- Catholicism and Liberty. 151 M. Guizot, the Protestant French historian, says: " There can be no doubt that the CathoHc Church struggled resolutely against the great vices of the social state— against sla- very, for instance. These facts are so well known " [not to our modern enlightened Protestants, M. Guizot] " that it is needless for me to enter into details " {History of Civilization, lect. vi.) PROMOTION AND DEFENCE OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL LIBERTY. M. Guizot, speaking of the fifth century, when the Roman Empire was in the agonies of dissolution, and the whole of Europe was inundated by hordes of bar- barians, says : " I do not think that I say more than the truth in affirming that // luas the Christian Church which saved Christianity ; it was the Church, with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, that vigorously resisted both the internal dissolution of the empire and barbarism ; which conquered the barbarians, and became the bond, the medium, and the principle of civilization between the Roman and barbarian worlds. ... In the midst of that deluge of material force which at this period overwhelmed so- ciety, there was an immense benefit in the presence of a moral influence, a moral power, a power which derived all its force from convictions, from belief, from moral sentiments. Had there been no Christian Church the whole world would have beeti aban- doned to mere material force. The Church alone exercised a moral power" ( Guizot 's Hist. Gen.de la Civilisation en Europe, 3d ed., Paris, 1840, 2eme legon). " The Church was a regularly organized society, having its principles, its rules, its discipline, and animated with an ardent desire of extending its influence, of conquering its conquerors. Among tha Christians of this period, among the Christian clergy, there were men who had thought upon all moral and political questions, who had decided opinions and energetic sentiments 152 Catholicism and Liberty, upon all subjects, and a vivid desire to propagate and give them empire. No society ever made more vigorous efforts to make her influence felt, and to mould to her own form the world around her, than the Christian Church from the fifth to the tenth century. She had, in a manner, assailed barbarism on all points, to civilize by subduing it" (Jb., 3eme legon, p. 86). " All the civil elements of modern society (municipal govern-^ ment, the feudal system, and royalty) were either in their infancy or in decrepitude. The Church alone was young and organized ; she alone had acquired a settled form, and retained all the vigor of her prime ; she alone had both activity and order, energy and a system — that is, the two great means of influence. . . . The Church had, moreover, agitated all the great questions which concern man; she was solicitous about all the problems of his nature, about all the chances of his destiny. Hence her influence on modern civilization has been immense ; greater, perhaps, than has ever been imagined by her most ardent adversaries or her most zealous advocates. Absorbed either in her defence or in aggression, they considered her only in a polemical point of view, and they have failed, I am convinced, in judging her with fairness, and in measuring her in all her dimensions " (/<^., 5eme le9on, p. 132). And again the same writer : " To destroy the liberty of the Papacy would be to aim a death-blow at the rights and liberty of the people." But what was the best he could sa}' of Germany, the home and school of Protestantism ? " Far from demanding political liberty, it has accepted, I should not like to say, political servitude, but rather the absence of liberty " {Hist, of Civ., lect. xii.) Let US hear an English writer. The .historian Milman, speaking of the sixth century of Christianity, says : Catholicism and Liberty. \t\ "When anarchy threatened the whole west of Europe, and had already almost enveloped Italy in ruin and destruction, on the rise of the power of the Papacy, both controlling and conserva- tive, hung, humanly speaking, the life and death of Christianity— of Christianity as a permanent, aggressive, expansive, and, to a certain extent, uniform system. It is impossible to conceive what had been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the middle ages without the mediasval Papacy" {History of Latin Christianity, book iii. ch. vii, vol. ii.) Much more will be found in the same work, and in the same author's Metropolis of Christianity and His- tory of Early Christianity . The Protestant biographer of the heroic Pope St. Gregory VII. — Voight — relates the many struggles made in the defence of both civil and religious liberty by the very power which ignorant Protestants are ac- customed to look upon as the chiefest of tyrants, and the strongest upholder of despotism. What is his con- clusion ? " The Holy See was the only tribunal which could set any limits to imperial despotism, as a second defender of humanity " (Hist. Greg. VIL, ii. p. 98). Samuel lyaing, the Scotch Calvinist traveller, was able to write of Germany in 1846 : " The German popu- lations are without political liberty as well as civil liberty." The same writer tells us,. in his instructive work, that the most degrading condition of serfage prevailed in Prussia up to the beginning of the present centtiry : " The serfs — that is, the laboring classes and farmers — were held and treated like slaves, without personal freedom, and any one who deserted was brought back by the military, who patrolled 154 Catholicism and Liberty. the roads for the purpose of preventing the escape of the peasants into the free towns, and was imprisoned, fed on bread and water in a black hole, which existed on every baronial estate, and flogged. This system was in full vigor up to the beginning of the present century, and not merely in remote, unfrequented corners of the Continent, but in the centre of her civilization (?) ; all round Hamburg and Lubeck, for instance ; in Holstein, Schleswig, Han- over, Brunswick, and over all Prussia " {Notes of a Traveller, i'846, pp. 97, 104). The reader will please note that he particularly specifies the strongest Protestant states in Germany. Now let us hear from the Rev. E. Cutts, D.D., in a work published by the English Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge : "In the middle ages the Church was a great fiopular institu- tion. . . . One reason, no doubt, of the popularity of the mediaeval Church was that it had always been the chajnpion of the people and the friend of the poor. In politics the Church was always on the side of the liberties of the people against the tyranny of the feudal lords. In the eye of the nobles the laboring population were beings of an mferior caste ; in the eye of the law they were chattels ; in the eye of the Church they were brethren in Christ, souls to be won and trained and fitted for heaven. In social life the Church was an easy landlord and a kind master. . . . On the whole, with many drawbacks, the mediaeval Church did its duty — according to its own li-dit — to the people. It was the great cultivator of learning and art, and it did its best to educate the people. It had vast political influence, and used it on the side of the liberties of the people. ... By means of its painting and sculpture in the churches, its mystery plays, its re- ligious festivals, its catechising and its preaching, it is probable that the chief facts of the Gospel history and the doctrines of the Creeds were more universally known and more vividly realized than among the masses of our present population" {Turning- points of English Church History, 1874, pp, 16, 165), Cat Jiolicisui and Liberty. 155 James Anthony Froude, the historian, says : ^' Never in all their history, in ancient times or modern, never that we know of, have mankind thrown out of themselves any- thing so grand, so useful, so beautiful as the Catholic Church once was. In these times of ours well-regulated selfishness is the recognized rule of action ; every one of us is expected to look out for himself first, and take care of his own interests. At the time I speak of the Church ruled the state with the authority of a con- science, and self-interest, as a motive of action, was only named to be abhorred. The bishops and clergy were regarded freely and simply as the immediate ministers of the Almighty ; and they seem to 7ne to have really deserved that hii^h estimate of their charac- ter. It was not for the doctrine which they taught, only or chiefly, that they were held in honor. Brave men do not fall down before their fellow-mortals for the words which they speak, or for the rites which they perform. Wisdom, justice, self- denial, nobleness, purity, high-mindedness — these are the qualities before which the free-born races of Europe have been contented to bow ; and in no order of men were suck qualities to be foutid as they were found six hundred years ago in the clergy of the Catholic Church. Th^y called themselves the Successors of the Apostles ; they claimed, in their Master's name, universal spiritual authority, but they made good their pretensions by the holiness of their own lives. They were allazued to rule because they deserved to rule, and in the fulness of reverence kings and nobles bent be- fore a power which was nearer to God than their own. Over prince and subject, chieftain and serf, a body of unarmed, de- fenceless men reigned supreme by the magic of sanctity. They tamed the fiery Northern warriors, who had broken in pieces the Roman Empire. They taught them — they brought them really and truly to believe — that they had immortal souls, and that they would one day stand at the awful judgment-bar and give account for their lives there. With the brave, the honest, and the good, with those who had not oppressed the poor nor removed their neighbor's landmark, with those who had been just in all their dealings, with those who had fought against evil, and had tried valiantly to do their Master's will, at that great day it would be 1 56 Catholicism and Liberty, well. For cowards, for profligates, for those who lived for luxury and pleasure and self-indulgence, there was the blackness of eternal death. " An awful conviction of this tremendous kind the clergy had effectually instilled into the mind of Europe. It was not a Per- haps ; it was a certainty. It was not a form of words repeated once a week at church ; it was an assurance entertained on all days and in all places, without any particle of doubt. And the effect of such a belief on life and conscience was simply immeas- urable. " I do not pretend that the clergy were perfect. They were very far £rom perfect at the best of times, and the European na- tions were never completely submissive to them. . . . They could not prevent the kings from quarrelling with each other. They could not hinder disputed successions, and civil feuds, and wars, and political conspiracies. What they did was to shelter the weak from the strong. In the eyes of the clergy the serf and his lord stood on the common level of sinful humanity. Into their ranks high birth was no passport. They were themselves, for the most part, children of the people ; and the son of the artisan or peasant rose to the mitre or the triple crown, just as nowadays the rail-splitter and the tailor become Presidents of the Republic of the West. The Church was essentially democratic, while at the same time it had the monopoly of learning ; and all the secular power fell to it which learning, combined with sanctity, and as- sisted with superstition, can bestow " (Froude's Short Studies on Great Subjects, vol. i. 2d ed., 1867, pp. 33-37). The learned Canon Farrar sa3'S : " What was it that had preserved the best elements of Chris- tianity in the fourth century ? The self-sacrifice of the Jiermits. What was it which saved the principles of law, and order, and civilization ^ What rescued the wreck of ancient literature from the universal conflagration .'* What restrained, what converted the inrushing Teutonic races ? What kept alive the dying embers of science ? What fanned into a flame the white ashes of art.? What reclaimed waste lands, cleared forests, drained fens, pro- Catholicism and Liberty. 157 tected miserable populations, encouraged free labor, equalized widely separated ranks? What was the sole witness for the cause of charity, the sole preservative of even partial education, the sole rampart against intolerable oppression ? What force was left which could alone humble the haughty by the courage which is inspired by superiority to those things which most men desire, and elevate the poor by a spectacle of a poverty at once voluntary and powerful? What weak and unarmed power alone retained the strength and the determination to dash down the mailed hand of the baron when it was uplifted against his serf, to proclaim a truce of God between warring violences, and to make insolent wickedness tremble by asserting the inherent supremacy of goodness over transgression, of knowledge over ignorance, of quiet righteousness over brute force ? You will say the Church ; you ivill s.iy Christianity. Yes, but for many a lon^ century the very bulwarks and ra7nparts of the Church were the mofiasteries, and the one invincible force of the Church lay in the self-sacrifice, the holiness, the courage of the Monks " (Saintly Workers, \i\). 82, 83, ed. 1878). " From the fifth to ;he thirteenth century," says the same writer, " the Church was engaged in elaborating the most splen- did organization which the world has ever seen. Starting with the separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, and the mutual independence of each in its own sphere, Catholicism worked hand-in-hand with feudalism for the amelioration of man- ,kind. Under the influence of feudalism slavery became serfdom, and aggressive was modified into defensive war. Under the influence of Catholicism the monasteries preserved learning, and maintained the sense of the unity of Christendom. Under the combmed influence of both -grew up the lovely ideal of chivalry, moulding generous instincts into gallant institutions, making the body vigorous and the soul pure, and wedding the Christian virtues of humility and tenderness to the natural graces of courtesy and strength. During this period the Church was the one mighty witness for light i)i att age of darkness, for order in ajt age of lawlessness, for pers nal holiness ift an epoch of licentious rage. Amid the despotism of kings and the turbulence of aristocracies, it was an inestmiable blessing that there should 158 Catholicism and Liberty. ^ be a power which, by the unarmed majesty of simple goodness, made the haughtiest and the boldest respect the interests of justice, and tremble at the thought of temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come " {Huhcan Lectures for 1870, p. 115, lect. iii., " The Victories of Christianity "). Here is the testimony of another English writer : "The Church may fairly claim the credit of having founded and preserved modern civilization. When the empire sank beneath the advancing Huns, it was the Bishop of Rome who stayed the destroying hand of the barbarian ; it was the spiritual influence of the Church which, amidst the ruins created by bar- barism and anarchy, procured respect for the- great fabric of Roman Law ; it was her religious ritual and conventual schools which more than any other cause prevented the Latin language from becoming extinct. In all these instances the Church ap- pears as the champion of order and liberty " {Quarterly Review, January, 1878, p. 11). Mr. Laing has also to say : " Law, learning, education, science, all that ive ter7n civiliza- tion in the present social condition of the European people, spring from the supremacy of the Roman pontiff and of the Catholic priesthood over the kings and nobles of the middle ages. All that men have of civil, political, and religious freedom in the present age may be clearly traced, in the history of every country, to the working and effects of the independent power of the Church of Rome over the property, social economy, movement, mind, and intelligence of all connected with her in the social body " {Observations on Europe, 1850, p. 395). The following is from an American writer, penned while slavery yet existed here : " The Catholic Church was in reality the life of Europe. She was the refuge of the distressed, the friend of the slave, the helper of the injured, the only hope of learning. ... Let us Catholicism and Liberty. 1 59 not cling to the superstition which teaches that the Church has always upheld the cause of tyrants. Through the middle ages she was the only friend and advocate of the people, and of the rights of man. To her influence was it owing that, through all that strange era, the slaves of Europe were better protected by law than are now the free blacks of the United States by the national statutes" {North American Review, July, 1845). Dr. Nevin, another esteemed American Protestant essayist, saj^s : " It is historically certain that European society, as a whole, in the period before the Reformation, was steadily advancing in the direction of a rational, safe liberty. The problem by which the several interests of the throne, the aristocracy, and the mass of the people were to be rightly guarded and carried forward in the onward movement of civilization, so as by just harmony to serve and not hinder the true welfare of all, was one of vast difificulty. The simple position of these several elements relatively to each other, at the going out of the middle ages, is of itself enough to show how false it is to represent the old Catholicity as the enemy of popular liberty; for we see that European civilization at this time, after having been for so many centuries under the sole guardianship of that power, presented no one of these interests as exclusively predominant " {Mercersbtiyg Review, March, 1851). If the reader will now turn back to the chapter in which I have given some testimony concerning the social condition and manners of the Spanish people, he will see how thoroughly that nation has been imbued from time immemorial with the noblest and purest ideas of human liberty, and in fact enjoyed better defined civil rights and larger political privileges than perhaps any other country in Europe, Catholic or Protestant. Don Carlos did not overstate the truth when he said : ' ' No country in the world is less susceptible of govern- ment by absolutism than Spain. // never was so gov- 1 60 Catholicism and Liberty, • =" — "= — " — " " ' " " ' — erned ; it never will be.'' I take the liberty of saying to that assurance, that if ever Spain unhappily should lose her Catholic faith it surely will be so governed. After having so abundantly proved from the mouths of Protestant authorities of the most reliable character what the world owes to the Catholic Church for its present civilization and liberty, I so far allow myself to depart from the general rule observed in tbis essa}^ as to quote from a Catholic author certain observ^ations which I might indeed have made, but of whose more forcible style I prefer to give the reader the benefit. The writer is discussing the subject of political liberty, and of its spirit evidenced in the desire of limiting power by means of popular representative institutions. He goes on to say : " Does political liberty in this point of view originate in Protestant ideas ? Is it under any obligation to them ? Has it, in fine, any reproach against Catholicity ? I open the works of Catholic writers anterior to Protestantism in order to ascertain their sentiments on this subject, and I find they take a clear View of the problem to be solved. I examine rigidly whether they teach anything opposed to the progress of the world, to the dignity or the rights of man ; I examine, again, whether they bear any affinity to despotism or to tyranny, and I find theiti full of sympathy for the progress of enlightenment and of mankind, in- flamed with noble and generous sentiments, and zealous for the happiness of the multitude. I remark, indeed, that their hearts swell with indignation at the mere mention of tyranny and despot- ism. I open the records of histor\'. I study the opinions and customs of the nations, and the predominating institutions ; I be- hold on all sides nothing but fiieros, privileges, liberty, cortes, states-general, municipalities, and juries. All this appears in the greatest confusion, but I see it ; and I am not astonished to dis- cover an absence of order, for it is a new world just arisen from chaos, I ask myself if the n-^onarch possesses in himself the Catholicism and Liberty. l6l faculty of making laws ; and upon this question I very naturally find variety, uncertainty, and confusion ; but I observe that the assemblies representing the different classes of the nation take part in the enactment of the laws. I ask whether they have any interference in the great affairs of the state ; and I find it stated in the codes that they are to be consulted on all grave and important affairs; I see monarchs frequently observing this precept. I ask whether these assemblies possess any guarantees for their exist- ence and their influence ; and the codes inform me by the most decisive texts, and a thousand facts are at hand to convince me, that these institutions were deeply rooted in the customs and manners of the people. " Now, what was then the predominating religion } Catho- licity. Were the people much attached to religion ? So much so that the spirit of religion predominated over all. Did the clergy possess great influence ? Very great. What was the power of the Popes ? It was immense. Where do you find the clergy at- tempting to extend the power of kings to the prejudice of the people ? Where are the Pontifical decrees against such or such forms ? Where are the measures and plans of the Popes for the restriction of one single legitimate right ? No reply. Then I say, indignantly, Europe under the influence of Catholicity arose from chaos to order, civilization advanced at a firm and steady pace, the grand problem of political forms engaged the attention of men of wisdom, questions of morality and laws were receiving a solu- tion favorable to liberty, and yet the influence of the clergy was never greater even in temporal matters, and the power of the Popes was in every sense quite colossal. What ! one word from the Sovereign Pontiff would have smitten unto death every form of popular government ; and yet such forms were receiving a rapid development. Where, then, is the tendency of the Catholic re- ligion to enslave the people ? Where the infamous alliance between kings and Popes to oppress and harass the people, to establish on the throne a ferocious despotism, and to rejoice under its gloomy shades over the misfortune and tears of man- kind ? When the Popes had a quarrel with any kingdom, was it usually with the king or the people ? When it was necessary to oppose a firm front against tyranny and oppression, who stood 1 62 Catholicism and Liberty. forward more promptly or more firmly than the Sovereign Pontiff? Does not Voltah-e himself admit that the Popes restrained princes, protected the people, and put an end to the quarrels of the time by a wise intervention ; reminded both kings and people of their duties, and hurled anathemas against those enormities which they could not prevent?" {Protestantism and Catholicity Compared, Balmez, ch. Ixi.) I deem it quite impossible for any unbiassed person to read the scholarly work of Balmez without heartily subscribing to the verdict with which he closes his volume : " Before Protestantism European civilization had reached all the development which was possible for it. Protestantism per- verted the course of civilization, and produced immense evils in modern society. The progress which has been made since Protestantism, has been made not by it, but in spite of it. I have only consulted history, and I have taken extreme care not to i)er- vert it. I have borne in mind this passage of Holy Writ : ' Has God, then, need of thy falsehood ? ' The documents to which I refer are there; they are to be found in all libraries, ready to answer ; read them, and judge for yourselves." Here, by way of contrast, and as a painful exempli- fication of forgetfulness of the scriptural warning ques- tion which Balmez quotes, I choose among hundreds of similar ones the following : It first appeared as an edi- torial in the columns of the New York Herald, Octo- ber 14, 1880. The anti-Catholic Evangelical Alliance quickly caught it up, inserted it in several of its official documents, offered it before congressional committees as evidence condemnatory of the Catholic Church, and caused it to be widely circulated throughout the country, with what lamentable effect in confirming and deepening old and unfounded prejudices in the minds of Protestants, may well be imagined : Catholicism and Liberty, 163 " This is a Protestant country, and the American people are a Protestant people. They tolerate all religions, even Mohamme- danism ; but there are points in these tolerated religions to which they object and will not permit; and the vice of the Roman Catholic Church, by which it has rotted out the political institu- tions of all countries where it exists, which has made it like a flight of locusts everywhere, will be properly rebuked here when it fairly shows its purpose." ' ' Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," is one of the commandments by which men shall be judged. Every time I come across that piece of false testimony and others from the same source (and one need not be surprised to hear it repeated in the next Protestant sermon he hears, or in the next Protest- ant newspaper he reads) I cannot but wonder how the right reverend, reverend, and honorable members and officers of the Evangelical Alliance can bring them- selves to risk the consequences of such gross violations of that commandment — consequences standing recorded against them on God's Judgment Book, standing while they live, and as they die, with no sign of repentance or of effort at retraction and restitution. In the whole history of the Catholic Church such obliviousness to the demands of truth and justice has no parallel. Comparing the character of the testimonies we have just heard, the language of Cardinal Newman comes in as a very apposite reflection : ' ' Not a man in Europe (or elsewhere) now, who talks bravely against the Church, but owes it to the Church that he can talk at all." CHAPTER XIII. PROTEvSTANTISM AND LIBERTY. MY Catholic reader has probably wondered that I have not made special allusion to the foundation and defence of popular liberty in England centuries before Protestantism brought in its tyrants to rule over that unhappy kingdom. But I have taken it for granted that Catholics need not be reminded, neither ought any Protestant of the least learning to be told, that all English liberties are Catholic : that Magna Charta itself was written and sealed by Catholic hands ; that representative forms existed when Protestantism was not dreamed of ; also trial by jur\^ fixed courts, habeas corpus, taxation only by consent of the people, all of which were ruthlessly trampled under foot by the royal founders of English Protestantism, and the doctrines of the " divine right of kings" distinguished for their brutal despotism, and whose parliaments became the cringing, abject slaves of their will. How can Protestantism make the least claim to having either proclaimed new principles of free government, or aided in the spread of civil, political, or religious liberty ? It is indisputable that the people lost their liberties as Protestantism gained influence, and the increase of royal power dates precisely from this rise of rebellion against the divine sanction of authority whether in Church or state, only to confer an absolute irresponsible human authority upon the state over both religion and the social order. I^ook at the 164 Protestantism and Liberty, 165 absolute despotism of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth in England, the like of which Christendom had never seen. When the war of the Huguenots was over in France, royal power became more absolute than ever. Under Gustavus, King of Sweden, and under his successors, the people fell back into the worst condition of serfage. In'Denmark, in Prussia, the kings assumed absolute mastery, and in Austria the Emperor Charles V. followed their example. In Italy the smaller Catholic republics weakened and disappeared ; in Spain the ancient Cortes of Castile, Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia were abandoned. Protestantism gave the word — the king rules no longer subject to divine law, but by his own arrogated " divine right," and is limited in his power only by his own will. Religious unity, founded upon recognition of the rights of God in both Church and state, was violently severed, and the people of Europe were broken up into two great warring factions, mortally hating one another, and issuing in the most savage and relentless conflicts, in the course of which the kings triumphed at the expense of the loss of the civil, political, and religious liberties of the people. Royal power, instructed by Protestantism that both Church and state were but creatures of its will and pleasure, and that it need no longer fear the anathemas of Christ's Vicegerent, looked on from its throne of irre- sponsible rule as the people quarrelled and raged and slew one another, and waited, until exhausted with their own frenzied passions and finding themselves on th'e brink of social ruin, they were themselves forced to yield up every iota of liberty they possessed into the hands of their kings to save themselves from utter ex- 1 66 Protestantism and Liberty. tinction." That is why the people in Sweden submitted to the fierce despotic seizure of absolute power by Charles XI. in 1680. That is why the natives in Denmark, alarmed at the prevailing state of anarchy, supplicated King Frederick III. in 1669 to declare the monarchy hereditary and absolute, and why, later on, came the Cromwellian despotism in Khgland and the creation of the hereditary Stadtholder in Holland. In England, when James I. came to the throne, that royal theologian proclaimed this doctrine: '* God has appointed the king or ruler absolute master, and all privileges which co-legislative bodies enjoy are pure QoncQSsiows proeeedi?ig from the ktJig's bounty.'' How does that sound in the ears of those who are vainly striving to make the cap of liberty fit the head of Pro- testantism ? Listen to this : When the king pro- claimed that doctrine of absolutism to his Parliament, they listened in cowardly silence. But when a court preacher in Catholic Spain dared say the same, as he was preaching a flattering sermon before King Philip II., -and said, "Sovereigns have absolute power over the property and persons of their subjects " — a doctrine carried out to the letter in Protestant Sweden and Denmark, as it was by the founders of Protestant royalty in England — the people rose indignantly and denounced him to the Inquisition. That tribunal con- demned him and his doctrine, punished him, and obliged him to make a public recantation in the face of the king. The Protestant English had long forgotten their ancient Catholic liberties. They lost them both when, and because, they lost their Catholic faith. The Catholic Spaniards were more happy. They kept their faith, and that faith told them of their rights, and gave Protestantism and Liberty, 167 them courage to assert them. They "knew the truth, and the truth had made them free." Protestant absolutism never triumphed in Spain. What we see and have evidence for, as having been the results of the Reformation in other countries, is only a faithful record of what England suffered from the loss of her Catholic faith. " We have looked for," says the Protestant traveller, Bremner, " but can find no single check to the }K)wer of the king in Den- mark. Laws, property, taxes, all are at the mercy of his tyranny or caprice. The peasants remain now in many parts of Denmark little better than serfs " {Excursions in Denmark, Norway, atid Sweden, Robert Bremner, London, 1840). Mark the date ! That other travelled observer, Laing, confirms this statement : " It is one of the most remarkable circumstances in modern history that about the middle of the seventeenth century, when all other countries were advancing towards constitutional arrange- ments of some kind or other for the security of civil and re- ligious liberty, Denmark, by a formal act of her states or diet, abrogated even that shadozu of a constitution and invested her sovereigns with full, despotic power to make and execute law without any check or control on their absolute authority. Lord Molesworth, thirty-two years after this singular transaction, makes this curious observation— that ' in the Roman Catholic re- ligion there is a resisting principle to absolute civil power due to division of authority with the head of the Church at Rome, but in the north the Lutheran Church is entirely subservient to the civil power, and the whole of the northern people of Protestant coun- tries [England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Germany] have lost their liberties ever since they changed their religion for a better [?].' The Swede has no freedom of mind, no power of dissent in religious opinion from the established church. One not baptized, confirmed, and instructed by a clergyman of the 1 68 Protestantism and Liberty, established church cannot marry, hold office, or exercise any act as a citiscn—\\Q would, in fact, be an outlaw. A country in this state lacks the very foundation on which civil liberty must stand." • Protestant Prussia was no better. The serf system, introduced and servilely submitted to under the influence of the " better" religion, continued to prevail in that kingdom up to the beginning of the present century. "The condition of these born-serfs — the great body of the people," Laing tells us, "was very similar to that of the negro slaves in the West Indies before their emancipation." The very system of education in Prussia, so much admired by American Protestants, and which they seem so determined to force upon our own free people, " was nothing," says Laing, " but a deception, a delusion put upon the noblest principle of human nature— the desire for intellectual development — practised for the political end of rearing the individual to be part and parcel of an artificial system of despotic government, of training him to be eithfer its instrument or its slave, according to his social station " {Notes of a Traveller, p. 174). Listen to our present anti-Catholic preachers, National Leagues, Alliances, secret "orders" of A. P. A.'s, and "American Mechanics," with their cries about " protecting American institutions " against what they falsely charge the Catholic Church with be- ing desirous of and plotting to secure — viz., the "Union of Church and State." And all this, too, right in the face 6f their own failure to make such an union between the Protestant church and state, as I have lately proved beyond all cavil in the pages of The Catholic Wo7id Magazine (January and February, T894). Protestantism and Liberty. 169 Why all this outcry from Protestants about the dangers to religious liberty to be apprehended from union of church and state ? What is the fact ? There is ' * Union of Church and State ' ' in England and Wales, Scotland, Prussia, Sweden, Norway, and Den- mark — all Protestant countries. In England the king or queen is at the same time head of the church and of the state, and the church is reduced to the condition of a mere creature and tool of the state. If Protestantism be favorable to religious liberty, why did it bring about this union of church and state in every country where it has been the dominant religion, and why does it still sustain it in greater or less force in all the above-mentioned countries ? Says Hallam : " It is often said that the essential principle of Protestantism, and that for which the struggle was made, was something dif- ferent from what we have mentioned ; a perpetual freedom from all authority in religious belief, or what goes by the name of the 'right of private judgment.' But to look at what occurred, this permanent independence was not much asserted, and still less acted upon. The Reformation was only a change of masters " {History of Literature, vol. i. p. 200). Let the reader get at a history of Switzerland, and he will find that in the Protestant cantons the democratic principle was weakened, and the legislature " bossed " the Church. But the Catholic cantons are the freest of all. He will not find any persecution of Protestants there, no attempt to unite church and state, and no loss of their original Swiss liberties. The Protestant historian, D'Aubigne, is puzzled to explain this, and offers an amusing reason. The Catholic cantons . are chiefly the mountainous parts of 1 70 Protestantism and Liberty. Switzerland, the Protestant ones are in the plains. So M. D'Aubigne tells us that "intelligence had not penetrated to those heights ' ' / He meant that they were not intelligent enough to embrace the new Protestant- ism. Thank God ! — nor base enough to barter away the least of their democratic liberties. Catholics have often declared the Catholic religion to be the "Religion of the State," but that title has never been synonymous with "Creature and Tool of the State." Catholics know^ the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and they carry it out in practice : " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ; and unto God the things that are God's." Protestantism has always delivered over the things that are God's into the hands of Caesar, and has tamely submitted to let Caesar do what he would with them, whether those " things of God " were so judged to be His by themselves, or. by Catholics ; and Caesar has not been slow to take advantage of the tyrannical power they have invested him with, both to keep them in a base religious slavery and to rob Catho- lics of every " thing of God " which they held as holy and consecrated to His service. FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Perhaps there are no subjects concerning which there is greater confusion of mind among Protestants than that of religious liberty and the freedom of conscience. Their common erroneous notions of Catho- lic doctrine and practice on the same subjects lead them to make and to give credence to all sorts of ab- surd charges, and to interpret many facts of history in a false light. Protestantism and Liberty. 1 7 1 This is all the more surprising because the true ethical doctrines of their own sects are precisely in accordance with those of the Catholic Church. Not one of their intelligent teachers would pretend that there could be liberty of any kind without law, or that freedom of conscience meant anything else than free- dom to obey that voice of God in the nature and heart of man which speaks within the soul as an internal witness both of the existence and law of God. Both Catholics and Protestants, in doctrine, are agreed that a man's conscience is supreme, not in giving him per- mission to do whatsoever he chooses, but just the con- trary, supreme and absolutely inflexible in exacting obedience to obligations to what it says is duty. As Cardinal Newman forcibly proclaims its supremacy : "Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremp- toriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas, and, even though the eternal priesthood throughout the Church could cease to be, in it the sacerdotal principle would remain and would have a sway." And this great Christian writer goes on to show how this true idea of Conscience has become dimmed in these later days, first through the antagonism of infidel philoso- phers, and secondly as a consequence of popular igno- rance and licentiousness in living'. What freedom of conscience has come to mean in the popular mind, and the confused notions concerning religious liberty that have resulted, the Cardinal thus clearly and succinctly exposes : " In the popular mind, no more than in the intellectual world, does ' conscience ' retain the old, true, Catholic meaning of the word. There too the idea, the presence of a Moral Governor is 1 72 Protestantism and Liberty. far away from the use of it, frequent and emphatic as that use of it is. When men advocate the rights of conscience, they in no sense mean the rights of the Creator, nor the duty to Him, in thought and deed, of the creature ; but the right of thinking, speaking, writing, and acting according to their judgment or their humor, without any thought of God at all. They do not pretend to go by any moral rule, but they demand, what they think is an Englishman's [and an American's] prerogative, for each to be his own master in all things, and to profess what he pleases, asking no one's leave, and accounting priest or preacher, speaker or writer, unutterably impertinent who dares to say a word against his going to perdition, if he like it, in his own way. " Conscience has rights because it has duties ; but in this age, with a large portion of the public, it is held to be the very right and freedom of conscience to dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be independent of unseen obligations. It becomes a license to take up any or no religion ; to take up this and that, and let it go again ; to go to church, to go to chapel, to boast of being above all religions, and to be an impartial critic of each of them. " Conscience is a stern monitor, but in this century it has been superseded by a counterfeit which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. // is the right oj self -will. ' * I submit that more than one of those Protestant enemies of the Catholic Church who are so clamorous about their " freedom of conscience," and so ready to accuse the Pope and the Catholic hierarchy and priest- hood generally with denouncing and interfering with that freedom, might make use of the words of Cardinal Newman as an ' ' examination of their own conscience ' ' as to the justice of their accusations. * TAe Pope : How far does He control Conscience ? How far does he inter/ere 7vith Citizenship ? By Cardinal John Henry Newman. Being his Answer to the Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone's pamphlet entitled "Vaticanism." The Catholig Book Exchange, i2q W. 60th St., New York. Protestantism and Liberty, 173 And will they not also join with the Catholic Church in denouncing that '' so-called \\h^x\.y of conscience" which they now see is the one she does denounce — the assumed ''right of self-will"? They must, or deny the true idea of conscience as being the voice of God and the exponent of His divine will, against which no creature dare assert his own without blasphemy. Can one wonder that the Catholic Church sounds the note of alarm when such doctrines of human liberty as the following, taught by the English philosopher, Mr. John Stuart Mill, are found to receive a wide ac- ceptance — not among Catholics, thank God! but among many who call themselves Christians? Says Mr. Mill: " The appropriate region of human Hberty comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness ; demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense, Hberty of thought and feeling, absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all sub- jects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing 2A\di publishing opinion may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the con- duct of an individual which concerns other people ; but being al- most of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically insepar- able frojn it, etc., etc." {Mill on Liberty, Introd.) Either I am very greatly mistaken or such is the view of liberty which many Protestants proclaim to be theirs, and act upon, especially when they attempt to justify the license they give themselves in disturb- ing the social peace of Catholic peoples by expressing and publishing their moral and religious opinions among them, of which I will presently give an ex- ample. 1 74 Protestantism and Liberty. One other fact is worth remark. It is an every- day speech among Catholics that one is "bound in conscience" to do this or to avoid that, while I think I am not going beyond the truth to say that a good deal more is heard among Protestants about the freedom of conscience than about its obligations. Catholics also are constantly reminded in various ways of their being ' ' bound in conscience ' ' to obey the laws of the land they live in and to be loyal to the government ; to be no less " bound in conscience " to obey the laws of the Church and to be loyal to its divinely appointed rulers ; and above all, bound to obey the law of God written on the heart to do what the conscience aflirms to be right, and not to do what is declared by the same interior monitor to be wrong. This constant instruction as to their conscientious obligations results in making Catholics, in relation to their country, peaceful, law-abiding, and loyal citizens ; in relation to their Church, faithful to its doctrines, de- vout in fulfilling its precepts, and filial in their loving obedience to those whom God has set over them ; and in relation to the debt or duty which they ' ' owe to their owai conscience" as the phrase is, in regard to their direct personal responsibility to God, the well- known practice of confession, so universal and so freely and earnestly resorted to in order to receive from God forgiveness for sins of which their consciences accuse them, is a signal proof of the strict and constant atten- tion Catholics pa} to the admonitions and convictions of their conscience. No wonder, then, to find, as you will, in every Catholic prayer-book a number of ques- tions enabling the reader to make a careful ' ' exami- nation of conscience." Protestantism and Liberty, 175 From the foregoing remarks, and especially what I have quoted from Cardinal Newman, one can very, easily see how it comes about that Catholics and Protestants are very likely to have quite diverse notions concerning the extent of what goes by the name of " religious liberty," and in what consists a righteous enjoyment of one's freedom of conscience. As a general rule, wherever Catholic governments have limited the so-called " exercise of the freedom of conscience " as claimed by Protestants, it will be found, and is too notorious to need proof, that under the title of exercising their rights of conscience they have includ- ed the freedom to go among Catholic people and pre- vent them from peacefully exercising their own rights of conscience, by insulting and misrepresenting their holy faith, calling them "idolaters, priest-ridden, the slaves of Antichrist," and seeking by all means, fair or foul, to spread disbelief among the people, cause them to apostatize — in Catholic ej^es a blasphemous denial of Christ — and often bringing on violent and even bloody conflicts between the antagonistic parties they created. Then the Catholic government, of course, would come to the defence of its Catholic citizens and punish these pestilent disturbers of the public peace, who immediately cried out to the world that they were being "persecuted." We have a recent instance which will serve as a good example of this " enjoying one's freedom of conscience" at the expense of other people's. A certain Methodist minister. Rev. Justus H. Nel- son, went down to Brazil to evangelize those " be- nighted, priest-ridden" people through the columns of a newspaper he edited. Religious liberty was, and I "6 Profcsiautisni and Liberty. still is. fully granted in Brazil by that Catholic people, both for private belief and public worship, the sale o\ Protestant Bibles, books, tracts, and even to the pub- lishing of a Methodist religious newspaper. But this Protestant apostle was not content with enjoying all these privileges in a peaceful manner. He must go out into the street and personally insult a Catholic religious procession. to freely satisfy his conscientious convictions, for which the pious bystanders "persecuted" him, as he complained, by knocking his hat off. Enraged at having his freedom of conscience interfered with, he used the colunuis of his newspaper to denounce and ridicule these "superstitious nuimmeries " and the "idolatry of the \'irgin." I have not space to recount all his vile insults; his arraigning the bishops and priests as impostors ; his provoking, and, to the Brazilian Catholics, horribly blasphemous ridicule of all that they held as most sacred. The Methodist New York organ and name- sake of Rev. Mr. Nelson's newspaper, The Christian Adi'Ocati\ not only copied all these exasperating at- tacks upon the faith and peace of the people in Brazil, but defended them ; and why? Because " in Brazil," said tlie New York editor. " the Catholic priests domi- nate the popular will." And again: " All the super- stitious ceremonials, nuimmeries, and open vices so characteristic of Roman Catholic countries.* abound in many of the larger towns." The curious reader may lind a copy of the Rev. Nelson's unseemly editorial writing in the New York Catholic Xeics of February * When my reader shall have read the chapters devoted in this book to Crime and Immorality he will be able to judge what justice there is in this sweeping accusation. J^rotestantisJH and Liberty. I77 5, 1893. Tlie upshot of it was that the Brazilian authorities stojj]j'_-rl tliis Methodist \va\- of " cxtrcisiiig one's freedom of conscience" In* sending tliis reverend disturber of tlie ];ub]ic peace to prison for a few montlis in St. JoseplTs Jail. Tliat was, perhaps, the most un- kinrl persecution of all — to immure a Methodist minis- ter in a dungeon actually dedicaterl to the '"idolatrous worship " of a saint I What rlirl his Methoflist brethren and co-laborers at liome in the L'nited States do then ? They actually attemijted to induce our government to interfere and force the iirazilian Catholics to tamely submit to all the.se outrages upon their faith and .social peace. "Prompt action has been taken." the Christian Advo- cate told us. " Bishop Foss has written a personal let- ter to President Harri.son, who promptly responded that he had at once forwarded it to Secretary Foster for immediate diplomatic action.'" Is not tliat a pretty specimen of what it would appear Methodi.st Protes- tants understanrl by religious liberty, and enjoying one's freedom of conscience ? Are we to understand that this is the kind of re- ligious liberty the Methodists have just besought the Holy Father to use his influence to obtain for them in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador? It is to be hoped that their bishop, the Rev. Dr. Newman, enclosed with the memorial a copy of his printed sentiment about these vSouth American Catholics, as follows : " I woukl rather be a South American Inca of the fifteenth century, whose [pagan] altars were unstained with the worship of saints of an apostate church, than a South American papist of the nineteenth century," with all the rest of his abominable I yS Protestantism and Liberty.^ farrago of detraction and insult. (See the Christian Advocate (Methodist) June i, 1893.) The perusal of his letter, together with a copy of the Report of the Case of the Rev. Mr. Nelson, would no doubt aid the Holy Father in understanding the sort of "freedom of conscience" these Methodist bishops, ministers, colporteurs, and editors would "exercise" if they could once be permitted to do as they like in those Catholic countries. But let us hear what just such another character as this Rev. Mr. Nelson— a Mr. Daniel P. Kidder, hired agent of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society to act as Bible distributer in Brazil, has to say of the religious liberty he found there in 1845. His book of travel is not quite so full of ignorant misrepresentation as his Rev. Methodist Brother Nelson's newspaper was, but there is quite enough to make his testimony of what \^ favorable to Bj'azil unimpeachable. He writes : " The BraziHans, on their poHtical disenthralment, adopted a liberal and tolerant constitution. Although it made the Roman Catholic apostolic religion that of the state, yet it all&wed all other forms of religion to be held and practised, save in buildings ' having the exterior form of a temple.' It also forbade persecu- tion on the ground of religious opinions." In another place he tells us : " It is my firm conviction that there is not a Roman Catholic country on the face of the globe where there prevails a greater degree of toleration, or a greater liberality of feeling towards Protestants " (Sketches of Residence and Travel in Brazil, etc., vol. i. p. 137). Now let us hear Mr. I^aing, the Scotch travelled Bachelor of Cambridge, once more : Protestantism and Liberty. 1 79 ^' The principle that the civil government, or state, or church and state united, of a country, is entitled to regulate its religious belief has more of intellectual thraldom in it than the power of the popish Church ever exercised \Vi the darkest ages,y"(9r it had 110 civil pOTC'er joined to its religious power. The Church of Rome was an independent, distinct, and often an opposing power in every country to the civil power, a circumstance, in the social economy of the middle ages, to which perhaps [certainly ?] Eu- rope is indebted for her civilization and freedom. ... In Germany (in 1846) the seven Catholic sovereigns have 12,074,700 Catholic subjects, and 2,541,000 Protestant subjects. The twenty- nine Protestant sovereigns, including the four free cities, have 12,113,000 Protestant subjects, and 4,966,000 Catholic. Of these populations in Germany those that have their point of spiritual government without their states and independent of them — as the Catholics have at Roine — enjoy certainly more spiritual independ- ence, are less exposed to the intermeddling of the hand of the civil power with their religious concerns, than the Protestant populations, which since the Reformation have had church and state united in one government, and in which each autocratic sovereign is de facto a home-pope " {Notes of a Traveller, p. 194). He goes on to praise the ' ' popish clergy ' ' for taking a firm stand upon liberal and popular grounds in de- fence of the people's rights, and concludes by saying that " Catholicism is, in fact, the only barrier at present 171 Prussia against a general a7id debasing despotism of the state over tniiid and action.''' In the light of such opinions what is to be thought of the present organized attack upon Catholics and their priesthood by the ** National lycague," the "A. P. A.s," and all the rest of the self-constituted ** Protectors of American institutions," in this land of civil and religious liberty? What a shameful page of American history they are writing, to be sure ! The end sought by all these associations and their 1 80 Protestantism and Liberty. supporters is one and the same — to prevent Catholics enjoying the civil and religious liberties guaranteed to them b}^ the Constitution. Some of these associa- tions openly declare that purpose to be one they not only seek, but bind themselves by a slavish oath to use all means, fair and foul, to accomplish if they can. Others, like the " National League for the Protection of American Institutions," confine their acknowledged purpose to secure the accomplishment chiefly of that article of tyranny contained in the programme of the oath-bound societies — that of legally robbing all edu- cation and all charitable work of religion and moral- ity ; both of which elements of spiritual culture Catho- lics declare, and with truth, are essential to the free enjoyment of their and everybody else's religious liberty, and which they are bound in conscience to provide for all under their parental or charitable care. The pretence made by this League and the other * ' Protectors ' ' is one that cannot and never will be sus- tained by a free people. They assert that religious — or, as they style it, "sectarian" — education is detri- mental to the interests of the state, and that, as Catho- lics are set upon educating their own children with religion, the state needs to be "protected" against them and their purpose. Does any sane man believe that they are honest in all this outcry against ' ' sectar- ianism ' ' ? All their pretended arguments boiled down amount to this one proposition — Sectarianism does not promote but hinders patriotism. One is tempted to ask : Does Protestant sectarianism hinder patriotism ? Are these over-loyal protectors of American liberties ready to admit that it does ? Would they dare to offer any evidence in support of Protestantism and Liberty. \ 8 1 the implied charge that because Catholics are far and away more true and devoted to their religion than Protestants are — or, as they would say, viorc sectarian — they are therefore less patriotic ? Is infidelity likely to make better patriots than Christianity ? But why go on asking such useless questions ? They will take good care never to reply to them. They say one thing and mean another. A prominent politician, Mr. Edw^ard M. Shephard, denouncing the other day the base methods of the A. P. A.s and the falsehood of their charges against the patriotism of Catholics in the United States, went on to give this bit of testimony : " I am myself a strong Protestant ; but the strongest Protest- ant, if an intelligent and honest man, must admit the enormous service to piety and good morals rendered in this country by the Church against which this movement of intolerance is directed. *' So far as public affairs are concerned, no religious body has contained men who have rendered more distinguished and more unselfish patriotic service than members of the Catholic Church have during the whole history of the American government, and especially at the present time. There is not a sound political principle, there is no single reform which makes for righteousness in public affairs, among whose firmest and sincerest promoters are not numbered our fellow-citizens of the Catholic faith. " It is well enough for us Protestants to remember that the great majority of our political knaves, whether in federal, state, or local politics, have been, like Tweed, men professing to be sincere Protestants. We had better remember that in modern times, as was the case between three hundred and four hundred years ago, it has more than once happened that Sir Thomas More has been a Catholic and Henry VIII. a Protestant." And now I am going to give what I believe to be the real reason that lies at the bottom of their hearts, a 1 82 Protestantism and Liberty. reason of the fear they have to allow Catholics to go on enjoying equal civil and religious rights with them- selves. It is illustrated in the unwillingness of the English law-makers to emancipate Catholics from the civil disabilities that oppressed them when an attempt was made to pass a bill for their emancipation in the House of Commons in the 3'ear 1805. The Attorne}^- general of the government opposed the bill. Why? Hear his reason : " Bear in mind that it is just the same thing for England to re- peal the laws enacted against the Catholics and to have im- mediately a Catholic parliament, and the Catholic religion, instead of the existing Establishment " {Parliamentary Debates, etc., vol. iv. p. 943, London, 1805, speech of the Attorney-general). What better tribute could be paid to the truth and spiritual power of Catholicism, at that time the de- spoiled victim of Protestantism in England, crushed by penal laws, treated as an outcast that must not dare show its face upon the domain of its own rightful inheritance ? What a confession of the essential weak- ness and unrighteous religious despotism of the Pro- testant Law-Established Church ! Any one can see that the animus which prompted this parliamentary speech in England, intended to frighten the clergy and the people with the already successful popular bugaboo of " Popery," and the spirit inciting the efforts now being made right here in America to forge and rivet upon Catholics manacles of civil and religious servi- tude similar to those which England declared herself afraid to remove, are one and the same. Every appeal to mere passion, to ungrounded fear, to ignorant prejudice, instinctively fashions a hue and Protestantism and Liberty. 183 cry, a shibboleth to pass from mouth to mouth, and take the place of argument or evidence. In England it was No Popciy, invented by the " Protestant Associa- tion ' ' for the Protection of English Institutions i Here we have a similar one, invented by the " Na- tional League for the Protection of American Institu- tions." Its hue and cry is No Sectarianism ! — mean- ing, as everybody knows, No Catholicism ! And here I cannot let the opportunity pass without noting that both these terms of opprobrium have pre- cisely the same relation to the parties imposing them as a stigma upon the Catholic Church. They do not belong to her nor express her character, hut to t/iem- setves, and are singularly appropriate to the form and spirit of their religious sects. What did the English people understand by " Popery " ? Not at all what is involved in the spirit- ual rule of the Pope, either in its exactions, or in the faithful obedience of Catholics to it. Not in any country. No, not in Rome itself. They took it to mean the subjection of the people to a power which was at one and the same time the " Head of the Church in temporals and spirituals " ; a power that was en- gendered by the union of Church and state ; a power that could define doctrine which the people must believe, and make laws that they must obey ; a power that made religion its bond- slave and tool to serve the state in ruling its kingdom of this world ; a power that had the audacity to claim supreme jurisdic- tion over the religion of Christ, to deny its fundamental principle of faith, to alter its doctrines, and control its moral influence, and all this on the score of its being tJie head of the state ; a power that acknowledged no limit to 1 84 Protestantism and Liberty. its exactions but its own will. Such is the monstrosity called "Union of Church and State" in Protestant countries, the very opposite to any such union adopted in Catholic countries. When, therefore, our American agitators denounce such a union, and tell their deluded hearers that this is what Catholics are anxious to see established here, they either do not know what they are talking about, or they are unpardonable deceivers of the people. We want no such union of the Church and state as existed even in Catholic countries repeated here — to say we do is an atrocious slander — and so long as we have an arm to defend our country and our rights as freemen, to say nothing of the higher rights of God, no Protestant " union of Church and state" shall be established here, either. That " abomination of desolation " has already cursed enough countries in the world. Who that makes au}^ pretence to have read history, does not know that such was the identical ' ' Popery ' ' under which those very Protestant Englishmen were slavishly living, and have been living ever since the Reformation? But what matter ? A dog will either cowardly fear or viciously attack his own reflection in a mirror, and so the ' ' No-Popery ' ' cry did eminent service in the mouths of the English " Protestant Association." Eet the reader take up an encyclopaedia and read what comes after the name of " Eord George Gordon (1751- 1793)," president of the " Protestant Associations of England and Scotland." He will find a brief account of the horrible " No-Popery" riots stirred up by this infamous man and his fellows ; of the burning of Catho- lic churches and dwellings, of the breaking open of the prisons, the Bank of England and other public build- Protesta7itisni and Liberty. 185 ings, and pursuing their work of violence and conflagra- tion until the interference of the military, resulting in the death of nearly five hundred persons. The story of Barnaby Rudgc, by the great English novelist Dickens, gives a most graphic picture of these riots. And all pray for what reason ? Oh ! some well- meaning Englishman had introduced a bill in Parlia- ment looking to the removal of Roman Catholic civil and religious disabilities. Quite good reason enough for such Protestant ' ' Protectors of English Institutions ' ' against ' ' popery ' ' as then ' ' raged like the heathen ' ' in England, when ''the people imagined a vain thing," and were ready to burn, pillage, and kill to get rid of it. Now let me ask our fellow American citizens who are ' ranging themselves under the banners of the "National League," the "A. P. A.," and other such "Protestant Associations" for protecting American institutions from the dangerous increase of Catholicism, and for whom the secret password and the open hue and cry is No Sectarianism ! what do they understand by "sectarianism" ? Not what it is defined to be in dictionaries, nor according to the sense in which that appropriate if odious term has always been employed in all decent and honestly worded literature ; certainly not : but rather the very thing that has always been the distinctive mark of Protestantism, and especially of that sort of Protestantism at whose beck and call to-day the people are allowing their fears to be excited, their prejudices deepened, and their hearts embittered against the Catholic Church for what she is not, and for what she has never been reproached before. Who can honestly deny it ? Do you ask me how it is possible for otherwise in- l86 Protestantism and Liberty. telligent and well-instructed persons to fall so easily under this delusion and become so blind as to fail any longer to see that the enemy they fear is in reality one of their own household ? The best reply that suggests itself to me is, that there is such a thing as being too 7iear an object as well as being too far from it, in order to see it clearly. In either case the object is out of focus. If it happens that at this present moment of " taking observ^ations " of the alleged enemy, so many of our Protestant fellow-citizens see not things as they are it is because the N. L. P. A. I., the A. P. A., and other well-belettered anti-Catholic associations have taken into their hands the business of adjusting the lenses of the sectariscope. How deftly they shorten the focus when it is pointed at the Catholic Church, and how cunningly they lengthen it when it is directed toward themselves ! Religious liberty is, of course, something that is viewed by Catholics and Protestants from a different stand-point. Catholics, who are as certain of the divine authority of their religion as they are that the sun shines, can never allow to themselves the liberty, so called, of error. With them it is a grievous sin to wilfully deny or to put themselves in the occasion of doubting the truths of their faith. No one has the liberty to sin. For the same reason no Catholic can grant ' ' liberty ' ' to any unbeliever to come in and tempt his children or his brother Catholics to doubt or deny their religion, any more than he can allow any one to tempt them to commit any other sin. The very intolerance of Catholic authorities in refusing to permit Protestants and other unbelievers to come into the midst of a faithful people, and to freely preach doctrines. Protestantism and Liberty. 1 87 held necessarily by the Catholic Church to be errone- ous, and to tempt them to doubt and deny their faith, is only all the more convincing testimony to the certainty of their faith and to their loyalty to truth. There are ever ringing in the ears of Catholics the words of Jesus Christ: ** Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before the face of my Father who is in heaven." " Whosoever shall scandalize the least of these little ones ' ' (scandalize — to give occasion to another to commit sin ) , "it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck and that he should be drowned in the depths of the sea." Toleration of peaceful political or religious error is justly demanded of Christian charity and even of pagan benevolence. Such toleration is certainly the doctrine as it has been the practice of Catholics ; but * ' free error in a free state " as a principle for unlimited action is a grandiloquent absurdity which no rational man will attempt to, justify. A foreigner who would come here from some monarchy or autocracy, and from under a banner on which that maxim is inscribed would gather together our fellow-citizens and our children, and then harangue them with denunciations of our republi- can form of government, charging it falsely with all sorts of crimes, heaping ridicule and insult alike upon President, Congress, governors, and all in authority, and then inciting his hearers to rebellion, would pretty soon find himself "persecuted for conscience' sake" by loyal citizens, and not the last by Catholics either, who are as much opposed to ' ' free treason ' ' as they are to "free heresy and apostasy," when "enjoying one's freedom of conscience " takes that shape. This is that miserable ' ' counterfeit of the rights of conscience ' ' 1 88 Protestantism and Liberty. which Cardinal Newman so w^ell stigmatized as the " rights of self-will." It cannot be proved that the Catholic Church ever persecuted any man for any private, peaceful, conscien- tious convictions of his own, no matter how different from her own faith. And the best proof of this is that to do so would be directly contrary to the teaching of the Church by her councils and by her greatest doctors. The Catholic Church, as I have already said, teaches her children to obey their conscience because it is the voice of God, and therefore she teaches them to respect that voice of God in the breasts of other men. Her dictum is, " It is never lawful to go against one's con- science." The Fourth Council of I^ateran says: " He who acts against his conscience loses his soul." So, as all Catholic theologians teach, even heretics and unbelievers must obey their conscience ; and if so, then on what possible ground could the Church perse- cute them for their conscientious belief ? Am I right in my assertion ? Here are my authorities. The great school of theologians at Salamanca, in Spain, taught that "one's conscience is alwa3's to be obeyed whether it tells truly or erroneously, and that whether the error is the fault of the person thus erring or not" {Theolog. Moral., t. v. p. 12, ed. 1728). These universally esteemed Catholic teachers not only say this for themselves, but go on to show that such has been the doctrine of the greatest former theo- logians of the Church, such as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and others. Of course, if a man is culpa- ble in being in error, which is due to his lack of sincer- ity and earnest will to learn the truth, then his falliiig into error yN2.^ a sin, and for that he is responsible to Protestantism and Liberty. 189 God. But now note the Catholic doctrine. Being in error, he is bound in conscience to act according to that error, so long as he in full, sincerity thinks the error to be truth. How do these theologians hold that this would affect Catholics ? They hold that if a Catholic erroneously believQd a precept of the Pope, bishop, or priest to be morally wrong, he is bound not to obey these superiors, and that he would commit a sin if he did. How does that doctrine affect Protestants and un- believers? The celebrated Jesuit theologian Busen- baum — mark it, my dear Protestant reader, a Jesuit ! — writes thus : " A heretic, as long as he judges his sect to be more or equally deserving of belief, has no obligation to believe [in the Church]." And he continues : " When men who have been brought up in heresy are per- suaded from boyhood that we Catholics impugn and attack the word of God, that we are idolaters, pestilent deceivers, and are therefore to be shunned as pests, they cannot, while this per- suasion lasts, listen to us with a safe conscience " (tom. i. p. 54). It goes without saying that such persuasion should be fully sincere, and that one does not wilfully shut his eyes and ears against the plain evidences of truth. Sincerity does not make an error truth ; but it does excuse one from sin in holding to the error which he thinks to be truth. Therefore there is no possible ground for inflicting any sort of pains, penalties, or disabilities upon such an one ; and I say again, it cannot be proved that the Catholic Church ever sanctioned the punishment of any one for sincerely believing an error. Before she 1 90 Protestantism and Liberty. could do that she would have to stultify herself and declare that one has no excuse for being in error and cannot justifiably act in errpr. But, on the contrary, she does declare that he not only may be in error with- out fault, but so being he is bound to act according to his convictions. The Catholic Church has many a time, and. right- fully, sanctioned the action of the civil authorities in the performance of their bounden duty in carrying out the public law made to protect the faith of the people and the public peace of the community against open attacks made upon both by heretics, apostates, and unbelievers who set themselves to work to disturb and destroy one and the other. Hindering their self- assumed license of speech, and punishing them for overt acts is ^written down as * ' persecution for conscience' sake" by their sympathizers. Any crim- inal might just as reasonably urge that he was perse- cuted for conscience' sake by the district attorney and the judge and jury that condemned him for breaking the law of the land. Years ago our famous Chancellor Kent, when Chief- Justice of the State of New York, pronounced an unan- imous judgment of the court in a case (8 Johnson's Reports, page 225) in which "the defendant was in- dicted and condemned for wickedly, maliciously, and blasphemously uttering in the hearing of divers good and Christian people, of and concerning the Christian religion and concerning Jesus Christ, certain foul and blasphemous words in contempt of the Christian re- ligion and in contempt of the laws of this State. ''^ It was argued in defence of the prisoner that he was only exercising his liberty of conscience, guaranteed to all Protestantism and Liberty, 191 citizens by the Constitution. But the court in reply brought out the Constitution, and showed that it de- clares that * ' the liberty of conscience hereby granted shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentious- ness (undue license of speech or act) , or justify prac- tices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the stated That is the doctrine of Catholic states, and according to that doctrine the state of Brazil very justly con- demned the Rev. J. H. Nelson, Methodist disturber of the peace and safety of that state, as other Catholic states have punished just such other disturbers and blasphemers of the Christian religion as he. One never hears of Catholic missionaries resorting to such methods either in Protestant, Mussulman, or heathen lands. If they did they would get very pro- perly punished for such attacks upon the peace and good order of society. Much less are they so false to charity and truth as to charge Protestants or others who do not believe as they do with holding doctrines they detest and repudiate, and disseminate tracts and other publications filled with gross insults to the faith and morality of their ministers and people, setting the whole community by the ears, and inciting the out- raged people to violent reprisals. It cannot be denied that this is a common Protestant method. These uneasy enemies of religious liberty are filled with the spirit of persecution, arrogating to them- selves the privilege, granted to them by neither God nor man, to hinder everybody else from the peaceful enjoyment of their own religion. Catholic missionaries content themselves in similar efforts to convert un- believers with rational argument, friendly persuasion, and the powerful example of holy and self-denying lives. 192 Protestantism and Liberty. Now we can hear Mr. Ivccky, who, after acknowl- edging that on the score of persecution, so-called, the Catholic Church was only "defending herself against innovation and aggression," goes on to make this com- parison : " But what shall we say of a church that was but a thing of yesterday, a church that had as yet no services to show, no claims upon the gratitude of mankind, a church that was by profession the creature of private judgment, and was in reality generated by the intrigues of a corrupt court, which, nevertheless, suppressed by force a worship that multitudes deemed necessary to their salvation, and by all her organs, and with all her energies, perse- cuted those who clung to the religion of their fathers ? What shall we say of a religion which comprised at most but a fourth part of the Christian world, and which the first explosion of pri- vate judgment had shivered into countless sects, which was, nevertheless, so pervaded by the spirit of dogmatism that each of these sects asserted its distinctive doctrines with the same confi- dence, and persecuted with the same unhesitating virulence [defending herself against innovation and aggression, Mr. Lecky], as the Church which was venerable with the homage of more than twelve centuries } What shall we say of men who, in the ftame of religious liberty, deluged their land with blood, trampled upon the very first principles of patriotism, calling in strangers to their assistance [just as the self-styled " international order " of the A. P. A. are calling in British Orangemen to help them "protect" American institutions], and openly rejoicing in the disasters of their country, and who, when they at last obtained their object, immediately established a religious tyran?iy as ab- solute as that which they had subverted } . . . Nothing can be more erroneous than to represent [Protestant] persecution [of Catholics] as merely a weapon which was employed in a moment of conflict, or as an outburst of natural indignation, or as the un- reasoning observance of an old tradition. Persecution among the early Protestants was a distinct and definite doctrine, digested into elaborate treatises, and enforced against the most inoffensive Protestantism and Liberty. 193 as against the most formidable sects. It was the doctrine of the pahniest days of Protestantism. It was taught by those who are justly esteemed the greatest of its leaders " (Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. pp. 57-61). The eminent Protestant historian, Hallam, pro- nounces the same judgment upon Protestantism : " Persecution is the deadly original sin of the Reformed churches, which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause in proportion as his reading becomes more extensive " {Constit. Hist., vol. i. chap, ii.) Modern Protestantism has not a whit improved. " Hopital and Lord Baltimore, the Catholic founder of Mary- land, were the two first legislators who uniformly upheld religious liberty when in power; and Maryland continued the solitary refuge for the oppressed of every Christian sect till the Puritans succeeded in subverting the Catholic rule, when they basely en- acted the whole penal code against those who had so nobly and so generously received them " (Lecky, Rationalisjn in Europe, vol. ii.) The most barba*rous penal laws existed against Catholics in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and were re-enacted with greater severity under William and Mary, almost in the eighteenth century. King James II. lost his crown of the three kingdoms because of the edict of toleration, which, as it tolerated Catholics, was denounced as an act of outrageous tyranny ! The Episcopalian colony in our own Virginia adopt- ed the penal laws against Catholics, and the Puritans in Massachusetts made it an offence punishable with banishment from the colony to harbor a Catholic priest for one night, or give him one meal of victuals. Up to 1788 an article in the confession of faith of the IQ4 Protestantism and Liberty, Presbyterian Assembly of the United States declared it to be the duty of the civil magistrate to extirpate here- tics and idolaters, and it stands to-day in the confession of faith of Presbyterians in Scotland, and of the United Presbyterians in this country. The first Protestant minister of Boston, John Cotton, called toleration "that devil's doctrine." Congregationalism was the state religion in Massa- chusetts up to 1835. American Protestants particularly, who make the most boastful claims for their Protestantism as a system on the score of- civil and religious liberty, have manifested the most ardent sympathy with every des- potic usurpation of power that has taken place in Catholic countries, and have fomented and encouraged every such revolution by means of their emissaries, their associations, and outpoured contributions. They pretend to hold monarchy in horror, but who rejoiced so heartily as they when the temporal rule of the Pope was overthrown and the Savoyard king came, and has made of all Italy a first-class pauperized power ? Why have the infidel and Freemason republics of France and Mexico their hearts' best wishes and the loudest applause of their throats ? Because they have some sort of a republic ? Not at all. It is because in them Catholics have lost their liberties, and their re- ligion is oppressed, their property and temples of worship, and institutions of charity, all belonging to God, confiscated in order to strengthen the very hands of their oppressors. Who but they clapped their hands and sang pseans of joy when Bismarck proclaimed the Culturkampf in Germany ? and w^ho are to-day mourn- ing and expressing their disappointment because that Protestantism and Liberty. 195 glorious hero of theirs, the Protestant emperor's right- hand "man of iron and blood," has been forced to make not only one, but many journeys to Canossa ? Protestants have tried their utmost to prevent this country becoming a perfectly free country for anybody but themselves, just as they have much better suc- ceeded in doing in every country they control in Europe ; and it has always been with many tears, and sighs, and groans, mingled with the most violent demonstrations of popular rage, that they have ever re- luctantly relaxed their hold upon a tyrannical rule over Catholics which enabled them to keep the "papists " in a state of political slavery and under an oppressive social ban. And then to prate about the libert}^ that has been given to the world by Protestantism ! What is the chief danger that threatens the liberties of the people in a republic ? Unquestionably it is the centralization of power and the undue enlargement of the prerogatives of the state. There is no blinking that plain, self-evident truth. Now let my reader go out and note the religion professed by all his acquaintances who have been showing, and are now particularly mani- festing, by their sympathies with various political meas- ures now pending, that they desire and are working to make the state more supreme. Whom would he find in favor of putting all things possible into the hands of the state? Who wants National this, and National that, to be established? Protestants, every one of them. One would think these liberty lovers would be slow to vote away their own freedom. Not at all. They never flourished yet except under a despotism ; and because this country, by the grace of God, is not a despotism, is the chief reason why they are very far from flourishing ig6 Protestantism and Liberty. here, and, per coiitra, that is just the reason of the pro- gress and astonishing triumphs of Catholicism, which is founded in Hberty, which itself gave liberty to all na- tions, which upholds liberty, and many a time has gone to death in its defence. The liberty-sacrificing spirit of Protestantism goes even to the most absurd extremes. I^isten to its clerical demagogues who denounce celibacy in priests and nuns because " the condition of so many deprives the state of just so many citizens that would be born of them if they were married ' ' ! Their patriotic charity had better begin at home. Marriage with them does not appear to be a profitable source of increased citizen- ship. Married Catholics supply the state now with two citizens to their one. And as if every man of common sense does not see through this hypocritical plea, and know that their venomous attacks upon Catholics exer- cising their inalienable individual liberty to consecrate themselves to a life of chastity for their own spiritual perfection and for the* more complete liberty to sacrifice themselves for the good of others, are all instigated by a sense of mingled anger at sight of what is a standing reproach to them, and of jealousy, seeing, as they do, that because of it the Catholic Church is continually acquiring the respect, love, admiration, and gratitude of mankind. Let Protestantism do even worse than it has done, vilifying and calumniating the priesthood and monks and nuns, stirring up the puerile fears of the ignorant public, getting legislative "smelling committees," as erst in Massachusetts in Know-Nothing times, to " in- spect", convents, raise riotous mobs to burn down churches, make war upon every Catholic consecrated to Protestantism and Liberty, 197 God's service, confiscate their property, drive them out of their own native land ; aye, even the self-sacrificing, defenceless Jesuits and other religious orders of men and women — all these favorite methods of its own, it can anci will not fail to use where it has the power in order to down the Catholic religion, and do it all in the glorious name of Liberty too — God save the mark ! — and under pretence of ' ' protecting free institutions ' ' ; but it can never succeed in crushing out of the human heart its divinely inspired sense of the supremacy of Virtue, and its instinctive adoration of the Beauty of Holiness. CHAPTER XIV. THE CHURCH AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT. IT ought to be a superfluous task to prove that the Cathohc Church has never been the enemy of free institutions, and indeed, after the irrefragable evidence already presented to the contrary, it would be quite suf- ficient to meet any such charges with a simple, flat denial, and leave the burden of proof upon those who make them. But probably a few observations on the relation of the Church to particular forms of government may be useful to some reflecting but uninstructed readers. The Catholic Church has no Civil Policy. All governments are, in their political forms, alike to her. She was not commissioned to found and perpetuate a universal state. She fully recognizes the independent right of a people to choose for themselves such a form of government as seems to them the best for their own interests ; and when they have thus made their choice, she holds that God sanctions it. It becomes " a power ordained of God " ; and at once the Church reverences that ordination, and exacts from all her children who are its citizens the most perfect loyalty to the estab- lished order and conscientious obedience to the laws of the land. This is her true position towards every government, be it an autocracy, monarchy, oligarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. But being herself a divine society, the one and only such ordained of God through Jesus Christ for all man- kind alike, it follows that there ought to be a perfect harmony between those principles of natural justice, morality, human liberty, authority, obedience, social 198 The Church and Civil Government, 199 unity and peace — the rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as we Americans phrase it — principles which the state at its ordination receives power to proclaim, and assumes the duty of conserving and defending — and her own, which are, in fact, the very same principles illuminated and sanctified. Her principles do not contravene or negative the natural powers of the state to proclaim and defend the rights of God and the rights of man ; they perfect them. ** Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect," is the message of Jesus Christ and His Church to every man, to every society, and to every government. The heavenly Father is the God of the Church and the God of the state, one and the same ; and He says to both : "Thou shalt have no other gods but Me." And he has no two antagonistic or contrary principles of justice, morality, unity, authority, obedience ; no second word of liberty or purpose in his twofold ordina- tion of the natural and supernatural orders of society. This perfecting of the natural man, of the natural social order and natural form of government, has been the work of the Catholic Church, and one which she alone is capable of performing. This is Christian civilization ; and who has ever presumed to claim for any other power the realization of this divine regenera- tion and sanctification of mankind and society ? Recognizing the natural right of a people to adopt any form of government founded upon the proclamation and defence of the rights of God and the rights of man, the Catholic Church, being a divine society, embracing in a holy brotherhood people of all nations and tongues, citizens of all sovereignties, she stands between earth and heaven the universal illuminator and sanctifier of them all. Therefore with a Catholic, be he a citizen 200 The Church and Civil Government, of a republic or subject of a monarch 3^ or of a more absolute form of government, his patriotism, his loyalty, his obedience to law and order become Christian virhies. The influence of the Church on society is, therefore, to elevate and ennoble it, to contribute most powerfully to the stability of governments, by upholding lawful authority and inspiring her children wnth reverence and respect for the persons in whom that authority is vested. To comprehend more clearly this beneficent, transforming influence, one should consider the deep importance of its result in the supernatural exaltation of the natural divine sanction of state authority. For a Catholic citizen or subject to be guilty of disloyalty or grave disobedience to the public law or order, is to commit a mortal sin and imperil his soul's salvation. Has paganism, secularism, or Protestantism ever pre- tended to offer such a motive for loyalty and obedience ? Protestantism has uttered a good deal of sentimen- tal talk, apparently in agreement with the principles of the Catholic Church ; but what Protestant citizen or subject ever felt that it was his Protestantism which inspired him with this salutary fear of losing his soul, let the gravity of the offence against the authority of the state — apart from the immorality of the act itself — be never so great ? United in the bonds of a divine fraternity with all men, Catholics know nothing of that pagan sort of patriotism and loyalty founded in servdle fear, which would appear to consist more in hating and reviling the people of every other nationality, as exhibited in the odium attached to the very word foreigner, and in decrying every other form of government, than in loving one's own people and fellow-citizens wnth a fraternal love, and in staunchly upholding one's own The Church and Civil Government. 201 political order. Catholics are a free people everywhere, intellectually and morally. No chains can bind a free- man's soul; and one of the marks of a freeman is that he lets others enjoy their freedom as well. Individual right, political liberty, and social peace, the full enjoyment of man's inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are not guaranteed per se by any form of government. The guarantee of all these blessings, and of a true advance in civilization, lies in the virtue of the governors and of the governed. The questions which, apart from all others, I would desire to press upon the thoughtful reader's mind are : Which of the two religions, Catholicism or Protestant- ism, affirms fundamental principles of justice, morality, and liberty? Which one recognizes the dignity and equality of human nature ? Which one has the power to sweetly unite all men of all governments into a common brotherhood ? Which one has proved itself to be the true friend of the working-man, and the bold, unflinching enemy of the oppressor ? Who has in the past, and can be relied upon for all time to courage- ously hurl the withering anathema at tyranny in high places, and offer its own breast to receive the first blow of death aimed at the down-trodden and defenceless? Which one is the very well-spring of public and private virtue ? Whose first and last word in the education of youth, in the discipline of the family, in the training of the citizen, is virtue? In sum: Which religion echoes in its temples of worship, proclaims from its pulpits of doc- trine, through its literature and art, and by the mouths of its accredited spokesmen, the terse and pregnant sentence of the wisest of all legislators and the lyord of all virtue : " Seek y^ first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all other things shall be added unto 3^ou ? " CHAPTER XV. ILIvlTERACY AND IGNORANCE. IN these days of intellectual pride illiteracy has come to be commonly regarded as a fitting term of re- proach, as if it were an ignominious and criminal defect, much as our purse-proud age regards poverty, though ever so honest, with scorn, and avoids contact with it as if its very touch were pollution. They who make the false popular judgment which places the highest means of happiness in the possession of wealth, also assume that to be deprived of the ready means of satisfying the insatiate curiosity of the mind afforded by the ability to read, cannot but be a con- dition of the greatest infelicity. That one who is at the same time poor and illiterate must necessarily be con- demned to an utterly joyless existence, seems to such unobservant persons too evident a truth to need demonstration. It is from among such a class of persons that one hears charges of " illiteracy " made as if it were some- thing unquestionably disgraceful and guasz-crimmsLl, needing defence or apology. They display their own ignorance in this, giving it a meaning quite other than what is taken note of and reported by the very au- thorities from whom they quote their statistics. I feel sure it will surprise some persons to learn that in itself it is understood to mean, simply and strictly, no more than the simple inability to read and write, and by the statisticians of some countries those unable Illiteracy and Ignorance, 203 to write, though they may be able to read, are reported as illiterate. Illiteracy is not at all a term synonymous with ig- norance. An ignorant man, one witless, shallow, and inexperienced in mental acquirements, and degraded in moral sense and habits, may be illiterate ; but it does not follow that one simply illiterate is sure or even likely to be intellectually deficient or morally debased. The mere fact that one escapes being classed as illiter- ate by learning to read and write is no evidence that his former condition was one of mental and moral de- ficiency, neither does his newly acquired science offer a guarantee that he is provided with the means which will quickly or even assuredly raise him out of such a state if he happen to have been in it beforehand. Reading and writing are not the only means of cultivating the intelligence, purifying and exalting the moral character, or of refining or reforming one's manners. • It should be evident that mere reading and writing, considered as a means in themselves alone, in view of the acquirement of the knowledge requisite for and useful to the masses of people among whom illiteracy is likely to be found, are of small value compared with careful observation, practical experience, and the les- sons learned from the voice and example of others. So far from this means of acquiring knowledge being a sure or even probable preventive of criminal conduct, the records of all prisons show, by the small proportion of ''illiterate" convicts compared with the educated ones — and as all competent sociologists are now agreed — that it is not to the lack of the ability to read and write that their criminal acts are to be attributed, but 204 Illiteracy and Ignorance. rather to the lack of having learned a trade or some such honest means of earning a living, possessed of which one naturally associates himself with law-abiding citizens seeking mutual protection for their property and handicraft. There may be, therefore, in a given country or dis- trict a large number of persons statistically reported as "illiterate " — so many, indeed, that the percentage of illiteracy wull be very high for such a region — and yet the ' ' illiterates ' ' may have a fair and useful general knowledge of worldly affairs ; the}^ may be able to think rightly, possess good practical judgment ; be skilled in some agricultural or mechanical art ; be distinguished for gentleness of disposition, refinement of manners, nobility of character, and even for a cultivated taste for the fine arts — as has been alwa3^s observed by travellers is possessed by the low^er classes in Italy and Spain ; they may be hospitable, brave, and generous ; lovers of liberty, heroically patriotic ; law-abiding ; indus- trious ; socially contented and happ}^ ; thoroughly re- ligious ; well versed in the knowledge of the Holy Gospel, in the doctrines of the Christian religion, and faithful to the duties it imposes upon them as parents, and children, and citizens. And every page of history bears witness that there have been many millions of such, who, despite their " illiteracy," have been able to manifest human and divine virtue carried to a lofty summit — men and women worthy of being praised as great heroes before the world and as glorious saints be- fore God. He would be a poor logician who would reason that the modern wider diffusion of literary attainments must necessarily be accompanied by a corresponding Illiteracy and Ignorance. 205 decrease in the standard of intellectual vigor and sagac- ity among those who are no worse off, if no better, than they were before. One man's acquired wisdom does not deepen the stupidity of his neighbor. Will my reader please look back to the period antedating the invention of printing by a Catholic (1450), before Protestantism began to be, and will he please imagine how great would then have been the reported percentage of illiteracy in every country if the modern collector of statistics had been around? And yet there were enough good citizens, good Christians, and good in everything else that ennobles humanity, to make the world, in their time, worth living in, and its generations able to score a lasting and honorable record. Those were the times, as every instructed person now knows, or ought to know, when the grand principles of Christian civilization, of human liberty and rights, of sound political and social economy, were affirmed, defended, and interpreted— principles to be credited as the very raison d'etre of all those constitu- tional liberties and civil rights upon which our present enlightened and progressive civilization is based. Popular illiteracy at a high percentage is plainly not, therefore, a mark of a low standard of popular mental culture, of the ability to think and think both logically and wisely. It is indisputable that those were the days of profound learning and vast erudition in the numerous universities and schools, the partial records of which are yet preserved in huge volumes reprinted from manuscripts, and testified to by the still larger number of great folios printed in the age immediately succeeding, specimens of which our greatest libraries are proud to own and esteem as of priceless intrinsic value. 2o6 Illiteracy and Ignorance, It needs but little reflection to conclude that if popu- lar illiteracy were indeed what it is now so unphilo- sophically and vigorously denounced to be — the cause of mental hebetude, of social and moral degradation, then the influence in former times of such a general condition among the masses would have rendered ab- solutely impossible the mental and moral elevation of such a vast number of scholars and saints to an emi- nence before which we moderns stand in stupefied wonder — scholars of honest and holy life, studying, praying, and working in all the fields of science, human and divine. The modern tourist, with his Baedeker in hand, goes tramping over the soil of countries to visit and admire the greatest monuments of genius which the world can boast of, all inherited from ages statistics would lead one to believe were very "illiterate." Nearly all of the greatest universities now standing saw their corner-stones laid, and their greatest number of students gathered together within their walls, in ages when statisticians would have reported a high rate of illiteracy among the people. We who have made ourselves so dependent upon reading and writing for the acquirement of almost every kind of knowledge that we possess, have come to imagine that one who cannot do either must of necessity be an ignorant person, and would laugh any one to scorn who would presume to hazard the assertion that there could be any education, mental or moral, worthy of the name, without it. But it cannot be de- nied that, though the percentage of popular illiteracy may in those times have been high compared with what it is to-day, the percentage oi popular education Illiteracy and Ignorance, 207 in its best sense — the acquirement of solid, useful knowledge in the secular order, and of that knowledge and true wisdom in the spiritual order which exalts, ennobles, and refines the soul, disciplining the will and stimulating it to honor and virtue — was yet vastly higher. To be lettered, or literary, is a term which may per- haps be also rightly used as meaning learned ; but the opposite of ignorance is not learning, but wisdom ; and even the unlettered may be wise. Wisdom is, as says Holy Writ, " from above " ; that is, due to divine education, which wisdom, as the Apostle goes on to say, is " first of all chaste, and then peace-giving." As Cardinal Newman well remarks: ' ' The Church does not think much of any other sort of so-called 'wisdom.' " Faith, knowledge from above, chastity and charity, the principles of that "peace" the Word of God brought down to men of good will, are becoming characteristics of all true Christians, but more especially of the Christian student. Mere learning, alas ! is an accomplishment many had better never have gotten, and the consequence of its possession by some men deserves rather to be called ignorance, inspiring them, as it does, with scepticism and unbelief, and begetting loose morals and proud contentions. The principles of true wisdom are prin- ciples of spiritual life. The principles of that learning which does not refer itself to the divine source of all science are the principles that lead to spiritual death. Says Kenelm Digby, in his wonderful historical work, Mores Catholici, or Ages of Faith : " No age is void of moral darkness. The holy fathers in primi- tive times lamented the reign of wickedness and ignorance : this, 2o8 Illiteracy and Ignorance. too, we lament, and this our posterity will lament also ; but never does the Church lose the savor of sanctity and of learning which she received from Christ. Ignorance is the punishment of sin, but not every one, as says the Master of the Sentences, who is ignorant of something, or who knows something less perfectly, is therefore in such ignorance, or ought to be called ignorant, because that only should be called ignorance when what ought to be known is not known. Such ignorance is the punishment of sin when the mind is obscured with vice, so as not to be able to know the things it ought to know " (Peter Lombard, book ii. distinct. XX.) But it may be asked : How could the masses of common people acquire any considerable amount, or even a sufficiently useful amount of knowledge for their condition in life, when printed books, newspapers, and the like were as yet not, and when even manuscripts were few and of great price ? The explanation is simple. In those days the people learned more by hearing, and cultivated the faculty of memory to a degree which to us seems almost incredi- ble. Those were the days when, for example, school- boys could recite by heart the entire one hundred and fifty Psalms. Then it was the custom, still prevailing in the modern high schools of learning, and imitated in all popular lecture halls, for scholars to gather about the chair of the teacher and listen to him. Teaching viva voce is still acknowledged to be the most effective method of enlightening and impressing the intellect. In order to reach the heart and sway the passions, to persuade men or children to do good or to defend the right, printed books are as spiritually weak, in com- parison to the living, sympathetic voice of the speaker, as a poor photograph is compared with the original painting. Illiteracy and Ignorance. 