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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. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart. 1846." 
 
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