209 A quotation is to the point : " Huber, who gives us an account of Oxford University, and who is neither CathoHc on the one hand, nor innovator on the ex- isting state of things on the other, warming yet saddening at his own picture [of University decadence] ends by observing: ' Those days never can return : for the plain reason that then men learned and taught by the living word, but now by the dead paper ' " {Historical Sketches, Oxford, Cardinal Newman). In olden times the scholars indeed, as now, took down some notes of what they heard, but they were not such slaves as we moderns are to these records. They were able to retain and keep ready for reference within the prodigious store-houses of their memories the greater part of what they heard. But I beg the reader's attention to a capital point. Despite all the printed works already written upon a subject, and at hand for the use of the students, even though they may be from the pen of the lecturer him- self, nevertheless they assume for the time being the condition of the illiterate. Why not content one's self with the books? Why compass land and sea, and go to increased expense, to get the very same instruction from the mouth of the writer of them ? This is the reason. From the original thinker and speaker they get not only the word, but what printed signs are at best feeble to convey — the meajiing of them. Meaning, in its fulness, is conveyed to the mind much more quickly and effectively by the tone and emphasis with which the words are expressed. Moreover, one is thereby spared the danger of not apprehending the author's true meaning, and of putting one's own, and not improbably an erroneous one, hito the text, instead 2 lo Illiteracy and Ignorance. of getting the author's meaning out of it. That is what Protestants do with the printed Bible. Only the living teacher can give the true and living vieaning. The Catholic method of learning the infallible truth and will of God is fully justified by both philosophy and science. As to the superiority of oral instruction to books, I quote the opinion of an eminent professor of Oxford University. " While die type," he says, " is so admirable a contrivance for perpetuating knowledge, it is certainly more expensive, and in some points of view less effective as a means of communication, than the lecture. The type is a poor substitute for the human voice. It has no means of arousing, moderating, and adjusting the attention. It has no emphasis except italics, and this meagre notation cannot finely graduate itself to the need of the occasion. It cannot in this way mark the heed which should be specially and chiefly given to peculiar passages or words. It has no variety of manner and intonation, to show by their changes how the words are to be accepted, or \yhat comparative importance is to be attached to them. It has no natural music to take the ear, like the human voice ; it carries with it no human eye to range, and to rivet the student w^hen on the verge of truancy, and to command his intellectual activity by an appeal to the courtesies of life. Half the symbolism of a living language is thus lost, when it is committed to paper. And that symbolism is the very means by which the forces of the hearer's mind can be best economized or most pleasantly excited. The lecture, on the other hand, as delivered, possesses all these instruments to win, and hold, and harmonize attention ; and above all, it imparts to the whole teaching a human character, which the printed book can never supply. The professor is the science, or subject, vital- ized and humanized in the student's presence. He sees him kindle into his subject; he sees reflected and exhibited in him, his Illiteracy and Ignorance, 1 1 1 manner, and his earnestness, the general power of the science to engage, deHght, and absorb a human inteUigence. His natural sympathy and admiration attract or impel his tastes and feelings and wishes for the moment into the same currents of feeling, and his mind is naturally and rapidly and insensibly strung and at- tuned to the strain of truth which is offered to him " (Professor Vaughan, apiid Cardinal Newman's Rise and Progress of Uni- versities, p. 1 86). I am sure my reader who may feel some interest in these facts will peruse with pleasure the following ex- tract from the famous philosopher Plato. It is a story related by Socrates, and, as will be seen, is singularly apposite as an illustration of the pre-literary method of acquiring knowledge. I am not disinclined to quote it for another reason. It presents in a most clear, concise, and forcible way the whole controverted question between Catholics and Protestants as to the Rule of Faith — with us the living, interpreting voice ; with Protestants a dead letter which cannot answer any questions, nor defend itself if it be charged with saying what is, in fact, wholly contrary to its true mind. The extract is from the Phcedrus^ and I copy from Professor Jowett's translation : " Socrates. — At the Egyptian city of Naucratis there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth ; the bird which is called the Ibis was sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now, in those days, Thamus was the king of the whole of Upper Egypt, which is the district surrounding that great city which is called by the Hellenes Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of thepn ; he went through them, and Thamus 2 [ 2 Illiteracy and Ignorajice. inquired about their several uses, and praised some of them, and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. There would be no use in repeating all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, ' This,' said Theuth, ' will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories ; for this is the cure of forgetfulness and of folly.' Thamus replied : ' O most ingenious Theuth, he who has the gift of invention is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance a paternal love of your own child has led you to say what is not the fact ; for this invention of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners* souls, because they will not use their memories ; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. You have found a specific not for memory but for reminiscence, and you give your disciples only the pretence of wisdom ; they will be hearers of many things, and will have learned nothing ; they will appear to be omniscient, and will generally know nothing ; they will be tiresome, having- the reputation of knowledge without the reality.' " '' Phczdriis. — Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt or of any other country that you like." " Socrates. — There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first gave prophetic utterances. The men of that day, unlike in their simplicity to young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from ' oak or rock,' that was enough for them ; whereas you seem to think not of the truth but of the speaker, and of the country from which the truth comes." " PhcEiiriis. — I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke ; and I think that the Theban is right in his view about letters." " Socrates. — He would be a simple person and quite without understanding of the oracles Thamus and Ammon, who should leave in writing or receive in writing any art under the idea that the written word would be intelligible or certain ; or who deemed that writing was at all better than knowledge and recollection of the same matters." " PhcEdrus. — That is most true." " Socrates, — I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is un- Illiteracy and Ignorance. 213 fortunately like painting ; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of written speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence ; but if you want to know anything, and put a question to one of them, the speaker always -gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tossed about anywhere among those who do and among those who do not understand them. And they have no reticences or proprieties towards different classes of persons: and if they are unjustly assailed or abused, their parent is needed to protect his offspring, for they cannot protect or de- fend themselves." Nevertheless, in the illiterate ages to which I have referred education was not altogether deprived of the advantages of the faculty of sight. If the people, taken as a whole, had no printed books and but few manu- scripts from which to learn recorded facts concerning nature and science, they were all the more urgently obliged to supply the want by their own original, personal observations of nature in all its instructive and beautiful forms and operations. The constant practice of such observations served to render their senses all the more acute to learn the manifold lessons which nature, closely studied, is sure to teach — living lessons which are but feebly taught by the dead letters of a book, and demanding, moreover, the cultivation of one's spiritual powers of perception ; lessons, let me add, necessary to the completion and rounding out of the true education of the whole man. Such an education is as much superior to that of mere book-knowledge as the personal life-association with the great heroes, saints, and sages of the world, listening to their words and coming under the direct in- 214 Illiteracy and Ignorance. fluence of their example, would be superior in its edu- cational value, especially in view of man's higher destiny, to what might be gained by visiting a museum of most faithfully designed wax figures representing them, and by perusing their printed biographies and uninterpreted writings. If one would seek to learn the reason for the extra- ordinary development of genius in those past ages, testified to by the countless monuments of immortal re- nown they have left, he will find it in the fact that both scholars and the common people found a true, pure, and sanctifying education in the personal study and contemplation of the ever open Book of Nature, and by a close, intelligent, and sympathetic personal association with learned, wise, and — what is better — holy teachers, who taught not for gain, but for the honor of God and the good of the souls of men. He who, from the windows of his luxuriously furnished palace car, is borne along at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and casts, it may be, a glance of con- temptuous pity at the slowly moving cart of the farmer, may justly congratulate himself upon the greater ease of his means of convej^ance and the earlier date of his arrival at the same destination ; but he should reflect that the plodding farmer has enjoyed a closer, happier, and more intelligent companionship by the way with the great living instructor, Nature, and from whom he has meanwhile gained a knowledge, serviceable for his oivii 2cse, which may well offset the special personal advantage the other has obtained by his saving of time in making the same journey. I find two very instructive paragraphs in lyaing's Notes of a Traveller confirmatory of what I have just Illiteracy and Ignorance. 2 \ 5 been saying, both as to fact and the superior intellec- tual and moral force of oral teaching : " From the days of the Apostles to the Reformation all in- struction was oral, all knowledge was conveyed by word of mouth from the teacher to his pupils. But printing and the diffusion of books have reduced to insignificance this ancient mode of com- municating knowledge, especially in abstract science. It is con- fined now to the branches of knowledge connected with natural substances, and the operations on them. Knowledge is imparted to the mind now through the eye, not through the ear, and the book read, referred to, considered in the silence of the closet, has in all studies, sciences, public and private affairs, and intellectual acquirement, superseded, even in the universities, the duty and utility of the orator, lecturer, or speaker. Reading has reduced oral instruction to utter insignificance in pure science and in pub- lic affairs ; and the ancient but imperfect mode of conveying in- formation by word of mouth is banished to the nursery. The influence of the oral teacher naturally must decay along with the utility and importance of his occupation ; and this principle of the decay of the moral influence of oral tuition reaches the Presby- terian pulpit " (p. 401). And again : " Moral effects in society can only be produced by moral in- fluences. We may drill boys into reading and writing machines, but this is not education. The almost mechanical operations of reading, writing, and reckoninor are unquestionably most valuabl i acquirements — who can deny or doubt it } — but they are not edu- cation ; they are the means only, not the end — the tools, not the work, in the education of man. We are too ready in Britain [and in the United States too] to consider them as tools which will work of themselves— that if the laboring man is taught to read his Bible, he becomes necessarily a moral, religious man— that to read is to think. This confounding of the means with the end is practically a great error. We see no such effects from the acquisition of much higher branches of school education, and by 2l6 Illiteracy and Ignorance, those far above the social position of the laboring man. If the ultimate object of all education and knowledge be to raise man to the feeling of his own moral worth, to a sense of his re- sponsibility to his Creator and to his conscience for every act, to the dignity of a reflecting, self-guiding, virtuous, religious member of society, then the Prussian state educational system is a failure. It is not a training or education which has raised, but which has lowered, the human character" (pp. 171-72). I commend these observations to the serious con- sideration of all those who, in our own countr}-, are called upon to solve the questions which will not down concerning the character of our present system of popular schooling. So 1 have come to the point I intended to reach, but which was, probabl3^ to the reader one unlooked-for; which is, to show that the results obtained by modern statistical tables of popular illiteracy are at best of but meagre value by which to test the actual acquisition of knowledge by the masses of people, usefiil and suf- ficiently requisite in their day and for their life pur- poses, and the general well-being of society. If the statistically illiterate are actually shut out from the knowledge of innumerable bald facts (among which it would be safe to say the majority presented to those who can read by such books and newspapers as come in their way, are either of no personal value to them, or are of a nature to debase and pollute their minds), these non-readers are forced to make a better choice of subjects of thought and are also necessarily thrown back upon bestowing more time to the mental digestion of what they have learned, and thus know better what they do know, and better what to do with it. Some one very aptly said: "An educated person Illiteracy and Ignorance. 2 r 7 is one who has not only acquired learning, but, having acquired it, has been taught what to do with it." The acquisition of knowledge merely /^r its oivn sake is as likely to prove injurious to one's mental vigor as the indiscriminate gorging of all sorts of food would be dangerous to one's bodily health. The crowding of one's brain with facts is by no means to be ranked as education — not even as a spe- cifically intellectual education. A late critic, speaking of the prevalence of this partial system of modern popular schooling, writes : " At an inquest upon a suicide of humble rank the other day, an intelligent but uncultured witness expressed his opinion that the deceased had ' overcrowded his mind.' This is the case just now with a good many of us. Every one is put upon his fullest hterary diet, without regard to either his appetite or digestion. Poor humanity may be difficult to enhghten, but nothing is more easy than to educate it beyond its wits." Another acute observer of the lamentably partial and hide-bound views of what education should be — Mrs. Amelia E. Barr — thus discourses in a most thoughtful and suggestive article on " The Decline of Politeness," in LippincotV s Magazine, January, 1892, from which I have already quoted when treating of " Good Man- ners " as an important element of true civilization. The writer says : '• The general idea of education is the passing an examination in some book-learning. No one thinks nowadays of subjecting children to discipline, of teaching them obedience, truthfulness, honest dealing, sympathy for suffering, respect for honorable old age. Yet. if we do not have those virtues in greater perfection than they existed in preceding generations [the writer might truly have added — or at least half as muchj what becomes of our 2 1 8 Illiteracy and Ignorance. vaunted education ? It is, indeed, the relaxed discipline, the diminished respect for authority, the encouragement of luxury, the going out of fashion of industry, contentment, and thrift, tinited with mere book-leariiing, that has made the working classes everywhere discontented, covetous, dishonest, without pride in their work, every year doing it more reluctantly, more scampishly, more dishonorably." This erroneous and dangerous modern idea of edu- cation is clearly chargeable to the spirit of Protestant- ism and of its logical development, Secularism, both of which unite in fostering intellectual pride, the neces- sary consequence of their revolt against the infallible supremacy of truth by the doctrine of "private judg- ment" and the assertion of the right of universal doubt. It is to these superficial views of education, which ignore almost entirely the element of moral discipline, the writer last quoted very justly refers that mod- ern decline of politeness she has doubtless observed in nations under Protestant or secular educational in- fluence, but which is so distinguished a characteristic of the social habits of the commonalty as well as of the higher classes among Catholic nations to-day as in former times. Her reflections are well worth perusal. Although it would not cause me much surprise to hear the accusation made from some quarter, yet I think the reflective and honest reader will hardly im- pute to me the presumption of taking out a brief in de- fence of illiteracy, as being in any sense a preferable condition in itself. The reproach so often heard from the mouths of the enemies of the Catholic Church, that it subserves her interest to keep the masses of people in ignorance, or that she has been in the past more Illiteracy and Ignorance. 219 than in the present indifferent and unwilling to en- courage education among all classes, is too absurdly false to deserve even a denial. Her whole histor}^ is as much a history of the rise and development of learning in all branches of human and divine science in in- numerable schools, colleges, universities, and monas- teries, in the foundation and encouragement of orders of religious men and women wholly devoted to the in- struction of the common people, as it is a history of the rise and progress of Christian civilization itself, un- questionably her work, and hers alone. One who has the least knowledge of history must know himself to be a wilful liar who would assert that the Catholic Church has failed to do all that it has been possible to do at different epochs, among different nations in various states of civilization, to make education esteemed as a boon, or that she failed to make use of all the means and opportunities which the times afforded to encourage the diffusion of useful knowledge among the people, equally wdth the cultivation of the higher sciences and the more elevated and refining arts. My design in begging the fair-minded reader to listen to such a lengthy preface to the statement of some facts having more immediate reference to certain derogatory accusations on this score must, I hope, be plain. I have meant to show that popular illiteracy is no proof that the people are, therefore, mentally or morally ignorant and debased. He who exhibits an official table of statistics show- ing that a high percentage of illiteracy obtains in this or that country must not expect his audience to jump^ at the conclusion he insinuates or openly charges, that the people of such a country are ignorant and morally 220 Illiteracy and Ignorance. debased. Such a conclusion is wholly unwarranted by facts in past history and at the present day. And again, if a nation is to be found upon whom real ignorance and a low grade of civilization can be charged with truth, I am equally sure that such a lamentable condition is not to be attributed to their statistical illiterac}^ except as a partial and the least of the true causes thereof. It is easy to raise a clamor that illiteracy is the mother of all human shame, wrong, and misery, that to it is to be referred the greater part of crime and pauperism — it is not quite so easy to prove the charge and no writer ever yet tried to substantiate it that did not fail in his endeavor. The charge of illiterac}^, as being in itself such a shameful and horrible condition, or as being the cause of all the social ills that mind, heart, and flesh are heirs to, is a modern bugaboo brought out to awaken childish fears, deepen prejudice, and round off their ranting platitudes by persecuting religious bigots and socialistic political charlatans. The truth, on the contrary, is, as will be shown in the course of this essay, that the modern popular diffusion of human knowledge is open to the charge of having been one of the chief causes of the alarming in- crease of all sorts of crime and immorality, a lamentable consequence which would not have followed had this education been accompanied with and directed by the acquisition of divine knowledge. The fundamental principle of our modern education inspired by Protest- antism, and accepted and confirmed by its logical and more powerful successor. Secularism, has been false and pernicious. Its maxim is the contrary of the Illiteracy and Ignorance. 22 1 Gospel maxim, and bids its children "Seek first the kingdom of this world ' ' ; esteeming riches and power above virtue and nobility of character ; success before honesty and honor ; animal pleasures and ease above spiritual delights ; free error above loyalty to truth ; selfishness above divine charity ; luxury above self- denial ; measuring the obligations of justice by the ex- actions of penal laws, and of individual, as well as na- tional right, by sheer brutal might ; despising poverty as a shame, and almost cursing it as a crime; and look- ing upon suffering — the world's expiator and redeemer — as an unmerited blow dealt by the hand of a blind fate. Such have been the undeniably demoralizing and destructive consequences following hard upon the fast- flying footsteps of modern popular education, excluding more and more, as it advances, the restraining and sanctifying influences of religion. It w^ould have been far otherwise had the Catholic ideal of education been recognized, asserted, and real- ized in practice. That ideal asserts the priority and supremacy by right of the divine over the human order. It repeats the principle laid down by Jesus Christ : ' ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- ness." The Catholic Church has never lost sight of that ideal, and her struggle to maintain it for her own children has cost her some of her greatest sacrifices, as it has aroused the most violent opposition to, and brutal attacks upon, her right to live and teach as Christ com- manded her to do, that she has ever sustained at the hands of her enemies. Here in America the contest for the supremacy of the principle affirming the truest, best, and safest 222 Illiteracy and Ignorance. method of popular education is not far from a decisive crisis. It may seem marvellous to some persons that Catholics, being in such a small minority — not more than one-sixth (the census gives one-ninth) of the population — and so inferior in wealth and political power, should be able to force such a vast majority, al- most wholly devoted to the sustaining of the secularist principle of education, to take note of our arguments, to weigh their value, and stand on their defence against their logical force. But though comparatively so much smaller in num- ber, and weaker in all mere human means, there can be no question about the ultimate result. The right will always win. We have, and know we have, the God of the right on our side. What matter our small number ? " With God one is a majority! " CHAPTER XVI. POPULAR EDUCATION. NO more convincing evidence could be offered as proof that the deplorable ignorance of Protestants concerning the Catholic Church is fostered by the mis- representations of her character and doctrines made by their religious teachers than is afforded by the per- sistent repetition in their hearing of a notorious slander- ous forgery, which is received by them not only without the least show of protest, but, as has been more than once noted, with shouts of assenting applause. This forgery is an alleged Roman Catholic maxim which is always presented as if quoted from our writings, viz.: " Ignorance is the mother of devotion." It is now impossible to trace this slander to its original author, but one need not be surprised to come upon it in almost any Protestant controversial work, or hear it repeated in any anti-popery sermon or lecture. One of the most unblushing repetitions of it is to be found in the widely circulated book entitled Our Country, written by a certain Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong, who is the chief secretary of that anti-Catholic asso- ciation called the "Evangelical Alliance," in one of whose official documents (No. XXIII., 1887) the following is quoted from the book of its Rev. Secretary : " Rome has never favored the education of the masses. In her relations to them she has adhered to her own proverb : ' 7^- 7iorance is the mother of devotion.' " And then this false witness against his neighbor goes on to confirm his own true character, and that of his society, by making the following other false as- sertions, as evidence in this essay will prove them to be: 224 Popular Education. " Rome's real attitude toward the education of the masses should be inferred from her course in those countries where she has, or has had, undisputed sway ; and there she has kept the people in besotted ignorance. Instance her own Italy, where seventy-three per cent, of the population are illiterate ; or Spain, where we find eighty per cent.; or Mexico, where ninety-three per cent, belong to this class," That Rev. Dr. Strong or many other anti-popery preachers and writers of his class should deliberately publish and industriously circulate such a patent forgery and misleading manipulated statistics in order to defame the Catholic Church is not surprising. It is their trade. But that their barefaced, unproved assertions should receive ready acceptance and belief among even millions of Protestants of every class throughout the length and breadth of this well-schooled country, to whom the history of the past and the pres- ent state of the world ought not to be a totally un- known quantity, surpasses all explanations save one — to borrow the language of the Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden — ' ' the appalling depth and density of the popular ignorance ' ' of Protestants due to the teaching of such men as the Rev. Dr. Strong. I propose to offer in answer to all these gratuitous slanders positive, unimpeachable evidence, with refer- ences to reliable authorities carefully noted — a method of fair, judicial procedure as carefully omitted by our accusers. Upon the evidence I shall adduce one can easily form a judgment with what justice or sincerity these never-ceasing injurious charges have been made by the revilers of the Catholic Church. Most unquestionably the best basis upon which to make a fair comparison of what Protestant and Catholic countries are doing for the spread of popular education Popular Education. 225 is the actual percentage of the attendance of school children at about the same date, supplemented by other evidence of a similar positive character from reliable authorities, and, above all, respectable ones. This kind of evidence, positive, clear, and convincing in its character, is something Protestant controversialists generally, and religious demagogues always, avoid giving. Accusatory charges of illiteracy, as evidence of what Catholic countries are not doing and have not done, are more to their taste, and, being more difficult of verification, suit their purpose better. As a well-known fact statistics of illiteracy are, as a rule, both too meagre and uncertain, as acknowledged by statisticians themselves, to form the basis of a just comparison, to say nothing of the fact that official statistics of illiteracy for all the countries one cares to investigate are not given. What icnoffLcial statistics may be found are, for the most part, mere guesswork, being nothing better than general estimates founded upon observation of particular classes of persons, such as army conscripts and married couples unable or too bashful to sign their names in a register. The following comparative table is taken from " The Dictionary of Statistics, by Michael G. Mulhall, Fellovv^ of the Royal Statistical Society, etc.," one of the best authorities known (edition of 1892, article " Education," pp. 231 to 243). I have joined with this table, for my readers' satisfaction as to the religious side of the question, the respective number of Catholics and Protestants in these countries. These figures are also taken from the same book, article "Religion" (pp. 512, 513). I have also placed together in comparative view the countries in which either religion is dominant, and the countries IC^v ifywi 216 Popular Education, \ ^ where the population is about equall}^ divided, or where (Mi at least one-third is Catholic. ' '^ Those persons who have seen one of the common/ slanderous "tabular statements" of illiteracy lately"/ .c(X published in the New York Herald, classing all these ^^ latter countries as wholly Protestant ones, will under- ^ .stand my motive for this separation. {MJl^AA Protestant countries. Protestant population. Catholic population. Average attend- ance 0/ school children per 1,000 population. Australia Norway, Sweden, ) and Denmark, ) United States, . . . Great Britain and ) Ireland, S 2,880,000 8,340,500 50,890,000 29,398,000 845,000 4,500 9.000,000 5,336,000 140 140 130 123 Catholic countries. Catholic population. Protestant population. Average attend- ance 0/ school children per 1,000 population. France, Belgium, . . . . . Austria, Spain Italy Portugal, ..... 29,202,000 6,016,000 20,227,000 17,542,000 28,360,000 4,707,500 693,000 10,000 400,000 7,600 62,000 500 170 106 90 54 Mixed countries. Protestant population. Catholic population. Average attend- ance 0/ school children per 1,000 population. Switzerland, . . . Netherlands, . . . Germany, .... Canada, • 1,724,000 2,491,000 ! 29,370,000 2,440,000 1 , 1 90,000 1 ,440,000 16,789,000 1,792,000 210 140 100 Popular Education. 227 The combined population of Catholics and Protest- ants, as given above, do not quite exhaust the number of the entire population for some countries, but the figures answer, as they stand, to show the relative num- ber of each religious bod> in a given country. There is another table worthy of our inspection which reports the number of children enrolled in school . This table is copied from the Report of the U. vS. Commissioner of Education, 1889-90, vol. i. pp. 553-57 : EDUCATION IN EUROPE BETWEEN KINDERGARTEN AND UNIVERSITY— 1890. Coutitries. Religion. Children enrolled ■ in school per \,ooo population. Bavaria, 7-10 Catholic. 'l\'l Baden, . . Yi Catholic. 206 Saxony, . . . Protestant. 202 Prussia, . . Ys Protestant. 196 Switzerland, . Y}, Protestant. 195 Wiirtemberg, \- Protestant. 190 ' German Empire, . i Yi Protestant. 188 England and Wales , : Protestant. 166 Scotland, . . . . ; Protestant. 164 Norway, Protestant. lU Sweden, . . Protestant. '54 France, . . . ' Catholic. • 51 Ireland, . j Catholic. 147 Netherlands, . j 2/ Protestant. 142 Belgium, . . Catholic. 135 Austria, . Catholic. 131 Austria-Hung ar\ , . ' Catholic. 129 Hungary, . Catholic. 126 Denmark, . . Protestant. no Spain, . . . Catholic. 106 Italy, . ^ ■ Catholic. 96 1 \L*¥^ J» X J 228 Popular Education. For the United States another table gives the num- ber of school children enrolled as 233 per 1,000 of popu- lation, as reported in the census of 1890. On page 5 of the same volume this number is given as 202, of which the average attendance is stated to be about one-third less, about 135 per t, 000 of the popu- lation, somewhat higher than the figure given by Mulhall, for 1888. There appears to be no explanation of the great discrepancy of figures given for France or for the difference of estimate made for vSwitzerland. Both of the foregoing tables are well worthy careful inspection and comparison. Taking the figures of either one upon which to make a comparison be- tween what Catholics and Protestants are doing for education in various countries where the religion of one or the other is predominant the conclusion one is sure to arrive at is, that there is no foundation whatso- ever for the thousand- times reiterated charges made by calumniating enemies of the Catholic Church, that where she is in power the people are ignorant and de- prived of the ordinary means of instruction. All false, all false, all false ! is the answer to such accusations given by the figures of both these tables. /;/ both of them Catholics stand at the head ; and hold an honorable rank with Protestant countries, as their percentages show. The United States Commissioner's report gives the average enrollment for all of Great Britain and Ireland as 159, and for the United States, in the official report on page 5, as 202, and the average attendance at about 135. Both countries are doing better now. Our Com- missioner tells us he reports Scotland's first year's Popular Education. 229 experience in free vScliools. Mark that ! He means free "government" schools, iox free religious schools existed in Scotland, as in other countries, in Catholic times long before Protestantism came in to break up all the educational establishments founded by the Church. Free schools were in existence in Rome centuries before the Reformation, and have never ceased being there, as will be proved in the chapter specially devoted to the subject of Education in the Capital of Catholicism. Neither the United States nor England started in to undertake the work of popular education until long after Catholic Austria, France, and Belgium. Both Protestant and Catholic Germany were already well forward in the work — "with perfect systems, ac- complishing magnificent results," as says Joseph Kay, the Protestant sociologist, in his celebrated work, The Social Conditiot and the Education of the People iji England (1850, page 266), and when the Papal States, and especially Rome, were better supplied with public free schools than even Berlin and other parts of Prussia, as I shall presently prove. At the same period, about fifty years ago, our own countr}^' was but just beginning to bestir itself on this subject. By the Census of 1850 I find that in the United States fully one-fifth of the adults over "twenty years of age, exclusive of the slaves, is reported as illiterate. Now, I pray my readers to see what a comparatively low figure the mighty, wealthy, and leading power of Protestantism — the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland — cuts in the Mulhall table ; not to mention its two-third Protestant colony of Canada. Surely ^^Ji 230 Popular Education. there must be some good reason for this. I think I have found one that may explain this rather disgrace- fully low figure for popular education in the great Protestant kingdom "of this world" par excellc7ice. The whole trouble lay with the "degraded and besottedly ignorant Catholic Irish." Protestant Eng- land, which does the governing, law-making, and edu- cating for the whole kingdom, saw wnth great pity and compassion to what a horrible state of illiteracy poverty, besotted ignorance, etc., etc., the Pope of Rome and his minions, the papal clerg}^ in Ireland, had reduced that unhappy people. England's Protestant heart yearned to spread the blessings of popular edu- cation among these benighted Catholic subjects ; but it was all in vain. They did not want to be educated, they never did, and they wouldn't be now or ever. Being a very devout Roman Catholic people, they of course hated the very name of ' ' School " or " School- master," for they knew the doctrine of their papal religion well — *' Ignorance is the mother of devotion," and they resolved, come what might, to live up, or rather down, to it. This obstinate determination of the Catholic Irish to keep themselves in ignorance fully accounts for the low figure which even at this late day has to be recorded opposite the proud name of " The United Kingdom of Great Britain «;/^ Ireland." But I do not wish my unsupported word to be taken in evidence. I give the higher testimony, briefly stated by one of our American leading educators — Henry Barnard, EE.D. — who had the honor to be the first United States Commissioner of the Bureau of Edu- cation ; and of course he is pretty good authority ; this is what he says : Popular Education, 231 " Until the beginning of this century the Catholics, who con- stituted four-fifths of the population in Ireland, were not only not permitted to endoic, conduct, or teach schools, but Catholic parents even were not permitted to educate their children abroad ; and it was made an offence, punished by transportation (and if the party returned it was made high treason), in any Catholic to act as a schoolmaster, or even as a tutor in a private family" (Barnard's Journal of Education, vol. xi. page 134). In what other tone than that of irony could I have permitted myself to preface such an unquestionable but almost incredible statement ? Protestant England, indeed, with its small ratio of school children per 1,000 of the population at the present day for the whole king- dom, to presume to revile as it does the illiteracy and ignorance of its own oppressed Irish Catholic subjects ! Just think of it ; the Catholic schoolmaster teaching A, B, C, at the peril of penal exile ; and if he dared return to his dearly loved native land — well, the hangman's rope would effectually silence his traitorous teaching tongue ! I have just received a copy of an Irish newspaper in which is reported an instructive little address made to some Catholic school children in Ireland by the pres- ent Irish Cardinal Logue, the humor of which will be appreciated no less than the force of its testimony to the love Irishmen have ever cherished for education, and the sacrifices they have made for it. His Emi- nence said : " It was thought necessary to use some little compulsion in gathering the children to school. I never found it necessary dur- ing my experience, neither do I think it useful ; but those who rule over your interests are, I suppose, wiser than we are, and they appear to have only one system of ruling over us, and that 232 Popular Education. is, ruling by Coercion Acts. The grown-up people have been coerced since I remember, and I suppose long before it, and when they have exhausted all the powers of coercion on the grown-up people they have taken to the children. So you, my dear children, are now under a Coercion Act, and the best that I wish you is that you may never give them an opportunity of applying this Coercion Act. The children were in former gen- erations coerced by the same authorities, but the coercion was to keep them out of school. They kept them out of school, of course, but they could not suppress the love of learning and the love of knowledge which seems to be natural to the Irishman's heart. They took to the hedgerows, and so by stealth, at the risk of their lives, at least at the risk of the lives of their teachers, and at the risk of ruin on the part of their parents, the poor children of Ireland strove to acquire knowledge. Now the co- ercion is used in the opposite direction to bring them into the schools, and I hope it will succeed in such parts of the country as it is required in.'' The great and instructive truth here so well stated is crystallized in the old familiar quotation, '' Stretched on the mountain feini, pupil and teacher met ^ felo7iioitsly , to learn.''' But what was Ireland in the da^^s when she was not only Catholic but free ? So many of my readers have been accustomed to think of that nation as having been always little better than semi-civilized, that they will be astonished when I tell them the truth. So far as learning was a factor in the Christian civilization of Europe Ireland takes rank as one of the foremost leaders a thousand years before Protestantism saw the light. lyook at her numerous schools of learning following directly upon her conversion to the Catholic faith, among which stand out Armagh, a. d. 455, with seven thousand pupils; lyismore, Cashel, Arran, Clo- Popular Education, 233 nard, Clonmacnoise, Benchor, lauded by St. Bernard ; Clonfert, and lona, a. d. 563. Listen to the historian, St. Aengis, telling us that Gauls, Romans, Germans, and even Egyptians, were scholars in these Irish schools ; and to St. Aldhelm, of Westminster, in the seventh century, complaining that the English schools were neglected for those of Ireland. "Nowadays," says he, "the renown of the Irish is so great that one daily sees our scholars going to and returning thence, and crowds flock over to their island to gather up, not merely the liberal arts and physical sciences, but also the four senses of Holy Scripture." It was Moore, the melodious goet of Ireland, who said — apropos of the fact being cited that in former times Ireland sent teachers all over Europe — "True, it was abroad that the Irish sought, and abroad that they found, the reward of their genius." We of the United States can bear testimony to that truth. Cardinal Newman quotes this saying of Moore with approval in his Historical Sketches, and adds : "If there be a nation which, in matters of intellect, does not want 'protection,' to use the political word, it is the Irish. I would be paying a poor compliment to one of the most gifted of nations of Europe did I suppose that it could not keep its ground, that it would not take the lead in the intellectual arena, though competition was perfectly open." And again, alluding to the superior intelligence and vigor of that Catholic people, he says in another place : "The fact is manifest, the English language and the Irish race are overrunning the world." Here is a fact utterly inexplicable except one admits the truth of the Cardinal's words. "There is no in- 234 Popular Education. stance," says Lecky in his History of Erigland in the Eighteenth Ceyitnry, "even in the Ten Persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics" (vol. i. ch. ii.) And, despite their long-continued misgovernment, so- cial persecution, and general poverty, Irish scholars of eminence founded colleges of their own nation in Rome and Paris, and have never failed to keep the chairs of their professors filled by competent men. One of the French colleges of the highest repute for learning is that of the Ecole des Haute s Etudes in Paris, and who should have been chosen and remain for 3ears its worthy president b^t an Irishman ! Mentioning these two Irish colleges out of Ireland reminds me of the existence also of five English Catholic colleges out of England — those of Douay and Rheims, Rome, Valladolid and Lisbon, founded by English Catholics hindered by their persecuting Protestant brother Englishmen from establishing them at home. That the colleges in France were schools of no mean learning is evidenced to the world by the fact that English-speaking Catholics owe their trans- lation of the Old Testament to these exiled schol- ars at Douay, and of the New Testament to those of Rheims: versions of Holy Scripture w^hich, if less distinguished for the beauty of rhetorical expression than the Protestant version ' ' of King James, ' ' have been fully vindicated as being superior in doctrinal and textual accuracy. The true reason why England cuts such a low figure in the statistics of popular education compared even with other Protestant nations, is because its domi- nant form of Protestantism — the National established Popular Education. 235 Episcopalianism — soon lost and never sought to regain those whom Protestant Englishmen of that Church are wont to call the "lower classes." The whole system and temper of the Established Church tended to destroy all sympathy between its clergy and the common people. Most of the clergy were taken from, and only associated with, the "higher classes," and took little interest in the social advancement or culture of the ignorant hinds who tilled the fields, toiled in the mines, or became later on mere animated machines working in the brutalizing factories. But England was not always so low down in the scale of learning as now. When Protestantism arose in that once happy Catholic country it found the land cov- ered with thousands of monastic and parish schools; the country teemed wnth noted scholars, and their fame w^ent abroad all over Europe. As early as the four- teenth century school children were taught not only their own English but the Latin and French languages. In the fifteenth centur}^ it appears that some of the nobility began to get jealous of the wide-spread learn- ing of the lower orders, and petitioned parliament in the reign of Richard II. that they should at least not be allowed to go to the schools of the monks, from which so many poor scholars came out learned in science and rose to dignities in the state. But parliament passed the following law: "Everyman or woman, of whatsoever state or condition they be, shall be at liberty to send their son or daughter to take learning in any kind of school that pleaseth them with- in the realm." Eet my reader pick up any good history of England, and learn how many thousands of monasteries and 236 Popular Education, nunneries were confiscated by the royal founder of Protestantism in England, Henry VIII. Let him learn how many tens of thousands of these monks and nuns, whose whole lives were consecrated to study, and prayer, to the teaching and succoring the poor in their necessities, were driven out to secular occupations, or either hanged or exiled ; and then he may imagine how rapidly the pall of ignorance fell upon the English people, deprived of almost every means of education for either the higher or lower classes. Like a death- dealing cyclone Protestantism passed over the land, and never reinstated one out of the thousands of schools and homes of learning and religion that it destroyed. So far as the education and general well-being of the masses of people were concerned, England never re- covered from the disastrous blow it received at the hands of the reformed religion. Its two ancient and renowned universities of Oxford and Cambridge hardly escaped extinction, and English Protestantism con- tented itself with the poor remains of them that it suffered to stand ; and never cared for, if it felt the need of, any other such sanctuaries of higher education for nearly three hundred years. As to the cause oi popu- lar education let us see in what condition England had come to by the middle of this present century, and then we can judge what it must have been all along since the spirit of Protestantism reigned supreme over the minds and hearts of the English people. Joseph Kay, in his work already quoted, will tell us at the end of his volume : " Here in England, with our vast accumulated masses, with an expenditure on abject pauperism which in these days of our pros- perity amounts to ^5,000,000 per annum, with a terrible defi- Popular Education, 237 ciency in our churches and clergy, with the most demoraUzing pubHcations spread through the cottages of our operativ^es, with democratic ideas of the wildest kind ; where the majority of the operatives have no religion ; where the national religion is one utterly unfitted to attract an uneducated people ; where the aristocracy is richer and more powerful than that of any other country in the world — the poor are more depressed, more pauper- ized, more numerous in comparison to the other classes, more ir- religious and very much worse educated than the poor of any other European nation solely excej)tin,!L; Russia, Turkey, South Italy, Portugal, and Spain." What a sad" and bitter contrast to the condition of the people when England was Catholic and "Merry" — when the very word "pauper" in its present legal and social sense was not in the language. " A time there was ere England's griefs began. When every rood of ground maintained its man." Kay's great work, which startled not only England but all other nations by its fearful revelations of igno- rance and crime, bristles with proofs that Protestant England and Wales were in a horrible state of mental and moral degradation. The population was then (1850) hardly 17,000,000, and he says that there were 8,000,000 illiterates ; that 50 per cent, also of the children attended no school, and very many of what teachers there were in country districts could not themselves either read or write. Italy, Spain, and Portugal are shown by Mulhall's table to be behind, but not so far behind Protestant England and Canada as the popular hue and cry against them, because they are Catholic countries, has led many^ to believe. What did Kay think of the backwardness of Catholic countries ? This : 238 Poptilar Education. " Alas ! Romanist countries have far outstripped tis in the eagerness with which they are promoting the education of their people. They understand the signs of the times. We have yet to learn them " {Social Condition of the English People, p. 298). What did he hope from his own Protestantism to help rescue the ignorant masses ? " The great majority of the people in the, great towns of this kingdom have no religion. They are not fitted for the reception of Protestantism, or if they are so in a few cases, it is only for the reception of a corrupted and co7-riipti)ig phase of it, and we have taken from them the only religion capable of influencing them in their present state " (p. 298). That last remark is true enough. He meant the "Protestant religion as by law established." He should have meant the Catholic religion, taken awa}^ from the people three hundred years before. Samuel Laing, that eminent vScotch Presbyterian writer, could have told him so. He says in his Notes of a Traveller, p. 394: "Catholicism has certainly a much stronger hold over the human mind than Protestantism. The fact is visible and undeniable." And he was led to say this by observing the powerful influence the Catholic religion has had, not only over the higher classes but over the illiterate and poor. Protestant countries will bear no comparison to Catholic ones in this respect. The observant reader will not fail to note the very singular remark of Kay: "They (the English people) are not fitted for the reception of Protestantism, except in a few cases." A confession that Protestantism, despite the united power of its kings and nobility, and the enormous wealth of its Law-Church P^stablishment, had either failed — "except in a few cases" — to force the new religion into the minds and hearts of the people, Popular Education. 239 or that it had ba.sel3^ suffered them to fall awa3^ into infidelity or a scornful Nothingarianism. If one did not know the context of Kay's remark, he would naturally suppose he was alluding to some nation of cannibals in the South Seas, or savage tribe in the interior of Africa. Seven years after Kay's work appeared, when states- men and writers in England were beginning to discuss the proposal of establishing the national public schools, the London Times, after exposing the general irre- ligious character of the working classes, would ap- pear to have come up to only a half-hearted interest in the movement. " We do not think," it says, alluding to the proposed schools, "that they are likely to leave the w^orking population in a viore irreligious state than the^^ find it in." It had just remarked that the census showed " a million heads of families who never went to any church," specifying, for example, the wealthy district of Paddington, wdiere there w^ere only 70 such out of 1,400; and the district of Clerkenwell, "with a population of 52,000, of whom no more than 200 of the laboring classes are attendants at an}- place of wor- ship" {Dublin Revic7i.\ vol. xlv. p. 59). If Catholic countries like Spain and Italy, so pro- foundly religious and Christian, should have been slow in adopting the modern means of securing popular education — so called — it is not greatly to be wondered at ; seeing the prevailing spirit of such forced purely secular schooling by state power is one which, by ignor- ing, as it does, religious instruction and moral discipline, tends to fostet scepticism and infidelity, and is followed hy an alarming increase of crime and immorality. With the knowdedge of what has thus resulted in the loss of faiih and Christian virtue, not only in all strong- 240 Popular Education, ly Protestant countries but even of late years in Catho- lic France, where the powers that be are hostile to Christianity, who shall blame them for hesitating, and for slowly adopting a popular policy for their own Christian people, so difficult to establish as it would seem, without yielding up the school-house to be a godless temple for the Prince of this world, across whose threshold the Prince of Heaven, teaching His divine religion, must not put His foot? And yet these shallow-minded world-worshippers can revile those nations who seek first of all the kingdom of God and His righteousness, because they look before they leap, and are slow to force upon their people a worldly benefit at the risk of such a fatal price. Could they have seen their way, as Catholics for instance in this country are resolved to see their way first, how to bestow this worldly benefit accompanied by religion in order to prevent its becoming to the rising generation a ' ' dangerous and pernicious advantage both to them- selves and to society at large," as the wisest and best of all moralists and true educators are unanimous in de- claring it to be if not so accompanied ; then, as has been proved, and as this essay has shown and will further prove. Catholics not only equal but surpass Protestants and Secularists both in the results achieved in purely secular knowledge, and also in the standard of individual and social morality set up and safe- guarded. I have omitted in this place all reference to Catholic countries like Mexico and the States of ^outh America. They are not in a reasonably equal social condition as to the races composing the population to be fa.rly called into comparison with other countries, either Catholic or Popular Education. 241 Protestant ones, such as I have alkided to. Those countries are vast in extent and thinly populated, and the people are a half, and in some four-fifths, pure Indians or of mixed races, who under Catholic humane and Christian influence were preserv^ed and brought to a better civilized condition, and not exterminated like wild beasts, as such races have been under the in- fluence of Protestantism. That a much lower percentage of school enrollment should be reported for Mexico, and all the countries of South America, than for the United States, or any part of Europe, is not at all surprising. The wonder is that the percentages are as high as reported. Sup- pose our carping critics should be called upon to ' ' look at ' ' the low percentage of school children among both whites and blacks all through the Southern States a very few years ago ; or at the shocking state of illiter- acy and barbarism combined existing all through Ithe vast mountainous region inhabited by the " low white trash," as described by the Rev. Mr. Jenkins (see chapter x. pp. 106-112), to which there is no parallel to be found in any Catholic country in the world. The counsel to people living in glass houses is respect- fully offered to all such • antagonists. We have already seen, under the head of com- parative results of Protestant and Catholic civilization, enough to show that the countries included in " Catho- lic America" have not been found wanting when w^eighed in a just balance by even Protestant observ-ant judges. In a future chapter the reader will have an opportunity of considering the educational condition of Mexico more in detail. I began this chapter with a quotation taken from the 242 Popular Education. mouth of the Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong, voicing the opin- ion of the deluded Protestant muUitude concerning the CathoHc Church and her sentiments on education. Said this reverend teacher, a doctor of divinity too, in whose word they have trusted : ' ' Rome has never favored the education of the masses. She has adhered to her own proverb : ' Ignorance is the mother of de- votion '." -I open the w^orks of truly learned Protestant writers, and I cannot find one sentence endorsing the assertion of Dr. Strong ; but I find more than enough to show that his assertion is false. Here is one from the pen of the eminent English scholar. Rev. Canon Farrar, as an example of many others : " Consider what the Church did for education. Her ten thousand monasteries kept ahve and transmitted that torch of learning which otherwise would have been extinguished long be- fore. A religious education, incomparably superior to the mere athleticism of the noble's hall, was extended to the meanest serf who wished f 07' it. This fact alone, by proclaiming the dignity of the individual, elevated the entire hopes and destinies of the race. The humanizing machinery of Schools and Universities, the civil- izing propaganda of missionary zeal, were they not due to her ? And, more than this, her very existence was a living education; it showed that the successive ages were not sporadic and acci- dental scenes, but were continuous and inherent acts in the one great drama. In Christendom the yearnings of the past were fulfilled, the direction of the future determined. In dim but magnificent procession, 'the giant forms of empires on their way to ruin ' had each ceded to her their sceptres, bequeathed to her their gifts. . . . Life became one broad rejoicing river, whose tributaries, once severed, were now united, and whose majestic stream, without one break in its continuity, flowed on, under the common sunlight^ from its Source beneath the Throne of God" {lb., p. i86, lect. v., "Christianity and the Race"). I open the works of an ancient Catholic saint and I Popular Education. 243 read : ' ' Ignorance is an atrophy of the soul ; but knowl- edge is its food " (St. Clement of Alexandria, Strornat., lib. vii. 12). I hear the words of Pope St. Gregory protesting against the exclusion of Christians from the schools by Julian the Apostate : " I trust that every one who cares for learning will take part in my indignation. I leave to others fortune, birth, and every other fancied good which can flatter the imagination of man. I value only science and letters, and regret no labor that I have spent in their acquisition. I have preferred, and ever shall prefer, learning to all earthly riches, and hold nothing dearer on earth next to the joys of heaven and the hopes of eternity." I turn to the writings of a later Catholic saint, a Franciscan monk, who stands among the chief apostles of Catholic " devotion," and I read : " Easily will the spirit of error delude you, if you ?iegleci science ; nor hath the cunning enemy any machinations more efficacious to remove devotion from the heart than that of causing you to walk negligently and without reason, for God is wisdom, and he wishes Himself to be loved, not alone affectionately, but also wisely" (St. Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ, ch. xliv.) But why quote the language of the learned and the holy against the reckless, false testimonies of such men as make up the rank and file of our modern revilers. The day of their judgment at the hands of their own deceived people, awakened at last to a sense of the in- dignity they have suffered from such impostors, cannot be far off. We may well leave them to the fate that awaits them. CHAPTER XVIL PAROCHIAL vSCHOOLS. THE manipulation of statistics in order to discredit Catholic religious education under the title of "parochial sj^stem " — that being the system we have been forced to adopt in self-defence of parental rights in this country — is one of the favorite methods recent- ly employed by Protestants in their violent attacks upon us. Not that we deem it necessary to apologize for having adopted the parochial system where it can be carried out. So far as it the better insures the im- parting of Catholic faith and Catholic morals and manners, it is unquestionably superior to any other system, and I will presently give some evidence that thoughtful, religious-minded Protestants are equally well convinced of the same as imperative for the secur- ity of their own religious faith. The late popular hue and cry here in the United States has been, "Down with the parochial schools! Give them no quarter ! To aid or countenance them in any way is to betray the country into the hands of a foreign potentate! " A certain Baptist preacher, Rev. P. S. Moxom, in a fiery harangue before the people of Boston, in Music Hall, December 23, 1888, roused them to a frenzy when he said : ' ' Were the ruling ideas on education by the Papacy to become supreme, the Re- public would cease to exist." Then he brought out a notorious fabricated table of statistics which I will 244 Parochial Schools. 245 speak of further on. Warming with his subject, he enlarged upon the superior morality of the public- school teaching, especially in '' triithfidness, honesty^ scrupulous regard for the rights of others,'' and he added : "Those who are taught in the Roman Catholic paro- chial schools are wronged in the deepest way by having essential falsehood incorporated with all their thinking upon human experience and destiny." I am sure my readers feel like asking, with me, if the Rev. Mr. Moxom got his truthfulness, honesty, and scrupu- lous regard for the rights of others through a public- school education? It is certain his shadow never fell across the threshold of a Catholic parochial school. Considering the sacred character of this man's profes- sion, his astounding temerity in getting off this farrago of falsehoods is only equalled by what the Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden calls the ' ' appalling depth and density of the popular Protestant ignorance ' ' of his Boston audience, who, as the report goes on to say, received the reverend orator's speech "with tremend- ous and long-continued applause, with warm greetings and congratulations as he left the platform." But this reverend false witness is only one among many of the same mind and the same language. Pul- pit, press, and platform have all united in making sim- ilar accusations, as foolish as they are false. Perhaps the most foolish of all is the one I have alluded to among Rev. Mr. Moxom 's other charges. It is this one, based upon the manipulated statistics he read to his Boston audience : ' ' Parochial schools produce illit- eracy, pauperism, and crime." This was the thesis upon which a certain Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins, a New York lawyer, constructed a famous 246 Parochial Schools. pamphlet, entitled The Relation of Education to Wealth and Mo7'ality and to Pauperism and Crime. This pamphlet had a wide-spread circulation, and his "table of statistics " offered as indisputable proof of his thesis was extensively copied by the Protestant religious journals. Probably a more impudently dishonest fab- rication never issued from the press, and its circulation has done so much to confirm the ignorant prejudices of the Protestant public and to arouse their hostility to our parochial schools that I repeat its refutation here in the hope that it may prove for some an antidote to the poison they have imbibed from it. This literary fraud was first exposed in the Catholic World, April, 1884, by the Rev. George Deshon, and more minutely by myself in the Freeman' s Jour7ial^ November 29, 1890, and again in The Independent, January 15, 1891, of which I present a brief summary. Pretending to take his statistics from the United States Census Report for 1870, Mr. Hawkins made up the following table : Illiterates. Paupers. Criminals. Inhabitants. Parochial system, 1,400 410 160 to the 10,000. Public-school system in 21 States, . . 350 170 75 to the 10,000. Public-school system in Massachusetts, . 71 49 II to the 10,000. He first sent this table to an English periodical, from which it was copied into the New England Journal of Ediication in 1876. In 1883 he published his pam- phlet. What is there true in his table as given above ? lyCt the reader judge after he has read the following evidence. Parochial Schools. 247 What statement or number of illiterates, paupers, and criminals educated in parochial schools or where such schools exist does the Census Report of 1870 give ? Not one word or figure. Does the Census Report give the number of paupers and criminals educated in the public schools either in the twenty-one States or in the State of Massachusetts, or make a statement from which the number can be deduced ? Not one word or figure. I ask and reply to these ques- tions because, as we shall see, neither the parochial schools nor the public schools have anything to do with these figures. The table is misleading, as the compiler himself proves in attempting to explain how he makes the figures apply to the prevailing system of schooling under which these illiterates, paupers, and criminals were, as he says, "produced." He tells us that the figures he gives for results of the ' ' parochial-school system ' ' represent the percentage of "foreign-born" illiterates, paupers, and criminals, and for the ' ' public-school system ' ' the figures repre- sent the percentage of the "native-born " ones. The number of his figures for the foreign-boni illiterates in all the States and for the native-born ones in 21 North- ern States are near enough to the truth, but he multi- plied those for paupers and crimi7ials by ten I leaving the figures for the State of Massachusetts correct so as to make a strong contrast to the foreign-born in the whole United States, whom he was set upon defaming, by asserting, as he does in his explanation, that " all the foreign-born citizens were educated in parochial schools in Europe," and assuming that all the "native-born citizens" were educated in public schools. If Mr. Hawkins had had the intention of giving his 248 Parochial Schools, readers the whole truth about illiteracy, pauperism, and crime in the United States, he would have pre- sented this true table of these facts, as found in the Census Report for 1870, and which any one interested To every 10,000 inhabitants : Illiter- Pau- Crimi- ates. pers. nals. 1.397 41 15K 361 17 7 71 49 II 1,120 21 15 1,603 13X aY^ 1,479 16 7% can certify Foreign-born citizens in the whole United States, .... Native-born citizens in 21 Northern States, ... . . Native-born citizens in the State of Massachusetts, .... Foreign-born citizens in 16 Southern States, ..... Native-born citizens in 16 Southern States, whites only. Native-born citizens in the whole United States, all colors. The honest inquirer naturally asks : Why did this hunter of statistics suppress the number of illiterates, paupers, and criminals for the native-born white citi- zens of the 16 Southern States? There is only one answer — it would spoil the misleading evidence he desired to furnish, especially about illiteracy being the cause of increased pauperism and crime ; a charge which is flatly contradicted by the figures in the true table of statistics just given. How came he to say that the foreign-born citizens were educated in parochial schools ? He tells us : "The foreign-born citizens are mostly Irish, and they were all educated in parochial schools." Both asser- tions are false, and he must have known they were false. Parochial Schools, 249 That is proved, first, by the following figures he saw in the Census Report, as follows : Foreign-born population, ..... 5,567,229 Natives of Ireland, 1,855,827 Second, by the fact that there never has been a paro- chial system of schools in Ireland, and he knew it ; for he tells us elsewhere that he had travelled in Ireland in order to study the various systems of education. And so he manufactured this misleading and false doc- ument in order to deceive the Protestant American public and prejudice them against the Catholic Church and her religious system of education ! This is the way Mr. Hawkins sums up the net re- sults of his fabricated table for his deluded readers : "Society under the parochial school produces four times as many illiterates, two and a half times as many paupers, and more than twice as many criminals as under the average public school ; or, if we take the Massachusetts type of public school, society, under the parochial school, produces twenty times as many illiterates, eight times as many paupers, and fourteen times as many criminals as under the public school." All built up upon an absolutely baseless foundation ! But what about the Massachusetts figures as really given for that State in the Census ? Here they are, as any one can verify : Full number of Illiterates. Paupers. Criminals. Foreign-born, .... 89,830 381 1,235 Native-born, .... 7.912 5-396 1.291 Now let me apply the same ' ' explanation ' ' to them as Mr. Hawkins applied to his table, and see how 250 Parochial Schools, much truth there is in his boasted Massachusetts per- centage : To every io,cxx) illiterates : Paupers. Criminals. Parochial-school system, .... 43 138 Public-school system 6,820 1,631 That is, as Mr. Hawkins argued, and if he told the truth we would have a right to conclude, the Massa- chusetts public-school system produced in the year 1870 one hundred and sixty times as many paupers and about twelve times as many criminals as the parochial-school system ! But even if we do not adopt his juggling " explana- tion," and look the truth square in the face, it is quite evident that the foreign-born illiterates in Massachu- setts — at that date, in great part if not ' ' mostly ' ' Irish Catholics, who could not have gone to any school, being illiterate — are proved by the Census Report to be one hundred and sixty times more industrious and twelve times more moral than the native-born illiterates of that State, who did not go to any school either, but for whose industry and morality Massachusetts Protestant- ism is justly called upon to answer. I have already shown how much of the illiteracy of the poor Irish immigrants is chargeable to the influence of either the Catholic religion they professed, or to the parochial system ; but it is quite evident from whom these "mostly" Irish obtained that social ajid moral knozvledge and discipline which kept them out of the Massachusetts poor-houses and prisons — only 43 paupers out of 6,863, and only 138 criminals out of 1,769. If one wants a striking bit of evidence that illiteracy Parochial Schools. 251 is not a condition which produces pauperism or crime the foregoing figures, taken from the Census Report for the State of Massachusetts, supply him with such a one. There is more and worse to tell about these frau- dulent Hawkins statistics. Although he elsewhere accuses the Catholic religion of favoring ignorance, he avoided all mention of it in relation to his table of statistics, as if he were only honestly attacking the "parochial system" of schooling. How, then, are we to explain the following more fraudulent tinkering of his table of figures ? In the International Review (A. S. Barnes & Co., New York, March, 1880) the late Hon. John Jay, attacking "Romanism," introduces Mr. Hawkins's table fixed up in this style : "Without referring to similar statistics abroad, we find at home census and police returns, all telling the same story — that Roman Catholic schools, as compared with our own, are pro- paganda of ignorance, superstition (?), vagrancy (?), pauperism, and crime. Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins has shown from the United States Census of 1870 the comparative number of illiter- ates, paupers, and criminals produced respectively by the Roman Catholic parochial schools, the public schools of 21 States, and by the public schools of Massachusetts. There are furnished to every 10,000 inhabitants: By Roman Catholic schools, By public schools of 21 States, . By public schools of Massachusetts, That is the shape in which the Hon. John Jay gave out the Hawkins table. It calls for no comment ; for it speaks loudly and clearly enough for itself. While Mr. Illiterates. Paupers. Criminals . 1,400 410 160 350 170 75 . 71 69 II 252 Parochial Schools. Jay was president of the "Evangelical Alliance" this altered table was published in several of its official documents, which have been circulated all over the country and, despite their exposure in the Catholic World and by myself, copies were to be obtained at the office of the society as late as this present year. These false Hawkins-Jay statistics, defaming parochial and Ro- man Catholic schools, of which there is not one word in the census or police returns, have been effectively used by our unscrupulous enemies, being quoted, even since public refutation, before congressional and legislative committees, and hurled at us from hundreds of Protes- tant pulpits, platforms, and newspapers, without ceasing. Is it any wonder that they have succeeded so well as they have done in deceiving even the very elect amongst our most fair-minded and friendly citizens of every and of no faith ? Alas ! is there no respect for truth left in the hearts of our fellow- Protestant country- men when the Catholic religion comes before them to be judged ? The Protestants of this country have stirred them- selves up to the most foolish and unfounded hostility and prejudice against parochial schools. If there be any just cause at all for this animosity it certainly is not referable to the system as conducted in Catholic countries; but I will allow that there has been some reason for it furnished by the character of the Protest- ant parochial schools in England. Of late the English clergy are beginning to realize that if they would save their own religion from becoming extinct, they must have the education of the masses conducted according to the Catholic ideal. That is what we are telling all the Protestant denominations in the United States, Parochial Schools. 253 and yet how blind, how blmd ! What blinds them? Nothing but their prejudice, deepened yet more and more, strange to say, by the efforts of their own clergy against everything Catholics call good. Reason and the lessons of experience cannot reach them. " Noth- ing good," they cry, ''can come out of the Catholic Nazareth." In evidence of what I have just said about English- men waking up to the danger threatening their Protest- antism from mere secular education, I adduce the following item, clipped from a recent copy of the Derry Joiwnal : " Speaking at Liverpool, Bishop Ryle said if the Church of England ever allowed the education of her children to go out of her hands her days were numbered. If this occurred they would find a dry rot at the heart of the Church of England. If the Church of England would not attend to her children the Church of Rome would. Whatever her faults might be, they could not lay it to the charge of the Church of Rome that she neglected her children, for wherever the Church of Rome placed a church she always took care to build a school as well. " There is no slander so ready in the mouths of the uncultured controversialist as that which imputes to ' Rome ' the desire and the design of keeping her people in ignorance. Bishop Ryle takes the higher and true view, and the Rev. Mr. Potter — one of the most observant of ministers — is with the eminent dignitary in that. ' Heartily endorsing ' Bishop Ryle, Mr. Potter went on to say : •"I am fully convinced that the entire success of our Church in the future depends upon the influence we can exert upon the children now under our control, and therefore I feel that there is no agency in connection with our Church of so much im- portance as that which is brought to bear upon the young. There can be no doubt but that the question of the day is that of edu- cation. No matter where we turn this is what meets our view. 254 Parochial Schools. In fact, it is the prominent thoug-ht of the day. No matter what view people may entertain of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, there can be no difference of opinion as to the perfect and complete system of its ecclesiastical arrangements for the pro- motion of its own interests ; and one of the striking features in that system is the great care which is taken of the young of the flock. Early impressions are never forgotten, and so the Church of Rome is determined that she will have nothing to do with any system of education for the young which does not include re- ligion. In this resolve she is wise, and so we (Protestant Episcopalians), acting upon the same principle, desire to secure that there shall be a combination of secular and religious instruc- tion in all our schools.' " This testimony, so fairly given, comes with peculiar aptness at this time, when on the narrowest grounds an unjust agitation is maintained in Ulster against admitting the Christian Brothers to the benefits of the Education Act." Let any one read the Protestant Episcopalian organ in this country — The Churchina7i. There is just the faintest acknowledgment that parochial schools are de- sirable ; but, no, it would never do to own it frankly. It would justify the Catholics ! Now for a few facts enabling us to compare the results of parochial or religious Catholic schools and state " non-sectarian" public schools, which are claim- ed to realize the Protestant ideal of popular education : " A writer in the Nineteenth Century says, that out of 339 pupils who obtained prize exhibitions in Paris in 1878, 242 be- longed to the Christian Brothers' schools. Between 1847 and 1877, out of 1,445 such exhibitions, 1,145 were carried off by the Christian Brothers' boys ; the public-school candidates being the larger number, and the public schools had received 40,000,000 francs for support" {The Church Revieiv, Protestant Episco- palian, July, 1890). Parochial Schools. 255 In the same period of thirty-one years, of the whole number, 620, consisting of the first twenty leading scholars of each year, the Catholic boys numbered 527 ! Thirty-one victories in thirty-one years without a break ! Utterly confounded by the phenomenal superiority of the Christian schools, the Paris University got its Secularist, nineteenth century, Protestant-like temper up, and in 1869 resolved to defeat the superior showing of the Christian Brothers' educational work. So they put on a new test, the obtaining of certificats d' etudes, granted to all deserving scholars. This was to enable their low-grade scholars to compete. They kept it up bravely for nine years. The results for that period show that of 9,499 certificates, the Catholic boys were 613 in majority ; and that the sum of the averages per school amounted to 194 for the Catholics against only 55 for the public-school boys (Amer. Cath. Quar. Review, October, 1879). Then they resorted to brute force to crush, if pos- sible, the Catholic schools by conscripting all these noble, self-denying Catholic schoolmasters into the army ; following Protestant England's example m hanging and transporting all Catholic teachers in Ire- land, so as to get up some statistical tables of illiteracy "produced by the Catholic parochial system of edu- cation " ! The same results in favor of all Catholic schools have been achieved wherever competitive examinations have been held, in other countries. Just such ex- aminations have been held for congressional appoint- ments to West Point ; and the leading boys in more than one instance were pupils of the parochial schools 2 $6 Parochial Schools. in this city. We are alwa3^s ready for the trial at a moment's notice. Everybody who went near the late international Educational Exhibit in the great Chicago Fair was convinced that the Catholic schools would be sure to receive a large number of prizes to be conferred in any and every department. The Catalogue of the "Catholic Educational Ex- hibit," now^ published, is a bulk}^ volume of 350 pages, and is only a mere index of the names of the Catholic schools represented at the Fair and titles of the w^ork exhibited. Ten such volumes would not be able to contain even the briefest description of the exhibits. As to the total number of them, it must have run up into the tens of thousands. The introduction to the Catalogue tells us that 1,200 establishments sent ex- hibits, and that in order to display them it was neces- sary to employ 29,214 square feet of floor-space, afford- ing over 60,000 square feet of wall and desk surface, and 1,000 linear feet of aisles. From the list of awards, signifying a medal and diploma , there would appear to have been over seven luindj'ed awarded to Catholic schools in the United States alone, and over niyiety to foreign schools conducted by the Christian Brothers, sent in from Belgium, France, Spain, Great Britain, the Isle of Mauritius, and the Hawaiian Islands. We can well believe the indefatigable Christian Brother Maurelian, the devoted and masterly secretary and manager of this triumphant revelation of Catholic edu- cational superiority, when he says: "The Parochial School is apotheosized, the Catholic philosophy of education is vindicated. The ardent expectations of the most sanguine have been distanced. From all lips, Parochial Schools. 257 partisan and non-partisan, have dropped words of praise and exclamations of astonished delight." Compara- tively speaking, one of the largest giant offsprings of the World's Columbian Exposition was the "Catholic Educational Exhibit." No less brilliant and surprising to the tens of thousands of visitors was the monster Diocesan School Exhibit held in Central Palace Hall, New York City, May 14 to 28, 1894. The reader is referred to a valu- able critical notice of this special displa}^ of the superior results of our parochial educational work contributed to the Catholic World, July, 1894. And mark it well : all these splendid results have been won in the very teeth of opposition and discouragement on the part of our fellow-citizens, under the burden of double taxation, with means far below those at the command of any other schools. Surely every citizen of our glorious and beloved country, whatever may be his religious convictions, cannot help but feel a just pride in being able to point to such a manifestation of educational interest, and brilliant proof of intellectual development amongst us, no matter by whom exhibited. They should all be only too happy to learn that Catholics are better than they believed, and rejoice to see them receive the crown of merit they have so justly won. I am rejoiced to know that such have been the sentiments of thousands whose American manliness and straightforward hon- esty rise superior to all prejudice. This, to so many Protestants, marvellous and truly magical spectacle of Catholic education, was not the least among the great wonders which dazzled the eyes of the millions of visitors to the great Fair. They have taken the 258 Parochial Schools. memor}^ of it home with them, and, with the grace of God, it may lead them to find out more of the un- suspected glories and beneficent works of the Catholic Church. If this meets the eye of any one hitherto igno- rant I would call his attention to one remarkable fact — the existence of the vast number of Catholic education- al bodies of men and w^omen, numbering tens of thousands of teachers, of every nation and tongue — there are forty such distinct religious orders reported as contributing work from their institutions and scholars to the Catholic Exhibit — teachers who vow their w^hole lives to the work of education, and all without personal honor or for one cent of pay ; denying themselves all the pleasures and comforts so ardently sought for b}^ people in the world, that they may de- vote all their energies and sympathies of mind and heart to the work of true education. What has Protes- tantism, or its later- born ^//(fr <?^^, modern Secularism, with its horde of agnostics, infidels, socialists, and an- archists, to show in comparison ? What similar self- sacrifices for the cause of education has Protestantism, as such, ever inspired ? The majority of Protestants would appear to be wdiolly ignorant of the main pur- pose of the life-work of the great order of Jesuits. Their aim is the same with that of the Christian Brothers — to devote themselves without personal reward or salary to the work of education. And now I tell a blunt truth. It is because these orders of teachers give themselves to educate children as Christians that the world hates them, calumniates and persecutes them. " Ye shall be hated of all men for my Name's sake" was the prophecy of Jesus Christ, whose sacred Name they bear. Parochial Schools. 259 And that is, at bottom, the reason why the Infidel, the Secularist, the Protestant, all hate the Catholic parochial school, and labor to suppress it. Wherever these enemies have obtained the upper hand in civil authority, in America, in England, in France, and Germany, they have so worked their plans by laws which, if they do not, as it used to be in Ireland, hinder Catholic education by exile and the hangman, are nevertheless of such a character as to prevent Catholics from having an equally fair field. lyook at the army conscription laws in France and Germany, seizing on the Catholic teachers who have vowed their lives to the work of Christian instruction. Look at the same countries, one under an infidel, and the other under a Protestant government, banishing the Jesuits, whose whole aim is to teach the rising generations so that they will not lose their faith in Christ, and will be hon- est, law-abiding, and loyal citizens of their country. What are Protestants in the United States so set upon now? What are the anti-Catholic Evangelical Al- liance, the secret oider of the " A. P. A's," and the National League for the Protection of American Insti- tutions working for so industriously, and by such mean, underhand, un-American methods ? Their aim is one. It is to stop Catholics, so far as they can, from educating their children in their own faith. The truth is, that Protestantism is nothing more now than a too-willing tool in the hands of the Infidel Secularist, who hates the name of Christ, and who is resolved to make the state anti-Christian. Therefore these foolish, short-sighted Protestants, not seeing that they are sacrificing themselves and the faith of their own children, are lending this Secular Antichrist all 26o Parochial Schools. their power and influence to carry out its determined purpose. The cry has gone forth: "Education must be non-Sectarian!" Oh, yes! we know what that means — non-Christian; and nothing less for Protest- ants than for Catholics, as they will find to their sorrow. As I write the anti-Catholic Leagues are busily em- ployed poisoning the public mind with misrepresenta- tions of the Catholic religion, and of the manner in which we have conducted our educational and charitable work in this country. With them every Protestant re- ligious paper is acting in concert. Their columns teem with charges of "Romanist fraud, collusion, conni- vance, intrigues of its priesthood with disloyal and un- principled politicians to rob the public funds, etc.," alleging, as ifior proof, statements of amounts of money appropriated according to law received by our institu- tions, showing that we Catholics have received vastly more than Protestant or Jewish ones, at the same time dishonestl}^ collocating under the title of so-called ' ' non-sectarian ' ' institutions several that are notori- ously Protestant, and some even in spirit and work professedly anti-Catholic* They suppress the fact that, if some appropriations made to us are more in the gross amount, they are just, because we have done precisely that much more work, besides saving the State millions of dollars contributed * Perhaps in the whole record of misrepresentation of facts by Protest- ant assailants of Catholic educational and charitable work there is nothing to surpass their continuously repeated charges about our obtaining undue state aid. Complete refutations in detail can be found in the Catholic World, articles " Private Charities and Public Lands," April, 1879, and "Private Charities and Public Money," May, 1879. These instructive articles, reproduced in substance and corrected to date, have just been laid before the New York Constitutional Convention now in session. See also the Catholic World, August, 1894. Parochial Schools, 261 by ourselves in support of institutions over which we have control. Thus they hoodwink the too easily deluded public. They know perfectly well that the charge of our obtaining an undue proportion of money, and obtaining it by fraud, is false. All these misrepresentations and false accusations are made use of to influence the passing of a proposed Con- stitutional Amendment that would hinder all State appropriation to anj^ school or charitable institution conducted by any religious body. The purpose they have in view is apparent ; but they do not seem to see that they are working to secure what will prove tenfold more disastrous to Protestantism than to ourselves, unless they have in mind the hope of escaping the pro- visions of the amendment by dishonestly declaring their own schools and institutions to be non-sectarian. One of their pretended ' ' dangers ' ' to our American Institutions which they have leagued themselves together to " protect " is that of an alleged intention of Catholics to bring about a ' ' union of Church and state," falsely and as senselessly charging that such would be the result if the state paid for secular in- struction in any schools conducted by religious bodies. But it is plain their amendment would make a very practical ' ' union between the great American * No ChicKcir and state." And that " No church " is as much bent on destroying Protestantism as on weaken- ing Catholicism. It looks as if these people were willing to pull down the house over their own heads provided we Catholics get no roof to cover ours, or are buried with them in the ruins. If the state cannot take cognizance of any particular 262 Parochial Schools, religion, as she certainly cannot, nor put any citizen to a religious test, then the state clearly has a right to employ any efficient agency for the performance of char- itable or educational work and ask no question, whether it be an agency in which the faith of the citizens conducting it be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or Nulli- fidian. Are our public-school teachers, our policemen, or any official you can name, from janitor of a school up to the President of the United States, to be questioned first of all what he believes or what he does not believe in religion ? But these good people are crying out that the state ought to ask : Is this a Catholic institution, or a Pro- testant institution, or a Jewish, or an infidel, a " free- thought " or a " no-thought " institution ? And that the state ought to take cognizance of religion, so as to keep Catholics from getting any more money than other religious bodies, or that it must not let Catholics have more work of the kind to do than Protestants, so that all shall have an equal share in the appropriations from public funds. This would be taking cognizance of re- ligion with a vengeance. " That is just what we want a constitutional amend- ment for," they say; "we w^ant an equality on the score of religion by hindering the state from giving one cent to any religious body. Catholic, Protestant, or what not." The absurd consequence is evident. The State must ask of the board of directors of a school or a charitable institution : ' ' Have any of you gentlemen any religious faith?" "No, Mr. State, may it please you, none of us has any religion," Parochial Schools, 263 "Oh ! very good ; here is my check for the amount of services rendered." But if the poor fellows would be obliged in con- science to reply : " Well, we are very sorry to have to tell the truth, but we are Episcopalians, or Methodists, or Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Jews, or Catholics." "Go away," the State would say, " I know you not; I am forbidden to take cognizance of people who own up they have some religion, and cannot swear they are non- sectarian ; that they are neither Episcopalians, nor Methodists, nor Baptists, nor Presbyterians, nor Jews, nor Catholics, nor of any religion. Your board of directors cannot draw for any funds upon me." " But — " the voice of some one may be heard say- ing, as they now are preparing to say on the day wdien the amendment passes — "while we, individually, are Episcopalians, or Methodists, or what not, our board is non-sectarian, and we are ready to swear to it." " Very w^ell, then ; take the oath," says the State, and say after me : ' We, the president and members of the board of the society, do solemnly swear without equivocation or mental reservation, in the presence of Almighty God, that this board is not composed of members selected on account of their particular re- ligious faith, neither is any person held by the mem- bers, either officially or personally, as ineligible to elec- tion as a member ^of the same; be he Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Mohammedan, Mormon, Agnostic, In- fidel, or Nullifidian ; neither is there any agreement between us, verbally, wa-itten, or mentally understood, that, in the event of a vacancy occurring in this board by death or resignation of any member, that his place shall be filled by a person of like religious faith or 264 Parochial Schools. from the same religious denomination. Moreover, we swear that in no way has this board hindered any pupil, any child or adult, under its care from the full enjoy- ment of his religious libert}^ guaranteed to him by the Constitution, nor have we prevented any such person from the practice of an}^ or all such religious duties which his particular faith places him under moral obli- gation to fulfil. "Moreover, thirdly, this board also swears that it has taught no person under its care, child or adult, any religious doctrine ; that there is or is not a God, that Jesus Christ is or is not the Son of God, that the Chris- tian religion is or is not true ; in fact, that on the sub- ject of religious belief or morals specially enjoined by any religion we have not uttered one word, made no sign, nor allozved anybody else to do so. This, of course, flatly contradicts what we have just sworn to about granting full religious liberty ; but that is the fault of the amendment, not ours." •* That is an iron-clad oath," say the members of the board. "So is my public treasury," responds the State; * ' and if you wish its iron-clad doors to be open for your benefit you must take the iron-clad oath." Are Pro- testants ready for this outcome ? The question of State aid to religious charities was argued in the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York in 1868. Among those who came forward most conspicuously in that body to rebuke the narrow sectarian spirit which remonstrated against "sectarian charities ' ' and which clamored at the benefactions to Catholic asylums, was no less bitter a Protestant than Mr. Erastus Brooks, then editor of the Eveiiing Express : Parochial Schools. 265 " Let me address a few words," said he, " to those who would refuse appropriations to men, women, and children of the Roman Catholic faith. Those who know my antecedents will not accuse me of any undue partiality for the adherents of this Church. I would give them no advantage over others, and I would do them no wrong by discriminations against them ; and least of all in dispensing charity would I inquire the religious faith of any who need assistance. . . . While discarding state and Church as combinations, we must remember t/iat there can be no true charity where all religion is excluded, since a pure charity is the very essence of practical Christianity. To say that the state has nothing to do with religion, makes it atheistical; and that educa- tion and charity form no part of its duties, makes it barbarian." Evidently the same argument applies to the question of the state subsidizing with just appropriations other schools than its own. And now let Protestants take notice : We Catholics can stand this pressure and opposition, and they can- not.. They never have stood it, and are not likely to do it now, when their own ranks are filled with clergy- men and people of all classes, from the highest to the lowest, who are Secularists at heart — as many of them are ©penly acknowledged to be — who have long ago lost all faith in the peculiar doctrines of their various denominations. Protestantism is, therefore, on the high road to ex- tinction. Two more generations of their own children brought up without the least sign of Christianity in their education, and the place that knew it once will know it no more. Our future society will then stand to witness the contest for the souls of men and for the coming order of civilization that will be waged between the Catholic Christ and the Secular Anti- christ. CHAPTER XVIII. THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON. NOW I am going to bring Catholics and Protestants before the " Judgment of Solomon " on this school question. My readers will recall the Scripture story : how King Solomon the Wise gave a judgment which at once discovered the true mother of the child claimed by two women. " Divide the child in two, and give a half of it to each woman," was the decree. "I am content," said the impostor. "Nay," cried out the true mother, "not so; do not kill the child, but give it to her that it may live." Then said the wise King: " Give the child to her, and let it not be divided, for she is the true mother thereof. ' ' What application has this wise judgment of Solo- mon to the present contention between Catholics and Protestants as to who shall have the child, all of the child, so that it may receive proper intellectual, moral, and religious education, a whole, true, living education? That which goes to make up a true education is com- posed of two elements, well distinguished as religious and secular. To-day we hear a popular, insincere cla- mor, all the more self-condemnatory in those who use it, which distinguishes those elements as sectarian and 71071-sectarian. Given together, both these elements com- bine to unify the educational vitality of the child, and they mutually strengthen each other. To divide them is as fatal to the true mental and moral being of a child as it would be its certain death to force a separation 266 TJie Jiidgvicnt of Solomon. 267 between its soul and body — to divide the spiritual from the material element of a living man. This has not only been the constant assertion of the Catholic Church, but until the late rise of Nullifidian (no-faith) Secular- ism in politics and education, threatening a violent dis- ruption of the political and social order, such was also the common sentiment of all religious-minded Protes- tants. Some of them are not blind to the truth, even to- day. Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, in the columns of the Christian 67^/^;/, January 14, 1893 (now the Outlook), thus plainly and effectively states the case : " It is the impartation of life, not the pedagogical instruction in ethics, which, in increasing numbers, the people are beginning to call for in their educational institutions, both public and pri- vate. It is clear that this, not a sciefice (only) of ethics, is the demand of the Roman Catholic Church. . . . The Christian Union has been foremost among the journals which have de- manded an improvement in our public-school system in this respect. We have insisted that the Roman Catholic critics are largely right in saying that our present public-school system is irre- ligious, and that an irreligious school system is fatally defective. We have maintained that life cannot be done up in two separate parcels, one labelled secular and the other religious, and dealt out at different shops ; that education is worthless, if not worse than worthless, if it does not involve the impartation of the religious life; that the development of faith, love, reverence, conscience, must be carried on with the development of percep- tion, imagination, intellect ; that to develop the latter and leave the former dwarfed and stunted is a process 7iot deserving the Jiame of education, and will neither fit the pupils for life nor secure pros- perity, nor even safety, for the Republic. The moral and spiritual nature must be developed with the intellectual. This cannot be done by the memorizing of a catechism, nor by the formal read- ing of the Bible, nor by dividing education into two unequal fractions and entrusting all intellectual education to the public 268 The Judgment of Solomon. school and all moral culture to the home and the Sunday-school. One of the results of this attempted division is the introduction into the public schools of the wretched mechanical methods which Dr. Rice, in the /^cr//;;/ of January, 1893, describes as preva- lent in the schools of New York City. Such methods never could have ruled there if the public had realized, what the Puritan fathers did realize, that education is and must be a spiritual process." Dr. Abbott writes in the year 1893. Nearly fifty years ago Mr. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller-, speak- ing of the state educational vSystem in Prussia, wrote : "Who could suppose that while literary men were extolling the high educational state of Prussia, her moral state stood so low that such a sect as the Muckers could not only exist in the most educated of her provinces, but could flourish openly, and number among its members clergy, nobility, educated and influential people ? These writers had evidently been deceiving themselves and the public ; had looked no further than to the means of education, and had hastily concluded that these means must necessarily be producing the end. If to read, write, cipher, and sing be education, they are quite right — the Prussian subject is an educated man. If to reason, judge, and act as an independent, free agent, in the religious, moral, and social relations of man to his Creator and to his fellow-men, be that exercise of the mental powers which alone deserves the name of education, then is the Prussian subject a mere drum-boy in education compared to one of the unlettered population of a free country " {Notes, etc., p. 226). Who does not see that the popular Protestant cry to- day is : * ' Divide the child in two ! We are content ! ' ' And what is enough to make one shudder with horror is to hear, in effect, the insane clamor from the Protest- ant multitude : ' ' Divide all the children in two with the sword of the state ! Sooner than that the Catholic The Judgment of Solomon. 269 children shall live, let the sword fall as well upon our own ! ' ' But let us look further in order to see even yet more clearly which is the true Mother in this rivalry for possession of the child. As yet the sentence of Solomon — "Give the living child to this Catholic woman, for she is the mother thereof" — has not been pronounced, and as the impostor came before Solomon's ' judgment-seat in possession of the child, so Protestants are now practically in possession of the children, as a body, in this country. Now for the test. Thus the Catholic woman: "I pray thee, O just and wise State, to grant unto thy servant that I may give suck unto my own child. Behold how it languishes and faints for want of nourishment, and ' my bowels of compassion are moved upon my child ' as I witness its sufferings. Behold my breasts are full, and this other woman's are dry. Therefore suffer me to come unto the child that I may suckle it." " Nay, I will not that she come near it ! " cries out the Protestant woman. " Keep her off, O King State ! Deny her all access to the child. ' No sectariaJiism in the public schools ' ! Is not that the law which the Protectors of American Institutions would fain make, O King, if they could ? It is true I have little or no * sectarian ' milk to give the child, for my breasts are dry, or so nearly dry that the child will not suck. But then neither shall she suckle it, however full be her breasts. Keep her off ; for if once she be permitted to nurse the child before thine eyes, O State, and in the sight of all the people, then will her fruitfulness be shown, and the shame of my barrenness be made manifest." 270 The Judgment of Solomon. "Then I praj'," still pleads the Catholic woman, " that I may, at least, take the child under my own roof-tree and there minister unto its wants." " Forbid her also this," cries the other ; and there is a dog-in-the-manger " wrath in her eyes and fury in her hands ' ' as she looks around for her friends and neighbors — her " Evangelical Alliance," her " Nation- al League for the Protection of American Institutions," her "A. P. A's," and her "loyal British Orangemen," who have come over to help ' ' protect American In- stitutions," who all troop forward with a goodl}^ display of banners inscribed with, " No foreign domination ! " carried by the British Orangemen ; "No Church and State ! " carried by the Evangelical Alliance, which labored hard in Congress to establish the Protestant re- ligion, and failed ; " No state aid to sectarian schools ! " carried by the National League for P. A. I., and, in place of a banner, an old hangman's noose formerly used in Ireland to choke the Catholic woman's brothers who were schoolmasters, carried by the A. P. A's, and the United Order of American Mechanics. And as they all now stand face to face round about the king's judgment-seat. King State saith to his officers : ' ' Bring me a sword ! ' ' And the friends of the Protestant woman in great haste bring unto him a sharp sword they have them- selves prepared — the sword of the " XVItli Amend- ment to the Constitution." And when they have brought the sword before the king, " Divide," saith he, " the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other." And the woman whose child is alive saith to the King (for her bowels yearn upon her child): "I be- TJie Judg ment of Solomon. 271 seech thee, my lord, give her the child alive, and do not kill it, but grant me leave to come unto it, so that it die not ; I will stand without her (school) house all the da}' , and when she and the child shall be weary of each other, then thy ser\^ant craves to be let come near unto the fruit of her own womb for the space of a brief half-hour, O King State, and in haste will I suckle it that it die not, and go my way." But the other cries out : ' ' Let it be neither mine nor hers, but Nullifidian, and be divided, though it die." Shall not the King State answer and say in the words of Solomon the Wise : ' ' Give the living child to the Catholic woman, and let it not be divided, for she is the true mother thereof"? And shall not all America "hear the judgment which King State shall judge, and fear the King, seeing that the wisdom of God is in him to do judgment " ? A CONTRAvST. In every Catholic country provision is made se- curing to all Protestants, Jews, and Schismatic Greeks the right to educate their children religiously and according to the tenets and practices of their particular faith. In Austria, for instance, this right is not only secured, but provision is made requiring them to do so, and even obliging Protestant ministers to see to the giving of religious teaching to the Protestant children who go to Catholic schools, where they are not able to conduct their own schools. Here is the proof: "The most interesting and satisfactory feature of the [Catho- lic] Austrian system is the great liberahty with which the govern- ment, although so staunch an adherent and supporter of the Romanist priesthood, has treated the reUgious pai ties who differ 2/2 The Judgment of Solomon. from itself in their religious dogmas, // has beeti entirely owing to this liberality that neither the great number of the sects in Austria, nor the great difference (f their religious tenets, has hindered the work of the education of the poor throughout the empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that such difficulties may easily be overcome when a government under- stands how to raise a nation in q\\\\\z-a.\!\qx\, and wishes earnestly to do so. " In those parishes of the Austrian Empire where there are any dissenters from the Romanist Church, the education of their children is not directed by the priest, but is committed to the care of the dissenting ministers. These latter are empowered and re- quired by government to provide for, to watch over, and to pro- mote the education of the children of their own sects, in the same manner as the priests are required to do for the education of Catholic children. " In each county a dissenting minister is chosen by the magis- trates, as the general superintendent and inspector of the edu- cation of all the dissenters of his county. This minister, accom- panied by one of the county magistrates, is required to visit and inspect the dissenting schools in his county at least once in every year, and to report thereon. He is also required and empowered to enforce the building of schools in districts inhabited by dis- senters alone, but unsupplied with schools ; to oblige all the dis- senters to send their children to some school or to educate them efficiently at home ; to take care that the children of dissenters who attend Romanist schools receive regular religious instruction from so?ne minister of their own sect" (Kay, Social Condition and Education of the People of Europe, English edition). Austria is not the only Catholic country that has shown this true spirit of liberality : " And let it be remembered that these great results have been attained, notwithstanding obstacles at least as great as those which make it so tlifficult for us to act [in England]. Look at Austria, Bavaria, and the Prussian Rhine provinces, and the Swiss cantons of Lucerne and Soleure. Will any one say that the re- The Judgment of Solomon. 27 3 ligious difficulties in those countries are less than those which exist in our own? Is Roman Catholicism in these countries free from the arrogance and haughtiness which are, at the same time, the causes and effects of a vain belief in human infallibility, and which stimulate opposition instead of conciliating opinion ? Is the sectarianism of the Jesuits of Lucerne, or of the priests of Bavaria, of a more yielding character towards the Protestant ' heretics ' than that of one Protestant party in England towards another? And yet, in each of these countries, the difficulties arising from religious differences have been overcome, and all their children have been brought under the influence of a re- ligious education, without any religious party having been of- fended " {ibid., vol. ii. p. 3). Here is what the Gatholic cantons of Switzerland did, with the "horrible" Jesuits in power: " Those children who differ in faith from the teacher are al- ways, throughout Switzerland, allowed to absent themselves from the classes whilst the religious lessons are being given, and are, in such cases, required by law to attend one of their own clergy, in order to receive doctrinal instruction from him. Even in Fri- bourg, a canton which was at the time of my visit governed by priests who were under the influence of the Jesuits, the children of Protestants were instructed in the same schools and in the same classes with the children of the Romanists, and were al- low^ed to absent themselves during the religious lessons " {ibid., vol. ii. p. 351). The Swiss radicals and Protestants could not endure to see such a liberal and happy state of things go on ; and shortly after Mr. Kay's visit they stirred up a persecution against those two Catholic cantons of Fri- bourg and Lucerne, invaded them, broke up their edu- cational establishments, drove out the Jesuits, and made war upon the liberties of the people guaranteed to them by the fundamental articles of the Swiss Con- 274 The Judgment of Solomon. federation. And then for us Americans to be told to sit quietly by and hear Protestants boasting about their be- ing the only champions of religious liberty and the only promoters and "protectors" of free education, and in the same breath denouncing our holy Church as a * ' re- ligious system \v1iicli with its managers are, and al- ways have been, essentially foes to civil and religious freedom, and to symmetrical intellectual progress"! (Sentiment of Rev. Dr. Buckley, Methodist, the Christian Advocate, December 15. 1892). I leave my readers to decide who is deserving of this last reproach. (N. B.— The Methodists have no parochial schools.) Catholics* are standing in the breach fighting hard for the civil and religious rights of Methodists and other Protestant parents to educate their children according to their own religious con- victions, and this is a specimen of the thanks they get for it. But let us hear again from Mr. Kay, who has some- thing more to tell us about Catholic Bavaria, where at his time of writing the ever-maligned Jesuits were in power : " At the time I visited Munich the Jesuit party was in power. The ministers, however, showed the greatest willingness to fur- nish me with all the information I required, and supplied me with all the statistics and documents I wished to procure. I visited a priest, v/ho directed one of the large educational establishments in the city. He told me that they had established eight normal colleges in Bavaria, for the education of teachers, and that two of these had bee?i especially set apart for the educatioJi of Protestant tcacners. He seemed to make very light of all difficulties arising from religious differences, and spoke of education as a national work, which it is very necessary to accompHsh, by the joint efforts of all religious parties" {ibid., vol. ii. p. 293). TJie Judgment of Solomon. 275 Do not these facts furnish enough evidence to show who are the true friends and protectors of civil and re- ligious liberty ? How can any one of our present would-be persecutors look at them and not blush ? To what is due all the present educational war that is now being waged with so much bitterness in our own country, boasting as it does of its religious liberty ? Evidently to nothing else but to the narrow-minded illiberality of our Protestant fellow-citizens. I^et them compare all their own religious bigotry, and deter- mination to put every possible obstacle in the way of us Catholics here in America educating our children as we have a right to do, with the open-hearted, fair- minded, and strictly just treatment the people of their faith receive in Austria and other Catholic countries, and at a time when their bugaboo ' ' Jesuits ' ' were in power, too. CHAPTER XIX. CHRISTIAN AND PATRIOTIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. UNDER the above heading I propose to show, by official statistics, how much Protestants, compared with Catholics, have been doing to impart a religious and patriotic education to their children. I presume to say that an exhibit of this sort is a pretty reliable index of the esteem in which each religious body holds its own doctrines, moral discipline, and religious devotional worship. Those who really have a high esteem for their religion will not only show themselves to be earnest and faithful believers, but will be extremely solicitous about the transmission of their own faith and its practice to their children ; ready to make, if need be, all reasonable sacrifices for that purpose. Nay, more ; I confidently assert that one's patriotism is rightfully to be measured by this anxiety and care to have the minds of the rising generation inculcated with those religious principles which one believes in his heart of hearts are necessary to the safety and true pro- gress of the Republic. That some religious principles are deemed by Protestants to be of such necessity, would appear to be evidenced by the constant claims they make for their Protestantism, and their equally constant expressions of alarm lest the doctrines of the Catholic Church should prevail. And yet, w^hen it comes to putting one's patriotic faith in one's religion to 276 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. 277 test, what do we find ? That is what I propose to show by the following tables, copied from the Report on Ediccatio7i in the United States at the Eleventh Census, i8go : PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS, 1890. The United states. Total , Catholic, . . . . , Evangelical Lutheran, German Evangelical, Protestant Episcopal, . All others, .... Baptist, Methodist, .... Presbyterian, . . . Congregational, . . Teachers. 16,150 12,303 2,991 386 275 None None None None Pupils. 799,602 626,496 142,963 15.639 8,385 6,119 White. 788,609 620,174 142,302 15,638 4.635 5,860 Colored. 10,993 6,322 661 I 3.750 259 SUMMARY. The United States. Teachers. Pupils. Total, 16,150 799,602 Catholic, 12,303 626,496 All Protestants^, 3,847 173,106 The next table in the official report gives tne combined numbers for parochial and denominational schools. I have subtracted the "parochial" figures so that the denominational ones may be seen at a glance : 278 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S, DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS That is, private schools, other than parochial, under control of members of diffcre7it denominations. The United States. Total, Catholic, .... Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, . . . Baptist, Congregational, . . Protestant Episcopal, Lutheran, .... All others * . . . Teachers. Pupils. 17,414 286,142 5,907 75,470 3,026 58.546 i>793 37965 1.635 29,869 1,219 27,453 1,339 13,265 532 8,688 1 1,963 34,886 White. 244,815 75.074 49,103 26,358 24,848 15-I71 12,584 8,687 32,990 Colored. 396 9,443 I 1 ,607 5,021 12,282 63 1 1,896 SUMMARY. The United States. Teachers. Pupils. Total, 17,414 286,142 Catholic 5,907 75,470 All Protestants, 11,507 210,672 GRAND SUMMARY OF RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS. The United States. Teachers. Pupils. Total, 33,564 i,o85.74J Catholic, 18,210 701,966 All Protestants 1 5,354 383,778 This is a striking and very suggestive exhibit. Dr. H. K. Carroll, special agent of the "eleventh census of churches," in his YQvy complete and instructive * As will be seen, these figures make the sum of the totals correct. The combined figures for Parochial and Denominational schools given for *' all others" in the Peport are apparently erroneous, as the sum of the totals would then be too large. Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S 279 work * reports the number of Protestant church- members, or "communicants," of all denominations at 14,180,000, and of Catholic "communicants" at 6,242,267. I take his figures only for the Roman Catholics, 6,231,417, and for the Greek Uniates, 10,850. It was not proper to include under the title of ' ' Catholic ' ' various schismatics, and the two apostate bodies j^clept " Old Catholics " and " Reformed Catholics," and then speak of "Catholics of all bratiches.'' He was in- structed, it seems, by those reporting to him that Catholic "communicants" form 85 per cent, of the whole number. Adding, therefore, 15 per cent, to com- prise the non-communicating children, the number, 7,343,843, would represent the entire Catholic popula- tion . As to the so-called Protestant population, Dr- Carroll estimates that those reported as communicants form about two- sevenths only of the whole number, there being, as he thinks, an average of two and a half "adherents" to every "communicant" among the different denominations — some 130 in all. There- fore he estimates the Protestant ' ' population ' ' at 49,630,000. The whole number of religious denominations of all kinds is set down at 143; and Dr. Carroll reminds us that an American citizen is as free to choose or change his religion as he is to choose or change his residence, and adds that " if none of these 143 denominations suit * The Religious Forces of the United States^ enumerated, classified, and described on the basis of the Government Census of i8go. With an Intro- duction on the Condition and Character of American Christianity by H. K. Carroll, LL.D., in charge of the Division of Churches, Eleventh Census. 28o Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. him, he still has a choice among 150 separate and in- dependent congregations which have no denominational name, creed, or connection " ! Whatever may be thought of his estimate for Pro- testants, the number given for Catholics appears much too small. So far, however, as these estimates at all affect the question under present examination they may be accepted as sufficiently accurate. The contrast is made all the greater in favor of the Catholic exhibit. Having acknowledged that there are only about twenty and a half millions of what he calls * ' Christian believers ' ' of all creeds and denominations — Protestant and Catholic — about one-third of the entire population. Dr. Carroll goes on to claim that the ''Christian population " amounts to 56,992,000. One is tempted to call this the " make-believe " Christian population. But now he owns that there are about ' ' five millions who are probably opposed to the churches for various reasons." And though on one page he thinks the showing " not an unfavorable one," yet on the succeed- ing page he thus concludes his numerical view of the religious population : " We must not forget that in the tifty-seven milHons counted as the Christian population are many who are indifferent to the claims of rehgion, and seldom or never go into a house of wor- ship. Adding these, and the large number of members on whose lives religion exercises practically no power, to the 5,000,000 (opponents of religion), we have a problem of sufficient magnitude to engage the mind, heart, and hand of the church for a genera- tion. One out of every twelve persons is either an active or passive opponent of religion ; two out of three are not members of any church " {The Religious Forces, etc., Introduction, p. xxxvi.) Protestantism has indeed a problem of no small Christian and Patriotic Education in the U, S, 281 magnitude to solve in the interest of its claims to be "true gospel Christianity," and the best exponent of those principles upon which the hopes for the per- manency of our free American institutions and the true progress of our people are based. If Protestantism has succeeded in winning so comparatively small a number of its own nominal adherents to heartily accept its doctrines and faithfully practise its moral precepts in the past, surely the outlook for the future is not very encouraging. What a humiliating confession to be obliged to make ! After so long a reign of power in this country, with nothing to hinder it from exercising its full in- fluence upon its people, and what has it to show ? A lot of warring, split-up sects, not one of them able to claim an average of more than two-sevenths of its people as church-members. The thirty-five millions of their non-church-members, according to their own manner of speech, are not even " Christians." At best they are, as all know, mere "adherents," hangers-on, or persons having only nominal "preferences." Of these only a small number can be said to have any rational faith, any intelligent notion of divine truth, or who pretend to order their lives by any definite re- ligious doctrine or Christian moral principle. It is all very well to call them Protestants, or that, if asked, they would probably so call themselves ; but practi- cally they should be ranked with those non-Christian indifferentists, unbelievers, mere secularists and agnos- tics, who are not professed atheists or infidels. Dr. Carroll tells us that there is 07ie out of every twelve persons who is either an active or passive opponent of religion. I presume to say that, looking at 282 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. his thirty-five million Protestants who may pretend to be Christians in name, but who certainly are not in fact, there are many more such opponents than one out of every twelve. What did our I^ord say ? ' ' He that is not with Me is against Me; ajid he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth .' ' If an}^ religious s\'stem couid succeed better in scattering its adherents and bringing on all possible discord and disunion than Protestantism has so disas- trously succeeded in doing, the world will have yet to look upon such an arch-enemy of true Christian reli- gion, the first principle of which is Unity, and by which mark its divine Founder declared it was to be known as the true religion of God. What has this confessed and evident failure of Protestantism to produce union — blowing some new wind of doctrine, as it does, from ever}- point of the religious compass — to do with our present subject ? It has this to do with it. It solves the otherwise almost incredible figures of the tables I have just quoted. The great majority of so-called Protestants have no faith in Christianity, as necessar}^ either for the state or for the people. If they had they w^ould never be feo cold- hearted and careless in their profession and practice of what they assume to be Christianity, and so unsolici- tous about its transmission to the coming generations. Its very fundamental principle of religious disinte- gration will ever prevent Protestantism contributing to the unity and stability of the state, as it wall surely tend to prevent the living of Christian brethren together in unity. Let the reader get Dr. Carroll's book and study the facts it gives, as well as some of his very pertinent observ^ations. Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. 283^ By some means or other it has come to be the popu- lar notion that the American State is Nullifidian. How has that notion come to prevail ? Is this a sign that th.e: Jive millions of those who are of ''No religion" have already proved themselves stronger than the Jifly- seven millio7is of nominal Christians ? No ; let the plain and honest truth be told. Protest- ants have been unfaithful to their religious principles and^ scattered and divided in counsel, they have gone over to the enemy and have done all they could to be- tray this country, which, not so very long ago, might confidently call itself a Christian one, into the hands of the unbeliever. No other evidence is needed than the exhibit I have just made, which shows that they have united them- selves with the unbeliever in establishing a system of popular education which will infallibly insure the spread of " no religion," and that they have taken little or no pains to give their children an education which would insure their adherence to the religious faith of their parents. They have made a mistake and one that cannot but prove disastrous for the future hopes of Protestantism. Who does not see, if the vast majority of children are instructed (I cannot say educated) in schools of "no religion," that at no distant date this country will be a country of "no religion"? What then will happen ? What becomes of an edifice when the foundations are taken away ? All our Catholic writers have constantly sounded this note of alarm, hoping to bring intelligent and religious-minded Protestants to a realization of the danger that threatens their own interests, and as well the national welfare of our common beloved country. 284 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. Nearly twenty years ago I had occasion to repeat this warning in some letters I contributed to the New Eng- land J oiirnal of Education (March 18, 1876, et seq.), in whose columns appeared the old Hawkins-Jay fraud on ''illiteracy, crime, and pauperism," and a false ac- cusation that Cardinal McCloskey (as voicing the gen- eral Catholic sentiment) was opposed to a7iy free public- school system. Let us hear a few opinions on the vital importance of religious education from those who are worthy to be heard. In his farewell address our wise and ever- to-be- honored Washington said : " Religion and morality are the pillars of human happiness. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." The celebrated historian and statesman Guizot, a Protestant, having before his mind the dreadful conse- quences following upon the infidel doctrines of Voltaire in his own country of France, said : " In order to make popular education truly good and socially useful, it must be fundamentally religious. I do not mean by this, that religious instruction should hold its place in popular edu- cation, and that the practices of religion should enter into it : for a nation is not religiously educated by such petty and mechanical devices ; it is necessary that national education should be given and received in the midst of a religious atmosphere, and that religious impressions and religious observances should penetrate into all its parts. Religion is not a study or exercise to be re- stricted to a certain place and a certain hour ; it is a faith and a law, which ought to be felt everywhere, and which after this manner alone can exercise all its beneficial influence upon our minds and our lives." Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. 285 Have we Catholics ever said more, Or asked more than that ? But what is the cry that is heard all around us ? " You Catholics are the avowed enemies of popular education ' ' ; and that from the mouths of prominent politicians and Protestant church dignitaries whom one supposes to be educated men. And they keep on unblushingly repeating the same falsehood right in the very face of all past history, of all that the Csttholic people and their priesthood are doing in every countr}^ and especially in our own. Despite the fact that we are paying our full quota of the taxes which create the school fund, we Catholics possess in this country, in proportion to our wealth and numbefs, more parochial schools, seminaries, acade- mies, colleges, and universities, established and sus- tained exclusively by our own private resources, than all other denominations of Christians put together. And yet we are "avowed enemies to popular edu- cation" ! And because we cheerfully impose upon ourselves this double burden, and are resolved to bring up our childi-en as Christian citizens in the way that all the wise and good, even among Protestants, know to be the only possible and necessary way to secure the future welfare and stability of our glorious and beloved Republic, we are denounced, forsooth, as being un- patriotic ! Listen to the former prime minister of France, M. Thiers, in his report to the Corps Legislatif: " We must make education more religious than it has been up to the present moment. We must put it upon its former basis ; and if we do not, / tremble for the future of France." France, or at least the powers that have been lately 286 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. ruling that cotlntr}^ turned a deaf ear to the counsel of this wise statesman, banished every word and sign of religion from education, whether popular or of the higher grades, and Avhat are the consequences ? In- fidelity has spread over that once Christian land like a plague, and anarchy, with its dynamite bombs, is threatening the overthrow of all order and government, and the inauguration of another and more devastating Reign of Terror. There is another ominous sign of national de- cadence. An article has just appeared in that lead- ing Paris review^ Le Correspondant (April, 1894), en- titled "A Cry of Alarm"! What is it all about? Only this : that from 1881 to 1889 the excess of births over deaths in France has been going down from 108,000 to 85,000; and suddenly in the space of the three succeeding years the excess of deaths over births amounted to about 60,000, while the populations of every other nation in the world (and the figures are given) have been increasing at the rate of 50,000 to a million and more aniutally ! Why is France thus threatened with extinction ? The waiter shows that it is due to the alarming increase of immorality and other crimes. To what is that increase owing? To the banishment of all religious education in the public schools. And he proves it : for, despite the general loss for all France, in the five strongly Catholic depart- ments of Brittany the excess of births over deaths is reported at 15,688. Who now are truly patriotic in France ? Catholic Americans are now furnishing our country with twice as many children pro rata as Protestants. Who now are truly patriotic in America ? Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. 287 I^isten to Herr Von Puttkanier, the eminent minister of public worship in the German Empire : " I am convinced that on the day on which we cease to make the saving teachings of the Gospel the basis of education, the fall of our national civilized life will be inevitable." Let us hear what the eminent and world-honored statesman, Mr. Gladstone, has to say : " Every system which places religious education in the back- ground is pernicious." Chief-Justice Melville W. Fuller, of the United States Supreme Court, speaking at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of Bowdoin College, June 28, 1894, reminded his audience of the objects the founders of that institution had in view ; and added : " Those were the days — I trust, in every fundamental sense, they still are with us — when all alike regarded virtue and piety as essential elements of education, and religion as the chief corner- stone of an educational institution. " It was impossible that any other view could be entertained. Religion of some kind has been the basis of education of what- ever kind and at whatever time ; and as the things of truth, of honesty, of justice, of purity, of loveliness, and of good report were the acknowledged ends of education, these were to be attained only through the spiritual forces of the Christian religion by which human culture had been preserved and through which it was to reach its highest development, " The charter did but adopt the language of the constitution of the State, which declared not only that knowledge, wisdom, and virtue were necessary for the preservation of the people's rights ^nd liberties, but also that the people s happiness and good order and the preservation of civil government essentially de- pended upon piety, religion, and morality ." 288 CJiristian and Patriotic Education in the U. S, The sentiments I have quoted from these Protestant writers are but the echoes of the language of all moral- ists and educators in past ages, both pagan and Chris- tian. Of what has alwaj^s been the sentiment of Christians there is no need of proof, but I say that even the pagans never dreamed of divorcing reli- gion from education. When, for instance, the ques- tion came up in the fourth century, after the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, whether Christians could send their children to the pagan schools or teach in them, Tertullian, a century before, had given it as his opinion that as all teachers in the pagan schools would have to take part in their idolatrous religious cere- monies. Christians could not, of course, teach in these schools, but scholars might attend them who were not so obliged. That great Doctor of the Church, St, Chrysostom, discusses the same question. Hear the Catholic saint, the polished writer, the "golden-mouthed" orator: " If no one can give you a guarantee that your schoolmasters are such who can answer for the virtue of your children, you ought not to send them to these schools. ' Are w-e, then, to give up literature } ' you will exclaim. I do not say that, but I do say that we must not kill souls. When the foundations of a building are sapped, we seek rather for architects to reconstruct the whole edifice than for artists to adorn the walls. In fact, the choice lies between two alternatives — a liberal education, which you may get by sending your children to the public schools, or the salvation of their souls, which you secure by sending them to the schools of the monks. Which is to gain the day, science or the soul ? If you can unite both advantages, do so by all means ; but if not,. choose the most precious." The reader observes how St, Chrysostom decides Christian and Patriolic Education in the U, S, 289 when the Christian schools at that very early date were necessarily far inferior to the pagan ones in the means and efficiency of instruction. We can easily under- stand in what uncompromising language he would ex- press that decision if he were to-day one of our Ameri- can bishops, in a country where the Catholic Christian schools are lacking in nothing that is absolutely re- quisite, and where so many of them are proved to be far superior to the " non-sectarian " ones, even in pure secular instruction; and which, if judged according to the principles and sentiments we have just heard from the wise and the good, are beyond all comparison the most truly living, most morally and patriotically safe halls of education of which our country can boast. And when I say education, I mean just about what Laing, that acute observer of systems of popular schools in Europe, defines it to be : The obtaining, by teach- ing and discipline, the power " not only to read, write, and cipher, but to reason, judge, and act as an in- dependent free agent ; in the religious " (religiousyfr^/, mark it!), "moral, and social relations of man to his Creator and to his fellow-men". {Notes of a Traveller, p. 226). I said that the ancient pagans would never have dreamed of divorcing religion from education. I might have added, nor the modern ones either. In evidence I quote from a very remarkable pamphlet, just issued by the Presbyterian Board of Aid for Colleges and Academies, entitled Christian and Secidar Education, by the Rev. Wolcott B. Williams, of Charlotte, Michigan: " The English government has created in India a vast system of secular education. The attitude of the government toward religion is that of perfect neutrality. The experiment enables us 290 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U, S. to see what secular education unaided by Christianity can do to elevate a people. Rev. William Burgess, missionary at Madras, says; ' It must ])e evident to all who have had any intercourse with the educated youth of this country, and who have studied the various phases of thought current in large cities, that the influ- ence of a purely secular education, such as is given in govern- ment colleges, tends to utter atheism.' " The Indian Mirror, a native paper, expresses this opinion : ' We believe we are correct in saying that there is a pretty strong feeling amongst the more thoughtful and earnest portion of our educated countrymen against the materializing tendencies of the system of education pursued in government schools and colleges. Experience has fully attested the evil effects of the system, and one has only to refer to the large number of graduates and under- graduates of our university in order to be convinced. It is a no- torious fact that young men fresh from college impudently parade their materialism and intidelity before their half-educated com- rades, and pooh-pooh the sacred truths of religion and morality. Nothing is more disgusting than the effrontery and conceit with which our B. As. and M. As. scoff at God, immortality and conscience.' ** Another writer tells us: 'It is often remarked by Hindus: *' A secular system of education has been the bane of the country. The present scepticism and infidelity are the result. The hope of India is in education, and in education that must be religious. ISIany of us would like to see the Bible in government schools and colleges rather than no religious book at all."' " We have this testimony from Rev. Gilbert Karney, secretary of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society : ' A Hindu judge, a strict Brahman, addressed my colleague in this way: " Sir, what are you thinking of in your educational matters ? Our young men go from hence to the university; they come away de- tached in many cases from their old religious systems, recognizing no law, human or divine ; and now you are taking up in the same way the education of the women ; what can you be thinking of? Have you English people contemplated what^the result will be if our young women and girls are thus detached from all the sanctions and usages of their old life, and left without anything Christian and Patriotic Education in the U, S. 291 to take their place ? Te/l the people of England that it must 7iot be''' (pp. 67-69). Protestants have been .spending untold millions of money and sending out armies of missionaries to con- vert the heathen of India to some of their forms of Christianity. And now these very heathen can turn round and justly reproach them for being the means of spreading materialism and atheism among them. The quotations I have made from Rev. Mr. Wil- liams's pamphlet were preceded by two very signifi- cative sentences. They are worth repeating here as evidence of the truth of the imputation made elsewhere in this volume, that Protestants appear to be willing to risk the very religious belief of their own children in the hope of depriving Catholic children of theirs through the system of secular schools. The writer says : " Secular education tends to materialism. We have spoken of the large number of Christian teachers in our public schools ; but if we rely wholly upon the state for education we shall not long be able to furnish such teachers for our schools. The ex- clusive devotion of young people to the study of material things for fifteen or twenty years tends to make thein materialists, whatever the character of their teacher. "Protestants often exult in the fact that public schools are lessening the influence of Catholic priests over the young, but fail to notice that by the same process their own religious influence over the rising generation has been lessened by turning over to secular schools the education of a large class of young people that had hitherto been educated in Christian institutions." The principal object of the Rev. Mr. Williams's work is to show the disastrous consequences to the ministry of the chief Protestant denominations resulting 292 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. from the popular purely secular education. His argu- ments are supported by copious tables of .statistics. The appearance of such a pamphlet at this time with quasi-official approbation of the Presbyterian Church is a most encouraging sign. What is wanted is just such an intelligent discussion of the subject. And now I am about to quote from a recent writer concerning whose orthodoxy there can be no question — Protestant orthodoxy, I mean — notwithstanding the ultra- Romanism that breathes in every sentence. The end this now prominent anti-popery American writer had in view at the time of the pronouncement of these ** popish " sentiments in an address entitled " Religion and the State," delivered by him before the Congrega- tional Club of New York and vicinity, on April 19, 1886, was to prepare the public mind for the establish- ment of the " Union of Church and State," for which he was working as agent of the Evangelical Alliance, and w4iicli was sprung upon Congress by him and his associates three years after. The reader will find a detailed account of this at- tempt and its failure in the Catholic World magazine, January. 1894. This very address of his was offered by him before the Congressional Committee in order to strengthen his argument for the establishment of Protestantism as the state religion, by forcing upon the country an amendment to the national Constitution obliging every State in the Union to have ' ' public schools in which shall be taught the common branches of knowledge, virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christiaji religion y The chairman of the committee, Hon. Henry W. Blair, explained the last sentence to mean : " the principles of the Christian religion so lim- Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. 293 ifcd as to specifically and emphatically exclude the Chris- tian priticiples of one or two sects. ' ' These plotters must have taken the American people for a lot of fools ! But let us hear the writer, the orator, the agent of the Evangelical Alliance, and now the ruling spirit and, so far as it appears, the chief and only expounder and spokesman of the " National League for the Pro- tection of American Institutions" — the Rev. James M. King, D.D. This present ardent champion of "No sectarianism in the public schools" began by asking this funda- mental question : ** What constitutes real education, and what are the perils of education when purely secular ? Education consists in the sym- metrical development of the whole man for the purpose of his creation. This purpose is admitted to be moral. The state is preparing citizens to be competent to their responsibilities, and these are all moral. Secularized education is a misnomer. It is no education at all. Never before has the attempt been made; the verdict of mankind in every age, under every civilization, is against it {Religion and the State, p. 9). •* Daniel Webster, in his argument against the Girard will, said : ' In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom, has reHgious truth been excluded from the education of youth ? Nowhere, never. Everywhere and at all times it has been re- garded as essential. It is of the essence, the vitality of useful instruction.' " Governor Rice, of Massachusetts, recently said : ' I lift up a warning voice, with respect to the inadequacy and perils of our modern system of one-sided education, which supposes it can develop manhood and good citizenship out of mere brain culture.' " Dr. Schaff says : ' Intellectual education is worth little with- out virtue, and virtue must be supported and fed by piety, which binds men to God, inspires them with love to their fellow-man, and urges them on to noble thoughts and to noble deeds. , , , 294 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U, S. A self-governing democracy which does not obey the voice of conscience, and own God as its ruler, must degenerate into mobocracy and anarchy.' " ' Despotism,' says De Tocqueville, ' may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.' " "Victor Cousin, the profoundest of French philosophers, in an address before the Chamber of Peers, maintained that ' any sys- tem of school-training which sharpened and strengthened all the intellectual powers, without at the same time affording a source of restraint and counter-check to their tendency to evil by supply- ing moral culture and religious principle, was a curse rather than a blessing'" {ibid., p. lo). Having fortified his position with these true senti- ments from such notable authorities, this former bold and doubtless honest champion of the necessity of religious education went on to say : " Many children and youth of the nation live under family con- ditions incompatible with self-respect or with moral purity. And these get all their education from the state. Under a republican form of government not only, but under a government mfact re- publican, the moralities of the Christian religion must constitute the basis of its educational system for the training of its citizen- ship, if the form and privileges of government are to be per- petuated. " In case secular education is to be made non-Christian, in order to be consistent there must be non-Christian editions of text-books prepared by the state. And these must cover the fields of history, natural science, rnental and moral philosophy, and general literature. Christian truths and facts are so in- grained in the sources of knowledge of English-speaking peoples, that the secular teacher who seeks to avoid the assertion or denial of them will find his teaching reduced to very naked rudiments. " To avoid in instruction the facts concerning the work and worth of Christianity in our history is to impart anti-Christian in- struction not only, but to misrepresent, and this is to destroy the Christian and Patriotic Education in the U, S. 295 basis of all morals ; and moral instruction cannot be separated at any point or for any period of time from the intellectual without injury " {ibid., pp. 9, 10). Excellent ! One would not ask better from the mouths of Catholic defenders of truth in Christian his- tory. Now he advances to higher and broader ground. One would think this (at that time) agent of the Evan- gelical Alliance had been receiving instruction from some Jesuit :• " The public schools cannot be wholly secularised and claim to educate. They cannot be wholly secularized unless they are con- fined to the barest elementary instruction, and this would not be education, but simply getting ready to acquire knowledge. " Dr. Schaff says : ' An immense interest, like the education of a nation of cosmopolitan and pan-ecclesiastical composition, cannot be regulated by a logical syllogism. Life is stronger and more elastic than logic. It is impossible to draw the precise line of separation between secular a»d moral, and between moral and religious education. Absolute indifference of the school to morals and religion is impossible. It must be either moral or immoral, religious or irreligious. Christian or anti-Christian. Religion enters into the teaching of history, mental and moral philosophy, and other branches of learning which are embraced in our common-school system, and which public sentiment deems nec- essary. . . . An education which ignores religion altogether would raise a heartless and infidel generation of intellectual animals, and prove a curse rather than a blessing" {ibid., pp. 16, 17). The boldness of this now converted and new-mantled prophet of ' ' Schools of No Religion ' ' in quoting Dr. Schaff at that time, shows how resolved he and his were in 1886 to have "sectarian" schools supported by the state and none other. But they failed to get their own sectarian Protestantism taught in the public 296 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S, schools by force of constitutional law. Now what do they want? They want to impose upon all children an education which, to use their own language, would raise a heartless and infidel generation of intellectual animals, and which would be to them a curse rather than a blessing. But to secure that national curse a constitutional amendment must be passed which will make all the state schools non-sectarian, and forbid the state from even allowing religion to, be taught in any school in w^hich it pays for education. Therefore they call upon all citizens to join the National League for the Protection of American Institutions or the A. P. A's, and vote for that amendment. If ever there was an un-American institution it is the present system of godless public instruction which this League and all its equally un-American allies are now working tooth and nail, by foul means as well as fair, to "protect," and wh!bh, as we have seen, they formerly denounced as a " national curse." Who calls the present system of schools ' * godless ' ' ? The Catho- lics probably. They are not alone. Hear what Dr. King himself called it ; and let us also listen to the "demands," if you please, which he went on to make in his famous address : " The things ive must demand: In view of the facts of our history, of the Christian formation and rise of our government, and of the Christian origin of our state schools ; and in view of the fact that the state, so founded and formed, assumes the right to educate its citizenship, and wherever it has acted definitely it has acted upon the basis of Christian morals, and has not con- sidered that it was infringing upon the rights of conscience as protected by constitutional provision ; and in view of the fact that any adequate education for responsible citizenship cannot be en- tirely secular, we demand, as an ultimatum, that the schools, the Christian and Patriotic Education in the U, S, 297 nurseries of our citizenship, shall not be handed over to godless instruction and divorced from Christian moral culture, thus be- cojning the nurseries of vice and imjnorality where God is ig- nored (Religion and the State, p. 16). " The attitude we ought to assume in case our rightful de- mands are not conceded: The state, failing to meet the require- ments of a citizenship made up of accountable beings, and the public schools becoming godless, and therefore necessarily im- moral. Christian citizens must deny the right of the state to as- sume to give such an inadequate education. " The added demands that we believe it is high time ive an- nounced: Yes, more than this. I am about convinced that the time has come when we must demand that the state, assuming to teach its citizens as a preparation for the responsibilities of • citizenship, must not only recognize Christianity as the religion of the people, in conformity with historical and judicial precedent, but must require the teaching of Christian morality wherever edu- cation is supported by taxation or by state grant (I). " And not only must we insist upon the common schools teaching Christian morality, but when the state (as with us) enters upon the questionable work of higher education, and seeks to prepare teachers for their work in the common or higher schools, then we must put the 'salt of Christian morality in at these fountain-heads, or make up our minds to forfeit the respect both of God and of good men, and invite a reign of irresponsi- bility and immorality. " We are told that history and precedent have nothing to do with this question in its present demands for solution. As well might the individual say that birth and educational opportunity have nothing to do with determining present duty. We are told that we must keep retreating until we reach tenable ground. This is the cry of the enemies of righteous government and of humanity, and it ought not to be echoed by the lovers of goodness or of God. " Is it not time for the populations that give character to our civilization and stability to our government to assert themselves ? Is it not time to return to the foundation principles upon which 298 Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S. our liberties and integrity as a nation rest ? Is it not time to banish this sickly sentimentality that under the hypocritical con- cession to religious freedom retreats in the presence of secularism, of Jesuitism, and of atheism?" {zbtd., pp. 19, 20). The fling at ' ' Jesuitism ' ' is rather unfortunate at the close of such a series of arguments, all of which the Jesuits would most heartily endorse. But who is this that talks so forcibly of the perils of a purely secular education ; who declares it to be ' ' no education at all " ; who quotes the warnings of the patriot and the sage against such a false system ; who denounces the non-sectarian public schools as "godless," and as "nurseries of vice and immoral- ity"; who boldly denies the right of the state to as- sume to give non-sectarian education ; who appeals to us as Christians and patriots not to forfeit the respect both of God and of good men and invite a reign of irresponsibility and immorality by upholding this secu- lar school system ; who cries shame upon those who, under the hypocritical concession to religious freedom, retreat in the presence of secularism and of atheism ? Can this be the Reverend Secretary and Supreme Manager of the National League for the Protection of American Institutions ? Yea ! my Christian American brethren and fellow-citizens, this is none other than the very same man. And now you and I are able to know just what to think of that same Secretary, and of the society which he represents, and of its principles, methods, and pretended purposes. Dr. King offered this lecture of his in support of the attempt of the Evangelical Alliance to pass a Consti- tutional Amendment the very opposite to what his Na- tional I^eague is working for now ! And how soon he Christian and Patriotic Education in the U. S, 299 was converted ! He laid this lecture before the Con- gressional committee in the very same year and not far from the very same month in which the National League was founded, with himself as Secretary. Who blows hot and cold in one breath ? But let this be said for him : He has furnished us with a clear, definite, and powerful exposition of the principles of Education, every sentence of which is fully endorsed by Catholics, and they ought to be as fully endorsed by all Protestants calling themselves Chris- tians. His pronouncements, if they lack in anything, fail to regard the equal religious rights of other citizens who are neither Catholics nor Protestants. In their discussion of this most vital question Catholics have never ignored these rights which others equally hold with themselves under our common Constitution, but have always argued that the school system should be so organized as to perfectly safeguard them, forcing no one to submit to what would be a tyrannical infring- ment of his religious freedom. And the day of national peace and the advancement of the highest interests of the nation's welfare will only dawn when this question shall be settled upon this only just, reasonable, and truly American basis. CHAPTER XX. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. THE title of this chapter is borrowed from one of the sections of the Introduction to Dr. Carroll's work, The Religious Forces of the Ujiitcd States; my purpose being to preface the list of the Protestant denominations I shall copy from his pages with some comments of my own upon certain of his assumptions concerning the Church. Dr. Carroll is not one of those accusing enemies of our holy religion whom I have felt bound to hold up to righteous reprobation in the course of this work. Yet, with the most honest intentions in the world to tell what he believes to be the truth about the Church, he, like most other such fair-minded and otherwise fairl}- intelligent Protestant friendly critics, in fact misrepresents her, as I think some of my comments which follow will clearly show. He writes : " The Christianity which prevails in the United States is ortho- dox and evangelical. These terms include both the Catholics and the Evangelical Protestants. Together they constitute the great Christian forces which possess the country and determine its re- ligious character. The Church of Rome has had a growth in this free country that has been simply phenomenal." Why introduce the word "free" ? There is just a reasonable suspicion that Dr. Carroll thinks, wdth Protestants generally, the Catholic Church ought not to find a congenial soil in a "free" country. L<et me assure him that wdiile other causes specially contri- 300 The Characteristics of American Christianity. 301 bute to the Church's phenomenal increase in mere numbers, it is not at all to be set down as •^phenomenon that she should flourish both in quality and in quantity in a country whose fundamental principles of liberty her doctrines specially and singularly both sanction and uphold. " Though it was the first to set up the Christian standard on this soil, and its missionaries were pioneers in exploration and settlement in the great West, it was not a strong Church at the close of the colonial period. There were in 1784 hardly 30,000 Catholics, two-thirds of whom were in Mar^-dand and Penn- sylvania, the rest being widely scattered. Immigration from Ireland gave the Church the first considerable impulse of growth, and immigration — Irish, German, French, Italian, and other — has made it the largest and most composite Church in the United States. The only wonder is, that the Church could receive and care for such masses of diverse nationalities." Yes, indeed it is a wonder to human eyes. But, you see, dear friend, that however diverse the nations and tongues, their faith was one and the same both in substance and in the strength of its intelligent and heartfelt convictions. So the wonder passes. " Its energies have been severely taxed, but it has managed to organize and equip its parishes as rapidly as necessity required, and in recent years to give some attention to its educational facilities, which have been neither excellent nor adequate." If w^e had had fair play in the matter our critic would have been spared making that last remark. However, I'll not stop to quarrel with the statement; but Dr. Carroll might also have told us that the edu- cational facilities— say of the Protestant Church or churches throughout the vast territory of the Southern 302 The Characteristics of American Christianity, States, among a population of whites far above the mass of Catholics in social condition and pecuniary resources — were neither as excellent nor as adequate even as ours. " A church composed so largely of European elements, with an episcopate foreign in nativity or extraction, education, and ideas, under the immediate control of a foreign pope and his councilors, would hardly be expected to fall in at once with American ideas, particularly with that idea which distinguishes our system of popular education from that of all other countries." Might one not suggest that a more appropriate read- ing than " with that idea," which I have italicized, would be with that conditiojt wdiich distinguishes our system of popular education as the result of an experi- ment w^hicli failed from the start to regard the fun- damental American principles of equal rights and re- ligious liberty ? " Catholics have been openly hostile to our public schools, de- nouncing them as godless " — State or any other schools entirely wanting in reli- gious instruction are certainly "godless," and Catho- lics are not alone in so denouncing them. The reader has had evidence already of that. " — protesting against the injustice of being taxed for the support of institutions they could not patronize, and insisting that they be relieved of school-rates, or that the school moneys be divided and a fair share given to Catholic schools." Yes ; w^e Catholics are freemen, and we will always protest against injustice. Up to this the majority of our forty-nine million Protestant fellow-citizens, great lovers of liberty and justice as they claim to be, have The Characteristics of American Christianity. 303 for some reason made up their minds to play the tyrant in our regard all the same. It is not the first instance of the like in the history of Protestantism. " The determined popular resistanee to this demand increased Catholic hostility and made the struggle a somewhat bitter one." That is how a Protestant chooses his terms when he has to write of anything Catholic. Mark them— "popu- lar ;w/^/rt //a " and "Catholic hostility ;' as if Protest- ants were standing on their rights and defending them- selves from a Catholic hostile attack. That is the talk of the A. P. A's to-day. " It is not strange that many Protestants sliould regard a foreign church, with foreign ideas, and under foreign domination, as a menace to American institutions." If Dr. Carroll believes just what he asserts, it is very strange that he did not include ' ' many Catholics ' ' with the "many Protestants." For if the charge of foreignism be true, Catholics have certainly as much intelligence to discern that fact as Protestants. But the charge is untrue, and the many Protestants who think it well founded are either very ignorant or very bigoted. Dr. Carroll had already sounded his pagan alarm of " foreignism," and now he makes it reverberate with three-fold power. It has done useful service in the anti-Catholic cause many a time. Now I have this to say, and I wish I could say it loud enough for Protest- ants to hear: It is altogether false to say that the Roman Catholic Church is a " foreign ' ' Church in America or anywhere else in the world. Because it is the Church of a very large number of foreign im- 304 The Characteristics of American Christianity. migrants in America does that give Dr. Carroll or any one else the right to call it a " foreign " Church? Yet that is about the only reason very ignorant and preju- diced Protestants have for so styling it. Neither has the Catholic Church any "ideas " that are in any sense foreign to true American ideas ; on the contrar}^, as I have already said, Catholic doctrines sanction and uphold, as the doctrines of no other religious body do, true American principles of liberty, equal rights and the ability of the people for self-government. Neither is the Catholic Church or its people in America, or any- where else in the world, under "foreign" domination. Viewing the true relation between Catholics and the Pope as the head of their Church, and the high-priest of their religion, the "domination" he exercises over them cannot possibly be one that is ' ' foreign ' ' to any country. The supremacy of the Pope is equally at home anywhere under the sun. How can one suppose that the Lord Jesus Christ should have founded a Church, or promulgated a religion which would prove to be "foreign" to the people of the United States, and a menace to American or to any other ' ' institu- tions " that would have a right to exist ? Divine truth and divine law can now^here be foreign, nor can the profession of the one, or obedience to the other possibly imperil any humanly good institution. Christianity is a universal religion, altogether inde- pendent of any nationality. A Catholic is bound to be, and can be, truly obedient to the law^ of Christ, of which the Pope is the supreme judge and executive, and be none the less a loyal American, Chinaman, English- man. Japanese, or Italian. To say that Catholics can- not at the same time be loyal Americans is, therefore, an accusation as absurd as it is unjust. The Characteristics of American Christianity. 305 How long will Protestants continue to treat all our protestations against this charge as if we were un- worthy of belief? Do the}^ really think us base enough to combine in keeping up such a lie ? Self-respecting controversialists should drop this odious and ill-founded plea ; and it is not a little sur- prising to find it cropping up in such a work as that of Dr. Carroll's. I find some sentiments on this subject worth quoting in the reported address of Professor Edmund J. Wolf, D.D., of Gettysburg, Pa., delivered at the Conference of the Evangelical Alliance in Bos- ton, December 6, 1889. Dr. Wolf is presumably a Lutheran, and the title of his address is "Our Debt and Duty to the Immigrant Population." He thus begins : " Contempt of foreign nationalities is the mark of paganism. Christianity gives honor to all men. It teaches them that all are made of one blood. It recognizes in every man a divine image. . . . Those whom nationality, language, usages have placed afar off, are brought nigh by the blood of Christ. Under the reign of the Gospel there is neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian nor Scythian, American or European, Anglo-Saxon or Mongolian. " Certainly, in proportion as the mind of our Lord is in us, race antipathies disappear. Yet the foreigner still finds himself at a great disadvantage in [Protestant] Christian lands, and encounters cruel prejudice even from Christian churches. " American birth is no patent of nobility ; the native is born to no moral or intellectual purple. Yet not to have enjoyed this privilege is often viewed as a mark of inferiority. People in a peculiar garb, with a peculiar brogue, having peculiar manners, and possibly slight peculiarities of culture, betray a foreign na- tivity, and though these several characteristics are intrinsically not beneath our standard, yet the foreign stamp on them raises a barrier of coldness, of distrust, of estrangement — unless the spirit of Christ in us discerns under the uncommon exterior fellow- 3o6 The Characteristics of American Christianity. citizens with the saints and of the household of God. The American people have weighty considerations to take a large Christian view of the immigration problem. The noblest princi- ples that underlie our boasted political structure call on us to extend the hand of welcome to the stranger, and the mixed blood in our veins must warm our hearts toward his approach, unless with ignoble irreverence the interval of a generation or two has made men oblivious of their European ancestry." Dr. Wolf goes on to picture the immense benefit it is to this country to receive such vast numbers of persons of vigorous physical, intellectual, and moral qualities, well worthy to interblend with our own people, and proving themselves able to take rank with Americans in every station of life. They being largely Protestant, he goes into greater detail about the German and Scandinavian immigrants, and especially about the treatment they receive at the hands of their fellow- Protestants in America, and he reads the Protestant American ' ' churches ' ' a rather severe lesson thereon : " Often the greatest discouragements with which these breth- ren have to contend are the endeavors of American shepherds to discredit their work, to disturb their flocks, to entice away their simple sheep; now holding out worldly inducements, now plying them with sectarian fanaticism, impugning the soundness of their faith, or claiming for themselves a monopoly of God's grace, en- deavoring by this means, by all means to build up their own organizations from the membership of German and Swedish churches." Oh, dear me! is this indeed true? What follows also applies to Evangelical work for Catholic im- migrants : " It will not do at this day to make the pretext of offering The Characteristics of American Christianity. 307 these people a better religion. We have had enough of that cant. The times of this ignorance are happily past [I fear Dr. Wolf is mistaken]; with millions of our native population in ignorance of the gospel and outside of the Church, you cannot convince the world that you are sacrificing yourself for humanity when you are manifestly blocking the path of others whose self-sacrificing de- votion is not questioned." Now comes the plea which is made for interfering with the language, customs, and religion of foreigners, Protestant and Catholic — they must be Americanized, and that immediately. Dr. Wolf treats such a pretext as it deserves : " Our cherished institutions, it is claimed, are in danger from these large foreign communities if they be not promptly in- corporated with our religious organizations and fused into the more distinctively American forms of Protestantism. Political ad- vantages are tlius made a cover for sectarian proselytism. The interests of the church are subordinate to those of the state. This, rightly interpreted, makes the country the end, the church the means, and the amalgamation of foreigners into our American life the foremost task of the church. It is enough here to re- mind those who entertain this plea that the Lord Jesus did not die to Americanize men, but to save them from their sins. . . . If they are thus redeemed they will surely make good citizens, etc." And to my joy Dr. Wolf calls to mind a similar sentiment, ** the golden words addressed to the Evan- gelical Alliance Conference two years ago by the Secre- tary of that Association" — Dr. Josiah Strong. I find his words following hard upon solemn warnings and forebodings becoming that well-known enemy of ' ' Ro- manism," all about "the policy of Ultramontanism which is fraught with imminent danger to our institu- tions," and the necessity of organizing the forces of 3o8 The Characteristics of American Christianity, Protestantism in order to avert these dangers by forcing the Catholic children into secular schools, where "there is little danger of their being made the minions of a foreign potentate." Yes, even Dr. Josiah Strong could and did say : " Christ did not die to save our country ; his agony was not for institutions. The only way to elevate our civilization is to elevate our citizens. The only way to save institutions is to save men. But we shall not save men if we seek them for the sake of our institutions and our civilization. They were made for man, not man for them. And we shall fail of the lower unless we aim at and achieve the higher." Now, I may say in passing that the Catholic Church does not object to the coming out of such prophets to curse her as Dr. Josiah Strong, especially when the}^ conclude the burden of their * woe ' ' with such true sentiments. There is just another sentence or two from Dr. Wolf worth quoting : " Foreigners who are in great haste to renounce with their native land the noblest and best possessions it gave to them [their religious training], in whom religious and moral principles are so superficially rooted that they can throw them aside on landing here, must be prima facie an ignoble class. A self- respecting people who cherish their sacred traditions, in whom truth and righteousness have become ingrained, whose faith is identified with their very being, and who are set against religious innovations, is an element worth having." And this sensible thinker saj'S a good word apropos of how it looks from the other side. If foreigners are distrusted because they are foreigners, it must be remembered that we are also foreigners to the immi- The Characteristics of American Christianity. 309 grant. Kven of Protestant immigrants Dr. Wolf tells us : " They do not know the voice of strangers. They distrust it. They misapprehend it. American clergymen are just as much strangers to them as they are to America, and the American's reH- gion [Protestant Americans' rehgion, if you please, Dr. WolfJ» with its divisions, its rivalries, its baldness of worship, its emo- tionalism and demonstrative piety, strikes them as something very strange." And here is a word of wholesome counsel in whose favor Catholics also might well be included : " If we were not restrained by sectarian bias and jealousy, if we were more imbued with the wisdom and spirit of the gospel, we should long ago have effected organizations to aid those Christian immigrants in their evangelization of their countrymen alo7ig the line of their ow7i usages and traditions. A co-opera- tion like this would repress the rampant denominationalism which is the reproach and the weakness of our American [Protestant] Christianity. It may not be the Antichrist, as some have thought, yet it doubtless is the demon of our American system which, by common consent, must be cast out." It might be thought proper that I should speak of the characteristics of our American Catholic Chris- tianity, if for no other reason than to draw a compari- son between our united religious forces and the* dis- cordant and divided ones of Protestantism. But I think the presentation of such a contrast is not needed. All I care to say is that those who, like Dr. Carroll, imagine they see a difference in the char- acter of "American Catholicism" and *' foreign Ro- manism" are very much mistaken, especially on the score of its being an alleged improvement upon 3IO The Characteristics of American Christianity, European Catholicism "in giving," as our critic thinks, "to our communicants a better and truer gospel than in those countries where it does not come into contact with Protestantism." The real effect of Catholicism coming into contact with Protes- tantism will be shown in the chapters on Crime and Immorality. I left this and other reflections on the character and influence of the Catholic Church by Dr. Carroll stand- ing to allow Dr. Wolf and Dr. Strong to have their say on ' ' foreignism ' ' a^nd ' ' Americanization for its own sake," and although there is still matter for more comment in Dr. Carroll's Introduction, my limited space obliges me to proceed at once to lay before the reader the list he gives of American Protestant sects, which is quite proof enough of our ' ' rampant denomi- nationalism " — "the demon of our American Protes- tant system of religion," and truly a great "reproach and weakness of our American Protestant Chris- tianity." That the breaking away from the Church in the first place, and this ever-increasing dissolution of Prot- estantism into smaller and all the more opinionated sects, is a manifestation of the spirit of Antichrist, would appear to be foretold by St. John the Apostle : "Now there are become many Antichrists. They went out from us ; but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would, no doubt, have remained with us ; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us " (I. Epist. St. John, chap. ii. 18, 19). The Characteristics of American Christianity, 311 PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.— ra;w//^ of i8go.) Adventists: 1. Evangelical. 2. Advent Christians. 3. Seventh-Day. 4. Church of God. 5. Life and Advent Union. 6. Church of God in Christ Jesus. Baptist: 1. Regular (North). 2. Regular (South). S. Regular (Colored). \. Six-Principle. 5. Seventh-Day. 6. Freewill. 7. Original Freewill. 8. General. 9. Separate. 10. United. 11. Baptist Church of Christ. 12. Primitive. 13. Old Two Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian. Brethren (River) : 1. Brethren in Christ. 2. Old Order of Yorker, 3. United Zion's Children. Brethren (Plymouth) : 1. Brethren (I). 2. Brethren (II). 3. Brethren (III). 4. Brethren (IV). Catholics (self-styled) : 1. Old Catholic. 2. Reformed Catholic. Catholic Apostolic. Christadelphians. Christians: 1. Christians (Christian Connection). 2. Christian Church, South. 312 The Characteristics of American Christianity, Christian Missionary Association. Christian Scientists. Christian Union. • Church of God (Winnebrenerian). Church Triumphant (Schweinfurth). Church of the New Jerusalem. Communistic Societies : 1. Shakers. 2. Amana. 3. Harmony. 4. Separatists. 5. New I c aria. 6. Altruists. 7. Adonai Shomo. 8. Church Triumphant (Koreshan Ecclesia). Congregationalists. Disciples of Christ, dunkards: 1. Dunkards or German Baptists (Conservative). 2. Dunkards or German Baptists (Old Order). 3. Dunkards or German Baptists (Progressive). 4. Seventh-Day Baptists, German. Evangelical Association. Friends: 1. Friends (Orthodox). 2. Friends (Hicksite). 3. Friends (Wilburite). 4. Friends (Primitive). Friends of the Temple. German Evangelical Protestant. German Evangelical Synod. Latter-Day Saints: 1. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 2. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Lutherans: General Bodies: 1. General Synod. 2. United Synod in the South. 3. General Council. 4. Synodical Conference. The Characteristics of American Christianity, 3 1 3 Independent Synods : 1. Joint Synod of Ohio, etc. 2. Buffalo Synod. 3. Hauge's Synod. 4. Norwegian Church in America. 5. Michigan Synod. 6. Danish Church in America. 7. German Augsburg Synod. 8. Danish Church Association. 9. Icelandic Synod. 10. Immanuel Synod. 11. Suomai Synod. 12. United Norwegian Church of America. Independent Congregations. Mennonites: 1. Mennonite. 2. Bruederhoef. 3. Amish. 4. Old Amish. 5. Apostolic. 6. Reformed. 7. General Conference. 8. Church of God in Christ. 9. Old (Wisler). 10. Bundes Conference. 11. Defenceless. 12. Brethren in Christ. Methodists: 1. Methodist Episcopal. 2. Union American Methodist Episcopal. 3. African Methodist Episcopal. 4. African Union Methodist Protestant. 5. African Methodist Episcopal Zion. 6. Zion Union Apostolic. 7. Methodist Protestant. 8. Wesleyan Methodist. 9. Methodist Episcopal. South. 10. Congregational Methodist. 11. Congregational Methodist (Colored). 12. New Congregational Methodist. 13. Colored Methodist Episcopal. 14. Primitive Methodist. 15. Free Methodist. 16. Independent Methodist. 17. Evangelist Missionary. 314 ^-^^ Characteristics of American Christianity. Moravians. Presbyterians : 1. Presbyterian in the United States of America (Northern). 2. Cumberland Presbyterian. 3. Cumberland Presbyterian (Colored). 4. Welsh Calvinistic Methodist. 5. United Presbyterian. 6. Presbyterian in the United States (Southern). 7. Associate Church of North America. 8. Associate Reformed Synod of the South. 9. Reformed Presbyterian in the United States (Synod). 10. Reformed Presbyterian in N. America (General Synod). 11. Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanted). 12. Reformed Presbyterian in the United States and Canada. Protestant Episcopal : 1. Protestant Episcopal. 2. Reformed Episcopal. Reformed : 1. Reformed Church in America. 2. Reformed Church in the United States. 3. Christian Reformed. Salvation Army. Schwenkfeldians. Social Brethren. United Brethren : 1. United Brethren in Christ, 2. United Brethren in Christ (Old Constitution). Unitarians. Universalists. Independent Congregations (156 in number). The true and only successful way to cast out this "demon" of denominationalism, whose name is "Legion," is for all these unhappily divided Protest- ants to unite, and by common consent hear the paternal invitation of the Holy Father of Christendom to return to the One Fold under the One Shepherd. CHAPTER XXL EDUCATION IN ROME. THE accusation so persistently repeated by our ene- mies, and so readily credited by the Protestant public, that the Church is the friend of ignorance and opposed to education, is made to back up the old, long- standing calumny, that she hates, because she dreads, the light, that ignorance is essential to her life and the secret of her power. If this accusation had the least foundation in truth then, of all places in the world, the City of Rome ought to furnish the clearest exemplification of this alleged benighting policy. Schools ought always to have been very rare in that centre and stronghold of the religion that lives and thrives by ignorance. One would take it for granted that anything like a free school there was never heard of. And, if anybody should ever have at- tempted to undermine the papal throne and the very foundations of the Catholic Church itself by daring to open such a school, of course he must have been seized at once, thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition, and, after having been properly tortured, left there to rot and die. Now it happens that there was just such a man, Giuseppe Calasanzio by name, and, strange to say, by profession a Catholic priest, and it was in the year 1597 when he did this very deed. And not only once, " but ever so many times. The fact is, he is the founder of the first fy^ee- school system. What did Rome do to 3^5 3i6 Education in Rome, this man ? Only this : she canonized him as a saint, and named him as the holy patron of all schools for the common people, and especially of all fire schools. Every priest in the whole world to-day celebrates at the altar the festival of this Catholic saint of free schools. But, if this Saint Giuseppe Calasanzio brought free schools under a system, then such schools must have ex- isted before? Most certainly. Rome had always been solicitous to provide for the education of children, and here is good evidence of it, evidence standing for over four hundred years before that saint himself was born. In 1 179 Pope Alexander III., at the third Council of Lateran, had the following decree passed : " Since the Church of God, like a tender mother, is bound to pro- vide for the poor, both in those things that appertain to the aid of the body, and in those which belong to the advancement of the soul ; lest the opportunity should be wanting to those poor children who cannot be aided by their parents, let a competent benefice be founded in every cathedral church and assigned to a teacher, whose duty it shall be to teach the clerks and poor scholars of the same church gratuitously , by which means the support of the teacher may be assured and the way to instruction opened to learners. lyCt this practice be restored in other churches and monasteries if, in times past, anything was set apart for this pur- pose. But let no one exact a price for granting per- mission to teach." Popes, prelates, and priests have always shown themselves to be of one mind ever since with this Pope Alexander. What is the result as witnessed to-day ? ■ Free education, in Rome itself, from the great Roman University down through its colleges and seminaries to Education in Rome. 3 \ 7 the last of its numerous schools, forms one of the most striking and, to all but its calumniators, the most pleas- ing features of the great Capital of the Christian world. The university and all the other institutions of higher education in Rome are y)r^. Of what other city in the world can the same be said ? A comparativel}^ small number of pupils in the parish schools pay a small sum to aid in their support. When next my reader hears the charge made that the Roman Catholic Church, her popes and her priests, are all foes to education, let him stand up on his feet and tell the speaker that his assertion is false, that Rome herself is the Founder of the Free- School system. Now let us hear a little Protestant testimony about Rome and look at a few figures. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller^ thus discourses of the state of education in Rome : " In Catholic Germany, in France, Italy, and even Spain, the education of the common people in reading, writing, arithmetic, music, manners, and morals " (which last two elements of true education should be printed in capitals) " is at least as generally diffused and as faithfully promoted hy the clerical body as in Scot- land. It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the advance of the people, that the Popish priesthood of the present day seek to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the com- munity in Catholic lands, and they might, perhaps, retort on our Presbyterian clergy, and ask if they, too, are in their countries at the head of the intellectual movement of the age } Education is, in reality, not only not repressed, but is encouraged by the Popish Church, and is a mighty instrument in its hands and ably used. •' In every street in Rome, for instance, there are at short dis- tances public primary schools for the education of the children of the lower and middle classes in the neighborhood. Rome, with a population of 158,678 souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 3 1 8 Education in Rome. 482 teachers and 14,099 children attending them. Has Edin- burgh so many pubHc schools for the instruction of those classes ? I doubt it. Berlin, with a population about double that of Rome, has only 264 schools. Rome, also, has her university, with an average attendance of 660 students, and the Papal States, with a population of 2,500,000 (in 1846), contain seven universities. Prussia, with a population of 14,000,000 (nearly six times as great), has but seven universities." " These are amusing statistical facts — and instructive as well as amusing — when we remember the boasting and glorying carried on a few years back, and even to this day, about the Prus- sian educational system for the people, and the establishment of governmental schools, and enforcing by police regulation the school attendance of the children of the lower classes. " The statistical fact that Rome has above a hundred schools more than Berlin, for a population little more than half of that of Berlin, puts to flight a world of humbug about systems of national education carried on by governments and their moral effects on society." Now, just here I must call attention to the singular value of the evidence of this Scotch Calvinist, who was no friend of the education of the " lower classes," and was bitterly opposed to the ' ' state taking up the trade of teaching, monopolizing the business, and enforcing by law and regulation the consumption of a certain quantity in every family out of the government shops " (pp. 402-3). But how can I say that he was no friend of the edu- cation of the "lower classes " when he had just lav- ished such high praise upon what Rome had so suc- cessfully done, far away and ahead of Protestant Prus- sia ? Listen to this : " It is very much owing to the zeal and assiduity of the priest- hood in diffusing instruction in the useful branches of knowledge Education in Rome. 319 that the revival and spread of Catholicism have been so consider- able among the people of the Continent. . . . The Catholic clergy adroitly (!) seized on education, and not, as we suppose in Protestant countries, to keep the people in darkness and igno- rance, and to inculcate error and superstition; but to be at the head of the great social influence of useful knowledge, and with the conviction " [O wily Roman priesthood !] " that this knowl- edge — reading, writing, arithmetic, and all such acquirements — is no more thinking, or an education leading to thinking, and to shaking off the trammels of popish superstition, than playing the fiddle, or painting, or any other acquirement to which mind is applied " (p. 405). So it appears that Rome is not to be praised after all for taking the lead in educating the common people, but to be reviled for the cunning of its priesthood in spread- ing knowledge among them as the surest means of binding them more securely with the ' ' trammels of its popish superstition " ! That is, the education of the people is sure to result in the ' ' spread of Catholi- cism ' ' ; and as a champion of Calvinism — the stoutest form of Protestantism — he is opposed to this powerful means, devised by wily Romish priests, of keeping up, and securing from the Protestant ranks new adherents and slaves to, its popish superstition. This is what he meant by saying that the statistical facts, apparently witnessing to the glory of Rome, were '' i7istructive 3.^ well as amusing." The long and the short of it is, the Catholic Church must be reviled and downed in any case. In their own countries, where Protestants have the floor, she is to be reviled, and falsely, for keeping the people in ignorance ; and lo ! the travelled Protest- ant philosopher, finding Rome leading the most en- lightened countries in the world in teaching the people, tells us she is to be reviled because she does 7iot keep 320 Education in Rome, them in ignorance. Whence Protestants are to receive ' ' instruction ' ' that the ' ' diffusion of useful knowledge among the lower classes" is a dangerous thing for Protestantism to encourage ; for by it, it is only lending its aid to the spread of Catholicism ! Now, I presume to find also some instruction from these facts and Protestant contradictions, and it is this. The clear-headed, philosophical Scotchman is right. Education — that is, education in its true sense, not the mere acquirement of the means of knowledge, for which he justly censures the Prussian system — is un- questionably one of Rome's most powerful means of spreading her Catholic faith ; and the Protestant falsi- fiers know this perfectly well to be true, and tremble every hour at the sight of her alarming increase. They wish it were in truth otherwise, and as the wish is father to the thought, they boldly declare that the Catholic Church does keep the people in ignorance, and is opposed, tooth and nail, to the spread of edu- cation ; thus vainly comforting themselves by a self- deceiving assertion of what they wish were true ; since if Rome really did keep her people uninstructed, there might be some hope of Protestantism gaining over some of them as converts, instead of it all being just the other way — Protestantism losing its very best, most enlightened, and choicest souls to swell the ever-increas- ing numbers of the advancing Catholic hosts. I think that is somewhat instructive, although my Protestant readers may not find it very amusing. And here we find a clear explanation of what would otherwise remain an insoluble mystery — the anti- education penal laws of Protestant England, declar- ing all Catholic Irish schoolmasters to be felons and Education in Rome. 321 traitors, and their being transported and hanged ac- cordingly. Rome must be hindered from strengthening herself by the spread of education in Ireland, even if it takes the brand of the felon and the hangman's rope to stop her ! Let us look at a few figures presenting a general view of the state of education in Rome at a date when that city was wholly under papal rule. I copy from the Roman official municipal Report for 1869, which I happen to have at hand, and which is probably the last one issued by the papal government — Siato delle a7iime dell' alma Citth di Roma per V anno i86g : SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS. students. The Roman University, . . . . . , 1,300 Lyceum of Pontifical Seminary, 786 Roman College, 1,225 The Propaganda, 264 Roman Gymnasium of Philosophy, .... 91 College of St. Thomas, 91 College of St. Bonaventura, 12 Technical Institute of Geodesy and Iconography, . 60 Total, 3,829 ACADEMIC INSTRUCTION. Pupils in 68 convent schools and conservatories, . 1,738 Pupils in various charitable institutions, . . . 1,216 Total, 2,954 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. Pupils in 44 schools (all free) for boys, . . . 6,341 Pupils in District schools in all parishes (paying a small sum), 1,567 Pupils in 61 schools (all free) for girls, . . . 6,490 Pupils in 9 schools (paying), . . . . .553 Pupils in District schools in all parishes (paying), . 2,171 322 Education in Rome, The number of District, or "Regionary," schools added to the others brings the whole number of schools up to about 400. SUMMARY. ^PUPILS.-N Male Instruction. Free. Pay. Scientific institutions, 3,829 — Elementary schools, 6,341 1,567 Female Instruction. Convent schools and conservatories, . . 2,954 553 Elementary schools, 6,490 2,171 Totals, 19,614 4,291 Grand total, 23,905. Population of Rome at the same date, 220,532. From the foregoing table the reader will see that the number of the student population of Rome as compared with the total population of the city is very high. The showing certainly forbids all adverse criticism. Here we have 23,905 pupils or students, of all ages and con- ditions, who were receiving public instruction ; and, with the exception of some small fees paid in the dis- trict schools and in a few schools taught by the sisters, the whole of the education, from that given in those renowned institutions, the Roman University and Ro- man College, down to that of the ordinary common parish school, was then fi^ee. Besides this properly public instruction there are reported in 1869 some 841 inmates in the various ecclesiastical institutions of learning — The Roman, Pius, Vatican, French, North and South American Seminaries, and the numerous colleges of different nationalities — The Urban, German-Hungarian, two English, Scotch, Irish, Greek-Ruthenian, Belgian, Education in Rome. 323 German, Polish, Caprariaii, Pampliilian, and lyom- bard. Rome educates not only her own children, but other nations gladly avail themselves of her unstinting gen- erosity to send theirs to share in the bountiful and rare intellectual feast which she spreads. As to the University, the Roman College, and other such institutions imparting a superior education, the best testimony to their merit is the fact that, like those who aspire to excel in art, scholars esteem themselves most highly favored who can become pupils in Rome. That centre of Christendom is the Capital of the Chris- tian scholar and the Christian artist. Catholicism creates a congenial atmosphere where flourish, side by side, learning, piety, and the worship of the beautiful : and it is in Rome that one finds the memories cherished of great numbers of those who under her tutelage have worthily claimed the admira- tion of the Church and of the world for their pre- eminence in sacred and profane science, for their mar- vellous sanctity and their unrivalled works of artistic genius. CHAPTER XXII. HIGHER EDUCATION— UNIVERSITIES. I THINK it has been sufficiently well proved in a former chapter, under the head of Illiteracy and Ignorance, that the standard of general intelligence among a people is not to be measured by the percent- age of their illiteracy, taking illiteracy in its strict sense — the inability to read and write — but that a good test of the popular mental culture may be found in the number, character, and flourishing condition of the schools of higher learning, such as colleges and univer- sities, which they have created. An ignorant populace does not establish these seats of advanced science, nor does it fill them with thou- sands of students gathered from the same nation, and also attracted to their halls of learning by the fame of their professors from distant parts of the world. The very best test of this character and standard of the popular intelligence is to be found in the number and deservedly high reputation of those particular institu- tions of advanced science known as universities. So we may say in truth, that where universities abound, there general intelligence abounds in all classes of the people. What is more, institutions of this sort, not to speak of the various kinds of schools of a lower order, have, with few exceptions of a late date, owed their foundation, encouragement, and prosperity Higher Education — Universities, 325 to the inspiration, sanction, and fostering care of Re- ligion. All past history attests this. Therefore, a very just comparative estimate may be made of the beneficent influence of Catholicism and of Protestantism in promoting the general intelligence of a people under their respective control by examining a faithful exhibit of what each has done in the way of founding and raising to a high standard of excellence these seats of superior learning. Europe offers us the best means of making the fair- est comparison possible, and certainly it presents the most favorable field for Protestantism to show what fruits of this kind it has been able to produce. Before coming to vStatistical proofs I beg the reader to peruse the following extract from the pen of a well- known English Protestant writer, whose words will admirably serve as an introduction to this chapter : Mr. Edmund Ffoulkes writes : "As little can it be denied that the glories of the thirteenth century were due to the vigorous reforms inaugurated by St. Gregory VII. and his successors, as that the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries witnessed a very extensive declension of manners and discipline, though by no means of civilization. Even on the former head, were I writing a church history, there would be some extenuating circumstances to be produced in behalf of a period during which upwards of fifty universities were founded in all parts of Europe ; gorgeous cathedrals of the stamp of Orvieto, Sienna, Milan, Strasburg, Winchester (as restored by William of Wykeham), Toledo, and Seville erected; professorial chairs for the study of Hebrew and Chaldee, Greek and Arabic, ordained by a General Council for Rome, Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca. No less than tv/enty printed editions of the Bible were brought out in High or Low German alone between A. D. 1460 and the age of Luther; upwards of twelve hundred books 326 Higher Education — Universities, issued from the printing-presses of Italy alone, between A. D. 1471-80. For commentators on the Bible, it could boast of Tostatus and Nicholas of Lyra; for masters of the inner life, John Tauler and Thomas a Kempis ; for ideal artists, Fra Angel- ico and Fra Bartolomeo. It was not behindhand in men and women of the saintly graces of St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Brid- get, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St. Vincent Ferrer, and St. John Cantius ; of the ardent philanthropy of Bartholomew de las Casas ; of the splendid abilities of Cardinal Ximenes, or the splendid munificence of William of Wykeham and Wainflete" {Christendoms Divisions, vol. i. p. 130). Now let us have some evidence in support of the truth of Mr. Ffoulkes's obser\^ations. In the Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1889-90, vol. i. pp. 561-72, will be found several lists of foreign universities. The first list arranges them according to the date of their foundation. They are copied from a work entitled Minei'va, Jahrbuch dcr Universitixteii der Welt. A more accurate and reliable list is to be found in Haydn's Dictionary of Dates (Harper & Brothers, New York), the figures of which generall}^ coincide with those given in another standard work, Encyclopcedia of CJironology, Woodward and Cates (Longmans & Co., London). The following table of European universities is com- piled from these sources, omitting those founded by Russia and other Greek Orthodox countries. Where the dates are not the same, those given by Haydn or Woodward and Cates have been chosen. Higher Education — Universities. 327 UNIVERSITIES FOUNDED BY CATHOLICS. late of Locality. 1385- found- ation. Before the 13/// century. 1386. 433- Bologna, Italy. 1390. 1394- 630. Cambridge England. 700. Cracow, Poland. 729. Paris, France. 802. Oxford, England. 1403. 830. Lyons, France. 1405. 926. Louvain, now in Bel- 1409. gium. 1409. 968. Cordova, Spain. 1411. II45. Rheims, France. Total, 9. 1419. Thirteenth Century. 1422. 1209. Valencia, Spain. 1431. 1224. Naples, Italy. 1436. 1228. Padua, Italy. 1439- 1229. Toulouse, France. 1440. 1233- Salerno, Italy. 1445- 1239. Salamanca, Spain, 1450. from Palencia, 1208. 1450. 1245. Rome, Italy. 1454- 1253- Sorbonne, France. 1456. 1264. Ferrara, Italy. 1460. 1289. Montpellier, France. 1460. Total, 10. 1460. Fourteenth Century. 1465. 1305- Orleans, France. 1465. 1307. Perugia, Italy. 1472. 1308. Coimbra, Portugal, 1473- from Lisbon, 1279. 1474. 1339- Grenoble, France. 1476. 1343- Pisa, Italy. 1476. 1346. Valladolid, Spain. 1348. Prague, Austria. 1477. 1349- Perpignan, France. 1477- 1360. Pavia, Italy. 1477- 1482. 1364. Angers, France. 1364. Anjou, France. 1491. 1365. Vienna, Austria. 1494. 1498. 1365. Orange, France. 1368. Geneva, Switzerland. 1499. 1380. Siena, Italy. Cologne, Germany. Heidelberg, Germany. Erfurt, Germany. Palermo, Italy. Total, 19. Fifteenth Century. Wurzburg, Germany. Turin, Italy. Leipsic, Germany. Aix, France. St. Andrew's, Scot- land. Rostock, Germany. Dole, France. Poitiers, France. Caen, France. Florence, Italy. Mechlin, Germany. Catania, Italy. Glasgow, Scotland. Barcelona, Spain. Valence, France. Greifswalde, Germany. Nantes, France. Basel, Switzerland. Fribourg. Germany. Bourges, France. Budapest, Hungary. Bordeaux, France. Treves, Germany. Saragossa, Spain. Copenhagen, Den- mark. Upsala, Sweden. Tubingen, Germany. Mentz, Germany. Innspruck, Germany. Parma, Italy. Munster, Germany. Aberdeen, Scotland. Madrid, Spain. Toledo, Spain. Total, 34. 328 Higher Education — Universities, Date of Locality. found- ation. Sixteenth Century. 1502. Wittenberg, Germany. 1504. Seville, Spain. 1506. Frankfort, Germany. 1506. Breslau, Germany. 1 517. Compostella, Spain. 1517- Siguenza, Spain. 1532. Santiago, Spain. 1533. Evora, Portugal. 1537. Granada, Spain. 1540. Macerata, Italy. 1548. Messina, Italy. 1562. Sassari, Italy. 1564. Besan^on, France. 1565. Dillengen (Suabia), Germany. 1568. Douai, France. 1568. Braunsberg, Germany. 1572. Nancy, France. 1578. Wilna (Polish), Rus- sia. 1580. Klausenburg, Hun- gary. 1580. Orviedo, Spain. 1585. Gratz, Austria. 1592. Venice, Italy. Total, 22. Seventeetith Century. 1603. Cagliara, Italy. 1606. Parma, Italy. 1614. Paderborn, Germany. 1621. Strasburg (Alsace), Germany. 1623. Salzburg, Austria. 1665. Bruges, France. 1671. Urbino, Italy, Total, 7. Eighteenth Century, 1722. Dijon, France. 1722, Pau, France. 1727. Camerino, Italy. 1743. Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany. 1780. Grosswardein, Hun- gary. 1784. Lemberg, Austria. Total, 6. Nineteenth Century. 1808. Clermont, France. 1808. Rennes, France. 1816. Liege, Belgium. 1816. Ghent, Belgium. 1826. Munich, Germany, from Ingolstadt,i472 1834. Brussels, Belgium. 1862. Drumcondra (Catho- lic), Ireland. 1874. Agram, Hungary. 1875. Czernowitz, Austria. 1882. Prague (Bohemia), Austria. 1888. Lille, France. Total, II. Anterior to the religious revolt of Protestantism, Roman Catholic nations, always with the approval and encouragement of the popes, had founded, as we see, 72 universities in Europe. The number generally claimed is 66. Among these universities founded by Catholics before the Reformation we find the names of most of those which have attained the greatest renown, several of which are now in the hands of Protestants, as are also so many hundreds of the great architectural monu- Higher Education — Universities. 329 ments of religion, the fruits of the wonderful genius of Catholic architects and sacrifices of the Catholic people. In Catholic times those now Protestantized universities had their thousands of students ; nowada3'S more than one thousand is a number to boast of. And the same is true of the comparative number of worshippers in the Protestantized churches and cathedrals. Let us make a summary of the foregoing list : SUMMARY. France, 20 England, Italy, . 15 Portugal, Germany, • 15 Poland, Spain, 7 Belgium, Austria, 2 Hungary, Scotland, 3 Sweden, Switzerland, . -> Denmark Total of universities founded before the Reformation, 72. Since the " light of the Reformation dawned on the former benighted and besottedly ignorant Catholic Europe," as is the custom of revilers of the Catholic religion to say, the new foundations of other universi- ties by Catholic nations remaining true to their faith, and thus depriving themselves of the new Protestant " light," were as follows, as reported in our list : France, 8 Hungary, . 3 Italy, . 8 Belgium, . • 3 Spain, . 6 Alsace, 2 Austria, . . 4 Portugal, . I Germany, 9 Ireland, I Polish Russia, . I Total .46. Total of all universities founded in Europe by Catholics, 118. 330 Higher Education — Universities, The following is a list of all the universities founded by Protestants as reported in the sources quoted. There are several institutions named as universities in the list given by the Commissioner of Education which are omitted, as on examination they were found to be only colleges. UNIVERSITIES FOUNDED BY PROTESTANTS. Date of found- ation. 1527. 1544. 1558. 1565. 1575- 1583. 1585. 1591. 1604. 1607. 1632. 1632. 1636. 1640. 1665. Locality. Szxteejtth Centitry. Marburg, Germany. Konigsberg, Ger- many. Jena, Germany. Helmstadt, Germany (extinct). Leyden, Holland. Edinburgh, Scotland. Franeker, Holland (extinct). Dublin, Ireland. Total, 8. Seventeenth Century. Groningen, Holland. Giessen, Germany. Amsterdam, Holland. Dorpat, (German) Russia. Utrecht, Holland. Abo, Finland. Kiel, Germany. 1666. Lund, Sweden. 1694. Halle, Germany. 1694. Dresden, Germany. Total, 10. Eighteenth Century. 1735. Gottingen, Germany. 1737. Christiania, Norway. Total, 2. Nineteetith Century. 1809. Berlin, Germany. 181 8. Bonn, Germany. 1826. London, England. 1832. Zurich, Switzerland. 1832. Durham, England. 1834. Berne, Switzerland. 1 83- Geneva, Switzerland. 1878. Stockholm, Sweden. 1880. Dundee, Scotland. 1880. Victoria, England. 1 89 1. Lausanne, Switzer- land. Total, II. SUMMARY. Germany, Switzerland, Holland, . England, . 12 4 4 3 Sweden, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Finland. Total of all universities founded in Europe by Protestants, 31 Higher Education — Un iversities. 331 So with all the light furnished to the Christian nations of Europe by Protestantism, and with all its boasting of having " emancipated the human intellect," it has not been able to get ahead of ' ' benighted Romanism," or even to equaLit. Here is a singular fact. When England became Protestant she possessed Oxford and Cambridge, both famous universities founded by Catholics. One would think that the English having their intellects eman- cipated from the darkness of Romanism, there would presently be a perfect blaze of light shining out from a rapidly increasing number of these halls of advanced learning. What is the truth ? Under its Protestantism these two Catholic universities more than sufficed for England's intellectual wants, for the number of their students decreased, and has never since come up to what it was in Catholic times — a good proof of the com- paratively lower standard of general intelligence and popular desire for advanced literary culture prevailing in England ever since the Reformation. Worthy of their high reputation as are these two celebrated universities, the number of students now^ at- tracted to their halls from other nations is comparatively small. In Catholic days great numbers flocked thither from all parts of Europe. As to their former numbers, w^e are told that there were in Oxford in the year 1209, 3,000 students; in 1231, 30,000; in 1263, 15,000; in 1350, between 3,000 and 4,000, and in 1360, 6,000. They were able to hold their own pretty well with their rivals on the Continent, among which were Bo- logna in the, thirteenth centur}-, with its 10,000 scholars, and Paris w^ith 40,000. The reader who chooses to examine the history of 332 Higher Education — Universities, the two great English universities, and who notes the extraordinary efforts they had to make to keep them- selves from becoming extinct, and of how much of their property they were despoiled by Protestant ravishers, royal and commonal, might fairly be led to the conclusion that early English Protestantism knew almost as little what to do with those renowned Catholic seats of learn- ing as the Anglican Church Establishment has known what use to make, other than as curiosities to be exhib- ited, of the glorious old Catholic cathedrals and churches which Protestantism did not destroy or suffer to fall into picturesque ruin. We all know what Protestant- ism did with those hundreds of other halls of learnine, hardly inferior to the universities, and every one of w^hich was a centre of popular schooling and of charity, for the people in its neighborhood ; that is, the monas- teries, of large domain and wath magnificent buildings. All these institutions, the protectors and patrons of learning, were suppressed, to become the homes of the powerful and over-rich royalty and aristocracy which Protestantism created, and afterwards pampered in preference to using its influence to preserv^e these insti- tutions of learning and extend their benefits more widely. In Catholic times all the finest productions of architectural art were temples of religion, homes of study and prayer, and halls of learning. Upon what buildings is the w^ealth of money and of art lavished by Protestantism to-day in ever}^ country ? One more remarkable fact deserves to be noted. It was not until the very recent date of 1826 — nearly three hundred years — that rich and powerful Protestant Eng- land felt the need of, or was inspired by its Protestant- ism to create, more universities than Catholics had left Higher Education — Universities. 333 to it ready made. And what sort of new universities did it create? London Universit3^ like the Royal University of Ireland, is only an examining board for some colleges. Victoria University is the title of several associated colleges: and Durham, the third one, is a university founded as late as 1832, reported now in 1890 as having only 215 students, with one college in England, one in Barbadoes, and one in Sierra Leone ! Some more results, noted by the same Report al- ready quoted, are worth looking at. Of the new uni- versities founded by Catholics since the Reformation, it will be seen that as many of them are able to show more than 1,000 students as those founded by Protestants. But now perhaps we shall find — taking into account the university work achieved by Protestants, not only in the comparatively less renowned ones they founded themselves, but including also the numerous ones they seized out of the glorious 72 which Catholics had al- ready founded — that Protestants have left Catholics far and away behind them. There is a practical test to offer for that : the comparative number of students re- ported to-day for a// the best ones, able to show 1,000 or more students. Number having over 1,000 students. Protestant universities, okl and new, 21 Catholic " " " " 29 (Commissioner's Report, page 563.) Reference to the Encyclopcsdia Britayinica shows that " a quarter of a century ago only two universities (out of the present 21 in the German Empire) had more 334 Higher Education — U7iiversities. than a thousand students; at present there are nine" (article " Universities "). It is needless to remind the reader that twenty-five years ago Germany was more Protestant than it is now. The same authority tells us that ' ' in point of discipline and of moral control over the students the universities of Germany must be pronounced inferior even to the English ones." The waiter of the article in the Encyclopcsdia takes this singular way of explaining the altogether re- markable reorganization of the Catholic intellectual forces in Europe at a time when they were being so fiercely attacked by Protestantism : " The repudiation on the part of the Protestant universities of both papal and episcopal authority evoked a counter demonstra- tion among those centres which still adhered to CathoHcism, while their theological intolerance (?) gave rise to a great reaction, under the influence of which the mediaeval Catholic universities were reinvigorated and reorganized— although strictly on the traditional lines — while new and important centres were created. It was on the tide of this reaction, aided by their own skill and sagacity, that the Jesuits were borne to that commanding position which made them for a time the arbiters of education in Europe." The reader will perceive how this neat "explan- ation ' ' chimes in wdth that of our friend Laing, as given in the last chapter ; and with a similar one given by Dr. Wells to explain why the persecuted Catholics in Mexico established two schools to every one opened by the government or by Protestants, viz., " not to rest any longer under the imputation of having neglect- ed education" {A Study of Mexico, D. A. Wells, p. lOl). But now Protestantism has been long claiming for Higher Education — Universities. 335 itself the title of" emancipator of the human mind." Will some one be good enough to tell us in what quar- ter of the world it can be said of this "emancipator," as it was thus truly said of the Jesuits, that it has been for any time at all the arbiter of education ? What better evidence could there be than this result to prove that Catholic influence far surpasses that of Protestant, not only in promoting general intelligence, but in inspiring in the masses of people a singular love of learning and desire to excel in it. A tree is known by its fruits. The universities show by the greater number of their scholars the fruits of the popular esteem of knowledge. There is another test for comparison, and a ver^^ critical one, too. In what countries do we find to-day the highest percentage of university students compared with the population ? Mulhall thus replies: "The number of university students compared with population is much greater in Spain and Belgium than in other European countries." So I turn to our Commissioner's Report for 1888-89, vol. i. pages 82 and 245, and find that the number of pupils in the English universities amount to 8,802, and those in Spain at the same date, 15,787- "^^^ States- man's Year Book for 1893 gives the population of England in 1887 as 27,826,798, and of Spain as only 16,945,786. With a population of only 6,000,000 Belgium re- ports 4,252 strictly university students. That Catholic country also reports such a great number of students in the schools of the Fine Arts, etc., that I am led to present them : 33^ Higher Education — Universities, Students. Students in the Universities, .... 4,252 Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, . . 1,315 Schools of Design, 14,565 Royal Conservatories and other Schools of Music, 14,869 Total, 35,001 A pretty good showing for Catholic Belgium with its 6,000,000 population — 35,001 students receiving a higher education. Not to tire the reader with a multiplication of examples strengthening the proof of the superiority of Catholic nations in this respect, I will content myself with one other : Ntnnber of Number of Population. Universities. Students. Catholic Italy, . 28,000,000 21 16,922 Protestant Prussia, 29,000,000 11 13,483 If I have chosen Spain and Italy among others it is because they are the chosen targets selected b}^ revilers of the Catholic Church at which to aim their heaviest blows of defamation. The reason for the higher percentage of univer- sity students compared with the population being found in Catholic countries is this : In Protestant countries the youth are encouraged to seek a career which promises wealth. Hence the increase in the number of students in those countries who limit themselves to what is called the "commercial course" in study. In Catholic countries they are led to aspire rather after excellence in some spiritual and intellectual avocation. It will be now very interesting to the reader to see a complete list of Protestant and Catholic universities in Europe existing to-day, and the number of students reported in attendance. The table comprises the in- Higher * Education — Universities. 337 formation given in the Statesman' s Year Book, 1893, and the Report of the United States Comniissio7ier of Edii- cation, 1889-90. The only defect is the lack of a com- plete report of the French universities, now called "Facultes," of which there are thirty; but I have given only twenty, as only that number appear to give the full university course of studies. Of the students in these twenty universities proper, I find only the students of eleven of them reported. So that the number accredited to France should be much higher. CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT UNIVERSITIES IN EUROPE. CATHOLIC. Cotmtries. Universities. Students. Italy 21 16,922 France, 20 17,083 Austria-Hungary ii 18,097 Spain, 10 16,000 Belgium 4 4,252 Catholic German States, . 4 5,897 Ireland,* ..... i — Total, ... 71 78,251 PROTESTANT. Countries. Universities. Students. Protestant German States, . 14 17,863 England, 4 8,340 Scotland, 5 6,585 Ireland, i 1,193 Sweden, 2 2,405 Norway, I i,537 Denmark, i 1,300 Switzerland, 4 2,928 Netherlands, 4 2,734 Total, ... 36 44,885 * The Statesman's Year Book, 1893, says : " The Catholic University of Ireland [founded 1854] includes, besides University College, Dublin, seven other Catholic colleges." The number of its university students is not given. The " Royal University of Ireland " and the " London University " are not included in the above list for reasons already noted. 338 Higher Education — Universities. UNIVERSITIES WITH BOTH CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT FACULTIES. Germany, Bonn, Breslau, and Tubingen, .... 3,640 SUMMARY. Universities. Students. Catholic, 71 78.251 Protestant, 36 44,885 Equally Protestant and Catholic, 3 3,640 The foregoing table needs no comment. I commend it to the careful inspection of every fair-minded person. Experience forbids the hope that even such evidence would be enough to close the mouths of those who make a business of defaming everything Catholic. UNIVERSITIES IN THE UNITED STATES. Let us now take a peep at home. The Commis- sioner's Report for 1889-90, vol. ii. page 788, gives us a stimmar}^ of all the higher institutions of learning in the United States, including both universities and col- leges. The total amounts to 415. Only 99 of them are reported as "non-sectarian," of which there are 44 State universities. The remaining 316 are under some kind of religious control. This is the summary in brief : DENOMINATION OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. Non-Sectarian, .... 99 Protestant Episcopal, . . 6 Methodist, 74 Reformed, 6 Roman Catholic 51 Friends, 6 Presbyterian, 49 Universalist, 4 Baptist, 44 Evangelical Association, . 2 Congregational, .... 22 German Evangelical, . . i Christian, 20 Seventh Day Adventist, . i Lutheran, 19 Swedenborgian, .... i United Brethren, .... 10 Total, 415. Higher Education — Universities. 339 The Report signalizes about twelve institutions in the United States that appear to deserve to take full rank as universities, although many more bear the title. The Census Report gives the Catholic population as one-7iinth of the whole. Yet, as will be seen, despite our many disabilities in comparison with Protestants, we have succeeded in establishing one-eighth of all these higher institutions of learning. Take the facts as they are. We are quite satisfied with, and proud to be able to show, such a truly astonishing result. The reader need not be told how much more we would surely have done had our people been the equals of Protestants in financial means and general social condition, and had not been so heavily burdened with the enormous outlay of many millions required for the building of our churches, elementary schools, and num- berless charitable institutions. Again I say, the existence of a college or university is good evidence of the superior general intelligence of all classes of a community which has created it. Those 51 Roman Catholic universities and colleges bear un- impeachable testimony to the fact that, despite the in- ferior social condition and advantages of the majority of them, our Catholic Americans possess general intelligence quite equal to the same number of Protestant Americans producing the same number of such institutions. Moreover, excepting a few strictly Protestant ones, and some of the State universities, surpassing ours in some special scientific departments, due to greater mon- etary resources and to longer existence, no one would pretend to assert that our 5 1 institutions are not quite equal in every respect to any other 5 1 Protestant ones of the same class. 340 Higher Education — Universities. Moreover, I think one might safely assert without risk of question that the same number of Protestants of equal social condition and means would not have created as man}^ institutions of equal merit. Again, the ver}^ existence of our numerous religious orders of men and women devoted to teaching, the like of which Protestantism has nothing to show ; and the thousands of colleges and female academies the}^ have erected and conducted all over the world, bear irrefraga- ble testimony to the superior general intelligence of the Catholic people and to their high esteem for polite learning. UNIVERSITIES IN vSOUTH AMERICA. After all that w^e constantly hear of the " besotted " condition of South America, and of the high percentage of illiteracy reported as evidence of that condition, I will content myself with mentioning the universities which I find reported by the Statesman' s Year Book and the Report of the Commissioner of Education. The number of students is not fully reported. Argentine Republic, ... 2 Peru, 3 Bolivia, 5 Salvador, i Chili, I Uruguay I Colombia 2 Venezuela, 2 Ecuador, i Total universities in South America, 18. Brazil and other South American States not men- tioned are reported as having several colleges, schools of law, medicine, etc. I pointed out the fact that all the great universities of Kurope had been founded by Catholics, many of Higher Education — Universities. 341 them centuries before Protestantism came into exist- ence. Some of my readers may have asked : How, then, did so many of them come to decline in their eminence in learning, and in the numbers of their scholars just following the rise of Protestantism? The answer is contained in the question. They declined because of Protestantism, which showed, especially in its beginnings, the greatest hostility to education, and set back the magnificent work the Catholic Church was engaged upon by the religious wars it instigated, its violent suppression of numberless educational orders, and wholesale confiscations of the monasteries, schools, colleges, and universities. Protestantism robbed the schools, drove out the school teachers — some they hanged, others they exiled — appropriated Qr burned the magnificent libraries, and left the whole field of education wherever its influence was felt to become a desolate waste {History of the Reformatioji, Cobbett ; Henry VHI. and the English Monasteries, F. A. Gas- quet, London) . Let us hear what Luther thought of the seats of high learning. He says: "The devil never invented more cunning and more pernicious means to root up utterly the gospel of Christ than the design of founding the universities." And again, that "the academies are figured by the idol Moloch," as Philip Melanchthon in his book, entitled Didymus, had said before him, when he commended the English heretic Wycliffe for his wisdom in that he was "the first man to see that the academies were synagogues of Satan" — '' Qid omnium primus vidit aeademias esse SatancB synagogasr But, afterwards Luther lamented the decay of the universities and the disuse of the honors with which kings and people had treated learn- 342 Higher Education — Universities. ing in Catholic times. " Formerly," said he, " masters of art were honored ; one carried lighted flambeaux before them. It was a great festival when doctors were made. One went round the city on horseback ; one put on one's best clothes. All that is no more; but I wish that good custom were revived. ' ' ( Michelet, Meyti. de Luther, iii. 107, and Digby's Ages of Faith, book viii. chap. V.) It would appear that England suffered more from the destroying hand of Protestantism than any other country in the loss of eminent schools of learning. Before the Reformation there were nearly three hundred halls and private schools at Oxford, besides the colleges ; there were only eight halls remaining towards the mid- dle of the seventeenth century (Phillips's Life of Car- dinal Pole, part i. p. 220, quoted in Cobbett's History of the Protestant Reformation). At the present time Oxford has five halls and twen- ty-three colleges. All these halls and twelve of the colleges were founded before 15 16. Cambridge has nine- teen colleges, of which twelve were founded before 151 1. With these facts staring one in the face it is a little difficult to see just where the intellectual superiority of Protestantism comes in. Boastful claims do not prove it. One wants some good evidence in support of such claims before saluting Protestantism in honor of its superior intellectual merits. Cobbett quotes a comparative table from a standard work, The Universal Historical, Critical, and Biographi- cal Dictionary, giving a list of eminent men of learning " celebrated for their published works." This list em- braces the period from 1600 to 1787. I reproduce it: Higher Education — Universities. 343 England^ Scotland^ and Ireland. France. Italy. Writers on law, 6 51 9 Mathematicians, 17 52 15 Physicians and surgeons, . . 13 72 21 Writers on natural history, . 6 33^1 Historians, 21 139 22 Dramatic writers, .... 19 66 6 Grammarians, 7 42 2 Poets, 38 157 34 Painters, 5 64 44 Totals, ... 132 676 164 The above table furnishes practical evidence to show how much credit is due to Protestantism for ' ' enlight- ening the human mind." Now after three centuries of power, and three centuries of failure to build again the ruins it made of Catholic educational work, state gov- ernments, fully as hostile to the Catholic ideal of education as Protestantism is, have started in to repair some of its destructive work, so far as mere secular instruction is concerned ; and yet, despite all their wealth and heroic efforts, the impoverished, double- taxed, toiling, self-denying Catholics come forward and beat them out and out in their own chosen field. As to the boasted modern enlightenment insuring the destruction of Catholicism, let us hear the opinion of Lord Macaulay, who certainly had no special love for the Catholic Church : " We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that this enlightenment must be favorable to Protestantism and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded expectation. We see that during 344 Higher Education — Universities, the last two hundred and fifty years the human mind has been in the highest degree active ; that it has made great advances in every branch of natural philosophy ; that it has produced innu- merable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life ; that medicine, 'surgery, chemistry, engineering have -been very greatly improved ; that government, police, law have been im- proved, though not to so great an extent as the physical sciences. Yet we see that, during these two hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been change, that change has, on the whole, been in favor of the Church of Rome. We cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the least, stood its ground in spite of the immense progress made by the human race in knowledge since the days of Queen Elizabeth " {Essay on Rankes History of the Popes). Mr. [lyaing's opinion is also worth quoting, as he loved not *' Popery " : " The Protestant religion exists, it may almost be said, only in detached corners of the world, and is there torn into a hundred sects and divisions. The clergy of her two branches are occupied in unseemly squabbles for power and property, and not leading, nor, in public estimation, capable of leading, the religious re- vival among Protestant Christians, nor of meeting and refuting the learning and theological scholarship of professed infidel [and agnostic] writers. The popish church is advancing stealthily but steadily, step by step, with a well-organized, well-educated, zeal- ous, and wily" [wily, of course] "priesthood at the head of and guiding the religious revival in her domain of Christianity, and adapting herself to the state of the public mind, and to the degree of social and intellectual development in every country, from the despotism of Naples to the democracy of New York " {Notes of a Traveller, p. 413). CHAPTER XXIII. LIBRARIES. UT IBRARIES, in our modern sense of collections JL^ of printed or written literature, imply an ad- vanced and elaborate civilization." This is the open- ing sentence of a lengthy and most instructive article in the E7icyclopc£dia Dritamiica (ed. of 1888). This is an unquestionable truth. A barbarous or wholly un- cultivated people never founded a library. And, on the other hand, the number and character of their libraries attest the measure of the general intelligence of different civilized nations. I might well content my- self with simply referring the reader to the article on Libraries in the Ejicyclopcedia Bidtannica just quoted in evidence that, if they are to be judged by the standard just named, the people of Catholic countries have al- ways been and are still far more intelligent than the people of Protestant ones. The history of the Catholic Church is the history of literature, both of its cultivation and the preservation of its fruits. To what do we owe our knowledge of the ancient classics at the present day but to the indefatigable literary zeal of the Catholic priesthood — of popes, bishops, priests, and above all of the monks — in collect- ing, preserving, and transcribing these highly-prized treasures ? Who produced and who carefully preserved the Book of books — the Holy Bible, especially the Bible of Christians — the New Testament? From what source 345 346 Libraries. has flowed forth the all precious and profoundly learned writings of the long line of fathers, doctors, theologians, and historians of Christianity ? He would be a venturesome defamer indeed who w^ould dare call in question the debt that the world owes to the Catholic Church on the score of the cultivation of letters, as the controversialist would be no less venturesome to at- tempt to frame an excuse for the attacks made upon literary culture by the early Reformers and the wanton destruction of untold thousands of books and manu- scripts in hundreds of libraries by these vandals who sprang up all over Great Britain, German}^, and in other countries where Protestantism in its bigoted and ignorant wrath strove by fire, sword, and robbery to wipe from off the face of the earth every vestige of what had been the most glorious monuments of Christendom. The writer in the Eiicyclopcsdia tells us that in the early ages, "as Christianity made its wa}', and a dis- tinctively Christian literature grew up, the institution of libraries became a part of the organization of the Church." So intimately did this union of literature and religion become, that alongside every cathedral church the Catholic bishop erected a library. Many of these subsist to the present day. Popes, prelates, and monks vied with each otiier in collecting books, and increasing the number of volumes by employing copyists to reproduce for their own use what they could borrow for a time from other owners. The most famous of all libraries in the world is that of the Vatican at Rome, founded by Pope Hilary in the sixth centur}- , a thousand 3'ears before the advent of Protestantism. It is difficult to condense in the short space I can devote to this otherwise highly in- Libraries, 347 structive subject, as bearing upon the point I desire to make concerning the relation of libraries to popular intelligence, the mass of information contained in the article of the EncyclopcEdia to which I have referred. I can only present a few suggestive facts. LIBRARIES IN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES. Of Italy the writer says : " As the former centre of civilization, Italy is, of course, the country in which the oldest existing libraries must be looked for, and in' which the rarest and most valuable MSS. are preserved." Here is a rather singular bit of evidence : " The local rights and interests which so long helped to im- pede the unification of Italy was useful in erecting and preserving at numerous minor centres many libraries which otherwise would probably have been lost during the progress of absorption that results from such centralization as exists in England." What that "absorption by centralization in Eng- land" and in other Protestant countries really con- sisted in he does not specify ; but in fact it was, as every reader of history knows, the confiscation by robbery of many Catholic libraries, and the destruction by fire of as many more. He continues : " In spite of long centuries of suffering and of tne aggression of foreign sword and foreign gold, Italy is still rich in books and MSS., and there are probably more books in United Italy than in any other country except France. When the Italian government published its valuable report on ' Biblioteche,' in the Statistica del Regno d' Italia in 1865, a table of relative statistics was given, which professed to show that, while the number of books in Austria (2,408,000) was greater than the total contents of the public libraries in any one of the countries of Great Britain, Prus- 34^ Libraries. sia, Bavaria, or Russia, it was surpassed in France (4,389,000) and in Italy (4,149,281), Italy thus exhibiting a greater propor- tion of hooks to inhabitants than any other state in Europe, ex- cept only [Catholic] Bavaria." And at that time the immense libraries of Rome and Venice were not included in the report. In 1880 Austria had 5,476,000 volumes and France 7,298,000 in their great public libraries (of 30,000 volumes and over) alone. Of the 210 public libraries named in the Report (in 1880 there were 493) 164 were open to the general public. It must not be overlooked that this statement gives no true index to the vast amount of books and numerous smaller libraries existing all over Italy. One of the first acts of "United Italy " was to extinguish the very sources of learning and of the institution of libraries, by the suppression of the monasteries. The writer tells us : . "In 1875 there were 1,7000! these confiscated libraries, con- taining 2,500,000 volumes." However, strange to say, it seems that these " be- sottedly ignorant ' ' Italians, all the more ignorant of course in the scattered communes, made such an out- cry over this robbery and attempt at ' ' centralization ' ' of the literary forces contained in these monastic libraries, that the government was forced , to hand over a great part of the .spoils to the local authorities, who .set up at once 371 new libraries out of what they got ; a number which in one year increased to 415. The rest of the information contained in this part of the writer's article devoted to Italian libraries, itself greatly condensed, would make a good-sized pamphlet. Taken Libraries. 349 all in all, it is quite evident that in libraries, as being valuable and judicious collections of books, Italy leads the world. From the same source we learn that twenty-five years ago there were in France — not counting any of the libraries in Paris or others not literally free — 340 public libraries, containing 3,734,260 volumes and 44,436 MSS. From a tabular list of libraries in all countries we find that the one great National Library of Paris contains 2,290,000 volumes and 80,000 MSS., and that there are over 1,000,000 more volumes dis- tributed among other city libraries. The writer tells us that ' ' Paris is much better pro- vided than London or any other city in the world with great public libraries." If I remember right France, up to a pretty late date, was a thoroughly Catholic country. Vcrbiim sap. It appears that statistics have been prepared for use (as desired) by somebody to the effect that the people of Spain and Portugal are very illiterate, the percent- age given for the former being 63 and for the latter 82. Tourists also report that they find the people ' * shock- ingly ignorant.*" This testimony is not uncommon in the mouths of those wdio " do " those countries in a few weeks, and cannot themselves speak either Spanish or Portuguese. That they are shockingly ignorant of the English language and of English manners is un- doubtedly very true. But are they nevertheless a highly intelligent people ? Is there good evidence that those "illiterate" countries enjoy an "advanced and elaborate civilization " ? What about the character of their literature as testified to by the libraries they have founded and sustained ? The Encydopcsdia already 350 Libraries, quoted informs us that in one library in Madrid there are 400,000 volumes and 200,000 pamphlets, and con- tinues : " Spam'sh literature Is, of course, well represented. There are 30,000 MSS. of great value, a collection of 120,000 prints, formed from the important series bought from Don Valentin Carderera. In 1880 54,875 books were issued to 51,966 readers. Of the other Madrid libraries it is enough to mention the Biblio- teca de la Acadcinia de la Historia (20,000 volumes and 1,500 MSS.), which contains some printed and manuscript Spanish books of great value. In the renowned library of the Escorial there are now 32,142 volumes, with 583 Greek, 1,905 Arabic, ']'}, Hebrew, and 2,050 Latin MSS." The table further on gives the names and contents of large libraries in Barcelona, Cadiz, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Toledo, Valencia, and Valladolid. Of libraries in Portugal the writer tells us that — " Among them the National Library at Lisbon takes the first place, containing 200,000 volumes, among which theology, canon law, history, Portuguese and Spanish literature largely pre- dominate. The MSS. number 9,415, including many of great value. There are two other large libraries in Lisbon, with 90,000 volumes ; and also notable libraries in the cities of Coimbra, Evora, Mafra, and Oporto." This information concerning Spain and Portugal is limited to the truly great libraries of those few cities. No account is given of the numerous libraries contain- ing less than 30,000 volumes which are to be found in the smaller towns. Austria figures very largely in the table, and, as we have already seen, is reported as having a greater num- ber of volumes, 2,408,000 (now over 5,000,000), than in any one of the countries of Great Britain, Prussia, Libraries. 351 Bavaria, or Russia. The Encyclop(Edia gives the num- ber of libraries in those portions of Austria represented in the Reichsrath in 1870 as 577. Of these there are libraries of first rank in 159 religious houses and semi- naries. Smaller ones are also to be found in the 463 monasteries ; some of these dating back to the sixth century. Remarkable privileges are given in these Austrian libraries, especially in those in Vienna, of which there are loi : " The reading-room of the great University Library of Vienna is open to all comers. In winter it is open from 5 A. M. to 8 P. M., and from 9 to 12 on Sundays. In 1879 159,768 volumes were read in the library, 16,300 volumes lent out of Vienna, and 4,418 volumes sent carriage free to borrowers outside of the city." If I am not mistaken, in spite of all this evidence, the searchers after the statistics of illiteracy in Catholic countries have managed somehow to find a pretty high percentage of that sort of proof of popular ignorance reported for Austria. The following are some items of interest concerning Belgium : "The famous Royal Library of Brussels, made up largely of books confiscated from the houses of the Jesuits and monasteries, contains now 350,000 volumes, 30,000 MSS., 100,000 prints, and 50,000 coins and medals. " The University Library of Ghent, also made up from many suppressed religious communities, has 250,000 volumes and 1,600 MSS. " The library of the Catholic University of Louvain contains 250,000 volumes. The University of Liege contains 105,746 volumes, 87,254 pamphlets, 1,544 MSS., and 142 incunabula." Other large libraries exist in the cities of Antwerp, 352 Libraries. Bruges, Maestricht, Mons, Namur, and Tournai. All the Belgian libraries are marked as open and free. Before examining the character of the libraries in Great Britain, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, all strongly Protestant countries, and Ger- many, one-third Catholic, I beg to call the reader's attention to a few notes I find in the E7icyclopa;dia con- cerning South America and Mexico. The writer says : " The importance of public libraries has been fully recognized by the Argentines, and at present more than 200 of them are in the country. They are due to benefactions, but the government in every case adds an equal sum to any endowment. The National Library at Buenos Ayres contains 40,000 volumes. It is passably rich also in MSS., some of great interest concerning the early history of the Spanish colonies. Two other libraries in the city contain 45,000 volumes. The chief library of Brazil is the Public National Library of Rio de Janeiro, now comprising 120,000 volumes and 1,000 MSS. National literature and works con- nected with South America are special features of this collection. " Other libraries in the city are, that of the Faculty of Medicine (18,000 volumes). Marine Library (19,500 volumes), National Museum (9,000 volumes), Portuguese Literary Club (53,000 vol- umes), Biblioteca Flumenense (43,000 volumes), the Benedictine monastery (9,000 volumes), and the Biblioteca Municipal (i 5,500 volumes). At the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 the Empire of Brazil reported 460,272 volumes in its libraries, all open to the public. In 1875 there were 85,044 readers." The table reports the following national libraries : one in Santiago, Chili, with 65,000 volumes; one in Nicaragua, with 15,000 volumes; one in Peru, at Lima, wath 35,000 volumes; one in Uruguay, at Montevideo, with 17,000 volumes ; and one at Caracas, in Venezuela, containing 29,000 volumes. Smaller libraries are not mentioned. Libra7'ies. 353 In the chapter where I treat of the literature and art of Mexico will be found the following statement about its libraries : there are 20 public libraries (72 in 1890), with 236,000 volumes, and private libraries with from 1,000 to 8,000 volumes innumerable. The reader has a brief but instructive view of the number and character of great public libraries in Catho- lic countries. It is impossible to obtain any statistical information of the countless private libraries, contain- ing probably almost as many more printed volumes. In the house of every Catholic gentleman of means or high rank one of the largest and most artistically orna- mented apartments is the " Library," and the visitor is sure to find in it abundant evidence of the scholarly taste and culture of the family. He is shown these literary treasures with every demonstration of pride in the number and excellence of the collection, and as be- ing esteemed by the owaier as among the most precious and honorable possessions of the family. And this has been the case in every country and in every age. All these well-known facts are undeniable evidences that every Catholic country has enjoyed " an advanced and elaborate civilization," a civilization indeed of the highest and noblest order, which w^as not strictly con- fined to a limited class of wealth}^ people, but which included the mass of people generally, not all to the same degree, it is true, but in the moral and intellectual benefits of which the whole people more or less partici- pated ; and, as a whole people, they deserve to be credited with the honor of having produced these magnificent intellectual fruits. One notable fact must be borne in mind. The con- tents of Catholic libraries, containing as they do the 354 Libraries. most valuable of all the literary productions of the world, are, with insignificant exceptions, made up of works written by Catholics. And it is equally true that in all the great libraries in Protestant countries very many of their most highly valued works, both printed volumes and rare MSS., will be found to have also been written by Catholic scholars. In the departments of philosophy and theology, both dogmatic and moral, Catholic scholars have abounded in their works of unsurpassed genius, while Protestants have contributed but little in comparison to the advance- ment of these sciences. I^et my reader go to any large public library and make the experiment. What better testimony does one want to prove the intellectual su- periority of those who have professed and do profess the Catholic faith ? "By their fruits ye shall know them." LIBRARIES IN PROTEST/VNT COUNTRIES. And now let us take a look at a similar class of Hbraries in Protestant countries, again using the En- cyclopcEdia Britannica in evidence. And first for Swit- zerland. The population of this country is about equally divided between Catholics and Protestants, but amongst us it is often spoken of and generally believed to be a wholly Protestant country. The writer says : " No less than 2,096 libraries are reported, of which four-fifths belong to the class of ' popular libraries and those for young peo- ple.' Only 18 have as many as 30,000 volumes. The largest collection of books in Switzerland is the University Library of Basel, founded [by Catholics] with the university in 1460. The monastic libraries of St. Gall and Einsiedeln date respectively from the years A. D. 830 and 946, and are of great historical and literary interest." Libraries. 355 So it appears that in this commonly esteemed Protestant country, and which, by the way, stands at the head of the list for the number of its school children, the only libraries worth mentioning on account of their historical and literary merit were founded by Catholics, and the two which deserve especial note are monastic ones. Evidently Protestantism has not a heavy score to claim in Switzerland. Instead of quoting from the EyicyclopcEdia for in- formation concerning German libraries, I prefer to lay before the reader an extract from a late German newspaper, the Kobiische Volkszeihing , as it contains some facts of special interest to the reader desirous of obtaining a comparative view of this subject as affect- ing the reputation for learning of the two great re- ligious divisions of the German population, two-thirds of which are Protestant and one- third Catholic. " A short time ago a statistical account of the hbraries of Ger- many was published, from which many interesting facts may be learned. According to it there are 130 Hbraries open to the pub- lic, containing altogether about twenty milHons of books and 200,000 manuscripts. Besides these there are about 1,550 other libraries owned by high-schools, seminaries, private families, etc. All the 1,606 libraries together contain 27,091,288 printed books and 240,416 manuscripts. Over 2,300,000 marks ($575,000) are spent annually to increase these treasures of learning. " But what is most interesting as well as honorable to us Catholics is the fact that the greatest part of these treasures has been collected by men of our faith. The most celebrated of these libraries are also made up of books and manuscripts taken from monasteries. And, in addition to this, even in our time, Catholic institutions and Catholic families take the first places in point of number and excellence of their libraries. " Before giving any details, I wish to call back to the mind of $$6 Libra7'ies, the reader, how from the beginning of the so-called Reformation Catholic monasteries and other institutions were seized by the state, and their property and libraries confiscated. The monks were driven from their homes and decried as hostile to learning. And now the fruit of their silent, patient labor is the pride of Protestant Germany and England, of France and Austria. " It was especially during the Reformation, afterwards under Joseph II. of Austria, and finally under Napoleon I., that those acts of injustice were perpetrated. " Now for a few details. The library of Berlin, opened in 1 66 1, received the libraries of the monasteries of Magdeburg and Westphalia ; later on, those of the monasteries of Silesia, Prussia, Posen, and the Rhine provinces. The library of the University at Breslau, Silesia, contains the books taken from over 70 monas- teries or other Catholic ecclesiastical institutions. " Karlsruhe obtained part of the libraries of the monasteries of Baden, among which St. Blasien, Reichenau, etc. Heidelberg contains 60,000 volumes taken from the monastery of Salem. Leipzig has a collection taken from the Benedictines, Dominicans, and Augustinians of Saxony. The same is the case with the other state libraries of Germany. Thus we see how these es- tablishments of the state have become rich by plundering Catho- lic institutions. "There are, besides, existing 120 Protestant and 81 Catholic libraries. The 120 Protestant libraries contain 436,647 volumes; the Catholic, however, 1,019,118. Protestant institutions of this kind receive greater appropriations from the state for their libra- ries and, as a rule, are older than the Catholic ones, still they cannot compete with Catholic private generosity. Only one ex- ample as a proof. In T\.ibingen there is a Protestant seminary with 25,000 volumes, and the Catholic William's College with 40,000 volumes. The former receives a considerably greater appropriation than the latter. " There are also already quite large libraries in some of the now existing monasteries, though they were obliged to commence anew after Napoleon's spoliation. Thus the Benedictine monas- tery of Metten contains 60,000 ; St. Boniface, Munich, 36,000 vol- umes, etc. Libraries, 357 " Among the cities we find Catholic ones, as Aix-la-Chapelle, Aachen, Cologne, Treves, Mentz, etc., among the first. The same can be said of Catholic families of the nobility. Loewen- stein. Taxis, Isenburg, etc., are found in the first rank, many of them possessing collections of 100,000 volumes." The writer of the article in the Eyicyclopcedia says very truly that ' ' Germany is emphatically the home of large libraries." The details which he gives concern- ing the foundation and character of the contents of the most important of them confirm the truth of the statis- tics given by the Kolnische Volkszeitiuig . From this ar- ticle it also appears that the most valuable of the twenty- one university libraries in Germany were founded before the Reformation. So that, although there have been many magnificent libraries founded by Protestants, especiall}^ in Berlin, Dresden, and Stuttgart, a large number of their literary treasures are the works of Catholics. One can well imagine how marvellous must have been the literary productiveness of Catholic scholar- ship, even in the ages of popular "illiteracy" and " mediaeval darkness," that almost every great library in the w^orld can now boast of possessing a number, some of them thousands, of these fruits of the labor of Catholic genius, all bearing irrefragable testimony to the "advanced and elaborate civilization" of the ages which produced them. In Protestant Holland there are large libraries, in Amsterdam, Haarlem, the Hague, Leyden, Rotterdam, and Utrecht, the total number of volumes reported for them being 680,000 volumes and 10,600 MSS. Of these we are told that "the University Library of Utrecht (150,000 volumes) dates from 1582, when cer- tain conventual collections were brought together to 358 Libraries, make a public library," and that the "basis of the great library of Amsterdam (100,000 volumes) consists of a collection of books together in the fifteenth cen- tury, which at the time of the Reformation became the property of the city," by the usual method adopted by the " glorious pioneers of enlightenment of the human mind " in possessing themselves of other people's prop- erty and appropriating the honors of other people's intellectual labor, and the benefits of other people's sac- rifices. So much for Protestant Holland. Let us take a look at Protestant Scandinavia, includ- ing Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Four large libra- ries are reported for Denmark, all in the city of Copen- hagen. The number of volumes amount to 822,000, with 22,000 MSS. Two of these, the Royal Library and the University Library, trace their foundation to a date anterior to the Reformation. In Norway there are three large libraries, two in Christiania with 295,200 volumes, and one in Trond- hjem with 50,000 volumes, all founded since 1780. There are also three libraries in Sweden, one at Lund (120,000 volumes), one at Stockholm (250,000), and one at Upsala (220,000 volumes), all founded since the Reformation. As the population of Sweden and Norway taken together is about the same — six millions — as Catholic Belgium, I am led to compare the library statistics of both. Here are the figures as taken from the Encyclo- pcedia : Number of Total Total libraries. volumes. MSS. Sweden and Norway, . . 6 935,200 23,470 Belgium, 10 1.399.958 33.909 Libraries. 359 It cannot be said of the Protestant " enlightenment " in Sweden and Norway that it has ever suffered any obscuration from the presence of Catholic " darkness," and yet will the reader please look at the figures ? And now we come finally to examine the libraries in the Protestant Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The writer in the EricyclopcEdia gives a complete list of all the libraries, great and small, and in the preface to the table informs us that the list for other countries has, with few exceptions, been limited to those of 30,000 volumes and upwards. All told, the number of libraries accredited to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is only 330. The dates of their foundation are as follows : In the tenth century, i ; in the eleventh, i ; in the four- teenth, 6 ; in the fifteenth, 12 ; in the sixteenth, 12 ; in the seventeenth, , 24 ; in the eighteenth, 44; and in the nineteenth, 230. Looking a little more critically at the dates we observe that of these 230 founded in the present century, 123 are dated as founded since 1850. What is the explanation of that ? It appears that ' ' the first Public Libraries Act was introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Ewart in 1850." Despite the rapid increase of libraries accessible to the public since that date, we are told that " London is still very badly off as regards public libraries," and that, although there are several important libraries in Edin- burgh, "there is no considerable lending library open freely to the poorest of the people, and two attempts which have been made to introduce the Libraries Act have been unsuccessful." There does not appear to be over five large libra- ries in all Ireland ; and we are informed that * ' there 360 Libraries, is no librar}^ in Dublin corresponding in extent and public accessibilit}' to the British Museum in I^ondon, or the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh." A parlia- mentar}^ act was passed in 1854 to stimulate the founda- tion of such an one, but "the scheme thus authorized has never been carried out." The town of Dundalk is at present the only town in Ireland that has a library under the Public Libraries Act, but the rate produces for its sustenance onl}- /^8o. These few facts concerning the evidences of ' ' an advanced and elaborate civilization" supplied by the number and character of a country's libraries are quite enough to show no great boast can be made for the Protestant United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- land. From the ever- to-be-remembered epoch of the bursting of the light of Protestantism upon the world lying in the darkness of " Romanism T up to the 3'ear 1800, this great and powerful kingdom of Protestant enlightenment could only show 100 libraries in all its borders, and of these only seven could show 100,000 and more volumes on their shelves. The truth is that this proud, self-conceited power, glor3'ing in having the privilege of wielding the strongest arm in the defence and for the propagation of Protestantism, abundantly rich in all resources needed to enable that religious system to accomplish its mission of intellectual enlight- enment to the fullest measure of its capabilities, makes but a paltry showing in comparison with almost any other nation. Judged by its capabilities and opportu- nities, it deserves to be ranked the lowest among civil- ized nations on the test we have just been examining. How did it come about that these once olorious scholarly Catholic countries of England, Scotland, and Libraries. 36 1 Ireland, the homes of learning, to which students flocked from all parts of Europe, attracted by the fame of their great schools and universities, sank so quickly down from their pre-eminent rank? Certainly there was no lack of books in these Catholic lands. There is, on the contrary, evidence that their halls of learning were filled with them. So completely covered was the land with monasteries that they were but a few hours' journey apart, and a notable part of the monk's life w^as devoted to study, to the writing of manu- script volumes and collecting them in libraries. There were libraries enough in those Catholic daj's to prove that the English, Scotch, and Irish people were in the full tide of an advanced and elaborate civilization. What became of the numerous cathedral and monastic libraries existing? They were, almost without excep- tion, swept from the face of the earth by the glorious heralds of Protestant enlightenment. All the monas- teries were either suppressed or razed to the ground and their priceless libraries wantonly destroyed. The Protestant historian Tyrrell, in his history of England, laments the loss. The great libraries of Oxford and Cambridge were destroyed by the king's visitors, one of whom boasted that he had left the New College quadrangle all covered with leaves of torn books ! What books were not burned were sold for wrapping-paper. A few were afterwards found in the shops and redeemed. The present great Bodleian Library of Oxford contains only three of all those thousands of volumes, the pride and glory of that once renowned Catholic university.* * History 0/ England^ James Tyrrell, 1700; Notitia Monas/ica, Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph's, 1695. See also Chamberlain's Present State 0/ England, part iii, p. 46. 362 Libraries. Of the commissioners who made the visitation to Oxford in 1 549-50 Anthony Wood says : " The principal ornaments, and at the same time supports of the university — that is, the Hbraries, filled with innumerable works, both native and foreign — they either permitted or directed to be despoiled. Hence a great multitude of MSS., having no mark of superstition about them (unless it were to be found in the red lines on their titles), were adjudged to the flames or to the vilest purposes. Works of scholastic theology were sold off among those exercising the lowest description of arts, and those which contained circles or diagrams it w^as thought good to mutilate or burn, as containing certain proof of the magical nature of their contents " {Hist. Univ, Oxon.) Bale, the Anglican Bishop of Ossory, Ireland, though a bitter foe to the Church, quotes Leland as saying : " If there had been in every shire of England but one solemn library for the preservation of those most noble works, and prefer- ment of learning in our posterity, it had been somewhat. But to destroy all without consideration is, and will be for ever unto England, a most horrible infamy among the grave seniors of other nations. A great number of them which purchased these superstitious mansions reserved the books in their libraries ; some to scour their candlesticks and some to rub their boots ; and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers, but .at times whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations. Yea, the universities of this realm are not all clear in this detesta- ble fact. I know a merchantman, who shall at this time be nameless, that bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings price ; a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he used instead of gray paper for the space of these ten years, and yet he hath store for as many years to come. Our posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable spoil of England's most noble antiquities." Libraries, 363 A writer in the Letters of Eminent Persons fro?n the Bodleian says : " Whole libraries were destroyed or made waste-paper of, or consumed for the vilest uses. The splendid Abbey of Malmes- bury, which possessed some of the finest MSS. in the kingdom, was ransacked, and its treasures either burnt or sold to serve the commonest purposes ot life. An antiquary who travelled through that town many years after the dissolution relates that he saw broken windows patched up with remnants of the most valuable manuscripts on vellum, and that the bakers had not then con- sumed the stores they had accumulated, in heating their ovens." All this destruction of the halls of learning in Eng- land with their priceless literary treasures was done in cold blood, by acts of Parliament and by royal order. In France and Germany the same means of enlighten- ing the world and promoting learning by the destruc- tion of libraries were resorted to by the Protestants of those countries. The Huguenots burned the famous library of St. Benedict snr Loire, with its five thousand valuable MSS., and wherever in other provinces of France they were able to foment civil war they attacked the cathedral and monastic libraries and burned their contents. In Germany the horrible "War of the Peasants," which Luther encouraged, resulting in the death of over a hundred thousand of them, and the great " Thirty Years' War," due to the civil discord brought about by the "blessed" Reformation, were both sig- nalized by the savage destruction of many famous libraries. The city of Miinster possessed the largest and most highly prized library in all Germany. It was burned by an Anabaptist rabble at the order of one of their prophets. The same reason for 364 Libraries, burning the library was given by these Bible fanatics as Omar gave for burning the great library of Alexan- dria ; substituting the word Bible for Koran : ' ' The books in the library are either conformable to the Bible 01 they are not. If the former, they are useless, and should be destroyed ; if the latter, they are baneful and should be burned ; therefore in either case the library must be destroyed." These are some of the evidences of the spirit of early Protestantism and of its methods to bring about "the emancipation of the human intellect," about which we hear so much. LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED vSTATES. The necessary forms of social activity among the people of the United States during the earlier years of our country naturally precluded them from giving much attention to the building up of those great store- houses of literature. No just reproach could, therefore, be cast upon the almost wholly Protestant people of that period if libraries were few^ in number and scant in contents. Of late years, however, there have been several first-class libraries founded, and older ones have been greatl}^ enriched in the number and value of their collections. There has also been a very rapid increase in the number of smaller libraries, semi-public and free circulating ones. The United States Bureau of Educa- tion gives the present number of all public or semi- public libraries, of 1,000 volumes or over, as 3,804. Of these about 566 may be classed as truly "public" libraries. But that is an excellent showing, and re- dounds greatly to the honor of our country, and especially to the honor of the Protestant citizens who Libraries. 365 have contributed the largest share in the work of library extension. THE PRINTING-PRESS. The popular Protestant belief is that somehow the invention of the printing-press, being coeval with the beginnings of Protestantism, is to be credited to its ''light," and, as well, the advantage that was taken of the new art in the multiplication of books. There is about as much propriety in associating the invention and active use that was at once made of the printing- press with Protestantism as there is in associating together the ideas of Protestantism and I^iberty. Let us look at a few facts. When was linen or cotton paper such as we now use invented ? The historian Hallam fixes the date at about A. d. iigg (ylnti'odudion to Literature^ vol. i. p. 50). When were engraved letters and pictures on blocks of wood, ivory, or metal, in the form of what we now call "types," first invented and used? Certainly as early as the tenth century. Many books were printed by hand from those types, and the system of this kind of printing was called chirotypography and xylog- raphy. The Ericyclopcsdia Britannica (article Typography) gives a list of twenty such books, " probably of German origin," and ten others printed in some towns of the Netherlands. Says the writer: " Among these the Biblia Pauperu7n (the Bible of the Poor) stands first. It represents pictorially the Hfe and passion of Christ, and there exist MSS. of it as early as the fifteenth cen- tury, some beautifully illuminated." 366 Libraries. What, then, did the invention of John Gutenberg, about 1450, consist in ? In arranging these hand- types so as to multiply copies of the book. That in- vention was the Printing-Press. Every Christian coun- try was as yet Catholic, and the immediate and active use of the press spread throughout Europe with aston- ishing rapidity. From the year 1455 to 1536, a period of eighty-one years, it is computed that no less than 22,932,000 books were printed (Petit Radel, Reeherches sur les BibliotJieques^ p. 82). Hallam tells us that the first book of any great size that was printed was the Eatin Bible, which appeared in 1455. Martin Euther was born in 1483, and his Bible, in the German language, was issued in 1530. It is a common belief amongst Protestants that this was the first Bible ever printed in the vernacular. What is the fact? There were more than seventy different editions of the Bible in the different languages of the nations of Europe printed before Euther' s Bible was put forth. The library of the Paulist Fathers of New York City contains a copj^ of the 7iinth editioyi of a German Bible, profusely illustrated with colored wood engrav- ings, and printed by Antonius Coburger at Nuremberg in 1483, the ve^y year hi which Luther was born. The first edition of this same Bible was issued in 1477. Nine editions of the Bible in the language of the people in six years in one city of Germany, and that within thirty years of the invention of the printing-press, and issued by Catholics, too ! But any intelligent Protestant can easily explain this immediate and extraordinarily rapid publication of the Bible by these Catholics even before Euther was born. Libraries. 367 You can never catch the wily priesthood of Rome nap- ping. They foresaw that Protestantism with its enlight- enment was coming — the religion of the Bible, and of nothing but the Bible, and they knew that the ministers of this Bible religion would for three hundred years de- vote themselves to "spreading the Bible in Heathen and Papal lands," and would charge Rome and all its popes, bishops, and priests, including Jesuits, with keep- ing the Bible from the people, and burning it whenever they could. All this they knew — w^hat do they not know? — and so, with Jesuitical cunning, they set to work at once to print off as many Bibles as they could, in every language, just to have it to say that they printed Bibles in the vernacular before Protestants did, in order to deprive them of the glory of having been the first to do so ; making up their popish minds all the while that the people should never be permitted to look into one of them. Oh ! there's no coming up with the astuteness of the wily priesthood of Rome ! We have heard more than once of the Bible being " chained by the Romish priests." For once the}^ who make such assertions tell the truth. The celebrated Biblia Pauperum — the Bible of the Poor — was one of those that were chained. As copies of the Bible were necessarily very costly and scarce in those days, the custom was to chain one to a pillar in the church where even the poorest of the poor could get at it ; but, of course, not to read it. Oh ! no. When druggists and other merchants in New York City chain costly city directories in their stores they do it precisely to prevent people looking into them. As a singular example of the proverbial vitality of lies I find this old siiggestio falsi in the "chained 368 Libraries. Bible ' ' stor}^ dished up in a recent work entitled Public Libraries in America, hy W. I. Fletcher, M.A., libra- rian of Amherst College ; in which it is presented twice as an illustration, once in the text and again on the back of the cover, representing a ' ' Holy Bible ' ' with a dangling chain and a hammer descending to break it, with a Latin device — '' Libros liberate'' — beneath; a motto well chosen to revive the original flavor of the ought- to-be-stale falsehood it is designed to illustrate. Mr. Fletcher may be an excellent librarian, but when he presumes to tell us that ' * the Reformation made a tremendous assertion of the right of man to spiritual freedom," and that "the thousands of volumes written by the monks in the dark ages and by them collected into libraries were not much used," and limits his praise for the service rendered by these libraries to the " preserv^ation and handing down to later and happier (?) eras the gems of classic ^^Christiaii omitted] thought and learning," one is naturally led to regret that he did not himself liberate certain books among the 61,000 which he, as custodian, keeps "chained" under lock and key, and read them before venturing to add another on the subject of Libraries to his literary stores. No doubt the fear of the priests lest the people should know there was a Bible also explains why the Catho- lic Church in the earl}^ days of her existence took so much pains to collect together all the writings esteemed as inspired, and after pronouncing judgment upon which were inspired and which were not, compiled them in one volume and called it the "Bible." You see Protestants could have done all that just as well and no doubt better ; but then Rome, as usual, got on Libraries, 369 the ground ahead of them for more than a thousand 3'ears, and Protestants were thus forced to take the Bible from her hands. But being more enlightened the5% of course, judged of its inspiration for themselves and of its meaning as well, and rejected both what books and what interpretations did not suit the new re- ligion they adopted. As to the stupendous labors of the tens of thousands of monks occupied during many centuries in multiply- ing copies of the Bible, patiently writing out the whole Scriptures by hand, and marvellously illuminating them — some of these copies being written entirely in letters of gold — any one but a blind and superstitious devotee of Romanism must see that they had the Protestant "British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel" and the great Protestant " American Bible Society " in their eye, and were determined to forestall them at all cost ! And what may thus be said in explanation of all that the popes and bishops and priests and monks have done in the matter of producing copies of the Bible also applies to the cultivation of letters and the multipli- cation of all other kinds of books by Rome and all her agents in every age and in every country, and especially by her agents near home in Italy. One must not find fault with Protestantism for being so much behindhand in literature and the arts, and so much inferior to Catholicism in all these things. You see Protestants were not there to do it. All they need now is time and opportunity' to catch up with Rome. Having established the truth by indisputable proof I submit to the fair-minded reader that the form and tone of the foregoing reflections stand fully justified by 370 Libraries. the false charges of Rome's hostility to and fear of the Bible, and of the neglect of the cultivation of literature generally by the Catholic Church — charges that are unceasingl}^ made in the hearing of Protestants by their trusted clerical teachers, tract and newspaper writers. Audi alteram pai^tem is a time-honored maxim ; but when shall the day come when Protestants will hear the other side ? When it does come it cannot fail to prove a disastrous day of retribution for those who are responsible for their deception. I content myself with quoting a sentence at present under my eye as a conclusion to this chapter. It is from the pen of an American writer reviewing Hallam's Middle Ages in the columns of the North American Re- view, 1840 : " The great ascendency of the papal power, and the influence of Itahan genius on the hterature and the fine arts of all countries, made Italy essentially the centre of light — the sovereign of thought — the Capital of Civilization." Hallam's own words were these : " It may be said with truth that Italy supplied the fire from which other nations lighted their own torches " (Hist, of Litera- ture, vol. i. p. 58). CHAPTER XXIV. A LOOK AT IJTERARY AND ARTISTIC MEXICO. AND now we wall '* look at Mexico," as the popular anti-Catholic writers, preachers, and lecturers are continually telling their audiences to do ; but who at the same time take precious good care never to bring Mexico within sight by giving any evidence concern- ing that country which is supported by reliable au- thority. Protestant tourists and missionaries, ignorant of the language, hostile in spirit to the religion, and as sharp-sighted to discover any local scandal as they are stone-blind to anything that would redound to the general credit of the people, or of the clergy — these are the informants upon whom their already prejudiced listeners depend for their knowledge of Mexico. Ap- parently they do not wish to hear, any more than their informants desire to tell, anything good of the country, of its inhabitants, or of their manners, cus- toms, or religion. How very careful all these corre- spondents and reporters of what they saw and heard in Mexico are to avoid giving the information required to form a just judgment of the social status of the people; viz., that 38 per cent, of the 11,000,000 inhabi- tants are full-blood Indians, 43 per cent, of mixed race, and only 19 per cent, are whites, a proportion that is also applicable to nearly all of Central and South America. How very careful, also, they are not to dwell upon the fact that all these aboriginal races were preserved 371 372 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. by their Spanish Catholic conquerors, made brothers of, raised at once to equalit}' by intermarriage, con- verted to Christianity, and civilized. They are a virtu- ous people, peaceful, refined in manners, hospitable, charitable to a fault, devout, brave and patriotic; but do we hear anything of all this? Not a word. What we do hear, and hear told as if it were all possible crimes and misfortunes rolled into one, is that they are dreadfully illiterate ! The percentage of illiteracy given to the audience is asserted according to fancy. If the speaker chose to sa}" 95 per cent., or even 99 per cent., he would be quite safe to be believed. He can also assert, and generally does, that the Mexicans — like all other Catholics indeed- -are horribly superstitious. He is also quite safe in this slander too, knowing that no questions will be asked. Or he may take to lament- ing, with the Methodist Bishop Newman, that the pagan "altars of the aborigines, unstained with the worship of saints, in temples open to the pure heavens," were overthrown to give place to the altars of the Crucified Saviour of the w^orld, the Divine Redeemer and Civil- izer of the nations {Christian Advocate, Methodist, June I, 1893), and confidently promise his hearers that Methodism is going to carry to those benighted peo- ple, sitting in the darkness of Roman idolatry, the light of Protestantism, and preach to them the saving gospel of riches and railways, and "free thought " to believe anj^thing but "Romanism" — and not fear to hear one dissenting murmur from his ignorant and prejudiced audience when he winds up his oration with a climax like tliis : "I would rather be a South American Inca of the fifteenth century than a South American papist of the nineteenth" (Bishop Newman, ut sjipra) . A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. 373 Before presenting evidence of what Mexico has done in the way of education, I have been led to draw the reader's attention to the character of the sources through which information about that country is gen- erally conveyed to Protestants. Now let us get at a few facts. I find in the Report of our Commissioner of Educa- tion for 1890 that the school enrollment in Mexico is 4.7 per cent, of the population. That is low compared with the United States, whose percentage is 23.3 ; or with that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- land, which is 16.3. But the reader must not jump at the conclusion that because only 47 out of every 1,000 of the population are enrolled in the Mexican primary schools, that the remaining 953 are all illiterate, or, as he may hear from some reviler of Mexico, " the percent- age of Mexican illiteracy is 95.3 per cent." What would we think of the honesty of a lecturer or preacher who would calculate the illiteracy of the United States in that way, and assert that only 233 persons out of i ,000 in the United States can read and write, and that our illiteracy is 76.7 per cent.? I cannot do better than give the following extract from a writer who was certainly competent to give exact information. It will tell us the state of educa- tion in Mexico as far back as 1876. What special im- provements have since been made I add in brackets from the Statesman's Year Book, 1893. The writer's book is entitled The Republic of Mexico in 1876 : the Character, Habits, Costumes, a7id Vocations of its Inhabi- tants, written in Spanish by Antonio Garcia Cubas, and translated into English by George E. Henderson. The author says in his introduction : 374 ^ Z^^/t' at Literary and Artistic Mexico. " This book has been written with the view of removing the wrong impressions that may have been left on the minds of the readers of those works which, with evil intent or with the desire of acquiring notoriety as novelists, have been composed and pub- lished by different foreigners in regard to the Mexican nation. These impressions have been received during a rapid excursion of pure amusement, making no longer stay in the various towns than the time required to repack the valise and continue on a journey of useless results." Not so, most innocent Senor Antonio; many of these travellers manage to bring back with them a good deal of ' ' information ' ' which they find very useful for their purposes. " Isolated facts that are obtained in every society in contradic- tion to general rules, and a disposition to judge events without a proper examination and careful study, are not sufficient to give complete knowledge of any class of people, and much less to au- thorize the giving out of such impressions through the medium of the press." And you might have added "or the pulpit," good Seiior Antonio. On page 33, under the head of Public Instruction, the author says : " Primary instruction in the schools of the Republic consists of the following branches: reading, writing, Spanish grammar, morality and good manners, and moreover, in the girls' schools, needle-work and other useful labors. In some of the States the study of geography, national history, and drawing are also obliga- tory, whilst in the schools that are not supported by the govern- ment notions of algebra and geometry, elements of general and natural history, ornamental and lineal drawing, and the French language are taught. " The number of primary schools in the whole of the Republic A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexij^o. 375 reaches 8,103, instead of 5,000 that existed in 1870. Of the number referred to, according to the work of Sehor Diaz Covar- rubias, 603 are supported by the State governments, 5,240 by the municipal authorities, 378 by private corporations or individuals, 117 by the Catholic clergy, besides 1,581 private establishments that are not gratuitous, and 184 not classified. " These schools are attended by 350,000 scholars of both sexes. [In 1888 there were 10,726 primary schools, with 543-977 pupils. In 1889 there were 7,334 government and municipal schools, with 412,789 pupils.] " Secondary instruction, as well as professional education, are under the charge of the State, with subjection to the programmes established by law, which prescribes the liberty of education and professions. In the Republic of Mexico there are 105 establish- ments of secondary and professional instruction, in the following form : i special preparatory school in the City of Mexico; 19 civil colleges of jurisprudence ; 20 schools of medicine and pharmacy ; 10 schools for engineers; 2 naval schools; 3 commercial schools; 3 academies of arts and sciences; 2 agricultural schools; 2 academies of fine arts ; 2 conservatories of music and declama- tion ; I military college ; 24 seminaries supported by the Catholic clergy ; i school for the blind ; i school for the deaf and dumb ; 14 secondary schools for girls. Total number of such institutions 105, with an attendance of 14,809 pupils. [In 1889 the number attending these higher schools was 21,000.] "The number of professors and employees in the public instruction in 1876 was 8,770. There are 20 public libraries [72 in 1890], with 236,000 volumes, and private libraries with from 1,000 to 8,000 volumes are innumerable. There are museums of antiqui- ties, paintings, and natural history in many of the larger cities [19 in 1890]. There are 73 institutions dedicated to the cultivation of the arts and sciences, of which 29 are scientific, 3 meteorological observatories, 21 literary, 20 artistical, and 3 of a mixed character. "In the year 1874 there were 164 journals and magazines, of which 18 were scientific, 9 literary, 2 artistical, 26 religious, and 118 political" [in 1890 317 newspapers]. 376 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. MEXICAN LITERATURE. If it be true, as I have already endeavored to im- press upon the reader, that the number, character, and flourishing condition of schools of higher learning, such as universities, colleges, academies, and the like, fur- nish a good test of the general standard of popular in- telligence, so a similar test ma}- be found in the num- bers and literary eminence of a people's authors, their poets, historians, philosophers, essayists, and such like persons of superior intellectual culture. Perusing the works of some recent tourists in Mexico, I confess I was surprised to find that commonly disparaged country on the score of its educational attainments so distin- guished for the number of its learned and brilliant writers ; of many of whom I find mention in Thomas A. Janvier's Mexican Guide and in Picturesque, Political^ and Progressive Mexico, by Mary B. Blake and Margaret Sullivan.* Neither of these writers pretends to give an exhaustive list of literary celebrities who are quite worthy to take rank with similar scholars in other more highly favored countries. Mr. Janvier particularly, who devotes several pages of his highly instructive and entertaining volume to the "Language and Literature of Mexico," apologizes for the brevity of his notice as a very imperfect sketch of what really exists. This writer reasons very justly, that even what he has per- sonally observed ought to be received as evidence of being " the legitimate product of a high state of civiliza- tion,'" but which he thinks must be regarded, in the case of Mexico, as "merely an accidental interpola- tion of intelligence and refinement in the midst of bar- * I take the liberty of quoting from these two Catholic lady writers, as their testimony is fully sustained by that of Mr. Janvier. A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. '^yy barism." His latter conclusion only goes to show the force of preconceived notions and prejudice. Can he allege any other instance in the history of peoples to justify him in supposing the possibility of the concur- rence of such extraordinary intelligence and refinement of a barbaric nation's authors of singular merit, erudite historians, charming poets, and learned philosophers and theologians ? But he reinforces his first argument to the danger of his second when he says : " It is cer- tain that literary qualities of a high order are inherent (?) in the Mexican race, a fact demonstrated by the numerous works written in Spanish by native Mexi- cans, men and women." It is not very good-natured in him to assert that when the ecclesiastical supervision of literature became more strict that the ' ' prostration of letters in Mexico became absolute," although he excepts, as he has the honesty to do, the learned theological treatises written by the monks, and the "delightful" chronicles of the same saviours of literature all over the world in every age. That he does not name any of these theologians or their works is not surprising in a litterateur of his tastes and experience ; but he must permit us Catholics to believe that, when the most exalted intellects give themselves up to profound scientific and meditative study upon the supreme subjects of the Being of the Creator, His attributes and His relations to man and his destiny, their intellectual powers are no less worth- ily engaged, and productive of no less benefit to humanity, even though the fields of lighter and, to in- ferior minds, more attractive literary culture be for the while left to such. However, it is plain he is in nowise minded to deny 378 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico, to hivS Mexican literary brethren their just meed of his appreciative praise ; and he goes on to tell us of Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora, poet, philosopher, mathema- tician, historian, antiquarian, and critic ; of Sister J nana Ynez de la Cruz, a nun whose verse and prose found renown even in Spain ; of the dramatist Alarcon ; of the historians Clavigero, Veytia, and Gama ; of the poets Navarete and Tagle ; of the patriotic poets Ortega and Quintana-Roo ; of the novelist Jose Joa- quin Fernandez de Lizardi, whose work will be " en- duringly known " ; of the dramatist Gorostiza ; of the poets Carpio and Pesado ; of the poet and dramatist Galvan, and others ; all contributing *' to raise Mexican literature — though the fact scarcely is known to the outside world — ' ' [an ignorance of which the Protest- ant revilers of Mexico are not slow to take advantage] "to an honorable ajid even a commanding position.'' But our tourist is not yet done. There are still many more w^orthy of notice. He speaks of several, and finally mentions a renowned historical novelist, Seilor Riva Palacio, and continues: "With him may be grouped, as living writers of high merit, the poet Juan de Dios Peza ; Jose Maria Vigil, the archaeolo- gist ; and, to quote Bandelier, the ' great documentary historian of Mexico ' Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta ; the archaeologist Alfredo Chavero ; the philologist Fran- cisco Pimentel ; and the philosopher Ramon Man- terola." I quote verbatim from the chapter on "Literary Mexico," in the entertaining volume from the pens of the two lady writers already mentioned : " The list of Mexican authors stretches almost indefinitely. Besides those already mentioned as novelists, Manuel Payno, A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. 379 Pedro Castera, Peon Contreras, Vincente Morales, and Jose Maria Esteva are well known as brilliant and forcible writers. Upon more serious topics, whether of political or social import- ance, one finds the names of Zarco, Prieto, Baranda, Siliceo, Arriaga, Ocampo, Alcaraz, Lerdo, Montes, Zamacono, Yanes, Mariscal, and many others, who have contributed largely to the education of the people. As poets, a still greater number of popular and celebrated men and women find honorable place in the ranks. Guillermo Prieto is probably best known in what might be called national songs, full of originality and patriotism. Jose Maria Esteva follows him closely in giving expression to the natural traits and habits of the country. Acuna, Luis, G. Ortiz, Silva, Gutierrez-Najera, Dias-Miron, Covarrubias, Juan Valle, Eduardo Zarate, Francisco Colina, Firso de Cordova, Apapite Silva, Manuel Romero, Esther Papia, Rosa Carreto, Refugia Argumeda de Ortiz, and Miguel Ulloa. Justo Sierra, one of the most forceful and virile of singers, and Manuel Flores, by his ten- derness and sweetness, have taken high rank among Spanish poets, even outside of their own country. Every popular Mexican romancist is also a popular poet. Among famous religious writers are Sister Juana de la Cruz, Senor Carpio-Pesado, Arango, Bishop Montesdeoca, and others. As dramatists, Gorostiza and Alarcon rank well among Spanish classics; while Calderon, Rodriguez Galvan, Chavero, Mateos, Contreras, Acufia, and others have produced much skilful and remarkable work. Senors Juan de Dios, Pesa, and De las Rosas hold an enviable place as poets of the home and domestic life. As linguists Senors Altimirano, Yscalbalceta, and Pimentel are best known, the latter having made important studies upjn the Indian dialects of the country ; while Orozco y Berra, in his Histojy of Ancient Mexico, has excelled all previous writers upon the same subject. The best author upon constitutional subjects, or those relating to political economy, is probably Sefior Vallarta ; but each of these lists of authors could be reinforced by numberless names. Those given are, perhaps, enough to disabuse the American mind of any feeling that Mexico lacks the expression of literary tastes, or suffers in comparison with other lands from want of scholarly interpretation." 380 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. Well, I think it ought to be enough ; but will it be ? There is one test I would like to see made : and that would be for a Mexican litterateur to play tourist in turn ; and, after a summer's visit to the United States, having also had the entree to our best literary circles, and the acquaintance of our most distinguished authors, to write a volume similar to those from which I have just quoted : then to compare the lists of Mexican celebrities we have had presented to us, with the one which he would display before his fellow- Mexicans, in order to disabuse the Mexican mind of any feeling that the United States lack the expression of literary tastes, or suffer in comparison with their own sunny land or with others, from want of scholarly interpretation ! MEXICAN ART. Another no less striking evidence of the intellectual culture and refined taste of the Mexican people is af- forded by the great number of their artists and the high encomiums passed upon their works. To this must be added both the keen appreciation of the merits of these artistic productions shown to be possessed by the com- mon people, and their own singularl}^ apt and skilful artistic ability to produce beautifully harmonious and graceful articles w^hich serv-e for personal adornment, for festive display, or to add a charm to objects serving the commonest uses. Mr. Janvier devotes a section of his instructive vol- ume to this subject, showing that from the earliest days of Mexican history art of no mean order has flourished throughout the country. What is now the "National School of Fine Arts " in the City of Mexico — National now, of course, since the Secularist Reform banished A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. 381 the names of all the Saints of God from their artistic shrines in that Catholic land, though it is to be hoped that they themselves have not yet left the country — was once called the Academia de las Nobles Aries de San CARI.OS de la Nueva Espana. This institution is the successor of the parent art school in Mexico, founded in 1529 by the eminent Franciscan monk, Fray Pedro de Gante. Our author goes on to enumerate a goodly list of highly distinguished artists, men and women, some of Spanish birth, some native Indians, and others of mixed blood. One of these, Francisco Kduardo Tresguerras, he styles " a great architect, a painter and sculptor of marked ability, and styled, not inaptly, ' the Michael Angelo of Mexico.' " An appreciative men- tion of some of the more notable paintings and pieces of sculpture occupies four pages of the writer's book ; one of which, a " Saint Charles Borromeo," by Solome Pina, obtained the chief prize in Rome itself. Another, the " Las Casas " of Parra, he tells us ranks as one of the great pictures of the world. Further on in his volume, when he comes to name and describe the many monasteries, churches, chapels, and other religious institutions, he calls the reader's attention to hundreds of paintings deserving of mention for the reason of their remarkable artistic merit and great renown. How did the Fine Arts come to reach such an ex- traordinary height of cultivation in Mexico, producing works worthy to be classed with the great masterpieces of Catholic European genius ? Artists do not grow on bushes, neither can they be served to order, even though that order were a government one with millions to pay the bill. Perhaps it may suggest a new and not 382 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. unprofitable thought to some of my readers when I tell them that the Catholic religion, being the religion of God, is the religion not only of the True, and of the Good, but also of the Beautiful ; the Tri-unal ex- pression of the Being and Act of the God Whom Catho- lics know, serve, and love. Their religion is to know the Infinite True, to serve the Infinite Good, and to love the Infinite Beauty. Their possession of divine Faith, Hope, and Charity gives to all Catholics, from the highest to the lowest, the triple master-key which opens the inner Sanctuary where the Vision of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is revealed. That is how it comes to pass that Catholic people, even of the ruder sort, not only are certain of the high- est Truth, while the wisest of the world are babbling like children about the great ' ' Unknown and Unknow- able," but also in the light of that Truth seek the high- est and purest Good at all cost, and know a good paint- ing — inspired by the contemplation of the divinely Beautiful — when they see it. And now the reader knows the secret of the abundance of artists in Catholic countries, and of the splendor of their transcendent genius, as also of the wide-spread appreciation of true art among the Catholic hewers of wood and drawers of water, the toilers on land and on sea. And he is also furnished with a good reason for the lack of all this popular artistic taste among the people in Protestant countries. This worship of the divine^ holy Spirit of Beauty also goes a great way towards explaining the greater popular happiness one sees in Catholic countries. It is what the hard, dollar- worshipping world cannot even comprehend ; but the worship of the beautiful is quite A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. 383 as essential for the perfection and happiness of the soul as the search after truth and the practice of the good, although it is not given to all men to stand and minister as consecrated priests at the altar of either. Saj^s Bulwer-Iyytton : " Without the idea of Beauty, couldst thou conceive of a form in which to clothe a soul that has entered Heaven ? ' ' Only a Catholic artist can paint a glorified saint, and it was always for the eyes and the soul of the common people that great Catholic artists have sought to depict upon their canvas the beauty of holiness. And in those days when the spirit of beauty was worshipped most fully the people were the most happy, as they were also most noble. lyCt us hear one who testifies to all this, and does not altogether deny the source of inspiration whence the popular appreciation of the beautiful sprang. The writer is speaking of the Italians and their artists : " In the old days men Hved greatly great lives to great ends. Their faith was ever present with them — a thing of daily use and hourly sweetness. Their households were wisely ruled, and simply ordered. They denuded themselves of their substance to give their gold to the raising of mighty works — vivis lapidibus — which to this day do live and speak. Great artists narrowed not themselves to one meagre phase of art, but filled with all its in- numerable Powers the splendid plenitude of their majestic years. And that art was in the hearts of the people who followed it, and adored its power, and were nourished by it, so that it was no empty name, but an ever-vivifying presence — a divinity at once of hearth and temple that brooded over the cities with sheltering and stainless love. " Therefore, in those days, men giving themselves leave to be glad for a little space, were glad with the same sinewy force and manful singleness of purpose as made them in other times labori- ous, self-denying, patient, and fruitful of high thoughts and deeds. Because they labored for their fellows, therefore they could laugh 384 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico, with them ; and because they served God, therefore they dared to be glad. Nowadays science makes a great discovery, the tired world yawns, feels its pockets, and only asks, ' Will it pay ? ' " (Pascarel, "Ouida"). Yes, it is this worship of the Beautiful — the worship that is true because it is accompanied with Sacrifice — that solves the otherwise inexplicable mystery of the conception of those sublime ideal harmonies of form, tone, symmetry, proportion, and color, and of their realization in the marvellous edifices of Catholic wor- ship with all their ravishing works of art, soul-inspiring ceremonial and melody, within whose heaven-revealing walls the knees of the very unbeliever instinctively bend to pray — sublime and majestic temples of which the highest genius of Protestantism is incapable of grasp- ing the full meaning, or of making for its own bald, inexpressive worship any rational use — all erected at a period of Christian civilization when the percentage of illiteracy — Protestantism's touchstone of ignorance — throughout all Christendom would have been suffi- cient evidence in the eyes of its modern sociologists to convince them that the people must have been sunken in gross ignorance and superstition. Cath- olic civilization is essentially spiritual, Protestant civil- ization material. Compare the results of one with the other : '* By their fruits ye shall know them." I am, therefore, not surprised to find the Catholic Mexicans an artistic people. The tourist, Dr. Wells, already quoted in the chapter on Civilization in Mexico, publishes the following letter, written in defence of his own people by a Mexican gentleman who felt aggrieved by the author's criticisms upon the backward industrial condition of Mexico. I regard it as a singular con- A Look at Literary aytd Artistic Mexico. 385 finnation of my foregoing views concerning the con- trast between the different nature of the civilization esteemed by Catholics and Protestants. Dr. Wells, the Protestant, speaks in disparaging terms of that social condition which not only has prompted the Mexicans to do so little to secure material progress in the past, but seems to make them disinclined to make any strenuous effort to secure it in the future. The Mexican writer, speaking from the Catholic vStand-point, shows himself far more con- cerned for the spiritual side of his people's civiliza- tion, and confidently offers evidence of progress in that as a complete answer, in his opinion, to the adverse criticisms of Dr. Wells. He says : " If you pass through the Academy of San Carlos, you will see pictures executed by native Mexican artists in the highest style of art, comparing most favorably with any production of the acad- emies of design of Paris, Rome, Munich, or elsewhere. Go with me, if you please, to a narrow lane in the small but picturesque city of Cuernavaca, and there in a small room, working with im- plements of his own make, you will observe a native, whom you would perhaps class among the peons, carving a crucifix in wood, so highly artistic, with the expression of suffering on our Saviour's face so realistic, that any foreign sculptor of the highest renown would be proud to call the creation his own. Again, visit with me the village of Amatlan de los Reyes, near Cordoba, and observe the exquisitely embroidered Jiuipilla of some native woman, surpassing in many respects the designs of the art- needlework societies of New York or Boston; not to mention the fine filigree work, figures m clay and wax as executed by the natives in or near the city of Mexico ; the art pottery of Guadala- jara, the gourds, calabashes, and wooden trays highly embellished by native artists, whose sense or acceptation of art is not acquired by tedious study at some academy of design, but is inborn and spontaneously expressed in such creations." 386 A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico, Little cares the Protestant tourist for carved cruci- fixes and embroidered huipillas. This very fact that the Mexican people have ' ' much of aesthetic taste and an innate genius for music, painting, sculpture, embroider}^, dress, decoration, and the fine arts gen- erally," is rather to be deplored, as standing in the way of their "material development." My reader will find a suitable reflection to make in this place, already quoted from Ouida's Village Cotn- mwic, in the chapter on Civilization, when that popular, brilliant writer contrasts the influence of the old and new regimes upon the Catholic people of Italy ; where, destructive as the new idol of modern material progress has proved to the happiness of the people, it has not yet been strong enough to imitate in spirit and in act the diabolical confiscations of God's prop- erty and the wholesale butcheries of His servants and true adorers, as was done in the Protestant English Reformation under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth; crush- ing out all spiritual life together with the people's civil and religious liberties. The foregoing information and comparison of the different ideals and characteristics of Catholic and Protestant civilization ought to be quite sufficient evidence that, on the subject of education alone, not to speak of other matters, Mexico has been, amongst us, a much-maligned country. It is a showing of which the Catholic Church, so far as her influence is concerned, may well be proud. The honest, reflecting reader, at all acquainted with the character of the races of which the vast majority of the population of Mexico and South America is composed, and from what condi- tion of barbarism these pagan races have been brought A Look at Literary and Artistic Mexico. 387 to a not unworthy standard of Christian civilization and faith by the Catholic Church is not disposed to wonder at the high percentage of illiteracy still prevailing there, nor deem this lack of the means of instruction the worst of all possible conditions for the classes of people there who are illiterate, even supposing it were true, which it is not, that they have been designedly kept so. Protestantism never could have done, and, what is more, never would have done, with them what the Catholic religion has done; that is sure. Their Spanish masters and civilizers never made it an offence, punishable by law, to teach their slaves to read and write, as our own Southern States did. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. As to South America especially, what must surely astonish any one is the fact that there exist to-day so many universities in these vast, sparsely-settled coun- tries, several of these institutions containing more than five hundred students.* That fact alone is worth any amount of talk, and is quite evidence enough to prove that education is highly esteemed there, and that there must be, not a condition of besotted ignor- ance among the people, but just the contrary. Of course it would be utterly hopeless to expect that the ignorant, illogical, or malicious reviler, who is deter- mined to make illiteracy and ignorance synonymous, is going to see this, or, seeing it, to admit its truth, and stop his railings at Rome and all that is hers. Such persons will go on as long as they have willing, ignor- ant, and prejudiced listeners. Just judgments can only be looked for from those who love truth. * See chapter on Univsersities. CHAPTER XXV. POVERTY AND PAUPERISM. THE purpose of this essay is very far from being an attempt to deny or belittle the benevolence of Protestants. All things considered they possess that natural virtue in a very high degree. Indeed I will not here venture to draw any comparison between indi- vidual Catholics and Protestants on the score of what might be embraced under the title of ' ' humanit}' ' ' towards the poor. Who does not know how truly dis- tinguished many Protestants are for their kind, tender- hearted benevolence, for their personal sympathy with those who are in distress; how ready with hand and lavish with mone}^ in great crises of human suffering ; how public-spirited and philanthropic ; foremost, very often, in proposing, and most proudly diligent in ex- ecuting some scheme of beneficence? Amen, they shall have their reward : and what Catholic is there who does not pray from the bottom of his heart that it may be of the fullest measure, pressed down, and run- ning over ? Nor have I the least intention of casting a slur upon the character of Protestant benevolence and generosity when I impeach Protestantism, as a system, for lacking both in principle and practice what we Catholics call Chaidty. Benevolence carried to the highest degree of natural virtue is not Christian Charity. It is in itself all good ; pleasing to God— although the fundamental doc- trine of Protestantism denies that it is — but in order Poverty ana Pauperism. 389 that this or any other mere natural virtue should become a Christian virtue its exercise must be based upon a supernatural motive. Abstemiousness, either as a protest against vicious luxury in dress, food, or drink, or for the sake of health, is not Christian Self- denial. Stoical continence is not Christian Chastity. Large-handed and warm-hearted Benevolence is not Christian Charity. Even if it goes to the deprivation of all of one's propert}', and the sacrifice of one's life for the benefit of one's fellow-men, still it is not Christian Charity. If anybody knew the ' ' mind of Christ Jesus ' ' it was the great Apostle, St. Paul. Hear him: " If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity^ it profiteth me nothing " (I. Cor. xiii. 3). If all this sounds paradoxical in the ears of any of my Protestant readers let them come and ask its solution of the Catholic Church. Then they will be able to read this essay intelligently, and understand that, hav- ing already said what I have in praise of Protestant benevolence, what I am about to say about Protestant- ism and its works in relation to the poor is not taking back with one hand what I have offered with the other. If there be any reason for the apparent paradox in my two assertions, between the too well-known evidence to the first to be doubted, and the unwelcome evidence I am going to offer in support of the second, I think it is to be found in the fact that great numbers of people live inconsistently with the principles which they pro- fess, and especially with their religious principles. The consequence is that some are happily better than their religious principles, if strictly taken, would logic- ally lead them to be, as very many Protestants are ; and 390 Poverty and Pauperism. many are unhappily worse, and offer in their lives ex- amples which are employed as evidence to discredit the religion they profess. And this is true of many Catho- lics. One other important consideration is this : vast numbers of Protestants, if judged by the distinctive doctrines of their own denominations, are not Protest- ants at all ; and if judged both by their real faith and works are Catholics, belonging to the soul of the Catho- lic Church, no matter what they call themselves ; whether they love or hate the Church ; however little or however much the}^ know of her and of her doctrines. It cannot be denied, however, that where the funda- mental religious principles of a people are dominant there the whole social order will be colored and modi- fied either for the better or for the worse. I think the reader will find that pretty well proved in the course of this volume. Having learned the distinction between benevolence and Christian charity, I think we can enter upon our subject and examine more intelligently into the causes of Pauperism, and its rapid increase in Protestant countries. What is pauperism ? It is a condition in which a certain number of people are forced to seek the very necessaries of life at the hand of the state. People who are poor, who may even suffer from the want of shelter, food, and clothing, or be reduced to ask alms publicly, and for whom Protestantism has invented the term ' * beggar, " as it has also the term " pauper" as opprobrious titles, are not therefore paupers, in the sense of their being of a class thrown upon the official aid of the state for subsistence. Our IvOrd called the *'poor" blessed, and the Catholic Church has never forgotten to echo that divine benedic- Poverty and Pauperism. 391 tion upon them ; but Protestantism has banned them, and set a mark of ignominy upon their heads. Our Lord promised that the blessed poor should never be wanting to his Church — ' ' The poor 3^e shall have al- ways with you," and the promise has had a perfect ful- filment. Of Protestantism it is true to say that it never had the poor with it, nor ever will have them. That the poor cling to the Catholic Church ; that they love her and gladly abide with her ; that they crowd her sanctuaries of worship, and are the ever- ready means at hand for him who hath to give ' ' alms that redeem the soul," and enable him to comfort and succor the Divine Redeemer of the world in their persons, this is one of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church, as it is one of the most brilliant evidences that she is the True Church of Jesus Christ. She has been the object of many scornful words from those who are utterly blind to her character as the kingdom of divine char- ity, but as has been well said : " That the Catholic Church ever ignored the poor would be an assertion that were hopeless to make even in Exeter Hall ' ' ; and I will add for America — or even to find printed in the documents of the Evangelical Alliance. But Protestantism has not inherited any lot or part in the fulfilment of the promise of Christ. It has sought to ignore the poor, to shift them off as a hateful burden, to get them put out of sight, arrested by policemen in the street as criminals, driven into "poor-houses" where they are made to feel degraded in the sight of the passers-by, ticketed and reported to the world as "paupers," there to sit and eat the bread — not of charity, but of vState " appropriation" — in uncomforted destitution and shame. 392 Poverty and Pauperism, Thank God ! no such institution of similar import and character is to be found in Catholic countries as the Protestant American "poor-house," or as the Protestant English have named theirs — the ' ' work- house." The Catholic Church knows the mind of Him who first blessed the poor ; Who Himself of His own will, for the love of men, bore the sorrows and pains of povert}^ ; Who took upon Himself the form of a serv^ant, and had not where to lay His head; Who made voluntary poverty a supernatural virtue. Is it any wonder that His own Church should preach his divine doctrine and imitate his example ? The Church, therefore, that has alwa3's loved and blessed those whom Jesus Christ loved and blessed, and has even canonized beggars, is not going to stultify herself b}^ imprisoning the poor in a work-house. State " Pauperism" is one of the subjects for statis- tical reports for all Protestant countries, and though the same title may be found in these Reports, as in the Statesman' s Year Book, for some Catholic countries, yet, on examination, it will be seen that, although there are homes and asylums for the poor, and bureaux de bienfaisanee for their temporary succor, they are no such places as Dickens in his novel. Our Mutual Friend, so vividly portrays in his picture of Betty Higden, and her flight and death, rather than go to such a place of horror and despair. And who has not known of more than one Bett}^ Higden in Ireland, and even in prosperous America ? There is indeed some state aid in a few modern Catholic countries, but it is only a moiety compared with private charit3% and is distributed so far as it is possible through private channels, chiefly through Poverty and Pauperism. 393 those associations of pious persons of high and low degree who make such labor one of Christian love. No such hard official government S3^stem of poor relief as exists in all Protestant countries is to be found in Catholic ones, and the less certain Catholic nations have come to conform their social ideas to the forms consonant with vSo-called "modern progress" the less there is of any state poor laws, or state " pauperism." In Belgium, Austria, Hungary, and France there is some state provision, but no general state system like that of England and other Protestant countries. Funds for poor relief, even much that is administered by the government in supporting hospitals and refuges, are almost wholly supplied from private donations, lega- cies, and the like. I read in the Statesman' s Year Book of Italy: "In Italy legal charity, in the sense of a right in the poor to be supported by the parish or commune, or of an obligation on the commune to relieve the poor, does not exist," and then the Report gocb on to show an exhibit of money contributed from various private sources of an enormous amount — 89,673,307 lire, of which 39,046,034 lire were dis- bursed, leaving a balance of money for the love of God to be ready for the poor of 50,627,273 lire. Think of that, and the poor Italian nation almost hope- lessly ruined with the burdens of state taxation. God will bless and save Italy, for she still is Catholic while she loves the poor. I want my reader to weigh that well. There is a good deal oi poverty in Catholic Italy, but no "pauperism," and the poverty there has rapidly and shamefully increased under the new anti-Catholic regime. There is no title or report of "Pauperism" in Spain, or Portugal, or Mexico, or in any State of 394 Poverty and Pauperism. South America. These countries have not y^\, aban- doned their poor to the tender mercies of the state. And so "pauperism" does not exist in them. But my reader will perhaps be led to say — You can- not deny that there is a great deal of poverty in those countries, and so it comes to the same thing. No, it does not come to the same thing. First, I want to say that in former times when the influence of Catholic ideals tempered the whole social order, so as to discourage the getting of riches as a sumnmm bo7iicm — the vice of modern society throwing all the wealth and land into the hands of a few, the rich getting richer as the poor, who have to pay, get poorer — there was then less poverty in amount, and it was not of so debasing a character. In evidence of this it is quite sufficient to refer the reader, for an example, to the condition of England when she was Catholic — " When every rood of ground maintained its man " ; when poverty was no disgrace ; when the word ' ' pau- per," in its modern sense, was not even in the language of any nation. I^et him compare England then with the present condition of that country of "pauperism" par excellence to-day. Look at the whole of Great Britain, England, Wales, Scotland, and unhappy Ire- land. Who and how many own everything ? Kay, in his Social Condition of the English People (page 24) , tells us that in the short space of forty-five years, 1770 to 1 815, the number of freeholders of estates in Eng- land was reduced from 250,000 to only 32,000 ! Even 250,000 was a shamefully small number for all Eng- land. And how much less than 32,000 are they now in this year of advanced Protestantism a.d. 1894? Poverty and Pauperism, 395 Mulhall (article "Land") tells us that the number of all landholders owning over 10 acres amounts to only 141,100. Those owning 500 and more acres only 10,070 ! Just think of that. It is a fact that deserves much thought. Let the reader go to history and learn who is respon- sible for it, and when this spoliation of the people and this hideous degradation of the poor began. He will find that it began with Protestantism, and that it has gone from bad to w^orse under Protestantism. So in every other country that abandoned the Catholic faith, the same story is told of casting out the poor from the loving Christian heart, and the setting up of a system of state pauperism. And I want to say, secondly, that while in Protestant countries poverty is treated with scorn and contempt, bew^ailed as an evil thing, nigh unto a curse, resulting in the loss of manhood and self-respect in the poor themselves— losing as they do their sense of equality in the sight of God with the high-born and rich — it is far otherwise with the poor in Catholic countries, no matter how abject may be their want. It is precisely against this attempt to degrade their inborn human dignity and self-respect made in Protest- ant states by their "Pauper laws" that the English "Betty Higdens," the starving Irish, and their poor brothers and sisters in other countries indignantly revolt ; and rather than suffer themselves to be thus contemptuously crushed under the heel of state pride, as if they were vermin, turn aw^ay with horror from the hand that offers the "pauper" bread, and go to star\^e to death upon the highway rather than eat this self- debasing food. 39^ Poverty and Pauperism. I find a very singular illustration of the results of the opposite treatment of the poor by the two different "spirits" of charity in an article by Rev. W. Walter Edwards, in the Contcmpoj-a^y Revie7i\ Jul}^, 1878, "The Poor-Iyaw Experiment at Elberfeld," a city then of 85,000 inhabitants, in Westphalia, where Catholicism is dominant. The article discusses the comparative treatment of the poor in Elberfeld and in English towns, and its effect in diminishing pauperism. This English clergyman, coming fresh from his English experience, finds that there is no pauper work-house and no public beggars in Elberfeld. It is all out- door relief. And why ? Because * ' the Elberfeld system is founded upon the idea of respect for the destitute." Excellent! He writes, "the destitute," not "paupers," and he adds : " It is deemed luiworthy — to use the expression of Herr Prell, Chief of the Department of Poor Relief — to try a person's need by any such expedient as that which we English possess in the work-house test." And the system ? The whole town, in the persons of all its citizen voters of every rank, is a vast St. Vincent de Paul Society, visiting the poor personally " with great kindness," and differs only from the latter society, which is wholly voluntary, in that the people of Elberfeld put themselves under the penalty of disfranchisement from three to six years and a doubling of his town taxes to be suffered by any voting citizen who refuses to serve the poor in his turn. There is not much need to refuse, for we learn that so numerous are the visitors that in 1876 an average of only two-and-a-half cases at the same time fell to the lot of each visitor. I said there were no pauper work-houses, such as the Poverty and Pauperism. 397 English poor look upon with horror, and fly from as from .something worse than a pestilence. But there are, sa3'S the writer, "several almshouses or asylums, into w4iich admission is eagerly soitglit for b}' the aged and destitute poor." Mark what follows : " These are mostly connected with various religious denominations, and are free from state eontrol. ' ' He finds ' ' difficulty in getting statistics from these institutions." Plainly, because it is not in the spirit of Catholic charity to ticket and count and show up the poor. Contrast the eagerness of the poor to get into an Elberfeld almshouse with the eagerness of the state poor to keep out of an English work-house or American poor-house. It is well known that the doors of every Catholic asylum for the aged and other poor and the suffering are literally besieged by eager applicants : and how happy they are for whom the good sisters can find room ! Now look at this : "The returns (Wellington, Salop) show that from 1870-76 the work-house was offered to 2,783 persons ; and that out of these only 187 accepted the offer, and many of these remained for only a very few days " (6th Report Local Government Board, p 22). This pagan S3^stem of " pauper work- house or no re- lief "appears to work differently even in England. In some places where it is rigidly enforced it rejoices the Rfev. Mr. Edwards to be able to sa}^ that it greatly re- duces pauperism. He does not seem to see that it only reduces the statisties of pauperism for those places where the poor have y^et some little self-respect left, and he has the singular obtuseness to assert that to help the poor by out-door relief is only making ' ' state-created paupers." At Atcham this system reduced pauperism 39^ Poverty and Pauperism, to 0.9 per cent, of the population. Good for the poor of Atcham ! They had some spirit left in them. But at Cardigan it increased the pauperism statistics to 8.0 per cent. A sad testimony to the degradation of the people of Cardigan. Rev. Mr. Edwards would like to see the Atcham syvStem universally adopted in England and Wales. Then, says he, "the numbers on the pauper-roll" [there it is again, everlastingly ticketing the poor] "would .sink from the present figure (1878) of 749,476 to 217,589. Is it violently presumptuous to assert that 531,887 persons are state-created paupers?" Which must strike one as a singular method of reducing poverty ! Lock the public treasury and placard all Eng- land and Wales with "The Pauper work-house or No Relief," and the names of 531,887 state-created paupers will disappear from the — land ? — no, from the statistics ! Well, all I say is, that if it did so succeed, no more glorious testimony could be given that modern English paganism has not utterly crushed out all sense of honor and independence from the hearts of the vast suffering army of the English poor. The Catholic Church has not only taught the Chris- tian doctrine of human equality and fraternity in her schools of philosophy and theology, but has everywhere sedulously inculcated it upon the people by both pre- cept and example. So thoroughly are Catholic people indoctrinated with this principle of true Christian no- bility that they assert their equality as a matter of course, acting upon it with the assurance of simplicity, and showing none of those offensive and insolent airs which mark the manners of one who presumes upon what he has no right. Poverty and Pauperism, 399 It is upon this doctrine of human equality that the Church built that marvel of the world, her spiritual edifice of divine charity, the most stupendous of all the triumphs of Christianity. To the king and slave, to the prince and peasant, to the rich man and the beggar, the Church continually preached '* Ye are brethren, of one nature, equal in the sight of God." And then came the harder lesson to be learned, but the sweeter when they had it by heart : ' ' Ye are both brethren of Jesus Christ ; therefore love ye one another, as Christ has loved and died for you alike." Do you wish to see to-day a striking proof of this Catholic recognition of human equality ? Go to Spain, and you will see the beggar asking a light for his cigarette from the costly cigar of the greatest lord, who allows him to take it without the least affectation of condescension. LivSten to the Spanish writer who tells us that ' ' one ought never to magnify any man for his riches, nor esteem him less for his poverty, however great it may be." Of what nation but a Catholic one could this story be told? "A king, leaving his palace in company with some courtiers, passed a beggar standing at the gate, to whom he gave an alms, at the same time lifting his jewelled cap in return to a similar salute from the beggar, adding with a gracious smile : * God keep thee, brother.' Hearing which, one of the courtiers, affect- ing surprise at the speech, said : ' Is the beggar, then, one of your royal family ? ' 'Nay,' quickly respond- ed the king, ' he is not one of my family, but I am one of his:'' Protestant travellers in Catholic countries often 400 Poverty and Pauperism. speak of the boldness and persistence of the beggars they meet there. What the}' take for insolence is in realit}' not so esteemed b}' their Catholic brethren, who understand full well that the beggar is not only conscious of his human equalit}- with the person of whom he solicits alms, but that he is by the ver}- act offering occasion to the other to do a good spiritual act, such as Catholics are, as a matter of course, expected to do when occasion presents itself. If receiving an alms the poor man is profuse in his thanks (generall}' expressed in the form of invoking a benediction), it does not surprise him to hear in reph' from the donor, " Nay, the favor is yours." And here is another remarkable expression illustrating the same truth. When — as, for instance, in Spain — one happens not to be able to give an alms when asked, or, what is of rare occurrence, though able, unwilling, the beggar is not roughly thrust aside, or left unspoken to, but with hat up- lifted the other will say, Pcrdona mc, hcrmano, en el nombre de Dios — "Pardon me, brother, in the name of God." I open that instructive volume The Mexiean Guide, by Thomas A. Janvier, a Protestant, and on page 94 I find the item " Beggars." And what has our clever, charming American writer to tell us about Mexican Catholic beggars ? This : * ' There are not many beg- gars in Mexico ; but the few found there are apt to be most resolutely persistent in their demands." The reader now knows why. " The}- can be shaken off by the payment of a few coppers, or the}- ma}^ be exorcized by the formula — Perdona me, herinano, en el nombre de Dios:' The writer omitted telling about the lifting of the Poverty and Pauperism. 401 hat, which part of the Catholic "exorcism" he pro- bably had not learned. Just think of it; even the wretched, half-breed Mexican people, "sitting in the darkness of Romanism," "degraded by papal super- stition," and all the rest of it so disgustingly fami- liar to our ears, have the good old Spanish Catholic polite and Christian formula by heart — ' ' Pardon me, brother^ in the name of God ' ' ! The very term employed to designate a beggar re- veals the high spiritual motive in the mind both of him who asks and of him who gives. The Spaniards call him familiarly a '' pordiosero,'' an abbreviation of his form of appeal, " For the love of God." Here is another apt illustration of the Christian fraternal spirit inspired by Catholicism. The Spaniard at home, or where his language is spoken and his man- ners prevail, calls the man of high rank an " hidalgo." And that is because he possesses '' hidalguia,'" or gentlemanliness. A gentle-man, as a Catholic under- stands it, is one who has Christian humility, which leads him to recognize the equality between himself and all mankind, and especially the poor and lowly. Now read this about a Mexican hidalgo : " A certain Captain Don Domingo de Cantabrana having been hospitably sheltered by some poor monks, he being a stranger to them, paid the cost of completing their church at the expense of $70,000. So great was the gentlemanliness {hidalguid) oi the Sefior de Cantabrana, declares the chronicler, that in due legal form he renounced for himself and his heirs the title of patron that was his by right of his munificence. His work, he said, was not for any temporal glory or profit, but for the diffusion of divine religion, and for the exaltation of the glorious patriarch San Jose, 'therefore he begged the good fathers to accept in his place that holy saint as their Patron'" (Mexican Guide', Janvier, p. 181). 402 Poverty and Pauperism, I find in the volume of another recent writer, already quoted in the chapter on Mexican civilization, a singu- lar, unconscious testimony to the recognition of human equality among the Mexicans, which obtains, indeed, in all Catholic countries despite the widest differences in social rank and condition — thus, as says the Psalm- ist, ' * raising the poor man out of the mire to place him among the princes of the people." I count it as a valuable bit of testimony, coming as it does from the pen of one whose Protestant disesteem of the Catholic religion is so apparent in his book. He says : " There do not seem to be any aristocratic streets or quarters in the cities of Mexico, but rich and poor distribute themseh^es indiscriminately, and not unfrequently live under the same roof" {A Study of Mexico, David A. Wells, 1890). This prejudiced tourist of course flings off his remarks here and there about the ' ' degradation and poverty of the masses" in Mexico, seeing these two conditions of vileness through American Protestant eyes ; but there is no proof of, nor any attempt to offer any evidence of, there being any ' * pauperism ' ' in that country. Had he found anything like that truly dis- graceful and alarming state which is now eating out the very life of the English social order we would certainly have had it displaj^ed before our eyes in italics and with double-leaded head-lines to the chapters. Why is there no ' ' pauperism ' ' in Mexico ? Because the people are Catholic, and they care for their poor. "The charitable and benevolent institutions of Mexico, public and private," says another writer, ** equal in number and scope, if they do not exceed, our own in the United States" {Mexico^ Picturesque ^ Political ^ Poverty and Pauperism, 403 Progressive, Mary E. Blake and Margaret F. Sulli- van, 1888). A Mr. F. R. Quernsey, writing from the City of Mexico, contributes a delightful article to the Boston Herald of July 10, 1894. He is himself a Protestant, and in the course of his letter says with great naivete that ' ' one would needs be a very bitter Protestant to deny the palpable facts" he relates. Evidently he knows what "bitter Protestants" are equal to some- times in the way of * ' denial of palpable facts ' ' con- cerning the Catholic Church. What he goes on to say about the spirit in which the poor are treated in Mexico is worth repeating: " It seems to me that the practical effects of CathoHcism among those who earnestly follow the precepts of their religion are to make people truly humane. There is a sympathy here among the classes which has something noble in it. When one sees the poor fed at the door, and not turned over to some institu- tion ; when in the country houses of the rich it is not uncommon to find a table spread for the decent poor who may have to seek aid, and one finds wealthy women having their circle of depen- dents on whom' no cold, formal charity is bestowed, but assistance prompted by the heart, then one comes to reflect on what has set these springs m motion. "Go into the city of Tacubaya, a suburb of this capital, and accompany the Passionist Fathers on their rounds ; go and see how simply these good men live, and. then consider how enormous are the benefits which a religion such as animates these men con- fers on the poorer classes. When, in an age of faith in mere materialism, men are found who gladly put away all temptations to make gain, and literally 'go about doing good,' no one can doubt the sincerity of their faith. It must be a powerful convic- tion which makes men of intelligence spend their days among the ignorant and the disinherited of the earth." 404 Poverty and Pauperism, This observant writer has evidently looked at Mexico from a point of view unobstructed by the mists of prejudice. Mr, Brantz Mayer, Secretary of the American Lega- tion in Mexico, in his Mexico as It Was and Is (1844), wrote of the common clergy, upon whom he was not likely to lavish undeserved praise : " Throughout the republic no persons have been more univer- sally the agents of charity and the ministers of mercy than the rural clergy. The village aims are the advisers, the friends and protectors of their flocks. Their houses have been the hospitable retreats of every traveller. Upon all occasions they constituted themselves the defenders of the Indians, and contributed towards the maintenance of institutions of benevolence. They have inter- posed in all attempts at persecution, and, whenever the people were menaced with injustice, stood forth the champions of their outraged rights." But the days of the pordioseros, and all their brothers the poor, are doomed in Mexico. The state is god now in that country, and the reign of " pauperism " is beginning. As Protestantism did in England under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, so the Freemasons and Secularists (all Protestantism applauding) now ruling over Mexico have seized all the property consecrated to God and the poor, and all the bountiful patrimony of the poor, and swept it into the state treasury ' ' to pay its debts " ; all the religious orders have been suppressed, some expatriated, lest the sight of their best friends and truest lovers might possibly rouse the people to take holy vengeance upon their persectitors. No "man of God" or shepherd of the poor can own one foot of ground ' ' in the Name of God," and what hospitals and asylums are suffered to Poverty and Pauperism, 405 remain are now to be held * ' in the name of the State ' ' ; for the progress of the kingdom of this world is first to be sought now, and not the kingdom of God and His justice. Yes, " pauperism " must come to Mexico, and the statistics will be made up and reported, for even the Sisters of Charity were refused permission to remain to comfort and succor their ''dear poor." By an act of the government, December 14, 1874, the order of those devoted servants of the poor was suppressed, and the Sisters, robbed of the children of their hearts, were driven from the land. It seems that of late years the presence of a few Sisters of Charity and other Catholic religious sisters is tolerated on condition that they wear no dress nor show any sign that they are the consecrated servants of the God of Heaven and of Christ, the world's Re- deemer. I am not surprised to find the same loving fraternity between rich and poor in other Catholic countries, besides Spain and Mexico. The Statesiuan's y^ear Book tells us that it is the custom in Austria (probably in the smaller towns) for the destitute poor of a district to be taken by turns to live with the families of the place, and to be treated for the time being as members of the same household. Has Protestantism ever shown itself able even to comprehend these evidences of the spirit of divine love ? Still less has it understood, as it has been wholly unable to imitate, save in a few recent and singular instances, the great Catholic associations and Orders of Charity, the record of whose marvellous labors and sacrifices for the suffering and the poor will form the brightest page of human nobility and glorious merit to 4o6 Poverty and Pauperism. be found at the opening of the Books of Judgment when the God of all I^ove and of Sacrifice shall reward every man according to his works. To even mention the names of them would need a whole book ; to de- scribe them and their labors, a library of thousands of volumes. To many of my readers the names of many may be familiar, but how few are known even by hearsay to the general public ? The average Protestant may have heard of the Sisters of Charity — who has not ? — but he does not know that there are mau}^ such orders of '' Sisters of Charity " and *' Sisters of Mercy." By this time, also, almost the whole world has heard of the "lyittle Sisters of the Poor," who are beggars for the superannuated and destitute poor men and women whom they care for as tenderly as mothers care for their infants, and who content themselves with what is left over when their aged beneficiaries have been supplied with the best food the}^ have in the house. A young French girl, Marie Janet, founded that charit- able order in 1840. She died last year seeing 266 homes for the old poor established, sheltering and caring for 40,000 inmates. It is said that 120,000 of these ' ' dear poor ' ' have died in the arms of the Little Sisters. Then there are the " Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis," into whose free hospitals for the poor the rich w^ould fain go to be nursed ; the ' * Little Sisters of the Assumption," who nurse the poor in their own homes without pay ; the ' ' Sisters of the Good Shepherd," to whose loving arms the "Good Shep- herd" brings the "lost ones" He has found and rescued — and many more of such, right here amongst Poverty and Pauperism, 407 us, to say nothing of a thousand others of different names, composed both of men and women, doing their marvellous works of charity all over the world. The charitable society called the "Society of St. Vincent de Paul," whose members are all laymen of every trade ^d profession, giving their time of rest from their daily occupations in personally visiting their * * dear poor, ' ' is one whose very existence is proof enough that the Religion which inspires it is the true religion of Jesus Christ. No less may be claimed for other lay societies of Charity because the same divine Spirit inspires them all. My pen refuses to be silent until I mention a Society of Charit}^ composed only of Catholic widows. Their hospitals are found in France and Belgium. The rich and high-born ladies form with others of lesser rank a common sisterhood to ser\^e in turn to do all the work, even the most menial and revolting to human nature, in their hospitals devoted to the care of cancer patients ivho are poor, whether curable or not. The widows who associate themselves together for this work of divine pity do not take vows. They quietly serve their hours as appointed in the day, and then resume their ordinary position and duties . in society. One who has long served in this way tells me that in France and Belgium many ladies of the very highest rank- are devoted members of this association. They call themselves "The Women of Calvary."* Although the members of these numerous lay societies take no vows, yet they, equally with the tens * A life of the saintly foundress, containing also a full description of this charity, is just published — Widoivs and Charity. Benziger Bros., New York. 4o8 Poverty and Pauperism. of thousands of those who do vow their lives to the service of the poor, strive to cuhivate that singular Christian virtue of self-abnegation, in imitation of the poverty of Jesus Christ, who, though Master of the whole world, took upon himself the form of a servant, and had not where to la}^ His head. Hence the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of Love, inspired the Catho- lic Church to make voluntar}^ poverty a virtue together with voluntary chastity and obedience. And so these heroes of divine love take the vows which shield them with the triple armor of Holy Poverty, Holy Chastity, and Holy Obedience. They are of those who are among the ' ' few chosen ' ' out of the * ' many called, ' ' who have heard addressed to them the call of Jesus Christ, who became poor for our sakes — " Go sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow Me ' ' ; and again: "Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall possess life everlasting." When the Catholic Church inspires heroic souls to succor and serv^e the poor, the word of Jesus Christ, — "Go sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and come, follow Me," — is obeyed to the letter. Such chosen ones obey the first part of this commandment by abandoning all worldly possessions and by binding themselves under vow not to seek them ; and the second part by literally taking the form of a servant and, in the Spirit of the Divine Lover of the poor, giving themselves wholly to their service. With that Divine Call in the heart one who has heard and obeyed may truly say : ' * With the sick I became well ; with the poor, rich ; with the homeless Poverty and Pauperism. 409 I found shelter; and with the dying I learned to live." To love as well as to care for the poor is a Christian precept binding upon the ' ' man}^ called " ; to love them as Christ loved, "even unto death," giving up all for their sakes, is a Christian coimsel to the " chosen few." And in the whole history of the Church's most glorious and successful works of charity, the greatest wonders have been wrought by those who made this act of self-abnegation the most complete. Voluntary sacrifice is the secret of her divine power which she learned at the foot of the cross. It is the talisman that opens the treasuries of heaven and earth, and endows her with a strength, courage, and consecrated majesty in presence of which the adverse powers of the world la}^ down their arms, confess themselves subdued, and bow down in worship. What has Protestantism ever shown in its doctrine or practice that would invite one to hear this call of Jesus Christ or inspire one with courage to follow His example ? Is not its whole history a record of denial of the words of Christ, of vindictive contempt, hatred, and violent persecution of monks and nuns ? Does not its literature teem with appalling false testimony against them ? When this pretended Reform first started, did it not drive these devoted servants of Christ out of their convents and hospitals and asylums, did it not con- fiscate all the patrimony of the poor held by these holy almoners of God's charity ? Did it not revile them, put a stigma of infamy upon them, and hang or exile thousands upon thousands of these devoted Brothers 4IO Poverty a7id Pauperism. and Sisters of the poor in every land where it got political and religious sway ? No blacker record will be found on the pages of God's righteous Judgment Book than the story of this war of extermination waged by Protestantism against these friends of the poor ; and now being continued by our modern God-ignoring Secularism. It tore from the honored and beloved head of the poor man the crown of blessing that Christ had placed upon it, and sent him forth sad and friendless, with the brand of "pauper" stamped upon his forehead, to be shunned of all men, as one accursed. And then it proclaimed its new Gospel, the gospel of riches, of "material progress," of pagan luxury in living, of everything in which the poor could have no fraternal lot or part. No wonder the poor have turned a deaf ear to its preaching, and have fled from its taber- nacles. Protestantism seized all the splendid and vast sanctuaries of Catholic religion, once crowded to their doors by multitudes of the poor, but from thenceforth they were deserted, as well they might be, by those "of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven." It has gone on preaching its Gospel from newer shrines, but the poor enter them not, for their Divine Lover and His Friends are no longer there. "The poor man crieth, and the Lord still heareth him," but the ear of Protestantism is dull and thick- ened with a surfeit of the good things of this life, glory- ing in its vaunted pinchbeck " Progress," and it ' ' understandeth 7iot the language of the poor and needy" appealing for alms " for the love of God," and "in the Name of Christ," or "in honor of His holy Mother." It bids them stand out of the way, and not Poverty and Pauperism, 411 trouble the peace o'f its prosperity with their importunate and superstitious appeals, or offend its fastidious, over- nice nostrils with the odor of their beggarly garments ; but go to the state poor-house, where paupers belong, and rid the proud pathways, which the dainty feet of decent society' alone may tread, of their depressing and loathsome presence. It is not of the very many sincere believers in Protestantism that this is a faithful picture, but it is true of Protestantism taken as a system, and alas ! too true of many of those w^ho are of its multiple folds, but more especially so of those who are of that one or other form of Protestantism which is'the religion of their country " as by law established." Before presenting to the reader a table of the statis- tics of pauperism, of emigration, and of the comparative amount of ownership in land in Protestant and Catholic countries, the best tests of the relative pauperized con- dition of the people, taken as a whole, I am led to offer special evidence of what a horrible state of national pauperism the leading power of Protestantism in the world has been reduced to. I shall quote first of all from Kay's Social Condition of the English People^ 1850 : " The agricultural workman's horizon is bounded by the high red-brick walls of the union work-house. . . . The town work-houses and the town gaols are crowded with inmates, the inhabitants are burdened with rates, and the towns swarm with paupers and misery." Quoting Dr. Channing's Duty of Free States, he says : " The condition of the ' lower classes ' in England at the pres- ent moment is a mournful comment on English institutions and civilization. The multitude are depressed to a degree of igno- 412 Poverty and Pauperism. ranee, want, and misery which must touch every heart not made of stone. In the civihzed world there are fewer sadder spectacles than the present contrast in Great Britain of unbounded wealth and luxury, with the starvation of thousands and tens of thousands. Misery, famine, brutal degradation, in the neighbor- hood and presence of stately mansions which ring with gaiety and dazzle with pomp and unbounded profusion shock us as no other wretchedness does. . . . " Before the enactment of the new poor-law we were spending annually between six and seven million pounds sterling for the relief of abject pauperism in England and Wales alone, and four to five millions since. The i7idependence of the poor is dest7'oyed. What country is there in the world where such an expenditure is found to be necessary to save the laborers from starvation ? . . . In 1848, in addition to the hundreds of thousands assisted by charitable individuals, 1,876,541 paupers were relieved, or about one person out of every eight of the population was a pauper in 1848." He adds a table to show that the number of such paupers had been increasing at an alarming rate. Did it continue to get worse ? We shall see. Let me first give my reader a picture of what an English work-house was some years ago when Dickens was writing Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, and he will then see how English Protestantism treated the poor : " The English work4iouses are reckoned among the ' Chari- ties.' [So are the American " poor-houses."] Perhaps it would be well to find for them some other name. Some of these work- houses do, indeed, afford comfortable homes for the poor [as the word comfort is defined in the vocabulary of men who have learned to dispense with the greater part of what other men call the necessaries of life]. But there is nothing so painful, I find, as the thought of being one day compelled to enter a work-house. It is a dark cloud that hangs on the vision of every poor man in Poverty and Pauperism. 413 England when he looks into the future. These work-houses are often the scenes of great cruelty, privation, and suffering. . . . In many instances the keepers speculate on the stomachs of parish paupers, keeping them upon short or damaged food ; deny- ing them many of the most common necessaries of life, and all its comforts. Instances are not a few in which the inmates die in lonely, filthy chambers by night, without medical aid, without an attendant, without even a rushlight to flicker over their pillows, while they are passing through death's struggles. The selfish avarice of the keeper combines with the interests of the parish to shorten the pauper's days, and to rid themselves of the thankless burden as quickly as possible. To accomplish this, the cords of life are cut asunder by cold neglect and barbarous treatment. "All that is known in such cases is, that the prayer of the dying pauper is often denied, when he asks that the physician may come to him, or some one watch by his bed ; or the minister of religion be called to breathe out a prayer for his soul ; or, if he is to be left entirely alone while the soul is breaking away from its shattered house, that they will have mercy and bring a light, that the darkness of night may not mingle with the death-shades of the grave as they settle over his bed of rags. In the morning they go to his chamber, and find that he is dead. It causes no grief ; no friend was with him when he died — but God. A rough coffin is ordered — price seven shillings and sixpence — the body is taken away, and that is the end of the pauper ; his dying groans heard only by the ear of a merciful God ; over his grave no tear of affection is shed ; no monument ever rises ; and in a little while no one but He whose all-seeing eye notices the falling sparrow can tell whose grave it is where the pauper sleeps. The work- house is a gloomy place for the poor to go to ; it is one of the most dismal places I ever entered. In the best of them England does not pay back to the pauper half the law has taken from his former earnings. It would be a difficult matter, I apprehend, to find many persons in the parish work-house who have not paid far more to support the government which has impoverished them, than the parish pays for their support when they can work no longer " ( The Glory and Shame of England, C. Edwards Lester, vol. i. p. 152 et scq. Harper & Brothers, 1841). 414 Poverty and Pauperism, Mr. I^ester, writing again on the same subject in 1876, has this to say of his first • exposure of the con- dition of England : " My statements have stood the test of twenty-four years, and all my pictures of the vice, the degradation, the sufferings, the sottishness, the heathenism of the masses of the Enghsh people, have been outdone since, by reports made to the British Parlia- ment on the horrors of the collieries, the barbarities practised in the work-houses, the worse than slave-toil of the factories, the plethora of the Prelacy, the spiritual as well as the physical poverty of their flocks, the ignorance of the great herd of Eng- land's home subjects" {Ibid., ^d. of 1876, vol. i. p. 26). There have been many investigations made since Lester and Kay wrote, all telling the same story. One of the best of the works lately published is Pauperism ayid the Endowment of Old Age by Mr. Charles Booth, President of the Royal Statistical Society, who is recog- nized in England as being the first authority on Poverty and Pauperism. This writer is not General Booth of the Salvation Arm}^, although he is good authority too, whose testimony can be found in his Darkest England a7id the Way Out. Mr. Charles Booth first brought out his Life a7id Labor of the People (4 vols.) , dealing chiefly with London. But in the second work mentioned above he gives tables of the percentage of Pauper- ism for the whole population. From this it appears that of persons under 16 3^ears of age 2.8 per cent, are paupers (receiving, z. e., either indoor or outdoor relief). Of persons between 16 years of age and 60, 3.8 per cent. ; between 60 and 65, 8.1 per cent., and over 65 3^ears, 25.9 percent. ; making more than one person in four over 65 in all England dependent more or less upon state aid. Poverty and Pauperism. 415 On page 165 of Mr. Booth's book he quotes another acknowledged authority, Rev. W. S. Blakely — Essays on Paicperism — as saying that by an independent in- quiry in 26 country parishes no less than 42 per cent, of the aged who died^ there had had relief during the closing years of their lives. Mr. Booth adds that for the whole county 30 per cent, would be a true average. The New York Sun of May 6, 1894, has an article on " Age and Pauperism in England," and the writer, after citing some of the foregoing statistics, adds that in the district of Southwark, London, 84 per cent, of the old people are receiving public charity. Truly this is an appalling state of things. What is to be thought now of that country which has been lauded as being ' ' the pride and panoply of Nineteenth Century Protestantism ' ' ? Kay, who although a member of the Established English Protestant Episcopal Church, acknowledges more than once that it is no church for the poor ; and all the while that he is relating the extreme horrors revealed by his investigations, he evidently has in mind their ac- companying shocking nioral depravity, and gives evi- dence enough to make the heart sicken. It is no won- der that we find him asking — " Who or what is respon- sible?'' Naturally the description of the pauperism of the English people is followed by a chapter on * ' The English Church in its relation to the English Poor." Caring for the poor, and saving them from moral degra- dation, from the loss of their sense of manhood and of Christian equality, is and must be the work of their religious teachers. Mr. Ruskin has a strong passage thereon in his Fors Clavigera. What has Mr. Kay to 4i6 Poverty and Pauperism. say about the influence of the Protestant Episcopal Church as by law established in England. in this Chris- tian work ? He puts it concisely when he sa3^s : "Where there is not a constant intercourse between the clergyman and his people, the poor do not go to church." Then he tells us that not one in ten of the laboring classes ever enter a church. He instances one of the best administered parishes in I^ondon — St. Pancras : " I. More than 100,000 of the parish have no sittings in either church or chapel. " 2. Small as the churches are, they are not half filled. " 3. The majority of all poor children are growing up without receiving daily instruction." He finds the " Romanist," and even the " Ranters' " services crowded with poor people, where the services of "the Anglicans, Independents, Methodists, or Baptists will not attract y?//y. The upshot of the whole revela- tion of things made by him on this subject is, that the Protestant Church has lost even its own poor. Their clergymen are fine gentlemen — too fine to take any notice of the dirt}^ and uneducated poor. He deals out his reproaches to these ministers very daintil}^ but effectually, and ends up by drawing a strong contrast of their neglect of the poor and the shameful empti- ness of their churches with the rapid advance of the * ' Romanist ' ' Church and the wonderful success it has among the poor. "It behooves us," he adds, "to con- sider these things, if the English Church is not willing to give up the poor to the care of the Romanist priests." That touched the vital point, and told in one sentence of the utter and disastrous failure of English Poverty and Pauperism. 4 1 7 Protestantism to do the work of Christ for the poor. The promise of the Lord that His own should always have the poor with them certainly has not been in- herited by English, nor, indeed, by any other form of Protestantism. " The operatives in Lancashire," he tells us, " are in the habit of saying : ' There is no Church in England for the poor; there is only a Church for the rich.' " And immediatel}' after he holds up again the other side of the picture : "In the Romanist churches all are treated as equals in the presence of their God, In them the poor are welcomed with an eagerness which seems to say : the Church was meant especially for such as you. Let the English Church take warning ! " Yes, it ought to ; but of what use would that be when it has no such spiritual food, as the Catholic Church has in abundance, to give to its corporally and spirit- ually pauperized and starving children ? That Church of ProtCvStantism is itself only a state institution, its clergy only state agents, and evidently so separated in life and spirit from the poor and needy that they cannot sympathize with them nor understand them. The Good Shepherd knows and is known by his flock, and they follow him ; and if need be, he lays down his life for them. Of whom is this true to the letter, the Protestant minister or the Catholic priest .? That Protestantism took very soon to despisftig and cruelly neglecting the poor is testified to by a curious bit of writing from the pen of one of Protestant Eng- land's earliest authors, Thomas Nash (a., d. 1567- 1600). It is entitled A Latter Day Appeal, taken from his Chris fs Tears over Jerusalem, a satire on the city of London. 4i8 Poverty and Pauperism, "A LATTER DAY APPEAL. " If Christ were now naked and unvisited, naked and unvisited should He be, for none would come near Him. They would rather forswear Him and defy Him, than come within forty foot of Him. ... A halfpenny a month to the poor man's box we count our utter impoverishing. I have heard travellers of credit avouch, that in London is not given the tenth part of that alms in a week, which in the poorest besieged city of France is given in a day. What, is our religion all avarice and no good works f Because we may not build monasteries, or have masses, dirges, or trentals sung for our souls, are there no deeds of mercy that God hath enjoined us ? " Our dogs are fed with the crumbs that fall from our tables.. Our Christian brethren are famished for want of the crumbs that fall from our tables. Take it of me, rich men expressly, that it is not your own which you have purchased with your industry : it is part of it the poor's, part your prince's, part your preacher's. You ought to possess no more than will moderately sustain your house and your family. Christ gave all the victual He had to those that flocked to hear His sermons. We have no such promise-founded plea at the day of all flesh as that in Christ's name we have done alms-deeds. How would we with our charity sustain so niany mendicant orders of religion as we heretofore have, and as now at this very hour beyond sea are, if we cannot keep and cherish the casual poor atnongst us? Never was there a simple liberal reliever of the poor but prospered in most things he went about. The cause that some of you cannot prosper is, for you put out so little to interest to the poor. " No thanks-worthy exhibitions, or reasonable pensions, will you contribute to maimed soldiers or poor scholars, as other nations do, but suffer other nations, with your discontented poor, to arm themselves against you. . . . The livings of . colleges by you are not increased, but diminished. Because those that first raised them had a superstitious intent, none of us ever after will have any Christian charitable intent. " In the days of Solomon gold and silver bare no price. In Poverty and Pauperism. 419 these our days (which are the days of Satan) naught but they bear any price. God is despised in comparison of them. Demas forsook Christ for the world ; in this our deceasing, covetous world Demas hath more followers than Christ. ... " Our English curmudgeons have treasure innumerable, but do no good with it. All the abbey-lands that were the abstracts from impertinent alms, now scarce afford a meal's meat of alms. A penny bestowed on the poor is abridged out of housekeeping" (English Prose, Selections, with critical introduction, etc., Henry Craik). The voice of another outspoken Englishman will show that English Protestantism, at least, has not changed its spirit since the days of Nash. I open at hazard the Fors Clavigej^a of John Ruskin. In vol. vii. page 263 I find this language. He is inter- preting the Apocal3-ptic charge to the seven angels of the seven churches, and he goes on : " Observe, first, all these charges begin with the same words, ' I know thy works I ' Not even the maddest and blindest of Antinomian teachers could have eluded the weight of this fact, but that, in the following address to each church, its work is spoken of as the state of its heart, of which the interpretation is nevertheless quite simple ; namely, that the thing looked at by God first, in every Christian man, is his work — without which there is no more talk or thought of him. ' Cut him down — why cumbereth he the ground ? ' But the work being shown, has next to be tested. In what spirit was this done — in faith and charity, or in disobedient pride ? ' You have fed the poor } ' Yes ; but did you do it to get a commission on the dishes, or because you loved the poor ? You lent to the poor : was it in true faith that you lent to Ale, or to get money out of my poor by usury in defiance of Me ? " And this bitter and well-deserved reproach upon not a little of Protestant ' ' charity ' ' is made by one who in 420 Poverty and Pauperism. true Protestant spirit could write a few pages further on: "Wherever the Christian Church has resolved to live a Christian life, there, instantl}^ manifest approval of Heaven is given by accessioh of 7vo7idIy pi'ospcrity and victory." The italics are his. Schemes of econom- ical benevolence are not wholly unknown much nearer home than Protestant England. In some parts of the United States it has been the custom in small country towns to put up the poor at auction in town-meeting, to be knocked down to the lowest bidder, or person who would take and keep them at the least expense to the community. Hearken to Mr. Ruskin again, addressing whom? "Alas! wolf-shepherd, this is St. George's word to you: ' In your prosperity you gave these men high wages, not in kind- ness to them, but in contention for business among yourselves. You have declared again and again, by vociferation of all your orators, that you have wealth so overflowing that you do not know what to do with it. These men who dug the wealth for you now lie starving at the mouth of the hell-pits [the collieries] you made them dig; yea, their bones lie scattered at the grave's mouth. Your boasted wealth — where is it ? Is the war between them and you because you now mercilessly refuse them food, or because all your boasts of wealth were lies ? " And why all this fierce objurgation of the pauper- izing policy of English society ? I find the an.swer on another page where he tells that se-called Christian people that they have come to forget God, who in Feudal Catholic times (which for much he does not admire) was not forgotten : " There was in the Feudal system a Final Authority, of which the imagination is like to be lost to Protestant minds: that of the King of kings and Ruler of empires; in whose Poverty and Pauperism, 421 ordinances and everlasting laws, and in ' feudom,' or faith and covenant with whom, as the Giver of Land and Bread, all the subordinate powers (of kings, princes, dukes, etc.) lived and moved and had their being." Yea, Mr. Ruskiii, and loved the poor as their own flesh and blood. As I write my eye falls upon the report of a sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, the successor of Henry Ward Beecher in the pulpit of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, and editor of the Outlook. He is reasoning, from the Catholic stand-point, that "love is the generic law of life," and that neither man nor society, the family nor the government, have a right to live ignoring, or in defiance of, that law. And then he tells us how the modern governing powers have sinned in this respect, but he does not tell his audience how much of the success of the spirit of the modern Anti- christ in seizing upon the reins of government in so many countries is due to the sympathy and connivance of Protestantism. Indeed, this sort of "kingdom of the world" is the creation of Protestantism, and is a return to paganism, under which there was no "neigh- bor" to "love as one's self." Thus Dr. Abbott : " The Psalmist says justice aiid judgment are the habitation of God's throne, so justice and judgment should be the habita- tion of human government : " ' He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. . . . For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy.' •' Will any man, looking on the governments of the world, say that that is the ideal according to which governments are organized } Will any man, looking upon the continent of Europe, 422 Poverty and Pauperism, say that men are attempting to carry on government upon that basis? In Italy, where the peasant farms are being sold under the taxes, is government organized to help the poor and needy?" The well-informed reader knows that no such cruel treatment of the poor was ever heard of w^hen God was King in Italy in the person of His Vice- gerent. " In Germany, where, as Evarts said, every peasant carries a soldier on his back, is government organized to help the poor and needy ? Is it in France or Russia ? [Dr. Abbott seems to have forgotten the existence of England.] " Come across the sea : will you say that judgment and justice are the habitation of the State House at Albany or the Capitol at Washington ? Will any man say that the law of God is the law of any government on the face of the globe ? " (The Outlook, March 31, 1894). These are bold and trenchant questions, and if Dr. Abbott would insist upon giving neither himself nor any of the people who look to him for guidance any rest or peace of soul until a clear logical answer shall have been found to them in all their bearings, Plym- outh Church, with its pastor and its people, could not possibly help confessing that there is no hope for humanity, no hope for the social and political orders in any country, save by a return to the true ideal of divine and Christian life as proposed by the Catholic Church. Wherever Protestantism has had any real power it has always been b}^ being the creature and tool of the state. That union known as "Church and State" in Protestant countries ought to read '* State and Church," for the Protestant state is the master and the ProtCvStant ' * church ' ' bows and bends itself to serve "whatsoever the state willeth." Therefore it is true « Poverty and Pauperism, 423 that this * ' State Protestantism ' ' is not only negatively responsible for the grievous pauperism of the people by its usurpation of the office of their true shepherds, who did indeed lay down their lives for their sheep, but it is also positively responsible in that it both acted the part of the hireling, who, when the wolfish state came devouring and scattering the sheep, fled and lifted not a finger for their protection, and also turned around and helped to ravage the fold, seizing the pleasant and nourishing pastures of the sheep, and fattening upon them while the sheep starved. And worse than all, the once gracious and loving Christian equality and frater- nity between high and low, rich and poor, that reigned in Catholic days was violently trampled under foot, and castes and ' * classes ' ' were formed ; the rich had a new gospel preached to them, but of the true Gospel that Christ said should be preached to the poor and witness by that fact to the truth of His divine mission, Protest- antism soon showed that it neither was nor could be the herald. So, following the voice of the religious teacher, the governing powers of Protestantism built up its policy of ruling the masses by laws such as masters make to keep down slaves, and the once proud and brave Catho- lic yeomanry fell blighted, cowed, degraded, and im- poverished ; and when the poor cried unto their mas- ters in the days of their hideous distress for a little love and a little bread, they were cast off with the words of stinging scorn — " Go to the work-house ; 3^ou are paupers ! " And still they cry, and the agonizing tones of their supplication pierce the heart with wring- ing pain, but so long as Protestantism lives and can preach its gospel of riches, so long will they hear none 424 Poverty and Pauperism. other but the self-.same answer — ' ' Go to the work- house ; you are paupers ! ' ' How true this is of English Protestantism needs no further proof. The same and even worse is true of the people in all of the Protestant United Kingdom. If anything, the crushing and pauperizing of the Irish people, the horrible mockery of Christianity enduring there so long as the Established Church was allowed to personate it in that unhappy country, was a thousand times worse than in England. But when the poor man in Ireland echoed the cry of his starving brother in England for a little love and a little bread, blessed be God ! there was yet left to him the Soggarth aroon — the dear priest — who could and did give him oceans of love, love faithful and true, and all the bread he had. So the poet sings : " Who, in the winter's night. When the cowld blast did bite — Soggarth aroon — • Came to my cabin-door And on my earthen-flure. Knelt by me, sick and poor, Soggarth aroon ? Who, as friend only met, Never did flout me yet, Soggarth aroon ? And, when my heart was dim. Gave, while his eye did brim. What I should grive to him. Och ! you, and only you. And for this I'll be true to you, Soggarth aroon ! " Poverty and Pauperism. 42 5 Alas for you, poor Protestant Englishmen ! you have had no Soggarth aroon. And though starvation is hard, and human nature is weak — how weak when strained to its last breaking no one wonders ; but many and many an Irishman, happily yet holding on to the faith that told him he was still a man let whate'er betide, who, when his grasping absentee landlord sent him the Protestant state answer to his pitiful beseechings for food — ' ' Go to the work-house ; 3'ou are a pauper ! ' ' and to whom food in plenty was offered if he would but take Protestantism with it, spurned the scornful thrust at his manhood and its glory, bore the trial of his faith with the martyr's cour- age, and proudly lay down and died on the highway, unsheltered, uncomforted, and unfed, rather than eat the cursed bread of the pauper and of the apos- tate. There is scarce a passion that stirs within the hu- man breast vSo strong as the love of one's native land. When duty calls it is hard enough to sunder the strong bond and bid it farewell, maj^be for years or maybe for ever. But when no higher voice of right doth call ; when one is forced to fly from it as from the face of a pestilence, when its earth becomes of iron and its sky of brass, when it has nothing to offer to its children but pauper's rags and a pauper's grave, and there is noth- ing left but to go forth upon an unknown journey dark with forebodings of possible disaster, to seek in the land of the stranger what their own denies to them, then, indeed, the parting is scarce less bitter than death. Exile ! What a shuddering thrill of woe unmans even the stoutest heart of him who has suffered it ! Over twelve millions have been driven to self-exile 426 Poverty and Pauperism. from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales since the battle of Waterloo, on whose gor}^ plains thousands of their English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh brothers had fallen to their death to give glory to the English flag. Of these twelve million children of an ingrate soil it is needless to surmise how many millions of them had no choice between exile and a pauper's' life and a pauper's death. We hear much about the excessive number of Irish figuring in the pauper statistics of this land, to which so many fled in the hour of their despair. Over five millions of them bade farewell to their worshipped land with blinding tears and breaking hearts, but not all reached this home of freedom and the right to live, for tens of thousands of them perished by the way. In one year alone — 1846-47 — twenty thousand of them died of the pestilential ship-fever, and saved England the cost of making as many pauper cofhns, and the digging of as many pauper graves. From the depths of the sea rose up the shimmering ghosts of those thousands of exiled dead and hastened back, as spirits may, to go and kiss once more the dear old sod, and mingle their tears with the dewdrops sparkling on the native grass and heather ! Pauperized, banned, and exiled by English Protest- antism, by its arms of social and political power, such of them as reached our shores found a smiling and a true-hearted welcome from many a free-born American ; but not from all. Protestantism may change its soil, but it is ever of the same spirit, as Catholic Irishmen have found to their grief, even here — my British lords and gentlemen, even here ! Fear not ; many of us Americans have kept up the old Protestant traditions Poverty and Pauperism. 427 of our English forefathers. We have the pauper poor- house too, and we ticket and duly report the statistics thereof. We took account of the paupers in the United States in 1890. We had 73,045 of them in state alms- houses, or I in every 857 of the population. You have I in every 39 of your whole population of Great Britain and Ireland. Of all our 73,045 paupers in almshouses 27,648 were foreign-born. Of these you furnished 16,915. Yes, you; for the Irish, the Scotch, and the Welsh paupers are as much yours as the English. As a pauper-making and pauper-furnishing country you bear the palm. I am just now presenting a com- parative view of pauperism— oi state pauperism — the degraded and hopeless condition into which the poor of Jesus Christ fall in countries under Protestant civil- ization and rule, with the QMx\s\X'^\\ poverty to be found in Catholic countries, where no state pauperism like yours exists. There is enough poverty in Catholic lands, but there is never too much for the loving care of Catholic hearts. But you have so many paupers that they die by thousands on your hands for want of bread, and you drive into exile tens of thousands more to help fill the state almshouses of other lands. My lords and gentlemen of England, how like you to hear this bitter truth ? Now let us look at some figures of pauperism at home. By its overflow upon our shores we shall be able to judge whether Protestant or Catholic countries are the most pauperized. 428 Poverty and Pauperism, lATlVITY OF FOREIGN-BORN PAUPERS IN THE UNITED STATES.— ( a-// j//^ of 1S90.) FROM COUNTRIES UNDER FROM COUNTRIES UNDER PROTESTANT RULE AND CATHOLIC RULE AND CIVIL- CIVILIZATION. IZATION. Australia, 8 Austria, 95 Bermuda, I Azores, 3 British Guiana, ] Bavaria, 9 Canada (English), . 815 Belgium, 31 Denmark, . 114 Bohemia, . 170 England, 1,956 Canada (French), . 109 Germany, 6,773 Central America I Holland, . 138 Chili, 31 Iceland, I Corsica, , I Ireland, 14,128 Cuba, 5 Isle of Malta, 4 France, . 410 Isle of Man, . 6 Hayti, 2 Isle of St. Helena, I Hungary, . 49 New South Wales, 2 Italy, 145 Norway, . 369 Mexico, 42 Prussia, I Moravia, . Sandwich Islands, 2 Peru, i 3 Saxony, I Portugal, . •J 27 Scotland, • 575 South America, 19 South Australia, . Spain, 14 Sweden, • . . 646 Switzerland (half )> . 154 Switzerland (half), . 154 Wales, . 256 Total, 1,321 Total, 25,953 I might write a folio and not be able to present such a convincing argument as is offered by the figures of the foregoing table. Mark the summary of it : NATIVITY OF FOREIGN-BORN PAUPERS IN THE UNITED ?>TATES.— (Census of i8go.) From Protestant countries, 25,953 From Catholic countries. 1,321 Poverty and Pauperism. 429 As the pauperism of Ireland is directly due to the misrule of the English government and the heavy and iniquitous burden of the alien, law-established Church laid upon her suffering people for so long a time, her paupers are properly chargeable to that Protes- tant power. The bitterest enemy of the Irish people would never dare to pretend that their pauperism was in an}^ sense due to their religion, except that one might say, and truly, that if they had been anything but Catholics, even idolatrous heathen, they would never have suffered so horribly at the hands of their Protestant persecuting masters. But if Ireland were taken off the list, even then there would still be left 11,825 paupers born in Protestant countries against the 1,321 born in Catholic countries. Mr. lycster tells us that some years ago England offered a premium for emigration ' * and not only did she employ agents to persuade, by false representa- tions, her subjects out of her dominions, but she directly appropriated funds for that purpose." On the same page he gives this note: '• I am half tempted to give what lays at my hand, the statistics of Pauper Exportation to the United States by the British gov- ernment. Of her exportation of criminals, secretly and clandes- tinely, to our shores, I need hardly speak. In multitudes of cases condemned men, indicted persons, or people who had become obnoxious or dangerous, whom the Colonial authorities would not receive, have been shipped to this country — supplying us with murderers, burglars, and thieves; while of the pauper class the number has amounted to tens of thousands. We all know that this went so far that our general and state governments had to resort to laws of self-protection, when the most earnest and re- peated protests and expostulations had failed " {Glory and Shame of Engla7id, vol. i. p. 289), 430 Poverty and Pauperism, I have already explained the omission of statistics of pauperism in the official Reports of the social and political condition of Catholic countries. There are, however, some figures so tabulated for Austria and Belgium, these states making some report of needy per- sons assisted in part by the government. I have gone through the Statesman' s Year Book, and, taking the statistics of pauperism as reported for the last year, the following is a table compiled from those figures show- ing the ratio of one pauper to a certain number of the population ; which presents the most concise and clear view the reader could have of the alarmingly pauper- ized condition of Protestant countries : ONE PAUPER TO HOW MANY OF THE POPULATION? Protestant Countries. Sweden, Holland. . Denmark, . Norway, Germany, . Great Britain and Ireland I to every 19 I to every 20 I to every 23 I to every 25 I to every 31 I to every 39 Catholic Countries. Austria, Belgium, . France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Every coun- try in Central and South America. I to every 145 I to every 1,321 No reports of " Paupers," nor of the number of their poor who are cared for on Catho- lic, Christian principles. CHAPTER XXVI. EMIGRATION. I HAVE already spoken of the enormous number of people forced by England's pauper system to exile themselves from their native land ; but I have not yet told all the truth. Mr. Charles Edwards Lester tells'us that he had in hand the statistics of Pauper Exportation to the United States by the British government. That is, as he says : " It is well known from these authentic sources that by far the largest share of imported paupers and criminals whom even her own colonial authorities would not receive were shipped here by the authority or money of the govei-ninetit, or both'' And these are his reflections thereon : "A more brutal deed was never justified by a civilized nation. Whenever a good opportunity offered itself, these paupers, old and infirm, were shipped off like cattle, in vessels hired to convey them to other countries, where their miserable food and miserable burial would not be charged to the government. Is this not more inhuman than shipping off slaves to New Orleans or the Georgia plantations ? Our own coasts have never rung with wilder fare- wells than have gone up from the shores of England's despairing emigrants. Multitudes have thus been banished for the crime of being poor, when their poverty was brought on them by the rob- bery of these very persons, who thus wrenched them, like neg- lected branches, from the parent tree. England lets them toil as long as that toil wrings from the ground or manufactory the luxuries she enjoys, and then, when old and infirm, she ships them to strange lands to find for themselves graves. The Southern planter fed and clothed his decrepit, aged slaves. The humane 431 432 Emigration, man refuses to knock in the head the horse that has carried«him for years, because he can do no more work. But England, more cruel to her subjects than the master to his slave, or the man to his beast, not only plunders their pockets, but wrings their hearts with anguish ; and when her merciless extortion can force out no more, she casts forth the exhausted and helpless wretch into the wilderness to die ! " (The Glory and Shame of E7igla7id, ed. 1876, vol, i. pp. 289, 2C)0). Is Great Britain the only Protestant country that has forced this last hope of life upon the poor ? And what is the record of Catholic countries on this point ? lyCt us have a look at the figures. Mulhall tells us that, "since 181 5 to 1888, no fewer \\\'2i\\ hventy- seven millions of people in Europe have left their homes, broken up family ties, and sought their future in new lands." Then he gives this table : In order to give the reader a general idea of the ratio of emigrants to population, I add the present population in millions : FROM PROTESTANT COUNTRIES, 1816-1888. Country. Nuviber of Emigrants. Population. Great Britain and Ireland, . . 9,860,000 37,000,000 Germany, 5,670,000 49,000,000 Sweden and Norway, . . . 1,070,000 6,000,000 Holland, . 345,000 4,000,000 Denmark, 220,000 FROM CATHOLIC COUNTRIES. 2,000,000 Country. Number of Emigrants. Population. Italy, . 3,580,000 30,000,000 France, 1,540,000 38,000,000 Austria, . 1,290,000 23,000,000 Belgium, 970,000 6,000,000 Spain, 760,000 17,000,000 Portugal, 540,000 4,000,000 Emigration. 433 The emigrants from Switzerland, two-thirds Protest- ant, number 760,000. Its present population is 3,000,000. Here are a few notes given by Mulhall which throw a good deal of light upon the above table : 1st. The table shows that the emigration from Protestant countries is vastly greater in proportion to their population than from Catholic countries. Why ? Because Protestant countries are not as good countries for a poor man to live in as Catholic ones. 2d. No emigrants to speak of have left Catholic countries to go to any one of the Protestant countries in Europe. Why ? Because Protestant countries are good countries for a poor man to keep out of. Poor as he may be in his own country, he would be sure to fare as badly or worse in the other. 3d. A very large proportion of emigrants from Catholic countries go to other Catholic countries ; many of the Italians, Spaniards, French, and Portuguese to South America. Great numbers of the French— not exiled paupers — have gone to colonize Algeria ; a very large proportion of the Belgian emigrants to France. Why ? Because, though all Catholic countries are good countries for a poor man to live in, some are better than others ; and Catholics make good colonizers of new countries. 4th. Five per cent, of the Spanish emigrants return to Spain. 5th. Thirty-three per cent, of the Italian emigrants have returned to Italy — which would seem to indicate that they did not find the countries they went to as good for poor men as their own. 6th. France and Belgium received just as many immigrants from other countries as the emigrants who 434 Emigration, left them. The finest feature of French emigration is that of its glorious host of laborers for Christ, its heroic missionaries to every quarter of the globe. 7th. Tested by our own experience, and that is great and of long duration, the great majority of those who have turned out criminals and paupers from among the immigrants we have received, have come to us from countries under Protestant rule and civilization. I^et us see the proof: COMPARATIVE TABLE OF FOREIGN-BORN PAUPERS AND FOREIGN-BORN CRIMINALS IN THE UNITED STATES.— (C^«j«j of 1890. ) FROM COT JNTRIES XJ NDER FROM COUNTRIES UNDER PROTESTANT RULE AND CATHOLIC RULE AND CIVIL- CIVILIZATION IZATION. Paupers. Criminals. Pa I pers. Crimitials, Australia, 8 58 Argentine Barbadoes, — I Republic — 2 Bermuda, I — Austria, . 95 173 British Colum- Azore Islands, 3 I bia, — 3 Bavaria, . 9 8 British Guiana, i Belgium, 31 26 Canada (Eng- Bohemia, 170 36 lish), . . 815 1. 48 1 Brazil, . 4 Cape of Goo d Canada Hope, — I (French), 109 99 Denmark, . 114 113 Central Amer- England, 1,956 1,914 ica, , I I Germany, 6,773 2,936 Canary Islands, I Gibraltar, — ChiH, . 31 8 Holland, 138 61 Corsica, I I Iceland, I — Cuba, 5 13 Ireland, 14,128 5.559 France, 410 278 Isle of Man, 6 4 Hayti, . 2 Isle of Malta 4 3 Hungary, 49 130 Emigration, 435 Paupers. Criminals. Paupers. Criminals Isle of St. He- Italy. . 145 562 lena, . i — Mexico, 42 604 Jamaica, . — 2 Moravia, I — New South Panama, — I Wales. . 2 2 Peru, . 3 3 New Zealand, — 6 Portugal, 27 9 Norway, . 369 208 Sicily, . — 3 Prussia. . i 21 South America, 19 II Sandwich Spain, . 14 26 Islands, . 2 2 Switzerland Saxony, . i — (half). . 154 77 Scotland, . 575 South Aus- 479 Totals, 1.321 2,077 tralia. . I — Sweden, . 646 348 Switzerland (half). . 154 n Wales, . 256 89 Totals, 25,953 13.369 For the same reason both the Irish paupers and criminals are properly placed in the table on the Protestant side, they having been born in a country under England's Protestant rule and civilization ; but I have placed the Canadian French paupers and crimi- nals on the Catholic side ; for although for some time past under English rule, their civilization is French and Catholic. I need not repeat here what has been already said about the pauperism of the Irish : but this may be said about the large number of criminals of Irish birth, that many as there are, they are not almost equal in number to the paupers, as is the case with the English crimi- nals from England, nor do they far exceed them, as the criminals from English Canada do. 436 Emigration, Again : of all immigrants to our shores the Irish have been the most needy, most socially depressed and exasperated by heartless treatment. It is just such a class of persons which furnishes the sort of prisoners found in our American jails. In great part, therefore, the Irish-born criminal product in the United States is justly traceable to the fault of their Protestant English rulers and their iniquitous oppressive system of govern- ment. Further on in this volume it will be shown that at home the Irish are not distinguished for excessive criminality ; but the fact must not be overlooked that emigration from one's native land is itself a most dangerous trial to one's virtue ; and the Irish, and more especially the extremely needy, socially depressed, and exasperated ones, like all others of the same class, are easily led into crime. I find some very just re- marks thereon under the head of ' ' Emigration as a Cause of Crime " in a well-known work : The Danger- ous Classes of New York and tweyity years' work among them, by Mr. Charles Eoring Brace, a gentleman who would not be likely to hold the Catholic religion or its priesthood excused from blame in this matter without eminently just reason. On page 34 he says : " There is no question that the breaking of the ties with one's country has a bad moral effect, especially on a laboring class. The emigrant is released from the social inspection and judgment to which he has been subjected at home, and the tie of Church and priesthood is weakened. If a Roman Catholic, he is often a worse Catholic, without being a better Protestant. If a Protest- ant, he often becomes indifferent. Moral ties are loosened with the religious. The intervening process which occurs here, be- tween his abandoning the old state of things and fitting himself to the new, is not favorable to morals or character. Emigration. 437 " The consequence is, that an immense proportion of our igno- rant and criminal class are foreign-born. Of the 49423 prisoners in our (New York) city prisons, in prison for one year before January, 1870, 32,225 were of foreign birth. ... Of the foreign-born, 21,887 were from Ireland ; and yet at home the Irish are one of the most law-abiding and virtuous of populations — the proportion of criminals being smaller than in England or Scot- land." I submit to the fair-minded reader, who shall have carefully examined the evidence just given, that, judged by this very practical test of the numbers and character of the emigrants from them, one cannot fail to be convinced of the great superiority of Catholic countries over Protestant ones in affording to people who live by their daily labor better means of leading a contented and useful life, enjoying the cherished asso- ciations of their native land and the cheering com- panionship of their fellow-countrymen ; and in dis- pensing to those who suffer from poverty holier, sweeter, and more comforting succor. To say nothing of the many superior advantages in the spiritual order which people of all classes find in countries where the very atmosphere is redolent with the delicious fragrance of Catholic faith and piety, one cannot but be deeply impressed with the fact that in such countries are found abodes of Christian peace, true homes for high-born and lowly, for rich and poor ; where no man need lack a lover and a friend. Catho- lic countries are not the lands where the sons of toil find cause to rise up and curse the spot of earth upon which they were born, as with angered yet aching hearts they fly from them to seek upon some more hos- pitable shore the little love and the little bread that na- ture demands but which man has denied. 438 Emigration, The words of the poet, Goldsmith, have already drawn for us on a former page the sad picture of how Protestantism desolated one of the fairest, loveliest, and most fruitful of countries that Heaven smiled upon, whose very name breathes the melody of gladness ; a land peopled with noble, valiant, justice-loving, and tender-hearted men and women ; and the same seer has not failed to mark the forced emigration of her sturdy yeomanry as one among not the least of the bitter con- sequences of fair England's fate following hard and fast upon the outburst of those selfish and unchristian so- cial principles which, past all gainsaying, owe their affirmation and development to Protestantism. Let us hear the poet's mournful strain as he beholds the sad procession of unhoused emigrants seeking the ship that is to bear them away into unmerited exile : " O luxury ! thou cursed by Heaven's decree, How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee ! E'en now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done ; E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale. Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand." Those lines from ' ' The Deserted Village ' ' are but the repetition of the same sad truth already told by the poet in his former descriptive poem : '* The Traveller." The spectacle of his country's loss through this forced self-exile of her people was evidently one which deeply affected him, I^isten : Emigration. 439 ' Have we not seen, 'round Britain's peopled shore, Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore ? Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, Like flaring tapers bright'ning as they waste ? Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain, Lead stern depopulation in her train. And over fields where scattered hamlets rose, In barren, solitary pomp repose ? Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call. The smiling, long-frequented village fall ? Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay 'd, The modest matron and the blushing maid. Forced from their homes, a melancholy train. To traverse climes beyond the western main; Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, And Niagara stuns with thundering sound ? " CHAPTER XXVII. WHO OWNS THE LAND ? FROM the land comes everything of which man has need for his hfe or his pleasure, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, with ownership in land comes not only the means of living, but a sense of human freedom, of personal independence. Who, after all, are the nobility, and what made them not only noble by name, but noble by nature ? They are those who own the land, whose very name is the proud title of honor and rank with which man adorns his person and transmits to his children as their most priceless inherit- ance. Who are the "landed gentry"? Not those w^ho labor on the land or rent it, but those who oivn it. By so much more as the land is distributed as to its ownership, falling naturally and rationally into the hands of a larger number of families, by just so much more is the number of people civilized, elevated in character, and rendered happy, increased. Where the ownership in land is concentrated in the hands of a few, thOvSe few become inordinately rich and powerful at the expense of the corresponding want, misery, and degradation of the many. Between Catholicism and Protestantism, which re- ligion has encouraged the more a general distribution of the land among the people ? In what countries do you find, therefore, the few glutted with wealth, and the many reduced to abject pauperism and brutalized in manners ? I will give the facts for countries which 440 W/io Owns the Land ? 441 have been long enough in existence to show the results of such a social condition, and thus give cogent evi- dence for or against the civilizing and huraan-ennobling moral influence of the prevailing religion of the people. I have already shown, both in this portion of my essay and under the head of Civilization, that the tendency of Protestantism is to exalt material prosperity and to inspire the desire of gaining riches; while, in marked contrast with this worldly spirit, the tendency of Catholicism has been to exalt the spiritual perfection of man as the suminum bojium to be acquired, to equal- ize as much as possible the different necessary classes of men, and to inspire contentment in, both rich and poor with what is simple and moderate. The following tables from Mulhall will offer an instructive contrast : Protestant countries. Great Britain \ and Ireland ( Total acres. 78,000,000 Number 0/ owners. 1 80,000 Average acres to oivners. ■ 390 Germany, 133,000,000 2,436,000 37 Sweden, . 101,000,000 1 94,000 300 Norway, . 77,000,000 75,000 200 Denmark, 9,000,000 71,000 115 Holland, 8,000,000 I 54,000 45 Catholic countries. Italy, Total acres. 7 1 ,000,000 Number of owners. 1,265,000 Average acres to owners. 36 France, . 1 3 1 ,000,000 3,226,000 32 Austria, . 153,000,000 6,150,000 20 Spain, 1 2 1 ,000,000 596,000 95 Portugal, 22,000,000 4 1 9,000 30 Belgium, 7,000,000 315,000 18 Does not that table tell a story worthy of being told again ? Ac7-es. Oivners 0/500 and more acres. 22,000,000 10,070 18,000,000 2,705 17,000,000 6,500 57,000,000 19.275 Owners of less than 500 acres. 21,000,000 295410 78,000,000 314,685 442 Who Oivns the Land? Mulhall afterwards gives detailed official reports in which Great Britain appears to have a better showing as to the number of oivners, viz., 314,685, but a worse showing in partition of the land : England, Scotland, Ireland, Total, Total, ' . . . Look at that, 57,000,000 of acres out of 78,000,000 owned by only 19,275 owners! But now compare Great Britain with even this larger number of owners, great and small, with Catholic Belgium, having only 7,000,000 of acres, less than one-eleventh of the great Protestant kingdom, and yet it has one thousand more owners. Compare it with Portugal, the object of so much Protestant pity and derision — Portugal with almost one-fourth less land, and yet has 105,000 more owners. That grave authority, the E^icyclopcBdia Britannica, in its article " Land," gives an exhibit of the partition of land in the United Kingdom in another form. The writer first takes occasion to show how this most un- equal distribution in England came about ; pointing out its true cause — the separation of the people into the two classes of the over rich and the very poor, and the desire of the rich to augment their estates. We have already learned what religious system fosters this un- I,200 16,200 6,200 3.150 50,770 380 ;6i,83o 70 W^o Owns the Land f 443 charitable and, therefore, unchristian desire. The re- sult of the rich thus buying up the little holdings of their poorer neighbors, ' * driving out men and driving in cattle," may be seen in the following summary which I tabulate from the figures given: 1880. Acres. Total acreage of the United Kingdom, . . . 77.635,301 Total cultivated land (including parks and pastures, but not mountain or . . . waste), 47,515,747 BY DOMESDAY BOOK OF 1 87 5. Average number Number of owners. of acres to each owner. One-quarter of total acreage, One-quarter of total acreage, One-quarter of total acreage. One-quarter of total acreage, " One-fifth of all the land in the kingdom is held by about 600 peers. " One- half of the whole territory is in the hands of only 7,400 individuals; the other half is divided among 312,500 individuals. " The total population of the United Kingdom (not including Channel Islands and Isle of Man) in 1881 was 35,100,000 ; so that barely one in a hundred owns more than an acre of soil." Evidently every rood of English ground does not now maintain its man. The same authority gives the following details for France : " In France there are now about 2,000,000 properties under 12 acres, and 1,000,000 between 12 and 25 acres, while there are only 150,000 above 100 acres. Of the whole population there are 1,750,000 who cultivate their own land with their own hands, and who are not tenants ; 850,000 who cultivate as tenants, and only 57,000 who cultivate by aid of a foreman or steward. Of farm laborers there are only 870,000." 171 444 Who Ozvns the Land f And the revival after the French Revolution of this system of wide distribution of land among the people, which was the ancient Catholic custom up to the middle of the 17th century, when the reign of wealth and lux- ury began under I^ouis XIV. and the people lost their hold upon the soil, was the one about which all the Pro- testant English and Scotch political economists made their great outcry. That was to be expected. The system was anti- Protestant. '^ La grajide nation,'' ^2\A the Edinburgh Review, "will certainly be the greatest pauper warren in Europe, and will, along with Ireland, have the honor of furnishing hewers of wood and drawers of water for all other countries in the world." Instead of France, the reader knows which country has become the greatest pauper warren in Europe, and has the honor, etc., etc. (See chapter v. p. 49.) The Statesman' s Year Book gives only 3,840,253 as owners in Austria-Hungary. Even if that estimate be correct as against Mulhall's figures, that countr> would still be a million and a half ahead of Protest- ant Germany, the only Protestant country making an apparently good show. Let us look at the following tables of the partition of land between the nobles and farmers as given by Mulhall for the three kingdoms of Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria. PROTESTANT PRUSSIA (GERMAN EMPIRE). Land held by The crown, The nobles, Farmers, . Cottiers, • Number of oivners. Acres. Average acres. — 1 1,200,000 — 22,470 21,200,000 950 1,503,000 44,800,000 30 1,087,000 3,100,000 3 Number of oivners. Acres. Average acres to owners. . 1,077,000 — 440 490,000 1,100 53.000 1 ,440,000 27 33,000 160,000 5 BAVARIA (GERMAN EMPIRE) Number of owners. Acres. Average acres to owners. . 3,430,000 — 1,100 400,000 370 . 1z(i,QOO 1 1 ,700,000 50 . 290,000 1,500,000 5 Who Owns the Land? 445 PROTESTANT SAXONY (GERMAN EMPIRE). Land held by The crown. The nobles. Farmers, . Cottiers, CATHOLIC Land held by The crown, The nobles, Farmers, Cottiers, The following- table of landowners is given by Mul- hall for the whole Empire of Austria-Hungary : AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. T ^ t 7v * Number of Land held by owners. Peasants, 4,673,000 Farmers, 1,259,000 Gentry, 162,000 Nobles, 56,500 Total 6,150,500 Another table specifies 25,180,000 acres as held by 1,507,000 peasant owners in Austria proper, at an average of 17 acres each. There are more peasant proprietors in the whole empire than in any other one of the countries named. Of Protestant Denmark Mulhall says: **In 1801 the kingdom belonged to 614 nobles, who possessed until 1788 the right to buy and sell the tenantry like cattle." Of Italy the compiler of the Statesman's Year Book has to say : "In Italy generally the land is much subdivided," 446 IV/io Owns the Land f Of Spain : " In Spain the soil is subdivided among a very large number of proprietors." Of Belgium : * "The tendency in Belgium is to a great subdivision of holdings." Mulhall vSays of Spain : "In 1877, out of the 596,000 land-owners there were only 3,900 whose rent-roll reached $2,000 a year." That would not be a favorable report in Protestant estimation ; but it fulfils the Catholic social ideal as given by a Spanish writer : •• The majority of citizens should be neither too rich nor too poor. Those who are too rich become often proud and insolent, and the poor vile and cunning. The greater the number of moder- ate fortunes, the greater will be the stability of states. A universal mediocrity in this respect is the most wholesome " {Compitum, Kenelm H. Digby, book iii. chapter iv. : " The Road of the Com- monalty to the Catholic Church," a most instructive and charm- ing essay on the relation of Catholicism to the Poor and Common People). The same writer (Digby) aptly remarks: " The singularity of the few, for which Catholicism has no predilection, will never be as natural an object of imitation to generous minds as an assimilation to the many whom it has the mission to beatify." It is impossible to avoid acknowledging and prais- ing that true Christian influence of the Catholic religion towards preventing the rich becoming too rich and the poor from falling into abject misery. Its aim has been W/w Oivns the Land? 447 to realize, so far as it is possible, a universal mediocrity. That happy state, happy for both the high-born and the lowly, must have long existed in Spain ; for an old writer, John della Casa, speaking of the propriety of one's conforming himself to the manners of the mass of people, makes this pertinent inquiry, revealing the general equal social condition in Catholic Spain : •• What boots it to proclaim one's self rich in a town where no one is esteemed for having more than others ? " Digby, quoting this, adds : " Catholicism produces the real, useful, and natural equality, preserving, as in the community of bees, different functions, or- der, and rule, and yet conformity of manners." Of the relation of Protestantism to the poor and to the common people generally, it is plain that its tend- ency is to separate communities into two widely di- vergent and hostile classes — the proud, insolent rich, and the slavish, suffering poor. The whole modern labor systems, the grinding, heartless monopolies and trusts, are all the products of Protestantism. All the statistical facts adduced in this volume go to prove that Protestantism is not a religion that practically recog- nizes the doctrine of the equality of man. Its spirit has been to flatter and exalt the rich and to despise the lowly. And so, of course, the poor have no love for it, and resist every attempt made to gain a few of them by sweet words and gifts. One might most justly say of Protestantism, con- sidered in its relation to the social order, as was said by Apemantus : "The middle of humanity it never knew, but the extremity of both ends." CHAPTER XXVIII. CRIME. KDUCATION AND CRIME. IN discussing the subject of crime, so far as to enable one to make a comparison between Protestant and Catholic nations, a ver}^ important fact should first be emphasized : that illiteracy is not a cause of crime, neither is it a condition likely to result in an increased proportion of crime, as has been asserted over and over again, for reasons of their own, chiefly by anti-Catholic writers and preachers of more voice than profundity of learning. The very contrary is the case ; the illiterates, whether of Protestant or Catholic countries, furnish a very small quota to the number of criminals of any description. Every census, every official document, every statistical work, the reports of all prisons and re- formatories, every serious treatise on social science, shows this to be true. The historian Alison, writing in 1852 — History of Europe (vol. i. chap, i.) — first clearly gives the rea- son, and adds : " Experience has now abundantly verified the melancholy truth so often enforced in Scripture, so constantly forgotten by mankind, that intellectual cultivation has no effect in arresting the sources of evil in the human heart ; that it alters the direction of crime, but does not alter its amount. This melancholy truth is sup- ported by a most widespread and unvarying mass of proofs. The utmost efforts have, for a quarter of a century, been made in vari- ous countries to extend the blessings of education to the laboring 44S Crij}iL\ * 449 classes ; but not only has no diminution in consequence been perceptible in the amount of crime and the turbulence of man- kind, but the effect has been just the reverse, they have both sig- nally and ala7'i7iingly increased.'' Then, for an example, lie cites Prussia and France, when the former was already so thoroughly schooled by law and two-thirds of the population of France were illiterate-: In [Protestant] Prussia, all crimes : i criminal in every 587 of the population. In [Catholic] France, all crimes : i criminal onl}- in every 7,285 of the population. As far back as 1847 we have this testimonj' of a competent observer in France : " The idea that the multiplication of crime proceeded from ig- norance of the population obtained such uncontradicted credit that we have long combated against facts before renouncing it. We have sought by all sorts of combinations to escape from the conclusion which results from a simple comparison of the statis- tical tables of crime in the departments, but in vain. We have been forced to recognize the truth, that crime is in no way deter- mined by the defect of instruction " (M. Allard, Journal gen. de r instruction ^ublique, 8 Maii, 1847). Passing over .scores of such testimonies I pick up the United States Census Bulletin of May 6, 1892. It makes this record : Total number of prisoners in the United States June I, 1890, 82,329 Charged with homicide, 7.386 " Of these homicidal criminals, those who can read and write, 61.73 P^'" cent. Those who can read only, 4.84 per cent. Totally illiterate, 33.43 per cent." From Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, p. 165 : 450 * Crime, Criminals in England and Wales : able to read, 68.6 per cent. Unable to read, 31.4 per cent. Also on p. 166 for Ireland: Criminals able to read 70 per cent. Unable to read, 30 per cent. Dr. Leffingwell, a specialist, in his work on illegiti- macy, proves from the English Registrar General's Re- port that for ten years (1879-88), in the County Mayo (Connaught), in Ireland, nearly all Catholic, and very illiterate and poverty-stricken, the total number of illegitimate children was 322. But in prosperous, edu- cated, Protestant Ulster the number was 3,084. The Registrar's Report for 1862 for Scotland sa}- s : " The counties which show the highest proportion of illegiti- macy — double that of England and Wales, and thrice that of Ireland — are the counties which are in the highest condition as to education." And again : " In Kirkcudbright, a southern county in Scotland, the illiteracy was only i per cent., a better showing than in any country in Eu- rope ; yet the rate of bastardy which annually prevails there is greater than in any one of the 89 departments of France except Paris. " In the department of Finisterre, in France, the most illiterate of all parts of that country, the ratio of illegitimacy was but 34 to 1,000 births, less than prevailed during the same period (1879-88) in any county of England, Wales, or Scotland " (Illegitimacy, by Albert Leffingwell, M.D.) But then, it is well to note that Finisterre, like Irish Connaught, where the percentage of illegitimacy is the lowest in the world, is almost Catholic to a man. Crime, 451 Let us take a look at the evidence furnished by a few prison reports : STATE PRISONS OF NEW YORK, 189O. Educated, Sing-Sing Prison. j Went to public schools, • 1 420 ^ y^^^^ tQ o^her schools. 1,403 17 Illiterate, . . 133 Total, . 1.553 Auburn Prison. Educated, . ^ \ Went to public schools, ^ '<^- 5 1 \Yej^t to other schools. 545 480 Illiterate, . . 126 Total, . 1,151 Clinton Prison. Educated, . ^ Went to public schools, • ' '^^\ Went to other schools, 637 74 Illiterate, • • 93 Total, . . 804 CALIFORNIA. Educated, . San Quentin Prison, 1890. V Went to public schools, ■ ^'^5- 1 Went to other schools, 945 107 Illiterate, . . 240 Total, . 1,392 PENNSYLVANIA. Philadelphia State Penitentiary, 1890-91-92. 1890, prisoners received, 527 : r ^ Went to public schools, ' 42^ Went to private schools, . . 65 Went to no school, Educated, Illiterate, Total, . 527 Went to both Roman Catholic and other schools, 12 Went only to Roman Catholic schools, . .13 To all other private schools, , . . '55 382 80 65 527 Total. 80 452 Crime, 1891, prisoners received, 446: Educated, . . .403 Illiterate, ... 43 Went to no school ^ Went to public schools, \ Went to private schools. Total, . . 446 Went to both Roman Catholic and other schools. 22 Went only to Roman Catholic schools, . . 12 To other private schools 30 339 64 43 446 Total, . 1892, prisoners received, 474 Educated, . . .418 Illiterate, ... 56 64 Went to public schools. Went to private schools. Went to no school. Total, . . 474 Went to Roman Catholic and other schools Went only to Roman Catholic schools To other private schools, . Total, .... Convicts 21 years of age and under, Went to public schools. Went to other schools, Went to Roman Catholic schools. 361 57 _56 474 Total, 87 19 14 24 57 62 18 7 87 Mr. Richard Vaux, President of the Board of Di- rectors of the Philadelphia Penitentiary, remarks in the course of one of the reports : " Crimes of education that require intellectual training to commit are assuming new phases and are increasing." Here is irrefragable testimony furnished by the Report of the same Pennsjdvania State Penitentiary for 1893. A table entitled "Education vs. Crime" summarizes the number of convicts received between 1 829-1 893 and their educational condition: Crime, 453 Total convicts received, 17.224 Convicted of crimes against property, .... 13,919 Of these, Illiterate, 2,230 Read only, 922 Read and write, 10,767 Convicted of crimes against the person, .... 3,305 Of these, Illiterate, 809 Read only 216 Read and write, 2,280 I call the reader's attention to the remarkably small number of the convicts reported above who received their education in Roman Catholic schools. Where now stand the assailants of our Catholic schools, Dexter Hawkins, the Hon. John Jay, the "Evangelical Alli- ance ' ' and the numerous Protestant preachers and para- graphers with their accusations that ' * Catholic paro- chial schools are productive of crime " ? It would be, doubtless, very instructive if similar detailed infor- mation could be obtained from other prisons in the country. Certainly crime is on the increase at an alarming rate. Nobody pretends to deny it. But it is not due, thank God ! to the increase of the number of parochial schools. If Protestants were only zealous for the' cause of true education, and would imitate us Catholics in conducting and supporting religious schools, most as- suredly they also could make a smaller showing of their Protestant criminals compared with those who got their education (?) in the state schools of " no religion." As the proof-sheets are passing through my hand my eye falls upon an editorial on the "Increase of Crime ' ' in the Chicago Interior, a leading Presby- terian newspaper. The writer says: 454 Crime. " In some of the addresses delivered at the recent convention of prison authorities, it was stated that the number of criminals was perceptibly on the increase. Statistics were given which supported the contention, and though the exact ratio may not be strictly ascertainable, there can be no reasonable doubt as to the growth of crime all over the land. This is a condition of things that no Christian patriot can view with complacency." Most certainly Catholic Christian patriots cannot view such a condition either with complacency or in- difference, and have proved that they will not. But it seems, as evidence given in a former chapter shows, that Protestants, calling themselves Christians and set- ting themselves up as the model and only true patriots, have been willing to view this alarming condition, if not with complacency, at least with a stolid determina- tion to avoid looking at one of its most prolific causes, the purely secular instruction of youth in schools and colleges; schools of "scepticism, of materialism, and atheism," whose graduates with "disgusting effrontery and conceit scoff at God, immortality, and conscience," in which halls of learning, as Dr. King, Secretary of the National League P. A. I. brings us Dr. Schaff as authority for saying, " are brought up heartless and. • infidel generations of intellectual animals who prove-a curse rather than a blessing" to. society- ; and..a -good deal more from Dr. King himself and others to the same effect. (See chapter on " Christian and Patriotic Edu- cation in the United States.") Our Presbyterian editor of the Interior finds himself forced to ask this pertinent question : " Are our systems of education doing all they might for the moral training of the young ? " He goes on to say, of course, as a good aiiti* Crime, 455 Catholic, that we must '* preserve the public school from sectarian [religious?] control and interference,'* and yet swallows his own words in this fashion : " The education that neglects the moral nature of the pupil does him and society as well a great injustice. The expert criminals of to-day are not the brutalized denizens of the slums; they are fairly well educated, and some of them are experts in caligraphy, as the numerous instances of forgery only too plainly attest. The education that leaves the moral sense dormant is too often only a dangerous power. Present day tendencies [the result of Protestant social principles] have been so strongly in the direction of magnifying material success that moral culture has been too much obscured" {The Interior, July 5, 1894). I am happ3^ to be able to aid in diffusing this sound doctrine, and it is additional encouraging evidence to what Rev. Mr. Williams gave us in his pamphlet that the Presbyterians are beginning to wake up to the fatal consequences of this irreligious system of popular schooling. The same tale is told in every reliable book and official document. It is indeed a melancholy truth, as Alison says, but it is an undeniable one, that crime increases with the increase of popular education, not only in the number of crimes, but in the heinousness of their character ; deliberate, cold-blooded murder for gain or lust, child murder, murder by abortion, hinder- ing conception of children, suicide, burglary, forgery, robbery by bank defalcations, cheating in trade, politi- cal "jobs," counterfeiting, unnamable, unnatural im- morality, illegitimacy, divorce, concubinage with edu- cated mistresses, oppression of the poor and of the laboring classes, and the increase of the terrible human misfortune, insanity. 45^ ' Crime. Confronted with such testimony the historian Alison was led to say : " These facts, to all persons capable of yielding assent to evidence in opposition to prejudice, completely settle the ques- tion ; but the conclusion to which they lead is so adverse to general opinion, that probably more than one generation must descend to their graves before they are generally admitted " {History of Europe, vol. i. chap. i. 39). What conclusion are we to draw from these facts? Is popular education, then, an evil in itself? By^ no means. One conclusion is that already^ well proved, I think, in the course of this essays, viz. : that mere illit- eracy is not a condition so dangerous to the peace and general good order of society as it is often asserted to be. Arid the next conclu.sion is, that there has been some fault in the kind of education given : and I think a child should be able to see where the trouble comes in. All this increase of qx'ww^, pari- passu with modern popular education, is due to the fact that the head only^ has been schooled, and the heart left uneducated and undisciplined. And this popular system, so lauded by Protestants and Secularists, of schooling the head alone, has ignor-ed the most -important element also *6f -pure mental culture, ftot-to "b"e had except through religion, and' that is the knowledge of the true princi- ples of right, of liberty, of justice, and of charity. Modern so-called education limits itself almost wholly to the overcrowding of the mind with hard, bare, un- fruitful scientific facts and theories. The mind is not enlightened by- facts alone, but also and much more by^ principles, and of what use are even both princi- ples and facts unless the heart is disciplined to make good use of them ? Crime. 457 It is plain, therefore, why crime has so notabh^ increased with the spread of popular schooling. Reli- gion has been ruled out as something that is not neces- sary to the requisite education of a citizen. In this all the modern Protestant and Secular states have agreed, and the proof of their folly is given by the alarming ijicrease of crime, and especially the increase of those anti-social crimes which attack the very exist- ence of all law and order. "Popular education must be non-sectarian ' ' cries the modern Protestant by the voice of all his newspapers, preachers, and anti-Cath- olic leagues and alliances. And the Secularist and Infidel echo his cry. And what is the answer from those who get this non-sectarian education ? The ex- plosion of dynamite bombs, intended to kill the law- makers and the rulers of the state. I have said this before ; but there are some people who will not wake at the first alarm of ' ' Kire ! " Says Dr. Lyman Abbott : "Teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic is not enough. Development of intelligence without a concurrent development of the moral nature does not suffice. As has often been pointed Out, intelligent wickedness is more dangerous than wickedness that is unintelligent; the devil knows" enough ; sending him to public school will not make a better devil of him; knowing how to make dynamite without also knowing what are the rights of property and the rights of life do not make the pupil a safer member of society; skill in speech unaccompanied with con- science gives only that product of modern civilization — an edu- cated demagogue" {Ckrzstiu7t Union, November 22, 1888). The reader has already had plenty of evidence to show that Dr. Abbott is not alone in his sentiments. All of the wisest and best of Protestant moralists agree 458 Crime. with Catholics in asserting that education without reli- gion is not only likely to prove a danger to the state and to society, but a curse instead of a blessing to the scholar. What it behooves all such to consider is the fact that the alarming and rapid increase of crime did not begin to manifest itself until state governments seized upon the work of popular educatimi both in Catholic and Protestant countries, and conducted them on what is now called non-sectarian principles and methods, a polite term for what is really and practi- cally atheistic, or at best un-Christian. The state has evidently made a false judgment and a disastrous mis- take in thus declaring that the stability and prosperity of the political and social order do not need the aid of religion. But who are responsible for this false judg- ment and disastrous mistake of the state ? Protestants, anti-Catholics, and Secularists. I^et them look to the fatal consequences of their error. And now, at the outset of our examination of the records of crime among Catholic and Protestant nations, I beg the reader to keep the question well before his mind as he is confronted with the evidence for or against both — seeing this evident increase of crime, which surely all deplore. Is the proportion of that increase shown to be as great in those Catholic coun- tries where the religious S3^stem of education has been maintained through the influence of Catholicism, as in Protestant countries where the secular S3^stem has been either introduced or submitted to by the prevailing Protestantism? His conclusion will enable him to form a just judgment on the most vital of all questions now demanding solution in the interests of modern society. CHAPTER XXIX. THE AIvIvEGED CRIMINALITY OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. BEFORE taking up in detail the consideration of the graver crimes of which we have knowledge from official and other reliable sources, I am led to devote a few words to the examination of the common charge made by English-speaking Protestants that the Irish— Irish Catholics, of course, are a notably criminal people. Everybody knows that Protestant Englishmen have been accustomed to look upon the Irish as great crim- inals because they have proved themselves to be such an indomitable, liberty-loving race, and have refused to tamely submit to be oppressed to suit the profit and convenience of their English masters. The great and enlightened late Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, has labored hard, and with no little success, to convince his brother-countrymen that Irishmen are by no means so lacking in social and national virtue that self-government with them would mean self-de- struction. Count out the agrarian crime to which they have been provoked beyond all human endurance, and where are the statistics of crime in Ireland to show that its Catholic inhabitants are deserving of being called a criminal people? I shall give some evidence thereon in due course. But the American Protestant thinks he has good reason to regard them as worthy of this reproach be- 459 460 TJie Alleged CrtJninality of the Irish People. cause the Irish have for some 3^ears back furnished an undue proportion of convicts (not all Catholics) to our prisons. The fact deserves examination as to its causes. In the chapter on Emigration I have briefly drawn the reader's attention to the fact that emigration itself is in no small measure the occasional cause of crim- inal incitement and associations. All great cities fur- nish, of course, a larger proportion of criminals than rural districts. Great seaports, like New York City, being depots receiving vast numbers of immigrants, fur- nish a still greater proportion. With many poor but honest and religious immigrants, whether from Ireland or other countries, come all sorts of vicious characters. One natural result, therefore, is that the criminal class of our own and other such cities \\\\\ be recruited largely from this foreign, needy element, W\ro\Ni\ pele-mele upon our shores. Considering the condition of starvation and social persecution from wdiich the hundreds of thou- sands of Irish immigrants fled, and the temptations to which they are infallibly exposed, the wonder is not that statistics show the greater number of our criminals in proportion to others of their class to have. been. Irish, but rather that there have not been more. Since, the .tide of, immigration has set in from other countries we begin to see other nations furnishing a steadily increas- ing number to the criminal record. If so many Irish, German, and Italian immigrants had not had the re- straining and helping moral influence of the Catholic religion it is needless to say how much worse a story would be told. But it has given the Irish a bad name with unreflecting people, and has furnished a weapon for Protestants to strike with, both at their race and at The Alleged Criviinality of the Irish People. 461 their religion. Let them be judged by vSome figures given for their own land. It is due to them. The EneyelopcEdia Bjitaniiica, ninth edition, in its article *' Ireland " (table No. Ivi.), shows the number of ''more seidous offeiiees'' in Ireland as compared with equivalent numbers of the population for Great Britain in the 3xar 1878 : Ireland. England. Scotland. 3.842 4.797 6,487 The Cheltenham (English) Examiner, May 16, 1886, says : " Death sentences are eight times greater in England than in Ireland to equal numbers of population. London, equal in popu- lation to that of all Ireland, has double the number of indictable offences. Rural crime is also shown to be greater in England than in Ireland: Aggravated assaults on women and children for the same population — England, 597; Ireland, 337." "The proportion of crime," says the writer (a Presbyterian), "is not only greater in Britain than in Ireland, but it is also of a more brutal character"; and he adds, what Mulhall also observes : " Agrarian crime, for which there is a pretext that is wanting this side of the Channel, is included in the list given for crimes in Ireland." Mr. Trench, agent to Lord Lansdowne, bears this testimony : " There are ten times as many murders in England as there are in Ireland. . . . The English ruffian murders for money; . . . the Irishman murders patriotically — to assert and enforce a principle. The Irish convict is not necessarily corrupt — he may be reclaimed. The English convict is irreclaimable'" {Journals, etc., 1868, vol. ii. pp. 130, 221, 222). 462 The Alleged Criminality of the Irish People. Mr. James Anthony Froude, in his fifth lecture de- livered in New York, in 1872, said: " He did not question the enormous power for good which had been exercised in Ireland by the modern Catholic priests. Ire- land was one of the poorest countries in Europe, yet there was less theft, less cheating, less house-breaking, less robbery of all kinds than in any coimtry of the same size in the civilized world. In the wild district where he lived, they slept with unlocked doors and open windows, with as much security as if they had been . . . with the saints in Paradise, for any danger to which they were exposed. ... In the last hundred years, at least, im- purity had been almost unknown in Ireland. This absence of vulgar crime and this exceptional delicacy and modesty of char- acter were due, to their everlasting honor, to the influence of the Catholic clergy" {Times, November 16, 1872). I am not called upon to defend the Irish people as a race. They are their own best defence. The now nearly forty years of my priestly life and work having been almost wholly devoted to Irish Catholics and their children in America, I may justly claim to know what are the special faults, vices, if you will, of their nation- al character (what nation has not its own ? and how singularly blind every one is to them !), but I claim as well to know their virtues ; and this I say : their vices lack as much of the malice of deliberation as their virtues possess the unfaltering courage and self-sacrifice of heroism ; and it is known of all men, in the language of the Psalmist, that "their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." Many years ago I heard this beautiful and appropriate figure applied to them by an orator whose name I have forgotten: /j " The Irish people, shut up within the limits of a narrow island. The Alleged Criminality of the Irish People. 463 were like to a most precious balm enshrined in a small but beauteous jewelled casket, which the covetous ravager seized, but could not unlock, though his giant heart was of oak and his hands of steel. In his disappointed rage he raised it on high until it be- came a spectacle to all nations. Then casting it to the earth, he crushed it with his heel of iron ; when lo ! he did but give escape to the sweet-smelling and strengthening balm, whose delicious fragrance and invigorating essence were caught up and carried by the angels of Purity, Justice, and Liberty to the uttermost bounds of the earth." Let an}^ other nation in the world show such an astonishing array of successftil business men, farmers, bankers, judges, lawyers, physicians, merchants, promi- nent and honored representatives in our halls of Con- gress and State legislatures, and in other high official positions in the National and State governments ; emi- nent and learned prelates and priests in the Church ; professors in every class of educational work ; authors and poets of note ; such a host of honest and pure men and women among the laboring and ser\^ant classes, as Ireland can show in this country (not to speak of its own land) , of those who are its sons and daughters, either born of poor parents at home, or tracing their ancestry no further back than to grandparents who came here as poor steerage passengers in an emigrant ship ; almost all of them children of the Catholic Church. What other nation can show the like ? If statistics give a large number of Irish criminals and paupers, the sociologist will tell you why it is, and why it is quite reasonable it should be so, despite their nationality or their religion. These Irish criminals and paupers in this country are the dregs of an enforced emigration of a population degraded by oppression, 464 The Alleged Criminality of the Irish People. reduced to torturing poverty, and stimulated to violent reprisals against their oppressors, flying from one form of grasping landlordism to another in this country which drives the lower classes of them into a com- pulsory order of social life and environments which cannot but breed crime, fostered and increased by a base, conscienceless class, composed of their own fel- low-Irishmen and others, who def}^ the most solemn en- treaties and denunciations of their religious superiors, and the laws of the state ; and who, carried away by the popular passion for amassing riches, open their convict and pauper-making drinking saloons, and there devour the substance of their hard-working, free- hearted, and too free-handed fellow-countrymen. The Catholic Church has no more unworthy representatives on the face of the earth of her true moral influence than these drinking saloon breeders of crime and poverty. Speaking of the benefit which foreign immigrants have been to our country. Prof. Edmund J. Wolf in his address on the subject of " Our debt and duty to the Immigrants ' ' before the General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance in Boston, in 1889, pays the fol- lowing tribute to them, and which certainly is specially applicable to our citizens of Irish birth : " They [the immigrants] come not to ravage the country, but to make it blossom as the rose ; not to pillage our cities, but to enlarge and enrich them '; not to overturn the republic, but on every battle-field consecrated to its defence mingling their blood with the blood of the native, and counting it worthy of every sacrifice to secure its blessings for themselves and their chil- dren." ... " In every station and callins: we are constrained to accord the The Alleged Criminality of the Irish People. 465 immigrant a prominence that entitles him to honorable consider- ation. We cannot take a look into our agricultural, industrial, en- gineering, mercantile, financial, journalistic, educational, artistical, scientific, and professional spheres without recognizing an array of eminent names of foreign birth. " Certainly, in the strictly material realm, in the impetus they have given to our industries, the boundless domain they have brought under cultivation, the immense cities which through their impulse have risen as by magic, the measureless increase they have given to our productive power, and the untold millions they have added to our national wealth, they have placed us under obligations that beggar calculation. And it has yet to be demon- strated that they have perceptibly deteriorated the character of that prosperity to which they have contributed so much." . . . " It is the intensity and incorruptibility of their religious con- victions that has landed thousands of these aliens on our shores. It is to escape from the stifling oppression of state churches, and the soul-poisoning fellowship with rationalism, that they have cast their lot in this republic, where their faith, unfettered and uncorrupted, may have the freest and fullest exercise." This language, so free from any taint of narrow- minded bigotry, coming from a Protestant, and spoken before an audience furnished him by the Evangelical Alliance, is singularly refreshing. CHAPTER XXX. DRUNKENNESS. AS I was led to make special allusion in the last chapter to the vice of drunkenness, I may just as well deliver m3^self at once of what I have to say on that subject. The intemperate love for strong drink would appear to be, in a great degree, a national vice, difficult for religion, Protestant or Catholic, to suppress. The Italians, Spaniards, and French are remarkable for their temperate use of intoxicating drink. Says a Prot- estant writer (Mr. Scott) of the Spanish people : " The Spaniard looks upon a drunkard with the most undis- guised horror and contempt. There are few mortals more ab^ stemious and less given to excesses of any kind than the people of the peninsula" (Through Spain, 1886). The London Daily News correspondent, writing from Spain at the time of the war between the Carlists and the Republicans, September i, 1873, among other praises lavished upon the Legitimist volunteers bears this testimony to their sobriety : " A more cheerful or better behaved set of men I have never seen, and, marvel of marvels, 7iot a single instance of anythijig like drunkenness can I recall, notwithstanding that the victory of Dicastillo and the fall of Estella were double events which might well have led any member of Tattersall's to bet on the con- trary." (The italics are the writer's own.) And 3^et what more intensely Catholic. people than the Spanish ? Compare with them what the Qiiar- 466 Drunkenness. 467 terly Review (October, 1875) says about the English people : " It is calculated that upwards of 60,000 die annually in this country from the effects of drink. There are no less than 600,000 habitual drunkards in England and Scotland, who riot and waste with comparative impunity in the presence of terrified children and despairing partners, and too often end in suicide or homi- cide" (pp. 415-418). The Saturday Review (April 20, 1861) says that "if Scotland is the most Sabbatarian and Calvinistic coun- try iipon earth, its town populations are at least the most drunken of drunkards." (See also official au- thorities quoted in the Quarterly Review, April, 1861, pp. 432-463.) Mr. C. Edwards Lester, in his work, The Glory and Shame of England, has this to say : " Summing up the returns of assurance societies and of the Registrar General conjointly, one out of nineteen of the adult male population of Engla7id, between the ages of thirty and sixty, dies of drinking. What was the carnage of the Crimea compared with this perpetual slaughter ! The amount of ruin wrought by drinking among the educated classes is infinitely greater than the pro-rata of their numbers" (vol. ii. ed. of 1876, p. 411). Concerning the moral condition of I^ondon a writer in the New York Sun, November 13, 1892, gives us some startling facts both of drunkenness and prostitu- tion in that city. His testimony en the latter head will be found in another chapter. Here are some extracts from his communication : " The degradation of woman is more common in London than in any great city of the world. . . . Nowhere save in London is drunkenness as common among women as among men ; no- where else is the social evil so obtrusive and so unrepressed ; no- 468 Drunkenness. where else are the influences of home on so low a moral plane ; nowhere else is the marriage relation so unequal a partnership ; nowhere else is poverty so poor and vice so vicious. ... " Since yesterday — within a fortnight, to be exact — London has awakened to the facts that all her public bars are thronged with women ; that there are more drunken women in her streets than drunken men ; that a very large majority of the prisoners com- plained of in her principal police courts for being ' drunk and dis- orderly ' are women. This has been the state of things for some time, but the evil has been growing rapidly worse, and it was not until the Daily Telegraph began a series of graphic portrayals of the great disgrace, under the caption " The National Shame," that the callous public conscience was aroused. . . . " Nearly all are agreed, however, that this is a comparatively new stain upon the national character. Twenty or twenty-five years ago intemperance among the women of England was as rare as it is among the women of America to-day. ... In America it would be safe to assume, nine times out of ten, that a woman seen drinking at a public saloon bar was a drunkard, and that she was not a stranger to the police court. The practice is unknown even among the lowest resorts. On the other hand, almost every public bar in London has a very large portion of its length partitioned off for the special use of female customers. . . . This does not mean that there is any real privacy or even separation of the sexes. Good order generally prevails. Women who drink at public bars almost always buy spirits. Gin is the ultimate tipple, in almost every case : and gin is to-day a greater curse to Englishwomen than whiskey is to all America. . . . Statistics of vice are entirely untrustworthy data upon which to base an estimate of the moral standing of a community or nation. The town which enforces in the courts the laws against drunken- ness and unchastity, for instance, appears on the records to be steeped in vice ; while its profligate neighbor, which scarcely re- presses indulgence in vicious appetites, figures as the abode of virtue. " The number of womeii arrested in London last year for being drunk and disorderly was 8,373 — several hundred more than in any previous year, to be sure, but not an appalling number in a Drunkenness, 469 population of 5,000,000. The people who are raising the cry against intemperance among women are making the mistake of giving these figures significance and congratulating London on being, after all, more moral than Glasgow, where, with only a fraction of the population of the metropolis, the commitments of women to prison last year numbered 10,500. The explanation is that women who get drunk publicly in Glasgow are usually arrested. If the same policy were followed in London, all the jails and police stations of the metropolis could not hold the prisoners. No one is ever arrested in London for simple intoxi- cation. The law as it stands does not permit it. The police have not even authority to arrest a drunken person in a place of public amusement. It is the very obviousness of the evil which has, at last, forced it on public attention. A woman drunk or under the influence of liquor is a rare sight in the streets of New York. In the streets of London the black-bonneted, black- gowned, shabby, listless figure, with pale, prematurely old, slight- ly bloated face, bearing traces still of refinement, with bony white hands holding the black shawl tightly about her, standing patient- ly and pennilessly outside the public house, is a sight more fa- miliar than the policeman on the corner. She does not beg. That would be a crime and would bring swift punishment, as does every offence under the English law which, in the least, threatens an Englishman's purse. She waits, no matter how long, until another of her class, more fortunate than she, comes with a few coins to purchase and share the ' drop,' which alone brings them a poor counterfeit of happiness. . . . " Lady Frederick Cavendish in a recent address before the annual Church Congress said : ' In the old heavy-drinking days excess among the ladies was, to the best of my belief, absolutely unknown. Can we say as much to-day ? Is the word ' pick-me- up ' known only among men? Are nips, at 11 A.M. or after dinner unheard of, or B's and S's never resorted to by ladies? . . . And I must here protest against a new fashion of young ladies — or old ones, as for the matter of that — accompanying gentlemen to the smoking-room after dinner, and sharing not only the cigars but the spirits and water " ( Vice in Modern London, H. R. C.) 470 Drunkenness. The following table from Mulhall will present a very- instructive comparative view (article ' ' Disease " ) : DEATHS FROM DRUNKENNESS PER 10,000 DEATHS. CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND CITIES. All Italy, . City of Genoa, " " Turin, . " " Dublin, " " Vienna, " " Brussels D PROTESTANT COUNTRIES AND CITIES. I All England, 21 5 City of London, . 12 5 " Edinburgh, . 10 10 " " Amsterdam . 5 20 " " Berlin, . 13 40 " " Bale, . 20 " " Breslau, 20 " Berne, . 35 " " Copenhagen, . 70 Duchy of Oldenburg, . 87 City of Kiel, 90 " " Stockholm, 90 " " New York, 75 As the reader is probably led to suppose, there is no report of deaths from drunkenness for either Spain or Portugal. When Protestant nations showing a prevalence of this vice beyond anything that Ireland or any other Catholic nation exhibits will point out to us a Prot- estant apostle of temperance who can stand side by side with the world-renowned and world-honored Father Theobald Mathew, or can show among their bishops or ministers equally efficient control over large multitudes exposed to temptation in this regard, with that exerted by the Catholic episcopate, priesthood, and their church temperance societies, then we will begin to believe that Protestantism has equal moral influence with Catholicism in ameliorating this shameful, uti- Christian, and socially degrading vice. v*^" V CHAPTER XXXI. GRAVE CRIMES IN GENERAL. MULHALL in his Didionayy of Statistics introduces his article on "Crime" with tables of average convictions in several countries, copied from Prof. Bodio's international records of crime. The averages are given for eight years, 1876-84. Why these statis- ticians have chosen to make averages of the grave criminal offences noted for seven Catholic and only three Protestant countries is not explained. I will copy these tables, adding the populations of each as given for 1 88 1, and then present the comparative results. NUMBER OF CRIMI NALS C( 3NDEMN ED, A NNUAL AVERAGES Catholic con jttries. Murder. Wounding. Robbery. Various. Total. Italy, . 2,720 44.220 47-220 1,160 95.320 France, 582 23,910 41,830 3,880 70,202 Austria, 540 51,160 15.054 2,060 68,814 Spain, . 1,265 7,180 9.920 172 18,537 Hungary, 1,180 5,265 10,270 1,210 17.925 Belgium, 80 9,710 6,110 764 16,664 Ireland, 54 324 3.410 44 3.832 Totals, 6,421 141,769 123,814 9.290 291,294 Protestant countries. Murder. Wounding. Robbery. Various. Total. Germany, . 505 57.420 102,260 6,364 166,549 England, . 148 696 43,100 432 44.376 Scotland, ' 19 434 10,020 53 10,526 Totals, . 672 58.550 155.480 6,849 221,451 The reader who examines Mulhall will find that 471 472 Grave Crimes ifi general. Prof. Bodio omits the number of robberies which Austria should have. These are given in another table, viz., 15,054. In order to make the table per- fectly correct I have inserted that number. This makes the average of criminals, per million, for Austria rise from 2,435 to 3,107, and causes the general average of criminals per million for all Catho- lic countries to rise from 1,929 to 2,029. There is another correction which strictly should be made for Hungary. Prof. Bodio gives its robberies at 10,270. The official table gives only 4,905. But I let that pass. Prof. Bodio has also charged Hungary with 1,180 annual murders. This is also an evident and probably typographical error, for the official tables rate Hungary with only 190 murders. I let that pass also. I limit my corrections to those which would favor Protestants ; I want to avoid lessening the best show that can be made for the Protestant side. So long as some of the figures are there, even discrediting to Catholics, let them stand. In the next table Prof. Bodio gives the following table of criminals" condemned 3'early per viillioii inhabi- tants, 1876-84 : Catholic countries. Protestant countries. Italy, . . . . 3,338 Germany, . . . 3,677 France, .... 1,862 England, . . .1,715 Austria (corrected), . 3,107 Scotland, . . . 2,815 Spain, . . . .1,117 Hungary, . . . 1,019 Total, . . . 8,207 Belgium, . . . 3,020 Ireland, .... 744 General average for each country, . 2,735 Total, . . . 14,207 General average for each country, . 2,029 Grave Crimes in general. 473 The populations of these countries upon which Prof. Bodio has based his ratios are not given. But that the reader may judge of the relative proportion I give the sum of the populations for each set as reported for 1881: Population. The seven Catholic countries, , . . 131,498,000 The three Protestant countries, . . . 75,077,000 Therefore we have this comparative summary : Total ajinual General average Population. average of of critnitials criminals. per country. Seven CathoHc ) 131,498,000 291,294 41,613 countries, \ j -^y . ^ ^ Three Protestant ) 75,077,000 221,451 73,813 countries, \ n> 11^ '^:> /j> j That is a showing, " taken by and large," of which Catholics need not be ashamed. For, as we see, if the ratio of criminality were made the same for both, then if 75,000,000 Protestants produce 221,000 criminals, 131,000,000 Catholics ought to produce 386,000; but they show only 291,000. I do not forget that Germany is one-third Catholic, but I am not prepared to charge that share of its crime against its Catholic popula- tion. Details of other crimes and immoralities will justify my objection to make that admission. Besides this comparing only three Protestant countries with seven Catholic ones is giving to the Protestant ones an altogether overstrained advantage. Some particulars will, however, throw more light on the subject. Now Mulhall remarks that Prof. Bodio overstates the ratios for England, Scotland, and Ireland, and 474 Grave Crimes in general. refers to the next page for correction. About the same date, 1880-89, there is an annual average given thus : England. Scotland. Ireland. Convictions, . . 10,800 1,910 1,760 On which I remark that even if these figures replace those of Prof. Bodio the ratio for the Protestant coun- tries would still be higher than for the Catholic ones. But these lower figures evidently do not include all the crimes noted in Prof. Bodio's tables. The proof is that immediately afterwards Mulhall gives official tables of these ver}^ crimes for the years 1880 and 1887. As the crimes for 1887 are afterwards specified I give them, that the reader may certify the justice of my remark. CRIMES AND OFFENCES PUNISHED BY DEATH, PENAL SERVI- TUDE, AND IMPRISONMENT IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND IN 1 887 (page 164). England, 163,359 Scotland, 73,650 Ireland, 34,978 Crimes specified on pages i6j, 166. ENGLAND. Murder, 163 Shooting or stabbing, 970 Burglary, 3850 Attacks on women, 878 Robbery, 47.223 Assault, 75,873 Sundry, 34.4oo Total, 163,359 SCOTLAND. Murder 23 Burglary, 948 Robbery, .. 11,119 Assault, etc., 61,560 Total, 73,650 Grave Crimes in general. 47S IRELAND. Murder, . Shooting, etc Burglary, Assault, etc., Offences, Total. 51 171 135 856 33.165 34,978 Having given these ofEcial statistics for England, Scotland, and Ireland, I am led to present a com- parative table of Protestant and Catholic countries of equal populations, and see whether they stand equal in crimes reported from them. I copy still from Mulhall : COMBINED POPULATION FOR England and Germany, .... 71,343,000 Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Ireland, . 71,042,000 CRIMES OF MURDER AND ROBBERY REPORTED FOR 1 886. Murder. Robbery. England, 163 47,223 Germany 298 88,816 Totals, 461 Italy, ...... .2,720 Austria, 274 Hungary, . . . . . . 190 Ireland, 51 Totals, 3,235 136,039 47,220 15,054 4,905 3,410" 70,589 Here is the first and only excess yet shown, or that I can find standing against Catholic countries for any crime — the one of murder. On this I have to say — First. — That the average of 1,180 murders found in Prof. Bodio's table against Hungary is plainly a cleri- * From Bodio. 4^6 Grave Crimes in general, cal error. Hungarians are not among the murderers by the thousand. The only nations who do murder by the thousand are Italy, Spain, and the United States. Second. — As regards murder, some countries include infanticide, and, as Mulhall says for Ital}^ "all cases of criminal homicide," and some do not. This will ac- count in a great measure for the much larger number of " murders " -charged in statistical tables against Italy, Spain, and other Catholic countries, and equally so for the comparatively smaller number in some Protestant countries, where killing an infant is not accounted ' ' murder, ' ' and even where it is so accounted by law^ is winked at, and almost wholly escapes either registration or punishment. Not so in Catholic coun- tries. The figures in statistics point to the unwelcome fact that the United States makes a bad showing for the crime of murder, at present. The Chicago Tribune has been making a specialty of its reports on this matter, and that paper reported 6,791 murders and homicides for the year 1892. Mulhall quotes from the same au- thority figures for the six years 1884-89, giving the total of 14,770 murders, or 2,461 yearly. And it has been getting worse rapidly. The superintendent of the last Census (1890), in a Bulletin on Homicide published in 1892, says : "Of 82,329 prisoners in the United States, June i, 1890, the number charged with homicide was 7,386." And further on adds; "In the tenth Census (^1880) there were reported 4,608 prisoners charged with homicide." As to murders in Ireland I find a singular piece of information in Mulhall. After giving statistics of Grave Crimes in general. 477 • 'deaths by violence ' ' lie makes this remark : ' ' Under the item of * Murder ' are included deaths from aggra- vated assault, which in some countries are put down as ' deaths from fracture,' also deaths resulting from riot." It is a great pity he did not mention the names of all those other countries who thus get credit for few mur- ders. I find only one, and that is Scotland, whose murders for 1886 were reported as only 19, but there are 822 " fractures." I was wondering how vScotland managed to have so small a murder report. I suppose every man who dies from a cracked crown at Donny- brook Fair, in Ireland, is reported as "murdered." Third. — As to forming a judgment on the compara- tive morality of nations founded upon the character of the prevailing crimes, and their excess over the same in other nations, all writers are agreed in saying that a low standard of morality is indicated more by the preva- lence of C7'imes of deliberation, requiring skill and calcu- lation in cold blood, than by those resulting chiefly from sudden impulse and violent J)rovocatio7t. Crimes of deliberation are Burglary, Robbery, Forgery, Fraud, Perjury, Embezzlement, Assaults on women and children, Infanticide, FcEticide, and Sui- cide. These are the notable crimes, in the commission of which Protestant nations greatly exceed Catholic ones. Crimes of sudden impulse and violent provocation are such as Murders and Stabbing. These crimes dis- tinguish for their excess Italy and Spain. Wherever crimes against property are increasing the general morality is certainly going down. The Churek and the World, an Anglican publication (1867, page 388), gives the following summarj^ regarding offences 4/8 Grave Cruncs in generaL against property taken from the Statistical Society's Journal iox 1864-65: England and Wales, i criminal in 190 of the population. Saxony and Sweden, " about the same." Scotland, " something worse than England." Ireland, " 29 per cent, less than England." Spain, I criminal in 10,000 of the population. Belgium, i criminal in 1,700 of the population. Returns from the chief cities of England given by this same authority show : "That in Birmingham in 1864 there were 1,576 robberies, and 178 persons convicted of using false weights and measures, being I in every 169 of the population, or i in every 85 adults. In Man- chester there were 7,242 of these criminals (more than in all Spain or Russia), i in every 46 of the population, or i in every 23 of the adults. In Liverpool there were 5,933, being about i in 70 of the population, or i in 35 of the adults. The list might be indefinitely extended. In the Metropolis the state of things is but a shade better ; and the startling fact that in the past year above 800 tradesmen of South London have been detected and punished for using the ' false balance' and 127 in Islington — a sample, as every one knows (besides adulteration of food) of what is going on in every town in the kingdom — has revealed a fearful state of moral turpitude among that class. The latest returns would seem to show that at least i in 190 of the existing popula- tion of England and Wales are guilty of detected acts of flagrant dishonesty of various kinds, the same proportion nearly as in Saxony and in Sweden." The writer, a Protestant, goes on to say: " The coincidence is surely remarkable that crime, especially against property, should be far less frequent where confession ex- ists as a recognized and energizing part of religion than where it does not." Grave Crimes in general. 479 Of Sweden lyaing bears this testimony : " It is not without dismay that, on turning to the criminal statistics of this generally educated people, we find that the amount of criminal offences, in proportion to the numbers of the population, exceed greatly those of England, Scotland, or Ireland; that the numbers of illegitimate children and of divorces from the marriage tie — both undeniable tests of the moral condition of a people — are vastly greater " (Notes of a Traveller, chap, viii., ed. 1854). He adds, citing official reports, that " the murders, rapes, robberies, and acts which are criminal in all countries exceeded very far, in proportion to the population, the number of the same crimes in our unschooled, dense popula- tion." A testimony, by the way, to the illiterate condition of Great Britain at that date, 1854. Again, he says : " In 1837, 26,275 persons were prosecuted in Sweden for criminal offences, of whom 21,262 were convicted, being one ac- cused to every 114 of the entire population, and one convicted to every 140, of crimes of a heinous character. In 1836 the number of convicts was i to every 134 of the population" (A Tour in Sweden, 1838). The reader has now reliable testimony and some important considerations to guide him in forming a fair judgment upon the relative morality of Catholic and Protestant countries based upon the amount of such crimes as have already been brought to his notice. CHAPTER XXXII. INFANTICIDE AND F(I:TICIDE. I NOW come to the examination of two classes of mur- ders which, taking the element of deliberatmi into account, are more heinous than many murders of adults. Of these murders of children before and after birth there is small notice in Statistical Reports, but everybod}^ knows they are committed by the thousand. Of course there are some such murders in Catholic countries, but they are comparatively very few. Were there enough upon which to base any serious charges for either infanticide or foeticide those who are on the sharp scent for any evidence of Catholic immorality Would not fail to make them. Mulhall gives a table showing that between 1830-80 infanticide in France has in- creased from 120 to 296 annually. I find some startling records about England given by Ka}^ {Social Condition of the Ejiglish People), He says and proves that in 1850 it was "a common practice for the degraded poor in many towns to enter their children in what is called ' burial clubs ' and then cause their death either by starvation, ill-usage, or poison," in order to get the money assured in case of death. He cites many facts, horrible ones ; how the people got hardened to it, and boasted of it. He cites from a report of the City of Manchester : " Out of 100 deaths, 60 to 65 are of infants under five years old. One man put his children into nineteen clubs. . . . One sin- gle club boasted of 34,100 members, the entire population of the 480 Infanticide and Fceticide, 48 1 town being little more than 36,000 ! ! ! " [The three exclamation points are his.] That was nearly fifty years ago, and one takes it for granted that English Protestant civilization is by this time far advanced beyond this condition of barbarous immorality and crime. Let us see. At a recent meet- ing of the National Society for the Pi'evcntion of Crnetty to Cliild}-en the Duke of Fife, alluding to the alarming reports of the city coroner in Manchester, made these remarks : " Now, there was one object which he should think their so- ciety — the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- dren — would never rest until they obtained, and that was further powers to deal with child insurance. (Applause.) The evil was a terrible one, and he was sure they would agree with him when he told them that last year alone 5,509 children who died were known to be insured for the aggregate sum of fji'],\AtZ, which was no less than ^4 i8j. 6d. per child on an average, whereas 6ps. had been fixed as the maximum insurance for children in Work- ing-men's Mutual Assurance Companies. This was a revolting thing, and one which he thought strongly called for the interven- tion of Parhament. (Hear, hear.) He earnestly hoped this question would no longer be shelved " (Berry Journal, Decem- ber 29, 1893). And here is another recent testimou}- : " When an English judge tells us, as Mr. Justice Wills did the other day, that there were any number of parents who would kill their children for a few pounds insurance money, we can form some idea of the horrors of the existence into which many of the children of this highly favored land are ushered at their birth " (/// Darkest England and the Way Out, by General Booth, page 65). Any one who wishes to see what a dreadful state of wretchedness and immorality the English poor have 482 Infanticide and Fccticide. fallen into in that so ' ' highly favored ' ' Protestant land, despite the wealth, power, and number of its Protestant clergy and people, should read General Booth's book, and that startling pamphlet — The Bitta' Cry of Outcast Londo7i. The reflection made by Kay at the close of fourteen pages of his book devoted to these horrifying details of child-murder might be as justly made in this year of grace 1894. This is what he says : " Alas, these accounts are only too true ! There can be no doubt that a great part of the poorer ctasses of this country are sunk into such a frightful depth of hopelessness of misery and utter moral degradation that even mothers forget their affection for their helpless little offspring, and kill them, as a butcher does his lambs, in order to make money by the murder," He is not the only witness. A Protestant clerical writer, the Rev. Canon Humble, in The Church and the World, 1866, contributes a long article, "Infanticide, its Cause and its Cure." I quote one passage. After speaking of the wholesale murder of infants, he says : " Thus, bundles are left lying about the streets, which people will not touch, lest the too familiar object — a child's body — should be revealecl, perchance with a pitch-plaster over its mouth, or a woman's garter round its throat. Thus, too, the metropolitan canal boats are impeded, as they are tracked along, by the num- ber of drowned infants with which they come in contact, and the land is becoming defiled by the blood of her innocents. We are told by Dr. Lankester that there are 12,000 women in London to whom the crime of child-murder may be attributed. In other words, that one in every thirty women (between fifteen and forty- five years of age) is a murderess." And I believe there were no " burial clubs " then for the murderers to make money by their crime. Infanticide and Foeticide. 483 As the writer was a Protestant clergjanan, what he says by way of " Prevention and Cure of Infanticide " is worth noting : ' " The high moraHty of Ireland is owing in great part to the habit of the people (CathoHcs) going to confession, and the low tone of morals in Scotland is, I fear, to be greatly attributed to the impossibility of having recourse to this sacramental ordi- nance." That murder of even legitimate children in Protest- ant England was common these writers and official re- ports of the Registrar General and physicians show ; but the murders of illegitimate children are still more numerous. In 1875 the Registrar General gives deaths of legitimate children at 205 per i ,000 ; of illegitimate 418. In 12 rural districts, the proportion was 97 deaths of legitimate to 293 illegitimate {Ille- gitimacy, by Dr. A. Lefhngwell, page 70). The sixth annual report of Sir George Graham, the Registrar General, p. 38, says: " If the mortality were not greater among illegitimate than among legitimate children, every fifteenth person in England must be of illegitimate extraction." " In Glasgow for three years (1873-75) the deaths of legitimate were 149 to 154 per 1,000; of illegitimate, between 277 to 293. " During a long series of years the mortality of illegitimate children was double that of legitimate in [Protestant] Denmark " (Dr. Sorensen, Infant Mortality m Denmark. Ibid., pp. 70, 71.75)- The Rev. B. Waugh, in an article contributed to the Contempoj'ary Review, May, 1890, on " Baby-Farming," and another on " Child- lyife Insurance," in the same magazine, July, 1890, afhrms that more than a thou- 484 Infanticide and Foeticide, sand children— most of them no doubt illegitimate- are viurdcrcd annually in England for insurance money. Here is some more evidence : " An inquest was held before Mr. Braxton Hicks, at the Star and Garter, Battersea, concerning the death of a female child whose body was found in the Thames. Dr. Kempster stated that he saw tlie body at the mortuary, and had made a post-uiortcm examination. The bones of the skull had been fractured all over, and the nose was flattened on the face. The injuries were in- flicted while the child was alive, and they were the cause of the death. The Coroner : ' I think we have had about ten similar cases, have we not? ' Dr. Kempster : ' Yes; all killed the same way! The Corojier : * In these cases, as soon as the child is born, its head is knocked all to pieces, and the body then thrown into the river.' The jury returned the verdict of ' Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown ' " {London Times, February 5, 1891). Of course everybody knows that it would be al- together impossible to find anything at all in Catholic countries to compare with this horrible record of mur- derous criminality. The reason is plain. According to Catholic morals and their strict enforcement, espe- cially through the confessional, and aided by state laws and the confirmed general sense of Catholic peo- ples, the killing of an infant is held to be murder equal in guilt to the murder of an adult, and an equally hor- rible sin in the sight of God. There would appear to be no such profound sense of abhorrence of infanticide or unquestioning conviction of the sin of it among Protestants. It is the subject of remark that in Prot- estant countries there are ver}^ few trials for such mur- ders. How rarely do we ever hear of one in the United States ! Infanticide and Fee tic ide, 485 Rev. Canon Humble, in his remarkable monograph on Infanticide, shows how it is regarded in England. He attributes the " widely prevailing evil " to a " low moral condition of the English people," and says: *'The dreadful frequency of the crime of infanticide is passed by with a hasty remark by those persons who could not rest in their beds if no attempt were made to discover the murderer of a full-grown man." If all the murders of infants were brought to record, to what alarming figures would not the statistics of homicide in the United States and England run up to, not to men- tion other Protestant countries ! The same reverend writer, just quoted, mentions a proposed revision of the Penal Code of England making the killing of a child wider seven years of age only mur- der in the second degree ! The reason he assigns for the entertainment of such a barbarous proposal shows how utterly oblivious of the sin of such murders the Eng- lish mind had become. He says that being a commer- cial, money-making nation, the value of a human life is rated according to how much can be got out of it. A grown man's life is worth something, a child's com- paratively nothing. What a barbarously low .standard of morality for a Christian people to live, I will not say up, but^'down to ! In Catholic countries the wretchedly poor who are tempted to abandon their legitimate children, or sinful women to hide the evidence of their shame, do not smother, strangle, poison, or drown them, but they fly to the refuge which the Christian sense of public Catholic morality provides — the foundling asylum, that glorious institution of charity to be found in all great cities of Catholic countries, and of which few 486 Infanticide and Fceticide. other such life-saving homes are found in Protestant lands besides those which are founded by Catholics and cared for by Catholic sisterhoods. It seems to me that one of the chief reasons why infanticide of both legitimate and illegitimate children is so prevalent among Protestants is because, contrary to the Catholic and true Christian idea, they have been educated to look upon abject poverty and the inheritance of bastardy as crimes. So that in their eyes a child which is to its poor or sinful parents an intolerable burden to support or witness of their shame is a criminal who has no right to life. FCETICIDE. There is another class of murders from which Cath- olics, as compared with Protestants, have but little to answer for — the murder by abortion. The doctrine of the Catholic Church, her canons, her theologians, without exception, teach, and constantly have taught, that the destruction of the human foetus in the womb of the mother, at any period from the first instant of conception, is a heinous crime, equal, at least in guilt, to that of murder. All Catholics know this, and have a salutary horror of the crime. Protestantism does not teach morality in this definite way, and hence Protestant women fall back upon their doctrine of private judgment to determine their moral right to do what seems best or allowable to them. The appall- ing consequences of this are not surprising. The crime of abortion among Protestants everywhere is widespread ; and in connection with other detestable immoral practices, abominations strictly forbidden and abhorrent to Catholics, results in lowering their birth- Infanticide and Foeticide. 487 rate to an alarming degree. Great numbers of Prot- estant parents make up their minds to have no more children either conceived or born than they want to have. Dr. H. B. Storer, an eminent physician of Boston, startled the community by publishing three books in 1^6-]— Criminal Abortion; Why Not? A Book for Every Woman; and Is it If A Book for Every Man, quickly followed by one on the same subject — Serpents i?i the Dove's N'est—hy Rev. John Todd, a Protestant min- ister of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Added to these, con- firming their revelations of the numerous child-murders by abortion in New England, committed almost exclu- sively by Protestants, came out numerous treatises by other physicians, notably the two by Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, Mass. — Changes in the Ne7v England Popu- lation, and The Neiv England Family. All bear wit- ness either positively or indirectly to the power ex- ercised by the principles and practices of Catholic morals, especially the benefit of confession, to pre- vent these wholesale murders, and the Sodomitical iniquity of ** economizing in children" among Prot- estants of all classes. Says Dr. Storer : "Hardly a newspaper in the land that does not contain their open and pointed advertisements. . . . The profits that must be made from the sale of drugs supposed abortifacient, may be judged from the extent to which they are advertised and the prices willingly paid for them." Again : " We are compelled to admit that Christianity itself, or at least ProtestantzsDi, has failed to check the increase of criminal abortion." 488 Infanticide and Foeticide, Rev. Dr. Todd, calling attention to the fact that abortion is " infinitel}' more frequent among Protestants than among Catholics," acknowledges the benefit of the confessional and strict Catholic doctrine, and pleads and appeals to Protestant women to stop these "fashionable murders," warning them that the}^ were * ' pitching their tents towards Sodom ' ' and bringing down upon themselves the w^ath of God. Dr. Allen tells us of evidence received by the Rev. S. W. Dike, of Vermont, in reply to inquiries sent out by him to nearl}- all parts of New England, to " judges, state's attorneys, lawyers, police officers, to large num- bers of physicians and specialists, with a few clergymen. Nearly all responded. . . . In ihree-fourths of the localities reporting on this point licentiousness is said to be increasing. In nearly as many the destruction of unborn life goes on as fast, or faster, than ever. Physicians are very emphatic on this point, and many speak with great indignation of the wicked practices of some church members. Nearly all find this increase among tke native population." So far Rev. Mr. Dike. Dr. Allen goes on to say : " Few persons are aware how extensively this destruction of unborn life is carried on in what are considered the better classes of society. " The ' arts of destruction and prevention of human life ' are comparatively unknown among the Irish, English, and Germans of New England. If physicians should publish what they know on this subject it would make a shocking disclosure." Then he quotes from a paper in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (December, 1S79). A ph5\sician there writes : " hi the early part of my practice the prevailing fashion and desire among married women were to bear children and rear Infanticide and Fccticide. 489 families. To be barren was considered among the Jews a curse of the Almighty, and many of our grandmothers cherished senti- ments akin to this, Temp07'a mutantur ! What physician at the present day has not had to hang his head for shame, and feel the strength of his moral indignation rise at witnessing the apathy or positive dislike— to use no stronger term — with which the first faint cry of the new-born infant is received. I have never known an Irish mother, no matter how poor, or how many little ragged children around her, that did not receive every new-born babe with emotions and expressions of gratitude as a blessed gift from God. This sentiment, however rudely expressed, has never failed to win my admiration, and I take pleasure in pointing it out as the finest trait of Irish female character." ' ' What a contrast do these two pictures present ! ' ' exclaims Dr. Allen. " How tender and natural the latter— how cold and heartless the former ! ' ' And he makes the very just remark that at bottom the whole immoral business threatening extinction of the (Prot- estant) New England family is due to " « lack of patriotism which leads one to endure pain and practice self-denial to people one's own land" ^Thc New Eng- ^land Family, Nathan Allen, M.D.) There spoke a philosopher who knew how to find a true test of patriotism. A writer in the Catholic World (April, 1869), treat- ing of the comparative morality of Catholic and Protes- tant countries, quotes from Harper's Magazine: ' We are shocked at the destruction of human life upon the banks of the Ganges, but here in the heart of Christendom foeticide and infanticide are extensively practised under the most aggravating circumstances. ... It should be stated that be- lievers in the Roman Catholic faith never resort to any such practices ; the strictly Americans [Protestants and other non- Catholics] are almost alone guilty of such crimes." 490 Infanticide and Fccticide. And the following from Bishop Coxe of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church : " I have hitherto warned my tiock against the blood-guiltiness of ante-natal infanticide. If any doubts existed heretofore as to the propriety of my warning- on this subject, they must now dis- appear before the fact that the world itself is beginning to be horrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to Moloch which defile our land." . These testimonies were given twenty-five years ago. Have the warnings been heeded ? Has Protestantism been able to lessen this slaughter of their innocents in the least ? On the contrary, it is notorious that it has gone on increasing to a fearful extent, aided by the shameless increase of legalized Protestant and Infidel polygamy and polyandry in the shape of divorce, to which the existence of children would be a hindrance. The Boston Herald (November 9, 1891) reported verbatim a sermon, worthy of a St. John the Baptist, preached in Newburyport, Mass., on the previous Sun- day by the Rev. Brevard D. Sinclair, pastor of the Old South Presbyterian Church of that city. I doubt if such a startling call to judgment for their sins was ever before preached to any audience. I copy the following extracts from it : " Unfaithfulness to the marriage vows is one of the most flagrant sins of New England ; witness the multifarious records of the divorce courts and the adulteries which are so unblushingly committed in this country. " The prevention of offspring is pre-eminently the sin of this city of Newburyport and New England, and if it is not checked it will sooner or later be an irremediable calamity. Society, the [Protestant] Church, and the public conscience is dead in this matter. Infanticide and Fceticide. 491 " Women, professors of Christ's holy religion, go about advising young married women to forestall the ordinance of God by pre- venting the birth and rearing of children. Do these white-walled sepulchres know that they are committing the damning sin of Herod in the 'slaughter of the innocents,' and are accessories before the fact to the crime of murder ? Do they who counsel and practise these diabolical vices know they will fall under the curse of God before the great white throne ? "God forbid that I should eulogize Romanism, but the Roman Catholic is the one Church which is a practical foe to this hell- born sin, which has fastened its fangs and death venom in the vital heart of marriage. Before God, I believe that many of the errors of the Romish Church are cancelled by its loyalty to that great law of God which enforces the truth that the end of mar- riage must not be profaned. ♦• New England is lifting up her hands to-day with pretended horror at the thought of Catholic domination. We are told that the Roman Catholics are going to possess New England. Through your sin they are ! And they ought to ! " It makes no difference to God whether your ancestors came over the sea in the Mayflower or in the steerage of a Cunarder, nor whether your pedigree can be traced to a Puritan or to an assisted emigrant from Cork; but one thing, is of , paramount con- cern to God— He intends to fill this world with righteousness, and He will see to it that the people who violate His laws shall perish from the earth, and that those who obey His precepts shall occupy the place of a disobedient people. If the Romanists will obey God in this matter and rehabilitate the crumbling, decaying, rotten wrecks of the New England home, state, and church by obliterating this sin, then they will and ought to possess this land. " ' Thou shalt do no murder ! ' Burn this into your consciences, ye sinning children of Beelzebub who encourage young women to this crime ! Infanticide is the national sin of New England. I do not fear but that God will blot it out, as He did. Sodom and Gomorrah ! " CHAPTER XXXIII. SUICIDE. THE comparative view of Protestant and Catliolic immorality on the score of the crime of murder would not be complete without a table of ratios showing the contrast between countries in the number of their suicides, or self-murders. I copy the following table as found in the J Vor/d Almanac for 1894, quoting from Barker, giving the latest statistics : Protestant Rate per Cai/iohc Rate per Countries. 100,000 pop. Coimtries. 100,000 pop Saxony, . . . . 31. 1 Austria, .... 21.2 Denmark, . . 25.8 France, 157 Hanover, . . . . 14.0 Bavaria, . 9.1 Prussia, . . . . 13.3 Belgium, 6.0 Victoria, . . . . II. 5 Hungary, 5-2 Sweden, . , . . 8.1 Italy, . 3.7 Norway, . . . . 7-5 Ireland, 1.7 England & W ales, 6.9 Spain, . 1.4 Scotland, . , 4-0 MIXED NATIONS. United States, about 1-6 Catholic, . . ; . . 3.5 Netherlands, about >^ Catholic, . . . .3.6 All Germany, about Yi Catholic, . . . . 14.3 Switzerland, about 3^ Protestant, . . . 20.2 Mulhall has this to saj' concerning the comparative number of Catholic and Protestant suicides : " Suicide is much more frequent in Protestant than in Catholic countries. Legoyt and other writers show that even in countries where both religions exist the tendency of Protestants to suicide 492 Suicide. 493 is greater, as shown in the rates of the follow ing countries per million of each : Countries. Per ynillioti Protestants. Per million Catholics. Great Britain and Ireland, . 63 17 Prussia, . 170 52 Bavaria, . 195 69 Austria-Hung-ary, . 140 90 Switzerland . 262 81 Mulhall adds an instructive table of suicides in Switzerland for six years, ending 1881, which goes to confirm the fact stated and proved by Legoyt, of the much greater tendency of Protestants to commit the crime of self-murder, and also accounts for the high rate given to Switzerland in Barker's table : SUICIDES IN SWITZERLAND PER MILLION INHABITANTS. In the Catholic cantons. In the Protestant cantons, In the Mixed cantons, Totals, Catholics. Protestants. 20 205 127 602 116 360 263 1,167 And he adds *' It would appear that in the Catholic cantons the Protestants are much less prone to suicide than where their own religion is dominant. For like reasons, Catholics are much more liable to suicide in Protestant or mixed cantons than in their own," To put the table in another shape for comparison : SUICIDES IN SWITZERLAND PER MILLION INHABITANTS. Catholic suicides in Catholic cantons, ... 20 Protestant suicides in Protestant cantons, . . 602 Catholic suicides in Protestant cantons, . . 127 Protestant suicides in Catholic cantons, . . 205 Catholic suicides in Mixed cantons, . . . . 116 Protestant suicides in Mixed cantons, . , , 360 494 Suicide, That is to say : The moral influence of Protestantism would appear to induce the commission of suicide, while the moral influence of Catholicism is just the contrary : 1. The Swiss P?vtestants commit 30 times as many suicides in their own cantons as Catholics do in theirs. 2. They commit only 10 times as many if they have strong Catholic influence about them. 3. But they commit 18 times as many where their own religion is equally strong with the Catholic. 4. Swiss Catholics commit 6 times more suicides where Protestant influence is strong than they do at home. 5. And 5 times as manj^ where Protestant influence is equal to their own. Moral : Swiss Catholics had better stay at home in their own cantons, for it looks as if, where they are subject to Protestant influence, they found life in the same proportion just that much less worth living. And here is an equally strong contrast for Catholic and Protestant states in Germany : " According to the Deutsche Criminal Zeitufig, it appears that the number of s,\.\\c\(\ts per million oi the inhabitants during the period 1875-1881 was as follows: Schleswig-Holstein, 98.6 per cent. Protestant, . . 287 " " . . 245 " " . . 218 " Catholic, . . 95 " - . . 83 . . 72 " The German paper (Protestant) remarks : • These numbers are eloquent. From this table it may be calculated that in the Prussian state, with a purely evangelical population, if all other circumstances be alike, the number of suicides is three or four Saxony, . . . 93 Brandenburg, . 97 Westphalia, 69 Rhineland, . . 73 Prussian Poland, 54. Suicide. 495 times greater than with a purely CathoHc population ' " {London Tablet, May 3, 1884). I think these tables might be safely offered as evi- dence of a crucial test of the comparative moral influ- ence of the Catholic and Protestant religions to restrain their people from the commission of this crime. The same testimony is given by the Rev. Dr. Hay- man, a Protestant clergyman writing for the Fort- iiightly Review, October, 1886, where it appears that suicides increased in Saxony at an alarming rate be- tween 1881-86, and that Saxony and Thuringia, al- most exclusively Protestant, lead the world in this crime. He says : " If a map of Europe were before us, shaded in proportion to the returns of known vice and crime, the darkest shadow would seem to rest exactly where the boast of intellectual light is great- est — in Saxony, the very shrine of modern culture, the fortress of ' free thought.' Most portentous of all is the bad pre-eminence of Saxony to suicide." Then he gives a comparative table, very similar to the one already quoted above, prefaced by the rates for Saxony and Thuringia : " ANNUAL AVERAGE RATE OF SUICIDES PER MILLION OF POPULATION. 1874-8— Saxony, 33^ 1874-8— Thuringia. 305 He adds: "From 1874-79 the Saxon suicides increased nearly 56 per cent., while the population had increased only 7 per cent. To sum up the ghastly tale, Saxony is said to have reached at the last census 408 suicides per million," 496 Suicide. He tells us also that in this same ovenvhelmingh^ Protestant countr}^ — "Criminals punished by law increased as follows: 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 11,001. 12,706. 13,089. 15,144. 16.318. 19,012. 21,319. "Of these, foul assaults upon children increased by 918 per cent., criminals under eighteen by 430 per cent., and r///A/ rr//;/- inah by 100 per cent." ' ' Intellectual light is greatest in Protestant Sax- ony," is it? Well, that goes to show the truth for which Catholics are always contending, that Educa- tion witho2it the true religion is a curse instead of a blessifig. And this is proved not only by what highly educated Protestant Saxony shows, but by what even Catholic France has already shown by the late rapid increase of crime, and especialh' of suicide, following upon the .state establishment of education without religion. A distinguished French writer, the Vicomte Eu- gene Melchior de Vogiie, in an article contributed to Ha7-per' s Magazine, January, 1892, thus summar- ize.^ the results of the "New Faith in Science": " When the men brought up in this new current of thought arrived in power they neglected nothing in order to realize in the Republic the ideal of their youth ; they imposed the heaviest sac- rifices upon the state for the purposes of popular education with the conviction that they were at last going to annihilate Christianity, and convert the whole nation to the new religion of Science. . . . Above all, it became clear from too evident social symptoms that if science can satisfy some very distin- guished minds, it can do nothing to moralize and discipline soci- ety : criminal statistics loudly f)roclai7ned this inefficacy. . . . Suicide. 497 At the very moment when the poHticians, after having shaped society to their mind, were celebrating the definite emancipation of man by science" [the mot d'ordre which Protestantism pro- claimed by its doctrine of private judgment ] " all the philosophi- cal and literary productions of the young manifested gloomy despair. They replied to the official apotheosis by a unanimous confession of impotence, scepticism, and premature lassitude. Clear-sighted boys analyzed life with a vigor and a precision un- known to their predecessors. Having analyzed it they found it bad, they even turned away from life with fear and horror. We are now witnessing this singular phenomenon. While our material civilization is multiplying its prodigies, and placing at the disposal of men all the forces of nature ; while that civiliza- tion is increasing ten-fold the intensity of life in a society where life offers enjoyments only to the leisured and cultured classes, behold we hear sounding on the peaks of intelligence a great cry of discouragement : ' Beware of deceitful nature, fear life, emancipate yourself from life ! '" The French infidel and the Protestant are both driven to the same abyss of suicide b}^ the same prin- ciple. The rapid increase in the United States of this hideous crime which has ever been held as "ac- cursed" in the sight of God and man, the deliberate commission of which should justly doom the name of the malefactor to everlasting infamy, has been one of the many alarming evidences amongst us of the popular loss of faith in God, in human life and destiny. Aside from the larger number of those who are victims to the logical consequences of atheism and of the principles of false religious doctrines, we see not a few whose suicide is plainly traceable to the influence of our madly feverish order of social life, both in its business occupations and in its physically enervating 49^ Suicide. and morally polluting amusements. This is the hellish work of one of those infuriate demons summoned from Pandemonium to accompan}- its march, and too often suffered to direct its path, by our boasted secularist '' Progress," itself suicidal in its insane self-deprivation of the heavenly guidance and light of Christianity. Has my reader never heard of those diabolical asso- ciations known as Suicide Clubs ? Has he ever thought it worth his w^hile to ask in w^hat countries they are formed, what sort of persons are members of them, and of what system of education they w^ere pupils w^ho thus gamble away their life on the throw of a die ? Is mod- ern society startled into dumb horror by these ghastly revelations ? No, it sits at its ease and reads the last edition of the Daily Crimes, wath its " scare " headings of the latest murders, suicides, robberies, adulteries, sensational divorces, and never stops to ask itself the question, Who is responsible? Who has spoken the word of death to these despairing self-destroyers and made the Word of I^ife of none effect ? CHAPTER XXXIV. ILLEGITIMACY. I NOW approach a subject which, in spite of the truth to be found on the pages of every reliable authority, has formed the basis of the most confidently asserted charges of immorality made against Catholic countries by the defamers of the Catholic Church. Their unscrupulous misrepresentations, their manipula- tion of statistics, are something almost beyond credence. Counter evidence clearly disproving their charges has been brought forward again and again. All to no pur- pose. It is a melancholy truth, but a notorious one : no Protestant slanderous accuser of the Catholic Church that I ever heard of, be he clergyman or lay- man, lecturer or editor, has ever come out and fairly acknowledged that his accusations were unfounded in fact, although they were proved to be false beyond all cavil. What has already been shown about the crime of infanticide would lead any one to agree that even on the supposition that Protestant and Catholic countries were about equal in the sin of begetting illegitimate children, one w^ould surely expect to find in the statis- tical tables a vastly greater number of these witnesses to immorality charged to Catholic than to Protestant countries. For, as has been already proved, Protest- ants kill many of theirs, and Catholics, with rare ex- ceptions, let all theirs live. So that one could say too, that such being the case. Catholic countries might, in 499 500 Illegitimacy. fact, be a great deal more moral in this respect than Protestant ones, even if more illegitimate births should be reported to their charge. But are more reported ? If there are not, and if the}^ have twice as many children as Protestants allow them- selves to have of any sort, as is w^ell known, then one must be a fool not to see whose foot this dirty shoe fits. One other point should be kept in mind, viz., that where prostitution abounds there the rate of illegiti- macy will be lowered. A low rate of illegitimacy will be found in two Protestant countries which appear as exceptions to the general rule for them. There is a very low^ rate in some Catholic countries too. In which countries prostitution is in excess will be shown in the chapter on that subject. Let the reader compare both. The following are tables taken from Mulhall, Lef- fingwell, and the Statesman's Year Book for 1893; omitting Switzerland, there being no special statistics for the different cantons to allow a comparison to be made on the score of religion : Illegitimacy SOI TABLES OF II^IvEGlTlMACY. TO I.OOO BIRTHS HOW MANY WERE ILLEGITIMA IE ? Mulhall. Mulhall. Lejffingivell. Statesman'' s Catholic Average^ Average^ Average, Year Book, Countries. 1865-78. 1887-88. 1878-82. 1893. Austria, 135 149 143 147 Bavaria, . 130 132 142 France, 74 82 74 86 80 82 Hungary, 71 — — Belgium, 71 93 77 Italy, 65 75 73 70 Portugal, 56 — — 122 Spain, 5S ' — — — Ireland, 23 29 25 27 Protestant ' Countries. Saxony, 143 — 127 122 Denmark, in 100 lOI 100 Sweden, 102 149 lOI 102 Scotland, 93 83 84 76 All Germany, 87 95 89 91 Norway, 85 79 82 68 England and Wales, 54 46 48 42 Holland, . 35 32 30 1 31 Taking Mulhall' s complete table of averages (1865- 7<S), I offer to the reader the same results presented in another form : here is i [ illegitimate Catholic There is i illegitimate Protestant tn every countries. in every countries. 4347 )irths in Ireland 28.57 births in Holland 18.03 M . Spain P igland and 17.85 " Portugal 19.51 ' Wales FS.38 " Italy 11.75 ' Norway 14.08 " Belgium 11.59 ' Germany 14.08 .. Hungary 10.74 ' Scotland 13-36 U i France 9.80 ' Sweden 7.69 « Bavaria 900 ' Denmark 7.40 << < Austria 6.99 ' Saxony 502 Illegitimacy Why Catholic Austria and Bavaria stand so high compared with other Catholic countries, and why Eng- land, Wales, and Holland stand so low compared with other Protestant countries, will be explained further on : We find that Sweden has been increasing very rapidly, as another table of Mulhall shows, as follows : 1 84 1 -60- 1861-70 1871-75 ■IllC! Per 1,000 births, itimates, 97 105 115 Germany I in Mulhall savs of GERMANY. Having some more minute details for present them. An official ta" Germany : For 46 years en din g 1886. Illegitimates in every 1,000 Catholic births, 58 Illegitimates in every 1,000 Protestant births, 85 In his Moralstatistik, Krlangen, 1868, a Protestant German sociologist, Von Oettingen, published statistics from which Von Hammerstein, in his Edgar, compiles the following comparative table : PERCENTAGE OF ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS. 1S62. , 1863. 1864. Total. Districts. 1 Cath. Prot. Cath. ; Prot. Cath. Prot. Cath. Prot. Rhine Prov's, 3.53 3.62- 3.61 ,3.58 3-67 3.58 3.60 3-59 Westphalia, . 3-15 4.11 3.33 4.42 3.35 4.18 if 425 Posen, . 6.40 7.01 6.79 7.62 6.83 7.06 6.67 7-32 Prussia, . 6.85 9-31 7.29 973 7.45 9.67 7.20 9-57 Saxony, . 6.II 9.67 6.57 10.31 6.04 10.34 6.24 10.11 Pomerania, . 9-77 9.68 948 IO-35 9-77 10.36 9.67 10.13 Brandenburg, 7.71 11.49 8.36 12.15 8.41 II. 51 8.16 11.72 Schleswig, . 9.16 13-04 10.13 14.12 10.07 13-57 9.76 13.58 The whole / 1 Kingdom. \ 5.96 9.58 6.40 10.18 6-39 10.01 6.25 9-93 Illegitimacy, 503 The foregoing table gives brilliant and convincing evidence of the superior moral influence of the Catholic religion, showing precisely the same comparative re- sults for illegitimacy in these German countries as Mulhall noted for suicides in the Protestant and Catho- lic cantons of Switzerland. That is, in strongly Catho- lic provinces, such as the Rhine Provinces, Westphalia, and Posen, Protestants are much less guilty of this sin than where their own religion is dominant. For like reason Catholics are much more liable to this species of immoralit}^ in the strongly Protestant prov- inces of Prussia, _S5.xony, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Schleswng than in their own. The copy-book proverb applies also to this case — "Evil communica- tions corrupt good morals," and vice versa. ENGLAND AND vSCOTLAND. Much unreported illegitimacy and the prevalence of the social evil both go far to help out murderous abortion, and not a little of the infanticide sheltered under the title of " still births," in enabling Protestant countries, and especially England, Wales, Scotland, and Holland, to make a tolerably decent show for illegitimacy in the general table of statistics. In London and other English cities many illegiti- mates are not likely to be reported as such because no demand is made upon parents, on the occasion of a birth, to show their marriage certificate. It is taken for granted that people who live together in outward respectability are legally married. Let us see if we can furnish any facts going to show that the real rate of illegitimacy in those countries 504 Illegitimacy, should be higher than reported in the tables already given. The vScottish Registrar General deplored the ' * ex- cessive incontinence" of Scotland thirty-three years ago. He said then that " immorality was not confined to the humbler classes" {Times, November 26, i860). Another authority quoted in the Times (July 17, 1858) declares that " nearly every tenth Scotsman was a bas- tard," and speaking of the coimtry districts, he says that " it is the exception and not the rule if a master has not been chargeable, some time or other, with corrupting those under him." ^ Dr. Leffingwell, in his monograph on Illegitimacy, gives some tables worth repeating. The first gives the number of illegitimates per thousand births in England, Scotland, and Ireland for twelve years (i 878-1 889). This table shows, as he says, that "year after year, of each i ,000 births in Scotland there are almost twice as many illegitimate as in P^^ngland and Wales, and more than three times as many as in Ireland." He then asks these questions : " Is the peasant mother of Ireland more soHcitous for the chastity of her daughters than her sisterhood of Scotland and England? Are the prece})ts of virtue more highly prized and effectively inculcated in the mud cabins of Mayo than beneath the thatched roof of the Highland cotter ? Is superior virtue the result of education ? Why, the Irish peasantry are steeped in ignorance [?] as compared with the laboring population of North Britain. Shall we infer that \ ice and poverty go hand-in-hand ? But an Englishman would not kennel his dogs in such cabins as I have seen in Achill and Western Ireland. Can it be the effect of religious training? But Scotland rejoices in the open Bible and the right to private judgment; while Ireland sub- mits her conscience to the control of her priesthood and the guidance of an Infallible Church." Illegitimacy, 505 I think the reader might be able to answer Dr. Lef- fingwell any or all of these quevStions of his. Here is a table showing the average illegitimacy in the English counties and in North Wales, given by the same writer : Table III. (page 15). — To 1,000 Blrths in different SECTIONS OF England and Wales, how many were ILLEGITIMATE DURING A PERIOD OF lO YEARS? Divisioiis and \o years, Divisions and lo years, counties. average, counties. average. Shropshire 82 Devonshire, 47 Cumberland, .... 76 Somerset 43 Hereford 76 Hampshire, 43 Norfolk, 74 Kent, 43 Westmoreland, ... 70 Surrey, 40 North Wales 69 All England, .... 48 Table VHI. (page 31). — City and Country: To 1,000 Births how many were illegitimate? Cities. 1889. Country districts. London, .... ... 38 North Wales, .... 71 Birmingham 45 Westmoreland, ... 72 Liverpool, 58 Cumberland 79 Shropshire, 79 In all Catholic countries the cities show a larger rate of illegitimacy than the country districts. In Protest- ant countries it is just the reverse. This is evidently to the credit of the Catholic religion, the results of whose virtuous influence is thus exhibited where that influence can be brought more directly to bear upon the mass of people and where the social restraints are so much stronger ; and it is for the same reason to the discredit of the influence of Protestantism, that it fails to reach the same class of people where, if it had any power at all, such influence ought to be manifest. So6 Illegitimacy. I^et us see the condition of the country districts of Scotland. Dr. Leffingwell gives this table : Table IV. (page i6). — Of each i.ooo Births in die PARTS OF Scotland, how many were illegitim lo counties having a low rate of illegitimacy. Ross and Cromart Shetland Isles, Dumbarton, Renfrew, . . Orkney Isles, . Bute, .... Stirling, . . . Sutherland, . . Fife, .... Lanark, . . , Average for lo vears^ 1876-85. 47 52 54 59 62 66 66 68 68 69 10 comities having a high rate of illegititnacy. Nairn, . . . Roxburgh, . . Caithness, . . Kincardine, Aberdeen, . . Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, . . Elgin, . . . Wigtown, . . Banff, . . . Av FERENT ATE .- era gc for \0 vears, 1876-85. 106 108 108 125 146 153 158 164 What now is to be thought of the reliability of the figures given for Scotland, high as it is, and for the comj^aratively low figures for England and Wales, as found in the general tables of Mulhall, Lefhngwell, and the Statesnia?i's Year Book? What becomes of these illegitimate children? In all Catholic countries everything is done to give them an equal chance for life with legitimate children, and the merciful refuge of the foundling asylum is there to receive those who would otherwise suffer death or cruel abandonment on the highway, as is the case in Protest- ant countries. Let us hear Dr. Leffingwell again : " h\ Christian England the chance of living for the illegitimate child is far less than for others. In 1875 the Registrar General pointed out that while the death-rate of legitimate children during the first year of life was about 205 per 1,000, that of Illegitimacy §07 illegitimate was more than twice as great, or 418 per 1,000, as exhibited in the following table " : Table XVI. (page 70).— To 1,000 Infants born of each CLASS, HOW MANY DIED UNDER ONE YEAR? (1875.) Towns. Legitimate. Illegitimate. Preston, .... Liverpool Nottingham, Radford, .... Driffield, .... Twelve other districts, Stratford-upon-Avon-, Scotland (1873-75) : Glasgow, .... 214 448 205 418 191 365 187 547 168 596 97 293 69 239 49 to 154 277 to 293 The Registrar General tells us liow these children die: "They are suffocated, drowned, poisoned, stran- gled, scalded, burned alive!" In a note the author quotes Dr. Sorensen's Infant Mortality in De7i7nark to show that in that Protestant country there is the same proportion of deaths of illegitimates as there is in England and Scotland. AUvSTRIA AND BAVARIA. Notmg the high figures for Catholic Austria and Bavaria, Dr. Ivefhngwell expresses surprise, they being Catholic countries, and, not knowing the real cause, he is induced to draw the hasty conclusion that the test of religion in this matter does not show the superiority of morals in favor of the Catholic Church, a conclusion which he evidently would not have made had he found these two Catholic countries showing, in common with Ireland and other countries under strong Catholic in- fluence, a generally lower rate than Protestant ones. §o8 Illegitimacy. Here is the explanation of Dr. Leffingwell's apparent "paradox." I^egal marriage is practically forbidden to great numbers in German Austria and Bavaria. No person in Austria can niarr}- if he does not know how to read, write, and cipher. In both Austria and Bavaria a man must show that he possesses a sum of money quite out of the reach of a great many before he can get a license to marry. Of 'course they marry all the same, secretly, but as the}^ cart show no license, all their chil- dren go doicn Oil the state records as illegitimate (Church and the World, i86y, art. " A (Protestant) Layman's View of Confession " ) . This last-named writer very justly remarks that ' ' these countries ought to be excepted from the average." It is surprising that Dr. Lefhngwell should have for- gotten that he himself had given these facts about the obstacles to legal marriage in Bavaria (which is getting better in figures for " legitimacy " now those laws are partly relaxed), and had also cited a reliable French authority to show that there were similar obstacles in France and Italy. He says : " Dr. Bertillon estimated that in Paris there are probably no less than 80,000 homes where parents are hving in harmony, and educating their children, married in every sense of the word, ex- cept that they refuse [or rather, neglect, as is generally the case with such bad-living Catholics] to obtain the sanction of either Church or State. But their children are illegitimate. In Italy, another and very sad phase of illegitimacy is the result of the present struggle between Church and State. To the pious Catho- lic marriage is a sacrament, which needs no sanction from human government to make it valid. But in the eye of the law marriage is simply a civil registration. Unfortunately hundreds of poor girls have relied solely on the religious marriage, only to find Illegitimacy. 509 themselves mothers of bastard children, whose legal rights the law cannot acknowledge " (pp. 45, 46).* And of course all these countries, Austria, Bavaria, France, and Italy, get the benefit of displaying a higher figure of illegitimacy and giving themselves a worse name on the score of morality than they deserve. When the reader examines the whole table he will see very plainly why Protestant controversialists, and especially those decidedly "on slander bent," always quote with a flourish of trumpets the high figures against France, Austria-Hungary, and Bavaria in or- der to make some plausible show of evidence for their charges. "These notable facts," say they, "give us the basis of a certain judgment against the efficacy of Romanism to restrain vice and immorality when com- pared with Protestantism." Which remark, I may say, will afford to the present reader the basis of a justifiably hearty laugh at the expense of such poorly armed ad- versaries of "Romanism." IRELAND. Dr. Iveifingwell gives a very suggestive table com- paring the illegitimacy in England, Wales, and vScot- land with Ireland : *This is affected sympathy for the "poor girls." Dr. Bertillon could hardly be ignorant that every Catholic girl knows she is truly married when the religious ceremony takes place, and that her children cannot be "bastards" in any sense but that of a legal fiction in countries where the civil marriage is required and not performed. 5IO Illegitimacy. Table V. (page 19). To each 1,000 unmarried Women (Spinsters and Widows) between the Ages of 15- 45 : how many illegitimate Children were born annually from 1878 TO 1887? Country. Rate of Illegitimacy. Proportionate Scale. Ireland, England ) and \ Wales, ) Scotland, 4.4 14.0 21.5 — ■ So it seems that ultra Protestant Scotland produced five times as many illegitimates as Catholic Ireland. But Ireland itself is not all Catholic, and here is a chance to make the same sharp crucial moral test on illegitimacy as was made in Switzerland on suicide, comparing the people of the same race and nation under different religious influences. The same writer contrasts the Catholic county of Mayo (Connaught) with the Protestant county of Down r Ulster) : Total illegitimates To i,ooo for 10 years, 1879-88. births. Connaught, Ulster, . 322 3,084 5.6 51.1 That is, Protestant Irishmen are ten times as im- moral as Catholic Irishmen, their next-door neighbors. Probably, as in the case of the Switzerland suicides, what few Protestants there are in Connaught have fewer illegitimate children from living under the pure and high moral influence of the prevailing Catholic re- ligion, and what Catholics there are in Ulster have Illegitimacy. 5 ^ ^ more illegitimate children from living in a Protestant atmosphere, than they would have had if living out of it. In the Deny (Irish) Journal, March 19, 1894, I find another remarkable contrast noted between the Catholic city of Dublin and the Protestant one of Belfast : In Dublin one birth in 42 is illegitimate. In Belfast one birth in 21 is illegitimate. That is, the illegitimate births in Protestant Belfast exceed those in Catholic Dublin by 100 per cent. And still another evidence that if the Irish Catholics are poor they are "honest," as they say in Ireland, meaning by honest, chaste. The proportion of mar- riages in Ireland to population is about one-half of the number in many other European countries. A low rate of marriage ought naturally to result in increased illegitimacy. But, as we have seen, Ireland has the lowest rate of this evidence of immorality of all countries in the world! I salute you, chivalrous sons and chaste daughters of Erin ! ye honor the land that gave you birth, and bear glorious testimony to the pure and holy doctrine of your faith, to which you have been so marvellously true. No New York "Social Purity Eeague " need send any missionaries to j-ou 1 HOLLAND. But my Protestant reader may still point with proud assurance to the low figure of only 35 or less per 1,000 for Holland ; not so very far above even Ireland, chaste queen of the world. Well, let us see how it is in Hol- land. We will first hear a Protestant English writer: " Here a few words on the unhappy reason why London and other large towns of Great Britain and also Holland are (ap- 5 1 2 Illegitimacy. parently) comparatively moral in this respect. . . . The urban population of Great Britain appears to be, what most certainly it is not, comparatively pure, the rural the most cor- rupt; whilst on the Continent the reverse is evident. There can be no doubt that this difference is owing- to the prevalence of what is justly called the ' social evil ' ; to the license — it may, in truth, be called ejicotiragemcnt — which, in the populous districts of this country, and notoriously in Holland, is given to public prostitution. Of course there will be no illegitimacy among Mohammedans and Hindoos, in Japan and China, or the African tribes, nor also among those who live in much the same mode " (J. D. Chambers, (Protestant) Recorder of Salisbury, The Church and the World, 1867, page 390). There can be no doubt that the rate of illegitimacy in England would be higher but for the prevalence, not only of the social evil but of infanticide. But where is there any evidence leading to the belief that this latter crime is committed to any notable extent in Hol- land? The Statesman' s Year Book (1893), from which I have frequentl}^ quoted, contains for nearly every country a table of vital statistics, often for several years. These tables are entitled "Movement of the Population," and give total numbers for annual births, illegitimates, still-births, deaths, and marriages. Ex- amining these tables, and comparing one with the other, I was led to note the proportion of illegitimate to still-born — that is, children reported as "born dead." I obser\^ed that, in general, the higher the percentage reported for illegitimacy the lower is the percentage of still-born. A very suggestive fact, which goes very far towards explaining (besides other reasons already assigned) the very high percentage of illegitimacy attributed to Catholic Austria, Hungary, and Bavaria, Illegitimacy. 5 1 3 and the singularly low percentage credited to Protestant Holland. There are no reports of still-born children for Great Britain, which is to be regretted, as it would probably throw additional light upon the rate of illegitimacy accorded to England. Now, what do we find is the proportion of illegitimates in Holland to the still-born? The figures I am going to use are the annual average for five years : Holland — Illegitimates, 4,825 Still-born, 7,540 A condition of things altogether unique, there being no other country in the world where the still-born are even equal in number to the illegitimates, but are one-half, one-third, one-quarter, . or one-fifth in number of the latter. One naturally asks the ques- tion. How does it happen that Holland should be so singularly distinguished for this unusual proportion of still-born children to illegitimates ? The Dutch women are notoriously strong and healthy. The question becomes still more pertinent when we come to compare the proportion of these classes in Protestant Holland, charged with only 35 illegitimates, to the 1,000 births, with Catholic Austria (135 to 1,000) ; Bavaria (130 to 1,000) ; and Hungary (71 to 1,000). Here are the annual averages for all these countries : Austria, Bavaria, Hungary, Holland, .... 4.825 1 ,l\o Illegitimates. Still-born. 135.571 26,230 28,598 6,697 61,730 13-363 514 Illegitimacy, I find that in his official tables of vital statistics Mulhall gives the still-births thus : Austria, 23,600 Hungary, 11,800 Bavaria, 7,000 Holland, l,!^*^ which figures would make it all the better for the Cath- olic countries, and the worse for Holland. In order the better to show the reader the results of this enormous discrepancy between these countries I will present the figures for the illegitimates and still-born of Holland as they ought to be, supposing that they are brought to the same proportion between these classes as there is, for example, in Austria. Here are the two propor- tions with results : AUSTRIA. HOLLAND. Illegitimates. Still-born. Illegitimates. Still-born. As 135,571 are to 26,230 so are 4,825 to 930 That is, if the figures for illegitimates are correct, there ought to be only 930 still-births annually in Hol- land ; but there are in fact 7,540! And again : AUSTRIA. HOLLAND. Still-born. Illegitimates. Still-born. Illegitimates. As 26,230 are to 135,571 so are 7,540 to 38,974 That is, if the figures for the still-born are correct, there ought to be 38,974 illegitimates annually in Holland, but there are reported only 4,825! That would run up the rate of Holland above any other country in the world, viz.: 258 illegitimates per 1,000 births ! Illegitimacy. 5 1 5 Now, taking into consideration the fact that these three Catholic countries, Austria, Bavaria, and Hun- gary, are among the few which have the smallest num- ber of still-births in proportion to their illegitimates, it does not take a very wise man to divine that they let all their illegitimates live ' which have a chance for life. They do not commit the crime of murder to cover up the shame of their birth, and then report them as " stili-born." What number of still-births ought Austria to show compared with her illegitimates if the proportion were the same as it is in Holland ? Instead of 26,230, the figures would then be 212,063. The reader has some points for reflection. SWEDEN AND NORWAY. If any Protestant country ought to show what are the fruits of the prevailing religion, it is Sweden. Mr. Laing, the Scotch traveller, gives this account of it : " It is a singular and embarrassing fact, that the Swedish nation, isolated from the mass of European people, and almost entirely agricultural or pastoral, having in about 3,000,000 of indi- viduals only 14,925 employed in manufactories, and these not congregated in one or two places, but scattered among 2,037 factories ; a country having no great standing army or navy, no external commerce, no afflux of strangers, no considerable city but one, and having schools and universities in a fair propor- tion, and a powerful and complete church establishment, undis- turbed in its labors by sect or schism, is, notwithstanding, /;/ a more demoralized state than any nition in Europe. This is a very curious fact in moral statistics " {A Tour in Swede7i in 1838). Readers who have carefully examined the evidence given in this book have probably come to the con- 5 1 6 Illegitimacy, elusion that this immoral condition of Protestant Swe- den is not a singular or curious fact. Mr. Laing goes on to prove what he asserts by citing official reports in evidence, giving statistics of such an enormous amount of crime that it sums up seven- fold greater than the record in England. He shows that the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate chil- dren, for all Sweden, is as one to fourteen ; and fcr the one great city, the capital, Stockholm, it is one to two and three-tenths ! and in the same city one out of every forty-nine of the inhabitants is annually con- victed of some criminal offence ! An attempt at explanation was made by the Swedish government. This drew from Mr. Laing a Reply, in which he quotes the country's ow^n vouched- for sta- tistics and says : "The divorces this year (1838) were 147; the suicides, 172. Of the 2,714 children born in Stockhohn that year, 1,577 were legitimate and 1,137 illegitimate, making a balance of only 440 chaste mothers out of 2,714, and the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children, not as one to two and three-tenths as pre- viously stated, but as one to one and a half ! " Of Norway the other Protestant tourist, Robert Bremner, in his Excursions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, bears similar testimony about that country. DENMARK. If religion has any influence in promoting morality one looks, of course, for favorable results more among the country people than in crowded cities. This evi- dence of the influence of the Catholic religion is seen in all Catholic countries, and the contrary is the case in Illegitimacy. 5 1 / Protestant ones, as has been already noted. Protestant Denmark is no exception. Here is the proof: " With regard to the peasant population of the rural districts ... it was found that of a hundred first-born children no less than thirty-nine were born under seven months after marriage, to which must be added nine (9) per cent, born between seven and nine months after marriage. A great number of the brides who were not pregnant at marriage had already had illegitimate children with the bridegroom or others; so that it may proba- bly be assumed that in two-thirds of the marriages (^childless marriages excepted^ the bride had had children while unmar- ried, or was pregnant at the marriage " ( Westergaard on Mar- riage Statistics 0/ Denmark, Copenhagen. Translation furnished to Seventh International Congress of Hygiene and Demography). The foregoing evidences concerning Illegitimacy make a bad showing for the moral influence of Protest- antism. And lest the reader to whom these facts are new may imagine I have kept back information on this subject that might be damaging to the character of Catholicism, I wish to assert right here that so far as my examination of the authorities quoted or as my reading of any other authors has brought to my notice any facts or inferences derogatory to the influence of the Catholic religion, I have found nothing to defend or palliate other than what I have already placed upon these pages. If anything of this nature has escaped my scrutiny, no doubt other eyes will find it ; but from what lies before us in the way of evidence on these pages there certainly does not appear to be room for much promise of probable counter charges of any weight. CHAPTER XXXV. GENERAI. IMMORALITY. CHILDREN born after marriage, no matter how soon, are not counted as illegitimate — that is, unlawful — but who shall say that their conception was not immoral f Suppose that this is so largel}^ prevalent in a country or district that even the Protestant clergy- men should testif}' that they "never," or for a long term of years ' ' do not remember an instance of their having married a woman who was not either pregnant at the time of her marriage or had had one or more children before her marriage," can any one doubt the depraved state of morals in such places ? We have just seen in the last chapter what a de- moralized condition of things in this respect is reported for Denmark. . . . Let us hear some evidence upon the same subject for England and Wales. ENGLAND. In a former chapter I directed the reader's attention to some evidence of the wretched character of the dwellings of the poor and of the working classes generally in England (see pp. 28-30). Mr. Joseph Kay, in his work, The Social Condition and Education of the English People (American edition. Harper Brothers) , devotes nearly a hundred pages to this sub- ject alone, relating facts of his own observation and from other e3^e-witnesses of the most horrifying char- acter. After reading the revolting descriptions one can 518 General Immorality. 5 1 9 hardl}' make up one's mind which class suffered the most in this respect, the laborers and operatives in cities and towns or the peasantry in the country dis- tricts. If these pages of Kay's book were read before an audience in any Catholic country, or, say, in the United States, the names of places, persons, and evi- dence being omitted, I do not think the listeners could imagine of what barbarous country or of what degraded and savage people the facts related could be true. Indeed, I feel quite sure that but a few persons would readily believe there was any truth at all in the narrative. What I have already quoted from reliable authori- ties sufficed at the time to show how greatly the poor and laboring classes had come to suffer in Protestant England in their means of shelter. What is of pain- ful interest in considering the present subject is the gross immorality to which all investigators have called attention as resulting from the overcrowding of the wretched people of all ages and sexes in the miserable dens, whether cellars in towns or cottages in the country, within which they are forced to pass at least the hours of the night. The following description of the character of the " cellar" dens in towns, as given by Kay, is an average specimen of those and other dwellings of the poor in many English counties for which he giv-es special details : " It is no uncommon thing for two and three, and sometimes for four families to live and sleep together in one room without any division or separation whatever for the different famihes or sexes. There are very few cellars where at least two families do not herd together in this manner. Their beds are made some- times of a mattress and sometimes of straw in the corners 5 2 o Gen era I Im morality. of the cellar and upon the clamp, cold, flag floor; and m those miserable sleeping places the father, mother, sons, and (laughters crowd together in a state of filthy indecency, and much worse off than the horses in an ordinary stable. No distinction of sex and age is made. Sometimes a man is found sleeping with one woman, sometimes with two women, and sometimes with young girls ; sometimes brothers and sisters of the age of i8, 19, and 20 are found in bed together ; while at other times a husband and wife share their bed with all their children. " The poor creatures who inhabit these miserable receptacles are of the most degraded species; they have never learned to read have never heard of the existence of a Deity ; have never been inside of a church, being scared from the doors by their own filth and wretchedness; and have scarcely any sense of a distinction between right and wrong" (page 96). When this writer comes to speak of the peasants' cottages he gives us even more revolting details, and adds that * ' facts have been mentioned to him of these crowded bedrooms much too horrible to be alluded to. Nor are these solitary instances, but similar reports are given by gentlemen writing in all parts of the country" {ibid., p. 118). Then he takes up his tale of horrors and relates what was to be seen in many different counties in Eng- land and Wales. The following may serve as an average specimen of the dreadftilly immoral condition of the English and Welsh w^orking people and peasants whom Kay describes : " In the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk one species of im- morality peculiarly prevalent is that of bastardy. There are no counties in which the percentage is so high as it is in Norfolk — being there 53.1 per cent., and in Suffolk 27 per cent, above the average of England and Wales. ' The immorality of the young General I in morality, 5 2 1 women,' said a rector of one parish to me, ' is literally horrible, and I regret to say it is on the increase in a most extraordinary degree. No person seems to think anything at all of it. When I first came to the town the mother of a bastard child used to be ashamed to show herself, and there was not one common prosti- tute in it; now there is an enormous number of them.'" He endeavors to bring to bear the influence of the religion of which he is a minister to impress upon these mothers of illegitimate children the enormity of the offence ; but that influence is shown to have had no .weight, for he adds: " There are no cases in which I receive more insult from those I visit. They generally say they'll get on as well, after all that's said about it : and if they never do anything worse than that they shall get to Heaven as well as other people." Another clergyman told him ' ' that he never recol- lected an instance of his having married a woman, etc.," as just stated above. Still another clergyman found it ' ' absolutely impossible for him to convince such that they had done wrong." "There appears," said he, " to be among the lower orders a perfect dead- ness of all moral feeling upon this subject." Then follow some particulars, which respect for the general reader compels me to omit. He finds two hundred and twenty common brothels in the town of Norwich, and a larger proportion of prostitution in the town of Bury than is to be found in any other town or city in Eng- land (pp. 168-70). The reports of these and other counties exhibit the wretched condition of the laboring poor ; it being a common thing for a whole family, father, mother, small children, and grown-up daughters and sons, to all sleep in the same room, and even in the same bed. No 522 General Ini morality. wonder we should read : ' ' Any degree of indelicacy and unchastity ceases to surprise." This seems to have been the horrible state of things over a great part of England when Kay wrote in 1850. Do I hold Protestantism responsible for all this shocking immorality? Of course I do. Do you not think that if anything comparable to it could ever have been found in any Catholic country in the w^orld, that the Catholic religion would not have been held respon- sible ? Of course it would, and we should not be left long in ignorance of the evidence either, nor spared a swift condemnation. But surely, when such a deplorable and, for Protes- tantism, such a shameful revelation of its inability to prevent the masses of its people from falling into such a degraded condition had been forced upon the notice of its clergy, they would at once have set to work, and in a few years a better story could be told. Let us hear if a change for the better has taken place. Here is some testimony of the state of things a quarter of a century later, and not far from our own present day : " Our fashionable and vulgar 7noralily," writes the Rev. J. B. Sweet, vicar of Otterton, Devon, in 1883, " zs the natural pro- duct and precise reflex of our popular theology. Self-indulgent solifidianism stamps it all. Licentiousness and dishonesty, profli- gate extravagance, by gambling, betting, and immorality, and an utter disregard of truthfulness, characterize large classes of so- ciety. . . . At no previous date in English history has the marriage-bond, the very basis of society, been so openly violated and dishonored as to-day. The Divorce-Law of the State, now in direct antagonism to that of the Church, is eating into the very vitals of the nation. It permits, and therefore encourages, dis- solution of marriage on easy terms ; facilitates (whilst protesting against) collusive actions for adultery ; Iegali/.es the forbidden General Immorality. 523 union of the guilty parties ; floods the whole realm with vile de- tails of evidence given in its courts, and, as a climax, dares to im- pose a penalty on the faithful priest who closes his church against the marriage of an adulterer at God's altar. . . . With such impunity and encouragement for the grossest offenders, it is little wonder that marriage is made by multitudes a cloak for preceding sin ; or that concubinage increases ; or that further relaxations of the marriage laws are desired, extending even to a demand for unrestrained indulgence, and a total suppression of God's first in- stitution for the happiness and increase of mankind. Meantime the streets of our metropolis, and of various provincial towns, are said to swarm with prostitutes, often mere children, to an extent surpassing continental cities, where vice is avowedly taken under protection of the law. Corporations, mayors, and magistrates are beating about to find a remedy for what has become a civil plague ; . . . and so general has become the sense of grow- ing viciousness and of a widely spreading impurity in youth, that Peers in Parliament, Bishops, Clergy, and Laity in Congress and Conferences, Archbishops in their palaces, and even ladies by press and platform, are occupied in devising antidotes for evils which in our early days were never subjects of private conversa- tion or public discussion" (The Increase of Immorality, etc., pp. 28, 30). WALES. But how shall I present to my reader the revolting immorality of Wales, largely under the influence of Methodism, and of the so-called Independents, as given in thirty-three pages of Kay's book. I give a few testimonies (the worst will not bear repeating), all from Protestant clergymen and laymen of their own towns and districts: " Promiscuous intercourse is most common ; it is thought of as nothing, and the women do not lose caste by it " (Rev. John Griffith, vicar of Abedare). " The want of chastity results from the practice of bundling, or 524 General Ijiunorality. courtship on beds, during the night, a practice widely prevailing, and in the classes immediately above as well as among the labor- ing people" (Mr. Symonds, commissioner for Brecknockshire, Cardiganshire, and Radnorshire). " The vastly increasing crime of illicit intercourse prevails to a great extent, and these are by no means confined to the un- educated " (E. Seymour, magistrate). " Men wash themselves when stripped in presence of women; the result is the frequency of illicit intercourse " (Rev. J. Hughes, curate of Llanelly). " Drunkenness and illegitimacy are the prevailing vices, the second considered a very venial offence " (Rev. W. L. Bevan, vicar of Hay). " The number of illegitimate children, when compared with England, is astounding" (Rev. M. Griffiths). " The young persons in Sunday-schools are not only grossly ignorant on every other subject, but also grossly immoral. Many of the girls have bastard children " (Very Rev. Dean of St. David's). " Promiscuous intercourse is carried on to a very great degree " (Thomas Williams, superintendent of the Independent Sunday- school). " Want of chastity is so prevalent that, although I promised to return the marriage fee to all couples whose first child should be born after nine months from the marriage, only one in six years entitled themselves to claim it" (Rev. L. H. Davies, Troedey Raur). " Great laxity on the subject. Sexual lusts and drunkenness are the popular vices " (Rev. W. D. West, curate of Presteigne). " In the crime of bastardy I fear the people of this country are pre-eminent" (Sir W. Cockburn, New Radnor). " Unchastity in the women is, I am sorry to say, a great stain upon our people. The number of bastards is very great " (Rev. R. L. Venables, vicar of Clyro). " The breach of chastity is considered neither a sin nor a crime. Women who have had two or three illegitimate children are as frequently selected for wives as those of virtuous conduct " (Rev. John Price, rector of Bledfa). General luiuiorality, 525 111 North Wales, in the parish of Hawarden, of which the inhabitants were exelusively English — " Incontinence is increasing- so rapidly as to render it difficult to find a cottage where some female of the family has not been enceinte before marriage. One vice is flagrant throughout North Wales, and remains unchecked, and has almost ceased to be con- sidered an evil — that is the barbarous practice preceding mar- riage " [bundling] (Rev. J. P. Foulkes). " Want of chastity flagrant, and not confined to the poor. Farmers' daughters are courted in bed. With domestic servants the vice is universal. I have had the greatest difficulty in keeping my own servants from it. I secured their chamber windows with bars. I am told by my parishioners, that unless I allow the prac- tice I shall very soon have no servants at all, and that it will be impossible to get any " (Rev. W. Jones, vicar of Nevin). " I assert with confidence, as an undeniable fact, that unchas- tity is not regarded as a vice, scarcely as a frailty, by the common people of Wales. It is considered as a matter of course, and the regular thing before marriage. It is avowed, defended, laughed at, without scruple or shame or concealment, by both sexes alike" (Rev. J. W. Trevor, chaplain to the Bishop of Bangor). I am told that Wales is the country from which the Mormons have for years been largely recruiting their numbers, and, if it be true, these poor degraded con- verts have certainly not gone from bad to worse. Again I ask : Do I hold Protestantism responsible for all this unequalled shocking immorality ? Again I answer : Of course I do ; and I think that every un- biassed judge of what results one would have a right to look for among masses of people so directly under its influence as the English and Welsh people have been under their Protestantism would make the same judg- ment. I am wondering why some of those good Protestant 526 General Inunorality. ministers whose words I have quoted did not club to- gether, and import some Catholic servant girls from Ireland ! Ah ! does not ever}^ reader feel, at the verj^ mention of them, the blowing of a sweet, pure, refresh- ing breeze, after all this foul, suffocating nastiness ! But, no doubt, it is well they never thought of doing so, for, out of reach of the influences of their holy and pure religion, and exposed to the poverty of moral aid in a wholl}" Protestant country, they might have turned out nearly as bad as the others. Purity of morals is dependent upon the spiritual power one's religion has, not onh' to preach good moral principles, but to both win and enforce their adoption. And above all to keep the heart and mind innocent. In these respects it is plain that the system of Protestantism has proved to be a disastrous failure. Well did Laing, the Scotch Prot- estant writer, testify: "Catholicism has certainh^ a much stronger hold over the human mind than Protest- antism " ( Notes of a Traveller, p. 394). To what did Mr. Kay attribute the hideous pauper- ism by the millions, and the degraded moral condition of England and Wales w^hich he so minutely and graphically describes? The chief cause he believed to be the phenomenal lack of popular education. And it must be said to his credit that he did not fail to assert very strongly that if such education were to be given to the people, it ought to be a Christian one. Neverthe- less, it is not a little surprising that he did not read a stronger lesson to the Protestant clergy than he timidly ventured upon doing here and there in his book. He owns that Protestantism is no religion for the poor, the ignorant, and the sinful, nor, indeed, for the masses of people. General hnniorality. 527 He devotes two or three pages to " The Roman Chuirh in its relation to the English poor.'' It is amus- ing to find him, in common with most Protestant writers, dwelhng upon the superior "intellectual" character of Protestantism compared with " Roman- ism," They are all alike, equally ignorant of the Catholic religion, and think it is nothing but an outside show, a "glittering spectacle" which appeals to, catches and holds the senses only. Do these persons reflect that their * * superior intel- lectual faith," as they fancy it to be, has proved itself to have no better hold upon the intellects or heart of the well-educated than it has upon the poor and illite- rate ? Do Catholic priests keep their people from im- morality by the effect of ' ' glittering spectacles ' ' ? They are evidently hard driven to find a reason to explain away the spiritual power of Catholicism. Kay has to acknowledge that everywhere the "Romanist" clergy were making great headway, especially with the ver}^ classes that the Protestant clergy could do nothing, or would do nothing with ; as we know has been the case in England and elsewhere ever since. He thinks the reason why " Roman priests do not feel the disgust which a more refined man [such as the Protestant minister] cannot help feeling, in being obliged (?) to enter the low haunts of the back streets and alleys, is because so many of them are not men of refined habits themselves ' ' ! That is the way of the blind who will not see ; who will give any and ever}^ reason, even a false one, rather than the true and only reason, which is this : The Catholic Church is the Church of Jesus Christ, and therefore she loves the poor, and goes to seek and save the sinful : and be- 5 28 General I minor ality. ing filled with divine power, wisdom, and charity, she knows how to hold the souls of her people, and hinder them from going to destruction. Her past record and the story of the present equally go to show that she is the only moral power which can save the world. Let us hear what our Scotch Presbyterian friend Laing has to say of the Catholic priests, and how he cautions Protestant ministers against not only the in- justice but the danger of making false and indecent charges about them in the hearing of their own people : " The sleek, fat, narrow-minded, wealthy drone is now to be sought for on the episcopal bench, or in the prebendal stall of the Lutheran or Anglican churches ; the well-off, comfortable parish minister, yeoman-like in mind, intelligence, and social position, in tlie manse and glebe of the Calvinistic Church. The poverty- stricken, intellectual recluse, never seen abroad but on his way to and from his studies, or church duties, living nobody knows where, but all know in the poorest manner, upon a wretched pittance in his obscure abode, and this is the popish priest of the nineteenth century, has all the advantage of the posi- tion with the multitude for giving effect to his teaching. Our clergy, especially in Scotland, have a very erroneous impression of the state of the popish clergy. In our country churches we often hear them prayed for as men wallowing in luxury and sunk in gross ignorance. This is somewhat injudicious as well as uncharitable : for when the youth of their congregations who, in this travelling age, must often come in contact abroad with the Catholic clergy so described, find them in learning, liberal views, and genuine piety, according to their own doctrines, so very dif- fer e7it from the description and the describers, there will unavoid- ably arise comparisons, in the minds especially of females and young susceptible persons, by no means edifying or flattering to their clerical teachers at home. . . . Our churchmen should understand better the strength of a formidable adversary, who is evidently gaining ground but too fast on our Protestant Church, General Inunorality. 529 and who in this age brings into the field zeal and purity of life equal to their own, and learning, a training in theological scholar- ship, and a general knowledge superior, perhaps, to their own " {Notes of a Traiteller, p. 399). Judging from many years of observation I should say that, if the rank and file of the Protestant ministry in the United States serving as preachers, lecturers, newspaper editors, missionary agents and correspon- dents, with some most honorable exceptions, could have that bit of sage advice brought to their notice, it would not come amiss. How often have these thoughtless, and in many cases unscrupulous, accusers of the Catho- lic clergy defiled the minds of their youthful hearers, disgusted their older ones, and sent many a one to Rome to find if these things they have heard be true — and not finding them true, well — with what conse- quences following I leave the reader to imagine. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE MORALITY OF ROME. AS I liave just intimated in closing the last chapter, one of the favorite subjects of attack made by Protestant assailants of the Catholic religion is the morality of its priests, monks, and nuns. Charges of the grossest immorality against these particular classes of persons form nearly four-fifths of all the ' ' wicked impostures and slanders ' ' that are heard from their pulpits, and which flavor the harangues of anti-Cath- olic lectures and newspaper correspondence purporting to describe the condition of the Catholic clergy and religious in lands that are foreign to their audience, and of which their hearers and readers have no ex- perience. The fact of the frequency and enormity of these accusations is too well known to need particular evidence. I was not at all surprised, therefore, to read the following from the pen of Bishop Newanan of the Methodist Church in the New York Christian Advocate, June i, 1893, writing from South America. After lamenting the conversion of the original Indian races to Christianity by the labors of the Spanish missionaries he goes on to speak of the great sums of money obtained by Pizarro and sent to the King of Spain ; and then of ' ' the larger sum sent to the holy mother Church, for the pious work of building cathe- drals for the masses, monasteries for the monks, con- vents for the nuns, and orpha^i asylums for their progejiy.'' 530 The Morality of Rome. 531 Neithej^- am I surprised to learn that other ' ' re- vilers without cause," of the same class and mind with this Methodist bishop, should have promptly profited by the recent politico-religious outbreak, pre- pared by the Evangelical Alliance and the National League for the Protection of American Institutions, and consummated by those secret, would-be assassins of political and religious liberty, the A. P. A's, to pour forth from pulpit and press sermons and books filled with similar charges against the morality of priests and nuns. When one considers the vile char- acter of these charges, their patent absurdity, and the readiness with which they are received and credited by the general mass of Protestants, the remark of the Rev. Washington Gladden already quoted is singularly pertinent — "the depth and the density of that popular ignorance which permits the use of such documents (or the preaching of such sermons, or printing of such correspondence) is certainly appalling." One fact in connection with this outpouring of defamatory accusations is quite notorious, the lack of any reliable evidence accompanying them. Or, if any references are made to what purports to be an authority for their statements, they are of such a vague character that certification is impossible. One will find that they are generally prefaced, if at all, with such expressions as : "A writer says " ; ' ' An ex-priest says * ' ; " The Reports of the Bureau of Education [many volumes of tens of thousands of pages] say," etc. What writer, or in what book, or in what volume, or at what page — all such references, which no man of honor or honesty of purpose who feels called upon to make an accusation would permit himself to omit, are wanting. 532 The Morality of Rome. Such have ever been and are the tactics of the popu- lar assailant of Rome and of all that is hers, even unto this day. I am led to renew the exposure already made (but, of course, to no effect) of a very remarkable calumny of this sort ; remarkable both for its audacity, its false- hood, and the persistence of its life. Among sundry unproved charges lately obtaining place in one of our great New York daily newspapers — the New York Herald, January 7, 1894 — was the one following, at- tacking the morality of the City of Rome, and by a base innuendo, h la Bishop Newman, the morality of its clergy and nuns. The writer made the general charge that "out of 4,000 children born in Rome, 3,600 are illegitimate." And to substantiate the charge he goes on to say : " The El Solfeo, an Italian journal of prominence [no date given], publishes the following statistics: 'In 1870 Rome had 2,469 secular clergy among cardinals, bishops, prelates, and cures; 2,766 monks, and 2,117 nuns; in all, 7,322 religious of "both sexes. The number of births reached in the same year to 4,378, of which 1,215 were legitimate and 3,163 illegitimate. The illegitimates, therefore, being in the proportion 75.25 per 100 of the total births." Look at the base innuendo conveyed in the accusa- tion. In the same year tha.t Rome had 7,322 persons vowed to a life of celibacjs 3,000 out of 4,000 children born were illegitimate; and this in 1870^ If there really is such an Italian journal as "El Solfeo," and if it be "prominent" in anything, it probably is so for its cowardly attacks on priests and nuns. Its editor knew his audience, however, when he ventured to offer them this old time-worn counterfeit. The Morality of Rome. 533 newly polished with his salacious varnish. He knew they would take it, and give it a wide circulation, and ask no questions. As soon as my eye fell upon it I recognized the face of an old absurd fabrication which has served the base purposes of these calumniating enemies of ' ' Roman- ism " (and unfortunately served them but too well, in deceiving their people, and deepening their ignorant prejudices) for more than twenty-five years, to my own knowledge, and probably ever since 1836 ; the date originally chosen upon which to fix this fraudulent accusation. The El Self CO picked up the slander somewhere, copied the charge, giving the number of births and the alleged proportion of illegitimate children, changed the original date of these 4,373 births from 1836 to 1870, tacked on the number of priests and nuns in 1870, and sent the false testimony out upon its travels to do its evil work. I have before me an official folio document, giving the vital statistics and the number of different classes of persons in Rome for the long period from 1600 to 1869 inclusive. The Report is entitled, Stato delle Anime delV Ahna Citta di Roma per V anno 1869. In this last year (1869) the number of the clergy and religious of both sexes was 7,480, and the total of births was 5,276. In changing the date and letting the number of births for 1836 stand, the slanderer in the El Solfco overreached himself. There have never been less than 5,000 births in Rome since the year 1845, as the Official Report shows. The original charge as found repeated in Evenings ivith the Romanists, by Rev. M. Hobart Seymour 534 TJie Morality of Rome, (Carter Brothers, New York), was fully exposed in the Catholic Woiid, October, 1869. Those who have circulated this calumny have been shown the refuta- tion ; not one of them has ever been honest enough to retract it. They never do. They wait a convenient time and then patch up their former charges, as the El Solfeo has done with this old fraud, and put them forth again as good, or almost as good as new — good enough, any way, to serve their purposes. Those people who are so professedly horrified over the alleged immorality of Catholic priests and nuns, never seem to be conscious that there is anything immoral in bearing false witness against their neighbor, and of acting on the motto Protestants themselves invented and then falsely charged the Jesuits with holding, that " the end justifies the means "; in this case lying and sticking to it in order to put down " Romanism." Or, if their con- sciences do sometimes accuse them of a breach of that commandment, they act as if God would probably wink at it, when the ' ' neighbor ' ' is only a Roman Catholic. The notable fabrication alluded to being one of the very worst ever perpetrated deserves a thorough exposure. I quote from Rev. Mr. Seymour's book : " In the Italian statistics of Mittermaier we have the number of exposed infants received in II S. Spirito, II Conservatorio, and other estabHshments of this class. The number received during a series of ten years amounts to 31,689. This total distributed among the ten years gives, as the mean, the number of 3,160 infants exposed annually in the City of Rome." He then gives the population of Rome, 153,678, and the total of births as 4,373, which are exactly the figures for 1836 given in the Roman official Report. The Morality of Rome. 535 Then we get this deduction : Total number of births, 4.373 Average annual number of " foundlings " received for ten years, being about one-tenth of 31,689, . 3,160 Annual number of legitimate births^ only . . 1,213 At this the Rev. Mr. Seymour holds up his pious hands and exclaims : ' ' This is a frightful number of illegitimate births, and a number without parallel of cruel and unnatural mothers ! " And we may add, it indicates an unparalleled amount of gullibility in any one who would for one moment credit such an absurd statement. What is the truth? First. There neither is, nor ever was, such an institution as " // Conservatorio " in Rome. The fellow was ignorant of the Italian lan- guage. The word "conservatorio" is a general term used to designate sometimes a school, a conservatory, a hospital, or an asylum. II Santo Spirito is itself a " conservatorio." Second. The II S. Spirito is the only asylum where foundlings are received, and that institution is not all devoted to the care of foundlings either. On the con- trary that work occupies but a very small quarter in that hospital. Third. The whole fabricated cnarge is based upon the vital statistics for 1836. The official returns for that year, as given in the document I have in hand, are these : 1836. Population of Rome, .... 153,678 " Total births, 4-373 536 The Morality of Rome. (The New York Herald by a typographical error made the last figure an 8.) Both figures betray the original hands of Mitter- maier, Seymour & Co. No such figures are to be found from that day for- ward or before. And yet the El Solfeo and its too- willing dupes and aids unblushingly put down ' ' In the year 1870 " — and so betrayed themselves. The real population in 1869 was already 220,532, and the total births 5,277, and in 1870 were probably more. Fourth. How did the master fabricator, Mitter- maier, get his 31,689 " exposed infants" in ten years? Oh ! that is " as easy to do as falling off a log." He simply counted up the number of all the convent schools, and of all the hospitals and all asylums in Rome, and put them down as being all foundling asyluins I Then he counted up all the pupils in these schools, all the sick in the hospitals, all the orphans and old men and women, all the deaf, and dumb, and blind, every soul, in fact, in every such school and charitable institution in Rome during ten years, and found the total number to be 31,689! And then, oh shame ! he had the unparalleled audacity to say that this was the number of illegitimate ehildren Rome pro- duced during that time. That takes away one's breath. Hence he got at the average annual number 3,160 — about one-tenth of the whole alleged 31,689 illegitimates— as his reverend pupil, Mr. Seymour, followed him also in deducing the same when he pub- lished his evil book forty years ago ; and which num- ber their reverend and other pupils in this year of grace now transfer to 1870! They felt assured, no TJie Morality of Rome. 537 doubt, that this change in the face of the counterfeit would not be detected by those whom they intended to deceive by it. Any charge, however absurd, against Rome, goes. There is one other equally convenient method by which this ready reckoner of Roman immorality might have made up his astounding total of 31,689 for ten years and then deduced the annual one-tenth — 3,160. I will give an example to show how it could be done without taking the trouble even of getting the statistics of all the charitable and educational institutions in Rome for ten years. If it had occurred to the inventive mind of the original Mittermaier there is little doubt he would have adopted it. This is the method. Never mind counting up all the aforementioned school and hospital inmates for ten years. Take any one 3-ear and multiply the figures of that year by ten. I will take one year — say the year 1869 — for which I have all the details of II S. Spirito and all other asylums and institutions — there are eight3-seven of them — then I will add the number of their inmates together, as re- ported, multiply them by teji, and let us see how we will come out : 1869. Inmates of all convent schools, . . 1,738 " " " male charity hospitals, . 878 a .< <. feuiale hospitals, refuges, and asylums, 1,216 Total inmates of the 87 institutions, . . 3,832 Multiply these by ten, and say, after Mittermaier and Rev^ Seymour: "II S. Spirito, II Conservatorio (?), and other establishments of this class, received during a series of ten years the following number of exposed 53$ The Morality of Rome. infants, viz., 38,320. This total distributed among the ten years gives, as a mean, the number of 3,832 infants exposed annually in the city of Rome. The population in 1869 was 220,532, and the total births were 5,276. Hence we have : 1869. Total number of births, .... 5,276 Annual average number of foundlings received for ten years, being one-tenth of the num- ber 38,320 3-832 Annual number of legitimate births only, . . 1,444 There you have it ! Now go on, and, like the El Solfco and its foolish dupe in New York, report that "the number of priests, monks, and nuns in Rome in 1869 was 7,480," and add : "The number of births reached in the same year 5,276, of which 1,444 only were legitimate and 3,832 illegitimate. The illegitimates, therefore, being in the proportion of 72.63 per 100 of the total births." Those of my readers who recall the exposure I made of the Hawkins-Jay fraud in chapter seventeen will see that it sometimes becomes necessary for our Protestant accusers of this class to multiply by ten in order to make the sum of Roman Catholic crime, pauperism, and immorality come out right, or, at least, to make it come up to as high a figure as is wanted for the occasion and the audience. Did I not say well that, provided one has made up his mind to risk the consequences in the sight of God and man, and wishes to get up a telling table of statistics against Rome, the playing hocus- pocus with figures to achieve his purpose is "as easy as falling off a log " ? But I am not yet through with The Morality of Route. 539 the examination of this ' ' infamous forgery " as it was repeated in the Herald. Fifth. How many inmates, exclusive of the Sisters in charge, are reported as being in the S. Spirito foundling asylum 2X the end of the year 1869? 249; and not all iL.gitimate either, as I shall prove. Sixth. To how many married women would there be one birth? The Vital Statistics for all Italy show that there is about one birth to every five married women. Having the statistics I use the year 1867 as an example. How many married women in Rome in the year 1867? 30,471. How many children might we expect to find born of them ? 6,094. How many children all told, legitimate and illegitimate, were born that year? Living children 5739 Still-born children 381 Total births, 6,120 As will be seen, 26 more than the average number of honest, legitimate children to whom the 30,471 married women ought to have given birth {Civilta Cattolica, June, 1868, and Stato delle Anime, etc., 1869). Where now is the place for any illegitimates at all ? The Vital Statistics do not say how many there were ; but it is quite plain that they could not possibly be over one or two hundred. The fact is, that when Rome was under the rule of the Popes it was one of the most moral cities, in this as in several other respects, in the world. In Rome possibly, in all Italy certainly, the percentage of illegitimac}^ has gone up since the loss of the " cleri- cal " rule, and the unhappy people are left exposed to 540 The Morality of Rome. the unmolested attacks of the infidel ravishers of their homes, their morals, and their social peace. And if the '' rate of illegitimacy " for all Italy has gone up since the Pope was deposed, as the statistics for six late years given in the Statesman' s Year Book, 1893, now shows, it does not prove, even so, that the advanced rate is of real, but only of apparent illegiti- macy. The title over the number of these is — " Num- ber of illegitimate and exposed infants." Who make up the half of these exposed infants ? Honest, legitimate children, left by the wretched mothers at the foundling asylums, whom the new regime drove from their happy little homes for non-payment of state taxes, to wander into exile, or die, like the evicted peasantry of Ireland, by the highway. This leaving of sick, rickety, and otherwise diseased infants by poor parents unable to rear or care for them, at the doors of foundling asylums in Italy, and es- pecially at the II S. Spirito in Rome, it being a hospital, and whose number helped to swell the general statis- tics of "illegitimates," was done even in the time of Papal rule. So I come to the proof that not all, pro- bably not the half of the infants received in the found- ling department of the II S. Spirito hospital in Rome were illegitimate. Mr. John Francis Maguire, member of Parliament, wrote an elaborate account of his personal investigation of all the institutions of Rome in 1870. How many "foundlings" does he say are received in the II S. Spirito in Rome per annum ? 900. But he adds : " The number of 900 may seem very great — " Tlie Morality of Rome. 541 Oh ! not at all, Mt. Maguire, for a certain Mitter- maier, the Rev. M. Hobart Seymour, the El {}) Solfco newspaper, and the New York preacher all say that the annual number is 3,160. " — but it should be stated that the hospital of S. Spirito affords an asylum not only to the foundlings of Rome, but to those of the provinces of Sabina, Fronsinone, Velletri, and the Comarca, and also districts on the borders of Naples." But they are all illegitimate, are they not ? No. Maguire testifies, and truly, as evidence I will presently give shows, that a large number of them are legitimate infants put by their poor parents into the turning-wheel of the foundling asylum, to be cared for and nursed, having marks for future identity and baptismal certifi- cates showing their lawful birth, pinned on their clothes; and " though," he adds, "this facility of get- ting rid of legitimate offspring leads to a disregard of the manifest obligations of a parent's duty, I can only say that it does away with that awful proneness to infanticide which distinguishes other countries, but pre-eminently England" (Rome, John Francis Ma- guire, M.P., p. 193). One example taken off-hand proves his words and is my excuse for quoting his Catholic testimony. Re- quest was made in 1868 for the actual receptions of foundlings at the S. Spirito between its last report at Easter to July of the same year, a period of three months. This was the reply : Foundlings received. 0/ legitimate birth. Uncertain. vl May, . . 84 38 46 n June, . . 76 25 51 n July, . . 78 29 49 Totals, . . 238 92 146 542 The Morality of Rome. If all those of "uncertain" birth were illegitimate, and that is not sure, four times that number would be only 584, and these would be chargeable not to Rome alone, but to a large district of country as well, contain- ing many hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. So that I was safe in saying, as I did, that at the most there were not over one or two hundred illegitimate children born annually in Rome. . But let the highest figures, those for all infants re- ceived (238) during the three months, stand. Four times 238 is 952, just about what Mr. Maguire said was the average of all such infants received in the hospital as foundlings, and not 3,160 as the slanderers have as- serted and do assert, and alas ! will continue to assert in spite of every proof to the contrary. But I have had my say ; and have once more brought to book one of the worst specimens of what the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, Protestant minister, so boldly and truly stigmatized as "wicked impostures and shameful scandals put out by, and circulated under, the sanction of some of the most eminent pastors, bishops, theologians, and civilians of the American Protestant churches, to the burning and ineffaceable disgrace of the (Protestant) Church of Christ." Shame ! shame ! shame ! CHAPTER XXXVII. DIVORCE. THERE is no need to enlarge upon the shameful and fatal wound given to the moral life of modern societ}^ by the introduction and continued sanction of divorce by Protestantism. Whoso attacks the divine institution of the family, as this system of legalized polygamy and polyandry does, unmistakably aims a fatal blow at the most precious of all institutions of Christian civilization, the Family. Nay, more, it tends to sap the very foundations of human society by pro- voking the commission of unnatural crimes in order to be rid of what otherwise would be a powerful hindrance to the enjoyment of this degrading immoral license, viz., the procreation of children. It is to the eternal infamy of the memory of the founder of the Protestant revolt, Martin Luther, and to his associate leaders of the Reformation, Melanchthon and Bucer, that they laid the foundations of this detestable system of divorce by de- liberately sanctioning the open bigamy of the Land- grave of Hesse, who appealed to them as expositors of the law of Christ for permission to have two wives. This permission they gave in a carefully prepared docu- ment signed at " Wittenberg, on Wednesday after the feast of St. Nicholas, 1539-" This document, in its origi- nal Latin with an English translation, may be found in Spalding's i//^^/7 of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 484- The very foundation of the Episcopalian form of Protestantism in England under Henry VIII., who 544 Divorce. made himself and his successors on the throne the royal heads ' * in spirituals and temporals ' ' of their new national church, was due, as every school-boy knows, to the taking of both law and gospel into his own hands by that adulterous and murderous monarch. Protestantism is so essentially disintegrating and de- structive in its nature, that it would be in vain to look to it to sustain the indissolubility of any bond whatso- ever. All religious unity among its adherents has dis- appeared. That might have been easily foreseen from the start. And it is no wonder that it began at once, as it did, to weaken the belief in marriage as a divine in- stitution, and that it has gone on from bad to worse unto this day. There is not a sect, Episcopalian, Presby- terian, Congregational, Methodist, Baptist, lyUtheran, or any one of the hundred and more subdivisions of " Protestant Christianity " here or in Europe, that would not admit to "good standing" in their ' ' churches ' ' and to the reception of its ' * ordinances ' ' any man or woman divorced by the law who has mar- ried again, the divorced wife or husband being still living. Whatever may be the so-called disciplinary decrees of the Protestant sects concerning marriage as found written in their books, all of them practically put them aside and accept the enactments of the civil law and the decisions of the courts. It is the old, old story — Caesar first, and God last. A few words from some English writers deserve quotation : " Within two years of the transfer of cases of div^orce a vinculo from the legislative to a special court, their number has risen from three per annum to three hundred. Lord Campbell, noting this in his diary, might well say that he was * appalled,' and, like Divorce. 54$ Frankenstein, stood aghast at the monster he had called into ex- istence {Li'fc of Campbell, quoted in Guardian, April, 1881). What would his lordship have felt had he lived to see this day ? For the multiplication of divorce cases in England now threatens to rival that of the United States; where, in Connecticut, e. g , against 91 divorces in 1849, there is now a yearly average of 440 ; the ratio of marriages to divorces being only ten to one ; the in- crease of divorces in thirty years 500 per cent., and of population only 70 per cent. (National Chiu^cJi, May, 1883). The number of divorces in America will, it is estimated, at the present rate of increase, equal that of marriage in twenty years {Morning Post, June 20, 1883). The marriages of divorced persons in England had reached 107 in 1878; and is now at 1,000 since 1856. A social revolution of the darkest dye is on us, and under the sanc- tion of law; yet no one demands inquiry. Premiers and Bishops, Parliament and Convocation, fold their hands" (Quoted in the Churck^and the Sects, Allnatt, note, p. 17). The well-known English Protestant clergyman, Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his Germany, Past and Present (vol. i. chap, v.), says: " In Demnar/c divorce is much more common than in Ger- many. From what I have seen and heard I fear that morals are at a terribly low ebb in the peninsula and its islands. Out of 10,000 persons in Germany over fifteen years old, 26 are divorced ; in Denmark, 50 ; in Hungary, 44 ; in Switzerland {exclusively among the Zivinglians and Calvinists) , /\.j ; in Catholic Austria there are only 4.8 [and these, of course, Protestants]. The Statis- tical Report of the government, published in 1872, says : ' The con- nection between the relative proportion of divorced and religious confessions is unmistakable. In the specially evangelical dis- tricts divorces are frequent, in fhe strictly Catholic they are rare.'" This •is good evidence in favor of the moral influence of Catholic surroundings to lessen Protestant immoral- ity, as, it will be remembered, was the case for suicide in Switzerland. 546 . Divorce, The Edinburgh Review^ October, 1880, p. 529, says: " The average for Prussia — the Protestant state par excellence — is no less than 90 in 1,000. In Transylvania it is said that among the German Lutherans two out of every three girls that get married are divorced before the end of the year, and that most married women have had three husbands." Truly, that is a frightful exhibit. In our own country the daily newspapers tell us of the alarming increase of this suicidal attack upon the family. Dr. Nathan Allen in his pamphlet, The New England Family, dwells at length upon the then threatening state of things nearly twenty years ago, and he gives statistics which are found repeated in the following ex- tract of a review oi Lectures on the Calling of a Christian Womaji, by the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, Rector of Trin- ity Church, New York City. The reviewer in the Literary Clmrchinati (English), October 12, 1883, says: " The sins of woman against her vocation are treated of in Lecture IV. and Lecture V., on Divorce, and may well startle us in England when we see the fearful results already arrived at in America, through the facilities afforded to it. We will only call attention to the statistics given in Vermont, 1878, the ratio being I divorce to every 13 marriages, in Rhode Island and New Hamp- shire I to every 10, and in Maine even worse. Mr. Dix also notes ' a fact that must be stated.' From the total of marriages registered in the several States, those contracted and solemnized by Roman Catholics must be deducted. For they, all honor to them, allow no divorce a vinculo , following literally the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. Among Protestants, or non-Roman Catholics, the divorces occur ; and these run up to as high a rate as I divorce to every 14 marriages in Massachusetts, and in Connecticut to i in every 8. The practical result of this facility of divorce is that in the New England States alone families are broken up at the rate of 2,000 every year. And note this : that Divorce, 547 while the laws for protecting marriage have been gradually weakened, and facilities for divorce extended, crimes against chastity, morality, and decency have been steadily increasing" (p. 124). As the Rev. Dr. Dix belongs to that division of the Protestant Episcopal Church known as " High " he avows the necessity of some definitive and executive power in Christian society in order to deal with such evils as this. How utterly powerless all the sects of Protestantism are, including Dr. Dix's own, to stop the bestial onslaught of this social monster, everybody knows full well. Dr. Dix is further quoted as saying : " This is not only a sign of an infidel society ; it is also an up- growth from the principles which form the evil side of Protestant- ism. There can be no doubt as to the genesis of this abomina- tion. I quote the language of the Bishop of Maine : ' Laxity of opinion and teaching on the sacredness of the marriage bond and on the question of divorce originated amongst the Protestants of Continental Europe in the i6th century. It soon began to appear in the legislation of Protestant States on that Continent, and near- ly at the same time to affect the laws of New England. And from that time to the present it has proceeded from one degree to another in America, until the Christian conception of the nature and obligations of the marriage bond finds scarcely any recog- nition in legislation, or, as must be inferred, in the prevailing sentiments of the community.' This is a heresy born and bred of free thought as applied to religion : it is the outcome of the habit of interpreting the Bible according to a man's private judg- ment, rejecting ecclesiastical authority and Catholic tradition, and asserting our freedom to believe whatever we choose, and to select what religion pleases us best" (p. 136). This is a remarkable avowal to come from an Ameri- can Protestant Episcopalian doctor of divinity. One is naturally led to ask : Where is that necessary definitive 548 Divorce. and executive power in his church ? The only one such we know of is the head of its English branch (or rather, root), who, at present, is Queen Victoria. That head our American Protestant Episcopalian branch does not acknowledge to be theirs; but then, whom or what does it acknowledge as its head ? To whose definitive and executive authorit}', civil or ecclesiasti- cal, do the bishops, clergy, and people of the "Protest- ant Episcopal Church in the United States of America," as they officially term their American branch, submit their individual free thought and private judgment ? To whose decisions on moral questions do they feel bound in conscience to conform their conduct ? Here is a case in point, and a very serious one too, involving the very life of society. But wh}^ ask these useless questions ? Everybody knows that there is no * * au- thority " in the world that presumes to declare the doc- trine of Christ, and has the power to enforce its deci- sions on this or an}^ other moral question, but the Roman Catholic Church, of which the Pope is the un- disputed supreme, definitive, and executive head. The New York Churchman (Protestant Episcopa- lian), September 8, 1894, contains a condensed account of the Report on Divorce of the House of Convocation of York in England. I transfer the matter to these pages as offering the very best kind of evidence. The reader will not fail to notice that it contains a very bold and honest self-accusation on the part of these English Churchmen that ''the Chitrch of E^igland is gidlty of con- nivance in. this matter of divorce.''' May their courage be equal to their compunction wdien it comes to meeting the enemy at close quarters ! But, even so, will their people recognize the voice and hand of ' ' authority ' ' ? Divorce. 549 The report says : " We have already seen how divorce is marching onward with ever-increasing" rapidity, bearing in its train those natural con- sequences — the disintegration of family life, laxity of ideas as to the marriage bond, a growing appetite for greater facilities for breaking that bond, perjury, lying collusions, and increasing temptations to unfaithful conduct. This surely means the steady lowering of the moral tone of the nation, and a drifting toward the depraved state of American morals in the matter of marriage. If England is to go forward on the path she has already com- menced to tread, what will be her condition one hundred or even tifty years hence ? "Where can we look for any check to this course that the nation has thus embarked upon ? Who should be the natural upholder of the morals of the country ? Ought not the answer to be, ' The Church of Christ in this land'? Have we not already seen how religious societies in America blame themselves because they have made no firm stand against the prevalent laxity ? Have we not seen how the Roman Church, there standing alone, has firmly opposed and stamped out amongst its own members exery tendency of the kind, and has thus had a marked influence for good ? " It is surely the duty of the Catholic Church of this land — " (i) Boldly and faithfully to set forth the doctrine of mar- riage as taught by our Lord and His Church, •" (^2) To strive by every means to maintain a sound and healthy public opinion on the subject, " (3) To uphold a strict discipline among her own members. " (4) And to remember that a Church of diminished numbers, yet of pure life, is more loyal to Christ, and doing more good in the nation, than a Church which lowers her moral standard to meet the lowered moral standard of the world. " We maintain that the Church of England is guilty of con- nivance in this matter of divorce : " (i) As regards the issue of marriage licenses from the diocesan registries, which, prima faciCy are 'voluntary faculties,' granted by the bishop. 550 Divorce, " The report, after giving tabulated statistics, goes on to say : " ' The practice varies greatly. '"Out of the thirty-four (i) dioceses of England and Wales— " ' (a) Six only (Chester, Chichester, Ely, Lichfield, Norwich, and Salisbury) refuse to issue licenses to any divorced person whatsoever. '''(b) Fifteen-and-a-half (2) (St. Albans, Bath and Wells. Canterbury, Durham, Exeter, the ancient diocese of Bristol, Hereford, Llandaff, Lincoln, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Leterborough, Rochester, Truro, Winchester) grant the bishop's faculty for a fresh union to the successful petitioner or plaintiff ii\ a divorce suit. '''(c) Whilst eleven-and-a-half (St. Asaph, Bangor (3), Car- lisle, St. David's, Gloucester, London (4), Oxford, Ripon, South- well, Wakefield, Worcester, York) make no rule against the issue of licenses to either party. Some leave it to the surrogates to do as they please, some merely order the surrogates to be sure that a certified copy of the decree absolute is filed whichever party applies, so as to make it clear that the decree was not one merely for judicial separation (5). Thus in eleven-and-a- half dioceses the bishop's faculty for a fresh union is. supplied to the convicted adulterer as well as to the successful petitioner.'" On the score of this now universally practised Prot- estant iniquity there is, of course, no comparison to make. They have the sin and the shame all to them- selves, with no Catholic to dispute with them the dis- honor. What is more : this question of divorce fur- nishes a practical test of the power of Christianity to regenerate society when it is suffering from erroneous doctrine or degrading, immoral practices. The reli- gious systems of Protestantism are confessedly unable to carry the mission of Christian regeneration into effect by deciding the true doctrine and enforcing the decision. The Catholic Church is able, as no one dis- putes. The conclusion is evident. CHAPTER XXXVIII. PROSTITUTION. ^tlHERE are three very pertinent remarks I would X like to make concerning my investigations of this repulsive subject which equally apply to that of Ille- gitimacy. The first is, that the never-ceasing vitupera- tive attacks upon the Catholic Church made by clerical and lay spokesmen of every Protestant sect are seldom free from charges of immorality and of immoral doctrine and influence based upon the alleged excess of illegiti- macy and prostitution among Catholic peoples. My second remark is, that outside of making use, by way of just defence against these unmerited charges, of the statistics furnished by official authorities or by their own writers, no Catholic has ever, to my knowl- edge, attacked either the Protestant religion or its clergy and people in similar brutal fashion. My third remark is, that Protestants seem to be particularly fond of hunting up statistics of illiteracy, pauperism, crime, and immorality. As has been already seen, most of my statements have been taken either directly from Protestant authorities or are con- firmed by their own investigations. If the reader chooses so to view the relative character of the per- sonifications in the fable, as applied to this matter, the Lion is quite content to abide by the ' ' History ' ' of him as written by the ''Man:' In what sort of light the Man would appear if the Lion took it into his head to write a history, and especially a moral 551 552 Frost iiution. histoos of him, may well be imagined after seeing what the Man, in attempting to vShow up the in- iquity of the Lion, has been forced, willy-nilly, to tell about himself. Some friends, both of the Lion and the Man, may possibly say — Don't stir up this ver}^ objectionable matter. I reply — It is already stirred up most reck- lessly, most publicl}^ and most offensivel3\ Not by us Catholics, but by those who are very far from being an}' better friends of sinners than they are of the poor, but who in their wrong-headed ignorance of the true spirit of Christ revile the Catholic Church for "im- morality and pauperism ' ' because they see the outcast and the poor hastening to throw themselves upon her maternal bosom of divine cliarit}^ the poor knowing well that she will pour out her alms sweetened with love to relieve their bodily needs, and the penitent sinner equally sure that she will speak to them the words of hope and forgiveness as she shelters them under her mantle of mercy. The Friend of vSinners and of the Poor ! Oh ! glorious title, worthily borne through days of good and evil report by God's most holy Church ! If I bring myself, therefore, to drag into the light the true facts concerning this unwelcome subject, it is because too man}' have been misled b}^ false and exag- gerated charges to look upon the Catholic Church as a " mystery of moral iniquity," in proof of which her un- scrupulous enemies have not hesitated to put out tables of false statistics about the social evil, and published books and pamphlets, the very names of which must not defile these pages even in defence. Without further ado I present simply some cold figures. Prostitution, 553 Mulhall gives these statistics for a few cities without remark or reference ; to which I have added the calcu- lated number of inhabitants for e ver}-. prostitute : Cities, Protestant. I Prostitute to how many inhabitants ? How 7nany to every 10,000 inhabitants ? How many in the city ? London, Berlin, . . Catholic. Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, . Bordeaux, . 40 82 69 80 83 248 122 US 112 3 1 ,800 27,300 26,990 5,520 4,080 2,610 It would appear that Mulhall based his compilation of the full numbers for London upon the statistics of population for 1881. The figures given for the other cities calculated upon his ratio of prostitution do not correspond with any statistics of population I can find. If the same ratio be taken to hold good for later years, then the numbers for the three great cities where one expects this vice to be the more rampant would be these : 1 891. London Paris, 1890. Berlin, -Full number, 35.092 29,469 39.853 Before offering an explanation of these figures I present a carefully compiled table made by a cele- brated German authority, which was quoted as reliable b}^ the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in his Germany, Past and Present, vol. i. p. 167. The authority is Haus- ner's VergieicJicnde Statistik von Europa, 1865, vol. i. 554 Prostittition. p. 179. From the table of Hausner I give all the Protestant cities named, and select from the list of Catholic cities an equal number, and those which con- tain the largest number of inhabitants and in which this vice should be more prevalent, so as to preclude an}^ possible charge of unfairness towards the Protestant side : PROTESTANT CITIES. I Prostitute to Hozv niajiy to hoiv many in- every 10,000 habitants ? inhabitants ? Hamburg, ... 48 208 Berlin, 62 161 London, . 91 109 Liverpool, 129 77 Amsterdam, 153 65 Rotterdam, 171 58 Edinburgh, 198 50 Dresden. . 236 42 The Hague, 248 40 Manchester (?), 489 20 CATHOLIC CITIES. I Prostitute to How many to how many in- every 10,000 habitants ? inhabitants ? Buda-Pesth, . . . 103 97 Vienna, . ^59 62 Naples, . 208 48 Munich, . 220 45 Madrid, . 240 41 Paris, 247 40 Brussels. . 275 36 Marseilles, 283 35 Bordeaux, 312 32 Lyons, 422 23 The best Protestant city on the list is Manchester, in England, and I think it deserves to have the mark of interrogation which I find placed after it. Its superior and singular purity above all other Prot- Prostitution. 555 estaut cities in Europe is certainly questionable. Although I have omitted it from the list, I think the Catholic Italian city of Bologna, the best one of the Catholic cities named by Hausner, deserv^es mention. It has but I prostitute to 590 inhabitants and only 16 to every 10,000 inhabitants. Compared even with French cities, it seems that Bologna has not been assigned her place of honor without just cause. A recent French wTiter says : '* Violations and crimes against chastity are infinitely less fre- (juent in Italy than in France, where these crimes are increasing " {Dc la crwiinalite en France ct en Italie: etude medico-tcgaie, Dr. Albert Bournet, Paris, 1884). The reader must have already noticed the extra- ordinary discrepancy between the figures given in the two sets of tables for the great cities of London, Paris, and Berlin ; for if we take the ratio given by Hausner as holding good at this present day, the following results would appear, in which I wall include also Vienna : PROTESTANT CITIES. 1 891. London — Full number, .... 46,275 1890. Berlin, " " .... 25,464 CATHOLIC CITIES. 1 891. Paris — Full number, .... 9,910 1890. Vienna, " " 8,582 Such a discrepancy demands explanation. This is found in the fact that London and Berlin are charged with the approximate number of these unfortunate women, including both those who are sufficiently well known to the police to be estimated, and those 5 56 Prostitution. whose character is discovered through investigations made by parliamentary commissioners, physicians, and sociologists. This latter class is termed "clandes- tine," the ostensible occupations of these women being quite other than their real one. On the other hand, the figures for Paris and Vienna appear extraordinarily low, because they are the report only of those known to government authorities, and the number of " clandes- tines " are not included. There have been a good many essa3-s written on this subject, and all agree that it is next to impossible to do more than make a general estimate based upon investi- gations more or less thorough. The following may throw some light upon the condition of London. A report from the select committee of the English House of Lords on the Contagious Diseases act, together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evi- dence, etc., 1867-68, says "that in the 3'ear 1859 the police reported 6,849 i^i London, and 6,515 in the year 1868, and they do not pretend to estimate others unknown, which are said by some to range from 20,000 to 80,000." The following appeared some 3-ears before in Taifs Edinburgh Magazine, vol. xxiv. p. 748, 1857 : " Mr. Daniel Cooper says the number of street-walkers in Lon- don was 28,000. The Lancet (the celebrated medical journal) is declared to state on best authority that one house in 60 in London is a brothel, and one in every 16 females, of all ages, is de facto a criminal in this respect. Mr. Talbot and other careful observers calculate the number of brothels in London at 5,000, and the number of fallen women at 80,000." Whatever may be thought of the truth of these high estimates for London, it must be said for Paris that, Prostitution. 557 although it has had the worst popular reputation, in this respect, of any Catholic city, writers have not charged against it an equall}^ great number of brothels and fallen women, or even expressed a suspicion of the number being as great. But, after all, the comparative amount of this vice in densely populated cities offers no true test of the general moralit}^ of a wdiole country. What would better reveal the condition of popular morals in this respect would be evidence of its prevalence in small towns, villages, and outlying country districts. The reader has had some such evidence presented in former chapters for England and Wales. I feel quite safe in saying that nothing at all similar has ever been charged against the rural districts of any Catholic country, or even suspected of them. There is a point of comparison which is suggested to one's mind in examining this subject, and that is the notorious publicity of this vice in Protestant cities con- trasted with its strict suppression from view in Catholic ones. Any person who has had occasion to be out in the streets after nightfall in I^ondon has been imme- diately made aware of the shocking and repulsive exhi- bition of it. One cannot help reflecting what a corrupt- ing influence this shameless and unrestricted obtrusion of it must have, not only upon many others who but for such enticements forced upon them would not fall under its influence, but especially upon the youth of all clavSses. Even in so esteemed dissolute Paris, not at any hour is a prostitute permitted to show herself as such on the street; and the same repressive surveil- lance obtains in other Catholic cities, and I believe in some Protestant Continental cities also. 558 Prostitution. Under the title of ' ' Drunkenness ' ' I quoted from an article in the New York Sun of November 13, 1892, entitled " Vice in Modern London." Here are some of the same writer's observations on the social evil in that city: *' The degradation of woman is more common in London than in any great city of the world. . . . Nowhere is the social evil so obtrusive and so unrepressed. . . . London's great army of ' unfortunates ' has sunk to a lower scale in the slavery to drink than have their sisters in other large capitals. It fol- lows that vice in London is more repulsive than in more seduc- tive Paris. But what it lacks in gilding it makes up in obtrusive- ness and insistence. Nowhere on earth can anything be found to match the scenes in Regent Street, Piccadilly, and the Strand late at night. Soliciting by these women is entirely unchecked by the police. An American gentleman walked along the Strand for a single block one evening last week (November 3, 1892), without in -anyway encouraging attention except by his rather slow walk, and he was accosted by no less than 26 women. Within 100 yards of Piccadilly Circus there may be counted on any pleasant evening from 150 to 300 bold, painted faces that mark as plainly as would a branding-iron the name of outcast. " London shuts its official eyes to the whole thing, and as a result vice flaunts itself where it will. Even daylight does not shame it out of sight. . . . Criticism is an ungracious task, but when the subjects of it are themselves the critics of all the world, perhaps no apology is needed. The temptation to point the finger of scorn at London — hypercritical, hypocritical London — is far greater than to join in the chorus of denunciation of gay and slandered Paris. Paris is gloriously wicked ; London is guiltily so." Evidently the London kettle cannot reproach the Paris pot for its blackness. A writer in the C/uarh and the IVortd (iSGj) , the Anglican High-Church journal already quoted, arguing in praise of the beneficial Prostitution. 559 effects of the confessional in the repression of vice, gives a number of statistics taken from the Statistical Society's Journal, vol. i., concerning the brazen publicity of this evil in English cities, and contrasts all this un- restricted public moral poisoning of youth with the way it is kept out of sight in Catholic cities. He says: ' *• Those who have had the opportunity of observing the well- ordered condition of Ireland, France, Belgium, and Spain, espe- cially of Rome, and the cities of North Italy, in this respect will scarcely hesitate in their opinion. The ' Catholic religion ' will not, cannot, produce its due effects for the amelioration of mankind if it be preached and practised by instalments only, and one of the most important be omitted." [He alludes to the confessional] " In its completeness, who doubts its ability to regenerate the most degraded of human beings } " The Episcopalians, as we know, are gradually intro- ducing the confessional, so fiercely denounced and maligned by their former brethren. One finds jewels in unsuspected places. Such a place are the columns of a New York Protestant reli- gious journal, strongly anti-Catholic— the C/i7istia?i at Work, from whose issue of September 8, 1892, I ex- tract this editorial note : " There is no question that the confessional as a means for relief to the sin-burdened soul has its advantages. It must be a great relief to one bearing the burden of some peculiar sin to be able to go into a closet and there, through a small screen window, whisper into the ear of the faithful priest the story of the sin and ask what he shall do. To be sure, there is the feeling in our Protestantism ' Go and tell Jesus.' But even here perplexity and doubt sweep over the soul as the questions arise — What must I do ? What reparation muit I make ? Or yet, The 560 Prostitution. tempter assails me irresistibly at times; what shall I, what can I do ? That agonized cry often comes up from the troubled soul that seeks relief, but in vain. We thus throw out the subject for the consideration of those having interest in the matter. Of course many would say ' Go and tell your minister.' But often the minister is the very last one to whom one would confide the distressing secret. So far as the Roman confessional is con- cerned it is inseparable from the dogma of priestly absolution with which it is connected. But it would undoubtedly be a great source of comfort at times if some sin-burdened soul could find some judicious friend who could serve him in this critical time of spiritual depression and conflict." There are millions of such tempted and sin-bur- dened souls who certainly have a vital " interest in this matter" — an interest so great that its urgent demands overbalance in value all other life attractions and re- duce its purest joj'S to worthless baubles in comparison to them. I am happy to aid the Christian at Work in throwing out the subject for the consideration of such suffering souls, and if they will but consider it well the grace of God will make the way to the true and only satisfactory means of relief as easy as common sense makes it plain. The Catholic confessional is just such a practical means of " telling Jesus " one's sins and receiving His assured forgiveness. Many a priest has had the happiness to find the troubled whisper at the small screen window of his confessional to come from a Protestant, driven like a storm-wearied bird to seek in this surely comforting refuge a shelter from the pitiless tempest of passion and sin. Though they know that as Protestants they can- not ask for absolution, yet, oh ! what an unspeak- able relief it is to unburden one's tortured and per- plexed conscience at the feet of one who can be counted Prostitution. 56 [ upon to listen and give counsel as a sympathizing friend, if no more, and who will carry the secrets of his soul with the silence of God. But let us return to our subject. It is worth while repeating here what I have already quoted from a writer who, as newspaper correspondent to the Pall Mall Gazette and the New York Herald, tells us in his published volume that he had seen every country- in Europe, and had this to say about Catholic Spain : " The comparative percentage of professional vice, and of gen- eral looseness of morals, is imich lower in Spain than in any cotmtry in Europe. The best proof of this is that the so-called demi-monde, or the kept women, are unknown, even in Madrid itself. There are fallen women in the capital of Spain, and in a couple of the large towns in the Peninsula ; but the total of prostitutes throughout the country is, I believe, muck under the number ive can daily meet in one leading street 0/ Paris, Londo?i, or Berlin " {Spain and t lie Spaniards, N, L. Thieblin, p. 383). It is notorious that even in Cuba the known fallen women are, with rare exceptions, of other nationalities. Protestant moralists and controversial writers have been accustomed to condemn the legal restrictions of the social evil in Catholic cities acting in this matter, and wisely, upon the well-recognized moral principle that "of two evils one may choose the lesser." The lesser evil is the official toleration and supervision of the least amount, and this the state has a right to do in the interests of both public health and general public moralit}'. It is on this same principle that drunken- ness, another immoral, degrading, crime-creating, and citizen-destroying vice, comes under the cognizance of the authorities. The state cannot prevent a man's drink- 5 62. Prostitution. ing intoxicating liquors or getting drunk in his own house, or in the house of anybody else, any more than it can prevent one committing other personal immoral- ities in private, but it can and ought to take cognizance of any social condition, or it may be public system, of otherwise lawful human action which is judged to be a positive proximate occasioii, or circumstantial cause, so prevalent as to threaten the peace, good order, bodily and moral health of the community at large. Public enticements to the commission of the immoral acts of drunkenness and harlotry ought both to be reduced to their lowest terms and put under the narrowest legal restrictions which public opinion will sustain. If this involves legal toleration of some of these proximate occasio7is, say ten houses of ill-fame, or of the modern " liquor-saloons, " thereby shutting up a hundred others, and limiting the number and force of these virulent public attacks upon public health and virtue, so be it. But all know that restrictive laws are dead-letters be- yond the sanction imposed by the standard of public virtue. The Sim's contributor, already quoted, would seem to imply that in England that standard is fright- fully low when he says : " The authorities (?) would be glad to put such restrictions on the social evil as are employed in the German capital (and other Continental cities), but English public sentiment would not permit it. To adopt such a policy would involve official admis- sion that the evil exists. The Englishman prefers to wear a cloak of virtue, even though the uncovering of the vilest vice be- neath would enable him in some degree to mitigate the evil." Sooner, also, than acknowledge the horrible pre- valence of drunkenness the Englishman forbids by law Prostitution. 563 the arrest of any drunkard, man or woman, in the streets or even in places of public amusement. Public sentiment compels that law to stand despite the evil. Why ? Because the public standard of morality is low. How utterly incapable even well-meaning Protest- ants are of dealing with the social evil, as, indeed, with any other vice, and how shockingly mischievous even their attempts at reform, has been lately shown in the positively immoral methods resorted to by a certain Protestant minister in this City of New York. "We believe," said a leading Protestant journal, " that the results have justified the methods adopted," thus de- liberately sanctioning the immoral principle, the end justifies the means — a principle which the Jesuits have been falsely charged by Protestants time out of mind with holding and acting upon. But who does not know that of the inconsistency of Protestantism there is no measure ? All know how this minister's indiscreet pro- cedure resulted in forcing into wide-spread publicity revolting details of his own filthy observations and stool-pigeon enticements to the commission of enor- mities the possibility of which, it is safe to say, not one in a million of the newspaper readers under whose eyes the story was thrust ever imagined. The dreadful consequence is evident. Numberless pure-minded and innocent boys and girls throughout the length and breadth of this country have had a poisonous stain fixed upon their imaginations which to the end of the longest life will not be erased. What else did Protest- antism ever succeed in doing under its pretence of Re- form, save to ruin and destroy? Wherever I could I have spoken of these degraded women as " unfortunates." Not without purpose. To 564 Prostitution. my mind nothing lias contributed so much to deprave the popular moral sense and act as an incitement to evil — thus increasing the social plague — than the pre- vailing notion that they are led to embrace this life of shame in order to gratify their own immoral desires ; that they are to be regarded as wilful and malicious moral poisoners who take a diabolical delight in ruining the souls of others : a rather incredible depravit}^ to attribute to human nature, especially when one knows that the life is one of such unspeakable horror and so frequently ends in nameless suffering and premature death, the period of time such a career is endured averaging no more than three years. No, the truth is that, however degraded and blasphe- mousl}^ wicked not a few of them become, the great ma- jority are unfortunate victims, entrapped by scoundrels and harpies, girls unwisely schooled above their sta- tion, and without proper moral and religious education, or driven by dire want to sell their bodies and souls for bread. Of the first cause there is no need to speak further. But the second and third deserve more par- ticular notice. Nineteen centuries of experience, to say nothing of the dictates of common sense, fully justify the principles and action of the Catholic Church on the vital question of education. Both are well known, no less than the unwise and irra- tional opposition w^hich the principles she has always afhrmed and acted upon have met with at the hands of Protestants, Secularists, and Infidels. So-called "education," lacking religious and moral teaching and discipline, is sure to produce immoral living. No one would presume to saj^ that Protestants purposely adhere to such erroneous principles and methods on ProstitiUion. 565 that account, but it ought to be for them a startling fact that it was in state-schooled Protestant Prussia where the two "ministers of the gospel, Ebel and Diestel," founded, at Konigsberg, the sect of the "Muckers," whose religious obscenities were incom- parably worse even than those of which the Protestant minister deliberately made himself particeps criminis by paying for the exhibition of them in the New York brothel. The sect of the Muckers increased very rapidly, and came to embrace the greater part of the nobility and other highly educated persons in the province. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller, says: " It is only in the history of Otaheite that its parallel can be found," and he immediately ascribes this ap- palling outbreak of immorality to the then Prussian system of national schooling without moral and reli- gious education, just what our American Protestants and Secularists are determined a oittrance to force upon all the children of this and other countries. It should be no less the subject of their serious con- sideration that English, Welsh, Swedish, and Ameri- can Protestantism furnished and continues to furnish its largest quota of membership to the polygamous Mor- mon sect. Out of Protestantism. also came the Oneida free-love community, and the numerous private adhe- rents of its bestial principles and imitators of its prac- tices scattered throughout the country. The third, and certainly the most common, cause which drives women to this revolting extremity is a most pitiable one— the pangs of hunger. How few men think of or even suspect this ; or, if knowing it, how fewer still would be base enough, heartless enough, to take advantage of it ! ^66 Prostitution, A celebrated French specialist, Dr. Duchatel, who made himself thoroughly acquainted with this subject, gives a sample of one of his investigations in the city of Paris. Of 5,183, comprising then nearly the whole number known officially to the authorities, he notes the following causes : " 2,696 driven to it by parental abandonment, excessive want, and imminent starvation. 89 to earn bread for the support of starving parents or children ! 280 driven by shame to fly from their homes, and 2,118 abandoned by traitorous seducers, and having no shelter or occupation." Just think of the shuddering horror of it, of the de- spair of mind, of the piercing heart agonies mingled with the exhausting cravings for food, driving these unhappy beings, as with the lash of a malignant fury, to immolate themselves upon the altars of this iniquity ! The morally debased who take advantage of all this misery either do not know, or willingly blind them- selves to it. They lie to themselves and to their fellows about it, in order to give some excuse for their own baseness ; and, like dastards as they are, try to throw the blame upon the helpless victims of their own in- famous desires whom .they remorselessly plunge deeper and deeper down into an abyss of mental and bodily agonies to which the pains of hunger and shame from which these pitiful creatures so unfortunately and so unwisely hoped to escape, can bear no comparison. Altogether aside from the comparison which might be based upon the show of numbers made by neces- sarily imperfect statistics, there is another and of far greater weight which the reflecting reader will draw from the consideration of the comparative treatment Prostitution, 567 these poor wretches receive at the hands of the Catho- lic and Protestant clergy and people. The very pros- titutes themselves know to whom they can fly with full assurance of being met with tender compassion and aided to escape from the thraldom of their horri- ble life. They know, too, who have so often hunted them down and dragged their shame and misery before the scornful and unpitying gaze of the public. There never has been any form of human suffering, sin, or shame for which the Catholic Church has not been ready to supply abundant means of relief and rescue. The motive which has alwa3'S inspired Catho- lic society to establish orders without number of self- sacrificing men and women to meet every conceivable want is pre-eminently one of divine love, altogether of a higher character than that of the purest natural be- nevolence. If, therefore, the Catholic Church labors to lessen or obliterate the social evil, or any other ill that afflicts the moral or physical well-being of society, she works with the hands of those to whom she has taught the mystery of how to love like God, giving not only what they have, but what they are — themselves — the true test both of human and divine love. Refuges and Rescue Societies for prostitutes are not unknown in Protestant countries, founded and sup- ported in their work of mercy by Protestants, and I would not detract one iota from the meed of praise that is their due, neither will the God of all mercy and com- passion fail to reward them as He only can ; but Prot- estantism at its best, with all its resources and all its sacrifices, has not produced, neither can produce, one such an institution and band of self-immolating laborers devoted to the like work as is the Catholic 568 Prostitution, Order of the Good Shepherd and its sisterhood, whose asylums, not only of rescue and temporary shelter but of penitential reformation and purification, are to be found in nearly all great Protestant as well as Catholic cities. Not to mention others founded for a similar purpose, or the thousands of charitable orders which flourish wherever the influence of the Catholic faith is felt, that one organization of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, when it is considered not only as a humane institution for the shelter of the wretched and socially banned and degraded, but as a spiritual work of expiation — the ' * filling up by these heroic women in their own self- sacrificing lives what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ," for the atonement of the sins of their fallen and abandoned sisters — this alone would be title enough to prove that the Religion which can inspire such superhuman virtue is none other than the Church of Christ, the vSin-Bearer and Redeemer of the world's iniquity. CHAPTER XXXIX. SINNERS AND SAINTS. rjOME of my readers are probably imagining that )3 they see me chuckling with delight over the amount of clear evidence I have been able to display in proof of the superior morality of Catholic countries. If so, they are mistaken. My satisfaction in finding the record showing so large a balance in our favor is too deeply weighted with sadness at discovering so much as there really is of immorality justly charged to our account to allow that satisfaction to elevate itself into a joy. There are Catholic sinners and there are Protestant sinners, and though the statistics, be they never so near the truth, show that Protestant immorality has been so much greater; yet, judged by the fundamental dogmas of our separate and really opposite faiths — ours re- vealed from on high, endowed with divinely sanctify- ing power, and theirs derived from the weak and un- certain source of human private opinion and choice ; judged moreover by the more numerous supernatural graces and holier influences with which our divine religion invests the life of a Catholic, all combining to offer him the means of being perfectly noble, pure, and strong to resist the impulses of passion: those evidences w^hich appear on the score of the various vices w^e have reviewed might be double as favora- ble as they are, and yet be to us Catholics a record which, before the Face of the Crucified whom we 569 570 Sinners and Saints. know, adore and profess to love with all our hearts, ought to make us blush with the greater shame. " I am not so great a sinner as thou " is, after all, no noble boast in the mouth of one whose religion is the religion of saints — especially in the face of another whose religion is one of such pitiful spiritual poverty ; a sorry note of triumph for one whose feet are planted upon the Rock of certainty and truth to sound in the ears of another stumbling in t*he quagmire of doubt and error with no one to point the way to a solid foothold ; a wretched display of trophies honorably won for him who has access to, and free use of, all the armor}- of Heaven, and the ready aid of all the mighty hosts thereof, to flourish before the gaze of an enemy who has lost the key to the celestial gates, and is ignorant of the pathway that leads thither, and who vainly fancies that with the arms of his own fashioning, of a hundred and more self-destructive forms, he can do quite as effective service in overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil as he who wields the one Catholic invincible sword of the Spirit of God. Poor, barren, crownless Protestantism, whose house is builded upon the sand, whose temples are filled with wrangling worshippers, what time the}^ are not united in attacking " Romanism," it would be no great credit to the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church of God — Heaven of the soul if Heaven on earth there can be — the very sanctuary of the saints, if she could find no better evidence of being all she claims- to be than to say to you — " lyook at the statistics : My children are not so great sinners as thine." Such ought not to be, nor is it the test the Catholic Church really offers to prove her unity, her truth, and Sinners and Saints. 571 her sanctity. Protestantism, at its best, could never be a standard either of faith or morals by which she could consent to be judged. But it is quite plain that Prot- estantism does judge itself, and is forced to feel that it is being judged and condemned by the world when put in contrast with Catholicism. Hence, conscious of its own inferiority and of its inability to elevate itself to an equal rank, it is ever seeking to drag down the Catholic Church to its own level, and with the shout of " Thou art as bad and worse a sinner than I," it spends its breath in endeavoring to discredit the glorious testi- monies to the truth and sanctity of the Catholic Church recorded upon the pages of history, in trumping up all sorts of false accusations, misrepresentations, calumnies, and even concocting the most patent forgeries, knowing it can count upon the ' ' appalling depth and density of the popular ignorance ' ' of its own adherents to be be- lieved, and hoping as well to stir up and excite to vio- lence the fears and jealousy of others who instinctively hate the name of Christ. Cannot you hear the cries? ' ' Your percentage of illiteracy is greater than mine ! ' ' ** Your maxim is that ' Ignorance is the mother of devotion ! ' " " Your nations are more debased and uncivilized than mine ! " * ' You are not the friend of Caesar!" "You produce more paupers, more criminals, more illegitimate children, more pros- titutes than I ! " That some minds made to know the truth are de- ceived by these false cries, that souls hungering and thirsting for her strengthening spiritual food and yearn- ing for that measure of divine love which only the Catholic Church can bestow, are thus deluded and turned away from receiving these gifts from her out- 5/2 Sinners and Saints. stretched hand most fully justifies all the words of de- fence written in this book. There are Catholic sinners and Protestant sinners — too many of both, God knows — but no one is ignorant from whose fold there goes forth the Good Shepherd to seek out and save the lost sheep, no matter how far it may have strayed, and when he has found the lost one to bring it home again upon his shoulders rejoic- ing. As an ever- tender mother of souls, the Catholic Church, with the ingenuity of divine charity, devises all kinds of refuges for the shelter and care of those who suffer ; refuges for the homeless, the sick, the orphaned, for wayward 3'outli and helpless age, for the abandoned and despised poor, yea, for the criminal and the harlot, the rejected and disinherited of the earth. And she is herself a sweet and blessed spiritual refuge for them all. She can think of no higher term of honor to bestow upon the very Mother of God herself than the " Refuge of Sinners." And she is no less honored in being herself so called. And it is her joy and her crown that they all cling to her, and love her, and trust her, and crowd about her feet, sure of her loving smile, her sympathy and comforting words, and that the heavenly dews of her benediction will fall equally upon them all, as the dews of heaven fall both upon the just and the unjust. But the Church not only fulfils the mission of Christ in the divine work of redeeming sinners, bringing to them mercy and forgiveness, and establishing them again in the peace and love of God, but she is the medium of the accomplishment of that higher w^ork of the Incarnate Son of God, the work of Sanctification. Protestants may imagine they get at the true com- Sinners and Saints. 573 parative amount of sin among themselves and Catholics by hunting up tables of statistics recording what is, so to speak, known of all men. Nobody knows so well as the Catholic priesthood how meagre and often one-sided is that testimony as a complete and satisfactory evi- dence of the comparative moral power of the Catholic Church and of Protestantism. None, therefore, can so justly pronounce judgment upon both. They make a profound study of both religious systems ; while few of the most highly educated of the Protestant clergy have other than the most vague and erroneous notions of the doctrines or discipline of the Catholic Church. Their judgment, based upon w^hat they know, is prac- tically worthless. For the great majority of their clergy and people the whole of Catholicism is a sealed book. And yet with what unblushing assurance they will talk and preach of it and gravely write about it, telling us to our faces that we believe this and are bound to do that, almost always asserting what is wholly untrue, and for which they can bring no evidence but their own wrong-headed impressions gained from superficial ob- servations of Catholic life and worship entirely beyond their understanding, and the reasons whereof they will not take the least trouble to inquire. Therefore they know^ almost as little about Catholic sinners as they know about Catholic saints. Where would Protestantism stand as a sanctifying power if brought into comparison with the Catholic Church and asked to show her .statistics of saints ? It has prac- tically nothing to place side by side with the brilliant and marvellous record of supernatural sanctity which is the very life history of Catholicism in every nation and in every age. And the reason for this difference is 574 Sinners mid Saiiits. plain. The Catholic Church is not only a religion of Redemption, but a religion of divine Sanctification, by which it guides mankind in the ways of Perfection. In that there can be no comparison, for she alone is the Church of the All-Perfect God. She is known of all men as the "Holy" Catholic Church; and is well .so named, for she is the very school of sanctity. She en- lightens the intelligence and disciplines the hearts of those who would aspire after the most perfect union possible with God. Reason alone may teach man to look for the highest and most worth}' object of human life in God as Creator ; but it is only from the Catholic Church that one can learn the ideal of that higher pos- sible destiny of sanctification revealed by Jesus Christ ; an ideal which invites him to become perfect, not only as man but as God ; to be perfect ' ' even as the Heavenly Father is perfect." Who, then, are the Catholic saints? They are her children whom she has taught and trained to be perfect like God. What a marvellous work of regeneration and superexaltation of human nature must not this be ; and by virtue of what divine wisdom and power ! " God is become wonderful in His saints." Truly. And in this mj'sterious work, b}- which even the Creator can be glorified in the perfection of His crea- tures, the Catholic Church stands alone, the master, the teacher, the guide. From her sanctuaries of reli- gion have gone forth those holy ones, numbered by the many thousands, whose names are held in worshipful honor from the rising to the setting of the sun, from generation to generation. Protestantism has not dared to canonize one saint. CHAPTER XL. THE RETURN TO CHRISTIAN FAITH AND UNITY. THK Protestant so-called "Reformation" has often been spoken of as being a religious revolution, and many Protestants are ignorantly led to believe that it was a successful one ; that, despite the continued and more vigorous existence of the Catholic Church, the one and only organized, and the one and only divinely founded Christian Republic, somehow or other there was produced a new Christian organization which came to be called "Protestantism," having the right to as- sume the reins of Christian government and lawfully depose the Catholic Church, and to declare all Christian people freed from their allegiance to it. The intelli- gent reader begins to smile, for it is quite well known that the Reformation never was able to revolutionize either the Catholic creed or the Catholic Church gov- ernment. It never was, and plainly enough is not to- day, anything better than a religious rebellion. It gave itself a name suited to a rebellion — Protestantism — that which protests or rebels against the Catholic Church ; and in view of its whole history the outside world has agreed that it is a name which aptly describes its char- acter and aim. It accomplished nothing. It was not able to get its denials of Catholic doctrine or discipline accepted by the mass of those who for one reason or another went out from the Catholic fold ; neither has it ever been able to bring the rebellious multitude it 575 576 TJie ReUcrn to Christian Faith and Unity. created into common council to formulate a common creed or agree upon a common constitution as an organized form of Christianity. If it were not for the ever-living and powerful presence of the Catholic Church to protest against, Protestantism would have no reason to exist. What often astonishes some of its adherents who are led to examine its claims is the dis- covery that Protestantism, either as a S3^stem (if such a conglomeration of opposing beliefs can be called a S3^s- tem), or as represented by any one of its sects, holds no revealed truth which it can prove independently of the Church, and that it has nothing positive but what it holds in common with the Church. Even the funda- mental Protestant doctrine of private judgment is noth- ing better than a denial of the Christian principle of di\ine authority as necessary to an act of Ch7'istia7i faith or of Christian morals. The character of Protest- antism as being essentially a rebellion, and that it can- not be anything else, is plainly seen in this its protest against any rightful superior, external, organized authority to define doctrine, and to decree and exe- cute law in religion. Let such a principle be applied to politics ; every one must see that the adoption of such a principle would result in the rankest anarchy, and that it would make any form of government as impos- sible in the social order as Protestantism would evi- dently make impossible any Christian Republic or "Kingdom of Christ" impossible in the religious order. In Protestantism there is, as one might expect there would be, no order, no union, no system, no governors, and no governed. Protestants do not even " join " any particular sect, and apparently offer to accept its pecu- The Return to Christian Faith and Unity. ^yj liar tenets and submit themselves to its discipline, because they recognize in that denomination any right to demand from them or others such an intellectual and moral adhesion ; but because, all things considered, it happens to teach what they think is most probably true, and conducts its religious services and administers its church affairs in a way that suits their notions, tastes, or prejudices. There have been some converts from Protestantism to the Catholic Church of that sen- timental, private-judgment and private-taste sort; and of such are they who, finding themselves brought face to face with vSomething they do not like in the Church, escape out again into the unguarded religious desert wdiere one ma}^ think and do as pleases him best. True and intelligent converts to the Church never think of making a bargain with their consciences as to the pro- bability of their liking the Church when they get into it ; they assume as a maxim that they are not free to take what pleases or may please them, but bound in the sight of God, and in peril of the loss of their salvation, to believe and do what ought to please ; and it is from the Church of Christ that they are to learn what ought to please. Hence the bani;er-word of the Catholic Church: "One lyord. One Faith, One Baptism." The banner-word of Protestantism (if it can be said to have one) is: " Not one Lord, not one Faith, not one Bap- tism " ; or this is probably a better form : ' ' lyicense to believe what one likes, and no moral responsibility to any outside authority." Why do Protestants protest against the Catholic Church ? Simply and always because she claims au- thorit}^ in the name of Christ, and requires submission to it. It is not because they believe her to be a false 5/8 The Return to Christian Faith and Unity, and corrupt Church that they reject this authority, but they assert, and in this they are true to their fundamen- tal principle, that she is false and corrupt precisely be- cause she claims authority. Any such a claim is, of course, in downright opposition to the only plea they can possibly make to gain adherents: that in true Christianity there is no such thing as authority to teach and guide, but everybody is free to teach and guide himself— that is, as they might probably stipulate, if one be able to read the Protestant Bible, which, in fact, is printed without the authority of anybody and without anybody's certificate of genuineness. As to the unfor- tunate wretches who cannot read this unauthorized book (the Catholic authority being, of course, con- sidered null) , one would be much puzzled to know how Protestantism would get the knowledge of Christian truth into their minds, and the influence of its moral precepts exerted upon their hearts, to say nothing of first deciding what are the truths and moral precepts of Christianity. Anything more self-contradictory, more self-destructive than Protestantism, cannot well be imagined. But then there still exist many thousands who put their faith in it, who fancy that its beginnings were the work of the Holy Spirit (although they are obliged to own by rather unworthy instruments) , and are under the delusion that, like a living seed planted in a fruitful soil, the Protestantism of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII., et al. , soon sprang up and has gone on growing into a mighty tree whose fruit of righteousness, liberty, popu- lar happiness, etc., etc., now appeases the religious hunger of the nations, and under the grateful shadow of whose wide-spreading branches the people delivered TJie Return to Christian Fait It and Unity. 579 from the bondage of '* Romanism,'' even as the children of Israel were delivered from Egyptian bondage, may now sit down at their ease and believe as they list, and enjoy all the good things of earth and sense without stint or forbidding frown from any law that says unto them— Thou shalt not ! Unfortunately for these many all-too-ignorant and confiding Protestants their original Protestantism had nothing in it to be likened to a living germ, else we should have seen it develop into some definite form, and jdeld, as every living tree should, its own distinctive fruit. " Men do not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. Neither does the same tree bring forth good fruit and evil fruit." lyisten to this excellent statement of the difficulty even a Protestant minister saw there must be in the way of ever uniting Protest- antism into one body : "There is a difference, and a wide one, between an organization and an organism — the latter nascitur, the former _/?/. A carpen- ter with a saw, a hammer, and a bag of nails can construct a platform [or build up an imitation tree] ; but not even a gardener can grow a plant unless the seed which he puts into the ground * hath life in itself.' Ecclesiology has much to learn from biol- ogy ; and some of us who are convinced that unity is coming believe that when it does come it will be by the germ and not by the tool process." Plainly enough. But where outside of Catholic unity can one find an ** organism," a " living germ," as a centre and origin of unity ? The writer, the Rev. Dr. Huntington, Episcopalian Rector of Grace Church, New York City, tells us how he thinks such an organism may possibly be manufactured : 58o The Return to Christian Fait J i and Unity. " Now, while it is evident that no one of the existing American churches, w/t/i its present limitations, can hope to draw to itself the love and allegiance even of a bare majority of our people, it is by no means so evident that some one of them might not, in the providence of God, become the centre of growth out of which the final organism should be elaborated" {Difficulties of Organic Union, The Independent, April 13, 1893). Elaborating a living organism out of an}^ fabricated organization, combination, compilation, or accretion whatsoever, is a transformation of genus which one feels the science of biology certainly has not as 3^et, nor is likely to offer in the future, any exemplification from which the anxious Protestant ecclesiologist might hope to derive useful instruction concerning the possible in- fusion of life into any one of the soulless, germless, sects of Protestantism. How absurdly vain such a hope ! And how most absurdly vain of all to be expressed by a minister of that one of divided Protestantism's organizations which tolerates within its pale the greatest number of varied beliefs concerning Christian doctrine, and even con- cerning the Person of Christ Himself! As a fact Protestantism, like all sudden and violent outbreaks, very soon reached the limit of its explosive force. What real damage it did to the external body of the Church in causing the apostasy of some nations it was not long in doing. Substituting man's authority for God's, its first step was to declare human govern- ment stiperior to the divine ; subjecting religion to the temporal authority of the state. It has always revered Caesar as its master, and in return for his countenance and support it has been The Return to Christian Faith a fid Unity. 581 willing to make its doctrine and discipline conform to suit his demands. Where the civil power does not care to appoint its own agents as pastors of their flocks the Protestant sects claim the right to "call" whomsoever pleases them best to minister over them, and woe to such pastors if they do not succeed in pleasing their flocks. The consequence is well known. The ignorant people, victims to their self-conceit and unbridled passions, have arrogated to themselves the right to define doc- trine and act as judges upon the moral law. Hence Protestantism has gone on making progress only in one thing, and that is in change of faith. I ought to say in change of opinion, for Protestantism proper affords no more ground for faith than it does for the other theological virtues of hope and charity, all of which require for their exercise a divine object whose word is conveyed to us, and received as infallibly true, whose promises as absolutely sure, and whose perfec- tion as the supreme reason of all love. Is it not beyond all question that Protestantism puts human opinion in place of divine faith, wishful expectations in place of divine hope, and natural philanthropy in place of divine charity ? What kind of reform is that Avhich has thus abolished divine faith, and enthroned human opinion in its stead? What kind of reform is that which has ended in the majority of Protestants holding that no particular belief is necessary, and asserting that creeds and dogmas are not essential to Christian religion ? What shall be said of that reform boasting its power to lift mankind up upon a higher intellectual plane where, after three cen- turies of its pretended enlightenment of the human 582 The Return to Christian Faith and Unity. intellect, it is reduced to come before the world with no better definition of the aim of religion as comprehend- ing the higher truths and the purer moral principles it is justly expected to reveal and the loftier spiritual aspirations it promises to call forth, than this childish truism : Be good and do good, and — you will be good and do good ? Men who think, who have not wholly stifled the voice of conscience, are not going to be put off with such a mocking answer to their demands for knowledge of God, of Jesus Christ, of the divine law, of the meaning of human life, and of the destiny of the human soul. That accounts for the continued losses the different Protestant sects suffer in the defection of many of their more eminent scholars and saintly- minded adherents. It is owned that among the more scholarly class in England many soon fell away from any belief in the divinity of Christ and lapsed into Deism, whose leading writers are held responsible for the origin of the infidel philosophy of France, and of the Rationalism and Pantheism of Germany. Protestant writers do not dis- pute this. The Quarterly Review (January, 186 1, p. 288) speaks of "our old English Deists, who were the true fathers of French atheism and German un- belief." Mr. Vizetelly, writing in 1879, says: " Prussian Protestantism has been gradually sliding into pure Pantheism and even Atheism. To-day these are the dominant creeds, not only in the capital and the larger towns, but likewise in many of the rural districts, although, of course, in a less degree. " ' In the sphere of religion,' laments one Berlin journal, ' liberal Protestantism has long since destroyed all respect for the The Return to Christian Faith and Unity, 583 Commandments of God, and Christianity seems absolutely dead in our midst. At Berlin there are many thousands who, since their youth, have remained utter strangers to Christ's Church, and who, if they still belong to it, only do so in name.' . . . If, as Menzel says, Berlin in the eighteenth century was the Elysium of Freethinkers, in the nineteenth it is unquestionably the limbo of Atheism, and Atheism, moreover, which proclaims itself from the housetops " {Berlin under the New Empire^ V. ii. pp. 108-111). Mr. I^aing, the Scotch Presbyterian writer often quoted in this volume, writing of the religious con- dition of Germany as he observed it in 1845, says: " If the question is reduced to what really are its terms in Germany at present — Catholicism, with all its superstitions, errors, and idolatry, or to no religion at all ; that is to say, not avowed infidelity, but the most torpid apathy, indifference, and neglect of all religion, it may be doubted if the latter condition of a people is preferable. The Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches in Germany and S^uitserland are in reality extinct. The sense of religion, its intiuence on the habits, observances, jmd life of the people, is alive only in the Roman Catholic popu- lation " (iVotes on the German Catholic Church, London, 1845, p. 145). Let us see what is to be thought of its condition nearly half a century later. Says the Edinburgh Re- view, October, 1880 : " The land which was the cradle of the Reformation has be- come the grave of the Reformed faith. . . . All compara- tively recent works on Germany, as well as all personal observa- tion, tell the same tale. " DeJiial of every tenet of the Protestant faith among the thitiki?!^ classes, and indiff'erence in the masses, are the positii/e and negative agencies beneath 7uhich the Church of Licther a?id Melanchthon has succumbed. 584 TJie Return to Christian Faith and Unity. " In contiguous parishes of Catholic and Protestant popula- tions one invariable distinction has long been patent to all eyes. T/ie path to the Catholic Church is trodden bare, that to the Protestant Church is rank with grasses a?id weeds to the very door'' (pp. 530, 539). Here is evidence of the foregoing up to date. I quote from the New York Independent, September 6, 1894. An article entitled "The New Theology of Ger- many," b}^ Prof. George H. Schodde, Ph.D., is intro- duced with this assertion : "The storm-centre of the theological unrest of our day and generation is the land of Luther. New departures in religious and theological thought, as a rule, first spring up there ; . . . the seed of innovation is rapidly sown in other soils, with fruits possibly more or less modified by local circumstances, etc., etc." "Theological unrest," "New departures in reli- gious thought," "Innovations" — of what else has Protestantism been the ' ' storm-centre ' ' from its begin- ning ? The article just quoted from goes on to present a dismal picture of "religious thought" in I^uther's land. There is a deal about "reconstruction" of Christianity upon new doctrinal and moral principles, the most popular leaders undermining the belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, denying openly the divinity of Christ, His Atonement, and His miracles. The upshot of it all is, that in Germany, as elsewhere, Protestantism is now almost wholly rationalistic, and one need not have to be born a prophet to predict its fate. As a pretended religion divinely revealed and brought to mankind by a divine Christ, requiring for salvation faith in certain truths, and conformity of conduct with TJie Return to CJiristian Faith mid Unity. 585 definite moral principles, everybody knows its days are already numbered. A very few years will suffice for its entire decomposition and ultimate disappearance. With all its appeals to intellectual pride, national pre- judice, and moral license, the Reformation soon saw its converts slipping away from the control its leaders sought to exercise over them,- and the number has gone on rapidly increasing of those who have entirely given over seeking any answer to the problems of life, death, and futurity from their own Protestantism. Of these the far greater part, alas! have fallen into cynical scep- ticism, indifferent rationalism, or antagonistic infidelity. Others, and these by God's grace are of late years both notable in number as of great worthiness of character, have turned their footsteps towards the true and only source of divine knowledge, of divine help, and divine peace, the holy Catholic Church. Every now and then the question forces itself upon earnest and sincere souls — Why are we Protestants ? No one ever yet insisted upon giving himself an answer, based upon a thorough examination of the Catholic Church (in order to learn the reasons for protesting against its claims to be the onl}^ Christian Church), but failed to get a satisfactory one. This is also the cause of numerous conversions, as we have seen exemplified in the well-known English Tractarian movement, which brought about the loss to the Anglican Church Estab- lishment of such men as Newman, Manning, Wilber- force, Ward, Faber, Oakeley, Allies, Formby, Dal- gairns, Eockhart, Coleridge, and to the Episcopalian denomination in this country of such as Bishop Ives of North Carolina, Bay ley, Hewit, Walworth, Wad- hams, Preston, McMaster, and in addition to those 586 The Return to Christian Faith and Unity. named hundreds of others of like learning and piety both in England and the United States. In fact, conversions from Protestantism, and those from among its most exalted personages as well as from every station in life and profession, have always been going on from the very outset of the Reformation. I have in hand a volume. Converts to Rome during the XlXth Century (I^ondon : Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.), of over one hundred pages, double-columned, which i^^ nothing more than a selected list of names, chiefly of English converts, including hundreds of the titled nobility and gentry, graduates of Oxford and Cam- bridge, with very many from the public service, archi- tects, artists, and scientists, officers in the army and navy, members of the medical and legal profession, writers of note, etc. The names of no less than six- teen members of royal families are recorded for Ger- many, besides others distinguished for their social rank or eminence in personal character. The appearance of a limited list of American converts in the same volume suggests to me that a larger and more correct list of such persons might prove very interesting to many of my readers. At best it can be but a selected list; and even so, it is quite likely the names of very many equally worthy to be mentioned have been overlooked. If one cared to make simply a show of numbers there would be no difficulty in printing a volume to rival a large city directory in size. The number I have selected more than suffices for my object in offering such a list at all, which is in har- mony with the general intention of this present volume, to enable my readers to contrast the character and number of "converts to Rome " with the character and The Return to Christian Faith and Unity. 587 number of those who are known to them or of whom they may have heard as having renounced the CathoHc faith to become Protestants. If I do not print a list of the latter it is simply because I have never seen a list of such persons, nor can I recall the names of any whose defection has proved any loss to the Church, or any gain to Protestantism, whether they w^ent out from the clergy or laity. Still I would have put down the names of any whose character, in the opinion of either Catholics or Protestants, would entitle them to " honor- able mention," and as a set-off against the weight of evidence supplied by the Catholic ''exhibit" of con- verts from Protestantism if I could think of any so esteemed. I need not enter here into a discussion of the quite opposite motives which, as a rule, have incited and governed the transit of Catholic and Protestant con- verts. It is well known that Protestants are not offered, neither do they expect to gain any worldly advantage or easier means of gratifying their animal lusts by becoming Catholics. Many know full well that, on the score of these attractions, they will be called upon to make heroic sacrifices ; and not one but will surely meet with some restraint and loss of this nature. All the gain they count upon receiving, and the only kind that is offered them, is of a spiritual nature — to attain to a higher and clearer knowledge of God and of all the divine truths of the Christian reli- gion, to have the means of realizing more fully the aspirations of their souls for a life of greater purity and self-sacrifice, and of securing with certainty their eternal salvation. It must be acknowledged that such are not the 588 The Return to Christian Faith and Unity, reasons which those who renounce the Catholic faith and cast off the Catholic spiritual restraints can hon- estly offer for their becoming Protestants. It is also very well known that not a few of such take refuge in Protestantism, having first of all been excluded from the Catholic fold on account of their pertinacious heresy or scandalous lives. The witty Dean Swift is reported to have said : " Whenever the Pope cleans up his garden, he always throws his ill-smelling weeds over our wall." It is not quite correct to say that the Pope throws such worthless "weeds" over the Protestant wall, but rather that, being thrown out of the Church, simple- minded Protestants rush to pick them up, and persuade themselves that they are resplendent with the beauty of holiness and give forth the odor of sanctity. There has been not a little of this self-delusion concerning these professed converts from "Romanism," but lately their new patrons are beginning to scan them a little more critically. Here are a few words in evidence selected from a most instructive and highly entertain- ing work * by a zealous Methodist missionary to Italy : " The experiment of utilizing ex-priests had been tried and had failed in Mexico and South America. ... It was found necessary to get rid of all the ex-priests, and only two of all that have been employed in the Mexican mission have ever done our cause any good.' " Some priests are ex necessarily. They have quarrelled with their superiors, or been guilty of some immorality, or they want * Fotir-and-a-half Years in the Italy Mission : a Criticisjn of Missionary Met hods, hy K&v. Everett S. Stackpole, D.D, Anything more disgrace- fully fraudulent than this Methodist mission work in Italy it would be hard to find. Tlie Return lo Christian Faith and Unity. 589 more salary, or to get married. Usually they are careful to pro- vide for future employment before their conscientious scruples force them out of the priesthood. . . . " The ex-priests, on the whole, have done us very little good and very much harm. Some have disgraced the ministry and re- turned to Roman Catholicism. It is very hard to erase the Jesuitical marks of the priesthood. A character truly indelible is stamped upon them. Once a priest always a priest, is a saying that holds good in general. The Italians say a priest has seven skins : you must flay him seven times before you will find the new man." This outspoken minister goes on to give some ex- amples of the sort of ." converts " the Methodists get hold of in Italy as students for their ministr}^ and it is pitiable to see how egregiously they allow themselves to be humbugged by a lot of disreputable sharpers. I give his description of one of them : " The first young man admitted [to the theological school in Florence] had been expelled from a Roman Catholic seminary for vagabondage. He professed conversion and united with our church at Turin ; . . . was employed, as assistant pastor. At Milan he was also President of the Y. M. C. A., and is said to have left the city with some of the funds of that society in his pocket. How the heart sunk at the first sight of him ! Fraud was written all over his countenance. He could pray and exhort with what passes for ' unction ' with some. . . . We dismissed him after six weeks of trial. By cheating and ])orrowing he succeeded in taking away about one hundred francs. Lying and swearing w'ere his daily pastime. . . . Under the plea of a persecuted evangelical he solicited money from all the pastors in the city. This is a. common trick, etc., etc." The good minister goes on to describe nine of such worthless and vicious characters upon whom $4,000 590 The Return to Christian Faith and Unity. were spent in the hope of suppljnng the Methodist mission in Ital}^ with agents to labor for the perversion of the people from their Catholic, Christian faith to Protestantism. The conversions of the ex-priests, the ex-monks, and the pretended ex-nuns, who have been received with open arms b}' the various Protestant sects in this countr}^, offer but poor evidence for the superior spiritual character of Protestantism as a religion. Certainl}^ the Catholic Church is well rid of them. The}'^ were no examples to point at in evidence of her sanctit}^ Let the reader examine the following list of names, and mark the strong contrast between the character of these converts and the wretched outcasts from the Church which seek refuge in Protestantism. Considering the fact that the Catholic Church, both in her doctrine and spiritual treatment of souls, has equall}^ drawn all these varied classes to her fold, fully satisfying all their intellectual convictions and spiritual aspirations, it seems to me that that fact alone might reasonabl}^ be deemed by any reflecting person quite sufficient evidence that the Church is the true Church of God. In one word, that she is the Church of the divine Truth, of the divine Goodness, and of the divine Love. The proverb, "All roads lead to Rome," is true in so far as it includes all the pathways of those who seek the realization of their ideals and the fulfilment of their desires in what is higher, better, and purer, and in what brings them nearer to God. Rome is like the centre of a circle, the point of unity at which all the countless true radii converge from all possible direc- The Return to Christian Faith and Unity. 591 tioiis. In that singular unparalleled attraction which the Catholic Church exercises in being the end of the journe}' of so many persons of diverse gifts, tastes, and needs is fulfilled the prophecy of our Lord : that when He should be lifted up (to be seen and known of all) then would He "draw all men unto Himself." If the life-histories of many converts could be known, even of not a few of those whose names are here recorded, we would see fulfilled in a signal man- ner the prophecy of Isaias concerning the Church : ' ' The children of them that afflict thee shall come bowing down to thee ; and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, and shall call thee the City of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel " (Isaias Ix. 14). AMERICAN CONVERTS FROM PROTESTANTISM TO CATHOLICISM. CLERGYMEN. Converts who became Catholic Priests. (Those who, so far as known to the compiler, were formerly Protest- ant ministers are marked with an asterisk,*) * Bayley, Most Rev. James Roosevelt, eighth Arch- bishop of Baltimore. Becker, Rt. Rev. Thomas A., Bishop of Savannah. * Barber, Rev. Daniel, a Revo- lutionary soldier, an Epis- copalian minister (Vt ) * Barber, Rev. Virg-il Horace, a Jesuit, son of the fore- going ; his wife Jernsha, and their children, Samuel, Mary, Abigail, Susan, and Josephine. Barber, Rev. Samuel, a son of the Rev. Horace Barber. * Baker, Rev. Francis Paulist. * Baker, Rev. Richard Swinton. Bartlett, Rev. William E. ( Bait.) ♦Bradley, Rev. Joshua Dodson (N. Y.) Jesuit, V^irgil A., a Rev. Francis, a * Barnum, Jesuit. Bodfish, Rev. J. P. (Mass.) Ikown, Rev. Algernon A., a Paulist. Brown, Rev. Louis G.,a Paulist. * Brown, Rev. Mathias. a Pas- sionist. * Curtis, Rt. Rev. Alfred A., Bishop of Wilmington. Carter, V. Rev. Charles Ignatius Hardman (Ky.), formerly V. G. of Phila. * Clark, Rev. Arthur M., a Paulist. Clark, Rev. James, a Jesuit. Cyril, Rev. T., a Passionist. Craft, Rev. Francis M. (N. Dak.) Cuthbert, Rev. Fr., a Benedic- tine monk. *Clapp, Rev. Walter C, a Paulist novice. 592 American Converts from Protestantism. 593 Deshon, Rev. George, Lieu- tenant U. S. A., a Paulist. *Doane, Rt. Rev. Mgr., son of (Prot.) Bishop Doane of N. J. * Denny, Rev. Harmon, a Jesuit. Dwyer, Rev. William H. * Button, Rev. Francis (Ohio). Eccleston, Most Rev. Samuel, fifth Archbishop of Balti- more. * Everett, Rev. Wm. (New York City). Frisbee, Rev. Samuel H., a Jesuit, son of Judge Fris- bee. *Ffrench, Rev. Charles D. (Portland, Me.) Fisher, Rev. Nevin F. * Fairbanks, Rev. H. F (Mil- waukee). Gilmour, Rt. Rev. Richard, Bishop of Cleveland. Granger, Rev. A. (111.) Goldschmidt, Rev. J. C. (Ohio). * Griffin, Rev. Charles. Geyer, Rev. Adolph (N. Y.) Hecker, V. Rev. Isaac Thomas, Founder and first Superior General of the Paulists. *Hewit, V. Rev. Augustine F., second Superior General of the Paulists. The son of Rev. Dr. Nathanael Hewit, Congregational minister of Bridgeport, Conn. Hedges, Rev. Samuel B., a Paulist. *Haskins, Rev. George F., Founder of the House of the Angel Guardian (Boston). Hill, Rev. B. D., a Passionist. ^ Hoyt, Rev. Wm. Henry (Vt,) * Hudson, Rev. David, C.S.C. (Ind.) Holly, Rev. Norman D., a Paulist. * Jenkins, Rev. Charles K., a Jesuit. * Lemke, Rev. Henry, compan- ion of the Rev. Prince Gal- litzin. * Lyman, Rev. Dwight E. (Bait.) * Leeson, Rev. A. B. (Bait.) * McLeod, Rev. Donald. Merrick, Rev. David A.,a Jesuit. * Mackall, Rev. Francis P. (N.J.) *Monk, Rev. Lewis Went- worth, son of the Hon. Cornwallis Monk, of Can- ada. * Monroe, Rev. Frank, a Jesuit, great-nephew of President Monroe. Metcalf, Rev. Theodore (Bos- ton). Major, Rev. Thomas S. (Ky.) * Murphy, Rev. John F. Meriwether, Rev. Wm. A., a Jesuit. Nevins, Rev, Aloysius Russell, a Paulist. * Nears, Rev. Henr>- F., a Paul- ist. ^i' Norris, Rev. Mr. (Milwaukee). *Oertel, Rev. J. J. Maximilian, 594 Americafi Converts froin Protestantism. author of Reasons of a Liitherati Minister for be- coming a Catholic. * Preston, Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thos S., late V. G. of New York. Rosecrans, Rt. Rev. Sylvester H., Bishop of Columbus, brother of Gen. W. S. Rosecrans, U. S. A. Robinson, Rev. Thomas V., a Paulist. * Robinson, Rev. John Rhine- lander, died a Paulist novice. Robinson, Rev. Dr. Henry L. Searle, Rev. George M., a Paul- ist. Spencer, V. Rev. F. A., Pro- vincial of the Dominicans, son of a Protestant clergy- man. * Stone, Rev. James Kent, for- merly President of Hobart and Kenyon (Prot.) col- leges, author of The I?i- vitation Heeded, a Passion- ist. Sumner, Rev. John, a Jesuit. Simmons, Rev. Gilbert, a Paul- ist. Simmons, Rev. Wm. I. (Provi- dence). Salt, V. Rev. Wm.-P. (N.J.) Starr, Rev. W. E. (Bait.) Shaw, Coleridge, died a Jesuit novice. Southgate, Rev. Edward, son of (Prot.) Bishop South- gate. Tyler, Rt. Rev. William, first Bishop of Hartford. * Thayer, Rev. John Thayer (Boston). Tillotson, Rev. Robert Beverley, a Paulist. Tabb, Rev. John, (St. Charles' College, Md.) * Van Rensselaer, Rev. Henry, a Jesuit. Whitfield, Most Rev. James, fourth Archbishop of Balti- more. Wood, Most Rev. James Fred- erick, first Archbishop of Philadelphia. * Wadhams, Rt. Rev. Edgar P., Bishop of Ogdensburg,N.Y. * Walworth, Rev. Clarence A., son of Chancellor Wal- worth, New York. Wyman, Rev. Henry M., a Paulist. Waldron, Rev. Edward Q. L. Woodman, Rev. Clarence E., a Paulist. Welsh, Rev. Edward, a Jesuit. Whitney, Rev. John D., a Jesuit. Wilson, Rev. Fr., a Dominican. Young, Rt. Rev. Josue M., Bishop of Erie. Young, 'Rev. Alfred Young, a Paulist. American Converts from Protestantism. 595 Converts from the Protestant Ministry who, so far AS KNOWN, DID NOT ENTER THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD. Allen, Rev. George, LL.D. (St. Albans, Vt.) Adams, Rev. Mr. (lowaj. Adams, R Henry A. (New York City). Boddy, Rev. Wm. Bowne, Rev. George Washing- ton. Coggeshall, Rev. G. A. (Provi- dence, R. I.) Converse, Rev. James M. J. Colt, Rev. A. B., grandson of (Prot.) Bishop Hobart. Egan, Rev. Dillon (Cal.) Fisher, Rev. F. (Corona, Long Island). Gilliam, Rev. G., afterwards physician (Bait.) Huntington, Rev. Joshua, au- thor of Groping s after Truth. Huntington, Rev. J. Vincent, Litterateur. Homer, Rev. Mr. Ives, Rt. Rev. Levi Silliman, Episcopalian Bishop of North Carolina. The founder of the Catholic Protectory, New York City. Ironside, Rev. George E. (N. J.) Kaicher, Rev. John Keble. Kewley, Rev. John (N. Y. City). Locke, Rev. Jesse Albert. Markoe, Rev. Mr. (St. Paul, Minn.) Meredith, Rev. W. M. McMorgan, Rev. Pollard. Pollard, Rev. J. Powell, Rev. Wm. E. Russell, Rev. Edwin B., D.D. Russell, Rev. J. C. and family (Bait.) Rodgers, Rev. J. W., D.D.,and family (Memphis). Robinson, Rev. Wm. C, Judge of the Supreme Court of Conn, and Professor of Law in Yale University. Richards, Rev. Henry Living- ston. Reiner, Rev. John M. Richards, Rev. John. Thornton, Rev. Mr. (Charles- ton, S. C.) White, Rev. Calvin, grand- father of Richard Grant White. Witcher, Rev. Mr. and wife. Wheaton, Rev. Homer (Pough- keepsie, N. Y.) THK MKDICAI. PROFESSION. Alley, Dr. (Phila.) Bigelow, Dr. (Mich.) Allen, Dr. John (N. Y. City). Brown, Dr. Wm. Faulkner. Bellinger, Dr. John (S. C.) Budd, Dr. Chas. H. Bryant, Dr. John (Phila.) Burt, Dr. (S. C.) 596 American Converts from Protestantism. Chilton, Dr. (Va.) Cabbamus, Dr. T. T. Cooke, Dr. (111.) Craft, Dr. Isaac B. (Ohio). Drenford, Dr. George (D. C.) Darland, Dr. Richard. Derby, Dr. Haskett. Dwight, Dr. (Boston.) Emmet, Dr. Thomas Addis (N. Y. City). Elliott, Dr. Johnson. Floyd, Dr. Wm. P., son of Gov. Floyd (Va.) Faust, Dr. (Washington, D. C.) Greene, Dr. (Maine). Greene, Dr. (St. Louis), Gregory, Dr. Elisha H. Hassell, Dr. Samuel (N.Y. City) . Harvey, Dr. John Milton. Hewit, Dr. Henry Stuart, son of Rev. Dr. Nathanael Hewit, Congregationalist minister (Bridgeport, Conn.) Keyes, Dr. Edward L. fN. Y. City). Leffingwell, Dr. Albert. Locke, Dr. (Ann Arbor, Mich.) McLaughlin, Dr., of the Hud- son Bay Company. Meriwether, Dr. Wm. A., now a Jesuit. Marcy, Dr. E. A. (N. Y. City). McMurray, Dr. Elgin T. MacDougal, Dr. Petersen, Dr. (Phila.) Pollock, Dr. Simon, Jr. Ouackenbos, Dr.(Albany, N. Y.) Russ, Dr. (New Mexico). Reynolds, Dr. Chevalier. Richmond, Dr. John B. (N. J.) Salter, Dr. Richard H. (Boston). Spencer, Dr. John C. (N. Y.) Sterling, Dr. George A. (Long Island). Van Buren, Dr. William H. (N. Y. City). Wood, Dr. James Robie (N. Y. City). Woodville, Dr. (Monroe Co., Va.) THE ARMY AND NAVY. Aldrich, Col. Beaumont, Rear Admirnl John C. Brisbane, Gen. Abbot H. Buell, Gen. Don Carlos. Belton, Col. Francis S. Brittin, Col. Lionel. Basket, Col. John. Bradshaw, Col. Brownson, Major Henry F. Cook, Gen. William. Cutts, Col. James Madison, nephew of Pres. Madison. Caldwell, Col. Clarke, Col. W. E. Cooper, Col. George Kent. Chase, Capt. Bela. Curd, Lieut. Thomas (died a Jesuit novice). Dearborn, Major Axel. American Converts from Protestantism. S97 Deshon, Lieut. George (New London, Conn.), now a priest and Paulist. Dodge, Lieut. Foster, Gen. John G., of U. S. Engineers. Frye, Col. Floyd, Col, George. Floyd, Col. Ben. Rush. Fountain, Capt. S. W. Graham, Gen. Lawrence. Guest, Commodore John. Gerdes, Capt. F. H., U. S. Coast Survey. Griffen, Capt. B. B. Hardin, Gen. M. D. Harney, Gen. W. S. Hardie, Gen. James A. Hill, Gen. Harwood, Rear Admiral An- drew Allen. Hudson, Col. McK. Hyde, Col. Holbrook, Col. P. N. Hooper, Col. George P. Haldeman, Capt. Ives, Lieut. Joseph C. Jenkins, Gen. Albert. Jones, Gen. James. Johnston, Lieut. Kilpatrick, Gen. Hugh Judson. Kane, Col. George P. Lane, Gen. Joseph. Longstreet, Gen. James. Larned, Col. Charles. Lamson, Col. D. S. Lay, Capt., brother of (Prot.) Bishop Lay. MacDougal, Gen. Clinton Du- gald. McKaig, Gen. T. J. Monroe, Col. James, grand- nephew of Pres't Monroe. Montgomery, Col. L. M. Newton, Gen. John E. Northrop, Gen. Lucius B. Nearnsie, Major J. R. Nicholson, Lieut., U.S.N. Ord, Gen. Edward O. C. Otis, Col. E. S. Ord, Capt. Placidus. Payne, Col. Rice W. Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. Starke. Revere, Gen. Joseph Warren, grandson of Paul Revere of Revolutionary fame. Ramsay, Admiral Francis M. Rathbone, Col. John Cass. Ransom, Capt. Augustine Dun- bar. Scammon, Gen. E. Parker. Stone, Gen. Charles P. Stanley, Gen. David Sloan. Sturgis, Gen. Samuel D. Smith, Gen. George. Sands, Admiral B. F. Strobel, Major. Shurtleff, Capt. Nathanael B. Summerhayes, Lieut. J. W. Spear, Lieut. Tyler, Gen. Robert O., son of President Tyler. Thayer, Gen. Russell. Tucker, Col. N. A. Troy, Col. Tilford. Col. 598 American Converts from Protestantism. Turner, Major Henry S. Vincent, Gen. Thomas Mc- Curdy. Vault, Col. G. W. T. Whipple, Gen. A. W. Wayne, Gen. Henry C. Ward, Capt. James Harman, naval author. THE PUBLIC SERVICE AND THE EAW. Anderson, Hon. Wm. Marshall, brother of Col. Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter. Arrington, Hon. Judge (111.) Atwater, Hon. Mr. (New Ha- ven). Austin, Charles, (Law.) (N. Y.) Burnett, Hon. Peter H., Gov. of California, Judge ; author 1;''" A^ of The Path ivhich led a W^ ,V Protestant Lawyer to the V* J-" Catholic Church, '■■'' Brightly, Frederick C. (Law.), author of the Federal Digest, etc. Bakewell, Hon. Judge Robert A. (St. Louis). Bissell, Hon. William H., Gov. of Illinois. Bliss, George, (Law.) (New York City). Boggess, Judge Caleb. Carpenter, Gen., (Law.) Lieut,- Gov. of Rhode Island. Chandler, Hon. Joseph R., Minister to Naples. Clarke, Hon. Beverley L. Dent, Hon. Louis, relative of Gen. Grant. Dunne, Hon. Chief Justice (Arizona). Ewing, Hon. Thomas, Senator, Secretary of the Interior. Florence, Hon. Thomas B. Field, William Hildreth, (Law.) (New York City). Heath, Hon. Judge (N. C.) Hurd, Hon. Frank (Ohio). Holcomb, Hon. Silas Wright (New York City). Hatch, Roswell D., (Law.) (New York City). Howard, George H., (Law.) (Washington, D. C.) Johnston, Attorney-General (Miss.) Johnston, Hon. J. W., Senator (Va.) Joyce, Hon. John (Ky.) Keiley, Hon. A. M. (Va.) Livingston, Hon. Vanbrugh, U. S. Minister to Russia. Lee, Hon. Thomas Simms, Gov. of Maryland. Manley, Judge M. E. (N. C.) Moore, Judge (N. C.) Mulkey, Hon Judge John H. (111.) Pugh, Hon. George E., Senator (Ohio). Price, Hon. Jonathan H. Rice, Hon. Judge (S. C.) Rankin, Hon. Judge (Cal.) American Converts from Protcstmitisnt. 599 Ryland, Hon. Judge (Cal.) Smith, Hon. Truman. Sawyer, Hon. Lemuel. Stephens, Judge Linton, broth- er of Hon. Alex. Stephens (Ga.) Tenney, Judge (N. Jersey). Troyman, Hon. James. Van Dyke, Hon. James A. (Detroit). Whittlesey, Hon. David C. Washington, Hon. John N. Weld, Hon. W. E. (III.) Wilkins, Hon. Judge (Mich.) Wilson, Hon. Ben (W. Va.) I.ITERATURK, THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. Haldeman, Prof. Samuel S., Anderson, Henry James, LL.D., Prof. Columbia College. Allen, Heman (Art.), Music, Chicago. Brownson, Orestes A., LL.D. (Lit.), Author, Editor of Brownson' s Rei/iew, Baker, Prof. Alpheus. Blyth, Stephen Cleveland (Lit.) Coleman, Carryl (Art.) Crawford, Marion (Lit.), Novel- ist. Dwight, Prof., Harvard Medical College. Dorsey, Prof. Oswald. Dorsey, Mrs. Anna H. (Lit.) Dahlgren, Mrs. Madeleine Vin- ton (Lit.) Ermenstrout, Prof. John S. (Lit.) Ellet, Mrs. Elizabeth Fries (Lit.) Fisher, Mrs. Frances C. (Chris- tian Reid) (Lit.), Novelist. Frost, Prof. Sydney B. Hassard, John R. G. (Lit.) Hall, James, New York State Geologist. Naturalist. Hemmenway, Mrs. (Lit.), author of Historical Anfials of Vermont. Johnston, Richard Malcolm (Lit.) Jones, Prof. Gardner. Keene, Laura (Lit. and Art.) Lathrop, George Parsons (Lit.) Lathrop, Mrs. Rose H., wife of the author and daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Le Vert, Mrs. Octavia Walton (Lit.) McMaster, James A. (Lit.), Ed- itor of the Freeman's Journal. Miles, George H. (Lit.) Martin, Mrs. Elizabeth G. (Lit.), wife of Homer D. Martin, the artist. Monroe, Miss Mary (Lit ) Mason, Miss Emily (Lit.) Poole, Thomas H. (Architect). Rea, Robert T. (Lit.) Smith, Sanderson (Naturalist). Stoddaid, Charles Warren (Lit.) 6oo American Converts from Protestantism. Starr, Miss Eliza Allen (Lit.) Tincker, Miss Mary Agnes (Lit.), Novelist. Thompson, Miss Dora (Lit.) Walker, John Brisbane (Lit.), Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Wolf, Geo. D. (.Lit.), Journalist. FROM VARIOUS Allen, Miss Fanny, daughter of Gen. Ethan Allen of Rev- olutionary fame. Anger, Calvin (Boston). Anderson, Mrs. William Mar- shall, daughter of Gen. Duncan McArthur, Gov. of Ohio. Austin, The Misses Eliza, Sara, and Kate (Burlington, Vt.) Austin, Mrs. Charles (N. Y. C.) Arnold, Mrs. William (N. Y. C.) Arnold, Mrs. (Chelsea, Mass.) Arrington, Mrs., wife of Judge Arrington (111.) Abell, Samuel (Md.) Barlow, The Misses Debbie, Helen and Anna (Ver- mont). Barry, Mrs. John, wife of Com- modore Barry, U. S. N. Brownson, Mrs., wife of Dr. Orestes A. Brownson. Berrian, T. Chandler, son of'^ Rev. Dr. Berrian, Rector of Trinity Church (N. Y. C.) Blount, Thomas Mutter, his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Blount, and Willis, Richard Storrs (Lit.) White, John (Art.), Music. White, Ferdinand E. (Art.), Music. Walworth, Mansfield (Lit.), son of Chancellor Walworth, New York. Wentworth, Mrs. J. W. (Art.) WAIvKS OF LIFE. their children, Thomas Mutter, William Rochester, Margaret Elizabeth, Annie Isabella, Charlotte Caro- line, Mary Bonner, Alice Knight, Louisa Knight (Washington, D. C.) Beekham, Miss Fanny (Va.), a Visitation nun. Beers, Miss Julia (Litchfield, Conn.) Bliss, Mrs. George (N. Y. City). Bleecker, Miss Rosalie, cousin of Arclibishop Bayley. Bass, The Misses Ella and Jen- nie, daughters of the Coun- tess Bertinati. Barber, Mrs. Jerusha, wife of Rev. Virgil H. Barber. Barber, The Misses Mary, Abi- gail, Susan, Josephine, ■ daughters of the foregoing, ^..n'n"'"^!! of whom with their y ^^^ mgther became nuns. BueT, Oliver P. and wife (N. Y. City). Buel, David Hillhouse, a Jesuit, son of the foregoing. American Converts from Protestantism, 60 1 Buel, Hillhouse A., son of Rev. David Buel. Brooks, A. E. (N. Y. City). Browne, Charles F., the humor. ist " Artemus Ward." Bellinger, Edmund, Jr.(Charles- ton, S. C.) Bellinger, The Misses Harriet, Sarah, and Susan (Charles- ton, S. C.) Bradford, Mrs. Mary, sister of Mrs. Jefferson Davis. Bland, Mrs., wife of Hon. Rich- ard P. Bland (Mo.) Burnett, Mrs., wife of Judge Peter H. Burnett. Boggs, Mrs , wife of Admiral Boggs, U. S. N. Brent, Mrs. Sarah L. (N. Y. C.) Boyle, Mrs. Amelia, wife of Capt. Boyle ; also their five children (N. Y. City). Bostwick, Mrs. Eliza, daughter of Presbyterian missionary to Ceylon (N. Y. City). Branhardt, Joseph (N. C.) Brewster, Miss Ann. Chappell, Alfred H. (New Lon- don, Conn.j Cheney, Miss Mary (Mass.), a nun. Cook, Mrs., wife of Gen. Wm. Cook (N. J.) Clinton, Miss Margaret (Va.), a nun. Cutting, Mrs. (N. Y.) {nee Mar- ion Ramsay, D. C.) Coleman, Abraham B. (Nan tucket). Casewell, Henry, and family (Parkersburg, W. Va.) Clarke, D. W. ( Vt.) Churchill, Franklin H. (N. Y. City). Chase, Miss Harriet (Nantuc- ket). Chapin, Lindley (N. Y. City). Coppinger, Mrs. John J., daughter of Hon. James G. Blaine. Connolly, Mrs. Pierce, Foundress of the nuns of the Holy Childhood. Clay, John B., son of Hon. Hen- ry Clay. Caldwell, William Shakespeare. Caldwell, Mrs. Mary E. Clark, Mrs. Mary (Ky.) Chapezo, Benjamin (Ky.) Crump. John I. (Conn.) Cowles, Miss Ellen, daughter of Editor Cowles (Cleve- land. O.) Curtis, Mr. and Mrs. L. A. (Buffalo). Dahlgren, Mrs. Madeleine Vin- ton, wife of Admiral Dahl- gren, U. S. N. Davidson, Mrs. Anna and fam- ily (\V. Va.) Deshon, Miss Sarah, daughter of Rev. G. H. Deshon (Conn.) Drexel, Mrs. Joseph. 6o2 American Converts from Protestantism, Davis, Miss Helen, sister of Ad- miral Davis, U. S. N. Dana, Miss Charlotte, sister of Richard H. Dana, the au- thor (Boston). Dana, Miss Matilda (Boston). Day, Mrs., niece of Daniel Web- ster. Edgar, Miss Constance, grand- daughter of Daniel Web- ster, a Visitation nun. Elcock, Mrs., nee Belle Seyfert, wife of Judge Elcock (Pa.) Etheridge, Miss Emma, daugh- ter of Emerson Etheridge (Tenn.) Edes, Miss Ella B., niece of (Prot.) Bishop Wainwright, of New York. Everett, The Misses, nieces of Hon. Edward Everett. Field, Mrs. William Hildreth {nee Miller) (Homer, N. Y.) Freeman, Miss Annie, a nun. Floyd, Mrs. {nee Preston), wife of Governor John Floyd (Va.) Floyd, Mrs., wife of Dr. William P. Floyd (Va.) Floyd, Mrs., wife of Col. George Floyd (Va.) Floyd, Mrs., wife of Col. Ben. Rush Floyd (Va.) The fore- going are sons of Gov. Floyd, who also became a convert. Floyd-Jones, Mr, and Mrs. G. S. (N.Y. City). Fisher, Miss Annie, daughter of Judge Fisher (Washing- ton, D. C.) Green, Hannibal (N. Y.) Gardes, Henry (N. Orleans). Guion, Mr. and Mrs. William H. (N. Y. City). Glover, Mrs. O. R. (N. Y. City). Guernsey, Miss Julia M. (De- troit). Graham, Miss M. A., sister of Gen. Graham, U. S. A., a Visitation nun. Gould, John M., son of Protes- tant minister (Boston). Greenough, Horatio. Hecker, Mr. and Mrs. George V. (N. Y. City). Hayes, Dr. Isaac Israel, Arctic Explorer. Healy, Mrs., wife of the artist, G. P. A. Healy. Harper, Miss Emily. Hartwell, Mrs. Anna Frances, a nun and Superioress of the Mission Helpers to the Ne- groes. Hite, Miss Mary (V^a.), a Visita- tion nun. Hewit, Mrs. Catharine {nee Hurd), wife of Dr. Henry S. Hewit. Hohnes, Mrs. George (Va.), daughter of Gov. John Floyd. Holly, Mrs. S. C. (N. Y. City). American Converts from Protestantism. 603 Hudson, Miss Elizabeth, sis- ter of Col. Edward McK. Hudson, U. S. A. Hooper, Mrs. George P. Hamniersley, Mrs. Louis. Henderson, Miss Mary (Ky.) Hunt, Mrs. William H., daugh- ter of Jacob Barker (N. Orleans). Ives, Mr. and Mrs. Edward. Ives, Mrs., daughter of (Prot.) Bishop Hobart. Jones, Miss Wilhelmina, daugh- ter of the distinguished naval officer, Jacob Jones, a Visitation nun. Jones, Miss Sarah, daughter of Judge Jones (N. Y. City), a Sacred Heart nun. Johnston, Mrs. Richard Mal- colm, wife of the author. Johnson, Mrs. Andrew, 7ice Rumbough (N. C.) Jaboeuf, Mrs. M. R., daiighter of Borden M. Voorhees (Washington, D. C.) Johnston, Mrs., wife of Judge John W. Johnston (Va.), daughter of Gov. John Floyd. King, Mrs. Jane (Mass.) King, Miss Frances, daughter of foregoing, a Sister of Mercy. Kearney, Mrs., wife of Gen. Philip Kearney. Kearney, The Misses, daughters of the foregoing. Lay, Mr., son of Protestant Bishop of Maryland. Lee, Mrs., wife of Dr. Charles Carroll Lee (Bait.) Lafarge, Mrs. Margaret Mason, granddaughter of Commo- dore Perry, U. S. N. Lord, Thomas Scott J. (N. Y.) Lewis, Mrs. Letitia, wife of Col. Wm. Lewis and daughter of Gov. John Floyd, of Va. Lyons, Mrs., wife of Judge Lyons (Va.) Lynch, Mrs. Howard, nee Fonda (N. York City). Lippitt, Miss Caroline (Cam- bridge, Mass.) Linton, Miss Sarah, niece of Col. Graham, U. S. A., a Visitation nun, author of Linton's Historical Charts. Lord, Haynes (N. York City). Lord, Mrs. Hicks (N. Y. City). Livingston, Mrs. Vanbrugh, nee Jaudon (New York City). Levin, Mrs., wife of Lewis C. Levin, the " Know-Noth- ing' leader in Philadel- phia. Longfellow, Miss Marian, rela- tive of the poet Long- fellow. Lowe, Mrs. Hester, wife of Gov. Lowe (Md.) Larwill, Mrs. M. J. (Ohio). Monroe, Miss, daughter of President Monroe, a nun. 6o4 American Converts from Protestantism. Marks, Mrs. C. C, nee Fonda (New York City). Mann, Mrs., wife of Lieut. Mann, U. S. N. Miller, Henry Wisner (New York City). Meynen, Hermann (N. Y. C.) Meagher, Mrs. Thomas Francis. Metcalf, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore (Boston). Metcalf, Miss Julia (Boston). Mason, Miss Emily (Va.) Miles, Mrs. George, mother of Geo. H. Miles, the author. McKintry, W. E. (Cal.) McKintry, Mrs. Annie Hedges Livingston (Cal.) Medary, Samuel, son of Gov. Medary (Ohio). McCarthy, Mrs., wife of Sena- tor Dennis McCarthy (Syr- acuse, N, Y.) Matthews, Mrs., wife of Capt . John P. Matthews (Va.) Miles, Mrs. Josephine C. (N. Y.) a Dominican nun. Miles, Miss Marian H., daugh- ter of foregoing, a Visita- tion nun. McVickar, Lawrence. Morrogh, Mrs., wife of Dr. W. P. Morrogh (N. J.) Miller, Mrs. Mary E. (N. Y. City). Miller, Miss Elizabeth, daugh- ter of the foregoing. McCallum, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram (Lockport, N. Y.) Martin, Miss Helen, daughter of Senator Martin, of Kan- sas, a Sister of Charity. Moore, Henry (Wheeling, W. Va.) McLaughlin, Mr. (San Jose, Cal.) Northrop, Lucius, father of Bishop Northrop (S. C.) Newton, Mrs., wife of Gen. John E. Newton, U. S. A. Nevins, Mrs. Richard, daughter of Gov. Medary, of Ohio. O'Shaughnessy, Mrs. J. F., daughter of Judge Nelson J. Waterbury (N. Y. C.) O'Connor, Mrs. M. P. (San Jose, Cal.) Olds, Miss Mary, daughter of Senator Olds (Ohio). Palmer, Mr. and Mrs. Julius A. Pierce, Wellington Augustine (Buffalo). ^ycHowska, Mrs., daughter of Gen. Wm. Cook (N. J.) Peel, Miss Kate, daughter of Senator Peel (Ark.) Preston, Miss Henrietta (Va.) Pearce, The Misses Julia and Fanny (Boston), both Visi- tation nuns. Peter, Mrs. Sarah (Ohio). Piatt, Mrs., wife of Col. Don ^ || Piatt. Robertson, Miss Sadie (New Orleans), a Visitation nun. Riggs, George W. (Washing- ton, D. C.) American Converts from Protestantism. 605 Rosecrans, Mrs., wife of Gen. W. S. Rosecrans. Ripley, Mrs., wife of George Ripley, journalist. Raynor, Miss Susan, daughter of Hon. Kenneth Raynor, and niece of Bishop Polk. Ripley, Miss Phoebe, daughter of Rev. Samuel Ripley, Unitarian minister, a Visi- tation nun. Robinson, Miss Lodoiska, daughter of Dr. Henry Robinson (New Bruns- wick, N. J.) Raven, Miss, daughter of Thos. Raven (N. Y.) Robertson, Miss, daughter of Rev. John Robertson, a Sister of Mercy. Springer, Reuben R. (Ohio). Seton, Mrs. Eliza A., Foundress of the Sisters of Charity in U. S. Scott, The Misses Virginia, a nun ; Cornelia, wife Lieut. Scott, of U. S. A. ; Ella, wife of Mr. McTavish (Bait.), Camilla, wife of Mr. Hoyt (N. Y.) The four daughters of Maj.-Gen. Winfield Scott, U. S. A. Starr, Mrs. W., Superioress of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion (N. Y. C.) Storrs, Mrs. Annie Isabella, nee Blount, Washington. Smith, The Misses Lucy Eaton, late Mother M. Catherine de Ricci, Dominican pri- oress; and Isabel Mcln- tyre, also a Dominican nun, daughters of Baldwin Smith (N. Y.) Spooner, Mrs. Mary Ann Wet- more, wife of Col. Alden Spooner (Brooklyn). Smith, Mrs., wife of Gov. Smith (Ala.) Semmes, Mrs. Thomas J. (N. Orleans). Semmes, Mrs. B. J. (Memphis). Smith, Miss Anna E., daughter of Admiral Joseph Smith, U.S.N. Sedgewick, Miss Jane (Stock- bridge, Mass.) Salter, Mrs. Richard H. (Mass.) Salter, Miss Edith Agnes (Mass.) Scammon, Mrs., wife of Gen. E. P. Scammon, U. S. A. Smith, Mrs. Ida Greeley, daughter of Horace Gree- ley. Salter, Miss Mary J., daughter of Chaplain Salter, U. S. A. Salter, Miss Helen J., a Sister of Mercy. Salter, Mrs., wife of Dr. Salter, Boston, daughter of Rev. Dr. Woods, Prof, in An- dover Seminary. Sprague, Mrs. Harriet Ewing, wife of Henry Sprague (New York). 6o6 A merican Converts from Protcstantisin. Smyth, The Misses Emma, Agatha, Dorthula, Frances, daughters of Capt. Harold Smyth (Va.) Schley, Mrs. (Milwaukee). Stephens, Mrs., wife of Judge Stephens (Ga.) Snowdon, Miss Eliza (Md.), a nun. Smith, Miss Martha (Va.), a nun. Tuckerman, Mr. and Mrs. Sam- uel P. (Boston). Thomas, Mrs. Henry Theodore, daughter of James God- dard (New York City). Tyler, Mrs., widow of Presi- dent Tyler. Tyler, Miss Margaret, daughter of the foregoing. Thayer, Henry Adams (Mass.) Thompson, Miss Margaret, formerly a member of Protestant sisterhood. Taylor, The Misses Emma and Clara, nieces of Laura Keene. Trautmann, Miss Elizabeth (D. C), a nun. Travers, Miss Elizabeth (D. C), a nun. Torrens, Miss Mary (Mass.), a nun. Turner, Miss Mary (Va.), a nun. Thompson, Mrs. Valentine (Ky.) Throop, Francis H. (Brooklyn, N. Y.) Van Buren, Mrs., wife of Dr. Wm. H. Van Buren (N. Y. C), daughter of Dr. Valen- tine Mott. Van Zandt, Eugene (N. Y. C.) Van Rensselaer, Miss (N. Y.), a Sister of Charity. Voorhees, The Misses Eliza, Marion R., Ella, and Kath- erine, daughters of Bor- den M. Voorhees (Wash., D.C.) White, Mrs. Richard (Phila.) Walley, Thomas (Boston), un- cle of Wendell Phillips. Waggaman, Thomas E., great- nephew of President Tyler. Waggaman, Mrs., sister of President Tyler. Waggaman, Miss Sarah, daugh- ter of foregoing, a Visita- tion nun. Whittier, Miss Harriet, niece of Admiral Smith, U. S. A., and cousin of the poet Whittier. Ward, Mrs. Anna, H. B. and sisters, Mrs. Elizabeth H. Van Zandt, Mrs. Sarah B. Hunt, daughters of Jacob Barker (New Orleans). Wentw^orth, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. (New York City). Wilber, Joshua (Lockport, N. Y.) Wixon, Miss Emma, Prima Donna Mile. Nevada. Wood, Dr. James Robie and American Converts from ProtestaJitism. 607 sisters, the Misses Jennie C, Mary E., Annie E., and Alfred C, grandchildren of Thomas Walley (Boston). Willetts, Miss Anglesia (Brook- lyn), a sister of the Divine Compassion. Wilson, Miss Edith, formerly member of a Prot. sister- hood (New York City). Worthington, Mrs. Lewis (Cin- cinnati). Worthington, Mrs. George (Cleveland). White, Mrs. John, ?/tr Schirmer. Willis, Mrs., sister of (Prot.) Bishop Phillips Brooks. Williams, Mrs., wife of Gen. Robert A. Williams, U.S.A. Woodbridge, Miss Madeleine, a nun. Woodville, Mrs., daughter of Dr. Carey Breckenridge. Webb, Mrs. Nehemiah (Ky.) Young, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas (N. J.), and sons, George A., Alfred, and Henry. Young, Mrs. Edward (Ga.) INDEX. Abbott, Rev. Lyman, on the necessity of both secular and rehgious elements in popu- lar education, pp. 267-8 ; de- ficiencies of popular educa- tion, p. 457 ; sins against the law of life by the gov- erning powers, pp. 421-22. Abortion, Criminal, pp. 486-91 ; the sin of New England, p. 490. Abstemiousness, not Christian self-denial, p. 389. Academies, called synagogues of Satan by Wycliffe, p. 341. Adventists, list of societies of, p. 311. Age and Poverty in England, article in the New York Stm, p. 415. Alarcon, Mexican dramatist, p. 378. Alexander III., Pope, decreed free parochial schools in 1 179, p. 316. Alison, Archibald, says intel- lectual cultivation increases the amount of crime ; his History of Europe quoted, pp. 448-9,' 456. Allard, M., quoted from the Journal dc rinstruci/on publtque, p. 449. American Converts to Catholi- cism, list of, pp. 592-607. American and Foreign Chris- tian Union, the, p. 9. 60S American Protestants, sympa- thize with every despotic usurpation of power in Cath- olic countries, p. 194; why they praise the infidel and Freemason republics of France and Mexico, and the Culturkanipf in Germany, p. 194; tried to monopolize religious freedom in the United States, p. 195. Ancient Classics, our knowledge of them due to the Catholic priesthood, p. 345. A. P. A., the (American Pro- tective Association), pp. 5, 8 (American Protestant Asso- ciation), 1 1. Arango, Mexican religious writer, p. 379. Artists, Mexican, p. 381. Assumption, Little Sisters of the, p. 406. Austria, obliges Protestant min- isters to see to the religious instruction of Protestant children in Catholic schools, p. 271 ; its public libraries, p. 351 ; makes some state provision for its poor, p. 393 ; reason assigned for the high percentage of illegitimate births in, pp. 508-9. Authors, Mexican, pp. 378—79. Bacon, Rev. Leonard W., quot- ed, pp. 5, 9, 10, 542. Index. 609 Bale, Anglican Bishop of Os- sory, quotes Leland on the destruction of monastic li- braries in England, p. 362. Balmez, on political liberty un- der Catholicism, pp. 160-62. Baptists, list of sects of, p. 311. Barbadoes, Island of, under British Protestant influences, p. 97. Baring-Gould, Rev. S., quoted on divorce on the European Continent, p. 545. Barnard, Henry, LL.D., on pe- nal laws against educating Catholics in Ireland, p. 23. Barr, Mrs. Amelia E., on the decline of politeness, pp. 120-21 ; a false idea of edu- cation the cause of discon- tent of the working classes, p. 217. Basque Provinces, the education in, pp. 61, 62. Bavaria, reasons assigned for the high percentage of ille- gitimate births in, pp. 508-9. Beggars, not paupers, in Catho- lic countries, pp. 399, 400; the secular state in Mexico converting them into pau- pers, p. 404. Belfast, rate of illegitimacy in, p. 511. Belgium, colliers in, pp. 52, 53 civil liberty in, p. 53 ; its uni- versity and fine-art students in 1888-89, p. 336 ; its pub- lic libraries, pp. 351-52; makes some state provision for its poor, p. 393. Benevolence not Christian char- ity even when carried to the highest degree, p. 388 ; Prot- estants possess it in a high degree, p. 388. Berlin, the limbo of atheism, p. 583- Bertillon, Dr., quoted by Lef- fingwell, pp. 508-9. Bible, the, twenty editions of, brought out in Germany be- tween 1460 and the age of Luther, p. 325; commenta- tors on in the Middle Ages, p. 326 ; more than seventy editions of printed before Luther's translation, p. 366 ; chained by the Catholic priesthood, pp. 367-68. Bingham, Hiram, American Protestant missionary to Hawaii, pp. 84-87. Blair, Hon. Henry W., p. 292 ; explains the meaning of the phrase, "the principles of the Christian religion," in a pro- posed amendment to the national Constitution, p. 293- Blake, Mrs. Mary E., p. 376; her book on Mexico quoted, p. 403. Bodio, Prof., p. 47i I his inter- national records of crime quoted bv Mulhall, pp. 471- 75. Bonaventure, Saint, on the evils caused by neglect of science, P- 243. Booth, Charles, statistical tables of pauperism in England, p. 414. Bournet, Dr. Albert, quoted on Criminality in France and Italy, p. 555. 6io Index. Bowringj Dr., his arraicrnment of the British East IiuHa Company, p. 45. Brace, Charles Loring-, quoted on the bad moral effects of emigration, pp. 436-37. Bremner, Robert, finds the peas- ants of Denmark no better than serfs in 1840, p. 167. Brethren (Plymouth), list of, p. 311- Brethren (River), list of, p. 311. Brooks, Erastus, rebukes anti- Catholic bigotry, p. 265. Burgess, Rev. William, on the tendency of the English sys- tem of secular education on the natives of India, p. 290. Burial Clubs in England, pp. 48CV81. Calasanzio, Giuseppe, Saint, founded the first free school system in 1597, p. 315. Cambridge, University of, p. 331 ; present condition of, p. 342. Cantabrana, Captain Don Do- mingo de, p. 401. Carlos, Don, on the Spanish spirit of liberty, p. 62. Carpio-Pesado, Mexican reli- . gious writer, p. 379. Carreto, Rosa, Mexican poet, p. 379- Carroll, Dr. H. K., p. 278 ; his Religions Forces of the United States, quoted and commented, pp. 278, 282, 300, 304. Castelar, Emilio, no secularist in religion, p. 63; quoted, p. 64. Catholic America, p. 96. Catholics, comparative immo- rality of, in the Protestant l)rovinces of Germany, p. 503- Catholic Church, the, essential- ly democratic, p. 1 56 ; has no civil policy, p. 199; never been the enemy of free in- stitutions, p. 199; a divine fraternity, p. 200; not a friend to illiteracy, p. 218; devoted to the instruction of the common people, p. 219; not foreign in any country, p. 304 ; its history the history of literature, pp. 345-6; medium of the work of sanctification, pp. 572-74. Catholic countries in Europe, p. 47. Catholic educational exhibit at the Chicago Fair, p. 256. Catholicism and liberty, p. 147 ; laid the foundations of mod- ern civilization, p. 150; ten- dency of to exalt men's spiritual perfection as the supreme good, p. 441. Catholic parochial schools, why hated by secularists, infidels and Protestants, p. 259 ; ref- utation of the charge that they obtain undue State aid, p. 260. Catholic priesthood, the, pre- servers of the ancient class- ics, pp. 345-6. Catholic social ideal, the, p. 446. Catholic universities, 72 founded in Europe before the Refor- mation, p. 328 ; 29 of those now in existence have 1,000 or more students, p. 333. Index, 6ii Cavendish, Lady Frederick, her address to the church con- gress quoted, p. 469. Census Report statistics of edu- cation, p. 248; of pauper- ism and crime, p. 248 ; of nativity, p. 249. Centralization of power the chief danger of republics, p. 195. Chamberlain, Joseph, M.P., on wealth and poverty in Eng- land, p. 33. Chambers, J. D., on the social evil in Great Britain and Holland, pp. 5ii--i2. Channing, William E., his Duty of Free States referred to, 4D. 411. Charles XI. of Sweden seizes absolute power in 1680, p. 166. Chateaubriand on Spanish man- ners, p. 113. Chavero, Alfredo, Mexican archaeologist, p. 378. Chicago Fair, the, its education- al exhibit, p. 256. Child insurance in England, p. 480 ; testimony of General Booth, p. 481 ; of the Duke of Fife, p. 481 ; of Mr. Jus- tice Wells, p. 481. Child murder in England, pp. 480-86. Christian Brothers, the, success of their work in Paris, pp. 2 54-55- Christian Charity, Protestant- ism lacks it in principle and practice, p. 388. Christian Chastity not identi- cal with stoical continence, p. 389. Christian Education, the effort to impart it a test of patriot- y ism, p. 276. Christian Missions, their agents and results, p. 103. Church, the, and civil govern- ment, p. 198. Church and the World, the, quoted on the effects of the confessional, p. 559. Churchman, the New York, quoted on divorce in Eng- land, pp. 549-50. Civilization defined, p. 14 ; its modern foundations laid by Catholicism, p. i 50. Civilization, Catholic, in France, pp. 49-51 ;' in Belgium, pp. 51-54; in Italy, pp. 54-58; in Spain, pp. 58-70; in Mexico, pp. 70-93; among the North American Indians, pp. 93-95- Civilization, Protestant, in Eng- land, pp. 21-34; in Ireland, pp. 35-44; in India, pp. 44- 46. Clavigero, Mexican historian, p. 378. Cobbett, William, History of the Reformation, pp. 23, 132; cited, pp. 342-3- Confessional, the, Protestant testimony to its effects in re- pressing vice, pp. 559-60. Congregationalism, the State religion in Massachusetts up to 1835, p. 194. Conscience, Catholic doctrine as to the unlawfulness of disobeying, pp. 188-89. 6l2 Index, Constitution, the proposed six- teenth amendment to, p. 270. , Constitutional amendment pro- posed against State aid to schools conducted by any religious body, pp. 261, 264. Continence, stoical, not Chris- tian charity, p. 389. Converts, list of American, pp. 592-607 ; who became Cath- olic priests, pp. 592-94 ; from the Protestant clergy, p. 595 ; from the medical profession, pp. 595-96 ; from the army and navy, pp. 596-98 ; from the public service and the law, pp. 598-99 ; from litera- ture and art, pp. 599-600 ; from various walks of life, pp. 600-607. Cortes, Donoso, on the family relation in Catholic ages, p. 123 ; its decline as Catho- lic civilization declines, pp. 123-24. Cotton, John, on toleration, p. 194. Council of Lateran, the, decreed free parochial schools, p. 316. Cousin, Victor, considered pure- ly secular education rather a curse than a blessing, p. 294. Coxe, Bishop A. Cleveland, his warning against infanticide in the United States, p. 490. Crime, increase of in the United States, pp. 453-54; its in- crease coincident with the spread of State secular edu- cation, p. 458; agrarian counted in the statistical ta- bles for Ireland, p. 461 ; grave in the United States, p. 476. Crimes, official statistics of grave, in Europe and Great Britain, pp. 471 75; against property a measure of gen- eral morality, p. 477 ; of de- liberation, p. 477 ; of impulse and provocation, p. 477. Criminals, Irish, why counted on the Protestant side, p. 435 ; literate predominate in the U. S. and Great Britain, pp. 449-50 ; the majority of fur- nished by large cities, p. 460- Cromwell, Oliver, his treatment of Irish Catholics, p. 38. Cubas,- Antonio Garcia, his work on Mexico in 1876 quoted and commented, pp. 374-75. Cutts, Rev. E., D.D., on the mediaeval church as the friend of the poor, p. 154. D'AUBIGNE, his singular ex- planation of the presence of liberty in the Catholic can- tons of Switzerland, p. 170. Denmark, marriage statistics of, p. 517; immorality in, ibid. Diocesan school exhibit in New York, the, p. 257. Divorce, founded in modern times by Luther, Melanch- thon, and Bucer, p. 543 ; the frequency of among Prot- estants, pp. 546-47. Dix, Rev. Morgan, on Divorce, pp. 546-47- Drunkenness, not a Spanish vice, p. 466 ; in England, Scotland, London, p. 467- 69; table of deaths from, p. 470. Index. 613 Dublin, rate of illegitimacy in, p. 571. Duchatel, Dr., on the causes of prostitution in Paris, p. 566. Durham University, p. 333. Edinburgh, has no consider- able libraries free to the poor, p. 359. Edinburgh Review, quoted on peasant proprietorship in France, pp. 49, 444; on the frequency of divorce, p. 546; on the cradle of the Reformation becoming the grave of the Reformed faith, pp. 583-84; relation of to wealth and poverty, pau- perism and crime, pp. 246-7. Education, properly composed of two elements which it is fatal to separate, p. 266 ; religiously minded Protest- ants formerly in accord with CathoHcs on this point, p. 267 ; not repressed but en- coLTraged by the Catholic clergy of Europe, pp. 317. Elberfeld, the poor lav/ experi- ment in, p. 396. Elio, General, testifies to the good influence exerted by the Spanish clergy, p. 61 ; attributes the good health of young Spanish soldiers to their purity, p. 62. Elizabeth of England, her death-bed remorse for her treatment of Ireland, p. 37. E! Solfeo, refutation of its slan- derous insinuations, pp. 532- 41. Emigrants from Protestant countries, statistics of, p. 432 ; from Catholic coun- tries, p. 432, Emigration from Protestant countries proportionately greater than from Catholic, p. 433 ; the finest feature of French, p. 434 ; a dangerous trial to virtue, pp. 436-37. Encyclopasdia Britannica, the, on German University sta- tistics, pp. 333-34 ; its arti- cle on libraries quoted and commented throughout ch. xxiii., p. 345; quoted on land-ownership in Great Britain and France, pp. 442- 43 ; on crime in Ireland, p. 461. Encyclopedia of Chronology, Woodward & Gates, re- ferred to, p. 326. Engel, Director of the Royal Statistical Society of Berlin, on the modern industrial system, p. 138. England, Protestant civilization in, p. 21 ; its operatives greater sufferers than the West Indian slaves before emancipation, p. 24; no lib- erty for its poor, p. 24; its Protestant clergy arraigned, pp. 25, 43; misery of the masses, p. 26; a government of privileges and monopolies, p. 26 ; cellar homes of, pj). 28, 30; women in its coal mines, pp. 30-32 ; suffered more than other countries from the Reformation in the loss of its schools, p. 342 ; its first Public Libraries Act, p. 359; its ancient libraries destroyed by acts of Parlia- ment, p, 363 ; rapidly decreas- 6i4 Index ing number of its freeholders, pp. 394-95 ; age and pauper- ism in, p. 415; child insur- ance and child murder in, pp. 481-86; proposed revi- sion of its penal code, p. 385 ; suicide in, p. 493 ; great increase of divorces in, pp. 544-45 ; increase of general immorality in, pp. 522-23. English Catholic colleges out- side of England, p. 234. Esteva, Jose Maria, Mexican writer, p. 379. Evangelical Alliance, the, re- port of its General Confer- ence in 1889, pp. 106-111 ; circulated fraudulent statis- tics, p. 252. Family, the, gradually break- ing up under the influence of Protestantism and Secu- larism, pp. 1 23-24 ; its threat- ened extinction in New Eng- land, pp. 489-90. Farrar, Canon, on the influence of monks and hermits in preserving Christianity, pp. 1 56-58 ; on the work of the Church in education, p. 242. Fife, the Duke of, on child in- surance in England, p. 481. Fletcher, W. J., Public Libra- ries in America, p. 368. Foeticide, p. 486. Foreigner, odium attached to the term due to Protestant- ism, p. 200. Foreignism, charge of, against the Catholic Church, false, P- 303- Foreign nationalities, contempt of, mark of paganism, p. 305. P>ance, peasant proprietors of, p. 49; its Catholic clergy in their relation to the common people, p. 50; makes some State provision for its poor, P- 393 ; reason for the high percentage of its illegitimate births, 508. freedom of conscience, p. 170. Freenolders, their decreasing numbers in England, p. 394. Froude, James Anthony, quoted on the former influence of the Catholic clergy in Eu- rope, pp. 155-56; attributes the paucity of crime in Ire- land to the influence of the Catholic clergy, p. 462. Fuller, Chief-Justice, on reli- gion in education, p. 287. Galvan, Rodriguez, Mexican poet and dramatist, pp. 378-9. Germany, the home and school of Protestantism, p. i 52 ; has accepted the absence of lib- erty, p. 152; Laing's testi- mony, pp. 153-54; the reli- gious sense extinct in, except among Catholics, pp. 583- 84. Gladden, Rev. Washington, on popular ignorance in the U. S., p. 6. Gladstone, W. E., on religious education, p. 287 ; efforts on behalf of the Irish people, p. 459- Crlory and Shame of England, the, quoted pp. 22-27, 3^1 36, 37, 40, 41. Index. 615 Goldsmith, Oliver, his " De- serted Village " quoted pji. 127-132, 438; his "Travel- ler " quoted p. 439. Good Manners, p. 104; Italian, pp. 112, 113; Spanish, pp. 113, 114; French, pp. 117, 118; Irish, 119; Mrs. Barr on the decline of, pp. 120, 121 ; the Catholic Church a school of, pp. J 22, 123. Good Shepherd, Sisters of the, p. 406. Gordon, General, his opinion of Catholic missionaries, p. 102, Gordon, Lord George, incited "No-Popery" riots, p. 184. Gorostiga,.Mexican novelist, pp. 378-79- Graham, Sir George, on child mortality in England, p. 483. Gregory, Saint, Pope, on slavery, p. 149; on Julian the Apos- tate's exclusion of Christians from schools, p. 243. Gregory VII., Pope, glories of the 13th century due to re- forms inaugurated by him and his successors, p. 325. Guernsey, F. R., on the spirit in which the poor are treated in Mexico, p. 403. Guizot, his History of Civiliza- ^tio7i quoted, pp. 151—52; on the necessary basis of popular education, p. 284. Gutenberg, John, in what his invention of the printing- press consisted, 366. Hallam, Henry, his History of Literature quoted, pp. 109, 370; Constitutional History, P- 193- Hausner, statistics of prostitu- tion,, pp. 554--5- Hawaii, two Methodist mis- sionaries sent to in 1820, p. 84 ; their methods with the natives, pp. 85—89; the American Missionary Board stopped supplies and with- drew from responsibility for in 1850, p. 85. Hawkins, Dexter A., his statis- tical frauds exposed in the Catholic World by Rev. George Deshon, p. 246. Haydn, Dictionary of Dates, p. 326. Hayman, Rev. Dr., quoted on suicides in Saxony, pp. 495— 96. Herald, the New York, quoted on Hawaii, pp. 87—89 ; ca- lumnious editorial in, p. 163. Hesse, Landgrave of, his bigamy sanctioned by the founders of Protestantism, P- 543- Hidalgo, what a Spanish is, p. 401. Hilary, Pope, founded the Vat- ican library in the sixth cen- tury, p. 346. Holland, its public libraries, how founded, pp. 357—8. Huguenots, the, destroyers of libraries, p. 363. Human happiness, true ideal of, p. 17 ; in Spain, p. 59 • popular, p. 125. Hungary, makes some state pro- vision for its poor, p. 393. Huntington, Rev. Dr., quoted on difficulties of Protestant union, pj). 579-80. 6i6 Index. ICAZBALCETA, J. C, Mexican historian, p. 378. Ig-norance an atrophy of the soul, p. 243. Illegitimacy in the West Indies, p. 97 ; more prevalent in the Protestant than in the Cath- olic counties of Ireland ; tables of, p. 501 ; on the increase in Sweden, p. 502 ; percentage of in different German states, p. 502 ; com- parative tables of for Great Britain and Ireland, p. 510; rate of in Dublin, p. 511 ; in Belfast, p. 511 ; high- figures for in Austria and Bavaria explained, p. 507. Illiberality of American Prot- estants causes the present educational strife in the U. S., p. 275. Illiteracy, what it signifies in statistical tables, p. 202 ; those of some countries con- note by it simply the in- ability to write, p. 203; not a term synonymous with ignorance, p. 203 ; compat- ible with a fair degree of practical knowledge, pp. 204, 207 ; crime and, in various United States prisons, pp. 451-53. India enslaved and demoralized by English Protestant dom- ination, p. 45 ; women of un- der English rule, pp. 45—6; license allowed to all ranks of British soldiery in, p. 46 Indian Mirror, the, quoted on the bad effects of the educa- tion given in government schools and colleges, p. 290. Infanticide, Canon Humble on in London, p. 482 ; its pre- vention and cure, pp. 482—3 ; national sin of New Eng- land, p. 491. Interior, the Chicago, quoted on the increase of crimeTn the U. S., pp. 454--5- International Review, the, ca- lumnious article in by Hon. John Jay, cited p. 251. Ireland, official statement of evictions in, p. 28; confisca- tions under Queen Elizabeth, p. 37; peasantry of de- scribed by Edmund Spenser, p. 37 ; confiscations under James I., p. 38; under Charles II., p. 39; persecu- tions under William of Orange, pp. 39, 40; revived under George II., p. 40; Church of England in, pp. 25, 41, 42; no system of parochial schools in, p. 249; agrarian crime excepted, crime less in proportion and brutality than in England, p. 461 ; its people compared to a precious balm, p. 462. Irish landlords, p. 27; schools antecedent to Protestantism, pp. 232—3 ; colleges in Rome and Paris, p. 234 ; criminals and paupers, sociological reasons for the number of, pp. 463-4. Italy, p. 54; evictions for un- paid taxes, p. 56; manners of its people, pp. 1 12— 13 ; its libraries, pp. 347—8 ; legal charity not existent in, p. 393 ; much poverty but no pauperism in, p. 393; reason for high rates of illegitimacy in, pp. 508—9. Index. 6iy J.AMES I. of England, his doc- trine of divine right, p. i66, James II. of England, lost his throne because of his edict of toleration, p. 193. Janvier, Thomas A., praises the devout and godly lives of the Mexican priesthood, p. 71 ; his Mexican Guide quoted, pp. yjd—'], 380--81, 401. Jay, Hon. John, his use of the fraudulent statistics of D. A. Hawkins in the Internation- al Rev ienv, p. 251. Jenkins, Rev. Frank E., quoted on the mountain whites of the South, pp. 107--111. Jesuits, the, education the main purpose of their work, p. 258 ; for a time the arbiters of education in Europe, p. 334- Jews allowed to educate their children in their own tenets by every Catholic govern- ment, p. 27 iT Julian the Apostate, excludes Christians from schools, p. 243- Kamehameha III., King of Hawaiian Islands, pp. 88-9. Karney, Rev. Gilbert, quotes the testimony of a Brahmin judge in condemnation of the English secular system of Indian education, p. 290. Kay, Joseph, quoted pp. 28, '229; condition of the Eng- lish poor, pp. 236-7 ; Eng- land outstripped by Catholic countries in promoting popu- lar education, p. 238 ; how Austria secures religious teaching to children of all sects, pp. 271-74; condition of the English lower classes, pp. 411-12; the English Church in its relations to the English Poor, pp. 416- 17 ; on child murder in Eng- land, p. 482 ; on cellar life in England, pp. 519-20; on bastardy in Norfolk and Suffolk, pp. 520-21 ; on the Roman Church in its rela- tion to the English poor, p. 527. Keay, Seymour, on the de- nioralization of East Indians under British rule, p. 44. Kidder, Daniel P., Bible agent in Brazil, p. 114; says the Bible was never proscribed in Brazil, p. 114; testifies to the charity and devotion of Brazilian Catholics, pp. 1 14-15; on religious liberty in Brazil, p. 178. King, Rev. James M., quoted concerning purely secular schools, pp. 293-95 ; his ex- position of the principles of education fully endorsed by Catholics, p. 299. Kolnische Volkszeitung, the, on the make-up of German public libraries, pp. 355-57- Laing, Samuel, on peasant proprietorship in France, p. 49; relations of the conti- nental Catholic clergy to the common people, p. 50 ; Italian civilization, p. 56; agriculture in Italy, p. 57; comparison between Britons and Europeans with respect to the fine arts, pp. 105-6; 6i8 Index. the French more honest than the British, p. 117; serfdom in Germany in 1846, pp. 153-4; the CathoHc Church the source of cixiH- zation, p. 1 58 ; subserviency of Lutheranism to the civil power in Denmark and Sweden, pp. 167-8 ; edu- cational system of Prussia, p. 168 ; CathoHcism in Prus- sia, p. 179; on the decay of oral instruction, pp. 215- 16 ; Cathohcism has a stronger hold than Protestantism on the human mind, p. 328 ; the state educational system of Prussia, p. 268 ; definition of education, p. 289 ; Rome superior to Edinburgh and Berlin in the number of its schools and scholars, p. 318 ; not himself a friend to popu- lar education, p. 318 ; motive assigned by for the diffusion of education by the Catholic clergy, p. 319; on the advance of *' the popish church," p. 344; on Swedish morality, p. 479 ; a moral anomaly in Sweden, p. 515 ; quotes official statistics of Sweden, p. 516; on the Catholic clergy, p. 528 ; the religious sense extinct in Germany except a'^iong Catholics, p. 583. Land, comparative statistics of ownership of in Protestant and Catholic countries, p. 441 ; how divided in Great Britain, pp. 442-3 ; peasant proprietorship of decried by the Edinburgh Review, p. 444; how divided in Prot- estant Germany, pp. 444-5. Latin Bible, the, the first printed book, p. 336. Lecky, W. E. H., h\s History of Rationalism quoted pp. 149- 50 ; on persecution by Prot- estants, pp. 192-93; un- paralleled severity towards Catholics of Irish Protest- ants, p. 234. Leffingwell, Dr. Albert, on il- legitimacy and illiteracy in France, Ireland, and Great Britain, p. 450; on illegiti- macy in England, p. 483 ; on illegitimacy in Scotland, pp. 504-507. Leland, quoted by Bishop Bale of Ossory, p. 362. Leo XIIL, Pope, his encyclical on the condition of labor, p. 143- Lester, Charles Edwards, his Glory and Shame of Eng- land quoted, pp. 22, 24-27, 32, 36-7, 40, 41 ; on English work-houses, ])p. 412-14; on the exportation of paupers by England to the United States, pp. 429, 431-32; on the proportion of deaths from drink in England, p. 467. Liberty, civil and political in Spain, p. 59; the loss of it accepted in Germany, p. 152; championed by the church, p. 158; European society steadily advancing toward up to the time of the Reformation, p. 159; politi- cal liberty not the offspring of Protestantism, pp. 160- 63 ; no liberty without law, p. 171; of conscience not denounced by the Catholic Index. 619 Church, p. 173 ; true domain of human, p. 173; religious asked of the Pope by Metho- dists for Peru, BoHvia, and Ecuador, p. 177; rehgious not the hberty of error, p. 186; (Hfferently regarded by CathoHcs and Protestants, p. 186. Libraries, their number and character a test of general intelhgence, p. 345 ; in Italy, pp. 347-8; in Portugal, p. 350; in Austria, p. 351 ; free and open in Belgium, pp. 351-2; public in South America and Mexico, ] p. 352-3; in Protestant coun- tries, pp. 354-60; in Sweden, p. 358; in Norway, p. 358; in Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 359-60; destruction of by the early Reformers, pp. 346, 361-63 ; destroyed in France by Huguenots, p. 363 ; in the United States, p. 364- Literature, the history of its cultivation and preservation a history of the Catholic Church, p. 345 ; Spanish as represented in a single library of Madrid, p. 350. Little Sisters of the Poor, p. 406. Lizardi, J. J. F. de, Mexican novelist, p. 378. Logue, Cardinal, on compul- sory education, quoted pp. 231-2. London, The Bitter Oy of Old- cast, p. 32 ; University of, p. 333 ; badly off for public li- braries, p. 359 ; drunken- ness in, p. 467; the social evil in, p. 558. Louis XIV., under the reign of, the French people lost hold of the soil, p. 444. Luther, Martin, thought the devil the founder of uni- versities, p. 341 ; his German Bible issued in 1 530, p. 366 ; sanctioned bigamy, p. 543. Macaulay, T. B., on enlight- enment as favorable to Protestantism, pp. 343-4. Maguire, J. F., on the foundlings of Rome, pp. 540-41. Maitland. Dr., Essays on the Dark Ages, p. i 50. Manning, H. E., Cardinal, on the home life of the laboring classes, p. 136. Manterola, Ramon, Mexican philosopher, p. 378. Marshall, T. W. M., author of Christ tail Missions, \>. 103. Massachusetts, Census Report of nativity, illiteracy, pau- perism, and crime, p. 249. Material Progress a means to an end, p. 16; Protestantism tends to exalt unduly, p. 16. Mayer, Brantz, on the rural clergy of Mexico, p. 404. Medical and Surgical Journal, the Boston, on the decline of child-bearing in New England, pp. 488-9. Melanchthon, Philip, commends Wycliffe's opinion of acade- mies as synagogues of Satan, p. 341- Mexico, p. 70; why American business men cannot suc- ceed in, p. 74 ; church property confiscated, pp. 620 Index, 77-8; Mexican Catholics re- fuse to purchase such prop- erty, p. 78 ; American Prot- estants less scrupulous, p, 78; Protestant Bp. Riley and his Mexican Episcopa- lian Church, p. 78 ; who s\mpathize with the o.>pres- sive (governments of Mexico, \i. 81 ; how the j^oj ulation of is made up, p. 371 ; char- acter of public instruction in, pp. 374-5 ; I uhlic libra- ries, museums, and news- papers of, p. 375 ; literature of, pp. 376-81 ; list of Mexi- can authors, pp. 378-9; art in, p. 380; no state pauper- ism in, p. 393; beggars in, p. 400; charitable and benevo- lent institutions of, p. 402 ; suppression of religious orders in, pp. 404-5. Middle Ages, the, manner of teaching in, pp. 208-9. Mill, John S., quoted on human liberty p. 173. Milman, quoted on the service rendered to civilization by the Papacy, p. 153. Missions to the heathen, p. 100. Mittermaier, false statistics of illegitimates in Rome, p. 536. Modern educational system a chief cause of the increase of immorality and crime, pp. 220-21. Monastic libraries, destroyed by the Reformers, pp. 346. 361-63. -Montesdeoca, Bishop, Mexican religious writer, p. 379 Moxom, Rev. P. H., makes false charges against the paro- chial schools, pp. 244-5. Mulhall, Michael G., p. 225 ; his comparative tables of school attendance in different countries, p. 226; finds that Belgium and Spain, in pro- portion to population, have more university students than other European coun- tries, p. 335 ; on the number of English landholders in 1894, p. 395; on the distri- bution of lai\d in Denmark and Spain, ji. 445; compar- ative statistics of death from drunkenness in Catholic and Protestant countries, p. 470; statistics of crime, pj). 474- 75, 477; vi'al statistics of Austria and Bavaria, p. 514; statistics of prostitution, p. 553- Muckers, the sect of, p. 565. Nash, Thomas, his Latter Day Appeal quoted, pp. 418-19. National League for the pro- tection of American institu- tions, the, pp. 8, II, 180; its principles formerly de- nounced by its chief ex- pounder, pp. 293-99. Navarete, Mexican poet, p. 378. Nelson, Rev. Justus H., p. 175 ; his newspaper and perform- ances in Brazil, pp. 176-7; sent to jail for calling the devotion to the Blessed Vir- gin idolatry, p. 177. Nevin, Dr., on Catholicism as the friend of popular liberty, p. I 59. Index. 621 New England, decline of child- bearing" in, pp. 489-91 ; in- fanticide the national sin of, p. 491. • Newman, Cardinal, p. 163; on conscience, i)p. 171-2; his testimony to the Irish race, p. 233. Newman, J. H., Methodist bishop, p. 372; his slander of monks and nuns, p. 530. Nicholas of Lyra, commentator of Holy Scripture, p. 326. Norris, Rev. J. P., report to British Parliament on the condition of Belgian colliers, p. 53- North American Review, quot- ed pp. 158-59, 358. Norway, public libraries of, p. 358. Oral instruction superior to written, pp. 208-16. Order of the Good Shepherd, the, p. 568. Orozco y Berra, Mexican his- torian, p. 379. . Ouida, appendix to her Village Comimine quoted, p. 54 ; /*r/5<:rt;v/ quoted, pp. 112-13, 383. Our Country, a volume of anti- Catholic n)isrepresentations, p. 22. Oxford, University of, p. 331 ; its present condition, p. 342 ; spoliation of its library by the Reformers, p. 362. Palacio, Riva, Mexican histor- ical novelist, p. 378. Paper, when invented, p. 365. Papia, Esther, Mexican poet, p. 379- Paris, Jean de, his Qiecsfion Irlandaise quoted, p. 35. Paris, the University of, p. 331 ; has more public libraries than any other city, p. 349. Parochial Schools, pp. 244-65. Parra, Mexican artist, p. 381. Passionist Fathers, the, in Ta- cayuba, Mexico, p. 403. Patriotism, the rightful meas'^re of, p. 276. Paulist Fathers, the, possess a copy of the 9th edition of a German Bible printed the year of Luther's birth, p. 366. Pauperism defined, p. 290; State a subject for statistical reports in all Protestant countries, p. 392; does not exist in Portugal, Spain, and Mexico, p. 393 ; and the en- dowment of old age, pp. 414-15; statistics of in Eng- land, pp. 414-15; the crea- tion of State Protestantism, pp. 423-4; statistics of in U. S., pp. 427-S; due in Ireland to English misrule, p. 429 ; comparative statis- tics of in Catholic and Prot- estant countries, p. 430; not identical with poverty, p. 394. Paupers, nativity of in the United States, p. 428; ex- portation of by England to the U. S., p. 429; foreign born in the U. S.,pp. 434-5 5 Irish, why counted on the Protestant side, pp. 429, 435-6. 622 Index, Penal Laws against Catholics in Virginia and Massach-u- setts, p. 193. Philippine Islands, the, con- verted by Spanish mission- aries in the i6th century, p. 83 ; their present condi- tion compared with that of the Sandwich Islands, p. 83. Pimentel, F., Mexican philolo- gist, p. 378. Pina, Solome, Mexican artist, p. 381. Plato, quoted on the superiority* of the spoken to the written word, pp. 211-13. Polynesia, the Gambler, Wallis, and Futana islands, p. 86; Catholic missionaries ar- rived in in 1840, p. 86; steady advance in popula tion and material prosperity of, p. 86. Poor, the, cling to the Catholic Church, p. 391 ; Protestant- ism seeks to turn over to the State, p. 391 ; State aid to in Catholic countries, pp. 392-3; dread State alms- houses, pp. 395, 397-8 ; how treated in Austria, p. 405 ; attitude of Protestantism toward, pp. 409-11. Pope, the, supremacy of in ac- cordance with the American civil order, p. 304; equally at home in all countries, p. 304. Pope Alexander III. decreed free parochial schools in 1 179, p. 316. Pope Gregory VII., the reforms inaugurated by, p. 325. Popery, what the word signified to the English, p. 183; the English have been living under a state of things ex- actly similar to their view of, ever since the Reforma- tion, p. 184. Popular Education, not an evil, p. 456; how deficient, pp. 456-7 ; " must be non-secta- rian," p. 457 ; not an effi- cient preventive of crime, p. 448-58. Popular Happiness, p. 125. Popular Illiteracy not a mark of low mental culture on the part of a people, p. 205 ; no proof that a people is morally or mentally debased, p. 219. Popular Liberty, the chief dan- ger that threatens it in a re- public, p. 195. Pordioseros, Mexican name for beggars, pp. 401, 404. Portugal, libraries of, p. 350; no pauperism in, p. 393. Poverty, not identical with pau- perism, p. 394 ; treated with contempt in Protestant countries, p. 395 ; respected" in Catholic countries, pp. 396-7, 400. Printing, invented as early as the loth century, p. 365. Printing-Press, the, invented in 1450, p. 365. Property, equalization of in Spain, p. 63 ; subversive theories of sure to come from the English race, p. 63. Prostitutes more often unfortu- nate victims than wilful moral poisoners, pp. 563-4. Index. 623 Prostitution, Mulhall's statistics of, p. 553 ; Hausner's statis- tics of, pp. 554-5- Protestantism boasts itself as the religion of the' English race, p. 63 ; claims to have converted the Sandwich islanders, p. 83 ; never civil- ized one barbarous people, p. 83 ; decrease of native population of the Sandwich islands under Protestant Christianity compared with increase of such population in the Philippines under Catholics, p. 83 ; decrease of Sandwich islanders at- tributed to unchastity and its resultant diseases, p. 84; never flourished except un- der despotic rule, p. 195 ; in the U. S. has failed to con- vert the vast majority of its adherents to faith in its doctrines or the practice of its precepts, pp. 280-82 ; religious disintegration the fundamental principle of, p. 282 ; degradation of the * poor began with and has progressed under, p, 395 ; attitude of toward the poor, pp. 409-11 ; tendency of to exalt material progress and inspire the desire of riches, pp. 441, 447; moral influ- ence of on suicide, p. 494 ; responsible for the increase of immorality in England, pp. 522-25; the parent of modern divorce, pp. 543-50; at its best not a standard by which the Church could con- sent to be judged, pp. 569- 71 ; essentially a rebellion, p. 575; its only progress a change of opinions, p. 581; at present almost wholly rationalistic, p. 584. Protestant Civilization in Eng- land, pp. 21-34; in Ireland, pp. 35-43 ; in India, pp. 44-6; in the West Indies, pp. 97-8 ; in the Sandwich Islands pp. 83-89. Protestant Denominations, list of, from the U. S. Census Report of 1890, pp. 311-14. Protestant Reformation, the, Cobbett's History of, p. 23; disastrous influence of, p. 24 ; brought England a new social order as well as a new religion, p. 128 ; only a change of masters, p. 169. Protestant Reformers, the, de- stroyers of libraries, pp. 346, 361-63. Protestant Universities, only 21 have 1,000 or more students at the present day, p. 333. Protestants, the right given to, to educate their children in their own tenets in every Catholic country, p. 271 ; in the U. S. have united with m- fidels to establish an educa- tional system which insures the spread of " no religion," p. 283; in the U.S. unfaith- ful to their religious princi- ples, p. 283 ; accused by heathens of spreading athe- ism and materialism. 1x291 ; vast numbers of belong to the soul of the Catholic Church, p. 396 ; comparative purity of in the Catholic provinces of Germany, p. 503 ; apparently insensible 624 Index. to the sin of bearing false witness against Catholics, p. 534. Quarterly Review, the Lon- don, quoted, pp. 34, 1 58 ; on the effects of drink in England and Scotland, p. 467 ; calls English deists the fathers of French atheism and German unbelief, p. 582. Ouintana-Roo, Mexican poet, ^ p. 378. Rathcormac, the slaughter of, p. 25. Religion not divorced from edu- cation even by pagans, j). 288. Religious Orders suppressed in Mexico, pp. 404-5. Religious toleration cost James 11. his crown, p. 193; called " a devil's doctrine" by the first Protestant minister of Boston, U. S., p. 194. Report of the U. S. Commis- sioner of Education for 1889 -90, pp 227, 326, 337-8. Rome, its university and all other institutions of higher education free, p. 317 ; state of education in when wholly under papal rule, pp. 321-22; the morality of defended, pp. 530-542. Rosas, de las, Mexican author, p. 379- Ruskin, John, quoted, pp. 134, 419-21. Ryle, Protestant bishop, on the necessitv of church schools, P- 253- " Saint Chrysostom decides against sending Christian children to pagan schools, p. 288. Saint Giuseppe Calasanzio, pa- tron of free schools, pp. 315 -16. Saint Vincent de Paul, the so- ciety of, p. 407. Sandwich Islands, the, convert- ed, not civilized, by Protest- ant missionaries, p. 83 ; rap- id decrease of natives, p. 83 ; causes of this decrease, p. 84 ; how Hawaii was civil- ized by American Protest- ant missionaries, pp. 84-89. Saturday Review, the London, on drunkenness in Scotch towns, p. 467. Schaff, Dr., quoted, pernicious effects of education without religion, pp. 293-95. Schismatic Greeks in every Cath- olic country, the right given to, to educate their children in their own tenets, p. 271. Schodde, Prof. George H., % quoted on present condi- tion of religious thought in Germany, p. 584. Seaman, Ezra C, praises the influence of the Catholic Church and its clergy, p. 82; on Spanish power and law in the Philippine Islands, p. 83 ; on the causes of the numerical decrease of the Sandwich Islanders, p. 84; on American Protestant civ- ilization, p. 93; testifies to the good results of Catholic civilization in Mexico, Cen- tral and South America, p. 96. Index, 625 Sewall, Wm. G., on vice in Brit- ish West Indies, p. 96. Seymour, Rev. Hobart, his Eve- nings with the Roma7iisis quoted and commented, pp. 534-41. Shephard, Edward M., de- nounces the A. P. A., p. 181. Siguenza y Gongora, Mexican author, p. 378. Sinclair, Rev. Brevard D.. his phihppic against New Eng- land morals quoted, pp. 490 -91. Slavery, its abolition accom- plished by the Catholic Church without injustice or revolution, p. 148; religious orders vowed to the redemp- tion of captives from, p. 149. Smith, Rev. Sydney, quoted on the wretched condition of the English masses, p. 26. Social Evil, the, in London, p. 558; a Protestant minister's method of ferreting it out in New York, p. 563. Social Order, the Catholic ideal of, p. 141. Soggarth Aroon, the poem, quoted, p. 424. Sorensen, Dr., on infant mortal- ity in Denmark, p. 483. Spain, literature and art of, p. 58 ; fewer suicides in than in any other country, p. 59 ; professional vice and immo- rality less than in any other European country, p. 67 ; manners of, pp. 1 13-14; sense of equality in, pp. 113- 14; literature and libraries of, p. 350; no pauperism in, p. 393 ; proof of Christian equality in, p. 399 ; little prostitution in, p. 561. Spalding, J. L., Bishop, on the home life of the laboring classes, p. 137. Spaniards, the, how they regard drunkards, p. 466. Spanish Inquisition, the, obliges a preacher of " divine right " to recant publicly, p. 166. Spenser, Edmund, quoted on Irish destitution, p. 37. Stackpole, Rev. Everett S., on the harm done by ex-priests to Protestant missions, pp. 588-9. Statesman's Year Book, its sta- tistics of university students in Spain and England for 1888-9 quoted, p. 335; for 1893, pp. 337-8, 40 ; on Aus- trian treatment of the poor, p. 405 ; its tables of land distribution in Germany, Ita- ly, Spain, and Belgium, pp. 444-6 ; vital statistics for 1893, p. 513- State Protestantism positively and negatively responsible for pauperism, p. 423. Statistics, the Jay-Hawkins' refuted, p. 246 ; unscrupu- lous use made of by Prot- estants, p. 252. Storer, Dr. H. B., cited on abor- tion, p. 487. Strong, Rev. Josiah, slanderous assertions of, against the Roman Church, pp. 223-4; cited pp. 307-8. Suicide, comparative tables of in Catholic and Protestant countries, p. 492 ; in Great 626 Index. Britain, p. 493 ; in Ireland, p. 493 ; in Prussia, p. 493 ; in Austria-Hungary, p. 493 ; in Switzerland, p, 493 ; in Schleswig-Holstein, p. 494 ; in Saxony, pp. 494, 496 ; in Brandenburg, p. 494; in Westphalia, p. 494; in Rhine- land, p. 494 ; in Prussian Po- land, p. 494 ; in Thuringia, p. 495 ; increase of in France, pp. 496-7 ; rapid increase of in the United States, p. 497. Suicide Clubs, p. 498. Sullivan, Mrs. Margaret Y ., pp. 376, 403. Sun, the New York, quoted on drunkenness in London, pp. 467-9 ; on the social evil in London, pp. 558, 562. Sweden, public libraries of, p. 358 ; immorality of its people, p. 479 ; increase of illegiti- macy in, p. 502 ; its official statistics of divorce and il- legitimacy, p. 576. Sweet, Rev. J. B., on the in- crease of immorality in Eng- land, pp. 522-3. Swiss Confederation, the, reli- gious liberty guaranteed by its constitution, p. 273. Switzerland, religious liberty destroyed in the Catholic cantons of Fribourg and Lu- cerne by radicals and Prot- estants, p. 273. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine quoted on prostitution in London, p. 556. Taylor, Canon, quoted on the failure of Protestant mis- sions, pp. 100- 102. Tertullian, concerning Christian teachers and pupils in pagan schools, p. 228. Thieblin, N. L., on Spanish af- fairs in 1873, p. 58; defends Spanish bull fights, p. 64; on the morality of Spanish women, p. 66 ; on Spanish hospitality to strangers, pp. 116-17; on the small per- centage of professional vice in Spain, p. 561. Thiers, his report to the Corps Legislatif on education cited, p. 285. Tocqueville, De, quoted, p. 294^ Todd, Rev. John, on abortion in New England, pp. 487-8. Tresguerras, F. E., Mexican architect, painter and sculp- tor, p. 381. Trinidad Island under British Protestant influence, p. 97. Ukita, Japanese professor, on religion in America, pp. 145-6. United Order of American Mechanics, the, p. 11. United States, the, Eleventh Census Report on Education, pp. 277-8. Universal Historical, Critical, and Biographical Dictionary, quoted by William Cobbett, PP- 342-3- Universities, list of those found- ed by Catholics, pp. 327-8 ; 72 founded in Europe before the rise of Protestantism, p. 328 ; university students less numerous now than in Cath- olic ages, p. 329; 46 founded by Catholic nations since Index. 627 the Reformation, p. 329; 31 founded in Europe by Prot- estant nations, p. 330 ; Ox- ford and Cambridge less frequented since the Refor- mation, p. 331 ; 21 Protes- tant universities of the pres- ent day have i ,000 or more students, p. 333 ; 29 Catho- Hc have the same number, p. 333 ; reason assigned why Cathohc countries have the highest percentage of uni- versity students, p. 336 ; Luther declared the devil to be the true founder of, p. 341. University of Paris, the, unsuc- cessful tactics of, against the work of the Christian Brothers, p. 255. Vatican Library, founded in the 6th centary by Pope Hilary, p. 346. Vaughan, Professor, on the su- periority of oral instruction to the use of text-books, pp. 210-1 1. Vaux, Richard, on the increase of crime in Pennsylvania, p. 452. Vigil, Jose Maria, Mexican archaeologist, p. 378. Vizetelly, on pantheism and atheism in Prussia, pp. 582- 83 Vogiie, Eugene Melchior, on the results to morality of "the new faith in science," pp. 496-97. Voight, — , in his biography of St. Gregory VII., testifies to the intiuence of the Holy See against despotism, p. 153- Voltaire, his admission concern- ing the Popes, p. 162. Voluntary chastity, obedience, and poverty Christian vir- tues, p. 408. Von Oettingen, statistical tables of, p. 502. Von Puttkammer, on the neces- sity of Christian education, p. 287. Wales, revolting immorality in, pp. 523-25 ; Mormonism largely recruited from, p. 525- Washington, George, his Fare- well Address quoted, p. 284. Waugh, Rev. B., on baby farm- ing, pp. 483-4. Webster, Daniel, argument of, against the Girard will quoted, p. 293. Wells, David A., in his Study of Mexico, accuses the Mexi- can priesthood as responsi- ble for the i literacy of Mexicans, p. 70; the Mexi- can government protests against a charge made by, p. 72 ; testifies to the good character of the agricultural population, p. 73 ; on Catho- lic education in Mexico, p. 73 ; honesty of Mexicans, p. 74 ; why American business men fail in Mexico, p. 74 ; failure of the ballot to secure free speech or a free press in Mexico, p. 79; affirms that the United States makes enemies of every nation and people brought into contact 628 Index. with it, p. 80 ; offers an ex- planation of Catholic atten- tion to education in Mexico, p. 334 ; on human equality in Mexico, p. 402. West Indies, the moral con- dition of, pp. 96-7. Westphalia, the Poor Law ex- periment in Elberfeld, p. 396. Williams, Rev. Wolcott B., quoted on religious and secular education, pp. 289- 91. Wolf, Edmund J.. D.I)., his ad- dress on Our Debt and Duty to the Immigrant Popula- tion quoted and commented, pp. 305-9 ; his tribute to im- migrants, pp. 464-5. Women of Calvary, the, p. 407. Wood, Anthony, quoted on the spoliation of the Oxford library, p. 362. Woodward and Oates, Encycto- pcedia of Chronology, p. 326. YuUN(;, Rev. Alfred, his arti- cles on D. A. Hawkins in the New York Independtmt and the New York Free- man's Journal, p. 246. NOTE. Where other editions of the works of Kay and Laing are not named in the text, those from which quotations have been made in this volume are the following : " The Social Condition and Education of the People in Eng- land. By Joseph Kay, Esq., M.A. New York : Harper and Brothers. 1864." " Notes of a Traveller on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy, a7td other parts of Europe during thj present century. By Samuel Laing, Esq. From the second London edition. 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